Speaker 1: From the dark corners of the web, an emerging mindset.
Speaker 2: I am a loser if also we know wouldn't pay
Speaker 2: me either.
Speaker 1: A hidden world of resentment, cynicism, anger against women at
Speaker 1: a deadly tipping point.
Speaker 3: In Cells will be added to the Terrorism Guide Pelissea.
Speaker 3: A driver intentionally drove into a crowd, killing ten people.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow is the day of retribution, the day in which
Speaker 1: I will have my revenge.
Speaker 4: Is very angry, expressing a lot of hatred towards women
Speaker 4: and towards men who get all the women.
Speaker 3: I just told my husband I know she's dead.
Speaker 1: This is in Cells, a production of Kat's Studios and iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: Season one, Episode three, Just ten Steps. I'm Courtney Armstrong,
Speaker 1: a producer at KATI Studios, with Stephanie Leidecker, Gabriel Castillo,
Speaker 1: Connor Powell, and Carolyn Miller. In the first two episodes,
Speaker 1: we identified what in cels are, spoke with experts about ideologies, language,
Speaker 1: and where they commonly congregate online. We also heard from
Speaker 1: two remarkable mothers who shared in the aftermath of losing
Speaker 1: their daughters, nineteen year old Veronica Weiss and seventeen year
Speaker 1: old Bianca Devans, both girls died senselessly at the hands
Speaker 1: of inseell ideology taken to its most violent extreme. In
Speaker 1: the case of Bianca. What her killer did post mortem
Speaker 1: continues online to this day.
Speaker 5: Seventeen year old Bianca Devns of Utica was found dead
Speaker 5: in a wooded area at the end of the street.
Speaker 6: Her killer posted the images of her body online and
Speaker 6: they soon went viral.
Speaker 2: On discord, it's fairly common for people to post gore
Speaker 2: and disturbing images just to sort of get a rise
Speaker 2: out of people.
Speaker 1: Kim Devns, Bianca's mother, spoke about how toxic and dangerous
Speaker 1: the conversations are in insuell forums. That's where we spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time throughout our producing both to get
Speaker 1: a lay of the land and to gather firsthand experiences.
Speaker 1: Here's investigative journalist and producer Connor Powell talking about his
Speaker 1: experiences on insull forums.
Speaker 4: There's sort of two different groups. There are those that
Speaker 4: are very public about their struggles and self describing themselves
Speaker 4: as in cells and on places like Facebook and Reddit.
Speaker 4: They tend to be a little bit more sort of calm,
Speaker 4: a little less angry, and that's part according to talking
Speaker 4: to them, is that both Facebook and Reddit have some rules,
Speaker 4: have some moderation restrictions, and they do police the language
Speaker 4: they are using, often their own names, so they're a
Speaker 4: little bit more easy to talk to. But on in
Speaker 4: cell discussion board, insel dot co or insel dot is,
Speaker 4: those names are all anonymous. They don't use their real names.
Speaker 4: In fact, there was a whole discussion thread about how
Speaker 4: you can best protect yourself, about protecting your identity so
Speaker 4: that you can essentially post as angrily as obscene as
Speaker 4: you want without having to have any repercussions. So you know,
Speaker 4: they are very aware that what they're posting could get
Speaker 4: them into trouble. And I think you see a lot
Speaker 4: more abusive language, a lot more sort of obscene language
Speaker 4: on this in cell website than you would say on
Speaker 4: like an in cell chat group on Facebook or even Reddit.
Speaker 7: Online anonymity means no repercussions for being nasty.
Speaker 2: Add all this together and you get what psychologists call.
Speaker 7: The online disinhibition effect, and effectively it dictates that people
Speaker 7: will do things that they wouldn't do in the real world.
Speaker 1: I asked why members of inseell forums would have such
Speaker 1: a strong focus on security and anonymity.
Speaker 4: They don't want to lose their jobs. They don't want
Speaker 4: to have other groups that are combating in cell behavior
Speaker 4: or in cell speech, you know, find out their names
Speaker 4: and put their information out of on social media, to
Speaker 4: have the police called on them, to have other groups
Speaker 4: attack them online. So you know, they really do make
Speaker 4: a real effort to protect their identity because they just
Speaker 4: don't want to be called out. They know generally what
Speaker 4: they're saying is inappropriate. Generally what they're saying is not
Speaker 4: acceptable in sort of the real world. So one person
Speaker 4: talk about how for them, the real world is online
Speaker 4: and the real world for them, in terms of interacting
Speaker 4: with other people is sort of the fake world. They
Speaker 4: have to be somebody they are not in the real world,
Speaker 4: and that's because they feel most comfortable when they can
Speaker 4: use this abuse of language and say things that most
Speaker 4: people would find pretty obscene.
Speaker 1: Spending time on whatever you're interested in is not a
Speaker 1: new phenomenon. People have things in common or generally agree
Speaker 1: with one another. Forming groups is not a new phenomenon. However,
Speaker 1: the ways people are fed information and are drawn together online,
Speaker 1: specifically in social media, has not just been mega amplified,
Speaker 1: it's literally gotten out of human control.
Speaker 8: Americans average more than two hours a day scrolling content
Speaker 8: fed to us through algorithms based on our specific interests
Speaker 8: and past online activity. But a growing chorus of critics
Speaker 8: warns that algorithms can lead us to disturbing places, into
Speaker 8: making bad choices.
Speaker 7: These algorithms, they are the digital equivalent of ar fifteens.
Speaker 1: Social media algorithms seem to hand deliver whatever you didn't
Speaker 1: know you needed, write to your phone or computer and
Speaker 1: instantly how to craft the perfect cocktail out of paar juices,
Speaker 1: master cartwheel, or spruce up your backyard. These are innocuous examples.
Speaker 1: Here's Stephanie and Connor Powell discussing the potentially nefarious side
Speaker 1: of algorithms.
Speaker 4: At its most basic level, the algorithm is a computer
Speaker 4: or social media site deciding what is put in front
Speaker 4: of you in your feed. It's a computational set of
Speaker 4: rules that whether it's one of the large companies like
Speaker 4: Facebook or Google, they've decided that they are going to
Speaker 4: push content to you. It's the computer saying you're going
Speaker 4: to watch this, and the more you scroll, the more
Speaker 4: you look at things, the more it learns about your
Speaker 4: behavior and your attitudes and your interests. Now they're looking
Speaker 4: like are you a young man? The algorithms are getting
Speaker 4: so sophisticated, they're starting to do predictive interests and predictive likes,
Speaker 4: and for young men and for young girls, that can
Speaker 4: get really dangerous because the algorithms start of making general,
Speaker 4: overarching decisions about what you should be interested in, and
Speaker 4: it can push you in those directions because again, what
Speaker 4: are they trying to do. They're trying to engage. What's
Speaker 4: the easiest way to engage to inflame if you're fired up,
Speaker 4: if you're angry, if you are riddled with anxiety. You
Speaker 4: keep scrolling, you keep looking through, creating a feedback.
Speaker 2: And what we're seeing real time with Insight, which I
Speaker 2: thought was really staggering. There is no question now that
Speaker 2: there are certain groups and people who are specifically targeting
Speaker 2: young demographics who have a very limited social network, who
Speaker 2: maybe feel isolated in the world, who maybe feel like
Speaker 2: the loner, who may have suicide ideation or a tilt
Speaker 2: toward violence because they're feeling completely disenfranchised. That is the target.
Speaker 2: So it's not just this happy accident where two things
Speaker 2: are meeting in this dark place.
Speaker 1: We spoke with Boyce and Hodson, the communications and marketing
Speaker 1: director for The Mankind Project USA. He shared some disturbing
Speaker 1: but very important information with us.
