Dr. Robert Epstein on technology: what the evidence says · JRE #1768
FACT CHECK // JRE #1768 // EXHIBIT LOG
EPISODE AIRED JAN 21, 2022 · THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE
CLAIM CMRM130WSTATUS: PUBLISHED
SUBJECT: TECHNOLOGY
SUBJECT: TECHNOLOGY
RulingNeeds Context
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
He once shut down an entire domain name, which had 11 million websites on it, because he thought it was kind of poor quality.
Dr. Robert Epstein@ 25:21
►Watch on YouTubeJUMP TO 25:21What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
Misleading. Epstein frames the 2011 removal of a large domain as one former Google employee's unilateral quality judgment. Google's own Online Security Blog post (June 17, 2011) shows it was a systemic anti-malware action: Google modified its automated scanners to flag entire bulk-subdomain services being abused, noting cases of more than 50,000 malware domains from a single provider. This is the basis for de-indexing the co.cc free-subdomain service (about 11 million domains). The roughly 11 million scale is accurate, but the cause was automated abuse-prevention policy, not a personal aesthetic decision.