Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this
Speaker 1: is there Are No Girls on the Internet. Welcome to
Speaker 1: their No Girls on the Internet, where we explore the
Speaker 1: intersection of identity, social media, and technology. And this is
Speaker 1: another installment of our weekly roundup of news stories that
Speaker 1: you might have missed on the Internet. Mike, Happy day
Speaker 1: after Valentine's Day. Did you see that all of the
Speaker 1: lift drivers and Uber drivers and door dash folks were striking?
Speaker 1: They were doing a Valentine's Day strike for better wages.
Speaker 2: I did, and I love to see it.
Speaker 3: I love to see people and workers taking collective action
Speaker 3: to demand better pay, respect, to increase their visibility.
Speaker 2: Love to see it.
Speaker 1: Okay, So I agree with all of that, plus plus
Speaker 1: plus plus to all of that. However, I have to
Speaker 1: admit that even I talk so much crap about Uber
Speaker 1: and Lyft and door Dash and the way that they
Speaker 1: run their companies on this podcast, I do use those
Speaker 1: services like I take Uber and Lyft a lot here
Speaker 1: in DC where I live. And so this news that
Speaker 1: Uber drivers and Lyft drivers were striking on Valentine's Day
Speaker 1: and asking folks not to break the strike and cross
Speaker 1: the picket lines and use those services. Set me into
Speaker 1: a little bit of an existential tailspin because I don't
Speaker 1: know if folks live in DC, you know what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about. Like, I've lived in the I've lived in
Speaker 1: cities my whole life, and I've lived in DC for
Speaker 1: the longest, and I would say Uber and Lyft have
Speaker 1: really changed the landscape of the city. And it's interesting.
Speaker 1: I was like, how am I going to get to
Speaker 1: my I'm had to go to dinner, Like what am
Speaker 1: I going to do? Should I drive? But if I
Speaker 1: am drinking? Am I risking in duy? Like is it
Speaker 1: safe to even to even like be out driving at night?
Speaker 1: Like I'm not the best driver. I was like racking
Speaker 1: my brain trying to figure out what to do, And
Speaker 1: when you know it, it was completely fine. All I
Speaker 1: had to do was walk out of my apartment. Oh
Speaker 1: there's a cab. I got in it. I told them
Speaker 1: where I wanted to go, took me there without incident,
Speaker 1: went had my dinner, came back out of the restaurant,
Speaker 1: Oh there's a cab, just got in it. It is
Speaker 1: so interesting to me how Uber and Lyft their rise
Speaker 1: and their ubiquity had made me think like, oh, there
Speaker 1: is no other alternative. Hey, I would never cross a
Speaker 1: picket line. There's a scene from that sitcoms That Nanny
Speaker 1: with Fran Dresser, where she's meant to be going to
Speaker 1: a fancy dinner but all the bus boys are outside striking,
Speaker 1: and she's like, one thing my mother told me is
Speaker 1: you never cross a cricket line. And so I agree
Speaker 1: with Fran Dresher's mom's advice and this, But it's so
Speaker 1: funny to me, how like I had convinced to myself
Speaker 1: that if I wasn't taking Uber or Lyft, there was
Speaker 1: no other options. And it's like, oh, actually, cab was
Speaker 1: very easy. It was right there, no no problem, do
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? How strange it is that
Speaker 1: that technology makes us think we have less options than
Speaker 1: we actually do.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is funny how that works, because yeah, like
Speaker 3: the cabs are still there, Metro is still there, buses
Speaker 3: are still there. There's a bunch of bikes around.
Speaker 1: Don't even get me started on bikes.
Speaker 2: Okay, well I won't.
Speaker 1: I mean, yes for the city run bike share program
Speaker 1: in DC. But again, if I'm gonna circle back and
Speaker 1: make this a deeper complaint about Uber and Lyft. Uber
Speaker 1: purchased those jump bikes and then the line bikes and
Speaker 1: basically junked them, and so biking was a much more
Speaker 1: viable option in DC. I can't speak for other cities
Speaker 1: before Uber and Lyft got involved in it, and now
Speaker 1: it is like a husk of its former self. You
Speaker 1: acknowledge that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I have a lot of thoughts about what
Speaker 3: has happened to the dockless vehicles here. I remember back
Speaker 3: in like I don't know, almost have been twenty seventeen,
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen, remarking to a friend that we were living
Speaker 3: through peak dockless vehicle because that was the period when
Speaker 3: all these companies like jump Birds, Spin, Lime, a whole
Speaker 3: bunch of others that are now gone. They had so
Speaker 3: much venture capital that they were just like dumping electric
Speaker 3: bikes and electric scooters all over the city and you could,
Speaker 3: you know, check them out on your phone using the
Speaker 3: app for like pennies, right, it was like ridiculously cheap.
Speaker 3: There were a million of these things. Yeah, they were
Speaker 3: a blight on the city. People did dumb things like
Speaker 3: parking them on sidewalks and ways that made the sidewalks inaccessible,
Speaker 3: which was like definitely not cool, but for somebody who
Speaker 3: wanted to like get around the city, it was amazing.
Speaker 3: And now most of them are gone. Like you say that,
Speaker 3: it's just a handful that are left. It is kind
Speaker 3: of sad.
Speaker 1: Okay, So this is something you know, we don't see
Speaker 1: EyeT of eye on. I think that bit that you
Speaker 1: just said about them being a blight on the city,
Speaker 1: I don't think that deserves to be glossed over because
Speaker 1: they're so in DC. They are everywhere. They are blocking intersections,
Speaker 1: they are on sidewalks. It's a nightmare. And half of
Speaker 1: them don't even work. So it's like at this point,
Speaker 1: you know, I think it was different when it's like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: these are bikes that are working that you could use
Speaker 1: to get around. Hearing DC, part of me is like,
Speaker 1: it's at this point, it's just like eWays delittering the
Speaker 1: streets for no reason. They half of them do not work.
Speaker 3: It would be nice if more of them worked. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we don't see eye to eye on that.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I think it's super convenient to have like multiple transportation
Speaker 3: options if I want to get downtown and then I
Speaker 3: can just like ditch the thing and be done with it.
Speaker 1: I mean, if it actually worked that way. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: does sound like a good situation. I guess Uber and
Speaker 1: Lyft had to get involved and innovate that convenient reality
Speaker 1: out of existence. So thank you Uber and Lyft. Okay, so,
Speaker 1: speaking of another tech company that maybe is doing some
Speaker 1: shady stuff. You watched the Super Bowl. Did you see
Speaker 1: all of those like very weird possibly AI generated ads
Speaker 1: for Tmu? Actually, apparently it's Tamu. I've been saying it
Speaker 1: wrong this whole time, but I thought it was Temu.
Speaker 3: I did see those ads, and they were so weird.
Speaker 3: It was weird in the same way that their advertisements
Speaker 3: for products, which are all over the web and social media,
Speaker 3: are also weird. It's just like just a little bit off,
Speaker 3: like appealing and sort of interesting, but also just like
Speaker 3: strange and a little bit off, as if like every
Speaker 3: step of the production process were performed by AI.
Speaker 1: Did I ever show you the Tamu ad that I
Speaker 1: got for the purse that looks like a gun?
Speaker 2: You did show me that.
Speaker 1: It's like, I'm gonna I'll put a link to it
Speaker 1: in the show notes. I'll try to describe it. I know,
Speaker 1: this is a not a visual medium. But it's like
Speaker 1: a handbag on a chain that hangs about hip level,
Speaker 1: and the handbag itself is shaped like a gun. There's
Speaker 1: really not more to it than that. And so I'm
Speaker 1: sure someone somewhere was like, maybe this is edge design,
Speaker 1: but it looks so if you were to go out,
Speaker 1: it just looks like you're holding a gun on your hip,
Speaker 1: which I don't know. I don't think that's the kind
Speaker 1: of perse that me, as a black person, wants to
Speaker 1: be out and about carrying, like, oh, just going to
Speaker 1: the bank with this gun, this visible gun on my hip.
Speaker 1: Thanks Tamu. But that's what you're sort of getting at
Speaker 1: that even the products somehow seem like they were designed
Speaker 1: with no human at any step in the process.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I frequently get ads for products that like,
Speaker 3: it's not even clear what it is. It's some sort
Speaker 3: of interesting looking gadget that's somewhere between like high tech
Speaker 3: and steampunk, but like does not have a clear function
Speaker 3: from the ad, And sometimes I'm like genuinely curious. They
Speaker 3: do a good job of hooking my curiosity and I'll
Speaker 3: almost click on it until I see that it is
Speaker 3: Tamu Okay.
Speaker 1: Well, let's see if you will ever click on another
Speaker 1: Tamu ad again after we talk about what's actually going
Speaker 1: on there. So Tamu, they did have a Super Bowl
Speaker 1: commercial back in twenty twenty three, but this year they
Speaker 1: ran four identical commercials with a jingle that says like
Speaker 1: shop like a billionaire, and they also advertised fifteen million
Speaker 1: dollars in giveaways. So I guess those ads are really
Speaker 1: paying off because people are really downloading Tamu after those ads,
Speaker 1: according to NBC, who talked to the mobile intelligence company
Speaker 1: app Topias vice president of research, Tom Grant, who said
Speaker 1: in a statement that Tamu's app downloads increased thirty four
Speaker 1: percent on Super Bowl Sunday from the day before, which
Speaker 1: was Tamu's fastest day over day growth since November. So
Speaker 1: this is the part where I have to give a
Speaker 1: big loud warning caution about Tamu. Please be careful with Tamu.
Speaker 1: I would even go so far as to say, maybe
Speaker 1: don't use Tamu, and by use it, I mean like
Speaker 1: don't even download it, let alone make a purchase on Tamu.
Speaker 1: And after that Super Bowl ad, maybe the person in
Speaker 1: your family who warns your mom, your aunt, to use
Speaker 1: your cousins whatever about Taymu too. So when I first
Speaker 1: started researching this segment, I was like, I don't want
Speaker 1: to get sued. I'm gonna like say everything very carefully.
Speaker 1: I don't really need to do that anymore, and you'll
Speaker 1: find out why. It's a minute. So there are multiple
Speaker 1: reports of people saying that they have had their identity
Speaker 1: stolen after they downloaded Tamu. I say, downloading with intention
Speaker 1: because they didn't necessarily have to make purchases. Tamu is
Speaker 1: one of those apps. In order to see the great
Speaker 1: deals or find out what that item is that it's
Speaker 1: been advertised to you, the only way to see that
Speaker 1: is to download the app. And so Mike, you're saying, oh,
Speaker 1: I see these novelty goods that they pique my curiosity
Speaker 1: on social media, but I always stop short of clicking
Speaker 1: on them. That is good. I think that that is
Speaker 1: part of Tamu's marketing strategy of peaking your interest with
Speaker 1: these deals or with these novelty goods, getting you to
Speaker 1: go through the process of downloading the app, and that
Speaker 1: is where they get you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems pretty obvious, right, Like if their business
Speaker 3: model were selling goods. They would make it possible to
Speaker 3: buy those goods without downloading the app, but it seems
Speaker 3: like one hundred percent of what they're trying to do
Speaker 3: is to get me to download the app, which is skitch.
Speaker 1: So there are hella posts on Reddit about people who
Speaker 1: think they have had their identity stolen after getting mixed
Speaker 1: up with Temu. Here's one. I idiotically installed Temu on
Speaker 1: my phone last week to see what these deals were
Speaker 1: that I keep hearing about. Uninstalled the app after ten minutes. Today,
Speaker 1: I woke up to see an odd notification on my
Speaker 1: phone pertaining to an approved Facebook ad. Apparently they made
Speaker 1: a page on my account, made a post about selling
Speaker 1: women's lingerie all in Mandarin. Temu is a Chinese owned company,
Speaker 1: had Facebook boost it as an ad, and now people
Speaker 1: are asking why I'm selling women's lingerie and if I
Speaker 1: am Chinese. I've deleted the page and now I'm worried
Speaker 1: ads manager will demand payment for the three hours of
Speaker 1: ads they've run on my page. Mike, there are so
Speaker 1: many posts like this, people saying I didn't even purchase anything.
Speaker 1: I just it piqued my curiosity. I downloaded the app
Speaker 1: I had it on my phone for less than ten minutes,
Speaker 1: and now some sort of weird behavior is.
Speaker 3: Going on in my name, and it is so consistent
Speaker 3: with their slightly off branding that like, it's not just
Speaker 3: a normal scam that takes his money. It's like, now
Speaker 3: people are asking why I'm selling women's lingerie, and if
Speaker 3: I'm Chinese.
Speaker 1: I know it's not just a normal scam. It is
Speaker 1: a weird This is what I'm saying about this company.
Speaker 1: It seems like there are no humans anywhere in the mix.
Speaker 1: And it's like the kind of scam that is written
Speaker 1: by AI. It's like it can't even be a normal scam.
Speaker 1: It has to be a weird scam. Even their scams
Speaker 1: are weird.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like a scam within a scam.
Speaker 1: Okay. So when I was thinking about how to talk
Speaker 1: about this issue, I was like, oh, I really I
Speaker 1: just want to be like people are saying, here are
Speaker 1: some experiences. I'll just like share people's experiences and let
Speaker 1: the listeners decide, because I'm like not trying to get
Speaker 1: sued by TAMU. I'm sure they're very litigious. However, come
Speaker 1: to find out that TAMU has faced multiple class action
Speaker 1: lawsuits alleging that they are misleading customers about the scope
Speaker 1: and reach of data access and collection and intentionally has
Speaker 1: loaded dangerous malware and spywear on to use devices. This
Speaker 1: is from a piece in Fashion and Dive that we
Speaker 1: will put in the show notes. So, attorneys for the
Speaker 1: plaintiffs claim that Tamu collects data beyond what is necessary
Speaker 1: for an online shopping app, including biometric information such as
Speaker 1: facial characteristics, voice prints, and fingerprints. The lawsuit quotes experts
Speaker 1: who said that TAMU gains access to literally everything on
Speaker 1: your phone, and the suit further alleges that TAMU is
Speaker 1: able to read private messages, make changes to a phone setting,
Speaker 1: and track notifications.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's just like a ridiculous amount of privileges
Speaker 3: for an app that is about purchasing goods.
Speaker 2: Like I can see.
Speaker 3: Why they would want to why they would want to
Speaker 3: harvest every piece of information about you, including your biometrics
Speaker 3: and the content of your private messages. But it's difficult
Speaker 3: to think about a world where like that's okay for
Speaker 3: an app to do well.
Speaker 1: Mike, do you want to shop like a billionaire or not?
Speaker 1: Do you want these eye catching deals or not? Is
Speaker 1: it just the costs. I'm doing business to shop like
Speaker 1: a billionaire?
Speaker 2: What does that even mean?
Speaker 3: Like our billionaires out there being like, oh there's things
Speaker 3: only three bucks?
Speaker 2: What a deal?
Speaker 3: I feel like that's exactly not what billionaires do.
Speaker 1: I know. Even the slogan doesn't make sense, Like nothing
Speaker 1: about it makes any sense.
Speaker 3: The only thing that makes sense is that they're like
Speaker 3: clearly trying to just harvest all of your data.
Speaker 1: Well. The newest complaint against Tamu cites experts who have
Speaker 1: studied the Tamu app and concluded that it is quote
Speaker 1: purposefully and intentionally loaded with tools to execute virulent and
Speaker 1: dangerous malware and spyware activities on user devices. The complaint
Speaker 1: further alleges great efforts were taken to intentionally hide the
Speaker 1: malicious intent and intrusiveness of the software.
Speaker 2: My god, that's intense.
Speaker 3: Like we talk a lot about bad apps, bad companies
Speaker 3: that are like not taking appropriate protections to protect their users,
Speaker 3: but this is just malicious straight.
Speaker 1: Up, according to this complaint, like straight up malwares. I
Speaker 1: guess you probably never expectant, but when you buy something
Speaker 1: online from a company that's like kind of sketch, Like
Speaker 1: like when I first started making purchases. I think I've
Speaker 1: made two purchases on TikTok shop. I was like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, is this is this? Am I about to
Speaker 1: get my identity stolen? I thought people were going off
Speaker 1: of mostly vibes that like it felt sketchy, didn't feel right, whatever, whatever. No,
Speaker 1: this is like legit, real deal malware. All of this
Speaker 1: to say, like, I guess I feel pretty comfortable saying
Speaker 1: people should really be thinking long and hard before downloading
Speaker 1: the app, even if you only downloaded to look because
Speaker 1: it's some novel the item that you can't believe is real,
Speaker 1: Like a gun shaped purse has come across your feed.
Speaker 1: Just think really long and hard before you click, and
Speaker 1: tell your aunties and your mama's and your cousins about like,
Speaker 1: send them this segment if they're thinking about buying something
Speaker 1: on table or you know that the kind of person who,
Speaker 1: like you know, can't resist a good deal online and
Speaker 1: wants to shop like a billionaire.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wonder if we're gonna hear from them. But
Speaker 3: you know, based on these experts and many lawsuits and
Speaker 3: many Reddit posts, it definitely seems like the sort of
Speaker 3: thing that should be avoided.
Speaker 1: From what I have seen, I think that Temu might
Speaker 1: be litigious. They were gotten into it with En back
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three, where they so like Sheien is
Speaker 1: another kind of like crappy fast fashion retailer. Tamu is
Speaker 1: one of their big rivals. Tamu sued Sheen alleging quote
Speaker 1: mafia style intimidation, and so something tells me that this
Speaker 1: company is like kind of litigious. I don't know all
Speaker 1: the details between what happened between Tamu and Sheien, but
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I don't want to get mixed
Speaker 1: up with this company. But now I feel very confident
Speaker 1: saying that folks should really think twice before tabloating it
Speaker 1: at the very least. So Temu, if y'all are listening,
Speaker 1: feel free to come on the show and plead your case.
Speaker 1: I would love to hear how you justify this. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's just like by hook up our remote recording software.
Speaker 1: It's like, God, they got my identity, like they're so good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hold on, I'm getting a notification about something that's
Speaker 3: trying to install.
Speaker 1: Mike, Why does this ad say that you're selling Chinese laingerie?
Speaker 2: The scam is coming from inside of me? Oh, No,
Speaker 2: they are good. They are good. It is a cool
Speaker 2: little gadget.
Speaker 1: Though.
Speaker 4: Let's take a quick break at our back.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about another big story going on, which is
Speaker 1: Meta deprioritizing political content. So we have talked a lot
Speaker 1: about the different changes happening for our social media landscape. Honestly,
Speaker 1: it feels like every day it's a new thing. I
Speaker 1: am exhausted trying to keep up with it. I cannot
Speaker 1: imagine how people who don't do this for a living field.
Speaker 1: I guess I'll put it that way. And so this
Speaker 1: is a change that I think could have big consequences,
Speaker 1: especially for traditionally marginalized people. So Meta, the parent company
Speaker 1: and Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, announced this week that they
Speaker 1: would be deprioritizing political content from threads, Facebook, and Instagram.
Speaker 1: This comes from Adam Mosseerri, my personal nemesis, who said
Speaker 1: the company will no longer quote proactively amplify political content
Speaker 1: from accounts who don't follow most Aari said that the
Speaker 1: platform will still show you content from people that you
Speaker 1: have chosen to follow, but that the company will avoid
Speaker 1: recommending political content to the broader masses. Our goal is
Speaker 1: to reserve the ability for people to choose to interact
Speaker 1: with political content while respecting each person's appetite for it.
Speaker 1: So I think that this is likely Facebook kind of
Speaker 1: admitting or acknowledging that they have no real ability to
Speaker 1: control things like hate speech or conspiracy theories on their platforms,
Speaker 1: the kind of things that led to, you know, among others,
Speaker 1: January sixth, you know, a genocide and Meanmar, you know,
Speaker 1: really chaos and havoc globally. I think that this is
Speaker 1: a decision that is like, Yep, we don't know how
Speaker 1: to control it, and honestly, we can't be bothered to
Speaker 1: figure it out. I also think it dovetails with a
Speaker 1: story that we covered pretty extensively last summer about Facebook
Speaker 1: dropping news content altogether. I think that they've kind of
Speaker 1: decided that news and political content is just like not
Speaker 1: worth it, and so they're just going to be like, Yep,
Speaker 1: we can't figure out how to manage it responsibly, and
Speaker 1: we're just going to sort of abdicate that responsibility.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I think they're responding
Speaker 3: to those two different pressures. The one pressure that they
Speaker 3: don't really want.
Speaker 2: To be in the news business anymore.
Speaker 3: There's this article in The New Yorker yesterday about how
Speaker 3: people are just like burnt out on news in general
Speaker 3: and how it's like rippling across media, and so I think,
Speaker 3: you know, this is meta. So that's probably what's driving
Speaker 3: their real decision. Is they just like it's not profitable
Speaker 3: to be serving this kind of content. But then also, yeah,
Speaker 3: I think they just don't want to be seen as
Speaker 3: having to have responsibility for moderating like responsible political content,
Speaker 3: and so they're trying to just like take their hands
Speaker 3: off of it entirely.
Speaker 2: But you know, good luck with that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have two things to say about that. I
Speaker 1: was reading this piece from Charlie Wurtzel at The Atlantic
Speaker 1: about how perhaps that does in some ways reflect what
Speaker 1: people are saying they want from these companies. Like Ortel
Speaker 1: argues that people do not necessarily want to feel like
Speaker 1: Facebook is just picking and choosing what they see and
Speaker 1: moderating things. But however, they also don't want it to
Speaker 1: be the wild wild West of lies and disinformation and
Speaker 1: hate speech, and so in some ways Rtil argues that
Speaker 1: Facebook kind of is in a tough situation of wanting
Speaker 1: to give people what they want but also not wanting
Speaker 1: to do too much and sort of like trying to
Speaker 1: figure out like what it is people want in that
Speaker 1: like sweet spot. I also want to say something about
Speaker 1: this idea about folks being burnt out on news that
Speaker 1: really resonates with me, and it's one of those things
Speaker 1: that I don't really know what to do with. I
Speaker 1: actually started and then abandoned a Patreon episode about this,
Speaker 1: and so if you're wondering where the most recent Patreon
Speaker 1: episode is, it's still floating around in my brain because
Speaker 1: it's a tough thing to navigate. I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: navigating it. I'm really curious how listeners are feeling about it.
Speaker 1: It does feel like we've reached a fever pitch where
Speaker 1: there is so much difficult news and that is real.
Speaker 1: Like I can speak for myself personally, a lot of
Speaker 1: the coverage coming out of Palestine, for instance, is the
Speaker 1: kind of thing that I have historically had a lot
Speaker 1: of issues with following very closely. It's the kind of
Speaker 1: tragedy that I would get very invested in and feel
Speaker 1: the need to follow quite carefully. But also it's the
Speaker 1: kind of thing that nobody could follow closely without it
Speaker 1: really getting to you. You know, journalists from the Ground
Speaker 1: have talked about this too, and I do think it's
Speaker 1: one of those things where it makes sense that it
Speaker 1: feels so absurd that all of this is going on
Speaker 1: meanwhile we're meant to be like going to work and
Speaker 1: living our lives as if it's not. It's really difficult.
Speaker 1: And I say that from a place of like extreme privilege,
Speaker 1: of like I have the ability to say, like, I
Speaker 1: don't want to see pictures of dead children anymore because
Speaker 1: it's really wreaking havoc on my mental health. If I
Speaker 1: was in Palestine, I would not have the ability to
Speaker 1: say to say that, right. It would be like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you would like to not be experiencing this
Speaker 1: happening in your real life. And so I say that cautiously,
Speaker 1: really aware of the fact that, like, it's a privilege
Speaker 1: to be a to say, like, oh, this news is
Speaker 1: such a bummer, but I also want to acknowledge it
Speaker 1: is a lot like I think when you think about
Speaker 1: what's happening globally, not just in Palestine but all over
Speaker 1: it just part of me understands what people are saying
Speaker 1: when they say that they're burnt out on news content,
Speaker 1: and even from somebody who makes a podcast, Like, I
Speaker 1: see the numbers for how episodes perform, and it does
Speaker 1: seem like people are looking for content that it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily anchored to the news. And yeah, I guess all
Speaker 1: of that to say is I'm curious how that lands
Speaker 1: for folks. I'm curious how folks are navigating that in
Speaker 1: their own lives. I'm definitely trying to navigate it as
Speaker 1: somebody who creates a thing. And I think it's important
Speaker 1: that we all stay engaged and informed and checked in
Speaker 1: and like, don't it's so easy just to retreat. Again,
Speaker 1: speaking for myself, it is so easy just to retreat
Speaker 1: into like Real housewives and like nostalgia and like watching
Speaker 1: The Office a million times and things that feel good.
Speaker 1: But we still have to find ways to stay informed
Speaker 1: and checked in. And Yeah, I'm curious, Mike, if you
Speaker 1: have thoughts around that, or if listeners, if you have
Speaker 1: thoughts around that, please let me know. I'm genuinely very
Speaker 1: curious how folks are navigating this this time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that all really resonates. It's tough times. It's been
Speaker 3: tough times for years, right, you know, there's terrible wars happening.
Speaker 3: Domestic politics is anxiety provoking, to say the least, and
Speaker 3: it's really difficult to stay engaged. That New Yorker article
Speaker 3: was interesting. We should link to it in the show notes.
Speaker 3: I feel like this is kind of in some ways
Speaker 3: not surprising that collectively a lot of people in society
Speaker 3: are feeling this way right now. Right we've had ten,
Speaker 3: almost like twenty years of social media where algorithms and
Speaker 3: platforms and bad actors and nefarious, demagogic politicians you know
Speaker 3: who I'm talking about, have really perfected the art of
Speaker 3: dialing up outrage to get us engaged, to get our attention,
Speaker 3: to get our money, to get our votes.
Speaker 2: And it's just.
Speaker 3: Exhausting, right, It's just gotten more and more exhausting. And
Speaker 3: you know, I guess maybe in some ways this move
Speaker 3: by Meta can be seen as like a reaction to
Speaker 3: that that we need something else other than just a
Speaker 3: continual ratcheting up, an increase and increase of like outrage
Speaker 3: and terrible stuff, but just you know, stripping political content
Speaker 3: from the platform. That doesn't really seem like the right
Speaker 3: approach either, because there are legit problems and issues in
Speaker 3: the world that people need to be informed about and
Speaker 3: should be engaged with.
Speaker 1: Well, that's what I'm saying. I think that Facebook was
Speaker 1: a huge driver of the polarization that you described a
Speaker 1: moment ago, this ratcheting up of more and more hate,
Speaker 1: more and more you know, engagement farming by making people
Speaker 1: angry and outraged and more divided and less trustful of
Speaker 1: each other and all that. And it's just I don't
Speaker 1: like that they can just be like and oopsie's swe
Speaker 1: don't want to do that anymore. You can't just create
Speaker 1: this chaos globally and then step back and say and
Speaker 1: wash your hands of it and say it's not your problem,
Speaker 1: because it is your problem. It's your problem that you cause.
Speaker 1: And I think it's I think it's pretty telling that
Speaker 1: now they're like, h we don't want to do it anymore.
Speaker 1: And I have seen people, some of whom are people
Speaker 1: that I trust and sometimes agree with, say that this
Speaker 1: is a good thing, that less politics on platforms means
Speaker 1: less chances for polarization and all of that stuff, Right,
Speaker 1: But I am not so sure. And I think that
Speaker 1: a change like this has the ability to be very
Speaker 1: bad and destabilizing at a time in our media ecosystem
Speaker 1: it's already not great. So if threads and Instagram and
Speaker 1: Facebook are no longer going to be prioritizing any kind
Speaker 1: of political content. That means, first of all, that means
Speaker 1: that there's going to be a bigger strain on Twitter
Speaker 1: to be a place where you go for news. And
Speaker 1: Twitter is a mess, and so we're going to make
Speaker 1: Twitter a bigger piece of the pie for our media
Speaker 1: diet as it pertains to politics and news and what's
Speaker 1: going on. That is a problem because Twitter is a
Speaker 1: sesspool right now. And I also think, you know, Facebook
Speaker 1: has really not made it clear what they consider political content.
Speaker 1: They haven't really given any information as to what they
Speaker 1: consider political and I just think the idea that there's
Speaker 1: one big bucket of clearly defined political content is just
Speaker 1: so incorrect. That is not how people live their lives.
Speaker 1: The reality is everything is intertwined and intersectional, right Like
Speaker 1: the super Bowl was political, Star Wars is political, you know,
Speaker 1: Real Housewives is political. You know, like everything is political.
Speaker 1: Everything is politics. And I think that this idea that oh,
Speaker 1: we're going to start moderating what is and is not
Speaker 1: political without giving any insight into what that's going to
Speaker 1: look like or any kind of concrete examples, is very
Speaker 1: worrying for me. So I guess CNN reached out to
Speaker 1: Adam Moseri, who conveniently was traveling and could not give
Speaker 1: any information. And you know, Adam mos Ari doesn't really
Speaker 1: do interviews. What he does is like tweet and then
Speaker 1: selectively respond to some people's tweets, Like he tweeted about
Speaker 1: this change. Mark Cuban was like, Oh, how are you
Speaker 1: going to be deciding what's political and what's not. And
Speaker 1: adamos Ari replied to Cuban's tweet, so like, that's how
Speaker 1: ineffectively we're getting information that it's poised to change our
Speaker 1: entire media ecosystem. What a gem of a guy at
Speaker 1: a Mossy. However, so, even though he did not respond
Speaker 1: to requests to clarify what is going to be considered
Speaker 1: political content, a META spokesperson did give this very vague statement,
Speaker 1: informed by research. Our definition of political content. It's content
Speaker 1: likely to be about topics related to government or elections,
Speaker 1: for example, posts about laws, elections, or social topics. These
Speaker 1: global issues are complex and dynamics, which means this definition
Speaker 1: will evolve as we continue to engage with the people
Speaker 1: and communities who use our platforms and external experts to
Speaker 1: refine our approach. Scott really doesn't say anything at all
Speaker 1: to me. They threw in the word communities and people
Speaker 1: and basically they're like, we don't know, y'all. I can't
Speaker 1: like that statement is so vague. It basically says nothing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it really reads like it says nothing. Like it
Speaker 3: one gets the sense that they don't want to be
Speaker 3: in the business of deciding what kind of speech is
Speaker 3: okay and what kind of speech isn't. They don't want
Speaker 3: to have to make those value judgments because they're going
Speaker 3: to make people bad, So they're just going to blanketly
Speaker 3: exclude any sort of political content. But all they've done
Speaker 3: is just shift those value judgments from you know, what
Speaker 3: speech is harmful or hateful to what speech is political.
Speaker 1: And in doing so, that is a value judgment. Like
Speaker 1: not by saying like we're just going to deprioritize political content,
Speaker 1: that is them picking and choosing what is politics and
Speaker 1: what is something else, Like whose issues are going to
Speaker 1: be considered political and who's are going to be considered okay.
Speaker 1: I feel like we have a lot of precedents for
Speaker 1: Facebook doing that, Like Facebook already is involved in the
Speaker 1: business of making those kinds of decisions, So we do
Speaker 1: have some precedent to look at how they might go
Speaker 1: about deciding what is or is not political. And spoiler alert,
Speaker 1: I believe that if it's something that pertains to somebody
Speaker 1: who is traditionally marginalized, women, black folks, queer folks, folks
Speaker 1: of color, trans folks, that is going to be much
Speaker 1: more easily deemed as political. And if it doesn't, that
Speaker 1: is going to be much more easily deemed by Facebook
Speaker 1: as not political. Facebook has already established such a clear
Speaker 1: precedent of doing this. We've talked about it before, like
Speaker 1: when it comes to how they moderate their ads. For instance,
Speaker 1: any kind of ads that are related to things that
Speaker 1: are related to the sexual health of people who are
Speaker 1: not CIS men, so queer folks, trans folks, women, ads
Speaker 1: for things like pelvic pain during sex, Facebook has deemed
Speaker 1: to those sexually explicit and will not allow them on
Speaker 1: the platform. However, products that deal with things like our
Speaker 1: rectile dysfunction, Facebook has deemed those products health products, and
Speaker 1: so they're fine. And so I would argue that Facebook
Speaker 1: is already in the business of deciding what is and
Speaker 1: is not acceptable, what is it is not legitimate political
Speaker 1: issues or legitimate health issues or whatever. So the fact
Speaker 1: that Facebook is already involved in baking this kind of
Speaker 1: bias into how they make decisions like that does not
Speaker 1: fill me with confidence as they continue with this new
Speaker 1: direction of deprioritizing political content.
Speaker 3: They're so powerful, they have so much power to shape discourse,
Speaker 3: shape the information ecosystem in which we all live. It's
Speaker 3: laughable to think that they could just like wash their
Speaker 3: hands of a huge swath of content, you know, and
Speaker 3: just like abdicate any responsibility for political content. It's you know,
Speaker 3: it's like the Spider Man quote. With great power cups
Speaker 3: great responsibility and they're not even attempting to meet it.
Speaker 1: I agree, And from a larger broader perspective, we really
Speaker 1: got to ask just that data is super clear that
Speaker 1: the majority of these people making the decisions are white
Speaker 1: CIS men, and not even just white CIS men, like
Speaker 1: a very specific type of white CIS male, Like they
Speaker 1: live on the coasts, they make a certain amount of money,
Speaker 1: a very specific, narrow sub section of people making decisions
Speaker 1: that impact all of us. And so I would I
Speaker 1: would step back and say, like, are we really served
Speaker 1: by a media landscape where this small amount of hyper narrow,
Speaker 1: specific white men make decisions that impact everybody. I would
Speaker 1: say no, And I just can't imagine this is going
Speaker 1: to be a change that helps people who are traditionally marginalized,
Speaker 1: people who already have a difficult time building platforms and
Speaker 1: getting messages out there about what's happening in their lives
Speaker 1: and their experiences that people need to know about. People
Speaker 1: might not want to hear about, but people need to
Speaker 1: know about. I can not imagine that this is going
Speaker 1: to make the platform less possible to folks like that.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I guess we'll really see we will.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's a world where Meta makes this sort
Speaker 3: of announcement and they set up a very transparent, accountable
Speaker 3: process whereby decisions about what sort of content is political
Speaker 3: or not are made, and they have built in checks
Speaker 3: to prevent exactly those kinds of bias against women, transgender people,
Speaker 3: all the groups who typically get excluded from those kinds
Speaker 3: of decisions. There's a world where that process is part
Speaker 3: of this and this new policy like positively affirms some values.
Speaker 3: But that's not the world that we live in, right.
Speaker 3: This is we live in a world where we just
Speaker 3: get a vague statement that basically says it's going to
Speaker 3: be whatever they decide.
Speaker 1: It is exactly, And we already know so much about
Speaker 1: how Facebook has demonstrated very clear bias about how these
Speaker 1: decisions get made. So The Guardian published this thing in
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen called the Facebook Papers, which showed internally the
Speaker 1: training documents that Facebook uses to train their moderators on
Speaker 1: how to decide what content is okay and what content
Speaker 1: breaks their rules. And it is so clear that that
Speaker 1: training material is biased against marginalized people. It's just very clear.
Speaker 1: We'll throw some links to the pieces in the show notes,
Speaker 1: but so Facebook already has this precedent for coding in
Speaker 1: bias against marginalized people into how decisions get made within
Speaker 1: the company. And so yeah, I just don't think that
Speaker 1: we should be leaving it up to this very small
Speaker 1: sub section of whites, traits cis men to make decisions
Speaker 1: about what kind of content the rest of us are seeing.
Speaker 1: And it's not even really about Facebook taking a step back.
Speaker 1: I would argue that that dynamic is not a healthy one.
Speaker 1: It's not a dynamic that leads to anybody being better
Speaker 1: informed and having a better media.
Speaker 3: Diet, you know, it's interesting thinking about this story in
Speaker 3: contrast with the Tamu story that we talked about. We're
Speaker 3: on the one hand and unscrupless companies are just going
Speaker 3: out of their way to collect all of the information
Speaker 3: about us that they possibly can, and at the same time,
Speaker 3: we have this trend where social media platforms are restricting
Speaker 3: the types of information that were exposed to and the
Speaker 3: types of discourse that we're able to have.
Speaker 2: It's like opposite directions.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it really goes back to what you were
Speaker 1: saying about folks just feeling squeezed and feeling burnt out
Speaker 1: and feeling exploited, and also feeling less nourished by these
Speaker 1: online experiences like who wants to have an online experience
Speaker 1: where on the one hand, when I just go look
Speaker 1: up an app, they steal my identity And on the
Speaker 1: other hand, I can't even be nourished by the content
Speaker 1: that I'm seeing on the internet, like I do think
Speaker 1: something that's got to give.
Speaker 4: More after a quick break, get right back into it.
Speaker 3: So the online world pretty scary, lots of threats to privacy. Fortunately,
Speaker 3: we can feel safe when we're just walking around out
Speaker 3: in the offline world, right You.
Speaker 1: Sure about that that's my I think you should leave
Speaker 1: Tim Robinson impression. But no, you can't feel safe in
Speaker 1: the irrail world either, because data brokers are out there
Speaker 1: selling your sensitive information to whoever. So last year, a
Speaker 1: Law Street Journal report revealed that the anti choice organization
Speaker 1: Veritas Society was using cell phone location data shared with
Speaker 1: online advertisers to target people who were visiting a Wisconsin
Speaker 1: Planned Parenthood clinic with misinformation about reproductive health. So you
Speaker 1: would if you were in Wisconsin and you went to
Speaker 1: Planned Parenthood, they would then bombarde you with inaccurate information
Speaker 1: about abortion. So after that, Senator Ron Wyden started investigating,
Speaker 1: and this week Widen found that it went far beyond Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: Veritus was actually running the largest location data driven anti
Speaker 1: abortion ad campaign in the nation that we know of,
Speaker 1: and they were doing it by getting cell phone location
Speaker 1: data from a broker called near Intelligence and using that
Speaker 1: information to target people who had visited six hundred abortion
Speaker 1: clinics across the country with these misleading anti abortion ads.
Speaker 1: So Wyden is now calling on the FTC and the
Speaker 1: SEC to quickly take action against the data broker Near
Speaker 1: Intelligence to really make sure that the privacy of patients
Speaker 1: whose data was exploited is being protected. He sent letters
Speaker 1: to the SEC and FTC outlining exactly that. So I
Speaker 1: should say this is not really new, but it is
Speaker 1: the first time that we know of that location data
Speaker 1: has been used in this way. As early as twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: You even have one ad firm bragging that they could
Speaker 1: quote tag all the smartphones entering and leaving nearly seven
Speaker 1: hundred planned parenthood clinics in the United States. And I
Speaker 1: was back in twenty fifteen. So this is something that
Speaker 1: unfortunately has been going on for a while, but we
Speaker 1: have never seen it to this scale and scope as
Speaker 1: we have with this Verariti Society situation. Gross I know,
Speaker 1: it's really bad. So according to Politico, who spoke to
Speaker 1: Justin Sherman, a researcher who studies data brokers at Duke University,
Speaker 1: says that this campaign's scale is unprecedented. Sherman says, this
Speaker 1: is the largest targeting campaign we've seen to date against
Speaker 1: reproductive health clinics based on broker data. According to Politico.
Speaker 1: In a February twenty twenty three filing, the company said
Speaker 1: that it ensures that the data it obtains was collected
Speaker 1: with the user's permission. However, the company Near Intelligence, their
Speaker 1: former chief privacy officer, told Widen staff that the company
Speaker 1: collected and sold data without consent.
Speaker 3: Okay, the idea that people who traveled to an abortion
Speaker 3: clinic or a planned parenthood clinic somehow willingly and with
Speaker 3: informed consent gave permission to this company to collect their
Speaker 3: geolocation data is absurd. Like, it's absurd that they would
Speaker 3: even make that claim that this data was collected with
Speaker 3: the user's permission.
Speaker 1: So Near Intelligence, as former chief privacy officer Jay Angelo,
Speaker 1: really just saying like a canary here, God love them
Speaker 1: Jay Angelo. Angelo says that while the company stopped selling
Speaker 1: location data belonging to Europeans, it continued for Americans because
Speaker 1: of the lack of federal privacy regulations.
Speaker 2: Mister Angelo, Boom, there it is like black and white.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just like saying it. I honestly, I appreciate the clarity. Jay.
Speaker 1: Mister Angelo revealed that while he had to put a
Speaker 1: stop to the company's sale of data about Europeans, which
Speaker 1: is subject to Europe's strong privacy law, the company was
Speaker 1: still selling location data about Americans. This is kind of gross,
Speaker 1: but it sounds like this sensitive data was just part
Speaker 1: of like a going out of business sale. For this company,
Speaker 1: Near Intelligence filed for bankruptcy in December and started selling
Speaker 1: off its businesses and assets, which could include a trove
Speaker 1: of data collected from planned parents and facilities. So Senator White,
Speaker 1: it is asking the FTC to prevent from selling any
Speaker 1: more of that data. The company's privacy policy does say
Speaker 1: that in the event of bankruptcy or sale of assets,
Speaker 1: that the company could transfer any of the data that
Speaker 1: it collects to its successor. That is really gross, especially
Speaker 1: when we're talking about something as sensitive as health data.
Speaker 1: But apparently it is not uncommon. But this concern is
Speaker 1: part of a larger FTC crackdown about data broker selling
Speaker 1: health data, specifically political rights that in recent months, the
Speaker 1: FTC has been cracking down on data brokers collecting and
Speaker 1: sharing health related information. The agency settlement against the location
Speaker 1: data broker x Mode highlights that the company ran ads
Speaker 1: targeted to people who visited medical facilities, and its lawsuit
Speaker 1: against the data broker Cochava also notes that the data
Speaker 1: tracked people who visited reproductive healthcare clinics. So this is
Speaker 1: really gross. It is gross to think of your sensitive
Speaker 1: data being sold off as like just part of a
Speaker 1: going out of business sale or a fire sale, but
Speaker 1: it does sound like that is exactly what's going on,
Speaker 1: and that your Intelligence is not the only company who
Speaker 1: has been doing that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think people have a false sense of
Speaker 3: security that HIPPA protects them in these cases. That HIPPA
Speaker 3: is the law in the US that protects the privacy
Speaker 3: of some health information.
Speaker 2: But people often have.
Speaker 3: A really overly large understanding of what HIPPA actually protects,
Speaker 3: and in a lot of cases it just it offers
Speaker 3: no protection at all where people would expect it to.
Speaker 3: So we really need better privacy laws in this country.
Speaker 3: Is really the long and short of it.
Speaker 1: Well, that's the thing is that I don't think that
Speaker 1: any any regular person would assume that when you go
Speaker 1: to a help a private healthcare provider, a health care facility,
Speaker 1: something that is so intimate and private, that that data
Speaker 1: could be sold in this way. I think that most
Speaker 1: people would probably assume that we had protections that would
Speaker 1: prevent that, and it's we just deserve better, We deserve
Speaker 1: we should have those protections. It is common sense. But
Speaker 1: I guess if it makes some company a little bit richer,
Speaker 1: that's the grift, Like it's like, okay, well, what won't
Speaker 1: we sell about people? It doesn't matter how intimate or
Speaker 1: how sensitive it is. They will sell anything if it
Speaker 1: makes them a buck.
Speaker 3: It's disgusting, and it also underscores the importance of jealously
Speaker 3: protecting our privacy, even for things that aren't sensitive. Right, Like,
Speaker 3: you know, you might imagine that geolocation data from your
Speaker 3: cell phone about where you're going. You know, if you
Speaker 3: go to the grocery store, you go to a coffee shop,
Speaker 3: that's not so sensitive. So maybe it's fine, who cares
Speaker 3: if somebody is like tracking that and associating it with
Speaker 3: my online shopping history. But opening ourselves up to that
Speaker 3: kind of willing surrender of our privacy to allow ourselves
Speaker 3: to be tracked, our data to be harvested, these profiles
Speaker 3: to be creative of us and sold from one broker
Speaker 3: to another, even if ninety five percent of it is
Speaker 3: not sensitive. There's some sensitive stuff in there, and once
Speaker 3: it's out there, it's out there, and somebody's going to
Speaker 3: find it and exploit it to do gross things like
Speaker 3: serving misinformation to people who have visited planned parenthood clinics.
Speaker 1: So we did a story a couple of weeks ago
Speaker 1: about how open Ai quietly I say quietly because I
Speaker 1: think they tried to make it quiet, but folks like
Speaker 1: us made it loud. Quietly dropped their band I'm using
Speaker 1: Ai for military uses. Well, this week, open AI's headquarters
Speaker 1: in San Francisco was protested over this change. Protesters outside
Speaker 1: of their San Francisco headquarters had signs that said things
Speaker 1: like don't trust Sam Altman, a reference to open AI's CEO,
Speaker 1: who was fired and then rehired and basically now seems
Speaker 1: like maybe he thinks he can do whatever he wants
Speaker 1: because he came back after being fired. So. Bloomberg did
Speaker 1: a really interesting interview with the two activists who organized
Speaker 1: this protest. Holly Elmore, who helped organize the protest, said
Speaker 1: that the underlying problem was much bigger than open AI's
Speaker 1: military work. It's the way that open ai publicly stated
Speaker 1: it would not work with militaries and then retracted that commitment.
Speaker 1: There's no teeth to those boundaries, Elmore said, even when
Speaker 1: they are very sensible limits set by the companies, they
Speaker 1: can just change them whenever they want so. Sam Kircher,
Speaker 1: another organizer of the protest, sounds just like an interesting person. Sam,
Speaker 1: if you're listening to this, you sound interesting as hell,
Speaker 1: and I want you to come on the show. Actually,
Speaker 1: both of you sound interesting as hell, and I want
Speaker 1: you to come on the show. But Sam Kircher says
Speaker 1: that she protests regularly in Seattle against artificial general intelligence.
Speaker 1: Open AI and other companies are aiming to create AGI,
Speaker 1: which they define as AI as smart as the average person.
Speaker 1: Kircher says that AGI will remove meaning from the human
Speaker 1: existence by hindering our ability to contribute and make discoveries.
Speaker 1: And so I think it's really interesting that that Sam
Speaker 1: Kirscher's objection is like more like existential. It's like, I
Speaker 1: object to the existential threat to humanity that AGI specifically proses.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Sam is certainly not the only one talking about
Speaker 3: it as an existential threat.
Speaker 2: In so many ways.
Speaker 1: So I think that this protest really shows that people
Speaker 1: are paying attention to what's happening around technology like AI
Speaker 1: and saying, wait, this isn't good. And you know, we
Speaker 1: can't leave that to the fact that all of this
Speaker 1: is happening against the backdrop of what's happening in Palestine,
Speaker 1: And so it is clear that This is not just
Speaker 1: like theoretical, it is very much real life. For someone
Speaker 1: like a Sam Altman, just saying JKA and deciding that
Speaker 1: their technology can in fact be used by the military
Speaker 1: comes with very high stakes and to be super clear,
Speaker 1: as far as we know, open ai is not making weapons,
Speaker 1: and they say that they will not, But as the
Speaker 1: organizers of this protest point out, they also said that
Speaker 1: they would not let militaries use their tools, and now
Speaker 1: they've gone back on that, And so why should we
Speaker 1: trust people like Sam Altman that they're going to do
Speaker 1: what they say? And it's very clear from this protest
Speaker 1: that people are paying attention to that and being like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you say one thing and then you do another. It
Speaker 1: really matters what you do and what you say, and
Speaker 1: we feel like we cannot trust you at your word
Speaker 1: to stick by anything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just you know, I guess my role today is
Speaker 3: to connect stories with the previous story we talked about,
Speaker 3: but like it reminds me of Facebook, which is so
Speaker 3: powerful and an unavoidable responsibility for shaping what our information
Speaker 3: ecosystem looks like. Open ai is really pushing the boundaries
Speaker 3: of this incredibly powerful technology and a lot of people
Speaker 3: like Sam Kircher feel it as an existential threat, and that,
Speaker 3: combined with how unaccountable these companies are, is really unsettling
Speaker 3: and scary right Like it's they have so much power,
Speaker 3: so little accountability. It feels like a scary time to
Speaker 3: be a human.
Speaker 1: Well, the humans are fighting back. Speaking of connecting stories,
Speaker 1: we got to talk about another. I'll call it a
Speaker 1: protest that happened in San Francisco. People on the street
Speaker 1: all got together and destroyed a way Mow self drive vehicle. Now,
Speaker 1: the vehicle was not transporting anybody at that time, and
Speaker 1: nobody was hurt. But listen to how Verge reports it.
Speaker 1: A person jumped on the hood of a Waymou driverless
Speaker 1: taxi and smashed its windshield in San Francisco's Chinatown, generating applause,
Speaker 1: before a crowd formed around the car and covered it
Speaker 1: in spray paint, breaking its windows, and ultimately set it
Speaker 1: on fire. The fire department arrived minutes later, but by
Speaker 1: then the flames had fully engulfed the car. So can
Speaker 1: you like just the idea that somebody was like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna smash this car, and then a group of strangers
Speaker 1: were all like we like this and we will help
Speaker 1: you destroy this car, and they all came together and
Speaker 1: set it on fire.
Speaker 3: Like I said at the top of the show, I
Speaker 3: do enjoy seeing people come together for collective action.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sorry, I this is kind of this
Speaker 1: is this sounds kind of cool, right, And I'm not
Speaker 1: the only person that thinks this.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, I mean, you know, you'd hate to think
Speaker 3: that with all these problems that we've been talking about,
Speaker 3: people feel that like their only path of recours is
Speaker 3: to go in the street and like smash things and
Speaker 3: burn them. Maybe that's where we are. I mean, they
Speaker 3: did effectively get that car off the.
Speaker 1: Street, so I should say there is no word on motive.
Speaker 1: But this does all take place against the backdrop of
Speaker 1: rising tensions between citizens in California and self driving car companies.
Speaker 1: We reported on this like awful story a while back
Speaker 1: that Cruz, who is Waimo's rival, lost their ability to
Speaker 1: operate in California after one of its cars hit and
Speaker 1: dragged a pedestrian, and worse, the company basically lied about
Speaker 1: it to save their own assets. At every step of
Speaker 1: the way, they tried to mislead regulators about what happened,
Speaker 1: including giving them doctored footage of the incident. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I can understand why citizens are not loving these companies.
Speaker 1: Even as I was just putting together the research for
Speaker 1: this segment, I found two unrelated stories that happened days
Speaker 1: apart that involved close call almost incidents where self driving
Speaker 1: cars almost hit children. In one, the car was fully
Speaker 1: stopped and then it started when two people had gotten
Speaker 1: maybe a third of the way across the intersection. She
Speaker 1: says that the car then started to accelerate toward them
Speaker 1: as if they were not there. Her seven year old
Speaker 1: child had to run and serve out of the way
Speaker 1: to avoid being hit. And this happened just the day before.
Speaker 1: Another cruise incident was caught on camera and posted to Reddit,
Speaker 1: where a car came barreling toward two women and a
Speaker 1: child who were fully walking in a crosswalk. So it
Speaker 1: is clear that people do not want these cars on
Speaker 1: their streets. City officials and residents in San Francisco opposed
Speaker 1: the cars being given a license for twenty four to
Speaker 1: seven operation last year, and some residents are even doing
Speaker 1: a less involved form of protest by putting orange cones
Speaker 1: on top of the car's hoods as a kind of
Speaker 1: like less Flamey protest less Flamey.
Speaker 3: It's not good when you have a brand that people
Speaker 3: hate so much that they like spontaneously come together to
Speaker 3: set your product on fire, right Like you would think
Speaker 3: that that would maybe prompt some reflection or doing things differently,
Speaker 3: or maybe just not doing things at all.
Speaker 1: In this case, Yeah, but I get it. I mean,
Speaker 1: why would you want to risk your life and the
Speaker 1: life of your child so that a self driving car
Speaker 1: company can make money that you never get a cut up.
Speaker 1: It's like I when I walk out on my streets,
Speaker 1: I'd never agreed to be a crash test, an unpaid,
Speaker 1: unconsenting crash test dummy for Cruise or way MO. I
Speaker 1: don't think anybody agreed to that. So I can understand
Speaker 1: why residents are fighting back in any way they can
Speaker 1: against the system that says your life and the life
Speaker 1: of your child is worth less than our company making money.
Speaker 1: I can understand while people are angry and frustrated at
Speaker 1: that dynamic because it's not one that is working for
Speaker 1: anybody except for these car companies.
Speaker 3: I'd be curious to see national poll data about like
Speaker 3: what Americans think about these cars.
Speaker 1: Well, I can't give you national poll data about that.
Speaker 1: But you know what, I can give you national.
Speaker 2: Poll data about what's that bridget.
Speaker 1: The Taylor Swift psyop campaign that we're all currently witnessing.
Speaker 1: We have talked about this a little bit on the
Speaker 1: show before. Taylor Swift is the focal point of a
Speaker 1: new conspiracy theory. It gets a little bit fuzzy for
Speaker 1: me once I try to describe the actual like what
Speaker 1: is going on here? I kind of loose a thread.
Speaker 1: But as far as I can tell, it's that Taylor
Speaker 1: Swift is being artificially pumped up and propped up to
Speaker 1: help the Democrats and also vaccines. You have voices like
Speaker 1: former Republican presidential candidate viviak Ramaswami saying this, So this
Speaker 1: is not just coming from fringe places on the Internet.
Speaker 1: It is being elevated at a much more mainstream level.
Speaker 1: And now Mamath just puts some numbers behind this. They
Speaker 1: did a national poll that found that nearly one in
Speaker 1: five Americans, or eighteen percent, believe that Taylor Swift is
Speaker 1: part of a covert government effort to re elect President Biden.
Speaker 1: Among this group, seventy one percent identified with the GOP.
Speaker 1: Eighty three percent are likely to vote for Trump, and
Speaker 1: seventy three percent also believe that Biden won twenty twenty
Speaker 1: by fraud.
Speaker 3: One in five Americans believing that Taylor Swift is part
Speaker 3: of a covert government effort is so many people like,
Speaker 3: we are so screwed here, We're cooked.
Speaker 1: We're cooked. This is not good. The data is not good.
Speaker 1: It's not looking good for humanity.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 1: I will say this, though I don't want to say
Speaker 1: too much. I don't want to get the Swifties angry
Speaker 1: at me. I don't need Swifties and Tamu coming after
Speaker 1: me in this episode. However, I am curious how Taylor
Speaker 1: Swift's recent vibe has impacted this conspiracy theory, because I
Speaker 1: do feel like something has kind of shifted where people
Speaker 1: are kind of turning on Taylor Swift a little bit
Speaker 1: after her speeches at the Grammys. It's it's I don't
Speaker 1: know this. I don't I'm not tapped into the Swift
Speaker 1: everse so like, forgive me if I'm speaking out of turn,
Speaker 1: but I have witnessed that I think that people are
Speaker 1: kind of turning on her a little bit, and so
Speaker 1: I am curious as to how that fits into this
Speaker 1: larger conspiracy theory that she is being artificially propped up
Speaker 1: to like help Biden win. Like I remember, I think
Speaker 1: on the day of the super Bowl Trump was on
Speaker 1: Trump's social basically like bad mouthing Taylor Swift and being like, oh,
Speaker 1: she's planning on endorsing Biden at the super Bowl? How
Speaker 1: would she have even done that? Like, she's not a
Speaker 1: perform she wasn't performing at the halftime show, She's not
Speaker 1: a player, like she could was the plan that she
Speaker 1: was going to wear a Biden's shirt? Like, what was
Speaker 1: the what was the plan?
Speaker 3: It doesn't even need to be connected to reality, right,
Speaker 3: He just says things. Sometimes they make sense, sometimes they don't.
Speaker 3: Where they definitely make people laying you know, And I'm
Speaker 3: sure people who believe in this conspiracy with this new
Speaker 3: news cycle where like you say, people or maybe like
Speaker 3: turning on her a little bit, I'm sure that's only
Speaker 3: more evidence that makes the people who believe this conspiracy
Speaker 3: like further believe in it. That's just how these conspiracy
Speaker 3: theories work.
Speaker 1: Oh, that is absolutely the thing with conspiracy theories. I
Speaker 1: shouldn't even be trying to ask rational logical questions about
Speaker 1: what's going on here. Necessarily because let's say that Taylor
Speaker 1: Swift came out and endorsed Trump somehow, that would be
Speaker 1: used as evidence that, like, see, they were right all along.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter what it is. If you've ever studied
Speaker 1: how movements like Q work, it's like any new data
Speaker 1: point can be used to confirm their their previously held idea.
Speaker 1: So Mike like, it's it was almost like not even
Speaker 1: really worth it to try to find the logic of
Speaker 1: what they're saying or what they think is happening here.
Speaker 2: One in five.
Speaker 1: I don't even I don't even have it much to
Speaker 1: say about that. It's just so bad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like what kind of a conversation can we have
Speaker 3: with those people that? I mean, I guess to be clear,
Speaker 3: I'm coming from a place where I don't believe that
Speaker 3: Taylor Swift is part of a covert government siop not
Speaker 3: really aware of any evidence suggesting that she might be.
Speaker 3: She seems pretty apolitical like most of the time. But yeah,
Speaker 3: here we are like trying to make sense of it,
Speaker 3: and it's not like a sense making thing, like these
Speaker 3: eighteen percent of Americans, they just believe it.
Speaker 1: Well, even though this is not a sense making thing.
Speaker 1: I hope that we have helped people make sense of
Speaker 1: this wacky and wild news and media and tech climate
Speaker 1: that we're in. Mike, thank you for being here and
Speaker 1: helping us do that.
Speaker 2: Bridgette, thanks for having me. It's always a pleasure.
Speaker 1: And thanks to all of you for listening. I will
Speaker 1: see you on the Internet. Got a story about an
Speaker 1: interesting thing in tech, or just want to say hi,
Speaker 1: you can be just said Hello at tegody dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tengody
Speaker 1: dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was
Speaker 1: created by me bridget Toad. It's a production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and Unbossed creative Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari
Speaker 1: Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amado is
Speaker 1: our contributing producer. I'm your host, bridget Tood. If you
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