00:00:52.860And I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.
00:00:58.680I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.
00:01:02.260Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:01:09.820These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:01:13.640Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:21.260If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:01:27.400Pro 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.
00:01:35.640Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions.
00:01:45.360Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:51.260This information is being put in the hands of a government that seeks to actively harm those people.
00:02:05.720There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.
00:02:13.840I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.
00:02:16.560TikTok is now officially operating under American ownership for users in the United States.
00:02:24.580And that shift is happening at a moment when a lot of people are already feeling angry, scared, and on edge,
00:02:31.660including in the wake of yet another killing at the hands of ICE in Minnesota.
00:02:36.920So for people who use TikTok to document abuse, organize, or speak out about what's happening in their communities,
00:02:43.440This timing matters, and a lot of us aren't really trusting that a TikTok operating under this new American ownership and working hand-in-glove with the Trump administration is going to protect our ability to speak freely about real issues, especially when those issues involve state violence or dissent.
00:03:02.320According to CNBC, TikTok users have been deleting the app at a higher rate since the company announced its U.S. operations.
00:03:09.200The daily average of users deleting TikTok in the U.S. has increased nearly 150% over the past five days compared with the previous three months.
00:03:19.160Now, there's been no shortage of warnings, rumors, and worst-case scenarios about what this new era of TikTok might actually mean.
00:03:27.040So, rather than speculate, I wanted to get clear on what's actually happening and what isn't.
00:03:33.160To help separate back from fear, I turned to an expert.
00:03:36.940My name is Jessica Maddox, and I am an associate professor of media studies at the University of Georgia.
00:03:44.120Jess has been using her own social media platforms to try and educate people about what this new leadership at TikTok actually means.
00:03:52.160So, Jess, you're a social media expert, not in the way that I sometimes say I am.
00:03:57.720Like, you literally have a PhD in this.
00:04:00.000Tell us about your background and just how you became somebody who is interested in studying social media and how it works.
00:04:06.940Yeah, I always joke, I grew up with the internet. I mean, going really far back, I got a computer and the internet in my house back in like 1996, because my dad was a software engineer. So we were always on like the cutting edge of technology, I guess. But I don't know, I always have just really loved the internet from like, even when I was a kid playing like Neopets.
00:04:28.060oh my god neopets right right um i think it was like the that was like the precursor to animal
00:04:35.580crossing yeah i think in like a lot of ways um but yeah i have always loved it i was on live journal
00:04:42.560in zanga back in the early days um i actually went to school nothing to do nothing related to
00:04:49.000this i was an english major and then when i graduated in the last financial crash there
00:04:52.920were no jobs so i was working part-time at a magazine and they were like oh well you're the
00:04:57.120youngest person in the office figure out this thing called social media for us and I was like
00:05:01.740I get to do this for a living like this could be a job and so I went back to school to get a master's
00:05:06.060in public relations to do social media strategy got introduced to the academic stuff and realized
00:05:11.740those were actually my burning questions about the world got a PhD I've been a professor for
00:05:17.080nine no no eight year that nine sounds scary eight years now uh i have tenure which is a
00:05:26.920privilege i don't take lightly uh and yeah no here here i am i i basically it's an occupational0.95
00:05:32.660hazard that i talk shit on the internet am i allowed to curse you're absolutely allowed to0.69
00:05:36.680curse yeah okay okay i have to tell you this is like i'll i'll be talking about this all day so0.99
00:05:44.520I'm so glad that you brought up things like Zynga, MySpace, Neopets.
00:05:48.800I can't tell you how many people I've interviewed on the show where that was their entry point into tech.
00:05:54.980I've talked to people who like are high up in tech companies and they're like, oh, it all started with Neopets.
00:06:01.580Honestly, if I had to say it all started with Neopets for me, I have a PhD now.
00:06:09.780reporting on tiktok has not always been easy at one point we actually put an internal moratorium
00:06:17.680on discussing any tiktok ownership news on the podcast unless it was fully confirmed by the
00:06:23.820company itself and that's because there's been so much speculative or incorrect information
00:06:29.980circulating about tiktok often repeated by people who really should know better
00:06:34.680For example, you might remember that in the summer of 2025, reputable news outlets like Reuters reported that TikTok was going to be replaced in the U.S. by a brand new standalone app, sometimes referred to as M2.
00:06:50.800Now, according to those reports, the new app was going to be launching on September 5th, 2025, and Americans would have until March of this year to migrate or lose access entirely.
00:07:04.440I saw it repeated across the internet over and over again.
00:07:07.700I even almost included it in one of our news roundups.
