There Are No Girls on the Internet - February 13, 2021


DISINFORMED： Slowing down on Social Media

DISINFORMED： Is kicking Trump off Twitter censorship？ (Spoiler： IT’S NOT) Pay Us What You Owe： Why Black Women in Tech are Tired

Episode Stats


Length

6 minutes

Words per minute

191.29

Word count

1,211

Sentence count

88

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
00:00:00.000 Hey y'all, quick heads up, this episode deals with suicide.
00:00:07.160 You're listening to Disinformed, a mini-series from There Are No Girls on the Internet.
00:00:12.000 I'm Bridget Todd.
00:00:16.660 On this week's episode of Disinformed, we heard from Nora Benavidez,
00:00:20.340 free speech attorney and the director of U.S. re-expressions programs at Pen America Foundation.
00:00:25.040 Now, as much as we talk about the steps platforms could be taking to keep inaccurate information
00:00:29.200 from spreading online, Nora, who runs digital literacy training programs, really highlighted
00:00:34.020 the role that individuals can play in curbing its spread. Her number one tip was that we all
00:00:38.960 just slow down when we're online instead of smashing that retweet on things without really
00:00:43.940 thinking it through. We should all start asking ourselves how we feel when we're online. Like,
00:00:49.220 are you feeling anxious when you read things? Are you angry? A lot of times disinformation will
00:00:55.840 thrive because we're emotional and we often want to share things.
00:00:59.980 We want to engage with people quickly.
00:01:02.000 And so we'll accept something without fact checking it, without thinking about or asking
00:01:06.520 ourselves, you know, who wrote this?
00:01:09.040 Where did it come from?
00:01:09.940 Why am I seeing it?
00:01:10.860 So if you can just sort of pause, like that is my number one recommendation.
00:01:16.160 Pause to ask a number of things, but just pause.
00:01:19.660 And from slowing down, I think we actually could all benefit.
00:01:26.060 Just this week, I was leading a disinformation workshop, and somebody asked me if I had ever shared something that wasn't totally accurate online.
00:01:32.800 And the answer is, of course I have.
00:01:35.340 In fact, every disinformation researcher, activist, advocate, or expert that I've ever talked to has admitted to getting fooled by false information on social media at least once.
00:01:44.000 Seriously, it happens to the best of us.
00:01:46.020 And even the extremely online are still susceptible.
00:01:49.480 Now, it's easy to think about the spread of inaccurate information as something that other people are doing.
00:01:54.540 But it really warrants us all taking a closer look at our online behavior.
00:01:58.080 Yes, even me.
00:01:59.340 Not just thinking about the problematic social media behavior of others.
00:02:02.760 And that can be really tough sometimes, because like Nora says,
00:02:05.640 news, news stories on social media,
00:02:07.500 it's all wrapped up in our quick emotional responses to things.
00:02:10.820 Think of the way that Facebook even spells this out with their like, love, care reactions.
00:02:15.020 And it's hard to think through your emotional responses to things,
00:02:17.820 especially when you're quickly scrolling your social media feed.
00:02:20.680 But a little mindfulness can go a long way.
00:02:23.560 So this is the story about the last time
00:02:25.260 that I shared something that wasn't true on social media.
00:02:28.180 The tweet seemed innocuous enough.
00:02:29.980 A friend, somebody I trusted and know in real life,
00:02:32.460 posted, suicide figures are up 200%
00:02:35.260 since the lockdown started.
00:02:36.940 Could two followers please copy and repost this tweet?
00:02:39.960 We're trying to demonstrate that someone is always listening.
00:02:42.820 Call 1-800-273-8255,
00:02:45.940 the number for the suicide prevention hotline.
00:02:48.220 Now, demonstrating that someone is always there for you
00:02:50.580 and giving people a resource they might need
00:02:52.260 during a quarantine, why not share it?
00:02:54.400 So I did.
00:02:55.520 I spent maybe all of five seconds thinking about it.
00:02:58.560 I do recall feeling pretty smugly pleased with myself
00:03:01.180 that I was dedicating a whole tweet
00:03:02.960 to providing resources to others,
00:03:04.740 which pretty much made me feel
00:03:05.960 like a modern day Twitter saint,
00:03:08.080 until I got my first reply.
00:03:10.080 And could you believe it?
00:03:11.260 It was from somebody not praising me
00:03:13.540 for being so altruistic,
00:03:15.100 but actually calling me out
00:03:17.160 for spreading inaccurate information.
00:03:19.080 I know you mean well, the tweet said,
00:03:21.160 but what's the source for this?
00:03:22.260 this figure doesn't sound right to me.
00:03:24.280 I need to say that I am not proud of my initial snap reaction.
00:03:27.520 But I want to let you know where my head was at.
00:03:29.360 My first response was,
00:03:31.100 who does this guy think he is trying to call me out like this?
00:03:33.940 You know, I felt kind of attacked and a little bit dragged.
00:03:36.720 So I was definitely on the defensive.
00:03:38.480 Then I thought, while I'm trying to share something helpful,
00:03:41.280 even if this figure isn't exactly accurate,
00:03:43.280 it could still be a helpful resource for somebody who needs it.
00:03:46.020 But the more I thought about it, the worse I felt.
00:03:48.400 So I did a little digging.
00:03:50.000 It turns out he was right.
00:03:51.200 An article on factchecked.org said the figure about suicides being up 200% isn't corroborated by any actual data.
00:03:58.640 In fact, at the time when I tweeted this, data about suicide figures under quarantine hadn't really started being collected yet.
00:04:04.960 The tweet had gone viral in both the UK and the US, but the hotline numbers swapped out.
00:04:09.680 So it wasn't even aiming to paint a portrait of suicide figures in one specific country.
00:04:13.900 Pretty dubious.
00:04:15.220 Okay, but is sharing an accurate information like this really that bad?
00:04:18.480 The sentiment could still be helpful, right?
00:04:20.440 I did some more digging.
00:04:22.140 I found a piece in Slate by Shannon Pauls
00:04:24.100 that viral tweet about suicide rates in the pandemic
00:04:26.540 is wrong and dangerous.
00:04:28.360 And in it, she makes a really good point.
00:04:30.320 First of all, that tweet is designed to be alarming
00:04:32.620 and connecting a dubious rise in suicide
00:04:34.900 with COVID lockdown provisions is not a neutral statement.
00:04:38.460 It goes against media recommendations
00:04:40.120 for responsibly reporting on suicide
00:04:42.020 because it presents suicide
00:04:43.300 as a common or acceptable response to hardship
00:04:45.380 and speculates on the reason for suicides
00:04:47.740 while misrepresenting the actual data.
00:04:50.420 A rise in suicide has also been used as a political argument against COVID lockdown measures.
00:04:55.280 Trump even claimed in March that there would be, quote, suicide by the thousands if lockdown continued.
00:05:00.720 So not quite the innocuous helpful message I intended to share in my feed.
00:05:04.380 And maybe if I had spent more than five seconds thinking about it before posting, I would have seen that.
00:05:09.220 So why am I telling you this?
00:05:10.820 Well, the fact is, even though we spend a lot of time focusing on big-time conspiracy theorists,
00:05:15.220 you do not need to be fully down a QAnon rabbit hole to share bad information online.
00:05:19.380 It happens to the best of us.
00:05:21.940 And if we all just spent a little more time thinking about our online behavior and, as Nora says, slowing down a bit, it could have a big impact.
00:05:29.400 We don't need to wait for platforms to build in the tools to curb the spread of inaccurate information on social media, even though they should, to be clear.
00:05:36.220 It can start with us.
00:05:37.900 And people deserve accurate information.
00:05:40.500 People deserve the truth.
00:05:41.400 If you enjoyed this podcast, please help us grow by subscribing.
00:05:54.360 Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi?
00:05:57.640 We'd love to hear from you at hello at tangody.com. 1.00
00:06:00.880 Disinformed is brought to you by There Are No Girls on the Internet.
00:06:03.520 It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.
00:06:06.420 Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.
00:06:08.560 Tari Harrison is our supervising producer and engineer.
00:06:11.400 Michael Amato is our contributing producer.
00:06:13.820 I'm your host, Bridget Todd.
00:06:15.620 For more great podcasts, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.