Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this
Speaker 1: is there Are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 2: Joey.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being here. It has been
Speaker 1: a whirlwind week. Honestly, there are not many people that
Speaker 1: I would rather get into all of this with than you.
Speaker 1: I feel like you really bring such an expertise and
Speaker 1: a put together background that I really appreciate. So I'm
Speaker 1: kind of as hard as things have been, I feel
Speaker 1: grateful that I get to help understand, help myself understand
Speaker 1: what's going on with you.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Bridget. It's been a week.
Speaker 4: It's been a wild two weeks. And you know, we
Speaker 4: talked a bit before this recording, and.
Speaker 3: It is it is rough. It is rough.
Speaker 4: We are witnessing horrific events on a daily basis just
Speaker 4: through our phones and having to grapple with that and
Speaker 4: grapple with you know, a lot of very I hate
Speaker 4: calling it complicated political realities because I feel like calling
Speaker 4: it complicated quote unquote has been used a lot to
Speaker 4: kind of divert attention away from the issue, but also yes,
Speaker 4: very common and a lot of very complicated and at
Speaker 4: the same time, very real and very horrific realities for
Speaker 4: you know, people living in Gaza and living in Israel Palestine.
Speaker 4: I think I've talked before on this podcast. I am Jewish.
Speaker 4: I anti Zionism is a fundamental part of my Jewish identity.
Speaker 4: What is happening to the Palestinian people right now is horrifying.
Speaker 4: What has been happening is horrifying, and I you know,
Speaker 4: I think just trying to sift through all of the
Speaker 4: inform that we're being presented with is a lot.
Speaker 3: It is a lot to go through.
Speaker 4: I think like our brains were not meant to have
Speaker 4: to deal with that amount of information on the daily.
Speaker 3: That being said, you know, I.
Speaker 4: Really I hope that somehow further deaths in destruction can
Speaker 4: be preventable. And there's a lot of terrible, terrifying possibilities
Speaker 4: that are I think, on the horizon, and we're just
Speaker 4: gonna have to keep fighting and keep fighting for a
Speaker 4: better future.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we are in I mean, I feel the same
Speaker 1: way when the conflict first, like last week, I thought,
Speaker 1: I mean I was in a I don't know, I
Speaker 1: found myself going to a dark place last week personally
Speaker 1: when I was everything was unfolding, and it was still
Speaker 1: still felt very kind of fresh and new. And I
Speaker 1: generally kind of think of myself as somebody who was
Speaker 1: very optimistic, who really, you know, often leans toward things
Speaker 1: will work out, things will be okay. People are fundamentally good,
Speaker 1: people fundamentally want to be united and together. That's not
Speaker 1: always the case, but that's like my core alignment. And
Speaker 1: last week I was just like, yeah, not in a
Speaker 1: great place. I really was afraid because I sensed very
Speaker 1: deeply that we were going to see more destruction and
Speaker 1: more deaths and more harm, which we definitely have seen.
Speaker 2: And you know, I wanted to.
Speaker 1: Really focus on what I know that I can bring
Speaker 1: to the table in moments of chaos and terror and anxiety.
Speaker 1: And I have like deep expertise when it comes to
Speaker 1: social media platforms and technology, and so the episode that
Speaker 1: we made last week was really kind of narrow in
Speaker 1: focus around the ways that I see Twitter really making
Speaker 1: a tough, scary time worse because people don't know what's
Speaker 1: going on. People are here, people are understandably confused and
Speaker 1: are afraid and trying to find out information, and the
Speaker 1: platform just like doesn't allow for that. So folks, we
Speaker 1: have heard our episode last week that really broke that down,
Speaker 1: and I think that one of the reasons why the
Speaker 1: state of Twitter was amplifying a lot of the feelings
Speaker 1: I was personally having was that I have sort of
Speaker 1: known Twitter historically to be a platform that can, in
Speaker 1: times of crisis, help people get information. If you're on
Speaker 1: the ground, here's what you need to know, Here's where
Speaker 1: you need to go if you need X, y Z.
Speaker 1: If you're not on the ground, you're just following it.
Speaker 1: Here's the best information. Here's information, here's here's voices that
Speaker 1: are experiencing this on the ground. I have always known
Speaker 1: it to be a platform that helped me feel more
Speaker 1: informed and thus less afraid and less confused.
Speaker 2: Unless reactionary.
Speaker 1: Again, I will be the first person to tell you
Speaker 1: that Twitter has never been perfect, So like I could
Speaker 1: go on as long of a rant about it's problems,
Speaker 1: even in the pre elon Musk Days, but Twitter was
Speaker 1: always something that helped me get information that felt timely
Speaker 1: and accurate and thus helped me feel kind of like
Speaker 1: more in control. And when I went to Twitter to
Speaker 1: sort of do what I recognized as like how I
Speaker 1: try to cope when things are stressful and hard, and
Speaker 1: this got more lies, more inflammatory content, more like really
Speaker 1: emotionally charged content. Like I was riled up, and I'm
Speaker 1: not somebody who I think of as like easy to
Speaker 1: rile up from online content.
Speaker 2: My heart was racing.
Speaker 1: I was seeing images, of course, none of which prevetted
Speaker 1: of things that really were causing a deep emotional response
Speaker 1: in me, and it just really rattled me. It signaled
Speaker 1: to me that we have reached a new low in
Speaker 1: our digital landscape. I still feel that way. I still
Speaker 1: feel like things are better, and I'm very concerned about
Speaker 1: how much worse things can get. And going back to
Speaker 1: this conversation a week later, I think the thing that
Speaker 1: really upset me the most is how on social media,
Speaker 1: but Twitter, particularly how easy it is to boil things
Speaker 1: down to like you're talking about a football game, like teams,
Speaker 1: like oh the other side, this side, that side. It
Speaker 1: really creates this just not useful equivalency. And also we're
Speaker 1: talking about people's lives and people like real humans lives,
Speaker 1: and like the way that it lends itself to boiling
Speaker 1: it down to talking about teams in this very crass way,
Speaker 1: it just really did not fill me with good feelings
Speaker 1: I'll put it that way.
Speaker 3: It is sort of it's like almost surreal.
Speaker 4: I A, yes, the fact that these are people's lives,
Speaker 4: these are people being killed, these are your children and
Speaker 4: being killed.
Speaker 2: And just.
Speaker 4: The way I talked about this a bit before when
Speaker 4: we were off mic. But again, I feel like, as
Speaker 4: I said, I'm Jewish, i am very staunchly an anti Zionist.
Speaker 4: I feel like I've spent a lot of my time
Speaker 4: the past week just trying to explain semantics to people
Speaker 4: and trying to explain why Zionism is a political ideology
Speaker 4: is not the same thing as Judaism is a diverse,
Speaker 4: you know, cultural and religious identity.
Speaker 3: And there is a part of me that just feels
Speaker 3: so heartbroken.
Speaker 4: That this is what I have to focus on, this
Speaker 4: is what I have to spend so much of my
Speaker 4: time and energy focusing on, when again, yeah, there are
Speaker 4: people dying, there's actual human rights catastrophes happening. And I
Speaker 4: will say this is an issue where there already has
Speaker 4: been just sort of this stream of misinformation and propaganda
Speaker 4: that has been difficult.
Speaker 3: To sit through.
Speaker 4: That has been difficult to sit through as somebody who
Speaker 4: is somewhat connected to this conflict. I'm sure, and I'm
Speaker 4: sure people that have no sort of background in it
Speaker 4: it is even worse, and it is it's hard. It
Speaker 4: is at this again. It has been a really heavy
Speaker 4: last two weeks. What is happening in Gaza is horrifying.
Speaker 3: And my.
