00:00:58.980There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.
00:01:07.080I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.
00:01:12.540Hi, and welcome to There Are No Girls on the Internet.
00:01:14.660So we are starting a brand new thing on the podcast where we are going to be rounding up
00:01:19.200news and analysis about tech, the internet, and media that you might have missed.
00:01:23.000I will do this every other week, but if you want to get it weekly,
00:01:25.800be sure to subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com slash tangody. So let's get into it. I'm here with
00:01:31.220my producer, Mike. Mike, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. I'm super excited
00:01:36.340to be here for this inaugural news roundup. So we're starting out hot with a story that I followed
00:01:41.800obsessively. I have watched multiple documentaries about it. I have read books about it. I have
00:01:45.940watched Hulu series about it. And that is my girl, Elizabeth Holmes. Elizabeth Holmes has officially
00:01:51.600girlbossed a little bit too close to the sun and must report to prison on May 30th. Y'all probably1.00
00:01:57.600remember Elizabeth Holmes. She used to run a blood testing startup called Theranos that said that
00:02:02.120using a drop of blood, they could screen for diseases and health information, but actually
00:02:06.260it never did any of that. Elizabeth Holmes, like she wore a lot of black turtlenecks and sort of1.00
00:02:11.820always had this like messy hair and she kind of talked like this, all as part of this like tech0.56
00:02:17.400CEO persona that was also kind of a fraud. Holmes was convicted on charges of defrauding her
00:02:22.900investors in her failed blood testing startup. She's appealing those charges, but the court
00:02:27.720rejected her request to remain out on bail while she appeals her case. She's sort of been able to
00:02:32.560drag her feet on reporting to prison, but it seems like maybe her time has finally run out.
00:02:37.740Now, back in November, she was sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison for conspiracy
00:02:42.320and fraud against investors. Now, she was supposed to report to prison back in April,
00:02:45.960but her prison time was delayed while the court considered her appeal.
00:02:49.640This comes after kind of a very glowing, fawning New York Times, like,
00:02:55.380redemption arc profile that really painted her in a sympathetic light.
00:02:59.920But let's not forget that Elizabeth Holmes' scam hurt real people.1.00
00:03:04.620There was a mother with a history of miscarriages who was wrongly told that she would never be able to have a baby.0.77
00:03:09.540There was someone who was given a false HIV diagnosis and had to wait for months until they could afford another test.
00:03:14.920And someone was even given a false cancer diagnosis.
00:03:18.600Yeah, that's what's so egregious about her story.
00:03:21.360You know, as somebody who works in health tech, it was like really just egregious that she would just be lying about what this technology can do.
00:03:32.380But it says a lot about our legal frameworks for policing or regulating health tech that none of her jail sentences related to harming those people or the thousands of more people who received inaccurate medical information.
00:03:51.280It was all just about the investors. And, you know, I'm like kind of torn about this because it's good to see some justice happening, but it's not happening because people were harmed. It's just because investors were harmed. And it's a real shortcoming.
00:04:10.740No, I firmly believe had Elizabeth Holmes not harmed and defrauded wealthy investors, rich people, she would not be going to jail. I think that if she had only harmed regular ordinary people, which she did harm, I don't think that she'd be facing jail time like she is. And I also don't think that she would be hated like she is.
00:04:29.240It is kind of a sad thing that the reason why she is facing consequences is probably because she defrauded investors because people don't care when you harm.
00:04:38.080I think I think that we've just kind of been conditioned that you can be a tech company that harms everyday people.
00:04:43.740And that's totally fine. Harm wealthy people and investors. Then you're going to jail.
00:04:48.060Yeah. So as we talk about on the show, what does the future look like that does a better job of protecting people? I think this is a real area where as health technology becomes a bigger part of the health landscape overall, we're really going to need regulatory frameworks to address it.
00:05:14.020And right now we just like don't have them.
00:05:16.200To the extent that we do in FDA, they're just very inadequate for what's coming.
00:06:01.800and the deepening of societal inequalities.
00:06:05.320We have seen how algorithmic biases can perpetuate discrimination and prejudice and how the lack of transparency can undermine public trust.
00:06:27.160He makes a good point that, you know, it happened to be saying things that he actually agreed with, but they could just as easily be saying something that he would never say and doesn't agree with.
00:06:36.760And you can sort of get an idea of the implications of that kind of technology.
00:06:41.020Yeah, it was eerie. And it's it's such a good little stunt.
00:06:44.740Like, I kind of love it when senators get up there and do little stunts like this.
00:06:48.240This one is particularly good because it's not just an attention stunt, but it really highlights how it's not just these individual technologies that are a risk, but really the combination of them that creates some really terrifying possibilities for what the future holds.
00:07:07.120So these hearings really seemed like very chummy. CNN reported that before the hearings, Sam Altman, who you may know as the CEO of OpenAI, who has basically kind of become the face of AI, met with more than 60 House lawmakers over a dinner.
00:07:22.700It was a bipartisan gathering featuring an even split of Republicans and Democrats, and Altman demonstrated, like, various uses of chat GPT to, quote, much amusement, according to a person in the room who described the lawmakers as riveted by the display.
00:07:38.360Um, yeah, something about that. There's something about that I don't like, that this was such a chummy meeting of lawmakers and AI technologists. I would like, I guess I'll just stop it there. There's something about the chumminess that I find a little sus. What do you think?
00:11:58.640Well, speaking of passing the buck and posturing while really doing nothing, let's talk about Montana.
00:12:04.760So this week, Montana became the first state to ban the social media platform TikTok, which is a pretty big step in the backlash against this Chinese-owned platform over concerns about things like data privacy.
00:12:16.200Montana's governor signed the measure on Wednesday.
00:12:19.000He said that he did so to, quote, protect Montanans' personal and private data from the Chinese Communist Party.
00:12:24.820The ban takes effect in January of 2024, but people can actually still use TikTok after that.
00:12:31.100Like, this law does not punish them if they use TikTok.
00:12:34.480But what it actually does is target the availability of the app by threatening entities such as TikTok, Google, and Apple with a $10,000 fine for each day that the platform remains accessible in app stores for users in Montana.
00:12:46.940So from the user end, you don't actually have to do anything once this law goes into effect.
00:12:53.980But eventually, when you need to update TikTok for it to run properly, that's when it will probably become an issue.
00:12:59.500So it's kind of a way of phasing TikTok out because people won't be able to access the app in the app store to get the updates that you would need for it to run properly on your device.
00:13:10.660According to the Washington Post, app stores are divided by country or global region and that they don't change or discriminate based on what state a user is in.
00:13:18.800Changing that system would require not just carving the stores into state-specific chunks,
00:13:22.980but also closer monitoring of people's locations and a by-the-minute system to define what happens
00:13:27.920when, for instance, a user drives over state lines. And keep in mind that people can always
00:13:33.560just sort of get around this by using a VPN. So it seems like this law will be very difficult
00:13:39.100to enforce to the point where you're almost going to have to wonder what the point of this law
00:13:43.140would be. The law would be nullified if TikTok is no longer headquartered in, quote, any country
00:13:48.940designated as a foreign adversary by the U.S. government. The law will probably face a
00:13:53.500significant legal challenge. Free speech groups like the ACLU have already been vocally criticizing
00:13:58.020this law, and five TikTok creators filed a lawsuit saying that this ban infringes on their First
00:14:03.180Amendment rights. In the suit, they say the state of Montana, quote, can no more ban its residents
00:14:08.360from viewing or posting to TikTok than it could ban the Wall Street Journal because of who owns it
00:14:12.840or the ideas it publishes. So y'all probably know that we did an entire episode with misinformation
00:14:17.900specialist and TikTok creator, Abby Richards, about why she feels like banning TikTok just
00:14:22.880is not a good idea. We'll link to the episode in the show notes, definitely worth listening to.
00:14:27.160But ultimately, my take is that there is so much wrong with our current data privacy laws and
00:14:32.300landscape in the U.S. that if lawmakers truly wanted to protect our data and our privacy,
00:14:37.480banning TikTok would not really accomplish that. So I think that laws like this one,
00:14:41.540especially given that they're so difficult to actually enforce, are just sort of meant to signal
00:14:45.940to us, the American public, that lawmakers are like cracking down on and sort of getting tough
00:14:51.720with big tech while actually doing nothing. And I firmly believe that what we need is
00:14:56.540meaningful policies to protect our privacy and data, not just grandstanding and posturing, yeah?
00:15:03.060Yeah, I agree. On the one hand, it's nice to see politicians taking some action. On the other hand,
00:15:10.540This law seems like bad in half a different ways. And like you said, unenforceable, I'm not very sympathetic to Google crying that they wouldn't know how to do this, right? Like, you can geofence Google ads down to like a city block if you want to. So the idea that they are going to be completely unable to handle state boundaries is just dishonest, right? Like they could technically figure it out if they if they wanted to, but they don't want to.
00:15:40.540Um, not that this law is, is a good idea because like you said, people can get around it a bunch
00:15:45.840of different ways. It's probably unconstitutional. Uh, but yeah, wouldn't it be nice if we saw
00:15:51.220more thoughtful legislation that instead of just banning one app on, uh, for reasons that feel
00:16:00.840awfully sinophobic, what if they prohibited categories of data use or prohibited categories
00:16:08.920of data collection so that social media platforms could not harvest the personal data of Montanans
00:16:36.480That is my big problem with all of this talk of banning TikTok.
00:16:39.800Yeah. And a big part of what they're trying to do with the TikTok ban is feed anti-China sentiment, which I think there's a lot of good reasons to be concerned about China's relationship with the United States and spying on Americans.
00:16:54.460But we could definitely do without the racist rhetoric, right?
00:16:58.040Pretty much always. You know who needs to hear that? Elon Musk. I know that I said that I wasn't going to talk about Elon Musk anymore, like for my own personal mental health, that I was going to stop talking about Elon Musk. But I have to talk about this interview that he did. So last week, Elon Musk did this interview with CNBC. During the interview, he was asked about his tweets about the mass shooting in Allen, Texas, which was a total tragedy on May 8th that left eight people dead and seven people wounded.
00:17:24.820Now, let's just be super, super clear.
00:17:27.020The Texas Department of Public Safety has said that the shooter showed indications of holding neo-Nazi ideology,
00:17:32.560with an official saying that he had patches, he had tattoos.
00:17:35.480And multiple news outlets, including the New York Times, confirmed this too.
00:17:39.080But Elon Musk basically just said a bunch of inaccurate stuff about the shooting.
00:17:44.880Ascribing it to white supremacy was bullshit.1.00
00:17:47.440There's no proof that he is a white supremacist.0.99
00:17:49.420We should not be ascribing things to white supremacy if it's false.
00:17:52.360When he doubled down on this claim on Twitter, people actually used Twitter's community notes feature to correct him, adding a footnote to the post that said, Texas police have confirmed that Allen, the mall shooter, had neo-Nazi tattoos and beliefs, and he wore a patch signifying right-wing death squad.
00:18:09.860We do not know if Elon Musk had anything to do with that community note being deleted, but it does sound like something he would do, we have to admit.
00:18:18.260obviously the things that Elon Musk says are not true and also horrible, right? So like that's not
00:18:24.540what I'm giving a perspective on here. My take is that we absolutely need to talk about the fact
00:18:29.960that Elon Musk has been amplifying and engaging with extremist right-wing talking points, and he's
00:18:35.100been doing it for a really long time out in public. I think that for a while, like it was kind of easy
00:18:41.440or maybe tempting for tech journalists, even tech journalists that I really personally like and
00:18:47.140respect. Kara Swisher, I'm obsessed with Kara Swisher. She is one of my idols. However, I do0.59
00:18:52.840think that some of the tech press really kind of let him off the hook from what he is obviously
00:18:58.400doing in plain sight. I think that people gave him the benefit of the doubt. They assumed that
00:19:03.460maybe something else was going on, like maybe Elon Musk was just trolling or kind of just trying to
00:19:08.140be edgy, use edgy humor, or he doesn't actually believe the things that he's talking about,
00:19:12.900Or that maybe he's somehow just trying to, like, cure out both sides as if someone like Elon Musk is far too smart to fall for, like, a right-wing extremist echo chamber.
00:19:23.440But this has been going on in plain sight for kind of a long time.
00:19:27.360Like, remember when Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul Pelosi, was attacked by a man with a hammer?
00:19:32.480Elon Musk tweeted a piece from the fringe website called the Santa Monica Observer, which has previously reported things like that Hillary Clinton died in 9-11 and was replaced by a body double.
00:19:41.640this piece falsely claimed that Paul Pelosi knew his attacker and that they had had some kind of
00:19:47.040a relationship. This is obviously not true, completely baseless. Pelosi's attacker admitted
00:19:52.740that he broke into their home specifically to attack Speaker Pelosi. But after Musk tweeted
00:19:57.560this, other extremists amplified this baseless claim on Twitter, including Marjorie Taylor Greene,
00:20:02.640who defended Musk with a tweet that repeated the lie that, quote,
00:20:05.700Paul Pelosi's friend attacked him with a hammer. So Elon Musk, we just have to call it what it is.
00:20:10.680he traffics in well-worn conspiracy theories that are oftentimes anti-Semitic, right? So
00:20:16.480he has trafficked in a well-worn anti-Semitic trope when talking about the influential
00:20:21.320philanthropist George Soros. He tweeted, George Soros reminds me of Magneto, which is obviously
00:20:27.700comparing Soros to the Marvel supervillain, presumably because they're both Jewish Holocaust
00:20:32.260survivors. Just in case you were confused about what he was trying to say, he followed up with
00:20:38.080another tweet saying that George Soros hates humanity. Listen, Soros is an incredibly
00:20:43.360influential, connected philanthropist. I think he's the biggest donor to the Democratic Party.
00:20:48.800It is absolutely fine to criticize someone like George Soros's agenda, perspective, whatever.
00:20:55.460However, there is absolutely a way to do that that does not traffic in well-worn anti-Semitic
00:21:01.980tropes. You don't have to compare him to a comic book supervillain. You don't have to say that he
00:21:06.680hates humanity. You don't have to traffic in all of these very well-worn anti-Semitic tropes and
00:21:12.860stereotypes in order to criticize George Soros. And I think the fact that Elon Musk continues to
00:21:18.760do so is him telling us who he is. It's him showing us who he is, where he stands, and what
00:21:24.520he believes. And we got to take him for his word. Yeah, I think you're right. And a notable
00:21:30.700difference about his defense of the shooter uh is that there was nothing like funny or jokey
00:21:37.880that in what he was saying right like the idea that oh he's just like kidding or trolling or
00:21:43.940uh you know playing to the to the trolls for funsies or whatever uh people might say to let
00:21:49.860him off the hook he was just straight up defending a nazi right like there's photos of this guy's0.90
00:21:54.700tattoos and it's like got a swastika he's got the ss lightning bolt like dude was a nazi
00:22:00.700And Elon Musk is out there saying that he wasn't. Just pure disinformation.0.85
00:22:07.060Yeah. And I also think like when the Nancy Pelosi thing happened, I don't remember who I want to say it was like a major funder for MySpace going, you know, a bit of a throwback.
00:22:17.780But, you know, he pointed out that it's almost like Elon Musk doesn't understand or is rejecting the responsibility that comes with being the CEO of a platform, like that he thinks he's any other user.
00:22:29.580He should be able to just like tweet whatever he wants. And that's, you know, a complete fiction that like owning this platform comes with a responsibility.
00:22:36.700And if you're not able to responsibly and ethically handle that responsibility, then you have no business leading a platform.
00:22:42.220And full stop. Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, the civil rights group that combats anti-Semitism, said that the way that Elon Musk talks about George Soros will embolden extremists.
00:22:53.440And I absolutely agree with him. Greenblatt says, Soros often is held up by the far right using anti-Semitic tropes as the source of the world's problems.0.91
00:23:01.300To see Elon Musk, regardless of his intent, feed this segment, comparing him to a Jewish supervillain claiming that Soros hates humanity is not just distressing, it's dangerous.
00:23:11.360It will embolden extremists who already contrive anti-Jewish conspiracies and have tried to attack Soros and the Jewish community as a result.0.93
00:25:46.180Whether 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.
00:25:55.240Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:26:09.160okay so one last kind of fun thing did you see that weird i mean i don't know if you follow
00:26:16.640essence magazine on facebook mike probably not but did you see this weird facebook post that
00:26:21.940essence magazine put out about viola davis uh you sent it to me and i saw it and i was like
00:26:27.740wow people are just like writing in bizarre ways that i can't even understand anymore i guess i'm
00:26:33.640out of touch with what the kids are doing. Okay. So basically it's this picture of Viola Davis at
00:26:39.640con. She looks fantastic. She's wearing this like beautiful white gown, just like it looks amazing
00:26:45.40010 out of 10. So Essence on Facebook, they wrote, I'm going to read this verbatim. We give credit
00:26:50.600when credit is due in Villa Davis is looking like 850. Everyone at con can now pack your bags and
00:26:58.460return home. This is a eat. This is a ate. This is supper. God damn, the dam is broken and the
00:27:06.200flood of goodness has overflowed. 10 out of 10. Okay. So this is clearly like Essence Magazine1.00
00:27:12.400is a magazine that has a Black woman readership, right? And so this is obviously a post that is
00:27:18.680trying to use like Black woman slang, like, oh, she ate, blah, blah, blah. I get that. However,0.99
00:27:25.480I believe, and no one, I have no proof, but no one will be able to convince me otherwise, this is written by AI. Somebody has tried to train an AI model to speak like a black woman and do black woman slang. And I believe this, like no one will ever be able to convince me that that's not what this is.0.75
00:27:46.400I should say that this post has since been edited and it reads much clearer.
00:27:50.900They definitely like have polished it up.
00:27:52.680They've spelled Viola Davis's name correctly in the edited version.
00:27:56.500But, you know, maybe we don't need to worry about AI taking all of our jobs because this is what it looks like when AI tries to do AAVE black slang.0.50
00:28:05.160It trips them up every time, right?0.71
00:28:06.540We got to, we should call it Shafika Hudson.
00:28:08.740Your slip is showing back in here.1.00
00:28:10.480Yes, obviously racist word salad is what she called it.
00:28:12.980Okay, so I'm going to end on a little segment that I'm hoping to return to, which is called,
00:28:17.840is this happening for everyone or happening just to me? So has anyone else on TikTok noticed
00:28:23.300segments of movies taking over your For You page? It'll be just like a juicy or climactic
00:28:29.720clip from a movie. So I can't explain why, but I find these clips so deeply satisfying to watch,
00:28:36.600even if they're movies that I haven't seen or even more when they're movies that I've seen
00:28:40.540100 times. The last clip that came up for me was that clip from the movie Selena, a movie that I've
00:28:45.720seen no less than a dozen times. And I know the movie by heart, where Selena is shopping in the
00:28:52.520mall and the sales girl is rude to her and her sister when she's shopping. And she has her pretty1.00
00:28:57.300woman moment. Well, we don't need the dress. So that segment came up on TikTok and I watched the0.99
00:29:02.420hell out of it. And I was like, well, I've seen this movie a million times. I know exactly what's
00:29:05.840going to happen. But I don't know. There's just something deeply satisfying about these movie
00:29:11.420clips. Like there are a couple of movies that I have been watching in like two minute segments
00:29:15.700on TikTok. So I want to know, is this just me? Is this happening on your For You page if you are
00:29:21.120on TikTok? And if it is happening, do you find it as satisfying as I do? Like, why is it so
00:29:26.700satisfying? What's going on? What's the brain chemistry behind why this is so satisfying to
00:29:30.740watch? Yeah, it's a great question. I don't spend a whole lot of time on TikTok, but I know a lot
00:29:38.200of our listeners do. So send an email at helloatangoti.com. How else can people share their
00:29:47.400experiences? Well, you can send us an email, you can find me on social, or you can subscribe to
00:29:54.740our Patreon at patreon.com slash tangoti. That's T-A-N-G-O-T-I. Y'all, I promise this will not be1.00
00:30:00.660one of those podcasts where, like, every time you listen, it's like, subscribe to our Patreon,
00:30:05.380subscribe to our Patreon. But it's new. I'm excited about it. We just got our very first
00:30:10.220subscriber. Thank you, Karen J., for your support. But yeah, and if you want more news, analysis,
00:30:17.040media, subscribe to the Patreon and let us know what you want to hear. Like, I want it to be a