Hi, bridgett Here. The other podcast that I make with Mozilla about AI called IRL was nominated for an Anthem Award. It would mean so much to me if you could take just a few seconds and vote for IRL to win. Just go to tangoti dot com slash I r L or use the link in our show notes. You can vote until December twenty first. Thank you so much. It means a lot. There are No Girls on the Internet.
As a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm bridget Todd and this is there are no Girls on the Internet. I am here with my producer Joey. Joey, it's nice to see you back.
We missed you, Hi, it's nice with you too.
So as y'all know, we are trying to start every episode with a little bit of light banter, just sort of ease us into the episode. I tried my hardest to do it last week. We bank Yeah.
Uh.
Listener Susan actually emailed us with a great banter suggestion of using the time to sort of get to know our producers. Because we hear from Joey, we hear from Mike. Listeners don't necessarily know who these folks are, even though I feel like, you know, I'm talking to them all the time. So to do that, let's play a little bit of my favorite game, would you Rather? Would you rather? As one of my favorite games. I play it endlessly on car trips. I've annoyed all my friends. I all
text would you rather? Okay? Would you rather? Be able to use the internet only for twenty minutes every day? Or you can use it like normal? But your boss gets a detailed report of everything you did online every day?
Oh my god, I haven't think of all that now, Like what do I do on the internet? I feel like I need to go through Okay, that's rough, Like this is my problem. I get way too strong, like I love these things, but also and then I spend too much time.
Being like but what would I do? What if this was real? I don't know. I uh, but I think.
My boss is pretty chill. That's what I so I'm thinking of, like my boss currently. Hi, Maya, if you're listening to this, But like I wouldn't like I feel like that would be fine, Like I wouldn't like there's nothing I write, yeah, Like she would just sort of be like all right, whatever, Like Maya wouldn't even look do you spend like an embarrassing amount of time on like Twitter?
So like I don't, like, I.
Don't really know if I want that like out into the world.
I'm gonna say.
Tentatively, I think my boss gets a detailed report on what internet just because I can't like the idea of only having twenty minutes on the Internet, Like I'm like, that is not I don't beyond even just like the normal stuff I like need to look up, Like I don't know how to like function, Like I don't think I've ever cooked a meal without ever having to look up something like really stupid, Like I don't know. Yeah, yeah, that's my answer. What about you, bridget what about you?
Well, I'm my own boss. Really, I will say, you're to your point about like the things that I have to google when I'm cooking, like a tablespoon is you know how many cups into tables? Like things I feel like I should have learned in grammar school, Like if I if people, if if another human got to see the level of a nane things that I have to check via Google, I will be very embarrassed.
Oh the other one.
Recently, I've been working on a project currently. That's making me go through some like Jstore articles and some like really academic stuff, which is super fun.
I love doing that stuff, like honestly, like that's kind of shit. I like, I'll nerd out over.
However, it's been a minute since I've read like academic articles, and I don't There's a lot of words that I've had to google just like that are like weird words.
Like like but yeah, like I I feel like my my recently.
It's either that or like if I'm writing something and I'll be like, I keep spelling this word wrong. Those are usually like stupid ones like that's usually like I can't remember how to spell like schedule or something like I don't know.
That might be a little embarrassing, but you know what, yeah I can't. I can't. I don't know what words mean.
I think, okay, so here there are no girls on the internet. We have been watching the Republican debate so that y'all don't have to. It has been interesting and frustrating. I would say like eighty percent of what comes up on the on the Republican Debate so far has been like stunts or scams or grand standing or conspiracy theories, and then maybe like twenty percent is actual policy discussions genuinely I've had. When I watched it this week, I had to turn it off for a little while and
like collect myself and then return to it. So technology has come up in most of these debates, specifically whether or not TikTok should be banned. Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Hayley has been all in on banning TikTok, and in this week's debate, she dropped a startling statistic that just thirty minutes spent on TikTok makes people seventeen percent more anti semitic.
We really do need to ban TikTok once and for all. And let me tell you why. For every thirty minutes that someone watches TikTok every day, they become seventeen percent more anti Semitic, more pro hamas based on doing.
That, which is like a pretty big claim. So whenever I hear a candidate make like a clear specific claim like that, you gotta dig into it to find more, right, because it should be pretty cut and dry, right, like find the stat confirm whether it's accurate or not. So I thought this is going to be a straightforward fact check for y'all when I tell you this was so much more complicated. So that seventeen percent figure that Haley cited actually came from a data analysis shared on Twitter
on November thirtieth by Anthony Goldbloom. Goldbloom is the former CEO of a data science platform called Cagold. I looked into Goldbloom. He is like a macro economist from Australia. So first, Hayley misstated what Goldbloom's analysis found. Gold Bloom's analysis suggests that people who spend thirty minutes a day or more on TikTok are seventeen percent more likely than others to hold antisemitic or anti Israel views. We'll come
back to that point in just a moment. For comparison, According to this analysis, use of Instagram for thirty minutes today was associated with a six percent increase in the likelihood of anti Semitic views, and the use of Twitter for thirty minutes today was associated with a two percent increase in likelihood. Side note, When Goldbloom tweeted this, you know Elon Musk was in the thread being like interesting. This says that actually Twitter is not a big driver
of anti Semitism. You don't say that's great for me, unsurprising Gloom. So Hayley has definitely misstated the conclusions of this analysis. She said during the debate, for every thirty minutes that somebody watched TikTok, and that's simply not with this analysis suggests the state of conclusions of the analysis are that people who spend thirty minutes or more on TikTok every day are seventeen percent more likely to hold
anti Semitic attitudes. What it does not suggest is that spending thirty minutes on TikTok will bolster someone's anti semitic use by seventeen by sev which is like, like, that's like a real like how this.
Would get seventeen?
I want I want to like, I would love for an interviewer to ask Indicky Haley how exactly somebody gets sevent Like, what is the metric to measure that? What is seventeen more anti semitic? Seventeen percent more anti semitic than what you previously were.
That's yeah, So I think that's why what you said. I think that's exactly why people are really responding to this on Twitter, that people are like, like, what is the metric that you're using? Like, how are you quantifying this?
Had I been the moderator of that debate, I would have definitely pressed her because it's like you can't drop a stat like that and then you just like, oh, well, seventeen percent, my am I anyway, moving on, like that's really a stat that like, she clearly got it from somewhere, and so I do think the moderators it would have behooved them to ask a little bit more about where that stat came from. So she is just flat out
misstating what that analysis actually said. But then there's the issue of the analysis itself that is a bit more complicated. So I want to be super clear that I am like no researcher. I don't have an educational background in this at all. But our producer Mike has a PhD and does survey research for a living. I had Mike take a look at the analysis and he raised a
few questions. First, Goldbloom does not describe his methods in the survey, so we don't know a ton about how he came to these conclusions around that seventeen percent figure. It's entirely possible that these methods are perfectly sound. But because when he shared his analysis, he did not also share his methods, we have no idea and we can't even look into it to say. This was not a
study published in a scientific journal. It is just an analysis that somebody posted on Twitter and GitHub, So definitely like keep that in mind when thinking about this. The stat second is the way that Goldbloom framed the survey questions to determine how often that people responding to the survey use TikTok. According to his data, ninety percent of all respondents use TikTok at least once a day, which is certainly not representative of the larger United States population.
He also did not control for age. You know, we know that folks who use TikTok tend to skew younger, and we also know that younger people tend to be more sympathetic to Palestinians. So in his correlational study, in which he didn't control for age at all, it is possible that the entire effect is driven about the fact that the people who use TikTok tend to be younger
than the people who don't. We just don't know. So another points that I wanted to make which this is coming from noted non researcher me Fridgid and not researcher Mike. Is the way that Goldbloom correlates anti Israel views with anti Semitic views on Twitter, Goldbloom fleshed this out saying TikTok users are more likely to believe Jewish people are dishonest in business, are disloyal to America, and have too
much power in media. They're also more likely to disagree that Israel has a right to defend itself against those who want to destroy it. And I guess I just have questions about this framing that puts very clear anti Semitic tropes like Jewish people have too much power alongside specific policy opinions about the state of Israel to make the overall claim about TikTok users being anti Semitic. I just have questions about how those survey questions are being understood in this in this analysis.
Yeah, that's definitely like the biggest dread flag for me.
Also not I'm also not a preno professional researcher. I did how every good a journalism school, and they teach to us a lot about you know, not asking leading questions or not how framing questions in a specific way like kind of determines how Like I don't know, I learned that at like ap stats too, Like that's a
pretty big concept. And this is like a what it does whenever you have something that's talking about anti semitism and you are also roping in the most basic questions about Israel and the Israeli military and like yeah, like this said specific policy questions, Like that's that is so much more complicated than just simply asking about anti semitism. And also then what it ends up doing is falsely equivocating any sort of criticism of Israel with anti semitism, which is not true.
It is not like look like I we're in the middle.
I mean, and I think now, especially now we're seeing this, like there's a lot of like people that are Jewish that are very critical of Israel or Zionism or like the Israeli state. There are people I know that Like, I mean, I don't know, I have family members that aren't even like super that are definitely like Zionists, that are definitely more.
