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Amanpour
Interview with End Rape on Campus Co-Founder and "We Believe You" Author Annie E. Clark; Interview with Mentors in Violence Prevention Program Co-Founder and "Every Man: Why Violence Against Women is a Men's Issue Author Jackson Katz; Interview with Physician and Biosecurity Expert and Former White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha; Interview with The New York Times Investigative Reporter Ken Bensinger. Aired 1-2p ET
Aired October 06, 2026 - 13:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:00:00]
BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, and welcome to "Amanpour." Here's what's coming up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Survivors of sexual violence deserve justice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: Outrage intensifies over Cornell's handling of gang rape allegations. I speak to women's rights activist Annie E. Clark to unpack
the case. Followed by author Jackson Katz on why ending violence against women is a men's issue.
Then --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARCIO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We encourage Russia to be transparent and share more information with the world so that all of us
could react accordingly and appropriately.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: -- dozens quarantined in Russia after a researcher studying the plague dies of an unknown infection. Is this cause for alarm? Infectious
disease expert Ashish Jha joins me.
Plus --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEN BENSINGER, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: You sort of imagine like crop dusting or something where you're spraying it over as
much of the Internet as you possibly can.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: -- as the midterms loom, New York Times reporter Ken Bensinger tells Hari Sreenivasan how an army of paid creators is carpeting the web
with political content and the potential impact on voters.
Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Bianna Golodryga in New York sitting in for Christiane Amanpour.
Justice for Jane Doe, that was the demand of thousands of students and staff who joined protests at Cornell University in New York on Monday amid
widespread indignation over how the college handled rape allegations brought forward by an anonymous female student.
Last month, a lawsuit was filed by a woman under the name of Jane Doe, alleging that she was given drugs and alcohol and sexually assaulted for
hours by seven men in a fraternity house in 2024. While the university and local authorities conducted an investigation at the time, the seven accused
men were giving punishments of varying leniency and no criminal charges were brought.
Since then, more evidence has surfaced, prompting New York Governor Kathy Hochul to appoint the state's attorney general, Letitia James, as a special
prosecutor to oversee the renewed investigation. Many believe this case and the ensuing investigation highlights how institutions continue to fail
victims of sexual assault, reigniting a national and international conversation about assault and rape on college campuses.
Annie E. Clark is a survivor herself and was the lead complainant in the 2013 Title IX case against the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
She's also the co-founder of the advocacy group End Rape on Campus and is joining me now to unpack all of this. Annie, I can't tell you how important
it is to have you with us as we continue to cover this story.
We know at Cornell, at Ithaca yesterday, students were rallying, faculty is preparing for a no-confidence vote over university leadership's handling of
this case. As we noted, you are a survivor of sexual assault at UNC in 2007 and have spent several years pushing universities to listen to survivors
like you. For many women, this story is painful but sadly familiar.
Give us your reaction to everything that you've seen and heard about what happened in 2024, the investigation at the time, and what was missing from
that investigation as we are learning more details as recently as today.
ANNIE E. CLARK, CO-FOUNDER, END RAPE ON CAMPUS AND AUTHOR, "WE BELIEVE YOU": Hi, and thank you so much for having me, Bianna. I think like many
survivors but also many people in general, hearing the news of what happened at Cornell was devastating.
It was incredibly tragic, sad, and for many of us, it brought back memories of our own assaults. However, what it was not for me and many in this work
was surprising because what we know is this is not an isolated case. It's not just about Cornell. This is an international problem. It's a cultural
problem. Therefore, it was not surprising to me.
GOLODRYGA: Cornell's president has apologized and has promised an independent review. What would make that review credible in your view at
this point?
[13:05:00]
CLARK: Definitely. I think, first of all, like you said, independence. I think the fact that the student journalism broke this story wide open. Had
it not been for those students at the Cornell Sun, we wouldn't be sitting here talking about this today.
So, I think taking a step back and acknowledging their bravery, the bravery of Jane Doe, and the fact that it shouldn't be incumbent on college
students to hold their institutions accountable, not only for the culture, but the lack of accountability that happens when somebody does report.
I think the fact that they're reviewing this case, that the governor has appointed James and is getting involved is a very positive sign. But we've
seen this before. This is old. And what we need to make sure of is that we not only get the facts, but the conversation surrounding it. We need to
talk in our schools, much younger, starting in kindergarten, right? This is not the first time we're hearing about sexual assault is in college. It's
way too late.
And so, I hope people take from this case not only what's happening right now, but we look at things like the group chat, the fact that you had 57
individual men on this chat and no one said anything is huge. So, I think we're at a cultural moment here yet again, like we were, you know, almost a
decade ago where we have the capacity to do something if we choose to do it.
GOLODRYGA: Well, let's talk about where we were a decade ago. You were featured in a 2015 documentary called The Hunting Ground, which brought
national attention to campus sexual assault and violence. And then the institutional cover up that followed more than a decade later. Here we are,
Annie, having very similar conversations. What does Cornell's response thus far tell you about what has changed since then and what hasn't?
