00:01:35.760Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:41.960Before we get into today's episode, I wanted to take a moment to address the June 24th
00:01:46.200Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe versus Wade.
00:01:49.220Restricting access to comprehensive reproductive care, including abortion care, threatens the
00:01:53.920health and independence of all Americans.
00:01:56.180This decision could also lead to the loss of other rights.
00:01:59.580To learn more about what you can do to help, go to choice.crd.co.
00:02:04.420And I encourage all of y'all to speak up, take care, and spread the word.
00:02:09.420Common decency also does not exist in surveillance capitalism, just in case anybody's worried about that.
00:02:15.020If they can make money on it, they do not care how evil it is.
00:02:18.220And that is a pretty universal lesson.
00:02:26.180There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.
00:02:34.100I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.
00:02:39.480By now, you probably know that last week, the Supreme Court of the United States overturned Roe v. Wade,
00:02:45.580the landmark decision legalizing abortion in the United States.
00:02:49.220Now, I have spent most of my adult life working on expanding and protecting abortion access,
00:02:53.960So I'm not going to lie. I took it pretty hard.
00:02:57.760And even though abortion advocates and providers have been expecting this for many, many years and preparing for it, it still felt like a punch to the gut.
00:03:07.340I'm angry. I'm numb. But most of all, I am just fucking exhausted.
00:03:13.580Now, let's be clear. Abortion is a technology issue.0.98
00:03:17.680Because in 2022, the issue isn't so much, quote, back alley abortions and coat hanger imagery.
00:03:23.960It's the digital surveillance and criminalization of people suspected of having abortions
00:03:28.580or aiding in abortions in states where it's banned.
00:03:32.100When the news broke, there were a ton of questions circulating around social media.
00:03:36.360Should you delete your period tracker app?
00:03:38.440How can someone securely find and obtain abortion pills without creating a digital paper trail?
00:03:43.220It's a lot to navigate, and I'm not a lawyer, so this is not legal advice,
00:03:47.160nor am I a cybersecurity or digital security expert.
00:04:20.700Like not great if I'm going to be like super honest. I'm getting stuff done. It's been really
00:04:26.740nice being on sabbatical this year, which I think a lot of people think that means you don't have to
00:04:31.420work for a year, but it's just you kind of work on different stuff. But you don't have to teach
00:04:34.500classes. You don't have to go to all the committee meetings that you normally do. So I've been
00:04:39.260writing a book and it's been good to have a slightly slower pace. But yeah, you know, I deal
00:04:45.480with a lot of bad stuff on the Internet. Like that's kind of my job. And the bad stuff, man,
00:04:49.840sure has not stopped in the last couple of years. So it can get a little overwhelming. I'd be really
00:04:55.720happy for it not to be a thing anymore. But I'm still functioning, you know, so that I count that
00:05:02.100as a win. Yeah, you've got to get your W's where you can these days, I feel like. For sure.
00:05:08.860So how did you come, like you have this, I was reading about your background, and it's0.98
00:05:13.380fucking amazing. How did you come to be doing this work? Like what brought you to0.75
00:05:18.020digital security? What brought you to really doing research into the way that the implications of
00:05:23.220the online tools that we use every day? It's, yeah, you know, so I started, I started my PhD
00:05:29.380in 2001. And I remember going to my advisor and being like, so social networks, that's a thing
00:05:34.980that people study in sociology. What happens if we put one of those on the web? And he's like,
00:05:40.360interesting idea, like maybe try that and see what happens. And so my timing was like, just
00:05:45.480perfect for, you know, at that point it was blogging and then social media kind of emerged.
00:05:50.820So I've really been studying it since it was a thing. And it was like, it had all this promise
00:05:58.520to be really great. And I think frankly, it's done a lot of great things, especially for
00:06:02.940traditionally marginalized communities. Like we take a lot of crap there, but it also has given0.76
00:06:07.620us things that we wouldn't have in any other way. But it's also, man, like the dark, terrible stuff0.98
00:06:13.480that goes on there. Um, and so, you know, as a computer scientist, I'm kind of building
00:06:18.520artificial intelligence and technology that works in that space. Um, but I've always had
00:06:23.160kind of this interdisciplinary bent and the department I've been, I'm in, which is called
00:06:27.380information studies. It lets you do that. You can do whatever you want there, which is amazing.
00:06:31.900And so I've, I've kind of consider myself like a public anthropologist sort of of like the bad
00:06:38.240internet. So like you guys really don't want to go there, but I'll go there and I'll let you know
00:06:42.220the kind of stuff they're doing. And there's a lot of demand for, for somebody to tell people
00:06:47.220that because the people very rightly don't want to go look at it themselves. And so I kind of fill
00:06:52.080that gap, like I'll, I'll endure it and then I'll tell you what it's about. And then we can think
00:06:55.940about that. I know that you've been doing this series, trying to keep, give people information
00:07:01.400about how to avoid being tracked online if they're trying to access an abortion. How did this come
00:07:06.420to be? Like, how did you start doing this? So, you know, I have never had an abortion and I, it's,
00:07:12.220I've never been pregnant. Right. Uh, but I have never wanted kids. And so it has been a thing
00:07:17.840my whole life that I've been grateful to know was an option. Um, like I was, I was clear from the
00:07:23.620time I was six years old. I was, I thought you just got pregnant. Like you got a cold, like you
00:07:26.620just woke up one day and you had like a big belly and you're getting, and I remember telling my mom,
00:07:30.720like at six, like, God, I hope that never happens to me. Right. Like never a doubt in my mind that
00:07:36.100I didn't want kids. And so, you know, obviously like I've always been very careful, but I have
00:07:41.360always known that like, if I ended up pregnant, like I was not going to stay pregnant. Um, you
00:07:46.300know, eventually I, after about 10 years of harassment managed to get a doctor to tie my
00:07:50.860tubes for me, that's a whole other conversation. Um, so it's not a thing that I personally worry
00:07:57.740about, but I am like, so aware of like how important for my whole life it has been knowing
00:08:03.820that I would have access to that if I wanted it. Um, and knowing all, I mean, I know, and we all
00:08:10.100do, whether we know it or not. I know a ton of women who have had abortions and a ton of men
00:08:14.700who have been with women who have had abortions and like how important that is. And, uh, yeah,
00:08:21.720like you're really good at getting my rage up today. Let it, I mean, it's a raging topic. It
00:08:27.020is, it is, I'm right there with you. It is a raging topic. I think a thing like that has built
00:08:31.780up over the last two years, well more, right? I mean, we have like Trump and then we have COVID
00:08:39.200And then we have the election and the insurrection, like all of this stuff that's been happening. QAnon, right, which has been a big presence in my life. It's like there's I do what I can do, which is to sort of bring some light into spaces where people might be confused.
00:08:53.840but I feel very powerless to kind of fix what I see as like such a big problem, big complicated
00:08:59.920festering problem. And this was like another one of those things. Like, I can't believe like this
00:09:05.840is like yet another thing in this string of awful stuff. What can I do? Well, the one thing that I
00:09:11.140can do is that like, you can get an abortion in a lot of the, a lot of the cases where women need
00:09:15.660them. You can do it with medication. You can do it safely. That is easily accessible online. Like
00:09:20.320you can go online, you can buy it, and they will send it to your house. No problem, right? No
00:09:26.160matter what state you're in, they'll ship it to you from another country, you can get it. And so
00:09:29.640then the concern becomes, well, how are they going to track this? And like, we all know to be worried
00:09:34.420about that now, but not exactly how it's working. And when I do these videos on TikTok talking about
00:09:40.080this stuff, I get a lot of kind of like bros, honestly, in the comments going like, well, if
00:09:45.620you just use a VPN, it's not going to be a problem. And like, I'm all for a VPN, right? Like that'll
00:09:50.700encrypt the traffic coming out of your computer. So it's less likely to get snooped on, but it does
00:09:54.900not solve any of these problems of like capitalist surveillance, digital tracking, all of this.
00:10:00.660And so people sometimes think like, oh, I know this one thing to do, right? I'll use incognito
00:10:05.380mode on my browser. I'll use a VPN and that'll protect me. And it won't. So I want to talk you
00:10:10.000through, here's the entirety of this process. If you were to go buy abortion medication and get0.97
00:10:14.600it shipped to you. And here's what you have to do for every single one of those ways they're
00:10:18.040going to track you. There's protections that you can take in every one of those steps to actually
00:10:22.240get access to that. So it's a way that makes me feel like I have a little bit of control over
00:10:27.740what's going on, at least helping people know that if you're going to go that route to buy
00:10:31.780medication online to have an abortion, here's the steps that you can take to be really protected.
00:10:37.500Yeah. I mean, you mentioned the response that you got from like bro-y types. That's something1.00
00:10:41.960I've sort of been wrestling with. I have noticed, this is just my anecdotal opinion, whatever. I
00:10:49.000have noticed that the surveillance and like digital security space for the last 10 years has
00:10:54.700been a little bit, I guess, bro-y for the lack of, for lack of a better phrase. For sure. And I guess
00:10:59.780we're in this moment where it is so clear to me, it's always been the case, but in this moment in
00:11:05.000particular, it's so clear to me how important digital security and issues are for women, for
00:11:11.340non-binary people, for people who are traditionally marginalized, so who are not, you know,
00:11:16.180bros. When we think about surveillance, I guess, how do we make sure that that doesn't get lost,
00:11:22.320that the issue doesn't become like, oh, the face of digital security is like a white dude? How can
00:11:28.640we get to a place where we can have a more honest understanding of what is at stake for who when it
00:11:34.440comes to digital security and things like us being tracked online? Yeah, I mean, I think you nailed a
00:11:39.900really important point there. It's like the bros are not at risk in the same way that women are,
00:11:47.780that people of color are, let's say trans people now, right? I mean, they're having all of their
00:11:52.020own big legal issues with access to healthcare. It's not the bros that are having those problems.
00:11:59.660And there's a really interesting dynamic here that I've seen kind of before these
00:12:03.700social issues, say over the last two or three years, have brought this to the forefront.
00:12:07.420But when I would just talk about security and privacy in general, you get a response that's like, well, what you just said isn't a perfect solution. Right. So when I was one of the first videos I did about abortion is like, hey, if you're going to search for like abortion related stuff online, use incognito mode in your browser, at least. And then I'm like, you can use the Tor browser that prevents you from getting tracked, but at least use incognito mode.
00:12:33.080Now, all incognito mode does is delete your search history when you close the window.
00:12:37.860That is the entirety of the protection you get.
00:12:55.960So like, don't keep your search history.
00:12:57.480It's a thing that's going to get you some percentage of safety.
00:13:00.320and I do that video and they're like well you know incognito mode like it doesn't do this and
00:13:03.800it's not a perfect solution it's like yeah man like I know but that doesn't mean don't do things
00:13:10.020and this is a thing I think a lot of security bros get really caught up on is like you don't0.97
00:13:15.680have a perfect solution like I can find ways that that thing is insecure and so you're dumb and bad0.90
00:13:21.080and wrong and I'm smarter than you they don't actually come with another solution or like a0.96
00:13:25.840thing that makes it better. They just want to have that little power place of like, let me explain
00:13:30.320to you while you're wrong about this. And, and, and that I feel is the real problem where it's
00:13:35.940like, they don't face the same issues that we do. Whatever those issues are, whatever group you're
00:13:41.220part of, they're kind of safe. It's really easy to come from a place of like, well, you suck and1.00
00:13:46.500you're wrong and I'm smarter than you and not bring any solutions with that. And, and I think0.99
00:13:51.020that's sort of what we're dealing with. And frankly, that we see a lot online is like, they're
00:13:55.060kind of used to being in this position of power. And so women come along, people of color come0.98
00:14:00.040along, trans people come along and go, here's the thing that we can do to stay safer. They want to
00:14:04.340kind of reclaim that position of power and be like, that's not right. Like, I know better than
00:14:08.580you guys. So I see that kind of power dynamic, which we've seen so many times with so many things
00:14:13.260online, just kind of playing out in the security space as well. I think for a lot of them, it's
00:14:18.020theoretical. And for us, it is not theoretical. It is very real world. For sure. Not everyone
00:14:27.860is a digital security expert. In fact, the people who most need practical advice on how you can more
00:14:33.840securely access abortion online are folks who might not necessarily consider themselves techies.
00:14:39.440This is why Jen keeps accessibility at the forefront of her work. She wants to make sure0.53
00:14:44.020that the tips and tools that she highlights are accessible enough to actually be helpful for the
00:14:48.500folks who need them most. Going back to what you were saying about how sometimes you get these
00:14:53.480bro-y people responding to you about like, oh, you're wrong about this. You're not doing that
00:14:57.220perfectly. I think it's really tricky because the audience that you're speaking to, for the most
00:15:03.520part, they're not going to be digital security experts or tech experts. They're people who are
00:15:07.800looking to access abortion, right? And so you kind of have to walk this line of making sure that your
00:15:13.560tips are accessible for people who need them. And those people, by and large, I'm sorry, are not
00:15:19.900people who are going to, you know, already be showing up with a level of tech expertise. And so
00:15:25.800coming from a place of like, oh, it has to be perfect for it to even be, you know, something
00:15:30.480that you put out into the world. Again, I just feel like it doesn't reflect where we're actually
00:15:35.280at. Like, like, how do you, how do you balance making sure that the tips that you give are
00:15:38.860actually going to be accessible for the folks who need them. Yeah. So there is a nearly perfect way
00:15:45.560that you could buy abortion medication and not be tracked. You take a whole bunch of cash,
00:15:49.220you go buy a burner phone, you use it on public Wi-Fi, you use the Tor browser,
00:15:53.940you use cash to buy gift cards that you use to pay for the medication, you have it shipped to,
00:15:58.980this is kind of the big question mark, someplace that's not you and pick it up from there. And
00:16:03.100there's no digital trace of you. So great. One, that's super hard. Two, it's very expensive,
00:16:09.500right? That's not accessible. I mean, if I think like if I were like 17 and needed an abortion
00:16:15.900and didn't want to tell my parents about it, right? I mean, I think that's part of the audience
00:16:19.800I'm reaching on TikTok. They're not going to use a bunch of cash to go buy a burner phone and use
00:16:24.920public and like all use the Tor browser, right? Like that's not what they're going to do.
00:16:29.380And the fact is, like, you know, if we have like big government agency, right, like there's a NSA, FBI, CIA task force coming to get you, man, there's nothing you can do. Right. They're going to figure this out. But the fact is, they're not going to be going like, oh, abortion medication was like purchased by somebody on the Panera Wi-Fi at this time. So let's go get the security footage, like some CSI nonsense. Like that's not most of what we're dealing with.
00:16:57.800It's like your neighbor found out you got an abortion and they're going to do the Texas
00:17:02.660civil suit thing to get their $10,000 and turn you in.
00:18:33.280So we want to be able to access all the books that people have checked out.0.76
00:18:37.680Like, I'm worried about Jen doing a terrorism.
00:18:40.220I want to see everything that she's checked out and everything that she's done.
00:18:42.940And the librarians were like, no, we're not doing that.
00:18:46.080If we have to throw away all of our records of books that people have checked out, we
00:18:49.640will do that before we'll turn them over.
00:18:51.320And I think the George W. Bush quote was radical militant librarians, right? So this, you know,
00:18:58.220we can kind of go back to then and librarians are like, no, like people should just be able to come
00:19:02.440here and get information. Like that's their job. I mean, the department that I'm in, Information
00:19:07.480Studies at Maryland, we have the library science program. So professional librarians, among other
00:19:12.420professionals, come out of our school. They're very committed to helping people find the information
00:19:17.300they want and giving them protection for that. So like on one hand, your librarian is likely not
00:19:23.500going to be a digital security expert who will be able to track you, talk you through how to prevent
00:19:28.160being tracked. But on a lot of those computers, for all sorts of reasons, they'll like automatically
00:19:33.380delete your search history and they're not going to collect a lot of information about you. Because
00:19:37.820you know, if you go on the library computer before me, they don't want me looking through
00:19:42.320all of your history, right? There's a good reason to keep that private. And they have this history
00:19:46.500of not turning over that information and in fact having a lot of legal protection from turning that
00:19:51.060information over to the government and so while they're not going to give you necessarily a ton
00:19:57.160of great advice on like how to keep your phone from being tracked they will show you how to
00:20:01.320access information and use the internet in a way that's likely to be safe for you and it's free and
00:20:06.600it's a great resource and librarians love helping people find information so you know always your
00:20:14.000mileage may very be cautious about if you're telling them you're searching for abortion
00:20:17.120related information, depending on where you are. Right. But if you just want a private search
00:20:21.060window, they absolutely should be able to help you set that up. Such good advice. I, I love
00:20:26.720librarians. It's like every time I hear more about the times of public resources that they offer to
00:20:31.640the community, it's like, we need to be talking more about the amazing resource that we have
00:20:36.600available to us in public libraries. Yeah. Like they need a master's degree to be a librarian.
00:20:41.740And if your experience with librarians is only like, it's where I checked out books as a kid, and then I returned the books, you go like, what do they need a master's degree for? But it's because they have all this expertise on lots of other topics, many of which are related to kind of community relations and management, because that's a big part of their life.
00:22:21.940Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.0.98
00:22:26.480I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.
00:22:31.040I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.
00:22:38.480They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:22:42.440But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.
00:22:45.880They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:22:49.020Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:22:57.980If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:23:03.900This 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.
00:23:16.380I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books,
00:23:20.080the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:23:23.500I'm going to have to look up this story.
00:24:05.320In the wake of the Supreme Court striking down Roe,
00:24:08.040I heard lots of well-meaning people say things like,
00:24:10.840well, don't worry because we've been here before.
00:24:12.840But that's not actually true, because the last time abortion was illegal in the United States, in the days before Roe became the law of the land in 1973, we did not have the vast infrastructure of digital surveillance, tracking, and data sharing and selling like we do now.
00:24:29.220We didn't all carry GPS devices in our pockets.
00:24:32.260We did not all create digital paper trails of all the information we've ever accessed.
00:24:37.940And we certainly didn't have companies selling and sharing that information with third parties, including law enforcement.
00:24:44.100We did not create digital logs of the most sensitive information about our bodies, like our periods, onto apps who then go on to share it with God knows who.
00:24:52.300For instance, the popular period tracking app Flow faced a lawsuit last year for sharing people's personal information, including, quote, intimate details about sexual health and menstrual cycles with third parties like Facebook and Google, despite public assurances that it would not.
00:25:08.940And they did this because data is, quote, vital to their business, according to the lawsuit.
00:25:13.320Add in laws like SB8 in Texas that deputize ordinary citizens to turn in anyone they suspect of having an abortion or aiding and abetting an abortion for a $10,000 reward, and you can start to see the scope of the situation that we're currently facing.
00:25:28.720And so I want to set the stage a little bit. I feel like there's probably people listening who are like, this is I'm learning a lot about the state of play as it pertains to digital security and what is really at stake with the information that I put on the Internet and that technology has about me.
00:25:46.980And so people, you know, you might, I guess you might be thinking like things like when we have our periods and, you know, the goings on of our reproductive health, that's probably like protected by HIPAA or like common decency. Right. But that is not the case. So what is the reality around, you know, our information and how it can be accessed and perhaps used against us?
00:26:11.420Yeah. So HIPAA has really gotten a lot of attention between COVID and vaccines and certainly now with this. So HIPAA is a law that just applies to your healthcare providers. So your doctor's office, your pharmacy, they're not allowed to give away your records.
00:26:30.540Um, that said, interestingly, so my dog, I have a bunch of rescue golden retrievers, um, that have a variety of issues. And one of my dogs has very serious anxiety and he's on Prozac. So he takes Prozac every day. And, uh, he's on my like CVS family account. And I got a text from CVS like, Hey, Chief Brody, just, you know, May is national mental health awareness month.
00:26:53.420And it's like they're sending kind of marketing emails or texts to my dog because he's on an antidepressant, which, you know, sort of shows like they're, you know, they're following HIPAA rules for the dog, even if they don't have to.
00:27:07.880But they can still use it internally for things. Right. So HIPAA is not it doesn't have anything to do with privacy, really.
00:27:14.740It has to do with how your medical records are sent around and that they can't be released.
00:27:18.700So you do get some privacy from that, but not anything relating to apps, the Internet, people, just your doctor and your pharmacy, basically.
00:27:25.620So ignore HIPAA. It doesn't apply to anything that we're worried about, essentially.
00:27:31.240Common decency also does not exist in surveillance capitalism, just in case anybody's worried about that.
00:27:36.820If they can make money on it, they do not care how evil it is. And that that is a pretty universal lesson.
00:27:42.200I am an optimist and I keep going, yeah, but they wouldn't do that. And like, yeah, they totally would.
00:27:46.120They are. They have been for 10 years. You're just not going to get a lot of protection.
00:27:51.520What we've seen with period tracking apps is that a lot of them were sharing information,
00:27:57.280and they do it in a variety of ways. So some full-on released your period data and your
00:28:02.880health data to Facebook and Google. They got in big trouble for doing that. So that can totally
00:28:07.920happen. Some of it is a little more passive, right? So they might use a third party to do
00:28:15.720like analytics. So I want to know, like, does Jen come to the app other than when she's logging
00:28:21.880her symptoms or her cycle info? So do I come to it in the middle of the month and look for anything?
00:28:27.820Do I use it for anything other than just like putting stuff in? So that could be interesting
00:28:32.240for them to know, and it may help them develop new features or, you know, decide things. But
00:28:37.080writing code to do those sorts of analytics is pretty heavy duty. There's plenty of third parties
00:28:43.060who will do it for you. So they might partner with a third party to do analytics, but that third
00:28:48.640party then necessarily gets access to some of their data. So it might not be every single thing
00:28:53.200that I've logged in the app, but there's a lot that they can infer. There's a lot that they're
00:28:56.580going to collect and save. And so your information can be leaking out in ways that even the app may
00:29:01.200not necessarily intend. And those analytics parties absolutely could use it for marketing,
00:29:06.720right? They may show ads in the app to help pay for it. So it's a free app, but we'll show you
00:29:11.600like little banner ads at the bottom. It might be coming from there. So there's a ton of ways that
00:29:16.560even not being hacked, which is the thing we could talk about, your data can get shared with
00:29:23.480third parties by those apps. And if we're looking then at places like Texas, for example, where
00:29:29.380there's a $10,000 incentive for me to find out anybody who got an abortion, that's data that
00:29:34.400would be really interesting for me as an evil person to try to find a way to track down through
00:29:39.500data brokers, online advertisers that may be incorporating it into their background.
00:29:45.260Wow. I'm so glad that you brought up the, like, quote, like, bounty hunter policies in states
00:29:50.880like Texas, because I do think that highlights the, just the real world stakes of what we're
00:29:57.580talking about and how important it is that we really understand what we're doing when we give
00:30:05.140like what we might be doing when we give our information to these apps. I guess this,
00:30:09.780I mean, I don't know, maybe this is too black and white of a question, but would you say that people
00:30:13.540in the wake of Roe v. Wade being struck down, should folks be thinking about deleting period
00:30:19.820tracker apps? Should they be like, is that too like black and white or simplistic of a way to
00:30:24.580even be framing it? Or what do you think? I mean, I think it's a really useful framing.
00:30:28.780Whether or not you do, you know, it's going to depend on frankly, where you are, what kind of
00:30:33.940support you have, what level of worry you have, right? So, you know, I mentioned I had my tubes
00:30:40.880tied, so I'm not going to get pregnant. I guess it could fail. And if I got pregnant, man, I'm like
00:30:47.160a well-off white woman, right? I could go to Canada. If I couldn't get an abortion in the U.S.,
00:30:53.100I could go to Canada. I know how to cover my tracks. I mean, I have all the resources and0.91
00:30:57.340privilege and money necessary to get an abortion if I wanted one. If I were in a kind of rural,
00:31:04.580really Bible belty, anti-abortion place, and I'm a younger woman without a lot of financial0.99
00:31:10.460resources, so I couldn't travel by myself to a state that could do an abortion for me, maybe0.60
00:31:15.900I'm too young, I don't have the money for it, my parents would catch me, that kind of thing,
00:31:20.260and you know that people around you are really excited about bounty hunting people who get
00:31:26.280abortions, then yeah, like maybe start tracking that on paper. Like I did in high school,
00:31:31.980little red dots in my planner. Yeah. You know, I don't think it's going to be the main place
00:31:38.120people go to. You always can lie, right? Like, oh yes, I did have my period last month and you
00:31:43.280just find however many days and you plunk it in there and you've got a record that,
00:31:46.540that makes it look like you weren't pregnant, even if you were. But you know, if you're worried
00:31:51.920about people like checking in on that, right, somebody gets ahold of your phone, are they
00:31:55.640going to go look at it to see when you had your last period. I don't think it's a bad idea. And
00:32:00.080look, generally, I think everyone should be wary about logging any kind of personal information
00:32:05.580like this in any app, even if there's not a law that would get in the way of your health care,
00:32:10.800because it's almost always going to be monetized and sold to advertisers.
00:32:16.660I mean, you earlier today or earlier, I think it was this week, you were posting on TikTok about
00:32:20.320elevated access, you know, the pilots who, you know, will they take donations and they'll fly
00:32:24.920people, everywhere in the United States other than Alaska and Hawaii to get abortions, like
00:32:32.320abortion care or gender affirming care. What do you make of the fact that we're in this place
00:32:37.120where we have to have pilots taking donations to shuttle people to get healthcare, where we have
00:32:43.480to be deleting our period tracker apps, you know, so we don't get criminalized for abortion care?
00:32:48.060Like, what do you make of the fact that we're in this place where these kinds of things, they sound
00:32:52.740so wild, but they are very necessary. Yeah. I mean, I have kind of the pessimistic view
00:32:59.260and the optimistic view together. So the pessimistic view is that this seems to me a
00:33:05.560pretty linear path towards authoritarianism that started in like 2015, 2016, right? We certainly
00:33:13.160saw this with like the rise of Trump and his rallies and chance for people to be arrested and
00:33:18.420chance to, you know, take people down and physical violence in those spaces. And we saw steady
00:33:25.060increases in that and kind of normalization of that kind of hate and language and violence over
00:33:30.840the course of the Trump administration. And this kind of othering, right? And we're seeing it,
00:33:37.880you know, where we wait, I mean, this has been a very long battle for the anti-abortion camp. So
00:33:42.560I don't like, they maybe are in a position to achieve it now, but they've been trying to do
00:33:46.720that for a long time. But you especially look at like right now, like the anti-trans and anti-gay
00:33:52.280measures. You know, I'm in Florida. Man, stuff is a nightmare here, right? Where, you know,
00:33:59.780you're having like gay teachers quitting their jobs because they're not even allowed, like
00:34:04.300students found out that they were married to somebody of the same gender. And they're like,0.78
00:34:09.700so I'm going to get fired for that, right? I mean, that's happening in Florida now.
00:34:12.420that kind of othering, right? Who is the enemy? And let's start doing stuff against them. I mean,
00:34:18.760it's such textbook authoritarianism. And so we've really seen, I think, a ramping up of that. Not
00:34:25.840that things were great for women seeking abortions or trans people or gay people, but we've seen1.00
00:34:31.600progress, right? Things have kind of been progressing. And now we've seen a really
00:34:35.880aggressive backlash to that and some success with that backlash. So that's really upsetting.
00:34:43.040But I'm not surprised. I mean, it seems like a path that we have been on, you know, for the
00:34:47.520better part of the last decade. And hopefully we get out of that. But I don't know. Right. I mean,
00:34:54.380I think the next couple elections, the midterms in the next presidential election, maybe will give
00:34:58.220us an insight of how much staying power that has. The optimistic side that I have is, man,
00:35:03.320are a lot of people trying to do something about it. So the elevated access, I mean,
00:35:06.520these pilots getting together, like how awesome is it that there's this like network of pilots
00:35:11.760that are like, we will pick you up in Texas if you need gender affirming care and we will take
00:35:15.920you to Colorado and you can get it there. You need an abortion, like we'll come get you.1.00
00:35:20.340Somebody else will pay for it and we'll take you somewhere. You know, my TikTok series is a little1.00
00:35:25.140cheap free thing, but it's like, I've spent two decades building this knowledge and I'm going to
00:35:29.620drop it to you in one minute segments for as long as I have to, to kind of protect that.
00:35:35.000And there's great resources, you know, in the abortion space that are like, tell us
00:35:51.980I mean, first, the majority of people want abortion access to be a thing, right?
00:35:55.860And a lot of people are willing to take action.
00:35:57.920And frankly, this is another great thing that I see from social media is that it allows us to kind of organize those movements nationwide from people who are like sitting at home and just want to help.
00:36:07.700So I'm optimistic in that space that there's going to be a lot of people working at the grassroots level to fight this kind of legal authoritarianism that, you know, I hope we see our way out of.
00:36:19.500But I think it's going to be a little while.
00:36:21.960I mean, I have been in the like abortion space for a long time.0.86
00:36:26.660And it's truly the only thing that gives me hope is that the space of abortion providers, abortion advocates, and their allies, it is such a space filled with dynamic, creative people who want to fucking help.
00:36:41.440And, you know, I hear things all the time where it'll be like, oh, a bunch of teens in Texas took down the Bounty Hunter tip line website, you know, by organizing on TikTok.
00:36:52.980Like, I'll hear these things and it's like, I don't know.
00:36:55.820I don't have a lot of faith in our elected officials to have our back, but I believe in us.
00:37:01.220Like, I believe in, you know, the power of the people who care.
00:43:25.480I went from, like, thinking it was so cool that I could come into my apartment and be like, hey, Google, play Madonna, and it would start playing.
00:43:32.220And then, you know, now I don't have any of that stuff.
00:43:34.980And I guess there's probably people who are listening right now who are thinking, like, wow, I, you know, have never really thought about digital security, and this all feels super overwhelming and hard.
00:43:47.880You know, what do you say to those people who are just sort of starting to think about the
00:43:51.480implications of the technology that we use? And they're like, gee, this is a lot.
00:43:55.860Yeah. I mean, I guess two points there. One is, so I also don't have any of those technologies.
00:44:01.400I call them in-home surveillance devices because that's like 100% what they are.
00:44:05.460It's work, man. Like when we bought this house that I'm in now, we had to buy a TV. Like we
00:44:10.460bought it fresh. So we had to buy everything to go in it. We didn't move stuff to it.
00:44:13.860finding a TV that doesn't have voice control, right? Because if you look at the terms of
00:44:18.580service on those TVs, they're like, don't have sensitive conversations in front of your TV
00:44:22.020because we can't guarantee your privacy. And I was like, no, if I have to, I will get in there
00:44:27.300with a soldering iron and put that microphone out if I have to. It was a little bit of a challenge.
00:44:34.240So yeah. So on one hand, like obviously a lot of the trade-off we talk about with all of this is
00:44:40.300like there's convenience on one side, right? It's easy to do the thing that lets you be surveilled
00:44:45.040by design, right? And then it's harder to do things that protect your privacy. So you want
00:44:50.920to think about where you fall on the scale. I also have an iPhone, right? It would be more secure if
00:44:55.000I just had a flip phone and there's just like too many things I would not be able to do if I didn't
00:44:59.540have that. But you want to think about what is the most evil thing that a person could do with what
00:45:08.160I'm doing with my current digital setup. So for example, your internet search history or the
00:45:13.240history of websites that you go visit, I think the first law that was signed into effect when Trump
00:45:18.960became president was blocking an Obama administration regulation that said your internet
00:45:24.260service provider, so Comcast or Xfinity or AT&T, whoever gets you your internet to your house,
00:45:29.260Obama put in a regulation that said they can't look at your search history, your web browsing
00:45:34.600history and use that for advertising for monetization. And then the very first law
00:45:39.160that the Trump administration signed into effect was removing that regulation. Now, this was a rule
00:45:44.840that was supported by like 98% of Americans were like, yeah, internet service providers shouldn't
00:45:50.360be able to snoop on what I'm doing. And they overrode that rule anyway and said, go ahead
00:45:54.260and do that. So think about everything you do online. And it's worse than you think. Go back
00:45:58.940and look at your search history. It's like cringeworthy, awful stuff. Why did I search
00:46:04.280for like kangaroo sex? Like, oh, you know, there's like a commercial that came up. Could people twist0.94
00:46:10.340that and use it in a way that makes you look bad? They totally can, right? All of that, everything
00:46:15.660you do online, everything you buy, everything you search for, every website you go to, every action
00:46:21.440you do on it is being aggregated on the back end and used to target you. Everywhere you move with
00:46:26.620your phone on is being used to target you and understand where you are. Be creative about how
00:46:31.780evil it can be because that's happening. And if we look at abortion, for example, before any of
00:46:37.360this Roe v. Wade stuff over the last couple of weeks, we know, for example, that there's
00:46:40.760anti-abortion groups that were setting up geofenced advertising. So basically you can draw a little
00:46:46.260map and say, anytime anybody walks into this space, I want to start sending them ads. And they
00:46:51.580would draw it in a one block radius around Planned Parenthoods or abortion providers. And then if you
00:46:56.680crossed into that space, you would start being targeted for months with anti-abortion advertising.
00:47:03.520We know that they're doing that. And they can collect data from our phones if we engage with
00:47:07.880any of that content. And so your privacy or anonymity goes away. So as you think about the
00:47:12.600convenience that you get from bringing your phone to your doctor's office, a thing you should totally
00:47:17.160be able to do, you want to think about if you should. That said, the onus should not be on
00:47:23.500individuals for this, right? It's a thing that should make us push really hard for better
00:47:27.900privacy protections. They have it in Europe, right? None of this stuff would be legal in Europe in the
00:47:32.500way that it is here. They have it in California to a certain extent. We really need much better
00:47:38.220federal privacy laws and that will resolve a lot of these issues. And it's a thing that people
00:47:43.220should be pushing for. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is a great place to go look. It's
00:47:48.000EFF.org. They have a whole legislative section so you can see on the local, state, federal level
00:47:53.040what legislation is being in place and write some letters if you care about it.
00:47:57.840Oh, I'm so glad that you mentioned them. I love EFF. Shout out to them.
00:48:02.680So you've mentioned a couple of really great tips for folks if you're looking for abortion
00:48:08.760pills and you want to do it in a way that you're going to be less likely to be tracked, using a
00:48:13.080browser, using incognito mode when you search, using public Wi-Fi. Are there other tips that
00:48:19.000you want to shout out for folks if they might need this information?
00:48:22.880So that's all important stuff. I would say for sure the most important one is that you are
00:48:27.440not paying with a credit card or a debit card connected to your name. So figure out how much
00:48:33.060your medication is going to cost. Use cash, buy like a Visa vanilla gift card, which you can get
00:48:38.600anywhere for that amount and then pay with the Visa Vanilla gift card. So much of how we're
00:48:45.300tracked is through credit card number. So definitely do that. And the other way that
00:48:50.160we're really easily tracked is through email address. So set up a fresh email address that
00:48:54.480you are only using to buy this abortion medication. Protonmail is the one site that I've recommended
00:48:59.680for this. It's free. It's encrypted. It's really good and secure. You can just set up an email
00:49:04.800address. Use it to buy your medicine. Don't use it for anything else. If you do that gift card,
00:49:09.340fresh email address on something like ProtonMail, you know, I love Gmail. I use it, right? But they
00:49:14.540track the hell out of you on Gmail. So ProtonMail email address, vanilla gift card, you get 80% of
00:49:22.280the protection from tracking just from those two measures. So, you know, that's easy and accessible
00:49:27.400to anybody. Definitely do that. That's really helpful. And I guess, you know, one of my last
00:49:32.860questions for you. I usually ask folks who are doing tough work, whether it's digital surveillance
00:49:37.380or, you know, abortion, like fighting for abortion access. I usually ask like, what keeps you
00:49:42.960grounded and happy in this work? And I feel like I might know for you, you know, you're just like,
00:49:49.440just from looking up, looking you up online, I know that you're like a really cool person,
00:49:53.460like you're an ultra marathoner, like you have all this, you have a whole dynamic list of really
00:49:58.840incredible interests. You also run Golden Ratio, a nonprofit that helps dogs.
00:50:04.360Yes. So I grew up with the Golden Retrievers and I had a couple of dogs that I got as puppies.
00:50:09.680And when they died, you know, 10 years ago, you know, I had been wanting to rescue and just wasn't
00:50:15.400sure how to do it. You know, I got my first dog like as I was moving out of the dorms. Right. So
00:50:19.700I didn't like quite know how to adult with a dog. But, you know, at that point I was like, OK,
00:50:24.140like let's start doing rescue. So we started fostering, um, and then kind of fell into this
00:50:29.100space of rescuing senior dogs and then dogs with special medical conditions. So we're kind of like
00:50:35.020the Island of misfit toys. Um, we have, we just lost one this week, actually, um, one of our
00:50:41.060epileptic dogs. Um, so he was number six. So we have five right now, but we have a blind diabetic.
00:50:47.080We have a tripod. We have the one on Prozac who also has really bad allergies. So all the dogs
00:50:53.220basically that nobody else wants to deal with because they're like way too much work. They come
00:50:57.600to us and we share them online because they are both like super joyful just existing, but also
00:51:04.660the transformations that these dogs make. You know, Remy, who's our blind diabetic, we got him last
00:51:10.220July. He was on a chain in a backyard for five years. He had never been to the vet. He had a
00:51:15.380perfect rectangle of baldness between his shoulder blades where the chain connected to his collar and
00:51:20.700had just rubbed the fur off. He had Lyme disease or Lickia. He had never had his diabetes treated.
00:51:26.180He was blind, no training, obviously no housebreaking. And they're like, here, have
00:51:30.940this dog. And, uh, you know, his fur had fallen out. Like he was just a mess. And now he is like,
00:51:37.500he comes up and he like rest his chin on my chest and he's this fluffy monster. And his like vision
00:51:44.040is coming back and he plays with all the other dogs. And to watch that transformation of these
00:51:50.600dogs who have had like, you know, some have had like, okay, slightly neglectful backgrounds and
00:51:55.600some have come from like really profound abuse. To come here, you know, especially when we're in
00:52:01.100Florida, they like can go into the ocean in our backyard and swim around and we get to see that
00:52:06.060transformation and then we share it with people online. It's been a really, it's kind of an
00:52:11.160amazing thing. So there are a lot of work, but like how much happier does it get than like six
00:52:16.060golden retriever is just really wanting to love on you all the time. It's a top-notch balance
00:52:20.960against all this bad stuff on the internet. While Americans overwhelmingly support the
00:52:26.840right of an individual to make their own decisions about abortion, unfortunately,
00:52:30.880that right is no longer protected everywhere in the United States. The Supreme Court overturned
00:52:35.740Roe v. Wade on June 24th. Abortion is a basic health care need for millions of people who can
00:52:41.220become pregnant. And everyone should have the freedom to decide what's best for themselves
00:52:45.040and their families, including when it comes to ending a pregnancy. This decision has dire0.75
00:52:50.400consequences for individual health and safety and could have harsh repercussions for other
00:52:55.000landmark decisions. Restricting access to comprehensive reproductive care, including
00:52:59.820abortion care, threatens the health and independence of all Americans, even if you live in a state
00:53:04.360where abortion rights are upheld. Access to safe medical procedures shouldn't be determined
00:53:09.200by location, and it should not be the privilege of a small few. You can help by donating to
00:53:14.380local abortion funds. To find out where to donate for each state, visit donationsforabortion.com.
00:53:20.740That's the number four. And if you or someone you know needs help or you want to get more involved,
00:53:25.680here are five resources. One, Shout Your Abortion is a campaign to normalize abortion.0.59
00:53:31.320Two, Don't Ban Equality is a campaign for companies to take a stand against abortion
00:53:35.300restrictions. Three, Abortion.cafe has information about where to find clinics.
00:53:41.340Four, plancpills.org provides early at-home abortion pills
00:53:45.620that you can keep in your medicine cabinet.
00:53:48.100And five, choice.crd.co has a collection of these resources and more.
00:53:54.120I encourage all of y'all to speak up, take care, and spread the word.
00:54:04.020Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi?
00:54:07.540You can reach us at hello at tangody.com.
00:54:09.520You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangody.com.
00:54:13.280There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me, Bridget Todd.
00:54:16.000It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.
00:54:18.700Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.
00:54:20.780Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer.
00:54:23.380Michael Amato is our contributing producer.