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--:-- Host: With the Biden administration's withdrawal from Afghanistan complete, the Taliban are attempting to cement their control of the country. What does Taliban rule mean for women in Afghanistan? And is there any hope for resistance efforts? I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Saturday, September 4th, and this is Morning Wire.
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--:-- Host: The Chinese government bans children from playing video games during the school week. What's driving the communist government's crackdown on video games? And what does it tell us about China's long-term goals? And online platform OnlyFans has reversed its ban on pornographic content. We'll look at the controversy surrounding the platform and its policies. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned.
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--:-- Host: Now that president biden's withdrawal deadline for afghanistan has passed, the world grapples with the fact that the country is in the control of the Taliban. Here to discuss what a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan means for women living in the country, as well as the growing resistance effort, is journalist and author Lynn O'Donnell, the former bureau chief in Kabul for the Associated Press and AFP.
--:-- Lynn O'Donnell: Well, your normal everyday Kabul woman is a sophisticated human being who is educated at least through high school, can read and write, communicate, has at least one smartphone, a few social media accounts, friends, goes out to cafes and has expected to have choices. All of that is now under threat. She's going to be forced into her home only to be allowed out if she's in full hijab which is the hideous burqa if she's at university she's probably not going to be able to have classes with male students that's already been banned she won't be allowed to work have a decent job after she graduates if she's allowed to graduate and she'll only be allowed to leave her home in the company of a male relative.
--:-- Lynn O'Donnell: So the world has ended for young Afghan women who grew up with expectations of choice and freedom.
--:-- Lynn O'Donnell: To shift focus a little bit, we previously reported on resistance efforts in the country. Is there anyone still pushing back at this point?
--:-- Lynn O'Donnell: Yes, I've just recently interviewed Ahmad Masud, who is the son of a man known as the Lion of the Ahmad Shah Massoud who was a very prominent resistance leader last time around. Now Ahmad Massoud has based himself in the Panjshir Valley which is about 100 miles outside of Kabul and he is building a resistance movement there. He's trying to negotiate with the Taliban. They're pretending that they want him to be part of an inclusive government, but they're not making any concessions in terms of real inclusivity for other religious and minority nationalities like Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras. And so he's basically made it clear that he's willing to fight and he's certainly willing to fight to keep them out of the Panjshir Valley.
--:-- Lynn O'Donnell: At the moment, the Panjshir is pretty much surrounded. There's still a lot of fighting going on in areas very close to the Valley. But communications are also being strangled by the Taliban. So it remains to be seen how much support Ahmad Massoud can hold on to. But there were a couple of Republican lawmakers on Friday, including Senator Graham, who said that they think that Massoud and another panchiri, who was the senior vice president, Amrullah Saleh, who is also in the Panjshir at the moment, should be recognised as the rightful government of Afghanistan.
--:-- Lynn O'Donnell: So we see a resistance forming and growing and whether or not we see the beginnings of a civil war remains to be seen. But I think at this moment, if Masud is saying that he is willing to fight and certainly to fight to keep the Taliban outside the Panjshir, then we are seeing the beginnings of a civil war.
--:-- Lynn O'Donnell: Lynn, thanks so much for coming on.
--:-- Host: That was former AP Bureau Chief in Kabul, Lynn O'Donnell. You can get this show and all of the content you love wherever you are, all on the Daily Wire app. Even if you're not a Daily Wire member, you'll be the first to know what's trending with mobile notifications for the latest news, and you'll get content from all your favorite Daily Wire shows. Download the Daily Wire app and keep up with the facts no matter where your day takes you.
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--:-- Host: This week, the Chinese government banned children from playing video games during the school week in a move that could have significant economic and cultural impacts on the communist nation. Here with the details is Daily Wire managing editor Cabot Phillips.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So Cabot, what can you tell us about this new law?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Well, from what we know, it's pretty cut and dry. Kids under the age of 18 will now be forbidden from playing video games during the school week. They'll be allotted one hour of playtime from 8 to 9 p.m. on weekends and national holidays, but that's it. There was a previous law in the books since 2019 that had restricted kids to 90 minutes of gaming per school day and three hours per day on the weekend. But that law was more lightly enforced. And from what we're told, this new law will be enforced more seriously by the state.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So what kind of enforcement are we actually talking about here?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So we'll have to wait and see a bit to know for sure. But from what we're told, the Chinese Communist Party will be counting on internet service providers and tech companies to track the playing time of individual users by name and report infractions to the government. Keep in mind, these companies are really private, only in name. The government there has total control over every industry. So they'll be able to access all the user data. For example, Chinese gaming company Tencent uses facial recognition software to verify people's age and identity. And the government is reportedly considering using that facial monitoring software to keep an eye on kids' gaming activity.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Facial recognition software, yeah, it sounds as creepy as it sounds.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So big picture, why did they feel this move was even necessary in the first place?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: It's important to understand more broadly that the Chinese government, they don't view their people as individuals, really. They view them as tools of the state, as a means of achieving global domination. They're very open about that. So they don't have a problem taking away freedom if it fits their agenda. And in this case, they view video games as, quote, a spiritual opium that was making young people less fit mentally and physically for service to the state. They also cracked down on, quote, celebrity worship, because in their words, the pursuit of fame and followers online was warping youth's values.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So, I mean, this is a pretty big move. What does this tell us about the direction China's going?
--:-- Cabot Phillips: It tells us a few things, but mainly that they're willing to curtail economic goals in the name of shaping their culture. Traditionally, China's prioritized the growth of their economy over everything else just because of the influence it offers them on the global stage. Right. But now they're willing to make more economic sacrifices. They're basically saying that no person and no industry is more important than the state. And that's clear by the fact that they're clamping down on video games. That's a $50 billion a year industry in China.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: This move could also be an attempt to offset problems caused by the country's one child policy. You'll remember that law basically created an entire generation of kids, overwhelmingly boys, with no siblings. Right. And the government is worried now that many of those boys grew up spoiled and unfit for service to the state. So they clearly think removing video games will make better soldiers and workers. And this ties in with their other efforts to increase masculinity among Chinese men. The government this year has expanded PE classes in school and encouraged teachers to push traditional masculinity. They said boys in the country had become, quote, weak, inferior, and timid. And from what we're told, they blame things like pop culture and video games for that shift.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: So they're trying to toughen up boys so they'll be better able to serve the state. Basically, yeah.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: There's also another angle here, though, and that's China's birth rate problem. So even though they're a country of 1.3 billion people, only 12 million babies were born there in 2020. And the main reason is just there aren't enough women. When the one-child policy was in place, families often aborted unborn girls in favor of boys. And the impact of that policy is being felt now. In the next 10 years, the number of women aged 22 to 35 will decrease by 30%. So experts say China thinks video games are actually playing a role in the lack of interest that many young men have shown towards marriage and fatherhood. And they need to do something because if they don't, the population of China will start to decline because they already have one of the slowest rates of population growth in the developed world.
--:-- Host: Wow, fascinating stuff, Cabot. Thanks as always.
--:-- Cabot Phillips: Absolutely. Daily Wire managing editor, Cabot Phillips.
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--:-- Host: Two weeks ago, the online platform OnlyFans announced that it would ban sexually explicit content from its site. A few days later, the company reversed and said pornographic content could stay. Here to explain what happened and the larger social implications is Daily Wire reporter Megan Basham.
--:-- Megan Basham: So Megan, first off, can you explain what OnlyFans is and then tell us about their decision to ban explicit content?
--:-- Megan Basham: Sure. So OnlyFans launched in 2016, and essentially it's just a subscription-based profit-sharing platform. So think something like Patreon or Substack. Say you're a fitness guru who shares workout routines. Your subscribers, they call them fans, pay a certain amount of money to access your videos, and then OnlyFans takes 20% of that. But from the get the most profitable content creators on the platform produced porn. It's hard to get a clear measure of just what percentage of the billion OnlyFans creators earned last year was for pornography because of course the company doesn't tell us that. But what we do know is that all of the top 10 earners were selling some form of sexual content. And in some cases, they were earning as much as tens of millions of dollars annually.
--:-- Megan Basham: But while the porn made OnlyFans a lot of money, it was preventing the company from branching out into more legitimate forms of entertainment. Basically, everyone just thought this was a pornography site. So to combat that, the company is now planning to launch a new streaming app called OFTV, OnlyFans TV. And they're promoting these nice, respectable productions like cooking and family reality shows. But understandably, it's having a very hard time attracting brand partners. Investors and banks don't want to be viewed as funding porn.
--:-- Megan Basham: So on August 19th, OnlyFans basically announced that they were going to start phasing out most of this sexually explicit conduct. But then they went back on that decision.
--:-- Megan Basham: Right, yeah. So why did the platform change its mind?
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, you know, I think it's fair to call this a media victory. As we might expect, there was immediate outcry from all of the people who'd been making a lot of money producing pornography on the site. But then the major news outlets took up their case. Essentially, they started framing these sex workers, and I use that very specifically because that is the media's preferred term, as the protagonists of this story. Slate called the ban shameful and fundamentally cruel. The Daily Beast said the news was crushing and a slap in the face to sex workers. And a New Republic writer said the ban was designed to, quote, establish a fundamentalist Christian nation.
--:-- Megan Basham: And then on a slightly larger scale, you had CNN and NBC, too, focusing on the plight of the sex workers who would be out of jobs. Very few of the reports that I looked at even mentioned the fact that there have been investigations that found that OnlyFans has been used to facilitate child pornography and sex trafficking. Right. I mean, there's been reports of high school girls actually making accounts on OnlyFans. Yeah, exactly. And yet there was very little discussion of that. Yet after a few days of this massive negative coverage, OnlyFans put out a statement saying, never mind, the porn can go on. It's still surprising that there were so few voices in media that were supporting the ban.
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah, I don't think I found any. And that's especially surprising when you understand the damage these sites do to kids. Earlier this week, I interviewed Sean Clifford, and he's the founder of an app called Canopy that puts these measures in place to protect kids from being exposed to online pornography. Here's what he told me. The average age of exposure in this country is before your child enters middle school. And the sad truth is that more kids in America today will see hardcore pornography before they have their first kiss, which is just terrifying to think about as a parent. Pornhub is not Playboy. OnlyFans is not Playboy.
--:-- Megan Basham: So the fact that the media lined up in favor of pornography like this really shows a cultural shift, even from a few years ago.
--:-- Host: Thanks for the reporting, Megan.
--:-- Megan Basham: Thanks for having me.
--:-- Host: Those are our big stories for the day. If you liked this episode and are interested in hearing more, subscribe to Morning Wire on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening, and give us a five-star review. That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back next week with the news you need to know. If you like this podcast, get the Morning Wire newsletter delivered straight to your inbox when you join at dailywire.com slash subscribe.
