There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Toad and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. I am here with my producer, Mike. Mike, thank you so much for being here.
Thanks for having me, Bridget. I'm glad to be here in the wake of that FEMA alert that happened earlier this week.
I know, as far as I can tell, I think we all survived this week's FEMA emergency alert without activating any kind of deadly vaccine related illnesses. In case folks missed it, conspiracy theorists said that the government was using the emergency alerts that we all got on our phones this week to trigger bloodborn slash, maybe bat related question mark illnesses in people who were vaccinated.
Yeah, I think those were the conspiracy theories. I was pretty impressed by how quickly they came together, because I didn't hear that alert was going to happen until like a day or two before it did. Maybe the conspiracy people are like really plugged into when FEMA is scheduling these alerts, But I feel like they really pulled this conspiracy together in like forty eight hours.
Oh, you think conspiracy theorists who gather online are not plugged into what FEMA is doing. They don't. They're not like super on that. I'm sure that's on their radar. Listen. I knew I wanted to do a little bit of like brief banter on this on the pod, but part of me was sort of like, let's wait until after the alert, you know, just in case, let's just be let's just cover all of our bases. Let's let's plan to do this after after we make it through the alerts.
There was a tiny part of me that was like, wouldn't it just be funny if we did all start like bleeding from our eyeballs and turn into zombie bats.
It would serve us right for doubting them in the first place. In case it's not clear. Obviously, those conspiracy theories were completely base. Despite the fact that people reported that they were planning on turning off their power, turning off their phones to protect themselves from what ended up not happening. Nobody got sick. It was all just a conspiracy theory. But you know what's not a conspiracy theory. It's the way that men infiltrated the Gracehopper Celebration this year.
So the Gracehopper Celebration, named after the historic computer programmer Gracehopper, is a big tech conference that is one of the largest gatherings of women and non binary folks in tech worldwide. It's organized by the nonprofit anitab dot Org. Quick side note, I was actually just a guest on Anita Bee's inaugural podcast episode, which you all check out. We will throw the link in the show notes. And I was actually meant to attend the Gracehopper event down in Orlando, Florida
this year, but I had a scheduling issue. It's kind of a big deal, like all the big tech companies are there, Apple, Amazon, and it's a great place for folks who are looking for jobs, like it's full of job opportunities and networking. But at this year's conference, men showed up in as on LinkedIn. Anitab dot Org, a nonprofit that runs the conference, said there was a quote
increase in participation of self identifying males at this year's event. Now, Anita Bee did say that they believe allyship from men is really important, and they also noted that they cannot ban men from attending due to federal non discrimination protections
in the United States. Now to be super clear, there are definitely men out there who want to support allyship and want to be champions of women, Like it's not unheard of for men to attend this event, and I think that there are probably some men who turned up at this event who wanted to do exactly that and that's why they were there. But it sounds like a lot of other men were not there to champion women
and to be good allies to women. It sounds like they were there to take up space, to take opportunities from women, and also to troll and gaslight us while doing it. Colin White, chief impact officer at anitab dot org, said some men even lied about their gender identity, They lied about being non buy to get a chance to network at the conference. So it just sounds like the
vibes were not great at this year's event. The conference has historically been a really joyous celebration and a way for people who are not often centered in technology to really take up space and connect and have community with each other. Like I've heard people say that this is an event that they look forward to their entire year, Like it is a it is a real vibe, generally speaking, but it sounds like this time around, these men kind
of rumined it for everybody. The attendees at this year's event described a feeling uncomfortable with the chaotic scenes like men cutting women in line for the job fair, people running and rushing around, and long lines. As one attendee described it, the Kens have taken over. Barbieland Bo Young, Anita b dot Org's advisory president, commented on how this impacted the overall vibe of the event.
I want to address all that I've been hearing over these days at GHC. This is my third GHC, my first just part of staff, and it's always been joyous. In the past, it has always felt safe and loving and embracing. And this year I must admit I didn't feel this way, and I know that many of you felt the same. Many of you are feeling unsafe physically and psychologically, and you're feeling unheard. I want you to know that we're taking this so personally, and I'm taking
it personally. I do the work I do to create a world where my two girls can thrive. We try to create a safe space, and this week we saw the outside world creep in. This makes me angry, and it makes me sad, but mostly it makes you want to fight. We're not fighting simply because of the concerns you express, but because that's our mission. Our mission is to uplift and celebrate women and non binary technologists. This week, we hope to do just this. We prepared and we
did our best, but it was not enough. I can't guarantee you that we'll have solutions tomorrow, but I can promise you that we'll be working on solutions, and we won't do it in a bubble. We've heard your recommendations and many of them are great, and we'll make sure that we're holding ourselves the truth of our mission and need to be has always stepped up to the challenge, and I promised you that we're ready to step up to this new challenge, and we'll do so in community.
