Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm brigitat and this is
Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet. Graduation is supposed
Speaker 1: to be a time for eager college grads making speeches
Speaker 1: and walking across the stage to receive their hard earned diplomas,
Speaker 1: but campuses around the country at places like usc Columbia,
Speaker 1: and Emery have either shrunk or canceled graduation ceremonies in
Speaker 1: the wake of protests demanding universities divest from Israel, in
Speaker 1: other words, withdrawal any funds their university endowments have invested
Speaker 1: in companies that are linked to Israel. The protests have
Speaker 1: really escalated recently, and even before that, A digital billboard
Speaker 1: truck funded by a well moneyed conservative group drove around
Speaker 1: university campuses at Columbia, Harvard, and UPenn with pictures and
Speaker 1: names of students, accusing them of being quote their campuses
Speaker 1: leading anti semites. One student whose picture and name were
Speaker 1: on a billboard truck at Columbia spoke to Verge, saying,
Speaker 1: I literally did not leave my apartment the days my
Speaker 1: friends told me about it. The student said that her
Speaker 1: name was listed on the truck because a club that
Speaker 1: she was no longer a part of had signed on
Speaker 1: to an open letter urging Columbia to cut ties with Israel.
Speaker 1: I completely wiped as much as I could of my
Speaker 1: online presence and stated my apartment as much as I could,
Speaker 1: the student said. Meanwhile, Canary Mission, a website that lists
Speaker 1: people perceived as being supportive of Palestine in order to
Speaker 1: keep them from getting future job prospects, has stocked students
Speaker 1: across the country. It is your duty to ensure that
Speaker 1: today's radicals are not tomorrow's employees. A video describing the
Speaker 1: project explains Caroline Cinders and their colleague Sam are part
Speaker 1: of Convocation Research and Design, or Chords for short people
Speaker 1: who are being doxed or at risk for being doxed,
Speaker 1: train people on how to stay safe both online and
Speaker 1: off while engaging in protest, and advocate for technology to
Speaker 1: be designed in more responsible ways. When I first caught
Speaker 1: up with Caroline and Sam, I thought this whole conversation
Speaker 1: would be pretty straightforward, you know, turn off your phone
Speaker 1: out of protest, that kind of thing. But as we spoke,
Speaker 1: Caroline and Sam described just how charged of a landscape
Speaker 1: we're talking about. And I realized the conversation is so
Speaker 1: much more complicated than that. So when I first reached
Speaker 1: out to y'all to do this episode, I thought it
Speaker 1: was going to be a pretty basic guide for how
Speaker 1: folks protesting on campus and off campus can stay safe digitally.
Speaker 1: I thought we'd be talking about pretty basic things like
Speaker 1: use a pass code to unlock your phone so that
Speaker 1: if you're detained by police they have a harder time
Speaker 1: getting into it, or cover any distinctive tattoos, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. But then when you and I started talking,
Speaker 1: I realized there was so much more going on here,
Speaker 1: and then I needed to take a step back. You
Speaker 1: all told me about things like provocateurs setting up fake
Speaker 1: dating profiles and then going on fake dates with protesters
Speaker 1: and trying to secretly record them saying things to make
Speaker 1: them look bad James O'Keeffe style, or how right wing
Speaker 1: influencers are kind of selling themselves as a citizen journalists
Speaker 1: and trying to make names for themselves by engineering viral
Speaker 1: content of protesters looking bad on top of threats to
Speaker 1: protesters that you might traditionally think of, you know, threats
Speaker 1: from campus administration or police. So can you just give
Speaker 1: us kind of the lay of the land in terms
Speaker 1: of the threats that these student protesters are facing right now.
Speaker 2: These threats are wide and varied. I think student activists
Speaker 2: are seeing threats not only from outside, but from inside
Speaker 2: as well, So they're having to contend with school administration,
Speaker 2: sometimes hostile students who are against what they're protesting for,
Speaker 2: as well as outside forces like the police or outside
Speaker 2: sometimes infiltrators like people like Project Bearitas style where they're
Speaker 2: trying to get into protests in order to record people
Speaker 2: who they perceive as their political opposition in order to
Speaker 2: make them look bad and then posting that on the
Speaker 2: internet for clout or subscriptions or money, as well as
Speaker 2: a variety of other threats that I think a lot
Speaker 2: of people don't really take into account.
Speaker 1: So you talked about people doing this for clout or engagement.
Speaker 1: Do you think that's a big undercurrent of what we're
Speaker 1: seeing here, Like people who are like, oh, this is
Speaker 1: a great opportunity to put out some viral video that
Speaker 1: makes a protester look bad or look uninformed, or look
Speaker 1: threatening or dangerous. I'll put that online and become a
Speaker 1: superstar myself.
Speaker 3: I mean, we are more in a time of the
Speaker 3: kind of like citizen journalists some of them call themselves,
Speaker 3: or like man on the street interviews where those are
Speaker 3: very popular on like TikTok or Instagram or Twitter or
Speaker 3: YouTube or rumble, like the list goes on and on
Speaker 3: of all these different platforms that they're able to monetize
Speaker 3: these videos for and it is very big in the
Speaker 3: the cultural climate that that these protests are happening in.
Speaker 2: So yes and no, like they are a small part
Speaker 2: of these protests.
Speaker 3: But any large event I feel like that's happening happening
Speaker 3: collectively in the country is going to have probably a
Speaker 3: similar amount of people that are chasing it for some
Speaker 3: type of engagement and.
Speaker 4: Just to build on that. You know, I really do
Speaker 4: think we are in the age of the influencer. Like,
Speaker 4: I think that is something a lot of folks to
Speaker 4: feel comfortable saying. It is really hard to say, you know,
Speaker 4: citation needed in terms of how many folks are attending
Speaker 4: these protests in person or following them online right and
Speaker 4: commenting in a way that is related to influencer or
Speaker 4: citizen journalism. Like there are a variety of organizations that
Speaker 4: are trying to identify student protesters and docs them and
Speaker 4: put their information online. Like one that comes to mind
Speaker 4: is Camary Mission for example. But yeah, there are a
Speaker 4: lot of folks that are either or not a lot,
Speaker 4: but there are there are definitely folks that are showing
Speaker 4: up to the protests that are we could argue, have
Speaker 4: you know, maybe some more malicious intentions that are in
Speaker 4: this morsus in journalism or influencer space. But there's also
Speaker 4: lots of folks watching online trying to identify different different
Speaker 4: folks at these protests and sort of doing a kind
Speaker 4: of let's say, like recap or an analysis. And this
Speaker 4: is stuff you know, we've seen in many other different
Speaker 4: kinds of spaces and ways. Like what comes to mind
Speaker 4: for me is, you know the Johnny Depp amber Heard
Speaker 4: trial where we saw so many sort of armchair investigators
Speaker 4: and heavy heavy quotes, body language experts like this, this
Speaker 4: is the lip readers and things like that, and and
Speaker 4: but that had like a real impact on how people
Speaker 4: really perceived that trial and how I would argue in
Speaker 4: really discoloring amber Heard not as a victim but as
Speaker 4: a perpetrator, when in fact she was a victim, right,
Speaker 4: And so I think, you know, we're still seeing a
Speaker 4: lot of that here and now with folks I think
Speaker 4: also maybe not physically being at the protest, but commenting
Speaker 4: on them, analyzing them, right, and providing different kinds of
Speaker 4: like wrongful assessments.
Speaker 1: And similar to what we saw with the Amber Heard
Speaker 1: Johnny Depth trial. Do you have you seen that those
Speaker 1: kind of armchair folks who aren't necessarily involved in the
Speaker 1: protest but are like you know, commenting on the viral
Speaker 1: video they saw from the protests or whatever, that that
Speaker 1: is having an impact on how every day people are
Speaker 1: perceiving what's going on on college campuses across the country.
Speaker 4: I think it's leading to like stratification for sure, and
Speaker 4: I think some of that is also you know, I
Speaker 4: would argue actually also coming from a place even of
Speaker 4: sadly like traditional media. One of the things I like
Speaker 4: to highlight is we don't live in a harassment literate society,
Speaker 4: and I think a lot of the analysis that is
Speaker 4: sort of existing around this, this this particular conflict, right,
Speaker 4: is sort of caught up in a really lack of nuance. Right,
Speaker 4: So the inability to see let's say, the people of
Speaker 4: Gaza as individuals that we are watching a genocide unfold,
Speaker 4: that we are watching things where many respected, reputable international bodies, right,
Speaker 4: are weighing in and saying like this is unprecedented in
Speaker 4: terms of like a famine that's being caused, in terms
Speaker 4: of the attack, in terms of the amount of journalists killed,
Speaker 4: in terms of the amount of children that are killed
Speaker 4: in this particular conflict, right, And a lot of what
Speaker 4: I think a lot was happening is a version of
Speaker 4: context collapse in which I think some folks are weaponizing,
Speaker 4: are weaponizing anti Semitism to push for other agendas, and
Speaker 4: that is also creating a space in which it's very
Speaker 4: difficult to have one could argue a nuanced conversation, right,
Speaker 4: And I think that is a large part of this.
Speaker 4: And then from there that kind of gives bad actors
Speaker 4: a space to push different kinds of agendas and different
Speaker 4: kinds of information and also in a way, almost again
Speaker 4: like justify the doxing of different activists, right. And so
Speaker 4: I think it's sort of hard to like definitively say,
Speaker 4: but I do see on on like the you know,
Speaker 4: on the like writer or conservative end uh, this sort
Speaker 4: of lack of nuance and inability to understand like a
Speaker 4: human rights conflict really muddying the waters in terms of
Speaker 4: also how do you contextualize or talk about let's say,
Speaker 4: like student protesters.
Speaker 1: So we talked a lot about like media entities. I
Speaker 1: guess I'll say, who are known provocateurs that like nobody
Speaker 1: should trust. But I do think that national reporting is
Speaker 1: not all it's not I have not seen a lot
Speaker 1: of national reporting that is super clear about what is
Speaker 1: going on, like the fact that we're talking about nineteen
Speaker 1: like a nineteen year old college freshman or something being
Speaker 1: up against a coordinated, organized, well funded institution with a
Speaker 1: mission to dox them and make them look bad, right,
Speaker 1: and so like, I don't feel like we are really
Speaker 1: getting a lot of opportunities to have that full story told.
Speaker 1: I think that the way that you have described it, Caroline,
Speaker 1: as like we just don't live in a harassment literate
Speaker 1: society where you know the actual context of what that
Speaker 1: would be like and what and like why that is
Speaker 1: happening is not being reflected perhaps, And I guess I wonder, like,
Speaker 1: how can we get to a place where that's that
Speaker 1: story is being told more honestly, where people really understand
Speaker 1: that like, yeah, you're talking about a college student for
Speaker 1: who and then a billionaire funds a truck with their
Speaker 1: picture and their name on it to drive around their campus,
Speaker 1: right or like, like, how truly fucked up? That really is.
Speaker 4: Totally and thank you so much for that. I I
Speaker 4: don't know how we get towards a harassment literate society.
Speaker 4: That's why I'm really grateful for podcasts like No Girls
Speaker 4: on the So I've been really grateful for a lot
Speaker 4: of the programming we've seen across different kinds of civil
Speaker 4: society organizations. Been extremely grateful for teen Vogue and it's
Speaker 4: like existence over the past few years. I think a
Speaker 4: lot of this is really sort of insisting on having
Speaker 4: nuanced conversations. But I think a lot of it also
Speaker 4: actually does come down to different kinds of education, and
Speaker 4: I don't know at what level that should should happen
Speaker 4: or exist in Like, for example, with our organization, we
Speaker 4: don't really work a lot with children for a variety
Speaker 4: of reasons. Some of that is also just like regulatory reasons.
Speaker 4: It's not one of our advocacy focuses because children are
Speaker 4: like under eighteen, they're just a different legal group than adults.
