Speaker 1: Hey, this is Future Bridgid. So we recorded this week's
Speaker 1: news roundup on Thursday afternoon, the day before The New
Speaker 1: York Times just broke a story about Kate Middleton being
Speaker 1: diagnosed with cancer. You can read the New York Times
Speaker 1: as full story in the show notes. But this news
Speaker 1: came out just as we published the episode for this week,
Speaker 1: so we pulled the episode down so that I could
Speaker 1: re record this introduction that you're hearing right now to
Speaker 1: give that context. Okay, thanks for listening, and here's the episode,
Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd and this
Speaker 1: is There Are No Girls on the Internet. This is
Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet, where we explore
Speaker 1: the intersection of technology, social media, the Internet, and identity.
Speaker 1: And you're listening to another one of our weekly roundups
Speaker 1: where we summarize and break down the news that you
Speaker 1: might have missed on the Internet this week. Mike, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you for being here again. The last time we
Speaker 1: saw each other on the mic, we were talking about
Speaker 1: Kate Middleton.
Speaker 2: That's right. Uh.
Speaker 3: It was a story that had been going on for
Speaker 3: a little while, and it seems to continue to be
Speaker 3: going on.
Speaker 1: It has continued, So I did want to give folks
Speaker 1: a little bit of a brief update on what's happened
Speaker 1: in Kate Middleton Royal's world since we last spoke. So
Speaker 1: this week, TMZ released a video of Kate out shopping.
Speaker 1: The video was shot by like a random person on
Speaker 1: a cell phone, just somebody off the street, who then
Speaker 1: provided it to TMZ. So TMZ also published the metadata
Speaker 1: of this video. Metadata tells you when and where a
Speaker 1: piece of content was recorded, which confirms that this video
Speaker 1: was indeed recorded next to Kate Middleton's home and was
Speaker 1: recorded on that Saturday. Just like they said, it was
Speaker 1: case close right.
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe is a good.
Speaker 1: Way to put it, because just like we talked about
Speaker 1: in that episode, really breaking down Kate Middleton, but really
Speaker 1: talking about how conspiracy theories move online more generally, once
Speaker 1: a conspiracy theory reaches a certain point, there is like
Speaker 1: no amount of hard evidence that will satisfy people who
Speaker 1: are deeply, deeply convinced that something fishy is going on. However,
Speaker 1: that said, I have to say that the way that
Speaker 1: TMZ is acting right now after having published this video
Speaker 1: is weird, Like it is they're acting a little bit weird.
Speaker 1: So after publishing this video and saying it is Kate
Speaker 1: definitively case clothed, here's the metadata. Let's put all the
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories to rest. Then two of their executive producers
Speaker 1: went on TMZ Live, which is like TMZ's live television show,
Speaker 1: and basically kind of walked back whether or not they
Speaker 1: thought it was actually her.
Speaker 4: Here's what they said.
Speaker 2: So she looks great.
Speaker 4: Where's the security?
Speaker 5: Where is the security?
Speaker 6: That's a good question. And why is it with all
Speaker 6: the people that were there, this is the only video
Speaker 6: that surfaced, the video that we secured. Why is it
Speaker 6: that they're in the store, moseying around, going to the
Speaker 6: cash regiser. Nobody's taking any pictures, any photos, any video,
Speaker 6: but we got this.
Speaker 1: So I genuinely do not know what is going on
Speaker 1: here because I think that TMZ would have authenticated this
Speaker 1: video as being Kate before publishing it and saying that
Speaker 1: it's Kate. Now, I can hear people out there listening
Speaker 1: who are thinking, bridget TMZ is a shady tabloid. Why
Speaker 1: would you expect them to verify what they put out
Speaker 1: or confirm what they put out before they publish it,
Speaker 1: to which I won't say I'll push back on that,
Speaker 1: but I would complicate that a little bit because yes,
Speaker 1: TMZ is an outlet that is run by pieces of
Speaker 1: human garbage who have no ethical or moral compass whatsoever.
Speaker 1: They are not good people. I will we could do
Speaker 1: a whole other episode on this. However, TMZ is not
Speaker 1: an outlet that tends to get stuff wrong. That is
Speaker 1: one thing I can say about them, Like, if TMZ
Speaker 1: reports that somebody is dead, that person is probably dead
Speaker 1: even if no other outlet is reporting it because they're TMZ.
Speaker 1: Like I remember when Michael Jackson died. They were the
Speaker 1: first to run with that story, and everybody was like,
Speaker 1: well it's TMZ, let's wait until we get another outlet.
Speaker 1: But the reason why TMZ tends to always sort of
Speaker 1: get it right on these big breaking stories is because,
Speaker 1: like they are known to have police on their payroll
Speaker 1: and like payoff police. Like folks might remember back when
Speaker 1: Kobe Bryant and his daughter died in that helicopter crash,
Speaker 1: TMZ reported that news first, and it started a whole
Speaker 1: conversation of whether or not they should have reported that
Speaker 1: because the police had still not notified all of the
Speaker 1: family members, and so TMC is an outlet that is
Speaker 1: known for reporting things first and correct actually perhaps because
Speaker 1: they are unethical.
Speaker 4: Goules with no souls.
Speaker 1: So if TMZ is publishing something generally speaking that is
Speaker 1: like they're not an outlet that is known to put
Speaker 1: out just like blies.
Speaker 3: But it sounds like maybe this story and this photo
Speaker 3: are a little different.
Speaker 1: Well, I genuinely don't know what's going on here. Like
Speaker 1: it's possible that TMZ has just sensed that, like they
Speaker 1: have like what they see as a juicy story.
Speaker 4: So they're they're.
Speaker 1: Putting out a video and saying this is confirmed to
Speaker 1: be Kate, and then their producers are going on their
Speaker 1: channel and saying like, oh, we don't know if it's
Speaker 1: Kate or not. Maybe they're thinking that like this will
Speaker 1: lead to more engagement on a story that they perceive
Speaker 1: as like juicy. Maybe they did not authenticate that video
Speaker 1: before publishing it. I really don't know, Like anybody's guest
Speaker 1: is as good as mine in terms of what is
Speaker 1: actually going on here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's probably one of like a thousand stories
Speaker 3: where we might never know exactly.
Speaker 1: But I will say, like there are images flowing around
Speaker 1: on social media right now that are purporting to show
Speaker 1: a quote enhanced still from that video, purporting to prove
Speaker 1: that like, oh, it's not really caids, it's a body double,
Speaker 1: it's a stand in. Those are one hundred and ten
Speaker 1: percent fake, Like I can, I can assure you that
Speaker 1: if anybody is pushing around images that are purporting to
Speaker 1: use AI to like enhance these this video, that's not
Speaker 1: even how it works. Those are fake. As Google's Adriana
Speaker 1: porter Felt wrote on Twitter, I keep seeing people post
Speaker 1: photo enhancements as fact. This does not actually enhance the
Speaker 1: original photo. It invents a plausible new photo and overlays
Speaker 1: it on the blurry original. The generated version is actually
Speaker 1: less trustworthy than the original blurry video. Don't do this, Like,
Speaker 1: I think it's this idea that we all live in
Speaker 1: a CSI episode where you can just type type type
Speaker 1: type type enhance type type type TI type enhance using AI.
