Speaker 1: If you are against misinformation and hate speech, you know
Speaker 1: you got to be against it on all platforms and
Speaker 1: not just on TikTok.
Speaker 2: There are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 3: As a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridget
Speaker 3: Todd and this is there are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 3: This week, President Biden said that he would sign legislation
Speaker 3: into law banning TikTok if Congress passes it. This comes
Speaker 3: after legislation that would force TikTok, which is owned by
Speaker 3: the Chinese company byt Dance Right Now to sell to
Speaker 3: an American owner, pasted a big vote last week. The
Speaker 3: House Energy and Commerce Committee voted unanimously to pass the bill,
Speaker 3: meaning TikTok is one step closer to being essentially banned
Speaker 3: in the United States. Last year, after TikTok CEO SHOWSI
Speaker 3: Cheu went before a Congressional hearing to defend the platform.
Speaker 3: Popular TikToker and disinformation researcher Abby Richards and I discussed
Speaker 3: what a band would mean for marginalized communities. With the
Speaker 3: platform being one step closer to being banned in the US,
Speaker 3: it is really important to understand what this means for
Speaker 3: our media landscape and for marginalized people. Now, y'all know
Speaker 3: I love TikTok, but I also know that, like any
Speaker 3: other social media app, it is not without its issues.
Speaker 3: TikTok disinformation researcher and friend of the show, Abby Richards,
Speaker 3: was one of the first people calling out TikTok for
Speaker 3: the way that myth and disinformation and hate speech spreads
Speaker 3: on the app. But for all of her criticisms of TikTok,
Speaker 3: Abby still says that banning the platform is not the
Speaker 3: right move. In a recent up edd for Newsweek that
Speaker 3: you can read in the show Notes, Abby explained why
Speaker 3: she thinks banning TikTok will ultimately hurt marginalized communities. I
Speaker 3: caught up with Abby right after we both watched the hearing.
Speaker 3: Abby Richards, friend of the show, How are you?
Speaker 1: I am angry, Ridget. I am an infuriated girl right.
Speaker 3: Now, as someone who has really built a lot of
Speaker 3: your career not just on TikTok, but like calling out
Speaker 3: TikTok for the ways that it can spread misinformation and
Speaker 3: hate speech. What has it been like to watch elected
Speaker 3: officials talk about banning it.
Speaker 1: It's been infuriating because they're gonna get all wrong, Like
Speaker 1: I have literally built my career criticizing TikTok. I will
Speaker 1: be the first to tell you about like the copious
Speaker 1: amounts of misinformation and hate speech, extremism, harassment that happened
Speaker 1: on that app, but to then try and ban it
Speaker 1: without any evidence that it is a national security threat whatsoever,
Speaker 1: and just using like fear mongering and pointing to other
Speaker 1: pieces of misinformation that I have tried to debunk about
Speaker 1: TikTok like that. And this is like the types of
Speaker 1: misinformation that emerges off the platform. So if you were
Speaker 1: watching the hearing yesterday, you would have seen a lot
Speaker 1: of our congress men and women pointing to TikTok challenges
Speaker 1: that are causing children tons of harm. And I have
Speaker 1: spent so many, like countless hours debunking these exact like
Speaker 1: moral panics around these challenges, where essentially adults try and
Speaker 1: blame the stupid things that kids do on the newest technology.
Speaker 1: We see it over and over and over again. But
Speaker 1: the fact that you know that's being used to justify
Speaker 1: the banning of this app too is infuriating. And I'm
Speaker 1: deeply concerned about what the consequences will be of banning
Speaker 1: an app that one hundred and fifty million Americans use.
Speaker 2: So you brought up something really interesting.
Speaker 3: I know that these like so called like deadly challenges
Speaker 3: was a big part of the hearings and something that
Speaker 3: I mean, I almost hate to ask this question, but
Speaker 3: I feel like it's an important context of the conversation.
Speaker 2: That is like great news for Facebook.
Speaker 3: They're like, oh, our strategy is winning, Like our strategy
Speaker 3: to turn the public and of course elected officials against
Speaker 3: TikTok and make them think that like it's this like
Speaker 3: place where all these deadly challenges emerge, even though some
Speaker 3: at least some of those challenges actually emerged on Facebook,
Speaker 3: if you really want to get into the nitty gritty,
Speaker 3: So did you see in the hearings the ways that
Speaker 3: like fear mongering just sort of writ large about technology
Speaker 3: was taking center stage in these hearings.
Speaker 1: It's almost like they're placing this fear that they have
Speaker 1: of new and emerging technologies and how young people use
Speaker 1: them and just placing it on one singular app. So
Speaker 1: rather than actually dealing with the consequences of this like
Speaker 1: rapidly changing society because of the expansion of technology, like
Speaker 1: on a monthly basis, we just want to like pin
Speaker 1: all of our anxiety on one app and cross our
Speaker 1: fingers that like, if we just ban this one app,
Speaker 1: it'll all go away. And so I think we see
Speaker 1: that a lot with the challenges and like the the
Speaker 1: steam that they pick up among people who are not
Speaker 1: on the platform. In particular, we know that it was
Speaker 1: the Washington Post that reported that there was a consulting
Speaker 1: It was the Washington Post that reported that there was
Speaker 1: a marketing group that was working with Meta to place
Speaker 1: abeds about, you know, fear mongering about TikTok. So that's
Speaker 1: something that we have seen happened before, and it certainly
Speaker 1: seems like this is a big win for Meta. If
Speaker 1: you are on TikTok at all, you are probably seeing
Speaker 1: this widespread popularity of almost conspiratorial language about where people
Speaker 1: are blaming the ban on Meta and saying that like
Speaker 1: Meta is lobbying and Google too to some extent blaming it,
Speaker 1: but yeah, blaming it on Meta and Google for lobbying
Speaker 1: Congress people and encourage them to ban their biggest competition.
Speaker 1: I don't know how much truth there is to that,
Speaker 1: because I think that there is a lot of geopolitics
Speaker 1: there too, and it seems like the US government is
Speaker 1: you know, very interested in like splitting the Internet as
Speaker 1: much as possible right now. So it's hard to say
Speaker 1: if it's like one cause versus another, but this does
Speaker 1: definitely look like a big win for Meta, and they
Speaker 1: used rhetoric that Meta has also pushed before.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so in terms of a TikTok ban, So in
Speaker 3: your piece you write about how, you know, obviously you
Speaker 3: are the first one to admit that TikTok has its
Speaker 3: downfalls and the democratization of like media has its downfalls,
Speaker 3: but you also talk about the ways that this could
Speaker 3: actually harm marginalized communities. How do you see that working?
Speaker 1: So let's okay, well we'll start here, and you consider
Speaker 1: a like institutional media legacy media, so New York Times,
Speaker 1: Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN, and they are top
Speaker 1: down information systems, which means that these newsrooms essentially look
Speaker 1: at all of the news and then decide what is
Speaker 1: newsworthy and then disseminate it to their audience. TikTok is
Speaker 1: much more of a bottom up information system, which means
Speaker 1: that anyone can post basically anything that they want, and
Speaker 1: then the algorithm is working with the users to determine
Speaker 1: what people are watching, and in that way, the users
Speaker 1: decide what is of importance to them. So we have
Speaker 1: two different information systems, and this top down one tends
Speaker 1: to privilege white, richer, more privileged people. It tends to
Speaker 1: be composed of people who come from more privileged backgrounds.
Speaker 1: It speaks about their problems and things that they are
Speaker 1: interested in thinking about. They in particular, like they have
Speaker 1: to sell subscriptions or sell ads, so they have to
Speaker 1: run stories that they know that the wealthy audience that
Speaker 1: they pander to will be interested in the first place,
Speaker 1: because it's really not that profitable to tell stories of
Speaker 1: marginalized people who can't afford to subscribe to their newspaper.
Speaker 1: So TikTok being this much more bottom up infrastructure, allowed
Speaker 1: for two major like kind of newish forms of massive
Speaker 1: dissemination of news and information. The first would be seeing
Speaker 1: information from first hand accounts. So that's like when you
Speaker 1: know this the started the invasion of Ukraine, where we
Speaker 1: saw all of these videos of people fleeing the country
Speaker 1: or being in bomb shelters. So you're seeing people who
Speaker 1: are actually experiencing the events posting online and that garners
Speaker 1: attention without editors needing to push it out. And then
Speaker 1: the second is through trusted messengers. And these are people
Speaker 1: that can speak to two specific communities and they have
Speaker 1: had they've had a lot of success on TikTok. They
Speaker 1: have built up these communities where they are trusted sources
Speaker 1: of information and sometimes opinion. People go to them to
Speaker 1: try and feel like they can understand certain problems. And
Speaker 1: you know, this could range from a community of like
Speaker 1: ten thousand people two communities of millions of people. But
Speaker 1: this is particularly advantageous to marginalized groups who probably can't
Speaker 1: afford a subscription to the New York Times, or alternatively
Speaker 1: they don't want one because they don't trust the New
Speaker 1: York Times. They've never seen themselves represented in the New
Speaker 1: York Times. Like, there are so many reasons why they
Speaker 1: might not turn to legacy media, but they will turn
Speaker 1: to like a trust messenger who looks like them, who
Speaker 1: speaks their language, who they feel understands them in their communities.
Speaker 1: And so if we dismantle that infrastructure like suddenly, like
Speaker 1: flipping off a light switch, you'd be leaving all of
Speaker 1: these communities without their information infrastructure, leaving them in the dark.
Speaker 1: It could be really, really damaging for them. And they're
Speaker 1: very resilient to all of these marginalized communities, whether it's
Speaker 1: communities of color, queer communities, disabled communities, they're very resilient.
Speaker 1: They will rebuild. But keeping them in a state of
Speaker 1: like constantly rebuilding the information infrastructure stops them from being
Speaker 1: able to do things like organized and mobilize and gain
Speaker 1: power because they're constantly rebuilding their information infrastructure. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm mad.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's such a good point, Like, I where
Speaker 3: do I even start. I think that one of the
Speaker 3: reasons why we're even having this conversation is like a
Speaker 3: fundamental misunderstanding of the ways that platforms like TikTok have
Speaker 3: worked and what they have like been used to, like
Speaker 3: what movements they've been used to build. Right, Like I
Speaker 3: still see people being like, oh, it's a kid's dancing app,
Speaker 3: which like part of my soul dies every time I
Speaker 3: hear that, you know, looking at around, like what was
Speaker 3: happening to women in Iran? I have to say, I
Speaker 3: don't think I would have known what was happening. I
Speaker 3: don't think I would have known what was going on
Speaker 3: if not for TikTok, if not for Iranian women saying, hey,
Speaker 3: this is what's going on, here's how you can help,
Speaker 3: here's what we need. I don't think I would have
Speaker 3: been able to be plugged into what was happening if
Speaker 3: not for TikTok. And so I think that it's it's
Speaker 3: like a it's like a the people who are legislating
Speaker 3: this don't necessarily have that visibility into the ways that
Speaker 3: it is functioned for communities who are marginalized. And so
Speaker 3: I I if we're gonna have any conversation about just
Speaker 3: an outright ban, they're not even including that in the conversation.
Speaker 3: And I feel like it's kind of like what you said, like,
Speaker 3: if we're going to do something about how these apps
Speaker 3: and platforms function in our lives and in our like
Speaker 3: media ecosystem, let's not have it be done hastily and
Speaker 3: badly right where people are, where people are gonna be
Speaker 3: have the rug pulled out from under them, and they're
Speaker 3: their very real issues are not even being discussed or
Speaker 3: like you know, brought to the table.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, there's no nuance in this conversation whatsoever. And
Speaker 1: you would think that if we're going to have a
Speaker 1: conversation about pulling the plug on one of the biggest
Speaker 1: pieces of communications infrastructure in the world. That is a
Speaker 1: conversation that we should be very careful about. Dismantling infrastructure
Speaker 1: that large is not a decision that should be taken lightly.
Speaker 1: And yet it seems like our representatives like truly have
Speaker 1: bought into this idea that TikTok is somehow simultaneously just
Speaker 1: a kid's dancing app and also spyware. Like it's really
Speaker 1: confusing how it can be both, and like saying like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you could push specific you know, you could push specific
Speaker 1: misinformation campaigns and try and sway the American populace, but
Speaker 1: then also simultaneously ignoring the fact that like it is
Speaker 1: a messaging center for a huge portion of the American populous.
Speaker 1: Just remove it, there will be consequences. And then when
Speaker 1: I bring this up, I see some people just like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, at the like you know, national security is
Speaker 1: more important, or it's like everyone will just go to
Speaker 1: a new app, and like, yes, probably they will, but
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that it won't cause a lot of
Speaker 1: harm in the process. Doesn't mean that people will you know,
Speaker 1: there's still gonna be lots of creators who lose their jobs.
Speaker 1: There's going to people people who have built these large
Speaker 1: audiences who now have nothing, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: whose voices were empowered and suddenly were coming into a
Speaker 1: position of discursive power who will now not have access
Speaker 1: to that. And even if like yes, technically, if you
Speaker 1: look at like a very big picture level, people will
Speaker 1: migrate to new apps, sure, but there's still gonna be
Speaker 1: a lot of consequences and we can't really ignore that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, even looking at what's going on with Twitter.
