Speaker 1: When a woman gets attacked online, it's a woman, it's
Speaker 1: your children, it's her mother, it's her sisters. Like that
Speaker 1: will shut us down. There are no girls on the Internet.
Speaker 1: As a production of I Heart Radio and Unboss Creative,
Speaker 1: I'm bridget Todd and this is there are no girls
Speaker 1: on the Internet. With historic numbers of women running for
Speaker 1: state white office, also comes a sobering reality that those
Speaker 1: same women are more likely to be targeted online. For it.
Speaker 1: It's not just women running for office. We've seen educators,
Speaker 1: election workers, and their families being targeted. Now this doesn't
Speaker 1: just harm the women being harassed and attacked, It's also
Speaker 1: meant to keep us from being able to fully participate
Speaker 1: in civic life. It's an attack on our democracy and
Speaker 1: it's dangerous. I'm Shanna Delabu and I am the CEO
Speaker 1: of Bright Lines. Shanna is used to dangerous work. She
Speaker 1: learned about how the internet works and used what she
Speaker 1: learned to train law enforcement officials on how to target
Speaker 1: and combat violent drug cartels. So I worked on Mexico
Speaker 1: and like the drug cartels, and this was like two
Speaker 1: thousand and ten, twousand eleven. They were doing a fair
Speaker 1: amount of killing journalists citizen journalists, and so yeah, I
Speaker 1: was really deep into that side of the work. So
Speaker 1: it was really fulfilling. Shanna became an expert on p
Speaker 1: i I personal identifying information and eventually started working to
Speaker 1: support journalists, activists, and civil society in places like the
Speaker 1: former Soviet Union to try to maintain a sense of
Speaker 1: democracy amidst a crumbling empire. And then in the United States,
Speaker 1: Trump was elected and her work became that much more
Speaker 1: relevant and in demand at home. And Trump got elected
Speaker 1: and people in America finally wanted my services, and then
Speaker 1: around more and more people were concerned about their information online.
Speaker 1: So the stuff that I've been training law enforcement on
Speaker 1: ten years prior started to become really important to people
Speaker 1: here understanding that they had a lot of p I
Speaker 1: I out there on all of these data broker sites
Speaker 1: and people's search sites, not facial recognition sites, and how
Speaker 1: could they get that down so that people couldn't do
Speaker 1: them harm? And so in twenty one we got a
Speaker 1: little bit of seed funding and I started bright Lines
Speaker 1: in August of last year. Something that I read about
Speaker 1: your work is that it's I guess I'm at youth
Speaker 1: the phrase like trauma informed, like you have, you you
Speaker 1: kind of bring that lens to the work that you do,
Speaker 1: which I feel like so often when I have conversations
Speaker 1: about technology and the Internet and how to stay safe,
Speaker 1: the word trauma never even enters the conversation. And yet
Speaker 1: trauma is really like a I think oftentimes a part
Speaker 1: of that experience. Absolutely, it is a magnifier. Its scales trauma,
Speaker 1: just like it's scale than anything else, the way that
Speaker 1: it's built to be so exclusive to a certain kind
Speaker 1: of experience, to exclude that the lived experiences of the
Speaker 1: people who are using it. It's just like this thing
Speaker 1: on its own can create trauma, can magnify trauma. And
Speaker 1: then if you're going through something traumatic because of the Internet,
Speaker 1: it ignites a trauma response and the human being that
Speaker 1: can't you can't do anything about it, right, You can't
Speaker 1: go to help. There's no help, right. And and it's
Speaker 1: so approximate because like your phone is under your pillow
Speaker 1: at night, is mine under my pillow at night because
Speaker 1: I fell asleep listening to my podcast, I don't wake
Speaker 1: up my family, so like it's right here in my ear,
Speaker 1: and to wake up and see like a flood of
Speaker 1: messages of people who are angry with me. Is triggering
Speaker 1: and like not triggering in the sense of like it's
Speaker 1: a trigger warning, it might bring back memories and triggering
Speaker 1: of an autonomic response. Yeah, I had a trauma experience
Speaker 1: when I was living in so I spent a summer
Speaker 1: in Mexico. I was attacked when I was there, was
Speaker 1: stabbed by a man just in like a random like
Speaker 1: and he wasn't even trying to rob me a situation. Um.
Speaker 1: And when I came home, I had a lot of
Speaker 1: night terrors, was diagnosed with PTSD. It took me a
Speaker 1: few years to finally sleep through the night and feel
Speaker 1: comfortable in my own skin. And I brought that experience,
Speaker 1: could see it and everybody that we worked with overseas
Speaker 1: UM and I can see it in the movement work
Speaker 1: that we do now. And I can see it with
Speaker 1: the people who come to us for support because they're
Speaker 1: afraid of being docks or they bend docks. It is everywhere,
Speaker 1: the trauma and like, how do you how do we
Speaker 1: how do we keep like lining these rich white dudes
Speaker 1: pockets for technology that's like causing so many of us
Speaker 1: actual harm. So fun, I mean, I I it's it's
Speaker 1: the reality of the work. And I think that you're
Speaker 1: so right that we keep allowing the rich white dudes
Speaker 1: to create and get rich off of technology that causes
Speaker 1: harm while not even like not even they don't even
Speaker 1: have to reckon with that, that they can just sort
Speaker 1: of pretend like like what harm, what trauma. It's like
Speaker 1: the way that we've allowed wealthy tech folks who are
Speaker 1: mostly white men to get rich off of our harm
Speaker 1: and turn our lives into like a marketplace for negative,
Speaker 1: harmful experiences. It infuriates me to no end. My friends
Speaker 1: or Raya Shinali always says, these guys named Jack on
Speaker 1: the board of Twitter, they're making money every time someone
Speaker 1: close after me, because like there are more men named
Speaker 1: Jack than women on the board, and every time someone
Speaker 1: tweets bullshit at me, they make money. And I don't
Speaker 1: think we say that enough. I don't think that we
Speaker 1: hit on that enough. There's zero accountability around them, right,
Speaker 1: we know they don't let their own children use these tools,
Speaker 1: but love it when ours do. Have you zero conscience? Great? Great? Yeah,
Speaker 1: more impactful than any nation state. You know. Now you
Speaker 1: have more breadth and more money than any of us.
Speaker 1: So it's awesome. It's awesome times. There was once a
Speaker 1: time where I thought digital security kind of began and
Speaker 1: ended with protecting my credit card information or my social
Speaker 1: Security number from scammers. But today the real threat is
Speaker 1: so much more than that. So for folks listening, can
Speaker 1: you give us a definition of doxing? Yeah? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think the really sort of bare bones definition is anything
Speaker 1: that is private being published publicly in some way. So
Speaker 1: a lot of times docks sing means your private documents,
Speaker 1: Like that's where the docks comes from. UM in the beginning,
Speaker 1: I think folks consider that to be just like social
Speaker 1: security numbers or credit card and m rs. We spoke
Speaker 1: with a legal team that was working with an abortion
Speaker 1: provider last week who is she has UM. She works
Speaker 1: with the public university in the Midwest, and so they
Speaker 1: were concerned about the public records requests they were getting
Speaker 1: and saying, okay, so we have to fulfill these requests.
Speaker 1: What if her information might be p i I personally
Speaker 1: identifiable information that could be docked? Right, They were thinking
Speaker 1: about like that, like credit card numbers, social security numbers,
Speaker 1: and so we briefed them on just the amount of
Speaker 1: data we would call p i I. So again, personally
Speaker 1: identifiable information that could lead to a dox um. I'd
Speaker 1: say the biggest threat of doxing is someone showing up
Speaker 1: at your home. The next threats are people making like
Speaker 1: threatening phone calls, are sending threatening texts. We had a
Speaker 1: client who was receiving photo texts of guns, guns laid
Speaker 1: down on the bed with the accompanying message that I'm
Speaker 1: coming for you. Sometimes it's messages to their loved ones,
Speaker 1: particularly if they're women, women of color, other intersectional identities.
Speaker 1: That threat gets spread out, so the docs will happen
Speaker 1: to their children, to their loved ones, their partner, their parents,
Speaker 1: right their mother's it's usually it's usually other female presenting
Speaker 1: people um and so those numbers might get shared, or
Speaker 1: those email addresses might get shared, or those home addresses.
Speaker 1: We spoke to a client today who was like, I
Speaker 1: don't own my home, but I helped my mother buy
Speaker 1: their her home, and I'm worried about that part. I
Speaker 1: don't want anyone going after my mom. That's pretty common, right,
Speaker 1: So when someone gets kind of chewed up by this
Speaker 1: outrage machine, they're looking for any way to find a
Speaker 1: way to them in their personal life. So as we
Speaker 1: were explaining to these lawyers, like you need to think
Speaker 1: about is that person's cell phone number in their signature
Speaker 1: block on the emails that they're asking for. Is their
Speaker 1: personal email address? In there are their photos of their
Speaker 1: newborn child that they might have shared with their colleagues
Speaker 1: at work. Is the name of the child out there,
Speaker 1: because especially with abortion providers UM child Protective Services will
Speaker 1: get called on them and they can't do that if
Speaker 1: they don't know the name of the kid. So in
Speaker 1: that case, they're looking for a way to get to you.
Speaker 1: And doxing would just mean publishing that someplace. Docksmen is
Speaker 1: a really popular place for that. There are other doxing
Speaker 1: only websites and sometimes folks do that on Twitter. Sometimes
Speaker 1: they do them their own websites. Sometimes they you know,
Speaker 1: do it on Telegram or Kiwi Farms or a chan
Speaker 1: or you know the kind of cow places. Yeah, such
Speaker 1: a cesspool of crap. You call it the alternate more
Speaker 1: being nice, but I just generally call it like the cesspool. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty sad. And I think something that I
Speaker 1: so in doing the podcast, I think I had a
Speaker 1: little bit of a shift and how I understand doc
Speaker 1: saying and the kinds of attacks and harassment that particularly
Speaker 1: marginalized people can face. I always thought that it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, who, who am I like, no one's ever
Speaker 1: gonna want to come after me. I'm not really like,
Speaker 1: like who who would want to who would spend their
Speaker 1: time finding this information? And something that people say again
Speaker 1: it again, it's like you never know what's going to
Speaker 1: be the thing that gets you on the wrong side
Speaker 1: of the wrong like gets you on that bad side
Speaker 1: of the wrong side of the internet. You really never know,
Speaker 1: and so be proactive to protect yourself. You never know
Speaker 1: when it's going to be your turn in the barrel.
Speaker 1: That's what we always say. The outrage machine loves to
Speaker 1: pick off an individual. It's like so hungry it needs
Speaker 1: to be fed, and like individual people get thrown in
Speaker 1: there and sometimes for nothing. Do you know, like did
Speaker 1: you see that this? Maybe not this? The Warby Parker
Speaker 1: customer service was fielding a bunch of threatening um calls
Speaker 1: and threats to docks because because Barby Parker wasn't advertising
Speaker 1: I think on Dan Bongino's website anymore. The women being
Speaker 1: targeted are not usually big, flashy public figures or well
Speaker 1: moneyed or well connected They're just regular people who wanted
Speaker 1: to serve the public. Back in. Educator Cecilia Lewis didn't
Speaker 1: even know what critical race theory was, let alone had
Speaker 1: she been hired to teach it to school children in
Speaker 1: the Cherokee County School District in Georgia, where she had
Speaker 1: just been hired as a school administrator. But that didn't
Speaker 1: stop groups from organizing online to run her out of
Speaker 1: town and run her out of the next town where
Speaker 1: she was hired to teach. This teacher, Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I've been thinking about this pro public article. This teacher
Speaker 1: Cecilia Lewis, she was an educator. I heard the story
Speaker 1: I have went down to work in Georgia. The people
Speaker 1: assumed she was there to teach critical race theory. They
Speaker 1: asked to see, oh, Louis, what's c r T is?
Speaker 1: She's like culturally something, some sh she was not her gender,
Speaker 1: and then they followed her to her next job in Georgia.
Speaker 1: It's just like, why you know that you're just looking
Speaker 1: for a scapeboat all the time. Um, you know, so
Speaker 1: you never know if it's because you helped to update
Speaker 1: a Wikipedia article that someone is going to be angry
Speaker 1: with you or you tweet something that gets taken out
Speaker 1: of context, or you know you're an election official. Yeah,
Speaker 1: your mom a mint. Yeah, Oh my god. Shay and
Speaker 1: Ruby Freeman their testimony, I mean, this is such a tangent,
Speaker 1: but their testimony and the January six commission broke my heart,
Speaker 1: like people showing up at her at her grandmother's house,
Speaker 1: Like it was heartbreaking. Anybody who's who has an ounce
Speaker 1: of empathy could feel that they did nothing wrong. They
Speaker 1: were doing a job and not exactly like a glamorous
Speaker 1: or high paid or like well well compensated around the
Speaker 1: all around, or even like well appreciated job. They're doing
Speaker 1: a pretty tough and thankless and hot job and probably
Speaker 1: not getting paid very much for it. And that's the
Speaker 1: things they got. Yeah, I mean, And in that testimony
Speaker 1: they talk about how you know, they weren't drawn to
Speaker 1: community service, like helping their community, and I think that
Speaker 1: something is really broken and wrong when the cost of
Speaker 1: serving your community is being the target of these kinds
Speaker 1: of dangerous attacks to your teacher. You're a teacher because
Speaker 1: you love children, because you believe that like the next
Speaker 1: generation needs all of love and Karen, like just support
Speaker 1: that they can get and then someone accuses you of
Speaker 1: being a groomer, and that's the end of your life
Speaker 1: as you know it. Like what the hell is wrong
Speaker 1: of people? Like if you've got some kind of grievance
Speaker 1: about what's happening for you, that's like yours, right, but
Speaker 1: it's like you you can go and project it on
Speaker 1: other people all you want. But in an age where
Speaker 1: political tensions are clearly very high, we have more guns,
Speaker 1: and we have people in this country, and we have
Speaker 1: all this p I I available. Like I said, I
Speaker 1: started working on this ten years ago. The amount of
Speaker 1: data now versus then, it's exponentially more that's out there.
Speaker 1: You can find anything on anybody that's not that's we've
Speaker 1: I think we've gone a little bit too far swinging
Speaker 1: in that direction. Oh yes, let's take a quick break
Speaker 1: at our back. We already know that women, especially black
Speaker 1: women in and women of color, have long been targeted, harassed,
Speaker 1: and attacked, but Shauna says it wasn't until the issue
Speaker 1: started impacting powerful white men and their families that legislators
Speaker 1: and tech companies really started paying any attention at all.
Speaker 1: In addition to poll workers like Shaye and Ruby Freeman,
Speaker 1: who are black women being harassed and threatened after Trump
Speaker 1: baselessly claimed that they had helped rig the election against him.
Speaker 1: In Georgia, Tricia Rathnsburger, the wife of Georgia's Secretary of
Speaker 1: State Brad Raethinsburger, started getting threatening text messages and the
Speaker 1: militia group the Oathkeepers, showed up outside of her home.
Speaker 1: Her daughter in law's home was broken into, and what
Speaker 1: Tricia says was an attempt to intimidate her and her family.
Speaker 1: So many things to say. First of all, we don't
Speaker 1: have these tools because up until a year or two ago,
Speaker 1: this only happened to women and women of color and
Speaker 1: people of color and people who were not white men.
Speaker 1: It only started happening to white men, I'd say, in
Speaker 1: with Brad Raeffinsburg, and even then it was his wife
Speaker 1: that was getting all the hate, right, Like, it didn't
Speaker 1: happen to people who mattered to people, right, And by people,
Speaker 1: I mean legislators and tech companies. Those are then they're
Speaker 1: run by the same group of people, so zero empathy, right,
Speaker 1: We're not people to them. Fine, so this was happening
Speaker 1: to just us, great, so not a real concern. The
Speaker 1: police would tell folks all the time, like, oh, just
Speaker 1: get the Internet, as though that were possible, because again
Speaker 1: fundamentally don't understand. It's not happening to me. I don't
Speaker 1: have to worry about it. Then you have all of
Speaker 1: these legislators who refused to understand how technology works, and
Speaker 1: because of Citizens United, have been running their campaigns on
Speaker 1: tech donations, and how can they possibly regulate them without
Speaker 1: without having to do something, you know, like to piss
Speaker 1: off their money bags. They're like Daddy Warbucks, right dot com?
Speaker 1: So like, now now there's more political will for it,
Speaker 1: because again we're starting to see the political islands amp
Speaker 1: of because there's so much data out there. But I
Speaker 1: would argue bridget and I don't see this anywhere else.
Speaker 1: And I don't understand why all of these pieces of
Speaker 1: legislation that are getting proposed now carve out states selling
Speaker 1: data to data brokers. To start with, it is state agencies,
Speaker 1: whether they're d m vs, that's pretty well documented, um,
Speaker 1: if their utilities, if their law enforcement databases that are
Speaker 1: getting sold to data brokers who are then selling them
Speaker 1: back to us. If it's like ICE or some other
Speaker 1: federal agency, but they're also selling them to data brokers,
Speaker 1: just to make sure I understand. So, state agencies, the
Speaker 1: d m V, my utilities company, my pepco, whatever, there
Speaker 1: might be the ones who are selling this data and
Speaker 1: making money off of it that is putting people at risk.
Speaker 1: They are the ones that are doing it. Okay, So
Speaker 1: if you can't tell what Shana just said that it's
Speaker 1: actually our public services and state agencies, the places that
Speaker 1: we all have to deal with. We want the heat
Speaker 1: or the power or the water turned on in our
Speaker 1: apartments or just registered to vote, are also the same
Speaker 1: places selling our sensitive data. Floored me. I just had
Speaker 1: no idea that that's one way that our information is
Speaker 1: being put out there. This is shocking information to me.
Speaker 1: You're probably like, oh yeah, buckle up gets worse. But
Speaker 1: I think that would be shocking information to most people. Right.
Speaker 1: You would never know it until you went to FOYA
Speaker 1: and I read. So the Center on Privacy and Technology
Speaker 1: at Georgetown did this two year um research projects. They
Speaker 1: published it earlier this year called the American Dragnet, and
Speaker 1: their list of sources is just like the FOY at
Speaker 1: all of these agencies across I think it's twenty states,
Speaker 1: something like Remarkable that sold their law enforcement databases two ice.
Speaker 1: That was their specific focus. I'd say, in addition to utilities,
Speaker 1: we know the courts sell court records, and those usually
Speaker 1: like so you imagine that you get a parking ticket.
Speaker 1: Because I lived in DC and I can never remember
Speaker 1: which side of the street is street cleaning this week,
Speaker 1: I get a parking ticket, and then there's a traffic
Speaker 1: court date if I want to go. I don't even
Speaker 1: think about it. A ticket, it's like done. But there's
Speaker 1: a record right that has my name, my home address,
Speaker 1: the then number of my car, probably my date of birth,
Speaker 1: the information from my driver's license, plus my car, and
Speaker 1: so that's a court record that would get sold. So
Speaker 1: then what happened? Someone wants to follow Like the thing
Speaker 1: that terrifies me the most with these election officials. What
Speaker 1: they were describing was that people would wait for them
Speaker 1: in the parking to leave, They would follow them, take
Speaker 1: pictures of their license plates. They don't have to follow
Speaker 1: them home. They could then just go online, pay twenty
Speaker 1: bucks and find out that person's home address, telephone number, whatever,
Speaker 1: because they had the license plate of that person. That's
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the idea that we've Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I did that we've we've I guess there's an expectation
Speaker 1: that governed that you're you know, state and local agencies
Speaker 1: like that would be invested in keeping you safe. But
Speaker 1: I guess that's just not the case, not at all.
Speaker 1: I don't think that they even think about that. I
Speaker 1: think they feel what's killing me is that we pay taxes.
Speaker 1: So like before data brokers approached any of these agencies
Speaker 1: and said, hey, can you sell me your assessor database
Speaker 1: so I know who lives where and I can put
Speaker 1: it on block shopper because I'm I'd love to add that,
Speaker 1: inform me whatever. Like before that happened, these agencies ran
Speaker 1: just fine on our tax dollars. If the issues there
Speaker 1: have budget shortfalls because we don't pay enough in taxes, like, well,
Speaker 1: we're still paying for it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Like in most cases, what is heartbreaking the ironic is
Speaker 1: that they're not even charging the value of it, like
Speaker 1: twenty dollars. Well, what I mean, DC says, it's entire
Speaker 1: voter file for two bucks that includes Supreme Court justices,
Speaker 1: Like she's not really big people living this still, and
Speaker 1: so I see laws like God bless her esther salis
Speaker 1: of federal judge in New Jersey whose son was murdered
Speaker 1: in an attack on her home that the guy was
Speaker 1: looking for her killed her son, shout her husband. My
Speaker 1: family has experienced a paying that no one should ever
Speaker 1: have to endure, and I am here asking everyone to
Speaker 1: help me ensure that no one ever has to experience
Speaker 1: this kind of pain. Judge to her, Salas's story is
Speaker 1: as tragic as it is terrifying. In July, an assailant
Speaker 1: came to Judge Salis's home and her twenty year old
Speaker 1: son answered the door. Her son was shot and killed.
Speaker 1: Her husband was also shot, but he survived. The primary
Speaker 1: suspect was roy Den Hollander, a self proclaimed quote anti
Speaker 1: feminist lawyer known for things like bringing unsuccessful lawsuits against
Speaker 1: nightclubs for having ladies nights and colleges for teaching women
Speaker 1: studies courses. He had previously gone before Judge Solace and
Speaker 1: in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the male only
Speaker 1: military draft. Hollander died by suicide after being named a
Speaker 1: suspect in the attack, and after his death it was
Speaker 1: revealed that he was also planning an attack on Supreme
Speaker 1: Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. In response, Judge Salace champions Daniel's Law,
Speaker 1: legislation specifically designed to protect personal information about active and
Speaker 1: retired judges, law enforcement officials, prosecute earth, and their immediate
Speaker 1: family members from being made public. She drafted Daniel's Law
Speaker 1: that was passed in New Jersey. They brought it to
Speaker 1: the federal you know, to the to the federal level,
Speaker 1: and um it just it carved out two things. First
Speaker 1: of all, it carved out allowing their addresses, so they
Speaker 1: had to be flagged on a database if they were
Speaker 1: a federal judge or some other kind of judicial person,
Speaker 1: but never was it that they had to hied that information.
Speaker 1: So like if DC flagged the federal judge, or in
Speaker 1: this case of New Jersey, if if Esther Salace herself
Speaker 1: was flagged, she would never show up on a public
Speaker 1: like on a database, on a on a website, you
Speaker 1: could never search for her name and find her, search
Speaker 1: her address and find her. But what they don't seem
Speaker 1: to understand is that New Jersey would just sell the
Speaker 1: full database and while she was flagged to not show
Speaker 1: up on their public facing website, there's no protection of
Speaker 1: her if the whole filed gets sold. So they don't
Speaker 1: seem to get that right. And even with this a
Speaker 1: d p P A like the American Data Privacy Protection Act,
Speaker 1: I think I don't remember entirely what it stands for.
Speaker 1: But they carve out state agencies. They're not considered. They
Speaker 1: don't even consider them when it comes to who's selling
Speaker 1: the data to data brokers, let alone consider like what
Speaker 1: a data broker is and how they would self identify.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've ever seen these tech companies
Speaker 1: when they get squirrely asked like are you a media company?
Speaker 1: Are you a tech company? That? And they will not
Speaker 1: say because they don't have to because and they'd be
Speaker 1: regulated like what they are, and they just won't do it.
Speaker 1: These data brokers aren't going to Tons and Reuters is
Speaker 1: a journalism company that also has Data of mind for
Speaker 1: twenty five years as like a dorm address for me
Speaker 1: in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I'm like, I didn't even have utilities,
Speaker 1: they don't sell phone, how do you have this address?
Speaker 1: So yeah, I like to call it commodification without consent
Speaker 1: because they just keep selling it. And I think I
Speaker 1: was saying this. California sells its entire d m V
Speaker 1: database for like thirty million dollars, like they grossly undervalue
Speaker 1: their own act. It's like, how it's so fucked up,
Speaker 1: so fucked you know we're gonna just like sell us out.
Speaker 1: Could you at least make enough mind? Yeah, like make
Speaker 1: enough money that like, oh, you'll pick the roads. It's
Speaker 1: like what, like why why do I sell potholes if
Speaker 1: you're like you know you're gonna pull that ship, and
Speaker 1: then I still have to live with like your bullshit roads. Exactly.
Speaker 1: I can die and try continually, so you tell me
Speaker 1: if that's enough, or you have follow up questions there.
Speaker 1: It's just so frustrating for them. They just don't get it,
Speaker 1: or if I don't, I can't see how they understand.
Speaker 1: And by day I mean legislators that like maybe a
Speaker 1: child Protective Services database doesn't need to be sold to
Speaker 1: spoke you, doesn't need to be sold to Thompson readers.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's something that could be protected because it fucking
Speaker 1: matters that it's protected, Like who needs to see that? No, nobody,
Speaker 1: nobody needs to know. And I think it just speaks
Speaker 1: to this idea of like do we want to live
Speaker 1: in a world where everything, even our most sensitive information
Speaker 1: about ourselves our children is for sale, has a price,
Speaker 1: I would argue no, I would argue some things shouldn't
Speaker 1: be for sale, particularly by my state and local uh government,
Speaker 1: not without my consent. People still shoot with the bathroom
Speaker 1: door closed until that changes, I would argue that, no,
Speaker 1: they you get to make that decision for themselves, and
Speaker 1: this is not that we don't get to decide. You
Speaker 1: have to have an ID to get on an airplane,
Speaker 1: to drive a car, you have to have an idea
Speaker 1: to get into a bar, like you have to have
Speaker 1: identifications CONU no option there, So that they're selling in
Speaker 1: our I D information because some private company is fucking
Speaker 1: mind blowing thinking, how are you supposed to have heat?
Speaker 1: You can just freeze because you can't. You don't want
Speaker 1: your information to be sold to some conglomerate, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, that conglomerate gave Equifax, gives Equifax all their
Speaker 1: data to sell them straight because in the nineties they
Speaker 1: didn't understand the ramifications of the amount of data they
Speaker 1: were collecting and of those five utilities or so um,
Speaker 1: you know, millions tens of millions of Americans data these
Speaker 1: Equifax was charged with building the database to put it
Speaker 1: all together. And in exchange it got the soul rights
Speaker 1: to sell it to third parties. The nine needs. No
Speaker 1: one probably thought anything of it because they were dumb.
Speaker 1: We did, we didn't know who knew. Apparently these guys
Speaker 1: at Tago Facts are like this sucking money. Look all
Speaker 1: this data is going to mean something someday, so evil,
Speaker 1: so evil. I'm happy that we are starting to get
Speaker 1: services and tools that are better than just like, oh
Speaker 1: do this to that, like piecemeal solution. What kind of
Speaker 1: services does the bright Line offer for folks who are
Speaker 1: running for office, who are activists, who you know might
Speaker 1: be wanting to protect themselves online. Yeah yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so yes. So to my final to the last point,
Speaker 1: I want to just say, the narrative, the consistent narrative
Speaker 1: is that you did this to yourself, you operating on
Speaker 1: the Internet and your social media in in being on
Speaker 1: Facebook or posting this information. This is why your data
Speaker 1: is out there. You did this to yourself. And that
Speaker 1: is such a bald faced lie and absolute bullshit. And
Speaker 1: it's the same story we hear from tech over and over.
