Nov 15, 2023
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley gets immediate backlash from her own party and competition, including Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy, after she announces plans to ban anonymity on social media accounts during Fox News interview. John Iadarola and Jayar Jackson break it down on The Damage Report.
- 8 minutes
When I get into office, the first thing
we have to do, social media accounts,
social media companies, they have
to show America their algorithms.
Let us see why they're
pushing what they're pushing.
The second thing is every person on social
media should be verified by their name.
[00:00:18]
>> Speaker 2: Boy.
Nikki Haley with some bold plans right
there, immediately drawing condemnation
from most people cuz that's a huge change.
I mean, look, there's two plans in there.
There's transparency on the algorithm.
I think that's an interesting
conversation to have.
But no anonymity online anymore.
[00:00:36]
Look, there's the ideological side of
that, and we'll have that debate here.
But just logistically,
how would that work?
Social media is not three
apps on your phone.
It's everything on the Internet.
But anyway, look, maybe she'll explain it.
Here's more of Nikki Haley.
[00:00:53]
>> Speaker 1: First of all,
it's a national security threat.
When you do that, all of a sudden,
people have to stand by what they say and
it gets rid of the Russian bots,
the Iranian bots, and the Chinese bots.
And then you're gonna get some civility.
When people know their name
is next to what they say, and
they know their pastor and
their family member is gonna see it,
[00:01:11]
it's gonna help our kids and
it's gonna help our country.
They need to verify every
single person on their outlet.
And I want it by name because when you-
>> Speaker 2: What about Smug?
Does he qualify?
>> Speaker 2: I've provided
them with my government-
[00:01:26]
>> [LAUGH]
>> Speaker 1: If Smug is on your driver's
license.
And look,
you can put smug in parentheses, but
I want everybody's name,
>> Speaker 2: Parentheses
thing get out of hand.
But anyway, no, she's serious.
[00:01:41]
This was not just an offhand comment.
This is something that she's pushing for.
And she got attacked by some Republicans,
including those running against her.
We'll get to that in a sec.
But, Jr, what do you make of her plan?
>> Speaker 3: Come on, bro.
Come on, bro.
So how?
There's always simple questions.
And by the way, bro, I feel you, Nikki.
[00:01:58]
Nikki, she's trying something different.
I've been saying this, and
I wanna make sure that I try to
stay as consistent as possible.
I've said it since all these folks
jumped to the race to try, and,
I guess beat Donald Trump.
But they jumped in the race not saying
they're looking to beat Donald Trump.
They're trying something.
I said, you got to do something different.
[00:02:15]
You can't talk about the same things
that Donald Trump talks about and says,
I'm gonna be the next president of
the United States on Republican ticket.
Because I say everything Donald Trump
says, that ain't gonna work.
They got Donald Trump already.
She's trying something.
I understand.
I'll give her props for that.
This just kind of, is maybe someone
should have told her beforehand.
[00:02:32]
Before you go on the media tour
talking about putting everyone,
every person in what, the world.
It makes a social media account and
it's verified or whatever,
make sure that we confirm who it is and
background checks,
whatever that is that could possibly make
this happen, how impossible that is.
[00:02:48]
And also how much red tape,
we're talking about a bureaucracy
controlling social media platforms.
Who's in control?
Is this the new office?
I know that's a lot of logistical
questions, and maybe I'll come with
an idea sometimes that we don't know
how it's gonna come to fruition.
So I get that part, but this is a lot.
[00:03:05]
And then for the purpose of making sure
people aren't saying things online that
aren't gonna embarrass
them from their pastor.
Pastor, [LAUGH] who cares?
How many pastors these folks have anymore?
The people that say disgusting things
online, you think they're going to church
[00:03:20]
on Sundays and they give a damn
what their pastor is saying?
Their pastor, who probably has
child porn on their computer and
has touched and said disgusting
things to their children already.
Pastor, come on, bro.
Come on, the lid's off of that one.
Nobody's worried about
what their pastor thinks.
[00:03:37]
The five people that still have one.
So I want to give her applause,
at least trying, but
she needs to try something else.
>> Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a bad plan.
If you have a pastor, why is pastor
following you on social media?
That just seems weird.
But, yeah, like I said, in terms of
logistics, social media is not just
[00:03:55]
Twitter and Instagram and
Threads, or, hey, and TikTok.
No, it's a million things.
Like Reddit, Xbox Live, YouTube comments.
>> Something like yeah, YouTube.
>> Speaker 2: The entire
Internet is social.
Like Yelp.
>> Fox News Comment section.
[00:04:11]
>> eBay, all of these things are social.
What are you talking about?
And, no, we'll just do the top main ones.
Well, then the insane stuff
will go to the other place.
Look, I am not against verification.
If you paid attention to me during
the first year of Twitter being
utterly destroyed by Elon Musk,
clearly I care about verification.
[00:04:29]
I think that there are a lot
of benefits to come from it.
And if everyone could and chose to go
by their real name, it was verified,
then I think that there could be
a lot of benefits to come from that.
But obviously,
there are some negatives that I have to,
I am saying this out of respect for
Nikki Haley, that she knows about but
[00:04:45]
is pretending she doesn't know about.
Because nobody could be so
dumb that they don't know about how this
would obviously chill so much speech.
We have people in the comments talking
about how they use handles specifically
because they talk about things that could
lead to deranged maniacs harassing them,
[00:05:02]
trying to kill them.
This is great.
If you are a stable, powerful,
wealthy person, sure,
you don't have any problem, talk about
whatever you want under your real name.
But if you're a person, especially outside
of the US context, who's advocating for
[00:05:18]
something, where you could potentially
be hunted down and killed for
your political views, your religious
views, your views on sexual orientation or
gender identity,
then this is obviously insane.
And I have to assume that she has figured
that out and is proceeding anyway,
because it would be crazy to
think that someone who thinks
[00:05:34]
they should be president had
not thought about literally any
of the consequences of something
they're advocating for.
>> Speaker 3: And how does that work?
The president is in charge of this?
Again, whatever department or
agency will take care of these things,
I don't know if that's
the president's job.
>> Speaker 2: Yeah, well,
look, we don't like the plan.
[00:05:51]
Ron DeSantis doesn't like it.
Says, you know who were anonymous
writers back in the day?
Alexander Hamilton,
John Jay, James Madison,
when they wrote the Federalist Papers.
Which is not a terrible point, I guess.
Actually, that's one of his better points,
I suppose.
[00:06:06]
Wait, but
he also is perfectly down with sanctioned
censorship over tons of different stuff.
Like you shouldn't have
to use your real name.
But if you use your real name and you
published a book and maybe you're queer or
something, we're gonna strip everything
you've ever written out of every library.
[00:06:22]
That's what we're gonna do,
and we're gonna hunt you down.
This is the guy who has no position,
no elevated moral ground to be attacking
her for supporting censorship.
He 100% supports censorship.
But anyway, Ram Swami also attacked it,
he's getting mocked for a lot of people.
[00:06:41]
>> Speaker 3: Well, to DeSantis's point,
the commenter on Reddit
who's named FU 429-7843,
he might have some amazing things to write
in some new level of Federalist Papers.
What kind of comparison is that?
I get it, but the anonymous people online
are the same as Alexander Hamilton.
[00:06:57]
Whoever else wrote to any
of our founding documents.
Calm down.
>> Speaker 2: I know, but
there are citizen journalists and
there are artists obviously,
there are people involved in sorts of
relationships that would be prosecuted.
Again, he doesn't care
about a lot of that stuff.
He just knows that he's supposed to be for
first free speech or whatever.
[00:07:16]
>> Speaker 3: Sorry, John, I'm a little
tired today cuz I've been up since 01:00
am to 01:00 am every night this week.
But can we just stop acting
like the founding fathers and
people who wrote documents
hundreds of years ago have
any connection to the way
we live life right now?
[00:07:33]
Especially when it comes to Internet and
social media handles and
anonymous digital handles online.
Come on, bro,
that has nothing to do with those guys.
Let's not compare
ourselves to them anymore.
They're not gods.
They're not deities.
They're no whatever it is that we're
supposed to try to become in 2023,
[00:07:50]
it's okay.
We don't have to do that.
It's such lazy connection and
trying to sound like you're
some kind of above level.
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The Damage Report: November 15, 2023
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