00:00:49.980If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:00:55.400Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:01:04.060Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions.
00:02:04.400Today marks the start of Trump's second impeachment trial for his role in the insurrection on January 6th.
00:02:10.140Here's Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin earlier today at the trial.
00:02:14.400If that's not an impeachable offense, then there is no such thing.
00:02:18.520On the day Congress met to finalize the presidential election,
00:02:23.400he would have you believe there is absolutely nothing the Senate can do about it.
00:02:29.780Now, it's clear that Trump continuously used social media to spread disinformation,
00:02:33.840including the repeated baseless lie that he won the 2020 election and that it was being stolen from him.
00:02:39.380That lie, as we know, culminated in his supporters attacking the Capitol.
00:02:43.400But even before that, Trump has always used social media to incite violence, stoke tensions, and spread distortions and baseless claims.
00:02:51.280That is, until January 8th, when Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms finally gave Trump the boot.
00:02:57.660But don't give tech leaders too much credit.
00:02:59.920They only did this after years of pressure from platform accountability advocates who warned that failure to act could lead to the kind of violence that we saw on January 6th.
00:03:09.380And even now, Facebook's oversight board is weighing whether they made the right decision by kicking Trump off the platform.
00:03:15.960So it's possible that we haven't even heard the last of Trump on social media.
00:03:20.140A lot of people were questioning if by banning Trump from social media, his free speech was being threatened.
00:03:25.720But Nora Benavidez, free speech attorney and the director of U.S. free expression programs at Panamerica Foundation,
00:03:31.860a nonprofit that protects and promotes free expression,
00:03:34.660says that when it comes to understanding free speech on social media platforms,
00:03:37.600a lot of us are asking the wrong questions.
00:03:40.300I remember when the insurrection happened, it felt for me like total whiplash.
00:03:45.080There was still a kind of hesitancy, you know, concern, like what was going to happen in the
00:03:50.600lead up to the inauguration. And so that January 6th just somehow felt not too surprising, but
00:03:57.920still very, very jarring. And in, you know, the weeks that have followed, we've just tried to,
00:04:05.020you know, be responsive to people. You know, people have questions like,
00:04:09.640were the people storming the Capitol exercising their First Amendment rights?
00:04:14.540Did Trump have a right to be on Twitter and on Facebook? And so a lot of questions have emerged
00:04:20.860that we've just tried to be ready to answer and to talk with people about what's really happening,
00:04:25.700because they're really, really complex issues. So full disclosure, like I have worked, as you
00:04:30.680you know, work with organizations that have tried to pressure social media platforms to
00:04:35.140take disinformation seriously. And so a big part of that has been asking them to remove Trump when
00:04:41.980he, you know, tweets things that are incendiary or like inciting violence. And truly, I don't
00:04:47.500think I ever thought I would see Trump be banned from platforms. Like, I remember when that
00:04:51.980happened, I was fully kind of surprised because I think I was quite used to the idea that, oh,
00:04:58.460he's just above consequences or accountability. There will never be any of it. So, you know,
00:05:04.420I was quite surprised. What did you think when you saw Trump being banned from these platforms?
00:05:09.540The insurrection happened on, I think, Wednesday, and then the cascade of first, you know,
00:05:15.460there were labels placed on a video of his. Then he was banned, you know, permanently suspended
00:05:22.100from Twitter. And it just sort of felt like this jaw-dropping cascade where I was like,
00:05:26.800this is really happening. And immediately, though, you know, I was watching on my own
00:05:35.100Twitter people saying this violates the First Amendment. This is like an egregious assault
00:05:40.300on free speech. There was so much hate and confusion and frankly, miseducation. And part
00:05:47.740of what, you know, is important to keep in mind is that Twitter, Facebook, those are private
00:05:52.820companies. And you know I am a First Amendment lawyer. Like, I firmly believe in the ability
00:05:58.440for all of us to engage in open discourse, to hear what other people think. But Trump has
00:06:04.420absolutely contributed to, if not been the biggest super spreader of dangerous misinformation
00:06:09.840that I think is absolutely disinformation, you know, with the goal of kind of dividing us and
00:06:19.060making people believe these false narratives.
00:06:22.160Deplatforming is actually pretty effective.
00:06:46.860A study conducted by the Election Integrity Partnership found that just a few dozen pro-Trump Twitter accounts, including Trump's own account, were the original sources for about a fifth of misleading election claims around the 2020 election.
00:06:59.760It really goes to show you how just a small handful of accounts can be responsible for major chaos on platforms.
00:07:05.980I was actually very much in favor of his being removed.
00:07:09.220I think what was necessary and really good was that data immediately emerged from a couple of researchers that found about 73% of the misinformation that had been on Twitter was no longer there, thanks to his removal, along with the removal of about 37 others who were sort of the biggest influencers and spreaders of misinformation.
00:07:33.040And I think that we need data like that to be able to make the case again to platforms in the future. Because, you know, the big criticism was, this just didn't happen soon enough. And I'm all here for the criticism. But I also think we need to lay the foundation for like, what are solid policy and community guidelines standards that the platforms are implementing that then have data to back up that when they do that, it benefits the health of the internet.
00:08:02.000People were able to say, like, here was the measurable impact of banning Trump and other accounts who were responsible for spreading this kind of thing. Here was the measurable impact. And truly, what has been the downside? Less noise, less lies, you know, spreading like wildfire on these platforms.
00:08:20.420I it's been interesting to see how there was such a quick benefit, like a quick and obvious benefit with like very few in my book, if any, downsides.
00:08:32.300I think there may be the downside of people who supported Trump feeling somehow more, quote unquote, like in air quotes, I'm doing this, censoring. And that somehow their censorship, right, makes them emotional, driving them potentially to be more upset.
00:08:50.500And, you know, my work on sort of the psychology side of misinformation and that I think we have to, you know, stay vigilant to the ways that people will be emotional to information, the way we are all emotional to news.
00:09:06.460I mean, our relationship to news is emotional.
00:09:09.560We've seen the way, you know, platforms hinge our interactions on our likes or dislikes.
00:09:14.600And so it's, I think, important to make sure we don't completely marginalize people that may actually be movable, maybe not today, but down the line. And so I just I kind of have this like lingering concern about how we engage those that continue to believe alternate realities, you know, that continue to want to see Trump.
00:09:37.240And it's really hard to reach those people. So I just, it's like a sort of weird gut instinct where I kind of wonder, what are they thinking about? How can we sort of call them in and talk with them about these issues in ways where, you know, if they had been unmovable before, slowly, slowly, some of these Trump supporters are starting to see the cracks in that reality.
00:10:03.100I hadn't even thought about that, sort of the kind of emotional response that someone might have to feeling the shame of, you know, a platform saying your ideas, what you have to say is not acceptable here.
00:10:18.380I hadn't even really thought about that.
00:10:19.620And I think it really highlights to me that at the heart of a lot of your work with PEN America and just generally is empathy and sort of trying to remember that deep down we're talking about people.
00:10:53.800But I am grateful that that idea seems to be at the heart of so much of the work that
00:10:59.540you do to create off-ramps for folks like this? Bridget, I have to say, I never thought I would
00:11:05.860play even close to the therapist role that I feel like I do sometimes. Being a lawyer,
00:11:13.620thinking about the law, thinking about legality on Twitter or Facebook, and yet being faced with
00:11:19.740people who ask questions and actually want to engage somehow. And I think that the problem
00:11:28.480the internet has bred is that, as we all know, we're siloed, we seek out our own, and difference
00:11:35.400of any sort, whether it's something we can accept and listen to, or something we find so offensive
00:11:41.320and egregious, like, we simply want to shut it down and not hear it. And Trump, I think, went so
00:11:47.080far as to then, when he heard things he didn't like, he called those lies. And the tendency,
00:11:51.600of course, is to shut people out, to disengage. And that is not getting us anywhere. In fact,
00:11:59.720I think the idea that we never engage with people who are radicalizing or that we never seek out
00:12:06.420others has led to things like the insurrection, where we need to engage, we need to find entry
00:12:12.820points. And I think we need to have a kind of expectation setting where we're not all going to
00:12:18.140agree, but we can exist in disagreement and be civil and believe in each other's humanity.
