Speaker 1: So this week's episode of Internet Hate Machine, it's all
Speaker 1: about a coordinated impersonation campaign on Twitter where trolls from
Speaker 1: four Chance started fake Twitter accounts meant to mimic black women.
Speaker 1: They used stolen pictures and set up accounts using really
Speaker 1: bad a A V like bad impersonations of black women
Speaker 1: on Twitter to make it seem like black feminists were
Speaker 1: promoting a campaign to end the holiday Father's Day. In reality,
Speaker 1: these people from Fortune we're trying to exploit and drive
Speaker 1: a wedge between communities of black and white feminists online
Speaker 1: to cause confusion and chaos and basically make all feminists
Speaker 1: look bad and look like folks whose issues could not
Speaker 1: be taken seriously. Now, this situation really shows the implications
Speaker 1: of impersonation on social media platforms like Twitter. In this case,
Speaker 1: impersonation was being used to destabilize online communities and in
Speaker 1: an attempt to derail them. So and Father's Day was
Speaker 1: kind of a niche example, but we also talked about
Speaker 1: some other examples, like white supremacists using Twitter at a
Speaker 1: pope is as Black Lives Matter activists in order to
Speaker 1: call for looting and violent during protests back in and
Speaker 1: like Russian Assets and personating black people to try to
Speaker 1: derail the presidential election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton,
Speaker 1: which I know is something that I reference a ton
Speaker 1: because to me, it's one of those big, glaring examples
Speaker 1: of exactly what happens when online destabilization tactics like impersonation
Speaker 1: are not taken seriously. And the people who run platforms,
Speaker 1: they knew this was a thing, and yet they pretty
Speaker 1: much did nothing. They did not make it harder to
Speaker 1: use impersonation as a tactic to cause chaos and destabilize things,
Speaker 1: And the choice to do nothing pretty much allowed it
Speaker 1: to be used on a bigger and bigger scale that
Speaker 1: could be used to impact more and more people. You know,
Speaker 1: this is a tried and true thing when it comes
Speaker 1: to online harms. The harm starts with people who are
Speaker 1: most marginalized. Nothing is done, and then it's everyone's problem.
Speaker 1: And the women who were impacted by destabilization tactics online
Speaker 1: like and Father's Day, we're super vocal about what they
Speaker 1: were experiencing. They had been talking about the hor ms
Speaker 1: of impersonation online for a while. And I just think
Speaker 1: that someone with power, that someone with the power to
Speaker 1: do something or make a change, really should have listened
Speaker 1: and taken them seriously because we might not be where
Speaker 1: we are today. So while recording that episode on end
Speaker 1: Father's Day, Elon Musk had just announced a plan to
Speaker 1: really blow up verification via Twitter Blue subscriptions. Essentially, if
Speaker 1: people paid eight dollars for Twitter Blue, they'd get a
Speaker 1: blue checkmark verifying them. Elon Musk tweeted that this was
Speaker 1: going in democratize Twitter power to the people, he tweeted. Initially,
Speaker 1: it seems like the plan to prevent impersonation was to
Speaker 1: introduce a separate official badge that Twitter said would be
Speaker 1: applied to government accounts, commercial companies, business partners, major media outlets, publishers,
Speaker 1: and some public figures. But then Musk quickly changed his
Speaker 1: mind and killed the official badge only a few hours
Speaker 1: after it was introduced and rolled out, and so when
Speaker 1: paid verification did launch, it did so without that official badge.
Speaker 1: So basically, when you clicked on a blue check mark,
Speaker 1: it would tell you whether that account was verified because
Speaker 1: they were a public figure, you know, like they had
Speaker 1: been verified before, or if they had been verified because
Speaker 1: they subscribed to Twitter Blue and paid eight dollars. But
Speaker 1: there wasn't really a way to determine that just from
Speaker 1: looking at tweets and a feed, you would need to
Speaker 1: actually click into that profile on that beach to determine
Speaker 1: whether or not that blue check was because somebody is
Speaker 1: who they say they are, or because somebody had eight
Speaker 1: dollars to spend. And this seemed like a weird, potentially
Speaker 1: disastrous move on a platform where we already know impersonation
Speaker 1: is a big problem. And just a few days after
Speaker 1: our episode on End Father's Day and Twitter Impersonation aired,
Speaker 1: the full implications became very clear. It was a disaster.
Speaker 1: Letting anyone pay eight dollars to appear to be a
Speaker 1: verified user was pretty chaotic, and it showed this past
Speaker 1: week because users began creating fake accounts impersonating brands, athletes,
Speaker 1: and officials. Here's just a brief rundown of what we
Speaker 1: saw on Twitter. Somebody in per snated basketball player Lebron
Speaker 1: James and announced that he was requesting a trade. A
Speaker 1: spoof Nintendo account tweeted an image of Mario giving us
Speaker 1: the finger. And a really interesting example is the pharmaceutical
Speaker 1: company Eli Lake that makes insulin for people's diabetes. A
Speaker 1: verified Eli Lily account tweeted insulin is now free, which
Speaker 1: forced the real Eli Lily to apologize for the misleading
Speaker 1: tweet because insulin is not free, and it kind of
Speaker 1: is an interesting thing watching a healthcare company clear up
Speaker 1: the misconception that oh, no, no, no, don't worry our
Speaker 1: life saving insulin that people actually need to live will
Speaker 1: never be free. Don't worry about that in correct, And
Speaker 1: all of this led to Eli Lily stuck plummeting amidst
Speaker 1: all the chaos. Now, look, I am obviously not losing
Speaker 1: sleep over corporations and brands like Eli Lily losing money
Speaker 1: or jeopardizing their brand safety. I don't really care about that.
Speaker 1: But something that we learned really clearly from conversations around
Speaker 1: impersonation during the end Father's Day campaign is that even
Speaker 1: though these trolls were trying to destabilize feminist spaces online,
Speaker 1: they did it in ways that we're kind of jokey
Speaker 1: or over the top, like over the top twezza about
Speaker 1: why we need to end Father's Day red as kind
Speaker 1: of funny, and it made it easy to laugh at
Speaker 1: the whole thing and easy to just cast the whole
Speaker 1: thing off as a joke or a troll. The very
Speaker 1: serious nature of bad actors being so easily able to
Speaker 1: hijack and to stabilize online discourse was kind of lost
Speaker 1: and how absurd the whole thing was. Like, I remember
Speaker 1: actual tech journalists writing about end Father's Day as just
Speaker 1: this big jokey troll, and I'm worried that we have
Speaker 1: not really learned a lot, and that we're still talking
Speaker 1: about the threats posed by an impersonation as a big joke.
Speaker 1: And yeah, of course I think it's pretty funny to
Speaker 1: see Mario giving me the finger, or to see a
Speaker 1: fake George Bush tweeting at fake Tony Blair about war crimes.
Speaker 1: Of course, I'm only human. But let's keep in mind
Speaker 1: that this ship will be funny before it becomes very
Speaker 1: very serious. For instance, Jason Kessler, the white supremacist behind
Speaker 1: the twenties and Team Unite the Right march on August
Speaker 1: seventeen in Chlottesville, Virginia, which left protester Heather Higher dead
Speaker 1: and dozens other injured, was able to pay eight dollars
Speaker 1: to get verified via Twitter blue this week. You might
Speaker 1: recall that Jason Kessler, back in twenties seventeen was verified
Speaker 1: on Twitter, and when people were like, hey, Twitter, why
Speaker 1: are you verifying white supremacist Jason Kessler. The company responded
Speaker 1: not by taking away his verification, but by pausing verification
Speaker 1: altogether for almost four years. Twitter set in a statement
Speaker 1: back then verification was meant to authenticate identity and voice,
Speaker 1: but it is interpreted as an endorsement or an indicator
Speaker 1: of importance. We recognize that we have created this confusion
Speaker 1: and need to resolve it. We have paused all general
Speaker 1: verifications while we work, and we'll be back to report soon.
Speaker 1: So obviously it's not like the old verification worked perfectly.
Speaker 1: You know, it wasn't super clear if verification was meant
Speaker 1: to be about preventing impersonation like they said in their statement,
Speaker 1: or an endorsement. And paradoxically, Twitter has taken verification away
Speaker 1: as a kind of punishment for breaking the terms of service.
Speaker 1: They did this to extremist right wing troll my Loganopolis,
Speaker 1: after he tweeted at somebody quote you deserve to be harassed,
Speaker 1: and so I note, we're actually doing an entire episode
Speaker 1: about Milo and the harassment campaign that he led against
Speaker 1: actor Leslie Jones that eventually got him permanently booted from
Speaker 1: the platform next week. So definitely check it out if
Speaker 1: you want to know more about Milo. But in addition
Speaker 1: to Jason Kessler, other extremist accounts shelled out eight dollars
Speaker 1: for verification, like the account lives of TikTok, which is
Speaker 1: known for leading dangerous harassment campaigns against just regular people
Speaker 1: and architect of the idea of the alt right, who
Speaker 1: was also famous for being punched in the face. White
Speaker 1: supremacist Richard Spencer, is now verified through purchasing Twitter Blue
Speaker 1: So I think it really raises the question of what
Speaker 1: verification is meant to mean and do you really want
Speaker 1: to have hateful extremists be verified with a blue check
Speaker 1: that very well may allow them to successfully build up
Speaker 1: their platform to spread that level of extremism. And let's
Speaker 1: not forget that all of this is happening just a
Speaker 1: few days after an election where all the races are
Speaker 1: still yet to be called. Letting folks spend eight dollars
Speaker 1: to verify their account while votes are still being counted
Speaker 1: could have very bad results. A verified account impersonating Arizona
Speaker 1: candidate for governor Carrie Lake tweeted that she had won
Speaker 1: her race even before that race had been called, and
Speaker 1: now MPR is even advising their journalists to stop giving
Speaker 1: out their Twitter handles on air, but to not outright
Speaker 1: delete their Twitter accounts because someone could just pay eight
Speaker 1: dollars to impersonate them. So this was obviously a disaster,
Speaker 1: and only a few days after rolling out Twitter Blue,
Speaker 1: Twitter renounced they were pausing it. And I think it
Speaker 1: really demonstrates what's really at stake here. Twitter is such
Speaker 1: a different kind of social media platform. I think it's
Speaker 1: one of the most important and powerful platforms in terms
Speaker 1: of getting news out there quickly. You know, Facebook and
Speaker 1: Instagram don't really allow for news to travel as quickly
Speaker 1: or efficiently as a platform like Twitter does. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a reason why folks like Donald Trump and my
Speaker 1: Loganopolis were Twitter super users, and why when they were
Speaker 1: kicked off of Twitter there reached an engagement in stock
Speaker 1: really plummeted. You know, there's a reason why President Biden
Speaker 1: uses Twitter to announce new updates, not Tumbler, and it's
Speaker 1: because Twitter is uniquely powerful. I also just think that
Speaker 1: it being a text based platform is really important to
Speaker 1: why it's such a unique platform. You know, you don't
Speaker 1: really need to be camera ready or off the cuff
Speaker 1: engaging to show up on Twitter the way that you
Speaker 1: might need to on TikTok or Instagram or YouTube. For
Speaker 1: the barriers are just different to participating, which invites folks
Speaker 1: to show up there more. And I think that's why
Speaker 1: you see it as a place where journalists and academics
Speaker 1: and researchers and activists all show up. So my opinion
Speaker 1: about what's going on with Twitter is that I think
Speaker 1: Elon Musk is deeply invested in destabilizing Twitter as a
Speaker 1: source where people can build power and build a voice.
Speaker 1: And I think that he's specifically doing this to curry
Speaker 1: favor with extremists and right wing types who have rightly
Speaker 1: clocked this kind of potential for power building on Twitter
Speaker 1: as a threat. You know, Twitter has been used successfully
Speaker 1: to build movements that call lout of institutions and the powerful.
Speaker 1: We've seen movements like Me Too and Black Lives Matter
Speaker 1: explode on platforms like Twitter that lead to powerful people
Speaker 1: having to face actual accountability. We've seen journalists use Twitter
Speaker 1: to hold people accountable and marginalized people who might not
Speaker 1: have had the easiest time building power or a voice,
Speaker 1: and traditional spaces have been able to build up platforms
Speaker 1: on Twitter. Like Twitter, it's kind of our domain as
Speaker 1: marginalized people. And so it is not surprising to me
Speaker 1: that Twitter has been this battleground for the culture wars,
Speaker 1: and because we are winning, I think Elon Musk is
Speaker 1: wanting to blow the whole thing up. What's really fascinating
Speaker 1: to me is how Elon Musk has been able to
Speaker 1: frame this as him, you know, trying to stick it
Speaker 1: to the elites and look out for the little guy,
Speaker 1: like a literal billionaire is trying to convince us that
Speaker 1: he is not one of the elites. Today, Elon Musk tweeted,
Speaker 1: as Twitter pursues the goals of elevating the citizen journalist,
Speaker 1: media elite will try everything to prevent that from happening.
Speaker 1: Mainstream media will still thrive, but increased competition from citizens
Speaker 1: will cause them to be more accurate as their oligopolie
Speaker 1: on information is disrupted. And honestly, we have already seen
Speaker 1: how well that worked out this week. It wasn't with
Speaker 1: more accurate content flooding Twitter, but with scams and impersonations
Speaker 1: running wild. And let's be real, Elon Musk can say
Speaker 1: that he's for the little guy and against the media elite.
Speaker 1: But what he's really against is journalists who dig into
Speaker 1: his companies and his practices. You know, this is the
Speaker 1: same Elon Musk who has gone to war with journalists
Speaker 1: for reporting critically about Tesla, has cracked down on his
Speaker 1: own employees for talking about unionization efforts, and has even
Speaker 1: asked his own customers to not speak critically about Tesla's
Speaker 1: on social media. So much for Elon Musk being the
Speaker 1: self proclaimed free speech absolutist, And it does kind of
Speaker 1: feel like we're watching the implosion of the platform in
Speaker 1: real time. Elon told Twitter staff, or what's left of them,
Speaker 1: because so many of them have resigned, that bankruptcy is
Speaker 1: not out of the question for Twitter. And if we
Speaker 1: do lose Twitter, I can't help but mourn because I
Speaker 1: know this will be a loss for black folks and
Speaker 1: women and lgbt Q folks and trans folks who have
Speaker 1: been able to successfully use the platform to build movements
Speaker 1: and enact real, meaningful change. Despite all that, I am heartened.
Speaker 1: But what I know to be true that Elon Musk
Speaker 1: and his band of sick athans and all of his
Speaker 1: billions of dollars will never be more powerful than us
Speaker 1: and our voices. So, whether it's on Twitter or some
Speaker 1: other platforms, I know that will always endure. Internet Hate
Speaker 1: Machine is a production of cool Zone Media. More podcasts
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