when you look at what the conversation is about crt on social media it really takes a whole nother level it's it's like this information personified what have you been seeing around this issue yeah first of all i want to concur with what you just said about the way in which they're using martin luther king's words actually bernice king herself had several tweets about the way in which her dad's you know words are being misconstrued to talk about racism as if it was in the opposite frame um what they're talking about with critical race theory is to basically say that they don't want to have a conversation about race at all in this country and this impact on individuals who happen to be of different hues and they're using his words in in the complete opposite way i totally agree with you with that and i'll say also one of the things that like we've tracked in terms of some of these policies that some of these schools are trying to uh institute including tennessee they don't want to tell ruby bridges ruby bridge is a story you know ruby was the you know young girl who i had to go against a mob to to just to go to school every day and so as they're saying that they don't want young children to face this when they go to school from k to 12 they're not talking about ruby at all they're not talking about any children that look like ruby they're saying that ruby and the likes of children like her she was six years old should endure racism while um children who are maybe participating in racism are not being held accountable at all at the exact same age nor their parents um what we've seen um in terms of these these these uh parents who have shown up as mobs at school boards trying to uh downplay critical race theory uh in the school systems when what they're actually saying it's not critical race theory what they're saying is they don't want history taught in texas for example they are basically trying to remove the the the notion that the kkk was immoral they're trying to remove martin luther king from the school's curriculum they're trying to remove a whole bunch of hosts of issues of of what the history really was in america and and to be to be clear that had nothing to do with critical race theory the way that they're using it is different and so what we did uh today is put out our report about how this is transitioned to actual legal and legal illegal actions school boards legislation which is what cotton has done is all based on disinformation it's all based on disinformation that has been led predominantly by conservative media and spread through facebook and twitter and so what we've done is we've looked at this historically looked at a whole year on twitter we went through around 40 000 pieces of content on facebook we've took in we've taken 10 percent of that content and taught and tried to show a story about how this has happened why it has happened but most importantly what content is being distributed and how often there's always this conversation and there's been plenty of hearings on the hill that there's conservative bias on these platforms and that the tech companies are are more liberal and they're and they're instituting these biases but what our data says is that that's not correct actually the majority of the content being shared overwhelmingly is conservative content it's the it's the anti-crt it's the disinformation and it's the anti-um um and it's targeting anti-racist in any kind of anti-racist frames uh any kind of diversity frames any kind of discussion about um race in this country so how do you how do you stop that from happening i mean facebook and twitter and these social media platforms they have a problem that you and i already know we're stopping everything from what we saw from the 2020 election to you know even keeping our personal information you know safe so how do you uproot that level of disinformation about such an important situation such an important issue like critical race theory i think that we have to admit the fact that what has been happening is that the algorithms have been benefiting and amplifying the the disinformation and has been amplifying the conspiracy theorists that has been amplified predominantly white voices i mean that's what our data shows because when you look at the data that actually has that comes from liberal media or media that is in that or any content that's being shared by um the black community or black scholars very little content is distributed or shared like basically from from a black content perspective it's 2. 8 percent um when it comes to how it gets shared this point nine percent in comparison to um the conservative um shares of this content so that's why we that's why we took a look at this we're trying to say it's more than just um an accident that this is happening is that the systems of which these companies have built on in terms of the their algorithms and their amplifications is allowing this to happen and one of the ways that we can maybe counter this is to go back to saying well how how are we elevating or maybe suppressing the the voices that are trying to say a counter narrative to the disinformation and from from what we're seeing is that there's some steps that can be taken but first these companies have to acknowledge that their algorithms are amplifying and and and weaponizing the disinformation for clicks and and and impressions in user base so so from from from the average user like you and me um should we be advocating to not have these conversations on social media no i i don't think we should stop having a conversation i just think that we need to be one we need to be talking about it more to counter the disinformation we need to report we need to also report more of that disinformation but we also need to make sure that we are participating and sharing more of that content but i will also say this the media i. e the media who's supposed to help us counter that information needs to be doing more as well because the content that's going out from even um quote-unquote left-leaning media if you look at our report we we go through all the different media through a bias lens uh a third-party bias lens that tells us which which media is leaning which which direction whether it's left or right or center we're noticing that um the content that's shared that's being shared the most is mostly uh right leaning and if the media decides to talk about it they're just amplifying the disinformation giving profiles to people who are already spreading the disinformation instead of giving profiles to people who are counting the uh the the um the critical race theory frames telling the truth about what critical race theory is telling the truth of what history is in the school systems those people are not being amplified the media by the way isn't talking about it we're doing this right now on black media but we need this on mainstream media as well to have more of our voices to help amplify to also be shared and distributed on these platforms as well i want to bring back our panel to um to pose questions to you shireen um uh risi i know that you have been a a strong advocate about disinformation across many different conversations what's your question for sharing mitchell hey shireen uh so good to see you again yes um you know i mentioned earlier i have an op-ed today and the griot about disinformation so it is something that i feel like we are not talking about enough in our community um can you kind of explain some strategies like for instance um instead of retweeting maybe screenshotting and you know also explain how we interact with some of this inflammatory data like you know the algorithms reward these people because they um they they use what you interact with as a basis to show you even more of it so even if you are disagreeing with it it's not necessarily taking into account whether you approve or not it's still going to push more of that data into your feed so can you kind of just give the the viewers a little bit more insight into how those algorithms reward this um this this inflammatory and disinformation activity yeah definitely so the more you know the more quote tweets more the more retweets on a particular piece of content that is disinformation and you're trying to debunk it it's just going to help that amp that be amplified what you want to do is not quote tweet or retweet but to have a different tweet that you are basically criticizing that to that particular tweet if if you're doing a screenshot that's fine but maybe you maybe what you do is tell a whole different narrative and do a whole thread on what critical race theory really is and what's happening in your community that is being done about it like to counter the narrative is to help get that content amplified from other people from other experts that may talk about it but not to amplify the disinformation content at all in any form um the the way in which these things are games when with the fake accounts and i think you know about this pretending to be us and all these other aspects that may share that content when that happens and other people continue to share or even respond to the fake accounts it just allows the amplification and what we want to do is make sure we're amplifying the real people we want to make sure we want to amplify the real experts we want to amplify the content and the um and the articles and the media pieces that are about what what crt really is to counter the narrative that's out there right now disinformation is spread six more times than factual and we need to change that number around absolutely absolutely uh dr carl what's your question for sharing mitchell train um this is a difficult one for me because yeah i agree with tom cotton i embrace him i don't think he's wrong um if you accept his definition of america which leads me to the question how much of this is our inability to address fundamental issues of national identity and political power i mean when you really stop the thing and having read the 1776 report and really done a deep dive and look through thematically in my mind there's no difference between the 1776 report and the 1619 project in terms of still placing american exceptionalism and this idea of this country this perfectable experiment at the core of our aspiration now how much of this is our inability or unwillingness to grapple with the fact that the heart of critical race theory opposes everything these white nationalists stand for and that they are fighting for their lives instead of trying to make appeals about logic and facts this ain't about logic in fact these white people are circling the wagons how much of this is about our inability to have an honest conversation about this well there's a lot to that i mean you're absolutely right i mean not only the honest conversation is like the fact that they don't want ruby's book in schools that means that they don't want to talk about what happened to ruby they don't want to talk about the mobs right we're having a conversation about the fact that we want to pretend i've said this multiple times as i hear that hear people say well my you know my i didn't my i didn't enslave your you know your ancestors right that conversation comes up all the time but your people did and the truth is right at this moment you're still denying the racism that you participate in right now that's what canceled culture is about that's what wokeness you know anti-wokeness is about in in my opinion anti-wokeness in the in the frameworks of it is saying anti-black anyway because it's that you know it's a black term um so we're basically saying that people in this moment don't want to be held accountable so we know they don't want to be held accountable for the for the past of of their own ancestors and so because of that we are systematically and we have systematically been coming up with coming up with muzzle laws to make sure that we aren't telling those stories and so we've already had a problem with even telling the true stories in our current history books and now what they want to do is remove them entirely like when you see um you know states that are literally trying to take mlk out of the books that just tells you they don't want to tell the history at all and so what you what you're what you are saying is that that this country does not want to grapple at all with its history no matter how many times someone says that you know real history needs to be told as if um as if it's not being told now um in in proper ways uh but they're also saying that we don't we want real history we don't want theories but what they're doing is they're using the theory you know the concept of critical race theory which is looking at laws the actual laws in this country that are racist laws like sun downtowns like they're they're using they want to use laws right now to remove history but if you think about it critical race theory would be criticizing the fact that they wanted to remove that history exactly and using the law to do it so we're in a cycle here that is very much about what you just said i mean tom cotton is really saying out loud we should never have to rehash any of our history we should not remember tulsa we should not remember slavery we should not remember that even at this moment some cities still have sun downtowns right that's right that's what what that's what they're asking for at this point and what we've been doing is saying we need to know not one talk about it but two get rid of those laws that's right amisha well first of all i wanted to say um thanks for for coming on and giving us as much information as you have thus far as someone who's worked in the k-12 system and has designed policy for both k-12 as well as early childhood education we tell facts on roland martin unfiltered critical race theory is not taught ece and it's not taught in k-12 and it's not taught at the university level either this is a law school theory and if you haven't been to law school and chosen it as an elective you're not hearing anything about critical race theory anyway what we're seeing is a major pushback from largely conservatives who are upset about the black lives matter protests who are upset about the reaction of the globe after they saw the tragedy of george floyd's murder what we're seeing is this push from a lot of right-leaning individuals to eradicate black history which is american history from our history books be mindful only a short portion of it was actually ever included to begin with but they want to get rid of that as well um my question is around what is it that makes them believe that young people don't already know that america is racist as a kid i remember in first grade one of my close friends who i rode the school bus with held her arm out after inviting me to a birthday party and said that her mom told her that only people who had the same color arm as her could come to her party when we have people who say this and understand it in the first grade you cannot tell me that these kids are totally um totally in some mythical world where they don't see the differences between black and white learning how we got there and why this persists is part of understanding who we are as america why is it that the right consistently acts as though teaching these things about our history and how we got here is somehow going to make you unpatriotic or is going to destroy this ideal of american greatness um it's around the guilt that they have about what they have done to people like us in this country and what they're telling their children because that child didn't put her arm out there to do that if her mother didn't tell her that that that's who could come to her party and it's also the same argument that we're having they're saying we don't want you know these five or six year olds to know anything about race we don't want to have have that be a discussion while those same parents are having that discussion at home with their children they just don't want their children to get punished if they come to school repeating those words right on the school bus that you're talking about like that's what they don't want and they don't want to have curriculums in place that would make it possible for there to have children who can have some kind of recourse if it was to happen to them like what happened in texas as an example was the was the video of the kids you know basically showing themselves saying the n-word those kids were being held into account and that school the parents came and took over that school board that's what they're actually talking about they're just using crt as the umbrella of the justification to do so we're not having the conversations that really need to be had but what they are saying is that that black and brown children should experience racism as if they as it as it's always been and that their children should not be held accountable for any of their actions and neither should they as parents teaching us those their kids that either that's the truth that's right well sharing you know it's going to be interesting to see how this uh continues to play out especially now that the senate has said that they're not going to provide a federal funding so it's you know when we're seeing all of this different disinformation on social media you know going back to something that you said which i think is very important is we have to use our voice amplify our voice against the uh uh conservative view of history of america um and and and i'm a true advocate of this ring if this country wants to get better it has to hold up the mirror to look at itself to be the good the bad the ugly take it all in otherwise this denial and going back to dr cars point to always be in the space of american exceptionalism that is going to be the achilles heel of this country this country is already on shaky ground but that is going to be the achilles heel that if we get past we don't see it past the quote-unquote exceptionalism and say oh no we're great and just being a constant state of denial we're going to do ourselves more harm than good so i appreciate you coming on tonight what i will say is just really quickly uh the the lie of american exceptionalism is the biggest american disinformation campaign we've ever had that's right that's right that's right and they're never going to give it up they can't live without it they'll never quit but anyway enough barry white mitchell thank you so much for joining us tonight here on roland martin unfiltered we truly appreciate it thank you for having me again video at just one moment uh seek.
com we have partnered with them of course we appreciate their support right here on roller martin unfiltered uh check out uh a couple of their uh products uh that you can take advantage of and you're watching us please let the music play [Music] enjoy the uh seek. com video by using one of their virtual reality headsets all you do is just pop your phone right here into the vr headset and enjoy the content you can also take advantage of their uh 360-degree headphones these headphones here come in a couple of colors black and gold then also all gold and so you can uh check these out if you want to use our promo code to get a discount uh is rmvip21rmvip21 then of course a portion of the proceeds comes back to roller martin unfiltered which allows for us to fund the show and so uh this is a black owned company we certainly believe in supporting black owned companies uh mary spiel is the founder uh and so again go to seek.