Pro Israel, but like they're very critical of the Israeli state.
Because the estate is currently like has a super far right government in charge. But yeah, no, that's that is a weird Like I think that that to me, just hearing that he put those two things together and use that as one sort of set of data and to make like one assumption about whether or not people are anti smatic and hold antismatic views, that to me just qualifies the entire results of the survey, because if you're if you're not making that distinction, you're not going to get accurate results.
Yeah, and I want to be clear, like I am fully, fully ready to believe that it's possible that TikTok drives harmful attitudes like anti semitism. We already know that TikTok, Like this is something that happens on social media platforms. This is not like a surprise media matters that an analysis that found that TikTok recommends users content that is misogynistic and deeply transphobic and and uses that kind of uses transphobia and misogyny as a entry point to lead
them down far right rabbit holes. And so that is the thing, right, But I wanted to bring this up because I do think it says something about our current like political and media climate right now, it is very weird to me that someone running for office, running for president could clearly and specifically state something as an an a clear fact based on just an analysis that somebody put out there on Twitter, and that that claim would
be this difficult and complicated to verify. You know, I've seen people like dismissing Haley's claims, which I also like kind of understand because it does. Like I was when I was like looking into this, I was ready to be like wanted Nikki Haley completely misunderstand or like, why did she pull this completely ridiculous stat from thought that I thought it was going to be like a made up stat that she just like fabricated. And I'm realizing
now that like that isn't necessarily the case. And I actually do think it matters how platforms are shaping and stoking social attitudes. But I wish that we could have that conversation in a way that doesn't misstate findings or that does it spotlight you know, analysis that's just murky murky in the sense of like it's not clear how it was how it was gathered, right, So, like I don't think that this is actually helping us to get there and I actually would be curious to have that conversation.
Yeah, no, definitely, I think this is a weird one because I also, Yeah, I think my immediate i'd seen that, Like I saw that clip on Twitter, and my immediate response was just like, oh my god, Like, of course Nikia Harley is saying some weird stuff.
But yeah, no, it definitely is indicative of something.
And I think it also like the way the fact that like something like TikTok that's just a platform has been politicized so much, like that makes it so hard to actually analyze like what we're talking about and analyze the way that yeah, like what there is a conversation to be had about these sites like stoking hate and like not to say any semitism, but yeah, like racism and transphobia, homophobia, misogyny. There is an there's a conversation to be had there, and it's important that we like
figure out ways to address that problem. But like there's so many intersexting issues here. A it's the fact that TikTok's been politicized, and it's so hard to actually do that research when it's been politicized in this way.
And then on the other hand, like, I think this.
Is why it is so important to distinguish between what is actually anti Semitic and what is simply criticism of Israel that's not necessarily anti smetic, because it's so like I feel like I'm having this This has been a frustrating thing lately when trying to find just like statistics and info about anti semitism in particular, is it so much of it is so hard to like really get real clear answers just because yeah, so many people, whether just sort of by assumption or like with a specific agenda,
have included criticism of Israel or have included criticism of Zionism within their analysis of anti semitism.
And I'm not.
Saying, like again not saying that aren't criticisms are all of Israel and Zionism out there that turned into antisemitic talking points.
Obviously that is a thing too, and that is bad.
But like those you should be addressing those as anti semitism, and because of the anti semitism that go, not because they're just criticizing a government that is separate from just an a group of people that share an identity.
But yeah, that is it's weird. It is a weird, Like it's one.
Of those I feel like this is another one of those things where like some of the other Republican parties and something really weird and it's like a meme for a bit and then you like we all think about it like a week later and are like, oh, oh no, this is bad, like these are and again like this is somebody running for president of the United States.
Yeah.
Also, I'm sorry, I don't like this is the like the Republican Party.
This is y'all are the like Jewish space Lasers party, Like you can't be out here being like it's chip took that's making people antise medic Like I don't know, that's the calls were coming from inside the house, Like yeah.
I was literally just thinking that when you were saying that, I was thinking this. I was thinking the same line like me coming from some of the houses on that one. Let's take a quick break at her back, so we got to talk about this Amazon lawsuit. Quick heads up at this conversation does involve the sexual exploitation of a minor.
So two years ago, a Brazilian teenager was participating in a foreign exchange student program, so she was living with a host family in West Virginia, and while she was there, she discovered that her host family or someone in the host family had put a spy camera purchased from Amazon in her bathroom to obtain intimate footage of her in
the bathroom. So now she is suing Amazon for selling a product that was advertised for potentially illicit uses and was allegedly flagged to Amazon's product safety team, which her suit says inspected the sale of that camera on their platform three times and still failed to prevent the severe foreseeable harms that still affect her today. I'm sure those
harms do affect her today. That is horrible. So Amazon filed a motion to dismiss the case back in March, but this week the judge hearing the case did not buy most of Amazon's arguments, so the case will proceed to discovery and maybe even a trial. The judge let or claims stand negligence, product viability, torts of outrage which is the intentional infliction of emotional distress, and civil conspiracy, but the judge did dismiss our racketeering claim against ammaz On.
So this case is super disturbing to me, and it also highlights that Amazon's marketplace does knowingly sell things that are pretty obviously not just used for illegal harmful behavior, but basically like advertised that they can be used for that illegal harmful behavior. The camera that her host family had bought on Amazon is called hidden Clothes hook camera. It's a camera that it's meant to look like a hook that you would hang a towel on in a bathroom.
And in fact, images that appear in the marketing on Amazon's website advertising the camera show a bunch of bath towels and they have the copy that says quote it won't attract any attention underline and a very ordinary hook yuck. So it's pretty clear like but what they are advertising right like side note on this, I have seen products for sale on Amazon that could be used for other kinds of illicit purposes, but they actually are not super
explicit about this. Like when you buy a sk on Amazon that could be used to weigh drugs, for instance, on Amazon, they'll show like a tiny piece of green lettuce being late being weighed on that scale, not like a piece of marijuana, because they don't they don't want to advertise it can be used for weighing marijuana, so they it's like a roundabout way of them not advertising that this can be used for less of behavior.
I'm not gonna lie.
I totally forgot that it's still technically illegal to buy weed.
In most states. What I was like, Oh, yeah, yeah, all right.
Every time I leave like one of the handful of cities and I spend a lot of time in like DC, New York City, Brooklyn, Virginia, I'm like, oh, yeah, I don't find myself in those places often. But when I am, I'm like, oh yeah, y'all, don't do that down here.
Yeah. No, it's so mad. It is like, I don't know a whole other TANGI yeah, I know.
I had a friend visiting greasily from a state where it is not legal, and they were just like, like we could just there's just like a store across the street.
We had got to Yeah, I know. It's anyways.
So I do think that marketing is a pretty good argument for the fact that Amazon was well aware what this product was being used for and like how it was being like what use case it was being advertised to be used for, which is exactly what the lawsuit argues to the lawsuit says that Amazon's product safety team was aware that the close hook camera was intended for unlawful purposes, citing exactly what I just read the marketing that says that the hidden camera will not attract attention
from the victim, who would presumably hang a towel to be used in drying her undressed body. The complaint reads, the intended use of this spy camera, as explicitly portrayed on Amazon's online retail store e g. As a towel hook in the bathroom to secretly record undressed individuals without their consent is a federal felony and also a crime
under West Virginia law. So the judge didn't outright dismiss the case against Amazon, because the judge said, quote Amazon approved product description suggesting cannsumer use of the spycam to record private moments in the bathroom. Amazon cannot claim shock when a consumer does just that. So there are plenty of like non creepy reasons that somebody might put a
camera in their home. I have a lot of issues with it, but my mom has cameras all over her house because my dad is disabled and might be in another room and need help. But those cameras are not disguised as bathroom hooks. Professor Eric Goldman, who runs the Tech and Marketing Law blog, said that this ruling could have potentially changed the way that spycams are sold through
online retailers like Amazon. He writes, the court's analysis could indicate that all surreptitious hook cameras are categorically illegal to sell, even when buyers plan to use them completely legally. That makes this a dangerous ruling for the spycam industry and for Amazon. At the same time, I'm curious to hear more about what Amazon's product safety team thought when it evaluated this item, because according to the suit, they evaluated it three times and still allow it on their platform.
And I do think it kind of goes back to what we were talking about when we talked about TikTok shop, Like I don't think that platforms should just be off the hook. Like I don't think that they should be able to knowingly profit from the sale of items that make clear that what their intended use is for is something that is illegal and super harmful.
Yeah.
Yeah, And like, honestly, the whole idea of having a camera that you can disguise as like a clothing hook, Like I don't know, I can't think of any situation where you would need that where it like it seems justifiable. I don't know, like honestly, like I feel like that is something that you only use to like get footage of people without their permission, and like this is usually
the outcome of that. Like I don't know, I feel like specifically just designing it as like a hook, like I can't I don't see any argument for why that's something that somebody would need. The whole idea of like hidden camera which comes upon the show like surveillance and like hidden cameras, Like we're all ways too comfortable.
With this idea of hitting cameras.
I like, I seriously, like it seems really strange to me, and it seems like this is just we're gonna see more and more of this happening and more like of these kind of stories.
