TikTok surveillance plan revealed; Fresh & Fit manosphere podcast demonetized & emasculated; Elon is blocking links and faking followers; Court affirms copyrights are for humans, not AI; and more — NEWS ROUNDUP
00:01:55.600I'm excited too. So first, I would love to just sort of let folks get to know you. What is your
00:02:00.940experience like on the internet? What do you care about online? What brings you to conversations
00:02:05.200on the internet? For sure. Yeah. So I, again, my name is Joey. I am a producer here at iHeart. I
00:02:10.840work on a couple of different shows. I do work on the Ask Stuff Mom Never Told You, like Bridget
00:02:15.000said. You should check out that episode if you can. But yeah, I am very much an internet kind
00:02:22.500person, a very chronically online person, I will call myself sometimes, not necessarily in a
00:02:27.640positive way. But I, you know, I am Gen Z, I'm an older Gen Z person. So I grew up with social
00:02:34.080media, more or less, like in high, I don't know, I got on social media in like high school, I guess
00:02:38.140that's more or less growing up with social media. Anyways, I was a big like, you know, I was really
00:02:44.960into tumblr back in the day when that was a big thing uh i personally um you know if you've
00:02:52.640listened to sminty you know this i'm a big like fandom person so that always was my introduction
00:02:56.860to like social media sites and all of that um i am still on twitter unfortunately um hanging on
00:03:04.940we'll see uh although i don't know that that might be ending soon but yeah um i do use tiktok a lot
00:03:12.020I'm big on TikTok uh I won't be telling y'all my TikTok ad but if you find it on your own
00:03:17.080congratulations uh I don't use the same ad as I do for my other social media but do you love
00:03:22.400TikTok do you love sort of you know my view is always I think social media is it's a medium
00:03:29.880it can be a great tool for activism and for you know one thing I talk about a lot is like I
00:03:37.460grew up queer in the early 2000s early 2010 or 2000s early 2010s kind of era like I think I was
00:03:47.780probably like 2014 when I first came out like it was um but which was still like a time when there
00:03:54.460wasn't a lot of like visibility with queerness and I I really credit like the internet and social
00:03:58.600media for being my sort of space safe space so that always gonna have a place in my heart you
00:04:03.800know at the same time I think really appreciate this show for being a place to talk about like
00:04:07.180some of the negatives too but yeah we have such similar trajectories when it comes to how we think
00:04:12.600about the internet like similarly the internet i guess it's a double-edged sword you know i think
00:04:18.400for marginalized youth it can be this new this place to find community and explore yourself
00:04:24.400sometimes depending on where you grew up and what your upbringing was like sometimes for the very
00:04:28.280first time and it also can be this place for that very identity that very thing that the internet
00:04:34.480is this way to explore can be weaponized against you, can be used to further marginalize you. So
00:04:42.160yeah, it's just, it's, it's all of the promise and all of the peril. Like that is what it means
00:04:47.560to be a marginalized person online today, I feel. And you really bring your fandom lens,
00:04:53.560I think is really helpful to understanding a lot of what happens on the internet. We were just
00:04:57.540talking about you know how you could say something about activism or radical politics and people are
00:05:05.300like okay you talk about a fandom then you can really upset some folks yeah i was like richard
00:05:11.620before we started recording i recently got in some i'm gonna say accidental beef with a very
00:05:17.260prominent tiktoker uh was not my intention that's why i'm saying accidental i um pointed out that
00:05:26.580made a comment that was a little bit misogynistic and you know accusing a male ally of not being a
00:05:32.520feminist is apparently the worst offense to feminism uh that's been a week anyway it's not
00:05:37.740gonna go super into that but i yeah it's i existing as a marginalized person on the internet is always0.89
00:05:42.960a always a fun time always get some fun comments you know it's yeah well speaking of tiktok that's
00:05:52.860a great segue into talking about news y'all might have missed on the internet this week. So we talked
00:05:58.900on the show about TikTok, the Chinese-owned social media platform owned by the parent company
00:06:03.980ByteDance, was potentially going to be banned in the United States, and how the platform was working
00:06:09.160with the U.S. government to figure out what it needed to do to avoid being banned. Well, now
00:06:14.200we've gotten our very first look about what all that might entail, because Forbes obtained a draft
00:06:19.220of a deal from around this time last year between TikTok and the Biden administration's
00:06:24.420Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or CFIUS. So one quick sort of side note
00:06:30.840here is that Forbes has a little bit of a history with TikTok. ByteDance did confirm to Forbes that
00:06:37.720they had essentially been spying on Forbes journalists through monitoring their physical
00:06:42.580locations via their IP addresses in an attempt to sniff out leaks from inside the company.
00:06:47.300A TikTok executive actually had to resign over this.
00:06:50.600So Forbes has really been on this TikTok beat, which is probably why they were the outlet that got this agreement between the government and TikTok in the first place.
00:06:59.040So their reporting shows that if it were to be finalized, the agreement would provide the government near unfettered access to internal TikTok information and unprecedented control over essential functions that it does not have over any other major platform.
00:07:14.900The draft agreement, as it's being negotiated, or as it was being negotiated at the time around this time last summer, would give government agencies like the DOJ and the DOD the authority to examine TikTok's U.S. facilities, records, equipment, and servers with minimal or no notice, block changes to the app's U.S. terms of service, moderation policies, and privacy policy, veto the hiring of any executive involved in leading TikTok's U.S. data security org, order TikTok and ByteDance to pay for and subject themselves to various audits,
00:07:44.540assessments, and other reports on the security of TikTok's U.S. functions and, in some circumstances,
00:07:50.260require ByteDance to temporarily stop TikTok from functioning within the United States.
