Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Toad and this
Speaker 1: is there are No Girls on the Internet. We need
Speaker 1: to have another conversation about door Dash Lady real name
Speaker 1: Olivia Henderson, a twenty three year old door dash delivery
Speaker 1: driver from Oswego, New York, who at the viral back
Speaker 1: in October of twenty twenty five after delivering an order
Speaker 1: to a customer that she says she found asleep on
Speaker 1: his couch, pants around his ankles exposed when she dropped
Speaker 1: off the order. So Olivia took a video, posted it
Speaker 1: to TikTok with the tag me too, and almost thirty
Speaker 1: million people watched it. Olivia's story kind of became an
Speaker 1: ink blot test for the Internet. What you saw in
Speaker 1: her story said a lot about what you already believed
Speaker 1: going into it. When I initially covered Olivia's story, I
Speaker 1: really tried to lead with empathy, which I would one
Speaker 1: hundred percent stand by. But there's also an update. So
Speaker 1: here's where things stand now. So this week, Olivia was
Speaker 1: indicted on two felony charges for recording that customer inside
Speaker 1: his home without its consent and posting it publicly. A
Speaker 1: grand jury reviewed the evidence and move forward with the charges.
Speaker 1: Olivia pled not guilty and faces up to eight years
Speaker 1: in prison. Her next court date is June fifth, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to revisit our initial conversation about what happened
Speaker 1: from twenty twenty five because I still feel like it
Speaker 1: really matters, but also wanted to make sure that you'll
Speaker 1: have the full picture before we get into it. So
Speaker 1: we all know. The Internet loves a viral story. It
Speaker 1: loves outrage, suspense, villains, and drama, all of it. But
Speaker 1: what happens when the story is about a real woman
Speaker 1: who says that she has been the victim of a
Speaker 1: sex crime and the platforms that ostensibly should be protecting
Speaker 1: her punish her instead. That is what happened to this
Speaker 1: woman called Livy, a door dash driver in New York
Speaker 1: State whose story recently went viral on TikTok. I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about this on the News Roundup, but honestly,
Speaker 1: I had so much to say about it that I
Speaker 1: thought this needs to be its own episode because I
Speaker 1: think it shows us so much about where we're at
Speaker 1: right now when it comes to the state of women
Speaker 1: speaking up online. Mike when we were talking about potentially
Speaker 1: doing an episode about this situation. In the beginning, when
Speaker 1: I first started researching it, I was just curious about
Speaker 1: this story. I was seeing this story all over my
Speaker 1: TikTok feed and I wanted to understand it better. But
Speaker 1: by the end of putting together my research and really
Speaker 1: doing a deep dive into what's going on here, I
Speaker 1: went from curious to pissed off and also quite worried
Speaker 1: about what this situation means for all of us. So
Speaker 1: I'm going to get into the logistics of what's going
Speaker 1: on here with this viral door dash story on TikTok,
Speaker 1: how AI is fueling how we got to this place
Speaker 1: and what it all means.
Speaker 2: Because it seems like a complicated story, an interesting one,
Speaker 2: I think, a good one for you to tell.
Speaker 1: In some ways it is complicated, but in other ways
Speaker 1: it's very uncomplicated tale as old as time, the most
Speaker 1: simple story that we all recognize and understand. It's sort
Speaker 1: of both of those things at once. So here's what's
Speaker 1: going on. On October twelfth, a woman called Livy, who
Speaker 1: does door dash for a living, made a TikTok explaining
Speaker 1: that she got an order on DoorDash from a customer
Speaker 1: who asked her to leave the order on the porch outside.
Speaker 1: When she got to the customer's home, she says that
Speaker 1: she walks up the stairs to the porch and saw
Speaker 1: the door partially open, and inside was the customer laying
Speaker 1: across the sofa, supposedly asleep, laying motionless with his face
Speaker 1: covered and his pants and underwear dad about his ankles
Speaker 1: exposed from the waist down. I should explain some logistics
Speaker 1: here that the way that the door in the couch
Speaker 1: is situated, there is no way that anybody walking up
Speaker 1: on this porch, like the door dasher that you sum
Speaker 1: into your home, would not see somebody laying on the
Speaker 1: couch from where the couch is positioned. The couch that
Speaker 1: he was on is right across from the door facing it.
Speaker 1: Like if somebody was standing on the porch and the
Speaker 1: door was open somebody sitting on the couch, you would
Speaker 1: see each other directly. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: It does? Yeah, And we'll link to the video in
Speaker 2: the show notes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this episode will include some visual things. I will
Speaker 1: do my best to explain them, but this is not
Speaker 1: a video podcast, so we will put the links to
Speaker 1: the things that you need to see, but I'll make
Speaker 1: it clear what's going on even if you don't do that.
Speaker 1: So Livy's version of what I just explained is illustrated
Speaker 1: in a TikTok that she made and posted that shows
Speaker 1: her standing outside of this porch with the door open,
Speaker 1: with this man exposing himself in full view. Here's what
Speaker 1: Livy said intor TikTok.
Speaker 3: The customer who committed a crime against me requested.
Speaker 4: That their order be left at their front door, and
Speaker 4: when I arrived to their house, their front door was open.
Speaker 4: It was fifty nine degrees fahrenheit, all of their lights
Speaker 4: were on, and they were sleeping on the couch within
Speaker 4: eyesight of the front door, with their pants and underwear
Speaker 4: pulled down to their ankles. This person's name is Austin
Speaker 4: and their last initial is N.
Speaker 3: I reported this to DoorDash and the police, and DoorDash
Speaker 3: luckily banned the customer, but the police are doing nothing.
Speaker 3: I also posted the video that I have of the
Speaker 3: proof to TikTok, and after a day and a half
Speaker 3: of it going completely viral, TikTok took down the video
Speaker 3: for suggestive content.
Speaker 5: And gave my account a strike they've also.
Speaker 3: Denied my appeal to have it reinstated.
Speaker 5: I'm absolutely reposting the video again, but with a little
Speaker 5: sensor blur so it can't be removed for the same reason,
Speaker 5: because this is literally the only justice I'm getting in
Speaker 5: the wake of my victimhood. The police are doing nothing
Speaker 5: to prevent or stop this man from doing it again,
Speaker 5: and they're not doing anything to punish him for already
Speaker 5: having done it. So if the only justice I'm going
Speaker 5: to get.
Speaker 4: Is the fact that he's banned off the platform and
Speaker 4: that video went viral and now he can live with
Speaker 4: that shame and embarrassment.
Speaker 6: Then that's what it's going to have to be.
