There Are No Girls on the Internet - August 16, 2022


The Amber Heard v Johnny Depp trial may be over, but the online harassment continues

A 19 year old activist just embarrassed Matt Gaetz while raising millions for abortion rights! Yoga is for everybody and every body with Jessamyn Stanley!

Episode Stats


Length

20 minutes

Words per minute

162.13

Word count

3,259

Sentence count

198

Harmful content

Misogyny

8

sentences flagged

Toxicity

9

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
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00:00:37.800 844-844-iheart i survived nine months in captivity and i've spent my life exploring how other people
00:00:46.160 survive what should have destroyed them i'm elizabeth smart and these are the survivor files
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00:00:58.480 nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the
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00:01:29.040 DashPass. Eligible orders only. Other fees and terms apply. Just a quick heads up, today's
00:01:33.540 episode talks about sexual assault and domestic violence. There Are No Girls on the Internet 1.00
00:01:42.080 is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There
00:01:50.640 are no girls on the internet. So I have a bit of an update for you on the Johnny Depp Amber Heard
00:01:57.460 defamation trial. You'll probably remember that earlier this summer, a jury determined that actor
00:02:02.680 Amber Heard was liable for defaming Johnny Depp in a 2018 op-ed published in the Washington Post
00:02:09.240 where she said that she became, quote, a public figure representing domestic abuse,
00:02:14.460 even though she never publicly named Johnny Depp as her abuser. Earlier this summer,
00:02:19.080 Depp supporters crowdfunded thousands of dollars to unseal some 6,000 documents,
00:02:24.740 which contain evidence that lawyers for both Depp and Hurd were able to keep out of the trial
00:02:29.320 itself. Now, the idea here was for Depp supporters to publish new dirt on Hurd,
00:02:35.660 but it seems like it potentially has backfired because the documents include some pretty
00:02:40.580 unflattering information about Johnny Depp and paint a clearer portrait of how his legal team
00:02:45.920 worked to weaponize misogyny against Amber Heard during the trial.
00:02:50.360 For instance, previously sealed pre-trial documents
00:02:53.640 show that Heard's lawyers argued that Depp's team
00:02:56.260 was trying to introduce nude images of Amber Heard into evidence
00:03:00.200 and include Amber's work as an exotic dancer
00:03:03.280 years before she ever met Johnny Depp,
00:03:05.720 and that Mr. Depp was, quote,
00:03:08.120 attempting to frivolously and maliciously suggest or imply
00:03:11.340 that Ms. Heard was at one time an escort.
00:03:13.640 The unsealed documents also show some of the evidence that Depp's legal team worked to exclude.
00:03:19.440 The Daily Beast reports that this includes testimony from actor Ellen Barkin,
00:03:24.000 who claimed that Johnny Depp angrily threw a bottle in her direction when they were dating,
00:03:28.500 and testimony from Dr. David Spiegel, a psychiatrist who testified on behalf of HERD about the alleged trauma inflected by Depp.
00:03:36.420 There are also pretty awful texts between Depp and his friend, actor Paul Bettany,
00:03:41.020 where Batani suggested that they submit Herd to a, quote,
00:03:44.700 drowning test to determine whether or not she's a witch,
00:03:48.400 to which Johnny Depp replied, 1.00
00:03:50.020 let's drown her before we burn her, 0.97
00:03:52.040 and then goes into some pretty disgusting commentary about her corpse, 0.99
00:03:55.780 which I won't get into here.
00:03:57.280 The unsealed documents also included audio of Herd telling Depp, 0.97
00:04:01.300 quote, I had dumped you a fucking week, week prior, 0.99
00:04:04.860 after you beat the shit out of me. 0.99
00:04:06.400 There is a lot more there,
00:04:08.860 So I'll link to the full Daily Beast article
00:04:10.980 that did a great job breaking down
00:04:12.540 the unsealed documents in the show notes.
00:04:15.040 So when the results of the trial
00:04:16.240 were first announced earlier this summer,
00:04:18.340 many celebrities showed support for Johnny Depp
00:04:20.560 by liking his celebratory post on Instagram.
00:04:23.860 But now, some of those same celebrities,
00:04:25.980 including folks like Halle Berry and Bella Hadid,
00:04:28.860 have quietly unliked that post.
00:04:31.640 Now, this could signal that there's a shift
00:04:33.640 in public opinion happening in light of the unsealed files.
00:04:37.360 Anecdotally, I can definitely tell you that TikTok used to be absolutely flooded with pro-Johnny Depp means and compilations.
00:04:45.000 I seriously could not escape them no matter how many times I told TikTok that I wasn't interested.
00:04:50.320 But recently, I've actually started seeing more content that is sympathetic to Amber Heard on the platform.
00:04:56.260 So the trial may be over for now, unless Amber Heard's team appeals.
00:05:00.400 And public opinion may be shifting.
00:05:02.200 What does this mean for the people and brands who made platforms off of following and recapping the trial?
00:05:09.040 You might recall that in our previous episode about the trial, we specifically talked about the cottage industry of people and brands who have built platforms and gotten lots of engagement from the trial.
00:05:20.760 Like on Etsy, there is an entire thriving industry of sellers who make and sell memorabilia related to the trial.
00:05:27.580 This one is really gross, so trigger warning.
00:05:31.280 Amber Heard testified that she was sexually assaulted with a bottle, 0.70
00:05:34.720 and a sex toy company called Twisted Fantasies created a liquor bottle shaped like a sex toy,
00:05:40.220 which they posted on their social media alongside the caption,
00:05:44.000 quote,
00:05:44.520 People were understandably sickened and outraged.
00:05:53.440 And the company apologized if survivors were upset, but more or less stood by what they did,
00:05:58.760 releasing a statement saying the sex toy had been a tongue-in-cheek way to support Johnny Depp.
00:06:04.660 And I know I talked about this in that initial episode, but I just find the memification of a
00:06:10.240 trial that at its heart, regardless of how you look at it, is about domestic violence. And I
00:06:16.540 just find that to be a little bit gross. And I think it sends a clear signal to survivors of
00:06:21.280 domestic violence that you could be turned into a national joke if people think you're lying.
00:06:26.420 It's not just brands who are getting in on riffing about the trial.
00:06:30.520 It's creators, too.
00:06:32.240 YouTubers and TikTokers that popped up solely to create commentary on the Amber Heard-Johnny Depp defamation trial exploded in popularity during the trial.
00:06:41.600 So people have been able to build entire lucrative platforms off of this one trial.
00:06:46.360 And that's really what I want to talk about today.
00:06:48.900 So a lot of this reporting comes from Kat Tenbarge,
00:06:51.720 an internet reporter at NBC,
00:06:53.540 who has done a great job of covering the case
00:06:55.500 and its online fallout.
00:06:57.280 She writes that some YouTubers and content creators
00:07:00.480 amassed millions of views by covering the trial
00:07:03.080 from a pro-Depp point of view.
00:07:05.060 As pro-HERD creators have received more attention over time,
00:07:08.460 creators have become more adversarial toward one another,
00:07:11.440 extending the culture war sparked
00:07:12.940 by the HerD-Depp legal battle.
00:07:14.800 And that is exactly what is happening here.
00:07:17.740 So someone who uses the pseudonym Camilla on Twitter
00:07:20.840 runs a Twitter account that regularly posts viral threads of evidence
00:07:24.760 against Johnny Depp and other celebrities accused of domestic violence.
00:07:28.640 Camilla's real identity is not known.
00:07:30.800 She's anonymous to protect her privacy.
00:07:33.180 Laura Bokovin, who calls herself a truth seeker and a, quote,
00:07:36.920 internet journalist, runs a Twitter account with 70,000 followers
00:07:40.820 and a popular YouTube channel dedicated to supporting Depp
00:07:44.320 and creating pro-Dep viral content during the trial.
00:07:48.160 Kat Tenbard at NBC reports that some of Laura's tweets about the trial
00:07:51.980 received more than 25,000 likes,
00:07:54.300 and her YouTube videos about Depp's legal cases
00:07:56.680 have more than 370,000 combined views.
00:08:00.200 She was also in contact with Depp's team before the trial.
00:08:03.360 So stick with me here,
00:08:04.980 because this is where stuff gets a little bit complicated.
00:08:07.700 Last week, Laura tweeted at Camilla
00:08:09.940 implying that Camilla wasn't just someone following the trial
00:08:13.240 and tweeting about how they thought Johnny Depp was an abuser,
00:08:16.360 Laura accused Camilla of actually being a paid member of Amber Heard's PR team.
00:08:21.440 Laura tweeted, quote,
00:08:22.880 And linked to a Deadline article about the hiring of Chrysanta White at Shane Communications,
00:08:29.980 a firm contracted by Amber Heard to manage her PR.
00:08:33.560 Now, Camilla outright denied that she was Chrysanta.
00:08:37.220 So Chrysanta is a person who actually exists,
00:08:40.680 and she actually does work for Shane Communications.
00:08:43.240 the firm retained by Amber Heard. 0.96
00:08:45.720 But Chrysantha says she doesn't do social media for them.
00:08:48.700 Instead, she works in diversity and inclusion.
00:08:51.680 So what evidence is there that Camilla is actually Chrysantha,
00:08:55.860 a paid shill for Amber Heard?
00:08:58.040 Well, Camilla's Twitter account uses the image 1.00
00:09:00.860 of a cartoon Black woman with natural hair.
00:09:03.460 And Chrysantha is a Black woman with natural hair.
00:09:06.820 Also, on Chrysantha's Pinterest account, 0.77
00:09:09.180 she has pinned illustrations of Black women with natural hair.
00:09:13.240 And that's pretty much where the evidence ends.
00:09:16.220 That's pretty much it.
00:09:19.740 Let's take a quick break.
00:09:26.320 The new Red Bull Dragonberry and Tropicberry Energizers,
00:09:31.000 now at McDonald's.
00:09:32.720 Made with freeze-dried fruit and an electric burst of flavor.
00:09:37.220 The all-new Red Bull Energizers, now at McDonald's.
00:09:41.360 This product may not be right for you.
00:09:43.020 High in caffeine.
00:09:43.640 Details at mcdonalds.ca.
00:09:44.740 At participating Canadian restaurants, excluding Quebec.
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00:10:17.340 if your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your personality
00:10:21.100 welcome home this is prose society the weekly podcast that's part book club part group chat
00:10:28.640 for thought daughters pop culture obsessives and anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and
00:10:32.900 love island deserve the same level of discourse i'm eli rallo and every week we're connecting
00:10:37.880 the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
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00:11:15.400 See you between the pages.
00:11:17.520 When I was 14 years old,
00:11:19.780 I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months.
00:11:23.280 I survived, and I've spent my life exploring
00:11:25.980 how other people survive what should have destroyed them.
00:11:29.620 I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files. 0.70
00:11:33.280 I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything.
00:11:41.800 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.
00:11:46.060 I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.
00:11:50.620 I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.
00:11:58.040 They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:12:01.880 But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.
00:12:05.540 They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:12:09.140 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:12:23.000 And we're back.
00:12:24.740 So we were talking about how Laura, a pro-Johnny Depp content creator, accused an anonymous Twitter account using the pseudonym Camilla of actually being Chrysantha White, a Black woman who works for the company that Amber Heard retained for PR services, just because seemingly they are both Black women.
00:12:43.680 Now, Laura may have just tweeted out the question, but after Laura's tweet asking the question about Camilla, Twitter really ran with it.
00:12:52.020 As of this recording, there are still plenty of tweets up claiming definitively, not just asking the question, that Camilla is actually Chrysanta and that she is being paid by H.E.R.D.'s team to make viral anti-Johnny Depp tweets.
00:13:07.080 Now, Chrysanta says this has led to a wave of harassment against her and her family.
00:13:11.880 She wrote in a statement, quote,
00:13:13.680 the unbounded online harassment has gotten out of hand,
00:13:17.060 with addresses of my loved ones being posted on the internet.
00:13:20.040 So for the record, I am not Camilla,
00:13:22.580 nor have I ever communicated with this page.
00:13:25.280 I had no idea either of these pages existed
00:13:27.980 prior to this situation,
00:13:29.820 and was only made aware of their existence
00:13:31.480 and original thread by an email
00:13:33.160 that was sent to my personal email.
00:13:34.860 I was not hired to work on this case.
00:13:37.140 Per the original article posted by Laura,
00:13:39.360 I was hired in March.
00:13:40.800 It is public knowledge that our firm
00:13:42.500 did not begin working on this case until May.
00:13:45.400 Now remember that Twitter sleuths thought that Chrysantha
00:13:47.920 must have been behind the Camilla account
00:13:50.320 because the Camilla account uses a cartoon image
00:13:52.780 of a black woman with natural hair.
00:13:54.940 And that Chrysantha's Pinterest account
00:13:56.360 has pinned similar looking cartoons and illustrations.
00:14:00.000 But Chrysantha explains, saying,
00:14:02.100 regarding my Pinterest account,
00:14:03.740 I'm a black woman with natural hair.
00:14:05.500 I absolutely like art that looks like me.
00:14:07.620 Why would I not want to use art like those pinned
00:14:10.080 on my art board to plan for decorating my home. She goes on to say, I have always prided myself
00:14:15.940 on having an outstanding reputation. In turn, I am taking legal action against Laura. Just a heads
00:14:21.540 up, journalists reach out to the person before making false accusations. You're my mom's age
00:14:27.200 and I'm your daughter's age. Can you imagine someone doing this to your child? Chris Santa's
00:14:31.860 lawyer sent Laura a cease and desist, reading, we are hard-pressed to understand why you think 1.00
00:14:36.720 Ms. White is Camilla. Is it because both women are African-American? Regardless, your false 0.95
00:14:42.620 accusation against Ms. White has resulted in a steady stream of harassment and threats by people
00:14:47.100 who believe your claim and are like-minded with respect to Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard defamation
00:14:52.520 case. Now, Laura did say that she did not intend for Chrysanthemum to be harassed, tweeting,
00:14:58.860 I just followed the research and where it took me. I never encouraged anyone to harass. Sorry.
00:15:04.180 So I have been on the receiving end of enough online harassment to know that I was just posing a question.
00:15:11.980 I never called for anyone to be harassed is a pretty common cover.
00:15:17.260 And when you have almost 100,000 Twitter followers that you have amassed around an issue as intense and divisive as the Johnny Depp Amber Heard trial,
00:15:26.520 you have got to expect that making these kinds of baseless allegations is just setting folks up for harassment.
00:15:33.500 And if you're calling yourself a journalist, well, most journalists would do actual journalism,
00:15:39.620 which is more than just tweeting out a bunch of unfounded conspiracy theories and letting
00:15:43.280 your audience run wild with it.
00:15:45.220 Because here's the thing about trafficking and conspiracy theories about actual people.
00:15:50.900 Once they're out of the box, it is almost impossible to get them back in.
00:15:55.300 And even though Laura may have tweeted a half-hearted apology and said that she was
00:15:59.200 just asking questions and following the research, that doesn't make it go away.
00:16:05.000 And what infuriates me is that this situation is not an uncommon one.
00:16:09.800 The research is clear that things like conspiracy theories,
00:16:12.860 mis- and disinformation, and online harassment disproportionately target Black women.
00:16:17.740 And I think it's really because we live in a racist, sexist society.
00:16:21.600 And subsequently, we have a digital media landscape that will always be poised and ready 0.90
00:16:26.820 to believe, amplify, and weaponize dangerous lies about Black women.
00:16:31.920 And this is not just something happening online.
00:16:34.740 Harassment that starts online rarely stays online.
00:16:38.040 It can have real-world impacts, including violence.
00:16:41.320 And what's even more enraging is that this just keeps on happening
00:16:45.680 with very little accountability.
00:16:48.120 We saw the same thing with Shea and Ruby Freeman and Meghan Markle.
00:16:51.140 People projecting wild conspiracies onto Black women
00:16:54.620 to support whatever acts they have to grind.
00:16:56.820 And those lies are in turn amplified by social media platforms, and they stick.
00:17:01.440 And even if they're proven to be lies, the damage is done.
00:17:05.800 We need a public reckoning that makes clear that this is not okay and that there will be consequences.
00:17:15.560 Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi?
00:17:19.100 You can reach us at hello at tangody.com.
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00:17:24.820 There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me, Bridget Todd.
00:17:27.580 It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.
00:17:30.280 Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.
00:17:32.340 Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer.
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00:17:36.960 I'm your host, Bridget Todd.
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00:17:54.220 if your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your personality
00:18:04.300 welcome home pro society is a weekly podcast that's part book club part group chat for anyone
00:18:10.540 who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse each week
00:18:15.060 we're connecting the dots between books the internet and pop culture with your favorite
00:18:19.080 writers book talk creators and plenty of overthought opinions listen to pro society
00:18:25.800 on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts i survived nine months in
00:18:33.100 captivity and i've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed
00:18:38.460 them i'm elizabeth smart and these are the survivor files every week i'm with survivors
00:18:44.760 who lived through the unthinkable,
00:18:46.740 abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:18:50.560 These are stories about what it takes
00:18:52.480 to make it out alive.
00:18:54.400 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart
00:18:57.160 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
00:19:00.180 or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:19:02.480 I'm Hoda Kotb, host of the podcast,
00:19:05.000 Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb.
00:19:06.840 You know, I'm always searching for inspiration
00:19:09.440 and useful tools to maximize joy.
00:19:12.180 Like when my friend Henry Winkler offered advice
00:19:14.620 to aspiring actors and really anybody hoping to stand out.
00:19:19.220 You're not hired just to fill time and space.
00:19:21.980 You're hired to fill the space with you.
00:19:24.860 Listen to Joy 101 with Hoda Kotb on the iHeartRadio app,
00:19:29.400 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:19:32.660 I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt Season 3 podcast.
00:19:37.200 This is a story about a horrendous situation that destroyed two families.
00:19:41.940 It's a scorched earth war that shows just how far someone will go to get what they want.
00:19:48.240 Cindy said, I had to choose between the truth and my family, and I had to choose the truth.
00:19:53.460 Listen to Season 3 of Burden of Guilt on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:20:02.340 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:20:05.220 Guaranteed human.