Rudy Giuliani ordered to pay $150 million; Verizon gives woman’s phone records to stalker; Discord bans misgendering; Twitter ads get gross; Women in AI are sick of sexist questions; Is ChatGPT on winter break？ – NEWS ROUNDUP
00:03:41.340Yeah, I've been there where you're like just trying to scroll to read an article.
00:03:46.320And all of a sudden, as your finger is approaching the screen, a video appears out of nowhere.
00:03:51.460And now you've clicked the video and you're going to God knows where in your browser.
00:03:57.900Yeah, my my petty Internet complaint is well, the first one is not an Internet complaint.
00:04:04.620is that I went to, we went to a Christmas party last night, a work Christmas party,
00:04:09.000and I'm a little bit hungover. So folks listening, if I don't sound like I have the usual
00:04:15.280pep in my step, that might be why. Yeah, we're going to do our best though.
00:04:19.900I think we'll get there. I think we'll get there. Well, my other internet, actual internet,
00:04:25.060small time complaint is why does everything have to be an app these days? Like not everything
00:04:30.060needs to be an app. I was at McDonald's pretty recently during a car trip and I was thinking
00:04:34.380to myself like, wow, these prices have really gone up. I was curious later when I got to my
00:04:39.240destination. So I did a bit of Googling and I found this Reddit thread about how the prices
00:04:43.500at McDonald's maybe seem like they have gotten higher, but that if you use their app, you could
00:04:47.880actually get really good deals with all these tips and tricks on how to combine purchases so that you
00:04:52.320could really save money. And I was thinking, why do I have to, you know, I understand that they
00:04:56.680McDonald's wants to incentivize people to download their app, but shouldn't the prices just be the
00:05:01.000prices? Like, why do I have to engage with an app just to get whatever price on my whatever I'm
00:05:07.060buying at McDonald's? I, you know, I do a lot of traveling. And sometimes when I travel, I'll use
00:05:12.880wherever I'm at, like their, their version of the bike share program, like DC has capital bike share.
00:05:18.620I probably have four different apps on my phone from countries that not only do I not live in,
00:05:24.920i'll probably not be visiting again anytime soon for their specific bike share program it just
00:05:31.180really adds up not everything needs to be an app people yeah well and especially you know the idea
00:05:35.780that you have to use the app to get decent prices it's like the 2023 version of coupon clipping
00:05:41.820right like stores like bed bath and beyond where the prices are really high but you can get crazy
00:05:47.300deals with coupons it's just like that and i don't want to do that i don't want to clip coupons
00:05:51.240Yeah, I actually read this really interesting article about this woman, I think someplace in the UK, an older woman in her 70s, who tried to park and she had to pay to park using like a machine, but the machine was broken. And so she was like, well, I'm not going to pay like this machine's broken. And she got a ticket because the parking authority was like, oh, well, you should have downloaded our app and paid in the app.
00:06:15.160And she was like, I don't know how to download an app.
00:09:42.340I know that sounds weird, but it's like a home insemination kit, basically advertising
00:09:47.360that you can collect semen and make yourself pregnant without the man's consent.
00:09:53.220So not only is that like just physically gross and like sticky and yucky, but also it is0.92
00:09:59.440ethically gross. The kit appears to be an actual real product, but it's not clear to me if this is
00:10:04.960like an ad campaign that is real or just designed to get people talking about it, to get viral
00:10:10.280attention. I mean, we're talking about it. Some people have suggested that the ads are promoting
00:10:13.860illegal behavior, but it actually turns out that there are not laws against stealing semen,
00:10:18.960which I was surprised to find. I was like, oh, certainly this is Twitter making money by
00:10:24.440promoting illegal activity. Not so. But just because it's not illegal does not mean that it is
00:10:29.400ethical behavior, even though it's not technically against the law. I know this sounds kind of
00:10:34.080outlandish, but listeners might remember a rumor, and I want to emphasize rumor, about a certain
00:10:39.740Canadian rapper, Drake, from a few years ago that he would allegedly put hot sauce in all of his
00:10:45.720used condoms after sexual encounters to prevent people that he was sleeping with from doing
00:10:50.640exactly what this ad suggests, i.e. stealing his sperm to try to get themselves pregnant.0.82
00:10:56.540I have no idea if this is true or not. I will say that, like, it does sound like an incredible amount of effort to go through to prevent someone from rooting through the garbage and then stealing your semen to impregnate themselves.0.81
00:11:09.260Yeah, pretty hard to imagine doing that, but the internet couldn't have just made that up.
00:11:14.160You think people would just get on the internet and lie about Drake like that?
00:12:20.500certain obnoxious ads that just like keep popping up. I feel like they're like, at least when they
00:12:27.260were from real companies, they weren't so weird and over the top. So I could be wrong, but I
00:12:32.720imagine this company behind the, you know, artificially, surreptitiously inseminate yourself
00:12:38.500at home kit is probably not a particularly large company. So the fact that their ads are all over
00:12:44.000Twitter really suggests to me that they got a great deal on these ads, which makes sense because
00:12:49.260Twitter's big advertisers are still fleeing the platform. So they probably have a ton of unsold
00:12:54.220ad inventory and they're just like giving great deals to whatever sketchy borderline illegal or
00:13:00.820like, you know, maybe unethical products want that space. Like right now I've been getting so many
00:13:07.240ads on Twitter for clearly knockoff luxury handbags, which really takes me back to that
00:13:13.220conversation we had about TikTok, about how TikTok had to crack down on that, right? Like
00:13:17.220If somebody is trying to sell you a Louis Vuitton handbag that they say is legit for like $40, it's probably a signal that like something weird, if not illegal, is going on.
00:13:26.900But I say all this to say that if you are listening and you have a product that you would like to sell, and the brand alignment for that product is like Alex Jones denying that Sandy Hook ever happened and calling murdered children crisis actors and ads for stealing semen, Twitter might be the place for you.
00:13:45.140Man, that is not a product I probably want.
00:13:50.240Okay, so palate cleanser needed for that story.
00:13:53.020I have a little bit of good news for y'all.
00:13:55.320Y'all know that I believe deeply in celebrating wins when we get them.
00:14:00.360Discord has explicitly banned misgendering and deadnaming trans people
00:14:04.580as part of an update to its hateful conduct policy.
00:14:07.580So Discord is a social media messaging platform that is really popular with gamers.
00:14:11.980Discord actually updated this internal hate speech policy back in April of 2022, but only recently went public with these changes as part of their regular review to improve transparency.
00:14:22.860So the updated hate speech policy now prohibits, quote, repeatedly using slurs to degrade and demean individuals or groups, which includes deadnaming or misgendering a transgender person.
00:14:33.820GLAAD outlined this change in a report.
00:14:39.640But something that they point out in this report is that transphobia, specifically things like misgendering and deadnaming, has become a really reliable way for right-wing grifters to build out their platforms online, which, you know, I always knew innately, but I never really thought about it that much or really thought about how much I have, like, seen that in action until reading this report.
00:15:03.080The trope is extremely popular amongst high-follower anti-LGBTQ accounts and is especially utilized to bully, mock, and harass prominent trans public figures, Admiral Rachel Levine, Dylan Mulvaney, 16-year-old Zaya Wade, to name a few.
00:15:17.180This strategy of targeting well-known people serves to escalate visibility and engagement on posts, while it also functions as a vehicle to express general hatred of trans and non-binary people and the community as a whole.
00:15:28.820I also make this other really interesting point, which I never really thought about in these terms before. And that is the way that deadnaming and misgendering famous people, especially as a way to get clicks and engagements through celebrity name dropping, is this like tried and true engagement tactic, which again, I just like never really thought about that before.
00:15:47.560Because, you know, your Ben Shapiros and your Jordan Petersons of the world, like these are people who certainly don't want to think of themselves as like making celebrity content, right? Like they would probably object to that, to that characterization of themselves.
00:16:02.180However, you do get attention and traction and engagement when you mention a celebrity because people like reading about celebrities. And so they're basically using celebrity, like using demeaning trans celebrities as a way to capitalize on the attention that comes with talking about celebrity, but in a way that kind of lets them be like, well, because these people are like genuinely obsessed with celebrities.
00:16:25.960Like, I, it's like a weird kind of anti-fandom where essentially, you know, the same thing that drives a young person to make an obsessive Tumblr account dedicated to Taylor Swift and Taylor Swift fandom, it's like not totally dissimilar, just in the other direction.
00:16:43.620Like, these people are genuinely obsessed with celebrities and what's going on with them.
00:16:47.660What a gross way to get attention and build a platform by, like, targeting trans people. Like, give them a break.1.00
00:16:56.780And I really hate that it's effective. And these people clearly know it's effective. That's why they continue to do it.
00:17:02.520So to put this change that Discord has made in context right now of the six major social
00:17:07.900media platforms, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and threads, right now
00:17:13.080only TikTok expressly prohibits targeted misgendering and deadnaming in its hate and
00:17:52.480Yeah, I mean, I will never stop railing about this, but that as a value, as a core value, is what motivated Elon Musk to purchase Twitter in the first place.
00:18:03.640And so, you know, transphobia and hostility to trans people continues to really shape the way the internet works for everybody.
00:18:12.460So importantly, the announcement of these changes over at Discord also went along with some transparency around how it will be enforced, which is so important because a policy change without actual enforcement mechanisms is like just a wish.
00:18:26.160So critics of these kinds of policies usually make it seem like, oh, just getting someone's name wrong once means you're going to be banned.
00:18:36.980And it's not the case at Discord either.
00:18:38.740So Discord outlined the consequences of violating this new hateful conduct policy by explaining their warning system.
00:18:44.980So when a user is reported for breaking the rules, they will get a direct message from Discord letting them know about that violation.
00:18:51.120Discord's actual actions in response to an infraction depend on the severity of harm, the type of user content, and that user's history of past violations.
00:19:00.080Discord says that if the violation was not particularly severe, that person may lose these features for a few hours.
00:19:05.100If it was a repeated violation or a higher severity violation, they may lose some features for a few days up to one year.
00:19:12.020And yeah, I think that really making it clear how this will work is key to any policy on social media.
00:19:19.360I think there needs to be transparency and also consistent enforcement because when policies don't have transparency and consistent enforcement, not only does it undermine those policies, obviously, but it also just gives credence to people who are like, oh, well, this is just like the PC police that don't let you say anything.
00:19:39.660You really need to have that consistency and transparency for these policies, not just to have any teeth, but also to like help people understand that these policies are a good thing to actually allow people to have discourse online and that these kind of policies are not incongruous with, you know, fostering Internet spaces to be places where people can actually meaningfully have discourse and enjoy the free speech that people, you know, love to talk about.
00:20:06.760Yeah. Yeah. Transparency is great. And it also implies that they have sufficient staff who will be monitoring reports and taking action. So, you know, unlike Twitter, where they just laid off like almost the entire trust and safety team, it seems like Discord is really taking it seriously, which is great to see.
00:20:31.140Yeah. And I would say, I mean, it's happening at Twitter for sure. But I do know that that is becoming a more common thing right now. You know, cuts to trust and safety teams, cuts to the teams that handle these kinds of things. And that's something I think, like, so it would be great if Discord is doing the opposite, if they're actually fostering and like supporting and growing out the people who do that kind of work within the company.
00:20:56.780Yeah. Yeah. And it seems smart for them, right? Like, unlike Twitter, where advertisers are fleeing, Discord has so many partnerships with like big celebrities, gaming celebrities, often reaching young people explicitly.
00:21:16.840And, you know, I think that's been a really valuable thing for them. And so it makes sense that they would want to protect it.
00:29:51.860So it gets a lot worse. Once he had her information, he traveled from New Mexico to North Carolina
00:29:57.800and sent her a message reading, I'm just going to turn around, stop at a big five and get me a1.00
00:30:03.040fucking rifle and some ammunition. And if I can't have you, no one can. You want to treat me like0.99
00:30:08.740this? Well, fuck you. So this woman was understandably terrified for her life. She1.00
00:30:14.100calls 911. They put officers to stake out her home. So this is from the police report.0.99
00:30:19.660Glonner stopped directly in front of her house before entering the neighbor's yard and standing
00:30:23.780in a darkened area, at which time members of the Raleigh Police Department arrested him.
00:30:29.280He was found with a folding razor blade knife on his person, two mobile phone devices.
00:30:34.760One of these phones displayed the image of the victim as the lock screen.
00:30:39.360When police searched his car, they found a glass meth pipe, eight grams of suspected methamphetamine, and two brand new bundles of rope that were still in plastic wrap.
00:30:51.980He's in jail now with a $550,000 bond.
00:30:54.980And so honestly, the fact that this kind of low effort attempt to trick Verizon was successful is just genuinely baffling to me, not to mention terrifying.
00:31:08.500It would be like making an email address that's like stevenpolice at gmail.com and then sending that email and having it work.
00:31:18.700Yeah, it is scary. I mean, you were just talking about FISA and all the abuse of that surveillance law. And I think a lot of it looks like this, right? Or maybe not. Maybe this is rare. You hope this sort of thing is rare. But how many other people have done this where it was never found out about, right? We don't know.
00:31:45.060Yeah. And importantly, I just want to say that I think the only reason why this guy was caught, and it sounds like this is not the first time that he has done this, the only reason why this guy was caught and probably why this woman is still alive is because he messaged her to tell her what he was planning to do.
00:32:02.460I think had he not done that, he probably would have just shown up to her house with knife and rope and God only knows what would have happened. I am so glad that she is okay. I hope she is safe now. But yeah, it's terrifying to think about. And it really makes me wonder like how often like is you got to think that maybe Verizon is just getting these kind of subpoenas for people's phone records.
00:32:24.300And just like maybe it's the kind of thing that happens so often that it is routine that they don't even think twice about this handing people's private data and information over to whoever without even being like, wait, is this sketchy?
00:32:37.080Like, it makes me think that maybe this is something that is happening at such a scale that they have been trained to not even think twice about it.
00:32:43.900Yeah, right. You would hope there would be some kind of checks on it. Like like you said, maybe they call the police department on an official listed number or maybe like a database that they can look up the supposed warrant in or or anything.
00:33:01.420But it sounds like there is just nothing. I really hope that we hear more about this story and what went wrong at Verizon. Were there protocols that weren't followed? Or is there truly just nothing? And anybody who knows the magic email address can just send fake emails to it and get people's personal information.
00:33:26.340that's such a good point like we should be hearing from verizon on this this this should be a big
00:33:32.400deal verizon's negligence almost got a woman murdered we should be hearing from verizon on
00:33:37.740how it happened and what their plan is to make sure it never happens again i'm just i'm i use
00:33:42.460verizon right like i'm concerned about how this happened and it is genuinely terrifying that
00:33:47.920verizon could basically enable a woman's almost murder without doing the basic bare minimum of
00:33:55.680keeping our information from falling in the wrong hands. Like, do better. Just, we should be able to
00:34:00.340expect better. We deserve better. Do better. Yeah, I really hope we hear more about this. It's scary.
00:34:09.000Okay, so let's talk about how to talk about women in tech. So Hugging Face is the name of a company
00:34:14.180that develops tools for building and using AI. It's kind of been framed as like a competitor to
00:34:19.800OpenAI, Sam Altman's company. They have a lot of women who work at Hugging Face, and they do a lot
00:34:24.820of public speaking about AI in the media, which is great. And I also think it's important because
00:34:30.500I think it can really change the face of who we see speaking about technology like AI with
00:34:37.260authority. It should look like the people who actually use technology, which is women, trans
00:34:42.760folks, queer folks, Black folks, folks of color. And so those are the same people that we should
00:34:46.640get used to seeing, talking about that technology with authority. It's one of the reasons why I
00:34:51.880started this very podcast. So the many women who work at Hugging Face have been doing this,0.99
00:34:57.360and it's great. However, they did notice that when they were doing public speaking about AI
00:35:02.540with the press, they sometimes would get sexist or otherwise just kind of messed up questions.
00:35:08.520So Margaret Mitchell, who is Hugging Face's chief ethics scientist, and also just like a top 10
00:35:13.300Twitter follow, I've learned so much just from like, following her Twitter. So if you don't
00:35:17.620follow Margaret Mitchell, you definitely should. Being the data-driven person that she is,
00:35:22.660she framed this as a research question. What are the patterns in how journalists talk to
00:35:27.340and about women in AI? She writes, we've discovered that compared to our male peers,
00:35:32.920there is a disproportionate focus from press on our ages, our motherhood, our physical appearances
00:35:38.480or behaviors, our failures, or what AI gossip we can provide rather than technical work.
00:35:44.040After the most recent double whammy in which I was described in one news outlet as flirtatious and also cagey about my age, and Sasha Luchoni was described as a mother balancing work and life, we decided we put together some good practices.
00:35:59.820So Dr. Sasha Luchoni, who is an AI researcher and the climate lead at Hugging Face, there was this profile of her in Adweek.
00:36:07.740And the headline read, this AI ethics expert juggles motherhood and a tech career.
00:36:13.240People really had to raise hell to get them to change it. I will say, I don't know, I would have been... I think that title is really problematic. I think that if you are being interviewed about your technical work and your technical expertise, stuff that you are good at, stuff that you went to school for,
00:36:34.340However, I do think that it's disrespectful to shoehorn in conversations about you being a parent or a mom or your age. And I don't think we would see that if the subject was a man. However, I do want to be careful because I think that, you know, there should be, I believe that there should be places and spaces where you can talk about the challenges that you have as professionals and also the fact that we are humans that have lives, right?
00:37:03.860I don't think that an article in Adweek about your technical expertise is the place to do it, but I do want there to be spaces where people can have those conversations because, you know, your professional work does intersect with your actual human life.
00:37:18.520So I actually am very interested in that, but I think it should be something that all adults who work and also balance personal and professional lives, as we all do, not just for women.
00:37:29.940It shouldn't just be something that's like, oh, because it's a woman researcher, let's ask about her kids. Let's ask about if she's a wife or whatever. I think that we could benefit as a society from there being spaces where we can talk about the reality of balancing our personal and professional lives. But that should be the case for everybody of every gender. And it certainly doesn't have a place where the framing of the article is meant to focus her expertise. Like that is incredibly sexist.
00:37:57.580Yeah, totally. I mean, you're never going to see a headline. This AI ethics expert juggles fatherhood in a tech career, right? Like that's just not a headline you're going to see.
00:38:07.420Oh, nobody ever asks, unless it's a piece that is about being a parent, nobody ever asks men about their kids.
00:38:16.620Nobody ever asked them, like, whatever, I mean, this is such a side note, but it's like a little talk about gripes.
00:38:22.280Whenever there's, like, a male writer or person who has achieved a lot, they're always, like, nobody ever asks them, like, oh, who watches your kids when you're working?
00:38:33.740Like, when you're traveling for work, who's watching your kids?
00:38:35.740But when you are a woman, that is like, they ask about it all the time.
00:38:41.100It is frustrating how we have just created this association that it is only women who
00:38:48.480should be concerned about, who are juggling parenthood and professional life, when it
00:39:31.880It includes tips like avoid gendered language. At the moment, we see lots of over-associating women with certain words and concepts, such as children and family. Proofread your articles to eliminate gender descriptions that may unintentionally reinforce stereotypes.0.99
00:39:46.660Yeah. And so I do think there is a time and a place for talking about what it's like to be a working parent. But if you're writing a piece that is about highlighting someone's technical expertise, that is not the place for that. Like, do not, like, it is so deeply gendered.
00:40:03.340And here's another tip from the guide. Don't rely on antiquated stereotypes about women in tech. This includes describing women as outsiders in the field, which only serves to reinforce the idea that women don't belong in tech.0.95
00:40:16.920They give this example of a problematic sentence. Despite being a woman in a male-dominated field, Brooke Brooksy has made a name for herself in the tech industry. Here's how they would change it. Through her brilliant results on magic in LLMs, Brooke Brooksy made a name for herself in the tech industry.0.99
00:40:31.900And that really is so key because I think that we have this misconception that people who are not cis white men are like the rightful owners of technology and those adjacent spaces.
00:40:49.540And so the story that we've told of like women and queer folks and trans folks trying to like break into this boys club, that is not correct.
00:40:59.060We have always been in these spaces since the very beginning. And we got to normalize the fact that if our presence is not always represented, that is because of intentional choices, not because we were not always there.
00:41:13.260And so really, it's like a reframe of who belongs in these spaces, who these spaces are for. And I'm really glad that they are trying to help educate journalists to not unintentionally reinforce this attitude that is just not correct.
00:41:30.660So Mitchell explains that they're hoping that this guide actually does make the space more
00:41:35.220hospitable to women. She writes, to help lessen the tendency for press to perpetuate concepts
00:41:40.120of women that harm our ability in tech to inspire, recruit, and retain women. To help create a
00:41:44.960culture in press where technical women who speak with journalists don't have to undergo feeling1.00
00:41:49.380alienated, demeaned, regularly misrepresented, or violated. She makes a really good point about
00:41:54.900the importance of women disagreeing in public. She writes, one thing about Hugging Face that I0.91
00:42:01.000deeply value after my years in tech is that employees are permitted to speak to the press,
00:42:05.620even in the face of clear disagreements across different employees. The approach is one of
00:42:10.200value pluralism, nurturing and respecting expertise. This has the side effect of magically
00:42:15.760producing more women to speak on different AI questions by grounding on expertise rather than1.00
00:42:21.280seniority or alignment to a PR comms narrative that all must share. We've magically been able
00:42:26.860to have more women be more public than is typical in tech. And I love that. I think that, I mean,0.99
00:42:33.340I have been in situations where the organization has a party line or a stance and anybody who is
00:42:40.960speaking publicly has to abide by that party line. But what Mitchell is saying is that actually when
00:42:46.140you get a pluralism of opinions and attitudes all grounded in expertise, you can actually be having
00:42:52.220much more dynamic conversations in public. And those conversations can really spotlight women
00:42:57.300and our accomplishments and achievements much better. It just elevates the whole conversation
00:43:02.400and makes the space better for everyone. Yeah, that's a pretty radical approach, really.
00:43:07.780Certainly unusual in my experience. You know, I'm I think pretty most organizations I've ever been familiar with, with the exception of universities, are very much the everybody must be aligned on the official comms narrative.
00:43:27.360Same. I mean, I understand why organizations would feel the need to do that. But I just think this indicates that it's not the only way to be. And actually, you can get some more interesting results when you have more people speaking up.