Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm brigitat and this is
Speaker 1: there are No Girls on the Internet. I'm here as
Speaker 1: my producer, Mike. Mike, how you doing today?
Speaker 2: Doing pretty good? There's a lot of smoke in the air,
Speaker 2: but other than that of do pretty good.
Speaker 1: Well, let's see if you can clear out some of
Speaker 1: that smoke with news stories that you may have missed
Speaker 1: this week on the internet. So we have to start
Speaker 1: with talking about the Supreme Court. By now, you've probably
Speaker 1: seen that the Supreme Court ruled on affirmative action, ruling
Speaker 1: that race can no longer play a part in college admissions. Notably,
Speaker 1: the decision just applies to race. It does not applied
Speaker 1: to things like gender or legacy status or donor status
Speaker 1: being considered in college admissions. So I thought, what better
Speaker 1: time than now to revisit some of the myths about
Speaker 1: affirmative action and break down some of the online chatter
Speaker 1: that I'm seeing and have seen about the issue. So first,
Speaker 1: I think it's really easy to think that affirmative action
Speaker 1: has only helped black folks like me, but that is
Speaker 1: not the case. In fact, that is actually not even
Speaker 1: a little bit true. According to the United States Labor Department,
Speaker 1: the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action are white women, and
Speaker 1: because the Supreme Court ruling only applies to race and
Speaker 1: not gender, that means that white women will continue to benefit.
Speaker 1: What's weird is that, despite being the biggest beneficiaries of
Speaker 1: affirmative action, white women are also more likely to be
Speaker 1: against affirmative action. This is according to a twenty fourteen
Speaker 1: Cooperative Congressional Election study that found that nearly seventy percent
Speaker 1: of the twenty thousand, six hundred and ninety four self
Speaker 1: identified non Hispanic white women surveyed either somewhat or strongly
Speaker 1: opposed affirmative action. So I've already seen a lot of
Speaker 1: people online saying that the reason why this happened and
Speaker 1: the reason why affirmative action was struck down was because
Speaker 1: Asian American people were big mad about not getting into Harvard. Now,
Speaker 1: I get how it's easy to think that, but it's
Speaker 1: not exactly true. I would actually argue that Asian American
Speaker 1: people were being exploited by one person who pretended to
Speaker 1: actually care about them and their interests in order to
Speaker 1: better serve his own agenda right like tail as old
Speaker 1: as time, and it's also worth pointing out that it's
Speaker 1: just messed up. I think to blame this on Asian
Speaker 1: Americans as a group. In fact, Asian Americans are actually
Speaker 1: more likely to be supportive of affirmative action. According to
Speaker 1: NBC polling found that a higher share of Asian Americans
Speaker 1: support affirmative action, with fifty three percent who have heard
Speaker 1: of the policy saying that it's a good thing. Another
Speaker 1: nineteen percent say it's a negative thing. A different twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two survey, which polled registered Asian American voters, found
Speaker 1: that sixty nine percent of them favored affirmative action programs
Speaker 1: designed to help black people, women, and other minorities get
Speaker 1: better access to higher education. So branding Asian Americans as
Speaker 1: against affirmative action just is not correct. You know, we've
Speaker 1: already living through a time where there is so much
Speaker 1: anti Asian hate going on, and we need to be
Speaker 1: Chris's so clear about this. This ruling is a symptom
Speaker 1: of white supremacy full stop, and that means that it
Speaker 1: is a victory for the same white supremacist who are
Speaker 1: fueling that current wave of anti Asian hate. So When
Speaker 1: people try to blame this ruling on Asian Americans, they
Speaker 1: are falling into the trap of white supremacy that pits
Speaker 1: marginalized groups against each other in service of white supremacy.
Speaker 1: So how did we get here, Well, it all started
Speaker 1: with conservative litigant Edward Blum. I say litigant because that's
Speaker 1: what he is, right, Like, if you go to his
Speaker 1: Wikipedia entry, that's how it describes him. He is a
Speaker 1: professional lawsuit bringer. He connects potential plaintiffs with attorneys who
Speaker 1: are willing to represent them in test cases, which he
Speaker 1: then tries to use to set and establish legal presidents.
Speaker 1: He's the founder and also the only member of the
Speaker 1: Project on Fair Representation, which he founded in two thousand
Speaker 1: and five, which focuses on voting, education, contracting, employment, racial quotas,
Speaker 1: and racial reparations. So you can kind of think of
Speaker 1: him as like a professional like he isn't even a lawyer.
Speaker 1: He's just wealthy and well connected. He is actually responsible
Speaker 1: for the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. This is
Speaker 1: from the Guardian. Shelby County versus Holder, a case that
Speaker 1: he sponsored in twenty thirteen led to the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: to overturn a key provision of the nineteen sixty five
Speaker 1: Voting Rights Act. Now, Blum told The Guardian that he
Speaker 1: was worried from the fallout of that ruling, even though,
Speaker 1: like it's not clear what he thought was going to happen,
Speaker 1: But that ruling spurred conservative legislators in Texas, North Carolina
Speaker 1: and other states to revive laws that the Justice Department
Speaker 1: had previously blocked or were expected to block on the
Speaker 1: grounds that there were vehicles for voter suppression. So, basically,
Speaker 1: Blum has been trying to come for affirmative action since
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen. Y'all might remember that back then he was
Speaker 1: working with Abigail Fisher, who was this white woman with
Speaker 1: red hair like. If you don't remember her name, you
Speaker 1: probably remember this image of her standing on the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court steps with Blum. She had this like red hair like.
Speaker 1: You might remember that image in your mind. So who
Speaker 1: is Abbagio Fresh? Well, Abigail Fisher did not get into
Speaker 1: the University of Texas because her GPA was mid. Basically,
Speaker 1: she sued the University of Texas at Austin in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight after it denied her admission. Interestingly, she
Speaker 1: sued them when she was thirty so like several years
Speaker 1: after this denial took place, her GPA was three five
Speaker 1: nine as a senior, which put her just below the
Speaker 1: cutoff of the state law requiring University of Texas to
Speaker 1: accept students that graduate in the top ten percent of
Speaker 1: her class. So she was not in the top ten
Speaker 1: percent of her class. She was under the top ten
Speaker 1: percent of her class, although she argued that her extra
Speaker 1: curriculum activities, combined with her academic record, would have qualified
Speaker 1: her if UT had not used race as a factor
Speaker 1: in its holistic approach to selecting the remainder of its
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen freshman class, in what she said was a
Speaker 1: violation of the Fourteenth Amendments Equal Protection Clause. Now, it
Speaker 1: didn't work with Abigail, And if folks remember, she actually
Speaker 1: kind of was treated like a little bit of a joke. Mike,
Speaker 1: do you remember this at all?
Speaker 2: Well, I have to admit I don't, But like hearing
Speaker 2: you describe it, it's pretty wild that she feels like
Speaker 2: race and all of the historical baggage that comes with
Speaker 2: that should not be considered for college admission, and yet
Speaker 2: you know her extra curricular activities should and that they
Speaker 2: somehow counted up to make up for her totally middling gpa,
Speaker 2: and somehow she wants like the law to come in
Speaker 2: on this side. I don't know, it's I actually don't
Speaker 2: remember this story. I kind of wish I did, but
Speaker 2: it sounds wild.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she was, I have to say, like roundly mocked.
Speaker 1: I think because her gpa, Like it's a fine gpa
Speaker 1: three five nine, it's like nothing to sneeze at, but
Speaker 1: it's not an it's fine, I have an automatic acceptance
Speaker 1: to the school of your choice, Like you would still
Speaker 1: have to work and be well rounded and all of
Speaker 1: that to be accepted with a GPA like that. I
Speaker 1: think the reason why she was sort of treated as
Speaker 1: a joke is because she was just not a very
Speaker 1: sympathetic character, right, Like, she had a pretty good, not
Speaker 1: great GPA, and I think that she came off as
Speaker 1: somebody who was entitled, Like, you know, I believe that
Speaker 1: I'm good enough to get into this college, Like I
Speaker 1: can't imagine that it was me that my GPA and
Speaker 1: my extracurriculars weren't as good as I thought they were
Speaker 1: in my mind, I have been wrong because I did
Speaker 1: not get into.
Speaker 2: Ut Yeah, I think entitled sounds about right based on
Speaker 2: this story.
Speaker 1: So Blum, when the Abigail thing didn't work, Blum stepped
Speaker 1: back and regrouped, and he came back and decided to
Speaker 1: make the face of the victims in scare quotes of
Speaker 1: affirmative action Asian Americans. So this is why I say
Speaker 1: it's not accurate to say that Asian Americans were angry
Speaker 1: about not having gotten into their colleges of choice, and
Speaker 1: that that is why affirmative action has been rolled back.
Speaker 1: It is because this guy made a deliberate, specific choice
Speaker 1: to make Asian American students the faith of the quote
Speaker 1: victims of affirmative action. So Blum and his group brought
Speaker 1: two cases that led to this decision, one on behalf
Speaker 1: of Asian American students who claim that Harvard's admission policies
Speaker 1: discriminated against them, and another for white and Asian students
Speaker 1: denied admission by the University of North Carolina. So why
Speaker 1: I bring this up is because it is a great
Speaker 1: example of how effective it is to pit marginalized groups
Speaker 1: against one another in service of white supremacy. Because I
Speaker 1: believe that these Asian American students probably thought that Blum
Speaker 1: had their interests, you know, at heart, and were doing
Speaker 1: this for like genuinely doing this to serve their interests,
Speaker 1: and they might have like genuinely had questions about the
Speaker 1: policies at these universities or whatever. However, this ruling I
Speaker 1: don't think is act going to help these Asian American
Speaker 1: students because it basically, I think is going to help
Speaker 1: white people. If legacies and donors and people who are
Speaker 1: well connected and white women are still allowed to get
Speaker 1: whatever leg up that university admissions policies have been giving them,
Speaker 1: I don't see how that will actually end up helping
Speaker 1: these Asian American students. And so I think that these
Speaker 1: students have been misled by Blum and the in fact,
Speaker 1: are having their interests exploited by somebody in service of
Speaker 1: their larger agenda to roll back progress in this country,
Speaker 1: which they have done time and time again. Like has
Speaker 1: made no mistake about that being what they want to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems pretty transparent that is what he's after here.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And you know, just something else that I find
Speaker 1: interesting about these conversations around affirmative action is just how
Speaker 1: many people in the United States think that black people
Speaker 1: one get automatic entrants to whatever college we want, and
Speaker 1: two get to go to college for free. I've had
Speaker 1: people tell me that's to my face. It is a
Speaker 1: This might sound shocking or surprising, it is a commonly
Speaker 1: held miss piece of misinformation that people actually genuinely believe.
Speaker 1: And again, it really goes to show you how insidious
Speaker 1: but also nonsensical racialized misinformation is because it doesn't even
Speaker 1: really have to make sense if it feels true and
Speaker 1: speaks to people's worst imaginings of marginalized people. Because think
Speaker 1: about it, if black people can get into any college
Speaker 1: we want automatic acceptance and also attend college for free
Speaker 1: takes spots from white students. And then another piece of
Speaker 1: like commonly held misinformation that it is mostly black people
Speaker 1: who are like living off welfare or living off of
Speaker 1: the system more than other groups. How do those two
Speaker 1: things make sense together? Right? Like, how is it that
Speaker 1: like black people can go to any college they want
Speaker 1: for free, but also are the largest recipes and some
Speaker 1: things like welfare and social programs. It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2: No, it totally doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1: And I think, like, I don't know, it's just a
Speaker 1: it's just a tough time. I think when we think
Speaker 1: about like where our country is. I can't help but
Speaker 1: mention that we're talking about this almost a year to
Speaker 1: the day after the role after Supreme the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: rolled back row you know, book bands left and right. Like,
Speaker 1: it does feel like we're in this place where the
Speaker 1: very fabric of our country is being eroded and it
Speaker 1: is difficult to know what to do. Like and people
Speaker 1: who say, like, oh, you got to go out and vote.
Speaker 1: The thing that gets me about that that narrative of
Speaker 1: the like voting narrative, And obviously voting is pretty important,
Speaker 1: but I think it was, like what the majority of
Speaker 1: the justices who helped usher this decision in, we're a point,
Speaker 1: we're put there by presidents who lost the popular vote.
Speaker 1: So I don't think we can vote our way out
Speaker 1: of That's like, that's not really how it works. And
Speaker 1: so people being like, oh, the importance of voting, it
Speaker 1: doesn't really seem like a good answer to the kind
Speaker 1: of cosmic problem it feels like we're facing right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I get that, Like voting is totally necessary and
Speaker 2: it's completely insufficient. Yeah, I mean I could go on
Speaker 2: about Supreme Court reform, which is also necessary and also insufficient, right,
Speaker 2: like this is a cultural thing. You were just talking
Speaker 2: about those irreconcilable, nonsensical beliefs that people have about affirmative
Speaker 2: action and the like, Yeah, the ways in which black
Speaker 2: people are like super privileged in our American society and
Speaker 2: like get all this free stuff given to them, and
Speaker 2: how like white people are excluded from this and that,
Speaker 2: and it's obviously so bananas, right, Like that's just like
Speaker 2: it's obviously not true.
Speaker 1: I mean, I got my free car from the government.
Speaker 1: I got I got my college was paid for. I
Speaker 1: could go to Edny College that I wanted to for free,
Speaker 1: and yet I still decided to attend a shitty state
Speaker 1: school in North Carolina. Weird. I know when I could,
Speaker 1: when I could, when I could have gone to Harvard,
Speaker 1: I could just I don't have to apply. I can
Speaker 1: just show up and be like, I'm here Harvard. I
Speaker 1: just get to go for free. You know, we got
Speaker 1: all this free stuff. You know how it goes. I
Speaker 1: guess you don't cause you're white. You don't get it.
Speaker 2: No, I don't get it. I'm shut out. I'm you know,
Speaker 2: I'm completely shut out from all these things.
Speaker 1: I Mean, everybody knows that. For too long it has
Speaker 1: been the black woman who has had her boot on
Speaker 1: the throat of white men like you, Mike.
Speaker 2: This shit is so sad though, because like affirmative action
Speaker 2: was so positive, right, Like it made colleges more diverse.
Speaker 2: And it's interesting because it is a population level intervention
Speaker 2: that is designed to address population harms that are have
Speaker 2: been done to black people over generations due to a
Speaker 2: legacy of slavery and then Jim Crow and whatever term
Speaker 2: historians want to give to this era we're currently living through.
Speaker 2: There are like deep systemic forces keeping black people down,
Speaker 2: and affirmative action in college admissions is one way to
Speaker 2: address those population level harms. And also it is like
Speaker 2: a population level remedy to not just like provide justice
Speaker 2: for those past harms, but also like fix the future
Speaker 2: by making our society more equal and providing more paths
Speaker 2: to opportunities so that the people who graduate from college
Speaker 2: and go on to have more influence in society and
Speaker 2: government and business and our communities are a more diverse
Speaker 2: set of people, which just makes us all better, healthier,
Speaker 2: more resilient.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that's the point. I think that the
Speaker 1: reason why people like Lum and the people who support
Speaker 1: this rolling back. They don't want a world where people
Speaker 1: who look like me have a chance to beat, to
Speaker 1: even have a I wouldn't even say equal footing to
Speaker 1: be in those positions. And I also think like they
Speaker 1: for so long have been drumming up this fear about
Speaker 1: sending your kids to college. Your colleges are going to
Speaker 1: be hotbeds of like woke indoctrination or whatever. I think
Speaker 1: that for them, rolling back affirmative action is another way
Speaker 1: to be like, Oh, I can safely send my kids
Speaker 1: to school. There's going to be less marginalized people there.
Speaker 1: They will be less likely to be influenced by those people.
Speaker 1: What they're actually doing is preventing their children from being
Speaker 1: around different people, people who have different backgrounds, different perspectives.
Speaker 1: That is what college is all about. And so it's
Speaker 1: so funny how these are the same people who have
Speaker 1: been able to call, you know, other people like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're snowflakes. You're so afraid of what happens at college campuses.
Speaker 1: You're not letting speakers come, blah blah blah, all of that,
Speaker 1: When it's really them, they're the ones who are afraid,
Speaker 1: are afraid. They're the ones who don't want their you know,
Speaker 1: daughters to have to go to school with people who
Speaker 1: are different. And I think that's really what it comes
Speaker 1: down to. That's why these people are championing this. I
Speaker 1: think it's exactly what you said, that they that they
Speaker 1: that they want. It feels like payback for what little
Speaker 1: progress black and brown people have made in this country,
Speaker 1: and it is a way to kind of, hopefully from
Speaker 1: their perspective, make it so that when their kids go
Speaker 1: to college, they are not having to come home on
Speaker 1: weekends and be like, Dad, are you a racist? Dad?
Speaker 1: Are you like, do you have like shitty attitudes about
Speaker 1: people of color?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And I think it's important to also, you know,
Speaker 2: to not think about this in a vacuum, but to
Speaker 2: consider it in the context of what other changes and
Speaker 2: policy debates are happening around higher education. I suspect a
Speaker 2: lot of the people who are cheering this ruling are
Speaker 2: the same people who are demanding, you know, budget cuts
Speaker 2: to universities, demanding that curriculum be stripped of any sort
Speaker 2: of discussion of you know, race or gender identity, and
Speaker 2: also probably the same people who are you know, insisting
Speaker 2: that what little resources are left over for higher education
Speaker 2: all get funneled into you know stem or you know
Speaker 2: engineering or technical skills, which are like great fields. I
Speaker 2: love science, I love technology, I love engineers, I love math.
Speaker 2: These are great things and people should definitely pursue them,
Speaker 2: but they are not sufficient for a well rounded education.
Speaker 2: They don't They alone do not train people how to
Speaker 2: be good citizens who contribute to a good society on
Speaker 2: their own. And I think the people who are advocating
Speaker 2: for that really view college as just like a certificate
Speaker 2: program that makes people eligible for such and such a job.
Speaker 2: And in some ways, you know, I think those criticisms
Speaker 2: are maybe kind of fair, but in the bigger ways,
Speaker 2: I think they completely miss the mark of what a
Speaker 2: college education can be to opening up people's minds to
Speaker 2: this world that we all live in together and this
Speaker 2: life that each individual student lives on their own, and
Speaker 2: just you know, shutting people out, making it a more
Speaker 2: narrow experience in terms of the people that aud and
Speaker 2: gets to interact with, a more narrow experience in terms
Speaker 2: of the ideas and subject matter that they get exposed to.
Speaker 2: Just yeah, just really is limiting and narrow and sad. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's sad and also scary and reinforces a white supremacist
Speaker 2: worldview of oppression.
Speaker 1: Let's say a quick break at our back. So this
Speaker 1: is not the only thing happening in the courts right now.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about open ai versus the people. A new
Speaker 1: class action lawsuit that's been filed against open ai, the
Speaker 1: company run by Sam Altman that develops chat GPT, which
Speaker 1: has kind of become like the face of AI. The
Speaker 1: lawsuit alleges that open ai stole quote massive amounts of
Speaker 1: personal data to train chat GPT. The lawsuit claims that
Speaker 1: open ai has basically been mining the digital footprints of
Speaker 1: you and me, regular people, whether you use AI tools
Speaker 1: or not. Open ai crawls the Internet to collect huge
Speaker 1: amounts of datas to train its programs to learn language,
Speaker 1: including a lot from social media sites. The lawsuit claims
Speaker 1: that open ai went far beyond simply scraping the public Internet,
Speaker 1: and that the data access included quote private information and
Speaker 1: private conversation, medical data, including information about children. Essentially every
Speaker 1: piece of data exchanged on the Internet it could take
Speaker 1: without notice to the owners or users of such data,
Speaker 1: much less without anyone's permission end quote. So this amounted
Speaker 1: to quote the negligent and otherwise illegal theft of personal
Speaker 1: data of millions of Americans who do not even use
Speaker 1: Ai tools, The lawsuit claims, so it's about everybody, whether
Speaker 1: you use chat GBT or not. The suit also claims
Speaker 1: that open ai stores and discloses users private information, including
Speaker 1: the details they enter to create open Ai accounts, their
Speaker 1: chatlog data, and social media information. And in case you're thinking, well,
Speaker 1: I've never used chat, GPT or another open ai program,
Speaker 1: the suit says that it also disclosed the data of
Speaker 1: people who use sites that were integrated with chat SHEPT.
Speaker 1: That includes sites like Snapchat, Stripe, Spotify, Microsoft Teams, and slack.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: The lawsuit is calling for open ai to basically pause
Speaker 1: until this is all dealt with, by issuing a temporary
Speaker 1: freeze on commercial access to and commercial development of open
Speaker 1: AI's products until the company has implemented more regulations and safeguards,
Speaker 1: including allowing people to opt out of data collection and
Speaker 1: preventing its products from surpassing human intelligence and harming others.
Speaker 1: The lawsuit also seeks financial compensation for people whose data
Speaker 1: was access to train bots.
Speaker 2: Yeah there's a lot there, and I will admit that
Speaker 2: I don't know the details behind that, claims in this lawsuit.
Speaker 2: But the claims of the lawsuit are pretty intense, right,
Speaker 2: like the idea that they didn't just scrape the open Internet,
Speaker 2: but they essentially, and I'm paraphrasing here, if I understand correctly,
Speaker 2: like looked into every nook and cranny of to find
Speaker 2: any piece of private information that was not locked down,
Speaker 2: whether it should have been or not, and then use that.
Speaker 2: And that's that's not cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the lawsuit makes it sound like it wasn't just
Speaker 1: a once over. It was like a deep cavity search
Speaker 1: of these Internet nook and crannies any information that was
Speaker 1: out there. According to this lawsuit, it took to train
Speaker 1: their models. And I think this lawsuit makes it pretty
Speaker 1: clear that AI is developing way more quickly than we
Speaker 1: have guardrails for, and clearly we need those guardrails. The
Speaker 1: people who make AI are in such a rush to
Speaker 1: skip over that part that now we're already in the
Speaker 1: like convincing everyone that AI is the future and that
Speaker 1: we all need to get on board part, But we
Speaker 1: don't even necessarily know what it is we're getting on
Speaker 1: board with. How will we be used, how will we
Speaker 1: be exploited, will we be harmed? Who will make money
Speaker 1: off of us. These are all questions that have not
Speaker 1: really been answered, even by Sam Altman, the head of Chat,
Speaker 1: GPT and open Ai. He has not answered these questions,
Speaker 1: and so I do think it just shows that we
Speaker 1: can't just move so quickly for technology that is so powerful.
Speaker 1: I don't want to get to the part where I
Speaker 1: just accept all of this as like the future without
Speaker 1: answering some of these critical questions about my role in this,
Speaker 1: even if I'm somebody who's never used an open ai
Speaker 1: program a day in my life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a super interesting story and I'm really
Speaker 2: interested to see where it goes and how it evolves.
Speaker 2: I think a pretty interesting thing about it is that
Speaker 2: it's a class action suit brought on the behalf of
Speaker 2: a bunch of individuals, but really those individuals represent all
Speaker 2: of us. And it's completely consistent with a lot of
Speaker 2: stuff that Sam Altman has said. That they would just
Speaker 2: take what data they could get right whether they had
Speaker 2: permission to use it or not, that wasn't their concern.
Speaker 2: They just wanted to get the data train these models
Speaker 2: get as much data as they could, and it's an
Speaker 2: interesting contrast with some other domains that have been using
Speaker 2: AI video games. For example, I read a story earlier
Speaker 2: this week about Valve, the company that owns Steam, and
Speaker 2: how they had rejected a developer's game because it relied
Speaker 2: on some AI and he couldn't prove that he owned
Speaker 2: the rights to the underlying intellectual property that was used
Speaker 2: to train the AI. And I think that's related here,
Speaker 2: because in that story it's business entities who are very
Speaker 2: prone to suing each other, especially over things like intellectual property.
Speaker 2: And I think there is this sense the Internet and
Speaker 2: the data that belongs to you and me, ordinary Internet
Speaker 2: users who are not engaged in some sort of commercial activity,
Speaker 2: but just like using the Internet, there's a sense that
Speaker 2: that data is just like up for grabs. And this lawsuit,
Speaker 2: if I understand it, correctly, says that that's not the case.
Speaker 2: That actually we should have some expectation of privacy, regardless
Speaker 2: of whether you're trying to build the world's greatest AI
Speaker 2: tool or anything. And so I think that's an interesting
Speaker 2: aspect of it too, that I hope gets affirmed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is I mean, I could talk all day.
Speaker 1: I find this so fascinating, But there is a precedent
Speaker 1: online where when we're talking about regular people are information
Speaker 1: the things that we put online when it can financially
Speaker 1: benefit somebody else, then there tends to be this idea
Speaker 1: of like, well, the Internet is just like ideas and
Speaker 1: data and information out there and who knows who owns one,
Speaker 1: and like whenever somebody else can benefit. But it's interesting
Speaker 1: to me when it's like business entities. Of course they
Speaker 1: need to protect their intellectual property and their data, and
Speaker 1: so it's like, you know, I think, taking a step
Speaker 1: back here, it's easy to create technological innovation when you steal,
Speaker 1: when you just take things that don't belong to you. Like,
Speaker 1: that's just what's going on here. When we talked about
Speaker 1: it in our episode about aiart, when the Lensa selfies
Speaker 1: were all over social media, half of those quote AI
Speaker 1: generated selfies had watermarks on them. They weren't AI generated,
Speaker 1: they were stolen. They were art that a human artist
Speaker 1: made and put online, and that Lensas their AI art
Speaker 1: selfie app just stole. So yeah, it's easy to rush
Speaker 1: technological innovation when you just take what doesn't belong to you.
Speaker 1: And I think that it's time for us as regular
Speaker 1: people to say, yeah, some stuff belongs to me, My
Speaker 1: data belongs to me, if you don't have my permission
Speaker 1: to my you know, private information and my private data
Speaker 1: that I put online, you can't just scrape bit for profit.
