00:02:19.540The future of tech, the future of discourse,
00:02:21.960the future of platforms, and the future of us.
00:02:24.680But we're starting in kind of a familiar place.
00:02:27.440We've already spent a lot of time talking about disinformation,
00:02:30.960and I usually ask experts one question.
00:02:33.660So when you think about the direction of our media ecosystem and disinformation, are you hopeful?
00:02:39.160Like when you look on the horizon, are you hopeful about what's next?
00:02:42.620When it comes to the future of combating disinformation, more and more we're seeing some targets of particularly heinous disinformation campaigns using the judicial system to fight back.
00:02:52.540E. Jean Carroll successfully sued former President Trump for defamation after he claimed that her allegation that he sexually abused her was a lie.
00:03:01.400It wasn't, and a jury ruled against him.
00:03:03.660And Carol has said that she may even sue Trump again because Trump doubled down on that defamatory lie in a disastrous CNN town hall the very next day after that ruling.
00:03:15.440And after Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News for falsely claiming that it's voting machines through the 2020 election, Fox settled for $787 million, pretty much acknowledging that the network promoting lies about the election in 2020 was defamatory.
00:03:31.080And now, a new defamation lawsuit against Fox News may provide a signal about the future of telling lies for profit.
00:03:38.980Last year, one of the nation's leading disinformation experts, Nina Jankiewicz,
00:03:43.840was appointed by Biden to head up the Disinformation Governance Board within the Department of Homeland Security
00:03:48.860to learn about and counter disinformation.
00:03:51.820And immediately afterward, Nina and her family were targeted with lies, threats, and harassment.
00:13:33.780And it also just kind of goes to show that, like, there's a lot of work left to do in our institutions, not just government, but, you know, in journalistic institutions, etc.
00:13:43.540for sticking up for people who are on the public-facing side of things, especially women
00:13:50.240and people of color who receive such outsized harassment online and in real life as well.
00:13:57.520Yeah. To prepare for this interview, I watched some of the clips, interviews that you gave on
00:14:02.660shows. I'm not going to say any names. There was one I was like, this guy is basically being like,
00:14:08.440i heard this lie about you thoughts and it was like yeah it's not true you know like i i definitely
00:14:15.740think that it kind of pumps me out that media the people that we ostensibly should be able to count
00:14:22.220on to help people discern the truth really don't feel any obligation to do that they and in some
00:14:27.740cases they inflame the tensions and lies and give them more oxygen and allow them to spread when
00:14:33.260they should be in the business of truth spreading and debunking. You know, I've, I've, I've seen
00:14:38.420people say things like, oh, this board was going to have the ability to like control what regular
00:14:44.840people say. And I've also seen you in interviews be very clear that if that were the case, you
00:14:49.000wouldn't be on that board because you deeply oppose that. Like we're not trafficking in truth
00:14:54.820and honest statements. We're trafficking in lies and smears and it's, we're not going to get
00:14:58.780anywhere if that's how we continue to do discourse. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was so one of the worst
00:15:03.580days was when I woke up and I mean, it was just like three weeks of hell. But I woke up one
00:15:11.180morning when I was still at the department and Bill Maher had on his show the night before
00:15:17.220just spread an absolute complete piece of BS about me. The czar Nina Jankiewicz says
00:15:23.800she'd like some committee there within this governing board with the power to, quote,
00:15:30.060edit Twitter and add context. Oh, you mean like what Twitter is? That's what Twitter is.
00:15:39.020Somebody says something and then you add context. These are not bright people in our government.
00:15:46.980Okay. An anonymous account online that had been for weeks going through like all the videos of
00:15:52.580me ever posted to the internet. They had taken a clip from a conversation that I had with a bunch
00:15:58.100of librarians in the state of Georgia. And it was back from January 2021. They had taken it
00:16:05.680completely out of context and made it seem like I had kind of floated this idea of editing people's
00:16:13.680tweets. But what I had actually done, and if you watch the entire kind of conversation,
00:16:19.520it is clear, someone asks me, hey, Nina, I just heard about this thing on Twitter called Birdwatch.
00:16:26.840Can you tell us about it? And for your listeners that might not know, Birdwatch is a program
00:16:30.860that allows people to add context to things that are trending on Twitter. So let's use Ukraine as
00:16:38.440an example. In the Ukraine war, if people are claiming something that's trending, like Russia
00:16:45.480was responsible for this attack, or Ukraine was responsible for this attack. People who are,
00:16:51.300you know, trusted individuals can get access to this birdwatch platform, which is now since then
00:16:56.000open to everybody, and just add some context and say, okay, here's a link to a news article.