I want to thank you all for speaking up, for listening, and I really hope to see you tomorrow. Thank you all.
Bye. I do think that part of this is just a reflection of the landscape for tech jobs right now, like the landscape is pretty bleak thanks to the waves of layoffs and the tech sector. But as bleak as that landscape is, it is even worse for people who
are marginalized, like women and non binary people. Sixty nine point two percent of all tech layoffs, according to the Women Tech Network, were women, on top of the industry's existing gender imbalance, where women made up just a third of those working in STEM jobs as of twenty twenty one. This is according to the National Center for Science and
Engineering Statistics. So as bad as things are for women, and it's pretty bad, it is made that much worse to have men pulling stuff like this in a space that is supposed to be for us. And I guess part of me feels like if you were a man who misrepresented yourself or cut the line in front of a woman at a job fare or networking event at an event that is for women and non binary people, is this somebody that you would want to have on your team, like the kind of man who would do this?
Do you think that the people on your team are going to feel safe and supported working on a team with somebody like this. If had I been a recruiter at this event, I would have refused to speak to anybody who behaved in this way, And I do think it. It's one of those things that these people might think they're getting a leg up, but in reality, I think that they're making themselves look really bad and perhaps like somebody that you would not want to have on your team.
Yeah. For sure, people want to be on teams with people who are emotionally literate and concerned with issues of privilege and representation. And at least people that I know, that's what the sort of teams they want to be on. It sounds really crummy.
And at the very least people want to be on teams with people who don't shove others and like cut the line, like nobody wants that person on their team.
Yeah, right, Like these people aren't trying to get jobs on like the Wolf of Wall Street, right, They're competing for tech jobs where they're going to be like filing Jira tickets with other tech workers. You know, it's not like a shoving in line kind of industry.
So obviously I agree with you, but I was shocked to hear that not everybody in tech feels the same way. There was a post un Blind, which a forum for tech workers to post online anonymously, that basically cheered on the men who behaved this way at the conference, saying that having tech events solely for women is sexist and that these men were doing a good job by showing up there, taking up space and doing what had to be done. The post reads quote, are we still all
about equality? I saw this year that a lot of men showed up to the Grace Hopper conference and women had to compete slash weight in line with those men to talk to recruiters. As a man, I completely support those guys. They allow non binary people to enter the conference, then why not just represent as non binary. Let's be honest. There is no need for conferences just for women, because if it was the opposite, just for men, then it
would be sexist. Just because you are a woman doesn't give you the right to talk to big firm recruiters. Guys work just as hard and they don't get that chance. So wow. If you are the person who wrote this post on Blind, or you know the who wrote this post on Blind, just know that I've officially added you to our list of official enemies of the show. Whoever you are, you're probably not listening to this podcast of
help uplifting marginalized people in technology. But if you are you're on my list guy?
Yeah, I feel you're right that they're probably not listening to our podcast.
And I think it really comes down to something that we've talked about a lot on the show, which is this really bad knee jerk reaction to things like diversity initiatives or DEI or you know, suing grants for marginalized people. This false notion that we're all starting from an equal playing field, so any opportunity needs to be like equal
otherwise it's not fair. That really assumes that we're all working under the same conditions, that we have an equal playing field, which as those stats about how dismal things are for women and on binary people in the tech industry, we know that's not true. And I think we're going to continue seeing this kind of backlass to anything that's for us, whether that us is black folks or women, or trans folks or queer folks. And I think it also shows just how fragile are spaces and opportunities are.
We historically get less and even when we try to carve out something for us, you know, something for ourselves, they will come for that too. So it shows that our spaces are very fragile. But also why we need those spaces for ourselves more than ever.
You know, it was interesting that earlier on in this segment you were giving a nod to like allyship and like some men are allies and that's great, and like that is great. You know, allies are good. You know, I'm a man. I like to think of myself as a good ally. But like these guys who show up
at this conference, it's pathetic in so many ways. And I would guess that many of them would probably think of themselves as like men of science, or men of numbers, or you know, some sort of like objective science y thinking folks. Right, they work in tech. But those statistics you cited about the underrepresentation of women in tech, I don't even think you cited statistics about like median income.
There's one hundred other statistics that one could easily look at to see like, yeah, there are pretty big disparities in not just who works in tech, but like all up and down every sector of the workforce. For these guys to just like bury their head in the sand and ignore that, it really betrays how either uninformed or like wilfully ignorant they are of the true situation. Of I don't know gender in the workplace or whatever you want to say it.
Oh, I'm sure they. These guys sell at the kind of guys who have described projects that they work on as data driven or data informed, unless that data is data about gender bias intec, in which case it's all equal. But data doesn't matter.
