WEBVTT - Move Slow and Fix Things (with Esra’a Al Shafei) 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:04.520 Yeah, Welcome to How to Citizen with Baritune Day, a 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:08.400 podcast that reimagine citizen as a verb, not a legal status. 0:00:09.240 --> 0:00:11.639 This season is all about tech and how it can 0:00:11.680 --> 0:00:15.960 bring us together instead of tearing us apart. We're bringing 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:18.720 you the people using technology for so much more than 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:23.000 revenue and user growth. They're using it to help us citizen. 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:32.400 Take me to the scene and and paint a picture 0:00:32.479 --> 0:00:38.080 for me of Bahrain, the place where you grew up. 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:44.440 I think Bahrain is honestly one of the most beautiful countries. 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:50.120 We're surrounded by watcher as an island obviously, but there's 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:55.000 palm trees. Um. I could do without the traffic because 0:00:55.000 --> 0:01:00.760 we're also a very small country, you know. But what 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:04.240 I love about it so much is that everything is 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:10.240 community and family oriented, and it's oftentimes regardless of what 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:12.119 you think and who you are and how you feel. 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:16.320 When it's family time, it's family time. That's where you 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:20.680 get together and you eat that type of togetherness. It's 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:28.200 where everybody kinds of just melts together and it's chaos, 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:32.360 but it's beautiful chaos. You don't have as many fights 0:01:32.400 --> 0:01:34.520 when you have these get togethers as because nobody can 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:37.919 actually hear the other person. Everybody's just talking over people, 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:41.920 and it's like you're you're you're talking to somebody, but 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:46.560 you also have a mouthful of dates. It's a great 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:50.800 place to be, but it's also a terrifying place to be. 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:55.360 You want to be yourself, but you also can't. But 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:57.960 you also don't want to fault the communities and the 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:02.800 people there. For the most partits it's not our faults. 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:07.520 Of course, we are accountable, but it's not like we 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:09.960 can just rise up and say, hey, yeah, I would 0:02:09.960 --> 0:02:12.080 disagree with this and we're going to do something about it, 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:17.280 because the consequences are dire. But you also love everything 0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:22.200 that it stands for when it comes to community and 0:02:22.320 --> 0:02:27.079 passion and people really care about each other. I mean, 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:30.359 a couple of years ago we lost our house to 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:34.919 a fire. There's not a single person in the neighborhood 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:41.440 that didn't come to help us. This is Estra al Chaffe. 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:45.640 She's the founder of Masall, a network of digital platforms 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:50.320 that amplifies underrepresented voices. Today we're going to be focusing 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:54.120 on one of those platforms called Awa, a gamified social 0:02:54.160 --> 0:02:56.919 media app designed for the l g B t q 0:02:57.120 --> 0:02:59.920 I plus community. In the Middle East and North Africa. 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:04.160 What does that mean exactly? Well, imagine you were on 0:03:04.160 --> 0:03:07.800 a social media app where you were anonymous but also safe. 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:11.800 Are you thinking baratun day? That's impossible. As long as 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:14.600 there's an Internet, there will be trolls and threats and surveillance. 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:17.519 Oh my, and I hear you trust me. I've got 0:03:17.600 --> 0:03:23.600 haters too, But it's true. Eestra's built a platform where 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:27.880 kindness earns you points, and points give you access and 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:31.959 trolling that costs you points. But first, let's learn a 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:35.480 little bit about the person behind the platform. We forget 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:44.800 that sometimes, right there's always a person. Hello, Etra, how 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:47.960 are you doing. I'm doing very well. Thanks, how are you? 