00:00:49.880If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:00:55.280Pro 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.
00:01:03.960Each 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.
00:02:16.520It's never, like, these kinds of monomyths, anything that looks like the sort of, remember the flashing your high beams gang initiation stuff, those are totally bunk.
00:02:27.340Anything involving, like, random targeting of civilians, that really never happens.
00:02:33.220Anything with strangers kidnapping you in broad daylight, I think there's, like, certain categories of anecdotes that are just, like, these ones never turn out to be true, so we should just stop sharing them.
00:02:43.420Like, don't feel like you have to warn people about anything involving a parking lot.
00:02:47.340If a parking lot is involved, people are safe.
00:02:50.240A lot of the conversations creating panic around trafficking in parking lots are happening on the platform TikTok.
00:02:57.520Women are using the platform to warn others about what they describe as narrowly missing being kidnapped from a public place and almost trafficked.
00:03:04.440But that's not how trafficking works.0.70
00:03:06.300It isn't affluent women being kidnapped from public places.0.99
00:03:09.840So how did these women come to take up so much room
00:03:12.420in the conversations on TikTok around trafficking?
00:03:26.020Perpetuates a false stereotype about what sex trafficking actually looks like,
00:03:28.580because if we actually wanted to talk about what sex trafficking actually looks like,
00:03:31.240require talking about how the kidnapping narrative is actually incredibly false
00:03:33.740because most victims of sex trafficking are actually groomed into it
00:03:35.980over a long period of time by somebody they know and trust.
00:03:37.900But people don't want to talk about that because it's much easier to be afraid of the boogeyman than it is to hold the people you know and trust accountable.
00:03:42.640Which would then lead to a larger conversation about why the overwhelming majority of people who claim to have almost been sex trafficked are usually pretty affluent young whites to straight women.
00:03:49.900Despite the fact that every reputable anti-trafficking organization could tell you that the most vulnerable populations for sex trafficking are minority, queer, homeless youth.
00:03:56.760People do not want to talk about this because Republicans and evangelicals have been pushing this narrative for decades.0.99
00:04:00.680Because when you have a population that does not know the difference between voluntary sex work and sex trafficking, you can push for legislation that not only hurts minorities, but also hurts the sex workers they all fucking hate.
00:04:09.120It's time to stop believing that every scary thing you've ever experienced is the work of a sex trafficker and start listening to sex workers who know what the signs actually look like.0.86
00:04:15.240That's Jessica. She makes viral content that gives accurate information about trafficking and debunks viral misinformation about it on TikTok.
00:04:23.500And she says spreading myths around trafficking is doing real harm.
00:04:27.700So my name is Jessica, but online I go about bloodbath and beyond.
00:04:31.740How did you come to making TikTok specifically about debunking panics and myths around sex trafficking?
00:04:38.760So I originally downloaded TikTok because I heard there was this new app for young kids and everybody was on it and it was really cool.
00:04:45.260So I was like, oh, let's check it out, see what all the young kids are doing.
00:04:48.060So I got on it. I was watching a lot of content and then somehow I found this niche of like Dungeons and Dragons content.
00:04:53.100I was like, oh, I can make fun Dungeons and Dragons jokes.
00:04:55.400so I started making content like that but then there was actually a lot of sexism involved in1.00
00:05:01.100that community and a lot of gatekeeping of like oh women always play these stereotypical characters1.00
00:05:06.240and they do all of these things because what's a really niche nerdy community without putting some
00:05:12.100sort of stereotype on women and so I just I fell out of that community and I started making just
00:05:18.040random things it turned into like a personal blog for a short while and then I started finding a
00:05:25.220lot of videos online of people asking just random questions. And I was like, oh, I actually know the
00:05:29.340answer to that. And I found myself in a lot of science and math and technology sort of questions.
00:05:35.200And one of the first things that I started covering when it came to human trafficking
00:05:39.120and how I sort of fell into the niche I did was there was this one viral video going around that
00:05:45.840was talking about how if you receive a text message that talks about a failed delivery attempt,
00:05:51.800like think of if you get like text notifications from amazon and you have to like sign for a
00:05:56.980package or something and it's like oh we tried to deliver it but it didn't there was this thing
00:06:00.480going around online that if you click the link they provide in that text message it's it's actually
00:06:06.440coming from sex traffickers and they're going to low jack your location and you're going to become
00:06:10.200a victim of trafficking and they're going to kidnap you from your home by clicking on that
00:06:14.080link you are actually sending your precise location to sex traffickers in your local area1.00
00:06:19.480so they could swoop in and come pick your ass up. And I off the bat knew that that wasn't true.0.99
00:06:24.960That didn't make any sense. That's logistically not how something would work. And if you really
00:06:28.700think about it, it, it just wouldn't work that way. So I ended up making a video about that and
00:06:34.220that video did very well. And a lot of people just saw me in association with sex trafficking
00:06:40.060and misinformation. And so at that point, I think I had around a hundred thousand followers
00:06:44.900and so many of my followers would start tagging me
00:06:47.920in other videos talking about sex trafficking.
00:08:03.360Why do you think, like, what's going on with this phenomenon, you think?
00:08:06.560I think a lot of it has to do with the othering and a lack of education on what sex trafficking
00:08:11.240truly looks like because even though it happens in our neighborhoods it happens all around us
00:08:15.080so many people distance themselves from that crime and the people who commit those crimes
00:08:19.600so if it's it's easier to say that it's dark scary strangers kidnapping you from parking
00:08:26.480lots than it is to acknowledge that it's high school coaches it's parents it's boyfriends
00:08:31.200it's people you know and people you've grown to trust or see as good people so we try to other
00:08:36.140and we try to distance ourselves from the people committing those acts that we see as such terrible
00:08:40.200crimes. So I think it's just a lot easier to just pin it on this dark shadowy figure and then just
00:08:49.040combining that with not really understanding who are the most susceptible victims to sex trafficking
00:08:53.260is I think what really built up this phenomenon online. So you might be thinking, so what if
00:09:00.120people want to make videos about trafficking? Who is it hurting? Well, the answer is that it's
00:09:04.620actually hurting survivors of sex trafficking because it adds to the idea that victims of
00:09:08.820trafficking are white ladies taken by strangers, when in reality, it's marginalized people like
00:09:13.620black folks, queer folks, trans folks, and people dealing with homelessness. And when organizations
00:09:18.060get involved to try to combat trafficking, they can sometimes conflate trafficking with consensual
00:09:22.940sex work, further criminalizing already marginalized communities. Here's Jessica on TikTok explaining
00:09:29.100what I mean. Hello, this is just your daily reminder that most anti-trafficking organizations0.58
00:09:34.200here in the United States aren't actually helping trafficking victims. Most of these organizations
00:09:38.480focus on sex trafficking despite labor trafficking making up by some estimates 65% of trafficking
00:09:43.680victims. Many of these multi-million dollar organizations have puritanical Christian values,
00:09:48.240and the reason that they focus on sex trafficking instead of labor trafficking is because it is
00:09:51.980incredibly easy to disguise anti-sex work legislation as anti-trafficking legislation
00:09:56.680because most people do not know the difference. The number one victim of sex trafficking in the
00:10:01.280United States is statistically black women, but these organizations love to push for legislation0.97
00:10:05.240that makes it infinitely easier to label them as prostitutes and throw them in jail instead of1.00
00:10:08.680providing resources they need to escape their situation. They instead pushed the narrative that
00:10:12.120the majority of victims are kidnapped and held against their will so that they can raise millions
00:10:14.980of dollars for these rescue missions. And the reason they don't talk about labor trafficking
00:10:18.460is because most victims of labor trafficking are undocumented immigrants, and that would require
00:10:22.640talking about how the U.S. loves to capitalize on undocumented immigrant labor without actually
00:10:27.380providing them basic human rights. One of your videos that I watched that really breaks this
00:10:32.000down well is this idea that so many organizations that purport to be around combating trafficking
00:10:37.880are actually one, just like very shady. And then two, they're doing this thing where they conflate
00:10:43.540trafficking with sex work. And then they, you know, they aren't kind of going after some of the
00:10:50.660biggest culprits of actual trafficking, like labor, you know, labor trafficking and things
00:10:54.880like that. And they're sort of selling this narrative of little white kids getting snatched
00:10:59.940off the street or white ladies getting like taken in parking lots. And, you know, do you think that's
00:11:05.340sort of part of it, that it's easier to raise a panic around the issue when you're telling people
00:11:11.500that it looks like this, as opposed to like, no, it might be like the coach at your kid's school
00:11:18.180or something. Yeah, definitely. I think a lot of those organizations, and it's hard to look at an
00:11:24.120organization that is objectively trying to do something good and just say like, hey, you're
00:11:29.660doing it wrong. You hate to do that. So I always try to be really careful when I speak of these
00:11:34.020organizations as much as they sometimes frustrate me. But yeah, there are a lot of, I call them
00:11:40.880just rescue organizations where they paint this picture. They really tend to focus on this idea
00:11:46.280that sex trafficking is, I think the word trafficking is what does it, is they associate
00:11:51.660trafficking with being carried across a border. And that is so often not the case.
