Zusha Elinson
Appearances
Apple News Today
How an “iron river” of guns flows from the U.S. to Mexico
As we all know, Americans love their guns.
Apple News Today
How an “iron river” of guns flows from the U.S. to Mexico
Gunmakers sold about 87 million firearms on the U.S. commercial market over the past five years. That's a lot of guns. But the problem is not all of them stay here. Quite a few get smuggled out to other countries where it's hard to buy guns. We talked to one former ATF official who described the U.S. as the biggest gun supermarket in the Western Hemisphere.
Apple News Today
How an “iron river” of guns flows from the U.S. to Mexico
And that's suing gun manufacturers in America and gun dealers. And they allege that these gun dealers and gun manufacturers are turning a blind eye to smugglers because they make so much money off the guns industry.
Apple News Today
How an “iron river” of guns flows from the U.S. to Mexico
The gun traffickers or cartels, they find someone who can pass a background check in the U.S. That means someone who has no criminal record. Sometimes like a single mom who needs some cash, someone with some medical bills who needs some cash. They say, can you go into this gun store and buy me a couple guns and we'll pay you like a thousand bucks. And these people are called straw purchasers.
Apple News Today
How an “iron river” of guns flows from the U.S. to Mexico
They at some point give it to the trafficker. The trafficker drives it across the border into Mexico. And you may think that would be a hard thing to do. It is not hard to do.
Apple News Today
How an “iron river” of guns flows from the U.S. to Mexico
People who study this issue, they say that more needs to be done to pay attention to gun dealers along the border to make sure they're keeping a good eye out for people who might be buying guns for traffickers. These folks who study the issue also say it would be good for Mexico to strengthen its criminal justice system so that they could really assist in investigations into gun trafficking.
Apple News Today
How an “iron river” of guns flows from the U.S. to Mexico
We spoke to former federal agents who said it's quite difficult to pursue investigations down in Mexico because of the corruption in the ranks of police there.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
Right. You could see both sides of it in this Utah story, right? On the one hand, you see these families who are able to make a living off, you know, the way they raise their kids in this very interesting, authentic life they have out there. You could see that it could be helpful in exposing other people how to raise their own kids. So there are positives to it that you could see.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
But when you look at it from the kid's standpoint, I think it's harder to understand those benefits. And Sherry Franke talks a lot about this in her memoir. Kids really have no say in the matter. And so to give them a say, she felt was a powerful thing to do.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
And why is that? I'll tell you why. It's because of a huge scandal involving a woman named Ruby Franke.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
Utah has a really different image than a lot of states, I would say. They're really proud of their families, and they're really a family-first kind of state. And so I think this whole influencer boom made everyone pretty happy because they're sort of showcasing the thing they care about the most, and they're making money doing it.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
You know, we talked to people familiar with the whole scene there, and they said it sort of fits in nicely with a lot of Mormon traditions. One is chronicling family life. You know, that's been a longstanding tradition. The other thing is that wives in the Mormon community have long been encouraged to sort of contribute financially to the household from home.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
There's a lot of multi-level marketing companies out there where women do that kind of work while raising the kids. And this is another avenue where women could stay home and also bring in some money for the family.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
So it's twofold. I mean, one is that people are just always curious about the Mormon way of life. It's also tapping into this rising curiosity about so-called trad wives. And these are women who stay home, who dedicate their lives to raising children and homemaking, putting that ahead of a career.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
This whole scene of mom influencers has just exploded in Utah.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
Ruby Franke is a mother of six, was married to Kevin Franke, and they were living in a small town in Utah when they decided to start a YouTube channel back in around 2015 or so. And they called it Eight Passengers. because of the number of people in their family. And it got really popular very quickly.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
They grew, you know, in about five years, they grew to about 2.5 million subscribers, had over a billion views on YouTube. People were fascinated by their home life and how they raised their kids. And the family was making a great living off it. To the outside world, it seemed like this picture perfect Mormon family from Utah.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
Well, the one we know best is Sherry. She's the oldest daughter. And she had some of the most memorable moments. One particular viral moment was her mom was waxing her eyebrows and her mom accidentally ripped off half her left eyebrow.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
And the mom sort of was like, oh, I'm so sorry. Sherry's crying. And you know, it was a viral sensation. It was like these kind of embarrassing moments that seemed to really attract the attention of viewers. But sometime around 2020, things fell apart.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
I mean, I don't think there's a place elsewhere in the U.S. where there's more popular family influencers.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
The Picture Perfect Utah family unraveled after one of their sons got on there and casually mentioned that he'd been sleeping on a beanbag chair for seven months in the basement as punishment for being defiant. And this was just sort of mentioned in one of the videos very casually.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
But viewers grew very alarmed, and then they started picking up on other instances of punishment that they thought was cruel and unusual to the kids.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
And then things got ratcheted up just to an extreme level in 2023 when one of Ruby Frankie's sons escaped a house that she was living in with her new business partner and showed up on the doorstep of a neighbor. He was emaciated, malnourished. He had duct tape around his ankles and his wrists. And he was asking if she could take him to the police station, the nearest police station.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
Police investigated Ruby Frankie and her new business partner, and they found that they were really abusing the two youngest kids who were living at this house. They were depriving them of food. They were making them work in the hot sun without shoes. They were beating them. It was just awful, horrific child abuse.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
So it's all about very traditional home life, I would say. So, you know, there's videos of people cooking for their kids.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
What do we see? We see all these YouTube and Instagram videos of a happy family. But what she tells us is what really went on behind the scenes. And this is even before the abuse escalated to extreme levels, right? She had this extreme pressure on herself to just be a good girl and do what her mom said.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
And she talks about sort of her mental health struggles because of that, the anxiety, depression, all that sort of thing. On top of the actual, you know, performative aspect of it, the constant surveillance of the cameras, there was all these disgusting online comments. You know, people talking about really gross sexual stuff involving her and other people.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
I just can't, can you imagine being a teenager being, you know, having to read all this stuff?
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
She talked about one time being very violently ill, and that was another viral video moment. And she said, in retrospect, the fact that her mom took advantage of that felt really gross, obviously. So all these moments, but the overarching theme was this idea, she was in... a precarious preteen and teenage years during this whole time.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
And just, you know, she wanted to go through the changes in her life, have her zits, do all this stuff in private, not be plastered all over the internet.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
I spoke to the Bill's author, Doug Owens. He talked a lot about how, you know, the Ruby Frankie scandal was an outlier. But I think what emerged from the scandal was sort of the working conditions that these kids have on a regular basis, how their whole life is spent, you know, taking videos and performing for the camera, how they feel this anxiety.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
So it really opened the floodgates of what the experience of growing up in an influencer family was like for kids. And I think that really drew the attention of state lawmakers who said we need to protect them.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
Yeah, that's the really interesting thing about the story. So, you know, child actors in Hollywood, they long have laws to protect their financial interests and protect their working conditions because they're working. But this is the Wild West right now. There are no protections. And I mean, let's be honest, it's these kids that are making these people popular. And yet they're not being paid.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
And a lot of these families are enormous. And there's just this incredible fascination across America with the intimate details of these people's home lives.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
So the influencers in Utah are very quiet about this law. In fact, we contacted a number of family influencer channels to see if they would talk to us. None of them wanted to talk, except for one. One of their representatives got back to us and said, how much would you compensate this mother for the interview?
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
And I had to break it to her that, you know, we're not in the business of paying people for interviews. So you could see they're all hustling. They're trying to make money. So obviously they don't want that money to stop, right? That's something I'm sure they don't want. But at the same time, these content creators did not take the stand of opposing the bill, which is interesting, right?
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
You could have seen them saying like, absolutely not. This is going to be a hindrance to a really important industry in Utah. They didn't. I think the Ruby Frankie scandal sort of really caused everyone to pause and take a deep breath and say, we do need to do something, even if this is how we make our money.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
And what the law says is that if children appear in videos and their parents make more than $150,000 a year off social media, that they have to put some money away in a trust for their kids, sort of like how child actors are paid.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
And then the other thing it does is it gives kids the right when they turn 18 to go to court and take down any embarrassing videos that they don't want on the internet when they're an adult. So this is a really dramatic step in Utah. Utah is a red state, and the legislator there is very skeptical about intruding into family life with government regulations, with laws.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
So it's a big surprise that you're seeing regulations of a family activity in Utah.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
Yeah, I do, because their legislation is proposed in a number of other states. All the states that have passed this law have had no trouble doing so. I think protecting children is pretty uncontroversial. I think where it'll get interesting is if this gains a lot of momentum and whether or not the big social media giants will get involved more. So that's something to watch.
The Journal.
Why Utah Is Regulating Mom Influencers
Oh, yeah. I mean, this whole thing is a whole money-making venture. Not only do they make money through their advertising on social media, there's a lot of brand partnerships. All of them sell some sort of products that they endorse. It's a very big business. I mean, we talked to people who went from just posting a couple of videos to making their whole family livelihood on YouTube and Instagram.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
And after that, people ask, well, you know, is there something wrong with this movement that this guy turned out so badly? And it's a very similar situation now.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
It's a very potent, brainy, brilliant community that's having a big influence in tech. And somehow, from this community emerged this group of violent, militant vegans.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
Yeah, that's a really great question. How is it going to change this movement that's had so much influence in Silicon Valley? I think the one thing it might do is make people look at their movement a little more askance, with a little more suspicion in their mind when they're talking about AI safety.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
Will people take them seriously in these really important debates when they have this group of militant vegans that came from their ranks?
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
This Border Patrol agent in Vermont was stopping a car because there had been suspicions about these two people. They're wearing all black, they're armed to the teeth.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
They like to talk about, debate big existential questions. They love reason, logic, probability. A lot of people may have not heard about the rationalists, but they're very influential.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
They talk a lot about this idea of the robot apocalypse, of an evil AI killing off humanity, and they spend a lot of their time trying to prevent that. When you think about a robot apocalypse, most Americans are like, oh, that's in a movie. But, you know, to them, this is very serious.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
It was a shooting and they got into a gunfight.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
Absolutely. I feel like they've sort of spearheaded this whole movement to slow down AI, to make sure AI is done in a way that doesn't harm people. I mean, the development of AI has been so rapid, right? And often in Silicon Valley, you don't have a voice that's saying we need to slow down and do things in a different way.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
There's this famous online forum called Less Wrong where they debate everything, the rationalists. They love debating everything.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
It's a lot of very high IQ people, a lot of software engineers, very brainy people.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
They attract a lot of people who don't feel comfortable in other areas of society, like transgender folks, autistic folks, contrarians like atheists.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
And the community really, for a long time, didn't care who joined. They welcomed anyone. They welcomed any idea. They were eager to embrace anyone and any idea, no matter how outlandish it seemed to the outside.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, in California... There was a landlord in Vallejo, California, a little working-class city north of San Francisco, that was stabbed to death.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
Lasoda was a brilliant young computer scientist from Alaska, graduated magna cum laude, came to the Bay Area about a decade ago looking to work in tech and looking to get into this rationality movement.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
So Lasoda comes into this mix in about 2016 and loves it. But even in this community of oddballs, Lasoda stood out.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
Ziz, which is an alien villain from an online comic, Lasoda started wearing black robes everywhere and started adhering to this philosophy of, they call it vegan Sith, is what they call it after the people in Star Wars.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
Yeah. Controlling everything. Exactly. Exactly.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
And people started to get creeped out. You know, just very intense person, tall, blonde hair, long blonde hair, wearing dark robes, talking intensely about veganism, and talking about, allegedly on online forums, about punishing meat eaters, you know, very violent stuff, about having Nuremberg trials for meat eaters.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
We have not been able to talk to people who were Zizians themselves. But we've talked to parents of people who were drawn in to the Zizians. And what people said is that the followers were all somewhat insecure, people who didn't quite fit in even in this community, and who were really drawn to that militance that Ziz had. Ziz was very charismatic for that community.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
The organizations were rather dismissive. They said, we don't think this is real research. And they turned down their offer to speak about it. And that's really when the transformation took a very dark turn.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
They protested this reunion of rationalists wearing dark robes and Guy Fawkes masks. They blocked the entrance. This was very dramatic for the rationalist movement. And police had to come and arrest them. And this really represented the beginning of the hostility and the split from the rationalists.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
said they were corrupt, said they were anti-trans, and believed that her group was, you know, the real, true, pure group.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
And why is that? That's because the Coast Guard gets a call in August of 2022 saying that Lesotho has gone overboard on a ship in the San Francisco Bay.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
They run an obituary in a newspaper in Alaska saying, quote, loving adventure, friends and family, music, blueberries, biking, computer games, and animals. You are missed.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
On the face of these two murders, you'd think they'd have nothing in common. And then the authorities revealed the suspects. And they were both young. They were both computer scientists. They were both vegans. And they were both interested in artificial intelligence safety.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
The landlord, who's 80 years old at the time, a guy named Curtis Lynn, is trying to evict the Zizians, and they attack him with knives and a sword. He loses an eye, but he has a gun. He shoots back. He loses an eye? Yeah, yeah, he loses an eye. He shoots back during the violent confrontation. One of the Zizians is killed. Two of them are arrested. And who should be spotted at the crime scene?
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
None other than the supposedly dead Lasoda. Ziz. Ziz is alive. So she faked her own death? Ziz faked her own death. That's exactly right.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
Ziz shows up in an even more sinister spot across the country in Pennsylvania just a few weeks later.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
But when they approached Ziz to talk to Ziz, Ziz just plays dead and lies there. Won't say anything.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
After the murders in Pennsylvania, the rationalist community in Berkeley really starts to get freaked out. Someone puts what they call a community alert on this forum called Less Wrong where the rationalists like to debate things. And they say, you know, people are concerned that Ziz and her associates are violent and that there's a real threat here.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
Someone posted on the rationalist forum about why do so many rationalists turn crazy?
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
These rationalists are asking questions like, were there dynamics in our group that sort of bred cult-like behavior that led to this sort of thing?
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
Another thing they've been talking about a lot is how open the community was. They really just would allow anyone to come and go, and they feel like that openness has really helped them and helped the movement do things that other folks couldn't do, but also let in people who, you know, were not welcome elsewhere for a good reason.
The Journal.
The Killing Spree Tied to a Silicon Valley Intellectual Movement
But at the center of it is sort of a soul-searching. It's like, did our movement go wrong in some way? And it's reminiscent of the soul-searching that took place after Sam Bankman Freed was convicted of, you know, one of the biggest frauds in history.