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:51.640 I'm doing well as well you should be if you're 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:55.560 talking to me, all right, and we're off to a 0:03:55.680 --> 0:04:00.960 fiery start. I love it. Normally, when I'm doing these conversations, 0:04:01.440 --> 0:04:03.520 I have the video of the person i'm speaking with 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:07.280 up and we can see each other. Your video is off, though, 0:04:07.400 --> 0:04:10.400 why is that my video is a is off? And 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:14.600 that's for my safety. I've always been physically anonymous with 0:04:14.640 --> 0:04:16.360 the type of work that I do, which is of 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:21.400 course human rights, working with vulnerable communities, including the lgbt 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:23.920 q I community in the Middle East and North Africa. 0:04:24.440 --> 0:04:27.600 If I really want to continue doing this work, There's 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:29.880 only so much that I can do from the front line. 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:32.960 There's a lot that I need to keep underground, and 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:36.599 my physical anonymity is becoming harder and harder with the 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:40.240 types of different surveillance technologies that we have to protect, 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:44.719 Especially knowing that I'm amongst millions of activists that are 0:04:44.760 --> 0:04:49.960 monitored and surveilled on a daily basis. It sounds massively 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:54.560 inconvenient and like something that takes a lot of energy 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:58.599 to try to remain anonymous in this way. Are there 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:01.960 any advantages to it? Absolutely? I mean, it's the reason 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:05.360 I'm speaking to you today. Um, I get to talk 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:08.560 about this work. When people go and give talks, they 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:10.279 know that this talk is going to be seen not 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:12.839 just by the people in the room, but by everybody. 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:14.839 Snippets of it are going to be on Twitter and 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:18.000 on YouTube and wherever you know it's going to be hosted. 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:20.240 And for me, I feel like it's going to stay 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:24.640 in that room and I can make very dark jokes 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:27.440 and get away with it. You really get to be 0:05:27.480 --> 0:05:33.360 your authentic self without fearing for your life. I've seen 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:36.400 some of the work you've been up to and it 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:41.599 is positively, ridiculously impressive what you've been working on these 0:05:41.600 --> 0:05:44.680 past many years, over a decade. Tell me about the 0:05:44.680 --> 0:05:48.560 work you've dedicated yourself to over the years. Sure, So 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:52.880 I created Michelle dot org Um somewhere around two thousand five. 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:56.400 During that time, you know, this was before Twitter was big. 0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:59.120 Facebook was still limited to a lot of colleges and 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:01.960 things like that, and not just anybody can can sign up, 0:06:02.480 --> 0:06:05.839 So our treach was much more challenging because it was 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:08.760 hard to reach the communities that you wanted to reach. 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:12.240 What communities were you trying to reach? We were trying 0:06:12.279 --> 0:06:15.000 to reach ourselves. I mean, we were just young people 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:19.880 at the time in a country that made censorship the norm. 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:22.080 Where you go to school and there's certain information that 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:25.080 you can't find and can talk about where you go 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:28.479 in the household, and people are scared to talk about 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:31.760 certain things. But you see the injustices around you, but 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:35.200 you keep it to yourself, and it's a traumatic situation 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:38.920 to do that. That's really what got me interested in 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:41.240 creating a platform where when we see an injustice, we 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:43.840 can talk about it we can talk about how migrant 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:48.760 workers are being treated in our country, how corrupt leaders 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:53.360 were getting away with insane policies that were keeping us 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:56.680 away from our own dignity. We wanted to talk to 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:01.000 and with communities that were completely visible at the time 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:04.640 and had to be for security reasons. These were really 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:07.160 the communities that we wanted to make sure that they 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:11.760 felt welcome, that we wanted to build something inclusive, and 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:14.080 that it wasn't going to be just about us. It 