00:02:25.620Some of these include students or migrant workers from Africa, Asia, or other regions.
00:02:30.820People of color in Ukraine reported racist mistreatment as they tried to leave the country.
00:02:36.080The United Nations has acknowledged that non-white refugees have faced racism while attempting to leave the country.
00:02:43.000Videos flooded social media of people of color being taken off buses, being shoved to the back of lines in favor of white Ukrainians, and being harassed by extremists.
00:02:52.820And in this moment of very real crisis and very real fear, bad actors are also exploiting their stories and social media platforms to further cause chaos, confusion, and distrust.
00:03:09.680So I turned to Christopher Buzi, CEO of Bot Sentinel, a tool that helps determine real people on Twitter from inauthentic accounts.
00:03:18.740So, you know, I was reading a little bit about your background, about how you initially fell in love with technology and computers.
00:03:25.460Take me back. How did you how did you first get involved with this kind of stuff?
00:03:29.040Oh, it's simple. My mother, she she used to work for a telephone company.
00:03:36.240You know, it's Verizon now. But back then it was, I think, 9X or New York Tele or something like that.
00:03:42.240And she worked with computers. So she knew where computers were going.
00:03:46.160before a lot of people, especially in our community, knew where computers were going.
00:03:52.520So for Christmas, she purchased me a Mattel Aquarius computer.
00:03:58.660It was considered kind of like a toy, but it was a computer.
00:04:01.800It was basic and actually the language basic.
00:04:08.060And this journey that I've been on, I tell people all the time, it's real easy to say, it started with my mom.
00:04:15.600So Christopher's work determining bots from authentic, real accounts
00:04:18.520really came into sharper focus around the 2016 presidential election.
00:04:24.200The 2016 presidential election in the United States was a really weird time online.
00:04:29.600Bad actors used social media to create chaos and confusion,
00:04:33.140and a Senate inquiry found that no group was targeted for this kind of disinformation more than Black folks.0.55
00:04:39.480Bad actors would use social media accounts, pretending, oftentimes pretty badly,
00:04:44.020to be Black. If you listened to our episode last season with Shafika Hudson, you know exactly what
00:04:49.520I'm talking about. It just created a lot of distrust and confusion, which ultimately was
00:04:54.260the entire point. This is around the time when Christopher really started to see the impact that
00:04:59.560these kinds of disinformation tactics had on our ability to meaningfully connect online,
00:05:04.580especially for Black folks. After the 2016 election, we realized like, hey, there were
00:05:11.360these fake accounts that were influencing conversations that, you know, were also being
00:05:18.060used to target people of color to try to sway them away from Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.
00:05:25.460You know, I realized like, hey, there's a huge problem here. And then we started having people0.84
00:05:31.240who were calling each other bots, like if they didn't agree with each other. So, you know,
00:05:36.920if you came to my you know my twitter feed and you're like you know hey something whatever and
00:05:42.900then i'm just like i don't agree with you then someone jumps in no this person is a bot or that
00:05:46.800person is a bot and i just thought it wasn't productive and it was counter and i mean it just
00:05:53.160for what social media is and what we are supposed to use it for i just thought by everyone calling
00:05:59.560each other a bot because we did not agree that that just was adding to the problem so i you know
00:06:05.140I set out to try to, you know, create a platform to allow people to be able to identify the real accounts from the fake accounts, you know, because I really don't, even though the name of the company is BotSignal, I don't like using the term bot that much because it has morphed over time.
00:06:22.380And a lot of the accounts now that we see are not really bots per se.
00:06:27.860They're more human controlled accounts.
00:06:30.520So we like to say inauthentic accounts.
00:06:33.580So how do you actually use machine learning to distinguish inauthentic accounts from authentic
00:06:37.280accounts? Back in 2017, started working on the platform, really started doing the research.
00:06:45.460And, you know, in the beginning hit a roadblock because it's like, OK, you know, when you when
00:06:50.500you create these models, these machine learning models, you have to train it and you have to
00:06:55.940give it examples of, quote unquote, what's a good account versus a bad account. So, you know,
00:07:02.160my opinion of a good account may be different from your, your opinion. And, you know, my opinion
00:07:07.300of a bad account might be different from yours and so forth. So what I consider good may not be
00:07:12.580what other people consider good or bad. So what I ended up doing was using Twitter's
00:07:19.480terms of service, their, their, their, you know, rules. And that was the guy, like whatever they
00:07:28.520considered was breaking the rules and you know whatever that's what i would use as the you know
00:07:35.060the roadmap or the map whatever um so then started looking for accounts that were considered good
00:07:41.320and considered bad and trained the model and did this over time and at the same time building out
00:07:46.140the platform and then in 2018 launched it um and i mean i don't want to say it was an overnight
00:07:52.720success, but people, you know, pretty much flocked to it because it was something that people were
00:07:58.900really dying for because they really wanted to know who they were interacting with. So there
00:08:04.200were already a few tools out there to determine if an account online is a bot or not. But Christopher
00:08:10.440wanted to go further. There were a couple of other, you know, platforms or similar products
00:08:16.000out there. But, you know, the way that they were designed, they were designed to pretty much say
00:08:20.980like bot or not, you know, kind of like old days, hot or not, bot or not. Yeah. And I thought that
00:08:27.380was bad because it's not black and white. It really isn't. And so my system was more like a
00:08:35.340credit score system where you have accounts that are rated normal, satisfactory, disruptive,
00:08:43.020and problematic. Obviously problematic being the worst, you know, obviously like the least worst
00:08:48.120or whatever. And so people understood that right away. So they were able to look at those reports
00:08:54.220that are generated when you analyze an account and they're like, okay, I get this, I understand
00:09:00.320this. So it's not just bot or not, we have a range of different scores. I have been called a bot
00:09:07.240before if I've said something that a lot of people didn't agree with. It's one of the reasons I have
00:09:11.860my camera on for this interview. I was like, I just want to make sure that he knows that he's
00:09:15.420talking to an actual Black human who exists in the world.
00:09:19.180Do you ever just see somebody on Twitter who is just not using the language correctly?
00:09:24.880Like, I was looking at your Twitter feed today, and someone said, someone had a tweet that
00:09:29.660said, anytime a Black goes against what they're supposed to be doing or doesn't support the0.69
00:09:46.520And so it's interesting how before we just had these sort of cultural cues or language cues to help us understand if this person is actually, you know, the Black human that they're purporting to be.
00:09:57.860And now we have this tool that can really put a little bit of data behind it.
00:10:02.800This is actually a persistent problem on social media.
00:10:05.960People pretending to be someone they're not online.
00:10:08.820Journalist Juana Thompson popularized the term Blackfishing when someone who isn't really Black pretends to be Black on social media.0.53
00:10:16.300And it doesn't just stop at race. It can be all kinds of things.
00:10:19.320For instance, people pretending to be medical professionals or doctors to spread vaccine misinformation.
00:10:24.540And this person that you're talking about, we call it Blackfishing.0.77
00:10:29.000When someone pretends to be black, creates an account, uses a black photo, and they try to persuade other people, you know, in the community to do things by saying certain things.
00:10:44.480So they would say, for example, I don't like Joe Biden.0.52
00:10:47.980You know, he's not, he hasn't done anything for the black community.
00:10:51.000You know, me being a black, I don't find him to, you know, have my values or whatever.
00:11:03.420So anyone reading that will say, wait, you know, is that a typo or did this person actually get it wrong?
00:11:12.320And that applies to a lot of different things.
00:11:14.600That applies to people who are pretending to be doctors who are telling people not to take the vaccine. And another doctor reading some of what they're tweeting would say, this makes absolutely no sense. So maybe to you and I, not being doctors, we may not spot that right away, but a professional, you know, that does this for a living would say, hey, what you said just makes absolutely no sense. There's no way you're a doctor.
00:11:41.080so you know so the same applies to like you said when you know unfortunately someone is trying to0.95
00:11:46.740pretend like they're black black folks can usually uh spot that right away yeah and i also think
00:11:52.680i completely agree and i think you gave people a way to have just better conversations on social
00:11:59.640media because we probably all had that experience of you're talking to somebody on twitter and
00:12:04.300eventually you're like this person is not worth my time this person is not worth having a
00:12:08.780conversation with, or this person is not interested in having a thoughtful conversation.
00:12:12.680And I think what you've done has given people a better framework for when it's like, this person
00:12:20.380is not worth engaging, this person is misrepresenting themselves, this person is
00:12:23.580misrepresenting the situation that they're claiming to be an expert on or claiming to
00:12:27.600have experience with. Not every person on social media is worth your time or the person that you
00:12:33.680should be trying to have a real conversation with. Ultimately, Christopher wants to help
00:12:38.500create better social media experiences. One where people, especially women of color who we know are
00:12:43.740so often targeted, don't have to be subjected to constant harassment just to show up online.
00:12:49.760But what's happening on Twitter, there's also the targeted harassment side of things,
00:12:55.100where a lot of these inauthentic accounts, they purposely go after people that are either,
00:13:02.760you know, supporting an individual, or, you know, they're talking about climate change,
00:13:08.500or, you know, whatever the issue may be. And we see that a lot with women, especially women of
00:13:15.280color. You know, we're doing a study now, research now on Kamala Harris. We previously did something
00:13:24.040on Meghan Markle. And women of color seem to be like the prime target for a lot of these accounts.1.00
00:13:32.760So we started building out tools to help with that.
00:13:37.020You know, we have an order blocker that blocks accounts not only based on the bot signal rating, but also it could be tailored to the individual.
00:13:47.040Let's just say there's an emoji that a lot of these accounts are using.
00:13:50.680I can't think of something right this second, but if you want, you can block accounts that are using that specific emoji or even specific keywords if you wanted to.
00:14:00.900You can block accounts that are just recently created because, as you know, a lot of times when they're doing the swarming, when they're attacking, they will just go and create a bunch of accounts like right away and then spam you and attack you with that.
00:14:14.000So you can actually auto block accounts that were just recently created or don't have a lot of followers or not, you know, whatever.
00:14:21.420I mean, it can be literally tailored to your taste. So we thought that was a lot better than just people using generic block lists or, you know, using other products that just block based on a list.
00:14:33.880You know, you're blocking it. So I should, you know, that doesn't really work. I mean, we are trying to make the platform a place where people can feel safe, you know, that they can use our tools to, I don't know, have a better experience on Twitter and then hopefully on other platforms as well in the future.
00:15:33.600As the invasion of Ukraine intensified, we saw reports of non-white people in Ukraine struggling to get out of the country.
00:15:42.300The hashtag Africans in Ukraine was used to amplify stories of Africans being pulled off trains and buses, not being allowed to flee, in favor of white Ukrainians by Ukrainian authorities.
00:15:53.620Dr. Mbagwu, a 24-year-old doctor from Nigeria who lived in western Ukraine, told the New York Times,
00:15:59.700The Ukrainian border guards were not letting us through.
00:16:02.840They were beating people up with sticks and tearing off their jackets.
00:16:20.300The High Commissioner for Refugees from the United Nations confirmed this in a statement.
00:16:24.700And really, you don't even need to look to stories from folks on the ground
00:16:27.960to see the way that racism against non-white people in Ukraine is playing out.
00:16:31.700This isn't a place, with all due respect, you know, like Iraq or Afghanistan,
00:16:36.600that has seen conflict raging for decades.
00:16:40.160This is a relatively civilized, relatively European, I have to choose those words carefully too,
00:16:45.140city where you wouldn't expect that or hope that it's going to happen.
00:16:48.200But this clear racism also reveals a really important, yet difficult to contend with, reality about how disinformation works.
00:16:56.980That it's often rooted in actual truth.
00:17:00.560And bad actors inflame legitimate tensions during already tense moments like this to create chaos and confusion in a climate where nobody knows what to believe.
00:17:10.360So while it is absolutely true that non-white refugees in Ukraine are facing disgusting racism as they try to flee,
00:17:16.560it's also true that inauthentic accounts and bad actors
00:17:19.580are cruelly using their stories to inflame racial tensions
00:17:26.080And what's even more disgusting is that we have a digital media landscape
00:17:29.120that makes it really easy for them to do this.
00:17:32.200So what are you seeing in terms of a conversation online
00:17:34.840with regard to Black people in Ukraine?
00:17:37.060First, I would like to say that, yes, there were people of color,
00:17:43.220not just black people no there were there were you know indian people uh brazilians as well
00:17:48.660who did um who did face some discrimination i guess is how you would say it because they were
00:17:56.660not allowed to board buses now the the pushback to that was well you know where they were going
00:18:06.380um they were not allowed to enter that they had to go into like another country or something like
00:18:11.720that. Um, so like if they were going, trying to go into Poland, for example, there were like folks
00:18:17.600who were denied access. So that's true. And there were people that were not allowed on buses or0.89
00:18:24.600pulled off of buses and stuff like that. Um, now you have accounts that are popping up all of a
00:18:33.180sudden, newly created accounts claiming to be black that were saying things that we could not
00:18:39.960verified, you know, that videos that were not even from Ukraine, that people started, you know,
00:18:45.700sharing that stuff. And we can clearly see that a lot of these accounts were fake. They were
00:18:51.300inauthentic, you know, using our technology, looking at, you know, what exactly these accounts
00:18:57.880are saying, because some of these accounts were just spamming the same thing over and over and
00:19:03.480over and over again. And that's a clear sign of platform manipulation.
00:19:07.220it's so awful for so many reasons but a big one is that it creates a climate where the actual
00:19:13.520people of color fleeing for their lives have to work that much harder to amplify their stories
00:19:18.840in a media landscape awash with confusion and inauthentic discourse students sharing videos
00:19:24.500about their experiences in ukraine on social media began time stamping their videos and adding exact
00:19:29.460location codes to demonstrate that they were actually real and authentic and the fact that
00:19:34.480they would even need to do this just to be heard demonstrates how badly tech platforms have failed
00:19:40.760to create a landscape that people can meaningfully turn to for sharing and receiving information
00:19:45.960during a time of real crisis because they have to compete with inauthentic accounts and bad actors
00:19:51.240who are using their very real trauma to manipulate people. It's a complex situation, and in pointing
00:19:58.740it out, Christopher faced criticism that he was invalidating the reality of racism
00:20:03.220actually faced by non-white people in Ukraine. But even that reveals a tough point about combating
00:20:09.300disinformation. Bad actors will seize on moments of crisis and tension to inflame legitimate
00:20:15.080pressure points that already exist in our communities. The kinds of sensitive or highly
00:20:19.700charged topics that can be difficult to discuss. So, you know, it's our job to report the truth,
00:20:26.020you know, publish the truth, whether it offends someone or not. And that's what we did. And of
00:20:31.520course there were people that were just like, oh, you know, you're perpetrating this thing as if
00:20:35.220it's just propaganda, you know, our people are being left to die. And we're like, no, that's
00:20:40.180not what we're doing at all. We're not saying that this is not actually happening on the ground,
00:20:44.780but when you have accounts that are trying to sow division, who try to sow discord, excuse me,
00:20:50.920who are trying to divide people, who are trying to make people of color not supportive of a
00:20:57.620country because of some incidents that happened. I mean, look, let's be honest here. Let's be real.
00:21:04.260There's racism everywhere. There's racism here in the United States. Unfortunately, I can walk0.99
00:21:09.540down the street and get stopped by a car and God forbid I can get shot just because of the color
00:21:14.720of my skin. But going back to the actual fake accounts, they were clearly trying to manipulate.
00:21:23.340And we see this all the time. Unfortunately, on social media, Black folks are targeted a lot
00:21:32.600because whether it's Black Lives Matter, whether it's elections, they feel as if we're easily
00:21:40.900manipulated because, you know, matters of race, people get fired up. You know, people are very,
00:21:49.020you know, passionate when it comes to race and matters of race. So of course, if you see like
00:21:55.320people being denied access to buses, you're like, you know, your first instinct is like,
00:22:01.500what the heck is going on? Like I'm supporting this country and now you're treating my people
00:22:05.240like, like garbage, like what's happening. And then it goes viral. And that's what state actors0.97
00:22:11.760want. They want that. They want to muddy up the waters. You know, they want you to not support
00:22:18.080this country, not support Ukraine. So they will take a little snippet of truth and make it seem
00:22:24.540like a whole entire country is filled with Nazis and people who hate black folks. And that's just0.99
00:22:30.400not true. Are there races in Ukraine? Of course there are. I mean, like I said, I'm from the
00:22:38.120United States. There are a bunch of races here and there are a bunch of races in the UK and
00:22:42.000there are a bunch of races everywhere. But that doesn't mean that the whole entire country is
00:22:47.040racist. That doesn't mean that because these people are not allowed on the buses or not allowed
00:22:52.420entry into a country, that that was the policy of the actual country itself. And that's what we
00:22:58.580were just trying to, you know, to convey to people that, hey, look, be really careful about
00:23:05.320what you're sharing. You can be upset about what's happening in Ukraine. You can be upset about
00:23:10.360people not being allowed access to buses and stuff like that. But you can also be vigilant
00:23:14.780and not help, you know, escalate this situation on social media.
00:23:20.800Yeah. And I think that that really exposes a truth about disinformation and bad actors
00:23:27.300that I say a lot, but this was a time where I really felt it, you know? Bad actors, they exploit
00:23:34.560our legitimate tensions and traumas and triggers to manipulate us. And I know that when I saw these
00:23:40.320videos of Black folks and other folks of color, you know, not being let on buses and all of this0.99
00:23:46.440chaos, it triggered something in me. Like, that is a tension point within me personally.
00:23:51.840Disinformation tends to be rooted in some kind of legitimate truth, right? And that bad actors, they exploit those tensions, those pressure points, they exploit that within people to manipulate us. And I definitely felt it. I had to stop myself from, you know, quickly retweeting and amplifying videos just because they had caused a kind of emotional response from me.
00:24:14.760And I think that's something that we need to really be super clear on, that bad actors, they're very savvy. They know how to manipulate issues that get people fired up. And they definitely found my issue. And, you know, I think that being really aware of that is key. And then also really knowing the historical precedent, because you're absolutely right.
00:24:35.080I think that a lot of bad actors and people who are pushing disinformation just see Black, the Black community in the United States as easy fodder for manipulation.
00:24:44.620You know, we know that in the 2016 election, there was no group targeted for Russian interference on social media to meddle in the election more than Black folks in the United States.
00:24:55.780We know that. A Senate inquiry confirmed that.
00:24:57.520And so we got to keep in mind there is a historical precedent for, you know, people seeing us as easy targets for manipulation along the basis of race and that bad actors are going to exploit things that are legitimate concerns.
00:25:11.900Like there is legitimate anti-Blackness and racism happening in Ukraine. I am sure of it. However, it's not negating that to also keep in mind and bad actors are going to exploit that truth to try to manipulate us.
00:25:27.520absolutely i mean you're preaching to the choir here um and that's what we try to we try to
00:25:34.780educate not only you know the black community but we also try to educate you know the white
00:25:40.740community as well to let them understand what's happening because still people don't realize even
00:25:45.460i mean it's been several years now don't realize just how much platform manipulation is happening
00:25:52.240they don't realize how much targeted harassment is happening um so that's why i try to use my
00:25:58.880twitter account as a teaching tool um and you know whether it's you know a celebrity that's
00:26:06.120being attacked or an organization that's being attacked you know i try to kind of rip the scab
00:26:13.380off and and and let people see because sometimes you know i'll have people ask like why are you
00:26:19.220amplifying this, you know? And it's like the only way we're going to educate people and the only
00:26:25.680way we're going to fix this is by educating people, is showing them and giving them a window
00:26:31.660into what's happening. Because a lot of the researchers in my field that do this, like a lot
00:26:38.260of times if they publish their report, they don't even publish the list of accounts. We don't do
00:26:44.440that. We publish everything because we want people to understand what's happening. So whether,
00:26:51.340you know, we are showing, you know, pages of tweets, you know, the accounts themselves,
00:26:57.220we want people to be educated. And, you know, I'm asked all the time, like, how are we going
00:27:03.460to fix this problem? And I'm like, critical thinking is key here. Rethinking how we teach
00:27:11.280our kids about, you know, social media and looking for, you know, like, for example,
00:27:18.500if someone posts something and you're not sure it's legitimate, teaching our kids to research
00:27:26.800and find out if that's, you know, legitimate. Taking just five minutes and trying to find,
00:27:31.360you know, other sources for this particular story. And I'm going to tell you right now,
00:27:37.180I have seen journalists. These are professionals who retweet stories that are completely fake.
00:27:45.700And I still, you know, it happened a lot in 2016 and it's still happening in 2022.
00:27:52.380Yeah, I mean, I have been guilty of it. I have to admit. And I've been guilty of it before I knew a lot about how this stuff works.
00:28:01.980Now, when I see a story, I kind of have my bullshit detector up.
00:28:05.700There are a couple of things where I'm like, oh, I don't know. A story that just seems a little like a little too. How can I put this? When I see a story that seems tailor made for someone like me to share it, it almost seems like it was crafted specifically for virality.0.88
00:28:23.840my bullshit detector goes up where I'm like this is just a little too convenient that everything
00:28:29.140that that would prompt someone like me to share is there and so I have gotten a lot smarter about
00:28:36.340that kind of thing now but a few years ago I don't think we were having conversations about like it's
00:28:41.300good to check you know your source check your sources it's good to like verify if something
00:28:47.020seems a little fishy to you maybe google it you know I don't think we were having conversations
00:28:51.380about the importance of that kind of literacy online,
00:29:21.140Because, yes, you know, it's good to like if there's a campaign and there's someone putting out disinformation, someone is helping to mitigate that disinformation.
00:29:30.820But we need we need more people doing this publicly.
00:35:11.120supremacists that are trying to sow discord within the Black community, whatever it may be.
00:35:15.540So that should be illegal, number one. And then the other thing is making platforms do more.
00:35:23.020Because they're just doing the bare minimum. And we all know this. Anyone that's been on social media for the past month, maybe, know that the platforms are not doing enough. So there needs to be legislation to kind of force them to do more. Because why would they? Why would Twitter, for example, remove 10,000 accounts when they don't have to? Because that's money for them.
00:35:51.000When you think about the state of our media landscape, are you hopeful? Like, do you think it's a lost cause? Do you think, you know, it's just such a cesspool and these platforms aren't going to do anything and we're never going to get useful legislation? Or are you hopeful that we'll get somewhere to make it possible to have meaningful substantive change?
00:36:13.600Right. I think it's going to take a big event, maybe like a terrorist attack where, and I always give this example, there's really nothing stopping someone right now from using social media to, say, for example.
00:36:35.880I'm going to give you an example here. Let's say someone goes and they say, hey, let's get a group
00:36:49.780of people. We're going to make it look like that there are a bunch of Black folks that are going
00:36:58.200around New York city and just stabbing people. And they go on social media and they start posting1.00
00:37:05.900this stuff. And, you know, they even have videos of black folks stabbing people. Now you got a0.98
00:37:13.500bunch of Caucasian white folks. They're like, Oh my God, there are black folks that are going1.00
00:37:18.140around New York and they are stabbing people, you know, and now they're walking down the street and1.00
00:37:23.160they're nervous. And all of this is a hoax. This whole entire thing is a hoax, but it's going
00:37:28.600viral. It's going viral on Twitter. It's going viral on Facebook. It's going viral on Instagram
00:37:32.560everywhere. And it's all fake. I can tell you right now, there's nothing stopping this from
00:37:38.500happening right now. Because the platforms like Twitter, and they do, you know, like when stuff
00:37:46.380starts to get out of hand, they do take action, but they take action too late. So you may have an
00:37:52.220hour or two that goes on, you know, goes by, excuse me, before they take action. That's more
00:37:58.980than enough. And we've seen this before in the past. It's, you know, if there's a mass shooting,
00:38:03.540all of a sudden you see like the same picture from like the last five mass shootings where they claim
00:38:08.960it's this guy or whatever. And then that goes by, oh, it's this guy. Well, there's not anything
00:38:13.700really right now stopping anyone from, you know, creating like a fake attack, which I will call it0.90
00:38:19.600And then, you know, in a sense, a terrorist attack where you're creating this this this this this fake thing that's happening and people are getting terrified because they think, oh, my God, like they're black folks that are going around, you know, they're fed up and they're stabbing or killing white folks.0.79
00:38:34.760And what are we going to do? And all this other stuff. And that's just like a weird example that I gave. But you can clearly see how platform manipulation could go from something starting on Twitter or Facebook or wherever and then spilling into the real world.0.90
00:38:50.240And we actually have real-world examples of that, you know, back in 2016, going into 2017 with the whole Pizzagate thing, where, you know, you have that individual who really thought Hillary Clinton was sex trafficking kids.
00:39:12.380Then we have one six. A lot of that was organized online and it spilled into the real world. And you've got these crazy people that were storming the Capitol. So there's nothing stopping someone else from doing this.
00:39:30.500An event like that will then prompt legislators here in the United States to say enough is enough. We need to do something. So I gave a long answer to say that, yes, I do think legislation is coming. I do believe that things are going to get better. I do.
00:39:50.820I think eventually, you know, people are going to just say enough is enough and things are going to move in the right direction. And I do believe that platforms are going to be forced to have to take action.
00:40:04.520um so i you know the question i think the real question is not if what when are we talking another
00:40:10.960year are we talking five years i don't i don't have i hopefully sooner rather than later because
00:40:17.920i i want to be out of business i want bots to be out of business i want to be able to retire
00:40:23.380and not have to deal with you know inauthentic accounts and bots and stuff i mean wouldn't it
00:40:30.480be great if we didn't have to wait for some sort of you know calamitous event and that people with
00:40:36.940power to to make this change would just do it yeah like wouldn't that be great well you know
00:40:42.280something really quickly and we didn't talk about this but really really quickly so all right so
00:40:48.840the platforms have been blocking you know russia and you know they've been blocking certain areas
00:40:54.980and things of that of that nature and i've had people reach out to me i've had journalists reach
00:41:02.360out and say hey have you noticed a decline in like trolling like does things seem a bit quieter
00:41:11.420you know are you guys noticing this and i tweeted about that earlier and i said the short answer is
00:41:17.240yes there's definitely a decline over the last you know like let's say the last three or four days
00:41:24.120of just like the vitriol and the trolling i mean because we were just seeing like a lot of
00:41:29.660stuff regarding biden and biden you know he can't remember what he did yesterday you know just
00:41:35.680nonsense like that and we've definitely seen a decrease now we've also seen an increase in
00:41:43.280accounts praising vladimir putin and we've seen you know fake accounts once again saying that
00:41:52.260ukrainians are racist and it's a racist country uh but overall we've definitely seen a decline
00:41:59.020in the trolling you know and i made a joke uh not on twitter this is personally and i'm just like0.98
00:42:04.540god i wish it was like this every single day like i i wish that you can go onto social media and
00:42:10.980actually interact with people and not have to deal with the constant trolling so you know we we
00:42:17.340we're getting a glimpse of what life could be like if the platforms were actually to take this
00:42:24.960more seriously and we deserve that we deserve to be able to go on to our largest communications
00:42:32.300platforms and have a conversation without being trolled without being harassed like we deserve
00:42:37.460that everybody deserves yes absolutely especially women and women of color because at the end of0.99
00:42:45.180the day, and we've provided data on this, women are at the top of the list in terms of people who
00:42:53.200are constantly targeted and attacked, and women of color are the number one. And platforms do
00:43:01.980need to do better at, you know, curtailing a lot of this stuff that's happening. But you're
00:43:09.000absolutely right. First thing, a platform like Twitter, sometimes I get really disappointed
00:43:13.780with Twitter. Because Twitter, for me, people always talk about Facebook and Instagram. I think
00:43:21.400Twitter is the most powerful platform on the planet. I believe that to my core. And the reason
00:43:27.820behind that is because, unlike other social networks, Twitter can drive news cycles.
00:43:38.260Twitter, I can put something out on Twitter and tweet something, and it could be picked up by a
00:43:43.500major outlet or publication or whatever. Joe Biden can go right now. President Biden can go
00:43:51.800and tweet something out about Ukraine and it will go viral. I mean, it could literally start a war
00:43:58.760depending on what he tweets out. So people are using Twitter and journalists and world leaders
00:44:06.540are using Twitter to get news and information and everything out. And unlike Facebook and Instagram,
00:44:14.420it's a platform for and a hub for information, period. So you would think with a platform like
00:44:25.300this, that the people at Twitter would say, hey, you know something, we really need to make this
00:44:31.120place a lot better because we're like where people go for serious news. You know, a lot of
00:44:38.220people don't even go to like, they don't even have like cable anymore. You know, they're not even
00:44:43.100like, you know, going and buying newspapers. Unfortunately, they're going to Twitter to get
00:44:48.100their news. So you would think the folks at Twitter would say, Hey, it's time for us to
00:44:53.060really take our own platform seriously. Like they're, they're, I hate saying this and there's
00:44:59.400nothing wrong with the nfts but i'm just like why are you focusing on nft like profile images
00:45:07.020when you should be focusing on the the rampant disinformation and harassment on your platform
00:45:13.820like who asked for nft profile pictures literally every time they release something i'm like
00:45:21.340who asked for this why don't you focus on you've got a lot on your plate in terms of making this
00:45:26.140platform safer and better like why don't you focus on that i don't understand it like i when i saw
00:45:31.960that i was just like who asked for this you know so i mean look i understand what my needs may be
00:45:40.760and what your needs may be may be a little bit different from what the developer needs may be
00:45:45.560um but they need to really sit down with folks and get an idea what their platform really is
00:45:52.440about to other people and i know look not everyone uses twitter for news and things like that there
00:45:58.140are people on there who are just doing their thing i i get that but twitter can definitely
00:46:04.660drive through cycles and because of that the folks at twitter need to to to do more you know
00:46:11.480they definitely need to do more well hopefully i think that your work is really creating the
00:46:17.700conditions for them to really see that i think that's very clear to me and it sounds like you
00:46:23.300don't agree no you know something um i'm sorry i completely apologize for cutting you off um
00:46:29.700i think i i think our work for you know the general public and journalists and stuff like
00:46:38.120researchers i i think they look at our work and and obviously want us to continue and they