Grace Hopper Celebration Kens ruin Barbieland; Is Instagram ruining the outdoors？; Boys are being extorted online; Nudify apps are a real problem; Elon gets sued; Telehealth increases abortion access in NYC! – NEWS ROUNDUP
00:00:38.460and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.
00:00:43.680I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.
00:00:47.300Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable,
00:00:51.020abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:00:54.640These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:00:58.700Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:10.580There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.
00:01:18.700I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.
00:01:21.440i am here with my producer mike mike thank you so much for being here thanks for having me
00:01:29.020i'm glad to be here in the wake of that fema alert that happened earlier this week i know
00:01:35.420as far as i can tell i think we all survived this week's fema emergency alert without activating
00:01:41.720any kind of deadly vaccine related illnesses in case folks missed it conspiracy theorists said
00:01:47.460that the government was using the emergency alerts that we all got on our phones this week
00:01:51.100to trigger blood-borne slash maybe bat-related question mark illnesses in people who were
00:01:59.160vaccinated? Yeah, I think those were the conspiracy theories. I was pretty impressed by how quickly0.97
00:02:04.540they came together because I didn't hear that that alert was going to happen until like a day
00:02:10.640or two before it did maybe the conspiracy people are like really plugged in to when fema is
00:02:18.320scheduling these alerts but i feel like they really pulled this conspiracy together in like
00:02:24.06048 hours oh you think conspiracy theorists who gather online are not plugged into what fema is
00:02:29.740doing they don't they're not like super on that i'm sure that's on their radar listen i knew i
00:02:34.880wanted to do a little bit of like brief banter on this on the pod but part of me was sort of like
00:02:40.200let's wait until after the alert you know just in case let's just be let's just cover all of our
00:02:45.660bases let's let's plan to do this after but we're after we make it through the alerts there was a
00:02:50.580tiny part of me that was like wouldn't it just be funny if we did all start like bleeding from our
00:02:55.680eyeballs and turn into zombie bats it would serve us right for doubting them in the first place in
00:03:01.900case it's not clear obviously those conspiracy theories were completely baseless despite the
00:03:07.600fact that people reported that they were planning on turning off their power, turning off their
00:03:11.680phones to protect themselves from what ended up not happening. Nobody got sick. It was all
00:03:17.460just a conspiracy theory. But you know what's not a conspiracy theory? It's the way that men
00:03:22.420infiltrated the Grace Hopper Celebration this year. So the Grace Hopper Celebration, named after the0.97
00:03:27.940historic computer programmer Grace Hopper, is a big tech conference that is one of the largest
00:03:32.700gatherings of women and non-binary folks in tech worldwide. It's organized by the nonprofit
00:03:37.820AnitaB.org. Quick side note, I was actually just a guest on AnitaB's inaugural podcast episode,
00:03:43.940which you should all check out. We will throw the link in the show notes. And I was actually
00:03:47.660meant to attend the Grace Hopper event down in Orlando, Florida this year, but I had a scheduling
00:03:51.700issue. It's kind of a big deal. All the big tech companies are there, Apple, Amazon, and it's a
00:03:57.960great place for folks who are looking for jobs. It's full of job opportunities and networking.
00:04:02.700But at this year's conference, men showed up.
00:04:05.980In a post on LinkedIn, AnitaB.org, the nonprofit that runs the conference, said there was a, quote, increase in participation of self-identifying males at this year's event.
00:04:15.920Now, Anita B. did say that they believe allyship from men is really important.
00:04:20.400And they also noted that they cannot ban men from attending due to federal non-discrimination protections in the United States.
00:04:26.480Now, to be super clear, there are definitely men out there who want to support allyship and want to be champions of women.
00:04:34.840Like, it's not unheard of for men to attend this event.
00:04:37.860And I think that there are probably some men who turned up at this event who wanted to do exactly that and that's why they were there.
00:04:44.780But it sounds like a lot of other men were not there to champion women and to be good allies to women.
00:04:50.980It sounds like they were there to take up space, to take opportunities from women, and also to troll and gaslight us while doing it.
00:04:58.820Cullen White, chief impact officer at AnitaB.org, said some men even lied about their gender identity, they lied about being non-binary, to get a chance to network at the conference.0.71
00:05:10.080So it just sounds like the vibes were not great at this year's event.
00:05:14.740The conference has historically been a really joyous celebration and a way for people who are not often centered in technology to really take up space and connect and have community with each other.
00:05:25.520Like, I've heard people say that this is an event that they look forward to their entire year.
00:05:29.960Like, it is a real vibe, generally speaking, but it sounds like this time around, these men kind of rumored it for everybody.