Speaker 6: It is very easy to see and folks, my age,
Speaker 6: folks who are older parents, we have young adult children.
Speaker 6: A lot of us, we don't even know what our
Speaker 6: children are seeing. And when the researcher go and look
Speaker 6: at content and just kind of let the algorithms take
Speaker 6: over for them, what is inevitably going to happen with
Speaker 6: in Sell ideology, with pornography, with any kind of violent
Speaker 6: or antisocial messaging, is that the content will get increasingly
Speaker 6: violent and increasingly more negative if you just let the
Speaker 6: algorithm control what you're seeing. So a nine year old
Speaker 6: boy can very easily go from a very innocuous YouTube
Speaker 6: video to hardcore in Sell ideology in ten steps. You know,
Speaker 6: that's a made up number, but it's very easy to
Speaker 6: go from very simple stuff into very harmful stuff if
Speaker 6: you just follow the algorithm.
Speaker 1: We asked how this continuous, violent and antisocial content affects
Speaker 1: young developing minds.
Speaker 6: There is an incredibly dangerous developmental experiment that we are
Speaker 6: playing with young people in our culture. Jonathan Hate talks
Speaker 6: about this in his writing quite a lot. There's a
Speaker 6: book called Dopamine Nation that really highlights this idea that
Speaker 6: we are rewiring our children's brains and ways that we
Speaker 6: don't even understand, and we won't actually know what the
Speaker 6: outcome is for another ten years or so. The addictive
Speaker 6: process is an incredibly powerful process that we are kind
Speaker 6: of just letting run our society.
Speaker 1: Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in
Speaker 1: a moment here again. Connor Powell and Stephanie Leidecker. They're
Speaker 1: talking about how social media is specifically designed to keep
Speaker 1: us all on edge or enraged. It's a way of
Speaker 1: locking us into the doom scrolling loops.
Speaker 4: So the single most important metric that social media companies
Speaker 4: use for their sites, and Mark Zuckerberg has talked about
Speaker 4: this is engagement. What is engagement? Engagement is how long
Speaker 4: are you on their website? And how do you keep
Speaker 4: people engaged? You build a sense of anxiety, you fire
Speaker 4: them up. They are designed to take you to bad places.
Speaker 3: Have you ever felt like the ads that you see
Speaker 3: on your social media feed are specifically targeted to you.
Speaker 1: It's almost like the app is listening to your conversation.
Speaker 4: What if your phone already knows what you'll buy?
Speaker 5: Who you'll date, even what you'll fear before you do.
Speaker 4: The single largest entertainment company in the world is not Comcasts, Paramount, Disney,
Speaker 4: the BBC, or any of these other companies. It is YouTube.
Speaker 4: There is more content, It creates more revenue and more
Speaker 4: profit than any other and YouTube has something that no
Speaker 4: other company does because YouTube is owned by Alphabet, the
Speaker 4: Google company. Right, if you send an email that gets
Speaker 4: pumped into how you will look and what is fed
Speaker 4: to you in YouTube, because it will read what you
Speaker 4: are doing an email or what you are searching for.
Speaker 4: I want baseball cleats for my son. Guess what's going
Speaker 4: to pop up on YouTube? Advertisements or people talking about
Speaker 4: baseball equipment, or people talking about sports, or maybe they
Speaker 4: broaden it out if you put in something that's maybe darker, oh,
Speaker 4: gasoline caniser. Who knows what's going to pop up on
Speaker 4: YouTube when you go to YouTube? Right, Yeah, maybe it's
Speaker 4: for your vehicle, or maybe it's for something else. We
Speaker 4: just don't know because we don't know what's in the algorithm.
Speaker 4: It can take you to some very dark places.
Speaker 2: What you just described is exactly the point and the
Speaker 2: scariest thing I've ever heard.
Speaker 4: Do you remember when we first got on social media,
Speaker 4: and it was just twenty years ago, right, it went
Speaker 4: from being a connection to your family and friends to
Speaker 4: essentially a NonStop advertisement of other people's products.
Speaker 2: That you bring up a good point about advertising, and
Speaker 2: I guess that's the key question that we want to unpack.
Speaker 2: Where is the money? Who is paying for what? The
Speaker 2: oldest adage in the land follow the money.
Speaker 4: I mean, the largest companies in the world right now
Speaker 4: are all tech companies that are dealing with AI or
Speaker 4: providing algorithms for content. When Google purchased YouTube back in
Speaker 4: two thousand and six, twenty years ago about now, they
Speaker 4: purchased for one point six billion and is now worth
Speaker 4: roughly five hundred billion dollars. That's an incredible return for
Speaker 4: the Google Alphabet company. And it's the largest media company
Speaker 4: in the world right now. Their reach is global and
Speaker 4: they don't pay for any content. All they do is
Speaker 4: put ads on user generated content. Just to put that
Speaker 4: in perspective, there are first world countries like Austria, Singapore,
Speaker 4: Norway which have GDPs the gross domesster product which is
Speaker 4: sort of the how big is the economy that are
Speaker 4: roughly five hundred billion dollars so YouTube as a standalone
Speaker 4: company as roughly the same value as some of these
Speaker 4: other first world countries. That's how big and powerful YouTube
Speaker 4: as a standalone company is.
Speaker 1: Stephanie and Connor turn their attention from the nuts and
Speaker 1: bolts of algorithms, technology so powerful it's collectively worth trillions
Speaker 1: of dollars worldwide to how their impacts can lead to
Speaker 1: real world violence.
Speaker 2: If we're watching things on our social media that are
Speaker 2: intentionally being targeted to our small perspective, that's also pretty dangerous.
Speaker 2: So if you're somebody who's unemployed, tough on their luck,
Speaker 2: living in the base men of mom and dad's house,
Speaker 2: kind of feeling a little bit lonesome and depressed, not
Speaker 2: really assimilating into the real world. Here you are, You're
Speaker 2: on your computer, you're lacking community, and now suddenly community
Speaker 2: is finding you. Now suddenly said community is dark and
Speaker 2: potentially dangerous, and they're filling your brain with more dark,
Speaker 2: scary information. So while you may feel like you are
Speaker 2: a part of a community, the community is full on
Speaker 2: targeting you because they know that you might be vulnerable
Speaker 2: and lonely and susceptible to them. And at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, it could lead to violence, as we're
Speaker 2: seeing real time.
Speaker 4: In the hour before the attack, a four page manifesto
Speaker 4: allegedly written by Crusius appeared online.
Speaker 7: Social media posts attributed to him contain other hate speech,
Speaker 7: and a final entry just before the shooting, perhaps was
Speaker 7: an indicator of the deadly violence about to unfold. The
Speaker 7: suspect repeatedly posted photos of guns and Bower's profile page
Speaker 7: read quote, screw your optics, I'm going in.
Speaker 2: Even when we started this podcast, this was not that
Speaker 2: prevalent in terms of language in cells, things like that.
Speaker 2: Now it's on the ticker of every show we are
Speaker 2: seeing because the radicalization in these dark corners of the
Speaker 2: web that are not regulated, we're all subjected to it
Speaker 2: and don't even realize it. So and we're adults. What
Speaker 2: about those who were kind of finding their way on
Speaker 2: their own.
Speaker 1: We had an in depth interview with the young man
Speaker 1: who self identifies as an insul. He goes by mister East.
Speaker 1: We'll hear more of his personal story in a later episode.
Speaker 1: For now, in an effort to hear all perspectives, we
Speaker 1: ask mister East how he feels algorithms are impacting his world.
Speaker 1: For me, it was eye opening.
Speaker 5: I mean algorithms. I don't think they're doing it intentionally.
Speaker 5: I think they're more like they're doing it because they see,
Speaker 5: like people view a lot of these contents, and they
Speaker 5: push the content because you know, they want to make money,
Speaker 5: right and more. The more people view them, the more
Speaker 5: a revenue they get, the more money they make. And
Speaker 5: what happens is that a lot of these people, basically
Speaker 5: it's a spiral. People might start viewing like why don't
Speaker 5: girls like me? Or what am I doing wrong? On
Speaker 5: Tinder at first, and maybe after words they start following
Speaker 5: into the red pill sphere, maybe not like the black
Speaker 5: pill right away. It all depends on how like the
Speaker 5: algorithm plays out by chance. I don't believe the Internet
Speaker 5: makes people into in cells. I think like life experiences does,
Speaker 5: but like the Internet certainly allows more, like more of
Speaker 5: these black pill types of people to like get together
Speaker 5: and discuss their thoughts and ideas.
Speaker 1: We asked mister East how he personally got involved in
Speaker 1: online in cell groups, as well as how and why
Speaker 1: he thinks others found these communities.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I do think that algorithm plays large role into
Speaker 5: forming these groups. I first joined the community because I
Speaker 5: wanted to basically talk to people. I was never too
Speaker 5: good at forming relationships, you know, making friends. So when
Speaker 5: I got invited within the community and started like talking
Speaker 5: and getting along with a lot of the people, I
Speaker 5: do believe that a lot of these people they aren't
Speaker 5: really like bad people. They are just lonely, maybe socially
Speaker 5: awkward as well, which is why the Internet, I guess,
Speaker 5: in a way, is so easy for them to you know,
Speaker 5: get together and form these communities, because it is much
Speaker 5: easier over the Internet to communicate and form groups than
Speaker 5: it is in real life. A lot of them, including me,
Speaker 5: we do bond over our shared sense of failure in
Speaker 5: a way. You know, it's sometimes good to know, hey,
Speaker 5: you're not the only failure within this world. You know
Speaker 5: you're not alone in this. And I feel like that
Speaker 5: really resonates with a lot of people because one of
Speaker 5: the things I do believe that occurs when people are failing,
Speaker 5: depending on like how many people around them share the
Speaker 5: same problems, they might feel more alone because they might think,
Speaker 5: why am I the only one who's struggling with this?
Speaker 5: Why is nobody else? Is there just something intrinsically wrong
Speaker 5: with me? I think having a community that can tell
Speaker 5: you, you know, we're just like you, we shared the same problem.
Speaker 5: Then we can we can have a laugh about it.
Speaker 5: We can say, hey, it's over. You know it never began.
Speaker 1: We asked mister East about how online groups compare to
Speaker 1: in person physical connections.
Speaker 5: I would say that no online group in general can
Speaker 5: really substitute for in their personal relationships in real life.
Speaker 5: And I think that despite having like a community that
Speaker 5: can relate to you, I do think that it doesn't
Speaker 5: really solve your loneliness. And this is where like a
Speaker 5: lot of people get sucked into like the part of
Speaker 5: the community that is like more misogynist, more hateful, and
Speaker 5: more like angry. Because when you don't have any in
Speaker 5: real life relationships and you instead spend all your times
Speaker 5: within these echo chambers that like you know, are just
Speaker 5: born from people's pain and anger and frustration, it does
Speaker 5: cause many people to become more and more radicalized. And
Speaker 5: basically online isn't like a replacement for real life loneliness.
Speaker 5: You will still feel lonely even if you are a
Speaker 5: part of these communities, despite what society tells you. You know,
Speaker 5: the nice guy doesn't win. The nice guy never wins in.
Speaker 3: This case, algorithms feed us what they think we want
Speaker 3: to see. It gets to the point where people often
Speaker 3: don't see opposing ideas that may challenge their own views
Speaker 3: unless it's through the lens of attacking or mocking the
Speaker 3: other side. And the cycle keeps going.