Speaker 1: That doesn't work that way.
Speaker 4: These are all bay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3: I think you and I were talking about false precision
Speaker 3: in some other context this morning, right, like the idea,
Speaker 3: and I think it applies here too, right, that you
Speaker 3: can have this photo that looks very highly detailed and precise,
Speaker 3: and it tricks your brain into thinking that, like, oh,
Speaker 3: this more precise, sharper image clearly must be more true.
Speaker 3: But that's just like not the case, for exactly the
Speaker 3: way that that well spoken quote from that Google person
Speaker 3: mentioned like it looks sharper, but it's just an invented,
Speaker 3: plausible image.
Speaker 1: And that's why I think some of the conspiracy theories
Speaker 1: about this won't die, because your brain tricks you into
Speaker 1: thinking this sharp, clear image must be correct, when in
Speaker 1: fact it is less trustworthy than that grainy video. So
Speaker 1: I have to say this, and this is pretty horrifying.
Speaker 1: Kate's private medical information was involved in a data security
Speaker 1: breach after at least one member of the staff at
Speaker 1: the hospital where she was staying back in January attempted
Speaker 1: to view her medical records while she was a patient there.
Speaker 1: Authorities are actually now investigating whether or not the hospital
Speaker 1: broke the law by failing to report this breach in
Speaker 1: a timely manner. So there is no ambiguity or gray
Speaker 1: area here. This is just so deeply deeply messed up.
Speaker 1: End of sentence period, and I think this was the
Speaker 1: point I was trying to make in the episode that
Speaker 1: we did breaking all of this down last week, that
Speaker 1: there is a difference between the public asking questions about
Speaker 1: how Kensington Palace, right a political and social institution, is moving,
Speaker 1: and how the Kensington Palace is communicating with the public
Speaker 1: without demanding access and you know, an entitlement to information
Speaker 1: about an individual's like private sensitive health information right. You know,
Speaker 1: I think that when a public who is voracious for
Speaker 1: any kind of information about Kate as a person blurs
Speaker 1: those lines, we get this dynamic where people really do
Speaker 1: feel like it is okay to try to obtain an
Speaker 1: individual's personal, private medical information to satisfy that question, and
Speaker 1: it's not. Not only is it illegal, it is wrong.
Speaker 1: And so I think that's really where we're kind of
Speaker 1: getting into this problem of I think it is totally
Speaker 1: fair to scrutinize and criticize and ask questions about the
Speaker 1: way that the institution that is, the Royal family is
Speaker 1: communicating with the public.
Speaker 4: That is totally fair game.
Speaker 1: That is different than demanding information about an individual, in
Speaker 1: this case, Kate's private medical information.
Speaker 4: Does that make sense?
Speaker 3: It does make sense, And uh, you know, I know
Speaker 3: that we got a few emails from listeners after that
Speaker 3: previous episode, and I think it's worth, you know, clarifying
Speaker 3: why we're talking about this story on this show. And
Speaker 3: you know, so like Bridget, are we talking talking about
Speaker 3: this because you have some sort of personal interest in
Speaker 3: the royal family, or like some expertise in the royal family,
Speaker 3: or because you feel like, you know, all of you
Speaker 3: have some personal feelings about Kate Middleton and feel like
Speaker 3: we have a right to know, like what's going on
Speaker 3: with her personal life? Or are those your motivations for
Speaker 3: wanting to talk about it on this show.
Speaker 1: Absolutely not. I don't know anything about Kate Middleton. Of
Speaker 1: all of the royals that I know anything about, she
Speaker 1: is the one that I have followed the least, and
Speaker 1: I don't really follow any of them, so that's actually
Speaker 1: really saying something. But I do think that when it
Speaker 1: comes to institutions that wield public power and do enjoy
Speaker 1: a level of public support, it is not just okay
Speaker 1: to ask questions and scrutinize how they are communicating with
Speaker 1: the public. I think it's necessary, and I think that
Speaker 1: when we get into these gray areas of people being like, well,
Speaker 1: how dare you demand private information about Kate? I don't
Speaker 1: think that anybody should be demanding private information about Kate.
Speaker 1: I certainly don't think that if you are someone working
Speaker 1: in a clinic where she may have stayed, but you
Speaker 1: should be going through her private health records.
Speaker 4: My god.
Speaker 1: However, that is different than asking questions about, well, who
Speaker 1: in Kensington Palace used photoshop to doctor images in a
Speaker 1: way that they had to have known was against Newswire
Speaker 1: rules and then tried to submit them as if they
Speaker 1: were not doctored. I think that's a totally fair question
Speaker 1: and a question that speaks to how institutions are communicating
Speaker 1: with the public. But that's a different thing than like,
Speaker 1: what kind of medical issue did Kate have and when
Speaker 1: did she have it? Like, that's a completely different question
Speaker 1: that I think is Kate's private business. Before we got
Speaker 1: on the mic, I was reading about how another image,
Speaker 1: another holiday image of the late Queen, it was revealed
Speaker 1: that that Kensington Palace had doctored that image similarly to
Speaker 1: the one of Kate, and you know, did not tell anybody,
Speaker 1: and it got past it got past fact checkers, and
Speaker 1: it was distributed via Newswire, and I was a prize
Speaker 1: to see a lot of the commenters saying things like
Speaker 1: they're celebrities. It's news now that celebrities are photoshopping wrinkles
Speaker 1: out of their images and like using photoshop to make
Speaker 1: them look better. And no, first of all, these people
Speaker 1: are not normal celebrities. So I'm not even interested in
Speaker 1: whether or not the Late Queen use photoshop or whatever.
Speaker 1: The question is, did they knowingly violate the very clear
Speaker 1: and explicit rules around how you submit authenticated photos to
Speaker 1: newswire services to get distributed out in an official capacity?
Speaker 1: Did they violate that? I'm not interested in with If
Speaker 1: they just put photoshopped images on their own personal instagrams
Speaker 1: and leave it at that, who cares? But this is
Speaker 1: a very different thing. And again, I just think that
Speaker 1: the blurriness between individual actions of individuals and the way
Speaker 1: that this massive, powerful, publicly supported institution is communicating with
Speaker 1: the public, those are two different things. One of them
Speaker 1: is fair game, and in fact that I would argue
Speaker 1: we should be asking questions about the other.
Speaker 4: Who cares?
Speaker 1: And I think that's sort of the thread that we're
Speaker 1: losing in this conversation.
Speaker 3: You know, I think the world has really changed a
Speaker 3: lot in terms of like what are the rules and
Speaker 3: norms around touching up photos. Perhaps the the you know,
Speaker 3: the rules for the wire services haven't changed, but just
Speaker 3: you know, common practices around what people do personally. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm willing to grant that has changed a lot in
Speaker 3: the past couple of years with AI filters, but they
Speaker 3: it really feels like there's a lot of room for
Speaker 3: Kensington Palace, who receives I believe hundreds of millions of
Speaker 3: dollars of like taxpayer support. Hopefully this lights of fire
Speaker 3: for them to get up to speed on what's needed
Speaker 3: to ideally play an active role in helping re establish
Speaker 3: rules so that people can have trust in the information
Speaker 3: that they see.
Speaker 1: Well, that's a great segue to this glassdoor story, which
Speaker 1: is a weird one. Like I've one of the reasons
Speaker 1: I'm excited to talk to you about this because you
Speaker 1: have a background in PII. What is it personal identifying information?
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 4: So here's what's going on.
Speaker 1: If you have ever talked crap about your job anonymously
Speaker 1: on the website Glassdoor, which is an anonymous forum for
Speaker 1: people to rate and review their workplaces, you might want
Speaker 1: to think twice because we are seeing multiple reports that
Speaker 1: Glassdoor collected and added people's names to their user profiles
Speaker 1: without their consent. So tech Crunch reports that one user
Speaker 1: who they're calling Monica, wrote in a post on her
Speaker 1: personal blog that Glassdoor added her name in the city
Speaker 1: where she lives to her Glassdoor profile following an email
Speaker 1: exchange that she had with Glassdoor customer support, despite never
Speaker 1: having consensually provided her name during the initial sign up process,
Speaker 1: which would happen two years earlier. So basically, it kind
Speaker 1: of sounds like if Glassdoor learns your name or learn
Speaker 1: some kind of personal identifying information about you, even if
Speaker 1: you do not provide it to them when you're signing
Speaker 1: up for Glassdoor, they will add it to your profile
Speaker 1: without your consent.
Speaker 2: So how does she say that they got her.
Speaker 1: Name from this email exchange that she had with Glassdoor
Speaker 1: customer support that when she signed up for Glassdoor years earlier,
Speaker 1: she didn't use her name she wanted to stay anonymous.
Speaker 1: That she had a years later, she had a back
Speaker 1: and forth email exchange with Glassdoor customer support. Her email
Speaker 1: signature includes her name and location, and they just took
Speaker 1: from that email her name, first and last name, and
Speaker 1: location and added it to her profile, even though she
Speaker 1: never consented to that and didn't want that, And to
Speaker 1: be clear, like Glassdoor is a place where anonymity would
Speaker 1: be really important, like if you weren't trashing your boss,
Speaker 1: or you had something really important to say, it makes
Speaker 1: sense why you wouldn't necessarily want to have your first
Speaker 1: and last name attached to a what you thought was
Speaker 1: an anonymous review of a workplace. And one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why I'm having a little bit of trouble with
Speaker 1: this story is that this really sounds like a change.
Speaker 1: I know from being in the space for a while
Speaker 1: that Glassdoor really used to thrive on user anonymity and
Speaker 1: was like kind of an industry leader in protecting PII
Speaker 1: personal identifying information. But what sounds like changed was a
Speaker 1: corporate acquisition. So ours Technical reports that although it is
Speaker 1: common for many users online to link services at sign
Speaker 1: up to their Facebook or their Gmail account to verify
Speaker 1: identity and streamline logins, for years, Glassdoor has notably allowed
Speaker 1: users to sign up for its service anonymously. But in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, Glassdoor acquired Fishbowl, a professional networking app
Speaker 1: that integrated with Glassdoor. Last July, this acquisition meant that
Speaker 1: every Glassdoor user was automatically signed up for a fish
Speaker 1: Bowl account, and because Fishbowl requires users to verify their identities,
Speaker 1: Glassdoor's terms of service changed to require all users be verified.
Speaker 1: So I should be clear that this is not a
Speaker 1: theoretical concern. Lawyers or companies who have been negatively reviewed
Speaker 1: on Glassdoor have regularly tried to learn the identities of
Speaker 1: the people leaving anonymous reviews on the site. The organization
Speaker 1: the Electronic Frontier Foundation regularly defends Glassdoor users from being
Speaker 1: unmasked by retaliating employers, particularly for employees who fear retaliation
Speaker 1: for reviews. The lawyer for EFF said that Glassdoor users
Speaker 1: could historically choose never to share their real names, and
Speaker 1: the company is now storing names for all users makes
Speaker 1: it much more likely that users could be linked to
Speaker 1: their reviews should glassdoors data ever be subpoenaed or leaked.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's such a good point that it's
Speaker 3: worth like reemphasizing it that. You know, it's one thing
Speaker 3: for Glassdoor to have a privacy policy that says like
Speaker 3: we will not release your name. That's great, that's good,
Speaker 3: but it's if to truly have your name be protected.
Speaker 3: It would be better if they never had it in
Speaker 3: the first place. Right, Like we've seen this very concerned
Speaker 3: playout with concerns about the Kids Online Safety Act, Right
Speaker 3: that it's going to be collecting all of this information,
Speaker 3: And even if that information is nominally protected, the fact
Speaker 3: that it is stored somewhere puts it at risk. Right,
Speaker 3: It's at risk of there being some kind of breach
Speaker 3: that makes that information public despite the company not wanting
Speaker 3: to be public. And it's also at risk if there's
Speaker 3: like a change in ownership and a change of privacy policy,
Speaker 3: which seems to be the situation here.
Speaker 1: It's funny to hear you say this because just before
Speaker 1: we were talking, you were annoyed and I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: what's going on. You were like, Oh, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: track a package that I bought, but it wants me
Speaker 1: to shine up sign up for Shop to do that,
Speaker 1: and I have to give shop this shop app access
Speaker 1: to all my emails.
Speaker 4: And I was like, oh, I use Shop all the time.
Speaker 1: And you were like, it doesn't concern you, Like you
Speaker 1: don't give your information to anybody.
Speaker 3: No, I really try to jealously protect my privacy. I
Speaker 3: think we all have an obligation to you occasionally inconvenience
Speaker 3: ourselves to jealously protect our privacy against the constant encroachment
Speaker 3: of tech companies that want all of our data. And yeah,
Speaker 3: I wasn't going to bring it up, but since you've
Speaker 3: brought it up, I'll go down this tangent that I
Speaker 3: was so annoyed at shop this morning. Generally I find
Speaker 3: shop like fairly convenient to use. They do a good
Speaker 3: job tracking packages when I'm buying from some kind of retailer.
Speaker 3: But the limitation that drives me up the wall is
Speaker 3: that so like earlier this week, I ordered two different
Speaker 3: packages from two different retailers. They're both being delivered and
Speaker 3: tracked by Shop Okay, I got a text message notification
Speaker 3: that says like, Hey, your package is being delivered today.
Speaker 3: I was curious which of my two items was it
Speaker 3: going to be. I can't know that without using the
Speaker 3: Shop app. There's no way to do it through the web.
Speaker 3: There's no way to do it unless I install the
Speaker 3: Shop app on my phone. I was surprised that I
Speaker 3: didn't have the Shop app on my phone, so I
Speaker 3: went to install it, and then remember that I had
Speaker 3: been here before and the app will not install proper. Really,
Speaker 3: unless I give it access to read all of my emails.
Speaker 3: Why in the world do they need to read all
Speaker 3: of my emails? Not okay, and I'm not going to
Speaker 3: do it. And you know, I looked on Reddit and
Speaker 3: people were complaining about this, and one of the top
Speaker 3: comments was like, oh, just read their privacy policy. They're
Speaker 3: you know, they're not going to do anything with your data.
Speaker 3: They just have They just want to help you. That's
Speaker 3: the stupidest take I've read all day, right, Like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm just going to trust this online retailer with you know,
Speaker 3: all of my personal the contents of all of my
Speaker 3: personal emails.
Speaker 2: Uh, what could they possibly want with that? Right?
Speaker 3: An online retailer that is into like trying to get
Speaker 3: me to buy more things I couldn't imagine. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: tangent ended. But I'm glad that I had the opportunity
Speaker 3: to connect it to this story, because you know, once
Speaker 3: your information is out there, it's out there.
Speaker 7: Let's take a quick break that are back.
Speaker 1: Well, So the thing that really worries me about the
Speaker 1: glassdoor situation is that I think I have to imagine
Speaker 1: that it's going to be a lot of traditionally marginalized
Speaker 1: people who are going to suffer if this is just
Speaker 1: how glass Door functions from now on, right, I can
Speaker 1: imagine that it is women, trans folks, queer folks, people
Speaker 1: of color who are raising the alarm about things like
Speaker 1: racial or gender discrimination or like sexual harassment. And I
Speaker 1: can't help but understanding this story against this creep toward
Speaker 1: not being able to use forums that were previously available
Speaker 1: to you to privately raise the alarms about concerns. You know,
Speaker 1: especially given that we're seeing more and more are people
Speaker 1: who do speak up about you know, wrongdoing facing things
Speaker 1: like defamation lawsuits for doing so. It's you know, we're
Speaker 1: not just talking about people who are complaining about their
Speaker 1: boss's coffee breath or whatever. It is people who a
Speaker 1: lot of times are raising serious alarms or serious concerns
Speaker 1: in a forum that one might think would be anonymous
Speaker 1: or private for them to do so safely. And so
Speaker 1: I really can't help but see the story against that
Speaker 1: backdrop of like, well, shoot, like, are people going to
Speaker 1: be able to use glass door safely to report genuine,
Speaker 1: real concerns?
Speaker 2: That's my question, Yeah mine too.
Speaker 3: This story like really surprised me and makes me a
Speaker 3: little bit sad because I view Glassdoor as a very
Speaker 3: valuable resource and historically a very good actor towards transferring
Speaker 3: some power back to workers to somewhat reduce the massive
Speaker 3: asymmeagery between workers and people who own companies and employ them. Historically,
Speaker 3: they've been pretty good about this stuff, and so this
Speaker 3: feels really out of character, really disappointing, and I think
Speaker 3: it'll it just happened like pretty recently. I think this story,
Speaker 3: we'll link it to it in the show notes. But
Speaker 3: it was just published yesterday, and I thought, surely Glassdoor
Speaker 3: is going to put out a statement saying that this
Speaker 3: was a mistake. They haven't done that yet, And what
Speaker 3: little they said in quotes to that Ours Technica Reporter
Speaker 3: was pretty unsatisfying. They really seem to say that there
Speaker 3: wasn't an issue here. But then there's also a bunch
Speaker 3: of articles across the internet from other publications, and like
Speaker 3: some big ones like NPR really amplifying this story and
Speaker 3: this concern in ways that are very unflattering for glass Door.
Speaker 3: So I'm maating hopeful that they will recognize what a
Speaker 3: catastrophic misstep this is for their product that really depends
Speaker 3: on anonymity, that they will take some corrective action to
Speaker 3: reassure people that, like Glassdoor is still a place where
Speaker 3: you can post anonymous reviews that will truly be anonymous,
Speaker 3: because without that, like what even is it?
Speaker 1: Well, speaking of missteps and hopeful corrections on them, let's
Speaker 1: talk about the dating app Bumble. So y'all might remember
Speaker 1: that a lot of tech companies were relocating from San
Speaker 1: Francisco or like other places in California, to Texas. Specifically,
Speaker 1: a lot of them are relocating to Austin. Well, that
Speaker 1: is maybe not working out for a whole host of reasons,
Speaker 1: but one of those reasons is Texas's restrictive abortion laws. So,
Speaker 1: at a panel at south By Southwest, ironically held in Austin,
Speaker 1: the council for the dating app Bumble that is sort
Speaker 1: of supposed to be like a more woman focused dating app,
Speaker 1: revealed that the company has lost a third of its
Speaker 1: Texas workforce in the month since the state passed horribly
Speaker 1: restrictive abortion laws known as SB eight sometimes called the
Speaker 1: Texas Heartbeat Act, over a year ago. Because of these
Speaker 1: very extremist laws that are completely out of step with
Speaker 1: what the majority of the country wants, Bumble it no
Speaker 1: longer requires people to work at their Austin headquarters. Bumble
Speaker 1: actually became the first company to join an amarchist brief
Speaker 1: in support of a lawsuit against the Texas abortion law
Speaker 1: filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights. So I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about this for a couple of reasons. One
Speaker 1: because I think it's really important to highlight the very
Speaker 1: real risk that laws like this poth to people who
Speaker 1: are pregnant or the people who support people who are pregnant. However,
Speaker 1: this also highlights the business rambifications of extremist abortion laws
Speaker 1: as well. The chief council for Bumble said, we were
Speaker 1: looking at the lens and what we are putting forth
Speaker 1: in the brief was talking about the increased cost to
Speaker 1: us to attract and retain talent in Texas, the increased
Speaker 1: costs for us to provide healthcare benefits to our employees.
Speaker 1: We've found that because of our position, having been founded
Speaker 1: with women at the forefront from the beginning and having
Speaker 1: that voice and that legitimacy to begin with, we could
Speaker 1: combine that with this very business centric art and help
Speaker 1: support that case. This actually led to a bunch of
Speaker 1: businesses from all over Texas signing on to this anarchist brief,
Speaker 1: pointing out that these kind of extremists abortion laws really
Speaker 1: do put their business in jeopardy by making it harder
Speaker 1: to recruit top talent. Bumble specifically said that they had
Speaker 1: started to offer like an enhanced health care coverage that
Speaker 1: includes things like gender affirming care and IVF because those
Speaker 1: kinds of healthcare have been threatened in the state. Although,
Speaker 1: like part of me wonders, you know, it's good to
Speaker 1: have that coverage included, but if that kind of healthcare
Speaker 1: is illegal, you can't access it in Texas. It does
Speaker 1: kind of seem like a moot point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 3: I yeah, I'm curious about that, but I don't know
Speaker 3: anything about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But overall, I mean, I do think that of
Speaker 1: all the different avenuess to be talking about how restrictive
Speaker 1: abortion laws impact people negatively, I do think I want
Speaker 1: to hear more from the business community, because certainly it
Speaker 1: is an economic issue, not just for the people who
Speaker 1: need abortions, for the people who do any kind of
Speaker 1: business all over the country, in addition to being a
Speaker 1: reproductive health issue. And so I do want to see
Speaker 1: more businesses, particularly businesses who are you know, are about,
Speaker 1: you know, sticking up with women, sticking up with marginalized people.
Speaker 1: I want I want to see more of these businesses
Speaker 1: weighing in as we go into this more and more extremist,
Speaker 1: restrictive climate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be great.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's so many reasons why giving people reproductive
Speaker 3: freedom and allowing them to make their own medical choices
Speaker 3: is like a win win for society, right, like, not
Speaker 3: just businesses, but also in terms of like the huge
Speaker 3: costs of unwanted pregnancies right like to individuals, to healthcare systems,
Speaker 3: UH to social services for years and years.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: To that end, we have to talk about the growth
Speaker 1: in misinformation swirling around social media around birth control. So
Speaker 1: there was this new very detailed report by the Washington
Speaker 1: Post about how social media platforms are awash in medically
Speaker 1: inaccurate content about birth control and how it is leading
Speaker 1: to real world consequences. You should definitely read the entire thing.
Speaker 1: It is very detailed. We'll put it in the show notes.
Speaker 1: But basically, you have these like health influencers I'm using
Speaker 1: that in heavy scare quotes, and also right wing extremists
Speaker 1: really trying to scare people into thinking that birth control
Speaker 1: is dangerous.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Birth control, like any other medication, does have side effects.
Speaker 1: In rare cases, it can cause things like blood clots.
Speaker 4: That is real.
Speaker 1: But these people are not trying to foster fact based
Speaker 1: conversations about the real concerns around birth control. They're saying
Speaker 1: nonsense like, oh, birth control, if you take it, it
Speaker 1: will change your entire personality, it will change the kind
Speaker 1: of people that you are sexually attracted to. Things that
Speaker 1: are just fear mongering and nonsense. So you have these
Speaker 1: health influencers suggesting natural forms of non hormonal birth control,
Speaker 1: like only having sex on your period, which by the way,
Speaker 1: does not work. And this is all particularly fraught given
Speaker 1: how restrictive abortion access is in this country right now
Speaker 1: and how criminalized it is. So you have people with
Speaker 1: these big platforms essentially suggesting people stop using birth control
Speaker 1: and instead only have sex on their periods, a like
Speaker 1: a method that is known for unintended pregnancies in a
Speaker 1: country where you cannot easily access abortion care if you
Speaker 1: need it, or can be criminalized and sent to prison
Speaker 1: for doing so. So this is really one of those
Speaker 1: issues where you can see how tech issues and social
Speaker 1: media platform issues are also reproductive rights issues and gender issues.
Speaker 1: Doctors are saying that they're seeing an explosion of birth
Speaker 1: control misinformation online target a very vulnerable demographic, people in
Speaker 1: their teens and early twenties, who are more likely to
Speaker 1: believe what they see on their phones because of algorithms
Speaker 1: that feed them a stream of videos reinforcing messages often
Speaker 1: divorced from scientific evidence. While doctors say hormonal contraception is
Speaker 1: safe and effective, they worry about the profession's long standing
Speaker 1: lack of transparency and some of the serious but rare
Speaker 1: side effects that have left many patients seeking information from
Speaker 1: unqualified online communities. So I have actually personally seen a
Speaker 1: lot of this on social media. I'm sad to say
Speaker 1: I just like most abortion advocates told us, anti choice
Speaker 1: extremists and people who want to tell other people what
Speaker 1: to do with their own bodies were never going to
Speaker 1: stop at abortion. It was going to be birth control. Weirdly,
Speaker 1: it was also tampons. Like for a while I was
Speaker 1: seeing that bubble up, like right wing extremists basically suggesting
Speaker 1: that having tampons in school bathrooms meant that teachers and
Speaker 1: schools were like sexually abusing young people. Because like I
Speaker 1: remember seeing this post that was someone being like, as
Speaker 1: a father, it should be up to me whether or
Speaker 1: not my daughter uses a tampon, and if a school
Speaker 1: should have no say and whether or not my daughter
Speaker 1: uses a tampon. He was like angry that the school
Speaker 1: was providing tampons in the watchrooms. So anybody watching this
Speaker 1: could have told you it was not going to stop
Speaker 1: with abortion. It was going to be all of these
Speaker 1: different things that pertain to reproductive health being demonized. So
Speaker 1: this backlash to birth control really comes at a time
Speaker 1: where we see this rampant misinformation about basic health combined
Speaker 1: with really really poor digital literacy, and this wider political
Speaker 1: debate around reproductive rights in which far right conservatives argue
Speaker 1: that the broad acceptance of birth control has altered tradition
Speaker 1: roles and weaken the family. And so if you're wondering,
Speaker 1: like what does Ben Shapiro or Candace Owen care whether
Speaker 1: or not I use birth control, that sort of their
Speaker 1: ultimate point is that birth control is changing gender roles,
Speaker 1: is changing how we think of traditional families, and therefore
Speaker 1: it's bad. So in a Daily Wire video, Candace Owens
Speaker 1: denounced birth controls and iud's as quote unnatural saying she
Speaker 1: is a big advocate of getting women to realize this
Speaker 1: stuff is not normal. She also says that her viewers
Speaker 1: told her that IUDs can harm fertility, which medical experts
Speaker 1: agree there is no evidence that birth control impacts long
Speaker 1: term fertility, so that's just not true. Also, she's kind
Speaker 1: of doing a little bit of an Elon musk thing.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you watched any of that Elon
Speaker 1: musk Uh interview with Don Lemon, where Don Lemon is like,
Speaker 1: what evidence do you have that pilot that black pilots
Speaker 1: are being held to lower standards? And he's like, well,
Speaker 1: people on Twitter say that all the time, and it's like, no,
Speaker 1: that doesn't make it true. I feel like Candice Owens,
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, well, people are saying that iud's cause
Speaker 1: long term fertility issues, and it's like, it doesn't that
Speaker 1: does it? Just because you read it on the internet
Speaker 1: doesn't make it true. Ben Shapiro, noted reproductive health expert
Speaker 1: not really. He claims that birth control makes women attracted
Speaker 1: to less manly, less masculine men, like these.
Speaker 4: People are just so fucking stupid.
Speaker 1: Like part of me is like like what even what
Speaker 1: point is there even I don't. Obviously that's not true,
Speaker 1: and I don't even I don't even have a little
Speaker 1: joke to make. It's just such a ridiculous point that
Speaker 1: I can't believe that somebody with a massive platform is
Speaker 1: allowed to just go on TV, go on their platform
Speaker 1: spread dangerous falsehoods that are not just untrue but also silly.
Speaker 3: Many of these people who are like railing against birth control,
Speaker 3: it's not like they have families of like twenty kids, right,
Speaker 3: Like a lot of these political commentators, I have pretty
Speaker 3: small families, and one has to imagine that that has
Speaker 3: helped them in their professional careers to achieve the massive
Speaker 3: platforms that they have. Are we supposed to believe that
Speaker 3: none of them have used birth control?
Speaker 1: Well, the thing with Candice Owen is she's a liar
Speaker 1: and a grifter and a scammer baby like she does
Speaker 1: not she'll say anything about anybody does not like this.
Speaker 4: It's not work that to.
Speaker 1: Try to hold her to any kind of a standard
Speaker 1: that makes sense.
Speaker 4: That it's not what she is about.
Speaker 1: And I would say, like publicly, this is not what
Speaker 1: she don't don't think I think that she would agree
Speaker 1: that's not what she's about. Like she says things about
Speaker 1: how women shouldn't work. How when she gets on a
Speaker 1: plane and she sees a woman pilot, she thinks, oh, no,
Speaker 1: we're going to die today.
Speaker 4: Baby.
Speaker 1: You have a job, you have a career. You are
Speaker 1: a woman who works. You are a working mom. So
Speaker 1: when you go on TV and you go on your
Speaker 1: little podcast and you demonize working moms, look at a mirror,
Speaker 1: because you are a mom with a job, You make
Speaker 1: a ton of money, you go to work every day.
Speaker 4: I don't want to hear it.
Speaker 1: Obviously, if you are a person of reproductive age who
Speaker 1: is building a career, you have probably used worth control
Speaker 1: at some point to buttress that career and to have
Speaker 1: control over your life.
Speaker 4: And more power to you.
Speaker 1: You should everybody should be able to make health residence
Speaker 1: for themselves. However, Candice omens she just says whatever, like
Speaker 1: and so when it comes to her, especially, I don't
Speaker 1: think it's worth trying to make heads or tails of
Speaker 1: what she's saying, because she'll say anything for a check.
Speaker 4: She's like Mia off a Real Housewives of Potomac. She'll
Speaker 4: say whatever. If you don't watch Potomac, Mia lies, That's
Speaker 4: my point.
Speaker 2: Mia, just catch it straight. Doesn't you have enough problems
Speaker 2: right now?
Speaker 1: She does, She does, I should lay off Mia and
Speaker 1: also Mia, there's a whole other topic, but Mia has
Speaker 1: kind of like become my fan favorite.
Speaker 4: So even though she's a liar.
Speaker 1: So Washington Post spoke to Brittany Martinez is the founder
Speaker 1: of ev Magazine, which you can kind of think of
Speaker 1: as like a right wing Cosmo, and she said in
Speaker 1: an email to the Post that her outlet's work has
Speaker 1: made questioning birth control mainstream, saying women have been silenced
Speaker 1: and shamed by legacy media, the pharmaceutical industry, and then
Speaker 1: many cases about their own doctors who have guessed lit
Speaker 1: them about their.
Speaker 4: Experiences with hermonal birth control.
Speaker 1: So this comment, to me, really illustrates nicely how bad
Speaker 1: actors like this work, right. They seize on the very
Speaker 1: real and very legitimate anxieties or fears or baggage that
Speaker 1: marginalized people have. She is right up until a point
Speaker 1: that women really have been like silenced and ignored about
Speaker 1: our medical issues by doctors and a pharmaceutical industry that
Speaker 1: do not often seem to really care about our pain,
Speaker 1: about our health, about our bodies.
Speaker 4: So that part is true.
Speaker 1: But where she fucks up is that she then cruelly
Speaker 1: exploits these anxieties and these very real tensions and baggage
Speaker 1: that we have to push her own dangerous agenda. And
Speaker 1: that is something we see time and time again with
Speaker 1: bad actors and extremists like this. Something else this report
Speaker 1: points out is how these bad actors are exploiting racialized
Speaker 1: and gendered fears and anxieties around medical information to further
Speaker 1: push harmful and accurate information about birth control. The report reads,
Speaker 1: women of color, whose communities have historically been exploited by
Speaker 1: the medical establishment may be particularly vulnerable to misinformation given
Speaker 1: the long history of mistrust around birth control in this country.
Speaker 1: That's from Kimberly Baker, an assistant professor at ut Health
Speaker 1: Houston School of Public Health. For sterilization of tens of
Speaker 1: thousands of primarily black, Latina and Indigenous women happened under
Speaker 1: the US government programs in the twentieth century. That's another
Speaker 1: huge reason why these negative videos around birth control get
Speaker 1: a lot of fanfare, because there's already stigma attached to it,
Speaker 1: and that's deeped in our history. And so you really
Speaker 1: do see these bad actors cruelly and callously picking at
Speaker 1: and exploiting these very real traumas that our communities have
Speaker 1: been carrying around for decades for real reasons, and exploiting it.
Speaker 1: And sometimes they're exploiting people and their anxieties and baggage
Speaker 1: and trauma for money.
Speaker 4: Like a lot of.
Speaker 1: These people when they're like like health influencers in quotes,
Speaker 1: they'll be talking about how birth control is unnatural or dangerous,
Speaker 1: and then you go to their page and they're selling
Speaker 1: some kind of a hormonal supplement or hormonal coaching something
Speaker 1: that is just like BS And so they're scaring people
Speaker 1: in order to scam them, and they have a financial
Speaker 1: incentive to do so. And honestly, doctors are already seeing
Speaker 1: the irl impact. The reports talks about how doctors are
Speaker 1: seeing more and more people come into their offices asking
Speaker 1: about something related to birth control that they saw on TikTok.
Speaker 1: One doctor says, people are putting themselves out there experts
Speaker 1: on birth control and speaking to things that the science
Speaker 1: does not bear out. I'm seeing the direct failures of
Speaker 1: this misinformation. He says that women frequently come into his
Speaker 1: office for abortions after believing what they saw on social
Speaker 1: media about the dangers of hormonal birth control and the
Speaker 1: effectiveness of tracking periods to prevent pregnancy. Many of these
Speaker 1: patients have traveled from states that have completely or partially
Speaker 1: banned abortions, such as Texas, Idaho, Georgia, North Carolina, and
Speaker 1: South Carolina. And we really can't even have this conversation
Speaker 1: without talking about how it is supported by algorithms, because
Speaker 1: algorithms really, I mean, if you've ever scrolled on TikTok,
Speaker 1: you probably know what I'm talking about. It really supports
Speaker 1: people to be surfaced information that is similar or somatically
Speaker 1: similar to what they just watched, right, And so rather
Speaker 1: than giving them some sort of an alternate viewpoint, it
Speaker 1: just completely builds up this rabbit hole and buries them
Speaker 1: in it. A twenty year old college student who went
Speaker 1: down an algorithmically supported rabbit hole on birth control misinformation
Speaker 1: said it created the sense of fear that if I
Speaker 1: ever needed to be put on birth control, I would
Speaker 1: become a completely different person. I would gain a bunch
Speaker 1: of weight, and my life would be over. I was like, well,
Speaker 1: obviously this is true. This applies to everybody because it's
Speaker 1: the only thing I'm seeing. So I do think that
Speaker 1: platforms bear some responsibility here to make sure that the
Speaker 1: people that use their platforms are not just being sent
Speaker 1: down more and more extremist, dangerous rabbit holes when it
Speaker 1: comes to something as important as their reproductive health.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sure would be nice.
Speaker 1: And I do think that, like this is related to
Speaker 1: something I feel I've seen more and more where people
Speaker 1: I just feel like there is a subset of people
Speaker 1: who will believe absolutely anything they see on TikTok.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think that's probably right, and I don't think it's
Speaker 3: limited to TikTok. We've talked about this a lot, but
Speaker 3: and definitely digital literacy is a big thing. But I think,
Speaker 3: you know, we should be you really careful not to
Speaker 3: put it on the people who are you know, digitally
Speaker 3: illiterate and being swayed by this information and keep the
Speaker 3: focus on the people who are pushing it. Like so, I,
Speaker 3: you know, saw that we were going to talk about
Speaker 3: this today, and I had this big question, like who
Speaker 3: are these people and what is their motivation for pushing
Speaker 3: this misinformation? Right? We talked about misinformation on this show
Speaker 3: a lot, you know, like political misinformation or disingenuous accounts
Speaker 3: that are trying to create racial disharmonies. To like destabilize things.
Speaker 3: But this one really like got me. It's like, what
Speaker 3: sort of monster would push anti birth control information?
Speaker 2: And why?
Speaker 3: And you know, I guess you provided a couple of
Speaker 3: pretty good explanations here. The just like the engagement farming
Speaker 3: of it, it gets.
Speaker 1: It gets engagement and people who have a financial investment
Speaker 1: in it. So if I'm selling hormonal supplements and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: hormonal birth control is bad. If you hate it, you've
Speaker 1: ruined your your hormonal system. But if you buy my pills,
Speaker 1: we can get this back on track.
Speaker 2: Money please, Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then also the it connects to stuff we talked
Speaker 3: about before. It feels like there's a big effort, largely
Speaker 3: on the right, but not limited to the right, to
Speaker 3: just discredit the medical and scientific community in general and
Speaker 3: just destroy the idea of expertise and promote the idea
Speaker 3: that every influencer can be their own expert and do
Speaker 3: their own research.
Speaker 5: More after a quick break, let's get right back into it.
Speaker 1: Well, the piece really does a good job of speaking
Speaker 1: to doctors who are looking inward at the medical profession
Speaker 1: and wondering like, have we created this problem by failing
Speaker 1: to have transparency and failing to make patients, many of
Speaker 1: whom are women, feel like we are adequately listening to
Speaker 1: them and answering their questions are And I would argue that,
Speaker 1: like typically speaking, when you have some sort of dynamic
Speaker 1: like this where bad actors and bs influencers and grifters
Speaker 1: are able to really take up a lot of space,
Speaker 1: there is some like institutional failing that has allowed those
Speaker 1: people to take up so much space in a conversation.
Speaker 1: And I think that's really what we're seeing, Like people
Speaker 1: women when it comes to reproductive health, women have historically
Speaker 1: not really been listened to. There's an entire legacy and
Speaker 1: history of the medical community not listening to and not
Speaker 1: thinking seriously the pain and issues of women. And you know,
Speaker 1: we also live in a world where any healthcare that
Speaker 1: is about people who are not cisgendered men. So when
Speaker 1: it comes to queer people or trans people that I
Speaker 1: think that that is like inherently othered. And so I
Speaker 1: think that these doctors are not wrong to be like, well,
Speaker 1: in what ways have we really failed the people who
Speaker 1: come to us looking for care that allows for grifters
Speaker 1: and extremists to take over the conversation and for that
Speaker 1: to feel like something that is actually accurate. But I
Speaker 1: do think that you're right that there is this larger
Speaker 1: demonization of expertise and medical professionals and people who know
Speaker 1: what they're talking about. That report talked to this, I guess,
Speaker 1: like some sort of hormonal influencer who had her content
Speaker 1: taken down from TikTok for being medical misinformation, and she
Speaker 1: was like, oh, well, I actually think it's fine to
Speaker 1: take it down because I think that people should be
Speaker 1: doing their own research. And it's like, well, yes, but
Speaker 1: if you're not a doctor, doing your own research into
Speaker 1: medical information is kind of a tall order, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I'm not a doctor. I would not pretend to be
Speaker 1: able to make heads or tails of medical research. And
Speaker 1: so it's really cunning how they put it back on
Speaker 1: people to really further eroad trust in the medical profession
Speaker 1: more generally. And I think you're right that we should
Speaker 1: not be demonizing people who fall for this, because I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people when you're in a place
Speaker 1: where you've just been consuming a lot of information that
Speaker 1: is really scary, and you're already in a mental or
Speaker 1: emotional place where you're not feeling heard, not feeling supported,
Speaker 1: you're looking for alternative avenues for information out there. I
Speaker 1: think that it can put anybody in a place where
Speaker 1: they're more receptive to these kinds of grifters and extremists, right,
Speaker 1: And it is being buttressed by an incredibly powerful algorithm
Speaker 1: that is like pushing you toward that conclusion. Right, So
Speaker 1: it's you you're not it's it's not just you're stupid
Speaker 1: and gullible. There are forces that are pushing you toward it,
Speaker 1: and we should be honest about that. But like, I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't like to talk about my own health and
Speaker 1: body stuff on the podcast because I just think it's
Speaker 1: your people's health is so specific and unique to them
Speaker 1: and so personal to them. But like as some of
Speaker 1: y'all who know me in real life, no, like I
Speaker 1: had a pretty tough go of it with COVID, and
Speaker 1: I got COVID multiple times, and I got it one
Speaker 1: time that was so bad that it really like it
Speaker 1: just really like knock the wind out of my sales
Speaker 1: for a very long time, right, And so like long,
Speaker 1: COVID is one of those things that I do think
Speaker 1: that like I've gleaned that it's not the kind of
Speaker 1: thing that people want to hear about and so it's
Speaker 1: this kind of thing that you're like often dealing with
Speaker 1: in a way that feels very isolated, because it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, you're dealing with the symptoms, and you're dealing
Speaker 1: with the fatigue, and you're dealing with the brain. But
Speaker 1: then you've gleaned that people don't really want to hear
Speaker 1: you complain about it, so then you're dealing with all
Speaker 1: of that alone.
Speaker 4: And when you're dealing.
Speaker 1: With stuff alone, it pushes you to the Internet, which
Speaker 1: then algorithmically supports you to fall down rabbit holes that
Speaker 1: are not necessarily good for you and also happen to
Speaker 1: be inclusive of people who are trying to make a
Speaker 1: quick buck off of your issue, off of your isolation,
Speaker 1: off of your anxieties. And so I know, I am
Speaker 1: somebody who talks about this for a living, and even
Speaker 1: I got pretty wrapped up in taking advice like wellness
Speaker 1: and health advice from Randos on TikTok right, And so
Speaker 1: I started like, because I felt so crummy, and because
Speaker 1: I was so isolated in feeling crummy, it really did
Speaker 1: lead me to like using social media to figure out
Speaker 1: what was going on and figure out how I might
Speaker 1: be better. So I started taking supplements that like randos
Speaker 1: are suggesting you take on social media in a kind
Speaker 1: of a low dark moment. Then I'm like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: maybe it's time for a blood to I go to
Speaker 1: a doctor, I get a blood test. The doctor is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: whatever supplements you're on, stop taking them. They're not They're
Speaker 1: like not doing anything for you, and they're actually making
Speaker 1: your health worse. And so I don't feel good sharing that.
Speaker 1: But I look back on that and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was at a low moment when I didn't feel
Speaker 1: like I had a lot of support and I didn't
Speaker 1: feel like I could really talk about what I was experiencing,
Speaker 1: but was desperate for a quick fix. And it got
Speaker 1: me right. The algorithms are powerful. The algorithms get you.
Speaker 1: You see somebody on TikTok who looks like they have
Speaker 1: their shit together, who like is presenting a kind of
Speaker 1: a life or a version of yourself that you are
Speaker 1: that you see something in and you're like, oh, I
Speaker 1: want that to be me. Next thing, you know, you're
Speaker 1: buying supplements and don't even fucking regulate it, And so
Speaker 1: I just think that like nobody should be getting take
Speaker 1: it from me. Somebody who had to see a real
Speaker 1: doctor to straighten that out. Don't get your health or
Speaker 1: medical advice from some rando on TikTok who might not
Speaker 1: even have any actual qualifications or also might have an
Speaker 1: agenda that is actually harmful to you. These people are scammers,
Speaker 1: They are grifters. They are making money from your isolation,
Speaker 1: from your fear, from your concern, from your worry, from
Speaker 1: your late nights. The most radical thing we can do
Speaker 1: is break that system that tells us that these people
Speaker 1: know what we need. I know it is tough, I
Speaker 1: know that we are silenced. I know that we're not
Speaker 1: listened to. But like forking your money over to a
Speaker 1: grifter is never the answer. And so back to what's
Speaker 1: happening with these birth control grifters. None of this stuff
Speaker 1: is happening in a vacuum because we are already seeing
Speaker 1: legislation trying to limit access to birth control. These influencers,
Speaker 1: their messaging really helps drive this legislation limiting access to
Speaker 1: hormonal birth control. This is from Amanda Stevenson, a sociologist, demographer,
Speaker 1: and assistant professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder
Speaker 1: who is studying how anti abortion activists and lawmakers are
Speaker 1: trying to restrict birth control already. Republican legislators in Missouri
Speaker 1: have tried all yet unsuccessfully, to stop the state's medicaid
Speaker 1: program from covering iud's and emergency contraceptives. A panel of
Speaker 1: the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit this
Speaker 1: month upheld a Texas law requiring minders to obtain parental
Speaker 1: permission before accessing birth control. So all of this is
Speaker 1: sort of like working together, right, these grifters and influencers
Speaker 1: using social media to drum up fear about birth control
Speaker 1: and anxiety about birth control as harmful, and then right
Speaker 1: wing lawmakers passing legislation to then limit and legislate birth
Speaker 1: control more harshly.
Speaker 4: It's a real clusterfuck.
Speaker 1: So, speaking of clusterfucks, Mike, do you ever hear one
Speaker 1: of those stories that it sounds like was made in
Speaker 1: a lab to bother you?
Speaker 4: Specifically?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it happens all the time, every day.
Speaker 4: So this is one of those stories for me.
Speaker 1: Sixty years after her death, we have the invention of
Speaker 1: Digital Maryland, an AI facilitated Lyn Monroe chatbot. I guess
Speaker 1: that answers questions in Maryland's style and voice. Here's Digital
Speaker 1: Maryland in her own words.
Speaker 4: Hi, darlings, I'm Digital Maryland. Come visit me at Soul Machines.
Speaker 7: It'll be such fun.
Speaker 1: I hate it. I hate everything about it. I hate
Speaker 1: the way she speaks, I hate the whole idea.
Speaker 4: Hate it. Thumbs down zero out of ten.
Speaker 1: So Digital Maryland was revealed at south By Southwest and
Speaker 1: is the brainchild of Soul Machines, which is a company
Speaker 1: that creates what it calls biological AI powered digital people
Speaker 1: and Authentic Brands Group, which is a company that acquired
Speaker 1: the rights to Marilyn Monroe's intellectual property back in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: Sole Machine set in a blog post it's as if
Speaker 1: the spark of Maryland herself has been translated into the
Speaker 1: AI age.
Speaker 2: Yikes. So how does this work? Well?
Speaker 1: According to Deadline, Digital Maryland can interact in real time
Speaker 1: using advanced natural language processing deep learning and open ais
Speaker 1: chat GPT three point five, which means it is another
Speaker 1: step forward in extending the ability to monetize celebrities even
Speaker 1: after their death.
Speaker 4: So we talked about this.
Speaker 1: A little bit in the episode that we did about
Speaker 1: the Whitney Houston hologram and her residency in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: But Soul Machines is clear that this is another step
Speaker 1: forward in terms of celebrities or their like AI likeness
Speaker 1: being able to connect with consumers on behalf of brands.
Speaker 1: They say this collaboration exemplifies the transformative power of AI
Speaker 1: in connecting brands and consumers. Digital Maryland showcases our biological
Speaker 1: AI bringing an iconic personality to life through engaging dialogues
Speaker 1: and emotional intelligence. It's more than nostalgia. It's a glimpse
Speaker 1: into the future of immersive interactions.
Speaker 2: Oh, Bridget, why do you hate this so much?
Speaker 4: Great question?
Speaker 1: Well, I think part of the reason why I hate
Speaker 1: it so much is the same reason why the Whitney
Speaker 1: Houston hologram I hate that so much. Is because we're
Speaker 1: talking about women who spent their entire lives being exploited
Speaker 1: by men, and that I just see that exploitation continuing
Speaker 1: after their deaths. Like, did you know that Hugh Hefner
Speaker 1: is buried in the burial plot above Marilyn Monroe? He
Speaker 1: bought it after she died because he, as he said, quote,
Speaker 1: spending eternity next to Maryland is an opportunity too sweet
Speaker 1: to pass up.
Speaker 4: This was somebody who.
Speaker 1: Financially and sexually exploited Marilyn Monroe all the time when
Speaker 1: she was still alive, totally cut her out of the
Speaker 1: profits for her own likeness, using his money to basically
Speaker 1: supend eternity on top of her even in death. And
Speaker 1: so I hate that, and I just see this AI
Speaker 1: reimagining of these celebrities as another iteration of that. I
Speaker 1: hate that they have yet another way to flatten out
Speaker 1: these iconic people who lived and existed and were dynamic
Speaker 1: and complicated into these like AI tech enabled caricatures of themselves.
Speaker 4: I find it really gross.
Speaker 1: We've covered this happening on the show before, like that
Speaker 1: George Carlin AI enabled stand up impersonation. The family of
Speaker 1: Robin Williams has also really been clear that they don't
Speaker 1: appreciate AI imitations of his likeness. I just think, you know,
Speaker 1: even though in this situation, this company, it sounds like,
Speaker 1: did purchase the intellectual property of marily Monroe's likeness fair
Speaker 1: and square, I just think that it grosses me out
Speaker 1: to think of a celebrity, especially a woman who was
Speaker 1: exploited for most of her life, having her likeness controlled
Speaker 1: by a group of tech gros who unveil it at
Speaker 1: south By Southwest like a.
Speaker 4: Side show for all eternity.
Speaker 1: I just don't like it, and I think in all
Speaker 1: the different ways that we have seen AI be used,
Speaker 1: it's not lost on me that some of the first
Speaker 1: are how can we use it to exploit women?
Speaker 4: I just don't like it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it does feel gross. I guess it's not
Speaker 3: surprising the tests were ah got started?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yup, yuck is right. But you know what, I
Speaker 4: don't hate?
Speaker 1: What's that breaking down all of these internet and tech
Speaker 1: stories with you?
Speaker 7: Mike.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, Bridget.
Speaker 1: And thanks to all of you for listening. I will
Speaker 1: see you on the Internet. If you're looking for ways
Speaker 1: to support the show, check out our merch store at
Speaker 1: tangoti dot com slash store. Got a story about an
Speaker 1: interesting thing in tech, or just want to say hi?
Speaker 1: You can reach us at Hello at teangody dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also find transcripts for today's episode at TENG
Speaker 1: Goody dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet
Speaker 1: was created by me Bridget Todd. It's a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Unboss Creative, edited by Joey Pat Jonathan Strickland
Speaker 1: is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and
Speaker 1: sound engineer. Michael Almada is our contributing producer. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate
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Speaker 1: check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
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Speaker 7: Have to w