Joey, don't even get me started. You know, it's holiday season. I'm sure people are gonna be buying all kinds of cameras and devices with cameras and recording devices to be given to their loved ones to like put in their home. So that Amazon can misuse as as they have done.
They settled a lawsuit about their staff using cameras to like peep at consumers or so that police can get your information, like, don't do it, take it from me, Like like you loved your loved ones more than giving them the gift of surveillance, give them the gift of privacy instead. So we talk a lot about the irl consequences of misinformation online on the show, and that means that we really have to take a look at what's
happening in Ireland. So last week in Dublin, social media fueled disinformation turned into a situation with very real world consequences. Three young children and a woman were injured in a knife attack near a school in Dublin last week. The suspect was apprehended. I think it was like a situation where like people walking by, people nearby just all helped to apprehend the suspect and help the victims. The motive was,
according to police, entirely unclear. However, according to The New York Times, the police said that the attack was followed by destructive riots that they blamed on the far right, weaponizing misinformation about the knife attack. So the evening after the attack, chaotic scenes broke out in the city after a group of rioters attacked police vehicles and set fires. Videos from that scene showed like stores being broken into, police cars and buses being set on fire, people clashing
with police officers all of that. In the wake of that attack, far right figures were using social media to spread rumors about the nash finality of the attacker, and one protester said that quote, Irish people are being attacked by the scum. Drew Harris of the Dublin Police suggested that they were being driven by misinformation online about the knife attack being spread for what he called malevolent purposes.
Ireland's President Michaeld Higgins said that the idea that the attack would be used or abused by groups with an agenda attacks the principle of social inclusion and is reprehensible, referring to these far right protesters, and that it deserves condemnation by all who believe in the rule of law and democracy. So that happened last week, now this week, social media platforms were being taken to task for what happened. The Independent, which is where I get most of my
news about what's happening in Ireland. Had a really comprehensive breakdown of what happened, which will go on the show notes. Irish politician Tanista Michael Martin said he was concerned about the rapid mobilization of so many people via social media platforms. So Facebook, TikTok, and Google, which all have Dublin headquarters, appeared before the Test Media Company to discuss this information media literacy and the response to the chaos in Dublin.
So guess who didn't even bother to show up to that committee to talk about what happened? Can you guess?
Ooh, I am sneaking, sneaking, suspicion and might be.
One formerly known as Twitter.
All right, you are right. So that's what Elon Musk has not done now, which is that he didn't even show up to this committee and the politicians who were running this thing were not having it.
Yeah, he doesn't have to ask a like answer to the American government. Why would he have to answer the Irish government?
You know? Find Gail td Kieran Cannon encouraged Twitter employees to drop an email to the owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, suggesting that he desist from commenting on affairs within Ireland, which he patently knows nothing about. He also added that Elon Musk personally served to stoke up hatred and conflict and recent times here in Ireland, and that he should be deeply ashamed of those actions. Let him know. Canon, Yeah, I would not.
I would not fuk with the Irish like with this sort of thing too, Like Elon Musk, I feel like that would also be very poetic justice if this was what led to the Elon Musk downfall.
And I think that would be really funny, but probably won't unfortunately.
Yeah, you don't want this, don't You don't want that. You don't want smoke with the Irish. I gotta tell you right now, Elon Musk, this is not a fight you want to pick. They've gone through so much so the platforms who did actually show up kind of gave the usual song and dance. I gotta say, like I I was sort of heartened to hear what TikTok said
that they had done in light of this incident. So Susan Moss they had a public policy for TikTok Ireland said that TikTok had activated its crisis management protocols to remove violating content and to prevent the spread of misinformation. She said, we activated our emergency fact checking procedure in collaboration with those fact checkers. We have a fact checking
organization here in Ireland. And what they did is that they were flagging content, not this on TikTok, but horizon scanning across the Internet and flagging to us these individual claims that they were seeing that helped us to stop the content spreading on TikTok. She said that there were twenty five individual claims or type of stories that she saw moving across the platform, and she did say that she felt that TikTok's response had been very fast moving
and that she was very confident in it. But then contrast that with Facebook. So Facebook said that they removed a thousand pieces of misinformation from the platform in the first half of this year, which I'm sorry that is not a lot. Like a thousand pieces of misinformation is just not a lot, and also it just doesn't work like that, Like trust me, this was my flagging individual pieces of misinformation for removal was my job at one
point in my life. And I can tell you that job was the equivalent of playing whack a mole, like even if it's removed, which is that than nothing, it just pops back, It pops right back up. And so Facebook saying like, oh, this piecemeal strategy that we already know is not really that effective. That was our main line of defense. That is shocking to me and like almost laughable. They also said that they use debunking labels
on false contact, which we also know isn't always that effective. Like, again, it's better than nothing, but they're like using these tactics that we have known for a while are not necessarily the most effective. Lawmakers also asked specifically about the issue of a voice note that was being shared on the Facebook owned messaging app WhatsApp calling for immigrants to be killed, and asked if there was a failure to curb it
from spreading like wildfire. I will say that WhatsApp being a closed platform where the messages are encrypted, means that like tackling harmful or inaccurate information, there is like a specific, unique challenge Like that is true, But I was really surprised by just how not robust what Facebook was offering was in comparison to what TikTok was saying that they
were doing, Like like they're very different platforms. But I just can't believe that, like this is what Facebook brought to these lawmakers in Ireland after such a such chaos that that these folks say was was sparked by social media platforms.
