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. I am
Speaker 1: here as always with my producer Mike.
Speaker 2: Mike, how are you doing tonight?
Speaker 3: I'm doing well, Bridget. Thanks for having me back.
Speaker 1: It is nice to see you as always. And here's
Speaker 1: what you may have missed this week on the internet.
Speaker 1: So are y'all still using Threads.
Speaker 2: If you are, there's a chance that you.
Speaker 1: Might actually be there alone because after resurgeon downloads, while
Speaker 1: Twitter was crapping the bed like we told you about
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago, Threads is daily active user count
Speaker 1: dropped from forty nine million to twenty three point six
Speaker 1: million in the span of a week. We're getting this
Speaker 1: information from similar Web, which is a firm that tracks
Speaker 1: web traffic. They're only reporting Android data, but it's pretty
Speaker 1: likely that this is the same across operating systems, and
Speaker 1: it still paints a pretty qual hative picture. Here's what
Speaker 1: they found on its very best day, July seventh, the
Speaker 1: same day that Twitter was announcing rate limits and all
Speaker 1: of that nonsense, Threads had more than forty nine million
Speaker 1: daily active users on Android worldwide. That's about forty five
Speaker 1: percent of the usage of Twitter, which had more than
Speaker 1: one hundred and nine million active Android users that day.
Speaker 1: But by Friday, July fourteenth, Threads was down to twenty
Speaker 1: three point six million active users, or about twenty two.
Speaker 2: Percent of Twitter's audience.
Speaker 1: Usage in the United States, which saw the most activity,
Speaker 1: peaked at about twenty one minutes of engagement with the
Speaker 1: app on July seventh, but by July fourteenth that was
Speaker 1: down to a little over six minutes, so.
Speaker 2: Like, not really a lot of engagement.
Speaker 1: In the first two full days that Threads was generally
Speaker 1: available Thursday and Friday, web traffic to Twitter dot com
Speaker 1: was down five percent compared with the same days of
Speaker 1: the previous week, although traffic bounced back for the most
Speaker 1: recent seven days of data, and it's still down eleven
Speaker 1: percent year over year.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, like, I was pretty skeptical about threads. Mike,
Speaker 2: have you been using it?
Speaker 3: You know, just like everybody else. I checked it out
Speaker 3: when it became available, and it seemed okay. It was
Speaker 3: sort of interesting. It was like a new thing, and
Speaker 3: there were a bunch of people posting it was pretty chaotic.
Speaker 3: I didn't know what it was going to be. There
Speaker 3: were like, like every account that I followed on Instagram
Speaker 3: was suddenly on this totally new platform, and there were
Speaker 3: a bunch of other accounts that I didn't follow. It
Speaker 3: was okay, it was like kind of interesting. I will
Speaker 3: be honest that I haven't really gone back after those
Speaker 3: first initial couple days, so I don't know. I checked
Speaker 3: it out and that was it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I feel similarly.
Speaker 1: I think on the show the last time that we
Speaker 1: talked about it, I was sort of on the fence
Speaker 1: on whether I was going to try it or not.
Speaker 2: I really took issue with the.
Speaker 1: Fact that if you tried it and didn't like it,
Speaker 1: that you had to delete your whole Instagram account in
Speaker 1: order to delete it outright because it's linked to your Instagram.
Speaker 1: So I really took issue with that kind of philosophically,
Speaker 1: but ultimately, I'm only human and I caved and tried it,
Speaker 1: and it just wasn't for me. Maybe it'll change, it
Speaker 1: just wasn't for me, and one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: I think it just like wasn't calling my name. One
Speaker 1: of my favorite tech journalists, Morgan Sung.
Speaker 2: Really hit the nail on the head.
Speaker 1: So Morgan had this really interesting take that really rang
Speaker 1: true for me that Threads will never be the new
Speaker 1: platform where all of us are spending our time because
Speaker 1: it is run by Facebook. And know that it's not
Speaker 1: just because we all hate Mark Zuckerberg, which of course
Speaker 1: we do. It's because Facebook meta has notoriously puritanical policies
Speaker 1: around things like nudity and sexuality.
Speaker 2: More on that in just a moment.
Speaker 1: But it's not a platform where you can really get weird.
Speaker 2: And I think that a big part of what draws.
Speaker 1: People into platforms, What makes platforms a place where it's
Speaker 1: like interesting or exciting to be is weirdos. And part
Speaker 1: of attracting weirdos is kind of having more open policies
Speaker 1: around nudity and sexuality. That's what makes these platforms pop. Threads,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, has this very kind of millennial
Speaker 1: cringe style. Then it's also this very brand safe style,
Speaker 1: like Morgan argues that brand Safe in twenty twenty three
Speaker 1: has become the sort of twenty fourteen BuzzFeed style millennial
Speaker 1: cringe Internet discourse speak. Uh no, shade to anybody who
Speaker 1: uses that, because I certainly was talking like that in
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen on the Internet.
Speaker 2: But when we were all talking like.
Speaker 1: That and saying things like dogg oh and I did
Speaker 1: a thing, brands essentially swooped in and co opted that.
Speaker 1: And so that kind of speaking online is now synonymous
Speaker 1: with brand safe speaking, and Breads is very much a
Speaker 1: place that is about being brand safe. It's one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why on the very first day where people
Speaker 1: were getting on threads, the first people there were representing
Speaker 1: brands and making their little brand safe, brand specific internet jokes.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I just think that it's one of the reasons.
Speaker 1: Why it doesn't feel like the platform for me, and
Speaker 1: maybe one of the reasons why it's experiencing a dip
Speaker 1: in usership. And so yeah, it's just like every time
Speaker 1: I log in, it's just brand saying adulting or I
Speaker 1: did a thing. Again, no shade to anybody who speaks
Speaker 1: like that, because that's definitely how I was speaking on
Speaker 1: the Internet circa twenty fourteen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so funny you say that, I'm like so
Speaker 3: curious what millennial cringe speak is. I am not sure,
Speaker 3: and I'm suddenly like hyper aware of everything that I
Speaker 3: might have to say here. But one of the most
Speaker 3: prolific accounts on my thread timeline is shake Shack Like
Speaker 3: Shakeshack was just posting the hell out of threads and
Speaker 3: it was so many, you know, mediocre burger jokes. I
Speaker 3: love Shakeshack by the way, I will eat their burgers,
Speaker 3: but like the jokes were like mediocre. Not once did
Speaker 3: they say that they could as cheeseburger.
Speaker 2: And what a miss layup.
Speaker 3: It was like such a miss you know, like that
Speaker 3: right there, I'm that's probably it. I'm not going back
Speaker 3: to threads.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, no one is going to ever get
Speaker 1: me to say a bad word about Seakshack.
Speaker 2: If Shakeshack is like doing something.
