There Are No Girls on the Internet - Uvalde school shooter had a history of threatening girls online

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00:01:05.240 on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts i survived nine months in

00:01:12.540 captivity and i've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed

00:01:17.900 them i'm elizabeth smart and these are the survivor files every week i'm with survivors

00:01:24.200 who lived through the unthinkable,

00:01:26.160 abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

00:01:30.000 These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:01:33.840 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart

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00:01:41.700 Just a heads up, this episode talks about school shootings,

00:01:44.880 harassment, and violence.

00:01:46.700 When we fail to create the expectation of safety

00:01:49.380 for women and girls on social media,

00:01:51.300 and when we fail to meaningfully listen to them

00:01:53.320 when they speak up about what they're experiencing online,

00:01:55.660 we make everyone, all of us, less safe and more at risk.

00:02:04.020 There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

00:02:12.120 I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.

00:02:17.540 So this is going to be a little bit of a different kind of episode

00:02:20.220 because, frankly, I'm in a little bit of a different kind of headspace.

00:02:24.700 Here in the United States, we have had the last few weeks of news that was just brutal.

00:02:30.180 You know, we were just processing a pretty intense series of racially motivated shootings

00:02:34.700 in Buffalo and California.

00:02:36.400 And last week, another shooting, this time in Texas, where 21 people, mostly kids at

00:02:43.020 an elementary school, were shot.

00:02:44.940 And, you know, I had a situation where I thought I wasn't going to talk about the

00:02:50.220 this shooting on the podcast because it was just too much and too dark. And frankly, I just really

00:02:55.620 felt like I couldn't. But over the weekend, news broke that really shed some light into the online

00:03:01.300 behavior of the perpetrator of this shooting. And I think it is critically important to just talk to

00:03:07.620 y'all because it really underscores the drum I have been beating on this podcast for a very long

00:03:13.700 time. And that is we are ignoring women and girls when they speak up and share experiences of

00:03:19.540 harassment and violent threats online. We are telling them it doesn't matter. We are acting

00:03:24.280 like it doesn't matter. And we're all becoming less safe because of it. So some of y'all might

00:03:29.320 not know this, but I first got the idea for There Are No Girls on the Internet while covering the

00:03:33.680 Marjorie Douglas school shooting for this podcast I used to be on called Stuff I Never Told You

00:03:37.900 back in 2018. So in that shooting, the gunman, who was then 19-year-old Nicholas Cruz,

00:03:43.860 shot and killed 17 of his classmates.

00:03:47.580 And according to people who knew him,

00:03:49.720 nobody was surprised to find this out.

00:03:51.540 Like, he was the kind of student

00:03:52.820 where nobody was surprised that he would do this kind of thing.

00:03:56.340 And he actually left a digital paper trail

00:03:58.700 full of online abuse, violence, racism, and harassment.

00:04:02.400 According to CNN, on social media, 0.95

00:04:04.540 he hurled racial slurs at Black folks, Muslims,

00:04:07.320 and according to the Anti-Defamation League, 0.97

00:04:09.180 he had ties to white supremacists.

00:04:11.660 And he said pretty openly online 0.98

00:04:13.340 that he planned to shoot people with an AR-15.

00:04:16.440 He also harassed young women and girls in his life digitally.

00:04:20.960 The Miami Herald reported that Nicholas Cruz

00:04:22.860 harassed a young girl who lived near his work,

00:04:25.300 obsessively texting her and calling her nonstop

00:04:27.820 in the weeks leading up to the shooting.

00:04:29.940 The girl was also referenced in a video

00:04:31.620 that he made on his phone right before the shooting.

00:04:34.780 He said, my love for you will never go away,

00:04:37.980 topping off a droning speech about loneliness,

00:04:40.380 anger, and isolation, saying,

00:04:41.960 I hope to see you in the afterlife. Now, this girl reported that she was afraid of him and did

00:04:47.660 not reciprocate those feelings. So, you know, I got to thinking that oftentimes we have these big

00:04:54.560 national instances of mass violence, and they have things like misogyny at the heart of them,

00:05:00.700 and it is really important that that not go overlooked. And I remember researching the

00:05:06.080 shooting and thinking, what would it look like if we had a culture that actually takes the kinds of

00:05:11.260 online harassment against women and girls like this? Seriously. What would it look like if it 0.99

00:05:16.200 wasn't just treated as, you know, boys being boys online or jokes or something like that?

00:05:22.020 But rather, what if we treated this kind of thing as a serious red flag that everybody should be

00:05:26.600 concerned about? Because it is a red flag. So the data is super clear that perpetrators of

00:05:32.600 mass shootings in modern America overwhelmingly have a history of domestic abuse or misogynistic

00:05:37.500 behavior. And we see this again and again and again. You know, for instance, men like Gerard

00:05:43.380 Ramos, who repeatedly threatened his former school classmates over both email and social media to the

00:05:48.880 point where one of his targets actually moved because she felt so unsafe. He would also use

00:05:54.060 Twitter to attack journalists at the Capital Gazette over an article that they wrote covering

00:05:58.840 criminal proceedings against him, as well as the judge presiding over that case. And this campaign

00:06:04.240 of online harassment eventually led to a deadly shooting in Annapolis, Maryland that left five

00:06:09.200 people at the Capital Gazette dead. Or men like Elliot Rodger, who uploaded several YouTube videos

00:06:15.180 railing against women and girls before an attack that would leave six people dead. And according

00:06:20.200 to the International Center of Research on Women, while we know that many perpetrators of mass

00:06:24.440 violence have a history of violence against women, it is also becoming increasingly clear that online

00:06:29.100 gender-based violence specifically is a precursor to violence carried out offline. And that's really

00:06:35.040 the problem. Having a culture that doesn't treat online harassment and violence and threat against

00:06:40.000 women and girls as serious and not actually listening to us when we speak up is dangerous.

00:06:46.280 And especially as all of us, especially younger people, are showing up more and more in online

00:06:50.560 spaces, what happens in those spaces really matters, both online and off. I am so sick of

00:06:56.640 women and girls, being a canary in the coal mine about violent acts.

00:06:59.760 And I'm sick of hearing this story again and again and again, 0.67

00:07:02.980 where if only somebody had listened to women

00:07:04.760 or taken the online harassment and threats against them seriously,

00:07:09.380 maybe things would be different.

00:07:11.620 Sources tell ABC News the gunman was inside the school

00:07:15.120 for 77 gut-wrenching minutes

00:07:17.800 before a tactical team defied local authorities and entered the school.

00:07:22.200 So by now, you've heard of the latest tragedy in Uvalde, Texas,

00:07:25.680 where Salvador Ramos entered an elementary school

00:07:28.800 and went on a rampage that left 21 people dead.

00:07:32.040 So we are rightly having a big conversation

00:07:34.480 about the police response to this shooting.

00:07:36.760 You know, why they didn't enter the school and stop him sooner

00:07:38.840 and why they didn't respond as these children begged for help.

00:07:42.580 But another emerging narrative also asks a compelling question.

00:07:46.220 Why didn't anybody respond when people on social media

00:07:49.080 reported the shooter's violent, harassing, misogynistic

00:07:51.960 and dangerous social media posts before the shooting?

00:07:55.440 Why were they not taken seriously?

00:07:57.420 And what might be different if they had been?

00:08:00.000 Now, in new reporting from the Washington Post, 0.99

00:08:02.540 women and girls report that Ramos 0.99

00:08:04.120 repeatedly threatened and harassed them on social media.

00:08:07.980 Now, these women rarely reported him

00:08:09.580 because the threats seem really vague,

00:08:11.380 but one teen who reported Ramos

00:08:13.100 on the social media app, Yubo,

00:08:15.360 said that even after he reported him, nothing happened.

00:08:18.380 A 16-year-old boy in Austin said

00:08:20.080 that he regularly saw Ramos on panels

00:08:22.740 on the social networking app, Yubo.

