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.
00:02:06.900And as we wrap up this season of There Are No Girls on the Internet, I wanted to take a look back at where we've been and where we're going.
00:02:13.380I started making this series about disinformation and conspiracy theories online
00:02:16.960right after the insurrection on January 6th.
00:02:20.120I live in D.C., so that happened just a mile or so from my apartment,
00:02:23.100so it really felt like an attack on my home.
00:02:25.680And I felt like I couldn't not respond.
00:02:29.100But from breaking down TikTok sex trafficking conspiracy theories
00:02:32.740to calling out Gwyneth Paltrow for pushing misinformation to women,
00:02:36.740I could never have imagined all the places this conversation would take us.
00:02:40.780I sat down with my producer, Mike, to try to put it all together.0.55
00:03:04.060I feel like we've dove in, dove, dived.
00:03:06.620I feel like we've gotten into so many different topics.
00:03:09.800It's almost kind of hard to wrap up because I feel like when we started the season, I had no idea where the topic was going to take us.
00:03:17.580And from when we first started back in January to where we ended up in the end of the season, I can never have never predicted where we would go.
00:03:25.040But I guess that's the Internet for you. You don't know, you know, the story that you're telling until you tell it.
00:03:29.340Yeah. The Internet and disinformation, which is just people making up new stuff all the time.
00:03:36.160What has been your favorite topic that you've covered in this season?
00:04:02.980so for me it was like a very classic you know black women tried to tell you if only you would1.00
00:04:07.900listen kind of moment but finding out that she was doxxed and like harassed and abused by her
00:04:14.760own co-workers for essentially doing her job I think that if I had to sum up some of the episodes1.00
00:04:20.800along a theme that theme would be marginalized people namely black women fighting tooth and0.99
00:04:28.860nail to make internet spaces safer and better for everybody, right? Not just for other Black women0.74
00:04:34.100or other marginalized people, everybody benefits, but really facing a material cost for doing that
00:04:41.160work and sort of having that work sort of be kind of costly for us or personally, you know, costly
00:04:47.200for us. Another example on that same line would be Shereen Mitchell. We did an episode with her
00:04:52.660about early on about sort of why we should have been listening, why disinformation is really a
00:04:59.340story about not listening to Black women and the consequences for that. And so I think the theme
00:05:03.580for me really was like Black women, queer folks, trans folks, other marginalized folks, like we
00:05:09.300are the ones who are really doing so much of the work of trying to make the internet, not just
00:05:13.000better for us, but for everybody, but that work is costly. It is dangerous. It is exhausting. And
00:05:20.920And it is, you know, oftentimes like not rewarded or if it is rewarded, it's sort of rewarded in this kind of shallow way where it's like, oh, listen to black women, trust black women, where that's just sort of a platitude.0.71
00:05:33.960Yeah, that's a great segue to my next question I wanted to ask, which is that in season one of Tangodi, you talked a lot about erasure as a concept. And I wanted to ask, you know, how did erasure show up in Disinformed?
00:05:48.960That's a great question. I mean, erasure is like one of the reasons why I wanted to talk about disinformation in the first place. You know, I, in my other life, have worked in the disinformation space professionally with the organization Ultraviolet, the gender justice organization that I work for.
00:06:06.140but on January 6th after the insurrection it was like I woke up one day and everybody was talking
00:06:12.380about disinformation and I felt like people like myself who had really been talking about this
00:06:17.860since before it was like a sexy issue I think the insurrection really made it an issue that like
00:06:22.300everybody was talking about after the fact right and so it was like I truly feel like I went to
00:06:27.640bed one day and I worked on this issue that was like not very sexy and that people didn't really
00:06:33.260care about. And I woke up the next day and everybody was talking about it. And overnight,
00:06:37.700a lot of like white men who worked at tech companies were all of a sudden just calling
00:06:42.780themselves different disinformation experts. And that erasure really stung, you know, as someone
00:06:49.100who has been working in this space for a long time, it really stung. It stung to see panels
00:06:54.420organized about disinformation that didn't have any people of color or women on them.
00:06:58.900having that experience not at all match my lived experience of going to meetings with companies
00:07:04.760like Facebook or TikTok or Twitter, and where we are on the side of people trying to like hold
00:07:09.880them accountable or make the platform safer and better. And knowing how the people when I look
00:07:14.560around those meetings are always women, always people of color, having the reality not match1.00
00:07:20.600my lived experience was a real feeling of erasure for me. So that was really something that drove1.00
00:07:26.260the work in general. Yeah, I can imagine that that would sting and be frustrating.
00:07:32.200But it's not just an issue of injustice, like those panels that don't feature black activists,0.95
00:07:39.940women, people of color are missing the whole point of disinformation, right? Like it's not0.81
00:07:47.820just that they are excluding people who should be there. It's that they are not talking about the
00:07:53.640the real issues that are at the heart of disinformation. Well, if you're not talking
00:07:58.160about race, identity, gender, if those things are not part of your perspective when you talk about
00:08:03.540disinformation, but also any experience on the internet, you're not actually telling the full
00:08:08.600story. A great example is this documentary, because I love documentaries. A good example
00:08:12.620is this documentary I watched recently on HBO called Fake Famous, which I truly enjoyed. I
00:08:17.920really, really enjoyed it. It's all about this idea that on the internet, nothing is really as
00:08:22.940it seems, and that you could essentially buy your way into being an influencer if you had money to
00:08:27.440buy fake followers and things of that nature. One of the things that they dive into is this idea of
00:08:32.360when it comes to fake followers or bots that fake social media accounts had a big impact on the
00:08:38.920election in 2016. They never mentioned the fact that a Senate inquiry confirmed that Black folks
00:08:45.940were the biggest target, right? So that is a, not only is it a election integrity issue and a voting
00:08:51.140rights issue. It's also a racial justice issue. And if you are not equipped to, you know, dissect
00:08:56.440these stories in ways that demonstrate how race and gender and identity are really at the center
00:09:03.500of them, then you're not telling the whole story. And I guess I just saw the identity aspect of the
00:09:10.780way that we talk about the internet in general. I just saw that being erased time and time again,
00:09:15.900because frankly, a lot of these places don't have the range, right? Like, not to say that I'm doing
00:09:20.060it right. But if you are a team of all white people telling a story about the internet and0.88
00:09:25.400you believe the internet experience to be for white people, by white people, of course, you're0.62
00:09:29.360not going to be able to really speak to that, to identity issues or, you know, how things can be
00:09:34.100race issues or gender issues. If that's something that you're not poised yourself to grapple with.
00:09:38.780Yeah. And it's a shame because those issues are central. Anything, like you said, anything that
00:09:44.020doesn't include them and in fact center them is just a superficial treatment of the problem.
00:11:22.460Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.0.98
00:11:26.660I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.
00:11:31.460I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.
00:11:38.520They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:11:42.980But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.
00:11:46.440They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:11:50.040Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:11:58.500If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:12:03.480This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:12:16.900I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:12:23.880I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.
00:12:27.140From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.
00:12:33.560It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:12:41.460Whether 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.
00:12:50.620Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:13:16.060Instead, the January 6th insurrection happened and Republicans are now passing voter suppression laws
00:13:21.820based on Trump's big lie and trying to convince us all that the insurrection was just a well-behaved
00:13:26.440group of civics enthusiasts storing the Capitol. What do you see as the emerging disinformation
00:13:31.920threats that maybe aren't on our collective radar yet?
00:13:35.880Ooh, what a good question. I don't even know. Well, first of all, I love how you put this.
00:13:41.240A organized group of civics enthusiasts. I think there's a lot of people very invested in that
00:13:46.140being the narrative. I think when it comes to disinformation, one thing I would say is there
00:13:52.640is a great risk of not seeing some of the laws that are being passed as deeply connected. You
00:14:00.340mentioned the voter suppression laws that we're seeing in places like Georgia, Florida, other
00:14:04.780states around the country that are rooted in a complete fabrication, a fabrication that says
00:14:10.980that our elections are not safe and that in the last election there was like nefarious behavior
00:14:15.580going on. That's not true. It's just point blank, not true. But the fact that now we have this kind
00:14:22.800of disinformation being codified into law that will make it harder for people, namely Black folks
00:14:28.020and Brown folks and first-time voters to vote, that's also happening in other ways. It's happening
00:14:33.120with the spate of anti-abortion legislation we're seeing all over the country, based purely in
00:14:39.720fictions about our health and our bodies. It's happening in really, really harmful, dangerous
00:14:45.800laws about legislating trans identity, oftentimes focused on trans youth. A lot of these laws are
00:14:53.720based on complete fictions and fabrications about trans youth. And I don't see these as disparate.
00:14:59.660I see these as a coordinated series of attacks on our democracy being fueled by disinformation
00:15:07.200and lies and, you know, falsehoods about marginalized people being spread and having a
00:15:15.940digital media ecosystem and landscape ready and poised to amplify them and help them fester and
00:15:22.260become more powerful. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's all egregious. I think some of the worst is the,
00:15:27.840the disinformation about like trans kids, right? Like why are children somehow a political
00:15:34.340punching bag. For a lot of the same groups that are concerned that Amazon is selling children and
00:15:41.800all these disinformation stories, it's pretty disgusting the way that they will create these
00:15:48.700fabrications about people and especially children. It's disgusting. And I need to be clear,0.92
00:15:53.720this is going to kill people. People will die because of this kind of legislation.
00:15:58.520We know that trans youth are safer when they have access to gender affirming health care.1.00
00:16:05.960Everybody needs health care to create laws based on fictions and lies and smears, smears
00:16:13.640that are fueled by someone's identity to further criminalize them.0.95
00:16:18.380They're essentially a, I believe, trying to legislate trans identity out of existence.0.78
00:16:22.700So, you know, eradicate trans identity, starting with youth.0.95
00:16:26.300And we're talking about youth who are oftentimes so marginalized. So it's cruel, but it's also people are going to die. People are going to be deeply, deeply harmed. And the worst part is, is that it's all based in complete fictions, complete untruths that are allowed to fester and spread on social media, oftentimes for profit.0.96
00:16:51.780And I think it can be difficult to fully see that at the scope that it actually is. It's not about a piecemeal anti-trans bill in this state or voting rights bill in this state. It is a coordinated network of larger attacks on our democracy fueled by disinformation.
00:17:12.180And I think that, you know, Trump didn't start this information, but I think that we're living in a time right now where people see how powerful it is to weaponize it and what a powerful weapon it can be.
00:17:23.400And I think that we're really seeing, we're only now seeing the results of that.
00:17:27.140I think we really are at a pivotal time where we're going to have to decide if this gets better or worse.
00:19:06.600Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.
00:19:11.140I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.
00:19:15.700I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.
00:19:23.140They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:19:27.100But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.
00:19:30.540They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:19:33.680Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:19:42.620If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:19:48.560This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:20:01.040I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:20:08.160I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.
00:20:11.640From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.
00:20:17.680It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:20:25.160Whether 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.
00:20:34.760Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:20:49.060You brought up a great point that there's a lot of money being made on the spread of this disinformation, which came up a few times in Disinformed as we talked about platforms.
00:21:02.640But there's a whole bunch of other ways that we didn't touch on because of the focus on telling individual people's stories.
00:21:12.940Yeah. When Ithoma Ithoma was at Pinterest, she said that nine times out of 10, when someone was pushing medical disinformation or misinformation on the platform, it was because they were selling something, whether it was supplements or some bogus curative disinformation, people who push it can often be scammers looking to line their pockets.
00:21:30.300I did an episode recently that was a little controversial, calling out everybody's favorite wellness guru, Gwyneth Paltrow.
00:21:40.480You know, at what point do we call it what it is?0.88
00:21:43.080If you make money, if you build an empire on telling people lies, lies about their health, lies about their bodies to make money, that's a scammer.
00:21:53.960Just because someone is well-dressed and they have a, like, you know, ethereal vibe doesn't make it any less of a scam.
00:22:01.560And I want to get to a point where the same way that when we see someone selling fake Gucci, you know, in Times Square in Manhattan, that's a scammer.
00:22:13.100We need to see people who get rich off of disinformation and platforms and tech leaders who get rich off of it as the same kinds of scammers.
00:22:20.720and worse because those scams kill people. They hurt people. They get people sick and they
00:22:26.600criminalize people. Yeah, you mentioned platforms and the role that they have here. And they're
00:22:31.800absolutely profiting off this disinformation. Even if they're not the ones doing the scams
00:22:39.800themselves, they are enabling it, perpetuating it, and profiting from it. And I know in a lot
00:22:45.700of the work that you've done with Ultraviolet, you've been bringing this to platforms, especially
00:22:52.240Facebook and Twitter. Are those the big platforms that we need to be concerned about now? Are there
00:22:58.980others? So if you would have asked me this a few months ago, I would have said my big three were
00:23:04.240Facebook, Google, which owns YouTube, and Twitter. But we need to be thinking about other platforms
00:23:09.840as well. We recently met with TikTok about disinformation on their platform. The episode
00:23:16.360that we did with Bloodbath and Beyond and Abby Richards, who are two amazing TikTokers who make
00:23:23.000amazing content, really countering some of the disinformation that we see on those platforms
00:23:27.760have really spoken to the way that TikTok has really gone under the radar, which is so horrible
00:23:33.160when you think about the fact that the average user's age is 14, right? And so these are very
00:23:38.560young people who are really being targeted with a lot of harmful content, nevermind the sexist,
00:23:47.140racist, toxic content that's there. That's like, yes, and, but also harmful disinformation and
00:23:54.700misinformation about our bodies, about our identities, about sexuality. Imagine being 14
00:24:00.620and having to wade through all of this. It's a lot. And so I think that we really do need to be
00:24:06.300spending more time focusing on emerging platforms like TikTok. And something that Bloodbath and
00:24:12.020Beyond brought up, which I thought was a really good point, is that we need to be having these
00:24:16.340conversations on the platforms where they start. And so if you see disinformation popping off on
00:24:22.400TikTok, you can't counter that on Twitter, you know? And so it's like, even though I am way older
00:24:29.200than the target user of TikTok, I am now on TikTok because I want to know what kinds of
00:24:34.480conversations, what kind of content is happening there? And what can we do to make sure that
00:24:38.120content is safe for this very young user base? Yeah, I think you're absolutely right that it's
00:24:42.340been under the radar. And it needs to be a focus. They've got, I just looked it up, over a billion
00:24:47.700active monthly users. So not only are they, is it young people, but it's a lot of them. So I'm,
00:24:54.620thank you for doing that work. I mean, it's a little silly, because I'm definitely,
00:24:58.440I love TikTok. I made my first TikTok two weeks ago. It is about my cat, Monika. I'm hoping to
00:25:08.380make her a TikTok star. There's a lot of good cat content on TikTok. It's a great platform,
00:25:12.940and I completely understand why people go there looking for community. Their algorithm is amazing
00:25:18.660in that I identify as a Black queer woman. Within the first few scrolls of being on TikTok,
00:25:26.180their algorithm completely clocked me as a black queer woman and was
00:25:29.880servicing me content that would align with that identity.
00:25:34.220And so if their algorithm is that good at knowing my identity,
00:25:39.260understanding the kind of content I want to see,
00:25:41.600that should just show you how powerful it is.
00:25:43.420And so I want to make sure that these algorithms are being agents of good,
00:25:47.720agents of bringing people closer to communities that are healthy,
00:25:50.780not bringing them closer to communities that will endanger them or get them
00:25:54.980involved in toxic or extremist content. Yeah, absolutely. So what can people do to curb
00:26:03.540disinformation in our everyday lives? Well, the number one thing that you can do is not to amplify
00:26:09.540it, not to share it. Even if you're trying to debunk it, oftentimes when you retweet something
00:26:16.300that is disinformation or misinformation, you're actually just helping it spread and helping it
00:26:20.000become more powerful by debunking it. Focus instead on sort of thinking of yourself as like
00:26:25.620an influencer of your own little pocket of the internet. So even if you don't have a lot of
00:26:29.780followers or you're not somebody who is like Kim Kardashian online, you still have influence over
00:26:35.160your little pocket of the web. So focus on becoming that trustworthy person that people know they can
00:26:41.560go to. They know they can go to your feed, your TikTok, your Twitter, whatever. They know that
00:26:46.020they can count on you for posting accurate timely information and that means your community is going
00:26:52.840to be so nourished and so full off of the information that you share that is like good
00:26:57.480and accurate they're not going to be as susceptible to fall for it when someone is posting bs so focus
00:27:03.560on being like an influencer of your little pocket of the internet and then also if you see something
00:27:08.620that is suspect google it right like i think on like like we see this a lot on tiktok with the
00:27:14.460trafficking content, I do believe that people are sharing misinformation, not because they want to
00:27:20.560be bad actors. They're not looking to intentionally disinform. They're just, you know, sharing
00:27:25.900something with their community because like maybe they think it will be helpful. Maybe, you know,
00:27:29.220they don't know. Like maybe it's true. I think if like, don't fall into the trap of sharing
00:27:35.200something just because maybe it's true. Do a little research, Google it, try to find a reliable
00:27:40.260source backing up what you say. And if you can't, don't share it. I would also say, you know,
00:27:46.320this came up in the episode we did with Nora from Pet America, recognize that we all have a role to
00:27:51.820play in this. It's a little bit like climate change, right? I am one person. I am not a
00:27:57.280wealthy corporation. It is up to wealthy, like if wealthy corporations wanted to change, like fix
00:28:02.800climate change, they could, and they should. They're the ones with power. They should be the
00:28:06.820ones acting as leaders to do this. But in absence of that, I can still make individual choices that
00:28:12.080help. I can still reduce my usage of single-use plastics or whatever. Disinformation and
00:28:19.080misinformation is the same way. It is up to tech leadership and policymakers to step in and
00:28:25.620right this wrong and make a big difference. In absence of their leadership, we can all make
00:28:31.600smarter choices of how we use the internet. We can all be good stewards of the internet. We can all
00:28:35.200think twice before we retweet something or, you know, pause and take a breath before we share
00:28:40.880something. I think that that like that realization was really helpful for me. Yeah, that makes sense.
00:28:45.400And that really aligns with what you've been doing over the past six months, year, longer than that
00:28:51.680of both those things of helping educate people and raise awareness about disinformation and what we
00:28:58.840can all do, as well as your work with platforms and policy, policymakers through Ultraviolet.
00:29:08.120And, you know, you've had some help along the way in spreading that message. A lot of your friends
00:29:13.460and colleagues invited you onto their shows to talk about this information. What was that
00:29:17.580experience like for you? Oh, my God. So fun. The voice that you hear on the podcast is largely my
00:29:22.200own. And podcasting, the reason why it's fun, the reason why I got into it is because it's
00:29:26.620collaborative and so being able to collaborate with my community of podcast nerds has been
00:29:33.020amazing i have got the chance to go on so many amazing podcasts um i can shout some out right
00:29:37.660now uh stuff mom never told you i'm on every month talking about underrepresented voices of
00:29:42.800the internet shout out to sam and annie they are amazing um i was on one of my favorite podcasts
00:29:48.340robert evans is behind the bastard shout out to robert and sophie they are amazing they do work
00:33:29.700So what can listeners look forward to in the next season of Tangodi?
00:33:35.740And when can they look forward to hearing it?
00:33:38.060So we will be back in your earbuds very soon.
00:33:40.420And we're going to keep having these conversations about what it looks like online for people who are underrepresented.
00:33:46.140Some of the episodes that we did this season that were near and dear to my heart were stories of women who were finding themselves at the center of not so pleasant experiences online.
00:33:56.120And so things like online harassment campaigns, pile on campaigns, I'm really interested in how these women deal with it and come out the other side of it.
00:34:03.640So that's something to look forward to.0.87
00:34:05.620And a fun little mini series, really kind of the opposite about women who are just doing cool stuff online, like interesting women that you might not know about who are making the Internet a better place.0.93
00:34:19.100So a little bit of like light and dark.0.89
00:34:21.320And I think it really is representative of the fact that being a woman or a person of0.98
00:34:25.840color or a queer person or a trans person online, you deal with so much crap.0.97
00:34:30.200There is ugliness there, but there is light there too.0.96
00:34:33.020Like it is what brings me back to the internet is what's what brought me to the internet
00:38:06.240and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.
00:38:12.060I'm Elizabeth Smart and these are The Survivor Files.
00:38:15.560Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable,
00:38:19.380abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:38:23.200These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:38:27.020Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app,
00:38:31.640Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:38:34.660If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:38:40.760Pro 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.
00:38:49.020Each 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.