The Online Trap of Tales - Sunday with Lubach (S12)

Trust in the government and media is declining. This is partly thanks to the algorithms of social media, designed to capture our attention for as long as possible. A large group of people are being sucked into a parallel reality built on conspiracy theories. The longer people spend in this "trap of tales", the more they will be open up to radical ideas they didn't have before.

This week, the National Counterterrorism Coordinator
raised alarm.

"The COVID-19 crisis increases distrust in
government, science and the press.

It is exacerbated by conspiracy
theories and misinformation,

according to the National Coordinator
of Counterterrorism and Safety (NCTV)."

Yes, distrust in the government. Not like:
'Let's see about that, your excellency!'.

No, nowadays people go to The Hague
to engage in dialogue like this:

"Fuck off, Prime Minister Rutte!"

"Do you always betray everybody?
Do you always betray the people?"

"Is it OK to betray the people?"

What is this MP supposed to say now?

'Is it normal that I betray the people?
Hmm, e-mail me and I'll take a look.'

Speaker of the House Arib also notices that
the situation is getting worse.

"After several meetings, we could not leave
through the main exit as it was unsafe,

and had to be escorted via other exits.

That explains why I last saw a minister
crawling out of a fashion store's fitting room.

Members of Parliament can't use the main
entrance safely anymore because of these protesters.

Ministers that do use this entrance, like
Hugo de Jonge, are greeted like this:

"You should listen to the people more."
"Otherwise, on behalf of the people,

we will show you a different way.
I'm serious."

This is a veiled threat. Advice for Hugo
de Jonge, you should tell this man:

'I'll listen to you Nov 6th.' That day he
will stand trial for threatening a mayor.

A busy man.

Sometimes the threats are more overt,
like with CDA MP Pieter Omtzigt:

"Sir hold on!"

"I'll beat you to death, retard!
Fucking retard!"

The title of this video on YouTube isn't
'death threat for MP' but

'Critical questions for Pieter Omtzigt'.

Well done for keeping him sharp.

This aggression does not only target
politicians, but also the media.

"Here, mainstream media. You're
betraying the people."

Oh fuck off! Here, on behalf of the main-
stream media: mainstream media till I die!

Sorry, I'll be objective.

Nowadays, NOS reporters need security
at events and that's very sad.

Of course, Ron Fresen makes some extreme
claims and I don't agree with his views

but he should be allowed to do his job.

This week NOS even removed their logo from
satellite vehicles because of the threats.

Where does this anger suddenly come from?

The NCTV says: conspiracies and the coronavirus.

I'm thinking: corona, conspiracies
both start with "co".

Coincidence? I think not.

If you listen to the clamouring in The
Hague you hear weird and specific things:

"Dirty pedophiles!"

"Traitor! Child rapist!"

"Satanists. Deep state."

Yeah, Satanists, pedophiles. On Friday,
someone wrote at the town hall in Almelo:

'We are being ruled by satanic pedophiles'.

That's Almelo now. Normally a quiet town,
now ruled by satanic pedophiles.

What is this? Is "pedophile" the new
"asshole" or something?

No, it is a conspiracy theory, stating the
elite is a satanic network of pedophiles.

The best known version of this story is Pizzagate, which had a lot of Americans believing children were being kept in a basement of a pizza joint in Washington D.C.

"The danger of conspiracy theories became apparent in 2016, when an armed man got into a pizza place in Washington DC."

He wanted to see the basement because he was convinced that child rapists, linked to Hillary Clinton, had their headquarters there."

It turned out the pizza place didn't even have a basement.

You're thinking: 'Crazy Americans, what a
weird country, how did they manage this?'

But just like iPhones and obesity,
the conspiracies are also coming our way.

"My guest today: Sven Hulleman."

"Could it be that world leaders, prominent
people, are secretly engaged in pedophilia?"

"Structural child abuse."

"And also ritually? Do they have a secret from the Antiquity? The Moloch, a deity."

"Yeah I know."

And most of you are now thinking - hopefully -

what the fuck is this? I also did, until I started clicking around on YouTube. A lot of people on there believe that our reality is false.

"This is not only about our health anymore. This is about the controlled destruction of our economy."

"Exactly. It's all part of the agenda which we discussed earlier."

"Just to be clear, with such a vaccine they can inject a chip inside of you?"

"Yes it's a pinprick so that is very easy."

"The stories that come to light via different ways is that we are being ruled by a thoroughly evil satanic blood drinking elite."

Okay... You got any hobbies?

'Rapping.'

On YouTube, there is a whole circuit of people who have slowly been sucked into their own parallel reality.

That often starts with some form of media criticism:

"A few years ago I started to see that things didn't seem right.

Trump's election was ridiculed and he was demonised. But on YouTube, so not in the mainstream media,

I saw that ihe was actually a decent
man with good viewpoints."

Of course, YouTube. The mainstream media
always claims dogs can't say hello

but after browsing YouTube for
an hour I found this:

You see? Dogs can talk, Trump is a fine
man, that's the power of YouTube.

And that's what you don't hear in regular
media, because they are being controlled:

"It bothers me that politicians and media are
constantly spoonfeeding people an imposed truth,

an imposed truth that does not correspond to reality."

"It's like how news items are being put in a particular order. Those are very small mindfucks to influence the public."

Okay, so they claim everything you see on television and read in the papers is fake news.

Everybody gets orders from above to dumb you down.

And once you believe that, you get sucked into a web of theories.

From 'Trump is great', you go to '9/11 was fake'. And who do you meet there? Sjors van Houts.

"The word 'explosie' doesn't appear in the 9/11 report once, and that is strange."

Yeah... The report is in English, Sjors.

You have to look for 'explosion'.

We can't all be the Smartest Person, doesn't matter (host won a TV quiz "The Smartest Person").

9/11 by the way is a very nice conspiracy to start with,
according to Instagrammer tisjeboyjay:

"The first experience where I was like 'wow' was with 9/11, from that point on I thought 'no, huh?'"

"And once you start, you know how it goes."
- "Rabbit hole after rabbit hole."

From 9/11 it's only a very small step to conspiracies about MH17 and MH370:

"The people on board didn't die, they are still out somewhere."

"The MH370 plane was put down on the crash site of MH17."

What?! Okay. doesn't matter.

And from MH17 , you get to 'Bill Gates is the devil'. This is conspiracy guru Janet Ossebaard, who made documentaries on Bill Gates:

"Keep an eye out for her because part five of her docu is coming."

"Five will be the killer for Bill Gates. Will be very nice."
"Kill Bill."
- "Kill Bill."

And from Bill Gates, you get to the coronavirus, because Bill wants to put a chip in the vaccine and the whole virus is a hoax.

All these people know each other too. They're in each other's podcasts, zoom calls and meetings like the woman just now:

she also appeared on Lange Frans' show:

"Let's begin at our beginning. We've known each other from... I'm thinking if it's 4 or 5 years ago, just about."
- "Four."

Yeah they've known each other for four years. Can you guess from where?

No it's not Baas B's mom. From what?

"We went to do research there about crop circles that magically appeared every year in the South of England."

They met on a crop circle holiday. Of course!

And I've been saying conspiracy theorist, but even
that is a conspiracy according to conspiracy theorists:

"The phrases 'conspiracy theorist' and 'conspiracy theory' were developed by the CIA in the 1960s."

"And they essentially injected the word conspiracy thinker into the vocabulary of the people, as a form of mind control."

The dog is thinking 'I'm still with her for the sex because otherwise...'

And this sounds like a crazy bunch of people with fast internet and too much time on their hands,

but this is starting to get really big.

These videos are getting hundreds of thousands of views on Facebook and YouTube.

Why is this so popular? Firstly, people love sensation, that's why tabloids sell so well, as we love weird secret information.

What to think of 'Linda de Mol uses interns as stools'.

You don't know if it's true and that's why it's so fun!

But there's something more and that has to do with the technology behind platforms like YouTube and Facebook.

They are only concerned with selling ads to you and keeping your attention for as long as possible.

This is the foundation for their whole system.

If you're done watching a video or reading a post, they want you to watch more.

This is why they suggest content that they know you'll find interesting.

If I never click on clips about goats, but do click on clips about horses, more horse clips will appear.

Great for me, I get horse clips, and great for YouTube, as I'll watch for longer and they sell more ads. That's the algorithm.

But it turns out that one of the things humans like the most, is insane stories on the edge of credibility.

If you're wondering if the virus is real, you'll click on a clip called 'the virus is fake'.

Once you're done, a clip called 'Bill Gates invented the virus' appears in your recommendations box.

And that's what you'll click on, rather than the boring 'We don't know much about the virus yet but it's unfortunately there',

explained in three hours by a timid Ph. D with an irritating accent. You don't do that.

People click on the weirdest clips more readily, but the algorithm also knows they get the best response, which makes it recommend such videos more.

This how it inadvertently digs a tunnel for you in which you'll get stuck in deeper and deeper.

I did a little test. I removed all my cookies, installed a new browser and opened a new YouTube account.

I'll start with a neutral search term like 'PCR test reliable'. The PCR test detects if someone has COVID.

My top hit is 'Invalidity of PCR test explained in five minutes'. I'll click on it.

In my recommendations box, 'Does SARS COV-2 exist? Where is the evidence?' appears. Of course, I click on this.

Then, 'Lange Frans and Adèle van der Plas about pedos within the judiciary' gets recommended to me. What? You got me hooked!

I'm watching that, and then, 'Lange Frans en Sjors van Houts talk 9/11' appears in my recommendations.

Wow. Within three clicks I went from COVID testing to conspiracy theories about the attacks on the Twin Towers, via a video about pedophile networks.

Have a look at the front page of my brand new account. Robert Jensen - 'Pull through!' Thanks man, you too.

The PCR test guy again, a video which argues against the COVID-19 measures, Lange Frans with the dude who said MH17 didn't crash,

And a football journalist enjoys a parody show. This is sick shit!

It's just bizarre. This was 10 minutes. Just imagine your online experience after years of watching these videos.

You'll be totally convinced by all these opinions. This isn't new - if you read a sensational newspaper for years,

you'll end up hating left-wing politicians.

Same with liberal newspapers. If you only read that you'll end up hating left-wing comedians. Nothing new here!

At least in this case, you know you're reading one newspaper and don't know everything.

But in this 'trap of tales', everyone thinks they're deciding for themselves what content they are viewing.

People think they are doing 'research', when they're actually clicking on YouTube clips provided by an algorithm.

People are caught in a narrower tunnel than ever, but feel like they're watching a diverse set of sources.

The longer people are caught in this trap, the more they will be open to more radical ideas.

You see this happening to Lange Frans when he talks to someone who is a bit further into the trap:

"If you're at a supermarket, there is no food. It's only manipulated crap, designed so that you will lose touch with the earth.

If you lose this connection, if you are an uprooted person, they can easily control you."

- "That's really bad, I buy 90% of my food at the supermarket."

Poor Frans!

But if Lange Frans buys all of his food at the supermarket, he should be uprooted and controlled by now, right?

But he's onto everything! Then that's not true you would say. Frans doesn't care though, he'll eat up anything:

"Does our King, the sovereign, have a citizen service number?"

"Interesting."

"Are his children registered?"

"Very interesting."

Did he have a boarding pass when he went on a holiday to Greece last Friday? 'Very interesting.'

Was he sitting at the window?
- 'I'm going crazy!'

The whole concept of "facts" is disappearing.

Just listen to this woman who was in a conflict with her family for spreading misinformation on Facebook.

"So you have spread misinformation on Facebook?"
"Yes, I don't believe in facts. What is a fact?"

This is the 12th season of "Zondag met Lubach" and I guess I'll have to start over completely.

This is the issue with people who live in an alternate reality. In past times, we did share a reality, where we regularly had fights with each other.

Someone would say, 'inheritance taxes should be raised to 80%!' And another would say, 'they should be abolished'.

You'd think 'this person is crazy!' But now it's like 'Inheritance taxes? All people in power are child abusers.'

How can you have discussions if it's like this?

"Obama orders hot dogs and cheese pizzas late in the night. These are all terms that are used for small children."

If that is right, I have received the wrong order many times! And this isn't the US, it's our own country.

"The Dutch government and governments abroad...they are all pedophile networks."

"It's a part of the lifestyle of the elite to abuse children."
"Why do you think that?"

"That's what you hear in the news channels."

That's right: the news channels that are suggested to you - not by a human but by an algorithm designed to capture your attention.

Not to inform you, but to make more money.

This is only possible by offering more and more extreme shit to you.

"What is 'adrenochome'?"
"That's the blood they're taking from children."

"That babies' blood is drunk by the elites to stay young."

I'm almost at the point where I pity these folks.

These folks have walked right into the algorithm of these big platforms.

They're caught in the trap meant be used to sell ads. I would almost say: Lange Frans, come back from your mental holiday!

It's not too late, let's have a beer!
- 'Very interesting!'

The next question is: where will this lead to? This fun chatter in the cloud of like-minded people is gathering the crowd at the Museum Square

to people chalking those texts on the pavement, to people intimidating politicians in the Hague.

These are all characters from the same trap of tales, they all watch those vlogs.

Remember Laura and Duncan from before, who were a bit critical of how Trump was portrayed? Right now they're here:

"They're really crapping their pants. This week I was at the Square and Rutte walked past, that was filmed,

and the moment he walked past, you could see him coming with two police officers by his side,

and everybody: 'Murderer! Liar! Pedophile!' That was wonderful! He just quickly ran inside.

Until a year ago Rutte cycled to work, now that doesn't happen anymore."

These people are happy and proud that Rutte can't cycle to work anymore because he's being physically harassed.

And also Lange Frans has gone downhill, here he is discussing with Janet Ossebaard about what on earth to do with Mark Rutte:

"What should we do? Shoot the guy? I'm not going to do it. I want to keep my karma clean."

- "And I can shoot well, it's not that I would miss you know?"
"I'm not exaggerating!"

- "It's not that I wouldn't be able to, it's just that my head says I like to sleep well at night."

And once again, this is not a small pocket of lunatics! this podcast has been viewed over half a million times on YouTube alone!

One in six Dutch people now think that traditional media only publish news if the government has approved the content.

I wanted to tell that last week but I wasn't allowed yet.

And 14 percent even thinks that the pharmaceutical industry deliberately spreads diseases to sell more drugs.

And you can think: 'shit, that's a lot of people' but you can also think 'heyyy, that's a lot of voters':

"I'm looking forward to this very much, because today we welcome Wybren van Haga."

'Hello MP!'
- 'Hello conspiracy rapper!'

Wybren van Haga, former VVD MP, now for Forum voor Democratie (FvD)

heard of the speculations by Lange Frans about shooting Rutte and thought: 'I have to be there!'

Van Haga is fully onboard the conspiracy train. You hear it when he talks about the PCR test, with can detect a virus.

Many people find it too sensitive for testing on a large scale, but Van Haga believes it is completely useless.

In fact, he retweeted someone who claims that not only the PCR test, but also HIV and COVID are a hoax.

Forum voor Democratie, a populist party, likes to draw from the trap of tales. Van Haga was a guest at the FvD news

with tisjeboyjay, who called 9/11 a hoax not too long ago.

FvD leader Thierry Baudet also keeps the door open to the conspiracy world and happily appeases the people, through a broken megaphone:

"I find it incredibly brave that there are so many people, and ever more people

who dare to utter a different voice."

"To prevent the Urgency Law (the measurements enforced by the government to prevent the spread of COVID-19)...

This has to be a conspiracy for this to happen!"

This was during a protest against the Urgency Law, where Baudet was cracking conspiracy jokes with the protesters.

And Forum's love for the conspiracy world is mutual:

"Listen to Wybren van Haga, also someone that explains it to you super well and carefully."

"Haga, that's one of the only ones still fighting for our freedom."

"I'm not a fan of politics, not at all, but Van Haga?

Eh, a real OG!

Follow Van Haga, because this man is spitting facts!"

So we shouldn't expect a solution from Forum for the trap of tales.

In fact, they've decided 'these are our voters'.

And great that the NCTV and Speaker Arib are ringing the bell about politicians' safety,

but they won't fix it either. The only ones that can really do something about this are the social media themselves.

They made those platforms - with the best intentions: earning money - and now part of the public lives in a parellel universe because of them.

And what I'm saying now is not new, criticism of those algorithms has been increasing lately, and those platforms notice it too

and they don't want to lose customers, which is why they've started to censor.

YouTube and Facebook are trying to delete a few very specific conspiracy theories,

such as a video by Lange Frans, in which he raps about conspiracy theories

which wasn't necessary if you asked me, the track just had a great flow.

The problem with censorship is: how does a tech company determine if something is a conspiracy?

Are they going to check everything? And what if they censor too much?

COVID nonsense is now getting deleted, but will you able to pose critical questions on the testing policy?

Censorship is not the solution to the real problem. I'm taking you to the supermarket.

There's cola, and sweets, and other unhealthy stuff.

But there's also broccoli and whole grain bread.

Everyone buys something different but we all see the same store.

On Facebook and YouTube it's different, you come in and look at just one can of Red Bull, and the entire aisle now consists of energy drinks!

You look the other way and where I see broccoli you see potato crisps, because those go well together with Red Bull.

Of course, if you search well you can still find veggies, but on all bags of crisps there's a sticker saying veggies are dangerous for your health.

You get fatter, but on the can it says that that is because there is still a pedophilic courgette present in the store!

And the worst thing is that your neighbour experiences a completely different supermarket than you, without you noticing!

Have you ever accidentally logged in to your girlfriend's Netflix account?

Making you think: 'I never knew there were so many Christmas movies featuring puppies...'

And that's how everyone has their own reality thanks to Facebook and YouTube.

These companies employ the world's best technicians, who have created this monster - again, with the best financial intentions -

and now they should tame it. The people in the Hague who threaten politicians are there because of the algorithm.

If based on these conspiracies there were to erupt violence somewhere, or even worse, civil war,

that is a direct consequence of the revenue model of these internet companies.

They have to fix the trap because only they can make sure we can live in one reality again.

I say: fix the trap.

This was Zondag met Lubach, thanks for watching. Have a fun week and until next Sunday!

Hi click here.

Everyone knows how this works. I'd rather just get to the point.

Everyone knows how this works, click somewhere.

You want anything from the kitchen by the way?