Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
Speaker 1: of My Heart Radio and Unbust Creative. I'm Bridget Todd
Speaker 1: and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 1: We are back with a little hiatus update, this time
Speaker 1: all about you, hasted Facebook. Now, if you've been listening
Speaker 1: to Tyodi for any amount of time, you know that
Speaker 1: Facebook is the platform I love to Hey, I think
Speaker 1: it's an evil company that has profited from destabilizing democracies
Speaker 1: and hurting already marginalized communities. Hate Facebook, hate them, can't
Speaker 1: stand them. And last week we've learned a lot more
Speaker 1: about just how aware of Facebook is about the harm
Speaker 1: their platform causes in our communities. I joined my friends
Speaker 1: Annie and Samantha at the podcast Stuff Mom Never Told
Speaker 1: You to discuss the harm that Facebook causes young women
Speaker 1: and girls, revealed in the bombshell Wall Street Journal expose
Speaker 1: based on documents and data from former Facebook employee turn
Speaker 1: whistleblower Francis Hagen. But Hagen is not the only person
Speaker 1: who has blown the whistle on Facebook's shady practices, and
Speaker 1: next week we'll hear from Sophiejong, a former Facebook employee
Speaker 1: who blew the whistle on Facebook last year. Trust me
Speaker 1: when I say you will not want to miss her
Speaker 1: incredible story. But in the meantime, here's my deep dive
Speaker 1: and the Facebook's damaging impact on peen girls on stuff
Speaker 1: Mom never told you. Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
Speaker 1: I don't welcome to stuff I've never told your production
Speaker 1: for I HI Radio Today, we are so thrilled to
Speaker 1: once again be joined by the amazing Bridget Todd. Hello Bridget,
Speaker 1: Hello Annie, Hello Sam. I'm so excited to be here
Speaker 1: back with y'all again. Always a delight. We're so excited
Speaker 1: to have you because, as we were just discussing, you
Speaker 1: have brought to the table a topic we wanted to address.
Speaker 1: We knew super important, but we were like, we've better
Speaker 1: wait for Bridget, because Bridget, you have got more no no,
Speaker 1: how then than either of us do. You've worked with Facebook,
Speaker 1: You've interacted with these social media companies, You've just been
Speaker 1: a huge activist and a very outspoken in this area,
Speaker 1: and so so excited where you're talking about this today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and also when we're talking about social media, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna lie. You're one of the people that I see
Speaker 1: the most of in all of my social media is
Speaker 1: whether it's Twitter, Istram typically more Twitter, and then like Instagram.
Speaker 1: I see your face and the amazing things you're doing,
Speaker 1: and I have to ask, I cannot figure out how
Speaker 1: you're doing everything that you are doing because you're constantly
Speaker 1: on go, Like I see you in all the panels
Speaker 1: and all the conversations, all the interviews. Everybody wants to
Speaker 1: talk to you, of course, but also you live what
Speaker 1: I am seeing to be my fantasy life in the travel, Like,
Speaker 1: is this your real life? Are you as fantastically living
Speaker 1: as I see? Because I'm quite jealous of all of
Speaker 1: the beautiful trips, all of the sunset pictures, all the
Speaker 1: lovely like sitting by the water pictures. What is this life?
Speaker 1: What is your life? Bridget I'm so glad you asked.
Speaker 1: So this is actually such a good segue into the topic,
Speaker 1: which is that I think if you were going to
Speaker 1: check out my Instagram, you would be like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is a person who lives a phenomenal life. It's a lie.
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, I do the trips, I do the travel.
Speaker 1: The last few weeks I've been traveling on the road,
Speaker 1: and I was in the Cats Skills right outside of Woodstock,
Speaker 1: New York, which is in my favorite places to go.
Speaker 1: And if you were just observing from social media, you
Speaker 1: would be like, wow, this person barely works, and when
Speaker 1: she does work, she's just like sitting on a stage
Speaker 1: and it looks lovely and then she's like going to
Speaker 1: the Cat Skills to her lovely cabin. I posted a
Speaker 1: picture on Instagram of me in a hot tub overlooking
Speaker 1: like rolling mountains and like very beautiful fall foliage, and
Speaker 1: to be like, honest, I did spend a lovely week
Speaker 1: in a lovely cabin in the cat Skills, but I
Speaker 1: was also working in the entire time, and so like
Speaker 1: it wasn't really that fun. My partner was there and
Speaker 1: they were working in the entire time. The picture of
Speaker 1: me in the hot tub, the hot tub had broken
Speaker 1: and so we had two good nights with it. And
Speaker 1: then when I was in it for that picture, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I don't think it's actually on. It's
Speaker 1: actually kind of cold, even though I looked like very relaxed.
Speaker 1: So no, I mean, like it's such a like curated
Speaker 1: greatest hits real. And I'm so glad that you asked,
Speaker 1: because I think it's important to demonstrate that, you know,
Speaker 1: Instagram versus reality. It's not always as peche keen rosy
Speaker 1: as it seems. I have to also put in the
Speaker 1: fight that not too long ago you injured yourself and
Speaker 1: you were still like just writing on with all of
Speaker 1: these activities that you're doing, including the fide that you
Speaker 1: are pretty much bossing it up everywhere and doing all
Speaker 1: of these interviews. Because I'm like, when does this woman
Speaker 1: ever stop? Does she ever stop? Because I'm sitting in
Speaker 1: my own couch playing the sad phone game that I've
Speaker 1: been obsessed with while watching things on repeat. I did
Speaker 1: a lot of that as well. And it's so funny
Speaker 1: because we did our first live taping of my podcast
Speaker 1: there are no girls on the internet in New York
Speaker 1: during that trip, and someone was like, oh, wow, you're
Speaker 1: you're back on your feet from breaking your ankle, and
Speaker 1: I was like, no, I just I used my cast
Speaker 1: and my crutches to get on the stage and I
Speaker 1: changed my shoes. Because again, you would think that I'm
Speaker 1: totally healed. It's like no, in actuality, I'm still in
Speaker 1: the cast. Yeah. I mean that is such a great
Speaker 1: segue for what we're talking about and this story around
Speaker 1: Facebook and particularly the damage that it does to young girls,
Speaker 1: has like caught the national attention reesely the national attention
Speaker 1: um and like it was a skit on SNL and
Speaker 1: it's been funny slash sad to see these older politicians
Speaker 1: trying to make sense of things like Instagram. Oh gosh,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh. But it's just so much of what
Speaker 1: you bring in these episodes just demonstrates the real world
Speaker 1: damage and impact that we often separate our beliefs that
Speaker 1: the internet doesn't have, but it does. So can you
Speaker 1: break down this whole thing? I will try my best.
Speaker 1: There's a lot going on, so you know, Facebook has
Speaker 1: had a run, I mean a pretty intense few weeks.
Speaker 1: Is a lot happening, and the thing I really want
Speaker 1: to focus on is the harm specifically to young girls,
Speaker 1: like teenage girls. That is not the totality of like
Speaker 1: what's going on and like the last few weeks for
Speaker 1: Facebook and really the last few months for Facebook. But
Speaker 1: if I were to talk about all the different harmful
Speaker 1: things that Facebook has done and is doing, you will
Speaker 1: be here all day. So I really want to focus
Speaker 1: on the impact that it has on young girls and
Speaker 1: team girls, because you know, I just think that like
Speaker 1: it's easy for teen girls and their experiences to be
Speaker 1: sort of sidelined or marginalized, and so with all the
Speaker 1: different information coming out, I really want to focus on that,
Speaker 1: and so just generally kind of like what's happening and
Speaker 1: sort of why this conversation is taking place. The Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal published a series of really bombshell expose is
Speaker 1: about Facebook called The Facebook Files. Um. It's also a
Speaker 1: podcast if that's how you prefer to get your media,
Speaker 1: And it was all based on leaked data from documents
Speaker 1: from the company gathered by a whistleblower named Francis Hagen
Speaker 1: who used to work in Facebook's now defunct Civic Integrity Team,
Speaker 1: And that was a team that was really tasked with
Speaker 1: combatant things like misinformation and making sure that misinformation and
Speaker 1: disinformation did not like derail elections, and so it's not
Speaker 1: surprising to me that they dismantled that team. And it's
Speaker 1: a nine part series and it pretty much chronicles Facebook's
Speaker 1: most harmful and trouble link practices and behavior. From this
Speaker 1: expose a we found out things that like the fact
Speaker 1: that high profile celebrity Facebook users are pretty much exempt
Speaker 1: from Facebook's moderation rules, and that Facebook is aware that
Speaker 1: their platform is used to quote promote human trafficking and
Speaker 1: domestic servitude, and so I would recommend that anybody either
Speaker 1: read the entire series or listen to the podcast because
Speaker 1: there's so much there. It's like every new draft, I'm
Speaker 1: like wow, wow, wow. And I'm somebody who studies and
Speaker 1: works on Facebook and the harm that they that they perpetuate. Right,
Speaker 1: it did seem to be like oh wait and what
Speaker 1: and what now? And it's interesting to me because I
Speaker 1: think we've talked about on the show, but just in
Speaker 1: society in general, it's interesting to me when we make
Speaker 1: these jokes, but why are we accepting this as the reality.
Speaker 1: But one is, you know, face book is this place
Speaker 1: where it is harmful and you're gonna get like your
Speaker 1: weird uncle giving you some strange conspiracy theory. We're just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's cool, that's what Facebook is. The powers that be
Speaker 1: were so like, yeah, you know, it doesn't really matter
Speaker 1: because like you said that, these issues that are impacting
Speaker 1: teen girls in this case are just seen as sort
Speaker 1: of frivolous or like they're being emotional, like it's just
Speaker 1: social media, what's the big deal? Right? Yeah, But apparently
Speaker 1: it is a big deal and it has been making
Speaker 1: an impact. And Facebook did this, they knew it, and
Speaker 1: they kept going on with their platform and they tried
Speaker 1: to hide it. But now that it's come out, like
Speaker 1: heavy sigh every side. So can you talk about the
Speaker 1: scope of the issue here, Yes, So, as you said,
Speaker 1: I mean, like something to know is that even though
Speaker 1: we're all talking about it and it's in the news,
Speaker 1: a lot of this information is really not new except
Speaker 1: that we've known from prior research or um just from
Speaker 1: like being a casual user of the platform. If you're
Speaker 1: a casual user of Facebook, even you probably might have suspected, like, oh,
Speaker 1: Facebook might be making money off of causing harm, and
Speaker 1: so this is really not surprising. But exactly as you
Speaker 1: put it, I think why this is news right now
Speaker 1: is that we're getting an insight into how much Facebook
Speaker 1: already knew about the harm that their platform causes in
Speaker 1: our society and how much they're trying to sort of
Speaker 1: downplay it. And so another reason why we know that
Speaker 1: this is not a new issue is that there have
Speaker 1: been Facebook listle blowers in the past. So Fiesang, she's
Speaker 1: a former Facebook data scientist who uncovered abusive political manipulation
Speaker 1: using fake engagement. UM she found a series of multiple
Speaker 1: blatant attempts by foreign national governments to abuse the platform
Speaker 1: on vast scales to mislead their own citizen read which
Speaker 1: calls international news on multiple occasions. That starts from her report.
Speaker 1: The summary of that is basically the light you know,
Speaker 1: accounts belonging to government leaders, we're using fake accounts to
Speaker 1: engage with their content to make it look like it's
Speaker 1: more popular than it is. So if I if I'm
Speaker 1: a government leader and I put out like we have
Speaker 1: plans to do this, and then I have a bunch
Speaker 1: of fake accounts who were like, yes, we love this plan,
Speaker 1: we love this plan, we love this plan. It's like
Speaker 1: building fake agreement for your policies. And so essentially that's
Speaker 1: what soap easying uncovered. And you know, Facebook has been
Speaker 1: allowing and profiting all of these harmful practices forever. So
Speaker 1: this is really not new. And I always like to
Speaker 1: remind people that Facebook started because Mark Zuckerberg, when he
Speaker 1: was in college, created a website called face Smash, which
Speaker 1: basically was like like a way to rank the attractiveness
Speaker 1: of his female co students, right, and so misogyny and
Speaker 1: attacks on women and harm against women. This is like
Speaker 1: not a mistake. It is baked into these platforms like
Speaker 1: Facebook from the very beginning. Zuckerberg will tell you like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's not true, that's not true. Like I happened to
Speaker 1: build a website called facemash that was shut down, and
Speaker 1: then a few months later created a website that was
Speaker 1: pretty much the same thing called Facebook. Those are unrelated. Obviously,
Speaker 1: that's not true, but that's what he would tell you. Um,
Speaker 1: And so yeah, the fact that that websites and platforms
Speaker 1: like Facebook are harmful to young women should not be
Speaker 1: a surprise because in fact, they were created on that harm.
Speaker 1: Like that is a big part of why they exist
Speaker 1: in the first place. And reading this this expose, it
Speaker 1: really gets into the harm that Facebook has done in
Speaker 1: terms of team girls and young women. So trigger warning. Um,
Speaker 1: you know this talks about eating disorders, suicide, depression, and
Speaker 1: so that's something that is tough for you to hear about. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: that's a lot of what is going on. And you know,
Speaker 1: this is really something that is sort of personal to
Speaker 1: me because you know, I love the Internet. I love
Speaker 1: being online and I always have and when I first
Speaker 1: got on the Internet. Like I'm old, so this was
Speaker 1: the late nineties. I had so many different kinds of experiences.
Speaker 1: Some of them were negative, you know, I was definitely
Speaker 1: in chat rooms doing stuff I shouldn't have been doing
Speaker 1: when I was young, But some of them were also
Speaker 1: incredibly like liberating and self affirming, Like if not for
Speaker 1: having the Internet in my in my bedroom and my
Speaker 1: like small Virginia town, I wouldn't have known that I
Speaker 1: was like that I'm queer, I wouldn't have known, like
Speaker 1: I don't know that I would be doing what I'm
Speaker 1: doing today, or like even living the life that I
Speaker 1: am living today, like that, like the Internet is what
Speaker 1: allowed me to see myself and fully become myself as
Speaker 1: an adult. And I keep thinking like this was and
Speaker 1: so there they're the ecosystem did not exist to have
Speaker 1: billionaires making money profiting off of my negative experiences and
Speaker 1: negative feelings. And I don't think I would have been
Speaker 1: able to use the Internet as this tool of self
Speaker 1: discovery and self affirmation had that been the case. And
Speaker 1: I really do think that like the younger generation, they
Speaker 1: deserve to have an allline experience is not a mark
Speaker 1: rket place for their pain for their negative feelings, and
Speaker 1: it does not incentivize them to to be the worst
Speaker 1: versions of themselves. And I'm really lucky that I came
Speaker 1: of age when I did, when when there wasn't a
Speaker 1: marketplace for my pain as a young girl. But today's generation,
Speaker 1: as these leaks really really demonstrate, is really not so lucky.
Speaker 1: I know we've talked before about things like spawn Con
Speaker 1: and how these big celebrities, usually women in this case,
Speaker 1: will you know, try to sell these items that are
Speaker 1: all about being thin usually and what I'm thinking of
Speaker 1: and if I had been young and I had seen that,
Speaker 1: and it's like all these challenges people have about being
Speaker 1: super thin like that, I know for a fact that
Speaker 1: would have impacted me. That would have been something that
Speaker 1: I would have thought, Okay, this is normal. I need
Speaker 1: to try to do that, I need to look a
Speaker 1: certain way. And those messages were already strong without I
Speaker 1: just know for certain that it would And I am
Speaker 1: someone who I the internet is. I love the Internet.
Speaker 1: I think it's beautiful place for a lot of things.
Speaker 1: And I know when this Facebook outage happened, people were like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, on one hand, celebrating, but we should also remember,
Speaker 1: like you know, marginalized people who connect that way, and
Speaker 1: also businesses that run that way, all these things. But
Speaker 1: it just has become so for me, like I'm going
Speaker 1: to feel bad about myself if I engage in this.
Speaker 1: It's such a weird dichotomy to me because there's this
Speaker 1: one group of you see things that I really wish
Speaker 1: I had seen as a kid. Like, so we're talking
Speaker 1: about people being able to spind themselves and not realizing
Speaker 1: maybe there is a reason why you are this way.
Speaker 1: Maybe that doesn't make sense that you're home, but there's
Speaker 1: a com unity out there that can see you, that
Speaker 1: knows you and and feels what you feel. But at
Speaker 1: the same time, you have this other aspect of this untruth.
Speaker 1: But like you're talking about this fake persona of happiness
Speaker 1: that doesn't truly exist, and therefore if you haven't reached that,
Speaker 1: or if you don't try to reach that, then you
Speaker 1: have failed. So these two like vast differences is such
Speaker 1: a heartbreak to me because I'm like, yes, this is good,
Speaker 1: but this is not good. So where do we fall
Speaker 1: on this line? Because I'm not gonna lie. It wasn't
Speaker 1: until after that I saw all the notifications that all
Speaker 1: these things were down that I realized it was even down.
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, is that what happened? Okay, well
Speaker 1: I just assumed me being me, my technology wasn't up
Speaker 1: and going. So I moved on to whatever the next
Speaker 1: thing was. But this conversation that we have when we
Speaker 1: see how much of an influence and that is the influence.
Speaker 1: There's no real middle ground, especially when we talk about
Speaker 1: the younger generations about they're going to be influenced, whether
Speaker 1: it's the positive side that they're on or the negative
Speaker 1: side that they're on. They're on one of them. And
Speaker 1: I couldn't imagine what that feels like today. And I'm
Speaker 1: insecure as hell as an adult, so coming as an
Speaker 1: attain trying to really figure out who they are and
Speaker 1: and feeling like maybe their their home life isn't what
Speaker 1: they want or what they need or is not healthy,
Speaker 1: and then having to go to the spot to the
Speaker 1: space and you don't know what's safe anymore. And I
Speaker 1: think about that with my nieces and nephew that I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this is what they're growing up with.
Speaker 1: And I see that level of like how do we
Speaker 1: help them, but at the same time not try to
Speaker 1: pull them away from the world, make them naive and
Speaker 1: not be a part of the world. Such a weird thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you just articulated such a tension that I
Speaker 1: feel as someone who loves social media uses social media,
Speaker 1: but it's really clearer about these downfalls and these negative
Speaker 1: aspects of it. It can be used to find community,
Speaker 1: feel less alone, you know, build movements, but it can
Speaker 1: also be used in these incredibly damaging and negative ways.
Speaker 1: And I think you really put it so well, Sam,
Speaker 1: this idea of like, you know, we know from from
Speaker 1: this leak and from the Facebook, you know, Facebook's own
Speaker 1: words and their own data, that platforms, their algorithms really
Speaker 1: do incentivize, you know, the negative, and so you see
Speaker 1: more content that is polarizing or that makes you angry
Speaker 1: or that is insidiary rather than content that is like
Speaker 1: positive or affirming or that kind of thing. Like algorithms
Speaker 1: prioritize the bad. And I think that young people can
Speaker 1: have all different kinds of experiences online, some of them good,
Speaker 1: some of them bad. But there it's a problem when
Speaker 1: platforms incentivize the bad, right when they traffic in the bad,
Speaker 1: when they promote and amplified the bad. So it's not
Speaker 1: just like a neutral experience where whoever is using the
Speaker 1: platform can decide if they want to gravitate toward experiences
Speaker 1: online that are going to be affirming and good and
Speaker 1: you know all of that stuff or bad, extreme and
Speaker 1: insidiary and polarizing when you have an algorithm that is
Speaker 1: prioritizing one over the other, which we know that they are,
Speaker 1: and you know it's it's in putting together the research
Speaker 1: for this episode. You know, I'm an adult, right, I
Speaker 1: am a fully grown person, and I struggle with insecurity.
Speaker 1: I struggle with, you know, self image. I struggle with
Speaker 1: comparing myself to my peers. I struggle with all of
Speaker 1: that stuff. And I'm a fairly like confident, secure person
Speaker 1: when I was younger. I am so lucky that social
Speaker 1: media wasn't the way that it was now when I
Speaker 1: was younger, Like any you were just saying, like, I
Speaker 1: know that that would have really been hard for me.
Speaker 1: I know that I would have struggled. I know that
Speaker 1: that that it just would have been a bad time.
Speaker 1: It would not the internet would not have been a
Speaker 1: place of self discovery. It would have been a place
Speaker 1: where I went to think about all the ways that
Speaker 1: I didn't measure up. And it makes me so sad
Speaker 1: that that is exactly the experience that we are allowing
Speaker 1: for young people today, Like that is just like their
Speaker 1: experience of being online is one of you know, feeling
Speaker 1: bad about themselves and I hate that. I hate that
Speaker 1: for them. They deserve they deserve so much better, right,
Speaker 1: And you know, as a person who again we've talked
Speaker 1: about this is like being on the inside to see
Speaker 1: what that damage can do. Being a part of a
Speaker 1: workforce that worked with at risk teams trying to hold
Speaker 1: people accountable, I can't imagine. So we have some of
Speaker 1: these leaked documents that I know, and I've seen a
Speaker 1: few tweets and articles talking about how these women specifically
Speaker 1: have felt threatened and are feeling at this point even
Speaker 1: now like oh this is dangerous. I've come to dangerous
Speaker 1: grounds that with this happening internally, people have had to
Speaker 1: know how has this allowed to happen? What are they
Speaker 1: saying inside of this company that they're like whatever, Like
Speaker 1: how are they even trying to frame this? Yes, so
Speaker 1: let's get into that. So one thing to note is
Speaker 1: that a lot of this pertains to Instagram, but it's
Speaker 1: important to note that Facebook owns Instagram. They take a
Speaker 1: lot of steps to try to conceal that fact, but
Speaker 1: they're the same company. And so here's some of the
Speaker 1: findings from the Wall Street Journal expose a Since at
Speaker 1: least twenty nineteen, Facebook has been studying the impact of
Speaker 1: its platform on younger users. Their research has repeatedly found
Speaker 1: that it is harmful to a large portion, especially teen girls.
Speaker 1: Here's a direct quote from a slide from an internal
Speaker 1: Facebook presentation in twenty nineteen. We make body image issues
Speaker 1: worse for one in three teen girls. In another presentation,
Speaker 1: they internally said of teen girls said that when they
Speaker 1: felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse.
Speaker 1: Another side said teens blame Instagram for increases in the
Speaker 1: rate of anxiety and depression. They feel the reaction was
Speaker 1: unprompted and consistent across all groups. And another leak study
Speaker 1: found that seventeen percent of teen girls say they're eating
Speaker 1: disorders got worse after using Instagram. And you know, so
Speaker 1: this is from their own internal documents and the stuff
Speaker 1: that they knew that they talked about with each other.
Speaker 1: Facebook also internally is aware of the link between their
Speaker 1: platform and things like the pression and suicide according to
Speaker 1: their internal studies of users who reported suicidal thoughts in
Speaker 1: the UK and six percent in the US traced them
Speaker 1: back to Instagram. Another trans Atlantic study found that more
Speaker 1: than Instagram users who reported feeling unattractive said that they
Speaker 1: began feeling that way on Instagram, and about a quarter
Speaker 1: of the teenagers who reported feeling not good enough said
Speaker 1: it started on Instagram. And again, this is not really
Speaker 1: like news news, because studies have been showing that Instagram
Speaker 1: is like the most negative platform for teams for a while.
Speaker 1: In twenties seventeen, a studied by Young Minds and the
Speaker 1: Royal Society for Public Health showed that Instagram had the
Speaker 1: most negative impact on young people's mental health of all
Speaker 1: the social media networks. And you know, if you're thinking
Speaker 1: something like, oh, well, maybe this is just a social
Speaker 1: media problem, maybe all social media platforms are bad. You know, yes,
Speaker 1: all social media platforms have their negative aspects, but these
Speaker 1: findings were specific to Instagram. And so that's really because
Speaker 1: Instagram is one of the only platforms that really sort
Speaker 1: of encourages what Facebook calls quote social comparison. And so
Speaker 1: it's this thing where it's like you are feeling pressure
Speaker 1: to compare your life to someone else, And so think
Speaker 1: about a platform like TikTok, right, Like that's a platform
Speaker 1: that is really kind of performance based, right, it does
Speaker 1: not invite comparison the way that Instagram does. And so again,
Speaker 1: like I have definitely had times where I wake up
Speaker 1: and I scroll Instagram and I see all my peers
Speaker 1: and they're seemingly perfect lives and I put my phone
Speaker 1: down and I feel like crap. You know, even as
Speaker 1: an adult, it's so easy to succumb to this pressure
Speaker 1: that you have to be perfect and have to show
Speaker 1: your best moments. But I think especially for young people
Speaker 1: who are so impressionable, you know, it can really morph
Speaker 1: into things like depression, self esteem, eating issues, food issues,
Speaker 1: And we should not just be accepting that, Like that
Speaker 1: should that just be like the cost of those young
Speaker 1: people being on social media. It should be imperative to
Speaker 1: create a social media experience that does not profit off
Speaker 1: of these terrible harms. Our children are kids, right, And
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie. It makes me want to scream, like,
Speaker 1: what's the point of doing all this research? Obviously they
Speaker 1: wanted to know, but they haven't really fixed anything. They
Speaker 1: haven't helped anything. As in fact, when we talk about
Speaker 1: the spawn con, the whole idea is like they bring
Speaker 1: on people, they sponsored, people who make it look easy,
Speaker 1: and it takes incredibly hard to tell what's real and
Speaker 1: what's not because half the things is like this is
Speaker 1: definitely add but is it? Because they push it forward
Speaker 1: and say, this is the ideal situation. These people's lives
Speaker 1: is what you should seek, and therefore we're going to
Speaker 1: give you some help by you can allowing you to
Speaker 1: buy these things to meet that standard. It's such a
Speaker 1: weird thing because they pushed this is a part of
Speaker 1: their narrative. Oh absolutely, Like the expose, they showed these
Speaker 1: internal like slack conversations and um whatever the Facebook internal
Speaker 1: Slack version of slack as I can't remember what it is.
Speaker 1: But you have people at Facebook talking about these these
Speaker 1: studies and these findings being like, oh, like, isn't that
Speaker 1: the fun of Instagram? You know, comparing yourself to other
Speaker 1: people and seeing how like the one percent of like
Speaker 1: really hot people live. Like you know, I thought that
Speaker 1: was like the whole point and the way that they
Speaker 1: talk so callously about it, like oh yeah, isn't that
Speaker 1: what people want from our platform too, constantly be comparing
Speaker 1: themselves to unattainable error, brushed, filtered versions of the reality
Speaker 1: that could not possibly exist, you know, and just like
Speaker 1: they're their inability to see how harmful that would be.
Speaker 1: You know. I remember when I first realized how often
Speaker 1: people are using filters and face tune and things like
Speaker 1: that on their pictures, because I would see these women
Speaker 1: where it's like, how is it possible to have a
Speaker 1: waste that thin and a butt that nice? Like how
Speaker 1: are you? How are you standing up and walking around
Speaker 1: without falling over? It doesn't make sense? And I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: it does. It's not real, actually look that way. And
Speaker 1: let's not talk about the fact that most of these
Speaker 1: people are white women are white community, and so let's
Speaker 1: talk about being a person of color, really being ashamed
Speaker 1: of being a person of color, and realizing, oh, it's
Speaker 1: still the standard to be white, to be small, to
Speaker 1: be you know, young, this is the standard that we
Speaker 1: should be attaining. To thank you one more time of
Speaker 1: something that I can't change and be absolutely isn't it
Speaker 1: interesting that when you use what platforms called beauty filter
Speaker 1: on a non white face, the beauty filter pretty much
Speaker 1: translates to like, oh, you made your lips and nose thinner,
Speaker 1: basically made you look white, and it's like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: so what are you trying to say? Like what is
Speaker 1: really what are you trying to say? And I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm I have a feeling you and I are in
Speaker 1: the same boat because oftentimes these filters are like nothing changed.
Speaker 1: I don't understand what's happening. You can't lighten my dark
Speaker 1: brown eyes to be blue on what is this and
Speaker 1: literally being confused about how they look that way? And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, these are for white people, Okay,
Speaker 1: I mean, and that's that's kind of like not to
Speaker 1: go off on a tangent, but like even that concept
Speaker 1: alone is so harmful in tech, and it's so common.
Speaker 1: Like they just came out with a new iPhone a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago, and there are people I don't
Speaker 1: have it. I still have my old jankie, earlier model iPhone,
Speaker 1: but apparently this is the first camera that can actually
Speaker 1: take decent pictures of people with darker skin, and part
Speaker 1: of me it's like iPhone has been ounce since what
Speaker 1: two past and seven, and you'll finally realize that people
Speaker 1: who are not white exist and for so long, if
Speaker 1: you were somebody who didn't have like light skin, to
Speaker 1: get a decent picture of yourself on an iPhone, you
Speaker 1: had to be meticulous about your lighting and your angles,
Speaker 1: and if you weren't, you came out like a shadow
Speaker 1: blob monster. And it's like, Wow, finally, after all these years,
Speaker 1: y'all have developed a technology that can just take my
Speaker 1: photo and have it not looked wild. So I can't imagine,
Speaker 1: and I have a feeling that if we looked at
Speaker 1: the percentage of young teens of color, the numbers would
Speaker 1: be higher for those who are completely marginal allied in
Speaker 1: that within that community of seeing like, oh, I really
Speaker 1: wish that I was not my ethnicity, you know, just
Speaker 1: just being going beyond that that how uh yeah, Facebook
Speaker 1: is racist, Like, let's just add that to the caveat
Speaker 1: of not only are these sexes, not only are they
Speaker 1: of fat, shame made, not only do they have all
Speaker 1: of these things, but yeah, they are racist as well
Speaker 1: because they have again the standard of the white man
Speaker 1: who yeah, to me, he is the villain in this story.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Marcus Zuckerberg is the villain. But also
Speaker 1: it's it's he's the villain, but also Cheryl Sandberg, Like
Speaker 1: there are so many villains in this story, and I
Speaker 1: don't know how Cheryl Sandberg has not been able to
Speaker 1: be like the public face of villainy here. But it
Speaker 1: really is like these people are knowingly making lots and
Speaker 1: lots of money off of the pain and harm and
Speaker 1: sometimes the deaths of our soil. And it's just when
Speaker 1: I intellectualize that, it's like, how is that okay? How
Speaker 1: how is it okay that, like people are getting rich
Speaker 1: off of harming our kids. It's for all the different
Speaker 1: ways that we talk about, you know, protecting children and
Speaker 1: protecting you. It's like, here is a clear way that
Speaker 1: our kids are being harmed and not just that people
Speaker 1: are making money off of it, and we've just internalized that,
Speaker 1: like that's just how it is, and it's completely unacceptable
Speaker 1: to me. Agreed. Speaking of the villains, what are they
Speaker 1: saying publicly? Like are they have they made any promises
Speaker 1: of change anything at all? So this is where it
Speaker 1: gets juicy, right, So, like all the different harmful things
Speaker 1: that they do, we kind of knew about that before.
Speaker 1: It's new to know that how much they knew in
Speaker 1: terms of their harm. But they also say a completely
Speaker 1: different thing publicly than they do internally at Facebook. And
Speaker 1: so when Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress in March,
Speaker 1: he said, the research that we've seen is that using
Speaker 1: social media apps to connect with other people can have
Speaker 1: positive mental health benefits. So all of these leaks show
Speaker 1: he knew that wasn't true. He knew all these different
Speaker 1: ways that his platform and his product create harm, and
Speaker 1: he it seems to me, you know, I'm no lawyer,
Speaker 1: it seems to me that he was actively misleading both
Speaker 1: Congress lawmakers and the public about what he knew. And
Speaker 1: we all know, you know, Facebook as a history of
Speaker 1: really not being honest. Again, if I were to list
Speaker 1: all the different examples do be here all day. But
Speaker 1: one that I have like like personal firsthand knowledge of
Speaker 1: is remember back in like when all these different publications
Speaker 1: were pivoting to video, Well, basically like that was based
Speaker 1: on Facebook really deeply exaggerating the metrics of video, and
Speaker 1: so they were like, oh, video is the thing. Video
Speaker 1: was getting so much more attraction than any other kind
Speaker 1: of medium. And so at the time I worked in media,
Speaker 1: and so many of my coworkers, so many of my
Speaker 1: colleagues all lost their jobs at media companies because of
Speaker 1: Facebook over inflated and exaggerated the metric of video content
Speaker 1: on their platform. And so again I'm no lawyer, but like,
Speaker 1: that's a lot. This would not be the first time
Speaker 1: that Facebook has misled the public and others about what's
Speaker 1: happening at their company, saying one thing when another thing
Speaker 1: is actually when they know another thing to actually be true.
Speaker 1: And I remember that time in media, like Facebook made
Speaker 1: it so difficult to like, I left media because I
Speaker 1: just felt like media companies were capitulating to whatever Facebook said.
Speaker 1: And so the Facebook said, it's video. If you didn't
Speaker 1: do video content, you basically knew that you were gonna
Speaker 1: get fired. If Facebook said, like, we were just caring
Speaker 1: to the whims of this massive company, and it's became
Speaker 1: so impossible to do that work. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: an entire generation of journalists face such instability and chaos
Speaker 1: because Facebook misrepresented their own findings. And so, according to
Speaker 1: Hagen's legal team, Facebook executives, including Zuckerberg, misstated and omitted
Speaker 1: key details about what was known about Facebook's and Instagram's
Speaker 1: ability to cause harm, and her attorneys also alleged that
Speaker 1: Facebook violated the US securities laws by lying to investors.
Speaker 1: And again, like, I'm no lawyer, I'm no expert on
Speaker 1: this particular part of it. But like when you say
Speaker 1: one thing in when you're testifying to Congress, when you
Speaker 1: know another thing to be true, that seems like a
Speaker 1: problem to me. I don't know, I think that's lying.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think so. I think you're right.
Speaker 1: I know when it comes to like stocks and stuff,
Speaker 1: that is really really bad and you will get arrested
Speaker 1: and fire because yeah, you just made up in order
Speaker 1: to pretend like you have made profit in order to
Speaker 1: make more profit exactly. Um, It's it is really well
Speaker 1: to me, It's like and it's one of these things
Speaker 1: where I feel like I don't know if it's capitalism
Speaker 1: or just like a nuance of living in a country
Speaker 1: like America where some things are lies and some things
Speaker 1: are are true. And I think that you kind of
Speaker 1: accepted that, like, oh, well, of course a big business
Speaker 1: has to like misrepresent a few things in public to
Speaker 1: make a buck. And it's like, wait, no, stop, is
Speaker 1: that is that really how it should be? That we
Speaker 1: should just allow that, Like it's okay for businesses to
Speaker 1: behave in this manner that it's literally killing kids to
Speaker 1: make money. It's like, I feel like this whole Facebook
Speaker 1: conversation is a good place for a hard stop of
Speaker 1: what we will allow businesses to do without any kind
Speaker 1: of accountability, right, And that's been a piece of this
Speaker 1: conversation is when people talk about regulating Facebook or how
Speaker 1: could we potentially deal with this problem, people have brought
Speaker 1: up other industries and what they have done. Correct. Oh, absolutely, So,
Speaker 1: after all of this Facebook stuff was going down, Adam Missary,
Speaker 1: the head of Instagram, who I have a lot of
Speaker 1: few things about him, I won't get into it now,
Speaker 1: but like, he just someone who because he runs Instagram,
Speaker 1: I feel like tries to have a kind of quirky
Speaker 1: public persona, and it's like, well, your platform is killing kids,
Speaker 1: So like, I don't really care about your quirky socks.
Speaker 1: But that's either heard her there. Basically, after all this
Speaker 1: went down, he went on the podcast Recode and offered
Speaker 1: a really terrible but also very telling analogy in response
Speaker 1: to all of this. He said, we know that more
Speaker 1: people die than otherwise would because of car accidents, but
Speaker 1: by and large, cars create way more value in the
Speaker 1: world than they destroy, and I think social media is similar.
Speaker 1: So that analogy is wild for a couple of different reasons. One,
Speaker 1: it's just like cars, that the car industry. We know
Speaker 1: that industry is incredibly regulated by federal and state governments, right,
Speaker 1: Like I gotta take my car in every so often
Speaker 1: to get it inspected by the state, and they have
Speaker 1: to tell me if it's okay. You know, your car
Speaker 1: has to have seatbelts, this, that, the third that are
Speaker 1: all you know, dictated by the state. And we know that,
Speaker 1: like the auto industry had to be basically forced into
Speaker 1: adopting safety measures that they knew would save lives. And
Speaker 1: so I hate this analogy. But if that's the analogy
Speaker 1: he wants to use, then it sounds like what he
Speaker 1: is saying is like, oh, we need to be heavily
Speaker 1: regulated so that we don't harm people the same way
Speaker 1: that the automobile industry is. Right. It's like, Uh, what's
Speaker 1: funny is that when he brought that up, the person
Speaker 1: who was interviewing him was like, oh, well, you know,
Speaker 1: the car industry is very regulated, and he was like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, we're open to regulation, but we can't have
Speaker 1: too much regulation either. It's like well, what do you want.
Speaker 1: You're just gonna be able to harm people for profits,
Speaker 1: but no regulation whatsoever. Take my analogy, but don't really
Speaker 1: take mine alogy. Things. Also, analogy often used in comic
Speaker 1: books and has always turned around. So this guy clearly
Speaker 1: doesn't know his X men all right, exactly exactly, Like
Speaker 1: I feel like once when you make that analogy, you're
Speaker 1: opening yourself up to so many like you know, uh
Speaker 1: gotchas and like brickballs, was like why I even go there.
Speaker 1: But one of one of my favorite folks in the
Speaker 1: disinformation space, this amazing researcher from the Shortens Scene Institute
Speaker 1: at Harvard, Dr Joan Donovan. She's like one of my heroes.
Speaker 1: She actually has a much better analogy, which is big tobacco.
Speaker 1: So we know the big tobacco companies, they knew internally
Speaker 1: that their products caused cancer, yet they misled both lawmakers
Speaker 1: and the public about it for a very long time.
Speaker 1: And you know, that's why we had the Master's Settlement
Speaker 1: Agreement in which led to some accountability for the tobacco companies,
Speaker 1: you know, misleading the public about the link between tobacco
Speaker 1: and cancer. And so this book is kind of doing
Speaker 1: the same thing, misleading law makers and the public about
Speaker 1: the harm that they already have demonstrated that they know
Speaker 1: their product causes. And so I think that's a really
Speaker 1: useful analogy, because yeah, like, should a company be able
Speaker 1: to mislead lawmakers in the public about the harm they
Speaker 1: know their product causes to make money? If you agree
Speaker 1: that the big tobacco company, should that have done that?
Speaker 1: It seems like Facebook is doing something very similar as
Speaker 1: in fact, is doing something just as similar in that
Speaker 1: the old school campaign for tobacco were directed towards children
Speaker 1: and say like, look how cool you are, and wo's
Speaker 1: It's honestly like, when I heard that comparison, it blew
Speaker 1: my mind because it's the same thing, marketing towards young people,
Speaker 1: marketing towards women. Like the way that Facebook and tobacco
Speaker 1: companies have harmed these specific marginalized groups, groups that don't
Speaker 1: always get a lot of attention or have the biggest platforms,
Speaker 1: you know, women, young people, It is so similar. And
Speaker 1: I think that's something that really really gets me about
Speaker 1: this whole thing is that, you know, Facebook, We know
Speaker 1: now that Facebook knew how harmful their product was to
Speaker 1: young people, and yet they continued to try to market
Speaker 1: to young people push it to younger and younger audiences.
Speaker 1: I think on Spanthy months before, I talked about how
Speaker 1: Facebook had had plans to roll out a version of
Speaker 1: Instagram specifically for kids, knowing that their product was already
Speaker 1: so harmful to young people, and they continued to court
Speaker 1: younger and younger users, Like, straight up, Facebook does not
Speaker 1: care if kids are being hurt, harmed, killed, whatever, if
Speaker 1: it makes them more money, and internal documents showed that
Speaker 1: they had plans to market to kids who were ten
Speaker 1: to twelve years old. They called ten to twelve year
Speaker 1: olds a valuable but untapped audience, and another report suggested
Speaker 1: that Facebook should look into a way to leverage play
Speaker 1: dates to drive growth among kids. You know, it is
Speaker 1: so vile that they knew that their products had such
Speaker 1: a harmful impact on this young demographic, and yet they
Speaker 1: continue to discuss how they could spread that harm to
Speaker 1: kids younger and younger, right, because like, you gotta be
Speaker 1: thirteen ven Instagram account, And they were like, well, you
Speaker 1: gotta be thirteen Instagram account, but ten to twelve year old,
Speaker 1: we really got to figure out how to harm them too,
Speaker 1: And they're doing it for money. They're getting rich off
Speaker 1: of it. I swear as the skit, I've seen this
Speaker 1: skit before about this like trying to I don't know
Speaker 1: if it was like suits or something, but they're like,
Speaker 1: but we haven't gotten to the toddlers yet, so how
Speaker 1: do we market? So it's like diaper formal where was
Speaker 1: like the key and I was like, what is happening?
Speaker 1: Is this real life? It's an Onion article SNL skit
Speaker 1: come to life. And I think it's also hilarious and
Speaker 1: sad that you did. You completely talked about this whole
Speaker 1: idea that Instagram had of trying to uh get younger
Speaker 1: audiences essentially and younger buyers, and you talked about the
Speaker 1: fact that y'all and when it was like, hey, bad idea.
Speaker 1: And this was even before these reports came out, Yes,
Speaker 1: And I mean, if they already knew their product was
Speaker 1: hurting young people to just try to further get that
Speaker 1: lock on younger and younger communities, it's just I mean,
Speaker 1: I I think it's just evil like that, Like that's
Speaker 1: only like I think that Facebook is an evil company
Speaker 1: and that they are making money by spreading harm to
Speaker 1: younger and younger folks and it's just vile, But I
Speaker 1: think it's also kind of telling them because it kind
Speaker 1: of leads me to believe that Facebook might not be
Speaker 1: as powerful as we maybe once thought. You know, young
Speaker 1: people are not really into Facebook. They use Instagram a
Speaker 1: lot more, but like a regular Facebook, Facebook is where
Speaker 1: you go to like see your weird old aunt's like
Speaker 1: nonsensical Facebook posts or your dad's if you're if you're me,
Speaker 1: my dad's Facebook post. It just says the word test
Speaker 1: like it's like not where you're going to have cool experiences.
Speaker 1: And the fact that they filled the need to lock
Speaker 1: in and market to younger and younger audiences kind of
Speaker 1: makes me think that like, maybe they're not as as
Speaker 1: big as we think they are. They don't have as
Speaker 1: much of a hold on certain demographics as they might
Speaker 1: need to write into. Like social media companies that are
Speaker 1: doing well don't need to aggressively find all of these
Speaker 1: little scams to lock in younger and younger users. And
Speaker 1: we know something about Facebook is that they're m o
Speaker 1: is kind of I don't want to say stealing, but
Speaker 1: like adopting things from other platforms that are more successful
Speaker 1: with younger users. And so when Instagram rolled out stories
Speaker 1: like disappearing stories. That was essentially, you know, them copying Snapchat,
Speaker 1: which was very popular with young people. When they started
Speaker 1: doing reels, that was essentially them copying TikTok, which we
Speaker 1: know is very very popular with young people. And so
Speaker 1: the fact that they're doing all of these little things
Speaker 1: to lock in younger and younger users might actually mean
Speaker 1: that their business model is suffering because they're not getting
Speaker 1: new user base. They would need to keep their their
Speaker 1: platforms relevant, and that like if they have an older
Speaker 1: and aging user base, you know that models only sustained
Speaker 1: for so long. And it also means that maybe they're
Speaker 1: kind of against the ropes and we might actually get
Speaker 1: somewhere in terms of creating accountability for the kind of
Speaker 1: harm that we know they are spreading and mitigating further harm,
Speaker 1: which I hope is accurate. I hope that like the
Speaker 1: fact that they're doing these like increasingly more desperate ways
Speaker 1: to court increasingly younger audiences means that they're not actually
Speaker 1: as powerful of a text bohemus as we might have thought. Recently,
Speaker 1: we have seen you know, these bombshell accounts and this
Speaker 1: whistleblower in Congress testifying, and it seems like this is
Speaker 1: an issue that has touched people across all lines, and
Speaker 1: people can relate to and and I care about um
Speaker 1: want to do something about. Is that a correct? Oh? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: And that's actually one of the things that kind of
Speaker 1: excites me and gives me a lot of hope is
Speaker 1: that there is actually rare bipartisan support for the idea
Speaker 1: that something needs to be done about Facebook. Democrats and
Speaker 1: Republicans are actually very much united with the idea of
Speaker 1: regulating Facebook. After this Wall Street Journal expose came out
Speaker 1: on Capitol Hill, Hagen testified at a hearing of the
Speaker 1: Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety,
Speaker 1: and Data Security. Uh, that's nowtful And at this hearing,
Speaker 1: after she testified, her testimony was amazing, but Republican Senator
Speaker 1: Jerry Moran of Kansas told the subcommittee chair, Richard Blumenthal,
Speaker 1: a Democrats from Connecticut, that they should put aside their
Speaker 1: partisan differences to tackle this common goal of reigning and Facebook.
Speaker 1: And they agreed. They agreed that they had more similarities
Speaker 1: than differences on the issue, that the differences they did
Speaker 1: have were very, very minor. And so Blumenthal said this
Speaker 1: at the testimony. If you closed your eyes, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: know if it was a Republican or a Democrat. Every
Speaker 1: part of the country has the harms that are inflicted
Speaker 1: by Facebook and Instagram, and I think it is really
Speaker 1: heartening to see an issue where everybody's on the same side.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if you're Republican or Democrat. Everybody can
Speaker 1: agree that our kids should not there should not be
Speaker 1: a marketplace for the pain and the harm of our children,
Speaker 1: and then it needs to stop. And honestly, I think
Speaker 1: they're exactly right. We should reject this idea that it's
Speaker 1: just okay for companies to be making profit off of
Speaker 1: hurting our kids. Our kids deserve better. Um, I don't
Speaker 1: really care what happens to the finances of Mark Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: or an Adam Massari or Cheryl Sandberg if it means
Speaker 1: creating a safer ecosystem for our children, and I think
Speaker 1: they deserve it. I mean, let's be honest, if they
Speaker 1: stop making money today, they'd be fine. They'll be fine.
Speaker 1: They'll be fine, Like they have enough money, they'll be fine.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I find it interesting that this is that conversation,
Speaker 1: that this is the one thing that's tied everyone together,
Speaker 1: because yeah, I think if you go to either side
Speaker 1: when it comes to the controversial or even the conspiracy
Speaker 1: theory level, the one thing you can agree upon is
Speaker 1: that the other believes that the other is out to
Speaker 1: get them and giving misinformation because of these social media's.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, that is so true, and it's actually
Speaker 1: like in working in like tech accountability. That's the thing
Speaker 1: that I always find kind of funny is that like
Speaker 1: hardcore conservatives believe they are being censored on Facebook, super
Speaker 1: progressive lefty folks believe they're being censored on Facebook. If
Speaker 1: you've never seen that meme where it's a black hand
Speaker 1: and a white hand, like like shaking hands and they
Speaker 1: both agree, it's like everybody kind of agrees they don't
Speaker 1: like what's going down on a faceboo. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: what side you're on, what you know, we all agree
Speaker 1: we don't like what's happening on the Facebook. So it
Speaker 1: feels good to be united against a clear common enemy.
Speaker 1: Speaking of tech accountability, I mean, we wouldn't know about
Speaker 1: a lot of this, even though that we had kind
Speaker 1: of known, but we wouldn't have had like the hard
Speaker 1: data and facts. If this whistleblower hadn't come out and
Speaker 1: taken that risk and determined for herself, like we the
Speaker 1: people need to know this. Yeah. So like the importance
Speaker 1: of whistleblowers for this whole conversation. Um, and I know
Speaker 1: that's something that you have talked about before. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm so glad that you brought that up.
Speaker 1: I so obviously this is like bombshell news, and I'm
Speaker 1: so glad that folks are discussing it. But it is
Speaker 1: so important to not lose sight of the fact that
Speaker 1: whistleblowers are really especially in tech, are really important. On
Speaker 1: my podcast, there are No Girls on the Internet, we
Speaker 1: have a series highlighting women of color whistleblowers in tech,
Speaker 1: and it does not surprise me that so many whistleblowers
Speaker 1: are women and women of color, and I think that
Speaker 1: it is so important to some court them and to
Speaker 1: highlight their stories. Um. One of my favorite tech whistle
Speaker 1: blowers is one of them. Again, one of my like heroes,
Speaker 1: e Foma Uzoma. She blew the whistle on gender and
Speaker 1: racial discrimination at the company Pinterest and just actually passed
Speaker 1: groundbreaking legislation in California to free the victims of racial
Speaker 1: and gender discrimination at tech companies from non disclosure acts.
Speaker 1: So if you signed an n d A but you
Speaker 1: were the victim of discrimination you previously it could be
Speaker 1: sued if you talked about that experience. But because of
Speaker 1: this legislation, the Silent No More Act, she is actually
Speaker 1: freed victims of discrimination up to talk about their experiences.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, I would encourage everybody to. You know,
Speaker 1: you can listen to the series that we have on whistleblowers,
Speaker 1: but also in addition to listening to Frances Higgen's testimony,
Speaker 1: make sure that you read about Sophie zaang story. You know,
Speaker 1: I mentioned Sophie Zaying earlier. She was a former Facebook employee.
Speaker 1: She's a trans woman of color who was a previous
Speaker 1: Facebook whistle blower, and she deserves so much praise for
Speaker 1: the work of identifying harm that Facebook was doing when
Speaker 1: she worked there, working internally to try to mitigate it,
Speaker 1: and when that did not work, speaking up about it
Speaker 1: after she left. And you know, whistle blowing is scary,
Speaker 1: thankless dangerous work, and it's often the work of women,
Speaker 1: and I think that it's work that is it becomes
Speaker 1: even more dangerous the more marginalized you are. So if
Speaker 1: you're a woman, it's more it's more dangerous to do
Speaker 1: to be a whistle blower as a woman than as
Speaker 1: a man. It is more dangerous to be whistle blower
Speaker 1: as a woman of color than as a white woman.
Speaker 1: And it's more dangerous to be a whistle blower as
Speaker 1: a trans woman than assist woman. Right, And so whistle
Speaker 1: blowing is not this like gender neutral, race neutral, identity
Speaker 1: neutral thing. It really does take into account our identities.
Speaker 1: And so you know, I've already seen these attacks on
Speaker 1: Hagen that are like, oh, she must just be a
Speaker 1: disgruntled employee, or she doesn't really know what she's talking about.
Speaker 1: Like in their response, a Facebook comms person was like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know she never had any direct reports, she didn't
Speaker 1: really worked on this, or that, you know, really trying
Speaker 1: to minimize her experiences and her voice, or saying that
Speaker 1: she's just doing it for publicity or for money. And
Speaker 1: it's like people do not do the scary, thankless danger
Speaker 1: as the work of whistle blowing because they want to
Speaker 1: get a check, right, Like, it is incredibly destabilizing to
Speaker 1: your entire life and often like your family life to
Speaker 1: blow the whistle like this, and so I think it's
Speaker 1: important that we remember that there are women and women
Speaker 1: of color who risk so much and take on such
Speaker 1: a huge personal cost to get us this information, and
Speaker 1: I think we owe it to them to do something
Speaker 1: about it once they do. And the story just what
Speaker 1: you were saying alone reminds me of the Google employee
Speaker 1: you had brought to us as well in that same
Speaker 1: like they just want to discredit instead of acknowledge the problems,
Speaker 1: and so many are used to discrediting women and women
Speaker 1: of color and women who are moginal lies in the
Speaker 1: LGBTQ community, Like it's just such ah almost by the
Speaker 1: playbook when it comes to the misogynist, racist ideals of
Speaker 1: the US. The Unfortunately, it's still kind of works. Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean exactly like the situation that Google was tim nant,
Speaker 1: Jabru like she, I think that it's for a lot
Speaker 1: of women and women of color were already seen as
Speaker 1: margin We're already marginalized, We're already seen as like perpetual outsiders.
Speaker 1: And so when we speak up, when we practice public
Speaker 1: courage and public morality and say like this bad thing
Speaker 1: is happening and it's not great, we should it shouldn't
Speaker 1: be happening. It's so easy for people to discredit us,
Speaker 1: the crap on us, to say like, oh, they don't
Speaker 1: know what we're talking about, like, and I think, like
Speaker 1: it is so important that in the face of that,
Speaker 1: that we support women who speak up. It's because, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just there's already a an attitude waiting and ready
Speaker 1: and willing to suppress their voices. Absolutely, and I thank
Speaker 1: you so much for bringing their names to our attention
Speaker 1: and for bringing this topic to our attention. And do
Speaker 1: you want to Are there any resources you want to
Speaker 1: shout out? And also where can the good listeners find you?
Speaker 1: One thing I want to note is there are some
Speaker 1: organizations and initiatives that you can follow if you're interested
Speaker 1: in knowing more. So I can always check out my
Speaker 1: work at Ultra Violet um we are a gender justice
Speaker 1: organization of feminist organization that is really working to keep
Speaker 1: gender at the forefront of tech harms. You can go
Speaker 1: to we are ultraviolet dot org to find out more.
Speaker 1: And the Cairos Foundation is actually putting together a campaign
Speaker 1: asking folks to log out Facebook this November. And so
Speaker 1: if you're if you're someone who's thinking like, gee, I
Speaker 1: don't like what I'm hearing about Facebook, and I want
Speaker 1: to do whatever I can to divest from Facebook a
Speaker 1: little bit more. Check out Cairos campaign this November about
Speaker 1: how you can do that. And Yeah, if you want
Speaker 1: to hear more conversations about women whistleblowers and this women
Speaker 1: in tech who are trying to speak up and trying
Speaker 1: to practice moral courage um and trying to act as
Speaker 1: the conscious of tech platforms in the tech industry, you
Speaker 1: can check out my podcast. There are no girls on
Speaker 1: the Internet where we are having conversations about what it
Speaker 1: means to practice that kind of public courage and public
Speaker 1: bravery in tech. So we would love to have you. Yes, definitely,
Speaker 1: definitely go check it out. It's amazing. You can find
Speaker 1: Bridget online. Also, it always feels so weird when you're like,
Speaker 1: does social media platform problems? But find me on there
Speaker 1: if you pretty much, every like every like tech accountability
Speaker 1: organization right now and activists and organizing right now is
Speaker 1: going through the same thing of like, well, I hate Facebook,
Speaker 1: but I'm on Facebook. What do I do? But if
Speaker 1: you want to follow me, you can follow me on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Bridget Marie in d C and on Twitter
Speaker 1: at Bridget Murray and thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 1: It was a pleasure. As always, listeners, if you would
Speaker 1: like to contact us, you can our emails, Stuff you
Speaker 1: Need Your Mom and Stuff at I Hurt Me You
Speaker 1: dot com. You can find us on Instagram at Stuff
Speaker 1: I've Never Told You or on Twitter at Mom Stuff Podcast.
Speaker 1: Thanks It's always to our super producer Christina, Thank you,
Speaker 1: and thanks to you for listening Stuff I Never Told
Speaker 1: You This production by High Radio. For more podcast on
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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite ships.