There Are No Girls on the Internet - Rest in Power Shafiqah Hudson, creator of #YourSlipIsShowing

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00:00:39.100 welcome home.

00:00:40.700 Pro Society is a weekly podcast

00:00:42.560 that's part book club, part group chat

00:00:44.480 for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice

00:00:46.180 and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.

00:00:48.920 Each week, we're connecting the dots

00:00:50.360 between books, the internet, and pop culture

00:00:52.460 with your favorite writers, book talk creators,

00:00:54.980 and plenty of overthought opinions.

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00:01:08.800 There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

00:01:16.900 I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.

00:01:22.080 I have some sad news to share.

00:01:24.920 Shafika Hudson, whose work basically created the field of study on how to mobilize against bad actors on social media,

00:01:32.560 when she created the hashtag, your slip is showing in 2014, tragically passed away last week. 0.99

00:01:39.840 Now, we talk a lot about how the work of making internet spaces safer for everyone often falls on Black women like Shafika,

00:01:46.520 and it's often tough, thankless, ignored, and sometimes even dangerous. 0.89

00:01:51.960 Even though Shafika's work

00:01:53.120 changed the way we think about the internet, 0.78

00:01:55.500 she did it all unpaid. 0.99

00:01:57.240 She died crowdfunding for healthcare costs.

00:02:00.260 Shafika wanted people to know the realities of long COVID.

00:02:03.500 Last year, she tweeted,

00:02:05.220 when long COVID effects kill me,

00:02:07.400 sooner than later,

00:02:08.420 I need y'all to recognize and say loudly what it was.

00:02:11.900 Adding, this won't be considered a massive crime

00:02:14.740 against humanity until we're all gone.

00:02:17.900 Just tell them I thought and tried.

00:02:20.260 This very podcast and this work would never exist if not for Shafika, a funny, fierce 1.00

00:02:26.460 cat lady who made the internet just a better place to show up on, who built an entire school 1.00

00:02:32.060 of thought out of necessity that made the internet safer and better for all of us. 1.00

00:02:37.900 She was one of the very first interviews I ever did for There Are No Girls on the Internet

00:02:41.500 back in 2020 when we first launched.

00:02:43.760 And in honor of her brilliant, beautiful life cut short, let's hear from her again.

00:02:49.220 Shafika, I am so sorry.

00:02:54.060 Okay, so I could tell you this story a hundred times and a hundred different ways. 1.00

00:02:58.460 People just don't listen to women, especially Black women. 1.00

00:03:01.900 And it comes with big consequences. 1.00

00:03:04.380 Six years ago, Black feminists were experiencing a coordinated pattern of disinformation on Twitter. 1.00

00:03:09.660 They spoke up, but no one listened. 1.00

00:03:12.300 That failure to listen to Black women had a big impact. 1.00

00:03:15.320 It allowed for the weaponization of online harassment tactics against other marginalized people on social media 0.95

00:03:20.040 and presents continued threats to our democracy and safety.

00:03:24.520 Okay, so let's just get this out of the way right now. 1.00

00:03:26.760 Twitter is a fucking cesspool. 0.99

00:03:28.740 If you spent any time there, you probably already know this. 1.00

00:03:31.620 Bad faith commentary, reply guys, trolls, harassment.

00:03:35.260 It can really just be an unpleasant place.

00:03:36.860 In May, Twitter announced they would start labeling tweets that spread misleading information. 0.89

00:03:41.860 But this comes years after Black feminists raised the alarm about it and were ignored. 1.00

00:03:46.120 These women weren't just being attacked. 1.00

00:03:47.820 They were learning about the tactics that bad actors used to infiltrate online communities. 0.89

00:03:52.160 They spoke up about what they were experiencing online.

00:03:54.820 So why didn't anyone listen?

00:03:56.380 And what might have happened if they had?

00:04:01.440 Shafika Hudson?

00:04:03.120 Freelancer? 0.88

00:04:04.140 Cat lady?

00:04:05.020 Sometimes activist.

00:04:07.960 Shafika had been using Twitter regularly since almost its very beginning. 1.00

00:04:11.340 where she spent most of her time online connecting with other black feminists. 1.00

00:04:14.740 In 2014, while job searching, she noticed a hashtag that just did not make sense. 1.00

00:04:20.080 End Father's Day. 1.00

00:04:21.620 The people pushing the End Father's Day hashtag on Twitter appeared to be black feminists. 1.00

00:04:26.400 They talked about how we should abolish Father's Day because too many black men date outside of their race, 0.98

00:04:30.840 or because black men don't support their children. 0.98

00:04:32.920 Stuff that just seemed really out there. 0.97

00:04:35.300 I must have had like 10 different tabs open because I was also like doing a job search.

00:04:41.340 And just going about my life.

00:04:43.660 And one tweet caught my attention because it was so completely off the wall.

00:04:51.480 And I don't know who retweeted it or like how it even arrived in my timeline. 0.80

00:04:57.620 But it wasn't anything that any Black feminist anywhere would say.

00:05:03.720 It was like, what was it? 0.99

00:05:05.900 Oh, gosh.

00:05:06.720 Yeah. 1.00

00:05:06.920 in father's day uh i wish these white women would stop stealing our men something just 1.00

00:05:15.320 completely off the wall that had nothing to do with anything and the avatar was someone who i 1.00

00:05:22.640 didn't recognize now the thing about the black feminist community on twitter the thing about a 0.98

00:05:28.080 lot of communities on twitter is that you might not necessarily get along with everybody but you 0.55

00:05:34.020 know who everyone is like and if you haven't met them or seen them out or you know done a tweet up

00:05:41.040 hung out at a party something someone you know has and in this particular instance I'm clicked

00:05:47.800 on the person well the accounts profile I said okay who is this I've never seen this person

00:05:54.100 and it looks like they just joined like two days ago and they're just tweeting about this with this

00:06:02.420 hashtag and they have you know the photo of a black woman but it just nothing adds up so that

00:06:09.120 drove me to click on the hashtag and father's day and lo and behold when I did a twitter search

00:06:14.600 there's a bunch of accounts that are saying things that are completely left like not left like you

00:06:22.920 know politically just kind of left like left you know where are you coming from left and I didn't

00:06:29.920 recognize any of them. So at that point, I just kind of asked a general question from my timeline

00:06:36.940 to say, okay, you guys, what's going on? I keep seeing this hashtag and these accounts that I

00:06:41.980 don't recognize with people who look like they just joined like five seconds ago. And someone

00:06:47.600 said, yeah, it looks like this is like some kind of fortune thing. That's when I really started

00:06:57.020 digging it. I said, okay, well, this is really awful because they're pretending to be Black 1.00

00:07:02.580 women who are saying these awful things. And I'm smart enough to know that nothing here that 0.91

00:07:10.260 they're saying is even remotely what a real Black feminist would say. I honestly think the people

00:07:18.400 who they fooled immediately were already probably biased against feminists or Black women or some

00:07:26.240 combination of the two i i didn't get the impression that they were fooling most of the

00:07:30.940 people i followed is what is what i mean but um they were getting some reaction that's when

00:07:36.280 jabika went from curious to pissed i got so mad like i remember just being so angry i could feel

00:07:44.480 my cheeks and my ears heat up like honestly like you you know in the in the cartoons where the

00:07:52.260 the character like starts scheming from the smell coming through your ears as you hear the tea kettle

00:08:00.500 whistle i was curious i was like you know it's not like we don't get enough garbage online just 0.91

00:08:09.180 being black women you know with people just randomly showing up and our our mentions to 0.89

00:08:15.540 argue with something that we said not because they necessarily disagree but because that's

00:08:19.600 what people do when you're a black woman online, apparently. Because we don't deal with enough. 0.67

00:08:26.040 Out here in real life and online, we don't deal with enough. We've got this whole

00:08:29.920 silly operation thing happening. So I said, well, let me just go ahead and take a look

00:08:39.160 and see what's really going on and see how bad this is. And as I began to dig, I saw just how

00:08:45.700 bad it was. And I realized that I would not be able to point out all of these accounts alone.

00:08:54.020 You know how in movies when a character discovers this thing they've been investigating is much,

00:08:57.660 much bigger than they realize? There is no Pepe Sylvia and this thing goes all the way to the top?

00:09:02.400 Well, that's how Shafika felt. She knew the Twitter accounts pushing End Father's Day

00:09:06.420 weren't actually Black women. They were just impersonating Black women and pretty badly at 0.95

00:09:10.700 that. But there were too many of them for this to be a one-off thing. It had to be coordinated. 1.00

00:09:15.700 And there were also too many for her to tackle alone. 1.00

00:09:18.480 She wanted to give other Black feminists a tool to sniff out these imposters. 1.00

00:09:22.240 So she fought back with a hashtag of her own. 1.00

00:09:24.500 Your slip is showing.

00:09:25.800 I went ahead with your slip is showing.

00:09:28.160 I might have run another line like, I don't know, your mascara is running, something like that.

00:09:33.460 But your slip is showing just seemed to work.

00:09:35.060 It really just seemed to work.

00:09:36.680 Okay, so if you're not a lady from the South, the phrase your slip is showing might not mean anything to you. 0.70

00:09:41.400 Literally, it means when your slip is peeking out from underneath your skirt or dress. 0.87

00:09:44.880 a big fashion no-no. But where I come from, that one phrase really highlights a subversiveness of

00:09:50.640 what I'll call auntie speak. Think of it a bit like the phrase, bless your heart. A lady at

00:09:55.460 church might tell you that your slip is peeking out from the bottom of your skirt because they

00:09:58.540 care about you looking your best. Or they could tell you your slip is showing because they don't

00:10:03.000 like you and they're pointing out publicly that you aren't looking as good and put together as

00:10:07.120 you think you are. You know, just the sort of thing that one of your aunties might say to you

00:10:11.920 in church when it's, oh, honey, you need to, you need to fix your slip. It's showing except mean

00:10:19.300 because, right. There's a, there's a difference between a, your slip is showing from one of your

00:10:29.160 aunties and your slip is showing from somebody who doesn't like you. And that was what I was

00:10:36.540 going with. It was like, yeah, your slip is showing. I'm telling you because I was raised

00:10:40.780 right not because I particularly care about you being embarrassed I love that so much I love how

00:10:50.660 you kind of use this southern auntie expression that we all sort of know what it means what's also

00:10:58.860 funny is that I would imagine the people who are impersonating black women probably that probably

00:11:03.680 that that nuance probably goes right over their head yes that was that also um one of the things 0.51

00:11:09.080 that I also delighted in

00:11:11.100 because of course they wouldn't get it.

00:11:12.680 Because you'd have to, I mean,

00:11:14.300 you have to be somewhat embedded

00:11:15.600 within certain communities

00:11:17.720 to pick up on the nuance.

00:11:21.960 And they really weren't.

00:11:23.980 It's fitting that we're talking about

00:11:25.100 getting the nuance.

00:11:26.140 That's certain something

00:11:27.160 you can't really teach.

00:11:28.840 This would ultimately be the undoing 0.94

00:11:30.380 of people impersonating Black women online. 0.98

00:11:32.700 Their inability to authentically 1.00

00:11:34.140 sound like Black women. 1.00

00:11:35.900 They'd try to use AAVE 1.00

00:11:37.040 or African American vernacular English,

00:11:38.760 but get the expressions all wrong

00:11:40.980 in ways that might as well be screaming,

00:11:42.920 I am a white person pretending to be a black woman.

00:11:45.800 This is where I should probably say

00:11:47.100 that around the same time in 2014,

00:11:49.060 I noticed someone on Twitter using my photo

00:11:51.240 and tweeting confusing things about black people.

00:11:53.980 I never knew who was behind it or why it was happening.

00:11:56.440 But if I had to say, 1.00

00:11:57.700 I would say it wasn't an actual black woman

00:11:59.660 because the things they were saying were just so out there.

00:12:02.940 Things like, I'm gonna be voting for Trump

00:12:05.180 because Hillary Clinton is whack, y'all.

00:12:07.200 Things that just didn't sound right. 1.00

00:12:08.760 because they're not

00:12:10.100 speakers of AAVE

00:12:12.360 they're approximating

00:12:14.220 the thing that like really

00:12:16.200 really really

00:12:18.700 seemed to

00:12:19.840 like immediately

00:12:22.420 point them out was

00:12:24.420 this consistent

00:12:25.980 inability to understand

00:12:28.780 and properly use the habitual

00:12:30.900 B they didn't get

00:12:32.840 it they did not

00:12:34.060 they would use the habitual B

00:12:36.820 just kind of

00:12:38.760 like, for the future tense.

00:12:42.680 You know what I mean?

00:12:43.580 Like, it was terrible.

00:12:44.980 And a lot of the time it was just, like,

00:12:46.480 really obviously racist word salad.

00:12:50.500 Obviously racist word salad.

00:12:52.840 I love it.

00:12:53.560 My new band name.

00:12:55.060 Ultimately, it seemed like the point of End Father's Day

00:12:57.480 was to see what kind of Discord bad actors

00:12:59.660 organizing on message boards like 4chan 1.00

00:13:01.480 could sew within feminist online communities 1.00

00:13:03.780 and to make actual feminists and art issues 1.00

00:13:06.300 look like petty, stupid man-haters 1.00

00:13:08.400 whose issues were so outlandish they could never be taken seriously. 1.00

00:13:12.620 It turns out this is actually a pretty common disinformation tactic.

00:13:16.640 Hijacking public conversations about sensitive topics or wedge issues through media manipulation

00:13:21.000 is a way of making people afraid of having an opinion in public and ultimately trying to silence them.

00:13:27.240 I'm Joan Donovan, and I'm the research director at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy.

00:13:35.200 Dr. Donovan says the same way that brands and politicians realize the power of social media,

00:13:39.500 the kind of people who want to harass others did too.

00:13:41.920 It can have a big impact, especially as we're using social media to talk about thorny issues

00:13:46.480 like race, gender, and sexuality.

00:13:48.740 Issues that require nuance to discuss thoughtfully.

00:13:51.700 It makes it tough for anyone to have a good faith dialogue online.

00:13:55.420 Over time, just like the politicians learned to use social media,

00:14:00.700 we had white supremacists figure out that you don't actually need to show up in public to have

00:14:08.840 an impact on people's lives. And so we saw networked and coordinated harassment campaigns

00:14:15.360 just continue, even to this day, continue to be useful ways to shut down journalists,

00:14:24.740 to impersonate different groups and to really cause a fracture in public conversation about

00:14:34.080 really important issues that require some level of nuance, some level of understanding and a lot

00:14:41.600 of compassion to talk about, you know, especially racism in this moment. And people are reticent to

00:14:47.900 talk about it because they're afraid of saying something wrong, especially in the environments

00:14:54.440 online where if you do make a misstep, you could get dragged, you could get canceled.

00:15:00.360 But also, some of that might be artificial. It might be the case that people do sympathize with

00:15:06.800 you. People do want to help you grow and learn. But certain media manipulators see that as an

00:15:12.380 opportunity to swarm in and really drive the wedge as deep as it can go. A few right-wing

00:15:20.880 news outlets picked up the hashtag End Father's Day and amplified it as a legitimate feminist take. 1.00

00:15:26.480 This is how Fox News covered it. Like some of these tweets here is from Tasha. She wrote in,

00:15:30.440 everyone knows we only need mothers. Why do we even need Father's Day? Fathers are useless. 0.99

00:15:35.760 Hashtag End Father's Day. Oh, come on. Just more of this nasty feminist rhetoric that they're not 0.99

00:15:41.300 just like interested in ending Father's Day. They're interested in ending men. That's really 1.00

00:15:44.680 what they want. But Shafika says only the kind of people who are already predisposed to be

00:15:49.720 skeptical of women and feminists and especially black women fell for it well it was actually at

00:15:56.560 first i remember i was incredulous like honestly i was looking at people like oh and father's day

00:16:02.320 feminists take a terrible turn and radical and i was like you got to be kidding but then i realized

00:16:10.160 that no they were completely serious and then it dawned on me that these were people who could not 0.64

00:16:16.340 possibly understand feminism, possibly women in general, Black people,

00:16:24.640 or too much of anything outside of their little Fox News bubble. Like, that was the impression 0.86

00:16:33.640 that I got. Like, basically, if you fell for this, it's because you already had a certain

00:16:40.020 set of bigotries in place to fall for it. What was happening with Black women online is much 1.00

00:16:45.740 less widely known than Gamergate, where angry men coordinated to harass progressive voices online

00:16:50.660 who were mostly women in the months following and Father's Day. Shafika thinks it was ignored

00:16:55.380 because the women who were targeted were Black. Not only was she helping to create a tool to stamp

00:17:00.040 out this kind of disinformation online, she also wanted to document that it was happening so it 1.00

00:17:05.100 wouldn't go forgotten or erased just because it was happening to Black women. As you're probably 0.93

00:17:12.820 aware of a lot of us are big on what we call receipts so there are plenty of receipts we've

00:17:20.360 got the screen caps you can't even you know delete the tweet because we got it we got the information

00:17:27.940 but yeah I mean that's that's been a big part of it for me and it's frustrating for a lot of us to

00:17:37.100 see essentially a history erased it's particularly distressing for me because you know I'm not I

00:17:47.000 wouldn't consider myself a scholar at this particular point and my friend uh so true who

00:17:51.040 also was absolutely integral with formulating your slip is showing and how it kind of played

00:17:59.380 out and became a useful tool but back when I was a scholar I understood that one of the things that

00:18:07.000 people do when they're trying to erase the impact of a movement is they kind of start deleting

00:18:15.440 histories it's a huge feature of erasure when people talk about your slip is showing if they

00:18:25.740 talk about it or if they mention it at all it's it's weird it kind of gets vaguely mentioned

00:18:33.640 in relation to Gamergate as this weird thing that sort of happened before Gamergate that

00:18:39.560 wasn't really relevant and didn't provide anybody any tools or you know it was you know just kind of

00:18:46.260 a blip as opposed to what it was which was a scary peek into the future and again like I said

00:19:00.160 hindsight being 2020 once when you start to look back on all of these 4chan offer I'm sorry I can't

00:19:08.000 say 4chan without making that noise you have a special 4chan noise I do I do I oh my gosh someone

00:19:16.000 else pointed it out to me it's like do you realize that you just kind of make this disgusted noise

00:19:19.800 whatever you say 4chan I'm like oh I just I sorry it's automatic

00:19:25.140 i'm working on it

00:19:28.840 when you try to kind of understand how everything happened you have to take all of it into account i

00:19:40.460 really think that ends in father's day and um you know consequently your your slip is showing

00:19:46.680 we're a huge part of it and it's it can be frustrating to see it left out of the history

00:19:53.040 because it's like, okay, you're missing a really relevant chunk of understanding how all of this

00:20:00.180 mess happened. Even at a time where we're having a conversations around women's experiences online,

00:20:06.440 why do you think your slip is showing and End Father's Day and the way that women and folks

00:20:10.840 of color have been harassed online pretty much goes overlooked? Why do you think that is?

00:20:14.800 Not necessarily, yeah. And again, it's frustrating. And my theory remains it's because the targeted

00:20:20.860 group at the time for the end father's day of 4chan operation were black women

00:20:28.820 it's honestly that's that's my that's i have no other answer at this point it's been six years

00:20:36.980 i've watched this just kind of repeatedly happen and the only answer unfortunately that i have is

00:20:45.600 said, okay, well, this is being largely ignored and raped because of who the targets were. 0.98

00:20:55.160 And the targets were of Black women, particularly Black feminists. 0.99

00:21:00.440 We'll be right back after this quick break. 1.00

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00:21:23.880 not thinking about podcasting think again more americans listen to podcasts than ad supported

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00:21:50.800 That's 844-844-iHeart.

00:21:53.280 When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months.

00:21:59.120 I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

00:22:05.640 I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.

00:22:09.260 I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, 0.96

00:22:14.700 shut up, don't say anything.

00:22:17.440 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. 0.98

00:22:21.880 I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.

00:22:26.320 I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed,

00:22:31.080 and I just started screaming.

00:22:33.400 They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

00:22:37.860 But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.

00:22:41.300 They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:22:44.940 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:22:52.720 people who are traditionally marginalized online like black women are specifically impacted by 0.69

00:23:01.880 things like disinformation and harassment on social media the ultimate goal is to freak them

00:23:06.640 out so much that they'll shut down their social media and just stop talking here's dr donovan

00:23:12.320 again yeah so we have to remember that a lot of the ways in which disinformation is carried through

00:23:22.220 networks are also related to the ways in which people are harassed online you know so if you're

00:23:30.740 uh there's a concept called gender trolling it's evolved into trans trolling race trolling

00:23:37.360 um queer trolling where the characteristics of your identity become the thing that they focus on

00:23:47.000 And, you know, there'll be a swarm of folks that have coordinated in some other place, usually on a message board, and they will target specific public figures or women or trans folks or prominent black activists in order to get them to shut off their social media. 0.85

00:24:09.920 And they will use all kinds of horrendous images and threats to try to get you to feel fear and to shut it down.

00:24:21.860 And we don't see that same kind of level of threat making when it comes to trolling male candidates.

00:24:30.840 And that has to do with the characteristics of the harassers themselves, which often see the harassment as a form of activism and as a form of defending themselves or defending their piece of the culture.

00:24:48.200 And so a lot of these people tend to be misogynists as well as racists.

00:24:55.080 And in their smaller online communities where they don't think they're being watched, they'll talk openly about that.

00:25:03.560 And they'll talk openly about who they should target and why and what the problem is.

00:25:09.480 And I think at this stage, we've been through this enough to know it's a serious problem, but it still happens every day.

00:25:20.540 And especially in this moment, we're seeing an incredible amount of trolling around, you know, anti-Black racism.

00:25:28.740 And the responsibility, though, for dealing with this lies with the platform companies first and foremost.

00:25:38.080 Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey hasn't always been the most responsive to the misuse of the platform.

00:25:43.400 You'd think he'd be more concerned, but Shafika says that wasn't the case.

00:25:46.460 She and the other Black women targeted were pretty much left on their own to figure it out.

00:25:53.000 So did the powers that be at Twitter or any other social media company or any other official do anything to fix this?

00:25:59.620 No. The short answer there is no.

00:26:03.260 Now, the longer explanation is that we repeatedly brought this whole thing to the attention of Twitter support to Jack directly.

00:26:14.480 It's not like nobody knew what was happening.

00:26:18.020 It had made the news. 0.60

00:26:20.540 Like, so it's not it's not as though he was ignorant.

00:26:25.300 The general impression that I got from Twitter support was that, oh, well, you know, this is, we're so sorry, our hands are tied and blah, blah, blah. And I started looking into the tech side of everything. And I realized that that wasn't the truth.

00:26:40.240 And they absolutely had and had tools on hand to stop this.

00:26:49.300 And they just didn't.

00:26:51.040 They just let it happen.

00:26:52.200 They just let us clean up the mess and defend our communities, ourselves.

00:26:56.880 As much as being left to fend for her own community online sucked, it did teach Shafika that her online community could do a lot with a little.

00:27:03.520 and while that wasn't cool at all and hopefully at some point in and you know at some point down

00:27:12.600 the line they will be sufficiently shamed for it because it was just really awful we learned

00:27:19.600 what we could do on the ground with just of the very basic tool of like community organization

00:27:28.860 and a hashtag

00:27:30.660 we were able to do a whole lot

00:27:33.700 to just stop something

00:27:35.900 that could have gotten way out of hand

00:27:39.020 we outed it early

00:27:40.160 and we ended it early

00:27:42.080 and if something had been done

00:27:44.840 to make sure that these fake accounts

00:27:48.540 that we were reporting

00:27:49.520 had been taken out of commission

00:27:52.020 there would have been a lot less

00:27:55.560 for GamerGate

00:27:58.860 to work with. They wouldn't have had to, they wouldn't have had the opportunity to just go

00:28:03.440 ahead and access those same tools that they'd already created. So in a kind of way, it sounds

00:28:09.140 like your work with Your Slip is Showing and your work organizing community responses online

00:28:15.900 was kind of this canary in a coal mine. And you all did all that you could to prevent this,

00:28:22.160 to stamp this out. But if only the powers that be at Twitter or elsewhere had done anything,

00:28:28.200 then it might not be the sort of wide-scale situation that it is now that is exactly correct

00:28:33.680 and that i i know that sounds uh damning but that's accurate they could have stopped it

00:28:39.620 uh they could still stop it but the reason why unfortunately and this was absolutely pointed out

00:28:47.400 by people at the time um and people later uh taking a look the whole situation from like you

00:28:54.440 the whole post-mortem of the whole incident.

00:28:59.280 The reason why they didn't is because of the profit model at the time

00:29:08.360 was based on number of accounts and interaction.

00:29:17.700 So, you know, then when you're selling your product basically to,

00:29:22.200 we're the product to advertisers and whatever have you. The more users it looks like you have,

00:29:28.760 the better. So it really wasn't in Twitter's best interest to say, okay, well, we have

00:29:36.240 20 accounts with one IP address. That's suspicious. And we should look into it.

00:29:44.880 And that's why they didn't. They didn't. It took them a full

00:29:47.560 two and a half years, I think,

00:29:50.880 to even really address it in a serious way.

00:29:53.340 And I think that was only after

00:29:55.060 the whole congressional meeting.

00:30:00.740 Like, I'm pretty sure that was after everybody

00:30:03.100 who was like the head of social media

00:30:04.800 got called in front of Congress.

00:30:07.500 Mm-hmm.

00:30:09.360 Like, that's what it took.

00:30:12.780 So that pretty much brings us to today.

00:30:15.620 Today, Twitter leads all other social media platforms

00:30:18.760 on the spread of misleading information about coronavirus,

00:30:21.400 according to a study by Oxford researchers called Types, Sources, and Claims of COVID-19 Misinformation.

00:30:26.780 And a study out of Carnegie Mellon found that most of the accounts pushing this misleading content

00:30:31.500 are actually convincing-looking bots, using Twitter to prey on people,

00:30:35.900 soda vision, and increased polarization.

00:30:38.120 This isn't just an online thing either.

00:30:40.380 Kathleen Carley, the director for the Center for Informed Democracy and Social Cybersecurity,

00:30:45.840 says increased polarization will have a variety of real-world consequences

00:30:49.940 and play out in things like voting behavior and hostility toward ethnic groups.

00:30:54.100 And this summer, as Black Lives Matter protests popped up all over the globe,

00:30:58.260 Twitter confirmed that multiple accounts posing as Black Lives Matter activists

00:31:01.560 were calling for violence in white suburbs.

00:31:04.000 But those accounts were actually run by white supremacist groups

00:31:06.720 just posing as activists and, quote, Antifa to cause chaos.

00:31:11.320 Facebook under fire again.

00:31:13.120 A Senate Intelligence Committee report claiming Russian agents

00:31:16.320 use social media sites like Facebook to target African Americans

00:31:20.140 in an effort to suppress voter turnout.

00:31:22.980 We already know that Russia used social media to interfere with the 2016 election. 1.00

00:31:28.020 And in case you needed a Senate report to confirm what Black women have been saying all along,

00:31:31.700 a Senate inquiry cited an Oxford University report on Russian interference on social media.

00:31:36.720 They found that campaigns targeted no single group more than African Americans on social media.

00:31:41.280 They posed as Black people and ran phony Black activist groups to influence Black voters to either stay home or vote for Trump on Election Day.

00:31:49.300 The Senate Intelligence Report says the posts were aimed at making Americans suspicious of each other. 0.57

00:31:54.580 Sound familiar? 1.00

00:31:55.780 These are the very same kind of tactics that Black women like Shafika were complaining about years earlier. 1.00

00:32:02.240 Accounts posing as Black people and infiltrating our online communities to create chaos and distrust.

00:32:07.760 But because the people with power didn't really do anything or take it seriously, it kind of exposed this massive vulnerability.

00:32:14.420 Think of it as an online disinformation test balloon.

00:32:17.380 It showed that these kinds of attacks could happen and they'd pretty much go unaddressed.

00:32:21.780 Instead of identifying and learning to spot tactics used to make our social media communities less safe and less stable,

00:32:27.220 the powers that be just let it happen again and again and again.

00:32:31.380 I asked Shafika if she thinks that if someone had listened to Black women when they spoke up about being targeted online, things might be different now.

00:32:38.220 It's a tough question for her.

00:32:45.100 This is always going to be a question that kind of hangs in my mind because while I understand that Black voters were absolutely targeted,

00:32:55.880 i'm not entirely sure that we were fooled do you know what i mean right like i honestly

00:33:06.060 because it seems like to me we kind of all got out and voted anyway and it also seems like to

00:33:13.020 me donald trump may have lost the popular vote by three million votes but that's neither here

00:33:17.700 nor there i guess not if you ask him he didn't but we don't ask him things because we like honest

00:33:22.780 answers. But yeah, I mean, just the fact that this happened, like it left us arguably vulnerable

00:33:34.200 and that even though I'm not sure how ultimately successful it was, just the fact that we had

00:33:43.360 foreign agents targeting voting populations in the United States of America should have been

00:33:52.100 serious and due cause for alarm because even if it doesn't work it's like just it's just the fact

00:34:00.000 that they tried and that they could what are you doing like can we get it together

00:34:05.220 and it's because we left we left the door open like this this was that was a failure that was

00:34:13.640 I don't want to say it was on me because I feel like it definitely wasn't on me and it definitely

00:34:18.480 wasn't on you but it was it was a failure um on the side of

00:34:25.060 whatever agents are supposed to be uh protecting us and i i guess that offers that opens up a lot

00:34:36.760 for speculations like well you know who's who's looking after us now but um yeah that

00:34:44.300 that was a glaring example of just kind of the general failure to address

00:34:51.140 something that did not have to get as big as it got. 1.00

00:34:55.800 More There Are No Girls on the Internet after this quick break. 1.00

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00:35:48.940 when i was 14 years old i was kidnapped and held captive for nine months i survived and i've spent

00:35:56.760 my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them i'm elizabeth smart

00:36:02.820 and these are the survivor files i just remember this low taunting voice next to my ear saying

00:36:10.440 shut up don't say anything every week i'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable

00:36:17.080 i knew if he woke up without a doubt he was going to hurt me i started feeling that there was 0.90

00:36:24.920 someone at the end of my bed and i just started screaming they are abducted stalked controlled

00:36:32.400 and nearly silenced but these aren't stories about what's taken from them they're stories

00:36:38.020 about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart

00:36:43.760 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:36:53.400 The 2020 presidential election is 112 days away. Digital security experts agree that American

00:37:00.000 elections are vulnerable and not enough is being done about it. During Trump's impeachment hearing,

00:37:04.420 Fiona Hill, the former National Security Council advisor specializing in Russian and European affairs, said,

00:37:10.300 Right now, Russia's security services and their proxies have geared up to repeat their interference in the 2020 election.

00:37:16.900 We are running out of time to stop them.

00:37:19.060 So what do we do?

00:37:20.360 Dr. Donovan says,

00:37:21.420 As we get closer to the election, we know that all different kinds of tactics are going to get utilized, including potentially deep fakes or cheap fakes like manipulated video, manipulated audio.

00:37:35.860 We're going to see probably clips of people quoted out of context.

00:37:43.080 We've seen this happen to Joe Biden a few different times.

00:37:46.320 Then, of course, we've seen gas that he's done that are completely within context and a problem.

00:37:51.420 Um, you know, you can't, you can't forget that every once in a while you're watching it and

00:37:56.900 you're like, this is, this can't be real. And it's totally real. Well, what's crazy to me about it is

00:38:02.300 as a researcher, you're supposed to be attuned to all of this, but I still get fooled here and

00:38:06.540 there. But the last thing I'll say about the way in which I think platform companies need to

00:38:11.000 better serve our political elections and the integrity of elections is that they need to

00:38:18.220 hire some serious specialists. They need to hire a whole army of librarians to do content curations

00:38:26.620 so that when people are looking for information, they find things that have been fact-checked that

00:38:32.760 are true and correct. I think that we have a right to truth. And part of the problem is the way in

00:38:38.900 which these algorithms are designed is to bring up things that are, quote-unquote, fresh and

00:38:43.740 relevance. And the problem with fresh and relevant content is that disinformation is

00:38:49.180 usually incredibly popular because there are people trying to push it and there are people

00:38:55.360 trying to dispute it. And so as a result, it rises generally to the top of search algorithms

00:39:00.900 or trending algorithms very quickly because of that feature. But will Twitter actually do any

00:39:08.480 of that. Shafika isn't super confident that the platform will do anything at all. I haven't even

00:39:14.120 thought about it. And I guess that's sort of a reflection on my general skepticism right now

00:39:22.680 with not their ability, but their willingness to address this. I have a good friend who said

00:39:30.820 one of the smartest things I've ever heard anybody say, and I quote it all the time,

00:39:36.320 But he said, when things look like they're not working out, you can always trust that they're working out for somebody.

00:39:45.000 And that's where I'm going to leave that right there.

00:39:50.840 When it looks like, you know, things aren't working, you start asking questions and it's a whole rabbit hole.

00:40:00.200 that's the thing about the internet there's so much darkness lurking in its corners just waiting

00:40:07.100 to spill out but where there's darkness there's light too where there's someone being ugly online

00:40:12.920 there's someone else reaching out to make a genuine connection there's real community to be

00:40:17.360 built and laughs to be had the kind of laughs that can sustain you through difficult times

00:40:21.660 being online is a constant tightrope walk of acknowledging that darkness while still being

00:40:27.380 able to see the corners of light peeking through. And even while wading through all of that darkness

00:40:32.880 and ugliness, it's the light that has really sustained Shafika. After everything she's been

00:40:38.420 through, she's still grateful for Twitter as a platform and all the good things it's brought to

00:40:42.380 her life. Honestly, it really helps that I have a strong and supportive community, both online and

00:40:52.580 off. I really am super grateful for Twitter for so many reasons, not the least of which is because

00:41:00.760 it's helped me expand my network. And I've met amazing people and connected people who are like

00:41:10.760 me, people who aren't like me, and gotten to know so much about them and learn about their lived

00:41:17.580 experiences. And that has saved me because it helps me kind of get out of my own headspace or

00:41:26.520 likewise, you know, connect with people who understand 100% where I'm coming from.

00:41:32.660 And that's in a world where, you know, we're frequently gaslit about the things that we see

00:41:42.700 and experience

00:41:43.700 that is

00:41:44.920 absolutely

00:41:45.860 invaluable

00:41:47.120 oh and one more

00:41:48.820 thing that helps

00:41:49.440 it also helps

00:41:50.620 that I'm funny

00:41:51.260 honestly

00:41:54.760 having a sense

00:41:56.100 of humor

00:41:56.520 and a wit

00:41:57.320 will get you

00:41:59.140 through

00:41:59.660 pretty much

00:42:02.640 I don't want to say

00:42:05.100 pretty much anything

00:42:05.740 but how about this

00:42:06.480 it's gotten me through

00:42:07.380 pretty much everything

00:42:08.380 and you've been

00:42:11.420 through some stuff

00:42:12.720 I've been through it.

00:42:17.660 There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me, Bridget Todd.

00:42:21.020 It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

00:42:23.620 Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.

00:42:25.680 Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer.

00:42:28.200 Michael Amato is our contributing producer.

00:42:30.180 I'm your host, Bridget Todd.

00:42:31.920 For more podcasts from iHeart, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 1.00

00:42:39.260 Thanks so much for listening to There Are No Girls on the Internet.

00:42:41.500 If you want to help our podcast grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.

00:42:49.880 I survived nine months in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive

00:42:56.620 what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.

00:43:02.300 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled,

00:43:08.020 and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:43:13.680 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app,

00:43:18.280 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:43:21.600 If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality,

00:43:25.800 welcome home. Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for

00:43:31.340 anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.

00:43:35.200 Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture

00:43:39.160 with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions.

00:43:43.920 Yeah, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.

00:43:45.700 Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:43:53.480 Hey, this is Hayes Davenport.

00:43:55.400 And Sean Clements.

00:43:56.600 We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook.

00:43:58.760 Every episode, we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers.

00:44:04.340 The show's famously super accessible, so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on.

00:44:10.820 We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller, Danny McBride, Riz Ahmed, and Mary Steenburgen.

00:44:15.760 Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:44:21.760 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:44:24.400 Guaranteed human.

There Are No Girls on the Internet - February 20, 2024

Rest in Power Shafiqah Hudson, creator of #YourSlipIsShowing

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