00:05:36.820The attendees at this year's event described feeling uncomfortable with the chaotic scenes like men cutting women in line for the job fair, people running and rushing around and long lines.
00:05:48.780As one attendee described it, the Kens have taken over Barbie land.
00:05:53.360Bo Young, AnitaB.org's advisory president, commented on how this impacted the overall vibe of the event.0.92
00:06:00.020I want to address all that I've been hearing over these days at GHC.
00:06:04.060This is my third GHC, my first as part of staff, and it's always been joyous.
00:06:10.420In the past, it has always felt safe and loving and embracing.
00:06:16.000And this year, I must admit, I didn't feel this way.
00:06:18.980And I know that many of you felt the same.
00:06:21.820Many of you are feeling unsafe physically and psychologically, and you're feeling unheard.
00:06:28.580I want you to know that we're taking this so personally, and I'm taking it personally.
00:06:32.560I do the work I do to create a world where my two girls can thrive.
00:06:37.840We try to create a safe space, and this week we saw the outside world creep in.
00:06:43.340This makes me angry, and it makes me sad, but mostly it makes me want to fight.
00:06:49.200We're not fighting simply because of the concerns you express, but because that's our mission.
00:06:54.620Our mission is to uplift and celebrate women and non-binary technologists.
00:07:01.720We prepared and we did our best, but it was not enough.
00:07:07.740I can't guarantee to you that we'll have solutions tomorrow, but I can promise you that we'll be working on solutions and we won't do it in a bubble.
00:07:16.800We've heard your recommendations and many of them are great.
00:07:20.840We'll make sure that we're holding ourselves the truth of our mission.
00:07:23.720Anita B has always stepped up to the challenge and I promised you that we're ready to step up
00:07:29.280to this new challenge and we'll do so in community. I want to thank you all for speaking up,
00:07:35.520for listening, and I really hope to see you tomorrow. Thank you all and bye.
00:07:42.280I do think that part of this is just a reflection of the landscape for tech jobs right now. Like the
00:07:48.940Landscape is pretty bleak thanks to the waves of layoffs in the tech sector.
00:07:53.580But as bleak as that landscape is, it is even worse for people who are marginalized, like women and non-binary people.
00:07:59.90069.2% of all tech layoffs, according to the Women Tech Network, were women on top of the industry's existing gender imbalance,
00:08:08.420where women made up just a third of those working in STEM jobs as of 2021.
00:08:12.740This is according to the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics.
00:08:16.060So as bad as things are for women, and it's pretty bad, it is made that much worse to have men pulling stuff like this in a space that is supposed to be for us.
00:08:26.040And I guess part of me feels like if you were a man who misrepresented yourself or cut the line in front of a woman at a job fair or networking event at an event that is for women and non-binary people, is this somebody that you would want to have on your team?
00:08:42.160Like the kind of man who would do this?
00:08:43.700do you think that the people on your team are going to feel safe and supported working on a
00:08:47.840team with somebody like this? Had I been a recruiter at this event, I would have refused to
00:08:53.520speak to anybody who behaved in this way. And I do think it's one of those things that these people
00:09:00.360might think they're getting a leg up. But in reality, I think that they're making themselves
00:09:04.900look really bad and perhaps like somebody that you would not want to have on your team.
00:09:09.720Yeah, for sure. People want to be on teams with people who are emotionally literate and concerned with issues of privilege and representation. And at least people that I know, that's the sort of teams they want to be on. It sounds really crummy.
00:09:31.360And at the very least, people want to be on teams with people who don't shove others and cut the line. Nobody wants that person on their team.
00:09:40.040Yeah, right. These people aren't trying to get jobs on the Wolf of Wall Street, right? They're competing for tech jobs where they're going to be filing Jira tickets with other tech workers. It's not like a shoving in line kind of industry.
00:09:56.580So, obviously, I agree with you, but I was shocked to hear that not everybody in tech feels the same way.
00:10:04.820There was a post on Blind, which is a forum for tech workers to post online anonymously,
00:10:09.280that basically cheered on the men who behaved this way at the conference,
00:10:14.160saying that having tech events solely for women is sexist,
00:10:17.860and that these men were doing a good job by showing up there, taking up space, and doing what had to be done.
00:10:26.580Are we still all about equality? I saw this year that a lot of men showed up to the Grace Hopper
00:10:32.220Conference, and women had to compete slash wait in line with those men to talk to recruiters.