00:07:55.600So what's really interesting to me here that Forbes points out is that this agreement would
00:08:00.880essentially give the United States government a very similar kind of access and power that
00:08:06.620lawmakers have worried about China having. Forbes writes, in one revealing comment exchange,
00:08:11.840attorneys for ByteDance explained to CFIUS that they have addressed language that prevents the
00:08:17.100government from demanding changes to TikTok's recommendation algorithm simply because it
00:08:21.180recommended content that the government does not like. And so that is exactly what foes have been
00:08:25.760like, oh, China will do that. And now this agreement is saying maybe the United States
00:08:30.500government should be able to do that. Yeah, that is what's so weird to me about this whole debate,
00:08:35.900which is like I mean and like obviously that and I guess not obviously but like they made it clear
00:08:42.600the intention behind it is just that they're mad that they're not the ones that are like Facebook
00:08:47.360has been doing worse shit for like the long I don't know it's very strange um I also I don't
00:08:53.740know whenever this comes up I'm always like what do what do politicians think people are like doing0.96
00:08:57.820on TikTok like what I don't know most of my for you page is like I get a lot of those like the
00:09:03.920the things with people playing video games and there's like a sitcom clip over it like i don't
00:09:08.160yeah i don't know anyways that's i it's this whole thing is so silly and somehow also terrifying
00:09:16.340yeah yeah and you make a good point that so much of what lawmakers in the u.s have talked about
00:09:24.960when it comes to this threat that they say that tiktok poses as from being a chinese-owned company
00:09:29.580is very hypothetical. It's not like they're saying the videos where somebody is playing
00:09:34.760Mario Kart and then there's a sitcom on top of it. Those are national securities. It's not like
00:09:40.700they have some smoking gun. It's all very hypothetical. And if the government and TikTok
00:09:46.220were to go ahead with this agreement, that would mean that TikTok would be subjected to
00:09:50.860more government oversight and scrutiny than any other social media platform that's run in the
00:09:56.400United States, like Facebook or Twitter, which I'm sure is making folks like Zuckerberg and
00:10:00.280Elon Musk very, very happy. That's sort of one of my overall concerns about legislation around
00:10:06.680TikTok is that I feel like the United States, their real quibble is that they want the US to
00:10:12.740be the only game in town when it comes to big tech. And so they want to have this dynamic where
00:10:17.080American companies basically go unscrutinized by the American government, you know, unless they
00:10:22.460really break the law. And even then, it's not really that much scrutiny. And where TikTok has
00:10:27.720this completely different operating standard where they have complete scrutiny and oversight
00:10:34.220by the American government. Like, it's just a weird dynamic that I just feel like is
00:10:38.420not actually rooted in keeping our data safe and secure. It's rooted in something else.
00:10:45.640Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, again, it's very clearly sort of rooted in this weird sort of like,
00:10:52.460anti-china xenophobia that happens the thing to me too is it's always like look i'm not i'm i don't
00:11:02.280think any country should be getting my data collecting my data but at the same time it's
00:11:08.240like doesn't the u.s do that to like every other country that uses art like like isn't that every
00:11:12.560country that uses facebook like we also i don't know it's the whole thing yeah like america wants
00:11:15.960to control all the big tech i just think it's kind of silly yeah remember also like when facebook
00:11:22.320When China banned, like, Facebook and that was, like, a big thing and they were like, see how repressive this government.
00:11:27.900It's like, this is not the same version of that.
00:11:30.700I'm not saying that was a good move either, but yes.
00:15:44.800podcast than ad-supported streaming music from spotify and pandora and as the number one podcaster
00:15:50.140iheart's twice as large as the next two combined so whatever your customers listen to they'll hear
00:15:55.000your message plus only iheart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio
00:15:59.980think podcasting can help your business think iheart streaming radio and podcasting let us
00:16:05.820show you at iheartadvertising.com that's iheartadvertising.com if your bookshelf and
00:16:11.580your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society,
00:16:18.500the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture
00:16:23.320obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level
00:16:27.600of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet,
00:16:33.160and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm
00:16:38.040From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.
00:16:45.540It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:16:53.460Whether 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.
00:17:02.600Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app,
00:17:05.560Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:17:29.900And then had a worker contact you after the fact because they had your information because they wanted to date or wanted to ask you out or, like, some other inappropriate vibes given.
00:17:44.720That's definitely something I've, like, been worried about.
00:17:47.260Like, it's something I feel like especially if you're somebody who, like, presents as female or feminine, you're going to have that kind of anxiety in the back of your head.
00:17:58.260But yeah, it's definitely I've definitely like worried about that. Haven't had it happen, though.
00:18:02.040Same. I've not had it happen, but I it's definitely something in the back of my head.
00:18:07.180And we are not alone because according to a new survey, the rise of things like gig work also means a rise in this kind of inappropriate behavior.
00:18:15.0202,000 British adults were surveyed by the Information Commissioner's Office, or the ICO.
00:18:20.640And the survey found that 17% of people have had their personal information used for a romantic or sexual proposition after handing it over to a business.
00:18:30.040That figure rises to 33% in London, where apparently this kind of thing is more common.
00:18:34.660Almost one in three Brits between the ages 18 and 34 have received unwanted contact from delivery drivers or other workers asking them out on dates or propositioning them for sex.1.00
00:18:46.680It is, the way that you put it, Joey, is so true.
00:18:51.100Like, this has not happened to me before.
00:18:56.400I, it's like a thing in the back of your mind whenever you use a service like this, you know.
00:19:02.800And I think it's one of the reasons why it feels that way is by nature, when you are giving your information and your contact information over to a company, by default, you're like a little bit vulnerable, especially if somebody is coming to your house to deliver something or dropping you off at home.
00:19:18.500if you're alone. Like, I understand the feeling of like, oh, no, is this person going to proposition
00:19:25.780me? You know, I don't have any data on it, but I have to assume that this is an issue that impacts
00:19:33.980women or people who present as women disproportionately. Like, I just have to assume.