00:17:01.740Here are the facts in this scenario. It's kind of like a built in fact checking platform.
00:17:06.040I was not super familiar with it at the time. But I was like, I don't like this,
00:17:09.980because I don't want users to be kind of the ones that are doing Twitter's work for it. And I had
00:17:15.080this long involved nuanced answer that I went on for five minutes he chopped one minute of it up
00:17:20.660and I assume it's a man because like let's be honest yeah so I I don't know because he is
00:17:26.140anonymous but I think it's a man he chopped one one part of it up and just put in his tweet
00:17:30.700Nina wants to edit your tweets and this went absolutely viral reputable reporters were being
00:17:36.280like what if this is true blah blah blah and then Bill Maher without any ounce of fact checking
00:17:41.780whatever, goes to his huge audience on his late night show and says, Nina Jankiewicz and the
00:17:48.480disinformation governance board want to be able to edit your tweets. And it's just like, first of
00:17:54.360all, it's a stupid idea. Like, no, I would never ask for that. And second of all, like, it's not1.00
00:18:00.780no one tried to do any bit of fact checking at all. If you follow the video back to where it came
00:18:05.740from, you can find out that actually, that's not what I said at all. And it was not just Bill Maher,
00:18:10.120but other journalists who frankly were just recycling this disinformation and not doing
00:18:16.140their due diligence at all. And it is disinformation, right? Disinformation just isn't about
00:18:21.620cut and dry fakes or falsehoods. It's about misleading information. And there was a lot
00:18:27.060of misleading information presented about me. In fact, I just got some more abuse and threats this
00:18:31.100week because somebody on Fox mentioned me and I was like, huh, what's this uptick about? And I
00:18:35.780found that Greg Gutfeld had talked about me in a segment recently. And so one person wrote to me
00:18:41.400on Facebook and said that I should be thrown in jail for spreading lies about President Trump.
00:18:46.440And it's like, it's interesting how they want to censor me, right? But they're not okay with
00:18:52.280other people censoring them. And that's never what I wanted to do in the first place. It's
00:18:55.820just so circuitous and crazy. Anyway, I'll stop talking now.
00:18:59.260Yeah, I mean, does it do you find that it comes in waves like that, where it the harassment sort
00:19:03.740of stops, and then somebody will mention you, and then you're like, oh, an uptick, and then
00:19:07.120downtick. Is that kind of how it trends? Oh, 100%. And it's always interesting to find out
00:19:11.680what the kernel is. So like, for the first probably seven weeks or so, it was just pretty
00:19:17.540constant. Especially the first three weeks, it was just constant messages, constant DMs, constant
00:19:23.440tweets, people trying to friend me on Facebook and Instagram and whatever, I had to lock my
00:19:27.720Instagram and Twitter accounts, because there was personal stuff on there that like, I was
00:19:32.300comfortable with like the level of public figure-ness that I had before people seeing that,
00:19:37.480but now with people doxing me and calling my mother and sending me letters to my home,
00:19:42.300like not as comfortable. So, um, so there was that, but then, you know, the craziest thing
00:19:48.320was, um, the culpability that I think some members of Congress have. And I actually wrote a letter
00:19:53.540to Josh Hawley and Chuck Grassley, um, because they continued this kind of,
00:20:00.520or like continued perpetrating this harassment of me.
00:20:03.860And I felt like calling them out for it because as members of Congress,
00:20:07.600particularly as senators, they're supposed to be like the more serious, deliberative body, right?
00:20:15.300And your priority is setting up a board and hiring someone who has gone to TikTok
00:20:21.120to talk about stopping speech she doesn't like,
00:20:24.780who has mocked voters, supporters of the last president.
00:20:28.600That has been your priority. To say that your priorities are misplaced, I think, is a dramatic understatement.
00:20:33.920And the time has come, I think, Mr. Secretary, for you to resign.
00:20:37.320And Josh Hawley on July 18th, so two full months after I had resigned to the day from DHS, he brought me up in a hearing on drones for some reason.
00:20:48.520There was an acting assistant secretary from DHS who I used to work with who was there.
00:20:53.680And he spent half of his time, half of his allotted time, questioning her about my hiring two months after I had resigned rather than talking about, you know, unmanned aerial vehicles. Right.
00:21:05.900And so I was just incensed by this because it matched with an uptick in harassment I got.
00:21:11.180So I sent them a letter. I posted it publicly. And both of them just doubled down on it rather than saying, you know, we're sorry for the harassment that you and your family are getting at this like, you know, special time in your life. I had a six week old at the time. Right. We're sorry for this harassment. We're going to condemn the people who have been sending you threats. We're going to continue our oversight duty as senators, but we're going to pull back from like our focus on you. Instead, they both doubled down.
00:21:38.240And so I think this is a really sad kind of situation that we find ourselves in in America where there are people who are, again, supposed to be setting the tone and example for the way our discourse works, who are tacitly, if not overtly and deliberately, engaging in harassment campaigns against people on the other side.
00:22:01.260These things have life or death consequences. And I'm not the only one to have gone through this stuff. Right. We see senators in the GOP endorsing like libs of TikTok or whatever. And those people are literally like engaging in stochastic terrorism campaigns that are about to bubble over into real life. Right. They're going to have real life consequences for trans people. And in some cases already have.
00:22:25.780We're just in this really precarious situation, and I feel like we need some accountability, and it's just not happening. I don't know what it's going to take. We've gone through a pandemic that's had public safety consequences for the nation. We've gone through an insurrection. We've gone through protests that have been based on, to some degree, disinformation that have bubbled up into clashes that have killed people.
00:22:50.060I'm thinking of Kenosha, right? And what's it going to take before we come to our senses and
00:22:56.940either elect people who care about the truth or start to have some laws governing what you say
00:23:04.880online the same way that we do on the street? I think people forget that free speech in America
00:23:09.560is not absolute, right? If people were saying these things to me or to anybody who gets harassed
00:23:15.820online on the street, you'd be able to get out a restraining order out on them. You'd be able to
00:23:20.460call the cops. But the internet is like this ungoverned and ungovernable place. And I think
00:23:26.240that's kind of scary, given how much we live our lives on the internet these days.
00:23:31.300Yeah. I mean, I think about this all the time of like, what is it going to take?
00:23:34.740What do you think is the answer to that question? Like, do you think that anything would rise to
00:23:39.620the level where people will be like, gee, we need to do something?
00:23:41.780You know, I thought that maybe we were having that call to action moment last fall when
00:23:48.020Frances Haugen released her whistleblower documents and there were these, you know,
00:23:52.320series of hearings on the Hill and people were so shocked about everything that she
00:23:56.900was saying, that it was confirmed, you know, this is what was happening to children.
00:24:01.120This is what was happening to different populations around the world.
00:24:07.220And then, you know, that just kind of fizzled out.1.00
00:24:09.860Maybe it moved the needle. Maybe senators now and members of the House are a little bit more wise to what was being said. And she did come from a nonpartisan perspective, which I think was important to kind of diffuse the polarization of this debate, which shouldn't be polarized at all.
00:24:28.880This is not a polarization issue. This affects human beings. It affects our democracy no matter what political party you're from. But there doesn't seem to have been kind of that momentum fulfilled there. And I hope that we can pick that back up. But after my experience, I'm pretty pessimistic.
00:24:46.020Right. Like it is really depressing to me that millions, literally millions of my fellow Americans have come into contact with me and been told to hate me because I'm young female and had the gall to take a job in my area of expertise trying to help my country.
00:25:05.460Right. I was not motivated by politics and taking that job. And in fact, prior to everything that happened to me, I used to say I would take a job working for a reasonable Republican who wanted to work on the issues that I wanted to work on, whether they were, you know, Russia or something about disinformation online.
00:25:22.980I don't think I can say that anymore with a straight face. Right. Because of the lengths they went to ruin my life. And that was deliberate. Right. You said something about smear campaigns before.
00:25:35.460it was explicit that people were saying we want to make her toxic to the Biden administration.
00:25:42.100And I just think that's really it's un-American, frankly. So I don't know what the answer is to
00:25:50.280your question, Bridget. I think I think we're in a really bad situation and I don't know what
00:25:55.180it's going to take. And I fear what it's going to take to wake everybody up. Do you think that
00:26:00.780you would have gotten the same level of hate and targeted violence like online violence against you
00:26:07.440had you been a man no I think not at all I have to imagine no no right because like first of all
00:26:14.400uh I even I think Tucker Carlson even said something point blank like it's it's like0.58
00:26:19.540Taylor Lorenz and the Nina Jenkowitz's of the world that I hate the most like educated white1.00
00:26:25.240women who think that they educated young white women who think that they can um tell us what1.00
00:26:30.540to do or something like that. And it's like, I'm not telling you what to do, but the fact that I
00:26:34.480exist and that I'm like putting myself into a sphere that you existed is what bothers you,
00:26:39.980right? So no, there's that part to it. And then the fact that I'm, I was young and also pregnant,
00:26:45.520like people talked about my family status constantly. On Fox, they said things very
00:26:52.980famously about like, how could Biden hire her when she's about to go on maternity leave? And it's
00:26:58.660like, because it's against the law to discriminate against somebody because of their, their, their
00:27:05.240parental status, not to mention that, like, there was the opposite side of the coin with people
00:27:10.940saying, like, how could anyone impregnate her? Or like, I bet she's infertile after this one. Like,0.79
00:27:16.080it was just like, why is this even something that anybody's talking about? And men absolutely never
00:27:20.440get that stuff. And in fact, if they're found to be cheating or philandering, like, they're
00:27:25.580celebrated for that. Um, and plus, you know, there was the stuff about my looks and weight
00:27:31.160gain during pregnancy. Men were like, uh, enlarging pictures of my chin, which had some
00:27:37.180pregnancy acne on it. God forbid. Um, it's not something you can really control. Uh, they were0.99
00:27:43.440talking about my weight gain. Like then after I gave birth and the New York times took a picture
00:27:48.280of me for a, for a article they did, the first thing a couple of guys said was that I had big
00:27:53.480boobs and it was like well yeah I'm breastfeeding right now one guy actually was like imagine if
00:27:58.960she what she did with those boobs was I think they used a different word obviously uh was was0.94
00:28:04.540feed children instead of spread lies and it's like funny you should mention that but it's just like
00:28:10.500a man would never right and and and they say all the time oh we get the same sort of stuff and it's0.99
00:28:16.160like no like the worst sort of sexualized something that somebody could call you is a dick0.99
00:28:20.660right and that's not so bad it's it's certainly not calling you joe biden's cum dumpster which0.99
00:28:26.920is one of the many things that people have said to me yeah it's so upsetting and i also feel like0.94
00:28:33.100when it comes to women when women are harassed it's not just them it's their partner it's their
00:28:39.160mom it's their kids it's it's the her family and the people around her and so it adds this extra
00:28:45.220a layer of, I don't know, like something you have to think about where it's like, well, do I really
00:28:50.800want to engage in like this public line of work because I don't want my partner to be harassed.
00:28:54.900I don't want my kids to be targeted. Yeah, a hundred percent. And a lot of the women that
00:28:59.080I've interviewed in the course of my research for my book, as well as the research I've done
00:29:03.640on women in politics, they bring that up a lot, especially women of color. So for women of color,0.71
00:29:09.480often what will happen is they'll get doxxed more frequently than white women or their families1.00
00:29:15.140will be threatened. So one woman in a focus group that I did was, I mean, this just really stuck
00:29:21.080with me. She said, you know, we don't, we will often get messages that say, oh, we don't, we
00:29:28.540hope your son doesn't end up like Travion Martin or things like that. And it's just like, I mean,
00:29:34.280especially as a mom, but I hope that that resonates with anybody. Like it's clearly a threat,
00:29:39.300number one and number two like what a horrible thing to say it's just like layers upon layers
00:29:46.000of intersectional abuse and that's where the platforms I think really fall short they'll see
00:29:51.320something like that and AI certainly won't understand the intent behind that and even if
00:29:57.440you write a little note to Twitter or to Facebook and say like look at this this is racist violent
00:30:04.400threat, they're not going to take it down because it's not, it doesn't say like explicitly,0.97
00:30:10.060I want to come kill your son, or I hope someone comes to kill your son.0.99
00:33:41.260or a disabled woman or a trans woman in politics
00:33:44.640that were in public life writ large that you have to spend all this extra money. I mean,
00:33:50.420let me just list a couple of the things that I pay for. I have an anti-doxing service that
00:33:56.980scrubs my personal information from the internet and that of my family. That's a couple hundred
00:34:01.420dollars a year. I have, we had to upgrade our home security after everything happened. Because
00:34:09.260again, we were doxed. If we ever decide to move from the house that got doxed, we'll have to
00:34:14.980probably pay a lawyer to put our home in a trust so that that doesn't happen again.
00:34:20.660Let's see. I also pay for Block Party, which if your listeners haven't heard of it, is a really
00:34:27.040good tool for basically anybody dealing with online abuse. It will auto mute people interacting
00:34:33.620with you and you can have kind of different levels of sensitivity for the replies that you
00:34:37.760want to get through on on twitter um you can also block people if they've liked or retweeted
00:34:43.660an abusive or threatening tweet so uh as a result of using block party i've i've blocked quite a few
00:34:49.920people um because i don't want to i don't frankly want to interact with anybody who thinks it's
00:34:55.880funny to like delight in one of the worst things ever happening to me um so i mean already that's
00:35:03.860like, a couple hundred dollars a year. And for freelance journalists, or for people who, you
00:35:10.000know, are working in nonprofit jobs, or things like that, even government jobs, like, the
00:35:14.940government certainly did not compensate me enough for what I went through. Let's just
00:35:18.980say. And, you know, I, I am lucky that I was able to have enough savings to cover that
00:35:27.320stuff. But there was a time not so long ago, a couple years ago, before my first book came
00:35:32.440out where like, I wasn't paying taxes, because I wasn't making enough profit to be paying taxes,
00:35:38.540you know, so it's, it's real, the cost is real, and it is not fair. And we need to make sure that,
00:35:47.020especially in journalism, that when freelancers are being hired, that they're being compensated
00:35:52.800adequately, and that they're covered legally by the publishers that they're working for that,
00:35:59.400you know any institution be it academic government non-profit etc they're covering their employees
00:36:05.080as well because the way that you feel safe to speak up is knowing that people have got your
00:36:10.780back and they've got your back in a material way not just like a you know a philosophical way like
00:36:16.440of course we of course we support your right to free speech but when push comes to shove they're
00:36:23.100not going to, you know, pay for you to relocate if you need to or pay for a lawyer. All that stuff
00:36:29.520is super, super important. Yeah, that's something I see a lot of, like, particularly in newsrooms
00:36:35.400where, you know, if a young woman journalist is being targeted or threatened, I don't know,
00:36:42.340I think that we're just starting to have a conversation about how newsrooms can be supportive.
00:36:46.120But I think for a long time, it was just like, good luck. And also, don't talk about it publicly,
00:36:51.500because it will make us look bad. So just suffer in silence and be isolated and get no support and
00:36:57.900turn that shame inward. And we will continue to function business as usual. Like, I think that
00:37:05.240like, what you said about cost, material cost is such a good point. And I think back to like,
00:37:11.840when I was a freelance journalist, I made no money, right? I was like, really barely getting
00:37:16.240by like scraping by and to be expected to shoulder this burden that my male white colleagues will0.55
00:37:24.020never have to shoulder. It's just not fair. It's not equitable. No, no, not at all. And like,
00:37:29.740then on the government side to going back to the whole thing about like Biden, you know,
00:37:33.760making a commendable effort to hire people of color and women into his administration.
00:37:39.220I think and I've said this to people in the administration since this happened to me,
00:37:43.940Like, not only do you need to be prepared to stick up for those people, but you there's probably some conversation that you need to have with some people a certain level or above saying like, OK, here's the types of things that might happen to you.
00:37:57.540Like, let's make sure that you are protected.
00:38:00.800Let's make sure that you can put in a registration or like deregistration request to the county to get your name off of the documents for your house because you're a public official now.
00:38:10.560Like, yes, in my mind, did that think, did that cross my mind as like something that might happen? Sort of. I hoped that it wouldn't. I didn't think it was going to be as bad as it was. But like probably everybody in our polarized environment who's going into government should get that kind of counsel.
00:38:56.140news streams and things like that I mean I I don't know what I would have done probably just
00:39:01.260like completely retreated from the online space and that's exactly what it's meant to do right
00:39:07.260it's meant to push us out to silence us and I'm not going to let that happen I'm glad there are
00:39:11.680people around me who don't want that to happen to me but not everybody has that not everybody has
00:39:16.240that monetary psychological um support that is so critical to getting through these these difficult
00:39:23.700times and they're happening to more and more people. It's great to want to elect women,
00:39:28.340support women, hire women, but you also need to be honest about what those women will face
00:39:32.860and have an understanding of what you're going to do to create the conditions for that woman
00:39:36.940to thrive. Because you can't just be like, yes, support Black women. Yes, like more women,
00:39:42.700this and that. But then like once they get to the place that you champion them to get to,1.00
00:39:47.740they are on their own for this highly charged attacks that they will face because they got
00:39:54.680to this position that you said that you wanted them to be in. Like, it has to be a fuller
00:39:58.560conversation about what it looks like. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I don't know what, I say this a lot,
00:40:06.240like, in future positions, whether they're in public service or not, like, when I'm being
00:40:11.720interviewed, what will I say? Like, will I be like, and if X, Y and Z happens, what are you
00:40:16.840guys going to do like I feel like I'm going to run this trust deficit for the rest of my life
00:40:21.120and I don't know that a lot of organizations are going to have a good answer but like can I in good
00:40:26.840conscience go into that sort of environment if I don't feel either like I've got somebody supporting
00:40:34.240me or a group of people supporting me or am I going to have the authority to be able to make
00:40:39.100the decisions that will create those like support systems for other people I don't know and it's0.59
00:40:45.020hard for me also to encourage young women to go into public service after what happened to me.
00:40:51.400I've been giving them the advice, like, if you want to do it, you should do it. But just recognize
00:40:56.740what's in the realm of possibility, unfortunately.
00:41:02.160So speaking of that, you know, the book, How to Be a Woman Online, what advice do you have for0.87
00:41:08.240women who are just trying to exist on the internet? You know, you mentioned earlier in
00:41:15.000our interview that you were really attacked for being a woman who has lived your life and had
00:41:20.160social media the way that we all have. And they created a cost for that. They dinged you for
00:41:26.560doing something that in 2022, we all do. And so I guess my question is like, what kind of advice
00:41:32.820do you give for women listening who want to participate in civic and public life are also
00:41:39.580on women online, you know, what do you say? Yeah, it's a really delicate balance. So I've
00:41:47.000interviewed people who run the gamut of like, they've kind of kept a lot of their personal
00:41:53.240stuff off the internet to like people like me who are super, super online, right? And I still have
00:41:59.520no regrets. Like, I, again, that TikTok video, still not embarrassed of it to this day. The
00:42:06.980things that people were making fun of. It did numbers. Like you're like kind of prolific on
00:42:11.960TikTok. I've had to lock it down now. I don't even do it anymore, but I'm trying to get into
00:42:17.200Instagram reels. It's hard. It's hard for, for a millennial like me. I'm like, what is this?
00:42:23.280But you know, like I don't regret any of it, but I also recognize that it's not for everybody.
00:42:30.620And so I think there's a delicate balance. You have to draw that line for yourself.
00:42:34.660Um, the, the thing that I encourage everybody to do is no matter how you're going to interact
00:42:41.060online to understand what's going to keep you safe tech wise and opsec wise. So like don't
00:42:48.340post pictures of you in front of your house or like at the bar you frequent, right? Like it is
00:42:53.820so easy for bad actors to geolocate you. Look what happened to Keffles where she was doxed a second0.98
00:43:00.320time just based on the pattern of the hotel sheets to the hotel she had fled to with her cat, right?