00:07:11.460But the sourcing just felt a little bit sketchy to me, so I held back.
00:07:15.960And I am so glad that I did because it was totally not true.
00:07:20.000And that episode is a pretty perfect example of just how far bad information about TikTok can travel,
00:07:27.000even when it starts with sources that are generally pretty trustworthy.
00:07:30.000I wanted to talk to you about the changes that have been made on TikTok recently, in part because it's one of those things where there's just so much misreporting and misinformation about what's happening with TikTok.
00:07:45.520I remember it might have been last year when there was a wave of reporting that was like, oh, they've already revealed what they're going to do with TikTok to keep it in the U.S.
00:07:56.140They've got this new app. And that ended up being not correct.
00:07:59.360And I almost put out an episode on it until reading some of the reporting.
00:08:03.540And I was like, oh, this is a lot of sources say, I don't know.
00:08:28.740Like, trust me, if we had to, TikTok would have been pushing that so hard because I made the joke on my on that video.
00:08:36.100I was like, it's like when you're at a bachelorette party and everybody's drunk and you're moving from bar to bar and you're the sober friend that has to make sure all the girls get to the next bar.
00:08:44.380But you lose somebody. That is what it's like trying to move to a new app is you're going to lose a bunch of people along the way.
00:08:50.560So TikTok was going to make sure nobody did that.
00:08:52.840That is such a great analogy. I have been on both ends of that. So that's that's an analogy that works.
00:08:58.240same i have been the drunk friend and i have been the one wrangling everybody yes well i'm curious
00:09:04.760why do you think especially with this um tiktok joint u.s venture thing that we know actually
00:09:12.000happened this week why do you think there has been so much misinformation floating around i've
00:09:16.860seen screenshots floating around i've seen people a lot of it is like um i don't want to say like
00:09:25.100it it's almost inflammatory some of it some of it is and there are there are reasons to be
00:09:30.740concerned which we'll get into but some of it is almost sort of like it seems like it is designed
00:09:35.660to get a panicked response out of people what do you where do you think this comes from yeah i think
00:09:41.780it comes from a lot of different places and and what i'm about to say i want to make it clear that
00:09:46.500i actually i don't blame people for maybe sharing wrong information or inflammatory information
00:09:53.200Not totally, because I think it has been very lucrative for social media companies in the United States to not educate people about how social media actually works.
00:10:04.040Nobody reads the terms of services or community guidelines or privacy policies.
00:10:08.260And that is because that's by design, right?
00:10:11.800Most of these things are written in very intense legalese also.
00:14:06.440So this is an entity that is made up, and forgive me,
00:14:10.420I may not have the exact statistics right,
00:14:12.360but roughly 45% comes from three companies,
00:14:16.200Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi-based MGX.
00:14:19.980I believe 30.1 percent was original ByteDance. No, no, no. It was ByteDance. And then 19.9 percent was original ByteDance investors. And then there was a up until yesterday, there was like an unnamed 5 percent. And I believe that unnamed 5 percent, I believe, is the board with like Shao Chu, the current TikTok CEO and some other handpicked individuals.
00:14:43.540so uh this might be a stupid question did the government like the like the white house did0.75
00:14:50.640or were they the ones who amassed this group of people yes and i i say that hesitantly because0.98
00:14:58.040yes the u.s when we look back at what happened and what led us here right um tiktok was banned
00:15:05.080as part of the big bill that came through back in um 2024 and the tick and i should note that the
00:15:14.180provision to ban tiktok was folded into a much larger um international aid and military package
00:15:19.800so i understand ish not really but sure why politicians didn't vote against it um because
00:15:30.180reasons but that's a whole other podcast episode um you know about that but so and then it went
00:15:35.800through the courts supreme court upholds it biden is leaving office and says and literally kicks the
00:15:41.660can to donald trump and says this is yours now um which i don't love and so then trump says we're
00:15:49.420gonna make a deal and so yes i believe he had jd vance who was like the the tiktok czar to like
00:15:55.400come up with this deal. And so the U.S. government did essentially help bring the
00:16:01.780players together. So they may not have had an explicit hand, but they allowed these individuals
00:16:09.800to come together. And the deal had to be approved by the government to meet the terms and conditions
00:16:14.680set out in that military aid, international aid bill that said TikTok could not operate in the
00:16:22.080United States there was a time where Trump was talking about this and some elected officials
00:16:26.620were talking about this like it was the TikTok was the biggest threat to national security that
00:16:31.920we had then for a while it was like oh we can just push it we can change the deadline and I was like
00:16:36.540what happened I thought this was like the biggest threat to our national security I feel like we
00:16:42.520have been talking about this I mean I think since 2019 yeah really I think it really kicked in 2020
00:16:50.100I'm honestly so over it that we're still talking about it after all this time.
