Speaker 1: People have accused me of being paid by Bill Gates,
Speaker 1: and I'm always like, if Bill if riches, Bill Gates
Speaker 1: is cutting me checks, and why is my apartment so crappy? Right? Like?
Speaker 1: If his checks are not clearing, they got lots of
Speaker 1: the mail. If they if he's meant to be sending,
Speaker 1: then they have not reached me. They haven't reached me either.
Speaker 1: I would not be living here if I was being
Speaker 1: paid by Bill Gates and the governments and the World
Speaker 1: Economic Forum. There are no girls on the Internet. As
Speaker 1: a production of my Heart Radio and Unboss Creative, I'm
Speaker 1: Bridget Todd and this is there are no girls on
Speaker 1: the Internet. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia is a scary, tense,
Speaker 1: highly charged situation, and as we know, with scary, tense,
Speaker 1: highly charged situations also comes a flood of misleading, inaccurate
Speaker 1: or straight up fabricated content being shared across social media.
Speaker 1: Now on TikTok, I've seen videos taken for films or
Speaker 1: video games pretending that that footage is actually from Ukraine.
Speaker 1: I've seen old videos from other conflicts purporting to be
Speaker 1: from Ukraine, and even worse, because of TikTok's live stream feature,
Speaker 1: where users can collect donations from viewers in real time.
Speaker 1: Some grifters are even using these fake videos to lie
Speaker 1: about streaming live from Ukraine to make money. Marie Cowper's
Speaker 1: is a social media expert who told me that one
Speaker 1: of the reasons that TikTok is so ripe for disinformation
Speaker 1: is because of the speed by which users are surfaced
Speaker 1: questionable content on their for you page. Marie has been
Speaker 1: tracking inaccurate and misleading Ukraine videos on TikTok, but it
Speaker 1: didn't start there. For Marie, it started when she started
Speaker 1: noticing false information about things like diets and health. It
Speaker 1: really started when I saw a lot of different videos
Speaker 1: popping up with really weird information. It didn't start with,
Speaker 1: you know the amount of disinformation that's happening now, But
Speaker 1: it was just small things like uh, um, how diet
Speaker 1: soda is going to give you cancer? Lots of stuff
Speaker 1: about health, uh scary stories. Also there were scaring children
Speaker 1: and that weren't true. But I didn't see a lot
Speaker 1: of these videos pop up on my own for you page.
Speaker 1: I just saw one every once in a while. So
Speaker 1: I decided to make another account to see what was happening.
Speaker 1: Because I was really curious is there more more to this,
Speaker 1: because you know, I'm seeing some really weird stories going around.
Speaker 1: So I created a different accounts to my own, where
Speaker 1: I started just liking conspiracy theories, really dodgy info and
Speaker 1: everything I normally wouldn't like, and the algorithm just started
Speaker 1: serving me a whole bunch of questionable videos um that
Speaker 1: I was just really really shocked to see, and that
Speaker 1: in my language in Dutch, nobody else was talking about
Speaker 1: or debunking or fact checking. So that's why I started,
Speaker 1: because I saw that people were getting affected by this
Speaker 1: information and nobody was talking about it, so well, I'll
Speaker 1: do it then. So often when I have these conversations,
Speaker 1: there has been some failure by some platform to to
Speaker 1: do something right. So for you, it was disinformation in
Speaker 1: Dutch on TikTok um, and you know, uh, just a
Speaker 1: regular person, usually a woman or a person of color
Speaker 1: or somebody who is already marginalized, just said, Okay, no
Speaker 1: one is doing this, I'll do it. I'll take I'll
Speaker 1: do the work of making this platform safe or or
Speaker 1: at least chronicling what is going on. Did you feel
Speaker 1: compelled in that way to sort of take on this
Speaker 1: fight it's it feels almost like a moral obligation for
Speaker 1: me because I see the effects it's having on people,
Speaker 1: and I also see that it's not just misinformation about health,
Speaker 1: which has really bad consequences obviously, but also um, the
Speaker 1: same algorithms are pushing uh this alternative account that I
Speaker 1: have into really far right uh TikTok, really extreme videos
Speaker 1: uh that I was also reporting, and they were not
Speaker 1: getting taken down, so which is also really strange to me.
Speaker 1: Just just it's just shocking to me how huge these
Speaker 1: videos are and it it seems like nobody was seeing
Speaker 1: it or responding it to it. And then, yeah, it
Speaker 1: feels like a moral obligation because it's the consequences of
Speaker 1: misinformation are just not just people believing stuff that isn't true,
Speaker 1: but it leads to biases or you know, blaming other
Speaker 1: people sometimes when it's misinformation about vaccines that you know,
Speaker 1: goes into conspiracy theories about the Great Reset and this
Speaker 1: global cabal which is usually Jewish Jewish people. Uh. That's
Speaker 1: also something that I've seen a lot since I've you know,
Speaker 1: looked into conspiracy theories. When the invasion of Ukraine happened,
Speaker 1: I how could I put this. It was a pretty
Speaker 1: terrifying moment, Like it definitely was a moment of crisis.
Speaker 1: And I know that in moments of crisis, I definitely
Speaker 1: feel this, and I think a lot of other people
Speaker 1: feel this. You feel sort of powerless, and so you're like,
Speaker 1: what can I do? I'll share information? And I caught
Speaker 1: myself going to share a lot of very moving videos,
Speaker 1: a lot of very visually arresting videos. And then I
Speaker 1: think I saw a tweet it was I think I
Speaker 1: think it might have been from Abby Richards that was like,
Speaker 1: in this moment, take a beat, take a breath before
Speaker 1: you share things. And then I saw your account all
Speaker 1: of these videos purporting to be from Ukraine that were
Speaker 1: either very misleading or just completely inaccurate, Like not Ukraine.
Speaker 1: What kind of disinformation and misleading stuff are you seeing
Speaker 1: in relation to the invasion of Ukraine? Ah, so a
Speaker 1: couple of different types of misinformation and disinformation. I've been
Speaker 1: seeing a lot a lot of old videos, so I
Speaker 1: think that's something that happens more often in these crisis situations.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of old footage of explosions that happened,
Speaker 1: Like I saw a video that was an explosion and
Speaker 1: it had ten million views. But this was not an
Speaker 1: explosion in Ukraine. It was in Lebanon a year ago.
Speaker 1: Uh So it's real footage, but it's not in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: Um And, because people are so interested in seeing more
Speaker 1: and and so invested anything that even remotely seems like
Speaker 1: it could be in Ukraine or is like related to
Speaker 1: war or shooting or explosions, it just goes wild on
Speaker 1: TikTok it has. Yeah, it just goes insanely viral. Um So,
Speaker 1: older videos have been circulating of conflicts and explosions. Also,
Speaker 1: I've been seeing, uh video game footage because video games
Speaker 1: are so realistic. Now that there's been footage of Arma three,
Speaker 1: the video game that's been shared. Sometimes it's a little
Speaker 1: zoomed in or they've made it a little darker, so
Speaker 1: it's less easy to recognize. But that's uh And, and
Speaker 1: people just don't see that it's a video game unless
Speaker 1: you know the game animations. I've seen being shared. There's
Speaker 1: an animation of someone on Instagram who made a World
Speaker 1: War two animation. So if you know your airplanes, you
Speaker 1: can see that the airplanes that are in the animation
Speaker 1: are not you know, modern airplanes. Their b twelve airplanes
Speaker 1: I think from the Second World War. Uh so those
Speaker 1: are the things I've been seeing and um, yeah, mostly
Speaker 1: those kind of videos are circulating on on on TikTok.
Speaker 1: Is just like old footage misleading stuff. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I that I've seen a couple of video game images
Speaker 1: or videos and I didn't know about the animations. But
Speaker 1: do you think there is something to the fact that
Speaker 1: we have a hunger for I use some quotes content
Speaker 1: about the about invasions and about you know, high high
Speaker 1: crisis situations that are kind of cinematic, and so there's
Speaker 1: maybe there's like the idea that we would be being
Speaker 1: fooled by video games and and animations and stills from
Speaker 1: films and things like that. I almost feel like it's
Speaker 1: this It speaks to this need in us, or this
Speaker 1: conditioning in us that we expect the footage from these
Speaker 1: things to have a storyline and have good animation, good graphics,
Speaker 1: and to be so visually arresting. And maybe that's why
Speaker 1: people are able to be like, oh well this is
Speaker 1: definitely from a from a conflict in Ukraine. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: this is something I've really noticed as well. So I
Speaker 1: actually studied film and photography. I have a Muster's degree
Speaker 1: in film and photography, and this is something I've also
Speaker 1: seen in conspiracy theories in general, like Q and on
Speaker 1: where um they're basically talking about the conspiracy theory as
Speaker 1: if it's a movie, as if it's a big plot
Speaker 1: and there's actors and you know, there's a conclusion and
Speaker 1: the just like narrative movie movie narratives basically, and the
Speaker 1: same goes for visual disinformation. It's it works the best
Speaker 1: when it's a story. So if it's emotional and there's
Speaker 1: a good guy and a bad guy and you can
Speaker 1: root for the good guy. Um, I recognize what you're saying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's definitely true. In audio, there was one time I
Speaker 1: think I switched on and Alex Jones radio show, and
Speaker 1: I kid you not, he was screaming into the microphones
Speaker 1: were just like poor microphone etiquette about how because of
Speaker 1: COVID in the vaccines, Bill Gates was gonna make us
Speaker 1: all eat bugs and he was screaming about it, and
Speaker 1: I was thinking, Yeah, someone just talking in a in
Speaker 1: a regular voice about the dangers of conspiracy theories or
Speaker 1: like the realities of the COVID vaccine, like accurate information.
Speaker 1: They could never compete attention wise, like you really have to.
Speaker 1: You would really have to work to compete with someone
Speaker 1: who is being that dramatic, because that there's something about
Speaker 1: your brain that is like, oh, well, this is really sensational,
Speaker 1: Let me tune into this, let me give this my attention,
Speaker 1: and we really have a big fight if we're going
Speaker 1: to make content that is equally as compelling but also
Speaker 1: based in accuracy and truth and nuance and thoughtfulness. That's
Speaker 1: definitely a struggle that I've been having as well, because, uh,
Speaker 1: I think sometimes what works about my videos is that
Speaker 1: I try and really make it a TikTok, like really
Speaker 1: make it presented in a way that's not just a
Speaker 1: newsreader reading something without any emotion and and just you know,
Speaker 1: here are the facts, because that just doesn't work. It
Speaker 1: doesn't get the same amount of use, like you said,
Speaker 1: So I do try and uh, you know, grab the attention,
Speaker 1: because you have to grab the attention on TikTok because
Speaker 1: if you don't, you know, have someone's attention in the
Speaker 1: first five seconds, they're already gone. So you need to
Speaker 1: kind of sensationalize yourself to get people to watch the video.
Speaker 1: But then you also want to be correct, and you
Speaker 1: don't wanna maybe spread a conspiracy theory even further by
Speaker 1: beginning with a whole story about Q and on and
Speaker 1: then after a minute you you start debunking it because
Speaker 1: then people are already gone. Um. So it's a it's
Speaker 1: something that I've been struggling with, but it's something that
Speaker 1: I think traditional media can do more, uh to to
Speaker 1: improve their contents and make it more appealing and also
Speaker 1: not just you know, sometimes traditional media are kind of
Speaker 1: uh I I don't want to say elitist or like
Speaker 1: a little bit like uh, this is just you know,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, or journalists and uh, the facts are the facts,
Speaker 1: and you know, but that's not how it works in
Speaker 1: real life, because teenagers who are on TikTok and are
Speaker 1: going to go to some website with dry facts if
Speaker 1: they can just watch people on TikTok uh make really
Speaker 1: exciting videos about it. I think it really boils down
Speaker 1: to lack of trust in media as as a as
Speaker 1: an institution. And I think part of that is exactly
Speaker 1: what you said, is that when you only are able
Speaker 1: to present information in ways that feel really alienating to
Speaker 1: to a lot of your audience base of course they're
Speaker 1: going to check out. And when you have such a
Speaker 1: when you have a vast, a very vast network of
Speaker 1: people offering something else speaking to this audience and in
Speaker 1: a way that that that that they then compelling, of
Speaker 1: course they're going to turn towards that and away from
Speaker 1: these traditional institutions of media. So I completely agree with you.
Speaker 1: I think that you know, it's understandable to me why
Speaker 1: so many people are getting their information from some questionable sources,
Speaker 1: and then it's fuelled this already kind of like lingering
Speaker 1: distrust they have in the institution of journalism or media. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I totally agree. I I worked for the Dutch National
Speaker 1: News for a couple of years as a social media
Speaker 1: manager and a journalist, so I've been in the traditional
Speaker 1: media companies, um, and there's really kind of um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're they're trying, I guess. But what I noticed
Speaker 1: really is what you just said is that young people
Speaker 1: are so um distrusting and also because it's not transparent,
Speaker 1: they want to know why you're making certain news stories
Speaker 1: and not other news stories, and why you're using certain words.
Speaker 1: So it's not like they're not interested. They're very interested,
Speaker 1: and they to know why the news is being made
Speaker 1: the way it is. Um, but we don't trust them enough,
Speaker 1: I guess to explain it to them. Sometimes we we
Speaker 1: just it seems kind of condescending to me sometimes, the
Speaker 1: way that fact checks can be done in traditional media,
Speaker 1: where it's almost like, if you believe this, you're kind
Speaker 1: of stupid, is the way it comes. Yeah, it comes
Speaker 1: across to me sometimes. And I understand that if you
Speaker 1: see something like that and you're already distrustful and you
Speaker 1: feel so condescended to and then also the person telling
Speaker 1: you this is totally unrelatable. Uh yeah, I understand why
Speaker 1: you wouldn't believe it. Let's take a quick break at
Speaker 1: our back. We have found that fact checking and bunking
Speaker 1: it's actually it's particularly news. It's actually not that effective
Speaker 1: at curbing the spread of false information, and yet we
Speaker 1: still rely on it even though we know it's not
Speaker 1: terribly effective. And I also think it can be kind
Speaker 1: of condescending, like if you believe this, you're some kind
Speaker 1: of a moron, And it obscures the reality that people
Speaker 1: like I fall for misinformation. It happens to the best
Speaker 1: of us. Some of it is so savvy and and
Speaker 1: hits the exact right tension points that you already have
Speaker 1: because misinformers and disinformers are really good at it. And
Speaker 1: so if we if we tell people that, oh, you're
Speaker 1: an idiot for falling for this, of course they're going
Speaker 1: to be be that's not going to be compelling to them,
Speaker 1: you know. And I also think what you said about
Speaker 1: meet like traditional media not always feeling like they need
Speaker 1: to let particularly younger people in on the business of
Speaker 1: how stories get made, the business of content. Um. I
Speaker 1: absolutely think that it is a thing where I think
Speaker 1: a lot of these instant usians don't feel like they
Speaker 1: need to be accountable to young people. They just don't
Speaker 1: feel like any of their listenership or audience really deserves
Speaker 1: to know how stories get made and how these decisions
Speaker 1: get made, and how the story that you see on
Speaker 1: your on your you know, social media feed comes to be.
Speaker 1: I don't think that they feel like their audience deserves
Speaker 1: a peek into that. And I think that you're exactly
Speaker 1: right that people are curious, and I think if we
Speaker 1: were able to have some more transparency around those kinds
Speaker 1: of conversations, it might do some of the work of
Speaker 1: building back that public trust in media as an institution. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's there could be a lot more transparency about the
Speaker 1: way journalists work and why they do things, and why
Speaker 1: they use certain words or why they make certain stories
Speaker 1: or don't make them. I think I think that would
Speaker 1: help a lot. But what you said, it's like they
Speaker 1: don't I think young people deserve it, or even you know,
Speaker 1: like they feel that they wouldn't understand it, or like
Speaker 1: they're young people. It's kind of they don't. They're not
Speaker 1: taken seriously, um, which is really bad because when they're young,
Speaker 1: you can actually teach them stuff, which is going to
Speaker 1: get a lot more difficult when they're older and they're
Speaker 1: all set in everything they believe. And when they're young,
Speaker 1: you can like let let them see how the news
Speaker 1: is made so that later on they understand how it
Speaker 1: works and they're they're more trusting. But it's even even
Speaker 1: when I'm making a TikTok video, like a traditional news
Speaker 1: organization could do the same thing, but then there would
Speaker 1: be a whole team behind the news video that you
Speaker 1: don't see, and it's just being presented by someone in
Speaker 1: the video and you don't know who wrote the script,
Speaker 1: who who you know edited it. It's just makes it
Speaker 1: kind of easier to trust someone who's just one person,
Speaker 1: which is what works with disinformation as well, with like
Speaker 1: people like Alex Jones or other people who are uh,
Speaker 1: you know, showing their personality as well, so you feel
Speaker 1: like you they're a real person who has emotions, who
Speaker 1: is not like completely neutral and everything and has no
Speaker 1: uh yeah, emotions about any news. I think it works
Speaker 1: better when you uh. There's obviously like negative aspects of it,
Speaker 1: but just being one person in front of the camera
Speaker 1: instead of having an entire team also increases trust. I
Speaker 1: think people like to get their information from their trusted source, right,
Speaker 1: like this person who is my friend in my head,
Speaker 1: you know, in the whole conversation you were having about
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan, that was one of the things I feel
Speaker 1: like people really I wish we had a bigger conversation about,
Speaker 1: which is that people have been listening to Joe broken
Speaker 1: in their earbuds for years and years and years. He
Speaker 1: is their trusted source and friend in their head. They
Speaker 1: in their mind, I mean, we all do it, right,
Speaker 1: Like my favorite podcast host, I definitely have a like
Speaker 1: para social relationship with them in my mind that they
Speaker 1: have no idea about and that is a big part
Speaker 1: of building trust. And so it's not it's not always
Speaker 1: going to be like, yeah, it's not going to be
Speaker 1: this like news reader who is coming at something in
Speaker 1: in a specific, unbiased way. Who is going to be
Speaker 1: able to foster that kind of trust. Yeah. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: also you know, relatability or someone who looks like yours,
Speaker 1: your same age, who maybe understands your point of view.
Speaker 1: If if that person is saying it, uh, I would
Speaker 1: trust it more than just you know, someone who feels
Speaker 1: totally far removed from me some you know, uh, random
Speaker 1: white guy who's presenting the news who's like fifty years
Speaker 1: old and telling me that you know something I believe
Speaker 1: is wrong. Okay, but you don't know anything from about
Speaker 1: my experience. One of the videos that you shared from
Speaker 1: TikTok really caught my eye. It was a video that
Speaker 1: was to be sort of poking fun at American liberals,
Speaker 1: and it was like, uh, you're when like point of view,
Speaker 1: when you're an American liberal who is anti war for
Speaker 1: everything except for when it comes to Russia, and you know,
Speaker 1: are you seeing videos that are targeted targeted at Americans
Speaker 1: or meant to sort of prompt Americans or people who
Speaker 1: are you know, not in Ukraine or not in Russia
Speaker 1: to have a certain point of view about this invasion. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: like the most of what I've seen, I think there's definitely, um,
Speaker 1: the pro Ukrainian content that's being shared is in the majority,
Speaker 1: But the couple of like pro Russian accounts that I've
Speaker 1: seen are pro Putin accounts that I've seen, they also
Speaker 1: are usually anti Biden and anti you know that they're
Speaker 1: they're kind of on the right wing America side in
Speaker 1: the other content that they post, So it does seem
Speaker 1: like those accounts are really trying to reach Americans and
Speaker 1: like get some distrust in the government also growing, which
Speaker 1: is something I've seen also with q and on accounts
Speaker 1: on TikTok that are like, yeah, also very anti Biden.
Speaker 1: There's like I think there's a huge anti Biden hashtag
Speaker 1: that's TikTok still hasn't banned yet, but all the people
Speaker 1: on on TikTok are using it to spread conspiracy theories
Speaker 1: and Q and on stuff. And I don't want to
Speaker 1: repeat it in case people will go go looking for it,
Speaker 1: but it's like it's it's like a like a joke
Speaker 1: making fun of Biden. But when you search the hashtag,
Speaker 1: there's only there's only conspiracy theories and misinformation. That's so interesting,
Speaker 1: and I think it goes back to something we see
Speaker 1: time and time again, is that one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why all of these conspiracy theories are kind of linked
Speaker 1: that you might be thinking, what does Q and on
Speaker 1: a conspiracy theory people believe that, you know, children are
Speaker 1: being you know, trafficked by nefarious Democrats or whatever, and
Speaker 1: anti vaccine stuff, like, what do they all have in common?
Speaker 1: And I think it's all It all goes back to
Speaker 1: chipping away at public trust and institutions. And so whether
Speaker 1: it's our president Biden, or whether it's the doctor giving
Speaker 1: you a vaccine or doctor Sauci on TV, or you know,
Speaker 1: the lawmaker who you suspect might be trafficking kids or
Speaker 1: something like, it is all about chipping away at public
Speaker 1: trust and institutions. And luckily for these people who want
Speaker 1: to do that, there are a lot of reasons for
Speaker 1: people to not be so you know, rara about trusting
Speaker 1: their public institutions. And so everything goes back to this
Speaker 1: idea of bad actors poking at existing tension points, existing traumas, existing,
Speaker 1: you know, realities to say like yes, and that's why
Speaker 1: it's important to distrust these people. And I'm someone who
Speaker 1: was like, I think a healthy skepticism is good. But
Speaker 1: the way that they're able to really take a basic
Speaker 1: thing like oh, yeah, it's good to question authority, it's
Speaker 1: good to question government and turn up the dials so
Speaker 1: in such a wild way, I think just shows how
Speaker 1: favvy disinformers really are. Yeah, and and and why it
Speaker 1: works so well and why nobody is immune to it,
Speaker 1: because you know, there are things that are uh, there
Speaker 1: are bad things happening, there are institutions that are that
Speaker 1: you can really criticize, but they take advantage of that.
Speaker 1: And I think we see a lot of disinformers using
Speaker 1: actual criticisms and tensions and things that are maybe grounded
Speaker 1: in reality um for people, and they really turn up
Speaker 1: the dials into something that where it goes into sort
Speaker 1: of dangerous territory. More after a quick break, let's get
Speaker 1: right back into it. One of the biggest threats that
Speaker 1: this information poses is that it makes it really difficult
Speaker 1: to have thoughtful, accurate conversations, especially about topics that are
Speaker 1: highly charged it just takes up a lot of oxygen
Speaker 1: in the room, and it is meant to cause confusion,
Speaker 1: increased polarization, and distrust. And because disinformation is often rooted
Speaker 1: in some kernel of truth or legitimate tension or grievance,
Speaker 1: if that tension is intentionally exploited or inflamed, you can't
Speaker 1: even actually have a real conversation about the legitimate issues
Speaker 1: because the conversation has become so muddled and extreme. Marie
Speaker 1: saw this play out firsthand in conversations about the World
Speaker 1: Economic Forum, the international organization founded by economist Klaus Schwab
Speaker 1: that's known for bringing together some of the world's most
Speaker 1: powerful and richest people of the Davos Summit in Switzerland
Speaker 1: in the summer of the head of Davos announced a
Speaker 1: new initiative calling for the pandemic to be as an
Speaker 1: opportunity for what they were calling the Great Reset. Now,
Speaker 1: this was meant to be a reset of the global
Speaker 1: economy in pretty broad terms, encompassing everything from reliance on
Speaker 1: fossil fuels to tech regulation uh conspiracy. Theorist pounced claiming
Speaker 1: the Great Reset was actually a ploy for wealthy global elites,
Speaker 1: which we know is pretty much code for Jewish people
Speaker 1: to use COVID as an excuse to seize power and
Speaker 1: institute a new world order. So even though Marie has
Speaker 1: real issues with the World Economic Forum, the entire conversation
Speaker 1: around it has been so steeped in conspiracy that her
Speaker 1: actual criticisms can't even be thoughtfully discussed because the conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories loom so large. I think that's really important because
Speaker 1: I can really see that as well. There's this Great
Speaker 1: Reset conspiracy theory about you know, the World Economic Forum, uh,
Speaker 1: and it's uh, you know, a leader cloud sch web
Speaker 1: and how much influence they have on the pandemic, and
Speaker 1: you know how maybe they are using the pandemic make
Speaker 1: to gain control of the world and get a one
Speaker 1: world government formed, um, get like social credit systems in place,
Speaker 1: all these types of things. It's it's kind of a
Speaker 1: you know, modern version of the New World Order conspiracy theory,
Speaker 1: which is also something that's uh kind of old. Um.
Speaker 1: But I was looking into this and because of all
Speaker 1: these conspiracy theories, I had already kind of um dismissed everything,
Speaker 1: all the criticism of the World Economic Forum and the
Speaker 1: Great Reset and all that stuff, because I was like, well,
Speaker 1: these stories are so crazy. Uh. I was almost defending
Speaker 1: the World Economic Forum, but then when I look into it,
Speaker 1: like obviously the big conspiracy theories about them being the
Speaker 1: Great Reset and this plan to use the pandemic and
Speaker 1: all these things, they are not true. But there are
Speaker 1: some things about the World Economic Forum and having more
Speaker 1: power in the world and wanting to give companies more
Speaker 1: power than you know, like these stakeholders giving them more power,
Speaker 1: which you can be very critical of if you want
Speaker 1: to have a democracy and you don't want companies to
Speaker 1: you know, have like a really huge part in in
Speaker 1: that democracy and how decisions are made. So there's it's
Speaker 1: almost dangerous also because there's real criticism that's getting dismissed
Speaker 1: because of these conspiracy theories. Oh my gosh. I mean
Speaker 1: I find myself defending people and institutions where I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't even like them that much, but like I'd
Speaker 1: like defending them, and I think that's the problem with that.
Speaker 1: That's what's at stake when it comes to conspiracy theories
Speaker 1: and disinformation and extremism is that they keep us from
Speaker 1: having actual conversations, Like I can't come to the table
Speaker 1: and bring legitimate grievances or legitimate conversations I want to
Speaker 1: have about institutions to the conversation part really online because
Speaker 1: the conversation is just a wash in conspiracy theories, bad
Speaker 1: faith takes disinformation, and so we're not able to have
Speaker 1: a conversation about some of the grievances and some of
Speaker 1: the legitimate criticisms because the conversation is just a wash
Speaker 1: in conspiracies. And so you could if you wanted to
Speaker 1: just have a thoughtful, nuanced conversation, there's no place for
Speaker 1: you to do that online. What you just said about,
Speaker 1: you know, defending people that you don't don't even really like.
Speaker 1: I have the same thing because there's politicians in the
Speaker 1: Netherlands that I really don't like at all. Uh, but
Speaker 1: you know, they were getting videos made about them that
Speaker 1: are completely untrue. So I debunk those videos. But then
Speaker 1: people are like, oh, you must be getting paid by
Speaker 1: this politician, or you must love him, or you know
Speaker 1: sexist stuff about you know, being his girlfriend, or you
Speaker 1: know all those types of things. Uh. When I would
Speaker 1: want to say to them, I really don't like this politician.
Speaker 1: Actually I really don't like them. But people think that
Speaker 1: just because you're debunking stuff. That's also the danger. It's
Speaker 1: it's created these camps between people where you're either awake
Speaker 1: and you know about all the conspiracy theories, or you're
Speaker 1: not and all the other people are crazy. Uh uh,
Speaker 1: So you just dismiss each other and it's either you're
Speaker 1: you're crazy or you're just a sheep who's not awake.
Speaker 1: And there's no middle. So as soon as you say
Speaker 1: something critical of a conspiracy theory, you're immediately in the
Speaker 1: sheep camp. And you're getting paid by the you know,
Speaker 1: by um, the World Economic Forum or by the government.
Speaker 1: I've I've been accused of being paid by so many
Speaker 1: people I should be rich by now I'm not. Unfortunately, Yeah,
Speaker 1: people have accused me of being paid by Bill Gates.
Speaker 1: And I'm always like, if Bill, if this Bill Gates
Speaker 1: is cutting me checks, and why is my apartment so crappy? Right, Like,
Speaker 1: if his checks are not clearing, they got lost in
Speaker 1: the mail, if they if he's meant to be sending,
Speaker 1: then they have not reached me. They haven't reached me either.
Speaker 1: I would not be living here if I was being
Speaker 1: baked by Bill Gates and the government and the World
Speaker 1: Economic Forum TikTok has a platform is kind of tailor
Speaker 1: made for war footage, as Chris Stokell Walker writes it
Speaker 1: a piece for Wired. Prior research has shown that fake
Speaker 1: news travels six times faster than legitimate information on social media,
Speaker 1: in part because of its ability to trigger a strong
Speaker 1: emotional response. TikTok's design, which throws users headlong into an immersive,
Speaker 1: endless stream of snappy content, is designed to monopolize attention.
Speaker 1: TikTok's sound feature, whereabout users can easily add sounds from
Speaker 1: an existing library to their videos, was a big part
Speaker 1: of the platform back when it was called byte Dance,
Speaker 1: and it was mostly used to showcase teenagers doing cube dances.
Speaker 1: But now users can use this feature to easily add
Speaker 1: existing war sounds to videos purporting to be Ukraine to
Speaker 1: make them appear more authentic. Researcher and friend of the
Speaker 1: show Abbie Richards found that audio of gunfire from a
Speaker 1: viral video filmed before the invasion ever even began, was
Speaker 1: used in over sevent videos before TikTok removed it. Users
Speaker 1: were adding the gunfire audio to their own videos to
Speaker 1: make them seem as though they were taken during the invasion.
Speaker 1: TikTok has a lot of raw footage, which gives the
Speaker 1: impression that you're actually watching something live as it unfolds,
Speaker 1: but it also makes it prime for exploitation because there
Speaker 1: isn't really a lot of verification happening, which has led
Speaker 1: to users looping videos or using old videos, claiming their
Speaker 1: live feeds from Ukraine asking viewers for donations to support
Speaker 1: It's pretty despicable on TikTok when you do live streams.
Speaker 1: A lot of live streams are monetized. What do you
Speaker 1: make of the fact that a couple of the live
Speaker 1: streams purporting to be from Ukraine but are not from
Speaker 1: Ukraine are also one getting lots and lots of viewers.
Speaker 1: But to getting me, they're basically able to use TikTok
Speaker 1: as a platform to profit materially from live about an
Speaker 1: active invasion. Yeah, well, my faith in humanity is you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's still there, but it's getting a little damaged,
Speaker 1: especially when you see that during the war. Even then,
Speaker 1: people are still profiting off of it by spreading, you know,
Speaker 1: fake videos, which is what they're doing with the live streams.
Speaker 1: Especially in the first days after the war started, there
Speaker 1: were people going live and you know, I saw live
Speaker 1: streams with hundreds of thousands of viewers and all these
Speaker 1: people being so compassionate in the comments and saying we
Speaker 1: love you, we support you, and we hope you're doing well,
Speaker 1: and sending so so so many gifts because on TikTok
Speaker 1: you can send gifts to people who are alive. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I checked one of these lives to see how
Speaker 1: many gifts they had received in that one life, uh,
Speaker 1: and it was like a couple of thousand dollars, I think.
Speaker 1: But if you do that for a couple of days,
Speaker 1: and you do multiple live streams, you can get a
Speaker 1: lot of money. And there's also people you know, uh
Speaker 1: getting donation links in their in their bios, So it's
Speaker 1: not even through TikTok's, it's just on other platforms and
Speaker 1: they're just you know, profiting off the situation. That's something
Speaker 1: I always go back to, is this idea that so
Speaker 1: many disinformers and bad actors it's just a grift, it's
Speaker 1: just a scam. Like there are people out there who
Speaker 1: are interested in, you know, actively misleading people for nefarious
Speaker 1: you know, means, But then there are also people who
Speaker 1: are doing it just because they want money and it's
Speaker 1: a grift. It's it's you know, just like any other scam.
Speaker 1: And I think why that is so look, but there
Speaker 1: are so many reasons I find that so lonesome. But
Speaker 1: one of them is that for every dollar that is
Speaker 1: being spent given to someone who is purporting to be
Speaker 1: live streaming from Ukraine and they're really not that money
Speaker 1: that could go to somebody who actually needs it, who
Speaker 1: was actually impacted, that's money and attention, right, because like
Speaker 1: your attention has worked, and so I feel like it
Speaker 1: is again it makes it so that the the conversation
Speaker 1: and the attention and the financial benefit is just not
Speaker 1: going where it needs to be. It's just like what's
Speaker 1: happening with these conspiracy theories leading away from actual problems
Speaker 1: and you know, making it more difficult to talk about
Speaker 1: that the same thing is happening with this money going
Speaker 1: to people that aren't using it and where the money
Speaker 1: could be going to actually help people in Ukraine or
Speaker 1: you know, do good things. Um. Yeah, it's just it's
Speaker 1: just getting real people's compassion and real people's uh um,
Speaker 1: you know, wanting to help, but abusing it in this
Speaker 1: time where it feels very tense and scary, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people probably feel very powerless, myself included. Do
Speaker 1: you have any tips where for anyone listening who wants
Speaker 1: to stay informed, wants to be using their social media
Speaker 1: to inform themselves and others, any tips to avoid spreading
Speaker 1: inaccurate information, either in general or particularly when it comes
Speaker 1: to the invasion in Ukraine. I've been asked a bunch
Speaker 1: of times these days, uh, if I have tips for
Speaker 1: checking stuff yourself. But I also want to say that,
Speaker 1: you know you can't check everything. Uh, There's there's a
Speaker 1: reason that there are experts and their journalists and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe you're working and you already have like
Speaker 1: a ton of things on your mind. You can't check
Speaker 1: every single thing that comes on your for you page
Speaker 1: or another social media platforms. So I don't think you
Speaker 1: can expect that of people. But um, of course you
Speaker 1: can check stuff when you have the energy to do it. Um.
Speaker 1: It begins with you, know, knowing your own biases, knowing
Speaker 1: how misinformation uses your emotions to manipulate manipulate you, so
Speaker 1: that you know you're aware that when a video is
Speaker 1: really scary or makes you really angry, or maybe confirms
Speaker 1: some beliefs, you have about a situation, maybe a really
Speaker 1: pro Russian, maybe a really pro Ukraine. So when something
Speaker 1: fits really neatly into that story, you should be aware
Speaker 1: that it might be um fake and you need to
Speaker 1: check twice. And also just um, you know, not sharing
Speaker 1: everything immediately what you said is is really important, and
Speaker 1: just uh taking a second looking at it again, thinking
Speaker 1: about how you feel, and checking sources, seeing if you
Speaker 1: can find other people who shared the same video or um,
Speaker 1: if the account that's posted it is even um the
Speaker 1: real person that shared the footage, or if they're just
Speaker 1: re sharing, because if it's just someone re sharing stuff,
Speaker 1: you should always be yeah, on high alert. UM. So
Speaker 1: that's the first thing. And also, UM, I would just
Speaker 1: recommend also following a bunch of people you actually trust, uh,
Speaker 1: fact checkers, people who maybe aren't there, are on the
Speaker 1: scene if you want to know, if you really want
Speaker 1: to know about what's happening there. I wouldn't follow random
Speaker 1: people on TikTok, but I would just you know, try
Speaker 1: and find people who are in Ukraine, who are Ukrainian themselves,
Speaker 1: who can give you information so you know it's true.
Speaker 1: That's great, that's really useful, I know for myself, Um,
Speaker 1: some of the videos coming out about the treatment of
Speaker 1: black folks in Ukraine. I was very aware of my
Speaker 1: own pressure points and tension points in myself personally, and
Speaker 1: so I really had to be like, obviously, this is
Speaker 1: a this is material that is highly emotionally resonant to me,
Speaker 1: and so it's that what you just said, like that
Speaker 1: is so easily poked at and manipulated, and so I
Speaker 1: really had to have an extra level of like aware
Speaker 1: internal awareness of my own trigger points and my own
Speaker 1: tension points while navigating you know, social media and deciding
Speaker 1: what I wanted to share or amplify. Yeah. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I've seen this this story also being shared a lot
Speaker 1: on on on Instagram in my own friend groups, because yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a pressure point for a lot of people. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's you know, it should be a pressure point
Speaker 1: for a lot of people. And it doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: it's not true obviously what you just said. It's there
Speaker 1: can be really horrible stuff happening, but yeah, people are
Speaker 1: taking advantage of that. It's but it doesn't seem like
Speaker 1: that is registering as misinformation or you know, it's not misinformation,
Speaker 1: but you know that there are other ways than just
Speaker 1: sharing fake videos. It's not just fake videos. You can
Speaker 1: use real videos too advance or agenda. And that's something
Speaker 1: that people I don't think really notice as much when
Speaker 1: it's on their own side. My own biases lean more
Speaker 1: towards thinking that most misinformation is really right wing for
Speaker 1: some reason. I don't know why I think that, but
Speaker 1: I just those were my prejudices as that I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, misinformation is trying to get people to you know,
Speaker 1: be anti immigration and all that stuff. And I don't
Speaker 1: consider myself right wing, but I've noticed like some videos
Speaker 1: on TikTok where it's Russian accounts that are posting these
Speaker 1: like left wing liberal things with other stuff that's true,
Speaker 1: you know, a criticism of wars that have also happened,
Speaker 1: or conflicts that have also happened, where um, they haven't
Speaker 1: gotten as much attention as this has has gotten, or
Speaker 1: you know, the words that reporters have been using to say, yeah,
Speaker 1: these these people are so relatable and they just like us,
Speaker 1: and h um, you know, real criticism in covering these uh,
Speaker 1: these things. Um, but those things are being spread also
Speaker 1: by Russian accounts, so it's be aware of that. It's
Speaker 1: not new what's happening now, it's not something that you know,
Speaker 1: it's getting I'm really happy that this has brought more
Speaker 1: attention to TikTok and the stuff that's being spread there
Speaker 1: and how fast it's being spread and how easily it's
Speaker 1: being spread. Um. But this is getting attention because people
Speaker 1: think it's important. But there's lots of other misinformation that's
Speaker 1: being spread that's you know, not seen as important enough
Speaker 1: to fact check, apparently, because I can see even in
Speaker 1: mainstream media there's a lot of misinformation about trans people,
Speaker 1: which you know, has not gotten nearly as much attention
Speaker 1: as other topics when it comes to fact checking. There's
Speaker 1: just like panic about, oh my god, there's so much
Speaker 1: misinformation on social media. Uh, but it's always you know,
Speaker 1: certain topics that are getting fact checked and others that
Speaker 1: are not getting the same amount of information. So fact
Speaker 1: checking is not something that's neutral, uh, which I you know,
Speaker 1: some people don't realize maybe because you you choose what
Speaker 1: kind of things you fact check, and I think the Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think other topics on TikTok are getting spread with
Speaker 1: just as much misinformation and maybe just as much harm
Speaker 1: that's being done. So I hope that this event and
Speaker 1: the amount of attention that it's getting now that there's
Speaker 1: so much misinformation on TikTok is also going to lead
Speaker 1: to more research and more attention on the other forms
Speaker 1: of misinformation that are being spread there. Yeah, I'm so
Speaker 1: glad you added that. When we were talking about roguean,
Speaker 1: it was so interesting to me that it was the
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously it deserves a lot of attention, but
Speaker 1: the COVID misinformation, everyone was like, agreed, no, no good.
Speaker 1: But the misinformation about trans people, you know, that is
Speaker 1: also a medical misinformation that is also a public health issue,
Speaker 1: and that it's so interesting that mainstream people traffic in
Speaker 1: in that kind of misinformation. You know, elected officials traffic
Speaker 1: in medical misinformation about trans people, and it's somehow we
Speaker 1: don't clock it the same way, and we should be
Speaker 1: questioning why that is and be and sit with that,
Speaker 1: you know, sit with that reality. Yeah. Yeah, got a
Speaker 1: story about an interesting thing in tech or just want
Speaker 1: to say hi. You can reach us at Hello at
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Speaker 1: episode at tangodi dot com. There Are No Girls on
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Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radio and Unboss creative Jonathan Strickland as
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