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Speaker 1: There Are No Girls on the Internet.

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Speaker 2: As a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridget

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Speaker 2: Toad and this is there Are No Girls on the Internet.

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Speaker 2: So it has been a little while since we've done

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Speaker 2: a news round that folks might have noticed that we

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Speaker 2: took a little bit of a break, which Mike, honestly

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Speaker 2: is not my favorite thing, I believe it or not.

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Speaker 1: I really value sitting down.

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Speaker 2: And just riffing and giving my takes on some news

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Speaker 2: stories and what's going on every week. But as you know,

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Speaker 2: we sat down to do it. I think was that

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Speaker 2: two weeks ago now, and I don't know if it

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Speaker 2: was just the news was really getting to me. I

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Speaker 2: kind of caught myself really needing a break. I imagine that

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Speaker 2: if I was feeling that way, it wouldn't be a

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Speaker 2: stretch to imagine that the listeners were also feeling that way,

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Speaker 2: just sort of feeling a little bit overwhelmed and needing

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Speaker 2: a break. It's hard because you know, it's important to

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Speaker 2: stay informed, but one of the drawbacks of being informed

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Speaker 2: and staying informed is that sometimes it is truly just

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Speaker 2: such a bummer.

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Speaker 3: One hundred percent, Like the news can be pretty depressing

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Speaker 3: and yeah, sometimes you just need a break.

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Speaker 2: And it really made me think about sort of what

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Speaker 2: we do here on the show, The News Roundup. I

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Speaker 2: always try to talk about stories that you might not

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Speaker 2: hear elsewhere. I might start with a story that everybody's

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Speaker 2: talking about, or throw a couple in there if I

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Speaker 2: really am interested to talk about it, but I try

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Speaker 2: to have this be something that you know you're not

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Speaker 2: gonna hear, stories necessarily that you would hear anywhere else.

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Speaker 1: I try very.

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Speaker 2: Hard to not talk about the President because unless I

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Speaker 2: have a reason, unless it's like there is a reason

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Speaker 2: to talk about what he's doing or what he said,

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Speaker 2: Otherwise it would just be him all the time, and

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Speaker 2: who wants that. There's such a thing as Trump fatigue.

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Speaker 2: I think for me, especially some of the Epstein Files stuff,

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Speaker 2: we're really getting to me.

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Speaker 1: That was the.

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Speaker 2: Week that I decided I needed a little bit of

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Speaker 2: a break. Was an Epstein heavy week. And I think

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Speaker 2: it's one of those things where it's a story that

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Speaker 2: everybody's talking about rightly so, but I think we can

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Speaker 2: forget that it's it's actually a story about horrific abuse,

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Speaker 2: and the survivors of that abuse are still around they're like,

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Speaker 2: they're like participating in the conversation, and I just something

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Speaker 2: about that, the way that some of the tenor of

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Speaker 2: the conversation was going, it just was hard for me

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Speaker 2: to stay pretty checked in with I did have a

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Speaker 2: little bit of a mild spin out about everything.

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Speaker 1: I'm fine, but it was just.

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Speaker 2: A little bit of a rough time, and I just

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Speaker 2: I think that's part of showing up in today's media

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Speaker 2: and news climate, where sometimes you're like, you know what,

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Speaker 2: I don't have a mental and emotional capacity for this

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Speaker 2: right now. I need to like not be so checked

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Speaker 2: in for a little bit and come back when I'm

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Speaker 2: feeling more fortified.

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Speaker 3: I think it's a good instinct to take care of yourself,

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Speaker 3: make sure that you're in a place where you can

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Speaker 3: show up and contribute and you know, in your case

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Speaker 3: as someone in media, help people stay informed, and you

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Speaker 3: know it. I think with the I mean, I was

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Speaker 3: gonna say twenty four hour news cycle, but it's like

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Speaker 3: it feels like we've been saying that for thirty years

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Speaker 3: and it's much faster. But like things happen so quickly,

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Speaker 3: especially with this Trump administration and their explicit strategy of

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Speaker 3: flooding the zone with horrible stories designed to overwhelm people

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Speaker 3: like us. I think it can be tempting to feel

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Speaker 3: like every day is a new crisis and there's urgency

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Speaker 3: to respond to this thing right now. But you just

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Speaker 3: can't sustain that indefinitely. So i'quit.

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Speaker 4: You took a little break.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm just curious. I wanted to do a

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Speaker 2: sort of listener check in. You can let us know,

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Speaker 2: you can email us, you can hit us up on

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Speaker 2: Spotify comments. I genuinely want to know, one, just how

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Speaker 2: are folks feeling with everything?

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Speaker 1: And then two, you know, what.

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Speaker 2: Is are is if you have an maybe you're like,

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Speaker 2: I'm listening to the podcast. I like Bridge, and I

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Speaker 2: like Mike, I like Joey. I'm the sort of philosophical

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Speaker 2: bent of where you end up and what you end

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Speaker 2: up talking about is not something I'm not interested in.

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Speaker 2: I just like the show. That is totally fine. I

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Speaker 2: appreciate you. We're so happy that you're here. But if

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Speaker 2: you do have thoughts or feedback about how you engage

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Speaker 2: with news in this moment, you know, especially things like

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Speaker 2: news roundups, do you are if do you want to

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Speaker 2: hear the hard hitting stories that everybody's talking about do

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Speaker 2: you want are you?

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Speaker 1: Are you looking for a little bit of an escape

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Speaker 1: from that? Like, I don't know.

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Speaker 2: I find it's such a complicated thing. I find myself.

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Speaker 2: In the last two weeks, I found myself really gravitating

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Speaker 2: toward escapism and stories that I could really just.

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Speaker 1: Sort of nerd out about.

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Speaker 2: And I hate this feeling of, oh, well, I'm turning

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Speaker 2: to escapism to get a break from all these horrible

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Speaker 2: news cycles that people who are in them don't get

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Speaker 2: a bre from. So, like, what a privilege to say

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Speaker 2: I'm opting out for a little while because I need

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Speaker 2: to break y'all. But nobody has the capacity to stay

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Speaker 2: checked in on this stuff all the time. And so

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Speaker 2: I just I'm trying to honor that balance and me

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Speaker 2: and give myself a little bit of grace and say like, oh,

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Speaker 2: you're not, you know, a jerk if you just need

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Speaker 2: two weeks to not think about this stuff and come

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Speaker 2: back later. And so I'm just and I want to

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Speaker 2: honor that in our the lives of our listeners, because

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Speaker 2: I imagine they might be dealing with finding that same balance.

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Speaker 3: And so, yeah, let's go through this together, shall we.

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Speaker 3: Yeah that sounds great? Uh, all right, well, let's get

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Speaker 3: into it. What news have you got first to round

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Speaker 3: up this week? Bridget Well, we watched the Super Bowl?

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Speaker 3: Did you watch it?

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Speaker 4: I did watch it.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I watched it with my parents and we made

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Speaker 3: snacks and it was a nice time.

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Speaker 2: Don't you feel like the ads for the Super Bowl

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Speaker 2: were one just super depressing and two were kind of

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Speaker 2: a bell weather for where we're all at. It was

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Speaker 2: it was every ad was crypto gambling AI, crypto AI.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's kind of a reflection of the weird,

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Speaker 3: depressing state of our economy. I guess like those are

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Speaker 3: those are the companies just making the most money, bringing

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Speaker 3: it in from uh, from workers, and redistributing it to

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Speaker 3: a handful of billionaires.

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Speaker 4: That's who's doing it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you meet, our scam economy built on a Ponzi

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Speaker 2: scheme of robbing Peter to pay Paul that is currently

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Speaker 2: propping up our entire economic system.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the one. That's what they're advertising.

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Speaker 2: You know, my old foe, Ring, owned by Amazon, made

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Speaker 2: an appearance.

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Speaker 1: Y'all know I hate Ring.

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Speaker 2: I've I mean I this will be spicy with some

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Speaker 2: of our listeners, especially if you live in the suburbs.

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Speaker 2: I live in the city, so I when I visit

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Speaker 2: my friends or visit home in the urbs, I am

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Speaker 2: always surprised by how ubiquitous ring is, how it's just everywhere, everywhere,

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Speaker 2: everyone has it. It's just like infrastruct sure that people

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Speaker 2: don't really question that much, or maybe they do question,

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Speaker 2: or do they say, but they say, like, I'm not

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Speaker 2: going to be the one person without a ring, So

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Speaker 2: I get it. I care about safety. I care about

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Speaker 2: security by hate ring. Ring is the police. Ring is surveillance.

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Speaker 2: If you have ring in your house, you are basically

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Speaker 2: snitching on yourself to the police side.

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Speaker 1: Note.

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Speaker 2: I know we talked about this. I don't know if

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Speaker 2: you watched Real Housewives of Potomac WINDYOSEPHO. She was Her

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Speaker 2: and her husband were arrested for insurance fraud charges, and

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Speaker 2: when I went by, I'm obsessed with Real Housewives of Potomac,

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Speaker 2: I was very surprised in this news drop. When she

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Speaker 2: was arrested. I went through the investigative documents and one

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Speaker 2: of the things I could not believe was that she

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Speaker 2: has not been done.

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Speaker 1: Guilty of a crime. She's still going through the court process.

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Speaker 2: But one of the things I was shocked by is

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Speaker 2: that she is being accused of staging a fake burglary

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Speaker 2: while she was out of town and then calling the

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Speaker 2: police and reporting a bunch of luxury goods on her insurance,

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Speaker 2: getting the insurance money, and then still having those luxury

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Speaker 2: goods like physically present in the house.

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Speaker 1: Like that's what she's being accused of. When the police.

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Speaker 2: Came, they noted that she has a ring camera in

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Speaker 2: like an outdoor ring camera facing her driveway, and a

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Speaker 2: camera inside of her house. And during the time that

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Speaker 2: she claimed she was out of town and being robbed

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Speaker 2: by people who broke into to take her luxury goods,

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Speaker 2: neither of those cameras showed any suspicious activity.

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Speaker 1: So I'm thinking, if you are.

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Speaker 2: Allegedly, as Wendyosepho is being accused of doing, committing some

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Speaker 2: kind of a fraud in your home, why would you

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Speaker 2: have a ring camera that is a camera that like

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Speaker 2: records stuff for the police. You've just recorded yourself. You've

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Speaker 2: just become your own up. What are you doing.

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Speaker 3: It's really bad practice. Yeah, Like, if you're going to

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Speaker 3: be doing financial crimes, don't have surveillance devices in your home,

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Speaker 3: you know, like pointed at the scene of the crime.

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Speaker 3: It's really it's a really like mind boggling story, Like

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Speaker 3: I would have expected more from Wendy. You know, maybe

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Speaker 3: maybe she was burbled by a ghost.

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Speaker 2: I mean, that's what I'm saying. I think that the

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Speaker 2: concept of ring cameras. Amazon has been so good at

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Speaker 2: making them so like really making us believe that you

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Speaker 2: have to have one, that if you don't have one,

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Speaker 2: you're basically being negligent. So even if you're someone who

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Speaker 2: and I also think there's a I'm kind of going

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Speaker 2: waxing philosophical about this now, but I also think there's

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Speaker 2: a dynamic at play where people where the assumption, the

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Speaker 2: default assumption, is I have a ring camera to.

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Speaker 1: Look at other people.

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Speaker 2: Other people are going to be doing things I need

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Speaker 2: to be aware of other people. And the idea that like,

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Speaker 2: oh I that camera would be recording me and my

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Speaker 2: actions and that would be going to the police. I

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Speaker 2: think that doesn't really occur to people because I think

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Speaker 2: that we've normalized the idea that surveillance is about other people.

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Speaker 2: I'm fine, I don't even if I'm doing a mild

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Speaker 2: financial crime out from within my home.

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Speaker 1: I'm fine.

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Speaker 2: That's what that's the old To me, that's the only

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Speaker 2: thing that makes it make sense why you would be

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Speaker 2: doing crimes and also have a Ring camera in your

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Speaker 2: home while you do them.

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Speaker 3: I think you're exactly right. I think the idea of

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Speaker 3: surveillance has just been so normalized to the extent people

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Speaker 3: are thinking about it. I think you're right that they're like, oh,

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Speaker 3: it's it's for other people, it's for the bad guys.

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Speaker 3: It's not cureainly, this is not going to be turned

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Speaker 3: on me. But I also think people just don't really

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Speaker 3: think about it that deeply at all. They're just like, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 3: you know, surveillance cameras. That'll that'll be great, that'll solve things.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Well, I don't know if you saw that ad for

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Speaker 2: Ring's new service Search Party during the Super Bowl. It's

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Speaker 2: an ad that really exploits our love of pets and

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Speaker 2: dogs and basically posits that with Ring, you can want

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Speaker 2: a pet is reported missing. The search Party feature that

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Speaker 2: is turned on by default mind You allows Ring doorbell

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Speaker 2: cameras to scan the footage across Ring devices in any neighborhood,

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Speaker 2: using AI to identify the potential dog match among many

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Speaker 2: personal devices along a network they made this ad seem

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Speaker 2: super heartwarming, like oh, missing pets, Oh It's just so sweet,

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Speaker 2: But pretty much everybody who saw this ad was a

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Speaker 2: collective booo. I do side note, I do think that

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Speaker 2: the Super Bowl revealed how fed up with this kind

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Speaker 2: of stuff we are. I think that if you're listening

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Speaker 2: to this podcast, you probably are already on the side

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Speaker 2: of this, but I think more and more, like normy

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Speaker 2: Americans are fed up with this dynamic that you described,

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Speaker 2: where more and more of our rights, our money, our data,

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Speaker 2: our privacy are being extracted from private citizens and hand

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Speaker 2: it over to a small number of billionaires for their profit.

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Speaker 1: I think that something about seeing.

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Speaker 2: Ad after ad after ad on the Super Bowl really

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Speaker 2: just shows what garbage this ball is. And I think

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Speaker 2: Americans are starting to wake up and say, actually, do.

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Speaker 1: I want this?

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Speaker 3: I agree, and I actually am like pretty heartened by

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Speaker 3: the response to this Ring ad for exactly that reason.

