Speaker 1: Just a heads up. This episode talks about school shootings, harassment,
Speaker 1: and violence. When we failed to create the expectation of
Speaker 1: safety for women and girls on social media, and when
Speaker 1: we failed to meaningfully listen to them when they speak
Speaker 1: up about what they're experiencing online, we make everyone, all
Speaker 1: of us less safe and more at risk. There are
Speaker 1: No Girls on the Internet. As a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridget Todd, and this
Speaker 1: is there Are No Girls on the Internet. So this
Speaker 1: is gonna be a little bit of a different kind
Speaker 1: of episode because frankly, I am in a little bit
Speaker 1: of a different kind of headspace here in the United States.
Speaker 1: We have had a last few weeks of news that
Speaker 1: was just brutal. You know, we were just processing a
Speaker 1: pretty intense series of racially motivated shootings in Buffalo in California,
Speaker 1: and last week another shooting, this time in Texas, where
Speaker 1: twenty one people, mostly kids at an elementary school, were shot.
Speaker 1: And you know, I had a situation where I thought
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to talk about this shooting on the
Speaker 1: podcast because it was just too much and too dark,
Speaker 1: and frankly, I just really felt like I couldn't. But
Speaker 1: over the weekend, news broke that really shed some light
Speaker 1: into the online behavior of the perpetrator of this shooting.
Speaker 1: And I think it is critically important to just talk
Speaker 1: to y'all because it really underscores the drum I have
Speaker 1: been beating on this podcast for a very long time,
Speaker 1: and that is we are ignoring women and girls when
Speaker 1: they speak up and share experiences of harassment and violent
Speaker 1: threats online. We are telling them it doesn't matter. We're
Speaker 1: acting like it doesn't matter, and we're all becoming less
Speaker 1: safe because of it. So some of y'all might not
Speaker 1: know this, but I first got the idea for there
Speaker 1: are no Girls on the Internet while covering the Marjorie
Speaker 1: Douglas school shooting. For this podcasts be called stuff, but
Speaker 1: I've never told you back. So, in that shooting, the gunman,
Speaker 1: who was then nineteen year old Nicholas Cruise, shot and
Speaker 1: killed seventeen of his classmates, and according to people who
Speaker 1: knew him, nobody was surprised to find this out, Like
Speaker 1: he was the kind of student where nobody was surprised
Speaker 1: that he would do this kind of thing, And he
Speaker 1: actually left a digital paper trail full of online abuse violence, racism,
Speaker 1: and harassment. According to see an n on social media,
Speaker 1: he hurled racial slurs at black folks, Muslims, and according
Speaker 1: to the Anti Defamation League, he had ties to white
Speaker 1: supremacists and he said pretty openly online that he planned
Speaker 1: to shoot people with an a R fifteen. He also
Speaker 1: harassed young women and girls in his life digitally. The
Speaker 1: Miami Herald reported that Nicholas Cruz harassed a young girl
Speaker 1: who lived near his work, obsessively texting her and calling
Speaker 1: her NonStop in the week leading up to the shooting.
Speaker 1: The girl was also referenced in a video that he
Speaker 1: made on his phone right before the shooting. He said
Speaker 1: my love for you will never go away, topping off
Speaker 1: a droning speach about loneliness, anger and isolation, saying I
Speaker 1: hope to see you in the afterlife now. This girl
Speaker 1: reported that she was afraid of him and did not
Speaker 1: reciprocate those feelings. So, you know, I got to thinking
Speaker 1: that oftentimes we have these big national instances of mass violence,
Speaker 1: and they have things like misogyny at the heart of them,
Speaker 1: and it is really important that that not go overlooked.
Speaker 1: And I remember researching the shooting and thinking what would
Speaker 1: it look like if we had a culture that actually
Speaker 1: takes the kinds of online harassment against women and girls
Speaker 1: like this seriously? What would it look like if it
Speaker 1: wasn't just treated as you know, boys being boys online
Speaker 1: or jokes or something like that, but rather what if
Speaker 1: we treated this kind of thing as a serious red
Speaker 1: flag that everybody should be concerned about, because it is
Speaker 1: a red flag. So the data is super clear that
Speaker 1: perpetrators of mass shootings in modern America overwhelmingly have a
Speaker 1: history of domestic abuse or misogynistic behavior. And we see
Speaker 1: this again and again and again. You know, for instance,
Speaker 1: men like Gerard Ramos, who repeatedly threatened his former school
Speaker 1: classmates over both email and social media, to the point
Speaker 1: where one of his targets actually moved because she felt
Speaker 1: so unsafe. He would also use Twitter to attack journalists
Speaker 1: at the Capital Gazette over an article that they wrote
Speaker 1: covering criminal proceedings against him, as well as the judge
Speaker 1: presiding over that case. And this campaign of online harassment
Speaker 1: eventually led to a deadly shooting in Annapolis, Maryland that
Speaker 1: left five people at the Capital Gazette dead. Or men
Speaker 1: like Elliott Roger who uploaded several YouTube videos of railing
Speaker 1: against women and girls before an attack that would leave
Speaker 1: six people dead. And according to the International Center of
Speaker 1: Research on Women, while we know that many perpetrators of
Speaker 1: mass violence have a history of violence against women, it
Speaker 1: is also becoming increasingly clear that online gender based violence
Speaker 1: specifically is a precursor to violence carried out offline. And
Speaker 1: that's really the problem. Having a culture that doesn't treat
Speaker 1: online harassment and violence and threat against women and girls
Speaker 1: as serious and not actually listening to us and we
Speaker 1: speak up is dangerous, and especially as all of us,
Speaker 1: especially younger people, are showing up more and more on
Speaker 1: online spaces, what happens in those spaces really matters, both
Speaker 1: online and off I am so sick of women and
Speaker 1: girls being a canary in the coal mine about violent acts.
Speaker 1: And I'm sick of hearing this story again and again
Speaker 1: and again, where if only somebody had listened to women
Speaker 1: or taken the online harassment and threats against them seriously,
Speaker 1: maybe things would be different. Sources ABC News. The gunman
Speaker 1: was inside the school for seventy seven gut wrenching minutes
Speaker 1: before a tactical team defied local authorities and entered the school.
Speaker 1: So by now you've heard of the latest tragedy in Uvaldi, Texas,
Speaker 1: where Salvador Promotes entered an elementary school and went on
Speaker 1: a rampage that left twenty one people dead. So we
Speaker 1: are rightly having a big conversation about the police response
Speaker 1: to this shooting. You know, why they didn't enter the
Speaker 1: school and stop him sooner, and why they didn't respond
Speaker 1: as these children begged for help. But another emerging narrative
Speaker 1: also asked a compelling question, why didn't anybody respond when
Speaker 1: people on social media reported the shooters violent, harassing, misogynistic
Speaker 1: and dangerous social media posts before the shooting. Why were
Speaker 1: they not taken seriously? And what might be different if
Speaker 1: they had been now? In new reporting from the Washington Post,
Speaker 1: women and girls report that Remote repeatedly threatened and harassed
Speaker 1: them on social media. For these women rarely reported him
Speaker 1: because the threats seemed really vague. But one team who
Speaker 1: reported Remote on the social media app you bow said
Speaker 1: that even after he reported him, nothing happened. A sixteen
Speaker 1: year old boy in Austin said that he regularly saw
Speaker 1: Remote on panels on the social networking app you bow,
Speaker 1: and he said that he frequently made aggressive sexual comments
Speaker 1: to young women and sent him a death threat in January.
Speaker 1: Here's what he had to say. I witnessed him harassed
Speaker 1: girls and threatened them with sexual assault like rape and kidnapping.
Speaker 1: It was not like a single occurrence, it was frequent.
Speaker 1: He said. He and his friends were corded in the
Speaker 1: most account to you but for bullying and other infractions
Speaker 1: dozens of times, and he says he never heard back
Speaker 1: and his account remained active. But it's also worth pointing
Speaker 1: out that it really seems like the threats that he
Speaker 1: made online didn't really stand out as anything notable or
Speaker 1: out of the ordinary, because it's kind of just how
Speaker 1: people expect the internet to be for women and girls,
Speaker 1: and this reveals a real danger and how our culture
Speaker 1: minimizes what happens to women and girls on social media platforms. Basically,
Speaker 1: we're told that this is just how it is on
Speaker 1: the Internet. Let's take a quick break out our back.
Speaker 1: We have completely normalized online violence and threats and harassment
Speaker 1: to the point of it just being the cost of
Speaker 1: being a woman on the internet. Women and girls are
Speaker 1: not able to show up online with the expect page
Speaker 1: of safety, care and respect. So the Washington Post goes
Speaker 1: on to say that many suspected that this was just
Speaker 1: how teen boys talked on the internet these days, a
Speaker 1: blend of rage and misogyny so predictable they could barely
Speaker 1: tell each one apart. One girl the Post reports, discussing
Speaker 1: moments where remote had been creepy and threatening to her,
Speaker 1: said quote, this is just how online is, and it
Speaker 1: breaks my heart to say that that is kind of accurate.
Speaker 1: Research Center study found that experiences like harassment, violent threats,
Speaker 1: and the like are really common for young people, with
Speaker 1: about two thirds of adults under thirty reporting that they've
Speaker 1: experienced that kind of harassment of women under say they've
Speaker 1: been sexually harassed online. They spoke to Daniel K. Citrone,
Speaker 1: a law professor at the University of Virginia, who said
Speaker 1: that women and girls often don't report threats of rape
Speaker 1: to law enforcement or trusted adults because they've just been
Speaker 1: socialized to feel that they do not deserve safety and
Speaker 1: privacy online, or if they do report it, they don't
Speaker 1: feel that anything will be done because people don't take
Speaker 1: it seriously. And I really get that, you know, what
Speaker 1: will be the point about talking about this kind of
Speaker 1: thing or reporting it if people are just going to
Speaker 1: ignore you or not take it seriously, or you've just
Speaker 1: been socialized that receiving violent harassment and threats is a
Speaker 1: normal part of you going online because you're a woman
Speaker 1: or a girl, and that shouldn't you just get used
Speaker 1: to it. So I know a little bit about this firsthand.
Speaker 1: Quite a few years ago, I was on the receiving
Speaker 1: end of some pretty nasty online harassment, and you know,
Speaker 1: I had that same kind of mentality that this is
Speaker 1: just the cost for being a woman who shows up
Speaker 1: online to express herself and express for opinion. And I
Speaker 1: really compartmentalized it. I didn't report it. I just sort
Speaker 1: of moved on with my life and I just thought
Speaker 1: this was how I had to show up. I had
Speaker 1: to get used to this. If I was going to
Speaker 1: show up online as a woman was something to say.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't until the threats got really specific and
Speaker 1: scary that this changed me. So. I used to live
Speaker 1: right next door to a bar in my city in
Speaker 1: d C, and this was kind of my hangout spot,
Speaker 1: and I posted a lot on social media about how
Speaker 1: I was always at this bar and how I was
Speaker 1: so lucky to live so close to it, and one day,
Speaker 1: this person who had been harassing me for weeks set
Speaker 1: me a screenshot from Google Maps showing my apartment next
Speaker 1: to this bar. He obviously used the information that I
Speaker 1: put out to do to do this um telling me
Speaker 1: he was coming for me. And this really was a
Speaker 1: little bit different for me. Right. I had gone from
Speaker 1: all of these unspecific, kind of vague threats that I
Speaker 1: could kind of compartmentalize and file the way and not
Speaker 1: think of them as a direct threat. But here was
Speaker 1: someone making a show of telling me that he knew
Speaker 1: exactly where I lived, right essentially a screenshot of my
Speaker 1: bedroom window, And it was really scary. This was a
Speaker 1: new thing. So I contacted law enforcement, and a law
Speaker 1: enforcement official came to my home and we talked about it,
Speaker 1: and essentially the advice that he gave me was that
Speaker 1: I should delete my social media profiles and that I
Speaker 1: should not go online, and that then the harassment would stop.
Speaker 1: There was no need to take any kind of action
Speaker 1: in real life, that this was just an online thing
Speaker 1: that could be solved by shutting my laptop. And you know,
Speaker 1: I found that response to be so frustrating for a
Speaker 1: lot of reasons. First of all, telling me that I
Speaker 1: should delete my social media profiles and just not show
Speaker 1: up online at that point in my career and in
Speaker 1: my life, was essentially telling me to get a new career.
Speaker 1: You know, at the time, I was trying to be
Speaker 1: a journalist, a reporter, somebody who had a public opinion
Speaker 1: the same way that I do on my podcast now,
Speaker 1: and so telling me that I just needed to shut
Speaker 1: all of that down if I wanted these these threats
Speaker 1: to stop, was essentially telling me that I need to
Speaker 1: get a new career. And that didn't seem fair, right.
Speaker 1: It made it seem like that was just the cost
Speaker 1: of being a woman online and if I didn't like it,
Speaker 1: I could log off. And it also underscored this really
Speaker 1: kind of backward way of thinking that suggests that what
Speaker 1: happens to us online has nothing to do with what
Speaker 1: happens to us in the real world. You know that
Speaker 1: all I had to do was shut my laptop and
Speaker 1: my problem will be solved. And we know that's not true.
Speaker 1: We know that what happens online bleeds into what happens
Speaker 1: offline and vice versa. You know, these worlds that used
Speaker 1: to think of as a buyin area are increasingly blurred,
Speaker 1: especially for younger people. And this fifty year old white
Speaker 1: man who was investigating this threat against me barely understood that,
Speaker 1: let alone took it seriously. And I'm actually glad that
Speaker 1: we're in a place where I think we're starting to
Speaker 1: have a shared understanding that the real world and the
Speaker 1: online world are one and the same, because that's the
Speaker 1: way it is, and that should really come with normalizing
Speaker 1: safer experiences for all of us online, because when we
Speaker 1: fail to create the expectation of safety for women and
Speaker 1: girls on social media, and when we failed to meaningfully
Speaker 1: listen to them when they speak up about what they're
Speaker 1: experiencing online, we make everyone, all of us less safe
Speaker 1: and more at risk. You know, we create us at
Speaker 1: suation where red flags go missed and perpetrators like Elliott
Speaker 1: Roger and Salvador are remots are left to do more harm.
Speaker 1: And this does not just have to be the way
Speaker 1: it is for women and girls online. We deserve to
Speaker 1: show up with safety and respect online, and we deserve
Speaker 1: for that to be a normalized cultural expectation, because when
Speaker 1: it isn't, we are all at risk. Last weekend, protesters
Speaker 1: pleaded with President Biden to do something about guns in
Speaker 1: this country, and it is so frustrating that we have
Speaker 1: to scream and plead for our safety and the safety
Speaker 1: of our children. I want meaningful action to address the
Speaker 1: bread that guns post to our kids in this country.
Speaker 1: And I also want to create a culture where our
Speaker 1: kids can expect better, where they know what they speak
Speaker 1: up about facing violent threats online, someone will listen and
Speaker 1: take it seriously because our safety depends on it. Got
Speaker 1: a story about an interesting thing in tech, or just
Speaker 1: want to say hi. You can reach us at Hello
Speaker 1: at tang godi dot com. You can also find transcripts
Speaker 1: for today's episode at tang godi dot com. There Are
Speaker 1: No Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget Tod.
Speaker 1: It's a production of iHeart Radio and Unboss creative Jonathan
Speaker 1: Strickland as our executive producer. Terry Harrison is our producer
Speaker 1: and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow,
Speaker 1: rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeart Radio, check out the iHeart Radio app, Apple
Speaker 1: podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.