Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Internet Hate Machine. Sophie. Thank
Speaker 1: you for being here. It is been such a long, exciting, fun, challenging,
Speaker 1: lovely couple of months covering all of these topics with you.
Speaker 1: Today we are wrapping everything up. Can you believe it?
Speaker 1: I really can't. It feels like it feels like it's
Speaker 1: been like we've been doing this for so long, but
Speaker 1: it feels so short. At the same time, I agree.
Speaker 1: I think it kind of makes sense to take a
Speaker 1: pause and sort of wrap up where we've been in
Speaker 1: the last four months because we've actually covered a lot.
Speaker 1: So for folks who are just joining us, I hope
Speaker 1: this is not your first episode because it is also
Speaker 1: the last, but just to sort of recap where we've been.
Speaker 1: We started the season talking about Adrian Richards and dongle Gate.
Speaker 1: I really wanted to start there because for me, that
Speaker 1: was when this kind of problem of targeted, coordinated online
Speaker 1: harassment of women, particularly black women, really got on my radar.
Speaker 1: We talked a bit about the end Father's Day campaign,
Speaker 1: like a four chan eight chan troll campaign to make
Speaker 1: black feminists look bad. Talked about Leslie Jones SNL actor,
Speaker 1: comedian extraordinaire and the horrific harassment campaign that she faced
Speaker 1: by my Loanapolis but dressed by none other than Steve Bannon.
Speaker 1: We talked about elected officials after the mid terms and
Speaker 1: how they're facing coordinated online harassment pactics that keep them
Speaker 1: from being able to run for office and sort of
Speaker 1: their communities. We talked about Elon Musk. That's right, there
Speaker 1: was a time where he did not own Twitter. It
Speaker 1: doesn't that seem like forever ago. Well, we talked a
Speaker 1: bit about how he is empowering extremists like Kanye West
Speaker 1: and Nick Quentes online. Although, by the way, did you
Speaker 1: see that Nick Quintez was rebanned on Twitter? So cool?
Speaker 1: It's almost like content moderation is a thing, and there
Speaker 1: was a reason why he was banned in the first place,
Speaker 1: and unbanning him, just to reban him a couple of
Speaker 1: days later is like an exercise in futility. And you
Speaker 1: could have saved all that time if you just had
Speaker 1: a little bit of humility coming into Twitter mode. You
Speaker 1: know what, I won't don't don't let me go off
Speaker 1: on a rant on Elon Musk. The point is and
Speaker 1: the unbanded thank you. We talked about the director of
Speaker 1: the film Cuties, and how there is still an open
Speaker 1: court proceeding against her because one guy in Texas just
Speaker 1: won't let it go. We talked about Shay Moss and
Speaker 1: Ruby Freeman election workers who were targeted by Trump and
Speaker 1: his creonies, which, by the way, did you see that
Speaker 1: Biden awarded them just a presidential medal? Okay, I thought
Speaker 1: it was. I was gonna say the Presidential Medal of Freedom,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't sure if that's a different thing. Just
Speaker 1: a casual presidential Yeah, just a casual presidential medal. One
Speaker 1: thing I did love about them getting that medal is
Speaker 1: we talked a bit about this in the episode, about
Speaker 1: how like one reason why I feel like they were
Speaker 1: targeted specifically was that they know they look like they
Speaker 1: have a very specific kind of look, and I loved
Speaker 1: that when they were on stage accepting this very important
Speaker 1: metal from President Biden, they kept the same look, the
Speaker 1: same hairstyle, the same fashions, And I was like, yes,
Speaker 1: they are not they are They look like themselves And
Speaker 1: I was really hardened to see them showing up looking
Speaker 1: like themselves, not in hiding, not changing the way they
Speaker 1: look to appease racists and sexists and extremists, but like
Speaker 1: themselves on stage accepting a presidential medal. Really, it felt
Speaker 1: kind of like a full circle moment for the show,
Speaker 1: to be honest with you, Yeah, for sure. And then
Speaker 1: we wrapped things up talking about critical race theory ce
Speaker 1: Celia Lewis and kind of the state of our education
Speaker 1: when it comes to this kind of thing. And then
Speaker 1: lastly we talked about my girl, Foma Zoma and how
Speaker 1: even as someone who is trying to right some of
Speaker 1: these wrongs within our broken technology ecosystem, she was punished
Speaker 1: for it. And honestly, that did seem like a kind
Speaker 1: of a a good place to leave things, because there
Speaker 1: are so many people who are trying to make our
Speaker 1: digital world and our technological world better and safer and
Speaker 1: more inclusive and less broken. But we're never going to
Speaker 1: get anywhere as long as those voices continue to be
Speaker 1: punished and targeted for the work of trying to make
Speaker 1: those spaces better for all of us. It's it's so
Speaker 1: fascinating to go through what we've discussed and to see
Speaker 1: all these different elements still in play currently in so
Speaker 1: many different stories. Uh specifically, when Robert and I were talking,
Speaker 1: Robert Evans and I were talking about Andrew Tait and
Speaker 1: how he got so popular. There's so much Steve Bannon
Speaker 1: and I g e in there. There's so much of that,
Speaker 1: and it's it's really just a sight to see that.
Speaker 1: We're like, if you if we had taken just you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of seconds to actually not move on to
Speaker 1: the next thing, then maybe more bad things would stop happening. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I mean the the Andrew Tates stuff. First of all,
Speaker 1: I'm so glad that y'all that y'all talked about that.
Speaker 1: I've seen folks championing that episode everywhere, and I think
Speaker 1: it's I think it's important to talk about who empowered
Speaker 1: these specific people to be able to have the platforms
Speaker 1: that I have now and asking some questions about, Yeah,
Speaker 1: when we saw when Steve Bannon was empowering folks like
Speaker 1: my Janopolis and allowing him to harass people and abuse people,
Speaker 1: why like like, where were people in power being like, actually,
Speaker 1: maybe we should talk about what this means and the implications.
Speaker 1: And now we have Andrew Tate, Like, do you want
Speaker 1: to get Andrew tapes? That's how you get Andrew Tates.
Speaker 1: So these are just some of the stories that I
Speaker 1: chose to tell for this series. But by no means
Speaker 1: are these the only women who have stories like this
Speaker 1: that are out there. The research is super clear that
Speaker 1: this problem is systemic. It is not individual. It is
Speaker 1: not just a handful or a dozen or two you know,
Speaker 1: individual women who have faced individual harassment campaigns. It is
Speaker 1: a systemic, deep cultural problem, and it comes with consequences.
Speaker 1: Black women are disproportionately targeted for things like harassment and
Speaker 1: disinformation and hate speech online, and the kinds of disinformation
Speaker 1: campaigns that target us, as we've demonstrated in this series,
Speaker 1: often traffic in racialized and gendered stereotypes and tropes about
Speaker 1: Black women. And the research is really clear also that
Speaker 1: when this happens in digital spaces, it has very real
Speaker 1: world consequences. Let's start by looking at some of the
Speaker 1: consequences for the Black women who are targeted. When racialized
Speaker 1: gender disinformation and harassment festers and thrives online, people become
Speaker 1: a lot less likely to trust Black women as leaders,
Speaker 1: and in turn, those Black women are less likely to
Speaker 1: be civically engaged because they know that even to casually
Speaker 1: participate in civic discourse is to risk becoming a target
Speaker 1: of dis harassment, and that is, honestly, something that really
Speaker 1: stands out to me about all of these stories is
Speaker 1: that how in almost every instance, these are women who
Speaker 1: were being punished and targeted for just merely participating in
Speaker 1: public and civic life. You know, they were doing their jobs,
Speaker 1: they were speaking their minds, they were making films, making art,
Speaker 1: they were serving their community or running for office or
Speaker 1: helping people vote. You know, these are just the stories
Speaker 1: that I decided that I wanted to tell in this
Speaker 1: limited series. But there are so many more that peop
Speaker 1: will never hear. For every you know, Hollywood actress who
Speaker 1: is speaking up about being the target at this kind
Speaker 1: of harassment, there's a black woman, or a black girl,
Speaker 1: or a black transperson or a black queer person whose
Speaker 1: story we will never hear, who will not have the
Speaker 1: kind of resources to speak up and have somebody do anything.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, as as important as the stories
Speaker 1: that we heard this season are, I think it's important
Speaker 1: to also just honor the fact that there are so
Speaker 1: many more that will never hear and we should make
Speaker 1: space for those stories as well. Like you shouldn't have
Speaker 1: to be Megan Markle or Leslie Jones to get your
Speaker 1: story told. You shouldn't have to stand on a stage
Speaker 1: next to President Biden to have people take this seriously
Speaker 1: and understand what you've been through when it comes to
Speaker 1: this kind of thing. And I think that we can
Speaker 1: really draw a straight line from those kinds of attacks
Speaker 1: to our current political landscape. You know, when people with
Speaker 1: power watched black women be targeted for coordinated online harassment
Speaker 1: and abuse just for doing their jobs and basically did nothing,
Speaker 1: they basically set the stage for the same kind of
Speaker 1: attacks to be used on different people, many of whom
Speaker 1: are still marginalized people. You know, they're still LGBTQ folks
Speaker 1: or folks who are otherwise marginalized. But it's the same
Speaker 1: kind of attacks that are meant to keep them from
Speaker 1: showing up in public and civic life as well. A
Speaker 1: good friend of mine to that Harry who was just
Speaker 1: kind of a general brilliant tech troublemaker. She argues that
Speaker 1: when black women speak up about the abuses and harm
Speaker 1: that we are facing online and people with power don't listen,
Speaker 1: that harm is then allowed to be experienced by others.
Speaker 1: She writes, harmful behavior toward black women isn't enough to
Speaker 1: inspire change. Until others are harmed, but the original harms
Speaker 1: are often lost by journalists task with covering tech. The
Speaker 1: power and rhetoric that went unchecked then becomes common, and
Speaker 1: the tactics used against black women for lulls become weapons
Speaker 1: used in the conspiracies to stabilizing the very nature of truth,
Speaker 1: from the swarming of victims, to posing as black women,
Speaker 1: to destabilizing communities or countries. I would add democracies into
Speaker 1: that list, and I would also add that that is
Speaker 1: exactly what we are seeing today. I wanted to focus
Speaker 1: on Black women for this series because so many of
Speaker 1: the stories of our harassment are sort of lesser known
Speaker 1: and get less attention. But as Todet argues in that
Speaker 1: piece for Wired, when those stories go undealt with and unexamined,
Speaker 1: they are allowed to fester and become everyone's problem. And
Speaker 1: I think that's where we are right now. So what
Speaker 1: does this look like out in the real world. There
Speaker 1: are so many examples, but I wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: a couple of specific ones. First is the abortion and
Speaker 1: reproductive justice advocacy space. Some of y'all might know that
Speaker 1: I cut my teeth in the abortion rights movement, working
Speaker 1: out planned parenthood, and I'm still sort of in that
Speaker 1: space more broadly, kind of more on the abortion advocacy
Speaker 1: and tech digital security intersection. UM, but I can tell
Speaker 1: you that right now, coordinated harassment and online abuse campaigns
Speaker 1: are threatening people, the vast majority of whom are women
Speaker 1: and women of color doing abortion advocacy work. And if
Speaker 1: you care about a future where abortion access is protected
Speaker 1: and people actually have true, meaningful reproductive justice and bodily autonomy,
Speaker 1: you need to care about what's happening to women online.
Speaker 1: Because the women who are abortion providers, abortion advocates, folks
Speaker 1: fighting for abortion access, those are the same women being docked,
Speaker 1: being smeared, being lied about, being attacked online, and also
Speaker 1: facing cybersecurity threats. And so if you care about abortion
Speaker 1: access and protecting abortion access, which we all should, you
Speaker 1: need to care about what's happening to women online. Another
Speaker 1: one is the suppressing and silencing of survivors. You know,
Speaker 1: the tactics that we talked about on Internet Hate Machine
Speaker 1: are the very same tactics that we've been seeing to
Speaker 1: silence people who speak up about abuse. Anybody who posted
Speaker 1: about the Johnny Depp amber her defamation trial, for instance,
Speaker 1: probably has experienced like a little bit of what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about firsthand, where reporters, Yeah, I mean you like
Speaker 1: I it's it's wild to me because, like I they
Speaker 1: kind of got me on this one. Like I saw
Speaker 1: how clearly it was that people who stood up for
Speaker 1: survivors in that instance, how quickly and how obviously coordinated
Speaker 1: it was to have people be like, here's all the
Speaker 1: reasons why you're wrong, Like no, like you're like like
Speaker 1: a swarm of people online and so that like I
Speaker 1: was like, well, I'm not gonna wade into this because
Speaker 1: I don't want to deal with that. And it has
Speaker 1: such a clear silencing impact where people don't feel first
Speaker 1: of all, survivors don't feel like they can speak up,
Speaker 1: and then anybody who would support that survivor or be
Speaker 1: an ally to that survivor doesn't feel comfortable speaking up.
Speaker 1: So it has it's this real obvious intentional silencing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think what you said there is extremely important to
Speaker 1: point out the word coordinated, because these weren't just one
Speaker 1: off people that had an opinion about something and we're
Speaker 1: we're trolling you. This was a coordinated effort and was
Speaker 1: in mass correct. That's so important, Like it's not just
Speaker 1: one or two people being like, actually, I don't agree.
Speaker 1: It is a coordinated effort where those those really fun
Speaker 1: for me to see you two, Actually I disagree. Actually
Speaker 1: I could do an impression of a well actually guy
Speaker 1: in my sleep because I deal with them all day long. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1: And then what's so interesting in the case of like
Speaker 1: suppressing and silencing survivors is it's not just the survivor
Speaker 1: or the person who would support them, it's also you know,
Speaker 1: reporters are or journalists who are just trying to provide
Speaker 1: coverage of what's happened. A lot of reporters who worked
Speaker 1: on the beat of covering, you know, survivors of abuse
Speaker 1: recently have talked about how they too become targets of
Speaker 1: coordinated harassment. And so, if you have an ecosystem where
Speaker 1: reporters can't even provide balanced, fair, accurate reporting of what's happening,
Speaker 1: you have a real problem. And it's clearly meant to
Speaker 1: suppress survivors. It's clearly meant to silent survivors who would
Speaker 1: be speaking up against powerful abusers. When you look at
Speaker 1: attacks on educators and lgbt Q youth and educators, UM
Speaker 1: you know, I believe that Twitter accounts like libs of TikTok,
Speaker 1: which target teachers and youth perceived as lgbt hugh or
Speaker 1: allies to the LGBTQ community. I believe that that account
Speaker 1: and accounts like it, saw that you could get a
Speaker 1: whole lot of traction and attention and engagement from an
Speaker 1: audience if you use the same kind of tactics that
Speaker 1: we've talked about on this series to target marginalized folks.
Speaker 1: You know, and just like so many of the stories
Speaker 1: that we've talked about, from Cecilia Lewis's story to End
Speaker 1: Father's Day to the director of Cutie's Uh, they saw
Speaker 1: that you can get actual like traction and media support
Speaker 1: for doing this right, So Tucker Carlson might signal boost you,
Speaker 1: the mainstream media might start platforming you and your cause
Speaker 1: in this kind of you know, both sides framing as
Speaker 1: if it's a reasonable position to hear from both people
Speaker 1: who are just trying to live their lives and the
Speaker 1: people coordinating to trying to try to stop them from
Speaker 1: doing that. And we're at this point where people are
Speaker 1: doing these types of things in order to get attention
Speaker 1: from the Tucker Carlson's of the world. They're they're being
Speaker 1: as big as ass hats as they could possibly be
Speaker 1: in order to get that ten seconds on his show,
Speaker 1: and he rewards them, He rewards that behavior. And it's bullshit.
