Speaker 1: The other day, I was on Pinterest and it linked
Speaker 1: me to a latch hook rug. I was trying to
Speaker 1: make a.
Speaker 2: Rug from yarn scraps. Why do you have yarn scraps?
Speaker 1: I don't have them yet, Okay, I was gonna get them.
Speaker 1: I want to make something.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, where are you gonna? Who do do
Speaker 2: people purchase yarn scraps?
Speaker 1: No, but that's the problem.
Speaker 2: So you gotta knit or something and then have leftover
Speaker 2: yarn and then you can make the rug.
Speaker 1: I don't listen. I saw it on Pinterest. It was
Speaker 1: a latchuk rug or it was a punch needle. I
Speaker 1: was really liking all of those fiber arts, and I said, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna watch your tutorial on YouTube. And when I
Speaker 1: got to YouTube, it was all presidential election twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: YouTube looked defer Rent. Okay.
Speaker 2: Same. Every time I get on Twitter, I can't even
Speaker 2: scroll like one thumb up without somebody tweeting about the election.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, I just want to see tweets about versus.
Speaker 2: I just want to see tweets about, you know, Lovecraft country.
Speaker 2: I need a break from all of that. I'm TT
Speaker 2: and I'm Zachiah and from Spotify. This is dope Labs.
Speaker 1: I'm getting a lot of information about the election, and
Speaker 1: it's just everywhere. I'm having an election burnout.
Speaker 2: Right, It's haunting my dreams two more months ago. It
Speaker 2: feels like an eternity away, Like twenty twenty is the
Speaker 2: longest year of all time. I feel like two months
Speaker 2: into election, I mean, how old am I going to
Speaker 2: be in two months?
Speaker 1: Forty seven?
Speaker 2: Definitely at least forty seven.
Speaker 1: And the ads are not stopping on these different platforms.
Speaker 1: It's not stopping at YouTube, it's not stopping with people
Speaker 1: tweeting stuff. I'm also getting text messages. First of all,
Speaker 1: my name is not William, but the messages are saying,
Speaker 1: like them cities are burning, what are you going to do?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, what is happening? Is this about what's
Speaker 1: happening in California? I don't think so, right, what's going on?
Speaker 2: I'm getting text messages from all over They're like the
Speaker 2: Great State of North Carolina. I'm like, I don't live
Speaker 2: in North Carolina.
Speaker 1: Somebody has got something mixed up along the way.
Speaker 2: There's something mixed up, and so I'll respond, I'm like,
Speaker 2: I don't live in North Carolina. They're like, okay, I'll
Speaker 2: remove you from our list. Then the next day I
Speaker 2: get three more text messages about North Carolina where the
Speaker 2: polls are in North Carolina. Doesn't help me.
Speaker 1: Man, When you just said okay, I'll remove you from
Speaker 1: our list, I felt so optimistic. I picked up my phone.
Speaker 1: I was ready to reply to every spam message I received.
Speaker 2: No, they don't remove you. They just keep going. They
Speaker 2: just keep going. Today's lab is all about political ads.
Speaker 1: Specifically how political ads play a role in our greater
Speaker 1: political behavior, and the strategies that are used to make
Speaker 1: political ads. Let's get into the recitation.
Speaker 2: So what do we know?
Speaker 1: We know political advertising has been around since American government
Speaker 1: has been around.
Speaker 2: Basically, Yes, I saw Hamilton and they were definitely using
Speaker 2: political ads.
Speaker 1: But things have changed a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Because I mean when you think back to when
Speaker 2: we were young, you would see, you know, political ads
Speaker 2: on television, you would hear them on the radio. But
Speaker 2: now with Facebook and YouTube and Instagram and all these
Speaker 2: things like that, they've got a lot of different ways
Speaker 2: to hit us with the political ads.
Speaker 1: And even though it feels like the election season is
Speaker 1: longer than it used to be, for some reason. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's because we were all at home,
Speaker 1: but I feel like it's been politics NonStop and it
Speaker 1: may feel like it couldn't be possible, but it seems
Speaker 1: like the ads are ramping up the closer and closer
Speaker 1: we get to the election.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I'm getting to messages literally every day.
Speaker 1: Well what do we want to know?
Speaker 2: Well, I want to know the history of political ads
Speaker 2: and how they've changed over time.
Speaker 1: And I'm interested in the different objectives like what do
Speaker 1: you think this text message is going to do?
Speaker 2: And I think another important thing to figure out is
Speaker 2: what actually gets people to act? So after they see
Speaker 2: an ad in whatever form, what is it about the
Speaker 2: ad that gets them to do something about what they
Speaker 2: just saw? And what assumptions are there about how people
Speaker 2: will act?
Speaker 1: And then just thinking about once you know what gets
Speaker 1: people to act, how are you leveraging technology? So has
Speaker 1: social media given these campaigns an advantage? Right?
Speaker 3: It?
Speaker 1: Is there something about social media that's better than more
Speaker 1: traditional forms of ads. I imagine it's more responsive than
Speaker 1: a billboard.
Speaker 2: But how that's a really good question, like and do
Speaker 2: they work? Do political ads work? Are they changing folks' minds?
Speaker 1: I'll say, when I see too me the ads, I'm
Speaker 1: turned off. So is there a risk?
Speaker 2: Is there a limit? Like, yeah, do people get tired
Speaker 2: of seeing the same ad over and over again? I
Speaker 2: think that's true for some people, But I guess we
Speaker 2: got to find out. Let's jump into the dissection.
Speaker 1: So we're switching things up today and we're bringing in
Speaker 1: not just one, but two guest experts to talk to
Speaker 1: us through the complexity and nuance of political advertising.
Speaker 2: Our first guest is doctor Cheryl Laird.
Speaker 3: My name is Cheryl Laird. I am a professor of
Speaker 3: Government and Legal Studies at Voden College.
Speaker 1: Doctor Laired's research is based on political behavior, specifically black
Speaker 1: political behavior and how that relates to public opinion. So
Speaker 1: she's really focused on the consumer side of political ads.
Speaker 1: How do ads affect a person's behavior.
Speaker 2: Our second guest is Jenna Golden. Hi.
Speaker 4: My name is Jenna Golden, and I work with companies
Speaker 4: and organizations that are looking to better understand how to
Speaker 4: tap into the advertising ecosystem in Washington, DC. Prior to this,
Speaker 4: I ran the political and advocacy sales team at Twitter.
Speaker 2: So while doctor Laird focuses on the receiving end and
Speaker 2: the effect of political ads. Jenna Golden focuses more on
Speaker 2: the advertiser side, working on things like strategy, and.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about those strategies and their effect
Speaker 1: a little bit later in the show.
Speaker 2: But first let's walk through the history of political ads.
Speaker 2: Political ads have always been around, it's just been in
Speaker 2: different forms. So before the invention of the printing press,
Speaker 2: it was all in person, so they would get up
Speaker 2: on stage and say why you should be voting for them.
Speaker 2: Post the printing press, you could put up a flyer
Speaker 2: that says, hey, vote for me.
Speaker 1: And then when radio came along, it changed the game.
Speaker 1: You could get on the radio say hey, I support Canada, X,
Speaker 1: Y and Z, give all the drama, all the emotion,
Speaker 1: and you would just broadcast over the waves. Everyone was
Speaker 1: tuning in.
Speaker 2: Here's doctor Laird.
Speaker 3: So I mean the advent of various technological advancements. So
Speaker 3: as we've moved and progressed on our technology, political advertising
Speaker 3: has been able to shift in a number of ways.
Speaker 1: But this was especially true with the boom of television
Speaker 1: in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 3: But really, I think the biggest step towards advertising that
Speaker 3: I think we still see today, right is the visual,
Speaker 3: the pairing of the visual and the audio.
Speaker 2: In nineteen fifty two, with television hitting the scene, Dwight D. Eisenhower,
Speaker 2: who wasn't president at the time but would become our president,
Speaker 2: later created a campaign of forty twenty second commercials called
Speaker 2: Eisenhower Answers America, where he answered questions posed by Americans
Speaker 2: about very specific issues.
Speaker 1: Since then, political TV ads have become the dominant form
Speaker 1: of campaign advertising, eclipsing even social media. Here's Jenna.
Speaker 4: If you look at the budgets of political advertising, you
Speaker 4: will still see that the vast majority of budget is
Speaker 4: spent on television ads. So it is still TV that
Speaker 4: is king when it comes to the dollars. TV is
Speaker 4: not measurable the way that digital is measurable.
Speaker 2: That's right. Social media has now opened the floodgates for
Speaker 2: a whole new form of political advertising. Unlike television, social
Speaker 2: media advertising is targetable and measurable. So even if you
Speaker 2: want to reach a very specific group of people, like
Speaker 2: within a zip code or a certain age group or
Speaker 2: a certain racial demographic, you can do that with micro targeting.
Speaker 4: You know, the micro targeting that is available on digital
Speaker 4: is you know, ten times deeper than what you get elsewhere.
Speaker 1: So this means each ad that is seen or an
Speaker 1: ad impression theoretically has more impact because you're reaching the
Speaker 1: exact group of people that you want to Doctor later
Speaker 1: agrees that social media ads are a game changer, and
Speaker 1: for a multitude of reasons.
Speaker 3: Social media is like broken the whole like space on
Speaker 3: this now, right, like with Twitter and Facebook and all
Speaker 3: these different in YouTube and you know, just clicking on
Speaker 3: the websites, I mean, like anything now you are just
Speaker 3: seeing advertising.
Speaker 2: And that repeat exposure, so like across all of those
Speaker 2: platforms is another thing that sets social media advertises apart
Speaker 2: from its predecessors. Every click of the mouse or tap
Speaker 2: on your screen is a new opportunity for a fresh
Speaker 2: ad to be thrown in your face.
Speaker 1: And so from a campaigner's perspective, the more you click,
Speaker 1: the more I understand about you as a user of
Speaker 1: the Internet. This helps the campaign get down to the
Speaker 1: exact target population they want to reach. And sometimes a
Speaker 1: type of ad they send you depends on what stage
Speaker 1: the campaign is in. Here's doctor Laird, So.
Speaker 3: It depends for instance, on the target of the ad, right,
Speaker 3: like what are you trying to do with your ad?
Speaker 3: And so people have hired firms, people hire consultants, people
Speaker 3: get focus groups together. I mean like there's a lot
Speaker 3: of money invested into how do you advertise to people
Speaker 3: and what are you appealing to?
Speaker 1: Jena breaks down the objectives of campaign advertise into four
Speaker 1: different stages, awareness, acquisition, persuasion, and mobilization.
Speaker 4: In a lot of cases, especially if it's a newer
Speaker 4: candidate that people are not familiar with, it starts with
Speaker 4: what we call awareness, and really the goal here is
Speaker 4: let's just get out this name and this information to
Speaker 4: as many people as possible that potentially are within our
Speaker 4: sort of space or geography, so that we get the
Speaker 4: awareness that we need for the candidate.
Speaker 2: Right. So, when you think back to any type of
Speaker 2: primary elections, and it always during the primaries, you see
Speaker 2: a bunch of new names. So when a new candidate
Speaker 2: comes out and it's primary season and not a lot
Speaker 2: of people know that person, the aim of that campaign
Speaker 2: team is to get that person's name out so that
Speaker 2: more folks know who they are and they recognize the
Speaker 2: name when they see it.
Speaker 4: But then the campaign, especially from an advertising standpoint, moves
Speaker 4: to the acquisition stage. And what I mean by acquisition
Speaker 4: is there are really two pieces of data that every
Speaker 4: political campaign wants. One is your email address. Piece two
Speaker 4: in the acquisition stage that they're working really hard at
Speaker 4: is acquiring money, so it's fundraising.
Speaker 1: So boom. If I know you know who my candidate is,
Speaker 1: I want to know who you are. So I want
Speaker 1: to build a huge listser of people who know my candidate,
Speaker 1: like my candidate, and are willing to support my candidate
Speaker 1: with a couple of coins.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So if I see the name Zakiah Wattley and
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, let me go research her website. So
Speaker 2: I go to her website and I find out more
Speaker 2: about her. I'm like, okay, that's cool. And then they
Speaker 2: say put your email here to sign up for this
Speaker 2: list serve so that or to find out any updates
Speaker 2: on Zakia Wattley. And so I put in my email
Speaker 2: address because I want to know more. Now they have
Speaker 2: a way to target me with more of their ads.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what I did to become your friend.
Speaker 2: I knew it. I was like, hmm, where have I
Speaker 2: heard this name before.
Speaker 4: Then it moves to persuasion, and persuasion is where you
Speaker 4: really start to see the content change. This is where
Speaker 4: I'm trying to reach people to persuade them to vote
Speaker 4: for my candidate or come to my side. Oftentimes you
Speaker 4: hear in the political ad world people call their target
Speaker 4: as persuadables. So if I'm Joe Biden, what I want
Speaker 4: to do is I want to target the people in
Speaker 4: the middle that aren't sure and they have the ability
Speaker 4: to be persuaded.
Speaker 1: So here, if you're already team Zakiyah, I don't want
Speaker 1: to talk to you anymore. Really, I'm not spending any
Speaker 1: more money on you. I'm looking for the people who
Speaker 1: are like, huh, could be Team Zakiah, could be Team TT.
Speaker 1: I want those people in the middle, and then I'm
Speaker 1: going to try to persuade them like, hey, TT's not
Speaker 1: really that nice, She's just pretending. Wait. So, one of
Speaker 1: the most effective forms of persuasion, doctor Lay says is
Speaker 1: the emotive appeal that's trying to get an emotional response.
Speaker 2: One of the most common emotions that ads will try
Speaker 2: and in sight is fear, and one of the most
Speaker 2: notable political ads that use fear as its tactic was
Speaker 2: from nineteen sixty four, when Lyndon B. Johnson was running
Speaker 2: against Barry Goldwater.
Speaker 3: The Daisy ad from LBJ where you have the little
Speaker 3: girl playing with the flower and then you see the
Speaker 3: large like atomic explosion go on. And this fear that's
Speaker 3: supposed to be garnered from that ad, right, like the
Speaker 3: innocence of this young woman is at stake because we
Speaker 3: are in the midst of this fear of potentially being
Speaker 3: annihilated by these weapons of mass destruction.
Speaker 2: That is traumatizing. I can't even believe they were showing
Speaker 2: that on television.
Speaker 1: This was also the case during the nineteen eighty eight
Speaker 1: election between Michael Ducaccus and George Bush Senior. Here there
Speaker 1: was an ad that incided fear and was also pretty
Speaker 1: problematic and harmful.
Speaker 2: And when we say problematic, what we mean is racist.
Speaker 3: The one where they talk about Ducacus on crime and
Speaker 3: they show the image of Willy Horton, right, and that
Speaker 3: the furlough that was granted to Willy Horton allowed him
Speaker 3: to basically go and commit another felony against a couple, right,
Speaker 3: And that that was something showing that the Caucus is
Speaker 3: soft on crime and that Bush would be a better
Speaker 3: person to put into office. But with doing that, they're
Speaker 3: also triggering onto these implicit racial appeals. Right, So they
Speaker 3: are trying to invoke for a white audience, in particular,
Speaker 3: this fear of the black criminal.
Speaker 2: So that's a problem, right, because it's bigger than I
Speaker 2: want to win this presidential election. This is influencing people's
Speaker 2: feelings about black people. And I feel like it's negligent
Speaker 2: to put out stuff like that. You need to focus
Speaker 2: talk about the issue. You don't need to have like
Speaker 2: someone as the poster child, because then you run into
Speaker 2: issues where people will start to discriminate against certain people
Speaker 2: that look a certain way or sound a certain way,
Speaker 2: that fit the profile of the person that you're putting
Speaker 2: in this political ad.
Speaker 1: And I think we still see traces of that to
Speaker 1: this day.
Speaker 2: Oh my, oh gosh.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So beyond fear, there are some other well known methods
Speaker 1: of persuasion as well, like negative advertising or focusing on
Speaker 1: a single issue that voters care about, whether it's war, economy,
Speaker 1: or global pandemic.
Speaker 2: We are seeing so many ads during this election cycle
Speaker 2: that touch on the pandemic. There's a lot. I mean,
Speaker 2: we've been trying to stay away from talking about the
Speaker 2: pandemic and the coronavirus, but it's so hard because it's
Speaker 2: a part of really everything that we're doing these days,
Speaker 2: and so putting it into political ads, it definitely taps
Speaker 2: into a lot of emotions that people are having.
Speaker 1: Taking that persuasion right through the roof. So just a recap,
Speaker 1: we've gone through the first three stages of campaign advertising, awareness, acquisition,
Speaker 1: and persuasion.
Speaker 4: And then lastly we have what we call mobilization or GOOTV,
Speaker 4: and GOOTV stands for get off the vote. So there's
Speaker 4: a big gap between people who say that they're going
Speaker 4: to vote and people who actually vote, and so the
Speaker 4: messaging happens in those last stages mobilization and get off
Speaker 4: the vote. A lot of it is here's a reminder
Speaker 4: of where your polling place is. Here's what time the
Speaker 4: polling place opens. Make sure that you're there early. Don't
Speaker 4: forget that your apps and tee ballad is coming. This
Speaker 4: is how you mail it in. This is how you
Speaker 4: make sure it gets there on time.
Speaker 2: With those objectives in minds, campaigns reach out to potential
Speaker 2: voters using mailers, emails, TV ads, social media ads, phone calls,
Speaker 2: and a whole bunch of other methods.
Speaker 1: You know, it's really one thing to say, I like
Speaker 1: this ad, I understand more about this candidate. I'm willing
Speaker 1: to share my email or donate, But I think it's
Speaker 1: very different when it comes to actual mobilization. I think
Speaker 1: sometimes it takes different motives to get you out of
Speaker 1: the door, to vote, out of the door, to attend
Speaker 1: a political rally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the activation energy is different for different people. So
Speaker 2: it's not just like, oh, we all are going to
Speaker 2: register and we're all going to get out to vote,
Speaker 2: like some of the things that folks need to do
Speaker 2: to be able to feel empowered to do those those things,
Speaker 2: it's a lot harder for them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, ideally everyone would be able to just drop that
Speaker 1: ballot in the mail, done right, right. But I am ready.
Speaker 1: While I might be burned out on the ads, when
Speaker 1: it's time to vote, I am ready. Me and my
Speaker 1: little Instagram stories. How will be there to cheer you on,
Speaker 1: to say, hey, did you vote yet? Hey, this is
Speaker 1: what you can do in your state. I want to
Speaker 1: use my voice to kind of help somebody over the
Speaker 1: hurdle if it will even help them. I'm there to
Speaker 1: do it.
Speaker 2: Right, and I think we should all be doing that. Like,
Speaker 2: if you know where your polling place is, put up
Speaker 2: the link for how you figured that out, show a
Speaker 2: step by step, do a screen recording, and post it.
Speaker 2: I actually have a friend that did that. She showed
Speaker 2: how she figured out where her polling place was and
Speaker 2: I was like, this is amazing. It makes it seem
Speaker 2: so easy, you know what I'm saying, And it should
Speaker 2: be easy because it's the American way. Voting is a
Speaker 2: part of our democratic system and we should all be
Speaker 2: doing it. I'm excited to vote. I'm very excited to vote,
Speaker 2: and I'm excited to get y'all energized about voting.
Speaker 1: If you're not already, and look out for our Instagram, Twitter,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be on our website at Dope Labs podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. We're gonna tell you everything you need to
Speaker 1: know about registering to vote, and then when it's time
Speaker 1: to vote, what you should do then too.
Speaker 2: We're gonna take a quick break, and when we get back,
Speaker 2: we're gonna talk more about social media, the political ad space,
Speaker 2: and how your Internet activity determines what you see.
Speaker 1: And we're back. We're talking to two guest experts, doctor
Speaker 1: Cheryl Laird and Jenna Golden about the history, objectives, and
Speaker 1: effects of political ads.
Speaker 2: Like we said earlier, the Internet has really changed the
Speaker 2: game within the political atmosphere with the rise of social
Speaker 2: media advertising campaigns, and even those people not directly affiliated
Speaker 2: with campaigns are able to specifically target certain voters and
Speaker 2: then give them exposure to certain ads.
Speaker 1: So how do social media ads target people? What criteria
Speaker 1: do they use? Jenna breaks it down.
Speaker 4: So there's sort of these two camps, and one is
Speaker 4: information that you choose to actively share, and the second
Speaker 4: is sort of informed information based on the actions and
Speaker 4: steps that you take. So you'll see both are ways
Speaker 4: that brands and organizations can ultimately target you.
Speaker 2: I went to Zakia's website because I'm interested in possibly
Speaker 2: voting for her, and when I get there, I put
Speaker 2: in my email address, I put in my age, I
Speaker 2: put in my zip code maybe, so from there they
Speaker 2: have a lot of information about me, where I live,
Speaker 2: how old I am, so a lot about my demographic
Speaker 2: and that is me actively sharing.
Speaker 1: But because tt has selected many Instagram ads, purchased many
Speaker 1: embroidered sweatshirts across the web, I know a little bit
Speaker 1: more about her, and so those are things that she's
Speaker 1: not actively sharing, but those are things that I'm collecting
Speaker 1: through her cookies on her website. That are describing the
Speaker 1: type of person she is on the web.
Speaker 2: Cookies is like leaving breadcrumbs wherever you go these website
Speaker 2: you go to, you drop a few bread crumbs so
Speaker 2: they know you were there. Because I mean, your cookies
Speaker 2: are there.
Speaker 3: There's a whole bunch of data that's being collected there
Speaker 3: your cookies, and in that data is information about your preferences,
Speaker 3: information about your gender, information about your social identities, information
Speaker 3: about your background, and now the types of ads that
Speaker 3: you can get towards you will be specific in what
Speaker 3: people think may be appealing to you, and that's like
Speaker 3: a whole new frontier.
Speaker 1: Jenna says that it's not just your demographics and online behavior,
Speaker 1: that zip code tt is just as important.
Speaker 4: So there's a lot of recognition of individuals and targeting individuals,
Speaker 4: but there's also a lot of care that goes towards
Speaker 4: thinking about the geographies in which those individuals are located.
Speaker 4: Because at the end of the day, you might be persuadable,
Speaker 4: but if you are a leaning Republican and you live
Speaker 4: in one of the most democratic states, it may not
Speaker 4: be worth the budget to focus there. Whereas I want
Speaker 4: to focus on what are these key swing states where
Speaker 4: I can really get the most bang for our bum.
Speaker 1: They might spend a little money on you, but they'll
Speaker 1: spend more in places that are battlegrounds. And when we
Speaker 1: say more, we don't mean a couple hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: It's estimated that seven billion dollars will be spent on
Speaker 1: advertising during this general election.
Speaker 2: Did y'all hear that? That's billion with a beat?
Speaker 1: And the bulk of that, like sixty to seventy percent
Speaker 1: of it will be spent in the last ten weeks
Speaker 1: leading up to the election. And that's just hard money
Speaker 1: from campaigns. There's also soft money from other groups and
Speaker 1: organizations that are campaign adjacent or want to see a
Speaker 1: certain candidate win. They're spending money too. That's so much money,
Speaker 1: But money isn't the only thing that's getting out of control.
Speaker 1: The other thing that's out of control is political misinformation.
Speaker 2: All of the elements that we've talked about, the unlimited funding,
Speaker 2: the increased targeting technology, it all helps breed this landscape
Speaker 2: where it becomes impossible to know what's fact and what's
Speaker 2: not and what Doctor Laird says, one misinformed match can
Speaker 2: create a huge fire.
Speaker 3: So I think that That's the thing to think about
Speaker 3: with misinformation as well, is that it's dangerous because it's collective, right,
Speaker 3: Like it is not just one individual, but it is
Speaker 3: you know, a bunch of people all kind of starting
Speaker 3: to agree and it doesn't take much to convince either.
Speaker 1: And where that misinformation is coming from might surprise you.
Speaker 1: Jenna says that the misinformation is primarily coming from organic content,
Speaker 1: not paid advertising content. That means it's your own people,
Speaker 1: real people, creating posts that are inaccurate, sharing them, and
Speaker 1: they're spreading all around in your social network.
Speaker 2: This reminds me of our episode protect to how we
Speaker 2: talked about how virus spreads, like how it can just
Speaker 2: hijack everything as soon as it's introduced to a new hostel.
Speaker 2: And that's exactly how the misinformation is spreading.
Speaker 1: And when you take that information and put it in
Speaker 1: the context of these conversations about regulation of information on
Speaker 1: social media platforms. We've all seen Mark Zuckerberg on CSPAN
Speaker 1: or if you think about Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter,
Speaker 1: they're all trying to do something different. You can pull
Speaker 1: down the ads, but that doesn't change the problem.
Speaker 2: So how are social media companies stepping up what are
Speaker 2: they doing to combat the spread of misinformation?
Speaker 4: So now what Twitter has done over the last few
Speaker 4: months has started to essentially place labels on pieces of
Speaker 4: content that are tweeted out that could be misinformation. And
Speaker 4: why it's so notable is because we all know that
Speaker 4: while Twitter is the smallest, it has the largest megaphone,
Speaker 4: and it also has quite a power user, which is
Speaker 4: Donald trumb who is the President of the United States.
Speaker 1: Twitter also made the decision to ban political ads all
Speaker 1: together last November.
Speaker 2: Other social media companies like pinterest in next Door didn't
Speaker 2: allow political ads from the get go. They wanted nothing
Speaker 2: to do with it, Like they said, no political ads
Speaker 2: on this app. But for the ones that did, like Twitter, Facebook, Google, YouTube,
Speaker 2: all those they're trying to put the toothpaste back into
Speaker 2: the two.
Speaker 4: When you think about the amount of content that is
Speaker 4: pumping through those platforms on a daily basis, there is
Speaker 4: not a way to possibly monitor all of that content,
Speaker 4: definitely not manually, and as we've seen as a lot
Speaker 4: of these companies have tried to monitor some of that
Speaker 4: content from an AI standpoint or a machine learning standpoint
Speaker 4: that often misses contacts.
Speaker 1: Facebook has started to put some labels on things too.
Speaker 1: But do you know what I saw in response or
Speaker 1: a screenshot from a group message where people were saying,
Speaker 1: this is how you remove fact checkers from your posts,
Speaker 1: And I was like, you don't want your post to
Speaker 1: be checked for facts, y'all just want to be wrong.
Speaker 1: That made me really sad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, people don't want the facts. They don't want them
Speaker 2: because to them, it doesn't matter what the facts are
Speaker 2: because it's not what they believe. It's not what they
Speaker 2: feel exactly. If they don't believe it, it is not
Speaker 2: a fact.
Speaker 1: And I think that's the other part. Not only do
Speaker 1: they not want to hear the truth, I think some
Speaker 1: people are not really grasping the full magnitude of what
Speaker 1: happens when you post something that's not true. Doctor Larrt
Speaker 1: touched on this.
Speaker 3: That is one of the things that is really troubling
Speaker 3: about the digital social media space is that most of
Speaker 3: these companies and people.
Speaker 2: Have created it. I don't think have totally.
Speaker 3: Processed that it can happen like that, like it can
Speaker 3: happen in the snap of a finger. You'd be stunned
Speaker 3: by what people are willing to do or are influenced by,
Speaker 3: right do.
Speaker 1: You remember pizzagate TT.
Speaker 2: Yes, that was in twenty sixteen during the election, and
Speaker 2: there was this conspiracy theory that said that this pizza
Speaker 2: place in DCO had a child trafficking ring running through
Speaker 2: it and that one of the candidates had something to
Speaker 2: do with it. Yes, folks that are showing up to
Speaker 2: the pizza place, like where are the kids? And they
Speaker 2: got threats in everything.
Speaker 1: Yes, this one man drove from North Carolina to DC
Speaker 1: to that pizza shop.
Speaker 2: That's four hours. That's four hours with a gun.
Speaker 1: He was wrong, and once he realized that it was
Speaker 1: all made up, just misinformation on the web, he turned
Speaker 1: himself in. That's a wild ride.
Speaker 2: Are there still people who believe in Pizzagate?
Speaker 1: Well, Li's coming back in twenty twenty. Have you heard. No,
Speaker 1: it has a new younger audience on TikTok.
Speaker 2: Oh No, okay, Well that's that's all you need to say, period. TikTok.
Speaker 2: Y'all got to do more research, y' y'all are not
Speaker 2: even doing the bare minimum research, y'all just sharing tiktoks.
Speaker 1: Social media is such a big part of this. And
Speaker 1: if there's anything we want you to walk away with,
Speaker 1: we want you to know when you're being targeted. Yes,
Speaker 1: what is an ad what is just conversation? So when
Speaker 1: you're sharing things, know that you got to do your
Speaker 1: due diligence. They're looking for people just like you. They're saying, hey,
Speaker 1: do you like puppies and do you care about puppy meals?
Speaker 1: And then they're going to say this candidate has twenty
Speaker 1: five puppy meals. You know, it's just whatever is out here,
Speaker 1: And so I just want us to be a little
Speaker 1: more diligent.
Speaker 2: Don't fall for the okie dope.
Speaker 3: The time lapse of how much you're engaging that, I mean,
Speaker 3: it is mentally taxing, right, and cognitively taxing, and could
Speaker 3: be leading to other kinds of outcomes that we haven't
Speaker 3: truly surmised from all of it because it is so overwhelming.
Speaker 3: How much is happening.
Speaker 1: My model used to be zero fatigue, but now it's
Speaker 1: all the fatigue. Okay, all the fatigue, election fatigue, general fatigue,
Speaker 1: people fatigue, just all of it. We are fatigued, and
Speaker 1: I think we're basically headed to the land of burnout.
Speaker 2: Honestly, and with that in mind, our next episode is
Speaker 2: actually going to be all about burnout. How to recognize
Speaker 2: it and how to handle it. And we are so
Speaker 2: excited to talk about it because I mean, being bombarded
Speaker 2: with all these political ads and then the pandemic and
Speaker 2: all these different things that are going on in the world.
Speaker 2: RP to Chadwick Boseman, and we're all just tired. Twenty
Speaker 2: twenty has sucked. And so this next episode on Burnout
Speaker 2: is for the people, and we're going to get through this.
Speaker 1: A lot of people.
Speaker 2: I mean me, it's is I I am people.
Speaker 1: After this episode airs, I'm going to announce your run
Speaker 1: for president.
Speaker 2: My run. I don't want to be president. I think
Speaker 2: i'd be the worst president. I'd be like everybody, just chill.
Speaker 1: I'll go to bed. So earlier t TV comes for president.
Speaker 2: I think for your political ad, if I am on
Speaker 2: your campaign strategy team, I'm gonna be like, Okay, I've
Speaker 2: got a lot of pictures of food that Zakia has
Speaker 2: made everybody likes to eat. I think that's something we
Speaker 2: can all bond over. And so then I'm just putting
Speaker 2: out pictures of plates that I have had a Zekias
Speaker 2: asks meing like with Zekiah.
Speaker 1: We all eat, we all eat good. Mic drop no
Speaker 1: more hashtag struggle plate.
Speaker 2: That's it for Lab thirty one, but we have so
Speaker 2: much more for you to dig into on our website,
Speaker 2: so head on over there, Dope Labs podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: On our website you can find a cheat sheet for
Speaker 1: today's lab, along with a ton of other links and
Speaker 1: resources in the show notes.
Speaker 2: And if you want to stay in the know with
Speaker 2: Dope Labs, don't forget to sign up for our newsletter
Speaker 2: on our site too.
Speaker 1: We won't sell your email address, but we might use
Speaker 1: it for TT's campaign.
Speaker 2: Just delete all your cookies.
Speaker 1: Right special thanks to both our guest experts, doctor Cheryl
Speaker 1: Laird and Jenna Golden.
Speaker 2: You can follow Jenna Golden on Twitter at ji Golden.
Speaker 1: And you can visit doctor Cheryl Laired's website at Cheryl
Speaker 1: Lair dot com. That's c h R Y L l
Speaker 1: a I R D dot com. You can also follow
Speaker 1: her on Twitter at Cheryl Laird. You can find even
Speaker 1: more links to their work in our show notes.
Speaker 2: You can also find us on Twitter and Instagram at
Speaker 2: Dope Labs Podcast.
Speaker 1: TT is on Twitter at d R Underscore t s h.
Speaker 2: O, and you can find Zakiya at z said. So
Speaker 2: are y'all registered to vote yet get started at headcount
Speaker 2: dot org slash play your part. It's quick and easy,
Speaker 2: I promise yes.
Speaker 1: Also, we love hearing from you. What is your think
Speaker 1: about today's lab? Do you have ideas for future labs?
Speaker 1: Call us at two zero two five six seven seven
Speaker 1: zero two eight and let us know.
Speaker 2: You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at Dope Labs.
Speaker 2: Podcast TT is on Twitter at d R Underscore t
Speaker 2: s h O, and you can find Zakiya at z said.
Speaker 1: So follow us on Spotify or wherever else you listen
Speaker 1: to podcasts.
Speaker 2: Dope Labs is produced by Jenny radalt Mass of Waverner Studios.
Speaker 1: Mixing and sound design are by Hannes Brown.
Speaker 2: Our theme music is by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Sugiura,
Speaker 2: with additional music by Elijah Lex Harvey. Dope Labs is
Speaker 2: a production of Spotify and Mega Oh Media Group, and.
Speaker 1: It's executive produced by us T T show Da Zakiah Wattley.
Speaker 2: What would you put in your mem You.
Speaker 1: Know who I really feel like is aligned with like?
Speaker 1: My brand is somewhere between Anita Baker and Meghan Thesallion. Yes,
Speaker 1: and so I really have to do some micro targeting.
Speaker 1: To get certain groups of people where I feel like
Speaker 1: Meg will be effective, but not the groups that will
Speaker 1: be turned off by that, and that are more Anita
Speaker 1: Baker and Shade. Yeah, but that's where I land. Anita
Speaker 1: the Stallion, Anita the Stallion,