There Are No Girls on the Internet - DOXXING 101： Our personal information is available online and it’s putting women at risk. Meet the woman who is fighting back.

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00:00:37.800 844-844-iheart i survived nine months in captivity and i've spent my life exploring how other people

00:00:46.160 survive what should have destroyed them i'm elizabeth smart and these are the survivor files

00:00:52.040 every week i'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable abducted stalked controlled and

00:00:58.480 nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The

00:01:04.500 Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

00:01:10.380 get your podcasts. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality,

00:01:15.860 welcome home. Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone

00:01:21.660 who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. Each week,

00:01:26.180 we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture

00:01:29.220 with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions.

00:01:34.000 Yeah, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.

00:01:35.760 Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:01:42.080 When a woman gets attacked online, it's a woman, it's her children, it's her mother, it's her sisters.

00:01:47.320 Like, that will shut us down.

00:01:49.500 There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

00:02:03.140 I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.

00:02:08.240 With historic numbers of women running for statewide office,

00:02:11.580 also comes a sobering reality,

00:02:13.800 that those same women are more likely to be targeted online for it. 0.99

00:02:17.920 It's not just women running for office. 0.63

00:02:19.500 we've seen educators, election workers, and their families being targeted. 1.00

00:02:23.940 Now, this doesn't just harm the women being harassed and attacked.

00:02:27.780 It's also meant to keep us from being able to fully participate in civic life. 1.00

00:02:32.160 It's an attack on our democracy, and it's dangerous.

00:02:35.920 I'm Shawna Dillaboo, and I am the CEO of Brightlines.

00:02:41.840 Shawna is used to dangerous work.

00:02:44.480 She learned about how the internet works

00:02:46.220 and used what she learned to train law enforcement officials

00:02:49.360 on how to target and combat violent drug cartels.

00:02:52.760 So I worked on Mexico and, like, the drug cartels.

00:02:56.020 And this was, like, 2010, 2011.

00:02:58.740 And they were doing a fair amount of killing journalists, citizen journalists.

00:03:03.020 And so, yeah, I was really deep into that side of the work. 1.00

00:03:06.920 So it was really fulfilling.

00:03:09.280 Shauna became an expert on PII, personal identifying information,

00:03:14.620 And eventually started working to support journalists, activists, and civil society in places like the former Soviet Union

00:03:20.900 to try to maintain a sense of democracy amidst a crumbling empire.

00:03:25.680 And then, in the United States, Trump was elected.

00:03:29.160 And her work became that much more relevant and in demand at home.

00:03:33.880 And Trump got elected and people in America finally wanted my services.

00:03:39.020 And then around 2020, more and more people were concerned about their information online.

00:03:45.360 So the stuff that I'd been training law enforcement on 10 years prior started to become really important to people here.

00:03:53.480 Understanding that they had a lot of PII out there on all of these data broker sites and people search sites, now facial recognition sites, and how could they get that down so that people couldn't do them harm.

00:04:06.040 And so in 21, we got a little bit of seed funding, and I started Bright Lines in August of last year.

00:04:13.680 Something that I read about your work is that it's, I guess I might use the phrase like trauma-informed.

00:04:18.800 Like you kind of bring that lens to the work that you do, which I feel like so often when I have conversations about technology and the Internet and how to stay safe, the word trauma never even enters the conversation.

00:04:31.120 And yet trauma is really like, I think, oftentimes a part of that experience.

00:04:36.700 Absolutely. It is a magnifier. It scales trauma just like it scales anything else.

00:04:42.980 The way that it's built to be so exclusive to a certain kind of experience, to exclude the lived experiences of the people who are using it.

00:04:51.540 It's just like this thing on its own can create trauma, can magnify trauma.

00:04:57.300 And then if you're going through something traumatic because of the internet, it ignites a trauma response in a human being that can't, you can't do anything about it, right?

00:05:07.160 You can't go to health.

00:05:08.560 There's no help, right?

00:05:10.100 And it's so proximate because like your phone is under your pillow at night.

00:05:15.020 It is mine under my pillow at night because I fall asleep listening to my podcast.

00:05:18.520 I don't wake up my family.

00:05:19.980 So like it's right here in my ear.

00:05:21.680 and to wake up and see like a flood of messages of people who are angry with me is triggering

00:05:27.920 and like not triggering in the sense of like it's a trigger warning it might bring back memories

00:05:33.000 like triggering of a autonomic response yeah I had a trauma experience when I was living and

00:05:39.420 so I spent a summer in Mexico I was attacked when I was there I was stabbed by a man

00:05:44.220 And just in like a random, like, I wasn't even trying to rob me situation.

00:05:52.160 And when I came home, I had a lot of night terrors, was diagnosed with PTSD.

00:05:57.340 It took me a few years to finally sleep through the night and feel comfortable in my own skin.

00:06:02.700 And I brought that experience, I could see it in everybody that we worked with overseas.

00:06:08.700 And I can see it in the movement work that we do now.

00:06:11.980 And I can see it with the people who come to us for support because they're afraid of being doxxed or they've been doxxed.

00:06:18.420 It is everywhere, the trauma.

00:06:21.600 And like, how do we keep like lining these rich white dudes' pockets for technology that's like causing so many of us actual harm?

00:06:34.100 So fun.

00:06:35.980 Yeah.

00:06:36.800 I mean, it's the reality of the work.

00:06:41.000 And I think that you're so right that we keep allowing the rich white dudes to create and get rich off of technology that causes harm while not even like not even they don't even have to reckon with that.

00:06:55.100 They can just sort of pretend like what harm, what trauma? 0.51

00:06:58.520 It's like the way that we've allowed wealthy tech folks who are mostly white men to get rich off of our harm and turn our lives into like a marketplace for negative, harmful experiences.

00:07:10.340 It infuriates me to no end.

00:07:12.760 My friend Soraya Shamali always says, these guys named Jack on the board of Twitter, they're making money every time someone goes after me.

00:07:22.100 He's like, there are more men named Jack than women on the board. 0.98

00:07:25.700 And every time someone tweets bullshit at me, they make money. 0.99

00:07:30.300 And I don't think we say that enough. 0.99

00:07:33.200 I don't think that we hit on that enough.

00:07:35.420 There's zero accountability around that, right?

00:07:37.600 We know they don't let their own children use these tools, but love it when ours do.

00:07:44.360 Have you zero conscience?

00:07:46.460 Great.

00:07:47.160 Great.

00:07:48.840 More impactful than any nation state, you know?

00:07:52.780 Now you have more breadth and more money than any of us.

00:07:55.700 So it's awesome. It's awesome times.

00:07:59.620 There was once a time where I thought digital security kind of began and ended with protecting my credit card information or my social security number from scammers.

00:08:08.300 But today, the real threat is so much more than that.

00:08:12.440 So for folks listening, can you give us a definition of doxing?

00:08:15.980 Yeah. Yeah, I think the really sort of bare bones definition is anything that is private being published publicly in some way.

00:08:27.960 So a lot of times doxing means your private documents, like that's where the dox comes from.

00:08:35.480 In the beginning, I think folks considered that to be just like social security numbers or credit card numbers.

00:08:42.800 We spoke with a legal team that was working with an abortion provider last week.

00:08:50.360 She works with a public university in the Midwest.

00:08:55.500 And so they were concerned about the public records requests they were getting and saying,

00:09:01.180 okay, so we have to fulfill these requests.

00:09:04.760 what of her information might be PII, personally identifiable information that could be doxed,

00:09:12.880 right? They were thinking about like that, like credit card numbers,

00:09:17.360 social security numbers. And so we briefed them on just the amount of data

00:09:22.580 we would call PII. So again, personally identifiable information that could lead to a

00:09:31.340 dox. I'd say the biggest threat of doxing is someone showing up at your home. The next threats

00:09:40.140 are people making like threatening phone calls or sending threatening texts. We had a client who

00:09:45.400 was receiving photo texts of guns, just like guns laid out on a bed with the accompanying message

00:09:52.360 that I'm coming for you. Sometimes it's messages to their loved ones, particularly if they're

00:09:58.000 women, women of color, other intersectional identities, that threat gets spread out.

00:10:02.460 So the docs will happen to their children, to their loved ones, their partner, their

00:10:08.820 parents, right?

00:10:10.060 Their mothers. 1.00

00:10:10.940 It's usually other female presenting people.

00:10:15.140 And so those numbers might get shared or those email addresses might get shared or those

00:10:20.220 home addresses.

00:10:21.860 We spoke to a client today who was like, I don't own my home, but I helped my mother

00:10:26.000 by her home, and I'm worried about that part. I don't want anyone going after my mom.

00:10:32.180 That's pretty common, right? So when someone gets kind of chewed up by this outrage machine,

00:10:38.340 they're looking for any way to find a way to them in their personal life. So as we were explaining

00:10:46.300 to these lawyers, like, you need to think about, is that person's cell phone number in their

00:10:52.200 signature block on the emails that they're asking for? Is their personal email address in there?

00:10:58.080 Are there photos of their newborn child that they might've shared with their colleagues at work? Is

00:11:03.300 the name of the child out there? Because especially with abortion providers, child protective services

00:11:09.260 will get called on them. And they can't do that if they don't know the name of the kid.

00:11:14.800 So in that case, they're looking for a way to get to you. And doxing would just mean publishing

00:11:20.980 that someplace dox bin is a really popular place for that there are other doxing only websites

00:11:25.800 and sometimes folks do that on twitter sometimes they do that on their own websites sometimes they

00:11:32.680 you know do it on telegram or kiwi farms or 8chan or you know just kind of cool places yeah

00:11:41.000 such a cesspool of crap we call it the alternate and we're being nice but i just

00:11:48.180 generally call it like the cesspool yeah yeah it's it's pretty sad and I think something that I 0.99

00:11:54.460 so in doing the podcast I think I had a little bit of a shift in how I understand

00:11:59.140 doxing and the kinds of attacks and harassment that particularly marginalized people can face

00:12:04.620 I always thought that it was like you know who who am I like no one's ever going to want to come

00:12:10.540 after me I'm not really like like who who would want to who would spend their time finding this

00:12:15.580 information and something that people say again and again is like you never know what's going to

00:12:21.020 be the thing that gets you on the wrong side of the wrong like gets you on that bad side of the

00:12:25.780 wrong side of the internet you really never know and so be proactive to protect yourself you never

00:12:31.480 know when it's going to be your turn in the barrel that's what we always say the outrage

00:12:35.520 machine loves to pick off an individual it's like so hungry it needs to be fed and like individual

00:12:41.240 people get thrown in there and sometimes for nothing. Do you know, like, did you see that this,

00:12:46.820 maybe not, the Warby Parker customer service was fielding a bunch of threatening calls and

00:12:53.620 threats to docs because Warby Parker wasn't advertising, I think, on Dan Bongino's website

00:13:00.920 anymore. The women being targeted are not usually big, flashy public figures or well-moneyed or

00:13:07.400 well-connected. They're just regular people who wanted to serve the public. Back in 2021, educator 0.99

00:13:13.440 Cecilia Lewis didn't even know what critical race theory was, let alone had she been hired to teach

00:13:19.460 it to school children in the Cherokee County School District in Georgia, where she had just

00:13:23.820 been hired as a school administrator. But that didn't stop groups from organizing online to run

00:13:29.940 her out of town and run her out of the next town where she was hired to teach. This teacher, oh my 1.00

00:13:36.540 gosh, I've been thinking about this ProPublica article, this teacher, Cecilia Lewis, she was an

00:13:40.420 educator. You've heard the story. I have. Went down to work in Georgia. The people assumed she

00:13:47.040 was there to teach critical race theory. They asked Cecilia Lewis what CRT is. She's like,

00:13:51.700 culturally, something, something, she was not her agenda. And then they followed her to her

00:13:57.580 next job in Georgia. It's just like, why? You know, like you're just looking for a scapegoat

00:14:03.920 all the time um you know so you never know if it's because you helped to update a wikipedia

00:14:10.600 article that someone's going to be angry with you or you tweet something that gets taken out of

00:14:15.740 context or you know you're an election official yeah your mama mint yeah oh my god shay and ruby

00:14:24.340 freeman their testimony i mean this is such a tangent but their testimony in the the january

00:14:29.280 six commission broke my heart like people showing up at the at her grandmother's house like

00:14:35.500 it was heartbreaking anybody who's who has an ounce of empathy could feel that they did nothing

00:14:44.000 wrong they were doing a job and not exactly like a glamorous or high paid or like well well

00:14:51.080 compensated around the all around or even like well appreciated job they were doing a pretty

00:14:57.420 tough and thankless and hot job and probably not getting paid very much for it. And that's the

00:15:03.420 thanks they got. Yeah. I mean, and in that testimony, they talk about how, you know,

00:15:09.460 they were drawn to community service, like helping their community. And I think that something is

00:15:14.420 really broken and wrong when the cost of serving your community is being the target of these kinds

00:15:22.220 of dangerous attacks you're a teacher you're a teacher because you love children because you

00:15:27.940 believe that like the next generation needs all the love and care and like just support that they

00:15:34.020 can get and then someone accuses you of being a groomer and that's the end of your life as you

00:15:39.860 know it like what the hell is wrong with people like if you've got some kind of grievance about

00:15:45.280 what's happening for you that's like yours right but and it's like you you can go and project that

00:15:50.760 on other people all you want but in an age where political tensions are clearly very high

00:15:55.420 we have more guns than we have people in this country and we have all this PII available like

00:16:03.040 I said I started working on this 10 years ago the amount of data now versus then it's exponentially

00:16:09.000 more that's out there you can find anything on anybody that's not that's we've I think we've

00:16:16.000 gone a little too far swinging in that direction oh yes let's take a quick break

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00:16:47.320 High in caffeine.

