There Are No Girls on the Internet - What the upcoming midterm election means for women online - STUFF MOM NEVER TOLD YOU

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00:00:50.020 I survived nine months in captivity,

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00:01:45.760 There are no girls on the internet as a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

00:01:49.540 i'm bridget todd and this is there are no girls on the internet

00:01:56.660 it's almost election day here in the united states and there is so much on the line in this election

00:02:04.760 there are also historic numbers of women and women of color running for elected office this cycle

00:02:09.800 and while that is great to see we know that these women will face racialized gendered attacks that

00:02:15.960 their white male counterparts simply will not have to deal with. They'll have to take extra

00:02:20.620 security concerns both online and IRL that their male counterparts won't have to deal with. And

00:02:26.120 yep, that is an extra cost burden that we know that they'll have to shoulder just because of

00:02:30.720 their identity. So to discuss all of this, I sat down with my good friends, Samantha and Annie

00:02:36.860 over at the podcast Stuff Mom Never Told You to lay out our concerns in the upcoming midterm

00:02:42.080 elections and what needs to be done i love halloween but one thing that does always come

00:02:53.880 with halloween like every couple of years is this tension around voting is this tension that the

00:02:59.260 elections are coming up so it's always like i'm trying to not think about it um is there anything

00:03:05.220 spookier yes yes uh and as we've hinted at that's what we're going to be talking about a lot

00:03:11.460 in here um and uh georgia it's been an intense midterm election for us so yeah yeah i guess

00:03:26.080 let's just let's just break down some of the things that are going on in these midterms

00:03:32.720 yes so we're as when we're recording this i don't know how long it will be out when folks hear it

00:03:37.880 But we are 10 days out from the election while we're recording this.

00:03:42.400 And, I mean, it sounds like you kind of feel like I do, where particularly around midterms,

00:03:48.260 it just makes me queasy because I know that GOTV is so different when it's not a presidential election.

00:03:56.800 Like, people, it's harder to get people excited.

00:04:00.480 And especially when I know there's so much on the line, you know, you mentioned Georgia.

00:04:06.120 that's an important race a lot is happening a lot is hinging on people actually coming out and so

00:04:12.560 it's something that I just always feel kind of like queasy about it and for me I always kind of

00:04:17.940 having worked in politics for most of my adult life or like politics adjacent I always kind of

00:04:23.420 feel meh about elections because I'm not super invested in electoral power like I think that

00:04:28.840 there's other ways to build power and then around like 10 days out I'm like oh my god I need to like

00:04:34.540 start GOTVing I need to start like calling everyone I know it's like it's like something

00:04:39.140 happens and so I'm sort of waiting for that transformation to happen and it sounds like

00:04:42.660 you two are feeling sort of similarly around the elections this time around yeah um so for me I

00:04:50.000 recently was coming home from a trip with my mother and she drove me past where I vote my

00:04:59.400 polling place and it was the first day of early voting in Georgia and it was packed out like I

00:05:04.040 was like oh my god what is happening and then I looked it up and early voting was happening and I

00:05:08.640 was so it's very heartening to see that many people turn out for a midterm and I waited a

00:05:16.580 couple of days and when I went back it was still crowded and people were excited there were people

00:05:21.620 filming everyone was really warm and nice like oh I'm so glad you came out to vote which was it was

00:05:30.600 a pleasant experience for me but it was kind of like overshadowed the whole thing was you know

00:05:37.240 there's been these crackdowns on voting rights and why are so many people coming out so early

00:05:43.700 which i think is great but it was just kind of overhanging the whole thing and also because it is

00:05:49.140 a very divisive race senatorial race specifically in georgia i don't know it was it was one of those

00:05:58.160 things where I was like I've been to midterms before and like nobody was there and I walk past

00:06:03.260 that area all the time and so I see it and I would never see a line and now like every day

00:06:07.560 when I walk past it there's a line so that's nice but I'm still like there you just can't shake

00:06:14.220 all of the kind of negative things that might be behind why that is even though I'm happy to see it

00:06:20.860 If that makes sense. Right. Absolutely.

00:06:23.720 Like as right now, we have the highest early voter turnout in our state that we've ever had beating last presidential election.

00:06:32.720 So it's amazing to see that things are happening. And we know that that's great indication of things to come.

00:06:38.940 Again, yes, we have had a huge upsurge in voter suppression laws in the last five years.

00:06:45.540 Actually, that's always been. Let's just be honest. But it's seemingly getting worse and worse.

00:06:49.680 And we know the way they have redistricted everything.

00:06:52.680 And it's very, very shady.

00:06:54.560 Although, you know, our current governor was the secretary of state who controlled his own election, which says a lot in itself.

00:07:00.720 And that's a big point of contention here, as well as the fact that apparently Raffensperger, that's our current secretary of state who actually stood up to Trump at one point in time and got too much credit, in my opinion, for what he did.

00:07:15.860 But it's hired a former staffer of Trump for these elections.

00:07:19.960 So there's a lot of questionable things happening.

00:07:21.460 So we have a lot of concerns and a lot of hope.

00:07:24.800 It's such a mixed bag, as Annie was saying, of what is happening here.

00:07:29.080 We're seeing what's happening because the governor's race is a pretty big deal as the overturning of Roe v. Wade hasn't made it a huge deal, as we do have a six-week ban in Georgia currently.

00:07:39.840 And then there's this talk about the fact that they're going to punish those who do have abortions as murder, possibly charging them with murder with the fact that they're doing this whole like, you know, unborn fetus law and protecting of them as like and crediting them as a citizen type of conversation, which we know is trickery and is leading way to a lot of imprisonment and unfair treatment.

00:08:02.740 And we know this is completely targeted at marginalized individuals in our state.

00:08:07.820 So there's a lot of concerns. There's so much that feels like it's being really weighty here right now.

00:08:12.780 And it does. It feels like it is life or death for so many of us.

00:08:17.300 And again, I'm being very local on this moment because this is kind of where we are.

00:08:21.980 And Annie and I obviously had to concentrate so hard in these conversations.

00:08:26.260 So there is this level of doom, which I'm wonderful at bringing up all the time, apparently.

00:08:34.060 there's this fear and level of doom in this election that feels too heavy at the same time

00:08:40.000 we are the butt of jokes with our current senator race and it's it's it's really like you want you

00:08:47.560 you have to laugh but want to cry as well as why why just but why yeah oh my gosh i if you got if

00:08:56.680 you all get me started on a hurtful walker i will never i will never stop talking um so i'm not

00:09:04.020 going to comment on that boy I want to but truly if you got me going I would never stop I will just

00:09:13.060 say that all of that is really valid you know I think this feeling of it's great to see people

00:09:20.400 voting but that like unease of life but what does that mean for everyone I think that's really valid

00:09:26.200 and just the feeling of knowing how much is on the line what is at stake this time around

00:09:32.360 I think that that's, I hate to say it, I think as our elections become more and more contentious

00:09:38.620 and as things become more and more polarized, I think that's going to be a common sentiment.

00:09:43.620 And, you know, something that kind of speaks to that is the fact that there are more women

00:09:49.220 running for statewide offices than ever before, which, you know, I think is, should be good news.

