There Are No Girls on the Internet - When will Twitter listen to Black women？ BEST OF TANGOTI

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00:01:26.180 we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture

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00:01:45.540 There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

00:01:49.320 I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. 0.94

00:01:59.300 Black women and other marginalized folks on Twitter have been speaking up about things like harassment on the platform for a really long time.

00:02:06.980 But for a long time, our warnings were basically ignored.

00:02:10.360 Now, there was a time under former CEO Jack Dorsey

00:02:13.340 when Twitter higher-ups did kind of seem to be working

00:02:16.460 to curb at least some of the harassment and hate speech on the platform.

00:02:19.880 With the hiring of folks like Bajaya God,

00:02:22.620 Twitter's policy and trust lead,

00:02:25.080 whose job it is to curb things like hate speech and harassment.

00:02:28.560 Unfortunately, Elon Musk, who may be buying Twitter for $44 billion,

00:02:33.320 spent the week publicly attacking her leadership.

00:02:36.320 Bajaya is a woman of color.

00:02:38.500 And we already know that women of color

00:02:40.300 disproportionately face harassment on Twitter.

00:02:43.340 So when using the platform to attack his would-be employee

00:02:46.380 for just doing her job trying to make Twitter safer,

00:02:49.540 a wave of his supporters flooded her mentions with hate.

00:02:52.860 And it isn't hard to see this as a signal of how Musk would handle

00:02:56.000 or not handle harassment on the platform.

00:02:59.200 And it seems like the ultimate move grounded in a refusal

00:03:02.320 to listen to the users who make the platform what it is.

00:03:05.620 We've been here before, and it has big consequences. 1.00

00:03:09.060 So let's revisit one of my favorite episodes about what happens when Twitter fails to listen to women 0.59

00:03:13.580 when we speak up about our experiences on the platform.

00:03:17.160 Okay, so I could tell you this story a hundred times in a hundred different ways.

00:03:21.520 People just don't listen to women, especially Black women, and it comes with big consequences. 1.00

00:03:27.440 Six years ago, Black feminists were experiencing a coordinated pattern of disinformation on Twitter. 1.00

00:03:32.740 They spoke up, but no one listened. 1.00

00:03:35.080 That failure to listen to Black women had a big impact. 1.00

00:03:38.440 It allowed for the weaponization of online harassment tactics against other marginalized people on social media 0.95

00:03:43.120 and presents continued threats to our democracy and safety.

00:03:47.600 Okay, so let's just get this out of the way right now. 1.00

00:03:49.820 Twitter is a fucking cesspool. 0.99

00:03:51.840 If you spend any time there, you probably already know this. 1.00

00:03:54.680 Bad faith commentary, reply guys, trolls, harassment.

00:03:58.320 It can really just be an unpleasant place.

00:04:00.300 In May, Twitter announced they would start labeling tweets that spread misleading information. 0.89

00:04:04.920 But this comes years after Black feminists raised the alarm about it and were ignored. 1.00

00:04:09.180 These women weren't just being attacked. 1.00

00:04:10.880 They were learning about the tactics that bad actors used to infiltrate online communities. 0.89

00:04:15.240 They spoke up about what they were experiencing online.

00:04:17.880 So why didn't anyone listen?

00:04:19.460 And what might have happened if they had?

00:04:24.520 Shafika Hudson? Freelancer? Cat lady? Sometimes activist?

00:04:31.040 Shafika had been using Twitter regularly since almost its very beginning. 1.00

00:04:34.400 where she spent most of her time online connecting with other black feminists. 1.00

00:04:37.800 In 2014, while job searching, she noticed a hashtag that just did not make sense. 1.00

00:04:43.160 End Father's Day. 1.00

00:04:44.700 The people pushing the End Father's Day hashtag on Twitter appeared to be black feminists. 1.00

00:04:49.480 They talked about how we should abolish Father's Day because too many black men date outside of their race, 0.98

00:04:53.920 or because black men don't support their children. 0.98

00:04:56.000 Stuff that just seemed really out there. 0.97

00:04:58.360 I must have had like 10 different tabs open because I was also like doing a job search.

00:05:04.400 And just going about my life.

00:05:06.720 And one tweet caught my attention because it was so completely off the wall.

00:05:14.540 And I don't know who retweeted it or like how it even arrived in my timeline. 0.89

00:05:20.700 But it wasn't anything that any black feminist anywhere would say.

00:05:26.800 It was like, what was it? 0.99

00:05:28.980 Oh, gosh.

00:05:29.780 Yeah. 1.00

00:05:30.000 and father's day uh i wish these white women would stop stealing our men something just 1.00

00:05:38.380 completely off the wall that had nothing to do with anything and the avatar was someone who i 1.00

00:05:45.700 didn't recognize now the thing about the black feminist community on twitter the thing about a 0.98

00:05:51.140 lot of communities on twitter is that you might not necessarily get along with everybody but you 0.55

00:05:57.100 know who everyone is like and if you haven't met them or seen them out or you know done a tweet up

00:06:04.120 hung out at a party something someone you know has and in this particular instance I'm clicked

00:06:10.880 on the person well the accounts profile I said okay who is this I've never seen this person

00:06:17.160 and it looks like they just joined like two days ago and they're just tweeting about this with this

00:06:25.500 hashtag and they have you know the photo of a black woman but it just nothing adds up so that

00:06:32.180 drove me to click on the hashtag and father's day and lo and behold when I did a twitter search

00:06:37.660 there's a bunch of accounts that are saying things that are completely left like not left like you

00:06:45.980 know politically just kind of left like left you know where are you coming from left and I didn't

00:06:52.980 recognize any of them. So at that point, I just kind of asked a general question from my timeline

00:07:00.020 to say, okay, you guys, what's going on? I keep seeing this hashtag and these accounts that I

00:07:05.060 don't recognize with people who look like they just joined like five seconds ago. And someone

00:07:10.660 said, yeah, it looks like this is like some kind of fortune thing. That's when I really started

00:07:20.100 digging it. I said, okay, well, this is really awful because they're pretending to be Black 1.00

00:07:25.660 women who are saying these awful things. And I'm smart enough to know that nothing here that 0.91

00:07:33.340 they're saying is even remotely what a real Black feminist would say. I honestly think the people

00:07:41.480 who they fooled immediately were already probably biased against feminists or Black women or some

00:07:49.320 combination of the two I I didn't get the impression that they were fooling most of the

00:07:54.000 people I followed is what is what I mean but um they were getting some reaction that's when

00:07:59.340 Shafika went from curious to pissed I got so mad like I remember just being so angry I could feel

00:08:07.540 my cheeks and my ears heat up like honestly like you you know in the in the cartoons where the 0.69

00:08:15.320 the character like starts steaming from the smell coming through your ears

00:08:21.540 you hear the tea kettle whistle

00:08:24.080 i was curious i was like you know it's not like we don't get enough garbage online just being 0.97

00:08:32.560 black women you know with people just randomly showing up in our our mentions to argue with 0.93

00:08:39.160 something that we said not because they necessarily disagree but because that's what people do when 1.00

00:08:43.320 you're a black woman online, apparently. Because we don't deal with enough. Out here in real life

00:08:50.440 and online, we don't deal with enough. We've got this whole silly operation thing happening.

00:08:57.320 So I said, well, let me just go ahead and take a look and see what's really going on and see how

00:09:04.840 bad this is. And as I began to dig, I saw just how bad it was. And I realized that I would not

00:09:12.500 be able to point out all of these accounts alone. You know how in movies when a character discovers

00:09:18.920 this thing they've been investigating is much, much bigger than they realized? There is no Pepe

00:09:22.940 Sylvia and this thing goes all the way to the top. Well, that's how Shafika felt. She knew the

00:09:27.780 Twitter accounts pushing End Father's Day weren't actually Black women. They were just impersonating 0.99

00:09:32.020 Black women and pretty badly at that. But there were too many of them for this to be a one-off 1.00

00:09:36.520 thing. It had to be coordinated. And there were also too many for her to tackle alone. She wanted

00:09:41.940 to give other Black feminists a tool to sniff out these imposters. So she fought back with a hashtag 1.00

00:09:46.580 of her own, your slip is showing. I went ahead with your slip is showing. I might have run another

00:09:53.320 line like, I don't know, your mascara's running, something like that. But your slip is showing

00:09:57.140 just seemed to work. It really just seemed to work. Okay, so if you're not a lady from the South,

00:10:01.420 the phrase your slip is showing might not mean anything to you. Literally, it means when your

00:10:05.600 slip is peeking out from underneath your skirt or dress, a big fashion no-no. But where I come from,

00:10:10.540 that one phrase really highlights a subversiveness of what I'll call auntie speak.

00:10:15.480 Think of it a bit like the phrase, bless your heart.

00:10:18.000 A lady at church might tell you that your slip is peeking out from the bottom of your skirt

00:10:21.200 because they care about you looking your best.

00:10:23.380 Or they could tell you your slip is showing because they don't like you

00:10:26.500 and they're pointing out publicly that you aren't looking as good and put together as you think you are.

00:10:31.960 You know, just the sort of thing that one of your aunties might say to you in church

00:10:35.460 when it's, oh, honey, you need to fix your slip.

