TikTok mutes the music in dispute with artists; Drag Race performer wins libel suit; Zuckerberg bullied into apology at Senate hearing; Australian news photoshops lawmaker – NEWS ROUNDUP
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00:01:38.840Hey, Mike. Thanks for being here. It is finally February. Happy February.
00:01:43.860Thanks for having me, Bridget. And happy Black History Month.0.97
00:01:46.480Thank you. Happy Black History Month to you, too. You know that I've been on my crusade of wishing random strangers Happy Black History Month the same way that you might be like, happy holidays, Merry Christmas.
00:01:57.560It's been funny because universally, Black people are like, hey, Happy Black History Month. Non-Black people, either they will look at me weird and not be sure how to respond, which I think is really funny, or they'll instinctively be like, oh, Happy Black History Month to you, too.1.00
00:02:13.600When you get your ticket taken at the movies and they're like, enjoy your movie.1.00
00:02:28.980Yeah, you know, we're all doing our best out here.
00:02:32.500Is there any content out there, like Black History Month content that you particularly like?
00:02:39.040I'm really glad that you asked, because this time of year, I always share my favorite TikTok about commemorating Black History Month. And it's this, I think she might be Australian, like an influencer who is standing in the middle of the sidewalk. She's got sneakers and running shorts and one of those fanny packs for runners. And she's doing kind of an outfit check, like outfit of the day, going running.
00:03:03.300And then this Black man behind her is like, move out of the way. It's Black History Month and just keeps going and interrupts her like outfit of the day influencer TikTok.
00:03:15.980Something about that video really commemorates my feelings on Black History Month.
00:03:20.260All right. I'm looking forward to checking it out.
00:03:22.580And speaking of TikTok, I have to say, I mean, I know that you're not a big user of the platform, but have you heard that big changes might be coming to TikTok?
00:03:30.840I have. And it seems interesting. I haven't really looked too far into it. So I'm hoping
00:03:38.240that you can hit me with some facts here. Well, so if you use TikTok, you know that
00:03:43.000one of the big things about it is music. People upload from very big databases of songs across
00:03:49.440different record labels to sync with their TikToks. And it's kind of a big part of the
00:03:53.360music ecosystem on TikTok. Songs from artists can really blow up if they're being used in
00:03:58.440TikToks that go viral. TikTok is clearly part of marketing strategies for new songs. It is a big
00:04:05.860thing. And particularly that TikTok started in the earliest, early days of TikTok, it was called
00:04:10.680ByteDance. And it was really much more associated with music and dancing. When people say, oh,
00:04:16.240TikTok is just an app with kids dancing, it's never really been that, but that's what they're
00:04:20.980referring to. And so music has always been a big part of what makes TikTok work. But all of that
00:04:26.080might be changing because the music label UMG is threatening to pull all of their artists from
00:04:31.300TikTok permanently because they say TikTok has not been paying artists to use their music on
00:04:36.220the platform. They say TikTok proposed paying our artists and songwriters at a rate that is
00:04:41.140a fraction of the rate that similarly situated music social platforms pay. UMG represents some
00:04:46.260of the biggest and most popular artists in the world, both on TikTok and across the music scene
00:04:50.700more generally. People like Taylor Swift, Drake, Olivia Rodrigo, The Beatles, U2, Ariana Grande,
00:04:56.540SZA, Billie Eilish, Adele, Coldplay, and a whole lot more. And it really doesn't sound like either
00:05:01.580party is planning on backing down. TikTok is accusing UMG of, quote, putting their greed above
00:05:07.680the interests of artists and songwriters. So I will say it does kind of sound like UMG has a point
00:05:13.620here. NBC reported that UMG says TikTok only accounts for 1% of its revenue, despite its
00:05:19.420artists representing eight out of 10 of the most popular bands and singers on the platform last
00:05:23.580year. And around 60% of TikTok videos do include music. UNG published an open letter to their
00:05:29.240artists about why it's time to call out TikTok saying, ultimately TikTok is trying to build a
00:05:34.020music-based business without paying fair value for the music. I absolutely agree with that. Like
00:05:39.780music is an integral part of TikTok. There is no TikTok as we know it without music. And it does
00:05:48.460seem like they're trying to have their cake and eat it too. They're trying to build a music-based
00:05:53.080platform full of a library of music and maybe not pay for that music. So some of the things that
00:05:59.200UMG is also concerned about are the growth of AI tools used in TikTok videos and that effect on
00:06:05.120intellectual property, while also complaining about the amount of content that commits copyright
00:06:09.160infringement, as well as, quote, a tidal wave of hate speech, bigotry, bullying, and harassment.