Well, you know, TikTok's too busy making everybody seventeen percent anti Semitic for every thirty minutes you spend on TikTok. Not to go back to that, but now I'm wondering, is it you get progressively more anti semitic, like the more like the more thirty minute chunks go by. Yeah, see, their TikTok's too busy. They can't they can't be spreading misinformation in Ireland.
So if you use an hour, if you use a TikTok for an hour a day, are you like thirty four percent more anti Sibmitic? How does that work? Is there?
Like I'm I want to graph, I want to chart, I want the full again.
I took ape stats. I know how this is supposed to work.
Yeah, no, but there definitely is something I mean like and not not to give TikTok too much credit because again they're a big social media company that you know deserves much of the criticism it gets, but like it really is says something. I feel like that TikTok is under fire so much, like in the news cycle, and it's like and yet they seem to be the only platform that's like responding.
To these kind of things.
You know, I guess everybody makes fun of the fact you can't say like there's certain words you can't say on TikTok, Like people started saying like unlived instead of killed and stuff like that. But like it's I don't know, something to be said on the fact that I'm like TikTok at least has that in place, but like no other social media company apparently has any interest in doing anything to moderate its content.
I guess I agree, And I think it really demonstrates how it really isn't about one specific platform, and so conversations like the one that happened on the GOP debate stage this week that make it about one singular platform or like are just deeply missing the point. Right. It is about having a safer, robust digital landscape, and that is that is a conversation that involves lots of platforms and a lot more, but just making it about one
making one singular platform. The Boogeyman is just like not how we get to a safer media landscape where the kind of thing that happened in Dublin does not happen anywhere else, which should be the goal exactly.
More.
After a quick break, let's get right back into it. So, as you probably know, Time magazine released their Person of the Year and it's Taylor Swift. I've seen a lot of controverse about whether she deserved it or not. I will say, people forget that it's it's I think it's not supposed to be like the best person of the year. It's like the most impactful or important or like meaningful person of the year. A lot of folks have said, like, oh,
it should be like Palestinian journalists or activists. Someone else I really respect said that it should be the concept of like disruptors or like resistors. So people who are you know, challenging power structures and technology, challenging state power structures, which I thought was cool. Remember that year when it was just like you, So it was you, Joe Way, it was me Bridget, it was every listener listening, it was all of us.
Was that that was like in the middle of like lockdown right, Like, wasn't.
It was that? Oh, Mike just chimed in, did you hear that?
It was two thousand and six?
Okay, but.
Five years old? But our six years old. I was six years old.
Six years old, you were Time magazines personally successful?
Yeah, me and Taylor Swift. Yeah, No, there's always weird discourse about it. Like I people love to bring up. One of the people always bring up is that like in the nineteen thirties they made like Hitler personally year one time and they were like, see guys, Like people always use that as like the see they're they're bad and they keep picking and it's like no, like that was the person in current events at that time that
was causing the most right weird shit going on. So like, yeah, I guess in that sense, like it makes you know, Taylor Swift has a lot of power, It has a lot of cultural power, has done a lot.
But yeah, I.
Don't know, I definitely agree. I think, like I'm not surprised that the Time is that magazine didn't do this, but like I would have, like there definitely are like Palestinian journalists that I think have really like changed just so much of like how we've been talking about PLO sign.
I don't know, like it definitely, I think it would have been much more deserved.
To maybe given to one of them. No disrespect to Taylor Swift, but yeah, it definitely. It feels like there have been a lot of big things that have happened this year, maybe some other people should have been considered, but yeah.
Yeah, that's kind of what people are saying. So because she was named Time Magazine's Person of the Year, she did this wide ranging interview in the magazine and pose on a cover with her cat. So I have not actually read this interview, but I do know that Taylor has had, you know, a pretty big year with her Era's tour, which I did not know. This the highest grossing tour ever by a woman and the second highest grossing overall tour. You know, she's got this high profile
romantic relationship with an NFL player. People obviously had a lot of opinions about whether or not Taylor deserved or should have been the Person of the Year, and if folks listening have opinions, I want to hear them, please let me know. However, it also seems like there is a new conspiracy theory emerging from right wing pockets of the Internet. Some of the biggest names on the far right are suggesting that Taylor Swift is being promoted right now as some kind of like sigh up campaign to
get people to vote for Democrats. Question Mark conspiracy theorist Laura Lumer, who I was gonna say, like who she is? And I was like, Oh, she's not like a very important person. But I actually did not know this that just last year, Laura Lumer narrowly lost a bid to represent Florida's eleventh congressional district, While she tweeted, Taylor Swift has been named Times twenty twenty three Person of the Year. This isn't shocking since she's who the Democrats are counting
on to interfere in the twenty twenty four election. What would Democrats do without their idol who runs through men like water and spew's anti Trump drivel every chance she gets her entire world tourists become a Democrat Party voter registration drive. You might be asking why would Taylor Swift architect global tour across Latin America, Australia, Asia, and Europe, specifically to register voters in the United States presidential election.
Unclear how that would work, but that is what Laura Lumer says is going on.
I think it is really funny that everybody, like, listen, I'm a Taylor Swift fan. I will say, like I love her music. I did go to the Airs tour. I've been following her for a while. Like people really from all sides like try to attach some sort of like political booky man thing to her. I think, which is weird because she's like when I say a political not in the like, oh I don't want to like like oh, she just like doesn't want to talk about
Like she just doesn't. I don't think I've ever seen her say anything that's like remotely like political, like the I don't know the most She's spoken up a little bit about like feminism and stuff like that, but it's never like super in depth, like I've never seen her like comment on like a specific sort of issue that's happening, which I think is interesting. I think it like mostly is just the fact that she has such a big platform, and she has.
Such a big platform that's like mostly young women.
But then yeah, the other side is crazy because if she wanted, she has so much power, like she could I get like literally I remember seeing something about it was after the whole like Ticketmaster thing.
Uh, like somebody was like somebody like needs to get her to just like say something off handedly about like student loans or something so that people like start pit or like that there needs to like like whatever they're gains the sort of political momentum from the swifties that we need to But yeah, no exactly. That is kind of crazy that she would have this whole global tour when like, all, yeah, again, all she would need to do is make an Instagram post being like I think
you should vote for this person and people. I mean I think she could do it, I think if she wanted to, but like she's not going to and she's never.
Yeah, and like she she did post on Instagram for National Voter Registration Day, and like that single Instagram post did drive like I think it was thirty five thousand new people to register to vote. But registering voters is not the same thing as like.
Taking a stand, like making a stand or.
Like it's not like she said register and vote for Biden or like vote for a specific person, So it's like just just driving registrations is nonpartisan or it certainly should be nonpartisan, right, And so like this idea that like she's a shill for the Democratic Party is so
curious to me. It makes me think, like, if you feel that Taylor Swift driving people to register to vote in general is automatically her being in the can for the Democratic Party, it really tells me a lot about what you think that, you know, people who are not Democrats have to offer young women voters, which is maybe not maybe not a lot.
So.
Former Trump White House advisor Stephen Miller tweeted, what's happening with Taylor Swift is not organic, which is like the weirdest sentence I've ever seen someone tweet.
Like, Yeah, first of all, weird thing to say to begin with, weird, real weird. Also, it's like Taylor Swift has been a huge pop star for a while and like, yeah.
It's that is so I thought, it is so weird.
That is the Yeah, the kids these days, it's their fault rock and roll and Taylor Swift.
That's exactly it. Jack Prosbyak tweeted, the Taylor Swift girl Boss Sya has been fully activated from her hand selected vaccine. She'll boyfriend to her dink lifestyle. If you don't know what dink is, it's dual income, no kids to her upcoming twenty twenty four voter operation for Democrats on abortion rights,
it's all coming. I do find it interesting that they're calling her out for being like having a dink lifestyle, as if just like not having children is some sort of like morally deviant way to live.
Yeah, that's so weird, Like she's not, she's she's also like what like thirty three, thirty four, Like she's not.
I don't know.
I guess that's like thirty three, yeah, which I guess. Yeah, I guess we're like that's a normal age to whatever. I'll like get married and have kids. But like, I don't know, I know plenty of people that are like in that age range.
You aren't.
And that's such a weird, like dank, I've never heard that phrase before, but that is that's weird.
Her vaccine chill boyfriend too.
