Roger McNamee of Zucked fame interviewed last night on Ruhle's 11th Hour program and supports the grifting theory and to solve the problem one has to go after the profiteering going on in social media
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this approach. It truly IS the best way to handle this. I personally have been trying to figure out how to utilize it for the US to battle the Republicans abortion ban which has made ectopic pregnancy a death sentence for young women. Your concepts are clear and inarguably sound! FOLLOW THE MONEY works pretty much 100% if you can live long enough (in a literal sense) to cripple the source! It has some very dark travails to it based on how motivated the actors/perpetrators are. Your concept is completely solid! It takes tremendous courage once on the path and I am not certain that people have the courage or intestinal fortitude for the fight.
One of the best things about it is that it follows the Most simplistic and successful methods of treatment…. The KISS method- Keep It Simple Stupid. Don’t turn it into rocket science.
We have started to see in America some of the lengths people will go to in order to protect their income streams. Just look as far as our President, the Epstein saga and how much money has been laundered INTERNATIONALLY & KNOWINGLY(with a wink & a nod) by Jamie Dimond’s own admission and the banks records in black & white), because the (so called) people involved were such “high revenue stream”producing clients that no one looked too closely to really see that children were being raped and women traded and sold to the highest bidder AND with impunity. I mean really, how closely do we really need to look at that big, beautiful, luscious stream that keeps growing and flowing and spilling into our pockets and bank accounts every single day after day after day?Huh? Somehow I don’t think that people are going to take kindly to having that luscious stream stopped. I mean just look how far it’s gone in the US? We have military on our streets in “the land of the free and the home of the brave”, we blow-up un- identified boats in the CARIBBEAN OCEAN with drones as though they are drug runners. We say they’re from Venezuela, but their size and lack of adequate propulsion or even fuel precludes the possibility they could even approach the US. Then once we blow them up, we make sure they’re all dead because (dead men tell no lies-I hear). You see, when we decide to allow the money to talk, it says some very rude and nasty things as if it has EVERY RIGHT IN THE WORLD and then everyone hears the silent part,
“AND DON’T EVEN THINK YOU CAN STOP ME!” Have you heard it yet? I have!
I was in my late 20s and early 30s when social media really exploded, and I questioned if I was old enough. I cringe when Facebook brings up my earliest post.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Very sensible, targets the perpetrators, not the victims, and most important enables kids to learn to navigate a digital world. We’ve been pushing back against “protective” surveillance laws that cause more problems than they solve, even if they have the best of intentions
My question is how does the catching mechanism work? It sounds like you’re saying random people online who come across false content will pull a Wikipedia and counter the misinformation? Or will monitor and track a bs peddler on the off chance they can eventually build a dossier big enough to take that person down? I didn’t see the first article so maybe that was covered there. I will go back and read it later, tonight or tomorrow. Not trying to be rude (seems to come naturally to me, nothing personal) but it’s had to imagine how vigilante justice online would work, although granted there must be armies of folk who enjoy correcting others enough for that to be an incentive in and of itself before it becomes a source of income. In all other respects, I like the concept.
- We already have a vast swath of legal framework for dealing with the monetization of products/services in respect to fraud.
- We even have in existence a version of the "bounty" system I'm advocating for in certain contexts.
- We just need to extend it to the monetization of claims (not the claims themselves as that would hit the First Amendment wall).
So, the way this would work (using an example) would go more or less like this:
Andrew Wakefield (the dipshit that essentially started the Anti-Vax movement in the 90s) comes out with his bullshit "study" linking the MMR vaccine with autism. The "study" itself is "speech," so you can't attack it directly. But the moment he tried to use the study as a basis for monetization, like with the books he wrote, the speeches he gave, the donations he collected, the "alternate" vaccine he tried to invent, etc. because that monetization is "commerce," which can be regulated, and because it's directly dependent on the fake study, that revenue is up for challenge.
So, anyone could mount a case against it and bring it to court (which would be partially funded by the revenue recovered via this bounty system). The challenge isn't against the claims within the fake study itself (that vaccines cause autism), but against the methods/standards used in the study (which wildly defied scientific standards and were wholly unethical) along with his utilization of his credentials in promoting the unscientific study as though it was scientific when given his credentials he necessarily knew better.
As part of this challenge, experts on the involved fields would be brought in to testify on whether or not the study meets scientific standards, on whether or not credentials were abused, on whether or not the claims were brought for peer review and what the results of said review were, on whether or not Wakefield divulged the results of said review when promoting his claims, etc.
If the challenge is successful, i.e. a jury determines that Wakefield did in fact monetize claims that were intentionally brought about and spread by deceitful means, then ALL revenue (not just the profits) he raised in relation to the fake study would be disgorged (meaning, that it would be taken from him, up to the full liquidation of all his current and future assets until it is all paid back). The first portion of the funds would go to covering the costs of bringing up the challenge. Then of everything that is left, 20% would go to those who successfully brought the challenge (the bounty); 30% would go to funding the court that serves this system; and the remaining 50% would go to a fund designed specifically for teaching media literacy, science, history, etc. (the basis for our common reality and the tools required to inoculate society against grifters).
So, it's not just a simple system where someone pulls up a Wikipedia article and says "gotcha."
Another good example would have been Fox News and the claims that the election were stolen, like with a specific example, the claims against Dominion. While Fox was able to settle with Dominion for ~$780 million, they would not be able to "settle" with "the people." We'd be able to bring a case against Fox for the fake claims which WILDLY abused their "journalistic" credentials. And when all is said and done, we'd be able to disgorge ALL the revenue they raised in relation to the stollen election claims. And if you look in the Grifter Tax article, as part of the draft legislation I proposed, there's a section that makes it so that if a substantial portion of your enterprise's revenue is successfully challenged, then the ENTIRE revenue for the enterprise would be disgorgeable. In Fox's case, they would have met that standard and would have been bankrupted by seeing their ENTIRE revenue for the 2020 election cycle being forfeited.
Thanks for the detailed response. I went back and read Parts 1 & 2. It's a great concept. It sounds like what you're saying is that this would provide remedies beyond class actions or individual lawsuits in which parties must have personal standing and be able to prove damages.
Some thoughts:
A) Regarding PSAT, how would "ideological or political advocacy" be identified, defined, or determined (we're well into muddy-waters territory these days)? Who would decide what that means & where the boundaries are?
B) Regarding religion or "spirituality," would this mean recognized & established religious institutions could not sell merch (jewelery, theological texts, sermons, essays)? Or, in the case of "alternative" venues like purveyors of crystals and tarot cards (not quite at the level of psychic readings, but promising certain outcomes beyond the inherent qualities of the products being sold - nice rocks, pretty pictures, fantastical advice) could they continue to sell those items if they removed unverifiable claims? Would this put telephone psychics out of business? Whose "sincerely held beliefs" are valid in this scenario?
A. Any secular "knowledge" that is achieved by fully accepted processes by those in the professional field involved, and which have been reviewed by the field (where applicable), or alternatively, any new research submitted where the methods proposed match those accepted in the field and the goal has been deemed non-frivolous by the field (at a very low standard that the proposed research must be at least deemed plausible - it would exclude for example "research" designed to "prove" flat-earth), would be acceptable to receive funding.
B. Religious organizations would continue to be able to sell anything tangible. The category that applies to them is designed to specifically target any claims that by donating $X that you will get some kind of divine benefit, such as the grift that surrounds prosperity gospel. On crystals and the like, they could sell them so long as they do not promise, for example, some kind of health benefit that they cannot demonstrate via medical research.