Speaker 1: So TikTok keep this video up. So Lidy says that
Speaker 1: she reported this man to DoorDash, and DoorDash kicks the
Speaker 1: man off of the platform, but they also kicked her
Speaker 1: off the platform too, essentially blocking her from being able
Speaker 1: to make money, and she says that DoorDash is her
Speaker 1: only source of income.
Speaker 7: Hey guys, so DoorDash just deactivated me two days after
Speaker 7: I reported my sexual assault. Hey guys, I just lost
Speaker 7: my job and they won't tell me why. They're supposed
Speaker 7: to send an email immediately after deactivation, providing you the
Speaker 7: reason why and a link to appeal, and they didn't.
Speaker 7: So I contacted support and they made me sit on
Speaker 7: the phone with them for fifty minutes just to tell
Speaker 7: me that they can't tell me the reason why and
Speaker 7: I have to just go ahead and appeal without knowing why,
Speaker 7: so my chances of getting my account back. They have
Speaker 7: my money in that account. I was working, I was
Speaker 7: literally working, and they deactivated me.
Speaker 1: This is not this is related.
Speaker 7: They just punished me for posting about my sexual assault
Speaker 7: while doordashing they just fired me, and the police are
Speaker 7: doing nothing.
Speaker 1: I lost my job in the pool.
Speaker 2: That was my only way to make money to pay
Speaker 2: my bills.
Speaker 1: Initially, Liddy said that DoorDash never even told her why
Speaker 1: they kicked her off the platform, though she does say
Speaker 1: that she feels that it's connected to the TikTok that
Speaker 1: she made about this man, which yeah it is. Doordasher
Speaker 1: put out a statement explaining why they kicked her off
Speaker 1: the platform. Livy says they made this statement without ever
Speaker 1: actually talking to her directly about why they deactivated her ACCU.
Speaker 1: She says that when the general public found out why
Speaker 1: she was deactivated from being on DoorDash is the same
Speaker 1: time that she found out why she was deactivated. They
Speaker 1: never talked to her this put out this statement. Here's
Speaker 1: what DoorDash said. No one should ever have to experience
Speaker 1: sexual assault, harassment, or abuse, and DoorDash never deactivates someone
Speaker 1: for reporting it, full stop. We take these reports incredibly
Speaker 1: seriously and work closely with law enforcement to investigate and
Speaker 1: support those affected. However, posting a video of a customer
Speaker 1: in their home and disclosing their personal details publicly is
Speaker 1: a clear violation of our policies. That is the sole
Speaker 1: reason why this dasher's account was deactivated along with the
Speaker 1: customers while we investigated. DoorDash also told Newsweek that they're
Speaker 1: investigating to make sure that Livy gets whatever full payments
Speaker 1: she's owed from the work she had done from DoorDash,
Speaker 1: because she had not been able to cash out before
Speaker 1: her account was deactivated. Though I have no idea if
Speaker 1: they're going to make good on this, it's just what
Speaker 1: they said in their statement, So DoorDash is basically saying,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, we didn't deactivate Livy's account because she
Speaker 1: reported a sex crime. We deactivated her account because she
Speaker 1: posted a video of a DoorDash customer. I'll say it
Speaker 1: would have been nice if DoorDash told Livy this directly
Speaker 1: rather than simply deactivating her account with money in it.
Speaker 1: But as we'll talk about in a moment, the whole
Speaker 1: dynamic of gig work is that companies like door dash
Speaker 1: don't really have to do shit because they don't have employees,
Speaker 1: they have contractors. And so I get where Livy is
Speaker 1: coming from, but that is sort of the nature of
Speaker 1: the beast here. So a big question that is coming
Speaker 1: up online is whether or not Livy should have made
Speaker 1: this video in the first place. Livy says that she
Speaker 1: had wanted video evidence of what happened, and I will say,
Speaker 1: had she come to the Internet without video evidence of
Speaker 1: what she says happened, I'm sure the conversation would have
Speaker 1: been entirely different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know, there's something about this story that
Speaker 2: really makes one want to, like, I don't know, like
Speaker 2: like way in or like pulls you in to want
Speaker 2: to say, like what she you know, was she and
Speaker 2: the ry? Was she in the wrong? Should she have
Speaker 2: done this or that? Or something about the story really
Speaker 2: pulls a person in, I think, and I think you're
Speaker 2: totally right that without that video, it's hard to even
Speaker 2: that there would even be any story there beyond you know,
Speaker 2: just what she's going through.
Speaker 1: Exactly, And a lot of people are saying, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have an issue with what she did if
Speaker 1: she just sent that video directly to DoorDash and left
Speaker 1: it at that, Like why did she have to post
Speaker 1: as to TikTok and I get that. Livy says that
Speaker 1: she called the non emergency police line to report this
Speaker 1: to the police. After she reported it to DoorDash, she
Speaker 1: says a police officer actually came out to speak with
Speaker 1: her about what she wanted to do. She said that
Speaker 1: she wanted to press charges if possible, to make sure
Speaker 1: that this guy was not able to do this to
Speaker 1: another person. In one of her videos, she actually points
Speaker 1: out that this guy lives in a duplex, and she says,
Speaker 1: what if there had been a kid out on the
Speaker 1: porch on the other shared unit, And so she said
Speaker 1: that she wanted to report this to the police just
Speaker 1: to make sure that this wasn't going to be a
Speaker 1: recurring thing with this guy. But she says the police
Speaker 1: told her that she couldn't really press charges in this state.
Speaker 1: Because this man was in his own house and that
Speaker 1: it wasn't like he got up to lunge toward her
Speaker 1: or anything like that. So Livy says that she posted
Speaker 1: it because the police essentially weren't doing anything about it,
Speaker 1: weren't taking it seriously. But her posting that video to
Speaker 1: TikTok is what DoorDash says is the reason for her
Speaker 1: being deactivated from the platform. Honestly, I can't act like
Speaker 1: I don't see where DoorDash is coming from here that
Speaker 1: they probably can't have door dashers posting videos of their
Speaker 1: customers like this on TikTok. Now what I have done
Speaker 1: this if I were Livy, Probably not, because personally, at
Speaker 1: this point in my life, I almost never think that
Speaker 1: bringing something to the Internet is going to make a
Speaker 1: situation better. These days, I have only seen the Internet
Speaker 1: getting involved making things worse. But that's just me, and
Speaker 1: you know, not for nothing. I also don't think that
Speaker 1: anybody should be posting uncensored photos or video of other
Speaker 1: people's body without their consent, Like, I want to be
Speaker 1: clear that that's not something I think is an okay
Speaker 1: thing to be doing, and yeah, there might be consequences
Speaker 1: for it. Again, Livy says that she was doing that
Speaker 1: in an attempt to get some kind of recourse using
Speaker 1: social media, since she says the police said there was
Speaker 1: nothing that could be done because this guy was in
Speaker 1: his own home. I get what she's saying, but I
Speaker 1: also get what her choice of posting this guy's body
Speaker 1: without the black bar over it on TikTok is a
Speaker 1: big source of consternation online. But I also think we
Speaker 1: really crave perfect victims, right, victims who would act and
Speaker 1: behave exactly like we think that we would act and
Speaker 1: behave in whatever situation. So the fact that Livy is
Speaker 1: doing something that I personally would not do doesn't mean anything, right.
Speaker 1: I think we really had this idea. When we hear
Speaker 1: something like this, we think, well, what would I do?
Speaker 1: And if this person didn't do things like I think
Speaker 1: I would do things, something must be up. She must
Speaker 1: be lying. That's a red flag. I also think the
Speaker 1: fact that Livy is on TikTok talking very loudly about
Speaker 1: this thing that happened to her, I just think people
Speaker 1: don't like that. Like, I'm sad to see that people
Speaker 1: have taken one specific bit from one of Livy's mini
Speaker 1: videos about this where she's very upset, and they've turned
Speaker 1: it into a really hurtful meme on TikTok.
Speaker 2: A man's world. I'm the victim, remember.
Speaker 1: So they've taken a screenshot which is a close up
Speaker 1: of her face while Livy is pleading with people to
Speaker 1: remember that she is the victim in this situation, and
Speaker 1: it's been making the rounds on TikTok. If you check
Speaker 1: the comments of Livy's other posts on TikTok, people are
Speaker 1: putting that screenshot of that image of her face very
Speaker 1: pained while while speaking to you at this situation in
Speaker 1: the comments to make fun of her. Her face in
Speaker 1: this image is tortured and pained because she is very upset,
Speaker 1: and it reminds me if you've seen that image of
Speaker 1: it's kind of a if you googled liberal feminist triggered.
Speaker 1: It's a picture that makes her look like she is,
Speaker 1: and it's an image that it's become a meme when
Speaker 1: people want to reference sort of triggered angry feminist meltdown.
Speaker 1: But when you actually look at the real full video
Speaker 1: that that image was taken from, it's a feminist woman
Speaker 1: in a campus debate and she's just having a fairly
Speaker 1: normal conversation with somebody. It's a conversation that's like somewhat
Speaker 1: hostile because she's citing rape statistics or something, But she's
Speaker 1: not screaming. She barely even raises her voice in that video.
Speaker 1: The only issue is is that she has an expressive face,
Speaker 1: and so in this image she looks like she is
Speaker 1: screaming or having some sort of a triggered feminist meltdown.
Speaker 1: But really she's just having a pretty normal conversation with someone,
Speaker 1: I would say, even like a fairly civil conversation with somebody.
Speaker 1: And yet online she has become the face of triggered
Speaker 1: lying feminists everywhere. Never mind that men like Alex Jones
Speaker 1: and Andrew Breitbart, Like, do you remember seeing what they
Speaker 1: looked like when they would talk. They would be frothing
Speaker 1: at the mouth and screaming and veins popping out of
Speaker 1: their necks and foreheads, and fans loved it. So the
Speaker 1: rules are simply different for men. You know, Andrew Breitbart
Speaker 1: did not become the face of triggered men everywhere when
Speaker 1: he would have legit freakouts on camera.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the outrage and the performative like energy I think
Speaker 2: was a big part of it for those guys, absolutely so.
Speaker 1: I think this image and clip of Livy speaking with
Speaker 1: a pained face having a big emotion says a lot
Speaker 1: about how we want and expect women to behave after
Speaker 1: experiencing something traumatic, and how much stigma there is around
Speaker 1: labeling oneself as a victim. I also think we want
Speaker 1: victims who are quiet about what they've experienced. When someone
Speaker 1: screaming about it, even if whatever happened to them is
Speaker 1: worth screaming about, I think for a lot of people
Speaker 1: they automatically assume that that person screaming is in the wrong,
Speaker 1: because what we actually want is a society where women
Speaker 1: who are harmed also just shut up about it. So
Speaker 1: people are also taking issue with the fact that Livy
Speaker 1: says that she was quote sexually assaulted in her TikTok,
Speaker 1: saying how could someone sexually assault you if they didn't
Speaker 1: touch you, if you'd never had physical contact. This is
Speaker 1: a little bit in the weeds, but according to the
Speaker 1: Office on Violence against Women, the term sexual assault means
Speaker 1: any non consens sexual act prescribed by federal, tribal, or
Speaker 1: state law, including when the victim lacks capacity to consent,
Speaker 1: but in a legal sense, state laws can vary, so
Speaker 1: can the definitions used for sexual assault. So flashing or
Speaker 1: indecent exposure may be a sexual offense and a sex crime,
Speaker 1: but it is not always classified legally as sexual assault
Speaker 1: in a stripped legal sense, because that depends on the state.
Speaker 1: It really strikes me as an odd thing to get
Speaker 1: hung up on this specific legal designation that a lot
Speaker 1: of people have on TikTok to call Livy a liar,
Speaker 1: But I did want to mention it, and I guess
Speaker 1: I wish that all of this discourse about the technical
Speaker 1: definitions of sexual assault versus sexual offense versus sex crime
Speaker 1: was happening in an effort to educate people rather than
Speaker 1: belittle this woman who says that she was forced to
Speaker 1: look at a stranger's penis while just trying to do
Speaker 1: her job. But here we are, like I've seen a
Speaker 1: lot of people say Livy is lying about saying that
Speaker 1: she was sexually assaulted, and that minimizes actual sexual assault
Speaker 1: and makes it harder for actual victims. But in decent
Speaker 1: exposure is very much a sex crime, even if it
Speaker 1: is not specifically legally categorized as sexual assault. It's very
Speaker 1: clear to me that people who are bringing this up,
Speaker 1: are trying to use it to parse Livy's words to
Speaker 1: make her look like an unreliable narrator and a liar.
Speaker 1: They're not doing it in an effort to actually advocate
Speaker 1: for victims of sexualized violence. Because even if this is
Speaker 1: not legally a sexual assault the way that Livy says
Speaker 1: it is, it is still a sex crime. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think a good sort of test for that sort
Speaker 2: of thing is like, why don't you try it at work? Like,
Speaker 2: if it's not actually any sort of a problem, just
Speaker 2: go ahead and do it at work and see what happens.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I want all of these guys who were saying
Speaker 1: it's not actually a crime, Yeah, do it to your
Speaker 1: hr lady and see what she says. See how it
Speaker 1: goes for you. Let's take a quick break at our back.
Speaker 1: So Lviy post this video to TikTok and says that
Speaker 1: TikTok took action against her for uploading this video. She
Speaker 1: says the app initially removed her video and issued a
Speaker 1: strike against her account when she initially posted it with
Speaker 1: the man with his pants down visible. She uploaded it again,
Speaker 1: obscuring the man's junk from the video, but that video
Speaker 1: was also removed and she got a second strike. Now,
Speaker 1: if it sounds like I'm being super careful and specific
Speaker 1: about how I'm describing the situation, it is because the
Speaker 1: entire internet, Okay, we'll have the entire Internet, but a
Speaker 1: whole hell of a lot of people have decided that
Speaker 1: Livy is lying about what happened, because at first it
Speaker 1: seemed like people were supporting Livy, and then something turned
Speaker 1: and to me, it seemed like one of the many
Speaker 1: examples that we have of a woman being smeared by
Speaker 1: millions of people online for speaking up about something that
Speaker 1: she says happened to her. Right, there's a whole shade
Speaker 1: of something that we talk about a lot on the podcast,
Speaker 1: when people appoint themselves as investigators to litigate the details
Speaker 1: of other people's personal lives. I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of true crime brain rot out there that happens where
Speaker 1: people online decide that they know the real story that
Speaker 1: the rest of us aren't being told about what's happening
Speaker 1: with these strangers. And it's one of the one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why when these stories come up, which they
Speaker 1: often do online, I am the you know, wet blanket
Speaker 1: voice that says, maybe it's not good to have millions
Speaker 1: of people jumping into the business of strangers in this way.
Speaker 1: I totally get that it is exhilarating. Who doesn't love
Speaker 1: going down a rabbit hole of somebody else's drama. But
Speaker 1: it's one thing when we're talking about a fictional character.
Speaker 1: It's another thing when we're talking about a real, everyday person.
Speaker 1: We saw it with West Elm Caleb, the guy who
Speaker 1: worked at West Elm who met a bunch of women
Speaker 1: on a dating app and was making them all personalized
Speaker 1: playlists on Spotify to woo them. We saw it with
Speaker 1: that TikTok woman who surprised visited her long distance boyfriend
Speaker 1: and he gives her kind of a weird chili reception,
Speaker 1: and the entire internet decided that he was cheating on
Speaker 1: her because they all became body language experts. We saw
Speaker 1: it with that Coldplay concert couple, you know, that couple
Speaker 1: who made a very weird kind of caught reaction when
Speaker 1: they were on the jumbo t on canoodling at a
Speaker 1: cold Play concert and Coldplay frontman Chris Martin wondered out
Speaker 1: loud like, oh, they must be having an affair, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, I have no idea if this is true.
Speaker 1: But after the hubbub died down, I read that at
Speaker 1: least one of the couples in that situation said that, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm still legally married, but I've been separated from my
Speaker 1: spouse for a while when that cold Play concert happened,
Speaker 1: Like my spouse is also dating. We're not together, so
Speaker 1: I know it makes me a wet blanket. But when
Speaker 1: these big moments happen that light the Internet on fire,
Speaker 1: everybody is talking about somebody else's life, I think they
Speaker 1: truly illustrate how deeply surveiled we are socially as a society,
Speaker 1: how we are doing the surveiling and we are the surveiled.
Speaker 1: And I think this is especially bad for women, because
Speaker 1: when the Internet turns on women, even famous women who
Speaker 1: are the victims of abuse, people like Megna Stallion or
Speaker 1: Amber Heard, it's not just speculation. It is the reliable
Speaker 1: misogyny of the Internet being so easily weaponized against her
Speaker 1: to smear her and silence her. All the old tropes
Speaker 1: around gender that we all know. Women live for attention,
Speaker 1: women can't be trusted. Good innocent men are having their
Speaker 1: lives ruined for over nothing by lying bitches. All of
Speaker 1: these tired old tropes that permeate how we talk about
Speaker 1: and understand gender get dialed up to eleven on social
Speaker 1: media because misogyny will always find an audience online just
Speaker 1: by the nature of how social media is designed. And
Speaker 1: this is a feature.
Speaker 2: Not a bug.
Speaker 1: It is how our platforms were designed from their earliest days.
Speaker 1: I will say it till I'm blue in the face.
Speaker 1: Never forget that Facebook started as a way for Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: to get revenge on women who did not want to
Speaker 1: date him. So this is just baked into our internet ecosystem,
Speaker 1: and I think we really see it with how this
Speaker 1: whole Livy situation is playing out. So after Livy shared
Speaker 1: her story, people online started saying that she is not
Speaker 1: really a victim in this situation because she did not
Speaker 1: just innocently walk up to the door dash customer's door
Speaker 1: and find him naked from the waist down, as she claimed.
Speaker 1: She actually walked up to a closed door, opened it
Speaker 1: without knocking, and without permission, saw an undressed man asleep
Speaker 1: in his own home, took a video of him exposed,
Speaker 1: posted an online and that she is the one who
Speaker 1: is actually violating him. That is the narrative that has
Speaker 1: really taken off online.
Speaker 2: Well, that's odd because that is not what is depicted
Speaker 2: in that video that she posted. In that video she posted,
Speaker 2: she doesn't open the door. The door is already open.
Speaker 2: So where is this other narrative coming from?
Speaker 1: Great question. So one is just sort of logistical. Because
Speaker 1: Libby had to remove the original footage that she uploaded
Speaker 1: to TikTok from the platform, it has become somewhat difficult,
Speaker 1: though not impossible, to find the original video that she
Speaker 1: uploaded about the situation, and that has allowed people to
Speaker 1: really fill the gap in with their own idea of
Speaker 1: what must have happened. So if you search TikTok for
Speaker 1: door Dash Lady, DoorDash situation, whatever, you will find people
Speaker 1: saying with certainty that yes they know that Livy pushed
Speaker 1: this closed door open. That has just become accepted as
Speaker 1: fact in this situation. When I was just doing research,
Speaker 1: somebody on a different platform threads said, Oh, why is
Speaker 1: everybody what's going on with this DoorDash situation? Somebody else replied,
Speaker 1: she opened a closed door and is acting like she's
Speaker 1: a victim because of it. I replied, can you link
Speaker 1: me to proof? How do you know, this is their proof.
Speaker 1: Everybody is like, there is no proof. Everyone's just saying
Speaker 1: they've seen proof, but there is no proof. There are
Speaker 1: even people making jokey tiktoks purporting to recreate Livy's POV
Speaker 1: where she pushes open a closed door and then winds like,
Speaker 1: oh no, I'm being assaulted by a naked man in
Speaker 1: his own home TikTok about them. I have to say,
Speaker 1: some of these videos being made to make fun of
Speaker 1: Livy do seem to be AI generated. They're using AI
Speaker 1: generators like Sora, But I'm sad to say that a
Speaker 1: lot of them that I've seen are real people, real women,
Speaker 1: taking the TikTok to make fun of Livy for saying
Speaker 1: this happened to her. So it's just sort of become
Speaker 1: understood as the facts of what happened, without any proof
Speaker 1: at all that it's actually true. And importantly, there are
Speaker 1: people saying that there is another angle, or that the
Speaker 1: man in the situation uploaded ringed hamera footage proving that
Speaker 1: Livvy actually opened a closed door without his permission and
Speaker 1: was the one violating him. I kind of went down
Speaker 1: the rabbit hole on this one. You know, we talked
Speaker 1: a little bit about how with the Taylor Swift conversation,
Speaker 1: how you can just really sniff it out what a
Speaker 1: conversation happening online is not happening in a normal, authentic way.
Speaker 1: You can just tell where there are real people jumping
Speaker 1: on a bandwagon, and then also some of it is
Speaker 1: not authentic conversation, Mike. I know that when we were
Speaker 1: having a pitch meeting, I was trying to explain what
Speaker 1: was going on with what I had seen on TikTok,
Speaker 1: and I felt like when we were speaking, I felt
Speaker 1: compelled to keep reiterating to you that I was one
Speaker 1: hundred percent stone cold sober while I was speaking about this,
Speaker 1: because I felt like the way that I was talking
Speaker 1: about it made me seem like I was not sober.
Speaker 2: Do you remember this, Yeah, I remember you showing me
Speaker 2: a couple of videos back to back where totally different
Speaker 2: people were saying the exact same thing, like word for word,
Speaker 2: the exact same script about like I woke up and
Speaker 2: I saw this story and I had to get into it,
Speaker 2: but like word for word, and it was weird. It
Speaker 2: was like I felt like, uh, like living in the
Speaker 2: Truman Show or something like the algorithm was these videos
Speaker 2: were created just to like convince you of something.
Speaker 1: Yes, so it is not totally uncommon for a human
Speaker 1: creator to recreate a TikTok that another human creator has made.
Speaker 1: Like I've seen that. I know that happens, But that
Speaker 1: wasn't this. This was the same, identical cadence, the same
Speaker 1: idea it was. It was Yeah, it was as if
Speaker 1: they were reading a script. And then I realized one
Speaker 1: of these is a I like genuinely, I thought I
Speaker 1: was going crazy until I saw this TikTok that broke
Speaker 1: it down.
Speaker 8: Everybody's talking about the door Dash Girl. I was looking
Speaker 8: at certain videos and I came across this one.
Speaker 5: I saw the original video of the doord after girl,
Speaker 5: and I'm a limited.
Speaker 1: And confused now that I woke up and see everything
Speaker 1: that's happening, and I saw it, I saw it. I
Speaker 1: understand why DoorDash, I guess fired you again? Why you're
Speaker 1: a block from now?
Speaker 8: As for the guy, that's a little weird, right, Why
Speaker 8: are they saying the same thing in a very similar tone,
Speaker 8: very similar Cadence? Is there a script? Is somebody copying somebody?
Speaker 8: Or is that video on the right, fucking Ai? It's
Speaker 8: ait Ai and not just have video. Her entire fucking
Speaker 8: page is artificial intelligence generated video. Okay, Now, when you
Speaker 8: look at the page, you can kind of tell it's
Speaker 8: just gibberish. There's no there's no like links or anything,
Speaker 8: no name. But when you just scroll by these videos,
Speaker 8: it's pretty hard to tell unless you're really paying attention
Speaker 8: to how she speaks.
Speaker 1: And it gets even weirder because mu URLs on TikTok,
Speaker 1: who is a human TikToker on TikTok, says that somebody
Speaker 1: stole her likeness, stole her voice, generated an AI version
Speaker 1: of her to make it appear as though she weighed
Speaker 1: in on this door dash situation. When she did it,
Speaker 1: I would not have known that this was an AI
Speaker 1: clone of a real person unless I really really looked.
Speaker 1: If I'm just swipe swipe swiping, I don't think I
Speaker 1: would have clocked that this is AI if I had
Speaker 1: not also come across this woman saying, Hey, this isn't me.
Speaker 1: It's an AI clone of me that somebody has made.
Speaker 1: Please report it so you can really see how the
Speaker 1: proliferation of AI can turbocharge manipulated inauthentic conversation about a
Speaker 1: hot button charged topic, even when it's not about a
Speaker 1: big celebrity like Taylor Swift but a regular person like Livy.
Speaker 2: I really think slash hope that there will be a
Speaker 2: time in the future when we look back at this
Speaker 2: era when it's totally legal and fine for whoever to
Speaker 2: be creating all these AI generated videos that just like
Speaker 2: steal people's likenesses, purport to be real people even though
Speaker 2: they're not, and just like flooding the information ecosystem that
Speaker 2: we all have to live in, just flooding that with
Speaker 2: these fake accounts that are not fake but like inauthentic,
Speaker 2: that are purporting to be real humans when they are not,
Speaker 2: and it's just it's just like fine, Like the platforms
Speaker 2: don't really care. It's totally legal. It's not sustainable. And
Speaker 2: so I really think at some point in the future
Speaker 2: we're going to look back at this time and just
Speaker 2: like shake our heads and uh, I can't wait to
Speaker 2: get to that future.
Speaker 1: Yes, And what's so interesting to me is the woman
Speaker 1: who was cloned the real woman really put it well
Speaker 1: that this is a credibility issue. If you are a
Speaker 1: big TikToker and you make your living like I'm a podcaster,
Speaker 1: I make my living, putting my ideas out into the world,
Speaker 1: expressing myself using my voice. If somebody cloned me, which
Speaker 1: please don't do that. If you're listening in your thing,
Speaker 1: I'm going I make a bridget clone. Please don't. But
Speaker 1: if somebody did, that could materially harm me as somebody
Speaker 1: whose credibility and body of work depends on people being
Speaker 1: able to trust me, people being able to take what
Speaker 1: I say as something they should be listening to to
Speaker 1: help them understand the world. If somebody steals my voice
Speaker 1: and my likeness to just say whatever to weigh in
Speaker 1: on things that I would never weigh in on, or
Speaker 1: put ideas out into the world that I would never express,
Speaker 1: that could materially harm me in a real way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not like some new concept. Like we've had
Speaker 2: laws about that sort of thing for many, many years. Right,
Speaker 2: you can't just like impersonate someone else, like obviously there
Speaker 2: are laws against that in the offline world. But somehow,
Speaker 2: with this new technology, people are acting like it's fine,
Speaker 2: even though it's like the exact same dynamic and the
Speaker 2: exact same risk.
Speaker 1: But what if you could impersonate somebody else and make
Speaker 1: a little change doing it? Then what see the thing
Speaker 1: is here companies like open ai are making money. So
Speaker 1: what if you could do it and it was okay
Speaker 1: and it was legal.
Speaker 2: You know, it does get engagement, so the people want
Speaker 2: it so counter.
Speaker 1: So the conversation about door dash Lady has really gotten
Speaker 1: out of hand with AI clones and bots being weaponized
Speaker 1: and lies and images being manipulated. But to be clear,
Speaker 1: I don't think this is some big conspiracy where DoorDash
Speaker 1: is buying bots and AI clones to manipulate the conversation
Speaker 1: around what happened here. It is possible, and I don't
Speaker 1: put anything past a corporation. If you ever think a
Speaker 1: company wouldn't do something absolutely fucking unhinged to protect their
Speaker 1: bottom line, look into one of the weirdest stories I
Speaker 1: have ever covered on this podcast, which is the eBay
Speaker 1: stocking and harassment case, where high level eBay executives were
Speaker 1: arrested for a year's long harassment campaign against an elderly
Speaker 1: couple where they were doing things like putting dead animals
Speaker 1: in their mailbox to harass them out of running a
Speaker 1: blog about eBay. Right, So, if you ever think, oh,
Speaker 1: executives don't do shady stuff to protect their business interest.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't do that. They would So I'm not saying
Speaker 1: this because I think it's a bridge too far that
Speaker 1: a company would buy and exploit AI clones and bots
Speaker 1: to manipulate a situation. But my gut is telling me
Speaker 1: that what's going on here it's just an engagement thing.
Speaker 1: It is possible that DoorDash is running this complex bot
Speaker 1: and AI campaign to smear Livy, but I think what
Speaker 1: is probably more likely is that these bots and AI
Speaker 1: clones are jumping on any trending, big topic that people
Speaker 1: are talking about on social media, and that they don't
Speaker 1: care if it's based on amplifying lies about a real woman.
Speaker 1: And that is what pisces me off and worries me
Speaker 1: so much about this story that we have reached a
Speaker 1: point where there is an entire slate of digital tools,
Speaker 1: including AI, that can be used to discredit somebody who
Speaker 1: says that they were the victim of a sex crime.
Speaker 1: Because I've seen AI generated ring camera footage that supposedly
Speaker 1: exonerates this man and proves that Livy open this door,
Speaker 1: but it's not real. I've seen manipulated photos that purport
Speaker 1: to exonerate this man. That is an image of this
Speaker 1: man front door that has obviously been cropped in such
Speaker 1: a way to make the door look a lot less
Speaker 1: open than Livy's footage initially showed what seems like, oh well,
Speaker 1: the door was open just a tiny bit that they've
Speaker 1: cropped it to make it look that way. And because
Speaker 1: Liv's original footage was taken down from TikTok, it's a
Speaker 1: little bit harder for people to go back and compare
Speaker 1: it with what she actually posted. Then you have obvious
Speaker 1: bot accounts amplifying and repeating these claims to the point
Speaker 1: where they've just become true online, whether or not they
Speaker 1: actually happened or not. I've talked about how my ethos
Speaker 1: on this show is that I'm a nosy bitch and
Speaker 1: I just want to get to the bottom of what's
Speaker 1: going on. So nosy bitch that I am. I have
Speaker 1: searched high and low for any additional footage, ring camera footage,
Speaker 1: other angles, whatever, whatever, all of the stuff that people
Speaker 1: in bots say they have seen online that exonerates this
Speaker 1: man improves that Livy is in the wrong. I have
Speaker 1: not seen a stitch of evidence. It just doesn't master
Speaker 1: the smell test with me. People upload videos on TikTok
Speaker 1: and delete them. And there's always somebody that gets the
Speaker 1: screen shot. There's always somebody that gets the screen recording
Speaker 1: of it. The fact that there would not be a
Speaker 1: stitch of evidence for this video that so many people
Speaker 1: have said that they saw with their own eyes and
Speaker 1: exonerates this man. I just don't believe that it's out there.
Speaker 1: It is possible that it is, but I tell you
Speaker 1: I have not if it exists. I have searched high
Speaker 1: and low. I have not seen it. The only video
Speaker 1: footage of the situation that I have found is the
Speaker 1: footage that Livy took initially, which backs up her version
Speaker 1: of what she says happened. More after a quick break,
Speaker 1: let's get right back into it now. I want to
Speaker 1: be clear. It is entirely possible that Livy did push
Speaker 1: that door open and then whip out her phone and
Speaker 1: dark filming to make a video that backs up her
Speaker 1: version of events. It's entirely possible if that happened. We
Speaker 1: have no way of knowing for sure. I am a
Speaker 1: mere spectator here, just like everybody in this situation. But
Speaker 1: to me, that makes absolutely no sense. Just doesn't pass muster.
Speaker 2: Earlier in this episode, you talked about how this whole
Speaker 2: story one of the things that shows is how surveilled
Speaker 2: we all are, and I think that's a good insight.
Speaker 2: And part of that fact of life these days is
Speaker 2: that there's an expectation of surveillance that of course there's
Speaker 2: going to be multiple camera angles and there's like more
Speaker 2: footage from somewhere else. And you know, I have to
Speaker 2: wonder if that maybe is part of why people are
Speaker 2: so like eager to believe that the other footage is
Speaker 2: out there, because you know, this thing happened and there's
Speaker 2: a lot of interest about it, and so of course
Speaker 2: there has to be more footage when in fact, things
Speaker 2: that happened in the world do not get recorded on video.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but again, I think it goes back to that
Speaker 1: true crime brain rot where people assume everything's going to
Speaker 1: happen the way it would happen in a fictional movie
Speaker 1: or a fictional series, and in reality, there probably isn't
Speaker 1: going to be any you know, extended footage that she
Speaker 1: didn't know was being recorded that comes out. It could happen,
Speaker 1: but I feel like if it was going to happen,
Speaker 1: it would have happened already. Right, We have the footage
Speaker 1: that we have as the footage that we have, and
Speaker 1: you know this claim that Livy pushed the door open herself.
Speaker 1: You know that my forever problematic fave is Judge. Judy,
Speaker 1: She's one of my heroes. I think she's the best.
Speaker 1: She has this thing that she says where she says,
Speaker 1: if something doesn't make sense, it's because it's not true.
Speaker 1: And to believe that Livy pushed that door open herself,
Speaker 1: you would have to believe a lot of things that
Speaker 1: just to me don't make any sense. So the door
Speaker 1: was either open or the door was closed. If it
Speaker 1: was open, then Livy's story and the results that followed
Speaker 1: all makes sense checks out. Got it. But if the
Speaker 1: door was closed, like people on the internet would have,
Speaker 1: you believed to exonerate this man. That means that Livy,
Speaker 1: as a door dasher, walked up to a closed door
Speaker 1: with an order, rather than leaving the order on the
Speaker 1: porch as she was instructed to do, for some reason,
Speaker 1: opened this closed door without permission on the off chance
Speaker 1: that there might be a man exposing himself in there,
Speaker 1: and Jackpot, could you believe it there was? What are
Speaker 1: the odds? Then took out her phone started recording, recorded
Speaker 1: it in such a way that made it seem like
Speaker 1: that door had just been open, posted it to the
Speaker 1: Internet just to get hordes and hordes of negative attention
Speaker 1: that led to her losing her only source of income.
Speaker 1: Why what would be the endgame?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 1: It just does not make sense. And when you add
Speaker 1: in the fact that we know that women lying about
Speaker 1: things like sexual violence is statistically very uncommon. I think
Speaker 1: that most studies estimate that false report rates are something
Speaker 1: between two percent and eight percent. The overwhelming majority of
Speaker 1: reports of sexual violence on his conduct are true. But
Speaker 1: when you already have a narrative in your head that
Speaker 1: women lie about sexual abuse for attention, which the Internet
Speaker 1: definitely adds to, none of that reality makes any sense.
Speaker 1: It all just goes right out the window. And I
Speaker 1: think it illustrates how people will believe absolutely anything without
Speaker 1: proof to validate this worldview about women and support a
Speaker 1: worldview where people don't speak up when something like this
Speaker 1: happens to them. If the entire Internet is going to
Speaker 1: come together and use this arsenal of AI tools to
Speaker 1: discredit a survivor of sexualized violence less unless people are
Speaker 1: going to come forward, and I have to think that
Speaker 1: is the point of all of this. And here is
Speaker 1: something that I just have to add and have to
Speaker 1: say a lot of people on TikTok or saying, hey,
Speaker 1: this guy was just drunk or high passed out in
Speaker 1: his own home. Even if he did have the door open,
Speaker 1: he didn't really do anything wrong. So obviously, as I said,
Speaker 1: I don't know any more about this situation than anybody
Speaker 1: else does. I'm just watching it from the sidelines. But
Speaker 1: come on, women know when a man is trying to
Speaker 1: expose himself to get his sexual kicks.
Speaker 6: We know.
Speaker 1: I have had strangers exposed themselves to me twice in
Speaker 1: my life. The first one happened when I was maybe
Speaker 1: fifteen a man. I was walking down the street outside
Speaker 1: of my high school and a man called me over
Speaker 1: and was like, I'm in his car and was like,
Speaker 1: I'm can you help me, I'm lost looking for directions.
Speaker 1: He had a map unfolded out on his lap, and
Speaker 1: when I came over, he moved the map and exposed
Speaker 1: himself to me. And it wasn't a misunderstanding, it wasn't ambiguous.
Speaker 1: I didn't like misunderstand and something I knew exactly what
Speaker 1: was going on instantly, right away. Women know when a
Speaker 1: man is trying to do this. The fact that people
Speaker 1: are rushing in to give this man the benefit of
Speaker 1: the doubt, I think is really discounting the reality that
Speaker 1: women live in where this kind of thing happens. I
Speaker 1: have to wonder if the men who are saying, oh,
Speaker 1: this is totally normal behavior, even if he did leave
Speaker 1: the door open and have his self exposed, it is
Speaker 1: not that big of a deal. I think that they
Speaker 1: are trying to create the conditions where if they did
Speaker 1: that or something similar, it wouldn't be a big deal.
Speaker 1: That's the only reason I could think why you would
Speaker 1: jump to normalize what I think we all can sort
Speaker 1: of see is like not normal behavior. So again, this
Speaker 1: is just my opinion, But you're not going to be
Speaker 1: able to convince me that somebody who summoned a door
Speaker 1: dasher to their home just happened to be waiting adjacent
Speaker 1: from the porch that they summoned them to with their
Speaker 1: pants down. I'm unwilling to believe this was not purposeful.
Speaker 1: This is my opinion, but it is backed up by
Speaker 1: so much research about what we know oh women experience
Speaker 1: who are doing gigwork, Because gigwork things like lift, Uber,
Speaker 1: uber eats, DoorDash, It's just like this for women. A
Speaker 1: study by University of British Columbia interviewed twenty women gig
Speaker 1: workers in home services, food delivery, and ride share in
Speaker 1: the US and Canada and found that women often experience harassment,
Speaker 1: unwanted sexual comments or behavior, feel unsafe, and face limited recourse.
Speaker 1: One woman they spoke to put it like this, you
Speaker 1: just said, is it worth it? Most of the time
Speaker 1: it's not, so you just don't. Their study also found
Speaker 1: that women just brush off harassment because of things like
Speaker 1: rating systems where if they get enough bad ratings they'll
Speaker 1: be kicked off the platform, fear of retaliation. All of
Speaker 1: that leads to women just brushing off this kind of harassment.
Speaker 1: That same research highlights that platforms often have gender agnostic design,
Speaker 1: in that the systems do not account for women's specific vulnerabilities,
Speaker 1: and that gender agnostic design just leads to women workers
Speaker 1: op out of risk your time, so saying I'm not
Speaker 1: going to go to this, I'm gonna not take this
Speaker 1: order if it's dark out, or if it's in a
Speaker 1: bad neighborhood or something like that, which then worsens income gaps.
Speaker 1: A separate study by the Markup found that among app
Speaker 1: based drivers in Chicago, a high percentage felt unsafe, and
Speaker 1: that female drivers reported higher rates of sexual harassment. Another
Speaker 1: UK based study found that while app based couriers who
Speaker 1: are mostly male faced harassment and assault, female couriers had
Speaker 1: particular difficulties accessing reporting mechanisms and felt less supported. So
Speaker 1: the research about women in gigwork pretty much backs up
Speaker 1: what most of us anecdotally probably already knew that this
Speaker 1: kind of sexualized harassment and abuse of women gig workers
Speaker 1: is not rare. It's actually an occupational hazard recognized by
Speaker 1: scores of research. That's why I didn't want to say
Speaker 1: Livy was fired from door Dash, really because in the
Speaker 1: gig economy it just comes with a lot less support
Speaker 1: for workers, especially workers who are women, who are victims
Speaker 1: of sexualized abuse while working. That's kind of the nature
Speaker 1: of the beasts with the gig economy. There's a lot
Speaker 1: less support structures, things like reporting and deactivation protections and
Speaker 1: retaliation protections, and when they do have these things, they're
Speaker 1: pretty inconsistent the design of the gig economy. You have
Speaker 1: people who these companies say are independent contractors, not employees.
Speaker 1: Things like apperating systems and algorithmic dispatch often puts workers
Speaker 1: in vulnerable positions where they have less insight and don't
Speaker 1: have access to things like formal HR. You know, humans
Speaker 1: we know can be pretty variable in these uncontrolled environments.
Speaker 1: On top of that, you have this power asymmetry baked
Speaker 1: in right where the worker risks losing access to the
Speaker 1: platform or is getting bad ratings that they complain where
Speaker 1: they might get kicked off of this of this app
Speaker 1: that is a source of income for them that they need.
Speaker 1: And so all of this makes it a perfect environment
Speaker 1: for the kind of thing that Livy said that she
Speaker 1: experienced while doing door dash. And so while all these
Speaker 1: big creators on TikTok are arguing that Livy pushed this
Speaker 1: door open without permission to engineer this whole thing to
Speaker 1: make herself an online victim, my question is what is
Speaker 1: more likely that Livvy manipulated this whole situation just to
Speaker 1: get attention online and make herselves sound like a victim online,
Speaker 1: or that this guy was sexually harassing a woman gigworker
Speaker 1: in a way the research could not make clearer. Is
Speaker 1: incredibly commonplace for women who do this kind of work.
Speaker 1: And so my question is why are we not talking
Speaker 1: about what we know about the risks and lack of
Speaker 1: support for women in the gig economy like Livy In
Speaker 1: a different social media landscape, that would be the conversation
Speaker 1: we will be having. But I think it's a lot
Speaker 1: more lucrative to instead talk about how Livy is a
Speaker 1: liar who is lying for attention on the internet and
Speaker 1: the man who exposed himself to a gig worker did
Speaker 1: nothing thing wrong. Because if there's one thing that this
Speaker 1: moment with Livy has showed me about the Internet, especially
Speaker 1: big accounts on platforms like TikTok and honestly across every platform,
Speaker 1: is that they will straight up lie about a woman
Speaker 1: who says that she was a victim of sexual abuse
Speaker 1: if it gets them clicks. And that is a problem.
Speaker 1: These people are materially benefiting from lying about Livy. There
Speaker 1: is money in outrage, there's clout in being the first
Speaker 1: one to jump on a story whether or not it's true.
Speaker 1: I saw somebody with lots and lots and lots of
Speaker 1: followers say that Livy had been arrested for a false report,
Speaker 1: for falsely calling nine to one one to report this
Speaker 1: man to the authorities. Keep in mind, Livy herself said
Speaker 1: that she called a non emergency line and the police
Speaker 1: officer actually showed up to have a conversation with her
Speaker 1: about it, So why would she have been arrested for that?
Speaker 1: Doesn't make any sense. People will just get on this
Speaker 1: platform and lie to millions of people, and they are
Speaker 1: financially incentivized to do so. They don't care about whether
Speaker 1: or not what they are saying is true. They don't
Speaker 1: care about context, and they don't care about helping anybody
Speaker 1: understand what is actually happening here, what actually went on.
Speaker 1: They only care about engagement, even if that means lying
Speaker 1: about somebody who is already going through something awful, and
Speaker 1: when that person is a woman, the algorithm practically throws
Speaker 1: a goddamn party. I started researching this story because I
Speaker 1: just wanted to know what was going on. I was curious.
Speaker 1: But the more and more videos I watched of people
Speaker 1: with huge platforms and lots and lots of followers across
Speaker 1: the Internet saying things about Livy that our lies, our
Speaker 1: core are just completely unsubstantiated and not backed up by
Speaker 1: anything that's pulled out of whole cloth. It really pissed
Speaker 1: me off.
Speaker 6: So she gets online and makes up a story that
Speaker 6: she was essayed by this gentleman, and it's just come
Speaker 6: out today that she was lying about it. That the
Speaker 6: man was asleep, had passed out on the couch, and
Speaker 6: his pants just happened to be down a little bit.
Speaker 6: So she walked into this man's house without his permission,
Speaker 6: saw him on the couch, and started taking photos of him,
Speaker 6: and then sent those photos to her false claiming that
Speaker 6: this man that was passed out assaulted her. First of all,
Speaker 6: does she just give the worst name to false accusing
Speaker 6: men of that which you should never do, because now
Speaker 6: you'll never be trusted. This is like if I was
Speaker 6: that dude, I would sue door Dash for millions and
Speaker 6: millions and millions of dollars. And that girl, she's not
Speaker 6: gonna be able to show her face in public ever again.
Speaker 1: And I say this to say that massogyny always finds
Speaker 1: an audience online. It is reliable, It performs, It puts
Speaker 1: money in pockets and butts in seats saying she's lying,
Speaker 1: she's crazy. She just wants attention. All of those old stereotypes,
Speaker 1: dusting them off and redoing them for the Internet age
Speaker 1: will always do numbers, and that is what is so
Speaker 1: dangerous about this, because it doesn't just pile on one
Speaker 1: woman who got deactivated from door Dash. It sends a
Speaker 1: message to everyone that women who call out creepy behavior,
Speaker 1: threatening behavior a legal behavior should just shut up. That
Speaker 1: the men who do this kind of thing deserve protection,
Speaker 1: even if that means lying for them, making AI generated
Speaker 1: or manipulated content to support and exonerate them, and inventing
Speaker 1: facts out of whole cloth to excuse their behavior. And
Speaker 1: when you step back and look at this in a
Speaker 1: bigger picture, the political and social moment that we're in
Speaker 1: right now, where our rights are being literally rolled back,
Speaker 1: the fact that social media can be so easily gamified
Speaker 1: and weaponized to silence women should really scare the hell
Speaker 1: out of us. Because if the algorithm keeps on rewarding
Speaker 1: misogyny and life and cruelty and punish people who are
Speaker 1: just trying to speak up, and if we keep letting
Speaker 1: online engagement be the arbiter of what is real and
Speaker 1: what is not, then it is not just going to
Speaker 1: be women like Livy who lose. It's going to be
Speaker 1: all of us. Got a story about an interesting thing
Speaker 1: in tech or just want to say hi. You can
Speaker 1: reach us at Hello at tangodi dot com. You can
Speaker 1: also find transcripts for today's episode at tenggody dot com.
Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by
Speaker 1: me Bridget Toad. It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed
Speaker 1: Creative Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Terry Harrison is
Speaker 1: our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almado is our contributing producer.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, bridget Toad. If you want to help
Speaker 1: us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 5: You will wait