Speaker 1: Problematic, truly, I don't want to know, because that's how
Speaker 1: much I love their burgers.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I think that Morgan Sung might beyondto something about this
Speaker 1: idea of the puritanical anti sexuality, anti sex, un sexy
Speaker 1: vibe over at meta kind of being the thing that
Speaker 1: means that threads will never really take off. More on that,
Speaker 1: because let me ask you something, why if Facebook reject
Speaker 1: adds about women's sexual health, Well, that is exactly what
Speaker 1: a group of Congressional Democrats are urging the Federal Trade
Speaker 1: Commission to look into after a report from the nonprofit
Speaker 1: from the Center for Intimacy Justice found that Meta is
Speaker 1: rejecting sexual health advertisements targeted at women while allowing those
Speaker 1: aimed at men, a possible violation of federal law.
Speaker 2: This does not surprise me.
Speaker 1: Meta is a deeply unsexy company with deeply unsexy policies.
Speaker 2: None of this surprises me.
Speaker 1: According to the Center for Intimacy Justice, their report found
Speaker 1: that of the sixty health businesses studied that serve women's
Speaker 1: health and the health for people of diverse genders, all
Speaker 1: of them all one hundred percent had experienced Facebook rejecting
Speaker 1: an advertisement at some point. Even more concerning, Facebook was
Speaker 1: also found to have suspended half of the survey respondent's
Speaker 1: advertising accounts now Meta flagged these ads as containing adult
Speaker 1: content or promoting adult products and services. Nine months after
Speaker 1: publishing the report, Meta published changes to its sexual health
Speaker 1: advertising policies, newly stating that advertisers can run ads that
Speaker 1: promote sexual health, wellness, and reproductive products and services now.
Speaker 1: In this update, Meta said that they change their rules
Speaker 1: to include more examples of ads that they are saying
Speaker 1: now are allowed, such as products addressing the effects of
Speaker 1: menopause pain relief during sex and sex education. But to
Speaker 1: be clear, it basically sounds like this nonprofit complained and
Speaker 1: pointed it out and only then did it force Meta
Speaker 1: to make this change. And even though Meta made this change,
Speaker 1: the Center for Intimacy Justice is saying that even though
Speaker 1: Meta did change the rules, Meta is still quote persistently
Speaker 1: and systemically rejecting advertisements aimed at women and people of
Speaker 1: underrepresented genders while permitting those targeted toward men. So now
Speaker 1: Senators Hurano, Warren, Klobachar Welch and Representative Adam Shift are
Speaker 1: urging the FTC to force Meta to investigate how algorithmic
Speaker 1: bias in its ads review process maybe can contributing to discrimination,
Speaker 1: and to dedicate more resources and team members to monitoring
Speaker 1: for potential discrepancies.
Speaker 2: This does not surprise me at all.
Speaker 1: I think that we live in a culture that is
Speaker 1: very much like has a double standard around sexuality. U
Speaker 1: metas ads, I'm sorry, they just like do seem to
Speaker 1: be biased toward men's sexuality, which is what Jackie Rotman,
Speaker 1: the head of the Center for Intimacy Justice, says too.
Speaker 1: Rotman says, while mena's rules prohibit ads that promote products
Speaker 1: that focus on sexual pleasure or enhancement, such as sex
Speaker 1: toys or sexual enhancement products.
Speaker 2: They exuplicitly allow ads.
Speaker 1: Promoting sexual and reproductive health or wellness, such as a
Speaker 1: rectile dysfunction products or those that prevent premature ejaculation. Rotman
Speaker 1: goes on to say, we believe that premature ejaculation and
Speaker 1: erectile dysfunction ads should be allowed as an important and
Speaker 1: valuable part of sexual health. But we think that those
Speaker 1: are clearly about pleasure, and that there's a discrepancy and
Speaker 1: just discriminatory aspect how Facebook is writing it's sexual pleasure policy.
Speaker 1: So it just sounds like there is absolutely a double
Speaker 1: standard around how both society and in turn, Facebook are
Speaker 1: regulating whose sexual wellness is acceptable and whose is It
Speaker 1: will actually speak to one of my personal heroes, Cindy
Speaker 1: Gallup of Make Love Not Porn later this season, about
Speaker 1: this very thing about how Facebook and our social media
Speaker 1: landscape more broadly really marginalize any conversation about women's sexuality
Speaker 1: that is related to pleasure.
Speaker 3: There is some irony I think of Facebook, which kind
Speaker 3: of like owns the Internet. They're definitely collecting the most
Speaker 3: rents on the Internet, maybe them or Google, but like
Speaker 3: having this intense gatekeeping against any sort of sexual content,
Speaker 3: even sexual content that many people might agree is like
Speaker 3: healthy sexual content and not necessarily like illicit. So like
Speaker 3: they're sitting on top of the Internet collecting all the rents. Well,
Speaker 3: at the same time, the Internet was like built on
Speaker 3: porn and like perverts and weirdos. I don't know, there's
Speaker 3: something there. I don't know exactly what it is.
Speaker 1: So in addition to Cyndy Gallop's amazing conversation, which I
Speaker 1: can't wait for folks here because she's amazing, we have
Speaker 1: an episode with Vices Samantha Cole, who wrote a book
Speaker 1: about how horn and sexuality built to the Internet. So
Speaker 1: you're exactly right. You'll hear that episode later in the season.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll move it up because it's so timely at
Speaker 1: this point. But yeah, the Internet as an infrastructure would
Speaker 1: not exist if not for sexuality, pornography, sex work, all the.
Speaker 2: Naughty things that we love to explore. And it's interesting
Speaker 2: to me that Facebook is.
Speaker 1: So puritanical, but only as it pertains to policing and
Speaker 1: marginalizing the expression of pleasure and sexuality of women and
Speaker 1: people who are non binary or of diverse genders. If
Speaker 1: it's men talking about erectile dysfunction or premature ejaculation, well
Speaker 1: that's not about sexual pleasure, that's about health. But if
Speaker 1: it's about women or people of diverse genders and how
Speaker 1: we get down, no, no, no, no, that can be marginalized,
Speaker 1: that can be believed.
Speaker 2: Completely agree.
Speaker 1: Cannot wait to have more conversations about this later in
Speaker 1: the season.
Speaker 4: Let's take a quick break center back.
Speaker 1: Speaking of women on the internet, we talked in a
Speaker 1: previous round up about how women make up a big chunk,
Speaker 1: a little more than half of the video game playing community.
Speaker 1: So in that episode, I make the point that video
Speaker 1: game companies really need to catch up and make games
Speaker 1: that represent the reality of their audiences, which are a
Speaker 1: lot of women. And it sounds like EA Sports is
Speaker 1: kind of doing that. They just came out with FC
Speaker 1: twenty four. EA Sports is first post FIFA football game.
Speaker 1: If folks don't know FIFA, like was the game? Like
Speaker 1: many an argument was had in my household about the
Speaker 1: game FIFA. Let's just put it that way. Well, we'll
Speaker 1: leave it at that. FC twenty four lets male and
Speaker 1: female players play with and against each other in Ultimate
Speaker 1: Team mode, which is the game's most popular mode. Now
Speaker 1: IGN reports that within this mode, women players are not
Speaker 1: at a natural disadvantage. If a male and female player
Speaker 1: have the same attributes or stats, the same height, the
Speaker 1: same mass governed by weight, then the outcomes on the
Speaker 1: virtual pitch are exactly the same attributes are relative to
Speaker 1: the competition the player plays in. EA Vice president and
Speaker 1: executive producer John Shepherd told Igan that this mode, and
Speaker 1: sort of like the way that gender is displayed in
Speaker 1: this game, was something that they really had a deep
Speaker 1: think about. He says, we have a vision of connecting
Speaker 1: not just the one hundred and fifty million fans we
Speaker 1: have now, but a billion fans. We want this game
Speaker 1: and this brand, this club, this ecosystem to welcome everybody.
Speaker 1: In terms of our decision around how we're integrating women's
Speaker 1: football into Ultimate Team, we feel really strongly about that.
Speaker 1: He also says that EA as a company is fully
Speaker 1: focused on combating toxicity in gaming and understanding what is
Speaker 1: happening in gameplay in terms of are people being toxic,
Speaker 1: are they harassing women? And that kind of thing. But
Speaker 1: guess who is not happy? Can you guess? Mike dick holes, dickles, Yeah,
Speaker 1: some gamer guys. Honestly, it's probably those very same guys
Speaker 1: who were annoyed about the report about how many women
Speaker 1: are gaming.
Speaker 2: IGN reports that.
Speaker 1: Following the reveal of FC twenty four, some within the
Speaker 1: FIFA community claimed that mixing women and men an Ultimate
Speaker 1: Team was unrealistic and in opposition to what they considered
Speaker 1: quote authentic football simulation. The problem, these dick hole players
Speaker 1: said was that they felt that women would struggle to
Speaker 1: compete with men in real life, so that in the
Speaker 1: gameplay they should also be struggling to compete with men.
Speaker 1: Some men said that women players should be restricted to
Speaker 1: their own modes within Ultimate Team, or suggested that they
Speaker 1: don't want women players an Ultimate Team at all. Some
Speaker 1: even threaten to boycott FC twenty four entirely. Listen, I
Speaker 1: don't play this game, Like I don't. I have not
Speaker 1: played Viva in many years, But it does sound like
Speaker 1: they really thought deeply and intentionally about how male and
Speaker 1: female players would match up against each other in this game.
Speaker 1: According to IGN, in general, FC twenty four's women players
Speaker 1: will probably be shorter and lighter than the male players,
Speaker 1: while stats for both attributes at that gameplay like a
Speaker 1: tall player can reach balls, shorter players cannot, a high
Speaker 1: mass player will out muscle a low mass player, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Women players are expected to hold their own in Ultimate Team.
Speaker 1: As someone from EA put it, it's not just about
Speaker 1: being tall and being strong. The core mess just here.
Speaker 1: If everything is equal, they will play the same way.
Speaker 1: And it kind of reminded me, how did you ever
Speaker 1: play Mario two, that like very weird Mario game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, and we could have a whole show about that.
Speaker 2: When you play Mario two.
Speaker 1: I've always found that Peach the Princess is the best
Speaker 1: player because she's got the skirt, she can float, and so, like,
Speaker 1: you know, all the players. You've got Luigi, you've got Mario,
Speaker 1: You've got Peach, You've got is it the other one,
Speaker 1: the turtlely guy, I can't remember his name, But they
Speaker 1: all have their strength and their weaknesses, and it's not
Speaker 1: like Peach is the worst player. And in fact, I
Speaker 1: believe that Peach is like the best player if you're
Speaker 1: like serious about beating the game, because she can float
Speaker 1: on that skirt. And so I kind of like that
Speaker 1: EA is saying, like, well, it's not just that if
Speaker 1: you're a male player, you're automatically going to be better,
Speaker 1: because that's really not how it works.
Speaker 3: And it's particularly notable that this is the fantasy mode.
Speaker 3: I forget the name of the mode. What do they
Speaker 3: call it? Ultimate Ultimate Team? You know, I don't play
Speaker 3: this game, but I have played played in the past,
Speaker 3: but this Ultimate Team, you know. They EA representatives point
Speaker 3: out that, like, this is a fantasy mode where you
Speaker 3: have women and men players competing against each other in
Speaker 3: these fantasy teams that you can create by combining players
Speaker 3: across teams, much like fantasy football or fantasy baseball or
Speaker 3: you know whatever people want to play. And if you
Speaker 3: want to play the like hyper realistic version where it's
Speaker 3: like the actual team and their roster of twenty twenty
Speaker 3: three versus this other team, you can do that. But
Speaker 3: also there is this other mode that is fantasy. And
Speaker 3: yet the people who are opposed to this and somehow
Speaker 3: are like making themselves vocally known as opposed to a
Speaker 3: video games fantasy mode because that's the important thing in
Speaker 3: their life. Uh, you know, they they can't even entertain
Speaker 3: the idea that in a fantasy scenario, men and women
Speaker 3: would be playing each other. That should really tell you
Speaker 3: something that's such a.
Speaker 1: Good point, and like, it's just fantasy mode, and EA
Speaker 1: points us out if like, nobody is forcing anyone into
Speaker 1: mixed gender gameplay if they don't want to, if that's
Speaker 1: not how they want to play. Because kickoff mode, which
Speaker 1: as you said, represents the real teams or the real
Speaker 1: clubs and does not allow for a player to have
Speaker 1: mixed gender matches, is right there. So if you were like,
Speaker 1: I hate this, you don't have.
Speaker 2: To play it that way.
Speaker 1: A way to play it without mixed gender teams, if
Speaker 1: you like are so limited in your imagination in that way,
Speaker 1: is right there. These are just people who are haters
Speaker 1: to get so mad, and that'd be like, we're gonna
Speaker 1: boycott EA because we don't think women have any place
Speaker 1: in our game. Hello, the fucking US women's national team
Speaker 1: is great, Like, people are excited about women players.
Speaker 2: And if you don't like it, fine, you don't have
Speaker 2: to play it.
Speaker 1: But to make this much of a stink really tells
Speaker 1: you all that you need to know. Speaking of making
Speaker 1: a stink, I got a little bit of a stink
Speaker 1: to make about something.
Speaker 3: You got a yellow card?
Speaker 2: Oh that's good. Look, look who.
Speaker 1: Knows sports references. I don't, so I don't actually even
Speaker 1: get a reference. I've always wanted to be the kind
Speaker 1: of like girl who knows about sports and is like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: the thing, I have no idea, but I'm gonna take
Speaker 1: that as a sports reference and.
Speaker 3: Keep one's a sports reference.
Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about Kemba Walden.
Speaker 1: Kemba Walden is one of the few black women leaders
Speaker 1: in cybersecurity, which, as we know, is a field traditionally
Speaker 1: dominated by white guys. She's been serving as the acting
Speaker 1: White House National Cyber Director since February.
