New Taylor Swift conspiracy drops online; IRL violence from misinformation in Dublin; TikTok makes you 17% more antisemetic？ Not quite, Nikki Haley – NEWS ROUNDUP
00:02:23.080let's play a little bit of my favorite game,
00:02:25.100would you rather would you rather is one of my favorite games i play it endlessly on car trips
00:02:29.820i've annoyed all my friends i'll text would you rathers okay would you rather be able to use the
00:02:35.260internet only for 20 minutes every day or you can use it like normal but your boss gets a detailed
00:02:42.100report of everything you did online every day oh my god i gotta think about that now i'm like what
00:02:51.320do i do on the internet what do i like i feel like i need to go through um oh okay that's rough
00:02:58.140like this is my problem i get way too strong like i i love these things but also then i spend too
00:03:05.540much time being like but what would i do like really what if this was real um i don't know i
00:03:12.040uh but i think my boss is pretty chill that's the i so i'm thinking of like my boss currently
00:03:19.820hi maya if you're listening to this um but like i wouldn't like i feel like that would be fine
00:03:28.040like i wouldn't like there's nothing i read yeah like she would just sort of be like all right
00:03:31.980whatever like maya wouldn't even look i do spend like an embarrassing amount of time on like
00:03:36.180twitter so like i don't like i don't really know if i want that like out into the world
00:03:41.280um i'm gonna say tentatively i think my boss gets a detailed report on what
00:03:47.600just because I can't like the idea of only having 20 minutes on the internet like I'm like that is
00:03:54.400not I don't beyond even just like the normal stuff I like need to look up like I don't know
00:04:01.340how to like function like I don't think I've ever cooked a meal without ever having to like look up
00:04:05.500something like really stupid like I don't know but yeah yeah that's my answer what about you0.95
00:04:12.780Bridget what about you well I'm my own boss really it's like I will say to your point about0.99
00:04:19.640like the things that I have to google when I'm cooking like a tablespoon is you know how many
00:04:26.700cups in a table like things I feel like I should have learned in grammar school like I if I if
00:04:31.060people if another human got to see the level of inane things that I have to check via google
00:04:36.940I will be very embarrassed oh the other one recently I've been working on a project currently
00:04:42.560that's making me go through some like j-store articles and some like really academic stuff
00:04:46.960uh which is super fun i love doing that stuff like honestly like that's kind of shit i like
00:04:51.380i'll nerd out over um however it's been a minute since i've read like academic articles and i
00:04:57.180don't there's a lot of words that i've had to google just like that are like weird words like
00:05:03.080like but yeah like i feel like by my my recently it's either that or like if i'm writing something0.82
00:05:09.160and i'll be like i keep spelling this word wrong those are usually like stupid ones like that's
00:05:13.060usually like i can't remember how to spell like schedule or something like i don't um that might
00:05:19.620be a little embarrassing but you know what yeah i can't i can't i don't know what words mean i think
00:05:25.360okay so here at there are no girls on the internet we have been watching the republican debate so
00:05:32.500it. Y'all don't have to. It has been interesting and frustrating. I would say like 80% of what0.78
00:05:39.820comes up on the Republican debate so far has been like stunts or scams or grandstanding or
00:05:45.600conspiracy theories. And then maybe like 20% is actual policy discussions. Genuinely, when I
00:05:51.740watched it this week, I had to turn it off for a little while and collect myself and then return
00:05:56.360to it. So technology has come up in most of these debates, specifically whether or not TikTok should
00:06:02.480be banned. Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley has been all in on banning TikTok. And in
00:06:07.580this week's debate, she dropped a startling statistic that just 30 minutes spent on TikTok
00:06:12.840makes people 17% more anti-Semitic. We really do need to ban TikTok once and for all. And let me
00:06:21.280tell you why. For every 30 minutes that someone watches TikTok, every day they become 17% more
00:06:31.060anti-Semitic, more pro-Hamas based on doing that. Which is like a pretty big claim. So whenever I
00:06:39.060hear a candidate make like a clear, specific claim like that, you got to dig into it to find more,
00:06:44.260right? Because it should be pretty cut and dry, right? Like find the stat, confirm whether it's
00:06:48.240accurate or not. So I thought this was going to be a straightforward fact check for y'all.
00:06:52.440When I tell you this was so much more complicated. So that 17% figure that Haley cited actually came
00:06:58.560from a data analysis shared on Twitter on November 30th by Anthony Goldblum. Goldblum is the former
00:07:04.780CEO of a data science platform called Kaggle. I looked into Goldblum. He is like a macro economist
00:07:10.560from Australia. So first, Haley misstated what Goldblum's analysis found. Goldblum's analysis
00:07:17.760suggests that people who spend 30 minutes a day or more on TikTok are 17% more likely than others
00:07:23.460to hold anti-Semitic or anti-Israel views. We'll come back to that point in just a moment.
00:07:27.580For comparison, according to this analysis, the use of Instagram for 30 minutes a day was associated with a 6% increase in the likelihood of anti-Semitic views, and the use of Twitter for 30 minutes a day was associated with a 2% increase in likelihood.
00:07:40.860Side note, when Goldblum tweeted this, you know Elon Musk was in the thread being like, interesting, this says that actually Twitter is not a big driver of anti-Semitism, you don't say, that's great for me, unsurprisingly.
00:07:54.540So Haley has definitely misstated the conclusions of this analysis.
00:08:00.280She said during the debate, for every 30 minutes that somebody watched TikTok, and that's simply not what this analysis suggests.
00:08:07.320The stated conclusions of the analysis are that people who spend 30 minutes or more on TikTok every day are 17% more likely to hold anti-Semitic attitudes.
00:08:17.260What it does not suggest is that spending 30 minutes on TikTok will bolster someone's anti-Semitic views.
00:08:23.540which is just by 17% which is like oh like that's like a real like how does one get 17 I want I want
00:08:31.220to like I would love for an interviewer to ask Nikki Haley how exactly somebody gets seven like
00:08:38.820what is the metric to measure that what is 17 more anti-semitic 17% more anti-semitic than what you
00:08:44.600previously were that's yeah so I think that's why what you said I think that's exactly why people
00:08:50.800are really responding to this on Twitter. People are like, what is the metric that you're using?
00:08:57.000How are you quantifying this? Had I been the moderator of that debate, I would have definitely
00:09:00.900pressed her because it's like, you can't drop a stat like that. And then you just like, oh, well,
00:09:05.64017%, my, my. Anyway, moving on. That's really a stat that she clearly got it from somewhere.
00:09:11.000And so I do think the moderators, it would have behooved them to ask a little bit more about
00:09:15.460where that stat came from. So she is just flat out misstating what that analysis actually said.
00:09:21.540But then there's the issue of the analysis itself that is a bit more complicated. So I want to be
00:09:26.600super clear that I am like no researcher. I don't have an educational background in this at all.
00:09:31.660But our producer, Mike, has a PhD and does survey research for a living. I had Mike take a look at
00:09:36.860the analysis and he raised a few questions. First, Goldblum does not describe his methods in the
00:09:42.580survey. So we don't know a ton about how he came to these conclusions around that 17% figure.
00:09:48.140It's entirely possible that these methods are perfectly sound, but because when he shared his
00:09:51.960analysis, he did not also share his methods, we have no idea and we can't even look into it to
00:09:56.860say. This was not a study published in a scientific journal. It is just an analysis that somebody
00:10:02.140posted on Twitter and GitHub. So definitely keep that in mind when thinking about this stat.
00:10:07.680Second is the way that Goldblum framed the survey questions to determine how often the
00:10:12.260people responding to the survey use TikTok. According to his data, 90% of all respondents
00:10:17.760use TikTok at least once a day, which is certainly not representative of the larger United States
00:10:23.220population. He also did not control for age. You know, we know that folks who use TikTok tend to
00:10:28.480skew younger. And we also know that younger people tend to be more sympathetic to Palestinians. So
00:10:33.500in his correlational study, in which he didn't control for age at all, it is possible that the
00:10:38.800entire effect is driven by the fact that the people who use TikTok tend to be younger than
00:10:42.760the people who don't. We just don't know. So another point that I wanted to make, which
00:10:47.300this is coming from noted non-researcher me, Bridget, and not researcher Mike, is the way
00:10:53.420that Goldblum correlates anti-Israel views with anti-Semitic views. On Twitter, Goldblum
00:10:59.100fleshed this out, saying TikTok users are more likely to believe Jewish people are dishonest
00:11:04.000business, are disloyal to America, and have too much power in media. They're also more likely to
00:11:09.420disagree that Israel has a right to defend itself against those who want to destroy it. And I guess
00:11:13.760I just have questions about this framing that puts very clear anti-Semitic tropes like Jewish
00:11:19.360people have too much power alongside specific policy opinions about the state of Israel to
00:11:25.020make the overall claim about TikTok users being anti-Semitic. I just have questions about how he,
00:11:30.580how how those survey questions are being understood in this in this analysis yeah
00:11:36.040that's definitely like the biggest red flag for me um i get also not i'm i'm also not a you know
00:11:45.240professional researcher um i did however good in journalism school and they teach us a lot about
00:11:52.000you know not asking leading questions or not how framing questions in a specific way like kind of
00:11:59.520determines how like I don't know I learned that in like AP stats too like that's a pretty basic
00:12:05.080concept and this is like hey what it what it does whenever you have something that's talking about
00:12:11.240anti-semitism and you are also roping in the most basic questions about Israel and the Israeli
00:12:19.480military and like yeah like this said specific policy uh questions like that's that is so much
00:12:28.380more complicated than just simply asking about anti-semitism um and also then what it ends up
00:12:35.740doing is falsely equivocating any sort of criticism of israel with anti-semitism which is not true
00:12:42.120um it is not like look like i we're in the middle i mean and i think now especially now we're seeing
00:12:49.280this like there's a lot of like people that are jewish that are very critical of israel or zionism
00:12:54.640or like the Israeli state um there are people I know that like I mean I don't know I have family
00:13:00.500members that aren't even like super that are definitely like Zionists that are definitely
00:13:04.920more pro-Israel but like they're very critical of the Israeli state because the state is currently
00:13:10.460like has a super far-right government um in charge but yeah no that's that is a weird like
00:13:17.700I think that that to me just hearing that he put those two things together and and use that as one
00:13:24.080sort of set of data and to make like one assumption about whether or not people are
00:13:29.060antisemitic and hold antisemitic views that to me disqualifies the entire results of the survey
00:13:35.980because if you're if you're not making that distinction you're not going to get accurate
00:13:40.460results yeah and i want to be clear like i am fully fully ready to believe that it's possible
00:13:48.300that tiktok drives harmful attitudes like antisemitism we already know that tiktok like
00:13:54.080This is something that happens on social media platforms. This is not like a surprise. Media Matters did an analysis that found that TikTok recommends users content that is misogynistic and deeply transphobic and uses that kind of uses transphobia and misogyny as a entry point to lead them down far right rabbit holes.
00:14:13.280And so that is a thing, right? But I wanted to bring this up because I do think it says something about our current political and media climate right now. It is very weird to me that someone running for office, running for president, could clearly and specifically state something as a clear fact based on just an analysis that somebody put out there on Twitter.
00:14:36.160And that that claim would be this difficult and complicated to verify. You know, I've seen people like dismissing Haley's claims, which I also like kind of understand because it does like I was when I was like looking into this, I was ready to be like, what did Nikki Haley completely misunderstand? Or like, where did she pull this completely ridiculous stat from? I thought that I thought it was going to be like a made up stat that she just like fabricated. And I'm realizing now that like, that isn't necessarily the case.
00:15:04.320And I actually do think it matters how platforms are shaping and stoking social attitudes. But I wish that we could have that conversation in a way that doesn't misstate findings, or that doesn't spotlight, you know, analysis that's just murky, murky in the sense of like, it's not clear how it was how it was gathered, right? So like, I don't think that this is actually helping us to get there. And I actually would be curious to have that conversation.
00:15:32.620yeah no definitely I think this is a weird one because I also yeah I think my immediate I'd seen
00:15:38.100that like I saw that clip on Twitter and my immediate response was just like oh my god like
00:15:41.820of course Nikki Haley's saying some weird stuff um but yeah no it definitely is indicative of
00:15:48.620something and I think it also like the way the fact that like something like TikTok that's just
00:15:56.180a platform has been politicized so much like that makes it so hard to actually analyze like what
00:16:02.840we're talking about and analyze the way that yeah like what there is a conversation to be had about
00:16:07.320these sites like stoking hate and like not just anti-semitism but like yeah like racism transphobia
00:16:12.160homophobia misogyny there is a there's a conversation to be had there um it is important
00:16:18.580that we like figure out ways to address that problem but like there's so many intersecting
00:16:24.500issues here a it's the fact that tiktok's been politicized and it's so hard to actually do that
00:16:28.900research when it's been politicized in this way and then on the other hand like i think this is
00:16:33.100why it is so important to distinguish between what is actually anti-semitic and what is
00:16:38.900simply criticism of israel um that's not necessarily anti-semitic because it's so
00:16:45.880like i feel like i'm having this this has been a frustrating thing lately when trying to find
00:16:49.940just like statistics and info about anti-semitism in particular is it so much of it is so hard to
00:16:54.900like really get real clear answers just because yeah so many people whether just sort of by
00:17:03.480assumption or like for with a specific agenda have included criticism of israel or have included
00:17:11.340criticism of zionism within their analysis of anti-semitism um and i'm not saying like again
00:17:18.120And not saying that there aren't criticisms out of Israel and Zionism out there that turn into anti-Semitic talking points.0.69
00:17:24.980Obviously, that is a thing, too. And that is bad.
00:17:27.380But like those you should be addressing those as anti-Semitism and because of the anti-Semitism they got,
00:17:31.540not because they're just criticizing a government that is separate from just a group of people that share an identity.
00:17:39.940But yeah, that is it's weird. It is a weird like sort of I feel like this is another one of those things where like the Republican,
00:17:47.220somebody had the Republican Party said something really weird and it's like a meme for a bit and
00:17:51.160then you like we all think about it like a week later and are like oh oh no this is bad like these
00:17:56.980are and again like this is somebody running for president of the United States. Yeah also I'm
00:18:02.540sorry I don't like this is the like the Republican Party this is y'all are the like Jewish space0.95
00:18:08.420lasers party like you can't be out here being like it's TikTok that's making people anti-semitic0.71
00:18:13.920Like, I don't know, that's, the call's coming from inside the house.
00:20:30.700so we got to talk about this amazon lawsuit quick heads up that this conversation does involve
00:20:38.680the sexual exploitation of a minor so two years ago a brazilian teenager was participating in a
00:20:44.880foreign exchange student program so she was living with a host family in west virginia
00:20:49.220And while she was there, she discovered that her host family or someone in the host family had put a spy camera purchased from Amazon in her bathroom to obtain intimate footage of her in the bathroom.
00:21:01.580So now she is suing Amazon for selling a product that was advertised for potentially illicit uses and was allegedly flagged to Amazon's product safety team, which her suit says inspected the sale of that camera on their platform three times and still failed to prevent the severe foreseeable harms that still affect her today.
00:21:21.880I'm sure I'm sure those harms do affect her today.
00:21:23.900that is horrible. So Amazon filed a motion to dismiss the case back in March, but this week,
00:21:29.820the judge hearing the case did not buy most of Amazon's arguments. So the case will proceed to
00:21:35.440discovery and maybe even a trial. The judge let four claims stand, negligence, product viability,
00:21:41.700torts of outrage, which is the intentional infliction of emotional distress, and civil
00:21:46.220conspiracy. But the judge did dismiss a racketeering claim against Amazon. So this case is
00:21:52.400super disturbing to me. And it also highlights that Amazon's marketplace does knowingly sell
00:21:57.820things that are pretty obviously not just used for illegal, harmful behavior, but basically
00:22:03.440like advertised that they can be used for that illegal, harmful behavior. The camera that her
00:22:08.960host family have bought on Amazon is called Hidden Clothes Hook Camera. It's a camera that is meant
00:22:14.980to look like a hook that you would hang a towel on in a bathroom. And in fact, images that appear
00:22:21.020in the marketing on Amazon's website advertising the camera show a bunch of bath towels and they
00:22:26.240have a copy that says, quote, it won't attract any attention, underline, and a very ordinary hook.
00:22:33.660Yuck. So it's pretty clear what they are advertising, right? Side note on this,
00:22:40.120I have seen products for sale on Amazon that could be used for other kinds of illicit purposes,
00:22:45.560but they actually are not super explicit about this like when you buy a scale on amazon that
00:22:52.100could be used to weigh drugs for instance on amazon they'll show like a tiny piece of green
00:22:58.440lettuce being late being weighed on that scale not like a piece of marijuana because they don't
00:23:03.960they don't want to advertise it can be used for weighing marijuana so they it's like a roundabout
00:23:08.660way of them not advertising that this can be used for illicit behavior i'm not gonna lie i totally
00:23:14.740forgot that it's still technically illegal to buy weed in most states so did i what i was like oh
00:23:21.620yeah yeah right uh every time i leave like one of the handful of cities that i spend a lot of time
00:23:29.100in like dc new york city brooklyn virginia i'm like oh yeah i don't find myself in those places
00:23:36.720often but when i am i'm like oh yeah y'all don't do that down here yeah no it's so it is like
00:23:42.340I don't know, a whole other tangent. Yeah, I had a friend visiting recently from a state where it
00:23:48.160is not legal. And they were just like, what? There's just a store across the street we can
00:23:54.280go to? Yeah, I know. Anyways. So I do think that marketing is a pretty good argument for the fact
00:24:00.320that Amazon was well aware what this product was being used for and what use case it was being
00:24:07.760advertised to be used for, which is exactly what the lawsuit argues too. The lawsuit says that
00:24:13.540Amazon's product safety team was aware that the close hook camera was intended for unlawful
00:24:17.520purposes, citing exactly what I just read, the marketing that says that the hidden camera will
00:24:21.620not attract attention from the victim, who would presumably hang a towel to be used in drying her
00:24:26.800undressed body. The complaint reads, the intended use of this spy camera as explicitly portrayed on
00:24:32.100Amazon's online retail store, e.g. as a towel hook in the bathroom to secretly record undressed
00:24:37.640individuals without their consent is a federal felony and also a crime under West Virginia law.
00:24:43.540So the judge didn't outright dismiss the case against Amazon because the judge said,
00:24:47.720quote, Amazon approved product description suggesting consumer use of the spy cam
00:24:51.900to record private moments in the bathroom. Amazon cannot claim shock when a consumer does
00:24:57.000just that. So there are plenty of like non-creepy reasons that somebody might put a camera in their
00:25:03.360home. I have a lot of issues with it, but my mom has cameras all over her house because my dad is
00:25:09.040disabled and like might be in another room and need help. But those cameras are not disguised
00:25:13.900as bathroom hooks. Professor Eric Goldman, who runs the tech and marketing law blog,
00:25:19.740said that this ruling could potentially change the way that spy cams are sold through online
00:25:23.720retailers like Amazon. He writes, the court's analysis could indicate that all surreptitious
00:25:28.720hook cameras are categorically illegal to sell, even when buyers plan to use them completely
00:25:33.860legally. That makes this a dangerous ruling for the spy cam industry and for Amazon. At the same
00:25:39.120time, I'm curious to hear more about what Amazon's product safety team thought when it evaluated this
00:25:44.320item. Because according to the suit, they evaluated it three times and still allowed it
00:25:48.160on their platform. And I do think it kind of goes back to what we were talking about when we talked
00:25:53.340about TikTok shop. Like, I don't think that platforms should just be off the hook. Like,
00:25:58.720I don't think that they should be able to knowingly profit from the sale of items that
00:26:04.280make clear that what their intended use is for is something that is illegal and super
00:26:26.720like honestly like I feel like that is something that you only use to like get footage of people
00:26:31.100without their permission and like this is usually the outcome of that like I don't know I feel like
00:26:37.600specifically just designing it as like a hook like I can't I don't see any argument for why
00:26:41.820that's something that somebody would need the whole idea of like hidden camera which comes up
00:26:46.680on the show like surveillance and like hidden cameras like we're all way too comfortable with
00:26:52.020this idea of hidden cameras i like i seriously like it seems really strange to me and it seems
00:26:57.140like this is just we're gonna see more and more of this happening and more like of these kind of
00:27:02.720stories joey don't even get me started you know it's holiday season i'm sure people are gonna be
00:27:08.100buying all kinds of cameras and devices with cameras and recording devices to be given to
00:27:15.360their loved ones to like put in their home so that amazon can misuse as as they have done they
00:27:23.040settled a lawsuit about their staff using cameras to like peep at consumers or so that police can
00:27:30.380get your information like don't do it take it from me like like love your loved your loved ones more
00:27:36.880than giving them the gift of surveillance give them the gift of privacy instead
00:27:40.560So we talk a lot about the IRL consequences of misinformation online on the show, and that means that we really have to take a look at what's happening in Ireland.
00:27:50.900So last week in Dublin, social media-fueled disinformation turned into a situation with very real-world consequences.
00:27:58.520Three young children and a woman were injured in a knife attack near a school in Dublin last week.
00:28:05.280I think it was like a situation where like people walking by, people nearby just all helped to apprehend the suspect and help the victims.
00:28:13.560The motive was, according to police, entirely unclear.
00:28:17.680However, according to The New York Times, the police said that the attack was followed by destructive riots that they blamed on the far right weaponizing misinformation about the ninth attack.
00:28:27.580So the evening after the attack, chaotic scenes broke out in the city after a group of rioters attacked police vehicles and set fires.
00:28:35.280Videos from that scene showed stores being broken into, police cars and buses being set on fire, people clashing with police officers, all of that.
00:28:43.900In the wake of that attack, far-right figures were using social media to spread rumors about the nationality of the attacker.0.99
00:28:52.120And one protester said that, quote, Irish people are being attacked by these scum.0.96
00:28:56.180Drew Harris of the Dublin police suggested that they were being driven by misinformation online about the knife attack being spread for what he called malevolent purposes.0.89
00:29:06.200Ireland's president, Michael D. Higgins, said that the idea that the attack would be used or abused by groups with an agenda attacks the principle of social inclusion and is reprehensible, referring to these far-right protesters, and that it deserves condemnation by all who believe in the rule of law and democracy.
00:30:21.540And the politicians who were running this thing were not having it.
00:30:25.000Yeah, he doesn't have to answer the American government.
00:30:28.560Why would he have to answer the Irish government?
00:30:31.200Fine Gail TD, Kieran Cannon, encouraged Twitter employees to drop an email to the owner of
00:30:37.300Twitter, Elon Musk, suggesting that he desist from commenting on affairs within Ireland,
00:30:42.740which he patently knows nothing about.
00:30:44.860He also added that Elon Musk personally served to stoke up hatred and conflict in recent times
00:30:50.860here in Ireland, and that he should be deeply ashamed of those actions. Let him know, Cannon.
00:30:56.480Yeah, I would not. I would not fuck with the Irish like with this sort of thing to like Elon1.00
00:31:05.780Musk. I feel like that would also be very poetic justice if this was what led to the Elon Musk1.00
00:31:11.860downfall and I think that would be really funny but um probably won't unfortunately yeah you don't0.99
00:31:16.780want this you don't you don't want that you don't want smoke with the Irish right now Elon Musk0.98
00:31:22.960this is not a fight you want to pick they've gone through so much so the platforms who did0.99
00:31:28.420actually show up kind of gave the usual song and dance I gotta say like I I was sort of heartened
00:31:35.460to hear what TikTok said that they had done in light of this incident so Susan Moss the head of
00:31:41.220Public Policy for TikTok Ireland said that TikTok had activated its crisis management protocols to
00:31:46.340remove violating content and to prevent the spread of misinformation. She said, we activated our
00:31:51.640emergency fact-checking procedure in collaboration with those fact-checkers. We have a fact-checking
00:31:55.640organization here in Ireland. And what they did is that they were flagging content, not just on
00:31:59.460TikTok, but horizon scanning across the internet and flagging to us these individual claims that
00:32:04.180they were seeing. That helped us to stop the content spreading on TikTok. She said that there
00:32:08.140were 25 individual claims or type of stories that she saw moving across the platform. And she did
00:32:14.980say that she felt that TikTok's response had been very fast moving and that she was very confident
00:32:19.920in it. But then contrast that with Facebook. So Facebook said that they removed a thousand pieces
00:32:25.940of misinformation from the platform in the first half of this year, which I'm sorry, that is not a
00:32:31.320lot. Like a thousand pieces of misinformation is just not a lot. And also it just doesn't work
00:32:36.980like that. Like, trust me, this was my flagging individual pieces of misinformation for removal
00:32:42.800was my job at one point in my life. And I can tell you that job was the equivalent of playing
00:32:47.580whack-a-mole. Like, even if it's removed, which is better than nothing, it just pops back, it pops
00:32:53.180right back up. And so Facebook saying like, oh, this piecemeal strategy that we already know is
00:32:59.020not really that effective. That was our main line of defense. That is shocking to me and like almost
00:33:04.720laughable. They also said that they use debunking labels on false content, which we also know isn't
00:33:11.020always that effective. Again, it's better than nothing, but they're using these tactics that
00:33:15.600we have known for a while are not necessarily the most effective. Lawmakers also asked specifically
00:33:21.060about the issue of a voice note that was being shared on the Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp
00:33:26.260calling for immigrants to be killed and asked if there was a failure to curb it from spreading
00:33:30.780like wildfire. I will say that WhatsApp being a closed platform where the messages are encrypted0.96
00:33:36.660means that tackling harmful or inaccurate information there is a specific, unique
00:33:43.500challenge. That is true. But I was really surprised by just how not robust what Facebook
00:33:51.100was offering was in comparison to what TikTok was saying that they were doing. They're very
00:33:56.280different platforms but i just can't believe that like this is what facebook brought to these
00:34:01.780lawmakers in ireland after such a such chaos that that these folks say was was sparked by social
00:34:09.280media platforms well you know tiktok's too busy making everybody 17 more anti-semitic for every
00:34:16.38030 minutes you spend on tiktok not to go back to that but now i'm wondering is it you get
00:34:22.080progressively more anti-semitic like the more like the more 30 minute chunks go by but yeah
00:34:26.840see their tiktok's too busy they can't they can't be spreading misinformation in ireland
00:34:32.400so if you use an hour if you use a tiktok for an hour a day are you like 34 percent more anti-semit
00:34:40.000like how does it work is there like i'm i want a graph i want a chart i want the full again i took
00:34:47.980AP stats I know how this is supposed to work yeah I know but there definitely is something I mean
00:34:55.880like and not not to give TikTok too much credit because again they're a big social media company
00:35:02.120that you know deserves much of the criticism it gets but like it really is says something I feel
00:35:10.620like that TikTok is under fire so much like in the news cycle and it's like and yet they seem to
00:35:17.840be the only platform that's like responding to these kind of things um you know I guess everybody
00:35:23.600makes fun of the fact you can't say like there are certain words you can't say on TikTok like
00:35:26.860people started saying like unalived instead of killed and stuff like that but like it's I don't
00:35:30.980know it's something to be said about the fact that I'm like TikTok at least has that in place
00:35:34.640but like no other social media company apparently has any interest in doing anything to moderate
00:35:40.180its content I guess. I agree and I think it really demonstrates how it really isn't about
00:35:45.800one specific platform. And so conversations like the one that happened on the GOP debate stage this
00:35:52.200week that make it about one singular platform are just deeply missing the point, right? It is about
00:35:59.240having a safer, robust digital landscape. And that is a conversation that involves lots of
00:36:07.660platforms and a lot more, but just making it about one, making one singular platform the boogeyman
00:36:13.720It's just like not how we get to a safer media landscape where the kind of thing that happened in Dublin does not happen anywhere else, which should be the goal.
00:38:27.220so as you probably know time magazine released their person of the year and it's taylor swift
00:38:34.600i've seen a lot of conversation about whether she deserved it or not i will say people forget that
00:38:39.860it's it's i think it's not supposed to be like the best person of the year it's like the most
00:38:44.500impactful or important or like meaningful person of the year yeah a lot of folks have said like
00:38:49.480oh it should be like Palestinian journalists or activists someone else I really respect said that
00:38:54.240it should be the concept of like disruptors or like resistors so people who are you know
00:39:00.200challenging power structures and technology challenging state power structures which I
00:39:05.320thought was cool remember that year when it was just like you so it was you Joey it was me Bridget
00:39:11.260it was every listener listening it was all of us was that that was like in the middle of like
00:39:15.480lockdown right like wasn't it when was that oh mike just chimed in did you hear that
00:39:23.320it was 2006 okay that i don't remember it because i was five years old but um
00:39:32.540or six years old sorry i was six years old i was six years old at six years old you were
00:39:37.560time magazine's person of the year well successful yeah me and taylor swift um yeah no there's always
00:39:44.300weird discourse about it like i people love to bring up one of the people always bring up is
00:39:52.280that like in the 1930s they made like hitler person of the year one time and they were like
00:39:56.820see guy like people always use that as like the see they're they're bad and they they keep picking
00:40:01.440and it's like no like that was the person in current events at that time that was causing
00:40:06.340the most right weird shit going on um so like yeah i guess in that sense like it makes you know
00:40:12.880taylor swift has a lot of power it has a lot of cultural power has done a lot um but yeah i don't0.73
00:40:20.580know i definitely agree i i think like i'm not surprised that the time is that magazine didn't
00:40:28.160do this but like it would have like there definitely are like palestinian journalists
00:40:31.760that i think have really like changed just so much of like how we've been talking about palestine
00:40:38.400I don't know like it definitely I think it would have been a much more deserved to maybe give it
00:40:45.000to one of them no disrespect to Taylor Swift um but yeah it definitely it feels like there've been
00:40:52.220a lot of big things that have happened this year maybe maybe some other people should have been
00:40:56.740considered but yeah yeah that's kind of what people are saying so because she was named Time
00:41:03.000Magazine's Person of the Year she did this wide-ranging interview in the magazine and
00:41:06.960posed on the cover with her cat. So I have not actually read this interview, but I do know that
00:41:11.080Taylor has had, you know, a pretty big year with her heirs tour, which I did not know this, the
00:41:15.680highest grossing tour ever by a woman and the second highest grossing overall tour. You know,
00:41:21.920she's got this high profile romantic relationship with an NFL player. People obviously had a lot
00:41:27.220of opinions about whether or not Taylor deserved or should have been the person of the year. And
00:41:32.300if folks listening have opinions, I want to hear them. Please let me know. However, it also seems
00:41:37.940like there is a new conspiracy theory emerging from right-wing pockets of the internet. Some of
00:41:44.640the biggest names on the far right are suggesting that Taylor Swift is being promoted right now as
00:41:49.020some kind of, like, psy-op campaign to get people to vote for Democrats, question mark. Conspiracy
00:41:55.840theorist Laura Loomer, who I was going to say, like, who she is, and I was like, oh, she's not,
00:42:00.300like a very important person. But I actually did not know this, that just last year, Laura Loomer
00:42:05.840narrowly lost a bid to represent Florida's 11th congressional district. Well, she tweeted,
00:42:12.140Taylor Swift has been named Times 2023 Person of the Year. This isn't shocking since she's who the
00:42:17.600Democrats are counting on to interfere in the 2024 election. What would Democrats do without0.98
00:42:22.240their idol who runs through men like water and spews anti-Trump drivel every chance she gets?1.00
00:42:27.660her entire world tour has become a Democrat Party voter registration drive. You might be asking,0.72
00:42:34.240why would Taylor Swift architect a global tour across Latin America, Australia, Asia, and Europe
00:42:40.240specifically to register voters in the United States presidential election? Unclear how that
00:42:46.120would work, but that is what Laura Loomer says is going on. I think it is really funny that everybody
00:42:52.240like listen i'm a taylor swift fan i will say like i love her music i did go to the airs tour
00:42:58.860um i've been following her for a while like people really from all sides like try to attach
00:43:06.800some sort of like political bookie man thing to her i think which is weird because she's like
00:43:15.860when i say apolitical not in the like oh i don't want to like like oh she just like
00:43:22.240doesn't want to talk about like she just doesn't I don't think I've ever seen her say anything
00:43:26.780that's like remotely like political like the I don't know the most she's spoken up a little bit
00:43:33.800about like feminism and stuff like that but it's never like super in depth like I've never seen
00:43:37.780her like comment on like a specific sort of issue that's happening which I think is interesting I
00:43:42.560think it like mostly is just the fact that she has such a big platform and she has such a big0.98
00:43:46.960platform that's like mostly young women um but then yeah the other side is crazy because if she0.99
00:43:54.020wanted she has so much power like she could i like literally i remember seeing something about0.98
00:43:59.720it was after the whole like ticket master thing uh like somebody was like somebody like needs to
00:44:05.240get her to just like say something offhandedly about like student loans or something so that
00:44:09.720people like start paying like their needs to like like whatever their gains the sort of political0.88
00:44:14.960momentum from the swifties that we need to but yeah no exactly that is kind of crazy that she1.00
00:44:21.320would have this whole global tour when like all yeah again all she would need to do is make an1.00
00:44:25.300instagram post being like i think you should vote for this person and people i mean i think she could
00:44:30.620do it i think if she wanted to but like she's not going to what she's never has yeah and like she
00:44:37.720she did post on instagram for national voter registration day and like that single instagram
00:44:43.300post did drive like i think it was 35 000 new people to register to vote but registering voters
00:44:50.060is not the same thing as like taking a stand like on an issue taking a stand or like it's not like
00:44:57.940she said register and vote for biden or like vote for a specific person so it's like just just
00:45:03.520driving registrations is non-partisan or it certainly should be non-partisan right and so
00:45:09.080So, like, this idea that, like, she's a shill for the Democratic Party is so curious to me.
00:45:14.860It makes me think, like, if you feel that Taylor Swift driving people to register to vote in general is automatically her being in the can for the Democratic Party,
00:45:24.280it really tells me a lot about what you think that, you know, people who are not Democrats have to offer young women voters, which is maybe not a lot.
00:45:33.040So former Trump White House advisor Stephen Miller tweeted, what's happening with Taylor Swift is not organic, which is like the weirdest sentence I've ever seen someone tweet.
00:45:43.780Yeah. First of all, weird thing to say to begin with. Weird way to phrase that.
00:45:48.500Also, it's like Taylor Swift has been a huge pop star for a while. And like, yeah, that is so, that is so weird. That is the, yeah, it's the kids these days. It's their fault.
00:46:02.720rock and roll and taylor swift that's exactly it um jack prosbiak tweeted the taylor swift
00:46:10.180girl boss psyop has been fully activated from her hand-selected vaccine shill boyfriend to her
00:46:16.360dink lifestyle if you don't know what dink is it's dual income no kids uh to her upcoming 20240.65
00:46:23.220voter operation for democrats on abortion rights it's all coming i do find it interesting that0.91
00:46:28.900they're calling her out for being like having a dink lifestyle as if just like not having children0.99
00:46:36.460is some sort of like morally deviant way to live yeah that's so weird like she's not she's she's0.71
00:46:44.340like what like 33 34 like she's not i don't know i guess that's like 33 yeah which i guess yeah i
00:46:53.260guess like that's a normal age to whatever and i'll like get married and have kids but like i
00:46:58.180don't know i know plenty of people that are like in that age range who aren't and that's such a
00:47:02.080weird like no dink i've never heard that phrase before but that is that's weird her vaccine chill
00:47:08.880boyfriend too honestly i think travis kelsey you know this is my controversial opinion travis
00:47:14.680kelsey should have been time person of the year his tweets so funny like his tweets have been like
00:47:21.180the light in my news feed lately so Joey coming in with a hot take
00:47:28.360boyfriend that's so insane though they really like it is again this is why I like I think it
00:47:35.600is so weird that they found her to be a target of all of this because again she is like the most
00:47:40.580mild like on like doesn't really has not said anything particularly controversial
00:47:47.940that is so weird yeah and i i we i talked about this in an episode years ago but
00:47:55.160only recently has she been somebody who publicly identifies as a feminist like she was on record
00:48:00.700in her the early days of her fame being like i'm not a feminist i don't believe in men versus women
00:48:06.000yada yada yada and it wasn't until kind of later in the game that she was like oh no i'm a totally
00:48:10.400a feminist and so it's curious to me that these people are are criticizing for her for it and i
00:48:18.260also think like the whole thing is really like gendered and racialized like i think i don't think0.81
00:48:23.200any of these people would ever say that part out loud but like they're giving her crap for not
00:48:30.180having children being somebody who is in a relationship with another person who earns0.99
00:48:35.400income outside of the home and not having kids, a dink. And, you know, certainly they would not0.97
00:48:40.880be clamoring for me, a Black woman, to have kids, or I'd be a welfare queen. And they wouldn't be
00:48:45.720clamoring for people who aren't cis women to have kids because they might be like threats to0.96
00:48:49.540children, right? And so like, it's very interesting who gets kind of smeared as doing something wrong
00:48:57.140just by virtue of them not having a child. And I guess I feel like you can't really talk about
00:49:02.560the kind of hate that she is receiving from these people without talking about like race and gender
00:49:07.560and sexuality i did see this one kind of like men's rights influence her tweet quote it's shameful and
00:49:14.080sad that a hyper promiscuous childless woman aging and alone with a cat has become the heroine of a
00:49:20.140feminist age and part of me is like side note this person runs an organization for what they're
00:49:25.280calling hard men like masculine manly men i mean because what is what is harder for a man to do0.97
00:49:33.220than obsess over the dating life of a pop star on twitter right like it's like they can't even keep0.72
00:49:37.920their own ridiculous gender binary nonsense straight like if you were like i don't i don't
00:49:45.340think like that is a paragon of traditional masculinity caring who tailors with this0.97
00:49:49.780dating yet here you are making a big stink about it on twitter you know right also first of all
00:49:54.640hard hard men if you're gonna call yourself hard men the peak of heterosexuality okay um0.97
00:50:04.280also okay hyper promiscuous like i'm sorry i remember like when she brought up sex for like0.93
00:50:12.700the first time on one of her albums and it was like i think it was reputation like it was like
00:50:17.000way down the line like she was like again very much the face of like respectable nice
00:50:24.460white girl with her guitar you know for the longest time and it's it's weird because again1.00
00:50:29.780she really with the feminism thing she's done like the bare minimum to you know stand up for1.00
00:50:36.440human rights or whatever and that apparently is too much but um yeah no I it's just that's just
00:50:44.060it's just such a weird quote I it's such a weird quote but like not surprised I also like remember
00:50:49.900wasn't there because I was getting back to about like I feel like people turn her and her image
00:50:54.080to like a lot like the symbol of a lot of political stuff without it really really doing
00:50:57.720anything and i don't think this one i don't think was necessarily wrong but i remember like a couple
00:51:01.360of years ago there was a lot of stuff that was coming out about people talking about her music
00:51:05.000and her sort of persona that she's created and how that relates to like white supremacy
00:51:08.540and how like she kind of inadvertently has become this symbol of white supremacy and um like there
00:51:16.600i again it's been a minute since i but i like it's really interesting to see that that switch
00:51:22.120within a couple of years because she's dating somebody who's vaccinated i guess i don't know
00:51:26.340yeah i remember this very clearly there was a time where in white supremacist corners of the
00:51:34.200internet she was sort of the poster girl for like nazism essentially and at the time this was like
00:51:42.720going back like several years now at the time she i remember doing an episode of stuff mom never told
00:51:50.760to talk about like blast in the past back when I was the host of the co-host of that show with my
00:51:55.060friend Emily and at the time I did not you could probably go back to the old cementy archives and0.93
00:52:01.180find it I did not feel that she had done enough to like denounce that and be like no sorry Nazis
00:52:07.680I'm not your poster girl but I do think it speaks to what you're talking about that she is someone
00:52:12.500that I think people project a lot of stuff onto and around and I think that all of this like all
00:52:18.500of these weird tweets about her being on the cover of Time, I really think is an anxiety about
00:52:23.860the rise of single women voters, because like a lot of her listenership and fan base is younger
00:52:30.760women. And I think that it's about anxiety around how government has failed single women voters and
00:52:38.680what that means for the 2024 election. So we know that a lot of white women voted for Trump, but
00:52:45.480it's a little more complicated than that because it's really married white women specifically.
00:52:50.100Married white women are more likely to vote conservative than their single white counterparts.0.75
00:52:55.020So I think after the last few years with like big Supreme Court decisions on things like abortion,0.93
00:52:59.320I think that folks are rightfully starting to worry about single women as a voting bloc and0.99
00:53:05.420what this means. But here's my thing. It really kind of goes back to the episode that we did with0.95
00:53:09.860Julia Mazur, who was like shamed by Tucker Carlson for just existing on the internet as a woman who
00:53:16.400is not married. I think that all that these people have to offer younger single women is shame and0.56
00:53:24.080making fun of us and like the most tired jokes about cats and being alone and this and that.
00:53:30.200And like trying to scare us into marriage or invalidating our choices. Like not everybody
00:53:35.580wants to be married or partnered. And there are so many ways to have a full life that doesn't
00:53:39.560include being married. And I just think that they don't have anything to really offer younger
00:53:45.300single women. So the best they can do is try to scare them into heterosexual marriages and then1.00
00:53:50.800hope that that proximity to men will make them vote more conservatively. I don't think they
00:53:57.040have anything real to offer. It's just like, all they can do is shame you and hopefully effectively
00:54:01.860scare you into marriage, which hopefully will make you vote more conservatively. And I think
00:54:06.340taylor swift the particularly how popular she's been this year i think reiterates that anxiety
00:54:14.720that like oh no we really don't have anything to offer a pretty big section of the voting public0.95
00:54:21.660this might come back to bite us in the ass yeah which is so funny because it's like0.93
00:54:26.980you just sat like clearly you don't understand how swifties work because you didn't even again0.98
00:54:35.600she gave you she were in the clear she wasn't telling anybody to go vote for biden or do
00:54:40.740anything like she was doing the bare minimum telling people to go vote maybe not even doing
00:54:45.420that again this year i think she like literally did it one time um but like she would have been
00:54:50.220fine but it's like no now you've attacked taylor swift the swifties like they don't care who you
00:54:54.380are they're gonna learn who you are now and like they're gonna start targeting you and um the1.00
00:55:00.760Swifties are fucking terrifying so I would not like I I do think it would be really funny if0.57
00:55:07.180like this was what led to like the downfall of like some one of at least one of these people1.00
00:55:12.980if the Swifties could do that I think that would be really beautiful and really uh poetic justice
00:55:19.100but yeah no that's that's so weird why you gotta go after the cats like she has I know I have I
00:55:27.300love cats they're great great like who doesn't enjoy a cat exactly joey thank you so much for
00:55:35.940wading through all of this ridiculous tech news you know at the top of the episode we got to know
00:55:41.260you a little bit better what else are you working on what have you got going on these days i'm so
00:55:46.020glad you asked i um recently have a show that is in the middle of coming out we just had episode
00:55:55.600four uh released it's called afterlives the layleen flanco story uh i worked with uh raquel
00:56:01.980willis who i think will be on the show soon yes little teaser there um but uh it was based on her
00:56:10.700incredible reporting on transphobic violence and um the epidemic of violence against trans women
00:56:17.460of color in particular um in this season we are talking about layleen flanco who was a woman who
00:56:22.920died at rikers uh rikers island prison a couple years back uh but yeah you should definitely
00:56:28.600check out that show uh i think it's a super important conversation to be having i'm biased
00:56:35.240i worked on it but also yes you should definitely check that out um episode four just came out
00:56:40.880episode five is coming out next week and it's called afterlives the laylee and flanco story
00:56:44.680and of course as always if you want to follow me on social media you can find me at pat not pratt
00:56:50.060that's p-a-t-t-n-o-t-p-r-a-t-t um twitter instagram so yeah you should definitely check
00:56:57.880out the show find me on social media and we'll throw a link to afterlives in the show notes
00:57:03.080uh folks should definitely listen it's it is such an important conversation and thank you for
00:57:08.480bringing bringing it to us because it's it's really special um and i actually have a little
00:57:14.060bit of news, which is that the other podcast that I host, IRL, Online Life is Real Life,
00:57:20.080which is an original podcast from Mozilla. Yep. The Mozilla that makes the browser that we all
00:57:25.740love, Firefox. Well, we have been nominated for an Anthem Award for Responsible Technology,
00:57:31.200and it would mean so much if folks could vote for us. If you could help celebrate this nomination