00:10:38.260 is showing except mean because

00:10:43.440 right there's a there's a difference between a your slip is showing from one of your aunties

00:10:52.600 and your slip is showing from somebody who doesn't like you

00:10:54.940 and that was what i was going with it like yeah your slip is showing i'm telling you because i

00:11:03.280 was raised right not because i particularly care about you being embarrassed i love that so much

00:11:12.980 i love how you kind of use this southern auntie expression that we all sort of know what it means

00:11:21.280 what's also funny is that i i would imagine the people who are impersonating black women

00:11:25.040 probably that probably that that nuance probably goes right over their head yes that was that also

00:11:30.860 one of the things that I also

00:11:33.040 delighted in, because of course they wouldn't

00:11:35.140 get it. Because you'd have to, I mean,

00:11:37.380 you have to be somewhat embedded within

00:11:39.220 certain communities

00:11:40.780 to pick up on the nuance.

00:11:45.060 And they really weren't.

00:11:47.040 It's fitting that we're talking about getting the nuance.

00:11:49.220 That's certain something you can't really

00:11:51.040 teach. This would ultimately be the

00:11:53.020 undoing of people impersonating Black women online. 0.98

00:11:55.760 Their inability to authentically 1.00

00:11:57.220 sound like Black women. 1.00

00:11:58.980 They'd try to use AAVE, or African American Vernacular English, 1.00

00:12:02.040 but get the expressions all wrong in ways that might as well be screaming,

00:12:06.000 I am a white person pretending to be a black woman.

00:12:08.860 This is where I should probably say that around the same time in 2014,

00:12:12.140 I noticed someone on Twitter using my photo and tweeting confusing things about black people.

00:12:17.060 I never knew who was behind it or why it was happening, 0.98

00:12:19.160 but if I had to say, I would say it wasn't an actual black woman,

00:12:23.000 because the things they were saying were just so out there. 0.97

00:12:25.420 Things like, I'm going to be voting for Trump because Hillary Clinton is whack, y'all.

00:12:30.260 Things that just didn't sound right.

00:12:32.380 Because they're not speakers of AAVE, they're approximating.

00:12:37.680 The thing that really, really, really seemed to immediately point them out

00:12:47.120 was this consistent inability to understand and properly use the habitual be.

00:12:54.980 They didn't get it.

00:12:56.500 They did not, like, they would use the habitual V just kind of, like, for the future tense.

00:13:05.740 You know what I mean?

00:13:06.660 Like, it was terrible.

00:13:08.040 And a lot of the time it was just, like, really obviously racist word salad.

00:13:13.580 Obviously racist word salad.

00:13:15.900 I love it.

00:13:16.620 My new band name.

00:13:18.140 Ultimately, it seemed like the point of End Father's Day was to see what kind of discord 1.00

00:13:21.780 bad actors organizing on message boards like 4chan could sew within feminist online communities 1.00

00:13:26.860 and to make actual feminists and our issues look like petty, stupid man-haters whose issues were 1.00

00:13:32.460 so outlandish they could never be taken seriously. It turns out this is actually a pretty common 1.00

00:13:38.060 disinformation tactic. Hijacking public conversations about sensitive topics or

00:13:42.460 wedge issues through media manipulation is a way of making people afraid of having an opinion in

00:13:47.100 public and ultimately trying to silence them. I'm Joan Donovan, and I'm the research director

00:13:52.860 at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy. Dr. Donovan says the same way that

00:13:59.780 brands and politicians realize the power of social media, the kind of people who want to harass

00:14:03.720 others did too. It can have a big impact, especially as we're using social media to talk

00:14:08.620 about thorny issues like race, gender, and sexuality. Issues that require nuance to discuss

00:14:13.780 thoughtfully. It makes it tough for anyone to have a good faith dialogue online. Over time,

00:14:19.780 just like the politicians learned to use social media, we had white supremacists figure out that

00:14:27.440 you don't actually need to show up in public to have an impact on people's lives. And so we saw

00:14:35.180 networked and coordinated harassment campaigns, it just continue, even to this day, continue to

00:14:44.260 be useful ways to shut down journalists, to impersonate different groups, and to really

00:14:51.500 cause a fracture in public conversation about really important issues that require some level

00:15:01.100 of nuance, some level of understanding, and a lot of compassion to talk about, especially racism

00:15:07.880 in this moment. People are reticent to talk about it because they're afraid of saying something

00:15:14.820 wrong, especially in the environments online where if you do make a misstep, you could get dragged,

00:15:22.080 you could get canceled. But also, some of that might be artificial. It might be the case that

00:15:28.440 people do sympathize with you. People do want to help you grow and learn. But certain media

00:15:34.080 manipulators see that as an opportunity to swarm in and really drive the wedge as deep as it can go.

00:15:42.700 A few right-wing news outlets picked up the hashtag End Father's Day and amplified it as a 1.00

00:15:47.900 legitimate feminist take. This is how Fox News covered it. Like some of these tweets here is 1.00

00:15:52.380 from Tasha. She wrote in, everyone knows we only need mothers. Why do we even need Father's Day?

00:15:57.200 Fathers are useless, hashtag, in Father's Day. 0.99

00:16:00.620 Oh, come on. 1.00

00:16:01.160 Just more of this nasty feminist rhetoric that they're not just interested in ending Father's Day. 1.00

00:16:06.060 They're interested in ending men. 1.00

00:16:07.200 That's really what they want.

00:16:09.140 But Shafika says only the kind of people who were already predisposed to be skeptical of women and feminists, 0.99

00:16:14.660 and especially Black women, fell for it.

00:16:17.120 Well, it was actually, at first I remember I was incredulous.

00:16:21.600 Like, honestly, I was looking at people like, oh, and Father's Day, feminists take a terrible turn and radical, and I was like, you got to be kidding. But then I realized that no, they were completely serious.

00:16:35.000 And then it dawned on me that these are people who could not possibly understand feminism, possibly women in general, black people, or too much of anything outside of their little Fox News bubble.

00:16:54.260 Like, that was the impression that I got.

00:16:57.260 Like, basically, if you fell for this, it's because you already had a certain set of bigotries in place to fall for it. 0.51

00:17:06.300 What was happening with Black women online is much less widely known than Gamergate,

00:17:10.580 where angry men coordinated to harass progressive voices online who were mostly women in the months following and Father's Day.

00:17:17.180 Shafika thinks it was ignored because the women who were targeted were Black.

00:17:20.900 Not only was she helping to create a tool to stamp out this kind of disinformation online,

00:17:25.060 she also wanted to document that it was happening so it wouldn't go forgotten or erased just because it was happening to Black women. 1.00

00:17:34.400 As you're probably aware, a lot of us are big on what we call receipts. 0.99

00:17:40.900 So there are plenty of receipts.

00:17:43.300 We've got the screen caps.

00:17:45.200 You can't even, you know, delete the tweet.

00:17:47.780 We got it.

00:17:48.800 We got the information. But yeah, I mean, that's that's been a big part of it for me.

00:17:56.360 And it's frustrating for a lot of us to see essentially a history erased.

00:18:05.340 It's particularly distressing for me because, you know, I'm not I wouldn't consider myself a scholar at this particular point.

00:18:12.360 And my friend, So True, who also was absolutely integral with formulating Your Slippy Showing and how it kind of played out and became a useful tool.

00:18:26.120 But back when I was a scholar, I understood that one of the things that people do when they're trying to erase the impact of a movement is they kind of start deleting history.

00:18:38.880 it's a huge feature of erasure when people talk about your slip is showing if they talk about it

00:18:49.740 or if they mention it at all it's it's weird it kind of gets vaguely mentioned in relation to

00:18:58.640 Gamergate as this weird thing that sort of happened before Gamergate that wasn't really

00:19:03.680 relevant and didn't provide anybody any tools or, you know, it was, you know, just kind

00:19:09.200 of a blip as opposed to what it was, which was a scary peek into the future.

00:19:21.560 And again, like I said, hindsight being 2020, once when you start to look back on all of

00:19:28.180 these 4chan, I'm sorry, I can't say 4chan without making that noise.

00:19:33.680 you have a special 4chan noise I do I do I oh my gosh someone else pointed it out to me it's like

00:19:40.160 do you realize that you just kind of make this disgusted noise whatever you say 4chan

00:19:45.000 I'm like oh I just I sorry it's automatic I'm working on it

00:19:51.920 when you try to kind of understand how everything happened you have to take all of it

00:20:02.160 into account. I really think that in Father's Day and, you know, consequently, your slip is

00:20:09.500 showing were a huge part of it. And it's, it can be frustrating to see it left out of the history

00:20:16.100 because it's like, okay, you're missing a really relevant chunk of understanding how all of this

00:20:23.260 mess happened. Even at a time where we're having conversations around women's experiences online,

00:20:29.220 Why do you think your slip is showing and End Father's Day and the way that women and folks of color have been harassed online pretty much goes overlooked?

00:20:36.740 Why do you think that is?

00:20:37.940 Not necessarily. Yeah. And again, it's frustrating.

00:20:40.880 And my theory remains it's because the targeted group at the time for the End Father's Day of 4chan operation were black women.

00:20:51.880 it's honestly that's that's my that's i have no other answer at this point it's been six years

00:21:00.040 i've watched this just kind of repeatedly happen and the only answer unfortunately that i have is

00:21:08.660 that okay well this is being largely ignored and raped because of who the targets were 0.99

00:21:17.320 And the targets were of black women, particularly black feminists. 0.99

00:21:23.220 We'll be right back after this quick break. 0.96

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00:22:20.920 When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months.

00:22:26.840 I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

00:22:33.220 I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor Files.

00:22:36.920 I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, 0.99

00:22:42.060 Shut up. Don't say anything. 0.99

00:22:45.040 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.

00:22:49.540 I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.

00:22:54.100 I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.

00:23:01.540 They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

00:23:05.360 But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.

00:23:09.020 They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:23:12.080 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:23:21.040 If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.

00:23:26.980 This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.

00:23:39.440 I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.

00:23:46.560 I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.

00:23:50.140 From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.

00:23:56.080 It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.

00:24:03.560 Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place.

00:24:13.160 Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:24:19.100 See you between the pages.

00:24:25.400 People who are traditionally marginalized online, like Black women, are specifically impacted by things like disinformation and harassment on social media.

00:24:32.440 The ultimate goal is to freak them out so much that they'll shut down their social media and just stop talking.

00:24:39.460 Here's Dr. Donovan again.

00:24:41.540 Yeah, so we have to remember that a lot of the ways in which disinformation is carried through networks are also related to the ways in which people are harassed online.

00:24:57.180 You know, so if you're there's a concept called gender trolling, it's evolved into trans trolling, race trolling, queer trolling, where the characteristics of your identity become the thing that they focus on.

00:25:15.180 And, you know, there'll be a swarm of folks that have coordinated in some other place, usually on a message board, and they will target specific public figures or women or trans folks or prominent black activists in order to get them to shut off their social media.

00:25:38.080 And they will use all kinds of horrendous images and threats to try to get you to feel fear and to shut it down.

00:25:50.040 And we don't see that same kind of level of threat making when it comes to trolling male candidates.

00:25:59.020 And that has to do with the characteristics of the harassers themselves, which often see the harassment as a form of activism and as a form of defending themselves or defending their piece of the culture.

00:26:16.380 And so a lot of these people tend to be misogynists as well as racists.

00:26:23.320 And in their smaller online communities where they don't think they're being watched, they'll talk openly about that.

00:26:31.720 And they'll talk openly about who they should target and why and what the problem is.

00:26:37.640 And I think at this stage, we've been through this enough to know it's a serious problem, but it still happens every day.

00:26:48.660 And especially in this moment, we're seeing an incredible amount of trolling around, you know, anti-Black racism.

00:26:56.900 And the responsibility, though, for dealing with this lies with the platform companies first and foremost.

00:27:06.240 Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey hasn't always been the most responsive to the misuse of the platform.

00:27:11.540 You'd think he'd be more concerned, but Shafika says that wasn't the case.

00:27:14.620 She and the other Black women targeted were pretty much left on their own to figure it out.

00:27:21.140 So did the powers that be at Twitter or any other social media company or any other official do anything to fix this?

00:27:28.060 No. The short answer there is no.

00:27:31.420 Now, the longer explanation is that we repeatedly brought this whole thing to the attention of Twitter support to Jack directly.

00:27:42.640 It's not like nobody knew what was happening.

00:27:46.200 It had made the news. 0.60

00:27:48.680 Like, so it's not it's not as though he was ignorant.

00:27:53.460 The general impression that I got from Twitter support was that, oh, well, you know, this is, we're so sorry, our hands are tied and blah, blah, blah. And I started looking into the tech side of everything. And I realized that that wasn't the truth.

00:28:08.400 they absolutely have and had tools on hand to stop this and they just didn't they just let it

00:28:20.000 happen they just let us clean up the mess and defend our communities ourselves as much as being

00:28:25.660 left to fend for her own community online sucked it did teach Shafika that her online community 0.59

00:28:30.240 could do a lot with a little. And while that wasn't cool at all, and hopefully at some point

00:28:38.240 in, you know, at some point down the line, they will be sufficiently shamed for it because it

00:28:44.880 was just really awful. We learned what we could do on the ground with just the very basic tool

00:28:53.320 of like community organization and a hashtag, we were able to do a whole lot to just stop

00:29:03.640 something that could have gotten way out of hand.

00:29:07.280 We outed it early and we ended it early.

00:29:10.720 And if something had been done to make sure that these fake accounts that we were reporting

00:29:17.700 had been taken out of commission,

00:29:20.980 there would have been a lot less

00:29:23.740 for Gamergate to work with.

00:29:28.460 They wouldn't have had the opportunity

00:29:30.780 to just go ahead and access those same tools

00:29:33.960 that they'd already created.

00:29:35.960 So in a kind of way,

00:29:36.900 it sounds like your work with Your Slip is Showing

00:29:40.600 and your work organizing community responses online

00:29:44.120 was kind of this canary in a coal mine.

00:29:46.600 And you all did all that you could to prevent this, to stamp this out.

00:29:51.860 But if only the powers that be at Twitter or elsewhere had done anything, then it might not be the sort of wide scale situation that it is now.

00:30:00.740 That is exactly correct. And that I know that sounds damning, but that's accurate.

00:30:06.860 They could have stopped it. They could still stop it.

00:30:10.020 But the reason why, unfortunately, and this was absolutely pointed out by people at the time and people later taking a look at the whole situation from like, you know, the whole postmortem of the whole incident.

00:30:26.420 the reason why they didn't is because of the profit model at the time was based on

00:30:38.300 number of accounts and uh interaction so you know that when you're selling

00:30:48.000 your product basically to we're the product to advertisers and whatever have you the more

00:30:54.980 users it looks like you have, the better. So it really wasn't in Twitter's best interest

00:31:01.380 to say, okay, well, we have 20 accounts with one IP address. That's suspicious and we should look

00:31:11.600 into it. And that's why they didn't. They didn't. It took them a full two and a half years, I think,

00:31:19.040 to even really address it in a serious way. And I think that was only after the whole

00:31:24.680 congressional meeting.

00:31:28.800 Like, I'm pretty sure that was after everybody

00:31:31.280 who was like the head of social media

00:31:32.960 got called in front of Congress.

00:31:35.680 Mm-hmm.

00:31:37.500 Like, that's what it took.

00:31:40.920 So that pretty much brings us to today.

00:31:43.640 Today, Twitter leads all other social media platforms

00:31:46.920 on the spread of misleading information about coronavirus,

00:31:49.560 according to a study by Oxford researchers

00:31:51.320 called Types, Sources, and Claims of COVID-19 Misinformation.

00:31:54.680 And a study out of Carnegie Mellon found that most of the accounts pushing this misleading content are actually convincing-looking bots, using Twitter to prey on people, soda vision, and increased polarization.

00:32:06.280 This isn't just an online thing either.

00:32:08.560 Kathleen Carley, the director for the Center for Informed Democracy and Social Cybersecurity, says,

00:32:14.700 Increased polarization will have a variety of real-world consequences and play out in things like voting behavior and hostility toward ethnic groups.

00:32:21.820 And this summer, as Black Lives Matter protests popped up all over the globe,

00:32:26.420 Twitter confirmed that multiple accounts posing as Black Lives Matter activists

00:32:29.720 were calling for violence in white suburbs.

00:32:32.040 But those accounts were actually run by white supremacist groups

00:32:34.880 just posing as activists and, quote, Antifa to cause chaos.

00:32:39.480 Facebook under fire again.

00:32:41.260 A Senate Intelligence Committee report claiming Russian agents

00:32:44.520 use social media sites like Facebook to target African Americans

00:32:48.320 in an effort to suppress voter turnout.

00:32:50.360 We already know that Russia used social media to interfere with the 2016 election. 1.00

00:32:56.240 And in case you needed a Senate report to confirm what Black women have been saying all along,

00:33:00.140 a Senate inquiry cited an Oxford University report on Russian interference on social media.

00:33:05.100 They found that campaigns targeted no single group more than African Americans on social media.

00:33:09.760 They posed as Black people and ran phony Black activist groups

00:33:12.800 to influence Black voters to either stay home or vote for Trump on Election Day.

00:33:17.480 The Senate Intelligence Report says the posts were aimed at making Americans suspicious of each other.

00:33:22.740 Sound familiar? 1.00

00:33:23.960 These are the very same kind of tactics that Black women like Shafika were complaining about years earlier. 1.00

00:33:30.400 Accounts posing as Black people and infiltrating our online communities to create chaos and distrust. 0.98

00:33:35.940 But because the people with power didn't really do anything or take it seriously,

00:33:39.620 it kind of exposed this massive vulnerability.

00:33:42.220 Think of it as an online disinformation test balloon.

00:33:45.900 It showed that these kinds of attacks could happen, and they'd pretty much go unaddressed.

00:33:49.940 Instead of identifying and learning to spot tactics used to make our social media communities less safe and less stable,

00:33:55.340 the powers that be just let it happen again and again and again. 0.93

00:33:59.620 I asked Shafika if she thinks that if someone had listened to Black women when they spoke up about being targeted online,

00:34:05.060 things might be different now.

00:34:06.320 It's a tough question for her.

00:34:07.780 this is always going to be a question that kind of hangs in my mind because um

00:34:19.300 while i understand that black voters were absolutely targeted i'm not entirely sure

00:34:27.100 that we were fooled do you know what i mean right like i honestly because it seems like to me we

00:34:37.020 kind of all got out and voted anyway and it also seems like to me donald trump may have lost the

00:34:43.320 popular vote by three million votes but that's neither here nor there i guess not if you ask him

00:34:47.740 he didn't but we don't ask him things because we like honest answers but um yeah i mean just the

00:34:54.400 fact that this happened like it left us arguably vulnerable and that even even though i'm not

00:35:06.920 sure how how ultimately success successful it was just the fact that we had foreign agents

00:35:12.480 targeting voting populations in the united states of america should have been serious and due cause

00:35:22.500 for alarm because even if it doesn't work it's like just it's just the fact that they tried and

00:35:29.100 that they could what are you doing like can we get it together and it's because we left we left

00:35:37.000 a door open like this this was that was a failure that was I don't want to say it was on me because

00:35:44.880 I feel like it definitely wasn't on me and it definitely wasn't on you but it was it was a

00:35:49.760 failure um on the side of

00:35:53.220 whatever agents are supposed to be uh protecting us and i i guess that offers that opens up a lot

00:36:04.940 for speculations like well you know who's who's looking after us now but um yeah that

00:36:12.460 that was a glaring example of just kind of the general failure to address something that did 0.98

00:36:21.060 not have to get as big as it got more there are no girls on the internet after this quick break

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00:37:14.320 Streaming, radio, and podcasting.

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00:37:19.540 That's 844-844-iHeart.

00:37:22.040 When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months.

00:37:27.820 I survived, and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

00:37:34.380 I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.

00:37:38.000 I just remember this low, taunting voice next to my ear saying, 0.96

00:37:43.420 shut up, don't say anything.

00:37:46.080 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. 0.98

00:37:50.280 I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.

00:37:55.080 I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.

00:38:02.140 They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

00:38:06.600 But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.

00:38:10.060 They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:38:13.660 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:38:22.120 If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.

00:38:27.100 This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.

00:38:40.520 I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.

00:38:47.500 I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.

00:38:50.760 from best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments

00:38:55.660 nothing is off the table it's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters

00:39:02.860 and that is the trojan horse whether you're looking for literary deep dives smart pop culture

00:39:08.020 conversations or a community of readers who love to think a little too much you're in the right

00:39:13.180 place listen to pro society on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts

00:39:19.740 See you between the pages.

00:39:26.740 The 2020 presidential election is 112 days away.

00:39:31.460 Digital security experts agree that American elections are vulnerable and not enough is being done about it.

00:39:36.500 During Trump's impeachment hearing, Fiona Hill, the former National Security Council advisor specializing in Russian and European affairs, said,

00:39:43.640 Right now, Russia's security services and their proxies

00:39:46.600 have geared up to repeat their interference in the 2020 election.

00:39:50.260 We are running out of time to stop them.

00:39:52.380 So what do we do?

00:39:53.740 Dr. Donovan says.

00:39:55.280 As we get closer to the election,

00:39:56.980 we know that all different kinds of tactics are going to get utilized,

00:40:03.120 including potentially deep fakes or cheap fakes,

00:40:06.520 like manipulated video, manipulated audio.

00:40:09.020 we're going to see uh probably uh clips of people quoted out of context we've seen this happen to

00:40:17.720 joe biden a few different times then of course we've seen gas that he's done that are completely

00:40:22.600 within context and a problem um you know you can't you can't forget that every once in a while

00:40:29.520 you're watching it and you're like this is this can't be real and it's totally real well what's

00:40:34.300 crazy to me about it is, as a researcher, you're supposed to be attuned to all of this, but I still

00:40:39.020 get fooled here and there. But the last thing I'll say about the way in which I think platform

00:40:43.100 companies need to better serve our political elections and the integrity of elections is that

00:40:51.100 they need to hire some serious specialists, they need to hire a whole army of librarians to do

00:40:58.760 content curations so that when people are looking for information, they find things that have been

00:41:05.380 fact-checked that are true and correct. I think that we have a right to truth. And part of the

00:41:11.180 problem is the way in which these algorithms are designed is to bring up things that are,

00:41:16.200 quote-unquote, fresh and relevant. And the problem with fresh and relevant content is that

00:41:21.600 disinformation is usually incredibly popular because there are people trying to push it and

00:41:28.280 there are people trying to dispute it. And so as a result, it rises generally to the top of search

00:41:33.800 algorithms or trending algorithms very quickly because of that feature. But will Twitter actually

00:41:41.420 do any of that? Shafika isn't super confident that the platform will do anything at all.

00:41:46.920 I haven't even thought about it. And I guess that's sort of a reflection on my general skepticism

00:41:54.220 right now with not their ability, but their willingness to address this. I have a good

00:42:02.960 friend who said one of the smartest things I've ever heard anybody say, and I quote it all the

00:42:09.340 time, but he said, when things look like they're not working out, you can always trust that they're

00:42:15.700 working out for somebody. And that's where I'm going to leave that right there.

00:42:24.300 But it looks like, you know, things aren't working.

00:42:29.220 You start asking questions and it's a whole rabbit hole.

00:42:36.160 That's the thing about the internet. There's so much darkness lurking in its corner. It's just

00:42:40.200 waiting to spill out. But where there's darkness, there's light too. Where there's someone being

00:42:45.380 ugly online, there's someone else reaching out to make a genuine connection. There's real community

00:42:50.440 to be built and laughs to be had, the kind of laughs that can sustain you through difficult times.

00:42:56.120 Being online is a constant tightrope walk of acknowledging that darkness while still being

00:43:00.760 able to see the corners of light peeking through. And even while wading through all of that darkness

00:43:06.260 and ugliness, it's the light that has really sustained Shafika. After everything she's been

00:43:11.800 through, she's still grateful for Twitter as a platform and all the good things it's brought to

00:43:15.740 her life. Honestly, it really helps that I have a strong and supportive community, both online and

00:43:25.940 off. I really am super grateful for Twitter for so many reasons, not the least of which is because

00:43:34.140 it's helped me expand my network. And I've met amazing people and connected with people who are

00:43:43.880 like me, people who aren't like me, and gotten to know so much about them and learn about their

00:43:50.680 lived experiences. And that has saved me because it helps me kind of get out of my own headspace

00:43:59.480 or likewise, you know, connect with people who understand 100% where I'm coming from.

00:44:04.140 and that's in a world where we're you know we're frequently gaslit about

00:44:13.520 the things that we see and experience uh that is absolutely invaluable oh and one more thing

00:44:22.340 that helps it also helps that i'm funny honestly um having a sense of humor and a wit of we'll get

00:44:32.260 you through

00:44:33.100 pretty much

00:44:36.020 I don't want to

00:44:38.340 say pretty much

00:44:38.880 anything but how

00:44:39.440 about this it's

00:44:40.060 gotten me through

00:44:40.740 pretty much

00:44:41.280 everything

00:44:41.760 and you've been

00:44:44.800 through some stuff

00:44:45.500 I've been through

00:44:46.960 it 1.00

00:44:47.380 there are no girls 1.00

00:44:51.920 on the internet 0.97

00:44:52.400 was created by me

00:44:53.220 Bridget Todd

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00:44:56.480 Jonathan Strickland

00:44:57.660 is our executive

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00:45:03.620 I'm your host, Bridget Todd.

00:45:05.280 For more podcasts from iHeart, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 1.00

00:45:12.660 Thanks so much for listening to There Are No Girls on the Internet.

00:45:15.340 If you want to help our podcast grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. 0.79

00:45:23.220 I survived nine months in captivity.

00:45:26.240 And I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

00:45:32.060 I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.

00:45:35.560 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

00:45:43.200 These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:45:47.020 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:45:54.660 If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.

00:46:00.780 Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.

00:46:09.040 Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions.

00:46:17.300 Yeah, I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.

00:46:18.760 Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:46:24.660 Hey, this is Hayes Davenport and Sean Clemens.

00:46:29.980 We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook.

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00:46:38.040 The show is famously super accessible, so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on.

00:46:44.180 We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller, Danny McBride, Riz Ahmed and Mary Steenburgen.

00:46:49.000 Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:46:54.660 I'm Nick Turturro. You probably know me from NYPD Blue, The Longest Yard, or Spike Lee's Black

00:47:00.520 Klansman. And on my new podcast, Delivering Happiness with Nick Turturro, I deliver pizza

00:47:05.020 to a new guest. I've shared a slice with everyone from Seth Rollins. What are you doing with my

00:47:09.700 belt? To Bill Burr. I don't think I've ever met somebody so exactly out of their mind as I am.

00:47:15.920 And now we even have more great guests coming up, including the great John Turturro. It's called

00:47:21.200 happiness. Delivering happiness. And many, many more. Open your free iHeartRadio app,

00:47:26.400 search Delivering Happiness with Nick Turturro, and listen now. This is an iHeart Podcast.

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There Are No Girls on the Internet - May 06, 2022

When will Twitter listen to Black women？ BEST OF TANGOTI

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