Taylor Swift AI deepfakes flood Twitter; Libs of TikTok gets leadership position in Oklahoma schools; AI steals from Indigenous artists in Australia – NEWS ROUNDUP
00:06:03.940Okay, so this week, election season fully kicked off.
00:06:08.240The New Hampshire primary happened this week,
00:06:10.020and some voters got a call at the very last minute
00:06:12.820from someone giving them information about the election.
00:06:16.060We know the value of voting Democratic when our votes count.
00:06:19.300It's important that you save your vote for the November election.
00:06:22.780We'll need your help in electing Democrats up and down the ticket.
00:06:27.040Voting this Tuesday only enables the Republicans in their quest to elect Donald Trump again.
00:06:33.940Your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday.
00:06:37.300If you would like to be removed from future calls, please press 2.
00:06:41.080So that sounded like Joe Biden, but that was not Joe Biden.
00:06:44.580That was an AI-generated audio deepfake that voters in New Hampshire, before this week's primary, got on the phone telling them not to vote.
00:06:53.100And I don't have a ton to say about this that I have not already said, but I'll just reiterate that it does not bode well for the use of AI to spread disinformation and make that impact a lot worse this election cycle.
00:07:06.480This is something that I'm worried about thinking about. All of the folks who I am in community with who also study and work on dis and misinformation, particularly how it impacts democracies, are all sort of saying the same thing, which is that AI could be poised to really make disinformation, which is already a problem, so much worse.
00:07:26.040And what's worse is that we're not really doing a ton about it right now. The nonprofit consumer advocacy group Public Citizen says that that robocall really underscores the need for federal regulation of AI-generated deepfakes and that it is way past time for action. I completely agree.
00:07:43.840But this comes as Republican FEC chairman Sean Cooksey says that they're not even looking at establishing any kind of updated rules federally around deepfakes and political ads at the earliest they're going to do it early summer, which that is after many states have their primaries.
00:08:00.980So it just seems pretty late to be like, oh, we will be rolling that out in summertime.
00:08:05.700You know, after states have already held their primaries feels pretty late in the game to be trying to curb the impact of this kind of thing.
00:08:13.460yeah i'm glad you opened with the positive question because i do feel like i i think
00:08:18.840because the primary started now like the reality of the fact that there's going to be an election
00:08:23.840this year has like started to hit and it's just been like absolute terror every time i think about
00:08:32.160like there really is no kind of good outcome i could see right up not to be complete pessimist
00:08:39.600But, yeah, no, I feel like this is going to be a weird, weird year.
00:08:50.320It's one of those things that if I, I've told myself that I'm not going to start really thinking about the election in earnest in a meaningful way until summer.
00:09:00.060Like, I guess I'm kind of like the FEC here. I'm like, because if I start thinking about it now, there's plenty of time for me to spin out and doom and gloom. Everybody that I know who works on these issues is having almost a sort of like philosophical crisis around the upcoming election.
00:09:18.720I genuinely don't know how it is going to go.
00:09:38.840And I will never forget one of the scenarios that we were gaming out was some sort of a,
00:09:44.360So it was like, oh, if Trump wins, here's the plan. If Trump loses, here's the plan. And then a third thing that was like, if there is a widespread election related incident slash irregularity. And at the time, like we didn't know what we were preparing for. Turns out it was January 6th. So that was very prescient. Yeah, it feels like we're there all over again.
00:10:08.920oh my god yeah that's so weird to think that that was like yeah there was the election and
00:10:15.340then that i don't know i feel like it all kind of blurs together but yeah that that was such a
00:10:20.220crazy time um and it's definitely gonna be an interesting next couple of months
00:10:27.700yeah um not looking forward to it uh i am not surprised to hear that people are
00:10:32.720having their own kind of crises around it uh this might be like like
00:10:38.920too personal, but during that election, my dad, who is chronically ill and disabled,
00:10:45.480he was in the hospital and I went to, I dropped everything, all the election work to go be with
00:10:51.400him in the hospital. And it was a, it's a cognitive issue. And so he was, you know, not awake, was
00:10:57.700asleep for a lot of that time resting. And we were watching, it was, it was election night,
00:11:01.660right? And so we were watching the election results in his hospital room. And so he woke
00:11:05.560up from this like drugged up medically induced sleep to seeing donald trump on television the
00:11:12.180day after the election claiming that he had won and my dad was like what like what did i miss like
00:11:18.560did he win and i remember being like dad i know it looks like the the the how like where i would
00:11:25.120have to start to be like why are you why you are watching donald trump on cnn claiming that he won
00:11:29.840an election and he being like he didn't win don't worry i know it seems like he did because what
00:11:34.400you're seeing on TV, but just take my word for it. He didn't. It was a very weird time, I guess
00:11:38.080is what I'm saying. Yeah, no, that sounds like a crazy conversation.
00:11:45.680So, you know, thinking about how I feel and, you know, civil society groups who are looking at this
00:11:51.540really feel like not enough is being done. If there was a theme to this episode, it would be
00:11:56.320do something, listen to people, don't wait till it's too late. It feels like it's becoming too
00:12:01.840And another way that we are seeing that this week is through non-consensual AI-generated sexually explicit deepfakes.
00:12:09.800So last week on the News Roundup, Mike and I were talking about this New Jersey high school student who has been advocating for legislation that criminalizes non-consensual AI deepfakes after the boys in her class were trading deepfaked sexualized images of her and about 30 other girls in her school.
00:12:27.000And this week, a school district in Aurora, Colorado, is dealing with the very same thing.
00:12:32.780This week, the Aurora Police Department has released the names of schools involved in a sextortion investigation, which includes two middle schools.
00:12:41.140When I was in middle school, that was grade six to eight.
00:12:46.480You are so young to be dealing with the impacts of a sexually charged deepfake sextortion ring.
00:12:54.140Like, I don't think it is OK for kids to be having to deal with this.
