00:04:11.220ordered Tesla to pay Owen Diaz, a Black former employee, $136.9 million because of the racial
00:04:18.940harassment that he faced there. The state of California is currently suing Tesla for allegedly
00:04:24.800trying to silence thousands of Black workers who complained about dealing with racism while
00:04:29.380working at Tesla. One especially heartbreaking account from a number of Black employees
00:04:34.540reports that they were moved to the back of the plant whenever Musk would visit the facility.
00:04:39.520So what does all this mean for women, people of color, and LGBTQ folks on Twitter?
00:04:45.000I sat down with my producer, Michael, to discuss.
00:04:48.480How you feel about this Twitter situation?
00:04:50.500What were your initial thoughts about Elon Musk buying Twitter?
00:04:54.580So I have to say, I kind of got the whole Elon Musk buying Twitter thing wrong.
00:05:01.560When I first started hearing reports that he was thinking about buying Twitter,
00:05:05.300I thought for sure Elon Musk just really wanted that to be something that was in a couple of rounds of news cycles.
00:05:13.580I did not think he was actually going to buy Twitter.
00:05:17.160I was so convinced that this was just going to be something he talked a big game about, just like other big things that he's talked about, like donating money to the UN to end world hunger, which he never did, even though he promised that he would.
00:05:28.740And I was wrong. You know, I really thought this was just going to be talk from a billionaire to show that he could buy it if you wanted to. And I was incorrect.
00:05:39.620What was going on in your life when you first got on Twitter? I know that you are pretty prolific on there. You've been on it for a while. What was what was that early experience like?
00:05:50.100Oh, the early days of Twitter was such a different world. It was really fun. I don't think we knew what it was. There's a kind of phenomenon on Twitter where Black folks find each other and connect over jokes and communal laughter and shared experiences.
00:06:12.600I think there were just a lot of opportunities for joy in the early days of Twitter that I don't think I've really seen a lot of since those early days.
00:06:24.440The day that those two llamas got loose, llamas on the loose, where everyone was tracking those llamas.
00:06:31.760And then, you know, the days of the dress.
00:06:36.360My favorite ever day on Twitter is the day that a, I think it was Yahoo News tweeted about Trump wanting to have a bigger Navy.
00:06:44.900But they accidentally had a typo and they used the N-word, N-word Navy.
00:06:49.460And it was a great day for jokes on Twitter.
00:06:53.020It was just really fun, and it felt low stakes.
00:06:57.320I think it felt a lot lower stakes than it's felt in the last three or four or five years, for sure.
00:07:08.440So what role would you say Twitter plays in your life now?
00:07:13.380Oh, I am on Twitter now purely because I sort of have to be, I think.
00:07:19.460Um, it's not something that I really enjoy being on, but I feel that at this point in my career, I have to be there to find, it's a, it's a, it is a quick way to find out what's happening in the news and what's happening in the world around you.
00:07:35.740what's happening with elected officials and world leaders, I feel like it's sort of, I'm there kind
00:07:41.940of by necessity, not for the same kind of like recreation or a reverence or community building
00:07:50.620that once was so, such a big part of the experience of being there. You know, my time there is much
00:07:58.940more, I tweet what I got to tweet. I put it out there. If anybody has anything to say about it,
00:08:06.080I probably am not going to see the replies. I'm not hanging out in Twitter trying to have
00:08:10.420conversation and engage because frankly, it's just not that pleasant of a place to do that.
00:08:15.340It just doesn't feel like a fun place to spend time in that way. And everything, even low stakes
00:08:22.980things on Twitter feel very high stakes. One thing I find myself doing is intentionally engaging in
00:08:30.840very low stakes Twitter conversations, specifically to try to recapture some of that old feeling of
00:08:37.500what it felt like when you could actually engage with people on Twitter about things that you
00:08:42.820maybe didn't agree with. Somebody tweeted something recently that was, what's your
00:08:46.800cancelable coffee opinion. And I was like, oh, people who drink black coffee don't actually
00:08:52.700like the taste of black coffee. They're just trying to look grown up. They're just pretending
00:08:55.580to like the taste of black coffee. And it was actually very fun to have people kind of get
00:09:01.800gently spicy with me about not agreeing with my strongly held but very low stakes opinion.
