'What Has Snapped Here?': David Schweikert Questions How Technology Has Changed People

4 months ago

At a House Ways & Means Committee hearing earlier this month, Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) spoke about antisemitism on college campuses and the role of technology.

Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:

https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript

Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com

Transcript

00:00Mr. Schweikert is recognized. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member. Okay,

00:08we're going to try to go through a couple things here. First off, and Mr.

00:11Chairman, I fear, and I know our scope is tax money, universities, those

00:18things, but I am incredibly concerned that the almost evil crazy that I see

00:32coming in on my own personal phone, the fact of the matter, and Congressman

00:37Deutsch would be able to process this, you open up your phones on Monday

00:43morning and start having your staff go through your voicemails and there's

00:46hundreds and hundreds of actually burned civil society down, just almost

00:53evil, and my fear is much of it is a bot. It's the use of technology. How much of

01:03the mind-bending from the people who used to have the bumper sticker it would

01:08say coexist to now it's a bumper sticker of a Palestinian flag with a weapon

01:14attached to it. What has snapped here? And my fear, Mr. Chairman, as we do our

01:21little piece here on universities and how much of this is foreign influence

01:26money and other things falling through the process, are we capable as members of

01:32Congress having a societal discussion of the financers and generation of hate

01:40that seemed to be coming in from foreign entities, maybe even from some

01:45fairly sick entities in my own country, and it's burning down the potential

01:52burning down civil society across the world. Congressman Deutsch, you won't

01:58remember, but years ago you and I had sort of a side conversation on some of

02:01this and my fear the use of technology to push anti-semitism and that it's a

02:08handful of people who bought bots and natural language, you know, chat. How much

02:14do you believe of this evil is being pumped into our society and manipulating

02:20young people's brains and even other people's brains is being financed from

02:25outsiders? Well, we know, excuse me, we know a couple of things clearly. We know

02:33that state actors are involved in this effort to help to help divide the people

02:43of the United States from one another. We've seen the same thing. This is

02:48the playbook that's the playbook that the Russians have used around the world

02:51and have done the same thing here. We know that that the Iranians and other

02:56state actors are also involved and I'm gonna, this is one where I defer to the

03:01House and my former colleagues to to continue to make sure that that is a

03:06focus. We also, we also know though when it comes to to funding, the questions

03:13that are being asked are important and the effort, the Deterrent Act that

03:17that seeks to impose penalties for non-compliance with disclosures, I think,

03:22I think is important. At the same time, I think that I would just suggest, please.

03:27No, no, no, you're going, because you're going exactly where I want. Can you help

03:34young persons, older people, people who, you know, that they get their news from

03:39fringe crazy things here, understand through that disclosure you're being

03:45manipulated, you're being used, these people are trying to exploit you. Right. I

03:51think it's important to remember that while there there is a serious effort

03:57to do that that's coming from the outside, what they're manipulating is the

04:03algorithms of the social media companies. I think we should start by expecting

04:10that the social media companies enforce their own rules about the kind of

04:16content on their platforms that put Jewish students in particular in recent

04:23months in harm's way. Mr. Chairman, the former congressman sort of went, I wish

04:31we as a body could have a more holistic discussion, because today it's

04:38anti-semitism, it's burning down and moving back to a historic evil, and it

04:45will tear civil society apart. And look, I have a piece of legislation to try to

04:52provide more flexibility for the Religious Institution Security Act,

04:56because how many of my shuls actually now have to have armed guards there and

05:01things of that nature. I wish we would actually look at a number of these ways

05:05we can protect each other, and then we have to have a conversation again. What

05:12the hell happened when my, they're wonderful people, when my leftist

05:18neighbor pulled off the coexist bumper sticker and went to the other direction,

05:23what snapped? I'm not smart enough to understand it, but I'm actually quite

05:31worried, not only for my Jewish community, but for my country. Yield back. Thank you.

'What Has Snapped Here?': David Schweikert Questions How Technology Has Changed People

Category

Transcript

Recommended