Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Unboss Creative, I'm Bridget Todd
Speaker 1: and this is there are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 1: It's almost election day here in the United States, and
Speaker 1: there is so much on the line in this election.
Speaker 1: There are also historic numbers of women and women of
Speaker 1: color running for elected office this cycle, and while that
Speaker 1: is great to see, we know that these women will
Speaker 1: face racialized, gendered attacks that their white male counterparts simply
Speaker 1: will not have to deal with. They'll have to take
Speaker 1: extra security concerns both online and I r L that
Speaker 1: their male counterparts won't have to deal with. And yet
Speaker 1: that is an extra cost burden that we know that
Speaker 1: they'll have to shoulder just because of their identity. So
Speaker 1: to discuss all of this, I sat down with my
Speaker 1: good friends Samantha and Annie over at the podcast Stuff
Speaker 1: Mom Never told you to lay out our concerns and
Speaker 1: the upcome midterm elections and what needs to be done.
Speaker 1: I love Halloween, but one thing that does always come
Speaker 1: with Halloween, like every couple of years, is this tension
Speaker 1: around voting. Is this tension that the elections are coming up.
Speaker 1: So it's always like I'm trying to not think about it. Um,
Speaker 1: is there anything spook here? Yes? Yes, And as we've
Speaker 1: hinted at, that's what we're going to be talking about
Speaker 1: a lot in here. Um and uh, Georgia, it's been
Speaker 1: an intense mid term election for us. So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess let's just let's just break down some of
Speaker 1: the things that are going on in these mid terms. Yes,
Speaker 1: so we're when we're recording this, I don't know how
Speaker 1: long it will be out when folks hear it, but um,
Speaker 1: we are ten days out from the election. While when
Speaker 1: we're courting this, and I mean I it sounds like
Speaker 1: you kind of feel like I do, where particularly around
Speaker 1: mid terms, it just makes me queazy because I know
Speaker 1: that GEO TV is so different when it's not a
Speaker 1: presidential election. Like people, it's harder to get people excited,
Speaker 1: and especially when I know there's so much on the line.
Speaker 1: You know, you mentioned Georgia, that's an important race. A
Speaker 1: lot is happening, a lot is hinging on people actually
Speaker 1: coming out, and so it's something that I just always
Speaker 1: feel kind of like queezy about it. And for me,
Speaker 1: I always kind of having worked in politics for most
Speaker 1: of my adult life, or like politics adjacent. I always
Speaker 1: kind of feel man about elections because I'm not super
Speaker 1: invested in electoral power, like I think that there's other
Speaker 1: ways to build power. And then around like ten days out,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my god, I need to like start
Speaker 1: GEO TVNG, I need to start like calling everyone, and
Speaker 1: it's like it's like something happens, and so I'm sort
Speaker 1: of waiting for that transformation to have up in And
Speaker 1: it sounds like you two are feelings would have similarly
Speaker 1: around the elections this time around. Yeah. So for me,
Speaker 1: I uh recently was coming home from a trip with
Speaker 1: my mother and she drove me past where I vote,
Speaker 1: my polling place, and it was the first day of
Speaker 1: early voting in Georgia and it was packed out, like
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, what is happening. And
Speaker 1: then I looked it up an early voting was happening,
Speaker 1: and I was so it's very heartening to see that
Speaker 1: many people turn out for a mid term. And I
Speaker 1: waited a couple of days and when I went back,
Speaker 1: it was still crowded and people were excited. There were
Speaker 1: people filming. Everyone was really warm and nice, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you came out to vote, which was
Speaker 1: it was a pleasant experience for me, but it was
Speaker 1: kind of like overshadowed the whole thing. Was you know,
Speaker 1: there has been these crackdowns on voting rights, why are
Speaker 1: so many people coming out so early? Which I think
Speaker 1: is great, but it was just kind of overhanging the
Speaker 1: whole thing. And also because it is a very divisive race,
Speaker 1: senatorial race specifically in Georgia. I don't know, it was
Speaker 1: it was one of those things where I was like,
Speaker 1: I've I've been to mid terms before, like nobody was
Speaker 1: there and I walked past that area all the time,
Speaker 1: and so I see it and I would never see
Speaker 1: a line, And now like every day when I walk
Speaker 1: past it, there's a line. So that's nice, but I'm
Speaker 1: still like, there, you just can't shake all of the
Speaker 1: kind of negative things that might be behind why that is,
Speaker 1: even though I'm happy to see it, if that makes sense,
Speaker 1: right absolutely, Like as right now, we have the highest
Speaker 1: early voter turnout in our state that we've ever had,
Speaker 1: beating last presidential election. So it's amazing to see that
Speaker 1: things are happening, and we know that that's great indication
Speaker 1: of things acomb Again, yes, we have had a huge
Speaker 1: upsurge in and UM photo suppression laws in the last
Speaker 1: five years. Actually has always been let's just be honest,
Speaker 1: but it's seemingly getting worse and worse, and we know, uh,
Speaker 1: the way they have redistricted everything, and it's very, very shady.
Speaker 1: Although you know, our current governor was the secretary of
Speaker 1: State who controlled his own election, which says a lot
Speaker 1: in itself, UM, And that's a big point of contention here,
Speaker 1: as well as the fact that apparently uh Rafflesburger, that's
Speaker 1: our current secretary of State UM, who actually stood up
Speaker 1: to Trump at one point in time and got too
Speaker 1: much credit in my opinion, UM for what he did.
Speaker 1: But it's hired a former staffer of Trump for these elections.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of questionable things happening. So we
Speaker 1: have a lot of concerns and a lot of hope.
Speaker 1: Is such a mixed bag, as Annie was saying, of
Speaker 1: what is happening here, we're seeing what's happening because the
Speaker 1: governor's race is a pretty big deal, as the overturning
Speaker 1: of Roe v. Wade hasn't made it a huge deal.
Speaker 1: As we do have a six week ban in UM
Speaker 1: Georgia currently, and then there's just talk about the fact
Speaker 1: that they're gonna punish um those who do have abortions
Speaker 1: as uh, murder, possibly charging them with murder, with the
Speaker 1: fact that they're doing this whole like you know, unborn
Speaker 1: fetus law and protecting of them as as like and
Speaker 1: crediting them as a citizen type of conversation, which we
Speaker 1: know is trickery and is leading way to a lot
Speaker 1: of imprisonment and unfair treatment. And we know this is
Speaker 1: completely targeted at marginalized individuals in our state. So there's
Speaker 1: a lot of concerns are so much that feels like
Speaker 1: it's being really weighty here right now, and it does.
Speaker 1: It feels like it is life or death for so
Speaker 1: many of us. And I'll get I'm being very local
Speaker 1: on this moment because this is kind of where we are,
Speaker 1: and Annie and I obviously have to concentrate so hard
Speaker 1: in these conversations. So there is this level of doom,
Speaker 1: which I'm wonderful conversation bringing up all the time. Apparently
Speaker 1: there's this fear and level of doom in this election
Speaker 1: that feels too heavy. At the same time, we are
Speaker 1: the butt of jokes with our senator race, and it's
Speaker 1: it's really like you want you you have to laugh,
Speaker 1: but what to cry? As well as why why just
Speaker 1: but why? Yeah? Oh my gosh. I if you got
Speaker 1: if you all get me started on a hurtel Walker,
Speaker 1: I will never I will never stop talking. Um. So
Speaker 1: I'm not going to comment on that, boy I want to,
Speaker 1: but truly, if you got me going, I would never stop.
Speaker 1: I will just say that all of that is really valid.
Speaker 1: You know. I think this feeling of it's great to
Speaker 1: see people voting, but that like unease of life, but
Speaker 1: what does that mean for everyone? I think that's really valid.
Speaker 1: And just the feeling of knowing how much is on
Speaker 1: the line, what is at stake this time around. I
Speaker 1: think that that's I hate to say it, I think
Speaker 1: as our elections become more and more contentious, and as
Speaker 1: things become more and more polarized, I think that's going
Speaker 1: to be a common sentiment. And you know, something that
Speaker 1: kind of speaks to that is the fact that there
Speaker 1: are more women running for statewide offices than ever before,
Speaker 1: which you know, I think is should be good news.
Speaker 1: Marks a record high for women running for gubernatorial and
Speaker 1: senate races. Um, there's about sixty five women running for
Speaker 1: governors races across the country in this cycle. UM, I
Speaker 1: should say it is not all lefties. UM. There are
Speaker 1: more Republicans than Democrats making those bids. This is all
Speaker 1: according to data from the Center for American Women in Politics,
Speaker 1: and I it's true. It's like I when there are
Speaker 1: long lines at polling places, I'm like, oh, that's great,
Speaker 1: like democracy and action. And that's definitely preferable to people
Speaker 1: having elections not go their way and then trying to
Speaker 1: force them to go their way via violent behavior like
Speaker 1: we saw on January sits and so things feel charged.
Speaker 1: I guess I'll put it that way. And women are
Speaker 1: poised to make gains in state white contests, but they
Speaker 1: remain underrepresented in key legislatures around the country. And it's
Speaker 1: also true for black women. We're seeing more black women
Speaker 1: and more women of color running for local office. Black
Speaker 1: women have set record numbers for candidates and gubernatorial, Senate
Speaker 1: and House races. It's the cycle, um. And there's a
Speaker 1: lot of Latina and Hispanic gubernatorial and US House Senate
Speaker 1: candidates and a record number of Asian and Pacific I
Speaker 1: underwomen who are running for governor and so I as
Speaker 1: frought as that can be, I think it's overall good,
Speaker 1: you know, not just because representation matters, which it does,
Speaker 1: but also I think that anything that gets us closer
Speaker 1: to a representative democracy, one where there's people who actually
Speaker 1: have the lived experience of the people that they are governing,
Speaker 1: is a good thing. And so like that's one kind
Speaker 1: of silver lining I guess is that particularly when I
Speaker 1: think about issues like abortion, like you were talking about, Sam,
Speaker 1: I I don't have any hard numbers for this, I
Speaker 1: would suspect that women are motivate ated to run for
Speaker 1: office because those issues have taken such a national stage recently.
Speaker 1: I wish I could say that it's all women who
Speaker 1: you know, want to protect abortion access. I wish I
Speaker 1: could say that if you were a woman, that was
Speaker 1: part of your platform, but that would not be correct. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's one thing that is very overwhelming right now
Speaker 1: in Georgia, and I'm sure in a lot of places,
Speaker 1: but are political ads are intense um and hard to escape.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so it's it's kind of like what I
Speaker 1: was saying. We have these positives. We have more women running,
Speaker 1: we have more people of color running, we have more
Speaker 1: black women running, But that doesn't come without these realities
Speaker 1: that you have spoke about a lot on this show
Speaker 1: that often get kind of swept aside and not talked about,
Speaker 1: even though they're so important and they are impacting our
Speaker 1: political landscape exactly. And so I think it is so
Speaker 1: great when we support women, especially black women and women
Speaker 1: of color, to run for office, and it just generally
Speaker 1: be involved in civic life through things life, working as
Speaker 1: election workers or becoming vocal advocates or activists on an issue.
Speaker 1: But it is imperative that that support be grounded in
Speaker 1: the reality of what we know these women will face
Speaker 1: when they find themselves in those situations that we, you know,
Speaker 1: champion them to to hold. Right, so we are on
Speaker 1: the left, we're very fond of saying things like trust
Speaker 1: black women, support black women, and that is very true.
Speaker 1: But we can't just you know, advocate for black women
Speaker 1: to get into these positions. We have to be honest
Speaker 1: about what they will face when they get there and
Speaker 1: then really do the intentional work of creating the conditions
Speaker 1: for them to have an equal playing field to make
Speaker 1: sure that they will thrive in those positions. Because it's
Speaker 1: one thing to be like, oh, yes, put black women
Speaker 1: in leadership positions, but then are you going to support
Speaker 1: then when they face the attacks that we know they
Speaker 1: are going to face. You know, for instance, I was
Speaker 1: super excited when President Biden said that he was going
Speaker 1: to pick black women to be the vice president um
Speaker 1: and also nominated black women to be a Supreme Court justice.
Speaker 1: But I also know that that means that those black
Speaker 1: women would certainly face heightened attacks that their white male
Speaker 1: counterparts just would not have to face. And so I
Speaker 1: was then a little bit disappointed to see that the
Speaker 1: White House didn't really meaningfully deal with this reality, right,
Speaker 1: Like I wondered, like, are they setting black women up
Speaker 1: to deal with the harassment and attacks that we know
Speaker 1: are going to be like racialized and gendered, not attacks
Speaker 1: based on their records or their merits or their actions,
Speaker 1: but attacks on their identity who they are. So when
Speaker 1: these attacks happened, which we saw with both Harris and
Speaker 1: Justice Jackson, the White House didn't really acknowledge them, and
Speaker 1: of course the women themselves can't really talk openly about them,
Speaker 1: so we all just kind of saw it happened, and
Speaker 1: nobody was at the very least talking honestly about it.
Speaker 1: Let alone working to create the conditions to combat it, right,
Speaker 1: And that's just such a huge saying of you know,
Speaker 1: either it's a drade on you because you're having to
Speaker 1: deal with these attacks, or you just kind of distance
Speaker 1: yourself from social media. And then that in itself people
Speaker 1: can interpret in a variety of ways that are probably
Speaker 1: not good. Um. And then people's especially younger people, seeing
Speaker 1: that like that. There's just so many unhealthy things about
Speaker 1: what that says, um that we're accepting um as as
Speaker 1: something that's just like par for the course. That's how
Speaker 1: it is. And the very unfortunate thing is this is
Speaker 1: not just like one time or just a few times.
Speaker 1: It's like all over the place, exactly. It's not an
Speaker 1: isolated thing, I'm sorry to say. According to a report
Speaker 1: from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue called Public Figures, public Rage,
Speaker 1: candidates abuse on social media, so physically speaking, black women
Speaker 1: and women of color are more likely to base racialize
Speaker 1: gender to tacks than their white male counterparts on The study,
Speaker 1: which you can find online, is super interesting. They found
Speaker 1: the abusive messages on social media accounted for fifteen pent
Speaker 1: of those directed at every female lawmaker that they analyze,
Speaker 1: compared to around five to ten percent when they looked
Speaker 1: at male candidates. A few of their keep findings or
Speaker 1: that women of color are particularly likely to be targeted online.
Speaker 1: Male politicians of color are not more vulnerable than their
Speaker 1: white counterparts. They are attacked at the same rate. An
Speaker 1: abuse towards women was more likely to be about gender
Speaker 1: than the abuse targeting men, So abuse targeting men was
Speaker 1: usually focused on their political stances um, while the messages
Speaker 1: directed at women were more likely to be about their
Speaker 1: appearance or their general competence. Interestingly enough, female Democrats received
Speaker 1: ten times more abusive comments than their male counterparts on Facebook,
Speaker 1: and Republican women received twice as many abusive messages as
Speaker 1: Republican men. So it's a a bipartisan issue. It's an
Speaker 1: issue impacting all women and women of color. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not just women on the left whose face it.
Speaker 1: It's all of us, right. And one of the things,
Speaker 1: one of the points you make when you come on
Speaker 1: here all the time, which I think is very important
Speaker 1: and I love, um, is that a lot of times
Speaker 1: people can distance like, oh, that's online, that's not real life. Um,
Speaker 1: but that is not at all the case, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: So I'm sure people are like sick of me saying
Speaker 1: this because I've you know, say it's pretty much from
Speaker 1: the rooftops every time I'm I am given a platform.
Speaker 1: But I think we have this misconception that when we
Speaker 1: talk about online harassment and abuse, we're talking about online issues.
Speaker 1: And the research could not be clearer that even though
Speaker 1: these attacks may start online, they do not always stay online.
Speaker 1: And a great example that we're seeing right now is
Speaker 1: representative Jaia Paul. A man started by sending her violent
Speaker 1: emails and threatening messages online, showed up at side of
Speaker 1: her house with a gun. I just had to take
Speaker 1: a minute from recording this podcast to quick send on
Speaker 1: a statement about the husband of Nancy Pelosi, someone who
Speaker 1: had a just today while we're recording this, someone with
Speaker 1: a history of violent, you know, rhetoric on social media
Speaker 1: broke into Nancy Pelosi's house and attacked her husband with
Speaker 1: a hammer when he found that she was not there.
Speaker 1: And so it's so important and deeply imperative that if
Speaker 1: we're going to take this kind of violence seriously, that
Speaker 1: when someone reports violent threats or violent attacks online, we
Speaker 1: then take it seriously. If we're going to prevent real
Speaker 1: world violence from happening because the two our link. It's
Speaker 1: just that the research could not be clear time and
Speaker 1: time again. When somebody is the perpetrator of a mass
Speaker 1: shooting or an incident of mass violence, you follow the
Speaker 1: paper trail and oh, they had an online history where
Speaker 1: they were threatening women or being aggressive or hostile towards
Speaker 1: the women in their life online. And so we cannot
Speaker 1: get a handle meaningfully on the abuse of women if
Speaker 1: we do not take it seriously when it happens online,
Speaker 1: it's just not going to happen. And so real world
Speaker 1: violence is connected to online violence and we need to
Speaker 1: deal with as such. But unfortunately that has not been
Speaker 1: the case for so long. People have been so quick
Speaker 1: to belittle it when a woman speaks off about what
Speaker 1: she's facing online, particularly at that woman is black or
Speaker 1: woman of color. We've talked about so much harassment and
Speaker 1: and I know, one of the biggest platforms, and I
Speaker 1: know we're gonna talk about this later and I'm already
Speaker 1: addressing it. Twitter has been one of the biggest perpetrators
Speaker 1: in allowing this type of abuse and not actually following
Speaker 1: through in the policies they've they've already placed themselves to
Speaker 1: try to supposedly stop these types of harassments, and then
Speaker 1: knowing that there's even ways to actually find specific people
Speaker 1: to target, like when you were talking about the bots,
Speaker 1: and then just having uh pretty much hate farms created
Speaker 1: all these types of platforms. I can't imagine what it
Speaker 1: does to too. Yeah, it's happening to those who are
Speaker 1: on higher profile levels. I guess it's the best way
Speaker 1: to say it. But to be fair, like, I am
Speaker 1: petrified as someone who kind of it's it is supposed
Speaker 1: to be. I don't know the world, not influencer. I
Speaker 1: don't know what a public person will say this. We'll
Speaker 1: say public person, my name is out there, Like I'm
Speaker 1: petrified with my five followers that I'm going to say
Speaker 1: something wrong and or they're gonna hear someone's gonna hear
Speaker 1: something that we do take it and say that means
Speaker 1: we can go after her, and wondering what that would
Speaker 1: be like because I've seen normal people, regular people getting
Speaker 1: attacked like Holy, all they said was this one thing
Speaker 1: and or just agreed with something and people are going
Speaker 1: after them. Oh my god, I mean absolutely, And we're
Speaker 1: also I wouldn't even missed to not mention that we're
Speaker 1: having this conversation on day one of Elon Musk at
Speaker 1: the helm at Twitter, and people keep asking like, Oh,
Speaker 1: what do you think about that? What do you think
Speaker 1: about that? And I can tell you that that people
Speaker 1: who are extremists, bad actors, people who are interested in,
Speaker 1: you know, perpetrating these the kinds of harassment campaigns that
Speaker 1: you were just talking about, Sam, Those people are rejoicing
Speaker 1: right Like just today, I already saw a bunch of
Speaker 1: tweets where someone was like, I'm gonna use the end
Speaker 1: sler as many times as i can because it's okay
Speaker 1: now on Twitter. These are the kind of people that
Speaker 1: Elon Musk is welcoming back to the platform. These are
Speaker 1: the kind of people who are rejoicing because Elon Musk
Speaker 1: is at the helm of our one of our largest
Speaker 1: and most important communications platforms. And so you're exactly right
Speaker 1: that I think we started this conversation talking about elected
Speaker 1: officials people running for office. More and more we are
Speaker 1: seeing that trickle down to just regular people. And I
Speaker 1: want to be clear, so it is it is we
Speaker 1: have seen this kind of online behavior keep marginalized people
Speaker 1: from doing things like running for office, but also from
Speaker 1: doing things like just serving their community as election officials
Speaker 1: or poll workers from speaking up about their opinions at
Speaker 1: school board meetings because all people who just generally in
Speaker 1: gay in public civic life, they know that in this climate,
Speaker 1: they are setting themselves up to be attacked. And we're
Speaker 1: not talking about people like it's bad enough that it's
Speaker 1: happening to women running for office, but when it's happening
Speaker 1: to people who are just you know, everyday people. It's
Speaker 1: not like they have a security detail. It's not like
Speaker 1: they have money to protect themselves in the way they
Speaker 1: would need to. And just a few examples that we're
Speaker 1: seeing recently, educators are being attacked by extremists for being
Speaker 1: suspected of being LGBTQ or for teaching something that these
Speaker 1: people do not like um and these campaigns have been
Speaker 1: incredibly effective. One of them happened right in Georgia. Cecilia Lewis.