00:43:07.200Like we have to be extraordinarily careful. But if you're posting things not in real time,
00:43:13.360like have a little bit of a lag. If you're not posting from the same location and giving away
00:43:17.880like clues to your pattern of life, that's much better online practice for pictures and videos
00:43:24.060and things like that. When it comes to IT security, just a couple of easy fixes that
00:43:29.400kind of set it and forget it for everybody. Make sure you're using two-factor authentication,
00:43:35.740complex passwords, and a password manager. If you're traveling to dangerous countries like
00:43:41.500authoritarian countries, basically, you'll probably want to have like a burner phone or a
00:43:46.060burner laptop to make sure that your comms are secure. Using a VPN is a good idea when you're on
00:43:52.200more open Wi-Fi and on your home network. Things like that, I think, are just really important for
00:43:58.520for people who might be targets of hacking or other kind of cyber harassment issues from doxing
00:44:09.400to cyber stalking. All of that's super important for you to keep in mind. And that knowing that I
00:44:14.660have that extra layer of security, like makes me feel more empowered to speak out. And then beyond
00:44:20.660that, cultivating a network of people who get what you do and who you can go to when the going gets
00:44:28.260tough. And that's harder than it seems. The first time I dealt with online harassment, which
00:44:32.420admittedly was nothing compared to what I went through this spring, a lot of my friends and
00:44:38.540family didn't get it. They were like, just ignore the trolls. Don't feed the trolls. Don't go on
00:44:43.240Twitter. And I'm like, but my life and my work is on Twitter. You're basically asking me to not work
00:44:50.000and not put myself out there. And I think once they understood that, then I had a little bit
00:44:57.480more support. But frankly, the people that I rely on most when this stuff is going on are the super
00:45:03.260online writers and folks who are kind of in my sphere that understand how this stuff works. And
00:45:11.020so cultivate that community for yourself. I think that's paramount, frankly. And I hope that
00:45:18.020everybody's able to do it. And if you ever need anything, shout out, reach out. I'm happy to help
00:45:23.420listeners. And of course you, Bridget, however I can. I know you had written me a note when the
00:45:28.300shit was going down and I appreciated that. That stuff goes a long way. So if you see0.98
00:45:33.280everybody else going through stuff, be an active online bystander, report stuff,
00:45:39.440send them a note of solidarity. All of it matters. Yeah. I think that's such good advice
00:45:44.900because I think these kinds of attacks, they are meant to make the person feel isolated.
00:45:50.980And so just knowing that, like, I'm not isolated. People see what's happening to me and they support me is so key. And it's interesting. I was at this gathering for people who work in the conspiracy theory space. And one of the questions that they asked early on was, you know, what are some of the particulars of doing this work?
00:46:09.940And almost everybody said some version of my partner, my friends don't really get what I do. And so I am carrying around a lot of like very specific baggage that the people around me can't even necessarily really unpack or understand or even really see.
00:46:27.840and I really felt that it was like yeah you are dealing with some particular stuff that is so
00:46:33.740specific and can be so heavy and ugly and hard and you're sometimes just dealing with it in a
00:46:39.540way that feels like you're alone yeah and even when people do reach out you know and this is
00:46:44.020not their fault at all but like still to this day people will say to me you know I'm so sorry for
00:46:48.880what you're what you went through or like back when it was all happening they'd be like is there
00:46:53.720anything I can do and like the answer is no for the most part like with the exception of your
00:47:00.040close friends just like coming by with food and like trying to take you out of it watching some
00:47:05.640trashy tv or something like that like there's not much that people can really do besides listen
00:47:11.200and even then you're talking to them about it and all they can do is like nod and pat you on the
00:47:16.920back unless they've gone through it too and so again that's why those very specific networks of
00:47:22.820super online people were really important to me when the, when it was all kind of happening.
00:47:28.520Um, but that also brings me to another important point, uh, which is therapy is so important.
00:47:36.560Um, without my therapist, I definitely would be kind of lost. And she has done the really
00:47:44.840important kind of reminding me that like, what you went through is not normal and it's okay to
00:47:50.860still feel kind of shitty about it and no one's expecting you to have recovered from it already
00:47:57.740like you're still allowed to have feelings about it and be mad about it and be sad about it and
00:48:01.980frustrated um and that's been really important and i i have a whole section in my book about
00:48:07.760like the role that that has played again even before the worst harassment that i've dealt with
00:48:12.960um and some resources for folks who maybe can't afford therapy uh because it is the way our0.99
00:48:18.700insurance system works here is totally stupid and like paying out of pocket is ridiculous and0.99
00:48:22.760difficult. But if your insurance doesn't cover it, there are options for you. If you're on a campus,1.00
00:48:27.120a lot of universities have good mental health services. A lot of states also have either
00:48:34.380groups that you can go to or like low cost therapists you can access. And then a lot of
00:48:39.280therapists have sliding scale fees as well so that folks who are on lower income can access
00:48:47.960those services. And it's, I think it's really important. And there's this stigma around
00:48:51.980accessing mental health services, but push yourself to get over that hurdle because
00:48:58.180it's a great resource to have. Absolutely. And I guess that brings me to one of my last
00:49:03.080questions of like, you deal, you've dealt with a lot, you deal with a lot. What keeps you like,
00:49:10.360what brings you joy? What makes you happy? How do you, how do you reconnect with Nina and recharge?