Speaker 4: Thoughts and are with the people on the ground there,
Speaker 4: solidarity with the Palaestinam people. And it is crazy that
Speaker 4: we are back to a point where, like I feel
Speaker 4: like just the dehumanization of people has gotten so so intense,
Speaker 4: and so in saying that it is it's really hard.
Speaker 4: It is really hard to work through and it is
Speaker 4: really hard to even as I said here, you know,
Speaker 4: I am in the US, I am We're or less
Speaker 4: safe right now. I'm not in any immediate danger and
Speaker 4: that feels exhausting. I can't fucking imagine what it's got
Speaker 4: to be like for people that are there, people that
Speaker 4: have family there, a Israeli or Palestinian. Again, any loss
Speaker 4: of human life is terrible and tragic, and.
Speaker 3: It's yeah, it's it's been a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we were talking about this off mic before
Speaker 1: you were recording, But like the feeling of not necessarily
Speaker 1: feeling like it's okay, to speak up in certain ways
Speaker 1: I think is really hard. I think it creates a
Speaker 1: climate where it's really hard to process and really hard
Speaker 1: to like you know even.
Speaker 4: More, Yeah, it really, I mean I keep thinking about
Speaker 4: there have already been like a number of Jewish protestersicular
Speaker 4: who have been arrested for speaking out against the US
Speaker 4: to support the military support of Israel, or spooking out
Speaker 4: or speaking in support of a ceasefire, have been protesting.
Speaker 4: A number of these people are children of Holocaust survivors,
Speaker 4: are have people in their family that directly experienced genocide
Speaker 4: and directly directly experienced ethnic cleansing and everything that comes
Speaker 4: along with that. And it's it is so messed up
Speaker 4: that even talking about this now, like I feel nervous.
Speaker 4: I'll be honest, Like I have almost been docked a
Speaker 4: couple times. I have very good friends that have been
Speaker 4: docks simply for saying like the mildest things in support
Speaker 4: of Palaciti and human rights, mildest criticism of the Israeli government.
Speaker 4: And that's not okay, That's not okay in any situation.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it is. It is. It's a lot to process,
Speaker 3: and it does a lot to a feel.
Speaker 4: For people that sort of don't have any background in
Speaker 4: this and don't have any understanding of what is happening
Speaker 4: and are trying to learn it now. It is hard
Speaker 4: to sift through that information that's being presented to you
Speaker 4: and sift through disinformation, but then also feeling like you
Speaker 4: can't say anything, You can't speak out in support of
Speaker 4: things that are obviously wrong, things that are obviously crimes
Speaker 4: against humanity without fearing for your own safety and your
Speaker 4: own sort of reputation. In the most basic sense, it's scary,
Speaker 4: and it's I really just wish people would not lose
Speaker 4: sight of the fact that there are people in immediate
Speaker 4: danger right now. There are people already who have been
Speaker 4: killed and whose lives are already.
Speaker 3: Again, I think just the fact that.
Speaker 4: We're witnessing such horrific events unfolding, and the thing that
Speaker 4: the fact that semantics and the fact that going over
Speaker 4: like how to talk about this and how to talk
Speaker 4: about this in a way that is not going to
Speaker 4: get you immediately doxed by bad actors. That's a lot,
Speaker 4: and that is that is only kind of making the
Speaker 4: conversation around this more hostile and is only going to
Speaker 4: lead to more death and more destruction exactly.
Speaker 1: It really reminds me, you know, I'm a little older
Speaker 1: than you, and it reminds me so much of the
Speaker 1: aftermath of nine to eleven, which was like really my
Speaker 1: kind of like political and social awakening, and that was
Speaker 1: like when I got more seriously involved in, like the
Speaker 1: anti war movement was like the thing that got me,
Speaker 1: woke me up in terms of like my own political
Speaker 1: understanding of the world. And there was a climate that,
Speaker 1: like the climate of like you're for us, or you're
Speaker 1: with us or against us. You're either with us or
Speaker 1: you're a terrorist. And I think that's that's I'm seeing
Speaker 1: goes of that climate now, you know. And last week
Speaker 1: we were talking about Twitter, but it's important to remember
Speaker 1: that Twitter is only one piece of our larger media ecosystem,
Speaker 1: and was a pretty big scoop from four fur Media,
Speaker 1: which is a journalist run tech media outlet, about how
Speaker 1: things are playing out on Instagram. People on Instagram found
Speaker 1: that the platform was auto translating their user bios that
Speaker 1: included the word Palestinian and an airbrick phrase that means
Speaker 1: praise be to God. Instagram was auto translating this to
Speaker 1: say Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom. So if
Speaker 1: you had this perfectly innocuous phrase in your Instagram bio
Speaker 1: Instagram is basically telling the world via translation that you
Speaker 1: are a terrorist sympathizer.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's interesting you brought up nine to eleven, and
Speaker 4: I guess you said, I'm I don't regress all for
Speaker 4: how y'all got a I grew up in the aftermath
Speaker 4: of nine to eleven, Like I was two when nine
Speaker 4: to eleven happened, but I really like came of age
Speaker 4: in that era of just very like I was a
Speaker 4: child when Islamophobia and all of this racism and xenophobia
Speaker 4: was at its height, and I think my teen years
Speaker 4: were really the time when we were starting to unpack
Speaker 4: that and starting to be like, hey.
Speaker 3: Maybe a lot of this was bad.
Speaker 4: Maybe we shouldn't have just jumped to very black and
Speaker 4: white images like views of the world, and especially I
Speaker 4: mean the word terrorists, Like you cannot take that word
Speaker 4: out of the connotation that it has in the US
Speaker 4: and the connotation that it has these past couple of decades,
Speaker 4: And it is so strange to be seeing so much
Speaker 4: of that kind of be recirculated and the way that
Speaker 4: those terms are kind of used to. It is weird
Speaker 4: to see that kind of that level of xenophobia returning
Speaker 4: and almost the same exact patterns.
Speaker 1: That's so, that's exactly, That's exactly how I feel that,
Speaker 1: like we maybe didn't learn a lot from that era,
Speaker 1: you know, we I wish we had. I was so
Speaker 1: young and I thought we were gonna stop the war.
Speaker 1: We were part Like if you were part of the
Speaker 1: anti war movement after nine to eleven, you were part
Speaker 1: of a historic, like the biggest anti war protest of
Speaker 1: all time in the United States, Like I thought, like
Speaker 1: it felt big and now here I am. However, many
Speaker 1: years later, and it's like, did we really learn a lot?
Speaker 1: Because it's like we're having these same conversations, and like,
Speaker 1: back then, we did not have the level of like
Speaker 1: tech like it wasn't We didn't have the tech infrastructure
Speaker 1: to enable those conversations, to pour gasoline on those conversations,
Speaker 1: to make platforms, and people who were financially invested in
Speaker 1: those conversations being as inflamed and hostile as possible.
Speaker 2: We didn't have that to the level that we haven't now, And.
Speaker 1: So it almost feels like it's like, yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: the same thing, but worse in some ways, which I
Speaker 1: hate to say. So after Instagram was called out by
Speaker 1: four oh for Media for sneaking terrorist sympathizer in like
Speaker 1: language into this translation on Instagram bios, they I will say,
Speaker 1: to their credit, they copped to it right away. They said,
Speaker 1: we fixed a problem that briefly caused inappropriate Arabic translations
Speaker 1: and some of our products. We sincerely apologized that this happened,
Speaker 1: but they didn't explain how it happened. Like it's a
Speaker 1: pretty like a telling translation, and I think it really
Speaker 1: reveals some of the problems and the ways that like
Speaker 1: big tech companies in a way that wasn't the case
Speaker 1: right after nine to eleven, big tech companies really have
Speaker 1: the power to shape a lot of the discourse around
Speaker 1: what's happening with this conflict.
