Original subtitles

Whoa.

For Last Week Tonight, I'm John Oliver. Thank you so much for joining us. Just

time for a quick recap of the week, and it has been a busy one. A former

Facebook employee confirmed what everyone basically knew, Facebook is

terrible and it's very much by design.

Otis the Bear, the three-time winner of Fat Bear Week, became the four-time

winner because meritocracy is a lie and our system is broken.

And in Idaho, there was this dramatic power grab.

There is a blistering battle happening now between the two top elected

officials in Idaho. Lieutenant Governor Janice McEachin signed an executive

order banning vaccine mandates in schools and COVID testing in certain

capacities. The problem is the governor, Brad Little, was out of the state when

she did it and quickly promised to undo the order.

Yeah, that's true.

While the Idaho governor was out of state, his lieutenant governor issued an

executive order trying to ban schools from requiring employees to be

vaccinated. And not just that, she also sent the state national guard a query

about activating troops and sending them to the U.S.-Mexico border, which is a

pretty bold move from a second-in-command.

It's basically a plane's pilot going to the bathroom and the co-pilot

announcing, change of plans, we're headed to Reno.

My buddy said he'd set me up with a cousin of his if I was ever there, and I

saw a picture of her, and she's an absolute smoke show, so strap in, folks.

It's gonna be bumpy on purpose.

And the thing is, in Idaho, the lieutenant governor does technically

become acting governor whenever the actual governor leaves the state, thanks

to a state constitution that was definitely written long before cell

phones existed.

But knowing that... In fact, it is pretty remarkable that Brad Little chose

to leave the state at all, especially because McGeehan had actually tried a

similar stunt back in May when he left for a conference in Tennessee, and she

issued an executive order banning mask mandates.

So it feels borderline reckless for him to step outside the state right now,

because it is not like she's ever disguised who she is. Just look at this

appearance that she made last year in a video criticizing COVID restrictions.

We recognize that all of us are by nature free and equal and have certain

inalienable rights, among which are enjoying and defending life and liberty,

acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing happiness and

securing safety.

Wow!

That is a rich text.

Although, I will say, that represents the Republican Party better than

anything I have ever seen.

An elephant doesn't quite do it for me. A swirly snake saying, don't tread on

me, nope. But a gun bible and a misquoted Declaration of Independence?

That is the Republican Party that I know.

And it does seem that this is gonna be an ongoing problem.

having to keep a constant eye on the ultra-right in this country so they

don't suddenly grab the wheel and steer us straight into hell. And speaking of

hell, that actually brings us to our second story tonight, OANN, the One

America News Network. You may remember that we covered it last year. It's a far

-right channel that peddles COVID misinformation and conspiracy theories.

Well, this week, we learned some pretty unsettling news.

A new Reuters investigation based on a review of court records reveals that

OANN... has flourished thanks to financial support from a surprising

mainstream source,

AT&T.

Yup. Turns out AT&T has been up to some shit.

And it is worth noting...

AT&T is still technically our business daddy, making OAN our business step

-sibling, and not in a hot way.

Reuters reported that in depositions, OAN's founder Robert Herring testified

AT&T executives once told him they wanted a conservative network, and he

claims, when they said that, I jumped to it and built one. And once he built the

channel, AT&T carried it first on their U-verse system, and then on DirecTV.

And with that help, OAN has grown into the toxic network that it is today.

that's happy to give a platform to batshit election fraud theories from

America's most out-of-breath pillow fetishist, and also one that just a few

months ago featured one of its commentators saying this.

Despite their best efforts, the radical Democrats left fingerprints all over the

country, providing a trail of evidence that the 2020 election was not only

tampered with, but was actually...

Any American involved in these efforts, from those who ran the voting machines

to the very highest government officials, is guilty of treason under U

.S. Code 2381, which carries with it the penalty of death.

Yeah? And look, I get that we're watching a call for mass executions from

a guy with, for lack of a better term, big theater kid energy, but...

Are you really saying those who ran the voting machines could be traitors? You

mean Dolores?

Dolores from down the street? Who volunteered to spend 12 hours of her,

let's face it, dwindling NCIS watching time, doling out participation stickers

to voters?

That Dolores? All right. Death to Dolores, I guess.

Sorry, Lolo, but decaf Pitbull here heard a rumor from a pillow salesman

that you deserve the chair.

Now... I have to tell you, AT&T says that no senior executive suggested to

Herring that he create another conservative network, with the carve-out

of senior there being pretty striking.

They've also said they've never had a financial interest in OIM's success and

do not fund the network, neither of which is 100% the issue here. They also

claim the only reason OIM was on DirecTV was that the network had sued them,

and... okay.

