WEBVTT - I Was Ridiculed on Instagram. Here's What I Learned 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:04.720 Adam back in May, you find yourself in an interesting situation. 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:07.800 Oh God, I can't believe we're gonna do this. So 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:09.960 you were at a pub in London with your friend. 0:00:10.360 --> 0:00:12.360 I was. I was at a pub in London with 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:15.480 a friend who was visiting from San Francisco, and we're 0:00:15.520 --> 0:00:18.000 having a beer and then I get a text from 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:23.319 my sister. It said, you're on subway creatures. Oh m 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:29.639 g subway creatures. Yeah, it's this Instagram feed. She and 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:33.240 I follow this, just pictures and videos of people caught 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:38.640 unsuspectingly doing stupid stuff on the subway. We occasionally text 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:41.720 about it when we see something really ridiculous and that 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:45.920 ridiculous person becomes you. I know. I thought she was kidding, 0:00:46.400 --> 0:00:49.720 but then she said look on Instagram, and I looked 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:53.680 in there I was this video of me grimacing down 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:57.240 at my phone, looking really weird, and the comments on 0:00:57.240 --> 0:01:00.600 the post we're starting to pour in the one I 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:10.120 remember most said texting, bitch face. That's my sister, Aaron. Anyway, 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:12.880 you weren't doing anything. You did have a very strange 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:15.520 look on your face. People were starting to do memes 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:20.119 like what you look like when and we're putting stuff 0:01:20.160 --> 0:01:23.760 in there? Do you what do you remember that I 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:26.840 was doing? Remember anything specific? I remember I was just 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:33.360 texting ferociously with this like really mean, weird look on 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:37.480 my face. And it was strange because it was a 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:39.760 video of you doing that, but then it zoomed in 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:47.000 on your face. The person was sitting across from you. Okay, 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:49.320 so Adam, you're still at the bar in London at 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:53.160 this point, texting frantically with your sister. I was. I 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:56.520 was freaking out, wouldn't you What did my coworkers see it? 0:01:57.040 --> 0:02:00.640 My sister suggested I send Mr Subway creep, you're a note. 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:02.880 I even had her draft it for me because I 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:07.320 was so frazzled. Hi. I noticed I was taped without 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:10.600 my knowledge yesterday and posted to your site. Please remove it? 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:29.720 And then I hit send hi em though, I'm Adam Satriano. 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:33.120 And this week on Decrypted, we're going inside this strange, 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:38.519 voyeuristic corner of social media where people, including Adam, unwittingly 0:02:38.600 --> 0:02:41.600 become a source of amusement. It's not an enjoyable place 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:45.200 to be, but beyond the embarrassment, the experience taught me 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:48.240 a good deal about the changing nature of privacy online. 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:52.080 We'll meet Rick Maguire, the thirty three year old who 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:55.480 runs Subway Creatures from a New York apartment. He'll tell 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:58.440 us about how he got into this strange Instagram world 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:00.880 and how he's trying to turn it into a business 0:03:01.320 --> 0:03:04.960 and it's own little way. My experience demonstrates the tightrope 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:09.160 that social media companies are walking right now. Increasingly, companies 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:13.079 like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, are being asked to regulate what's 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:17.000 appropriate content, what's fake news, what's bad, what's good, what's 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:20.680 in between? Do we want to further empower these already 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:24.560 very powerful companies to be the editors of our digital lives? 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:36.920 Stay with us? Okay, so Adam and take us back. 