Speaker 1: It has nothing. We didn't do anything wrong. So first
Speaker 1: and foremost, like if your p I I is out there.
Speaker 1: It's nothing you did, more than likely unless you took
Speaker 1: a photo of your driver's license, and most people don't
Speaker 1: do the kind of ship so even then wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been scraped by most of the databases, if not all
Speaker 1: who have it. So don't believe that lie. First, what
Speaker 1: do we do at bright lenes So I think when
Speaker 1: you talk about delete me, there's another one called Canary.
Speaker 1: There are other services like that Privacy Duck used to
Speaker 1: exist that would helps scrape your information from data broker sites.
Speaker 1: That is low hanging fruit. For the most part, those
Speaker 1: sites will opt your information out at least for a while.
Speaker 1: Uh they've been they do pop it back up right
Speaker 1: and so you can go through and do that kind
Speaker 1: of whack a mole with them across these hundreds of sites.
Speaker 1: So you can pay someone to do it with the
Speaker 1: body and some human interaction, and that's relatively inexpensive. It
Speaker 1: is not easy, however, to get your information down at
Speaker 1: the core, and that is what we do, like we
Speaker 1: go to the root of the public record. What's really
Speaker 1: difficult about the work we do is that it takes
Speaker 1: so much follow up cajoling, like being a really nice
Speaker 1: like white lady and you know, I see that you
Speaker 1: love Jesus me too. Would you put abortion doctors ship
Speaker 1: off your website? Literally conversation we had this week. Um,
Speaker 1: blessings was her response. In any event, Like, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of kind of following up there. We have no protections,
Speaker 1: right like section to thirty well hated among privacy activists
Speaker 1: is like this shield for the content that's on a
Speaker 1: website that the website owner isn't responsible for the content
Speaker 1: that gets placed there. So, like we were talking about
Speaker 1: at the start of the hour, like no accountability, and
Speaker 1: that is the upper you know, the modus operandi of
Speaker 1: this industry. There's no accountability public records. Um. That is
Speaker 1: where we're different than anyone else because we don't want
Speaker 1: you to keep coming back. Um. Other services are designed
Speaker 1: to keep having to knock your information down. That's that's
Speaker 1: just not how we like to operate. So say a candidate,
Speaker 1: an activist, a journalist, UM, a medical doctor, in some
Speaker 1: cases a climate a climate scientists will come to us
Speaker 1: and say, hey, I'm worried about these pieces. My mom
Speaker 1: owns a home, I own this farm. Because that's the
Speaker 1: thing that actually a handful of our clients farms like
Speaker 1: I started a company, registered it in my name and
Speaker 1: my home address, I'm registered to vote in this state.
Speaker 1: That I'm worried about that, and um, they'll ask, you know,
Speaker 1: what do I do? I've been getting some messages online
Speaker 1: that bother me. Or I'm afraid that because my work
Speaker 1: is in race equity, I will and I have a
Speaker 1: little child at home, or I have several children at home,
Speaker 1: or I'm Chinese American and that's our latest like hate flavor, right,
Speaker 1: So what can I do? So we'll take a few
Speaker 1: minutes with them to understand their concerns. Um, talk through
Speaker 1: what has happened and what they're what's coming up for
Speaker 1: them in their lives, and then the areas where and
Speaker 1: by that I mean like are they going to speaking publicly,
Speaker 1: are they publishing something, etcetera. And then talk with them
Speaker 1: about you know, who's at home, who they want to protect,
Speaker 1: what they want to protect. Sometimes it's an identity. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's an identity or a previous marriage that they don't
Speaker 1: want folks to know about, or it's they have little
Speaker 1: children or with their mom right or their grandma. And
Speaker 1: so what we'll then do is take like a delete
Speaker 1: me and start scrubbing the low hanging fruit that's on
Speaker 1: the data broker sites and then use a handful of
Speaker 1: frankly arcane legal mechanisms to try to compel a website
Speaker 1: to remove their information and or an agency. So we'll
Speaker 1: often tell folks to put their home in a revocable trust,
Speaker 1: which isn't an easy thing to do. To find an
Speaker 1: estate lawyer who understands your privacy concerns, can help you
Speaker 1: name your trust in a way that wouldn't immediately identify you, um.
Speaker 1: And then to understand, like what that updated filing looks
Speaker 1: like on a d C d C d C R
Speaker 1: a's website right, or on Jefferson County or Marion County's website. Um,
Speaker 1: would the website also have the addendum that's like this
Speaker 1: was this and now it's this, Like is there a
Speaker 1: transfer of sale? What does all of that look like?
Speaker 1: So in some cases we asked them for revocable trust
Speaker 1: for folks who can afford it, we talked to them
Speaker 1: about using an LLC because that's more um, it's more coverage,
Speaker 1: it's more protection. It's just harder with capital gains. Folks
Speaker 1: lose out on the gains of their of their money
Speaker 1: and and sometimes of their investments. Sometimes the mortgages mortgage
Speaker 1: companies won't lend to an LLC, so there's more complexity
Speaker 1: than it is necessary there. Um, the point is to
Speaker 1: create a firewall between your name and your home address.
Speaker 1: That's are like number one, always, always always, because with
Speaker 1: our clients who have successfully put their homes and trusts,
Speaker 1: we see the amount of data across the board nose
Speaker 1: dive within a few months. It's expensive, it's a high
Speaker 1: barrier to entry, and it sucks that that's the case.
Speaker 1: We just should maybe not be selling that data point blank,
Speaker 1: you know, like just don't. It doesn't need to be
Speaker 1: online everywhere. Then we'll talk to folks about voter records
Speaker 1: because those are often those voter files get sold to
Speaker 1: lots of people and there is no like drm Like
Speaker 1: if you sell it to a campaign, there's nothing stopping
Speaker 1: that camp and a campaign can buy it right Like,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of cases they are perfectly protected buyer
Speaker 1: of a voter file. They need it, but there's nothing
Speaker 1: stopping them from selling it down the line. Most are
Speaker 1: scrupulous they wouldn't do that, but not everybody's like that,
Speaker 1: And so then that there's one state Colorado that allows
Speaker 1: someone to file as a register as a confidential voter.
Speaker 1: In no other state does that exist. So there we
Speaker 1: try to work with an address confidentiality program that's set
Speaker 1: up for survivors of domestic violence and intimate partner rounds,
Speaker 1: not for just like regular folks. Not all states have them.
Speaker 1: Not all would be flexible enough to allow a person
Speaker 1: who's just being taunted online or threatened with boxing um
Speaker 1: to apply and to have their application improved. In some
Speaker 1: states it's possible. And what that does is shield the
Speaker 1: home address. People have an alternate address that would forward
Speaker 1: the mail to their home if they wanted. It shields
Speaker 1: their home address from the DMV, and it shields their
Speaker 1: home address from a voter record. So you basically are
Speaker 1: hiding from the government and it's really difficult and expensive. Ways. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's I'm so grateful that you're providing these
Speaker 1: services to people, but I and I really admire the
Speaker 1: tools that you all are building. But part of me
Speaker 1: wishes that you didn't have to be, you know, doing
Speaker 1: less like do you do you do? You see a
Speaker 1: situation where that's ever the case, where we have the
Speaker 1: kind of world where the kind of tools that you
Speaker 1: offer folks just aren't necessary. I mean Europe under g
Speaker 1: DPR m hm, they can do a round of like
Speaker 1: a delete me and for the most part their information scrubbed.
Speaker 1: More after a quick break, let's get right back into it.
Speaker 1: G d p R, or General Data Protection Regulation, is
Speaker 1: a regulation that came into effect in that aims to
Speaker 1: enhance control and rights over individuals personal data across Europe.
Speaker 1: We had a client there, they moved their principles moved
Speaker 1: to the US with the client is a UK based company,
Speaker 1: and they were like, what are you all doing? Why
Speaker 1: do they have so much of your data? Why? Why
Speaker 1: are your own agencies betraying you? And I was like, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: you're right, Um no, I'd love it. I'd love it
Speaker 1: if we had a federal piece of federal legislation in
Speaker 1: place that protected us, if we had a whole suite
Speaker 1: of tools, if we had recourse, if we had an
Speaker 1: agency like the FTC that could actually have some teeth,
Speaker 1: if we could file lawsuits. Do you know that meant
Speaker 1: something like these fines? Even on my biggest complaint with
Speaker 1: GDPR is the findes that these companies get. They're just
Speaker 1: like cost of doing business. Like, what's thirty million, what's
Speaker 1: three million? Not that much to them? Like, I don't
Speaker 1: think I don't think the fine is the way that
Speaker 1: it works, you know, I think there needs to be um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the only way through this is for there to be
Speaker 1: a consideration on state agencies selling data. And first we
Speaker 1: have to admit we have a problem. Just you know,
Speaker 1: step one, admitting to yourself another person this, this is
Speaker 1: a big problem. Yeah. When people are having to go
Speaker 1: to like go through so many hoops just to vote
Speaker 1: and own property or rent a place or whatever, I
Speaker 1: would say that's a problem. Yeah, there's no privacy in
Speaker 1: American any longer. And who's benefiting a bunch of wealthy
Speaker 1: white men run companies, big corporations. Why are we doing
Speaker 1: this to ourselves? How many assassinations? When we have to
Speaker 1: see before we start to put two and two together,
Speaker 1: this man showing up at Primla Japauls like outside of
Speaker 1: her home, terrifying, terrifying, we can find all of those folks.
Speaker 1: That's not great. And so like when Representative Jopaul when
Speaker 1: this happened to her, the sergeant in arms, you know,
Speaker 1: in Congress, was like, oh, here's the money you can
Speaker 1: spend to like lockdown your house. It's like, bro, like,
Speaker 1: if they're already at your house, you've lost Like why
Speaker 1: not stop them long before they get there. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: now you have mouth cancer. We can do this really
Speaker 1: in big is some difficult thing and it might save you.
Speaker 1: But if you just brush your teeth for the last
Speaker 1: thirty years, you wouldn't be here, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like yeah, just like not Yeah, I would love it
Speaker 1: if we didn't exist. Don't repeat that to any investor.
Speaker 1: Love it if we didn't exist, and thanking that we'll
Speaker 1: have to for a while. Yeah, I mean, I wonder
Speaker 1: do you see you know, we've seen more and more
Speaker 1: like women, LGBTQ folks, folks of color, you know, running
Speaker 1: for office, which is awesome and like holding public office,
Speaker 1: which is awesome. But the reality is that these same
Speaker 1: folks are disproportionately targeted for this kind of harassment. And
Speaker 1: so I'm wondering, like do you see this as a
Speaker 1: gender and race issue? And like do you and do
Speaker 1: you see it as like I don't know, I just
Speaker 1: see it as a direct threat to our democracy, Like
Speaker 1: we can't have a functional democracy. While this is the
Speaker 1: thing that is happening, we don't anymore arguably, so I
Speaker 1: this became my like will be in my bonnet In
Speaker 1: seven from Iowa and a candidate who was against the
Speaker 1: reprehensible Steve King ring with Kim Weaver dropped out of
Speaker 1: a race in for a couple of reasons that didn't
Speaker 1: really get reported all that well. One she came out
Speaker 1: of her house one day and there was a for
Speaker 1: sale sign in the front yard to the government agency
Speaker 1: and state agencies she was working for had just had
Speaker 1: their budget cut by the exact amount of her salary.
Speaker 1: And she was like, well, I'm harming people in my
Speaker 1: in my office who did nothing wrong, and they're coming
Speaker 1: to my home. And then and she dropped out of
Speaker 1: a race, and I was like, that's no. We no
Speaker 1: longer live in a democracy if a person can't run
Speaker 1: out of those fears and someone's going to physically harm
Speaker 1: her or because we're women, like the way that we
Speaker 1: for the most part, not to be completely like genderizing this,
Speaker 1: but like for the most part, women take take a
Speaker 1: very We take risks in a certain way, will risk
Speaker 1: not for ourselves necessarily or personal gain, will take risks
Speaker 1: for the people around us. The the inverse is true
Speaker 1: as well. If the people around us are being harmed
Speaker 1: by our behavior. We've been traded aimed throughout our years
Speaker 1: of presenting as women that we need to stop whatever
Speaker 1: we're doing. So that is why when a woman gets
Speaker 1: attacked online, it's a woman, it's her children, it's her mother,
Speaker 1: it's her sisters, like that will shut us down because
Speaker 1: because that's our training, right, So you know, arguably we
Speaker 1: don't live in duncracy anymore. I started this because I
Speaker 1: thought the way that America would survive in some way,
Speaker 1: shape or form, not necessarily as the democracy we see today,
Speaker 1: because I don't think it's much of a real democracy.
Speaker 1: It's founded on like a lot of privilege and on
Speaker 1: the backs of enslaved people's It's like, I don't care
Speaker 1: if that democracy continues. But what I love for our
Speaker 1: country and like our our communities and our society like
Speaker 1: globally to look like, would be one where we are
Speaker 1: actually represented by the people in our communities right in
Speaker 1: an equitable manner. That's not going to happen if we
Speaker 1: have to keep electing Joe Biden to fight off Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Bless them, he's maybe you know, a really wonderful person,
Speaker 1: but his lived experiences aren't Kamala Harris's. Do you know
Speaker 1: it's not. He has no idea what she's been through
Speaker 1: in her life. I would much rather see a leader
Speaker 1: like that who has been had to learn a lot
Speaker 1: about empathy and the experiences of other people and herself
Speaker 1: having those inform the policy making. Only then are we
Speaker 1: gonna start treating people like human beings. We wouldn't see R. V.
Speaker 1: Wade being overturned if we had been able to elect
Speaker 1: people who look like us, who had had our lived experiences.
Speaker 1: It's a complete lack of empathy on the part of
Speaker 1: those judges. It's such a cruelty. If you've ever known
Speaker 1: or a lot yourself lost to pregnancy that you very
Speaker 1: much wanted I have, Like that is so, it is
Speaker 1: so cruel what they've done, And like we just wouldn't
Speaker 1: be there as a nation treating people like non humans.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't be a hundred or however many hundreds of police
Speaker 1: officers standing outside of his school, well children were being murdered,
Speaker 1: because we would see those children as human beings. And
Speaker 1: I just don't I just don't think that our structures
Speaker 1: allow for that at this point. I feel like I've
Speaker 1: gotten really far afield from bright lines. No, this is
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's all It's all related, and
Speaker 1: I think it makes me feel good that the thing
Speaker 1: that animates you and motivates you in this work is
Speaker 1: getting back to that humanity, because it does feel like
Speaker 1: we've we've take it. We've we've come so far from that.
Speaker 1: I feel in our national political conversations and the way
Speaker 1: that we interact online, like it's so clear that humanity
Speaker 1: we have just something like somehow gotten lost in the
Speaker 1: mix completely. There's no seeing each other as human beings anymore.
Speaker 1: It's like what can I do to satisfy my own
Speaker 1: feelings of like need or outrage, my own selfishness? Right?
Speaker 1: It just really it is not a high point for
Speaker 1: the citizens of this country by and not even citizens,
Speaker 1: that's not fair, but like the people who inhabit Turtle Island,
Speaker 1: that inhabit this space, right, you know, like it's not
Speaker 1: We're not It's not a high point in our existence
Speaker 1: as a as a species by any means. And I
Speaker 1: think that's been fueled by the way our technology has
Speaker 1: been built. If you look at the beginnings of the
Speaker 1: Internet and all the hopes for this utopian space and like,
Speaker 1: how we could be so connected. I think about being
Speaker 1: a kid who was just weird. I was just a
Speaker 1: weird kid growing up in Iowa. I wasn't like other kids,
Speaker 1: and I didn't know that other weirdos were out there
Speaker 1: until I got to college, and then I had to
Speaker 1: go abroad and I found other even and then I
Speaker 1: came here to d C. And I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're my weirdos. My nephew is sixteen. He's out as
Speaker 1: by in Illinois, so like in a similarly very like
Speaker 1: kind of small Midwestern place, and he knows he's not alone.
Speaker 1: He know there are other people out there. He also
Speaker 1: has to deal with a fair amount of ship that
Speaker 1: I didn't have to as a kid who didn't have
Speaker 1: social media and the internet so close, right, But at
Speaker 1: least he knows that he's not alone. And I think
Speaker 1: there was this promise of the Internet being a place
Speaker 1: where you didn't have to where you would feel connected
Speaker 1: to other people, and when you can increase your empathy
Speaker 1: skills and you can understand the experiences of people who
Speaker 1: weren't like you, and we have gone so far afield
Speaker 1: from that. Now it's like this tool to divide whether
Speaker 1: being manipulated by like Russian or even frankly, like I
Speaker 1: worked on China, I understood that they also do this
Speaker 1: work where they intentionally not necessarily be foreign countries but
Speaker 1: sway influence public opinion online. Like we can be manipulated
Speaker 1: outside of the country, we can also be perfectly manipulated
Speaker 1: by our own people. If shinzo Abe can be assassinated
Speaker 1: in in a country without guns, that's all you need
Speaker 1: to know. They don't We don't need to train militias
Speaker 1: anymong We don't need trade military forces. Frankly, like we
Speaker 1: need to get inside of the head of one person.
Speaker 1: All of us have become sleeper cells. That's terrifying. You
Speaker 1: know what point do you make a bad decision because
Speaker 1: of something you're sure you heard on like some Q
Speaker 1: and on YouTube whatever craziness and like there's no you
Speaker 1: fall down that rabbit hole and where do you from out?
Speaker 1: It's true, it's true. And you know something that you
Speaker 1: said that really sticks with me because it really resonates
Speaker 1: with my own experiences. You know, I I live in
Speaker 1: d C. As well, I grew up in Virginia, and um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was like the weird kid in a tiny town
Speaker 1: in the South who I didn't know. I felt very
Speaker 1: low and I felt very alien. I felt very strange.
Speaker 1: And the day that my parents brought home a computer
Speaker 1: and I first got on America online, remember that like
Speaker 1: terrible noise, like a awful noise. That was the first
Speaker 1: time that I was like, Oh, there's other people out
Speaker 1: there like me, Like I'm not alone. And I know
Speaker 1: that I would not like the path of self discovery
Speaker 1: that that set me on. I am so grateful for
Speaker 1: in my life, and I know that I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: where I am now without it. And I feel like
Speaker 1: the generation that comes before us, I wonder are they
Speaker 1: having the same experiences that feel like self discovery, that
Speaker 1: feel like creativity, that feel like safe exploration of who
Speaker 1: they are? You know, are we leaving behind an internet
Speaker 1: that is worse or better than the one that I
Speaker 1: grew up with that that was so impactful for me.
Speaker 1: I would argue, it's not better, it's not better. It's
Speaker 1: certainly not better. No, I don't think more is better.
Speaker 1: I don't think more images are better. Sinse friends of
Speaker 1: mine they have a my friend has a stepdaughter who
Speaker 1: um is in college and bless her. She had to
Speaker 1: graduate from high school and do a re freshman year,
Speaker 1: both during like code quarantine, so she got robbed with
Speaker 1: quite a little bit. She's a really adaptive young woman, bright,
Speaker 1: beautiful young woman. She finally gets her like trip to
Speaker 1: Italy over the summer and and creates an itinerary that's
Speaker 1: where she can take all of her Instagram shots. That's
Speaker 1: not how I planned my trip to Italy, And they're
Speaker 1: like laughing, and it's not how we planned our trips
Speaker 1: to Italy, Like, that's not how we did our like
Speaker 1: summer in Europe or whatever privilege cool thing that we
Speaker 1: got to do, right, Like it's I don't I don't
Speaker 1: know that her experience was like that much better because
Speaker 1: she got to go to these like beautiful places and
Speaker 1: take these beautiful photos of herself looking amazing. Sure, I'm
Speaker 1: sure right, And would it have been just as cool
Speaker 1: as see that my r dwemal like would have been
Speaker 1: just as cool as you? Like, you know, like could
Speaker 1: you have had an amazing time that let you down
Speaker 1: a different path in your life if it weren't so,
Speaker 1: if you weren't if you hadn't been so focused on
Speaker 1: what you were doing for the Graham. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: know that it's better. I don't think it's better. And
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel safe. It doesn't feel like it's a
Speaker 1: see place to explore because the ramifications are so real world.
Speaker 1: It was one thing to feel unsafe because you could
Speaker 1: be harassed. That's already shitty, But then to know that
Speaker 1: you'd be out into your parents, your grandparents, like your friends,
Speaker 1: your people back home, like to a community that you
Speaker 1: struggle to be part of still because they're bigoted for
Speaker 1: whatever reason. Right and and it's no one else's business
Speaker 1: but your own, Like you get to decide when you
Speaker 1: come out and blah blah blah. Right, Like to have
Speaker 1: someone know that about you and then find you I
Speaker 1: r L and then share it like that's a risk
Speaker 1: I didn't have to take with the internet. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: I could still be my crazy self. You know, no
Speaker 1: one was ever going to know I called. I lived
Speaker 1: in Spain for my junior and senior year, trying not
Speaker 1: to hate. It was so amazing. I would call my
Speaker 1: family once a week because that was the long distance
Speaker 1: plan that they could afford. If still a lot of
Speaker 1: money to call back then right, um, they had no
Speaker 1: idea what I was doing. There were no ramifications for
Speaker 1: the life that I had. I got to live this
Speaker 1: like fairy tale existence where I got to like leave
Speaker 1: behind all the family trauma and like all the trauma
Speaker 1: and like all their stuff and just live my own
Speaker 1: life for two years. There's a reason I didn't come
Speaker 1: home after my juny or you're abroad like this is great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't there. That doesn't that one that doesn't happen
Speaker 1: now can't happen now. So yeah, I really wish that
Speaker 1: the real world ramifications weren't what they used to be,
Speaker 1: or weren't aren't what they are now for people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were closer to what they used to be, which
Speaker 1: was nothing, very little. What you decided to share, what
Speaker 1: you consented to to be trauma informed and sensitive about it,
Speaker 1: like for your decisions to inform um the image that
Speaker 1: the information people get to receive. And we don't live
Speaker 1: that way now in real life, let along online. Does
Speaker 1: that make sense? It makes so much sense, It makes
Speaker 1: all It makes so much sense, And I think that's
Speaker 1: exactly it. Somewhere along the line. It's like we gave
Speaker 1: that up without even really realizing how precious it was. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: You know a few years ago, my mother in law
Speaker 1: was living with us. She's disabled, she was sick, and
Speaker 1: she'd come up here um because she couldn't. You know,
Speaker 1: North Carolina was one of those states that didn't have um,
Speaker 1: the Medicaid expansion, so she needed she didn't work care
Speaker 1: and it was no longer affordable down there. And I
Speaker 1: remember reading something about how the Girl Scouts had chosen
Speaker 1: this Pellow Autoon Networks to partner with them to make
Speaker 1: the cyber security badge. And I would go to look
Speaker 1: at their board of directors and they're C suite and
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, there's one woman. Do I have to
Speaker 1: tell you what department she was running? Hr? Of course?
Speaker 1: So right, So like I was like this, these fucking guys, right,
Speaker 1: And so I'm about to go on a Twitter tirade.
Speaker 1: And then I think about Kathy sitting on my front
Speaker 1: porch and how easy it would be to find her
Speaker 1: day in and day out, and I cannot. I can't
Speaker 1: rant like i'd like to, which is a privilege, right,
Speaker 1: but like to be able to speak my mind. But
Speaker 1: it's one that most folks assume we have as a
Speaker 1: an absolute right, and most of us don't, and fewer
Speaker 1: of us do now that meaning you ever did? Oh? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: you know. On the show, we talked to mostly women,
Speaker 1: women of color, LGBTQ folks, most of whom are involved
Speaker 1: in things like they're activists or they're like advocating for
Speaker 1: making technology safer and better and the internet safe or
Speaker 1: safer and better. I would say probably at least ten
Speaker 1: different times times I have done interviews, they are in
Speaker 1: some level of hiding. It's like, Oh, I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not in my apartment right now, I'm I'm speaking to
Speaker 1: you from a safe location. Just recently, someone I had
Speaker 1: an interview set with had to cancel. She was like,
Speaker 1: I've pulled out of all public appearances because of because
Speaker 1: I'm being attacked by right wing extremists because of my
Speaker 1: disinformation work with the Biden administration. And it was like
Speaker 1: the the amount of times that I have heard that
Speaker 1: story again and again where it's like, oh, yeah, because
Speaker 1: of my work, my opinions, putting my putting my opinions
Speaker 1: out there, being civically engaged, I'm not safe. I'm not
Speaker 1: able to be at home. I'm in I'm in a
Speaker 1: safe place. You're speaking to me from a safe house.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're not speaking to me at all, Like it
Speaker 1: has happened again and again and again, and I think
Speaker 1: it really says something about the state of play that
Speaker 1: we're at right now. Oh yeah, Like if they can't
Speaker 1: be civically engaged, then no, we aren't living in the democracy.
Speaker 1: That's violence against women in politics from top to bottom.
Speaker 1: Right you can happen to him and being like politically
Speaker 1: assassinated who are running for office, who are part of
Speaker 1: a party, who are in office, and it also means
Speaker 1: that women can't participate. That is the same level of
Speaker 1: API in my mind, like you're not. Yeah, we are not.
Speaker 1: This is not a democracy. And I think the sooner.
Speaker 1: He said to my husband the other day, I was like,
Speaker 1: what do you think of civil war would look like
Speaker 1: in America on the twenty one century? And he's like this,
Speaker 1: I think we're living it, I think, and we just
Speaker 1: don't realize it for the most part. Yet this is it,
Speaker 1: Like we are not in a position where I cannot believe.
Speaker 1: So if you have other guests who are in this
Speaker 1: position who need help, please feel free to send them
Speaker 1: our way. We don't we're not cheap, and we can
Speaker 1: get in touch with different funds for different kinds of
Speaker 1: activists and journalists to help pay for things. Because it
Speaker 1: makes me sick, and I'm not surprised this is where
Speaker 1: we are. This is why we started this, because I
Speaker 1: believe we're more than we are acting like we are
Speaker 1: right now as a species. I believe that we're more
Speaker 1: than what we're doing right now. And I won't stop
Speaker 1: being hopeful and I won't stop being optimistic about the
Speaker 1: future of humanity, UM, and I won't stop fighting for
Speaker 1: us to be more. And this is one small way
Speaker 1: that I feel like we can start to move towards
Speaker 1: more evolved, more human, more kind, more whatever the word is. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're more than we are. It's twenty per century moment.
Speaker 1: Got a story about an interesting thing in tech. I
Speaker 1: just want to say Hi. You can be us a
Speaker 1: hello at tangodi dot com. You can also find transcripts
Speaker 1: for today's episode at tangodi dot com. There Are No
Speaker 1: Girls on the Internet was created by me Brigittad. It's
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio and Unboss creative Donathan
Speaker 1: Strictland as our executive producer, Tara Harrison as our producer,
Speaker 1: and sound engineer, Michael Amata was our contributing producer. I'm
Speaker 1: host Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow,
Speaker 1: rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from I Heeart Radio, check out the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. H