This week, Jon Stewart devoted his edition of The Daily Show to tackling a topic that he claims his former bosses at Apple barred him from exploring. “I wanted to have you on a podcast and Apple asked us not to do it,” the late-night host said to his guest Monday night, Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, referencing the companion podcast to his former series, The Problem with Jon Stewart that ended last October. “They literally said, ‘Please don’t talk to her.’”
Stewart’s remarks arrive less than two weeks after the U.S. Justice Department sued Apple for exploiting its monopoly in the tech market and violating antitrust laws. The lawsuit highlights Apple’s “power over content creators and newspapers” and notes that the company’s conduct “even affects the flow of speech,” adding, “Apple is rapidly expanding its role as a TV and movie producer and has exercised that role to control content.”
After joking that Apple killed Khan’s potential appearance on the podcast because “I didn’t think they cared for you,” Stewart alleged that Apple also told him not to discuss artificial intelligence. “They wouldn’t let us do even that dumb thing we just did in the first act on AI,” he said, referring to a segment earlier in that episode on the “false promise” of that technology. Stewart then asked Khan: “What is that sensitivity? Why are they so afraid to even have these conversations out in the public sphere?”
Khan replied, “I think it just shows the danger of what happens when you concentrate so much power and so much decision making in a small number of companies.”
Apple is a monopoly that “affects the flow of speech” yet I know nothing of any of this and am completely unaffected.
I don’t get it. Just buy different phones.
Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but if a monopoly was powerful enough to “affect the flow of speech”, wouldn’t they try to use that power to ensure you know nothing of it?
My ipad is a glorified notebook. I don’t get any news from Apple, Google or the usual suspects because I assume it is all curated distraction bait. I learn all I need to know about how things are going by looking out my car window when driving through town. (It’s not going well)
That’s super cool and all, I’m sure that is a sufficient sample size to be well informed, but now I’m confused as to your main point.
Do you mean to imply you don’t understand the issue with Apple controlling a massive amount of information because your lifestyle is representative of the majority of people?
Or do you mean that news has no potential value and as such is not worth protecting from bad actors?
Or do you mean that because some people are less aware of and/or dont care about being fed misinformation, they are not worth protecting regardless of any damage that might have on society as a whole?
My main point is that you are expecting the impossible if you think a company with more cash on hand than the federal government is ever going to do anything but manipulate you. If anything this drama is either for show or an effort by the government to make Apple do even more of their bidding. You will never get fair and balanced reporting or non-manipulative “entertainment” from these fortune 500s. It’s a lost cause. Find independent sources and look to them with skepticism because short of seeing it with your own eyes that’s as close to the truth as you will get.
Your English teachers wrong “off topic” on your essays a lot , didn’t they?
When you work for Apple, Apple gets to tell you what to do. Same goes for any corporate owned media outlet.
Jon Stewart has more than enough money to just quit, which he did. Most normal folks do not have this luxury so they tow the line.
Welcome to the reality that the US economic system.
No real free speech, no real agency in our economy, captive regulators that like to masquerade as populist heros but rarely actually do any real damage to sociopathic corporations.
Jon Stewart has more than enough money to just quit, which he did.
Celebrity is often its own reward. And Stewart wasn’t getting much coverage when he didn’t have a show, despite some very sincere and fervent lobbying efforts during his retirement period.
No real free speech, no real agency in our economy, captive regulators that like to masquerade as populist heros but rarely actually do any real damage to sociopathic corporations.
One of the more infuriating bits about liberal agitprop shows is how fucking devoid of agitprop they actually are. Yeah, guys like Stewart and Colbert and Oliver can go on rhetorical tirades about the Big Evil Business Thing. But when push comes to shove, what do they actually advocate? Noncompliance? Organized revolt? A general strike? Confrontations with abusive and cartelized law enforcement? Any kind of material self-defense or defense of one’s friends and neighbors? Anything that might violate the latest round of right-wing prohibitions on health care or gender or speech?
Or do they just put on a “Rally to Restore Sanity” that tells people activism begins and ends with voting, in an election system that’s increasingly threadbare?
The fact that Jon Stewart worked for Apple for a podcast and is now again on television working for some TV station shows that he has very little to offer in the way of anything meaningful. He had more than enough notoriety to start a podcast in his basement where he could say anything he wanted and get compelling guests. He has more than enough money to hire a crew and create a self-produced show online and get real viewership. People should really ask themselves why he is sticking with the big companies. It’s because he likes the money and is an expert at getting the narrative out there. The Daily Show has always been lowest common denominator “subversion” that takes itself seriously enough to shame non-approved worldviews but not enough to be held accountable in any meaningful way. It’s like if a teenager was a show.
Love or hate Tucker Carlson he is doing what Jon Stewart should have done years ago.
Tucker and Stewart are both just the dead end of modern entertainment journalism. Guys who haven’t been relevant in nearly a decade showing back up on mediums with declining user bases to appeal to an audience that’s getting older and grumpier and more out-of-touch than their Boomer-era peers from the early '00s.
