[00:59.130 --> 01:00.770]  All right, good evening, everybody.
[01:01.390 --> 01:03.950]  Welcome again to another presentation at A New HOPE.
[01:04.210 --> 01:08.890]  It is seven o'clock and 90 degrees outside, so it's better to be in here than out there.
[01:09.550 --> 01:11.170]  I'd like to welcome Square Matrix.
[01:11.430 --> 01:21.110]  He is a hacker and artist from San Francisco, and his talk today is going to look at a selection of online hoaxes and propaganda and some of the tools and tricks that were used to make them happen.
[01:21.690 --> 01:24.770]  We're also going to be looking in particular into some recent history.
[01:25.030 --> 01:26.970]  So please help me welcome Square Matrix.
[01:33.050 --> 01:34.230]  Hey, I'm going to get started.
[01:34.770 --> 01:41.830]  I'm a little antisocial, but I'm very excited to be back at HOPE as my fifth HOPE, my first time as a speaker, so we'll see how it goes.
[01:42.470 --> 01:49.970]  I'm going to be talking today about the evolution of online hoaxes and propaganda while dissecting the tools and tactics that have become the modern weapons of misinformation.
[01:51.110 --> 01:57.030]  I'm going to touch briefly on kind of all these things today, showing how elements within them are being used today to manufacture truth.
[01:57.030 --> 02:03.030]  I'll then show how I used these ingredients to manufacture truth in the run-up to the 2017 inauguration.
[02:03.810 --> 02:13.630]  I'll explore a hoax that I created that convinced conservative media to debunk in prime time a conspiracy theory about paid protesters that they themselves had created and were promoting.
[02:13.970 --> 02:17.110]  I'll share with you the tactics I know, putting everything on the table.
[02:17.310 --> 02:19.490]  The idea is that hopefully you can do the same.
[02:19.790 --> 02:20.370]  So let's go.
[02:21.250 --> 02:22.310]  So who am I?
[02:22.450 --> 02:29.810]  I'm a hacker, a software engineer, amateur animatronics and electronics enthusiast, and trans media artist living in the Bay Area, California.
[02:30.130 --> 02:31.790]  This is some of the stuff I build.
[02:31.970 --> 02:36.830]  It's mostly unsanctioned interactive art in unsanctioned places, usually for strangers.
[02:37.110 --> 02:41.990]  If you ever find yourself going through a storm drain or an abandoned building interacting with robots, it might be me.
[02:43.070 --> 02:45.610]  This is my first go at Manufacturing Truth.
[02:45.850 --> 02:48.630]  It's a battery powered box I built that can be covertly hidden.
[02:48.890 --> 02:51.870]  It makes lifelike knocking sounds at random intervals.
[02:52.770 --> 02:57.810]  Ghost hunters want to believe that they can communicate with spirits, those that have passed.
[02:58.530 --> 03:01.850]  And they believe that some spirits will respond to them via rapping.
[03:02.110 --> 03:04.350]  You know, three knocks for yes, two knocks for no.
[03:04.770 --> 03:07.410]  And I wanted to give them the experience that they were seeking.
[03:08.650 --> 03:14.450]  I took my ghost box to a place that attracts a lot of ghost hunters in Southern California, the Queen Mary.
[03:14.770 --> 03:23.270]  This is a luxury cruise liner larger than the Titanic that was turned into a stationary hotel and tourist trap and museum in Long Beach, California.
[03:23.750 --> 03:25.290]  And this is where I installed it.
[03:25.430 --> 03:29.330]  This is a watertight door where a man was purportedly crushed in 1966.
[03:30.050 --> 03:35.010]  And then a week after my install, I came back for a paranormal conference to covertly play with investigators.
[03:36.090 --> 03:39.750]  Ghost hunters believe that this area specifically is a paranormal vortex.
[03:40.550 --> 03:46.670]  So some academics have given a name to this type of exploration of folklore in the real world that these ghost hunters are doing.
[03:46.830 --> 03:48.390]  And they've called it legend tripping.
[03:48.590 --> 03:55.810]  And legend trips are ritual quests in which people strive to explore and find manifest the very events described by supernatural legends.
[03:55.810 --> 04:05.550]  So if you've ever gone to a graveyard at night, like as a teenager with your friends to see if like some ghost will appear or maybe you hunted Bigfoot, you're, you know, you're exploring a legend in the real world.
[04:06.050 --> 04:07.210]  And that's called legend tripping.
[04:07.290 --> 04:08.290]  I'll come back to this in a moment.
[04:09.370 --> 04:12.550]  This is what got me first interested in the world of hoaxes as a kid.
[04:12.750 --> 04:15.930]  It's an email that caused quite a stir amongst many animal lovers.
[04:15.930 --> 04:21.530]  And it reads, for everyone who loves animals, a site that we were able to shut down last year has returned.
[04:21.770 --> 04:23.230]  We have to try to shut it down again.
[04:23.230 --> 04:27.210]  A Japanese man in New York breeds and sells kittens that are called bonsai cats.
[04:27.510 --> 04:34.090]  This would sound cute if the kittens weren't put into little boxes after being given muscle relaxants and then locked up for the rest of their lives.
[04:34.090 --> 04:37.850]  So the idea is that someone is growing kittens in jars.
[04:39.030 --> 04:42.110]  And they say, you know, you got to forward this email to 500 people.
[04:42.290 --> 04:45.990]  And if you click the link in the email, you go to this website, which has way too much text on it.
[04:46.530 --> 04:51.650]  It's got like a store, a phone number, has instructions on how to put cats into jars.
[04:52.790 --> 04:55.630]  And it just gets really, really, really silly.
[04:55.970 --> 04:59.630]  Like it's, you might ask yourself, like, who would believe this?
[04:59.770 --> 05:02.730]  A lot of people actually believed it, including the FBI.
[05:02.730 --> 05:06.590]  In 2001, the FBI launched an investigation into bonsai kitten.
[05:06.810 --> 05:08.370]  No, this is not a hoax itself.
[05:09.170 --> 05:16.230]  And they subpoenaed MIT to determine the identity of a seemingly obvious hoax website that was being run out of a campus dorm.
[05:16.690 --> 05:21.790]  Through a press release, the article quoted the creator as saying, I was surprised.
[05:21.790 --> 05:24.310]  I really thought that the FBI had better things to do.
[05:24.470 --> 05:26.070]  That's your tax dollars at work.
[05:26.190 --> 05:28.310]  This is actually one of the better things the FBI has done.
[05:29.930 --> 05:33.550]  So bonsai kitten is interesting because you go from an email to a website.
[05:33.770 --> 05:34.810]  Maybe you call the phone number.
[05:34.990 --> 05:37.870]  They have a store where you can purchase jars to put your cats in.
[05:38.090 --> 05:39.950]  There's a guest book where you can get angry.
[05:40.670 --> 05:44.310]  And it encompasses all these different forms of media to make it more convincing.
[05:44.310 --> 05:48.570]  And there's a form of art that uses these tactics called transmedia storytelling.
[05:49.450 --> 06:01.310]  And transmedia storytelling is the practice of designing, sharing, participating, and a cohesive story experience across multiple traditional and digital delivery platforms for entertainment, advertising, marketing, or social change.
[06:01.790 --> 06:15.530]  Participants assume the role of hunters and gatherers, chasing down bits of the story across media channels, comparing notes with each other via online discussion groups, and collaborating to ensure everybody invests time and effort in coming away with a richer experience.
[06:16.570 --> 06:23.630]  The first piece of transmedia storytelling online started on BBSs in the 1980s is an experience called Ong's Hat.
[06:23.870 --> 06:27.550]  And it centers on a real ghost town in the New Jersey Pine Barrens.
[06:28.350 --> 06:32.370]  And it begins with you receiving a Xeroxed catalog of rare books.
[06:32.510 --> 06:33.970]  And maybe you found it on a BBS.
[06:34.150 --> 06:35.330]  Maybe you found a physical copy.
[06:35.410 --> 06:39.690]  At one point, these were being put in visitor centers in the New Jersey Pine Barrens.
[06:39.690 --> 06:46.210]  And as you read this rare catalog of books, slowly a story emerges through the curation of the books in this catalog.
[06:46.490 --> 06:48.470]  And the books in the catalog don't actually exist.
[06:49.030 --> 06:51.290]  But, you know, one book might be a history of ghost towns.
[06:51.430 --> 06:54.310]  Another one might be the history of quantum teleportation.
[06:54.510 --> 06:58.750]  One might be about a strange psychedelic ashram in the Pine Barrens itself.
[06:58.750 --> 07:09.730]  And kind of what emerges through the descriptions of each of these books is a narrative about these renegade Princeton professors who had been conducting quantum physics experiments and chaos theory experiments.
[07:10.190 --> 07:13.870]  And they essentially build this dimensional travel device called the egg.
[07:14.010 --> 07:17.730]  And so there were BBS boards of people investigating this.
[07:17.890 --> 07:19.510]  There were websites of evidence.
[07:19.750 --> 07:22.750]  People, in some cases, even wrote the fictional books themselves.
[07:23.310 --> 07:31.090]  And this all kind of created an interactive legend trip in which you could kind of explore this world that was presented as real.
[07:31.630 --> 07:40.110]  And the ingredient here I wanted to like really hit on is like, you know, building an interactive complex world is really important for a convincing hoax or legend trip.
[07:40.630 --> 07:42.070]  There's a great book written about this.
[07:42.170 --> 07:44.650]  I highly, highly, highly recommend called Legend Tripping Online.
[07:44.990 --> 07:50.250]  It's specifically about Ong's hat and kind of the birth of transmedia storytelling on the Internet.
[07:51.410 --> 07:57.170]  Another early work of transmedia art is Project Neurocam created by Robert Henley, an Australian performance artist.
[07:57.170 --> 07:57.930]  In 2004.
[07:58.510 --> 08:03.590]  I was actually briefly a participant and briefly a producing collaborator on this project.
[08:04.150 --> 08:11.790]  It starts with a mysterious billboard that like leads you to an odd website of an organization that like doesn't seem to really say anything about itself.
[08:12.230 --> 08:13.630]  Your only option is to join.
[08:13.770 --> 08:20.650]  And if you join, you get sent on a series of assignments that take you out into the real world, have you interacting with other participants and learning more about this organization.
[08:21.070 --> 08:29.490]  What was interesting about this is people who kind of like played along in this story eventually became producers of the story and like created it for other people.
[08:29.710 --> 08:32.450]  And it split off into other organizations and projects.
[08:32.830 --> 08:38.310]  And the ingredient here, I think, is like inviting your audience to co-create with you in your kind of story.
[08:38.690 --> 08:39.830]  There's a great paper on this.
[08:39.830 --> 08:41.530]  I highly, highly, highly recommend.
[08:41.890 --> 08:46.230]  It's called The Parallaxis, A Game of Walking Between Worlds written by Jess Kilby.
[08:46.610 --> 08:54.250]  It kind of covers the participant experience, the producer experience, and kind of why she left and the ethical reasons behind it.
[08:54.790 --> 08:59.130]  So it wasn't just hoaxters and artists who are using these techniques.
[09:00.950 --> 09:09.190]  Companies in the early 2000s started using these to create kind of commercial variations often called alternate reality games or ARGs for short, as you'll sometimes hear.
[09:09.390 --> 09:15.690]  And these are typically more interactive experiences where players are encouraged to solve puzzles together to unlock additional layers of the game.
[09:15.910 --> 09:18.930]  It was collaborative, usually commercial, and goal-oriented.
[09:19.150 --> 09:21.270]  Microsoft made one for Steven Spielberg's AI.
[09:22.190 --> 09:28.050]  And a company called 42 Entertainment made one called I Love Bees for the launch of Halo 2.
[09:28.550 --> 09:30.270]  The I Love Bees one's interesting.
[09:30.310 --> 09:37.270]  You're on a real, like, amateur beekeeping website and it's taken over by this, like, AI that needs your help to help, like, reassemble itself.
[09:37.490 --> 09:40.670]  And it sends you out into the real world by giving you coordinates and times.
[09:40.910 --> 09:47.830]  And if you go to the coordinate at that time, you find a payphone and that phone rings and the AI gives you the instructions on how to kind of piece it together.
[09:49.230 --> 09:57.110]  If this sounds familiar, conspiracy theories, kind of like QAnon, have a lot in common with alternate reality games and transmedia storytelling.
[09:58.410 --> 10:01.670]  Basically, it's a series of secret codes that participants decipher together.
[10:02.470 --> 10:08.170]  Participants often feel like the main character in these stories as they move between media chasing pieces of the puzzle.
[10:08.510 --> 10:11.410]  And they're typically told across multiple platforms.
[10:11.550 --> 10:14.850]  In this case, 4chan, 8chan, Reddit, YouTube.
[10:15.130 --> 10:17.050]  There's even in-person events, conferences.
[10:17.450 --> 10:20.050]  It's a really rich narrative world.
[10:20.190 --> 10:21.450]  Unfortunately, it's very harmful.
[10:22.690 --> 10:27.450]  It was not just hoaxers, artists and marketers that started using these tactics on the Internet.
[10:28.410 --> 10:32.870]  Governments got in on the transmedia storytelling bandwagon too.
[10:33.470 --> 10:42.310]  So on September 11th, 2014, the Internet research agency, Russia's cyber warfare contractor, conducted a fascinating virtual operation.
[10:42.830 --> 10:46.850]  So imagine you're sitting on your couch and you get this text message.
[10:47.270 --> 10:50.390]  Toxic fume hazard warning in the area until 1.30pm.
[10:50.510 --> 10:50.990]  Take shelter.
[10:51.270 --> 10:53.510]  Check local media and columbiachemical.com.
[10:53.590 --> 10:58.850]  And columbiachemical.com just happens to be the chemical plant down the street from you that makes dangerous chemicals.
[10:59.110 --> 11:07.930]  So you get on Twitter, as any normal person does, and there's just a flood of tweets about people tweeting about this fume, the fumes.
[11:08.070 --> 11:11.290]  And apparently, like, it was actually an explosion and the plant's now on fire.
[11:11.390 --> 11:13.190]  And people on Twitter are posting videos of this.
[11:13.750 --> 11:17.590]  And they're even linking to CNN, which is talking about the explosion.
[11:18.030 --> 11:19.590]  And this is turning up on YouTube.
[11:19.590 --> 11:25.330]  And then a video pops up on YouTube from ISIS claiming responsibility for the explosion.
[11:26.350 --> 11:30.190]  This series of events actually happened, although the explosion did not.
[11:30.510 --> 11:33.630]  And this was kind of a dry run by the Internet Research Agency.
[11:33.910 --> 11:36.150]  There's two papers on this that are really interesting.
[11:37.510 --> 11:38.910]  They're up there on the screen.
[11:39.810 --> 11:43.690]  The Internet Research Agency is doing a lot of interesting stuff, probably more than you know.
[11:44.590 --> 11:46.870]  Don't believe that you're not a potential target of them.
[11:46.870 --> 11:50.310]  They're actively fanning the flames of, like, every fire in America.
[11:50.930 --> 11:52.890]  So, like, definitely read about them.
[11:53.050 --> 11:54.910]  Even if you think you know about them, read about them.
[11:55.670 --> 11:59.490]  This is an interesting thing that I found recently, about a year ago, actually.
[12:00.390 --> 12:08.310]  And it's a mysterious YouTube channel that posts a lot of extremely professional videos that are anti-Chinese Communist Party.
[12:08.690 --> 12:13.030]  And they're just so well-funded and well-produced that I was just intrigued by this.
[12:13.150 --> 12:14.950]  And I couldn't figure out who was behind it.
[12:14.950 --> 12:18.210]  There was no indication of who was funding this or why they were doing it.
[12:19.270 --> 12:22.050]  Until a few months ago, a donation link appeared.
[12:22.330 --> 12:23.550]  And I got really excited.
[12:23.850 --> 12:25.310]  So I went to donate, of course.
[12:25.810 --> 12:28.690]  And I saw a reference to something called the Vision Times.
[12:28.830 --> 12:29.830]  And I'd never heard of that.
[12:29.890 --> 12:30.570]  So I Googled it.
[12:31.070 --> 12:40.770]  The Vision Times is actually a newspaper run by the religious-spiritual movement Falun Gong, who's obviously persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party.
[12:40.770 --> 12:44.170]  And suddenly it makes sense, you know, why they would have this kind of propaganda channel.
[12:44.810 --> 12:46.430]  They're the same people who do Shen Yun.
[12:46.570 --> 12:48.090]  If you've never heard of it, God bless you.
[12:48.270 --> 12:49.010]  That's a good thing.
[12:50.970 --> 12:54.810]  They also run a major conservative newspaper here in the U.S.
[12:54.870 --> 12:55.910]  called the Epoch Times.
[12:56.110 --> 12:57.910]  And the Epoch Times is very fascinating.
[12:58.070 --> 12:59.990]  It's very anti-Chinese Communist Party.
[13:00.010 --> 13:01.730]  And it's very, very pro-Trump.
[13:01.730 --> 13:06.530]  And they employ the same level of professionalism that China Insights has.
[13:06.910 --> 13:08.770]  Very, very slickly produced stuff.
[13:09.050 --> 13:10.030]  Podcasts, videos.
[13:10.550 --> 13:14.410]  And the most interesting thing about them is they employ this really novel tactic.
[13:14.750 --> 13:24.710]  They use farms of mass AI-generated profiles, including computer-generated photos of people's faces, you know, potentially even computer-generated text, to spread this content.
[13:25.070 --> 13:26.030]  The content...
[13:26.030 --> 13:27.370]  I recommend looking into this.
[13:27.450 --> 13:28.990]  The content is incredibly well-produced.
[13:29.090 --> 13:30.390]  It hits on, like, every emotion.
[13:30.990 --> 13:32.830]  These guys are masters of propaganda.
[13:33.150 --> 13:37.590]  And it's worth studying really magical stuff here, in a bad way.
[13:38.310 --> 13:46.590]  So we talked about early hoaxes, transmedia art, alternate reality games, propaganda, and kind of how their ingredients have been used for manufacturing truth.
[13:46.810 --> 13:53.930]  But I wanted to, like, really concretely show you an example of how this can be used, even inadvertently, in the real world, to have massive impacts.
[13:54.530 --> 13:56.190]  So these are the Georgia Guidestones.
[13:56.470 --> 13:58.330]  They're built in 1979.
[13:58.810 --> 14:07.030]  They were created by a local eccentric who wanted a monument that would serve as a guide for humanity after a coming great disaster that he believed would take place.
[14:07.230 --> 14:14.130]  So he thought that the, you know, humanity would be wiped out and that they would use these Guidestones as a way to rebuild.
[14:14.290 --> 14:16.110]  It works as a compass, a calendar, a clock.
[14:16.970 --> 14:18.210]  It's unnecessarily complex.
[14:18.210 --> 14:22.370]  He's carved ten commandments on it in eight different languages.
[14:23.070 --> 14:28.750]  And conspiracy theorists, for the last 40 years, have been really obsessed with the first three commandments.
[14:29.130 --> 14:33.410]  The first, maintain humanity under 500 million and perpetual balance with nature.
[14:33.590 --> 14:34.110]  A little creepy.
[14:34.630 --> 14:35.730]  Guide reproduction wisely.
[14:36.030 --> 14:36.470]  A little creepy.
[14:36.650 --> 14:38.550]  Unite humanity with a new living language.
[14:38.550 --> 14:39.590]  That sounds cool.
[14:40.770 --> 14:42.890]  And they believe that...
[14:42.890 --> 14:58.790]  And they've told this story through books and then through documentaries and movies that this is a plan by a Luciferian cabal to establish a new world order who wants to depopulate the Earth and then, I guess, take control or something.
[14:59.270 --> 15:01.550]  And Alex Jones has gotten on the bandwagon.
[15:01.670 --> 15:03.190]  He's produced one of the documentaries.
[15:03.750 --> 15:05.090]  This thing's 40 years old.
[15:05.250 --> 15:07.810]  So, like, there's even early Internet websites about this.
[15:08.070 --> 15:18.190]  And most recently, people are connecting COVID to the Georgia Guidestones in that they're saying that the vaccine is how they're going to depopulate down to 500 million.
[15:18.630 --> 15:20.150]  And you might think this is silly.
[15:20.390 --> 15:21.350]  Who would believe this?
[15:22.230 --> 15:26.310]  This is a candidate for the recent Republican primary...
[15:26.310 --> 15:31.130]  This is a candidate for governor in the recent Republican primary in Georgia from May 24th.
[15:31.130 --> 15:32.790]  Fun fact, she has a PhD.
[15:33.310 --> 15:34.550]  This is her website.
[15:34.810 --> 15:36.130]  Her primary...
[15:36.870 --> 15:41.610]  Her primary kind of campaign platform is demolishing the Guidestones.
[15:41.930 --> 15:45.490]  She talks about ridding Georgia of this satanic evil.
[15:45.690 --> 15:53.030]  And she makes this pledge, support my fight by contributing and watch as I turn the Georgia Guidestones into dust.
[15:53.210 --> 16:03.530]  So, 40 years of conspiracy have sort of, like, culminated into this, you know, a person running for governor of Georgia.
[16:03.750 --> 16:04.890]  And this is her campaign ad.
[16:04.970 --> 16:09.310]  I just have to show it to you because it's just so bonkers and it kind of puts this all together.
[16:10.330 --> 16:11.550]  I'm using sound here.
[16:12.390 --> 16:13.530]  I've been injected.
[16:14.490 --> 16:21.630]  Over 4 billion people have been injected with something that took just nine months to create.
[16:22.950 --> 16:24.330]  Ask yourself why.
[16:27.570 --> 16:33.070]  Back in biblical times, human sacrifice was a form of demonic worship.
[16:33.470 --> 16:38.010]  We're still doing it in present day by killing our unborn.
[16:38.270 --> 16:39.350]  It's the same demons.
[16:39.370 --> 16:40.670]  It's the same sacrifice.
[16:40.710 --> 16:41.950]  It's the same sin.
[16:42.290 --> 16:43.570]  It's just a different time.
[16:45.430 --> 16:50.590]  We've watched as people have destroyed our history and monuments.
[16:50.890 --> 16:55.010]  And in their place, they have erected statues to their own gods.
[16:57.630 --> 16:59.710]  The New World Order is here.
[17:00.050 --> 17:01.750]  And they told us it was coming.
[17:02.650 --> 17:06.170]  It's a battle far greater than what we see in the natural.
[17:06.930 --> 17:10.250]  It is a war between good and evil.
[17:13.130 --> 17:14.910]  So that's from her campaign ad.
[17:15.030 --> 17:18.710]  She doesn't say what the other executive orders are, which I think is interesting, on her website.
[17:19.230 --> 17:23.650]  And you might ask yourself, you know, like what could go wrong in this alternate reality we've created?
[17:23.870 --> 17:29.490]  You know, this conspiracy of fiction that's been told for 40 years between like books, documentaries, radio programs.
[17:29.910 --> 17:31.250]  Well, this is what happened next.
[17:32.110 --> 17:36.250]  Also new tonight, we have our first look at the explosion at the Georgia Guidestones.
[17:36.530 --> 17:43.630]  The GBI just releasing this video hours ago and you can see there is a bright flash and then part of the structure explodes.
[17:43.930 --> 17:47.890]  So, it was like a couple months after her failed run at governor.
[17:48.150 --> 17:49.530]  The Guidestones were blown up.
[17:50.330 --> 17:55.430]  So, you know, there's real-world consequences to 40 years of, you know, this ridiculous story.
[17:55.990 --> 18:02.270]  So, I want to talk now about something that I created using these tactics that was pretty effective.
[18:02.470 --> 18:04.430]  But first, I want to tell you why I created it.
[18:04.430 --> 18:05.430]  And it starts right here.
[18:05.750 --> 18:12.650]  So, I was actually at a fundraiser for a legal defense fund for water protectors taking a stand against the Dakota Access Pipeline.
[18:12.850 --> 18:21.010]  In case you don't know, North Dakota has brought like 800 cases against mostly native peoples who are protesting the construction of an oil pipeline on their land.
[18:22.010 --> 18:28.510]  And the woman running the fundraiser was one of the mediators between tribal people and law enforcement.
[18:28.510 --> 18:35.270]  And she said at the end of their first meeting, the law enforcement was like, oh, you know, we're so relieved to know that you're real people.
[18:35.510 --> 18:41.590]  You know, we've been told that you were kind of paid here, paid to be here by environmental groups and just trying to cause trouble.
[18:41.770 --> 18:45.730]  And like that comment just like really, for some reason just like really hurt me.
[18:46.470 --> 18:48.590]  And I just felt really, really sad.
[18:49.930 --> 18:52.430]  And I can't say that I was surprised.
[18:52.670 --> 18:56.070]  I read conservative media because I want to know how to talk to conservatives.
[18:56.070 --> 19:05.350]  And a common trope is that, you know, the enemies are essentially like paid agitators or paid protesters.
[19:05.490 --> 19:07.170]  This is something that's like been around for a while.
[19:07.350 --> 19:17.070]  And as someone who's like literally marched in the streets, it's offensive because, you know, tens of thousands of people aren't marching because they're being paid.
[19:17.130 --> 19:18.390]  They're marching because they're pissed off.
[19:18.650 --> 19:20.170]  The math just doesn't make sense.
[19:20.810 --> 19:25.230]  So I asked myself like, what would it take to debunk the idea of paid protesters?
[19:25.810 --> 19:28.750]  And I came up with an idea I call the credibility trap.
[19:28.930 --> 19:29.930]  And this was my plan.
[19:30.090 --> 19:33.310]  I would create the thing that people believed in, a paid protesting company.
[19:33.550 --> 19:38.130]  I would then get the attention and be the only real tangible proof that people could point to.
[19:38.850 --> 19:43.930]  And then I would become silly and ridiculous, causing those spreading the information to then have to go correct their readers.
[19:44.090 --> 19:52.570]  Or to put it another way, the idea was to get the media to report on something that turned itself slowly into a ridiculous spectacle to show people that the topic itself was made up.
[19:52.570 --> 19:54.130]  And I gave myself two rules for this.
[19:54.650 --> 19:56.610]  One, never give up on the story, no matter what.
[19:56.770 --> 19:57.630]  Never admit it's a lie.
[19:57.990 --> 19:59.930]  And two, slowly become more ridiculous.
[20:00.210 --> 20:02.010]  And I thought those two things would play off each other.
[20:02.650 --> 20:03.850]  So I did what anyone does.
[20:04.070 --> 20:07.030]  I started by creating an unnecessarily detailed website.
[20:07.590 --> 20:08.870]  It was fairly silly.
[20:09.130 --> 20:12.470]  The math of how many people we had on the streets didn't make sense.
[20:12.470 --> 20:15.990]  It was mostly believable, but it had like weird satanic references.
[20:17.170 --> 20:23.390]  I created an unnecessarily complex job application form that asked all sorts of very detailed questions.
[20:23.390 --> 20:29.290]  I made a phone line that started with the number 666 and created a very complicated phone tree.
[20:29.390 --> 20:35.470]  I made an operative login thing so that it seemed like people were logging into this site or something.
[20:36.110 --> 20:39.370]  And then I just started placing job ads as any real company would.
[20:39.370 --> 20:45.070]  And I targeted the largest conservative majority cities and where I thought I would have a good chance of getting attention.
[20:45.290 --> 20:49.370]  And I placed ads on like Backpage, Indeed, trying to hire paid protestors.
[20:49.890 --> 20:52.730]  I then also placed Google and Bing ads.
[20:52.810 --> 20:58.950]  And I targeted journalists and news organizations so that they could be hired to be paid protestors.
[20:59.670 --> 21:03.570]  So at this point, I have a website, a phone number, job postings, an operative login.
[21:03.770 --> 21:05.930]  I'm sending these newsletters on a weekly basis.
[21:06.090 --> 21:07.310]  I have Google ads.
[21:07.310 --> 21:10.530]  And I'm really kind of starting to blend this together.
[21:11.910 --> 21:20.870]  I then spent the next couple of weeks, every night, posting comments on Infowars, Gateway Pundit, and other conspiracy websites, 4chan, Reddit's The Donald.
[21:21.350 --> 21:23.990]  And soon it wasn't me posting, it was other people posting.
[21:24.190 --> 21:29.530]  And the discussion sort of got, you know, started kicking off in these weird conspiracy corners.
[21:29.790 --> 21:31.550]  And a lot of people started coming to the website.
[21:33.970 --> 21:35.850]  And people started taking the bait.
[21:36.130 --> 21:41.830]  First, it was like small little websites that I'd never heard of, weird blogs that just seemed bizarre.
[21:42.050 --> 21:47.510]  And then it was like mainstream conspiracy blogs, things that a lot of people read that you may not read.
[21:48.750 --> 21:50.190]  Spudnik News took it.
[21:50.830 --> 21:52.490]  Newsmax started reporting on it.
[21:52.570 --> 21:53.330]  And I love this quote.
[21:53.490 --> 21:58.370]  Though reports of paid agitators have been debunked as fake news, demand protest has a working phone number.
[21:58.770 --> 22:01.430]  So the bar is very low, folks, for Newsmax.
[22:02.170 --> 22:04.050]  And then Infowars wrote a story.
[22:04.050 --> 22:09.630]  And then I think the best one here is the Washington Times, after a 30-minute phone call with me, wrote this article.
[22:11.370 --> 22:15.210]  Which, you know, the Washington Times is like an almost respectable conservative newspaper.
[22:16.070 --> 22:18.810]  Drudge Report ran it at the top of their page.
[22:19.310 --> 22:20.770]  So it was really taken off.
[22:21.290 --> 22:26.710]  And I started getting a lot of job applications, which is something that I didn't anticipate or think about.
[22:26.790 --> 22:27.970]  So I had to shut that down.
[22:28.430 --> 22:29.810]  That just felt bad.
[22:29.970 --> 22:33.310]  I felt people were actually applying, which was scary to me.
[22:33.310 --> 22:36.090]  And the phone numbers started getting flooded with phone calls.
[22:36.490 --> 22:39.450]  And I just wanted to play just a small sampling of them.
[22:39.770 --> 22:42.470]  This is a message for you assholes in San Fran.
[22:42.810 --> 22:43.890]  I'm an American.
[22:44.070 --> 22:45.650]  I support Donald J. Trump.
[22:46.470 --> 22:47.710]  You f*cked up.
[22:47.850 --> 22:48.610]  Big time.
[22:49.210 --> 22:51.310]  Your number has been posted on the net.
[22:52.170 --> 22:54.350]  And we will find out your address.
[22:54.530 --> 22:55.650]  So kiss your asses.
[22:55.710 --> 22:56.570]  Goodbye, bitches.
[22:58.590 --> 22:59.150]  Hi.
[23:00.690 --> 23:01.770]  Demand protest.
[23:02.090 --> 23:02.470]  Wow.
[23:02.470 --> 23:06.890]  I noticed that the first three digits of your phone number are 666.
[23:07.510 --> 23:15.590]  I just simply cannot believe any organization like this exists in the United States because you cheapened the value of protest.
[23:17.010 --> 23:17.770]  Hi.
[23:18.150 --> 23:23.030]  I just called to say that I think you people are disgusting.
[23:23.030 --> 23:32.630]  The whole concept of your business, I can't even believe that some whore thought it up and shat it out of their ass.
[23:33.190 --> 23:37.210]  And whoever whore it is, is your boss, owner.
[23:38.270 --> 23:39.990]  Yes, this is a real call.
[23:40.150 --> 23:42.510]  I hope you do record these calls.
[23:43.330 --> 23:44.410]  My name's Rob.
[23:44.710 --> 23:52.230]  I'm not being paid to say that I'm outraged at your fake outraged protesters.
[23:52.870 --> 23:58.850]  Now, why don't you all go snort some coke and have an orgy and f*ck every one of you.
[23:58.850 --> 23:59.710]  I took that advice.
[24:00.230 --> 24:05.150]  Yeah, here's my message, you f*cking douchebag, f*cking piece of shit f*cks.
[24:05.650 --> 24:07.770]  Guess who's in charge of your life?
[24:07.990 --> 24:08.310]  God.
[24:09.110 --> 24:11.430]  Donald Trump is the best president ever.
[24:11.870 --> 24:13.330]  You guys are f*cking losers.
[24:13.730 --> 24:14.530]  Go die.
[24:15.970 --> 24:18.230]  So, by this point we were getting a lot of attention.
[24:18.510 --> 24:21.630]  Most of it was fairly uncritical, but there were some exceptions.
[24:21.970 --> 24:25.510]  There were some small, like, local publications that called us out.
[24:25.930 --> 24:29.830]  Some guy named Cory Doctrow at a website called Boing Boing called us fake.
[24:30.110 --> 24:34.090]  He also spread some misinformation by saying we had a non-working phone number.
[24:35.090 --> 24:39.430]  Snopes called us unproven, which is the most charitable thing anyone's ever done.
[24:39.610 --> 24:41.310]  They also said we were demand pro-gest.
[24:41.550 --> 24:43.450]  I have no more faith in Snopes.
[24:44.430 --> 24:50.410]  And some, actually, a couple local news stations did stories calling us almost a hoax.
[24:50.590 --> 24:53.630]  Trying to give activism a new bottom line.
[24:53.750 --> 24:55.110]  This seems really suspicious.
[24:55.430 --> 25:00.470]  We showed the ad to Andrew Dobbs, program director for the Texas Campaign for the Environment.
[25:00.810 --> 25:03.050]  The $50 an hour is really suspicious.
[25:03.050 --> 25:08.250]  The super, super suspicious part is that $2,500 a month retainer.
[25:08.390 --> 25:14.230]  As the leader of a grassroots, nonpartisan group, Dobbs says the numbers are budget breakers.
[25:14.390 --> 25:19.690]  I don't have any evidence that it's not real other than the fact that it seems completely stupid.
[25:21.050 --> 25:25.490]  If the demand protest ad is a ruse, it's an elaborate one.
[25:25.490 --> 25:33.050]  To get more information, I went through an online application process that's running in Austin and more than a dozen other cities.
[25:33.350 --> 25:39.730]  But after submitting the application and calling the company's San Francisco phone number, I've gotten no response.
[25:39.730 --> 25:41.690]  I think it's kind of interesting.
[25:42.050 --> 25:45.630]  UT government professor Eric McDaniel evaluated the ad.
[25:45.790 --> 25:47.510]  I think it's most likely a hoax ad.
[25:47.690 --> 25:48.590]  He says...
[25:48.590 --> 25:49.730]  So it is a hoax.
[25:49.950 --> 25:53.410]  Anyways, at this point, conservative media was eating it up.
[25:53.650 --> 26:00.490]  There was some weak debunking by non-conservative publications, but it seemed like the lies were getting a lot more coverage than the truth.
[26:00.490 --> 26:05.850]  And I was starting to have an ethical crisis because I wasn't sure how I was going to spring my credibility trap.
[26:06.170 --> 26:10.950]  And I was starting to wonder if it had maybe spiraled out of control and I'd just done a bad thing.
[26:11.110 --> 26:17.770]  So at the depth of my feelings, I got this email, which was from Tucker Carlson.
[26:18.130 --> 26:20.690]  And he wanted me to be on his show in four hours.
[26:20.850 --> 26:23.030]  And I was having a really bad day at work.
[26:23.290 --> 26:25.070]  It was like a really bad day.
[26:25.070 --> 26:27.650]  So I was not in a mental place to do this.
[26:27.650 --> 26:31.710]  So I go on social media and I said, anyone want to go on Tucker Carlson's show tonight?
[26:32.410 --> 26:34.030]  You have the opportunity to say whatever you want.
[26:34.150 --> 26:36.850]  And I knew, like, I was gonna have one opportunity to get ridiculous.
[26:37.390 --> 26:38.470]  And I was like, this is it.
[26:38.590 --> 26:40.870]  Like, this is where we just have to get completely unhinged.
[26:41.370 --> 26:44.370]  And a friend of mine responded, who's a documentary filmmaker.
[26:44.370 --> 26:46.810]  He'll be in the Q&A via video here.
[26:47.350 --> 26:49.630]  We had a quick phone call and agreed on some ground rules.
[26:49.790 --> 26:55.670]  They were start by playing the story straight, refuse to acknowledge it's fake ever, and slowly get more ridiculous.
[26:55.670 --> 26:57.730]  And this is the result.
[26:57.950 --> 26:59.450]  This is all improv on his part.
[26:59.590 --> 27:01.190]  He was just fast thinking on his feet.
[27:01.630 --> 27:01.990]  Yeah.
[27:02.130 --> 27:03.530]  More on that up ahead.
[27:03.790 --> 27:06.170]  But first, good evening and welcome to Tucker Carlson tonight.
[27:06.870 --> 27:13.810]  Friday's inauguration looks like it could be a protest event for the ages, with thousands of anti-Donald Trump agitators descending on the city.
[27:14.190 --> 27:15.030]  And why wouldn't they?
[27:15.770 --> 27:20.690]  Advertisements posted in more than 20 cities have been recruiting paid protesters to come here to D.C.
[27:21.110 --> 27:22.890]  and help disrupt the inauguration.
[27:22.890 --> 27:37.910]  The group Demand Protest, which describes itself as, quote, the largest grassroots support organization in the United States, says it will pay professional protesters $50 an hour in addition to a $2,500 monthly retainer to support their efforts.
[27:38.290 --> 27:43.010]  We're joined now by Dom Tulipso, director of operations in Los Angeles for Demand Protest.
[27:43.170 --> 27:44.170]  Dom, thanks for joining us tonight.
[27:45.070 --> 27:46.090]  Yeah, no problem, Tucker.
[27:47.710 --> 27:49.270]  So, this is a sham.
[27:49.510 --> 27:50.990]  Your company isn't real.
[27:51.250 --> 27:52.390]  Your website is fake.
[27:52.610 --> 27:54.310]  The claims you have made are lies.
[27:54.670 --> 27:55.830]  This is a hoax.
[27:56.070 --> 28:00.970]  Let me start at the beginning, however, with your name, Dom Tulipso, which is not your real name.
[28:01.270 --> 28:02.430]  It's a fake name.
[28:02.430 --> 28:06.370]  Well, we ran you through law enforcement level background checks, and that name does not exist.
[28:06.450 --> 28:07.450]  So let's start out with the truth.
[28:07.710 --> 28:09.510]  Tell me what your real name is.
[28:11.630 --> 28:13.650]  It's Dominic Tulipso.
[28:13.950 --> 28:14.370]  It's...
[28:14.850 --> 28:15.650]  L's are silent.
[28:16.190 --> 28:17.030]  That's a lie.
[28:17.050 --> 28:18.130]  And you know it's a lie.
[28:18.250 --> 28:22.550]  And we asked you for ID at the Los Angeles Bureau, and you said you didn't have ID with you.
[28:22.650 --> 28:24.090]  But, Dallas, you have a wallet on you.
[28:24.210 --> 28:25.350]  Every grown man does.
[28:25.850 --> 28:26.870]  Hold up a credit card.
[28:26.890 --> 28:33.270]  You can cover the number to our camera and show us any piece of documentation with the name Dominic Tulipso on it.
[28:33.350 --> 28:35.090]  And you can't because that's not your real name.
[28:35.090 --> 28:35.270]  Sure.
[28:36.490 --> 28:37.270]  Sure, sure.
[28:37.270 --> 28:39.470]  Absolutely, I'll do that in just a moment.
[28:40.110 --> 28:44.330]  I might just begin with kind of wondering...