I guess the largest telecom company in the world got rolled in a lawsuit by a

ragtag band of fascists. It happens.

But the larger point here is OAN would be literally nothing without AT&T. An

OAN accountant reportedly said under oath that AT&T provided 90% of Herring

Network's income.

And as for OAN's horrendous content, AT&T told us, Direct TV respects the

editorial independence of the channels it carries, just as AT&T is committed to

providing editorial independence for every WarnerMedia show, including this

one. And that is such a relief, especially... The last part, because if

I may, I'd like to use that generous editorial independence to offer some

constructive feedback to AT&T. Take it!

Recent campaign, more for your thing, that's our thing, which is respectfully

complete gibberish. It sounds like Yoda pitching a penis enlargement device.

It is so nonsensical, I have to assume something was lost in communication,

which actually would be a much more appropriate slogan for the company.

And if you don't like that slogan, AT&T, don't worry, I've got more. How about AT

&T, all the business savvy of Quibi without the courtesy of committing

corporate suicide.

AT&T, if you want a cable out the back of your headquarters and plug it into T

-Mobile's networks while they aren't looking, that's legal, right?

Asking for a friend.

Any of those are all yours if you want them. And look, AT&T, I know our

relationship is a little awkward, especially since you're trying to spin

this business baby off in your deal with Discovery.

But while we are still technically related, let me just say this.

You're a terrible company.

You do bad things and you make the world worse. Please don't bother keeping in

touch once the merger's complete, although that really should not be a

problem for you. You're AT&T. It's not like your messages will go through

anyway.

And now, this.

And now, Fox & Friends' Brian Kilmeade likes Christopher Columbus way, way

too much.

If you read one reputable book on Columbus and still don't think we should

have a Columbus Day, you're not paying attention.

He married two worlds at the time in which most of the world thought it was

flat. I just did the math.

527 years ago, Christopher Columbus discovered the New World. What he did as

an explorer, fighting the odds to do so, they said was like going to the moon

today in the 60s, only more dangerous. One person described it as going to the

moon back in the 1960s, only more dangerous.

Only it was more dangerous. Only more dangerous. Basically, he did the

equivalent of going to the moon in 1490s. Not good enough, Brian. Not good

enough. Right. Actually, more dangerous.

We're going to be the Christopher Columbus of Knockerball. I was almost

the Christopher Columbus of this show. You are the Christopher Columbus of pet

gifts. There are some historians who think that Columbus was actually

Spanish. No, I don't buy that at all.

Obviously. I read Four Voyages, and totally Italian.

Couldn't be more Italian. I just want to salute Columbus. I was Columbus for

Halloween. No pictures available.

I'm like, what are you talking about?

Moving on.

For our main story tonight, we're going to talk about the internet.

It's a magical place where you can find communities of like-minded individuals,

like, for instance, the TikToker who created a charming video of things

narrowly fitting into tight spaces, something that this exceedingly British

woman was a big fan of.

Aye, here we go.

Oh, that went nice. That literally fitted perfectly.

Oh, that's nice.

Oh, bloody hell.

Bit close for comfort, that.

Stressing me out a bit, but that were nice.

Oh, go on.

Oh, yes, go on.

How do you find that all these things fit? Do you know what I mean?

Like, do you just sit in your house and just see if things fit in holes?

You know what?

She's asking a legitimate question there, and I do think that the answer is

yes.

But sadly, our story isn't gonna be about the fun side of the Internet

tonight. It's gonna be about the rampant misinformation on it. It's something

that we've covered multiple times before, from Alex Jones, to vaccine

misinformation, to conspiracy theories. But tonight...

we're going to be looking specifically at misinformation that spreads among

immigrant diaspora communities.

Basically, instead of stuff like this Facebook post in English titled, The

Fake Vaccination of Kamala Harris, which incidentally, Facebook has flagged as

false information, we're going to be looking at stuff like this post in

Spanish featuring the exact same video, which as of taping, has no such warning.

And that actually isn't that surprising when you consider that according to the

recent Facebook Files exposé, while more than 90% of Facebook's monthly users

are... outside the US and Canada. When it comes to the hours the company spends

on monitoring misinformation, last year, only 13% were spent on content from

outside the US.

So it seems that Facebook's adopted the same general attitude to misinformation

that the Oscars took toward best pictures for the first 90 years of its

existence. Basically, if it doesn't happen in English, it doesn't

fundamentally matter.

And the spread of misinformation has real consequences.

When a reporter recently tried to figure out why vaccination rates among Latino

communities in California's Central Valley remain low, one woman explained

her reluctance like this.

No.

No.

That's not great, is it? And it's a pretty good reminder of how, thanks to

social media, it is possible to silo yourself off and have very different

experiences of living in America, because she was aware of a doctor from

El Salvador peddling bullshit COVID cures, but had never heard of Dr. Fauci.

And on that point, I honestly kind of envy her. Whatever you think about

Fauci, I think we can all agree it would have been great to have seen

significantly less of him over the last year and a half.

That woman will never know the dystopian hell of seeing Fauci superimposed over a

votive candle or hearing people refer to the vaccine as a Fauci ouchie.

She enjoys an inner peace I will never know.

And look...

We clearly haven't remotely figured out what to do with English language

misinformation yet, as proven by the fact that when I say the words horse

dewormer or the letter Q, you know exactly what I'm referring to. But while

I know it is hard to imagine that this situation could be worse, when it comes

to non-English language misinformation, it honestly is.

So tonight, let's talk about misinformation in diaspora communities,

how easily it can be spread, and what can be done about it. Let's start with

the fact that while some misinformation is basically the same in other

languages, in other cases, it taps into culturally specific interests or fears.

For instance, communities with lived experience under communist or socialist

regimes are often targeted with misinformation that tries to stoke fears

about socialism.

In fact, Joe Biden's underperformance in majority Latino areas in Florida may

have had a lot to do with the fact that before the election... Cuban communities

were absolutely inundated by false claims like this.

For the past few months, many Hispanic American voters have seen reports and

images trying to tie Joe Biden to socialism.

For instance, this photo has been floating around on social media.

It claims to be Jill Biden next to Fidel Castro.

But in fact, this is false.

It's actually a photo of late Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl and his wife,

Jacqueline Beer.

Okay, that photo is clearly not Jill Biden, and that is definitely not Joe

Biden. Although it looks a lot more like him than this animatronic version at

Disney World's Hall of Presidents does.

What is going on there?

That looks like what would happen if an elderly Anderson Cooper got a facelift

from a plastic surgeon without a medical license.

And sometimes the spread of misinformation is exacerbated by the

fact that for many diaspora communities here in the United States, there just

aren't many alternatives in their own languages.

For many older Vietnamese Americans, there is such a vacuum of credible news

channels that broadcast in Vietnamese that many turn to YouTube.

for their news, with certain channels on in their houses 24-7.

One popular host based here in the United States is Nguyen Vu, who brands

himself King Radio.

He's basically a Vietnamese Alex Jones, as you can see in rants like these.

China completely has control of Biden. The whole situation with Hunter Biden's

laptop and the trove of data it contains... I think Xi Jinping has got

his hands on all of it.

George Soros was part of the financial plot to overthrow the Trump

administration.

Why are we still being forced to wear masks?

Masks are killing people.

If you're in a state that gives you the right to not wear a mask, and then you

enter someone's house but they try to make you wear one,

tell them, fuck you.

Fuck you!

You can see where the Alex Jones comparisons come from. Both have voices

that sound like bones going through a wood chipper, both have an inability to

control the volume of said voices, and both have sets clearly inspired by a

Windows 95 screensaver.

Also, they both seem to have the same business model, with King Radio selling

his audience Viagra, medications, and beauty creams that he claims are made by

his cousin, which should be a huge red flag.

Unless his cousin is named Steve Clinique.

I do not want any... any creams from that individual.

But again, while Alex Jones has been removed from YouTube for spreading

misinformation, King Radio is still going strong on the platform, despite

the fact you just heard him say masks are killing people, which clearly

violates YouTube's ban on claims that wearing a mask is dangerous. And what I

guess this means is Alex Jones could probably find his way back onto YouTube

if he could just complete a Rosetta Stone course in Vietnamese.

And as bad as Facebook and YouTube are, and they are screamingly, screamingly

bad, at least in theory, they can be monitored. But there is another way

misinformation spreads that's actually invisible to most people, and

unfortunately... also happens to be one of the most popular tools of

communication among immigrant communities, and that is private

messaging apps.

The biggest by far is WhatsApp, owned by Facebook, which is massive all over the

world. So much so, it has become part of many people's daily routine.

In India, sending good morning messages on WhatsApp is incredibly popular,

meaning millions of people wake up every day to relatives having sent them one of

these, or even a video like this.

I will say, that is an aggressively pleasant way to wake up.

When we came across that message uploaded to YouTube, the top comment on

it was simply, nice, which is pretty striking. Nothing else on that platform

has a response that wholesome. You just know the American version of good

morning would have a top comment like, you know who had a shit morning?