I had not considered telephone psychics: chances are that yes, it'd put them out of business unless they can demonstrate real psychic powers, which I'm happy to see them try and inclined for there to be "exceptions" for those who succeed, however unlikely I believe that to be possible. One way these "vendors" could survive I suppose is by requesting "donations" so long as their "products" are not conditional on a monetary exchange. So, a sufficiently "successful" psychic with a following could have a Patreon for example where people can "support" their "endeavor" so long as the readings are not exclusive to those supporting them financially.
Again, we can't regulate belief, only commerce. So, in essence, all beliefs are "valid." People are free to make any claims they want about what they believe in, so long as they don't attach an unverifiable claim to a transaction where the other side expects to receive a thing of value which is inherently tied to the unverifiable claim.
Excellent concept, the concern I have is the implementation. To course correct the situation we need classes in adult education to begin this form of offense. Something with teeth that creates the way in which an adult earns the right to be on social media this having responsibility lay square on their shoulders. Once this is accomplished then the transference of rights and responsibilities are shifted to the child. The costs for such learning will be part of The social media platform companies. The reinforcement of the responsibility and recognition of social media would also be supported by schools and religious institutions. Again paid for by the social media platforms. To promote, sell an idea, product, etc. is now a responsibility that begins with Google, Meta, Oracle, and others. Both financial and ethical policing will be part of said responsibility by the individual promoting product, concept, and algorithm.
Did you per chance get a chance to check out the Grifter Tax article itself? I would really like to get some more feedback about what people think of a system like that.
Not so sure that one should need to earn the right to be on social media; who makes that determination? Free speech says that everyone should have access, not based on gate-keeping or financial resources (such as to pay for the required adult education classes).
I will say that we need medial literacy to be a subject in every school curriculum, at appropriate level of understanding, from kindergarten through college).
Roger McNamee of Zucked fame interviewed last night on Ruhle's 11th Hour program and supports the grifting theory and to solve the problem one has to go after the profiteering going on in social media
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9dWvER21fM
100% - That's why the only solution is disgorgement of revenue. Kill the incentives, cure the cancer.
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this approach. It truly IS the best way to handle this. I personally have been trying to figure out how to utilize it for the US to battle the Republicans abortion ban which has made ectopic pregnancy a death sentence for young women. Your concepts are clear and inarguably sound! FOLLOW THE MONEY works pretty much 100% if you can live long enough (in a literal sense) to cripple the source! It has some very dark travails to it based on how motivated the actors/perpetrators are. Your concept is completely solid! It takes tremendous courage once on the path and I am not certain that people have the courage or intestinal fortitude for the fight.
One of the best things about it is that it follows the Most simplistic and successful methods of treatment…. The KISS method- Keep It Simple Stupid. Don’t turn it into rocket science.
We have started to see in America some of the lengths people will go to in order to protect their income streams. Just look as far as our President, the Epstein saga and how much money has been laundered INTERNATIONALLY & KNOWINGLY(with a wink & a nod) by Jamie Dimond’s own admission and the banks records in black & white), because the (so called) people involved were such “high revenue stream”producing clients that no one looked too closely to really see that children were being raped and women traded and sold to the highest bidder AND with impunity. I mean really, how closely do we really need to look at that big, beautiful, luscious stream that keeps growing and flowing and spilling into our pockets and bank accounts every single day after day after day?Huh? Somehow I don’t think that people are going to take kindly to having that luscious stream stopped. I mean just look how far it’s gone in the US? We have military on our streets in “the land of the free and the home of the brave”, we blow-up un- identified boats in the CARIBBEAN OCEAN with drones as though they are drug runners. We say they’re from Venezuela, but their size and lack of adequate propulsion or even fuel precludes the possibility they could even approach the US. Then once we blow them up, we make sure they’re all dead because (dead men tell no lies-I hear). You see, when we decide to allow the money to talk, it says some very rude and nasty things as if it has EVERY RIGHT IN THE WORLD and then everyone hears the silent part,
“AND DON’T EVEN THINK YOU CAN STOP ME!” Have you heard it yet? I have!