00:09:09.440And it's being able to engage in that way. We don't really get a lot of opportunities on Twitter,
00:09:12.860It feels like to have those kinds of low stakes back and forth with people.
00:14:13.960where Black folks really found each other and connected over just the shared experience of
00:14:23.280being Black folks. And, you know, Blackness is so rich. It's so multifaceted. Being Black is not
00:14:30.120a monolith. But those differences really allowed us to connect on Twitter in this completely
00:14:37.400interesting, exciting new way. And honestly, I think it's not surprising that there wasn't like
00:14:45.320Black Facebook necessarily or Black Instagram. Certainly there are lots of Black users doing
00:14:50.160amazing stuff and building amazing communities on those platforms. I don't want to suggest that1.00
00:14:54.000that's not happening, but Twitter is such an instantaneous kind of platform that you can be
00:14:59.840engaging in real time in this way that feels sort of collective. And it just felt like
00:15:07.080you know the call and response ethos that i feel like is so part and parcel to our experiences and
00:15:15.220so yeah it just was it just was this like very interesting exciting collaborative
00:15:20.780network of black folks bonding over just the experience of blackness and so i think a lot
00:15:27.560of times when we talk about what the black experience is we're talking about trauma and
00:15:31.740and hard stuff. And that's definitely part of it. But black Twitter is also about connecting over
00:15:37.480jokes, over creativity, over, yeah, just the shared joy of bathing in our, in our identities,
00:15:45.580bathing in our blackness, uh, over Twitter. So how do you think that might change now that
00:15:51.640Elon Musk has bought Twitter? And why do you think that? I am concerned.
00:15:59.820I will say this. I've had a lot of feelings over the last, I don't know, six hours or so since the announcement happened. If I sound exhausted, it's because of that announcement.
00:16:13.220I know that Elon Musk does not have a great track record when it comes to amplifying, protecting, supporting, championing, marginalized voices.
00:16:30.940I'm an optimist when it comes to technology and to platforms through and through.
00:16:35.440I would not make this podcast if I was not an optimist when it came to technology.
00:16:38.640But I can't ignore the facts that speak for themselves. I believe that Elon Musk oversaw an environment at Tesla that was sexist, that was racist. This is not me saying this. Courts have agreed, right?
00:16:54.920And so I've heard reports where black Tesla employees talked about how when Elon Musk would personally come to Tesla, they knew that they had to physically hide, physically get to the back because he was so disgusted to see black faces in his factories.0.89
00:17:12.420And so all of that tells me that this is someone that maybe cannot be trusted to have the kind of intentionality that would be necessary to foster marginalized voices on the platform.
00:17:28.060And already Twitter, we know, has a lot of work to do in terms of championing those voices.
00:17:35.920And I think it's so sad because, as I explained before, we are the lifeblood of what makes social media great. Like, we are Black creativity, Black labor, Black talent, Black hustle, Black grit. What would any social media platform be like without us? And not just Black folks, Black folks, trans folks, queer folks, all of us.
00:18:00.440What would a social media look like without us? It would be nothing. We fuel it. I want to make sure that the people who run these platforms actually see that and are intentional about making sure that that is fostered because it's real.
00:18:16.920It's, we have a real, we have really materially benefited these platforms. And I just feel like the idea of being asked to show up on a platform owned and operated by someone who has proven himself to not have a great track record when it comes to things like race and gender.
00:18:36.760I feel like it's difficult to imagine me showing up with the kind of joy and creativity and spark that we once had.
00:18:46.560And that's not to say that, you know, Twitter has had its problems, but I just have a real issue with someone like Elon Musk buying Twitter almost as a lark.
00:18:57.300And I also want to say that I believe really, really deeply in the power of people who are traditionally marginalized.
00:19:09.560Like, Black folks, we are so skilled at being given the worst and making something out of it, making lemonade out of lemons, right?
00:19:19.820And so when you think about the spaces that we have really had to fight to carve out for ourselves on platforms like Twitter, that is because of Black creativity and Black hustle and Black grit and needing to carve out these spaces.
00:19:34.320And so, you know, I don't know. All of that is to say, I don't think that one person, Elon Musk, is stronger than all of our creativity and voices combined and that spirit that we have to carve out our spaces, which we've always done.
00:19:56.720We did it before and we'll always keep doing it. So, I mean, I don't know. I'm concerned. I'm very concerned about how this will bode for traditionally marginalized people who are already marginalized on Twitter.
00:20:10.780But I also know that I believe in us. I truly believe in the power of our spirit and ingenuity to always be there carving out those spaces and really taking the space that we need to show up in the way that we want.
00:20:26.740i guess it speaks to the resilience of of all humanity but have like fought to take space and
00:20:34.820make space when it's not given and it's impressive and powerful but it's also got to be so frustrating
00:20:42.860and tiring and uh you know why does it have to be that way like why does it have to be such a fight
00:20:51.200and you you wrote a really thoughtful thread earlier today about the likely consequences
00:20:56.400of a new twitter without community standards that would be a more dangerous and hostile place for
00:21:02.240marginalized people especially women of color who are often targets of coordinated attacks
00:21:07.660designed to silence them um in the comments i saw a bunch of trolls saying things like oh if you
00:21:12.200don't like free speech just say so and it was such a reductionist comment um but so i just wanted
00:21:19.200to ask you like you know how do community standards protect free speech
00:21:24.620so i think the entire conversation about free speech we are having the wrong conversation
00:21:32.280right like when we talk about free speech we're talking about whether governments can suppress
00:21:38.600people's speech like and we do have a a real free speech problem in this country full stop
00:21:47.900But I think that the way that we have allowed the idea of free speech to be debated when
00:21:54.800we talk about Twitter moderation, I think is really doing it a disservice.
00:21:59.940However, if we're going to talk about free speech on platforms like Twitter, I think
00:22:04.360that when we talk about things like content moderation, we should also be clear that we're
00:22:08.320talking about all of the traditionally marginalized folks who have been pushed out of social media
00:22:14.180because of lax content moderation standards
00:22:28.800who are being pushed out of these spaces.
00:22:30.500It is people who are traditionally marginalized, right?0.56
00:22:33.260It's black women, it's sex workers, it's activists.
00:22:37.160Those are the people who are being pushed out of these places1.00
00:22:40.680when content moderation is badly applied,
00:22:43.600is misapplied, is applied without transparency. And so I really want to change the conversation
00:22:48.280when we talk about free speech on platforms. I want to make sure that we're also including
00:22:53.180all of these marginalized people who we have just decided don't deserve free speech on platforms0.77
00:22:58.660and that their stories are not going to be part of what we talk about when we talk about free
00:23:02.980speech. And so I think that's one of the traps of it when we allow this idea of, quote, free speech
00:23:12.460to be the thing that animates our conversations about social media platforms. I just want to
00:23:20.340change the conversation entirely. And by the way, Elon Musk talks about how he's this free speech
00:23:26.060absolutist bullshit. Tell that to the employees of Tesla that he has fired for talking critically0.97
00:23:33.320about Tesla. Tell that to the employees that he has cracked down on for talking about things like
00:23:40.640unionization. This idea that he is some big champion of free speech, a free speech absolutist,
00:23:47.660that's a farce. He would love it if that was the dominant thing that people talked about about him
00:23:52.620because it creates this false binary where he is on one side and he is a champion of free speech
00:23:58.640and everybody else is on the other side and they are enemies of free speech. And that is
00:24:03.640not even just an oversimplification. It's just not true. But it is such a self-serving framing
00:24:10.160that I can understand that that's why that's the framing that he always leans back on and
00:24:14.560his supporters always lean back on. But just because it's convenient doesn't make it accurate
00:24:20.880and it is inaccurate. Okay. Yeah. I know you do a lot of work in platform accountability,
00:24:28.040often focusing on Twitter in particular. What does this do change in ownership mean for that work?
00:24:35.780tbd you know i if i were working at twitter i would say when we announced this this change
00:24:45.740people our user base are going to have questions i would have been ready with some answers to those
00:24:54.540questions of what this would look like what this means for you as a user the fact that they the
00:24:59.860only information that we got was these like very vague statements from musk saying like oh i'm gonna
00:25:06.540have free speech for twitter unless it's spam well who decides what's spam and what's not how will
00:25:13.680that be moderated like the way the way that it only leans on vagaries and no specifics i think
00:25:21.700it tells you all you need to know about the way that the people in power at twitter feel about us
00:25:29.460their users. I don't feel like they feel like they owe us any kind of answers or accountability
00:25:34.160or transparency. And I want to be very clear. We're talking about a platform where world leaders
00:25:41.020put out statements, where elected officials put out statements. When I needed to figure out where
00:25:45.920to go to get a COVID test, I checked my local D.C. mayor's Twitter account to get that information.
00:25:51.860We need to acknowledge the ways that Twitter really does function as a kind of public utility.
00:25:57.040and given that they can't be so callous with these kinds of changes without being a little
00:26:04.960bit accountable to us the people who use them and i think it's very clear that they don't feel they
00:26:09.480need to be accountable to us yeah absolutely i mean that's like elon musk's whole thing he's
00:26:15.820not accountable to anyone he just does his own thing because he's rich and powerful enough to
00:26:20.860do that. And it seems like so many of his fans just love that about it. As much as I am worried
00:26:28.400about the changes that are to come for marginalized people on Twitter, I also just want to step back
00:26:34.720and say, isn't it kind of messed up that a billionaire can spend $44 billion to buy one of
00:26:42.740our largest communication platforms just on a lark, just for fun? Isn't that a problem?
00:26:50.860Like, I really feel that that illustrates that something is sort of deeply wrong when that can happen and that we don't even know, you know, what it's like, what the impact will be.
00:27:04.460And I also think, like, the way that so many people, particularly marginalized people, have had to adapt to use things like Twitter to build community, to build movements.
00:27:17.920Like, think about all the movements that marginalized people have built using Twitter in the last 10 years.
00:27:24.100Black Lives Matter was born from platforms like Twitter.
00:27:28.780Me Too was born from platforms like Twitter, right?0.80
00:27:31.540The concept of Black girl magic born on platforms like Twitter. I think that we really have to see the way that one person being in charge of this, kind of maybe without even really thinking it through, can really have a deep and lasting impact on our ability to create change and community going forward.0.92
00:29:15.840Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.0.98
00:29:20.380I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.
00:29:24.960I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.
00:29:32.400They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:29:36.340But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.
00:29:39.780They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:29:42.920Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:29:51.880If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:29:57.820This 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.
00:30:10.300I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:30:17.420I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.
00:30:21.000From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.
00:30:26.940It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:30:34.400Whether 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.
00:30:44.020Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:36:23.040And we cannot do this while our digital platforms are cesspools of disinformation based in sexism, racism, misogyny, and hate.
00:36:31.180So we already know that disinformation and online harassment disproportionately target and impact people from underrepresented backgrounds.
00:37:03.520Black women are overwhelmingly targeted for disinformation and online harassment campaigns.
00:37:08.580And the research makes it very clear that this persistent threat has a silencing effect on all of us.
00:37:14.640It pushes us even further into the margins.
00:37:17.240It keeps us from doing things like running for office or even just expressing our opinions online.
00:37:22.280It undermines public trust in our leadership.
00:37:25.400Now, the goal of this kind of thing is to get us to check out of our democracy and to just shut up.
00:37:30.260And we cannot allow this because increasing civic participation is a crucial step to advancing all of our issues and restoring a functioning democracy.
00:37:39.640And we cannot have that if we don't have digital media platforms and landscapes where all of us, including those of us who are traditionally marginalized, can show up safely.
00:37:53.860Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi?
00:37:57.180You can reach us at hello at tangodi.com.
00:37:59.500You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangody.com.
00:38:03.260There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me, Bridget Todd.
00:38:05.980It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.
00:38:08.680Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.
00:38:10.740Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer.
00:38:13.360Michael Amato is our contributing producer.