00:10:37.440As a man, I completely support those guys. They allow non-binary people to enter the conference,
00:10:43.200then why not just represent as non-binary? Let's be honest, there is no need for conferences just0.97
00:10:48.940for women, because if it was the opposite, just for men, then it would be sexist. Just because
00:10:53.600you are a woman doesn't give you the right to talk to big firm recruiters. Guys work just as1.00
00:10:58.760hard and they don't get that chance. So, wow. If you are the person who wrote this post on Blind,
00:11:05.480or you know the person who wrote this post on Blind, just know that I have officially added you
00:11:10.280to our list of official enemies of the show. Whoever you are, you're probably not listening
00:11:15.600to this podcast about uplifting marginalized people in technology. But if you are, you're
00:11:20.920on my list, guy. Yeah, I feel you're right that they're probably not listening to our podcast.
00:11:26.100And I think it really comes down to something that we've talked about a lot on the show,
00:11:30.040which is this really bad knee-jerk reaction to things like diversity initiatives or DEI or,
00:11:37.540you know, suing grants for marginalized people. This false notion that we're all starting from
00:11:44.340an equal playing field. So any opportunity needs to be like equal. Otherwise, it's not fair.
00:11:50.400That really assumes that we're all working under the same conditions, that we have an equal playing field, which as those stats about how dismal things are for women and non-binary people in the tech industry, we know that's not true.
00:12:03.080And I think we're going to continue seeing this kind of backlash to anything that's for us, whether that us is Black folks or women or trans folks or queer folks.
00:12:13.300And I think it also shows just how fragile our spaces and opportunities are.
00:12:42.460And like, that is great. You know, allies are good. I, you know, I'm a man. I like to think of myself as a good ally. But like, these guys who show up at this conference, it's pathetic in so many ways. And I would guess that many of them would probably think of themselves as like, men of science or men of numbers or, you know, some sort of like objective, sciencey thinking folks, right?
00:13:12.140they work in tech but those statistics you cited about the underrepresentation of women in tech
00:13:18.520uh i don't even think you cited statistics about like median income there's a hundred other
00:13:25.360statistics that one could easily look at to see like yeah there are pretty big disparities in
00:13:33.240uh not just who works in tech but like all up and down every sector of the workforce
00:13:38.880For these guys to just, like, bury their head in the sand and ignore that, it really betrays how either uninformed or, like, willfully ignorant they are of the true situation of, I don't know, gender in the workplace or however you want to say it.
00:14:00.880Oh, I'm sure these guys sell it, the kind of guys who have described projects that they work on as data-driven or data-informed, unless that data is data about gender bias in tech, in which case it's all equal. The data doesn't matter.
00:14:16.580yeah 100 yeah i we should do like a survey or something to get at this i'm gonna think about
00:14:24.960this one because you're absolutely right i bet all of them you know all day long talk about how
00:14:31.180they're making data-driven decisions they're following the data they're following the science
00:14:35.480except for this huge area where it concerns like them getting paid then they're not interested in
00:14:44.000the data they're not interested in the science uh they're just interested in like getting theirs
00:14:48.580at the exclusion of women exactly let's take a quick break0.51
00:14:56.340get bell pure fiber internet with crave netflix and disney plus from 94 a month price guaranteed
00:15:08.000for two years on internet with a two-year term and auto pay credit visit bell.ca for details
00:17:32.320Okay, so I did a lot more outdoor activities, especially in 2020 when the pandemic was shutting down indoor spaces together.
00:17:39.440So obviously, it is important to be good stewards of outdoor spaces that we visit, like packing out your litter, staying on trail, all of that kind of stuff.
00:17:47.400But in 2020, a growing chorus of advocates were really urging people not to geotag their specific locations on social media platforms like Instagram when they posted pictures.
00:17:58.540The thinking there was that if somebody posts a really beautiful looking spot on social media, other people will see that spot and want to visit that specific spot or that specific park and contribute to over-visitation.
00:18:11.420I heard horror stories in 2020 and 2021 of already popular national park locations basically being overrun with crowds to the point where they were almost not usable.
00:18:25.320it was a big it was big news during the pandemic because people couldn't fly anywhere and so people
00:18:30.920were flocking to national parks which on one hand is great that people are taking advantage of this
00:18:39.240incredible treasure that we have but it was a big problem too because it was just too many people
00:18:45.380right like the the parks can only handle so many people so there'd be huge lines of cars people
00:18:50.120sitting in them running their engines for like hours waiting to get into the park and then like
00:18:56.040crowd into a space to look at some buffalo or cliffs or something.
00:19:02.080Well now a new report might be casting some doubt on just how much Instagram impacts outdoor land
00:19:07.740use. OPB reports that a study in land economics called the Instagram effect, is social media
00:19:13.860influencing visitation to public land, suggests that social media might not be a huge driver of
00:19:19.880visitation after all. So for this study, Ashley Lowe McKenzie and her colleagues used 18 years
00:19:24.960of visitation data and compared it with geotagged Instagram content from 50 popular Oregon state
00:19:30.280parks. McKenzie summarizes there were four parks that went really viral on Instagram
00:19:34.480and the really engaging content, not just the general uploading activity, people sharing stuff,
00:19:40.360but those that really got a lot of engagement had an impact on the growth that was seen at those
00:19:45.320parks. So viral Instagram photos of four Oregon parks, Smith Rock, Silver Falls, Acola, and Oswald
00:19:51.880West were linked to growth rates of about 4%. So some impact, but maybe not the huge impact that
00:19:59.640we were all sort of summarizing was going to happen when we were telling folks not to geotag
00:20:03.720their locations on Instagram. Another wrinkle of this that I actually didn't know is that national
00:20:08.360parks now require folks who are monetizing content that they get at parks to buy a special photography
00:20:14.340permit, which kind of makes sense. I do sort of wonder how much of this is like discomfort around
00:20:22.860influencers and like influencing as a profession, as a thing that people do. Sometimes when I hear
00:20:28.800people have intense reactions to crowds and people taking photos, it feels like what they're0.95
00:20:35.220actually annoyed at is why are there so many women taking photos in this national park?
00:20:41.500So whenever I'm talking about people's concerns around influencers, I always want to be sure that we're not falling into a trap of just sexism and hating on something that is perceived as a young woman's activity or pursuit.
00:20:53.740This is obviously anecdotal, but when I was gearing up to go to Arches National Park in Utah, so many people were like, oh, it's overrun with influencers now.
00:21:08.220And so I showed up thinking it was going to be a nightmare that we were going to be, I was going to be waiting forever and ever. But they had just started doing this timed pass entry and it actually wasn't crowded at all. I think I waited in the car for like maybe 15 minutes and it wasn't any crowded than any other national park that I'd ever been to.
00:21:25.160Yeah, well, maybe that was because they started implementing the timed entry, you know?
00:21:28.440Yeah, I was a big fan of the timed entry. And folks might have seen a similar conversation happening around leaf peeping and fall leaves and sort of how the perception that like young women want to do their fall photo shoot in front of pretty leaves and they're going to like pretty small towns and wreaking havoc with their Starbucks cups and their over the knee boots.
00:21:49.740They must be stopped, these young women taking photos in front of leaves.0.62
00:21:53.380Well, if you're in Pomfret, Vermont, that's exactly what you think. So in this small town in Vermont, the town board agreed to block anyone but locals from using a specific dirt road that has very pretty rural leaf views during peak leaf peeping season from the 23rd of September to the 15th of October.
00:22:10.500It does actually seem like the town had legitimate issues with people who were coming to just look at leaves and take pictures of leaves.
00:22:18.480The town has dubbed these people TikTokers, but like instead of the way that TikTok is actually spelled, it's like T-I-C-K-T space T-O-C-K-E-R-S.0.93
00:22:51.740The town actually started working with influencers to get people with big platforms to spread the word that folks who are visiting this town in Vermont need to respect their property and the people that live there.
00:23:03.840Yeah, I kind of like that it's not just like when I first read the article, I was like, oh, they're just like demonizing pretty girls who like fall. It's like, what did we ever do to anybody? No, I'm just kidding. But no, I like that they're actually acknowledging that these people are coming because they want to appreciate the land and then using the platforms that these influencers have to spread the word about how you like what you need to be considerate of if you are genuinely trying to be a good steward of this land.
00:23:32.220Like, don't traipse all over it. Don't cause a nuisance. Don't be annoying to the people who actually live there. I do think that as you were talking about the rise of people exploring the vast natural beauty of the domestic United States, I do think that that is great.
00:23:50.240But I think that sometimes social media can influence people to do that in a way that does not always prioritize what is the most important thing always, which is safety, like your safety and the safety of others and respect for the land.
00:24:06.400And so, yeah, I mean, it's one of the reasons why I don't really use geotags on Instagram of outdoor spots that I visit.
00:24:14.900Like sometimes I'll tag something in a general sense, like I'll tag Joshua Tree National Park or Shenandoah National Park, as opposed to tagging a specific loop or arch or mountain.
00:24:25.680And, you know, I think I'm going to continue that practice, even if it's not related to environmental impact, like the study suggests.
00:25:23.140and I just don't want to contribute to it in other folks.
00:25:27.020Yeah, that's a beautiful way to put it.