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00:17:21.440 when i was 14 years old i was kidnapped and held captive for nine months i survived and i've spent

00:17:29.100 my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them i'm elizabeth smart

00:17:35.180 and these are the survivor files i just remember this low taunting voice next to my ear saying

00:17:42.800 shut up don't say anything every week i'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable

00:17:49.440 i knew if he woke up without a doubt he was going to hurt me i started feeling that there was 0.90

00:17:57.280 someone at the end of my bed and i just started screaming they are abducted stalked controlled

00:18:04.760 and nearly silenced but these aren't stories about what's taken from them they're stories

00:18:10.360 about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:18:13.340 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart

00:18:16.100 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

00:18:19.280 or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:18:21.780 If your bookshelf and your For You page

00:18:23.780 are equally important to your personality,

00:18:26.200 welcome home.

00:18:27.720 This is Prose Society,

00:18:29.820 the weekly podcast that's part book club,

00:18:32.380 part group chat for thought daughters,

00:18:34.140 pop culture obsessives,

00:18:35.280 and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice

00:18:37.160 and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.

00:18:40.180 I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.

00:18:47.300 I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.

00:18:50.860 From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.

00:18:56.840 It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.

00:19:04.300 Whether 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.

00:19:13.920 Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:19:19.860 See you between the pages.

00:19:27.820 At our back.

00:19:29.340 We already know that women, especially Black women and women of color, have long been targeted, harassed, and attacked.

00:19:36.480 But Shauna says it wasn't until the issue started impacting powerful white men and their families that legislators and tech companies really started paying any attention at all.

00:19:47.960 In addition to poll workers like Shea and Ruby Freeman, who are Black women, being harassed and threatened after Trump baselessly claimed that they had helped rig the election against him in Georgia,

00:19:58.720 Trisha Raffensperger, the wife of Georgia's Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, started getting threatening text messages and the militia group, the Oath Keepers, showed up outside of her home.

00:20:09.960 Her daughter-in-law's home was broken into in what Trisha says was an attempt to intimidate her and her family.

00:20:16.200 So many things to say.

00:20:18.700 First of all, we don't have these tools because up until a year or two ago, this only happened

00:20:24.780 to women and women of color and people of color and people who were not white men.

00:20:29.700 It only started happening to white men, I'd say in 2020 with Brad Raffensperger.

00:20:34.580 And even then it was his wife that was getting all the hate, right?

00:20:37.920 Like it didn't happen to people who mattered to people, right?

00:20:42.560 And by people, I mean legislators and tech companies.

00:20:46.580 Then they're run by the same group of people.

00:20:48.860 So zero empathy, right?

00:20:50.460 We're not people to them.

00:20:52.360 Fine.

00:20:53.040 So this was happening to just us.

00:20:55.580 Great.

00:20:56.400 So not a real concern.

00:20:58.680 The police would tell folks all the time, like, oh, just get off the internet as though

00:21:02.620 that were possible.

00:21:03.300 Because again, fundamentally don't understand.

00:21:06.200 It's not happening to me.

00:21:07.380 I don't have to worry about it.

00:21:08.620 then you have all of these legislators who refuse to understand how technology works

00:21:17.040 and because of citizens united have been running their campaigns on tech donations and how can they

00:21:25.480 possibly regulate them without without having to do something you know like to piss off their

00:21:31.900 their money bags they're like daddy warbucks right.com so like now now there's more political

00:21:40.780 will for it because again we're starting to see the political islands amp up because there's so

00:21:45.340 much data out there but I would argue Bridget and I don't see this anywhere else and I don't

00:21:50.040 understand why all of these pieces of legislation that are getting proposed now carve out states

00:21:59.300 selling data to data brokers to start with. It is state agencies, whether they're DMVs,

00:22:06.900 that's pretty well documented. If they're utilities, if they're law enforcement databases

00:22:12.960 that are getting sold to data brokers who are then selling them back to us, if it's like ICE

00:22:18.520 or some other federal agency, but they're also selling them to data brokers.

00:22:23.640 Well, just to make sure I understand.

00:22:25.260 So state agencies, the DMV, my utilities company, my Pepco, whatever, they might be the ones who are selling this data and making money off of it that is putting people at risk.

00:22:38.660 They are the ones that are doing it.

00:22:40.800 okay so if you can't tell what shauna just said that it's actually our public services and state

00:22:48.420 agencies the places that we all have to deal with we want the heat or the power or the water turned

00:22:54.760 on in our apartments or just register to vote are also the same places selling our sensitive data

00:23:01.000 floored me i just had no idea that that's one way that our information is being put out there

00:23:07.340 this is shocking information to me you're probably like oh yeah buckle up it gets worse but i i think

00:23:13.960 that would be shocking information to most people right you would never know it until you went to

00:23:18.860 it and i read so the center on privacy and technology at georgetown did this two-year

00:23:24.240 um research project they published it earlier this year called the american dragnet

00:23:29.140 and their list of sources is just like they foiled all of these agencies across i think it's 28 states

00:23:36.580 something like remarkable that sold their law enforcement databases to ICE. That was their

00:23:44.520 specific focus. I'd say in addition to utilities, we know that courts sell court records. 0.97

00:23:52.640 And those usually like, so you imagine that you get a parking ticket because I live in DC and I

00:23:56.880 can never remember which side of the street is street cleaning this week. I get a parking ticket

00:24:01.140 and then there's a traffic court date. If I want to go, I don't even think about it, a ticket. It's

00:24:06.260 like done but there's a record right that has my name my home address the vin number of my car

00:24:11.740 probably my date of birth the information for my driver's license plus my car and so that's a court

00:24:18.720 record that would get sold so then what happens someone wants to follow like the thing that

00:24:25.100 terrifies me the most is with these election officials what they were describing was that

00:24:30.440 people would wait for them in the parking lot to leave they would follow them take pictures of

00:24:35.740 their license plates because they didn't have to follow them home they could then just go online

00:24:41.080 pay 20 bucks and find out that person's home address telephone number whatever because they

00:24:47.380 had the license plate of that person that's I mean the idea that we've yeah and the idea that

00:24:54.900 we've I guess there's an expectation that govern that your you know state and local agencies like

00:24:59.880 that would be invested in keeping you safe.

00:25:03.620 But I guess that's just not the case.

00:25:05.720 Not at all.

00:25:06.560 I don't think that they even think about that.

00:25:08.280 I think they feel, what's killing me is that we pay taxes.

00:25:13.500 So before data brokers approached any of these agencies

00:25:17.200 and said, hey, can you sell me your assessor database

00:25:20.720 so I know who lives where and I can put it on BlockShopper

00:25:23.500 because I'd love to add that information, whatever.

00:25:26.000 Like, before that happened, these agencies ran just fine on our tax dollars.

00:25:31.920 If the issue is they have budget shortfalls because we aren't paying enough in taxes, like, well, we're still paying for it.

00:25:39.580 You know what I mean?

00:25:40.780 Like, in most cases, what is heartbreakingly ironic is that they're not even charging the value of it.

00:25:49.060 Like $20.

00:25:50.940 Well, but I mean, D.C. sells its entire voter file for two bucks.

00:25:56.000 that includes Supreme Court justices.

00:25:59.420 Like, a lot of really big people live in this jail.

00:26:03.640 And so I see laws, like, God bless her, 0.92

00:26:06.760 Esther Salas, the federal judge in New Jersey,

00:26:08.880 whose son was murdered in an attack on her home,

00:26:12.200 the guy was looking for her, killed her son, shot her husband.

00:26:16.240 My family has experienced a pain that no one should ever have to endure.

00:26:22.220 And I am here asking everyone to help me ensure that no one ever has to experience this kind of pain.

00:26:31.680 Judge Esther Salas' story is as tragic as it is terrifying.

00:26:36.180 In July of 2020, an assailant came to Judge Salas' home and her 20-year-old son answered the door.

00:26:42.360 Her son was shot and killed.

00:26:44.160 Her husband was also shot, but he survived.

00:26:46.960 The primary suspect was Roy Den Hollander,

00:26:50.140 a self-proclaimed, quote, anti-feminist lawyer,

00:26:53.900 known for things like bringing unsuccessful lawsuits 0.94

00:26:56.240 against nightclubs for having ladies' nights

00:26:58.280 and colleges for teaching women's studies courses.

00:27:01.680 He had previously gone before Judge Solace in 2015

00:27:04.320 in a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality

00:27:07.320 of the male-only military draft.

00:27:09.940 Hollander died by suicide

00:27:11.260 after being named a suspect in the attack.

00:27:13.800 And after his death,

00:27:14.880 It was revealed that he was also planning an attack on Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

00:27:21.320 In response, Judge Salas champions Daniel's Law, legislation specifically designed to protect personal information about active and retired judges, law enforcement officials, prosecutors, and their immediate family members from being made public.

00:27:35.540 She drafted Daniel's Law that was passed in New Jersey.

00:27:39.600 They brought it to the federal, you know, to the federal level.

00:27:43.740 and um it just it carved out two things first of all it carved out um allowing their addresses so

00:27:55.240 they had to be flagged on a database if they were a federal judge or some other kind of judicial

00:27:59.460 person but never was it that they had to hide that information so like if dc flagged the federal

00:28:07.080 judge or in this case of new jersey if if esther solace herself was flagged she would never show

00:28:11.860 up on a public, like on a database, on a website. You could never search for her name and find her,

00:28:16.800 search her address and find her. But what they don't seem to understand is that New Jersey would

00:28:21.740 just sell the full database. And while she was flagged to not show up on their public facing

00:28:28.460 website, there's no protection of her if the whole file just gets sold. So they don't seem to get

00:28:35.280 that right. And even with this ADPPA, like the American Data Privacy Protection Act, I think,

00:28:41.020 I don't remember entirely what it stands for, but they carve out state agencies.

00:28:45.920 They're not considered, they don't even consider them when it comes to who's selling the data

00:28:50.100 to data brokers, let alone consider like what a data broker is and how they would self-identify.

00:28:55.980 I don't know if you've ever seen these tech companies when they get squirmly asked, like,

00:29:00.580 are you a media company?

00:29:02.160 Are you a tech company?

00:29:03.400 And they will not say, because they don't have to, because then they'd be regulated

00:29:08.840 like what they are and they just won't do it.

00:29:11.020 I think these data brokers aren't going to, Thompson Reuters is a journalism company

00:29:14.680 that also has data of mine for 25 years, has like a dorm address for me in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

00:29:22.880 I'm like, I didn't even have utilities. I don't have a cell phone. How do you have this address?

00:29:28.120 So yeah, I like to call it commodification without consent because they just keep selling it.

00:29:33.720 and i think i was saying this california sells its entire dmv database for like 30 million

00:29:42.040 dollars like they grossly undervalue their own 0.99

00:29:45.340 it's like how so painful it's so fucked up 0.99

00:29:54.360 if y'all are gonna just like sell us out could you at least make enough money 0.98

00:30:01.220 yeah like make enough money that like oh you'll fix the roads it's like what like why why do I 0.95

00:30:07.420 sell potholes if you're like you know you're gonna pull that shit and then I still have to 0.91

00:30:13.980 live with like your bullshit roads exactly I can diatribe continually so you tell me if that's 0.99

00:30:22.380 enough or do you have follow-up questions there it's just so frustrating for them they just don't 0.99

00:30:27.720 get it or if I don't I can't see how they understand and by they I mean legislators that

00:30:34.740 like maybe a child protective services database doesn't need to be sold to Spokio doesn't need

00:30:40.300 to be sold to Thomson Reuters maybe that's something that could be protected because it

00:30:44.720 fucking matters that it's protected like who needs to see that no nobody nobody needs to know

00:30:51.800 and I think it just speaks to this idea of like do we want to live in a world where everything 0.98

00:30:57.380 even our most sensitive information about ourselves, our children, is for sale, has a price.

00:31:02.920 I would argue, no, I would argue some things shouldn't be for sale, particularly by my state and local government.

00:31:10.760 Not without my consent. People still shit with the bathroom door closed. 0.99

00:31:15.320 Until that changes, I would argue that, no, they get to make that decision for themselves. 0.99

00:31:20.520 And this is not that we don't get to decide. You have to have an ID to get on an airplane, to drive a car.

00:31:27.380 You have to have an ID to get into a bar.

00:31:29.740 Like you have to have identification in this country.

00:31:32.280 There's no option there. 0.99

00:31:34.020 So that they're selling our ID information to some private company is fucking mind-blowing. 0.97

00:31:40.840 You can't, how are you supposed to have heat? 0.94

00:31:44.620 You're going to just freeze because you can't, you don't want your information to be sold to some conglomerate,

00:31:49.980 which by the way, that conglomerate gave Equifax, gives Equifax all their data to sell them.

00:31:56.300 because in the 90s they didn't understand the ramifications of the amount of data

00:32:01.840 they were collecting and of those 85 utilities or so um you know millions tens of millions of

00:32:12.660 americans data these equifax was charged with building the database to put it all together

00:32:19.280 and in exchange it got the sole rights to sell it to third parties in the 90s no one probably 0.65

00:32:25.600 thought of anything of it because they were dumb we didn't know who knew apparently these guys at 0.96

00:32:33.960 equifax are like this is fucking money look at all this data this is gonna mean something someday 0.99

00:32:39.640 so evil so evil i'm happy that we are starting to get services and tools that are better than 0.98

00:32:49.580 just like oh do this do that like piecemeal solution what kind of services does bright

00:32:54.380 line offer for folks who are running for office, who are activists, who, you know, might be wanting

00:32:58.880 to protect themselves online. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So yes. So to my final, to the last point,

00:33:05.200 I want to just say the narrative, the consistent narrative is that you did this to yourself,

00:33:10.020 you operating on the internet and your social media and, and being on Facebook or posting

00:33:16.000 this information. This is why your data is out there. You did this to yourself. And that is

00:33:20.960 such a bald-faced lie and absolute bullshit. And it's the same story we hear from tech over and 1.00

00:33:25.560 over. It has nothing. We didn't do anything wrong. So first and foremost, like if your PII is out

00:33:31.040 there, it's nothing you did more than likely, unless you took a photo of your driver's license. 0.99

00:33:36.640 Most people don't do that kind of shit. So even then wouldn't have been scraped by most of the 0.98

00:33:42.080 databases, if not all who have it. So don't believe that lie first. What do we do at Brightlines?

00:33:49.000 So I think when you talk about Delete Me, there's another one called Canary. There are other services like that Privacy Duck used to exist that would help scrape your information from data broker sites. That is low-hanging fruit. For the most part, those sites will opt your information out at least for a while. They do pop it back up.

00:34:09.960 Right. And so you can go through and do that kind of whack-a-mole with them across these hundreds of sites.

00:34:15.100 So you can pay someone to do it with a bot and some human interaction.

00:34:19.500 And that's relatively inexpensive.

00:34:22.600 It is not easy, however, to get your information down at the core.

00:34:27.800 And that is what we do. We go to the root of the public record.

00:34:31.360 what's really difficult about the work we do is that it takes so much follow-up cajoling like

00:34:37.300 being a really nice like white lady and just being like i see that you love jesus me too 0.98

00:34:44.820 would you take this abortion doctor's shit off your website literally conversation we had this 0.98

00:34:48.800 week um blessings was her response in any event like there's a lot of kind of following up there 0.99

00:34:57.020 we have no protections right like section 230 well hated among privacy activists is like this

00:35:03.320 shield for the content that's on a website that the con the website owner isn't responsible for

00:35:08.820 the content that gets placed there so like we were talking about at the start of the hour like

00:35:12.940 no accountability and that is the opera you know the modus operandi of this

00:35:17.560 industry there's no accountability public records um that is where we're different than anyone else

00:35:23.840 because we don't want you to keep coming back.

00:35:26.840 Other services are designed to keep having to knock your information down.

00:35:31.860 That's fine.

00:35:32.920 That's just not how we like to operate.

00:35:34.620 So say a candidate, an activist, a journalist, a medical doctor,

00:35:41.960 in some cases a climate scientist will come to us and say,

00:35:46.200 hey, I'm worried about these pieces.

00:35:48.460 My mom owns a home.

00:35:49.720 I own this farm.

00:35:50.740 because that's a thing that actually a handful of our clients have farms like I started a company

00:35:57.200 registered it in my name and my home address I'm registered to vote in this state that I'm worried

00:36:02.480 about that and um they'll ask you know what do I do I've been getting some messages online that

00:36:10.880 bother me or I'm afraid that because my work is in race equity I will and I have a little child

00:36:16.420 at home or I have several children at home or I'm Chinese American and that's our latest like

00:36:20.800 hate flavor right so what can I do so we'll take a few minutes with them to understand their

00:36:26.220 concerns um talk through what has happened and what they're what's coming up for them in their

00:36:32.820 lives and then the areas where and by that I mean like are they going to be speaking publicly are

00:36:37.500 they publishing something etc and then talk with them about you know who's at home who they want

00:36:45.140 to protect what they want to protect. Sometimes it's an identity. Sometimes it's an identity

00:36:49.520 or a previous marriage that they don't want folks to know about, or it's, they have little

00:36:54.220 children or their mom, right? Or their grandma. And so what we'll then do is take like a delete

00:37:03.260 me and start scrubbing the low hanging fruit that's on the data broker sites, and then use a

00:37:09.420 handful of, frankly, arcane legal mechanisms to try to compel a website to remove their information

00:37:17.740 and or an agency. So we'll often tell folks to put their home in a revocable trust,

00:37:25.440 which isn't an easy thing to do, to find an estate lawyer who understands your privacy concerns,

00:37:31.020 can help you name your trust in a way that wouldn't immediately identify you.

00:37:34.700 and then to understand like what that updated filing looks like on say DCRA's website right

00:37:42.820 or on Jefferson County or Marion County's website would the website also have the addendum that's

00:37:50.220 like this was this and now it's this like is there a transfer of sale what does all of that

00:37:54.540 look like so in some cases we ask them for revocable trust for folks who can afford it

00:37:59.980 we talked to them about using an LLC because that's more, it's more coverage. It's more

00:38:05.440 protection. It's just harder with capital gains. Folks lose out on the gains of their money and

00:38:11.280 sometimes of their investment. Sometimes the mortgages, mortgage companies won't lend to an

00:38:16.140 LLC. So there's more complexity than is necessary there. The point is to create a firewall between

00:38:23.040 your name and your home address. That's our like number one, always, always, always, because

00:38:28.560 with our clients who have successfully put their homes in trusts.

00:38:32.800 We see the amount of data across the board nosedive within a few months.

00:38:37.400 Wow.

00:38:38.060 It's expensive.

00:38:39.380 It's a high barrier to entry.

00:38:40.960 And it sucks that that's the case.

00:38:42.920 We just should maybe not be selling that data point blank.

00:38:46.540 You know, like just don't, it doesn't need to be online everywhere.

00:38:50.680 Then we'll talk to folks about voter records.

00:38:53.780 Because those are often, those voter files get sold to lots of people.

00:38:56.960 And there is no like DRM. Like if you sell it to a campaign, there's nothing stopping that camp. And a campaign can buy it, right? Like in a lot of cases, they are a perfectly protected buyer of a voter file. They need it. But there's nothing stopping them from selling it down the line. Most are scrupulous. They wouldn't do that. But not everybody's like that.

00:39:16.140 And so then there's one state, Colorado, that allows someone to file as a confidential voter.