[28:44.330 --> 28:48.070]  Tucker, you're not accusing me of being a hoax, are you?
[28:48.630 --> 28:54.910]  I'm saying that your name is fake and this company is fake and that the claims you've made on your website are false.
[28:55.090 --> 28:56.870]  And so my question for you is why?
[28:57.230 --> 29:02.910]  Is this an effort to discredit the protesters at the Trump inauguration?
[29:02.910 --> 29:09.110]  Is it an effort to convince conservative news organizations to pick up the story and therefore highlight their gullibility?
[29:09.290 --> 29:13.110]  What's the point of the ruse that you're perpetuating on the American news media?
[29:14.170 --> 29:16.070]  Sure, absolutely great questions.
[29:16.350 --> 29:28.790]  I mean, basically there's no way that a legitimate news agency would have somebody on that didn't really know what they were saying or was just kind of talking out of their behinds.
[29:28.790 --> 29:33.250]  There's a certain amount of vetting that goes on behind every news organization.
[29:33.250 --> 29:40.770]  So I would assume that I wouldn't be given airtime on a national stage unless I was legitimate.
[29:41.230 --> 29:45.590]  Well, I'm vetting you right now and I'm beginning by saying you are not legitimate.
[29:45.590 --> 29:46.530]  You are lying.
[29:46.930 --> 29:48.130]  We know that.
[29:48.290 --> 29:50.450]  You have fooled other news organizations.
[29:50.450 --> 29:51.730]  You did not fool us.
[29:51.970 --> 29:54.890]  And my question is, why are you doing it?
[29:55.070 --> 29:58.850]  And I guess let me just satisfy our viewers who maybe think, well, maybe we're miscalling this.
[29:59.010 --> 30:07.090]  On your website, you claim that you pay a retainer to 1,817 operatives every month.
[30:07.110 --> 30:12.510]  Now, if that were actually true, that's $54 million a year you're spending just on retainers.
[30:12.510 --> 30:16.930]  It's another $30 million a year if you're paying them for six hours a week work.
[30:17.250 --> 30:18.910]  That's demonstrably silly.
[30:19.150 --> 30:20.310]  You're not doing that.
[30:21.490 --> 30:24.190]  No, we're actually doing $80 million a year.
[30:24.890 --> 30:29.610]  So I don't know quite where you got those numbers, but those are definitely obviously dated.
[30:30.530 --> 30:33.150]  I do want to mention the fact...
[30:33.150 --> 30:33.570]  Wait, wait.
[30:33.650 --> 30:33.910]  So hold on.
[30:34.150 --> 30:36.870]  You're not conceding that this is a hoax.
[30:36.950 --> 30:41.870]  You're saying that this is a real company that's engaged in the activities you say it's engaged in.
[30:41.870 --> 30:42.090]  Absolutely.
[30:42.090 --> 30:51.450]  That you're hiring protestors, that you have 1,800 of them already on retainer for $2,500 a month, and that you're affecting American politics by doing this.
[30:52.410 --> 30:55.090]  Yeah, we actually changed our mind, though, about...
[30:55.830 --> 30:58.290]  We're no longer actually going after Donald Trump.
[30:58.410 --> 31:01.710]  We're actually going after the protestors at the inauguration.
[31:02.110 --> 31:10.750]  So we kind of changed our minds, actually, recently, and that was a result mainly of the enormous amount of hate mail that we received, people, you know, making death threats.
[31:10.750 --> 31:14.030]  And they basically just really talked us into changing our position.
[31:14.030 --> 31:17.510]  So what we're doing now is we're actually protesting the protestors.
[31:17.730 --> 31:19.250]  Okay, but that actually didn't...
[31:19.250 --> 31:19.470]  And we're doing that for a few reasons.
[31:19.470 --> 31:23.870]  That didn't happen, because you don't have a physical address, because you don't have a real office.
[31:24.030 --> 31:25.790]  Your website was just put up.
[31:25.850 --> 31:27.210]  Your Facebook page, same thing.
[31:27.710 --> 31:30.670]  You haven't been receiving hate mail because you don't exist.
[31:31.090 --> 31:38.130]  Okay, so if you do exist, why don't you give me some evidence that you're real, beginning with your actual name, which is not Dominic Talipo.
[31:38.330 --> 31:40.710]  And by the way, your business partner doesn't exist either.
[31:41.070 --> 31:42.270]  So let's just be straight here.
[31:42.410 --> 31:43.570]  I mean, let's just be real.
[31:44.170 --> 31:44.370]  Yeah.
[31:44.910 --> 31:46.030]  What is the real story here?
[31:46.070 --> 31:46.850]  Why are you doing this?
[31:46.990 --> 31:48.050]  What point are you trying to make?
[31:48.050 --> 31:48.510]  Yeah.
[31:49.570 --> 31:58.770]  The main point, basically, is that we are greatly, greatly supportive of national treasurers, such as Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Peyton Manning.
[31:58.950 --> 31:59.090]  Right.
[31:59.270 --> 32:03.690]  And we really support their efforts to really get the truth out there.
[32:03.910 --> 32:11.310]  And in the case of the current client that we have right now, that client is very interested in releasing the Roswell papers.
[32:14.860 --> 32:15.740]  I don't know it.
[32:15.840 --> 32:16.000]  Really?
[32:16.100 --> 32:17.820]  So you're pretty supportive of Peyton Manning, are you?
[32:19.640 --> 32:20.480]  Extremely, yeah.
[32:21.880 --> 32:22.140]  Okay.
[32:22.420 --> 32:23.060]  You're not going to...
[32:23.060 --> 32:25.700]  I mean, obviously, this is performance art.
[32:25.860 --> 32:27.240]  I will say you're pretty good at it.
[32:27.460 --> 32:37.980]  When you convinced papers like the Washington Times, which ran this pretty straight, to run your lies, to run this hoax, which I will concede is kind of amusing, what was the point of that?
[32:38.140 --> 32:40.260]  I mean, beyond just amusing yourself.
[32:40.480 --> 32:41.840]  Are you trying to make a political statement?
[32:43.540 --> 32:44.220]  I don't know.
[32:44.220 --> 32:52.080]  Well, I mean, it's pretty darn easy these days to just say whatever the heck you want on national TV and have it passed off as truth.
[32:52.680 --> 32:53.120]  Yeah.
[32:53.440 --> 33:01.460]  And, you know, it's pretty, I don't know, just pretty incredible to me how easy it was to get the coverage we got.
[33:01.700 --> 33:04.400]  By the way, I'm not saying any of this is a hoax or any of this isn't true.
[33:04.400 --> 33:09.020]  We've actually got 100,000 protesters going to Washington, D.C.
[33:09.160 --> 33:12.220]  to fight anybody who is opposed to Donald Trump.
[33:12.580 --> 33:26.800]  I mean, the reason we shift, another main reason we shifted from being against Trump to Trump about 30 minutes ago was basically we realized initially he didn't really like, he didn't really like Julian Assange or Peyton Manning.
[33:26.800 --> 33:36.080]  And when he kind of changed, when the election and the Assange connection was made, he essentially became a supporter of Assange.
[33:36.200 --> 33:45.440]  And so we are now supporting Trump in the hope that the Roswell documents from 1947 are finally released and put back into the hands of Fisher Stevens.
[33:45.440 --> 33:47.480]  The critical Roswell documents.
[33:47.660 --> 33:47.780]  All right.
[33:47.900 --> 33:52.400]  Well, give my best to Peyton Manning and also to Mrs. Talipo, if you would.
[33:52.820 --> 33:53.720]  Thanks a lot for joining us.
[33:53.900 --> 33:54.340]  Talipo.
[33:55.120 --> 33:55.560]  Talipo.
[33:56.220 --> 33:57.520]  Whoever you are.
[33:57.820 --> 33:58.680]  I can't believe it.
[33:58.780 --> 33:59.500]  Flynn's last question.
[33:59.620 --> 33:59.780]  I'm sorry.
[34:00.000 --> 34:01.420]  Did you think that we were going to fall for...
[34:01.420 --> 34:02.240]  I mean, be honest.
[34:02.520 --> 34:03.360]  Did you think you were going to...
[34:03.360 --> 34:04.480]  Come on.
[34:05.520 --> 34:08.220]  I'm just surprised you put me on.
[34:08.660 --> 34:09.800]  That's what's surprising.
[34:10.280 --> 34:14.160]  Well, because it showed up all over across American media and I'm reading this.
[34:14.160 --> 34:15.740]  So I was saying, well, that's not true.
[34:15.980 --> 34:16.760]  Who is this guy?
[34:16.860 --> 34:19.220]  So I'm glad you came on to semi-explain it.
[34:19.400 --> 34:23.620]  Well, God bless you for fact-checking even if you did it when we were on the air.
[34:25.240 --> 34:25.660]  So...
[34:33.210 --> 34:35.390]  We'll bring Mr. Talipo on in a moment.
[34:35.650 --> 34:41.170]  But, you know, this is prime time, Fox News, most watched channel.
[34:41.530 --> 34:44.510]  This is like the audience that believes in this bullshit.
[34:44.510 --> 34:46.350]  And this is the channel that's spreading this bullshit.
[34:46.530 --> 34:47.690]  So that was the trap.
[34:47.810 --> 34:48.750]  Hopefully some people learned.
[34:48.750 --> 34:55.990]  Even like extremist conservative websites like Gateway Pundit ran articles praising Tucker for exposing the hoax.
[34:56.170 --> 34:57.010]  I love this quote.
[34:57.130 --> 35:02.510]  Carlson and his team did significant research into Mr. Talipo and exposed him on the show as being a complete fraud.
[35:02.610 --> 35:06.150]  This was their original article, so I wouldn't applaud them too much.
[35:06.790 --> 35:16.730]  And the Washington Times just silently altered their article saying it was a hoax after the fact, which is kind of sneaky, but if you go to the Wayback Machine you can see that they lie.
[35:16.990 --> 35:20.670]  A number of legitimate publications wrote interesting articles about this.
[35:20.810 --> 35:22.470]  The Washington Times one's kind of cool.
[35:23.250 --> 35:26.330]  My favorite is this Spin Magazine article.
[35:26.970 --> 35:28.250]  Coolest journalist ever.
[35:28.690 --> 35:30.930]  So I thought like, okay, maybe this works.
[35:31.070 --> 35:32.650]  Like maybe some people got this message.
[35:32.850 --> 35:36.750]  Maybe I've dispelled it for maybe, I don't know, 20% of people.
[35:37.230 --> 35:38.550]  And then I saw this tweet.
[35:38.890 --> 35:42.190]  This is from Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary for George W.
[35:42.350 --> 35:42.490]  Bush.
[35:42.750 --> 35:46.710]  A month after this he tweets, outraged at demand protest.
[35:46.710 --> 35:49.430]  So people are still being fooled, unfortunately.
[35:50.150 --> 35:51.590]  I don't know if this was a good thing.
[35:51.710 --> 35:52.790]  I'm not doing political stuff anymore.
[35:52.910 --> 35:53.430]  Back to paranormal.
[35:54.070 --> 35:57.530]  So anyways, if you want to do this sort of thing, I have some advice.
[35:58.210 --> 36:01.450]  Have a message that confirms beliefs or targets an emotional trigger.
[36:02.230 --> 36:03.610]  Mystery creates intrigue.
[36:03.730 --> 36:05.570]  Leave your motivations up to interpretation.
[36:06.590 --> 36:09.930]  Study transmedia storytelling tactics to create an alternate reality.
[36:10.530 --> 36:14.970]  And seed your ideas in small communities of your ideal audience and then kind of grow from there.
[36:14.970 --> 36:16.370]  Some great books on this.
[36:16.630 --> 36:18.170]  Legend Tripping Online I talked about earlier.
[36:18.730 --> 36:22.830]  Trust Me I'm Lying from the former marketing director of American Apparel.
[36:23.110 --> 36:24.750]  Very great book on media manipulation.
[36:24.750 --> 36:26.070]  He lays out all his tactics.
[36:26.810 --> 36:27.990]  And Magic and Showmanship.
[36:28.350 --> 36:30.210]  It has a lot of great kind of...
[36:30.210 --> 36:34.390]  It's for magicians, but it has a lot of great tips and sort of like presentation and attention.
[36:35.470 --> 36:38.870]  What can we do to maybe combat manufactured truth?
[36:39.310 --> 36:40.530]  This is just my two cents.
[36:40.770 --> 36:43.390]  I think immerse yourself in communities filled with views you oppose.
[36:43.390 --> 36:46.590]  I read conservative news every day because I want to know how to talk to conservatives.
[36:47.170 --> 36:50.110]  I think if you hate a group of people, you should read about them.
[36:50.290 --> 36:54.330]  You should consume the media they're consuming so you can speak to them and understand where they're coming from.
[36:54.530 --> 36:57.770]  We also need to, I think, vocally challenge the veracity of unsourced claims.
[36:57.930 --> 37:00.190]  This is really unfun and makes you unpopular sometimes.
[37:00.810 --> 37:02.610]  But if we don't do that, we're kind of screwed.
[37:03.490 --> 37:07.130]  Collectively, I think we need to fund free public news media that is accessible and engaging.
[37:07.130 --> 37:09.830]  The New York Times costs like $100 a year.
[37:10.110 --> 37:12.030]  The truth can't cost $100 a year.
[37:12.810 --> 37:13.690]  NPR is great.
[37:13.830 --> 37:15.630]  I love Terry Gross, although she doesn't fact check.
[37:15.930 --> 37:16.790]  Fresh air is wonderful.
[37:17.070 --> 37:19.570]  But it's not accessible and engaging to most of America.
[37:19.770 --> 37:20.850]  We need to do a better job here.
[37:21.470 --> 37:22.150]  Pre-bunking.
[37:22.270 --> 37:27.290]  We need to build trust ahead of those that might manufacture doubt so that they're prepared for those messages.
[37:27.830 --> 37:37.250]  And this is going to be controversial, but I think, when possible, avoid forms of censorship that will end up pushing those censored into extremist echo chambers like Parler, Truth Social, and Gab.
[37:37.510 --> 37:38.710]  Go check out those networks.
[37:38.870 --> 37:40.610]  Those are where the people who are banned from Twitter go.
[37:41.110 --> 37:43.410]  They pick up all sorts of new things.
[37:44.330 --> 37:45.310]  It's a real problem.
[37:45.330 --> 37:47.970]  I don't have an answer, but it's terrifying to see this happen.
[37:48.590 --> 37:49.550]  So, thank you.
[37:49.790 --> 37:50.750]  I'm SquareMatrix.
[37:50.890 --> 37:54.270]  Get in touch if you want to collaborate or you want to cause trouble.
[37:54.270 --> 37:55.490]  That's my email.
[37:55.670 --> 37:57.370]  You can scan that QR code for all the resources.
[37:57.690 --> 37:59.390]  If you want to contact Dom, that's his email.
[37:59.630 --> 38:04.250]  We're going to do Q&A and we'll bring Dom on somehow.
[38:04.490 --> 38:04.990]  Oh, there he is.
[38:15.980 --> 38:16.480]  Hello, everyone.
[38:19.120 --> 38:20.060]  Good to see you.
[38:20.160 --> 38:22.950]  I haven't watched that in quite a while.
[38:23.930 --> 38:25.100]  Yeah, that's a hoot.
[38:27.720 --> 38:29.340]  Thanks, Mr. Talipso.
[38:30.580 --> 38:31.540]  It's Teepso.
[38:33.360 --> 38:33.800]  Yeah.
[38:34.340 --> 38:34.600]  Yeah.
[38:37.580 --> 38:38.860]  All right, I'll start Q&A.
[38:38.980 --> 38:40.740]  I have one quick question just out of curiosity.
[38:41.080 --> 38:45.560]  Did Fox or Tucker's show, did they do any kind of follow-up with you?
[38:45.660 --> 38:46.480]  I'm just curious.
[38:47.640 --> 38:48.320]  They did.
[38:50.340 --> 38:51.520]  Yeah, it was interesting.
[38:51.520 --> 38:59.880]  We got an email probably a couple months after saying, you know, they asked initially, oh, where are you based?
[38:59.880 --> 39:17.440]  And I was based in the Los Angeles headquarters of demand protest as the media outreach and community organizer for demand protest based in Los Angeles because that's where all the actors are and where would the best crisis actors be but in Los Angeles.
[39:17.760 --> 39:23.520]  So anyway, he reached out or his assistant reached out and said, I'll be in Los Angeles.
[39:23.580 --> 39:24.860]  I'd like to get dinner with you.
[39:24.860 --> 39:29.160]  And we go to this Italian restaurant in Santa Monica.
[39:29.560 --> 39:30.600]  I go in.
[39:30.880 --> 39:35.460]  There's this strange little room in the back and I go in there.
[39:37.320 --> 39:38.480]  And he's there.
[39:38.600 --> 39:39.480]  His assistant's there.
[39:39.700 --> 39:41.680]  She looks like she's like 10 years old.
[39:42.260 --> 39:43.220]  She's just very young.
[39:43.380 --> 39:43.500]  I'm dead.
[39:43.720 --> 39:45.420]  There's nothing untoward there.
[39:45.600 --> 39:49.320]  But there's another person sitting there as well.
[39:49.520 --> 39:51.080]  She's got a snap-down cap.
[39:51.540 --> 39:52.920]  Has a big beard.
[39:53.180 --> 39:53.940]  Huge beard.
[39:54.100 --> 39:54.780]  Glasses on.
[39:54.880 --> 40:00.020]  And they're kind of like tinted like Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park glasses.
[40:00.020 --> 40:10.200]  And it takes me a second and then kind of like Stout Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird when she sees like Boo Radley at the end.
[40:10.400 --> 40:14.620]  I'm like looking at her and I'm like, oh, hi, Billy.
[40:15.100 --> 40:23.460]  And it's Billy Bush from Access Hollywood sitting, having dinner at an Italian restaurant with Tucker Carlson.
[40:23.620 --> 40:25.820]  And I'm like, this is so surreal.
[40:26.520 --> 40:31.660]  But one thing I did before that that I thought was really important is he did ask for my ID.
[40:32.660 --> 40:35.520]  And I'm sorry I don't have it pulled up or ready to share with everyone.
[40:35.760 --> 40:38.080]  But, you know, during the interview, he asked for my ID.
[40:38.300 --> 40:46.080]  So I did, you know, I went right before that, spent five minutes Photoshopping my Dom to Yipso ID.
[40:47.100 --> 40:53.560]  And first thing I did was when I walked up was, hi, I think I'm supposed to be here.
[40:53.560 --> 40:55.580]  Here's my ID and shared it with him.
[40:55.800 --> 40:58.340]  And, you know, I don't want to make...
[40:59.220 --> 41:03.760]  It's not my job or my desire in any way to make Tucker Carlson laugh or anything.
[41:03.760 --> 41:08.240]  But I have always felt that like a laughing jury never convicts kind of thing.
[41:08.400 --> 41:12.860]  And if you can get somebody smiling, if you can get somebody laughing, their guard drops.
[41:12.860 --> 41:14.020]  It's just a vulnerability.
[41:14.460 --> 41:16.480]  So he thought that was hilarious.
[41:16.480 --> 41:22.440]  And then, literally, we just spent the next like two and a half hours talking about The Grateful Dead.
[41:24.880 --> 41:25.360]  That's it.
[41:25.500 --> 41:26.220]  I'm not kidding.
[41:26.560 --> 41:28.900]  Like, we didn't talk about anything political at all.
[41:29.180 --> 41:31.780]  And maybe I should have, but what am I going to do?
[41:31.840 --> 41:34.860]  Tell him to stop being a terrible person?
[41:34.860 --> 41:36.420]  Like, I don't know.
[41:36.480 --> 41:37.560]  That's not my job, you know.
[41:37.740 --> 41:46.680]  So we just talked about how, you know, we both had deep love for Grateful Dead, which is also weird because it isn't like Ann Coulter also super into The Grateful Dead.
[41:47.040 --> 41:47.540]  I don't know.
[41:47.760 --> 41:50.240]  But there's a weird like...
[41:50.720 --> 41:52.360]  Well, I don't want to get political.
[41:52.580 --> 41:55.120]  But anyway, I hope that answered your question a little bit.
[41:59.240 --> 42:00.040]  Whoever's at the mic.
[42:00.260 --> 42:00.500]  Yeah.
[42:00.720 --> 42:10.560]  So I was just wondering if you heard about an artwork that is, I think, just opened in Mexico City by a couple of conceptual artists, Yoshua Okun and Juan Obando.
[42:11.120 --> 42:15.920]  They actually found a company that does pay protestors.
[42:16.200 --> 42:26.800]  And they made an artwork in a museum where they paid these people to have a sort of bogus like insignia or something like that.
[42:26.900 --> 42:28.540]  And then they created it as a sort of video installation.
[42:28.740 --> 42:36.940]  I just... it shocked me seeing this here because they were telling me that these companies really do exist.
[42:37.160 --> 42:39.640]  And I wondered if you'd heard of those companies, the real ones.
[42:39.820 --> 42:40.120]  Yeah.
[42:40.340 --> 42:44.840]  So there are companies that you can hire for like crowds on movie sets.
[42:45.020 --> 42:50.720]  And in fact, it's rumored that Trump hired one of these crowds for his announcement for presidency.
[42:52.620 --> 42:57.300]  They are not hiring people on the scale of tens of thousands of people marching in the streets against Trump.
[42:57.440 --> 42:58.020]  That's ridiculous.
[42:58.300 --> 42:59.200]  That's a lot of money.
[42:59.580 --> 43:02.340]  No one has that kind of money and can keep that kind of secret.
[43:03.440 --> 43:06.680]  So, yeah, there are, you know, there are people who will fill out movie sets.
[43:07.320 --> 43:13.560]  I get a lot of emails to the demand protest account of people wanting to actually hire me, which is kind of terrifying.
[43:13.560 --> 43:16.020]  I've thought about maybe publishing who those people are.
[43:17.240 --> 43:18.780]  But, yeah, so there is a...
[43:18.780 --> 43:25.260]  If someone wants to start an incredibly unethical business, there is like on a small scale people who are trying to do that.
[43:25.380 --> 43:27.400]  But certainly not like at a nationwide scale.
[43:28.020 --> 43:29.580]  People are actually pissed off.
[43:30.260 --> 43:32.380]  It was a couple dozen when they hired me.
[43:32.380 --> 43:33.700]  Ah, makes sense.
[43:34.960 --> 43:37.740]  Well, hey, we talked about propaganda and how...
[43:37.740 --> 43:39.760]  Or basically just fooling people.
[43:39.960 --> 43:48.560]  And in the matrix chat, they're asking if you have any recommendations to teach others, especially those who are younger, how to defend against falling for that disinformation.
[43:49.340 --> 43:57.120]  I think it's probably about going to original sources, which is getting more expensive to do.
[43:57.800 --> 44:02.680]  I think it probably depends on the piece of information.
[44:03.040 --> 44:08.440]  But, you know, making sure that the website you're going to is one that is remotely credible.
[44:08.860 --> 44:13.820]  It's an actual news organization that's hopefully been around for a while and is known...
[44:14.600 --> 44:16.140]  I'm not the best person to answer this.
[44:16.140 --> 44:19.460]  But, yeah, you have to research everything individually.
[44:19.600 --> 44:20.760]  I don't think there's like a blanket answer.
[44:25.830 --> 44:26.190]  Cool.
[44:30.750 --> 44:32.290]  Anyone else have any other questions?
[44:34.910 --> 44:35.350]  All right.
[44:35.430 --> 44:36.290]  Well, hey, thanks for the talk.
[44:36.390 --> 44:36.850]  That was great.
[44:37.230 --> 44:37.890]  Thanks so much.
[44:38.690 --> 44:39.350]  Thanks so much.