Harambe. Rest in peace, king.

But it's not just WhatsApp.

certain communities have their own preferred app. Korean immigrants have

KakaoTalk, while more recent Chinese immigrants use WeChat. And if you are

not on these apps, it can be hard to understand just how central they are to

people's lives.

This tune and loading screen are instantly recognizable to over one

billion people around the world.

In China, where most Western social media is banned, WeChat is essential.

People use it to text each other, order food, hail rides, and pay for things.

Outside of China, the diaspora uses it to connect with fellow Chinese speakers

and issues in the country they're living in.

Exactly. Communication, food orders, travel, payment, everything all in one

app. That is so much more efficient than the US-based model, where you have one

app to convince you everyone's having a better time than you, one that functions

as an endlessly refreshing fury generator, one for pretending you'll

meditate one day, one that lets you pay too much for fast food, one for horny

mistakes, and one that simply lets you know that you're very old and the world

no longer belongs to you. So, I guess, in a way...

Kudos to WeChat for streamlining our shared digital nightmare into one

convenient place.

So these apps are a cheap and ubiquitous way to allow people to stay in touch

with family and friends and also get news and share information in their home

languages, which is obviously very appealing. Unfortunately, they're also a

huge vector for misinformation.

There is actually a saying in the Latino community, in the Venezuelan and Cuban

communities, about la tia del WhatsApp.

It's the aunt that goes on WhatsApp and receives any type of conspiracy theory

and forwards it to all her contacts.

We all have somebody in our family like that.

Oh, yeah, we do.

And it is almost comforting to know that regardless of background, every single

family has one member that when anyone gets a message from them, the first

response is to go, ah, shit, what now?

It is a truly universal experience.

And there are particular reasons these apps have become especially fertile

grounds for misinformation. For instance, in many countries, Facebook,

which remember...

owns WhatsApp, has partnered with mobile phone carriers to make accessing its

services a lot cheaper than accessing the rest of the Internet. So,

misinformation can spread far and wide without the same ability to check it.

In Brazil, a broadband connection can cost up to 15% of a household's income,

essentially making fact-checking too expensive for the average Brazilian,

which is a truly terrifying thought.

And WeChat has its own features that make sourcing harder to follow,

because... It has a function for users to set themselves up as what's known as

self-media, basically a pseudo-news channel. But there is a crucial

limitation there.

While Facebook and Twitter generally allow publishers to post links that take

users to other websites, WeChat bans most publishers from embedding

hyperlinks in articles.

This means pretty much everything is self-contained on the platform.

It's hard to find the original source material and debunk it.

Right, and that is a big deal, because who your source is matters.

A book called How I Broke Rules and Made History reads completely differently if

it was written by Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Osama bin Laden.

So, misinformation can circulate freely on messaging apps and in closed groups,

basically invisible to the general public, and sometimes...

when the messages are end-to-end encrypted, even to the companies that

host them. And they're often being passed around by trusted friends and

family members, lending them an aura of legitimacy.

And it can be truly exasperating for younger people to see just how

susceptible their relatives are to this bullshit.

Subreddits like Asian Parent Stories are full of posts like, WeChat fucked up my

parents. And listen to this woman read a message that was flying around her South

African family's WhatsApp group.

Please do not fill petrol to the maximum limit. It may cause explosion. This

week, five explosion accidents have happened due to filling petrol to the

maximum. Please do share this message.

Rescue 1122.

I've never heard of it. I've never seen it. So I don't see how she believes it.

But you know what? Because WhatsApp says so, it's true.

Your car's going to explode.

Yeah! It's true.

I mean, it's not. Your car is not going to explode.

What is true, though, is that misinformation like that is everywhere

on these apps. Our own staff has had family members circulate things like

these videos in Korean promoting conspiracy theories like QAnon, or this

post about how Ayurvedic doctors say we can save ourselves from coronavirus with

tips like boil black peppers in water and add lemon juice, it kills the virus.

Which would be great news if it was true, but you know, it isn't.

The problem is so familiar to younger generations that one son of Indian

parents mocked it on TikTok like this.

Here's how you make brown parents believe... Literally anything.

You're gonna start with a plain background and write whatever you want,

but just make sure you write it in this font. That's crucial.

Now, mention any religious texts and talk about body, mind, spirit, or

something like that, and make sure that you mention a Harvard scientist helped

confirm ancient wisdom, because we love those headlines.

Now, make a diagram that looks scientific and religious at the same

time and throw some Sanskrit on there. Don't worry about accuracy.

Beautiful. Now, mention some chemicals. I chose Kanye and Drake's name and made

them look like compounds.

It doesn't matter if they're real or not. Our uncles and aunties have PhDs in

science, but that's no match for... Now, it's imperative that you insult Western

medicine and culture at this last part. You know the drill, three dots, three

exclamation points, cite your sources, and make the image quality a little

worse. And that is perfection.

Yeah.

Yep. All it takes is a few superficial labels and style choices to convince

people that something with no real substance is actually meaningful and

good. Or as it's known in America, the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

And while that was grow up, and while...

And while that was clearly fun, that guy later posted a follow-up saying that his

image had worked slightly too well because it was making the rounds on

WhatsApp, but not always as a joke.

And we have seen the very real impacts that misinformation on these apps can

have. In India, misinformation has been linked to violence and deaths to the

point where WhatsApp felt it necessary to create this ad.

Meet Kavya.

She lives away from her family.

First time.

But very close to their hearts.

On the family's WhatsApp group. But today, she's a little serious.

Foofa ji has forwarded some random fake news on the family group.

Kavya called him right away.

Foofa ji, namaste.

Did you have some proof for that message or did you just forward it? I just

received it on some random group. And made him understand that fake news can

cause violence.

We shouldn't circulate something dangerous, right?

She convinced Foofa ji to leave that group.

Be like Kavya.

Share joy, not rumours.

Sure, it's a nice sentiment, but it's also not great when you have to produce

a PSA essentially saying, look, some of what's on our service is dangerous

nonsense, and if you could help clean it up for us, that'd be really great.

At the very least, they might want to change that slogan to share the

responsibility for keeping misinformation from destroying the

fabric of our society, because we clearly can't do it.

So what...

What can we do about all of this? Well, ideally, platforms like Facebook,

YouTube, and others would be at least as proactive about taking down

misinformation in other languages as they are about taking it down in

English, which I know is a low, low bar, but it does say something about where

we're at right now.

As for private messaging apps, that is trickier because of how they are

designed. And even when some have taken steps to slow the spread of

misinformation, they've often amounted to half measures.

for instance, started placing limits on the number of chats a message can be

forwarded to, capping it at up to five chats at a time, which might sound good,

but in practice, it leaves plenty of room for damage.

If a message is sent to a WhatsApp group of 20, then each of them shares it with

20 other people, and this happens five times, it can reach more than

three million people very quickly.

Yeah, it can still spread pretty far.

And I know that this isn't the main point here, but also, how many of us are

in two group chats of 20 different people each? And if you are, how the

fuck do you sleep? How do you get anything done without constantly swiping

away notifications?

And if you're thinking, well, hold on, it's not a problem, just mute them, then

how do you catch up on anything that's happened in the chat? You're gonna spend

half of your day scrolling back up just so you know what this gif meant in

context. Mom sent that?

In response to what? I have to find out.

A key problem right now is that many communities don't have the same fact

-checking resources that English-speaking ones do.

If someone sends you an Alex Jones clip, you can respond to it with any number of

trusted sources debunking him. You can send them something from PolitiFact or

Snopes or factcheck.org. But if someone sends you a clip from King Radio,

Vietnamese language fact-checking sources are thin on the ground.

There are some. There is Viet Fact Check, a volunteer-led project, and The

Interpreter, which works to translate... articles from reputable outlets into

Vietnamese. But these are often small organizations, and the people running

them are outmatched and understandably fucking exhausted.

So groups like these badly need resources to better match the challenge

that they are facing. But beyond that, there needs to be public pressure on

platforms to do something about all forms of misinformation, whether they

are in English or not, because a whole lot depends on this. And until they

do... If you are a member of one of these diaspora communities, you may need

to prepare yourself for more difficult conversations with your least favorite

uncles. Although, there is one tiny way that we may be able to help you here,

because we made some good morning messages specifically tailored for your

needs. Like this one, which reads, good morning.

Take every chance you get in life and rethink sharing news from a bullshit

source. It might be easier to send that to an uncle in the morning rather than,

you know, speak to him. Or you can even send him a video message like this.

It may not be the morning message that they want, but it is definitely the

morning message that they need.

And for Vietnamese Americans in particular, if any of your relatives

have King Radio on in the background 24 hours a day, we made a special message

just for you.

We'll have that message in both English and Vietnamese and a few more messages

like them at BetterMorningMessages.com. Feel free to use them when you cannot

handle a whole conversation, but know deep down, you do really have to say

something. That is our show. Thank you so much for watching. We're off next

week. We'll be back after that. Good night.