00:06:13.840These are all valid concerns that UMG is bringing up.
00:06:42.400from developing artists off of the platform while keeping audience-driving global stars.
00:06:48.320So as far as I know, TikTok has not really given like a good response. They've said,
00:06:53.180the fact is they've chosen to walk away from the powerful support of a platform
00:06:56.600with well over a billion users that serves as free promotional and discovery vehicle for their
00:07:01.200talent. That response kind of gives me pause because it feels like, oh, well, whenever somebody
00:07:06.760tells me that the reason why I'm not getting pay or money is because I'm getting promotion,0.98
00:07:11.560it just makes my ass itch. I'm like, wait, you're telling me that promotion is the same thing as0.95
00:07:19.120money here? And I sort of see what they're getting at. But the fact that they're trying
00:07:22.880to use that language of like, oh, no, no, promotion is actually better, kind of gives me
00:07:27.140some warning flags about this whole situation. Yeah, definitely. I mean, that's like a cliche,
00:07:34.420right? That people are going to get paid an exposure. You can't eat promotion.
00:07:38.760Yeah, I have tried giving my landlord promotion to pay my rent and he doesn't accept it. So I don't know. I will say something that I think is really important here is that, you know, UMG in their messaging, they sound really like we are doing this for the artists. We want the artists to get paid. We want the artists to get with their words. Stop exploiting the artists. I don't believe that either.
00:08:01.020I think that what UMG is actually saying is that TikTok needs to be paying our label, like our suits, our executives.
00:08:08.820We need to be making more of that money.
00:08:10.640I don't think it's a situation where they're planning on, like, sharing all of that money with, like, independent artists who need it.
00:08:17.200I don't see a record label behaving that way.
00:08:20.960I think that they're trying to get a bigger payout for themselves.
00:08:23.340and just sort of using this, like, support the artists, pay the artists language, because they
00:08:28.680know it will be sort of a more sympathetic argument. However, I do think that TikTok is
00:08:35.300trying to get around paying artists. And I think that it mirrors a lot of the conversations that
00:08:39.360we're seeing in other platforms, too. Like, you know, Facebook at a time, making money from
00:08:44.700news content and the content that news outlets put out, but intending to not pay them for that
00:08:50.140content, right? Like, you could say like, oh, we're promoting you and people are reading your
00:08:54.000content. But it's like, well, is that really translating to off platform downloads or metrics
00:08:59.500or sales or whatever? Probably not, right? And so I think this is sort of a cut from the same
00:09:03.760cloth kind of situation. I don't know, I'm almost sort of not excited about this. But I'm interested
00:09:10.240to see how this changes the platform. Already, since this was announced, if people have uploaded
00:09:17.380TikToks that have music of these artists, those TikToks are completely muted. So like,
00:09:23.240if I was doing a TikTok where I was talking at the camera, and there was a Taylor Swift song
00:09:27.520playing, the whole thing would be muted, not just the music, also what I was saying. And so I've
00:09:31.680already seen that happening on the platform. But I mean, I don't know, I am curious if this will
00:09:39.500actually lead to smaller or less well-known artists having their having their heyday on the
00:09:47.340platform which could be kind of cool like one of my favorite music tiktokers that i follow
00:09:51.240posted a tiktok with the song one of my favorite songs actually cruel summer by banana rama
00:09:57.540and the commentary was like oh now that taylor swift's taylor swift's song cruel summer is no
00:10:04.720longer allowed on the platform the superior cruel summer the one by bananarama can finally rise
00:10:11.080oh that's pretty funny uh boy it's really interesting the comparison you made to facebook
00:10:17.360not wanting to pay news outlets uh because it is very similar i hadn't thought about that but
00:10:24.680it kind of it does raise questions about these platforms business models that depend on
00:10:34.380serving up content to their users to keep their users engaged but not wanting to pay the creators
00:10:40.400of that content yeah it seems incorrect that seems to be a square in a circle of what it means to be
00:10:49.180on the internet these days of it people like platforms that are big business want to be like
00:10:55.740oh well we're just like it's user-generated content or we're just taking content from the
00:11:00.540internet or like we're just you know we're promoting like essentially they want to build
00:11:06.020huge lucrative platforms using content and then also somehow get around paying for that content
00:11:12.540and it's like we think of music like that's somebody's labor that is somebody's intellectual
00:11:16.860property that is somebody's somebody put a lot of time and intention and thought and work into that
00:11:21.380you don't think you have to pay to use it of course you do yeah and it would be one thing if
00:11:26.240like an artist records a video of them performing their song and uploads that but that's not what
00:11:32.780we're talking about here we're talking about some you know just some random user choosing a song
00:11:39.100that a professional artist has recorded uh and using that like obviously they should get paid
00:11:44.120for that yeah and i think when it comes to music i do think we are overdue for some conversations
00:11:52.340about how technology has shaped music in 2024,
00:12:15.440just isn't working without somebody getting screwed.