CLARK: I think Cornell's response is incredibly disappointing. And it's like we saw a host of universities across the country from community
schools, community colleges to Ivy Leagues. We take these instances very seriously with sort of the byline. And then nothing happened. And because
institutional memory is very short and students are usually the ones holding their institutions accountable. You get a new wave of students and
you have the same issues.
Not to be totally bleak on this, because I do think some things have changed for the better. Since 2013 and especially since 2007, more students
are educated about their rights. You see people talking about Title IX and association with campus discrimination, with sexual violence. And before
that was a conversation that was mostly isolated to athletics. We have orientation training. We have consent education.
But what I really think is missing here is that doesn't go far enough. Particularly in this case, you have educated people, bright people who got
into Cornell and then made a decision. I do not think that they were confused and another training would have helped them. They knew what
consent was. They knew what they were doing is wrong. And subsequently, not to speculate, but from what we know about the Snapchats and everything
right now, is that they tried to form a narrative to cover it up because they knew what happened was not right.
And so, I think we are really missing that accountability piece. It's a multifaceted problem, campus sexual violence is. And it requires a
multifaceted solution. And these trainings are only part of that. I think, again, the Cornell response, as you ask, is unfortunately similar to what
we see and have seen over the past decade. I know people were outraged that they were, some of the alleged perpetrators were forced to write essays as
sanctions. That has been going on for decades. That is not new and it needs to stop.
We see this in terms of sanctions at LSU, for example, a survivor there, Kendall Francis, who reported her assailant, who was found responsible in a
Title IX setting, given a year suspension. And then they took that away and he's currently still on the football team.
So, we're not seeing any accountability, not cultural accountability. And again, from kindergarten to college to the upper echelons of government,
we're not seeing accountability across the board. And that is something that it's got to change.
I believe in the Snapchat, they were saying, members were talking about the alumni saying, oh, they weren't lying. This is really happening, meaning
that this has been going on not just for the past several years, but for generations. We know this is a problem and a slap on the wrist in an essay
is not going to change things.
[13:10:00]
We need real accountability. We need justice. And the fact that people are coming forward still in droves shows us how widespread this is.
GOLODRYGA: We should note all seven men deny these allegations. The original prosecutor reportedly declined to bring charges after reviewing
just a six-page summary, a police summary where Jane Doe was not even interviewed. What does that tell you about whether women who report sexual
assault are getting a meaningful hearing here?
CLARK: It tells us that they're not taking these stories seriously. And we go back to the old refrain of boys will be boys. And this is just, you
know, not something that serious when, in fact, it is a life altering situation for a survivor. And people are not treating it with the
seriousness that it deserves. And I find that incredibly -- it's still heartbreaking. But the fact that we're talking about it hopefully means
something will change.
GOLODRYGA: Some legal experts have raised concerns about Governor Hochul appointing Letitia James as a special prosecutor here. Our own Elie Honig
has argued as much and says that her public support for Jane Doe creates the appearance that she's prejudged the case. Does that also give you cause
for concern as this potentially makes its way to a courtroom?
CLARK: I believe if she can independently investigate the facts and put personal feelings aside, absolutely. I think any prosecutor on any case has
an obligation to do so. And if somebody is biased coming into that situation, then they shouldn't be on that case.
However, publicly supporting survivors I don't think is cause for recusal necessarily. And what I do know is when schools have in the past brought in
like UNC did, for example, Occidental College did, lots of schools have brought in independent law groups to look at policies to see what has
changed, what they could have done better. But often those are hired from the university's perspective. And so, there's a perverse incentive to not
find anything or to sort of downplay it.
So, I do agree that an investigation should be truly independent. But I do not think that generally supporting survivors should automatically say that
somebody is unable to conduct an impartial investigation.
GOLODRYGA: So, ABC News has obtained a call that Jane Doe secretly recorded about three weeks after the alleged assault. That is legal, even a
single party consent in terms of the second party not being aware that the conversation is being recorded. That is legal in the State of New York.
Some states it is not, but it is legal in New York. And she recorded this call with a fraternity member that she says invited her to the house.
And she needed -- she describes needing emergency care and therapy because, and I'm going to read from this recording, there's so much damage on my
body and my brain. Now, she later says, and we don't have the order of this conversation, but she also went on to say, if I wanted to take this
somewhere, what you all did would be classified as gang rape. You are. You already knew when I came in, I was 10 shots deep.
Now, listen to his account.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You did tell me you were sober, by the way. You did. You said you hadn't been anywhere.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: So, Jane Doe says that she was, quote, "100 percent sure." She told him that she had been at a bar for a sorority event. Quote, "I never
lie." So, that leads us to New York's definition of mentally incapacitated. And that excludes voluntary intoxication. Other grounds for rape charges,
including physical helplessness or force, can still apply. But advocates say the exclusion does leave a serious gap.
How do you react to that and the potential scenario where the legal system actually does an incredible disservice to potential victims?
CLARK: I think that loophole needs to be closed, and I believe it's a law in New York and about 19 other states right now. And it's not a good law.
And it should -- that loophole should be closed. I do think that is going to be an area, if this does go further, that the defense will argue on and
potentially might get some recourse on. That doesn't mean what happened was right by any means, and it doesn't mean it wasn't sexual violence or rape.