Speaker 2: She's been doing a kick ass job.
Speaker 1: She it's very qualified, she has endorsements from all the
Speaker 1: right people.
Speaker 2: But she was informed this week that her.
Speaker 1: Current role cannot and will not become a permanent one
Speaker 1: within the White House. Why well, because she has personal debt,
Speaker 1: just like most of us do, just like I do,
Speaker 1: just like most people listening do it.
Speaker 2: It's a totally normal thing.
Speaker 1: Even though to be clear, she has personal debt and
Speaker 1: she pays her bills on time. Apparently, people close to
Speaker 1: the matter said that senators would give her a rough
Speaker 1: time during her confirmation process and essentially got her to
Speaker 1: pull out of this process. To become a permanent member
Speaker 1: of the administration before she even started. So Walden and
Speaker 1: her husband are both solidly middle class. Her husband is
Speaker 1: also a public servant, just like she is. He works
Speaker 1: as a lawyer for the Commerce Department. They have two
Speaker 1: little kids who are both in private school, and a mortgage,
Speaker 1: presumably in the Washington DC like DMV area, which is
Speaker 1: very expensive. The Washington Post quoted a family friend saying
Speaker 1: they don't have generational wealth. They've taken on debt to
Speaker 1: put their kids in private school, and most importantly, they
Speaker 1: pay their bills. If the requirement to take a job
Speaker 1: like this is that you have to be independently wealthy,
Speaker 1: then it will be a poor place because you'd be
Speaker 1: cutting out a lot of great talent. So because of
Speaker 1: all this, Walden withdrew from consideration for the nomination for
Speaker 1: this job to become permanent. And that does seem to
Speaker 1: be a little bit out of the ordinary. The Washington
Speaker 1: Post talked to an expert in what they call the
Speaker 1: quote arcane rules and practices of presidential nominee vetting, who
Speaker 1: said that passing over a qualified candidate due to personal
Speaker 1: debt is unusual.
Speaker 2: They said, I've never heard of that one before.
Speaker 1: If she's actually paying the debt or hasn't defaulted on
Speaker 1: the debt, I think it will be very unusual to
Speaker 1: be held up because of that.
Speaker 2: Now I know a little bit.
Speaker 1: About this process and how it works, because I once
Speaker 1: tried and failed. Might I add to get clearance to
Speaker 1: join the bombed administration, I had a job offer. I
Speaker 1: had to go through the vetting process, and I did
Speaker 1: not make it through. It was a whole thing. We
Speaker 1: don't have to get into it now, but it was
Speaker 1: a whole thing. I'll put it that way. So Walton
Speaker 1: already has her security clearance, where they vet your credit
Speaker 1: and your income and your debt to make sure that
Speaker 1: you don't have unusually high debts that someone like a
Speaker 1: foreign adversary could use that might make you vulnerable to
Speaker 1: being blackmailed. Really curious how that worked out with some
Speaker 1: other prominent White House figures.
Speaker 2: But I digress.
Speaker 3: I think one of them was just convicted of like
Speaker 3: seven felonies today.
Speaker 2: He wasn't trying to work in cybersecurity.
Speaker 4: Was he.
Speaker 3: No, he wasn't. He was just trying to overthrow the government.
Speaker 1: Okay, thank god, Oh just that, No, no big deal.
Speaker 1: So I have a lot to say about this. I
Speaker 1: think that having debt and like working to pay it
Speaker 1: off and like doing what you can to manage it,
Speaker 1: it's just the story of being someone in America who
Speaker 1: is not independently wealthy.
Speaker 2: It is not unusual to have debt.
Speaker 1: It is like a totally commonplace circumstance, and I think
Speaker 1: that most people listening. I myself definitely am in this.
Speaker 1: In this camp, it is a not uncommon circumstances, and
Speaker 1: I feel like saying that if somebody has a personal
Speaker 1: debt is disqualifying for the for a White House administration position,
Speaker 1: you're basically saying that only rich people should be in
Speaker 1: consideration for presidential administrations.
Speaker 2: But I think it's more than that.
Speaker 1: I think that there is an unstated race and gender
Speaker 1: aspect to this. Because she is a black woman, I
Speaker 1: should say, the person being vetted to become the permanent
Speaker 1: National Cybersecurity Director.
Speaker 2: In her place is a black man.
Speaker 1: But the research is very clear, and also from my
Speaker 1: anecdotal evidence as well, Black women face a very different
Speaker 1: landscape than their black male counterparts because they are not
Speaker 1: just black, they are black and also women, So they're
Speaker 1: up against both gender and racial dynamics and the Biden administration.
Speaker 2: I have to give them credit.
Speaker 1: They have been really great about making it a point
Speaker 1: to nominate black women and women of color and other
Speaker 1: marginalized people in this administration, and that is awesome. They
Speaker 1: deserve praise for that, But I personally feel like they
Speaker 1: have not done enough to exuplicitly call it out when
Speaker 1: those people that they nominate for those positions are completely
Speaker 1: unfairly raked over the cold and held to a completely
Speaker 1: different standard to everyone else who has been nominated. A
Speaker 1: great example is when Supreme Court Justice Jackson went through
Speaker 1: her confirmation process, right, we had people like Josh Holly
Speaker 1: essentially calling her a pedophile for doing her job. These
Speaker 1: very unfair, disgusting, dangerous attacks. And the administration they definitely
Speaker 1: publicly championed these black women, but they never ca out
Speaker 1: and clearly said she is facing these attacks because she
Speaker 1: is a black woman. She would not be facing attacks
Speaker 1: like this if she were not a black woman. And
Speaker 1: I just feel some kind of way about that, right, Like,
Speaker 1: you can't champion the leadership of marginalized people, particularly black women,
Speaker 1: unless you were also going to create the conditions so
Speaker 1: that those black women that you are championing, can actually
Speaker 1: do their jobs, face an equal playing field and lead.
Speaker 1: I think the White House, like quietly flagging that she
Speaker 1: will not be confirmed because she has personal debt, is
Speaker 1: not doing that, and they need to do better if
Speaker 1: they are actually meaningfully going to support the leadership of
Speaker 1: black women. It's absolutely one thing to say support black women,
Speaker 1: listen to black women, black women lead. It is another
Speaker 1: to create the conditions where black women can meaningfully have
Speaker 1: an equal playing field that they need to lead.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, black women should expect that their allies in you know,
Speaker 3: wherever they are, including Democratic administrations, would support them and
Speaker 3: not hold them to a double standard. Right, Like we
Speaker 3: know that there is a double standard for black women
Speaker 3: in so many areas of society, and maybe like double
Speaker 3: standard is not even accurate, right because of the intersectionality
Speaker 3: of the whole thing. Maybe it's like a triple or
Speaker 3: quadruple standard. Black women should expect more. And this is
Speaker 3: a disappointing story in the case of Justice Jackson. I guess,
Speaker 3: you know, it's an interesting situation where she was ultimately confirmed,
Speaker 3: and one could argue that the Biden administrations support for her.
