Big Tech continues to meddle in our elections, putting their thumbs on the scale to affect who wins and who loses. For this podcast, Anna explains why Silicon Valley's meddling is a threat to our democracy. Anna also details her new lawsuit against the Federal Election Commission and how she's taking Twitter to court. The fight against Big Tech starts here.
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Up next, Luna Talks with Anna Paulina. Luna part of the gang which big tech continues to meddle in our elections, putting their thumbs on the scale to affect who wins and who loses. Don't kid yourselves. This is a threat to our democracy. And trust me, I know from personal experience. That's exactly why I'm taking Twitter to court. This is Luna talks with Anna Paulina. This week, I wanted to cover something really special, so as we know, earlier in the week, I had actually announced that I was going after Twitter, and a lot of people, especially when I talk about this case, they're like, well, why is social media is so important? Why is that blue check mark so important? And I say, well, we're fighting technocracy, So what is big tech? I think a lot of people, especially the older generation, thinks big tech is just Google YouTube, you know, our general search engine and browsers. But it's way more than that. It's a collaboration. In addition to social media platforms, whether to your Facebook, your Twitter, your Instagram. Pretty much how everybody in this country, actually over half of the US population is connected, is on some form of social media. And we when we look into the ways previous generations used to communicate. Specifically, I think previous to that of the eighties, it was a large focus on mail, print and television. Right, So you had your Federal Communications Guidelines and your Federal Elections Commission that would actually work together to ensure that candidates in particular were given the same amount of access to these different platforms, especially because, as we know, candidates use those platforms in order to communicate with the people that they are hoping will vote for them. Right. So, currently upwards of sev of the U S population is on some form of social media, according to Pew Research, And that's a huge deal for someone like myself especially. And I can tell you with a lot of my friends, you know, you see and I'm sure you probably like look at with your kids as well. They'll be constantly on their phones and you wonder, okay, well why are you always on your phone? Well, it's basically like us pulling out a newspaper and reading it, right, Like we're absorbing health tips, were absorbing fitness tips, were absorbing politics. And that's especially why my case is increasingly becoming more and more important to the younger generation. So how does gen D and millennials communicate, and these stats are something that I really think everyone should really hone in on and listen to, because as the voters get older, as this younger generation fills the shoes of our parents and our grandparents, were realizing that the old way of communicating is going away altogether. And I think it's gonna be my estimate that in the next twenty years we're probably not going to even really have TVs in our homes anymore, just because it's going to this market of duchess advertisement, but of entertainment as well. In fact, actually they're now starting to bring streaming services into your home. Student you have to go to the movie theaters anymore. So according to digital usage, the highest percentage at for of users on Twitter is actually people that are eighteen to twenty nine years old, and that's from p Research. And then in a separate study that was found it was actually done on four thousand people. They actually found that nearly three quarters about seventy three of Gen Z adults ages eighteen to twenty three actively used Instagram, followed by snapchat at and YouTube six. Facebook does, however, remain the most used platforms for millennials at Gen X at sixty eight percent, and then your baby boomer generation at sixty one percent. So what is this saying. This is just furthering the argument that we have to essentially fight for our voices on this platform. And we'll get into it in a second what's been uncovered by organizations like Project Very Toss and what they're discovering. But I really want you guys to understand that the best way of communication for one for the younger generation is peer to peer communication. Right. So, a lot of our friends, like in my little Friends Circle, you know, you have DC Dreino, you have Broke Back Patriot, you have the typical liberal. These are all handles that they used to identify their social media accounts. But we're not just talking about, you know, a couple of hundred people following them, or even a couple of hundred thousand people following We're talking about millions of people, right, So to give it some perspective, if one of these accounts, let's say my friend Rogan posts on his account at seven pm on a Friday, because of the amount of people that actually follow him on that platform, he could essentially, if he has a viral posting, be competing with the ratings that you would have on Fox Business or Fox News Daytime. And mind you, this is on an app Instagram on someone's phone, which is essentially free media. So why would it be important to want to ensure that this is being regulated correctly. Well, it's because if it's not, what's happening is you have an entire demographic of younger voters that are getting skewed data, skewed information, and only one side of the argument because of a act that these accounts and even accounts like mine, are being increasingly suppressed by these big tech companies. So what will happen is on a lot of these platforms, whether it's Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, you have this concept of a verified account. But why is being verified so important? It's way more than just that blue check And it actually is really frustrating for someone like myself because when I actually initially started talking about this, and I think when other candidates around the country started talking about this, they were in the election cycle, a lot of reporters would make this condescending term, Oh, they're threatening suit because of a blue check mark. It's far much more than that. When you are verified on any one of these accounts. Not only does it show other people that that's your actual accounts, so you actually are able to prevent fraudulent impersonation accounts which have happened to people like myself. You can also ensure that those people are aware that that is the official platform and statement making communication for these candidates that are competing for elected office. So you could think of social media essentially as this digital town square. Right. We have governments around the world that are specifically on Twitter to communicate with their people, whether it's literally Russia, China, Iran, Canada, South America. And then you have of course our US government and then officials of the US government that are elected or appointed, but they all use these platforms, especially Twitter. I'd have to say that Twitter is probably the most political of all of the different social media spaces that are actually used by dot gov accounts to communicate and put out information to the American people as to what's happening in our country. And then you also have social movements that will use these social media platforms. So think about all that chaos that happens recently with the BLM movements. BLM actually has a verified page on Twitter, and they people will use Facebook and Twitter and Instagram to communicate, to organize, to share information, and to actually I think promote these grassroots movements. Whether or not I agree with them, The point is is that these platforms are absolutely used to organize and essentially execute our freedom of demonstration, freedom of speech, all of that right. I want you to just envision this for a second. So imagine being younger and having your TV, your radio, your books, and your newspapers either being censored or burned. And I know that people are saying, I can't believe maybe she just compared social media censorship to book burning, But I really want you guys to understand that for someone in the younger generation, when you are being closed off from access and not able to have even a voice, or to post your opinion, or even to access information because other people you know in Silicon Valley and California are sitting on the other end of a computer and saying that we don't think that they have the right to read this, that is essentially modern day book burning. Social media censorship is modern a book burning. How would that makes you feel? Obviously makes you feel, I think sometimes desperate, because how do you get your voice out there? How are you heard? How can you actually make an impact when you don't even have the right to use your voice? And a lot of people say, oh, well, you know you don't. You're not totally censored. It's just Facebook, or it's just Twitter, or it's just Instagram. But that's not the point. You have this happening to an entire generation of people, especially my generation, right those millennials. I remember when we had those like old Nokia brick phones that probably radiated way too much for our brains, but I remember those. And then all of a sudden, I remember when this thing called my Space came out. A lot of people are like, what's my space if you're a gen Z person? But my Space was actually before Facebook, and that's what I think really kicked off this social media movement on the Internet. And then you have your younger children, your grandchildren that are almost all on social media, they all have those iPads. Those kids are one hun impacted by what's happening in our country today politically, especially to conservatives and Republicans. But this is and I want to make this a very clear point, This is not just an issue that we as conservatives or we are Republicans, are facing. This is something that's going to impact everyone, whether you're a Democrat, whether you're a Republican, whether you're independent, whether you are a member of the Green Party, and a whole another country. The point is is that this type of power and control by these technocracies has never existed to the magnitude that it has. And I think that was interesting that Project Very Toss actually hadn't covered a software engineer at one of these platforms. I think it was on Facebook, and that this man had said, no king in the history of our world has ever had the power that Facebook has had in regards to controlling messaging and essentially being able to influence not just the United States, but we're talking about influencing global ideologies, which is very dangerous because that is total control. And if we here in the United States can't regulate it, let's just say that in other parts of the world, where they might not even have some of the liberties that we have and that you have, Let's say, you know, these companies are essentially working with maybe people that don't necessarily agree with a constitutional republic. What about communists? I mean, you have all these I think companies like Google basically bowing down to China, and China has social network systems actually monitor and score people based on their behavior that's considered acceptable, which to me, that social credit system is actually super scary. But why is it that I'm so passionate about this, right? I mean, like, I don't think people just like wake up and say, oh, I'm going to take on Twitter, because obviously it's not cheap, and obviously it's a huge stress, right, especially when you feel like nationally, I think a lot of people have realized, well, you know, what is the Republican already really done about this? You know they've talked about it, but have they really done anything? What have our legislature has done in order to protect my voice as an American voter? Right? So I remember when this first started about I'd say three years ago, when I first really started noticing it. I actually remember being in the car and I think I was listening to NPR at the time, and I was driving my little Jetta and I pulled up to gas station. I remember they were talking about one I guess he was like kind of a radical media personality, but he had been kicked off and banned on all these different platforms and I remember hearing that and I was like, Wow, that's like really kind of scary that someone would just get socially canceled like that. But I didn't really think too much of it, because I think, like most people, you don't realize that if it just happens to one person at first, it's it's going to happen to you as well. But I remember feeling very uncomfortable about it, and I think that myself at the time, I wasn't that political, but people that were political were very very quiet about that, and I think it was because it didn't directly impact them yet. And then I remember as I progressed kind of in my political evolution especially, and I know in previous episodes, you guys have probably heard about what had happened early on in my life with you know, growing up essentially around people that were using guns to do really bad things. So posting on social media with firearms. I remember having my postings actually on Instagram labeled as a danger to the community. People were saying that that type of posting, whether or not I was encouraging women to use farms, was actually not safe. And so what I was realizing is there are shadow banning postings, and you ask, well, what is shadow batting? And that's actually when they prevent you from being able to see certain information. So you might have let's say thirty thousand people that following your social media account, but they'll actually change the algorithms on the back end, so maybe only five thousand people or two thousand people, or I've even seen cases of people having over a million followers and they're only getting a couple of hundred views per posting. So we're talking about less than one percent of your actual total following being able to see what you're posting. And how do we know that that's happening, Well, you can see it based on your engagement. But also too, we've actually had recorded evidence come out again from those people that really infiltrated these tech companies, whether it was Facebook, Twitter, Instagram via Project very toss and you can actually see all those videos online. But I realized it was a huge problem after the El Paso shooting a couple of years ago, and so at the time, I was actually working with a Hispanic outreach organization and I was actually down in El Paso within twenty four hours of that shooting, and I remember I posted to Twitter. I said, I'm a Hispanic American, I'm an n r A. Remember I'm a veteran, and I will not bend the knee to the socialist agenda to ban firearms. I took an oath to defend the people of this nation as well as the constitution. Stop making El Paso political. Why did I say that, It's because it was the truth. I was down there and so many people. I saw all these media. It was like a media circus. You had all these people from news reporters and they were only interviewing people that had anti Trump apparel on right, Like you would say that these uh, they looked like the red MAGA hats, but they would only say make America Love again, implying that Trump's Maga agenda was a hate filled agenda. But it was all these hardcore jabs at at the time President Trump when an actuality. We're talking about a psychopath that shot up a Walmart, and then they were taking that entire thing and trying to say, oh, it was political targeting because of the anti immigrant rhetoric coming out of the presidency and out of the GOP, which was obviously completely false. But the point is is that they were not even vetting these people claiming to be family members that were interviewing. I mean, obviously, if your family member had just died, don't you think you'd probably be at home morning, not out trying to get a TV interview. I know for sure as heck I wouldn't. But the point is is that Twitter after I made that posting it was a viral tweet. In fact, I think about almost a hundred thus and people had engaged with it. They reposted all of that, and Twitter kicked me off that day. They locked me up for twelve hours, saying that my tweet, which is what I just read to you guys, was actually a danger to the community. So that was what I realized, all right, this is a huge issue. Obviously, I've said nothing that's been racist xenophobic. I haven't violated their terms and conditions. I literally put out there that I'm fighting for the Constitution and my constitutional rights, and essentially I'm getting kicked off Twitter because of it, which was just completely absurd to me. But then came the time when I really accepted the fact that if we did not do something about this soon, that I felt that essentially I was going to be permanently, and not just myself, but I think a lot of our country was going to be permanently impacted by this. And that was my campaign story. And before I get into that, I just want to specify that everything that's happening now, especially on this legislation that we're hoping to change, is going to be something that isn't just going to be again for people like myself that are conservative leaning, but it's going to be for everyone and it will impact the entire country from here on out because there is nothing currently on the books that covers down on legislation for digital media only covers print, radio, and television. So then came the time when I realized we were in deep trouble. And that is the campaign story, and we'll get back to that right after the short break. So campaign story is something that I wish, honestly I couldn't speak on from a place of of experience, but unfortunately, because of what I went through, I just I really need to share this story with you guys. So, as we know, Twitter put out these press release talking about how official candidates and elections would be verified. The reason why you want to do that, especially for campaigns and something that I actually experienced was that I had people that were actually, I think not even American citizens. I'm pretty sure these people, according to what I was hearing from some of my voters, were actually people that were scamming people from places like Africa and South America, and they were actually making fake accounts of my official congressional accounts saying that they were me. And they were also requesting that people donate to the campaign in Google play cards and or via wiring money by PayPal, which is one not how you donate to campaigns. You only ever go to the official campaign website, and then you do it through the official when red link, which is if you do donate to candidates. You know what that is, but it's a fundraising platform for the GOP. So obviously this could have won gotten me in trouble, right, But then also too, you have people that are genuinely feeling like they're wanting to help and give in campaigns and races, and they're essentially getting scammed because people are engaging and interacting with these not verified accounts. So that's the first thing you have to ensure that your accounts verified. But also too, in my case, I had people that I was running against in my republic In primary and these people, mind you, at the time, I had, I think closed around three hundred thousand people that followed me on my Twitter. But a majority of my opponents, who had no media, had never done directing series, none of the level of verification that would be needed. They were getting verified on their accounts, having you know, ten followers after one day of applying for verification. But Twitter for a very long time was holding off on my verification. So I was literally getting messages from people about being scammed. I was getting people messages is a sear official account? Is this a fake account? I mean, it was actually really causing issues for the campaign on the back end. And yet they went through and through my entire primary election, which is where I competed with other Republicans for the vote to become the primary nominee to run against the Democrat, they verified everyone else, which was a five way primary. Right, I was running against five other people, and yet I was the one that's still received no verification. And then after I won the primary, I wrote Twitter again. Members of my team wrote Twitter. In fact, I had other people that were politically influential as well. Right, Twitter saying, hey, is there a reason that you're not verifying this congressional candidate, she's official nominee. We wrote countless emails to the Twitter dot gov website and still no verification. They said that they would they would send us back to ballot PDIA. So you have to make sure that you're complying to with all the standards, which I did. I had everything that was needed according to their verification process, but they still wouldn't do it. And then we found out and this is a true that that blue check mark, especially on Twitter's engagement side of the house, actually not only increases your engagement, but it increases your visibility. And there is an algorithm that actually changes on the back end right that actually helps people engage with you. So think about it like this. If I were to put it in regards to let's say a newspaper article, you have the ability to have your articles about your campaign and your local town paper either run on the front page or run in the back page in a square that's maybe half an inch versus a front page story. When you have that blue check it's essentially putting your campaign on that front page story. And if they're giving it to one person. According to campaign law, they have to give it to everyone else. Not only does it show voters your the official campaign account, but it also shows people that there is another race happening, right Like a lot of people, especially for those that might not watch Fox News or MSNBC or CNN, for those younger people that are just on social media, if they're not being presented with a different side, a different perspective, a different candidate and option to vote for, then they're not even going to realize that that's actually a race happening. And I didn't just find that this was happening to myself. In fact, I found out later on that this was actually happening to a few candidates in the Tampa Bay area, which strategically, especially for the election cycle, is a very very strategic location. That whole I four Corridor, which is a massive highway that runs up through the center of Florida, is actually something that every single presidential candidate I think, in the history of the United States has needed to campaign on and definitely get support from in order to go to the White House. In fact, it's called the pathway to the White House. But I've never been one to shut up in color. Right, So what did I do about all of this? Well, I'll tell you about that right after we get back after the short break. So I filed an FEC complaint and people are like, Okay, this is kind of boring on a what's the FEC acronyms blah blah blah. Okay. The FEC is the Federal Elections Commission And what do they do. Well, they established in nineteen seventy four and they actually oversee elections. But their job, in particular it includes jurisdiction in civil enforcement matter, is authority to write regulations and the responsibility for monitoring compliance and making sure candidates are adhering, but also too that the candidates are being provided a fair platform. So they're kind of like who you go to when someone's not being fair. You go to the FEC and you hope that they do their job. Well, I file this complaint and I heard nothing for six months. So me and my team and you know, our attorneys, we went back to the drawing board and we're thinking about this and we're brainstorming. And by this time I do it was already after the fact that President Trump had been removed off of Twitter, off of Facebook. Think about that the leader of the free world, arguably one of the most powerful people in the world, the presidents of the United States, had been d platforms. He had been silenced. And we actually just found out a few days ago that Facebook agreed that they had the right to keep President Trump off of this social media platform. But think about that, more power than the duly elected president of the United States, and they were intern silencing him. So why did I see the FEC Well, it's because I wanted them to take action on my complaint that I made last year in previous to my election cycle, stating that Twitter's inequitable treatment of me as a federal candidate during the election cycle constitutes illegal corporate in kind contributions to my then Democrat opponent. What is it in kind contribution? It's something that you have to record if you're receiving something of value to your campaign, and with a verified profile, that is something of monetary value. In fact, Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter, recently sold his first tweet for two point nine million dollars. Okay, that is the value of having a verified social media account. That is digital currency. Think of it like advertising. That is exactly what it is. But what implications does this have. It's to change the law. It's not just for conservatives and Republicans, it's for everyone. Our laws straight up are currently out of date. They only cover down on print, radio, and television, but there's nothing for that digital media or even social media that has evolved in the last twenty years essentially, and then never in the history of our world has someone had that type of power. And so that term technocracy something that we are all facing. These tech giants working with corporations essentially to suppress the American people, our voice, our wants. And then you have people actually elected in Congress and in Senate that are on the payout through this corporate pack money that is not even allowing them to represent their people of their district because they're protecting they're being given money for their actual campaigns by these lobbyists that want these legislators to be soft on tech policy, to be soft on that Section two thirty. And I will make a very specific distinction here. My case against the FEC, my case against Twitter, has nothing to do with free speech because, unfortunately, because of the fact that these tech and these are protected under Section to thirty, which will be a completely different podcast episode. All of those lawsuits based on the First Amendment violations that these tech companies are continuously in, these social media companies are continuously doing to the American people all of those things, they're not even good lawsuits because they won't win in court because of that section to thirty. So ours is completely separate. We are talking specifically about the corporation of Twitter making illegal campaign donations that's not recorded, and essentially that is basically a campaign finance violation. So I would compare it if people know about al Capone. You know, al Capone was this mobster. He was arguably probably one of the most famous mobsters, and we know that he was racketeering and all of this crazy stuff. He was killing people, who's a murder. But they didn't get him on any of that. They got him on tax evasion. And that's what I think that this case is is it is going to be essentially our version of taking down al Capone for tax evasion. And I mean taking down not in a physical sense, but a metaphorical sense. Have to specify just because, but to protect the sanctity of these elections and to ensure that this isn't happening to Freacher generations. You know, we have to do this, and I never I never intended on being one of the first people to do that. But it looks like I'm leading the charge, and I'm leading the charge all the way to the Supreme Court. And I will say that this is the only case in the country, guys, This is the only case in the country that has the ability to impact and change our legislation, not just for me, but for future generations of this incredible country, to ensure that our election processes are protected, that our voices are heard, and that people at least have the right to hear a different perspective and have a different choice. Before we go, I want to thank you guys so much for listening. If you've enjoyed today's show, please leave us a review and rate us five stars on Apple Podcasts. You can also find me on Parlor, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at real Anna Paulina. And a special thank you to our producer Drew Steele, writer Aaron Kleigman, and researcher Stanton Bryson, as well as executive producers Debbie Myers and speaker New Gingridge, part of the Gingridge Three sixty network