[13:10:00]
If this case might be a moment of change, because I think we've spent so much time focusing just on Cornell. But sadly, I would imagine Cornell is
not an outlier. We hear stories like this not only here in the U.S. on campuses, but perhaps around the world. What would you want the single
takeaway to be from this?
CLARK: I think I've heard from so many survivors, both in the United States and internationally over the past week or so, since this story has
really made media headlines. And I think from a lot of people, there's an anger and frustration of, OK, so why did I come forward 10 years ago?
What's changed? This is the same thing I was taught. My perpetrator was given an essay. They're still at school. She's never going to receive
justice. And a lot of that is real, right. A lot of that frustration is absolutely real.
But I think it's important to realize that we have come a little bit, right. It's not back where we were, and we still have a much longer way to
go. But the fact that you have an entire movement of women and men, some men sharing their stories, saying, I am Jane Doe, I think it's incredibly
powerful to know that you are not alone in this. What happened was not your fault. There are people like me who believe you.
And we do have, like I said, a long way to go. And with that not aloneness, I think is where we see this collective rage, which I do think is a healthy
collective rage, because this is something to be very angry about and turn that rage into action. People know they aren't alone, but they also are not
alone in not receiving justice and not receiving a fair and in some cases legal response under Title IX from their institution in the United States
or in various laws in other countries.
And so, yes.
GOLODRYGA: Yes.
CLARK: Yes. Go ahead.
GOLODRYGA: Yes. No, I just want to make sure we have enough time for our next guest, because we clearly want to have the male perspective here,
because that is crucial. And putting an end to this type of activity is having these types of conversation. Annie Clark, co-founder of the End Rape
on Campus. Thank you so much for joining us.
CLARK: Thank you so much for having me.
GOLODRYGA: Well, as we noted, cases of sexual violence against women are sadly not unique to Cornell. In recent weeks, a string of alleged rape
cases involving minor girls sparked mass protests in India, with thousands demanding better protections.
And according to the World Health Organization, nearly one in three women across the globe have experienced partner or sexual violence in their
lifetime. But experts say any effort to tackle this issue must involve educating men and boys. And that is where Jackson Katz has dedicated his
career. He is the author of "Every Man: Why Violence Against Women is a Men's Issue," and co-founder of the program Mentors in Violence Prevention.
And he's joining me from New York. Jackson, so important to have you on the program, as I mentioned there in our previous conversation.
I believe you were able to listen to that and you heard that all of these men, all seven of these men at Cornell have denied these allegations. So,
what questions, though, should we be asking just from all of these accounts, from reading the Snapchats, about peer pressure and culture on
the pressure to stay silent, on the pressure not to intervene and do the right thing?
JACKSON KATZ, CO-FOUNDER, MENTORS IN VIOLENCE PREVENTION PROGRAM AND AUTHOR, "EVERY MAN: WHY VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IS A MEN'S ISSUE: Well,
thanks, Bianna, for having me on. I think it's I think one of the reasons why this story has become such a phenomenon, because, you know, gang rapes,
I'm sorry to say, and sexual assault on university campuses both in the United States and elsewhere have been going on for a long time.
One of the reasons why this story has caught on is because there was 50 other men. There was the seven men who are alleged to have committed the
gang rape. But then there was the 50 other men in the fraternity who heard about it. Nobody spoke up. And so, I think that's part of the reason why
people are talking about it.
And I think we have to understand this is not just individual failure. When you have whole groups of men like that or in a position to intervene or
speak up and don't do it, it's not because of just individual failure. It's about something about it's something about let's be let's be honest. It's
something about the culture of masculinity and the pressures on young men to conform and the coerced conformity in male peer cultures.
Because I think a lot of the men in that situation, I don't know them personally, obviously, but I think a lot of the young men in that situation
either knew what was wrong or were upset about it, but didn't say or do anything about it and not because they were necessarily in agreement with
the misogyny that was underway, but because they made a cost benefit analysis that the risk to their standing among the guys, if you will, would
be harmed by doing something.
[13:20:00]
And that's -- by the way, that's a failure of them, but it's also a failure of the educational system and the institutional leadership not to provide
the kind of education and training around this subject matter that some of us have been doing for years and know works in terms of helping to motivate
young men to fight through those pressures and actually do something constructive.
GOLODRYGA: What does it say about the fraternal system itself and that these men, as you mentioned, I mean 50 of them, I cannot get into their
minds or thoughts or how they felt in the moment or subsequently, but I would imagine it is a culture, having gone to a university here as well,
having seen what sororities and fraternities are about. And that is defending your fellow sorority or fraternity brothers.
KATZ: Yes. Well, I think there's some misplaced understanding of what loyalty and brotherhood mean in this context, because I would reframe it
and say you're being loyal to your fellow fraternity brother if you challenge him when he's acting abusively, when he's doing something harmful
to women or other men, that that's an act of brotherhood and loyalty, not just after the fact, kind of closing ranks and somehow pretending that you
didn't see what you saw or you didn't know what was happening. I think we have to expand our definition of loyalty.
But also, Bianna, I think we have to move beyond the young men themselves. What about adult men? Where are the adult men in the system? Not just at
Cornell, but in university systems, where are the adult men in the lives of these young boys and young men?
I mean, what's been missing -- honestly, what's been missing in this society, but in the whole world, is men's leadership on this subject.
Women's leadership, like Annie Clark, is exemplary as a leader, as a young leader. But there's women in a multiracial, multiethnic sense all over the
world have been agitating, speaking out, organizing, pushing for laws and reforms of the laws. But men have been largely silent or, you know, in the
back of the room, or maybe some of us have been encouraging women in our lives or politically, in other ways, being supportive.
But I think we need a whole lot more, you know, overt and explicit leadership from men on this subject matter, because if we're focusing on
young guys, 20-year-old guys who are under intense pressure to conform, it's not fair to put the pressure only on them if we're not going to put
the pressure on adult men who are in positions of cultural, institutional and political leadership, many of whom have failed to speak up themselves
and model the behavior that we expect these young guys to evidence.
GOLODRYGA: What does that education process entail, aside from making your child, your student, your peer promise that, hey, I would never do
something like that?
KATZ: Well, I mean, I'm one of the architects of what's called the bystander approach to prevention. The bystander approach is a way of
thinking about how everybody in a given peer culture can play a constructive role before, during or after the fact of an assault or even a
misogynist comment. You know, in a group of guys hanging out, if one guy, you know, tells a rape joke and everybody either laughs along or nobody
says anything, in a sense, doesn't the silence of the other guys, in a sense, endorse the misogynist comment? You know, how do we change that? How
do we interrupt that process?
And in male peer culture, I mean, bystander approach can be working with men, women, non-binary people, but especially in male peer culture, the
goal of bystander training, if done well, is to give young men a way of talking about the pressures on them to conform to the group, you know, the
group norms, and that it's also to identify the guy who says, hey, this is not cool, hey, this is not appropriate, or hey, let's get out of here,
she's drunk.
That guy is not some wimp or some simp or some soy boy or some cuck like so many of the young men here online in their online, you know, digital, you
know, and social media space, where you hear men who speak up and support women as defined as somehow less than a real man, which is absurd, because
if you're a guy, whether you're a young guy or an older guy, going along with the guys takes nothing special whatsoever.
What takes something special if you're a guy, young or old, is when your friends are acting in ways that are abusive or misogynist, is turning to
them and saying, hey, that's not cool, or I'm not cool with that. That guy is actually a leader. So, the bystander approach really is a leadership
training, and it's a leadership strategy.
And the reason why that's important is because we're calling men into good behavior rather than always calling them out for bad behavior. And I think
a lot of guys agree with what I'm saying, and I think a lot of men are horrified by this case. But they also recognize, many men recognize in
their own peer cultures, maybe it's not as extreme as the allegations in this case, but they recognize in their own peer cultures that they've
participated through their silence or inaction in perpetuating some of the attitudes and beliefs that underlie these more extreme behaviors.
[13:25:00]
GOLODRYGA: One thing that stood out to me from what Annie said was picking up on this line that was said on this text chain about, oh, the myth or
what they've said, the legend about this is true, meaning that this is something that has gone on for years. What has changed, in your view, from
studying this particular area, in the area now of social media, the manosphere, and you put that next to what Annie pointed out, that this
stuff's been going on for a long time.
KATZ: Yes. I mean, I think we've been failing. Those of us who are institutional and political leaders have been failing for a long time at
implementing the kind of programs, the kind of training, the kind of accountability that we know works, that we know is effective, and that's on
the shoulders of the leaders.
I mean, again, I don't think that this is the only solution. In other words, I don't think education and training is the only solution. I think
accountability institutionally and politically and individually is all important. But I mean, for example, we know that young men -- I think, I
shouldn't say we know. My colleagues and I know that the best training for young men around sexual assault prevention is getting them in a room and
having an honest conversation about what it means to be a man and how cultural ideas about manhood shape their behaviors, shape the norms that
they operate in, and that they either encourage or discourage speaking out or challenging behavior that they see around them.
If you don't have that conversation, if it's very superficial, we just talk about what people can do when they see a harmful situation as opposed to
what can men do who consider themselves good people when other men around them are acting in these ways. If we don't have those honest conversations,
I think we're failing young people. We're failing young women, but we're also failing young men to give them the opportunity to have these honest
conversations, especially in the face of, as you said, the manosphere and the porn culture, which are continually shaping really toxic norms for male
culture and without a counteraction of the public space and the educators and adults, parents and others, you know, we're giving over the education
and training of our sons and daughters to these, you know, charlatans on the internet. And is that what we really want? I don't think so.
GOLODRYGA: No, not at all. It is so important to have men, boys, part of these conversations, at the crux of these conversations as well. Well,
Jackson Katz, cofounder of Mentors in Violence Protection, thank you so much for joining the show.
KATZ: Thanks very much.
GOLODRYGA: Thank you. Appreciate the time. And do stay with CNN. We'll be right back after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GOLODRYGA: Well, dozens of people are reported to be in isolation after a Russian laboratory worker at an institute dedicated to studying the plague
and other infectious diseases died of an undisclosed illness. The 28-year- old female lab technician at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute in Siberia died after being diagnosed with a pneumonia of unknown origin.
That's according to Rospotrebnadzor, the Russian agency that handles infectious disease.
Here's U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaking to reporters.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARCIO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: I think it's incumbent upon Russia to obviously share more information with the world. That's what they should
do. And that's what we hope they will do.
[13:30:00]
And the more we can learn about what happened, then the better all of us can be in a position of responding. And maybe, you know, there's nothing
there. Maybe it's bigger than we thought. We don't know. But I think it would be reckless at this moment, given the limited information we still
have, to speculate about what this might or might not be or what this is or what this isn't.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: Dr. Ashish Jha is a biosecurity expert and was the White House's COVID-19 response coordinator under President Biden. He joins me
now from Massachusetts. And, Ashish, I know that you have heard a lot from people following a thread that you posted on X as news started coming out
here.
You've described this as a kind of incident that you've worried about for many years. Plague, we should note, has not been confirmed and neither has
a lab leak. What makes this especially concerning to you at this point with the limited information that we do have?
DR. ASHISH JHA, PHYSICIAN AND BIOSECURITY EXPERT AND FORMER WHITE HOUSE COVID-19 RESPONSE COORDINATOR: Yes, well, first, thanks for having me
back. And you're absolutely right. We do have very limited information. But there are features here that are concerning.
I mean, obviously, if this was plague, a young woman dying of a highly treatable disease where presumably she would have gotten antibiotics right
away is unusual. Stories of hundreds of people in quarantine is also unusual. And then the biggest issue in my mind is that we know Russia has a
very extensive bioweapons program. Our intelligence agencies have put out year after year that that program has been growing substantially. We don't
know if this lab was involved in that program.
So, there's just a lot of concerns here from senior people inside the administration and people like me who have been tracking these issues
closely to say we need to learn a lot more than we know right now.
GOLODRYGA: And so, the WHO has said the risk of an epidemic in Russia right now is low. Russian authorities say they found no pathogen connected
to this researcher's work. Yet, as you noted, there are reports of hundreds under quarantine. Are these measures unusual for a suspected plague case,
given that you said there are treatments that are quite successful available, or do you think perhaps these are appropriate precautions just
in case, as the investigation is still ongoing?
DR. JHA: Yes. So, here's what we know. Pneumonic plague, where we heard that this woman, unfortunately, contracted, is very lethal, again, if it's
not treated. But again, she should have been treated right away. It's not super contagious. And that's the good news. The idea that hundreds of
people would be in quarantine is actually unusual. I don't think it's out of an abundance of caution. It just makes me wonder if we're getting the
full story.
So, that is one of those red flags that I just think we need to understand better. If it's something more serious, if it's something more
transmissible, then obviously a bigger quarantine would make sense. But we don't have any information from the Russians. And WHO saying the risk is
low, I don't find that reassuring because I don't know what they're basing it on.
GOLODRYGA: That's true. And you note that Russia owes the world transparency at this point. What specific information would you like, would
you expect, for Russia to be revealing and sharing? And the fact that they're not, what does that suggest to you?
DR. JHA: Yes. Yes, my very clear view on this is Russia should come clean on all of this. And what they -- what I would be asking, if I were at the
White House, the questions I would be asking them are, obviously, what happened to this woman? What kind of testing has been done? And what have
we found? I'd want to know what was going on in that lab. What kind of work was being done on that lab? What kind of investigation has been launched?
And then personally, I think Russia should welcome an international group to come in and do their own investigation. I think that should be the norm
for outbreaks like this. Again, the chances that Russians will do this are probably not as high as I wish they were. But that's what would create
assurance for everybody.
Saying everything is under control and it's all fine, I don't know, it certainly doesn't give me a lot of confidence. It seems to me that more
openness, transparency, more information would give me more confidence.
GOLODRYGA: How much can outside experts establish independently at this point, going back to what you noted about the WHO and their assurances not
being so reassuring, given that there's no explanation as to why they don't think that this is going to turn into something larger?
DR. JHA: Yes. Look, I think it's almost impossible to tell from the outside. Again, we're all looking at these clues, like there are stories
that the FSB, the Internal Security Service, has gotten involved. Is that true? That would be unusual for a lab accident. But we're all reading tea
leaves here. And the easiest way to dispel this is for more openness from Russia.
But I also think the easiest way to dispel this is to have a real multinational team go in and examine what happened, talk to people, look at
the lab records. The kind of investigation that I wish we could have had in a robust way in China, in the Wuhan lab, that is the kind of investigation
that should be happening right now. It would actually offer us a lot of assurance if we had people on the ground.
[13:35:00]
GOLODRYGA: You've called for stronger biodefenses, even if we never learn the truth here. What's the most important protection we should be putting
in place right now?
DR. JHA: Yes. So, the reason I said this really concerns me is that I have not actually worried that some bad actor will purposely use a bioweapon
against us. I mean, obviously that could happen, and that would be terrible. I've worried a lot about the number of labs working on dangerous
pathogens around the world and an accidental leak from one of them.
