Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridget tout and this
Speaker 1: is there Are No Girls on the Internet. Joey, thank
Speaker 1: you for being here. Happy New Year. First newscast of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: In Bridget Happy New Year.
Speaker 1: So it being the new year, I have to start
Speaker 1: with a question. Do you have any kind of online
Speaker 1: New Year's resolutions? And maybe not even resolutions, things that
Speaker 1: you are like, I am leaving this in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: This is not I'm not bringing this with me to
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: Ooh. One thing.
Speaker 3: I definitely at the end of the year when it
Speaker 3: comes to like internet stuff, I'm you know, I was
Speaker 3: on all the social medias and everything, and I was
Speaker 3: like sort of trying to like downsize a little bit.
Speaker 2: I was like I wanted to get rid of so
Speaker 2: like I don't know.
Speaker 3: I had a Snapchat account that I wade in like
Speaker 3: high school that I was like, I don't use this anymore.
Speaker 2: I'm deleting it. I deleted be real.
Speaker 3: I know that that's been making a comeback like the
Speaker 3: last month, but I was like, I don't use this.
Speaker 3: I'm so yeah, I think I'm one of my things.
Speaker 3: Sounds like I'm gonna be online, but it's gonna be
Speaker 3: with like intention, Like I'm gonna not just gonna have
Speaker 3: my like missile aedious accounts that I don't use. We'll
Speaker 3: see how long that actually lasts. I will probably end
Speaker 3: up making some new account to something and forgetting about it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, that's the goal.
Speaker 1: What a good thing, A good way to start the
Speaker 1: new year. Like you know how we have like supring
Speaker 1: cleaning or I'm gonnak. There's like a tradition where you
Speaker 1: start the year with like cleaning out your physical space.
Speaker 1: I like applying this to the digital just starting the
Speaker 1: year fresh, those accounts that have just been lurking on
Speaker 1: your phone that you're not really using actively or with intention,
Speaker 1: getting rid of them and really kind of paring down
Speaker 1: and being intentional about our digital use.
Speaker 2: I love this exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm also like, I'm one of those people that
Speaker 3: my phone is just like constantly telling me that my
Speaker 3: iCloud is full and I don't have any space for anything.
Speaker 3: So I'm trying to make sure I'm not just taking
Speaker 3: up space on my phone and all that. But yeah, definitely, oh.
Speaker 1: My god, I'm so bad about that I actually pay
Speaker 1: for extra iCloud storage. I'm one of those people. So
Speaker 1: I'm like, I would rather just pay a dollar a
Speaker 1: month or whatever to not have to think about this
Speaker 1: problem and not have to get those because there's a
Speaker 1: thing more annoying than getting those those warnings like, oh
Speaker 1: I've iCloud storage is low.
Speaker 3: I never get it too, because like and then I
Speaker 3: can keep teeking pictures like it never actually cuts me off,
Speaker 3: and it just keeps.
Speaker 1: Don't fully under this is embarrassing. I don't fully understand
Speaker 1: how it works. I'm like, oh, well, I was like,
Speaker 1: it's never stopped me from doing anything, but I they
Speaker 1: do send those alerts all the time. One of my
Speaker 1: in the new year, one of my digital behaviors that
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to leave in twenty twenty three
Speaker 1: is kind of getting worked up about small things on
Speaker 1: social media. I will say making a podcast about the Internet,
Speaker 1: like you really got to be tapped in and it
Speaker 1: can't you. I do find myself getting annoyed at behavior
Speaker 1: that is like, ultimately, if I take a step back,
Speaker 1: I'm like, is this really do I really need to
Speaker 1: be getting annoyed by this? The last thing I had
Speaker 1: a big b in my bonnet about was how annoying
Speaker 1: the ads on Twitter I have gotten. Have you have
Speaker 1: you seen this?
Speaker 2: Like, oh my god, they're out of control.
Speaker 1: There's this one that I was getting where it's like
Speaker 1: an ad for a bra and I don't even wear bras,
Speaker 1: and so it's like this ad where it's like a
Speaker 1: woman cutting a bra with scissors, and it just was
Speaker 1: like an auto play video of a bra being cut
Speaker 1: with scissors. And I was seeing it every freaking day,
Speaker 1: and if I saw it one more time, I thought
Speaker 1: I was going to scream. And then oftentimes the accounts
Speaker 1: that are posting it are like they have a board
Speaker 1: ape or like an nft avvy, and so I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't want this board ape telling me what kind
Speaker 1: of brought about it. Just didn't like it.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, God, that does I don't. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: feel like that's a pretty good generalization. Not going to
Speaker 3: take my broad advice from somebody with the bored ape
Speaker 3: profile picture.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like I wouldn't take any kind of
Speaker 1: life advice from somebody.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1: If you got a board ape avy on Twitter and
Speaker 1: there's nothing you can tell me that I need to know.
Speaker 2: I feel literally, there was some tweet.
Speaker 3: I don't even remember what the tweet was, but I
Speaker 3: thought it was funny and I liked it. And then
Speaker 3: I realized that the person had like a blue check mark,
Speaker 3: and I immediately unliked it because I was like, no,
Speaker 3: I feel this feels wrong. It feels like you shouldn't
Speaker 3: be funny, Like I feel like you stole this from somebody.
Speaker 3: You shouldn't have a blue check mark and be funny.
Speaker 3: Like something wrong there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't get my laugh if you're also giving
Speaker 1: you eight dollars, I love it. Okay, Well, I want
Speaker 1: to start our first newscast of the year talking about
Speaker 1: this really interesting new piece from Kate Lindsay and Bustle
Speaker 1: that I've seen a lot of people sharing online called
Speaker 1: dating apps are in their flop era. The peace posits
Speaker 1: that if you met your partner or had a good
Speaker 1: experience on a dating app like Hinge or Tinder, as
Speaker 1: the piece said, you basically caught the last chopper out
Speaker 1: of numb because apparently the dating apps are a hot mess. Now,
Speaker 1: do you have any experience.
Speaker 4: With dating apps?
Speaker 2: That's fascinating.
Speaker 3: This is the first that I've heard of this story.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I I'm single, I use dating apps. I
Speaker 3: am like daunting in the beginning of gen Z, I guess,
Speaker 3: but that is really interesting. I definitely have some weird
Speaker 3: dating app stories, but uh, you know, I think, especially
Speaker 3: as like the ways people date, it has kind of
Speaker 3: been changing.
Speaker 2: But uh, yeah, I know this is the first I'm
Speaker 2: hearing at this. That's interesting.
Speaker 1: Okay, So she writes, talk to your friends, scroll social media,
Speaker 1: or even to sit in a bar and listen and
Speaker 1: you'll encounter a similar sentiment. Millennials are tired of dating apps,
Speaker 1: and gen Z singles might not bother with them. A
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three survey of college and grad students found
Speaker 1: that seventy nine percent do not use dating apps even
Speaker 1: once a month the peace fines. So it sounds like
Speaker 1: the companies that run these dating apps are also feeling
Speaker 1: this shift. Match Group, which owns a bunch of them,
Speaker 1: tender hinge, match dot Com and Okaycupid, saw its stock
Speaker 1: price drop forty percent in the past year. Bumble, whose
Speaker 1: CEO Whitney wolf Heard, stepped down in November after ten
Speaker 1: years at the app, and also Field is struggling through
Speaker 1: a disastrous rebrand I actually the only dating app I
Speaker 1: have ever used with any kind of regularity is Field.
Speaker 1: It's an app that's like for queer people and like
Speaker 1: non monogamous people, and like, I guess, like kinky people.
Speaker 1: Field just had a really I guess. The only way
Speaker 1: I can describe it as like disastrous rebrand that sounds
Speaker 1: like a good bit to get into you on the
Speaker 1: Patreon because like there, I have a lot to say
Speaker 1: about it. But all of these apps, Field, Hinge, Bumble
Speaker 1: Tender are really feeling this change. Match groups said that
Speaker 1: they saw their paying users decline for the fourth straight quarter,
Speaker 1: and a twenty twenty three p Research study found that
Speaker 1: while forty one percent of online dating users age thirty
Speaker 1: or older have paid for the apps, just two percent
Speaker 1: of users under thirty, which is the demographic they are
Speaker 1: really looking to court, have done the same. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I just think it sounds like younger folks
Speaker 1: are just like I'm good on these apps. What do
Speaker 1: you think?
Speaker 3: I definitely actually that I agree with. I don't know
Speaker 3: anybody that I'm in my mid twenties. I don't know
Speaker 3: anybody that pays for a dating app, but uh, yeah,
Speaker 3: I definitely it's interesting too, like hearing that those stats
Speaker 3: because I do think like of me and my peers
Speaker 3: of people that I know that use dating apps, I
Speaker 3: don't know a lot of people that use them, like thinking, yes,
Speaker 3: this is how I'm going to find like a long
Speaker 3: term relationship, like to be fully honest post people you know.
Speaker 3: I don't know, like I use hine a lot. But
Speaker 3: that's like there's like a thing where you can put
Speaker 3: like what you're looking for. I don't think I've seen
Speaker 3: a single person put like long just long term relationship
Speaker 3: or whatever. It's all like just see what happens short
Speaker 3: to relate, which is because I don't know, I feel
Speaker 3: like that maybe it's also just like a that's how
Speaker 3: my we're seeing dating now. That's interesting about field too,
Speaker 3: because I was going to say the thing that I
Speaker 3: keep so you got data apps is like and also
Speaker 3: like I mean whatever, like I'm queer, I'm only I
Speaker 3: only date other queer people. There's so many people that
Speaker 3: are like non monogamous. I had to ask my little
Speaker 3: brother what em meant over winter break. Kind though it
Speaker 3: was really funny because he was my really is like
Speaker 3: he's like nineteen, he's just like nono monography and I
Speaker 3: was like, oh, okay, what like they already put that
Speaker 3: monogamoust why don't we need to put that.
Speaker 2: I also think this.
Speaker 3: Is really funny because I'm like, does that mean, like
Speaker 3: can somebody call themselves like unethically exactly?
Speaker 2: I know, exactly, Like I was like, did I really
Speaker 2: need to clarify at the goal?
Speaker 3: And then of course my dad overheard this conversation and
Speaker 3: we had to explain the concept of open relationships to him,
Speaker 3: which was funny. But yeah, anyway, it's not too So
Speaker 3: it's definitely there's you know, some generational thing. I don't know,
Speaker 3: I'm all for people doing the non monogamy thing. You know,
Speaker 3: there's different ways of data, different ways. But yeah, that's
Speaker 3: definitely I think the majority of what I'm I've been
Speaker 3: seeing on there, which I don't Again, I don't think
Speaker 3: that's necessarily bad thing, but I can see, like from
Speaker 3: a you know, the corporation's perspective, not having people paying
Speaker 3: for the app or whatever is probably not great for them.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: First of all, I have to say, I would have
Speaker 1: loved to have been a fly on the wall in
Speaker 1: the pet household during this conversation. Yeah, so it does
Speaker 1: sound like exactly what you're saying is happening, that younger
Speaker 1: people just aren't feeling the idea of paying for this experience,
Speaker 1: and basically, you know, I guess I consider myself a millennial,
Speaker 1: like a generation older than you, And for my generation,
Speaker 1: dating apps and hookup apps were kind of considered the
Speaker 1: norm of the millennial experience, right, Like they were part
Speaker 1: of what it meant to be a young millennial when
Speaker 1: I was coming up, and I think I kind of
Speaker 1: came up in the heyday of those apps. I didn't
Speaker 1: really use them myself, but a lot of my friends
Speaker 1: did like that that was the thing. And I think
Speaker 1: that for the younger generation it's just fatigue. I think
Speaker 1: people are experiencing fatigue around these apps and just not
Speaker 1: using them the way that they used to. I also
Speaker 1: think the experience of like just swiping after swiping after swiping,
Speaker 1: and then having to like go on the date and
Speaker 1: be like, oh, do you have any siblings? Oh what
Speaker 1: do you do? Like, I think there's there might be
Speaker 1: a lot of feelings of exhaustion associated with the experience
Speaker 1: and what it feels like to be on these apps,
Speaker 1: and part of it does just sound like the experience
Speaker 1: of showing up there kind of sucks. Now, the most
Speaker 1: popular apps are free, but they really encourage you to
Speaker 1: pay to interact with people, and basically it sounds like
Speaker 1: they are paywalling all the good profiles on Hinge. You
Speaker 1: might know this because you use it. You can only
Speaker 1: interact with profiles of people who are getting lots of
Speaker 1: attention or who the algorithm thinks that you might be
Speaker 1: a good match for things that you might like if
Speaker 1: you send them a rose. Users get one free rose
Speaker 1: per week to send, and in order to regularly engage
Speaker 1: with those standout profiles, you would need to buy more
Speaker 1: roses starting at three ninety nine each, or limit your
Speaker 1: options to Hinge's general algorithm, where it sounds like they
Speaker 1: keep all the duds, all the people that they know
Speaker 1: you're not gonna like they'll show you those people for free,
Speaker 1: but if you want to see any of the like
Speaker 1: good ones, you gotta pay.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting too, because again, like I said, like
Speaker 3: i I'm on the queer side of Hinge, but like
Speaker 3: I'll talk to my little sister about this, and like
Speaker 3: she she's straight, and like she gets older, like and
Speaker 3: it's a totally different experience like hinge is completely different
Speaker 3: for her. I guess the one other thing I think
Speaker 3: for the I don't know if this is part of
Speaker 3: the generational thing, because I definitely do think like people
Speaker 3: still use it, but I think with the especially people
Speaker 3: looking at it more casually, like it's like playing a game.
Speaker 2: Like it's like you're playing swipes, You're like, which, yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I feel like sometimes like a lot more people that
Speaker 3: I'll talk to you that are younger will look at
Speaker 3: it almost like video game that you're playing, where it's
Speaker 3: just like or like you're you're getting like points your
Speaker 3: like sort of I don't know, I was talking to Okay,
Speaker 3: now I'm terrified that somebody I'm matched with it on him.
Speaker 2: Just gonna listen to this. If you are, I'm obviously
Speaker 2: not talking about.
Speaker 3: I'm not talking about that, but uh, like it's like
Speaker 3: it's almost like a like it's like the serotonin boost
Speaker 3: just like the appeal of it. Like I'm like, I'm
Speaker 3: not even really looking for like any more than I
Speaker 3: am in like any other space for like dating. It's
Speaker 3: more just like the like, oh, like you're getting points
Speaker 3: that show you you're attractive or whatever. Because people are
Speaker 3: liking your profile. But yeah, I and I could definitely
Speaker 3: And again a straight woman, I'm so sorry for y'all.
Speaker 2: Like I'm sure you haven't, but just from talking to.
Speaker 3: My sister, like my my handfull of straight friends, it's
Speaker 3: it sounds rough.
Speaker 2: It sounds rough, it does.
Speaker 1: I have heard I mean, I should say like, I
Speaker 1: have been off the market for a very long time,
Speaker 1: so I don't I don't really know what it's like
Speaker 1: out there, but I have heard horse about the kinds
Speaker 1: of things that men will say and do to women
Speaker 1: on first dates. It I yeah, I also feel for
Speaker 1: people who are single dating. It doesn't sound like it's
Speaker 1: always very fun, and it doesn't sound like the addition
Speaker 1: of these apps, which at one time I do think
Speaker 1: came with the promise of like, oh, you'll get to
Speaker 1: swipe through lots of people and you'll get to go
Speaker 1: on lots of dates and it will feel really good
Speaker 1: and you'll you'll get to like have your pick. I
Speaker 1: don't know that it feels that way anymore. So Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I feel for everybody.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: And also I will say that the Rose thing, I
Speaker 1: just think the vibes might feel weird, like if I
Speaker 1: knew that somebody paid four dollars just to talk to me,
Speaker 1: that our initial conversation. I just it doesn't feel like
Speaker 1: the kind of vibe that I would want to start
Speaker 1: a potential relationship with. And so I just feel like
Speaker 1: that system might already be setting folks up for an
Speaker 1: ex experience that just maybe feels a little bit weird.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I because it's I think unhinged.
Speaker 3: You get like a free rose every day, but like
Speaker 3: I honestly I don't think I've ever used them, and
Speaker 3: like I've seen I don't know, like that's people who
Speaker 3: sent me roses, you know.
Speaker 2: But it's always like I never know what the like,
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, the thing about dating apps is you're not
Speaker 3: meaning in person, so it's hard to pick up like
Speaker 3: the social cues or whatever. But I'm always like, I
Speaker 3: don't even really know what that means, Like did you
Speaker 3: just like really like my profile or were like, were
Speaker 3: you like, I guess I'm gonna use my one rose
Speaker 3: today whatever, like yeah, and it is a little weird,
Speaker 3: like it is. I Yeah, I never thought about it
Speaker 3: that way too, of like, oh, if you're paying what
Speaker 3: like four dollars to see me, I don't know, that's
Speaker 3: a lot of that feels like a lot of pressure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, pressure, the very vibe that starts out every good relationship,
Speaker 1: every good romantic pairing. And so in the wake of
Speaker 1: people sort of not feeling the vibes on these apps,
Speaker 1: the companies themselves are trying to pivot. Like Tinder used
Speaker 1: to be considered the hookup app, like the app that
Speaker 1: was just for like if you want it, like for
Speaker 1: people who wanted a booty call, right, But since gen
Speaker 1: Z statistically is doing the casual hookup thing a lot less,
Speaker 1: Tinder is sort of pivoting to service folks who say
Speaker 1: they are looking for love and letting people pick and
Speaker 1: describe the kind of relationships or interactions that they're looking
Speaker 1: for on the app. So they're trying to pivot away
Speaker 1: from being solely like a hookup app. I found this
Speaker 1: really funny. Tinder has also become more kind of politically
Speaker 1: and socially aware, trying to appeal to that gen Z
Speaker 1: market that they're really going for. They know that gen
Speaker 1: Z really cares about social and political clauses, and Melissa Hobbley,
Speaker 1: the chief marketing officer at Tinder, says the lgbtqia plus
Speaker 1: community is the fastest growing demo on the app, and
Speaker 1: during Pride Month, Tinder helped connect eligible users with information
Speaker 1: about a study that hopes to combat the FBA's bloodban
Speaker 1: against gig donors. Tinder also launched an election center for
Speaker 1: app users to access voter registration tools and locate their
Speaker 1: polling stations, and allowed users to include a pro choice
Speaker 1: interest on their profile. So all of that is meant
Speaker 1: to really appeal to like younger folks who they're trying
Speaker 1: to get to use these apps with more regularity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense. I remember when.
Speaker 3: I because also I when I don't know, I got
Speaker 3: back on dating apps, like a couple months ago, probably,
Speaker 3: and I remember seeing that on tender.
Speaker 2: I do have a Tinder somewhere.
Speaker 3: I don't think i've used it, sounds I downloaded it,
Speaker 3: but I remember seeing there were like things you could
Speaker 3: like that you were interested in. Pro choice was one
Speaker 3: of them, and I was like, that's sort of a
Speaker 3: weird like interest. But I guess, like, okay, like I
Speaker 3: don't know, I know Hinje also does the like you
Speaker 3: can put your although it only gives you like liberal
Speaker 3: and like conservative, which I think is interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's progressive, liberative, that's it. And I I honestly
Speaker 1: think what is happening with these dating apps is like
Speaker 1: well always seems to happen with social platforms online, right,
Speaker 1: Like part of it is that I think that Hinge
Speaker 1: was this big, standout mainstream dating app for a while
Speaker 1: that made a big song and dance about how they
Speaker 1: genuinely were interested in and invested in people meeting their matches.
Speaker 1: Like their slogan was, oh, this is an app that
Speaker 1: it's meant to be deleted because we want you to
Speaker 1: find your person and then delete the app. However, like
Speaker 1: most platforms dating platforms, they want your data. They are
Speaker 1: interested in making money from your data. And once they
Speaker 1: have gotten all they can from the data of the
Speaker 1: maximum amount of users who are going to sign up,
Speaker 1: then they are pivoting to wanting your money too. So
Speaker 1: they're not designed to be deleted. They are designed to
Speaker 1: make money off of people who use them, right, just
Speaker 1: like that's why these apps exist. And so if that
Speaker 1: means paywalling anybody that you might potentially be interested in,
Speaker 1: they are going to do that. I read recently that
Speaker 1: Tinder has launched this like super lux premium package for
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars a month, where they were like, oh,
Speaker 1: we'll have like super special algorithmic matching and even like
Speaker 1: humans will help match people. Listen, if I'm paying five
Speaker 1: hundred dollars a month for a dating site, the person
Speaker 1: I meet there better also be like a valet and
Speaker 1: a personal chef and all the things. But I just
Speaker 1: think that they're just trying to like throw stuff at
Speaker 1: the wall to see what sticks, to set themselves apart,
Speaker 1: because people like I don't think they're offering people an experience.
Speaker 1: It always feels good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, I mean I think the.
Speaker 2: Other I mean the other thing too.
Speaker 3: I don't know if any if anybody who lives in
Speaker 3: New York remembers the big advertisements that were all over
Speaker 3: the Union Square subway station for I'm blaking out when
Speaker 3: it was called, But it was some dating app that
Speaker 3: was supposed to be like people that were like elite
Speaker 3: and like had nice jobs. Belague had a four years
Speaker 3: What it was.
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 2: I remember seeing that. I was like what like? I
Speaker 2: was like what like?
Speaker 3: I don't know that because that kind of I feel
Speaker 3: like reminds me of this where it's like it's there's
Speaker 3: so many like hyper specific ones that I'm always like,
Speaker 3: is there really like enough people for this to work
Speaker 3: who like want to do I don't know. I had
Speaker 3: a friend that signed up for the leak though, and
Speaker 3: it sounded like a very interesting experience. Yeah No, that's
Speaker 3: that's weird. I yeah, at that point, like five hundred dollars,
Speaker 3: like just go back to finding a matchmaker or something
Speaker 3: like the old I don't know, go old school exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean, I again, I'm I'm I didn't really get
Speaker 1: to experience the heyday of the apps, but everybody that
Speaker 1: I've ever had a meaningful relationship with has been through
Speaker 1: I've met through the original og hint, which is just
Speaker 1: like having pushy friends who like to set people up
Speaker 1: who won't take answer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 1: And I guess, like, I don't know. I don't think
Speaker 1: anybody should be spending five hundred dollars a month on
Speaker 1: a dating a dating app. Absolutely not that money could
Speaker 1: be better spent, for sure, But I just really feel
Speaker 1: for people trying to meet people romantically these days, Like
Speaker 1: it feels like what these apps are offering you, Like
Speaker 1: there was a time where it felt like they were
Speaker 1: offering an endless supply of potential matches. It was going
Speaker 1: to be really fun, but it seems like now it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: do you want this dud or do you want to
Speaker 1: give us ten dollars a month or whatever? Right, And like,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Dating should be fun and it should
Speaker 1: be pleasurable. And I hope that people who are looking
Speaker 1: to be romantically involved or partnered or having any kind
Speaker 1: of whatever interaction they're seeking, I hope that they are
Speaker 1: finding ways to do that that feel fulfilling and fun
Speaker 1: and gratifying, whether they're online or off. Because yeah, it
Speaker 1: shouldn't just be a slog that mirrors the annoyances and
Speaker 1: exhaustion of showing up on social media platforms. Like that's
Speaker 1: not what romantic partnership is about, and like you deserve
Speaker 1: better than something that feels like a fucking slog. It's
Speaker 1: supposed to be fun.
Speaker 4: Let's take a quick break, edder back.
Speaker 1: Speaking of not of unfulfilling online experiences full of things
Speaker 1: that are bad. It was a clunky transition, but you
Speaker 1: know where I'm going with this. Let's talk about Substack,
Speaker 1: the newsletter platform. Substack has a bit of a Nazi problem.
Speaker 1: This week, Substack agreed to remove five newsletters featuring Nazi
Speaker 1: content that incited violence. This comes after almost two hundred writers,
Speaker 1: including Casey Newton, who runs Platformer, which I love, a
Speaker 1: prominent tech publication on substack, signed onto an open letter
Speaker 1: threatening to quit the platform if substack took no action.
Speaker 1: So this has been an ongoing problem. The Atlantic reported
Speaker 1: that prominent white supremacists were using the platform substack not
Speaker 1: just to spread their message, but also to earn money.
Speaker 1: The Atlantic reported that Richard Spencer, who you might remember
Speaker 1: getting punched in the face the last time he was
Speaker 1: here in my hometown of Washington, DC, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: anybody like ask somebody who is in kind of or
Speaker 1: at least at that time sort of like more sort
Speaker 1: of like lefty radical protest circles. Everybody that I knew
Speaker 1: knew somebody who was claiming to be the guy who
Speaker 1: punched Richard Spencer because he was wearing he was like
Speaker 1: a lot like wearing all blacks, So like nobody knows
Speaker 1: who that person was.
Speaker 2: I am reading it's actually me, It was actually me.
Speaker 2: We are all all the puncher.
Speaker 1: But Richard Spencer now is making like after being deplatformed
Speaker 1: from most other social media platforms. He is making at
Speaker 1: least nine thousand dollars a year and potentially many times
Speaker 1: that from his Substack newsletter. And he is not alone
Speaker 1: because Substack the company, takes ten percent of a cut
Speaker 1: of any money earned on the platform from subscription fees.
Speaker 1: Substack is essentially profiting from white supremacists who are also
Speaker 1: breaking their terms of service that that explicitly bans attempts
Speaker 1: to publish content or fun initiatives that incite violence based
Speaker 1: on protected classes. So in the letter that these prominent
Speaker 1: writers and on Substack published, they said, from our perspective,
Speaker 1: as Substack publishers, it is unfathomable that someone with a
Speaker 1: swastika avatar, who writes about quote the Jewish question, who
Speaker 1: promotes the great Replacement theory, could be given the tools
Speaker 1: to succeed on your platform, and yet you've been unable
Speaker 1: to adequately explain your position. The letters reads, Substack has
Speaker 1: always kind of had this public positioning where they were
Speaker 1: going to treat content with a re content moderation with
Speaker 1: a really light touch. However, as the letter accurately points out,
Speaker 1: that is not true. They do choose to moderate some
Speaker 1: content they including spam sides and newsletters written by sex workers,
Speaker 1: and so it's they can't really be like, oh well,
Speaker 1: we just allow everybody to express themselves, like we don't
Speaker 1: want to pick and choose like people. Anybody can show
Speaker 1: up here. Why do they not allow content written and
Speaker 1: buy sex workers on their platform. Hamish mackenzie, a Subsetet
Speaker 1: co found or, defended the company's position back in December, saying,
Speaker 1: I just want to make it clear that we don't
Speaker 1: like nazis either. We wish no one held those views,
Speaker 1: but some people do hold those and other extreme views.