I was in my late 20s and early 30s when social media really exploded, and I questioned if I was old enough. I cringe when Facebook brings up my earliest post.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Very sensible, targets the perpetrators, not the victims, and most important enables kids to learn to navigate a digital world. We’ve been pushing back against “protective” surveillance laws that cause more problems than they solve, even if they have the best of intentions
I have not but I will tonight. Thank you.
Very well done. Deep analysis shows a lot of thought and explanations were clear.
Thank you for the insights and information.
My question is how does the catching mechanism work? It sounds like you’re saying random people online who come across false content will pull a Wikipedia and counter the misinformation? Or will monitor and track a bs peddler on the off chance they can eventually build a dossier big enough to take that person down? I didn’t see the first article so maybe that was covered there. I will go back and read it later, tonight or tomorrow. Not trying to be rude (seems to come naturally to me, nothing personal) but it’s had to imagine how vigilante justice online would work, although granted there must be armies of folk who enjoy correcting others enough for that to be an incentive in and of itself before it becomes a source of income. In all other respects, I like the concept.
Thanks for asking that question!
I go into a lot of detail in the grifter tax article (https://americanmanifesto.news/p/the-grifter-tax-part-1), but the short version is something like this:
- We already have a vast swath of legal framework for dealing with the monetization of products/services in respect to fraud.
- We even have in existence a version of the "bounty" system I'm advocating for in certain contexts.
- We just need to extend it to the monetization of claims (not the claims themselves as that would hit the First Amendment wall).
So, the way this would work (using an example) would go more or less like this:
Andrew Wakefield (the dipshit that essentially started the Anti-Vax movement in the 90s) comes out with his bullshit "study" linking the MMR vaccine with autism. The "study" itself is "speech," so you can't attack it directly. But the moment he tried to use the study as a basis for monetization, like with the books he wrote, the speeches he gave, the donations he collected, the "alternate" vaccine he tried to invent, etc. because that monetization is "commerce," which can be regulated, and because it's directly dependent on the fake study, that revenue is up for challenge.
So, anyone could mount a case against it and bring it to court (which would be partially funded by the revenue recovered via this bounty system). The challenge isn't against the claims within the fake study itself (that vaccines cause autism), but against the methods/standards used in the study (which wildly defied scientific standards and were wholly unethical) along with his utilization of his credentials in promoting the unscientific study as though it was scientific when given his credentials he necessarily knew better.
As part of this challenge, experts on the involved fields would be brought in to testify on whether or not the study meets scientific standards, on whether or not credentials were abused, on whether or not the claims were brought for peer review and what the results of said review were, on whether or not Wakefield divulged the results of said review when promoting his claims, etc.
If the challenge is successful, i.e. a jury determines that Wakefield did in fact monetize claims that were intentionally brought about and spread by deceitful means, then ALL revenue (not just the profits) he raised in relation to the fake study would be disgorged (meaning, that it would be taken from him, up to the full liquidation of all his current and future assets until it is all paid back). The first portion of the funds would go to covering the costs of bringing up the challenge. Then of everything that is left, 20% would go to those who successfully brought the challenge (the bounty); 30% would go to funding the court that serves this system; and the remaining 50% would go to a fund designed specifically for teaching media literacy, science, history, etc. (the basis for our common reality and the tools required to inoculate society against grifters).
So, it's not just a simple system where someone pulls up a Wikipedia article and says "gotcha."
Another good example would have been Fox News and the claims that the election were stolen, like with a specific example, the claims against Dominion. While Fox was able to settle with Dominion for ~$780 million, they would not be able to "settle" with "the people." We'd be able to bring a case against Fox for the fake claims which WILDLY abused their "journalistic" credentials. And when all is said and done, we'd be able to disgorge ALL the revenue they raised in relation to the stollen election claims. And if you look in the Grifter Tax article, as part of the draft legislation I proposed, there's a section that makes it so that if a substantial portion of your enterprise's revenue is successfully challenged, then the ENTIRE revenue for the enterprise would be disgorgeable. In Fox's case, they would have met that standard and would have been bankrupted by seeing their ENTIRE revenue for the 2020 election cycle being forfeited.
Thanks for the detailed response. I went back and read Parts 1 & 2. It's a great concept. It sounds like what you're saying is that this would provide remedies beyond class actions or individual lawsuits in which parties must have personal standing and be able to prove damages.
Some thoughts:
A) Regarding PSAT, how would "ideological or political advocacy" be identified, defined, or determined (we're well into muddy-waters territory these days)? Who would decide what that means & where the boundaries are?
B) Regarding religion or "spirituality," would this mean recognized & established religious institutions could not sell merch (jewelery, theological texts, sermons, essays)? Or, in the case of "alternative" venues like purveyors of crystals and tarot cards (not quite at the level of psychic readings, but promising certain outcomes beyond the inherent qualities of the products being sold - nice rocks, pretty pictures, fantastical advice) could they continue to sell those items if they removed unverifiable claims? Would this put telephone psychics out of business? Whose "sincerely held beliefs" are valid in this scenario?
A. Any secular "knowledge" that is achieved by fully accepted processes by those in the professional field involved, and which have been reviewed by the field (where applicable), or alternatively, any new research submitted where the methods proposed match those accepted in the field and the goal has been deemed non-frivolous by the field (at a very low standard that the proposed research must be at least deemed plausible - it would exclude for example "research" designed to "prove" flat-earth), would be acceptable to receive funding.
B. Religious organizations would continue to be able to sell anything tangible. The category that applies to them is designed to specifically target any claims that by donating $X that you will get some kind of divine benefit, such as the grift that surrounds prosperity gospel. On crystals and the like, they could sell them so long as they do not promise, for example, some kind of health benefit that they cannot demonstrate via medical research.
I had not considered telephone psychics: chances are that yes, it'd put them out of business unless they can demonstrate real psychic powers, which I'm happy to see them try and inclined for there to be "exceptions" for those who succeed, however unlikely I believe that to be possible. One way these "vendors" could survive I suppose is by requesting "donations" so long as their "products" are not conditional on a monetary exchange. So, a sufficiently "successful" psychic with a following could have a Patreon for example where people can "support" their "endeavor" so long as the readings are not exclusive to those supporting them financially.
Again, we can't regulate belief, only commerce. So, in essence, all beliefs are "valid." People are free to make any claims they want about what they believe in, so long as they don't attach an unverifiable claim to a transaction where the other side expects to receive a thing of value which is inherently tied to the unverifiable claim.
Excellent concept, the concern I have is the implementation. To course correct the situation we need classes in adult education to begin this form of offense. Something with teeth that creates the way in which an adult earns the right to be on social media this having responsibility lay square on their shoulders. Once this is accomplished then the transference of rights and responsibilities are shifted to the child. The costs for such learning will be part of The social media platform companies. The reinforcement of the responsibility and recognition of social media would also be supported by schools and religious institutions. Again paid for by the social media platforms. To promote, sell an idea, product, etc. is now a responsibility that begins with Google, Meta, Oracle, and others. Both financial and ethical policing will be part of said responsibility by the individual promoting product, concept, and algorithm.
Please feel free to critique the concept.
This is an interesting approach.
Did you per chance get a chance to check out the Grifter Tax article itself? I would really like to get some more feedback about what people think of a system like that.
Not so sure that one should need to earn the right to be on social media; who makes that determination? Free speech says that everyone should have access, not based on gate-keeping or financial resources (such as to pay for the required adult education classes).
I will say that we need medial literacy to be a subject in every school curriculum, at appropriate level of understanding, from kindergarten through college).
Social media need to be regulated, just like TV is.