Jocko Underground: Jocko Got Shadow-Banned. But Why, Exactly?

Jocko got shadow-banned. My job has a culture of doing the bare minimum. How to know if someone is only in it for the paycheck, or really wants to be part of the team. Best ways to respond to orders as a new guy. How to deal with a drug addict in the family. Tips to control emotions. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Jocko Willink?

  This is the Jocko Underground Podcast, number 35. Echo Charles, sitting here with me, and we missed a week of Underground, apologies. And then I got reminded, we, we got reminded why we have the Underground, why we have Jocko Underground.com. The reason is because we realized a while ago that we don't control any of the platforms that we put our podcast out on. On top of that, we don't control the platforms that we interact with people on social media. We don't control those platforms. We don't control YouTube. We don't control the algorithms. We don't control any of the

• 0:45Jocko Willink?

  podcast feeds that are out there. So that's not a good situation to be in, where you have no control over your own destiny, where you have to bow to the control of a greater entity that you have no control over. So we started this, what you're listening to right now, Jocko Underground, Jocko Underground.com. We started it, we, we actually started it, we had, we did a podcast about the book 1984, in light of the, of the freedom of speech being impinged upon. I actually called you as driving home and said, "Bro, we need to, we need to come up with a contingency plan in case something happens." So we, we created

• 1:27Jocko Willink?

  this, and, and we created it as a contingency. Right. And really, quite frankly, there had been very limited indicators that we would have to utilize the contingency. Well, for us personally, we did see other people get impacted, friends, associates, where all of a sudden, they'd get banned, they'd get kicked off, they'd get demonetized, all these problems.

• 1:53Jocko Willink?

  Well, guess what just happened? I ended up getting shadow banned on social media. And I got on, on a specific social media platform, I got banned or shadow banned, they called it, which is a weird thing because I didn't really know. And I don't, I, I kind of can look back now and people have explained to me and I've looked at some, uh, what is it, analytics and seen that it was actually for a longer period of time than I initially thought, but someone, someone finally, a couple of people had mentioned it in comments, "Bro, you're shadow banned, you're shadow banned." And I'd think, well, you know, okay, whatever. It's sort of like, uh, uh, I appreciate people saying I wasn't blowing them off, but I didn't, "Hey, you, how are you seeing this?

• 2:37Jocko Willink?

  You're seeing it, so you're writing your shadow banned." How, I didn't pay much attention to it. I should have. I should have listened. Um, but then I finally started getting a couple of people sending me videos of them searching for, for my name or scrolling through their timeline and I'm not in it and they follow me. And, or typing my name into the search and it doesn't show up unless you literally put @Jocko Willink, anything else, you put Jocko Willink, I'm not in there. That's called a shadow ban.

• 3:14Jocko Willink?

  And what's strange about this is, look, you all listen to me. You know what I talk about. I don't ta, I don't usually talk in any hyper political way. I, I sometimes do that on interviews. But I, but as far as social, I'll do it on podcasts a little bit, but as far as social media goes, I rarely will post something that's, you know, some political statement for, for a few reasons. Number one, I think that social media is a bad place to discuss politics.

• 3:47Jocko Willink?

  And if I want to discuss something political, I want to have a as much time as I want to discuss it. And so that's why I'll usually do it on a podcast. But I don't, I, I'm not posting anything offensive. I really don't post a lot of stuff that's like, oh, hyper controversial. Now, if I do, it's.

• 4:07Jocko Willink?

  When I do post. Things that are, that to express my political beliefs. Normally, well, what I do is I do it in a way. Where it's an indirect message. The message is, if you understand what I'm saying, the message is very clear. If you're looking for someone to ban, you might not quite, it might not hit your algorithm. Well, why do I do that? Well, there's a couple of reasons why I do that. Number one, because I want people to listen to what I'm saying. I want them to be able to listen to what I'm saying. And number two, if you're on the other side of my political beliefs. And you hear me directly attack what you believe, you probably aren't going to listen to anything else I said. So I'd rather take an indirect approach, like I do with most things.

• 4:51Jocko Willink?

  Because the indirect approach proven is a more effective way to communicate and to move forward. So.

• 5:02Jocko Willink?

  It kind of surprised me when I got shadow banned. So why did I get shadow banned? I'm not a hundred percent sure, but here are my best guesses. And there are two things that stand out. That I've done over the past couple of months. That I think, think could have made me a target. And like I said, I'm not exactly sure when I got shadow banned. But it could have been for a pretty long stretch because I don't pay a ton of attention to that kind of thing. I don't, I don't pay attention, very close attention to. Oh, this thing got this many likes or this many views or this many followers. I don't, I don't pay a lot of attention to that. So.

• 5:43Jocko Willink?

  When I went back and did a retro look at it, I realized, oh, this has been going on for a while. Yeah. This has been going on for a while. So why did it happen? Here's the, my two best guesses. The first. Was I made? So that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground podcast. So if you want to continue to listen.

• 6:10Jocko Willink?

  Go to JacoUnderground.com and subscribe and we're doing this, we're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms. So we are not subject to their control and we are doing this so that we can support the Jocko Podcast, which will remain as is free for all, as long as we can keep it that way. But we, but we are doing this so we don't have to be under the control of sponsors and we're doing it so we can give you more control, more interaction, more direct connections, better communications with us. And to do that, we are, we're building a website right now where we'll be able to utilize to strengthen

• 6:55Jocko Willink?

  this legion of troopers that are in the game with us. So thank you. It's JacoUnderground.com. It costs $8.18 a month. And if you can't afford to support us, we can still support you. Just email [email protected] and we'll get you taken care of. Until then, we will see you mobilized underground.