00:09:54.800 2022 marks a record high for women running for gubernatorial and Senate races. 0.96

00:09:59.380 There's about 65 women running for governor's races across the country in this cycle.

00:10:03.440 I should say it is not all lefties.

00:10:05.960 There are more Republicans than Democrats making those bids.

00:10:09.380 This is all according to data from the Center for American Women in Politics. 1.00

00:10:12.940 And I, it's true.

00:10:15.280 When there are long lines at polling places, I'm like, oh, that's great, like democracy in action.

00:10:22.260 And that's definitely preferable to people having elections not go their way and then trying to force them to go their way via violent behavior like we saw on January 6th.

00:10:36.880 And so things feel charged. I guess I'll put it that way.

00:10:40.020 And women are poised to make gains in statewide contests, but they remain underrepresented in key legislatures around the country. 0.99

00:10:46.360 And it's also true for black women. We're seeing more black women and more women of color running for local office.

00:10:52.260 Black women have set record numbers for candidates in gubernatorial, Senate, and House races. 1.00

00:10:56.320 It's the cycle. 1.00

00:10:57.260 And there's a lot of Latina and Hispanic gubernatorial and U.S. House Senate candidates 1.00

00:11:01.600 and a record number of Asian and Pacific Islander women who are running for governor.

00:11:04.820 And so I, as fraught as that can be, I think it's overall good, you know,

00:11:11.440 not just because representation matters, which it does,

00:11:14.300 but also I think that anything that gets us closer to a representative democracy,

00:11:17.900 one where there's people who actually have the lived experience of the people that they are

00:11:23.680 governing is a good thing. And so like, that's one kind of silver lining, I guess, is that

00:11:30.340 particularly when I think about issues like abortion, like you were talking about, Sam,

00:11:35.760 I, I don't have any hard numbers for this. I would suspect that women are motivated to run 0.82

00:11:42.420 for office because those issues have taken such a national stage recently. I wish I could say that

00:11:48.200 it's all women who, you know, want to protect abortion access. I wish I could say that if you

00:11:54.000 were a woman, that was part of your platform, but that would not be correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And 1.00

00:12:00.240 that's one thing that is very overwhelming right now in Georgia, and I'm sure in a lot of places,

00:12:06.280 but our political ads are intense and hard to escape.

00:12:13.660 But yeah, so it's kind of like what I was saying.

00:12:16.900 We have these positives.

00:12:18.600 We have more women running.

00:12:20.220 We have more people of color running.

00:12:21.640 We have more black women running. 1.00

00:12:23.420 But that doesn't come without these realities

00:12:28.180 that you have spoke about a lot on the show

00:12:31.320 that often get kind of swept aside

00:12:33.800 and not talked about, even though they are so important and they are impacting our political

00:12:41.960 landscape. Exactly. And so I think it is so great when we support women, especially Black women and

00:12:48.540 women of color, to run for office and to just generally be involved in civic life through

00:12:53.500 things like working as election workers or becoming vocal advocates or activists on an issue.

00:12:58.640 But it is imperative that that support be grounded in the reality of what we know these women will face when they find themselves in those situations that we, you know, championed them to hold, right?

00:13:10.500 So we are, on the left, we're very fond of saying things like, trust Black women, support Black women.

00:13:16.780 And that is very true.

00:13:18.140 But we can't just, you know, advocate for Black women to get into these positions.

00:13:22.840 we have to be honest about what they will face when they get there and then really do the 0.99

00:13:27.880 intentional work of creating the conditions for them to have an equal playing field to make sure 1.00

00:13:34.360 that they will thrive in those positions because it's one thing to be like oh yes put black women 1.00

00:13:38.720 in leadership positions but then are you going to support them when they face the attacks that

00:13:43.220 we know they are going to face you know for instance I was super excited when President

00:13:47.460 Biden said that he was going to pick Black women to be the vice president and also nominate a Black

00:13:53.300 woman to be a Supreme Court justice. But I also know that that means that those Black women

00:13:57.740 would certainly face heightened attacks that their white male counterparts just would not have to

00:14:03.860 face. And so I was then a little bit disappointed to see that the White House didn't really

00:14:08.660 meaningfully deal with this reality, right? Like, I wondered, like, are they setting Black women up 0.94

00:14:14.500 to deal with the harassment and attacks 0.97

00:14:17.080 that we know are going to be like racialized and gendered,

00:14:20.200 not attacks based on their records

00:14:22.060 or their merits or their actions,

00:14:23.600 but attacks on their identity, who they are.

00:14:26.560 So when these attacks happened,

00:14:27.800 which we saw with both Harris and Justice Jackson,

00:14:31.380 the White House didn't really acknowledge them. 0.98

00:14:33.340 And of course, the women themselves

00:14:35.460 can't really talk openly about them. 0.64

00:14:38.020 So we all just kind of saw it happen

00:14:40.540 and nobody was at the very least talking honestly about it,

00:14:43.940 let alone working to create the conditions to combat it right and that's just such a huge

00:14:49.080 thing of you know either it's a drain on you because you're having to deal with these attacks

00:14:54.940 or you just kind of distance yourself from social media and then that in itself people

00:15:01.560 can interpret in a variety of ways that are probably not good um and then people especially

00:15:07.800 younger people seeing that like that there's just so many unhealthy things about what that says

00:15:14.820 um that we're accepting um as as something that's just like par for the course that's how it is

00:15:21.580 and the the very unfortunate thing uh is this is not just like one time or just a few times it's

00:15:29.400 like all over the place exactly it's not an isolated thing i'm sorry to say according to

00:15:34.900 a report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue called Public Figures, Public Rage,

00:15:39.220 Candidates Abuse on Social Media. Statistically speaking, Black women and women of color are more

00:15:43.820 likely to face racialized gendered attacks than their white male counterparts. And the study,

00:15:48.660 which you can find online, is super interesting. They found that abusive messages on social media

00:15:52.620 accounted for 15% of those directed at every female lawmaker that they analyzed, compared to

00:15:58.020 around 5% to 10% when they looked at male candidates. A few of their key findings are

00:16:02.340 that women of color are particularly likely to be targeted online.

00:16:06.100 Male politicians of color are not more vulnerable than their white counterparts.

00:16:09.860 They are attacked at the same rate.

00:16:11.980 And abuse toward women was more likely to be about gender than the abuse-targeting men.

00:16:17.460 So abuse-targeting men was usually focused on their political stances,

00:16:21.840 while the messages directed at women were more likely to be about their appearance or their general competence. 1.00

00:16:27.580 Interestingly enough, female Democrats received 10 times more abusive comments than their 0.65

00:16:32.400 male counterparts on Facebook, and Republican women received twice as many abusive messages

00:16:37.380 as Republican men.

00:16:38.440 So it's a bipartisan issue.

00:16:41.140 It is an issue impacting all women and women of color.

00:16:44.080 You know, it's not just women on the left who face it.

00:16:47.020 It's all of us. 0.84

00:16:48.540 Right.

00:16:48.820 And one of the things, one of the points you make when you come on here all the time, which

00:16:53.040 I think is very important and I love, is that a lot of times people can distance like, oh,

00:16:57.700 that's online. That's not real life. But that is not at all the case, right?