00:25:29.240And yeah, why would you want to like geotag your exact spot? Like if you find some really wonderful, beautiful spot that you feel a personal connection to, why would you want to like broadcast that to everyone to be able to recreate and to know, right? Like that's yours. It's between you and the spot. Let other people find their own spot.
00:25:55.560Yeah, like part of the fun of exploring the outdoors is finding your own spot. And like the work that it takes to find it is like part of the experience. And I want to encourage that, not just like, here's the place to go for a photo, everybody. Just like get in, take your photo and get out. I feel like it's really easy to miss what is so special about spending time outdoors when you do that.
00:26:20.620Totally. And I think there's also a connection to the point you were making about that town in Vermont encouraging influencers to post messages that encourage their followers to like respect the the land and respect property and respect the people who live there.
00:26:39.320like those are not values that are unique to vermont in the fall time those feel like
00:26:47.540pretty universal values right like respecting the place where you are respecting the people
00:26:53.660who live there uh and i think there is something about the commodification of places that can get
00:27:01.380really promoted via Instagram photos that discourages that kind of respect for a place.
00:27:11.940I completely agree. I mean, I've seen it. You know, I've seen those spots where the Instagram
00:27:17.020photo is so beautiful. But then in reality, it's like there's a line of people standing off trail
00:27:23.560to get waiting to get that one photo. And that doesn't feel good to me. I just don't think that
00:27:28.880we should be treating our natural resources that are so special and beautiful and unique and
00:27:37.000awe-inspiring like they're cardboard cutouts of a celebrity to get a picture with. Yeah. And some
00:27:43.040spots are so unbelievably beautiful that we can't help it, right? Like you mentioned Arches National
00:27:49.220Park. And what is it? The Delicate Arch is that iconic arch that we've all seen a million times
00:27:56.160and photos and yeah everybody's going to want a photo of that but hopefully along the way hiking
00:28:03.000up to it people will see the 10 000 other beautiful vistas and formations along the way
00:28:13.260and develop some kind of affinity for them i don't know i guess i'm getting a little flowery here
00:28:18.980no i i know what you mean and that's the thing like having been having hiked the delicate arch
00:28:23.600the delicate arch is beautiful and you should get i got a photo with it people should get photos0.99
00:28:28.300with it i'm not i'm not being like oh if you take a selfie with a delicate arch you are an asshole0.92
00:28:32.240that is not what i'm saying but what i'm saying is i think that just the one iconic photo or the0.95
00:28:37.800particularly beautiful vista or like the iconic viral locations on social media that we saw
00:28:44.140particularly in 2020 i think that that can discourage people from enjoying the hike to
00:28:50.500the arch and like really appreciating the beauty of the 20 different amazing arches that are not
00:28:57.160necessarily iconic on Instagram, but that are beautiful in their own way. And I think I think
00:29:01.900it can like lessen it can encourage people to not actually appreciate what is exciting and fun and
00:29:08.540fascinating about being outside, which is all of it. It's not it's not just the thing that you
00:29:12.800recognize from Instagram. You know, it reminds me in Mexico. I mean, I'm I get taken by this, too.
00:29:18.800When I was in Mexico, there's this hot spring that I was like, oh, my God, I've seen it on Instagram.
00:29:36.080When I actually went, I was like, oh, my God, are these the, you know, rock formation hot springs?
00:29:42.080They're like, yeah, I got it, and it was really cool.
00:29:44.200But the actual most fun part is a part that you almost never see on social media.
00:29:49.880It's these underground caves that have hot water where you're standing in hot water and it's got hot water pouring from above.
00:29:56.600That was the most fun part by a wide margin.
00:30:00.760It doesn't photograph well on Instagram and you almost never see them on Instagram.
00:30:04.240So I got the picture of me and the iconic thing that everybody recognizes.
00:30:08.840But the thing that I spent the most time in and that I appreciated the most was the thing I had never seen on Instagram.
00:30:13.540And, like, I guess that's my point is that sometimes social media can trick you into thinking that the thing that looks the best on Instagram that pops the most on social is the most fun, when in reality, that's not necessarily the most fun.
00:30:29.080I have to give a little bit of a trigger warning for this next segment.
00:30:32.140It deals with non-consensual deepfakes and sextortion.
00:30:36.220So we've talked a bit about the threat presented by non-consensual deepfake images before.
00:30:40.700And now a group of young girls in Almendrojeo, Spain, say they received fabricated nude images of themselves that were created using an easily accessible undressing app powered by artificial intelligence, which really raises a lot of the questions that we talk about on this show around the scope and harms that such apps can cause.
00:31:00.380According to an ABC report, over 30 victims between the ages of 12 and 14 years of age have been identified so far.