00:08:24.660 and he said that he frequently made aggressive sexual comments to young women

00:08:28.000 and sent him a death threat in January.

00:08:31.200 Here's what he had to say.

00:08:32.600 I witnessed him harass girls and threaten them with sexual assault, 0.95

00:08:35.800 like rape and kidnapping.

00:08:37.480 It was not like a single occurrence.

00:08:39.100 It was frequent, he said.

00:08:40.820 He and his friends reported Ramos' account to Yubo

00:08:42.980 for bullying and other infractions dozens of times,

00:08:45.660 and he says he never heard back.

00:08:47.300 And his account remained active.

00:08:49.440 But it's also worth pointing out that it really seems like

00:08:52.220 the threats that he made online, didn't really stand out as anything notable or out of the

00:08:56.760 ordinary, because it's kind of just how people expect the internet to be for women and girls.

00:09:02.420 And this reveals a real danger in how our culture minimizes what happens to women and

00:09:06.800 girls on social media platforms.

00:09:09.280 Basically, we're told that this is just how it is on the internet. 1.00

00:09:16.200 Let's take a quick break.

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00:10:12.920 When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months.

00:10:18.160 I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

00:10:25.160 I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files.

00:10:28.860 I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything.

00:10:37.040 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.

00:10:41.180 I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.

00:10:45.940 I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.

00:10:53.560 They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

00:10:57.460 But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.

00:11:00.900 They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:11:04.540 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:11:12.320 If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.

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00:12:09.580 you get your podcasts. See you between the pages.

00:12:18.980 And we're back. We have completely normalized online violence and threats and harassment

00:12:24.800 to the point of it just being the cost of being a woman on the internet. Women and girls are not

00:12:30.260 able to show up online with the expectation of safety, care, and respect. So the Washington

00:12:35.860 Post goes on to say that many suspected that this was just how teen boys talked on the internet

00:12:39.940 these days. A blend of rage and misogyny so predictable they could barely tell each one

00:12:45.420 apart. One girl, the Post reports, discussing moments where Ramos had been creepy and threatening

00:12:50.880 to her, said, quote, this is just how online is. And it breaks my heart to say that that is kind

00:12:59.220 of accurate. A 2021 Pew Research Center study found that experiences like harassment, violent

00:13:04.960 threats and the like are really common for young people with about two-thirds of adults under 30

00:13:09.840 reporting that they've experienced that kind of harassment. 33 percent of women under 35 say

00:13:15.180 they've been sexually harassed online. They spoke to Daniel K. Citrone, a law professor at the

00:13:19.980 University of Virginia, who said that women and girls often don't report threats of rape to law

00:13:24.420 enforcement or trusted adults because they've just been socialized to feel that they do not

00:13:28.360 deserve safety and privacy online. Or if they do report it, they don't feel that anything will be

00:13:34.500 done because people don't take it seriously. And I really get that. You know, what will be the point

00:13:40.240 about talking about this kind of thing or reporting it if people are just going to ignore you or not

00:13:44.500 take it seriously? Or you've just been socialized that receiving violent harassment and threats

00:13:50.240 is a normal part of you going online because you're a woman or a girl and that shouldn't

00:13:56.100 you just get used to it? So I know a little bit about this firsthand. Quite a few years ago,

00:14:00.560 I was on the receiving end of some pretty nasty online harassment. And, you know, I had that same

00:14:08.000 kind of mentality that this is just the cost for being a woman who shows up online to express

00:14:12.960 herself and express her opinion. And I really compartmentalized it. I didn't report it. I just

00:14:18.560 sort of moved on with my life and just thought this was how I had to show up. I had to get used

00:14:23.520 to this if I was going to show up online as a woman with something to say. And it wasn't until

00:14:28.200 the threats got really specific and scary that this changed for me. So I used to live

00:14:34.760 right next door to a bar in my city in D.C. And this was kind of my hangout spot. And

00:14:39.700 I posted a lot on social media about how I was always at this bar and how I was so lucky

00:14:45.100 to live so close to it. And one day, this person who had been harassing me for weeks

00:14:50.680 sent me a screenshot from Google Maps showing my apartment next to this bar. He obviously used the

00:14:58.460 information that I put out to do this, telling me he was coming for me. And this really was a little

00:15:05.080 bit different for me, right? I had gone from all of these unspecific kind of vague threats that I

00:15:10.420 could kind of compartmentalize and file away and not think of them as a direct threat. But here

00:15:15.120 was someone making a show of telling me that he knew exactly where I lived, right? Essentially a 0.50

00:15:19.980 screenshot of my bedroom window. And it was really scary. This was a new thing. So I contacted law

00:15:25.840 enforcement and a law enforcement official came to my home and we talked about it. And essentially

00:15:31.660 the advice that he gave me was that I should delete my social media profiles and that I should

00:15:37.080 not go online and that then the harassment would stop. There was no need to take any kind of

00:15:42.400 action in real life, that this was just an online thing that could be solved by shutting my laptop.

00:15:47.420 up. And, you know, I found that response to be so frustrating for a lot of reasons. First of all,

00:15:54.980 telling me that I should delete my social media profiles and just not show up online,

00:15:58.980 at that point in my career and in my life, was essentially telling me to get a new career.

00:16:03.720 You know, at the time, I was trying to be a journalist, a reporter, somebody who had a

00:16:07.660 public opinion the same way that I do on my podcast now. And so telling me that I just needed

00:16:12.020 to shut all of that down if I wanted these threats to stop was essentially telling me that I needed

00:16:17.300 to get a new career. And that didn't seem fair, right? It made it seem like that was just the

00:16:22.720 cost of being a woman online. And if I didn't like it, I could log off. And it also underscored

00:16:29.060 this really kind of backward way of thinking that suggests that what happens to us online

00:16:34.040 has nothing to do with what happens to us in the real world. You know, that all I had to do was

00:16:38.660 shut my laptop and my problem would be solved. And we know that's not true. We know that what

00:16:45.040 happens online bleeds into what happens offline and vice versa. You know, these worlds that we

00:16:50.820 used to think of as a binary are increasingly blurred, especially for younger people. And this

00:16:55.940 50-year-old white man who was investigating this threat against me barely understood that,

00:17:00.820 let alone took it seriously. And I'm actually glad that we're in a place where I think we're

00:17:04.920 starting to have a shared understanding that the real world and the online world are one and the

00:17:10.140 same because that's the way it is. And that should really come with normalizing safer experiences for

00:17:16.760 all of us online. Because when we fail to create the expectation of safety for women and girls on

00:17:22.060 social media, and when we fail to meaningfully listen to them when they speak up about what

00:17:26.100 they're experiencing online, we make everyone, all of us, less safe and more at risk. You know,

00:17:31.680 we create a situation where red flags go missed and perpetrators like Elliot Rodger and Salvador 0.98

00:17:36.420 are left to do more harm. And this does not just have to be the way it is for women and girls

00:17:42.380 online. We deserve to show up with safety and respect online. And we deserve for that to be

00:17:48.620 a normalized cultural expectation because when it isn't, we are all at risk.

00:17:52.900 last weekend protesters pleaded with president biden to do something about guns in this country

00:18:07.400 and it is so frustrating that we have to scream and plead for our safety and the safety of our

00:18:12.920 children i want meaningful action to address the threat that guns pose to our kids in this country

00:18:18.000 and i also want to create a culture where our kids can expect better where they know if they

00:18:22.680 speak up about facing violent threats online, someone will listen and take it seriously.

00:18:28.220 Because our safety depends on it.

00:18:35.300 Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi?

00:18:38.860 You can reach us at hello at tangody.com.

00:18:41.120 You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangody.com.

00:18:44.560 There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me, Bridget Todd.

00:18:47.300 It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

00:18:50.000 Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.

00:18:51.560 Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer

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00:18:56.260 I'm your host, Bridget Todd

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There Are No Girls on the Internet - May 31, 2022

Uvalde school shooter had a history of threatening girls online

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