Speaker 1: Unacceptable And I'm curious to see how this lawsuit shakes out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an interesting take you just articulated there. It's
Speaker 2: like an anti colonialist approach to privacy and protection of
Speaker 2: intellectual property because you know, it kind of feels like
Speaker 2: there's parallels, right, like if you can just go and
Speaker 2: take resources from another people and make them your own, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's going to fuel a lot of growth and wealth.
Speaker 2: And I think that's something that we've seen happen a
Speaker 2: lot of times throughout history. People love to take stuff
Speaker 2: from other people, and you know that's also something that
Speaker 2: is really facilitated by othering specific groups.
Speaker 1: Oh that is a great setup to this whole story
Speaker 1: with Canva. Okay, so last year the graphic design company Canva,
Speaker 1: who I actually I actually love Canava. Use it almost
Speaker 1: every day if you don't use Canva. It is a
Speaker 1: tool that makes it easy to create kind of plug
Speaker 1: and play drag and drop graphics. Many folks use it
Speaker 1: for work because they don't have access to a graphic
Speaker 1: designer so Canva last year announced its text to image app,
Speaker 1: which uses AI to curate and design images. According to
Speaker 1: their website, they say, with this magic new feature, you
Speaker 1: can turn your imagination into reality by watching your words
Speaker 1: transform into stunning one of the kind images. In the announcement,
Speaker 1: Canvas says that they invested heavily in safety measures that
Speaker 1: help the millions of people using our platform be a
Speaker 1: good human and minimize the risk to our platform being
Speaker 1: used to produce unsafe content for text to image. This
Speaker 1: includes automated reviews of input prompts for terms that might
Speaker 1: generate unsafe imagery and of output images for a range
Speaker 1: of categories including adult content, hate and abuse. And apparently
Speaker 1: these unsafe images include hairstyles of black women like me.
Speaker 1: That's according to Adriel Parker, a diversity and inclusion professional
Speaker 1: and the author of the Inclusive Leadership Journal, who posted
Speaker 1: on LinkedIn that she was playing around with Canvas text
Speaker 1: to Image app and prompted it to generate a picture
Speaker 1: of a black woman with bant two knots, which, if
Speaker 1: you don't know what that is, it's a black natural
Speaker 1: hairstyle where you kind of like twist your hair up
Speaker 1: into little, tiny, little buns all over your head. It's
Speaker 1: a cute style. I can't really pull it off, but
Speaker 1: it's a cute style. And when she did this, an
Speaker 1: error appeared telling me that bantwo may result in unsafe
Speaker 1: or offensive content. In response to her LinkedIn posts, Canva apologize,
Speaker 1: saying yes, we fix this in text to image and
Speaker 1: have raised the elements concerned with that team too. This
Speaker 1: is from their trust and safety product lead at Canva,
Speaker 1: who also said thank you for flagging it, Adrielle Parker.
Speaker 1: These are actually a great pair of examples of the
Speaker 1: balancing act that we have. On the one hand, if
Speaker 1: the safety's over trigger, like in text to image, it
Speaker 1: can result in perceptions like raise here. On the other
Speaker 1: if the safeties don't trigger, we can end up showing
Speaker 1: offensive results like in the elemental search that you've also highlighted.
Speaker 1: He continued, of course, we do strive for simply not
Speaker 1: having offensive representations. That is not easy to do at scale,
Speaker 1: and feedback like yours is crucial to helping us find
Speaker 1: things that slip through the gaps. But Parker wasn't having
Speaker 1: any of it right. Parker said, honestly, doubling down on
Speaker 1: a message and implying that on an image of black
Speaker 1: women with natural hairstyles like banto knots is potentially unsafe
Speaker 1: for inappropriate content for your community, is not it? At
Speaker 1: the very least craft and more thoughtful and intentional can
Speaker 1: Responts again, please do better. There are plenty of folks
Speaker 1: out there like myself who are already and willing to support.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean I again. I love Canva and
Speaker 1: I have been a big champion of Canvas Story, which
Speaker 1: is like very inspiring. Was founded by a woman who
Speaker 1: got lots of nose for funding until finally getting as
Speaker 1: to the rest is history. But I do think this
Speaker 1: kind of goes to show that technology like AI really
Speaker 1: is not neutral. It's easy to think that AI is
Speaker 1: like a computer brain. Look a a sci fi movie
Speaker 1: that is just like spitting out computer stuff that we
Speaker 1: don't understand. That is not coming from us. That is
Speaker 1: not true. It is being trained and programmed by humans.
Speaker 1: And as humans, we all have biases and baggage, and
Speaker 1: if you're not careful, those things can just be recreated
Speaker 1: by that technology. And I would say having those biases
Speaker 1: be even more entrenched in our society because the technology
Speaker 1: is so powerful We've talked a bit about this off Mike.
Speaker 1: You have some like very interesting questions about what's going
Speaker 1: on here, right, Mike, I do.
Speaker 2: I am so curious. My primary question is this, and
Speaker 2: I would love for somebody from Canva to come on
Speaker 2: the show and answer it for us.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, as a Canva devote hey, I would
Speaker 1: welcome that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, like my big question is how did the
Speaker 2: word band two end up on the disoey right? And Like,
Speaker 2: I've been thinking about this a lot, and you know,
Speaker 2: maybe it's naive of me, but I really want to
Speaker 2: give them the benefit of the doubt here that you know,
Speaker 2: there was no malice, that Canva was really just trying
Speaker 2: to like prevent their platform from producing offensive images, and
Speaker 2: they messed it up, Like they said, they got this
Speaker 2: balancing act wrong. It's pretty rare that I'm willing to
Speaker 2: give tech companies the benefit of the doubt, but I'm
Speaker 2: willing to do that here, maybe just because for the
Speaker 2: sake of argument. It makes things more interesting. It's like,
Speaker 2: how did the word band tu end up on that list?
Speaker 2: It's it's a name for hashtyle, it's a name for
Speaker 2: a people. It is not a slur and it. You know,
Speaker 2: it really made me think that at the end of
Speaker 2: the day, you can have like the fanciest, most sophisticated
Speaker 2: AI platform available, but between the outputs of that platform
Speaker 2: and the end users, there is a list of words
Speaker 2: that what are more humans have put together and been
Speaker 2: like yep, that one's not allowed, that one's not allowed.
Speaker 2: Like is that how it happened? How did this happen?
Speaker 2: That's one of my questions, how did this happen? How
Speaker 2: did this word get on that list? And then the
Speaker 2: other question is less direct, but and you know, you
Speaker 2: and I talked about this a little bit of like
Speaker 2: where where is the line where trying to police an
Speaker 2: algorithm so that it never produces anything offensive crosses over
Speaker 2: into territory where it starts to other people who are
Speaker 2: just trying to use it and like you said, reinforce
Speaker 2: those entrenched you know, racism, sexisms, all the isms that
Speaker 2: we try so hard on this show to fight against.
Speaker 2: Where is that line? It's a hard question, it's a.
Speaker 1: Good question, and I would say, like, I don't know
Speaker 1: if this is the answer, and it might sound simplistic,
Speaker 1: but this is why you need to make sure from
Speaker 1: the start you have people in the room who are
Speaker 1: training and designing and building this technology, who look like
Speaker 1: and can share the background of the people who are
Speaker 1: going to be using it, because I mean, again, I
Speaker 1: don't know, but I can imagine someone being like, ooh, bantu,
Speaker 1: I don't really know if that's an offensive term or not.
Speaker 1: We'll just add it to the to the problematic terms list.
Speaker 1: And that is so deeply marginalizing to just sort of say, like,
Speaker 1: even if it's done with good intentions, to just sort
Speaker 1: of say, like, well, just sides up the issue by
Speaker 1: saying any word that is indicative of blackness or rape,
Speaker 1: like race, we're just going to add that to the list.
Speaker 1: Interestingly enough, I have heard in our episode that we
Speaker 1: did with Nandaine Jammy from check my Adds, the ad
Speaker 1: tech watchdog organization. She's talked about how brands who don't
Speaker 1: want their advertising or their images next to things that
Speaker 1: are offensive will just be like, Okay, anything to do
Speaker 1: with blackness, gender, sexuality, and ething like that, we'll just
Speaker 1: not include that. And so they're doing it because they
Speaker 1: don't want to have to figure out like is this
Speaker 1: going to be brand safe? Is this not? But in
Speaker 1: doing so, they are just further marginalizing communities and identities
Speaker 1: who are already marginalized. And I guess yeah, like this
Speaker 1: is why it's important to have inclusive teams. Like it's
Speaker 1: not just because it's the right thing to do or
Speaker 1: the nice thing to do, which it is, it's because
Speaker 1: that is how we can make decisions that are not marginalizing,
Speaker 1: even decisions that are made with like good intentions of
Speaker 1: not wanting to offend or not wanting to have offensive
Speaker 1: things on your on your platform.
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, you know, can't be neutral on a moving train.
Speaker 1: Nope, you cannot. More. After a quick break, let's get
Speaker 1: right back into it. So let's quickly talk about this
Speaker 1: kind of interesting new study. So you might associate falling
Speaker 1: for fake news with your boomer parents, but younger folks
Speaker 1: might actually be the most susceptible to misinformation online. This
Speaker 1: is according to a new test developed by some psychologists
Speaker 1: at the University of Cambridge, which is the first validated
Speaker 1: misinformation susceptibility test that is meant to give an indication
Speaker 1: of how vulnerable a person is to being duped by
Speaker 1: fake news online. So they paired examples of real news
Speaker 1: from real news outlets like Pew and Reuters, and then
Speaker 1: they made confusingly credible headlines similar to the misinformation encountered
Speaker 1: in the wild, in an unbiased way using chatchbt hope
Speaker 1: their data was safe when they were using it. It
Speaker 1: went out there. Okay, so here's what the test found.
Speaker 1: The good news is that we're actually not doing two
Speaker 1: too badly. On average, adult US citizens correctly classified two thirds,
Speaker 1: or sixty five percent of headlines that they were shown
Speaker 1: as either real or faked. That's actually pretty good news.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised that it was that good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is nice to highlight the good news. Yeah,
Speaker 2: maybe people are the dumb dums we think they are.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're not. They did find that younger adults are
Speaker 1: worse than older adults and identifying false headlines, and that
Speaker 1: the more time someone spent online recreationally, the less likely
Speaker 1: they were to be able to fell real news from misinformation.
Speaker 1: Some thirty percent of those spending zero to two recreation
Speaker 1: hours online each day got a high score, compared to
Speaker 1: just fifteen percent of those spending nine or more hours online.
Speaker 2: So that's super interesting. We do need to keep in
Speaker 2: mind that this was a cross sectional study, so we
Speaker 2: can't say what does that mean, So it means that's
Speaker 2: a great question. Bridget across sectional study is a study.
Speaker 2: It was conducted at a single moment in time across
Speaker 2: a group of people. Right, so I just found associations
Speaker 2: the result you just described there. You know, they split
Speaker 2: people into two groups of people who spent zero to
Speaker 2: two hours online each day versus a group who spent
Speaker 2: nine or more hours online eachd Right, we've got these
Speaker 2: two extreme groups. They're extreme in the sense that they're
Speaker 2: very different. And they found that those in the you know,
Speaker 2: the people who only spent two hours online each day,
Speaker 2: thirty percent got a high score, meaning that they were
Speaker 2: pretty good at telling apart misinformation from real information, and
Speaker 2: the people who spent nine or more hours online got
Speaker 2: a low score. You don't only And so that's interesting.
Speaker 2: And so one might want to jump to the conclusion that, like, okay,
Speaker 2: spending time online on social media makes one worse at
Speaker 2: telling apart the difference between truth and falsehood. But that's
Speaker 2: not a conclusion that this data supports. Right, It's just
Speaker 2: as likely, based on these data from this cross sectional
Speaker 2: study that was conducted a single moment in time, that
Speaker 2: maybe those people spend more time online because they're more
Speaker 2: susceptible to misinformation, and all the misinformation they're encountering out
Speaker 2: there is more appealing to them, or more enraging or
Speaker 2: emotionally a baka to them or something like that. So
Speaker 2: this study can't say that spending time online causally makes
Speaker 2: anybody better or worse at telling apart misinformation from truth.
Speaker 2: What this study does tell us is that people who
Speaker 2: spend a lot of time online, those are the people
Speaker 2: that have the biggest problem telling apart truth.
Speaker 1: From Mike, who died and made you the expert on
Speaker 1: studies like this and how they're done.
Speaker 2: I mean, nobody died. I'm not the expert. I do
Speaker 2: have a PhD in psychology. This is the kind of
Speaker 2: thing that I do, you know. I Experimental design is
Speaker 2: something that I get paid to do. So I'm not
Speaker 2: the expert. But I think most experts would agree that
Speaker 2: one cannot infer causality from a cross sectional design like this,
Speaker 2: which is fine. We can still learn a lot of
Speaker 2: valuable things about these associations.
Speaker 1: Okay, so maybe Unsurprisingly, people who get their news mostly
Speaker 1: from social media scored worse than people who get their
Speaker 1: news from legacy newers. Organizations like MPR or the Associated Press.
Speaker 2: And again we can't make any inferences about the direction
Speaker 2: of causality there, but it is a very interesting association.
Speaker 1: And lastly, there was a party split. Democrats performed better
Speaker 1: than Republicans on this test, with thirty three percent of
Speaker 1: Democrats achieving high scores compared to as fourteen percent of Republicans. However,
Speaker 1: almost a quarter of both parties as followers were in
Speaker 1: the low scoring bracket.
Speaker 2: One thing I really liked about the method that they
Speaker 2: used for this test is that the fake story stories
Speaker 2: were truly fake. They were literally made up by chat GPT,
Speaker 2: so there's zero room for anybody to whine about research
Speaker 2: or bias or anything like that.
Speaker 1: So I think it's kind of interesting to see these
Speaker 1: commonly held believes about misinformation and who was following for
Speaker 1: it be challenged, right, Like, it's easy to think that
Speaker 1: young people who grew up online as digital natives are
Speaker 1: like too savvy to fall for fake news. This is
Speaker 1: a good reminder that can happen to the best of us,
Speaker 1: even me. I fall for it, Mike, Have you fallen
Speaker 1: for it.
Speaker 2: For fake news? Yeah? I do? You know you're you're
Speaker 2: in It's nice to see her are commonly held attitudes challenged,
Speaker 2: and it's nice to see some data affirming the fact
Speaker 2: that there is wisdom in age. That's kind of a
Speaker 2: nice thing to take away. But I'm just kind of
Speaker 2: like stalling for time. Have I fallen for fake news? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Of course. Like earlier this week, somebody who I really
Speaker 2: like and respect and think of as a very like
Speaker 2: smart person sent me a post saying that Twitter was
Speaker 2: suspending the accounts of people who blocked too many other
Speaker 2: accounts and particularly other advertisers, And I was like, oh
Speaker 2: my god, this is what Elon's done now. And I
Speaker 2: was like ready to take it to the bank and
Speaker 2: file it away and talk about it on this news.
Speaker 1: Take it to the bank, well, you know the pod
Speaker 1: the bank where we put are like the document where
Speaker 1: we like our like our news idea round up bank,
Speaker 1: not like the bank where the money is stored.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, the news idea round up bank. Yeah, not
Speaker 2: the money bank. No, I don't. I don't take anything there.
Speaker 2: I make contact. But I was like, all good to
Speaker 2: go on it and I'll set And then I was like, well,
Speaker 2: let me just look into this and like find some
Speaker 2: evidence that supports this thing that this guy said, and
Speaker 2: it just wasn't there. There was just zero evidence to
Speaker 2: support it. There were like a couple people who said
Speaker 2: that they thought maybe there was a rumor that it
Speaker 2: was happening, and maybe it is happening, right Like, I
Speaker 2: would not put it past Twitter, but I was not
Speaker 2: able to find any evidence to suggest that that was happening.
Speaker 2: And if listeners are aware of evidence, I'd love to
Speaker 2: see it, you know, we can talk about it next week.
Speaker 2: But I was totally taken in with it because it
Speaker 2: really fit with my preconceived ideas of what kind of
Speaker 2: nonsense shenanigans Elon Musk's Twitter would get up to. It
Speaker 2: seemed like a totally believable thing. I wanted to believe
Speaker 2: it because it was just one more piece of evidence
Speaker 2: about what in nefarious people they were or he is.
Speaker 2: But you know, fortunately there was a couple of days
Speaker 2: between then and now, and uh, cooler heads prevailed and
Speaker 2: now we're just talking about it as a faith thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I saw that story, and I also was willing
Speaker 1: to believe that that's something that Elon Musk would do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And to be clear, I still believe it is
Speaker 2: something he would do. I just am not confident that
Speaker 2: it is something he has.
Speaker 1: Oh, anything that anyone would say is something I would
Speaker 1: be like, yep, that's h would do that. I believe
Speaker 1: he would do that. There's not there's not much out
Speaker 1: there that I would not believe that he would do.
Speaker 1: Just to be really clear, but something about the story
Speaker 1: also seemed not legit to me, so I didn't share it.
Speaker 1: I didn't like, I don't I don't know why something
Speaker 1: about it. I was like, I don't know, like I
Speaker 1: don't know. Uh, to be clear, I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's if it, I cannot I can either confirm or
Speaker 1: deny that it's happening. I have not looked into it.
Speaker 1: But something about the story didn't seem correct to me,
Speaker 1: and I saw it and did not engage with it.
Speaker 1: I had a I myself, i've shared some bake news recently.
Speaker 1: It was a and I unshared it and was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this was not true. So it was a video that
Speaker 1: purported to show South African firefighters who were all dancing
Speaker 1: in an airport en route to being sent to Canada
Speaker 1: to help fight the wildfires. It was like a cute
Speaker 1: video of these men dancing. I shared it immediately, and
Speaker 1: I know, you know, usually when someone shares something incorrect online,
Speaker 1: it's because it is like speaking to some emotional need
Speaker 1: that they have or some sort of like emotional like
Speaker 1: place that they're in. And I can tell you exactly
Speaker 1: what it got in me. You know, this is a
Speaker 1: second or third day this summer that I've been unable
Speaker 1: to leave the apartment because of the wildfire smoke. You know,
Speaker 1: I have pretty bad asthma and a whole host of
Speaker 1: respiratory issues, and so I really when stuff like this happens,
Speaker 1: I really can't go outside. And seeing this video of
Speaker 1: like smiling South African men, black men, like dancing, and
Speaker 1: you know, the idea that like these are these are
Speaker 1: the men who are going to like go to Canada
Speaker 1: and like fix the smoke, it really gave me warm fuzzies.
Speaker 1: Come to find out that video was taken like five
Speaker 1: years ago and had nothing to do with the current wildfires.
Speaker 1: So like, technically it's not it's not fake news, but
Speaker 1: it is like like I'm taken out of context, but
Speaker 1: I shared it because it spoke to my emotional needs,
Speaker 1: like I've been stuck in the house. The idea that
Speaker 1: these men were coming to fix the fire so that
Speaker 1: I could go outside. Finally was really spoke to me
Speaker 1: and I shared it, and I had done share it.
Speaker 1: So it does definitely happen to the best of us.
Speaker 1: It does not matter if you're young, digital native, tech savvy,
Speaker 1: grew up online. It can happen to the best of us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it can. We all got to be vigilant, especially
Speaker 2: everything else that you know, fit with our preconceived notions
Speaker 2: of how things are going to be, or like you said,
Speaker 2: fulfill some sort of emotional need that we have.
Speaker 1: Facebook and Google have both been battling with the Canadian
Speaker 1: government over a new law that was just passed in
Speaker 1: Canada called the Online News Act.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: This law would require that Google and Facebook pay news
Speaker 1: organizations and publishers for distributing links to news stories. The
Speaker 1: law has not gone into effect just yet, but once
Speaker 1: it does, Google and Facebook say that they're going to
Speaker 1: start removing news articles by Canadian publishers from their services
Speaker 1: in the country. According to NPR, the Canadian government estimates
Speaker 1: that the law would result in a cash injection of
Speaker 1: some three hundred and twenty nine million dollars into the
Speaker 1: Canadian news industry, which, just like you're in the United
Speaker 1: States has been plagued by news staff layoffs and other
Speaker 1: downsizing in recent years. Supporters of this legislation have argued
Speaker 1: that it could provide a much needed lifeline to the
Speaker 1: ailing news industry, which has been gutted by Silicon Valley's
Speaker 1: ironclad control of digital advertising. Now, this Canadian law is
Speaker 1: modeled after the law in Australia. We did a whole
Speaker 1: episode on that like a few years ago, which will
Speaker 1: link to in the show notes, and folks might remember,
Speaker 1: I'm sure Australians do that that tense negotiation between Facebook
Speaker 1: and news publishers led to Facebook being temporarily shut down
Speaker 1: in Australia. There's a similar bill here in the US
Speaker 1: in California that would force tech companies to pay publishers,
Speaker 1: and yep, Facebook and Google have threatened blackouts there too. Now,
Speaker 1: both Facebook and Google like don't seem to see news
Speaker 1: as a key part of their strategies, and it seems
Speaker 1: like they're thinking, like, oh, it'll be easier just to
Speaker 1: block news altogether rather than pay for it. Now, I
Speaker 1: want to be clear that I absolutely think that something
Speaker 1: needs to be done, but how this should play out
Speaker 1: is like a little bit above my pay grade. MPR
Speaker 1: has a great summary of some of the different positions
Speaker 1: they write. While most major publishers in Canada back the
Speaker 1: new law, outside media observers have not been so sure.
Speaker 1: Tech writer Casey Newton has argued that attacks on displaying
Speaker 1: links would effectively break the Internet if it was applied
Speaker 1: to the rest of the web. Other critics have pointed
Speaker 1: to the lack of transparency over who would actually receive
Speaker 1: the cash and fusion from the tech companies. Some fear
Speaker 1: that programs could be hid by disinformation sites that learn
Speaker 1: how to game the system. Yet press advocates insisted that
Speaker 1: tech companies retaliating by threatening to systemically remove news articles
Speaker 1: will be a blow to civil society and the public's
Speaker 1: understanding of the world. At a moment when disinformation swirls
Speaker 1: in our public discourse, ensuring public access to credible journalism
Speaker 1: is essential. So it's deeply disappointing to see this decision
Speaker 1: from Google and Meta. This is from Liz Woolery, who
Speaker 1: leads digital policy at PEN America, an organization that supports
Speaker 1: freedom of expression. Wellery continued, as policymakers explore potential solutions
Speaker 1: to the challenges facing the journalism industry, platforms are free
Speaker 1: to critique, debate and offer alternatives, but reducing the public's
Speaker 1: access to news is never the right answer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a tough one. Like, I hear what she's saying,
Speaker 2: but like you pointed out, newsrooms are facing cuts after
Speaker 2: decades of facing cuts. Ror Like it's it's just been
Speaker 2: decades of cuts, cuts, cuts, cuts, And you know, there's
Speaker 2: at least two sides to giving the public access to news.
Speaker 2: There is making the news available to them to read
Speaker 2: when it's been written, and there is funding the news
Speaker 2: outlets that pay the people that write the news. And
Speaker 2: we need both.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I listen, I worked in media for
Speaker 1: a long time. It's not a coincidence that that is
Speaker 1: no longer the case for me. Broadly, I think that
Speaker 1: Facebook has had way too much control over our media landscape.
Speaker 1: You know, for a while, Facebook would actually direct traffic
Speaker 1: to media sites, and now it just keeps you on Facebook,
Speaker 1: right Like it used to be, when you click the
Speaker 1: link on Facebook, it would take you out of Facebook.
Speaker 1: Now Facebook is just interested in keeping you on Facebook.
Speaker 1: When I was working in media, the great pivot to
Speaker 1: video fraud happened, which, like I'm still angry about nobody
Speaker 1: except for Facebook executives, are certain when Facebook is allowed
Speaker 1: to just gut entire industries that people rely on to
Speaker 1: stay informed like they have. And I think that Facebook
Speaker 1: and honestly like media executives who are chasing the shiny
Speaker 1: new thing, have vastly contributed to this precarity of media
Speaker 1: in general. Right, Like all of my friends who still
Speaker 1: work in media, they are all either laid off about
Speaker 1: to be laid off, or they're like delusional, or they're
Speaker 1: just starting a freelancing business because they know they're probably
Speaker 1: going to be laid off and rehired to do their
Speaker 1: same job at a fraction of the cost, so they
Speaker 1: may as well get you a leg up on that now.
Speaker 1: And so it's not a good time to be in media.
Speaker 1: It is an incredibly precarious situation, and I think that
Speaker 1: Facebook really should take a lot of the blame there.
Speaker 1: You know, entire strategies and budgets were built around things
Speaker 1: that Facebook said, in the case of the pivot to video,
Speaker 1: things that Facebook said that weren't even true. They were lies, right,
Speaker 1: and then Facebook will just change with no warning, and
Speaker 1: all that money, all that energy, all that capacity is
Speaker 1: just gone. So those people just get let go. And
Speaker 1: for a while Facebook was saying like, oh, we want
Speaker 1: to be involved in journalists, we want to save local
Speaker 1: journalism by partnerships with local newsrooms. And now Facebook has
Speaker 1: basically been like, hmm, no, actually we don't even need news.
Speaker 1: And the people who were leading those partnerships have been
Speaker 1: laid off from Facebook. And so I don't know what
Speaker 1: the answer is, but I do think that people need
Speaker 1: access to accurate news. I think that Facebook, like, the
Speaker 1: answer can't just be that Facebook gets to take whatever
Speaker 1: it wants without paying for it, and the only the
Speaker 1: only people who benefit here are Facebook. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't know what to do, but it's it's it is
Speaker 1: a it doesn't look good for media, and I think
Speaker 1: that is in part because of Facebook.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, between Facebook and Google, I think that
Speaker 2: is most of the advertising online. I guess TikTok has
Speaker 2: taken a big chunk out of it. I couldn't say
Speaker 2: how much. That's not an area that I'm an expert in,
Speaker 2: but yeah, Facebook and Google they're like it. They sell
Speaker 2: all the advertising online. And there sure are a lot
Speaker 2: of news outlets posting stories that we all read all
Speaker 2: the time. It doesn't seem radical to think that they
Speaker 2: should get some of that money. How to make that
Speaker 2: work in practice? Like you said, it's above my pay grade.
Speaker 1: More after a quick break, let's get right back into it.
Speaker 1: So folks might remember that trans influencer Dylan mulvaney who
Speaker 1: became the target of an extremist hate campaign after she
Speaker 1: did a partnership with bud Light. Well, Dylan mulvaney broke
Speaker 1: her silence this week. Dylan rose to prominence for her
Speaker 1: series on TikTok, where she chronicled her life as a
Speaker 1: trans woman. It was a cute series. It would be
Speaker 1: like day whatever of being a girl. I thought it
Speaker 1: was cute. People liked it. It's like why she became
Speaker 1: kind of an influencer. Bud Light was trying to kind
Speaker 1: of shed their frat boy image and did a brand
Speaker 1: partnership with Dylan. Now, the logistics of this brand partnership
Speaker 1: were way overblown. Basically, bud Light sent Dylan mulvaney one
Speaker 1: beer can, like a promotional beer can with her face
Speaker 1: on it. These cans were not for sale in stores,
Speaker 1: these cans. It wasn't like they were stamping her face
Speaker 1: on every bud Light can. Ever, that everybody had to
Speaker 1: use it. They sent her a can with her face
Speaker 1: on it. One she made a video on her social
Speaker 1: media profile about bud Light talking about this can they
Speaker 1: sent her, and that was it. You would have thought
Speaker 1: that bud Light had named Dylan mulvany their new CEO,
Speaker 1: and that every time that you bought a bud Light
Speaker 1: a dollar personally went into her pocket. No, it was
Speaker 1: just one social media post and one can. But extremist
Speaker 1: groups melted down over this right, and to be clear,
Speaker 1: they were explicit that this was a specific tactic right
Speaker 1: to target and go after one brand at a time
Speaker 1: and attack them from what they perceived as like woke
Speaker 1: positions like partnering with a trans woman or supporting Pride
Speaker 1: in the case of target the store. So these people
Speaker 1: are a very vocal minority, but they know they can
Speaker 1: drum up attention. Like we talked about many times, an
Speaker 1: Internet hate machine, brands do not always respond well and
Speaker 1: sometimes they just caved this bullying. Essentially, you know, extremists
Speaker 1: would be filming themselves. I think it was like kid Rock,
Speaker 1: which like, who the fuck is listening to kid Rock?
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty three, but he posted a video of
Speaker 1: himself shooting bud Light cans with a gun. People were
Speaker 1: driving sam rollers over them, like all because of this
Speaker 1: one can like I I can't, it's it's so it's
Speaker 1: so ridiculous, I can't. Bud Light actually did have a
Speaker 1: dip in sales because of these protests against bud Light.
Speaker 1: Marketing vice president Alyssa Heinersd actually stepped away from the
Speaker 1: company when she became a target too. It's not clear
Speaker 1: if she was fired or she just like stepped away,
Speaker 1: Like I read reports that she was fired, then I
Speaker 1: read reports that bud Light was like, oh, she wasn't fired,
Speaker 1: So I'm not totally sure she was became a target
Speaker 1: of this too. Extremists found a picture of her drinking
Speaker 1: a beer at all at college, like back when she
Speaker 1: was in college, and they tried to make her look
Speaker 1: like a hypocrite because oh, you liked beer then, but
Speaker 1: like now you think it's freddy or whatever. It's just
Speaker 1: so stupid.
Speaker 2: I just gotta stop you there for just a second though,
Speaker 2: because like, yeah, she was drinking beer. She was the
Speaker 2: vice president of Anheuser Bush right, Like she sells beer.
Speaker 2: The idea that that is somehow disqualifying or in baring
Speaker 2: just emphasizes how separated from reality any of this is.
Speaker 1: It wasn't even like a good like gotcha photo of
Speaker 1: like look at this, like like I could see if
Speaker 1: she was doing like a keg stand. It was just
Speaker 1: a normal it's just like a normal person drinking at college.
Speaker 1: Like it wasn't even like anything exciting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like person who sells beer drinks beer. What a hypocrite?
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, So back to Dylan. Dylan after all of
Speaker 1: this basically had to go offline because of the hate
Speaker 1: that she got. That got so bad. She was stocked,
Speaker 1: she was her rash, She feared for her life. These people,
Speaker 1: their anger toward her was so intense, again over one
Speaker 1: beer can and one video. So Dylan finally came back
Speaker 1: online for the first time, and here's what she had
Speaker 1: to say.
Speaker 3: For a company to hire a trans person and then
Speaker 3: not publicly stand by them is worse, in my opinion,
Speaker 3: than not hiring a trans person at all, because it
Speaker 3: gives customer's permission to be as transphobic and hateful as
Speaker 3: they want. And the hate doesn't end with me. It
Speaker 3: has serious, engraved consequences for the rest of our community.
Speaker 3: And you know, we're customers too. I know a lot
Speaker 3: of trans and queer people who love beer, and I
Speaker 3: have some lesbian friends who could drink some of those
Speaker 3: haters under the table. But to turn a blind eye
Speaker 3: and pretend everything is okay, it just isn't an option
Speaker 3: right now.
Speaker 1: So this is heartbreaking. And I feel like if you
Speaker 1: listen to Dylan's experiences and you don't feel bad for
Speaker 1: what she went through, that really says a lot about you.
Speaker 1: Like if somebody could listen to what she says that
Speaker 1: she experienced and still feel like, oh, well, good for her,
Speaker 1: she deserved it, Like you're not a good person. And
Speaker 1: what really is wild to me and like bums me out,
Speaker 1: is that nobody from bud Light reached out to her.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's my thing, Like just an email,
Speaker 1: a phone call, how you holding up? It doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be a public a public I mean, it should
Speaker 1: be a public thing, but like it's it's like a
Speaker 1: lack of at that point, that's like a lack of class.
Speaker 1: It's not even I'll get to what it says about
Speaker 1: how they treat people that they seek out for brand partnerships,
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, it's like there's
Speaker 1: a standard for how people treat people, and I that
Speaker 1: shocks me. And I just think that, like a company
Speaker 1: like bud Light, if you're gonna work with marginalized people,
Speaker 1: particularly trans people, right now, in this climate, this drummed
Speaker 1: up climate of hate and targeting of those people, you
Speaker 1: gotta have their backs, you gotta support them. If you're
Speaker 1: just gonna back away and like abandon them without so
Speaker 1: much as an email to check up on them, If
Speaker 1: saying yes to your partnership means death threats for them,
Speaker 1: means they will have to flee their homes for their
Speaker 1: own safety and fear for their lives, and you're not
Speaker 1: even gonna check in to see how they're doing, you
Speaker 1: should not be working with marginalized people at all. If
Speaker 1: that is the case, Dylan is the one who is
Speaker 1: being courageous. Dylan is the one who is taking all
Speaker 1: of this heat simply because she said yes to bud
Speaker 1: Light's offer of being a brand ambassador for their brand,
Speaker 1: bud Light. If Dylan is being made to shoulder all
Speaker 1: of this for doing nothing wrong, for just saying yes
Speaker 1: to you, you got to stick up for her, or
Speaker 1: don't work with talent like that, like that's just not
Speaker 1: how you treat people. Like, I'm really appalled.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think brands that want to make it
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty three and in the future should be
Speaker 2: standing up for people like Dylan, right, Like that's the
Speaker 2: young people are tolerant. The people who are running over
Speaker 2: these beers with steam rollers and shit shooting them, they
Speaker 2: do not represent the future of America. And they're just
Speaker 2: so hateful, Like who would want to be associated with them?
Speaker 2: All Dylan did was like b trans. You know, she's
Speaker 2: not even accused of doing anything other than just being trans,
Speaker 2: and like that's enough to spur all of this hate.
Speaker 2: It's despicable.
Speaker 1: Well, that's really what these people are saying. They're you know,
Speaker 1: they have so many ways of kind of like masking
Speaker 1: it when it's like, oh, we're just concerned about girls
Speaker 1: in sports, we're just concerned about the safety of women
Speaker 1: in bathrooms. When it comes down to issues like this,
Speaker 1: you really just see like we don't like trans people
Speaker 1: and we don't want to have to see them. We
Speaker 1: don't think they belong in public life, we don't think
Speaker 1: they should be here, right, Like, the issues like this
Speaker 1: make it because because Dylan is not a controversial person
Speaker 1: like she likes cute outfits and you know, some glasses
Speaker 1: and stuff like she doesn't. She's not someone who like
Speaker 1: has done something wrong. And it just makes it so
Speaker 1: clear what these people are angry at. It's her existence.
Speaker 1: It's the fact that she exists and is affirmed. That's
Speaker 1: what they don't like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great point. It really just lays it out.
Speaker 2: You know, there's there's no school competition issue. There's no
Speaker 2: like bathroom scare, you know, none of that like smoke
Speaker 2: and mirrors nonsense. It's like she's a transperson and they
Speaker 2: don't like it. And I really feel for her, like,
Speaker 2: you know, she did. She didn't ask for any of this.
Speaker 2: A brand sent her a product and she held up
Speaker 2: that product on her social like that's it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they asked her to like saying yes to
Speaker 1: bud Light, asking her to do this gets her death
Speaker 1: threats and she has to go dark. You like, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you can't you can't even be bothered just to
Speaker 1: be like hey girl, you are right, Like yeah, it
Speaker 1: just it's despicable. It's despicable. Speaking of despicable, We're gonna
Speaker 1: do a new segment on the Roundup called.
Speaker 2: What's Elon done now?
Speaker 1: And I have to give major shout outs to my
Speaker 1: favorite podcast, WHO Weekly. If you listen to WHO Weekly,
Speaker 1: it's kind of inspired by their segment what's Rita up To?
Speaker 1: They have this amazing theme song before they do it
Speaker 1: where they introduce the segment. I won't sing it, but
Speaker 1: if you if you know the show, you know it's
Speaker 1: very catchy. So hopefully we can have some sort of
Speaker 1: like what's Elon done now? Theme song in the style
Speaker 1: of that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're gonna work on it. If anybody has anything
Speaker 2: they'd like to share, we'd love to hear it. We
Speaker 2: aspire it to be anything like uh, WHO Weekly.
Speaker 1: I think of us as the WHO Weekly of tech.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, all right, Uh maybe someday we'll be them.
Speaker 1: Oh being a WHO is so much funner. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you gotta ask me, Okay, Bridget, So what's Elon done now?
Speaker 2: Okay, Bridget, what's Elon done now?
Speaker 1: Well, here's what Elon's up to. So back in October,
Speaker 1: Twitter rolled out a TikTok competitor that mimics TikTok's swipe
Speaker 1: up for more videos. Functionality Musk just recently highlighted it
Speaker 1: introducing it to droves of new users. So how's it going?
Speaker 1: Because it involves Elon Musk not well, and by that
Speaker 1: I mean animal torture, homophobia, and violent assaults. NBC reports
Speaker 1: that many users using the video feature were alarmed by
Speaker 1: a stream of graphic videos that they encountered while scrolling
Speaker 1: through the feed, including videos showing gun violence, police brutality,
Speaker 1: physical altercations, and vaccine misinformation. So where TikTok is like, Oh,
Speaker 1: here's some videos about how to properly use your washing
Speaker 1: machine or your dishwasher or whatever. Twitter is like, here's
Speaker 1: some videos of a cap being abused. And because it's
Speaker 1: swipe up functionality, these videos are just being surface to
Speaker 1: you algorithmically, right. It's not like you're clicking on them
Speaker 1: to view them. They're just being surfaced to you. Some
Speaker 1: of the original posts were seen on the timelines of
Speaker 1: millions of users within less than twenty four hours since
Speaker 1: they were posted. And Musk, what's he doing now? Well,
Speaker 1: it sounds like he is well aware of this issue
Speaker 1: because he tweeted that some of the videos on the
Speaker 1: platform could be quite edgy.
Speaker 2: Ooh, he's such an edgy guy.
Speaker 1: So I think that that just really shows that Elon
Speaker 1: Musk doesn't get what people are looking for from social media,
Speaker 1: why they come to social media. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: think he understands like why people come to Twitter. No,
Speaker 1: I think that was clear from how he has the
Speaker 1: changes he has made on Twitter that he's not He
Speaker 1: doesn't understand like what makes it good. And I think
Speaker 1: you know, when people come to a platform like TikTok,
Speaker 1: if TikTok was all garbage videos, people wouldn't stay there, right,
Speaker 1: Like if it was just like videos of like stuff
Speaker 1: that was upsetting and you know, it might be it
Speaker 1: might generate engagement perhaps, but it does it won't make
Speaker 1: people feel good about being there. And so it almost
Speaker 1: feels like Elon Musk's strategy is like how can I
Speaker 1: make people feel bad? And how can I make showing
Speaker 1: up to this platform feel not good? You know, I
Speaker 1: just don't think that he's someone who understands what people
Speaker 1: are coming to social media platforms for, what they want
Speaker 1: to feel when they come to those platforms and what
Speaker 1: keeps them there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's not surprising that Twitter's new feature is
Speaker 2: stupid and bad and like offensive and mean. That's just
Speaker 2: like what he's going for. But I also just want
Speaker 2: to take a minute to step back and reflect on
Speaker 2: how we've all just accepted as normal that these big
Speaker 2: legacy social media platforms like Twitter, companies like Meta are
Speaker 2: they're just a band in any pretense of innovating, and
Speaker 2: they're just like aggressively copying each other. It's like that
Speaker 2: trend in the mid aus when like every restaurant had
Speaker 2: to become every other restaurant and like they all started
Speaker 2: selling chicken sandwiches and burgers. It's like every social media
Speaker 2: platform has to be exactly the same and like have
Speaker 2: the same functionality of everyone, and there's there's no innovation,
Speaker 2: there's just copycat And like if that if those sorts
Speaker 2: of videos were what I wanted, why would I go
Speaker 2: to Twitter? Why wouldn't I just look at it on TikTok?
Speaker 2: Like as a user of social media platforms, I kind
Speaker 2: of like that they're different, right, Like if they were
Speaker 2: all the same, that would be boring, And somehow, over
Speaker 2: the past like year or two, that just became the
Speaker 2: standard strategy for these big legacy companies and you would
Speaker 2: expect them to be embarrassed about it, but they're just
Speaker 2: like upfront and open about the fact that they do
Speaker 2: not have any ideas, that all they can do is
Speaker 2: try to like steal, steal the idea of somebody else.
Speaker 1: It reminds me so much of this article that I
Speaker 1: read back when Instagram last year, when Instagram basically said
Speaker 1: that they wanted to become TikTok and they were going
Speaker 1: to focus on video. I forget who said it was
Speaker 1: a great quote. He said that Facebook doesn't know why
Speaker 1: it is that people come to Instagram and they're trying
Speaker 1: to become more like TikTok. It's as if your mistress
Speaker 1: got plastic surgery to look more like your wife. You
Speaker 1: would be like, don't you understand what this is? Don't
Speaker 1: you understand? Like why I'm why I'm coming to you.
Speaker 1: This is not what I want at all.
Speaker 2: That's a good analogy.
Speaker 1: In our last newscast, we put out a call that
Speaker 1: people like Elon Musk, RFK, Joe Rogan. I might throw
Speaker 1: Glenn Greenwald in there, that like brand of guy. We
Speaker 1: don't have a name for that brand of guy. We
Speaker 1: have names for other brands of guy, like we've got.
Speaker 1: If I say Bernie bro you probably conjure up in
Speaker 1: your head the kind of guy I'm talking about. If
Speaker 1: I say, oh, that guy is a member of the
Speaker 1: dirt Bag Left, you probably have an idea in your
Speaker 1: head of what I'm talking about. But we don't have
Speaker 1: a name for that particular sub section of guy and
Speaker 1: I think we need one. And actually, listener Elizabeth dmd
Speaker 1: me on Instagram and said that she thinks they should
Speaker 1: be called tinker bells because quote, they don't feel like
Speaker 1: they exist if they aren't filling the internet with their
Speaker 1: hot takes, which I love. Thank you, Elizabeth. It is
Speaker 1: finally nice to have a collective term for your Elon's,
Speaker 1: your Joe Rogan's, and the rest of the tinker bells.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great term, Thank you, Elizabeth. Yeah, now
Speaker 2: we got a term for these tinker bills.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for listening, and Mike, as always,
Speaker 1: thanks for going through these stories with me.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me here, Bridget it was a pleasure.
Speaker 1: As you can probably tell, it was kind of a
Speaker 1: big news week this week, and there were so many
Speaker 1: stories we wanted to talk about that we couldn't get
Speaker 1: to them all here. So to hear the full rundown,
Speaker 1: check out our Patreon at patreon dot com. Slash ten Goody.
Speaker 1: If you're looking for ways to support the show, check
Speaker 1: out our mark store at tenggodi dot com. Slash store.
Speaker 1: Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or
Speaker 1: just want to say hi? You can reach us at
Speaker 1: Hello at tenggody dot com. You can also find transcripts
Speaker 1: for today's episode at tengody dot com. There Are No
Speaker 1: Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget Tod.
Speaker 1: It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unboss Creative, edited by
Speaker 1: Joey pat Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer. Tari Harrison
Speaker 1: is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almada is our
Speaker 1: contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want
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