00:31:08.120And the police in Spain said they've had reports of this happening elsewhere in the country, too.
00:31:12.240ABC reported that the culprits are a group of young male perpetrators who were also minors, who police say knew most of their victims.
00:31:19.940Basically, these guys found photos of their victims on social media and uploaded them to a Nudify app,
00:31:26.320which is an app that allows people to submit images of anybody and then generate AI-created
00:31:31.840nude depictions of them. The perpetrators created a group chat on WhatsApp and Telegram
00:31:36.780to disseminate these non-consensual fabricated nude images. And the fake images were used to
00:31:42.120extort at least one victim on Instagram for real nude images or money. So pretty awful behavior
00:31:49.160from these boys who were targeting these young girls. Yeah, it was like pretty gross.
00:31:56.320But then when you got to the part about the extortion for money or nude images, then it took like a super gross turn.
00:32:05.800Yeah. And remember, just because these images are faked using AI does not mean that social media platforms don't have a responsibility to treat them just like they would any other kind of threatening child sexual abuse material.
00:32:34.580ABC reached out to the people who created this app,
00:32:37.160and what they got back is really telling.
00:32:39.700Basically, the folks who created this Nudify app basically just say that it's all a big joke.
00:32:46.040The team behind the app said that their main reason for creating this type of service was to make people laugh by processing their own photos and laughing together by processing each other's photos.
00:32:57.580And by laughing on them, we want to show people that they do not need to be ashamed of nudity, especially if it was made by neural networks.
00:33:05.420So ha ha ha, it's just a big joke. Oh, you're a miner who is being extorted with AI created digital non-consensual deep fakes of yourself. Oh, it's meant to be a joke that is lessening the shame of your nudity. I don't think so.
00:33:23.500When ABC asked the people who made this app what kind of safeguards they put in place to avoid people generating this kind of material, particularly of children, the makers of the app said that if somebody tried to upload an image of a minor twice, then they were blocked from the app.
00:33:39.660Which, yikes, what a terrible policy. Two strikes for creating child sexual abuse material. But even beyond that, if anyone gets two goes at uploading an image of a minor to create inappropriate images of that person, if they get two chances to do that and they then work in a network like these perpetrators are accused of doing, that is plenty of room for them to do a lot of damage like these perpetrators did.
00:34:06.000Well, it's also not even an answer because, like, how does their app know if an image is child sexual abuse material? Are they using AI to detect it? If that's the case, why do they give them two chances? Or are they depending on somebody to report it as child sexual abuse material? If that's the case, then it's not really any sort of safeguard at all.
00:34:44.220The 12-year-old girls who have been targeted by this.
00:34:47.080So there was a paid version of this app which worked with payment processors that you've heard of like Visa and PayPal.
00:34:53.800But those payment processors pulled their services from the app after this ABC report came out.
00:34:58.240What's really sad to me is that these girls obviously felt a lot of shame or pressure to stay silent about being targeted in this way.
00:35:05.980One of the parents of a victim posted a plea on Instagram saying,
00:35:09.960Here we are united to stop this now. Using other people's images to do this barbarity and spread them is a very serious crime.
00:35:17.640Girls, don't be afraid to report such acts. Tell your mothers.
00:35:22.040After the parents of one of the victims posted this to Instagram, more victims came forward.
00:35:27.040So Professor Claire McGlynn, a law professor at Durham University in the UK and an expert on violence against women and girls, says that platforms are amplifying this kind of nudify content.
00:35:37.680She says this is a direct abuse of women and girls by technology that is specifically designed to abuse women and girls.
00:35:44.200Google returns nudify websites at the top of its ranking, enabling and legitimizing these behaviors.
00:35:49.700There is no legitimate reason to use nudify apps without consent.
00:35:53.700They should be deranked by search platforms such as Google.
00:35:57.540Mike, kind of to your point about the people who made this app, they're like non-answer.0.79
00:36:03.900Google, in response to this, kind of gave the same old song and dance about how they really care about amplifying the best content, blah, blah, blah, and how they're working to keep this kind of junk off their platform.
00:36:16.620But honestly, they need to do better now.
00:36:35.000These girls are living, walking, breathing proof of it.1.00
00:36:38.080And platforms like Google need to do better now.0.56
00:36:41.340Yeah, I'm so curious what Google actually said in response, because I just typed Nudify into Google, and the top result is, like, the Nudify app inviting me to upload an image and, you know, undress whoever.
00:37:04.520A Google spokesperson responded by saying, quote, like any search engine, Google indexes content that exists on the web, but we actively design our ranking systems to avoid shocking people with unexpected, harmful or explicit content.
