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Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production

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Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd and this

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Speaker 1: is There Are No Girls on the Internet.

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Speaker 2: I'm here with my producer, Mike.

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Speaker 1: Mike, I missed talking about the news with you last week,

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Speaker 1: but I'm excited to be here doing it with you now.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been over a week, but things gept happening,

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Speaker 3: and so here we are, let's talk about them.

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Speaker 1: Things kept happening. Just right off the top. We are

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Speaker 1: usually having this conversation on Thursday nights for Fridays, We're

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Speaker 1: having it on Monday night. Coming out tomorrow on Tuesday.

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Speaker 1: Because I was off last week getting nasal surgery. I

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Speaker 1: am mostly recovered from it. Thanks for all the bell witches,

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Speaker 1: but looking forward to be capping the news that you

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Speaker 1: may have missed this week on the internet. So let's

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Speaker 1: start with one that has really kind of got me

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Speaker 1: boiling my beans over here. So just today, Texas A

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Speaker 1: and M negotiated an updated settlement agreement with doctor Kathleen McElroy.

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Speaker 1: The university also announced that they were replacing their outgoing president,

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Speaker 1: who resigned over doctor mccolroy's racist botched hiring. So if

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Speaker 1: you've not been following this story, it is infuriating to me,

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Speaker 1: and I think it really shows how far we have

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Speaker 1: fallen when it comes to conversations about inclusion in this country. Basically,

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Speaker 1: doctor McElroy is a black woman with a long and

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Speaker 1: storied career in journalism spanning twenty years in different editing

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Speaker 1: positions at.

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Speaker 2: The New York Times.

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Speaker 1: Ever heard of it before helming University of Texas Austin's

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Speaker 1: Journalism School from twenty eighteen to twenty twenty two, where

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Speaker 1: she is also a tenured professor, So she was meant

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Speaker 1: to be joining Texas A and M's journalism school, which

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Speaker 1: is also her alma mater. However, Texas A and M

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Speaker 1: had originally hired her on a tenured track program to

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Speaker 1: really revive the school's journalism department. But because doctor McElroy

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Speaker 1: is a black woman with a history of doing media

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Speaker 1: work that's sometimes involves race, conservative stakeholders made a huge

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Speaker 1: stink about her appointment. Her tenured track offer was later

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Speaker 1: changed to a five year contract and then ultimately just

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Speaker 1: a one year contract. So, as somebody, both you and

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Speaker 1: I have had stints in academia, what if you're offered

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Speaker 1: ten year track, then five years, then one year.

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Speaker 2: What is your takeaway there, Uh.

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Speaker 3: Not a place that is super excited to have you

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Speaker 3: on right, Like they're just trying to get out of

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Speaker 3: it without actually following through on the job offer.

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Speaker 1: The difference between a ten year track offer and a

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Speaker 1: one year contract is pretty stark and like pretty insulting,

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Speaker 1: so as she was probably right to do, she publicly

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Speaker 1: declined the offer. Doctor McElroy told The Texas Tribune earlier

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Speaker 1: this month that she felt quote damaged by the controversy

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Speaker 1: and said, I think I am being judged by my

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Speaker 1: maybe gender, and I don't think other folks would face

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Speaker 1: the same bars or challenges. I think she's exactly one

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Speaker 1: hundred percent right now. The Runner Association, which is a

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Speaker 1: collection of current and former Texas A and M students

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Speaker 1: and staff, said that they had concerns about her hiring,

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Speaker 1: basically that they were concerned that the university was not

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Speaker 1: quote embracing egalitarian and merit based traditions and instead that

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Speaker 1: the university was turning toward quote divisive ideology of identity politics.

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Speaker 2: Let me just break that down for you right now.

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Speaker 1: That is code for she's a black woman like there's

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Speaker 1: nothing else. Why would you automatically assume that merit wasn't

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Speaker 1: being followed, that this was not an egalitarian hiring. Do

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Speaker 1: you know how hard it is to become a like

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Speaker 1: do you know how difficult it is to become the

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Speaker 1: head of a journalism department, which she is. She has

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Speaker 1: been an editor for twenty years at the New York Times.

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Speaker 1: You're gonna tell me that she doesn't have merit? That

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Speaker 1: is just there is just no way that that means

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Speaker 1: anything other then she is a black woman, and we

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Speaker 1: don't like that. The group also objected to claims that alumni, donors,

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Speaker 1: and taxpayers constitute outside influence, because a big part of

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Speaker 1: this story was that I guess stakeholders is the word

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Speaker 1: they were using, and the piece that I read people

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Speaker 1: who are not necessarily directly affiliated with the university. They

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Speaker 1: were the ones who were really making a big stink.

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Speaker 1: And so it sounds like this group is like, well,

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Speaker 1: I think that taxpayers and donors don't aren't considered to

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Speaker 1: be outside influence, And I don't know. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: am a taxpayer for plenty of things that I don't

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Speaker 1: then get to have a direct say on just because

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Speaker 1: you're a taxpayer for this public university. I don't know

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Speaker 1: that I would really say that that means that you

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Speaker 1: get to have this level of scrutiny over journalism department hires.

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Speaker 1: So the entire fiasco actually led to the resignation of

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Speaker 1: the president of Texas a and M. Catherine Banks, who

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Speaker 1: said that she took responsibility for what she called the

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Speaker 1: flawed hiring process and also said that doctor Calori had

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Speaker 1: fallen victim to anti woke hysteria, which I completely agree.

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Speaker 1: We covered so many of these kinds of stories with

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Speaker 1: our mini series that we did with Cool Zone Media

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Speaker 1: Internet Hate Machine about how like just being a marginalized person,

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Speaker 1: like just being a black woman is enough to have

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Speaker 1: your tenure question. And I think that question of just

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Speaker 1: asking like like, how do we know she really deserved

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Speaker 1: this job? How do we know this was a merit

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Speaker 1: based hiring? I know It's like any black woman, woman

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Speaker 1: of color, marginalized person knows exactly what they are trying

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Speaker 1: to say when they say stuff like that, because it's

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's barely even a dog whistle, Like what

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Speaker 1: like why would you assume this person is not qualified?

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Speaker 2: They've been doing this job for twenty years.

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Speaker 1: It's just it's just another way to be little and

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Speaker 1: other and continue to further marginalize people who are already marginalized.

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Speaker 1: It's not like black women are overrepresented in universities. And

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Speaker 1: also can't we to keep it like really real about

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Speaker 1: the concept of merit and like egalitarianism real quick, because

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Speaker 1: merit and a galitarianism, like, we all know people who

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Speaker 1: get to high level positions of power in society and

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Speaker 1: it is not on merit. Looking at you, Elon Musk,

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Speaker 1: it is because of connections, family, your name, money, relationships, gender,

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Speaker 1: whatever it is. But it is not always merit. Your

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Speaker 1: boss is not automatically smarter than you simply because of

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Speaker 1: the fact that they were made your boss. And it's

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Speaker 1: interesting to me to see which folks that the stakeholders

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Speaker 1: at Texas A and M decide get that merit scrutiny,

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Speaker 1: like are you really did you really earn this position?

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Speaker 1: In conversations about who gets offered a position in the

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Speaker 1: journalism school.

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Speaker 3: The language of meritocracy is particularly inauthentic.

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Speaker 2: Here.

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Speaker 3: Clearly, she like led a department in New York Times

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Speaker 3: for decades. It's pretty difficult to conceive that she got

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Speaker 3: through all the rounds of review by the various hiring

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Speaker 3: committees as someone who wasn't qualified to have that sort

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Speaker 3: of position, right, So like it's just almost impossible to

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Speaker 3: believe that, in fact, she truly was not qualified. Like

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Speaker 3: you said, it sounds like it has everything to do

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Speaker 3: with her having a point of view that is not

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Speaker 3: concordant with what Texas A and M is going for. Right,

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Speaker 3: it seems like maybe they're trying to compete with Florida

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Speaker 3: to see who can have the most regressive fantasy land curriculum.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I completely agree.

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Speaker 1: And you know this is all happening in Texas where

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Speaker 1: Governor Greg Abbott has just signed into law a bill

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Speaker 1: to dismaysntle DEI programs at state funded public universities, including

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Speaker 1: Texas A and M. But importantly, doctor mclvroy is not

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Speaker 1: a DEI professional. I feel like DEI Diversity and Inclusion

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Speaker 1: is like the new boogeyman. Like for a while it

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Speaker 1: was woke, and then it was like leftists, and now

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Speaker 1: it's just like the association with DEI because she's a

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Speaker 1: black woman. Just because you're a black woman who works

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Speaker 1: in media doesn't make you a DEI specialist.

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Speaker 2: I'm not a DEI specialist.

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Speaker 1: Just because I'm a black woman in media, And I

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Speaker 1: think that you're exactly right the language of meritocracy and

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Speaker 1: just this blanket assumption that she couldn't have just been qualified.

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Speaker 1: How often do we use that regressive thinking to keep

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Speaker 1: marginalized people from holding positions of power and influence. Just

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Speaker 1: if I guarantee you if this has been a white man,

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Speaker 1: nobody would be saying, well, let's see, were they really qualified?

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Speaker 2: What really?

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Speaker 1: What merit do they have? Was this a galitarian process

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Speaker 1: of getting them in here? It is just a way

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Speaker 1: to keep marginalized people from positions of power and influence.

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Speaker 1: It's so obvious to me, and I think that we

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Speaker 1: should really be concerned about how effective this rebrand of

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Speaker 1: DEI and inclusion and even people like even people who

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Speaker 1: don't do that for a living, just being a black

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Speaker 1: person is enough to have it be synonymous with, oh,

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Speaker 1: you must be doing DEI work. And it's already bad

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Speaker 1: enough that in Texas, if you your university does DEI work,

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Speaker 1: you don't get public funding. That's already bad enough. But

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Speaker 1: now just being able to associate any black professional with

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Speaker 1: DEI because of their race, like it is just so

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Speaker 1: clearly meant to keep marginalized people from these positions.

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Speaker 3: And particularly in a journalism school. You know, the idea

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Speaker 3: of meritocracy, I think is connected to the idea of

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Speaker 3: like an objective reporting of the news, like purely objective

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Speaker 3: both sides telling, you know, the truth is somewhere in

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Speaker 3: the middle, the idea that journalists would not have any

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Speaker 3: sort of perspective that they bring to a story, but

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Speaker 3: that they should really to be a good journalist, a

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Speaker 3: good you know, a good objective journalist, they should just

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Speaker 3: you know, report the facts. But of course that's an absurdity, right,

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Speaker 3: Like any sort of telling is going to be a

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Speaker 3: selection of facts. Every journalist is going to have a perspective.

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Speaker 3: And yeah, it really seems like her big crime here

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Speaker 3: was having a perspective that did not align with what

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Speaker 3: the Texas A and m powers that be wanted.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so she just today they agreed on a settlement.

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Speaker 1: I actually hope that we find out more information about

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Speaker 1: this story, Like I want emails, I want text messages,

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Speaker 1: I want to know who said what, I want to

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Speaker 1: know when what was said. I have a feeling the

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Speaker 1: story is not going to end here. The fact that

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Speaker 1: the university president resigned over it tells me that it's.

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Speaker 2: A big deal and there's probably more to this story.

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Speaker 1: So I hope this is one that we find out

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Speaker 1: more information about, because something is going on here that

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Speaker 1: just doesn't sound right to me.

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Speaker 3: Well, it's also going to be very interesting two or

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Speaker 3: three years from now to take a look at what

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Speaker 3: does the faculty body at Texas A and M look like,

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Speaker 3: because I can't imagine this very public national news story

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Speaker 3: is making a whole lot of you know, top faculty

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Speaker 3: from around the country want to go there, right. It

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Speaker 3: really makes it seem like a very provincial, backwards little school.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So I have another kind of infuriating story for you,

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Speaker 1: this must read piece from the Intercept on the rise

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Speaker 1: of survivors of sexual violence being sued for defamation. So,

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Speaker 1: in the years after the Me Too movement, more people

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Speaker 1: accused of sexual misconduct are now suing their accusers. The

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Speaker 1: entire Intercept piece is worth a read. We will definitely

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Speaker 1: throw it in the show notes. But they write this,

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Speaker 1: in the five years since I started the metwo movement,

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Speaker 1: a quiet but effective legal backlash has swept over those

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Speaker 1: who spoke at against sexual harassment and abuse. The accused

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Speaker 1: have turned around and sued their accusers, effectively silencing them.

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Speaker 1: This silencing is even more acute in the aftermath of

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Speaker 1: the libel judgment in Johnny Depp's case against Amber Heard,

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Speaker 1: where a jury found her allegations of abuse and an

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Speaker 1: op ed on op ed that did not actually name

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Speaker 1: Johnny Depp were false. Experts warned that anti feminist groups

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Speaker 1: were mobilizing to bring defamation suits and that it could

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Speaker 1: make survivors of sexual violence and domestic abuse to come forward.

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Speaker 1: Herd's own teams said that the outcome would have a

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Speaker 1: chilling effect, and it sounds like it really has. Most

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Speaker 1: of the people being sued for speaking out against sexual

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Speaker 1: abuse or domestic violence are not like a list famous celebrities.