00:12:24.300Of course, if our disagreement is grounded in someone believing you or I shouldn't exist or
00:12:29.940have the same rights, that's different. But the level of empathy that I hope we can bring
00:12:34.720sometimes to our online discourse is something that can try to create space for understanding.
00:12:42.040and I'm really glad that you see and talk about empathy in this way that you see the value of
00:12:50.120those things that as someone who is a storyteller you know you focus in media and stories like it's
00:12:56.720so critical to remember that even if we find it somehow offensive like we have to find ways to
00:13:03.200engage and find each other's humanity even if it sounds corny it doesn't sound corny I mean I
00:13:08.500often it's, you said that you feel like a therapist. And when I have these conversations
00:13:12.620about tech platforms, it's funny how often they turn to sort of things that sound a bit corny,
00:13:17.660like empathy or, you know, remembering there's a human on the other end of the screen,
00:13:22.180things like that. And I think you really hit on something that is one of the reasons why I'm so
00:13:27.800interested in disinformation and making this show is that I feel that the thing that you just
00:13:33.260described of silos and sort of people being closed off and all of that, I feel like we've
00:13:38.860gotten to a place where you can no longer assume, it's no longer easy to assume good faith when
00:13:44.520you're having discussions on the internet, right? When I first got online, the reason why I found
00:13:48.920such a freedom and love of talking on the internet was because it felt like I was able to reach so
00:13:55.800many different people, get so many different perspectives, and it felt relatively safe.
00:13:59.760Now, I feel that that safety is gone, right? When I have a conversation with somebody on Twitter, I'm not sure if there's someone who we can have a good faith disagreement or a good faith dialogue. It just feels like we're no longer able to assume good faith in all of our discourse online because the temperature has been turned up so high in part by things like disinformation and lies and violent rhetoric online.
00:14:26.620I'm going to make it really personal. Sometimes I get retweeted on Twitter by people who then have
00:14:33.540a comment about my tweet. And often the assumptions, often wild assumptions people
00:14:40.040will make about more of me and who I am really stress me out. And I totally, totally know what
00:14:49.580you're saying, where it feels like you may not be able to trust someone. And so I often try to then
00:14:56.160engage with the people that retweet me, whether it is someone on, frankly, any side of the
00:15:01.540political spectrum, making these assumptions. And in no way to defend myself, but just to
00:15:07.420open conversation, I've had really wonderful learning experiences where people will
00:15:13.600kind of turn down their temperature when I respond in ways that engage them with open-ended
00:15:19.780questions, which is hard to do. I mean, you can't do that at scale every day.
00:15:26.160And that's one of the questions that I think about all the time is how we scale empathy.
00:15:30.600But in the meantime, those like little one offs that can help change or slowly, you know, bring people together and help their attitudes kind of move at a slower pace where they're assuming less about me or you, I think is a great thing.
00:15:48.160I mean, I remember when something like Section 230, you know, not to get technical, but when that was an exciting regulation to actually help people feel safer on the Internet, to be able to, like, have conversations on blogs.
00:16:02.220And, you know, the Internet is just such a different place now that it feels so you're always like just about to have a complete crisis on Twitter.
00:17:35.520If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:17:42.140This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters,
00:17:48.280pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:17:54.320I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:18:01.280I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed, so obsessed.
00:18:04.580From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.
00:18:10.980It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:18:18.880Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place.
00:18:28.040Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:19:44.000We need to completely reimagine how we think of the internet.
00:19:46.920And that means rethinking so much of the infrastructure around technology.
00:19:50.340It means creating a tech press that centers and valorizes empathy, not scale.
00:19:55.660It means building platforms that center people, not, quote, users, or clicks, or how much time we spend with our faces at a screen.
00:20:02.680Now, what I'm describing is a radical reimagining, and it might sound as big or as complicated as, like, smashing the patriarchy or ending white supremacy.
00:20:12.740I think there are enough people out there, like you and me, who truly believe in the power and possibility of the Internet and the power of expression.
00:20:20.420And I believe that when we come together, big, radical things really are possible.
00:20:24.960And I know that we have the power to radically rethink the internet so that it's safer and
00:20:29.060more accessible and so that it works for more people.
00:22:37.680to help make the internet a safer and better place?
00:22:40.680Oh, Bridget, that's like my favorite question. You just you got me at the sweet spot. I'm like, here we go. Well, you know, we've looked at disinformation for years. And everyone always asks, what's the solution? And so kind of to, you know, my last point, I think a lot of it, we have to focus on humans and give people power to, you know, take control of what they're seeing online.
00:23:05.980So I always think it's best to frankly, just start with understanding what you do when you're online. You know, like, how are you consuming information, Bridget? Is it on Twitter? Are you, let's be honest, are you going to Facebook? And are you clicking on links? Or are you maybe privately just reading the headline that I shared or your other friend shared? Like, let's be real, you know, like, sometimes that's all I do. I'm like, oh, I can make a wild assumption based on what Bridget shared, and I'm not even clicking the link.
00:23:32.680So just sort of like taking a pulse, being honest with yourself. Are you going to Fox News? Are you going to the New York Times? Are you going to, you know, news websites? How are you doing things? Are you listening to podcasts like this? I think it's good to know how you consume information.
00:23:49.960And then I also think with that, we should all start asking ourselves how we feel when we're
00:23:55.400online. Like, are you feeling anxious when you read things? Are you angry? A lot of times
00:24:02.300disinformation will thrive because we're emotional and we often want to share things. We want to
00:24:07.740engage with people quickly. And so we'll accept something without fact checking it, without
00:24:12.720thinking about or asking ourselves, you know, who wrote this? Where did it come from? Why am I
00:24:17.800seeing it. So if you can just sort of pause, like that is my number one recommendation. Pause to ask
00:24:24.520a number of things, but just pause. And from slowing down, I think we actually could all
00:24:32.180benefit. You know, we could potentially share less misinformation. We could also then think
00:24:39.160more carefully about what our own attitudes are based on what we're seeing. A whole host of,
00:24:45.140frankly, empathy could arise out of just slowing down and getting to a place where we're not just
00:24:51.980liking, disliking, loving, laughing at things, but maybe where we're in a place of, huh, I want to
00:24:57.480learn more about that. Yeah. If you were in my kitchen right now where I am, I have a Post-it
00:25:02.580note on my laptop that just says, slow down. And it's just a reminder for me, just in all the ways,
00:25:09.140because I can sometimes move too quickly just in life.
00:31:43.280If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:31:49.220This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters,
00:31:55.640pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:32:01.680I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:32:08.800I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.
00:32:12.280From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.
00:32:18.320It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:32:25.800Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place.
00:32:35.400Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:33:51.480I believe that the only way that some of these platforms will meaningfully, you know, rethink the role they've had in spreading misinformation and hate is if we make it unprofitable.
00:34:02.540Right. And so, like, if it hurts your bottom line to traffic in hate and violent rhetoric and disinformation, that's the only way that I think that some of these companies will stop trafficking in it, I guess.
00:34:14.440And I think that the way to do that can be so individual.
00:34:18.600Like, I'm not going to engage with it.
00:34:41.440I mean, I think the other I don't want to seem too corny in that, like, you know, humans are going to solve all of it, because I think the platforms have so much responsibility.
00:34:51.380And I think the future of minimizing how toxic the Internet can be, in part, is that the platforms have to begin informing users in better ways.
00:35:04.080And I don't know if you and I have ever talked about it, but I think that Twitter's very first step into putting labels on content really saw a horrible moment from the media's perspective when people started calling these warning labels, because I think that that has such a negative connotation.
00:35:22.380And I think that labels and the platform mechanisms to slow people down are actually a fantastic measure that we should be encouraging and learning about.
00:35:32.040It's the stuff that absent me teaching millions of Americans, let's say, about media literacy, platforms can help slow people down.
00:35:41.120So I think there's like this other piece also that can happen in tandem to you and me taking control that the platforms try to find ways to very, you know, in a nonpartisan, careful, educative manner, slow people down and just do the thing that we're already doing a little bit, you know, question what we're seeing, wonder if there are ways that we want to explore or learn more about something if we know that it's misleading.
00:36:09.820Yeah, even so you mentioned like when you share something based on a headline, that thing that
00:36:14.640Twitter has now, which I think is a great tool, but sometimes I feel kind of dragged by it where
00:36:18.800it's like, do you want to read the article before you retweet it? How many times have you not read
00:36:22.740it Bridget? Be honest, because I every time haven't read it. Yes. And it's, it's, it honestly
00:36:28.740is a good reminder. And when I get it, I'm like, oh, come on. I, this is, I'm retweeting an article
00:36:34.160by somebody that I know, like, I trust them.
00:36:36.300But it is a good reminder to just, like, what's the hurry?
00:37:24.320And part of what I think is difficult is that cancel culture often seems to imply that you're going to be in a way canceled from an existing platform, you know, like from your base, which also then to me suggests that you have a base to be canceled from.
00:37:41.780You know, you don't talk about canceling someone who isn't very well known.
00:37:44.920And I think there's this interesting power dynamic within the paradigm of thinking that there's a cancel culture.
00:37:51.100I think it's more interesting to weigh what's at stake here. You know, when we think about someone like Donald Trump, was he canceled? I honestly think that he was legitimately taken off the internet because of the real world harm his words online have. And that is not cancel culture.
00:38:10.940That is like a very deep, difficult balance where all of us, whether it is regulators, policymakers, platform people, everyday users like you and me, like what are his words doing to our world?
00:38:27.500It is a drastically dangerous step when he spreads lies, when he sows discord, when he promotes hate, all of the different ways that I think the platforms may be in being late.
00:38:42.520Somehow, if I had to guess, we're thinking that it would not be that bad, not be that bad.
00:38:47.740And somehow the insurrection was that crack, that like breaking point where people realized, oh, online issues have real world harms, which has happened before.
00:38:56.420We've seen it when there are mass shootings. We've seen it when there are acts of terrorism and other types of bombings. And what's fascinating in that moment is that I'm like, is that cancel culture? I don't think that is. I think that that is a private company taking necessary actions to limit or triage the type of real world harm that's happening.
00:39:17.840I think it was absolutely too late. And I always think that it was too late. At the same time,
00:39:24.480Donald Trump is a public figure and was an elected official who was leading this country.
00:39:29.880And so there is also this interest in hearing sort of unedited what he says. And so from a
00:39:39.660free expression perspective, I always wonder, what is the most speech we can have with the least
00:39:44.640harm. I think we passed the harm point, frankly, some time ago. But there's definitely, I think
00:39:52.000we have to stay committed to having access, all of us, to various forms of expression. Because
00:39:59.120free expression rights aren't just Donald Trump's right to say what he wants. We all have free
00:40:04.240expression rights to access what various people are saying. I have the right to then hear what
00:40:08.900you are saying. You have the right to hear what I am saying. And in some parts of the world,
00:40:12.840part of what we have to keep in mind is Facebook, Twitter, that's all the internet. That's all people
00:40:18.140have. That's the only connection they have to what's happening politically. We are seeing right
00:40:22.580now in Myanmar with the internet being shut down, that is a political tactic to silence dissidence
00:40:27.980and dissent. And so it's a difficult question to answer when there are questions implicated in that
00:40:35.440larger one around who is speaking, what is the effect offline, is it damaging when in total it
00:40:43.160seems to tip the scales towards violence and hate. I have to say, in general, I hate conversations
00:40:51.680about, quote, cancel culture because the concept just seems so disingenuous. When people talk about
00:40:57.500the importance of being willing to engage ideas one might not agree with, it always somehow seems0.98
00:41:02.280like marginalized people, are the ones expected to be doing the engaging.
00:41:06.660And arguing with people who are hell-bent on misunderstanding you is exhausting.
00:41:10.880And if you aren't even able to talk about something with a shared set of guiding facts,
00:41:15.140the sky is blue, two plus two is four, Trump lost the election, then it can really get thorny.
00:41:20.520When the election happened in November and Biden won, there was, I think rightly, a kind of
00:41:29.480exhaustion. You know, people were so tired of fighting and eager to disengage completely
00:41:36.780from what might be different. And I'm with a lot of those people. I think it's really exhausting
00:41:43.800work to try to engage with people who disagree. And you have to always know that ultimately,
00:41:51.320you know, a lot of conversations will not be productive. And it isn't on you or me to do the
00:41:56.980labor of teaching someone. Like, someone else's teachable moment isn't necessarily my job.
00:42:02.660At the same time, I think, like, the crisis and the basic human crisis we're in of how divided we
00:42:08.240are merits a very serious examination that we all need to sit with, of, like, what is it where we
00:42:14.100are interested in disengaging all the time with anything different? And that permeates all of us.
00:42:20.620And so I think the thesis is, you know, why are we driven to do things that divide us? And then how can we overcome our own instincts to actually broker conversation, to find an entry point, even if it's little and even if it only happens for a couple of minutes?
00:42:38.940Like, that is the beginning of being able to find what I think is the antidote to disinformation, where we have a shared basis of facts.
00:42:47.900Even if you and I disagree on policies, like, we can both look at a set of facts and say, yeah, that's what we're basing our opinion on.
00:42:55.700And we may differ then on what we think needs to happen, but we can agree on certain things.
00:43:00.020And we have absolutely not reached that point of being able to agree on basic facts.
00:43:05.360Yeah, that's exactly where I want to get us to.
00:43:07.080You know, we can disagree, but we are all on the same page about some basic facts.
00:43:44.220And it seems like such a low bar, but that's where I want to get us to, a place where we have a shared reality.
00:43:49.360I mean, it should be a low bar, but honestly, there's also just like so much bigotry and hate that a lot of those kinds of civil discussions are not grounded in mutual humanity.
00:44:00.400So, you know, my civil rights background is like, how do we have the most for the most people? And how do we maintain and protect basic rights for people who have traditionally and historically been marginalized in every institution?
00:44:15.760So there's this other piece that informs the work I do and how I think about mis- and disinformation, because I know that it affects different communities differently. Black and brown people are targeted with disinformation so that they are disenfranchised and believe their voice doesn't matter.
00:44:32.160So sort of in the middle of all of it, I'm like, I still very much have eyes wide open that some of us will be affected, targeted and marginalized in more specific and acute ways that have massive effects on democracy.
00:44:46.940So I don't want to sit here like Pollyanna, you know, oh, it's all going to be great if we could just find moments of like factual shared belief, because some of that assumes that other people will believe you and I matter as much as anyone else.
00:45:01.700And the reality is a lot of people don't think that. But some are movable. Some are people where
00:45:09.940you engage and they are not like hateful people interested in less for certain people. And that's
00:45:18.700the moment where I'm hoping to reach at least some pockets of the United States. So you sound pretty
00:45:23.620hopeful? Oh, Bridget. I actually have a lot of hope. I mean, you know, when I was younger, I,
00:45:32.260I don't want to get too misty eyed, but like, you know, I would work in the South with people like
00:45:37.200John Lewis and civil rights figures. And they always said that change takes a lifetime. It
00:45:42.140takes many lifetimes. And, and this intractable issue of how we connect is one of the biggest
00:45:49.420issues, I think, of our lifetime. And it's very slow. So I am hopeful in the sense that I see
00:45:56.340every day more and more people interested in doing this work. I see movement lawyers, I see
00:46:01.660amazing researchers finding data, you know, and trying to find ways to triage the way the internet
00:46:08.340is making us all bleed. And I'm very hopeful. It just, it takes a long time. And for every step
00:46:15.300forward, there will be three steps back, and then maybe two steps forward, maybe another step
00:46:20.520forward. So it's really just sort of like a dance with democracy. Where can folks keep up with you?
00:46:27.480And can you tell us more about the weekly trainings that PEN America is running?
00:46:32.660So people can always follow me at Attorney Nora. I'm Attorney Nora on every platform.
00:46:37.820And then PEN America has trainings around media literacy and disinformation defense
00:46:44.160almost weekly. And that all is on Penn.org. Our next series is going to focus on Black and Latino
00:46:52.420mistrust around the vaccination process and try to help walk people through why hesitancy is okay,0.75
00:46:59.240why it's okay to question, you know, is the vaccine good? Should I get it? And so we'll be
00:47:06.040doing a series around like disinformation and COVID later this month. And then we're also going
00:47:11.980to be doing work on how community organizers can embed messaging in their work with communities.
00:47:18.680We really want to empower people to feel like they know how to talk about these issues
00:47:22.560when someone comes to them. So more to come, Penn.org, you can check it all out.
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00:47:52.500Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.
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00:47:57.600Michael Amato is our contributing producer.