EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,037 words- 0:00 – 2:38
Minds’ decentralization push: platforms vs protocols (Nostr)
- NANarrator
(drumming) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music)
- JRJoe Rogan
And we're up. Hello, Bill.
- BOBill Ottman
Hey, man.
- JRJoe Rogan
Good to see you, buddy. What's going on?
- BOBill Ottman
Good to see you. We're here, man. (sighs)
- JRJoe Rogan
You are here.
- BOBill Ottman
Everything's going wild.
- JRJoe Rogan
How was your, uh, site going?
- BOBill Ottman
It's going. We're decentralizing as fast as possible, getting it out of our hands so that... We need to protect ourselves from ourselves.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm. How do you do that? Tell everybody, it's Maps.
- BOBill Ottman
Minds.
- JRJoe Rogan
Minds, rather. Sorry.
- BOBill Ottman
Minds.com, M-I-N-D-S.com.
- JRJoe Rogan
I just had, uh, Rick Doblin on-
- BOBill Ottman
R- Rick, no, I- w- yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... psychedelics on the brain.
- BOBill Ottman
I sense kinship with Maps.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs)
- BOBill Ottman
Yeah, um-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, Minds and Maps, the- the two of them should go together perfectly.
- BOBill Ottman
They probably should work together.
- JRJoe Rogan
Seamlessly.
- BOBill Ottman
Yeah. So, basically there's protocols and there's platforms. So, you know, Twitter, Minds, um, other social networks, these are platforms. They're kind of built in the traditional social media style, which is on servers that are, you know, live in huge cloud centers. Um-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BOBill Ottman
And, but, there's also protocols. The one that we're working with now is called Nostr, which stands for Notes and Other Stuff transmitted by Relay. So, there's no company owns this protocol. The founder is anonymous. Sort of similar to Bitcoin. And what it is, is it's all about crypto key pairs and signing stuff. So, with Nostr, it- this is all happening in the background on Minds. Every user has a cryptographic key pair, which you can download in your settings. You're the only one who gets the private key. That's your identity. Your content, your followers, all that is tied to your identity. So, when you post something, when you follow somebody, that is creating a signature on this decentralized network of relay nodes. So, we run a relay, thousands of other people run relays. Snowden's on Nostr now. He, it- it's like getting serious endorsement. And it's ama- because it doesn't have a company, you know, e- 'cause companies are choke points.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- BOBill Ottman
That can, you know, we saw what happened with Napster, for instance.
- JRJoe Rogan
What happened with Napster?
- 2:38 – 3:57
Copyright, torrents, and the reality of unstoppable file sharing
- BOBill Ottman
Well, torrents are decentralized.
- JRJoe Rogan
Bit torrents, right.
- BOBill Ottman
Torrents, actually, and Nostr is, there's work that w- we're involved with now on integrating Nostr with torrents, so that more heavy files, video, and rich media can be shared over the network. Right now, it's- it's text and links, essentially.
- JRJoe Rogan
What is your opinion when it comes to copyright protection and stuff like that? Well, like if someone has copyrighted material, like say if like NBC has a show and then someone uploads it.
- BOBill Ottman
I mean, that's illegal (laughs) . So-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, but if it's on torrents, it's like how do you get it down?
- BOBill Ottman
You don't.
- JRJoe Rogan
You don't.
- BOBill Ottman
You don't.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, it's just, even though it's illegal-
- BOBill Ottman
Yeah, I mean-
- JRJoe Rogan
... there's no recourse.
- BOBill Ottman
... and that- that- that's why like, so we have moderation. I mean, if- if a copyrighted video gets reported on Minds then, you know, we will take it down from our interface.
- JRJoe Rogan
But it can't-
- BOBill Ottman
But it still exists on-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BOBill Ottman
... the decentralized network.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, you really can't stop people from sharing it?
- BOBill Ottman
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- BOBill Ottman
No. So, you know, I think, I- I kind of have a nuanced view on copyright. Like, I think that people's work should be protected and, you know, not stolen and monetized. But at the same time, it's just like the nature of information-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BOBill Ottman
... is not compatible with copyright, really.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BOBill Ottman
Just because information wants to do what it wants to do.
- 3:57 – 7:54
Privacy vs the future: encryption, quantum fears, and device-level hacks
- JRJoe Rogan
That's one of the weirder things about what's happening with the internet, is that e- essentially, as time goes on, it becomes more and more difficult to control what- what's- what's just ones and zeros, right? As they're out there, the bottlenecks between people and information, they're getting broader. It's getting more and more difficult to stop things. And I think, as time goes on, it'll be impossible. I don't think there'll be any sto- I think, uh, in the future, like anything... I have a feeling that we'll- we'll have zero privacy in the future. I have a feeling that all of this encryption and all the stuff, I- I think it's all gonna be invalid once quantum computing is ubiquitous. I think, I just have a feeling that there's no way you can stop information when- when technology, uh, moves past where it is now to some place where basically anybody could get access to anything at any time. And then, the problem becomes, how do you control money when that happens? 'Cause money, in a lot of, I mean, a lot of it is just ones and zeros, and the only thing that stops you from being able to steal it or transfer it is encryption. When- when you don't have any more encryption and anyone kind of has access to anything that's online...
- BOBill Ottman
So, yeah, I hear you. It does seem like, over time, technology is working against privacy and it's just-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BOBill Ottman
... it's- it's- it's evolving.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's the best w- that's a better way to put it.
- BOBill Ottman
So-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BOBill Ottman
But, you know, encryption hasn't been bro- uh, uh, some encryption has been broken, but g- encryption is still good. It still works.
- JRJoe Rogan
Sure.
- BOBill Ottman
And as- as quantum computing advances, encryption protocols will advance too. So, it is, it's a race, um, and there are people trying to- trying to break it. But I- I- I heard the other day, you were mentioning the whole thing with, uh, Signal and Tucker.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BOBill Ottman
And so, I- uh, yeah, to clarify that, so f-... based on my understanding, Signal has not been compromised. Um, the Pegasus program that you were referring to does have the ability to hack people and get into their device, but once you get into the, someone's de- It's actually easier to get into someone's machine or phone than it is to hack the encryption protocol. So, if you can get into someone's phone, then you can, you probably can get into their messages.
- JRJoe Rogan
I think that's what they did.
- BOBill Ottman
So, that's different.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BOBill Ottman
That's different than Signal being irrelevant.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BOBill Ottman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's not that Signal's irrelevant, it's just that the government right now has the ability to get into things no matter what. All you n- According to Gavin de Becker, who's a securities expert, he said, "All they need is your phone number."
- BOBill Ottman
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Signal one wa- or excuse me, um, Pegasus one was you needed a link, so someone would have to... That's the whole Jeff Bezos story. Someone-
- BOBill Ottman
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... sent him a link on WhatsApp, he clicked on that link. Bang, all of a sudden, they have access to his phone.
- BOBill Ottman
Right. And you have to be super sophisticated to lock yourself down-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BOBill Ottman
... to avoid that. Like, I'm sure that there are people who... Well, I know there are people who are probably less victim to something like Pegasus, but-
- JRJoe Rogan
Sure.
- BOBill Ottman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Probably less victim, but I mean, I guess with a guy like Jeff Bezos, he probably has someone scan his phone all the time, but I wonder if they could even detect Pegasus at this point.
- BOBill Ottman
Yeah.
- 7:54 – 12:46
Surveillance state logic: PRISM legacy, backdoors, and self-inflicted insecurity
- BOBill Ottman
Have you heard about this AADRO office that just came out?
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- BOBill Ottman
So, AADRO, All-domain Anomaly Research Office, that, y- you, in the NDAA recently, um, there's all these UFO pieces of language.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BOBill Ottman
And so... And Christopher Mellon, who you've had on-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BOBill Ottman
... is kind of really knowledgeable about this. I learned a lot of this from him. Um, and anyway, the reason I'm talking about this is because I think that intelligence and, like, secret information, like, as it transcends through the corporate world and the government world, like, it's all kind of interconnected and, like, the same types of models are used. So... But anyway, AADRO is... The NDAA that recently passed now gives all these whistleblower protections to people to come forward, which is an absolute game changer. And, um, AADRO is this new office that's, like, decently funded. I think, like, 11 million a year or something like that. And they're doing an audit basically of the government on these issues, and I think that it, it correlates to surveillance, to me, at least in a speculate, uh, you know, in speculation, because th- Like, what is this system?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BOBill Ottman
Like, if they're here, which I don't know, but that is surveillance, and, you know, it's just all compartmentalized and we don't know what's going on. So, that's why it's great that this office exists.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, like, if someone wants to get ahold of... Like, what if... I feel like with, with thing- When you have something like Pegasus, all you have to do is have access to it and you can get ahold of anything, and someone wouldn't even know if you... O- obviously Tucker did know. I don't know what kind of security protocols Tucker's company or what, you know, what he uses, but obviously he didn't know that they had access to his phone.
- BOBill Ottman
Right. Yeah, I don't know all the specifics of Pegasus, but, you know, we also know everything from Snowden and the, uh, PRISM program, which, you know, maybe was wind- was winded down a little bit. I remember I hear, he- heard some of, of that stuff got rolled back, but realistically, no.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BOBill Ottman
No, no, no. It's probably expanded, and-
- JRJoe Rogan
For sure.
- BOBill Ottman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. I mean, I would, I would imagine they could do what... I imagine they could just get all the access to anyone who's in, in any room. Just zoom in on that room, know where all the f- the f- you know, phone numbers are, and just bam.
- BOBill Ottman
Yeah, but the paradox of having all these backdoors is that it makes everybody less safe. It makes all of the government people less safe to have these backdoors. I mean-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BOBill Ottman
... in the, in some of the Twitter files, you know, we found that these war- these, uh, chat rooms that they had were, they were using Signal.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BOBill Ottman
The government uses Signal very heavily.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BOBill Ottman
And, you know, the Twitter rooms where they had people from, you know, the social media industry and, um, they, they, they use that. So, to advocate for backdoors into encryption is just like self-mutilation.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- BOBill Ottman
It's bizarre.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's bizarre, but it's one of those things where they want to use it on other people even if it could be used against them. They probably feel like a lot of the people they're checking in on don't have access to that. Like, y- like, a standard journalist, like, if they want to, like, zoom in on Matt Taibbi's phone, I'm sure he doesn't have access to that. So, it's like, he can't use it on them, but they could use it on him.
- BOBill Ottman
Yeah. I just feel like we're living in sort of a, uh, Petri dish a little bit. I, I just... Like, the type of information, like, the level of discourse on this planet right now is very, like, tampered down compared to what's really going... I mean, that's just an undeniable fact. We-
- JRJoe Rogan
Tampered down?
- BOBill Ottman
Yeah. I mean, there's, uh, and this is, this is, um, verified. I, I actually... I'm a fucking dork. I read the whole Wikipedia article, but just about top secret information and, like, all the levels, and the US government produces more classified information than non-classified information.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) So even if, like, there's an audit, they could redact everything.
- 12:46 – 16:46
RESTRICT Act and TikTok panic: how bills become censorship vehicles
- JRJoe Rogan
'Cause they have a full, like, clampdown on their population. I mean, they, they limit the access to the internet. Their, their internet is essentially, like, China-based. Like, you... VPNs are illegal. It's like- And they're trying to do that here in America.
- BOBill Ottman
It's all backwards, yeah, with the RESTRICT Act.
- JRJoe Rogan
That is wild.
- BOBill Ottman
Yeah, it's getting, it's getting nasty.
- JRJoe Rogan
20 years if you use a VPN, which is hilarious.
- BOBill Ottman
And it's, it's managed by the Commerce Department. Unelected bureaucrats-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BOBill Ottman
... are the ones... See, TikTok's actually not named in that act.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BOBill Ottman
They're just letting the Secretary of Commerce decide which apps.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BOBill Ottman
That's insane.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's insane.
- BOBill Ottman
So, um, yeah. It, it-
- JRJoe Rogan
Dan Crenshaw posted about it. Uh, he, he, uh, he thinks it's not that big a deal, because he thinks that, you know, there's a lot of, uh, acts that get pushed and then they never get passed through. But what's disturbing is just the idea, the desire to do this, and the fact that i- uh, imagine if it did get passed. I mean, it's a, just a, a fucking full-on assault on free speech.
- BOBill Ottman
Yeah. I mean, it seems to be getting a toxic stigma connected to it. Did you see Jesse Watters grill Li- Lindsey Graham about it?
- JRJoe Rogan
No, I didn't.
- BOBill Ottman
Oh. He didn't read it, but he endorsed it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, Jesus.
- BOBill Ottman
And it was... And he just got completely called out. It was, it was really funny. It... Like, that should be illegal. You should not even be able to sign-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BOBill Ottman
... something that you haven't read. And they can't read it. It's too, it's too long.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, that's-
- BOBill Ottman
There's not enough time.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's not enough time. That's a lot of these acts, right?
- BOBill Ottman
Oh, pro-
- JRJoe Rogan
And they slip a bunch of shit in there that's like, "Wait a minute, what about page 485?" Like, "What the fuck is going on there?" And then like, "Oh, oh. Didn't read that."
- BOBill Ottman
Yeah. I mean-
- JRJoe Rogan
But meanwhile, it's just like, it's-
- BOBill Ottman
Because-
- 16:46 – 18:51
Why decentralization is hard to adopt: Mastodon confusion vs Minds’ hybrid approach
- JRJoe Rogan
I think one of the problems that people have with, uh, whether any kind of decentralized, um, uh, app like yours or any other de- decentralized, uh, social media network is that people immediately go, "Oh, what do, what do I have to do to do this?" Like Mastodon. When people started using Mastodon-
- BOBill Ottman
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and you get on it, and you're like, "What is this? There's so many servers, and how do I know what to join, and what, what, what's going on here?" Like...
- BOBill Ottman
Yeah. So, well, Mines is different. Mines is actually not fully decentralized. We're a hybrid. So we run a centralized infrastructure, but we interface through delegation, delegated cryptographic event signing. We, we... That's happening in the background, but like, our app feels like a normal social media app. It's different. Mastodon, the way that that works is federated instances. So there's all of these different instances with different URLs, and there's like 20 people on each one, and you know. But there is sort of some interoperability between the instances, because the, y- you can subscribe to somebody on another instance from your instance. But it's not fully decentralized, it's federated. And the problem is that you don't own your identity. So if, if, if one of those instances goes down, you're screwed. Your, your stuff is, is gone. With... In, in Nostr, which is like an architecturally different setup, and there's other protocols similar to Nostr, but...... it doesn't matter if, if the website goes down. You just pop over to another one, upload your, your key and all your stuff is there. So, a- and that's why we like it, because it keeps us in check, because our users could, can now basically, if we fuck around, they'll bounce and they can take their stuff. And that's, you know, the... Because the fu- the social graph specifically is the key, because you spend a decade buil- you know, getting all these followers.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BOBill Ottman
It's your life. People spend their lives doing this, and then to be able to just get taken out by YouTube is so devastating and unethical. It's ridiculous.
- 18:51 – 24:32
Censorship, moderation, and Twitter under Elon: chaos, free speech, and “hate” framing
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it's really creepy too, because many of the things they took people out for have turned out to be true. Like, there was a lot of things that they were labeling as disinformation or misinformation, which are 100% proven fact now, and people lost their accounts and there's no recourse. They're not gonna reinstate you, and that was a problem also with Twitter, that for the longest time, if you said anything that was contrary to whatever the narrative was, wha- whether the government was pushing it or the CDC was pushing it, like anything contrary to that narrative, you would get fucked.
- BOBill Ottman
(laughs) Yeah. And those people are not-
- JRJoe Rogan
And those narratives were also-
- BOBill Ottman
... they're not back though. I will... I think Twitter's making way more progress than everyone else. And I'm, look, I'm ultimately an Elon fan, I'm rooting for him. I think it's vastly improved, but there's chaos currently underway at Twitter.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, sure.
- BOBill Ottman
The, uh, and, and those people have not all been let back on, and I, I don't really understand why.
- JRJoe Rogan
So who hasn't been let back on?
- BOBill Ottman
The people that we don't know. The people who's random Joe Schmoe posting a COVID study, like has he been let back on? All the thousands of people that got banned, like, it seems-
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, I think he essentially let back on everyone who didn't do anything illegal. So-
- BOBill Ottman
Not, not Alex.
- JRJoe Rogan
Not Alex. Yeah, that's true.
- BOBill Ottman
Why?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, well, that's a personal opinion of Elon's, which I don't agree with at all.
- BOBill Ottman
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BOBill Ottman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Because they let Andrew Tate on.
- BOBill Ottman
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know? It's like-
- BOBill Ottman
Yeah, it doesn't mean that he's endorsing Alex to let him back on.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. It doesn't. I mean, because there's a lot of people that are back on that are, you know, they didn't make that one specific mistake that Alex made, but they've said some horrific shit.
- BOBill Ottman
But the mistake that a-... The reason Alex was banned was because he confront... It was actually for something he did off Twitter. So he confronted this journalist, Oliver Darcy-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BOBill Ottman
... in a line at some event. And he was, you know, being Alex Jones, sort of ranting at him.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BOBill Ottman
And then Twitter said, "Oh, you're bullying this guy and this is, like, not acceptable behavior, so you-"
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BOBill Ottman
"... so you're gonna leave." But then when, I remember, you know, the exchange with Elon and whoever it was that was asking, asking, it was that he hadn't been let on because of the Sandy Hook stuff.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BOBill Ottman
Which is not the same. That's not even why he was banned.
- 24:32 – 30:40
Minds sues California (AB 587): mandated policies, undefined categories, and compliance burdens
- BOBill Ottman
That's- that's okay. And so, actually, so, um, we're at- we're suing California. We just filed this law 'cause the, uh, this, uh, complaint. They are trying to pass this social media law called AB 587, which requires... It's a censorship law. They're- they're- they require these policies on disinformation, misinformation, hate speech, and then they use- u- undefined. Use the words extremism and radicalization. There's no definitions, they don't require you to have a- a- a child exploitation material policy. But they do require you to have a policy on hate, which isn't defined.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BOBill Ottman
And so we're suing them with, um, with The Babylon Bee and- and Tim Pool.
- JRJoe Rogan
When did they start this, uh, when- when did they start trying to pass this?
- BOBill Ottman
It just went into effect in January.
- JRJoe Rogan
So it's now?
- BOBill Ottman
It's now. It's in.
- JRJoe Rogan
So if you live in California, what's the repercussions?
- BOBill Ottman
So it is... It's- it's targeted at social media companies.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- BOBill Ottman
So basically mandating that social media companies, um, have the- submit these policies, so we would have to- we would- they would force us to write a policy on hate speech and submit it to them, and then additionally, we- we would have to, on like a biannual basis, submit analytics about all of our moderation data, which honestly, we're already transparent about our moderation data, so that's- that's largely public anyway. We have a jury system, um, and- and we have in-house moderators. But the- the- it's- it's just- it's a huge burden. Like it's crazy that they would expect companies to submit all that and then have ar- these arbitrarily... Well, actually not arbitrarily, specifically chosen categories for policies that are clearly politically charged. And Newsom, like when he came out and announced this law, it was very, you know, "We have to stop hate on social media, and misinformation, and disinformation. Protect society. Protect democracy." No. You know, you're not protecting democracy by stopping free speech.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BOBill Ottman
That is-
- JRJoe Rogan
Because there's no- there's no checks and balances in place if something turns out to be accurate. Where then whoever put out that disinformation initially, y- like if someone, like if someone posts something like say masks don't work and they get banned off of Twitter, and say, "Oh, this is in response to the CDC's r-" But if it turns out that masks actually don't work, the CDC doesn't get punished, which is kind of fucking crazy. Because if they're the ones that are setting these guidelines and these guidelines turn out to be inaccurate and people get banned off of social media for arguing with these out- these- these guidelines, there's no repercussions. There's nothing... You know, they just... These people are fucked and there's no recourse.
- BOBill Ottman
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's nothing to do.
- BOBill Ottman
Yeah. Actually that's the policy that we do need. We need the policy for social- social networks and media companies to apologize and (laughs) -
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BOBill Ottman
... and fix their wrongs.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BOBill Ottman
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, and also like why wouldn't the CDC be punished then? Or shouldn't they be banned?
- BOBill Ottman
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Or shouldn't they be, like have a strike against them? But they're not. It's like (sighs) ... It's- it's really frustrating because you're dealing with narratives that are oftentimes 100% propaganda and they're not backed by science, they're not back- it's just like some things that people say. Like when Rachel Maddow was on- on television telling everybody that this vaccine stops the virus in its tracks. If you get vaccinated, the virus can no longer affect you, it can't affect anyone else. It stops and we can get out of this thing. Well, that's not fucking true at all. And that person s- there was no repercussion, other than public mockery, which continues to this day where, you know, whenever she posts something, people post that video, "What about this stupid?" And, you know, there's nothing other than that.
- BOBill Ottman
I know. They're not even inviting, um, the other side on to correct the issues. They're- they're certainly not, you know, correcting their errors and, you know. It's just not that hard to have- to admit you're wrong. I don't know.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BOBill Ottman
Maybe it is hard for... But people get into their own egos and they just can't handle it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, there's people that are beyond reproach and that's the problem or organizations that, you know... Like one of the things that's fascinating about Twitter now is they fact checked the Biden administration. So the Biden administration put out some tweets that were 100% horse shit and then underneath it, Twitter fact checked them, so they deleted the tweets. Which is glorious.
- BOBill Ottman
It is.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like that- that's amazing and that's never happened before.
- 30:40 – 44:08
Minds’ business model and ethics: memberships, non-surveillance ads, and revenue share
- JRJoe Rogan
How many users does Minds have now?
- BOBill Ottman
(laughs) Um, we are five million.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, that's great.
- BOBill Ottman
We actually had to take a little haircut because we, um, you know, and we're trying to be as honest as possible, because, o- basically, we had been counting that people who, you know, fail... Data is hard, and so people who had, like, tried to sign up were, in our data, showing as signed up, so, you know, back, backed it up a little bit. But the point being, we don't use any closed-source proprietary analytics tools. So, like, the temptation, when you're s- running a startup, trying to create an app, is to just go to the, you know, Silicon Valley display case of Google Analytics and Customer.io and all of these surveillance tool, uh, th- they're, and analytics tools that are very powerful and can give you very precise data about what's going on. But y- but we have refused to use any of those tools because you, when you u- put Google Analytics on your website, you are becoming Google. You are now part of Google's tentacles. And you're basically handing over all your, th- that user data to Google. And we just, like, our whole foundation has been fully open source, and just don't take shortcuts. And so, we're g- like, our growth path is, is healthy. It's happening. We're continually growing, but we're n- I'm not gonna, I, I don't care about the pace of growth as much as the quality. And so, you know, we built a whole da- Like, we do machine learning. We, we're, we're starting to do AI, but we're doing it in an open source way. So, like, in the AI wars right now, you have, like, open, quote unquote, "OpenAI," which isn't, you know, it's barely open. They don't share much of what's going on, and they shroud that in some sort of, like, "Oh, we're, you know, we need to protect you, and we need to not let this get out of control." Which maybe there's an el- element of truth to that. But then, there's a whole other part of the AI world, like with Stable Diffusion and, and Stability and, we're, all, it's all open source, and it's being done in the open, and everybody has access because, you know... Do you, as you see all this AI stuff coming about you, do you think that you should... How, how do you feel about that? Do, do you think that you should be compensated in a way? Do you, do you have any, like-
- JRJoe Rogan
No.
- BOBill Ottman
... you mentioned copyright.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, no.
- BOBill Ottman
Do you have any issues with it?
- JRJoe Rogan
No. I mean, it, it is what it is. It, there's no stopping that.
- BOBill Ottman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, um, I saw it a long time ago because, uh, w- this company from Canada was the first one to take, uh, all of, um, I mean, they, they essentially got a database of all my, uh, audio recordings, which is fucking thousands of them. So, there's so many hours of me talking that they could easily have me saying a bunch of things. And so, they, uh, put together, like, um, this, this recording of me saying a bunch of things that I've never said, and me talking about some subjects and doing these things, and it was a conversation that I never had.
- BOBill Ottman
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And then, they did one with me doing a podcast with Steve Jobs, which was wild, and then now, there's a new one with me doing a podcast with Sam Altman, and, uh, it's a full podcast.
- BOBill Ottman
I listened to the beginning of that one, and I think they did it tastefully 'cause they made it very clear-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BOBill Ottman
... that it's not you.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BOBill Ottman
Yeah. Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
It's a proof of concept.
- BOBill Ottman
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's like they're showing that this is something that can be done, and there's no flavor to it, which is interesting. Like, there's no, like, if you and I are having a conversation, it's, there's f- fun. There's, like, there's laughing, there's d- d-, you know, there's, like, there's human interaction. This was just like, question, answer-
- BOBill Ottman
Yeah, and then it'd be like-
- JRJoe Rogan
... question, answer.
- BOBill Ottman
... and, and you would be like, "Oh, well, that's interesting."
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BOBill Ottman
I, i- and that just kept happening. You can tell.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BOBill Ottman
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. You can kinda tell, but for now, for now, I mean, they'll be able to sort of code your personality in the future and sort of gauge yours and maybe even have some, you know, some w- weird interactions that are just silly that you could s- sort of program in that make it look like personality and make it look like-
- BOBill Ottman
And you can do that now. You can, uh, prompt more, like, casual attitudes-
- 44:08 – 56:53
Open source as the antidote: licenses, transparency, and resisting “free speech but closed tech”
- BOBill Ottman
(sniffs) I mean, open sourcing is foundation, number one. Like, everyone's afraid... y- you know, look, there... (sighs) companies will say, "Oh, we couldn't share our secret, our secret sauce. You know, that's what- that's what makes us competitive."
