YouSaid · the spoken record

Kate Starbird

lines on the record: 60
first: 2025-01-06
most recent: 2025-01-06
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“And this stuff is right now, it looks like it's only picking up Steam, frankly. I mean, you've got Mark Andreessen going on, Joe Rogan, I think it was last week and explaining how NGOs like yourself are not really NGOs, but they're really, you're doing the work on the behalf of the government, and this is just a clever way to get around it. So a lot of people who had even hadn't heard of this stuff before are getting to hear about it now. Just one last question on this. Do you do your work differently now? Do you not put things in email that you used to put in email or do you use encrypted stuff where you weren't using encrypted stuff? Or does it frankly make you reconsider some work you're doing saying, I don't want to touch that one that's too, that's going to trigger the Jim Jordans of the world. Maybe I'll study something else instead.”
2025-01-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Studying online bad behavior was hard. It's going to get harder in Trump 2.0 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That we had censored 22 million tweets, an absolutely false claim, complete utter and total nonsense. And when all of the documents and things were turned over, that was again borne out. We had made there was absolutely no evidence of this anywhere. The insinuation and innuendo alone, the accusation was enough to spark the investigation. And even after the investigation, all of the documents that were turned over, all of the many, many hours of testimony, even after that showed absolutely no evidence of those core claims, they didn't say whoops sorry guys, we got it wrong. They moved the goalposts and made a different accusation. And this is why when I make the connection back to McCarthyism and to that history, I think it's really important that the public understand and that those who are going to be targeted understand that you don't get to exonerate yourself because this is not actually an investigation.”
2025-01-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Studying online bad behavior was hard. It's going to get harder in Trump 2.0 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I've been this is now in March, it'll be two years, right? I've been under these investigations and lawsuits. And so I think I have maybe more, you know, this is a normal for me now. And what I really want to get across, though, is I spend a lot of time reading history these days, reading transcripts from the House in American Activities Committee, watching the dynamics of what happened and the historical parallels are right there. Nothing that we did at Stanford Internet Observatory, the conspiracy theory that was spun up about our work just to clarify for your listeners who may be unfamiliar is that we were created as some sort of government cutout by the deep state to deliberately censor right-wing speech in an effort to rig the election. That is the conspiracy theory that was spun about our work that led to investigations. The only justification, the impetus for the investigation was two reporters from the Twitter files sitting and misleading the committee under oath with written testimony under oath that said things like”
2025-01-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Studying online bad behavior was hard. It's going to get harder in Trump 2.0 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It is, but I want to again harken back to history here, right? This is what happened under McCarthyism. This is what happened with the House in American Activities Committee. There were efforts to turn certain people into scapegoats, into cautionary tales so that institutions would back down. So Georgetown, I think, really has a strong sense of that history and being in DC, I think helps. I think other institutions need to see the writing on the wall and recognize that we were, again, canaries in the coal mine, but if somebody wants to come after you, I think it's very important to understand that no amount of documents that you turn over are going to exonerate you. Nothing that you actually have done is really the subject of the inquiry. It's a propaganda campaign to frame you, to smear you, to make you untouchable as in an effort to deter other people from continuing to do their work as well. And I think it's very important, you know, while my own personal feeling on this,”
2025-01-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Studying online bad behavior was hard. It's going to get harder in Trump 2.0 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, I think me personally is not the problem here, right? It's the American public that's going to suffer. It's children who are going to get sick because RFK Jr. continues to promote discredited lies about vaccines causing autism. It's people who are going to be subject to the same kind of kangaroo court investigations that I was in an effort to silence them and silence their work. And again, just to be clear, we experienced this, you know, we were perhaps the canary in the coal mine in the context of the Jim Jordan investigations, but climate scientists went through a very similar rigamarole back in 2012, prior to the internet, so it got a little bit less attention. But the intent was to discredit their work, to set it back. And it did. It did set it back.”
2025-01-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Studying online bad behavior was hard. It's going to get harder in Trump 2.0 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And when you say us, that's you were previously a research director at Stanford Internet Observatory. Us, you And we can get into this too. But Stanford's Internet Observatory was created post 2016. online interference from folks like Russia. You did a lot of work there. Alex Stamos did a lot of work there. That institution is mostly shut down now. They sort of debate that. But basically you didn't receive a renewal. Alex Stamos left. It seems like they don't have any more funding.”
2025-01-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Studying online bad behavior was hard. It's going to get harder in Trump 2.0 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exposing wrongdoing or whatever used very classic storytelling tropes in which I was some kind of villain and they were some kind of hero and they were exposing us and, you know, and it's all substack subs and that's basically what we're confronting now.”
2025-01-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Studying online bad behavior was hard. It's going to get harder in Trump 2.0 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, to be clear, I don't think they're actually angry about me or my work. They're angry about propaganda campaign that has spun our work into something that was advantageous for people who wanted to maximize their chances in the 2024 election. So if you're studying election integrity, as we did in 2020, and we detailed the mechanics of the big lie quite extensively in a 200-page report, that report pissed off a lot of people who were involved in spreading the big lie. So, you know, there's a quotes about how, you know, if you have good enemies, it means you've stood up or something in your life and you're doing meaningful work. And that's how I choose to think about this. One of the dynamics of the propaganda campaign about our work turned us into what I think of as like characters in a cinematic universe, right? They needed some villains to position themselves against to rally their base. And so the people who made claims about our work pretending to be like.”
2025-01-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Studying online bad behavior was hard. It's going to get harder in Trump 2.0 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You are interested in this stuff, you have probably heard Renee talk about it at some point or seen her quoted. She's done a lot of good work and she's been helpful to journalists like me who want to figure this stuff out. It's also raised, put you on the, I guess it's also raised your profile among people who are really angry at you. As you've described it, your work has already generated harassment, threats, to congressional investigations, to lawsuits that name you specifically. One of those lawsuits is spearheaded by Stephen Miller, who is about to re-enter Washington as an important policy advisor for Donald Trump. On top of that, you've got Trump allies, like, sorry for the long intro. Trump allies like Jim Jordan, Mark Andreessen, and Elon Musk are all making noises about punishing the, quote, censorship industrial complex. And my understanding is, and part of what they're talking about is punishing you. We might get into the weeds on this, but big picture, can you explain to our list?”
2025-01-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Studying online bad behavior was hard. It's going to get harder in Trump 2.0 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“how that might be changing it's a chat with Renee Doresta who studies this stuff and who is facing very real world repercussions herself about her work she's been sued she's been harassed by Congress and as we discussed I think those repercussions are likely to get more severe under the next Trump administration And yes, we also talk about Joe Rogan, whether the podcast in the late fall of 2024. But this is a different Joe Rogan discussion than the ones you're used to, so I saved it for the end. And now here's me and Renee De Resta. Nate Oresta is an academic and researcher who specializes in online abuse. She now works at Georgetown School of Public Policy. She is also the target of powerful people who want to punish her for her work and those people just got a lot more powerful.”
2025-01-06 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Studying online bad behavior was hard. It's going to get harder in Trump 2.0 · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT