Turning Off the Firehose of Online Bullsh*t with Kory Amyx

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Episode 97: Turning Off the Firehose of Online Bullsh*t with Kory Amyx

The Congressional candidate in Indiana's 6th District talks sock puppets, algorithmic manipulation, social engineering, and regulatory solutions.

Scott Aaron Rogers

Oct 03, 2025

Transcript

Episode 97: Turning Off the Firehose of Online Bullsh*t

Guest: William Kory Amyx - Candidate for US House of Representatives (D-IN06)

https://hoosleft.us

https://amyxforcongress.com/

Welcome to the HoosLeft Podcast, a show about Indiana politics, history, and culture from an unapologetically leftist perspective. My name is Scott Aaron Rogers, I’m recording from Bloomington, and in this space I run my mouth criticizing power, wealth, and corruption.

I’ve made some enemies. But I’m grateful that - at least at this point - I haven’t had to deal with any real threats to my safety. Maybe that means I’m not trying hard enough.

My guest today cannot say the same. William Kory Amyx is a Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress in Indiana’s 6th District. A lifelong Hoosier with deep working-class roots, Kory has built his campaign on accountability, integrity, and protecting everyday people from both corporate abuse and government overreach. His platform spans economic revitalization, small business fairness, veterans’ healthcare, and digital safety. Kory is also a whistleblower who exposed propaganda-for-hire networks and has turned that fight into concrete legislation aimed at protecting Americans online and offline.

In the following conversation we’ll talk about his motivation to run for Congress, why digital safety and transparency is his signature issue, and why it’s important to each and every one of us. Finally, we’ll look at a couple pieces of legislation he has proposed to protect individual free speech while cracking down on the big tech oligarchs, hostile foreign actors, and extremist networks that foment violence in online spaces.

Real quick before we get to the interview, please consider supporting HoosLeft with a paid subscription. This is an independent media project; I don’t paywall content; I don’t sell out to advertisers; I don’t have a billionaire benefactor. Only individuals like you keep this thing going. I refuse to gatekeep valuable information in the middle of a political crisis, even to my financial detriment. So please, if you find value in this work, go to HoosLeft.us and subscribe at the paid level - it’s only $5 a month, or $50 a year, to help me write more, research more, and organize more. Not ready for long-term commitment? You can make a one-time contribution on Cash App or Venmo. Links are in the show notes. Look, I’m pushing 50. My sore old body could better serve this state constructing a better future for Indiana than actual construction, but I need your financial support to do so.

If that doesn’t work for your budget at this time, you can still help out by liking and sharing on social media, commenting, leaving reviews, providing feedback, and forwarding articles to your people. We are building a community of Hoosiers dedicated to making this state, and its government, work for all of us, not just the elite few. Please join us.

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Now, here is my conversation with Kory Amyx.

Things We Talked About:

Cruz on free speech: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/16/cruz-says-first-amendment-absolutely-protects-hate-speech-in-wake-of-charlie-kirk-killing-00566448

…and Tucker: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/20/tucker-carlson-trump-free-speech-crackdown

…and even Matt Walsh: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/matt-walsh-calls-pam-bondi-163633678.html

How various countries handled COVID misinformation: https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/ongoing-infodemic-how-people-eight-countries-access-news-and-information-about-coronavirus-year

Zuck complains Biden admin pressured Meta to censor disinfo: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/27/did-bidens-white-house-pressure-mark-zuckerberg-to-censor-covid-content

Kory’s made enemies: https://www.newsexaminer.com/opinion/loathing-and-fear-in-public-places-has-no-place-in-america/article_7c9662d3-e05a-54f2-816c-f62bed2942db.html

Dr. Otis Bowen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otis_Bowen

‘Meme stock’ manipulation: https://investorturf.com/the-targeted-campaign-against-amc-and-gamestop-a-wall-street-media-manipulation

Trolls, bots, and the Kavanaugh confirmation: https://qz.com/1409102/russian-trolls-and-bots-are-flooding-twitter-with-ford-kavanaugh-disinformation

Amyx’s legislation summaries: https://amyxforcongress.com/legislation-summaries

Kory’s Facebook post about coordinated propaganda: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid02gghSkG67CipdyVc4UQna5DSwTyxJmLLWCgtg21ZyfwNoQADF2TJja1iQ2zzhLrvkl&id=61577026380249

“It’s a trap!” https://thenextweb.com/news/psa-those-your-porn-name-games-are-scams-trying-to-get-your-personal-info

How weaponized propaganda networks operate: https://magacultslayer.substack.com/p/the-obedience-files

Cyborgs, Trolls, and Bots - OH MY! https://apnews.com/article/us-news-ap-top-news-elections-social-media-technology-4086949d878336f8ea6daa4dee725d94

“Smash and Grab” short-selling: https://pro.thestreet.com/trade-ideas/the-smash-and-grab-short-sellers-are-back-and-gingko-bioworks-is-a-target-15791354

Russia’s ‘Internet Research Agency’ https://spyscape.com/article/inside-the-troll-factory-russias-internet-research-agency

Sun Tzu & The Art of War: https://bakadesuyo.com/2011/05/what-can-we-learn-from-sun-tzus-art-of-war/

Musk claimed Twitter was overrun with bots - he uses them more than anybody: https://www.thegamer.com/elon-musk-bot-detector-twitter-account/

Twitter throttles access to API: https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/31/23739084/twitter-elon-musk-api-policy-chilling-academic-research

…and Meta shutters CrowdTangle: https://www.npr.org/2024/08/14/nx-s1-5074143/meta-shutters-tool-used-to-fight-disinformation-despite-outcry

Biden warns of oligarchy in farewell address: https://www.npr.org/2025/01/15/nx-s1-5258510/biden-farewell-address

Prof. Richard Wolff on the AI videos using his likeness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2UeKhwlbuo

Fidelity using voice recognition: https://www.fidelity.com/security/fidelity-myvoice/overview

Trump “jokes” he’d make TikTok algo ‘100% MAGA’: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/one-five-americans-now-news-184951024.html

What is ID.me? https://id.me/about

Instagram clone without the algorithm pulled from App Store: https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/29/23378541/the-og-app-instagram-clone-pulled-from-app-store

About Libs of TikTok: https://www.them.us/story/libs-of-tik-tok-twitter-facebook-instagram-explained-childrens-hospitals-grooming

What is stylometry? https://towardsai.net/p/l/use-stylometry-to-identify-authors

Kory Amyx on Hal Sparks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVI-7igu4i8

How extremists organize on X: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211695825000339

Facebook’s AI Slop problem: https://www.fastcompany.com/91289861/facebook-ai-slop

Ellison, TikTok, and anti-Palestinian censorship: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/tiktok-larry-ellison-israel/

“Corporations are people, my friend” https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2011/08/11/139551684/romneys-corporations-are-people-getting-lots-of-mileage

Once again, that was Kory Amyx, Democratic candidate for the US House of Representatives in Indiana’s 6th Congressional District.

Hoosiers, we are not as divided as it seems. Nefarious actors - both foreign and domestic - use the formidable tools of automation, artificial intelligence, and a largely-unregulated social media space to keep us divided, anxious, and angry.

I greatly appreciate that we’ve got experts and whistleblowers like Kory thinking about how to solve this messy, squishy problem. Legislation like the Digital Algorithmic Accountability Act that require transparency from big tech and the Real Identity Inegrity Act that end the weaponization of fake accounts represent a solid, well-formed foundation for rebuilding a more honest, useful internet.

In 2016, the RAND Corporation described the contemporary Russian propaganda playbook as a “firehose of falsehood.” Stateside, top Trump adviser Steve Bannon described the MAGA strategy of “flood the zone with shit” in a 2018 interview with writer Michael Lewis. Today, entering into online spaces is like stepping into the repugnant stream produced by combining these two techniques: let’s call it “a firehose of bullshit.”

And while I highly doubt it was intentional, it’s perfectly apt that the regulations designed to shut off the stream of doo-doo are abbreviated DIAA and RIAA.

Thanks for listening. I’ll be live at 10:30am Sunday on Project Next Media network’s YouTube, FaceBook Live, and Twitch streams, where I host HoosLeft This Week, Indiana’s most thorough weekend morning news and politics talk show. Check it out live if you get a chance - it’s a lot of fun, if you can call following the news in this timeline fun. I bring together a diverse group of panelists from the democratic socialist left to never-Trump conservatives and we look at the week’s headlines from around Indiana and beyond. We’ll also take time to examine one big thing, a different deep dive every week. I hope to see you there in the comments, but if you can’t make it live, the program will be available as a podcast Sunday afternoon.

Thanks again to Kory for taking the time to dive deep into these topics with me, and thank you for listening. If you can, help him out with a contribution - a link to his ActBlue page is in the show notes. And if you’re feeling extra generous, also consider sharing some funds with me via a paid subscription at HoosLeft.US, where you’ll find my entire archive. I rely solely on the generosity of kind patrons like you to make this information available for free to everybody. In addition to the website, you can find me on Bluesky, Instagram, and Threads at HoosLeft.US and on Facebook, X, TikTok, Mastodon, and YouTube at HoosLeft. Direct message me at any of those sites with feedback, tips, ideas, and concern or email me at scott@hoosleft.us. While you’ve got the old email machine out, please forward the show to a friend and have them pass it on, too. Let’s keep building this project - and a truly democratic state - one conversation at a time. Until the next one, this has been the HoosLeft podcast. I’m Scott Aaron Rogers. Love each other, Indiana.