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Speaker 1: They are regular people who probably don't have access to

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Speaker 1: the kinds of money, support or legal teams that you

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Speaker 1: would need to challenge a defamation lawsuit. Like imagine speaking

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Speaker 1: up about being a survivor of sexual violence and trying

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Speaker 1: to warn others, and then finding yourself with a legal

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Speaker 1: summons because you're being sued for defamation. The piece also

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Speaker 1: talks to Kenneth White, a partner at a law firm

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Speaker 1: called Brown, White and Osborne White said that he used

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Speaker 1: to only get the occasional request for help with the

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Speaker 1: defamation case after writing and speaking up frequently about handling

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Speaker 1: such cases, and he says over the last I would

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Speaker 1: say five years, I really saw a significant increase in

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Speaker 1: the number of these that had to do with women

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Speaker 1: being threatened for speaking or writing about some form of abuse.

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Speaker 2: He said.

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Speaker 1: Being labeled as a harasser or a rapist carries more

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Speaker 1: reputational damage than it used to, thanks to me to

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Speaker 1: this is a way for abusers to try to claw

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Speaker 1: back that lost status. I mean, I've been seeing this

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Speaker 1: in so many cases playing out with famous people. I

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Speaker 1: don't want to mention any names because there are cases

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Speaker 1: that are still ongoing, but you could probably guess so.

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Speaker 1: I think it's clear that people who are famous or

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Speaker 1: public figures have really set a new tone for how

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Speaker 1: abuse and conversations around things like sexual misconduct cases will

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Speaker 1: be handled for all of us. Me too, really use

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Speaker 1: the platforms of a lot of famous people, but it

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Speaker 1: was honestly never just about Hollywood starlits or a lusters

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Speaker 1: or famous people.

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Speaker 2: It was about what kind of climate.

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Speaker 1: We want to live in as it pertains to abuse

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Speaker 1: and sexual misconduct, because we all, all of us, whether

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Speaker 1: you're famous or not, truly deserve a better world, one

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Speaker 1: where sexual abuse and violence is just not tolerated. It's

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Speaker 1: not part of life, and it's not something that is

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Speaker 1: just excused or overlooked. If the abuser is like a

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Speaker 1: genius or like really good at making money for people,

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Speaker 1: or really does not want to have to contend with

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Speaker 1: the fact that they abuse. Somebody really does not want accountability,

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Speaker 1: you know. I think we made some progress in this

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Speaker 1: system that created a little bit of a cost for

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Speaker 1: things like sexual abuse and sexual violence. But I think

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Speaker 1: there are people who are really invested in going back

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Speaker 1: to that old system where things like sexual abuse and

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Speaker 1: violence are just like private matters or like matters of

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Speaker 1: the house or domestic, rather than being invested in seeing

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Speaker 1: the truth, and the truth is that abuse and violence

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Speaker 1: are systemic issues and that there should be a cost

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Speaker 1: associated with it. But now abusers and the people who

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Speaker 1: enable them are simply just like using the state and

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Speaker 1: the courts to swing that pendulum back the other way

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Speaker 1: and create a cost for calling out the system for

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Speaker 1: what it is and create a cost for speaking up

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Speaker 1: a bad abuse, and the cogs and the machines.

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Speaker 2: That enable it. It's one of the reasons.

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Speaker 1: Why I think Me Too was kind of criticized because

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Speaker 1: of its association with like Hollywood A listers, even though

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Speaker 1: it was started by Toronto Burke, a black woman, specifically

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Speaker 1: to center other black women survivors of sexual violence. Because

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Speaker 1: not everybody who speaks up about abuse has the money

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Speaker 1: or the support or a legal team to support them

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Speaker 1: through it. And the choice to center a lot of

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Speaker 1: survivors of abuse who do have that kind of support

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Speaker 1: because they have money or they're famous, I think, really

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Speaker 1: minimize the reality that the vast majority of people speaking

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Speaker 1: up about abuse do not have that kind of support.

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Speaker 1: I struggle with the idea that we tell survivors that

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Speaker 1: they should be naming their abusers because of exactly the

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Speaker 1: climate that is described in this Intercept article. I would

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Speaker 1: only ever advocate for a survivor of violence to like

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Speaker 1: speak up if they really felt sure and they really

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Speaker 1: felt like they had support. It's a complicated, fucked up

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Speaker 1: climate that is going to lead to survivors not speaking up.

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Speaker 2: And these people don't have a ton of support, right, Like, these.

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Speaker 1: Are not a list people who have lots and lots

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Speaker 1: of funds for long drawn out legal battles. Like, imagine

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Speaker 1: how terrified you would be if you got a legal

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Speaker 1: sumon saying that you were going to be sued for

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Speaker 1: defamation and you don't even have a lawyer, maybe you

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Speaker 1: don't even have you know, the kind of support that

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Speaker 1: would that you would need to know what to do

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Speaker 1: as your next step.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's you know, really interesting you framed it as

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Speaker 3: an anti me too movement because it does seem like

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Speaker 3: that is a fitting description of this pattern of defamation

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Speaker 3: cases against women who have accused abusers. And so you know,

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Speaker 3: if you think about it as an anti movement or

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Speaker 3: like a backlash, who benefits from that?

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Speaker 4: Right?

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Speaker 2: Like?

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Speaker 3: Who are the people like in this movement? Abusers?

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Speaker 1: Abusers and the people who protect the power structures and

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Speaker 1: institutions that enable their abuse, Like people who are abusers,

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Speaker 1: people who are uncomfortable with the power structure being challenged

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Speaker 1: that enables abuse.

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Speaker 2: Like maybe they are not abusers.

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Speaker 1: Themselves, but they feel like, you know, oh, the way

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Speaker 1: things are supposed to go is like being an abuser

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Speaker 1: should not you know, be disqualifying to be to hold

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Speaker 1: power being an abuse? Like just because you you know, people,

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Speaker 1: I think people who want us to go back to

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Speaker 1: a certain way of life. I think that we made

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Speaker 1: some progress, not even that much progress, but some progress.

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Speaker 1: And I think some people see this and they're like, oh, well,

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Speaker 1: they want abuse to remain something that is in the

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Speaker 1: sphere of the domestic. And what we're saying is that, like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: if you're an abuser, you're If you're you probably are

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Speaker 1: abusing people in your life outside of the domestic.

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Speaker 2: This is not a private issue or a personal issue.

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Speaker 1: And in fact, this is an issue that deeply intersects

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Speaker 1: with how you hold pass So if you were a

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Speaker 1: power holder, no, you shouldn't be able to treat people

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Speaker 1: in your life any kind of way. They need that

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Speaker 1: structure to be maintained. I think that there are a

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Speaker 1: lot of people who are very invested in that structure.

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Speaker 1: And I think me too was a challenge to that structure.

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Speaker 1: And I think the people who don't want that structure

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Speaker 1: challenge are like, wait, wait, wait, wait wait, we need

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Speaker 1: to how can we use the state to put things

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Speaker 1: back how they're meant to be, which is that nobody

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Speaker 1: cares when somebody is an abuser.

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Speaker 2: Woo.

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Speaker 3: If that is dark, it's bad.

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Speaker 1: I like many of us kind of got duped by

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Speaker 1: a really effective social media campaign that led me to

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Speaker 1: believe that there was a lot more happening with the

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Speaker 1: Johnny Depp Amber Heard defamation trial than was there. I

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Speaker 1: was like a low information person on that, like I

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Speaker 1: wasn't something that I followed, and I was being surfaced

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Speaker 1: so much content that really completely painted a different portrait

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Speaker 1: than what was actually happening. And once I actually looked

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Speaker 1: into it, I was like, wait, this is actually like

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Speaker 1: very cut and dry, Like this is actually like not

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Speaker 1: that complicated. I don't know why I thought that it

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Speaker 1: was like some big murky thing. And the article in

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Speaker 1: the intercept, which I think everybody should read, really makes

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Speaker 1: clear that Johnny depp that trial is one of the

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Speaker 1: reasons we are seeing this new climate, and that is

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Speaker 1: something that we are seeing play out right now. That

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Speaker 1: is the climate that Johnny Depp's legal team has left

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Speaker 1: us with.

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Speaker 4: Let's take a quick break at our back.

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Speaker 1: Well, Elon's been up to a lot since I've been offline.

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Speaker 1: It's all like a mixed bag of terrible Let's just

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Speaker 1: get into it. I want to do it quickly because

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Speaker 1: like part of me was like do I even do

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Speaker 1: what's Elon up to this week? Because it's so it's

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Speaker 1: so ridiculous. So I'm late to the game because I

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Speaker 1: was offline. Twitter is trying to change their name to X.

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Speaker 1: What is there really to say? It's like a terrible name,

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Speaker 1: it's a the logo is terrible. It's it's like a

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Speaker 1: throwback to like do you remember back when like X

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Speaker 1: was really cool, like for some reason, like I want

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Speaker 1: to say, like late nineties, X was like a really

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Speaker 1: cool branding, so very much on brand for Mosk to

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Speaker 1: get into something like fifteen years too late for it

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Speaker 1: to be relevant.

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Speaker 2: I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I saw that he that Linda yakan Arrow was like

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Speaker 1: had this breathless string of tweets about how their new

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Speaker 1: vision for Twitter is to be X and X is

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Speaker 1: going to be like an everything app that is like video.

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Speaker 1: By the way, there's already a pretty popular video streaming

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Speaker 1: service with the name X, so that's already taken.

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Speaker 2: But they want to do like video audio banking.

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Speaker 1: They should go without saying, please do not give Elon

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Speaker 1: Musk your banking information, like terrible idea. I continue to

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Speaker 1: like weirdly feel bad for Linda Yakanaro because I feel

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Speaker 1: like her.

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Speaker 2: She is like the CEO of Twitter, and it.

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Speaker 1: Seems like most of her job is just like turning

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Speaker 1: random choices that Elon Musk makes into a thread of,

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Speaker 1: like really enthusiastic tweets, which I still feel like she

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Speaker 1: could get out of this thing if she really, like,

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Speaker 1: you know, she could drive herself out of this I think,

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Speaker 1: what do you think?

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Speaker 3: There is a brief moment when she's like, well, maybe

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Speaker 3: she would be a person with power to influence the

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Speaker 3: direction of the company, but in hindsight that was always

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Speaker 3: silly to think, and it's certainly proven to not be

401
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Speaker 3: the case. You know, being the multi post cheerleader for

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Speaker 3: whatever Elon's latest thing is seems to be like her

403
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Speaker 3: only public facing thing. I don't know. Maybe she's having

404
00:23:01,480 --> 00:23:05,720
Speaker 3: a lot of deep conversations with brands behind the scenes

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Speaker 3: that we don't get to see, but everything we do

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Speaker 3: get to see is not much Wow, So like her

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Speaker 3: breathlessly enthusiastic thread of or string of tweets or exes.

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Speaker 1: I don't know about this new thing seats. People were

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Speaker 1: compared zeats. Is that what they're calling?

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Speaker 2: Oh that's terrible? Is it really zeats?

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Speaker 3: Or I heard somebody's it's heard somebody say they're calling

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Speaker 3: them zeats.

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Speaker 1: No, no, no, it's calling.

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Speaker 3: I actually have a theory that this is it actually

415
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Speaker 3: is brilliant marketing because it's so terrible it forces everybody

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Speaker 3: to like talk about it, like you can't even talk

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Speaker 3: about it in a normal way.

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Speaker 1: It's like the branding equivalent of comic sins. You know

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Speaker 1: about this, right, yes? Why like basketball players, So for

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Speaker 1: folks you don't know, Like when NBA players were where

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00:24:00,160 --> 00:24:02,600
Speaker 1: the like I can't breathe shirt, everybody was like, oh

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Speaker 1: for a game and they were like, why are they

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Speaker 1: in comic sands? And it's actually like a like an

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00:24:06,640 --> 00:24:10,440
Speaker 1: effective tactic because the logo is so bad, even though

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Speaker 1: I actually kind of like comic sands, but the font

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00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:15,080
Speaker 1: is so bad people talk about it and then it

427
00:24:15,080 --> 00:24:17,880
Speaker 1: gets more attention. So maybe that's what he's doing. So yeah,

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00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:21,080
Speaker 1: lots of stuff on the X thing. People probably already

429
00:24:21,080 --> 00:24:23,520
Speaker 1: know this by now, but both Meta and Microsoft already

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00:24:23,560 --> 00:24:26,680
Speaker 1: owned trademarks for variations on X, which is probably gonna

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00:24:26,680 --> 00:24:31,320
Speaker 1: open them up to lawsuits. In Indonesia, X was temporarily

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Speaker 1: blocked because of the association with adult content. The country

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00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:39,720
Speaker 1: has laws forbidding, gambling and pornography online, and so whoever

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00:24:39,880 --> 00:24:43,200
Speaker 1: used X as a domain before Musk broke that country's

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00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:45,399
Speaker 1: content law And it seems like Elon Musk's team just

436
00:24:45,440 --> 00:24:47,320
Speaker 1: like didn't check to see if that would be a problem.

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Speaker 1: It honestly sounds like Musk has been trying to make

438
00:24:50,520 --> 00:24:54,280
Speaker 1: X happen since his PayPal days. People don't like like

439
00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:57,600
Speaker 1: that was probably the last time that this branding was

440
00:24:57,680 --> 00:24:59,800
Speaker 1: like a cool thing y.