Speaker 1: It's bullshit. And what's worse, it's like it's this self.
Speaker 1: It's this cycle where people use a dishonest tactic, they
Speaker 1: get engagement and coverage from it, and it just incentivizes
Speaker 1: others to do the same. So it really when I
Speaker 1: when I I mean, I'm sure folks are sick of
Speaker 1: me using the word ecosystem, but when I say ecosystem,
Speaker 1: I mean ecosystem that it it. It feeds off one
Speaker 1: feeds off of the other, and it kind of will
Speaker 1: keep going and keep going until somebody stops the cycle.
Speaker 1: And I feel like that's where we're at. We're just
Speaker 1: seeing people weaponize disingenuous, racist, sexist attacks and attacks on
Speaker 1: LGBT hugh folks, and it is a cycle. It is
Speaker 1: a cycle that is going to I think, make us
Speaker 1: all worse for the wear. You know, when when this
Speaker 1: is what gets engagement and eyeballs and clicks and attention,
Speaker 1: you know, not only is it dishonest and homophobic and
Speaker 1: sexist and racist and all of that stuff. It absolutely is,
Speaker 1: but it also incentivizes people not doing the thoughtful coverage
Speaker 1: that they should. It makes it eat that much easier
Speaker 1: to slap together a story that's like, oh cop die
Speaker 1: is from looking at fent at all and running with that,
Speaker 1: it creates an ecosystem where there is not a it's
Speaker 1: not incentivized to do thoughtful work that actually helps us
Speaker 1: get smarter and understand issues. Yeah, I mean, you said
Speaker 1: all the words. So what's really kind of scary to
Speaker 1: me is the way that these kinds of folks are
Speaker 1: using these tactics to amass political powers. As we heard
Speaker 1: in that story about Cecilia Lewis, it's not just about
Speaker 1: targeting individuals. It is about amassing electoral power political power,
Speaker 1: and in a lot of cases, I am sad to
Speaker 1: say that it is kind of working. You know, while
Speaker 1: we're all focused on national politics and these like big
Speaker 1: flashy presidential races, extremists can buttress these kinds of online
Speaker 1: hate campaigns into far right takeovers of school boards and
Speaker 1: local offices. And I think that it is scary how
Speaker 1: effective it can be. Also, it is scary how I
Speaker 1: hate to. I mean, I know, I don't hate to
Speaker 1: do it. It is scary to me how mainstream media
Speaker 1: will just help them do this. We we were to
Speaker 1: the point where, you know, as someone will say, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm a concerned parent, and it's like, actually, you are
Speaker 1: running a campaign. I got, like a astroturfed campaign to
Speaker 1: take over a school board, so you're not just a
Speaker 1: concerned parent, like you know. The way that mainstream media
Speaker 1: will help bad actors and extremists do their work for
Speaker 1: them is really appalling and I think a pretty scary
Speaker 1: consequence of letting all of this stuff go unchecked. And
Speaker 1: I think that it's critical that we really understand kind
Speaker 1: of what has been normalized as a part of our discourse.
Speaker 1: You know, disinformation, online abuse, harassment, and hate. That's not discourse.
Speaker 1: And when we allow it to be treated like discourse,
Speaker 1: we all lose out, except for bad actors. Sorry, I
Speaker 1: did I say that a lot, but that's the only
Speaker 1: one I canna use. Yes, if you're still if you're
Speaker 1: playing the drinking game, you're probably tanked by now, uh It.
Speaker 1: It is bad actors and tech billionaires who win while
Speaker 1: we all lose out because they get engagement and they
Speaker 1: get richer. So the real question is do we want
Speaker 1: to have a media ecosystem where the rest of us
Speaker 1: are paying such a high cost so that Mark Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: or Elon Musk can add another comma to their bank account.
Speaker 1: I would argue no. I would argue no. So that
Speaker 1: leads us to our kind of like big So what
Speaker 1: question of the of the series, which is what needs
Speaker 1: to be done? The first thing that I think absolutely
Speaker 1: needs to be done is that institutions and people with
Speaker 1: power I'm talking about like elected officials and like government
Speaker 1: folks need to listen and do something. Here's things get
Speaker 1: a little bit squishy on this one. I know that
Speaker 1: one route that people talk a lot about is you
Speaker 1: know that we need more policy solutions, Like governments and
Speaker 1: elected officials need to be doing more on the policy front.
Speaker 1: So I a thousand percent agree that in the United States,
Speaker 1: even just taking this seriously as a problem will be
Speaker 1: a step in the right direction. My hope and my
Speaker 1: sense is that you know, this might be changing a
Speaker 1: little bit. Like I think there was a time back
Speaker 1: when when you talked about online harassment, like I always
Speaker 1: had to call law enforcement for online harassment against myself,
Speaker 1: and this was like many many many years ago before
Speaker 1: we were having lots of conversations about what harassment looked
Speaker 1: like in the Impacts, and I remember tell like, the
Speaker 1: thing that was very scary was like I was pretty
Speaker 1: used to getting people saying mean things to me, racial slurs,
Speaker 1: to me, this is out of time, and I was
Speaker 1: like really trying to build up my career as like
Speaker 1: a person who had opinions in public. And the thing
Speaker 1: that was scary was that I used to live in
Speaker 1: an apartment that shared a wall with like a popular
Speaker 1: bar here in d C. It's no longer there, but
Speaker 1: it was like a very popular bar, and I used
Speaker 1: to always talk about how like, oh, I'm going to
Speaker 1: this bar again, going to this bar again, because it
Speaker 1: was like kind of my spot. And somebody tweeted at
Speaker 1: me that they knew my address because they knew that
Speaker 1: I lived next door to this bar, and that was
Speaker 1: very different then you know, someone calling me a slur
Speaker 1: or someone being mean to me online like this person
Speaker 1: accurately safety issue, yes, And so I remember calling my
Speaker 1: parents and my my dad was like, we need to
Speaker 1: get you a taser. Okay, that was his, that was his,
Speaker 1: you know, and I was I was pretty young. It
Speaker 1: was like this was like I was very early career,
Speaker 1: I guess, I would say. And I ended up calling
Speaker 1: the police, and the police told me, like, what you
Speaker 1: need to do is just stay off the internet. And
Speaker 1: I remember thinking, what you're basically telling me a new
Speaker 1: cops are so bad at everything. What that basically means
Speaker 1: is like start a new career, go back to college.
Speaker 1: Because at that time, my whole, my entire career trajectory
Speaker 1: had been around, you know, making a public name for
Speaker 1: myself as somebody who had like opinions in public, and
Speaker 1: so that like I had done a lot of work online,
Speaker 1: like you can't really do that in the modern era
Speaker 1: that an online presence is. So basically he just showed
Speaker 1: me how much this person did not understand the impact
Speaker 1: and the fact that if I disclosed my computer that
Speaker 1: this threat wasn't going to go away. So I do
Speaker 1: think that things are changing in the sense that like
Speaker 1: people with power are perhaps taking it a bit more seriously.
Speaker 1: I would hope that if I had to call law
Speaker 1: enforcement today, I would get a different a different answer.
Speaker 1: And so I do think that we have gotten to
Speaker 1: a little bit of a place where institutions are taking
Speaker 1: it more seriously when it comes to whether or not
Speaker 1: I think that governments should be pushing for an advocating
Speaker 1: specific policy. I gotta be honest that this is really
Speaker 1: like not my ministry. I know tons of really smart
Speaker 1: people in the tech public policy space who are doing
Speaker 1: a lot of advocacy around this to get governments to
Speaker 1: adopt better policies around tech regulation. I don't want to
Speaker 1: throw any cold water on any of that, but personally,
Speaker 1: it is just like not my area of expertise on
Speaker 1: how this could be done. And I know from like
Speaker 1: being in these spaces that there is not even necessarily
Speaker 1: like broad consensus in terms of what needs to be done. Right,
Speaker 1: Like I'll be sitting at a coalition table and one
Speaker 1: group will be like, oh, well, we need to revoke
Speaker 1: section to thirty, and another group will be like, no, no no, no,
Speaker 1: we need we need to strengthen to thirty. And so
Speaker 1: it's like I wouldn't even necessarily say there is like
Speaker 1: broad consensus in terms of people who want to do
Speaker 1: something that or want governments to do more. There's not
Speaker 1: even a broad consensus of what should be done. I
Speaker 1: do know that when this when like what kind of
Speaker 1: policy solution should be done gets brought up. One of
Speaker 1: the common solutions that gets floated around is like, well,
Speaker 1: what if we had a rule where you had to
Speaker 1: use your real first and last name if you wanted
Speaker 1: to post on social media. What I find so common
Speaker 1: about government intervention, this one specifically, is that sometimes people
Speaker 1: will put forth policies that will actually end up causing
Speaker 1: more harm, particularly to marginalize folks of like abortion advocates
Speaker 1: or providers, or activists or sex workers. If there was
Speaker 1: a policy that you had to use your first and
Speaker 1: last name, like your government name, in order to post
Speaker 1: on social media, it would be a disaster for these folks.
Speaker 1: Insert clip of of that senator being like, now, what
Speaker 1: is Vinceta? I mean, that's so true, and and like,
Speaker 1: I guess that's another reason why I don't really hold
Speaker 1: a lot of hope. I don't put a lot of
Speaker 1: my eggs in the elected official government basket, just because
Speaker 1: oftentimes we have people who are not digital natives, who
Speaker 1: do not understand the technology that it is supposed to
Speaker 1: be up to them to regulate and to make to
Speaker 1: make decisions about. You know, I guess the like top
Speaker 1: quote unquote democratics check schumers. Check Schumer's got flip phone, right,
Speaker 1: So we're like, if you are a young queer person
Speaker 1: experiencing target and harassment, you are meant to trust that
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer understands what you're going through when it's going
Speaker 1: to like advocate for you. I mean, again, I don't
Speaker 1: want to throw cold water on anything, but it's just
Speaker 1: not it's just not where I think that. It's not
Speaker 1: where I personally choose to put a lot of my
Speaker 1: my energy and hope there. And so I can say
Speaker 1: that whatever government and public policy ends up being advocated for,
Speaker 1: we have to make sure that it centers the voices
Speaker 1: of the people who are most impacted, and those are
Speaker 1: marginalized people. Right. So, like I see this time and
Speaker 1: time again where folks with power will say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: we're we're gonna make this policy and it's going to
Speaker 1: protect X, y Z marginalized group, but it ends up
Speaker 1: with those people with power just speaking over those communities
Speaker 1: and kind of telling them what they need. And I
Speaker 1: think we need to really make sure that we're flipping that,
Speaker 1: so we're listening to marginalized communities, working with them, paying them,
Speaker 1: centering their voices and experience and having the equitably let's
Speaker 1: start there eutably. So often, I mean this is like
Speaker 1: I could go off on a whole rant here. I'll
Speaker 1: try to rein it in, but you know, don't rent
Speaker 1: it in. Do it. Do it. One thing I see
Speaker 1: quite a bit. It's like people who are very well meaning,
Speaker 1: who who I do think are genuinely interested in, you know,
Speaker 1: centering these voices, but not understanding if you are, like
Speaker 1: from a marginalized community asking someone to show up and
Speaker 1: you know, tell you about their experiences for free, that's
Speaker 1: going to them that help you with like whatever policy
Speaker 1: position you're trying to take or advocate for, or like
Speaker 1: help you make your platform you know better, or whatever.
Speaker 1: When you're making a million dollars from it is it's
Speaker 1: not equitable. And I think that, like, we really have
Speaker 1: to make some changes in how we work with and
Speaker 1: alongside and amplify the needs in the voices of people
Speaker 1: who are marginalized, because so often it's just really not great.
Speaker 1: So while I can't really speak to some of the
Speaker 1: policy suggestions and I hear thrown around a lot, but
Speaker 1: I can talk about is platforms. In my book, it
Speaker 1: is social media platforms and the people that run them
Speaker 1: who are the real bad guys because they're making money
Speaker 1: off of breaking and poisoning our Internet ecosystem. I could
Speaker 1: give a lot of piecemeal things, and I think that
Speaker 1: platforms should be doing. Platforms need more transparency and their
Speaker 1: moderation policies. For instance, if someone's Instagram account keeps getting,
Speaker 1: you know, taken down because of coordinated attacks, they should
Speaker 1: be able to tell you exactly what's going on. It
Speaker 1: shouldn't be a mystery to the person. It should be
Speaker 1: clear what's happening. Oh god, you're so right. Platforms need
Speaker 1: to enforce the moderation policies they do have instead of
Speaker 1: making excuses for doing funk all. I could give you
Speaker 1: all a million different examples of the ways that platforms
Speaker 1: will have policies on the books and then be like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna not do that. You know, if this was
Speaker 1: widely reported, and I know that, I probably say it
Speaker 1: a lot across a million different podcasts. But Mark Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: personally intervened to make sure that Alex Jones would not
Speaker 1: be permanently banned from Facebook. He was banned for being awful,
Speaker 1: and Zuckerberg stepped in and kind of created a loophole
Speaker 1: specifically for Alex Jones, so that people who were reposting
Speaker 1: Alex Jones as content, which is a lot of people,
Speaker 1: would be freely able to do that even if Alex
Speaker 1: Jones could not post himself. And so they created a
Speaker 1: loophole that it's it's it's actually the exact same loophole
Speaker 1: that Andrew Tate exploits on TikTok. You know, when you
Speaker 1: have a policy, actually enforced that policy rather than finding
Speaker 1: ways to side step it. Mark Zuckerberg and platforms need
Speaker 1: more inclusion, you know, right now, we have such a
Speaker 1: very narrow subsection of men, like even more narrow than
Speaker 1: just white men, like specifically wealthy white men in coastal
Speaker 1: cities like New York or you know, um San Francisco,
Speaker 1: who are the ones of making policies and rules for
Speaker 1: the rest of us. And these people are so often
Speaker 1: removed from the consequences or harm of the rules that
Speaker 1: they make. And this is not just within the United States.
Speaker 1: This is particularly relevant for parts of the world like
Speaker 1: the Global South, where Facebook and Facebook own property, so
Speaker 1: like Facebook, Instagram, What's app basically are the Internet the
Speaker 1: same way that in the nineties America online was the
Speaker 1: Internet for a whole bunch of folks in a lot
Speaker 1: of these places across the globe. Facebook is the Internet.
Speaker 1: And so when you have a very very narrow subset
Speaker 1: of wealthy white men in coastal United States based cities
Speaker 1: making decisions for these big pockets of the globe, that
Speaker 1: is a real problem. So platforms really need to work
Speaker 1: to create a better culture of inclusion so that the
Speaker 1: people making the rules for platforms actually reflect the people
Speaker 1: for whom those rules impact, you know, so that's the
Speaker 1: next time that somebody like e Foma Uzoma comes along
Speaker 1: to try to make better policies, she's not targeted and
Speaker 1: punished and pushed out for doing that work. And so
Speaker 1: I think a real deep culture of inclusion is something
Speaker 1: that really needs to be done. Banned this person, banned
Speaker 1: that person, like individual, because when you do that, you're
Speaker 1: like playing whack a mole. The problem is is much deeper,
Speaker 1: and it's a cultural one. We need to change the
Speaker 1: culture that says that tech leaders just do not have
Speaker 1: to be accountable to us. You know, the people that
Speaker 1: use our technology. Their platforms would not exist if it
Speaker 1: was not for you and me, all of us users,
Speaker 1: and so Even if you're not, you know, an engineer,
Speaker 1: a developer, a coder, tech leaders still need to feel
Speaker 1: accountable to the way that their platforms shape the world
Speaker 1: that we all live in. It is in their best
Speaker 1: interests to think that we're too stupid or don't understand
Speaker 1: the technology that they build, and that thus, like we
Speaker 1: don't get to say, we don't get an opinion. I
Speaker 1: can't tell you how many times I've watched Mark Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: be hauled before you know, before Congress, and he acts like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, this is just too complicated for you all
Speaker 1: to understand, Like I'm smarter than all of you, so like,
Speaker 1: don't even worry about it. But trust me, you are
Speaker 1: not more stupid than Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk. There
Speaker 1: is no way that you are more stupid than Mark
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg or Elon Musk, right that it is in their
Speaker 1: best interest to trick all of us into thinking that
Speaker 1: we don't understand this technology, we don't understand how it works.
Speaker 1: There for what do we know? What why do we
Speaker 1: get to have an opinion when we believe that nonsense,
Speaker 1: We are empowering men like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk
Speaker 1: to continue doing harm with no accountability. So the second
Speaker 1: that you catch yourself thinking, I don't really get to
Speaker 1: say in all this, they have one. We all need
Speaker 1: a deep cultural change where we unlearned the idea that
Speaker 1: we don't deserve to have a voice and we don't
Speaker 1: deserve to take up space when it comes to conversations
Speaker 1: about the Internet and technology, because they impact all of us.
Speaker 1: From the way that you get your groceries, the way
Speaker 1: that you vote, whether or not you're gonna be criminalized
Speaker 1: for going to a protest with your face showing all
Speaker 1: of that. These are all decisions and policies and rules
Speaker 1: that have such a deep blasting impact for all of
Speaker 1: our lives, and the leaders that get rich off of us,
Speaker 1: they need to be accountable to how it impacts our lives.
Speaker 1: And so I really want to have there be a
Speaker 1: massive culture shift around technology and how we all think
Speaker 1: about it. And so, you know, I'm sure you're thinking, like, well,
Speaker 1: that sounds great, but I don't know Mark Zuckerberg, I
Speaker 1: don't know Elon Musk, I don't know Jack Dorsey, I
Speaker 1: don't know Jeff Bezos. What can I do? Well? We
Speaker 1: don't have to wait for tech leaders to do the
Speaker 1: right thing. You know, we don't have to wait for
Speaker 1: government intervention. We can shift culture by acknowledging and being
Speaker 1: real about the impact that it has. One of the
Speaker 1: reasons I was so excited to be telling these stories
Speaker 1: with Cool Zone Media and the audience that you all
Speaker 1: have built, Sophie, is that I know that it's this
Speaker 1: engaged audience of people who really care about what's going
Speaker 1: on in the world and really feel empowered that they
Speaker 1: can make the be the change and make the change
Speaker 1: they can. They can, you know, rethink the way that
Speaker 1: they see these power systems playing out in their own
Speaker 1: lives and be the change to make something a little
Speaker 1: bit different happen. Yeah, I mean, and we also know
Speaker 1: that like Elon Musk isn't going to save us, the
Speaker 1: government is not going to save us. Rich Track bros.
Speaker 1: Aren't going to save us. The only people that we
Speaker 1: can rely on is ourselves and each other and mutual
Speaker 1: aid exactly. And you know, sometimes it is said that
Speaker 1: a good marker of how we're doing as a society
Speaker 1: is how the people who are the most marginalized are treated.
Speaker 1: And I think that that should be the case for
Speaker 1: our digital world too. And I just gotta tell you,
Speaker 1: I the research is really clear, and I hope this
Speaker 1: this podcast series made it clear that the people who
Speaker 1: are the most marginalized online right now are black women.
Speaker 1: And I think that if you are a leftist or
Speaker 1: a radical, or you care what's happening in our world,
Speaker 1: you care what's happening to our democracy, you care what's
Speaker 1: happening with the state of activism right now, you've got
Speaker 1: to care what's happening to black women in real life
Speaker 1: and online to like that's it's just it's not something
Speaker 1: you can side up. It is a fight for all
Speaker 1: of us, not just because it's the right thing to do,
Speaker 1: not just because you know, black women are everybody is
Speaker 1: better served when our voices are are centered and included
Speaker 1: in the conversation, but because it really does have a
Speaker 1: direct impact on all of us. I believe if way
Speaker 1: back in the day, somebody would have would have listened
Speaker 1: when all of these black women like Adrian Richards and
Speaker 1: Leslie Jones were speaking up about what they were seeing,
Speaker 1: if somebody would have done something, I don't I don't
Speaker 1: know that I could say that we would be in
Speaker 1: the same position that we're in right now. I truly don't.
Speaker 1: And so it really matters what happens to marginalized communities
Speaker 1: the way that people who are marginalized on the internet
Speaker 1: are faring. You know, so goes us, so go us all,
Speaker 1: And it really comes back to community, right, Like I
Speaker 1: want people to when they're having online experiences and they
Speaker 1: see something where they're like, this seems like a coordinated attack,
Speaker 1: or this person seems like they're they're not this someone
Speaker 1: is not just disagreeing with this person. They are trafficking
Speaker 1: in racism or sexism to harm them and to suppress
Speaker 1: them into, you know, shame them out of participation in
Speaker 1: civic discourse. Acknowledge that, right, Like, don't let it be
Speaker 1: our fight. It's all of our fights. And I think
Speaker 1: for so long it's been something that we don't really
Speaker 1: talk about, where it's we are the ones experiencing this
Speaker 1: kind of harm and it's kind of like not polite
Speaker 1: to talk about it, and like and like, who wants
Speaker 1: to listen to somebody, you know, talk about, you know,
Speaker 1: what they're experiencing online. But I just really encourage everybody
Speaker 1: listening to take up this fight because this our fight
Speaker 1: is your fight too, And truly, we all deserve better.
Speaker 1: We all deserve an Internet ecosystem that's not so broken,
Speaker 1: that it's not so toxic, where people can you know,
Speaker 1: have experiences that feel like something other than harassment and hatred,
Speaker 1: that feel like discovery, that feel like inclusion, that feel good.
Speaker 1: Right when I was first coming up online, it was
Speaker 1: the Internet that helped me understand who I am today.
Speaker 1: It was the Internet where I went to answer questions
Speaker 1: and I couldn't find the answers to in my tiny,
Speaker 1: at small southern town, right. And so I genuinely worry
Speaker 1: about the the generation coming up after us, the kind
Speaker 1: of Internet ecosystem that we're leaving for them. I want
Speaker 1: them to have the same kind of you know, experiences
Speaker 1: that I did when I was coming up. I want
Speaker 1: the in what we're all better sort of when the
Speaker 1: Internet and the our media ecosystems are actually there to
Speaker 1: foster thoughtful discussion, thoughtful discourse, democracy and you know, actual
Speaker 1: actual actual debate, not hate speech, not disinformation, not harassment,
Speaker 1: and not online abuse. And when when it's safe like that,
Speaker 1: it can also be fun. You can also have It's
Speaker 1: also a place where there's uh, you can have a
Speaker 1: creative outlet where you can learn, you can laugh, you
Speaker 1: can love, and uh, if we're not careful, that goes
Speaker 1: completely away, and we're trending that way. Remember when the
Speaker 1: Internet used to be fun? Um, absolutely it was. It
Speaker 1: was cool. Remember remember changing your background on MySpace being like,
Speaker 1: look at me, this is my favorite song. Hello, Oh
Speaker 1: my god, I would I like. That's how I taught
Speaker 1: myself how to how to code with like, you know,
Speaker 1: hiding the pause button in my MySpace profile. So I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, no, you're gonna listen to this panic
Speaker 1: at the disco song and you're not getting It was
Speaker 1: always a panic at the disco. I don't know why.
Speaker 1: If you if you had an automated song playing on
Speaker 1: your math Space, it was always panic at the disco.
Speaker 1: Might had like falling stars, like Twitter stars. It definitely
Speaker 1: crashed those like old boxy fucking computers. But it used
Speaker 1: to be fun. It used to feel like discovery. And
Speaker 1: now it's like, I don't want to live in a
Speaker 1: world where the Internet isn't a place to discover who
Speaker 1: you are and have fun and explore. And I I
Speaker 1: feel like we are trending in the wrong direction and
Speaker 1: I want us to have a hard reset. I know,
Speaker 1: full circle. The Internet's bad. Hannic at the disco broke
Speaker 1: up like yesterday, God, what's that? What's a millennial to do? Right? Oh, Virget,
Speaker 1: this has been such a delightful series to do with you.
Speaker 1: This has been so fun and I couldn't have asked
Speaker 1: for a better person to help guide me through these
Speaker 1: these rocky internet waters. Thank you for the opportunity this.
Speaker 1: I want this to not be the end of the conversation.
Speaker 1: So well it isn't. It isn't. We were getting towards
Speaker 1: the end of this limited series and I was like,
Speaker 1: I can't I can't be without Bridget. I'm like, I
Speaker 1: wanna I want to see like I hope she'll say yes.
Speaker 1: It was like me me being like nervous to somebody
Speaker 1: to the school dance. I was like, do you think so? Yes?
Speaker 1: It was like telling I was telling my to was like,
Speaker 1: whom she does? I really love her? H Bridget is
Speaker 1: gonna be doing a monthly, monthly episode on our uncle
Speaker 1: Zone Media as that could happen here series, which is
Speaker 1: our daily show a monthly a monthly Bridget, thank god,
Speaker 1: So please stay tuned. This is not the end of
Speaker 1: the conversation. And yeah, until then, keep in touch, be
Speaker 1: good stewards of the Internet and each other. Is there
Speaker 1: anything else you want to plug at the end here
Speaker 1: of work? You're doing that where people can follow you
Speaker 1: on on the interwebs anything. Yeah, you can follow me
Speaker 1: on Instagram at bridget Marie and d C. You can
Speaker 1: follow me on TikTok. I just started on TikTok at
Speaker 1: bridget tad mixed Pods and you can follow me on
Speaker 1: Twitter at bridget Marie. I'm less active there than I
Speaker 1: used to be, but I am still there. We would
Speaker 1: love to have you and it is currently on hiatus,
Speaker 1: but you can listen to my other internet podcast on
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio called There Are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 1: We'd love to have you there as well. And yeah,
Speaker 1: just keep in touch. I I want to continue the
Speaker 1: conversation about these issues and thank you so much for listening.
Speaker 1: It means a lot. Internet Hate Machine is a production
Speaker 1: of cool Zone Media. More podcasts from cool Zone Media,
Speaker 1: check out our website cool zone media dot com, or
Speaker 1: find us on the I Heart Radio app, Apple pod Us,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts.