Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridgeton and this is
Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet. So we're still
Speaker 1: in between seasons, but I've got something really special I
Speaker 1: wanted to share with y'all. About a year ago, I
Speaker 1: hosted a roundtable on gendered and racialized disinformation with three
Speaker 1: incredible women of color disinformation experts really doing the work
Speaker 1: in the field to understand and combat the weaponization of
Speaker 1: inflammatory lives about our identity, and as part of my
Speaker 1: post election kind of personal come to Jesus post mortem,
Speaker 1: I re listened to it and I was struck by
Speaker 1: how prescient our conversation was. What the terrible election we
Speaker 1: all just lived through, one where racialized and gender disinformation
Speaker 1: really took center stage. We talked about the long historical
Speaker 1: foundations that bad actors have built on to amplify divisions
Speaker 1: race and gender lines, and the way that tech platforms
Speaker 1: have been used to not only perpetuate that disinformation, but
Speaker 1: also make record profits by doing it. The roundtable was
Speaker 1: part of a video documentary project I did with Exposure Labs,
Speaker 1: the company behind the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma and
Speaker 1: many other excellent projects, and I am particularly grateful to
Speaker 1: director and showrunner Joshua Clark for leading this incredible project
Speaker 1: and for making it available to share with all of
Speaker 1: you here at there are no growth.
Speaker 2: On the Internet.
Speaker 1: It is important work and I am glad we are
Speaker 1: able to air it here. Check it out. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the Disinfo Dialogue, where we're exploring the legacy of cultural disinformation,
Speaker 1: how it has targeted traditionally marginalized communities both before and
Speaker 1: during the Internet Age, and what it means for all
Speaker 1: of us. I'm your host, bridget Toad. We're joined by
Speaker 1: an expert roundtable featuring Jessica and Mitchell Awuiar, founder of
Speaker 1: the National Black Cultural Information Trust, Liz Lebron, disinformation researcher
Speaker 1: at Blue Nexus Group, and Jaya Savita Ayer, director of
Speaker 1: the Asian Pacific Islanders Acific Action Network. So I want
Speaker 1: to start with the word disinformation. I've sometimes had a
Speaker 1: little bit of discomfort with this word because I think
Speaker 1: it can be kind of a buzzword and might not
Speaker 1: actually get at the ways that inaccurate, inflammatory content about
Speaker 1: our identity and our communities really impacts us in our democracy.
Speaker 1: So what do you think when you hear the word disinformation?
Speaker 3: You're so right, disinformation. You know, it was a buzzword
Speaker 3: for a minute. But first of all, disinformation did not
Speaker 3: start with the Internet. It did not start with the
Speaker 3: digitally just been around since time immemorial. It's really a
Speaker 3: deliberate and concerted effort to distort information and give people
Speaker 3: faulty false information, and deliberate really being the keywords. So
Speaker 3: you know your aunt Mildred saying, oh, I think the
Speaker 3: election is on Wednesday, that's just, you know, somebody being misinformed.
Speaker 3: That's very different than a bad actor putting together a
Speaker 3: deliberate campaign with the hopes of changing a whole people's behavior.
Speaker 4: I really like how you kind of set that up,
Speaker 4: the working definitions that I use, and that kind of
Speaker 4: help ground being when talking about these like really abstract concepts.
Speaker 4: Is misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation? Right, we think of misinformation
Speaker 4: as exactly what you said. It's your aunt saying, you know,
Speaker 4: something incorrect that's based on something that maybe she saw
Speaker 4: on social media. Disinformation, I think often has kind of
Speaker 4: an agenda or has some sort of CD background within it.
Speaker 4: And then information is kind of the thing that is
Speaker 4: meant to cause harm. Right, That's the thing that's meant
Speaker 4: to cause hurt, that's meant to divide us, that's meant
Speaker 4: to alienate people in communities, and is meant to really
Speaker 4: perpetuate not only harm, but lack of trust.
Speaker 2: And we all fall victim to it in various ways.
Speaker 5: That's so true. I love both of you all's definitions.
Speaker 5: Disinformation is false information spread with an agenda, and misinformation
Speaker 5: is false information spread but often unknowingly. And I think
Speaker 5: it's really important to make that distinction because if we
Speaker 5: don't make that distinction, sometimes we end up demonizing the
Speaker 5: very communities that we're trying to protect from this and misinformation.
Speaker 2: And I'm really.
Speaker 5: Glad Jaya that you brought up mal information because that's
Speaker 5: not talked about as much. But mal information can be
Speaker 5: truthful information that is used within certain narrative to persuade
Speaker 5: people to react in a certain way.
Speaker 1: So let's get into some of those historical examples, because
Speaker 1: this is I really want to get into this. So
Speaker 1: much of the malinformation and disinformation that I have seen
Speaker 1: targeting communities of color really are trying to pit us
Speaker 1: against each other to say, oh, like you need to
Speaker 1: be afraid of this community. This community is taking your resources.
Speaker 1: This community is a threat to you. Why do you
Speaker 1: think that is? Why are we seeing this and how
Speaker 1: have you seen us play out in your own work?
Speaker 5: I can say specifically in terms of the Black community,
Speaker 5: there is an ongoing disinformation campaign to sow a rift
Speaker 5: between African Americans and Black immigrants or descendants of Black immigrants.
Speaker 5: Part of that is meant to break down the power
Speaker 5: of black collective activism. There has been solidarity built over
Speaker 5: time where these communities come together. We have people like
Speaker 5: Kwame Terray. We have Malcolm X who is a descendant
Speaker 5: of African Americans and his mother was from the Caribbean.
Speaker 5: So we have all these experiences through the Harlem Renaissance,
Speaker 5: through the Black Arts period, through the Black Power movement,
Speaker 5: of people of African descent from various ethnicities and backgrounds
Speaker 5: coming together to fight for our civil and human rights.
Speaker 2: And it's only getting.
Speaker 5: Greater unless you come up with a way to put
Speaker 5: us at odds with each other to where we feel
Speaker 5: like we're in competition with each other till we feel
Speaker 5: like we're taking resources from each other.
Speaker 3: No, absolutely, and it comes back to sowing distrust to
Speaker 3: make us not trust one another. There's a long standing
Speaker 3: history of trying to pet Latinos and Black communities against
Speaker 3: one another, as if after Latinos do not exist, you know.
Speaker 3: So first of all, yeah, it's completely erasing after Latinos,
Speaker 3: you know, off the bat. So one really just awful
Speaker 3: narrative that I saw was about the Vice president so
Speaker 3: saying heard, I've seen a lot of disinformation in the
Speaker 3: Latino community that because she is black and here again
Speaker 3: erasing the fact that she is also you know, an
Speaker 3: Asian American, erasing that completely, she's not going to look
Speaker 3: out for the interest of Latinos. How could she. She's
Speaker 3: a you know, a black woman. She's only going to
Speaker 3: look out for the interest of a black people.
Speaker 5: That's so funny you brought that up, because in the
Speaker 5: black community, the disinformation about the Vice President Kamala Harris
Speaker 5: is she's half Asian, she's not black enough, she don't
Speaker 5: represent us, and so it's that distrust on that end
Speaker 5: as well.
Speaker 4: I mean, And the funniest thing is on the flip side,
Speaker 4: within the Asian community and specifically within the South Asian
Speaker 4: Indian community, Kamala Harris isn't South Asian enough. For her,
Speaker 4: hosting parties or trying to kind of build solidarity in
Speaker 4: community with the API population is seen as performative because
Speaker 4: you know, she's picking and choosing when she wants to
Speaker 4: be South Asian.
Speaker 2: She's picking and choosing when she wants to be Asian.
Speaker 4: And I wanted to get back to your previous point
Speaker 4: around kind of the history of solidarity and the history
Speaker 4: of inter and intra black solidarity and talk really about
Speaker 4: the fact that the API, the Asian American solidarity movement
Speaker 4: would not have happened without black.
Speaker 2: Civil rights leaders and the black power movement.
Speaker 4: Right, the concept the term Asian American came out because
Speaker 4: the term African American was coined, the term Black American
Speaker 4: was coined. But the politics of division, the politics of saying,
Speaker 4: you know, oh, those black kids are getting into Harvard
Speaker 4: or whatever, and that's because of affirmative action, and Asian
Speaker 4: kids are getting into Harvard enough because of affirmative action, right,
Speaker 4: or narratives like that, We really are looking to divide
Speaker 4: us because when we work together like we have historically,
Speaker 4: change happens, and change is terrifying to people in power.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, And Bridget going back to your point about
Speaker 3: what is disinformation. This dynamic right here was really interesting,
Speaker 3: the three of us seeing the same piece of disinformation
Speaker 3: from different lenses. And so I will tell you when
Speaker 3: I have done the research looking into what is happening
Speaker 3: on the disinfo front and the Latino media space, that
Speaker 3: narrative doesn't show up. That narrative doesn't show up because
Speaker 3: it is so targeted, right so that there's a reason
Speaker 3: in Latino spaces you don't hear. Oh, you know, the
Speaker 3: vice president is not Asian enough. You know, what we
Speaker 3: hear is the narrative that will play on the divides
Speaker 3: within our own community, which we have to address. You know,
Speaker 3: there's colorism in our communities. There's all kinds of things,
Speaker 3: but we're not the only ones who are aware of it.
Speaker 3: That actor see us fighting amongst ourselves, and they walk
Speaker 3: right in there and just try and make that gap wider.
Speaker 1: It's part of it that some of these divisions that
Speaker 1: really do exist, these fractures, really do exist in our communities,
Speaker 1: but were maybe not talking about them, not doing the
Speaker 1: work to heal them or really even point them out,
Speaker 1: and thus we're all sort of more easily exploited.
Speaker 5: It's not just that we're not talking about it enough,
Speaker 5: especially in terms of African American history or Black American
Speaker 5: history in general. You see right now, there's a concentrated
Speaker 5: effort for it to not even be taught in schools.
Speaker 5: When I was growing up, little black girl in Georgia,
Speaker 5: we got a paragraph in that social studies book, Lincoln
Speaker 5: freed the slaves, they did sharecropping, civil rights, MLKA, rosa
Speaker 5: parts boom. That's our paragraph. That was it. So there
Speaker 5: was a lot to do with the educational ructure in systems,
Speaker 5: the institutions where if you wanted to learn the vastness
Speaker 5: and the robustness of Africana studies and Black history and
Speaker 5: Pan African history, that would really help people to better
Speaker 5: understand the interconnections that could help with those conversations in
Speaker 5: that dialogue.
Speaker 2: A lot of times that.
Speaker 5: Education is restricted to higher education, to college. So it's
Speaker 5: not even that we're not necessarily not talking about it enough.
Speaker 5: Many of us are not given that education to begin with,
Speaker 5: and then we become more and more vulnerable.
Speaker 3: You got a whole paragraph from Jealous. I mean, I'm
Speaker 3: Puerto Rican, and the number of times people have asked
Speaker 3: me if I'm a citizen, I can't even I mean,
Speaker 3: oh my god. Yeah, so you know, we're we've found
Speaker 3: a part of this country since eighteen ninety eight, we've
Speaker 3: been citizens by birth since nineteen seventeen. And I mean
Speaker 3: the number of people who have no idea who you know?
Speaker 3: Oh do I need a passport together? I mean, so
Speaker 3: I'm jealous of your paragraph.
Speaker 2: I'll take it.
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break.
Speaker 2: At our back.
Speaker 1: I mean, I really do think it goes back to
Speaker 1: something that I wanted to start with, this idea that
Speaker 1: we're not talking about individuals spreading individual pieces of misinformation
Speaker 1: or disinformation. It's institutional, right, It's like all connected. It's
Speaker 1: this web that makes it so hard to escape these
Speaker 1: very pervasive, very inflammatory lies about the fabric of who
Speaker 1: we are. And it all goes back to that distrust
Speaker 1: that you were talking about earlier, and something that I'm
Speaker 1: curious if you all saw. I definitely saw it, especially
Speaker 1: in the summer of twenty twenty. Don't remember that summer
Speaker 1: the reckoning, the reckoning and something that I really saw,
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering how you saw it play out. Was
Speaker 1: I think that bad actors knew that that was a
Speaker 1: particular time that maybe would highlight or inflame some existing
Speaker 1: historical traumise, particularly for immigrants and the descendantive and the
Speaker 1: descendants of immigrants.
Speaker 2: Did you all see this as well?
Speaker 3: One hundred percent. And you know, in twenty twenty, I
Speaker 3: was working in an election administration, so I can tell
Speaker 3: you the deliberate exploitation of the narrative that, you know,
Speaker 3: undocumented people, illegals as you know, as they refer to
Speaker 3: them in the disinfo circles, We're going to throw the
Speaker 3: election in some way. You know, study after study after
Speaker 3: study shows that what they were talking about, that level
Speaker 3: of you know, fraud just does not exist in our elections.
Speaker 3: Instead of being proud of that and listening to the
Speaker 3: folks who run elections, who actually administer elections, telling us
Speaker 3: in every state across the country that in twenty twenty,
Speaker 3: through a pandemic, we somehow managed to pull off an election,
Speaker 3: they were exploiting that narrative, especially coming after immigrant communities.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and I would love to kind of jump
Speaker 4: into that and talk about you know, with the summer
Speaker 4: of twenty twenty, it was we were seeing increasingly high
Speaker 4: numbers of anti Asian violence, attacks on our elders. You know,
Speaker 4: we were just being hit by a barrage of violence,
Speaker 4: and at the same time, the solution was being posed
Speaker 4: that hate crime legislation was the answer, right, that policing
Speaker 4: was the answer. And we know as communities of color,
Speaker 4: as communities that are navigating different immigration narratives and experiences,
Speaker 4: whether you're documented or undocumented or a non citizen, that
Speaker 4: the police aren't always a solution. But there's also that
Speaker 4: other wonderful marketing tactic in the US of how to
Speaker 4: be a good American or how to be a good citizen.
Speaker 2: So you call nine to one one when you feel unsafe.
Speaker 4: But you know, we saw those band aid solutions, and
Speaker 4: we saw those decinfo narratives right saying that all of
Speaker 4: these insane rioters were coming and they were all mostly
Speaker 4: black and brown, and they were setting fireworks off, and
Speaker 4: they were doing all these horrifying things and breaking windows,
Speaker 4: and it was really speaking to a deep seated fear,
Speaker 4: thanks to media within communities that we shouldn't trust people
Speaker 4: who look different from us.
Speaker 5: And I'm so glad you brought up the whole the
Speaker 5: pr of the good American or how to be a
Speaker 5: good citizen, because a lot of that fear mongering about
Speaker 5: protesters is built off of a centuries long anti black narrative,
Speaker 5: birth of a nationism, if you may, where the blacks
Speaker 5: are free and they're running a mug.
Speaker 3: Look at the three different stereotypes here, right, So it's
Speaker 3: black people running a mug, it's Asian people who are
Speaker 3: making us all sick with COVID completely separate, right, And
Speaker 3: then it's Latino immigrants who are voting in droves to
Speaker 3: throw an election.
Speaker 2: And it's all about marketing.
Speaker 4: And you're totally right, it's white supremacy at its root,
Speaker 4: and it's about institutional bias, institutional power dynamics, all of
Speaker 4: those things.
Speaker 1: And I think something in that reminds me of what
Speaker 1: you said, Jessica about how it's so easy to demonize
Speaker 1: people who like quote fall for disinformation. The better question
Speaker 1: is like, how could you not fall for it?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: Like, it pains me sometimes in the disinfo community that
Speaker 1: we sometimes are talking down to people and discounting the
Speaker 1: actual reality of how sometimes well financed, well organized, well
Speaker 1: coordinated these disinformation campaigns actually truly are.
Speaker 3: And I think that's why research has shown that one
Speaker 3: of the most effective ways to combat disinfo, instead of
Speaker 3: going after each individual narrative is to actually talk to
Speaker 3: people about the mechanism, because once you show them how
Speaker 3: to spot it for themselves, they can say, oh, wait
Speaker 3: a minute, this person is trying to dupe me, and.
Speaker 2: I'd love to add in. Right.
Speaker 4: Then there's the extra layer of within each ethnic group
Speaker 4: and ethnic community in the US, there's a different method
Speaker 4: of communication that we're all using.
Speaker 2: Right. Some people use WhatsApp, some people use weed chat.
Speaker 4: I know the Vietnamese populations often use YouTube for media
Speaker 4: and use distribution. Right, We're seeing different communities are using
Speaker 4: different methods of communication.
Speaker 2: I can pull out my phone and show you I have.
Speaker 4: At least one hundred WhatsApp messages unread from my family, right.
Speaker 2: Most of which yeah, and most of which is BS.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: It's like bonkers things, conspiracy theories. And my family is
Speaker 4: wonderful and they know what they're doing, and they know
Speaker 4: about the world.
Speaker 2: They're well educated all of these things.
Speaker 4: And it's so easy because you see a funny meme
Speaker 4: and you don't think about it, right, or you see
Speaker 4: a video and you're like, oh, I don't know if
Speaker 4: this is real, what if it is attended?
Speaker 3: It's entertainment.
Speaker 2: It's entertainment.
Speaker 3: Disinformation is often disguised and you know, as entertainment. So
Speaker 3: it's so easy to have a good laugh and forward
Speaker 3: it to somebody.
Speaker 5: I'm so glad you brought that up because when Jay eraised,
Speaker 5: the aspect of the different platforms that were on Twitter
Speaker 5: like emerged, especially black Twitter emerged as this space for
Speaker 5: communal conversation. Now it's x and our community was especially
Speaker 5: vulnerable because we are having all these critical conversations out
Speaker 5: in the open that anyone can see, and then try
Speaker 5: to divert and sew in disinformation at the same time.
Speaker 5: And then we see it with the entertainment blogs that
Speaker 5: good lord. You put it in the big bold, black
Speaker 5: print with the white background, and it's gone. It's millions
Speaker 5: and millions of views.
Speaker 1: I mean, I want to get into this because I
Speaker 1: had to personally kind of divest from a couple of
Speaker 1: very popular Instagram accounts, sort of black infotainment Instagram accounts.
Speaker 1: I guess i'll call it where I realized when I
Speaker 1: scrolled when I was scrolling Instagram and I would see
Speaker 1: one of those images of a headline I won't say
Speaker 1: a news headline, big bold, black and white.
Speaker 2: People will believe.
Speaker 1: Anything, and so often those pieces of content are either misogynistic,
Speaker 1: they're they're crapping on black women, they're crapping on black
Speaker 1: queer youth. It's so easy to package that as hatred
Speaker 1: toward our communities, particularly people in our communities who are
Speaker 1: really vulnerable, and people just eat it up. And I
Speaker 1: guess I wonder, you know, I've sometimes said that I
Speaker 1: believe that things like racism, massogynire, queer phobia, transphobia, all
Speaker 1: of these things are kind of baked into our experience
Speaker 1: of being online. What do you see as the role
Speaker 1: of social media platforms, like are they benefiting from this?
Speaker 1: What should they be doing? What are they not doing?
Speaker 2: What's going on now?
Speaker 4: I think many Americans see social media platforms as the
Speaker 4: digital town square, when in reality, they're private corporations, right,
Speaker 4: and private entities that have control over what you see
Speaker 4: and what you don't see.
Speaker 2: We have more and more research coming out.
Speaker 4: Saying that social media platforms promote content that elicits anger, hurt, feelings, sadness, frustration,
Speaker 4: because that.
Speaker 2: Keeps people on the platform longer. It's like a drug.
Speaker 4: It's addictive, and so if you're seeing only happy things,
Speaker 4: like you're going to want to go outside and see
Speaker 4: the sun and I don't know, sit on the grass.
Speaker 4: Whereas if you're seeing things that are intensely speaking to
Speaker 4: a feeling of anger or hate or frustration.
Speaker 2: You will go down that rabbit hole.
Speaker 4: You will fester on that, and that'll bring in more revenue.
Speaker 4: Right going back to the money. If we follow the money,
Speaker 4: it always goes back to that, right to the people
Speaker 4: that are profiting the most from it.
Speaker 2: And social media platforms profit from disinformation. And I think
Speaker 2: the reality is, not only do we need.
Speaker 4: To open that conversation up and think about us as
Speaker 4: users as having a stake in in what the platforms
Speaker 4: do and how they act, but we also think about
Speaker 4: regulation because we have outdated policy that is supposedly trying
Speaker 4: to regulate tech from the nineties.
Speaker 2: And I think the reality is we need.
Speaker 4: Legislation that meets the needs and the reality of tech
Speaker 4: right now and the potential with what we're seeing with
Speaker 4: AI and other new technologies that are emerging. Because it
Speaker 4: is playing a role in our democracy, and it is
Speaker 4: playing a role in voter suppression, it is playing a
Speaker 4: role in dividing our communities, It's playing a role at
Speaker 4: every level, and these bad actors are.
Speaker 2: Getting rich.
Speaker 1: More after a quick break, let's get right back into it.
Speaker 1: So I'm curious, how do you see disinformation impacting our democracy?
Speaker 4: Like writ large, I mean it has been impacting our democracy, right.
Speaker 2: We had January sixth.
Speaker 4: Happen that was a direct consequence of disinformation that had
Speaker 4: been seen and known by Twitter in particular. It's happening,
Speaker 4: and yet there wasn't really much effort to try and
Speaker 4: stop that.
Speaker 2: And so it's like, how do you keep track of WhatsApp?
Speaker 4: You two, we chat all of these different messenger right, Twitter, Like,
Speaker 4: there's a bajillion different platforms that you have to keep
Speaker 4: track on, and so how do you make sure that
Speaker 4: those various narratives that are coming out on those various
Speaker 4: platforms in completely different languages are both being monitored, that
Speaker 4: accurate information is also being sprinkled throughout that so that
Speaker 4: people know when to vote, how to vote, that it's
Speaker 4: okay to vote, that they can ask for about it
Speaker 4: in their language, that it is actually a violation of
Speaker 4: their right. They're voting right to not get a palot,
Speaker 4: and you know, in a language that they speak, if
Speaker 4: their state or city has you know, certain numbers of
Speaker 4: languages that they'll translate into.
Speaker 1: It speaks to that distrust of institutions that might might
Speaker 1: already be there.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, along the lines of distrust is African Americans and
Speaker 5: Black Americans in general have a long standing distrust of
Speaker 5: our government for very very legitimate reasons, and the cultural
Speaker 5: or racialized disinformation harps on that and is having a
Speaker 5: direct or seeking to have a concentrated impact on the
Speaker 5: way in which we vote, or whether or not we
Speaker 5: feel it's worthy to vote at all. And so that aspect,
Speaker 5: the voter suppression in the midst of the Voting Rights
Speaker 5: Act being stripped down and already having obstacles to face
Speaker 5: and trying to vote, can have a very devastating impact
Speaker 5: on Black communities and the way in which democracy functions
Speaker 5: or doesn't function for us.
Speaker 2: I wonder, do you all?
Speaker 1: I know I see this a lot sometimes from my
Speaker 1: own friends and family. One of the things about disinformation
Speaker 1: is that I think it's meant to just make us
Speaker 1: check out, check out of our democracy, check out of
Speaker 1: the conversation. It's too confusing, I can't keep it straight.
Speaker 1: And I think a consequence of that is exactly what
Speaker 1: you just said of I'm not going to vote. It's
Speaker 1: not worth it, it doesn't matter. How do you confront
Speaker 1: that sentiment in a climate where disinformation is so rampant.
Speaker 5: I think one of the things that has worked has
Speaker 5: we've learned over the last few years. Talking down to
Speaker 5: people doesn't work, but narrative building works, storytelling works. One
Speaker 5: of the things that we've tried to do at our
Speaker 5: organization is focus on uplifting narratives, intercultural narratives, and storytelling.
Speaker 1: That reminds me of a quote I once heard in
Speaker 1: a training that the antidote to disinformation is not just truth,
Speaker 1: it's community.
Speaker 2: It's connection.
Speaker 5: Yes, definitely, and because we trust our communities the most,
Speaker 5: so we have to lean into that connection, lean into
Speaker 5: especially for communities of color, lean into that cultural understanding,
Speaker 5: lean into that narrative building.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about some additional solutions here, because if there's
Speaker 1: one thing that has really been resonating with me from
Speaker 1: this conversation is that our communities are not monolithic. They
Speaker 1: are diverse, they are multifaceted, they are dynamic. There's so
Speaker 1: many different stories and layers in our communities. So then
Speaker 1: the solution probably can't then be one size fits all.
Speaker 1: So how do we get to solutions for this massive
Speaker 1: problem that disinformation presents.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that speaks to everything we've brought up
Speaker 4: throughout the conversation. Right, It's about inter intrat solidarity building.
Speaker 4: It's about finding and identifying leaders within the community and
Speaker 4: making sure that they're equipped to have these conversations. It's
Speaker 4: about meeting people where they're at. It's about having compassion
Speaker 4: in those conversations, because anyone can fall for disinformation, and
Speaker 4: anyone can be a champion in fighting disinformation.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So I would say, first and foremost understand that disinformation
Speaker 3: that impacts adjacent communities is also impacting you.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: So as an advocate, when I go out and I
Speaker 3: ask Latinos to come out and vote, I'm not just
Speaker 3: asking those that look like me and live like me.
Speaker 3: I'm asking queer Latinos, I'm asking after Latinos, I'm asking
Speaker 3: age and Latinos. I'm asking everybody. So I have to
Speaker 3: show up for them when I see these attacks against
Speaker 3: their community.
Speaker 5: One key solution is for communities, for activists, for researchers
Speaker 5: that are concerned about disinformation to hold institutions accountable. They
Speaker 5: often get out scott free on these conversations, but I
Speaker 5: kind of mentioned this earlier. For example, during the COVID shutdown,
Speaker 5: there was all this conversation about the black community and
Speaker 5: getting the black community to trust and why is there
Speaker 5: so much distrust? And I'm like, do you know America?
Speaker 5: And there was all these different narratives about medical distrust
Speaker 5: and not as much that should have been discussed on
Speaker 5: medical racism. And so in order to build that trust again,
Speaker 5: you're going to have to deconstruct and break down the
Speaker 5: structural bias, the institutional racism, and all of the things
Speaker 5: that made our communities distrust you in the first place.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent. And then I'll say one more thing,
Speaker 3: which is about holding tech accountable. Do not fear tech.
Speaker 3: Do not fear tech because tech is not perfect. Right,
Speaker 3: So I see a lot of people who hear the
Speaker 3: term AI and they get so intimidated they clam up
Speaker 3: and listen. They have a lot to learn too, They're
Speaker 3: not perfect.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad that you mentioned that, because I think
Speaker 1: one of the biggest things in this conversation is changing
Speaker 1: this dynamic that says that tech and tech leaders they
Speaker 1: have all the answers, and who are we.
Speaker 2: To question them?
Speaker 1: You're not an engineer, You didn't go to Harvard, You're
Speaker 1: not Mark Zuckerberg or not Elon Musk.
Speaker 2: Who are you to ask questions?
Speaker 1: This dynamic that says that you get to make as
Speaker 1: much money as you want, exploiting us and causing chaos
Speaker 1: and distrust in our communities, and we don't get to
Speaker 1: have a say that is incorrect. And so I think
Speaker 1: to your point, everybody should understand their role in this
Speaker 1: dynamic and reject anything that says who are you to
Speaker 1: ask questions? We're the public, That's who we are, and
Speaker 1: we deserve transparency and accountability, and you will not exploit
Speaker 1: us to make money.
Speaker 3: And more specifically, who am I? I am a woman
Speaker 3: of color who is using your product in a very
Speaker 3: different way than you do, and frankly than many of
Speaker 3: the people who were at the table when this product
Speaker 3: was created.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've encountered the same disinformation and tech space
Speaker 1: and landscape that I have, which is often white men
Speaker 1: self congratulating other white men. What does it mean for
Speaker 1: you to be in this fight as a person who
Speaker 1: is not often represented in these conversations.
Speaker 5: I think for me, it just means going to bat
Speaker 5: for my community, speeding up for my community, from a
Speaker 5: not only a personal it is personal because I know
Speaker 5: the Black struggle from transatlantic slave trade to now in
Speaker 5: the United States and understanding that whole cultural history and
Speaker 5: aspect of it, and so for me is a personal dynamic,
Speaker 5: But it's also an informed and culturally competent one that
Speaker 5: is so very much needed, because in these conversations we
Speaker 5: often get people that are tested with fighting disinformation but
Speaker 5: not really understanding the cultural aspects and nuances of different communities.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean everything you said.
Speaker 4: I think there's a desperate need for faces, experiences, perspectives
Speaker 4: like ours at the table. And at the same time,
Speaker 4: you know, sometimes we need to break the table a
Speaker 4: little bit.
Speaker 2: But I wouldn't call myself an expert because we've all lived.
Speaker 4: These experiences of either being targeted by hate campaigns, seeing
Speaker 4: loved ones fall victim to it, accidentally falling for disinformation,
Speaker 4: like all of those things.
Speaker 2: And so we all are users of.
Speaker 4: This platform, of these various platforms, we all experience and
Speaker 4: naviate a world filled with dismiss malinformation. So it's about
Speaker 4: naming that, pushing our way through gathering in spaces like
Speaker 4: this and talking really frankly and honestly about the need
Speaker 4: for movement building that looks to our past so we
Speaker 4: can build like a better, stronger future and a stronger
Speaker 4: foundation for multicultural, multi lingual solidarity so we can counter
Speaker 4: this disinformation.
Speaker 3: So for me, this is really a voter suppression issue.
Speaker 3: I think of disinformation as voter suppression, and it's a
Speaker 3: democracy issue. So I see it as my way to
Speaker 3: contribute to voting rights struggles that precede me by centuries,
Speaker 3: and as my way to contribute to a lot of
Speaker 3: civil rights struggles where folks really need to see that
Speaker 3: you can come here as an immigrant and see a
Speaker 3: strong democracy that works, that your vote matters, that you
Speaker 3: should cast a ballot because you can make a difference
Speaker 3: and you can move your community forward.
Speaker 1: If you can leave folks listening and watching with one thing,
Speaker 1: what would it be.
Speaker 2: We all have a lot more power than I think.
Speaker 4: Then it often feels, and I feel like we as
Speaker 4: individuals as a collective can really make an impact and
Speaker 4: make some real change when it comes to the issues
Speaker 4: of disinformation, both within our communities, but also holding those
Speaker 4: bad actors accountable.
Speaker 2: Don't let the world telling you you're small.
Speaker 4: Hold you back, because I think there's a lot of
Speaker 4: work that we all can do together.
Speaker 3: I would say that your trust is a really valuable commodity.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of people out there trying to erode
Speaker 3: your trust. Why is that right. It's a really valuable commodity,
Speaker 3: So treat it as such and be really careful with
Speaker 3: where you place it.
Speaker 5: To follow up with that would trust me in a
Speaker 5: valuable commodity. Your actions are valuable commodity. Your viewpoint on
Speaker 5: the world, the way you view culture, democracy is valuable,
Speaker 5: and so I think one of the things that I
Speaker 5: would leave with people is trying to gain more understanding
Speaker 5: about how this all works, but also understanding that there
Speaker 5: are systems at play and that we have to hold
Speaker 5: these institutions accountable more so than we would hold the
Speaker 5: average person accountable, because the average person is who is
Speaker 5: being targeted.
Speaker 1: Jaya, Liz, Jessica, thank you so much for being here,
Speaker 1: and thank you for being in this fight, in this work.
Speaker 1: We're so grateful for you, and thanks to all of
Speaker 1: you for watching. Got a story about an interesting thing
Speaker 1: in tech. I just want to say hi. You can
Speaker 1: reach us at Hello at Tegody dot com. You can
Speaker 1: also find transcripts for today's episode at tengody dot com.
Speaker 2: There are no girls on the Internet.
Speaker 1: With Brigit 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 Amado 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
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