Silver and snow

edwad:

alittlelateforalot:

micdotcom:

Watch: John Oliver’s surprise interview with Edward Snowden is absolutely amazing

Yeah except the entire point of this segment was to make fun of Snowden for saying that all the shit he’s been through is worth it if people know what their government is doing by showing a clip of a bunch of people on the street not knowing who he was

When they changed to asking people about the “dick pic” program, everyone was angry

Get it? The person who risked his freedom to expose that your government is storing all of your electronic communications actually thinks he made a difference and half comedian, half journalist John Oliver is here to take him to task

Earlier in the interview he points out to Snowden that the New York Times didn’t properly redact a slide and that that led to information about a covert project in Mosul being uncovered. He tells Snowden it was a “fuck up” and that he had to “own it” which is weird because Snowden’s been in exile in Russia for almost a year, not working in the New York Times newsroom

I thought it was a pointless interview and I can’t imagine why Snowden agreed to it

yeah and every time snowden was actually trying to explain how something worked, oliver interrupted him to make a joke about how boring it was listening to snowden talk about this very serious stuff. 

Jesus christ that interview went right over the heads of you idiots, didn’t it?

First off, the point of the segment was not to make fun of Edward Snowden. John Oliver, through the entire opening segment, and most of the questions he was asking Snowden, made it very clear that he completely believes the information needed to be out there, and is approving of Snowden doing so.

The point of the segment is that the general US public - not tech savvy millenials getting outraged at everything on tumblr, but the adult population that actually shows up to the polls and votes - have no idea who Snowden is, or what the significance of what he leaked is, and that’s a problem that Oliver attempts to address.

That’s the reason for showing the clips of people on the street confusing the issue, and that’s the reason for switching the conversation to dick pics - because he showed that the way to get people active and attempting to make a change to these sketchy laws, is to frame the issue in a way that directly impacts people.

That’s also the reason why he would cut off Snowden when Snowden began to tangent about the intricacies of the programs - because he was trying to keep Snowden on point about the message that will actually help him sway minds. Joe Schmoe in Houston, TX doesn’t give a shit about an explanation on how spy software works, and you will lose his support if you spend time explaining it (for better or for worse, that’s the way the publicity game works).

And IT WORKED. The reason why the internet and news networks are buzzing about this interview, and not as much about Citizenfour (which is excellent if you’re actually interested in the technical details, but not as great as a propaganda tool), is because you now have a catch phrase you can use to describe why the NSA and these laws need to be reformed to people who have no technical knowledge or interest in learning technical knowledge.

It was absolutely not a pointless interview, it’s quite possible the interview that could change public perception on the issue and spur action (like Oliver managed to do last year with Net Neutrality).

Also, as a side note, Oliver taking Snowden to task about responsibility for the documents is, in my opinion, an excellent point, proves that Oliver wasn’t just willing to do a puff piece on Snowden like other journalists, and doesn’t at all take away from the message that the information is important to have out there.