Yeah, one hundred percent. Yeah, I we should do like a survey or something to get it there. I'm gonna think about this one, because you're absolutely right. I bet all of them, you know, all day long, talk about how they're making data driven decisions. They're following the data, they're following the science, except for this huge area where it concerns like them getting paid. Then they're not interested
in the data. They're not interested in the science. They're just interested in like getting theirs at the exclusion of women exactly.
Let's say, quick break at our back.
Okay, So let's move on to a slightly less infuriating story, which is maybe Instagram is not ruinting national parks after all. So, as you'll probably know, I am a avid hiker and I think of myself as an outdoors woman, you know, like I'm you know, I have pooped in holes, I have taken intense hikes. Well, I'm comfortable calling myself a outdoors someone. I'm gonna I'm gonna own that label for myself.
Yeah, you get to decide if you're an outdoors.
You looked like you were about to object to that self proclaimed title.
No, no, you you've earned it.
Okay. So I did a lot more outdoor activities, especially in twenty twenty when the pandemic was shutting down indoor spaces together. So obviously it is important to be good stewards of outdoor spaces that we visit, like packing out your litter, staying on trail, all of that kind of stuff. But in twenty twenty, a growing chorus of advocates we're really urging people not to geotag their specific locations on
social media platforms like Instagram when they posted pictures. The thinking there was that if somebody posts a really beautiful looking spot on social media, other people will see that spot and want to visit that specific spot or that specific park and contribute to over visitation. I heard horror stories in twenty twenty and twenty twenty one of already popular national park locations basically being overrun with crowds to
the point where they were almost not usable. Did you hear those stories?
Oh yeah, I remember that. It was a big It was big news during the pandemic because people couldn't fly anywhere, and so people were flocking to national parks, which, on one hand is great that people are taking advantage of this incredible treasure that we have. But it was a big problem too because it was just too many people, right, Like, the parks can only handle so many people to there
be huge lines of cars. People were sitting in them running their engines for like hours waiting to get into the park, and then like crowd into a space to look at some buffalo or cliffs or something.
Well, now, a new report might be casting some doubt on just how much Instagram impacts outdoor land use. OPB reports at a study in land economics called the Instagram Effect is social media influencing visitation to public land? Suggests that social media might not be a huge driver of visitation after all. So for this study, Ashley Low McKenzie and her colleagues used eighteen years of visitation data and compared it with geotagged Instagram content from fifty popular Oregon
state parks. McKenzie summarizes, there were four parks that went really viral on Instagram, and the really engaged in content, not just the general uploading activity people sharing stuff, but those that really got a lot of engagement had an impact on the growth that was seen at those parks.
So viral Instagram photos of four Oregon parks, smith Rock, Silver Falls, Acola, and Oswald West were linked to growth rates of about four percent, So some impact, but maybe not the huge impact that we were all sort of summarizing what's going to happen when we were telling folks
not to geotag their locations on Instagram. Another wrinkle of this that I actually didn't know is that national parks now require folks who are monetizing content that they get at parks to buy a special photography permit, which kind of makes sense. I do sort of wonder how much of this is like discomfort around influencers and like influencing
as a profession, as a thing that people do. Sometimes when I hear people have intense reactions to crowds and people taking photos, it feels like what they're actually annoyed at is why are there so many women taking photos in this National park? So whenever I'm talking about people's concerns around influencers, I always want to be sure that we're not falling into a trap of just sexism and hating on something that young that is perceived as a
young woman activity or pursuit. This is obviously anecdotal, but when I was gearing up to go to Archest National Park in Utah, so many people were like, oh, it's overrun with influencers now, like influencers have ruined it. Like good luck trying to do anything or go anywhere because it's full of influencers. It's so crowded. And so I showed up thinking it was going to be a nightmare that we were gonna be I was gonna be waiting
forever and ever. But they had just started doing this timed pass entry, and it actually wasn't crowded at all. I think I waited in the car for like maybe fifteen minutes, and it wasn't any crowded than any other National park that I'd ever been to.
Yeah, well maybe that was because they started implementing the timed entry, you know.
Yeah, it was a big fan of the timed entry, and folks might have seen a similar conversation happening around leaf peeping and fall leaves and sort of how the perception that, like, young women want to do their fall photo shoot in front of pretty leaves, and they're going to like pretty small towns and wreaking havoc with they're Starbucks cups and they're over the any boots.
They must be stopped, these young women taking some photo in front of leaves.
Well, if you're in Pomfret, Vermont, that's exactly what you think. So in this small town in Vermont, the town board agreed to block anyone but locals from using a specific dirt road that has very pretty rural leaf views during peak leaf peeping season from the twenty third of September to the fifteenth of October. It does actually seem like the town had legitimate issues with people who were coming to just look at leaves and take pictures of leaves.
The town has dubbed these people ticktokers, but like instead of the way that TikTok is actually spelled, it's like tick space tck e rs.
These clock stops clock people.
So basically they said that these people have been coming to look at the leaves, but when doing so, they sometimes block the access for emergency vehicles with their own cars. They their cars get stuck in dirt or mud because it's a dirt road and not everybody can drive on dirt or mud. Well, or they leave trash. They they
hot people's private fences. The town actually started working with influencers to get people with big platforms to spread the word that folks who are visiting this town in Vermont need to respect the property and the people that live there.
Well that ends on a nice note.
Yeah, I kind of like that. It's not just like when I first read the article, I was like, Oh, they're just like demonizing pretty girls who like fall, which, like,
what did we ever do to anybody? No, I'm just kidding, uh, But No, I like that they're actually acknowledging that these people are coming because they want to appreciate the land, and then using the platforms that these influencers have to spread the word about how you like, what you need to be considerate of if you are genuinely trying to be a good steward of this land, Like don't trapes all over it, don't cause a nuisance, don't be annoying
to the people who actually live there. I do think that as you were talking about the rise of people exploring the vast natural beauty of the domestic United States,
I do think that that is great. But I think that sometimes social media can influence people to do that in a way that does not always prioritize what is the most important thing always, which is safety, like your safety and the safety of others, and recipect for the land, and so yeah, I mean it's one of the reasons why I don't really use geo tags on Instagram of
outdoor spots that I visit. Like sometimes I'll tag something in a general sense, like I'll tag Joshua Tree National Park or Sdandoah National Park as opposed to tagging a specific loop or arch or mountain. And you know, I think I'm going to continue that practice even if it's not related to environmental impacts like the study suggests, because
I don't know. I just think that I worry that posting a really cool specific spot will this encourage people to try to recreate like that same itinerary that I did. I have certainly felt that, or somebody posts a really cool looking image of some outdoor spot on social media and I'm like, I gotta go there and take that picture.
But I don't I don't want to contribute to that. Like, I don't think that, especially when it comes to the outdoors, I don't think it's good to encourage folks to see the outdoors as this commodity where they can just recreate itineraries themselves, like ordering on a menu. You know, I think that social media can sometimes prompt us into losing the thing that is so good about exploring the outdoors and nature, right, the aspect of fascination or discovery that
comes with outdoor travel experiences. I know that I have felt it before, and I just don't want to contribute to it in other folks.
Yeah, that's a beautiful way to put it. And yeah, why why would you want to like geotag your exact spot? Like, if you find some really wonderful, beautiful spot that you feel a personal connection to, why would you want to like broadcast that to everyone to be able to recreate and to know right like that that's yours. It's between you and the spot. Let other people find their own spot.
Yeah, Like, part of the fun of exploring the outdoors is finding your own spot. And like the work that it takes to find it is like part of the experience, and I want to encourage that, not just like here's the place to go for a photo, everybody just like get in, take your photo, and get out. I feel like it's really easy to miss what is so special about spending time outdoors when you do that totally.
And I think there's also a connection to the point you were making about that town in Vermont encouraging influencers to post messages and encourage their followers to like respect the land and respect property and respect the people who live there. Like those are not values that are unique to Vermont in the fall time. Those feel like pretty universal values, right, like respecting the where you are, respecting
the people who live there. And I think there is something about the commodification of places that can get really promoted via Instagram photos that discourages that kind of respect for a place.
I completely agree. I mean, I've seen it, you know, I've seen those spots where the Instagram photo is so beautiful, but then in reality, it's like there's a line of people standing off trail to get waiting to get that one photo. And that doesn't feel good to me. I just don't think that we should be treating our natural resources that are so special and beautiful and unique and aspiring like their cardboard cutouts of a celebrity to get a picture with.
Yeah, and some spots are so unbelievably beautiful that we can't help it, right, Like you mentioned Arches National Park, and what is it? The delicate Arch is that iconic arch that we've all seen a million times in photos, and yet everybody's gonna want a photo of that. But hopefully along the way hiking up to it, people will see the ten thousand other beautiful vistas and formations along the way and develop some kind of affinity for them.
I don't know. I guess I'm getting a little flowery here.
No, I know what you mean. And that's the thing, like having been having hiked the delicate Arch. The delicate arch is beautiful and you should get I got a photo with it. People should get photos with it. I'm not being like, oh, if you take a selfie with a delicate arch, you are an asshole. That is not what I'm saying. But what I'm saying is I think that just the one iconic photo or the particularly beautiful vista, or like the iconic viral locations on social media that
we saw, particularly in twenty twenty. I think that that can discourage people from enjoying the hike to the arch and like really ating the beauty of the twenty different amazing arches that are not necessarily iconic on Instagram, but that are beautiful in their own way. And I think it can like lessen it can encourage people to not actually appreciate what is exciting and fun and fascinating about being outside, which is all of it. It's not just
the thing that you recognize from Instagram. You know. It reminds me in Mexico. I mean, I'm I get taken by this too. When I was in Mexico, there's this hot spring that I was like, oh my god, I've seen it on Instagram. It looks amazing. I cannot wait to do it. And when I went, it has these like outdoor heated pools formed on the side of a rock formation above a vista. It is so gorgeous on Instagram.
When I actually went, I was like, oh my god, are these the you know, rock formation hot hot springs? They're like yeah. I got in and it was really cool. But the actual most fun part is the part that you almost never see on social media. It's these underground caves that have hot walter where you're standing in hot water and it's got hot water pouring from above. Those were that was the most fun part by a wide margin. It doesn't photograph all on Instagram, and you almost never
see them on Instagram. So I got the like picture of me and the iconic thing that everybody recognizes. But the thing that I spent the most time in and that I appreciated the most was the thing I had never seen on Instagram. And like, I guess that's my point is that sometimes social media can trick you into thinking that the thing that looks the best on Instagram, that pops the most on social is the most fun, when in reality, that's not necessarily the most fun. It
just looks the coolest. Okay, so let's move on. I have to give a little bit of a trigger warning for this next segment. It deals with non consensual deep
fakes and sextortion. So we've talked a bit about the threat presented by non consensual deep to fake images before and now a group of young girls in all Mendrajeo, Spain say they received fabricated nude images of themselves that were created using an easily accessible undressing app power by artificial intelligence, which really raises a lot of the questions that we talk about on this show around the scope
and harms that such apps can cause. According to an ABC report, over thirty victims between the ages of twelve and fourteen years of age have been identified so far, and the police in Spain so they've had reports of this happening elsewhere in the country too. ABC reported that the culprits are a group of young male perpetrators who
were also miners, who police say knew most of their victims. Basically, these guys found photos of their victims on social media and uploaded them to a newdify app, which is an app that allows people to submit images of anybody and then generate AI created nude depictions of them. The perpetrators created a group chat on WhatsApp and Telegram to disseminate these non consensual, fabricated nude images, and the fake images were used to extort at least one victim on Instagram
for real nude images or money. So pretty awful behavior from these boys who were targeting these young girls.
Yeah, it was like pretty gross but then when you got to the part about the extortion for money or newt images that it took like a super gross turn.
Yeah, and remember, just because these images are faked using AI does not mean that social media platforms don't have a responsibility to treat them just like they would any other kind of threatening child sexual abuse material. WhatsApp spokesperson said, we treat this situation the same as any kind of child sexual abuse material we become aware of on our platform. We would ban those involved and report them to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. So it gets worse.
ABC reached out to the people who created this app, and what they got back is really telling. Basically, the folks who created this new Toifi app basically just say that it's all a big joke. The team behind the app said that their main reason for creating this type of service was to make people laugh processing their own photos and laughing together by processing each other's photos and by laughing on them. We want to show people that they do not need to be ashamed of nudity, especially
if it was made by neural networks. So ha, just a big joke. Oh, you're a miner who is being extorted with AI created digital non consensual deep fakes of yourself. Oh, it's meant to be a joke that is lessening the shame of your nudity. Uh, I don't think so.
Yeah, I don't think so either.
When ABC asked the people who made this app what kind of safeguards they put in place to avoid people generating this kind of material, particularly of children, the makers of the app said that if somebody tried to upload an image of a miner twice, then they were blocked from the app, which, yikes, what a terrible policy. Two
strikes for creating child sexual abuse material. But even beyond that, if anyone gets two goes at uploading an image of a miner to create you know, inappropriate images of that person. If they get two chances to do that and they then work in a network like these perpetrators are accused of doing, that is plenty of room for them to do a lot of damage like these perpetrators did.
Well. It's also not even an answer because like, how does their app know if an image is child sexual abuse material? Are they using AI to detect it? If that's the case, why do they give them two chances? Or are they depending on somebody to report it as child sexual abuse material. If that's the case, then it's not really any sort of safeguard at all. That's like not even an answer. That's right up there with we created this app to make people laugh.
Yeah, you know who's not laughing the twelve year old girls who have been targeted by this. So there was a paid version of this app which worked with payment processors that you've heard of, like Visa and PayPal, but those payment processors pulled their services from the app after this ABC report came out. What's really sad to me is that these girls obviously felt a lot of shame or pressure to stay silent about being targeted in this way.