00:49:15.460like what what what what fills that cup for you um that's a hard one because my life has changed
00:49:21.520so substantively since all this happened like literally four weeks three weeks before I gave
00:49:27.780birth is like when I resigned from the government so um I'm a totally different person not just
00:49:34.520because of like my entire life outlook changing but because I'm a mom now so like uh hanging out
00:49:40.580with my kid uh love that and um it truly is a life-changing experience to like be the sole
00:49:47.240um source of food and uh and like protector of of another human being um I'm really lucky to have
00:49:55.140you know a great husband who um is an amazing dad and has been an amazing partner through
00:50:01.180like something he definitely did not sign up for when we got married 10 years ago that is for sure
00:50:06.660um so spending time with them has been great uh connecting with nature so I love hiking and I've
00:50:12.920just started getting back to hiking post-pregnancy so um getting back outdoors has been great um
00:50:19.480travel really kind of fills my cup and like experiencing different perspectives um and I'm
00:50:26.400also a huge music fan and theater fan and um that has been somewhat dampened during the pandemic
00:50:31.680because of large gatherings and I haven't been able to do a show since since pre-pandemic
00:50:36.180and probably won't happen for a while now that I have a young kid. But, you know, enjoying the
00:50:42.260arts, experiencing that, connecting with other people that way, I think is something that's so
00:50:49.960special. And that's also, you know, not to bring it back to the abuse and make it sad, but that's
00:50:55.220one of the things that's most peculiar about like the abuse against me, people saying like,
00:50:59.520oh she's a theater kid as if like I'm sorry is that a crime like also musical theater is one of
00:51:06.620our like uniquely American exports right like it's a it's a way that America contributes to
00:51:13.260culture around the world and I don't know how are these people seriously telling me they've
00:51:18.980never enjoyed a musical in their life if so like whatever like musical theater kids like like
00:51:25.580theater kids make the world go around if we didn't have theater kids there wouldn't be joy
00:51:29.320in the world thank god for like enthusiastic like young people who enthusiastically enjoy
00:51:35.400things and make things and you know what like it's it's i'm i'm tired of this like narrative
00:51:40.640that it's uncool to be happy or enthusiastic about something like yeah i'm a nerd and i'm like
00:51:48.120totally okay with that we should all wear that proudly some people nerd out about cars i nerd
00:51:55.020out about lyrics from musicals and and music and like you know every to each their own that's the
00:52:02.460beautiful thing about America right um and so anyway I've gone off on a tangent now but those
00:52:07.560are the things uh that that keep me keep me happy also like I I do identify with what Hillary Clinton
00:52:14.020said uh in about the worst times of her life where she just she focused on the work um and so I have
00:52:22.180been absolutely wholeheartedly probably too much throwing myself into the work since I've been back
00:52:27.100from maternity leave. And I'm really committed to building a better internet, whether that's an
00:52:32.200internet free from disinformation coming from Russia, or an internet that's free from nasty
00:52:37.000abuse coming from right and frankly, some far left wing men on the internet. Well, I'm so grateful
00:52:44.480that we have you in this work. I'm glad that you seem like you're doing that you've got that you've
00:52:49.780got your people, you've got your community, because Lord knows we need you, especially right
00:52:53.620now. Well, thank you, Bridget. You know, I think you got me on a slightly more optimistic sunny
00:52:58.500day. There are definitely days where I'm dropping F-bombs left and right and hate everyone. But
00:53:03.740no, I'm here. And my message to everybody who's going through this or might go through this at
00:53:09.440some point is like, don't give one inch back. And I'm not giving an inch. I'm going to go a mile
00:53:14.600ahead though. Nina filed her defamation lawsuit against Fox News last Wednesday. She can't get1.00
00:53:21.740back what they took from her, but maybe her lawsuit and others like it will change the math for big0.87
00:53:26.960networks that traffic in lies and disinformation. Thanks for listening to the first episode of
00:53:31.960Present Future, brought to you by their No Girls on the Internet. Next week, I'll be interviewing
00:53:36.680author, activist, and OG Twitter personality, Mickey Kendall, who built her platform on the
00:53:42.020early days of twitter we talk about what it was like back then how it changed and where she sees
00:53:47.000the twitter community going in the future and i have to make one more plug for the patreon i'm
00:53:51.560really excited to use it as a way to connect with all of you and to share exclusive interviews and
00:53:55.800writings with the patrons who support the show just go to patreon.com and search for there are
00:54:00.000no girls on the internet and as always i would love to hear from you at hello at tangody.com
00:54:04.820let us know what you thought of today's episode and what kind of stories that you'd like to hear