00:16:56.820But what I do think, yeah, is there has been some hypocrisy from both the Biden and the Trump administrations, because I remember when the Biden administration passed that law or, you know, approved and signed the bill that this provision was in.
00:17:12.320they then went and had like the Biden campaign when it was still Biden running or whatever
00:17:16.320um join TikTok I was like if this is such a threat why are you having the president of the
00:17:22.680United States re-election campaign on TikTok I don't get it make it make sense and then I believe
00:17:27.180Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez has even come out and said like we've received no briefing that says
00:17:31.720this is actually a threat yes I remember that so clearly and that's kind of I mean I obviously care
00:17:40.100about national security risks and all of that of course it really showed to me okay this is about0.85
00:17:46.840you know i think there was somebody who made a joke of like china wants to have my data don't
00:17:51.980they know that's reserved for mark zuckerberg and other american attack company owners well
00:17:56.620that's the thing i stopped taking any of these conversations about data privacy seriously after
00:18:02.080cambridge the cambridge analytica data scandal happened in 2016 um when a rogue facebook app
00:18:08.600that like told you your IQ or something used a backdoor to get into people's profiles and
00:18:15.360access their friends profiles, that it was something I believe like almost 200 million,
00:18:19.680maybe 180 million people's data was compromised that was then sold to political advertising
00:18:25.720firms in the United States. And I realized then I was like that no one cares. It's a matter of who
00:18:32.040has your data. That's really what people care about is which political groups have your data,
00:18:36.700not actually that another country has your data.0.97
00:18:40.260I just feel like if we really gave a shit about data and security and all that,0.86
00:18:45.920we would have some sort of meaningful, comprehensive data privacy legislation in this country, and we don't.0.89
00:18:50.900And so until that's the case, it is just very difficult for me to take any of these conversations seriously.
00:18:55.960I completely agree. And to any of your listeners in California, congratulations.
00:18:59.980They have more data privacy than the rest of us because that state actually did pass some laws.
00:19:04.980So, you know, if you're ever on a site shopping or whatever, even in terms of service on social media, it says, like, if you live in California, click here.
00:19:12.080That's what that is, if you've ever wondered.
00:19:15.500Yeah, I've heard people say, like, oh, I'm going to get a VPN and just try to tell it I'm in California so I can enjoy a little bit of data privacy legislation.
00:20:30.400streaming radio and podcasting call 844-844-IHEART to get started that's 844-844-IHEART
00:20:38.220if your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your personality
00:20:42.220welcome home this is prose society the weekly podcast that's part book club part group chat
00:20:49.740for thought daughters pop culture obsessives and anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and
00:20:53.980love island deserve the same level of discourse i'm eli rallo and every week we're connecting
00:20:58.960the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:21:03.960I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.
00:21:07.540From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments,
00:21:12.400nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling
00:21:18.520characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives,
00:21:23.240smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much,
00:21:28.540you're in the right place listen to pro society on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever
00:21:35.020you get your podcasts see you between the pages when i was 14 years old i was kidnapped and held
00:21:42.420captive for nine months i survived and i've spent my life exploring how other people survive what
00:21:48.880should have destroyed them i'm elizabeth smart and these are the survivor files i just remember
00:21:55.220this low taunting voice next to my ear saying shut up don't say anything every week i'm with
00:22:04.080survivors who live through the unthinkable i knew if he woke up without a doubt he was going to hurt
00:22:11.380i started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed and i just started screaming they
00:22:19.340are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's
00:22:25.100taken from them. They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the
00:22:30.940Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
00:22:36.980get your podcasts. At our back. In the U.S., TikTok officially moved to American ownership
00:22:50.560on January 22nd, 2026. And since then, you might have seen a lot of pretty sensational
00:22:56.160posts about what exactly this means. But Jess says it's really important to slow down
00:23:01.660and look at what's actually true. Because a lot of the things that folks are reacting
00:23:05.780to now aren't really new. Many of these practices have already been happening, both on TikTok and
00:23:12.020other social media platforms, for quite some time. In other words, they're more or less normal
00:23:17.500platform policies, with some big exceptions that we will get into, even if, when you really think
00:23:23.160about it, the amount of data we give to social media companies has never really been all that
00:23:28.020normal in the first place. Okay, so one of the things I like about how you've been breaking down
00:23:34.480these changes on TikTok is that you sort of helpfully framed it as abnormal versus normal
00:23:40.960with the big caveat that stepping back in a kind of way, none of this is really normal.
