1 00:00:00,420 --> 00:00:08,310 So early on today, script that it was just it was David You who is British Academy professor and a visiting professor of 2 00:00:08,310 --> 00:00:13,110 intelligence and international security in the Department of War Studies at King's College London. 3 00:00:13,110 --> 00:00:14,670 Prior to joining Cassio, 4 00:00:14,670 --> 00:00:22,320 David was associate professor of history at the US Military Academy at West Point and history fellow at the Army's Cyber Institute. 5 00:00:22,320 --> 00:00:29,010 He's also director of the Cambridge Security Initiative and is co-convenor of International Security and Intelligence Programme. 6 00:00:29,010 --> 00:00:35,760 He is a former CIA analyst and operations officer and remains a senior officer in the US Navy Reserve. 7 00:00:35,760 --> 00:00:40,260 David also holds advanced degrees from Georgetown University and University of Cambridge. 8 00:00:40,260 --> 00:00:46,800 I love that he's a friend of mine. He's been a good friend, CCW over the over the last few months and years, actually last just six months ago. 9 00:00:46,800 --> 00:00:52,320 I think it was. You build a site with an event where a speaker dropped out, I think, two days before he stepped up to the breach. 10 00:00:52,320 --> 00:00:59,520 So I was very grateful for that. And it's a great pleasure to have you speak to us today on Russian strategy in the social media battlefield. 11 00:00:59,520 --> 00:01:07,140 All right. Well, thanks Will. And I don't think I've ever done a standing room only or, you know, and I feel like the Rolling Stones or something, so. 12 00:01:07,140 --> 00:01:11,760 Thank you very much for four for coming today. OK. 13 00:01:11,760 --> 00:01:15,870 A bunch of thank you's first to will and CCW for having me here today. 14 00:01:15,870 --> 00:01:25,380 Very much appreciate the kind invitation. Thank you to the British Academy publicly for funding my project and letting me be here. 15 00:01:25,380 --> 00:01:33,660 Thanks to King's worst ideas for hosting me. And then, of course, thank you to the Army Cyber Institute at West Point for letting me go. 16 00:01:33,660 --> 00:01:38,490 So and I was like, Hey boss, can I go for four years? And they were like, what? 17 00:01:38,490 --> 00:01:43,170 And then I explained it and they bought into it. So that was that was a big thank you. 18 00:01:43,170 --> 00:01:46,980 But everything I say is my own research analysis. 19 00:01:46,980 --> 00:01:57,380 Opinions. Nothing to do with the U.S. government. OK, so from Sun Tzu to Machiavelli to grasim of information in warfare, information, 20 00:01:57,380 --> 00:02:02,670 in conflict, information, in pre warfare, I think is absolutely critical. 21 00:02:02,670 --> 00:02:09,510 So you have you all know, the songs you quotes win one hundred victories and 100 battles is not the acme of skill. 22 00:02:09,510 --> 00:02:15,360 To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill anyway. 23 00:02:15,360 --> 00:02:24,420 To conquer without fighting is the idea to bend the enemy to your will before the force of arms is necessary. 24 00:02:24,420 --> 00:02:30,000 Machiavelli in 15th century Florence meant discontented and desires of change are able 25 00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:36,630 to open the way for the invasion of their country and to render its conquest easy. 26 00:02:36,630 --> 00:02:42,030 Carmen Clausewitz pursue operations that have direct political repercussions, right? 27 00:02:42,030 --> 00:02:45,380 So not just on, not just on the battlefield. 28 00:02:45,380 --> 00:02:54,750 And today, I think, you know, just thinking about the Ukraine crisis at the moment to disrupt an opposing alliance or to paralyse that alliance, 29 00:02:54,750 --> 00:02:59,640 a wonderful thing to do to favourably affect the political scene. 30 00:02:59,640 --> 00:03:03,930 OK, moving on to today and I want to talk about Russia today. 31 00:03:03,930 --> 00:03:10,470 Obviously, there's a lot of folks in the information environment. There's domestic actors, which we can talk about in Q&A if you want. 32 00:03:10,470 --> 00:03:15,930 There are other actors, obviously besides besides Russia, I happen to focus on Russia. 33 00:03:15,930 --> 00:03:21,330 I think they're the best at it. And we can sort of fight over that claim a little bit later, if you like. 34 00:03:21,330 --> 00:03:28,650 But here's general grasim of information. Operations can be employed to defend and advance Russia's national interests beyond its borders. 35 00:03:28,650 --> 00:03:34,920 Are we not seeing that today? The role of non-military means of achieving political and strategic goals has grown 36 00:03:34,920 --> 00:03:40,620 and in many cases have exceeded the power of force of weapons in their effectiveness. 37 00:03:40,620 --> 00:03:44,940 Good to have information backed up by some hardware, though, as well. 38 00:03:44,940 --> 00:03:48,780 So, OK, so we now know that information is critical. 39 00:03:48,780 --> 00:03:51,090 I'm mostly interested in disinformation. 40 00:03:51,090 --> 00:03:58,410 That's not misinformation where, you know, it's just sort of your uncle and, you know, Christmas dinner spouting off about whatever. 41 00:03:58,410 --> 00:04:02,280 Nor is it mal information, which is often considered true information. 42 00:04:02,280 --> 00:04:06,300 But for malign purpose, this information is essentially made up. 43 00:04:06,300 --> 00:04:12,510 It's false and there's an intent here. It's deliberately intended to deceive, applied to Russia in particular. 44 00:04:12,510 --> 00:04:19,470 This can be lumped under the broader measures of Russian active measures, covert action, forgeries, assassination, political warfare. 45 00:04:19,470 --> 00:04:25,710 You know them all. The Russians are very good at it, and they use it for a reason. 46 00:04:25,710 --> 00:04:31,080 So no offence to Michael Caine and Batman. I can't remember if this was the Christian Bale Batman or not. 47 00:04:31,080 --> 00:04:35,520 But the idea is not just, you know, my buddy Vlad wants to watch the world burn, right? 48 00:04:35,520 --> 00:04:42,240 There is actually a strategy here. You know them, but let's go through them to a certain great power status. 49 00:04:42,240 --> 00:04:48,330 It's a matter to be respected, right? Who doesn't want them in in Putin's view? 50 00:04:48,330 --> 00:04:54,540 International politics is a zero sum game. So if you gain, someone else loses, and if someone else loses, 51 00:04:54,540 --> 00:05:00,180 you get to preserve the Russian sphere of sphere of influence in the near abroad particular. 52 00:05:00,180 --> 00:05:06,540 And as again, we see in Ukraine to keep NADO and keep the United States out of it. 53 00:05:06,540 --> 00:05:08,910 Again, not all of it is directed at us. 54 00:05:08,910 --> 00:05:16,800 I think every so often we sort of have this victim idea where everything that that Putin does is against America or is, is that Britain, right? 55 00:05:16,800 --> 00:05:22,170 Some of it just has nothing to do with us. Some of it is for his own political goals. 56 00:05:22,170 --> 00:05:28,050 And again, as an American, I'm certainly not going to say that that doesn't happen at home. 57 00:05:28,050 --> 00:05:33,750 It also compensates for Russian conventional military shortcomings. 58 00:05:33,750 --> 00:05:38,820 The military is not half bad. I think we know that, but they have significant shortcomings. 59 00:05:38,820 --> 00:05:43,860 Cummings vis-a-vis all of NADO. So just take Ukraine out of it for a second. 60 00:05:43,860 --> 00:05:53,070 Russia can't compete. This is a wonderful way to hit, to hit the West with an asymmetric approach and frankly, to compete in an area short of war. 61 00:05:53,070 --> 00:05:56,430 We are great at war in the West, in the United States. 62 00:05:56,430 --> 00:06:00,840 We're good at it, but we don't know what to do up until that point, right? 63 00:06:00,840 --> 00:06:07,020 We just sort of flail around in the sort of contest of ideas. That's where Putin can make his money. 64 00:06:07,020 --> 00:06:13,470 And there is a long history of this. The historian in me doesn't like the term unprecedented. 65 00:06:13,470 --> 00:06:18,030 I think I hear that a lot. I don't know if you hear that a lot. Oh, this is unprecedented. This is new. 66 00:06:18,030 --> 00:06:21,810 No, it's not. It doesn't mean it always works. 67 00:06:21,810 --> 00:06:28,380 So if you take Operation Infection, which was the claim by the Russians that the U.S. was responsible for the AIDS epidemic, 68 00:06:28,380 --> 00:06:35,280 according to Oregon State, 15 percent of Black Americans thought the U.S. had deliberately targeted them with AIDS. 69 00:06:35,280 --> 00:06:39,750 Obviously, that's not true. But there's there's a great example. 70 00:06:39,750 --> 00:06:46,740 There was also a rumour that CIA was selling crack cocaine in L.A. It was going to be a movie about this journalist somewhere. 71 00:06:46,740 --> 00:06:55,830 Also, not true. Reagan means war. The idea to paint Reagan as a warmonger big full page ads in 1984 newspapers in 72 00:06:55,830 --> 00:07:00,120 the context of the election with the presidential election with Walter Mondale, 73 00:07:00,120 --> 00:07:03,510 Soviets tried to paint Reagan as a warmonger didn't work. 74 00:07:03,510 --> 00:07:13,080 Or maybe it did, but that he won in a landslide or 1984, when the Soviets forged a white supremacist KKK letters to athletes coming from Africa, 75 00:07:13,080 --> 00:07:25,290 warning them that if they participated in the games in L.A., that they would be essentially killed or were the like. 76 00:07:25,290 --> 00:07:32,970 That didn't work. And so the idea that disinformation, I believe, is a really powerful tool, but it's not checkmate. 77 00:07:32,970 --> 00:07:39,600 And there's plenty of things that we can do, right? Just because they're doing it doesn't mean that, you know, we're owned by them. 78 00:07:39,600 --> 00:07:43,230 That's not the case at all. And in fact, most of the stuff doesn't work. 79 00:07:43,230 --> 00:07:47,640 Some of it does. And so we just happen like Pink Floyd to know the best hits right. 80 00:07:47,640 --> 00:07:51,120 We don't actually know everything that's going on. I want to. 81 00:07:51,120 --> 00:07:56,730 So there's an overt approach here. I love to watch Artie and ask you guys like Russia today. 82 00:07:56,730 --> 00:08:02,460 My wife is always like, Why are you watching that? I sort of hate watch it, but I just want to know what they're saying. 83 00:08:02,460 --> 00:08:06,990 Know there's Sputnik. There's overt channels and we can talk about those. 84 00:08:06,990 --> 00:08:12,570 But just as a way to kind of limit my own research, I'm more interested in the hidden hands. 85 00:08:12,570 --> 00:08:19,650 And so in particular, that's the Russian Internet Research Agency now called the Lock to Internet Research Agency, 86 00:08:19,650 --> 00:08:23,790 where the trolls from ghetto in St. Petersburg and there is, they're building. 87 00:08:23,790 --> 00:08:29,880 So I want to take you through so I've can you the strategy. I want to take you through some of the tactics. 88 00:08:29,880 --> 00:08:34,530 This is mostly from 2016, but then we'll update it for 2020 and beyond. 89 00:08:34,530 --> 00:08:41,850 And then I want to talk about some things we can do about it. I think the IRA and this list keeps growing, by the way. 90 00:08:41,850 --> 00:08:45,690 I think the last time I maybe had five, but I keep adding things. 91 00:08:45,690 --> 00:08:55,080 I think the IRA identified seven great cleavages in American society and got to work dividing us by targeting us and by weakening social coherence, 92 00:08:55,080 --> 00:08:58,920 by increasing polarisation, resentment and mistrust. 93 00:08:58,920 --> 00:09:08,070 This is going to be US centric. But this you can give this presentation from Germany, from France, from Sweden, from Estonia, from Finland. 94 00:09:08,070 --> 00:09:13,920 There's a lot of perspectives I just happen to know the US won best. They are guns and Second Amendment issues. 95 00:09:13,920 --> 00:09:18,460 The meaning of patriotism, religion, immigration and cultural identity issues. 96 00:09:18,460 --> 00:09:22,050 What we might call values, issues, race and racism. 97 00:09:22,050 --> 00:09:28,440 The establishment and elites versus real people right the coasts versus the rest of us, at least in the states. 98 00:09:28,440 --> 00:09:32,610 Veterans issues in the civil military divide are particularly interested in that. 99 00:09:32,610 --> 00:09:37,050 And what do I think of them? Well, I think they're long term. They're participatory, right? 100 00:09:37,050 --> 00:09:42,870 We share. We retweet. We feel something when we encounter this kind of stuff. 101 00:09:42,870 --> 00:09:46,560 And that's the purpose. They're emotional. I think they're tribal. 102 00:09:46,560 --> 00:09:50,640 They appeal to our sort of tribal instincts. And in my view, I think they're very clever. 103 00:09:50,640 --> 00:09:56,550 I don't like it when people just sort of dismiss it. I think they're pretty good, actually. 104 00:09:56,550 --> 00:10:00,080 It starts in 2015. Well, people start things. 105 00:10:00,080 --> 00:10:04,220 Different kinds of places, but I think it's a good case to be made that Jade Helm, 106 00:10:04,220 --> 00:10:09,680 which was a U.S. special operations forces exercise, was a Russian proof of concept. 107 00:10:09,680 --> 00:10:17,990 Here we have a special operations soldier. And and so this is going to happen as I'll show you here on this map. 108 00:10:17,990 --> 00:10:21,860 And so we train, you know, where we live. A lot of the times. 109 00:10:21,860 --> 00:10:27,500 And so in this particular case, this was the area of operations, quite a big area of operations. 110 00:10:27,500 --> 00:10:32,030 And these are various soft things that you don't need to know about the military. 111 00:10:32,030 --> 00:10:36,260 Put this out. It's for public release. And red is hostile. 112 00:10:36,260 --> 00:10:43,160 And so this is actually a real it's a real thing made by the Pentagon, but red is hostile, Texas is hostile. 113 00:10:43,160 --> 00:10:52,280 And there became this idea that this is the guys under which the Obama administration remember it's 2015 is going to come into Texas. 114 00:10:52,280 --> 00:10:59,300 Take your guns, take your Bible, take your religion, take all your stuff and sweep up the enemies. 115 00:10:59,300 --> 00:11:03,270 And so every time, for instance, a Humvee passed an empty Wal-Mart. 116 00:11:03,270 --> 00:11:10,010 There is there were claims that these were the jails that were they were they were going to keep everybody you can. 117 00:11:10,010 --> 00:11:14,870 YouTube is an amazing place. Spent a lot of time on YouTube. You can Google what I'm talking about. 118 00:11:14,870 --> 00:11:18,500 And so the governor of Texas still him, by the way, Greg Abbott said, 119 00:11:18,500 --> 00:11:25,460 What we're going to do is we're going to have the Texas state guard monitor these federal troops coming in. 120 00:11:25,460 --> 00:11:30,170 And this has all, you know, this is, you know, civil war echoes right of the north, 121 00:11:30,170 --> 00:11:35,480 coming down to the south and telling us how to live the civil rights or FBI showing up, 122 00:11:35,480 --> 00:11:39,320 telling us, you know, how to live, how to do civil rights things reconstruction right, 123 00:11:39,320 --> 00:11:44,240 those federal boys coming down and telling us how to live our lives. And so there was an outcry. 124 00:11:44,240 --> 00:11:48,590 And Greg Abbott said, we're going to call it the state guard that he controls if we're going to monitor these 125 00:11:48,590 --> 00:11:53,720 special operations forces so they don't actually start arresting people and taking their guns. 126 00:11:53,720 --> 00:12:01,490 And you think this is ridiculous? And the Pentagon is like, just so we're clear this is an exercise and we're not actually here to take. 127 00:12:01,490 --> 00:12:03,850 I mean, could you imagine the Pentagon spokesperson, right? 128 00:12:03,850 --> 00:12:09,770 Like, you're now addressing the press and you're saying, Well, we're actually not going to take over the United States. 129 00:12:09,770 --> 00:12:14,240 It's not why we're here. And so they find themselves in very bizarre territory. 130 00:12:14,240 --> 00:12:19,220 But the the problem with with Greg Abbott, according to General Hayden, and I agree, 131 00:12:19,220 --> 00:12:26,090 emphatically fell right into the trap by legitimising conspiracy theories with official state action quote. 132 00:12:26,090 --> 00:12:30,410 At that point, I'm figuring the Russians are saying we can go big time. This is not Russian, by the way. 133 00:12:30,410 --> 00:12:38,300 It's just the idea that Americans will believe this sort of stuff if they want to believe it at worst, where we can go big time. 134 00:12:38,300 --> 00:12:41,420 And at that point, we're going to play in the electoral process. 135 00:12:41,420 --> 00:12:49,100 Russian bots in the American media convince many Texans that Jade Helm was an Obama plan to round up political dissidents. 136 00:12:49,100 --> 00:12:53,570 Right? OK. And sure enough, that's exactly what happened. 137 00:12:53,570 --> 00:12:58,610 You can. You can see this wonderful sorry. It looks like today I cut off a little there. 138 00:12:58,610 --> 00:13:02,300 Six January 2017 is the document that you want. 139 00:13:02,300 --> 00:13:08,030 The director of National Intelligence put out the unclassified version of what happened. 140 00:13:08,030 --> 00:13:15,290 And here are the key judgements again, you can go. This Russian efforts to influence 2016 represent the most recent expression of 141 00:13:15,290 --> 00:13:20,600 Moscow's longstanding desire to undermine the US liberal democratic order. 142 00:13:20,600 --> 00:13:24,530 Significant escalation blah blah blah hurt Trump. 143 00:13:24,530 --> 00:13:28,770 Sorry, Hillary, help Trump. And so I want to show you some of those things. 144 00:13:28,770 --> 00:13:35,600 This is a wonderful document. You can you can google it publicly available. So let's check out what they did. 145 00:13:35,600 --> 00:13:42,560 There's a couple of different mediums I try to collect. Some of them use a lot of them have been taken down now, so I kind of kind of hunt for them. 146 00:13:42,560 --> 00:13:48,620 Here's a great one called Defend the second, and I'll I'll spoil the suspense for you. 147 00:13:48,620 --> 00:13:52,910 Defend the second is not a Second Amendment rights advocacy group. 148 00:13:52,910 --> 00:13:57,560 It's actually the Russians from St. Petersburg, and they put out this one. 149 00:13:57,560 --> 00:14:01,580 Why do I have a garden? Because it's easier for my family to get out. 150 00:14:01,580 --> 00:14:10,280 Get me out of jail, then out of cemetery. Now you'll note that due respect to my British friends, it's at the hospital. 151 00:14:10,280 --> 00:14:16,130 The future. Know why you guys keep missing this, though. No American would ever say What would you say? 152 00:14:16,130 --> 00:14:21,680 Would you say out of those cemetery? Is that one of those ones where you miss it? 153 00:14:21,680 --> 00:14:26,420 Yeah, OK. I don't know. You guys say, well, in future, like you mean in the future. 154 00:14:26,420 --> 00:14:31,910 Anyway, the point here is that so the Russians have to come up with some of this stuff, they have to come up with their own content. 155 00:14:31,910 --> 00:14:37,100 I'll show you why that's important in a minute. But suffice it to say, there are certain tells. 156 00:14:37,100 --> 00:14:41,180 Right? And so sometimes Grammer doesn't exactly translate well. 157 00:14:41,180 --> 00:14:47,480 And so here's that's an easy tell. But here's here's an easy one. I have a garden because it's my own last resort, 158 00:14:47,480 --> 00:14:53,210 and I'll just figure it out later in the justice system because I don't want to be alone in the dark, in the rain, by myself. 159 00:14:53,210 --> 00:14:59,920 You know, whatever the whatever the theory is, one of my favourites is the army of Jesus and. 160 00:14:59,920 --> 00:15:04,450 I would love to be in like an IRA creative when they're doing this stuff. 161 00:15:04,450 --> 00:15:10,870 You know what, if we had an army of Jesus? Right? And they have no idea is too outrageous. 162 00:15:10,870 --> 00:15:15,100 So Satan, if I win, Clinton wins. Jesus, not if I can help you. 163 00:15:15,100 --> 00:15:19,330 So we're going to have this massive, massive wrestling arm wrestling match. 164 00:15:19,330 --> 00:15:26,350 Wonderful stuff. Also, they wanted to suppress the African-American vote in the United States, 165 00:15:26,350 --> 00:15:31,060 and a good way to do that was to develop something that you can't see here on the bottom. 166 00:15:31,060 --> 00:15:37,150 It says blacks did this, and the black to this news were intended to basically say Your vote doesn't matter. 167 00:15:37,150 --> 00:15:41,920 You shouldn't vote to keep to keep it down. It's not to both. 168 00:15:41,920 --> 00:15:46,930 Things can be true. We can both want to hurt Hillary and help Trump write. 169 00:15:46,930 --> 00:15:53,020 Some things like this are just patently false. But they play on an old narrative, right? 170 00:15:53,020 --> 00:15:58,120 The suppression of of civil rights and voting. OK. 171 00:15:58,120 --> 00:16:05,950 The problem with disinformation is the scale. So remember how I said before that I don't like things that are that are unprecedented. 172 00:16:05,950 --> 00:16:13,420 Well, I will grant you that in the Twitter age and the social media age, the scale is simply unprecedented. 173 00:16:13,420 --> 00:16:19,960 It goes at crazy speeds. A misleading article about Hillary Clinton's health, which you may have seen. 174 00:16:19,960 --> 00:16:25,690 She had a microphone wire that was showing at the box, was kind of tucked on her back belt under her suit, 175 00:16:25,690 --> 00:16:30,010 and then the wire came up and people like, What's that wire that wires? 176 00:16:30,010 --> 00:16:32,680 You know, she's hiding something from us. 177 00:16:32,680 --> 00:16:40,300 So there's this article reaches eight million people and The Daily Beast, which is a journalism website, it was like, Actually, that's not true. 178 00:16:40,300 --> 00:16:45,280 Well, 30 30000 people saw that once the toothpaste is out of the tube. 179 00:16:45,280 --> 00:16:49,390 It is an enormous problem and it's not going back in. 180 00:16:49,390 --> 00:16:58,990 These are just telling you what to think. What if we actually had a way to mobilise people off of the computer in real life? 181 00:16:58,990 --> 00:17:02,470 And so being patriotic again, I'm going to ruin it for you. 182 00:17:02,470 --> 00:17:09,970 It's the IRA decided that they were going to have an event, and I'm not really sure the New York City was the best place to have. 183 00:17:09,970 --> 00:17:16,390 I mean, Hillary's going to win New York, right? Like this is death, taxes and Hillary winning New York or things that we know. 184 00:17:16,390 --> 00:17:19,390 But on July 23rd, they decided they were going to have an event. 185 00:17:19,390 --> 00:17:25,990 And the point here, which the IRA figured out, is that you can actually get people off the couch, right? 186 00:17:25,990 --> 00:17:30,760 Not just tweeting, not just sharing. You can actually get them to show up at a certain place and time. 187 00:17:30,760 --> 00:17:37,600 If you tell them to write things like the marionette right from from the Godfather for the moment, you remember that. 188 00:17:37,600 --> 00:17:43,180 Or you can have a heart of Texas rally. Part of Texas again is an IRA. 189 00:17:43,180 --> 00:17:49,640 It's an IRA front. And on May 21st, 2016, we're going to have a stop the Islamization of Texas. 190 00:17:49,640 --> 00:17:52,780 There's this dalawa centre here, and we don't like it. 191 00:17:52,780 --> 00:18:01,870 So on Saturday, May 21st, two oh one Travis Street in Houston, we are going to have to stop the Islamist Islamization of Texas. 192 00:18:01,870 --> 00:18:06,760 So the heart of Texas puts this out. People were like, That sounds great. 193 00:18:06,760 --> 00:18:14,380 But the United Muslims of America shares their event. United Muslims of America also an IRA, a platform. 194 00:18:14,380 --> 00:18:18,910 It's only been a month since the library of Islamic knowledge at the centre in Houston is open. 195 00:18:18,910 --> 00:18:28,450 Save Islamic knowledge. May 21 12 p.m. Star Centre Travis Street By the way, the actual data centre had nothing to do with any of this. 196 00:18:28,450 --> 00:18:33,400 And here we are. Right, Colo. Co-located rallies, right? 197 00:18:33,400 --> 00:18:41,200 So people, I don't know what this flag is, by the way. So buying a cup of coffee or a beer, if you know, I'm sure it's a welcome to America flag. 198 00:18:41,200 --> 00:18:45,100 I don't know. I have no idea what it means. I like to kill yourself here. 199 00:18:45,100 --> 00:18:56,260 So it's a lovely social discourse. And again, so what we see here is the IRA just tells us not only what to think, but where to be. 200 00:18:56,260 --> 00:19:00,070 And then they set the conditions for what you see here. 201 00:19:00,070 --> 00:19:04,240 By the way, Texas is what we call at home an open carry state, 202 00:19:04,240 --> 00:19:11,740 which means you can have a weapon basically where you know you can bring your your bazooka in the subway and and get a sandwich. 203 00:19:11,740 --> 00:19:21,430 And so, yeah, there are some people who thought that it was hoped that in Texas, this could actually devolve into into Americans killing Americans. 204 00:19:21,430 --> 00:19:26,710 So Texas might have been a strategic choice there due to the governorship anyway. 205 00:19:26,710 --> 00:19:33,400 So again, just playing us. All right. Muller, in 2019, we finally concludes what everybody knows. 206 00:19:33,400 --> 00:19:39,070 Russia interferes in a sweeping and systemic fashion, but let's update this for 2020. 207 00:19:39,070 --> 00:19:45,070 The hard part about this information is coming up with content that you've got to keep feeding the beast. 208 00:19:45,070 --> 00:19:50,890 And so the Russians thought, What if we just set up a platform and people who think what? 209 00:19:50,890 --> 00:19:53,710 We want them to think? Well, already right for us. 210 00:19:53,710 --> 00:20:00,030 And so what they did here with the platform called peace data is they just they got people you want to you want to. 211 00:20:00,030 --> 00:20:06,120 Complain about Yemen, I've got an article for you there. Child trafficking got I got an article for you there. 212 00:20:06,120 --> 00:20:12,210 I like this one over funding the girls, the U.S. military driving climate change and white supremacist culture of war crimes. 213 00:20:12,210 --> 00:20:15,660 Right. I mean, I've seen I've seen the money it's wasted for sure. 214 00:20:15,660 --> 00:20:19,140 But but that's not what it's doing. 215 00:20:19,140 --> 00:20:26,490 So anyway, so piece data, what they did was they they went on various recruitment sites like H.R. recruitment sites, and they said, Hey, 216 00:20:26,490 --> 00:20:31,740 would you like to make some money as a freelance journalist and the freelance journalists really sure I need to get my name out there. 217 00:20:31,740 --> 00:20:33,150 I need to get my stuff out there. 218 00:20:33,150 --> 00:20:41,850 So they set this platform called peace data and any anything you want to write about it sort of, as is a far left type approach. 219 00:20:41,850 --> 00:20:47,100 And the Russians would pay you and they would pay you, I think, PayPal or for a couple of ways and they actually paid. 220 00:20:47,100 --> 00:20:50,160 Right? Imagine getting getting money out of other newspapers. 221 00:20:50,160 --> 00:20:57,630 So this got shut down, actually, because the FBI found out and went to one of the hosting things. 222 00:20:57,630 --> 00:21:01,290 I forget. I forget which one and say, like, Hey, this is, it's actually a Russian front. 223 00:21:01,290 --> 00:21:07,410 And then we go, Okay. And so it got shut down. But the point is, you're using real people on the right as well. 224 00:21:07,410 --> 00:21:12,900 So if you don't happen to be ideologically aligned with peace data, no problem. 225 00:21:12,900 --> 00:21:18,060 Here's a newsroom for American and European citizens. I think this one might even still be up. 226 00:21:18,060 --> 00:21:25,830 It is a news organisation and a news aggregator site dedicated to bringing you uncensored news and discussion around this idea of uncensored, 227 00:21:25,830 --> 00:21:29,370 free speech and the reason we're here. You're globalism. 228 00:21:29,370 --> 00:21:36,060 The failures of modern liberalism, right wing politics, globalism, freedom restrictions, blah blah blah. 229 00:21:36,060 --> 00:21:42,930 They don't put political correctness above commonsense, and they're inviting real people to actually get in touch. 230 00:21:42,930 --> 00:21:49,080 Right? Why do I have to come up with all the content if you have a particular bugaboo from the far right? 231 00:21:49,080 --> 00:21:58,490 Hey, you can publish here, right? There's a home for you here and there's a home for you here, so they don't have to do it all themselves. 232 00:21:58,490 --> 00:22:02,560 Hmm. A quick case study how to target veterans. 233 00:22:02,560 --> 00:22:08,850 Number one pose as as an American veteran, create what looks like organic content. 234 00:22:08,850 --> 00:22:14,070 This is actually real content. This is why we salute the flag. This is why we stand for the anthem. 235 00:22:14,070 --> 00:22:21,210 This is a Vietnam veterans. I will not ruin anything by telling you Vietnam veterans is up to the Russians. 236 00:22:21,210 --> 00:22:27,720 Yeah, I mean, that's a real thing, right? I mean, that's that's hard. No two ways about that. 237 00:22:27,720 --> 00:22:35,340 Step two Create a following in the military veterans community with agreeable images like If you were proud to support our veterans, 238 00:22:35,340 --> 00:22:41,640 right, you have sort of a multi-generation potentially cross racial, you know, little feel good, right? 239 00:22:41,640 --> 00:22:45,270 You know, Hey, hey, kid, go go shake hands with the veteran, right? That's that's nice. 240 00:22:45,270 --> 00:22:52,800 OK? Veterans come first. Also, Russian Step three ad misleading images. 241 00:22:52,800 --> 00:23:00,090 Here's American veterans again Russia on Instagram, and this is a scene from an honour flight in honour. 242 00:23:00,090 --> 00:23:08,040 Flight is one of the remains of a U.S. U.S. fallen coming to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, 243 00:23:08,040 --> 00:23:13,890 and then they are repatriated to their home wherever their family wants them and actually been on an honour flight. 244 00:23:13,890 --> 00:23:17,580 And it's very powerful. Know the pilot says, Hey, this is an honour flight. 245 00:23:17,580 --> 00:23:23,760 Please stay in your seats and the family is going to meet the casket and then it will open the doors after that. 246 00:23:23,760 --> 00:23:30,600 And so you basically just, you know, sit there for a second. So this is veteran's us. 247 00:23:30,600 --> 00:23:36,240 And so they have a super post. Hillary asks quote, what difference does it make? 248 00:23:36,240 --> 00:23:40,800 Now that is a real quote, but it is taken out of the circus. 249 00:23:40,800 --> 00:23:45,720 That was the Benghazi hearings. It has nothing to do with this. 250 00:23:45,720 --> 00:23:52,890 And so what they've done is they've taken a real image of an honour flight and a technically speaking, real quote. 251 00:23:52,890 --> 00:24:01,260 It's true, and they've overlaid it to see if two true things that were overlaid create a false impression. 252 00:24:01,260 --> 00:24:07,470 And that's that's what they've done here. So follow veterans underscore us if you know the difference. 253 00:24:07,470 --> 00:24:18,720 Fifty three bucks, OK? Step four Stoke anger and resentment in the military veteran community to drive to the civil military wedge even deeper. 254 00:24:18,720 --> 00:24:24,230 The ten 10000 Syrian rebels. How about taking care of fifty thousand homeless veterans instead? 255 00:24:24,230 --> 00:24:26,580 Right. So now we finally get to the nub of it. 256 00:24:26,580 --> 00:24:34,170 They don't want US forces to be in Syria because, you know, we're having a little proxy war with the Russians in Syria, right? 257 00:24:34,170 --> 00:24:42,570 So the idea is if you can erode some support for the veteran community, bye bye from the Syria mission, right? 258 00:24:42,570 --> 00:24:45,540 That's all to the good. And so that's what we're trying to do. 259 00:24:45,540 --> 00:24:54,060 Create some real content, create some images that you might want to like and share, and then get your strategic message in there as well. 260 00:24:54,060 --> 00:24:59,280 So are we helpless? I want to spend a couple of minutes just talking about things that we can do. 261 00:24:59,280 --> 00:25:07,020 We don't just. I have to give up. I told you, I love ice hockey, here's Putin number 11, playing in a very professional league here. 262 00:25:07,020 --> 00:25:11,670 And this goalie, Redick, the defenceman, is like, Take your shot. I'm not going to stop you. 263 00:25:11,670 --> 00:25:19,140 And the goalie doesn't want to save it either. He's going to end up in a gulag so that Putin scored 11 points or something during this game. 264 00:25:19,140 --> 00:25:22,890 If you're them, you're helpless. But we're not them. We are not helpless. 265 00:25:22,890 --> 00:25:30,090 There are plenty of things that we can do. Lots of countries are doing this actually pretty well. 266 00:25:30,090 --> 00:25:34,140 Take the Estonians, for instance. They have proper stop profit. 267 00:25:34,140 --> 00:25:40,410 Stop is a is a website in Estonian, English, Russian and German. 268 00:25:40,410 --> 00:25:47,010 And it just it looks at the the propaganda efforts that are better targeted at Estonia. 269 00:25:47,010 --> 00:25:54,420 Aside from just, I'm not sure to tell you what to say it's to go to. But here's what they call it Information, space security. 270 00:25:54,420 --> 00:25:57,540 We don't really even have a term for this, at least back home. 271 00:25:57,540 --> 00:26:03,600 And I'm not sure that the Brits do either, because we think of it as cybersecurity, right? 272 00:26:03,600 --> 00:26:08,170 It's not cybersecurity, it's information, space security. 273 00:26:08,170 --> 00:26:13,700 It's a different way to look at it. Right. It's not, you know, is really with penetration testing. 274 00:26:13,700 --> 00:26:17,970 Where is my is my network secure? Yes. No, right? 275 00:26:17,970 --> 00:26:22,260 Is my information space secure? Yes, no. But that's it. That's a harder question. 276 00:26:22,260 --> 00:26:24,900 And it's it's a different question. 277 00:26:24,900 --> 00:26:35,100 In Sweden, they have another idea for the MSB is their civil contingencies agency, and they have societal information security. 278 00:26:35,100 --> 00:26:39,180 Again, not cybersecurity, societal information security. 279 00:26:39,180 --> 00:26:45,660 We don't have these these terms. They've they're thinking about this in different ways. 280 00:26:45,660 --> 00:26:49,470 Information, space security, societal information security. 281 00:26:49,470 --> 00:26:55,710 I don't really care what we call it, but it's not cybersecurity. It's something different. 282 00:26:55,710 --> 00:27:05,220 The Swedes have put out this emergency preparedness pamphlet called If Crisis or War Comes. 283 00:27:05,220 --> 00:27:15,300 And for those of you who are old enough to get the Yellow Pages delivered to your house, this is what the Swedes would do during the Cold War. 284 00:27:15,300 --> 00:27:20,190 They would put out a little pamphlet and they would send it in the mail to every house in Sweden. 285 00:27:20,190 --> 00:27:21,720 And after the Cold War was done, 286 00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:26,880 I think maybe in the late nineties or 2000 something that they stopped doing this right because like, what's the point? 287 00:27:26,880 --> 00:27:34,230 You know, Russians, you know, there are friends. We're we're not going to get, you know, nuclear winter here, so we'll just stop doing it. 288 00:27:34,230 --> 00:27:38,670 In 2018, the Swedes restarted this effort. 289 00:27:38,670 --> 00:27:45,870 So now this comes to your house. If you live in Sweden or you can get it on the internet, and here is a picture of it. 290 00:27:45,870 --> 00:27:54,540 Emergency preparedness, false information right up at the beginning, I think the Swedes have this right, right? 291 00:27:54,540 --> 00:28:01,180 I don't I don't envision, you know, I don't know what the Russian Spetsnaz, you know, parachuting into Stockholm. 292 00:28:01,180 --> 00:28:08,510 I don't envision tanks. I do envision false information. Here is what Page Six says. 293 00:28:08,510 --> 00:28:13,350 I think it's the most important page in all of the internet. 294 00:28:13,350 --> 00:28:20,040 The best protection against false information and hostile propaganda is to critically appraise the source. 295 00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:24,150 There are technological responses. I don't happen to know what they are. 296 00:28:24,150 --> 00:28:31,740 I'm trying to hire a postdoc who can help me with that. But I couldn't tell you how to, you know, tweak an algorithm or what. 297 00:28:31,740 --> 00:28:36,420 I don't know. There's legal responses, right, about the Communications Decency Act in the States. 298 00:28:36,420 --> 00:28:39,570 Ofcom in this country, there's tons of things that you can do. 299 00:28:39,570 --> 00:28:49,290 But I'm a historian and this is what I think historians can add to the sort of societal information security preparedness kit. 300 00:28:49,290 --> 00:28:54,180 Is the information factual or an opinion. We don't do this when I was a kid. 301 00:28:54,180 --> 00:29:04,110 You have to weigh factor opinion next to a statement. And my son, who's in year three, he doesn't do that and I don't understand why not. 302 00:29:04,110 --> 00:29:08,880 You know, we have to teach kids, what's the fact and what's someone's opinion? 303 00:29:08,880 --> 00:29:10,530 And I don't know where this stopped. 304 00:29:10,530 --> 00:29:17,490 And if you do this or you have kids that do this, I I'd love to hear about it, but that's something that I remember and I think is missing. 305 00:29:17,490 --> 00:29:21,180 What is the aim of this information, right? What's the intent behind it? 306 00:29:21,180 --> 00:29:26,550 Who put it out? Is the source trustworthy? Is this information available somewhere else, right? 307 00:29:26,550 --> 00:29:32,730 Can I check it? Is this information newer old? And why is it out there at this precise moment? 308 00:29:32,730 --> 00:29:39,480 Why not yesterday? Why not last week? In a sense, it's almost like out of parodies, Sir Joseph. 309 00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:43,440 This, you know, style cybersecurity. These are important questions. 310 00:29:43,440 --> 00:29:50,160 Search for information. The best way to counteract propaganda and false information is to have done your homework. 311 00:29:50,160 --> 00:29:53,670 Use more than one reliable source all of these. 312 00:29:53,670 --> 00:30:00,600 It's not rocket science. And yet I think if we just, you know, took the steps, I think we could be in a better place than we are. 313 00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:02,850 Sweden has just said you might you might have seen this. 314 00:30:02,850 --> 00:30:08,130 They've just set up the Psychological Defence Agency to fight fake news and foreign interference. 315 00:30:08,130 --> 00:30:12,930 I do not speak Swedish. I do not know how to pronounce that. 316 00:30:12,930 --> 00:30:18,300 France, by the way, six months ago also created an agency to fight foreign disinformation. 317 00:30:18,300 --> 00:30:23,700 I think if we are not doing this, we are behind the power curve and I'm not saying it's easy, 318 00:30:23,700 --> 00:30:28,150 but I think setting up dedicated agencies to do this and I understand, right? 319 00:30:28,150 --> 00:30:31,260 You know, the government is the answer to everything. No, I don't think that. 320 00:30:31,260 --> 00:30:37,200 But there there is a place for this and I think that we have to compete in this space. 321 00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:46,950 The Finns have decided to promote media and information literacy again, something that my kid is not getting in school right? 322 00:30:46,950 --> 00:30:51,240 I would. I don't know why, but I would love to see that. And you know what? 323 00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:55,770 Like anything else, you get out of it what you put into it, right? 324 00:30:55,770 --> 00:31:02,400 If you want to run a subfour minute mile, get running. If you want to bench, press your body weight, get to the gym, right? 325 00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:08,640 The idea that we can just we can just be like, Oh, well, you know, whatever happens, happens. 326 00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:17,430 No, they they they are at the top because they have resources and programmes and an emphasis to get to the top. 327 00:31:17,430 --> 00:31:22,230 It doesn't just happen, right? And I think we need to start. 328 00:31:22,230 --> 00:31:28,530 I think sorry for those of you who were maybe Gen Z and don't know what this is, this is the Princess Bride. 329 00:31:28,530 --> 00:31:34,680 Just wonderful movie and you should all watch it. But I don't want Facebook. 330 00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:42,450 I don't. I don't want us to tell Facebook or Twitter or whatever that they have to have this totally clean platform. 331 00:31:42,450 --> 00:31:45,990 That's only golden, you know, pure as the driven snow truth. 332 00:31:45,990 --> 00:31:51,210 I don't think that's going to help us. I think we have to learn to live with the poison. 333 00:31:51,210 --> 00:31:57,030 It's never going to be clean. And in fact, I don't want to regulate cleanliness anyway. 334 00:31:57,030 --> 00:32:01,560 In this particular case, I'm sorry if you haven't seen it, but it came out in like nineteen eighty seven. 335 00:32:01,560 --> 00:32:07,530 So if you haven't seen it in the last 30 years or whatever it's been. Sorry, I'm just going to ruin this for you. 336 00:32:07,530 --> 00:32:11,340 But the point here is that there's this little iachini powder and they're going to have 337 00:32:11,340 --> 00:32:16,230 a battle of wits to see who can drink the Ikeme powder and figure out which which glass. 338 00:32:16,230 --> 00:32:20,970 It's it's in anyway. So this guy Wallace Shawn, here's actor. 339 00:32:20,970 --> 00:32:24,900 So he dies, and it turns out there was poison in both classes. 340 00:32:24,900 --> 00:32:32,700 But over time, the masked man developed a resistance by giving himself a little bit of irony and powder and a little bit of cocaine powder. 341 00:32:32,700 --> 00:32:36,180 And pretty soon he could just deal with it. And I think that that's what we need to do. 342 00:32:36,180 --> 00:32:41,910 I think we need to be inoculated a little bit. I think we need to learn to deal with it. 343 00:32:41,910 --> 00:32:47,550 So. All right. Here I'm coming to my it's my hand. I think these are national security problems. 344 00:32:47,550 --> 00:32:52,800 So sorry, if that securitised is them. But I think that's where we are. 345 00:32:52,800 --> 00:32:58,200 I think that malign influence should be identified as a national security threat and resourced appropriately. 346 00:32:58,200 --> 00:32:59,460 We've got to take this seriously. 347 00:32:59,460 --> 00:33:11,730 I just wrote an article about this trend in the Journal of the National Defence University Law School parameters, and I argued in it that, 348 00:33:11,730 --> 00:33:20,250 you know, every new administration, the U.S. administration, when they come in, there's like this is a grab bag of things that scare policymakers. 349 00:33:20,250 --> 00:33:26,070 And it could be anything from climate change to terrorism to the Iranian nuclear programme to, 350 00:33:26,070 --> 00:33:32,580 I don't know whatever you want, China, Russia, a great power competition and they basically just reorder them. 351 00:33:32,580 --> 00:33:39,180 They put number two, number one, number three and number two, right? And they call it National Security Strategy. 352 00:33:39,180 --> 00:33:47,730 And I think that's I think we're missing it. I think disinformation needs to be not only on that list, but arguably at the top of that list. 353 00:33:47,730 --> 00:33:51,840 I think that can really hurt us far more than a resurgent China or whatever. 354 00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:58,680 Russia is up to anywhere so that I just got I got shredded online as a woke West Point 355 00:33:58,680 --> 00:34:04,050 professor who who wants Big Tech to to take over and tell people what to think. 356 00:34:04,050 --> 00:34:14,200 So you can Google that. That's it as a crazy article, but I did tell my boss and like, so I'm not a West Point professor on the internet. 357 00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:23,190 It's actually not even true as. OK. The Intercept. The Intercept that overlap in ways that challenged typical conceptions of national security. 358 00:34:23,190 --> 00:34:28,860 Right? What do we do? We make the Modi deal with security issues. We make MI5 do about security issues. 359 00:34:28,860 --> 00:34:33,670 We make 60 on security issues. This is an all of us security issue. 360 00:34:33,670 --> 00:34:39,120 I don't think we're there yet. The challenges, legal authorities, right in the U.S., 361 00:34:39,120 --> 00:34:45,780 we have a very bright foreign and domestic divide this these these intersect and overlap in ways 362 00:34:45,780 --> 00:34:51,880 that are challenges our legal authorities and the structure of our defence and intelligence. 363 00:34:51,880 --> 00:34:58,630 I think with number one, social cohesion and critical thinking are now critical pillars of Western national security. 364 00:34:58,630 --> 00:35:03,820 That means getting it in the classrooms and means teaching civics. I mean, teaching history, that means critical thinking. 365 00:35:03,820 --> 00:35:07,310 That means media literacy, things that I think we need to do. 366 00:35:07,310 --> 00:35:16,810 post-haste the response of government and broader civil society will have a decisive impact on the preservation of liberal democratic institutions. 367 00:35:16,810 --> 00:35:25,730 Handle with care. I'm not saying that we needed to have regulation deal with everything, so we just have to be a little bit careful about that. 368 00:35:25,730 --> 00:35:31,010 I think I've skipped three in there. Sorry about that. We can learn from other countries. 369 00:35:31,010 --> 00:35:36,310 You know, I showed you what these Etonians are doing to showing you some of what the Swedes are doing shows a little bit with the Finns are doing. 370 00:35:36,310 --> 00:35:41,830 Other countries are tackling this. They're far ahead of the UK. They're far ahead of the US. 371 00:35:41,830 --> 00:35:43,870 But each approach, I think, will have to be national. 372 00:35:43,870 --> 00:35:49,000 We can't just take another country's approach and overlay it on our country and be like, See, now it's solved. 373 00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:53,050 It's not that easy. And then finally, I think we you started this. 374 00:35:53,050 --> 00:36:01,720 This got cut off. I think we need to develop some trust and cooperation between Intel and security agencies and Big Tech and journalists. 375 00:36:01,720 --> 00:36:06,880 And I know that's hard because they hate each other and there's a mutual suspicion there. 376 00:36:06,880 --> 00:36:14,980 But I think just as a for instance, with peace data and the ABC, which they needed to come up with a better name for that, right? 377 00:36:14,980 --> 00:36:19,750 It's not just Americans that have to be sorry. It's not just the readers that have to be critical. 378 00:36:19,750 --> 00:36:23,740 Journalists have to be critical as well. Big Tech has to be critical as well. 379 00:36:23,740 --> 00:36:26,620 And I've actually been pretty impressed with what I've seen, for instance, 380 00:36:26,620 --> 00:36:30,880 from Facebook, when FBI goes to them and they're like, Hey, this is the Russians. 381 00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:34,420 They they get on it pretty quick, actually not saying the perfect. 382 00:36:34,420 --> 00:36:40,150 I wouldn't even know what perfect looks like. The journal journalist is another one, right? 383 00:36:40,150 --> 00:36:41,440 Hack and leak, right? 384 00:36:41,440 --> 00:36:49,540 You've all seen how the Russians are weapon weaponize leaks of hacking the Democratic National Committee hacking of other politicians. 385 00:36:49,540 --> 00:36:52,300 OK, good for them. 386 00:36:52,300 --> 00:36:59,320 But sometimes I think journalists and I'm not even putting like the WikiLeaks in the Julian Assange folks, you know, into that category. 387 00:36:59,320 --> 00:37:05,050 But sort of what I might call real journalists, mainstream journalists when they see stuff like this, this is good. 388 00:37:05,050 --> 00:37:10,120 It might be good, but it's out there for a purpose. And so we just need to think about that. 389 00:37:10,120 --> 00:37:21,130 So I think that might be the hardest bit. I grant you that the intense focus on foreign disinformation might be a problem. 390 00:37:21,130 --> 00:37:27,970 I understand. I take that criticism. I studied the foreign aspect, the domestic bit. 391 00:37:27,970 --> 00:37:34,780 Some of the some of the stuff works. Some of it doesn't. But yeah, the idea that it's all foreign, right? 392 00:37:34,780 --> 00:37:41,620 And that we're being acted upon right instead of being proactive or domestic actors. 393 00:37:41,620 --> 00:37:53,630 Again, I take it. I think disinformation unfortunately flourishes in fertile soil just as a, for instance, back home. 394 00:37:53,630 --> 00:38:02,090 Pew has found so in the United States, we have three branches of government. That's what makes our our our system a federal system. 395 00:38:02,090 --> 00:38:10,790 And Pew has found that 33 percent of Americans don't know that we have three branches of government and 11 percent of Americans can be proud. 396 00:38:10,790 --> 00:38:12,330 They don't understand what's going on. 397 00:38:12,330 --> 00:38:18,980 And so when they get told something, they don't have the cognitive backbone to say, Actually, no, that's not true. 398 00:38:18,980 --> 00:38:26,150 And so it again, I think, you know, the situation can be ripe for it. 399 00:38:26,150 --> 00:38:30,380 This is a this is a hard one as well. And to be honest, I'm going to leave you here. 400 00:38:30,380 --> 00:38:38,120 This is my my last slide on a bit of a bit of a sort of, I don't know, a frustrated, noted, disappointed note. 401 00:38:38,120 --> 00:38:46,670 I don't think there's a lot of silver linings, actually. And this one. Paul Gosar, by the way, is is a sitting US representative from Arizona. 402 00:38:46,670 --> 00:38:52,550 I guess he's a doctor, but I don't know what it's of. And he put out this in 2020. 403 00:38:52,550 --> 00:39:00,230 The world is better without these guys in power. Here's President Obama and the leader of Iran. 404 00:39:00,230 --> 00:39:06,920 They never met. Actually, this on the left is the real photo. 405 00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:14,630 And on the right, it was photoshopped. So here I am, droning on and on about citizens and journalists and whatever. 406 00:39:14,630 --> 00:39:20,360 But yeah, I mean, if you have elected representatives who didn't do this kind of thing before, 407 00:39:20,360 --> 00:39:29,960 you might remember he got in big trouble recently for the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez beheading cartoon cartoon, right? 408 00:39:29,960 --> 00:39:35,060 So he's I'm not going to say too much. Technically, I'm still a federal servant. 409 00:39:35,060 --> 00:39:43,610 But but you know, I'm I'm concerned because I think that we need leadership at the top. 410 00:39:43,610 --> 00:39:50,330 And I think we need it. We need to ask people. You want people to to respect the government right? 411 00:39:50,330 --> 00:39:54,380 And do the things the government wants in Sweden or whatever govern well. 412 00:39:54,380 --> 00:40:02,450 And then they will. So I'm a little bit disappointed. So I think I'll probably leave you there. 413 00:40:02,450 --> 00:40:13,440 So thanks very much. Thank you very much for that. 414 00:40:13,440 --> 00:40:14,947 That was a really fascinating presentation.