00:37:17.880We also have well-developed protections to help people impacted by involuntary fake pornography.
00:37:23.040People can request the removal of pages about them that include this content.
00:37:26.560They added that as this space and technology evolves, quote, they are actively working to add more safeguards to help protect people based on systems we've built for other types of non-consensual explicit imagery.
00:37:38.300None of that, like, tell that to the victims.
00:37:41.640Tell the victims that, oh, after you've already been extorted by these images, you can have them, you can submit and request to have them removed after the fact.
00:37:51.860Once all your friends have seen it, once it's been passed around on a WhatsApp group and it's already really impacted your young life at an impressionable time for you, don't worry.
00:38:21.000As of today, you type Nudify into Google and it gives you a whole wealth of apps that will do this for you for free, like top 10 free apps that will do this for you.
00:39:13.440I don't want to hear more platitudes about how they're building better tools and yada, yada, yada.
00:39:18.900That means nothing to me unless it is paired with actual meaningful action.
00:39:23.460Yeah. And like, I don't know how many more Atlantic articles we all need to read about how broken Google search is, but like it definitely is.
00:39:31.400But apparently this one area is like not broken at all. It's like thriving.
00:39:35.920Oh, if you want to get a non-scammy answer to your basic question on Google that's not an ad, good luck. If you want to see a non-consensual image of a minor, we got you.
00:39:48.000So kind of to that point, there was a new report in The Washington Post about online sextortion, which is on the rise. This is a very troubling, heartbreaking story. This kind of sextortion is especially targeting young men and boys.
00:40:03.520The report says that the number of sextortion cases targeting young people has exploded in the last couple of years, with teen boys being the specific target.
00:40:11.820This is from Lauren Coffrin, executive director of the Exploited Children Division at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
00:40:17.920They're using shame, embarrassment, and fear, and they're tapping into that, Coffrin said.
00:40:25.460Basically, how it works is that someone will pose as another young person, getting to know the victim, flirting with them, and then pressuring the victim into sending nude images that specifically include their face.
00:40:36.940Then, once they have those images, the perpetrator turns around and demands money from the target, threatening to send those images to their contacts, their friends and family, if they don't send it.
00:40:47.340This is sadly happening more and more.
00:40:49.160the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has received more than 10,000 tips of
00:40:53.860financial sextortion of minors, primarily boys, in 2022. By the end of July 2023, they had already
00:40:59.960received more than 12,500 reports, with more continuing to pour in. What's even more troubling
00:41:05.680is the impact. The repercussions of the abuse are devastating. At least a dozen boys died by
00:41:10.980suicide in 2022 after they were blackmailed. So like a lot of sexual violence, a big part of how
00:41:17.240these cases work is shame. The victims feel ashamed, they don't report it, and then the
00:41:22.580perpetrators can just move on without any consequences and continue to target others.
00:41:27.740Kids are sadly often finding themselves navigating this more or less on their own.
00:41:32.860They may feel afraid or ashamed to involve a guardian once they're targeted. The Washington
00:41:37.220Post spoke to Emily Muddler, program director from the Family Online Safety Institute,
00:41:41.560which emphasized that while parents should set rules and boundaries for technology use for kids,
00:41:46.620Regulations must come with a caveat that if your kid finds themselves in real trouble,
00:41:51.540they can come to you as a guardian for help.
00:42:51.520And reading those text messages that he frantically sent to his parents for help, like in the
00:42:57.300midst of a spiral from this, really broke my heart.
00:43:00.280And in that instance, the perpetrators actually did make good on their threat.
00:43:04.600They sent nude images of this minor boy to his parents' cell phones.
00:43:08.520The parents didn't really know what to do because, you know, their child is being extorted financially, but also they now have a nude image of a minor on their cell phone, cell phones that they use for work.
00:43:21.220So the parents were like, we don't know what to do.
00:43:23.000They called the police and the police basically could not offer them any real help.
00:43:27.180They then reported the account who was extorting their son to Instagram, but the account remained active and kept messaging them and threatening to release these images more widely.
00:43:36.120This inaction by authorities and tech companies is another big part of the problem.
00:43:40.960This particular boy's parent said, Instagram needs to own a partial responsibility for this.
00:43:46.640We hold our son accountable. He made a bad choice.
00:43:48.980We're not saying it's Instagram's fault, but I still feel like they should care more about trying to protect these kids.
00:43:59.300Yeah, they are making plenty of money.
00:44:01.900They should have humans monitoring that report feature, and they should block an account that is reported for sex-storting a minor.