Speaker 4: But you know, I think there's something to be said
Speaker 4: around how do we how do we sort of talk
Speaker 4: about things like digital harm and also offline harm. But
Speaker 4: I think that this is also an issue that adults
Speaker 4: run into as well, Like you can't necessarily summarize, I
Speaker 4: think often or I think it's difficult to summarize a
Speaker 4: lot of harassment cases into a tweet, right, to summarize
Speaker 4: it in a few characters. And I think in this
Speaker 4: sort of space of us trying to maybe editorialize or
Speaker 4: in you know, take a stance on something that often
Speaker 4: really collapses the nuance of what we're talking about. I
Speaker 4: also think that there's like a binary in which people
Speaker 4: tend to approach good and bad, and then that sort
Speaker 4: of weighs into harrassment. I think that there's also a
Speaker 4: deeper context here. So this is one of the things
Speaker 4: I've noticed in some of the trainings we do with
Speaker 4: folks that are like victims that are facing harrassment or
Speaker 4: have been harassed. And I've also noted this with folks
Speaker 4: that are, let's say, into being friends of her assers.
Speaker 4: It can be very stabilizing and difficult to sort of
Speaker 4: come to terms with that someone you care about might
Speaker 4: harm someone else. Folks often I've found in my experience,
Speaker 4: So this is like in my observations, like they'll sort
Speaker 4: of reflect on their own personal feelings about it, right,
Speaker 4: and what that says about them. And it's one of
Speaker 4: those things where I like to say, harassment isn't complicated,
Speaker 4: it's your feelings about the harassmer that are complicated, right, Like,
Speaker 4: those are the complexities. So if you're a fan of
Speaker 4: Johnny Depp, it's probably very difficult to reconcile your fandom
Speaker 4: and like this thing you've invested in, even with clear
Speaker 4: evidence that he has harmed someone, right, or if someone
Speaker 4: is your friend. So then what I've found is people
Speaker 4: try to look for logical reasons, like, oh, what did
Speaker 4: the victim do? There must be a reason that this
Speaker 4: thing or person or institution or country I really like
Speaker 4: is doing this. There has to be a logical reason.
Speaker 4: And one of the things I like to point out
Speaker 4: to is like sometimes there's not. It's like the bitch
Speaker 4: eating crackers meme. Someone just might not like that other
Speaker 4: person and that's all that it takes, and they happen
Speaker 4: to like you. And that is sometimes just how harassment unfolds.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: Other times people are seeking out a weaker opponent to
Speaker 4: feel stronger. You know, there's all different reasons. My work
Speaker 4: in particular doesn't really focus on the psychology of the
Speaker 4: harasser or why they harass. That doesn't necessarily help me
Speaker 4: help victims. What helps me help victims is often looking
Speaker 4: at like how they're being targeted, how are systems being
Speaker 4: subverted to harm them, how do we improve those systems,
Speaker 4: and how do we also support victims in a trauma
Speaker 4: informed way. So I think this is where we're sort
Speaker 4: of seeing this almost at scale. I think the complexities
Speaker 4: here are also in terms of policy, they get very complex.
Speaker 4: I would say in terms of is it a genocide
Speaker 4: or not complex it is a genocide. But I think
Speaker 4: this is where people also don't understand international relations or
Speaker 4: international politics, I e. That the people of Gaza are
Speaker 4: not Hamas, that they don't understand how like aid work works,
Speaker 4: that they don't understand different rules of law and rules
Speaker 4: of war. In terms of also how or how journalists
Speaker 4: and the media are allowed to engage in document how
Speaker 4: different spaces or sites are targeted or not targeted, right,
Speaker 4: how aid and food is allowed to flow in and out.
Speaker 4: Like these are we work in human rights. These are
Speaker 4: even areas that are complex to me because I don't
Speaker 4: work in like war torn areas, right, So these are
Speaker 4: also very complex systems to myself as someone who is
Speaker 4: a human rights expert. And so I think there's no
Speaker 4: space right now with how Internet conversation has been defined
Speaker 4: or how we're engaging in it to be able to
Speaker 4: have a conversation. I can't give you a one tweet
Speaker 4: description or summary of this, like I have to give
Speaker 4: you a long essay. And then this also butts up
Speaker 4: against you, know, then different kinds of miss and disinformation
Speaker 4: that I think build on what Whitney Phillips calls people's
Speaker 4: deep memetic framework, so beliefs that you have and then
Speaker 4: you see those reflected in other spaces. So if you've
Speaker 4: ever like I'm from Louisiana, I very distinctly remember Hurricane Katrina.
Speaker 4: You know, I can understand how certain folks in New
Speaker 4: Orleans and Louisiana and Mississippi, where my mom's family is from,
Speaker 4: like might have a slight distrust of disaster relief programs
Speaker 4: or trusting the government to like handle disaster relief, right
Speaker 4: because people have lived through many hurricanes and not seen
Speaker 4: that go very well. So, like that's a deep memetic
Speaker 4: frame of them saying like, oh, can I trust an
Speaker 4: international body?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 4: And while those are different things, you can see how
Speaker 4: some of that mistrust gets sown and how like missin
Speaker 4: disinformation can sort of exacerbate that at scale. So then
Speaker 4: how do you have a conversation with someone who's had
Speaker 4: lets of negative experiences with FEMA to then be like, well,
Speaker 4: here's why actually you should trust like this you and
Speaker 4: organization that you've never heard of that only operates in
Speaker 4: this one region. It becomes actually very difficult to have
Speaker 4: those conversations. And I think this is what I mean,
Speaker 4: like these are the ripple effects of not living in
Speaker 4: a harassment literate society, is that we can't look at
Speaker 4: things just through a good and bad binary. You have
Speaker 4: to look at the context. You have to look at
Speaker 4: impact versus intent, So like what is the impact of
Speaker 4: someone's actions versus like what they say their intent is.
Speaker 4: You have to also look at I think, or I think,
Speaker 4: really analyze and think very deeply about one's own ego
Speaker 4: in these situations, and like the seeking of justice or
Speaker 4: like retribution, that that sometimes results in more and more
Speaker 4: and more harm. And this is also very complex in
Speaker 4: which you want to allow a space for victims to
Speaker 4: be able to vocalize anger and distrust and dissent, like
Speaker 4: they're like, you're allowed to be angry. This also then
Speaker 4: conflates or combats our idea very like I would say
Speaker 4: global Northwestern American idea of like what a victim is.
Speaker 4: There isn't one kind of victim. There's so many different
Speaker 4: kinds of victims. There's no one way to embody victimhood.
Speaker 4: And I think that's also a complexity people don't understand,
Speaker 4: which is how we then get into I don't know
Speaker 4: if I believe that person or I would have done
Speaker 4: this in this situation, And the answer is like, you
Speaker 4: don't know what you would do in that situation until
Speaker 4: you're in that situation. And so that's also a very
Speaker 4: strange and skewed way to view how an individual or
Speaker 4: a group of people are responding to trauma.
Speaker 5: Let's take quick break at our back.
Speaker 1: It reminds me so much of what we saw around
Speaker 1: gamer Gate in some ways, and just this idea that
Speaker 1: it's so much about, like what's happening is maybe not
Speaker 1: so complex. The feelings surrounding it might be the complex thing.
Speaker 1: And then the bit where we then don't have a
Speaker 1: media that is informed enough or harassment literate enough to
Speaker 1: really lay out what's happening, right, And so they try
Speaker 1: to find a way of like reporting along those binaries
Speaker 1: of like well maybe they maybe they they really do
Speaker 1: just care about ethics and game journalism, and like maybe
Speaker 1: this woman really did deserve it and have it coming,
Speaker 1: and maybe you know, maybe women have taken things too
Speaker 1: are in their criticism of gaming or whatever. Rather than
Speaker 1: actually laying out like the sort of complexities that you
Speaker 1: did and the nuance that you just did, it's so
Speaker 1: much easier to have it be this binary, simple thing.
Speaker 1: And I almost wonder if they're if they're like giving
Speaker 1: us what we want in a kind of way, because
Speaker 1: we want simple answers. Sometimes we want like oh bad guy,
Speaker 1: good guy, or here's the reason they did that, and
Speaker 1: what they sometimes what we don't want is like, oh,
Speaker 1: well it's actually a really complicated situation totally.
Speaker 4: I mean, this is something I see where I talk
Speaker 4: about a lot in my coaching with different victims of harassment,
Speaker 4: is that one of the one of the very unsatisfying
Speaker 4: things that comes out of of harassment. There's many unsatisfying things.
Speaker 4: There's many awful things. There's many harmful things. Is that
Speaker 4: you might never get a why, and the why might
Speaker 4: be something that feels simplistic or minimal or naive, or
Speaker 4: you know, not even very well thought out. And one
Speaker 4: of the things I try to really coach people through
Speaker 4: is it might also not be worth thinking about why,
Speaker 4: Like it might actually, you know, it is your being targeted,
Speaker 4: but it might not have anything to do with you.
Speaker 4: And in terms of seeking the why, like why this
Speaker 4: person is doing this, that that might not give you
Speaker 4: the peace of mind or the closure that you're looking for.
Speaker 4: And I think that's also I think that's really hard
Speaker 4: for people. And I know that, like when I have
Speaker 4: faced harassment, sometimes that's even hard for me, even though
Speaker 4: I know that, like I know that if someone were
Speaker 4: to tell me why, it wouldn't be it wouldn't be
Speaker 4: the answer that I'm looking for. It maybe wouldn't solve
Speaker 4: any of the conflicting feelings I'm feeling about that particular instance.
Speaker 4: And I think, you know, this is where it is
Speaker 4: sometimes important to separate harrassment research and harassment like literature
Speaker 4: from let's say international politics and war and conflict. But
Speaker 4: I do think it is at times and important to
Speaker 4: sort of understand, Like the why can be incredibly simplistic
Speaker 4: and heavy quotes, like I think a lot about my
Speaker 4: partner's family. He was born in nineteen ninety one in
Speaker 4: the Western Balkans, when Yugoslavia was breaking apart, and like,
Speaker 4: what are the whys there? There's a lot of whys
Speaker 4: that Yugoslavia was breaking apart. There's a lot of whys
Speaker 4: in which a group different groups were targeted, and a
Speaker 4: lot of those whys are not satisfying, you know, because
Speaker 4: it comes down to hate and discrimination and Islamophobia and
Speaker 4: like very entrenched like ethnic ties and views of a
Speaker 4: particular region. And that's an overly simplistic way to even
Speaker 4: look right at that region. But that's also a why,
Speaker 4: and that doesn't explain or excuse anything. And I also
Speaker 4: don't know if that improves what what it feels like
Speaker 4: to have lived through that. That's just an observation, right,
Speaker 4: And I think sometimes you know, some like sometimes the
Speaker 4: most awful things that happen there is a simple answer again,
Speaker 4: which is unsatisfying, which is just we live in a
Speaker 4: society that is full of bias and hate and power differentials.
Speaker 1: True, but I could see how that's not the most
Speaker 1: satisfying answer, particularly if you've been in a situation that
Speaker 1: has like upended your life, right Like if you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: someone got a picture of me at a protest and
Speaker 1: now I am unable to live a normal life. Having
Speaker 1: the answer be like, oh, well, we live in a
Speaker 1: society that's full of hate that people somebody identified you
Speaker 1: as an easy target to pick on, and that's what
Speaker 1: they did. I could see how that could be unsatisfying.
Speaker 1: But it goes back to what you said about sometimes
Speaker 1: the why is not necessarily worth dwelling on totally.
Speaker 4: And this is something where I'd like to say, like
Speaker 4: that also doesn't excuse the harm you're facing, Like like
Speaker 4: you shouldn't be facing that, right, Like that's something that
Speaker 4: no one should be exacting or putting on to you
Speaker 4: for you to experience, which I think is why Sam
Speaker 4: and I really do focus on victims their care. What
Speaker 4: are the ways in which systems, inadvertently or you know,
Speaker 4: via their own design, create space, create flaws and vulnerabilities
Speaker 4: and spaces for harm because I don't need to know
Speaker 4: the why to focus on the victim. We don't need
Speaker 4: to know the why to support someone and even for us,
Speaker 4: I think, even if I were to put on my
Speaker 4: research hat, the why isn't also a satisfying thing for
Speaker 4: me to seek personally, even in a research context.
Speaker 1: So you might be listening to this and think that
Speaker 1: it sounds like I'm trying to dissuade you from showing
Speaker 1: up to a protest irl because you could find yourself
Speaker 1: a target for this kind of harassment surveillance and criminalization.
Speaker 1: But Caroline and Sam don't see it that way. In fact,
Speaker 1: they say that you should still make your voice heard
Speaker 1: while also having a good understanding of the realities of
Speaker 1: our surveillance landscape and what's at stake. When I reached out,
Speaker 1: I thought this conversation was going to be a lot
Speaker 1: more simple that it ended up being. And I think
Speaker 1: that is reflective of the need to talk about this
Speaker 1: whole conversation in a way that is surveillance literate, right,
Speaker 1: that like really takes into account the full sense of
Speaker 1: like why experts like yourselves recommend make certain recommendations to people,
Speaker 1: how it connects to a larger criminalization and surveillance landscape
Speaker 1: when it comes to things like protest in descent, And
Speaker 1: so I wonder, like do you think we live in
Speaker 1: a surveillance literate society, and do you think people have
Speaker 1: a good sense of like how these things are all connected.
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, absolutely not. We do not live in a surveillance
Speaker 3: literate society. I mean there's just the capabilities of statent
Speaker 3: on state actors is is not really completely understood. I
Speaker 3: feel like people are oftentimes protesters or activists, shall we say,
Speaker 3: are oftentimes operating with a knowledge base that's maybe like five, ten,
Speaker 3: fifteen years even sometimes backdated. So or sometimes people will
Speaker 3: just be like, oh, well, the adversary maybe the state
Speaker 3: we'll say that's the adversary in this example is so
Speaker 3: advanced that why should I even bother? Like they can
Speaker 3: read everything that I'm doing, they can read my mind.
Speaker 2: Basically, They're just that capable. Not the case.
Speaker 3: The opposition is oftentimes not as sophisticated as we think.
Speaker 3: And there are things that we can implement best practices
Speaker 3: in digital security and privacy that we can implement that
Speaker 3: will keep us safe er. And it's like super simple
Speaker 3: stuff you signal with disappearing messages for communications, like don't
Speaker 3: just use text messages or phone calls, like super simple
Speaker 3: stuff like that will keep people safer, like you said
Speaker 3: in the beginning of this podcast, like don't have a
Speaker 3: face unlock on your phone or fingerprint unlock on your phone,
Speaker 3: because the cops, if you are arrested, can just take
Speaker 3: the phone and hold it up to your face and
Speaker 3: then unlock your phone.
Speaker 2: Stuff like that. But backing up a little to surveillance.
Speaker 3: You know, the capacity for surveillance is really increased with
Speaker 3: the proliferation of AI assisted facial recognition or you know
Speaker 3: HD cameras that can do like a thousand X zoom
Speaker 3: and still have like four K quality, or even like
Speaker 3: we could talk about all the different optics that are
Speaker 3: on like helicopter cameras, police helicopter cameras that can like
Speaker 3: see in thermal, in infrared, in different heat signature patterns
Speaker 3: in you know, movement outlines and stuff like that, to
Speaker 3: where they can also like zoom in to where they
Speaker 3: can essentially see a protesters screen on their phone from
Speaker 3: a helicopter.
Speaker 2: That type of.
Speaker 3: Stuff, or just like super stuff that's been around for
Speaker 3: like decades, like police poll cams that they'll just like
Speaker 3: stick somewhere and people just won't notice, or applars, automatic
Speaker 3: license plate readers to kind of map, like where people
Speaker 3: are driving around all of these things. They exist, they're
Speaker 3: in the real world, and they're used by law enforcement
Speaker 3: on a daily basis almost And this is just like
Speaker 3: the physical world that we're talking about.
Speaker 2: This isn't even the digital world where we're.
Speaker 3: Talking about, like them having the capabilities of seeing all
Speaker 3: of your social media accounts interlinked and essentially pulled together
Speaker 3: in one little package deal that is maybe like this
Speaker 3: is Sam, Like this is his Facebook, this is his Instagram,
Speaker 3: this is his Tumblr, this is his MySpace from fifteen
Speaker 3: years ago. They have these capabilities, but we can do
Speaker 3: things to prevent them from having fuller access to them,
Speaker 3: and we can make things private. We can have burner accounts,
Speaker 3: burner emails, burner phone numbers, things that aren't maybe directly
Speaker 3: associated with us.
Speaker 2: And there again this.
Speaker 3: Does boil back down to best practices in digital security
Speaker 3: and privacy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have heard the feeling like, oh, the state
Speaker 1: they have everything about me? Why bother? I've heard that
Speaker 1: described as like a kind of nihilism, like surveillance nihilism,
Speaker 1: where you're like it doesn't even matter anymore. I like,
Speaker 1: I get it, because the list of ways the state
Speaker 1: surveils US is vast and I could see, I could
Speaker 1: I totally understand that as a reaction, but Sam, you're
Speaker 1: so right like it. There are still things we could do,
Speaker 1: basic steps that we could take to maintain privacy, and
Speaker 1: I think the state, it kind of like, is counting
Speaker 1: on us being like, oh, well, there's no point of
Speaker 1: doing any of this. I may as well just leave
Speaker 1: my phone unlocked. I may as well just like not
Speaker 1: wear a mask. I may as well just whatever, because
Speaker 1: they already you know, they already have everything.
Speaker 5: It is.
Speaker 1: It is, there are things you can do, and the
Speaker 1: state totally benefits from us thinking that that's not true,
Speaker 1: that there's nothing we can do, despite the fact that
Speaker 1: I do understand that as a reaction totally.
Speaker 4: And I think there's something else also here too, where
Speaker 4: I want to highlight where I'm about to say sounds contradictory,
Speaker 4: and I'm going to try my best to say it
Speaker 4: in a way with nuance lay it on us. The
Speaker 4: state is very powerful, and I think also at times
Speaker 4: people overestimate or don't totally understand how the tools of
Speaker 4: the state work, so they have a lot of data
Speaker 4: on us. But also like there's a lot of things
Speaker 4: that surveillance technology can't do that. I think often people
Speaker 4: misunderstand that it can do. And I think that isn't
Speaker 4: That isn't to say we should all take a sigh
Speaker 4: of relief, you know. I think we should all be
Speaker 4: like breathing in and out constantly, you know, trying to
Speaker 4: quell different levels of anxiety. And I say, this is
Speaker 4: a highly anxious person.
Speaker 5: Same.
Speaker 4: But but one of the things I think it is important,
Speaker 4: and I'm thinking about this in like a protest context,
Speaker 4: is you know, like the state has a lot of
Speaker 4: data on a lot of people, as we learned from
Speaker 4: from like Edward Snowden and and like the prison program
Speaker 4: for example. But also there's like so much data that
Speaker 4: at times it can be hard to identify people. And
Speaker 4: that's the other end of security nihilism that I see
Speaker 4: is people being like, I'm just a drop of data
Speaker 4: in a very large data bucket. And for me, it's like, well,
Speaker 4: you never know when the state is going to decide
Speaker 4: to look at you, And if you have any marginalized identity,
Speaker 4: then you know already that bad actors of the state,
Speaker 4: like a local police force, they don't need very much
Speaker 4: to decide to look at you. In fact, they need
Speaker 4: almost nothing to decide to arrest you to like, you know,
Speaker 4: fuck up aspects of your life, et cetera. And that's
Speaker 4: only getting more and more worse now, especially in the
Speaker 4: United States. If we look at the overturning of Roe v. Wade,
Speaker 4: of attacks on gender affirming care, like it's so difficult
Speaker 4: to sort of just do things we should be able
Speaker 4: to do. One of the things I want to highlight
Speaker 4: this is something I think we've seen a little bit
Speaker 4: in our training, is people sort of at times sort
Speaker 4: of assuming that let's say, like police surveillance is magical,
Speaker 4: or that like AI is magical. It's not. There are
Speaker 4: things we actually can do to be safe. And I
Speaker 4: think that's like what I want to sort of emphasize.
Speaker 4: This is like the space of nuance, Like we should
Speaker 4: be afraid, and also there are things we can do
Speaker 4: to try to like mitigate and reduce these harms and
Speaker 4: be safer, and we should do those things. We should
Speaker 4: especially do those things, and we should do those things
Speaker 4: if we're also in community with marginalized community members. So
Speaker 4: like I'm a white, non binary person, you know, I
Speaker 4: was born in the United States. For me, going to
Speaker 4: a protest unmasked even though it's COVID, So actually you
Speaker 4: should all be wearing masks out there anyway. But like
Speaker 4: if I were to go hypothetically unmasked, which I wouldn't do,
Speaker 4: Like me getting arrested is very different than someone else
Speaker 4: getting arrested. But I shouldn't be worried just about me.
Speaker 4: I should be worried about the people I'm standing with, right,
Speaker 4: And I should be worried about how I've saved those
Speaker 4: people in my phone, And I should be worried about
Speaker 4: what kinds of things can be done with just a
Speaker 4: little bit of like nudging from the police.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: And this is where understanding security measures and privacy measures
Speaker 4: and having good what Matt Mitchell calls like security hygiene
Speaker 4: and digital hygiene is really important. Right, So like disappearing messages,
Speaker 4: using signal, not bringing my phone at all to a protest,
Speaker 4: these are really helpful things versus going to a protest
Speaker 4: and thinking you need like a farity bag and a
Speaker 4: mic jammer and all these things. But then let's say
Speaker 4: you're connecting to public Wi Fi and you're messaging and
Speaker 4: you're posting on Twitter, like that has almost negated the
Speaker 4: other things you also don't necessarily need something like a
Speaker 4: mic jammer if you like, you know, if you don't
Speaker 4: have malware on your phone.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: So I think that there's these things where people sometimes
Speaker 4: sort of over estimate the capabilities of some of the
Speaker 4: tools that the police have and then underestimate how little
Speaker 4: evidence the state needs to seize your devices or be
Speaker 4: able to engage with with your phone. And so I
Speaker 4: think it's this balance of understanding where it does like
Speaker 4: security on the device stop, and like good protest tactics start,
Speaker 4: like my good physical security, right, And I think these
Speaker 4: are very much intertwined. And I think that's also another
Speaker 4: level of complexity we've been dealing with, Like we've also
Speaker 4: worked with activists who are really nervous and like want
Speaker 4: to put their phone in the freezer or the microwave.
Speaker 4: And you know, that's something too where it's like I
Speaker 4: totally hear that you're scared if you want to do that,
Speaker 4: Like I can understand how that makes you feel safer,
Speaker 4: But the issue more is like, let's talk about what
Speaker 4: would be happening on your phone that would cause that
Speaker 4: to happen, and also that there's an even more serious
Speaker 4: question of that means there's something on your phone that
Speaker 4: is the listening in all other different instances, and so
Speaker 4: if you're really worried about that, then the problem is
Speaker 4: something we need to look at on the phone.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 4: The problem is spyware or malware on your phone, right,
Speaker 4: And that's something we need to deal with immediately. And
Speaker 4: I think that's also something that I think is very
Speaker 4: difficult to understand or work through if if you aren't
Speaker 4: a technology expert. And that sucks, because you know, we
Speaker 4: want people to have the most accurate and like salient
Speaker 4: information as possible, and it I think a lot of
Speaker 4: barriers to this is having to be constantly updated with
Speaker 4: how technology works, what are the different kinds of tools
Speaker 4: and apparatuses of the state, and then how do you
Speaker 4: get that information into people's hands.
Speaker 1: More after a quick break, let's get right back into it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm almost cringing a little bit because I definitely went
Speaker 1: to a meeting where we all put our phones in
Speaker 1: the freezer because somebody saw it on the Snowden Doc.
Speaker 1: And then I definitely like logged onto Starbucks WiFi. I
Speaker 1: had a whole conversation about what we talked about via
Speaker 1: Starbucks WiFi, via just SMS messengers like oh well, like
Speaker 1: the more like it felt cool to put our phones
Speaker 1: in the freezer, but I took no other security steps
Speaker 1: that day, and in fact did things that were like
Speaker 1: risky that you know, a little common sense, basic considerations
Speaker 1: would have probably been more effective or made a bigger
Speaker 1: impact on my security or my made a bigger impact
Speaker 1: on my security than like, let's all put our phones
Speaker 1: in the freezer. And I think, Caroline, you made a
Speaker 1: point about people not being tech expert. I wonder, you know,
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four, with the ubiquity of smartphones and
Speaker 1: facial recognition technology and doxing and like all of these
Speaker 1: technological innovations and advancements, do you think that folks feel
Speaker 1: a barrier to protest or to speak up and use
Speaker 1: their voices because it seems like, well, this is so much,
Speaker 1: this is so opaque. Some of the guides and way
Speaker 1: that people talk about technology and security feels not accessible.
Speaker 1: So I'm just gonna like not show up because who
Speaker 1: has the time? Like I wonder, is that something that
Speaker 1: you've seen in your work?
Speaker 4: So I haven't personally seen that, And some of that
Speaker 4: I will highlight might be from where we sit as
Speaker 4: an organization because we tend to work with other community organizations.
Speaker 4: We tend to work with human rights defenders, journalists, activists,
Speaker 4: and then members of the general public who like want
Speaker 4: to engage with this knowledge. So I would say that like,
Speaker 4: I haven't seen necessarily a deterrence. What I have seen
Speaker 4: is people showing up but still being scared and or
Speaker 4: showing up and then something bad happens and they weren't prepared,
Speaker 4: let's say, for for for what was happening, and that
Speaker 4: I want to highlight that's not there. That's not their fault,
Speaker 4: Like we live under surveillance capitalism, how software and hardware
Speaker 4: has been designed is not the fault of the user
Speaker 4: or the vulnerable individual. That's the fault of capitalism and
Speaker 4: big tech. And like a lot of not regulation we
Speaker 4: have in the United States, right, and so I think
Speaker 4: luckily at least you know, Again, also we're speaking from
Speaker 4: a very specific sort of space convocation, our lab, in
Speaker 4: which we are often engaging with people that are you know,
Speaker 4: human rights defenders, journalists, activists, community organizations. So we haven't
Speaker 4: seen a hesitation. But what we have seen is people
Speaker 4: recognizing that there are like skills and tools that they
Speaker 4: that they don't have, and they're seeing that also in
Speaker 4: real time. I think right now because of the amount
Speaker 4: of doxing attempts that are happening on social media, and
Speaker 4: so I think that's weighing into our people are now
Speaker 4: a bit more aware. You know, there's been many stories,
Speaker 4: as you know, Bridges, as you pointed out, with billion
Speaker 4: paires renting buses and putting people's faces on them or
Speaker 4: putting people's names on them. And I think that is,
Speaker 4: you know, causing folks to reflect and be like, oh,
Speaker 4: like that could be me, and I still need to
Speaker 4: show up. I still want to show up, but how
Speaker 4: do I how do I create or maintain some safety
Speaker 4: knowing that that is a potential outcome. So that's a
Speaker 4: little bit more of I think what we've been seeing.
Speaker 1: I started this conversation wanting to use the focus or
Speaker 1: framing of like campus protesters, campus activists, and what's happening
Speaker 1: on campus is right now, But how have you seen
Speaker 1: these same tactics being used to target anybody, like people
Speaker 1: who are not necessarily protesters, who maybe work for companies
Speaker 1: that are like deemed to woke or have in some
Speaker 1: way have been like perceived as ideologically against the bad
Speaker 1: actors who are doing the dosing, Like, is this the
Speaker 1: kind of threat that really all of us might need
Speaker 1: to be aware of, whether or not we've ever set
Speaker 1: foot on an IRL protest on a campus.
Speaker 4: I would say so. I would say, with how you know,
Speaker 4: regardless of the country you live in, with how politics
Speaker 4: have been going over the past few years, it is
Speaker 4: always good. It's very important to be thinking about your
Speaker 4: own digital footprint, data that's out there about you, and
Speaker 4: how it can be used or misused to harm you.
Speaker 4: I think that that's something we all now especially really
Speaker 4: need to be thinking about.
Speaker 1: I don't want people to listen to this episode and
Speaker 1: think every threat that we have discussed is something that
Speaker 1: they personally like, will be are likely to become a
Speaker 1: target for. Like, I don't want people to be paranoid.
Speaker 1: I want people to be informed and smart, right, And
Speaker 1: I guess, like, in your work, how have you prepared
Speaker 1: people to understand like they're specific their specific needs in
Speaker 1: this whole conversation.
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, I think this is one of the hardest things.
Speaker 4: This is where this is why we do I think
Speaker 4: really targeted workshops. But Samya, do you want to do
Speaker 4: you want to.
Speaker 2: Weigh in the answer is threat modeling.
Speaker 4: Oh, you were going to say that, I was going
Speaker 4: to say that, Sam is going to say it.
Speaker 3: Well, we all have different threat models, right, and what
Speaker 3: Carl's threat model is going to be way different than mine,
Speaker 3: and what bridgets is is going to be way different
Speaker 3: than Carlos. Threat modeling is the process of trying to
Speaker 3: figure out the possibility or probability of a threat that
Speaker 3: the person may encounter and weighing that weighing the consequences
Speaker 3: of that threat on how realistic it is that it
Speaker 3: will happen or will not happen. And I think that
Speaker 3: people can try to figure out what their personal threat
Speaker 3: model is by considering who the bad actors that they
Speaker 3: may encounter are and what their capabilities are, and then
Speaker 3: what they're trying to protect. So that might maybe student
Speaker 3: protesters that want to keep their anonymity, and so maybe
Speaker 3: they will not bring their phone to a protest, or
Speaker 3: maybe they will wear a mask or cover their tattoos
Speaker 3: in order to not be identified physically. So that's just
Speaker 3: like one example of a of a threat posed to
Speaker 3: campus activists. And this threat modeling process can really be
Speaker 3: used for all aspects of life. You can threat model
Speaker 3: everything in your daily life.
Speaker 4: I mean, I just to build on that. Like one
Speaker 4: thing I want to highlight is we all threat model
Speaker 4: every day, as Sam is saying, like you can use
Speaker 4: it in your everyday life, and you do, Like when
Speaker 4: you decide to cross the street not at the light,
Speaker 4: you are threat modeling right when you're sort of making
Speaker 4: a decision around how you're going to get home or
Speaker 4: go to go somewhere. That is like a form of
Speaker 4: threat modeling. And I think I think that there, this
Speaker 4: is I think this is what gets really tied into
Speaker 4: then trying to understand a bit more about surveillance literacy
Speaker 4: and like security literacy and privacy literacy is really important.
Speaker 4: Threat modeling is incredibly important. It's how you can decide,
Speaker 4: you know, it's how you can maintain some safety. What
Speaker 4: I think is harder when the challenges is also helping
Speaker 4: folks feel safe and secure around threat mode. And some
Speaker 4: of that now comes down to how do we understand
Speaker 4: like the tactics and tools of our adversaries. That's understanding
Speaker 4: there why right so why it doesn't matter, but it's
Speaker 4: understanding like what are they using? And so I think
Speaker 4: for folks that are going to actions, please go. Please
Speaker 4: try to wear something that sort of helps anonymize you.
Speaker 4: So I would not recommend wearing your you know, cal
Speaker 4: state the year you're graduating shirt, or like your really
Speaker 4: awesome jacket that you made that's one of a kind.
Speaker 4: I would recommend wearing something that's a little bit more plain.
Speaker 4: I would really try to cover your face, cover your tattoos.
Speaker 4: I would recommend leaving your phone at home if you
Speaker 4: feel comfortable doing that, you know, I think this gets
Speaker 4: into a different space if we're talking about folks that
Speaker 4: are either there to observe or document. There's a lot
Speaker 4: of great guides out there on how to document a
Speaker 4: protest safely. Some of that, you know, we point to
Speaker 4: our friends at open Archive and Witness who have really
Speaker 4: great guides written for human rights defenders on how to
Speaker 4: document actions and safely upload them. We recommend following that,
Speaker 4: you know, please check out different safety guides that have
Speaker 4: been put out, you know, pretty recently from the eff
Speaker 4: or the Markup in terms of how to stay safe
Speaker 4: at a protest. We're updating, we're updating and creating a
Speaker 4: new anti doxing guide, and we're also putting out guides
Speaker 4: hopefully soon. But a big thing is, you know, maybe
Speaker 4: don't bring your phone with you, and if you have
Speaker 4: an iPhone and you need to bring your phone, consider
Speaker 4: turning it off, putting it lockdown, mown, and turning it off.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, actually hear from eff technologist who wrote that guide
Speaker 1: next week about some concrete tips for digital security at protests.
Speaker 1: So folks should definitely tune in, But are you all
Speaker 1: working on any guides that folks should know about.
Speaker 4: One thing is like, you know, if you turn your
Speaker 4: phone on and you've brought with you at the protest
Speaker 4: and you're like tweeting about where you are and you're
Speaker 4: taking a photo of where you are, that might negate
Speaker 4: a lot of the safety tips that you've already gone through, right,
Speaker 4: And so one thing to consider is also like can
Speaker 4: you put that out later? Can you scrub metadata from it?
Speaker 4: Are you doxing accidentally your fellow protesters? Like are they
Speaker 4: are their faces covered? You can use Signals face blurring
Speaker 4: tool which they have you can blur out people's faces.
Speaker 4: That also helps strip the image of metadata. So there's
Speaker 4: like all these different things you can do, and I
Speaker 4: think it's worth doing those and going to the protest.
Speaker 2: I think some of this is.
Speaker 4: Also shifting our own concepts of what it means to
Speaker 4: sort of document and protest safely.
Speaker 2: And I think some of that is.
Speaker 4: Recognizing that, like going to the protest is almost more
Speaker 4: important than publishing an image that you were there. I
Speaker 4: think there's other ways to talk about being there, And
Speaker 4: that's not to discourage people from posting, but rather it's
Speaker 4: to say threat model and really think about what's in
Speaker 4: this image? You know, what does this image reveal?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: What does this image reveal about me? Does it reveal
Speaker 4: about other people? Could someone be identified? Who is you know,
Speaker 4: who I'm protesting with? How could this negatively impact them?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 4: I think it is thinking about some of those some
Speaker 4: of those things as we engage in collective action. And
Speaker 4: so those are like some of the tips I want
Speaker 4: people to like think about, which is, you know, make
Speaker 4: a plan with your friends later of when you're going
Speaker 4: to meet up and pick a time and make sure
Speaker 4: you know how to get there, and and if you
Speaker 4: don't show up in a certain amount of time, maybe
Speaker 4: that's a signal to them that something has happened, and
Speaker 4: like have that conversation. And these are like really safe
Speaker 4: ways to still go about and engage in this really necessary.
Speaker 4: I would argue, like civic action that we need to
Speaker 4: be engaging in, and that's just a really great way
Speaker 4: to cut down on ensuring your your phone isn't, you know,
Speaker 4: contributing to this ongoing surveillance apparatus, or just turn your
Speaker 4: phone off and don't turn it on until it's over.
Speaker 1: Caroline Sam, thank you so much for being here, and
Speaker 1: like truly thank you for your work. We need folks
Speaker 1: like you who are making it easier and safer for
Speaker 1: everybody to use their voices right now. So I hope
Speaker 1: this gives people a sense of how they can do that.
Speaker 1: Thanks for being here. If you're looking for ways to
Speaker 1: support the show, check out our March store at tangody
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Speaker 1: thing in tech, or just want to say hi, You
Speaker 1: can reach us at Hello at teangody dot com. You
Speaker 1: can also find transcripts for today's episode at tenggody dot com.
Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by
Speaker 1: me Bridget tod It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unboss Creative,
Speaker 1: edited by Joey pat. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.
Speaker 1: Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almado
Speaker 1: is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If
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