Joe Rogan Experience #1940 - Matt Taibbi

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drum roll) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      (drum roll) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. NANarrator0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music) Hello, Matt Taibbi.

   4. MTMatt Taibbi0:14

      Hey, Joe. How's it going?

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:15

      (laughs)

   6. MTMatt Taibbi0:15

      (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:16

      Good to see you. It's always so hard to get rolling after you've been talking.

   8. MTMatt Taibbi0:20

      (laughs)

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:20

      I mean, so I'm always excited to see you so we're just blabbing.

   10. MTMatt Taibbi0:23

       (laughs)

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:23

       And now we're rolling. So what's cracking?

   12. MTMatt Taibbi0:26

       Uh, a lot. A lot. It's been, uh, it's been a crazy, uh, couple of months, uh-

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:31

       I have enjoyed your work with the Twitter file. I enjoy all your work, but I really have enjoyed the Twitter files. That has been some really fascinating views behind the curtain.

   14. MTMatt Taibbi0:41

       It- it- it's, uh, it- it's been one of the weirder, more surreal experiences of my life because m- you know, as- as a reporter, you- you're always, um, kind of, uh, banging away to try to get one little piece of reality, right? Like, you'll- you might make 30 or 40 phone calls to get one sentence. Uh, the Twitter files is, oh, by the way, here, you know, uh, take a laptop and look at 50,000 emails, you know, full of all kinds of stuff. And so it's, you know, for- for somebody like me, it's like a dream come true. We get to see all kinds of things, get the answers to questions that, uh, we've had for years. And it's- it's been really incredible.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:25

       Has anything been surprising to you?

   16. MTMatt Taibbi1:29

       Um, a- a- a little bit. I- I- I think going into it, I- I thought that the, um, that the relationship between the security agencies like the- the FBI and the DHS and companies like Twitter and Facebook, I thought it was a little bit less formal. Like I th- I thought maybe they had kind of an advisory role. And what we find is that it's not that. It's- it's very formalized. They have, um, a really intense structure, uh, that they've worked out over a period of years where they have regular meetings, um, they have a system where the DHS handles, um, you know, censorship requests that come up from the s- the states and the FBI handles the international ones, and they all float all these companies. And, um, it's a big bureaucracy and we- I don't think we expected to see that.

   17. JRJoe Rogan2:20

       It's very bizarre to me that they o- that they would just openly call for censorship in emails and these p- private transmissions, but ones that are easily duplicated, you could send them to other people, it could g- it can easily get out. Like that they're so comfortable with the idea that the government should be involved in this censorship of what turns out to be true information, especially when it- in regards to the Hunter Biden laptop, that they would be so comfortable that they would just send it in emails.

   18. MTMatt Taibbi2:52

       Yeah. Yeah. Well that- I think that shows you the mentality, right?

   19. JRJoe Rogan2:55

       Yeah.

   20. MTMatt Taibbi2:55

       Like that they- they really genuinely felt that they were impregnable, that they don't have anybody to answer to. Um, a- I mean a normal person doesn't put incriminating things in emails because w- we all have the expectation that someday it might come- come out.

   21. JRJoe Rogan3:12

       Yeah.

   22. MTMatt Taibbi3:12

       You know? Uh, but these folks didn't act that way. I mean, they- y- you see... I was- I was especially shocked by, uh, an email from, uh, a- a staffer for Adam Schiff, the congressperson, the California congressman, and they're just outright saying, "We would like you to suspend the accounts of this journalist and anybody who retweets information about this committee." (laughs) You know? I mean, this is-

   23. JRJoe Rogan3:39

       Yeah.

   24. MTMatt Taibbi3:39

       ... this is a congre- this is a member of Congress.

   25. JRJoe Rogan3:42

       Yeah.

   26. MTMatt Taibbi3:42

       Right? Most of these people have legal backgrounds. They're- they've- they've got lawyers in the office for sure. Um, and this is the H- this is the House Intelligence Committee. Uh, you would think they would have better, uh, operational security. Another moment that was shocking to me, there was a, um... there's an email from an FBI agent, uh, named Elvis Chan, in San Francisco to Twitter and they're setting up this signal group, uh, which is gonna include all the top sort of censorship executives at all the big companies. And it's a Word document that has all the phone numbers of all these important executives. And the email just, uh- uh, the subject line reads, "Phone Numbers." Uh, right? And then the Word doc is just called Secret Phone Numbers.

   27. JRJoe Rogan4:33

       (laughs)

   28. MTMatt Taibbi4:33

       Right? (laughs) And I'm thinking, this is how they taught you to do it at Quantico?

   29. JRJoe Rogan4:37

       (laughs)

   30. MTMatt Taibbi4:38

       Really? You know? I mean, like, I mean, e- even a journalist can't miss that. You know what I'm saying? Like, like... (laughs)
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   (laughs) …

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      you're trying to keep that job, and here's a guy like Brian Stelter who already lost one of the biggest gigs in all of broadcast news. He was on fucking CNN. And then, you know, here he's standing there and they're saying, "You're, y- you're gonna have hate speech laws in America too." He's like, "Okay."

   2. MTMatt Taibbi15:13

      (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:13

      "Everything's running smooth. Everyone's smiling."

   4. MTMatt Taibbi15:15

      (laughs)

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:15

      Like, he, he, he's doesn't, he's not suitable for that role.

   6. MTMatt Taibbi15:19

      Right.

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:19

      That's, he doesn't belong there.

   8. MTMatt Taibbi15:21

      Right.

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:21

      You don't have the stones to carry that conversation in a way that's gonna benefit all these people that are listening to it. What you want is someone who's in that position that goes, "Hold on, what do you think is hate speech? What's hate speech to you and what's hate speech to me? And who gets to decide?"

   10. MTMatt Taibbi15:37

       Yeah. How, h- how is that gonna be-

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:39

       Yeah.

   12. MTMatt Taibbi15:39

       ... uh, adjudicated? Like-

   13. JRJoe Rogan15:41

       Right.

   14. MTMatt Taibbi15:41

       ... y- what's, what's your definition? What's your diffident of, def- definition of hate?

   15. JRJoe Rogan15:44

       Right.

   16. MTMatt Taibbi15:44

       What's your definition of speech? Like-

   17. JRJoe Rogan15:46

       Exactly.

   18. MTMatt Taibbi15:46

       You know what I mean? Like, the, there are a lot of questions.

   19. JRJoe Rogan15:47

       Does context matter?

   20. MTMatt Taibbi15:49

       Right. Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan15:49

       And how do you decide? And obviously when you're looking at things over text, context gets very blurry. You don't know if someone's joking around. Like, there's so many pages that I get sent that are satire. I've got a hilarious one, there's a new one, Rick Rubin sent me this, this one, and he's like, "This has gotta be satire, right?" And it's brilliant, brilliant satire, but there's, uh, this per- person who has, like, the best version of, uh, super liberal, uh, like, "My children will never eat food from a gas stove," like, like (laughs) , that kind of shit.

   22. MTMatt Taibbi16:20

       (laughs)

   23. JRJoe Rogan16:20

       And there's so many of these, like, y- it's hard to tell who's, who's what and what's real and it's, it's just one of those things, where you're, you're, it's, it's, it's hard when you're looking things through text. 'Cause people are sneaky. They're really good at it. And people are so ridiculous in real life that a really subtle parody is very hard to discern. So, is that hate speech? If someone's doing it as a parody, is that hate speech?

   24. MTMatt Taibbi16:45

       Right.

   25. JRJoe Rogan16:45

       Like, when do you decide that something is hateful?

   26. MTMatt Taibbi16:48

       A- and that's exactly why traditionally in this country w- w- judges have always said, well, they haven't always said it, but they've, they eventually came around to the idea that we can't involve ourselves in these questions. They're t- they're, they're too difficult and it's not our job. Um, we're gonna step in in only the most extreme cases, right? So, the, the current standard is, you know, uh, the Supreme Court case, Brandon... Brandenburg v. Ohio, which outlaws imminent, uh, uh, incitement to imminent lawless action, right? So, you have to be basically saying, you know, "Let's go get them."

