00:05:59.680I think, like, Ilya and Shane is, like, actually based on hockey players.
00:06:02.380But, like, the whole Scott and Kip storyline, that is based on Captain America fan fiction,
00:06:08.800which was really big for me as somebody who spent a lot of their formative years reading Captain America fan fiction.
00:06:16.120So when it comes to heated rivalry, here's what's going down. So there was a recent New York Mad cover story about heated rivalry and fujoshi, which is a Japanese word for women who enjoy romantic and sexual stories about men.
00:06:31.080And this sparked a lot of online conversation. The author, E. Alex Jung, had included direct links to fanfiction about heated rivalry posted to AO3 or Archive of Our Own, which is like a fanfiction platform.
00:06:47.380Many people felt like this was a problem since it was essentially sending a large mainstream audience to this community specific, mostly under pseudonyms, writing platform never meant for them.
00:06:59.920And so while it's true AO3 is not a private space, people who show up there kind of treat it as if it's a semi-private online community with some expectation of it being only for, quote, insiders in the know and not necessarily for what you might consider to be like a normie audience.
00:07:18.200As Catherine D puts it in her piece for GQ, the debate touches on something fundamental about the experience of online spaces, and it has further reaching implications than it might seem.
00:07:28.420The Internet has a geography. It is a place more than it is a communication tool. It has cities and towns and houses and rooms and rooms within rooms.
00:07:37.360Each region of the Internet has its own culture and dialect and etiquette.
00:07:40.980The Internet also has places that are public in the technical sense, but private in the social one.
00:07:46.500Yes, AO3 is a website that anyone can visit, browse, sign up and make an account on.
00:07:51.440But many fans perceive it less like a public square and more like a communal living room.
00:07:57.180Yeah, I have conflicting thoughts on this one.
00:08:02.340Because so I read the original piece that came out that was in New York Magazine.
00:08:07.960and um shout out to the many many people that sent me that over instagram i'm glad that i have
00:08:13.360a brand apparently uh but um like i i read the article and i honestly i was like oh this is cool
00:08:18.340this is like a like i i was like this is a an area of like internet culture that i'm really
00:08:23.540interested in i've been a part of i thought it was a good kind of take on that i understand the
00:08:30.560frustration specifically with the fact that he linked to these fan fictions and i understand
00:08:36.900why people maybe weren't super happy with that um i think we're going to get a little bit more
00:08:44.060into this but i think like there's like this assumed maybe not like this isn't this is maybe
00:08:49.460not assuming that it's private but assuming like it's going to stay in this corner of the internet
00:08:52.860and it's like not really going to breach containment and i think like i understand that
00:08:56.280like when it does breach containment that's annoying and upsetting uh but also like because
00:09:02.240of how ao3 works like you said it's like a lot of people use pseudonyms a lot of people um like
00:09:09.500there's ways to make it more private there's ways to keep your actual identity off of it so that to
00:09:13.660me is more like all right in my book it's like you wrote this thing you put it on the internet
00:09:18.020you kind of lose control of what happens to it well she reveals that exact tension in the piece
00:09:22.560where on the one hand this is in no way an underground community it might feel niche but
00:09:28.100you know it's really not fan fiction is not niche like it used to be you know there was a time I'm
00:09:34.840old enough to remember the time where if you were engaging in like niche fandom communities online
00:09:40.320they were they were public but they felt so small and off the radar that it was unlikely that a
00:09:45.980journalist would wander in there and start writing about it but in here in 2026 that's not really the
00:09:51.120case anymore yeah I mean even like thinking about like when I was a teenager like 10 years ago
00:09:57.520like in these spaces and writing fan fiction and like reading a lot of this stuff um not that i
00:10:05.660don't also do that now but whatever anyways it was like it was a very different environment i've
00:10:09.060like talked about on this podcast like i was really on tumblr like that was like my main
00:10:13.440platform when i was a teenager i think like it's really interesting with like fandom stuff seeing
00:10:18.800it kind of move to tiktok and the way that tiktok is so much more like public like your face is
00:10:22.620literally attached to it versus i'm like i don't like any of the fandom stuff that i did back when
00:10:28.880i was 16 there's no way to connect it back to me my face was not on it my name was not on it it was
00:10:33.260on some i don't even remember which tumblr i had so many different usernames at that point i'm like
00:10:38.640i don't even remember which one like it would have been on and the gq piece really plays at
00:10:43.760the tension that you were sort of getting at of what is it what are the implications of when this
00:10:48.940thing that feels private but actually isn't private is like talked about and amplified in
00:10:55.220these ways you know on the one hand this is in no way an underground community that's just
00:11:00.300the bottom line but it is also reasonable to not want what feels like your private little corner
00:11:05.660of the web or you can be like your freaky little weirdo self which we love uh being turned into a
00:11:11.620public spectacle like and like blown up and so the piece returns to this analogy of being filmed in
00:11:17.780public. Nobody wants to be filmed in public. But when you go out in public on a public street,
00:11:23.000you actually have no expectation of privacy. So it's perfectly legal to film people in public,
00:11:28.160even though nobody likes that. And so that analogy really made a lot of sense to me. And
00:11:33.000I just think it's interesting from the perspective of a journalist. I bumped up against this when I
00:11:38.560was writing my audio book, Love at First Prompt, because I was essentially lurking in what felt
00:11:45.780like semi-private spaces, subreddits like My Boyfriend is AI, where people go to talk about
00:11:51.560their intimate connections with AI. These conversations are obviously sensitive and
00:11:57.360intimate and like delicate. These are people who are talking about things that have garnered a lot
00:12:03.380of scrutiny because of the things that they're talking about. And so it does feel weird to
00:12:08.620be silently lurking in these communities, publishing anonymously what some of these