00:39:26.920 In no other state does that exist.

00:39:29.400 So there we try to work with an address confidentiality program that's set up for survivors of domestic violence and intimate partner violence, not for just regular folks.

00:39:38.700 not all states have them not all would be flexible enough to allow a person who's just

00:39:44.700 being taunted online or threatened with doxing um to apply and to have their application approved

00:39:52.440 in some states it's possible and what that does is shield the home address people have an alternate

00:39:58.400 address that would forward the mail to their home if they wanted it shields their home address from

00:40:02.760 the DMV, and it shields their home address from a voter record. So you basically are hiding from

00:40:09.940 the government in these really difficult and expensive ways. Yeah, I mean, I'm so grateful

00:40:16.760 that you're providing these services to people, and I really admire the tools that you all are

00:40:22.200 building, but part of me wishes that you didn't have to be doing this. Do you see a situation

00:40:31.200 where that's ever the case,

00:40:32.360 like where we have the kind of world

00:40:33.720 where the kind of tools that you offer folks

00:40:35.280 just aren't necessary?

00:40:37.340 I mean, you're up under GDPR.

00:40:40.960 They can do a round of, like, a delete me.

00:40:45.880 And for the most part, their information is scrubbed.

00:40:51.420 More after a quick break.

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00:41:48.580 When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months.

00:41:54.740 I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

00:42:01.100 I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files.

00:42:04.800 I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, 0.99

00:42:10.240 Shut up. Don't say anything. 0.99

00:42:12.980 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.

00:42:17.420 I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.

00:42:21.880 I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.

00:42:29.500 They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

00:42:33.400 But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.

00:42:36.840 They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:42:39.960 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:42:48.920 If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.

00:42:54.860 This 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.

00:43:07.340 I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.

00:43:14.440 I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.

00:43:18.020 From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.

00:43:23.980 It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.

00:43:31.440 Whether 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.

00:43:41.060 Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:43:47.100 See you between the pages.

00:43:54.620 Let's get right back into it.

00:43:56.020 GDPR, or General Data Protection Regulation, is a regulation that came into effect in 2018

00:44:03.060 that aims to enhance control and rights over individuals' personal data across Europe.

00:44:08.820 We had a client, their principals moved to the U.S., but the client is a U.K.-based company.

00:44:15.240 And they were like, what are you all doing?

00:44:18.380 Why do they have so much of your data?

00:44:20.360 Why are your own agencies betraying you?

00:44:23.680 And I was like, yeah, no, you're right.

00:44:26.020 Um, no, I'd love it. I'd love it if we had a federal piece of federal legislation in place that protected us. If we had a whole suite of tools, if we had recourse, if we had an agency like the FTC that could actually have some teeth, if we could file lawsuits.

00:44:42.280 do you know that meant something like these fines even my biggest complaint with gdpr is the fines

00:44:48.440 that these companies get they're just like a cost of doing business like what's 30 million what's

00:44:54.060 300 million not that much to them like i don't think i don't think the fine is the way that it

00:45:00.900 works you know i think there needs to be um yeah the only way through this is for there to be a

00:45:07.540 consideration around state agencies selling data. And first, we have to admit we have a problem.

00:45:15.280 It's just, you know, step one, admitting to yourself and another person, this is a big

00:45:21.440 problem. Yeah, when people are having to go through so many hoops just to vote and own

00:45:28.240 property or rent a place or whatever, I would say that's a problem. Yeah, there's no privacy

00:45:33.680 in America any longer? And who's benefiting? A bunch of wealthy white men run companies,

00:45:39.380 big corporations. Why are we doing this to ourselves? How many assassinations will we 0.53

00:45:45.820 have to see before we start to put two and two together? This man showing up at Pramila Jayapal

00:45:50.400 is like outside of her home. Terrifying. Terrifying. We can find all of those folks.

00:45:56.380 That's not great. And so like when Representative Jayapal, when this happened to her,

00:46:03.080 the sergeant at arms you know in congress was like oh here's money you can spend to like lock

00:46:07.740 down your house it's like bruh like if they're already at your house you've lost yeah like why

00:46:16.800 not stop them long before they get there it's like oh now you have mouth cancer we can do this

00:46:22.820 really invasive and difficult thing and it might save you but if you just brushed your teeth for

00:46:28.180 the last 30 years you wouldn't be here you know what i mean like yeah just like not yeah i would

00:46:35.700 love it if we didn't exist don't repeat that to any investors i would love it if we didn't exist

00:46:41.960 i'm banking on that we'll have to for a while yeah i mean i wonder do you see you know we've

00:46:47.640 seen more and more like women lgbtq folks folks of color you know running for office which is

00:46:52.980 awesome and like holding public office which is awesome but the reality is is that these same

00:46:57.520 folks are disproportionately targeted for this kind of harassment and so i'm wondering like do

00:47:02.360 you see this as a gender and race issue and like do and do you see it as like i don't know i i just

00:47:07.940 see it as a direct threat to our democracy like we can't have a functional democracy while this

00:47:12.740 is a thing that is happening we don't anymore arguably so i this became my like a real bee

00:47:18.960 in my bonnet in 27 i'm from iowa and a candidate who was running against the reprehensible steve

00:47:24.920 King, her name is Kim Weaver, dropped out of a race in 2017 for a couple of reasons that didn't

00:47:30.720 really get reported all that well. One, she came out of her house one day and there was a for sale 0.99

00:47:34.620 sign in the front yard. Two, the government agents and state agencies she was working for had just

00:47:39.560 had their budget cut by the exact amount of her salary. And she was like, well, I'm harming people

00:47:45.920 in my office who did nothing wrong and they're coming to my home. I'm done. And she dropped out

00:47:52.800 of a race and i was like that's no we no longer live in a democracy if a person can't run out of 0.99

00:47:57.220 those fears then someone's going to physically harm her or because we're women like the way that

00:48:02.960 we for the most part not to be completely like genderizing this but like for the most part women

00:48:07.960 take take it very we take risks in a certain way we'll risk not for ourselves necessarily our

00:48:15.120 personal gain we'll take risks for the people around us the the inverse is true as well if

00:48:20.540 the people around us are being harmed by our behavior. We've been trained throughout our

00:48:24.600 years of presenting as women that we need to stop whatever we're doing. So that is why when a woman 1.00

00:48:30.780 gets attacked online, it's a woman, it's her children, it's her mother, it's her sisters.

00:48:35.340 Like that will shut us down because that's our training, right? So yeah, arguably we don't live

00:48:43.420 democracy anymore. I started this because I thought the way that America would survive

00:48:49.980 in some way, shape or form, not necessarily as the democracy we see today, because I don't think

00:48:55.760 it's much of a real democracy. It's founded on like a lot of privilege and on the backs

00:49:02.400 of enslaved peoples. So I don't care if that democracy continues, but what I'd love for our

00:49:11.440 country and like our communities and our society like globally to look like would be one where

00:49:17.260 we are actually represented by the people in our communities right in an equitable manner

00:49:22.400 that's not going to happen if we have to keep electing joe biden to fight off donald trump

00:49:28.400 bless him he's maybe you know a really wonderful person but his lived experiences aren't kamala

00:49:35.280 harris's you know just not he has no idea what she's been through in her life i would much rather

00:49:41.360 see a leader like that who has had to learn a lot about empathy and the experiences of other people

00:49:47.740 and herself having those inform the policymaking, only then are we going to start treating people

00:49:53.880 like human beings. We wouldn't see Roe v. Wade being overturned if we had been able to elect 1.00

00:50:01.720 people who looked like us, who'd had our lived experiences. It's a complete lack of empathy on

00:50:07.780 the part of those judges it's such a cruelty if you've ever known or yourself lost a pregnancy

00:50:14.060 that you very much wanted i have like that is so it is so cruel what they've done and like we just

00:50:20.920 wouldn't be there as a nation treating people like non-humans wouldn't be a hundred or however

00:50:27.380 many hundreds of police officers standing outside of a school well children were being murdered

00:50:33.120 because we would see those children as human beings and I just don't I just don't think that

00:50:40.180 our structures allow for that at this point I feel like I've gotten really far afield from

00:50:45.240 Brightline no this is I mean I think it's all it's all related and I think I'm it makes me

00:50:50.060 feel good that the thing that animates you and motivates you in this work is getting back to

00:50:55.000 that humanity because it does feel like we've we've taken we've we've come so far from that

00:51:01.480 I feel it in our national political conversations and the way that we interact online, like it's so clear that humanity, we have just somehow gotten lost in the mix.

00:51:11.060 Completely. There's no seeing each other as human beings anymore.

00:51:14.200 It's like, what can I do to satisfy my own feelings of like need or outrage, my own selfishness, right?

00:51:22.000 It just really, it is not a high point for the citizens of this country.

00:51:28.040 by and not even citizens that's not fair but like the people who inhabit turtle island that

00:51:32.880 inhabit this space right you know like it's not we're not it's not a high point in our existence

00:51:38.320 as a as a species by any means and i think that's been fueled by the way our technology has been

00:51:45.200 built if you look at the beginnings of the internet and all the hopes for this utopian space

00:51:50.440 and like how we could be so connected i think about being a kid who was just weird i was just

00:51:57.060 a weird kid growing up in Iowa. I wasn't like other kids. And I didn't know that other weirdos

00:52:02.100 were out there until I got to college. And then I had to like, go abroad. And I found other even

00:52:06.820 then I came here to DC. And I was like, Oh, yeah, you're my weirdos. My nephew is 16. He's out as

00:52:14.020 bi in Illinois. So like in a similarly very like kind of small Midwestern place. And he knows he's 0.99

00:52:21.060 not alone. He knows there are other people out there. He also has to deal with a fair amount of

00:52:26.420 shit that I didn't have to as a kid who didn't have social media and the internet so close, 0.99

00:52:30.440 right? But at least he knows that he's not alone. And I think there was this promise of the internet 0.99

00:52:37.880 being a place where you didn't have to, where you would feel connected to other people and where you

00:52:45.020 could increase your empathy skills and you can understand the experiences of people who weren't

00:52:49.180 like you and we have gone so far afield from that now it's like this tool to divide

00:52:56.260 whether being manipulated by like russian or i think even frankly like i worked on china i

00:53:03.760 understood that they also do this work where they intentionally not necessarily in foreign countries

00:53:08.820 but sway influence public opinion online like we can be manipulated outside of the country we can

00:53:15.680 also be perfectly manipulated by our own people. If Shinzo Abe can be assassinated in a country

00:53:24.220 without guns, that's all you need to know. We don't need to train militias any longer. We don't

00:53:31.540 need to train military forces. Frankly, we need to get inside of the head of one person.

00:53:36.780 All of us have become sleeper cells. That's terrifying. At what point do you make a bad

00:53:43.540 decision because of something you're sure you heard on like some QAnon YouTube whatever craziness

00:53:50.400 and like there's no you fall down that rabbit hole and where do you come out it's true it's true and

00:53:57.300 you know something that you said that really sticks with me because it really resonates with

00:54:00.660 my own experiences you know I I live in DC as well I grew up in Virginia and um yeah I was like

00:54:07.900 the weird kid in a tiny town in the south who didn't know i felt very alone i felt very alien

00:54:14.740 i felt very strange and the day that my parents brought home a computer and i first got on america

00:54:19.400 online remember that like terrible noise like that awful noise uh that was the first time that

00:54:25.640 i was like oh there's other people out there like me like i'm not alone and i know that i would not

00:54:30.500 like the path of self-discovery that that set me on i am so grateful for in my life and i know that

00:54:35.680 I wouldn't be where I am now without it.

00:54:37.480 And I feel like the generation that comes before us, I wonder, are they having the same

00:54:44.680 experiences that feel like self-discovery, that feel like creativity, that feel like

00:54:49.620 safe exploration of who they are?

00:54:51.960 You know, are we leaving behind an internet that is worse or better than the one that

00:54:56.080 I grew up with that was so impactful for me?

00:54:58.220 I would argue it's not better.

00:55:00.980 It's not better.

00:55:01.980 It's certainly not better.

00:55:03.060 No, I don't think more is better.

00:55:04.380 I don't think more images are better.

00:55:06.140 These friends of mine, they have a, my friend has a stepdaughter who is in college and bless

00:55:12.400 her.

00:55:12.740 She had to graduate from high school and do her freshman year, both during like COVID

00:55:16.080 quarantine.

00:55:16.740 So she got robbed of quite a little bit.

00:55:18.340 She's a really adaptive young woman, bright, beautiful young woman.

00:55:22.600 She finally gets her like trip to Italy over the summer and creates an itinerary that's

00:55:29.340 where she can take all of her Instagram shots.

00:55:31.540 it's not how I planned my trip to Italy and they're like laughing they're like it's not how

00:55:38.340 we planned our trips to Italy like that's not how we did our like summer in Europe or whatever

00:55:42.820 privilege cool thing that we got to do right like it's I don't I don't know that her experience was

00:55:49.040 like that much better because she got to go to these like beautiful places and take these

00:55:53.180 beautiful photos of herself looking amazing sure I'm sure right and would it have been just as cool

00:55:59.560 to see the Mayor Duomo like would have been just as cool to see like St. Peter's you know like

00:56:03.740 could you have had an amazing time that led you down a different path in your life

00:56:09.740 if it weren't so if you weren't if you hadn't been so focused on what you were doing for the

00:56:14.060 gram yeah oh I don't know that it's better I don't think it's better and it doesn't feel safe

00:56:21.380 it doesn't feel like it's a safe place to explore because the ramifications are so real world

00:56:27.240 it was one thing to feel unsafe because you could be harassed that's already shitty but then to know

00:56:34.340 that you'd be outed to your parents your grandparents like your friends your people

00:56:39.600 back home like to a community that you struggle to be part of still because they're bigoted for

00:56:45.800 whatever reason right and and it's no one else's business but your own like you get to decide when

00:56:52.380 you come out and blah, blah, blah, right? Like to have someone know that about you and then find

00:56:57.500 you at IRL and then share it. Like that's a risk I didn't have to take with the internet.

00:57:05.200 I could still be my crazy self. You know, no one was ever going to know. I called,

00:57:10.780 I lived in Spain for my junior and senior year. Try not to hate. It was so amazing.

00:57:15.400 I would call my family once a week because that was the long distance plan that they could afford.

00:57:19.860 still a lot of money to call back then right um they had no idea what I was doing

00:57:29.040 there were no ramifications for the life that I had I got to live this like fairy tale

00:57:35.080 existence where I got to like leave behind all the family trauma and like all the trauma and

00:57:41.140 like all their stuff and just live my own life for two years there was a reason I didn't come

00:57:46.500 after my junior year abroad I was like this is great

00:57:50.080 yeah I can't there that doesn't that wouldn't that doesn't happen now

00:57:56.720 it can't happen now so yeah I really wish that the real world ramifications weren't what they

00:58:05.400 used to be or weren't aren't what they are now for people yeah they were closer to what they

00:58:10.500 used to be which was nothing very little what you decided to share what you consented to to be

00:58:17.820 trauma-informed and sensitive about it like for your decisions to inform the image that

00:58:24.960 the information people get to receive we don't live that way now in real life let alone online

00:58:30.520 does that make sense it makes so much sense it makes all it makes so much sense and I think

00:58:35.840 that's exactly it somewhere along the line it's like we gave that up without even really realizing

00:58:42.360 how precious it was yeah yeah you know a few years ago my mother-in-law was living with us

00:58:52.300 she's disabled she was sick and she'd come up here um she couldn't you know north carolina was

00:58:59.000 one of those states that didn't have um the medicaid expansion so she needed she needed more

00:59:05.420 care and it was no longer affordable down there and I remember reading something this was 2017

00:59:13.420 about how the Girl Scouts had chosen this Palo Alto networks to partner with them to make this

00:59:19.700 cyber security badge and I'll go to look at their like board of directors and their c-suite and I'm 0.76

00:59:25.500 like oh there's one woman do I have to tell you what department she was running HR of course no 0.92

00:59:31.620 right so like I was like this these fucking guys right and so I'm about to go on a Twitter tirade 0.97

00:59:37.840 and then I think about Kathy sitting on my front porch and how easy it would be to find her day in 0.98

00:59:43.700 and day out and I cannot I can't rant like I'd like to which is a privilege right but like to

00:59:50.220 be able to like speak my mind but it's one that most folks assume we have as a an absolute right

00:59:56.340 and most of us don't and fewer of us do now than we ever did oh absolutely you know on this show

01:00:05.580 we talk to mostly women women of color lgbtq folks most of whom are involved in things like

01:00:12.960 they're activists or they're like advocating for making technology safer and better the internet

01:00:17.920 safer and better i would say probably at least 10 different times i have done interviews they are in

01:00:25.560 some level of hiding it's like oh i'm not i'm not in my apartment right now i'm in a i'm speaking

01:00:31.080 to you from a safe location just recently someone i had an interview set with had to cancel she was

01:00:37.000 like i've pulled out of all public appearances because of because i'm being attacked by right

01:00:42.800 wing extremists because of my disinformation work with the biden administration and it was like

01:00:46.900 the the amount of times that i have heard that story again and again where it's like oh yeah

01:00:52.460 because of my work my opinions putting my putting my opinions out there being civically engaged

01:00:58.460 i'm not safe i'm not able to be at home i'm in a i'm in a safe place you're speaking to me from

01:01:02.820 a safe house maybe you're not speaking to me at all like it has happened again and again and again

01:01:08.360 and i think it really says something about the state of play that we're at right now yeah oh

01:01:14.020 yeah like if they can't be civically engaged then no we aren't living in a democracy that's 0.99

01:01:19.100 violence against women in politics from top to bottom right it can happen to women being like 1.00

01:01:23.380 politically assassinated who are running for office who are part of a party who are in office 0.88

01:01:27.360 and it also means that women can't participate that is the same level of op in my mind like

01:01:32.640 you're not yeah we are not this is not a democracy and i think the sooner he said to my husband the

01:01:40.440 other day i was like what do you think a civil war would look like in america in the 21st century

01:01:44.200 And he's like, this, I think we're living it.

01:01:47.640 I think, and we just don't realize it for the most part yet.

01:01:51.460 This is it.

01:01:52.560 Like we are not in a position where I cannot believe.

01:01:57.060 So if you have other guests who are in this position who need help, please feel free to send them our way.

01:02:01.480 We don't, we're not cheap.

01:02:02.700 And we can get in touch with different funds for different kinds of activists and journalists to help pay for things.

01:02:09.800 Because it makes me sick.

01:02:11.040 And I'm not surprised.

01:02:12.460 This is where we are.

01:02:14.200 This is why we started this, because I believe we're more than we are acting like we are right now.

01:02:23.240 As a species, I believe that we're more than what we're doing right now.

01:02:28.020 And I won't stop being hopeful and I won't stop being optimistic about the future of humanity.

01:02:34.820 And I won't stop fighting for us to be more.

01:02:37.160 And this is one small way that I feel like we can start to move towards more evolved, more human, more kind, more whatever the word is.

01:02:50.420 Yeah, we're more than we are in this 21st century moment.

01:03:01.600 Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi?

01:03:05.160 You can reach us at hello at tangody.com.

01:03:07.520 You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangody.com.

01:03:10.860 There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me, Bridget Todd.

01:03:13.600 It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

01:03:16.320 Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.

01:03:18.380 Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer.

01:03:21.000 Michael Amato is our contributing producer.

01:03:23.000 I'm your host, Bridget Todd.

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01:04:16.740 I survived nine months in captivity,

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01:04:48.500 I'm Hoda Kotb, host of the podcast Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb.

01:04:52.900 You know, I'm always searching for inspiration and useful tools to maximize joy.

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01:05:52.580 You

There Are No Girls on the Internet - August 24, 2022

DOXXING 101： Our personal information is available online and it’s putting women at risk. Meet the woman who is fighting back.

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