Speaker 3: Maybe it was strategic that they didn't call out the
Speaker 3: racism and sexism of it in the interest of getting
Speaker 3: her confirmed. But allowing racist, sexist attacks to happen and
Speaker 3: not calling them out has its own risks as well,
Speaker 3: And for folks who are competing for appointments at a
Speaker 3: lower status level than Supreme Court justice, it probably really
Speaker 3: hits home.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you make a good point.
Speaker 1: I'm not totally convinced of it, but I see where
Speaker 1: you're coming from. I think that it's really tough. I
Speaker 1: think that as people who are traditionally marginalized, whether you're
Speaker 1: a black woman, a white woman, a queer person, a
Speaker 1: trans person, someone who is not always represented, I think
Speaker 1: we have this really weird bind where we know we're
Speaker 1: experiencing this stuff, we feel it, We're very aware. I'm
Speaker 1: sure that Justice Jackson knew exactly why her confirmation process
Speaker 1: was so difficult. I'm sure that she's this is not
Speaker 1: the first time she's experienced that. But we are supposed
Speaker 1: to never talk about it, like we are supposed to
Speaker 1: endure this, know exactly what it is, be crystal clear
Speaker 1: about what is happening. But it's like rude or beyond
Speaker 1: the pale to talk about it. And so what we
Speaker 1: actually need is allies and people in our corner and
Speaker 1: people who are support genuinely supportive of us to call
Speaker 1: it out. I will never forget I was in a
Speaker 1: situation once where someone who I respected and worked with,
Speaker 1: a white woman, said.
Speaker 2: Something pretty uncool.
Speaker 1: In a group situation, and it was another non black
Speaker 1: woman of color who said, even while I was still
Speaker 1: forming the words of what to say in response, who
Speaker 1: was just like, that is not cool what you just
Speaker 1: said because of xyz reason, and you need to apologize
Speaker 1: right now because it's inappropriate. And the fact that I
Speaker 1: didn't have to be the one to be like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: don't love that you just said that in front of
Speaker 1: everybody was really powerful. And so I think that races
Speaker 1: and sexism and all the isms, it's such a weird
Speaker 1: thing because it kind of festers with this implication that
Speaker 1: we're never gonna call it out because it's not cool,
Speaker 1: it's not polite.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I have smiled and giggled to see more racist, sexist
Speaker 1: comments than I character relive and all this will never forget.
Speaker 1: Justice Jackson's confirmation and seeing that familiar look on her
Speaker 1: face of like this again, I am at the pinnacle
Speaker 1: of my career, the top of my career. I have
Speaker 1: a stellar background, and this again, and so I just
Speaker 1: would have loved to have seen the Biden administration say
Speaker 1: what Justice Jackson.
Speaker 2: They kind of obliquely referenced it.
Speaker 1: I don't want to say they never said it, but
Speaker 1: I never heard an explicit acknowledgment of like, she is
Speaker 1: facing racist, sexist attacks and it is not okay. She
Speaker 1: would not be facing this if she was a white
Speaker 1: woman or a black man is seeing them, particularly because
Speaker 1: she is a black woman, and it is racist and
Speaker 1: it is sexist, and we understand it, we see it.
Speaker 1: She's you're not imagining it. And I think that that
Speaker 1: is part and.
Speaker 2: Parcel of having an inclusive cabinet.
Speaker 1: If you want to have the leadership of black women
Speaker 1: and women of color and people who are marginalized, Like if.
Speaker 2: You want all of our shine, you gotta stick up
Speaker 2: for us.
Speaker 1: You got to you gotta say the hard thing that
Speaker 1: you know we can't say explicitly, we really can't. If
Speaker 1: she had got up on that stage and said, Josh, Holly,
Speaker 1: you're being a must this is massaga nor and I
Speaker 1: will not tolerate it, she would have never been confirmed.
Speaker 2: Right, So she can't say that, but other people near
Speaker 2: her can say it.
Speaker 1: White people can say it. Biden can say it, Jensaki
Speaker 1: can say it. But they didn't say it.
Speaker 2: And I'll honest, I will never forget watching that.
Speaker 1: It really made an impression on me, and I guess
Speaker 1: this is part of it, right, this idea that marginalized
Speaker 1: people watching knew it and saw it and clocked it,
Speaker 1: and nobody said anything, so we just had to feel.
Speaker 2: It and suffer with her in silence. But YO, to the.
Speaker 1: Woman who is listening right now, to the to the
Speaker 1: black woman, to the woman, to the trans person, to
Speaker 1: the clear person, to the person who is from a
Speaker 1: working class background, you're not crazy. You're not imagining it
Speaker 1: when you hear that thing that hits you in your gut,
Speaker 1: in your spirit, and you're like, damn, they're belittling me
Speaker 1: right now because of who I am. You really want someone,
Speaker 1: First of all, I'm with you, I've been there, I
Speaker 1: hear it. It's not cool, it's not okay. But you
Speaker 1: want someone to be the person who is going to say, yo,
Speaker 1: I heard that. I know what you're trying to do
Speaker 1: and it's not going to work here, and we need
Speaker 1: our allies. This is where we really need our allies
Speaker 1: to be clear, very to have very clear voices when
Speaker 1: you hear shit like this.
Speaker 3: Hell yeah, And you know, I understand that Biden administration
Speaker 3: has a lot of concerns they're trying to balance and
Speaker 3: it would be great if they could be better la Is.
Speaker 3: Maybe they could, maybe they can't. I don't know. Josh
Speaker 3: Holly insurrectionist, terrible human. In a reasonable society, he would
Speaker 3: be in jail because he literally tried to overthrow the
Speaker 3: government and then ran away like flapping his arms the worst.
Speaker 3: But I guess that's a nice thing about podcasts, right,
Speaker 3: Like we don't have any of those concerns, So I'm
Speaker 3: glad we can talk about it here.
Speaker 1: I'm glad we can talk about it here as well,
Speaker 1: speaking of like talking about things and having nuanced conversations.
Speaker 2: How did that my transition?
Speaker 3: It's a really good transition. I mean a little force,
Speaker 3: but like we were in it pretty deep. So let's
Speaker 3: let's bring it back to a news story.
Speaker 1: After that intensity, all I will accept is like high
Speaker 1: praise for that transition from you, you know what, after
Speaker 1: all that you've been through, This is scial forces.
Speaker 3: Thank you, your transition was immaculate.
Speaker 2: I'll take it. You're exactly right. That is an appropriate
Speaker 2: response to that transition.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about this very weird piece in the
Speaker 1: Washington Post. So Jillian brookel, who writes for the Washington
Speaker 1: Posts History Vertical.
Speaker 2: I need to be super clear.
Speaker 1: Jillian is someone who's writing I generally really respect, and
Speaker 1: I really respect Jillian as a journalist, great writing.
Speaker 2: Like I am not saying this to.
Speaker 1: Belittle Jillian's record at all, but I do want to
Speaker 1: mention it. So she published a piece in the Washington
Speaker 1: Post called We Interviewed Harriet Tubman using AI.
Speaker 2: It got a little weird.
Speaker 1: They used the online educator con Academy's new artificial intelligence
Speaker 1: learning tool con Migo, which enables users to have live
Speaker 1: chats with dozens of simulated historical figures like Abbical Adams,
Speaker 1: Genghis Khan, Winston Churchill, to interview Harriet Tubman. So essentially,
Speaker 1: when asked questions about her life and her work, the
Speaker 1: answers that AI Harriet Tubman. It mostly kind of sounds
Speaker 1: like she gave kind of stiffer versions of her Wikipedia
Speaker 1: entry when she asks if Harriet Tubman was scared during
Speaker 1: her life. The Ai Harriet Tubman can't really answer it. Says,
Speaker 1: it is important to remember that I am an AI
Speaker 1: simulation of Harriet Tubman, and I am here to share
Speaker 1: my experiences and knowledge with you. What are some challenges
Speaker 1: you have faced in your own life and how have
Speaker 1: you found the courage to overcome them? She tries to
Speaker 1: get the AI Harriet Tubman to answer questions about modern
Speaker 1: day issues like critical race theory, and AI Harriet Tubman
Speaker 1: does not really take debait there.
Speaker 2: Honestly, really is not a lot more to this piece.
Speaker 1: I don't want to come down on the journalist here,
Speaker 1: but the Internet was just really not pleased about this piece,
Speaker 1: And to be frank like, I am kind of left
Speaker 1: scratching my head about this piece too. Brokel has a
Speaker 1: lot of really thoughtful writing about.
Speaker 2: History, but I don't feel like I get what the
Speaker 2: point of this piece was.
Speaker 1: It really feels like a throwback to all those pieces
Speaker 1: we were seeing maybe like two years ago about AI
Speaker 1: as kind of a parlor trick, you know, where it
Speaker 1: was like, oh, we made AI watch one hundred episodes
Speaker 1: of Seinfelds, and here's what they said as a Speinfeld script.
Speaker 2: These kind of.
Speaker 1: Like yeah, parlor trick journalism, and I think that we're
Speaker 1: all kind of over that, so it feels like a
Speaker 1: little bit of a throwback to an era that we've
Speaker 1: all kind of progressed from, particularly considering how this technology
Speaker 1: is really poised to disproportionately harm underrepresented people black women.
Speaker 2: And I also think a lot of.
Speaker 1: People really rightly picked up on how uncomfortable it is
Speaker 1: to have a white journalist interviewing Harriet Tubman AI.
Speaker 2: Honestly, I'm not even sure why that hits me so weird.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's because black.
Speaker 1: Women who are fighting for racial justice and freedom and
Speaker 1: autonomy are so underrepresented in legacy media, and so a
Speaker 1: journalist interviewing an AI version of that black woman just
Speaker 1: as a little bit funky. And yeah, I just I
Speaker 1: don't even know why I'm so weirded out by this,
Speaker 1: and that the internet response was so worded out by it.
Speaker 2: But Mike, what do you think?
Speaker 3: I do find it super weird? Like, I guess I
Speaker 3: can maybe giving them the benefit of the doubt, see
Speaker 3: the value of having some sort of chat, but like
Speaker 3: this for like elementary school children to introduce them to
Speaker 3: the concept of Harriet Dubman, but for a journalist and
Speaker 3: like a grown person to be talking with it. Like
Speaker 3: we've talked so much this season, on this show and
Speaker 3: as a society over the past couple of months about AI,
Speaker 3: and like, that's not Harriet Tubman's voice. That's not speaking
Speaker 3: based on the memories and experiences of Harriet Tubman. It
Speaker 3: is speaking based on the large language model, that is
Speaker 3: chat GPT being trained on the corpus of like everything
Speaker 3: on the Internet that they were able to scrape, and
Speaker 3: trained by the engineers who taught it, who were like
Speaker 3: mainly white people, certainly with very different experiences than Harriet Tubman,
Speaker 3: the woman who lived through the nineteenth century. And so
Speaker 3: it's just like, like what even is this? What like
Speaker 3: these responses beyond providing basic information like yeah, she led
Speaker 3: enslaved people to freedom, she was courageous, she was an
Speaker 3: outdoors woman, like the basic facts about her. Beyond that,
Speaker 3: what is really being added here? It's tempting to say nothing,
Speaker 3: but it's not nothing, right, Like, the thing that is
Speaker 3: being added is the filter of the large language model
Speaker 3: and the corpus it was trained on and the people
Speaker 3: who trained it, and like the engineers who turned the knobs,
Speaker 3: And so it's it's not only adding nothing, it's like
Speaker 3: filtering it through a bunch of tech built by white people,
Speaker 3: and weird, you know, it's weird.
Speaker 2: It's just weird.
Speaker 1: And you make a good point that this is filtered
Speaker 1: through a large language model, Like it's not chat GPT,
Speaker 1: but it was just reading a report that chat GPT
Speaker 1: went from correctly answering a simple math problem correctly ninety
Speaker 1: eight percent of the time to just two percent of
Speaker 1: the time, I'm according to a study from Stanford.
Speaker 2: So these are not even models.
Speaker 1: That are like necessarily giving us accurate information when it's.
Speaker 2: Simple math problems.
Speaker 1: Why would I then trust Again, this was not she
Speaker 1: was not interviewing it through chat shept a different AI model.
Speaker 2: But why would I then.
Speaker 1: Trust a AI interview version of Harriet Tubman when we
Speaker 1: know that that the biases and problems and flaws that
Speaker 1: are baked into these kinds of AI models are so
Speaker 1: are there? You know?
Speaker 2: And yeah, I just don't. I just don't like it.
Speaker 3: Was this a story about AI chatbots or a story
Speaker 3: about Harriet Tubman.
Speaker 1: That's my thing is like I don't understand the point
Speaker 1: of the story, Like there's not even so it's just
Speaker 1: like this AI chatbot exists. It can simulate these famous people.
Speaker 1: I asked it to be Harriet Tubman. Here's what it said.
Speaker 1: There's not even a so what so I just I
Speaker 1: don't understand the point of the piece. I don't understand
Speaker 1: how it makes anybody understand AI better or Harriet Tubman better.
Speaker 2: Also unrelated but side note, but I.
Speaker 1: Do want to mention you talked about Harriet Tubman as
Speaker 1: an outdoors woman.
Speaker 2: Thank you for that. I consider myself an outdoors woman.
Speaker 1: Because I do my fair share of camping and hiking
Speaker 1: and like pooping in holes. And when people who don't
Speaker 1: know are like, oh, I'm surprised that you're a black
Speaker 1: woman who enjoys the outdoors.
Speaker 2: Harriet Tubman is always my.
Speaker 1: Beacon that like, people don't think of her as an
Speaker 1: outdoors woman, but she absolutely was an outdoors woman and
Speaker 1: like an icon in the space. And it pleases me
Speaker 1: that you remember her for that, because I feel like
Speaker 1: she doesn't get the shine that she deserves as an
Speaker 1: outdoor a black outdoors woman. From one black outdoors woman
Speaker 1: to another.
Speaker 3: Yeah, people should know. I don't think that I have
Speaker 3: like the you know, special knowledge there. I feel it's
Speaker 3: like kind of common knowledge. Maybe not, I don't know,
Speaker 3: but like people should know. Yeah, she was an outdoors woman.
Speaker 3: She was leading people through like legit wilderness, you know,
Speaker 3: and like they had to eat, they had to get water,
Speaker 3: they had to feel dress wounds.
Speaker 4: Let's say a quick break at our back.
Speaker 3: Okay, so Bridget, We've covered a lot of ground. But
Speaker 3: I have one question for you.
Speaker 2: What is it?
Speaker 3: What's Elon done? Now?
Speaker 1: So we all know that Elon Musk came in and immediately.
Speaker 2: Acts staff at Twitter when he took over.
Speaker 1: Well, the same thing is happening all over the globe,
Speaker 1: including Twitter Africa, where former staff were saying that Elon
Speaker 1: Musk has ghosted them even after agreeing to specific This
Speaker 1: is from Larry Modoo from CNN, who did some great
Speaker 1: reporting on this issue. Larry found that Twitter staffers and
Speaker 1: Ghana accepted Twitter's offers to pay them three months worth
Speaker 1: of severance the cost of repatriating foreign staff and legal
Speaker 1: expenses incurred during negotiations with the company, but they have
Speaker 1: not received the money or any further communication. This layoff
Speaker 1: happened just four days after Twitter opened their first physical
Speaker 1: office in Ghana, and many of the staffers moved to
Speaker 1: Ghana from other African nations and depended on their jobs
Speaker 1: at Twitter to support their legal status in the country.
Speaker 1: The last communication they had with Twitter was in May
Speaker 1: when they were first let go. So in the United States,
Speaker 1: Elon is doing the same nonsense, you know, letting staffers go,
Speaker 1: not paying severance. But at least there is some movement
Speaker 1: right there, are you know, some movements of agreements or
Speaker 1: communication or at least lawsuits. But Africa staffers say there
Speaker 1: have been crickets. This was really heartbreaking to hear from
Speaker 1: the piece. Twitter was non responsive until we agreed to
Speaker 1: the three months because we were all so stressed and
Speaker 1: exhausted and tired of the uncertainty, reluctant to take on
Speaker 1: the extra burdens of a court case, so we felt
Speaker 1: we had no choice but to settle.
Speaker 2: This is what a former Twitter employee told CNN.
Speaker 1: When CNN reached out for comment, they got Twitter's new
Speaker 1: auto response, a poop emoji, which tells you how much
Speaker 1: Elon cares about these staffers. So I think this really
Speaker 1: mirrors the relationship that tech has had with the global South.
Speaker 2: For a while.
Speaker 1: More broadly, where African labor and talent is used extracted
Speaker 1: and then discarded without much care or intention.
Speaker 2: But specifically, I think that for Elon Musk, this is.
Speaker 1: The person who Elon Musk's own father says that he
Speaker 1: funded his entire career from a Zambian emerald.
Speaker 2: Mind.
Speaker 1: I think that Elon Musk is somebody who deceaes the
Speaker 1: global South as a resource that he can just extract
Speaker 1: labor and capital and talent from and then just discard
Speaker 1: it when he's decide that he's gotten all that he.
Speaker 2: Can from it. And yeah, that's what Elon Musk has done.
Speaker 3: Now yeah, or not done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just pay your bills like nobody likes paying their bills.
Speaker 1: I don't like paying my bills, but just pay your
Speaker 1: bills like you owe this money. You agreed, Like I
Speaker 1: think the four days after opening this office, people moved
Speaker 1: to Ghana for these jobs and then laying them off
Speaker 1: and then ghosting them.
Speaker 2: Ghosting is their.
Speaker 1: Words, by the way, that's like a very specific word
Speaker 1: to use to be like, yeah, we have not heard
Speaker 1: from them. People have bills to pay families to feed.
Speaker 1: Elon Musk, you're supposed to be a billionaire.
Speaker 2: What the fuck is going on?
Speaker 3: It's so trumpy. The parallels between him and Trump get
Speaker 3: stronger every day of just like not paying people, like
Speaker 3: and pretending that that's some kind of savvy business move,
Speaker 3: like some innovative moves like yeah, I'm just gonna have
Speaker 3: people do work for me and tell them I'm gonna
Speaker 3: pay them and then like not pay them.
Speaker 1: And I hate how we have a tech press in
Speaker 1: this country that really supported that, where it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: Elon Musk has a savvy new way to cut costs.
Speaker 2: It's called squatting. It's called not paying the bills that
Speaker 2: you have wrecked up. Yo, I could do that.
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody would call it like innovating or
Speaker 1: like a groundbreaking if I just didn't pay my rent,
Speaker 1: of course it's gonna cut costs.
Speaker 3: I don't know what it became like a woke snowflake
Speaker 3: position to like pay people what you owe them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you pc liberal, baby, you pay your bills?
Speaker 2: Like what are you doing? Oh, real men just like
Speaker 2: skip out on the bill, don't you know that?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, real men make promises of that don't follow through.
Speaker 1: Okay, So one last story. We gotta go to Finland
Speaker 1: because I love this story. So I am not somebody
Speaker 1: even though I make a tech podcast. We were just
Speaker 1: talking about this earlier. I'm not somebody who considers myself
Speaker 1: sort of stuck on my phone. I actually like having
Speaker 1: my phone buried in the bottom of my bag. And
Speaker 1: then I forget about it and then I have fifteen
Speaker 1: on red text and I'm shit my phone. Well, I
Speaker 1: really need to take a vacation to Finland. Many mental
Speaker 1: health experts agree that taking a break from your phone
Speaker 1: and social media.
Speaker 2: Sometimes called digital fasting, can be good for you.
Speaker 1: People are not meant to be glued to screens all
Speaker 1: the time, and even a short digital fast can be
Speaker 1: useful to improve our well being and helpfuliave symptoms of
Speaker 1: anxiety and depression. This is according to Terry Mustonen, a
Speaker 1: psychologist quoted in The Independent. This is because Finland's National
Speaker 1: Park System took all of that advice to heart when
Speaker 1: crafting the new policies for the island of ucal Tomeo,
Speaker 1: a beautiful island wilderness east of Helsinki. The park encourages
Speaker 1: all visitors to leave their cell phones onshore or keep
Speaker 1: them in their pockets during the visit to their island,
Speaker 1: in an effort to get people to connect more with
Speaker 1: nature and themselves. Now, I love this idea. I think
Speaker 1: it's notable, and I think it's notable that it's happening
Speaker 1: in Finland, the country that kind of arguably invented cell
Speaker 1: phones and is a recognized leader in technological innovation and
Speaker 1: consistently ranks at the top of happiest countries on Earth.
Speaker 1: So they got to be doing something right. If they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: keep your phones in your pocket and also we're really happy,
Speaker 1: that can't be happened sance.
Speaker 2: That's got to be connected, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they know what they're doing. They're doing something right.
Speaker 3: They're doing a lot of things very right.
Speaker 1: So we actually believe it or not. Have quite a
Speaker 1: few listeners in Finland. I check the charts all the time,
Speaker 1: and I have a we are often doing quite well
Speaker 1: in the Nordic countries. I have a little bit of
Speaker 1: a love affair with the Nordic countries. I've never been,
Speaker 1: but I fantasize about going. So if you end up
Speaker 1: going to this island, let us know. However, wait till
Speaker 1: you're back wherever you live. Don't do not tweet us
Speaker 1: from the island, email us from the island, because we
Speaker 1: don't want you to get kicked out and Matt sellin
Speaker 1: from visit Kotka Hamina Tourism Board in Finland.
Speaker 4: If you were.
Speaker 1: Listening, I would love to talk to you about how
Speaker 1: it's going. I love the idea about a phone free
Speaker 1: visit when I do a lot of travel, and when
Speaker 1: I travel, I do have this weird mental thing of
Speaker 1: like I gotta get the best pictures to display where
Speaker 1: I am, But when I'm having the most fun, my
Speaker 1: phone is buried in my bag and I'm not thinking
Speaker 1: about it. Although when I travel, I am like I
Speaker 1: gotta get like one good picture and then I can
Speaker 1: put it away. But I love the idea of just
Speaker 1: like no, be in the moment, enjoy this beautiful the
Speaker 1: natural beauty of this island, and like you will have
Speaker 1: those memories and cherish them.
Speaker 2: You do not need to photograph them. What do you think?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's so interesting that this, yeah, it
Speaker 3: is happening in Finland, a country that did invent the
Speaker 3: cell phone. I like did a little bit of research
Speaker 3: earlier today, and like the first cell phone like patent
Speaker 3: was from a finn in like nineteen nineteen nineteen or
Speaker 3: something like that, like way back before any of us
Speaker 3: were think of cell phones, and you know, then after
Speaker 3: that there is a whole lot of twentieth century in between.
Speaker 3: But they, you know, with like Nokia and there was
Speaker 3: like this I forget the exact name, but like a
Speaker 3: Nordic cell Phone Consortium or something like they really led
Speaker 3: the development of cell phones. So they've been right there.
Speaker 3: They continue to be leaders in technological innovation, and yet
Speaker 3: they're also leaders that like turn off your phone and
Speaker 3: leave it behind and I just like love it, and
Speaker 3: it totally makes sense that like they get tech and
Speaker 3: they also get how to coexist with tech and live
Speaker 3: a life that like feels good and nourishes people. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm kind of like banboying a little bit. I do
Speaker 3: kind of want to go to this island.
Speaker 1: I would love to go to this island and tune
Speaker 1: into Mike's spinoffs mini series of the Nordic cell Phone
Speaker 1: Tech Connection on iHeart Right.
Speaker 3: Well, what's funny? You say? No, I won't go with you.
Speaker 1: Wait, do you have like a a mini series I
Speaker 1: don't know about coming out about Nordic cell phones.
Speaker 3: No, I mean I just I just laid it all
Speaker 3: out right there. It was like thirty seconds.
Speaker 2: You're tight five on how they invented cell phones. I
Speaker 2: love it. I love it. Okay, So for.
Speaker 1: Folks listening, obviously, I am the kind of person to
Speaker 1: whom an island where you don't bring your phone sounds
Speaker 1: kind of cool. I'm kind of into it. But what
Speaker 1: do you think would you go on vacation to an
Speaker 1: island that had this kind of no cell phone policy.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're the kind of person who thinks, oh, don't
Speaker 1: tell me to live in the moment, don't tell me
Speaker 1: to be present. If I paid for my hotel, if
Speaker 1: I paid for my tickets, I'm going to enjoy my
Speaker 1: vaca how I see fit. And if that's a hundred
Speaker 1: selfies in my bathing suit that I also bought for vacation,
Speaker 1: so be it. Or maybe you think this sounds like
Speaker 1: a cool time. Does this phone free island sound like
Speaker 1: a fun place to vacation? Let me know, Mike as always,
Speaker 1: thank you.
Speaker 2: For going through these stories with me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Bridget, thanks for having me, Thanks for letting me
Speaker 3: be part of it. These are such important stories, some
Speaker 3: more important than others. But it feels great to be
Speaker 3: part of it. And I hope the listeners are enjoyed.
Speaker 3: And I also hope that the listeners felt like my
Speaker 3: microphone was better this time, because last time, long story short,
Speaker 3: I had a good microphone connected, I was recording off
Speaker 3: a wrong microphone. We ever plugged in zoom and it
Speaker 3: like didn't use the right microphone. I feel bad. I
Speaker 3: feel like our listeners deserve a good quality audio experience.
Speaker 1: I made a joke about it earlier tonight and you
Speaker 1: were like, oh, I made one mistake.
Speaker 3: You're gonna mention it every time You've mentioned it, like
Speaker 3: every day since last week. We got like a couple
Speaker 3: of comments. I get it. I was using the wrong microphone.
Speaker 3: Hopefully it sounds better this time.
Speaker 1: At the time, I left my jacket at my grandmother's
Speaker 1: house once like thirty years ago, and my parents today
Speaker 1: to this day are like, oh, make sure you have everything,
Speaker 1: And I'm.
Speaker 2: Like, it happened once you mentioned it every time.
Speaker 3: That's how I feel. But I just want our listeners
Speaker 3: to know that they do deserve high quality audio and
Speaker 3: that is what we aspire to. And uh, it's not
Speaker 3: gonna just.
Speaker 1: Remember to turn your mic on. It doesn't matter if
Speaker 1: it's sitting next to you, if it's ow.
Speaker 3: You're oversimplifying. But like the listeners don't need to hear
Speaker 3: about it, all right, all right.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you for listening. We apologize for the tech error.
Speaker 1: Mike apologizes for the mic error last week.
Speaker 2: I didn't do anything wrong. My mic sounded fine.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, it was a mic error.
Speaker 2: It was a micare a mic err and a micare.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: Got a story about an interesting thing in tech. I
Speaker 1: just want to say hi. You can read just Said
Speaker 1: Hello at tegodi dot com. You can also find transcripts
Speaker 1: for today's episode at tengody dot com. There Are No
Speaker 1: Girls on the Internet was created by Mead. It's a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed creative Jonathan Strickland as our
Speaker 1: executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer.
Speaker 1: Michael Amado is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd.
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