00:17:03.640 Yes. So I'm sure people are like sick of me saying this because I say it, scream it from

00:17:08.480 the rooftops every time I am given a platform. But I think we have this misconception that when

00:17:13.820 we talk about online harassment and abuse, we're talking about online issues. And the research

00:17:18.140 could not be clearer that even though these attacks may start online they do not always

00:17:23.240 stay online and a great example that we're seeing right now is representative Jayapal a man started

00:17:28.780 by sending her violent emails and threatening messages online showed up outside of her house

00:17:33.380 with a gun I just had to take a minute from recording this podcast to click send on a

00:17:38.520 statement about the husband of Nancy Pelosi someone who had a just today while we're recording this

00:17:43.680 Someone with a history of violent, you know, rhetoric on social media broke into Nancy Pelosi's house and attacked her husband with a hammer when he found that she was not there.

00:17:54.140 And so it's so important and deeply imperative that if we're going to take this kind of violence seriously, that when someone reports violent threats or violent attacks online, we then take it seriously if we're going to prevent real world violence from happening.

00:18:10.240 Because the two are linked. It's just that the research could not be clearer. Time and time again, when somebody is the perpetrator of a mass shooting or an incident of mass violence, you follow the paper trail and, oh, they had an online history where they were threatening women or being aggressive or hostile toward the women in their life online.

00:18:28.620 And so we cannot get a handle meaningfully on the abuse of women if we do not take it seriously when it happens online.

00:18:36.460 It's just not going to happen.

00:18:37.520 And so real world violence is connected to online violence and we need to deal with it as such.

00:18:42.260 But unfortunately, that has not been the case for so long.

00:18:45.600 People have been so quick to belittle it when a woman speaks up about what she's facing online, particularly if that woman is black or a woman of color.

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00:19:26.780 844-844-IHEART to get started. That's 844-844-IHEART. If your bookshelf and your for you page are

00:19:33.760 equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast

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00:19:45.100 and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.

00:19:50.020 I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books,

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00:20:29.660 See you between the pages.

00:20:31.720 When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months.

00:20:37.540 I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

00:20:44.020 I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files.

00:20:47.480 I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up, don't say anything.

00:20:56.060 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.

00:21:00.320 I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.

00:21:04.880 I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.

00:21:12.320 They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

00:21:16.140 But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.

00:21:19.800 They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:21:23.380 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:21:31.900 Didn't catch the latest Roland Martin unfiltered podcast?

00:21:35.500 Here's what you missed.

00:21:36.540 And the argument is, do you want to win?

00:21:40.520 If you don't win, you have no power.

00:21:44.280 It's real.

00:21:44.960 Those are the very people who I always say vote against their own economic interests and they complain about the very thing they're receiving.

00:21:51.340 It's raw.

00:21:51.980 I knew that the issue of transgender athletes was not going well with a lot of black men.

00:22:00.360 Roland Martin unfiltered.

00:22:01.920 I went off.

00:22:02.760 I said, this is exactly what I'm talking about.

00:22:04.760 Y'all gonna scream at Chanel, but you don't want to see a black luxury company in the same vein. 0.95

00:22:12.000 Catch Roland Martin's daily commentary on the Black Information Network. 1.00

00:22:15.820 Twelve seats, those are moving south.

00:22:19.080 So if you Democrats, you don't wait to 2030,

00:22:22.200 you better be hitting the ground going hard in the south now.

00:22:25.820 And download Roland Martin Unfiltered on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

00:22:30.220 or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:22:38.200 We've talked about so much harassment,

00:22:40.260 And I know one of the biggest platforms, and I know we're going to talk about this later, and I'm already dreading it, Twitter has been one of the biggest perpetrators in allowing this type of abuse and not actually following through in the policies that they've already placed themselves to try to supposedly stop these types of harassments.

00:22:59.880 And then knowing that there's even ways to actually find specific people to target, like when you were talking about the bots and then just having pretty much hate farms created on these types of platforms.

00:23:11.260 I can't imagine what it does to to. Yeah, it's happening to those who are on higher profile levels, I guess is the best way to say it.

00:23:17.800 But to be fair, like I am petrified as someone who kind of is supposed to be.

00:23:22.420 I don't know the word. Not influence. I don't know what is public person.

00:23:26.740 we'll say this we'll say public person my name is out there like I'm petrified with my 500 followers

00:23:32.400 and I'm going to say something wrong and or they're going to hear someone's going to hear

00:23:35.480 something that we do take it and say that means we can go after her and wondering what that would

00:23:41.120 be like because I've seen normal people regular people getting attacked like holy all they said

00:23:46.280 was this one thing and or just agreed with something and people are going after them

00:23:51.040 oh my god I mean absolutely and we're also I would be remiss to not mention that we're having

00:23:55.500 this conversation on day one of elon musk at the helm at twitter and people keep asking like oh

00:24:02.920 what do you think about that what do you think about that and i can tell you that that people

00:24:06.980 who are extremists bad actors people who are interested in you know perpetrating these the

00:24:16.360 kinds of like harassment campaigns that you were just talking about sam those people are rejoicing

00:24:21.660 Right. Like just today, I already saw a bunch of tweets where someone was like, I'm going to use the N slur as many times as I can, because it's OK now on Twitter. 0.96

00:24:30.200 These are the kind of people that Elon Musk is welcoming back to the platform.

00:24:33.820 These are the kind of people who are rejoicing because Elon Musk is at the helm of our one of our largest and most important communications platforms.

00:24:41.340 And so you're exactly right that I think we started this conversation talking about elected officials, people running for office.

00:24:48.160 more and more, we are seeing that trickle down to just regular people. And I want to be clear,

00:24:53.640 so it is, we have seen this kind of online behavior keep marginalized people from doing

00:24:59.260 things like running for office, but also from doing things like just serving their community as

00:25:03.820 election officials or poll workers, from speaking up about their opinions at school board meetings,

00:25:09.600 because all people who just generally engage in public civic life, they know that in this climate,

00:25:16.460 they are setting themselves up to be attacked and we're not talking about like it's bad enough that

00:25:20.860 it's happening to women running for office but when it's happening to people who are just

00:25:24.740 you know everyday people it's not like they have a security detail it's not like they have money to

00:25:29.740 protect themselves in the way they would need to and just a few examples that we're seeing recently

00:25:34.800 educators are being attacked by extremists for being suspected of being lgbtq or for teaching

00:25:40.360 something that these people do not like and these campaigns have been incredibly effective

00:25:45.620 One of them happened right in Georgia,

00:25:48.000 Cecilia Lewis, she's a Georgia educator 0.69

00:25:49.700 who was basically run out of town

00:25:52.620 by a group of parents organizing on Facebook

00:25:55.040 because they suspected her of,

00:25:57.860 she had not even like gotten the job yet

00:25:59.520 and they already suspected her

00:26:01.480 of planning to teach critical race theory.

00:26:04.300 Nevermind the fact that she wasn't,

00:26:06.200 that that's just complete conjecture. 0.96

00:26:08.440 It just happened to be that she is a black woman

00:26:10.800 and so they were able to say like, 0.99

00:26:12.620 oh, she's gonna teach your kids critical race theory

00:26:14.600 even though she wasn't even an in-classroom teacher, she was just an administrator, right? 1.00

00:26:19.020 And so she had to leave town. And when she left town, these people followed her to the next town

00:26:25.600 that she went to and ran her out of that town too. And so these campaigns are incredibly effective.

00:26:31.620 And another good example is looking at election workers, 80% of whom are women. Election workers

00:26:37.760 are being baselessly attacked and accused of things like vote tampering if elections don't

00:26:42.700 go the way that these extremists want them to. Again, another example from Georgia is if you

00:26:47.080 watch the January 6th commission, you might've seen the story of Ruby and Shea Freeman. That story

00:26:51.580 broke my heart. A black mother and her daughter with a long storied history of serving their

00:26:57.420 community as election and poll workers. Like the black women in your town who, if you have any 0.99

00:27:02.640 questions about voting, they got you. If you need help voting, they got you. Like people who are 1.00

00:27:06.560 called to serve their community and have been for a very long time. Well, the thanks they got for

00:27:12.320 that was being horribly attacked. When Trump lost Georgia in the 2020 election, he and Rudy

00:27:19.100 Giuliani and his other cronies baselessly, repeatedly, and publicly accused these women 0.98

00:27:25.260 of vote tampering. They had videos of them where they said that they were moving votes, which

00:27:29.720 never happened. And this led to really terrible, frightening attacks on them where people showed

00:27:36.340 up at their home and the home of their elderly grandmother, and they had to flee for their own

00:27:41.580 safety and again these are regular people not people that have a security detail or people

00:27:46.540 that maybe have the money to scrub their personal information from the internet the way that you

00:27:51.460 would need to if you were facing these kinds of attacks yeah actually i had volunteered one time

00:27:56.600 to be a uh just to oversee as people are lining up make sure everything is okay nothing nothing i

00:28:03.540 don't i don't talk to anybody i just make sure everybody has the right to vote no one's being

00:28:06.820 harassed all these things that's all i did but the entire group of people who were actually

00:28:11.340 volunteering handing out the pencils giving instructions checking ids and such were all 0.61

00:28:16.260 black women every single one of them and just this uh last voting when i did my whole uh

00:28:23.600 precinct was all black women sweet too they were so great and we had the 45 minute uh line and they

00:28:29.200 were so on top of it trying to make sure to get everybody through seamlessly and they did a

00:28:33.120 beautiful job and they were there like this was the i think the fifth day of the week that they

00:28:37.420 were doing this and they'd been there and they were not complaining they were smiling making

00:28:40.940 conversation and it's like people like them who are making this happen and going on so well and

00:28:47.500 so perfectly as if there's nothing happening literally the line was smoothly going and I

00:28:52.080 loved everything about that and I cannot imagine just because they're there they exist and they

00:28:56.880 decided to help their community they're going to be targeted and being yelled at and honestly

00:29:01.060 I know there was conversations of people really being scared about being physically harmed because

00:29:06.600 people are pushing and trying to do so many intimidation tactics to accuse and blame somebody 0.75

00:29:12.780 for the loss of a bully yeah this is just my opinion black women are the backbone of our 1.00

00:29:20.920 democracy they are like a older black woman from the south they are the grease of the wheels of 1.00

00:29:28.040 democracy they really are like i feel like when i go into a place like that i'm like oh of course 1.00

00:29:32.240 there's like hella black women with clipboards in here like that like that's the vibe and you know 1.00

00:29:36.780 and we know that 80 percent of election workers and poll workers are women i would be willing to 1.00

00:29:41.720 bet that a bunch of those are black women especially in the south and i think that what

00:29:45.740 we're really doing is allowing for people who are the most marginalized in our society we are 0.80

00:29:51.820 allowing for them to put themselves out there to support our communities and our democracy in these 0.85

00:29:58.420 ways for not a lot of money but mind you because a lot of these women are volunteers are very low

00:30:02.640 paid and we're saying you also need to absorb these attacks to do so and we're we're basically

00:30:08.060 setting these women up to be attacked and giving them no and not even really talking about it when

00:30:13.480 they are right and so i think it i my experience with voting has been the exact same that these are

00:30:19.840 the women who are at this point i would say risking a lot to make sure that our democratic

00:30:26.120 process is able to take place. And honestly, this is probably not surprising to anybody because 0.74

00:30:31.260 these kinds of attacks are meant exactly to keep those kinds of people from doing what they do.

00:30:37.360 It is meant to keep them from doing their work of keeping the wheels of democracy going. It is

00:30:42.240 meant to keep them from being engaged in civic life because who would want to serve their community

00:30:46.260 by working as a poll worker or running for office if it means that them and their families are going

00:30:51.980 to be facing these kinds of attacks.

00:30:53.740 So probably not surprising to anybody

00:30:55.780 that here we are 10 days out from an election

00:30:58.420 and the United States is facing

00:30:59.880 a national shortage on poll workers.

00:31:02.660 Kim Wyman, who is the senior election security lead

00:31:04.940 at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency,

00:31:07.860 or the CISA, said that because of a rise

00:31:10.860 in threats against election workers,

00:31:13.100 one in three election workers and poll workers

00:31:14.960 have quit their positions over fears for their safety.

00:31:18.480 And state officials are having a hard time

00:31:20.320 hiring folks for these positions. Because again, who would want to do these like low paid duties 0.98

00:31:25.920 if it means like, oh, you and your family might have to flee for your safety. This is because

00:31:30.120 you wanted to do this position, helping your community in this way. I can understand why

00:31:34.440 people are not lining up to do this work, but you can see how big those consequences are for

00:31:40.720 our democracy and for all of us when we can't even get people to enact the labor that needs

00:31:47.140 to happen for our democratic process to exist. Yeah. And as you've mentioned, like, we've arrived

00:31:55.440 at not a great space in our democracy. But we've had a long history, like we had plenty of signs

00:32:02.640 of where we could have listened to especially black women, and we didn't. And this is where 0.99

00:32:08.160 we are. So can you expand on that a little bit? Yes, I believe that this entire thing,

00:32:13.360 all of these threats to our democracy is really connected and goes back to not listening to black 1.00

00:32:18.740 women. Because I talked about the fact that, you know, these threats that start online become real 1.00

00:32:25.220 world threats. Black women have been saying this for a very long time. And I feel that nobody has 0.90

00:32:30.380 really listened. You know, some of the first people to really raise the alarm about the role

00:32:35.360 that online harassment plays in our landscape were black women. These women have been saying this for 0.92

00:32:40.240 years and people and by that I mean people with power the people with power to do something 0.59

00:32:44.860 pretty much ignored them and so I would then argue that not listening to black women has

00:32:49.520 consequences for all of us a couple of examples um most people listening are probably familiar 0.76

00:32:55.280 with Gamergate if you are not familiar with Gamergate I am jealous but essentially it was

00:33:00.760 like if that's something that you were like I've never heard of that before I want to live the

00:33:04.560 life that you are living right but essentially Gamergate was when a bunch of men uh pretty much

00:33:12.100 attacked and harassed mostly women under the guise of being big mad about scare quotes ethics in

00:33:20.060 gaming journalism and it got lots of attention rightly and most people like probably remember it

00:33:25.920 but those same people probably don't know that the same folks responsible for Gamergate were using

00:33:32.260 those exact same tactics against black women before Gamergate. Women like Adria Richards, 1.00

00:33:37.260 who was targeted for racist harassment online after she tweeted about a crass joke about dongles

00:33:42.120 that she overheard at a work event. Or women like Shafika Hudson, who in 2014 actually reported and

00:33:47.800 called out bad actors who were using fake accounts to impersonate black women to destabilize internet 0.99

00:33:53.240 communities. You know, these are women who spoke up about what they were facing on the internet, 0.85

00:33:57.460 and they were basically ignored. And I wonder what might have happened if somebody with power 0.96

00:34:02.120 had actually listened to them and taken some action?