Speaker 1: She's a Georgia educator who was basically run out of
Speaker 1: town by a group of parents organizing on Facebook because
Speaker 1: they suspected her of she had not even gotten the
Speaker 1: job yet, and they already suspected her of planning to
Speaker 1: teach critical race theory, never mind the fact that she
Speaker 1: wasn't that that's just complete conjecture. Uh, it just happened
Speaker 1: to be that she is a black woman, and so
Speaker 1: they were able to say, like, oh, she's a teacher kids,
Speaker 1: critical race theory, even though she wasn't even an in
Speaker 1: classroom teacher. She was just an administrator, right, And so
Speaker 1: she had to leave town. And when she left town,
Speaker 1: these people followed her to the next town that she
Speaker 1: went to and ran her out of that town too.
Speaker 1: And so these campaigns are incredibly effective. And another good
Speaker 1: example is looking at election workers, eight percent of whom
Speaker 1: are women. Election workers are being basically attacked and accused
Speaker 1: of things like vote tampering if elections don't go the
Speaker 1: way that these extremists want them to. Again, another example
Speaker 1: from Georgia is if you watched the January six commission,
Speaker 1: you might have seen the story of Ruby and shaf Freeman.
Speaker 1: That story broke my heart. A black mother and her
Speaker 1: daughter with a long storied history of serving their community
Speaker 1: as election and poll workers like the black women in
Speaker 1: your town who if you have any questions about voting,
Speaker 1: and they got you. If you need help voting, they
Speaker 1: got you. Like people who are called to serve their
Speaker 1: community and have been for a very long time. Well,
Speaker 1: the thanks they got for that was being horribly attacked.
Speaker 1: When Trump lost Georgia in the election, he and Rudy
Speaker 1: Giuliani and his other phronies baselessly, repeatedly and publicly accused
Speaker 1: these women of vote hampering and videos of them where
Speaker 1: they said that they were moving votes, which never happened. Um.
Speaker 1: And this led to really terrible, frightening attacks on them
Speaker 1: where people showed up at their home and the home
Speaker 1: of their elderly grandmother and they had to flee for
Speaker 1: their own safety. And again, these are regular people, not
Speaker 1: people that have a security detail or people that maybe
Speaker 1: have the money to scrub their personal information from the
Speaker 1: Internet the way that you would need to if you
Speaker 1: were facing these kinds of attacks. Yeah. Actually, I had
Speaker 1: volunteered one time to be a just to oversee as
Speaker 1: people are lining up, make sure everything is okay, nothing nothing,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't talk to anybody. I just make
Speaker 1: sure everybody's has the right to vote, almost being harassed
Speaker 1: all these things, That's all I did. But the entire
Speaker 1: group of people who were actually volunteering, handing out the pencils,
Speaker 1: giving instructions, checking ideas and such. Were all black women,
Speaker 1: every single one of them. And just this last voting
Speaker 1: when I did my whole uh precinct was all black
Speaker 1: but sweet too. They were so great and we had
Speaker 1: the forty five minute line and they were so on
Speaker 1: top of it trying to make sure to get everybody
Speaker 1: through seamlessly, and they did a beautiful job. And they
Speaker 1: were there like this was the I think the fifth
Speaker 1: day of the week that they were doing this, and
Speaker 1: they'd been there and they were not complaining, they were smiling,
Speaker 1: making conversation and it's like people like them who are
Speaker 1: making this happen and going on so well and so perfectly,
Speaker 1: as if there's nothing happening. And literally the line was
Speaker 1: smoothly going and I loved everything about that. And I
Speaker 1: cannot imagine just because they're there, they exist, and they
Speaker 1: decided to help their community, they're gonna be targeted and
Speaker 1: being yelled at, and honestly, um, I know there was
Speaker 1: conversations of people really being scared about being physically harm
Speaker 1: because people are pushing and trying to do so many
Speaker 1: intimidation tactics to accuse and blame somebody for or the
Speaker 1: loss of a bully. Yeah, This is just my opinion.
Speaker 1: Black women are the backbone of our democracy. They are
Speaker 1: like older black woman from the South. They are the
Speaker 1: grease of the wheels of democracy. Like I feel like
Speaker 1: when I go into a place like that and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: of course, there's like hell of black women with clipboards
Speaker 1: in here like that, like that's the vibe. And you know,
Speaker 1: and we know that of election workers and poll workers
Speaker 1: are women. I would be be willing to bet at
Speaker 1: a bunch of those are black women, especially in the South.
Speaker 1: And I think that what we're really doing is allowing
Speaker 1: for people who are the most marginalized in our society.
Speaker 1: We are allowing for them to put themselves out there
Speaker 1: to support our communities and our democracy in these ways
Speaker 1: for not a lot of money about mind you, because
Speaker 1: a lot of these women are volunteers, are very low paid,
Speaker 1: and we're saying you also need to absorb these attacks
Speaker 1: to do so when we're basically setting these women up
Speaker 1: to be attacked and giving them no and not even
Speaker 1: really talking about it when they are right. And so
Speaker 1: I think it's my experience with voting has been the
Speaker 1: exact same that these are the women who are at
Speaker 1: this point I would say, risking a lot to make
Speaker 1: sure that our democratic process is able to take place.
Speaker 1: And honestly, this is probably not surprising to anybody, because
Speaker 1: these kinds of attacks are meant exactly to keep those
Speaker 1: kinds of people from doing what they do. It is
Speaker 1: meant to keep them from doing their work of keeping
Speaker 1: the wheels of democracy going. It is meant to keep
Speaker 1: them from being engaged in civic life, because who would
Speaker 1: want to sort of their community by working as a
Speaker 1: poll worker or running for office if it means that
Speaker 1: them and their families are going to be facing these
Speaker 1: kinds of attacks. So probably not surprising to anybody that
Speaker 1: here we are ten days out from an election and
Speaker 1: the United States is facing a national shortage on poll workers.
Speaker 1: Kim Wyman, who is the senior Election Security lead at
Speaker 1: the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency or the c i
Speaker 1: s A, said that because of a rise in threats
Speaker 1: against election workers, one in three election workers and poll
Speaker 1: workers have quit their positions over fears for their safety,
Speaker 1: and state officials are having a hard time hiring folks
Speaker 1: for these positions because again, who would want to do
Speaker 1: these like low paid duties? It means like, oh you
Speaker 1: you and your family might have to flee for your safety.
Speaker 1: This is because you wanted to do this position, helping
Speaker 1: your community in this way. I can understand why people
Speaker 1: are not lining up to do this work, but you
Speaker 1: can see how big those consequences are for our democracy
Speaker 1: and for all of us when we can't even get
Speaker 1: people to do enact the labor that needs to happen
Speaker 1: for our democratic process to exist. Yeah. Um, And as
Speaker 1: you've mentioned, like we've arrived at not a great space
Speaker 1: in our democracy, but we've had a long history, Like
Speaker 1: we had plenty of signs of of where we could
Speaker 1: have listened to, especially black women, and we didn't, And
Speaker 1: this is where we are. So can you expand on
Speaker 1: that a little bit? Yes, I believe that this entire
Speaker 1: saying all of these fetes to our democracy is really
Speaker 1: connected and goes back to not listening to black women
Speaker 1: because I talked about the fact that you know, these
Speaker 1: threats that start online become real role threats. Black women
Speaker 1: have been saying this for a very long time, and
Speaker 1: I feel that nobody has really listened. You know, some
Speaker 1: of the first people to really raise the alarm about
Speaker 1: the role that online harassment plays in our landscape, we're
Speaker 1: black women because woman have been saying this for years,
Speaker 1: and people and by that I mean people with power,
Speaker 1: that people with power to do something pretty much ignored them.
Speaker 1: And so I would then argue that not listening to
Speaker 1: black women has consequences for all of us. A couple
Speaker 1: of examples, Um, most people listening are probably familiar with
Speaker 1: gamer Gate. If you are not familiar with gamer Gate,
Speaker 1: I am jealous. But essentially it was like, if that's
Speaker 1: something that you were like, I've never heard of that before.
Speaker 1: I want to live the life that you are living, right,
Speaker 1: But essentially gamer Gate was when a bunch of men
Speaker 1: uh pretty much attacked and harra asked mostly women under
Speaker 1: the guys of being big mad about scare quotes, ethics
Speaker 1: in gaming journalism, and it got lots of attention rightly,
Speaker 1: and most people like probably remember it, but those same
Speaker 1: people probably don't know that the same folks responsible for
Speaker 1: gamer Gate, we're using those exact same tactics against black
Speaker 1: women before gamer Gate, women like Adria Richards, who was
Speaker 1: targeted for racist respen online after she tweeted about a
Speaker 1: crass joke about dongles that she overheard at a work event,
Speaker 1: or women like Shafika Hudson who actually reported and called
Speaker 1: out bad actors who were using BAC accounts to impersonate
Speaker 1: black women to destabilize Internet communities. You know, these are
Speaker 1: women who spoke up about what they were facing on
Speaker 1: the Internet, and they were basically ignored. And I wonder
Speaker 1: what might have happened if somebody with power had actually
Speaker 1: listened to them and taken some action. For one, I
Speaker 1: believe gamer Gate might have gone down very differently if
Speaker 1: when people use these tactics against black women somebody was like, hey, wait,
Speaker 1: this is bad. We should not allow our platform to
Speaker 1: be used this way and made some changes. Or consider
Speaker 1: the fact that six years after Sapi Hudson reported people
Speaker 1: impersonating black folks on Twitter to cause chaos, white supremacist
Speaker 1: groups used that very same tactic during the racial Uprising
Speaker 1: to make it seem like Black Lives Matter activists were
Speaker 1: using the Internet to call for people to like loot
Speaker 1: homes and cause violence, and Twitter actually confirmed this. Twitter
Speaker 1: was like, oh yeah, we can confirm now that some
Speaker 1: of the accounts who were using our platform to call
Speaker 1: for people to like loot and cause violence during these protests,
Speaker 1: those were actually white supremacists pretending to be Black Lives
Speaker 1: Matter activists, and so you know, they didn't actually explain
Speaker 1: why they did all to prevent this from being a
Speaker 1: tactic on a larger scale down the line, if they
Speaker 1: knew it was a vulnerability of their platform. And when
Speaker 1: we zoom out even further, these are the same tactics
Speaker 1: that a Senate inquiry in would confirm we're used to
Speaker 1: try to destabilize election, right. And so if when these
Speaker 1: black women reported what they were seeing online, if somebody
Speaker 1: had done something, I wonder, would bad actors who were
Speaker 1: trying to use this tactic to destabilize our elections and
Speaker 1: destabilize our online communities and truly cause violence and chaos,
Speaker 1: would that have been a a viable tactic? I would
Speaker 1: argue maybe not. But again, these are the consequences when
Speaker 1: folks don't listen to black women and don't take them
Speaker 1: seriously when they speak up about what they're experiencing online. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And one of the things that annoys me the most
Speaker 1: is when this whole idea of like that's just sort
Speaker 1: of the price of the game. Accept it, like you know,
Speaker 1: if you're tough, And sometimes people will try to paint
Speaker 1: it in a very nice brush, like you're strong enough
Speaker 1: to make it against all this harassment, all this stuff online.
Speaker 1: You're you're so tough. But really, we shouldn't be accepting
Speaker 1: this or expecting this in the first place. And that
Speaker 1: is one of the things the points you're making here
Speaker 1: is that we've normalized it to the point where I've
Speaker 1: even heard conversations will people where people will paint it
Speaker 1: as like, Oh, it's a good thing, she's tough, she
Speaker 1: can survive in this environment. It shouldn't be that way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't want to have a political landscape where you
Speaker 1: have to be able to publicly endure and withstand attacks
Speaker 1: on you and your family, because when it's women, the
Speaker 1: research is super clear that it's never just the woman
Speaker 1: who was attacked. It's her, her mom, her dad, her kids,
Speaker 1: her partner, her community, her neighbors, her friends. I don't
Speaker 1: want a political climate that says that women have to
Speaker 1: be able to endure these kinds of attacks on their
Speaker 1: safety and and watch their families deal with it as well. Uh,
Speaker 1: if they want to be elected officials, if they want
Speaker 1: to serve their community, if they want to just take
Speaker 1: place in civic life, that's not the kind of climate
Speaker 1: I want we should not that's not acceptable, that's not
Speaker 1: a norm we should be okay with, you know. And
Speaker 1: I keep thinking about how the algorithm has changed. And
Speaker 1: I was talking to Annie about our own algorithm, and
Speaker 1: because we are so afraid of social media, we stay
Speaker 1: away from it, and therefore anytime we do put anything up,
Speaker 1: it's ignored because we don't have a lot of content
Speaker 1: out there. And I still think about how Twitter, and
Speaker 1: I know for all references, it's just that when we
Speaker 1: talk about black Twitter, it is the community coming together
Speaker 1: and having like their own space and talking and because
Speaker 1: they've kind of become grouped and has has to become
Speaker 1: a point where if you don't already uh follow some
Speaker 1: of these people, or if you're not actually paying attention,
Speaker 1: it just goes away from your feed. Kind of how
Speaker 1: TikTok is doing that. We're just making it harder and
Speaker 1: harder to actually see what is happening and what the
Speaker 1: truth really is going down. Have to question, like, so
Speaker 1: is the algorithm really a good thing in that it
Speaker 1: does this tour where you're in your own little hole,
Speaker 1: and where it's putting pocketing black women who are like, hey,
Speaker 1: this bad thing is happening. We're trying to tell y'all,
Speaker 1: but the only people who are seeing those other people
Speaker 1: who already know. And it's like, what the hell, how
Speaker 1: do we change that? Yeah? What an insightful question. So
Speaker 1: this is just my opinion. This is like just representing myself.
Speaker 1: I don't think that it is good they have a
Speaker 1: platform like Twitter, especially be so tied to an algorithm.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's good for all the reasons that
Speaker 1: you just said. People they're there, voices can be siloed,
Speaker 1: you can feel like you're talking to the choir of
Speaker 1: people who already agree with you, and you know, I
Speaker 1: know what you're saying. And I also think that I
Speaker 1: don't think that platforms have shown that they're able to
Speaker 1: be responsible with algorithmically generated content right now. Algorithms are
Speaker 1: just it's just a fact. They are biased towards con
Speaker 1: tent that is untrue. False information travels on Twitter, specifically
Speaker 1: much faster and much further than correct information. They amplify
Speaker 1: content that is extremist, and I don't mean like extremists,
Speaker 1: like capital e extremist, although that as well, but like
Speaker 1: content that is, you know, more extreme than not extreme.
Speaker 1: So if I'm saying, like, I ate a piece of
Speaker 1: toast today and it was burnt. I hate all toast
Speaker 1: rather than like, oh, this piece of toast was burnt.
Speaker 1: When some lose them, they're going to amplify the one
Speaker 1: that sounds more extreme, because that's that's what gets more eyeballs. Um.
Speaker 1: They amplify content that is polarizing, They amplify content that
Speaker 1: is loud and aggressive. And I don't think that platforms
Speaker 1: can be trusted to be run algorithmically because they are
Speaker 1: going to make us all more extreme, more polarized, less informed,
Speaker 1: and less thoughtful. I would love to see an algorithmic
Speaker 1: model that is amplifies content that is thoughtful, honest, accurate, timely, whatever,
Speaker 1: but I have not seen it, and so I think
Speaker 1: platforms have shown that they can't be trusted to to
Speaker 1: work with algorithmic models because they're just going to amplify
Speaker 1: stuff that makes us all worse off. Right, Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I honestly just being new to TikTok, and we've talked
Speaker 1: about TikTok often um on the show, but it also
Speaker 1: does the same thing with the f y P or
Speaker 1: for you page, where it only amplifies what seems to
Speaker 1: be uh most disturbing. I say that for my own
Speaker 1: uh concept, because there's so much out there that the
Speaker 1: worst shadow banning and the idea that many of these
Speaker 1: algorithms do this that there's enough that people can complain
Speaker 1: or make false allegations, and and their standard of what
Speaker 1: they think is bullying and or racist is not And
Speaker 1: apparently they have a pretty big threshold of saying it's
Speaker 1: not right racists, We're good, um, even though it's obviously
Speaker 1: super racist, in the fact that they seem to keep
Speaker 1: working on that level in and allowing for things that
Speaker 1: we know is I don't know, being threatened, being called
Speaker 1: by a stereotype that I would consider racist, but yet
Speaker 1: for so off that it's not that big of a deal.
Speaker 1: They're not really threatening you. Wait. Yeah, so we have
Speaker 1: to have a police report to actually say that we're
Speaker 1: being threatened, and that seems to be happening often in
Speaker 1: these platforms exactly. And this is when I said I
Speaker 1: wasn't really a big fan of algorithm platforms. One of
Speaker 1: the reasons is because I think that we're as humans,
Speaker 1: we are giving the responsibility of moderating platforms more and
Speaker 1: more to algorithms or AI and AI is smart and
Speaker 1: good at lots of things, but there are some things
Speaker 1: that you need a humans take on. And so Sam,
Speaker 1: you know, you talked about how like oh, I'm being
Speaker 1: called a racial slur or like I'm being attacked in
Speaker 1: this way. Bad actors are so good at using dog
Speaker 1: whistles or coded language or things to get around AI
Speaker 1: or machine learning that is like you know, working as
Speaker 1: a content moderator, and they know how to exploit those loopholes.
Speaker 1: And so I completely agree, especially on TikTok, I feel
Speaker 1: like they really need to make some changes with how
Speaker 1: they're platform is run if that platform is going to
Speaker 1: be safer and more inclusive. Um. I think it was
Speaker 1: the Washington Post recently that just did a little experiment
Speaker 1: where if you don't follow a Washington Post on TikTok,
Speaker 1: they have a really interesting TikTok channel. They are doing
Speaker 1: a series on TikTok where they used all these words
Speaker 1: that they were certain we're going to get their TikTok's suppressed. Um.
Speaker 1: So they they did a TikTok where they said racism,
Speaker 1: black lives matter, disability, um, you know, all these other
Speaker 1: words because they were like, if you if you use
Speaker 1: these words in your TikTok, they are more likely to
Speaker 1: be suppressed what they were doing an experiment and by
Speaker 1: gott Lee it worked, you know. And so it's clear
Speaker 1: to me that platforms are not being run one with
Speaker 1: a thoughtful, nuanced, sensitive human who was able to understand
Speaker 1: nuance at the helm and to just not being run
Speaker 1: in a way that amplifies good conversation, thoughtful conversation, substitutive conversation,
Speaker 1: and does not amplify garbage, lies, extremism, hate all that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and on top of that, you have again as you
Speaker 1: talk bad players who and I've seen this a lot
Speaker 1: more on TikTok because again on that person, but like
Speaker 1: in the conversations that they thinking that they're doing something
Speaker 1: good and doing that extreme call out in which they
Speaker 1: get people fired and canceled and all of these things
Speaker 1: and go after people on just one video. And don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong, a lot of these I agree with
Speaker 1: that these people who are saying really nicety crap and
Speaker 1: being caught on camera, are caught on their phone for
Speaker 1: saying these things should be called out. There should be repercussions.
Speaker 1: But it's come to a point that it's entertainment almost
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering where this is gonna lead because it's
Speaker 1: a fairly new thing out of the last um five years.
Speaker 1: And I say that for the both the left and
Speaker 1: the right, that it's like this is this is getting
Speaker 1: dangerously toxic. Dangerously toxic. That's a whole different conversation. I know. No,
Speaker 1: it's so funny that you bring this up because I
Speaker 1: so I recorded the first episode of Internet Hate Machine
Speaker 1: with Sophie earlier in this week, and I haven't perhaps
Speaker 1: unpopular opinion on this. When I first got on TikTok, specifically,
Speaker 1: I followed a lot of creators who made content that
Speaker 1: was like this guy is a racist and this is
Speaker 1: where he works and I'm gonna call his employer and
Speaker 1: get him fired. And I used to be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: like fire that racist, like really loved it. As I have,
Speaker 1: I guess matured and matured along with the platform, as
Speaker 1: cathartic as that as that is, I don't think that
Speaker 1: that is an appropriate tactic. And I think that even
Speaker 1: if I am in agreement like yeah, this racist shouldn't
Speaker 1: be doing this. And they're definitely exceptions to this, I'm sure,
Speaker 1: but in general, I just know how easy it is
Speaker 1: for bad actors and extremists to weaponize that very same tactic. Right,
Speaker 1: We're gonna coordinate and have all these people call this
Speaker 1: person to get them fired because we didn't like what
Speaker 1: they tweeted. I don't think that that is a tactic
Speaker 1: that makes us smarter, that makes us better, that makes us,
Speaker 1: you know, healthier as a society. So even what I
Speaker 1: see it happening with someone who ostensibly I agree with,
Speaker 1: should you know they deserve it? I feel like I
Speaker 1: know how easily that is a tactic to be exploited
Speaker 1: and weaponized by bad actors. And our first episode actually
Speaker 1: deals with this woman, ah R Richards, who I was
Speaker 1: talking about earlier, who was one of the early targets
Speaker 1: at that where she tweeted a picture of these two
Speaker 1: guys at a tech conference who are making a crass
Speaker 1: joke that she didn't like, and she got horribly mobbed,
Speaker 1: where they coordinated on on sites like FESHND to call
Speaker 1: her employer. They threatened her employer, and rather than supporting her,
Speaker 1: her employer fired her and was like, Okay, yeah, you
Speaker 1: guys want her to be fired, She's fired. And I've
Speaker 1: just seen time and time again that that tactic is
Speaker 1: so easily gamified and weaponized and exploited by bad actors
Speaker 1: that I don't think anybody should be engaged in it, right,
Speaker 1: And that's that's the other conversation that it keeps go
Speaker 1: into my head is that the whole level of Docks
Speaker 1: saying and which is this kind of like again, the
Speaker 1: is the entertainment level. And this is where it's getting
Speaker 1: really disgusting to me that I'm like, Okay, we we
Speaker 1: have used this as a form of entertainment to see
Speaker 1: if people can be ruined. Yes, consequences should happen, but
Speaker 1: there's this whole new level that that's entertainment now, and
Speaker 1: that needs to be a conversation. Like the whole gist
Speaker 1: of the entire conversation is it becomes a small thing
Speaker 1: that becomes a bigger and bigger and then normalized, and
Speaker 1: then it's like we don't realize what we're doing in
Speaker 1: that we have not only ruined people's life, but probably
Speaker 1: a lot of innocent people's lives and attached to that
Speaker 1: and then you see that Okay, this has been happening,
Speaker 1: but these platforms like TikTok, which is fairly new, are
Speaker 1: still allowing it to happen. How is this not changing exactly?
Speaker 1: And I think we have gotten to a place where
Speaker 1: it's it's normalized as entertainment, and it's it's not even
Speaker 1: I mean, like we're talking about pretty serious things like
Speaker 1: women running for office and being engaged in democratic and
Speaker 1: civic life. Do you remever couch guy TikTok, the guy
Speaker 1: who everybody was so convinced was cheating on his girlfriend
Speaker 1: and it was caught on tick talk because his long
Speaker 1: distance girlfriend films a TikTok of her surprising him and
Speaker 1: his he's not reacting the way that maybe you might
Speaker 1: expect somebody to react, and everybody was like overnight became
Speaker 1: a body language expert, and like I saw people on
Speaker 1: television news. I saw a segment where they had a
Speaker 1: quote body language expert breaking down his body language. These
Speaker 1: are strangers, right, And so I do think we've gotten
Speaker 1: to this place where we are We've gotten really comfortable
Speaker 1: making complete, like assumptions about people we do not know,
Speaker 1: confidently going on on big platforms and airing those assumptions.
Speaker 1: And because of the way that algorithms work, those assumptions
Speaker 1: will get millions of people to watch them and then
Speaker 1: reply with their own assumptions because of the of the
Speaker 1: sort of riff and remix culture of TikTok. Then they'll say, well,
Speaker 1: actually I think he was cheating like this and not
Speaker 1: like that, Like it's not it's not healthy and it's
Speaker 1: not good for our society. Oh, the couch guy was
Speaker 1: such a meme essentially, but you know what, I've seen
Speaker 1: something similar to that just recently on Twitter, and I
Speaker 1: have no opinion. I Jose was like, wow, okay, gad yes, yes,
Speaker 1: garden Lady I was like, wow, that just what just happened. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we did an episode of There Are No Girls on
Speaker 1: the Internet about this. So if you don't know who
Speaker 1: garden Lady is, she is this woman who has a garden.
Speaker 1: And she tweeted something along the lines of life I
Speaker 1: start every morning with taking my coffee out to my
Speaker 1: garden with my husband and if you talk for hours,
Speaker 1: never gets old. Love him, so love love the morning.
Speaker 1: The entire internet was like, boo, we hate it, we
Speaker 1: hate it. Boo tomato, tomato tomato. Right, Like it went
Speaker 1: from like you're being ablest to be and you're being
Speaker 1: classes and there are things I'm like, I don't know
Speaker 1: anything about this woman and then someone went into a
Speaker 1: deep dive into her account and said, oh, she's an
Speaker 1: awful person. Keep attacking her. And I was just what
Speaker 1: what just happened? Yeah? And I so that that was
Speaker 1: so interesting to me, and I feel like it's a
Speaker 1: great example of I love social media and the Internet.
Speaker 1: I don't think millions of people were meant to weigh
Speaker 1: in on the morning routine of a stranger in this way.
Speaker 1: Like I saw the same thing where people were like, actually,
Speaker 1: she's anti vax and it's like, well, I don't think
Speaker 1: the people who are attacking her are attacking her because
Speaker 1: she They knew that, like she maybe posts. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't even I can't, you know, confirm or deny that.
Speaker 1: But I was like, I don't know that that's why
Speaker 1: people are attacking her, And you know, I saw probably
Speaker 1: the wildest response to that tweet I saw was someone
Speaker 1: being like, oh, don't you work, And she was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I own my own business, so I'm able to have
Speaker 1: flexibility in the mornings. And then somebody else replied, oh,
Speaker 1: so you're exploiting the labor of your employees and that's
Speaker 1: why you're able to have these nice mornings terrible and
Speaker 1: she was like, I'm the sole employee of my small business,
Speaker 1: and so just like layers and layers of errors of
Speaker 1: assumed bull about something they don't even know. But that's
Speaker 1: the thing is, like it becomes in this really really
Speaker 1: tempestuous like grounds of like, Okay, her doing a noculous
Speaker 1: statement about how she loved this moment with her husband
Speaker 1: has made it. Some people have weaponized it against her,
Speaker 1: telling her she's all these things and they're like, what,
Speaker 1: how did we get here? Why are we here? And
Speaker 1: what is this platform? Because like like what is this platform?
Speaker 1: Like why am I being told that I need to
Speaker 1: care about this stranger? Why why is it start being
Speaker 1: surfaced to me? What is going on that this is
Speaker 1: even something that I am aware of, like the morning
Speaker 1: routine of this person that I will probably never even meet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like so many things. One of my big
Speaker 1: concerns about social media and the Internet now is you know,
Speaker 1: like internet literacy context. I feel like we've thrown contexts
Speaker 1: out the window, but also just that kind of idea
Speaker 1: where or this is a lighter example but of this, Oh,
Speaker 1: I've got to have an opinion, I've gotta have a stance,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna say something and then you like, don't
Speaker 1: do any other research into it, and then when you
Speaker 1: add in like misinformation and disinformation, it just frightens me
Speaker 1: to be honest, Like, I keep seeing all these stories about, oh,
Speaker 1: this image was fake, and I haven't even seen the
Speaker 1: image in question, but I know that a lot of
Speaker 1: people saw it and they believed it, and like that
Speaker 1: it gets my heart running for guess same. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: I really resonate with your point about having to have
Speaker 1: a take. I feel like so the way that social
Speaker 1: media functions, both the algorithmic nature of social media platforms
Speaker 1: and the speed by which social media platforms tend to move,
Speaker 1: I think it incentivizes people to feel like they have
Speaker 1: to have a take and they have to have it
Speaker 1: right away. In reality, it's okay to not have a take.
Speaker 1: It's okay to to be like, I don't really know
Speaker 1: anything about this. Me putting my opinion or my voice
Speaker 1: out there on an issue that I don't know about
Speaker 1: is going to be helpful. It's not going to add
Speaker 1: to the conversation. I'll just listen, right. I don't think
Speaker 1: that social media platforms incentivize just taking a step back
Speaker 1: or even just taking a minute to figure out what
Speaker 1: you want to say. It's like it has to be quick,
Speaker 1: has to be now, you have to reply, get that engagement,
Speaker 1: and that doesn't serve anybody. I don't think that social
Speaker 1: media platforms incentivize us to be thoughtful or you know,
Speaker 1: our best there. I think there was like, for instance,
Speaker 1: when the Queen died. I don't really know anything about
Speaker 1: the monarchy. I don't really know what I don't really
Speaker 1: I'm not invested in it, and so I'm not someone
Speaker 1: that you would that you need to hear from on it. Right,
Speaker 1: Like I was like, there are people who are very
Speaker 1: invested in this. Let them have the spotlight of like
Speaker 1: saying what they want to say. I think that it's
Speaker 1: okay to not weigh in. It's okay to not have
Speaker 1: a hot take. I don't think social media platforms incentivize
Speaker 1: or encourage us to just listen sometimes. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: think we've seen that seep into our daily lives and
Speaker 1: our politics, because I just see that with politicians all
Speaker 1: the time, and then that muddies the whole conversation because
Speaker 1: if you have this I don't know anything about this
Speaker 1: garden lady, but if you have this whole conversation happening.
Speaker 1: It's distracting from the very real context and information we
Speaker 1: have about politicians that they're doing these things. So I
Speaker 1: I think, I know that this podcast you have coming
Speaker 1: out is so needed, um, and I'm so so excited
Speaker 1: to hear it. Um. If you can tell us more
Speaker 1: about it. Yeah, I mean, I feel like I've got
Speaker 1: you all, got me worked out obviously. So I think
Speaker 1: I think it does all relate. And I think that
Speaker 1: what we're seeing now is these tried and true tactics
Speaker 1: of online harassment becoming an animating and normalized feature of
Speaker 1: our political landscape and discourse. And you know, there's this
Speaker 1: phrase that black women are quote canaries in the cole
Speaker 1: mine for online harms, because first it happens to us,
Speaker 1: and then it happens to everyone, and bad actors are
Speaker 1: just continuing to use these same tactics they were able
Speaker 1: to perfect on black women on others. And so I
Speaker 1: think that we need to have leadership, people with power
Speaker 1: at you know, elected officials, policymakers and tech companies listening
Speaker 1: to black women so that we can actually get a
Speaker 1: handle on this. And you know, as we were sort
Speaker 1: of talking about, I think that our Internet and our
Speaker 1: social media platforms have become so weaponized. You know, it's
Speaker 1: nearly impossible to have a meaningful conversation or meaningful discourse
Speaker 1: on our communication platforms because the leaders who run those
Speaker 1: platforms have basically incentivized and amplified lies and grifts and
Speaker 1: scams and extremism were more polarized than ever. And grifters
Speaker 1: know this and are basically running the show. And I
Speaker 1: think if we're ever planning on getting a handle on this,
Speaker 1: if we're ever planning on doing something about this, the
Speaker 1: first step has to be talking honestly about it. And
Speaker 1: so that's why I'm doing the podcast with cool Zone
Speaker 1: Media called Internet Hate Machine, Uh, And I really want
Speaker 1: to chart the history of online harassment against women have
Speaker 1: called are specifically, and how it has led us to
Speaker 1: this current political and social movement. And so I hope
Speaker 1: that folks will listen. It's something that I think is
Speaker 1: really timely right now as we go into mid terms.
Speaker 1: I think it will be timely for a long time
Speaker 1: as we determine what we want our political and social
Speaker 1: landscape to look like. Right and it's important. I'm so
Speaker 1: excited because it definitely needs to be the bigger part
Speaker 1: of the conversation as we look at what our democracy
Speaker 1: looks like in the future, in the near future, let's
Speaker 1: let's say, um but not just for the United States,
Speaker 1: but all around the world, because we were seeing similar
Speaker 1: things happen on different timelines. And I feel like you're
Speaker 1: going to be able to bring in such good perspective
Speaker 1: and so showing the present, the past, and possibly the
Speaker 1: future with all of this. So thank you and I'm
Speaker 1: excited to listen, especially that first one. Yeah, please check
Speaker 1: it out. Our trailer and episode zero are already lives.
Speaker 1: You can go to Internet Hate Machine on wherever you
Speaker 1: find your podcast, Spotify, Apple Podcasts. You know how to
Speaker 1: find your listen. This is a podcast, so you know
Speaker 1: how to find podcasts if you're listening to this um So.
Speaker 1: Episode zero is already live, but our first official episode
Speaker 1: will drop on November second, So please check it out. Yes,
Speaker 1: go subscribe, please support it. Um it's amazing work. Can't
Speaker 1: wait to hear it. Where else can the listeners find you?
Speaker 1: Bridget Well, you can find me on my weekly podcast
Speaker 1: about women in the Internet called There Are No Girls
Speaker 1: on the Internet. You can definitely find that if you're
Speaker 1: listening to this podcast. Um, that's not going anywhere, so
Speaker 1: we can listen to them both. If you can find
Speaker 1: me on Instagram at Bridget Marian d C or yes,
Speaker 1: I'm still gonna be on Twitter elon must be damn.
Speaker 1: You can find me on You can find me on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Bridget Murray. Yes um, and is always such
Speaker 1: a delight to have you, Bridget. Wishing everybody you and
Speaker 1: everybody all the best as we enter into this final
Speaker 1: stretch of the mid terms. And also listeners you might
Speaker 1: have heard of cameo from Bridget's cat which was an
Speaker 1: hear it we needed it annoyed with me even though
Speaker 1: she doesn't have a job and like has everything and
Speaker 1: has treated with my queen. I'm sure I would be like,
Speaker 1: oh I have a job. Yes, Um, I cannot wait
Speaker 1: till next time. Thank you so much again, Bridget. If
Speaker 1: you would like to find us that you can. You
Speaker 1: can email us at Stuff Media, Mom, Stuff at iHeart Media.
Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter at most of podcast
Speaker 1: or Instagram and stuff I Never told you. Thanks as
Speaker 1: always our super producer Chris Duda, Thank you Christina. Thanks
Speaker 1: to you for listening stuff and till the production of
Speaker 1: I heart Radio for a podcast. For my heart radio,
Speaker 1: you can check out the heart radio app Apple podcast
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite ships. So if you've
Speaker 1: been listening to their No Girls on the Internet for
Speaker 1: a while, you probably know that I was lucky enough
Speaker 1: to work with the amazing team at Mozilla, the makers
Speaker 1: of Firefox, US a podcast called I r L where
Speaker 1: we explored the promise in perils of artificial intelligence. It
Speaker 1: was a dream for me. And guess what, It's been
Speaker 1: nominated for a Shorty Award and I really need your help.
Speaker 1: Can you take a minute and vote for I r
Speaker 1: L to win Best Use of a Podcast. It's super quick,
Speaker 1: I promised. Just go to Tangoti dot com slash I
Speaker 1: r L. You can vote every day, and y'all, I
Speaker 1: don't know if this sounds bad to say, but I
Speaker 1: kind of really want to win. So please vote. That's
Speaker 1: Tango d T A n G O t I dot
Speaker 1: com slash I r L and thank you. It means
Speaker 1: so much to me.