00:12:59.060So police say that in six different instances, students at that school district reported being a direct target of the sextortion scheme after being contacted by the suspect or suspects through Instagram.
00:13:10.460In dozens of other cases, students received unsolicited invitations to pay to join a close friends list on Instagram where sexually explicit material had been posted.
00:13:19.520So it really is a marketplace where kids are either being invited to pay to get this sexual content or being made to pay to keep that content from being shared on these platforms.
00:13:32.460And again, like, I don't think this is something that should just become normalized for our kids.
00:13:37.000If we did another update every single time one of these AI-related sextortion rings was reported on in a different school district across the country, it would be all we talked about because it is happening so much.
00:13:50.760This should not become a normal thing for our kids.
00:13:53.700And it seems like it is becoming normal.
00:13:56.200And lawmakers are just dragging their feet to actually do anything to prevent this from becoming a new thing that kids just have to deal with.
00:17:33.960And this week, Taylor Swift was also targeted by non-consensual deepfake images that flooded Twitter.
00:17:40.660According to Verge, these images got 45 million views, 24,000 reposts, and hundreds of thousands of likes and bookmarks before the verified, blue-checked user who shared the images had their account suspended for violating platform policy.
00:17:57.580The post was live on the platform for about 17 hours prior to its removal.
00:18:01.920So 404 Media has this really in-depth piece of reporting about how those images originated on Telegram, which we don't know what Telegram is.
00:18:09.740It's kind of like an alternative messaging platform that really gained popularity with right-wing extremists.
00:18:15.080But other folks use it too, like a lot of journalists depend on it.
00:18:18.220So Twitter actually has rules that ban AI-generated deepfake images.
00:18:22.960But I can confirm, as of this recording, many of those images of Taylor Swift, those deep-faked, non-consensual, sexually explicit images, were still floating around Twitter.
00:18:35.020You know, the one user who brought those images from Telegram to Twitter might have had their account deleted.
00:18:42.100But because of the way the internet works, plenty of them are floating around as we speak.
00:18:47.020And so the hashtag TaylorSwiftAI was even trending.
00:18:50.420So you might think, like, why is Twitter allowing this?
00:20:47.540So you said that the Swifties are this powerful force and you are right about that because even though Elon Musk has not been able or Elon Musk and his team have not been able to rid the platform from these images, Swifties actually took it upon themselves to try to flood the Taylor Swift AI hashtag with real actual content of Taylor Swift performing to drive down that sense.
00:21:13.260sexually explicit fake content and you know I know the Swifties are like a big force like they're
00:21:20.480like an organized force for good at times I firmly believe that like they should be being able to
00:21:27.340spend their time like you know like they shouldn't have to do this is what is what I'm saying they
00:21:32.240should be able to spend their time like buying merch and trading merch and making bracelets and
00:21:36.460all of the all of the fun sparkly things that come that go with being a Swiftie yeah like they
00:21:41.480should just be allowed yeah like they should be able to just be fans of a thing they shouldn't
00:21:45.040have to be like the pr team for the volunteer pr team for like a billionaire celebrity and not that
00:21:51.440it's on her team to like you know that this happened but it is like it they shouldn't have
00:21:56.420to be the content moderators for twitter probably is a better way of putting it yeah uh especially
00:22:02.060because i'm sure a lot of these people are pretty young yeah you like we should it should not be up
00:22:08.020to like a thousand Swifties to keep potentially illegal content off of a platform that is run by
00:22:15.780a billionaire. That's not a dynamic that I'm comfortable with. And I have to say, like,
00:22:20.080it feels really gross to talk about those images. But I just want to add, because it's something
00:22:24.920that has been in my mind a lot, is that the images are football themed. They depict Taylor Swift at a
00:22:31.600big football game. And I don't know for sure, but I have to assume that this is related to the fact
00:22:38.540that she's gotten so much attention from going to those NFL games because her boyfriend is a
00:22:42.460football player. And every time she goes to a game, it is breathlessly reported on. And I guess
00:22:48.800I just don't think that it's a coincidence that these images depict her at a football game. And
00:22:52.700I think they're meant to humiliate her on the basis of the attention that she has gotten
00:22:59.640from the nfl and i think that they're they're meant to like like people who make visual
00:23:05.780disinformation are so good at doing so in a way that works to get people they're just very charged
00:23:15.400they're very good at making images that are very charged and i i can't help but notice the ways that
00:23:19.940these images seemed charged to humiliate her in a very specific kind of way about a very specific
00:23:26.700thing about her personal life yeah that definitely doesn't seem like it's a coincidence yeah and you
00:23:33.560know i've seen some takes that are like well i'm glad it's happening to taylor swift she is so
00:23:38.180powerful and so rich and that like she'll be able to do something like certainly her team will be
00:23:43.580able to do something but i push back on those takes because like these images are up right like
00:23:49.580I confirmed that before we started recording. And it's like, even if Twitter wanted to remove
00:23:57.260these images, I don't think they would be able to just by the nature of how the internet works.