00:23:46.720I really like that. How did you land on that framework?
00:23:50.440God, that's a great question. So, I mean, I think that's it gets back to what you're saying
00:23:54.480about like all the misinformation and sensationalism is that whenever there has
00:23:59.520been a change on TikTok, like I remember like I see people being like, oh, if you block a certain
00:24:03.400company your algorithm returns to normal i'm like that's not how algorithms work um but again the
00:24:09.580lack of education has gotten us to that point so i don't fault people for that um so whenever i try
00:24:14.180to make a video about this stuff i try to debunk some stuff that seems to be kind of running
00:24:19.160uncontrolled and so one of the things i first saw was people were like oh my god they're geolocating
00:24:24.960and like tracking us now and i was like i hate to break it to you babes um that has been happening
00:24:30.460for a long time from every social media platform ever um and this is you should see the comments
00:24:37.180on my tic tac video it is a currently a people are fighting with each other immensely about how
00:24:42.920they think this stuff works um and i wish they wouldn't i wish um people would realize we all
00:24:48.860can learn a lot about how this stuff works um so that's my first step is like okay look so
00:24:53.840there was some stuff updated about location tracking but that's not new and every social
00:24:58.880media platform does that. What is new, again, and I mentioned this in my social media posts about
00:25:05.020this, is the government's closeness to this all. And that is what also concerns me about
00:25:10.960tracking for demographic characteristics. Again, every social media platform tracks demographics.
00:25:18.500They track age, race, country of origin, ethnicity, sexuality, gender. They do make profiles about you
00:25:26.120based on what you do and what you post. This has been another question I've gotten all in my
00:25:29.820comments. Like, how would they know that? Well, if you say that about yourself in a post or in a
00:25:33.840video, that gets recorded about you into your secret profile over here that gets sold to
00:25:39.800advertisers. So again, that's nothing new. But what does concern me, again, is the closeness
00:25:45.740of the government, that this was a deal that was, again, brought together by the Trump administration,
00:25:51.600by this White House. And we don't know, again, the level of closeness or how close that goes
00:25:59.120moving forward. So that really sounds like the kind of abnormal piece of this, that, you know,
00:26:05.900collecting information about you. I'm so sorry to be the person to tell you, but it's been happening
00:26:09.620for a long time on every social media platform. That is, quote, normal. Again, none of this is
00:26:15.000normal, but like normal for social media platforms at this point. Yes. Great, great caveat that,
00:26:20.760Yes, this is not normal and should not be normal how much data they collect about you.
00:26:26.000But given that that has become our de facto normal, it is unfortunately normal.
00:26:32.800And two pieces of demographic information that I know TikTok has updated their policy to say that they collect are someone's gender status, like if they're trans or non-binary, and their immigration status.
00:26:43.800Is collecting that bit of information about people normal?
00:26:50.380Doing some research in the Wayback Machine, TikTok has actually collected this data about people for years, unbeknownst to us.
00:26:57.160However, is that the big abnormal part is how the close relationship, how this deal came to be, the close relationship to the White House,
00:27:04.460and the fact specifically that this information is being put in the hands of a government that seeks to actively harm those people.
00:27:15.580I mean, we are seeing that across the country with anti-trans legislation, the absolutely horrific and despicable actions of ICE. And that deeply concerns me. And I feel that is deeply abnormal for TikTok to have this information listed that says, hey, we track this about you.
00:27:34.500And this now being controlled, you know, 15 percent by the company of Oracle and the Ellisons, who are very close and well-documented Trump supporters.
00:27:45.580Yeah, I don't know how to ask this or if it's even a question that you would be comfortable even like speaking to at all. But like, you know, the point of this show is to make tech accessible, but particularly amplify the voices and represent folks who are not often included in the conversation. Right.
00:28:04.600So women, queer folks, trans folks, immigrants, all of that.
00:28:08.780And so if you had a loved one or were in close community with someone who, you know, was non-binary or trans or undocumented, what would you, would you tell, like, I don't, I don't, I want to be careful.
00:28:21.320And if people are wondering why I'm asking it this way is that I want to be so careful to not be like, if you represent one of these groups, you no longer have a voice on this platform.
00:28:29.300You shouldn't, it's not safe for you to show up on this platform because that's so how our voices are erased and minimized in these spaces already.
00:28:58.240does it you know absolutely uh it absolutely gives me pause and i would and again i don't
00:29:04.560want to ever tell anybody to get off social media because i do think people deserve to see themselves
00:29:09.020and their stories represented online uh and again and if everybody runs off the platform then again
00:29:14.580the bullies win and that's how tech stays white cisgender male and that's not good that's not good0.67
00:29:24.180for anybody so I would encourage people assess your own comfort level that is something you know0.99
00:29:28.940more intimately than I do be careful right like always be smart always be careful and I do think
00:29:36.100that you know all you can also take a step back without leaving forever I do that in my own line
00:29:41.580of work as well sometimes it just gets really overwhelming to be online for whatever reason
00:29:46.360and I think being able to take a step back and say hey this is not for me right now and I'm going
00:29:51.040to wait till I know more to see how things play out. I think that is smart, right? I think a
00:29:55.980healthy dose of caution is really good moving forward. But of course, I'm aware I am also
00:30:02.160saying this as a white woman who has immense privilege. I also have the privilege of academic
00:30:06.220freedom, even though with all the attacks in the United States to kind of hide behind that shield
00:30:10.500to make these critiques. So just I hope everyone keeps that in mind as they listen to this, that
00:30:16.960you know your own comfort level better than i do if we all do run away the bullies win and it
00:30:22.460becomes an even bigger sauce pool um but we also have to be smart and safe in these very very very
00:30:29.520awful times yeah oh god you said it like i there was a time where twitter was my most used social
00:30:38.160media platform now i mean i still have an account but my my pin same i have my bio says please see
00:30:44.040pinned tweet and my pinned tweet is like i'm not really here anymore and same here yeah and it just
00:30:48.940i i in the scheme of things big deal but it is sort of like i'm just so sick of getting pushed
00:30:58.080out of these corners of the internet that we that we you know carved out for ourselves and not to
00:31:02.920say that old twitter was perfect i was like i had a lot of complaints about it too but i just i'm so
00:31:08.260sick of sort of this handful of billionaires with some of the most odious people taking over more
00:31:16.560and more and more of our internet landscape. And it just, I don't even have a question. It's just,
00:31:21.240it's, I'm really sick of it. I am the same way. I also, I mean, I was also extremely active on
00:31:26.980Twitter and I stayed for a long time, even after Elon Musk ran it into the ground and made it more
00:31:33.240of a cesspool and it was um the charlie kirk shooting that made me i was like i'm done i'm0.98
00:31:38.220done with this site um but i do yeah i hate that too i'm like fuck you stop ruining my platforms0.95
00:31:44.240basically i because i think i don't know i don't you know i don't know what i think there i think0.98
00:31:51.260that these are spaces where we all build such good communities and we build such wonderful things and
00:31:57.460And it shows us just how precarious that is and how it is built on on on sand and that poor business decisions or rather maybe not even poor business decisions, but very deliberate business decisions that are at odds with how people actually use social media can ruin them.
00:32:18.000And I hate it. I hate keep having to rebuild platforms and new places.
00:32:22.760I hate keep telling people, find me here, find me here, because it feels like we're all just chasing each other around a schoolyard now with no kind of rhyme or reason.
00:32:30.680Trying to find each other, trying to play tag to some extent.
00:32:34.320And it's just it's incredibly frustrating.
00:33:46.160If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:33:52.080This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters,
00:33:58.520pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:34:04.560I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:34:11.680I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.
00:34:15.160From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.
00:34:21.200It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:34:28.680Whether 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.
00:34:38.280Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:35:53.240so you might have seen that people are doing this 2016 throwback trend on social media right now
00:35:59.860and when i think back to 2016 what i remember most is how angry i felt i was angry watching
00:36:07.580folks get killed in the street angry watching abusers not just get away with it but amass
00:36:13.160power but it wasn't just me that anger was everywhere and it's part of what helped spark
00:36:18.620movements like Black Lives Matter and Me Too. Those movements gave people a way to take that
00:36:24.140anger and turn it into something meaningful. Social media made it possible for people to find
00:36:29.200each other, to realize that you didn't have to be alone in that anger. You could channel it into
00:36:34.300something that felt like real change. There was this feeling that other people felt the way that
00:36:39.280you did, and together, using the internet, you could actually build something. But now, 10 years
00:36:45.040later when I scroll social media, I don't know that I really feel that anymore. Instead, I feel
00:36:50.940overwhelmed and also weirdly disengaged at the same time. Like I'm just screaming about my rage
00:36:57.660and also dwelling in it. And I don't think that's an accident because billionaires like Elon Musk
00:37:02.940and Larry Ellison, TikTok's new owner, didn't just buy up pieces of our digital media landscape at
00:37:09.080random. They understood how powerful these platforms were, how good they were at building
00:37:14.200real power and just how important it would be to control them.
00:37:21.320I think especially right now against the backdrop of the very stuff that you were describing
00:37:25.540earlier of communities that are really under attack right now, immigrants, trans folks,
00:37:30.300queer folks, I think back to a time where these platforms were places that you could build a
00:37:37.640voice and build real political and social power. Like, I don't have access to publishing an op-ed
00:37:43.940in the New York Times, however, I might be able to get enough Twitter followers. And I think I
00:37:47.700think about like all the different movements that were started on social media, Me Too, Black Lives
00:37:52.400Matter. I wonder if part of the reason why everything feels especially awful right now
00:37:59.320was because those platforms have been so overtaken by these people and they've been tweaked in ways
00:38:05.900that make finding that voice easy. And we're just sort of scrambling that. I mean, I'm speaking for
00:38:11.120myself, I'm sure there are people out there that are still using those tools to build power and
00:38:14.440shout out to them. And speaking very much about how I feel, I feel like I have so much less of
00:38:19.680an understanding of like, what are we all doing? How do we organize online? Like, where are we
00:38:23.980going? Who's starting the hashtag? Whatever. I should say I'm pretty tapped in in my own
00:38:28.200neighborhood and community with offline actions, IRL. So I know that online actions are not like
00:38:34.040the end all be all. But I guess what I'm saying is the climate online just feels so different than
00:38:40.080it did 10 years ago and it just feels terrible it does and i do think that this is partially by
00:38:46.800design right that there was a lot of grassroots power that came from social media in the 2010s
00:38:52.040i mean i'm thinking back to even like the arab spring um back in like 2010 when i you know a
00:38:57.600bunch of um middle eastern countries were able to kind of like push back on their political regimes
00:39:03.640through social media and were able to kind of circumvent uh government the government through
00:39:08.420social media and I do think you know there again there was a lot of good grassroots stuff like you
00:39:15.200said me too um just building collectives finding like-minded people refusing to shut up right and
00:39:22.100we had that power and I think that scares a lot of people that that grassroots power yet at the
00:39:27.080same time I do want to I always caution against internet nostalgia because like the internet was
00:39:32.160never good right um you know i mean i was like really harassed on twitter for the first time
00:39:39.020i remember in like 2015 like where like people were like tweeting about my account and being1.00
00:39:44.640like go bother her she's like a stupid feminist phd student um how dare you say feminist stuff0.97
00:39:51.420on the internet right so it's never been good but i will say my optimistic take actually i do1.00
00:39:58.400have an optimistic take in all of this is that we are currently in a moment that is the backlash to
00:40:04.340that utopian grassroots power of social media of the 2010s where a bunch of people are you know
00:40:10.800not happy with how marginalized individuals were able to get voice and power i see that you know
00:40:16.020we're very much in a backlash to me too we're very much in a backlash to um body positivity right with
00:40:23.360like skinny talk and I hate to say GLP ones and all these things like so we are currently in a0.74
00:40:29.140pushback moment but the pendulum always swings back and so I do believe I don't know when I0.99
00:40:35.000can't tell you when it's going to happen and that is of course a rather optimistic take because I
00:40:40.560know some people don't make it to where the pendulum swings back but the pendulum does swing
00:40:44.900back and that is the one thing I do think about when I'm able to see how it has swung and swung
00:40:49.440back before that I know will be there again. It just may take some time. So you're optimistic
00:40:53.920about this. I kind of have to be because through all the horror and all how awful things are
00:41:01.260and doing what I do for a living, I would go crazy if I didn't have a sliver of optimism,
00:41:07.820because I mean, I average like 15 hours of screen time a day because I do this for a living, right?
00:41:14.840My research is on social media. I'm connecting with people. I'm watching trends. I'm watching
00:41:19.400posts. So yeah, it's absurd how much screen time I have a day. So I actually, but I have to actively
00:41:25.020choose to be optimistic because man, it is really hard to sometimes. So how do you balance, you know,
00:41:31.980this is your work, your, your body of academic study. How do you balance the need to be online,
00:41:37.500which like, don't I know it can be a slog with like, you know, having a healthy outlook on
00:41:44.600things. How do you balance that? Yeah, no, that's a great question. And it's one, I don't think I'm
00:41:49.080perfect at by any means but I'm a big believer in like folders and bookmarks so if I'm having
00:41:54.360like my bed rot time at night and I'm like scrolling threads and I see something I'm like
00:41:58.680oh that tickles something in my academic brain it goes into a bookmark and then I look at it
00:42:02.720in business hours again um so I'm not constantly thinking about I also do a good I try to do a
00:42:09.040good job of curating my algorithms so right now it's all heated rivalry and it's just it's so fun
00:42:16.500and it just makes me happy so I try to do sometimes I'll like also like on tiktok I'll
00:42:23.240be like oh god I'm getting too much like work stuff and then I go and search just like dogs
00:42:28.900and I like let my algorithm know I want to see all the tiktok pets and then I just get to watch
00:42:33.540our tiktok pets and it's it's great so it's very deliberate um I joke you know like my screen time
00:42:40.120and all of this is like my occupational hazard of I just have to be online all the time I would
00:42:44.820never advocate for anybody to be online as much as i am online um but yeah because it's hard it
00:42:50.420especially making content myself that is really where you see some of the worst of people um
00:42:57.020people really hate my glasses if you're listening to this i didn't see any social media preview i
00:43:01.760have very thick um black glasses uh that i love i think they're a statement to my face but people
00:43:07.540on tiktok hate them uh i frequently am just like told i'm the ugliest person alive or that like
00:43:14.340my somebody called my glasses birth control glasses um so and so like some girl even went
00:43:20.520so far one time to like start sending me glasses I should buy instead um so it's hard it is very
00:43:27.360and honestly like becoming a creator myself as opposed to just being an academic like it was
00:43:31.380I'm like oh this is kind of terrible sometimes what made you want to take that leap to be like
00:43:36.780I'm going to be somebody who has an academic perspective and a body of research on social
00:43:40.880media, but also a public-based and creator? Ah, God, that's a good question. And sometimes I'm
00:43:46.680like, maybe I should just quit. No, I should just quit. I've always been really public about my
00:43:51.880work. I don't believe knowledge lives in an ivory tower, or at least it shouldn't to me. That's my
00:43:55.760view on it. So even on Twitter, I was always very public. I kind of went viral for the first time
00:44:02.020to talk about Bama Rush Talk because before my current job, I was a professor at the University
00:44:05.820of Alabama for seven years. So I knew that phenomenon very well. So that kind of, I was
00:44:12.960already doing a lot of media. And then that phenomenon, like tweeting about that, like pushed
00:44:16.660me into a whole other level. TikTok, I have a distinct memory of downloading TikTok at the
00:44:21.740start of the pandemic, like everybody else and telling my husband, I will be making videos by
00:44:25.180the time this is over. Sure enough, I was, but I think probably maybe 22 or 23, I really started
00:44:31.300making videos in earnest just I was like you know I have something to say and I have a perspective
00:44:36.300that isn't in the conversation and this is where people are and if I believe knowledge should be
00:44:40.860public I got to go where the people are. And also it's just nice to have somebody who genuinely
00:44:46.100knows what they're talking about on these platforms in these spaces educating people
00:44:51.460because like it's I think there's something about tech and we were sort of getting at this earlier
00:44:55.380where it is intentionally legally intentionally so long so that people automatically see this
00:45:02.800and they're like, I'm not reading this or worse. They think like, I'm not a tech person. I what
00:45:07.980do I know about all this? I'll just hit accept and I'll never think about it again. And I think
00:45:12.200the work of people like you being on these platforms, having, you know, accessible
00:45:17.240conversations about this, it is really bringing so many people in who I think they intentionally
00:45:22.260want locked out i hope so i really hope so you know somebody even asked me in a comment on my
00:45:28.400video earlier today they're like are you worried you're gonna be like banned i'm like girl i'm
00:45:31.600banned all the time i'm shadow or not not officially but i'm shadow banned all the time
00:45:36.060whenever i critique so i was always shadow banned on twitter for christian even before elon musk
00:45:41.720critiquing twitter i have been shadow banned on reels i've been shadow banned on tiktok so i'm
00:45:47.120like this is just another day in my life is being banned yes by these platforms let me ask you this
00:45:51.980do you see these changes at tiktok like i i'm often loathe to have these conversations in ways
00:45:59.280that are framed as like like what does this mean for the business or whatever whatever but i have
00:46:03.600seen so many people vocally talking about how they're gonna they're not they're never logging
00:46:08.620into tiktok again do you what how do you see this impacting the platform long term tiktok has made
00:46:14.160some really interesting moves this week um that i they and i don't think they're worried at all so
00:46:20.080first and foremost they launched a new micro drama platform um oh god it's called pine something i
00:46:27.500can't remember what it's called right now um but so they are now moving into original entertainment
00:46:31.660content uh they have been they have had a huge showing at sundance uh out of park city utah
00:46:37.980right now where they are really promoting entertainment first advertising and marketing
00:46:42.680on the platform. And they have also really been pushing a lot of e-commerce decisions this week.