00:12:15.280people are saying so that i can create commentary around it but then wondering about the ethics of
00:12:19.720that and the ethics are clear right like if you write something on reddit and a public subreddit
00:12:23.980that's on the internet for everybody to see whoever wants to respond to that blow that up amplify that
00:12:30.140they can uh but i understand the sort of like tension that she's getting at because it does
00:12:37.720raise i wrestled with how to handle that when i was putting together the book and she really
00:12:42.840nails that tension in the GQP. She writes, the impulse to gatekeep AO3, to insist that journalists
00:12:49.180should honor community norms that they never agreed to is understandable, but it runs up against a
00:12:53.840hard reality. You can lock your AO3 account or post to invite only spaces, but what people
00:12:59.240actually want is harder to guarantee. They want to publish openly, but to only be read by the right
00:13:05.320people. That is something both the internet and our broader culture used to provide briefly and
00:13:10.680accidentally and most likely never will again obscurity worked when fandom was small but it no
00:13:16.900longer is and no amount of gatekeeping will ever bring the halcyon days of the early 2000s back
00:13:22.480yeah i we really need to do a full episode about ao3 at some point because i have so much to say
00:13:29.440to this but i yeah i think she put it really well like i said i understand that impulse to gatekeep
00:13:36.500again as somebody who's like i've written some really bad fan fiction out there again totally
00:13:44.880anonymous which is why i'm like not embarrassed by that fact because i was like yeah i made this
00:13:50.160when i was like 16 and it was fun like i i think that's actually a good thing to do i don't know
00:13:56.980but uh yeah i think it is like we're at such a weird time with like fandom culture where i think
00:14:05.380like like she said like fandom isn't small anymore it's become so much more mainstream
00:14:09.900like trying to look at it from the perspective of like why people want to keep this contained
00:14:15.060keep this anonymous i get that it's annoying to have people like coming into your weird nerdy
00:14:20.440space that you just like don't want to whatever i i get that i'm the same way i also think like
00:14:25.660like she said you can lock your account you can make it you only have you you have to have an
00:14:30.860AO3 account to read people's fan fictions most people don't have their name on it uh and that
00:14:36.920to me that to me I think it's like more of an issue of like this is why it's important to protect
00:14:41.360online spaces where you can be anonymous because that's such a great like creative tool for people
00:14:46.740because like at the end of the day and this is where I have like a more positive take on this
00:14:50.760where I'm like I actually think it is good that people are talking about this more AO3 like when
00:14:55.180you think about it you think about like platforms where you can like create things and make media
00:14:59.140fanfiction is like one of the few kind of forms of media right now you just like cannot monetize
00:15:03.520at all like unless you turn it into a original story later on the most writers aren't going into
00:15:09.140fanfiction being like I'm gonna make money off of it like they're doing it for the love of the game
00:15:12.900and that to me is like we get so little like there's so few examples of that right now
00:15:18.440that like I always say like AO3 is genuinely like one of the sites online right now like
00:15:24.580is like one of the few websites right now that like gives me hope for like the future of the
00:15:28.700internet and people be able being able to like create things on the internet because of that
00:15:33.600because it's like you can't monetize it there is no algorithm you literally are just like posting
00:15:38.160to it this is yeah just people doing it for the love of the game and to me like I think that's
00:15:44.180like a really important part of like creating art I uh yeah like I was very like yeah ashamed of the
00:15:54.880fact that i like wrote fan fiction growing up i didn't talk to anybody about it but also like
00:15:58.420that was one of the earliest ways i was able to like engage in non uh engaging like creative
00:16:05.020writing in a way that was like felt accessible at the time we just need people creating more art
00:16:10.580and like i think if you want to create art you should do it and like i guess like my main takeaway
00:16:15.740is i get the anxiety around these articles i got the impulse to want to gatekeep i also think like
00:16:23.460there's no harm in just like creating things and part of me is like you know what yeah if we're0.98
00:16:31.140like becoming more open about that if we're saying like fuck cringe embrace the cringe0.95
00:16:36.360read write as much fan fiction as you want like that doesn't seem like a bad thing to me0.99
00:16:41.360you heard it here first folks embrace the cringe you never know how where how far it will take you
00:16:47.120you never know literally i mean i don't like i'll be real it has genuinely like
00:16:51.920given me a lot of like i i think it's really beautiful that this was a series like yeah
00:16:56.880started as a just somebody writing this for fun which is what a lot of art starts as and then it
00:17:04.380turns into this thing that resonates a lot of people best case scenario you make the biggest
00:17:08.940tv show of the year worst case scenario you made a fun piece of art and had fun
00:21:41.720Okay, so speaking of writing, y'all have probably all heard this by now, but I could not stop thinking about the grammarly thing.
00:21:50.600It is, I just can't stop thinking about it.
00:21:53.780So if you don't know what's going on, Grammarly, the AI writing tool, had this feature that used AI to simulate editorial feedback.
00:22:04.320So it would make it seem like you're getting editorial feedback or an editorial critique from real, named, living, specific people.
00:22:14.020Like, you could ask Grammarly to give you feedback in the style of novelist Stephen King or tech journalist Kara Swisher.
00:22:23.560Notably, Grammarly did not get permission from any of the hundreds of real, alive human experts included in this feature that they called Expert Review.
00:22:32.840Side note, whenever some platform is rolling out some kind of dubious, questionable thing, they always have to give it a cutesy name that actually obscures how awful it truly is.
00:22:44.140So this is from The Verge, where they found that numerous other tech journalists named in this feature, including former Verge editors Casey Newton and Joanna Stern, former Verge writer Monica Chin, Wired's Lauren Good, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman and Jason Shearer, The New York Times' Kashmir Hill, The Atlantics' Caitlin Tiffany, PC Gamers' West Fenland, Gizmodo's Raymond Wong, and many, many more.