00:44:14.000Yeah, something else that makes this apparently difficult to deal with is that many of the perpetrators are based outside of the United States, a lot of them in Western African countries, but they're targeting youth in the United States, which makes tracking them down and bringing them to justice that much more difficult.
00:44:30.980It's also just realistically like a very difficult and complex thing for parents and guardians to navigate with their kids.
00:44:40.200Like I'm sure somebody listening is just like, well, this is why young people just shouldn't have iPhones or shouldn't have social media.
00:44:47.220Or I know that as somebody without kids, I always say things like this, like when I have a child, they're never going to be around screens.
00:44:55.120It's just going to be books and wooden toys and then watch when I have a kid how quickly that changes.
00:45:00.460But, you know, it's not it's just not realistic to, in 2023, have a expect a parent to tell a teenager, like a 15, 16 year old, that they can't have a phone, that they can't have social media when all the other kids in their in their grade have that.
00:45:15.820Right. And the reality is, is that kids do need to learn to navigate these online spaces safely.
00:45:22.380Right. And so, like, just saying you don't like, OK, if this is going to be a threat, you aren't going to be on social media or have an iPhone or whatever.
00:45:29.380particularly when your kid is in that weird in-between stage of like 15 16 17 where you're
00:45:35.300not a child but you're not an adult and you're like away from your guardians for several hours
00:45:40.520a day at school maybe you have a job it's just very complicated both as a parent or a guardian
00:45:46.800trying to navigate the internet and social media and all of the promise and peril and threats and
00:45:53.640community that it's offered there for young people it's just it's just a lot like it's a
00:45:58.100It's a huge expectation that I think when you have these threats that are so real, it makes it that much more difficult.
00:46:18.840And what really breaks my heart about all this is that exploring sex and sexuality is normal and healthy for young people.
00:46:26.200Young people should be able to do that in ways that are safe and age appropriate and that don't have them like don't have their natural curiosity or exploration being weaponized against them.
00:46:39.300It breaks my heart that these kids, the text messages of the young man who was confessing to his parents and he had sent these images online, he should be able to have a healthy and safe and age-appropriate exploration of what sexuality is as he's aging without worrying that it's going to be exploited and weaponized in such a cruel way.
00:47:01.680And so it just breaks my heart that kids aren't getting something that I think is like a healthy, normal part of growing up for all of us.
00:47:10.200Yeah. And, you know, it's interesting that the article says that this is like a rapidly growing problem, particularly for boys.
00:47:19.180Like we don't we don't spend a whole lot of time talking about problems that disproportionately affect boys on this show.
00:47:26.760But for some reason, this one, like, hurts and it feels, like, important.
00:50:13.840So this is like a niche example, but I'm going to give it.0.99
00:50:17.900uh i you know i'm a scientist i publish uh scientific articles and like scientific journals
00:50:24.720and some of them uh increasingly many of them require you to submit like a cover image to go
00:50:31.580along with it and you know sometimes your article has like a cool graph or something that is like a
00:50:38.300useful cover image but like that's not really what they want so most of the time what i do is i'll go
00:50:42.440to like pexels.com or some sort of like free stock image uh service to find a stock image
00:50:49.040to upload with it this image has nothing to do with the goddamn story that like the article is
00:50:55.800about is like tangentially related most of mine uh are like someone holding a cell phone or something
00:51:03.780right because it's like oh mobile health uh the idea that he's gonna strip the headline and
00:51:12.020only show the image is like let's focus on the least informative thing we can yeah i guess just
00:51:20.440to like add to the sense of confusion and lack of coherence that is the order the day on twitter
00:51:29.480these days well people are using that to troll elon they're posting articles that use his image
00:51:36.480and they're tweeting things because you can't see any text which is an image of elon musk
00:51:41.080And they're tweeting things like Elon Musk found dead or breaking police have found human remains and evidence of cannibalism in Elon Musk's L.A. home that he sold in 2022 because it's just an image.
00:52:26.900Huffington Post reports that Ben Brody, a 22-year-old Jewish man from California, filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk after he and his family were forced to flee their homes for their own safety after continued harassment and threats.
00:52:39.400after Musk promoted a baseless and dangerous conspiracy
00:52:43.160that Brody was a federal agent involved in a neo-Nazi group.
00:52:47.240So Brody is being represented by attorney Mark Bankston,
00:52:50.700who previously represented two of the Sandy Hook parents,
00:52:53.480who, y'all might remember, won $45 million in damages
00:52:56.060against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones
00:52:58.220after Jones spent years falsely claiming that the 2012 school shooting
00:53:02.220that left 20 kids and six adults dead never happened.