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Speaker 3: It does seem like something about that broke through that

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Speaker 3: these norms are changing, and people like the general public

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Speaker 3: who haven't been super clued into these conversations about ring

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Speaker 3: and flock and all of the other everyday devices that

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Speaker 3: are sold to us as helpful but are actually spying

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Speaker 3: on us. I think people are starting to notice, like,

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Speaker 3: wait that this this is not good, Like I don't

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Speaker 3: and I'm not sure if it's just the ubiquity of

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Speaker 3: them and the sheer number. I also have to wonder

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Speaker 3: if all the news about ICE has sort of changed

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Speaker 3: the conversation about people's perception of what like who might

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Speaker 3: be looking at this footage right, Like, it's one thing

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Speaker 3: when it's the police. A lot of people I think

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Speaker 3: have pretty favorable views of the police because they keep

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Speaker 3: our neighborhoods safe for some people. But like ICE, I

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Speaker 3: think has really changed that where you have these masked

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Speaker 3: goons dragging people out of their cars and like arresting

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Speaker 3: kids and shooting people acting really violently. So I have

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Speaker 3: to wonder if it's been like a convergence of these

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Speaker 3: things that have led to this moment where I've personally

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Speaker 3: been quite surprised by the backlash to this ad but

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Speaker 3: pleasantly so.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a little bit.

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Speaker 2: Of a non sequarter, But we did this great interview

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Speaker 2: with the attorney for mel Kirk, that trans grad student

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Speaker 2: who was pulled from classes after that student wrote that paper,

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Speaker 2: and she lives in Minnesota.

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Speaker 1: And she was telling me one of the things.

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Speaker 2: Like we were talking about what was going on in Minnesota,

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Speaker 2: and she was like, also, the Ice agents they all

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Speaker 2: drive like assholes. And I was just thinking, what, like,

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Speaker 2: even if you were someone and she like, she obviously

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Speaker 2: is not, but let's say that you were someone who

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Speaker 2: was nominally supportive of police, but then you have three

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Speaker 2: thousand federal ice agents descending on your small town and

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Speaker 2: they drive around the streets like assholes. Yeah, I was

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Speaker 2: just surprised, but I was like, oh, yeah, that would

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Speaker 2: be something of note that would that would that would

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Speaker 2: turn the public, even even a potentially sympathetic public, against

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Speaker 2: the actions of what these people are doing. Something I

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Speaker 2: want to say about RING is that, you know, Amazon

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Speaker 2: and Ring, they did not invent using technology for nefarious

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Speaker 2: purposes of surveillance and control and harm that they certainly

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Speaker 2: did not invent that. The thing that bothers me so

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Speaker 2: much about Ring is that they want to make lots

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Speaker 2: of money by building this kind of surveyor technology that

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Speaker 2: harmed that I believe harms us all, and they want

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Speaker 2: the public to have warm, buzzy connotations with their product.

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Speaker 3: That's a great point, Bridget You know, I was just

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Speaker 3: listening to an episode of the great podcast saw Bones

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Speaker 3: where they were talking about the history of tear gas,

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Speaker 3: and you know, it was developed. It's a whole category

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Speaker 3: of different chemical agents. Actually it's not just one thing, uh,

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Speaker 3: but they were developed as part of World War One,

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Speaker 3: has like military grade weapons. And then after the war ended,

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Speaker 3: these big chemical manufacturing giants in the US wanted they

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Speaker 3: you know, they needed to create a market to keep

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Speaker 3: selling these products, and so they pushed this big public

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Speaker 3: awareness campaign about how tear yes could be used by

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Speaker 3: police departments to to help protect the peace and disperse

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Speaker 3: mo and used as a defensive weapon for safety, which

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Speaker 3: I think is a little bit analogous to what you're

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Speaker 3: saying here.

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Speaker 1: It is sort of analogous.

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Speaker 2: But Ring isn't just saying oh we're It's not just

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Speaker 2: crime and police. It's also heartwarming moments with your kids.

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Speaker 2: It's also funny pet videos. You know, I don't know

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Speaker 2: if you recall this. Ring once asked us here at

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Speaker 2: this podcast to make an ad that basically described Ring

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Speaker 2: camera footage as the new version of America's funniest home videos.

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Speaker 2: That they were really trying to sort of say, like, oh,

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Speaker 2: what we're trying to do is cap tell people the

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Speaker 2: ways that RING can be used to capture funny or

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Speaker 2: heartwarming footage that you would want to have for your family.

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Speaker 2: So would you be willing to summarize and run down

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Speaker 2: some of those instances for ring?

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Speaker 1: Obviously the answer was a hard no.

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Speaker 2: But I think that demonstrates it's not just that they

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Speaker 2: want to be seeing as oh, well, we have other

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Speaker 2: use cases it is. So I think that your tear

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Speaker 2: gas analogy does sort of work. But also it would

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Speaker 2: be like if if the people who made tear gas

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Speaker 2: were like also, you could use tear gas to when

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Speaker 2: you're having a party and you want everybody to go home,

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Speaker 2: just watch tear gas in your kitchen and people.

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Speaker 1: Will leave, and that'll be a cuddly use case of it.

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Speaker 3: I am getting a great image of like Joan Cleaver

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Speaker 3: being like, okay, party's over. Time for the tear gas

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Speaker 3: like wafting through the kitchen.

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Speaker 5: Uh. You know.

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Speaker 3: I think one of the things that makes this that

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Speaker 3: dynamic that you just describe so dystopian like, Yes, that's

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Speaker 3: exactly what they're doing. It's like the sort of thing

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Speaker 3: that an Orwelian government would do, like a duplicitous ad

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Speaker 3: campaign to trick people into being surveilled. But that's not

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Speaker 3: actually what's happening here is I don't think Amazon is

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Speaker 3: actually interested in like surveilling people for law enforcement. That's

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Speaker 3: just like an unfortunate byproduct. I think they're doing all

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Speaker 3: of this, you know, building the surveillance equipment, creating these

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Speaker 3: campaigns to sell it to us with cute, cuddly photos

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Speaker 3: and jokes. They're doing all of it just to sell

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Speaker 3: more widgets and harvests our data so they can sell

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Speaker 3: other widgets as well.

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Speaker 1: Yes, this is from CNBC.

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Speaker 2: In recent years, the company had adopted a softer image,

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Speaker 2: positioning its devices as tools to capture porch pirates and

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Speaker 2: family friendly hijinks. After a founder, Jamie Seenoff, returned s

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Speaker 2: CEO last year, the company has re embraced its original

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Speaker 2: mission of fighting crime.

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Speaker 4: It's like Batman has returned.

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Speaker 5: Yes.

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Speaker 2: So, According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Amazon ring already

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Speaker 2: does integrate biometric identification like facial recognition into its products.

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Speaker 2: It always has some cute sea name like instead of

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Speaker 2: saying oh, facial recognition, it's familiar faces, which depends on

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Speaker 2: scanning faces of those in sight of the camera and

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Speaker 2: mashing it against a list of pre saved, preapproved faces.

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Speaker 2: It does not take much to imagine Ring eventually combining

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Speaker 2: the two features facial recognition and neighborhood search with their

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Speaker 2: Calling Search party. So when this ad was on the

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Speaker 2: Super Bowl, Ring was all set to partner with Flock,

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Speaker 2: the company that you mentioned, which is a company that

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Speaker 2: makes police surveillance.

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Speaker 1: We've talked about them a few times.

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Speaker 2: Before, once because police used Flock to mistakenly accuse a

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Speaker 2: random woman of stealing packages off of someone's Porsche, even

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Speaker 2: though she never did it, and they were going to

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Speaker 2: prosecute her for this had she not taken matters into

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Speaker 2: her own hands and like prove that she had not

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Speaker 2: done this. There was also a story where Flock's network

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Speaker 2: of license plate readers was used by police to track

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Speaker 2: a woman suspected of having had an abortion, and I

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Speaker 2: think four h four ons did a follow up investigation

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Speaker 2: that showed that police in they were looking for her

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Speaker 2: because they intended to brought to like bring charges on

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Speaker 2: her for criminal behavior. And so Ring was set to

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Speaker 2: partner with Flock. But people hated that surveillance nightmare pet

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Speaker 2: super Bowl ad so much that this week, Ring announced

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Speaker 2: they are no longer partnering with Flocks from CNBC. The

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Speaker 2: partnership between Flock and Ring came under scrutiny after the

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Speaker 2: Amazon doorbell company ran an ad during the Super Bowl

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Speaker 2: that tau did a search party feature that uses AI

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Speaker 2: to help locate lost pets. Eff called it, quote a

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Speaker 2: surveillance nightmare. So it sounds like exactly what you described.

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Speaker 2: That enough people saw this ad, they were not buying

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Speaker 2: that this is going to begin and end with cute,

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Speaker 2: cuddly dogs and lost pets, and there was enough backlash

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Speaker 2: that Ring was like, no, we're gonna drop this partnership.

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Speaker 2: Just to be clear, this is what Ring publicly has said.

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Speaker 2: It would not surprise me if they're still back chilling

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Speaker 2: with them.

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Speaker 1: I'm just reporting what they said.

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Speaker 2: I have learned you really cannot take especially when it

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Speaker 2: comes to how companies are working with law enforcement. They

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Speaker 2: absolutely will say one thing and then continue to quietly

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Speaker 2: do another.

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Speaker 1: But the fact that they felt.

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Speaker 2: They need to at least publicly signal that they are

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Speaker 2: not going to be pursuing this partnership, I think says

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Speaker 2: a lot about how that ad hit people, which is

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Speaker 2: not good.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, people don't want it. The only good ring camera

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Speaker 3: is a smashed ring camera.

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Speaker 1: I agree with you.

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Speaker 5: Let's take a quick break at our back.

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Speaker 2: Speaking of ice and surveillance and not meeting the moment.

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Speaker 1: To put it lightly.

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Speaker 2: The Salesforce ice joke, I oh my god, I mean,

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Speaker 2: do you ever have secondhand It's not even embarrassment, it's secondhand.

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Speaker 2: I don't even know the word for it because of

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Speaker 2: someone else's I'm putting it in air quotes joke, I

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Speaker 2: have that times one hundred. Basically. Mark Benioff, he's the

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Speaker 2: CEO of Salesforce. He was giving his keynote address at

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Speaker 2: Salesforce's internal conference in Las Vegas. He asked all of

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Speaker 2: the international employees who had traveled to the United States

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Speaker 2: for this event. Specifically, he asked them all to stand.

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Speaker 2: So these are people who are probably a lot of immigrants,

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Speaker 2: probably a lot of them working on visas, not living

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Speaker 2: in the United States. He asked them all to stand

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Speaker 2: before joking that ICE agents were present and monitoring them.

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Speaker 2: This joke, I'm gonna put that in quotes, drew Booze

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Speaker 2: from the crowd. Several employees told media outlets, there's a

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Speaker 2: great piece in a four four media that's almost like

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Speaker 2: a real time play by play of all the different

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Speaker 2: staffers reaching out to four h four anonymously to be like, uh,

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Speaker 2: can you believe he said this? You should report that

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Speaker 2: he said this. He said this, Ye, all of the

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Speaker 2: GP already said he said this. So that gives you

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Speaker 2: a sense of how much people were not feeling this joke.

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Speaker 3: And I, I mean, one of the things about a

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Speaker 3: joke is that it's generally not just a true statement

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Speaker 3: of fact. I suspect Ice was monitoring any of them.

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Speaker 1: Well.

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Speaker 2: When the recording of his speech was published on the

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Speaker 2: Internal Salesforce, wouldn't you know it? There was some sort

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Speaker 2: of glitch and that little bit of the speech that

441
00:23:09,840 --> 00:23:12,400
Speaker 2: Drew Booth was not included in the recording.

442
00:23:12,560 --> 00:23:13,200
Speaker 1: Isn't that weird?

443
00:23:13,400 --> 00:23:13,600
Speaker 5: Oh?

444
00:23:13,640 --> 00:23:15,240
Speaker 4: Wow, yeah, it is weird.

445
00:23:15,280 --> 00:23:18,480
Speaker 3: I guess maybe the batteries in the video cameras must

446
00:23:18,480 --> 00:23:19,359
Speaker 3: have died or something.

447
00:23:20,520 --> 00:23:21,399
Speaker 1: This is wild to be.

448
00:23:21,720 --> 00:23:25,000
Speaker 2: According to the news outlet inc, that was not even

449
00:23:25,119 --> 00:23:28,840
Speaker 2: his only joke about Ice at the event, because later

450
00:23:28,920 --> 00:23:31,080
Speaker 2: in that meeting, he asked the audience how many of

451
00:23:31,080 --> 00:23:33,600
Speaker 2: them had not yet used a slack bot tool before

452
00:23:33,680 --> 00:23:36,840
Speaker 2: joking about Ice being there again, and then he also

453
00:23:36,960 --> 00:23:39,760
Speaker 2: commented that he wasn't sure what bad Bunny super Bowl

454
00:23:39,840 --> 00:23:43,320
Speaker 2: halftime show was about that he threw that in there.

455
00:23:43,160 --> 00:23:46,240
Speaker 4: Too, Like, who's this audience here?

456
00:23:47,400 --> 00:23:50,679
Speaker 2: This just sounds like you're like kind of out of

457
00:23:50,760 --> 00:23:55,840
Speaker 2: touch Republican uncle, just free associating things that he doesn't

458
00:23:55,880 --> 00:23:56,640
Speaker 2: like about culture.

459
00:23:57,040 --> 00:24:00,080
Speaker 1: What's with all these what's with all these foreign language movies?

460
00:24:00,200 --> 00:24:03,239
Speaker 2: Back in my dig we had American movies like The

461
00:24:03,280 --> 00:24:05,240
Speaker 2: Wizard of Us, I'm Gone with the Wind?

462
00:24:05,280 --> 00:24:07,920
Speaker 1: Whatever happened to that? Like he's just is he?

463
00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:10,720
Speaker 2: I'm it just sounded like his tight five on how

464
00:24:10,800 --> 00:24:12,000
Speaker 2: culture has changed.

465
00:24:12,480 --> 00:24:14,959
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like like I don't know if he's gonna give

466
00:24:14,960 --> 00:24:17,960
Speaker 3: me a word there's original or go on, Bill Maher.

467
00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:21,760
Speaker 2: So it's an especially messed up thing considering that Salesforce

468
00:24:21,800 --> 00:24:25,840
Speaker 2: has contracts with Ice and this has been really controversial

469
00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:30,399
Speaker 2: from within the company, and after he made this this joke,

470
00:24:30,760 --> 00:24:33,439
Speaker 2: I don't it's being reported as a joke. I don't

471
00:24:33,320 --> 00:24:34,960
Speaker 2: want to be clear. I don't think it's a joke.

472
00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:36,439
Speaker 2: It does not have the cadence of a joke to me.

473
00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:41,920
Speaker 2: I'm not sure who would be the.

474
00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:42,000
Speaker 1: The what the punchline is?

