Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production
Speaker 1: of My Heart Radio and Unboss Creative. I'm Bridget Todd
Speaker 1: and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 1: Last month, we heard from former Facebook data scientists turn
Speaker 1: whistleblower sophies On about the ways Facebook has spread harm.
Speaker 1: Her entire story, from taking a job at Facebook to
Speaker 1: deciding to blow the whistle on the company at great
Speaker 1: personal risk, is worth listening to. Here's a clip. When
Speaker 1: you think about Facebook, are you is there part of
Speaker 1: you that it's hopeful that do you think that it
Speaker 1: can be, that it can be saved, Can it be
Speaker 1: a force for good? Or is it just too late?
Speaker 1: It's reattractive for people to say the road is fundamentally
Speaker 1: to only broken then can't be fixed. Therefore I'm not
Speaker 1: going to do anything unless it becomes itself a funny prophecy,
Speaker 1: and then you can see I was right. Nothing changed
Speaker 1: because in the end nothing, nothing will happen, none and
Speaker 1: us and us will be the people make it happen.
Speaker 1: Because if everyone writes it off and says it's Facebook,
Speaker 1: it's broken, then what's the point. We already know that
Speaker 1: it's already awful. We can't do anything then and then
Speaker 1: that will become a self fulfending prophecy, and no one votes,
Speaker 1: and no, because no one was stup forward to fix
Speaker 1: it will change it in the first place. M hm.
Speaker 1: And so the question if anything happened, that's rending up
Speaker 1: to us. It's it's up to it's up to yourself,
Speaker 1: it's up to me, it's up to the people and listening.
Speaker 1: So what can we do? How can we, just as
Speaker 1: regular people who use the platform, hold Facebook accountable? It
Speaker 1: can sometimes feel like we don't really have a lot
Speaker 1: of power against a billion dollar global tech company like Facebook.
Speaker 1: But Cairos, an organization that builds power for black and
Speaker 1: brown communities online, is hoping to change that, starting with
Speaker 1: asking everyone to log off of Facebook starting November ten.
Speaker 1: Of Facebook's revenue comes from ads targeted at us, just
Speaker 1: regular people who use Facebook. Okay, that means the revenue
Speaker 1: depends on our regular use of and engagement with the platform. No,
Speaker 1: Cairo's is not asking people to delete Facebook. Instead, it's
Speaker 1: more like a strike. The Facebook logout campaign is an
Speaker 1: attempt to harness the economic power of consumers to directly
Speaker 1: impact Facebook's bottom line, and for Gilani, Drew Davey Cairo's
Speaker 1: campaign director. It's all about power, taking it away from
Speaker 1: tech billionaires and building it for marginalized people. So, first
Speaker 1: of all, how did you wind up doing the work
Speaker 1: that it is that you do? Like, how did you
Speaker 1: get to where you are right now? Yeah? I smile
Speaker 1: because I'm like, I don't really know either. But UM,
Speaker 1: I was an organizer, grassroots organizer for a while, UM,
Speaker 1: and I decided that I needed a break a little bit.
Speaker 1: I think it was really enriched. I lived in Richmond,
Speaker 1: Virginia in seventeen Charlottesville and all the things, and I
Speaker 1: was kind of deep in it, and you know, we
Speaker 1: get burnt out as organizers, and that's what happened to
Speaker 1: me as a grass its organizer. UM. And my friend
Speaker 1: was like, hey, well you should do digital organizing and
Speaker 1: I was like, what even is that? So I decided
Speaker 1: to apply for the Cairos Fellowship. We really got skilled
Speaker 1: up and what digital organizing was in a way that
Speaker 1: I think is very different because it's focused on racial
Speaker 1: equity and equality and really about changing the field of
Speaker 1: digital organizing UM and putting black and brown people into
Speaker 1: it to do the work for our people. And I
Speaker 1: kind of fell in love with taking down big tech UM,
Speaker 1: which is a strange sentence to say, but it's something
Speaker 1: you know, I like to make cereos have a really
Speaker 1: bad day. And I'm happy to have landed full circle
Speaker 1: back at CAIROS now that we campaign UM running campaigns
Speaker 1: at the intersection of tech and racial all justice. Johnny,
Speaker 1: you and I have been on some many calls together,
Speaker 1: so many different coalition beings together. We have been talking
Speaker 1: about making like tech billionaires having the worst, making them
Speaker 1: have a bad time for a very long time, and
Speaker 1: it's interesting that we're in this moment where a lot
Speaker 1: of the public is kind of catching up to us.
Speaker 1: You know, Facebook has had a really intense couple of
Speaker 1: weeks in terms of like all of this stuff that
Speaker 1: we have known for a while becoming public in these
Speaker 1: very um specific ways. What are your thoughts on just
Speaker 1: like what we're seeing coming out of Facebook with these
Speaker 1: whistleblowers and you know, all of this, all of these
Speaker 1: revelations that we've known for a while being made so
Speaker 1: painfully clear to folks who might not have been so aware. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think I've seen a time since maybe Cambridge
Speaker 1: Analytica and like that first whistleblower that we saw come
Speaker 1: out where it's been so much attention on Facebook, and
Speaker 1: I think in the last don't know year with COVID disinformation,
Speaker 1: with an elect presidential election happening last year, with January six,
Speaker 1: that has all changed. Like you said, I you know, personally,
Speaker 1: I'm like where were y'all at? And you know, professionally,
Speaker 1: I'm like, let's go, let's organize people, Let's get all
Speaker 1: people to you know, really take back their power. Um.
Speaker 1: This is definitely a different moment in time where you know,
Speaker 1: we're seeing Facebook's direct harm on children, our society or democracy,
Speaker 1: and you know, people are really desperate, I think, to
Speaker 1: be able to do something about it. It's so interesting
Speaker 1: that you use the phrase take back our power. I
Speaker 1: think before I was very involved in like platform accountability work,
Speaker 1: I just had this us, this blanket assumption that as
Speaker 1: a person who use social media, person that use technology,
Speaker 1: I had no power, Like who was I to tell
Speaker 1: the Mark Zuckerberg's of the world how to run these
Speaker 1: these these platforms And I didn't fully understand how they work.
Speaker 1: Like I'm not a software engineer, I'm not a data person,
Speaker 1: and I think that for me, what really clicked. Was
Speaker 1: this change of like, well, actually, it wouldn't exist if
Speaker 1: not for you know, the people who use these platforms,
Speaker 1: and so if we mass a mass together, we actually
Speaker 1: do have power. And when I started thinking like that,
Speaker 1: I was like, why was that so quick to believe this,
Speaker 1: this fiction that people who use social media have no
Speaker 1: power and have no right to say, you know, what
Speaker 1: their experience on these platforms look like. When they are
Speaker 1: the lifeblood of these platforms. They wouldn't exist if not
Speaker 1: for for users. Yeah, And it's it's this thing I
Speaker 1: think that where tech companies want us to think like that,
Speaker 1: Like Facebook wants us to think that we're just just
Speaker 1: a user and we just someone with a profile, when
Speaker 1: that's not actually true. We are the reason why they
Speaker 1: make money. We are the reason why they are even
Speaker 1: existing in the first place. And so even beginning to
Speaker 1: shift your understanding of your power when it comes to
Speaker 1: social media platforms and technologies that we used is huge.
Speaker 1: Like that is a huge win. I think if we
Speaker 1: can start doing that for in massive amounts of people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, so let's talk about that a little bit. Um.
Speaker 1: I know that Cairos is doing the log out Facebook campaign,
Speaker 1: which I'm so excited about um, and it seems to
Speaker 1: be just one avenue that folks, just every day folks
Speaker 1: using social media can start to take back some of
Speaker 1: that power. Can you tell us a little bit about
Speaker 1: how that campaign came to be? Yeah, for sure. So
Speaker 1: you know, this campaign was really born out of frustration
Speaker 1: is born. You know, when you go to our website, um,
Speaker 1: the Facebook logout dot com, the first thing you're gonna
Speaker 1: see is we're really over Facebook. And that was the
Speaker 1: first thing I think I typed when I was planning
Speaker 1: this campaign, like I'm really over it. Um. So it's
Speaker 1: born out of that kind of spirit of we don't
Speaker 1: want to do anymore talking to people on the inside.
Speaker 1: Although that is a lane where I think a lot
Speaker 1: people are doing a lot of great work, but we
Speaker 1: don't want to do that. We don't want to continue
Speaker 1: to put out little fires here and there or big
Speaker 1: fires here and there. What we want to do is
Speaker 1: find a new angle to really try to take Facebook
Speaker 1: and you know, hold it accountable. UM. And that for
Speaker 1: us was users. That really I think for us, it's
Speaker 1: a people power thing. Like when we do think about Facebook,
Speaker 1: we do think about Facebook users, and like you said,
Speaker 1: before users aren't. I think users and people were not
Speaker 1: aware that we have power over these things in our
Speaker 1: pocket that we scroll through every day. And so for us,
Speaker 1: it's you know, part changing people's minds, changing people's orientation
Speaker 1: to a platform like Facebook, but also getting people to
Speaker 1: take and go from you know, a pledge like pledge
Speaker 1: to log out, to actually take the action, um and
Speaker 1: log out with us for a couple of days to November.
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break. One of the tensions that
Speaker 1: I feel as a digital organizer is that I have
Speaker 1: a Facebook and bare I barely use it, but I
Speaker 1: have Instagram where i'm I'm I'm active. Um. The reason
Speaker 1: why I still have Facebook is because you know, some
Speaker 1: of the organizing spaces I'm in a lot of that
Speaker 1: work happens on Facebook. And that's a real tension that
Speaker 1: I feel around being on the platform at all. So
Speaker 1: I guess do you ever, like, like, how do you
Speaker 1: navigate that tension of like asking people to take these
Speaker 1: steps to divest from Facebook in this way, but knowing
Speaker 1: that some people use it for things like you know, organizing,
Speaker 1: some people use it for communicating with you know, friends
Speaker 1: and family outside of the US, Like, how do you
Speaker 1: navigate that tension of oh man, Facebook is really created
Speaker 1: an ecosystem where so any of us really do have
Speaker 1: to rely on it, but we maybe don't love that
Speaker 1: that this relationship that we have with Facebook. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: So I also have a Facebook that I don't really use.
Speaker 1: I'm on Instagram though, and I joke that I'm part
Speaker 1: of the problem, but like, I'm part of the problem.
Speaker 1: So but even doing this work, you know, there is
Speaker 1: a real tension, and we talked about it all the
Speaker 1: time internally. We also talked about it to people who
Speaker 1: you know, respond to our emails saying, hey, I use
Speaker 1: this from my small business or use this for organizing.
Speaker 1: And so that's why we're not saying delete Facebook. We're
Speaker 1: not saying just delete it, leave and figure out what
Speaker 1: you're going to do afterwards. We're saying, you know, use
Speaker 1: your power to essentially strike from Facebook, you know, as
Speaker 1: as workers would strike like how Amazon workers. Um, you
Speaker 1: know we're on strikes. So you know, we're definitely not
Speaker 1: going to a delete Facebook route. I think the tension
Speaker 1: is is an interesting one and I think, you know,
Speaker 1: looking forward and a more visionary way, I'm interested in
Speaker 1: having more conversations with people who do lock out of Like, Okay,
Speaker 1: if Facebook is not the place where you want to
Speaker 1: be or not a place that is going to be
Speaker 1: better for us, then how do we create a world
Speaker 1: where tech is working for us, where social media platforms
Speaker 1: are working for us. UM. So we definitely here, and
Speaker 1: we definitely hear the organizing like a lot of black
Speaker 1: and brown people organize on Facebook. We definitely hear around
Speaker 1: businesses um. And so we're not expecting people just to
Speaker 1: up and leave, but we do want to encourage people
Speaker 1: to take back their power in those in those couple
Speaker 1: of days UM. And you know, from there we will
Speaker 1: see and we're hopeful that we can start building a
Speaker 1: new future. Mm hmm. I really like that. Yeah, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, I almost would have think of it as
Speaker 1: a kind of like harm reduction. Like I have Facebook,
Speaker 1: but I don't have it on my phone, so I
Speaker 1: don't get any kind of notifications from it when I want.
Speaker 1: When I need to go to Facebook, I have I
Speaker 1: go to my computer, open up the browser, type in
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com and hit enter. And even that, at
Speaker 1: least for me individually, creates a little bit of a
Speaker 1: barrier where it's not just buzzing in my pocket all
Speaker 1: the time, and so little things for me, you know,
Speaker 1: helped me create the conditions just in my own personal
Speaker 1: life so that Facebook didn't have such a tight grip
Speaker 1: on my the way that I understood discourse and community
Speaker 1: and how I kept in touch with bolts right, and
Speaker 1: so I didn't outright and delete it, you know, but
Speaker 1: just finding these little ways that works for me to
Speaker 1: make it less of a part of my daily life.
Speaker 1: And honestly, so another one that I did was I
Speaker 1: stopped posting on facebooks by rarely make a Facebook post.
Speaker 1: And I think I usually tell people want you delete
Speaker 1: it from your phone, and you stopped making posts, you'd
Speaker 1: be surprised how little you care what's on Facebook? Right,
Speaker 1: You're like, like, you log in and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's the same three people having the same silly argument
Speaker 1: that I don't care about. And for me, that really
Speaker 1: helped loosen the grip that Facebook had in my own life,
Speaker 1: where I was like, yeah, why do I care what
Speaker 1: like Megan from my Spanish class and I said about whatever,
Speaker 1: like I don't even know these people. Like it really
Speaker 1: created this way for me to make Facebook less a
Speaker 1: part of my like overall, um diet, I guess. And
Speaker 1: so I think asking folks to log out for a
Speaker 1: couple of days is a good way of being like, listen,
Speaker 1: we're not saying delete it all together. We're saying temporarily
Speaker 1: get off of it and maybe even use that time
Speaker 1: to assess the role that it plays in your life overall. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, I think there's definitely a more like mental health,
Speaker 1: um and like digital kind of wellness part of this,
Speaker 1: for sure. And I also think that even so two things.
Speaker 1: I think you know, when Facebook shut down the glorious
Speaker 1: six hours when Facebook was not online, we really did
Speaker 1: see how many people were lying on this thing, and
Speaker 1: not just in the US, but globally. And the global
Speaker 1: part was really striking because you know, there's countries outside
Speaker 1: of the US where you open the Internet and it's
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg's Internet, and or if you like use WhatsApp
Speaker 1: for example, um, that is the only way where you
Speaker 1: can communicate. And so you know, that's a part of
Speaker 1: the reason why we're saying, like, don't you don't have
Speaker 1: to delete it's because we know it's so integral to
Speaker 1: people's lives. And I also will say that you know,
Speaker 1: I was reading an article today around I think Facebook
Speaker 1: banned a developer who created this tool to help people
Speaker 1: unfollowed their feed like have an unfollowed I guess the
Speaker 1: thing and their feed um to unfollow friends and pages
Speaker 1: and those sort of things. They said they came with
Speaker 1: cease and desist energy for this person. They sent you know,
Speaker 1: legal people after them and banned them from Facebook. I
Speaker 1: guess for a life or for a very long time. Um.
Speaker 1: And that is the thing that we're trying to point out.
Speaker 1: So like, even if Facebook cares about their engagement, and
Speaker 1: even if you take three days off, that's gonna matter
Speaker 1: um to the company, which means like you do have
Speaker 1: power for sure, and go outside, take a walk, all
Speaker 1: those things when you log off with us in November.
Speaker 1: What are the demands that y'all are asking a Facebook.
Speaker 1: I know that you're asking for folks to you're asking
Speaker 1: for just individuals to log out for three days, But
Speaker 1: then you have specific demands that you're making a Facebook.
Speaker 1: Can you talk to talk us through some of those.
Speaker 1: Our demands are really focused on kind of stemming the
Speaker 1: harm that's happening now. UM. So we know we need
Speaker 1: an immediate removal of Mark Zuckerberg is CEO. He's doing
Speaker 1: a lot straight straight fired. You want him done, gone,
Speaker 1: like gone, you know what I mean. I would make
Speaker 1: a reference to um the Apprentice, but I think that's
Speaker 1: like you can't, we can't really do that. So you know,
Speaker 1: we're just gonna say fired, fired out. UM. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that is one of our demands. You know, he's he
Speaker 1: is both CEO and chairman. He holds a lot of
Speaker 1: power and the company, and he's making disastrous decisions. Um.
Speaker 1: And it kind of stems from him. Oh and then
Speaker 1: other other demands go over content moderation policies. So we
Speaker 1: would like to see, you know, an overhaul of their policies. Um.
Speaker 1: We want implementation of privacy centered data policies, a strategy
Speaker 1: for combating disinformation that doesn't prioritize our bottom line that
Speaker 1: like actively removes this information that is harmful to folks. Um.
Speaker 1: And these are just kind of the tip of the iceberg.
Speaker 1: We you know, see this as the beginning of a
Speaker 1: long term fight to ensure that Facebook is like a
Speaker 1: safe place for people, communities to gather more. After a pickbreak,
Speaker 1: let's get right back into it in terms of like
Speaker 1: asking him to step down I feel like there aren't
Speaker 1: a lot of people calling throns a lot of organizations
Speaker 1: calling for Zuckerberg to step down, which is interesting when
Speaker 1: you think about, like what a terrible job he is
Speaker 1: doing at his If if you or I was as
Speaker 1: bad at our jobs as Zuckerberg is, we would have
Speaker 1: been fired a long time ago. And so it's interesting
Speaker 1: how it feels to me that a lot of people
Speaker 1: are not calling for him to step down or be fired.
Speaker 1: And I love that y'all are just right out the gate.
Speaker 1: He shouldn't be allowed to be a decision maker anymore,
Speaker 1: or he's proven himself to not be responsible, responsible, you know,
Speaker 1: leader of this massive you know, massive platform. M hmm, yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean if I was as bad as my job,
Speaker 1: you know, I would be gone. If I even thought
Speaker 1: about being as bad as he was, people would have
Speaker 1: be fired for sure. And that is I think that
Speaker 1: is on you know, what we've he touched on around
Speaker 1: People don't think that that is an ask that they
Speaker 1: can make. Um, And it's not something new that I
Speaker 1: think I've heard in spaces that we're in, Like there's organizations,
Speaker 1: mostly organizations with people of color, who have been like, yo,
Speaker 1: this dude has to go, you know, UM, and so
Speaker 1: that that is one of our demands because he's he
Speaker 1: is just doing the most and not in a good way,
Speaker 1: like he's failing to keep people safe offline and online,
Speaker 1: and you know, we just we don't want to anymore.
Speaker 1: When we think about, you know, some of the harm
Speaker 1: that we know that Facebook has been responsible for, you
Speaker 1: you have to say, is there anything that surprises you
Speaker 1: or shocks you about the about some of the harm
Speaker 1: that we know Facebook has been you know, Party two.
Speaker 1: I think at this point nothing shocks me when you
Speaker 1: know these reports come out and like, yes, of course
Speaker 1: they have, UM. But something that was like striking recently
Speaker 1: was the information around Instagram and youth and specifically teenage girls,
Speaker 1: and that I think hit home for a lot of
Speaker 1: parents and a lot of people who like we're teenage
Speaker 1: girls or our teenaged girls or just young people on
Speaker 1: the internet because you know, so much of I think
Speaker 1: being young and being on the internet is like identity formation.
Speaker 1: I know for me, like I was on Tumbler figuring
Speaker 1: out like am like what is my sexual wality? Like
Speaker 1: what is gender? Oh? There's multiple genders? Cool? Like all
Speaker 1: those things and I can't imagine being on Instagram at
Speaker 1: fifteen or sixteen or even you know, ten eleven, twelve
Speaker 1: like kids are now and being fed really really harmful
Speaker 1: information um and then trying to go to school and
Speaker 1: do all the other hard things that middle high school do.
Speaker 1: And so that was something that was super striking. But
Speaker 1: I don't think it was surprising. I'm the same right wait, right,
Speaker 1: Like I came of age on the internet. If it
Speaker 1: wasn't for you know, America online and when I was fourteen,
Speaker 1: I would have never. I would have never kind of
Speaker 1: it was a It was a real place of self discovery,
Speaker 1: and I think there was not I didn't have the
Speaker 1: sense that it was like a marketplace for my pain
Speaker 1: and for my negative experiences where someone was going to
Speaker 1: be making money incentivizing me feeling bad about myself. And
Speaker 1: I know the kind of teenager that I was. If
Speaker 1: that had been the case, I don't know where I
Speaker 1: would be, Like, I don't I know that I would
Speaker 1: not have had the ability I It worries me. It's
Speaker 1: one of those things where I'm like, Wow, I'm really
Speaker 1: lucky to have come of age when I did. And
Speaker 1: I think that our generation, like the generation that is
Speaker 1: coming of age online today. They deserve a media they
Speaker 1: deserve to come of age and a media landscape that
Speaker 1: is not a marketplace for their pain. And I was
Speaker 1: We're so lucky that that it wasn't like that when
Speaker 1: we were coming of age, And they absolutely deserved to
Speaker 1: grow up in a landscape and find themselves on line
Speaker 1: and have these online experiences that can lead the self
Speaker 1: discovery and can be so self affirming. They deserved that,
Speaker 1: just like I got mm hmm. Yeah, absolutely, And they
Speaker 1: deserve to know that there are people that are doing
Speaker 1: that for them. And I'm not even just talking about
Speaker 1: groups like our groups, but I'm talking about like the
Speaker 1: actual companies like well they we're talking about Instagram for
Speaker 1: kids and responding to the Wall Street Journal reports Facebook
Speaker 1: which is like, well, it wasn't that bad or we
Speaker 1: didn't really know or to do it, and it's like
Speaker 1: do you all hear yourselves? Like do you do you
Speaker 1: know children? Have you seen the child at all? Do
Speaker 1: you have children? Like I'm so confused over why you
Speaker 1: think this is okay? Um, but yeah, kids, kids deserve
Speaker 1: to create communities online that are safe for them, and
Speaker 1: that is part of the future that I want to see.
Speaker 1: So when you think about the future of our digital landscape,
Speaker 1: are you hopeful? Are you like pessimistic? Like what are
Speaker 1: your thoughts? I have to be hopeful, like otherwise I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be in this work, um, and I would be
Speaker 1: out real quick. So I'm hopeful and I'm hopeful because
Speaker 1: there's groups, you know, not only ours but our partners, um,
Speaker 1: who really think about this stuff in a way that
Speaker 1: is visionary. And I really see more and more that
Speaker 1: technology issues are integrated into different other issues. So you know,
Speaker 1: for example, we have green groups signed on to this campaign,
Speaker 1: We have groups like Ultra Violet that are working on
Speaker 1: this campaign, and we you know, have groups coming from
Speaker 1: not just a civil liberties or tech accountability angle, UM.
Speaker 1: They really see the intersection. So I feel hopeful. I
Speaker 1: feel like one day we're going to take down Facebook
Speaker 1: or make something beautiful that's otherwise and it's going to
Speaker 1: be great. M Well, I'm glad that we have folks
Speaker 1: like you on our side on this site. Folks want
Speaker 1: to join us in the campaign, they can go to
Speaker 1: the Facebook logout dot com, take the pledge, sign up,
Speaker 1: and we'll see y'all in November for a glorious three
Speaker 1: days logged out of Facebook, taking or para. 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
Speaker 1: tang godi dot com. You can also find transcripts for
Speaker 1: today's episode at tangdi dot com. There Are No Girls
Speaker 1: on the Internet was created by me Bridget Tod. It's
Speaker 1: a production of iHeart Radio and Unboss creative Jonathan Strickland
Speaker 1: as our executive producer. Terry Harrison is our producer and
Speaker 1: sound engineer. Michaelmato is our contributing producer. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate
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