00:34:05.500 Well, for one, I believe Gamergate

00:34:07.300 might have gone down very differently 0.97

00:34:08.700 if when people use these tactics against Black women, 1.00

00:34:12.020 somebody was like, hey, wait, this is bad. 0.99

00:34:14.160 We should not allow our platform to be used this way

00:34:16.040 and made some changes.

00:34:17.500 Or consider the fact that six years

00:34:19.860 after Shafika Hudson reported people

00:34:21.800 impersonating Black folks on Twitter to cause chaos,

00:34:25.100 white supremacist groups used that very same tactic

00:34:27.920 during the racial uprisings of 2020

00:34:29.740 to make it seem like Black Lives Matter activists

00:34:32.900 were using the internet to call for people

00:34:35.420 to like loot homes and cause violence.

00:34:37.960 And Twitter actually confirmed this.

00:34:39.640 Twitter was like, oh yeah, we can confirm now

00:34:42.040 that some of the accounts who were using our platform

00:34:45.200 to call for people to like loot

00:34:47.220 and cause violence during these protests, 0.91

00:34:49.380 those were actually white supremacists 0.92

00:34:50.900 pretending to be Black Lives Matter activists.

00:34:53.160 And so, you know, they didn't actually explain

00:34:55.660 why they did all to prevent this

00:34:58.980 from being a tactic on a larger scale down the line

00:35:02.700 if they knew it was a vulnerability of their platform.

00:35:05.920 And when we zoom out even further,

00:35:08.200 these are the same tactics that a Senate inquiry in 2019

00:35:11.420 would confirm were used to try to destabilize

00:35:14.320 the 2016 election, right? 1.00

00:35:15.580 And so if when these Black women reported

00:35:17.920 what they were seeing online,

00:35:19.820 if somebody had done something,

00:35:21.560 I wonder, would bad actors

00:35:24.840 who were trying to use this tactic

00:35:26.900 to destabilize our elections

00:35:28.740 and destabilize our online communities

00:35:30.360 and truly cause violence and chaos,

00:35:32.980 would that have been a viable tactic?

00:35:36.400 I would argue maybe not.

00:35:38.020 But again, these are the consequences 1.00

00:35:39.780 when folks don't listen to Black women 1.00

00:35:41.360 and don't take them seriously 0.99

00:35:42.740 when they speak up about what they're experiencing online.

00:35:45.200 Yeah, and one of the things that annoys me the most

00:35:47.380 is when this whole idea of,

00:35:50.420 like, that's just sort of the price of the game,

00:35:52.180 accept it.

00:35:52.980 Like, you know, if you're tough,

00:35:55.900 and sometimes people will try to paint it in a very nice brush like you're strong enough to make

00:36:00.520 it against all this harassment all this stuff online you're you're so tough but really we

00:36:06.040 shouldn't be accepting this or expecting this in the first place and that is one of the things

00:36:11.040 the points you're making here is that we've normalized it to the point where I've even

00:36:15.820 heard conversations where people will paint it as like oh it's a good thing she's tough she can

00:36:21.940 survive in this environment it shouldn't be that way right right yeah I don't want to have a 0.99

00:36:28.760 political landscape where you have to be able to publicly endure and withstand attacks on you and 0.98

00:36:36.760 your family because when it's women the research is super clear that it's never just the woman who

00:36:41.860 was attacked it's her her mom her dad her kids her partner her community her neighbors her friends

00:36:48.600 I don't want a political climate that says that women have to be able to endure these kinds of attacks on their safety and and watch their families deal with it as well.

00:37:00.240 If they want to be elected officials, if they want to serve their community, if they want to just take place in civic life, that's not the kind of climate I want. 0.97

00:37:09.620 We should not. That's not acceptable. That's not a norm that we should be OK with.

00:37:18.600 We'll see you next time.

00:37:48.600 iHeart to get started. That's 844-844-iHeart. If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally

00:37:54.840 important to your personality, welcome home. This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part

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00:38:06.920 Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every

00:38:12.100 week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't

00:38:16.880 stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From best-selling

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00:38:50.440 See you between the pages.

00:38:52.480 When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months.

00:38:58.320 I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

00:39:04.620 I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files.

00:39:08.240 I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, 0.99

00:39:13.860 Shut up. Don't say anything. 0.99

00:39:16.820 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.

00:39:21.100 I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.

00:39:25.660 I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.

00:39:32.620 They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

00:39:37.100 But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.

00:39:40.560 They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:39:43.860 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:39:52.720 Didn't catch the latest Roland Martin unfiltered podcast?

00:39:56.280 Here's what you missed.

00:39:57.300 And the argument is, do you want to win?

00:40:01.300 If you don't win, you have no power.

00:40:05.060 It's real.

00:40:05.960 Those are the very people who I always say vote against their own economic interests and they complain about the very thing they're receiving.

00:40:12.100 It's raw.

00:40:12.580 I knew that the issue of transgender athletes was not going well with a lot of black men.

00:40:21.160 Roland Martin unfiltered.

00:40:22.700 I went off.

00:40:23.520 I said, this is exactly what I'm talking about.

00:40:25.540 Y'all gonna scream at Chanel, but you don't want to see a black luxury company in the same vein. 0.95

00:40:32.900 Catch Roland Martin's daily commentary on the Black Information Network. 1.00

00:40:36.600 12 seats.

00:40:38.280 Those are moving south.

00:40:39.560 So if you Democrats, you don't wait to 2030, you better be hitting the ground going hard in the South now.

00:40:46.580 And download Roland Martin Unfiltered on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:40:58.840 You know, and I keep thinking about how the algorithm has changed.

00:41:02.220 And I was talking to Annie about our own algorithm.

00:41:04.820 And because we are so afraid of social media, we stay away from it.

00:41:07.800 And therefore, anytime we do put anything up, it's ignored because we don't have a lot of content out there.

00:41:13.500 And I still think about how Twitter and I know for all references, it's just that when we talk about black Twitter, it is the community coming together and having their own space and talking.

00:41:24.340 And because they've kind of become grouped and has become a point where if you don't already follow some of these people or if you're not actually paying attention, it just goes away from your feed.

00:41:36.440 Kind of how TikTok is doing that, which is making it harder and harder to actually see what is happening and what the truth really is going down. 0.57

00:41:44.220 I have to question like so is the algorithm really a good thing in that it does this to a way you're in your own little hole and where it's putting pocketing black women who are like hey this bad thing is happening we're trying to tell y'all but the only people who are seeing those are the people who already know and it's like what the hell how do we change that? 0.93

00:42:03.180 Yeah, what an insightful question. So this is just my opinion. This is like just representing myself. I don't think that it is good to have a platform like Twitter, especially, be so tied to an algorithm. I don't think it's good for all the reasons that you just said. People, their voices can be siloed. You can feel like you're talking to the choir of people who already agree with you and, you know, know what you're saying. 0.62

00:42:31.120 and i also think that i don't think that platforms have shown that they're able to be responsible

00:42:37.380 with algorithmically generated content right now algorithms are just it's just a fact they are

00:42:43.320 biased toward content that is untrue false information travels on twitter specifically

00:42:49.020 much faster and much further than correct information they amplify content that is extremist

00:42:54.380 and i don't mean like extremist like capital e extremist although that as well but like content

00:43:00.400 that is you know more extreme than not extreme so if i'm saying like i ate a piece of toast today

00:43:09.520 and it was burnt i hate all toast rather than like oh this piece of toast was burnt win some

00:43:15.160 lose some they're gonna amplify the one that sounds more extreme because that's that's what

00:43:19.340 gets more eyeballs um they amplify content that is polarizing they amplify content that is loud

00:43:25.260 and aggressive. And I don't think that platforms can be trusted to be run algorithmically because

00:43:30.700 they are going to make us all more extreme, more polarized, less informed and less thoughtful.

00:43:35.600 I would love to see an algorithmic model that is amplified content that is thoughtful, honest,

00:43:41.560 accurate, timely, whatever. But I have not seen it yet. And so I think platforms have shown that

00:43:45.740 they can't be trusted to work with algorithmic models because they're just going to amplify

00:43:50.880 stuff that makes us all worse off right yeah and i i honestly just being new to tiktok and we've

00:43:58.020 talked about tiktok often um on the show but it also does the same thing with the fyp or for you

00:44:04.260 page where it only amplifies what seems to be uh most disturbing i say that for my own uh concept

00:44:11.720 because there's so much out there that the word shadow banning and the idea that it many of these

00:44:17.460 algorithms do this that there's enough that people can complain or make false allegations and

00:44:23.720 and their standard of what they think is bullying and or racist is not and apparently they have a

00:44:29.020 pretty big threshold of saying no it's not racist we're good even though it's obviously super racist

00:44:34.880 and the fact that they seem to keep working on that level in allowing for things that we know is

00:44:41.980 i don't know being threatened being called uh by a stereotype that i would consider racist uh but

00:44:49.080 yet for so often it's not that big of a deal they're not really threatening you like wait

00:44:52.540 yeah so we have to have a police report to actually say that we're being threatened and

00:44:56.880 that seems to be happening often in these platforms exactly and this is when i said i

00:45:01.180 wasn't really a big fan of algorithmic platforms one of the reasons is because i think that we're

00:45:05.860 as humans we are giving the responsibility of moderating platforms more and more to

00:45:11.440 algorithms or AI and AI is smart and good at lots of things but there are some things that you need

00:45:17.700 a human's take on and so Sam you know you talked about how like oh I'm being called a racial slur

00:45:22.560 or like I'm being attacked in this way bad actors are so good at using dog whistles or coded language

00:45:29.540 or things to get around AI or machine learning that is like you know working as a content moderator

00:45:35.760 and they know how to exploit those loopholes and so I completely agree especially on TikTok I feel

00:45:40.600 like they really need to make some changes with how their platform is run if that platform is

00:45:46.780 going to be safer and more inclusive. I think it was the Washington Post recently that just

00:45:51.900 did a little experiment where, if you don't follow the Washington Post on TikTok, they have a really

00:45:56.540 interesting TikTok channel. They are doing a series on TikTok where they used all these words

00:46:02.040 that they were certain were going to get their TikTok suppressed. So they did a TikTok where

00:46:07.640 they said racism, Black Lives Matter, disability, you know, all these other words, because they

00:46:15.480 were like, if you use these words in your TikTok, they are more likely to be suppressed. That's what

00:46:20.420 they were doing an experiment. And by golly, it worked, you know? And so it's clear to me that

00:46:25.700 platforms are not being run, one, with a thoughtful, nuanced, sensitive human who is able to understand

00:46:32.860 nuance at the helm and two just not being run in a way that amplifies good conversation thoughtful

00:46:38.240 conversation substantive conversation and does not amplify garbage lies extremism hate racial slurs

00:46:45.500 all of that yeah and on top of that you have again as you talk bad players who and i've seen this a

00:46:51.540 lot more on tiktok because again i'm that person um but like in the conversations are they thinking

00:46:57.880 that they're doing something good and doing that extreme call out in which they get people fired

00:47:03.380 and canceled and all of these things and go after people on just one video. And don't get me wrong,

00:47:08.520 a lot of these, I agree that these people who are saying really nasty crap and being caught on 0.93

00:47:14.040 camera or caught on their phone for saying these things should be called out. There should be

00:47:17.760 repercussions, but it's come to a point that it's entertainment almost. And I'm wondering where this

00:47:22.400 is going to lead because it's a fairly new thing out of the last five years. And I say this for

00:47:26.860 the both the left and the right that it's like this is this is getting dangerously toxic dangerously

00:47:31.600 toxic that's a whole different conversation i know no it's so funny that you bring this up because i

00:47:36.740 so i recorded the first episode of internet hate machine with sophie uh earlier in this week and i

00:47:41.980 haven't uh perhaps unpopular opinion on this when i first got on tiktok specifically i followed a

00:47:48.160 lot of creators who made content that was like this guy is a racist and this is where he works

00:47:53.360 and I'm going to call his employer and get him fired. 0.97

00:47:56.180 And I used to be like, yeah, like, fire that racist. 0.98

00:47:58.780 Like, really loved it.

00:48:00.320 As I have, I guess, matured and matured along with the platform,

00:48:05.060 as cathartic as that is,

00:48:07.600 I don't think that that is an appropriate tactic.

00:48:11.620 And I think that even if I am in agreement,

00:48:16.120 like, yeah, this racist shouldn't be doing this.

00:48:18.180 And there are definitely exceptions to this, I'm sure.

00:48:20.040 But in general, I just know how easy it is for bad actors and extremists to weaponize that very same tactic.

00:48:29.260 Right. We're going to coordinate and have all these people call this person to get them fired because we didn't like what they tweeted.

00:48:35.640 I don't think that that is a tactic that makes us smarter, that makes us better, that makes us, you know, healthier as a society.

00:48:43.780 So even when I see it happening with someone who ostensibly I agree with, you know, they deserve it.

00:48:50.040 I feel like I know how easily that is a tactic to be exploited and weaponized by bad actors.

00:48:56.180 And our first episode actually deals with this woman, Adria Richards, who I was talking about earlier, who was one of the early targets of that, where she tweeted a picture of these two guys at a tech conference who are making a crass joke that she didn't like.

00:49:09.600 And she got horribly mobbed where they coordinated on sites like 4chan to call her employer.

00:49:18.520 they threatened her employer and rather than supporting her her employer fired her and was

00:49:23.760 like okay yeah you guys want her to be fired she's fired and i've just seen time and time again that

00:49:28.980 that tactic is so easily gamified and weaponized and exploited by bad actors that i don't think

00:49:34.560 anybody should be engaged in it right and that's that's that other conversation that it keeps going

00:49:40.060 to my head is that the whole level of doxing and which is this kind of like again this is the

00:49:44.700 entertainment level and this is where it's getting really disgusting to me that i'm like okay we

00:49:48.420 have used this as a form of entertainment to see if people can be ruined yes consequences should

00:49:54.980 happen but there's this whole new level that that's entertainment now and that needs to be

00:49:59.300 a conversation like the whole gist of the entire conversation is it becomes a small thing that

00:50:04.260 becomes bigger and bigger and then normalized and then it's like we don't realize what we're doing

00:50:08.600 in that we have not only ruined people's lives but probably a lot of innocent people's lives

00:50:12.820 attached to that and then you see that okay this has been happening but these platforms like

00:50:18.920 TikTok which is fairly new are still allowing it to happen how is this not changing exactly and I

00:50:24.720 think we have gotten to a place where it's it's normalized as entertainment and it's it's not even

00:50:29.920 I mean like we're talking about pretty serious things like women running for office and being

00:50:34.760 engaged in democratic and civic life do you remember a couch guy on TikTok the guy who

00:50:40.560 everybody was so convinced was cheating on his girlfriend and it was caught on tiktok because

00:50:44.880 his long distance girlfriend films a tiktok of her surprising him and his he's not reacting the

00:50:50.800 way that maybe you might expect somebody to react and everybody was like overnight became a body

00:50:57.360 language expert and like i saw people on television news i saw a segment where they had a quote body

00:51:03.700 language expert breaking down his body language these are strangers right and so i do think we've

00:51:09.940 gotten to this place where we are we've gotten really comfortable making complete like assumptions

00:51:17.960 about people we do not know confidently going on on big platforms and airing those assumptions

00:51:26.260 and because of the way that algorithms work those assumptions will get millions of people

00:51:31.660 to watch them and then reply with their own assumptions because of the of the sort of riff

00:51:37.400 and remix culture of TikTok,

00:51:39.040 then they'll say, well, actually,

00:51:39.980 I think he was cheating like this and not like that.

00:51:41.760 Like, it's not healthy and it's not good for our society.

00:51:46.680 Oh, the couch guy was such a meme, essentially.

00:51:49.320 But you know what?

00:51:49.760 I've seen something similar to that

00:51:50.740 just recently on Twitter.

00:51:51.900 And I have no opinion.

00:51:53.620 I just was like, wow, okay.

00:51:54.700 Was it Garden Lady?

00:51:56.320 Yes, yes, Garden Lady.

00:51:58.140 I was like, wow, that just, what just happened?

00:52:02.960 Yeah, we did an episode of

00:52:04.660 There Are No Girls on the Internet about this. 0.99

00:52:06.860 Garden Lady. 1.00

00:52:07.400 So if you don't know who Garden Lady is, she is this woman who has a garden.

00:52:12.260 And she tweeted something along the lines of like, very sweet.

00:52:15.060 I start every morning with taking my coffee out to my garden with my husband and we talk for hours.

00:52:20.540 Never gets old.

00:52:21.820 Love him so much.

00:52:23.200 Love the morning.

00:52:23.980 The entire Internet was like, boo.

00:52:26.260 We hate it.

00:52:27.320 We hate it. 0.97

00:52:28.220 Boo.

00:52:29.220 Tomato, tomato, tomato.

00:52:31.060 Right.

00:52:31.360 It went from like you're being ableist to being you're being classist.

00:52:35.040 and like there are things i'm like i don't know anything about this woman and then someone went

00:52:38.820 in a deep dive into her account and said oh she's an awful person keep attacking her and i was just

00:52:44.320 like what what just happened yeah and i so that that was so interesting to me and i feel like

00:52:50.560 it's a great example of i love social media and the internet i don't think millions of people

00:52:57.420 were meant to weigh in on the morning routine of a stranger in this way like i saw the same thing

00:53:03.580 where people were like actually she's anti-vax and it's like well i don't think the people who

00:53:07.780 are attacking her are attacking her because she they knew that like she maybe posts i mean i don't

00:53:13.160 even i i can't you know confirm or deny that but i was like i don't know that that's why people are

00:53:17.200 attacking her and i you know i saw probably the wildest response to that tweet i saw was

00:53:23.540 someone being like oh don't you work and she was like oh i own my own business so i'm able to have

00:53:29.940 flexibility in the mornings and then somebody else replied oh so you're exploiting the labor

00:53:35.360 of your employees and that's why you're able to have these nice mornings terrible and she was like

00:53:39.780 i'm the sole employee of my small business and so just like layers and layers and layers of 0.92

00:53:44.920 assumed bullshit about something they don't even know but that's the thing it's like it becomes

00:53:49.240 this really really tempestuous like grounds of like okay her doing an innocuous statement about 0.92

00:53:55.240 how she loved this moment with her husband has made it some people have weaponized it against

00:54:01.260 her telling her she's all these things and you're like what how did we get here why are we here and

00:54:08.920 what is this platform yes like what like what is this platform like why am i being told that i need

00:54:15.500 to care about this stranger why why is this being surfaced to me what is going on that this is even

00:54:21.460 something that i am aware of like the morning routine of this person that i will probably never

00:54:25.040 even meet yeah i feel like so many things one of my big concerns about social media and the

00:54:31.120 internet now is you know like internet literacy context i feel like we've thrown context out the

00:54:36.300 window but also just that kind of idea where this is a lighter example but of this oh i've got to

00:54:46.060 have an opinion i've got to have a stance and i'm gonna say something and then it you like don't do

00:54:49.620 any other research into it and then when you add in like misinformation and disinformation

00:54:54.180 it just frightens me to be honest like I keep seeing all these stories about

00:54:59.080 oh this image was fake and I haven't even seen the image in question but I know that a lot of

00:55:05.420 people saw it and they believed it and like that it gets my heart running

00:55:10.180 same oh my gosh I really resonate with your point about having to have a take I feel like so the way

00:55:19.560 that social media functions, both the algorithmic nature of social media platforms and the speed by

00:55:25.180 which social media platforms tend to move, I think it incentivizes people to feel like they have to

00:55:31.160 have a take and they have to have it right away. In reality, it's okay to not have a take. It's okay

00:55:37.120 to be like, I don't really know anything about this. Me putting my opinion or my voice out there

00:55:42.500 on an issue that I don't know about is not going to be helpful. It's not going to add to the

00:55:45.860 conversation, I'll just listen, right? I don't think that social media platforms incentivize

00:55:50.400 just taking a step back or even just taking a minute to figure out what you want to say.

00:55:55.160 It's like, it has to be quick, has to be now, you have to reply, get that engagement. And that

00:56:00.240 doesn't serve anybody. I don't think that social media platforms incentivize us to be thoughtful

00:56:07.280 or, you know, our best. I think there was like, for instance, when the queen died,

00:56:13.740 I don't really know anything about the monarchy. I don't really know. I don't really I'm not

00:56:18.240 invested in it. And so I'm not someone that you would that you need to hear from on it. Right.

00:56:22.220 Like I was like, there are people who are very invested in this. Let them have the spotlight of

00:56:27.660 like saying what they want to say. I think that it's OK to not weigh in. It's OK to not have a

00:56:32.740 hot take. I don't think social media platforms incentivize or encourage us to just listen

00:56:37.720 sometimes. Yeah. And I think we've seen that seep into our daily lives in our politics,

00:56:42.700 because I just see that with politicians all the time.

00:56:45.240 And that muddies the whole conversation

00:56:46.920 because if you have this, 0.57

00:56:47.960 I don't know anything about this garden lady, 0.50

00:56:49.700 but if you have this whole conversation happening, 0.71

00:56:51.500 it's distracting from the very real context

00:56:54.380 and information we have about politicians

00:56:57.440 that are doing these things.

00:57:00.900 So I think, I know that this podcast you have coming out

00:57:06.820 is so needed and I'm so, so excited to hear it.

00:57:12.700 if you can tell us more about it.

00:57:15.540 Yeah, I mean, I feel like I've got so...

00:57:18.800 Y'all got me worked up in this conversation.

00:57:20.300 I know, we could keep going and going.

00:57:21.680 I know we could.

00:57:22.360 I mean, obviously.

00:57:23.960 But I think it does all relate.

00:57:26.120 And I think that what we're seeing now

00:57:27.980 is these tried and true tactics of online harassment

00:57:30.500 becoming an animating and normalized feature

00:57:33.560 of our political landscape and discourse. 1.00

00:57:36.220 And, you know, there's this phrase that Black women 1.00

00:57:38.720 are, quote, canaries in the coal mine for online harms 1.00

00:57:41.840 because first it happens to us

00:57:43.360 and then it happens to everyone.

00:57:45.140 And bad actors are just continuing

00:57:46.840 to use these same tactics 1.00

00:57:48.580 they were able to perfect on Black women on others.

00:57:51.860 And so I think that we need to have leadership,

00:57:55.240 people with power at, you know, elected officials,

00:57:57.600 policymakers and tech companies 1.00

00:57:58.800 listening to Black women 1.00

00:58:00.820 so that we can actually get a handle on this.

00:58:04.260 And, you know, as we were sort of talking about,

00:58:06.480 I think that our internet

00:58:07.360 and our social media platforms

00:58:09.140 have become so weaponized,

00:58:11.680 You know, it's nearly impossible to have a meaningful conversation or meaningful discourse on our communication platforms because the leaders who run those platforms have basically incentivized and amplified lies and grifts and scams and extremism.

00:58:27.060 We're more polarized than ever.

00:58:28.720 And grifters know this and are basically running the show.

00:58:32.360 And I think if we're ever planning on getting a handle on this, if we're ever planning on doing something about this, the first step has to be talking honestly about it.

00:58:41.280 And so that's why I'm doing the podcast with Cool Zone Media called Internet Hate Machine.

00:58:46.300 And I really want to chart the history of online harassment against women of color specifically and how it has led us to this current political and social movement.

00:58:56.360 And so I hope that folks will listen.

00:58:59.280 It's something that I think is really timely right now as we go into midterms.

00:59:02.580 I think it'll be timely for a long time as we determine what we want our political and social landscape to look like.

00:59:09.000 Right. And it's important.

00:59:10.320 And I'm so excited because it definitely needs to be the bigger part of the conversation as we look at what our democracy looks like in the future, in the near future, let's let's say.

00:59:20.380 But not just for the United States, but all around the world, because we are seeing similar things happen on different timelines.

00:59:26.980 And I feel like you're going to be able to bring in such good perspective and showing the present, the past and possibly the future with all of this.

00:59:33.920 So thank you. And I'm excited to listen, especially that first one.

00:59:36.720 Yeah, please check it out.

00:59:38.560 Our trailer and episode zero are already live.

00:59:41.080 So you can go to Internet Hate Machine

00:59:42.500 on wherever you find your podcasts,

00:59:44.660 Spotify, Apple Podcasts.

00:59:46.380 You know how to find your list.

00:59:47.160 This is the podcast.

00:59:47.880 So you know how to find podcasts

00:59:49.220 if you're listening to this.

00:59:50.340 So episode zero is already live,

00:59:52.620 but our first official episode

00:59:53.980 will drop on November 2nd.

00:59:55.820 So please check it out.

00:59:57.320 Yes, go subscribe.

00:59:58.820 Please support it.

01:00:00.120 It's amazing work.

01:00:01.320 Can't wait to hear it.

01:00:02.520 Where else can the listeners find you, Bridget?

01:00:04.300 Well, you can find me on my weekly podcast about women in the internet called There Are No Girls

01:00:09.860 on the Internet. You can definitely find that if you're listening to this podcast. That's not

01:00:14.400 going anywhere. So we can listen to them both. You can find me on Instagram at Bridget Marie in DC.

01:00:19.260 Or yes, I'm still going to be on Twitter. Elon Musk be damned. You can find me on Twitter at 0.97

01:00:25.360 Bridget Marie. Yes. And as always, such a delight to have you, Bridget. Wishing everybody, you and

01:00:33.100 everybody all the best as we enter into this final stretch of the midterms and also listeners

01:00:39.300 you might have heard a cameo from bridget's cat which was very lovely i'm sorry i don't know if

01:00:46.920 we needed it annoyed with me even though she doesn't have a job and like has everything and 0.96

01:00:53.960 treated like a queen. 0.92

01:00:55.160 I'm sure your cat

01:00:56.120 would be like,

01:00:56.920 oh, I have a job.

01:01:01.560 Yes.

01:01:02.920 Cannot wait till next time.

01:01:04.420 Thank you so much again, Bridget.

01:01:05.920 If you would like to find us,

01:01:07.020 you can.

01:01:07.860 You can email us

01:01:08.620 at stuffmediamomstuff

01:01:09.540 at iHeartMedia.

01:01:10.240 You can find us on Twitter

01:01:11.040 at MomStuffPodcast

01:01:11.880 or on Instagram

01:01:12.400 at Stuff When Never Told You.

01:01:13.500 Thanks as always

01:01:14.020 to our super producer, Christina.

01:01:15.480 Thank you, Christina.

01:01:16.580 And thanks to you for listening.

01:01:17.840 Stuff When Never Told You's

01:01:18.460 production of iHeartRadio.

01:01:19.380 For a podcast from iHeartRadio,

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01:01:21.000 the iHeartRadio app,

01:01:21.820 Apple Podcasts,

01:01:22.440 wherever you listen

01:01:22.920 to your favorite shows. 0.73

01:01:23.960 so if you've been listening to there are no girls on the internet for a while 0.99

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01:02:08.980 And y'all, I don't know if this sounds bad to say,

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01:02:14.560 that's tangoti t-a-n-g-o-t-i dot com slash i-r-l and thank you it means so much to me

01:02:22.660 if your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your personality

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01:03:42.680 20 minutes later, he was like, let's squash this. Let's talk about it.

01:03:44.980 I was like, no, you do not talk to me like that. That is unacceptable.

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There Are No Girls on the Internet - November 04, 2022

What the upcoming midterm election means for women online - STUFF MOM NEVER TOLD YOU

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