Speaker 1: Just a quick heads up. Today's episode talks about sexual
Speaker 1: assault and domestic violence. There Are No Girls on the
Speaker 1: Internet as a production of My Heart Radio and Unbust Creative.
Speaker 1: I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls
Speaker 1: on the Internet. So I have a bit of an
Speaker 1: update for you on the Johnny Depp amber Heard defamation trial.
Speaker 1: You will probably remember that earlier this summer, a jury
Speaker 1: determined that actor Amber Heard was liable for defaming Johnny
Speaker 1: Depp ed published in The Washington Post where she said
Speaker 1: that she became quote a public figure representing domestic abuse,
Speaker 1: even though she never publicly named Johnny Depp as her abuser.
Speaker 1: Earlier this summer, Depth supporters crowd funded thousands of dollars
Speaker 1: to unseal some six thousand documents, which contain evidence that
Speaker 1: lawyers for both Depth and Heard were able to keep
Speaker 1: out of the trial itself. Now, the idea here was
Speaker 1: for Depth supporters to publish new dirt on herd, but
Speaker 1: it seems like it potentially has backfired because the documents
Speaker 1: include some pretty unflattering information about Johnny Depp and paint
Speaker 1: a clearer portrait of how his legal team worked to
Speaker 1: weaponize misogyny against Amber Heard during the trial. For instance,
Speaker 1: previously sealed pre trial documents show that Herd's lawyers argued
Speaker 1: that Dep's team was trying to introduce nude images of
Speaker 1: Amber Heard into evidence and include Amber's work as an
Speaker 1: exotic dancer years before she ever met Johnny Depp, and
Speaker 1: that Mr Depp was quote attempting to frivolously and maliciously
Speaker 1: suggest or imply that Misheard was at one time an escort.
Speaker 1: The unsealed documents also show some of the evidence that
Speaker 1: Depth's legal team worked to exclude. The Daily Beast reports
Speaker 1: that this includes testimony from actor Ellen Barkin, who claimed
Speaker 1: that Johnny Depp angrily threw a bottle in her direction
Speaker 1: when they were dating, and testimony from Dr David Spiegel
Speaker 1: as like Hiatrist, who testified on behalf of her about
Speaker 1: the alleged trauma inflected by Depp. They're also pretty awful
Speaker 1: text between Depp and his friend actor Paul Pattaney, where
Speaker 1: Bettaney suggested that they submit her to a quote drowning
Speaker 1: test to determine whether or not she's a witch, to
Speaker 1: which Johnny Depp replied, let's drown her before we burn
Speaker 1: her and then goes into some pretty disgusting commentary about
Speaker 1: her corporates, which I won't get into here. The unsealed
Speaker 1: documents also included audio of herd telling depth quote, I
Speaker 1: had dumped you a fucking week week prior after you
Speaker 1: beat the ship out of me. There is a lot
Speaker 1: more there, so I'll link to the full Daily Beast
Speaker 1: article that did a great job breaking down the unsealed
Speaker 1: documents in the show notes. So, when the results of
Speaker 1: the trial were first announced earlier this summer, many celebrities
Speaker 1: showed support for Johnny Depp by liking his celebratory post
Speaker 1: on Instagram. But now some of those same celebrities, including
Speaker 1: folks like Kelly Berry and Bella Hadid, have quietly unliked
Speaker 1: that post. Now this could signal that there's a shift
Speaker 1: in public opinion happening in light of the unsealed files. Anecdotally,
Speaker 1: I can definitely tell you that TikTok used to be
Speaker 1: absolutely flooded with pro Johnny death means and compilations. I
Speaker 1: seriously could not escape them, no matter how many times
Speaker 1: I told TikTok that I wasn't interested. But recently I've
Speaker 1: actually started seeing more content that is sympathetic to amber
Speaker 1: Heard on the platform, So the trial may be over
Speaker 1: for now and less amber Heard's team appeals, and public
Speaker 1: opinion maybe shifting. What does this mean for the people
Speaker 1: and brands who made platforms off of following and recapping
Speaker 1: the trial. You might recall that in our previous episode
Speaker 1: about the trial, we specifically talked about the cottage industry
Speaker 1: of people and brands who have built platforms and gotten
Speaker 1: lots of engagement from the trial. Like on Etsy, there's
Speaker 1: an entire thriving industry of sellers who make and sell
Speaker 1: memorabilia related to the trial. This one is really gross,
Speaker 1: so trigger warning. Amber her testified that she was sexually
Speaker 1: assaulted with a bottle, and a sex toy company called
Speaker 1: Twisted Fantasies created a liquor bottle shaped like a sex toy,
Speaker 1: which they posted on their social media alongside the caption
Speaker 1: quote reach a new depth with the new Amber's Mark
Speaker 1: liquor bottle. People were understandably sickened and outraged, and the
Speaker 1: company apologized if survivors were upset, but more or less
Speaker 1: stood by what they did, releasing a statement saying the
Speaker 1: sex toy had been a tongue in cheek way to
Speaker 1: support Johnny Depp. And I know I talked about this
Speaker 1: in that initial episode, but I just find the mem
Speaker 1: ification of a trial that, at its heart, regardless of
Speaker 1: how you look at it, is about domestic violence, and
Speaker 1: I just found that to be a little bit gross,
Speaker 1: and I think it sends a clear signal to survivors
Speaker 1: of domestic violence that you could be turned into a
Speaker 1: national joke if people think you're lying. It's not just
Speaker 1: brands who are getting in on ripping about the trial.
