Let's talk about James Woods. So he is apparently refusing to delete the offending tweet. And so James Woods is supposed to be, you know, got suspended from Twitter but he can go back on as soon as he deletes the offending tweet.

Now part of the issue which I didn't know about is that apparently his girlfriend is the one who retweeted this thing that was an old meme that James Woods had tweeted a long time ago and didn't get in trouble the first time but this time you did. What is his girlfriend did not. So his girlfriend tweeted it but did not get blocked or suspended. And I also wonder what about all the other people who retweeted it? Why don't they also get suspended if one person can get suspended? Why can't all the people who retweeted it?

Now it's probably good that that's not the rule, that the only one who gets suspended is the creator of the, not the meme in this case, but the creator of the message that went with the meme, which is presumably what made it worse. That's a good question. Why did the retweeters get a pass? I don't know.

So I told you my take on it, which is that because the way James Woods presented the meme is probably what was problematic, because he said it's probably not true but it could be true in this world, which leaves open the possibility it's true, which is just enough oxygen that you could expect other people to think it is true, right? And since other people thinking it is true could influence the election, which I think it could actually. It was a strong meme. It was strong enough that it actually could move people. Not many, but it could move a few people.

And so Twitter's rules are essentially they don't want fake news moving elections, which is a good objective. It's just hard to execute because there's a lot of judgment call.

Now here's the interesting point that comes out of the whole James Woods thing. Before we could measure the impact of persuasion, we couldn't make it illegal, right? Nobody would try to kick you off social media for being persuasive. It's only, and you know in all of the questions about Google and the big companies whether or not they're biasing the algorithms, all of that stuff, that stuff only matters because we've entered an age where our persuasion gets measured. That we're thinking of measuring it even when we can't measure it.

So in the case of let's say the Russian persuasion, we couldn't really measure if anything happened. I think the impact was probably so close to zero it didn't make a difference. But the fact that we live in a world where there is persuasion and we understand what it is and we can recognize it a little better, but we also now have technology to measure it pretty quickly. You try this meme, you compare it to this meme and you see which one gets more clicks.

So once you can measure something it takes on new importance. All right, so here's the key point. Once you can measure something it takes on new importance because things that we can measure we care about. Things we think are true and may be happening but are hard to measure, we don't care about. The reason that global warming, climate change is such a big international issue in part is because it's measurable. Now there's a big debate about whether it's being measured correctly or interpreted correctly, but that's less important than the fact we've entered an age where we're making serious efforts to measure it. Once you can measure it or you think you can measure it or someone thinks they can measure it, it gains new importance.

So the fact we can measure persuasion almost guarantees it will someday be illegal. Let me ask you this. If you could measure how persuasive I am, let's just say that was possible. It might be possible. It's almost possible. But let's say you could measure how persuasive I am just personally, just as a personality on Twitter and Periscope. If you could measure how I change people's votes, and I think we're very close to the point where at least the tech companies could measure that even if I can't. And let's say they looked at my persuasion and it was all weighted in one direction. Well say it was weighted Republican and it was measurable. And let's say that I didn't have any gross factual errors that you know are clearly something I made up, right? So I might be wrong on some facts but that would be like everybody else. As long as it looks like I didn't make up facts just to change the election.

But let's say just, I know you make sure you make fun of the way I say measure. The measurements. I come from upstate New York. We measure. But you can measure if you want to measure. So would it be someday illegal for someone who is trained in persuasion to be super persuasive? And wait'll I finish this thought. If we all agree that fake news that moves an election should be eliminated from the platforms, what about people like me who don't use any fake news or at least not intentionally? I would never do that intentionally. But I can absolutely move outcomes. Shouldn't I be kicked off the platform? Shouldn't I? Because if I can move people's opinion without changing any factual news and nothing's untrue, I can just move people's opinion. Do they have free will? Is it free will if the information you get from me is exactly the same as what you read in the news but the way I framed it, the words I use, the emphasis I put on things, the techniques I used actually change your opinion in a way you could measure? Should I be illegal on social media?

Now the reason that this sounds like a ridiculous question is because there are very few people who are actually persuasive. It's kind of rare. It's one of the reasons that President Trump enjoys pretty much an empty field when it comes to persuasion. He's sort of the only one who's good at it at the moment who was even in the political realm on social media. There are lots of people who have big followings and stuff but there aren't that many people who were actually trained to persuade.

All right, Mike Sort of Itch, he's one. He's trained. He actually has the background, the knowledge. He's written books on the topic. He writes about it. He's persuasive and you can tell by the number of followers he has that it's pretty obvious. So would people like us someday be kicked off of social media just for being persuasive? What do you think?

I think it depends how persuasive we are. See if you're thinking to yourself no you could never criminalize or punish just being persuasive, that would be going way too far. And I say only because you can't measure it. Well the moment you could measure how much impact I had on the 2016 election, if it were possible to know how much impact I personally had on that election, I would be kicked off social media. I'm pretty sure that's true.

Now it might have to happen in an indirect way. They might have to find something I did that violates a rule that I didn't know I was violating. You know, I don't think I've ever intentionally violated any rule on social media. I can't think of any time I've done that. Yeah I'll be falsely accused of something. But just think about that point. The only reason it's legal is because they have not yet found an effective way to measure it that was objective.

All right, am I persuading Twitter to kick me off? I'm not. I would hope to persuade them otherwise.