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:39.640 You emailed the Subway Creatures guy and you asked him 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:43.040 to delete that video of you. It felt like an 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:45.800 absolute lost cause I thought, no way, this guy is 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:49.680 gonna do that. But he actually replied right away and 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:54.640 he took it down. I was very surprised, pleasantly so 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:57.600 so I struck up a correspondence with him. Ricks from 0:03:57.600 --> 0:04:01.760 New Jersey. He played hockey in college. He's actually kind 0:04:01.760 --> 0:04:05.120 of sort of very normal for her, a guy who 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:08.040 creates an Instagram account like this it sounds like you 0:04:08.120 --> 0:04:12.080 kind of like him. Now. I was very curious, like, 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:15.360 how on earth do you come to operate a thing 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:21.839 like this. We're in the famous Promenade and Union Square, 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:26.480 tons of things to see out here. Our producer piaged 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:31.320 Kari went to meet Rick. I am a huge people person, 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:35.559 like I love people watching, and I obviously started seeing 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:37.400 what we all see every day in the New York 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:40.440 subway New York City subway, and you know, I realized 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:43.719 there's not really a platform for this. So I wound 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:46.599 up starting a website that featured a lot of the 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:49.760 stuff that I saw daily, and before I knew it, 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:52.800 it kind of gained traction. People started sending me stuff 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:54.560 and I didn't even have to look for it anymore. 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:57.760 It was coming to me. There are more than six 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:02.520 hundred thousand people following this Subway Creatures Instagram account. On 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:05.760 top of that, Rick has followers on Twitter and Facebook 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:10.760 and a website too. It's it's a little voyeuristic, uh, 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:13.760 this content. It's it's kind of in a category of 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:19.280 its own. Um but the closest it's just user generated 0:05:19.720 --> 0:05:22.919 content that you know. It's the good part about it 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:25.200 is that the content is endless and there's never going 0:05:25.240 --> 0:05:26.840 to be an end to it as long as there 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:30.760 are smartphones out there where you can record something and 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:34.200 have it put up in almost instantly. Let me give 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:39.239 you a sense. Crazy haircuts, weird outfits, unusual tattoos, pets. 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:42.600 There's owls and peacocks on there. There's also a lot 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:45.719 of pictures of people who fell asleep in a strange position, 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:49.279 and a lot of people who are drunk on the subway. 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:54.560 It could be subway performers. Uh, people singing. A lot 0:05:54.560 --> 0:05:56.679 of the time, people have earphones in and they're singing 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:59.400 out loud and don't even realize how loud they're being, 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:01.800 and uh, you know, it could be that kind of stuff. 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:05.880 So that's how Rick stumbled into this, you know, front 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:09.640 row seat to internet culture. He's a freelance TV producer, 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:13.000 so his day job is also related to making stuff 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:16.839 people want to watch. I it's it's been awesome, it's 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:20.560 it's honestly, I never actually pictured it to get as 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:22.600 big as it is right now. But in the world 0:06:22.600 --> 0:06:25.920 of social media, he can watch the embarrassing content he 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:33.280 collects bread sometimes with frightening velocity. I've had someone, uh 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:36.039 send me a video while they were on the train 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:40.559 of something. I posted it while that video was going viral. 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:44.000 This person was still sitting across from the person on 0:06:44.080 --> 0:06:47.160 the train, So technically that person could have seen in 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:51.120 real time themselves going viral, which I when when you 0:06:51.120 --> 0:06:52.880 look at the big picture, I think that that is 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:57.120 extremely interesting that that something like that can happen. Nowadays, 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:05.680 Ricks has one of the first things he does in 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:07.800 the morning is checked to see what people have sent 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:12.000 to post on subway creatures. The weirder the better. There's 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:13.880 some reason one of the most popular things that I 0:07:13.920 --> 0:07:17.720 get sent are people bringing very exotic, strange animals onto 0:07:17.800 --> 0:07:20.200 the subway. We had an instance where there was someone 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:23.160 who brought up peacock, another person who brought a lizard, 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:28.920 a lot of snakes. Rick started Subway Features as a website. 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:33.520 In today, Instagram is where he has his biggest audience, 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:37.040 but he continues to update his website too. Rick has 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:40.840 his own rules for what he posts. He rarely features kids, 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:43.720 and he doesn't post images or videos of people he 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:48.160 thinks might be mentally ill or homeless for his website. 0:07:48.280 --> 0:07:51.600 Anything else is fair game. That would be like people 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:56.720 flashing on the subway. Uh, anything that would get pulled down, uh, 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:00.400 because of discretion. Would normally go on the website because 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:03.080 there are no guidelines on the website and it's kind 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:05.360 of the wild West on there. But when he posts 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:09.240 on Instagram, Rick has to be more selective because Instagram 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:14.000 has its own community guidelines that it enforces. Instagram will 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:16.440 send a notification. First, they'll pull it down, and then 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:20.560 they send a notification saying, due to guidelines on Instagram, 0:08:20.600 --> 0:08:23.560 we've now pulled the content down. And basically you get 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:27.440 a warning or a strike against you. Um, just because 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:31.000 if people are repeatedly posting, you know, stuff that's not 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:34.160 supposed to be up there, Uh, the account, the account 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:37.680 gets suspended. That hasn't happened to me. That's why I 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:40.440 try to be very careful with what I post, because 0:08:40.440 --> 0:08:42.760 I don't want to get my account suspended for any reasons. 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:46.479 And even for power users like Rick, it's tricky navigating 0:08:46.520 --> 0:08:49.920 those guidelines. He says he doesn't quite understand the rules. 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:54.000 For example, Instagram's guidelines say that pretty much any kind 0:08:54.000 --> 0:09:01.480 of nudity is banned, but Instagram doesn't catch everything. That's 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:04.000 the subjective aspect of it is that I don't know 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:10.640 what actually constitute something as being too explicit? Obviously, if 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:13.440 there are people having sex on the train, Uh, you'd 0:09:13.480 --> 0:09:16.800 think that that would that would cross a line. However, 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:19.960 I posted a video a couple of months ago of 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:23.120 two Yankee fans coming home from a Yankee game, and 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:26.440 they would appeared to be having sex on the train 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:30.600 that never got pulled down. How Then, and then to 0:09:30.640 --> 0:09:34.240 go to the other extreme, Uh, there were there would 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:37.520 be stuff as far as, uh, maybe a guy wearing 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:40.560 shorts that are a little too short and something's hanging 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:48.840 out that gets pulled down. Or take this example. There 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:52.240 was a video that went viral a couple of weeks ago. 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:55.280 It was from Toronto in the subway and this woman 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:59.200 got into a physical altercation with a man and she 0:09:59.360 --> 0:10:03.320 was splashing mop bucket water at him. So the guy 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:05.319 turned around and picked up the bucket of water and 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:10.680 dumped it over her head. So I I mean it 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:13.840 was a it was a mutual confrontation. She wasn't getting 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:16.120 you know, other than the water going on her. She 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:21.640 wasn't physically being abused. She did have water dumped on her. Uh. 0:10:21.679 --> 0:10:25.720 That was posted went super viral. Um not only my account, 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:29.280 but a number of popular accounts posted it. However, it 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:33.040 was only my page that it got reported and taken down. 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:36.920 Rick says he's still confused about why Instagram didn't just 0:10:37.000 --> 0:10:39.800 block the clip on every account that had shared it. 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:43.240 How come he was singled out. He also said he's 0:10:43.320 --> 0:10:46.560 tried contacting Instagram a few times, but they've basically never 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:51.120 responded to his questions. Now more than ever, Instagram has 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:54.680 been a little too sensitive on policing what goes up 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:58.000 and what and what gets taken down. And I think 0:10:58.000 --> 0:11:02.400 there's a very fine line of uh, policing the content 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:05.520 and censoring, So I don't know where that falls, but 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:07.719 I think that there needs to be a little more 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:11.120 conversation about it. Rick says he acts quickly when people 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:13.400 ask for stuff to be taken down. When he was 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:15.760 talking to our producer Pia, he mentioned the time that 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:19.839 I contacted him, I took it down immediately. There's he 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:22.680 was very uncomfortable with the fact that someone was recording 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:25.280 him on the subway, which I don't blame him, and 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:27.160 he knows there are a lot of people out there 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:31.280 like me, people who love subway creatures. Until one day 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:34.440 they became the ones that were ridiculed on the account. 0:11:35.440 --> 0:11:38.600 So it's it's one of those catch twenty two situations 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:41.360 where I feel like people love the web. They love 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:44.040 the website, they love the page, they love every day 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:48.000 looking at all the crazy stuff that happens in the subway. However, 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:51.679 I think it's a completely different scenario once they are 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:54.559 actually the subject of the video. So you know, it's 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:57.280 it's almost like a love hate relationship with the page. 0:11:58.000 --> 0:12:01.040 Of course, that does not stop Brick from doing what 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:05.080 he does. He clearly loves this. When Po was riding 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:08.400 the train with him, he spotted a potential quote unquote 0:12:08.400 --> 0:12:13.800 creature and got so excited. Yeah. So here we are 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:16.120 at Union Square on the l and there is a 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:21.840 man doing repeted circles dancing to this music. And it's 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:25.640 pretty amazing, to be honest with you, and I wish 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:28.959 I we could film this right now, because this is great. 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:54.120 I'm actually I might have to record this. You might 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:56.960 also think there are rules against people filming each other 0:12:57.000 --> 0:13:00.360 without getting permission first, but you'd be wrong. I spoke 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:03.520 to Albert Gaderry, who's the director of Privacy at Stanford 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:07.160 Center for Internet and Society. Al says there's more than 0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:10.360 a century of case law on Rick's side, because the 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:14.880 people being filmed are in a public space. In when 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:19.959 Justice Brandeis in the US wrote his seminal piece on privacy, 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:24.560 he said, what happens in public is public. And that 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:27.880 video of you, Adam that made it onto subway creatures, 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:30.880 that was taken when you were in a public space. Yeah, 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:33.400 I was just on the subway in London looking like 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:37.720 an idiot. So Rick was never legally obligated to delete 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:41.360 that video of you, even though he agreed to do it. Anyway, 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:46.520 you implicitly consent to be seen, and if someone takes 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:49.480 your photograph, you've assumed the risk that that will happen. 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:54.359 Now in a world where everybody is a videographer, everybody 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:59.559 is a photographer, everybody is a publisher. Um, those notions 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:05.360 of of of being obscure in the crowd, the notion 0:14:05.480 --> 0:14:09.480 of a right to have a nanimity to have a 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:14.839 different uh circle around you, of privacy in your residential 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:18.200 neighborhood versus in a shopping mall, in a stadium where 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:22.000 a football game is going are all under rethinking today. 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:24.640 Of course, we saw this play out just a couple 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:27.320 of months ago when some of the white nationalists who 0:14:27.320 --> 0:14:31.080 are marching in Charlottesville were identified with their full names 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:34.520 and even their employers. Some people said it wasn't right 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:38.000 to be naming these individuals who were exercising their right 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:41.200 to free speech, and other people were like, well, they 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:43.800 were in public, they should have known that there'd be 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:59.080 a good chance they get out. In the broader context 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:02.400 here is that social media companies are facing increasing pressure 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:07.000 to act against objectionable material. We've entered a world where 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:09.680 everything that can be collected will be collected in the 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:12.200 public domain, and the question is what do we do 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:15.400 with that, and how do we accept the consequences of 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:19.600 that if we do, or do we regulate it. Until now, 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:22.800 social networks like Facebook and Twitter have insisted that it's 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:25.920 not their job to be policing what people say. They're 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:32.960 just the platforms with intermediary liability or lack thereof. The 0:15:33.040 --> 0:15:38.640 platforms are not responsible for user generated content. It's impossible 0:15:38.720 --> 0:15:42.480 for them to review every image and decide is this 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:46.760 a news report or is it an offensive or or 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:53.280 embarrassing newsreel about somebody's personal life. But governments around the 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:55.920 world are making it harder for these companies to just 0:15:56.000 --> 0:15:59.360 stay out of it. In Europe, Germany has called on 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:02.880 Facebook to help stamp out hate speech on its platform, 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:06.280 and Twitter has said it's the leaded hundreds of thousands 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:11.680 of accounts to combat extremism. And as we covered in 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:15.920 last week's episode of the show, Shameless Plug, Facebook, Google, 0:16:16.000 --> 0:16:19.000 and Twitter are now facing a lot of scrutiny over 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:21.520 why they didn't do more to stop Russia from spreading 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:24.880 misinformation on their platforms. Great episode, by the way, but 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:28.080 Albert also talked about the dangers of having our internet 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:31.680 companies more actively police their platforms. Do we want to 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:35.000 give them that power? This is such a hard question 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:40.160 because one person's fake news is another person's stolen belief, 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:45.040 and it's really hard to ask an intermediary to become 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:48.800 whether it be the government, or become a platform, to 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:56.040 become the arbiter of what's true and not true. There 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:58.680 was another person I talked to about this, someone with 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:01.480 a lot of experience to ending people whose privacy was 0:17:01.520 --> 0:17:06.000 invaded on the Internet. My name is Erica Johnstone and 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:10.560 I'm a lawyer in San Francisco. I specialize in privacy law. 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:17.680 I specialized in representing victims of revenge porn. Revenge porn, 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:21.240 by the way, is the sharing of sexually explicit material 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:25.359 online without that person's consent. For example, think of a 0:17:25.400 --> 0:17:29.040 guy who decides to publicly post nude photos of his 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:31.360 ex girlfriend as a way to get back at her 0:17:31.400 --> 0:17:34.200 for breaking up with him. So Erica spends a lot 0:17:34.240 --> 0:17:37.000 of time thinking about what's probably some of the worst 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:40.359 possible invasions of privacy that could ever happen to a person. 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:44.640 If digital privacy invasion is on a scale my experiences 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:47.760 on one end and the kind of victims she represents, 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:50.439 or on the other. I told her about what happened 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:53.639 to me on Subway Creatures. What was interesting to me 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:56.200 about your story was that you did follow the feed, 0:17:56.720 --> 0:18:00.919 and I wonder if you could explain why you followed 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:03.840 the fee to start and if that changed at all 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:06.920 once you yourself were featured on it. I had been 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:11.040 turned onto the feed just by a friend and as 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:16.000 something to kind of follow as a laugh, and I 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:19.320 had turned my sister onto it, and then after this 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:24.800 happened to me, I immediately stopped following it. And you know, 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:27.439 if my sister was saying to me afterwards, she was 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:29.919 giving me a hard time. She's saying the watcher doesn't 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:33.600 like to be watched. She put you on the spot. 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:36.560 She did, but she was right, And I wish that 0:18:36.680 --> 0:18:43.240 everyone could have that experience without necessarily being the person watched, right, 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:47.280 because we all change our behavior when we think that 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:50.399 could be me. Then we suddenly shut it down and 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:54.359 we feel differently about the idea of following this feed. 0:18:55.160 --> 0:18:58.880 So maybe if more people got caught doing mildly embarrassing 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:02.879 things on so weakre jers, they think twice before consuming 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:06.920 this kind of content. So Monica Lewinsky has this really 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:11.119 great TED talk on the price of shame, and my 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:14.760 favorite line from this is that the invasions of others 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:20.280 as a raw material, raw material efficiently and ruthlessly mind 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:25.840 packaged and sold at a profit. A marketplace has emerged 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:31.600 where public humiliation is a commodity and shame is an industry. 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:39.280 How is the money made? Clicks? The more shame, the 0:19:39.320 --> 0:19:46.160 more clicks, the more clicks, the more advertising dollars. All 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:50.359 of these platforms and websites. What they're fighting over is 0:19:50.400 --> 0:19:56.520 our attention. And if we collectively stopped going to those websites, 0:19:56.600 --> 0:19:59.080 then it would dry up the supply for them, and 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:02.240 they wouldn't be able to use our attention as their 0:20:02.320 --> 0:20:05.520 commodity that they make money off of. And so I 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:09.680 think that, like when we talk about resistance, like how 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:13.520 do we resist this definition of the moment we step 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:16.359 out of the house, everything is fair game. We start 0:20:16.400 --> 0:20:19.240 by averting our eyes, We start by being the ones 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:23.800 to not go to those websites. It's worth noting that 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:27.760 Rick isn't currently making any money from subway creatures. He's 0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:31.280 thought about it before and even had some brands approach him, 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:34.480 like Adam and Eve, who sells sex toys. But Rick 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:38.439 says he's really anti advertising, and so he's still thinking 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:41.200 of ways he could present a message to his followers 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:54.159 they wouldn't feel like he's pushing ads at them. So 0:20:54.200 --> 0:20:57.760 adding some powerful words from the lawyer Erica there and 0:20:57.800 --> 0:21:01.440 some personal lessons for you, Yes, lesson number one, don't 0:21:01.480 --> 0:21:05.840 look weird on the subway noted and number two I 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:09.479 just it gave me some new empathy for people who 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:12.880 you see stuff posted about on the Internet. There's other 0:21:12.920 --> 0:21:16.879 accounts in addition to Rick where you see stuff posted 0:21:16.920 --> 0:21:20.600 from people unsuspectingly, and it gave me a new appreciation 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:24.480 of just how creepy that is, you know, did your 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:28.240 sister stop following subway creatures on Instagram? She did not. 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:31.440 She still follows it. But she'd tell me something interesting, 0:21:31.560 --> 0:21:34.480 which is that people are now posting more pictures on 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:39.160 there with emojis over people's faces. So adding a touch 0:21:39.440 --> 0:21:43.240 of privacy to those people who are also being a 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:47.560 bit ridiculed and just saying so like a proactive measure there, Yes, 0:21:47.680 --> 0:21:50.040 just a little pat on the back as he send 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:54.680 you into the humiliation world, you know, thinking about this. Clearly, 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:58.960 Kevin's systrum didn't create Instagram so that strangers would laugh 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:02.439 at you, add I'm furiously texting on your phone. No, 0:22:02.640 --> 0:22:04.880 but that's the sort of bigger point here, is that 0:22:05.000 --> 0:22:08.679 these platforms have gotten so big that they take on 0:22:08.720 --> 0:22:11.680 a life of their own. And what can the companies 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:15.160 do to rein that in or if they should even try. Yeah, 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:18.280 it becomes a free for all. Right, it must mean 0:22:18.359 --> 0:22:21.000 you have to create at least some rules. Yeah, But 0:22:21.080 --> 0:22:24.520 like the digital privacy expert al from Stanford said, we 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:27.320 have two questions. Answer is that the job of the 0:22:27.359 --> 0:22:30.440 social network to be policing what we post and see online. 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:34.520 And also if it really did happen and other people 0:22:34.560 --> 0:22:37.760 really did see it. In today's digital world, do we 0:22:37.840 --> 0:22:40.240 really have the right to expect that that material will 0:22:40.240 --> 0:22:43.000 stay private? In my case, I got kind of lucky 0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:46.119 because Rick deleted it really fast and now it's gone 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:49.400 from the Internet. But for a lot of people it's not. 0:22:50.320 --> 0:22:54.320 So we can't look to the platforms to police uh 0:22:54.520 --> 0:22:58.880 these sorts of things. Well, the question is whether anybody 0:22:58.920 --> 0:23:05.320 should right. I think the the image that's taken in 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:10.439 a public place maybe embarrassing, but as it false, it 0:23:10.640 --> 0:23:15.240 is a footnote in history, if you will, so it's 0:23:15.240 --> 0:23:37.600 not like it is a fabrication. And that's it for 0:23:37.680 --> 0:23:41.159 this week's episode of Decrypted. Thanks for listening. Do you 0:23:41.240 --> 0:23:44.480 have a story like this where you were affected, Send 0:23:44.560 --> 0:23:48.159 us an email at Decrypted at Bloomberg dot net, or 0:23:48.240 --> 0:23:51.040 you can reach out to us on Twitter. I'm at 0:23:51.119 --> 0:23:55.120 Satriano and I'm at aki Eto seven. If you haven't already, 0:23:55.240 --> 0:23:58.800 please subscribe to our show wherever you get your podcasts, 0:23:59.200 --> 0:24:01.280 and why you're there. I really do hope you take 0:24:01.320 --> 0:24:03.640 a minute to leave us a rating and a review. 0:24:04.040 --> 0:24:06.000 This does so much to get us in front of 0:24:06.000 --> 0:24:10.320 more listeners. And check out our email newsletter fully Charged, 0:24:10.800 --> 0:24:14.720 where we recreated the video of me on the subway. 0:24:15.440 --> 0:24:19.520 This episode was produced by Pia Getkari, Liz Smith, and 0:24:19.560 --> 0:24:22.080 Magnus Hendrickson. We'll see you next week.