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BOBill Ottman
But you... i- it's just- it's- it's just really not true. Like, you can use software licenses as well that restrict people, so you can still be transparent. Like, for instance, there's this- there's this really cool app called Uniswap, which is a decentralized, uh, protocol for crypto, so you can swap tokens with the... and there's no intermediary. And they used a time-delayed GPL. G- GPL is General Public License. It's one of the most famous, um, free software licenses, but they basically said, "Look, we want... we need to be transparent. No one takes anything in crypto seriously unless it's transparent and audited. Um, so we're gonna make it so that we're showing you all the code. You can make sure we're not spying on you, doing anything sketchy, but if you're a commercial entity, you cannot fork our code and compete with us for the next two years." So, they basically were giving themselves a head start. The license that we use is the, (smacks lips) GPL V3, which says that anyone can do whatever they- they can... and people do. Peo- there are other versions of Mines around the world, people running it and having a- their own social network. But if they make changes, they have to share those changes with the world. So, it's referred to as copyleft in kind of the copyright world. It's basically that... yeah, we're... y- you have to... it's sort of a pay it forward.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BOBill Ottman
I borrowed from you. I'm gonna use that to build my business. Yeah, I'm gonna sell it. I'm gonna make a ton of money, but, you know, the development that I did, I also have to share. And there's many others. I mean, there's even licenses that are way more restrictive, but still provide the transparency. There's ones that are just read-only. Like, "Listen, you can read- read this and see it, but you cannot touch it." You know, that would be a h- a step in the right direction for Facebook, but... and the thing is that they know about this power dynamic, because they do create tons of open source tools, like React. Angu- Ang-... Facebook created React, which is, like, one of the most popular JavaScript frameworks. And, you know, Angular was made by Google, and tons of databases and backend tools. These big tech companies do contribute a ton to open source, but they only do it on the stuff that, you know, are developer tools, 'cause they know that the developers will only use their stuff if it's open source. Developers are ne- are never gonna use something that they don't have control over. So, it's like this very intentional game that they're playing. Their main apps, they do not... they're not transparent about at all, but they know that they need the developer energy. (sniffs) So, you know, I think that they should just do it, and the- the- the great thing... even though the Twitter algorithm's not, (smacks lips) you know, there yet, I think that Elon is... when I saw that happening, I was just like, (sighs) "Finally." You know? It's like, one of the big guys dipped their toe in the water.
- JRJoe Rogan
But it really has to be someone like Elon, who's eccentric and i- i- insanely wealthy, who's willing to go out on a limb for $44 billion and overpay for a company, and then sort of, like, fucking throw it upside down.
- BOBill Ottman
But it's... y- you know, it's- it's working.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's working-
- BOBill Ottman
Yes, it is.
- JRJoe Rogan
... and it's... you know, besides all the people that, like, publicly decried that they were done, like, that's not real. Like, the- the reality is, like, they're- that's not really that important. The real important stuff is the mass amounts of humans that are constantly sharing information, and that seems to have gone up.
- BOBill Ottman
Yeah, I- I think that Elon also just changed the way that the billionaires act. Like, before him, you know, who's another billionaire that shit-posts memes?
- JRJoe Rogan
Nobody.
- BOBill Ottman
I mean, just... but that ha- don't underestimate, and I kn- you don't, but the fact that he did that, I- I think it sort of paves the way for other people up on his level to start being more real.
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you think so?
- BOBill Ottman
I hope so. I- I th-
- JRJoe Rogan
I think most of them are cowards, and they just don't have the courage to, like, be that wild.... and just really post things they think are funny. Like, when he pu- for me, my favorite one ever was the Bill Gates one, when he posted the photo of Bill Gates next to a pregnant man emoji, and it's like, "If you ever want to lose a boner real fast..."
- BOBill Ottman
And he has a specific, uh, beef with Bill Gates because he's shorting Tesla stock.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BOBill Ottman
Um, but yeah, exactly. I mean, y- they should. It's good for, uh, people like real things. People don't like fake things.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BOBill Ottman
Like, they should... Even if they were being, uh, sketchy and, like, manipulative about it, like, they should be acting real-
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BOBill Ottman
... because that's what people like. I saw Bezos, uh, tweeting. Bezos, I- I- I think he wants to come out of his shell. He was tweeting some s- like, a Barry Weiss article, which was weird.
- JRJoe Rogan
Interesting.
- BOBill Ottman
You know? Because Amazon, we j- we just ditched Amazon. We moved our whole operation over to Oracle because they're more committed to free speech.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- BOBill Ottman
Um, and, you know-
- JRJoe Rogan
Does Amazon censor?
- BOBill Ottman
I mean, they banned Parler.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, did they?
- 56:53 – 1:19:29
Twitter vs Substack: API costs, link blocking, and negotiation-as-platform-power
- BOBill Ottman
So, um, you know, I, I, I just, w- the, the- just while it's in my head because I, I forgot to bring it up before about Substack. So Elon actually accused them of stealing Twitter data.
- JRJoe Rogan
What do you mean?
- BOBill Ottman
And, and that was part of his justification for, um, blocking them.
- JRJoe Rogan
How did they steal Twitter data?
- BOBill Ottman
So, I mean, th- that's a very strong word that he used. And I don't know the d- all the details but, but what, what I know is that so Substack is largely powered by Twitter's API, which means, you know, API, application programming interface, it's basically a, you know, a d- a developer toolset so that websites can integrate with API. Twitter AP- you know, you see log in with Facebook, log in with Twitter.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- BOBill Ottman
You have Tweets embedded-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- BOBill Ottman
... in, in Substack. Like, tho- the, the API is how you facilitate that. And Twitter, you know, has been, uh, locking down its API because it's been, quite frankly, probably costing them millions of dollars 'cause, you know, when, when Substack makes an API call to Twitter, that costs Twitter money. So Elon's perspective is, "Okay, we're hemorrhaging money..." I'm, I'm speculating, I don't wanna speak, put words into his mouth, but I think that he's locking down the API because it's costing them so much money to be supporting all these websites that aren't paying them.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BOBill Ottman
So, you know, Substack, the authentication and sign-up uses Twitter, the social graph and recommendations uses Twitter. So Elon's Tweet said that, you know, they've been trying... They've, they've basically been abusing our API to bootstrap their own social network and... 'Cause Substack just came out with a social feed called Notes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- BOBill Ottman
And-
- JRJoe Rogan
How does that work?
- BOBill Ottman
It's pro- it's just a news feed.
- JRJoe Rogan
Can you show me that? I wanna see what it looks like. What, uh, Substack Notes. 'Cause I just heard about this.
- BOBill Ottman
I don't, I don't wanna stain this table, I just built some coffee. All right, go ahead.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, it's good to stain it. It's good, it gives it life. This is a n- relatively new table. The old one we had at the old studio was covered in stains. Uh, Introducing Substack Notes. Unliking the- unlocking the power of the subscription network. And so... What is this?
- BOBill Ottman
So there, there's a screenshot down there, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm. You have to sign in, you motherfucker.
- BOBill Ottman
No, just do Continue. Yeah, there it is.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- BOBill Ottman
So it's just a news feed.
- JRJoe Rogan
So it looks exactly like Twitter.
- BOBill Ottman
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Literally. It has a heart, it has comments and it has, uh, some sort of a repost but it's not a square, it's a circle. Um, it's basically a copy of Twitter. Just like, uh, the Truth Social network is, right?
- BOBill Ottman
Yeah. And so, so to, to dig into that a little deeper, like, so you know Marc Andreessen?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm. Love the dude.
- BOBill Ottman
Brilliant guy.
- JRJoe Rogan
I love that dude.
- 1:19:29 – 1:21:08
AI content flood: bots, deepfakes, and the coming authenticity crisis
- JRJoe Rogan
When you see, like, someone will post something, and then you'll see someone has a very specific response, and then if you take that specific response and Google it, you'll see hundreds of verbatim, exact responses from people that look like real people. You go to their site. There's a picture of them smiling. There might even be a picture of them with some fucking AI-generated kids.
- BOBill Ottman
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's- it's really weird. When you, you look at someone's feed, like I've, I've, uh, looked at someone posting something controversial and then looked at someone who sa- has what seems to be, like, "Boy, this is a suspicious take." And then I'll go to their page, and it's all suspicious takes. Like, that is- And occasionally, the retweets and the retweets of things that go along with the narrative that they're posting, but it seems, like, very calculated. And then you realize, like, this- this person has 30 followers. This is not even a real person.
- BOBill Ottman
Yeah, human detection is- is so key now.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- BOBill Ottman
Because there's gonna be, you know, armies of bots, AI bots, fully autonomous, are coming. They're mostly here, and we just n- You know, they're not going away.
Episode duration: 2:52:49
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Transcript of episode AEOWKY0MCR4