Speaker 3: I there was a time where I was like, Oh,
Speaker 3: everyone's gonna be using masterdon or this or that.
Speaker 2: It hasn't.
Speaker 3: I know that our communities, particularly marginalized communities, as you said,
Speaker 3: are really resilient and we always find a way to
Speaker 3: make We always make a way out of no way, right,
Speaker 3: Like that is what we do. But it's watching it
Speaker 3: watching Twitter become a place where people spend less and
Speaker 3: less of their time. There hasn't been like one place
Speaker 3: where everybody is like setting up shop, and so it's
Speaker 3: takes longer, it's messier, it's it's more energy for these communities,
Speaker 3: many of whom, if you look at the trans community
Speaker 3: and the queer community are up against quite a bit
Speaker 3: right now, and so maybe having to pick up and
Speaker 3: rebuild a new communications infrastructure elsewhere is not what they
Speaker 3: need right now. Is maybe it is maybe not gonna
Speaker 3: be like great for those communities.
Speaker 1: It'll be horrible for them because now, in addition to
Speaker 1: legislation that is threatening their right to exist, they also
Speaker 1: don't have their communities that they can turn to for advice,
Speaker 1: for support, for information, and they don't have access to
Speaker 1: their broader communications network to mobilize right and plan what
Speaker 1: they will do in response or try and have a
Speaker 1: place they can turn to to raise funds if they
Speaker 1: need surgery, or if they need you know, legal fees,
Speaker 1: or if they need to get out of whichever state
Speaker 1: they're in. If you remove the communications infrastructure, and we're
Speaker 1: talking about a marginalized community that is undergoing a lot
Speaker 1: of legislative challenges right now that's putting them in a
Speaker 1: position that just increases their marginalization.
Speaker 4: Let's take a quick break at our back.
Speaker 3: So let me zoom out a little bit and just
Speaker 3: make sure that I have this right. Lawmakers are saying
Speaker 3: that they want to ban TikTok because it's a national
Speaker 3: security risk. This is a little bit above my pay grade.
Speaker 3: I am no digital national security expert, and I want
Speaker 3: to make sure that my understanding of this aligns with
Speaker 3: your understanding. So it is true that TikTok is a
Speaker 3: Chinese owned company, and it is true that potentially that
Speaker 3: could open the door for all kinds of national security risks.
Speaker 3: But what we don't have right now is a smoking
Speaker 3: gun that this is actually a problem. We're very much
Speaker 3: speaking in hypotheticals of what could happen or what potentially
Speaker 3: might happen. So lawmakers right now are trying to legislate
Speaker 3: TikTok because of this hypothetical threat that might be out there,
Speaker 3: but it's not yet revealed itself.
Speaker 2: Do I have that right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say you nailed it. They haven't provided
Speaker 1: any evidence of instances where China use TikTok in any
Speaker 1: sort of antagonistic way towards the US. It's only in
Speaker 1: the hypothetical of like they own it and they maybe could,
Speaker 1: and even if they could, it's kind of unclear how
Speaker 1: they would go about doing that. What we do know
Speaker 1: and like, what feels like it's missing from this conversation
Speaker 1: so much is that even if we were to ban TikTok,
Speaker 1: it would not stop the Chinese government or any government
Speaker 1: or any bad actor from just buying your data elsewhere.
Speaker 1: TikTok is roughly collecting about the same the same amount
Speaker 1: of data as any of the other major social media platforms,
Speaker 1: and then they profit by selling off selling it. Well
Speaker 1: within the hearing that he denied that they sell they
Speaker 1: sold data, so maybe they're not even selling the data.
Speaker 1: But social media platforms in general collect your data and
Speaker 1: sell it, and it is not difficult for anyone with
Speaker 1: any sort of intention to just buy your data so
Speaker 1: that they can target you with specific advertisements and specific messages.
Speaker 1: So if we were actually concerned about the Chinese government
Speaker 1: or any other government manipulating Americans, you would be implementing
Speaker 1: like a comprehensive data privacy legislation rather than going after
Speaker 1: one singular app. Because even if you were to band TikTok,
Speaker 1: and even if TikTok were using it's data in that way,
Speaker 1: which we still have no evidence that it does, they
Speaker 1: would still just be able to purchase your data anywhere else.
Speaker 1: So this is like applying a used, gross infected band
Speaker 1: aid to a wound that will really not fix wound
Speaker 1: at all, but will almost certainly add additional infections.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I was just about to read your
Speaker 3: quote in the newsweek piece back to you. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean it's this is this is what like really
Speaker 3: gets me about this conversation is that, like I guess,
Speaker 3: we have no meaningful data privacy legislation in this country, right,
Speaker 3: and so like that, the fact that we're even having
Speaker 3: this conversation indicates to me a complete failure of leadership,
Speaker 3: governing and legislating, right, And so I feel like banning
Speaker 3: TikTok is this big flashy gesture of like.
Speaker 2: See we did something.
Speaker 3: See we got it together and governed and and made
Speaker 3: some kind of a gesture toward you know, data privacy,
Speaker 3: but it actually does nothing. As you said, like there's
Speaker 3: nothing keeping these companies or really anybody from buying our data,
Speaker 3: Like there are so many other the fact that our
Speaker 3: data is so misused and like that is the baseline.
Speaker 2: Shouldn't we be talking about that?
Speaker 3: So even if we were to ban TikTok, it would
Speaker 3: be totally possible for the Chinese government to access Americans
Speaker 3: data and all other kinds of ways they maybe they have,
Speaker 3: And so It's like, what does it really do if
Speaker 3: the real problem is our lack of data privacy infrastructure
Speaker 3: in this country.
Speaker 2: Other than being a big, flashy gesture, what does banning
Speaker 2: TikTok actually achieve?
Speaker 1: I mean to answer your question. Nothing. On a political level,
Speaker 1: I think that it is a distraction that allows for
Speaker 1: the American public to feel like something was done to
Speaker 1: make them feel safer, while simultaneously not passing the legislation
Speaker 1: that would actually protect the American public. And like, we
Speaker 1: are a superpower when we demand that all of the
Speaker 1: major social media platforms be stemming from us. How dare
Speaker 1: the Chinese also have one?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I saw this great USA Today headline that was like,
Speaker 3: how like how dare China try to get my data
Speaker 3: from TikTok? Don't they know that that's for Google and Facebook?
Speaker 3: But I think I get like like we have just
Speaker 3: like lost the plot of doing anything to meaningfully address this.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Think like during the hearing, some of the things that
Speaker 3: came up around like content moderation and stuff, those are
Speaker 3: important conversations to have, but having them having TikTok be
Speaker 3: the face of you know, a lack of content moderation
Speaker 3: or hate speech and harmful content proliferating on a platform.
Speaker 2: I ask someone who has worked.
Speaker 3: In this space for a while, I'm deeply uncomfortable with
Speaker 3: that because I think it it creates a scapegoat that
Speaker 3: lets these other i would say sometimes bad actors off
Speaker 3: the hook, right, Like we're we're not having the conversation
Speaker 3: in a meaningful way to actually get results. We're just
Speaker 3: making an example out of this one big bad boogeyman,
Speaker 3: which is TikTok.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. And I mean the examples that they were
Speaker 1: pointing to aside from these like moral panic challenges, the
Speaker 1: examples of violent content on the app were really wild
Speaker 1: that they were pointing to it in the first place.
Speaker 1: Because as far as removing you know, really violent content,
Speaker 1: TikTok is better than most of the other platforms. I mean,
Speaker 1: I professionally criticized them. It's one of my favorite things
Speaker 1: to do is bullying TikTok. But they will generally be
Speaker 1: pretty good about removing anything that I flag towards them.
Speaker 1: And they have a lot of like horrible things on
Speaker 1: their apps, like absolutely, but all social media platforms do.
Speaker 1: And so what you really want to be looking at, too,
Speaker 1: is just how much reach are those things getting. So
Speaker 1: one of the videos that they pulled up during the
Speaker 1: hearing was an imagery of a gun, and I think
Speaker 1: it included one of the committee members' names, and it
Speaker 1: was and they were railing on TikTok because the video
Speaker 1: had been up for I believe forty one days, and
Speaker 1: what they were failing to account for is that the
Speaker 1: video had like no likes. It was not a video
Speaker 1: that had been engaged with whatsoever. So arguably it's actually TikTok.
Speaker 1: It's evidence that TikTok was doing a decent job with
Speaker 1: its moderation, but that it had like siphoned this off
Speaker 1: and contained it more than anything else. Like, yes, it
Speaker 1: shouldn't be on the platform at all, but if it's
Speaker 1: not getting any reach, really, then TikTok's moderation to an
Speaker 1: extent is working. That's the whole point. It is, like,
Speaker 1: you want these things contained, you want them, you want
Speaker 1: them quarantined so that they don't spread. So being able
Speaker 1: to point towards that was like, it was such a
Speaker 1: strange choice. And then it was additionally strange because we
Speaker 1: love guns in this country but apparently have problems with
Speaker 1: images of them.
Speaker 3: If you watch the hearing, there were actually some pretty
Speaker 3: good questions that came up. Representative Eve Clark asked whether
Speaker 3: or not TikTok suppresses marginalized creators, and Representative Lisa Blunt
Speaker 3: Rochester asked about whether accurate information about abortion is being
Speaker 3: suppressed on TikTok. But what was much more abundant, sadly,
Speaker 3: were questions that weren't just silly, but also underscored how
Speaker 3: little some elected officials seem to know about the technology
Speaker 3: that they are responsible for legislating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that example really.
Speaker 3: Brings me to something that, like it pains me, but
Speaker 3: I can't not talk about it with you. How some
Speaker 3: of the questions and examples that these elected officials were raising,
Speaker 3: we're just embarrassing, Like, you know, Representative Richard Hudson from
Speaker 3: North Carolina, Like, I'm sure you know where I'm going
Speaker 3: what I'm getting at the like exchange about whether or
Speaker 3: not TikTok accesses users home Wi Fi? Like do you
Speaker 3: ever so like, do you ever feel like the people
Speaker 3: that we have elected to represent us and to advocate
Speaker 3: for us and our interests up against big tech just
Speaker 3: are making it clear that they're talking about legislating technology
Speaker 3: that they seem to not really understand or get.
Speaker 1: No, it was quite clear that no one on that
Speaker 1: committee had ever opened TikTok, like they had never used
Speaker 1: it before. They're just making wild statements and accusations and
Speaker 1: guesses about how it works. And if you go on
Speaker 1: TikTok now in response to that committee, I mean, they're
Speaker 1: just being ridiculed because the users can tell that these
Speaker 1: congressmen and women have never really actually used the app
Speaker 1: or know what they're talking about in any way, shape
Speaker 1: or form. And it is mind bogglingly infuriating to witness
Speaker 1: people who don't even understand how Wi Fi works, or
Speaker 1: like couldn't tell you the difference between a modem and
Speaker 1: a rotor trying to legislate major social media policies, like
Speaker 1: in major data privacy ubolicies, Like they don't understand any
Speaker 1: of it, So how are we expecting them to even
Speaker 1: know where to begin when it comes to those bigger
Speaker 1: legislative problems.
Speaker 3: It really goes back to what you said in the
Speaker 3: beginning of our conversation of like, if we're gonna do it,
Speaker 3: let's not do it badly. Let's not do it in
Speaker 3: a way that like we are talking about a pretty
Speaker 3: major communications platform. If we're gonna do it, let's not
Speaker 3: have the people in charge make it clear time and
Speaker 3: time again that they have no idea what they're talking about.
Speaker 1: Maybe, just maybe, just maybe that could maybe be a
Speaker 1: good place to start. Is like knowing that you need
Speaker 1: to use Wi Fi to access TikTok. Like, Hi, oh
Speaker 1: my god. I really liked the exchange about whether or
Speaker 1: not TikTok tracked how much your pupils dilated in response
Speaker 1: to certain videos. And it's like, no, they look at
Speaker 1: watch time. Ah, They're not like reading your pupils to
Speaker 1: see how big they get in response to each video.
Speaker 1: I don't know what Black Mirror episode you think we
Speaker 1: are in. We're in a different one. We're still in
Speaker 1: one different just.
Speaker 2: A different episode. Yeah, I don't think. I don't think
Speaker 2: that TikTok.
Speaker 3: Is like like logging your biometrics, dude.
Speaker 2: Like it just it just was.
Speaker 3: Some of those questions were concerning, And I also think
Speaker 3: they just like reveal how we just need younger people.
Speaker 3: I think, like like younger folks both in the both
Speaker 3: in elected office and also being listened to.
Speaker 2: I think is really really important.
Speaker 3: People who actually have real world experience with the technology
Speaker 3: that they're talking about, because it was, as you said,
Speaker 3: it was just so clear that many of the folks
Speaker 3: in Congress had just had no idea what they were
Speaker 3: talking about.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, we would absolutely need to have younger people or
Speaker 1: just more you know, digitally literate people writing these laws,
Speaker 1: because if you truly don't understand that, like the app
Speaker 1: needs to track where your eyes are so that they
Speaker 1: can put sunglass filters on you like that, that is
Speaker 1: just something that a younger person would need to explain
Speaker 1: and need to help them understand. And if if all
Speaker 1: of our legislators are you know, I don't want to
Speaker 1: say dinosaurs, but like they're acting like dinosaurs right now,
Speaker 1: and I feel like it's it's called for, then we
Speaker 1: can't expect solid digital legislation from them. Like they don't
Speaker 1: they don't know what they're doing, They don't understand anything
Speaker 1: beyond email at this point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is sad.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's really sad. It's really scary because if
Speaker 1: you want to talk about like the American people being vulnerable,
Speaker 1: our leaders not even understanding like the you know, bare
Speaker 1: minimum that they need to understand about how the internet
Speaker 1: works like that leaves us quite vulnerable.
Speaker 2: That's such a good point.
Speaker 1: That seems like a much bigger threat. Our leaders failing
Speaker 1: to understand anything about technology feels like a much bigger
Speaker 1: threat than this TikTok boogeyman scare.
Speaker 3: So what do you say to someone listening who is, like,
Speaker 3: I am concerned about the national security threat that TikTok poses. Still,
Speaker 3: what would you say to that person?
Speaker 1: I would say that at this point in time, we
Speaker 1: have seen more evidence of Facebook engaging in schemes to
Speaker 1: manipulate the American public than we have TikTok. I mean,
Speaker 1: we have evidence of Cambridge Analytica, we know that Meta
Speaker 1: was involved with this, we have no evidence of TikTok
Speaker 1: doing it. So at the moment, all of our fears
Speaker 1: are based around a hypothetical and that they are based
Speaker 1: around this like boogeyman of China, and that that might
Speaker 1: not be the best place to create legislation from, Like
Speaker 1: that mentality might not lend itself to the creation of
Speaker 1: like really strong digital privacy legislation. And that I mean, also,
Speaker 1: if you are personally concerned about TikTok, like, there's no
Speaker 1: reason why you have to have it on your phones
Speaker 1: that's a decision that you can totally make if you
Speaker 1: if you have national secrets on your phones, like maybe
Speaker 1: don't have TikTok on it. But then also like maybe
Speaker 1: don't use any other social media platforms because they are
Speaker 1: all gathering your data.
Speaker 3: More after a quick break, let's get right back into it.
Speaker 3: Other platforms are also gathering your data and behaving badly
Speaker 3: and acting in ways that calls all kinds of harm.
Speaker 3: But this legislation is very much black and white, and
Speaker 3: it seems very much based in scare mongering about TikTok
Speaker 3: as this potential boogeyman. And I just don't think that
Speaker 3: fear mongering is a place that will elicit good, meaningful,
Speaker 3: substantive legislation. You know, black and white thinking on a
Speaker 3: nuanced issue is bad enough, but black and white legislating,
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't like it.
Speaker 1: I don't like it either. I don't trust it. It's
Speaker 1: not coming from a smart place. It's coming from a
Speaker 1: fearful place. And that's not where we get good legislation.
Speaker 1: And if you want to have a much bigger conversation
Speaker 1: about social media and the future of social media and
Speaker 1: whether it's bad for us, whether it's good for us,
Speaker 1: what harms it does, but also you know what net
Speaker 1: positives it brings to the world. I am here for
Speaker 1: that conversation. It'll take us a few years to get
Speaker 1: to the bottom of it. It is not like a
Speaker 1: quick and easy conversation to have, but I do think
Speaker 1: that that's one we should be having, and I've and
Speaker 1: trying to push for it. It's like, Okay, well, there
Speaker 1: are all these issues with like misinformation and extremism on
Speaker 1: social media, and we know that these platforms benefit from
Speaker 1: the posting and sharing of content that is that appeals
Speaker 1: to our emotions that is often false or is you know,
Speaker 1: oversimplifying really complex issues, or it's just like extremists and
Speaker 1: hateful in nature. We know that they benefit from that
Speaker 1: because that's the sort of content that keeps people on
Speaker 1: their platforms, consuming content and therefore consuming ads. And I
Speaker 1: would like us to be working towards the creation of
Speaker 1: like digital communities that are better for our emotional and
Speaker 1: social well beings. I could absolutely see that occurring in
Speaker 1: the future. Is like creating these digital public spaces where
Speaker 1: people can go share information, but that aren't driven exclusively
Speaker 1: by profit and are built with the goal of creating
Speaker 1: a more well informed and empathetic public. But that doesn't
Speaker 1: happen just because you ban one app you don't like. Like,
Speaker 1: that is deep, deep infrastructural change that we need to
Speaker 1: make and I think is the only way really forward
Speaker 1: unless we want to drive ourselves insane. But that's that's
Speaker 1: not a light and easy task.
Speaker 3: It's certainly not going to be achieved by banning one app.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you are against misinformation and hate speech, you
Speaker 1: know you got to be against it on all platforms,
Speaker 1: and not just on TikTok, because Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter,
Speaker 1: they all have it. I mean, Twitter right now is
Speaker 1: also such a mess, just as a like, it is
Speaker 1: wild to watch all of this, this giant attack on TikTok. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Twitter is just falling apart, crumbling and has disintegrated as
Speaker 1: like this this reasonable public space and the fact that
Speaker 1: you know, we would be losing TikTok and essentially be
Speaker 1: losing Twitter, that would really leave Meta with a lot
Speaker 1: of power. But I also think it's interesting that like
Speaker 1: one rich guy can just buy and ruin Twitter, but
Speaker 1: like God forbid and pass some Chinese ownership.
Speaker 3: You if you had to say, do you think that
Speaker 3: TikTok is going to be banned in the United States.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty fifty to fifty right now. I don't like it.
Speaker 1: If you had asked me before, I'd be like, probably not,
Speaker 1: because I thought that the Dems were smarter than that.
Speaker 2: I don't know about that.
Speaker 1: I know, I know why. In hindsight, what was I thinking?
Speaker 1: They love losing. But I'm just I was baffled that
Speaker 1: the Biden administration pushed for the sale versus ban because
Speaker 1: I thought that they knew that if they lost TikTok
Speaker 1: they would not be able to mobilize voters in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four. But apparently they don't know that and they
Speaker 1: just are down for political suicide. I really it baffles me.
Speaker 1: So I continue to be wrong and surprised by what
Speaker 1: they will do in the name of like this weird
Speaker 1: singular bipartisanship over xenophobia. It's the one thing that they
Speaker 1: can relate to the Republicans on right now.
Speaker 3: Also, you know, you made the point about mobilizing younger voters.
Speaker 3: I said this on a panel and it got like
Speaker 3: a laugh, and I was like, oh, I was actually serious,
Speaker 3: I think, and this might sound it's gonna sound how
Speaker 3: it sounds, but I truly believe this. I think if
Speaker 3: TikTok is banned in the United States, I see that
Speaker 3: going very poor for Biden and the Democrats. Not to
Speaker 3: make this like a horse face issue, but I think
Speaker 3: that some of the most interesting, meaningful organizing of young
Speaker 3: folks politically is happening on TikTok. If you look at
Speaker 3: the conversations that younger folks are leading on when it
Speaker 3: comes to things like climate justice, those conversations are happening
Speaker 3: on TikTok, and they are mobilization conversations. So I don't
Speaker 3: I'm not saying that I think that young people will
Speaker 3: be like, oh, we love TikTok and we're not going
Speaker 3: to vote for Joe Biden just because he banned it
Speaker 3: and we love it.
Speaker 2: I think it's much deeper than that.
Speaker 3: I think that gen Z uses it as a platform
Speaker 3: to do political and social mobilization and organizing.
Speaker 2: If you show that you don't.
Speaker 3: Not just don't understand that, don't see it, don't value it,
Speaker 3: ignore it, that is going to be a problem. And
Speaker 3: so it's not an issue of it like, oh, these
Speaker 3: whiny brats just want their dance videos no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2: I think it's much deeper than that.
Speaker 3: And if you if you show that you aren't even
Speaker 3: able to see that, it is going to be a problem.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. And people keep playing this off as like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're going to poos off gen Z and it's like,
Speaker 1: that's that's less what I'm worried about. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of gen Z would still you know, the ones
Speaker 1: who are going to vote anyways, will still vote for
Speaker 1: the lesser of two evils, Like that's going to continue.
Speaker 1: But what will you will But what you will lose
Speaker 1: is all of this mobilization infrastructure where people are getting
Speaker 1: their news, where people are having like lots of political discourse.
Speaker 1: What is helping young people to understand the world is
Speaker 1: the discourse on TikTok. Is the trusted messengers that they
Speaker 1: turn to on TikTok. And if you take that away,
Speaker 1: like they're just going to not be as politically engaged.
Speaker 1: But because TikTok made it really easy for them to
Speaker 1: get politically engaged and get politically informed and deep dive
Speaker 1: into this discourse. Like you know, the people keep saying,
Speaker 1: TikTok is this dancing app and it's so so wrong
Speaker 1: because like, fundamentally, it's a discourse app. It's where people
Speaker 1: are having conversations about the world. That's why like stitching
Speaker 1: was such a groundbreaking feature, because you could take one
Speaker 1: video and respond to it and you get this like
Speaker 1: built and constructed, constant discourse about political and social issues.
Speaker 1: If you remove that, you know, they might still be
Speaker 1: left leaning and like some of them might vote, but
Speaker 1: they won't be as informed on certain issues. They won't
Speaker 1: necessarily know where to or like where to be putting
Speaker 1: their their energy for certain political issues. Like they would
Speaker 1: just be losing so much of their infrastructure and that
Speaker 1: will have severe costs, particularly for the Dems. And it's
Speaker 1: really mind blowing to me that they don't recognize that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm shocked. I shouldn't be. I shouldn't be.
Speaker 1: I'm years into this, I shouldn't be.
Speaker 2: Well, here's I mean big question.
Speaker 3: Where will Abby Richards go if there's no TikTok? Like
Speaker 3: I think of you as the person who is like
Speaker 3: made a platform, like one of the first people who
Speaker 3: really made a platform from calling out and criticizing TikTok
Speaker 3: and advocating for it to be better. Where do you
Speaker 3: personally see yourself showing up if it's banned.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing is, Like, on one level, I think
Speaker 1: I experienced some panic where it's like, if I lose
Speaker 1: my platform on TikTok, do I lose my power? Like
Speaker 1: you know, will I still have work to do while
Speaker 1: people still see me as valuable. And then after you know,
Speaker 1: a little bit of dwelling in that panic, I got
Speaker 1: over it because it's like, no, I'm privileged. I have
Speaker 1: a lot of like institutional power at this point, like
Speaker 1: I can pivot to other platforms if I want. And fundamentally,
Speaker 1: I think that the deeper we go into a tech dystopia,
Speaker 1: the more job security I actually have, which is dark.
Speaker 2: But that was some dark hobby. That was some dark shit.
Speaker 3: But I mean you're right, right, like like you call
Speaker 3: out TikTok, but really you're calling out like our media
Speaker 3: ecosystem the way that it impacts our democracy, Like it's
Speaker 3: so much more than one platform.
Speaker 2: Your voice is about so much more than one platform.
Speaker 3: I guess I'll put it that way, But I agree
Speaker 3: with you that, Like you know, when I started this
Speaker 3: tech podcast, I never knew the Like I remember thinking like, oh,
Speaker 3: maybe I'll what if I run out of content, what
Speaker 3: if I run out of like things to talk about?
Speaker 2: Nope, I sure never will, never ever will.
Speaker 1: I mean my goal is to eventually put myself out
Speaker 1: of a job. I would really like if I could
Speaker 1: work hard enough and eradicate all of the misinformation I
Speaker 1: hate speech online, and then one day I get to
Speaker 1: retire and I don't need to do this job anymore.
Speaker 1: I don't see that happening. So I think, you know,
Speaker 1: if TikTok is banned, I will go to other platforms.
Speaker 1: I will build out my presence on other platforms too.
Speaker 1: I'm far more concerned about, like the people who don't
Speaker 1: have the institutional backing and who don't have power outside
Speaker 1: of their TikTok presence, Like they will have their lives
Speaker 1: much more uprooted than I think I will.
Speaker 2: We are in such uncharted waters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, truly what happens to the creators like because
Speaker 1: Congress I saw I was one one congressman like went
Speaker 1: on Politico with like, No, they'll be able to switch
Speaker 1: to a different platform, as if they haven't spent last
Speaker 1: like two three four years building a platform, so now
Speaker 1: they can do brand deals or now they can make
Speaker 1: money from the Creator Fund and now, oh no, they
Speaker 1: can just start over, it'll be fine.
Speaker 3: Who cares like it's it's do you know how long
Speaker 3: that takes? Like, yeah, it's but again, it's it's showing
Speaker 3: that the people who are meant to be legislating this
Speaker 3: just don't have a real realistic understanding of what of
Speaker 3: like what they're actually talking about. And when they make
Speaker 3: suggestions like that, it's like, have you taken a step
Speaker 3: back to ask what that actually looks like in practice?
Speaker 1: Yet I don't think that they have.
Speaker 3: I will say, where there are marginalized creators on a
Speaker 3: platform facing some kind of something that they don't like,
Speaker 3: there's always really good pushback, and so scrolling the platform
Speaker 3: after those hearings got to give it up to the
Speaker 3: creators who are using their strengths creating good content to
Speaker 3: you know, educate people on those hearings and sort of
Speaker 3: what they thought about them. I've seen such hilarious tiktoks
Speaker 3: coming out of that. I saw one creator who was
Speaker 3: pretending to be a lawmaker in Congress who was like,
Speaker 3: I want to know and my wife wants to know why.
Speaker 3: Every time I open TikTok, all I see is these
Speaker 3: big breasted women that's making fun of, Like how silly
Speaker 3: some of their questions were. So that's something I'll always
Speaker 3: have faith in is marginalized creators being able to use
Speaker 3: social media platforms to poke fun at legislators and to
Speaker 3: spotlight and educate folks on something that they do not like.
Speaker 1: Oh, one hundred percent, the tiktoks coming out of this
Speaker 1: have been phenomenal. I was like getting a lot of
Speaker 1: comfort last night and just seeing the conversations that were
Speaker 1: being had. Even did you say, see any of the
Speaker 1: chew edits the edits of the CEO people were making
Speaker 1: like spicy edits of him, Stay TikTok Uh. Those were great.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of I want to see if
Speaker 1: I given told what I know. I just screenshotted one
Speaker 1: this morning that was giving me life. Oh it was
Speaker 1: the cab cut meme of Pedro Pascal eating a cracker sandwich.
Speaker 1: And then it says me watching the CEO of TikTok
Speaker 1: defend the American people and our rights from the literal
Speaker 1: US government all while they mispronounced his name, have no
Speaker 1: knowledge about how Wi fi works, and are saying they
Speaker 1: are doing it for the children when there was yet
Speaker 1: another school shooting that I didn't see on the news,
Speaker 1: but I did see reported on TikTok.
Speaker 2: Doesn't that really say at all?
Speaker 1: That does that sums it up? Doesn't It? So like
Speaker 1: TikTok is reading this stuff for shit. But like the
Speaker 1: rest of the internet, I don't know so much. Because
Speaker 1: there was also that study that came out or I
Speaker 1: don't know if it was a study, it was a report. Well,
Speaker 1: I want to say, no, I don't even remember which
Speaker 1: which day's organization ran it. That was the biggest determining
Speaker 1: factor whether or not you support the TikTok band is
Speaker 1: whether or not you use TikTok.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there you go.
Speaker 3: It's like people who don't who like don't have direct
Speaker 3: familiarity with the issue, are the ones who are in
Speaker 3: favor of an outright band.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're much It's much more. It is much easier
Speaker 1: to convince people who are not even using the app
Speaker 1: that the app is dangerous because they are not exposed
Speaker 1: to it. They don't understand how it actually works. It's
Speaker 1: much easier to fear monger about something that you're unfamiliar with.
Speaker 1: It's much easier to hijack people's feelings of fear and distrust.
Speaker 1: If they don't even know the other group that they're
Speaker 1: dealing with, If if they're completely unfamiliar with the topic,
Speaker 1: then you can just push like fear mongering on them.
Speaker 1: But the people on TikTok who have their own experience
Speaker 1: was with it, you know, can can read that as bullshit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: totally in favor of some comprehensive sweeping data privacy legislation
Speaker 1: that would absolutely affect TikTok. Let's do that from a
Speaker 1: place of reason and you know, national security of the
Speaker 1: American people, Like, if we actually cared about that, let's
Speaker 1: go write that legislation.
Speaker 3: In the end, TikTok and it's part in our larger
Speaker 3: digital media ecosystem is huge. So a potential band would
Speaker 3: have major consequences, not just for the millions of people
Speaker 3: who use it, but for the way that information and
Speaker 3: discourse is spread.
Speaker 1: Oh, this was cut of my Newsweek article, but it
Speaker 1: was good. It's so like, I'm a member of this
Speaker 1: coalition of TikTok members. I'm a member of this coalition
Speaker 1: of TikTokers, TikTok influencers with the coalition has over five
Speaker 1: hundred members and collectively, they have over five hundred million followers,
Speaker 1: and to put that in perspective, I believe that that
Speaker 1: is more than the collective monthly viewership of like Fox
Speaker 1: ynn AN MSNBC, which is about five million, So not
Speaker 1: just more, it's like one hundred times more than their
Speaker 1: monthly viewership, and that's just like their following count. But
Speaker 1: I thought that that was, you know, really, I thought
Speaker 1: that that was a good way to highlight just how
Speaker 1: vast this infrastructure is, and that we're not talking about
Speaker 1: cutting off like a couple million people or like, you know,
Speaker 1: handful of people. We're talking about dismantling in a communications
Speaker 1: infrastructure that is so vast that it is like literally
Speaker 1: hundreds of times the reach of the biggest news networks
Speaker 1: that we can think of. That is not a decision
Speaker 1: that we should be taking lightly.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad you've added that.
Speaker 3: I do think that for people who don't use TikTok,
Speaker 3: they probably it's probably easy to think of it as
Speaker 3: like it's like that arrested development line, like it's a
Speaker 3: it's a TikTok Michael, how many users could there be?
Speaker 2: A hundred? Like they might not necessarily know the gravity
Speaker 2: of the the way that it.
Speaker 3: Functions as a communications platform and its role in our
Speaker 3: larger ecosystem of digital communications, which is vast.
Speaker 1: It's huge. It's huge, and people don't understand that it's
Speaker 1: not a dancing app and that it is in fact
Speaker 1: an information app that is a discourse app, and that
Speaker 1: there is like so much existing infrastructure which has been
Speaker 1: built over the course of the last few years to
Speaker 1: mobilize people, particularly for progressive causes, and if you take
Speaker 1: that away, we're going to have to rebuild it, and
Speaker 1: rebuilding takes time. Rebuilding is a way of keeping people
Speaker 1: down right, Like, the reason why legacy news institutions are
Speaker 1: so powerful is that they don't have to rebuild every
Speaker 1: four to five years. It's like you build power by,
Speaker 1: you know, having stability in your institution. And if you
Speaker 1: take all of these young people who have finally found
Speaker 1: a bit of power, and particularly marginalized young people who
Speaker 1: have finally found a bit of power, and then you
Speaker 1: force them to rebuild again, you're removing all of their
Speaker 1: access to power. And like, sure they'll get it back
Speaker 1: in a few years, but a lot can happen in
Speaker 1: a few years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And wouldn't it be and I guess it would
Speaker 3: be to have to force these folks to have to
Speaker 3: rebuild for something that didn't even really like achieve much right,
Speaker 3: for something that like.
Speaker 2: Didn't even really.
Speaker 3: Achieve much meaning full action in terms of protecting digital
Speaker 3: national security.
Speaker 2: That is like, to me is like the real cruelty
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 1: I guess, yeah. I mean for it to be done
Speaker 1: for such a pointless cause for which there is no
Speaker 1: evidence of harm in the first place, is uh deeply
Speaker 1: unsettling to be like, you know, really challenging our First
Speaker 1: Amendment rights in the way that they are threatening to
Speaker 1: with zero evidence. Again, we have more evidence against Facebook
Speaker 1: than we do against TikTok, and to ban TikTok, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's such a concerning choice for the First Amendment. And
Speaker 1: like usually I'm on the misinfo side of like having
Speaker 1: to be like, well, you know, free speech is not
Speaker 1: free reach, but like right now it's like, yes, no,
Speaker 1: free speech does matter, Like this is a First Amendment issue.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the government regulating a plaque.
Speaker 3: How many times have you been in the comment section
Speaker 3: being like, well, this isn't the government regulating something, it's
Speaker 3: a private platform regulating something. So it's a little bit different.
Speaker 3: Maybe don't evoke the First Amendment. This is actually the.
Speaker 2: Government regulating something.
Speaker 3: So like all of those free speech people like like mobilize,
Speaker 3: like let's hear from you.
Speaker 1: I know, it's like so quiet from the free speech
Speaker 1: absolutionist right now. Like they cared a lot when TikTok
Speaker 1: was censoring medical misinformation that TikTok had every right to
Speaker 1: be to be removing. But if the government is actually
Speaker 1: coming for a platform where a one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: million people practice the utilization of their voices, that seems
Speaker 1: like a free speech issue to me, that seems like
Speaker 1: a challenge on our First Amendment rights. Really scary one too.
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, watching the hearing was quite scary
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 2: What scared you about it?
Speaker 1: I think that there was this strange element of like, okay,
Speaker 1: I when I learned about the red skin and history class,
Speaker 1: I didn't anticipate living through another one that was like
Speaker 1: weird to watch in real time. I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I thought that was like a historical event. I thought
Speaker 1: we didn't do that again. So it had that element
Speaker 1: to it where they were like asking the CEO of TikTok,
Speaker 1: who I don't know his personal finances, but if he's
Speaker 1: not a billionaire, he is a multi millionaire, just asking
Speaker 1: him if he's a communist. It had a wild tone
Speaker 1: to it, but on a much deeper level, the links
Speaker 1: that they will go to to take away our free
Speaker 1: speech in the name of just xenophobia, that was really
Speaker 1: scary to me. I don't think that that symbolized like
Speaker 1: massive steps towards a more progressive world. That felt like
Speaker 1: taking steps backwards, towards, you know, stricter borders and more
Speaker 1: nationalism and stricter laws, and just creating this divide between
Speaker 1: the West and the East, and just trying to reimpose
Speaker 1: this iron curtain of sorts, this digital iron curtain. Like
Speaker 1: that felt really dark to me.
Speaker 3: I mean, when you put it that way, yeah, it's
Speaker 3: I hadn't picked up on that vibe, but now that
Speaker 3: you say it, it is scary, And I don't think
Speaker 3: it's I don't think I don't think it's discourse that
Speaker 3: leads us to a more just, progressive world.
Speaker 2: It seems like it leads us someplace else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like it shuts us down and puts
Speaker 1: us deeper into like isolationist thinking. And that's not the
Speaker 1: type of thinking that I want to see our worlds practicing.
Speaker 1: I would like to see, you know, the Internet was
Speaker 1: always promised as this thing that would like bring global
Speaker 1: citizens together. I don't believe that we are in any
Speaker 1: sort of like technological utopia or that the Internet is perfect,
Speaker 1: but I do see the internet's capacity for connection and
Speaker 1: connection with people that you would otherwise like never have
Speaker 1: spoken to or heard their stories. So earlier, you were
Speaker 1: talking about like seeing women in Iran protesting and how
Speaker 1: you feel like you wouldn't have been exposed to that
Speaker 1: without TikTok. And I worry that if we continue down
Speaker 1: this path of implementing these strict bands and like insisting
Speaker 1: that we control all of the social media platforms that like,
Speaker 1: it'll continue to cut us off. And that's not what
Speaker 1: I want to see.
Speaker 3: Here, fucking here, Abby, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 3: This was informative. I'm really glad. I everyone should read
Speaker 3: your newsweek piece. We're gonna put it in the show notes.
Speaker 3: But yeah, this was great.
Speaker 2: I feel like I learned a lot.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that you let me come. Rand I wrote
Speaker 1: the piece and I was like, I know who I
Speaker 1: need to send this.
Speaker 2: Oh you have an open invite.
Speaker 3: Anytime you're like, I'm annoyed about this, You've an open invite.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I love coming on your show. It's
Speaker 1: always fun. You were like the one of the first
Speaker 1: ever podcasts that I did, and you were so nice
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, you were I remember it very clearly.
Speaker 2: You were such a pro.
Speaker 1: I had no idea what I was doing. It was
Speaker 1: all I was faking it.
Speaker 2: Now you've got the mic, you've got the pop filter.
Speaker 2: Look at you.
Speaker 1: Now I know what we're doing. I know that I
Speaker 1: can Like when I first started, I didn't know that
Speaker 1: I could like restart a sentence when I like the
Speaker 1: first time I ever did podcast, so the pressure was
Speaker 1: way higher. But now I know I can read.
Speaker 2: Oh, I love a restart.
Speaker 3: I restart like I catch myself doing it in casual
Speaker 3: conversation where I'm like, Nope, no one's gonna come in
Speaker 3: and clean this up.
Speaker 1: But you know, I feel like there's no editor right now. Still,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's good to just restart because you're like, you
Speaker 1: know what, that sentence had a false it was a
Speaker 1: faulty start, And it doesn't even matter if I'm being recorded,
Speaker 1: it'll make more sense. If you just let me scratch
Speaker 1: it and start over again.
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Speaker 3: Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or
Speaker 3: just want to say hi? You can reachus said Hello
Speaker 3: at tegodi dot com. You can also find transcripts for
Speaker 3: today's episode at tengody dot com. There Are No Girls
Speaker 3: on the Internet was created by me, which It's hid.
Speaker 3: It's a production iHeartRadio, an unbossed creative edited by Joey
Speaker 3: pat Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Terry Harrison as
Speaker 3: our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almada is our contributing producer.
Speaker 3: I'm your host, bridget Todd. If you want to help
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