   27. JRJoe Rogan17:27

       "Go, go get them. Let's," you know-

   28. MTMatt Taibbi17:28

       "Break into the White House." "Shoot, shoot that person." Like-

   29. JRJoe Rogan17:30

       Yeah.

   30. MTMatt Taibbi17:31

       That's illegal speech, right? Anything short of that, we're gonna stay out of it, 'cause it's just too c- it's too confusing, it's too complicated.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   (laughs) …

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      chik, chik, chik. What the fuck?

   2. MTMatt Taibbi30:01

      (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:02

      Uh, I just ... You know, I'm just astounded by the, the lack of ability to see the future. You know, the lack of ability to see where all this goes. The, like ... And, and letting this happen, and not being outraged, and letting the government creep into all aspects of your life in this way. There's no net positive. There's ... In the end, it's just c- government control of speech and thought and k-... content and everything you do.

   4. MTMatt Taibbi30:31

      Right, and, and complete capture of the media-

   5. JRJoe Rogan30:34

      Yeah.

   6. MTMatt Taibbi30:34

      ... and, and all of that, you know. And that's, that's, you know, that's kind of what we're trying to, to fight against. And it's, uh, you know, the, the, the one heartening thing is that, is that the, the, uh, the, quote-unquote, "mainstream press" is now, uh, really, it's in free fall now, right? Uh, the, uh, uh, its, its influences is more and more limited every day. Um, you know, the problem is that, uh, something needs to step up in its place. And, and, uh, you know, but, but th- they're just, uh, they don't have any authority at all, uh, outside their own little bubble anymore.

   7. JRJoe Rogan31:10

      Yeah. Propaganda's a scary thing. And when you have, uh, mainstream news organizations going along with what appears to be propaganda with no pushback at all, like where, where is journalism? Like journalism is such an important part of, uh, any sort of functioning culture where people need to find out what, what is the real information. And there's people that have a responsibility to try to find that information and then give it to people, so they can make informed decisions. And they can know w- what, what is the workings behind the machine? What's the wiring? What's happening? How are, how are these decisions getting made? When the corporate media doesn't do that anymore, we're fucked. And you, in your time, have seen that.

   8. MTMatt Taibbi31:58

      Mm-hmm.

   9. JRJoe Rogan31:58

      You've seen this transition-

   10. MTMatt Taibbi31:59

       Mm-hmm.

   11. JRJoe Rogan32:00

       ... into, like, the media becoming an arm of propaganda as opposed to what it was in the '70s or what it was in the '60s where it was the news. This is what's happening. This is what we've uncovered. This is our undercover investigation. These are our, our facts. Our informant has told us this. Now, we know that. Nixon did this. Kennedy was aware of that. We know these things now because of real journalism.

   12. MTMatt Taibbi32:28

       Right.

   13. JRJoe Rogan32:29

       And it seems like, for whatever reason, there's two branches going on with journalism. There's people like you and Bari Weiss and Glenn Greenwald and the Substack people that are like, "Hey. Hey, hey, hey. This is not what I fucking signed up for."

   14. MTMatt Taibbi32:46

       Right.

   15. JRJoe Rogan32:46

       "I'm here to do actual real journalism. And you people in these gigantic mainstream organizations are losing your fucking minds. You're crazy. And you're doing it in, w- with, so, for so many reasons, because, uh, because Trump sucks, because you're pushing a woke agenda, because, you know, you want..." Uh, w- w- whatever the reason is. Like you've decided to become a part of a propaganda machine, and it's not journalism anymore.

   16. MTMatt Taibbi33:12

       Right. Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan33:13

       You're ignoring really important stories that are inconvenient to the narrative that you feel like it's your obligation to push.

   18. MTMatt Taibbi33:21

       Yeah. Uh, m- remember when Trump became president, and he was making noise about not letting certain people have credentials to get into the White House?

   19. JRJoe Rogan33:30

       Yeah.

   20. MTMatt Taibbi33:30

       And there was this big hue and cry, like, "Oh my God, he's not gonna let us into the White House." And my first reaction to that was, "Who fucking cares if, you know, if you're not let into the White House?" You, you, you have an adversarial relationship already. You're supposed to with government.

   21. JRJoe Rogan33:46

       Yeah.

   22. MTMatt Taibbi33:46

       Right? If they, if they don't let you in, just report on it anyway, you know? Like g- it's not a big deal. But, uh, f- for, uh, the new generation of, of journalists who, who've come in, they imagine themselves, b- because they're socially the same people that they're reporting on, they hang out in the same circles, they go to the same parties, the idea of not being let behind the rope line, um, is an atrocity to them. They, they, they don't understand it. And they see their role as helping explain the point of view of power. I mean, it's just what we were talking with Brian Stelter before.

   23. JRJoe Rogan34:23

       Yeah.

   24. MTMatt Taibbi34:23

       Like, like, "My job here is to, is to kind of sell this to the population."

   25. JRJoe Rogan34:28

       Yes.

   26. MTMatt Taibbi34:29

       Whereas, the old school journalists were not like that. Like, the, the, the, uh, they saw their role as, "Yeah, you know, we're, we're patriotic, you know, and like, we, we lo- we love our country. And if it does the right thing, we'll, we'll, you know, we'll report that. But if it fucks up, we gotta report that too." Like, "You know, we, our job is to ask difficult questions. And if we have difficult truths, we gotta report those things. And so we're not really on your side." Like, "You, you, we're not your friends, you know. Um, you can hang out with us. Uh, we can hang out with you, uh, at a campaign stop. But there's supposed to be tension there." And there's always supposed to be tension there. And, uh, what you see now is that there's no tension at all, right? Like, the, there's just this sort of seamless community of people who all think the same way, um, uh, you know, whether it's, you know, Rachel Maddow or, or, you know, Don Lemon or who- whoever it is and, you know, the, some Biden administration official. Like, uh, they're all kind of on the same page. They see themselves as part of the same group. They see themselves as having the same mission. Um, but the press, the press has to have its own mission-

   27. JRJoe Rogan35:49

       Yeah.

   28. MTMatt Taibbi35:49

       ... or else it's not legitimate.

   29. JRJoe Rogan35:50

       Well, I don't think they're journalists.

   30. MTMatt Taibbi35:52

       Right.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   (laughs) …

   1. MTMatt Taibbi45:00

      she was on Twitter a lot.

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:02

      (laughs)

   3. MTMatt Taibbi45:02

      Right? And she was being successful at Twitter. And they were like, "You know, you have to make the choice between whether you wanna be on social media or whether you wanna be a politician." And I, I actually admired her at the time. I didn't agree with her about everything, but I, but I, like you, I thought her story was interesting. I thought that she, she had taken an alternative path to getting elected. She be, she, she was very clever in her use, her use of social media. Uh, you know, it's better to, to be good on Twitter than it is to, to, you know, whore out your beliefs to some donor, you know what I'm saying? Um, but once she got into Congress, they let you know, right? "Look, if you ever wanna be a committee chair, um, if you wanna, if you wanna get in line for these powerful positions, if you want, if you wanna get a- appropriations money sent to whatever district, you gotta play ball." Right?

   4. JRJoe Rogan45:53

      Yeah.

   5. MTMatt Taibbi45:53

      And, and if, if you do, then, you know, you very quickly start climbing the ladder. If you don't, you end up just somebody who tends to be on the outside and, and is portrayed as a nut, you know?

   6. JRJoe Rogan46:07

      Bernie Sanders.

   7. MTMatt Taibbi46:07

      Bernie Sanders or Ron Paul, right?

   8. JRJoe Rogan46:10

      Yeah.

   9. MTMatt Taibbi46:10

      You know? I mean, that's-

   10. JRJoe Rogan46:11

       Yeah.

   11. MTMatt Taibbi46:11

       ... that's how, how it works. Uh, it, it, it, you know, the, there are people who are kind of like, uh, in Congress, y- y- you might disagree with what they believe, but they're honest, you know? And you can tell they're honest because the leadership hates them, (laughs) you know?

   12. JRJoe Rogan46:27

       Mm-hmm.

   13. MTMatt Taibbi46:28

       And doesn't give m- doesn't give them the opportunity. But you're absolutely right. It's the sa- it's the same thing, you know? It's, it's, it's this orga- organizational, uh, s- sort of belief system. You either have to go with it or not. I just think it's s- it's especially, it's especially, uh, offensive in journalism because the whole idea of being a journalist, the whole, y- y- you're not doing it for money or power, you know? Y- y- if you're going into this business, what are you doing it for if you're not gonna be trying to break cool stories?

   14. JRJoe Rogan47:04

       Yeah.

   15. MTMatt Taibbi47:04

       Uh, like, go into some other thing. Go into finance or-

   16. JRJoe Rogan47:08

       Right.

   17. MTMatt Taibbi47:08

       ... right? Like, I-

   18. JRJoe Rogan47:09

       Yeah.

   19. MTMatt Taibbi47:09

       ... I just, I never understood that. That p- that part doesn't make any sense to me.

   20. JRJoe Rogan47:12

       Do you think that this understanding of this now and because people are talking about it, and then the birth of Substack and the fact that it's become very successful and that people are flocking towards genuine independent journalists whether on, they're on social media like YouTube or Twitter or Substack or... Do you think that this is in many ways, uh, like, changing the way young people see the possibilities? Because I think young people looking at the two options, like one, you can kind of be a hero and, or two, you can kind of be a whore.

   21. MTMatt Taibbi47:48

       Right.

   22. JRJoe Rogan47:48

       You know? There's a l- there's a lot of whores. They don't seem happy. These whores seem very upset at everything and they're always pulling their fucking hair out and they're probably on antidepressants. And then you have these people that are, like, breaking stories and it's like, oh my god, journalism is alive. It's just alive in, like, like, you know when people travel with a fire and they have, like, embers and they're like...

   23. MTMatt Taibbi48:10

       Right.

   24. JRJoe Rogan48:10

       (blowing) They're blowing on them and they get them to the next camp and then they can start a fire with it. That's journalism right now.

   25. MTMatt Taibbi48:16

       Absolutely.

   26. JRJoe Rogan48:16

       It's not this raging bonfire that everybody can go get warmed, you know, the information will warm everyone. No, it's like th- th- these people have, like, s- small wooden vessels filled with embers and they're blowing on them as they run through the woods and people are fanning them to try to keep them alive. But I think...... for young people that are considering paths, like what to do with their future, they don't, they don't want to be contained, they want to be free. And because of social media and because of the fact that an- like, any kid can just start a YouTube page and just start talking about things.

   27. MTMatt Taibbi48:48

       Exactly.

   28. JRJoe Rogan48:49

       And because of that kind of abil- the ability to, to, to now do your own show, becoming independent is becoming not just more plausible, but more attractive.

   29. MTMatt Taibbi48:58

       Absolutely. Uh, and, and I think, you know, the ... younger people have less tolerance for phoniness, or at least historically they did. Uh-

   30. JRJoe Rogan49:09

       Yeah.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   That's such a big…

   1. MTMatt Taibbi1:00:00

      Jeffrey Goldberg, he's now the editor of Atlantic Magazine. Like, there were all kinds of people who totally screwed that story up and got promoted. Um, and so, there... But there was, there was at least a little bit of reflection about getting a big story wrong. Like, you, you-

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:16

      That's such a big story.

   3. MTMatt Taibbi1:00:18

      Right?

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:19

      That's such a big story.

   5. MTMatt Taibbi1:00:20

      Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:21

      The fact that there really were no weapons of mass destruction and they, we, we really did start a war for nothing, that really did kill somewhere in the neighborhood of a million innocent people.

   7. MTMatt Taibbi1:00:30

      Right. It's over a fake news story.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:33

      Yeah, over a fake news story.

   9. MTMatt Taibbi1:00:34

      I mean, that, there, there should be, there should be sorrow. (laughs)

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:00:38

       Yeah.

   11. MTMatt Taibbi1:00:38

       You know what I mean? Within news organizations-

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:00:41

       Yeah.

   13. MTMatt Taibbi1:00:41

       ... about a mistake of that magnitude.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:00:43

       And the fact there's no repercussions and the people who were promoted that, that promoted that very same story that led to that, that led to the, the, the public support of it, of the war.

   15. MTMatt Taibbi1:00:54

       Yeah. And, and not only did we...... not only did we promote the people who got that story wrong, uh, you know, ex- except in that one case with Judy Miller, who had, who, who was sort of villainized, uh, you know, but people were fired who, who were, who were questioning it. Like, Phil Donahue had a show, a very highly rated show on MSNBC at the time. He lost his job. Jesse-

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:01:18

       W- what did he say?

   17. MTMatt Taibbi1:01:20

       Uh, he was just very critical of the war effort. He didn't believe the whole thing and, and he, he thought-

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:01:25

       And that's why he lost his show?

   19. MTMatt Taibbi1:01:26

       Yeah. They, they, they took him off the air.

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:01:28

       Wow.

   21. MTMatt Taibbi1:01:28

       Jesse Ventura will, will tell you this story. He, he, he, he's currently... He lives in a, in a compound in Mexico.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:01:35

       New Mexico. Yeah.

   23. MTMatt Taibbi1:01:35

       Ca- Casa MSNBC, he calls it.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:01:38

       (laughs)

   25. MTMatt Taibbi1:01:38

       Uh, because they hired him thinking that because he was a former Navy SEAL, he was gonna be pro-war. When they found out on the phone, um, that he didn't feel that way, that he was very skeptical of the whole thing, they basically bought out his contract. They just paid him the balance and said, "Thanks, but no thanks," and, uh, you know, "You, you... We're not gonna want that show of yours." Uh, so he was right, um, but he, you know, instead of going on the air, he get, he, he got a mansion in Mexico, you know? Like, so...

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:02:14

       (laughs)

   27. MTMatt Taibbi1:02:14

       So, you know, the, the, the, the, the business has a history of, um, of doing stuff like this, but at least in the WMD episode, they had, they had the decency to admit now, you know, like, a d- a decade later, "We screwed that up." It, like, it has the r- it has the reputation of being a media mistake. They haven't done that yet with the Russia stuff.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:02:38

       Well, the WMD thing, though, there's no repercussions, because over time, everybody had kind of for- either forgotten about it or been overwhelmed by news stories. And when the WMD came out, when, when that sort of thing came out at the beginning of the war, you're also dealing with a very different internet, and the news cycle wasn't as extreme and dynamic. Like, nowadays, things that happen, like, no one gives a shit that Epstein was murdered and that the cameras were shut off and that there's no list of all the people that went to the island. That's just gone. There's too much th- new stuff to come that it's, it's in front of your eyes that you have to pay attention to.

   29. MTMatt Taibbi1:03:14

       Right. Yeah, it, it-

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:03:14

       That's the news cycle.
6. 1:15:00 – 1:19:38

   (laughs) …

   1. JRJoe Rogan1:15:00

   2. MTMatt Taibbi1:15:00

      (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan1:15:00

      You fucking tell me how it's, how is it funding drugs?

   4. MTMatt Taibbi1:15:03

      (laughs)

   5. JRJoe Rogan1:15:03

      Is it funding terrorism? How is that, that fucking conversation between Douglas Murray and Sam Harris, how is that hate speech?

   6. MTMatt Taibbi1:15:09

      Right. But they, they're used to not having to go past that first part of the conversation.

   7. JRJoe Rogan1:15:15

      Exactly.

   8. MTMatt Taibbi1:15:15

      So...

   9. JRJoe Rogan1:15:16

      Exactly.

   10. MTMatt Taibbi1:15:16

       You know, like that's-

   11. JRJoe Rogan1:15:17

       If my wife wasn't squeezing my knee, she was like squeezing my knee under the table.

   12. MTMatt Taibbi1:15:23

       (laughs) She's like, she's like, "Oh, Jesus. I know what's happening here."

   13. JRJoe Rogan1:15:26

       (laughs)

   14. MTMatt Taibbi1:15:27

       Right. Right.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:15:27

       Yeah.

   16. MTMatt Taibbi1:15:27

       No, but the people... Uh, and, and that was another strange thing about, um, my experience at Rolling Stone, like I, uh, early, uh, I guess it was 2017, 2018, when they f- when they first started to really aggressively police the internet. Um, I did a story, uh, about how they wiped out a bunch of accounts, um, under the guise... This is af- this is after the Alex Jones thing. But the, Facebook just sort of zapped a whole bunch of accounts and, uh, some of them were just sort of ordinary hardworking people who had built up these independent media channels and, um, the company just sent them notices, "You are coordinated in authentic activity and your page is down." This is after they'd spent tens of thousands of dollars on Facebook ads to bing- to build up their, their, um, you know, their pages and everything. Um, they, they weren't bots, they were real people. And, uh, not only could I not convince other people in the business that it, it, it was a significant story that these companies were now doing this, but within Rolling Stone, um, you know, the, the, the story, the headline had to be refat- refashioned. Uh, if you look at it now, the story's called, um, who will fi- Who Will Fix Facebook? Because they wanted to imply that the problem was that Facebook was out of control, uh, and needed to be policed more. Right? Uh, and sort of my, my, my headline that I would, that I submitted was very different. It was something like, you know, censorship on Facebook is out of control or whatever it is. Right? Um, but they, the, this belief that this censorship is a good thing, that we need more of it, I, I, I just think it became an upper class kind of New York, Washington, uh, just cocktail party, uh, belief. Right? I mean, it, it was something you started to hear from people right, right around the time that Trump got elected. "Oh, we just need more of that." You know? "We, we have to do something to wreck- to reckon with all those people," or whatever it is. And they haven't let go of it, I don't think. Have they? I don't know. Have they?

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:17:45

       Yeah.

   18. MTMatt Taibbi1:17:45

       Yeah, I don't th- I... I think they're still in that place for the most part. Y- uh, you know, the, this move toward that World Economic Forum version of, of a, uh, a more regulated internet, um, I, I, I think we're only in the beginning stages of that. I think they're g- they're gonna make many steps, uh, you know, that are gonna be much more significant in the future, uh, to try to prevent, you know, things like your show from breaking out. Right? Like they're, they're, they're not gonna want that in the future.

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:18:22

       Well, how does the World Economic Forum actually wield influence? Like what, what works there? How does it work? You know, one thing we know about this, this year's event is, uh, we know two things. One, that hookers are going there in droves. There was an article about the increase in the, uh, population of prostitutes. Which makes sense.

   20. MTMatt Taibbi1:18:42

       Yeah, it makes absolute sense.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:18:42

       The other, uh, cat when, when the boys are away. And then the other, uh, thing was that Klaus Schwab and George Soros decided to op out this year.

   22. MTMatt Taibbi1:18:53

       Hm.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:18:54

       Which is interesting.

   24. MTMatt Taibbi1:18:54

       That is interesting.

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:18:55

       Maybe it's getting too hot. Because it used to be a thing that really didn't get much public attention. They could go there and they could all have these meetings and decide the fate of the world and try-

   26. MTMatt Taibbi1:19:05

       Right.

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:19:05

       ... to sort of move the world in general directions. And then there was also, uh, Michael Shellenberger released a bunch of stuff this week showing that they lie about things that they've said that have become very problematic. One of them was, "You will own nothing. You'll be happy." And they said, "Nope."... that was, uh, that was all, uh, b- just internet conspiracy theories, it's not true. But it is true.

   28. MTMatt Taibbi1:19:28

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:19:28

       And then there was websites, they, they had a whole advertising campaign based on this, they did that, they said that, they absolutely put it up. They really did.

Episode duration: 2:46:37