00:46:51.220So I don't think TikTok's worried at all. Unfortunately, I do think that to me, I see
00:46:58.460TikTok moving in the way of an Amazon, especially because also if we look at what TikTok is outside
00:47:02.760of the United States, we look at its sister app, Duyin, which does operate in China. It is e-commerce
00:47:08.400first. So I really see TikTok leaning into e-commerce and entertainment, which to me feels
00:47:13.940like they are fighting Amazon. They are gunning to be the next Amazon and they have something
00:47:18.420Amazon doesn't, which is a social media platform of content creators. I'm waiting for Amazon to
00:47:22.500get their own content creator platform, by the way. That is one thing I'm waiting for. It hasn't
00:47:26.940happened yet, but I'm waiting for it. And so I don't see TikTok that worried. And I think it
00:47:33.580kind of goes back to, again, our complacency, again, even my own. I don't read these things
00:47:37.520most of the time myself um where a lot of people are going to delete their accounts today i do
00:47:42.900think there will be a dip um a lot of people will log off but we'll come back um and me i'm
00:47:48.560everywhere until the lights go off for the most part or until or until it becomes pretty untenable
00:47:53.020to be on like it was with twitter um so unfortunately i don't see too much changing
00:48:01.500um for tiktok i actually think i see them getting more power not less oh i i how how do i wish i
00:48:08.400wish that you had been like oh it's cartons for tiktok but deep down i knew i deep down i knew
00:48:13.240you weren't gonna say that i haven't i mean i i there was a time especially in like the the height
00:48:19.660of covid when tiktok and me like i i was a little bit of a late adopter to tiktok and there was a
00:48:24.820time where it was the platform where i was spending the most time and the thing that got me off of it
00:48:31.500And I really it kind of broke the habit was when TikTok was briefly, I guess I'll put it in quotes, banned.0.99
00:48:39.880And then they came back and it was like they had that little thing that was like, thank you to the Trump administration for bringing you that shit was too cute by a mile for me.0.90
00:48:48.660And literally that for me personally, that was the day the vibe shifted.0.97
00:48:52.960I was like, I, I, I, and here too for, I had, I had kind of like cautiously respected the CEO of TikTok because I was like, oh, he's a younger guy.
00:49:02.800I, I, I appreciated his comments when he was, was in front of Congress.
00:49:06.260Like I, I, I, you, this is like, I'm hearing myself say this and I'm like, this is exactly why you should never start having warm, fuzzy feelings for a tech leader.
00:49:16.280But yeah, that, that really just shifted the vibe and I never got it back after that.
00:49:21.740i know i i distinctly remember that as well and that was the dumbest 14 hours in american social0.57
00:49:29.120media history i mean it was so dumb i was so mad and not even because i thought it was gonna go0.80
00:49:36.260away i was just like this is all to me it was all performative and unnecessary um and yeah that0.89
00:49:41.540when i got that message too that was like thank you to president trump i said as like this there's
00:49:46.560gonna be a deal they're gonna figure it out but i'm not gonna like what happens on the other side
00:49:51.440of it. And again, so, I mean, the kind of updates that have been implemented, even though, again,
00:49:59.240they're not necessarily abnormal, they are abnormal because I don't like this presidential
00:50:05.600administration being this close to a social media company. Very, very succinct summary. I guess
00:50:12.720one of my last questions for you, but you sort of answered it. Will you still use TikTok? Because
00:50:17.340you're not gonna you're you're not being like I'm deleting it yeah I I will be there I'll be there
00:50:22.220for a while um I mean over the past couple weeks I've already tried to like migrate a little bit
00:50:27.300more to reels and threads um just because I didn't know what was going to happen to TikTok
00:50:33.240moving forward um again I will be there for a little while um especially because it was kind
00:50:40.720of this way with Twitter too as an academic I have colleagues all over the world and so sometimes
00:50:45.220those are places to connect with them as opposed to other social media platforms um because we have
00:50:49.660to remember the rest of the world is having a very different tiktok experience now it's fine
00:50:55.600for them um i'm jealous i hope they adopt me i'm kidding i love i love my i love where i am um
00:51:03.720so yeah i'll be there for a while i think there you know i'll keep talking and trying to explain
00:51:11.080things until i'm so shadow banned or actually banned uh that i can't do it anymore but i'm so
00:51:18.240sad i love my tech talk platform i like it's been so fun and i teach a content creation class too
00:51:24.480um to college undergrads and so i also feel like for teaching wise i need to be there uh so we'll
00:51:30.460see what happens well for folks who are deleting their app or thinking about deleting their app
00:51:35.200where can folks keep up with you just across this disparate internet landscape that we now have