Censorship Resistant

the Market Disruptors podcast. We like to talk about disruptive technology and people who are constantly disrupting the status quo finding new solutions to old problems. And today we have a new guest that I'm super excited to talk about, Ben Swan. He has been in the media for over a decade or maybe even twenty years, pushing media. However, he noticed that the way media was going was not good. It was there was a lot of fake media coming out.

They're trying to sensationalize headlines, bearing stories and really just not bringing the truth. So he started as own company called Truth and Media to bring the truth and he's been doing a great job. And he's and he's found a way to use blockchain technology to help bring even more true to the space to the space, and so I'm super excited to talk to him today, so let's get right into it. Cool. So, hey everyone, thanks for

tuning in. I am here today with Ben Swan. He's been in the news and media for like the last decade, asking tough questions, really looking for the truth and and disrupting the traditional media you know that we all consume. And and now he's harnessing the technology blockchain technology to even further disrupt and the kind of helped fight censorship, protect privacy, build trust. Uh. And I'm super excited. So

welcome Ben Mark. I might have summed it up good enough, but why don't you give everyone listening just a better idea of who you are, what you're doing, and maybe why you're so passionate about it. Sure, absolutely so. UM. Twenty years I've been a broadcast journalist. UM. Started out as a as a news photographer UM, living in Texas and New Mexico, my hometown of El Paso. UM, and then spent, like I said, twenty years kind of moving

up the ranks. I've been a morning anchor of Eurouchief, primetime ancor iver, work for NBC, CBS, Fox News, most recently CBS News in Atlanta. UM. Have you know won tons of awards. I've just kind of run the gamut

of what it means to be a broadcast journalist. UM. But I've also found throughout my career that there's an enormous amount of censorship that takes place as a journalist in the United States UM and really got tired of it, UH and saw an opportunity a year ago, a little over a year ago, about a year and a half ago, to move completely independent with the help of a couple

of cryptocurrencies, um dash and smart cash. So I was actually able to do that, moved it offline away from these networks, and then realized beyond that the the opportunity to combine the power of blockchain and cryptocurrency with the need for independent media and to make those two things kind of coexist. And to me, they're they're an incredible um synergy between those two things, simply because UM, disruption in the news media has to come from independent media.

It's never gonna come from corporate media. There is so much disruption being created on the financial side in terms of blockchain right now, in cryptocurrency, and so these two forces together I think are actually kind of married in terms of intent and idea, and so the question is how do we how do we make it all fit together? And that's what we're working to do. Great. So, Um,

I like to talk about disruptive things. The channel is called market disruptors, and I believe there's a lot of opportunity by going against the status quote and I love this.

You know, new things are created and kills the old way, and you're obviously disrupting the market or the media industry as you said, it kind of has to be independent now having't been in it for twenty years now, Um, this evolution, right if we've seen have you seen this evolution to where things are getting more controlled, more censored, And that's kind of where you're acting out on that. Yeah, so so obviously you know things have been somewhat censored

for a long time. But something pretty incredible happened in uh the you know, with the with the advent of the internet, but then especially with social media. Really about two thousand twelve to two thousand sixteen, there was about a four year period where an incredible quantum leap took place in terms of journalism. And a lot of people don't even recognize this happened because they think you know, social media came along, sure, and and newspapers kind of

died off more. But what really happened, what's super significant here, is that from two thousands twelve to two thousand and sixteen, social media moved away from just being a way to connect with friends, and it became a platform, um kind of an unprecedented platform for information to be spread um through without the need for broadcast journalists, without the need for traditional media, and it became a way for independent

media to reach audiences. And because of that, over the last four years, what we saw from two thousand twelve and two thousand and sixteen was this kind of growth in that area. And so now since and all, there has been an incredible pull back by those who are in powered by government entities, by NGOs, by think tanks, by political operatives, by media itself to say, we're going to get control of that again, and we're going to

heavily censor anyone who does not fit our narrative. And so what they've been doing since really the summer of last year especially, there's been an unprecedented purge on Twitter, on Facebook, on YouTube to to cleanse these platforms of anyone who is not fitting that mainstream narrative, and a lot of people think, you know what they've heard about it. They say, oh, yeah, I've heard that Google censors conservatives.