441
00:25:00,600 --> 00:25:05,720
Speaker 3: It's yeah, he's trying to make X happen. Stepping back

442
00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:09,080
Speaker 3: is like, of all the things we've talked about happening

443
00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:11,720
Speaker 3: on Twitter over the past several weeks or months or

444
00:25:11,720 --> 00:25:17,000
Speaker 3: however long it's been, at least this one doesn't isn't

445
00:25:17,040 --> 00:25:22,440
Speaker 3: like hurting anyone, but it is worth stepping back and

446
00:25:23,440 --> 00:25:27,520
Speaker 3: just reflecting on how bizarre it is that Elon Musk

447
00:25:27,640 --> 00:25:29,920
Speaker 3: just kind of likes the X branding and he wants

448
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:32,120
Speaker 3: to have like one app to do everything, and he

449
00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:35,160
Speaker 3: like started that with PayPal and then it didn't work,

450
00:25:35,200 --> 00:25:37,280
Speaker 3: and so then he just like went and bought Twitter,

451
00:25:37,359 --> 00:25:42,440
Speaker 3: and now he's trying to like pursue his vanity project

452
00:25:43,880 --> 00:25:48,000
Speaker 3: with Twitter, which like I would almost respect, you know,

453
00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:50,239
Speaker 3: I have lots of projects that I'm working on that

454
00:25:50,320 --> 00:25:53,119
Speaker 3: like no one else is interested in that, Like I

455
00:25:53,280 --> 00:25:55,359
Speaker 3: know no one else would ever be interested in but

456
00:25:55,359 --> 00:25:57,879
Speaker 3: it would like personally be gratifying for me to like

457
00:25:58,440 --> 00:26:01,560
Speaker 3: have it see the light of day. But those none

458
00:26:01,640 --> 00:26:09,080
Speaker 3: of those involve like the information infrastructure on which our

459
00:26:09,160 --> 00:26:13,160
Speaker 3: democracy depends, right, Like the stakes are so much lower.

460
00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:16,880
Speaker 1: So you said that the ex branding isn't hurting anybody,

461
00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:17,920
Speaker 1: Let's talk about some people.

462
00:26:18,000 --> 00:26:19,280
Speaker 2: Elon Musk is hurting.

463
00:26:19,440 --> 00:26:23,880
Speaker 1: So one he erected a giant glowing X on Twitter's

464
00:26:24,040 --> 00:26:28,520
Speaker 1: HQ in San Francisco, pissing off everybody, failed to have

465
00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:32,000
Speaker 1: the city come check it out, and then unceremoniously took

466
00:26:32,040 --> 00:26:35,359
Speaker 1: it down. So I'm sure the I saw on Twitter.

467
00:26:35,440 --> 00:26:37,919
Speaker 1: Somebody was like, oh, imagine living right across the street

468
00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:40,040
Speaker 1: from this, And somebody was like, I don't have to

469
00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:41,480
Speaker 1: imagine it, it's my reality.

470
00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:43,080
Speaker 2: Here's a picture. Terrible.

471
00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:48,359
Speaker 1: He also quietly reinstated Kanye West's Twitter account. You might

472
00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:51,560
Speaker 1: remember that Kanye's account was pulled in December after posting

473
00:26:51,600 --> 00:26:54,840
Speaker 1: a series of very anti Semitic tweets, including an image

474
00:26:54,840 --> 00:26:57,879
Speaker 1: of a Nazi swastika blended with the star of David

475
00:26:58,720 --> 00:27:01,719
Speaker 1: Musk clarified that the account had been suspended for the

476
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:02,840
Speaker 1: incitement to violence.

477
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:04,280
Speaker 2: Well, Connie is back.

478
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:07,840
Speaker 1: Musk also reinstated an account that shared a screenshot from

479
00:27:07,880 --> 00:27:12,800
Speaker 1: a child sexual abuse video, completely caving to right wing pressure.

480
00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:15,919
Speaker 1: This is after, of course, Elon Musk went on and

481
00:27:15,960 --> 00:27:18,040
Speaker 1: on about how he was going to be cracking down

482
00:27:18,119 --> 00:27:21,600
Speaker 1: on child sexual abuse material on the platform and had

483
00:27:21,600 --> 00:27:24,320
Speaker 1: a zero tolerance policy for it, so I guess it's

484
00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:29,359
Speaker 1: more like a sum tolerance policy. And also he'd threatened

485
00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:32,000
Speaker 1: to sue a nonprofit that studies hate speech and misinformation

486
00:27:32,080 --> 00:27:34,879
Speaker 1: on social media called the Center for Counting Digital Hate

487
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:39,160
Speaker 1: for you guessed it reporting on hate speech on Twitter.

488
00:27:39,840 --> 00:27:41,840
Speaker 1: One of their reports looked at one hundred different account

489
00:27:41,880 --> 00:27:44,480
Speaker 1: subscribed to Twitter Blue and found that Twitter failed to

490
00:27:44,520 --> 00:27:48,240
Speaker 1: act on ninety nine percent of hate posted by the subscribers,

491
00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:52,399
Speaker 1: and questioned whether or not Twitter's algorithm boosts toxic tweets.

492
00:27:52,680 --> 00:27:54,880
Speaker 1: They also found that Twitter failed to act on eighty

493
00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:57,680
Speaker 1: nine percent of anti Jewish hate speech and ninety seven

494
00:27:57,720 --> 00:28:00,320
Speaker 1: percent of anti Muslim hate speech on the platform, and

495
00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:03,719
Speaker 1: Elon Musk replied by saying that the Center for Countering

496
00:28:03,800 --> 00:28:07,240
Speaker 1: Digital Hate has made inflammatory, outrageous, and false or misleading

497
00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:10,560
Speaker 1: assertions about Twitter and suggested that it conspire to drive

498
00:28:10,640 --> 00:28:15,000
Speaker 1: advertisers off of Twitter by smearing the company and its owners.

499
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:17,199
Speaker 1: It sounds like this the Center, I mean, I know,

500
00:28:17,240 --> 00:28:18,640
Speaker 1: the Center for Countering Digital Hate.

501
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:19,320
Speaker 2: They do good work.

502
00:28:20,359 --> 00:28:22,879
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds like Elon Musk just doesn't like hearing

503
00:28:22,920 --> 00:28:26,560
Speaker 1: the truth about himself or his platform. And yeah, so

504
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:30,920
Speaker 1: he's trying to sue them and also like a pressure

505
00:28:30,960 --> 00:28:33,560
Speaker 1: campaign to smear them, which is something that we see

506
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:36,520
Speaker 1: time and time again, like people who work in disinformation

507
00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:40,880
Speaker 1: work being personally threatened for doing that work as a

508
00:28:40,880 --> 00:28:42,320
Speaker 1: way to sort of push them out of it.

509
00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:43,400
Speaker 2: Oh.

510
00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:46,640
Speaker 1: Also another thing that Elon Musk is doing shaking down

511
00:28:46,840 --> 00:28:49,760
Speaker 1: verified accounts for one thousand dollars a month. This is

512
00:28:49,760 --> 00:28:52,480
Speaker 1: according to the Wall Street Journal, Twitter is asking brands

513
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:54,840
Speaker 1: to spend at least one thousand dollars per months on

514
00:28:54,920 --> 00:28:59,080
Speaker 1: ads to maintain their verified status on the platform. In

515
00:28:59,120 --> 00:29:01,440
Speaker 1: response to the Wall Street Journal reporting this, Musk says

516
00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:05,480
Speaker 1: that as he describes that price tag is moderately high,

517
00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:08,040
Speaker 1: which I think moderate, it's doing a lot of work

518
00:29:08,040 --> 00:29:11,280
Speaker 1: in that sentence, but okay, but the high cost, according

519
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:14,800
Speaker 1: to Musk, is a preventative measure to keep scammers from

520
00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:17,600
Speaker 1: the platform, which I don't know why you would have

521
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:21,240
Speaker 1: to pay a thousand dollars a month to in advertising

522
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:23,400
Speaker 1: fees to just get Elon Musk to do his job

523
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:24,320
Speaker 1: and run a platform.

524
00:29:24,400 --> 00:29:25,640
Speaker 2: But there you have it.

525
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:26,560
Speaker 3: Boy, that's.

526
00:29:29,280 --> 00:29:31,400
Speaker 2: Yes. I told you it was gonna be.

527
00:29:31,440 --> 00:29:31,840
Speaker 1: It was.

528
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:33,800
Speaker 2: I think I warned you it's gonna be a lot

529
00:29:33,840 --> 00:29:34,240
Speaker 2: of like.

530
00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:36,320
Speaker 1: I mean, it's we were we were only off for

531
00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:38,040
Speaker 1: a week and we got this much musk nonsense.

532
00:29:38,160 --> 00:29:40,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, my god, it's been so much, so much musk.

533
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:45,720
Speaker 3: A x X is such a bad name, Like, how

534
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:48,800
Speaker 3: do you even talk about it? I feel like you

535
00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:52,200
Speaker 3: can't even say it. Everything I've read about it is

536
00:29:52,960 --> 00:29:57,920
Speaker 3: like the you know X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

537
00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:01,320
Speaker 3: It's like like I almost want to compare it to Prince,

538
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 3: but I'm not going to. I know I'm not going to. Uh,

539
00:30:05,960 --> 00:30:06,840
Speaker 3: X can't.

540
00:30:06,520 --> 00:30:09,680
Speaker 1: Stick my best friend in the world, Andrew Nasden shout

541
00:30:09,680 --> 00:30:11,760
Speaker 1: out to Andrew Nasden in front of the show the

542
00:30:11,880 --> 00:30:15,240
Speaker 1: day So, like, I go offline, I get surgery, I'm

543
00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:15,880
Speaker 1: on drugs.

544
00:30:16,040 --> 00:30:17,240
Speaker 2: They changed the name to X.

545
00:30:17,760 --> 00:30:20,080
Speaker 1: The first text that I come to is just my

546
00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:22,760
Speaker 1: good friend Andrew Nasden saying are you ready for this?

547
00:30:23,600 --> 00:30:24,600
Speaker 2: X gonna give it to you?

548
00:30:24,920 --> 00:30:27,720
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh shit, DMX, it hadn't even

549
00:30:27,760 --> 00:30:29,680
Speaker 1: occurred to me. So then we just texted back and

550
00:30:29,720 --> 00:30:32,440
Speaker 1: forth the lyrics of that one DMX song. I thought

551
00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:35,400
Speaker 1: it was very clever when I was on painkillers. But yeah,

552
00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:38,680
Speaker 1: it's just bad branding. Also, it's like it's hard. It's

553
00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:43,120
Speaker 1: just hard to say the logo. Someone I think astuteley

554
00:30:43,160 --> 00:30:47,840
Speaker 1: said that it looks like Berlin based human trafficking app

555
00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:51,640
Speaker 1: for like gentlemen in Berlin or some sort of a

556
00:30:51,720 --> 00:30:54,120
Speaker 1: like weird like just a It's like it's like a

557
00:30:54,200 --> 00:30:56,240
Speaker 1: black like weathered X.

558
00:30:56,280 --> 00:30:58,600
Speaker 2: It just looks it just looks very nineteen ninety nine.

559
00:30:58,640 --> 00:30:59,000
Speaker 2: That's all.

560
00:30:59,120 --> 00:31:03,680
Speaker 1: It reminds me of the clothing store structure. Remember the

561
00:31:03,680 --> 00:31:06,720
Speaker 1: store structure, the men's clothing store reminds me of that,

562
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:09,480
Speaker 1: just like a very of an era, and that era

563
00:31:09,760 --> 00:31:11,160
Speaker 1: is nineteen ninety nine.

564
00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:14,640
Speaker 3: Thousand dollars a months worth it.

565
00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:19,480
Speaker 1: So, speaking of companies changing their names, this is really quick,

566
00:31:19,520 --> 00:31:21,800
Speaker 1: but I just have to get it out. So chalk

567
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:24,520
Speaker 1: this up to just me needing to like make it

568
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:26,800
Speaker 1: part of the public record that I was right about

569
00:31:26,800 --> 00:31:30,320
Speaker 1: something that I suspected all along. This week is National

570
00:31:30,400 --> 00:31:34,560
Speaker 1: Whistleblower's Day. So remember back when whistleblower Francis Hogan released

571
00:31:34,560 --> 00:31:37,440
Speaker 1: what became known as the Facebook Papers, blowing the whistle

572
00:31:37,520 --> 00:31:41,640
Speaker 1: on a grip of knowing wrongdoing that Facebook did, including

573
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:45,440
Speaker 1: the way that their platforms harm youth and messing up

574
00:31:45,480 --> 00:31:50,320
Speaker 1: democracies abroad. Well, shortly after this wave of bad press,

575
00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:53,760
Speaker 1: that is Facebook's words, because I don't think that that

576
00:31:53,920 --> 00:31:56,080
Speaker 1: level of harm is bad press. I think it's like

577
00:31:56,760 --> 00:31:59,680
Speaker 1: deep wrongdoing. But that's how they would frame it. After

578
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:02,560
Speaker 1: that wave of bad press, Facebook announced that they were

579
00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:06,240
Speaker 1: changing their name from Facebook to Meta. I was fairly

580
00:32:06,360 --> 00:32:09,040
Speaker 1: certain they were doing this to distract from this like

581
00:32:09,160 --> 00:32:13,760
Speaker 1: damaging news cycle. You know, Facebook has been knowingly harming

582
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:17,960
Speaker 1: our kids for a while. To Facebook has changed his

583
00:32:18,080 --> 00:32:22,400
Speaker 1: name to Meta in classic like oh it's Malibu Stacy,

584
00:32:22,480 --> 00:32:24,520
Speaker 1: but she's got a new hat kind of vibe, you know,

585
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:26,600
Speaker 1: like just like just change the conversation about it.

