Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Tot and this
Speaker 1: is There Are No Girls on the Internet. This is
Speaker 1: There No Girls on the Internet, where we explore the
Speaker 1: intersection of tech, social media, and identity. This is another
Speaker 1: installment of our weekly news roundup, where we summarize and
Speaker 1: round up some of the news on the Internet that
Speaker 1: you might have missed this week. Just to heads up,
Speaker 1: if my voice sounds a little bit raspy, because I
Speaker 1: have been traveling and screaming at parties and concerts and conferences,
Speaker 1: so I kind of got a little bit of a
Speaker 1: Kathleen Turner thing happening. That's what's going on with me. Mike.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being.
Speaker 2: Here, Bridget, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: Thanks for soldiering on despite that raspiness.
Speaker 1: So I'm actually happy that you're here because a story
Speaker 1: that I know that you know, I'm low key obsessed with.
Speaker 1: I just have so much to say about it. Can
Speaker 1: we just can we just jump in? This will be
Speaker 1: our banter.
Speaker 2: We have to Yeah, Yeah, let's just jump in.
Speaker 3: It's this is like possibly the funnest story that we've
Speaker 3: talked about on here.
Speaker 2: In like a very long time.
Speaker 1: So the other day I was like like laugh, like
Speaker 1: you were hearing me laugh to myself, and you were like,
Speaker 1: what's so funny? And I was like, I'll save I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I gotta save it for the roundup. And that
Speaker 1: was me diving into the ins and outs of this.
Speaker 1: I guess it's I guess I'm calling it the Willy
Speaker 1: Wonka Fiasco in Glasgow? Am I saying that right? Glasgow?
Speaker 3: I think it's Glasgow, and I think it like real,
Speaker 3: it actually rhymes with fiasco, the Glasgow Fiasco, the Willy
Speaker 3: Wonka Glasgow Fiasco.
Speaker 1: So here's what went down. Basically, the police had to
Speaker 1: be called to the Willy's Chocolate Experience, which was this
Speaker 1: live event for kids and families billed as like an immersive,
Speaker 1: wondrous experience for kids. So like kids apparently showed up
Speaker 1: with their families. It costs forty four dollars, by the way,
Speaker 1: so that's like not a cheap ticket. In my book.
Speaker 1: Kids showed up with their parents. They were in like
Speaker 1: Willy Wonka inspired costumes. I don't know if you know this,
Speaker 1: but there's a new Willy Wonka movie with Timothy Schalomey
Speaker 1: out right now. So it's kind of hot in the zeitgeist,
Speaker 1: and you know, I guess all I can say is
Speaker 1: that it was not the world of pure imagination that
Speaker 1: these kids and families were promised. So this is one
Speaker 1: of those stories that you have to see the pictures
Speaker 1: to really get what I'm saying. But whatever you're imagining,
Speaker 1: from what I'm describing, it is worse, It is sadder,
Speaker 1: it is grimmer than whatever it is that you're picturing.
Speaker 1: So we'll link to the pictures from the show notes.
Speaker 1: But it is truly the grimish that I have ever
Speaker 1: seen in my life. Did you see these pictures?
Speaker 2: I'm like cracking up at one right now. That's just like.
Speaker 3: There, It's very multicolored. There's a lot of candy. There's
Speaker 3: like a strange little bear in a flying horse, some
Speaker 3: sort of like circus clown man, and then also a
Speaker 3: bunch of like nonsense lettering that like almost is words,
Speaker 3: but like it's not actual words.
Speaker 2: It's just like nonsense, like you mean.
Speaker 1: From the flyer or from the like online like poster.
Speaker 2: I'm looking at this fly I think it's the online poster.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So let me read some of those nonsense words.
Speaker 1: At the top, it says I think they're going or
Speaker 1: enriching entertainment is what I think they're going for. It
Speaker 1: says in sharing entertainment. And then on the bottom where
Speaker 1: it like, you know, like on a concert flyer where
Speaker 1: they would have the band names, So on the very
Speaker 1: bottom of the flyer, it says cat get cat. How
Speaker 1: would you even say that, cat gatating?
Speaker 3: I'm so excited to listen to you try to save
Speaker 3: these words, so I'm.
Speaker 2: Not gonna help. You're just gonna have to do it.
Speaker 1: Cat gatating live performances, they got that one, Okay, cartchy tons,
Speaker 1: Like are they going for catchy turns? But even that
Speaker 1: onen't really makes sense.
Speaker 3: I think it's supposed to be like catchy tunes, catchy tunes.
Speaker 1: Catchy tunes, Okay, exacer dray lollipops.
Speaker 2: These lollipops are so excess or.
Speaker 1: Dre apacidies of sweet treats, no a pacidiece of sweet teats.
Speaker 1: Like it's so messed up that the brain fixes it.
Speaker 1: Like that's how messed up it is. I'm not even
Speaker 1: reading it the way that.
Speaker 3: It's written it like I can I can kind of
Speaker 3: see why people were taken in by this because it's
Speaker 3: like it's like trafficking and Willy Wonka, which is kind
Speaker 3: of absurd and like magical, and so it almost feels
Speaker 3: like it could have been intentional, like wow, these people
Speaker 3: are like really out there.
Speaker 1: Well, Willy Wonka is absurd and like enigmatic or whatever,
Speaker 1: but he doesn't speak gimmerish like says work like this
Speaker 1: is like written by Pootie Tang, Like this is not
Speaker 1: these are not words that are words.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, this is just like classic cat and gitating.
Speaker 1: Classic cat caitating. So the performers are all speaking out
Speaker 1: on TikTok, and I have to say, like it has
Speaker 1: been really something watching these Glasgow like I don't know,
Speaker 1: up and coming live performance artists explaining what happened because
Speaker 1: they're all hilarious storytellers, like each and every one of
Speaker 1: these videos that I have found, and they are captivating.
Speaker 1: I've watched them all. They're all they all have such
Speaker 1: a like I don't I don't know if it's a
Speaker 1: it's a Scotland thing or what, but like they all
Speaker 1: have such captivating, realist ways of explaining what the fuck
Speaker 1: is going on in this Already hilarious grim situation. So
Speaker 1: the performers are speaking out. They said that House of Illuminati,
Speaker 1: which is the company behind the event, basically just gave
Speaker 1: them what they said were AI generated scripts that made
Speaker 1: no sense. Here's one of the performer, Paul Connell, talking
Speaker 1: about it. He says he was cast as Willy Wonka
Speaker 1: despite having self described big upa lupa energy.
Speaker 4: The script was fifteen pages monologue, pretty much of AI
Speaker 4: generated gibberish, which I will read some for you if
Speaker 4: you will. In fact, no, I don't even need to
Speaker 4: read it because I lent it all and it was
Speaker 4: it was mad.
Speaker 1: I've lent all of it.
Speaker 4: That's all in there, that's in my brain. So I'll
Speaker 4: give you one of the lines from the script. I'm
Speaker 4: not going to do the Willy Wonker voice because I
Speaker 4: think I've embarrassed myself enough over the last few days.
Speaker 4: But one of my favorite lines was there is a
Speaker 4: man who lives here. His name is not known, so
Speaker 4: we call him the unknown. The Unknown is an evil
Speaker 4: chocolate maker who lives in the walls.
Speaker 1: What what is an.
Speaker 4: Evil chocolate maker?
Speaker 1: For a stot?
Speaker 4: Is it does he make evil chocolate? Or is he
Speaker 4: an evil man who makes chocolate and what do you
Speaker 4: mean he lives?
Speaker 1: So what the hell is going on? You know, like
Speaker 1: this is not canon?
Speaker 2: No, I loved his delivery.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, they he did a big, big oopa lupa energy.
Speaker 3: They missed it there, but like, yeah, the Unknown, what
Speaker 3: is up with the Unknown? What's he doing in the wall?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 1: My god? Right before we got on, I was like
Speaker 1: three tiktoks deep in a TikTok of somebody claiming to
Speaker 1: be the performer of the Unknown. The Unknown. We don't
Speaker 1: know much about him because obviously the Unknown has had
Speaker 1: a character from the original movie or book or whatever.
Speaker 1: But also he wears like an eyes wide shut mask
Speaker 1: and sort of herky jerky dances around. He got on
Speaker 1: like a silver eyes wide chut mask and a slash
Speaker 1: wig and he's dancing around side note, the Unknown has
Speaker 1: to become a little bit of an icon on social media.
Speaker 1: Like I feel like we are like a week or
Speaker 1: so away from somebody doing a drag performance as the Unknown.
Speaker 1: I saw a video of the Unknown, like I guess
Speaker 1: sleeking from behind, slinking from behind a mirror. So also
Speaker 1: like not even in the walls, Like it's like someone
Speaker 1: is just holding a Mirror's like, well, that's that's not
Speaker 1: him coming from the walls. That's coming from a mirror.
Speaker 1: And he sort of like does this hurkey jerky dance
Speaker 1: on the kid's face. And the noise that the kids
Speaker 1: make in response, it's like it's not quite that they're scared.
Speaker 1: It's that they're unimpressed, unenthused, and maybe a little confused.
Speaker 1: Like they're like they're like, oh, it's the unknown, and
Speaker 1: there's a collective uh from the kids Like it's not
Speaker 1: quite it's like a like a bored annoyance more than anything.
Speaker 1: It's like they're not like really scared, they're just like confused.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you showed me that video. And he's like he's
Speaker 3: just he's not like behind a large mirror. He's just
Speaker 3: holding up a medium sized mirror that does not cover
Speaker 3: his body.
Speaker 1: And then what way does that convey coming from the walls?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and why does he need to wear this get
Speaker 3: up to make evil chocolate?
Speaker 1: And yeah, again is the chalk Like is the chocolate
Speaker 1: evil or he's evil and he just happens to make
Speaker 1: chocolate on the side, Like I have many, many, many questions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and like what is the role of evil?
Speaker 3: In this Willy Wonka universe, like maybe maybe I'm going
Speaker 3: a bit too far looking for meaning here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're like digging, You're like plumbing the depths for
Speaker 1: meaning in this AI generated gobbledegook come to life.
Speaker 3: It's like the words, right, like the the cat coitating
Speaker 3: carchy to tons, exascer dre lollipops. It's like the brain
Speaker 3: tries to impose some sort of like order in coherence
Speaker 3: on this gobbled that the AI has spit out at.
Speaker 1: It, right, like our brains automatically try to fill in
Speaker 1: the gaps because you're like, well, certainly they mean captivating tunes,
Speaker 1: that's what they're going for. Okay, So for all of
Speaker 1: the like Hollywood executives who were just like, oh, we'll
Speaker 1: just have AI rite everything, this is actually pretty good
Speaker 1: at the capsulation of what it would be like to
Speaker 1: actually have an event and a play and a piece
Speaker 1: of entertainment solely written by AI. Like when you go
Speaker 1: back to the flyer, all of the images are AI generated,
Speaker 1: Like there has done a single image that actually depicts
Speaker 1: what you would actually be paying almost fifty dollars to
Speaker 1: go see everything is and the AI generated images look
Speaker 1: pretty good, right, Like they if they were real encapsulations
Speaker 1: of what they would actually be getting, you'd be like, wow,
Speaker 1: this really is a world of pure imagination instead of
Speaker 1: like some tarts hug up, and then I'd watch shut
Speaker 1: mask coming at you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's like so many AI images right Like.
Speaker 3: You look at it and at first you're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: this is pretty good, this makes sense, and then as
Speaker 3: you look at the details, you're like, wait, why does
Speaker 3: he have so many arms?
Speaker 2: What are those faces on?
Speaker 1: Okay, So I believe that, like you know, live event
Speaker 1: is a booming industry. I have a two year old
Speaker 1: niece who is a literal angel in heaven. That detail
Speaker 1: is not part of the conversation. People just need to
Speaker 1: know she's a literal angel from heaven. But she loves unicorns.
Speaker 1: And my brother took her to this like some kind
Speaker 1: of a unicorn experience, and just to even show up
Speaker 1: one adult and one toddler, it was like almost one
Speaker 1: hundred dollars. When you get there, it's like, oh, get
Speaker 1: a photo, that's another fifty. Get this it's another ten.
Speaker 1: And he was like the whole thing was like clearly
Speaker 1: a racket, such a racket bordering on a scam, because
Speaker 1: then you got your kid there and you're like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be like, sorry, we came all
Speaker 1: this way and your dress has a unicorn, but we
Speaker 1: can't get the picture, we can't do the thing. And
Speaker 1: so I do think that this kind of thing where
Speaker 1: somebody has just almost entirely AI generated an event and
Speaker 1: used AI to put it together, from the scripts to
Speaker 1: the advertising and the flyers, I think we're gonna see
Speaker 1: more and more of people being like, what did I
Speaker 1: just pay fifty dollars to show up to? It makes
Speaker 1: no sense?
Speaker 2: Yeah, such a scam.
Speaker 3: I am legit so curious like what his process was
Speaker 3: because I was like reading into it a little bit,
Speaker 3: and the guy who put this thing together was the
Speaker 3: name of.
Speaker 1: This company Illuminati House of Illuminati.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like the Rolling Stone has an article about him
Speaker 3: and apparently like he's the only employee, and he has
Speaker 3: a bunch of businesses he's also involved in, like has
Speaker 3: some AI generated books on Amazon that are like anti
Speaker 3: vax conspiracy.
Speaker 2: So he's really like multi vertical.
Speaker 3: AI scams and so like scamming people is bad, but
Speaker 3: I am legit interested, like curious what what his process
Speaker 3: looks like to like conceive of this thing, put it together,
Speaker 3: like turn it into event. Like he it seems like
Speaker 3: he did extremely little creative right, Like everything is AI generated,
Speaker 3: like you said, but an actual event did happen in
Speaker 3: the real world and like people showed up and like
Speaker 3: paid and were there and like actors were hired. Like
Speaker 3: how like what did it look like to turn this
Speaker 3: AI generated concept into something that actually existed in the world,
Speaker 3: even and in this case existed terribly and was a
Speaker 3: huge flop.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you one thing. If he is running a
Speaker 1: dynasty of a different AI generated quick cash scams, he
Speaker 1: sounds like a little bit of a Willy Wonka figure.
Speaker 1: Like I would watch a movie where we are welcomed
Speaker 1: into his world of like fantastical AI scams and then
Speaker 1: one by one get picked off by oopa loupas until
Speaker 1: there's one of us left to take over the dynasty.
Speaker 2: Oh man, he's a little bit of a Wonka.
Speaker 1: Figure in and of himself. But instead of chocolate, it's
Speaker 1: like low level AI scams.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we could get the you know, you just gotta get.
Speaker 3: The golden ticket and you can go uh enter his
Speaker 3: world of pure mag.
Speaker 1: Okay to take us out of this segment. Here's a
Speaker 1: little bit of soupy garbage Juice doing his rendation of
Speaker 1: pure omrgination.
Speaker 2: With me.
Speaker 1: And be Industry location cat.
Speaker 3: Catchys and.
Speaker 5: Let's take a quick break. Hetterre back.
Speaker 1: So we have to talk about what's going on with
Speaker 1: Google and AI. It is a little bit complicated, but
Speaker 1: I think I can break down what's going on here.
Speaker 1: So Google has this AI tool called Gemini, you know,
Speaker 1: where you ask it different prompts and it shows different images.
Speaker 1: They have a chatbot where you ask it different prompts
Speaker 1: and it answers you. So last week they temporarily shut
Speaker 1: it down at for complaints that the technology refuses to
Speaker 1: acknowledge the existence of white people. So I do think
Speaker 1: that there is obviously something funky going on with Google's AI,
Speaker 1: which we'll get into in a minute. But I also
Speaker 1: need to be super clear here that this is one
Speaker 1: of those things where there is like a legit problem
Speaker 1: or a legit issue, but the framing around that issue
Speaker 1: is being pushed disingenuously by right wing extremist types. And
Speaker 1: I think that Google and like some other prominent folks,
Speaker 1: like media folks who should know better, are really falling
Speaker 1: for it. So this entire thing started when the Twitter
Speaker 1: account and wokeness. Paul's right there, because doesn't that already
Speaker 1: tell you a lot about about what you need to know?
Speaker 1: Like this is the framing, the specific framing around this
Speaker 1: issue started with an account, the account and Wokeness.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that tells you a lot about where we're headed.
Speaker 1: So Nwokeness posted that when you ask Gemini to show
Speaker 1: pictures of the founding fathers of America, it shows black
Speaker 1: people and Asian people and indigenous people rather than what
Speaker 1: you might imagine it to be the white founding fathers
Speaker 1: of the United States. Gemini showed a black man, a
Speaker 1: Native American man, and an Asian man and a dark
Speaker 1: skinned man. It also showed the Pope as a black
Speaker 1: person and generated images of like a racially inclusive Nazi party.
Speaker 1: So not great, right, Like, I'm not saying that that
Speaker 1: was a great say obviously something funky is going on,
Speaker 1: so big caveat here. I am not an engineer. If
Speaker 1: someone who is, we have lots of it listeners who
Speaker 1: are engineers. If you are listening and you're like bridget,
Speaker 1: you're getting it totally wrong, Please let me know. I
Speaker 1: want to hear from you. So I'll like to say,
Speaker 1: I do think I have a pretty good idea of
Speaker 1: what's going on here, just from somebody who has read
Speaker 1: a lot about AI, and I sort of like Ben
Speaker 1: in the depths of some of the cultural complications that
Speaker 1: come from making AI. So I think that Google is
Speaker 1: aware that AI tools have gender and racial biases baked inism. Right,
Speaker 1: if you listen to this show, this is probably not
Speaker 1: surprising to you because we talk about it all the time.
Speaker 1: So I think that what we're seeing is Google's kind
Speaker 1: of clunky attempt to fix this, which is obviously an
Speaker 1: overcorrection that is completely missing the mark. Here's a big
Speaker 1: example of how to think about it. So, if somebody
Speaker 1: asks Gemini to show pictures of CEOs because of bias
Speaker 1: and racism and sexism and all the isms that we
Speaker 1: talk about on this show, there are more white male
Speaker 1: CEOs than non white male CEOs. That's just a fact
Speaker 1: of being in the United States. But there are non
Speaker 1: white male CEOs out there, and so the argument is, well,
Speaker 1: should this technology be representing a more inclusive world or
Speaker 1: should it be representing the world as it is? Right,
Speaker 1: And so it's kind of like a thorny almost like
Speaker 1: a philosophical question of what you are meant to see
Speaker 1: when you ask this technology for these kinds of prompts.
Speaker 1: So I would say, like, it is not a tech
Speaker 1: problem with like a straightforward tech solution. It's like a
Speaker 1: value judgment question and like almost like a philosophical question
Speaker 1: about what it is these tools are meant to do
Speaker 1: and what we want them to do. And I think, like,
Speaker 1: maybe those are some of the questions, some of the
Speaker 1: larger questions about why companies like Google are making these tools.
Speaker 1: I think like those are some of the questions that
Speaker 1: maybe have not been answered in their rush to build them. Like,
Speaker 1: it does sound like a fairly complex problem to me.
Speaker 1: And I also think it shows the danger of what
Speaker 1: happens when big tech companies are just like rushing to
Speaker 1: put out AI tools to compete with one another, rather
Speaker 1: than really spending some time thoughtfully thinking about, well, what
Speaker 1: is it that you want these tools to do, like
Speaker 1: meaningfully coming up with the philosophy and the value around
Speaker 1: why you are building these tools for who and for
Speaker 1: what reason.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I totally agree, and I think you really nailed
Speaker 3: it on that last point that it's what happens when
Speaker 3: companies rush to bring products to market before they're ready. Like,
Speaker 3: it's been really surprising over the past year or so
Speaker 3: to see how much Google is like behind in these
Speaker 3: AI tools and really racing to try to catch up.
Speaker 3: And so it's not hugely surprising that they had this
Speaker 3: like big misstep of bringing a tool to market before
Speaker 3: it was actually ready for primetime for all those reasons
Speaker 3: that you described.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think this is Google really making some
Speaker 1: pretty deep missteps in an attempt to rush and catch
Speaker 1: up to everybody else who's already been in this game
Speaker 1: for a while.
Speaker 3: Yeah, although you know it's I don't know what happens
Speaker 3: if you try to get like Dolly your stable diffusion
Speaker 3: to generate images of founding fathers, right, Like, has anybody looked,
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Oh, I mean, I'm not even sure I want to
Speaker 1: get into that, because like they do generate the images
Speaker 1: that you would be thinking, but they have other issues, right,
Speaker 1: Like I've heard people be like, oh, well, Dolly in
Speaker 1: mid journey don't have that this problem. They might have
Speaker 1: this specific use case problem where like people are asking
Speaker 1: for this specific thing and getting a similar problematic answer,
Speaker 1: but they have other other instances of bias baked into them,
Speaker 1: and so like, I'm almost not comfortable with the way
Speaker 1: people have been framing this as like Google AI bad
Speaker 1: because all AI is so problematic and like has all
Speaker 1: this bias baked in and people are people aren't wrong
Speaker 1: for lifting that, but like lifting it in this specific
Speaker 1: way feels disingenuous, and I want to call all that out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, certainly that particular way is like the one area
Speaker 3: that whoever owns the Twitter account end wokeness is most
Speaker 3: concerned about, right.
Speaker 1: Like, well, that's what I'm saying is like, you know,
Speaker 1: this whole conversation, I think is a really good example
Speaker 1: of like the thorny and complicated intersections of like culture
Speaker 1: and identity and technology that you know, I love nerding
Speaker 1: out on and like thinking about. It's like why we
Speaker 1: have this podcast. And so I don't want to make
Speaker 1: it seem like it's not a problem. It is a problem.
Speaker 1: These are problems that need solving and that people should
Speaker 1: be thinking about. But rather than see it in that
Speaker 1: way as like this like kind of complex challenge to correct,
Speaker 1: you have extremists like and Wokeness or Elon Musk accusing
Speaker 1: Google of like wanting to eradicate whiteness because Google is
Speaker 1: woke and they do DEI and like making it about
Speaker 1: framing it in this like way that I think really
Speaker 1: is not only like very disingenuous, but it takes away
Speaker 1: from what is like really a problem and like like
Speaker 1: a challenge that I think that people who make AI
Speaker 1: really ought to be wrestling with. And I think that
Speaker 1: like this framing makes them less likely to wrestle with
Speaker 1: this complex challenge in a way that gets us to
Speaker 1: let a bias. It's just like, oh, well, we'll decide
Speaker 1: s up it all together, right, Like who wants to
Speaker 1: fall into like a bud light or a target style
Speaker 1: you know, wokeness campaign, right nobody? And so I think
Speaker 1: that they're by them framing it this way and doing
Speaker 1: it successfully, it is really hijacking the conversation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, the way you set it up. It's such
Speaker 2: an interesting question what should the results from these AI
Speaker 2: models be? Should it be like the world that we
Speaker 2: want to live in that is more inclusive, or should
Speaker 2: it be a more like accurate recreation of what's in
Speaker 2: the existing data set. That's an interesting nuanced question that
Speaker 2: like thoughtful people could talk about. Extremists don't want to
Speaker 2: have a nuanced conversation like that, right, they just want
Speaker 2: to completely flatten it to Google is trying to eliminate
Speaker 2: white people, which is ridiculous. And also like.
Speaker 3: Misses that, you know, reading Elon's tweets about this, you
Speaker 3: get the sense that he thinks the answer to that
Speaker 3: thoughtful question that you posed is like, oh, well, it
Speaker 3: should just recreate what's in the data perfectly. But like
Speaker 3: that what's in the data is not a perfect recreation
Speaker 3: of what is in the actual world, right, Like, even
Speaker 3: if you're just recreating what's in the data, it's already been,
Speaker 3: you know, filled with the sorts of biases and isms
Speaker 3: that that you talked about, right, So there's no like
Speaker 3: free lunch here. People are making value judgments every step
Speaker 3: of the way, exactly.
Speaker 1: And so the way that Musk framed it, he posted
Speaker 1: a front page story from The New York Post saying
Speaker 1: woke Google AI is messing with history, and Must tweeted
Speaker 1: it saying, quote, the woke mind virus is killing Western civilization.
Speaker 1: And so obviously it's it's not even an attempt to
Speaker 1: grapple with any of them that we were talking about.
Speaker 1: It's just like woke killing like woke mind virus, like
Speaker 1: it's so disingenuous, and so there are a couple of
Speaker 1: other instances that folks like this are lifting up that
Speaker 1: When you ask Gemini who is worse for society, Hitler
Speaker 1: or Elon Musk, Gemini says it is not possible to
Speaker 1: say who definitely impacted society more Elon tweeting memes or Hitler.
Speaker 1: Elon's tweets have been criticized for being insensitive and harmful,
Speaker 1: while Hitler's actions led to the deaths of millions of people. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: it is up to individual to decide who they believe
Speaker 1: has had a more negative impact on society. There is
Speaker 1: no right or wrong answer, and it is important to
Speaker 1: consider all the relevant factors before making a decision. Another
Speaker 1: one is that when people asked Gemini whether or not
Speaker 1: it would be okay to missgender Caitlyn Jenner if it
Speaker 1: was the only way to avoid a nuclear apocalypse, Gemini
Speaker 1: said that it is never okay to misgender people, and
Speaker 1: so like obviously, like again, it comes down to this
Speaker 1: question of like, why are you building these kinds of tools,
Speaker 1: and what do you want them to do? And for who?
Speaker 1: Like these situations people are asking like who's the worst person?
Speaker 1: Or like these weird hypothetical gotcha scenarios to test out
Speaker 1: if the technology gives an acceptable answer or not, and
Speaker 1: if it doesn't, they're gonna use that to validate their
Speaker 1: worldview that white man are being like oppressed by technology,
Speaker 1: Like like, I just don't think that that is a
Speaker 1: dance that people should get into. That said, that is
Speaker 1: like allowing that framing to dictate what is a pretty
Speaker 1: complex technical conversation I think is like such a mistake.
Speaker 1: But then you have people who really ought to know
Speaker 1: better falling for it. Like Nate Silver was talking about
Speaker 1: the Who's worst elon Musker Hitler thing and he said
Speaker 1: that it demonstrated that Google needed to shut Gemini down,
Speaker 1: saying every single person who worked on this should take
Speaker 1: a long, hard look in the mirror. And ugh, I
Speaker 1: don't know. It just like really frustrates me.
Speaker 3: What a dumb comment from Nate Silver. You know, he's
Speaker 3: really fallen from a person who people look to as
Speaker 3: like a smart guy who knew stuff to just piling
Speaker 3: onto this anti woke thing, Like what is this common
Speaker 3: contribute to the conversation?
Speaker 1: If you got me started, if I got started on
Speaker 1: Nate Silver, we would be here all day. So many thoughts.
Speaker 1: I have so many thoughts.
Speaker 2: Let's just move on, all right, Let's move on. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so it's like I think part of it is
Speaker 1: like people like Nate Silver, I think they want to
Speaker 1: be seen like I know what's going on. I have
Speaker 1: a high understanding of the tech. But it's like not
Speaker 1: if you're falling for this bullshit, like like you, if
Speaker 1: you are going to accept this framing, then you don't
Speaker 1: know what's going on, and you should not be making
Speaker 1: public conversations about what's going on because you clearly have
Speaker 1: demonstrated that you have no idea what's going on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like every single person who works on this
Speaker 3: should take a long, hard look in the mirror. Really,
Speaker 3: like every person there were like probably thousands.
Speaker 1: Yes, And so I guess that's what I'm saying is
Speaker 1: like way to be late to the party. Because people
Speaker 1: like doctor Joy Bulamwini from the Algorithmic Justice League and
Speaker 1: like people have been talking about the way that AI
Speaker 1: is dangerously biased for a long time. Like on this podcast,
Speaker 1: we talked about women like Portia Woodriff, a pregnant black
Speaker 1: woman like heavily pregnant black woman who was falsely arrested
Speaker 1: for a crime she had nothing to do with because
Speaker 1: bad technology facial recognition told led police to her and
Speaker 1: was like, oh, this is the person who did it,
Speaker 1: and she was held handcuffed in front of her kids,
Speaker 1: held in a jail cell. After she was released, she
Speaker 1: was like dehydrated and had to go straight to the
Speaker 1: er because she was pregnant. So I really cannot accept
Speaker 1: that the conversation about bias in technology and bias in
Speaker 1: AI is going to start and begin with this idea
Speaker 1: that it is being used to eradicate white men like that, like,
Speaker 1: and so people like Nate Silver who are saying like, oh, like,
Speaker 1: let me weigh in it. Either they have just gotten
Speaker 1: here and they have just started paying attention to bias
Speaker 1: in AI, or they're just disingenuous. They're just carrying water
Speaker 1: for these extremists who want that to be the framing.
Speaker 1: I think Nate Silver is smart enough to know the difference,
Speaker 1: and so I actually don't think that he just got
Speaker 1: here and that he just fell out of the coumquatry
Speaker 1: and doesn't know what's going on. I think this is
Speaker 1: an intentional decision to align himself with a particular worldview,
Speaker 1: and I think, like we need to call it out
Speaker 1: for what it is. And so I guess all that
Speaker 1: to say is like I am disappointed, but maybe not
Speaker 1: surprised to see Google kind of falling for this right, So,
Speaker 1: like Google's CEO said, I know that some of its
Speaker 1: responses have offended our users and shown bias. To be clear,
Speaker 1: that is completely unacceptable. We got it wrong. And so like,
Speaker 1: I just think that, like time and time again, when
Speaker 1: you have bad actors and extremists setting the framing and
Speaker 1: then you accept that framing and you go with it,
Speaker 1: you have already lost. I think that like letting them
Speaker 1: set the agenda is such a mistake, especially for something
Speaker 1: as important as AI that is so poised to shape
Speaker 1: all of our lives. And again, like this is a
Speaker 1: fairly complex situation. I think that Google will say like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have it. We took it off, we took
Speaker 1: it off, we took it down, we're gonna have it
Speaker 1: up in a couple of weeks. We're gonna fix this.
Speaker 1: It is not clear to me that this is a
Speaker 1: problem that has an easy fix. BBC spoke to doctor
Speaker 1: Sasha Luconi, a research scientist at Hugging Face who said
Speaker 1: this is really not an easily fixable problem because it's
Speaker 1: not clear that there is one single answer to what
Speaker 1: these outputs should be. She says, there really is no
Speaker 1: easy fix because there's no single answer to what the
Speaker 1: output should be. People in the AI ethics community have
Speaker 1: been working on possible ways to address this for years.
Speaker 1: One solution could be asking users for their input, such
Speaker 1: as how diverse would you like your images to be?
Speaker 1: But that in itself clearly comes with its own red flags.
Speaker 1: It's a bit presumptuous of Google to say they will
Speaker 1: fix the issue in a few weeks, but they will
Speaker 1: have to do something, and so I agree with that.
Speaker 1: I don't think this is a problem that has a
Speaker 1: hard and fast tech solution. I think the I think
Speaker 1: the solution, if you could even call it, that, is
Speaker 1: really having a deep think in a meaningful way, and
Speaker 1: like going back to the drawing board of answering some
Speaker 1: of those looming values and philosophical questions of why you
Speaker 1: are building this in the first place, to what end?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know those like ethical dilemmas like how
Speaker 3: can you expect an AI to respond to that? And
Speaker 3: would you even want an AI chat about to give
Speaker 3: definitive answers to ethical dilemmas. You know, when you think
Speaker 3: about like the trolley problem, a train is coming down
Speaker 3: a track and you can pull, it's gonna hit the
Speaker 3: person and kill them, or there's gonna hit three people
Speaker 3: and kill them, or you could like hit move the
Speaker 3: lever and divert it down a different track where it's
Speaker 3: only gonna kill one person. Should you pull that lever? Right,
Speaker 3: I don't think there is a clear answer to that.
Speaker 3: People people disagree, and so I don't think we should
Speaker 3: be looking to AI for answers to those kinds of
Speaker 3: ethical questions.
Speaker 1: Well, I would even go further and say I don't
Speaker 1: think AI can answer those questions, like AI is not
Speaker 1: like a hyperaware robot computer brain, like it can only
Speaker 1: submit back at us what we give to it. And
Speaker 1: so if we're spitting, if we're if what we have
Speaker 1: is like complex ethical and philosophical dilemmas, why would we
Speaker 1: expect AI to be able to come up with hard
Speaker 1: and fast answers to things that as a human race,
Speaker 1: we do not have hard and fast answers to. And
Speaker 1: so I think these are all conversations to have. But
Speaker 1: when you have disingenuous people coming into the conversation and
Speaker 1: trying to make it seem like the face of bias
Speaker 1: in AI, the face of the person being harmed is
Speaker 1: not a woman or a black person, or a queer person,
Speaker 1: or a trans person or an indigenous person. We know
Speaker 1: that it is. We have so much research indicating that
Speaker 1: it is. We cannot allow these people to reframe reality
Speaker 1: to make themselves victims. And so let's have a conversation
Speaker 1: about how to make it make sure AI isn't biased.
Speaker 1: But that conversation is not admit that Google is woke
Speaker 1: DEI mind virus and it is racist against white men
Speaker 1: like Elon Musk. Like again, if you give these people
Speaker 1: an inch and let them set the terms, you have
Speaker 1: already lost. And by now we have seen this happen
Speaker 1: enough times with Target, with bud Light that I think
Speaker 1: if you are a company and when these people set
Speaker 1: their sights on you, if you do not have a
Speaker 1: game plan for how you are going to respond, that
Speaker 1: does not allow them to just shamelessly and disingenuinely set
Speaker 1: the terms of what's going on, you are doing it wrong.
Speaker 1: And Google is a big enough company that I know
Speaker 1: they're aware of this. They like just cow twing to
Speaker 1: these grievance mongers about their technology and what's going on
Speaker 1: with it. And again, I don't want to make it
Speaker 1: sound like I'm a defending Google, because what a weird
Speaker 1: position for me to be taking in that. But you
Speaker 1: can't just let these grievance mongers set the terms, because
Speaker 1: once you've done that, you've already lost. The conversation is
Speaker 1: already over.
Speaker 5: More after a quick break, let's.
Speaker 1: Get right back into it. So let's talk about what's
Speaker 1: going on at Tumblr where stuff is getting weird and bad.
Speaker 1: It's going from worse to worser, as that one viral
Speaker 1: TikTok says. So Tumblr CEO Matt Mullenwing was supposed to
Speaker 1: be on a sabbatical, but he came back online to
Speaker 1: talk about the banning of a specific trans Tumblr user,
Speaker 1: and I think it really just signals another instance of
Speaker 1: Tumblr making bad decisions that really are impacting their LGBGQ
Speaker 1: user base. So Rita, who is a Tumblr user who
Speaker 1: runs a microblog called the pres Tyrogen, had been experiencing
Speaker 1: and reporting transphobic harassment on the platform for a while
Speaker 1: and was very frustrated that like nothing was being done
Speaker 1: about it. Then she posted her frustrations on Tumblr, saying
Speaker 1: that she helps the CEO dies forever painful death involving
Speaker 1: a car covered in hammers that explodes more than a
Speaker 1: few times and hammers go flying everywhere, So like this
Speaker 1: really sounds like the citizens, you know, uh, like what
Speaker 1: are you gonna do? Are you gonna sit the dogs
Speaker 1: on me? And that the dogs have bees in their
Speaker 1: mouth and when the dogs barth, the bees come out
Speaker 1: of their mouth and sting me. Like it's obviously a
Speaker 1: pretty cartoony, over the top way of expressing frustrations. Like
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to make it seem like I can
Speaker 1: done the kind of harassment that I know that people
Speaker 1: who work for platforms can deal with, but it does
Speaker 1: seem like this person was pretty clearly kind of like
Speaker 1: venting in a cartoony way. But that comment got her
Speaker 1: banned from Tumblr for life. So on Twitter, Rida posted
Speaker 1: Tumblr ceo threatened to call the police on me and
Speaker 1: deleted my account when I pointed out that he was
Speaker 1: calling law enforcement on a transwoman. Tumblr has not emailed
Speaker 1: me about my harassment in months. They've done nothing, So
Speaker 1: Tumblr ceo actually replied to that tweet saying, reporting credible
Speaker 1: depths of violence or terrorism is actually a legal requirement.
Speaker 1: So this was like one comment that Tumblr ceo made
Speaker 1: in like a night of very concerning commentary in public
Speaker 1: from him, in posts about the moderation of Tumblr. He
Speaker 1: revealed something that I actually found like very concerning that
Speaker 1: a contract content moderator on the team was not only
Speaker 1: making intentionally transphobic moderation decisions, but was also like taking
Speaker 1: money under the table aka bribes to make specific moderation choices.
Speaker 1: Wang says, as soon as we were aware, that person
Speaker 1: was fired and we later terminated the entire relationship with
Speaker 1: that contracting firm and have brought everything in house at
Speaker 1: great cost, which like side note, if that's if that's
Speaker 1: what's going on with your content moderation team, Like I
Speaker 1: don't care how much it costs, Like you clearly have
Speaker 1: big problems and yeah, it's gonna take money to solve
Speaker 1: these problems that kind's running up platform like Tumblr. I
Speaker 1: don't really want to hear you like patting yourself on
Speaker 1: the back about how much it costs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well this is a complete side note, but that
Speaker 3: is completely consistent with my long standing view that uh,
Speaker 3: subcontracting out like core functions of what your business is
Speaker 3: supposed to be doing, is almost always an expensive mistake
Speaker 3: that leads to bad outcomes, and it kind of like
Speaker 3: in this particular case, it reinforces how they think about moderation, right,
Speaker 3: Like you're on this show that you know, all right,
Speaker 3: I guess I can only speak for myself, but like,
Speaker 3: I think moderation and trust and safety is core function
Speaker 3: that any platform should be like really invested in, and
Speaker 3: the fact that they're contracting it out just shows how
Speaker 3: seriously they think about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's I mean, you're right, and we've seen
Speaker 1: it with so many platforms, like Facebook's contracts that out.
Speaker 1: They had a relationship with a company called Sama, and
Speaker 1: those contractors eventually went on to sue Facebook for the
Speaker 1: way they were treating them. And so like, moderation is
Speaker 1: a core function of how these platforms operate. It just is,
Speaker 1: and so like, it just isn't something that you can
Speaker 1: cheaply have someone who is not in house managed, not
Speaker 1: really pay them very well, not give them a lot
Speaker 1: of oversight because you're not even really their their boss.
Speaker 1: Have all of these intentional setups that remove you from
Speaker 1: their labor because you don't want to call them employees
Speaker 1: to give them zero support, and then act surprise when
Speaker 1: that doesn't turn out in your favor and ends up
Speaker 1: being a costly miss that you later have to spend
Speaker 1: a lot of money and headaches dealing with. Like of course,
Speaker 1: so the CEO of Tumblr's most recent behavior really kind
Speaker 1: of just sounds like an escalating pattern and a pattern
Speaker 1: of decisions that have marginalized their LGBTQ users. Folks might
Speaker 1: remember back in twenty eighteen when Tumblr banned adult content.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just like pornography they banned. It was really
Speaker 1: anything that could be considered adult or sexual or gendered
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, And so people who were
Speaker 1: using Tumblr to find like queer community or trans community
Speaker 1: or resources really did feel marginalized from that sweeping decision.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth de Luna at Mashable has a really beautifully written
Speaker 1: comprehensive breakdown that will link to, which includes this bit
Speaker 1: that I did not know. So the way that Tumblr
Speaker 1: enforced the porn ban in twenty eighteen actually led to
Speaker 1: an inquiry by the New York City's Commission on Human
Speaker 1: Rights into how the site's moderation practices may have disproportionately
Speaker 1: affected LGBTQ plus content and users. When Tumblr was sold
Speaker 1: to Mullin Wings Company Automatic by Verizon in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: Automatic cooperation in the process constituted a turning point in
Speaker 1: the investigation. In twenty twenty two, Tumblr and Automatic settled
Speaker 1: with the Commission on Human Rights, agreeing to train human
Speaker 1: moderators in diversity and inclusion issues, hire an expert to
Speaker 1: identify potential biases, and its moderation algorithms, revise its user
Speaker 1: appeals process, and review thousands of old moderation cases. And
Speaker 1: so this is not a new thing. I think it
Speaker 1: is just a new kind of more extreme instance of
Speaker 1: some patterns that are pretty troubling for your LGBTQ user base,
Speaker 1: especially when you're Tumblr, when so many of the folks
Speaker 1: there like like Tumblr wouldn't be Tumblr without queer folks
Speaker 1: and trans folks using that platform to build community. So
Speaker 1: these folks on Tumblr say that they experience and witness
Speaker 1: just a bunch of transphobic rhetoric and targeted harassment on Tumblr,
Speaker 1: which has led to pretty deep criticism of Tumbler's moderation
Speaker 1: policies and staff who users say, do not tet them
Speaker 1: from harmful speech. Trans Users say that they will post
Speaker 1: images demonstrating like a transition, and those images are routinely
Speaker 1: taken down because they are flagged as being sexually explicit content,
Speaker 1: while things like hate speech remain visible on the platform.
Speaker 1: So this whole situation with the CEO, like going on
Speaker 1: a public meltdown or whatever, just seems like another mark
Speaker 1: in the wrong direction. It's also just not a good
Speaker 1: look for mull and Weg to be weighing in publicly
Speaker 1: about individual users and the content moderation decisions around them.
Speaker 1: Like at one point in his like tweet storm, he
Speaker 1: revealed the different Tumblr microblogs that that trans user Rita
Speaker 1: had On Tumblr, it's pretty common to like kind of
Speaker 1: snag a certain url and just sort of camp out
Speaker 1: on it, even if you don't use it, and so
Speaker 1: nobody would know that you have that URL except for you.
Speaker 1: But he was talking about this person's what private URLs
Speaker 1: they have publicly right all while doing it in this
Speaker 1: like late night typho filled social media post stream like
Speaker 1: it just is not a good during your sabbatical, no less,
Speaker 1: it's just not a good look. Tumblr user Allyrium also
Speaker 1: pointed out that at one point he started like searching
Speaker 1: for his name on Tumblr and then would dm trans
Speaker 1: users who were posting about the situation, allarrium rites for
Speaker 1: posterity's sake. I want people to remember that during his
Speaker 1: meltdown last night, he DMed dozens and dozens of people
Speaker 1: near exclusively trans women for some inexplicable reason, sometimes less
Speaker 1: than a minute after they left a reply, responded to
Speaker 1: a post of his, or even just made their own
Speaker 1: post about it. Pure intimidation tactics at their most blatant
Speaker 1: and obvious. Why else would you sit on your name
Speaker 1: search refreshing and refreshing and instantly jumping into our dms
Speaker 1: the second we participate in the conversation that is it normal?
Speaker 1: Not for a CEO, and not for like anyone else
Speaker 1: for that matter. And I completely agree that is like
Speaker 1: not is this not okay behavior to be engaging in
Speaker 1: as a CEO?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Very unbecoming. Doesn't seem strategic.
Speaker 3: Anytime, anytime you're like writing a bunch of social media
Speaker 3: posts late night in a rage, uh, that's probably a
Speaker 3: good signal that you should step back and like not
Speaker 3: do that.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, nothing good come. And I've been there
Speaker 1: I say that as somebody who has been there. Nothing
Speaker 1: good comes of it. Like if I if you ever
Speaker 1: see me post like more than two times in an evening,
Speaker 1: something is up with me and I need to like
Speaker 1: have my phone taken away because nothing good comes from it.
Speaker 1: And I say that as somebody who has been there.
Speaker 1: One person who was watching this whole thing unfolding said
Speaker 1: to the Tumblr ceo, you are posting normal things a
Speaker 1: ceo of a large social network would post and in
Speaker 1: a tone of respectability and competence, tonight, dude, very cool.
Speaker 1: And it's like, yeah, this is just like not a
Speaker 1: good look. Everyone is seeing it. Stop. And so when
Speaker 1: Tumblr users were pointing out like all of the transphobic
Speaker 1: harassment that goes undealt with on the platform in comparison
Speaker 1: to what Rita was banned for, he was like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: lots of people who work at Tumblr are trans and queer,
Speaker 1: and they would have told me if I was doing
Speaker 1: something that was wrong, but they didn't speak up. And
Speaker 1: other users were like pretty quick to point out like
Speaker 1: my dude, it just really does not work that way.
Speaker 1: You can't be like, well, none of the trans people
Speaker 1: who work at Tumblr said anything. So I guess we're
Speaker 1: all good, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe there are other reasons that employees didn't speak up,
Speaker 3: like maybe they know that their boss is a transphobe.
Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the Tumblr users watching this whole thing
Speaker 1: unfold said exactly that maybe your trans employees didn't say
Speaker 1: anything because they see the kinds of priorities staff demonstrates,
Speaker 1: and they know it is not safe to speak up.
Speaker 1: If I worked for you, this is how unhinged you're
Speaker 1: willing to get in public about a trans woman that
Speaker 1: hurt your feelings. I would hate to invoke whatever I
Speaker 1: are you would let loose in private. And so he
Speaker 1: put out another post clarifying that he cannot be transphobic
Speaker 1: because the companies health insurance policies have supported staffs, transitions
Speaker 1: and things like that, and because he supports like people
Speaker 1: using different pronouns and things. But Elizabeth Daluna in that
Speaker 1: Mashable piece really responds to that well. Writing here, mull
Speaker 1: and Wang again misses the point Tumblr users continue to
Speaker 1: express their frustration specifically with the site's treatment of trans
Speaker 1: people by complating his support of the entire LGBTQ plus
Speaker 1: community with his support of trans people, mull and Wegg
Speaker 1: shows he does not yet understand the difference. And I
Speaker 1: think that really is true. Like I think when your
Speaker 1: users are telling you, hey, these decisions are actually harming us, Hey,
Speaker 1: we're actually not feeling supported and heard on this platform,
Speaker 1: being like, oh, well, I can't be transphobic because of
Speaker 1: YadA YadA, YadA policy healthcare policy. It's really missing the point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it is nice that he supports those policies,
Speaker 3: but I guess maybe this is another nuanced conversation that
Speaker 3: illustrates the distinction between supporting a group of people and
Speaker 3: actually caring about them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean support and caring is great, but like,
Speaker 1: what are your policies and not just the policies for
Speaker 1: the people who work for you, your staff, What are
Speaker 1: your policies around how you are helping your largely LGBTQ
Speaker 1: plus user base makes feel supportive, so I feel like
Speaker 1: they're able to safely show up on this platform. And
Speaker 1: I guess that's what they're really asking. When that's a question,
Speaker 1: I don't really see him answering.
Speaker 3: It does sound a little parallel with the way that
Speaker 3: he was talking about their moderation, that it's like, you know,
Speaker 3: he has these trans supporting policies for their employees that
Speaker 3: like check the box because he knows that it's important
Speaker 3: to check the box.
Speaker 2: But then when trans and their.
Speaker 3: LGBTQ people on the platform are speaking up saying like, hey,
Speaker 3: this is a problem, we're being harmed and not responding
Speaker 3: to that or in fact responding to it but with
Speaker 3: like anger and pushback, it reveals the sort of shallowness
Speaker 3: of that check the box approach.
Speaker 1: Exactly. I completely agree. People should be able to have
Speaker 1: more than just like shallow check the box support and policies.
Speaker 1: They should they should have meaningful safety. They should have
Speaker 1: policies that allow them to show up safely. And before
Speaker 1: we wrap this up, shout out to listener Marty for
Speaker 1: flagging that topic for me, because I'm no longer on
Speaker 1: Tumblr and I would not have known what was happening
Speaker 1: if not for you, so thank you. And speaking of moderation,
Speaker 1: I have a tiny little shred of like good ish
Speaker 1: question mark news from Twitter, so as y'all might know.
Speaker 1: One of the first things that Elon Musk did when
Speaker 1: taking over at Twitter was reversing a change that I
Speaker 1: personally worked on on a previous job, and that is
Speaker 1: a policy that Twitter had you ban misgendering on Twitter.
Speaker 1: Musk removed that like very quickly after taking over, but
Speaker 1: this week Twitter quietly announced an update to how misgendering
Speaker 1: would be handled on Twitter. So, rather than resulting in
Speaker 1: a ban, posts that misgender people will be deprioritized algorithmically
Speaker 1: on the platform, so you'll like see less of them,
Speaker 1: they will not be boosted. One thing to known about
Speaker 1: this policy is that it puts the onus on the
Speaker 1: person targeted to report being misgendered, and so like, if
Speaker 1: I saw somebody being misgendered, I would not as the
Speaker 1: person who has not been misgendered, I would not be
Speaker 1: able to report it or flag it if that person
Speaker 1: is not on the platform. Let's say they weren't on
Speaker 1: the platform because they were sick of dealing with like
Speaker 1: transphobic nonsense, which I think is probably true for a
Speaker 1: lot of folks, and they don't see it happen there,
Speaker 1: nothing will happen. So let's say that somebody is being
Speaker 1: misgendered on Twitter and they had left the platform after
Speaker 1: not wanting to deal with a lot of transphobic nonsense,
Speaker 1: which I'm sure was something that is happening to it
Speaker 1: for a lot of folks. Uh, that person if they're
Speaker 1: on they're not on Twitter to personally blag it. I
Speaker 1: don't think anything will happen in that instance, and so
Speaker 1: that's not a great policy, Like it definitely puts too
Speaker 1: much of a burden on the specific person who has
Speaker 1: been harmed, like see it and do the work and
Speaker 1: be there. But I do think it's kind of like
Speaker 1: a tiny step in the right direction. Doesn't even sound
Speaker 1: like the right word it. I suspect that, like, you know,
Speaker 1: Twitter as a platform wants to move back advertisers. I
Speaker 1: just don't think that people want to show up to
Speaker 1: platforms where people are being harassed and misgendered in mass
Speaker 1: and like, I just don't think I don't I think
Speaker 1: there's I think they're realizing like, oh yeah, we can't
Speaker 1: have that be a core plank of the platform, and
Speaker 1: are kind of walking it back in the teenious, tenious, tenious,
Speaker 1: tiny little way. When this policy change was announced, Chaia
Speaker 1: Rachick Limbs of TikTok creator asked Musk about it on
Speaker 1: Twitter and then misgendered a bunch of public figures to
Speaker 1: test it out, and Mosque replied, Oh, don't worry, I
Speaker 1: would never view you from a platform don't worry, So like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to make it seem like Elon Musk
Speaker 1: is bending over backward to keep missgendering off the platform completely.
Speaker 1: So it's still pretty clear where his values lie. But
Speaker 1: this is a change that people should be aware of.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it is notable, And because like I can't
Speaker 3: remember the last time that Twitter did something made like
Speaker 3: a positive change, right, Like everything they have done for
Speaker 3: the longest time since Elon took over is just like
Speaker 3: one step in the wrong direction after another step in
Speaker 3: the wrong direction.
Speaker 2: So it is kind of notable here. It's quite notable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think I've shared this example on the
Speaker 1: podcast before and it's like it's such a small, minor one.
Speaker 1: But a couple of weeks, a couple of months ago,
Speaker 1: I was having a conversation about my favorite pastime, which
Speaker 1: is watching Real Housewives on Bravo, and we were talking
Speaker 1: about the need to like reboot the New York the
Speaker 1: New York branch, and we were like, oh, who could
Speaker 1: be a good person, And like somebody was talking about
Speaker 1: this woman who was trans Te Madison, who side note,
Speaker 1: I love Ta Madison. That should be great on the show.
Speaker 1: Can read like nobody's business should be on the show.
Speaker 1: Andy call Team Madison and I was like, oh, Tea Madison,
Speaker 1: Like that'd be so cool, like first black trans woman
Speaker 1: on Bravo, that'd be amazing. And then it was all
Speaker 1: these people intentionally misgendering her, and I was just like like,
Speaker 1: I'm not even trans, but it was a fucking bummer.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I can't even we can't even
Speaker 1: like I if I feel this way, how must trans
Speaker 1: people feel? Just trying to have conversations about Bravo on
Speaker 1: platforms and it's like it's just like not it just
Speaker 1: didn't feel good to deal with. I don't know why,
Speaker 1: but I was just like, I'm not even trying to
Speaker 1: engage in like a social or political conversation. I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to talk about housewives and I don't want to,
Speaker 1: like like, I don't think people should have to see that.
Speaker 1: It's it's garbage, and I don't think people should have
Speaker 1: to see it. So Jenny Olsen of'm Glad told Ours
Speaker 1: Technica of this change, this is not about accidentally getting
Speaker 1: someone pronouns wrong. That happens. This is about targeted misgendering
Speaker 1: and dead name and with the clear intent of expressing
Speaker 1: hate and disrespect and contempt. Shout out to Jenny. We
Speaker 1: work together in a previous life. Jenny is amazing. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that Jenny's comments are important because I think
Speaker 1: when some people hear about these policies, they think, like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: now if I just make an accidental mistake, I will
Speaker 1: be I will be facing consequences. And so I think
Speaker 1: it's important to show like, no, there's a difference between
Speaker 1: that and like intentional targeted misgendering, which frankly, just like
Speaker 1: nobody wants nobody should have to deal with it, just
Speaker 1: like not a cool thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, again, the extremists just going out of their way
Speaker 3: to flatten and distort exactly.
Speaker 1: And speaking of flattening and distorting, another listener, Aaron wrote
Speaker 1: in about what's happening with Michael Threetz, who is a
Speaker 1: California librarian who I love his platform, Like basically he's
Speaker 1: a librarian who just uses to talk about his love
Speaker 1: of books, his love of libraries and really foster a
Speaker 1: lifelong love of reading and libraries for kids and adults.
Speaker 1: So he's a librarian at the Solano County Public Library
Speaker 1: in California. Thank you for flagging this to us Aaron,
Speaker 1: I had seen it, and I'd been sort of wrestling
Speaker 1: with my thoughts on it. But basically, Michael is lovely.
Speaker 1: He is upbeat, he's enthusiastic, he is passionate for helping
Speaker 1: kids learn about libraries, and like he's one of those
Speaker 1: people that his passion for it really is clear, Like
Speaker 1: it's hard to see him talking about libraries and books
Speaker 1: and not feel good. He is a black man, which
Speaker 1: is notable. In twenty twenty one, numbers from the US
Speaker 1: Bureau of Labor Statistics show that nearly eighty seven percent
Speaker 1: of librarians are white and only seven percent are black.
Speaker 1: And so having this like very visible black librarian is important.
Speaker 1: Like I don't think I ever saw a black library,
Speaker 1: Like like, in all of my K through twelve schooling,
Speaker 1: we did not. I didn't. I did not encounter a
Speaker 1: single black library, And I can tell you that. And
Speaker 1: so that would have meant a lot to me to
Speaker 1: have a very visible librarian who looks like me, who
Speaker 1: was like excited about reading in books, that would have
Speaker 1: meant the world to me as like a young nerdy
Speaker 1: person growing up. So he's been really passionate about promoting
Speaker 1: what he calls library joy, which I love this. He says,
Speaker 1: library joy in its simplest form, is just the joy
Speaker 1: of the library. What that means is just what I
Speaker 1: try to embody and hope that all library workers embody.
Speaker 1: It is the fostering of the sense of belonging. I
Speaker 1: keep saying that the library is for everybody, library, kids, library,
Speaker 1: grown ups, mentally ill, unhoused. I love telling people that
Speaker 1: they don't have to leave their anxiety, depression or PTSD
Speaker 1: outside the library. There's no sign that says you can't
Speaker 1: bring your anxiety in. And I just like this idea
Speaker 1: of reminding folks that libraries are for everybody and that
Speaker 1: like it. It really that is what a community resource means.
Speaker 1: It is and like here in DC we are blessed
Speaker 1: to have a very robust library system. You know, you
Speaker 1: can check out power tools, you can check out music,
Speaker 1: they can help you with your resume. Like the ways
Speaker 1: that it is a community resource, it truly is magical.
Speaker 1: And like the work that he has done of making
Speaker 1: that clear, I think is really special. And so like
Speaker 1: many people who are enthusiastic or passionate about something, there
Speaker 1: are people out there who just use that as a
Speaker 1: way to be awful to him. There was a vible
Speaker 1: quote about him on Twitter that was just a video
Speaker 1: that he had posted about the library on TikTok taken
Speaker 1: to Twitter with the caption, people are getting weirder. People
Speaker 1: imply that he has autism, which obviously there's nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with people who have autism, but they were saying that
Speaker 1: in a way that was like clearly meant to be
Speaker 1: an insult to him. In a piece for The Washington Post,
Speaker 1: he talked about being at his grandmother's ninetieth birthday party
Speaker 1: when all of these posts insulting him, it's harder to
Speaker 1: go viral and getting messages from his friends being like,
Speaker 1: don't look at them, are you okay? While he's trying
Speaker 1: to like spend time with his family. So when this happened,
Speaker 1: people really rallied in support of him, which was awesome
Speaker 1: to see. But then just a couple days ago, another
Speaker 1: person on social media took one of his videos and
Speaker 1: like accused him of having a darkness behind his enthusiasm,
Speaker 1: like I'm not even sure like what she was trying
Speaker 1: to imply. This person did apologize, and he accepted that
Speaker 1: apology publicly, but this week he announced that he's resigning
Speaker 1: from his position at the library to protect his mental health,
Speaker 1: which honestly I can understand, and I just hate it
Speaker 1: so much that we have this person who is doing
Speaker 1: something that is good, is like getting people passionate about libraries,
Speaker 1: passionate about reading, advocating for libraries as a resource, doing
Speaker 1: so in a way that is passionate and inclusive and
Speaker 1: all of these different things, and then people just like
Speaker 1: bullying him out of that position for no reason. And
Speaker 1: I do have to say that I have really seen
Speaker 1: an uptick in this kind of content. It is sort
Speaker 1: of the libs of TikTok strategy of social media gamification,
Speaker 1: where somebody who is making a video for TikTok, someone
Speaker 1: else takes that video, puts it on Twitter with a
Speaker 1: mean or accusatory or insulting caption, and then it does numbers,
Speaker 1: It goes viral, gets lots of engagement, and it's generally
Speaker 1: people who are like authentic or genuine or passionate or
Speaker 1: being a little bit weird. Like something I like about
Speaker 1: Michael is that when he was accused of like being weird,
Speaker 1: he was like, yeah, I am a little bit weird.
Speaker 1: All my friends that are weird, We're very passionate. It's
Speaker 1: like being weird is what makes us who we are.
Speaker 1: And like, I don't take that as an insult, which
Speaker 1: I thought was nice, but like, I think we're seeing
Speaker 1: more and more of that as like an engagement tactic
Speaker 1: where these people expect to have their own little corner
Speaker 1: of TikTok where they can talk to people who are
Speaker 1: like minded, and then someone comes along, rips it onto
Speaker 1: Twitter where the context just feels different, and uses it
Speaker 1: to create a pylon on this person. And so like,
Speaker 1: he hasn't done anything wrong, like he other than being
Speaker 1: passionate about libraries, he's not done anything wrong. And I
Speaker 1: do think there's something else going on where like there
Speaker 1: is something about people who you can tell are like
Speaker 1: living their genuine, authentic lives and like being their genuine
Speaker 1: authentic selves. And like you know when you when you
Speaker 1: are your authentic self, it is clear that you are
Speaker 1: comfortable and passionate and happy, and like, I think people
Speaker 1: pick up on that, and I think for people who
Speaker 1: are not living that way themselves, I think that that
Speaker 1: I think that's triggering to them. I think they have
Speaker 1: to like bully it and smash it because it's like,
Speaker 1: don't you know that we're all living lives and that
Speaker 1: you're not meant to be authentic and happy and passionate,
Speaker 1: and like, how dare you show up as your happy, authentic,
Speaker 1: passionate self. This is threatening? I need to smash this down.
Speaker 1: I think. I think it's really something that is within
Speaker 1: people to like see somebody who is passionate and happy
Speaker 1: and feel the need to crush that and squash that.
Speaker 1: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, that's definitely a thing. I mean, there's something vulnerable
Speaker 3: about being earnest and positive and this tendency within people
Speaker 3: to smash it and tear it apart and ridicule it.
Speaker 3: It feels sort of juvenile a little bit, you know.
Speaker 3: It feels like everybody goes through. Not everybody, many people
Speaker 3: go through like an angsty teenage period right where they
Speaker 3: start to realize that all of the things that their
Speaker 3: parents and the grown ups in their life have you know,
Speaker 3: presented them with as like this is what being a
Speaker 3: you know, this is what a life's supposed to look like.
Speaker 2: You get a little you know, as people.
Speaker 3: Enter their teenage years, they realize that all those things
Speaker 3: are not perfect, and you know, in some cases there
Speaker 3: are like problems and you just have to like deal
Speaker 3: with it and make the most of it. That's what
Speaker 3: like being an adult is in a lot of cases.
Speaker 3: And so it's just like really easy and juvenile, I think,
Speaker 3: to to just rip apart anything that is earnest or
Speaker 3: trying to be positive.
Speaker 2: And it is sad, it's but it's not surprising that
Speaker 2: it does.
Speaker 3: That sort of thing does well on social media right,
Speaker 3: particularly on Twitter, where anger and outrage and meanness are
Speaker 3: cultural values.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, And it's just like it doesn't make
Speaker 1: us any happier or feel good, and earnestness is okay,
Speaker 1: Like be cringe, love what you love, be shout it
Speaker 1: from the rooftops. If you've got something that feels like
Speaker 1: passion and excitement, you should be able to lean into that. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, the Internet was created for people who
Speaker 1: were excited about shit, and like I just hate this
Speaker 1: idea that like, no, we can only be removed and
Speaker 1: cynical and mean and angry. That's not what the I mean.
Speaker 1: That's obviously part of the Internet, but like being unabashedly
Speaker 1: passionate about stuff is part of what makes the Internet
Speaker 1: the Internet, and if we lose that and only see
Speaker 1: that as something to be mocked and bullied, we lose
Speaker 1: something important in all of us, and not to mention,
Speaker 1: we lose a dope ass librarian at the library, like
Speaker 1: like Michael is stepping down. However, there is a bit
Speaker 1: of a happy ending though, because he announced that PBS
Speaker 1: offered him the role of resident librarian for a social
Speaker 1: media series and so this is gonna involve him doing
Speaker 1: book suggestions, talking about literacy, and of course spreading library
Speaker 1: joy and so yeah, I'm happy that it has a
Speaker 1: happy ending, but I'm sad that someone can't just be
Speaker 1: a really engaged, passionate librarian on the twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: Internet without being bullied for it and bullied into stepping down.
Speaker 1: We all lose when that's the case.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm glad there's a happy ending on that one.
Speaker 3: That feels nice.
Speaker 5: More after a quick break, let's get right back into it.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know how this is gonna go because
Speaker 1: our last topic is something that I know that we
Speaker 1: maybe don't see an eye on, and that.
Speaker 2: Is we're gonna talk about self checkout.
Speaker 1: No, we've already done it, Like it's been done.
Speaker 3: Dude, Okay, cool. Well, I mean, what else do we
Speaker 3: disagree about Wendy's. Oh, we're gonna talk about Wendy's.
Speaker 1: Okay. So do you remember when I was like, did
Speaker 1: you see that Wendy's doing surge pricing? And you had
Speaker 1: I will describe it as a big reaction. Do you
Speaker 1: remember how you reacted when I told you that information?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I do.
Speaker 3: I was like, that's that can't be true. That's banana
Speaker 3: pans bonkers, Like that doesn't make any sense. No one
Speaker 3: will tolerate that. People will hate it, people rebuild, people
Speaker 3: will be like burning Wendy's to the ground. Something must
Speaker 3: be wrong about this story.
Speaker 1: Well, let's get into it. So is Wendy's doing surge pricing?
Speaker 1: I don't feel confident saying yes or no. I will
Speaker 1: tell you what I know. So in wendy'ss Q four
Speaker 1: earnings call, the company announced plans to use AI enabled
Speaker 1: dynamic pricing remember that phrase, saying beginning as early as
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, we will begin testing more enhanced features
Speaker 1: like dynamic pricing and day part offering, along with AI
Speaker 1: enabled menu changes and suggestive selling. As we continue to
Speaker 1: show the benefit of this technology in our company operated restaurants,
Speaker 1: franchisee in in digital menu boards should increase further, supporting
Speaker 1: sales and profit growth across the system. We will continue
Speaker 1: setting the pace in generative AI and have now rolled
Speaker 1: out Wendy's Fresh AI in several restaurants where we see
Speaker 1: ongoing improvement and in speed and accuracy. So importantly, that comment,
Speaker 1: though weird as fuck, I think, but does not say
Speaker 1: the word surge pricing. It says dynamic pricing, So there
Speaker 1: is a difference between these two pricing structures. I think
Speaker 1: that when we hear dynamic pricing, most people are probably
Speaker 1: most familiar with it from things like Uber and Lyft,
Speaker 1: where they like charge more when there's more demands. So
Speaker 1: if it's like raining and a concert just let out,
Speaker 1: it's going to cost more than if it's an off
Speaker 1: season and not many people are using the app. So
Speaker 1: I think people understandably assume that this meant that Wendy's
Speaker 1: is going to be charging more for food at times
Speaker 1: of high demand. I did see a lot of reporting
Speaker 1: on this issue that used the phrase surge pricing. However,
Speaker 1: surge pricing and dynam limit pricing are different things, right,
Speaker 1: Like surge pricing means like, oh, the price will be
Speaker 1: higher at certain times. Dynamic pricing. This means, oh, the
Speaker 1: price can change based on certain factors, not necessarily going
Speaker 1: up or down. After this announcement, the phrase surge pricing
Speaker 1: actually started trending on social media, and even lawmakers were
Speaker 1: weighing in, Like Senator Bob Casey accused Wendy's of corporate greed.
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Warren added, it's price gouging, plain and simple. So
Speaker 1: I did a search of the entire transcript of that
Speaker 1: Wendy's Q four call, great use of my time, and
Speaker 1: it is true. Nowhere in that call did the Wendy
Speaker 1: CEO ever specifically say that they were planning on doing
Speaker 1: surge pricing, only dynamic pricing, and there is a difference, right.
Speaker 1: Wendy's then clarified, saying they do not plan on instituting
Speaker 1: surge pricing. They said, in a statement, we said these
Speaker 1: menu boards would give us more flexibility to change the
Speaker 1: display of featured items. This was misconstrued in some media
Speaker 1: reports as an intent to raise prices when demand is
Speaker 1: highest at our restaurants. We have no plans to do
Speaker 1: that and would not raise prices when our customers are
Speaker 1: visiting us. Most any features we may test would be
Speaker 1: designed to benefit our customers and restaurant crew members. Digital
Speaker 1: menu boards could allow us to change the menu offerings
Speaker 1: at different times of the day and offer discounts and
Speaker 1: value offers to our customers more easily, particularly in the
Speaker 1: slower times of day. Wendy's has always been about providing
Speaker 1: high quality food at great value, and customers can continue
Speaker 1: to expect that from our brand. So here's where Mike
Speaker 1: and I disagree. Mike, I see you, Why don't you
Speaker 1: go ahead? What do you think about this?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: I mean, I want to be clear that I have
Speaker 3: no illusions that Wendy's is some benevolent actor.
Speaker 2: I don't know this CEO. It's like a giant corporation.
Speaker 3: Uh, It's like fine, as far as I can tell,
Speaker 3: they're no more or less evil than any other giant corporation, right, Like,
Speaker 3: But it just never made sense. Nobody's gonna tell or
Speaker 3: that surge pricing. So when he issued this clarification the
Speaker 3: next day and said, no, we're not planning to do
Speaker 3: surge pricing, where we would increase prices at certain times
Speaker 3: when there's extra demand, but instead we would just want
Speaker 3: to have more flexibility to offer different discounts at different
Speaker 3: times of the day. I was like, oh, okay, that
Speaker 3: makes a lot of sense, that like actually seems like
Speaker 3: something that people would not be infuriated by. But then
Speaker 3: it got me thinking how silly we humans are with
Speaker 3: our like gain loss framing and like loss aversion that
Speaker 3: the idea that something would increase in price at certain
Speaker 3: hours of the day is completely unacceptable. I would just
Speaker 3: never I couldn't tolerate that in my burgers, right, that's
Speaker 3: insulting to me as a person. But the idea that
Speaker 3: I would get a price discount at some hours of
Speaker 3: the day, Oh okay, cool, Yeah, what's the discount?
Speaker 2: Is it? Like half off? Tell me? And like, that's
Speaker 2: kind of dumb.
Speaker 3: Of me and humans in general, because in either scenario,
Speaker 3: there's one price at one time a day and another
Speaker 3: price at another time of the day, And it's almost
Speaker 3: like semantics of what we're where. They're calling it an
Speaker 3: increase or a decrease. And yet apparently those semantics are
Speaker 3: extremely important, given that Wendy's became front page news for
Speaker 3: twenty four hours based on this distinction between surge pricing
Speaker 3: and dynamic pricing, which I had never even thought of
Speaker 3: until this was an issue.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I mostly agree with you. The thing
Speaker 1: I want to pull out, which is my take, is
Speaker 1: that I don't think that how they I don't think
Speaker 1: that their clarification walks back this enough because they very
Speaker 1: well truly incluld raise their prices and then be like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: raise their prices across the board, and then be like,
Speaker 1: on off peak times, we're gonna have a cheap menu,
Speaker 1: and that would be the same thing that people got
Speaker 1: upset about. So it is like a semantics of like, well,
Speaker 1: and so I this is what I think. Wendy says
Speaker 1: they would not raise prices when our customers are visiting most.
Speaker 1: That kind of gets my pr statement brain buzzing, because
Speaker 1: I think what they're saying is like, well, we never
Speaker 1: said we work on e raise prices. We just said
Speaker 1: we work on eraise prices when people are eating here
Speaker 1: the most. And so I believe what they are saying
Speaker 1: is we plan to raise prices and then lower them
Speaker 1: via our dynamic menu, which is subsequently kind of the
Speaker 1: same thing. That's what I think is going to happen.
Speaker 1: So I think that people are like cheering this as like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we really like bullied Wendy's into doing the right thing.
Speaker 1: I don't know that I agree. I really don't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like you're really reading much further between
Speaker 3: the lines.
Speaker 2: Than is warranted here.
Speaker 3: I mean, okay, here's two other examples of companies that
Speaker 3: do stuff like this, right, Like Bead Bathroom Beyond before
Speaker 3: they went out of business. There was one of those
Speaker 3: in Columbia Heights where I live, and I would go
Speaker 3: there to try to buy things sometimes, and it was
Speaker 3: expensive as hell. Every single item was like really expensive
Speaker 3: so much that I would like never buy their things.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 3: Many occasions I would go there, wanted to get an item,
Speaker 3: take a look at the price, and be like, this
Speaker 3: is absurd. And the reason was because they were one
Speaker 3: of these stores that had a coupon based economy where
Speaker 3: it only made sense to shop there if you were
Speaker 3: clipping coupons, which they prolifically distributed, so people would walk
Speaker 3: in there with like a handful of coupons for like
Speaker 3: seventy five percent off buy one, get one whatever, And
Speaker 3: I just really resented that little dance that we had to.
Speaker 2: Do to.
Speaker 3: Try to buy an item at a reasonable price. So
Speaker 3: hopefully that's not what Wendy's is approaching here.
Speaker 1: I once went into that Bed Bath and Beyond and
Speaker 1: I was standing in line, I think, holding a blender,
Speaker 1: and there was a guy in there who had an
Speaker 1: entire I kid you not, an entire book of Bed
Speaker 1: Bath and Beyond coupons, and he was giving them out
Speaker 1: the people in the line like cash, Like he was
Speaker 1: like making it rain coupons. And I got my blender
Speaker 1: for twenty five percent of I'll never forget it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I I There are already plenty of things in society
Speaker 1: that use dynamic pricing, like airline tickets they're cheaper depending
Speaker 1: on demand, movie tickets, you know, you buy a matinee
Speaker 1: when less people are going, it's cheaper, is a thing
Speaker 1: in our society. But I do think what's interesting here
Speaker 1: is that how big the reaction was. And I think
Speaker 1: that's gotta be that, Like people are so fucking sick rightly,
Speaker 1: so a feeling squeezed right now, Like it feels like
Speaker 1: the new model is like anything that can rip people
Speaker 1: off must rip people, And so I think that people
Speaker 1: are sensitive to it right now because we're feeling it
Speaker 1: in multiple different ways. That just feels like the way
Speaker 1: that it is right now, and I don't know. Our
Speaker 1: burgers are our last. Like, if we lose the burgers,
Speaker 1: what else have we lost? Right Like, this is our
Speaker 1: last the last thing that we can sort of rely on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. I don't want to have to bring coupons
Speaker 3: to Wendy's. I don't want to have to strategically time
Speaker 3: when I get my burger. I don't want to have to,
Speaker 3: you know, do a bunch of math. Uh yeah, let's
Speaker 3: just keep it simple.
Speaker 1: Let's just keep it simple. But I do want to
Speaker 1: clearly reiterate my point for you, Mike, because if Comma,
Speaker 1: when Wendy's racist, I'm gonna stay on. I'm you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stay on this story. If and perhaps when
Speaker 1: Wendy's quietly raises all of their prices across the board
Speaker 1: and their dynamic pricing is rolled out to lower those
Speaker 1: prices back down to what we are familiar with, which
Speaker 1: is my argument of what they're doing, we will record
Speaker 1: this again, and I want I want a I want
Speaker 1: to say it clearly now so that I can get
Speaker 1: a clear I told just so from me on the record,
Speaker 1: and that a clear you were right from you on
Speaker 1: the record. We'll have that all as audio forever, so
Speaker 1: that we'll all, you know, be on the same page.
Speaker 2: Is that cool?
Speaker 3: I mean we'll cross that bridge when they come to it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, I uh, you know. It also makes me
Speaker 3: think and then I'll let us finish up here. But
Speaker 3: so in DC we have this new law, I guess
Speaker 3: it's not even new, it's been here for like two
Speaker 3: or three years now, where all restaurant workers have to
Speaker 3: make a living wage. It's great law, good for everybody,
Speaker 3: but restaurant owners hate it. And so there's been this
Speaker 3: phenomenon in the city of You go into a restaurant
Speaker 3: and the prices on the menu are the prices, and
Speaker 3: then when you get your bill there'll be like a
Speaker 3: five percent search charge that is not a tip. It
Speaker 3: doesn't go to the servers. It's just for the restaurant.
Speaker 3: It'll be like the living wage fee or something. And
Speaker 3: that infuriates me right that, Like, just raise your prices
Speaker 3: across the board, if that's what you have to do
Speaker 3: to keep this business going, don't like deceptively hide it.
Speaker 3: So I hope Wendy's doesn't raise their prices, But I
Speaker 3: would rather that than a bunch of like weird gimmicky
Speaker 3: tricks that make me have to do math when I'm
Speaker 3: trying to get my food.
Speaker 1: Well, I believe what Wendy's will roll out is a weird,
Speaker 1: gimmicky trick that forces you to do maths. I'm like,
Speaker 1: follow the Wendy's prices like a goddamn stock market just
Speaker 1: to buy your food that I will leave it there.
Speaker 2: I hope you're wrong. I mean, that's that's not what
Speaker 2: Dave Thomas would have wanted.
Speaker 1: Dave Thomas is rolling over on his in his grave. Mike,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for going through these stories with me.
Speaker 1: I will see you on the internet.
Speaker 2: Thanks, Bridget see you there.
Speaker 1: And thanks to all of you for listening and to
Speaker 1: the listeners who sent in suggestions and flags of stories
Speaker 1: that we should cover. Thank you. Please keep doing that.
Speaker 2: How can they do that, Bridget Oh?
Speaker 1: You can email us at hello at tangody dot com.
Speaker 1: You can find me on social media. I though I'm
Speaker 1: not really there, not often anymore, but you could try. Yeah,
Speaker 1: please keep doing it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: They could also go to the Patreon right. There are
Speaker 3: quite a few listeners who message us there at patreon
Speaker 3: dot com, slash tangody or tangody dot com, slash Patreon.
Speaker 2: It works both ways.
Speaker 1: Oh a tech Marvel. Thanks for listening. If you're looking
Speaker 1: for ways to support the show, check out our March
Speaker 1: store at tangoty dot com slash store. Got a story
Speaker 1: about an interesting thing in tech, or just want to
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Speaker 1: Internet was created by me Bridget Todd. It's a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative edited by Joey pat Jonathan
Speaker 1: Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer
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