Will Smith's AI Fans; ICE hides deportation flights using Taylor Swift’s loophole; DC Sandwich Thrower Free; TikTok Hawks Stalker Tech – NEWS ROUNDUP w⧸ Nima Shirazi of Citations Needed
00:02:30.900I really appreciate you asking me to do this.0.97
00:02:34.760Yeah, our tagline is officially a podcast on the media, power, PR and the history of bullshit.0.74
00:02:43.060But I think you pretty much sum it up.
00:02:45.120you know, the idea of how media does does shape not only perception, but also the operation of power and how power kind of works in in our world, not just through language, but also through invisibilizing certain things in terms of foregrounding certain things, silencing certain voices while lifting up others.
00:03:07.880And so, yeah, that's that's the show. We've been doing it for now eight years.
00:03:14.920We just finished our eighth season and taking a tiny break before we come back with season nine starting in September.
00:03:22.420And am I going to embarrass you if I brag on you really quick?
00:03:25.220Because you told me something off mic that I was I gasped because I was so excited.
00:03:30.580Yes. Feel free. We I tend not to. You know what?
00:03:34.760fuck that yeah shit yeah put some put some respect on my name right here so they've been1.00
00:03:39.960doing this podcast eight seasons they bear you guys you all barely have a social presence but0.99
00:03:45.820that did not stop you from being included in this new book podcast pantheon 101 podcasts that changed
00:03:51.700how we listen from what the fuck to cereal and i mean i just can't like it is huge i was listening
00:03:58.360to another podcast that i love called uh yeah dude talking about this book and how they were0.51
00:04:04.200included in it and i remember i think i was making dinner i thought i wonder if anybody i know would
00:04:07.860be included in this book and to be in this book you genuinely have to be foundational to the art
00:04:12.860of podcasting and the powers that be have said citations needed you all are foundational to the
00:04:19.460art of podcasting because you're included so that is very very kind of you to say yeah no we're
00:04:24.380thrilled to be in it uh sean malin who wrote the book um you know has been covering the art of
00:04:31.360podcasts i would say uh for a very very long time he has been a writer at vulture and you know new
00:04:38.240york magazine and plenty of other places uh really really great uh culture critic and writer
00:04:43.660commentator um and he decided to include us in in this i you know i was thinking we would be the
00:04:50.380you know 105th podcast but apparently we're we're in 101 so we made it we made it and it's it's it's
00:04:57.900quite it's quite lovely as you said we you know we really don't talk about ourselves all that much
00:05:03.000it's kind of a you know fully listener funded very word of mouth podcast but um people listen
00:05:10.040people seem to like it uh we've been doing it for eight years and uh going strong and so um
00:05:16.400it's really lovely to be included in something without you know um without having the backing
00:05:24.120of like corporate sponsors you know we've never read any commercials or ad copy uh ever we don't
00:05:30.180have any grant money uh we don't um have any corporate sponsors as I said like we don't even0.52
00:05:35.820have a fucking website don't get me started on that but uh yeah it seems to be working out and
00:05:42.880now you know hey it's in ink it's official we're legit now yeah and to your point about being 1000.98
00:05:48.980percent listener and supporter funded. I need to just kind of underline that because in this day
00:05:54.340and age, especially for leftist media, that is it's so difficult to sustain yourself. And, you
00:06:02.020know, listen, the reality is we don't have a strongly well-funded media wing like they have
00:06:08.780on the right. We just don't have that. And so being able to be making this kind of media and
00:06:13.420criticism for eight years without ever reading an ad you know i have i've read an ad or two in
00:06:19.620my day as our listeners no no shade on that no no no aware of i don't think that's no no no shade
00:06:26.380we uh you know there's um there's there's just a certain level of um independence and ideology
00:06:34.320that we kind of agreed to right when we started um in you know june and july of 2017 um which
00:06:43.140seems both like a minute ago and uh you know three millennia and so um yeah we've really kind
00:06:50.900of kept to that and it's just it's just really nice to have made it this this far uh and to uh
00:06:58.440you know have the amazing support of our listeners um that just allows us to to really stay independent
00:07:04.520you know we're just not beholden to anyone ever and so you know we can talk about police brutality
00:07:09.680We can talk about the genocide in Gaza. We can talk about real estate interests, you know, having kind of exterminationist rhetoric against homeless people like we can do all that without ever thinking about, you know, us being pulled or us getting a, you know, scoldy email or having to worry about grant funding drying up from a, you know, quote unquote liberal foundation.
00:07:35.920You know, we just don't have to deal with that. And and I really don't take that for granted.
00:07:42.040You know, I very much have been a part of the progressive, you know, ecosystem for a long time.
00:07:49.740And I say progressive, not even leftist. I mean, you know, day job wise.
00:07:54.660And so I know that it's it's it's tough out there to sustain and to and to stay true.
00:07:59.800And, you know, we're all just trying to all just trying to do our good work out here.
00:08:04.040And I just think that the work of Citations Needed, you know, is a testament to our listeners more than anything else.
00:08:11.900You know, we have an amazing team, me and Adam, of course, but, you know, also our producers, Florence and Julianne, our editor, Trendel, transcribers and other supporters that we've had over the years.
00:08:24.200But the fact that our listeners have just stayed with us this long and keep supporting the show is just really lovely.
00:08:30.700If you're not listening to citations needed, please change that right away, y'all, because it is a it is a it is a force in this world and we need more shows like that.
00:08:39.380So, Nima, I actually have a rare bit of like the tiniest shred of what I'm kind of calling good news.
00:08:46.520I feel like lately the show being what stuff's been.
00:08:51.680Yeah. Want to talk about something positive for a change?
00:08:54.620This is a swarm. I feel like this is now a gotcha interview.
00:08:57.560Yeah. You're like, this is now it's a hostile interview.
00:08:59.860So folks know I live in D.C. I have been trying very hard to not make the entire podcast about what's happening in D.C., even though it feels like it's all I actively think about anymore.
00:09:10.500And so it's like every conversation is at the top of mine.
00:09:13.740But I do have a tiny bit of good news out of D.C.0.99
00:09:17.660So the very first night of Trump's takeover of D.C.'s police force, a man was arrested for throwing a subway sandwich at federal officers while saying, fuck you fascists on a viral video.0.99
00:09:28.960did you see this of course the sandwich man i love that guy um yeah all all all power to all0.98
00:09:36.440the sandwich people and so uh yeah i believe i saw this news too bridget um there was this case
00:09:43.500was brought before a grand jury yes um this man threw like uh like a wrapped up you know subway1.00
00:09:50.860sandwich at some fascist um in dc occupying dc yeah and as he said was like you know fuck you0.99
00:09:58.380get out of my city and like this clip went viral throwing the sandwich at some like jackbooted0.99
00:10:05.280thug's chest and then like running down the street with like keystone cops going after him
00:10:11.080and i guess they like got him and he was pulled you know his case was was put in front of the
00:10:14.800grand jury and uh i believe this is where your uh you know uh unlikely good news comes from yes
00:10:21.360the grand jury in dc declined to indict so he was free to go they so they popped this guy on
00:10:28.320felony assault of an officer charges which come on now i mean yeah i i mean i i guess i would say
00:10:34.900it seems like a little much in terms of the charges you could say they were trumped up
00:10:39.080but i do think it's a testament to how dc feels about having you know military and federal agents
00:10:47.660in our city it is pretty unusual for grand juries to not indict one of the sayings is that oh you
00:10:53.120can get an indictment on a ham sandwich but i guess not for throwing a hand apparently not
00:10:58.200i mean who knows who knows maybe it was like the you know if there was honey mustard on there
00:11:03.280you know that could be fairly threatening to an officer's life and livelihood so i kind of
00:11:08.920understand that but you know uh yeah thrilled to thrilled to hear that the sandwich man is free
00:11:14.860he is free um he kind of became a local hero here pun not intended but very much appreciated
00:11:22.220um there are you know that um that bansky photo the guy oh yeah like the the the yeah the banks
00:11:31.600the banksy uh stencil uh has now turned into like yeah like a like a sandwich thrower it's pretty
00:11:39.240it's pretty solid so he yeah he has become kind of a local folk hero here and yeah i really do
00:11:45.980think the fact that you know you could not get dc residents to indict this person just goes to show
00:11:51.640how much D.C. residents do not want Trump and what is happening in our city.
00:11:56.560And, you know, being from D.C., I've seen National Guard.
00:11:59.680I've seen what they do. I've seen them around.
00:12:02.260And what I am seeing is they are hanging out.
00:12:06.500They are on their phones. They are getting iced coffee.
00:12:09.780Now they are like cleaning up trash and doing landscaping.
00:12:13.760I saw a report today that estimates that the National Guard deployment to D.C.
00:12:16.880is costing taxpayers one million dollars a day.
00:12:20.520And I just think no matter what Trump says, he can say whatever he wants about how he said that district residents are running out of their houses to thank federal agents for being here.
00:12:32.380He can say whatever he wants. We know the truth. And I think the fact that D.C. residents failed to indict this man goes to show what the truth is.
00:13:59.220Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable.0.98
00:14:03.620I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me.
00:14:08.100I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.
00:14:15.180They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:14:19.620But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.
00:14:23.060They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:14:26.700Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:14:35.140If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:14:41.100This 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.
00:14:53.560I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:15:00.680I'm going to have to look up this story.
00:15:03.800From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.
00:15:10.200It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:15:18.120Whether 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.
00:15:27.280Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:15:51.580When she was first dating Travis Kelsey,
00:15:53.460I remember her taking some heat for using her private jet
00:15:56.920to take pretty short trips to go see him.
00:16:00.020She, I mean, she has made some comically short flights.
00:16:02.600Like she took a private jet between LAX and L.A. to Santa Monica Airport, which is it might it might take you 30 minutes by car.0.59
00:16:11.860Yeah. Yeah. Her carbon footprint is large.
00:16:17.740That's a good way to put it. And I will say she is not the only celebrity who does this kind of thing.0.98
00:16:22.780And celebrities kind of understandably often want their private jet use to be obscured from the public because it comes with all kinds of bad press.
00:16:32.180You know, if I'm in my apartment rinsing out a yogurt container for recycling, but a wealthy celebrity is taking a private jet to go 20 minutes down the road.
00:16:40.440I can see why that would be the kind of thing they want to obscure because it would come with bad press.
00:16:44.820Yeah. I mean, yeah, I think there's that.
00:16:47.060There's also the idea of like, you know, from from from their perspective, I think the you know, part of the argument is not only about like fuel usage, but about like their whereabouts.
00:16:57.560Right. They don't want, you know, as public figures, highly sought after celebrities.
00:17:03.540You know, we saw this with Elon Musk. Right. He's he's like furious that his private jet was being tracked all around the world.
00:17:12.900Similarly, the case for a lot of celebrities and no more so than Taylor Swift.
00:17:18.920I think, you know, there's been a there's been like a FAA carve out for this.
00:17:22.600celebrities for for for quite some time now a lot of private jet companies have gotten their data
00:17:29.520scrubbed from these flight tracker sites so you don't know where like Martha Stewart is you don't
00:17:35.260know where Oprah is and you don't know where Taylor is right and so I like that that the that
00:17:41.840the you know worldwide news about the Swift Kelsey engagement was marred a bit for you Bridget by
00:17:51.420by the simultaneous news that Taylor really doesn't want people to know where she is in the
00:17:57.020world. It was, Marge. And I will say this, and I want to own up front that this is my
00:18:01.900unpopular opinion. I have taken heat for this opinion and I can take it. People might not like
00:18:06.900it. In my opinion, I don't think anybody really needs a private jet. Celebrities and rich people
00:18:13.400and famous people, they have their own special access part of the airport where they can do TSA
00:18:19.020screening in private and a private car takes them right to the plane we have figured if you
00:18:23.860have money we have figured out how to get high profile people privately and securely through an
00:18:29.820airport hillary clinton flies commercial bts one of the biggest k-pop fans in the world with like
00:18:35.720a rabid fan base they fly commercial prince harry and kate middleton are royalty and they fly i mean
00:18:42.120it's all first class commercial but it is still commercial i i have taken heat for this opinion
00:18:46.740i think that we don't like in 2025 if you have money we have figured out how to securely get
00:18:54.100famous people to fly commercial securely and people who refuse to fly commercial and feel
00:19:00.060that they absolutely have to take a private jet everywhere they go even for short distances
00:19:04.300they should just say i like flying on a pj if i was wealthy and famous i would probably prefer
00:19:09.640a private jet as well just say that i i it's a little bit of a personal pet peeve of mine
00:19:15.020that we have. I like that you're being apologetic about this, Bridget, as if I'm going to be like,
00:19:19.880you know what? I'm really on the private jet side of this. No, I like I think that's a very
00:19:27.040reasonable thing to think, you know, that that maybe that kind of use of your wealth, that that
00:19:34.920kind of elitism is potentially unnecessary in this world. Right. But I think it kind of comes back to
00:19:41.500the fact that um many people and certainly many americans dare i say most americans think that
00:19:48.640they're just kind of like one minute away from being a multi-millionaire and so they don't want
00:19:56.640things to kind of be written into law that will inevitably kind of like negatively affect them
00:20:02.820when that happens right to them they're there they you know as you said it's like they would
00:20:08.560want a private jet too and so it's like they're kind of speaking on behalf of a class that they
00:20:14.680wish they were a part of but but but will will never be a part of um which i think really uh0.83
00:20:21.980you know not not to be too dorm room about it but uh you know i'll take a hit off this bong and then
00:20:26.360say that really does go a long way to keep serving power folks sorry we can it's okay we can be0.66
00:20:33.960against private jets they're still going to exist you can still be against it though no so the reason
00:20:39.120why i gave all those caveats that this is just my opinion is because when i not not on this podcast
00:20:43.900but when i have said online that i actually don't think that even super famous people i don't think
00:20:49.120that they need private jets there's always some explanation like oh well they're very famous they
00:20:55.020would get hounded you don't think bts would get hounded you don't think prince harry and kate
00:20:58.920middleton would have counted they like like we have figured this out and i guess i i just hate
00:21:04.160that we it's exactly what you said of kind of making excuses for what the powerful and wealthy
00:21:11.860do because secretly deep down we all think that maybe if you play our cards right that'll be us
00:21:17.200one day yeah yeah i have made peace with the fact that i will never be in a private jet i will i will
00:21:22.140leave this earth never having stepped foot on a private jet and that is fine we don't have to
00:21:28.160bend over backward to excuse these things that i just i just fundamentally don't think that people
00:21:34.520need i mean if if if hillary clinton of all people can fly first class commercial everybody
00:21:40.580can fly first class commercial like i don't i don't want i don't want to hear that that there's
00:21:44.900some special super secret reason why this celebrity has to be on a private jet other than they just
00:21:51.720like a private jet yeah it's just kind of easy and fun and cool right like like that's what it
00:21:56.780that's what it is um but uh yeah no i think it's it's it's it's hard to make the pro private jet
00:22:04.740argument yeah and not just sound like like a shithead like i think that's just kind of where
00:22:11.160it where it falls but yeah you know i mean we're we're all just we're all just a minute away from0.79
00:22:16.600making it ourselves and so uh we allow other people to kind of live out our fantasies for us
00:22:21.940I guess. So I understand why celebrities want their private jet usage obscured. And as you
00:22:28.360were referring to, they are able to use this little known Federal Aviation Administration
00:22:33.640program to shield their private jet flight records from public view. So Taylor Swift, Oprah Winfrey,
00:22:39.840Steven Spielberg, they have all used this program. And now ICE, yes, that ICE, the agency that is
00:22:45.660carrying out Trump's mass deportations, is using this loophole that was formerly kind of mostly
00:22:50.920use for celebrities to shield deportation flight information from the public. According to this
00:22:57.600like very interesting piece from Lever, this is sort of a new thing. So they say to obscure its
00:23:03.480planes, which ship immigrants out of the country on deportation flights, ICE is taking advantage
00:23:07.840of a longstanding program created by the private jet lobby. For years, the scheme has allowed
00:23:12.880celebrities and Wall Street CEOs to partially block their flight data from public view. So
00:23:18.100the reason why this program exists at all is thanks to the corporate jet lobby. Deportation
00:23:23.820flights, just like those celebrity PJ flights, can be tracked in real time still using other public
00:23:29.480data. But ICE's use of the FAA's private jet blacklist program really does underscore how
00:23:35.980this growing push for obscuring all of this by the corporate jet lobby is being used to limit
00:23:42.860public oversight over ICE's immigration crackdown, right? Like, and apparently this is
00:23:49.820really unprecedented. It's crazy to me to think that they're using this carve out thanks to
00:23:57.640celebrities and wealthy people in the corporate debt lobby to really be able to obscure from the
00:24:02.400American people what is happening when it comes to deportations. Yeah, well, I mean, I think this
00:24:07.140really shows how interconnected fascism is with privatization and corporatization right and so
00:24:16.680um you know a fundamental component of of a fascist state uh is the like selective
00:24:25.020privatization of certain companies certain industries that benefit wealthy uh supporters
00:24:34.160of the fascist regime, right? Primarily. And so you can kind of see here how celebrity culture,
00:24:42.000private jet lobbies, these luxury industries are now kind of writing the playbook for
00:24:52.620anti-regulation, for anti-oversight that we're seeing from this clearly fascist administration
00:25:03.280uh all i'll say is is you know i'm surprised it took this long right um i think i think that
00:25:10.520it's a it's a it's a it's a kind of clever synergy here um that a kind of anti quote unquote
00:25:20.560surveillance um you know pro-privacy uh lobby that only benefits the super rich and i say
00:25:29.700like not just rich right but like like rich rich rich private jet rich um epstein rich right and so
00:25:41.760that carve out that kind of you know goes under the radar from public knowledge because like why
00:25:50.160would anyone know that that exists um and until you know that it exists you know uh you kind of
00:25:56.280wouldn't think about it. Now that that is being revealed because of how it is being weaponized
00:26:03.920in service of deportation, in service of racism and xenophobia by the Trump administration's
00:26:14.200deportation project. Now it's kind of, you know, you're able to see where those where those
00:26:21.460connections kind of already exist, right? Yeah, it's so clearly interconnected. And
00:26:29.420yeah, I think that when we when we justify these carve outs for the super wealthy billionaires,
00:26:36.080very wealthy, very powerful people, it is connected to the way that the government is
00:26:40.580able to obscure from the American people what is going on with ICE deportations. And you might not
00:26:44.900think it, you might not see it when you're saying, oh, well, just let Oprah be on her private jet.
00:26:49.980but obviously all of this stuff is interconnected and you mentioned earlier elon musk and you know
00:26:56.280so if this all sorry about that i know we we used to have a thing on the show where we do like a
00:27:01.600musk alert where it was like just so you know we're gonna talk about apologies yeah trigger
00:27:07.500warning elon musk uh but so folks if this sounds familiar folks might recall as you were saying
00:27:13.020that elon musk was pretty kind of irate about this a little bit of recent history so this guy named
00:27:19.080Jack Sweeney. He's an online researcher. He became kind of famous for tracking private jets
00:27:25.160owned by people like Elon Musk and Taylor Swift. He was providing real-time information about the
00:27:31.480whereabouts of their jets. And kind of unsurprisingly, people like Taylor Swift and Elon
00:27:36.640Musk did not like this. Both Swift and Musk were angered by Sweeney's live trackers. And in December
00:27:45.1202023, Taylor Swift's lawyer sent Sweeney a cease and desist letter. Elon Musk, for a time,
00:27:50.740banned Sweeney's Elon Jet account that tracked his jet location, but he refused to take these
00:27:56.760trackers down. And so interestingly, this is something that I really think is a crucial point
00:28:01.640here. So because Taylor Swift and Elon Musk both take advantage of this LADD kind of blacklist,
00:28:09.740which obscures them from FAA public flight tracking data, you know, sites like FlightAware,
00:28:16.460because they are on that list, it's harder to track them.
00:28:19.880But because Sweeney is like an aviation nerd, he's figured out a workaround.
00:28:25.020And so his jet tracking relies entirely on crowdsourced flight data collected by volunteers around the world
00:28:31.260who use their own DIY receivers to pick up live data from planes overhead,
00:28:35.620allowing him to bypass this LADD blacklist program that these wealthy people have been
00:28:42.780taking advantage of and so yeah to me this is like a win for aviation nerds where it's like well
00:28:48.180you can't stop me from standing outside and collecting data and telling other aviation
00:28:52.800nerds where what that data is yeah yeah no I I like the idea that they're standing up like that
00:29:00.060they're just like looking up in the sky and like writing down like what's the serial number on the
00:29:05.320bottom of that wing but no i think it's uh certainly important that there are people that um
00:29:10.740are are adamant about uh transparency and adamant about doing this this kind of work so that even
00:29:19.960when their accounts are frozen even when they are banned from certain platforms um you know hey the
00:29:27.100truth will get out exactly so even though these ice flights are trying to get around transparency
00:29:32.780by using this loophole that allows them to be blacklisted,
00:30:27.220I mean, you know, I think the idea that the the deportation regime right now doesn't want people to know what's going on tells you everything.
00:30:40.420Right. You know, the idea that that if they can just disappear as many people as possible without anyone knowing, then, you know, then it's not going to be a story.
00:30:53.520and people are going to are going to stop caring.1.00
00:30:56.140But that every kind of chink in that in that armor of weaponizing these kind of fascist1.00
00:31:02.840modes of, you know, preventing information from getting out there is good.1.00
00:31:08.040And so, you know, it's it's it's great that there, you know, that there are people out
00:31:12.480there doing this doing this good work.
00:32:49.340They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:32:53.800But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.
00:32:57.260They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:33:00.880Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:33:09.320If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:33:15.260This 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.
00:33:27.740I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:33:34.840I'm going to have to look up this story.
00:33:37.980From best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table.
00:33:44.380It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:33:52.300Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place.
00:34:01.460Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:34:19.040Let's talk about the Microsoft protest because we did an episode of this show back in 2020 about protesters and advocacy work from rank and file tech workers who were kind of agitating and advocating from within tech companies.
00:34:32.200A lot of people have suggested that the shifting climate in tech, things like job scarcity, layoffs, concerns about AI, all of these like very real things.
00:34:43.920But that has essentially quieted this wave that we saw in 2020 of activism and advocacy from within tech workers, from like rank and file tech workers.
00:34:54.280But I am proud to say that that has not stopped because Microsoft this week had to temporarily lock down a building at its headquarters after protesters managed to get inside of the office of the company's president.
00:35:06.480So current and former Microsoft workers basically held a sit-in slash protest inside Brad Smith of Microsoft's office, demanding that the company cut ties with the Israeli government as part of the group No Azure for Apartheid.
00:35:22.680Smith said that out of the seven people who entered his office, two were active Microsoft employees.
00:35:28.580Eventually, Microsoft called the police and had them removed.
00:35:31.760Brad Smith was quoted as saying, quote, obviously, when seven folks do as they did today,
00:35:36.360storm a building, occupy an office, block other people out of the office, plant listing devices,
00:35:41.660even in crude form in the form of telephone, cell phones hidden under couches and behind books.
00:35:46.420That's not OK, he told reporters during a briefing.0.95
00:35:49.280Now, what is apparently okay is for Microsoft to continue to facilitate the genocide of the Palestinian people. That apparently is okay. What is not okay is for people to have a problem with that, right?0.93
00:36:07.820And so, you know, you see here kind of a clear reframing of what is important in the story here, you know, on on Citations Needed, my show, we talk about how things are framed, what is what is made kind of apparent, what is kept outside of the discourse.
00:36:26.900And so, you know, the reporting on on the Microsoft protests kind of takes them as like this disturbing the peace story, right?
00:36:39.560Like, like, what are we supposed to do about this? Right.
00:36:41.360Like, OK, people are up in arms and they're very moral and sure.
00:36:46.600But, hey, you know, you can't just go and like occupy a building.
00:36:51.560You can't just go and like chant slogans in a lobby of a corporate headquarters like, you know, like both things can be true at the same time.
00:37:00.200But what that is doing, like that framing of the story is deliberately obscuring the purpose of the protest.
00:37:06.900Right. The purpose of the protest is to stop the you know, this this massive tech company, one of the biggest companies on planet Earth from working hand in hand with a genocidal government.
00:37:21.380and a genocidal military to track the people
00:37:25.900that they are then targeting to slaughter in Gaza, right?
00:37:30.260Like they have been collecting cell phone data,
00:37:33.000location data, they have all this stuff
00:37:35.300and they feed this data from Microsoft to Israel0.59
00:37:39.260to facilitate what is now a nearly two-year genocide.
00:37:43.600And yes, of course, history did not start two years ago,
00:37:49.520But in this in this case, the idea that there are people who are saying that is not OK, that becomes the kind of background story.
00:38:00.940But the foregrounded story is like, well, the CEO was like disrupted from having like his, you know, team's call.
00:38:11.420And so therefore that has to be stopped. And so like, you know, hey, you know, like, what's he supposed to do?
00:38:16.380So he called the cops. And now like 100 people were arrested. And, you know, so I just think like I love that you're bringing this up, Bridget, because it's important to not just kind of take the story that we're reading or seeing in the media at face value, but to realize what the story behind the story is and what is actually kind of being allowed to be discussed while at the same time, what is being deliberately obscured.
00:38:41.140No, absolutely. So one of the points that really struck me about how Brad Smith was sort of responding to this was he sort of positioned himself as being like, oh, there was this big disturbance in the office. I don't know what that was about. But then also kind of saying that he doesn't really he can't really say what Microsoft's technology is being used for. Something that I have a really hard time believing.
00:39:03.680So this is from NBC. They write, The Guardian reported earlier this month that Israel's military used Microsoft's Azure cloud infrastructure to store Palestinian phone calls, leading the company to authorize a third party investigation into whether Israel has drawn on the company's technology for surveillance.
00:39:19.900I think the reasonable step from us is clear in this kind of situation to investigate and get to the truth of how our services are being used, Smith said.0.98
00:39:28.080Bullshit. I have such a hard time believing that they need to do an investigation to find out how their services are being used.0.88
00:39:39.120I'm not buying it. You shouldn't be selling it.
00:39:42.200No, exactly. This is like the living embodiment of the like Claude Rains Casablanca, you know, gif of like, I'm shocked, shocked that there's gambling going on in this, you know, casino, basically. Right. You know, so, yeah, I mean, the idea that the idea that Microsoft would a not know what it come on, obviously knows what it's doing.
00:40:05.640But also, you know, I have to say, I love the kind of always go to line.
00:40:11.900And we've actually done a show about this ourselves, this go to line about, well, there needs to be an investigation.
00:40:19.140Let's let's get an independent investigator or we'll do it ourselves.
00:40:25.840You know what? Why don't we have the Israeli military investigate what Microsoft is doing?
00:40:31.560And then we'll tell you if it was, you know, good or bad.
00:40:58.440We're not the arbiters of what is good or bad.
00:41:01.560And so therefore their profit motive is going to be paramount, right? Like, and, and, and, and their own complicity in the, you know, murder of hundreds of thousands of people, or even if it was just literally one person, right?
00:41:23.240It doesn't matter. Their complicity winds up being totally irrelevant to them.
00:41:28.780And that has everything to do with the function of profit over people so that you can kind of see the multiple things going on here.
00:41:36.480Right. That even the the kind of normal appeal that I think we hear all the time from corporations or from, you know, companies saying, hey, it's just our product.
00:41:47.200We can't control how people are using it is the same thing as what we've heard from tobacco companies, from what we've heard from gun companies, what we've heard from, you know, cat bulldozers that have been used to, you know, destroy homes in the West Bank.
00:42:03.100Right. Like it has nothing to do with us. We just create the product and then people can use it for whatever. Right.
00:42:10.780If you want to use, you know, an AR-15 to, you know, advocate for trans rights, well, then sure.
00:44:19.560It's, you know, hey, that has nothing to do with us.
00:44:21.820but like, you can clearly see why that's a problem. And so like the idea that tools and
00:44:27.780technology, um, are just as deadly as bombs and bullets is a fundamentally important thing.
00:44:34.380I think for us all to realize, yes, of course you can't just, um, then ban everything in the world,
00:44:40.240I guess, or maybe you can, but, uh, but I do think that this idea of, of sort of like feigned
00:44:46.260incredulity that's like, Hey man, we're just like, we're just like creating this spreadsheet
00:44:51.540tool like i don't know who's using it like it it as you said falls apart at the slightest bit
00:44:58.020of of like good faith scrutiny and to make matters even worse bloomberg reported that microsoft
00:45:04.820even sought the fbi's help to investigate these pro gaza protesters so basically they requested
00:45:12.360help from the fbi in tracking protests and they worked with authorities to try to prevent them
00:45:16.620And they flagged internal emails containing words like Gaza and even deleted internal posts about the protest.
00:45:24.360This is according to employees and documents reviewed by Bloomberg.
00:45:27.800They also suspended and fired protesters who disrupted these events.
00:45:31.700I do love how Brad Smith, he took this sort of weird stance where it's like, well, we really value and appreciate our employees and like what they have to say.
00:45:42.320And we really want to hear staff opinions, but we will call the FBI to have to be investigated.
00:45:55.600Like it doesn't it doesn't really it doesn't really work that way.
00:46:00.480Except if you're Microsoft, you know, hey, you can just you can just call in the feds and and they'll and they'll do your dirty work for you.
00:46:08.720I mean, this all you know, this all has to do with the idea of controlling information.
00:46:12.320which also we've seen in terms of, you know, since we're talking about Israel and Gaza, the the ongoing deliberate targeting of Palestinian journalists, which is is is mind boggling.
00:46:29.800If you look at the if you look at the numbers, hundreds of journalists have been have been targeted and slaughtered by Israel just for doing the work of telling people what is happening.
00:46:42.620I mean, this is the first live streamed 4K genocide in human history, and that is a real problem, apparently, for the Israeli government and military.
00:46:52.920And so they are going after the journalists are going after the people who are sharing this information.
00:46:58.880And so, you know, it may not seem like a straight line from Microsoft calling in the FBI to police its own workforce.
00:47:07.980But when you think about what it means to control the conversation, what it means to silence certain voices while having other voices have huge platforms, that's when you start to see how important controlling information, how important media is in sustaining what we believe to be our own kind of like free press, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom to assemble.
00:47:35.840These things are all being done under a, I would say, less than free infrastructure.
00:47:43.560And it goes back to what you were saying about how a lot of these stories have been reported, because so many of them, they frame the agitation of their of Microsoft's 50th anniversary programming or whatever as the important nugget and not the more important nucleus of like, oh, tech workers from within this company are speaking up about a genocide.
00:48:04.520and their technology that they're working on
00:48:28.900whenever you're writing any of these stories, right?
00:48:31.520And so Microsoft and the kind of compliant media that is then reporting on this stuff, and that's not everyone. I don't want to be a jerk about that. I think there are some articles about the Microsoft stuff that are revealing amazing stuff, right? And important stuff. So I'm not saying like every single article that anyone reads on this is going to have some shitty framing.0.98
00:48:49.420But the idea that these stories are framed around the disruption to business as usual without identifying the business as usual as being that which facilitates and is complicit in an ongoing genocide.
00:49:07.300Right. And so you kind of decide how the story is being told, just like when we hear about October 7th, 2023, as this inciting incident that has now led us to Gaza being subject to mass starvation deliberately.
00:49:25.080you're still deciding to start that story on October 7th of 2023, whereas every day before
00:49:33.020October 7th, even just within that year, within 2023, one Palestinian per day was already being
00:49:41.040killed by Israel. And if you go back further, whether it is 50 years, whether it is 80 years,
00:49:47.820whether you go to the Nakba or before, you kind of have a different idea of history, right? Like
00:49:55.800there's a different trajectory. October 7th doesn't come from nowhere. But when you start
00:50:01.920a story there, you are deciding that everything beforehand is unimportant context and that
00:50:09.380therefore we are identifying who the victims are, who the oppressors are, who the violent ones are,
00:50:14.540who the peaceful ones are, just in the way that we're setting up our story.
00:50:18.100And so I think you're seeing that at kind of a grand human catastrophe level when it's0.86
00:50:23.640about Gaza, and then you're seeing those kind of residual effects when it's about a
00:50:50.320Okay, so one of my favorite tech outlets, 404 Media, if you listen to the show, you know I'm a huge fangirl of them.
00:50:57.320They have another great expose about the fact that TikTok Shop is essentially selling stalker gear.
00:51:04.980So TikTok Shop is selling GPS trackers that are explicitly marketed with viral TikTok voiceover, encouraging folks to use them to track secretly a romantic partner.
00:51:18.380Some of these videos have millions of views and TikTok Shop's own metrics show that more than 100,000 of these devices have been sold.
00:51:26.280So they're basically these tiny secret listing devices so that you can bug your partner's conversations or that you can track their locations.
00:51:37.380404 Media found a handful of accounts promoting these type of trackers.
00:51:41.300And this is a kind of a common TikTok shop thing.
00:51:44.680There are several different versions on TikTok shop.
00:51:47.380So some of them, people are like, it doesn't even work.
00:51:50.300But that's like a TikTok shop thing where it's like, oh, yeah, some of them are going to be garbage.
00:51:53.820So once I looked at these videos, I just saw one.
00:51:58.420My TikTok algorithm started showing me tons of them.
00:52:01.520Like, I watched one of these videos to get a sense of it for the show.
00:52:06.140And now my TikTok algorithm is like, oh, clearly Bridget's got somebody in her life she wants to stalk and track.
00:52:15.100We can, you know, we're going to sell Bridget all the air tags in the world at this point.
00:52:21.240So this is not an isolated thing. 404 reported that one of the clips that they saw had 86,500 likes and links to that tracker had over 32,000 sales of the tracker. Another video from the same vendor had 97,900 sales. And there are thousands and thousands of accounts basically offering the same products with a similar branding and scripts.
00:52:45.740here is something really horrifying in one of the comments of the videos a user says quote
00:52:51.380i bought some of this and put it on the cars of the girls i find attractive at the gym the
00:52:57.540original poster responds with okay crying face emoji yeah that's the level of of stalker discourse
00:53:04.640i guess that that we're that we're at right now so the selling these trackers is pretty clearly
00:53:11.100against tiktok's policies which bans the promotion of criminal activities that may harm people
00:53:16.100animals or property but when 404 media reached out to tiktok about these videos they had seen
00:53:21.060doing exactly that tiktok said quote we don't allow content encouraging people to use devices
00:53:28.160for secret surveillance and have removed this content and banned the account that posted it
00:53:32.080we further prohibit the sale of concealed video or audio recording on the platform however 404
00:53:38.160media was able to find many, several more almost identical videos on the platform the
00:53:44.000very next day, really raising the question of just how proactively the platform is monitoring
00:53:51.020Well, yeah, because you get into the kind of, you know, PR piece of it, which is like
00:53:55.520the TikTok comms team got together and they were like, we're going to release a statement
00:53:59.760that we don't condone this stuff and it's in our fine print and yada, yada, yada.
00:54:03.000But if that doesn't then translate into actual accountability or regulation of this, then you just get into talking points, right? Like then we're just talking about talking points.
00:54:15.960When what these products are doing in there and their promotion and certainly promotion that is done algorithmically, right, to reach exponentially more and more people, there's a real danger there.
00:54:32.820I mean, this this is this is truly a way that can that can facilitate great personal harm to people, let alone, you know, loss of privacy.
00:54:43.620But, yeah, I think you kind of get into this like PR speak versus actual accountability.
00:54:50.020Totally, totally. I mean, you and I have done similar kinds of work where you flag things to tech companies and it's like, oh, we've taken this down and don't condone it.
00:54:58.500There is a million more up just like it, but don't worry about that.
00:55:02.820And I will say, so using devices like this to stalk people and track people is illegal in a lot of places.
00:55:10.460Eleven states have criminalized the use of GPS trackers in their anti-stalking legislation.
00:55:15.120But this is something that I found so wild, which is that according to this piece in 404, I guess I didn't, I never really thought about it.
00:55:22.840Like, this apparently is a it's a common attitude that this kind of thing, like planting GPS tracking devices or listing devices on a partner is no big deal if you suspect that partner is cheating.
00:55:37.200404 spoke to Eva Galprin, co-founder of the Coalition Against Stalkerware and director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who said that the TikTok videos really reflect an extremely common attitude.
00:55:50.300Quote, you would be amazed how many people think that stalking or recording or stalkerware is perfectly justified as long as they think their partner is up to something like cheating.
00:56:01.520They also quote this survey from 2021 that found that 30% of the 21,000 plus respondents found no problem in secretly recording their partner under certain circumstances.
00:56:13.980And that same survey found that 29 percent of respondents had been digitally stalked or had their location tracked.
00:56:20.440So I guess as horrible as it is that TikTok would be used as a marketplace to sell this kind of thing and market it explicitly for this kind of use case, even if it breaks the law, is that there is, I guess, a cultural attitude that that kind of thing is OK, which frankly shocked me.
00:56:37.960Well, I think that our surveillance culture has gotten to the point where there's this assumption that, hey, this is just what it is now. Yeah, this idea that the advancements of technology or I sound like the oldest man ever, the advancements of where we are in the fucking world right now, right? With these supercomputers in our pockets, that has become no big deal.0.71
00:57:02.140That is just what it is to live. That is, you know, what it is to exist, what it is to be human. And therefore, you know, hey, what are you really going to do about it? And so you might as well just, you know, stalk people because basically our phones are stalking us anyway.
00:57:20.640So why don't I just put that to, you know, my personal use? I think what's even creepier about this is, Bridget, what you just said in terms of, you know, people are saying that it's OK if you just suspect your partner of cheating, which just sort of minority reports our entire relationships.
00:57:46.740Right. You know, not to say that cheating is awesome, but also stalking people is is also bad.
00:57:54.320And so, you know, maybe deal with your relationship in a different way than than stalking your partner.
00:58:01.180Maybe have, I don't know, a fucking conversation with them and maybe not rely on tech to kind of do your your relationship work for you.
00:58:11.660Oh, this is I completely agree. And it came up in our episode about the T app where I do think that our current culture where we've got technology and surveillance sort of baked into it has made folks feel like you don't need to have honest conversations, be open and honest.
00:58:31.320like i i really do i understand that people like i don't like the idea of being cheated on i don't
00:58:36.760think that cheating is a a cool thing to do as you said but relying on surveillance and technology to
00:58:44.620to to like supplement having a conversation being open about expectations in a relationship being
00:58:53.220open about what you are and what boundaries and all of that i think that we've gotten to a place
00:58:57.320where if you can just put a tracker on somebody
00:59:25.840um pretty hard to come by i mean if the tf episode was any indication yeah very hard to come by
00:59:35.620this is actually a very good segue into one of the last stories i wanted to talk about which is
00:59:40.760how can you trust what you're seeing online from people like will smith so i only recently kind of
00:59:50.060found out that wolf myth is kind of on a big comeback tour and this this sort of missed me
00:59:55.560i didn't know that this was what he was up to this alone is shocking news folks don't you find
01:00:00.920that shocking i i genuinely did not know that you you shared this story with me bridget um you know
01:00:06.920a little little uh sausage making behind the curtain here um bridget gave me a heads up on
01:00:11.480this story uh before we started recording folks um and i like my jaw dropped not at what we're
01:00:19.360about to tell you about will smith but just that will smith is like on a tour where he's like
01:00:26.160performing for crowds it's just it's just a very kind of bonkers thing that i didn't
01:00:33.920think was uh happening right now i mean you know i will admit um me following will smith um as a
01:00:41.700as a uh you know musical artist pretty much tapered off after 1988's release of you know
01:00:50.240Fresh Prince and DJ Jesse Jeff's album He's the DJ I'm the Rapper which I mean for those who don't
01:00:55.940know has both Parents Just Don't Understand and Nightmare on My Street on that album um so it's
01:01:02.440phenomenal but like you know even if I did follow after that I think like by the time he was doing
01:01:08.100wild wild west i was tuned out um and and this is this is nothing against will smith although
01:01:13.640sure everything against will smith i don't care but like i actually really enjoy him as as as an
01:01:20.600actor but the fact is he's on tour right now in like europe um performing and i just didn't think
01:01:29.380that was that was going on i kind of want to hear from like chris rock about that so wait you weren't
01:01:34.560around for the willennium i was around for willennium but i what i didn't i didn't care as
01:01:41.360much i will say big willy style has some bangers and i i have to give a little bit justice for wild
01:01:46.760wild west it's not as bad of a movie as you think kevin klein is in it and kenneth branagh yes this
01:01:53.480is a podcast where we try to reclaim bad movies i know i know producer mike has a little bit of a
01:01:59.920soft spot for wild wild west not to put you on the spot that's that's i owned it on dvd when i
01:02:04.840was in middle school oh hell yeah okay so will smith is touring europe it has not gone well
01:02:13.700he's gotten lots of like bad press and some very cringy videos of him performing in front of crowds
01:02:20.100and now it has gone from bad to worse because allegedly he has been caught using ai to generate
01:02:25.780like massive cheering crowds at his performances these videos they're like Beatlemania but it's
01:02:33.080Will Smith they're they're they're like it is massive massive crowds and they have these
01:02:39.000signs of people that people are holding up that say things like your music helped me beat cancer
01:02:45.300Futurism has a very funny piece on this where they've taken stills from the video and zoomed
01:02:52.000in on them and it truly looks like a like a body horror movie if you've seen the movie
01:02:56.720the substance no spoilers but like that's the level when you look at these images that is the
01:03:02.360level of obvious ai that is going on to generate these crowds and when you really look it's like
01:03:10.000the the images are ghoulish the crowd scenes that the faces look tormented they're melting together
01:03:16.660under these Will Smith banners, you know, there's one banner that says from West Philly to West
01:03:22.340Swiggy, we heart you, Will, but it's all garbled because it's AI. It just looks, I mean, it truly
01:03:28.920looks like something out of a body horror film where all these limbs are like melted together
01:03:33.260in one big Will Smith mass. So can I just say that this is the one story that I find delightful
01:03:40.020that that we're talking about i'm kind of on everybody's side for this one like i don't
01:03:47.000fundamentally care that will smith's whatever pr team agents uh concert promoters uh whatever it
01:03:58.260may be are doing these ai crowds like something is not offending my soul about that and yes we
01:04:06.140should be talking about ai we should be talking about you know uh like image generation and how
01:04:11.980creepy that is and there are severe problems with this about disinformation about things that are
01:04:18.480gonna get people hurt this i i find like this is the 2025 version of people being upset that
01:04:29.180the producers of the Peter Frampton album Frampton comes alive in 1976 put in like extra crowd0.67
01:04:37.360cheers yeah do you know what I mean like I don't I don't care fucking do you feel like I'm I'm down
01:04:44.860do you know what I mean like I am it's a great album I'm glad the crowd noise is there it also0.63
01:04:50.660makes like different live uh performances seamlessly intracut to sound like one concert
01:04:57.440All I'm saying is like, that's the beauty of, of editing. It's the beauty of, of a certain kind of art. Like the fact that like people are pissed about this. I also find delightful. That's the thing. Like I'm kind of, I think it's a win-win for society that not only is Will Smith on tour, but that it's not going well enough to put out genuine video.
01:05:24.160And so, therefore, this like demented technology is being employed and that people are calling it out.
01:05:32.380Oh, my God. You also just set me up to talk about something that I literally I have bought in my head.
01:05:37.660I wish that someone would ever give me an opportunity to talk about this.
01:05:41.460You know, the Elton John song, Benny and the Jets, how he starts playing the piano and then everybody cheers.
01:05:47.160Yeah. So that is a beautiful piece of production where they have taken audio of crowd noises from a different Elton John performance and different audio of crowd noises from Jimmy, a Jimmy Hendrix performance.
01:06:00.540So like when you hear that whistling, that's actually not. So that's not a live performance. It's just a beautiful bit of production. And as an audio professional, nobody appreciates that shit more than me.
01:06:11.500I have always wanted, I literally will go to parties and be like, I hope somebody gives me an opportunity to talk about that Elton John production.0.99
01:06:20.580I mean, right, because Benny and the Jets is on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, which is a studio album, not a live album.
01:06:28.020And so, right, it's part of the production of that song that it's as if he's playing in front of this crowd, right?
01:06:35.700And so it's all kind of, I don't know, like, it's all part of it.
01:06:41.220You're like, everything's part of it. Will Smith is part of it. Peter Frampton is part of it. Elton John is part of it. And we are part of it. And then I think that there are some, some stories that like garner outrage, where I think it's like outrage, yes, for outrage sake, but also that's what makes, you know, people caring about and being critical of art of celebrity of information of what we're being told and what we're supposed to receive,
01:07:10.740how we're supposed to feel this to me is like what it means to be alive so like thank you will
01:07:17.180smith and thank you elton john and thank you peter frampton and thank you jimmy hendrix for like
01:07:22.940making us feel alive hell yes i love that that's like actually why i wanted to talk about this0.77
01:07:28.840story not to be like fuck you will smith how dare you do this but it is i mean this is such a good0.96
01:07:34.220context to put it in in terms of i love these clearly technologically manufactured or produced0.98
01:07:42.060bits of of entertainment and i almost wonder if this is just another another one of those i mean
01:07:47.600that's a very a very good context yeah i mean i just think like like i said i i'm i'm not down
01:07:54.320on the people who are pissed off about this or or you know moderately pissed off or like calling
01:08:00.700calling it out like i think that that that's part of it too that's why it's fun to talk about
01:08:05.660movies right that's why it's fun to talk about music that's why it's fun to talk about tv shows
01:08:10.980it's why it's fun to talk about sports because like people are gonna feel a certain way there
01:08:15.680are things that make us feel and that is like that's being alive right like and so yes when
01:08:23.860tech is deployed to do certain things that should be called out. Yes. When, uh, AI can be used just
01:08:32.600as much to, uh, you know, uh, facilitate deep, deep harm in terms of disinformation, in terms
01:08:41.600of, uh, you know, mechanized slaughter in a certain part of the world that yes, that is in
01:08:48.940a trajectory of also talking about will smith's ai but i also think that like just having that
01:08:56.000discourse and being able to see like that people care is is not in itself uh bad i actually think
01:09:05.380that is fundamentally good and you know when it comes to when it comes to the the you know
01:09:10.820eight fingered ghouls cheering on will smith i think you know like those are my people too
01:09:16.600yeah i mean in the words of frampton do you feel like we do that's fucking right show me the way
01:09:23.860that the i love listening to that because the crowd is like i've never heard a crowd like this0.53
01:09:30.400the crowd it's like do you feel like they're like losing their minds losing their mind yeah well and
01:09:37.860the thing is like when you listen to it you get it right like that's the beauty of frampton comes
01:09:43.000alive that like those songs had already been released on his studio albums that like largely
01:09:48.400no one cared about like i mean he was a star right like he he was on tour right he was like
01:09:53.840playing in front of crowds but like to do that live album that way it is still one of the you
01:10:01.140know biggest selling live albums of all time and i gotta say it sounds fucking amazing and when
01:10:07.440you're listening to it um you know like you are right there along with you know like baby i love
01:10:14.720your way smoke a joint and listen to frampton comes alive tonight y'all if there's one thing
01:10:20.280that i hope listeners walk away from our conversation with bridget it's that they should
01:10:25.780all listen to frampton comes alive tonight i'm with you i'm with you before we wrap i have one
01:10:33.580quick thought as we head into Labor Day weekend. One, y'all, there has never been a more important
01:10:39.000time for working people to organize together and stick together and push back against the
01:10:43.200fascist billionaire class who is trying to take over our country. And to that point, two, we got
01:10:49.060a great ask from a listener named Deb. Deb, thank you so much for reaching out about something very
01:10:53.840cool, which is that if you are going to visit a national park over the long weekend, please snap
01:10:58.680a few photos and contribute to the Save Our Signs project. This project is being organized by
01:11:03.840librarians and archivists who are trying to preserve the signage at our national parks before
01:11:08.480September 17th, which is the Trump administration's deadline to remove signs they find offensive for
01:11:13.700things like saying slavery was bad. The organizers are asking folks to help document signs at national
01:11:21.240parks before they are removed. Preserving history in this way is critical to protecting the legacy