Joe Rogan's guest freaks out after Rogan refutes claim

Joe Rogan Experience Guest Robert Epstein jumped on his chair and told the host Joe Rogan he went into “meltdown mode” after the comedian accidentally refuted his claim that Google was “suppressing” the Swiss-based encrypted email service Protonmail with a simple search.

The psychologist shared his belief that technology had been used so heavily to manipulate public opinion that there had been no “free and fair elections” in the United States since 2012. Epstein's work at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology (AIBRT) focused on how Google in particular had manipulated and censored results from its search engine to influence voters.

To support his point, Epstein said that in one case, “Google tried to shut down Protonmail” because it “interfered a little bit in their Gmail business.” Epstein said the Silicon Valley giant “took a brutal approach by suppressing any mention of Protonmail anywhere,” in search results, suggestions and reply boxes.

After explaining that the service must have been flagged by search algorithms to blacklist it, Rogan suggested to his producer, Jamie Vernon Search Google to see if it has been suppressed from searches.

“So let's look for it right now. Jamie, please do me a favor and Google it,” Rogan said.

Epstein only stopped the experiment when Protonmail appeared at the top of the search with all the different domain links. Rogan commented: “Okay, there it immediately shows ProtonMail. And underneath it says Proton Account, Sign In. You're using the Proton VPN. So how does it suppress? It doesn't suppress at all.”

The guest was not happy and became increasingly restless in his seat before saying, “Okay, now my staff has warned me: Don't be condescending to Joe Rogan.”

The moderator replied: “How can that be condescending? I'm just asking a question, you can just answer me.”

“No, I know I could, but I would have been almost condescending,” Epstein said.

Confused, Rogan asked, “Why are you being condescending if that's the question? That's the question.”

“For heaven’s sake,” said the guest.

“Protonmail, do a Google search and the first thing that comes up is Protonmail,” Rogan noted.

Epstein said, “Okay, but you're putting me in meltdown mode again. I'll tell you why. Because which account is this?

“Jamie’s account,” Rogan replied.

Epstein continued: “It's Jamie's account. OK. If you really want to know if they're suppressing Protonmail, you have to look over the shoulders of a large representative sample of people, you can't just look at Jamie's account.”

Rogan replied, “So you think Jamie's account is curated in such a way that proton emails are not hidden?”

“Of course it’s curated!” said Epstein.

“Well, technically it's not my account,” Vernon added.

Although the experiment did not work for Epstein, an incident occurred in November 2015 in which the founder of Protonmail Andy Yen Although it was reported that the service was no longer displayed in Google search results for relevant search queries – such as “secure email” or “encrypted email” – in early 2016, Google informed the company that the problem had been “fixed”.

Watch on YouTube above.

Do you have a tip for us? [email protected]