Speaker 1: I don't want to see us in a position where
Speaker 1: like we're just flooded by low quality, inaccurate misinformation. That's
Speaker 1: just like brain candy.
Speaker 2: There are no girls on the Internet. As a production
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm brigitad and this is
Speaker 2: there are no girls on the Internet. So recently, I've
Speaker 2: been deeply fascinated by this noticeable uptick in AI generated
Speaker 2: low effort content all over social media. On Facebook, maybe
Speaker 2: you saw the picture of the elderly twins who are
Speaker 2: celebrating their one hundred and twentieth birthday, posted alongside the
Speaker 2: caption prompting you to leave them a little birthday love,
Speaker 2: or that bizarre image of Jesus made entirely out of
Speaker 2: shrimp asking for an amen. Now, on Facebook, it does
Speaker 2: tend to trend a little bit more Sacraine. But over
Speaker 2: on TikTok, creators are flooding the platform with low effort
Speaker 2: videos that push truly ridiculous conspiracy theories, things like the
Speaker 2: government is holding a vampire hostage. And not only that,
Speaker 2: but because of the way TikTok's creativity program works, spreading
Speaker 2: these ridiculous lies equals a payday. It sounds really silly
Speaker 2: and maybe even kind of harmless but disinformation. Researcher and
Speaker 2: friend of the show, Abby Richards, who has been tracking
Speaker 2: the spread of this kind of content for Media Matters, says,
Speaker 2: if garbage like this is incentivized, it makes our entire
Speaker 2: Internet ecosystem worse. I usually start by asking my guests
Speaker 2: to like introduce themselves, give us their title, all of that,
Speaker 2: But I feel like by now people know you. You are
Speaker 2: a certified friend of the show, Abby Richards, Welcome back.
Speaker 2: We're so happy you are here.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Bridget you know I would do absolutely
Speaker 1: anything for you. And do you need a kidney, You
Speaker 1: can have one.
Speaker 2: I feel the last time I saw you, I was
Speaker 2: pretty drunk in.
Speaker 1: Berlin and we had a great time.
Speaker 2: So the reason I wanted to talk to you today
Speaker 2: is because you're sort of my I don't know, resident
Speaker 2: TikTok expert. I feel like nobody knows the platform better
Speaker 2: than you. And what I say, knowing the platform, I
Speaker 2: mean the good, the way that it can connect people,
Speaker 2: educate people, bring people together, give people access to community
Speaker 2: they didn't know they had, and also the bad because
Speaker 2: as much as I know you like TikTok. I don't
Speaker 2: know that I know many people that are as honest
Speaker 2: about the platform and as critical of the platform as you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know. I really approach TikTok from two angles,
Speaker 1: which are the two hats that I always wear. My
Speaker 1: first hat is as a researcher and like studying misinformation
Speaker 1: extremism on the platform. But then my other hat is
Speaker 1: a content creator and like a user of TikTok, someone
Speaker 1: who was found great joy there at times, and there's
Speaker 1: I like situations where there's complexity, you know, like we
Speaker 1: can understand that things can be simultaneously amazing and also terrible,
Speaker 1: and we can hold space for both of those things
Speaker 1: at the same time.
Speaker 2: I'm glad that you were doing that because I feel
Speaker 2: so often when we're talking about technology, it's either this
Speaker 2: technology is harming everybody and it should be made like
Speaker 2: it's it's I think there's a temptation to talk about
Speaker 2: it in a binary either like all good or all bad.
Speaker 2: And I'm happy that people like you can really bring
Speaker 2: the nuance of like, well, here's all the good things.
Speaker 2: I want to be honest about all the good things
Speaker 2: it's brought to me, but let's also be honest about
Speaker 2: the places that are not so good and the things
Speaker 2: that need to be fixed on the platform.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because also, how are we going to move forward
Speaker 1: and create better digital spaces if we can't pinpoint what's working,
Speaker 1: what's good, what do we like, and also what's not
Speaker 1: working what's harmful? Like, I'm all for creating healthy digital
Speaker 1: spaces where people can thrive and like evolve and learn
Speaker 1: and grow and laugh and build community love like, yeah, amazing,
Speaker 1: but I want to avoid creating spaces that like are
Speaker 1: exclusively prioritizing profit right and in doing that, creating some
Speaker 1: like really toxic spaces.
Speaker 2: Well, to that end, let's talk about some of the
Speaker 2: reporting that you did around something happening on TikTok. So
Speaker 2: you initially pointed this out with Media Matters back in February.
Speaker 2: We're talking months later. But it's really that folks had
Speaker 2: been exploiting TikTok's creativity program by pumping out viral conspiracy
Speaker 2: theory content using AI generated images and voices for profit.
Speaker 2: So I want to start with what exactly is TikTok's
Speaker 2: creativity program for folks who aren't familiar with that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So TikTok's Creativity Program actually was TikTok. It was
Speaker 1: technically was called or TikTok Creativity Program Beta because it
Speaker 1: was in beta, and it was a program designed to
Speaker 1: compensate creators for the content that they produce, which is amazing,
Speaker 1: that's great. We do want to be paying people for
Speaker 1: their labor on those platforms. And the criteria for eligibility
Speaker 1: for the Creativity Program Beta was that you had an
Speaker 1: account based in countries where it was available. You had
Speaker 1: to be at least eighteen years old, you had to
Speaker 1: have at least ten thousand followers, you had to have
Speaker 1: at least one hundred thousand video views in the last
Speaker 1: thirty days, and the videos that you could monetize that
Speaker 1: could be monetized had to be at least sixty seconds long.
Speaker 1: So that was replaced. In March, they ended the Creativity
Speaker 1: Program Beta and officially launched the Creator Forwards program, which
Speaker 1: is very very similar in structure, essentially same requirements, but
Speaker 1: is no longer in beta.
Speaker 2: So because of this program, these tiktoks can rack up
Speaker 2: millions and millions and millions of views, which makes woever
Speaker 2: post that probably a pretty good bit of money. What
Speaker 2: kind of conspiracy theories are you seeing in these tiktoks.
Speaker 1: Oh. We had the seemingly AI Joe Rogan predicting Texas
Speaker 1: will seceed starting a civil war, which had eight hundred
Speaker 1: thousand views. Simpson's predicted that the Baltimore Bridge would collapse.
Speaker 1: That has two point seven million views. It is also
Speaker 1: a minute in one second seemingly Ai j o'rogan saying
Speaker 1: about three weeks ago, a man named Blake Dawson embarked
Speaker 1: on a mission to uncover the hidden depths of the
Speaker 1: Denver International Airport. He discovered a vast laboratory underneath, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Now he's missing. That had just under four
Speaker 1: hundred thousand views. I had an Ai seemingly Ai Joe
Speaker 1: Rogan and seemingly AI Matt Rife talking about SeaWorld hiding
Speaker 1: the world's last megaladon, Oh my God, that had jos
Speaker 1: under nine hundred thousand views. And I had a seemingly
Speaker 1: AI Elon Musk talking about flat Earth and I have
Speaker 1: one eight million views, and it was one minute in
Speaker 1: one second long.
Speaker 2: Something that strikes me about this, like there's that undercurrent
Speaker 2: of like the kind of guy who likes Elon Musk,
Speaker 2: Joe Rogan, and Matt Rich. It's like, if you're if
Speaker 2: that guy is you, you should be offended that they're like, oh,
Speaker 2: stupid dumbasses who will believe absolutely anything. That is who
Speaker 2: we're targeting. That is you, Like they're almost insulting you
Speaker 2: to your face in a kind of way.
Speaker 1: Again, I think you have different read on the situation than.
Speaker 2: They do, Like are you a gullible sucker? So with
Speaker 2: the current iteration of this program, are you still seeing
Speaker 2: these the kind of conspiracy theory tiktoks that you saw
Speaker 2: on the platform when the program was in beta.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So let's walk back and I'll explain, like what
Speaker 1: was even showing up on the platform at the time.
Speaker 1: What we were seeing was this entire niche of AI
Speaker 1: generated conspiracy theory content on TikTok. And so it used
Speaker 1: seemingly AI generated images sometimes mixed with like non AI
Speaker 1: generated images and AI generated speech to text to like
Speaker 1: pump out conspiracy theory content really high volumes. Uh, and
Speaker 1: it performed really well in TikTok's algorithm. Right, We've been
Speaker 1: seeing that for years. We know that that conspiracy theories
Speaker 1: often perform well in these algorithms. That are engagement driven.
Speaker 1: They're driven by watch time, and so these videos were
Speaker 1: pretty formulaic a lot of the time. So they started
Speaker 1: with some sort of unhinged statement at the top to
Speaker 1: hook you in. So they'd be like the US government
Speaker 1: discovered a vampire and they're keeping it a secret, or
Speaker 1: scientists just discovered the last megaladon and they're keeping it
Speaker 1: a secret. And they would use like, uh, they would
Speaker 1: use AI generated images fast paced like super you know,
Speaker 1: they would use like AI generated images like this very
Speaker 1: fast paced editing style captions the speed to text, and
Speaker 1: like spooky background music that really like hook you in
Speaker 1: and like they stimulate like all of your senses at once,
Speaker 1: and then they'd create this background story just essentially to
Speaker 1: take up the remaining sixty seconds of the video, presumably
Speaker 1: so that they could qualify for TikTok's creativity program at
Speaker 1: the time. And so yeah, like I said, like they
Speaker 1: were very unhinged statements at the top oftentimes, and I
Speaker 1: really liked this bit. They would use like a fictional
Speaker 1: researcher slash explorer character who had just discovered something, and
Speaker 1: it was always a guy. It was never a woman,
Speaker 1: because why would it be a woman. Women can't be explorers,
Speaker 1: and they'd be like, I don't know. Like Eric Smith
Speaker 1: was on an expedition to Antarctica just three weeks ago,
Speaker 1: and somehow he'd always ended up dead at the end.
Speaker 1: So we were like, how do we know this?
Speaker 2: Then they're really you're you're really bringing a lot of
Speaker 2: like logical questions to this of like, then how do
Speaker 2: we get this? How do we get the story out?
Speaker 1: Yeah? How did we get the story out if he
Speaker 1: died on the expedition? I just want to know. I'm
Speaker 1: just asking questions. So I spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: deep diving into these. Uh. And there were also content
Speaker 1: creator gurus who were creating videos like teaching people how
Speaker 1: to make these too, So I was watching their videos
Speaker 1: learning how to make them.
Speaker 2: Why do you think there are so many of them?
Speaker 2: Are like about Godzilla or asteroids, almost sort of science
Speaker 2: fiction y.
Speaker 1: Well, I think to some extent they're a little bit
Speaker 1: Again this is purely speculation. I think they're slightly safer
Speaker 1: to play with, of like, mythical creatures are probably less
Speaker 1: likely to get you in trouble with TikTok moderations, and
Speaker 1: like a conspiracy theory about the Rothchild. I do sometimes
Speaker 1: see ones that are, you know, more explicitly harmful, Like
Speaker 1: we saw like a lot of like space is fake,
Speaker 1: histories has been rewritten, history is fake, Flat Earth kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, and that stuff definitely is harmful. But I
Speaker 1: do think that a lot of like the mythical creature
Speaker 1: stuff is kind of in that gray area where it's
Speaker 1: it's not some super nefarious, clearly anti Semitic conspiracy theory,
Speaker 1: right Like we're talking more about like mythical creatures. A
Speaker 1: lot of the time the stories seem to reflect like
Speaker 1: horror more than even like conspiracy theories. At times, they
Speaker 1: use a lot of like horror tropes and trying to
Speaker 1: evoke that like eerie feeling.
Speaker 2: And even though we're talking about wacky horror stuff, usually
Speaker 2: there is some undercurrent of like, oh, the government is
Speaker 2: lying to you. You're not being told the full truth.
Speaker 2: They know something they're not telling us, but I'm telling you.
Speaker 1: And that's so appealing to us, right Like we want
Speaker 1: to feel like we're in on some special knowledge. We
Speaker 1: there's nothing we love more than feeling like we know
Speaker 1: something that other people don't. So it's it's again, it's
Speaker 1: very appealing to sorry, I think my cat just screamed.
Speaker 1: Did you hear that the girls are fighting?
Speaker 2: The girls are fighting? Maybe they maybe they're like chiming in.
Speaker 2: They know something we don't.
Speaker 1: They do, they're always planning. Conspiracy theories against me are conspiracies.
Speaker 1: We love feeling like we're in on some special knowledge.
Speaker 1: And that's, you know, one of many many reasons why
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories continue to be popular time and time again.
Speaker 3: Let's take a quick break eder back.
Speaker 2: I should say a common tactic of these low effort
Speaker 2: AI generated conspiracy theory tiktoks is making the content look
Speaker 2: as if Joe Rogan is discussing it on his podcast.
Speaker 2: They'll actually use AI generated content of Joe Rogan to
Speaker 2: make it seem as if Rogan actually did discuss the
Speaker 2: government covering up that they found an alien or a
Speaker 2: vampire or whatever. But even Joe Rogan has not actually
Speaker 2: entertained these conspiracy theories, and it's just another way to
Speaker 2: credential whatever outlandish claim their content is making by visually
Speaker 2: associating it with Joe Rogan. I did notice something else
Speaker 2: about a couple of these videos that I don't know
Speaker 2: if you have thoughts about what's going on but where
Speaker 2: they have been designed to make it look like they
Speaker 2: are specifically being discussed on Joe Rogan's podcast. So it's
Speaker 2: like an image of Joe Rogan and it's like him
Speaker 2: being like, oh, did you know that we're all gonna
Speaker 2: die because scientists found an asteroid? Pull this up, and
Speaker 2: then it makes it seem as though they've discussed this
Speaker 2: on the podcast even though they have it as far
Speaker 2: as I know.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, and quite cleverly, the captions are always put
Speaker 1: right over his mouth so that you can't tell easily
Speaker 1: how dubbed it is and how bad that dubbing is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a really interesting part of this research that
Speaker 1: I wasn't necessarily expecting, but so much of this content
Speaker 1: was especially I got a lot of videos using Joe
Speaker 1: Rogan where Joe Rogan did the exact same formula, right,
Speaker 1: he'd be Like three weeks ago, a man called Blake
Speaker 1: Dawson embarked on a mission to uncover hidden depths of
Speaker 1: the Denver International Airport and he discovered a vast laboratory underneath.
Speaker 1: That's like YadA, YadA, YadA, literally verbatim. I wrote that down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like I got another one of Joe Rogan predicting that
Speaker 1: that Texas was going to secede from the US starting
Speaker 1: a civil war on May fourteenth. It is now May
Speaker 1: twenty first, and that hasn't happened.
Speaker 2: Date is come and gone. As far as I know,
Speaker 2: Texas is still part of the United States last.
Speaker 1: Time I checked. And one thing I also do I
Speaker 1: want to stress too, because I didn't save this up
Speaker 1: at the top, but like does provide some context, is
Speaker 1: that these videos are going mega viral, like very very viral. Like.
Speaker 1: We were seeing these types of videos with like, you know,
Speaker 1: twenty thirty million views at times, you know, ten million
Speaker 1: views on some just millions and millions of views. We
Speaker 1: found one account that, yeah, there was one account that
Speaker 1: actually only say this. So we identified a network of
Speaker 1: seemingly affiliated accounts that we're all posting these exact same
Speaker 1: type of AI generated conspiracy theory content, a lot of
Speaker 1: megaladon content on this account for whatever, on these accounts,
Speaker 1: and they were posting these videos in English, Spanish and French,
Speaker 1: using like a translated version of the same user name
Speaker 1: and the same profile picture, which also seemed AI generated.
Speaker 1: It's hard to say for sure, but and so they
Speaker 1: had received at the time that we looked at it,
Speaker 1: over three hundred and forty two million views on this
Speaker 1: account just posting this sort of content, and then the
Speaker 1: Spanish language the Spanish language account had received three hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty nine million views.
Speaker 2: Those numbers are shocking, but also what I know about
Speaker 2: Spanish language content, I feel like people who are interested
Speaker 2: in flooding digital spaces with junk, they are definitely going
Speaker 2: to translate that junk into Spanish because they know we
Speaker 2: don't have as many, you know, really good Spanish language
Speaker 2: content platforms as we should, and so it's like there's
Speaker 2: a gap of that and they're like, oh, we can
Speaker 2: fill that gap with nonsense and make a clickbook.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2: Why do you think these videos are going viral?
Speaker 3: Like they are?
Speaker 1: Where to start? First of all, we love a good story,
Speaker 1: and we love a good conspiracy story, like these are
Speaker 1: candy for our brains. We love mythical creatures. We love
Speaker 1: to think that, you know, the government's hiding some sort
Speaker 1: of knowledge from us, like there's a reason why Men
Speaker 1: in Black is still a classic movie. Like, we fundamentally
Speaker 1: love these stories. And then you combine it with like this,
Speaker 1: this kind of attention hijacking approach to creating content where
Speaker 1: we know that that sort of content plays really well
Speaker 1: on these algorithms where you're just trying to get watch time,
Speaker 1: and the more people watch it, the more that that
Speaker 1: video will be recommended to other people and it'll then
Speaker 1: go viral. And then on top of that, you're able
Speaker 1: to just create such a high volume of this content.
Speaker 1: It's really easy to pump this content out because you
Speaker 1: don't need to go create your own art. You can
Speaker 1: just get like an AI to do it. You don't
Speaker 1: need to read your own text, like do you know
Speaker 1: how long it takes me when I film one of
Speaker 1: my videos to get all the words right like and
Speaker 1: get my delivery right Like. That's time that you don't
Speaker 1: need to do, Like you know, No, you don't need
Speaker 1: to spend that anymore. You can just plug it into
Speaker 1: a speak you're a text to speech software, so you
Speaker 1: can really crank this stuff out quite quickly. And I
Speaker 1: think that then you can just put a lot out
Speaker 1: and see what hits.
Speaker 2: When it comes to AI, we talk a lot about
Speaker 2: the obvious dangerous examples of the ways that AI can
Speaker 2: disrupt our democracy, but there's also a real danger to
Speaker 2: the seemingly more benign AI generated content too, because it
Speaker 2: just makes our Internet landscape worse, more stupid, and less trustworthy.
Speaker 2: And when it's financially incentivized, not to mention easy and
Speaker 2: fast to crank out at scale, it's not really that
Speaker 2: difficult to see how it gets us away from the
Speaker 2: kind of Internet we actually want, which is not one
Speaker 2: full of low effort AI generated lives, scams and garbage. Yeah,
Speaker 2: part of me wonders if that's really the role that
Speaker 2: we're seeing AI being utilized for here. It's just you know,
Speaker 2: the speed at which you can crank these out, the
Speaker 2: ease at which you can crank these out, and you
Speaker 2: can just really just flood the space and see what
Speaker 2: happens to hit that virality.
Speaker 1: Mark, I'm definitely nervous about it. I'm very concerned about
Speaker 1: the role of AI here in just its ability to
Speaker 1: create volume, and I'm concerned about the combination of AI
Speaker 1: plus algorithms that prioritize watch time over the actual originality
Speaker 1: and like high quality sure of the content. I don't
Speaker 1: want to see us in a position where like we're
Speaker 1: just flooded by low quality, inaccurate misinformation. That's just like
Speaker 1: brain candy. That makes me. That makes me nervous because
Speaker 1: a lot of the times, like I get asked why
Speaker 1: this sort of content is concerning, Like why is it
Speaker 1: bad if like you know, the US like has vampires
Speaker 1: and like it's clearly silly. But I am worried about
Speaker 1: more so at scale, what it means to be in
Speaker 1: digital spaces that are fundamentally prioritizing, like not just prioritizing, incentivizing,
Speaker 1: financially incentivizing content that is low quality and easy to
Speaker 1: pump out.
Speaker 2: In what ways do you feel that TikTok's Uh, this
Speaker 2: program is incentivizing junk like this, Well, so.
Speaker 1: If you're paying creators, if you're if you're financially rewarding
Speaker 1: people for content based on how viral it is, Uh,
Speaker 1: the end result, it makes sense, is that you're going
Speaker 1: to get a lot of people just trying to pump
Speaker 1: out as much content that will go as viral as possible,
Speaker 1: rather than like actually funding the creators who do their own,
Speaker 1: you know, their own original, high quality work, because I
Speaker 1: do want to see them funded, of course, I do,
Speaker 1: Like I want the platforms to pay the creators who
Speaker 1: are the backbone of the of the platforms like TikTok
Speaker 1: would not be good if it weren't for all the
Speaker 1: creators out there making that content. I would like to
Speaker 1: see them, to see them compensated, but I want to
Speaker 1: make sure that we are we have systems in place
Speaker 1: so that they are the ones being compensated and not
Speaker 1: people that are just flooding the feeds with sabertooth tiger
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories.
Speaker 2: The reason why I liked TikTok to begin with is
Speaker 2: that I felt like they were my people, and that
Speaker 2: the people it was people who wanted to go deep
Speaker 2: on an issue, and it's like everything you ever wanted
Speaker 2: to know about this specific thing. If that is your
Speaker 2: dam rock with me and I'll tell you we'll get
Speaker 2: into than nitty gritty minutia. But getting into the nitty
Speaker 2: gritty minutia. If something takes research, it takes time. You
Speaker 2: can't just plug it into an AI system and have
Speaker 2: it poof create create that kind of content. It really takes,
Speaker 2: As you know, it takes a lot of time, and
Speaker 2: I worry that it's so much easier to rather than
Speaker 2: reward that person who's putting so much time and effort
Speaker 2: into making the thoughtful, deep dive content that we all love.
Speaker 2: It's so much easier to just throw money at people
Speaker 2: who have completely gamified this via AI just flogging the
Speaker 2: space with junk And I don't know, I like you,
Speaker 2: I worry about the what the what that says about
Speaker 2: our larger information ecosystem.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is concerning. I think it's also presenting like
Speaker 1: a good challenge that we could potentially, you know, figure
Speaker 1: out how to climb together. Like I'm trying to be
Speaker 1: inspirational here. I think that there is an opportunity here
Speaker 1: to figure out what it looks like to create a
Speaker 1: better system, Like we know what the end result is
Speaker 1: of just like simply prioritizing just engagement over all else,
Speaker 1: and so like what are we going to do to
Speaker 1: try to also incentivize accurate, high quality information.
Speaker 2: One question I do have is is this against TikTok's
Speaker 2: terms of service or rules in some way? Like I
Speaker 2: my understanding is that TikTok has rules that prohibit misleading
Speaker 2: or inaccurate content, But it seems like they're allowing not
Speaker 2: just allowing this kind of content on their platform, but
Speaker 2: allowing creators to be be profiting off of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I'm a little bit confused on this one.
Speaker 1: So here's what I know. So I know that we
Speaker 1: published this in February, and a TikTok spokesperson told Axios
Speaker 1: in late March that conspiracy theories are not eligible to
Speaker 1: earn money or to be recommended in for you feeds
Speaker 1: on TikTok. I have gone since then and looked and
Speaker 1: found plenty of the exact same right formula of conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories that are just over a minute long, using that
Speaker 1: AI generated text to speech and the spooky music and
Speaker 1: the editing and the and the images like all of that,
Speaker 1: And I've seen videos that were posted since then that
Speaker 1: seems a little inconsistent. The way they've talked about their
Speaker 1: newest update to the community guidelines around conspiracy theories doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to reflect that. So they said that conspiracy theories
Speaker 1: that are unfounded and claim that certain events or situations
Speaker 1: are carried out by covert or powerful groups such as quote,
Speaker 1: the government or a secret society, are not eligible for
Speaker 1: for you page recommendation. I don't know where a lot
Speaker 1: of these fall on that. It's a pretty it's it's
Speaker 1: it's just unclear exactly what TikTok is enforcing and what
Speaker 1: they're allowing to be monetized.
Speaker 2: And something we've seen time and time again is that
Speaker 2: the people who create this, especially if they're doing it
Speaker 2: for profit, are so good at creating content that really
Speaker 2: skirts that gray area and staying just on the other
Speaker 2: side of that line to keep them on the platform
Speaker 2: and to keep the money coming in.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the conspiracy theories about like the unfounded that
Speaker 1: are unfounded and claim about certain events being carried out
Speaker 1: by secret powerful groups, that's FYP ineligible. What's not allowed
Speaker 1: on TikTok are conspiracy theories that name and attack an individual.
Speaker 2: Oh so it seems like it seems like it wouldn't
Speaker 2: be that hard to create content that would be eligible,
Speaker 2: but still does the same kind of thing in spirit,
Speaker 2: just not in specificity.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Like, you know, because like the video that I
Speaker 1: talked about with an AI or seemingly AI Joe Rogan
Speaker 1: predicting that Texas will secede from the US, starting a
Speaker 1: second civil war on May fourteenth, which would then lead
Speaker 1: out lead to an all out nuclear war. That was
Speaker 1: uploaded on April fifth, and it has over eight hundred
Speaker 1: thousand views. It's a concerning video to be making a
Speaker 1: claim and to be using such a well known figure
Speaker 1: that a lot of people do get their information from
Speaker 1: to claim that you have like special knowledge from a
Speaker 1: time traveler, claiming that you're aware of imminent civil war? Like,
Speaker 1: where does that fall within these guidelines that we've set up?
Speaker 1: Where does that fall within the guidelines that TikTok is
Speaker 1: set up?
Speaker 2: And I gotta say not for nothing. If I'm Joe Rogan,
Speaker 2: I would be so insulted that this is the kind
Speaker 2: of content that people think they can plausibly associate with
Speaker 2: me unrelated to this whole conversation. I would really be
Speaker 2: taking a step back if I were him and be like, wow,
Speaker 2: people think that I would be giving them content about
Speaker 2: cryptids and stuff, and like that's what people would associate
Speaker 2: with me, And people will be like, oh yeah, I
Speaker 2: buy that. I would be so insulted and I would
Speaker 2: be taking a step back to deeply reflect on the
Speaker 2: kind of content I'm known for.
Speaker 1: I think you and Joe Rogan might be different in
Speaker 1: certain fundamental ways. Bridget.
Speaker 2: I mean, like when the whole Joe Rogan the last
Speaker 2: time that we talked about Joe Rogan, one of the
Speaker 2: points I made was like we like I'm not saying
Speaker 2: I'm such a great podcaster, but like, come on that
Speaker 2: it does.
Speaker 1: But Okay, the issue though of like taking a celebrity figure,
Speaker 1: especially someone that is like trusted by a bunch of
Speaker 1: people straight men across America, uh and you know, altering
Speaker 1: them with this AI voice and putting this information in
Speaker 1: their mouths. Like where I want to see more much
Speaker 1: more of a conversation happening from TikTok but also from
Speaker 1: other platforms about like where does this stand within policy?
Speaker 1: Because TikTok's community guidelines only prohibit this sort of like
Speaker 1: misleading AI generated content of a public figure who is
Speaker 1: being degraded or harassed, engaging in criminal or anti social behavior,
Speaker 1: taking a position on political issues, commercial products or a
Speaker 1: matter of public importance, or being politically endorsed or condemned.
Speaker 1: So the policy doesn't really seem to account for AI
Speaker 1: generated content of jer Rogan claiming that a time traveler
Speaker 1: predicted Civil war.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think it really exposes some gaps in
Speaker 2: policies that these people are exploiting to make a quick book.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I mean the more that we're having these
Speaker 1: conversations around AI, right, we're learning more ways that it's
Speaker 1: going to be used that maybe we hadn't thought of before.
Speaker 1: And like a lot of the conversations that I saw,
Speaker 1: especially early on around AI and like deep fakes and
Speaker 1: deep fakes of celebrities or politicians, was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: they're going to deep fake world leaders and say that
Speaker 1: like they're launching nuclear war and it's going to start
Speaker 1: nuclear war.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: It was like this really high stakes kind of discussions
Speaker 1: about how deep fakes can affect us. It's like, okay,
Speaker 1: but what about like really low effort deep I'm using
Speaker 1: some deep fakes because it's using just regular video of
Speaker 1: him with an AI generated voice. What about that? And
Speaker 1: like how that affects regular people and not like high
Speaker 1: up politicians, Like how about that? Like I just want
Speaker 1: to see this this evolution in our conversations around AI.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's something that I really see a lot of
Speaker 2: where so often and I get it, like I don't
Speaker 2: think it's it's wrong, but so often we're talking about
Speaker 2: high level deep fakes, so we're not talking about things
Speaker 2: like low effort cheap fakes, which I think are arguably
Speaker 2: easier to make, and we're talking about like, oh, how
Speaker 2: will it disrupt this high life level system, which is
Speaker 2: important to talk about, but we also should be talking
Speaker 2: about how is how might it disrupt the thing that
Speaker 2: most people are coming into into contact with every day,
Speaker 2: which is the way our digital ecosystem or information ecosystem.
Speaker 2: And I don't know, I think the conversation needs to
Speaker 2: have both of like how it is impacting people at
Speaker 2: this high level and also the thing in their hands
Speaker 2: that they are most likely to be coming into contact
Speaker 2: with these kinds of of inaccurate content by Does that
Speaker 2: make sense?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Of course. Do you have any idea how many
Speaker 1: people have fallen victim to those like cheap fake Taylor
Speaker 1: Swift is selling cooking were ads?
Speaker 2: Yes, it's everywhere and like and I I don't think
Speaker 2: it should be just on the individual to have to
Speaker 2: figure out like, well, is Taylor Swift actually endorsing this
Speaker 2: cooking ad or whatever? Like like we it's clearly a
Speaker 2: bigger institutional problem that is not going to be solved
Speaker 2: by it just only individuals being more savvy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's an issue that we run into a
Speaker 1: lot of the time with conversations around media literacy, where
Speaker 1: like media literacy, digital literacy, they're amazing, They're great. I
Speaker 1: highly encourage them in you know, all aspects of education
Speaker 1: for all ages. But there are a lot of the
Speaker 1: time only going to reach some of the most privileged
Speaker 1: in society, and you're going to need to be constantly
Speaker 1: evolving as like digital spaces evolve too, so you're always
Speaker 1: in this game of ketchup. And it's also fundamentally just
Speaker 1: putting the burden on users who a lot of the
Speaker 1: time straight up don't have the time to go learn
Speaker 1: how to spot you know, gan like generated images, like
Speaker 1: they don't know how to do that, and that's fully okay.
Speaker 1: They have lives like that burden should not be on consumers.
Speaker 1: That burdens should be on the platforms that are hosting
Speaker 1: that content and a lot of time profiting off.
Speaker 3: It more After a quick break, let's get right back
Speaker 3: into it.
Speaker 2: Now. Like anything else, this is just a hustle. It's
Speaker 2: a grift. People are doing it because it makes them quick,
Speaker 2: easy money, and they can also make money from purporting
Speaker 2: to teach other people how to do the grift as
Speaker 2: well the grift within the grift. Do you see coordination
Speaker 2: with these accounts, Like I know that you in the
Speaker 2: piece you figured out that some of these accounts were
Speaker 2: sort of associated with each other. Do you think that
Speaker 2: these folks are like back channeling and trying to tell
Speaker 2: others like, well, here's how you do it, here's how
Speaker 2: you can make these kinds of videos, here's what works,
Speaker 2: here's the communities that you should be targeting that kind
Speaker 2: of thing.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, there's a whole cottage industry around this sort
Speaker 1: of content farming a little bit. It's what I was
Speaker 1: seeing was you would have these accounts going viral on
Speaker 1: TikTok with a decent number of followers, and they would
Speaker 1: have a link, oftentimes to a discord server in their
Speaker 1: TikTok bio. And so I started joining these discord servers
Speaker 1: and watching them talk about how they create this content.
Speaker 1: And typically the way I saw it be run was
Speaker 1: that there was like one dude running the discord server. Again,
Speaker 1: haven't seen a woman do it yet. I hope a
Speaker 1: girl boss gets in on it, but I haven't seen
Speaker 1: it yet. And so one dude's running the discord server,
Speaker 1: he'll maybe make like YouTube videos about how to make
Speaker 1: this content, and like weekly videos like on like the
Speaker 1: next hot niche to get in Like maybe it's conspiracy theories,
Speaker 1: Maybe it's horror, maybe it's history, maybe it's top three videos.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's like men's motivational workout content, or just like
Speaker 1: men with deep voices saying motivational quotes and their team
Speaker 1: seeing people how to do it. And they often have
Speaker 1: like a premium level of some sorts. You could pay
Speaker 1: them like seventy bucks a month or something to go
Speaker 1: and be their protege, and like they just give you
Speaker 1: one on one feedback a lot of the time, or
Speaker 1: like special access to courses and stuff. And then there's
Speaker 1: a back and forth in these communities where you have
Speaker 1: these discord servers of people sharing tips on like how
Speaker 1: to make content, like or what sort of content's performing well,
Speaker 1: what sort of rate of like how much money are
Speaker 1: you guys getting per million views for each type of content?
Speaker 1: How can I switch my content so that it targets
Speaker 1: a wealthier demographic. That sort of discourse I saw. I
Speaker 1: saw a lot of the time in these communities.
Speaker 2: It's so interesting to me how there's a component of
Speaker 2: it that's like, oh, if you pay me, I'll teach you.
Speaker 2: Like there's always there's always a little bit of an
Speaker 2: overlap with like a life coaching scam or like an
Speaker 2: mL like there's always a little something of that in there,
Speaker 2: do you know what I mean. I mean, the grift
Speaker 2: just keeps on giving, the grift within the grift.
Speaker 1: The grift on grift on grift on gript. There's like
Speaker 1: this affiliate marketing level to it, where it was like,
Speaker 1: use this AI service and then if you get people
Speaker 1: to use your affiliate code, you'll get X money. And
Speaker 1: so there are a lot of layers to it. I
Speaker 1: think that when we're dealing with communities that are susceptible
Speaker 1: to messaging about get rich quick, you're going to inevitably
Speaker 1: end up with a lot of different sorts of grifts
Speaker 1: that could emerge.
Speaker 2: Throw some supplements in there, like throw some like ough.
Speaker 2: The grift is deep.
Speaker 1: As you said, the grift runs deep.
Speaker 2: So we were talking a bit about thinking about how
Speaker 2: this works in a high level way. But I guess
Speaker 2: I'm wondering, you know, twenty twenty four is a pretty
Speaker 2: big election year, not just in the United States globally.
Speaker 2: I think more countries than ever before in history have
Speaker 2: elections this year. I'm wondering, what do you see as
Speaker 2: at stake for all of this as we head into
Speaker 2: such an important global election year.
Speaker 1: Proof Immediately my blood pressure spikes. Like see a lot
Speaker 1: of these videos weren't inherently what you would say, like
Speaker 1: political using airports, because you know everything's political, but like
Speaker 1: you know, government's hiding a vampire, isn't really taking a
Speaker 1: partisanside necessarily. I did see some that were overtly political,
Speaker 1: like one that was like Biden is you know, controlling
Speaker 1: the water or something, and stuff like that. I think
Speaker 1: what I'm worried about is the system at large, Like
Speaker 1: We're coming into this this election year, and now we
Speaker 1: have a whole group of people who were really skilled
Speaker 1: at cranking out AI generated content that is inaccurate, and
Speaker 1: we know what performs well, we know that you can
Speaker 1: like flood feeds with this stuff, and so I'm very
Speaker 1: worried about how easy it is to manufacture and this
Speaker 1: content and how easy it is to make it really engaging.
Speaker 2: So for folks who are listening and are thinking, like, well,
Speaker 2: I use TikTok, but what the heck am I supposed
Speaker 2: to do about this? Is there anything that you would like?
Speaker 2: Is there a role for the regular TikTok user that
Speaker 2: they should be playing in combating this not falling for
Speaker 2: it just creating the kind of Internet ecosystem that we
Speaker 2: actually would want to live in.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that the best piece of advice
Speaker 1: I can give specifically for this sort of content is
Speaker 1: like a strict non engagement policy. If you see it,
Speaker 1: and you see Joe Rogan is there and it's bad
Speaker 1: dubbed and maybe he's having a conversation with another like
Speaker 1: badly dubbed Jordan Peterson or whatever, that's a good time
Speaker 1: to like report it as authentic content or you know,
Speaker 1: misinformation if it is misinformation, and like scroll class or
Speaker 1: like say you're not interested in it. I think that
Speaker 1: one of the best things that we can do is
Speaker 1: just show that we aren't engaging and go about your
Speaker 1: life and maybe maybe go outside, maybe touching your ass,
Speaker 1: maybe smell a flower, gives someone a hug.
Speaker 2: So that is great advice for individuals. But what about
Speaker 2: institutions like TikTok, Like one thing I imagine they could
Speaker 2: do is provide a little more transparency around this content,
Speaker 2: Like why shouldn't we know whether or not the thing
Speaker 2: that we are being shown is making whoever posted it money.
Speaker 1: I should say too, it's like impossible to know which
Speaker 1: of these are monetized. I don't have that insight from
Speaker 1: TikTok of like which accounts monetized versus which isn't. But
Speaker 1: they all, I mean, they're all still fitting all of
Speaker 1: the requirements that we described in that February article that
Speaker 1: indicate that they're being used by creators looking to monetize
Speaker 1: their content. But I would love from TikTok to potentially
Speaker 1: a way to know, you know, I would like some
Speaker 1: more transparency on that front, to know what's being monetized,
Speaker 1: how are they enforcing it? Right, Like what does that
Speaker 1: actually look like? Because they say that for the Creator
Speaker 1: Rewards program, all videos are before they're actually monetized, before
Speaker 1: they begin that process of being monetized, they are approved
Speaker 1: by somebody, And how strict is that? Like what does
Speaker 1: that actually look like? How many videos are being rejected?
Speaker 1: And like on what grounds? I want a lot more
Speaker 1: transparency from them around the entire system of monetization that
Speaker 1: they are creating.
Speaker 2: And I think we deserve that, Like, wh when I
Speaker 2: am making a podcast, I legally have to say when
Speaker 2: I am being paid this up to say something and
Speaker 2: it's an ad and when not? Right, Like we deserve
Speaker 2: to know what does the financial situation. Look like from
Speaker 2: the person who is telling me something, are they just
Speaker 2: telling me because they're making that content and they like it.
Speaker 2: Are they telling me that because they've just been monetized
Speaker 2: in some way, Like, I don't know, I don't I
Speaker 2: don't think that that's a bridge too far to expect
Speaker 2: a little transparency behind.
Speaker 1: No. I mean, I would argue that we deserve much
Speaker 1: more than that. I think that the bar is on
Speaker 1: the ground. But I do think that we deserve to
Speaker 1: know when there is a very clear financial incentive for
Speaker 1: certain types of content. You know, is this person making
Speaker 1: flat earth content because they are genuinely a flat earther
Speaker 1: and like they believe it with their full chest, or
Speaker 1: are they making it because they know that it'll get
Speaker 1: millions of views and then they'll get money. And like
Speaker 1: that's a big difference, And I do want to know
Speaker 1: where that where that line is, Like, I just I
Speaker 1: want to know more about because I mean, you can
Speaker 1: never know people's motivation. There are still lots of grifters
Speaker 1: even when financial motives are very clear. But I still
Speaker 1: think that that transparency is a very good starting.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Abby, thank you so much for being here. It
Speaker 2: is always a pleasure.
Speaker 1: I literally love nothing more. Let's hang out.
Speaker 2: I'll see you in Berlin. Hopefully a little more sober
Speaker 2: this time, absolutely not, hopefully more drunk.
Speaker 1: Hopefully if we're doing it right, less sober.
Speaker 2: If you're looking for ways to support the show, check
Speaker 2: out our mark store at teangody dot com slash Store.
Speaker 2: Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or
Speaker 2: just want to say hi, You can reach us at
Speaker 2: Hello at tegody dot com. You can also find transcripts
Speaker 2: for today's episode at teng Goody dot com. There Are
Speaker 2: No Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget
Speaker 2: cod It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative edited
Speaker 2: by Joey pat Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari
Speaker 2: Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael was our
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