MOORE: The final day of June. And here on Ozarks at Large, we are joined by Andrew DeMillo. He's the editor in chief of the Arkansas Advocate. Andrew, we are more than halfway through the year at this point.
DEMILLO: Yeah, we are. Happy Fourth of July. Happy end of the fiscal year for those who celebrate either or both.
MOORE: So we're going to start today by talking about the Arkansas Attorney General. Tim Griffin has sued three different large-scale tech companies. In the first lawsuit, we have Roblox and Discord being sued. In a separate lawsuit, we have the company Snapchat being sued. Andrew, can you make any sense at all of what is the attorney general doing here? And how does this benefit Arkansans?
DEMILLO: Yeah, you know, and this kind of fits in with a trend that we've seen over the past couple years from Griffin and also from Governor Sanders of going after social media platforms for not doing enough — they say, not doing enough to protect children on their sites. Roblox, as I know as the father of an avid Roblox user, is a very popular gaming platform, especially among youth. And Discord is also a gaming slash chat platform. And his lawsuit basically is going after them for not doing enough in terms of having controls in place, protections in place, for minors. And some of the areas he talks about is age verification or parental consent for minors to set up accounts. And Snapchat, it's also similar. There's some similar issues in terms of protection of minors. Arkansas is not the first state to go after these platforms, especially Roblox. In recent months it has faced a lot of scrutiny from other states and has actually had to make some settlements with states. So I think this is kind of part of something that you're seeing as a national discussion about these platforms right now. And we've seen this kind of also come on the heels of changes in state law that have been advocated by Sanders in terms of restrictions on social media platforms for youth.
MOORE: What's an ideal outcome here?
DEMILLO: One of the outcomes that, you know, from what the AG is talking about is a change in their policies. And they're really trying to ensure that these platforms have more of these protections in place. But these — they're also seeking monetary damages. And that's what we've seen in some of the other states where these lawsuits have happened. You know, you have to ask the AG, but I think probably the ideal situation for Arkansas — for those in support of this litigation — probably would be some kind of financial settlement, but very much also just changes in policies to make it safer for youth to be able to use these platforms. I don't think they're expecting that these platforms are going to go away, or that youth are not going to want to use them anymore. They just want to make it a safer environment for them.
MOORE: Right now, starting on July first. So tomorrow, the Arkansas Public Television network Arkansas TV is launching a new schedule. They're changing some of their programming. One of the changes will include Washington Week with the Atlantic. This change, in addition to the News Hour also moving to a different time slot in the schedule as well. What have we heard about the reasoning and the rationale behind these changes to the programming?
DEMILLO: So the stated rationale for this — for getting rid of Washington Week with the Atlantic and also moving NewsHour to a later time — is they announced this as part of a rollout of more local-focused programming, including Arkansas Week, which is the weekly state-focused policy discussion show, expanding from 30 minutes to an hour. And so the stated reasoning for this was to offer more Arkansas-centric type programming. But you know, this doesn't happen in a vacuum. This is a program — both of these are programs that have faced complaints from some Republicans who have tried to claim that the content on it has too much of a liberal bias. Washington Week in particular — they have not liked some of the guests that they've had on there and some of the subjects they've talked about. And this really took folks by surprise. The campaign that had successfully pushed for keeping PBS in the state, this really kind of felt a little bit like a bait and switch for some of them, that they were successful with this campaign, seemed to convince the state to keep PBS, and now they're starting to pare back some of the programming. And it's programming that's faced some ideological attacks. And I think kind of the big question is going to be, does it end here? Or is this kind of a sign of what we're going to see with other programming?
MOORE: Finally here, as you said at the top of the conversation, the Fourth of July is coming up — the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. And as we look at your column from Sunday, you reflect on what the Declaration of Independence talks about, the Constitution talks about. And in your wording you say credibility matters. Tell me more about kind of what led to this column for this week.
DEMILLO: Yeah. And one of the lines that I focus on from the Declaration of Independence is a line that most people read over, before they go through the list of offenses by the monarchy, is this line: "let facts be submitted to a candid world." It's something that most people kind of read over, especially — it's not the most famous sentence of the declaration, especially compared to the second sentence. But it really shows that the declaration was not just about stating that we were forming a new country or that we were becoming independent. It was making a case for it. And part of that is when you make a case, you have to have solid evidence to back it up. And I thought this was a point that was especially important right now, given the questions that we've seen raised about the governor's office and the way they had handled some claims to try to tie some companies to communist China — some unproven claims. And really the questions that's raised about credibility coming from government officials. The foundation of the declaration — it's about equality, it's about liberty, but it's very much about credibility. And the founding fathers understood that. And I think that's a lesson that we really need to bring home to elected officials here, especially when they try to make unproven claims or disingenuous claims. That's not just something where you're pulling the wool over reporters' eyes. You're really going against kind of the essence of our country's founding. And it's really a core virtue of our nation right now. And I think this was a good way to remind us of that. And I think it's something that we need to remember when we're celebrating this 250th birthday.
MOORE: You can find all of Arkansas Advocate's reporting when you go to arkansasadvocate.com. Andrew, as always, thank you for your time and have a safe and joyful holiday weekend.
DEMILLO: You too. Thank you.
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