Speaker 2: Like they really just have.
Speaker 1: So like we've we've put a lot of trust in them,
Speaker 1: and I would argue that these people, these they're not
Speaker 1: always trustworthy actors, and so it's like, oh wow, like
Speaker 1: this is really a problem.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that is really interesting. You were talking about
Speaker 4: Twitter at the top and I Instagram. I do feel
Speaker 4: like a lot of this has migrated over to Instagram,
Speaker 4: and you know, hearing that Instagram is maybe not to
Speaker 4: the same extent as Twitter, but it's falling into the
Speaker 4: same sort of traps and misinformation and you know, mistranslating
Speaker 4: things or prioritizing certain information about others. It really is
Speaker 4: like a systemic problem that is not unique to Twitter
Speaker 4: and is not unique to Elon Musk. It is a
Speaker 4: problem of how we talk about these issues and how
Speaker 4: we consume information.
Speaker 3: And yeah, it's it's bad. It's yeah, yeah, Twitter.
Speaker 1: So like I won't stop beating the drama about how
Speaker 1: bad Twitter is because it's like it seems like Twitter
Speaker 1: is like we are intentionally trying to be bad, Like
Speaker 1: we want people to be confused and like they're to
Speaker 1: be chaos.
Speaker 2: Enjoy the show. I genuinely believe that.
Speaker 1: Is Elon Musk's orientation, that it's like, yeah, even if
Speaker 1: it's a shit show, you're paying attention, you know.
Speaker 2: So. But Instagram, I think is unique.
Speaker 1: This is I'm like totally going off script here, but
Speaker 1: like Instagram to me is unique in that there's something
Speaker 1: about the format of like a Canva created carousel like
Speaker 1: graphic with text on it, and I make them too,
Speaker 1: Like I'm not, but like they're just so easy for
Speaker 1: anybody to make. If you have like I have Canva
Speaker 1: pro I've thrown together an infographic and a carousel in
Speaker 1: my day or two. But it's so easy for anybody
Speaker 1: to make them. And there's something about them that I
Speaker 1: think give a sheene of trustworthiness because it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: who would take the time to make this carousel full
Speaker 1: of information and words if they hadn't like that checked
Speaker 1: it or if it wasn't true, And they're just so
Speaker 1: easy to share on Instagram.
Speaker 2: It is so easy. And I also think that like
Speaker 2: Instagram is.
Speaker 1: A platform that is like visual, and so I think
Speaker 1: people not to like generalize, but I think that Instagram
Speaker 1: is a platform where people who are very visual.
Speaker 2: Spend a lot of time.
Speaker 1: And so if you're like a celebrity, you Instagram might
Speaker 1: have a different feeling that a platform like Twitter, which
Speaker 1: is text based. Well, if you have to like really
Speaker 1: it's really depends the way that you engage with through
Speaker 1: what you have to what you write, what you have
Speaker 1: to say. Instagram it's visuals. Was like, you might not
Speaker 1: be much of a wordsmith, but if you are a
Speaker 1: visual person, you can really succeed there. And so I
Speaker 1: think that like it might have more people who aren't
Speaker 1: really thinking about things in a super I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't want to stund like an asshole. How can
Speaker 1: I put this? Do you don't trying to say like.
Speaker 3: It's you know, it's a little bit.
Speaker 4: Sometimes people will take things at service value, and there's nothing.
Speaker 3: Wrong with you if you do that. That is enormal.
Speaker 5: I do that, Yes, I do that exactly like we
Speaker 5: all do that.
Speaker 4: And I think this is this particular situation, a lot
Speaker 4: of people feel very out of their element, and just
Speaker 4: given the way that social media has kind of and
Speaker 4: again I will say I do think there are benefits
Speaker 4: of social media when it comes to activism, but the
Speaker 4: same way it has commodified activism to an extent, and
Speaker 4: it has turned it into a little bit of a
Speaker 4: performative thing.
Speaker 3: A lot of people feel very you know, back.
Speaker 4: Now, over a week ago, when the attacks on Israel
Speaker 4: first happened, there was a lot of initial misinformation that
Speaker 4: was being spread just because I think a lot of
Speaker 4: people felt like they had to make a statement. And
Speaker 4: then again, this whole issue is complicated by the fact that, yes,
Speaker 4: it has been very, very difficult to speak in support
Speaker 4: of Palestine and human rights, just due to the way
Speaker 4: that discourse has been framed and the way that it
Speaker 4: has talked about, and a lot of the kind of
Speaker 4: inherent biases that people have, especially in the US. I
Speaker 4: think just a combination of a the way that social
Speaker 4: media works and social media activism works and weren't moved
Speaker 4: so quickly, combined with the fact that the last couple
Speaker 4: of years, the last ten years, there are people I
Speaker 4: know that made the most mild statements either criticizing the
Speaker 4: Israeli government or in support of the Palestinian people and
Speaker 4: have been docs for that.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 4: That the fact that like that combination is just makes
Speaker 4: it such a strange and difficult landscape I think to
Speaker 4: navigate on social media.
Speaker 1: Rachel Greenspan, a writer who I think is great, wrote
Speaker 1: this piece at MSNBC called why I'm not expecting my
Speaker 1: friends to make social media posts about Israel. Rachel rights,
Speaker 1: there is now a values based currency in our social
Speaker 1: media landscape that did not appear when Instagram launched in
Speaker 1: twenty ten. We're now asking ourselves did I share the
Speaker 1: right thing? Did I share enough? We're treating our social
Speaker 1: media profiles that's communityation. Channels for the general public. But
Speaker 1: we're afraid because we all live in a new kind
Speaker 1: of public now, whether we like it or not. Even
Speaker 1: though we've always known that what we post online shapes
Speaker 1: how the world sees us, we now fear a specific
Speaker 1: type of judgment that we won't be thought of as
Speaker 1: good people. And of course our opinions of those we follow.
Speaker 2: Shape what we believe.
Speaker 1: And I think you're to your point about you know,
Speaker 1: that time when people were posting things and then taking
Speaker 1: them down, and then wanting to post the right thing,
Speaker 1: and then feeling obligated to post something. I think that
Speaker 1: I think that we're really seeing how our social media
Speaker 1: landscape has led us to these responses and these reactions
Speaker 1: that are not necessarily always helpful, Like I have learned
Speaker 1: so much about my own activism what's going on in
Speaker 1: the world from social media, but also on top of
Speaker 1: like it's like a yes, and it can also be
Speaker 1: hard if we're all feeling like, well, we have to
Speaker 1: post the right thing and we have to like show
Speaker 1: up with the exact right like there's not really it
Speaker 1: doesn't feel like there's room for processing anymore. It's only
Speaker 1: feels like there's only room for reaction publicly, which I
Speaker 1: would argue, does that always get us like to the
Speaker 1: most helpful thing all the time?
Speaker 3: Exactly?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think because this definitely was a moment too
Speaker 4: where I kind of you know, sat down with my
Speaker 4: fault and I was thinking about what's the like, what
Speaker 4: is going to be productive for me to post on
Speaker 4: my Instagram? What is not going to be productive? And
Speaker 4: I think, you know, every time there's some big sort
Speaker 4: of this, a similar thing happened in twenty twenty when
Speaker 4: it was there's certain things that kind of get circulated
Speaker 4: that feel very sensatialized and exploitative, and then there's things
Speaker 4: that get circulated that feel like they're actually pointing to.
Speaker 4: If you feel helpless, right now, here's what you can do.
Speaker 4: Here are things that you can look into. Here is
Speaker 4: resources to help you understand if you don't understand it.
Speaker 4: Also is okay to admit that you don't know everything.
Speaker 4: I think that is really hard for people.
Speaker 5: But like, and I like, I'm not going to pretend
Speaker 5: like I am the spurt on all of this, but
Speaker 5: like I had friends reached out to me like last
Speaker 5: weekend that we're just sort of like, hey, can you, like,
Speaker 5: would you be open to just kind of like chatting
Speaker 5: with me about this for a little bit, and I
Speaker 5: was like, sure, yeah, like I can totally.
Speaker 4: I like, I can tell you what I know. I
Speaker 4: can tell you the history that I know. Again, look
Speaker 4: into your own stuff too. I like would send people research.
Speaker 4: But it is also like it is it is okay
Speaker 4: to speak a step back and do research.
Speaker 3: It is okay to if you don't know things.
Speaker 4: At the same time, you know, there are certain universal
Speaker 4: things that are like I think we are at a
Speaker 4: point now where we again, I think we are looking
Speaker 4: at a genocide that is happening, and I think it
Speaker 4: is there is a reason to speak up now, and
Speaker 4: there is a reason to try to learn now and
Speaker 4: to try to also learn like the way that the
Speaker 4: US also you know, provides military support for Israel and
Speaker 4: the role that that and just the history looking into
Speaker 4: also the history of Jewish people in the region, and
Speaker 4: how kind of Israel as a state as a political
Speaker 4: entity is not necessarily representative of the Jewish people.
Speaker 3: It's serting.
Speaker 4: So it is anti Semitic, I will say that, But also,
Speaker 4: you know the other side of that is also you
Speaker 4: can criticize the state of Israel.
Speaker 3: You can criticize Zionism.
Speaker 4: As political ideology that in and of itself is not
Speaker 4: anti Semitic, because Israel does not represent the Jewish people.
Speaker 4: We are a community that exists all over the world
Speaker 4: and that is very diverse.
Speaker 3: Culturally politically.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it is okay to ask questions, It is okay
Speaker 4: to do research, and it is okay to not have
Speaker 4: to respond right away to things.
Speaker 1: And I wish for us that we had a landscape
Speaker 1: that just we all understood that, and that really fostered
Speaker 1: us to have more thoughtful conversations where we got to
Speaker 1: really hear perspectives, you know, people's perspectives. And I know
Speaker 1: that there's been a whole history of Palestinian folks who
Speaker 1: say that they are really not able to do that
Speaker 1: on social media with the landscape that we currently have
Speaker 1: right now. Folks have said that if they express views
Speaker 1: supportive of Palestinians on Instagram, that those views are being
Speaker 1: algorithmically suppressed on the platform. Generally speaking, I usually when
Speaker 1: people are like I'm being shadow band I generally I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: are you really being shadow band Like. It's an overused
Speaker 1: accusation that is thrown around quite a bit, but it
Speaker 1: does seem like something is going on on Instagram right now,
Speaker 1: as it pertains to people trying to talk about Palestine.
Speaker 1: In another instance, people were trying to upload images from
Speaker 1: the hospital in Gaza that was blown up, and Instagram
Speaker 1: removed those images, citing that they violated policies forbidding nudity
Speaker 1: or sexual activity, even though the images did not have
Speaker 1: nudity In some instances, they didn't have any people in them,
Speaker 1: so it's like, how is it sexual? A Facebook spokesperson
Speaker 1: Andy Stone explained in a statement, He said, we identified
Speaker 1: a bug impacting all stories that re shared reels and
Speaker 1: feed posts, meaning they weren't showing up properly in people's
Speaker 1: stories tray, leading to significantly reduced reach.
Speaker 2: This bug affected.
Speaker 1: Accounts equally around the globe and had nothing to do
Speaker 1: with subject matter of the content.
Speaker 2: We fixed it as quickly as possible, So I don't know.
Speaker 1: People are skeptical because Facebook is using and has used
Speaker 1: this glitch reasoning quite a lot. The Guardian spoke to
Speaker 1: a former Facebook and employee who explained that quote, you
Speaker 1: cannot keep blaming it on glitches when it's spreading misinformation
Speaker 1: into humanizing Palestinians by feeding into the narrative that all
Speaker 1: Palestinians are terrorists. It's very overwhelming for a lot of
Speaker 1: the employees of the company. So this is not even
Speaker 1: at all close to the first time that Facebook's policies
Speaker 1: have been questionable, as it pertains to how people talk
Speaker 1: about Palestine, and book is very well aware. In twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, two hundred Facebook employees actually signed a letter
Speaker 1: urging the platform to address concerns that pro Palestidian voices
Speaker 1: on the platform were being suppressed by content moderation systems.
Speaker 2: The employees were demanding a.
Speaker 1: Third party review of how that kind of content was
Speaker 1: moderated on the platform and the impact. So Facebook ended
Speaker 1: up commissioning this independent consultancy called Business for Social Responsibility
Speaker 1: or BSR, who put together this report about the company's
Speaker 1: censorship practices and the allegations of bias during this previous
Speaker 1: battle violence in Palestine. The report found the following quote.
Speaker 1: Meta's actions in May twenty twenty one appeared to have
Speaker 1: had an adverse human rights impact on the rights of
Speaker 1: Palestinian users to freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, political participation,
Speaker 1: and non discrimination, and therefore on the ability of Palestinians
Speaker 1: to share information and insights about their experiences as they occurred.
Speaker 1: As reported by the Intercept. Though BSR is clear in
Speaker 1: stating that Meta harms Palestinian rights with the sensorship apparatus
Speaker 1: it alone has constructed.
Speaker 2: The report absolves.
Speaker 1: Meta of quote intentional bias, but rather BSR pointed to
Speaker 1: what it called unintentional bias instances where metas policy and practice,
Speaker 1: combined with broader external dynamics do lead to different human
Speaker 1: rights impact on Palestinian and Arabic speaking users, a nod
Speaker 1: to the fact that these systemic flaws are by no
Speaker 1: means limited to the events of twenty twenty one. Just
Speaker 1: like what we're talking about now with Instagram changing bios
Speaker 1: to like terrorist sympathizer language is not like. This is
Speaker 1: not the first time that kind of thing has happened.
Speaker 1: This has been a pattern. So, according to the Intercept,
Speaker 1: Facebook has been long aware that their moderation policies are
Speaker 1: to use their words lopsided. Not only do Palestinian users
Speaker 1: face an algorithmic screening that Israeli users do not, a
Speaker 1: quote Arabic hostile speech classifier that uses machine learning to
Speaker 1: flag potential policy violations, and has no Hebrew equivalent. The
Speaker 1: report also knows that the Arabic system does not work well.
Speaker 1: Arabic classifiers are likely less accurate for Palestinian Arabic than
Speaker 1: other dialects, both because the dialect is less common and
Speaker 1: because the training data, which is based on the assessments
Speaker 1: of human reviewers, likely reproduces the errors of human reviewers
Speaker 1: due to the lack of linguistic and cultural competence. So, like,
Speaker 1: I just really see the ways that our tech landscape
Speaker 1: and how biased it is, and how white it is,
Speaker 1: and how all the other things I've rant about on
Speaker 1: this podcast constantly, how all of that is coming together
Speaker 1: to create this system where folks are saying they cannot
Speaker 1: express themselves, they cannot talk about what's going on, they
Speaker 1: cannot talk about what they're seeing on the ground, they
Speaker 1: cannot share images of what's happening without getting caught by
Speaker 1: Facebook and Instagram's content moderation policies, and that this is
Speaker 1: not an equally you know, use the report itself uses
Speaker 1: the word lopsided, that this is not an equal landscape
Speaker 1: in terms of how it is moderated.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Absolutely, And like you said too, this isn't necessarily
Speaker 4: a new issue. I think the fact that you know
Speaker 4: it is in the spotlight now and it is. On
Speaker 4: the other hand, this is maybe the good thing of
Speaker 4: kind of like social media and this ability to share
Speaker 4: information from wherever you are in the world, is it
Speaker 4: is harder and harder to repress this stuff if more
Speaker 4: people are talking about it and we're sharing it. But
Speaker 4: at the same time, it is very clearly not a
Speaker 4: new issue, and it is very clearly something that is
Speaker 4: happening and something that is clearly biased to certain voices
Speaker 4: and unlie others.
Speaker 1: And I think you're I think we're kind of like
Speaker 1: maybe thinking about this in the same way, and that
Speaker 1: as awful as all of this is, I do think
Speaker 1: that we're in a situation in twenty twenty three where
Speaker 1: people are more prone to see clearly and be skeptical
Speaker 1: of tech platforms and the way that they really are
Speaker 1: guiding this conversation and have a lot of power to
Speaker 1: shape the public perception than the public conversation. And I
Speaker 1: think that like maybe even five years ago, that wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been the case. I think that people would have
Speaker 1: just thought, like, oh, like Facebook and technology is totally neutral.
Speaker 1: They're not doing anything, They're not making it. They're not
Speaker 1: they're not you know, making any kind of decisions. They're
Speaker 1: just like a very neutral platform. I think that we
Speaker 1: the fact that we're having this conversation makes me hopeful
Speaker 1: that we've kind of abandoned that missed that incorrect notion
Speaker 1: that tech platforms are neutral, because this is not This
Speaker 1: is not what neutral looks like.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: So last week in our Twitter episode, we were talking
Speaker 1: about how the EU is demanding platforms give more information
Speaker 1: about how they're handling content moderation around the conflict. And
Speaker 1: now the United States Senate is getting involved too, because
Speaker 1: this week Colorado Democrat Senator Michael Bennett sent letters to
Speaker 1: all the major platforms saying deceptive content has ricochet across
Speaker 1: social media sites since the conflict began, sometimes receiving millions
Speaker 1: of views. In many cases, your platform's algorithms have amplified
Speaker 1: this content, contributing to a dangerous cycle of outrging engagement
Speaker 1: and distribution. Bennett says that whatever steps platforms have taken
Speaker 1: to curb this is not enough, and he is demanding
Speaker 1: a response by October thirty first, And I think it's, yeah,
Speaker 1: just a good reminder that as much as I talk
Speaker 1: about Twitter, which is a lot, and I still think
Speaker 1: it's warranted. Our larger information ecosystem is also trash, you know,
Speaker 1: and so if Twitter is not a reliable place to
Speaker 1: get accurate information, other platforms certainly are not either, and
Speaker 1: it's just becoming harder and harder and harder to have
Speaker 1: access to that accurate, thoughtful information that we all really deserve.
Speaker 1: You know, when I talk about how we can't have
Speaker 1: an equitable world without equitable platforms, this is really what
Speaker 1: I mean. You know, when I talk about how we
Speaker 1: can't have true, meaningful safety if our platforms are not
Speaker 1: safe places for expression and the exchange of ideas and information,
Speaker 1: this is what I mean. The way that tech companies
Speaker 1: have really been tasked with shaping our understanding of not
Speaker 1: just what's happening in the world, but like our perception
Speaker 1: of the people who are involved, are understanding of who
Speaker 1: they are.
Speaker 2: That's a problem.
Speaker 1: The decisions and policies of tech leaders can shape our
Speaker 1: collective understanding of people's humanity, you know, what kind of
Speaker 1: lives we think they deserve, And these platforms have been
Speaker 1: given such a huge responsibility to impact people's actual, real lives.
Speaker 1: You know, we're letting tech leaders like Elon Musk and
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg have such an outsized power to determine the
Speaker 1: outcomes of these very real life and death situations, even
Speaker 1: though these people have shown themselves to be not super
Speaker 1: trustworthy again and again and again.
Speaker 2: So yeah, all of that is to say that it
Speaker 2: really just feels.
Speaker 4: Like a lot yeah, yeah, and again, like back to
Speaker 4: it is a life and death situation. Like people are dying,
Speaker 4: more people are going to continue to die due to
Speaker 4: the rhetoric and the level of dehumanization that leads to
Speaker 4: this kind of mass catastrophe. That is the responsibility of
Speaker 4: in the contemporary era. That is the responsibility of sites
Speaker 4: like Twitter and Facebook and Instagram that are kind of
Speaker 4: just like I'm like the contemporary version of like you know,
Speaker 4: reading the newspaper in the morning is all open up Twitter,
Speaker 4: Instagram that has a real world impact, that has real.
Speaker 3: Lives on the line because of this, and there needs
Speaker 3: that needs to.
Speaker 1: Be addressed absolutely from your lips to Mark Zuckerberg's ears,
Speaker 1: let's hope, let's take a quick break at our back.
Speaker 1: So we talked a lot about disinformation, specifically election disinformation
Speaker 1: on this podcast, and now folks might need to know
Speaker 1: that election disinformation can get you jail time. That is
Speaker 1: a lesson that Douglas Mackie, who used to go by
Speaker 1: Ricky Vaughan on Twitter, should be taking away. This week,
Speaker 1: Macki was sentenced to seven months in prison for his
Speaker 1: part in a Twitter based scheme to conspire to deprive
Speaker 1: others of their right to vote in the twenty sixteen election.
Speaker 1: So most of what him and his circle of idiots
Speaker 1: did was post memes, you know, stupid election memes, which
Speaker 1: obviously is like protected by the First Amendment. Not a problem.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't love it, like, but not a problem.
Speaker 1: But one of Macki's tactics crossed a very different line.
Speaker 1: The Verge reports that a week before the twenty sixteen election,
Speaker 1: Mackie and others began encouraging supporters of Hillary Clinton to
Speaker 1: skip the voting lines and vote by text message, which
Speaker 1: obviously is not a thing. You cannot vote by text,
Speaker 1: that is not a thing. But they were trying to
Speaker 1: convince people that you could just vote by texts and
Speaker 1: you didn't have to you didn't have to go to
Speaker 1: your polling place. They also posted pick that made it
Speaker 1: look like they had been paid by Clinton's campaign of
Speaker 1: people holding signs with the same messages and the same
Speaker 1: phone number like vote by text.
Speaker 2: Here's the number.
Speaker 1: Mackie told conspirators that the goal was to suppress turnout
Speaker 1: among black voters and other minoritized groups, saying Trump should
Speaker 1: write off the black vote and as focus on depressing
Speaker 1: their turnout. He wrote in one of the groups that
Speaker 1: was used to plan this content strategy. In the end,
Speaker 1: this is kind of like a delicious little tidbit. It
Speaker 1: was his own circle of idiots who turned against him,
Speaker 1: The Verge reports. During the trial, some of Mackie's co
Speaker 1: conspirators testified against him, revealing how the group's coordinated and
Speaker 1: planned their posts and memes for maximum impact on Twitter
Speaker 1: and elsewhere. Mackie, who testified in his own defense, said
Speaker 1: that he was only one of many people in these
Speaker 1: groups and that he was posting without much thought or consideration,
Speaker 1: rather than as some part of some big grand scheme.
Speaker 1: Like he talked about it like it was just a
Speaker 1: joke or a prank, but that did not stop him
Speaker 1: from being sentenced to real jail time. It might not
Speaker 1: seem it, but this is kind of a big deal.
Speaker 1: Like I don't want to say too much. But I
Speaker 1: actually knew somebody who got popped for like a kind
Speaker 1: of a similar ish thing. Somebody I worked with was
Speaker 1: a volunteer on a campaign where he sent out a
Speaker 1: mass email announcing that the Republican opponent was dropping out
Speaker 1: of the race for a seat in the House, which
Speaker 1: was not true, and the email made it look like
Speaker 1: it was coming from the Republican opponent. It was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm dropping out because I want to spend more time
Speaker 1: with my studies or something. And he said that this
Speaker 1: was meant to be like a prank that he cooked
Speaker 1: up after a few beers, which like was very on
Speaker 1: brand for this person, I must say, But prank or not,
Speaker 1: he was like arrested and indicted and charged with a
Speaker 1: voter suppression. I think he ended up like pleading down
Speaker 1: to avoid actual jail time, and maybe he had to
Speaker 1: pay a fine or something. But it was pretty serious,
Speaker 1: Like it was like a serious thing, So yeah, don't
Speaker 1: do that. You might think it's a joke or a prank,
Speaker 1: but don't do that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's so stupid, Like that is such an obvious
Speaker 4: and it always I mean, of course, it was this
Speaker 4: guy's like buddies that turned against it. It is just it
Speaker 4: just goes to show these people always end up being
Speaker 4: such powers and such like.
Speaker 3: You can't even own up to your own shit.
Speaker 4: But oh man, I yeah, sad that's on him that
Speaker 4: that was just a dumb move, honestly.
Speaker 1: Okay, So speaking of stupid things, this is like I've
Speaker 1: been like mulling this story over in my head since
Speaker 1: I heard about it.
Speaker 2: It's like the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
Speaker 1: So if you're an elder millennial like me, you probably
Speaker 1: know the music group the Fujis, and you might recall
Speaker 1: that the rapper Praz from that group, The Fujis, has
Speaker 1: been in some pretty.
Speaker 2: Wild legal trouble lately.
Speaker 1: Honestly, I really have a hard time like making heads
Speaker 1: or tails of some of the legal claims against him,
Speaker 1: But this is my understanding. Praz was a donor to
Speaker 1: the Obama campaign back in twenty twelve and was part
Speaker 1: of a criminal conspiracy along with a Malaysian financer, to
Speaker 1: make a legal campaign contribution to the tune of almost
Speaker 1: one million dollars to Obama's twenty twelve presidential campaign. Praz
Speaker 1: was also charged by a federal grand jury for running
Speaker 1: a back Channel campaign to get the Trump administration to
Speaker 1: drop an investigation of a fugitive Malaysian financier and a
Speaker 1: Malaysian investment company. He also it sounds like he was
Speaker 1: maybe trying to like pay or maybe bribe question Mark,
Speaker 1: a Republican Party fundraiser to aid in the release of
Speaker 1: a Chinese dissident. This case featured testimony from Leonardo DiCaprio
Speaker 1: and former US.
Speaker 2: Attorney General Jeff Session.
Speaker 1: So, like, I don't know, like I said, complicated and
Speaker 1: very involved, But my point is, this is like a
Speaker 1: very serious, like set of charges with like far reaching
Speaker 1: implications that involve like national security and global domestic issues
Speaker 1: and presidential candidates and blah blah blah. It's a it's
Speaker 1: a it's a big bout of charges that have like real,
Speaker 1: very serious potential jail time.
Speaker 2: So if you were his attorney, you would probably be like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is a very serious case.
Speaker 1: I want to do a very good job, and maybe
Speaker 1: you would not want to use an AI program to
Speaker 1: write your final arguments, which is what his lead defense
Speaker 1: lawyer did. Prose's lead defense attorney improperly relied on an
Speaker 1: experimental generative AI program called Eye Level to draft his
Speaker 1: closing argument in Prase's high profile criminal case. This is
Speaker 1: all according to a newly filed brief demanding a retrial.
Speaker 1: So Prose's new attorney said that the AI generated closing
Speaker 1: argument by his previous lawyer, David Kenner, was just awful,
Speaker 1: Like it just sounds like it was like didn't I mean,
Speaker 1: it sounds like it was written by AI. Like this
Speaker 1: doesn't sound like it made any sense, and that closing
Speaker 1: argument bungled what was the most important part of the trial,
Speaker 1: the closing argument. His new lawyer says, Kenner's closing argument
Speaker 1: made frivolous arguments, misapprehended the required elements, conflated the schemes,
Speaker 1: and ignored critical weaknesses in the government side. So as
Speaker 1: bad as that is, here's where it gets really stupid.
Speaker 2: As if that's not stupid enough, because.
Speaker 1: They also accused Prose's legal team of having an undisclosed
Speaker 1: financial interest in the AI company that they use to
Speaker 1: write that final argument, and that his legal team regarded
Speaker 1: Prose's trial as an opportunity to tout their AI company
Speaker 1: to advance their own financial interests at Prose's expense. They
Speaker 1: actually did put out a press release after the trial
Speaker 1: hailing this as quote the first use of generative AI
Speaker 1: and a federal trial. The press release included this like
Speaker 1: very glowing comma kind of in retrospect embarrassing quote from
Speaker 1: the lead attorney, who said that the AI program quote
Speaker 1: turned hours and days of legal work into seconds, and
Speaker 1: called his use of the program a look into the
Speaker 1: future of how cases will be conducted. Yeah, conducted badly,
Speaker 1: I think because he's asking for a new trial. I
Speaker 1: mean he was convicted.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's.
Speaker 1: It's just I mean, like it's almost there are no words, right,
Speaker 1: Like it's so stupid and such a bad idea, And
Speaker 1: I can't believe that anybody at this legal firm thought
Speaker 1: this was a good idea and also like put out
Speaker 1: press releases bragging about.
Speaker 4: It exactly like you're you're taddling on yourself.
Speaker 2: What like.
Speaker 6: You're basically, first of all, you're already working with like
Speaker 6: a high profile client, and you're just bragging about the
Speaker 6: fact that you are bumbling his case so bad.
Speaker 3: I that is crazy. That is I don't know what
Speaker 3: to say. I just I have no response. That just
Speaker 3: seems seems like a bad idea.
Speaker 1: How mad would you be if like you're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I might go to jail for like I might do
Speaker 1: serious federal jail time on some like serious global like
Speaker 1: charges like real charges, grown man charges, and you're using
Speaker 1: like the legal version of chat GPT to come up
Speaker 1: with the closing argument to defend me.
Speaker 2: I'd be so mad.
Speaker 1: I think it also just really reveals like how much
Speaker 1: of this is a grift, like people who make money
Speaker 1: from AI need us to be thinking that it is possible,
Speaker 1: and also a good idea that AI will be defending
Speaker 1: people on trial someday. It doesn't even matter if this
Speaker 1: person gets a fair trial or not if their AI
Speaker 1: technology you know, gets pressed.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, Like it just feels like another example of
Speaker 4: how and I don't want to be like, oh see,
Speaker 4: it just goes to show how domed this technology is.
Speaker 4: But it clearly doesn't work right now, and like maybe
Speaker 4: in the future it will and that will also be
Speaker 4: its own problem to deal with, but like, clearly it's
Speaker 4: not working.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 4: I don't think I have seen a single example of
Speaker 4: something written by an AI and any feel so far
Speaker 4: that it has been well done, like maybe mediocre at best,
Speaker 4: But it's also like, do you know this guy is
Speaker 4: like making bank for that trial, Like lawyers make a
Speaker 4: lot of money.
Speaker 5: Yes, you're just letting the AI do like the work
Speaker 5: that you're getting bad.
Speaker 3: I don't know that.
Speaker 4: Which again, I'm all for finding ways to not have
Speaker 4: to do work. I'm all for being lazy, but like,
Speaker 4: at this point, is somebody's.
Speaker 3: Livelihood is on the line, it feels a little important.
Speaker 2: Joey, It's one thing to be lazy. We're podcasters. Like,
Speaker 2: nobody's gonna go to jail because of our laziness.
Speaker 1: Somebody might have like an unpleasant commute, like, ah, I
Speaker 1: was a waste of forty.
Speaker 2: Five minutes, but I don't go to jail.
Speaker 1: Angry comments, yeah, damn, And like I just think that,
Speaker 1: like it's like prose should not nobody should be pras
Speaker 1: or anybody should not be like a guinea pig to
Speaker 1: have this tech to like be the test case for
Speaker 1: whether this technology can be used in this way. It's
Speaker 1: just like it's stupid and funny, but ultimately it's like
Speaker 1: people should not meet guinea pigs for the efficacy of
Speaker 1: this d of technology when, as you said, correctly, it's
Speaker 1: not there yet.
Speaker 2: Maybe it will be there, Maybe this is the future.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I have my suspicions, but I don't know.
Speaker 2: But it's not there yet.
Speaker 1: So like letting Ai write your closing arguments and not
Speaker 1: even doing a hard edit after the fact is just
Speaker 1: not We're not but let's not do that.
Speaker 2: If you're a lawyer, let's not do that.
Speaker 4: More.
Speaker 2: After a quick break, let's get right back into it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know who, I really have not heard enough
Speaker 4: about this week. Really really, I've been really wondering what
Speaker 4: other weird stuff he's been up to on top of
Speaker 4: all the usual bridget what did Elon do?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad you asked, Joey.
Speaker 1: Do you remember back when Elon Musk was like decided
Speaker 1: that being tough on child sexual abuset material was like
Speaker 1: his thing? He tweeted removing child exploitation as my number
Speaker 1: one priority, and he just started sort of claiming without
Speaker 1: evidence that he was cracking down on child sexual abust
Speaker 1: material on Twitter more than the previous leadership of Twitter,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people just kind of like bought
Speaker 1: into it because he said it, and it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: it must be true, even though that wasn't true.
Speaker 3: Do you remember that, Yes, I do remember that.
Speaker 4: I bet he did a great shot I bet he
Speaker 4: was super successful and he there's actually no more child
Speaker 4: sexual abuse ever in the world.
Speaker 2: That cleaned it right up, got rid of it.
Speaker 1: No no, no, wait, actually I'm seeing here that the
Speaker 1: Australian watchdog e Safety Commission is actually fine Twitter three
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand dollars for failing to explain how
Speaker 1: it is handling child sexual abust material on the platform.
Speaker 1: The AP reports that the Commission issued legal transparency notices
Speaker 1: earlier this year to Twitter and other platforms questioning what
Speaker 1: they were doing to tap child sexual exploitation material on
Speaker 1: their platforms, and that Twitter just did not sufficiently answer
Speaker 1: and now they are getting this fine. Twitter apparently was
Speaker 1: the worst defender. They provided no answers to some of
Speaker 1: the questions, including questions like how many staff remained on
Speaker 1: the Trust and Safety team that took on the work
Speaker 1: preventing harmful and illegal contents it's must took over in
Speaker 1: Monngrant from the Commission said, I think there's a degree
Speaker 1: of defiance there, which like, yeah, I agree, elon Musk
Speaker 1: being defiant of like something he has to do. Surprise surprise,
Speaker 1: Grant says, if you've got basic human resources or payroll
Speaker 1: you should know how many people are on each team. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree, it seems pretty straightforward, doesn't seem like a
Speaker 1: complicated question.
Speaker 2: But Elon Muskriff used to.
Speaker 4: Answer, I really do not understand how Twitter is still
Speaker 4: like functioning as a website right now.
Speaker 3: I feel like every.
Speaker 4: Every week there's been another thing where they've been like, hey,
Speaker 4: where are employees doing this thing?
Speaker 3: And it's like, what you.
Speaker 4: Mean those guys we fired a couple of months ago,
Speaker 4: Like I somehow it's still up. So I'm sure they're
Speaker 4: they have, but I wow, yeah, not surprised.
Speaker 1: Not only is it still up, Joey, but Twitter is
Speaker 1: rolling out a new program to combat bots in New
Speaker 1: Zealand and the Philippines where you will have to pay
Speaker 1: a dollar a year to make tweets. You can read
Speaker 1: tweets for free, but you have to pay a dollar
Speaker 1: a year to make tweets. Which my favorite response and
Speaker 1: I saw about this on Twitter, was from one of
Speaker 1: my favorite comedians, Vinnie Thomas. A dollar a year, brother,
Speaker 1: I would not pay an acorn a decade.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: If not ever, it's up here in the US, like
Speaker 4: that's it for me. That is officially when I'm deleted
Speaker 4: by Twitter. I'm not giving Elon Musk a dollar. I mean,
Speaker 4: I get no, like I would not give him a penny.
Speaker 4: That is too much to tweet.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: No, but like I have such I mean, we'll your
Speaker 1: all night. I have such big feelings about this. Fundamentally,
Speaker 1: when you sign on to a social media platform, we
Speaker 1: are the product our data, information about us that like
Speaker 1: our eyeballs and ear holes, absorbing advertisement. That is the
Speaker 1: whether we Whether I like it or not, I don't
Speaker 1: like it, but that is the exchange that you that
Speaker 1: gives you these platforms. I'm not gonna pay a dollar
Speaker 1: a year or any amount of money to have you
Speaker 1: then continue to extract all of my information, everything about
Speaker 1: me to then make more money.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: I'm not paying that. That is a that is as
Speaker 1: a bum deal.
Speaker 4: I'm just imagining like paying to go see a movie
Speaker 4: and you sit in the movie theater and you just
Speaker 4: watch ads for take an hour, and somehow you're paying
Speaker 4: for that.
Speaker 3: It's no, yeah, no.
Speaker 1: And like here's my thing is like I so like
Speaker 1: Elon says, like I have to we have to do
Speaker 1: this to combat bots. That is your job, homie. You
Speaker 1: bought this platform. It is your job to figure that out?
Speaker 1: What about I'm paying to make your plat like you're
Speaker 1: you are paid like people are paid. I'm sure well
Speaker 1: to figure out how to combat box on this platform.
Speaker 2: Don't go in my pockets. I don't I didn't.
Speaker 1: Fucking buy the platform. You did, like you figured this out.
Speaker 1: It is not my job to figure this out for you.
Speaker 1: It's not my job to give you a dollar a
Speaker 1: year nor an acorn a decade to figure it out.
Speaker 2: And I certainly won't.
Speaker 1: Be And yeah, just the thing about him getting fined
Speaker 1: for not complying with this transparency increy into child sexual
Speaker 1: abast material and put it is not the only platform
Speaker 1: that is that is being that is on notice. Google
Speaker 1: also did not comply because they were plot They gave
Speaker 1: generic responses to specific questions, which is like a classic
Speaker 1: Google thing. So they actually had a formal warning, not
Speaker 1: a fine, but Elon Musk kind of touting and puffing
Speaker 1: up this chest and being like, I'm gonna be the
Speaker 1: person who solves child exploitation on the platform. Something about
Speaker 1: this really reminds me of the more panics that we've
Speaker 1: seen around things like trafficking, where folks can just like
Speaker 1: declare themselves the protector of children, like it's some kind
Speaker 1: of self appointed title. So you get to say that
Speaker 1: you're a self appointed protector of children and like do
Speaker 1: nothing to actually protect children and just kind of go
Speaker 1: with go on vibes. I guess I honestly think that
Speaker 1: Elon Musk just decided to say this that he was
Speaker 1: going to like be the person who combated sexual exploitation
Speaker 1: material on the platform as a way to grandstand because
Speaker 1: he knew people would run with it and the press
Speaker 1: would publish it. I mean, they did publish it, and
Speaker 1: then he just kind of dropped it, like he's certainly
Speaker 1: not talking about combating the sexual explanation of children on
Speaker 1: the platform right now. So I guess that's really how
Speaker 1: much he cares about combating that, because he didn't even
Speaker 1: bother to give accurate or even answers at all in
Speaker 1: some cases to this inquiry into it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's really a terrifying, depressing pattern of just I
Speaker 4: read what our last big news cycle we were talking
Speaker 4: about the whole Ashton Kutcher thing, and it's like, I
Speaker 4: it's it's depressing, it's it really it's you know what,
Speaker 4: it's good to see that at least he's facing some
Speaker 4: consequences for this, and maybe that's the you know, little
Speaker 4: bit of positivity we can pull out of this. But
Speaker 4: it is and hopefully also, you know what, maybe another
Speaker 4: part of this is, like it does feel like maybe
Speaker 4: we're finally addressing the fact that people just simply saying
Speaker 4: that they're protecting children doesn't necessarily mean they're doing that.
Speaker 4: But yeah, it's it's not surprised that he is, uh,
Speaker 4: that seems to be his emo, is saying he's gonna
Speaker 4: do things and then not doing them.
Speaker 3: So I guess this is on brand.
Speaker 2: It's on brand.
Speaker 1: That is such a positive silver lining, and I do
Speaker 1: have one kind of positive story. I feel like today's
Speaker 1: episode was very like we live in a techno enabled hellscape.
Speaker 1: Like wow, Like I felt like it was like a
Speaker 1: little you know, and it is how I'm feeling. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's been a u yeah, yeah, So I thought this
Speaker 1: was pretty cool. Stanford is using virtual reality to help
Speaker 1: people who have hoarding disorder practice organizing their spaces and
Speaker 1: like letting things go. A pilot study by Stanford Medicine
Speaker 1: researchers suggests that a virtual reality therapy might allow those
Speaker 1: who have hoarding disorder to rehearse relinquishing possessions and a
Speaker 1: simulation of their own home that could help them declutter
Speaker 1: in real life. The simulations help patients practice organizational and
Speaker 1: decision making skills learned in cognitive behavioral therapy, currently the
Speaker 1: standard treatment for hoarding youth disorder, and to sensitize them
Speaker 1: to the stress that they might feel when discarding things.
Speaker 1: The results of this pilot program was published in the
Speaker 1: October issue of the Journal of Psychiatric Research. So hoarding
Speaker 1: disorder is a mental condition that effects about two point
Speaker 1: five percent of the United States, which I didn't know
Speaker 1: it was that high. I think it sounds like it's
Speaker 1: like kind of a tough issue because of things like
Speaker 1: shame and stigma, and because like the symptoms of it
Speaker 1: means that it can be hard to let people in,
Speaker 1: and so those people could involve first responders. So like,
Speaker 1: if you have an emergency in your home, it can
Speaker 1: be hard for first responders to get in, and that
Speaker 1: can be like specialists who are there to help you
Speaker 1: with hoarding disorder if those specialists are not able to
Speaker 1: like physically enter people's homes. Doctor Carolyn Rodriguez, Professor of
Speaker 1: psychiatry and behavioral sciences and senior author of the study
Speaker 1: said that some people are in such dire need, but
Speaker 1: we can't go into their homes. The clutter is stacked
Speaker 1: so high that it is dangerous for our team to
Speaker 1: go inside. Yet practicing letting go of items is such
Speaker 1: a useful skill that we wanted to create a virtual
Speaker 1: and safe environment. So here's how the pilot program worked.
Speaker 1: In the study, Rodriguez's team asked nine participants over the
Speaker 1: age of fifty five with diagnosed hoarding disorder to take
Speaker 1: photos and videos of the most cluttered room in their house,
Speaker 1: along with thirty possessions. With the help of a VR
Speaker 1: company and Stanford University engineering students, the photos and videos
Speaker 1: were then transformed into custom three D virtual environments. The
Speaker 1: participants navigated around their homes and manipulated their possessions using
Speaker 1: VR headsets and hands health controllers. The outcome well Seven
Speaker 1: of the nine participants improved in self reported hoarding symptoms,
Speaker 1: with an average decrease of twenty five percent. Eight of
Speaker 1: the nine participants also had less clutter in their homes
Speaker 1: based on visual assessments by clinicians, with an average decrease
Speaker 1: of fifteen percent. Now, these improvements are comparable to those
Speaker 1: that are found in group therapy alone, so it's not
Speaker 1: totally clear whether this VR therapy can add value. However, importantly,
Speaker 1: this small initial trial demonstrated that VR therapy for hoarding
Speaker 1: disorder is feasible and well tolerated, even in older patients.
Speaker 1: Like it sounds like they were worried that some of
Speaker 1: the older folks might be not so sure about trying
Speaker 1: this new technology with a headset, but in the end
Speaker 1: they actually ended up liking it. So all of this
Speaker 1: is to say that as grim as things might seem,
Speaker 1: sometime technology still can be and very much is used
Speaker 1: to help people design and architect healthier, happier, brighter, safer
Speaker 1: futures for themselves. And like, that's what I love about technology.
Speaker 1: That's the tech future. I think that we should all
Speaker 1: be looking toward. Yeah, it's not all bad.
Speaker 3: For sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, it's nice to hear a story where TECs
Speaker 4: being used for good and for helping people for once.
Speaker 3: But yeah, that is really great to hear.
Speaker 4: And it is like, you know, I don't know as
Speaker 4: much about like this particular disorder. I didn't realize it was, Yeah,
Speaker 4: that it affected two point five percent of the US population.
Speaker 3: But yeah, like all mental health stuff in general.
Speaker 4: Tends to be stigmatized, and it is like when I again,
Speaker 4: it's one of those things I wouldn't even really think about,
Speaker 4: you know, the stigmas behind it, but it is.
Speaker 3: It's great to hear. It's great to hear that that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: tech can be a really helpful.
Speaker 4: Thing and can be a really you know, useful tool,
Speaker 4: particularly when it comes to people's health and mental health.
Speaker 3: And yeah, hope to hear more stories like this going forward.
Speaker 1: Yes, more tech being used to help people build healthier,
Speaker 1: happier lives. Last tech being used to be awful. Please
Speaker 1: and thank you, Joey. This was a tough one. I
Speaker 1: really appreciate you being here. I really appreciate your perspective
Speaker 1: and you sharing so much of your full self. It's
Speaker 1: such an honor to be able to unpack all of
Speaker 1: these stories with you, So I just really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Of course, Bridget happy to be on.
Speaker 4: It's always it's great got to talk about this stuf
Speaker 4: with you too.
Speaker 1: And listeners, Thanks so much for being here, Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for sticking with us. Be well and I will
Speaker 1: talk to you next week. If you're looking for ways
Speaker 1: to support the show, check out our March store at
Speaker 1: tangoti dot com.
Speaker 2: Slash store.
Speaker 1: Got a story about an interesting thing in tech? I
Speaker 1: just want to say Hi. You can reach us at
Speaker 1: Hello at tenggodi dot com. You can also find transcripts
Speaker 1: for today's episode at tengody dot com. There Are No
Speaker 1: Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget Time.
Speaker 1: It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unboss Creative, edited by
Speaker 1: Joey pat Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tary Harrison
Speaker 1: is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amado is our
Speaker 1: contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want
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