586
00:32:26,920 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 2: Mark Zuckerberg of course denied.

587
00:32:28,600 --> 00:32:32,640
Speaker 1: This, saying that, you know, any indication that the company

588
00:32:32,680 --> 00:32:34,800
Speaker 1: was changing the name to try to get away from

589
00:32:34,840 --> 00:32:37,840
Speaker 1: bad press was quote ridiculous. That was the word that

590
00:32:37,880 --> 00:32:42,080
Speaker 1: he used, because Facebook was just really interested in the metaverse.

591
00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:44,320
Speaker 1: They were just doubling down on the metaverse like that

592
00:32:44,440 --> 00:32:47,480
Speaker 1: was nothing to do with bad press or harming kids,

593
00:32:47,800 --> 00:32:51,240
Speaker 1: or disabling democracies, any of that. They were just really

594
00:32:51,280 --> 00:32:55,520
Speaker 1: really invested in the metaverse. Well, as Mark Zuckerberg was

595
00:32:55,560 --> 00:33:00,200
Speaker 1: busy saying that his chief product officer, Chris Cox was

596
00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:02,560
Speaker 1: basically saying that that's exactly what they were doing. About

597
00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:05,320
Speaker 1: two weeks later, according to a new report from Business Insider,

598
00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:08,320
Speaker 1: here's what the report found. During a company wide q

599
00:33:08,440 --> 00:33:10,760
Speaker 1: and A with employees in November led by Cox and

600
00:33:10,800 --> 00:33:15,520
Speaker 1: Sheryl Sandberg, then Facebook's chief operations officer, an employee asked

601
00:33:15,560 --> 00:33:17,000
Speaker 1: about the overall success of.

602
00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:17,880
Speaker 2: The new meta name.

603
00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:20,800
Speaker 1: A longtime employee who has since left the company recalled

604
00:33:21,320 --> 00:33:24,240
Speaker 1: Cox said the name change was successful, explaining his measure

605
00:33:24,280 --> 00:33:26,520
Speaker 1: of success was the amount of press coverage of the

606
00:33:26,600 --> 00:33:30,120
Speaker 1: name change compared to the whistleblower disclosures. It was more

607
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:32,760
Speaker 1: than double the volume of the Facebook papers coverage, Cock

608
00:33:32,800 --> 00:33:35,080
Speaker 1: said on the call. He added that the coverage was

609
00:33:35,160 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 1: also neutral to positive in tone. That's the kind of

610
00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:41,000
Speaker 1: thing we only could have dreamed of when we did

611
00:33:41,000 --> 00:33:42,920
Speaker 1: the change in terms of press coverage. He went on,

612
00:33:43,200 --> 00:33:45,440
Speaker 1: and it's a really big deal because the Facebook papers

613
00:33:45,480 --> 00:33:49,280
Speaker 1: was a big story, especially inside the US. So that

614
00:33:49,360 --> 00:33:51,920
Speaker 1: whole song and dance that Mark Zuckerberg did saying, we

615
00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:54,480
Speaker 1: just loved the metaphorse so much. We loved it so

616
00:33:54,560 --> 00:33:58,520
Speaker 1: much we quietly basically dropped it a few months later. Well,

617
00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:01,920
Speaker 1: that was just a life as everybody knew, myself very

618
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:04,920
Speaker 1: much included. They were just changing the name to try

619
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:08,600
Speaker 1: to pivot the story away from their knowing harm and

620
00:34:08,640 --> 00:34:11,160
Speaker 1: wrongdoing onto the fact that they change their name. And

621
00:34:11,160 --> 00:34:14,200
Speaker 1: this is like a time honored strategy of companies. I

622
00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:16,480
Speaker 1: don't really think it's really what's happening with Twitter. I

623
00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:19,520
Speaker 1: think that like Elon Musks is just stuck on X

624
00:34:19,560 --> 00:34:22,160
Speaker 1: and trying to make fetch happen, and like is stuck

625
00:34:22,200 --> 00:34:24,680
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety nine, I don't know that. I think

626
00:34:24,719 --> 00:34:26,799
Speaker 1: that he is trying to pivot from bed press there.

627
00:34:27,120 --> 00:34:32,839
Speaker 1: But Philip Morris became Altria, the Lance Armstrong Foundation became Livestrong.

628
00:34:33,000 --> 00:34:35,480
Speaker 1: Like this is a thing that companies do when they

629
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:39,200
Speaker 1: are caught doing something that they ought not be doing,

630
00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:41,239
Speaker 1: and so they just want everybody to sort of forget it,

631
00:34:41,800 --> 00:34:44,719
Speaker 1: change the conversation pivot. So the next time you see

632
00:34:44,719 --> 00:34:47,360
Speaker 1: a company do this, don't just take for face value

633
00:34:47,360 --> 00:34:50,040
Speaker 1: that they're genuinely interested in the metaverse and want their

634
00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:53,200
Speaker 1: name to reflect that. Know that it's a classic play

635
00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:56,040
Speaker 1: from the bad actor playbook to avoid accountability.

636
00:34:56,280 --> 00:34:59,399
Speaker 3: It's a good call that anytime a company changes their name,

637
00:34:59,719 --> 00:35:02,319
Speaker 3: sh really ask why what is it that they're trying

638
00:35:02,320 --> 00:35:07,080
Speaker 3: to distract from right now? It's also a good reminder

639
00:35:07,200 --> 00:35:11,560
Speaker 3: that we just cannot believe anything that Meta or Mark

640
00:35:11,640 --> 00:35:17,239
Speaker 3: Zuckerberg say right will just openly lie in public, and

641
00:35:17,280 --> 00:35:18,160
Speaker 3: that's just what they do.

642
00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:21,200
Speaker 1: We talked about this a little bit when Threads came out.

643
00:35:21,360 --> 00:35:25,239
Speaker 1: They did finally add a chronological feed to Threads. So

644
00:35:25,280 --> 00:35:28,000
Speaker 1: if you're still on Threads and that's something that excites you,

645
00:35:28,080 --> 00:35:31,560
Speaker 1: it's not just like an algorithmic mishmash of people that

646
00:35:31,600 --> 00:35:33,920
Speaker 1: you follow on people that you don't. But I remember

647
00:35:33,960 --> 00:35:37,399
Speaker 1: when Threads first came out, they had us like low

648
00:35:37,480 --> 00:35:40,719
Speaker 1: key rooting for Mark Zuckerberg. That's how much everybody hates

649
00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:45,400
Speaker 1: Elon Musk, And I wonder did Mark Zuckerberg like enjoy

650
00:35:45,760 --> 00:35:50,960
Speaker 1: that three day Sapan, where people kind of didn't hate him.

651
00:35:51,760 --> 00:35:54,759
Speaker 3: I would assume, you know, he kind of seems like

652
00:35:54,840 --> 00:35:57,640
Speaker 3: the kind of guy who wants to be liked. But

653
00:35:57,760 --> 00:35:59,919
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't have any special insight there.

654
00:36:01,960 --> 00:36:06,240
Speaker 3: Either way, he's probably comforted by his tens of billions

655
00:36:06,239 --> 00:36:10,440
Speaker 3: of dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars. He's probably feeling, Okay.

656
00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 1: It's funny, like I nobody wants and I'm doing the

657
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:14,680
Speaker 1: things that I hate.

658
00:36:14,680 --> 00:36:15,960
Speaker 2: But like where you start, like.

659
00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:20,200
Speaker 1: Trying to get into the head of these tech billionaires

660
00:36:20,200 --> 00:36:23,120
Speaker 1: who just live such different lives than us, Like the

661
00:36:23,200 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 1: life that any of us you, that you live, that

662
00:36:25,719 --> 00:36:28,640
Speaker 1: I live, that anybody listening lives is so different than

663
00:36:28,640 --> 00:36:32,399
Speaker 1: the lives of these people. Trying to glean what they're

664
00:36:32,440 --> 00:36:36,080
Speaker 1: thinking their motivations is like it's a fool's errand. But

665
00:36:37,160 --> 00:36:42,440
Speaker 1: I think Elon Musk is someone who genuinely, deeply wants

666
00:36:42,520 --> 00:36:44,640
Speaker 1: to be liked, And I think a lot of the

667
00:36:44,680 --> 00:36:50,800
Speaker 1: way that he makes decisions is rooted in a deep

668
00:36:51,200 --> 00:36:54,279
Speaker 1: chasm of need to be liked. And I think that

669
00:36:55,040 --> 00:36:58,120
Speaker 1: he needs us to think that he's funny. He needs

670
00:36:58,239 --> 00:37:01,480
Speaker 1: us to think that he's like in On the so

671
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:03,480
Speaker 1: we make when people make fun of him and cut

672
00:37:03,560 --> 00:37:07,840
Speaker 1: him down, his response and I feel like I know

673
00:37:07,880 --> 00:37:10,160
Speaker 1: this response because I have this, I'm capable of these

674
00:37:10,239 --> 00:37:12,480
Speaker 1: kinds of responses that are so like little and small

675
00:37:12,520 --> 00:37:15,480
Speaker 1: as well. So like game recognized game, I like to

676
00:37:15,520 --> 00:37:19,040
Speaker 1: see the gears turning where it's like, oh, it didn't

677
00:37:19,080 --> 00:37:22,120
Speaker 1: hurt my feelings that you said that. Actually I'm getting

678
00:37:22,160 --> 00:37:25,120
Speaker 1: in on the joke, haha, Like you know when people

679
00:37:25,160 --> 00:37:28,160
Speaker 1: make fun of him, you know, like when he when

680
00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:33,319
Speaker 1: he suspended Kanye West from Twitter back in December. One

681
00:37:33,360 --> 00:37:35,800
Speaker 1: of the things among the very anti semitic things that

682
00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:39,439
Speaker 1: he tweeted that were like completely inappropriate and messed up,

683
00:37:39,719 --> 00:37:42,920
Speaker 1: he tweeted an image of Elon Musk shirtless on a boat,

684
00:37:43,360 --> 00:37:47,359
Speaker 1: and Elon Musk had to be like, oh, just in

685
00:37:47,400 --> 00:37:51,200
Speaker 1: case you were wondering, suspending Kanye West had nothing to

686
00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:53,960
Speaker 1: do with that unflattering picture of me shirtless on the boat.

687
00:37:54,160 --> 00:37:56,680
Speaker 1: If anything, it was good motivation for my weight loss.

688
00:37:57,040 --> 00:38:01,120
Speaker 1: And it's like this vibe of like having two can

689
00:38:01,280 --> 00:38:05,120
Speaker 1: work over time to convince people that you are aware,

690
00:38:05,360 --> 00:38:08,320
Speaker 1: self aware of the joke that you know that they're thinking.

691
00:38:08,600 --> 00:38:11,880
Speaker 1: That I think is really rooted in like this deep

692
00:38:12,200 --> 00:38:16,400
Speaker 1: well of need for approval but not getting it. It's

693
00:38:16,480 --> 00:38:18,319
Speaker 1: kind of sad when you think about it.

694
00:38:18,320 --> 00:38:19,360
Speaker 3: It is a little sad.

695
00:38:19,880 --> 00:38:24,000
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't spend time feeling sad for Elon Musk. Yeah,

696
00:38:24,160 --> 00:38:28,080
Speaker 1: but just imagine if somebody like him, like felt validated,

697
00:38:28,400 --> 00:38:32,239
Speaker 1: felt you know, like didn't need to buy a platform

698
00:38:32,600 --> 00:38:35,520
Speaker 1: so that he could like see his own jokes amplified

699
00:38:35,560 --> 00:38:37,359
Speaker 1: on it to be like they like me, they think

700
00:38:37,360 --> 00:38:37,960
Speaker 1: I'm funny.

701
00:38:38,520 --> 00:38:41,160
Speaker 3: There's so much better stuff that one could do with

702
00:38:41,280 --> 00:38:44,680
Speaker 3: forty four billion dollars. I think so, But then again,

703
00:38:44,719 --> 00:38:47,000
Speaker 3: I don't have forty four billion dollars, so a lot

704
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:47,719
Speaker 3: of good it does me.

705
00:38:48,080 --> 00:38:50,400
Speaker 1: Give me one billion dollars, they'll never hear from me again,

706
00:38:50,640 --> 00:38:53,919
Speaker 1: Like I'll do it for a fracture that you will

707
00:38:53,960 --> 00:38:55,200
Speaker 1: never hear from my ass again.

708
00:38:55,280 --> 00:38:59,600
Speaker 3: Like there's so many things, so many possibilities, and yeah,

709
00:38:59,600 --> 00:39:03,480
Speaker 3: he's barked on this journey to try to make everyone

710
00:39:03,719 --> 00:39:09,120
Speaker 3: like him, like you were saying, and failing so spectacularly.

711
00:39:09,719 --> 00:39:11,600
Speaker 2: It is sad when you think about it that way.

712
00:39:11,640 --> 00:39:16,279
Speaker 3: I mean, he's really taggd his brand like he used

713
00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:20,920
Speaker 3: to be somebody that I think most people liked or

714
00:39:21,080 --> 00:39:24,759
Speaker 3: at least didn't loathe. That's gone.

715
00:39:25,120 --> 00:39:28,280
Speaker 1: And it's funny because I often go back and listen

716
00:39:28,320 --> 00:39:31,760
Speaker 1: to old podcast interviews with him or read old articles

717
00:39:31,800 --> 00:39:34,840
Speaker 1: about him or profiles, and he really did have a

718
00:39:34,920 --> 00:39:43,040
Speaker 1: sweet grift going where he comes off so genuinely both unlikable,

719
00:39:43,280 --> 00:39:47,840
Speaker 1: uncharismatic and like doesn't know what he's doing, but that

720
00:39:48,200 --> 00:39:52,200
Speaker 1: the interviewer or the profiler or whoever was there was

721
00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:54,560
Speaker 1: a time where they were giving him a lot of

722
00:39:54,640 --> 00:39:55,439
Speaker 1: benefit of the doubt.

723
00:39:55,480 --> 00:39:56,520
Speaker 2: I think that time is over.

724
00:39:56,560 --> 00:39:58,680
Speaker 1: I think people are like, yeah, this person is like

725
00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:02,520
Speaker 1: exactly who he's been saying he is. But imagine having

726
00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:07,200
Speaker 1: so much money and kind of lucking your way into

727
00:40:07,239 --> 00:40:10,840
Speaker 1: buying companies that are like kind of successful, having the

728
00:40:10,920 --> 00:40:15,560
Speaker 1: press mostly fooled, and having them carry water for this

729
00:40:16,200 --> 00:40:18,200
Speaker 1: concept that you're like a smart guy who knows what

730
00:40:18,239 --> 00:40:20,000
Speaker 1: he's doing, and then ruining all of that.

731
00:40:20,520 --> 00:40:22,359
Speaker 3: Got to get it back, you know, maybe that's why

732
00:40:22,400 --> 00:40:23,600
Speaker 3: he's out there trying so hard.

733
00:40:23,680 --> 00:40:28,200
Speaker 2: Now xcom give it to you, X come deliver to

734
00:40:28,239 --> 00:40:33,279
Speaker 2: you more.

735
00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:47,000
Speaker 4: After a quick break, let's get right back into it.

736
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:50,319
Speaker 1: So let's talk about these two bills that are both

737
00:40:50,320 --> 00:40:53,520
Speaker 1: making their way through Senate regulating the Internet and children.

738
00:40:53,880 --> 00:40:56,640
Speaker 1: Last week, the Senate Commerce Committee advanced two bills in

739
00:40:56,640 --> 00:40:59,680
Speaker 1: the United States, both regulating how young people show up online.

740
00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:03,280
Speaker 1: Bill number one is the Children and Teens Online Privacy

741
00:41:03,320 --> 00:41:06,960
Speaker 1: Protection Act, introduced by Senators Marky and Bill Cassidy. This

742
00:41:07,040 --> 00:41:10,480
Speaker 1: would update the nineteen ninety eight Children's Online Privacy Act

743
00:41:10,520 --> 00:41:12,719
Speaker 1: to raise the age of consent for data collection to

744
00:41:12,800 --> 00:41:16,319
Speaker 1: sixteen and build a new Federal Trade Commission Division to

745
00:41:16,440 --> 00:41:18,640
Speaker 1: enforce it. The second bill, is the one that we're

746
00:41:18,680 --> 00:41:21,520
Speaker 1: sort of focusing on right now, is the Kids Online

747
00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:24,960
Speaker 1: Safety Act, introduced by Senators Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn.

748
00:41:25,480 --> 00:41:27,799
Speaker 1: This would place a duty of care on platforms to

749
00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:31,680
Speaker 1: prevent promoting to users under seventeen content that includes disordered

750
00:41:31,680 --> 00:41:35,560
Speaker 1: eating and suicide. The bill carves out explicit protections for

751
00:41:35,560 --> 00:41:39,719
Speaker 1: support services such as suicide, health potlines, school and educational software.

752
00:41:40,120 --> 00:41:43,040
Speaker 1: An amendment to the bill approved Thursday would also require

753
00:41:43,080 --> 00:41:46,439
Speaker 1: companies to be transparent about if they're filtering content using

754
00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:49,279
Speaker 1: an algorithm and giving users a chance to opt out.

755
00:41:49,680 --> 00:41:52,480
Speaker 1: So the Kids Online Safety Act is the one that

756
00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:55,360
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of privacy and civil liberties

757
00:41:55,400 --> 00:41:58,880
Speaker 1: experts are concerned about. It's a little bit complicated because

758
00:41:59,239 --> 00:42:02,600
Speaker 1: I've actually seen people that I trust and like respect

759
00:42:02,920 --> 00:42:05,759
Speaker 1: coming out in support of the Kids Online Safety Act.

760
00:42:05,800 --> 00:42:09,000
Speaker 1: But I think it's complicated in that most people who

761
00:42:09,160 --> 00:42:11,640
Speaker 1: are not like in the pocket of big tech and

762
00:42:11,640 --> 00:42:14,320
Speaker 1: making money from this, I think agree that like something

763
00:42:14,360 --> 00:42:16,360
Speaker 1: needs to be done with the way that tech companies

764
00:42:16,400 --> 00:42:18,960
Speaker 1: are harming young people and really everybody, but young people

765
00:42:18,960 --> 00:42:22,680
Speaker 1: in particular. But the concern is that we will like

766
00:42:22,880 --> 00:42:27,160
Speaker 1: push through a sloppy bill that ends up regulating the

767
00:42:27,200 --> 00:42:30,880
Speaker 1: Internet in ways that harm more people and that actually

768
00:42:30,960 --> 00:42:34,200
Speaker 1: do more to harm marginalized kids. Because I've seen a

769
00:42:34,239 --> 00:42:37,399
Speaker 1: lot of folks who care about things like privacy and

770
00:42:37,520 --> 00:42:40,759
Speaker 1: like digital harms raising the alarm. One of them is

771
00:42:40,800 --> 00:42:44,160
Speaker 1: Aliah Bathia, policy analyst for the Center for Democracy and

772
00:42:44,200 --> 00:42:47,359
Speaker 1: Technologies Free Expression Team. She published a blog post where

773
00:42:47,400 --> 00:42:50,480
Speaker 1: she expressed concern around giving more information to platforms to

774
00:42:50,560 --> 00:42:54,200
Speaker 1: verify ages, saying this is essentially meaningless if the very

775
00:42:54,280 --> 00:42:57,560
Speaker 1: nature of the bill requires online services to treat miners

776
00:42:57,600 --> 00:43:01,520
Speaker 1: differently from adult users. Doing so pire online services to

777
00:43:01,520 --> 00:43:04,360
Speaker 1: know the ages of their users adults and children alike.

778
00:43:04,680 --> 00:43:07,000
Speaker 1: So I kind of get what she's saying there that

779
00:43:07,040 --> 00:43:11,440
Speaker 1: there is like a weird mental thing of like, in

780
00:43:11,600 --> 00:43:16,080
Speaker 1: order to keep kids privacy safe online, we all need

781
00:43:16,120 --> 00:43:20,400
Speaker 1: to give more information about ourselves to tech platforms. Like

782
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:22,520
Speaker 1: I get what she's saying about why that sort of

783
00:43:24,520 --> 00:43:26,040
Speaker 1: hits weird maybe.

784
00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:32,799
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's such an interesting and also important problem. I

785
00:43:32,800 --> 00:43:36,799
Speaker 3: mean important for so many reasons, but interesting because, like

786
00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:39,640
Speaker 3: you said, I think most people agree that there is

787
00:43:39,920 --> 00:43:47,560
Speaker 3: a serious problem with young people young people in the internet, right,

788
00:43:47,680 --> 00:43:51,040
Speaker 3: like trying to get beyond that and more specifically name

789
00:43:51,080 --> 00:43:54,319
Speaker 3: what the problem is, I think that consensus breaks down

790
00:43:54,600 --> 00:44:01,520
Speaker 3: pretty quickly. But there's definitely privacy concerns, and there's also

791
00:44:01,600 --> 00:44:07,759
Speaker 3: concerns about young people accessing content that is inappropriate for them.

792
00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:10,920
Speaker 3: You know, people have different ideas about what might be

793
00:44:10,920 --> 00:44:15,880
Speaker 3: inappropriate if it's sexual or about drugs or violence, but

794
00:44:16,600 --> 00:44:19,560
Speaker 3: most people would probably agree that, like, there's some content

795
00:44:19,600 --> 00:44:22,360
Speaker 3: that kids shouldn't see. But those are like very different

796
00:44:22,400 --> 00:44:29,400
Speaker 3: problems privacy and content restrictions. And it kind of sounds

797
00:44:29,520 --> 00:44:32,920
Speaker 3: like it's maybe a little bit muddled which problem this

798
00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:38,360
Speaker 3: bill is actually trying to solve, And that's pretty problematic.

799
00:44:39,880 --> 00:44:42,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you know, to your point about the content

800
00:44:43,080 --> 00:44:45,360
Speaker 1: that like, we all have ideas about what kind of

801
00:44:45,400 --> 00:44:47,640
Speaker 1: content is or is not appropriate for young people to

802
00:44:47,640 --> 00:44:51,040
Speaker 1: be seeing. Verge reports that digital rights advocates have suggested

803
00:44:51,080 --> 00:44:55,160
Speaker 1: that this bill could prevent queer youth from finding resources

804
00:44:55,160 --> 00:44:57,800
Speaker 1: that they need online without coming out to their parents

805
00:44:58,120 --> 00:45:01,120
Speaker 1: due to the prevental consent requirement of the bill. And

806
00:45:01,160 --> 00:45:04,160
Speaker 1: this is not an unfounded concern. In fact, the Right

807
00:45:04,160 --> 00:45:07,640
Speaker 1: Being organization, the Heritage Foundation, already flat out admitted that

808
00:45:07,680 --> 00:45:11,360
Speaker 1: they planned to use this legislation to censor LGBTQ content

809
00:45:11,480 --> 00:45:14,080
Speaker 1: in an attempt to barrow children from such content. Right

810
00:45:14,120 --> 00:45:16,520
Speaker 1: and so, what I think the kind of content that

811
00:45:16,600 --> 00:45:19,520
Speaker 1: young people should not be have access to online and

812
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:22,080
Speaker 1: the content that the Heritage Foundation, who is this like

813
00:45:22,200 --> 00:45:26,480
Speaker 1: incredibly lobbied, well resourced right being organization would say that

814
00:45:26,680 --> 00:45:29,120
Speaker 1: kids should not have access to online are two different

815
00:45:29,200 --> 00:45:29,920
Speaker 1: kinds of content.

816
00:45:29,960 --> 00:45:32,120
Speaker 2: And you know, to your point about it's not.

817
00:45:32,239 --> 00:45:37,680
Speaker 1: Clear what problem exactly this legislation is meant to tackle.

818
00:45:38,560 --> 00:45:40,120
Speaker 2: We in our episode that we.

819
00:45:40,080 --> 00:45:43,920
Speaker 1: Did with doctor Olivia Snow, who is a sex worker

820
00:45:43,960 --> 00:45:47,160
Speaker 1: and an Internet privacy expert, she talked about how that

821
00:45:47,320 --> 00:45:50,640
Speaker 1: is like a real red flag when someone is telling

822
00:45:50,680 --> 00:45:53,839
Speaker 1: you that legislation is going to protect kids online, but

823
00:45:53,880 --> 00:45:56,439
Speaker 1: it seems kind of lofty, not really clear like how

824
00:45:56,480 --> 00:45:58,640
Speaker 1: it's actually going to do that.

825
00:45:58,080 --> 00:46:00,520
Speaker 2: That it should really get.

826
00:46:00,360 --> 00:46:04,640
Speaker 1: Your spidey senses tingling about this legislation being something that

827
00:46:05,080 --> 00:46:08,600
Speaker 1: really has the power to shape the future of the Internet,

828
00:46:08,920 --> 00:46:11,840
Speaker 1: not for good. You know, we talked about Sesta Fasta,

829
00:46:12,440 --> 00:46:15,440
Speaker 1: how much that did to change the landscape of so

830
00:46:15,560 --> 00:46:19,040
Speaker 1: much but particularly the Internet, And yeah, I just I'm

831
00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:22,960
Speaker 1: concerned that a bill like this. I can see how

832
00:46:23,000 --> 00:46:26,160
Speaker 1: for some folks it seems like it's better than nothing,

833
00:46:26,200 --> 00:46:28,120
Speaker 1: because most people agree that we have a problem.

834
00:46:28,400 --> 00:46:29,400
Speaker 2: But I don't want.

835
00:46:29,239 --> 00:46:32,560
Speaker 1: To just push through a bill that is actually going

836
00:46:32,640 --> 00:46:36,719
Speaker 1: to create more harm for marginalized youth and queer youth

837
00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:39,560
Speaker 1: and like change the landscape of our internet to make

838
00:46:39,600 --> 00:46:45,200
Speaker 1: it less private, more draconian, you know, more harmful, more surveillance,

839
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:47,640
Speaker 1: more of our data being given up and then having

840
00:46:47,640 --> 00:46:49,440
Speaker 1: them tell us it's for our own good. Like I like,

841
00:46:49,480 --> 00:46:53,040
Speaker 1: I understand the need to do something, and I understand

842
00:46:53,080 --> 00:46:56,040
Speaker 1: that need to be like, well, we have to make

843
00:46:56,040 --> 00:46:57,759
Speaker 1: it seem like we're taking some sort of an action

844
00:46:57,880 --> 00:46:59,480
Speaker 1: on this, But I don't want it to be an

845
00:46:59,520 --> 00:47:02,200
Speaker 1: action that ends up creating more harm totally.

846
00:47:02,320 --> 00:47:06,000
Speaker 3: I mean, the red flag warning is probably a good

847
00:47:06,040 --> 00:47:08,440
Speaker 3: one here, right, Like, Oh, we have to protect kids,

848
00:47:08,480 --> 00:47:11,440
Speaker 3: like protect them from what? Like what are you protecting

849
00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:17,520
Speaker 3: them from? Protecting them from accessing content about what it

850
00:47:17,600 --> 00:47:20,680
Speaker 3: means to be gay? Like that's probably okay if they

851
00:47:20,960 --> 00:47:27,120
Speaker 3: access that. Yeah, it's the rhetoric is so lofty and vague.

852
00:47:27,880 --> 00:47:30,719
Speaker 3: I think red flag is absolutely the right term to

853
00:47:31,800 --> 00:47:34,080
Speaker 3: understand it. Ultimately, at the end of the day, I

854
00:47:34,120 --> 00:47:39,200
Speaker 3: think that, uh, you know, I personally feel like the

855
00:47:39,200 --> 00:47:43,239
Speaker 3: threat to privacy is the big risk here. I mean,

856
00:47:43,280 --> 00:47:47,640
Speaker 3: obviously there's a ton of threats and risks to young people,

857
00:47:48,360 --> 00:47:55,520
Speaker 3: and absolutely legislators, business leaders, tech companies should be you know,

858
00:47:55,600 --> 00:47:59,680
Speaker 3: addressing all of them. But the creeping risk to privacy

859
00:47:59,760 --> 00:48:03,520
Speaker 3: that we all face right now, like that seems like

860
00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:10,920
Speaker 3: the clear, big flashing red light for legislators to like

861
00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:12,560
Speaker 3: step in and do something about.

862
00:48:13,040 --> 00:48:16,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, And like, just to be super clear, like,

863
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:21,560
Speaker 1: I'm not a policy person internet legislation. I talk to

864
00:48:22,239 --> 00:48:24,640
Speaker 1: people much smarter about it than me all day long.

865
00:48:24,800 --> 00:48:28,040
Speaker 1: I am not the person to ask about whether or

866
00:48:28,080 --> 00:48:30,680
Speaker 1: not we should be advocating for a specific piece of legislation.

867
00:48:31,400 --> 00:48:33,799
Speaker 1: My job is to like talk to people about it

868
00:48:33,880 --> 00:48:35,640
Speaker 1: and to talk to people who know more about it

869
00:48:35,680 --> 00:48:37,200
Speaker 1: than me to help other people figure out what we

870
00:48:37,280 --> 00:48:40,359
Speaker 1: should be doing. And so I get, I get that

871
00:48:40,480 --> 00:48:45,120
Speaker 1: it is complex, But I don't think that it's going

872
00:48:45,160 --> 00:48:47,480
Speaker 1: to be any one, Bill, I guess is what I'm saying.

873
00:48:47,520 --> 00:48:51,439
Speaker 1: I think that we need a real rethinking and restructuring

874
00:48:51,520 --> 00:48:56,200
Speaker 1: about how we think about privacy our data as it

875
00:48:56,239 --> 00:48:58,560
Speaker 1: pertains to our children, but adults deserve it as well,

876
00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:01,279
Speaker 1: and who gets to make money off of it? What

877
00:49:01,400 --> 00:49:03,960
Speaker 1: is for sale, what's not for sale? I don't think

878
00:49:03,960 --> 00:49:07,160
Speaker 1: it's going to be any one, Bill. I think we

879
00:49:07,239 --> 00:49:12,000
Speaker 1: need a real overhaul in that department to make the

880
00:49:12,200 --> 00:49:16,680
Speaker 1: kind of like sweeping, meaningful change that we truly do

881
00:49:16,760 --> 00:49:17,600
Speaker 1: need in this country.

882
00:49:19,800 --> 00:49:37,440
Speaker 4: Let's take a quick break.

883
00:49:31,560 --> 00:49:34,640
Speaker 1: At our back, so I have a little bit of

884
00:49:34,640 --> 00:49:38,279
Speaker 1: an update add on to a story that we talked

885
00:49:38,280 --> 00:49:40,680
Speaker 1: about a couple of weeks ago. So y'all might recall

886
00:49:40,719 --> 00:49:42,640
Speaker 1: that we did a story all about how Google is

887
00:49:42,640 --> 00:49:48,000
Speaker 1: making money from lies about abortion and reproductive health. Well,

888
00:49:48,120 --> 00:49:50,239
Speaker 1: that's not all that they're making money from, because it

889
00:49:50,280 --> 00:49:54,440
Speaker 1: turns out that Google owned YouTube makes millions of dollars

890
00:49:54,440 --> 00:49:57,399
Speaker 1: from channels pushing climate disinformation.

891
00:49:58,200 --> 00:49:59,160
Speaker 2: Researchers from the.

892
00:49:59,080 --> 00:50:03,800
Speaker 1: Global nonprofit that Echo examine YouTube videos in Brazil related

893
00:50:03,800 --> 00:50:06,759
Speaker 1: to climate change and deforestation. This comes at a time

894
00:50:06,800 --> 00:50:10,600
Speaker 1: of real political controversy in Brazil, as the Lula administration

895
00:50:10,680 --> 00:50:13,799
Speaker 1: is attempting to halt and reverse the aggressive anti indigenous

896
00:50:13,800 --> 00:50:18,759
Speaker 1: pro deforestation policies of the previous Bolsonnario administration. The researchers

897
00:50:18,760 --> 00:50:21,959
Speaker 1: found that many of the videos repeated and promoted well

898
00:50:22,000 --> 00:50:25,719
Speaker 1: worn conspiracy theories that fires in the Amazon rainforest either

899
00:50:25,960 --> 00:50:28,520
Speaker 1: were not real so like did not happen, or that

900
00:50:28,560 --> 00:50:32,000
Speaker 1: they had been intentionally started by non governmental organizations to

901
00:50:32,000 --> 00:50:35,200
Speaker 1: help with their fundraising. This is despite a policy announced

902
00:50:35,239 --> 00:50:38,400
Speaker 1: by YouTube in twenty twenty one that expressly prohibited quote

903
00:50:38,640 --> 00:50:43,080
Speaker 1: ads for and monetization of content that contradicts well established

904
00:50:43,120 --> 00:50:46,960
Speaker 1: scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change.

905
00:50:47,080 --> 00:50:49,280
Speaker 1: And just as like a side note, because these issues,

906
00:50:49,320 --> 00:50:53,360
Speaker 1: you know, I've focused mostly on like domestic United States issues,

907
00:50:53,480 --> 00:50:55,680
Speaker 1: but these issues really are global because here in the

908
00:50:55,800 --> 00:50:59,840
Speaker 1: US we have a very similar well worn conspiracy theory.

909
00:51:00,400 --> 00:51:04,400
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan has used his massive platform to repeat the

910
00:51:04,480 --> 00:51:09,080
Speaker 1: lie that like Antifa or Black Lives Matter was responsible

911
00:51:09,160 --> 00:51:11,080
Speaker 1: for forest fires that we had here in the United

912
00:51:11,120 --> 00:51:14,280
Speaker 1: States last year. There was no truth to this claim.

913
00:51:14,800 --> 00:51:17,480
Speaker 1: It was just an outright lie. But it was a

914
00:51:17,520 --> 00:51:22,000
Speaker 1: particularly sticky conspiracy theory because it really overlapsed with a

915
00:51:22,040 --> 00:51:25,880
Speaker 1: lot of like flash points and tensions around things like

916
00:51:26,120 --> 00:51:29,200
Speaker 1: race and climate that we're always feeling what we were

917
00:51:29,200 --> 00:51:31,880
Speaker 1: feeling so intensely a few years ago. So I'm not

918
00:51:32,200 --> 00:51:36,840
Speaker 1: totally sure why these like extremist right wing lies about

919
00:51:37,080 --> 00:51:40,920
Speaker 1: leftists or Antifa or Black Lives Matter starting forest fires

920
00:51:41,480 --> 00:51:45,239
Speaker 1: is so hot right now pun not intended but acknowledged.

921
00:51:45,719 --> 00:51:48,320
Speaker 1: But maybe it's like a consequence of climate change getting

922
00:51:48,520 --> 00:51:50,960
Speaker 1: worse and worse in the immediate So maybe we should

923
00:51:50,960 --> 00:51:54,319
Speaker 1: really come to expect even more over the top efforts

924
00:51:54,360 --> 00:51:57,560
Speaker 1: to really shift the blame away from fossil fuel companies

925
00:51:57,560 --> 00:51:59,879
Speaker 1: and their defenders that brought us here. Like it's so

926
00:52:00,120 --> 00:52:06,120
Speaker 1: much easier to believe a wild conspiracy theory that leftists

927
00:52:06,239 --> 00:52:10,400
Speaker 1: or NGOs are intentionally starting fires because they want to

928
00:52:10,400 --> 00:52:12,319
Speaker 1: get more funding, and like it's not even really a

929
00:52:12,320 --> 00:52:15,280
Speaker 1: big issue, and like maybe the fires aren't even happening

930
00:52:15,440 --> 00:52:19,239
Speaker 1: than it is to be like, oh wow, corporations and

931
00:52:19,440 --> 00:52:23,239
Speaker 1: fossil fuel companies have really gotten us into a big problem,

932
00:52:23,480 --> 00:52:26,759
Speaker 1: the consequences of which are all around us all the time.

933
00:52:27,239 --> 00:52:30,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you're probably right that we're going to

934
00:52:30,239 --> 00:52:34,480
Speaker 3: see a lot more scapegoating as the effects of climate

935
00:52:34,560 --> 00:52:38,160
Speaker 3: change just get like more real in the here and now.

936
00:52:39,239 --> 00:52:43,000
Speaker 3: And it really speaks to the success of the fossil

937
00:52:43,000 --> 00:52:50,120
Speaker 3: fuel industries. They're like decades long campaigns to like firmly

938
00:52:50,400 --> 00:52:57,120
Speaker 3: link climate change denial with the culture wars, where you know,

939
00:52:57,160 --> 00:53:01,240
Speaker 3: they've got foot soldiers who aren't even on the payroll

940
00:53:01,360 --> 00:53:05,560
Speaker 3: carrying their water for them, saying that, oh, it's leftists

941
00:53:05,680 --> 00:53:07,160
Speaker 3: starting these fires.

942
00:53:07,560 --> 00:53:07,799
Speaker 4: Yeah.

943
00:53:08,040 --> 00:53:10,160
Speaker 1: You know what's really funny is a couple of weeks ago,

944
00:53:10,200 --> 00:53:13,359
Speaker 1: I was in a webinar about how to report on

945
00:53:13,440 --> 00:53:18,040
Speaker 1: climate misinformation and learning about these like vast networks of

946
00:53:19,000 --> 00:53:23,000
Speaker 1: pr companies that put out talking points and coordinative campaigns

947
00:53:23,040 --> 00:53:26,319
Speaker 1: to make us think that corporations are not responsible for

948
00:53:26,360 --> 00:53:27,000
Speaker 1: climate change.

949
00:53:27,520 --> 00:53:31,160
Speaker 2: And it was literally the literal hottest day on.

950
00:53:31,080 --> 00:53:34,000
Speaker 1: Earth, and I was just thinking, like, how am I

951
00:53:34,360 --> 00:53:36,719
Speaker 1: How am I like sitting here in my kitchen sweating,

952
00:53:37,719 --> 00:53:41,279
Speaker 1: unable to breathe, clearly because of there's forest fires and

953
00:53:41,320 --> 00:53:43,640
Speaker 1: there are people out here trying to tell me like, no,

954
00:53:43,719 --> 00:53:44,959
Speaker 1: there's not that's not true.

955
00:53:44,960 --> 00:53:46,879
Speaker 2: You're not experiencing that. What are you talking about?

956
00:53:46,880 --> 00:53:49,200
Speaker 1: Forestbar Like I was like, I'm being We're like being

957
00:53:49,280 --> 00:53:50,800
Speaker 1: gas lit on a massive scale.

958
00:53:51,239 --> 00:53:54,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, the East Coast has always been blanketed in smog

959
00:53:55,000 --> 00:53:56,200
Speaker 3: for the entire summer.

960
00:53:57,520 --> 00:53:59,200
Speaker 1: Like, don't you remember when you were a kid and

961
00:53:59,239 --> 00:54:01,400
Speaker 1: you couldn't go outside because of the small You're like, no,

962
00:54:01,480 --> 00:54:02,600
Speaker 1: I don't remember that.

963
00:54:02,760 --> 00:54:06,600
Speaker 2: Actually, Okay, So back to these videos.

964
00:54:06,600 --> 00:54:10,120
Speaker 1: So not only were these videos on YouTube obviously promoting

965
00:54:10,120 --> 00:54:13,160
Speaker 1: a false, alternate reality about the destruction of the Amazon rainforest,

966
00:54:13,480 --> 00:54:18,400
Speaker 1: but those videos were also making money. The researchers calculated

967
00:54:18,400 --> 00:54:21,880
Speaker 1: that YouTube channels behind these videos made between six hundred

968
00:54:22,000 --> 00:54:26,200
Speaker 1: thousand and ten million dollars in YouTube monetization. And I

969
00:54:26,239 --> 00:54:29,400
Speaker 1: know that sounds like a pretty huge range, but regardless,

970
00:54:29,440 --> 00:54:31,480
Speaker 1: if that's how much creators were making, it means that

971
00:54:31,520 --> 00:54:35,799
Speaker 1: Google was making even more by selling ads around those videos. Now,

972
00:54:35,880 --> 00:54:38,359
Speaker 1: Google is not the first company that we've talked about

973
00:54:38,360 --> 00:54:42,560
Speaker 1: on this show to have some big, flashy moderation policy.

974
00:54:42,160 --> 00:54:44,760
Speaker 2: About taking down or not allowing.

975
00:54:44,400 --> 00:54:47,800
Speaker 1: A certain kind of conspiracy theory or false information only

976
00:54:47,840 --> 00:54:51,399
Speaker 1: to like not really enforce that policy or just kind

977
00:54:51,440 --> 00:54:53,799
Speaker 1: of like quietly drop it after that new cycle of

978
00:54:53,840 --> 00:54:56,640
Speaker 1: good press ends. Nor would they be the first company

979
00:54:56,680 --> 00:54:58,520
Speaker 1: to have one set of standards in the US where

980
00:54:58,520 --> 00:55:01,600
Speaker 1: their base and a completely different set of standards abroad.

981
00:55:01,880 --> 00:55:05,719
Speaker 1: Facebook famously implemented policies around racist disinformation in the United

982
00:55:05,719 --> 00:55:09,600
Speaker 1: States in twenty seventeen while they were actively aggressively promoting

983
00:55:09,719 --> 00:55:13,520
Speaker 1: racist disinformation campaigns in Myanmar. Now, whether or not this

984
00:55:13,680 --> 00:55:16,480
Speaker 1: was like a deliberate strategy or a crime of neglect

985
00:55:16,719 --> 00:55:19,640
Speaker 1: by failing to invest in non English language moderation and

986
00:55:19,680 --> 00:55:23,000
Speaker 1: moderation software, the end result was a lot of death

987
00:55:23,040 --> 00:55:25,640
Speaker 1: and a lot of profit for these companies. But hopefully

988
00:55:25,840 --> 00:55:30,120
Speaker 1: this report does prompt Google to be more actively moderating

989
00:55:30,160 --> 00:55:35,000
Speaker 1: its Brazilian content and actually start enforcing policies against climate misinformation.

990
00:55:35,480 --> 00:55:38,480
Speaker 1: The report also noted that adds for several major brands,

991
00:55:38,560 --> 00:55:43,400
Speaker 1: including Calvin Kline, Tommy Hillfigure, Lift, Capital One, and others,

992
00:55:43,480 --> 00:55:47,880
Speaker 1: appeared alongside these videos touting these lies about forest fires,

993
00:55:48,160 --> 00:55:52,040
Speaker 1: And you really have to wonder how excited is Tommy

994
00:55:52,080 --> 00:55:56,080
Speaker 1: Hillfigure or Calvin Klein to be knowing that their advertising

995
00:55:56,120 --> 00:56:00,000
Speaker 1: dollars are directly funding a network of dangerous c lils.

996
00:56:00,000 --> 00:56:00,720
Speaker 2: I'm a denial.

997
00:56:00,960 --> 00:56:03,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, you'd have to assume not very excited. I would hope.

998
00:56:04,120 --> 00:56:06,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think it really does remind me quite

999
00:56:07,040 --> 00:56:10,480
Speaker 1: a bit of other techt stories we've covered, where for

1000
00:56:10,560 --> 00:56:13,719
Speaker 1: as much guff as I give Facebook, the version of

1001
00:56:13,760 --> 00:56:16,440
Speaker 1: Facebook that we use in the United States, like is

1002
00:56:16,560 --> 00:56:19,160
Speaker 1: the best version of Facebook that they offer, because it's

1003
00:56:19,160 --> 00:56:22,320
Speaker 1: the version that they are like actively doing the most

1004
00:56:22,360 --> 00:56:25,000
Speaker 1: work to like moderate and have the most moderators. And

1005
00:56:25,000 --> 00:56:27,320
Speaker 1: so if you don't like what we have here in

1006
00:56:27,360 --> 00:56:29,520
Speaker 1: the United States, you're gonna hate what they have in

1007
00:56:29,560 --> 00:56:32,439
Speaker 1: the global South, right, because it's much worse. And Yeah,

1008
00:56:32,440 --> 00:56:34,680
Speaker 1: I think I think it really goes back to this

1009
00:56:34,800 --> 00:56:39,960
Speaker 1: idea that we've talked about before of like this colonialist vibe,

1010
00:56:40,040 --> 00:56:43,520
Speaker 1: where like, I don't even I think that we're just

1011
00:56:43,520 --> 00:56:47,200
Speaker 1: like not supposed to think about how if the platform

1012
00:56:47,280 --> 00:56:49,400
Speaker 1: is bad here, how much worse.

1013
00:56:49,200 --> 00:56:51,480
Speaker 2: It is globally. I just think that we're like not

1014
00:56:51,480 --> 00:56:52,080
Speaker 2: supposed to think.

1015
00:56:52,160 --> 00:56:55,040
Speaker 1: The whole system kind of relies on this unwillingness to

1016
00:56:55,080 --> 00:56:57,840
Speaker 1: acknowledge the kind of harm that these platforms are responsible

1017
00:56:57,840 --> 00:56:58,560
Speaker 1: for globally.

1018
00:56:59,080 --> 00:57:03,360
Speaker 3: Totally colonial list is I think the right framework to

1019
00:57:03,400 --> 00:57:07,800
Speaker 3: think about it. It's just a very extractive model where

1020
00:57:08,239 --> 00:57:11,560
Speaker 3: whatever they need to do in the name of profit

1021
00:57:12,120 --> 00:57:17,520
Speaker 3: in other countries is fine. And as infuriated as we

1022
00:57:17,600 --> 00:57:21,760
Speaker 3: are at Meta a lot of the time, it's got

1023
00:57:21,760 --> 00:57:24,280
Speaker 3: to be so much worse in one of these other

1024
00:57:24,320 --> 00:57:32,520
Speaker 3: countries where they are just completely unencumbered by concerns about

1025
00:57:33,120 --> 00:57:37,320
Speaker 3: trying to, I don't know, be responsible actors. I think

1026
00:57:37,360 --> 00:57:42,960
Speaker 3: in Brazil in particular, Meta built a Wi Fi network

1027
00:57:43,040 --> 00:57:45,720
Speaker 3: or like a cell network. I don't know whether it

1028
00:57:45,720 --> 00:57:48,400
Speaker 3: was Wi Fi or sell. But you know, when What'sapp

1029
00:57:48,600 --> 00:57:52,000
Speaker 3: was a new thing, it took off like wildfire in

1030
00:57:52,320 --> 00:57:57,120
Speaker 3: Brazil because they did not have great cell coverage everywhere.

1031
00:57:57,720 --> 00:58:03,320
Speaker 3: But so because Facebook built a proprietary network, everybody was

1032
00:58:03,400 --> 00:58:06,760
Speaker 3: using What's App. And it's got to be super hard

1033
00:58:06,760 --> 00:58:10,080
Speaker 3: to regulate a company like that that like built and

1034
00:58:10,400 --> 00:58:12,240
Speaker 3: owns the Internet.

1035
00:58:12,760 --> 00:58:15,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, same way that AOL was the Internet when I

1036
00:58:15,480 --> 00:58:18,680
Speaker 1: was a kid. Facebook is the Internet. Facebook, What's App

1037
00:58:18,880 --> 00:58:21,640
Speaker 1: they maybe they have, maybe they own the cell service whatever,

1038
00:58:21,760 --> 00:58:25,280
Speaker 1: Like it is the Internet. It functionally is a public service,

1039
00:58:25,520 --> 00:58:27,800
Speaker 1: but it is not being regulated that way because it

1040
00:58:27,840 --> 00:58:30,880
Speaker 1: is a private company being run by, you know, for profit,

1041
00:58:31,000 --> 00:58:33,680
Speaker 1: by somebody who has shown himself again and again did

1042
00:58:33,720 --> 00:58:36,280
Speaker 1: not really cared that much about the people he is serving.

1043
00:58:36,480 --> 00:58:38,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think he just hit the nail on the head.

1044
00:58:38,160 --> 00:58:42,360
Speaker 3: It's like a it is a public service. We can

1045
00:58:42,480 --> 00:58:45,520
Speaker 3: pretend it isn't and we can fetishize the market and

1046
00:58:45,520 --> 00:58:48,320
Speaker 3: be like, oh, everything needs to be privately owned, but

1047
00:58:48,440 --> 00:58:51,600
Speaker 3: like it is a public service. We all depend on

1048
00:58:51,880 --> 00:58:54,800
Speaker 3: the internet all the time in our personal lives and

1049
00:58:54,800 --> 00:58:59,960
Speaker 3: our professional lives, and to just have it be run

1050
00:59:00,200 --> 00:59:03,600
Speaker 3: at the whim of some billionaires is bad enough. When

1051
00:59:03,680 --> 00:59:08,400
Speaker 3: those billionaires live in a totally different country and don't

1052
00:59:08,400 --> 00:59:11,920
Speaker 3: care about the local country at all, it's really a

1053
00:59:11,920 --> 00:59:13,040
Speaker 3: recipe for disaster.

1054
00:59:13,520 --> 00:59:13,760
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1055
00:59:13,800 --> 00:59:16,720
Speaker 1: I mean, back in twenty sixteen, the UN declared Internet

1056
00:59:16,760 --> 00:59:19,840
Speaker 1: access a human right. So it's not great to think

1057
00:59:19,880 --> 00:59:22,919
Speaker 1: of these companies that do so much harm and think

1058
00:59:23,000 --> 00:59:26,120
Speaker 1: so little of these populations that they're the ones who

1059
00:59:26,120 --> 00:59:28,280
Speaker 1: are meant to be providing what the UN's as is

1060
00:59:28,280 --> 00:59:28,880
Speaker 1: a human right.

1061
00:59:29,720 --> 00:59:32,680
Speaker 2: It doesn't sit right with me. And yeah, I think

1062
00:59:32,680 --> 00:59:38,240
Speaker 2: that we deserve better all globally, we deserve better. Yeah,

1063
00:59:38,600 --> 00:59:39,280
Speaker 2: I'll leave it there.

1064
00:59:39,840 --> 00:59:40,800
Speaker 3: What else you got for us?

1065
00:59:40,840 --> 00:59:47,720
Speaker 1: Bridget Well, speaking of deserving better, I have to apologize Mike.

1066
00:59:48,280 --> 00:59:50,440
Speaker 2: Last week I gave the last time that we talked.

1067
00:59:50,560 --> 00:59:52,840
Speaker 1: I guess the week before last, I gave you a

1068
00:59:52,840 --> 00:59:55,920
Speaker 1: lot of crap because you recorded an episode with your

1069
00:59:55,960 --> 00:59:58,600
Speaker 1: mic off and the audio was bad and some listeners

1070
00:59:59,360 --> 01:00:05,400
Speaker 1: complained and I really enjoyed taking the piss. But I

1071
01:00:05,440 --> 01:00:07,720
Speaker 1: have to complain. And now this is really like karma

1072
01:00:07,920 --> 01:00:10,920
Speaker 1: coming back to get me because I made a pretty

1073
01:00:10,920 --> 01:00:14,200
Speaker 1: big tech screw up that I have to own up to,

1074
01:00:14,360 --> 01:00:16,520
Speaker 1: which is that at the end of every episode, we

1075
01:00:16,560 --> 01:00:19,440
Speaker 1: say email us if you want to say hi, if

1076
01:00:19,440 --> 01:00:21,800
Speaker 1: we've got a text story, we give out the email

1077
01:00:21,800 --> 01:00:25,280
Speaker 1: address hello at tangoti dot com. In our last episode,

1078
01:00:25,440 --> 01:00:29,680
Speaker 1: I said that I'm doing a live Patreon ask Me anything,

1079
01:00:29,680 --> 01:00:31,959
Speaker 1: and I asked folks to email me questions. Please also

1080
01:00:32,040 --> 01:00:34,440
Speaker 1: email me questions. You don't have to be a Patreon

1081
01:00:34,480 --> 01:00:38,840
Speaker 1: subscriber to send a question. Patreon dot com slash tangoty. However,

1082
01:00:39,640 --> 01:00:43,440
Speaker 1: this whole time because of a screw up with my inbox.

1083
01:00:43,440 --> 01:00:45,160
Speaker 2: I won't bore you with the details.

1084
01:00:45,880 --> 01:00:49,040
Speaker 1: It turns out that that email address was going unchecked

1085
01:00:49,080 --> 01:00:51,800
Speaker 1: because it was not filtering into my main email. Long

1086
01:00:51,840 --> 01:00:54,520
Speaker 1: story short, if you have sent me an email to

1087
01:00:54,600 --> 01:00:57,520
Speaker 1: Hello at Tangodi dot com in the last like six months,

1088
01:00:57,960 --> 01:01:01,920
Speaker 1: I just now got it totally screwed up. And what's

1089
01:01:02,080 --> 01:01:05,040
Speaker 1: awful is that I literally had a point where I

1090
01:01:05,080 --> 01:01:07,680
Speaker 1: was like, nobody ever emails me. I've never I have

1091
01:01:08,080 --> 01:01:11,400
Speaker 1: never get emails, Like, are people not listening to the show?

1092
01:01:11,600 --> 01:01:13,360
Speaker 1: I was like, I was like down in the dumps

1093
01:01:13,360 --> 01:01:15,600
Speaker 1: about it. Come to find out they were emailing me.

1094
01:01:15,640 --> 01:01:16,800
Speaker 1: I just wasn't getting them.

1095
01:01:17,360 --> 01:01:19,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel pretty bad about it. You know, I

1096
01:01:19,680 --> 01:01:21,040
Speaker 3: could have been checking the email too.

1097
01:01:21,160 --> 01:01:22,560
Speaker 2: Can I find a way to blame this on you?

1098
01:01:22,760 --> 01:01:24,520
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm trying to be generous right now like

1099
01:01:24,560 --> 01:01:28,720
Speaker 3: you were supposed to be doing it, So no, you

1100
01:01:28,760 --> 01:01:33,360
Speaker 3: can't blame this on me after the mic incident last week.

1101
01:01:33,840 --> 01:01:38,920
Speaker 3: But yeah, listeners, please email us. We're very sorry. We

1102
01:01:38,960 --> 01:01:42,800
Speaker 3: are on it now. We'll get a timely response. Hello

1103
01:01:42,840 --> 01:01:44,080
Speaker 3: at Tangoti dot com.

1104
01:01:44,120 --> 01:01:46,840
Speaker 1: So we're working our way through the backlog of emails

1105
01:01:46,880 --> 01:01:49,840
Speaker 1: that I have neglected to check because of my own

1106
01:01:50,320 --> 01:01:53,480
Speaker 1: tech ineptitude. But we got one recently that was just

1107
01:01:53,520 --> 01:01:55,720
Speaker 1: super interesting and it was a response to the piece

1108
01:01:55,760 --> 01:02:01,000
Speaker 1: that we did about how people are modifying video games

1109
01:02:01,520 --> 01:02:05,440
Speaker 1: using AI deep fakes of the voice actors, and that

1110
01:02:05,560 --> 01:02:09,120
Speaker 1: sometimes those games have adult content. Y'all might remember that

1111
01:02:09,520 --> 01:02:14,280
Speaker 1: as a voice professional, I was very not pleased to

1112
01:02:14,320 --> 01:02:16,920
Speaker 1: hear that this was being done to voice actors. The

1113
01:02:17,040 --> 01:02:20,280
Speaker 1: voice actors were also not pleased about it. But we

1114
01:02:20,360 --> 01:02:22,840
Speaker 1: actually got an email from a listener that which is

1115
01:02:22,880 --> 01:02:24,400
Speaker 1: really interesting and I wanted to share it.

1116
01:02:24,600 --> 01:02:27,720
Speaker 3: So they write in Hi, new listener, first time caller.

1117
01:02:28,040 --> 01:02:30,920
Speaker 3: I love the show, and as I was listening to

1118
01:02:30,960 --> 01:02:33,080
Speaker 3: one of the latest episodes in the story about voice

1119
01:02:33,080 --> 01:02:36,920
Speaker 3: actors and video game moding came up. I was offended.

1120
01:02:37,080 --> 01:02:39,440
Speaker 3: Question mark. Don't know how to describe it, but it

1121
01:02:39,520 --> 01:02:42,480
Speaker 3: hit me wrong when it was described as disgusting to

1122
01:02:42,600 --> 01:02:46,760
Speaker 3: use someone's voice without permission, especially to make pornographic material.

1123
01:02:47,200 --> 01:02:49,280
Speaker 3: And I understand how it must feel. And I agree

1124
01:02:49,280 --> 01:02:51,760
Speaker 3: with all of your points about work and exploitation and

1125
01:02:51,800 --> 01:02:54,840
Speaker 3: the problem with AI. But I'm a fanfic writer, reader,

1126
01:02:54,920 --> 01:02:58,040
Speaker 3: and fandom enthusiasts. I know there is a difference, but

1127
01:02:58,080 --> 01:03:00,960
Speaker 3: we use characters from shows and books to our own stories,

1128
01:03:01,120 --> 01:03:03,200
Speaker 3: and the actor who brings the character to life is

1129
01:03:03,240 --> 01:03:06,200
Speaker 3: the model we use when we write stories. Often explicit

1130
01:03:06,280 --> 01:03:10,240
Speaker 3: sex and sometimes right fandom also makes art of the

1131
01:03:10,320 --> 01:03:13,400
Speaker 3: characters and sexual situations, some of which the actor might

1132
01:03:13,440 --> 01:03:17,880
Speaker 3: be uncomfortable with. There are interesting questions there, bridget.

1133
01:03:18,080 --> 01:03:20,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, I appreciate that this person wrote in It really

1134
01:03:20,880 --> 01:03:24,360
Speaker 1: got me thinking. I think it underscores something that we

1135
01:03:24,400 --> 01:03:26,520
Speaker 1: come back to time and time again on the show,

1136
01:03:26,680 --> 01:03:33,760
Speaker 1: where we are entering this new landscape where things like

1137
01:03:33,840 --> 01:03:39,280
Speaker 1: AI deep fakes might be ubiquitous, And so the.

1138
01:03:39,320 --> 01:03:42,240
Speaker 2: Line of like what is okay? What isn't okay?

1139
01:03:42,840 --> 01:03:46,800
Speaker 1: You know, what's the difference between if you used someone's

1140
01:03:46,920 --> 01:03:49,360
Speaker 1: likeness in fan fiction that they didn't consent to, but

1141
01:03:49,440 --> 01:03:52,480
Speaker 1: you've just like written about them, Like how in what

1142
01:03:52,520 --> 01:03:55,560
Speaker 1: way is that like ethically different than a deep fake

1143
01:03:55,640 --> 01:03:58,120
Speaker 1: AI version of their voice? These are all like new

1144
01:03:58,240 --> 01:04:00,800
Speaker 1: questions that we're grappling with. I want to be clear

1145
01:04:00,800 --> 01:04:03,280
Speaker 1: that I do not have all of the answers for

1146
01:04:03,480 --> 01:04:06,560
Speaker 1: these questions. We're actually going to be digging this this letter,

1147
01:04:06,640 --> 01:04:09,200
Speaker 1: like it really inspired us to like think on the topics.

1148
01:04:09,200 --> 01:04:10,880
Speaker 1: So we're going to be doing a follow up episode

1149
01:04:10,960 --> 01:04:14,000
Speaker 1: or we talk to a fan fiction expert a couple

1150
01:04:14,040 --> 01:04:16,640
Speaker 1: other folks about how they think about this. But I

1151
01:04:16,640 --> 01:04:19,000
Speaker 1: think this letter writer is spot on that there is

1152
01:04:19,040 --> 01:04:23,080
Speaker 1: not one right answer for where the line is, and

1153
01:04:23,160 --> 01:04:25,240
Speaker 1: it's sort of like we're all kind of building the

1154
01:04:25,240 --> 01:04:27,960
Speaker 1: plane as we fly it in terms of building out

1155
01:04:28,000 --> 01:04:31,640
Speaker 1: those ethical guardrails for how we deal with these things

1156
01:04:31,680 --> 01:04:32,240
Speaker 1: going forward.

1157
01:04:32,320 --> 01:04:34,840
Speaker 3: And yeah, yeah, I'm looking forward to that episode. I

1158
01:04:34,840 --> 01:04:38,400
Speaker 3: think it's there's a lot of interesting questions here about like,

1159
01:04:38,680 --> 01:04:43,479
Speaker 3: as you mentioned, with AI changing and evolving and getting better,

1160
01:04:43,560 --> 01:04:48,080
Speaker 3: so rapidly existential questions about like what is the self?

1161
01:04:48,240 --> 01:04:52,360
Speaker 3: What do we own? Like is is your physical voice

1162
01:04:52,480 --> 01:04:55,240
Speaker 3: part of the self. These are interesting things that I'm

1163
01:04:55,280 --> 01:04:57,440
Speaker 3: really looking forward to listening to you talk with some

1164
01:04:57,560 --> 01:04:58,320
Speaker 3: experts about it.

1165
01:04:58,560 --> 01:04:58,919
Speaker 2: Me too.

1166
01:04:59,000 --> 01:05:01,680
Speaker 1: So thank you to this writer for writing in. Thank

1167
01:05:01,720 --> 01:05:04,240
Speaker 1: you to everyone who's written in in the last six months.

1168
01:05:05,240 --> 01:05:07,240
Speaker 1: Sorry that I have not read those emails.

1169
01:05:06,920 --> 01:05:07,640
Speaker 2: But I'm on it.

1170
01:05:08,320 --> 01:05:10,800
Speaker 1: I've got a backlog, please keep emailing me.

1171
01:05:11,440 --> 01:05:14,640
Speaker 2: And lastly, before we wrap, obviously we usually.

1172
01:05:14,360 --> 01:05:17,440
Speaker 1: Do these newscasts at the end of the week on Fridays,

1173
01:05:17,480 --> 01:05:21,160
Speaker 1: and today we're doing it on Tuesday because I've been

1174
01:05:21,760 --> 01:05:24,240
Speaker 1: recovering from surgery, so I'm also on painkillers. So if

1175
01:05:24,240 --> 01:05:27,400
Speaker 1: I sound weird because I'm on painkillers, but let us

1176
01:05:27,520 --> 01:05:30,400
Speaker 1: know how this feels to you, because usually on a

1177
01:05:30,400 --> 01:05:35,560
Speaker 1: Tuesday episode, you're getting like a produced interview me with

1178
01:05:35,600 --> 01:05:39,000
Speaker 1: somebody else about one topic. Today you're getting a newscast.

1179
01:05:39,040 --> 01:05:41,560
Speaker 1: I'm curious how that is landing for folks. You can

1180
01:05:41,600 --> 01:05:43,760
Speaker 1: email me and let me know and I will read

1181
01:05:43,840 --> 01:05:49,680
Speaker 1: the email. Yes, please email me. I feel like I've

1182
01:05:49,760 --> 01:05:52,200
Speaker 1: just discovered this new technology called emailed.

1183
01:05:52,240 --> 01:05:53,760
Speaker 2: Everybody's doing emails.

1184
01:05:53,960 --> 01:05:58,880
Speaker 3: You've got mail. Our second AOL reference of the episode.

1185
01:05:59,040 --> 01:06:02,160
Speaker 2: Ah, okay, that's our cue to call it. That's our

1186
01:06:02,200 --> 01:06:03,320
Speaker 2: cue to call it. Okay.

1187
01:06:04,160 --> 01:06:07,480
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening, Thank you for all

1188
01:06:07,480 --> 01:06:09,600
Speaker 1: the well wishes on my surgery.

1189
01:06:09,960 --> 01:06:12,400
Speaker 2: And Mike, thanks for being here as always, Buddy.

1190
01:06:12,160 --> 01:06:13,800
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me Bridget, it was a pleasure.

1191
01:06:17,360 --> 01:06:19,400
Speaker 1: Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or

1192
01:06:19,480 --> 01:06:21,320
Speaker 1: just want to say hi. You can reach us at

1193
01:06:21,360 --> 01:06:24,080
Speaker 1: Hello at tangody dot com. You can also find transcripts

1194
01:06:24,080 --> 01:06:26,520
Speaker 1: for today's episode at tengodi dot com. There Are No

1195
01:06:26,600 --> 01:06:28,680
Speaker 1: Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget tod.

1196
01:06:29,040 --> 01:06:32,480
Speaker 1: It's a production of iHeartRadio, an unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland

1197
01:06:32,520 --> 01:06:35,240
Speaker 1: is our executive producer. Tarry Harrison is our producer and

1198
01:06:35,280 --> 01:06:39,080
Speaker 1: sound engineer. Michael Almato is our contributing producer. I'm your host,

1199
01:06:39,080 --> 01:06:41,880
Speaker 1: Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate

1200
01:06:41,920 --> 01:06:45,640
Speaker 1: and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,

1201
01:06:45,760 --> 01:06:48,120
Speaker 1: check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

1202
01:06:48,120 --> 01:07:01,960
Speaker 1: get your podcasts