Speaker 1: Let's stop here for another break. We'll be back in
Speaker 1: a moment. Stephanie and Connor continue their conversation, focusing on
Speaker 1: how isolation can lead to radicalization and violent tendencies.
Speaker 2: The dark place is literally seeking out young men hoping
Speaker 2: to radicalize. And by the way, what we're seeing real time,
Speaker 2: it's the lone shooter. It's the lone wolf who is
Speaker 2: being radicalized by themselves in the basement. You can see
Speaker 2: how that can turn darkly quick.
Speaker 4: One of the things I find so interesting about some
Speaker 4: of the lone wolf shooters that we've had in the
Speaker 4: last couple of years is one of the first things
Speaker 4: that we always hear about them from authorities is they
Speaker 4: went on discord to post that they shot somebody, or
Speaker 4: they went on social media to explain their manifesto before
Speaker 4: they shoot somebody. Social media is a part of the
Speaker 4: thought process for violent acts in this country. It's not
Speaker 4: just having access to the weapon. It's also the ability
Speaker 4: to tell the world why I'm doing this on Facebook. Remember,
Speaker 4: they've we've had shooters who have live streamed these things.
Speaker 4: We've had shooters who have recorded pre shooting why they're
Speaker 4: doing this. In the case of Tyler Robinson with Charlie Kirk,
Speaker 4: he went on Discord, apparently to brag about doing it,
Speaker 4: to tell his friends that he did this shooting. We
Speaker 4: didn't have that in these violent acts twenty years ago.
Speaker 8: They terrorist invited people to view the Discord server that
Speaker 8: housed his manifesto in other posts in the hour before
Speaker 8: the shooting, so other members the public had an idea
Speaker 8: of what he was up to. Ezekiel Kelly pleaded guilty
Speaker 8: to a deadly citywide shooting spree.
Speaker 7: He used Facebook to live stream the shooting. Armed with
Speaker 7: a rifle, shot and killed four colleagues and wounded nine
Speaker 7: other people, according to police, while live streaming the attack.
Speaker 2: We look at Elliott Roger and his terrible, terrible, terrible
Speaker 2: crime that he committed that was unusual, right and Bianca Devin,
Speaker 2: for example, the most horrific example. This poor girl was
Speaker 2: murdered and her murderer posted about it and posted after
Speaker 2: it and put it on social media for all to see. Remember,
Speaker 2: we are seeing things that we should not. Nobody should
Speaker 2: witness a man being murdered, as we all just recently
Speaker 2: did in the Charlie Kirk assassination. But now we're seeing
Speaker 2: it again and again and again. We're seeing that again
Speaker 2: with Tyler Robinson, Luigi Mangione. These are single person with
Speaker 2: a gun who are now going to act on behalf
Speaker 2: of many, whether they've been instructed to or not. That
Speaker 2: is so scary because again we're just scratching the surface.
Speaker 2: Now we're seeing repeat after repeat after repeat. I mean,
Speaker 2: they're not even trying to not get caught. It's almost
Speaker 2: like there is something popular about being a part of
Speaker 2: this act of violence, and somewhere that's being celebrated.
Speaker 1: While outward violence, these murders and assassinations, which either allegedly
Speaker 1: or in some cases assuredly stem from online radicalization, are
Speaker 1: on the uptick. Thankfully, statistically, they are rare. Self harm, however,
Speaker 1: is becoming more and more prevalent as a worldwide epidemic
Speaker 1: spreading because of social media. Here again, investigative journalists Connor
Speaker 1: Powell and Stephanie Ladaker.
Speaker 4: The amount of self harm and there are lots of
Speaker 4: scientific studies that I've been done at this point about
Speaker 4: the self harm social media sites due to young adults.
Speaker 4: This is known, and the reality is we've known this
Speaker 4: for a long time anecdotally, but it's scientific sort of proven.
Speaker 4: Now there is no rules about what can be pushed
Speaker 4: in front of kids.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 4: Now there's some discussions about whether these AI models should
Speaker 4: be encouraging people to commit suicide or whether or not
Speaker 4: they should be offering help when it comes to suicide.
Speaker 4: But there are multiple lawsuits right now where family members
Speaker 4: whose children turn to AI models and ask them about
Speaker 4: suicide and the AI model gave them a blueprint for
Speaker 4: how to commit suicide.
Speaker 2: You bring up such a big thing because post COVID,
Speaker 2: this is really a conversation about loneliness at its core.
Speaker 2: In cells, this conversation, even at its core, we really
Speaker 2: are talking about a lonely person who is struggling, who
Speaker 2: is now being targeted from outside sources, not for help,
Speaker 2: but being targeted because they have a propensity for violence
Speaker 2: if given the right ingredients.
Speaker 4: Algorithms determine the articles in your Facebook feed or your
Speaker 4: Google results.
Speaker 5: The exact inner workings of these computer programs are trade secrets.
Speaker 4: There really is no oversight of these complex algorithms because
Speaker 4: it's all intellectual property for these companies, and you're relying
Speaker 4: on companies who have a profit motive to make a
Speaker 4: decision about what is best for young people, for all
Speaker 4: people of all ages. They don't have any real responsibility
Speaker 4: or reason to take responsibility because their only goal is
Speaker 4: to make money. Even if their logo is don't be evil,
Speaker 4: their job, their fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders is to
Speaker 4: make money, and the easiest way to make money is
Speaker 4: to pump that algorithm full of anger and extremism. But
Speaker 4: we aren't as a country, legislatively, regulation wise, we're not changing.
Speaker 4: This is not going away. This is the problem that
Speaker 4: confronts us at this moment, and it's going to be
Speaker 4: here for a while because we're not changing any of
Speaker 4: the policies around protecting young kids from these sites.
Speaker 2: By the way, what you just described is so incredibly
Speaker 2: scary because if you're watching television, if you're listening to
Speaker 2: the radio, there are regulations to that. So there are
Speaker 2: certain obvious things seeing pornography, we're not using certain words
Speaker 2: or swear words, and there are guardrails. However, it appears
Speaker 2: that now suddenly we're all on the web doom scrolling,
Speaker 2: and that doom scrolling is somewhere a serotonin hit and
Speaker 2: makes us feel something for a minute, and little do
Speaker 2: we know, just a few clicks later, we're down the
Speaker 2: darkest rabbit hole that is only reinforcing the darkest hole.
Speaker 2: Now I can't get out of it, and I think
Speaker 2: that's sort of the scary part is the lack of regulation.
Speaker 4: There's none of that on social media. You don't have
Speaker 4: any sense other than the content that's in front of
Speaker 4: you about the background of what the content is being
Speaker 4: pushed to you, who's pushing it, who's paying for, why
Speaker 4: it's being delivered to you. It just is and you're
Speaker 4: just expected to consume it, and that can take you
Speaker 4: to some really dark places. The problem is is that's
Speaker 4: also coupled with this engagement desire by these companies to
Speaker 4: push you content that will inflame you, that will fire
Speaker 4: you up, that ultimately creates anxiety, and it's very possible
Speaker 4: that that's the future, is that you're going to see
Speaker 4: a more extreme version of the content that's been pushed
Speaker 4: to you and a more politically motivated version of the
Speaker 4: content that's been pushed you.
Speaker 1: For more information on the case and relevant photos, follow
Speaker 1: us on Instagram at kt Underscore Studios. In Cells is
Speaker 1: produced by Stephanie Leideger, Gabriel Castillo and me Courtney Armstrong.
Speaker 1: Additional producing by Connor Powell and Caroline Miller, editing by
Speaker 1: Jeff Tooi music by Banicourse Studios. In Cells is a
Speaker 1: production of KAT Studios and iHeart Radio. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: like this, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.