00:00:08.440There are no girls on the internet as a production of iHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative.
00:00:16.560I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There are No Girls on the Internet.
00:00:21.940Since you're listening to this podcast, there's a good chance you're familiar with the podcast
00:00:26.760Serial, a 2014 true crime podcast that covered the murder of Korean American high school student
00:00:33.040Hey Min Lee, who was last seen alive on January 13th, 1999. Adnan Syed was convicted of Hey's
00:00:41.760murder in 1999, but this week a Baltimore judge vacated the conviction and ordered his immediate
00:00:48.360release. According to Vox, a new investigation in Adnan's conviction found errors in his original
00:00:55.360court case, including multiple Brady violations, which means the prosecution refused to turn over
00:01:01.120potentially exculpatory evidence to the defense prior to his trial. Today, Adnan is a free man,
00:01:08.280and the state now has 30 days to either drop the existing charges against him or schedule a
00:01:13.780retrial. Now, this is great news for Adnan, but it's still really said that he has spent so much
00:01:19.640of his life behind bars, and that Hayes Killer has been out there all this time and her family
00:01:25.940and community have never gotten justice. Attorney and advocate Rabia Shadri is a childhood friend
00:01:32.180of Adnan's. She's been fighting nonstop for his release and advocating for the wrongfully
00:01:38.060convicted. On our own podcast, Undisclosed, she and her team investigate wrongful convictions
00:01:44.300and the U.S. criminal justice system by taking a closer look at evidence that never made it to court.
00:01:49.640So while most people might remember Serial as the big, flashy podcast that got Adnan's case a ton of attention, it was Rabia who did a lot of the tireless work that led to his release.
00:02:00.940And as it so often is for women, especially women of color like Rabia, that work was not without a personal cost.
00:02:08.380For Rabia, part of the personal cost for that work was having to deal with a terrifying coordinated harassment campaign against her from another true crime podcaster.
00:02:19.640Last May, Rabia and I sat down to talk about this harassment campaign, which, while horrible and terrifying, didn't keep her from that important work, the very same work that would go on to lead to Annan's release.
00:02:44.080You might know attorney Rabia Shadri from her role in the case of Adnan Saeed.
00:02:54.020Adnan was convicted of first-degree murder for the death of Hei Min Lee,
00:02:58.040a high school student in Baltimore who was last seen on January 13, 1999.
00:03:03.720Lee's family remains convinced of Adnan's guilt, but he maintains his innocence,
00:03:08.360and Rabia has been fighting to exonerate him.
00:03:11.160She brought his story to investigative journalist Sarah Koenig,
00:03:14.900which became the hit true crime podcast Serial.
00:03:18.420Rabia hosts her own true crime podcast called Undisclosed,
00:03:21.960where she and her co-hosts, who are also lawyers, explore wrongful convictions.
00:03:26.460Now, even though there's literally hundreds of thousands of podcasts out there,
00:03:29.760the podcast community can be kind of small.
00:03:32.620We see each other at events and conferences.1.00
00:03:35.660And right now, Rabia is facing a coordinated harassment campaign from another podcaster.
00:03:40.400Now, talking about this kind of online harassment is tricky, and it's so easy to do it irresponsibly.
00:03:46.440When we talk about harassment, we're often centering the harasser and their tactics.
00:03:51.200The experience of the person who has been harassed, how they're feeling and how it shapes their work and their perspective, can often go overlooked or not mentioned at all.
00:05:38.600And we need to talk about the way it impacts our work and our lives.
00:05:41.920I was in law school when the best friend of my younger brother was arrested, non-said, in 1999.
00:05:50.540And that has kind of gotten me, you know, it was just one of those things where I witnessed it up close.
00:05:56.200personal. I was there in his trial when he was convicted and I just witnessed the horror of all
00:06:03.800of it. And I couldn't believe what I was seeing. And I had no idea what the criminal justice system
00:06:08.940was like until what happened with Adnan. And our community also was pretty naive. So that's what
00:06:13.760really drew me in and kept me there all these years. He's still incarcerated, as most people
00:06:18.720know. But from his case, my work has stemmed out into doing other wrongful conviction work for the
00:06:25.980last six, seven years. That's been the focus of my work. Yeah. You know, I read this great quote
00:06:31.720from your mom. She says, your time in this world is really limited. What are you going to do with
00:06:36.160it? And something about that, first of all, your mom sounds awesome. She's a force to be reckoned
00:06:42.540with for sure. Something about that quote that really struck me was this idea that you are doing
00:06:48.460very important work, you know, legitimately life in death work, you know, working with people who
00:06:54.200been incarcerated, all of that. This is important stuff. And, you know, we only have so much time
00:07:00.500in a day and so much time on this world and so much energy that we that we can expend. And so
00:07:05.220to see somebody like you going through harassment campaigns, do you ever feel that this these kinds
00:07:11.220of campaigns are kind of deliberately meant to distract you from this important work that you
00:07:15.720actually have to do? Yeah, you know, I have been through, I mean, numerous, very intense kind of
00:07:24.200onslaughts, um, like in, in different, different times in my life for different reasons. So
00:07:30.220different groups who want to attack me for different reasons. And, um, I think the first
00:07:34.960time I went through it, uh, really, really, it was really terrible. It was around the time
00:07:38.840cereal came out actually. Um, but it wasn't so much related to cereals related to some of the
00:07:42.840interfaith work I did. And I spent, um, I learned my lesson because I spent about three months
00:07:49.740trying to respond to everything, not realizing that how trolling works and how harassment works.
00:07:56.180Then I, when I realized, first of all, I, I felt I was sick. I was exhausted. I was physically,
00:08:01.120I had gotten really sick over that time, just from the strain of it. Then the realization hit
00:08:06.720me that, you know, what they want me to do is not to function. They want me to, and they're winning
00:08:12.260because I'm spending all my time. Like, you know, it's like that whack-a-mole game, right? Like
00:08:16.380trying to respond to this thing and you responded this thing and they come at you with another
00:08:19.760thing. I'm like, Oh, this is brilliant. You're keeping me wrapped up in this crazy. And I'm
00:08:24.860wasting my time and my health and my sanity, um, and not doing my work. And so now I always think
00:08:30.600about it like that, but like, if this is preventing me from doing my work, they're winning.
00:08:34.300Um, and so a hundred percent, it's a distraction a hundred percent. What people who harassing you
00:08:39.200online want to do is to make sure you cannot actually function. Yeah. All the women that I
00:08:44.880talk to who face you know intense harassment that's something that they talk about that's1.00
00:08:49.540something that a lot of their situations have in common that at one point they you know they are
00:08:54.260trying to respond to everything and really engaged and then they realize they're spending all their
00:08:59.020time focusing on the harassment so whatever the thing is whether it was justice work like you or
00:09:04.060activist work or writing they are spending more time trying to respond to the trolls which they
00:09:09.720will never be able to satisfy because that's sort of the trip of harassment they're spending more
00:09:13.840time on that than they are sort of doing the thing that is their purpose and i believe that1.00
00:09:18.800really is one of the the purposes of this kind of harassment it's to keep powerful women or quote1.00
00:09:25.900mouthy women or women who you know can accomplish something to keep it's to keep us from accomplishing0.99
00:09:32.660whatever it is that we're like meant to be doing on this earth yeah there's that there's that1.00
00:09:37.480aspect of it and then there's the aspect of they want you to like they wanted to drag you down to
00:09:41.100their level. They're punching up in almost every case. They're punching up. They want your
00:09:45.860attention. They want relevance. So your attention gives them relevance. Otherwise they are irrelevant,
00:09:52.100essentially. That's so true. It's so true. And I know in your case, I can't help but wonder if
00:09:58.000part of the reason why some of the folks who really have like an obsession with you and your
00:10:03.440work, part of it is because you're very successful. You're very effective at what you do.
00:10:08.500And that makes them even more angry. You know, it is kind of an attempt to drag you down to their level because you're so successful, because they know you can be so effective.
00:10:18.600yeah you know it's it's interesting you know i um most recently in the last couple of years the
00:10:24.500attacks have been coming from um this one particular podcaster and he's he's actually
00:10:28.460an incredibly successful podcaster which is what's shocking about this particular situation is like
00:10:33.520dude you he he might be much more successful in the sense of um i mean in in one metric which is
00:10:39.640like i think he probably makes a lot more money than uh what me and my team make doing the work
00:10:43.580that we do but the metric that's important for us is like the the value of our work and the value
00:10:50.020of our work is are we able to help exonerate the people whose cases we're working on and um and
00:10:56.020basically just be able to pay cover our costs so we can do it so it doesn't cost anything to the
00:10:59.920defendant uh because for for most incarcerated people they can't afford uh the appeals they
00:11:05.380can't afford the reinvestigation we're able to cover those costs so by that metric my work is
00:11:09.940more I would say much more meaningful um maybe that's bothersome to to some people but I can't
00:11:16.200say that I'm the most successful podcaster in the sense of like we're not minting money over here
00:11:20.460you know we're not we're not girl neither am I yeah you know sometimes I wish the kind of work
00:11:27.520that you're producing was valued in that same way it can be a little bit frustrating sometimes I'm
00:11:32.260like man I could be doing like the kind of true crime podcast that you can just knock out like
00:11:36.880in an hour or so and just get online and chat with somebody about some case but our shows for
00:11:43.180every hour that we air we're talking about hundreds of hours of prep of maybe two years
00:11:47.760lead time of invest two years of investigation before we can air a case so it's very very
00:11:52.920intensive and but at the end of the day that's what uh that it's purposeful and and that's what
00:11:58.800i can do that's what i do best i don't do well what other people do right i can't do two crime
00:12:04.420comedy and I can't do other things, but this is what I do. And so, you know, as long as we're
00:12:08.960able to cover our costs, um, and provide this really as a service to the people who, whose
00:12:14.420cases we're looking at, we're going to continue to do it. Talking about this in terms of being
00:12:19.200in the podcast industry, you know, one of the people who is waging a targeted harassment campaign
00:12:24.580against you is a very popular podcaster, Mike Boudet. And I think that it's hard for me to watch
00:12:30.380as a like as a podcaster it's hard for me to watch the podcast industry and ecosystem still
00:12:38.200support this and you know one of the things i saw on your twitter that i think is so correct is like
00:12:42.580people need to understand that if you listen if you if like when you listen to this podcast this
00:12:48.280is what you're supporting i think it can be really easy for listeners to say oh well i'm just listening
00:12:52.900to the show i don't know what's going on you know i don't i'm not i'm not quote following whatever's
00:12:57.540happening. But really, it's been hard to see the silence, I would say, from the podcast industry
00:13:05.800in terms of watching someone essentially harass a colleague. You know, I think of all podcasters
00:13:10.980as kind of in the same, you know, the same club in a kind of way. It's been really hard.
00:13:15.540Yeah, you know, and you know why, though? Because, and then you're right. I mean, so we are,
00:13:21.420podcasting is a community. Podcast content creators, we are a community. And then you have
00:13:25.920genre so the true crime community is even a smaller subsect of that and many of us are close
00:13:30.740we see each other at different conferences and conventions we support each other's work
00:13:35.060we're listeners we listen to each other's shows um so what i know uh what i know for sure because
00:13:43.120uh we've we've people have confessed this to me privately they have said it publicly
00:13:47.320they have written about it is that the same person who i think he's i just think he's like
00:13:52.620a disturbed individual um many of them are afraid to really be public because when they have tried
00:13:57.660to push back publicly on any of his stuff he will come after them and he he does have a very big show
00:14:02.560and he has um a lot of followers and so he can really crush the smaller shows by flooding them
00:14:09.000with one-star reviews by harassing them into like leaving social media um and so a lot i've had
00:14:15.500people reach out and say i'm afraid to say anything but i just want you to know that you
00:14:20.300I support you, but I, this guy scares me. He's done this to me before. Like, I mean, it's like,
00:14:24.680so that's why, but there are some folks who have like in a very public way stepped up in the last
00:14:30.660couple of months and been like, enough is enough. Right. And, and they have really condemned his
00:14:35.220behavior. And I appreciate that, but not everybody can afford to. And I completely understand that.
00:14:40.760Yeah. That's so tough. And I think you just articulated one of the hallmarks of online
00:14:46.240harassment and abuse and coordinated harassment campaigns is that it really has a silencing
00:14:50.800effect, not just on the person that is targeted, but anyone who might want to, you know, stick up
00:14:56.280for that person, anyone who, you know, might want to challenge what's going on. It's such a big
00:15:02.080silencing effect. And I think that we don't talk enough about that as a speech issue, that the kind
00:15:06.880of people who, you know, are saying like, oh, gee, well, I don't want to be too outspoken, because I
00:15:10.520don't want what's happening to her to happen to me. I don't want it to be me next. I can't afford
00:15:14.540to have this kind of thing. So they don't speak up or they just leave social media altogether,
00:15:19.560or they don't say the thing that they actually want to say. That is one of the hallmarks of
00:15:24.120online harassment campaigns that we just don't talk about. And truly, with all of the rigmarole
00:15:30.020about free speech and cancel culture, we need to start taking that more seriously as a speech
00:15:35.400issue. Because if an entire group of already marginalized content creators feel like they
00:15:43.640can't speak up and say what they want to say because they're terrified of this person of one
00:15:47.900person like that's that's that is not good and we need to be talking about like perhaps we have
00:15:55.620perhaps it's a problem with our our kind of media and digital media landscape but also it's a wider
00:16:01.520problem about how much space one person is allowed to take up how much how much that one person is
00:16:06.820allowed to dictate this entire community i mean look we we saw this um in as big as way as possible
00:16:12.880with the former guy, the former guy who was in the white house. Um, so yeah, one person can have a
00:16:18.640lot of power. They can be very destructive. One person can be a complete wrecking ball. And that's
00:16:23.300what this particular person is. He's a wrecking ball. But what's really crazy about the whole0.93
00:16:26.620thing is that, uh, he's mostly wrecking himself, right? Like in all of this, as he's scaring people
00:16:31.780and stuff, he's getting deep platforms, getting dropped by sponsors, getting dropped by his,
00:16:36.340um, his, um, his, his different companies. And, uh, and at the end of the day, you know,
00:16:41.540the rest of us are still going to be invited and show up to, to different, um, spaces that, uh,
00:16:47.960you know, are relevant to our, our work. And while he's kind of been ostracized for years,
00:16:52.580so it's not just, you know, I'm a target. Um, I think I'm a big target for him because
00:16:58.240I won't just take it and disappear. Um, and it's frustrating to him. Uh, but, um, most people just
00:17:07.120kind of quietly like you know fade into the background and so he stops attacking them after
00:17:11.520a while um and you know for me also what I realized was like what gives people like that fuel is is
00:17:18.900just attention and so they're just starved for attention and I assume purpose and meaning in
00:17:23.500their life and I don't have the time to give that to them because I got too much shit going on in
00:17:28.760my life you know I have too much work that's actually has an impact on people's lives that
00:17:32.960i gotta do i don't have time for it let's take a quick break
00:17:36.620the new red bull dragon berry and tropic berry energizers now at mcdonald's made with freeze
00:17:50.540dried fruit and an electric burst of flavor the all-new red bull energizers now at mcdonald's
00:17:58.300this product may not be right for you high in caffeine details at mcdonald's.ca at participating
00:20:41.100According to data from Amnesty International, women of color are disproportionately targeted for online harassment and abuse.
00:20:47.700And we see this playing out in all kinds of places.
00:20:50.240For instance, former President Donald Trump was known for lashing out at reporters of all stripes.0.86
00:20:55.940But his worst, most vitriolic comments were always reserved for journalists who also happen to be black women or women of color.
00:21:03.280Like White House correspondents Yamiche Alcindor, April Ryan, and Ouija Jiang.
00:21:08.720And that his behavior toward them made them even bigger targets for abuse, precisely because they're women of color.
00:21:16.260Knowing this, it's not surprising that even though Mike has had issues with white male podcasters in the past,
00:21:22.080he isn't selling merchandise referencing their work on his website.
00:21:25.220And those men aren't being called out specifically by name in his podcast's official Twitter bio, like Rabia is.
00:21:32.440Rabia is far from the only podcaster who has criticized him.
00:21:35.820Yet, Mike has not threatened to make a daily podcast blaming those men if he's ever kicked off social media.
00:21:42.300But he's threatened to do that to Rabia.
00:21:43.740I also think part of it is that you're a woman of color. You know, the data is very clear that women of color, we are disproportionately targeted. I think that, you know, you said earlier that he has gone after other podcasters, white men. He's not making, you know, merchandise based around their work.
00:22:03.120there are people there are certain kinds of people we know exactly who they are1.00
00:22:06.740that they cannot stand a woman of color uh like having any kind of backbone they want us to be
00:22:15.320subservient they want us to they want us to be in our place they want to put us in our place0.85
00:22:20.360um and yeah i think that that's one of the biggest triggers for this guy and for others like him is
00:22:27.740that who the hell does she think she is?0.54
00:22:39.160I mean, like, we've seen this happen on a national stage.
00:22:41.900We've seen this happen with incredible
00:22:43.680black female correspondents and journalists, you know,1.00
00:22:47.200coming from a presidential administration.
00:22:48.820So we've seen this happen in so many different ways.
00:22:51.720And I think that's really a big part of why
00:22:55.060I am a particular target for this person.
00:22:57.740I think that's so true. I think there's something about when a woman of color is outspoken, where people look at us and say, who does she think she is? Doesn't she know that she's supposed to just lie down and take it or immediately, you know, fall all over and self-apologizing? The fact that you won't do that, I think it just, it triggers something very ugly inside of a certain kind of person.1.00
00:23:21.720When these kinds of harassment campaigns, the kind of thing that you've gone through are happening, so many people and institutions that actually have power do nothing. And I think that that's another hallmark of this kind of harassment that we see.
00:23:33.560You know, social, like I was, you know, on Twitter, this person's podcast has a verified account. You know, we know that deplatforming is a very effective way of curbing harassment. And yet, you know, social media platforms seem to be doing nothing.
00:23:48.600You know, we see journalists describe what's happening to you as a, quote, feud, as if you as if you two are just sort of having some kind of a sparring match and that this is not a pretty intense and serious coordinated online harassment campaign against you.
00:24:03.300You know, what is it like to see so many institutions and people with power really do nothing to curb this when they could?
00:24:11.940I mean, it's not surprising. We've seen this so many times, especially with women.1.00
00:24:16.120And we've seen this in so many different, like, you know, different controversies have taken place with women getting harassed and and making it public.
00:24:24.400And, you know, it's they gaslight you. So it's like if you if I'm being attacked and harassed, whether it's in my DMs, it's my emails, it's all coming from the same source.
00:24:34.000However, it's happening. If I call attention to it in order to get some kind of response from these platforms, then people say, well, why are that?
00:24:43.060then it becomes a feud. They frame it like it's a feud. And it's not a feud. It's me calling
00:24:47.340attention to his behavior. And if you don't say anything and you just take it, I mean, I guess
00:24:52.940that's kind of what they want. Just don't take it and take it. But these platforms, they don't
00:24:56.700really do anything. What has been more effective is asking people to just report certain posts and
00:25:02.980tweets and stuff. Some get removed, some don't get removed. I mean, free speech, first amendment
00:25:07.960is what it is. I guess we have the legal right to be as ugly as you want. I think I hit my,
00:25:13.460I kind of hit my limit when there were people, his followers and his mentions, and he's like
00:25:21.780kind of encouraging, he's encouraging people to go to like my speaking events to like find me in
00:25:27.940real life. And then he had people saying things like, hopefully she'll get murdered herself.0.95
00:25:32.860hopefully Adnan one more then I was like this has gone like too far and that's when I really that's
00:25:38.660when I finally kind of posted I said I have called on Twitter and Facebook to deplatform him this is
00:25:44.360the kind of stuff he's saying and encouraging and they won't and if something happens to me or
00:25:48.740my family then they're they you know you didn't also need to be held responsible yeah I mean the
00:25:54.520kind of things that I've seen I've seen you know people I'll see people be like oh well she should
00:26:00.060just block him if she doesn't like what he has to say he's blocked i mean yeah exactly you know
00:26:05.240and it's like getting people to understand that this is not just something that is happening
00:26:09.320like quote unquote on twitter on the computer i very genuinely sometimes worry for your safety
00:26:15.720in real life and everything that we know about online harassment when it even if it starts
00:26:19.940online it doesn't stay online and very often it's connected to real world violence and so
00:26:24.260i am i when i see the kinds of things that he's encouraging his followers to do i get very
00:26:29.980like concern for your actual safety yeah yeah i've had my moments of concern i mean i think
00:26:35.960um he it just takes one unhinged person to think i gotta do something about this you know especially
00:26:43.800because the way he particularly frames it is i mean it's such i mean like you you see you've
00:26:49.060seen this technique unfold like online um like with the elections right so what trump said was
00:26:54.660that these people are harming our elections what this guy says is this woman is shutting down my
00:26:58.720podcast i mean he's got an incredibly successful podcast i'm not shutting anything down um he's
00:27:02.840continuing to produce and i've gotten messages from from people from men saying um if you if
00:27:09.360if he ends up losing his podcast because of you i'm gonna come get you kind of stuff for a podcast
00:27:14.220right like so the way he's framing it is to basically target uh is to direct people's um
00:27:19.940rage towards me in case like you know so they can like take out take out revenge or something in
00:27:26.480case like he you know he stops making a show which he's not gonna but um and on top of which
00:27:32.080everything that he's lost in terms of sponsors and it's it's been 100 him
00:27:41.240the new red bull dragon berry and tropic berry energizers now at mcdonald's made with freeze
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00:28:04.880participating canadian restaurants excluding quebec run a business and not thinking about
00:28:08.800podcasting think again more americans listen to podcasts than ad-supported streaming music
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00:28:35.300iheartadvertising.com if your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your
00:28:40.580personality welcome home this is prose society the weekly podcast that's part book club part
00:28:48.200group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and
00:28:52.340Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're
00:28:57.620connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:29:02.920I'm gonna have to look up this story. I'm obsessed, so obsessed. From best-selling authors and your
00:29:08.020favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.
00:29:12.440It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:29:20.380Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place.
00:29:29.520Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:30:01.500Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.
00:30:04.640unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling
00:30:11.940that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming. They are abducted,
00:30:19.440stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.
00:30:25.520They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to The Survivor Files with
00:30:31.080Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:30:41.800Let's get right back into it. In 2019, after Mike celebrated International Women's Day by
00:30:47.660posting a really gross meme about violence against women on social media, people in the
00:30:52.560podcast community spoke up. And Wondery, Sword and Scales Network, eventually announced they
00:30:57.600were parting ways with the show. Mike vowed to keep the show running without the support of the
00:31:02.060network, tweeting, anything that was ad supported is over now because of Aaron Mankey from Lore
00:31:07.540and Rabia from Undisclosed, who led this boycott against me and my company because they didn't
00:31:13.060like certain things I said. But that tweet pretty conveniently leaves out any responsibility for the
00:31:19.100consequences of his own actions. Like it's his own actions that have caused it and he won't take
00:31:26.400responsibility for his behavior so yeah i mean but there's only so much you know i did report
00:31:31.800um that i did report the harassment to law enforcement but you know we also don't have
00:31:36.060very strong cyber stalking laws and stuff in this country there's only so much you can do to protect
00:31:41.080yourself and other than that it's kind of like okay try to keep my family safe you know got got
00:31:46.260security cameras up got alarm system things like that but what can i do if you know once covid is
00:31:52.140lifted and I'm out uh in the public again I I always did a lot of traveling and speaking and
00:31:57.140and uh and and I have a new book coming out next year and I'll be probably traveling for that
00:32:01.560and it is what it is I can't like hide right yeah and it goes back to what we were talking about
00:32:06.860earlier of this is preventing you from living your life from doing your work from making your
00:32:11.520living you know especially as kind of public content creators like that kind of thing you do
00:32:17.840have to have a fair amount of like public stuff whether it's appearances or our speaking engagements
00:32:23.020or conferences or panels or whatever to to do that and so the way that this is really like would
00:32:30.420really make it difficult for you to be able to do that without wondering in the back of your head
00:32:34.840like it's today the day that some you know some listener of his takes matters into his own hands
00:32:40.580it's preventing you from being able to live life the way that you want to live your life and I
00:32:45.720think that that's something that people really forget about this kind of harassment is that
00:32:49.180it's not just online, it's in real life as well. Oh, it is. I mean, a hundred percent. I,
00:32:55.740but at the same time, I mean, like, you know, and I've had to process through this with
00:32:59.820my own lawyer and, and people who are close to me and that I turned to for advice that,
00:33:05.860you know, it's actually not going to happen. I'm not going to change the way I live my life
00:33:09.640other than just taking some general precautions. I'm going to continue,
00:33:13.080I'm going to continue to do the work. I'm going to continue to travel and speak. I mean, I speak
00:33:18.560to a lot of law schools and law firms and, um, and universities about this work. And that's the
00:33:26.080kind of stuff that helps scale it up. You know, you get people to support the work, you get
00:33:29.380students saying, I want to go to law school now. Um, and so, yeah, I'm going to continue to do it
00:33:34.920at the end of the day. Um, and it is what it is. I mean, like there's just, you know, I look,
00:33:42.560I'm also a religious person. I'm a person of faith. And I firmly believe that when your time
00:33:47.300is written, it's written. When it's supposed to come, it's supposed to come. So, you know,
00:33:52.180yeah. I mean, like there's this kind of no avoiding it. So when it's going to happen,
00:33:56.260it's going to happen. But, you know, but of course you don't want it to happen because of
00:33:58.960something as ridiculous and stupid as something like this. Yeah. Yeah. And I think something that1.00
00:34:03.360you've said is so touching, knowing that you are going to continue to inspire so many. It's like
00:34:08.760you're building this little army of people who are inspired to follow in your footsteps and
00:34:13.220follow in your legacy and continue to create that kind of justice you know the impact that you will0.99
00:34:18.560have on so many people is so big and your voice can be so big and the idea that this one asshole0.81
00:34:25.640could stop it is obviously he couldn't right like you're like the impact that you can have that you0.97
00:34:30.420have is so much bigger than anything that this person could ever you know dream up to try to
00:34:36.460stop it I feel yeah you know I kind of laugh about it sometimes um when he he posts things
00:34:43.160about Adnan's case or other aspects of the work and I'm like I'm an attorney I've been doing this
00:34:47.900for like 20 odd years I have a team of attorneys I work with I work with the Innocence Project
00:34:52.400across the country on cases and this completely unqualified you know white guy right like this
00:35:00.740completely qualified guy thinks that he has the same like skill set or or even has the same
00:35:08.120like he's he's so entitled that he feels like his opinion is equal to my expertise i mean like
00:35:16.960really um and i think that probably drives me crazy too i mean like is the fact that i want to
00:35:21.400be like listen go to law school spend about 10 15 years doing innocence work and then let's talk
00:35:26.420about this case. Like, you know, you have a completely uninformed opinion. You're, you can't
00:35:31.360come close to like my, you know, the work that I do because you don't have the experience. I'm sure
00:35:36.820he's great at what he does. I can't do what he does. I will never do what he does. And he can't
00:35:41.020do what I do as simple as that. And so it's just like apples and oranges. And I think what it is,
00:35:45.960is he thinks, Oh, she's got a true crime podcast. My podcast is a means to an end. Um, the pot,
00:35:51.580the whole point of the podcast is I could end the podcast tomorrow, as long as I could find a way
00:35:56.060to financially support the work of helping people get back in court, right? Who's been
00:36:01.600incarcerated for 20, 30 years. The podcast is just a way to do that. That's not the work. The work
00:36:06.200is the other work that I do outside of the recording studio. Yeah. That's something I love
00:36:11.040about your work is that it's not just so many folks like, and not to, not to crap on them, but
00:36:16.340the work begins and ends in the podcast studio and you are out there making, like doing the actual
00:36:21.300work making the actual difference and and I love those too I listen to them all the time I love I
00:36:26.620love those kinds of I love all kinds of shows I mean that's you know I love investigative stuff
00:36:30.640but this is what I do and so uh you know what I think is kind of interesting is like um his
00:36:36.660he's calling on his followers and other people who attack me to to try and stop like I want to be
00:36:44.120like you really want to you really want to prevent a person from doing the kind of work I'm doing
00:36:48.800like that in itself is like almost evil it's like if i was handing out water bottles at the border
00:36:54.580and somebody's like nope i'm gonna shoot them all out of your hand like you want to prevent me from
00:36:58.820doing like work that's going to change people's lives like yes it's really crappy right and
00:37:04.920because yeah you're doing this this important justice work and i think that all the people
00:37:09.360who see what's happening who might otherwise be inspired to follow in your footsteps and do this
00:37:14.480kind of work how many of them are going to see this and be like oh well i don't want to do that
00:37:18.260You know, it's like you're preventing the spread of justice in the world by by, you know, behaving in this way.
00:37:25.380But, you know, look, he can only he and others can only harass me if I allow myself to, like, feel harassed in some extent.
00:37:33.980And it was only in the time when I felt like this is getting kind of dangerous, some of the rhetoric is getting dangerous, that I really felt stress over it.
00:37:43.200um but then i i was like my due diligence is that i've told my attorney i've notified the
00:37:48.620platforms i've put everybody else on notice anybody who follows me knows now right so others
00:37:53.280hundreds of if not thousands of people are watching him um watching and documenting everything
00:37:58.880because he does have a history of like posting things and deleting them as if things disappear
00:38:03.360from the internet um and so i've done my due diligence that's all i can do and now i have
00:38:07.980to get back to my life i also have kids i've got a husband i've got cats i've got elderly parents i
00:38:12.760have a garden. I have things to take care of. I don't have time for this. Absolutely. I mean,
00:38:18.900that's a great question. How do you take care of yourself? How do you make sure that, you know,
00:38:23.320you're the things that matter in your life are nurtured and protected during all of this?
00:38:27.720I mean, look, when you're a working mom, I can't be like, hey, kids, I'm having a bad day. You're
00:38:32.140just going to have to feed yourselves and drive yourself to school. There are things that are
00:38:37.040non-negotiable that you have to take care of every single day. And in a way, just having that there,
00:38:41.580like um it's a good distraction from like this meaningless stuff that's happening online uh in
00:38:48.480many instances so i i feel take i feel like i i'm taking care of myself when i get my work done
00:38:56.400when i i you know it's i write 1500 words a day when i hit my 1500 words a day uh and i've made
00:39:03.100sure that you know my family's got food for today or i i know we're getting takeout or i've made
00:39:07.900the plans and my plants aren't dying and my parents are, you know, as long as I'm checking
00:39:12.380the boxes of the things that I need to do for the people who are important to me, then that's
00:39:17.640taking care of myself as well. That is how I take care of myself. That's so important. So how can
00:39:22.840folks who might be out there listening either support you during this time or support the
00:39:27.020criminal justice work that you're involved in now? Well, you know, I just think it's important
00:39:32.540that, look, we do have free speech in this country, but that means that we allow hate
00:39:37.540speech. I mean, the First Amendment is actually created to protect the worst kind of speech
00:39:42.060possible. It's not created to protect the speech that everybody loves, right? But we
00:39:46.580also have to be able to identify and call out hate speech. So what I would say, just
00:39:49.820to help create a safer space in any kind of public discourse in the media, in social media,
00:39:57.420is to call out hate speech. Say, this is hate speech. What you're doing and saying is hate
00:40:00.680speech, report hate speech, you know, and then let the platforms decide what they're going to do with
00:40:05.420it. That's one way to make a more safer space for all of us online and even in real life. But in
00:40:11.880order to support the justice work, I think, you know, the cases that we do at Undisclosed, we've
00:40:17.620covered about 25 cases from different parts of the country. Just listening to the cases, reaching out
00:40:24.060to the defendants, you can find a lot of information online, writing to them, leeching out to your
00:40:29.140local, I mean, my work is pretty focused on innocence work, but criminal justice reform
00:40:36.900is needed in a much more brighter way. But certainly you can reach out to your local
00:40:41.980innocence chapters to ask how you can support them. But believe me, there's a lot of incarcerated
00:40:46.980people behind bars who have not had visitors in years, who have nobody to write them, who have
00:40:51.720nobody to call. So in that way, Adnan is incredibly blessed. I mean, he's never not had family support
00:40:57.160and friends and people to visit him and love him.
00:40:59.600But there are so many people who have nobody.