475
00:24:42,080 --> 00:24:46,440
Speaker 2: But sure, well after that now almost fifteen hundred employees

476
00:24:46,480 --> 00:24:49,520
Speaker 2: have signed an open letter asking him to cut business

477
00:24:49,560 --> 00:24:52,639
Speaker 2: ties with ICE. In the letter, the employees say that

478
00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:56,280
Speaker 2: they are deeply troubled by media reports detailing Salesforce's pitch

479
00:24:56,320 --> 00:24:59,800
Speaker 2: to use its AI to help the agency expeditiously higher

480
00:24:59,800 --> 00:25:03,200
Speaker 2: ten one thousand new agents and that tip line reports

481
00:25:03,760 --> 00:25:06,760
Speaker 2: And yeah, I mean, I just think I don't understand

482
00:25:06,760 --> 00:25:10,280
Speaker 2: how somebody makes a comment like that and then doubles

483
00:25:10,280 --> 00:25:11,760
Speaker 2: and singing eat triples down on it.

484
00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:14,359
Speaker 1: I just think it's what happens.

485
00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:18,560
Speaker 2: When tech CEOs are just so insulated from the consequences

486
00:25:18,600 --> 00:25:24,240
Speaker 2: of the technology that they're building and even the real

487
00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:29,439
Speaker 2: ramifications for the people that they are employing. It just

488
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:31,880
Speaker 2: I think you really got to be I think it's

489
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:33,159
Speaker 2: very very revealing.

490
00:25:33,800 --> 00:25:34,240
Speaker 4: It is.

491
00:25:34,440 --> 00:25:38,159
Speaker 3: I I have to wonder how much of it is

492
00:25:38,240 --> 00:25:41,920
Speaker 3: driven by that same normalization of surveillance that you were

493
00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:44,800
Speaker 3: just talking about in the last segment about you know,

494
00:25:44,880 --> 00:25:49,280
Speaker 3: this this idea that like, oh, surveillance and law enforcement

495
00:25:49,440 --> 00:25:53,560
Speaker 3: that's for other people. Surely all of you employees who

496
00:25:53,640 --> 00:25:57,879
Speaker 3: have traveled here from abroad aren't at any risk. What

497
00:25:58,080 --> 00:25:59,920
Speaker 3: in fact, a lot of them probably are at risk,

498
00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:02,000
Speaker 3: right Like there's so many stories in the news of

499
00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:07,800
Speaker 3: people with visa's citizens also, but especially people who are

500
00:26:08,400 --> 00:26:12,280
Speaker 3: here in the US legally on some kind of a visa,

501
00:26:12,560 --> 00:26:17,680
Speaker 3: oftentimes working, getting arrested and detained by Ice for long periods.

502
00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:19,400
Speaker 3: I just read a story about some guy from Ireland

503
00:26:19,600 --> 00:26:21,320
Speaker 3: who was here on a visa got detained for like

504
00:26:21,359 --> 00:26:26,159
Speaker 3: three months. So the risk to these workers is very real.

505
00:26:26,800 --> 00:26:31,520
Speaker 3: And yeah, I have to wonder if he just assumed

506
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:36,720
Speaker 3: it isn't because Benioff surely is not at risk of

507
00:26:36,760 --> 00:26:40,160
Speaker 3: getting picked up by ice, and so therefore leaders anybody

508
00:26:40,160 --> 00:26:41,280
Speaker 3: else in his mind.

509
00:26:41,880 --> 00:26:44,520
Speaker 2: I also think it's an indication of how tech leaders

510
00:26:44,560 --> 00:26:48,360
Speaker 2: are feeling about the climate. You know, I think other

511
00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:50,800
Speaker 2: than the federal government, my understanding is tech has been

512
00:26:50,840 --> 00:26:55,320
Speaker 2: the number one industry being targeted for layoffs, and so

513
00:26:55,720 --> 00:26:58,000
Speaker 2: I think that he I almost wonder, and maybe I'm

514
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:00,040
Speaker 2: putting too much past this guy, but I almost I

515
00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:04,160
Speaker 2: wonder if this is him kind of testing the waters

516
00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:05,960
Speaker 2: of like what can I get away with? What can

517
00:27:06,040 --> 00:27:08,760
Speaker 2: I say? What horrible think can I say? And you

518
00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:11,720
Speaker 2: all basically just have to like nervously laugh through it,

519
00:27:11,840 --> 00:27:15,040
Speaker 2: even though he got booze, because you want to keep

520
00:27:15,080 --> 00:27:18,840
Speaker 2: this job because your visa depends on this job. I

521
00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:21,560
Speaker 2: almost wonder if that's what's going on, is that, you know,

522
00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:26,080
Speaker 2: for a long time, tech workers were really advocating it

523
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:28,160
Speaker 2: from within their companies, and I think that that it's

524
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:33,040
Speaker 2: almost like a show that, oh, the tides have turned.

525
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:34,879
Speaker 2: You all are just grateful to have a job. I

526
00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:36,359
Speaker 2: can get up here and say whatever I want. I

527
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:38,080
Speaker 2: don't have any kind of consequences. I'm not worry about

528
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:40,720
Speaker 2: it at all. But we see how that gamble played off,

529
00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:44,840
Speaker 2: because we're reading about it in a million different news outlets.

530
00:27:44,920 --> 00:27:47,600
Speaker 2: He was audibly booed by his own people, and now

531
00:27:47,600 --> 00:27:50,280
Speaker 2: he's got this open letter from his staff asked me

532
00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:51,800
Speaker 2: him to cut ties with ICE. So I think you

533
00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:54,159
Speaker 2: might have miscalculated on this one.

534
00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:57,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, who knows what he is thinking. I

535
00:27:57,920 --> 00:28:01,640
Speaker 3: read something online a little bit ago that some salesforce

536
00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:04,879
Speaker 3: executives complaining that they had laid off too many people.

537
00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:05,920
Speaker 4: So I think you're right.

538
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:12,280
Speaker 3: They've done a pretty substantial number of layoffs also around AI. Right,

539
00:28:12,280 --> 00:28:14,960
Speaker 3: they had this idea that they would just use AI

540
00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:17,359
Speaker 3: to replace all of these people, And it sounds like

541
00:28:17,640 --> 00:28:20,280
Speaker 3: some of the executives now regret that because they're finding

542
00:28:20,320 --> 00:28:23,240
Speaker 3: out that AI can't replace all of the people. So

543
00:28:23,960 --> 00:28:27,720
Speaker 3: maybe that message hasn't reached the top of the organization yet,

544
00:28:30,160 --> 00:28:32,840
Speaker 3: But I can't imagine comments like that really engender a

545
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:38,040
Speaker 3: lot of goodwill, as evidenced by the flood of.

546
00:28:38,160 --> 00:28:39,920
Speaker 4: Tips to four h four media.

547
00:28:40,120 --> 00:28:44,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, clearly got their tap minds on this one.

548
00:28:46,160 --> 00:29:00,440
Speaker 2: More after a quick break, let's get right back into it.

549
00:29:04,000 --> 00:29:06,920
Speaker 1: Okay, So a little bit of a changing gears.

550
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:09,960
Speaker 2: This is just a really interesting piece out of Verge

551
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:11,960
Speaker 2: by Jordan West Victoria Song. We'll put it in the

552
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:15,200
Speaker 2: show notes obviously, but it really I had it was

553
00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:16,160
Speaker 2: a story that I had.

554
00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:16,800
Speaker 1: Not heard about.

555
00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:21,880
Speaker 2: So there is this VR game for metas VR called Supernatural,

556
00:29:22,120 --> 00:29:25,080
Speaker 2: which kind of sounds like a mix between Peloton and

557
00:29:25,320 --> 00:29:28,920
Speaker 2: Just Dance, where people they wear the VR headsets and

558
00:29:28,960 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 2: they do a group workout class or dance class with

559
00:29:32,160 --> 00:29:34,560
Speaker 2: a human coach who is also in VR. And so

560
00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:38,800
Speaker 2: what's interesting about this game Supernatural is that where most

561
00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:41,920
Speaker 2: of the VR space is like young men eighteen to

562
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:45,640
Speaker 2: thirty four year old men, Supernatural was really popular with women,

563
00:29:46,160 --> 00:29:49,960
Speaker 2: people over fifty, and people with mobility challenges. These folks

564
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:55,120
Speaker 2: reported finding what sounds like genuine community on Supernatural if

565
00:29:55,160 --> 00:29:59,360
Speaker 2: folks read the piece they describe. You know, when one

566
00:29:59,360 --> 00:30:03,200
Speaker 2: of the coaches, when their partner died, everybody rallied around

567
00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:05,719
Speaker 2: this coach. People talk about how, you know, they just

568
00:30:05,760 --> 00:30:09,640
Speaker 2: got grouped virtually with strangers in these workout classes, and

569
00:30:09,640 --> 00:30:12,800
Speaker 2: then those strangers they would become close friends and basically

570
00:30:12,840 --> 00:30:14,520
Speaker 2: family despite.

571
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:15,080
Speaker 1: Never having met.

572
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:19,080
Speaker 2: A pretty sweet, heartwarming story about the way that technology

573
00:30:19,160 --> 00:30:20,640
Speaker 2: can build community, right.

574
00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 4: It is a sweet story.

575
00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:24,840
Speaker 3: And you know, when I was reviewing these notes ahead

576
00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:26,400
Speaker 3: of the show, I was like, Ah, this is a

577
00:30:26,440 --> 00:30:31,000
Speaker 3: really surprising, nice story about something Meta has done.

578
00:30:31,160 --> 00:30:34,040
Speaker 4: What a pleasant change. Can't wait to read more?

579
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:37,800
Speaker 2: Well meda saying screw those people and shut the program down.

580
00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:41,400
Speaker 2: This is from Burge for a game like Supernatural, shutting

581
00:30:41,400 --> 00:30:44,680
Speaker 2: down content production was a death knell that left Dickinson

582
00:30:44,800 --> 00:30:48,480
Speaker 2: and countless other Supernatural stands blindsided with shock, then grief.

583
00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:51,560
Speaker 2: The Supernatural Facebook page has over one hundred and ten

584
00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:54,640
Speaker 2: thousand members, many of whom have written sprawling odes to

585
00:30:54,680 --> 00:30:57,520
Speaker 2: the game. Over seven thousand incounting have also signed a

586
00:30:57,600 --> 00:31:01,040
Speaker 2: change dot org petition begging Meta and Zuckerberg to rethink

587
00:31:01,080 --> 00:31:03,520
Speaker 2: the decision. They're pissed and they want Meta to know

588
00:31:03,600 --> 00:31:06,840
Speaker 2: two things. Not only has the company royally screwed up,

589
00:31:07,040 --> 00:31:10,520
Speaker 2: but they're not letting Supernatural go without a fight. So

590
00:31:11,120 --> 00:31:13,760
Speaker 2: I loved this article unless you can't tell. And one

591
00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:17,040
Speaker 2: of the reasons why is that the piece includes quotes

592
00:31:17,080 --> 00:31:19,040
Speaker 2: from a bunch of women in their in their forties

593
00:31:19,040 --> 00:31:22,959
Speaker 2: and fifties who are upset about Supernatural being pulled.

594
00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:26,680
Speaker 1: Their emails are amazing. These women are amazing.

595
00:31:26,720 --> 00:31:28,640
Speaker 2: I was going to try to pick a few quotes

596
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:30,520
Speaker 2: to read, but they're all golds, so.

597
00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:31,720
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, I'm just gonna be reading the

598
00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:33,480
Speaker 1: whole article. Here's one.

599
00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:36,360
Speaker 2: My opinion of Meta can be summed up as and

600
00:31:36,400 --> 00:31:39,920
Speaker 2: then it's just a bunch of expletives, just.

601
00:31:39,840 --> 00:31:41,320
Speaker 4: Like a bunch of comic book swearing.

602
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:41,960
Speaker 1: Yeah.

603
00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:45,480
Speaker 2: This is from Regina Lynn, a supernatural athlete in her fifties.

604
00:31:46,720 --> 00:31:49,760
Speaker 2: Athlete is a term that the supernatural community prefers. Lynn

605
00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:51,760
Speaker 2: has been playing for five years, roughly three to four

606
00:31:51,760 --> 00:31:54,800
Speaker 2: times a week. Mark Zuckerberg helped buy a ballroom for

607
00:31:54,840 --> 00:31:58,680
Speaker 2: a fascist. Perhaps it is not surprising that he killed Supernatural,

608
00:31:58,760 --> 00:31:59,440
Speaker 2: She says.

609
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:02,480
Speaker 4: Yeah, she's right, So like that's the thing.

610
00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:06,880
Speaker 2: Every quote is just not only is it spot on

611
00:32:07,120 --> 00:32:10,080
Speaker 2: factually correct, it also has so much like Flare to it.

612
00:32:11,040 --> 00:32:13,280
Speaker 2: So Lynn, that woman that we just heard from is

613
00:32:13,320 --> 00:32:16,880
Speaker 2: not alone. Several Supernatural fans contact at the Verge saying

614
00:32:16,880 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 2: that they have really noticed that connection between Meta's broader

615
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:24,520
Speaker 2: controversies and how the company runs things since buying Within,

616
00:32:24,880 --> 00:32:26,640
Speaker 2: which is the studio that made the game that they

617
00:32:26,720 --> 00:32:30,360
Speaker 2: shut that Meta shut down. Now, before Meta acquired Within,

618
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:33,320
Speaker 2: it was an indie studio that came out of music

619
00:32:33,360 --> 00:32:35,560
Speaker 2: and films and creative work. It was not really a

620
00:32:35,560 --> 00:32:39,920
Speaker 2: tech company. In an interview on the Decoder podcast, Within's

621
00:32:39,960 --> 00:32:42,440
Speaker 2: co founder talked about Supernatural as something that he had

622
00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:45,800
Speaker 2: built to be meaningful to other human beings. He thought

623
00:32:45,800 --> 00:32:48,800
Speaker 2: of it as more as immersive art than a product

624
00:32:48,800 --> 00:32:52,040
Speaker 2: designed to help Meta dominate the VR market. And so

625
00:32:52,760 --> 00:32:55,520
Speaker 2: it really does sound like they had built this thing

626
00:32:56,000 --> 00:32:59,760
Speaker 2: really with community in mind, like genuinely trying to build

627
00:33:00,360 --> 00:33:03,840
Speaker 2: for other people. It got acquired by Meta, and basically

628
00:33:03,880 --> 00:33:08,240
Speaker 2: the philosophy that the founder described is the exact opposite

629
00:33:08,280 --> 00:33:10,680
Speaker 2: of what seems to be philosophy, and that is why

630
00:33:10,680 --> 00:33:13,480
Speaker 2: the fans are taking this change so personally. And the

631
00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:17,400
Speaker 2: sad thing is before Meta got involved. It sounds like

632
00:33:17,400 --> 00:33:22,000
Speaker 2: Supernatural was very successful. This is from Verge. Supernatural was

633
00:33:22,040 --> 00:33:25,160
Speaker 2: widely considered a successful VR app before Meta ever entered

634
00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:27,920
Speaker 2: the picture. In fact, when Meta announced its plan to

635
00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:30,760
Speaker 2: buy it in twenty twenty one, the FTC launched a

636
00:33:30,800 --> 00:33:33,800
Speaker 2: probe to try and block the acquisition, partly because Meta

637
00:33:33,800 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 2: had already acquired Beat Saber, a similar VR game, and

638
00:33:36,920 --> 00:33:40,480
Speaker 2: Supernatural threatened its dominance. It was also reported that Meta

639
00:33:40,520 --> 00:33:42,760
Speaker 2: was keen to snap up the game before Apple, which

640
00:33:42,840 --> 00:33:45,240
Speaker 2: was rumored to be interested in the game. The FTC

641
00:33:45,360 --> 00:33:48,360
Speaker 2: probe ultimately failed. The acquisition was complete in twenty twenty three.

642
00:33:48,640 --> 00:33:50,720
Speaker 2: So it does just seem like Meta didn't have any

643
00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:54,120
Speaker 2: real interest in this community and keeping it running even

644
00:33:54,200 --> 00:33:56,680
Speaker 2: though it was so thriving. What they actually had interest

645
00:33:56,760 --> 00:34:00,400
Speaker 2: in was market share of VR, making sure that Apple

646
00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:02,239
Speaker 2: didn't get it before they were able to get it,

647
00:34:02,480 --> 00:34:06,120
Speaker 2: and just buying it as a way to build up

648
00:34:06,160 --> 00:34:07,800
Speaker 2: their empire in the VR space.

649
00:34:08,320 --> 00:34:12,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that was back, you know, three years ago now,

650
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:16,160
Speaker 3: when the metaverse was still you know, kind of limping

651
00:34:16,160 --> 00:34:17,719
Speaker 3: along and they were pretending like it was going to

652
00:34:17,719 --> 00:34:21,000
Speaker 3: be a thing. It is such a sad example of

653
00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:26,000
Speaker 3: how distorting it can be when companies like Meta with

654
00:34:26,200 --> 00:34:31,120
Speaker 3: so much money are just able to buy things up

655
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:39,200
Speaker 3: without a clear plan for you know, continuing the value

656
00:34:39,239 --> 00:34:41,080
Speaker 3: that people get out of it.

657
00:34:41,080 --> 00:34:43,520
Speaker 4: It's it's just a sad story.

658
00:34:43,560 --> 00:34:46,760
Speaker 2: It's especially sad to me because I, you know, I

659
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:50,000
Speaker 2: really appreciate pockets where people are able to carve out

660
00:34:50,040 --> 00:34:52,600
Speaker 2: digital community for themselves, especially people who are not often

661
00:34:52,640 --> 00:34:56,440
Speaker 2: reflected in technology, right so, like older folks, women, people

662
00:34:56,480 --> 00:34:57,640
Speaker 2: with mobility challenges.

663
00:34:58,040 --> 00:35:00,200
Speaker 1: And I think it's a.

664
00:34:59,520 --> 00:35:01,680
Speaker 2: Indication of exactly what we were talking about when we

665
00:35:01,680 --> 00:35:04,200
Speaker 2: were talking about the vibes around the Super Bowl. I

666
00:35:04,200 --> 00:35:08,560
Speaker 2: think that it's a small example of how society feels

667
00:35:08,600 --> 00:35:11,720
Speaker 2: on a larger level right now. In shitification, you can't

668
00:35:11,719 --> 00:35:14,919
Speaker 2: have anything that is genuinely good for very long until

669
00:35:14,920 --> 00:35:17,719
Speaker 2: that thing is ruined for profit. Here's another quote from

670
00:35:17,880 --> 00:35:20,960
Speaker 2: one of the supernatural athletes quoted in the piece. This

671
00:35:21,120 --> 00:35:23,160
Speaker 2: is just a small mirror of a huge problem in

672
00:35:23,160 --> 00:35:26,120
Speaker 2: our society right now. The blunt way of saying it

673
00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:28,680
Speaker 2: is those with the gold make the rules. This is

674
00:35:28,719 --> 00:35:31,680
Speaker 2: what we're fighting on every single level globally right now.

675
00:35:32,000 --> 00:35:34,520
Speaker 2: We're fighting those with money telling us how our lives

676
00:35:34,560 --> 00:35:37,000
Speaker 2: will be lived what we can access, what we can do,

677
00:35:37,080 --> 00:35:39,399
Speaker 2: and what we can say. Of course, there are far

678
00:35:39,440 --> 00:35:41,600
Speaker 2: bigger things to fight for right now, and I do.

679
00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:43,640
Speaker 2: But if I don't take care of my health, my

680
00:35:43,760 --> 00:35:46,560
Speaker 2: mental health, my physical body, I have nothing to give

681
00:35:46,680 --> 00:35:51,360
Speaker 2: or fight with for the big causes. That really stuck

682
00:35:51,400 --> 00:35:53,800
Speaker 2: with me, and I think it's one of the reasons

683
00:35:53,800 --> 00:35:55,960
Speaker 2: why this piece and this story has been such a

684
00:35:55,960 --> 00:36:00,000
Speaker 2: bug in my brain because it does go to feel

685
00:36:00,040 --> 00:36:04,200
Speaker 2: all connected that on the on the scale of things. Yes,

686
00:36:04,360 --> 00:36:08,200
Speaker 2: losing your favorite physical fitness VR game because Meta bought

687
00:36:08,239 --> 00:36:10,879
Speaker 2: it and ruined it and closed it is a small thing,

688
00:36:11,160 --> 00:36:14,759
Speaker 2: but it does feel like a small mirror to how

689
00:36:14,760 --> 00:36:16,600
Speaker 2: people are feeling right now that like, no, you can't

690
00:36:16,600 --> 00:36:19,279
Speaker 2: have anything good, you don't actually own anything, Like it's

691
00:36:19,320 --> 00:36:21,319
Speaker 2: all hours for the taking to do whatever we want with.

692
00:36:21,400 --> 00:36:22,600
Speaker 1: I think that's the feeling that.

693
00:36:22,560 --> 00:36:26,160
Speaker 2: People are are are rejecting and being told and like

694
00:36:26,440 --> 00:36:28,879
Speaker 2: it being a fitness app where these these folks feel

695
00:36:28,920 --> 00:36:32,560
Speaker 2: like it has given them, it is given given them

696
00:36:32,600 --> 00:36:35,360
Speaker 2: a place to to show up differently in that space

697
00:36:35,680 --> 00:36:36,800
Speaker 2: also feels connected.

698
00:36:36,800 --> 00:36:38,720
Speaker 1: It just I just it just really makes me sad.

699
00:36:39,080 --> 00:36:40,759
Speaker 4: Yes, it is sad.

700
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:44,600
Speaker 3: And it's it's not like they just lost an app, right,

701
00:36:44,640 --> 00:36:48,640
Speaker 3: it sounds like these people really lost community and a

702
00:36:48,719 --> 00:36:50,640
Speaker 3: source of meaning in their life. And like you said,

703
00:36:50,640 --> 00:36:55,879
Speaker 3: a an uh an outlet and opportunity to to work

704
00:36:55,960 --> 00:36:59,560
Speaker 3: under physical health, which is connected to to.

705
00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:02,160
Speaker 4: Mental health as well. Like all of those things are

706
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:02,760
Speaker 4: so valuable.

707
00:37:02,840 --> 00:37:07,920
Speaker 3: And it's there's like this notable asymmetry that when Meta

708
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:11,080
Speaker 3: is selling some new product or feature, it's going to

709
00:37:11,120 --> 00:37:16,680
Speaker 3: revolution our revolutionize our lives and become the most important

710
00:37:16,760 --> 00:37:22,080
Speaker 3: thing that turns society upside down and is just like transformative.

711
00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:24,239
Speaker 3: But then when something is taken away, well it's you know,

712
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:27,320
Speaker 3: it's just just an app, like, you know, get another app.

713
00:37:27,800 --> 00:37:31,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, And Gus you were speaking, I mean, you know this,

714
00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:33,800
Speaker 2: But I love movies.

715
00:37:33,880 --> 00:37:34,960
Speaker 1: I'm obsessed with film.

716
00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 2: And for a while, somebody used Reddit in my neighborhood

717
00:37:39,560 --> 00:37:43,080
Speaker 2: to start an in person movie club, where the idea

718
00:37:43,160 --> 00:37:45,800
Speaker 2: was they'd pick a movie every month, anybody who wanted

719
00:37:45,960 --> 00:37:48,120
Speaker 2: could go watch the movie. Then you would go to

720
00:37:48,160 --> 00:37:50,160
Speaker 2: a bar across the street and then talk about the movie.

721
00:37:50,160 --> 00:37:54,799
Speaker 2: And that was really the extent of it. And I

722
00:37:54,840 --> 00:38:00,399
Speaker 2: came to realize how much I didn't just enjoy this

723
00:38:00,480 --> 00:38:03,640
Speaker 2: as a film goer. The community aspect of it having

724
00:38:03,840 --> 00:38:05,080
Speaker 2: a reason to like it was.

725
00:38:05,160 --> 00:38:06,160
Speaker 1: It was during a bit.

726
00:38:06,000 --> 00:38:08,160
Speaker 2: Of a tough time for me personally where I was

727
00:38:08,200 --> 00:38:12,040
Speaker 2: having a lot of trouble socially and feeling quite isolated,

728
00:38:12,320 --> 00:38:14,920
Speaker 2: and having this low level thing that got me out

729
00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:18,400
Speaker 2: of my apartment, got me around other people, got me talking,

730
00:38:18,440 --> 00:38:20,960
Speaker 2: but in this kind of safe feeling way of like, oh,

731
00:38:20,960 --> 00:38:22,560
Speaker 2: you're talking about a movie that you just saw, so

732
00:38:22,719 --> 00:38:23,560
Speaker 2: you don't have to go deep.

733
00:38:23,600 --> 00:38:25,120
Speaker 1: You can just talk about the movie.

734
00:38:25,680 --> 00:38:30,920
Speaker 2: Then, when all of the stuff happened around ice and immigration,

735
00:38:31,480 --> 00:38:36,080
Speaker 2: the person who was running that community unfortunately, uh what

736
00:38:36,280 --> 00:38:38,800
Speaker 2: that was. They were impacted by that, so they chose

737
00:38:38,840 --> 00:38:42,319
Speaker 2: to leave the United States and that community shut down.

738
00:38:42,760 --> 00:38:44,800
Speaker 1: And I took it, like I cried.

739
00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:47,480
Speaker 2: It took it very hard, and I think I had

740
00:38:47,520 --> 00:38:50,520
Speaker 2: not realized exactly what you said. These we don't You

741
00:38:50,600 --> 00:38:53,279
Speaker 2: really don't get a lot of places where you genuinely

742
00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:56,360
Speaker 2: feel like this is my community, these are my people.

743
00:38:56,880 --> 00:38:58,719
Speaker 2: I can show up it is, I can show up

744
00:38:58,719 --> 00:39:00,520
Speaker 2: where I'm at. It is it is low lift to

745
00:39:00,560 --> 00:39:03,840
Speaker 2: show up the barrier, like there are less barriers. That

746
00:39:03,880 --> 00:39:07,400
Speaker 2: feels good when that is taken away. It's so tempting

747
00:39:07,440 --> 00:39:08,920
Speaker 2: to be like, why am I so upset? It's just

748
00:39:08,960 --> 00:39:11,200
Speaker 2: a video game, It's just a movie club, Da da dah.

749
00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:12,160
Speaker 1: But that is real.

750
00:39:12,200 --> 00:39:16,520
Speaker 2: Those are real things, and the way that people are responding,

751
00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:19,760
Speaker 2: I think really shows that. And yeh, I just really

752
00:39:20,600 --> 00:39:25,440
Speaker 2: appreciate what these folks are going through and what the

753
00:39:25,520 --> 00:39:28,120
Speaker 2: loss that it actually does constitute for their life, because

754
00:39:28,120 --> 00:39:31,640
Speaker 2: that is meaningful. This is from the article. It's not

755
00:39:31,719 --> 00:39:35,279
Speaker 2: just about making friends. Marginalized users say Supernatural let them

756
00:39:35,280 --> 00:39:39,280
Speaker 2: exercise without judgment. Inside the headset. They could lunch, squat,

757
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:42,120
Speaker 2: and swipe at targets just like anyone else. They didn't

758
00:39:42,120 --> 00:39:43,839
Speaker 2: have to worry about being looked down on for not

759
00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:46,960
Speaker 2: having six pack abs, being older, working out in a wheelchair,

760
00:39:47,200 --> 00:39:49,759
Speaker 2: or having limited range of movement. The feeling is that

761
00:39:49,800 --> 00:39:52,239
Speaker 2: if you have something that truly makes people feel seen

762
00:39:52,520 --> 00:39:54,880
Speaker 2: and allowing people to build community, selling it to a

763
00:39:54,880 --> 00:39:57,319
Speaker 2: company like Meta will just end up killing it. Other

764
00:39:57,360 --> 00:40:00,319
Speaker 2: app developers should take note of how capriciously Metapha or

765
00:40:00,360 --> 00:40:03,479
Speaker 2: and then ditched Supernatural. If you make something you love,

766
00:40:03,880 --> 00:40:05,440
Speaker 2: you might make a pile of money so they get

767
00:40:05,480 --> 00:40:07,759
Speaker 2: to Meta, but they're likely to mismanage and kill it.

768
00:40:07,840 --> 00:40:10,440
Speaker 1: This is from an early adopter of Supernatural.

769
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:13,040
Speaker 3: Yes, And you know, one of the things you mentioned

770
00:40:13,200 --> 00:40:16,840
Speaker 3: in there is how rare it can feel to find

771
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:22,279
Speaker 3: these little pockets of community and generally good vibes on

772
00:40:22,560 --> 00:40:26,239
Speaker 3: the Internet. And I think this story neatly illustrates a

773
00:40:26,280 --> 00:40:29,239
Speaker 3: theme that we mentioned on this show often, which is

774
00:40:30,120 --> 00:40:33,040
Speaker 3: the state of our Internet is not the result of

775
00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:34,360
Speaker 3: forces of nature.

776
00:40:34,520 --> 00:40:34,640
Speaker 1: Right.

777
00:40:34,680 --> 00:40:37,640
Speaker 3: There's not like some natural order that dictates that our

778
00:40:37,680 --> 00:40:40,080
Speaker 3: Internet needs to feel as bad as it often does.

779
00:40:41,080 --> 00:40:45,319
Speaker 3: These are choices that people, many of them men, most

780
00:40:45,320 --> 00:40:48,640
Speaker 3: of them men, but like humans are making business choices

781
00:40:48,680 --> 00:40:55,359
Speaker 3: that humans are making to buy those pieces of good

782
00:40:55,400 --> 00:41:00,920
Speaker 3: places on the Internet and then integrate them into this

783
00:41:01,160 --> 00:41:09,640
Speaker 3: profit machine that just obliterates the community spirit for the

784
00:41:09,680 --> 00:41:13,439
Speaker 3: purpose of feeding their shareholders.

785
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:15,839
Speaker 2: And it's one of the drawbacks of what happens when

786
00:41:15,880 --> 00:41:18,120
Speaker 2: these companies get so big and powerful that they can

787
00:41:18,160 --> 00:41:21,040
Speaker 2: just do that and think nothing of it. Here's a

788
00:41:21,120 --> 00:41:25,400
Speaker 2: quote from another Supernatural athlete. I despise Meta along with

789
00:41:25,440 --> 00:41:28,240
Speaker 2: the oligarchs, the top one percent that continue to destroy

790
00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:31,320
Speaker 2: our world and kill anything that brings joy and beauty

791
00:41:31,360 --> 00:41:34,520
Speaker 2: of human experience and connection because their only goal is

792
00:41:34,600 --> 00:41:36,800
Speaker 2: to make a profit. This person says that she finds

793
00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:40,160
Speaker 2: it overwhelming to convey just how much Supernatural's community has

794
00:41:40,200 --> 00:41:45,320
Speaker 2: impacted her, And yeah, I think it's exactly what you're saying,

795
00:41:45,520 --> 00:41:51,000
Speaker 2: that these companies, it's not happens dance.

796
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:52,040
Speaker 1: I think it is.

797
00:41:52,239 --> 00:41:56,560
Speaker 2: Part of the strategy is to obliterate the things that

798
00:41:56,600 --> 00:41:58,719
Speaker 2: feed the little pockets that people are able to carve

799
00:41:58,719 --> 00:42:00,160
Speaker 2: out that make them feel good.

800
00:42:00,719 --> 00:42:02,319
Speaker 1: One silver lining.

801
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:04,160
Speaker 2: Is that there is one Supernatural fan who was trying

802
00:42:04,200 --> 00:42:06,680
Speaker 2: to build his own version for the Apple Vision pro

803
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:10,359
Speaker 2: when asked why he is building something for Apples VR

804
00:42:10,400 --> 00:42:13,600
Speaker 2: headset and not quest which is metas they said, quote

805
00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:16,280
Speaker 2: shutting down one of the only Meta services that actually

806
00:42:16,320 --> 00:42:19,080
Speaker 2: made me feel healthier was kind of my last straw.

807
00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:23,040
Speaker 2: So I think that is probably the most hopeful part

808
00:42:23,040 --> 00:42:25,960
Speaker 2: of the story for me, that when Meta kills something

809
00:42:26,000 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 2: that people love, those people don't just give up. They

810
00:42:28,719 --> 00:42:32,640
Speaker 2: do mourn and grieve, but then they find other platforms,

811
00:42:32,680 --> 00:42:36,239
Speaker 2: they build their own version, they advocate, they refuse to

812
00:42:36,320 --> 00:42:38,680
Speaker 2: let go of that community that they built, and like

813
00:42:38,920 --> 00:42:41,120
Speaker 2: Meta might have the money and the power to shut

814
00:42:41,200 --> 00:42:44,760
Speaker 2: down Supernatural, but they cannot kill what these people created together.

815
00:42:44,840 --> 00:42:46,000
Speaker 1: That is community that.

816
00:42:45,920 --> 00:42:49,680
Speaker 2: Will outlast Mark Zuckerberg, that will outlast all of these platforms.

817
00:42:49,800 --> 00:42:51,759
Speaker 2: And I think that is the real lesson here. That

818
00:42:51,920 --> 00:42:54,920
Speaker 2: big tech can and does destroy a lot of things,

819
00:42:54,920 --> 00:42:57,759
Speaker 2: but community is a lot harder to kill than you think,

820
00:42:57,880 --> 00:43:00,799
Speaker 2: especially when you've got like women in their sixties who

821
00:43:00,840 --> 00:43:03,160
Speaker 2: know how to write a great quote reaching out to

822
00:43:03,239 --> 00:43:04,880
Speaker 2: reporters like good luck.

823
00:43:05,239 --> 00:43:08,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I suspect a lot of these women

824
00:43:08,040 --> 00:43:11,440
Speaker 3: are gonna be fine and find find something better, and

825
00:43:11,480 --> 00:43:13,560
Speaker 3: it sucks that they have to go through this, And

826
00:43:13,600 --> 00:43:17,839
Speaker 3: it's like really depressing that it often feels like everything

827
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:21,719
Speaker 3: good is only temporary because it's just a matter of

828
00:43:21,760 --> 00:43:26,680
Speaker 3: time before meta buys it and kills it. Basically, I

829
00:43:26,719 --> 00:43:29,640
Speaker 3: guess maybe that's like if we're gonna look for a

830
00:43:29,680 --> 00:43:33,160
Speaker 3: silver lining sort of the bright side of and shitification,

831
00:43:33,360 --> 00:43:41,799
Speaker 3: that it forces us to constantly find new things, rediscover, rebuild,

832
00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:45,439
Speaker 3: because you're right, people want community. They want to feel

833
00:43:45,440 --> 00:43:50,440
Speaker 3: connected to each other and have the capacity to provide

834
00:43:50,480 --> 00:43:54,960
Speaker 3: it to each other, right, and meda can't kill that.

835
00:43:54,960 --> 00:43:56,000
Speaker 1: That's kind of beautiful.

836
00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:19,720
Speaker 2: More, after a quick break, let's get right back into it. Okay,

837
00:44:19,760 --> 00:44:22,799
Speaker 2: So a little bit of a switch of gears Have

838
00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:26,680
Speaker 2: you ever been scrolling social media or Reddit or TikTok

839
00:44:27,080 --> 00:44:32,320
Speaker 2: and seen police bodycam footage or maybe it's on YouTube,

840
00:44:32,360 --> 00:44:35,120
Speaker 2: of a young woman being arrested.

841
00:44:35,160 --> 00:44:36,520
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen content like that?

842
00:44:38,040 --> 00:44:40,359
Speaker 4: I definitely have so me too.

843
00:44:40,680 --> 00:44:43,640
Speaker 2: I've seen so many videos like this on the internet,

844
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:47,200
Speaker 2: but it really never occurred to me why that is

845
00:44:47,320 --> 00:44:49,960
Speaker 2: or where they're coming from the reason why we're seeing

846
00:44:50,000 --> 00:44:52,759
Speaker 2: so much of them is because it is an industry

847
00:44:52,880 --> 00:44:58,280
Speaker 2: online of obtaining police bodycam footage of arrest, specifically arrests

848
00:44:58,280 --> 00:45:01,600
Speaker 2: of young women, and then putting those videos on YouTube

849
00:45:01,640 --> 00:45:05,359
Speaker 2: for profit. This was all revealed in a fascinating deep

850
00:45:05,400 --> 00:45:07,920
Speaker 2: dive into all of this in New York mag The

851
00:45:08,000 --> 00:45:11,120
Speaker 2: piece speaks to this woman who used to have a

852
00:45:11,160 --> 00:45:13,680
Speaker 2: drinking problem. She got a duib when she was younger.

853
00:45:14,480 --> 00:45:16,800
Speaker 2: You know, there was police bodycam footage of the arrest.

854
00:45:17,000 --> 00:45:21,480
Speaker 2: She has since gotten sober, gotten into AA, changed her life.

855
00:45:21,480 --> 00:45:22,479
Speaker 1: She's become a.

856
00:45:22,400 --> 00:45:26,719
Speaker 2: Teacher, and this video of her arrest from years ago

857
00:45:26,960 --> 00:45:30,960
Speaker 2: is still on social media's on YouTube, and she basically

858
00:45:31,040 --> 00:45:32,880
Speaker 2: lives in fear that.

859
00:45:32,760 --> 00:45:34,920
Speaker 1: This video will go viral.

860
00:45:35,280 --> 00:45:38,279
Speaker 2: It doesn't have that many views yet her, as far

861
00:45:38,320 --> 00:45:40,200
Speaker 2: as she knows, her family has not seen it, and

862
00:45:40,280 --> 00:45:42,200
Speaker 2: her work, which is a school, has not seen it.

863
00:45:42,480 --> 00:45:45,440
Speaker 1: But she basically kind of lives in fear that this

864
00:45:45,600 --> 00:45:46,600
Speaker 1: video of her.

865
00:45:46,560 --> 00:45:50,359
Speaker 2: Worst moment is going to come back to haunt her

866
00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:53,920
Speaker 2: because somebody has put it on YouTube for their own profit,

867
00:45:54,000 --> 00:45:57,800
Speaker 2: and so this apparently is a thing. The article reads,

868
00:45:58,160 --> 00:46:01,399
Speaker 2: The unlucky ones have been watched, mocked millions of time.

869
00:46:01,640 --> 00:46:04,760
Speaker 2: They have been oggled, insulted, and abused. They are mostly women,

870
00:46:04,920 --> 00:46:07,239
Speaker 2: mostly between the ages of eighteen and twenty five, and

871
00:46:07,360 --> 00:46:11,560
Speaker 2: mostly powerless to stop their online humiliations. So far, YouTube

872
00:46:11,600 --> 00:46:15,000
Speaker 2: channels featuring such videos have generated over a billion views

873
00:46:15,040 --> 00:46:18,239
Speaker 2: and counting. When you go to videos like this, like

874
00:46:18,320 --> 00:46:20,279
Speaker 2: I encounter with them on social media all the time

875
00:46:20,280 --> 00:46:23,480
Speaker 2: and never really thought about them. The comments are always

876
00:46:23,960 --> 00:46:30,200
Speaker 2: what a brand like, they're they're almost kind of sexualized,

877
00:46:31,000 --> 00:46:33,640
Speaker 2: not in the way where people are saying that they

878
00:46:33,680 --> 00:46:37,160
Speaker 2: want to have sex with these women, but it's just

879
00:46:38,400 --> 00:46:43,759
Speaker 2: comments humiliating women. That's I mean, I as the way

880
00:46:43,760 --> 00:46:45,160
Speaker 2: I can describe it. Like, go pull up one of

881
00:46:45,160 --> 00:46:47,000
Speaker 2: these videos and look at the comments, and it's clear

882
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:53,440
Speaker 2: that people are really enjoying oggling and humiliating these women

883
00:46:53,640 --> 00:46:56,920
Speaker 2: in the comments and I think it's a gross example

884
00:46:57,120 --> 00:46:58,719
Speaker 2: of something that we talk about on the show a

885
00:46:58,719 --> 00:47:02,560
Speaker 2: ton which is howsogyny and the chance for people to

886
00:47:02,719 --> 00:47:08,800
Speaker 2: leave comments humiliating women across the internet. Admittedly women behaving badly,

887
00:47:08,840 --> 00:47:10,040
Speaker 2: you know, do you wise, we're not a good thing

888
00:47:10,120 --> 00:47:13,759
Speaker 2: to get. But that will always find a market. There

889
00:47:13,760 --> 00:47:15,640
Speaker 2: will always be a marketplace for that online. There will

890
00:47:15,640 --> 00:47:18,040
Speaker 2: always be an audience for that online. And I think,

891
00:47:18,480 --> 00:47:21,480
Speaker 2: you know, we really have to contend with what that

892
00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:26,520
Speaker 2: means for society. So the reason why this is possible

893
00:47:26,560 --> 00:47:29,520
Speaker 2: at all is because of the widespread adoption of body

894
00:47:29,560 --> 00:47:32,480
Speaker 2: cameras by police departments across the country.

895
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:34,440
Speaker 1: The piece reads.

896
00:47:34,840 --> 00:47:37,720
Speaker 2: Footage from cameras is only useful if it's made available

897
00:47:37,719 --> 00:47:41,440
Speaker 2: to the public and the press. Transparency is contingent on access.

898
00:47:41,840 --> 00:47:45,200
Speaker 2: In turn, states have scrambled to regulate the release of recordings.

899
00:47:45,920 --> 00:47:49,400
Speaker 2: The most lenient turnover almost everything, redacting only footage of

900
00:47:49,440 --> 00:47:53,800
Speaker 2: minors and particularly sensitive scenes. Stricter jurisdictions require the consent

901
00:47:53,920 --> 00:47:56,719
Speaker 2: of those filmed. That states like Wyoming or treat all

902
00:47:56,840 --> 00:48:00,800
Speaker 2: recordings as closed investigations that states like Kansas, Blue states

903
00:48:00,840 --> 00:48:03,560
Speaker 2: are more likely than red states to mandate cameras and

904
00:48:03,680 --> 00:48:06,680
Speaker 2: far more likely to make the recordings public. It is

905
00:48:06,719 --> 00:48:11,920
Speaker 2: a complex issue because ultimately, you do I am a

906
00:48:11,960 --> 00:48:15,279
Speaker 2: transparency advocate, and I do advocate for transparency, and I

907
00:48:15,320 --> 00:48:19,239
Speaker 2: get what they're saying that bodycam footage is only going

908
00:48:19,280 --> 00:48:21,840
Speaker 2: to be useful if that footage is also transparent and

909
00:48:21,880 --> 00:48:23,360
Speaker 2: gets to the public and gets to the press, and

910
00:48:23,360 --> 00:48:27,680
Speaker 2: gets to all of us. However, when the footage is

911
00:48:27,880 --> 00:48:29,920
Speaker 2: used in these ways that it was not intended to

912
00:48:29,960 --> 00:48:32,799
Speaker 2: be used, that's obviously a problem, and so we have

913
00:48:32,840 --> 00:48:37,360
Speaker 2: to figure out how to combat that without limiting the

914
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:41,400
Speaker 2: transparency that I think that we need in law enforcement.

915
00:48:41,640 --> 00:48:43,759
Speaker 2: Big caveat that, I have a lot of problems with

916
00:48:43,880 --> 00:48:48,040
Speaker 2: the mindset that says that body cameras actually make us

917
00:48:48,239 --> 00:48:50,879
Speaker 2: safer or like make police better at their jobs. There's

918
00:48:50,880 --> 00:48:53,040
Speaker 2: a whole that's a whole other conversation. I don't want

919
00:48:53,040 --> 00:48:57,640
Speaker 2: anybody to think that I'm just uncritically pushing that as Oh,

920
00:48:57,280 --> 00:49:00,880
Speaker 2: the big solution to police violence is bodycams, because I

921
00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:03,520
Speaker 2: am not. It's very complicated, but I just I say

922
00:49:03,560 --> 00:49:05,800
Speaker 2: that to say that it is a complex layered problem.

923
00:49:06,400 --> 00:49:07,520
Speaker 4: It really is.

924
00:49:07,719 --> 00:49:09,879
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm glad you brought up because I've been thinking

925
00:49:09,880 --> 00:49:13,960
Speaker 3: about this a lot too, you know, with with ice

926
00:49:14,840 --> 00:49:16,640
Speaker 3: in Minnesota and all over the country, you know, there's

927
00:49:16,680 --> 00:49:20,040
Speaker 3: a big push to get all of them wearing body cams.

928
00:49:20,200 --> 00:49:23,360
Speaker 3: And then some people started to say, like, hold on,

929
00:49:23,400 --> 00:49:26,880
Speaker 3: hold on, lifts thinks this through. Is that actually going

930
00:49:26,920 --> 00:49:30,920
Speaker 3: to make people safer or is it just gonna create

931
00:49:31,040 --> 00:49:34,839
Speaker 3: a new vector for surveillance, just like we were talking

932
00:49:34,840 --> 00:49:39,239
Speaker 3: about with ring cams. And Yeah, it does seem like

933
00:49:39,560 --> 00:49:44,000
Speaker 3: a complicated issue that we really need to think through.

934
00:49:44,640 --> 00:49:48,279
Speaker 3: It was really interesting to learn that Wyoming actually has

935
00:49:49,760 --> 00:49:54,719
Speaker 3: protections requiring people's consent for their bodycam footage to be released.

936
00:49:54,960 --> 00:49:56,759
Speaker 4: And for one, I.

937
00:49:57,120 --> 00:49:59,200
Speaker 3: Guess I don't know much about Wyoming, but I know

938
00:49:59,280 --> 00:50:05,720
Speaker 3: it's like pretty right wing, I think, so it surprised

939
00:50:05,719 --> 00:50:07,600
Speaker 3: me they would have those protections. And also the protection

940
00:50:07,719 --> 00:50:11,680
Speaker 3: they have of requiring people's consent seems like a maybe

941
00:50:11,680 --> 00:50:15,200
Speaker 3: a good place to start looking for solutions of how

942
00:50:15,640 --> 00:50:18,800
Speaker 3: to balance this sort of thing. I don't know, I'm

943
00:50:18,800 --> 00:50:21,080
Speaker 3: not an expert in it. I'd love to hear from

944
00:50:21,120 --> 00:50:26,319
Speaker 3: others about how to tackle this problem, but you know,

945
00:50:26,920 --> 00:50:29,560
Speaker 3: starting with consent seems like a decent place to start.

946
00:50:29,840 --> 00:50:32,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, that really gets at the complexities of this issue

947
00:50:32,800 --> 00:50:35,480
Speaker 2: very well. The piece really makes it clear that we

948
00:50:35,640 --> 00:50:39,720
Speaker 2: it's kind of been an evolution where the thinking around

949
00:50:39,800 --> 00:50:43,320
Speaker 2: transparency and automatically making this footage released to the public

950
00:50:43,400 --> 00:50:46,719
Speaker 2: or available to the public. It was perhaps grounded in

951
00:50:46,880 --> 00:50:50,920
Speaker 2: good intentions around transparency, but we did not foresee some

952
00:50:51,040 --> 00:50:54,200
Speaker 2: of the other outcomes, like creating this marketplace to create

953
00:50:54,239 --> 00:50:57,719
Speaker 2: these these YouTube channels, so the piece reads. For the

954
00:50:57,800 --> 00:51:00,640
Speaker 2: first few years of camera use, footage requests generally came

955
00:51:00,640 --> 00:51:04,640
Speaker 2: from defendants, attorneys and journalists. Lawyers wanted evidence, reporters wanted

956
00:51:04,680 --> 00:51:07,000
Speaker 2: to see what happened. But soon a different genre of

957
00:51:07,040 --> 00:51:10,680
Speaker 2: requests began to trickle in. YouTubers and TikTokers with viral

958
00:51:10,719 --> 00:51:13,560
Speaker 2: policing accounts started to request footage for their channels. They

959
00:51:13,600 --> 00:51:18,520
Speaker 2: wanted lively, contentious arrests do UIs, underage drinking crimes committed

960
00:51:18,520 --> 00:51:21,560
Speaker 2: on nights out. They wanted college towns girls dressed for

961
00:51:21,600 --> 00:51:23,960
Speaker 2: clubbing thumbnails sure to win a click.

962
00:51:24,600 --> 00:51:26,239
Speaker 1: There are now more than one hundred.

963
00:51:26,000 --> 00:51:29,000
Speaker 2: And fifty YouTube channels devoted to the unredacted arrests of

964
00:51:29,040 --> 00:51:32,680
Speaker 2: everyday people. The most popular uploads are the most salacious

965
00:51:32,680 --> 00:51:36,880
Speaker 2: and humiliating. They have titles like when suspects try to

966
00:51:37,040 --> 00:51:40,760
Speaker 2: flirt with Cops that has almost eight million views, Hooter's

967
00:51:40,800 --> 00:51:43,759
Speaker 2: waitress tells cop I can take it all off. That

968
00:51:44,160 --> 00:51:48,560
Speaker 2: claims two point four million views, bodycam colon exotic dancer

969
00:51:48,640 --> 00:51:52,400
Speaker 2: tries to seduce cop, throws drunk tantrum and peace herself

970
00:51:52,440 --> 00:51:55,200
Speaker 2: in squad car that has three point four million views.

971
00:51:55,760 --> 00:51:58,200
Speaker 2: When I said that it's sexual, I'm not really sure

972
00:51:58,280 --> 00:52:01,120
Speaker 2: how to I'll just say what I think. They have

973
00:52:01,480 --> 00:52:04,880
Speaker 2: porn titles, you know how porn titles.

974
00:52:04,400 --> 00:52:08,480
Speaker 1: Will be things like I don't know, you know, like.

975
00:52:09,960 --> 00:52:13,600
Speaker 2: Redheaded brand destroyed by Dead, Like there's there is a

976
00:52:13,840 --> 00:52:18,239
Speaker 2: there is a cadence to porn labeling that I have

977
00:52:18,320 --> 00:52:21,239
Speaker 2: seen more and more on YouTube, and I think I

978
00:52:21,280 --> 00:52:23,160
Speaker 2: really see that in these titles.

979
00:52:23,800 --> 00:52:25,799
Speaker 1: What was what I'm saying makes sense? I don't. I

980
00:52:25,800 --> 00:52:29,560
Speaker 1: don't know. I just the whole thing feels like porn

981
00:52:29,600 --> 00:52:30,920
Speaker 1: without the nudity to me.

982
00:52:31,560 --> 00:52:34,359
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean obviously that's what this is. Like I

983
00:52:34,400 --> 00:52:36,040
Speaker 3: it took me a minute to figure out that's what

984
00:52:36,080 --> 00:52:40,840
Speaker 3: you're talking about, because yeah, obviously this is like sexualized.

985
00:52:41,239 --> 00:52:44,080
Speaker 3: You know, there's if it was just dunking on people

986
00:52:44,120 --> 00:52:46,840
Speaker 3: doing stupid things in front of cops. You'd see a

987
00:52:46,880 --> 00:52:49,000
Speaker 3: lot of men in there, right, it would be like

988
00:52:50,080 --> 00:52:51,240
Speaker 3: an episode of cops.

989
00:52:51,239 --> 00:52:52,719
Speaker 4: But that's not what this is.

990
00:52:53,120 --> 00:52:57,959
Speaker 3: This is it's like exclusively women, and not just women,

991
00:52:58,000 --> 00:53:04,320
Speaker 3: but like young women. Yeah, it's it one hundred percent

992
00:53:04,400 --> 00:53:10,279
Speaker 3: feels like one or two steps removed from from a

993
00:53:10,320 --> 00:53:11,320
Speaker 3: photography video.

994
00:53:11,719 --> 00:53:14,080
Speaker 2: Yes, So they actually talk to one of the men

995
00:53:14,120 --> 00:53:16,560
Speaker 2: who runs one of these channels for YouTube. They speak

996
00:53:16,560 --> 00:53:18,480
Speaker 2: to he wants to be kept anonymous, which is like

997
00:53:18,480 --> 00:53:21,920
Speaker 2: pretty ironic considering the nature of the videos that he publishes.

998
00:53:22,640 --> 00:53:25,440
Speaker 2: But he says initially, oh, well, what I'm doing is

999
00:53:25,480 --> 00:53:29,040
Speaker 2: a public public service to discourage a legal behavior, saying

1000
00:53:29,040 --> 00:53:32,680
Speaker 2: that he wants to quote illustrate the consequences of drunk driving,

1001
00:53:32,680 --> 00:53:35,839
Speaker 2: shoplifting and other relicted activities, and so like he wants

1002
00:53:35,880 --> 00:53:37,120
Speaker 2: to educate people.

1003
00:53:37,040 --> 00:53:39,360
Speaker 1: By deterring them from engaging in that kind of behavior.

1004
00:53:39,680 --> 00:53:42,799
Speaker 2: But then when the interviewer asks, Okay, well, if you

1005
00:53:42,840 --> 00:53:46,400
Speaker 2: want to dissuade people from driving drunk, how come you

1006
00:53:46,600 --> 00:53:50,759
Speaker 2: only upload videos of women when men are much more

1007
00:53:50,960 --> 00:53:53,719
Speaker 2: likely to face arrests for drunk driving. I think men

1008
00:53:53,800 --> 00:53:56,719
Speaker 2: are eighty percent of DUIs are committed by men. So

1009
00:53:56,800 --> 00:53:58,719
Speaker 2: then he's like, okay, well, I'm just giving up people

1010
00:53:58,760 --> 00:54:01,359
Speaker 2: what they want. I cannot control what people like, he said,

1011
00:54:01,719 --> 00:54:04,560
Speaker 2: I cannot control what others watch or what the algorithm

1012
00:54:04,640 --> 00:54:05,880
Speaker 2: ultimately chooses to promote.

1013
00:54:06,800 --> 00:54:08,600
Speaker 1: So it's exactly that.

1014
00:54:08,640 --> 00:54:10,920
Speaker 2: Like he tries to be like, oh, it's a public service,

1015
00:54:10,960 --> 00:54:12,600
Speaker 2: it's about crime to turn. And then it's like, okay,

1016
00:54:12,600 --> 00:54:14,080
Speaker 2: well then why is it all women when men are

1017
00:54:14,080 --> 00:54:17,279
Speaker 2: committing more to UIs, well, you know what it is,

1018
00:54:17,840 --> 00:54:18,160
Speaker 2: you know.

1019
00:54:18,600 --> 00:54:20,759
Speaker 3: You know what it is. Yeah, they've given them what

1020
00:54:20,800 --> 00:54:24,200
Speaker 3: they want. That crime de turn argument also is like

1021
00:54:25,640 --> 00:54:31,719
Speaker 3: just so just such a facade and if we even

1022
00:54:31,760 --> 00:54:33,680
Speaker 3: if we were to take it on its face, it's

1023
00:54:33,800 --> 00:54:38,840
Speaker 3: so cruel to use this the you know, these unfortunate

1024
00:54:38,840 --> 00:54:43,120
Speaker 3: things that are happening to very young women, Like it

1025
00:54:43,160 --> 00:54:45,720
Speaker 3: sounds like a lot of them, teenagers in their early twenties,

1026
00:54:46,160 --> 00:54:49,240
Speaker 3: having what might be the worst moment of their life,

1027
00:54:49,600 --> 00:54:51,960
Speaker 3: right Like I had. I have an uncle who was

1028
00:54:52,000 --> 00:54:54,719
Speaker 3: a state trooper for many years, and one of the

1029
00:54:54,760 --> 00:54:56,279
Speaker 3: things he said to me was I always think about

1030
00:54:56,320 --> 00:54:59,759
Speaker 3: He's like everyone you meet, they're having one of the

1031
00:54:59,760 --> 00:55:02,960
Speaker 3: worst days of their life. And I thought that was

1032
00:55:03,000 --> 00:55:06,440
Speaker 3: pretty thoughtful. And I try to keep that in mind.

1033
00:55:06,800 --> 00:55:12,600
Speaker 3: When you know, I see some video of somebody getting

1034
00:55:12,680 --> 00:55:18,040
Speaker 3: arrested acting ridiculous, it's like, well, maybe we could give

1035
00:55:18,080 --> 00:55:20,240
Speaker 3: them a little bit of a break. Just because they're

1036
00:55:20,880 --> 00:55:23,120
Speaker 3: doing this one bad thing right now doesn't mean that

1037
00:55:23,160 --> 00:55:27,200
Speaker 3: they're like a bad person who should have this humiliating

1038
00:55:27,320 --> 00:55:30,560
Speaker 3: video followed them around for the rest of their life, Like,

1039
00:55:31,360 --> 00:55:32,640
Speaker 3: that's not the world we want to live in.

1040
00:55:33,440 --> 00:55:35,360
Speaker 1: Yes, I A lot.

1041
00:55:35,200 --> 00:55:38,320
Speaker 2: Of the comments in his videos will say like, oh, well,

1042
00:55:39,680 --> 00:55:42,080
Speaker 2: you know, who cares If we're making fun of this

1043
00:55:42,160 --> 00:55:45,279
Speaker 2: woman who drove drunk, she could have killed somebody. And

1044
00:55:45,680 --> 00:55:47,719
Speaker 2: the woman that I was talking about earlier who got

1045
00:55:47,719 --> 00:55:50,720
Speaker 2: a d UI before getting sober, getting her life together

1046
00:55:50,840 --> 00:55:54,240
Speaker 2: and essentially turning her life around. She basically the point

1047
00:55:54,280 --> 00:55:57,799
Speaker 2: that people are meant to be dissuaded or educated from

1048
00:55:57,840 --> 00:56:01,399
Speaker 2: behavior like drunk driving by these videos that people are

1049
00:56:01,440 --> 00:56:04,200
Speaker 2: making money by uploading. She does not agree that is

1050
00:56:04,239 --> 00:56:06,000
Speaker 2: what's going on at all. She completely agrees with you.

1051
00:56:06,080 --> 00:56:09,239
Speaker 2: She says public humiliation does not prevent people from doing

1052
00:56:09,280 --> 00:56:11,720
Speaker 2: things I saw the clips of when I was drinking.

1053
00:56:11,960 --> 00:56:14,720
Speaker 2: It did not stop me from getting arrested. The videos

1054
00:56:14,800 --> 00:56:16,439
Speaker 2: used to come up on her TikTok and she would

1055
00:56:16,440 --> 00:56:19,040
Speaker 2: scroll through and stare. Part of the kick of watching

1056
00:56:19,120 --> 00:56:21,360
Speaker 2: videos like that is to feel holier than now and

1057
00:56:21,480 --> 00:56:25,319
Speaker 2: inflateates your ego watching others flounder drunk and confused. Then

1058
00:56:25,360 --> 00:56:29,319
Speaker 2: one day the person in the video is you, And yeah,

1059
00:56:29,320 --> 00:56:32,080
Speaker 2: I think the idea that if these kinds of videos

1060
00:56:32,120 --> 00:56:34,880
Speaker 2: flooding social media kept people from getting to UI's, we

1061
00:56:34,880 --> 00:56:37,200
Speaker 2: wouldn't still have DUI's. We wouldn't still have this kind

1062
00:56:37,239 --> 00:56:39,120
Speaker 2: of crime. It's clearly not working. If that's what people

1063
00:56:39,120 --> 00:56:39,760
Speaker 2: are saying.

1064
00:56:39,800 --> 00:56:43,879
Speaker 3: That's a good point. You've told me about this newspaper

1065
00:56:44,239 --> 00:56:48,160
Speaker 3: from the town where you grew up, right, the Gotcha,

1066
00:56:48,560 --> 00:56:51,720
Speaker 3: The Gotcha. Yeah, they've been publishing that for decades, right.

1067
00:56:51,840 --> 00:56:55,200
Speaker 2: Yes, So I don't know if it's I know that

1068
00:56:55,200 --> 00:56:56,600
Speaker 2: we had it in my town. I don't know if

1069
00:56:56,600 --> 00:56:58,120
Speaker 2: it's like a national thing or if it's in a

1070
00:56:58,120 --> 00:56:59,800
Speaker 2: smattering of states. I think it might probably be in

1071
00:57:00,239 --> 00:57:03,480
Speaker 2: it states that have more lenient transparency laws.

1072
00:57:03,520 --> 00:57:05,520
Speaker 1: But there's a paper in my town called The.

1073
00:57:05,520 --> 00:57:09,280
Speaker 2: Gotcha that it was just pictures of mugshots, and usually

1074
00:57:09,320 --> 00:57:14,839
Speaker 2: it was either hot women or like people who had

1075
00:57:14,880 --> 00:57:17,120
Speaker 2: I mean, it was either hot women or people who

1076
00:57:17,280 --> 00:57:22,120
Speaker 2: had like face tattoos or teeth missing, very very clearly

1077
00:57:22,360 --> 00:57:26,600
Speaker 2: massagynistic and meant to like for people to gawk at

1078
00:57:26,840 --> 00:57:29,960
Speaker 2: lower income people and people essentially having the worst day

1079
00:57:29,960 --> 00:57:32,040
Speaker 2: of their lives. And the thing about the gotcha was

1080
00:57:32,440 --> 00:57:35,120
Speaker 2: it was your mugshot before you ever even had your

1081
00:57:35,200 --> 00:57:38,480
Speaker 2: day in court. So someone could have been legitimately mistakenly

1082
00:57:38,560 --> 00:57:43,320
Speaker 2: arrested or like exonerated or you know, charges dismissed, you

1083
00:57:43,640 --> 00:57:46,800
Speaker 2: are still holding a picture of their mugshot in the gotcha.

1084
00:57:46,880 --> 00:57:50,280
Speaker 3: It's an unsettling fact of human nature, how much we

1085
00:57:50,520 --> 00:57:53,800
Speaker 3: love to gawk at the misfortune of others.

1086
00:57:54,120 --> 00:57:56,360
Speaker 2: I was really surprised to find out how easy it

1087
00:57:56,400 --> 00:57:58,760
Speaker 2: is to obtain these arrest videos. So New York mag

1088
00:57:58,840 --> 00:58:01,760
Speaker 2: spoke to Andrew Kajianio, who is the president of the

1089
00:58:01,760 --> 00:58:04,440
Speaker 2: New Jersey State Association of Chiefs of Police, and he

1090
00:58:04,480 --> 00:58:08,160
Speaker 2: basically explained the process. Somebody will submit a public records

1091
00:58:08,160 --> 00:58:11,520
Speaker 2: request for every duy arrest in the township. They'll go

1092
00:58:11,600 --> 00:58:13,800
Speaker 2: through the list and cross out all the men's names.

1093
00:58:14,040 --> 00:58:17,120
Speaker 2: Then they'll request the arrest footage for what's left just

1094
00:58:17,320 --> 00:58:20,920
Speaker 2: the women. A few months later, those videos start appearing online.

1095
00:58:21,000 --> 00:58:23,439
Speaker 2: Young women drunk are barely able to speak clearly during

1096
00:58:23,480 --> 00:58:26,720
Speaker 2: their arrests, and this guy who is like the cheap

1097
00:58:26,720 --> 00:58:29,400
Speaker 2: of police or whatever says exactly what you said, Like,

1098
00:58:29,880 --> 00:58:35,000
Speaker 2: why should someone who faces their day in court faces consequences,

1099
00:58:35,040 --> 00:58:36,080
Speaker 2: pays fine whatever.

1100
00:58:36,680 --> 00:58:37,720
Speaker 1: That should be the end of it.

1101
00:58:38,000 --> 00:58:40,680
Speaker 2: Why should these people be having the worst moment of

1102
00:58:40,720 --> 00:58:44,960
Speaker 2: their lives? It broadcast across the internet forever. You know,

1103
00:58:45,000 --> 00:58:49,160
Speaker 2: these videos capture people at rock bottom, having the worst

1104
00:58:49,240 --> 00:58:51,680
Speaker 2: day of their lives, Like your uncle said, why should

1105
00:58:51,680 --> 00:58:53,840
Speaker 2: that moment haunt them for the rest of their lives

1106
00:58:53,880 --> 00:58:56,640
Speaker 2: so that somebody else can make a quick buck by

1107
00:58:56,640 --> 00:58:59,680
Speaker 2: putting it on YouTube. They spoke to the city clerk

1108
00:58:59,840 --> 00:59:03,040
Speaker 2: in Las Cruse's, New Mexico, and basically she said that

1109
00:59:03,080 --> 00:59:05,880
Speaker 2: we have been inundated by public records requests, which increased

1110
00:59:05,880 --> 00:59:08,440
Speaker 2: one hundred and forty percent from twenty twenty four to

1111
00:59:08,440 --> 00:59:10,960
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five since these videos channels have become a thing.

1112
00:59:11,320 --> 00:59:12,840
Speaker 2: What we have been told is that we are on

1113
00:59:12,880 --> 00:59:15,640
Speaker 2: some kind of list for requesters, stating that we are

1114
00:59:15,640 --> 00:59:18,880
Speaker 2: a municipality that is easy to get records from. And again,

1115
00:59:19,000 --> 00:59:22,600
Speaker 2: inevitably that footage it winds up on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.

1116
00:59:23,120 --> 00:59:24,400
Speaker 1: The people who wind up in this.

1117
00:59:24,440 --> 00:59:28,560
Speaker 2: Video really have very little recourse. You know, the more

1118
00:59:28,640 --> 00:59:31,160
Speaker 2: humiliating of the arrest, the better the content. The most

1119
00:59:31,240 --> 00:59:33,840
Speaker 2: viral videos can be really devastating for the people who

1120
00:59:33,880 --> 00:59:36,720
Speaker 2: are in them. It's a damage relationship with friends and family,

1121
00:59:36,960 --> 00:59:41,160
Speaker 2: frustrating job searches, scarring their psyches, and they really can't

1122
00:59:41,200 --> 00:59:43,880
Speaker 2: do anything about it because unless a video has been

1123
00:59:44,000 --> 00:59:49,040
Speaker 2: excessively editorialized, there's really not a legal recourse here. You know,

1124
00:59:49,080 --> 00:59:52,800
Speaker 2: they can't sue YouTube or Facebook because of Section two thirty,

1125
00:59:52,920 --> 00:59:57,080
Speaker 2: which largely shields content providers from responsibility for the videos

1126
00:59:57,080 --> 01:00:00,560
Speaker 2: on their platforms, and so they don't really have that option. Notably,

1127
01:00:01,040 --> 01:00:03,960
Speaker 2: there's also a shakedown element of what's happening here too,

1128
01:00:04,000 --> 01:00:06,919
Speaker 2: because the people who are in the arrest videos are

1129
01:00:07,520 --> 01:00:11,400
Speaker 2: essentially extorted to have those videos taken down. Some subjects

1130
01:00:11,440 --> 01:00:14,320
Speaker 2: have complained to channel owners and then been shaken down

1131
01:00:14,480 --> 01:00:18,160
Speaker 2: for a fee. It's a variant on mugshot extortion, a

1132
01:00:18,200 --> 01:00:21,360
Speaker 2: practice in which websites acquire booking photos of recent arrests,

1133
01:00:21,680 --> 01:00:25,000
Speaker 2: post them online, and then remove them only when compensated.

1134
01:00:25,480 --> 01:00:27,920
Speaker 2: So they in the article they talked to like a

1135
01:00:27,920 --> 01:00:30,960
Speaker 2: couple of lawyers who basically say, if I had a

1136
01:00:30,960 --> 01:00:33,919
Speaker 2: client who had a video on one of these platforms,

1137
01:00:34,520 --> 01:00:37,000
Speaker 2: and they reached out to the person who owned the

1138
01:00:37,040 --> 01:00:38,400
Speaker 2: channel to be like, oh, can you take this down?

1139
01:00:38,440 --> 01:00:40,360
Speaker 2: It's the picture, it's the video of me. And they

1140
01:00:40,360 --> 01:00:42,440
Speaker 2: were like, if you give me two thousand dollars, The

1141
01:00:42,520 --> 01:00:45,760
Speaker 2: lawyers said, I would just pay it like that. It's

1142
01:00:45,880 --> 01:00:48,600
Speaker 2: you don't really have a lot of legal recourse. Your

1143
01:00:48,640 --> 01:00:51,680
Speaker 2: only option is to allow yourself to be extorted.

1144
01:00:51,560 --> 01:00:54,320
Speaker 3: Which we know is not a good option because they

1145
01:00:54,360 --> 01:00:56,800
Speaker 3: can just put it up on a different channel exactly.

1146
01:00:57,560 --> 01:00:59,080
Speaker 2: And so just to give you a sense of how

1147
01:00:59,160 --> 01:01:02,480
Speaker 2: complex this all is, they spoke to a few advocates

1148
01:01:02,520 --> 01:01:05,120
Speaker 2: who worked on that body camera legislation, and so some

1149
01:01:05,160 --> 01:01:07,120
Speaker 2: of the suggestions that people have made is like, oh,

1150
01:01:07,120 --> 01:01:10,280
Speaker 2: maybe you could automatically burr people's faces in the footage

1151
01:01:10,680 --> 01:01:13,920
Speaker 2: that gets uploaded. But really, it sounds like the spirit

1152
01:01:14,080 --> 01:01:17,840
Speaker 2: of the body camera footage process is designed to mostly

1153
01:01:17,880 --> 01:01:20,960
Speaker 2: be about the officer and their conduct, not a person

1154
01:01:21,000 --> 01:01:23,600
Speaker 2: they've arrested. So it seems like this kind of change

1155
01:01:23,680 --> 01:01:26,840
Speaker 2: might be harder to institute. After the fact, they spoke

1156
01:01:26,880 --> 01:01:29,360
Speaker 2: to Drew Hansen, who was a state senator from Washington

1157
01:01:29,360 --> 01:01:34,160
Speaker 2: State who introduced this complex, comprehensive bill on body camera

1158
01:01:34,200 --> 01:01:37,240
Speaker 2: footage back in twenty sixteen, which he described as by

1159
01:01:37,280 --> 01:01:39,600
Speaker 2: far one of the most complex pieces of legislation I

1160
01:01:39,600 --> 01:01:41,840
Speaker 2: have ever worked on in my fifteen years of public service.

1161
01:01:42,120 --> 01:01:44,720
Speaker 2: He said that it was extremely thorny, vexing and difficult

1162
01:01:44,800 --> 01:01:47,920
Speaker 2: to write the bill balancing the public's right to know

1163
01:01:48,080 --> 01:01:52,040
Speaker 2: with people's reasonable expectations for privacy, which makes complete sense

1164
01:01:52,080 --> 01:01:55,280
Speaker 2: to me. Ultimately, the bill that they did draft relied

1165
01:01:55,320 --> 01:01:58,080
Speaker 2: on a standard from common law. Anything that is quote

1166
01:01:58,200 --> 01:02:01,000
Speaker 2: not a legitimate concern to the public was prohibited from release,

1167
01:02:01,240 --> 01:02:04,520
Speaker 2: including footage captured inside of medical buildings or footage of

1168
01:02:04,520 --> 01:02:10,560
Speaker 2: domestic violence victims. But that bill predates the online humiliation industry.

1169
01:02:10,840 --> 01:02:14,720
Speaker 1: Someone is not really able to address this situation at all.

1170
01:02:14,760 --> 01:02:17,000
Speaker 2: So it's like one of those situations where the legislation,

1171
01:02:18,040 --> 01:02:21,800
Speaker 2: even though it only came out in twenty sixteen, it's

1172
01:02:21,880 --> 01:02:24,800
Speaker 2: not current enough to address our actual digital climate in

1173
01:02:24,840 --> 01:02:25,800
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six.

1174
01:02:25,680 --> 01:02:31,440
Speaker 4: Boy, isn't that interesting? Yeah? What a thorny problem.

1175
01:02:32,440 --> 01:02:35,160
Speaker 3: I suspect that this is something that we're going to

1176
01:02:35,200 --> 01:02:38,560
Speaker 3: be talking about more and more right, as there are

1177
01:02:39,160 --> 01:02:45,760
Speaker 3: more cameras, more microphones deployed in our public environments and

1178
01:02:45,880 --> 01:02:52,600
Speaker 3: attached to police officers' bodies, and AI systems just constantly

1179
01:02:52,920 --> 01:02:58,919
Speaker 3: integrating them, face search, facial recognition getting so easy. These

1180
01:02:59,440 --> 01:03:01,800
Speaker 3: I think these problems are just going to keep getting

1181
01:03:02,680 --> 01:03:09,320
Speaker 3: more acute. And uh yeah, I really hope that we

1182
01:03:10,800 --> 01:03:14,200
Speaker 3: start taking it more seriously. And you know that that

1183
01:03:14,960 --> 01:03:19,200
Speaker 3: the backlash to that ring camera ad suggests that maybe

1184
01:03:19,320 --> 01:03:21,400
Speaker 3: people are ready to start having that conversation.

1185
01:03:22,080 --> 01:03:24,720
Speaker 2: I think I think that's true, but I think this

1186
01:03:24,800 --> 01:03:27,400
Speaker 2: story really goes to show how complex some of those

1187
01:03:27,480 --> 01:03:29,800
Speaker 2: conversations ultimately need to be.

1188
01:03:31,440 --> 01:03:34,360
Speaker 1: They there was the an idea floated in the piece that.

1189
01:03:35,360 --> 01:03:39,840
Speaker 2: Basically, even though these videos are sexist and growth and

1190
01:03:40,000 --> 01:03:44,680
Speaker 2: coercive and humiliating, they booked to an ACLU attorney who

1191
01:03:44,720 --> 01:03:49,000
Speaker 2: basically said, yes, these videos are awful, but the importance

1192
01:03:49,040 --> 01:03:51,880
Speaker 2: of transparency and the importance of the public interest in

1193
01:03:52,040 --> 01:03:56,560
Speaker 2: knowing how people are interacting with the government outweighs generally

1194
01:03:56,600 --> 01:04:00,160
Speaker 2: a person's personal interest in not being embarrassed, and that

1195
01:04:01,320 --> 01:04:04,960
Speaker 2: in most cases it is a trade off, according to

1196
01:04:05,000 --> 01:04:08,920
Speaker 2: this ACLU attorney, that people should be willing to accept,

1197
01:04:09,400 --> 01:04:11,760
Speaker 2: and he goes on to describe a terrible situation of

1198
01:04:11,760 --> 01:04:14,000
Speaker 2: a black youth who was shot and killed by police.

1199
01:04:14,280 --> 01:04:17,800
Speaker 2: The police said, oh, the kid lunged at me with

1200
01:04:17,840 --> 01:04:20,480
Speaker 2: a knife. The bodycam footage, once they were able to

1201
01:04:20,520 --> 01:04:22,600
Speaker 2: sue for the release, showed that he was walking away

1202
01:04:22,600 --> 01:04:25,200
Speaker 2: when he was shot. Right, And so this attorney basically

1203
01:04:25,200 --> 01:04:28,680
Speaker 2: says that occasional online humiliations are an unfortunate price to

1204
01:04:28,720 --> 01:04:32,800
Speaker 2: pay for the broader interest in transparency. New York mag

1205
01:04:33,000 --> 01:04:35,720
Speaker 2: took that argument to one of these women who has

1206
01:04:35,800 --> 01:04:38,520
Speaker 2: a video of her duy orst on YouTube right now

1207
01:04:38,560 --> 01:04:40,960
Speaker 2: that she's terrified is going to be revealed and go

1208
01:04:41,040 --> 01:04:43,440
Speaker 2: viral and ruin her life. They presented her with that

1209
01:04:43,560 --> 01:04:46,360
Speaker 2: argument and asked her what she thought, and she said,

1210
01:04:47,080 --> 01:04:50,240
Speaker 2: she understands the point, but she is very frustrated by

1211
01:04:50,280 --> 01:04:53,000
Speaker 2: the either or she cannot accept that the only way

1212
01:04:53,000 --> 01:04:56,040
Speaker 2: to help one set of marginalized people is by punishing

1213
01:04:56,120 --> 01:04:59,320
Speaker 2: another set of marginalized people. And the video that she

1214
01:04:59,360 --> 01:05:02,400
Speaker 2: points out are usually of young women like herself. I've

1215
01:05:02,440 --> 01:05:04,840
Speaker 2: never seen a dude. So why is an incumbent on

1216
01:05:04,920 --> 01:05:08,120
Speaker 2: these women to suffer all to prevent injustices that should

1217
01:05:08,160 --> 01:05:09,840
Speaker 2: not be occurring in the first place.

1218
01:05:10,400 --> 01:05:10,720
Speaker 1: And I.

1219
01:05:12,160 --> 01:05:15,360
Speaker 2: Think that is really an interesting point and speaks to

1220
01:05:16,000 --> 01:05:19,400
Speaker 2: how if we're gonna get serious about talking about and

1221
01:05:19,440 --> 01:05:22,800
Speaker 2: addressing surveillance and what it actually means and how it

1222
01:05:22,840 --> 01:05:25,439
Speaker 2: actually impacts and shows up on our lives, we're gonna

1223
01:05:25,480 --> 01:05:28,000
Speaker 2: have to have some complex, thorny conversations.

1224
01:05:28,160 --> 01:05:31,440
Speaker 1: And I think her point really shows that.

1225
01:05:31,600 --> 01:05:33,880
Speaker 2: But I will say one other thing, which is that

1226
01:05:34,840 --> 01:05:38,200
Speaker 2: all of that is true the same way that we

1227
01:05:38,240 --> 01:05:41,680
Speaker 2: don't have to tolerate ring camera ads that try to

1228
01:05:41,720 --> 01:05:45,200
Speaker 2: sell us surveillance as warm and cute and funny and

1229
01:05:45,240 --> 01:05:48,400
Speaker 2: like cuddly and about finding lost pets. We don't have

1230
01:05:48,440 --> 01:05:53,479
Speaker 2: to tolerate these coercive, sexist, gross videos of young women, drunk,

1231
01:05:53,560 --> 01:05:54,520
Speaker 2: young women being.

1232
01:05:54,440 --> 01:05:58,560
Speaker 1: Arrested as public sources of education.

1233
01:05:59,520 --> 01:06:03,320
Speaker 2: Just you know, so their humiliation content and humiliation content

1234
01:06:03,400 --> 01:06:06,720
Speaker 2: involving young women, all they will generate a quick book

1235
01:06:06,800 --> 01:06:07,400
Speaker 2: at a clique.

1236
01:06:07,760 --> 01:06:09,440
Speaker 1: You don't have to pretend they're a social good on

1237
01:06:09,480 --> 01:06:10,040
Speaker 1: top of it.

1238
01:06:10,360 --> 01:06:10,920
Speaker 4: So brittant.

1239
01:06:10,960 --> 01:06:14,480
Speaker 3: Just one thing real quick before we wrap up here.

1240
01:06:15,040 --> 01:06:18,040
Speaker 3: Listener deb who's written in before, asked us to share

1241
01:06:18,200 --> 01:06:22,600
Speaker 3: something about the Save our Signs campaign, which is this

1242
01:06:22,680 --> 01:06:28,960
Speaker 3: campaign to document signage at national parks and national sites,

1243
01:06:29,720 --> 01:06:32,080
Speaker 3: which you know, when you think of national sites, you

1244
01:06:32,120 --> 01:06:36,000
Speaker 3: often think of like Yosemite Park and natural beauty, which

1245
01:06:36,640 --> 01:06:37,840
Speaker 3: is a big.

1246
01:06:37,800 --> 01:06:38,080
Speaker 1: Part of it.

1247
01:06:38,120 --> 01:06:41,600
Speaker 3: But there's also a lot of cultural stuff that is

1248
01:06:41,720 --> 01:06:46,520
Speaker 3: captured and described at these national sites of things that

1249
01:06:46,520 --> 01:06:50,720
Speaker 3: have happened there so that we can learn about our past,

1250
01:06:50,760 --> 01:06:53,760
Speaker 3: which is not always super great, right Like, there's a

1251
01:06:53,840 --> 01:06:59,120
Speaker 3: lot of stuff in American history that does not paint

1252
01:06:59,560 --> 01:07:04,720
Speaker 3: whites settlers in the most flattering light. For example, It's

1253
01:07:04,920 --> 01:07:10,840
Speaker 3: super important to talk about that stuff. But the Trump

1254
01:07:10,880 --> 01:07:14,160
Speaker 3: administration does not like it, and so they have this

1255
01:07:14,240 --> 01:07:18,440
Speaker 3: campaign to take down any signage and any national sites

1256
01:07:18,480 --> 01:07:24,480
Speaker 3: that can be interpreted as critical of Americans or any

1257
01:07:24,520 --> 01:07:30,080
Speaker 3: particular race, just really an effort to whitewash history. And

1258
01:07:30,120 --> 01:07:33,960
Speaker 3: so to Save our Signs campaign is trying to document

1259
01:07:34,040 --> 01:07:37,640
Speaker 3: these signs before they are taken down as like an

1260
01:07:37,720 --> 01:07:40,560
Speaker 3: active preservation and deb has been involved with that and

1261
01:07:41,040 --> 01:07:43,640
Speaker 3: she just asked us to pass us long that if

1262
01:07:43,680 --> 01:07:47,320
Speaker 3: you are going to a national park or some sort

1263
01:07:47,360 --> 01:07:52,280
Speaker 3: of national site and you see a sign that has

1264
01:07:52,320 --> 01:07:56,920
Speaker 3: some cultural commentary, that doesn't even have to be that provocative,

1265
01:07:56,960 --> 01:07:59,400
Speaker 3: right like, I think the administration is taking a pretty

1266
01:07:59,720 --> 01:08:02,240
Speaker 3: blome tool to this, but they ask you to take

1267
01:08:02,280 --> 01:08:04,320
Speaker 3: a photo of that and upload it so you can

1268
01:08:04,360 --> 01:08:10,080
Speaker 3: find it at Data Rescue Project dot org. Just go there,

1269
01:08:10,160 --> 01:08:20,240
Speaker 3: upload your photos and help preserve these cultural signs that

1270
01:08:22,600 --> 01:08:25,200
Speaker 3: help us acknowledge our past and like see where we

1271
01:08:25,240 --> 01:08:28,160
Speaker 3: are so that we can all go to a better

1272
01:08:28,200 --> 01:08:30,800
Speaker 3: future together. So thanks Deb for rating with that. Again,

1273
01:08:30,800 --> 01:08:33,160
Speaker 3: you can just go to Data Rescue Projects dot org.

1274
01:08:33,560 --> 01:08:36,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks Deb. Thanks Mike. You know this has been

1275
01:08:36,479 --> 01:08:38,559
Speaker 2: in the news just this week. I know that I've

1276
01:08:38,560 --> 01:08:43,400
Speaker 2: been to the Medgar and Merle Evans Home National Monument

1277
01:08:43,520 --> 01:08:47,840
Speaker 2: in Mississippi, and it's Medgrivers was a civil rights leader

1278
01:08:47,880 --> 01:08:51,679
Speaker 2: who was killed and heretofore when you went to visit

1279
01:08:51,720 --> 01:08:55,160
Speaker 2: that the National Park Service would tell you about. You know,

1280
01:08:55,280 --> 01:08:57,360
Speaker 2: he was shot. There's like a bloodstain in the driveway.

1281
01:08:57,680 --> 01:09:01,720
Speaker 2: Somebody went recently and they have taken that part of

1282
01:09:01,720 --> 01:09:05,439
Speaker 2: the tour out of what they say. When asked why

1283
01:09:05,479 --> 01:09:08,280
Speaker 2: that part of the tour is taken out, one of

1284
01:09:08,280 --> 01:09:10,360
Speaker 2: the National Park Service members said that they are no

1285
01:09:10,400 --> 01:09:13,559
Speaker 2: longer able to discuss that. In New York City, the

1286
01:09:13,600 --> 01:09:17,320
Speaker 2: famous Stonewall National monument used to have this iconic pride flag.

1287
01:09:18,680 --> 01:09:21,919
Speaker 2: Trump had that removed. It was reinstated I think yesterday.

1288
01:09:22,080 --> 01:09:24,640
Speaker 2: So you know, we're holding on to it, but I

1289
01:09:24,680 --> 01:09:28,120
Speaker 2: think that deb we I think it's incumbent on all

1290
01:09:28,120 --> 01:09:30,559
Speaker 2: of us to take us into our own hands, and so, yeah,

1291
01:09:30,920 --> 01:09:35,000
Speaker 2: save our signs, send in, send in your images really important.

1292
01:09:35,479 --> 01:09:39,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, well, brigh it. I'm so glad that we

1293
01:09:39,080 --> 01:09:41,559
Speaker 3: were able to do this news round up. I know

1294
01:09:41,560 --> 01:09:44,479
Speaker 3: it's been a couple of weeks, but uh, it's nice

1295
01:09:44,479 --> 01:09:45,559
Speaker 3: to have you back.

1296
01:09:45,920 --> 01:09:48,200
Speaker 1: Thanks for being here, Mike, and thanks to all of

1297
01:09:48,200 --> 01:09:48,960
Speaker 1: you for listening.

1298
01:09:49,680 --> 01:09:52,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, let us know how you're feeling. I want to

1299
01:09:52,439 --> 01:09:53,920
Speaker 2: do a little bit of a check in for where

1300
01:09:53,960 --> 01:09:56,439
Speaker 2: folks are at. How you feeling.

1301
01:09:56,600 --> 01:09:57,000
Speaker 1: Let us know.

1302
01:09:57,080 --> 01:10:00,800
Speaker 2: You can email us, you can leave us a Spotify comment. Yeah,

1303
01:10:00,960 --> 01:10:03,479
Speaker 2: just hope everybody is taking care of themselves and being well.

1304
01:10:09,640 --> 01:10:11,680
Speaker 2: Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or

1305
01:10:11,800 --> 01:10:13,600
Speaker 2: just want to say hi. You can reach us at

1306
01:10:13,640 --> 01:10:16,360
Speaker 2: Hello at tangody dot com. You can also find transcripts

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Speaker 2: for today's episode at tengodi dot com. There Are No

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Speaker 2: Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget tod

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Speaker 2: It's a production of iHeartRadio an unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland

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Speaker 2: is our executive producer. Tarry Harrison is our producer and

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Speaker 2: sound engineer. Michael Almato is our contributing producer. I'm your host,

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Speaker 2: Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate

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Speaker 2: and review.

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Speaker 5: Us on Apple Podcasts.

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Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts