Shopify Hypocrisy: They Took Trump's Store Down But, Latin Kings, Bloods, Crips, and BLM Have Stores

hey, what's happening guys? what's going on youtube? uh, the purpose of today's video- and this one's gonna be a pretty short one, but the purpose of today's video- is to kind of highlight the hypocrisy of shopify. so i put up a video earlier today that uh, but by my standards, got a quite a bit of engagement and comments. normally my, my- videos don't get too much engagement or comments. uh, about half thumbs up, half thumbs down, a lot of comments, a lot of discussion going on. uh, the video was essentially about how shopify pulled down donald trump's shopify stores and, uh, this is kind of a big change. in the past, shopify payments may kick you off of shopify payments, but shopify uh pretty much let anybody in any stores stay up. uh, there was actually some controversy a number of years back when breitbart had a store up and you know, with the cancel culture and everything going on today, everybody was calling on shopify for them to take down breitbart store and shopify's ceo actually stood up and said: look, you know, i think commerce is a form of expression. it's not really our part to to make moral judgments on who's selling or what people are selling, and as long as what people are doing is legal, their stores are going to remain up. well, shopify uh has kind of deviated from that and they wound up pulling down uh, donald trump's store. now, before we get into this, let me just say i don't really have a dog in this fight. i hate the two-party system. i don't care for republicans or democrats. i would consider myself a libertarian. i don't like government. i think government should stay out of our lives as much as possible. if i had to lean one way- i mean i am fiscally conservative. uh, there are issues i i probably fall on the conservative side for, but i mean i'm also for like legalizing drugs. i think wheat should be legal, gay marriage should be illegal, all that type of stuff. so i would consider myself somewhat of a joe rogan. that you know. i don't follow along party lines. i don't get tribal. um, i kind of i'd like to think that i have my own views. so, uh, by no means am i stiking up for trump here. and really, this isn't about trump. it's not about left first right. uh, it's not republican verse, democrat. it's about calling out [ __ ] and, uh, you know, i i think i have a pretty good track record of that. that's why you don't see me selling drop shipping courses about how to make fifty thousand dollars a week, because i really just don't go for [ __ ]. i, i could have been a millionaire, uh, had i started doing that way back in 2014 or 2015, uh, when, uh, when i started this channel. you know, i try to be intellectually honest. uh, i try to be consistent. i think we all have biases, we all tend to be somewhat hypocritikal, uh, but you know, let's judge everybody by the same merits, let's hold everybody to the same standards, and so, in this video, what i wanted to show you is shopify, and we'll take a look at this. uh, shopify has said that shopify does not tolerate actions that incite violence. based on recent events, we have determined that the actions by president donald j trump violate our acceptable use policy, which prohibits promotion or support of organizations, platforms or people that threaten or condone violence to further a cause. now, uh, some people might say black lives matter. uh, engaged in a lot of violence over the summer. uh, we got a black lives matter shopify store here. a shopify store here, a shopify store here. um, and i get it right, a lot of people are gonna say, well, black lives matter was a lot more of a just movement. or donald trump himself called for people to march on on the house: uh, but black lives matter. even though their events and protests dissolved into fire and riots, it wasn't necessarily the organization doing it. now, i don't necessarily agree with that statement, but i know that some people are going to make that argument. well, how about latin kings? we got shopify selling latin kings flags. uh, how about this one? uh, shopify selling blood gang. uh, blood gang. uh, men's cut t-shirts. uh, we got, uh, let's, you know, let's not discriminate. we can't just have the bloods, we gotta have the crips too. [ __ ] cola, and i know, i think that's. uh, you know, i could probably find a bunch more. and honestly, at the end of the day, i'm, you know, i'm doing this to kind of make a point. i realize, with amazon and ebay, all these platforms, when they have thousands, if not tens, if not even hundreds of thousands of sellers, i realize some things are going to slip through the cracks. these stores i'm showing you right now are kind of small, crappy stores. so, um, you know, if this store rose to huge prominence and huge popularity, maybe shopify would take it down. i i don't know if they would or not. um, but when we tok about you know they're essentially saying trump uh called on people to commit violence. now i think we could. you know i'm not gonna stand up for trump. trump yesterday was a bad look. uh, there's really nothing to condone, there's nothing to say that it was okay. did trump outright call for violence? you know, trump. trump had promised that yesterday was going to be a wild day and a wild protest. uh, you know, we might be able to read something into that. uh, when trump called on people to march to the house, he didn't call on people to commit violence. you know, if we really dig into it like you know, could we assume that something bad might happen with with trump riling people up? you know, okay, i'll, i'll give you guys that. uh, but if we look here back to the blm things, i forget this woman's name, but there needs to be unrest in the streets. uh, kamala harris, the future vice president, says protesters should not let up. nancy pelosi says i don't know why there aren't uprisings all over the country. maybe there will be. if you see anybody from that, this is kind of cut off. if you see anybody from that, i'm guessing like group or something or organization in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, get out there and get in their faces, form a crowd and push them back and tell them that they are not welcome here anymore. so i'm guessing the democratik party or certain democratik candidates have shopify stores. are we now going to consider the democratik party a hate group because of these statements which, which seem to promote hate and violence? or how about we got kathy griffin here holding up a decapitated trump head? here we have trump protesters storming the uf capital again. i'm not going to stik up for them. it is kind of funny how they're walking in an organ organized single file line, uh, respecting the velvet ropes, and here, as cars are demolished, fires are burning in the background. people have been raped, people have been put in the hospital. there have been deaths. it was a fiery but mostly peaceful protest after a police shooting. um, you know, i don't know if you guys are kind of seeing the point here, not excusing anything trump did yesterday, but if shopify wants to take down donald trump's store, i think they should maybe also take down any stores that promote the democratik party or any of these democratik candidates, uh, that have called for violence and uprising, and they should probably. you know, the the black lives matter, one will say is debatable. i i do think that, um, they were kind of a violent organization over the summer. i mean, even statements from black lives matter was that like, look, we've been asking for decades for respect and not to be killed and not to be murdered, to be treated fairly, and we're sick of it. it's time for violence. so you know, some people might say that black lives matter. some people might try to make the argument that black lives matter is a more just cause than trump crying about a stolen election. uh, but at the end of the day, who's the person who gets to make that, that moral judgment about what's a just cause and what isn't? but even if we want to get past the black lives matter stores that all still have shopify stores up, i don't think there's any arguing that the latin kings, the bloods or the crypts are are not organizations that use vi.

☠️Will Trump KILL Shopify Dropshipping In 2020

in today's video, I'm going to be giving you the latest news on how the China vs US trade war is going to affect your drop shipping business. now, I've been highly requested to do this video from my subscribers and from my facebook group, and the links my facebook group will be in the description below. so I'm going to bring it to you guys now and exactly only toking about how it's going to affect your drop shipping business and what you can do to stop it from overly, overly changing your drop shipping business. now the short answer to this question: will it affect my business? it actually really won't affect your business that much. there's a small group of people that will see a small change, but for the majority you really won't see a massive difference. but it is very, very important that you watch this video till the end, because I'm gonna be going into the whole trade war and how it is exactly gonna affect certain people's businesses, and you might be one of those that might get slightly affected. so please watch this video till the end. you need to stay on top of this news. you need to understand why it's gonna make a difference, because if you don't- and you're not prepared for it, you're gonna take a hit and you're gonna lose a lot of money. so please watch this video till the end. please match the like bugs. I took a lot of time out to research this. understand it. so I can bring it to you guys as well. now, if you want to be entered to win the next winning product list- so I'm gonna give people and know they were lists of 70 winning products- all you need to do is comment the econ King 10k sobs and you'll be entered into the giveaway. now we're gonna dive straight in to how this trade Wars gonna affect your business. so let's start off toking about what is an actual trade war. so, for those that don't understand what trade war is, you need to understand what it is because of the day, trade wars are things that happen in business. it's normal. don't worry about it now, as you're an online business and you're going from and you'll get supplies from different countries. it's important that you know son trade wars in case this happens again in the future. so what is a trade war? trade war is when, for example, the USA- because the USA are the ones that did this- increases the teres, an import taxes on products imported from China. so the US are said to shine a look, we're going to put a price on what you'll put into the country to discourage people from importing them in the first place. of what this does is it slows down their- their economy, basically in terms of importing Goods, and I'm gonna get onto this a little bit later on the reason why US did this. so, in relation to this, obviously China is not going to be okay with it. so they've done exactly the same to the US and said, look, winded, saying to you now, and they go back and forth till they go on mutual grounds. so that's exactly what a trade war is, guys. and the reason why the trade war started is because Donald Trump, the president of the USA, has started this all by saying to try and look, we're fed up of you guys taking all our money. the US has lost a lot of money, a lot of jobs from this, so we want to bring America back to where it was again. also, Trump is also worried that China's gonna rival the economy, because the number one economy in the world is the USA and second is China, and they are closing the gap between the US and themselves. so Trump is a little bit worried about that. so he's trying to slow China down, which is by him doing certain things like this, and the reason why he's doing this is because he wants more jobs for the USA and again, you won't see your kind of need to be as strong as it can be and the strongest of them, or which it currently is. but if he doesn't slow trying it down, they're gonna start to take over, which it doesn't want, and he's complained about this before, about China taking all the money away from them, and that's the reason why he's doing this. so now let me tok a lot about the following topics long ago over. so we're going to go over. tariff thresholds, product pricing and shipping costs are basically how this trade was going to affect those three things, which is tariff thresholds, product pricing and shipping costs. normally, packages price lower than $200 are exempt from this duty. so basically anything that you're selling thus under $200 are exempt from these tariff problems in a trade war. basically because the us don't want to compete with China on low tiket items. so basically the us is saying: this products are priced under this 200 threshold of dollars. we're not going to do anything with them. we're going to keep them as normal products. we're not gonna add anything to them. we're gonna keep them going as normal. now again what I was going back at the start of the video: this isn't going to affect as many people because the majority of dropship is are not signing products over $200. the majority people are selling products way under $100, so the majority are going to be completely fine. now the US doesn't wanna compete with China on low tiket items. it's simply because they just can't compete with them and then, no, there's no money in low tik items, so they're not worrying about the low tiket items. on the trade war, at the end of the day, the majority of the drops appears, like I said, are selling products way under $200. you will not be affected. so, like I said, if you're one of those are some perks under the $200, you will not be affected. you will not see any differences really with these new tariffs or product pricing. the shipping fee are so much cheaper than the you and then using a us supplier. so what I'm trying to say here is: even if you are having problems with tariffs and some products that you're getting- I have got swati's slightly interested tariffs- then it's still going to be a lot cheaper. then go into a us supplier anyway. so even though these tariffs are in place- and let's say, one of your supplies does get hit with a tariff, it's still going to be cheaper and using a us supplier. so, the end of the day, China's a lot cheaper than the us. is what I'm trying to say here. the cost of a package shipment from China to the US residential customer is dramatikally cheaper than the us local shipping options for the same package. so what I'm trying to say here is: so to ship from the us to a customer in the US, it's a lot more expensive than shipping from a packet to the US. so basically, what I'm trying to say again is: doesn't matter, China's still going to be a lot cheaper than using a us supplier, even if you're selling goods over the tune of dollar mark. you just need to add the extra cost to your product. so the consumer pays the tariff duty. so what I'm trying to say here is: if you are in that small group of people that are selling products over the 200 dollar threshold, which are the ones that are going to get hit with the tariffs, then all you need to do to prepare for this change is add the tariff duty pricing into your product cost. now you're probably thinking, Camille, if you do that, that I'm not gonna get any sales. now let me go into the next point, cause it's gonna make you think twice about what you're thinking already. so 90% of the businesses will be doing this, including apples. so what I'm trying to say is: if you are selling products over $200, don't worry. if you're gonna be increasing prices because of the, because of the trade war, juries don't work, because the majority of businesses anyway will be doing the same thing. now Apple is one of them. now Donald Trump's had back-and-forth arguments of Tim Cook about tariffs and judy's and whatnot, and he said: look, Apple, you're still going to receive the same duties as everybody else. now what do you think Apple's going to do? do you really think Apple is going to take the loss themselves, or do you think they're gonna import the duty costs into that product pricing? exactly? they're gonna do exactly the same as what everybody else will be doing, while I say the majority people be doing.

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2020 Presidential Shopify Store Teardowns | ep269, The Unofficial Shopify Podcast

- Tell us about your sweater, Kurt. - This glorious sweater. this is the Uncle Rico sweater by Hoonigan. This is their first. they did a Christmas sweater before and I thought it was really cool, but it was not really a sweater, It was a sweatshirt with a pattern printed on it and I still wore it all the time. And then when I heard they were doing an actual woven sweater, well, I've been wearing this for 72 hours straight now. - Yeah, I recall seeing an Instagram photo of you on Saturday where you wearing that - I put it on Saturday night. Today is Monday when we're recording this. I've not taken it off since. I don't plan to take it off until my wife makes me. That's the goal here. that's the goal. - I don't need to know about your sex life. - No, no, purely because of smell. - Oh, all right. - Yeah, (soft dramatik music). All right. well, by the time you're hearing this, I hope you're going to have a great Black Friday, But, realistikally, what do you got? 48 hours? - It's 72 hours from Black Friday when they're hearing this. - Yeah, so--. - It's too late. - It's too late. Whatever, you're even make some finishing touches, fine, But I don't want you to stress out: Whatever happens happens. So instead, we're gonna do something fun today. We're gonna tok politiks. Wait, no, not politiks, that would be stupid. We're gonna tok about politikians' Shopify stores. Paul, what are we toking about here? - Well, I went through the candidates that are currently running for President- some of them, not all the damn democrats- and looking to see if they were on Shopify. what were they on? Everyone I looked at is on Shopify, other than Joe Biden, who is on BigCommerce. (softly laughing). Boo - Oh you BigCommerce. - Boo, Joe Biden. - [Kurt], Oh, Joe Biden and his teeth. - Also-- - Glorious chompers. - Here's the thing: shout-out to Joe Biden's store: every single product photo. it's a PNG. So it's like: what are you doing, Joe? - So are their category pages are like 25 megs. - Also, BigCommerce has already transferred over to WebP, like Shopify did. - Okay - So it's been re-encoded in WebP, so it's not a nightmare, but they're saved by that. I don't know what Joe was thinking when he was encoding those images. - He was, as Joe Biden was personally saving out these images-- - Yeah, I mean, come on. - He's like: do I use JPEG or PNG? Joe, use JPEG. (light chuckling). God, All right, so we're going to do teardowns of five presidential candidates' Shopify stores? - Yes - And I've got so this. we're gonna tok through it for the benefit of people listening. This will also be available on YouTube and I'm gonna record a screencast so you can follow along with what you're looking at and as well as in the post in the Facebook group. Paul, what store should I fire up here? - Well, let's just first start off with we're doing like the four of the most major candidates. Nothing that occurs in this podcast should be taken as an endorsement or anything like that. - Yeah, if you're at any point in this show formulating in your head the message about politiks you're going to send me, please don't just stop now. I don't want it. (Paul softly laughing). This is just meant to be something fun. please don't ruin it. - And also apologies to John Delaney and Amy Klobuchar and-- - People who didn't make the cut. - The other 87 people running for the Democratik Nomination that we didn't do your store. I'm sorry, you're just not polling high enough. I don't care. - Yeah, we're just doing five stores. That's all I got time for guys. - All right, so we're starting first with shopdonaldjtrumpcom. (softly groans) - Current US President Donald J Trump. oh, and it auto completes to shopdonaldjtrump discount code. - Oh, pfft. - [Kurt]. All right, so we land on the site. it loaded quickly. - Oh, yeah, and that's the one thing I notiked All of these sites: extremely low load times. They have all done a-- - They're very quick. - They have all done a great job of keeping themselves efficient - So we should not bother to check load times. - We shouldn't bother checking load times. I already checked the load times. they're all great. - Okay, Landing on the Trump site, the very first thing I notike is they have already optimized for the holidays. First thing is a banner. it says: "Looking For A Gift? "The official Donald J Trump store offers unique, "one-of-a-kind gifts? "Show someone you care, all while supporting "our Make America Great Again- movement: shop now". So they are preempting me. they've got the seasonal message. they say: show now. So far doing a good job. Then the second one is Made In The USA: Shop Youth. I don't know if that one quite works. So there's only two-- - There's only two slides in the slideshow - Which I always think is weird. I would prefer this just be, 'cause the second one's not strong. This really should just be the one Looking For A Gift image, But if you're gonna do multiple, you gotta do three, otherwise it's weird. I don't know what's so weird about two slides-- - I don't know. - That flip back and forth - That never crossed my mind, but all right. - All right, that's clearly a personal. I'm triggered by having two slides - I just find the navigation very sparse, where it's like 2020, then Apparel and all apparel is just living under this one-- - [Kurt] Men, Women, Youth. - [Paul], That's it. and then Hats, Signs, Gifts. - [Kurt] Well, what else do you want? - I don't know. isn't everything Gifts? I don't know. I wanna see a mega menu. That was another thing I notiked. None of these sites have mega menus - But they're also very quick. maybe that's why - A mega menu doesn't slow you down at all. - [Kurt], All right, you're right. - If it's done right - Yeah, okay, they should have a mega menu here. The other thing that's weird is the logo. - [Paul], The logo looks cheap and terrible. - [Kurt], It's like a campaign sign got uploaded as a logo. that's a misstep. - [Paul], It's barely readable. - It has a tagline in there that is then barely legible (softly chuckling): Yeah, it should just say Trump Pence. it shouldn't be and be on a transparent background. so it's gotta be a PNG, But none of this other nonsense. that would really clean that up. And then the navigation text is a little small. After that they do. there's another call-out for the perfect gift and they got a little fancy with over designing it. It's a PNG of a woman that says Women For Trump and it overlaps the hero image above it. So it's kinda cool. I'm a little touchy as a designer that it's over designed. it's not a big deal. And then on the right they've got newsletter and zip code, which clearly that's an important thing for them. I probably would have just led with and gotten rid of the secondary Perfect Gift thing and have the second element below the hero image just be Newsletter Signup. - Well, and if you scroll down more at the bottom in the footer, they have another email collection down there. and let's think about this: these stores are selling goods, but the goods they're selling are also tiknically campaign contributions, which comes up later. - Oh, okay - And you will be campaigns. live and die by their email lists. - [Kurt] Yes - So they want as much email as possible and they want that. this good job by Trump. here they're getting the zip code for even extra targeting - I notiked that. that seems smart - Yeah, that seems very smart - [Kurt]. But "Sign up for news? "on products and special offers"? there's no way that's all they're doing with this. - Oh, no, that email that you will be emailed. fundraisers: you'll be notified when there are events. There have been things where Trump you can win a lunch with Trump that has later been shown he doesn't actually show up for the lunch when you win it. (Kurt softly chuckles). That was a recent expose I read. So yeah, but campaigns need emails. The other thing: I notiked they got Quick View turned on - I did catch that, so

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Trump's Empire Is Crumbling

there are reports the president is livid over the professional golf association's announcement that it will no longer hold the 2022 us open at trump national golf club in bedminster, new jersey. this is one example of the backlash trump's brand is undergoing as a result of the capital attack just before he leaves office and resumes his duties as head of the trump empire. here with more on the crisis that the trump empire faces is bloomberg wall street reporter, max abelson. max, great to have you on the show. you recently wrote about the self-inflicted damage that trump is doing to his own brand. how extensive is this damage? i'm so happy to be here with you, tim, you know. first, just to put this in proper context, i want to remind everyone that you know, although our story, which i hope everybody reads, is a story about, you know, trump's brandon crisis, obviously the context is that, where this whole country is going through a much more profound emergency. you know trump triggered a crisis in in- really in- american politiks, an american democracy, uh, when he encouraged his supporters to riot. uh, in the capital, um, encouraged them enough that they did riot. but what he also did is he sparked a crisis for himself. i mean, he is about to face one of the most important moments in his career, a career that is full of downfalls and then rebounds. but he's about to re-enter the business world and he has now, in the span of less than a week, tim, alienated um the banks that led to him. the american golf industry- that's a close ally- uh, the company behind his online stores, uh, his some very important politikal donors and politikal backers, and and then the very tik platforms that amplify his voice. so it really is, um, just a remarkable crossroads for a man who kind of depends on his brand for for his entire legacy. yeah, and i think it's it's fair to say that his brand helped him bring him to the white house. uh, what is trump without, without trump? uh, not much. um. max, you go through a whole list of of the ways that people and entities have distanced themselves from the president in your piece. i'm i'm wondering if there's one of those that is sort of the most meaningful. is it the pga? is it the banks distancing themselves? which one has the biggest implications for the president post-presidency? well, first of all, tim, shout out to you for improvising the line what is trump without trump, which reminds me of the headline for my first trump story back in 2015. it was called: uh, how trump invented trump. so that's extremely good symmetry. um, you know i i don't think one of them stands out. uh, the fact that his web store, a canadian company called shopify, um, is taking down his stores means that he can't sell maga hats. the fact that twitter and facebook are banning him, either for a long time or permanently, means that, uh, you know he's, he's lost, uh, his soapbox. the fact that, um, there isn't going to be a golf tournament in bedminster, where i've been, incidentally, for that, for that business week story, uh, a golf ball was hit, like really close to my head it was. it was actually scary. uh, that means, apparently, according to the new york times, maggie haberman, that he is partikularly livid. apparently, the the lack of the the golf tournament there really upsets him. but thinking relationships are also really important. any one of these by themselves would have been profound. put together, um, what they add up to. a brand strategist that i spoke with said that he has lit the palace on fire while walking out of the gates, but you know, and and that fire is is eating him up as well. you know, although i want to add tim, this is a guy who cannot be counted out. i mean, donald trump in the 80s, in the 90s, in this century, has faced extremely long odds and then, through his trumpism, manages to somehow rebuild himself or recreate himself. is is this different, though max is. is this time different? i mean, as you, as you point out, his supporters said there would still be lucrative opportunities for him in right-wing media: a possible role at a news channel, maybe even his own media company, a book deal that would certainly sell books. look, you know, things were looking very, very bad for him, uh, in in the early 90s, when he lost his yacht and his jet and the plaza hotel, and then things were looking bad when his casinos went bankrupt. but what he's facing now, though, is a reputation of um. he could potentially be the first president in the history of the united states, um, to be impeached twice. he could be seen by a very large group of people, including republicans, as a man who has tried to undermine the democratik foundations of our country. i think that how profoundly this this hits trump as a businessman is going to come down to how long the anger lasts. you know, if, if um corporations are pressured into not backing a trump endeavor- and i'm thinking here of simon and shuster pulling their contract from josh hawley's book- then that's going to mean it's going to be very hard for him to launch an independent endeavor. even parlor, as you toked about on your last segment, parlor was taken down by amazon and i believe to also take it down from from the stores, uh, by apple and google. if trump faces that kind of pressure, this is gonna be a really, really difficult era for him. but we, we really are gonna have to wait and see. uh, max, i finally want to end with with banks. just how devastating would it be to the president's president's business feature if, uh, signature bank- which, as you point out, ivanka trump was on the board of, and deutsche bank, um have both decided not to do further business with with trump and his company? i mean, how does he do, how does he move forward without financial backing from banks? look, i mean he, he owns deutsche bank, the german bank, one of the biggest banks in the world- 300 million dollars. um, he's gonna have to come up with some money somewhere. um signature bank, you're so right to call this out, the fact that ivanka trump, his daughter, was on the board and now it's closing two accounts that had, i think, five million dollars in them. that's profound. but you know what? maybe we're going to wake up tomorrow, as america has been doing for four years, waking up tomorrow to find out that something absurd and new and different and unpredictable has happened. maybe some, some billionaire is gonna, is gonna fund him. um, we, we just don't know, but you absolutely have to acknowledge, um that these that this has been one of the worst weeks, um in his career. these are, these are some profound things that have happened all across this empire. bloomberg's max abelson. max, thank you, as always, for your time joining us on quick take today: the biggest stories the moment they happen, from around the globe. subscribe to bloomberg quick take now for insight in an instant. you.

Facebook, Instagram ban Donald Trump indefinitely after supporters storm U.S. Capitol

mark zuckerberg posting um the dramatik move that they believe that the risks of allowing the president to continue to use the service are too great and they will be blocking the president on facebook and instagram indefinitely and at least for the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete. now, carl, as you mentioned, this is a dramatik move for facebook because mark zuckerberg has stated repeatedly that he believes that facebook is a very necessary platform for free speech. he is always really sided with with this side of free speech. rather than more regulation, he has called for regulation um to help create guidelines to understand how to limit speech on the platform. but this is really a dramatik move, saying they believe it is simply too dangerous to allow the president to use the platform. and just to be clear, carl, this is an extension of a 24-hour block that facebook had put on the president. that began last night and they're now saying that this will be extended indefinitely. to that point, julia, i just wonder how much of this, given the fact that that we have been having these conversations- i mean to think about the tik sell-off we saw yesterday- in part because of expectations that we're going to see tighter regulations, maybe a revisit a sharper, stronger revision of section 230? uh, with this new administration, i mean, is this: is this zuckerberg and facebook looking to get ahead of what might be inevitably that you know? i don't know if it's as much that, morgan, and more the fact that there's been a lot of critikism of these platforms for enabling the organization of some of the writing that we saw yesterday, and the question of whether or not facebook is just simply not quick enough to take things down and whether or not, even if something is up for even 30 seconds, it can be shared and liked many times in that period. so i think there's this question- you know, not just what they face from capitol hill, this question whether facebook is biased in how it regulates content on the platform, but whether it can be used as a tool for bad and whether they need to be much more stringent in preventing that from happening. and simply, right now, they think the risk is too great for the next next two weeks. it's a very, very bold move by mark zuckerberg and cheryl sandberg. to that point, julian, referencing something tom friedman said earlier on squawk box. i mean, there was a period before the election where facebook was elevating more credible news content into people's news feed and then they apparently stopped doing that. you know, do we have any sense that they're going to revisit that policy and perhaps make it permanent as well? well, look, they have been trying to elevate reputable news, partikularly about coronavirus. they've been elevating, you know, correct news from reputable sources around the election. if you go to instagram right now, they say: here is the election news you need to know. here's what's happening right now on capitol hill. but i think what has shifted is, for many years, zuckerberg said that they believed that people needed to know what the president was saying. they needed to know if he was saying things that were incendiary. and now they're saying: these things are incendiary. we don't want people to be incited to violence because of that. i want to just read you one quote here from mark zuckerberg's comments. um, he said, over the last several years, we have allowed president trump to use our platform consistent with our rules, at times removing content or labeling his posts when they violated our policies. we did this because we believe that the public has a right to the broadest possible access to politikal speech, even controversial speech. but the current context is now fundamentally different, involving use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratikally elected government. that paragraph sums up the shift that facebook has made between allowing this as free speech and now saying it certainly incites violence. shepherd smith here. thanks for watching cnbc on youtube.

Tech platforms banned Trump. Now what?

Something I think about a lot is Tide Pods. Someone just made a joke one day that Tide Pods look delicious, And so people started, you know, just making posts about this on social media And it was just transparently hilarious. But the platform's incentives are such that if you actually did eat a Tide pod, you'd get a million views, And what had seemed super funny all of a sudden was a public health hazard. Platforms, for, I think, very understandable reasons, have a terrible time figuring out when the joke stops being funny. "Twitter, for the very first time, has fact-checked President Trump". "on voter misinformation". "That's the line Facebook, Twitter and others seem to have drawn". "Trump continues to falsely insist that the election was stolen". "Twitter has put up a flag more than a hundred times since Election Day". "Trump urging his followers: Be there will be wild". "Fight for Trump, Fight for Trump". "Twitter permanently suspending the president's personal account". "due to the risk of further incitement of violence". "Facebook", "YouTube", "Pinterest", "Shopify and Paypal". And so the question is: what is the right moment for the platform to intervene? I think we're in a period of rethinking what misinformation is. I think the past few years we had the thought that misinformation was individual bad posts and maybe some individual actors that needed to be disciplined. But if we could just prune that garden, the rest of our information ecosystem would be okay. Alex Jones is sort of the classic example: "Apple, Facebook, Spotify and YouTube" "have now removed content associated with Jones and InfoWars". He does not have nearly the influence over American life today, But that kind of whack-a-mole approach is just not giving us the information ecosystem that we want. This idea that the election has been stolen, which we know to be false, is being repeated ad nauseum all across the Internet, in private chats, in private messages as well as in public. This is becoming the big lie. It's larger than any one user. It's larger than a thousand users. It's going to require a much more serious and difficult approach than simply removing one account, no matter how prominent that account might be. 147 members of Congress voted to overturn the results of the election after the Capitol had been attacked. Are these platforms ready to deplatform 147 sitting members of Congress? Removing Trump was the easy part. He incited an attack on his own government. That is not a close call. The hard call is: you're about to have maybe 70 million Americans, or some huge percentage of that, toking, including in online spaces, about an election being stolen that was not stolen And that is going to have a lot of really dangerous consequences. I don't think these platforms will succeed if they can only be defined by what they will not allow. It's that — what are they replacing it with? There needs to be a positive, constructive counterbalance to all of the misinformation and conspiracy theories. What can they do to build a better media ecosystem? Because if we don't have a shared sense of reality, I truly do not believe we are going to have a liberal democracy in America very much longer.