00:24:02.560And I think it just speaks to the fact that the powers that be have let this problem get so out
00:24:07.380of hand, but I don't know what a fix looks like. And if it's happening to Taylor Swift,
00:24:11.880one of the wealthiest, most popular and most powerful women in the world,
00:24:14.960I don't think that it's like, oh, well, she'll be able to figure out something where this won't1.00
00:24:20.160happen to other people. It's already happening to her. So if it happens to her and those pictures
00:24:25.660are up for 17 hours and then still up after that, what hope is there for any of us? What happens
00:24:31.800when it happens to a high schooler or a child or any of us? Lawmakers have ignored the warnings
00:24:38.100and gotten no traction on legislation on this. And I just don't think any of it bodes well for
00:24:44.460anybody yeah definitely like I'm I'm glad and again I you know it is it's I don't obviously
00:24:52.600like it shouldn't happen to anybody it just kind of it's it's horrible for her on a personal level1.00
00:24:57.840and then also like it just kind of enforces that sort of idea that like women's bodies are like1.00
00:25:03.580public property and especially if they're like in the spotlight um but yeah like I don't think1.00
00:25:09.880if this happened to me my like 300 twitter followers would be able to you know change
00:25:15.000like flood the hash not that there would be a hashtag but um you know yeah it's it is it is1.00
00:25:21.320sort of concerning that like one of the most powerful women in the world can have this happen
00:25:27.360to her with like very little consequences at the moment yeah i mean that you just really nicely1.00
00:25:33.100articulated one of the things i always say about this kind of garbage is that these kinds of0.99
00:25:39.220exploitative content, it reinforces the idea that women, by virtue of showing up online,0.87
00:25:48.360our body and our images are just open for whoever wants to use them or exploit them in any way they0.96
00:25:55.260can. And so I've seen people be like, oh, well, these pictures aren't real and she's a public
00:25:58.900figure. So like that just goes along with it. Absolutely fucking not. The cost of showing up
00:26:04.660And being a public figure and, you know, being on the internet should not be to be sexually humiliated. Like, and I do think it's something about reinforcing this idea that, yeah, our bodies are just up for the taking to be depicted however anybody wants. And then on top of that, we're supposed to not be upset by it because it's, quote, not real? Absolutely not. Absolutely not. That is a terrible dynamic. That is a terrible norm.
00:26:30.300We should all be pushing back on that because suddenly I'm sure, you know, that high schooler who is having the high school student who is having this happen to her isn't saying like, oh, it's not real images.
00:26:42.540These images, whether they are real or not, they can do real damage and really impact people's lives.
00:26:48.540And yeah, I just think that we should all be pushing for a culture that recognizes that.
00:26:52.980yeah and I definitely it's this is one of those things too where it like it's it's terrible and
00:26:58.720it's terrible it's happening again it's it's terrible that it happens to anybody I think like
00:27:02.820obviously Taylor's story is going to get a lot of attention and it is something that is happening to
00:27:07.980like a lot of people and it's probably going to continue to happen and interestingly slash not
00:27:13.620surprisingly you know it's happening around the same time and like by the same people that want
00:27:18.320a crackdown on like sex workers and sex workers rights and i think this is another situation
00:27:23.780looking at ai where you know it really is important to listen to sex workers about these
00:27:29.960issues because a lot of times they're going to be like the first ones harmed by this kind of stuff
00:27:35.400uh slash exploited and and we all are gonna end up suffering because of these sort of
00:27:42.460explainative things so yeah no I just I think listen to sex workers about these issues like
00:27:49.300is the weird sort of like duality of there's efforts to take away like agency over the bodies
00:27:56.480of like non-cis men and at the same time like those bodies are kind of seen as public property0.56
00:28:02.820uh in these sort of situations which is scary yeah almost every one of the tech and internet
00:28:11.380facilitated harms that we talk about on this show.
00:28:14.220Sex workers have been like, oh, yeah, we called that.
00:29:34.120and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice
00:29:35.780and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:29:38.520I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:29:45.920I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.
00:29:49.520From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.
00:29:55.460It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:30:02.980Whether 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.
00:30:12.540Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:32:25.720A librarian asked them to leave, rightly so.0.70
00:32:28.440That interaction is caught on a video.
00:32:30.120And then a far-right backlash from libs of TikTok and others ensued.
00:32:34.440In Tulsa, Oklahoma, where this woman has just been appointed to, you know,
00:32:39.320guide the material that children should be receiving,
00:32:42.220Well, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, their school received bomb threats the day after Libs of TikTok tweeted about the school's librarian who posted a video that was obviously meant to be a joke, obviously meant to be tongue in cheek.
00:32:54.420Like anybody who saw this would be like, yeah, she's kidding around.
00:32:56.480The librarian in Tulsa posted, my radical liberal agenda is teaching kids to love books and be kind.
00:33:03.440So obviously that video is meant to be a joke.
00:33:10.040That's another thing about these people.
00:33:11.120it's like they have the worst sense of humor okay it's two things because one i'm so sorry but how0.93
00:33:18.000much of a loser do you have to be to like care this much about what's happening in like high0.98
00:33:22.720schools like huge loser on with your life like um and then second of all yeah that is like that is0.98
00:33:31.040the most basic like joke you could make i don't know that is so weird to be like oh my god they're0.81
00:33:37.620so scary. Wow. I make this point a lot. Do you follow the comedian and writer, or I guess the
00:33:45.100actress too, multi-hyphenate, Trace Lissette? So Trace was talking about Dave Chappelle's most
00:33:52.000recent Netflix special and Trace's trans. And she was talking about how like, what is going on that
00:33:58.160like, so okay, we get it. Dave Chappelle doesn't like trans people. You need to release multiple
00:34:03.980comedy specials about this these people that you apparently hate who spends this much time
00:34:08.460focused on and talking about and thinking about and writing about stuff like this like
00:34:12.820Eve like it is not normal it's not a normal way to exist she's such a if y'all don't follow her
00:34:18.860on TikTok and on Twitter she is so cool she's very funny oh my god yeah and no like absolutely
00:34:25.980it is giving like why why are you so obsessed with me um you know like it's it is really weird
00:34:33.860I got to say, I don't think I've I've given a single thought to what a high school curriculum is like in my time since graduating high school.
00:34:45.600And yeah, I don't typically, you know, hyper focus on people's gender identity that have nothing to do with me or my life.
00:34:55.440People you'll never meet like it's a wild.
00:34:58.260Yeah, I... And honestly, like, when we were doing episodes earlier in the summer about, like, book bans and stuff, one of the things that was really surprising to me is that oftentimes challenges for entire public school districts were coming from one parent who did not live in that school district and did not have kids in that school district.
00:35:17.180So it's like, so you're just, like, obsessed over what students in a school that you don't have any connection to are reading? What in the fucking world? Like, that is just...0.79
00:35:42.920Here in D.C., where I live, Chaya Raychik from Lives of TikTok posted a video where
00:35:47.120she films herself calling Children's Hospital, which is, like, our major pediatric hospital
00:35:52.060here in D.C., pretending that she was looking for a gender-affirming hysterectomy for a
00:35:56.660non-existent 16-year-old child. She posted this recording of this conversation to Libs of TikTok
00:36:01.580last summer in which she is questioning two unidentified hospital employees about whether
00:36:06.820or not they offer gender-affirming hysterectomies to patients who are 16. So it's a little bit of a
00:36:13.360weird situation. Basically, the hospital was inundated with harassing calls and threats
00:36:18.260accompanied by a social media post suggesting that the hospital should be bombed and that its
00:36:23.040doctor should be jailed, placed on a wood chipper, or worse. And in the end, Children's Hospital
00:36:28.060confirmed that whoever she was speaking to in that video, one, were not medical care providers for
00:36:33.760the hospital, and that the hospital does not even perform hysterectomies on minors. The hospital
00:36:38.700said, none of the people who were secretly recorded by this activist group deliver care to our
00:36:43.220patients. The information in the recording is not accurate. We do not perform gender-affirming
00:36:47.860hysterectomies for anyone under the age of 18. Yeah. Also, it is insanely hard to get a
00:36:54.660hysterectomy as an adult, like somebody over the age of 18. As somebody who, I'll be totally honest,
00:37:03.100my late teen years, almost every single doctor's appointment asked if I could get a hysterectomy
00:37:07.840just because I didn't want to keep getting my period and don't want to have kids.
00:37:11.360um like I it's a no every time it is a staunch no that is insane yeah and again like as as an
00:37:21.440adult there's so many hoops you have to go through even if it's like a legitimate medical issue
00:37:26.180yeah it's so crazy I've heard from friends but one of my friends was able to get a hysterectomy
00:37:32.340but she had two doctors be like I'm not going to perform it just in case you want to have
00:37:37.600kids someday and she's like i don't want to have kids i am in a relation i am a woman in a
00:37:43.440relationship with a woman so like accidental pregnancy is not a thing that's like on on my
00:37:48.620i'm i have no plans for children in the future but like making a medical decision based on a
00:37:54.180hypothetical maybe someday man who might maybe someday hypothetically want to be in the mix to
00:37:59.420have a baby it is all that to say like you are so right these people are trafficking in fictions
00:38:05.300where they are just handing out hysterectomies to whoever wants one, regardless of anything,
00:38:10.840that is not happening. And it's like, it's like not based in reality. These things that they,
00:38:15.080and it doesn't surprise me that hospitals to be like, yeah, this is the thing that they said
00:38:18.500happened. That's a lie. Doesn't happen. And a similar thing happened at a children's hospital
00:38:23.600in Boston as well, where their services for children, for babies, their healthcare were
00:38:30.260disrupted because of all of these calls and threats and harassment because of this libs of
00:38:36.160TikTok stunts. It's so infuriating to me. Yeah. I mean, I guess it's the same trying to apply
00:38:45.780logic to people that are not acting logically, but I guess it's the same stuff as people that
00:38:51.960bomb abortion clinics. But what is the point of bombing a hospital? Literally, they just would
00:39:00.100rather people be dead than be trans like that is that's the end game of this which is yeah scary1.00
00:39:06.760yeah it's so fucked up so superintendent of public instruction ryan walters said chaya is on the0.99
00:39:13.980front lines of showing the world exactly what the radical left is all about lowering standards0.99
00:39:18.660porn in schools and pushing woke indoctrination on our kids because of her work families across0.98
00:39:24.240the country know what is going on in schools across the country. This is so, like, this is,
00:39:30.060like, what the fuck levels of bad. But I will say, though, as bad as this is, some folks in0.97
00:39:35.660Oklahoma are pushing back. State Rep Mark McBride, chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee
00:39:40.400on Education, said, I don't see any need to have a 28-year-old realtor from New York that has no
00:39:45.320children appointed to this position when there are extremely qualified parents, teachers, and
00:39:49.600librarians in oklahoma uh which i think like a little bit of a drag there like when somebody
00:39:55.460from oklahoma highlights that somebody is from new york i think it's like clear that that's not a
00:39:59.700compliment yeah it's somebody from the midwest who's from chicago which is very different
00:40:07.580when somebody really emphasizes the new york that is not a compliment also i did not realize that
00:40:14.080She was 28. That's wild. Girl, you should be at the club. What are you doing?
00:40:21.400So Representative Mickey Dollins, an Oklahoma City Democrat and former public school teacher,
00:40:25.860said that this appointment might actually violate the department's rules for advisory committees,
00:40:31.000which require members to be representative of the people served. She's not from Oklahoma,
00:40:35.580like not a parent in that district. So like difficult to say how she would be representative
00:40:40.480of the people served. And something I always, I feel like I never really make it explicitly clear
00:40:46.480when I'm talking about libs of TikTok, which isn't often because I cannot stand this person.
00:40:50.660But you might be thinking like, well, she doesn't come out and explicitly tell people to call in0.75
00:40:55.260bomb threats or harass educators or like prevent kids from getting care at hospitals. But that is0.72
00:41:00.620part of the strategy. It's called stochastic terror. And it's when you use media or communications to0.83
00:41:06.480sort of wink, wink, nudge, nudge, make somebody or something or an institution a target of this
00:41:12.320kind of harassment. And so she's never going to come out and say, harass these people. She might
00:41:17.440actually come out and say like, oh, well, I would never advocate for harassment of people, but then
00:41:23.180she'll continue to do the same thing that gets people and institutions harassed time and time1.00
00:41:29.180and time again. So I would argue that she knows exactly what she's doing. And think about it,
00:41:32.900Like, if every time you mentioned something that you didn't like happening at a school on your massive platform, if a few hours later that school had to be evacuated because of a bomb threat or harassment, would have you stopped doing that after a while, like, if you really didn't want that to happen?
00:41:47.420yeah it's always funny and by funny i mean just depressing that this is the case and probably
00:41:55.420intentionally the case but um it was always funny that they seem to be doing exactly what
00:42:00.240they always are accusing the quote-unquote radical left of doing where it's like i'm sorry
00:42:04.620like the quote left you were talking about their response to everything is just well go out and
00:42:10.760vote and like whatever or like give us what i don't know it's kind of like this this is
00:42:15.220it's so crazy. Y'all are the ones bombing people. Y'all are the ones calling in bomb threats.
00:42:20.680Like, take a look in the mirror, please. Absolutely. And to put this in a larger
00:42:24.780context, last year, a court ruled that Oklahoma can enforce its law banning and criminalizing
00:42:30.520gender-affirming care for trans minors while a suit against it is being heard. That law,
00:42:35.720if it went into effect, would make providing gender-affirming care in Oklahoma a felony,
00:42:40.380right? And so when we're talking about this happening in Oklahoma, it's really important0.98
00:42:44.540to understand that larger context of what folks there are up against, the climate that they're
00:42:49.800up against. It is not a safe climate for these youths. And I just think that it breaks my heart
00:42:56.880that you've got dipshits like this who are promoting people like Chaya to positions of0.99
00:43:03.180power in a school district that she does not even have any connection to just to drive home0.99
00:43:07.980how much they are not welcome there. And yeah, it's just really horrifying. I think that super
00:43:14.220Intended of Public Instruction, Ryan Walters, should really be ashamed because also this is not
00:43:19.920serving the constituents and the parents and the youth of that community, like inviting a hate
00:43:25.780monger in. And they're always like, just kind of like what you said, they're always like, oh, well,
00:43:30.020it's people on the left who are making everything woke and making everything political, blah, blah,
00:43:33.460blah. You are doing that, sir. By you bringing this person with no connection to the community in
00:43:39.400and giving them a bigger platform, giving them a position of power in your community,
00:43:43.380you are the one who is politicizing everything you are the one who is making everything
00:43:48.020inflammatory and I just I really hate it I really hate it yeah I also like all most of these people
00:43:54.580I'm like name a single trans kid that you know like I guarantee you are just this is something
00:44:00.800you think is gonna be a big issue but without even really looking at the reality which is not
00:44:05.620to say that there aren't trans kids in these communities there absolutely are like it's
00:44:10.020always coming from people that just kind of have this imagined threat in their brain without
00:44:14.160ever having interacted with the trans community or again like a single trans kid which you know
00:44:19.980yeah usually people that actually have experience talking to trans kids or talking to the trans
00:44:25.240community don't end up feeling this way which is part of why this happens but yeah or why why
00:44:31.360you know the lack of exposure to trans people is why this happens but yeah it is it is always weird
00:44:38.560that is coming from kind of this imagined threat than even any sense of reality.0.89
00:44:43.780Absolutely. It's infuriating. I do have a little bit of good news. I know that was a
00:44:48.420upsetting story for all of us, but it's a little good news. So-called conversion therapy is an1.00
00:44:55.500abusive practice that is sensibly meant to change someone's sexual orientation or gender identity
00:45:00.360that has been widely debunked. And pretty much every medical association, like the American
00:45:04.900Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Medical Association
00:45:08.640consider it to be a dangerous pseudoscience, rightly. 22 states and D.C. currently have laws
00:45:14.500banning this practice from being used on minors. It's horrible, but here's the good news. Two
00:45:19.540Twitter alternatives, Spoutable, run by Christopher Bouzet, who we actually have talked to on the
00:45:24.120podcast before, and Post, have both banned content promoting conversion therapy. So most mainstream
00:45:31.380social media platforms like TikTok, Pinterest, Nextdoor, and Facebook and Instagram all explicitly
00:45:36.900ban content-promoting conversion therapy. And now these smaller sort of niche Twitter
00:45:43.020alternatives, Post and Spoutable, are also joining that. GLAAD had this to say,
00:45:48.200the leadership of both Post and Spoutable in adopting new policies prohibiting so-called
00:45:52.340conversion therapy content puts these companies ahead of many others. This is from GLAAD CEO,
00:45:57.560Sarah Kate Ellis. GLAAD urges all social media platforms to adopt and enforce this policy to
00:46:02.840protect their LGBTQ users. So this is good, I think, for a couple of reasons. One of them is
00:46:08.060that we've talked on the podcast before about how changes, both good changes and bad changes for
00:46:13.020bigger platforms, can be this domino effect where other platforms feel the need to follow suit.
00:46:18.240And I think this is a good example of the way that for smaller platforms, it can create a domino
00:46:23.080effect of the same thing, where these smaller niche platforms are making this change, and that
00:46:28.700change is then being reflected for other small platforms. And so, yeah, I think it's cool to see
00:46:33.020how that domino effect can be working to create positive change for smaller alternative platforms
00:46:38.580as well. Yeah, definitely. Great to hear some good news. And yeah, it is like the bare minimum
00:46:44.180of, you know, protecting your queer and trans users,
00:48:07.040and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice
00:48:08.920and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:48:11.940I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:48:19.060I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.
00:48:22.580From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.
00:48:28.580It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:48:36.060Whether 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.
00:48:45.660Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:49:00.220so we already know that technology like facial recognition is racist and sexist and unreliable
00:49:09.060and should not be used for a whole host of reasons and here is yet another story that is a horrifying
00:49:14.600example of what happens when police rely on it anyway to make arrests so harvey murphy jr is a
00:49:21.20061 year old man who was arrested in texas for an armed robbery of a sunglasses hut retail store in
00:49:26.9202022, a crime that he did not and could not have committed after facial recognition technology
00:49:33.020falsely matched him as a suspect. So according to the Washington Post, a representative of a
00:49:38.020nearby Macy's told Houston police during the investigation that the company's system, which
00:49:43.140scanned surveillance camera footage for faces in an internal shoplifter database, found evidence
00:49:48.320that Murphy had robbed both stores, both the Sunglasses Hut and the Macy's. Now, police do say
00:49:53.620that after the facial recognition technology flagged Murphy, they then showed his image to
00:49:58.320the cashier at Sunglasses Hut, who positively ID'd Murphy as the assailant. But it could not
00:50:03.980have been him because he was actually already in prison in Sacramento, California, some 2,000
00:50:09.180miles away at the time the crime was committed. And he actually only even found out that there
00:50:14.340was a warrant for his arrest for this crime in Texas when he was going to renew his driver's
00:50:19.060license in Sacramento when the DMV flagged that he had an outstanding warrant and arrested him
00:50:23.900for this crime that he could not have done. So here's where the story gets really awful.
00:50:28.180While he was in prison awaiting trial for this crime that he could not have committed,0.81
00:50:32.040he was beaten and sexually assaulted by three men. So hours after that assault,
00:50:38.500he was cleared of all charges and released. And now he is suing Macy's, Sunglasses Hut's parent
00:50:44.480company, and three people that his attorneys say were involved in the case. He's seeking
00:50:48.46010 million dollars in damages and says the assault left him with lifelong injuries yeah that is such
00:50:54.940a horrifying story it's look also i mean i i we know that prisons are a place where this happens
00:51:05.400a lot of times and it is so for some reason the solution is never to fix those problems and like
00:51:15.200maybe stop so many people going to prison and do prison reform. And the solution is always just to
00:51:20.840send more people to prison. What else is new? That is, yeah, that is so horrifying. I hope he
00:51:28.660sues them for whatever they're worth. And yeah, that's horrible.
00:51:35.100It is. And I also hate this statement from Macy's. So Macy's, when Washington Post talked to them,
00:51:41.180They declined to comment on the pending litigation, but they did say in a previous statement that Macy's, quote, uses facial recognition in conjunction with other securities methods in a small subset of Macy's stores with high incidences of organized retail theft and repeat offenders.
00:51:56.660And so that statement is not about this specific case. They were like, oh, we're not going to talk about that. However, it almost sounds like they're saying like, well, if a few people have to be arrested wrongly because of our faulty use of this surveillance text, it's OK if it protects our merchandise.
00:52:16.260Like, I just feel like the focus on retail theft and, like, quote, organized theft, it makes it seem like the most important thing here is the Macy's merchandise, not the fact that they are routinely falsely arresting people who then could be assaulted in prison.
00:52:34.600Well, yeah, this is America where property damage is the worst crime you could commit, or property theft is the worst affront, especially if it's from a corporation. That is big bad. You gotta be locked up.
00:52:50.800The most important thing we should be protecting are the sunglasses, Julie.
00:52:56.240Those sunglasses huts, that is a staple of American culture.
00:53:00.980And if we're not going to, if the facial recognition isn't going to protect it, who will, apparently.
00:53:08.340So this is not the first time that something like this has happened.
00:53:11.200We talked about Portia Woodruff, the heavily pregnant Black woman who was arrested for a crime she had nothing to do with because of this technology.
00:53:17.200Rite Aid was actually banned from using facial recognition technology for five years after the FTC found that the store misused facial recognition to falsely accuse people of theft and harass them, causing embarrassment, harassment, and other harm, including physically searching an 11-year-old girl in a way that left her so distraught that her mom had to miss work.
00:53:41.160I honestly can't believe that it's like, okay, well, you can't use this technology for five years.
00:53:44.720I feel like once your technology has been misused to the point where you are traumatizing children for no real reason, you should lose those privileges forever in my book.
00:53:53.120Yeah, I there. Well, so there's something already so dystopian about living in this like hyper police state that we're all in, where it's just like we're constantly, constantly being monitored. And there is another level of dystopia to that, that it's like, it's not even like, oh, you can't be doing any crime, you got to be on your best behavior at all times, because you're always being watched. Now it's just like, you never know. And it like, especially if you are a person of color, if you're a black person, it's just like,
00:54:23.100just there's just like another level of dystopia and doing it in service of like protecting0.89
00:54:30.620merchandise and keeping the wheels of capitalism greased like it's just protecting macy's and the
00:54:35.940sunglasses hut like are you kidding me it's just so it's just so like it's just so sad we we deserve
00:54:44.340such we deserve better it's just so sad and to your point about like we know that this kind of
00:54:51.240technology disproportionately impacts women, people of color, Black people, Black women especially.
00:54:57.360However, I should tell you, Murphy is white. There have been six other people that we know of who
00:55:02.080have been falsely arrested because of this technology. All of them have been Black. Murphy1.00
00:55:05.540is the first white man that we know of that's happening to being falsely arrested because of
00:55:10.800facial recognition technology. And so, I don't know, part of me wonders if this is going to be
00:55:14.920one of those things where it's like, when the harms were impacting women and Black people and
00:55:20.140people of color. People were like, eh, whatever. But maybe the harm will then extend to everybody.
00:55:26.340And then it's like, oh, wait, I could be falsely arrested for this? Like, hold on. So we will have
00:55:32.280to see. But it definitely is, again, people like we talked to Dr. Joy Bollamwini, an AI researcher
00:55:38.380on the podcast a while back. People have been very clear about the psychic, cosmic, deep threat
00:55:45.880that this technology poses to all of us and police departments and retail establishments
00:55:52.260just keep using it it's like it's like those it's like those warnings are just going unheard
00:55:56.000yeah absolutely like they're just there's no logical reason for this to be continued to be
00:56:03.880used at such a wide scale like it only causes like it seems like it's just causing more harm
00:56:09.160than actually like and i don't know what the numbers are for like the times to accurate or
00:56:14.120whatever, but I guarantee it's not enough to kind of justify the opposite. And again, there is
00:56:20.420something really weird about the fact that it's like, we've all just kind of given up the ability
00:56:25.260to have any sense of privacy in public, which I guess, I don't know, privacy, public, whatever,
00:56:32.180but like have any sense of privacy, have any sense of just like being able to exist in the world
00:56:36.320without having like eyes on you, metaphorical eyes on you, you know. And speaking of folks
00:56:43.260trying to warn folks in power of the harm that this kind of technology presents, parents are
00:56:48.540actually talking about the threats posed by AI to young people. A coalition of parents working
00:56:54.660alongside the group Parents Together wrote a letter to TikTok expressing concerns about AI-generated
00:57:00.200influencers, asking the platform to clearly label when an influencer is not real, but AI-generated,
00:57:06.980warning that AI-generated influencers can make things like poor body image, body dysmorphia,
00:57:36.480creating an extreme and utterly unattainable beauty standard.
00:57:39.420Most of the millions of kids who encounter these accounts won't know the people they aspire to look like are not real people at all.
00:57:45.800Right now, TikTok relies on companies that create these accounts to label them as AI, but with thousands of dollars per post on the line, they often do not.
00:57:53.820That's why TikTok must proactively and clearly identify these accounts so young users know which accounts are real people and which are computer generated.
00:58:00.740So the parents, their concerns are not unfounded.
00:58:04.400nearly half, 46% of adolescents aged 13 to 17 said that social media platforms make them feel
00:58:11.260worse. And TikTok has already been taken to task for kind of, I wouldn't maybe allowing is too
00:58:16.960strong, but containing content that glorifies disordered eating, right? Like they have rules
00:58:22.520against that content, but those rules are pretty easily circumvented. And then they sort of
00:58:26.640don't then. So they might be like, oh, like pro eating disorder content is disallowed. But then
00:58:32.020of people easily get around it, they don't really have a fix for that. And so right now, TikTok is
00:58:37.620supposed to clearly label AI-generated content, but Parents Together campaign director Shelby
00:58:43.100Knox says that it's really kind of not doing that because how that works now is that the AI
00:58:48.420virtual influencer will just put in their bio, like hashtag AI influencer, and you would only
00:58:55.140know that that influencer was AI-generated if you look at their bio, not on the content itself.
00:59:02.020Knox told NBC, I'm not sure that your average kid knows that a virtual influencer is industry speak for this person is not real.
00:59:09.800So because these companies are making money on TikTok's platform and it is contributing to a dangerous culture, our view is that TikTok has a responsibility to come in and figure out how to consistently and visibly label these accounts and these videos.
00:59:21.880I had never really thought about the threat posed by these AI influencers. I will say this, though. Some of them really do look real, but they have this like impossibly conventionally attractive look like they're skinny to the point where it's like bodies like this is not how a body looks or like they're beautiful to a point that is like unachievable and unrealistic.
00:59:46.200and it's like yeah because they're not real and so i'm an adult when i see content like that i
00:59:50.600generally can tell when it's not a real person but if you're a little kid and you're looking for
00:59:55.260an influencer to look up to you might not know so i i just look this up now because i have not
01:00:01.500had this come up on my free page yet i have had the weird like ai kind of mpc things come up on
01:00:08.480my page all the time which are always weird but yeah that is that is freaky that is not what i
01:00:13.320expected those are actually like uncanny like weird like i could totally yeah see like a kid
01:00:20.500looking at that and thinking it's a real person um that is so creepy and again like going to the
01:00:28.840other side of this issue is like influencing is real work that's often you know not taken seriously
01:00:37.420because it is primarily women that do it it is like a lot of the kind of like are there valid
01:00:44.500criticisms of influencers yes however like yeah a lot a lot of the criticism does also just come
01:00:49.240from misogyny and it's like you know again the jobs that are always going to be affected first
01:00:57.100or kind of the people that are already are always going to be like affected warriors are
01:01:00.200yeah sex workers women women of color and it's like this is another example of like an industry
01:01:07.240that is primarily female and is uh you know not taken seriously because it is primarily female0.99
01:01:13.680being taken over by all these tech bros that are just gonna make the situation way worse and
01:01:18.720take take all the bad things about influencing and make that the main thing yeah that is so scary
01:01:24.760i can we go to like can we can we backtrack on the whole like trying to make fake people thing
01:01:32.080and like just make like if you want a fake thing to be your influencer like can it be like a cartoon
01:01:37.060could this be like a like a what's the like space jam or something where we just have like a looney
01:01:43.380tunes character in the real world for no reason like it's like i don't know like i feel like
01:01:47.620there there's got to be a better option if you really don't want to pay a human being
01:01:52.020give lola bunny a spot right like it doesn't yeah i think it's part of me is like when people
01:01:59.960when conversations about AI became so ubiquitous,
01:04:16.880even though platforms often have policies that are supposed to protect Indigenous culture from exactly this kind of thing.
01:04:25.200So Adobe and Shutterstock run popular stock images websites where people can buy AI-generated images for a variety of commercial purposes.
01:04:33.860And on both of those platforms, there are dozens of fake Indigenous art-style images.
01:04:38.240The images do have a label that they have been created using AI, but they're often like vaguely listed as being aboriginal or indigenous art.
01:04:47.640On Adobe, people can upload AI images for sale and then earn a cut of the money every time those images are purchased.
01:04:54.680Now, the company is meant to only allow users to submit images that they own the intellectual property of, but it's not really clear like how this is being policed.
01:05:03.700platforms like Etsy and eBay are filled with cheap digital AI generated prints intended to
01:05:09.620be printed and framed. And some of these online platforms do have policies in place to prevent
01:05:14.280this kind of thing from happening, but it's like not clear how or why it's not really being enforced
01:05:19.580very well. So when we'll see at Crikey spoke to a spokesperson at Adobe, they didn't answer
01:05:24.840questions about whether AI produced indigenous art violates their policies, but instead gave
01:05:30.540kind of a general blah, blah, blah, we care statement. They said, we are continually auditing,
01:05:35.540evaluating, and improving the Adobe stock collections to serve our customers' needs.
01:05:39.560That's like, you may as well have said nothing at that point. That is a statement that says
01:05:44.200nothing. eBay's policy say that sellers must not list, sell, or promote materials, products,
01:05:49.680or services that use indigenous culture and intellectual property in unauthorized ways,
01:05:54.460according to their spokesperson. But when pressed on whether or not AI-generated art would violate
01:05:59.260this policy, they said how an artwork is created is irrelevant and that a listing using Indigenous
01:06:04.380art in an unauthorized way may breach that policy. Etsy has a policy that prohibits users from
01:06:09.920selling items falsely listed as being produced by Indigenous people, but only in North America,
01:06:14.820and does allow, quote, Indigenous style products by non-Indigenous people. So yeah, it just sounds
01:06:22.660like people are stealing from indigenous artists ai is being trained on artwork and cultural work
01:06:30.600that has been stolen from indigenous artists and then that art that fake artwork is being used
01:06:36.420to undercut actual indigenous artists who already have to compete with non-ai generated
01:06:42.460fake indigenous artwork a complete mess yeah it's really just
01:06:48.460technology you know the latest technology aiding further colonization and colonial kind of ideas
01:06:57.440and i that is really messed up also like again i i was surprised to hear that that etsy prohibits
01:07:06.300users from selling like items that you know are listed as being produced by indigenous people
01:07:10.960that aren't because again yeah i feel like there's a lot of ways people get around that like there's
01:07:15.280a lot of weird especially like in within like new agey kind of stuff like a lot of very coded words
01:07:21.420that um you know people use to uh kind of ignore the fact that they are just culturally or like
01:07:31.500appropriating cultures that aren't their own or that aren't you know being made by the people that
01:07:37.500it's claiming to come from and all that but yeah that is that is depressing yeah it's
01:07:45.180And it's just, like, another way, just like you said, another way that AI is being used to further oppress people who are already oppressed and already face so much, right?
01:07:56.980Like, it's just such a grim use of technology to continue to cut people out of their own culture so that other people can profit off of it.
01:08:07.640Yeah, right. And kind of like what I was saying with the other story, too, where it's like I feel like a lot of this is coming from these companies that don't understand that, like,
01:08:15.180art like the the value of art is like part of it is the the actual process of making the art and
01:08:23.060the the culture that it's coming from and like art is culture art is a part of who we are it's it's
01:08:29.180so like it's such a closed-minded kind of it's such an almost honestly it is a sad kind like i feel
01:08:36.800sad for these people if your only view of art is like oh well like but computer can do it faster
01:08:42.740and cheaper and like that's what people want definitely like that's just that's just sad at
01:08:48.960a certain point like i truly like you must not have any like do you feel joy at all damn okay
01:08:56.920i don't know and like i mean this was the thing that struck me over the conversations around like
01:09:03.140screenwriters and actors and ai over the um hollywood strikes it's like if you value something
01:09:09.260so little why do you want to be in charge of it why do you want to be a part of it if you cannot
01:09:13.920see what makes this stuff great and special and what brings people and makes them feel connected
01:09:19.760to it why do you even want to why do you even want it why do you even want to be part of it it's like
01:09:23.600if you can't see that then what are you doing you clearly don't get it it's like another way that
01:09:27.980like rich people we talked about this in a previous episode i can't remember which one my brain is
01:09:33.280much from being sick but um rich people they bought they they use their capital to acquire
01:09:40.440things and then they hate or don't understand those things they buy things and then they hate
01:09:44.720those things and then ruin them because of that it's just like such a it was the messed up dynamic
01:09:49.680yeah it was the pitchfork story right last week yeah yeah it absolutely was yeah i like it is so
01:09:57.280it's so weird that like the people that are ruining the world and like the livelihoods of
01:10:02.940All of these people are like the people that also it's like, what are you doing?
01:10:07.220Like, seriously, like, where do you, how, how is this, how, why you've chosen to live
01:10:31.140I mean, Indigenous artists already have a hard time competing with people who create fake art and then try to pawn that art off as Indigenous, even without AI being part of the conversation.
01:10:42.520A 2022 Productivity Commission report found that 75% of Indigenous-style goods were created by non-Indigenous people.
01:10:49.740Online art businesses were particularly bad.0.87
01:10:52.480One stock image site analyzed the commission, had 80% of its Indigenous-style images authored by non-Indigenous people.
01:10:59.400Similarly, 60% of listings on a print-on-demand marketplace were also produced by non-Indigenous creatives.
01:11:06.180Crikey spoke to this Indigenous artist, Amy Allerton, who said that this is really offensive because oftentimes the art will just be like a random mishmash of designs and it's like, will mix or mess up very distinctive and special styles from different Indigenous nations and artists and just sort of like mush them together.
01:11:27.980Allerton said, it's a very colonial mindset
01:11:30.320that they are entitled to the entirety of us.
01:11:33.400Indigenous people don't have the power1.00
01:11:35.280for self-determination that we want.1.00
01:11:37.400This adds to the weight of all of that.
01:11:57.640But the world I do want to live in is one where I get to round up the news with you, Joey. So thank you so much for being here. Where can folks, what do you got going on that folks should know about? Maybe the answer is nothing. Maybe you want to plug something.
01:12:12.240Thank you, Bridget. It was lovely, as always, even as the dystopian chaos continues.
01:12:22.080If you want to hear more things that I'm working on, you should check out Afterlives, the Laylee and Polanco story.
01:12:30.360Hopefully some new projects along the way.
01:12:33.100I should be on Stuff Mom Never Told You soon talking about more TikTok chaos and the state
01:12:41.960of TikTok at the moment, which will be a fun time.