Capitalist Investor

Social Media Censorship: Zuckerberg’s Confession and Its Impact, Ep. 280

• Strategic Wealth Partners

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In the latest episode of the **Capitalist Investor** podcast, Tony, Luke, and Derek delve into a series of pressing issues that are making headlines and sparking debate in both the financial and political arenas. Here are the five hot topics they covered:
1. Mark Zuckerberg and Government Censorship
The episode kicked off with a discussion about Mark Zuckerberg's recent admission to Congress that the Biden-Harris campaign pressured Facebook to censor opinions on their platform. This led to a broader conversation about the implications of such censorship and how it affects free speech. Derek questioned the timing and seriousness of this revelation, especially with Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO and staunch anti-censorship advocate, being arrested just days later.
 2. Section 230 and Platform Liability
Luke introduced the concept of Section 230, a U.S. law that protects social media companies from being held liable for user-generated content. He explained how this regulation affects both U.S. and international operations of these platforms. The hosts debated who should be responsible for content moderation and whether current laws are sufficient in today's digital landscape.
3. Censorship and Free Speech in Europe
Tony brought up the alarming trend in Europe where individuals are reportedly being arrested for anti-government posts and memes. This sparked anxiety about how closely the U.S. might follow suit and the implications for freedom of speech. The discussion highlighted the precarious balance between maintaining public order and preserving individual freedoms.
4. The Psychological Toll of Media Consumption
Luke shared his personal experience, noting that he never had anxiety until he started engaging with social media. This comment opened up a dialogue about the mental health impacts of being constantly bombarded with information and polarized opinions. The hosts discussed the importance of critical thinking and doing personal research to navigate the overwhelming flow of data.
5. Capitalism, Socialism, and the Cyclical Nature of Economies
The conversation culminated in a theoretical discussion about the life cycle of capitalist systems. Luke provided a historical perspective, suggesting that capitalism often leads to a concentration of wealth, which then fosters socialistic tendencies and eventually collapses the system. They debated the role of term limits and the infusion of new ideas to prevent stagnation and corruption within political systems.
The episode offered deep insights into the intersection of technology, politics, and financial theory. The hosts didn't shy away from controversial topics, providing a nuanced discussion that challenges listeners to think critically about the current state of affairs.
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For those keen to dive deeper into these discussions, tune into the latest episode of the Capitalist Investor podcast. As always, the hosts encourage listeners to engage, question, and do their own research on these pivotal topics shaping our world today.

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Capitalist Investor. As always, you have me, diamond hands D, and we got the whole crew back together. Tony and Luke. How we doing, guys? Doing well. I'm living the dream. Awesome. Awesome stuff. All right, well, so, you know, lots to talk about. And kind of something that caught our eye this week was the Mark Zuckerberg news basically tattling on himself. I don't know the right way to say it, but sending a letter, I believe, to Congress, basically admitting that the Biden Harris campaign pressured them to censor opinions on their platform. And basically he said he was sorry about it. That comes in the same week where the telegram founder, Pavel, what's his last name? Let me get this for you so I don't mess it up. Durov, Pavel Durov, Telegram CEO, who's basically, I don't know, famous, but famously not willing to listen to any type of censorship conversations. Miraculously arrested a couple days after that. News meta censorship. What do you guys think? What do you think the future looks like since we got an election coming up right now? And this is pretty important stuff. So let's start with section 230. That's kind of the term that's been thrown out here in the United States. We have something that essentially protects communication companies or social media companies that's grouped into there to where the actual founders and owners aren't liable, essentially, for what goes on on the platform. For example, a drug deal happens on Twitter or Instagram or Facebook, and something bad happens from it, whatever it be, and the government finds out and they prosecute. Those people that went through that deal, Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk is not liable for that because they can't control exactly what happens on the platform outside of the United States. There's no really bodies that kind of protects these founders. Every kind of country is different in regards to regulation and their oversight on what happens on these platforms. So that's a big kind of conversation, is who is liable? What do you have to do in regards to moderation on your platform to control what happens on your platform? Those are all important things to think about from a regulatory standpoint. I think this environment is very scary because in Europe right now, you are having people being arrested for posts, memes that are anti whoever's in charge right now, essentially, that's just a high level I'm not going to get into, like, you know, exactly which parties and all that, but that's what's happening. Like, people are saying people are doing their free speech and they're going to jail for at this moment in Europe. And how close are we in the United States from being there? It's very scary because what if, you know, and again, I don't know, but what if there's an administration that gets in and does that to us, this podcast, what us talking about this? I can go to jail for this. Maybe in the future. There's like, hey, six years ago you said this on your podcast, and we don't like that you're going to jail. I'm worried about that. Like, it's crossed my mind a few times. Like, I never, I never had anxiety before I started on some media just saying, yeah, yeah. So, but so there's what, that's the scary part. The other thing is, why censor it? You know, like, like Zuckerberg came in and said they wanted us to, like, tone down things that we were. That were being said about COVID and, you know, the truths and the false. They didn't want to create a masses here. I could honestly understand maybe what the administration was trying to do, but to make a phone call and say, hey, take down this post or take down that. But like I say this, at the end of the day, I think we are all smart enough to do your own research. The first thing you read, if you believe it, like, you're silly, like, you have to do your own research. You might need to go to multiple sources to. If you find out something that really is a hot button for you, you better go and check it out before you just start believing it. Honestly, there's so many people out there spewing so much information, it's dizzying, you. Know, my hot take, this is kind of a hot take. My hot take is that maybe we should all just stop caring. What gives governments power. The fact that we care so much and we're so heated and that we're so polarized. If you stop care, if you stop caring, they will be. You'll be a lamb in a box trap, dude. Because, like, back, I think word is. I want to use right now, but that, that's when you stop caring is when the people that want to rule the world and want to take over, they're gonna prey on that weakness because you don't care. Like, hey, man, I'm just going today. It might be. It might be the opposite, though. The fact that we talk about it so much and we're so human heated up all the time. The fact that every single day that's. Just not good for your own health, that's why my high blood pressure. Yeah, I'm just saying, like, back throughout history, I know we went through the revolutionary war, but after the civil war and then world war one and world War two, but the fact that the government's always in topic of our conversation in today's world, whether Democrat, Republican, we're so fired up about it, that gives the government power. This shows them how important they are to us. We need to get the government out of our conversations and be like, we don't give a crap about you guys. We want to give a crap about us. And that only. And then maybe they'll be like, okay, well, we'll actually give you power back to the people because the people, the government wants to take care of people. I think the best way to do that then, in my opinion, is you have term limits on some of these other positions in government. Because when you have somebody in power for career politician in there for 40 years, they are so embedded. And the moment that somebody lets them slip or stops paying attention is when they are even more aggressive. You cannot. Or age. Okay, listen, I know age is different than it was 300 years ago. Like, the average was like 55 years old, but like, what, George Washington was like 42 years old going through the Revolutionary War in 17, like 76. Like some of the founding fathers were like in their mid twenties. Like, the fact we have 80 year olds running this, I get the wisdom component, but there's like, definitely an age factor. Like you, an 80 year old does not necessarily care. Like, I don't think what happens maybe in the next, you know, couple of years because they're gonna be gone anyway. Like, you want, you want new ideas, you want things to change. There needs to be constantly new ideas flowing in. When you got 40 years of the same repetitions of thought pattern there, nothing's going to change. So good luck trying to get the, get, you know, put a, put a timestamp on their jobs. But that would be the best thing to have it for, at least for the president. I'm surprised they haven't gone off their Elon musk yet. I really, I'm really surprised. Maybe coming? Well, yeah, I mean, but one, one other thing I just wanted to say is that, you know, this, this show is called the capitalist investor, right? And, you know, I feel like this whole thing with, you know, the Biden administration trying to censor what's being on social media, it might come down to, like, their view on, like, it's called marcism, right? And that was examining the flaws of capitalism. You mean Marxism Marxist. What did I say, Marcus? Sorry. Yeah, Marxism. Mark? Tepperism. Thank you. But all that does is when you start pointing out the flaws of capitalism and things like that. There definitely are flaws, there are flaws. But that creates division as well. And that's the problem. It's a cycle of. Listen, guys, I actually talk about this pretty often. It's a cycle of countries. You start from the most capitalistic mentality of the private sector, power to the people. That private sector gets fat and happy, funnels money to the government. Government then takes care of the people. Capitalism creates wealth for everybody, but then it funnels money to the top, which we're seeing now. We're seeing a big wealth divide. We are billionaires worth $200 billion. That's the power of capitalism. It's brought the middle class and lower class up with them. But now you have the lower middle class that get greedy. Really, the lower middle class are really greedy. Sometimes. They have every necessity taken care of, housing, food, every necessity in life. But they want the Ferrari. They want the bigger house. They want all that stuff. So you see the rich people having that. They vote people in power that create more socialistic tendencies and that collapses the system. And then the cycle repeats itself. Then that system dies or that country dies, and then capitalism comes about again. Right? So capitalism turns into communism. Communism creates bad things. Any closing marks? D. I mean, you guys pretty much hit on it there, but, yeah, that's always been my number one, my number one point. Number one, we don't have true capitalism. And number two, it's the conflict is manufactured in a lot of cases. Abortion is the classic example of that. You saw last election cycle, right? Things weren't going well for the Democrats. Let's talk about abortion. It's going to happen again because people are never going to agree on abortion. Their stance is never going to change, and it's just headbutting exercise. So I will, my final thoughts real quick. If you want to do some research, if you want to like, look to history to see maybe what's coming in the next hundred, 200 years, like look to obviously the one talked about a lot, Roman Empire, right? That's taught. They had a lot of socialistic tendencies towards the end. Look at the Dutch Empire, then look at the british empire before, after the dutch empire, and then kind of look at where we're at now. What's turning into all those countries are very similar to kind of where we're at in the cycle. We're going throughout history, just not technologically like we are, but systematically like we are. And like I said, I'm gonna go do my own research on the Dutch Dutch history. All right, take us home. Alright, well, thanks for listening to this episode. If you guys have any questions, comments, show ideas, hit us up at info Connect.com and we'll talk to you next time. 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