Speaker 1: So it felt like all of the different topics we're
Speaker 1: going to be exploring on Internet Hate Machine kind of
Speaker 1: all intersected last week with the finalization of Elon Musk
Speaker 1: taking over Twitter, the attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband Paul
Speaker 1: by a man armed with a hammer, and of course
Speaker 1: Elon Musk using his newly purchased social media platform to
Speaker 1: spread baseless conspiracy theories about the attack. Now, according to
Speaker 1: Paul Pelosi's alleged attackers own writings online, it was gamer
Speaker 1: Gate that he credited was providing a gateway into extremism
Speaker 1: and conspiracy theories. And you know, I started this podcast
Speaker 1: to explore the ways that the Internet can have a
Speaker 1: big impact on our social and political landscape, and honestly,
Speaker 1: sometimes I kind of hate being right about it because
Speaker 1: online movements like gamer Gate are still harming our political
Speaker 1: landscape today. And Dr Joan Donovan, research director at the
Speaker 1: Harvard Kennedy Shortenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy,
Speaker 1: co author of the book Memoirs, is not surprised. Dr Donovan,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for being here. So were you
Speaker 1: surprised to find out that Paul Pelosi's attacker credited gamer
Speaker 1: Gate as being a political turning point for him. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: in this world that I work in, I very rarely
Speaker 1: am surprised. So why this is important, of course, is
Speaker 1: that there are moments in our Internet history that many
Speaker 1: people consider landmark moments. For on the right, they call
Speaker 1: it getting red pilled, right, And so the red pill
Speaker 1: is a UM reference to the matrix. You can either
Speaker 1: take the blue pill and live your life as if
Speaker 1: nothing is going on. You take the red pill and
Speaker 1: you can see the world for what it is. And
Speaker 1: there were many things going on during gamer Gate, UM,
Speaker 1: particularly violent misogyny, anti black racism, homophobia, transphobia. So within
Speaker 1: gamer Gate, there were many ways in which someone could
Speaker 1: have become red pilled or awoke into this world where
Speaker 1: they think they're finally seeing reality for the first time. UM.
Speaker 1: And this is intensely problematic generally because the way in
Speaker 1: which this starts usually is by digging into more and
Speaker 1: more media online. So you move away from mainstream media,
Speaker 1: you think the mainstream media is there simply to lie
Speaker 1: to you, and you start to go into these different
Speaker 1: rabbit holes trying to understand, well, then how do I
Speaker 1: get how do I make sense of this world? Conspiracies
Speaker 1: tend to fill that void. The difference with gamer Gate, though,
Speaker 1: is that this was um a real, a real set
Speaker 1: of events that we're happening and unfolding in this moment
Speaker 1: where it wasn't just that we were seeing um, misogynistic, racist, homophobic, transphobic,
Speaker 1: inciting content moving around online. It was also starting to
Speaker 1: show up in people's real lives and we saw the
Speaker 1: violence of swatting and the harassments and um even intimidating
Speaker 1: people at their workplaces, in their homes or at conferences.
Speaker 1: And so it was a very different time as well.
Speaker 1: And this maybe will be the last point I'll say
Speaker 1: on this, is it during gamer Gate people learned these
Speaker 1: trolls and these misogynists, uh, these racists, all these ILKs
Speaker 1: of of people learned how to coordinate with one another.
