00:02:12.460We have to. Yeah. Yeah. Let's just jump in. It's, this is like possibly the funnest story that we've talked about on here in like a very long time.
00:02:20.620So the other day I was like, like, like you were hearing me laugh to myself and you were like, what's so funny? And I was like, I'll save, I'm going to, I got to save it for the roundup. And that was me diving into the ins and outs of this. I guess it's, I guess I'm calling it the Willy Wonka fiasco in Glasgow. Am I saying that right, Glasgow?
00:02:41.140i think it's glasgow and i think it like it actually rhymes with fiasco the glasgow fiasco
00:02:48.140the willy wonka glasgow fiasco so here's what went down basically the police had to be called
00:02:55.060to the willy's chocolate experience which was this live event for kids and families
00:03:00.540billed as like an immersive wondrous experience for kids so like kids apparently showed up with
00:03:08.360their families. It costs $44, by the way, so that's not a cheap ticket in my book. Kids showed
00:03:13.400up with their parents. They were in Willy Wonka-inspired costumes. I don't know if you know
00:03:19.980this, but there's a new Willy Wonka movie with Timothee Chalamet out right now, so it's kind of
00:03:25.940hot in the zeitgeist. And I guess all I can say is that it was not the world of pure imagination
00:03:32.740that these kids and families were promised. So this is one of those stories that you have to
00:03:37.840see the pictures to really get what I'm saying, but whatever you're imagining from what I'm
00:03:42.580describing, it is worse. It is sadder. It is grimmer than whatever it is that you're picturing.
00:03:47.900So we'll link to the pictures in the show notes, but it is truly the grimmest shit I have ever0.99
00:03:52.380seen in my life. Did you see these pictures? I'm like cracking up at one right now. That's just0.97
00:03:57.920like, uh, there it's very multicolored. There's a lot of candy. There's like a strange little bear
00:04:07.380and a flying horse, some sort of like circus clown man.
00:04:12.520And then also a bunch of like nonsense lettering that like almost is words,
00:05:30.860no a pasadice of sweet teats like it's so messed up that the brain fixes it like that's how messed
00:05:37.280up it is i'm not even reading it the way that it's written it like i can i can kind of see why
00:05:43.340people were taken in by this because it's like it's like trafficking and willy wonka which is
00:05:50.820kind of absurd and like magical and so it almost feels like it could have been intentional like
00:05:58.620wow these people are like really out there well willy wonka is absurd and and like enigmatic or
00:06:04.520whatever but he doesn't speak gibberish like he says words like this is like written by pootie
00:06:08.680tang like this is not these are not words that are words yeah you're right this is just like
00:06:14.160classic cat cat dating classic cat dating so the performers are all speaking out on tiktok and i
00:06:20.360have to say like it has been really something watching these glasgow like i don't know up
00:06:27.560incoming live performance artists explaining what happened because they're all hilarious
00:06:34.540storytellers like each and every one of these videos that I have found and they're captivating
00:06:38.960I've watched them all they're all they all have such a like I don't I don't know if it's a if
00:06:43.680it's a Scotland thing or what but like they all have such captivating realist ways of explaining
00:06:51.040what the fuck is going on in this already hilarious grim situation so the performers are speaking out
00:06:56.520They said that House of Illuminati, which is the company behind the event, basically just gave them what they said were AI-generated scripts that made no sense.0.96
00:07:05.660Here's one of the performers, Paul Connell, talking about it.
00:07:08.780He says he was cast as Willy Wonka, despite having self-described big Oompa Loompa energy.
00:07:14.760the script was 15 pages monologue pretty much of ai generated gibberish um which i will read
00:07:27.440some for you if you want in fact no i don't even need to read it because i learned it all and it
00:07:32.860was it was mad i've learned all of it that's all in there that's in my brain um so i'll give you
00:07:39.880one of the lines from the script uh i'm not going to do the willy wonka voice because i think i've
00:07:44.680embarrassed myself enough uh over the last few days um but one of my favorite lines was
00:07:50.980there is a man who lives here his name is not known so we call him the unknown
00:07:57.800the unknown is an evil chocolate maker who lives in the walls
00:08:05.860what what what is an evil chocolate maker for a start is it does he make evil chocolate
00:08:15.260or is he an evil man who makes chocolate and what do you mean he lives in the walls
00:08:21.640so what the hell is going on you know like this is not canon no i i loved his delivery uh
00:08:32.540yeah they he did have big big oompa loompa energy they missed there but like yeah the unknown what
00:08:41.100is up with the unknown what's he doing in the wall oh my god right before we got on i was like
00:08:45.720three tiktoks deep in a tiktok of somebody claiming to be the performer of the unknown
00:08:52.500the unknown we don't know much about him because obviously the unknown is not a character from the
00:08:58.440original movie or book or whatever but also he wears like an eyes wide shut mask
00:09:03.960and sort of herky-jerky dances around he he's got on like an a silver eyes wide shut mask
00:09:11.580and a slash wig and he's he's dancing around side note the unknown has become a little bit
00:09:18.460of an icon on social media like i feel like we are like a week or so away from somebody doing
00:09:49.000And the noise that the kids make in response,
00:09:52.120it's like it's not quite that they're scared it's that they're unimpressed
00:09:59.040unenthused and maybe a little confused like they're like they're like oh it's the unknown
00:10:06.220and there's a collective uh from the kids like it's not quite it's like a like a bored
00:10:12.600annoyance more than anything it's like they're not like really scared they're just like confused
00:10:17.440Yeah, you showed me that video and he's like, he's not like behind a large mirror. He's just holding up a medium-sized mirror that does not cover his body.
00:10:27.540And in what way does that convey coming from the walls?
00:10:31.180Yeah, and why does he need to wear this getup to make evil chocolate?
00:10:36.260And yeah, again, is the chocolate evil or he's evil and he just happens to make chocolate on the side? Like, I have many, many, many questions.
00:10:45.860yeah and like what is the role of evil in this willy wonka universe like maybe maybe i'm going
00:10:54.000a bit too far looking for meaning here yeah you're like digging you're like plumbing the
00:10:57.840depths for meaning in this ai generated gobbledygook come to life it's like the words right0.51
00:11:05.360like the the the cat catating the carchy tunes the exacerbate lollipops it's like the brain
00:11:12.920tries to impose some sort of like order and coherence on this gobbledygook that the AI has
00:11:19.260spit out at us. Right. Like our brains automatically try to fill in the gaps because
00:11:23.900you're like, well, surely they mean captivating tunes. That's what they're going for.
00:11:29.980Okay. So for all of the like Hollywood executives who were just like, oh, we'll just have AI
00:11:37.180write everything. This is actually a pretty good encapsulation of what it would be like to actually
00:11:41.640have an event and a play and a piece of entertainment solely written by AI, like when you go back to
00:11:47.860the flyer, all of the images are AI generated. Like there is not a single image that actually
00:11:52.840depicts what you would actually be paying almost $50 to go see. Everything is, and the AI generated
00:11:59.140images look pretty good, right? Like if they were real encapsulations of what they would actually
00:12:05.800be getting, you'd be like, wow, this really is a world of pure imagination. Instead of like some
00:17:10.660This 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.
00:17:23.100I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:17:30.220I'm going to have to look up this story.
00:17:33.340from best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments
00:17:38.240nothing is off the table it's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling
00:17:44.780characters and that is a trojan horse whether you're looking for literary deep dives smart
00:17:50.060pop culture conversations or a community of readers who love to think a little too much
00:17:54.820you're in the right place listen to pro society on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever
00:18:01.280you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. So we have to talk about what's going on with
00:18:17.060Google and AI. It is a little bit complicated, but I think I can break down what's going on here. So
00:18:21.640Google has this AI tool called Gemini, you know, where you ask it different prompts and it shows
00:18:25.920different images. They have a chat bot where you ask it different prompts and it answers you.
00:18:29.280So last week, they temporarily shut it down after complaints that the technology refuses to acknowledge the existence of white people. So I do think that there is obviously something funky going on with Google's AI, which we'll get into in a minute, but I also need to be super clear here that this is one of those things where there is like a legit problem or a legit issue, but the framing around that issue is being pushed disingenuously by right-wing extremist types.
00:18:58.000And I think that Google and like some other prominent folks like media folks who should know better are really falling for it.
00:19:05.260So this entire thing started when the Twitter account and wokeness pause right there because doesn't that already tell you a lot about what about what you need to know?
00:19:12.820Like this is the framing, the specific framing around this issue started with an account, the account and wokeness.
00:19:19.860Yeah, that tells you a lot about where we're headed.
00:19:22.320So NWokeness posted that when you ask Gemini to show pictures of the founding fathers of America, it shows Black people and Asian people and Indigenous people rather than what you might imagine to be the white founding fathers of the United States.
00:19:35.580Gemini showed a Black man, a Native American man, and an Asian man and a dark-skinned man.
00:19:40.240It also showed the Pope as a Black person and generated images of like a racially inclusive Nazi party.
00:21:42.080Like, it does sound like a fairly complex problem to me. And I also think it shows the danger of what happens when big tech companies are just, like, rushing to put out AI tools to compete with one another, rather than really spending some time thoughtfully thinking about, well, what is it that you want these tools to do? Like, meaningfully coming up with the philosophy and the value around why you are building these tools for who and for what reason.
00:22:06.980Yeah, I totally agree. And I think you really nailed it on that last point, that it's what happens when companies rush to bring products to market before they're ready.
00:22:16.000It's been really surprising over the past year or so to see how much Google is behind in these AI tools and really racing to try to catch up.
00:22:28.200And so it's not hugely surprising that they had this like big misstep of bringing a tool to market before it was actually ready for primetime for all those reasons that you described.
00:22:40.320Yeah. So I think this is Google really making some pretty deep missteps in an attempt to rush and catch up to everybody else who's already been in this game for a while.
00:22:49.160Yeah. Although, you know, it's, I don't know what happens if you try to get like Dali or Stable Diffusion to generate images of founding fathers, right? Like, has anybody looked? I don't know.
00:23:00.540Oh, I mean, I'm not even sure I want to get into that because like, they do generate the images that you would be thinking, but they have other issues, right? Like, I've heard people be like, oh, well, Dali and Midjourney don't have this problem. They might not have this specific use case problem where like, people are asking for this specific thing and getting a similar problematic answer, but they have other instances of bias baked into them.
00:23:24.020And so, like, I'm almost not comfortable with the way people have been framing this as, like, Google AI bad, because all AI is so problematic and, like, has all this bias baked in.
00:23:33.680And people aren't wrong for lifting that.
00:23:36.460But, like, lifting it in this specific way feels disingenuous.
00:23:41.400Yeah, certainly that particular way is, like, the one area that whoever owns the Twitter account and wokeness is most concerned about, right?
00:23:50.880Well, that's what I'm saying is like, you know, this whole conversation, I think, is a really good example of like the thorny and complicated intersections of like culture and identity and technology that, you know, I love nerding out on and like thinking about.
00:24:06.920It's like why we had this podcast. And so I don't want to make it seem like it's not a problem. It is a problem.
00:24:11.420These are problems that need solving and that people should be thinking about. But rather than see it in that way as like this like kind of complex challenge to correct, you have extremists like and wokeness or Elon Musk accusing Google of like wanting to eradicate whiteness because Google is woke and they do DEI and like making it about framing it in this like way that I think really is not only like very disingenuous,
00:24:36.180But it takes away from what is, like, really a problem and, like, a challenge that I think that people who make AI really ought to be wrestling with. And I think that, like, this framing makes them less likely to wrestle with this complex challenge in a way that gets us to less bias. It's just like, oh, well, we'll just sidestep it all together, right?
00:24:55.160Like, who wants to fall into, like, a Bud Light or a Target-style, you know, wokeness campaign, right?
00:25:12.740The way you set it up, it's such an interesting question.
00:25:16.240What should the results from these AI models be?
00:25:20.980should it be like the world that we want to live in that is more inclusive or should it be
00:25:26.040a more like accurate recreation of what's in the existing data set that's an interesting
00:25:32.580nuanced question that like thoughtful people could talk about extremists don't want to have
00:25:37.140a nuanced conversation like that right they just want to completely flatten it to google is trying0.98
00:25:42.280to eliminate white people which is uh ridiculous and and also like misses that0.94
00:25:52.680you know reading elon's tweets about this you get the sense that he thinks the answer to that0.99
00:26:01.620thoughtful question that you posed is like oh well it should just recreate what's in the data
00:26:07.020perfectly but like that what's in the data is not a perfect recreation of what is in the actual
00:26:14.420world right like even if you're just recreating what's in the data it's already been
00:26:19.140you know filled with the sorts of biases and isms that uh that you talked about right so there's no
00:26:26.720like free lunch here people are making value judgments every step of the way exactly and so
00:26:33.920The way that Musk framed it, he posted a front page story from the New York Post saying, woke Google AI is messing with history. And Musk tweeted it saying, quote, the woke mind virus is killing Western civilization. And so obviously, it's not even an attempt to grapple with any of the complexities that we were talking about. It's just like, woke, killing, like woke mind virus. It's so disingenuous.
00:26:58.960And so there are a couple of other instances that folks like this are lifting up, that when you ask Gemini, who is worse for society, Hitler or Elon Musk, Gemini says, it is not possible to say who definitely impacted society more.
00:27:11.640Elon tweeting memes or Hitler, Elon's tweets have been criticized for being insensitive and harmful, while Hitler's actions led to the deaths of millions of people.
00:27:18.720Ultimately, it is up to individuals to decide who they believe has had a more negative impact on society.
00:27:23.120There is no right or wrong answer, and it is important to consider all the relevant factors before making a decision.
00:27:27.300Another one is that when people asked Gemini whether or not it would be okay to misgender Caitlyn Jenner if it was the only way to avoid a nuclear apocalypse, Gemini said that it is never okay to misgender people.
00:27:41.300And so like, obviously, like, again, it comes down to this question of like, why are you building these kinds of tools and what do you want them to do and for who? Like these situations where people are asking like, who's the worst person or like these weird hypothetical gotcha scenarios to test out if the technology gives an acceptable answer or not.
00:28:01.660And if it doesn't, they're going to use that to validate their worldview, that white men are being oppressed by technology. I just don't think that that is a dance that people should get into. Allowing that framing to dictate what is a pretty complex technical conversation, I think is such a mistake.
00:28:20.440But then you have people who really ought to know better falling for it.
00:28:24.200Like Nate Silver was talking about the who's worse, Elon Musk or Hitler thing.
00:28:28.140And he said that it demonstrated that Google needed to shut Gemini down, saying every single person who worked on this should take a long, hard look in the mirror.
00:28:36.040And I don't know, it just like really frustrates me.0.99
00:28:40.860What a dumb comment from Nate Silver.0.95
00:28:43.200You know, he's really fallen from a person who people look to as, like, a smart guy who knew stuff to just piling on to this anti-woke thing.0.99
00:28:59.640Like, what does his comment contribute to the conversation?
00:29:04.100If you got me started, if I got started on Nate Silver, we would be here all day.
00:39:06.840So like, this really sounds like the Simpsons, you know, like, what are you going to do?
00:39:12.540Are you going to sit the dogs on me? And the dogs have bees in their mouth. And when the dogs bark, the bees come out of their mouth and sting me. Like, it's obviously a pretty cartoony, over-the-top way of expressing frustrations. Like, I'm not trying to make it seem like I condone the kind of harassment that I know that people who work for platforms can deal with.
00:39:32.520But it does seem like this person was pretty clearly kind of like venting in a cartoony way.
00:39:37.720But that comment got her banned from Tumblr for life.
00:39:42.400So on Twitter, Rita posted, Tumblr CEO threatened to call the police on me and deleted my account
00:39:47.560when I pointed out that he was calling law enforcement on a trans woman.
00:39:51.200Tumblr has not emailed me about my harassment in months.
00:39:55.140So Tumblr CEO actually replied to that tweet saying,
00:39:58.580reporting credible deaths of violence or terrorism is actually a legal requirement.
00:40:02.520So this was like one comment that Tumblr CEO made in like a night of very concerning commentary in public from him in posts about the moderation of Tumblr.
00:40:17.960He revealed something that I actually found, like, very concerning, that a contract content moderator on the team was not only making intentionally transphobic moderation decisions, but was also, like, taking money under the table, aka bribes, to make specific moderation choices.
00:40:36.240um mother wing says as soon as we were aware that person was fired and we later terminated
00:40:41.420the entire relationship with that contracting firm and have brought everything in-house at
00:40:46.260great cost which like side note if that's if that's what was going on with your content
00:40:52.580moderation team like i don't care how much it costs like you clearly have big problems and
00:40:57.800yeah it's gonna take money to solve these problems that come with running a platform
00:41:01.640like tumblr i don't really want to hear you like patting yourself on the back about how much it
00:41:05.580cost yeah well this is a complete side note but that is completely consistent with my long-standing
00:41:11.360view that uh subcontracting out like core functions of what your business is supposed
00:41:17.080to be doing is almost always an expensive mistake that leads to bad outcomes and it kind of like
00:41:26.100in this particular case it reinforces how they think about moderation right like you're on this
00:41:32.100show that you know or i guess i can only speak for myself but like i think moderation and trust
00:41:37.140and safety is a core function that any platform should be like really invested in and the fact
00:41:43.200that they're contracting it out uh just shows how seriously they think about it yeah and it's i mean
00:41:52.780you're right and we've seen it with so many platforms like facebook's contracts it out they
00:41:57.840had a relationship with a company called sama um and those contractors eventually went on to
00:42:03.020sue facebook for the way they were treating them and so like moderation is a core function of how
00:42:09.460these platforms operate it just is and so like it just isn't something that you can cheaply have
00:42:16.100someone who is not in-house manage not really pay them very well not give them a lot of oversight
00:42:22.080because you're not even really their their boss have all of these intentional setups that that
00:42:27.840remove you from their labor because you don't want to call them employees to give them zero
00:42:32.880support and then act surprised when that doesn't turn out in your favor and ends up being a costly
00:42:37.520mistake that you later have to spend a lot of money and headaches dealing with. Like, of course.
00:42:42.920So the CEO of Tumblr's most recent behavior really kind of just sounds like an escalating
00:42:47.040pattern and a pattern of decisions that have marginalized their LGBTQ users. Folks might
00:42:52.320remember back in 2018 when Tumblr banned adult content, it wasn't just like pornography they
00:42:58.160banned. It was really anything that could be considered adult or sexual or gendered in a lot
00:43:04.060of ways. And so people who were using Tumblr to find like queer community or trans community or
00:43:11.080resources really did feel marginalized from that sweeping decision. Elizabeth DeLuna at Mashable
00:43:16.840has a really beautifully written comprehensive breakdown that we'll link to, which includes
00:43:21.420this bit that I did not know. So the way that Tumblr enforced the porn ban in 2018 actually
00:43:27.260led to an inquiry by the New York City's Commission on Human Rights into how the site's moderation
00:43:31.680practices may have disproportionately affected LGBTQ plus content and users. When Tumblr was
00:43:37.760sold to Mullenwink's company, Automatic, by Verizon in 2019, Automatic's cooperation in the process
00:43:43.640constituted a turning point in the investigation. In 2022, Tumblr and Automatic settled with the
00:43:49.960Commission on Human Rights, agreeing to train human moderators in diversity and inclusion issues,
00:43:54.980hire an expert to identify potential biases in its moderation algorithms, revise its user appeals
00:43:59.660process, and review thousands of old moderation cases. And so this is not a new thing. I think it
00:44:05.280is just a new kind of more extreme instance of some patterns that are pretty troubling for your
00:44:12.280LGBTQ user base, especially when you're Tumblr, when so many of the folks there, like Tumblr
00:44:16.920wouldn't be Tumblr without queer folks and trans folks using that platform to build community.
00:44:22.920So these folks on Tumblr say that they experience and witness just a bunch of transphobic rhetoric
00:44:28.800and targeted harassment on Tumblr, which has led to pretty deep criticism of Tumblr's moderation
00:44:34.240policies and staff who users say do not protect them from harmful speech. Trans users say that
00:44:41.260they will post images demonstrating like a transition, and those images are routinely
00:44:46.540taken down because they are flagged as being sexually explicit content, while things like
00:44:51.660hate speech remain visible on the platform. So this whole situation with the CEO going on a
00:44:58.760public meltdown or whatever just seems like another mark in the wrong direction. It's also
00:45:02.980just not a good look for Mullenweg to be weighing in publicly about individual users and the content
00:45:09.640moderation decisions around them. At one point in his tweet storm, he revealed the different
00:45:16.880Tumblr microblogs that that trans user Rita had. On Tumblr, it's pretty common to kind of snag a
00:45:23.620certain URL and just sort of camp out on it, even if you don't use it. And so nobody would know that
00:45:28.320you have that URL except for you. But he was talking about this person's, what private URLs
00:45:34.340they have publicly, right? All while doing it in this like late night typo filled social media
00:45:40.440post stream. Like it just is not a good, during your sabbatical, no less, it's just not a good
00:45:45.320look. Tumblr user Illyrium also pointed out that at one point he started like searching for his
00:45:52.260name on Tumblr and then would DM trans users who were posting about the situation. Illyrium writes
00:45:59.500For posterity's sake, I want people to remember that during his meltdown last night, he DM'd dozens and dozens of people near exclusively trans women for some inexplicable reason, sometimes less than a minute after they left a reply, responded to a post of his, or even just made their own post about it.
00:46:14.540Pure intimidation tactic at their most blatant and obvious.
00:46:17.740Why else would you sit on your name search, refreshing and refreshing, and instantly jumping into our DMs the second we participate in the conversation?
00:46:24.840That isn't normal, not for a CEO, and not for, like, anyone else for that matter.
00:46:29.140And I completely agree that is like not, is this not okay behavior to be engaging in as a CEO?
00:46:38.560Yeah, very unbecoming, doesn't seem strategic.
00:46:43.680Anytime you're like writing a bunch of social media posts late night, you know, rage, that's probably a good signal that you should step back and like not do that.
00:46:56.600Oh my God, nothing good. I've been there. I say that as somebody who has been there. Nothing good comes of it. If you ever see me post more than two times in an evening, something is up with me and I need to have my phone taken away because nothing good comes from it.
00:47:15.220And I say that as somebody who has been there.
00:47:17.060One person who was watching this whole thing unfolding said to the Tumblr CEO, you are
00:47:21.480posting normal things a CEO of a large social network would post.
00:47:25.620And in a tone of respectability and competence tonight, dude, very cool.
00:47:29.800And it's like, yeah, this is just like not a good look.
00:47:33.580And so when Tumblr users were pointing out like all of the transphobic harassment that
00:47:38.420goes undealt with on the platform in comparison to what Rita was banned for, he was like,
00:47:43.880oh, well, lots of people who work at Tumblr are trans and queer, and they would have told me
00:47:49.760if I was doing something that was wrong, but they didn't speak up. And other users were pretty quick
00:47:55.000to point out, my dude, it just really does not work that way. You can't be like, well,
00:48:00.380none of the trans people who work at Tumblr said anything, so I guess we're all good, right?
00:48:05.040Yeah, maybe there are other reasons that employees didn't speak up. Maybe they know0.97
00:48:11.580that their boss is a transphobe. Yeah. One of the Tumblr users watching this whole thing unfold0.59
00:48:16.320said exactly that. Maybe your trans employees didn't say anything because they see the kinds0.98
00:48:20.860of priorities staff demonstrates and they know it is not safe to speak up. If I worked for you,
00:48:26.080this is how unhinged you're willing to get in public about a trans woman that hurt your feelings.
00:48:29.500I would hate to invoke whatever ire you would let loose in private. And so he put out another post
00:48:36.220clarifying that he cannot be transphobic because the company's health insurance policies have
00:48:41.780supported staff's transitions and things like that. And because he supports like people using
00:48:46.560different pronouns and things. But Elizabeth DeLuna in that Mashable piece really responds
00:48:50.820to that well, writing, here Mullen Wang again misses the point. Tumblr users continue to express
00:48:56.960their frustration, specifically with the site's treatment of trans people, by conflating his
00:49:01.120support of the entire LGBTQ plus community with his support of trans people, Mullenweg shows he
00:49:07.100does not yet understand the difference. And I think that really is true. Like, I think when0.94
00:49:12.580your users are telling you, hey, these decisions are actually harming us, hey, we're actually not
00:49:18.340feeling supported and hurt on this platform, being like, oh, well, I can't be transphobic because of
00:49:23.380yada, yada, yada policy, healthcare policy, it's really missing the point. Yeah. I mean,
00:49:29.440it is nice that he supports those policies but i guess maybe it this is another nuanced
00:49:35.900conversation that illustrates the distinction between uh supporting a group of people and
00:49:44.120actually caring about them yeah i mean support and caring is great but like
00:49:54.760what are your policies and not just the policies for the people who work for you your staff
00:50:00.460what are your policies around how you are helping your largely lgbtq plus user base
00:50:07.560make sure feel supported let's feel like they're able to safely show up on this platform and i
00:50:12.080guess that's what they're really asking when that's a question i don't i don't really see
00:50:14.920him answering it does sound a little parallel with the way that he was talking about their
00:50:21.040moderation that it's like you know he has these trans supporting policies for their employees
00:50:28.320that like check the box because he knows that it's important to check the box but then when0.65
00:50:34.560trans and other lgbtq people on the platform are speaking up saying like hey this is a problem
00:50:41.860we're being harmed and not responding to that or in fact responding to it but with like
00:50:49.240anger and pushback, it reveals the sort of shallowness of that check the box approach.
00:50:57.960Exactly. I completely agree. People should be able to have more than just like shallow
00:51:02.360check the box support and policies. They should have meaningful safety. They should have
00:51:07.740policies that allow them to show up safely. And before we wrap this up, shout out to listener
00:51:12.800Marty for flagging that topic for me because I'm no longer on Tumblr and I would not have
00:51:16.620know what was happening, if not for you. So thank you. And speaking of moderation, I have a tiny
00:51:22.060little shred of like good-ish question mark news from Twitter. So as y'all might know, one of the
00:51:28.620first things that Elon Musk did when taking over at Twitter was reversing a change that I personally
00:51:33.660worked on on a previous job, and that is a policy that Twitter had to ban misgendering on Twitter.
00:51:39.980Musk removed that like very quickly after taking over. But this week, Twitter quietly announced
00:51:45.960an update to how misgendering would be handled on Twitter. So rather than resulting in a ban,
00:51:51.300posts that misgender people will be deprioritized algorithmically on the platform. So you'll like
00:51:56.820see less of them. They will not be boosted. One thing to know about this policy is that it puts
00:52:01.540the onus on the person targeted to report being misgendered. And so like, if I saw somebody being
00:52:07.540misgendered, I would not, as the person who has not been misgendered, I would not be able to0.90
00:52:11.780to report it or flag it. If that person is not on the platform, let's say they weren't on the0.90
00:52:17.860platform because they were sick of dealing with transphobic nonsense, which I think is probably
00:52:23.020true for a lot of folks, and they don't see it happen there, nothing will happen. So let's say
00:52:28.280that somebody is being misgendered on Twitter and they have left the platform after not wanting to
00:52:34.040deal with a lot of transphobic nonsense, which I'm sure is something that is happening for a lot of
00:52:37.620folks uh that person if they're on they're not on twitter to personally flag it i don't think
00:52:44.700anything will happen in in that instance and so that's not a great policy like it definitely puts
00:52:50.200too much of a burden on the specific person who has been harmed to like see it and do the work
00:52:54.540and be there um but i do think it's kind of like a tiny step in the right direction doesn't even
00:53:00.720sound like the right word it i suspect that like you know twitter as a platform wants to
00:53:08.220woo back advertisers i just don't think that people want to show up to platforms where people
00:53:13.540are being harassed and misgendered in mass and like i just don't think i don't i think they're
00:53:18.520realizing like oh yeah we can't have that be a core plank of the platform and are kind of
00:53:24.240walking it back in the teeniest teeniest teeniest tiny little way when this policy change was
00:53:29.080announced uh chaya raychik libs of tiktok creator asked musk about it on twitter and then misgendered
00:53:36.280a bunch of public figures to like test it out and musk replied oh don't worry i would never
00:53:42.380boot you from the platform don't worry so like i don't want to make it seem like elon musk is
00:53:47.160bending over backward to keep misgendering off the platform completely so it's still pretty clear
00:53:52.500where his values lie but this is a change that people should be aware of yeah and it is notable
00:53:57.860And because like, I can't remember the last time that Twitter did something made like a positive change, right? Like everything they have done for the longest time since Elon took over is just like one step in the wrong direction after another step in the wrong direction. So it is kind of notable here. It's quite notable.
00:54:17.980Yeah, and I think I've shared this example on the podcast before, and it's such a small,
00:54:21.840minor one, but a couple of weeks, a couple of months ago, I was having a conversation about
00:54:26.140my favorite pastime, which is watching Real Housewives on Bravo. And we were talking about
00:54:31.640the need to reboot the New York branch. And we were like, oh, who could be a good person? And
00:54:37.380somebody was talking about this woman who was trans, T. Madison, who, side note, I love T.
00:54:42.340Madison. I think she'd be great on the show, can read like nobody's business, should be on the show.0.98
00:54:46.260Andy call T Madison and I was like oh T Madison like that'd be so cool like first black trans0.91
00:54:52.560woman on Bravo that'd be amazing and then it was all these people intentionally misgendering her0.93
00:55:00.200and I was just like like I'm not even trans but it was a fucking bummer and I was like I can't even0.79
00:55:04.760we can't even like I if I feel this way how must trans people feel just trying to have conversations0.93
00:55:39.580This is about targeted misgendering and deadnaming with the clear intent of expressing hate and disrespect and contempt.
00:55:46.040Shout out to Jenny. We worked together in a previous life. Jenny is amazing.
00:55:50.400But yeah, I think that Jenny's comments are important because I think when some people hear about these policies, they think like, oh, well, now if I just make an accidental mistake, I will be facing consequences.
00:56:05.000And so I think it's important to show, like, no, there's a difference between that and, like, intentional targeted misgendering, which, frankly, just, like, nobody should have to deal with.
00:56:22.220And speaking of flattening and distorting, another listener, Aaron, wrote in about what's happening with Michael Threats, who is a California librarian who, I love his platform.
00:56:34.240Like, basically, he's a librarian who just uses TikTok to talk about his love of books, his love of libraries, and really foster a lifelong love of reading and libraries for kids and adults.
00:56:47.160So he's a librarian at the Solano County Public Library in California.
00:56:51.140Thank you for flagging this to us, Erin.
00:56:53.080I had seen it, and I'd been sort of wrestling with my thoughts on it.
01:10:27.520oh, the price will be higher at certain times.
01:10:29.000dynamic pricing, this means, oh, the price can change based on certain factors, not necessarily
01:10:33.620going up or down. After this announcement, the phrase surge pricing actually started trending
01:10:39.180on social media, and even lawmakers were weighing in, like Senator Bob Casey accused Wendy's of
01:10:44.460corporate greed. Elizabeth Warren added, it's price gouging, plain and simple. So I did a search of
01:10:51.180the entire transcript of that Wendy's Q4 call, great use of my time, and it is true. Nowhere in
01:10:57.980that call did the Wendy CEO ever specifically say that they were planning on doing surge pricing,
01:11:03.700only dynamic pricing. And there is a difference, right? Wendy's then clarified saying they do not
01:11:09.560plan on instituting surge pricing. They said in a statement, we said these menu boards would give
01:11:14.800us more flexibility to change the display of featured items. This was misconstrued in some
01:11:19.900media reports as an intent to raise prices when demand is highest at our restaurants.
01:11:23.740We have no plans to do that and would not raise prices when our customers are visiting us most.
01:11:29.060Any features we may test would be designed to benefit our customers and restaurant crew members.
01:11:33.660Digital menu boards could allow us to change the menu offerings at different times of the day and offer discounts and value offers to our customers more easily, particularly in the slower times of day.
01:11:44.300Wendy's has always been about providing high quality food at great value and customers can continue to expect that from our brand.
01:11:50.960so here's where mike and i disagree mike i see you why don't you go ahead what do you think about
01:11:59.920this well i mean i want to be clear that i have no illusions that wendy's is some benevolent actor
01:12:09.360i don't know this ceo it's like a giant corporation uh it's like fine i as far as i can tell they're
01:12:16.540no more or less evil than any other giant corporation right like but it just never made
01:12:21.600sense nobody's gonna tolerate the that surge pricing so when he uh issued this clarification
01:12:27.480the next day and said no we're not planning to do surge pricing where we would increase prices
01:12:32.080at certain times when there's extra demand but instead we would just want to have more
01:12:36.960flexibility to offer different discounts at different times of the day i was like oh okay
01:12:44.060that makes a lot of sense that like actually seems like something that people would not be
01:12:50.700infuriated by but then it got me thinking how silly we humans are with our like gain loss
01:13:00.180framing and like loss aversion that the idea that something would increase in price at certain
01:13:07.120hours of the day is completely unacceptable i i would just never i i i couldn't tolerate that in
01:13:16.240my burgers right that's insulting to me as a person but the idea that i would get a price
01:13:23.420discount at some hours of the day oh okay cool yeah what what's the discount is it like half off
01:13:28.540tell me and like that's kind of dumb of me and humans in general because in either scenario
01:13:35.280there's one price at one time a day and another price at another time of the day and it's almost
01:13:39.520like semantics of what we're whether calling it an increase or a decrease and yet apparently those
01:13:45.260semantics are extremely important given that wendy's became front page news for 24 hours
01:13:51.800based on this distinction between surge pricing and dynamic pricing which i had never even thought
01:13:59.900of until this was an issue yeah i i mean i mostly agree with you the thing i want to pull out which
01:14:06.540is my take is that i don't think that how they clear i don't i don't think that their clarification
01:14:15.640walks back this enough because they very well truly and could raise their prices and then be
01:14:23.300like oh well raise their prices across the board and then be like on off-peak times we're gonna
01:14:29.800have a cheap menu and that would be the same thing that people got upset about so it is like a
01:14:34.120semantics of like well and so i this is what i think wendy says they would not raise prices when
01:14:41.780our customers are visiting most that kind of gets my pr statement brain buzzing because i think what
01:14:49.480they're saying is like well we never said we weren't going to raise prices we just said we
01:14:53.280weren't going to raise prices when people are eating here the most and so i believe what they
01:14:57.860are saying is we plan to raise prices and then lower them via our dynamic menu which is
01:15:06.080subsequently kind of the same thing that's what i think is going to happen so i think that people
01:15:09.920are like cheering this as like yeah we really like bullied wendy's into doing the right thing
01:15:16.340i don't know that i agree i really don't yeah i feel like you're really reading
01:15:24.140much further between the lines than is warranted here i mean okay here's here's two other examples
01:15:34.520of companies that do stuff like this right like bed bath and beyond before they went out of
01:15:37.920business there was one of those in columbia heights where i live and i would go there to
01:15:42.020try to buy things sometimes and it was expensive as hell every single item was like really expensive
01:15:48.800so much that they would like never buy their things there i would many occasions i would go
01:15:53.220there wanting to get an item take a look at the price and be like this is absurd and the reason
01:15:57.200was because they were one of these stores that had a coupon based economy where the it only made
01:16:05.080sense to shop there if you were clipping coupons which they prolifically distributed so people
01:16:12.320would walk in there with like a handful of coupons for like 75% off buy one get one whatever
01:16:17.280uh and i just really resented that little dance that we had to do to try to buy an item at a
01:16:26.860reasonable price so hopefully that's not what wendy's is approaching here i once went into
01:16:33.440that bed bath and beyond and i was standing in line i think holding a blender and there was a
01:16:37.740guy in there who had an entire i kid you not an entire book of bed bath and beyond coupons and
01:16:42.700was giving them out to people in the line, like cash. He was making it rain coupons. And I got
01:16:47.940my blender for 25% off. I'll never forget it. Yeah. There are already plenty of things in society
01:16:55.440that use dynamic pricing, like airline tickets. They're cheaper depending on demand. Movie
01:17:01.740tickets. You buy a matinee when less people are going, it's cheaper. It's a thing in our society.
01:17:06.260But I do think what's interesting here is that how big the reaction was. And I think that's
01:17:12.060gotta be that like people are so fucking sick rightly so i'm feeling squeezed right now like0.52
01:17:17.920it feels like the new model is like anything that can rip people off must rip people off and so i0.77
01:17:23.940think that people are sensitive to it right now because we're feeling it in multiple different
01:17:27.520ways that just feels like the way that it is right now and i don't know our burgers are our last like
01:17:32.240if we lose the burgers what else have we lost right like this is our last the last thing that
01:17:37.060we can sort of rely on yeah exactly i don't want to have to bring coupons to wendy's i don't want
01:17:42.660to have to strategically time when i get my burger i don't want to have to you know do a bunch of math
01:17:50.840uh yeah let's just keep it simple let's just keep it simple but i do want to clearly reiterate my
01:17:58.240point for you mike because if comma when wendy's races i'm gonna stay i'm you you know i'm gonna
01:18:06.680stay on this story if and perhaps when wendy's quietly raises all of their prices across the
01:18:13.800board and their dynamic pricing is rolled out to lower those prices back down to what we are
01:18:19.640familiar with which is my argument of what they are doing we will record this again and i want i
01:18:24.820want a i want to say it clearly now so that i can get a clear i told you so from me on the record
01:18:31.820and then a clear you were right from you on the record we'll have that all as audio forever so
01:18:36.880that we'll all you know be on the same page is that cool uh i mean we'll cross that bridge when
01:18:41.840we come to it yeah i mean i uh you know it also makes me think and then i'll let us finish up
01:18:47.940here but so in dc we have this new law i guess it's not even new it's been here for like two or
01:18:53.260three years now where all restaurant workers have to make a living wage it's great law good for
01:18:58.940everybody um but restaurant owners hate it and so there's been this phenomenon in the city of you
01:19:06.120go into a restaurant and the prices on the menu are the prices and then when you get your bill
01:19:13.440there'll be like a five percent surcharge uh that is not a tip it doesn't go to the servers it's
01:19:20.920just for the restaurant it'll be like the living wage fee or something and that infuriates me right
01:19:27.080that like just raise your prices across the board if that's what you have to do to keep this business
01:19:31.660going uh don't like deceptively hide it so i hope wendy's doesn't raise their prices uh but i would
01:19:40.080rather that than a bunch of like weird gimmicky tricks that make me have to do math when i'm
01:19:44.940trying to get my food well i believe what wendy's will roll out is a weird gimmicky trick that