00:11:57.760Jessica studied mathematics, which turns out is actually a pretty useful thing to understand when you're responding to viral misinformation around sexualized violence and trafficking.
00:12:06.000So how has studying math and statistics impacted your work on TikTok?
00:12:09.780So I would love to say like, oh, I use my degree all the time.
00:12:14.220It's so valuable. I totally like that $50,000 I have in debt is totally worth it.
00:12:19.720But in all reality, so I have a master's degree in mathematics and I focused on theoretical mathematics.
00:12:26.340So statistics wasn't necessarily my thing, but I definitely had to take multiple courses
00:12:54.960exactly how are you collecting this data? It definitely helps to have a background in
00:12:58.720mathematics and understand, okay, like what is the importance of sample sizes and how are they
00:13:03.600collecting this and how are they going out and doing all of these things? It definitely helps to
00:13:07.320see what happens when that isn't done properly. And unfortunately it's, that's not as commonly
00:13:16.000taught in schools. I wish it was, is understanding how these statistics come about and what are the
00:13:22.580flaws and what can go wrong and how credible is this information and where they're getting it
00:13:27.540from. So that definitely comes in hand quite a bit. In response to the death of Sarah Everard,
00:13:34.080a South London woman who was found dead this year, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equity and
00:13:38.960Empowerment of Women released a report that showed that 97% of women in the United Kingdom
00:13:43.300from ages 18 to 24 have been victims of sexual harassment in public places. That factoid sparked
00:13:49.240a viral movement on TikTok, where women cite the 97% number, to make really moving videos0.62
00:13:55.020calling out the sexual harassment that we face in public constantly. But a lot of men also really
00:14:00.620latched onto that 97% number. Some said that since the study included things like catcalling or
00:14:05.800staring as sexual harassment, that 97% figure must be overblown. And it gave a lot of them a really
00:14:12.520easy excuse to just disengage from the conversation altogether. Because that one stat had become kind
00:14:17.740of a rallying cry for talking about sexual harassment in public on TikTok. Yeah, that 97%
00:14:23.280number, all that kept me up for multiple days. That's a really tough one because
00:14:27.480the data science in me and the person with the math degree in me wants to go, hold up, that's
00:14:34.140a really, really big number. That's a very large assumption to be making. You better have
00:14:40.280a lot behind it to prove that. But also at the same time, being a woman just existing in the1.00
00:14:44.820world, it's hard not to believe it. Like the amount of times I've been catcalled or sexually
00:14:51.460harassed, like, oh yeah, no, 97% seems about right. So your assumption is to just go with it and be
00:14:57.480like, yeah, that's accurate. That reflects what I've personally seen in my life. So when I come
00:15:03.220in and I think that's why I'm in a unique position to be talking about it is because I've seen men
00:15:08.200or at least male presenting individuals come online and talk about that and they are immediately
00:15:13.300shot down. They're like, you're not allowed to be talking about this. You are the problem. How
00:15:17.160dare you try to tell us or try to speak over our experiences? So as a woman who has a little bit0.98
00:15:23.200more technical understanding of how these studies work, I think it's valuable for me to come in and
00:15:27.500say, hey, I'm sure 97 is pretty close to what it actually is. It wasn't meant to be this all
00:15:34.220encompassing, perfect study that was going to get thrown around by the entire world and turn
00:15:37.540into a massive movement. It was a self-selected study. And this organization just wanted to get
00:15:42.900a rough idea, they weren't trying to make it this monolith of an idea. So just to criticize it,
00:15:48.840but to still put it in the frame of, yes, this is an absolutely massive problem. But like,
00:15:54.740if we're going to be throwing around numbers like this that have such a large impact, we should make
00:15:57.820sure that these are solid numbers that have the science behind it to back it up. Because otherwise
00:16:02.900you will run into an instance where a whole ton of men are going to come back at you and say,
00:16:08.320no, that study was BS. That doesn't make any sense. No, it, I'm not going to, I'm not going
00:16:12.680to engage in this conversation because the math was bad. And that is their immediate go-to. So
00:16:16.700if we're going to engage in these conversations, we need to have rock solid numbers. That's such
00:16:20.920a good point. Cause I can see, I used to, an earlier iteration of me used to spend a lot of
00:16:26.940time like arguing with guys in Reddit and things like that. And so it was like, as soon as they're
00:16:31.020like, oh, well, I think your numbers are not accurate. Like it really is a way for them to
00:16:36.060just sort of shut the conversation down. Yeah. Part of the, one of the videos I made talking
00:16:39.780about the 97%, I think I ended the video on something like bad math isn't an excuse to leave
00:16:44.280the conversation. And that chunk of my video got stitched like two, 300 times of women being like,1.00
00:16:50.860she gets it. And I think that was really what helped engage in the conversation is yeah,
00:16:55.480the math was flawed. We should talk about that because we want to make sure that we're getting
00:16:59.020accurate information, but like also this is a societal phenomenon and getting a perfect number
00:17:04.120is never going to be easy because you can do sample sizing, but there's going to be so many0.94
00:17:09.160individual experiences or different cultures and communities that behave differently around women
00:17:13.460that that's not an easy number to get. So yeah, we're probably going to be going off of a couple
00:17:17.800of assumptions here and there, but just because the study's flawed doesn't mean that the amount
00:17:22.900of women who resonated with that statistic should speak for itself. Let's take a quick break.0.98
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00:18:23.840That's iHeartAdvertising.com. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine
00:18:31.120months i survived and i've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed
00:18:37.500them i'm elizabeth smart and these are the survivor files i just remember this low taunting
00:18:45.060voice next to my ear saying shut up don't say anything every week i'm with survivors who live
00:18:52.900through the unthinkable i knew if he woke up without a doubt he was going to hurt me i started
00:19:00.120feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed and i just started screaming they are abducted
00:19:07.940stalked controlled and nearly silenced but these aren't stories about what's taken from them
00:19:13.800they're stories about what it takes to make it out alive listen to the survivor files with
00:19:19.820elizabeth smart on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts
00:19:25.680If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:19:32.560This 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.
00:19:44.720I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:19:51.860I'm going to have to look up this story.
00:19:55.000From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.
00:20:01.400It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:20:09.300Whether 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.
00:20:18.460Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:36:32.640Wayfair had to actually put out a statement saying they were not involved in human trafficking.
00:36:37.380There is, of course, no truth to these claims.
00:36:39.720The products sold in question are industrial-grade cabinets that are accurately priced, they told USA Today.
00:36:44.860And the whole incident had really obvious ties to the QAnon conspiracy theory.
00:36:49.220And so, actually, Michael Hobbs from You're Wrong About did an amazing piece talking about breaking all of that down.
00:36:54.720but that's not nearly as exciting because everybody wants this. There was a grand conspiracy
00:36:59.760and it was this evil person all along. It was George Soros. It was Amazon. It was all these
00:37:05.560bad actors. There are reasons to not like certain large corporations. We don't need to come up with
00:37:12.040these outrageous conspiracies not to like Wayfair. A lot of people don't like Wayfair because they
00:37:16.480provided furniture for the holding cells at the border for children. That's a reason to not like
00:37:22.540them. We don't have to tell everybody that they're secretly trafficking children. The reasons to not
00:37:27.320like them are right there. So how can people be better involved in conversations around trafficking?
00:37:32.320All the time I'm getting comments from people asking, okay, you've taught me what it isn't.
00:37:36.580Now what can I do to help trafficking victims? I would like to right the wrong idea of spreading
00:37:41.080misinformation. What can I do to help the victims? And the number one thing I think that
00:37:45.820everyday people can do is just when conversations of sex trafficking come up,
00:37:50.080research, look into it. A lot of these larger organizations, like the Polaris Project is one
00:37:55.540of my favorite because they have such an intense and thorough myths and facts page breaking down
00:38:01.380exactly the popular ones you see online. Like, are they doing this? No. Are they doing this? Well,
00:38:05.680yes, that is a thing. They give so much nuance to it. Even a simple Google search or just knowing
00:38:11.680some more reliable organizations that provide better information on this and running it by
00:38:16.320them first before you're sharing it. Because what a lot of people don't know is that so much of this
00:38:22.640is fueled by this idea of, I don't know if it's true, but I'm going to share it just in case.
00:38:28.540That sentence keeps me up at night. It is so frustrating because so many people just see it as,
00:38:34.460I don't want to take, or I don't want to, or I don't know how to engage in checking if this is
00:38:39.120accurate. I'm just going to share it just in case. And that's why TikTok is so frustrating because
00:38:43.380the barrier for entry of sharing this information is so low it takes two seconds to comment it takes
00:38:48.640two seconds to duet a video which is another way of sharing it onto your own platform and it is
00:38:53.820so frustrating because when we share this information online we're drowning out actually
00:38:59.220reliable good information talking about the signs of sex trafficking and even aside from that like
00:39:04.480we can have an incredibly nuanced conversation talking about how statistically the most likely
00:39:08.440victims of trafficking are Black women, homeless individuals, LGBT youth, kids in the foster
00:39:13.280system, people who are down on their luck or don't have a steady, reliable network of resources
00:39:19.440around them to help them if they need assistance. But when we start drowning out that conversation,
00:39:26.900we're not only are we not letting that get the spotlight where it really needs to be the
00:39:31.840forefront of this conversation, we are also hurting the actual victims directly themselves
00:39:36.960because we're creating this idea and this culture around what trafficking looks like and what the
00:39:41.240average victim looks like. So when a victim comes forward and says, I think I was sex trafficked or
00:39:45.760I need help, people are less inclined to believe them because we've created this narrative that
00:39:50.500most trafficking victims are innocent, upper middle class white women getting kidnapped from
00:39:55.240Target. And it was against their will, which is one of the biggest things is people have this idea
00:39:59.940that the majority of trafficking victims, it started some sort of violent, aggressive crime,
00:40:04.100like being kidnapped. When in reality, most victims of trafficking were groomed into it,
00:40:08.420and they did it to a degree willingly to start, or they were coerced into it by somebody they know
00:40:13.680and trust. And when we're not educating people on that, they're less likely to look out for those
00:40:18.880in their community that are likely to fall victim to that sort of activity. And we're actively
00:40:24.980harming the victims that we think we're helping when we share that information.
00:40:29.580Yeah, I think that's so true. And I also think kind of going back to that nuance,
00:40:32.580I think the idea that someone could be, I mean, I don't want to say willingly, but like willingly with like heavy scare quotes, willingly got involved in sex trafficking.
00:40:45.300I think there's something about that that makes it hard for people to stay along for the conversation because we've created this idea that like, oh, sex trafficking victims were women, were white women who were snatched from Target against their will.
00:40:57.440And it's so much more difficult to have that conversation of like, well, if you were down on your luck and already marginalized or disadvantaged in some way and somebody that you trust came along and kind of groomed you into it, so you went along with it, heavy scare quotes, willingly, like that is such a more complex conversation to have.
00:41:17.120And if you've been primed to think of sex trafficking can only be the white woman snatched
00:41:22.320from a target, I'm not interested in having the conversation about how it actually goes
00:42:14.880And when white women have, and this is generalizing a lot, but when white women have built this idea in their head of what their reality looks like, a marginalized individual coming in and saying, hey, you're actually really taking the spotlight or you're really consuming this conversation and holding it away from people that are more likely to be involved in what you're so afraid of.
00:42:38.440When that's coming from marginalized voices, I feel like white women are less inclined to listen, which is unfortunate and terrible.
00:42:46.600But if I can start to help bridge that gap at all and be like, hey, fellow white women here, I used to think like you.
00:42:53.680Let's talk about it if I can help bridge that gap.
00:42:56.880I wish we lived in a world where marginalized people were supported when we spoke up about somebody in a position of trust abusing their power.
00:43:05.040That person is so much more likely to be a trafficking perpetrator
00:43:08.980than a stranger in a Target parking lot in broad daylight.0.55
00:43:12.660And when women speak up about dudes being creepy in public,0.98