Well that's true, but Google, since there's a lot more than conservatives, Google is censoring anybody who is not fitting that mainstream narrative. Facebook is doing the same thing. They're working with the Atlantic Council, and that's been really hyped up over the last year, where the Atlantic councils coming in and saying, you need to remove these groups, remove

anyone who's saying these things. It's fascinating, Mark, because all of this has been done under the guise of we've got to protect elections, right, we have to have have safety for the electoral process in the United States. But what is actually happening is by purging all these independent voices from the right, from the left, libertarians, anti war activists, Green party folks, everyone who's getting censored, who's being taken off is anyone who actually could provide a counter narrative

to what the mainstream says as they approach elections. And so it's Facebook, by removing people, has done more to actually affect the outcome of elections than any you know anything they claim that they're trying to stop. Yeah. Wow, there's so much here to unpack it. We could go

in for so super deep. But it's almost like they got kind of caught off guard and information got decentralized with the Internet, which was good, and then they realized like, oh man, we're losing power, and it was kind of this knee jerk reaction and as you said, write their de platform and everybody and not just left or right, but anyone not owing that that line, right, Um, And

we're really see in that. I I say, to understand bitcoin or essentialized cryptocurrencies, you have to understand a bunch of things and money and you know, politics, all these things. But one of them is like philosophy. So the philosophy of freedom of speech. Why do you think that's so important? Well, look, I think when you get down to what the founders essentially tried to create, right when when the documents were

first drafted, they gave birth to this nation. Um, there's a reason why freedom of speech and freedom of religion and freedom from government imposing religion, um, are all kind of fitting together in this this first Amendment to the Constitution, Right, this first right in our Bill of Rights, UM. And and there there's a reason why freedom of speech and freedom of the press are both included together because the press was not And this is important for your viewers

to understand. The freedom of press was not about UM a a profession and a lot of people have been referring to it as such lately, and it's not true. UM. You have to remember that that Thomas Payne Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin was a professional journalist and owned newspapers. UM. Thomas Payne was not Thomas Paine was a guy who started writing leaflets and pamphlets and handing them out everywhere,

but saw himself as a journalist. Some people say he was a propagandist, but he began to to share ideas and concepts through writing. And so the idea of freedom oppress and freedom of speech fits together, not because it's a profession, but because you have the written word and the spoken word both being protected as your God given right UH to use. And so what I think what we're seeing right now is this incredible crackdown on ideas

and on speech that is not accepted speech. There's a big difference between UM having speech that is considered appropriate or you know, um, um, not hateful and accepted speech. And so what we've done, we've kind of brought everything under under one banner and it's all now you have to have acceptable speech and acceptance speech, and anything you'll notice that does not fit mainstream narratives, suddenly it is not acceptable speech in this country. I mean, you're not

allowed to talk about vaccines at all. Like I have a lot of people and I've done a lot of stories on vaccines and scientifically, you know, showing this this very simple idea, right, which is that not all vaccines are safe for all people in all quantities, at all at all times. How dare you That's a very simple concept, right, Yeah, And yeah, when you when you say that, that is

considered to be dangerous. That's a word that's used a lot now, dangerous, um, And the idea that you are pushing ideas that are a danger to society, a danger to the public, that can harm other people with your words. Um. It is a very dangerous time in reality, uh, to to speak any kind of truth to power, because everything

is deemed as being a danger a threat. Yeah, it's it's almost if I mean, they just want everyone to be just the sheep right where they're just seeing one thing, and if you say anything out of line, then it then it disrupts them. It it agitates them, and it makes them angry. Um. And I guess that is disturbing the peace, right if everybody could just be thinking it brainwashed, right,

And I guess it keeps the peace. And I think, uh so, I guess there's both sides, right, I mean, I think I we both agree that having open dialogue and discussion is really what brings that, but they think

everyone could just think the same thing. But what I'm really bothered with is then once, once you're especially with loss of privacy and fear of being censored, and people think, well, I have nothing to hide, I don't care, but there's always gonna be some one on the other side of the table, And then what happens is we censor what we start saying, and then we start censoring what we think. Right then all the creativity dies. I mean that's a

big problem. Yeah, it absolutely, it's a big problem. And and creativity dies, honest dialogue dies. Accountability dies. Um. And as a journalist, you know, the number one responsibility that the journalist has is to bring accountability to those who are in power. That is the main thing that we do. Unfore we're supposed to do. The main thing we do now is we actually defend those who were in power against criticism from the public. Um. And that's what what

journalism in America has turned into. It has turned into and advocating for those who are in power um and defending them against criticisms or questions from those who are not in power. And our exact charge is supposed to be the opposite, the fourth estate, that is journalism is supposed to be diametrically opposed to that. We're supposed to be the ones who challenge those who are in authority and make them accountable. And free speech allows for accountability.

It demands accountability from those who are in power. And that's not what we're seeing anymore. Yeah. Now, we can talk about the political side of this all day, but jumping into the tech side of it a little bit, um, Like you were saying before, social media really kind of

helped this escalate and evolved pretty rapidly. Um and and and it's a tool, right, So tools can be used for good or bad um And in this case, it's it's a tool for us to get information out there, but it's also a tool for the powers that be,

whoever they are right to actually impose their will on us. Um. And we're seeing that, right, Like you're talking about the d platforming and the censoring and whatnot, but we're also seeing, um, you know, instances where now Facebook has been accused of using their AI to actually mold people and get them to act and feel certain ways. Right, Yes, absolutely, And

so that's that's pretty interesting. Uh. I know there was a book Cass Sunstein wrote this book, um uh Nudge where he talked about maybe we should have this way where we can just kind of nudge people along in the direction that we want. Um, that's really scary when you think about that. Well, and and and the nudge is no longer being being used anymore, right, which is because because so on the tech side, right, you had a lot of independent media who came along with the Internet.

So the early two thousands especially was the time when a lot of people were creating blogs, creating websites, going into chat rooms having discussions that were outside the kind of the mainstream norms. And then but the problem was there was no good delivery method to get that information from independent journalists to the public, and and social media had no idea that it was about to become that

delivery system. Mark Zuckerberg and the guys who were creating Facebook never thought this was going to become the largest media company in the world, right, which is a platform for the public to be able to access information. There's actually a very interesting memo that was put out. It was a fundraising memo put out by Media Matters for

America after the election. What they found in this memo was that after they did some analytical dives, uh, they found that the public number one was no longer being influenced by broadcast media, that the broadcast journalists in America did not sway the election the way they thought they thought that they would. Number Two, they found that social media became the platform by which people we're sharing information, you know. Um. Thomas Woods likes to say that the

journalists in America were the gatekeepers right for years. They would stand there and say, if you want access to information, you gotta come through us to get it. The problem was that with the Internet and especially now with social media, he says, the walls fell down, the gates were still there.

But the walls fell down, and so the journalist still stand in front of the gates, but everybody's just going around them like this on the around the side and saying I don't need you to get the information I want. So what's happened in the last especially two years, has been a doubled effort to say we're going to take back those social media platforms because that is where conversations are happening that shouldn't be happening. That's where UM information

is being shared that shouldn't be shared. And so if you look at what's what's really going on on those sites in I want to say November of last year, eight hundred pages were purged off of Facebook in one day, eight hundred pages completely across the political spectrum. Pages like the Thought Project, the Anti Media UM, Conscious Resistance, anybody who was was saying things outside that mainstream narrative UM. And so what we're also seeing, and this is pretty

interesting on the tech side, is Facebook's rapid decline. Now, if you look at Facebook's Q four numbers for last year, they started jumping up and say look, no, no, look it's good news. We're not declining. But the reason that they didn't decline was because they they suddenly for the first time, lumped Facebook users, Instagram users, What's App users, and Messenger users all together into one pool and said, well, those are our Facebook users. And that's not that's not true.

Facebook as a platform is actually in decline right now because so many people who were once getting information there can't find it anymore and so they're not even bothering to log onto Facebook. Yeah. Now, um, being a free

market uh thinker, maybe a free market hopeful. Um. You know, there's different viewpoints of this, But what would you say to people who would say that, well, Facebook and Twitter are private platforms and they're not the woman and if they don't want to have that person on the platform, and that's okay, what do you say about that? I'm

totally okay with that. I agree with that. Actually, um So from a free market standpoint, I believe that companies like Facebook, um absolutely do not have to have anyone on their platforms. Now, there are some who will argue that because they are not private companies in actuality, they're publicly traded companies, they don't have that right right. They've they've actually, um, they forfeit that right. When they begin to become a publicly traded company, and I think there's

probably an argument to be had there about it UM. However, I also believe this that that companies like Twitter and Facebook UM try to use their position once they have gained an amassed a position to get government behind them to impose new rules that won't apply to them or that would prevent barrier to entry to competitors. So in the free market, and that's what we have to watch

out for. In the free market, UM, companies like Facebook and Twitter will ultimately lose because they choose UM to take positions that are unfortunately UM the public doesn't like, and then their user base doesn't like, which means they create the opportunity for a competitor where there wasn't room for a competitor prior to that. So I think that's

going to happen now. The problem is watch out for when you see Mark Zuckerberg going and writing op eds like he did recently where he says, UM, we really need governments to take have more control over the internet, more control over social media, and even offering to give up portions of his control to government. It's his way of saying, I need to prevent their too. You know that that create that barrier to entry for anybody who's going to be a competitor for me in the future.

I think that's what's happening. Yeah, definitely, and we see that across every industry. Really they're using it's it's chrony capitalism where they're using the government to to build those modes for themselves. Now, like you said, they're public companies. Also, there's a lot of government uh, you know, they're working with the governments, you know, with an Amazon having servers with the c i A, you know, potential uh Silicon Valley funds come you know, from the CIA whatever going

into Facebook. So then then you can also argue that as well, right, because that you know, what do you think about the slippery slope that they may be setting up for themselves. Right, So let's say that they're if they're a platform, and they're a platform, and they're just like, hey, all we are as a platform and we don't we're not responsible for it's on there. Right now, they're taking a position of Okay, it's up to us to be a do good or we're gonna police this. But then

if they're going to take that responsibility. Then they have to take the responsibility for the bad that comes with that.

Do you think they're a slippery slope there, Well, there definitely is, and and in reality I can't believe that based on the things that Mark Zuckerberg has set in front of Congress where he was asked if Facebook is a platform or a publisher, and of course they've always said that we're They're just a platform, They're not the publisher, and he basically repositioned the company in front of Congress into no, we're actually a publisher, like, we take responsibility

for everything that's being published on our site. Well, I'm so price that there has hasn't been a class action lawsuits brought against them, were serious lawsuits brought against him because of the fact that the moment you take that position, you're no longer exempt under section two thirty of the Communications Act in the US, which essentially means that you have protections legal protections as a platform from what publishers

put on your side. So every song that you know essentially has copyright issues that doesn't belong to the person who uploaded it, every video clip, every you know, spoiler from Avengers in game that ends up on Facebook. Um. Facebook is now legally liable for and financially responsible for. So it's it's incredible to me that there actually hasn't been a lawsuit brought against Facebook yet. I'm shocked that there hasn't been. I'd be shocked if there weren't one.

Because Zuckerberg has repositioned the company. Twitter has done the same thing, jack Over. Twitter has taken the same position that they're not so much a platform as they are the publisher, and I think it's a very dangerous place that they put themselves. Yeah, it's definitely gonna be interesting to watch. Um could be could be their demise. I I like to look at things like, you know, things happen today and kind of imagine like where that goes

in the future. Now, Um, so this is kind of this evolution that we're talking about and gidness to where we are. Um. But now there's a new technology that's coming out to disrupt things as well, right you you mentioned you you're starting to use that with dash and

and whatnot. So tell me about what you think is happening now, how how this new technology, blockade of technology is going to disrupt now what we have which has already disrupted the media industry, right, absolutely so, so in terms of of blockchain and cryptocurrency has already created disruption within financial spaces clearly, and that's been the case for a long time. Bitcoin was making creating disruption and cryptocurrency was creating disruption long before the most Americans even knew

what it was. Right, it's only at the point where it begins to become kind of known to the masses and have mass appeal that it's too late to to for those who are against it to recognize the impact that it's happened. So then now everyone's just trying to catch up to it um and maybe even in some cases co opted. But what we've found is that one of the biggest hurdles that have been set up through this process of consolidation of media and consolidation of of

platforms has been the defunding of constant creators. So if you're a constant creator and you have Google Ads being served to your website, um, they're not paying you anything for it, and Google can set those rates. We're gonna give you, you know, a couple sins per CPM per thousand people who come to your site, So you make no money on it, and they essentially run you out of business by doing that. Facebook does the same thing

YouTube on YouTube. If you have a channel and you're creating content, they suddenly go through and start demonetizing your different UM stories that you put up or or different videos that you put up, and they demonetize them for you. So you know, there has been an incredible crackdown. Facebook and Google together control about of all the ad market on the Internet. That's an in incredible idea just in and of itself, and so you have to look at, well, then, how do we as the public, how do we as

journalists UM get funded? How do we find a sustainable funding model? And so what I found was by partnering with Dash, the current cryptocurrency Dash and also the cryptocurrency smart Cash, through their treasury system, was able to actually fund the content that we were creating. And what we found was we really kind of walked away with a a sensor proof um AD proof system for funding our content.

What's also interesting is when a lot of those major purges took place on Facebook last year, I was not hit with them. The reason I wasn't hit with them was because the algorithms that Facebook was using to purge a lot of these sites. They would look at them and say, oh, if you have a website and you're sending people off of Facebook in order to go to your website, you now are going to be purged because

this now violates our new terms of service. Well, in our case, it didn't hit us because we didn't have to send people away to sites where they were getting paid because we had our sponsors who were supporting us. So we found a fantastic method of doing that in the past. And that's why as we've looked forward into this new project work that we're trying to create, we're actually because let me just say this, when I started doing this, I was the first journalist to actually fund

independent content through cryptocurrency. And as I did it, all of a sudden, dozens of other independent journalists began turning to these cryptocurrencies and asking, hey, can you guys fund us as well, and can you support what we're doing. Well. The problem is for both Dash and smart cash, their cryptocurrency systems, their treasuries are not designed. They're not built to actually do that. They're not built to support independent media.

There's they're built to support the coins through marketing and so what I you know, I was talking with my team and we said, well, maybe the answer is taking what they've done in terms of their doubt, their decentralized autonomous organization, and let's create one specific to independent journalists. Let's create a doubt for them. Let's create a system by which users and viewers can actually vote on proposals. Um, content creators can create proposals and independent content can be created.

That doesn't make you reliant on Facebook and Google to decide whether or not you're worthy of getting funding. Very interesting. I want to I want to know more about that, but I want to ask just one of the questions. First, you talk about we've seen you know, Julian Osange and wiki leaks getting paid in in bitcoin right when they were cut off from all their sources. So we've been seeing this uh happening. Um, well let's let's go. We'll

jump right into it. So you're talking about a way to kind of build out on that right to get more content funded through that and using like a dow right. So there's uh, the coin, the project itself is then having some sort of creation inflation or whatever that it can pay for that media is that we're talking about. So, so what what we're looking at doing is creating. Basically, it's a three tiered system. It's a seven over the top channel called ice media UM that has original content

let's created on it. There's a secondary channel system similar to YouTube that would pick up people who are being purged from these other sites so they can be content creators and they can monetize that however they choose to.

But recognizing that a lot of content creators because one of the tactics that's being used is to drive away advertisers from them, UM, we would actually create a treasury system through an s t O and we would create a treasury system that would allow basically a funded treasury UM that our users can then vote on proposals. So then content is created and it's generated, and then through voting on proposals, it creates an economy where people are

are actually using that tokenized economy. Got it. So, as a content creator, especially one that's been d platform, that could come over to that platform, start creating content and then somehow tap into add revenue or something from that treasury to get paid for the content that I'm creating. Exactly, ad revenue and direct funding. So you could say, for instance, hey, I here's some content I've created in the past. I

want to create. Let's say, uh, I want to create a esodic series at details and I don't know whatever it might be. Um, you know, it could be something on us involvement in other countries and interfering in their elections. It could be a documentary, it could be short form videos. I want to just create a short form video explaining to people the Bill of Rights and how it works. Could be anything, right, What you would do is you create your proposal. You'd submitted to the community, and the

community as a whole. That's why it's decentralized. Community as a whole will actually vote on proposals and say we like this one. That's you know, their funding seems reasonable. That's what they're asking for in order to do it. Um, this is what it's gonna take. This is their experience, will fund it and they make it happen. Great. So, UM, I look at the Internet as um. It decentralized information. Like you said before, like the newspapers and the nightly

news was the gate keepers. But then, as you said, I've never heard that before. But basically the Internet tore the walls down, right, So information is everywhere, and you have, um, you know, somebody on a beach posting a picture on Instagram and now I know what the weather on the beach is like, right, So it's information is different today.

And I look at the blockchain. Teckn oology is doing the same thing to value where value we just think value as money and it's consentually controlled by the bank central banks, but really values a lot more than just money. There's lots of things that are value valuable, um, And so one of those that I've been excited about is information. And so really the main thing that really drew me

into bitcoin was censorship resistant. Obviously having censorship resistant money is a big piece of that, but what about censorship resistant information? Right? Well, and I think if you and I had had this conversation even two or three years ago, when the need was still there, it would have seemed more like a tinfoil hat conversation, right about creating censorship resistant information. People would say, you don't really need that.

But I think we're living in a moment when when many more people can now say, yeah, we absolutely do need it, because what they recognize is the all out assaults on um information that does not fit a certain narrative. And and what's fascinating to me over the years is I find that there, uh, there's a lot of overlap.

But there there are people within you know, groups of tens of millions who are in these different groups that have a belief system and they may think that one group is wrong about, you know, their belief in being anti war, but they believe in vaccines and and vaccine freedom excuse me, uh. And then there's another group who says, well, I don't want really talk about the vaccines too much, but I definitely think that our electoral process is broken

and right. And so there's a lot of different overlap within these groups. And the one thing that many of them will have in common is they believe that people should have the right to speak, just to have the right to to to be able to share information at all. Now, one of the lies that we're being told right now, and this is you know, if you tell a lie over and over and over, eventually it becomes the truth.

And one of the lies that were being told consistently by media and my politicians, uh, is that the biggest danger in our society is fake news or bad information, and so we we must have all stop bad information from being shared. But in reality, bad information has always been shared. It's always been a part of the discourse. You know, Untrue statements have always been a part of

the discourse. Actually, with the Internet, we have a much better tool for being able to decipher what is true and what is not true than we ever did in the past. If you go back to again things that our government has told us over the years, and and the way that we've gotten into wars, for instance, in the past, go back even as recently in recent history as the two thousand three invasion of Iraq, how much bad information where we as the public fed from media,

from politicians, and from the Bush administration about Iraq. Flash forward to two thousand twelve, two thousand thirteen, and when the Obama administration was attempting to do the same thing to go into Syria, the public as a whole was far more educated as to what they were saying and why it may not be true, and the fact that there were other counter narratives than they ever were in two thousand three. So the idea that the Internet is

actually made us dumber, more susceptible to being deceived more quickly. Um, kind of having the will pulled over our eyes. I think it's an absolute lie. It's not it's not true, and it's not backed up by facts. Yeah, that's that's crazy. And and uh, you know, the thought that we need

government to regulate. I guess what you would call morality right where it's like I have little kids, I see what happens at the playground at school, like they tell untruths, like they tell lies, like you know what I mean, and I have a good night school. They do the same thing. And in business and politicians, I mean it's

lies are just part of it. And and the government wants to take this role where they're gonna legislate or you know, somehow regulate that um as opposed to maybe in school they could just teach critical thinking, right, right, which would be far more effective. Right, It's far more effective to know how to be a critical thinker than it is to be able to detect whether or not you're being lied to on this one occasion, whether this

one lie is allowed to exist. And then and then the thing that you have, I guess what they want as a central body to determine what's true and what's not, which is where we're headed, which is where we're headed, which is really scary. So so back to that question, um, do you see the technology being used for censorship resistant information as well? Uh? Is that happening now or is that somewhere in the future it needs to happen. It's not.

I don't think it's quite happening yet. So there are a couple of important thing functions that we see blockchain having, uh in the project that we're trying to launch, And one of the things is to create, number one, a system by which whistleblowers can actually anonymously blow the whistle, which is something that's actually gone away completely in our society, even though we have federal laws that have been created, a Federal whistle Blower Protection Act that was created specifically

for the purpose of protecting whistleblowers. But when they end up dead, that all goes out the window, right or they go to prison anyways, right, you go when you share this information, and then all of a sudden you realize that under the Obama administration, we have more whistleblowers prosecuted than under every other president in history combined, and

that has only continued under President Trump. It has not changed, uh in the in the time that he's been in office, and so we have seen an unprecedented crackdown on whistle blowing. UM blockchain actually creates an ability for people to anonymously be able to share that information and spread that information, which, by the way, we as the public of a right to We have a as the public. I don't care if you call it classified or unclass I don't care

what you call it. If I am an American taxpayer, I have the right to know what my government is doing. I have that authority under the Constitution. The other thing is UM that this technology can do as well, is it can create a permanent record of a lot of information. So there is a lot of bad information that is presented by media on a regular basis. I know this as a journalist. There have been many times, and I'm all about being fact based the reports that I do.

If if your people, um, your viewers will look for Ben Swan reality check online. We do a lot of segments called reality check, done them for years. UM. I've done them with Fox and CBS and then them independently. And if you watch that content, what you find is we are incredibly fact based. It's not about opinions or emotions. It's about let's go to the facts of what the

facts say. And one thing I have found is that even having done that and and sourcing my information very precisely, Um, I am called a crazy person, right and a liar. And he's spreading this information. And you know, he claims that this has happened, and this has happened. I'll give you a quick example. So one of the things that I've shared is as I mentioned alluded to before about vaccines, is this idea that not all vaccines are safe for

all people in all quantities, at all times. That is provable, that is scientically provable fact, no question, um, and and and HHS recognizes that we have a thing in this country called Vaccine Court. It was started in and it allows for it bans essentially people from suing vaccine makers, but it allows for a process by which a vaccine court will look at vaccine injuries and then compensate families

of children who have been injured by vaccines. And that program has paid out something like four billion dollars since it was created. If if no vaccines have harmed anyone ever then that four billion dollars was either stolen or wrongfully given out by HHS. The reason it's important is because if you say that as as I have as a journalist, there are others who will come along and say, no,

he's lying, it's not true, he's denying vaccines. But they try to smear you with all these things, and it's very difficult to find that information if you as a parent or you as a viewer saying I want to know what's true, and somebody tell me what's actually true, especially right now with the Internet set up the way that it is with Google, who does, by the way, hide search results, who does bury search results? Who does create a system by which they flag certain subjects and

hide them where you don't find them. There needs to be a system that's created that creates a permanent record of a lot of these kinds of pieces of information so that they are readily accessible. They are permanent um and they are not tampered with, so that the public can have access to them and find them. Because we need a public that can debate and can critically think, and you're not going to get that without good information. Yeah, Yeah,

that's what I'm That's what I'm excited about. I know, you know, there's the stuff that my kids. The history that my kids are learning is different than the history that I learned when I was a kid, right, like the books are being rewritten, and so to have that immutable censorship information is good. And you know, unfortunately you have to be ready for the good and the bad because, um, it either is or it isn't immutable, and so you're gonna get good and bad. But maybe that's just okay.

We we should have the right to just tune out to stuff we don't like. I guess. Um, So I know you were using a platform called D two for a while. Are you still using that? So we have not been using it lately? Um? I have. I think it's a great platform, no problem with it. Um. It's different than the the platform that we're building in that it emulates YouTube very closely, and what we're creating really doesn't. What we're creating is more like a Netflix meets YouTube

meets a Treasury system. Your will your platform be censorship resistant? For absolutely as well? Absolutely it will be, UM, and we will have some very very basic terms of use. But what we're not going to do is be the group that stands over you and says, you know, can't you can't say things that other people deem is hateful. And I know that's difficult to say because we live in a time when you're immediately attacked for that. Right. Oh,

you you're encouraging violence, you're encouraging hate speech. That that those are all lies, those are all um concepts that are being manufactured right now to say, anyone who says anything that we disagree with is considered hate speech, and so it's all being lumped together. And what you do if when you were strategically doing that is you go and you find the most um extreme example possible and you say, well, no one would agree with this, right, we don't want to agree with this, And you say,

of course I don't want to agree with that. That's that's crazy. Good. Well, then you agree with us that we need censorship. No, we agree that that the most out landish things that call for violence against other people, um, that call for um um the death of other people, injury to other people. You know, I'm very libertarian. I believe in those two major principles. Do not hurt people, do not take their stuff, right, I believe in those

two things. However, I also believe that people have the right to speak, and and even if I disagree with them, in fact, I encourage people I disagree with to speak. Listening to someone else is the only way that you're going to be able to get them to listen to you, and having dialogue is the only way you actually change people's minds. This concept that we're going to take people who are on the fringes of society, who are the most lost right now in terms of their their worldview,

that we're going to fix that by suppressing them. Don't hear from them, pretend they don't exist. It never goes away. There's no time in history that has ever cured anything. The thing that changes people is to speak and to have dialogue, and to help people to see that maybe these thoughts I'm having don't make sense, and maybe it does make sense to go a different way. Yeah, And cast Suenstein's book Why Societies Need Dissent he wrote in

two thousan three, which is interesting. He wrote a book in nineteen three called Democracy and the Problem of Free

Speech where he thought we didn't need free speech. Then he wrote a book in two thousand three said why societies do need it, and he actually said he concluded he's a he's a University of Chicago law professor, which I'm not a big fan of his, but interesting that he said this where basically he says that the suppression of of speech is actually what causes this terrorism and things to come out because these they're being silenced and it's being suppressed as opposed to allowing it to come

out and kind of have that truly free society prohibits censorship enables free expression to occur. So he kind of came to that conclusion, which was interesting. So, um, I guess to recap this disruption, uh, I guess media information had kind of relatively remained unchanged up until the Internet days. The Internet changed it, as you said, toward the gates down. Now a sudden there's knee jerk reaction to like pull back control, which they're doing pretty good right now, the

platform and everybody wrapping everything up. But now we have a new technology that is about to change it again. Right, So that's kind of where we're at. Yeah, absolutely, I think we do. And I think the question, you know, it goes back to what you had said before about Um, you know these big companies and what do you do with them? Well, the thing you do is you just create an alternative to them, UM, and you create a better alternative. Right, It's not just like, oh, we're gonna

copy what they're doing. Let's create something that's better. Let's create something that that others haven't created before, UM, and let's create something that actually has value, not necessarily monetary value, but it has value to society, it has value to people. And so that's what we're doing. And and if people want to learn more about the project that we're doing, it's the name is a little complicated. It's ice Agoria dot com. I Sgori is actually a Greek word. It

means equality in the right to speak. It's one of the oldest words um in language dealing with democracy. It goes back to the ancient Greeks for sure, where ice i s e media. But if you go to isagoria dot com, you can read all about the project and what we're putting together, the team we're putting together, what

we're trying to do. But I think the main thing that we want is to help create a society UM that better represents what our founders tried to create a place where it's not a perfect society, but certainly a place where debate is fostered and not crushed or dissent um is allowed, because it makes all of us better. It makes those who are in power more accountable. It makes those who have the ability to to foster change,

it gives them the ability to foster that change. And I think that all of that can happen UM with a more open dialogue, which we're fast losing in this country. Yeah, that's awesome and I love it and I'm supporting it. UM. So where you mentioned the website, I'll link to that in the show notes. Where else can people keep up with you? Um for more on this? So after all this conversation, I'm on Facebook. You can find me on Facebook, so just search Ben Swan or Ben Swan Reality check, Twitter,

Instagram on those as well. It's at bin swan Underscore YouTube. And then we have a website which we haven't been doing a whole lot with lately, but we're gonna get it back up and running truth and Media dot com. We had a lot of archives on there of content we've done in the past, and it gives people on idea of the kinds of stuff that we do. Great, all right, I'll link to all that in the show notes,

and uh, everybody should check it out. And uh, like you said, even if you don't agree with the speech, you should support the right and the freedom to have that speech. So that's it. I hope you guys enjoyed. Hey, if you like this episode of the Market Disruptors Podcast, please help us take this to the top of the podcast charts. Just please do me a favor and rate, review and subscribe. Taking fifteen seconds to just leave a quick review goes a long way in helping us reach

more people and disrupt more markets. I really appreciate you listening, and I'll see you next time on the Market Instructors podcast