Speaker 1: So it goes back even before gamer Gate and different
Speaker 1: campaigns that most famously probably is your slipsh Knowing, which
Speaker 1: I know that you've covered as well, UM, where black
Speaker 1: feminists were able to figure out very early on that
Speaker 1: they were being impersonated on Twitter, uh, and we're able
Speaker 1: to show what those accounts meant, um and what what
Speaker 1: they were up to, and how easy it is to
Speaker 1: manipulate the system, are the design of social media in
Speaker 1: order to produce this targeted harassment, And so I wouldn't
Speaker 1: be surprised, although I don't have any evidence of it yet,
Speaker 1: that moments like that as well, that are highly participatory,
Speaker 1: that have these instantaneous feelings of reward and camaraderie for
Speaker 1: getting someone to shape you know, shut down their account,
Speaker 1: getting them to block you, whatnot, is definitely something that
Speaker 1: we see many unfortunately many of the folks that end
Speaker 1: up being part of these movements over the long term, uh,
Speaker 1: participate in early on. Yeah, it's interesting that you bring
Speaker 1: that up on this series. We're starting with HB. R. Richards,
Speaker 1: you know, dongle Gate, and you know, this this thing
Speaker 1: that I think a lot of people, even people who
Speaker 1: were pretty online might have seen as like a blip,
Speaker 1: but to me really marks something interesting, an interesting shift
Speaker 1: around exactly what you were talking about. This the reward
Speaker 1: of feeling like, oh, we got this person to you know,
Speaker 1: shut up online or to get or to lose their
Speaker 1: job or to you know, you know, shut down their
Speaker 1: accounts or block people like that, having a sort of
Speaker 1: instantaneous reward for folks and that being like a participatory
Speaker 1: thing that people would want to take part in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's I think that actually speaks to the changing
Speaker 1: nature of political participation. Uh. You know, when we first
Speaker 1: started to think about the Internet as a political space, blogs,
Speaker 1: everybody had a blog, they had a political opinion then.
Speaker 1: And you start to see, slowly, beginning with the so
Speaker 1: called Arab Spring, people are using the Internet to get coordinated,
Speaker 1: and they're doing it to get coordinated in public space.
Speaker 1: And I think what the far right does really, uh,
Speaker 1: what the far right really adds to this set of
Speaker 1: tactics is they have these hybrid sets of tactics where
Speaker 1: they do a lot of online organizing and the point
Speaker 1: is to upset or defame someone online. And it's it's
Speaker 1: for them, almost just as effective as you know, showing
Speaker 1: up at the mayor's house and protesting in front of
Speaker 1: his house until he resigns. Right. For them, the winds
Speaker 1: are a lot the goals, and the winds tend to
Speaker 1: be a lot smaller, but they also tend to be
Speaker 1: quite a bit more personally painful for people who become
Speaker 1: targets of this kind of harassment and h When it
Speaker 1: comes to what we've seen in the social media of
Speaker 1: the man who attacked Mr. Pelosi is is that he
Speaker 1: had really following, followed along with a lot of the
Speaker 1: more mainstream Internet conspiracy theories. Uh, it's not the case
Speaker 1: that he's in things that are it's well, you know this,
Speaker 1: there's like the internet, and and there's the internet where
Speaker 1: there's things that are popular that nobody has ever heard of.
Speaker 1: But he seems to be in that popular vein of
Speaker 1: conspiracy and he's following along, which denotes to me that
Speaker 1: he was part of a community that he was, you know,
Speaker 1: listening to other people and following along, thinking he was
Speaker 1: doing his own research. Um, but ultimately he was being
Speaker 1: fed all of these lies and and the way that
Speaker 1: these things start to plug together around election denialism and
Speaker 1: in the subversion of the US democratic process. Um, if
Speaker 1: you truly do believe that all else has been tried
Speaker 1: and failed, the only recourse people feel that they have
Speaker 1: is violence and um. Reading some of the pronouncements of
Speaker 1: this man where he says, you know, he wanted to
Speaker 1: break Nancy Pelosi's kneecaps so that she would be a
Speaker 1: reminder to politicians that you can't just lie, and that
Speaker 1: it's that kind of delusional belief in one's own power. Uh.
Speaker 1: That makes people move from the wires to the weeds,
Speaker 1: and this what is perceived as a very lone wolf
Speaker 1: kind of way. But um, that's not to say that
Speaker 1: this person hadn't been supported in part of communities online
Speaker 1: before he ended up taking these last steps. I would
Speaker 1: imagine that for a lot of people, the idea that
Speaker 1: this movement online of guys who were big mad about
Speaker 1: ethics and gaming journalism in scare quotes would then be
Speaker 1: related to this like political attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband.
Speaker 1: Do you think we're gonna start seeing more people making
Speaker 1: that connection of those two of those two things being related. Well,
Speaker 1: what's interesting I think is um a few things, which
Speaker 1: is that we are getting a lot of different vantage
Speaker 1: points from which to tell the history of gamer Gate.
Speaker 1: You can tell the story through the tactics of resistance
Speaker 1: uh in our book, um, or you could tell the
Speaker 1: story from the vantage point of how mass media covered it.
Speaker 1: In our book, we really wanted to understand the relationship
Speaker 1: between Steve Bannon and Milo U and Opolis and the
Speaker 1: way in which Milo A. Rich only had come out
Speaker 1: and thought Gamergate was dumb and he misread the audience.
Speaker 1: He missed it, and so he had to do Amia
Speaker 1: Cupola and come back and say, yes, this is about
Speaker 1: ethics and gaming journalism. And because he had the platform
Speaker 1: of bright Bart, it gave that movement the belief in
Speaker 1: their own legitimacy. Because that's what media really does, is
Speaker 1: it makes people feel legitimate and recognized and seen. That's
Speaker 1: why all movements strive to have media coverage. Um and
Speaker 1: so in meanmore is, as we were trying to tell
Speaker 1: that story, it was really important that we looked at
Speaker 1: and tried to show how some of those tactics that
Speaker 1: Milo is part of organizing, that we're being organized on
Speaker 1: four Chan, then get filtered through someone like Steve Bannon,
Speaker 1: who is the bridge between these online populist movements and
Speaker 1: the President of the United States and the Republican Party.
Speaker 1: And and you see this dramatic shift in how Trump
Speaker 1: uses his own social media how you know, um white
Speaker 1: House media and media properties as you as used once.
Speaker 1: These um uh folks who are learning from that very
Speaker 1: online contingent of people are learning how to take those
Speaker 1: tactics and move them into mainstream politics. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: really nothing fundamentally that different from what was happening during
Speaker 1: game or gate to when Trump is pointing at CNN
Speaker 1: and calling it fake news. Right, It's it's almost the
Speaker 1: same narrative. It's really about ethics and mainstream journalism, right.
Speaker 1: And I think one as we start to think through, well,
Speaker 1: what are people asking for from media? Does mainstream media
Speaker 1: have a responsibility to tell the truth? If it does,
Speaker 1: then what is this partisan media that we're paying a
Speaker 1: lot of attention to do we allow news organizations that
Speaker 1: are partisan to call themselves news? It becomes much more
Speaker 1: complicated question once we realize that the tactics that seemed
Speaker 1: jokey and small and part of low culture then become
Speaker 1: mainstream political tactics. And uh. And there's a lot to
Speaker 1: be said though for studying the resistance to that and
Speaker 1: figuring out, well, how did people get through game or GIT?
Speaker 1: How did feminists come out the other side? Um? Which
Speaker 1: I know some of your some of your own research
Speaker 1: and podcasting has done. Uh. But there is a disconnect
Speaker 1: here between that style of existence that tends to happen
Speaker 1: within communities. There's no real connection between that in any
Speaker 1: political party type of way. Right, You don't see um,
Speaker 1: the same kind of sutures like you do on the right,
Speaker 1: between the internet world and the party. Uh So there
Speaker 1: is some work to think about related to the gamer
Speaker 1: Gate tactics becoming mainstream political tactics. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: work to think through, well what is the resistance to
Speaker 1: that look like? And are there politicians that are willing
Speaker 1: to take up the charge and make sure that those
Speaker 1: resistance tactics get the same kind of value and attention
Speaker 1: as all of the bad the baddies, you know, it's
Speaker 1: all the bad guys online. That's such an interest in
Speaker 1: point that I didn't even really think about because you know,
Speaker 1: Bannon clearly had a lot of takeaways about how those
Speaker 1: tactics could be used to build political power on the right,
Speaker 1: and we don't similarly have a kind of infrastructure that
Speaker 1: then asks well, how did feminists and black women online,
Speaker 1: you know, like resist to this? How did they How
Speaker 1: did they lean into the power of community to to
Speaker 1: strengthen their own online spaces even when in people with
Speaker 1: institutional power really didn't help them. And so we don't
Speaker 1: really have that same level of interest I guess in
Speaker 1: how we then support that same kind of resistance that
Speaker 1: there is on the right. Yeah, I mean it's a
Speaker 1: tricky it's a tricky thing. I've talked in the past
Speaker 1: with Ruhab Benjamin about this and about tactical UH disclosures
Speaker 1: because you don't want what you don't want happening. Is
Speaker 1: many much mainstream attention to the tech picks that are
Speaker 1: working when they're working, because usually when we're talking about
Speaker 1: community UH safety, we're talking about instances where community members
Speaker 1: have figured out an insideline to get things done, either
Speaker 1: to get corporations to change their minds about something I'm
Speaker 1: thinking here about the the organizing um of color of
Speaker 1: change around blood money and getting PayPal and other payment
Speaker 1: services to stop paying white supremacists. UM. Those tactics they
Speaker 1: feel very ephemeral because I think, you know, they've been
Speaker 1: I mean, they've been um historicized by academics, but they
Speaker 1: haven't been taken up as serious policy by politicians. So
Speaker 1: when I would say that when we talk about institutional support,
Speaker 1: you know, academics can take it far, but really what
Speaker 1: we need is that layered or that muscle between those
Speaker 1: resistance tactics translated into policy so that we can change
Speaker 1: the design and not just try to change, you know,
Speaker 1: one by one the bad actors in the work that
Speaker 1: he and I do. So much of the work that
Speaker 1: we're doing is like focused on individual bad actors or
Speaker 1: individual and it just feels like playing whack a mole.
Speaker 1: And it is, you know, it's what we're doing, but
Speaker 1: it never feels like enough. It feels like even if
Speaker 1: we were doing even if we were worked doing this
Speaker 1: work at the capacity that we you know, like working
Speaker 1: at seven, it wouldn't be enough. We need we need
Speaker 1: infrastructure change, We need deeper, more meaningful changes, because you know,
Speaker 1: banning deep platforming a bad actor here and there is great,
Speaker 1: but it's not going to have that like lasting change. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I you know, that's where we end up at
Speaker 1: the end of our book. Really is this idea that
Speaker 1: the design has to be much more intentional. You know,
Speaker 1: if you think about Musk buying Twitter, Twitter is the
Speaker 1: most influential news distribution system in the world. Now, it
Speaker 1: was never designed purposefully to transmit the news, right, and
Speaker 1: so Musk, who's now anti media, is in charge of it,
Speaker 1: and you know, you have to wonder where he's going
Speaker 1: to go with that. But it's certainly not going to
Speaker 1: be into you know, adding to the integrity of information online, right, um.
Speaker 1: And so you know, I do think that there are
Speaker 1: great academics out there that do that work of of
Speaker 1: working with movement. I'm thinking here of my my dear
Speaker 1: friend that you see or buying Roger Crowe, who work
Speaker 1: with movements and try to do research based upon the
Speaker 1: questions that they have. I do think it's really important,
Speaker 1: especially today, to keep our eyes on these the innovation
Speaker 1: and the kind of entrepreneurship of the far right, um,
Speaker 1: because of how important they are for culture in terms
Speaker 1: of shaping the culture, especially around certain issues that we
Speaker 1: cannot fail on. We cannot fail on fighting anti black racism, transphobia,
Speaker 1: especially these days. Um. You know, we have to fight
Speaker 1: for public health because the state's not going to do it.
Speaker 1: And so you know, I often think about it is
Speaker 1: this paradoxical process where I'm always trying to understand the
Speaker 1: broader system implications for it. But I'm never going to
Speaker 1: make the mistake of thinking that pro social movements use
Speaker 1: the same technology the same way than anti democratic ones
Speaker 1: do or white supremacists do. It might fundamentally be the
Speaker 1: same technology, but they bring to it different sets of values,
Speaker 1: different sets skill sets even uh, and make that platform
Speaker 1: or that media do something that other groups aren't able
Speaker 1: to or haven't really thought of yet. And that's why
Speaker 1: I think it's up to us to try to build
Speaker 1: more of a whole of society approach. We want to
Speaker 1: be working with technologists, we want to be working with
Speaker 1: UM librarians and educators, we want to be working with
Speaker 1: activists UM because we need to reshape the information ecosystem.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's a pretty dark day for a
Speaker 1: lot of people who formed really lasting and important friendships
Speaker 1: and social solidarities on Twitter, because if you can't trust
Speaker 1: the platform, it's going to be harder and harder to
Speaker 1: trust each other. And so it's going to be really
Speaker 1: important going forward that people find alternative spaces to have
Speaker 1: these broader, bigger picture conversations, especially UM people that live
Speaker 1: in diasporas that need to build global solidarities. UM. But it's,
Speaker 1: as I've been thinking about it, you know, it's in
Speaker 1: some ways, Musk is undoing the last decade of hard
Speaker 1: work of a lot of people, not just the people
Speaker 1: who work at Twitter, but a lot of people who
Speaker 1: have made these networks and friendships and organizations along the way. UM.
Speaker 1: Which is not to say that we have to throw
Speaker 1: that all away instant enviously, But I do think it
Speaker 1: gives us more of a mission driven focus on getting
Speaker 1: the infrastructure in place and um thinking about well, how
Speaker 1: could that infrastructure then be weaponized against us like it
Speaker 1: was during events like game or game. Yeah. I I've
Speaker 1: heard you speak and write really eloquently about the that
Speaker 1: the deep need to build a public interest internet and
Speaker 1: internet that has really meant conserved the people. But I
Speaker 1: also happen to know that you're a little bit of
Speaker 1: like a pessimist, that you aren't necessarily super Uh. Well,
Speaker 1: you tell me, how do you feel about that? I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I I'm not Yeah, I'm not one to
Speaker 1: suggest that this is the whole of it, which is
Speaker 1: that if we get the technology right, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you know, what ails us in our society is somehow
Speaker 1: going to be fixed. UM. But I do know what
Speaker 1: it's like to live without the Internet. I am old
Speaker 1: enough to remember things were different, uh, and the scale
Speaker 1: was smaller and the achievements were smaller. Um. And so
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of forward social progress UM and
Speaker 1: a lot of accountability that has been uh you know,
Speaker 1: spread around as a result of social media UM. And
Speaker 1: we've seen new voices rise and fall, and that I
Speaker 1: think that's what I love about the Internet is the
Speaker 1: ability to meet and coordinate with people that are not
Speaker 1: like me, or people that are like me but are
Speaker 1: so far away from where I am that I never
Speaker 1: would have had the opportunity to meet them otherwise. And
Speaker 1: you know, you're talking to a punker that like booked
Speaker 1: their first tour on a o LL you know, like
Speaker 1: a l hardcore music chat room, right, Like that's where
Speaker 1: I come from. And so yeah, I think that there
Speaker 1: are things that are exciting, different possibilities that are exciting. Um.
Speaker 1: And each you know, group finds its platform in those
Speaker 1: platforms evolve. Um. And maybe it is the case that
Speaker 1: you know, when I was finding my identity of my people,
Speaker 1: my platform was the record player, right in the sense
Speaker 1: that like punk was still holding onto this you know,
Speaker 1: analog technology. Um. And but it created this whole culture
Speaker 1: of trading and and listening and making tapes for other people.
Speaker 1: It doesn't feel the same with Spotify. It almost feels
Speaker 1: like you're cheating when you're like, oh, yeah, I'll put
Speaker 1: you together a little mixtapep hear and ship it. Right.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't have the same time commitment, I think.
Speaker 1: But that's not to say that that's my experience, but
Speaker 1: that's not to say that that's the same experience of
Speaker 1: a young person who's like making videos and and expressing themselves.
Speaker 1: And those are the things that I think we're gonna
Speaker 1: lose if we don't step up to protect the health
Speaker 1: of the Internet now, and if we don't ask for
Speaker 1: layers of public infrastructure to ensure that one man with
Speaker 1: you know, billions of dollars can't take away something that
Speaker 1: has value for tens of millions or hundreds of millions
Speaker 1: UM as well. I think conversely, thinking about information in
Speaker 1: the public interest, the history of our journalism had to
Speaker 1: go through a process like this, you know, where journalists
Speaker 1: really had to think about how do we professionalize, how
Speaker 1: do we uh create information nation that is objective? UM.
Speaker 1: We don't always like that style of journalism, especially if
Speaker 1: it gets to both sides e especially if one side
Speaker 1: is lying. Um. But there's a method there and a
Speaker 1: commitment to ethics, and we don't have any of that
Speaker 1: at the backbone of our Internet. When it comes to
Speaker 1: these few companies that have really committed a smash and
Speaker 1: grab on our economy, and taken with it many of
Speaker 1: the many of much of the funding for our truth
Speaker 1: selling institutions. So you know, I'm I'm I'm a little
Speaker 1: bit optimistic about what we should build and how do
Speaker 1: we do it, and how do we make sure that
Speaker 1: it's serving the widest possible group. And I think that
Speaker 1: we do need to deal with some of our antitrust
Speaker 1: laws to get there and break up some of these
Speaker 1: companies that have bought and bought in everything. Um, but pessimistically, yeah,
Speaker 1: like I you know, the people that hate us aren't
Speaker 1: going away. They're not going away. They're not going to
Speaker 1: go away just because we build the most perfect technology.
Speaker 1: They're not going to go away if we build you know,
Speaker 1: gates around our properties either. It's just you know, at
Speaker 1: some point we have to reckon with each other. And
Speaker 1: and um, my commitment to life is always about dignity.
Speaker 1: You know, how do we make sure people live with
Speaker 1: dignity and that they live lives with you know, certain
Speaker 1: civil rights and and I do believe that the right
Speaker 1: to communication should be free. And I do think that
Speaker 1: the right to communication is critical, But I don't think
Speaker 1: that means you should be able to you know, politically
Speaker 1: oppress people, or that you should have access to broadcasting
Speaker 1: to eighty million people lies and disinformation, or hate, harassment
Speaker 1: and incitement. But I do you know, I I think
Speaker 1: I hold paradoxical opinions that maybe aren't completely reconcilable. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I just said that this is a non
Speaker 1: sec order. But I have to tell you when you
Speaker 1: were talking about the vibe of you know, records and
Speaker 1: making mix tapes, I was in a relationship with someone
Speaker 1: that I did not know was a big jam band fan.
Speaker 1: And then when we moved in together, I found all
Speaker 1: these boxes under the bed and I was like, what's
Speaker 1: in these boxes? And he was like, oh, yeah, I've
Speaker 1: been for ten years. I would go to parking lots
Speaker 1: where Grateful Dead concerts were happening, and I would trade
Speaker 1: and buy and sell bootlegs, and that's this. This is
Speaker 1: a box of most bootlegs. And I was like, what
Speaker 1: the hell, I mean, we are losing I know, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's it's happening in different ways. I mean, yeah.
Speaker 1: I was just in Poland and I went to a
Speaker 1: party where, um, many of the people were in the
Speaker 1: crowd enjoying the music and the DJs, but they were
Speaker 1: making TikTok videos in the crowd, and I was just like,
Speaker 1: why are all these people videotaping themselves right while there's
Speaker 1: a performer happening, right, and and but it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe that's just how they feel expression, right and community
Speaker 1: and and uh. But I also don't want us to
Speaker 1: lose the capacity to realize that our all of our
Speaker 1: humanities are connected, you know, in a very cheesy kind
Speaker 1: of like, well, at the end of the day, we
Speaker 1: all go to live together. Um, but you know, I
Speaker 1: think that there are lines that need to be drawn,
Speaker 1: of course with with that kind of rhetoric, but yeah,
Speaker 1: like I think the role I would love for the
Speaker 1: Internet to play in people's lives is one of creativity,
Speaker 1: one of bringing people together of um, you know, not
Speaker 1: so much just entertainment, but of building and collaborating together.
Speaker 1: That's a beautiful vision. Dr Donovan, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for being here. Internet Hate Machine is a production of
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
Speaker 1: check out our website cool zone media dot com, or
Speaker 1: find us on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.