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:15.800 was going to be just a space where we can 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:19.320 just share our stories and speak with people that we 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:24.200 were discouraged from even acknowledging. What are you not allowed 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:27.280 to say that has such direct consequences? I mean, first 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:32.560 and for most, it's it's not to democracy. We don't 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:37.360 have to say politically, how things are run, what policies 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:41.920 are being enforced upon. US government issues a statement, you 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:44.760 do this, we do it. There's direct consequences we need 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:48.000 don't So that's for me, a big part of the 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:51.680 fear no fair trial. So if you're an activist and 0:07:51.760 --> 0:07:55.800 you get accused of something, sometimes even a tweet criticizing 0:07:56.120 --> 0:07:59.040 a member of parliament, you will get arrested for that 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:01.560 and there are laws now that have been revised where 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:04.120 there are certain tweets that there are social media crimes, 0:08:04.160 --> 0:08:10.520 but what makes a social media crime criticism. So it's 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:15.160 a scary situation to live in that type of environment, 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:18.640 and it's not something that is unique to Behrain, it's 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:21.000 really everywhere we went. So even when we would travel 0:08:21.280 --> 0:08:25.720 to neighboring countries, we have to be very very conservative 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:29.720 in what we are expressing because as much as we 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:33.560 are changing, we are getting a lot of pushback from 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:38.880 really well resourced countries. I mean, these are countries that 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:42.320 are spending billions of dollars on surveillance technology from some 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:47.760 of the most sophisticated companies out there, whether there Israeli 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:52.079 companies that specifically build surveillance videos and tools, and or 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:54.800 u S companies actually that are not being held accountable 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:58.160 working with repressive governments like this, that are putting the 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:00.760 lives of activists at risk as it means they get 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:04.560 a couple of hundred thousand dollars. So that type of 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:07.280 fear really gets to you. Or we wanted to be 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:10.959 sure that we could creatively bypass a lot of that, 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:15.880 and that's why we turned to music. That's why we 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:19.480 turned to gamification. That's why we turned to art, because 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:21.640 we're trying to do things in such a way where 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:24.200 it's not just a group of investigative journalists who are 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:28.439 going to publish this bombshell report through Human Rights Watch 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:30.840 or something like that. Of course this stuff is important, 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:33.840 but this is also the stuff that will get you killed. 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:38.240 So we wanted something in the middle. We didn't want 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:41.760 to get arrested. At the same time, we didn't want 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:45.800 to stay silent and therefore complicit. Everybody I know would 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:48.199 be in jail because all we do is mouth off 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:51.800 on the internet against people with power. It just doesn't 0:09:52.400 --> 0:10:17.760 It feels literally foreign. We'll be right back. I want 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:21.160 to talk about one of those platforms that you helped create. 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:26.680 Tell me what Awah is and where did the idea begin. 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:31.040 So it began in two thousand nine, and it began 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:34.880 as a platform for the lgbt Q plus community in 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:38.720 the Arab region where we could just share stories, share 0:10:38.800 --> 0:10:43.720 support um, share resources, and really just build a supportive 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:48.120 network where we can be who we want to be 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:52.240 without the fear of bullying, prejudice, trolling that we saw 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:56.560 was prevalent in many of the other platforms. Everywhere we went. 0:10:56.679 --> 0:11:00.440 We felt punished, we felt humiliated, we felt threatened, and 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:02.960 it was really tough because you can build, you know, 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:06.480 you can go on Facebook, and even when you create 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:10.080 those private groups, a lot of the times, what we 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:12.680 saw was a lot of them were being deleted because 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:16.920 oh you this is against community policy and they're not 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:20.360 obligated to explain any further. They had a lot of 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:23.320 moderators in the region, which we felt that for them, 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:27.400 being queer was against community policy because it's against cultural norms. 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:31.200 We thought, okay, look, nobody out there were sitting saying, hey, 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:35.439 let's design something that a bunch of queer Arabs can 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:38.800 really Also, you know, nobody's sitting there and saying, well, 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:41.920 what about this community, what about this small niche? You know, 0:11:42.000 --> 0:11:45.720 let's put monetization aside and growth metrics aside, and let's 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:48.880 put the people. Nobody is going to think that. Why 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:52.960 do you think it wasn't in a Twitter, for example, 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:55.640 in their interest or Facebook and their interests to serve 0:11:56.320 --> 0:11:59.559 the queer Arab community. I mean, for them, it's really 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:04.720 about us grow because it helps our strategic direction on 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:08.480 how best and how quickly we can monetize a specific tool. 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:12.280 That's the bottom line for them. It's not security, it's 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:17.480 not community, it's not people like me. One time, the 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:20.400 Committee to Protect Journalists invited a group of us to 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:24.480 go and speak at Facebook headquarters at Twitter headquarters, and 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:29.079 nobody cared. It was over like a lunch brown bag. 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:32.720 Everybody was disappointed because they didn't get the sandwich order 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:34.800 that they wanted, and they're just like, this is just 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:37.080 a meeting for me. This is not a place where 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:39.600 I'm going to come and somebody's going to try and 0:12:39.640 --> 0:12:43.520 push the boundaries for me. The designers were showing up 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:45.720 and you could tell that they were just doodling and 0:12:45.840 --> 0:12:48.560 could not care less about what my colleague from Syria 0:12:48.720 --> 0:12:52.880 was saying about being hunted, what my colleague in as 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:56.120 Our Beijan was saying about being arrested on a weekly 0:12:56.160 --> 0:12:59.640 basis and investigated. They couldn't care less. I mean, they 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:03.800 felt pity, but one person would actually say, well, why 0:13:03.880 --> 0:13:07.079 do you use these tools for those purposes? That's not 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:10.079 what we designed them for. You know what. Facebook is 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:12.160 really a place where you can go and connect with 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:14.560 the classmates that you haven't heard from in a long time. 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:17.720 And so that was for us. That's them saying we're 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:21.280 not building this for you, and we never will. If 0:13:21.280 --> 0:13:23.600 these are the people who are setting the rules, setting 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:27.520 the stage, then that's all they're ever going to care 0:13:27.559 --> 0:13:29.520 about it. We can force them to care about us. 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:35.400 That scene is so familiar and so infuriating. So so 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:39.200 what have you built as a contrast? How does awah 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:41.640 work and what is it providing for this l g 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:44.600 B t Q plus community that a Facebook or Twitter 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:47.520 wasn't willing to provide? Well, first of all, we spoke 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:50.680 to everybody that we could. What are you using to 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:55.400 find support in this space? And why isn't it working? 0:13:56.720 --> 0:13:59.960 And so that's that's where we started finding the void 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:03.959 and what was already available. It's um, okay, we don't 0:14:04.000 --> 0:14:07.840 have proper anonymity. Facebook obviously for a long time, discourage 0:14:07.920 --> 0:14:10.920 an enimedia altogether. It was crazy, I'm not boarding a flight, 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:14.280 I'm using you know, a social media site. And so 0:14:14.640 --> 0:14:16.679 for a lot of people that's really where the line 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:19.520 was drawn and they felt that they just didn't have 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:22.880 that security. So for us, what we felt was what 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:26.040 if we built a platform where everybody was welcome, you know, 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:28.600 we didn't want to build something clicky and we didn't 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:32.160 want to build anything that was invite only where somebody 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:34.240 had to know somebody to know somebody to come in, 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:36.680 because most of the time the target communities that you 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:40.440 are scared to even express, sometimes to even come up 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:43.920 to yourself. So we said, okay, you can log in, 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:47.760 you can introduce yourself a little by little, based on 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:50.080 the type of interactions that you're having. On the side, 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:53.120 if you're posting something that's helpful, some people say they 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:56.520 would mark that contribution as helpful, and that gives you 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:59.520 more points. And based on the number of points you have, 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:04.400 you lock more sections of the platform, for example, access 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:07.480 to a page of resources where if you have three 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:11.040 thousand points, now you can have resources organized by country, 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:12.720 like in Lebanon, this is where you can go to 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:15.120 do this. In Sardi Arabia this is a counselor that 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:18.600 is very LGBT friendly, for example. And then you are 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:21.400 able to create a chat room. You're able to join 0:15:21.440 --> 0:15:24.120 a chat room, all based on the different level of 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:27.320 points that you have. And the thing is is, of 0:15:27.360 --> 0:15:30.840 course you can you know game the system, but it 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:34.800 requires you to be super tolerant, supportive kind for like 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:38.520 hundreds of posts, so that you can call somebody a 0:15:38.600 --> 0:15:42.520 jerk for one second before that you lose all your points. 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:48.760 This is amazing you have You've increased the price of trolling. 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:52.040 I mean it's exhausting. Basically, if you're going to effectively 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:55.840 troll on this platform, you've got to go undercover as 0:15:55.840 --> 0:16:01.360 a decent person. Exactly for weeks. The most homophobic people 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:04.640 in our communities won't even put themselves in that. But 0:16:04.800 --> 0:16:09.120 we have had a couple of stories where people would say, look, 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:11.240 I came here to troll. I'm not gonna lie. I 0:16:11.280 --> 0:16:14.400 saw this, somebody posted about this. But when I put 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:18.280 myself in that situation with fake support, I realized I 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:21.520 was actually connecting with people. It was actually changing some 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:25.040 mindset because they realized, wow, I'm talking to somebody who 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:29.120 would rather kill themselves than come out, and they would 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:32.920 really put themselves in that shoes, and they started empathizing. 0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:35.800 We didn't just want to build a place where it's 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:38.720 an advocacy organization, it's like, recognize us, we need this. 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:42.280 We wanted a place where it humanized the community in 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:46.400 all of its different phases and with many different people. 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:49.120 And we never wanted to say that this was a 0:16:49.160 --> 0:16:52.680 singular story. It was thousands of stories. I mean now 0:16:52.680 --> 0:16:56.160 we have about eleven thousand users. That's eleven thousand very 0:16:56.160 --> 0:17:01.200 different experiences. That clicks with me because as the other 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:05.320 platforms are very flat and their incentive structure is around 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:09.040 pretty much letting everyone do as much as possible, as 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:12.640 quickly as possible, so there's no there's no investment. It's 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:14.840 almost like when I go on a place like Twitter, 0:17:15.160 --> 0:17:18.440 people are showing up with such a disrespect because they're 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:20.960 not actually invested in the platform. They haven't had to 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:23.439 work for any of it. And so of course you 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:26.439 can trash somebody else's house, and what you set up 0:17:26.960 --> 0:17:29.960 is a kind of a different incentive structure where people 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:32.400 have a sense of belonging, they put time in, which 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:35.439 is a form of investment. Here's what I'm not hearing. 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:41.560 I'm not hearing scale, I'm not hearing growth. I'm not 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:46.879 hearing maximize shareholder value. Like in the in the language 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:51.280 of the commercial internet, this is small, this is cute, 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:54.400 this is a failure. What why are you not building 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:58.159 to make this the biggest, fastest, growing, most amazing thing. 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:00.960 You've got all these great people, now add some zeros 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:03.400 behind that eleven thousand. Why are you not doing that? 0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:07.480 Because scale is moronic. Honestly, every platform that has built 0:18:07.480 --> 0:18:12.119 for scale sucks. Either the people they're suck or the 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:15.760 features suck, or both, more often than not both. Honestly, 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:19.000 people always complain it's like, oh, the Internet is full 0:18:19.000 --> 0:18:24.760 of idiots, because that's by design. Mark Zuckerberg was very 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:27.440 famed for saying, is oh, you have to move fast 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:29.840 and break things. And the thing that you're breaking are 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:35.040 people's confidence, people's spirits, people's banks. I mean, these are 0:18:35.080 --> 0:18:38.840 the things that you break, people's dignity, people's security. These 0:18:38.880 --> 0:18:42.240 are all things that you cannot build at scale, period. 0:18:43.280 --> 0:18:47.199 And so that's why the Internet today looks very homogeneous. 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:50.480 And so when you move away from that, the Internet 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:56.760 starts looking a lot better, a lot healthier. We'll be 0:18:56.880 --> 0:19:07.359 right back. So you've painted a hilarious, truthful and clear 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:10.800 picture a contrast and how the Internet has been built 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:13.040 and a bit of how else we can build it 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:16.920 with something with a platform like AWA, who's maintaining a 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:19.760 Who are the people that have been operating it for 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:23.159 the past decade. So we have a very small group 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:26.359 of volunteers, primarily a lot of us are women women 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:29.840 in Lebanon, we have women in Jordan's. It's not a lot, 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:31.920 it's a small team, but we don't need a lot, 0:19:32.000 --> 0:19:34.119 and that's the beauty of it. And then we have 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:38.200 a community of volunteers as well, and so these volunteers 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:40.560 they show up and they help moderate some of the 0:19:40.640 --> 0:19:43.960 content just to make sure that people are not maybe 0:19:43.960 --> 0:19:46.720 sharing something like an address or outing somebody, just to 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:48.800 kind of keep things a little bit more safe. But 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:52.840 oftentimes they're also helping people with onboarding. Nobody's paid, and 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:55.280 that's tough, but at the same time, it kind of 0:19:55.359 --> 0:19:58.960 keeps things sustainable as well, because you know that they're 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:01.720 doing this because they too. They're doing this because they 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:04.840 care about the platform, they care about the community, they 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:08.080 care about the integrity of the information that's being shared 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:12.920 on there. But it's it's all volunteers. That also is remarkable. 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:15.960 I think two parts of that. One the human interaction 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:19.320 uh and second is the role of women on the 0:20:19.440 --> 0:20:21.479 human side. So many of the platforms most of us 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:24.600 are used to, we don't interact with people, right. They 0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:27.280 try to automate as much of the onboarding as possible 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:29.399 to get us on as fast as possible. To get 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:32.680 us producing as much as possible, Like we're factory workers 0:20:32.720 --> 0:20:34.960 on the Internet model that most of us experienced, and 0:20:34.960 --> 0:20:37.520 it's like, get on there, give us your data, interact, 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:41.040 smash that like button, and to have a human slows 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:43.840 all that down and makes it more intimate and again 0:20:43.920 --> 0:20:46.720 increases that investment. I think the role of women is 0:20:46.720 --> 0:20:49.840 also fascinating because in the very early Internet in the US, 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:54.600 there's history in the early bullets and board systems and 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:58.280 forums where women were actually about half or even a 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:01.639 near majority of the users, and they were designing different 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:05.120 types of spaces that weren't about scale, that weren't about 0:21:05.119 --> 0:21:09.400 aggression as much, and they essentially got chased out by 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:11.880 a bunch of dudes who are like, but we can, 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:16.199 we can maximize things. It's Graham. And so before the 0:21:16.240 --> 0:21:19.000 trolling and the abuse took over, there was a different 0:21:19.000 --> 0:21:21.800 Internet possible here, and I'm glad to see it. It's 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:24.400 more than possible. You're building a part of it there, 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:29.000 so thank you, But I'm I'm still curious, how is 0:21:29.040 --> 0:21:33.879 this all funded? Like how do you keep this all going? Unfortunately, 0:21:34.200 --> 0:21:36.800 in the region, when you're building these types of tools, 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:40.120 it's very difficult to get them funded. And so that's 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:43.040 one of the biggest challenges that we've had, but also 0:21:43.040 --> 0:21:46.800 the biggest frustrating points because we see the colossal waste 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:52.080 that the philanthropic community in the global North, whether it's 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:55.639 you know, in the UK or Canada, but primarily the 0:21:55.760 --> 0:21:58.400 US were a lot of private foundations give a lot 0:21:58.440 --> 0:22:01.520 of money to people who don't know what they're doing. 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:04.600 You see that also when people are trying to build 0:22:04.600 --> 0:22:07.040 a tech platform, it's like, well, that person had to 0:22:07.080 --> 0:22:09.680 have gone to Stanford and then went on to work 0:22:09.680 --> 0:22:12.560 at Twitter, and only they will know what and our 0:22:12.640 --> 0:22:16.359 blesbin may need. In Saudi Arabia, those are the people 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:20.400 that helped destroy whether internet could be like and now 0:22:20.440 --> 0:22:23.240 we're paying them to do the same. But in the 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:26.679 nonprofit industry. So it really kills us to see that 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:29.199 when we go and when we're asking for funding and 0:22:29.240 --> 0:22:32.560 we have look, this is decades worth of work. I 0:22:32.600 --> 0:22:35.320 mean other people, they would show up with no track 0:22:35.400 --> 0:22:38.800 record whatsoever, But simply because of who they are and 0:22:39.160 --> 0:22:42.040 who they may know, they get access to funding a 0:22:42.119 --> 0:22:44.840 lot quicker. And not just access to like a hundred 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:47.880 thousand These are people getting access to millions and millions 0:22:48.119 --> 0:22:51.439 and we see platforms low through fifty million dollars because 0:22:51.480 --> 0:22:54.479 again they were trying to do things at scale and 0:22:54.520 --> 0:22:58.119 not work directly with the activist communities, with the journalist communities, 0:22:58.600 --> 0:23:01.320 and they're not collaborating with us. So this is the 0:23:01.359 --> 0:23:03.560 thing that bothers me the most is a lack of 0:23:03.600 --> 0:23:06.719 collaboration and the fact that a lot of private foundations 0:23:06.760 --> 0:23:12.879 are now encouraging competitiveness. That's what's killing organizations. That's where 0:23:13.119 --> 0:23:15.280 you come in and they say, we want metrics, we 0:23:15.320 --> 0:23:17.320 want scale, and we want you to do it. By 0:23:17.359 --> 0:23:21.240 the way, in a very dangerous setting. Let's get as 0:23:21.359 --> 0:23:24.840 many LGBT people together to use the tool that has 0:23:24.920 --> 0:23:27.920 not doesn't have a proven concept, or has not been 0:23:27.920 --> 0:23:31.360 tested for security. So now we are putting lives at 0:23:31.440 --> 0:23:33.600 risk so that you can say that you were this 0:23:33.720 --> 0:23:37.760 many people. So, I mean, I'm just very frustrated at 0:23:37.840 --> 0:23:41.920 the current environment of philanthropy. I think it's so broken 0:23:42.200 --> 0:23:44.600 and they are so in denial that it is, and 0:23:44.640 --> 0:23:47.080 it's just upsetting. You know, something's got to give. You 0:23:47.160 --> 0:23:51.560 either remove the obsession with metrics, or you make sure 0:23:52.000 --> 0:23:55.760 that access to funding is equitable, that is generally inclusive 0:23:56.080 --> 0:23:58.399 and not just you want to fund the two token 0:23:58.520 --> 0:24:02.119 organizations that everybody fund to say well, we funded you 0:24:02.160 --> 0:24:04.320 know this and that organization, and that shows that we're 0:24:04.320 --> 0:24:08.600 not racist. You are still you know in many different ways, um. 0:24:08.600 --> 0:24:10.800 And I love reminding this. And by the way, that's 0:24:10.800 --> 0:24:13.359 another reason why sometimes it's hard to get funding, is 0:24:13.400 --> 0:24:16.000 because we became outspoken, you know for too many years. 0:24:16.000 --> 0:24:17.119 I was sitting and I was like, I'm not going 0:24:17.200 --> 0:24:20.359 to say anything, you know, because it's gonna ruffle their 0:24:20.400 --> 0:24:22.119