One of the parents of a victim posted a plea on Instagram saying here we are united to stop this now. Using other people's images to do this barbarity and spread them is a very serious crime. Girls, don't be afraid
to report such acts. Tell your mothers. After the parents of one of the victims posted this to Instagram, more victims came forward, so Professor Klaermaglenn, a law professor at Durham University in the UK and an expert on violence against women and girls, says that platforms are amplifying this kind of neudified content. She says this is a direct abuse of women and girls by technology that is specifically
designed to abuse women and girls. Google returns newdified websites at the top of its ranking, enabling and legitimizing these behaviors. There is no legitimate reason to use nonutifle by apps without consent. They should be de ranked by search platforms
such as Google. Mike kind of to your point about the people who made this app their like non answer, Google, in response to this kind of kind of gave the same old song and dance about how they really care about amplifying the best content blah blah blah, and how they're working to keep this kind of junk off their platform. But honestly they need to do better now. We don't need to hear platitudes. The group of girls who have been targeted by this kind of behavior like these platitudes
probably mean nothing to them. This is not a faraway harm that is posed to happen in the future down the line. It is happening now. These girls are living, walking, breathing proof of it, and platforms like Google need to do better now.
Yeah, I'm so curious what Google actually said in response, because I just typed Newdify into Google and the result is like the Newdify app inviting me to upload an image and you know undress whoever. Uh, so they've like obviously done nothing.
A Google spokesperson responded by saying, quote, like any search engine, Google index is content that exists on the web, but we actively design our ranking systems to avoid shocking people with unexpected, harmful or explicit content. We also have well developed protections to help people impacted by involuntary fake pornography. People can request the removal of pages about them that
include this content. They added that as this space and technology evolves quote, they are actively working to add more safeguards to help protect people based on systems we've built for other types of non consensual explicit imagery. None of that meet like tell that to the victims. Tell the victims that, oh, after you've already been extorted by these images, you can have them. You can submit and request to
have them removed after the fact. Don't worry once your friends have seen it, once it's been put passed around on a WhatsApp group and it's already really impacted your young life at an impressiable time, impressionable time for you. Don't worry. You can just request us to remove it, and we are working actively to add more safeguards to help protect women like you. Like it just means nothing.
Is there a date on that statement from them?
There is not. The piece was published October second.
So that was three weeks ago. Excuse me, it was three days ago. As of today, you type newdified into Google and it gives you a whole wealth of apps that will do this for you for free, like top ten free apps that will do this for you, roundups, reviews of apps. They're just like doing it. They've obviously done nothing, So like Google actively doing something according to them, means like Google doing nothing.
Yeah, I mean I wouldn't say they're doing nothing. In fact, they're enabling and legitimizing these kinds of apps and their use on social media. So yeah, Google, this is their platitudes are not enough. Like I'm enraged. This is enraging. Google needs to do more. The threat is here today. The threat is being experienced by real women and girls today. Google needs to act. I don't want to hear more platitudes about how they're building better tools than YadA YadA YadA.
That means nothing to me unless it is paired with actual meaningful action.
Yeah, and like, I don't know how many more Atlantic articles we all need to read about how broken Google search is, but like, it definitely is, but apparently this one area is like not broken at all. It's like thriving.
Oh, if you want to get a non scammy answer to your your basic question on Google, that's not an ad. Good luck. If you want to see a non consensual image of a minor, we got you.
So.
Kind of to that point. There was a new report in the Washing Post about online sextortion, which is on the rise. This is a very troubling, heartbreaking story. This kind of sextortion is especially targeting young men and boys. The report says that the number of sextortion cases targeting young people has exploded in the last couple of years, with teen boys being the specific targets. This is from Lauren Coffrin, executive director of the Exploited Children Division at
the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. They're using shame, embarrassment, and fear, and they're tapping into that Coaufrin said they're exploiting children's worst nightmares. Basically, how it works is that someone will pose as another young person, getting to know the victim, flirting with them, and then pressuring the victim
and descending nude images that specifically include their face. Then, once they have those images, the perpetrator turns around and demands money from the target, threatening to send those images to their contacts, their friends and family if they don't send it. This is sadly happening more and more. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has receive more than ten thousand tips of financial sextortion of miners, primarily boys,
in twenty twenty two. By the end of July twenty twenty three, they had already received more than twelve thousand, five hundred reports, with more continuing to pour in. What's even more troubling is the impact. The repercussions of the abuse are devastating. At least a dozen boys died by suicide in twenty twenty two after they were blackmailed. So, like a lot of sexual violence, a big part of
how these cases work is shame. The victims feel ashamed, they don't report it, and then the perpetrators can just move on without any consequences and continue to target others. Kids are, sadly often finding themselves navigating this more or less on their own. They may feel afraid or ashamed
to involve a guardian once they're targeted. The Washington Post spoke to Emily Mudler, program director from the Family Online Safety Institute, which emphasized that while parents should set rules and boundaries for technology use for kids, regulations must come with a caveat that if your kid finds themselves in real trouble, they can come to you as a guardian
for help. Mulder says, you don't want it to be a case for your kids are so fearful that they broke the rules that they don't want to tell their parents. So young boys are particularly vulnerable to being targeted. Samir Hinduja, co director for the Cyber Bullying Research Center and professor of criminology at Florida Atlantic University, says the center receives an incredibly disproportionate number of health requests from male victims. Presuming that sexting is a precursor to sextortion, it is
possible that females may send nuds. More So, in the context of a romantic relationship, whereas males may do so more casually and experimentally. This fact makes males more of an easy target. The article on the post had some really heartbreaking accounts from real young people who dealt with this in their families. They include one teen's text to his parents after he set nude images over Instagram and
the perpetrator asked for three hundred dollars. The victim says things to his parents as he's confessing what's going on. He says things like, I'm so so sorry, I messed up, I'm so stupid. I wish you had a better son. And reading those text messages that he frantically sent to his parents for help, like in the midst of a spiral from this really broke my heart. And in that instance, the perpetrators actually did make good on their threat. They sent nude images of this minor boy to his parents'
cell phones. The parents didn't really know what to do because you know, their child is being extorted financially, but also they now have a nude image of a minor on their cell phones, cell phones that they use for work. So the parents were like, we don't know what to do. They called the police, and the police basically could not
offer them any real help. They then reported the account who was extorting their son to Instagram, but the count remained active and kept messaging them and threatening to release these images more widely. This in action by authorities and tech companies is another big part of the problem. This particular boy's parents said, Instagram needs to own a partial responsibility for this. We hold our son accountable. He made
a bad choice. We're not saying it's Instagram's fault, but I still feel like they should care more about trying to protect these kids. And I agree, I hard hard agree.
Yeah, they are making plenty of money. They should have humans monitoring that report feature, and they should block an account that is reported for sex storting a minor.
Yeah. Something else that makes this apparently difficult to deal with is that many of the perpetrators are based outside of the United States, a lot of them in Western African countries, but they're targeting youth in the United States, which makes tracking them down and bringing them to justice
that much more difficult. It's also just realistically like a very difficult and complex thing for parents and guardians to navigate with their kids, Like, I'm sure somebody listening is just like, well, this is why young people just shouldn't have iPhones or shouldn't have social media, or I know that as somebody without kids, I always say things like this, like, when I have a child, they're never gonna be around screens.
It's just gonna be books and wooden toys. And then watch when I have a kid how quickly that changes.
But you know, it's just not realistic to in twenty twenty three have expect a parent to tell a teenager, like a fifteen sixteen year old, that they can't have a phone, that they can't have social media when all the other kids in their grade have that right, And the reality is is that kids do need to learn to navigate these online spaces safely, right, and so like just saying you don't, like, okay, if this is going to be a threat, you aren't going to be on
social media or have an iPhone or whatever, particularly when your kid is in that weird in between stage of like fifteen, sixteen seventeen, where you're not a child, but you're not an adult, and you're like away from your guardians for several hours a day at school, maybe you have a job. It's just very complicated, both as a parent or a guardian, trying to navigate the Internet and social media and all of the promise and peril and
threats and community that it's offered there. For young people, it's just a lot, Like it's a huge expectation that I think when you have these threats that are so real, it makes it that much more difficult.
Yeah, I can't imagine being a fifteen year old boy in twenty twenty three. I can't imagine being the parent of a fifteen year old boy in twenty twenty three. It's got to be so difficult, so complicated.
Yeah, And what really breaks my heart about all this is that exploring sex and sexuality is normal and healthy for young people. Young people should be able to do that in ways that are safe and age appropriate and that don't have them like, don't have their natural curiosity or exploration being weaponized against them. Like it breaks my heart that these kids, the text messages of the young man who was confessing to his parents that he had
sent these images online. He should be able to have a healthy and safe and age appropriate exploration of what sexuality is as he's as he's aging without worrying that it's going to be exploited and weaponized in such a cruel way. And so it just breaks my heart that kids aren't getting something that I think is like a healthy, normal part of growing up for all of us.
Yeah, and you know, it's interesting that the article says that this is like a rapidly growing problem, particularly for boys. Like we don't. We don't spend a whole lot of time talking about problems that disproportionately affect the boys on this show. But for some reason, this one like hurts and it feels like important more.
After a quick break, let's get right back into.
It and talking about the biggest boy of them all, Elon Musk. What's Elon done now?
Well, Elon Musk has removed all link texts from Twitter when you post links. So now when you post a link to a news article or any kind of article, the only thing that comes up is a picture from that article, and then you click the picture to take you to the article. It's awful, if you've seen it, it's awful. It's hostile to news media and factfinders and a healthy media ecosystem, which obviously has got to be part of the point.
Right, Oh my god, it's so stupid. It's so this is like a niche example, but I'm going to give it. I you know, I'm a scientist. I publish scientific articles and like scientific journals, and some of them, increasingly many of them require you to submit like a cover image to go along with it. And you know, sometimes your article has like a cool graph or something that is like a useful cover image, but like that's not really
what they want. So most of the time what I do is I'll go to like texels dot com or some sort of like free stock image service to find a stock image to upload with it. This image has nothing to do with the goddamn story that like the article is about. It is like tangentially related. Most of mine are like someone holding a cell phone or something, right, because it's like, oh, mobile health. The idea that he's going to strip the headline and only show the image
is like, let's focus on the least informative thing we can. Yeah, I guess, just to like add to the sense of confusion and lack of coherence that is the order of the day on Twitter these days.
Well, people are using that to troll elon they're posting articles that use his image, and they're tweeting things because you can't see any text, so it's just an image of Elon Musk, and they're tweeting things like Elon Musk found dead or breaking police have found human remains and evidence of cannibalism, and Elon Musk's la home that he sold in twenty twenty two, because it's just an image, and who knows what the article says, Like, who's gonna
click the article to find out what it says. So yeah, chaos abounds on Twitter.
That's hilarious. But also he probably loves that because it's attention for him. He loves the attention. That's why he spent forty four billion dollars so that people could like make little jokes about him and post his photo.
Well, you want to know what else Elon Musk has done? Now?
I guess I don't have to tell you. No, no, tell me. I want to know what's Elon continued to do?
Now, Well, you might actually like this one. He got hit with the defamation lawsuit. Huffington Post reports that Ben Brody, a twenty two year old Jewish man from California, filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk after he and his family were forced to flee their homes for their own safety after content when you'd harassment and threats, after Musk promoted a baseless and dangerous conspiracy that Brody was a federal
agent involved in a neo Nazi group. So Brody is being represented by attorney Mark Bankston, who previously represented two of the Sandy Hook parents who ya might remember won forty five million dollars in damages against conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, after Jones spent years falsely claiming with the twenty twelve school shooting that left twenty kids and six adults dead never happened, that was a false flag, their kids were at crisis actors whatever, So Mark Bankston, attorney says, and
yet another example of Elon Musk's serial pattern of slander, he falsely told the world that Ben Brody participated in a violent street brawl on behalf of a neo Nazi extremist group. Brody is seeking more than a million dollars in damages from Musk, and honestly, Brody, we hope you get it.
He should ask for more. That's like nothing to this guy.
That's like the change in his cushions, his couch cushions for him. So I do have a little bit of good tech news for you, bike. You ready to hear it?
Yeah, I'll take some good news.
So good news. New York City became the first public health system in the United States to offer abortion care via telehealth. NYC residents can access medication abortion services over the phone or via video services like Zoom up to ten weeks of pregnancy. The service Virtual Express Care is offered seven days a week from nine am to nine pm.
Patients must attest that they're in New York City and will take the medication while they're in New York City or receive the medication at a New York City address. So a big part of abortion is access, like people not being able to get to clinics or get the care that they need. So abortion by mail or telehealth abortion is a great way to expand access. So I don't say a lot of good things about Eric Adams, the Mayor of New York, but this one I like.
Yeah, this is the probably the first really good thing I've heard about Eric Adams. So I'll give it to him on this one. Good job let's not get crazy. I feel like maybe he didn't know, Like maybe they snucked it. Yeah, but that is great, Like telehealth is the future, it's what people want. People love it. The federal government really opened up access to telehealth during the
pandemic and people loved it. We're accessing care in new ways that were like convenient and that lowered costs for everyone. It was like such a win win and it's nice to see it expanding, particularly for the super important area of abortion access.
Yeah, we have all this technology. It is making our lives harder and more harmful in all kinds of ways. Why not make it easier and better in a few ways. I like it. I like to see it.
Hell yeah.
So the last few weeks, I have been invited to come do talks and lectures and panels at universities and conferences. Thank you. If you are listening and you have asked me to come out and speak to your group or your conference or your college, thank you. And if you are listening and you're like that is something that I would like, get in touch with me. You can email me at hello at tangoti dot com And I would love to come to your college, your campus your panel,
your workplace, whatever. Hit me up.
Yeah, you should definitely do it. Bridget is a great speaker. She's not one of these podcasts hosts. It's going to phone it in. She's gonna come, she's gonna she's gonna prepare some remarks, she's gonna host the panel. You should definitely invite Bridget to come speak at your campus.
I want to speak at your campus. I want to moderate your panel. I want to host her event. I do it all. I love meeting people. I might seem awkward on the podcast, but I swear people enjoy my company in person. Hit me up, Mike, thank you so much for being here.
Brigitt, thank you for having me. It was great to be back. I love doing the show with you. Thank you for giving me the opportunity.
And thanks to all of you for listening. As always. If you want to support the sh and find ad free content, check us out our Patreon at patreon dot com. Slash Tangody no pressure, but you can find us there and we'll see you on the internet. If you're looking for ways to support the show, check out our March store at tegoty dot com. Slash store. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or just want to say hi. You can reach us at Hello at tegody
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