00:19:39.340And I think like, yeah, it can feel unsafe despite never having had to deal with this myself. I can
00:19:46.820imagine feeling really unsafe. And Emily Keeney, a deputy commissioner at the ICO, said people have
00:19:52.660the right to order a pizza or give their email for a seat or have shopping delivered without being
00:19:57.120asked for sex or on a date a little while later. And I completely agree. I also think that some of
00:20:02.900this might be like partly cultural. I think that we have so many signals in society that suggest
00:20:10.740that this is the kind of quirky or romantic
00:20:39.240we're just trying to get take like get our delivery food and go back into our apartment right like
00:20:43.460we're not trying to get a date everybody should have the right to use services and not feel like
00:20:48.300the person is going to be texting them after the fact because they have their number you know no
00:20:53.100that's so true though i i feel like i'm not a big rom-com person i feel like this is i always say
00:20:59.720that that i'm of course whenever i watch a rom-com that i really like i'm like this is so cute but i
00:21:03.600think that's the issue is there's so many where it's like this is a little weird like there's
00:21:07.760there's something a little off here um yeah no i also like i could totally see that being
00:21:14.040something that would like go viral on like twitter where it's like oh my god this person
00:21:18.200messaged me after dropping off my pizza and now we're married like it's it's it's weird it is
00:21:23.660weird like the kind of stories that we see as normal yeah i it's something it's something that
00:21:28.960i really i like rom-coms but it's something that i hate in rom-coms where it's like it's like in
00:21:35.540the romantic comedy universe boundaries is not a thing like you know like i don't like that i did
00:21:44.700once get into a long conversation that lasted after the fact with my instacart shopper uh because
00:21:52.440i had ordered tabasco sauce and rather than tabasco sauce the instacart shopper gave me
00:21:59.720liquid smoke and i was like it wasn't a big deal like whatever but i was like this person should
00:22:06.780know that like tabasco sauce and liquid smoke are not synonymous and so i messaged back and i was
00:22:11.900like hey just so you know like for your own cooking this is not a like synonymous thing
00:22:18.120and it was a perfectly pleasant interaction but it ended with boy you really have a lot of opinions
00:22:22.860about cooking. I sure do. That's accurate. I love that. That's like a nice interaction.
00:22:29.920Yeah. You can have nice interactions. Yes. It was a nice one. I've had plenty of really great
00:22:35.220conversations with Uber drivers. Yeah. That's always the thing too. I feel like, you know,
00:22:39.960a particular demographic that always responds to these sort of things with like, oh, so we can't
00:22:45.880be nice to you. It's like, no, I've had like lovely conversations with like my Uber drivers
00:22:49.880about like I'm pretty young I look like I'm still in college so usually it's like you know
00:22:54.960parents telling me about their kids they're in college that kind of stuff but it's always like
00:22:59.420it's super nice and cute and I don't know there's definitely a very clear line about what's what is
00:23:04.540too far and what is at least I think there is uh I think I agree I think if you're propositioning
00:23:10.820for somebody propositioning somebody for sex or a date that's probably on the other side of that
00:23:15.680line. And England is actually cracking down on this. The ICO is urging people who have been
00:23:21.080victims of this kind of thing to come forward and reminding companies of their data protection
00:23:25.260responsibilities, that they are bound to uphold by law. Companies who are violating data protection
00:23:30.080laws can be fined up to 17.5 million pounds. That's about $22.1 million. And so, yeah,
00:23:37.160they're just reminding folks that it is doing this, getting someone's number because they did
00:23:43.240a service with you is against the law and contacting them after the fact is against
00:23:47.020the law. And I think there needs to be a cultural understanding that somebody who is doing service
00:23:52.980with you, just because you have their information, that does not give you the green light to like
00:23:56.960text them after the fact for a date. So I'm happy to see England cracking down on this.
00:24:02.980So let's move to the AI world, something we talk quite a bit about on this show.
00:24:07.720So this week we spoke to actor and producer Francesca Ramsey on the podcast about the Hollywood strikes and how writers and actors are demanding guardrails about how AI will be used in writers' rooms and on sets.
00:24:20.020Hollywood studios have already put up job listings for, like, very lucrative jobs for AI specialists amidst the strike, which kind of gives you a lens into how they're thinking about the strike and how they're thinking about the culture of how content gets made already.
00:24:34.800And what writers really want to know is how AI is going to impact their presence on set. Are studios going to try to be funny with the math and sneak in AI and then use that to not pay human writers?
00:24:50.960You know, they want to know if AI is the example that Francesca Ramsey used in this week's episode was if AI generates the first janky version of a script and then a human writer punches that script up, who gets credit for that script? Who gets paid for that script? Does the human writer get paid for it?
00:25:08.700I bet the studios would love it if they were to say, like, oh, no, you just get paid on making tweaks, even though, you know, the original script is probably super janky and did need a heavy lift from a human hand.
00:25:19.720And so in Hollywood, writers and actors really want some guardrails around how studios plan to use AI.
00:25:26.940But this new ruling might throw a wrench in studios' plans around AI, because a federal judge just ruled that a piece of art generated by AI cannot be copyrighted.
00:25:36.540The lawsuit was brought by plaintiff Stephen Thaler, who wanted to list his own AI system as the sole creator of an artwork called A Recent Entrance to Paradise.
00:25:45.520And the courts basically said, nah, humans only. Copyright is for human work only.
00:25:51.220The judge said, humans are an essential part of a valid copyright claim and that human authorship is a bedrock requirement of copyright.
00:25:59.620Plaintiff can point to no case in which a court has recognized copyright in a work originating with a non-human.
00:26:04.740This is not a cut and dry ruling, I should say. The judge did suggest that cases in the future could be more complicated and, quote, will prompt challenging questions regarding how much human input is necessary to qualify the user of an AI system as an author of a generated work.
00:26:22.120So if studios are not able to retain copyright of creative work created solely by AI, the whole, you know, we'll just let AI write scripts instead of paying writers thing might not shake out in their favor.
00:26:35.580This whole story is so funny. I mean, obviously, OK, that's the like everything that has happened to this led up to this with like the fact that, you know, the writers and the actors have had to go on strike, which full solidarity with them.
00:26:47.940um walked by the picket line earlier today because i had to run some errands in midtown and
00:26:51.880love it love seeing the yeah it was it was great but anyways this whole i just
00:26:58.560this whole situation because especially watching like what the the way that these big companies
00:27:06.000these big production companies have used copyright to like screw over people in the past i like
00:27:13.720you know I'm a big Marvel fan but like the way that the company runs is totally messed up like
00:27:19.740again they use copyright to screw over a lot of their writers and to like kind of
00:27:24.600not give people credit for shit they were doing in the past and it's I don't know it's just funny
00:27:28.300to see this now them being like oh nope we can't use copyright for AI um yeah I don't know I also
00:27:36.400have like the whole idea of like AI writing a script like that's not gonna work it's not gonna
00:27:40.840be good no exactly so that was the question that i had for francesca ramsey in the episode i was
00:27:46.200like i believe the idea that ai would write a good script like a like like you know good enough to be
00:27:53.480a show is like a fantasy and francesca agrees she's like right now there has to be a human in
00:27:59.440the mix somewhere for a script to be good and like we probably all i don't know if you ever
00:28:04.320did those parlor tricks where it's like oh we trained ai on a bunch of episodes of seinfeld
00:28:11.020and then here's what they came up with and the joke is that they're always janky and funny and
00:28:15.240don't make sense like the reason why we do those is because they're bad at it but francesca points
00:28:20.820out that while that might be the case now that might not be the case forever and so like three
00:28:26.620years down the road you know is what if ai is can write a passable first draft and so really looking
00:28:34.140to the future and sort of anticipating what's on the horizon because you know again she it's it's
00:28:41.260i keep referencing referencing the interview because it was a fascinating conversation but
00:28:44.520she references how when in 2012 there the new contracts with the um writers union talked about
00:28:53.780like content made solely for the internet but that was like in 2012 there weren't really like
00:28:58.680shows on the internet like that like maybe you had a web series but it was before streaming and so
00:29:03.360So people didn't know, people couldn't predict like how content made for the internet would take off and like streaming would become a thing. And it kind of bit them in the ass, not being future forward. And so I think with the AI stuff, the writers and actors are trying to think what's on the horizon. How will this be used to exploit my labor? How will this be used to like undercut me and underpay me? Because that's, unfortunately, that's how a lot of these executives think. Like, how can we use this technology to like scam?0.97
00:29:33.360the people who make our jobs possible exactly yeah it's so there's so many scary things that
00:29:40.480could happen because this i i feel like already wasn't there some movie they made that they like
00:29:46.500they they like used cgi to like make like james dean to be in it it was some whole thing or like
00:29:53.100yeah the most recent like star wars movie when they had like after carrie fisher died they had
00:29:57.640like a cgi carrie fisher like that was a whole thing where it's like it's stealing people's
00:30:01.260likeness how does that that was weird like we already have that and that's personally as somebody
00:30:06.700watching like watching those movies it's kind of creepy like i don't know i didn't like that when
00:30:10.540they did that in like star wars i haven't seen any other movies where they've done it yet but it's
00:30:14.440like it's a little weird but yeah it is it's it's scary to see that that's that's a possibility and
00:30:19.300they definitely like yeah yeah so i've even i've heard of actors and musicians adding provisions
00:30:26.520into their contracts saying that, like, don't use my likeness in AI, do not use technology
00:30:32.340to make AI, you know, fabricated versions of me.
00:30:36.260And I think we're going to see more and more of that, of creatives really getting particular
00:30:41.600about how their usage and their likeness shows up, even in death.
00:30:46.080Like, there's just something very off to me, personally, about, like, Robin Williams is
00:30:55.900no longer with us robin williams died before ai took off using that fact that someone died before
00:31:05.420this technology was ubiquitous to be like oh we're gonna put them in you know after their death in a
00:31:11.920movie that they can't they can't agree to do they can't say whether or not they do it um that just
00:31:17.580feels really off to me yeah it is it's it's really strange it feels very like i don't know especially
00:31:25.520if you're an actor like you're putting yourself in that role you are you are putting your image
00:31:30.960you're attaching your image to that movie or whatever and it's these people aren't giving
00:31:35.200they're not giving their consent to be you know a part of whatever they're being put in now after
00:31:40.480their death um yeah it's it's so weird then the music thing too i think it's interesting because
00:31:46.360kind of going back to tiktok and all this thing one thing that i've been seeing lately that has
00:31:49.880been annoying me is there's all these like videos going around that are like have you ever wondered
00:31:54.560like this pop song but like we did a frank sinatra ai and it's really like it's always presented as
00:32:00.580this like oh this is so cool like mashing and it's like or you could have like found somebody
00:32:06.580to like do a cover of it and like a jazz style or whatever like that it's it's weird i think like
00:32:12.860i get the appeal of it and i get the like especially like i've gotten a couple times
00:32:17.340where i've like seen one where i've been like this is really cool and then been like huh like
00:32:20.520maybe it is a little messed up that they're like having the ai do this when but yeah it's it's
00:32:25.940strange and weird and i think we should just let people be creative because that's part of being
00:32:32.880human and it's i don't know yeah i gotta take my cues from prince on that one prince was
00:32:40.700notoriously against um like i'm a huge prince fan by the way i'm like obsessed with prince
00:32:46.360was notoriously against things like holograms
00:32:49.740or AI digital likenesses of his image.
00:33:48.820It's because he wants like journalists, this is what he says, he wants journalists to publish
00:33:53.680directly on Twitter and like see that as a valuable thing to do.
00:33:57.160I think the outcome will be really obvious.
00:33:59.380People already like barely click into the article to read what they're about.
00:34:03.160And I can only imagine that's going to happen even less with this move further eroding the
00:34:07.780platform as a place to get accurate news and undermine news publishers as well. They don't
00:34:13.280have their name on them. That'll undermine the ability for them to really get their name out
00:34:17.220there. And I also think it's meant to sort of further blow up the division between journalists
00:34:21.620from reputable platforms and people who just like make content because Elon does not respect
00:34:28.580journalists or a free press. That has been a notable thing about him. It's been a clear,
00:34:33.480He has shown us that with his actions and behavior time and time again. And so I think that he wants internet personalities like you're Brian Cranzensteins and you're like, I don't know, right wing grievance scrifters who use social media platforms.
00:34:50.420I think that by removing anything but the image, those people are going to be seen in the same way as like people from legit news platforms like Reuters or something.
00:35:01.800Right. And so I think that like that's why he's doing it. We hate it. Hate to see it.
00:35:06.300Yeah, that is weird. It is like it's a text based platform.
00:35:11.780People are mostly going for the, you know, and also, again, it is sort of frustrating that people just read the headlines and will repost things based on the headlines.
00:36:47.560And I think it really, if we're to understand Musk's followers as a microcosm of Twitter itself and who's showing up there, it doesn't paint a very, like, this is a very damning report.
00:37:02.140And I think it's not just about his followers, but also about, like, who's using the platform, who's showing up on the platform in general.
00:40:33.040Okay, so speaking of Elon Musk, let's talk a little bit more about how unsafe autonomous vehicles can be.
00:40:40.580We talked about the dismal record on autonomous vehicles and crashes a few weeks ago.
00:40:45.880Well, the technology on those vehicles does a worse job of identifying people with darker skin and children as pedestrians, so pretty concerning.
00:40:55.420This is according to new research from Dr. Ji Zhang from the Department of Informatics at King's College,
00:41:01.640who assessed eight artificial intelligence-powered pedestrian detection systems used in autonomous vehicle research.
00:41:07.060Their research found that detection accuracy for adults was almost 20% higher than it was for children and just over 7.5% more accurate for light-skinned pedestrians compared to their darker-skinned counterparts.
00:41:21.020The researchers also found that this bias toward darker-skinned pedestrians increases significantly under scenarios of low contrast and low brightness, posing increased issues for nighttime driving.
00:41:32.300So basically, children and people with darker skin are less likely to be recognized as pedestrians by autonomous driving vehicles.
00:41:43.340I think especially the thing about kids is that if you spend any time at all around kids, you really can't trust a little one to not dart out in an unexpected way.
00:41:54.100And so if these vehicles are already less likely to recognize them as pedestrians and then add on the fact that they're squirmy little six-year-olds or whatever, it paints a pretty terrifying picture.
00:42:06.540And, you know, it should be said that Black women technologists and researchers, I'm thinking of Dr. Sophia Noble and Dr. Joy Boulamwini, have been saying this for a really long time.
00:42:17.520And it actually points back to the reason why I was inspired to start this podcast in the first place.0.78
00:42:23.340Side note, there was a much must-read Rolling Stone profile of how Black women like them
00:42:27.960have been trying to sound the alarm about AI for years.
00:42:30.500And it is just a really good reminder that inclusion in technology is not important just
00:42:36.120because it's like the right thing to do or the nice thing to do.
00:42:38.860It is, but that's not the only reason it matters.
00:42:41.680It is because there are real consequences when the spaces where technology is made are
00:42:49.660When the people who make technology like autonomous vehicles are too homogenous or they're not thinking enough about being inclusive and different kinds of people, they're not then testing them and training them on a diverse enough data set, right?
00:43:04.760And so it's this weird thing where the erasure or lack of inclusion means that we aren't just not represented in the rooms of the technologies being made.
00:43:14.280In turn, that erasure can actually get us killed and have real world life or death consequences.
00:43:21.700As Dr. Zong explains, fairness when it comes to AI is when an AI system treats privileged and underprivileged groups the same, which is not what is happening when it comes to autonomous vehicles.
00:43:32.240Car manufacturers don't release the details of the software they use for pedestrian detection,
00:43:36.360but they are usually built upon the same open-source systems we used in our research.
00:43:41.180We can be quite sure that they are running into the same issues of bias.
00:43:44.980While the impact of unfair AI systems is already well-documented,
00:43:48.480from AI recruitment software favoring male applicants
00:43:51.520to facial recognition software being less accurate for Black women than for white men,
00:43:55.820the danger that self-driving cars can pose is acute.
00:43:58.880Before, minority individuals may have been denied vital services. Now, they might face severe injury. And I think that is exactly right. It is like one of the reasons why I will scream from the rooftops that this technology, it's so easy to think of technology like AI, like it's some kind of robot computer brain that is like acting on a different plane than we humans are.
00:44:23.320But in reality, that technology is trained and built and designed by humans.
00:44:28.360And so it's going to be replicating the very same biases that we know that humans have.
00:44:33.300And so if that is the case and these biases come into play where the technology is trained to not fully recognize children or people of color as human, as pedestrians that autonomous vehicles should not hit, that is a problem.
00:44:47.740yeah yeah i i think it's honestly like all of this it's not a coincidence that this is happening
00:44:53.980the same time like we're having this conversation about like facial recognition and how facial
00:44:57.880recognition because you did that story last week about the woman who is like you know arrested for
00:45:02.740a crime she didn't commit because these facial recognition systems hey are messed up to begin
00:45:08.700with i don't think we should be having them to begin with so that's another point but b it's
00:45:12.960like they're they're being designed a specific way they're being designed with a specific type
00:45:17.180of person in mind and oftentimes that's very exclusionary and yeah again this is this is
00:45:23.220another example that is that is going to lead to people being killed and that that's terrifying
00:45:28.120yeah it's absolutely terrifying i don't know bridget i don't know if you've ever been in in
00:45:32.520in a self-driving car but in a self-driving tesla specifically but i have had this experience and it
00:45:37.040is not fun it is very scary that was my personal experience i'm sure other people oh my god but it
00:45:44.140There's, I don't think that that technology is anywhere near safe enough for people to
00:49:42.640Okay, so this might sound like kind of a niche story, but I promise you have a bigger point in why I'm mentioning it.
00:49:50.100Okay, so did you ever read Autostraddle, the outlet?
00:49:54.100I do, yes. That was, I think, one of the first, like, queer publications I remember learning, like, hearing about. Yeah.
00:50:00.580Yes. Okay, same. So it is an independent LGBTQ media outlet. It is very influential. It publishes some of the most thoughtful writing from Queer Voices. It has for the last 14 years.
00:50:10.780I would put it up there in terms of like foundational media outlets.
00:50:15.920I'd put it up there with like Bitch Magazine, The Hairpin and Jezbel in terms of being foundational parts of the Internet of Internet discourse for marginalized perspectives and voices.
00:50:26.620The Hairpin and Bitch Magazine have sadly closed their doors.
00:50:29.600R.I.P. Jezbel still exists, but like as a shell of its former self.
00:50:33.440So like many independent media outlets, it is had a lot of economic ups and downs and struggles.
00:50:40.780It seemed like Autostraddle was either going to fold or be sold or something.
00:50:50.040Defector Media reports that Autostraddle is being acquired by the two-year-old queer wellness company For Them in an all-equity deal.
00:50:58.300Autostraddle would maintain their editorial independence.
00:51:00.960According to a press release from For Them, For Them plans to continue to build on Autostraddle's editorial work like podcasts.
00:51:07.800And for what it's worth, it sounds like the staff at Autostraddle may be kind of cautiously optimistic because, like, at least this move avoids a shutdown of the site.
00:51:18.500At least they get to still be paid to make their content.
00:51:21.780Totally sounds like it's something that they're, like, cautiously optimistic about.
00:51:26.500And this is all happening at a time when independent media, let alone independent queer-focused media, is really suffering.
00:51:32.980And so I think it's definitely good to be funding these vital voices and perspectives.
00:51:37.580For them, I was not a company that I was really familiar with before this story.
00:51:42.040You know, they seem like a cool company.
00:51:45.220They use all the right, like, words and phrases on their website.
00:51:49.420Their flagship product is a chest binder, but they also offer a subscription and membership.
00:51:54.820So it sounds like For Them's plan was to bundle Autostraddle's existing bonus subscription plan into their membership program,
00:52:04.900which includes access to a gender tracking app, which they describe as, quote, the first gender
00:52:11.980tracking app for real-time gender evolution using biometric data. So it sounds like this app was
00:52:19.520meant to be something where it was like you would put in information about how you're feeling about
00:52:23.860your gender so that you can track your evolution of like where you're at with your own understanding
00:52:28.780of in relationship to your gender. But the use of the word biometric data to describe this process
00:52:35.360is like red flag city to me. And taking a look at the app, their privacy policy is like pretty
00:52:41.900minimal. It's like pretty scant. As we discussed in our episode around BetterHelp, a lot of these
00:52:46.680apps that seem great on their face and maybe are great on their face, when you actually look down
00:52:52.180into them, what they're actually doing is taking pretty intimate information and data about us and
00:52:59.020selling it. To be clear, this is not the kind of information that I would suggest anyone share
00:53:03.660with an app that does not have a clear and robust privacy policy. And even then, I wouldn't suggest
00:53:09.240that people share this kind of information with an app. Yeah. So I have heard it for them before
00:53:15.380this because I because of the way data works I'm somebody I'm non-binary I'm trans masculine I do
00:53:22.800bind on occasion I actually was considering buying a binder for them I still might we'll see
00:53:28.700but I've heard good things I've heard again I've heard good things about their binders I'm sure
00:53:32.760that's great but I get targeted ads from them a lot and I get a lot of like these companies that
00:53:37.660are like targeted for queer people for trans people for non-binary people and yeah that that
00:53:45.080really the whole like having an app to track your gender journey that seems really nice but also
00:53:50.680like I said this in this mincey episode that I was on I've said this before like we're living in a
00:53:54.920time when there's like this active attack on trans people like I think any sort of situation where
00:54:00.520you are and again like I'm again I'm somebody who's I'm trans I talk a lot about being trans
00:54:05.200I talk a lot about being queer I'm very open about that um but like you don't necessarily want people
00:54:11.240like be tracking that like you don't necessarily want these like third-party companies be tracking
00:54:15.640that i there's so many ways that could go wrong um not to sound like i don't know i feel like when
00:54:22.900i say that people are like it's a little conspiracy theorist but i'm like no it's just being cautious
00:54:26.660if you have a marginalized identity there's a very good chance like yeah no i i kind of want
00:54:31.280to keep that under abs as much i can because like i could be targeted for that um yeah that is so
00:54:36.160weird especially when it's like you can journal I I journal I love journaling I I'm I draw a lot
00:54:43.680to and again like I I deal with gender dysphoria and and all that all the things that come with
00:54:48.500being you know a trans person there's a lot of outlets that are that are not you putting more
00:54:56.020information into some random company but yeah I get it this is the thing that I think is so
00:55:00.540frustrating and there's all there's all these these kind of things that pop up where it's like
00:55:03.660a you know company that is for queer people by queer people and it seems great in theory but
00:55:09.880it's like what are they gonna do with that data again like going back to better help it's like
00:55:15.100it's another thing where it seems like a great idea but i yeah and and again i think like having
00:55:21.080a company that sells binders that is run by queer people it is run by trans basketball in particular
00:55:25.540like that's really important because there are people who are going to understand what's needed
00:55:30.780and how like how different ways this can affect you but it's like yeah that that seems
00:55:36.600concerning any sort of like as also having like a publication attached to some sort of like
00:55:42.420corporation or capitalist structure seems you know concerning but that's a whole other conversation
00:55:48.920yeah well that's definitely part of it and i think i think that's probably why the the one
00:55:55.940of the reasons why the gender tracking app hit me wrong is that what you said does not sound
00:56:02.820conspiratorial to me. It's just unfortunately the reality that like marginalized people1.00
00:56:08.000are under attack in this country and abroad globally as well. And so having a company that
00:56:15.620again, it's like, like this is no shade to them. Like they seem like a cool company by all accounts.
00:56:20.680I'm not trying to apply nefarious intent here, but I'm just keeping it real, which is
00:56:25.900That, like, if you are asking trans people and non-binary people and queer people to put intimate information about their gender and their identity into an app, you better, you need a really robust privacy policy.
00:56:40.760And if you don't have one, to me, that sounds like you're not really attuned to the realities of what the community is up against right now.
00:56:52.940Because, yeah, I just, so, like, that's one.
00:56:55.900Two, I think that, you know, I don't want to make this about For Them or Autostraddle specifically, because I do think it seems like a genuine partnership with possibility. But our communities really do deserve better than to only be able to get thoughtful stories that really center our perspectives if also our complex understandings and relationships to gender and sexuality and identity are turned into a product, commodified, mined, and taken from us to make someone else money.
00:57:24.740Like, and that is what that gender tracking app sounded like to me when I first heard it. Like, our experiences are so much more thoughtful and complex and complicated and hard and fucked up and beautiful and joyful. It's like there's so much there. And they're ours. They don't belong to some third party app or they don't exist.
00:57:48.900Like, we're not grappling with them just to have them taken from us so that someone else can profit. And I feel like that relationship, I feel like I really take issue with, like, that being presented to us as liberation, as something that is good.
00:58:04.240yeah no I totally agree I mean it's I feel like we have this conversation every pride about like
00:58:09.680corporations being involved in pride it's the whole idea of like rainbow capitalism and all
00:58:14.480that it's it's definitely that the end kind of end game of all of this is making somebody a lot
00:58:21.120of money and again it's it's nice to it's nice to have resource it's nice to have you know
00:58:28.000resources for talking about gender identity and sexuality and all that that are you know run by0.88
00:58:34.000queer people aim towards queer people but yeah I don't want somebody to be like capitalizing off0.90
00:58:40.720of my experience just existing as somebody like who is not cisgender who is not straight like that0.84
00:58:47.820but it it's very weird yeah because then yeah because how much of a how much of a obviously0.53
00:58:53.960not in this situation because they are like a queer company but like other companies that are
00:58:57.460like positioning themselves as like allies but then if you're putting people in danger because
00:59:01.000you're not protecting their data how much of an ally are you or how much of like an activist for
00:59:05.800your community are you if you're actively putting people in danger i this whole situation just seems
00:59:10.320very shady to me yeah ally active allyship this is going to sound nerdy as hell but it's what i
00:59:16.840believe like you can't be an act like active allyship is protecting my privacy and protecting
00:59:22.420my data as a marginalized person right active allyship is do not track active allyship is like
00:59:28.460when we're talking about tech, like, it's not just like, yeah, give us your information. We'll
00:59:33.880probably keep it safe. We don't really have a policy about it, but we'll do our best. Like,
00:59:38.200that is not allyship. And that's not, that is not like a community of safety that I want to be part
00:59:43.620of. And I think that we are both in good company because after some outcry, For Them did change
00:59:50.040the wording on their site, Defector Reports, For Them has removed the phrase biometric data from
00:59:55.620its gender tracking app's ad copy. In an Instagram comment addressing the concerns,
01:00:00.060they characterized the app as more of a reflective journal and said, biometric data is likely the
01:00:05.900wrong word to be used here, and we will course correct to not raise false alarms. So I get that.
01:00:11.440I'm glad that they're backing away from that. I feel like the word biometric data has such a
01:00:18.160specific like i journal every morning i do my morning pages i can't i'm not like writing
01:00:26.160biometric data like that has such a specific definition and connotation that i have to
01:00:31.280imagine that someone somewhere thought that was going to be like a buzzy phrase to get
01:00:36.280to make these like venture capital funders happy or excited and that's how it got in there but it's
01:00:42.880what it's wild to me that they could be like oh we didn't really mean biometric data we really meant
01:00:46.320more like feelings like a journal because like biometric data is like a very specific thing
01:00:50.880yeah that's so weird i especially like gender and sexuality if there's such complicated
01:00:57.420experiences and there's such personal experiences for people like i don't know that's not necessarily
01:01:05.060something i want on like an alley again that's something i keep in my journal that's for me
01:01:09.520i don't i don't want anybody like it it is a yeah that is a weird way of putting it it also is very
01:01:15.000I get it especially in the middle of this whole like anti-trans backlash so much of which revolves around sort of these weird you know the thing that keeps coming up people being like oh it's just biology it's just science and none of these people have actually you know studied biology in depth or whatever but that being said like it's it's such a like it also is almost kind of like a buzzword for like the other side too where it's like why are you focusing so much on like the bio like I'm never I'm not waking up and being like hmm thinking about my gender identity right now
01:01:45.000Like, I'm not like, how does this work biochemically or that's such a weird way of like putting it.
01:01:54.860So here's one other reason why I think this story is important, because I think it says something about the state of media more generally right now.
01:02:03.300State of media is like very sad and very scary to me.
01:02:06.980Like, I don't know anybody who works in media or journalism who is not kind of having a tough time of it right now.
01:02:14.220You know, for a while, I feel like we were told that the path forward was venture capital funding, you know, VC, a rich funder comes by and pumps a media brand full of cash and then profit, right?
01:02:25.920Well, not if you're BuzzFeed News or Vice or et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, like any number of the different media outlets that got fat VC funding and then shut down.
01:02:36.080The journalists at Vice, who were all laid off recently, like Samantha Cole, who's one of my favorite journalists, who writes about the intersection of sex and the Internet, started their own independent media brand called 404 Media recently.
01:02:47.540And I know that a lot of folks are pivoting to things like that, like worker and writer-owned media collaboratives or independent media entities.
01:02:57.340And they're pivoting toward things like Substack, which I have my issues with, but I get it, and Patreon, myself included.
01:03:03.500And so I think that we're coming to see that if you want to be making media and like telling stories, not just but also about marginalized voices that center marginalized voices and you want to do it independently, I think that the way forward seems to be not attaching yourself to an outlet that is going to financially mismanage things or like be beholden to VC expectations because they took that big VC funding.
01:03:30.940I think that this is like a larger story about the precarity of independent media right now.
01:03:37.560And I think more and more folks like writers and creators and podcasters and journalists that you love are going to start doing their own things.
01:03:45.320And what's funny to me about that is, like, as I'm kind of taking that journey myself, it feels very, like, precarious and unstable trying to pin your livelihood on Patreon or Substack subscriptions or whatever.
01:04:03.400The alternative of being at, like, a big VC-backed media company right now also feels unstable and uncertain and precarious.0.99
01:04:11.280So, like, you may as well, if it's going to be precarious regardless, you may as well be like, fuck it. I'll at least be the person who's in charge of my precarious feeling destiny and, like, the steward of my own ship. And so, I don't know. The auto straddle thing, it signals to me that we are really experimenting with paths forward of how we have a media climate that is sustainable.
01:04:35.940and I don't know maybe like I don't want to be all doom and gloom maybe this reshapes the space
01:04:41.060for the better yeah I mean as somebody who's at like the early parts of their career is like a
01:04:47.940media person it is it is I mean I don't know what I was getting into I knew it was gonna be a mess
01:04:52.940but it's it's scary and I mean I I always say like the the things that I really was watching
01:04:59.400when I was in high school and college that really like inspired me were things that were coming from
01:05:04.320like vice and buzzfeed and um teen vogue was the big one i remember like the big teen vogue sort
01:05:09.900of shift happened that was like a big thing and it's it's it's so weird to see now like a lot of
01:05:16.340these sites coming down or like these kind of yeah like buzzfeed and vice sort of falling apart um
01:05:21.720and also yeah like a lot of my like mentors a lot of my journalism like mentors have come from these
01:05:25.580companies too and i'm like i i don't know i'm super grateful for like them and everything they
01:05:29.840they sort of taught me and and everything I've learned from them but it's it's it is sort of
01:05:34.680like interesting to be like seeing people that have gone through that and now being somebody
01:05:38.600who's getting into the media industry and yeah I I sort of straddle the line between like production
01:05:43.640and journalism too where like again I work at iHeart I am an iHeart employee so like I do work
01:05:50.820for a big media company but um yeah it is it's definitely a strange time for media when is it
01:05:59.080not but it's yeah and yeah I guess we'll see yeah it's funny that you talk about where your mentors
01:06:05.820were when before you got into the media game because I might be a little bit older than you
01:06:11.120my mentors all came from an era that like I was like too young to have been in any kind of
01:06:17.400meaningful profession but the era of like the late 90s early aughts where like it seemed like being
01:06:25.640in media was like the fucking best where it was like yeah you get like a dollar per word and you
01:06:32.240like get to go to all these swanky parties like the like the era of like um yeah yeah yeah who was0.72
01:06:40.080it was it g magazine who was the kennedy that had his own like vanity magazine okay it was um
01:06:46.240so john f kennedy jr before he died had a vanity magazine called george and like it was just a time
01:06:53.420of like glossy magazines and like big parties and like all the magazines seemed really cool it was
01:06:59.960like if you ever watched a movie like I feel like also it's no coincidence that that coincided with
01:07:05.660the aughts where the cool career in like movies was I'm a journalist like the devil wears Prada
01:07:11.700and how to lose a guy in 10 days that was that was an era that we will probably never see again
01:07:16.420in media where that you know it just was flush with cash and it was like the coolest time and
01:07:22.220It's a time that, like, most people, it's like a bygone era.
01:07:26.600Like, what you would make for a story then and what you would make for a story now is, like, night and day.
01:07:34.820Like, I was watching Almost Famous the other day, and that kid is getting a cover, like a feature in Rolling Stone,
01:07:41.540and they're going to pay him, like, $7,000 or something, which, like, today he would be paid $300.
01:07:46.760Like, that was supposed to be the 70s, you know?
01:07:48.620so it's it is a very weird field and always has been and yeah it's just i'm i don't know the
01:07:55.200answer maybe it is patreon and substack maybe it is starting your own media brands maybe it is
01:08:01.380you know queer binder companies acquiring your brand like we'll see it's just everyone's doing0.63
01:08:08.900what they can for real oh man it's so funny because yeah i also grew up like watching yeah0.93
01:08:14.900like devil's words Prada and I'm a bit young for sex in the city I sort of miss that but like that
01:08:20.200whole era of like yeah it was always the you know the New York journalist kind of thing and I just
01:08:25.880it's like it's just such a different world like I never like crossed my mind that that would be me
01:08:31.840like that that would be my life because yeah I got like when I was starting to get interested
01:08:36.600in journalism and media it was always like yep you're gonna have to freelance you're gonna have
01:08:41.740to like you're gonna be like a starving artist kind of thing for a while and i don't know it
01:08:47.320was it was very bleak um yeah i guess i guess we'll see so yeah almost famous is always the
01:08:53.800one that pisses me off because i'm like i that would never happen never none of it like not yeah
01:09:03.540Okay, so one last thing, which is that I am celebrating today a little bit, I think, slash hope, question mark, maybe, that people probably think of me as like a pretty thoughtful, measured person and not someone who is really petty, not someone who would revel in the downfall of her enemies.
01:09:26.860Luckily, that means that if you think that way, I have fooled you into thinking that's the kind of person that I am.
01:09:31.940Because I am celebrating a little bit today because enemy of the pod, Walter Weeks and Myron Gaines of the podcast Fresh and Fit were demonetized on YouTube this week.
01:09:42.520That does not mean that their content is going away, don't I wish.
01:09:46.180It just means that they will not be able to earn money from it on YouTube.
01:09:49.140Fresh and Fit is one plank of what is sometimes called the manosphere.
01:09:53.020Basically, just like the misogynistic men who should not have podcast brigade.
01:10:03.580When they got the news that their YouTube was going to be demonetized, they made a very tearful video about how hard it was to be demonetized and how it wasn't about the money for them.
01:10:15.400It was about wanting to have a platform to help people.
01:10:18.420Yeah, if by help people, you mean stoke their worst instincts for personal gain because that is what the guys at Fresh and Fit Podcast do.
01:10:26.760They have said that they believe they were demonetized because of their, quote, controversial takes.
01:10:31.920But my years of platform accountability work, urging platforms like YouTube to take down content that breaks community guidelines, tells me that that is probably not likely.
01:10:41.160I just do not think that that is the reason why they were removed.
01:10:45.280Joey, it is your first time recording with me.
01:10:47.880I had written out a whole thing, and then I was showing it to producer Mike, and Mike was like, this might be a little much for their first recording with you.
01:10:56.120Like, you don't want to make Joey fully think that, like, they are recording with a crazy person, a petty Betty.
01:11:02.460So I have a lot more to say about Fresh and Fit.
01:11:06.300If you want to hear my full, full, uncensored take on why Fresh and Fit is a boil on the ass of the internet and why I believe they were actually demonetized from YouTube and why this is something that we should all be celebrating, please check out the Patreon.
01:11:24.440I will throw the link to my nation piece about Fresh and Fit in the show notes.
01:11:28.420But, yeah, this is personal for me if you can't tell.
01:11:30.560I try really hard to, when we cover unsavory characters, I try very hard to just make it about, like, what they say, what they do, and not reveal my personal thoughts on them.
01:15:27.820The guilt, the giggles, and the choices
01:15:30.660no other show is brave enough to admit.0.98
01:15:32.600Mom life is calling and I have my last motherfucking volleyball tournament of Irie's Club Team Volleyball.0.96
01:15:39.360And I can't wait for this to be over because I don't like participating and having to drive far distances.0.95
01:15:48.740Shout out to the moms and my mom who made it happen.
01:15:51.620Listen to Good Moms Bad Choices from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.