And I don't know if that's the case here, but that's of course what I'm worried about. We need to do two things. We need to obviously do a lot more
on lab security around the world, and I think we should be working with the Russians and Chinese to build an international coalition that does that. I
think we also have to assume that some lab leaks are going to happen, we're going to have outbreaks, and that what we're seeing right now is not
unusual. We need to start building our own defense capabilities, begins with really strong bio surveillance, bio kind of detection capabilities,
but also having the ability to make treatments and vaccines and tests if one of these outbreaks really does reach our shores.
GOLODRYGA: Where are we? Where do we stand on doing just that now?
DR. JHA: Yes. Look, when I was in the White House, that was basically my pitch to President Biden. I said, look, after the pandemic comes to an end,
after we end the national emergency, we are going to focus on building that capability inside the U.S. government. We started a pandemic office. We
made large investments in the next generation of vaccines against respiratory infections. We built up our stockpiles.
Unfortunately, the moment Secretary Kennedy came in, he took all of that down, and the pandemic office sits largely empty. I'm very worried about
the ways in which we have gone backwards. If there is a bad outbreak of some engineered pathogen from some lab, we're not going to have time to
stock back up, and we're not going to have time to staff back up. You've got to do that in peacetime, so I am very worried about where America is.
GOLODRYGA: So, quickly, are we more vulnerable, exposed today, than we were before 2020?
DR. JHA: What I would say is the risk is dramatically higher, being fueled by artificial intelligence, actually making it easier for people to build
biological agents. And so, the risk has gone up substantially, and the capabilities have been stripped. I would say in lots of ways, we are much
more vulnerable today than we were in 2019 or 2020.
GOLODRYGA: Well, that is a sobering point to end on, but a very important one. We'll stay on top of this story for sure, as I know you will. Dr.
Ashish Jha, infectious disease and biosecurity expert, thank you for joining the program.
And stay with CNN, we'll be right back after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GOLODRYGA: Now, could content creators be changing the way you vote? Well, according to the New York Times, little-known social media accounts are
being paid to promote political campaigns. But unlike typical celebrity influencers, the aim is not to go viral. Instead, at a fraction of the
cost, they hope to bombard the internet to the point that they can shift public opinion.
Journalist Ken Bensinger led the investigation, and he joins Hari Sreenivasan.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARI SREENIVASAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Bianna, thanks. Ken Bensinger, thanks so much for joining us. You wrote a piece in the Times
recently. It's called, "An Army of Paid Creators is Carpeting the Web with Political Content." You write, these high-volume social media campaigns
represent the new vanguard of modern political influence, saturating the internet with a topic until it is all but unavoidable.
[13:40:00]
Built from dozens or hundreds of posts from accounts you've never heard of, they amount to an echo chamber on a budget. What did your reporting find?
KEN BENSINGER, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Yes. So, this is sort of the newest iteration of what we're seeing in the way to
influence voter behavior and political opinion. And as you mentioned, for a long time we've seen the idea that social media can be used to help that.
But what we've normally seen are sort of big famous influencers being brought in one way or the other to back candidates or to push ideas.
What I discovered and my colleague working with me discovered was that there's this other way that's emerged and it's aided by technology and a
better understanding of social media algorithms. And it enlists instead of one or two prominent social media influencers, dozens, hundreds or even
thousands of accounts that work in symphony in a coordinated fashion to push an idea, to push a candidate, to push a political movement.
And they do it -- instead of trying to reach virality by one big account, they do it by the theory that you sort of spray, you sort of imagine like
crop dusting or something where you're spraying it over as much of the internet as you possibly can, the same message. And you can do that on the
cheap. And the goal isn't necessarily that any of these posts go viral, but that they're so pervasive that they're so everywhere that people are bound
to see them in their feeds. And that has another benefit of not having to cost nearly as much money as big influencers. So, this is becoming
increasingly popular in the political world of using this approach.
SREENIVASAN: So, we'll talk a little bit about the money, but first you break this down into a couple of different categories. There's the user
generated content, me looking at my phone and saying something, my opinion, sharing something, right? And then you also talk a little bit about
clipping. What is this industry of clipping about? How does it work?
BENSINGER: So, clipping -- yes, you mentioned UGC and that's as you described it. And clipping is a thing we almost never see the creator's
face or their identity. Instead, what they're doing is they're literally making clips from existent videos that they're often supplied with or that
they find in their own. And they take a five-minute or a 10-minute or two- hour video and they clip down into a 30 second soundbite kind of thing, or they make static posts where it's just an image, sometimes with text on it
or music playing over it that makes a single political point.
And that clipped image will go up on the internet and they might use 10 different accounts to put up the exact same image or the same clip. Other
accounts in the same campaign might either use identical or very similar clips based on the same source material to put it out there. And sometimes
they're organized, sometimes it's a coordinated thing and there might be literally thousands of posts going out in this clipping campaign that's
organized by a company that specializes in clipping and they rack this and they sometimes use A.I. to identify and pay the people for the posts
they're making.
SREENIVASAN: If there are companies that are doing this and engaging in this, they must be able to sell an idea or a value proposition. Let's say
you or I are in a political campaign. How much would it cost us to get a big influencer to say whatever it is that we want them to say versus having
a clipping, you know, trove of people do this or no-name people spread our message? Is it valuable?
BENSINGER: I think there's pretty good and a growing body of evidence to suggest it is a better or at least as good method as hiring the big
influencer. An example would be some of the stuff we saw in some of the campaigns in the primaries this year.
We saw, for example, Tom Steyer, who was running for governor of California, was paying influencers a ton of money. And there was one
instance where he paid an influencer $400,000, which is a ton to put up a bunch of posts. He paid another influencer $25,000 to produce a single post
and that post got something like 5,000 or 10,000 comments on it or likes.
But then another person running in California, Spencer Pratt, who ran for mayor of Los Angeles, he hired a clipping company and he paid $30,000 for a
clipping campaign. And that campaign, according to the company that did the clipping, generated 50 million pieces of engagement for him. So, it's a
much larger scale at a much smaller amount of money.
And also, there's an important element of this, which is that there's this thing that people want now it's authenticity feeling. Well, obviously,
Hari, none of this is authentic. It's all coordinated and planned. But when you see a big fancy influencer who you know, because they do travel or
something, or they do beauty, suddenly saying, by the way, I really love this candidate.
[13:45:00]
But that can often have the smell of inauthenticity, right? That it doesn't feel organic, because they don't talk about politics. And suddenly, they
are talking about politics.
And in limited instances, like California, they have to disclose that usually they don't, but even still, it doesn't smell quite right. But a
bunch of no names saying they really like that candidate or putting up posts saying that candidate is great, can make people believe that it is
real making that person just genuinely likes the candidate. Because why would some person with only a couple hundred followers be spending their
time boosting somebody is that it seems to pass the smell test, even though it probably shouldn't.
SREENIVASAN: So, tell me why if you or I were paying an influencer or a person to push a product, technically, some of the social media platforms
say that you have to have the word advertisement on it. But if it's political speech that doesn't apply?
BENSINGER: Yes, it's a strange loophole in the way this stuff is regulated. And you're exactly right. So, there are two agency -- federal
agencies at play that would theoretically regulate this and neither of them do. One is the Federal Trade Commission, and it's the one that says that if
you are going to promote toothpaste or a supplement or a movie or anything on social media for money, you've got to disclose that's a paid ad and that
they're the agency in charge of that. But they have a specific exemption for political speech. They say, we do not regulate political speech. And
therefore, they do not expect people making political points to follow FTC rules of disclosure.
The other agency is the Federal Election Commission, which does regulate political stuff. And we've seen that because when you see a TV ad or a
radio spot or a billboard, or get a mailing in the mail, you'll see that fine print in the bottom that says paid for by candidate X, Y, Z. Well,
they don't say that and they don't have such a rule when it comes to social media. And there have been multiple attempts to pass laws and regulations
within the FCC that would regulate that kind of speech and require those kind of disclosures on social media, but they have never even come up for
public review, let alone a vote. So, nothing's ever happened to that front.
I think it's worth adding, however, that there is now, for the first time, a bill in Congress that's both in the Senate and the House that would, for
the first time, mandate that these things be disclosed. We'll see whether Congress is willing to pass that, but there is finally at least legislation
on the table to address the loophole.
SREENIVASAN: Give me an idea of what these ads are like, because what your reporting points out is that you might not know at all that there is a
specific candidate involved. They're not saying vote for this person. This other person's horrible, right? Like, what are they trying to do? And how
is that beneficial?
BENSINGER: When you bombard social media with a particular point of view over and over again, it begins to seem normal. It begins to be normalized
and becomes closer to the center of conversation. And so, this kind of clipping and UGC campaigns are really good at getting more and more people
to think about things they hadn't thought about before, to think they're normal, and to internalize them in a subtle, kind of almost subliminal
fashion.
And it also is really good at generating media coverage. And so, if enough posts out there are talking about something, then almost inevitably, the
media is going to start talking about it as well, which again, underscores the idea that this is normalized. It's not some fringe thing. It's normal.
So, on the left, for example, there's a ton of paid posting about affordability.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think this is why everything feels so much harder to afford right now. It's not like one bill suddenly went up by $500. It's
$20 more here, $10 more there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BENSINGER: That's because Democrats and progressives believe that affordability is a winning issue for them in the midterm elections coming
up. And they want people out there thinking about how much everything costs, because they believe that when people think that gas is too
expensive or eggs are too expensive or housing is too expensive, they're likely to vote for change. They're likely to vote against the Republican
Party and for Democrats, because they want to change who's in power.
So, you'll see all these influencers online in clips and in direct-to- camera videos talk complaining about how expensive things are without ever mentioning any particular candidates or any races. And on the right, you
see similar kinds of things, right? You'll see groups pushing for, for example, support of the war in Iran, because they'll emphasize bad things
about Iran.
You'll see -- I've seen clipping campaigns supporting Republicans en masse by just being told, put out anything that is critical of Democrats. And
they just encourage people to think Democrats are bad writ large. So, that's the kind of way that these races, these particular campaigns are
being organized, is just to get people thinking about a theme or a topic.
SREENIVASAN: So, when you tried to verify the identities of some of the people that are behind these campaigns, what did you find?
[13:50:00]
BENSINGER: Some of these campaigns are pretty hard to track down. They -- you know, they're buried beneath layers and layers of campaign finance
statements that make it almost impossible to see who's paying for them or they're paid for by advocacy groups that don't have to report publicly any
of these kinds of expenditures. But we were able to find some instances of people to track it down.
The main way we did that is by going through these online marketplaces. It turns out there are marketplaces on the internet and on places like Discord
where you can actually essentially tell them that you're a creator and look at what jobs are available. And there are marketplaces with literally
thousands of listings for paid opportunities as creators to create content. And most of it is commercial, but some of it is political in nature.
SREENIVASAN: So, what's an ad look like if you were somebody who was trying to make an extra few bucks, your opinion is for hires, so to speak,
and you're willing to do whatever, but what are they asking you to do?
BENSINGER: There's some of them are extremely specific, and some of them are pretty vague. You'll often see if you enter one of these ads or job
opportunities, they'll have a thing called a creator brief, which you can think of as like an instruction manual for the campaign. And it'll say,
well, here's the goal of this campaign. Here's what we want you to say. Here's what you shouldn't say. Here's the raw material you can use to
incorporate into the posts you put up.
Some of them say that we want you to use your account and hit your own followers. Others explicitly say, we want you to create a new account, and
here's how we want you to, quote/unquote, "warm it up" so that you can be hitting the right place in the algorithm and getting the right followers
and the right people's attention. They can be very explicit that way.
There was one we saw that was specifically that, that was put together by a progressive group that's really focused on sort of -- they call it -- they
say they're trying to fight back against the right-wing echo chamber by creating a left-wing echo chamber. And they have explicit instructions on
how to create accounts that will, they said game -- I think the quote was "game the algorithm," hit the most possible people.
And one of the instructions that I thought was really interesting was they were telling people to, before they even made any posts with this new
account, go find progressive left-wing accounts that they liked, go on them and hit the like button and leave comments on those. And because they
believe that that would already teach the algorithm that this new account was of a certain ilk. And then when they put a post, it would direct their
posts to the right people.
SREENIVASAN: You also, in your reporting, point out creators presenting themselves as being from one place when they're not, because they're in it
for the dollars, not necessarily for the truth.
BENSINGER: Yes, that's right. So, if a campaign is about -- we had an example about affordability in Texas, for example, and you're a content
creator and you want to make that $1,500 or $2,000 or $3,000 or whatever it might be. But you don't live in Texas. Often there's not really real
vetting to find out whether you are in Texas. So, you can present yourself and say, yes, I'm from Texas and do a video sitting in your car or
something, or a clipping game where they can't even see you claiming you're from Texas and put it out there. And it's not authentic, it's not accurate,
and it's not honest, but there are very few controls to prevent that.
So, you know, I'm sitting here right now in New York City. I could say I'm from Oklahoma or something and little people wouldn't know. But of course,
the next level of that is that the person may not even be in the U.S. The campaign might be about the U.S., but the person doing it might be in
Nigeria or in the Philippines or kind of anywhere around the world.
SREENIVASAN: California and Texas have tried and they have some state level rules. I mean, are those enough in terms of protection or, I mean,
the internet goes across state lines. So, does it really matter?
BENSINGER: I think it's a good start. And, you know, California just beefed up its rules a little bit more. Governor Newsom earlier this, I
guess in September, he signed a law that would penalize influencers and not just campaigns for not following the state's rules about disclosure.
So, now influencers, if they don't properly disclose paid posts, will pay fines of up to $5,000 per post. And they could in theory be prosecuted for
misdemeanors and pay much larger fines. So, that's teeth which didn't exist before. And there's the hope among those behind it that the fear of that
kind of retribution will change their behavior.
But you raise a good point, which is that, first of all, it's only one state out of 50. And second, it gets really blurry really quick. I mean, if
the influencer is in Ohio and they're making posts about California, are they aware of the law? Will California be able to actually enforce it when
the person's out of the state? It's pretty untested and not very clear. And we don't really know.
SREENIVASAN: Investigative reporter from The New York Times, Ken Bensinger, thanks so much for your time.
BENSINGER: It was a great pleasure. Thank you very much.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GOLODRYGA: And finally, what if you could see one of the mysteries of the universe through a block of ice?
[13:55:00]
Well, this year's Nobel Prize winner for physics has made that possible. Belgian professor Francis Halzen earned the top prize for his work
detecting cosmic ghost particles called neutrinos using a large chunk of Antarctic ice. These particles exist everywhere from the stars and planets
right down to the air we breathe. But until now, they've been impossible to see. Researchers believe the discovery will offer clues to how our universe
evolved. So, cool.
All right. That is it for now. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episode shortly after it airs on our podcast. Remember, you can
always catch us online, on our website, and all-over social media. Thanks so much for watching, and goodbye from New York.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[14:00:00]
END