00:12:18.640And I think that somebody is the artists.
00:12:20.500Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. You know, especially like you talked about emerging artists who are not a big name trying to make it like your Taylor Swift's, your U2's, your Drake's, they're going to be fine. But somebody who's trying to make it, they're really caught in a bind because they really do need that promotion, but they also need to make a living.
00:12:44.540yeah i think you're absolutely right that it's it's tough out there for musicians you know like
00:12:50.460streaming platforms like spotify already exponentially reduced the you know the amount
00:12:56.860they get paid when people listen to their music and now tiktok is trying to cut that you know a
00:13:02.700fraction of that fraction yeah but again i don't want to make it seem like the music labels are
00:13:08.060being so altruistic like they're just like riding for their artists to get a payout because i don't
00:13:12.560think that's what's happening either. This musician, Chelsea Collins, her brother said,
00:13:17.740my sister Chelsea Collins is only signed to the publishing side of UMG, but they took down both
00:13:22.480her Universal-owned songs from years ago and her songs that she released independently on the
00:13:27.760master side. And so I just feel like smaller artists are going to get screwed, whether by
00:13:33.360this TikTok decision and TikTok trying to play hard about this or from the label. And I already
00:13:40.840think that TikTok has shaped what it means to be a musician in this day and age in some ways that I
00:13:46.120don't think are great. Musicians, especially independent and up and coming musicians, have
00:13:51.380really been candid about the ways that TikTok has forced them to sort of be their own marketing arm.
00:13:58.240And so, you know, before social media, before TikTok, if you were a musician, you were making
00:14:02.980music, you were in the studio, you were songwriting, you were being creative, you were like
00:14:06.440doing the labor that it takes to make a creative project. Now on top of that, you need to be like
00:14:11.520essentially your own one-person documentary filmmaker making content, in quotes, about
00:14:18.820the music. And it's like, well, how are you meant to make the music if you also have to be like
00:14:23.720documenting you making the music to get any traction? There's that thing that happens where
00:14:28.200it'll be like, it's the cringiest thing, but I understand why they do it. It's like
00:14:34.720A musician makes a TikTok and they say, did I just make the song of the summer? And it has their song playing in the background. And there was another one where a songwriter had made a TikTok where she was kind of complaining about how boring her life is.
00:14:51.880And it's just like, you have to have this very curated, specific kind of shtick on TikTok to get any traction. And in an earlier era, your record label, that would have been them paying money to do the labor of marketing your album. And because of TikTok, they've just like put that onto the plate of the musician, squeezing into the time that the musician can be actually making the music the thing they want to be doing.
00:15:16.440I don't know that it's been a great thing for musicians. One of my favorite musicians, FKA Twigs, she talked about how she has had to put her music on TikTok in ways that make her incredibly uncomfortable, that don't feel true or aligned with the vision for the song or the vision that she had as an artist.
00:15:39.260Like, I'm thinking of her song Cellophane, which is this, like, incredibly beautiful song that has kind of been turned into a little bit of a joke on TikTok.
00:15:48.520Like, they've sped it up and they've made the audio wonky.
00:15:51.880If you know the song, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
00:15:54.640If you've ever heard that song on TikTok that is used a lot, that's like, let me do it for you, but it's all, like, wonky.
00:16:01.320It has, like, weird inflections and stuff.
00:16:04.080That's FKA Twigs' song, Cellophane, and it's an incredibly beautiful, intimate, vulnerable song.
00:16:10.780So the song Cellophane, from what I understand, is about the fracture of Twigs' relationship with that actor, Robert Pattinson.
00:16:17.220So Twigs is black, Pattinson is white, and Twigs was targeted for, like, deeply messed up, racist online harassment because she and Pattinson were together.
00:16:27.140And Pattinson had been in that movie Twilight and had been in a relationship previously with his Twilight co-star, Kristen Stewart.
00:16:34.680I guess the fans, like, really wanted this, like, perfect Twilight couple to get back together.
00:16:39.820So they flooded Twigs' social media with horrible racist harassment and online abuse.
00:16:46.540So the song Cellophane is about the role that, like, this racist hate campaign played in this tough breakup of their relationship.
00:16:55.160But on TikTok, somebody did an impression of, I guess, their version of the song as sang by Miss Piggy. It's like them doing an impression of Miss Piggy singing that song. And so whenever you hear that sound on TikTok, what you're actually hearing is somebody doing a Miss Piggy impression of an FKA Twigs song about the role that racist online harassment played in the breakup of her relationship.
00:17:19.600and it's a sound that people use on tiktok to like illustrate jokey silly situations
00:17:27.260and the way that that song has been kind of turned into a joke on tiktok but also it's kind of good
00:17:34.120for her as an artist because the song gets more attraction and more play it's like we're asking
00:17:38.720artists to do things that are incredibly unusual and like i don't know i i just think i don't know
00:17:42.960that tiktok has been a net good for artists yeah i could imagine that probably doesn't feel great
00:17:47.300for FK Twigs to have this, like, vulnerable song turned into a joke like that. And she sounds like0.65
00:17:54.600she's, like, not really even getting paid for it either. Yeah. And I think last year, another one
00:18:00.180of my favorite artists, Fiona Apple, completely took her music off of TikTok. And I totally get
00:18:05.940it. Like, you know, Fiona Apple has, again, incredibly poignant songs about her sexual
00:18:14.260assault as a child to see those songs take off on a platform and become jokes or i'm not even saying
00:18:21.600that her that her song would have become a joke but like to be to be used in a way that you had
00:18:25.500not intended and does not feel aligned with what you put out into the world and then be told like
00:18:30.000oh no actually it's good because that means people are listening to it and it's being marketed
00:18:33.240i do think that it's it's our we should be having a serious conversation about what tiktok and
00:18:38.520social media in general has done to the process of making art and music in 2024. I don't necessarily
00:18:45.500think that UMG as a label is actually altruistically trying to have that conversation to make sure that
00:18:51.140artists are getting the pay they deserve. That I'm a little skeptical of. But I do think it's
00:18:55.760a conversation we should be having. I'm just trying to imagine so many artists are famous for being
00:19:02.100uh very private i'm trying to imagine prince like making tiktoks or something and it like the image
00:19:08.900just doesn't work right first of all prince would never uh even though prince was a huge techie
00:19:14.460prince would never be on tiktok um but that's why i've always said this if kurt cobain was still
00:19:19.840alive can you imagine how annoying he would be on twitter like like some of these musicians like
00:19:24.860Like, not every musician is made better by getting a lens into their life, into their creative process.
00:19:33.600And I think that we've created this dynamic where if you want to succeed and you either A, you better be like an industry plant or have a huge apparatus behind you or something or, you know, have some sort of connection.
00:19:44.780Or B, you better be ready to, like, be a one-person content machine shooting the behind-the-scenes footage of how this thing came together.
00:19:53.000And as somebody who makes a creative thing, like the creative process, not that I'm a musician, but like, you know, I make things. It's really boring a lot of the times. And it has to be. It's like trying things. It's like writing. It's like journaling. It's like, you know, it's not terribly exciting.
00:20:12.760And so having to like make it seem really cool and engaging and like tell a cool story about why people should want to check it out on top of it while you're already trying to make the thing, it would get really hard.
00:24:58.500Would you like to apologize for what you've done to these good people?
00:25:01.480So even though Zuckerberg gave this apology to the families in the room,
00:25:28.580he would not agree to set up any kind of compensation fund to compensate the families
00:25:34.320of young people hurt by his products. And so, yeah, he'll give you an apology that's kind of
00:25:40.520like harangued out of him by Josh Hawley, but financial compensation, a compensation fund,
00:25:46.040cannot do. But take these apologies, though. These words might help.
00:25:51.520It's like one of my favorite Futurama episodes when Hermes's son has like broken a window and so
00:25:58.220Hermes is taking him to apologize. And his son says like, oh, am I going to have to pay for it?
00:26:04.200And he's like, oh, no, no. Just cheap, cheap words. Yeah. Cheap, cheap words is all Mark
00:26:10.760Zuckerberg's got for us. So I'll throw a link to it in the show notes. But there was this great
00:26:16.280op-ed in The Hill from Julie Skelfo, who is a journalist and the executive director of Get
00:26:20.580Media Savvy, a nonprofit working to establish a healthier media vibe for kids and families.
00:26:25.080And it really gets to the heart of the ghoulishness that was on display when tech leaders like Mark Zuckerberg treat our children like commodities.
00:26:34.540So the whole piece is worth a read, but listen to this.
00:26:37.160Quote, as a CEO, Zuckerberg isn't willing to spend a cent over $270 each to keep our kids safe, not even if their lives depend on it.
00:26:46.940And they might. Just ask the parents of Engley Roberts, a 14-year-old from Louisiana who took her own life after Instagram's algorithm sent her numerous mentally harmful posts, they say, including one modeling self-strangulation.
00:26:59.380Or ask the parents of Gavin Guffey, a 17-year-old from South Carolina who died by suicide after being sextorted.
00:27:04.800Although Meta has denied putting a monetary value on kids, a recently released, unredacted version of a lawsuit brought by attorneys general from 33 states includes an internal email showing how Meta characterized its youngest users in 2018.
00:27:19.460Quote, the lifetime value of a 13-year-old is roughly $270 per teen.
00:27:26.540The email went on to caution Metta employees that this number is core to making decisions
00:27:30.960about your business, and accordingly, you do not want to spend more than the lifetime
00:27:51.180And I feel like that really gets at what we're talking about here, that they are putting a monetary value on the lives of our children, and that's core to their business model.
00:28:05.980And, you know, I think it's going to take a little more than Zuckerberg's cheap, cheap words here to make that right in any meaningful capacity.
00:28:13.980Yeah. Well, there's the there's so much more harm, too, than, you know, kids who don't die. Right. There are kids whose self-esteem is really hurt. They can end up with a lot of trauma that they're they have to carry around.
00:28:30.400And a friend of mine is a defense attorney. He's a public defender. And so he's often dealing, you know, defending young people who've been involved in some kind of dumb crime. And he says that all of them have some sort of social media component. So that's like even another way that social media is like can destroy lives.
00:28:53.600Yeah, the harm, it's upsetting that we're talking about children who are no longer with us, our babies, but the harm is so vast and diverse. It's just sickening and the scope is sickening and shocking.
00:29:11.300And in addition to compensating the families who've been affected, it's also important to put something in place to stop new kids from being exposed to these same harms.
00:29:24.180Well, that's what I'm saying is that I, it feels like the dynamic that we have when it comes to big tech and just harms in general is that at the very, the very best they can offer is compensation after harm has occurred. And when we're talking about dead kids, I don't give a fuck how much money you give me if my kid is hurt. If my, if my kid dies by suicide, like there is not a dollar amount on this earth that would satisfy me.0.98
00:29:49.420I, yeah. So I would hope for a dynamic that can be better, that can say like, we can prevent harm.
00:29:56.180We can do more than just do something reactive after something bad happens. We know it's happening.
00:30:03.660We know it's going to continue to happen. What if we put things in place to prevent it from
00:30:07.940continuing to happen? Like, I just think that it sickens me that this is apparently like the
00:30:13.920best they can do is like, after a harm has occurred, maybe we can step in and talk.
00:30:18.320What if we had a better system that did not need for people to be hurt before somebody did something?
00:30:23.340Yeah, it would. That would be nice. You know, I was talking with a friend yesterday about that hearing and this friend was like, seems really optimistic about that some sort of meaningful change would come out of this.
00:30:37.900He was talking about, you know, it seemed like there was bipartisan support and both Republicans and Democrats were really like giving it to the tech executives.
00:30:47.140But it's as far as I can tell, it's a lot of bipartisan support for grandstanding and stunts and yelling at CEOs and forcing them to apologize.
00:30:58.900guys, I would really love to see some actual action, some legislation that would do something
00:31:07.460meaningful here. Absolutely same. So, of course, it would not be a Senate hearing where lawmakers
00:31:13.980talked to TikTok CEO Shozi Chu without getting real racist with it. Here's Tom Cotton.
00:31:21.660So you said today, as you often say, that you live in Singapore. Of what nation are you a citizen?
00:38:08.920If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:38:14.860This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:38:27.340I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:38:34.440I'm going to have to look up this story.
00:38:37.580From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.
00:38:43.980It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:38:51.880Whether 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.
00:39:01.060Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:39:19.660So speaking of AI, let's go to Australia because this is a weird situation happening with an Australian lawmaker.
00:39:27.280Victoria's parliament member, Georgie Purcell, saw a picture of herself on local news and was like, wait, something is off with this picture.
00:39:34.300She was originally photographed wearing a white sleeveless dress, but in the picture that she saw on the local news, her torso or like her midriff is exposed.
00:39:44.080And she was like, wait a minute, I am heavily tattooed on my torso area.
00:39:48.800The part of my body that is exposed in this image doesn't have the tattoos that I know I actually have.
00:39:54.920The picture also made her chest look a little bit fuller, too.
00:39:57.840And her dress, which initially had been a big one piece, had been turned into like a crop top where her midriff was exposed.0.74
00:40:04.300She says, they'd given me chiseled abs and a boob job.
00:40:07.780I felt really, really uncomfortable about it.
00:40:09.960Well, Nine News in Australia apologized and said it was a, quote, graphics error and blamed
00:40:15.480Photoshop's automation tool, saying that in trying to resize the image, the automation
00:40:20.160by Photoshop created an image that was not consistent with the original.
00:40:24.660However, the New York Times was like, I don't know about that.
00:40:28.760They talked to Adobe, the company that makes Photoshop, and a representative for Adobe
00:40:33.020said that the edits to the image would have required human intervention and approval.
00:40:38.920So this New York Times write-up is actually very interesting. It says,
00:40:42.860Some commentators familiar with working with Photoshop have suggested that if artificial
00:40:46.980intelligence is at fault, the modifications could have been made using a Photoshop tool
00:40:51.560that fills in blank space above or below an image with an automatically generated continuation of
00:40:56.900the image. Others, like Rob Nichols, a professorial fellow at the University of Technology, Sydney,
00:41:01.860said the changes could have been made with an automatic enhancement function similar to selfie
00:41:06.600filters that modify someone's facial features. The broadcast of the image, seemingly without
00:41:11.680someone checking that it was an accurate depiction of Ms. Purcell, shows that using AI without strong
00:41:17.120editorial controls runs the risk of making very significant errors. The incident shows that AI
00:41:22.860can replicate existing biases. I don't think it's coincidental that these issues tend to be
00:41:27.940gendered. This is something that we know about AI. If there was one thing about AI that I wish
00:41:33.780people understood, it is that it is not robot computer brains making decisions because they're
00:41:41.040hyper-intelligent artificially. It is built by humans. It is made by humans. Everything that
00:41:47.400we're seeing when we use AI has been put there by a human. So all of the biases and shortcomings
00:42:40.540All of these are biases that AI is replicating
00:42:44.100because the people who built it have those biases.
00:42:46.880And I think Rob Nichols is exactly right,
00:42:49.740that AI is just replicating existed, deeply gendered biases.
00:42:54.680year yeah definitely uh well said you know it it's an algorithm that is trying to replicate the
00:43:02.740the data that it's fed and trained on and if the data is sexist and racist uh yeah that's what
00:43:09.840you're going to end up with in in the ai uh but it's not clear to me that this even i mean i guess
00:43:15.820it it was ai but i feel like the news company is really trying to pull a fast one saying that like
00:43:24.480a human didn't do this like when you resize an image it doesn't photoshop doesn't like
00:43:30.200automatically alter it in this way like there there wasn't there it's not just the case that
00:43:36.700like the you know the ai is here is replicating biases from the world which it is but also like
00:43:44.840there was a human sitting at a desk clicking the button to like enhance the image or something
00:43:51.020like that a human sitting at a desk clicking a button to enhance the image and then most
00:43:55.780importantly not double checking the image after that human clicks the button like that's the
00:44:00.820that's the big thing here is like okay using an automated tool to fill in blank space sure but
00:44:09.380then you have to look afterwards like that's the thing about these ai tools it's like if you're
00:44:13.440going to use them you as the human that need to double check that if you're showing this person's0.81
00:44:18.620torso that it is an accurate if you've made the if you've made the already weird fucking choice0.78
00:44:23.900to show this person's torso who did not show their torso in the original image at least be like well0.74
00:44:29.100is this an accurate representation of this person's torso the whole thing is already weird
00:44:33.640yeah it is weird it's and it it feels like a the like the dog ate my homework kind of excuse or
00:44:40.720like you know i couldn't figure out how to print so i didn't do my assignment what were you
00:44:48.560what did you have microphones in conversations I had with my parents and teachers when I was in
00:44:54.180school that's like a that's a bridged excuse if I ever heard one yeah that's what this news
00:45:00.420company is like basically pointing to here listen as someone who is in my academic career used every
00:45:07.000excuse in the book sometimes he's got to be like yeah I should have done a better job and this is
00:45:10.920on me so something else that Purcell that Australian lawmaker whose image was distorted
00:45:16.800says here is that she suspects that her identity is the reason why the news would feel comfortable
00:45:22.540using this kind of technology to make her look a certain way without her permission at all.
00:45:27.440She says, I'm young, I'm blonde, I'm covered in tattoos, I have a past in sex work. So I think
00:45:33.980that she is rightly picking up on something that whoever was in charge of making this image
00:45:39.900just didn't feel like they needed to have her consent to distort the way that she looks in
00:45:45.780this way. And I do think there's something, it kind of gets back to that conversation we had
00:45:49.720about the Taylor Swift deepfakes, that there's something about it that is like, your body is
00:45:56.360public property, and I actually don't need your permission or consent to manipulate it using
00:46:02.000the technology that I have to do that. I think that Purcell is onto something here, that there
00:46:07.040are identity aspects that make people feel like they don't need to get permission, they don't need
00:46:11.920to get consent. The way that your body and physicality manifest is just up to me. I have
00:46:17.760control over that and I don't need to get your permission to do that. Yeah, this is like a trend
00:46:22.360that I've noticed with news stories lately that, you know, we all on my phone, on social media,
00:46:32.180I have lots of places where I'm looking at a feed of news stories, right? And they're all trying to
00:46:36.580get me to click on them. And I've noticed this trend where there'll be a lot of news stories in
00:46:40.880there that are not important news stories, but they're about a woman who is conventionally
00:46:48.720attractive. And, you know, it'll be like, oh, this woman from some county in a different state
00:46:54.000hasn't paid her taxes. It's like, why is this a news story? And I think it's just because
00:46:59.700that's a way for whatever algorithm is serving up content to get an attractive woman there and1.00
00:47:08.400just like use, yeah, use her body, use her image as clickbait. It feels weird and kind of gross.
00:47:17.460So I would actually argue that that is not a bug of our current media landscape. It is very much a
00:47:23.860feature. Using people, people who happen to all be traditionally marginalized, to generate engagement
00:47:31.700and thus clicks and thus money for somebody who is likely to not be traditionally marginalized,
00:47:36.700That is like the system that keeps the whole that is that the whole thing is built on. And so when we have these situations where it exposes, you know, that our Internet landscape is deeply misogynistic or transphobic or queer phobic or racist, those are not, you know, weird instances of something happening.
00:47:55.980They are reminders that like, oh, yeah, that's because that those things are baked into our entire internet landscape right now. And so we're just going to keep repeating that because that's the whole thing. That's what the whole thing, the whole house of cards that is today's current digital landscape is built on all of those things.
00:48:14.300And so is it any wonder that this same system is not fairly or accurately or consistently representing women, queer people, trans people, Black people, people of color, or anything like that?
00:48:27.500Yeah, it's not surprising at all. So have you got some good news to send us out with?
00:48:34.160I sure do. I've been saving this story because I it's it's one that is near and dear to me because y'all know I love a good justice is served story. So basically, Sandsbury's, which is a grocery store chain in the UK, was supportive of Black Lives Matter. And like, I think they were doing some sort of like Black History Month thing for their black employees.
00:48:54.340It's fairly standard stuff. Well, right-wing activist Lawrence Fox, who founded the right-wing
00:49:00.360populist political party Reclaim, and is generally the kind of person who makes his whole thing like
00:49:05.520hating anything related to diversity. You know the type. We don't need to like, you know what I'm
00:49:09.660saying. Well, he didn't like this. And so he called for a boycott of Sandsbury's. So he got
00:49:15.040into it on Twitter with Colin Seymour, who is a drag performer. Colin's drag performer name is
00:49:21.800Crystal. So during this exchange on Twitter, Lawrence called Colin Seymour a pedophile,
00:49:27.740which we know is like a dangerous smear. This idea that people who do drag or that LGBTQ people
00:49:33.500or the people who support them are dangerous sexual threats to children. It is absolutely
00:49:38.700baseless, not to mention dangerous in a time of QAnon. Well, Colin Seymour was like, I don't think
00:49:45.180so and sued Lawrence for libel. And this week, he won. In a ruling at the High Court, Justice
00:49:52.060Collins Rice described Fox calling him a pedophile as seriously harmful, defamatory, and baseless,
00:49:59.380saying, the law affords few defenses to decimation of this sort. Mr. Fox did not attempt to show
00:50:05.060these allegations were true, and he was not able to bring himself on the facts within the terms of
00:50:09.780any other defense recognized in the law. So Fox tried to counter sue Colin Seymour for calling
00:50:15.820him a racist, but the court dismissed that counterclaim saying that the tweets were unlikely
00:50:20.880to cause him serious harm to his reputation. So this is a good story because I love like justice
00:50:26.180is served. Some people, if you listen to old, old, old stuff mom never told you, you might remember
00:50:32.460that in the episode that we did revealing our problematic faves, Mike, you might know who mine
00:50:38.380was oh that's right who is your oh who is my number one lady who serves up justice every every
00:50:45.620day oh judge judy of course uh i thought you meant a different problematic fave oh my god i have so
00:50:52.720many we don't have to get into it maybe that's patreon i don't want i don't want to get like
00:50:58.400we can move on but yeah so i it's already a long episode we don't have time to go through your long
00:51:03.780list of problematic things i know i know no but i i basically what i'm saying is like i love justice
00:51:09.580i love watching somebody get what they've got coming to them and so this story i like but i0.77
00:51:15.180want to be clear that like this shit is dangerous seymour did an interview with the independent0.96
00:51:20.140which honestly the whole thing is worth reading but in it he was talking about like why he sued0.99
00:51:25.500fox for defamation and basically talks about how all of this anti-gay bigotry is a real dangerous
00:51:33.380problem. And that calling someone a pedophile baselessly is basically the first line of a very
00:51:40.160dangerous attack. He told The Independent, for some, anti-gay bigotry never died, but they
00:51:46.080realized it had become socially unacceptable for them to express it. So now they found a new avenue
00:51:50.580where they feel emboldened and think that they're going to get away with it. Calling somebody
00:51:54.240pedophile, groomer, or Nazi is often the first line of attack, a new way of framing very old0.86
00:51:59.640homophobia. And it's all bound up in modern trans panic.0.58
00:52:03.380The Independent asked if Fox had given any kind of, like, remorse during this case, and the answer is no, of course not.
00:52:11.620Seymour says, it's always doubling down and digging the hole deeper, and I think until he demonstrates some actual willingness to examine his own behaviors, I can't feel anything for him except contempt.
00:52:22.180And you know what? He is right, because rather than just, like, shutting up, Fox is back at it, tweeting about the case, quote,
00:52:29.880The lifeblood of progressivism is the myth of white privilege and systemic racism, both lies.0.82
00:52:36.000Certainly in this wonderful country, which is being eaten away at from the inside by those who would want to replace a meritocracy with a melaninocracy.0.82
00:52:46.760Is that a word that you've seen before? This is my first time.0.99
00:52:50.000I have not seen. I have not seen melaninocracy.
00:52:54.460In case you don't know, melanin is the thing that makes people of color our skin the way
00:54:36.500If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.
00:54:39.840For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:54:51.160I survived nine months in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive
00:54:57.880what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.
00:55:03.480Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled,
00:55:09.300and nearly silenced. These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:55:14.480Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:55:22.860If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:55:28.640Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:55:36.940Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture
00:55:40.420with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions.