this thing. and they re afraid of what s gonna happen to a guy who has never done content moderation before taking over this platform. ben collins, covering disinformation, extremism and then turn for nbc news, just an invaluable resource in our company. then, i m grateful for you every single time you post anything or rate anything for this company, your reporting is about to get even more important in the days ahead. thank you so much for being here tonight. thank you, rachel. we ll be right back. e right back e right back aire could only imagine enjoying chocolate cake. now, she can have her cake and eat it too. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day, all-night protection. can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn? my name is douglas. i m a writer/director and i m still working. in the kind of work that i do, you are surrounded by people who are all younger than you. i had to get help somewhere along the line to stay competitive. i discovered prevagen.
have to say this but this is not normal behavior for a news channel. let s be clear here. fox news channel isn t actually a news channel at all. it is the communications arm of the republican party. under former president trump the network effectively functioned and served as a state run media outlet. joining me to discuss is the president of media matters a progressive media watch dog group and ben collins a senior reporter for nbc news covering disinformation and extremism online. great to have you both with us. hannity s lawyer said that testifying would raise serious constitutional issues concerning freedom of the press. back in 2016 hannity declared on his own twitter account, i m not a journalist, jack. in reference to jack dorsey, ceo of twitter, i am a talk show host. that argument here and some of the revelations totally
away, largely. like, the groups are not as big. but they are much more committed to their own spaces. these people were live streaming to each other on telegram yesterday and they were just reaffirming their own sort of literature. they were creating their own language vocabulary about how to talk about this, how to talk to each other about this religion they were creating in real time. and the scary thing is, even the people who think they re nuts in the qanon community, the end game is still there. the end game is still, let s go murder our enemies. if we get rid of these enemies, if we get rid of hillary clinton, if we get rid of all these people we believe are killing children for their blood, then everything will be okay. and this is a tiny subset of a much larger movement and all of them believe this. ben collins, senior reporter for nbc news covering disinformation, extremism, and the internet. ben, thank you very much for being here. it s a spooky and unsettling