00:23:09.640The descriptions for some of the experts also contain inaccuracies like outdated job titles, which The Verge notes Grammarly could have actually updated in a correct way had they just reached out to these people for permission to reference their work and their name.
00:23:28.340so that to me I just find that to be like I don't even know usually when I hear a story like this I
00:23:35.680have some sense of how we got here where it's like oh well they miscalculated in this way or
00:23:40.680they overlooked this I genuinely don't have an answer for how they how Grammarly got this so
00:23:46.580wrong I genuinely don't yeah this is one of those things with a lot of AI stuff for like genuinely
00:23:54.560my immediate reaction is just sort of like why like what's the point I don't know I mean that's
00:24:03.300me I guess like if you just like really want to have like journalists like I just don't see the
00:24:09.240point of it or if you're gonna have like somebody commenting like wouldn't you want it to be like
00:24:12.740something kind of funny like I don't know like in the style of like Larry David or some shit like
00:24:16.860I don't know I feel like that I'm like oh okay no I don't know I don't know again my response to
00:24:21.360most AI stuff is just kind of like, hey, but like, what's the point? Like, why would I want to do
00:24:25.260that? Yes. And, you know, if you asked ChatGPT to give you feedback in the style of some public
00:24:32.940figure or like journalist or voice, I'm sure it would do it. There was just something about
00:24:37.020Grammarly taking it upon themselves to offer up advice from these people that I just find so
00:24:43.800strange in his outlet platformer Casey Newton actually showed Kara Swisher what kind of advice
00:24:51.760Grammarly was giving that they named as in her style or in her voice and she said quote you
00:24:59.480rapacious information and identity thieves better get ready for me to go full McConaughey on you0.96
00:25:04.640also you suck which I wonder if that's the like the style of resubance that Grammarly's AI was0.99
00:25:12.560suggesting to people. So now, according to TechCrunch, one of the writers, journalist Julia0.99
00:25:19.120Angwin, has filed a class action lawsuit against Superhuman, which is the parent company that owns
00:25:25.140Grammarly, arguing that Superhuman violated the privacy and publicity rights of her and other
00:25:30.860writers that they impersonated. Because this is a class action lawsuit, other writers who were
00:25:36.120impersonated in this way or had their names or likenesses used can join the class. In a statement,
00:25:42.060Angwin said, I have worked decades honing my skills as a writer and editor, and I am distressed to discover that a tech company is selling an imposter version of my hard-earned expertise.
00:25:53.560So something else I have to just sort of pause on for a moment is that when this was first reported and all the writers were thinking, what the hell, and responding.
00:26:04.300Also, doing this to tech journalists, I feel like, is so wild to me because it's like, these are people who are not afraid to speak up.
00:26:11.220they've made careers speaking up, like of all the people that you would not want to enrage through
00:26:16.140impersonation of their likeness, tech journalists, I can't think of, I can't think of like people who
00:26:20.520are worse to do this to. But so when all the journalists were speaking up, at first Grammarly
00:26:26.780was like, okay, heard, you writers do not like this. So our compromise is that we're going to
00:26:34.460let the writers opt out if they don't want their names and likenesses used without permission.
00:26:41.220Which to me is like, wow, y'all, that was the worst little attempt at a fix that y'all could have done.
00:26:47.460But then eventually they pulled, they did pull the feature all together.
00:26:51.600And I think that little digression into saying like, well, fine, y'all can opt out if you don't like it.
00:26:58.520Really reveals Grammarly and also a lot of AI companies, their first instinct, right?
00:27:04.560When confronted with the fact that they had used all these people's names and reputations and likenesses without their permission, it was not to apologize and take it down, but to offer this opt out.
00:27:16.360Yeah, I feel like you could do a drinking game with the show where like every time the word like opt out is said, that could be a big one.
00:27:25.860I don't know. I feel like that feels like basically every response now is like, oh, well, we're going to do this terrible thing, but you can opt out of it, which is great.
00:27:34.180I love that that's my responsibility now.
00:27:40.900Like, in a sort of morbidly curious way, I do wonder, like, what would my AI tone be towards editing somebody's writing?
00:28:03.500And I just think this dynamic where the burden should be on the writers to go reclaim their identities from this for-profit product that they never agreed to be in relationship with in the first place.
00:28:16.840I just think it tells you everything about how these companies think about consent.
00:28:21.220It's just, it's something that's like they're not thinking about it at all.
00:28:24.620And it's only something that they offer in the most disingenuous way when they're caught.
00:28:31.420and I just think that the idea that like the like the fact that one of these writers is starting a
00:28:37.220class action lawsuit that's not cheap right having to get an attorney having to do a lawsuit
00:28:42.340that is not cheap but like that assumption that we can use what you made we can use what you built
00:28:48.760we can use your name and who you are you can come and ask us nicely to stop but that legal fight
00:28:54.000is like yours to fund that opt-out form is yours to figure out yours to find it's up to you to
00:29:00.460know that this is even happening in the first place. Because like, had this not blown up online,
00:29:04.620I don't think people would have known. Those burdens are just always on the creator.
00:29:09.560So that actually reminds me of this other story that I saw. Shout out to Matt Grokut over at
00:29:15.000Petapixel for covering a very similar and also similarly upsetting story. So this guy,
00:29:21.640Gerald Carter, founded Diversity Photos back in 2016. I remember when this happened. I remember
00:29:27.140diversity photos. If you've ever tried to find stock images, a lot of stock image websites are
00:29:34.060not very diverse. And so diversity photos was meant to be a stock photo library specifically
00:29:40.640built to serve communities that are often historically underrepresented in stock photos.
00:29:46.320He spent years recruiting real traditionally marginalized people, getting proper consent,
00:29:52.720and like building something genuinely valuable and scarce that filled a need.
00:29:58.100So in 2018, he partnered with Adobe to distribute these photos through Adobe stock.
00:30:03.300Now, back in 2018, like AI was a thing, but it was not a thing like it is now.
00:30:09.460And so generative AI tools simply did not exist the way they exist now.
00:30:14.360So in whatever contract he signed with Adobe stock,
00:30:17.840Certainly, there was no carve out for how those images would be used to train AI because that wasn't a thing yet, really.
00:30:25.440So he partners with Adobe to distribute the diverse stock images through Adobe stock.
00:30:40.120I think we might have covered it on the podcast.
00:30:42.020I can't remember that, but I remember that they marketed it as a platform that was going to really respect creator rights at a time when a lot of voices were talking about like AI and creator rights.
00:30:54.020It was like a very splashy launch where Adobe said all the right stuff.
00:30:58.200So Carter, when they released this, quickly realized that Adobe had fed his entire diverse stock photo library into Adobe's Firefly training data without asking, without even attempting to get some sort of separate license or contract.
00:31:17.840And notably, without any compensation, they just were like, oh, you get you partnered with us in this one capacity.
00:31:26.240So when he pushed back, Adobe's position was that the 2018 distribution agreement that they had already gave them the right to do this, pointing to language about content for, quote, developing new features and services.
00:31:44.480When I found out that Adobe had fed our entire library into their AI training pipeline without asking, without a separate license, and without any compensation, it was devastating.
00:40:49.640Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.0.98
00:40:54.180I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.
00:40:58.740I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.
00:41:06.180They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:41:10.140But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.
00:41:13.580They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:41:16.720Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:41:25.660If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:41:31.600This 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.
00:41:44.080I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:41:51.200I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.
00:41:54.680From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.
00:42:00.720It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:42:08.200Whether 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.
00:42:17.800Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:43:39.220okay so shout out to 404 media for this next story about quitter which is an app that promises to
00:43:53.500help men stop watching pornography well that app that promised to help men get their pornography
00:44:00.520viewing under control also leaked intimate data on hundreds of thousands of those men
00:44:06.480many of whom are not mad at all. They're minors. They're kids. And to be clear,
00:44:11.620we're talking about information that includes their masturbation habits. And the app, Quitter,
00:44:17.760according to 404, lied about the security issues that they knew the app was experiencing.
00:44:24.380So interestingly enough, when 404 first found out about this app and reported about its security
00:44:30.360issues back in January, they couldn't do so by naming the app because Quitter had not yet fixed
00:44:36.480these issues. And so they thought like, oh, well, if we report on the security issues and we name
00:44:43.880the app, that could just make the situation worse because it'll be like a bat signal to hackers
00:44:48.340because they haven't fixed this. The piece reads that they reported Quitter exposing user data in
00:44:53.620January, but we were unable to name Quitter in the story because its creators, Alex Slater and
00:44:58.200Conor McLaren did not fix its security issues despite multiple requests and an offer from an
00:45:03.720independent researcher to help them fix the problem. Naming the app while hackers were still
00:45:08.540able to easily steal Quitter's user data would have endangered their privacy and put them at
00:45:13.120risk of extortion from hackers, which is very common today. Some of the data exposed includes
00:45:17.960the user's age, how often they masturbate, and how viewing pornography makes them feel.
00:45:22.360According to that data, many of them are minors. And so this is awful. It reminds me quite a lot of the T app, which 404 Media also investigated, where app developers, they claim to care about some super intimate or super sensitive gendered issue.
00:45:42.240And they make an app around it and then just do not meaningfully demonstrate the most basic standard level of care to this vulnerable community that they claim to want to be protecting or helping.
00:45:56.740What they actually want to be doing is just like getting rich.
00:45:59.920As 404 writes, Quitter is operated by Slater and McLaren, members of the so-called app mafia, gross, a group of men in their early 20s who claim to have made millions of dollars on mobile app development.
00:46:12.900Slater and McLaren were recently subjects of a long New York mad profile, which detailed the opulent lifestyle the success of Quitter has afforded them, including driving exotic supercars and living in a Miami mansion.
00:46:25.480Slater shares videos about his lifestyle on his personal YouTube channel as well.
00:46:29.920So I checked out Alex Slater's YouTube and it's exactly the kind of soulless rich guy in his 20s who lives in Miami YouTube vlog content that you would imagine.
00:46:42.560It's him like on a balcony of a condo in Miami with like palm trees behind him or doing boxing lessons or like doing a backflip into an infinity pool.
00:46:53.420just the most like basically you're exploiting young people who are vulnerable so that you can0.99
00:46:59.760live the most boring soulless cookie cutter rich kid asshole normie douchebag existence on social0.99
00:47:06.520media possible it's just so boring i mean that's what my instagram looks like so i don't know0.99
00:47:12.840sounds like actually joey doing a backflip into a pool no if i if if i could do if i could do a
00:47:20.840backflip I would post constantly about it side note I used to be able like my thing when I was
00:47:27.540growing up was how good I was at backflips and my friends and I when I was in junior high we went
00:47:32.460as the spice girls for Halloween and I was the only black girl in the group and so they were
00:47:38.120like oh you got to be scary but I was like actually I should be sporty because one she
00:47:42.840wears sports pearls and I wore sports pearls all the time and two she's always doing backflips and0.89
00:53:22.580I just think we have a dynamic where men and boys have these, you know, valid anxieties around what does it mean to be men?
00:53:31.640And then you have these charlatans who just want to get rich, basically stepping in and saying, we can help you be, quote, a real man. Give me your money. And then just exploiting these anxieties and vulnerabilities that they're expressing.
00:53:47.060And I guess in a well culture, we would have more healthy spaces for folks who feel like they are genuinely struggling with pornography or whatever, instead of just hand your hand, your most sensitive information about this vulnerable part of yourself over to a charlatan so that he can be taking a boxing class and driving a Lamborghini in Miami.
00:54:08.060Like, like that, like, it's like, oh, can you do healthy spaces and meaningful, nuanced conversation?
00:54:14.600Best I can do is scam you and I get rich off of it.
00:54:20.200So the researcher said that he could access the information of more than 600,000 users of the app, including 100,000 of which that he identified as minors.
00:54:30.960And so, mind you, this app invites users to write confessions about their masturbation habits. One of them wrote, I just can't do this, man. I honestly don't know what to do anymore. I'm such a loser. I need serious help.
00:54:44.300Like, these are real people, possibly even, like, teens who downloaded this app because they were struggling or, like, vulnerable, and they trusted the person on the other side of the screen who built this app, and that person did not give a damn about them because if they did give a damn about them, they would have built in the most basic security features to protect their sensitive information.
00:55:05.200And, like, the story is so awful. A journalist called one of the app developers to find out what was going on. And even though the app developers had previously confirmed, like, oh, this is a problem, we're going to fix it, thanks for pointing it out, they told this journalist there isn't a problem and then hung up on him.
00:55:23.600And so, yeah, I just feel like these people, they're just so cynical and gross and self-interested, and I hate how lazily and sloppily they're able to weaponize folks' vulnerabilities so that they can get rich.
00:55:40.700And I just I guess I would I would caution. There are so many apps like this. Like I think like this is not a one off story. There are so many spaces and people and stuff online that are about that rapid in the language of healing and self-improvement and leveling up and all of that. It's about extracting money and data and moving on to the next grift. And I'm just I'm just sick of it.
01:00:28.640Okay, so we have to talk about this new Uber feature that they just rolled out that allows both women riders and women drivers across the U.S. to only be matched with other women for trips.
01:00:43.120Uber had initially launched this as a pilot program in a few states, but now it is rolling out nationwide.
01:00:48.720This, despite an ongoing class action lawsuit against this women-only drivers slash riders policy in California, which was filed by Uber drivers who argue that it discriminates against men.
01:01:02.260Lyft, a rival ride-sharing company, also faced a similar discrimination lawsuit over a similar offering that it issued nationwide in 2024, according to the AP.0.97
01:01:12.740So according to Uber's blog, this feature allows women to request a female driver through an option called women drivers.0.87
01:01:20.580Passengers can opt for another ride if the wait for a woman is too long.0.98
01:01:24.040They can also reserve a trip with a woman driver in advance.
01:01:28.260A third option allows female users to set a preference for a female driver in the app settings, which would increase the chances of being matched with a woman but doesn't guarantee it.
01:01:37.340Uber also allows teen account users to request women drivers.
01:01:41.300Uber's women drivers can set the app's preferences to request trips with female riders, and then they can turn off that preference anytime that they want.
01:01:49.260Now, Uber says that they hope that this will help attract more women drivers.
01:01:58.420Well, unlike Lyft's Women Connect program, Uber's feature is not open to riders or drivers who identify as non-binary.
01:02:07.160According to the AP, for drivers, Uber says the company just relies on the gender listed on somebody's driver's license, meaning that for trans women, their ability to use the feature basically kind of depends on whether or not their state allows them to change their gender identification on documents.
01:02:26.280so kind of goes back to what we talked about a few episodes ago with kansas like
01:02:34.080i have a lot of thoughts about this rollout i'll put it that way yeah i have a question here i have
01:02:42.200a question here because like bridget have you ever had the experience of like having like calling
01:02:47.560uber getting the profile picture and like the name and it's like a woman is a woman's name it's
01:02:53.000feminine name and then you get in the car and there's like a man it's not the person because
01:02:57.640like like my question is i'm like okay but what's stopping people from doing that like i this is the
01:03:01.360first i'm hearing that they need to like check their driver's license because i was like i've
01:03:04.300definitely had that happen a couple times and like i don't know for me it was never a like oh my god
01:03:10.180this feels like it's a nefarious whatever like i was like sure whatever i'm sure you did that for
01:03:14.600whatever reason but yeah that's my main question is just like how do you even enforce that policy
01:03:22.980i don't know yeah i've had that experience more with food delivery where it says sheila is coming
01:03:29.740with your order and i'm like i don't think i don't know if you're sheila you don't match this picture
01:03:33.140i always assume it's like somebody couldn't use the app for some reason and so now they're using
01:03:39.160like a girlfriend's account or a friend's account that's what i always assume but that's a good
01:03:43.080question of like i don't know how strict the enforcement is on any of this just the whole way
01:03:49.020down. I don't know how strict the enforcement is on any of this. Just full stop. In response to
01:03:54.960this policy, two California Uber drivers filed a class action lawsuit against Uber, arguing that0.94
01:04:01.160by potentially giving female drivers access to a wider pool of passengers, the feature violates0.98
01:04:06.600California's Unruh Act, which prohibits sex discrimination by business enterprises. The1.00
01:04:12.160lawsuit also argues that Uber's policy reinforces the gender stereotype that men are more dangerous
01:04:17.520than women. So the AP spoke to Anne Olivrius, who is a co-founder of a law firm that specializes
01:04:24.620in sex discrimination and harassment cases. And she said that she believes that rideshare companies
01:04:29.460like Uber and Lyft have a strong case against discrimination litigation because the future
01:04:34.740addresses an urgent business need to protect clients. Lowering a client's risk of rape? Is
01:04:40.140that a business necessity? I would argue that it is a business necessity, she said.
01:04:44.140So all of that being said, I have what might be a little bit of an unpopular opinion about this, which is that I don't like it. And here is why.
01:04:56.420So I want to be clear. It is true that sexual assaults and assaults and harassment in Rideshare is a problem.
01:05:06.100Between 2017 and 2022, Uber received a report of sexual assault or misconduct almost every eight minutes, totaling over 400,000 reports over five years, which was far higher than a much smaller number, around 12,000, of, quote, serious incidents that the company had publicly disclosed.
01:05:27.120So I want to be clear that this is a real problem. In 2021, Lyft put out a safety report that showed that 4,158 sexual assault reports from 2017 to 2019 had occurred. That report came out in 2021. Lyft has not released a safety report since.
01:05:46.700And I want to talk about how that one report from Lyft came to be.
01:05:51.920In one of our earliest episodes of the podcast, I think it might have been our third or fourth episode.
01:05:57.720We'll put that episode in the show notes.
01:06:53.360And to this day, they are still fighting to make rideshares safer for everybody because of that horrible, horrible experience.
01:07:00.680And so the only reason why Lyft released that report in 2021, that one report, was because Allison pushed and advocated for them to do so.
01:07:10.760And they dragged their feet. They only did it kicking and screaming because they continued to stay on Lyft's ass to make them do it.0.97
01:07:18.080So the only reason we even have any insight into those numbers is because of them.0.98
01:07:23.180And that was a dogfight. That was like pulling teeth.
01:07:26.640And so I guess what I'm saying is that people like Allison who have had these horrible experiences, they have had to use those experiences to push for these companies to do the baseline right thing.
01:07:41.660And I want to be clear that I think it is possible that this women riders, drivers thing might make the experience of rideshare safer.
01:07:51.100And if it prevents one assault, in my book, that is great.
01:07:54.580However, I also think they do these little PR moves that are really kind of like bells and whistles and add-ons to avoid having to do the more meaningful and urgent work of making their systems less exploitative.
01:08:07.580And they do that while continuing to silence and lie about the mostly women and non-binary people who have been harmed because of their product, right?
01:08:17.280And so if these companies like Lyft and Uber really did care about safety, they would be lifting these folks up, not silencing them.
01:08:25.880Yeah, I agree. I agree. I honestly I is like when you when you were starting this story, I sort of had a second where I was like, wow, am I going to have to be the person of this one to be like, I actually don't know about this.
01:08:39.960but no i i it is like one of those things where because i've heard about this being a thing
01:08:45.220before like i've heard about this being like a like yeah you could request women drivers
01:08:49.180personally i've never used it but it is always one of those things that to me i'm like
01:08:53.040how much does this actually protect people honestly like i don't know and like i mean
01:09:03.020like you said maybe it does there's no real way of knowing for sure yeah i agree with what you
01:09:09.860that is and i think it seems like it's it's it's more doing the pr than it is actually helping
01:09:14.520people and that's where i'm like even just the fact that there's such a like performative
01:09:19.220lawsuit about this from the other side where it's like obvious and again having just talked
01:09:25.740about a bunch of different lawsuits in this episode where it's like it's very expensive
01:09:28.800you have to pay for all this stuff and then you look at it it's like these male uber drivers are
01:09:32.640mad and it's like okay this is definitely being funded by one of those like weird like we're
01:09:38.080taking back we're ending woke kind of like it's the same thing with like the affirmative action
01:09:42.320stuff like it's like this is backed by like a bigger like political thing this has nothing to
01:09:46.160do with like gender equality or whatever yeah um but like the fact that they can do that and it's
01:09:51.780so obviously performative makes me wonder if like what uber was trying to do was even effective in
01:09:56.840the first place you know yeah i wonder the exact same thing i i would love to i mean i have not
01:10:01.780seen studies that suggest that this meaningfully makes the experience of rideshare safer i will do
01:10:08.300some research and update folks but i yeah i just there are so many things that uber and lyft and
01:10:14.240rideshare could do if they wanted to be responsible for less harm and i just don't like that they
01:10:19.440and i also wonder like if some if somebody is assaulted or harmed will they be like oh well0.51
01:10:25.120you should have picked that like put the women drivers option i just see this as a way to put
01:10:29.160put the onus back on us and I just I don't know I just I I just don't like it I don't I don't think
01:10:36.100it and I just it's hard for me to read stories like this one where Uber and rideshare companies
01:10:43.400are ostensibly doing something that like maybe kind of seems good and maybe is kind of good
01:10:47.920without thinking about people like my friend Allison who I know was so deeply harmed by
01:10:53.260a rideshare company and just the sheer amount of horror and pain that they had to go through
01:11:01.820and endure to even get these companies to be talking about safety like I just see the way that
01:11:10.820the blood and sweat and harm and pain and grief and trauma of people like Allison
01:11:17.700is what gets us to these like piddly little like is that could not possibly be enough
01:11:24.120to repair the damage that they have these companies have done i just yeah it it's a
01:11:28.480tough one for me yeah yeah yeah like and again what you said like it's like what's the response
01:11:37.320like oh you should have picked the women's only one like maybe you should have fielded your
01:11:43.060employees better yeah I mean yeah that's also a bigger issue about like how uber works where it's
01:11:48.300all like contracts not like direct whatever yeah there's there's bigger societal company
01:11:53.180specific issues here um also like I don't mean this in a like not all men women do this too
01:12:01.880kind of way but like like it feels very like we're just putting we're saying because this is only
01:12:08.900women like nothing bad can happen then like what if something bad happens like what is the response
01:12:12.560to that. So something I've been feeling just in my digital diet is I'm using social media a lot
01:12:21.120less in general, but I'm using Instagram specifically a lot less. And it turns out I am
01:12:27.300not alone because a comprehensive report from Buffer analyzed tens of millions of posts from
01:12:32.440over 191,000 monthly users throughout 2025. And basically, people are not using Instagram like
01:12:40.260they once were the report found declining interaction rates on instagram linkedin in
01:12:46.040threads while platforms like x pinterest and facebook were seeing gains and we talked a little
01:12:52.940bit about this but i am not surprised by any of this i do you what's what is your i'm surprised
01:13:01.660that x and facebook are getting more i guess i shouldn't be because it's just more that i'm like
01:13:05.300i'm not the one using it at facebook i'm less surprised over because again i think it's just
01:13:08.860the generational i am genuinely surprised that x is getting more views i am however yeah very much
01:13:13.860not surprised uh i've been having a very similar sort of thing with instagram lately it's i actually
01:13:20.420like at the beginning of the year like totally just like deleted off my phone for two weeks and
01:13:24.480it was hard but like i i don't know like i've been going back and forth about just like trying
01:13:30.780to take it off my phone i can't because i need to use it a lot for my job and for connecting with
01:13:34.880people and like it has become a way how I like a big part of how I communicate with people but I
01:13:39.400like I keep having I keep having to like think be like wow I'm stressed what are some things that
01:13:47.120are stressing me out and like Instagram is always one of the ones that's just like right there and
01:13:50.980I'm like yeah like my options are kind of just like continue to do this or delete it or like
01:13:56.040try to use it less or whatever but uh but yeah no 100% totally hard uh I have beef with Instagram
01:14:03.060lately yeah I kind of have to be there to promote the show the book you know a bunch of my other
01:14:09.300work I don't I find myself using it less and less for genuine it once was a place where you would
01:14:16.600genuinely showcase like your personal life what you were doing where you were up what you were up
01:14:21.400to I don't really do that anymore and I think part of it is that it I just I'm just burned out on
01:14:28.420social media. And I think that Instagram is an app where they make such rapid changes that it
01:14:34.840doesn't feel worth it to stay checked in to how the app works anymore. It is rare that I see
01:14:40.980people that I know in real life that I have told Instagram that I want to follow. Like,
01:14:46.080I'll be like, I'm following you. I want you in whatever the thing you used to be able to pick
01:14:50.360to be like, I want to see this person's content first. I can't remember the last time I saw
01:14:54.460somebody that i that i genuinely know on instagram it's all people i don't know influencers i don't
01:14:59.160know and i don't use tiktok anymore since the um since it was sold but for a while it was just like
01:15:09.820oh do you want to see reels a week later that you're that people already saw on tiktok like
01:15:14.100that's how it was feeling and also i used to be in a place where i would get feedback from
01:15:21.340instagram about how to succeed on the platform they're tripping like like the amount of work
01:15:28.380that they basically it's like you have to be i mean this is just i don't remember what it actually
01:15:33.020was but it was like oh to perform well on the algorithm you need to post five times a day a
01:15:39.900reel and once a day in the story and this and comment this many times and you know i'm self
01:15:47.100employed i don't work for meta at some point it's like i'm just am i just working for this algorithm
01:15:53.540and then they're gonna change it in a week and then all the stuff that i thought that i was told
01:15:58.660performed well on monday by friday is going to be totally different and just keeping up with that
01:16:04.460just became such a slog yeah it's genuinely like there's exactly exactly it either just moves so
01:16:11.980fast or it just is not really effective to begin with um I remember also reading something that
01:16:20.600had that same it was like post five reels a day and I was like I do not have time for that
01:16:27.620yeah I agree about the algorithm too I mean my main issue with it recently because I went from
01:16:37.260I loved Instagram for so long I think like especially like I'm a photographer I like
01:16:41.440I it was really great it was a great way to like keep up with what my friends were doing it was a
01:16:45.460great way to like keep in touch with people um now it's like literally every time I open it
01:16:51.560I just recently had to go through and like block a bunch of celebrity news sites because somehow
01:16:56.000it like you will like look at one thing for too long and that'll be your entire like feed and I
01:17:00.520genuinely was just like I end up down a rabbit hole where I was like I keep like spiraling out
01:17:05.060over this like comparing myself to people like doing all these things that I was like what am
01:17:09.680i doing like i'm literally and i was like i the problem is i just keep getting all of these like0.89
01:17:13.900celebrity news videos and i was like i don't care about this shit like this has nothing to do with0.89
01:17:19.460my life if i was it would be one thing if i was opening and being like oh cool let's see what my0.88
01:17:24.300friends are up to or like i think a lot of like uh a lot of like events stuff now is also on
01:17:30.420instagram like a lot of like nightlife stuff that i go to they're like promoting it on instagram so
01:17:34.360i'm like i kind of gotta stay on instagram to know when things are happening but like
01:17:37.180yeah there's also there's so many ads uh that's where I'm at right now is like trying to navigate
01:17:44.700being like this is a useful tool for me to keep in touch with people for me to like promote my
01:17:51.060work for me to do whatever also I need to find a way for it not to like yeah give me like panic
01:17:59.740attacks every time I open it because like I yeah it's either that or it's like you end up on some
01:18:05.900sort of like i think getting a lot of like very rage baby like instagram reels lately too i think
01:18:11.400like really weird because tiktok there's definitely a problem with this it's it's somehow worse on
01:18:15.580reels like i think specifically if you're thinking it was like the kind of con surprise surprise i
01:18:20.200get a lot of like content aimed at like queer people um on tiktok i feel like it's much more
01:18:26.020aligned with what i want to see and then on reels it's like stuff that is like genuinely like i'll
01:18:32.040have to stop and be like is this rage bait or is this something like somebody's like legitimately
01:18:37.160making like it feels much more like I don't really know like this feels like it's so obvious they're
01:18:43.100just trying to like manipulate the algorithm to the point that I'm like what what am I doing on
01:18:46.980this app like I don't know uh one of my goals for this year that has been going very poorly is I
01:18:53.560as of every year I'm like I'm gonna spend less time on like social media and try to repair the
01:18:58.780fact that my brain like doesn't have an attention span anymore but um you know what it's hard it's
01:19:04.560hard i'll give it to y'all everybody else trying to do that it's as somebody who's been like trying
01:19:08.080to use instagram last over the last like how many months in the year are we two and a half months
01:19:13.620now like it's it's really hard no i'm with you my i had to sort of divest from a lot of
01:19:20.600mine was shade room and other kinds of like there's just a just a such a scourge of like0.94
01:19:28.220black like aimed at black audiences like you can tell it's aimed at black audiences1.00
01:19:35.400just the worst base content you've ever seen in your life and it something about it just pulls1.00
01:19:44.740me in like you could you can say any misogynistic transphobic queer phobic fat phobic fucked up0.99
01:19:53.920thing on instagram and i just i i found myself in a in just a toxic relationship with that kind0.98
01:20:00.920of content i had to go through and unfollow and block specific accounts and i i think i might be
01:20:06.580more susceptible than your average bear on this one because i get pulled in and then you're just
01:20:11.400training the algorithm that's like oh so you you like this post that shared a picture of the fact
01:20:18.760that your favorite singer Sade has a gender non-conforming child and you like that this
01:20:25.960outlet posted the picture of the child and just the word thoughts question mark you like content
01:20:32.120like that and it's like they never I mean I could talk all day they never come out and say it that
01:20:36.480the kind of content defines me they never come out and say but you know exactly what they're
01:20:39.880insinuating the comments are all crazy they're all hateful and I just like it was like I felt
01:20:45.720like that kind of stuff was following me around the internet it was just so toxic for me yeah no
01:20:52.140it's bad i yeah again like i i don't fully just like deleted instagram off my phone for
01:20:56.920like a week at the beginning of this year because like i don't know like i had a i had kind of a
01:21:02.060rough start to the year and like there was just like a point where like one of the things that
01:21:05.520was really bugging me was i was like i just have like i'm somebody that lives in like a very you
01:21:10.020know i'm very lucky i'm able to be very very like openly queer and like openly like gender
01:21:14.780non-conforming and stuff like that but it was like I like was reaching a point where I was like
01:21:17.800getting stressed and I was like getting anxious about like presenting the way that I do and I was
01:21:22.060like I'm not getting this from the people around me I'm getting this from being on my phone all the
01:21:25.520time like genuinely and um yeah that's why I mean I agree with you I think I'm the same way where I
01:21:31.840was like I definitely get sucked into the like the rabbit hole of whatever the thing is I'm in an
01:21:37.760abusive relationship with Instagram I think that's what I'm gonna say because I know I'm not gonna
01:21:41.120delete it but uh i hate it i hate what it's doing to my brain but also i'm on it all the time
01:21:48.040so you're you're not one of the people that's using it less you maybe you did when you deleted0.51
01:21:53.240it i want you yeah i'm i aspire to i'm really trying it's not going super well but i'm really
01:22:02.440trying but yeah and again like what i was saying it's also hard like i i one of my goals for
01:22:06.680myself this year was i was like i want to get back into posting a lot of my photography and
01:22:11.180i've been trying to do like i have done some like modeling on the side and stuff like that and i was
01:22:15.440like well i need to use my instagram to promote that like i need to like and that's kind of like
01:22:20.300the way that i make like that's how i also connect with other artists that's how i like
01:22:24.900show people the work that i'm doing our only option is the thing that's like ruining all of
01:22:32.260our brains so i guess i'm just gonna keep using the thing that's ruining all our brains like i
01:22:40.220don't know what else i'm supposed to do yeah sometimes it feels like we have a little bit
01:22:44.180of a dismal digital landscape but we have places like ao3 we have there is hope we have places0.73
01:22:50.180like ao3 that is again the end of the fucking day ao3 is what gives me hope in this world0.73
01:22:56.660always nice to end on a little bit of internet landscape hope joey thank you so much for being0.96
01:23:02.540here where can folks keep up with you um of course anytime uh you can find me uh failing
01:23:11.260to not be on instagram at uh at pat not pratt that's p-a-t-t-n-o-t-p-r-a-t-t uh that's also
01:23:21.340my twitter and other things but i only really use instagram uh you can find me on tiktok at
01:23:29.880hot topic dad uh that's hot topic like the store and then dad like the father figure you can hear
01:23:35.720more of my work on there are no girls on the internet you can also check out some of our
01:23:40.180other outspoken shows uh like outlaws the tsmadison uh the black fat femme podcast and
01:23:46.080afterlives uh all the rich future work that i've done um but yeah find me online uh
01:23:54.260find me walking around with my espn podcast hat uh find me and i'm still waiting for whatever the
01:24:02.860next um heated rivalry rave is uh near where i live uh i want to dress up as as uh as scott
01:24:12.060with the like baseball hat on and the sunglasses i think that'd be fun that's also just how
01:24:16.020i dress most days but uh bridget you haven't gotten to that episode yet oh that's the captain
01:24:20.720america one that's yeah okay i do i'll i'll i'll watch it and then i'll report back again this is
01:24:28.400it's so weird because i was like i have this one weird area of expertise from having been a weird
01:24:33.920kid on the internet at 16 embrace cringe embrace the weird thing you're into you never know when
01:24:39.440it's going to become uh the biggest piece of media of the year yes and please embrace our
01:24:47.460audiobook love at first prompt you can pre-order it at love at first prompt dot ai if you do that
01:24:53.720and you send me a screenshot of you of your pre-order or an email with your screenshot of
01:24:58.700your pre-order we will send you a hidden written thank you card and a sticker so please do that
01:25:03.480thanks to everybody who's already done it thanks so much to all of you for listening i will see you