Speaker 1: He wrote, so basically being like, oh well, we're just
Speaker 1: publishing the views people have. But again you might not
Speaker 1: agree that with the profession of sex work, but sex
Speaker 1: workers exist in society. So that if that is your
Speaker 1: argument that we're just you know, platforming the views that
Speaker 1: people have and we're not making any kind of like
Speaker 1: statement about those views, why is that clearly you are
Speaker 1: picking and choosing the views that you that you choose
Speaker 1: the platform.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, I'm going to like, honestly, and this is coming
Speaker 3: from my again twenty something like just sort of whatever
Speaker 3: experience I have, I think, like this whole issue or something,
Speaker 3: I've kind of gone back and forth about a lot,
Speaker 3: because yeah, it is like one of those things where
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, free speech want but like also obviously
Speaker 3: like I don't want neo Nazis. I don't want like
Speaker 3: explicit you know, super right wing racist whatevers and of
Speaker 3: Bhoba people. But yeah, but I feel like, oh, that
Speaker 3: is side. That is side, whatever your beliefs are. If
Speaker 3: you are as a company censoring people that, yeah, our
Speaker 3: sex workers are doing stuff that you know, maybe not
Speaker 3: even like leftists and like political sense, but sort of
Speaker 3: on the opposite set, like sort of side of like
Speaker 3: whose voices are being heard that you're censoring them, You're
Speaker 3: not censoring, Like, that's not an issue of we're censoring
Speaker 3: versus we're not censoring. That's just an issue of favoring
Speaker 3: the neo Nazis over you know, anybody just trying.
Speaker 2: To talk about their life experience.
Speaker 1: Well exactly that like that's what these writers have said.
Speaker 1: That it is not just that these like neo Nazi
Speaker 1: white supremacists folks are being allowed to write on the platform.
Speaker 1: At times, the platform has actually promoted that content. According
Speaker 1: to the Atlantic, Patrick Casey, a leader of a now
Speaker 1: defunct neo Nazi group who has a subseac newsletter you
Speaker 1: this is a substat recommendation feature to promote seven other
Speaker 1: extremist newsletters. And so they'd also describe how, you know, substack,
Speaker 1: if you make a certain amount of money to give
Speaker 1: you a bed and like things like that, they are
Speaker 1: using those things to I would argue, promote as a
Speaker 1: company these beliefs and make money off of these beliefs
Speaker 1: that they then say like, oh, well, we don't support it.
Speaker 1: If you don't support it, why are you taking a
Speaker 1: ten percent cut? Like that's but a very literal definition
Speaker 1: of supporting it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, And that's not you know, it's not like, oh,
Speaker 3: we just have this platform and people are writing on
Speaker 3: it and we have no say on what they're writing.
Speaker 2: Like at that at that point, you're complicit.
Speaker 3: You're literally you're essentially what like on the on the
Speaker 3: board of the like neo nazi publication, you know, exactly.
Speaker 1: So after this outcry from these writers who submitted this
Speaker 1: this letter, Substack this week did announce that they were
Speaker 1: removing five existing publications that they said, we're breaking the
Speaker 1: platform's rules with what they were posting. They said, if
Speaker 1: and when we become aware of other content that violates
Speaker 1: our guidelines, we will take appropriate action. They added, we
Speaker 1: are actively working on more reporting tools that can be
Speaker 1: used to flag content that potentially violates our guidelines, and
Speaker 1: we will continue working on tools for user moderations so
Speaker 1: Subtec users can set and refine the terms of their
Speaker 1: own experience on the platform. And yeah, I just got
Speaker 1: to say, like, there is an old adage in content
Speaker 1: moderation of online spaces, which is if you don't explicitly
Speaker 1: and explicitly and specifically and loudly say that you are
Speaker 1: not a place for Nazis to gather online, that is
Speaker 1: how you get Nazis. And if you don't want Nazis,
Speaker 1: you have to say no Nazis. And I think this
Speaker 1: really proves it. Casey Newton of platform or one of
Speaker 1: the big tech outlets that was behind this letter said
Speaker 1: the Nazis did not commit the only atrocity in history,
Speaker 1: but a platform that declines to remove their supporters is
Speaker 1: telling you something important about itself. And I completely agree,
Speaker 1: and honestly, like I am usually somebody who will take
Speaker 1: any excuse to frame some thing as a win, like
Speaker 1: even if it's a small win, something about this doesn't
Speaker 1: smell right to me right, like removing five newsletters and
Speaker 1: then being like, oh, well, you know what, years later
Speaker 1: and after outcry and being pushed by these writers who
Speaker 1: spoke up, We're finally going to do the bare minimum
Speaker 1: of enforcing our existing terms of service and removing five newsletters.
Speaker 1: They don't even say which newsletters were removed, and so
Speaker 1: it just feels so low effort to me that it's
Speaker 1: almost hard for me to call it a win. Like
Speaker 1: I'm glad that these writers spoke up, and I'm grateful
Speaker 1: for their organizing work to push them in the right direction,
Speaker 1: But like that said Substack, like get it together. This
Speaker 1: is such such a low it feels so low effort
Speaker 1: that it feels barely worth aplauding.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Also, I don't know the whole idea of users
Speaker 3: setting in their own terms for what their users have
Speaker 3: the option to change what they want to see. It's like, okay,
Speaker 3: but then you're not really solving the problem because you're
Speaker 3: putting it on the individual to like put what I
Speaker 3: don't want to see nazis, which I feel like that.
Speaker 2: Should be given. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And also I mean going back to my state room before,
Speaker 3: like when I say, like whatever preseeds obviously like Nazis
Speaker 3: are bad. That's a pretty like easy station. And it's
Speaker 3: really weird, Like, I know, it's crazy, my gay Jewish
Speaker 3: self is coming out against the Nazis.
Speaker 2: I guess, like I don't know, it's been so weird
Speaker 2: the last couple of years.
Speaker 3: Saying that has just become like it's like like that
Speaker 3: should be the bare minimum statement and you can't be
Speaker 3: like Nazis are bad. It's like whoa, that's I don't
Speaker 3: know anyways, Yeah, like that that it just it just
Speaker 3: it seems like it's not really going to fix the
Speaker 3: problem if you're putting it on the users, because you know,
Speaker 3: one things that the og Nazis were really good at
Speaker 3: was propaganda and you know, sort of sanitizing their beliefs
Speaker 3: or packaging their beliefs in a way that like the
Speaker 3: average person would agree with it.
Speaker 2: And you know, this is just giving them another avenue
Speaker 2: to do that.
Speaker 1: Yes, And I don't think that you know, your average
Speaker 1: person who just wants to read stuff on subsack or
Speaker 1: write on substack about their life or whatever should be
Speaker 1: tasked with that Like that's a that like that is
Speaker 1: a that is an organizational and a structural problem. And
Speaker 1: I don't think, as you said, I don't think it
Speaker 1: should be left up to people to have to filter
Speaker 1: out that level of extremist content. Right. Obviously, if there's
Speaker 1: like stuff that you don't want to see, it's good
Speaker 1: for platforms to allow you customization. But this is so
Speaker 1: far beyond a typical customization problem. Like clearly it is
Speaker 1: an organizational structural problem that the powers that be at
Speaker 1: subsect have to sort out. And like it is, if
Speaker 1: you are not being paid by subsack, it should not
Speaker 1: be your responsibility to figure out how to keep Nazi
Speaker 1: content off of the platform, Like that is a that
Speaker 1: is that burden should not be on us as the user,
Speaker 1: like that should not be on the user end. And
Speaker 1: speaking of hate speech on these platforms, so one of
Speaker 1: my New Year's resolutions was to stop using Twitter so much.
Speaker 1: TBD on how it is going so far, not well,
Speaker 1: but that will probably mean spending more time on alternatives
Speaker 1: like Threads. When we first checked in on Threads when
Speaker 1: it launched, it felt like very brand safe to me,
Speaker 1: and just I didn't feel like a cool platform. I
Speaker 1: haven't spent a lot of time there yet, so like
Speaker 1: maybe that has changed. But one thing that has changed
Speaker 1: on Threads is that people are reporting the platform is
Speaker 1: flooded with more transphobic, pro life, antie porn, and islamophobic posts.
Speaker 1: So hearing this, I logged in for the first time
Speaker 1: in ages, and it didn't take long for me to
Speaker 1: see this post from a user that I did not
Speaker 1: follow and certainly like, don't follow any accounts that would
Speaker 1: have recommended this to me. It was a tweet that
Speaker 1: just said it's okay to be white. It's okay to
Speaker 1: be white, like I saw bunch. Did you see that?
Speaker 2: Oh my god, yeah I did.
Speaker 1: So, just a really weird post, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, this is I've been having the same experience
Speaker 3: of like the only time because I also like, I
Speaker 3: feel like I got the same sort of thing with Threads,
Speaker 3: like I made it when I made a Threads account,
Speaker 3: when I came out it's gonnact to my Instagram and everything,
Speaker 3: but I am not. The only times I've opened it
Speaker 3: is when I get in the Instagram feed, I'll get
Speaker 3: like baited into clicking up like hate clicking on stuff
Speaker 3: because yeah, I'll get like all the there's that thing
Speaker 3: now where it shows you like recommended threads and they're
Speaker 3: always like the most like inflammatory, like there's been a
Speaker 3: lot of Islamophobic stuff or like very racist stuff that
Speaker 3: I've seen, and then like that can't be real, And
Speaker 3: then I'll click on it to like see the whole
Speaker 3: thing and whatever.
Speaker 2: It's very like rage baby kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: But yeah, no, that's the only times I've opened thriads
Speaker 3: have been to.
Speaker 2: See those see those tweets in full and be like
Speaker 2: is this really.
Speaker 1: Something as Joey, Oh my god, I will this will
Speaker 1: be the rest of the episode. But when I told
Speaker 1: what I said up top that one of my plans
Speaker 1: for the new year was to spend less time getting
Speaker 1: bent out of shape about content like this, it is.
Speaker 1: It was inspired in part by that that I know
Speaker 1: exactly what you're talking about on Instagram where you're like,
Speaker 1: who is saying what now? Then you click in and
Speaker 1: if you're me, then you spend your whole day being like,
Speaker 1: well this can't possibly, Like I needs to resources like
Speaker 1: what's going on here? Before you know what, your knee
Speaker 1: deep in some weird ass profile being like like what
Speaker 1: is this? What is this ridiculousness that I'm looking at?
Speaker 1: On winter break when we were off, I spent an
Speaker 1: entire half of day. I lost a whole half a
Speaker 1: day to that process, and I was like, they got me.
Speaker 1: It's it's total engagement rage bait. They want you to click,
Speaker 1: maybe they want you to click by accident, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I just it just it doesn't feel good, Like it's
Speaker 1: like a crappy It feels crappy to have that experience online,
Speaker 1: and it feels like more and more like that's what
Speaker 1: platforms have to offer you, is engagement farming and rage
Speaker 1: baiting and then like exploiting your accidental click into something
Speaker 1: with shocking, inflammatory content. It is infuriating. But I will
Speaker 1: say that Facebook meta they are aware of this problem.
Speaker 1: So in a statement to Mashable, Facebook acknowledge that some
Speaker 1: users are being shown this type of repetitive, low quality content,
Speaker 1: saying we want people to have a positive experience on
Speaker 1: Threads and we're continually making improvements to what people see
Speaker 1: on the app, in addition to removing content to violates
Speaker 1: our community guidelines. We're aware that some people are seeing
Speaker 1: this repetitive, low quality content they may not be interested in.
Speaker 1: We're taking steps to address it. So I've read a
Speaker 1: few responses on this from Adam Mosseerri Comma who some
Speaker 1: listeners might remember as one of my personal enemies. But
Speaker 1: all of his comments about it are like so general.
Speaker 1: They're kind of like, oh, we're doing our best to
Speaker 1: get it off the platform, YadA, YadA, YadA. But it
Speaker 1: is clear that you need to have very clear rules,
Speaker 1: very clear enforcement of those rules, and a way to
Speaker 1: find it when those pieces of content are breaking the rules,
Speaker 1: when users are doing it in a repetitive way, Like
Speaker 1: it is not easy to run a text based social
Speaker 1: media platform. I'll be the first person to admit it.
Speaker 1: It is a paygrade far above me. However, it just yeah,
Speaker 1: they've got to get it together because nobody wants to
Speaker 1: have the social platforms where it just feels scammy or baby.
Speaker 1: And I just think that most people have had their
Speaker 1: fill of experiences that feel that way online right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, absolutely, because like especially looking at like, yeah,
Speaker 3: the threads that would pop up on my feet that
Speaker 3: would get recommended to me, there were all these things
Speaker 3: that I was like, if you're taking my data and
Speaker 3: you're like understanding the type of person that I am
Speaker 3: and things I'm interested in and what my political beliefs are, like,
Speaker 3: this is very clearly the opposite of that, like, is
Speaker 3: the point of these just to get me to like
Speaker 3: click on it because I'm yeah, like rage bait or
Speaker 3: like confused, bait me into clicking on something I look,
Speaker 3: which you know as a marketing strategy to get people
Speaker 3: to use your app works.
Speaker 2: Uh that make sound it's not very ethical.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I definitely Like every time like that happens, I'll
Speaker 3: take a second and like scroll, startscrolling through their eads
Speaker 3: and be like when it's not first, I don't know
Speaker 3: it is like the same rhymem Like I still feel
Speaker 3: like it's like the social media platform itself hasn't really
Speaker 3: like there's no real reason for me to go on
Speaker 3: in otherwise, So it's weird.
Speaker 2: It's a weird situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've come to see myself as someone who has
Speaker 1: gotten more susceptible to the kind of rage, confusion, engagement
Speaker 1: bait that you just described. I know, like I know
Speaker 1: it when I see it, and I almost feel like
Speaker 1: the more learned I am about that kind of content somehow,
Speaker 1: the more it gets me on Twitter. Like, if you
Speaker 1: are a black person, a young black person who is
Speaker 1: on Twitter, you probably are familiar with a certain kind
Speaker 1: of post that you know it is just like I
Speaker 1: can't I can't describe it, but you know when you
Speaker 1: see it where it'll be like, there's there's a video
Speaker 1: recently of a of three black women knocking on a
Speaker 1: door at like knocking on a door of an apartment,
Speaker 1: and the caps on Twitter was like, this girl was
Speaker 1: out until five am and her man changed the locks
Speaker 1: on her. What do you all think about this? And
Speaker 1: everybody is like, oh, like, why is it bad to
Speaker 1: go out at five am? And then people will being like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like she deserves it, and something about those kinds of
Speaker 1: posts where it's oh, it's always something like very inflammatory.
Speaker 1: It might not even be true. It might be like
Speaker 1: a skit that people are doing. That's a whole other
Speaker 1: episode about how people are making skits, putting them online
Speaker 1: as if they have been filmed, and then breaking in
Speaker 1: that sweet, sweet engagement when people react to it. I could,
Speaker 1: I mean, we should do a whole episode on it,
Speaker 1: because it's a common thing. But for whatever reason I am,
Speaker 1: I am susceptible to that, Like I am not above that.
Speaker 1: I find myself like scrolling the comments and I'm like,
Speaker 1: why am I getting angry about this probably fake scenario
Speaker 1: that has nothing to do with me, Like there's enough
Speaker 1: stuff in the world for me to be reacting to
Speaker 1: in my own life, Like why am I exposing myself
Speaker 1: and getting myself bent out of shape about things that
Speaker 1: are being presented to me specifically to react to. I
Speaker 1: don't know, I'm going off in a tangent here, but
Speaker 1: it's a problem and it doesn't feel good, and I agree.
Speaker 2: With you.
Speaker 3: More.
Speaker 1: After a quick break, let's get right back into it. So,
Speaker 1: speaking of scams and bait on social media and on Twitter, no,
Speaker 1: the SEC did not register bitcoin on securities exchanges. Thank
Speaker 1: you to listener Trisha Friedman for flagging this for us
Speaker 1: to talk about. And if folks have stories that they
Speaker 1: want us to talk about, you can always fly them
Speaker 1: to us. So the official Twitter account of the United
Speaker 1: States Securities and Exchange Commission SEC GUB was compromised this
Speaker 1: week and sent out an unauthorized tweet. This is a
Speaker 1: pretty big deal. Twitter officially says that they investigated and
Speaker 1: determined that it was not a breach of their systems,
Speaker 1: but that somebody got a hold of somebody from the
Speaker 1: SEC's phone, which did not have two factor authentication enabled,
Speaker 1: and that's how they posted the fake tweet. The tweet
Speaker 1: said it does look like a US Securities and Exchange
Speaker 1: Commission tweet. The tweet says, today the SEC grants approval
Speaker 1: for bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges.
Speaker 1: The approved bitcoin ETFs will be subject to ongoing surveillance
Speaker 1: and compliance measures to ensure continued investor protection. So this
Speaker 1: would be a big deal had it been true, which
Speaker 1: it's not. But that fake tweet did cause a brief
Speaker 1: spike in bitcoin's value of around two point five percent
Speaker 1: to nearly forty seven eight hundred and seventy dollars before
Speaker 1: crashing around three point two percent from its original price.
Speaker 1: So Twitter, you know, they denied any responsibility for this incident,
Speaker 1: so they say, I don't know, But what is clear
Speaker 1: is that since Musk took over at Twitter, Twitter has
Speaker 1: gotten a lot less secure. This piece in Wired puts
Speaker 1: it really well, they say elon Musk's aggressive slashing of
Speaker 1: the company's staff over the past year raised fears that
Speaker 1: the cuts would leave Twitter unable to secure a platform
Speaker 1: depended on by users that include high profile figures and
Speaker 1: government agencies worldwide. One former Twitter information official sued Musk
Speaker 1: and others for alleged wrongful termination after he was fired
Speaker 1: for He claims in the lawsuit, arguing that the staff
Speaker 1: cuts would interfere with Twitter's ability to comply with a
Speaker 1: twenty eleven concent degree with the US Federal Trade Commission
Speaker 1: to protect user's personal information. And yeah, I gotta say, like,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons I want to use Twitter less
Speaker 1: is that I don't trust that somebody like Elon Musk
Speaker 1: would keep my personal information secure and safe. And it
Speaker 1: makes sense considering how he is, how he acts, how
Speaker 1: he shows up. Wired spoke to Alison Nixon, the chief
Speaker 1: research officer for cybersecurity firm Unit twenty two one B,
Speaker 1: which frequently deals with hackers accounts takeovers. She puts it
Speaker 1: really well. She says, people put a lot of trust
Speaker 1: into an entity that has stopped being a serious company.
Speaker 1: If a government wants to be able to make statements
Speaker 1: that people can rely on, they can't do that on
Speaker 1: a platform that has a targeted account takeover problem. And yeah, like,
Speaker 1: even if Musk is denying any kind of responsibility for this,
Speaker 1: which he is, he certainly is not signaling that he
Speaker 1: is taking it very seriously. Right after the news of
Speaker 1: the SEC's Twitter account being compromised. Broke Musk was joking
Speaker 1: around about it on Twitter, responding to a post jokingly
Speaker 1: being like, oh, what's the SEC's password wrong answers only,
Speaker 1: Musk responds LFG doge to the moon, which is like,
Speaker 1: let's fucking go a joke about doge coin. The jokes,
Speaker 1: I mean, like side note, the jokes aren't even ever
Speaker 1: funny with him, it's it's always some like stupid little
Speaker 1: meme that was like cool five years ago. He gets
Speaker 1: on everything very late. That's another thing about Elon Muska
Speaker 1: can't stand.
Speaker 2: It's the whole doge coin that, like doge is such
Speaker 2: an old means it's old, like, oh my god.
Speaker 3: I'm sure there's like teenagers that have like no idea,
Speaker 3: what that even fucking me? Like, it's so old, that
Speaker 3: is so ridiculous, Oh my god, update your references.
Speaker 1: And Tricia, the listener who flagged this story for us,
Speaker 1: really made a good point, which is that for all
Speaker 1: the handwringing that elected officials do about TikTok, it's such
Speaker 1: a good reminder that TikTok is not the only platform
Speaker 1: out there that folks need to be thinking about when
Speaker 1: it comes to our digital security. You know, there was
Speaker 1: a time where elected officials, campaigns, governments, et cetera. When
Speaker 1: they needed to communicate quickly with us the public, it
Speaker 1: was Twitter that they used, right, And so I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's going to be the case going forward
Speaker 1: with Musk at the Helm, but yeah, it so it
Speaker 1: really does matter that it is a secure platform. And
Speaker 1: speaking of Elon Musk, Joey, is there anything that you
Speaker 1: want to ask me about Elon Musk?
Speaker 3: Ooh, let's see where what like on the second week
Speaker 3: to twenty twenty four, but still so excited to hear
Speaker 3: what has Elan done now?
Speaker 1: Well, Elon Musk is on Twitter dipping into straight race science.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, It's one of those things that I
Speaker 1: almost didn't want to talk about. So I'm like, oh this,
Speaker 1: I can't stand this guy. But it does connect to
Speaker 1: a lot of the conversation that's going on right now.
Speaker 1: You know, we've done a few episodes on Bill Ackman
Speaker 1: and Christopher Ruffo and their attempts to really create a
Speaker 1: moral panic around DEI diversity equity and inclusion initiatives and
Speaker 1: have had success in getting doctor Claudine Gay ousted from
Speaker 1: her position at Harvard. Well, as y'all know, if it
Speaker 1: is despicable people doing despicable stuff, you already know Elon
Speaker 1: Musk is going to be involved in it in the
Speaker 1: mix somehow. So yesterday he was engaged in with a
Speaker 1: tweet suggesting that historically black college graduates have quote borderline
Speaker 1: intellectual impairment. So this pretty big account on Twitter, eyelash Ho,
Speaker 1: which is account that like really spreads a lot of
Speaker 1: junk race science, this account was talking about this program
Speaker 1: from United Airlines that gives HBCU historically black college students
Speaker 1: opportunities to interview with the company's career development program to
Speaker 1: be pilots. Eyelash Ho says the mean IQ of grads
Speaker 1: from two of those United Airlines HBCU partners is about
Speaker 1: eighty five to ninety based on the average SATs at
Speaker 1: those schools. Side note that's just not true, that's made up.
Speaker 1: He says, the SAT correlates reasonably well with IQ. The
Speaker 1: HBCU IQ averages are within ten points of the threshold
Speaker 1: for what's considered borderline intellectual impairment. I'll add that IQ
Speaker 1: is a well studied and well known predictor of job performance,
Speaker 1: especially for quick processing and mentally demanding occupations like major
Speaker 1: airline pilot. So none of that is correct.
Speaker 2: All that is wrong. True.
Speaker 3: Yeah, first of all, i Q is a totally like
Speaker 3: arbitrary system and bacheloring intologies. Like we've known this for
Speaker 3: a while, people still latch onto it.
Speaker 2: It's like this is how you know, brain smart but
Speaker 2: you know I yeah, no, I.
Speaker 1: So even for as wrong and incorrect and silly and
Speaker 1: junkie and bad science and all the other things as
Speaker 1: that tweet is. Elon Musk basically co signed that tweet.
Speaker 1: He replied, saying it will take an airplane crashing and
Speaker 1: killing hundreds of people for them to change this crazy
Speaker 1: policy of d I E. Did you catch what he
Speaker 1: did there? The policy is d E I, even if
Speaker 1: he makes the letters around so it spells d I
Speaker 1: E die. I don't know.
Speaker 3: Oh so I'm sorry, Elon, Like don't don't don't throw
Speaker 3: stones and glasshouses or whatever like that is you should
Speaker 3: not be the one talking about people crashing and dying
Speaker 3: with her.
Speaker 1: Oh thank you about crashing and dying, homie, Let's get
Speaker 1: your own cars. That is such a good point. Also,
Speaker 1: it's wild to me that they would be like we've
Speaker 1: broke it, like the heure's the pithy slogan. If you
Speaker 1: mix the letters around, it smells die, like get it
Speaker 1: on a billboard, like it's just it's it's the most.
Speaker 3: It's like a uh like in Harry Potter when they
Speaker 3: when like Boltimore it's name, like they turn.
Speaker 2: It around and whatever. You're like, it actually mean says die.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: And I just like this whole idea is just so silly, right,
Speaker 1: Like this idea that because you have DEI initiatives side note,
Speaker 1: like I feel like I have been in a position
Speaker 1: of defending DEI the last few weeks because of what's
Speaker 1: going on. But like DEI initiatives are basically toothless. They're
Speaker 1: basically like meaningless. They're basically like they don't really they
Speaker 1: have not really accomplished a lot. I was listening to
Speaker 1: the podcast If Books Could Kill.
Speaker 2: They don't do much.
Speaker 1: I was listening to the podcast If Books Could Kill.
Speaker 1: And one of the points that they made, which is
Speaker 1: a really good one, which is that if you were
Speaker 1: a racist in twenty two for and you really wanted
Speaker 1: your spaces to be all mostly white men and have
Speaker 1: like white straight cists men in power, you should like
Speaker 1: DEI initiatives because they have been so ineffective at actually
Speaker 1: making things more diverse and inclusive that you should be like, wow,
Speaker 1: this is going great, Like I'm going to keep endorsing this. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: But however, this idea that like DEI initiatives mean that
Speaker 1: you have armies of black folks and brown folks and
Speaker 1: other represented identities working in these places. It's just a fiction,
Speaker 1: but that's what they're So they're basically creating a fiction
Speaker 1: and then turning that fiction into a boogieyman and then
Speaker 1: being like, ooh, I'm scared. I watched this Fox News
Speaker 1: report about the Alaska Airlines flight where the door came off.
Speaker 1: Did you see that?
Speaker 2: I did?
Speaker 1: Terrifying. But in the report on Fox News, they were like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: diversity in pilots is to blame for this, Like it's DEI,
Speaker 1: That's that's what the problem is here. And it's like, damn,
Speaker 1: y'all will really blame us for anything now we're closing
Speaker 1: plane problems, like you will blame us for anything? Hi, Okay,
Speaker 1: Future bridget here popping in solo without Joey because we
Speaker 1: just got an update on a story that I was
Speaker 1: obsessed with even before I ever started doing these news
Speaker 1: round up episodes, so I have to talk about it
Speaker 1: with y'all. I don't think we ever actually talked about
Speaker 1: this story on the newscast, but it's one of the
Speaker 1: more bizarre, not to mention gruesome, tech stories that I
Speaker 1: have heard in a long long time. Today, the online
Speaker 1: auction site eBay has been ordered by a Massachusetts court
Speaker 1: to pay three million dollars in damages after their employees
Speaker 1: and contractors waged what I can only describe as all
Speaker 1: out psychological warfare on a Boston couple. That three million
Speaker 1: dollars is the statutory maximum fine for eBay's charges, and
Speaker 1: in my book, the couple they harassed deserves every penny
Speaker 1: of it. So back in twenty nineteen, eBay senior executives
Speaker 1: were annoyed that this couple, the Steiners, were running an
Speaker 1: newsletter called e Commerce Bites about eBay that was meant
Speaker 1: to give people who sell stuff on eBay and auction
Speaker 1: sites information about the site, happenings with it, news, all
Speaker 1: of that kind of stuff. According to Yahoo, this harassment
Speaker 1: campaign began after Aina Steiner wrote a story in her
Speaker 1: newsletter about a lawsuit brought by eBay that accused Amazon
Speaker 1: of poaching its sellers. According to court records, about a
Speaker 1: half an hour after Aina Steiner published this article, eBay's
Speaker 1: then CEO, Devin Wehning sent another top executive a message saying, quote,
Speaker 1: if you are ever going to take her down, now
Speaker 1: is the time. That executive then sent his message to
Speaker 1: James Ba, who was eBay's senior director of safety and security,
Speaker 1: and he called Aina Steiner a quote bias troll who
Speaker 1: needs to get burned down. After that, I guess Ba
Speaker 1: was like, I am on it because he became the
Speaker 1: ringleader of this harassment and intimidation campaign against the Steiners.
Speaker 1: Side note, also, don't put stuff like this in an email, Like,
Speaker 1: if you're ever going to to do something like this,
Speaker 1: hopefully you're never waiting a crazy campaign of harassment and
Speaker 1: intimidation against anybody. But if you're ever doing something where
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, it might be bad if someone were
Speaker 1: to read these emails discuss it in person, your next
Speaker 1: email should be like, let's talk about it in person.
Speaker 1: So eBay's head of security basically had other staffers send
Speaker 1: disturbing packages to this couple's home, including a bloody pig mask,
Speaker 1: an actual fetal pig, a box of live spiders, a
Speaker 1: box of live cockroaches, pornography, and a funeral wreath, along
Speaker 1: with a book called how to Grieve the Death of
Speaker 1: a Spouse. So like pretty obviously meant to be a
Speaker 1: threat or a way to intimidate them horrifying. The staffers
Speaker 1: also traveled to their home. They apparently had a plan
Speaker 1: when they found that their home was locked. They had
Speaker 1: a plan and tools to break into their home to
Speaker 1: install a GPS tracking device on their car. They posted
Speaker 1: the couple's home addressed on Craigslist inviting randos to come
Speaker 1: to their house for sex parties. These were senior level
Speaker 1: executives at eBay. Jim bah eBay, senior director of Safety
Speaker 1: and Security, was the ringleader, and he was sentenced to
Speaker 1: fifty seven months in prison back in September of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two for his role in all of this. Six
Speaker 1: other employees also face felony convictions for their involvement in this,
Speaker 1: which include charges of stalking, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice.
Speaker 1: Acting US Attorney from Massachusetts, Joseph S. Levy said eBay
Speaker 1: engaged in absolutely horrific criminal conduct and that the company's
Speaker 1: employees and contractors put victims through pure hell in a
Speaker 1: petrifying campaign aimed at silencing their reporting and protecting the
Speaker 1: eBay brand. Imagine doing serious federal jail time because you
Speaker 1: wanted to protect the brand eBay. So get this. eBay's
Speaker 1: then CEO, Devin Wenning, the one who was sending those
Speaker 1: emails about this couple who was harassed, was not criminally
Speaker 1: charged with anything related to this, but he did step
Speaker 1: down from eBay in twenty nineteen after it all came
Speaker 1: to light. But James, the ringleader, his lawyers have said
Speaker 1: that he faced relentless pressure from Wedning and other top
Speaker 1: executives to do something about this couple. He led that
Speaker 1: he was then pushed out by the company when quote
Speaker 1: an army of outside lawyers descended to conduct an internal
Speaker 1: investigation aimed at saving the company and its top executives
Speaker 1: from prosecution. It really does sound like this started at
Speaker 1: the very tippy top, Like he, like the former CEO,
Speaker 1: Wedding was on those emails. So it does sound like
Speaker 1: this started at the very very tippy top, and that
Speaker 1: this behavior was not just tolerated but expected, but invited,
Speaker 1: but like all but asked to happen. And guess what
Speaker 1: that former eBay executive wedding. Even though he has not
Speaker 1: been charged with a crime, it is not like he
Speaker 1: is laying low after overseeing a company where this kind
Speaker 1: of criminal behavior happened. Today, he is the CEO of
Speaker 1: Symbolically AI, a company that he co founded that is
Speaker 1: supposed to use AI to help writers and publishers. On
Speaker 1: his web site, he lists all the great accomplishments that
Speaker 1: he oversaw when he was at eBay, but conveniently does
Speaker 1: not list overseeing a criminal harassment campaign. Okay, so we
Speaker 1: got to talk about this new SAG agreement. This summer,
Speaker 1: actors and screenwriters were in a big standoff with studios
Speaker 1: in part over AI in what folks like me called
Speaker 1: hot labor summer. Basically, the question was could studios use
Speaker 1: the likeness of actors without their consent to make AI
Speaker 1: versions of them they could use forever and ever and
Speaker 1: ever without paying up. Well, this week SAG after the
Speaker 1: union representing more than one hundred and fifty thousand film
Speaker 1: and TV performers, announced a deal that sets terms for
Speaker 1: the use of AI voices in video games. So the
Speaker 1: deal is with Replica Studios, an AI Voice Technology Company,
Speaker 1: and it establishes protections around the licensing of digitally replicated voices.
Speaker 1: Duncan Crabtree Ireland, who is sag Actress National executive director,
Speaker 1: told NBC News, I think what's really important about this
Speaker 1: agreement is the fact that it es protection for all
Speaker 1: performers at all levels in the industry, and the fact
Speaker 1: is a lot of times performers who may not be
Speaker 1: famous names really need that protection even more because their
Speaker 1: bargaining leverage to negotiate those kinds of things individually is
Speaker 1: not as great. So one of the big pieces of
Speaker 1: how performers are thinking about the use of AI is
Speaker 1: whether or not their voices and likenesses can be used
Speaker 1: after they die, which is like pretty creepy. Crampchee Ireland
Speaker 1: said that posthumous deals are possible with the consent of
Speaker 1: whoever the estate has designated to act on the deceased
Speaker 1: performers behalf. So I was our I was sort of
Speaker 1: like set to be like, oh, that's great, that's good,
Speaker 1: Like I'm so happy they have a deal in place. However,
Speaker 1: after doing a little more research, I came to find
Speaker 1: that a lot of performers are either a angry about
Speaker 1: this deal or be skeptical of this deal and still
Speaker 1: have more questions. Like I went to the social media
Speaker 1: posts that were announcing this agreement, and several people were
Speaker 1: expressing frustration with this agreement and the announcement, saying that
Speaker 1: they did not feel like the Union had done a
Speaker 1: good enough job of representing their interests as it pertains
Speaker 1: to AI or even just like educating them on what
Speaker 1: they need to know about this agreement. And I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think it's one of those stories where we will
Speaker 1: definitely keep an eye on it and give updates where
Speaker 1: there are updates. But yeah, it sounds like maybe the
Speaker 1: folks who are being represented here and the folks who
Speaker 1: are doing the negotiating there might be a little bit
Speaker 1: of daylight in between what they what both of those
Speaker 1: parties see as their best interests, and whether or not
Speaker 1: they're being represented.
Speaker 2: Definitely.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have a lot of friends who are actors
Speaker 3: in my life, so this is something I've been like
Speaker 3: hearing about from them.
Speaker 2: People are not happy with this agreement, and like, I
Speaker 2: totally understand it.
Speaker 3: And it's interesting because I so like I as an
Speaker 3: iHeart employee, like I'm part of the writers guild and
Speaker 3: we weren't on a strike. It was just the film
Speaker 3: and Television division. We were in a different division. But
Speaker 3: it was interesting because I feel like with the writer's strike,
Speaker 3: there was a lot more like transparency about what was happening.
Speaker 3: Obviously it's not perfect, but like you know, I felt
Speaker 3: like at least like even as somebody who was not
Speaker 3: in the division that was on strike, like I had
Speaker 3: kind of an idea what was happening and like what
Speaker 3: the deal was, and like what the like kind of negotiation,
Speaker 3: how that was going. And I feel like there has
Speaker 3: there was a lot of like muddyins around the sag
Speaker 3: the negotiations and and yeah again like just from from
Speaker 3: my friends that are dealing with this because it's their careers,
Speaker 3: they don't seem to be happy. And I also remember
Speaker 3: like looking at the stag Instagram hosts like look.
Speaker 2: Open again the comments and tak a bunch of people
Speaker 2: that are like I.
Speaker 3: Don't like especially even when like the contract was announced,
Speaker 3: there were a bunch of videos that were going around
Speaker 3: from like really prominent actors being like oh yes on this,
Speaker 3: like and it was like, why do you have to
Speaker 3: advertise to people about yes, like it should be a
Speaker 3: thing where it's just like, yeah, look we have a
Speaker 3: good deal.
Speaker 2: Do you support it or not? I don't know.
Speaker 3: And yeah, so this whole thing, I wish the best
Speaker 3: to Sag and uh tak all of the actors everywhere
Speaker 3: that I have to deal with all of this.
Speaker 2: Solidarity. Again, it's it's rough out here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm with you. And honestly, like these performers who
Speaker 1: are worried about things like their likeness being used via
Speaker 1: AI after they're dead, that sounds very creepy and futuristic,
Speaker 1: but they're not. That's not an out there concern because
Speaker 1: just this week, comedy icon stand up legend George Carlin
Speaker 1: released a new comedy special, which is very impressive considering
Speaker 1: he's been dead since two thousand and eight. And the
Speaker 1: special is called I'm Glad I'm Dead. It is from Dootecy.
Speaker 1: I'm getting this from Variety. I'm about to say this,
Speaker 1: but I'm not totally sure what it means. Dudecy coma
Speaker 1: a comedy AI that hosts a podcast and YouTube show
Speaker 1: with Mad TV alum Will Sasso and podcaster Chad Koltkin.
Speaker 1: I don't know what that means. So like is dude,
Speaker 1: see AI, like like, like what is what is the
Speaker 1: AI entity.
Speaker 3: In this sounds like a like an onion article like
Speaker 3: that I don't know that George Carlin specifically, Like I
Speaker 3: cannot think of somebody who would probably be.
Speaker 2: Like more angry at the fact that I used for
Speaker 2: like an ar totally.
Speaker 1: Like this is how you get haunted by like a
Speaker 1: spirit that anytime you're trying to concentrate like whispers pity
Speaker 1: little observations about the society in your years, like you
Speaker 1: want to be haunted by the ghost of George Carlin,
Speaker 1: Like this is how you get haunted by the George
Speaker 1: a ghost of.
Speaker 3: George Carlin, which I would love to be haunted by
Speaker 3: the gast of George Carlan, but like in a fun way,
Speaker 3: like it's like like like my little buddy, it's just
Speaker 3: giving me life advice, not in whatever it's going to
Speaker 3: come to these guys, like that's gonna be something different.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I'm so confused about what this entity Dudecy is.
Speaker 1: This is from their website. Will Sasso and Chad Colkin
Speaker 1: have been selected by a state of the art entertained
Speaker 1: meant AI to host this first of its kind comedy podcast.
Speaker 2: So they were selected by the AI.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's a joke or not.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm reading. It goes on to say,
Speaker 1: our hosts have been convinced to grant the dudeesy AI
Speaker 1: access to all of their personal emails, text messages, social
Speaker 1: media accounts, purchases and browsing histories so that it can
Speaker 1: tailor the show to their specific personalities and entertain you
Speaker 1: at the highest level possible. I don't like, I don't
Speaker 1: understand what I'm reading.
Speaker 3: This whole thing, Like this sounds like it's a George
Speaker 3: carl They've been granted permission by like the AI.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Like that's how I am.
Speaker 1: I am confused. I am so I'll go on. So
Speaker 1: Dutecy starts off the comedy special with this. I want
Speaker 1: to let you know very clearly that what you're about
Speaker 1: to hear is not George Carlin, and it's my impersonation
Speaker 1: of George Carlin that I developed in the same way
Speaker 1: that a human impressionist would. I listened to all of
Speaker 1: George Carlin's material and did my best to imitate his voice, cadence,
Speaker 1: an attitude as well as subject matter. I think that
Speaker 1: would have interested him today. So think of it like
Speaker 1: Andy coffin perceading Elvis, or like Will Ferrell in persuading
Speaker 1: George W.
Speaker 4: Bush.
Speaker 1: So I see what dudec is doing there, but like
Speaker 1: he's trying to make us be like, oh, well, this
Speaker 1: is a more common thing for comedians than you think.
Speaker 1: But he's naming comedians who impersonate non comedians, Like it's
Speaker 1: not like Will Ferrell in persading George W. Bush. It's
Speaker 1: more like Dave Chappelle and persading Richard pryor, like it's
Speaker 1: like a comedian and persading another comedian.
Speaker 2: This just sounds like the most annoying dude at the part,
Speaker 2: Oh my god, it's like, do you want to hear
Speaker 2: my George Carlin impression? Like whatever, Like yeah, oh my god, yes.
Speaker 1: And I'm not even sure if that dude is a
Speaker 1: dude or AI, Like I'm not again, I'm not, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure like what they're trying to tell me here.
Speaker 1: So but I can confirm to you per variety that
Speaker 1: it is an AI generated impression of Carlin. I don't
Speaker 1: know in what way this traditionally counts as an impersonation,
Speaker 1: but there you have it. So this special has Carlin
Speaker 1: commenting on things in tech that he never got to
Speaker 1: see because he died in two thousand and eight, like
Speaker 1: Elon Musk buying Twitter and Jeff Bezos's rocket launch into
Speaker 1: space in twenty twenty two. You know what they did
Speaker 1: forget to do, though, is get any kind of permission
Speaker 1: from George Carlin's very much still alive family member. His
Speaker 1: daughter Kelly Carlin, posted on Twitter saying, my dad spent
Speaker 1: a lifetime perfecting his craft from his very human life,
Speaker 1: brain and imagination. No machine will ever replace his genius.
Speaker 1: These AI generated products are clever attempts at trying to
Speaker 1: recreate a mind that will never exist again. Let the
Speaker 1: artists work speak for itself. Humans are so afraid of
Speaker 1: the void that we can't let what's fallen into it
Speaker 1: stay there. Here's an idea, how about we give some actual,
Speaker 1: living human comedians a listen to. But if you want
Speaker 1: to listen to the genuine George Carlin, he has fourteen
Speaker 1: specials that you can find anywhere. So I hate that
Speaker 1: she has to make that statement, but I really appreciated it.
Speaker 1: And yeah, like you were saying, all the comedians that
Speaker 1: I feel like would not have rocked with this. I
Speaker 1: feel like George Carlin especially would not have rocked with this. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I love George Carlin. There is a bit like
Speaker 1: I actually just finished edits on an op ed that
Speaker 1: opens with a George Carlin bit. I reference it on
Speaker 1: the show like all the time. You'll probably are sick
Speaker 1: of me saying it, But I have gotten more wisdom
Speaker 1: and use out of this one George Carlin bit that
Speaker 1: I have gotten from anything I've ever encountered in a
Speaker 1: philosophy book or a college course. And that is his
Speaker 1: shit versus stuff bit. You ever notice how your stuff
Speaker 1: is stuff and everybody else's stuff is shit. This is
Speaker 1: not me trying to do an impersonation with him. I
Speaker 1: literally quote it all the time, but that one there,
Speaker 1: I feel like there is more insight into the human
Speaker 1: condition and how we all live in a society together
Speaker 1: in that bit than anything else I've ever read. And
Speaker 1: it bumps me out. Like the idea of comedians or
Speaker 1: podcasters trying to re create that using AI, It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: let the work stand for itself. Not everything needs to
Speaker 1: be a AI generated copy of something that was good.
Speaker 1: That copy probably wouldn't even be good and his daughter's
Speaker 1: not into it, so don't do this. I just really
Speaker 1: hate this. Thanks so much for being here, Joey. Where
Speaker 1: can folks keep up with all your awesome work.
Speaker 3: You can find me on social media Att Pratt that's
Speaker 3: p A T T n O T p R A
Speaker 3: T T. And if you want to listen to my
Speaker 3: other work, you can check out after Lives, the Lealian
Speaker 3: Planco story.
Speaker 2: We just finished up the kind of main arc.
Speaker 3: We're posting some sort of bonus content and longer interviews
Speaker 3: at the moment, but you should definitely check that out.
Speaker 2: Super important story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thanks so much for being here, Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for all your great work, and thanks to all of
Speaker 1: you for listening. You can find me on social media.
Speaker 1: You can hit me up on email at Hello at
Speaker 1: tango dot com, and you can check out more and
Speaker 1: free content at our patreon at tignoity dot com slash Patreon.
Speaker 1: If you're looking for ways to support the show, check
Speaker 1: out our March store at tangody dot com slash store.
Speaker 1: Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or
Speaker 1: just want to say hi, You can reach us at
Speaker 1: Hello at tangodi dot com. You can also find transcripts
Speaker 1: for today's episode at tegoity dot com. There Are No
Speaker 1: Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget Tod.
Speaker 1: It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unboss Creative, edited by
Speaker 1: Joey pat Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer. Tari Harrison
Speaker 1: is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almada is our
Speaker 1: contributing producer. I'm your host, bridget Tood. If you want
Speaker 1: to help us grow, rate and review.
Speaker 4: Us on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.