Speaker 1: It's creators too. YouTubers and TikTokers that popped up solely
Speaker 1: to create commentary on the Amber heard Johnny depp defamation
Speaker 1: trial exploded in popularity during the trial, So people have
Speaker 1: been able to build entire lucrative platforms off of this
Speaker 1: one trial. And that's really what I want to talk
Speaker 1: about today. So a lot of this reporting comes from
Speaker 1: Cat ten Barge, an Internet reporter at NBC who has
Speaker 1: done a great job of covering the case and its
Speaker 1: online fallout. She writes that some YouTubers and content creators
Speaker 1: amassed millions of views by covering the trial from a
Speaker 1: pro depth point of view, as pro herd creators have
Speaker 1: received more attention. Over time, creators have become more adversarial
Speaker 1: toward one another, extending the culture war sparked by the
Speaker 1: Herd Depth legal battle. And that is exactly what is
Speaker 1: happening here. So, someone who uses the pseudonym Camilla on
Speaker 1: Twitter runs a Twitter account that regularly posts viral threads
Speaker 1: of evidence against Johnny Depp and other celebrities accused of
Speaker 1: domestic violence. Camilla's real identity is not known. She's anonymous
Speaker 1: to text her privacy Laura but Covin, who calls herself
Speaker 1: a truth seeker and a quote internet journalist, runs a
Speaker 1: Twitter account with seventy thousand followers and a popular YouTube
Speaker 1: channel dedicated to supporting Depth and creating pro Depth viral content.
Speaker 1: During the trial, cat ten Bart at NBC reports that
Speaker 1: some of Laura's tweets about the trial received more than
Speaker 1: twenty five thousand likes, and her YouTube video was about
Speaker 1: Depth's legal cases, have more than three hundred and seventy
Speaker 1: thousand combined views. She was also in contact with Depth's
Speaker 1: team before the trial. So stick with me here because
Speaker 1: this is where stuff gets a little bit complicated. Last week,
Speaker 1: Laura tweeted at Camilla and applying that Camilla wasn't just
Speaker 1: someone following the trial and tweeting about how they thought
Speaker 1: Johnny Depp was an abuser. Laura accused Camilla of actually
Speaker 1: being a paid member of Amber Herd's PR team. Laura
Speaker 1: tweeted quote is this you and linked to a Deadline
Speaker 1: article about the hiring of Chrysanto White at Shane Communications,
Speaker 1: a firm contracted by Amber her to manage her PR. Now,
Speaker 1: Camilla outright didn't noted that she was Crysanta. So Chrysanta
Speaker 1: is a person who actually exists, and she actually does
Speaker 1: work for Shame Communications, the firm retained by Amber Heard.
Speaker 1: But Chrysanta says she doesn't do social media for them
Speaker 1: and staid she works in diversity and inclusion. So what
Speaker 1: evidence is there that Camilla is actually Chrysanta, a paid
Speaker 1: hill for Amber Heard? Well, Camilla's Twitter account uses the
Speaker 1: image of a cartoon black woman with natural hair, and
Speaker 1: Chrysanta is a black woman with natural hair. Also, on
Speaker 1: Chrysanta's Pinterest account, she has pinned illustrations of black women
Speaker 1: with natural hair. And that's pretty much where the evidence ends.
Speaker 1: That's pretty much it. Let's take a quick break at
Speaker 1: her back. So we were talking about how Laura, a
Speaker 1: pro Johnny Depp content creator, accused an anonymous Twitter account
Speaker 1: using the pseudonym Camilla of actually being Chrysanta White, a
Speaker 1: black woman who works for the company that Amber heard
Speaker 1: retained for PR services, just because seemingly they are both
Speaker 1: black women. Now, Laura may have just tweeted out the question,
Speaker 1: but after Laura's tweet acting the question about Camilla, Twitter
Speaker 1: really ran with it. As of this recording, there are
Speaker 1: still plenty of tweets up claiming definitively not just asking
Speaker 1: the question, that Camilla is actually Chrysanta, and that she
Speaker 1: is being paid by Herd's team to make viral anti
Speaker 1: Johnny Depp tweets. Now, Chrysanta says this has led to
Speaker 1: a wave of harassment against her and her family. She
Speaker 1: wrote in a statement quote, the unbounded online harassment has
Speaker 1: gotten out of hand with addresses of my loved ones
Speaker 1: being posted on the internet. So for the record, I
Speaker 1: am not Pamilla, nor have I ever communicated with this page.
Speaker 1: I had no idea either of these pages existed prior
Speaker 1: to this situation, and was only made aware of their
Speaker 1: existence and original thread by an email that was sent
Speaker 1: to my personal email. I was not hired to work
Speaker 1: on this case. Per the original article posted by Laura,
Speaker 1: I was hired in March. It is public knowledge that
Speaker 1: our firm did not begin working on this case until May. Now.
Speaker 1: Remember that Twitter slew thought that Chrysanta must have been
Speaker 1: behind the Camilla account because the Camilla account uses a
Speaker 1: cartoon image of a black woman with natural hair, and
Speaker 1: that Christanta's Pinterest account has pinned similar looking cartoons and illustrations.
Speaker 1: But Chrysanta explains saying, regarding my Pinterest account, I'm a
Speaker 1: black woman with natural hair. I absolutely like art that
Speaker 1: looks like me. Why would I not want to use
Speaker 1: art like those pinned on my art board to plan
Speaker 1: for decorating my home? She goes on the same I
Speaker 1: have always prided myself and having an outstanding reputation. In turn,
Speaker 1: I am taking legal action against Laura just a heads up.
Speaker 1: Journal lists reach out to the person before making false accusations.
Speaker 1: Here my mom's age and I'm your daughter's age. Can
Speaker 1: you imagine someone doing this to your child? Chrysanta's lawyer
Speaker 1: sent Laura a cease and desist, reading, we are hard
Speaker 1: pressed to understand why you think miss White is Camilla?
Speaker 1: Is it because both women are African American. Regardless, your
Speaker 1: false accusation against miss White has resulted in a steady
Speaker 1: stream of harassment and threats by people who believe your
Speaker 1: claim and are like minded with respect to Johnny Depp
Speaker 1: the amber Heard defamation case. Now, Laura did say that
Speaker 1: she did not intend for Chrysanta to be harassed, tweeting
Speaker 1: I just followed the research and where it took me.
Speaker 1: I never encouraged anyone to harass. Sorry, so I have
Speaker 1: been on the receiving end of enough online harassment to
Speaker 1: know that I was just posing a question. I never
Speaker 1: called for anyone to be harassed. Is a pretty common cover.
Speaker 1: And when you have almost a hundred thousand Twitter followers
Speaker 1: that you have amassed around an issue as intense and
Speaker 1: divisive as the Johnny Depp amber Heard trial, you have
Speaker 1: got to expect that making these kinds of baseless allegations
Speaker 1: is just setting folks up for harassment. And if you're
Speaker 1: calling yourself a journalist, well, most journalists would do actual journalism,
Speaker 1: which is more than just tweeting out a bunch of
Speaker 1: unfounded conspiracy theories and letting your audience run wild with it.
Speaker 1: Because here's the thing, about trafficking and conspiracy theories about
Speaker 1: actual people. Once they're out of the box, and it's
Speaker 1: almost impossible to get them back in. And even though
Speaker 1: Laura may have tweeted a half hearted apology and said
Speaker 1: that she was just asking questions and following the research,
Speaker 1: that doesn't make it go away. And what infuriates me
Speaker 1: is that this situation is not an uncommon one. The
Speaker 1: research is clear that things like conspiracy theories, miss and disinformation,
Speaker 1: and online harassment disproportionately target Black women. And I think
Speaker 1: it's really because we live in a racist, sexist society
Speaker 1: and some sequently, we have a digital media landscape that
Speaker 1: will always be poised and ready to believe, amplify, and
Speaker 1: weaponize dangerous lies about Black women. And this is not
Speaker 1: just something happening online. Harassment that starts online rarely stays online.
Speaker 1: It can have real world impacts, including violence. And what's
Speaker 1: even more enraging is that this just keeps on happening
Speaker 1: with very little accountability. We saw the same thing with
Speaker 1: Shay and Ruby Freeman and Megan Markel, people projecting wild
Speaker 1: conspiracies onto black women to support whatever acts they have
Speaker 1: to grind, and those lies are in turn amplified by
Speaker 1: social media platforms, and they stick, and even if they're
Speaker 1: proven to be lies, a damage is done. We need
Speaker 1: a public reckoning that makes clear that this is not
Speaker 1: okay and that there will be consequences. Got a story
Speaker 1: about an interesting thing in tech, or just want to
Speaker 1: say hi? You can we just at Hello at tangodi
Speaker 1: dot com. You can also find transcripts today's episode at
Speaker 1: tangodi dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet
Speaker 1: was created by me Bridget Todd. It's a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Unboss creative Jonathan Strickland as our
Speaker 1: executive producer. Terry Harrison is our producer and sound engineer.
Speaker 1: Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd.
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