Honestly, I think Travis Kelsey, you know, this is my controversial opinion, Travis Kelsey should have been Time Person in the year. His tweets so funny, Like his tweets have been like the light in my news feeds lately, So.
Joey coming in with the hata.
Not seeing chill boyfriend. That's so insane, though they really like it is. Again, this is why I like, I think it is so weird that they found her to be a target of all of this, because again, she is like the most mild like I'm like, doesn't really has not said anything particularly controversial.
That is so weird.
Yeah, and I talked about this in an episode years ago, but only recently has she been somebody who publicly identifies as a feminist, Like she was on record in her the early days of her fame being like, I'm not a feminist, I don't believe in men versus women, YadA, YadA, YadA, And it wasn't until kind of later in the game that she was like, oh no, I'm a totally a feminist. And so it's curious to me that these people are
are criticizing for her for it. And I also think, like the whole thing is really like gendered and racialized, Like I think I don't think any of these people would ever say that part out loud, but like they're giving her crap for not having children, being somebody who is in a relationship with another person who earns income outs how the home and not having kids a dink.
And you know, certainly they would not be clamoring for me, a black woman, to have kids, or I'd be a welfare queen, and they wouldn't be clamoring for people who aren't Sis women to have kids because they might be like threats to children, right, and so like, it's very interesting who gets kind of smeared as doing something wrong just by by virtue of them not having a child.
And I guess I feel like you can't really talk about the kind of hate that she is receiving from these people without talking about like race and gender and sexuality. I did see this one kind of like men's rights influence her tweet quote it's shameful and said that a hyper promiscuous, childless woman, aging and alone with a cat
has become the heroine of a feminist age. And part of me is like, side note, this person runs an organization for what they're calling hard men, like masculine manly men. I mean, because what is harder for a man to do that obsess over the dating life of a pop
star on Twitter? Right, Like it's like they can't even keep their own ridiculous gender binary nonsense straight, Like if you were like I don't, I don't think like that is a paragon of traditional masculinity, caring who tailor us with this dating here you are making a big stink about it on Twitter, you know.
I also, first of all, hard hard men.
If you're gonna call yourself hard men, the peak of heterosexuality, okay, also okay.
Hyper promiscuous, Like I'm sorry.
I remember like when she brought up sex for like the first time in one of her albums, and it was like I think it was reputation, Like it was like way down the line, like she was like again very much the face of like respectable, nice white girl with her guitar, you know, for the longest time. And it's it's weird because again she really with the feminism thing, she's done like the bare minimum to you know, stand up for human rights or whatever, and that apparently is
too much. But yeah, no, I just that's just it's just such a weird quote.
I it's such a weird quote, but like not smarts.
I also like remember it wasn't there because I was going back to about like I feel like people turn her in her image into like a lot like the symbol of a lot of political stuff without it really really knew anything.
And I don't think this one, I don't think was necessarily wrong.
But I remember, like a couple of years ago, there was a lot of stuff that was coming out about people talking about her music and her short of persona that she's created and how that relates to like white supremacy, and how like she kind of inadvertently has become this symbol of white supremacy, and like there I again, it's been a minute since I but I like, it's really interesting to see that that switch within a couple of years because she's dating somebody who's vaccinated.
I guess, I don't know.
Yeah, I remember this very clearly. There was a time where in white supremacist corners of the internet she was sort of the poster girl for like Nazism essentially, and at a time this was like going back like several years now, at the time she I remember doing an episode of stuff Mom never told you talk about, like Blast in the Past, back when I was the host of the cost of that show with my friend Emily, and at the time I did not you could probably
go back to the old Seminty archives and find it. I did not feel that she had done enough to like denounce that and be like, no, sorry, Nazis, I'm
not your poster girl. But I do think it speaks to what you're talking about that she is someone that I think people project a lot of stuff onto and around, and I think that all of this, like all of these weird tweets about her being on the cover of Time, I really think is an anxiety about the rise of single women voters, because like a lot of her listenership and fan base is younger women, and I think that it's about anxiety around how government has failed single women
voters and what that means. For the twenty twenty four election, so we know that a lot of white women voted for Trump, but it's a little more complicated than that, because it's really married white women. Specifically, married white women are more likely to vote conservative than their single white counterparts. So I think after the last few years, with like big Supreme Court decisions on things like abortion, I think that folks are rightfully starting to worry about single women
as a voting block and what this means. But here's my thing, It really kind of goes back to the episode that we did with Julia Maser, who was like shamed by Tucker Carlson for just existing on the internet
as a woman who is not married. I think that all that these people have to offer younger single women is shame and making fun of us and like the most tired jokes about cats and being alone and this and that, and like trying to scare us into marriage or invalidating our choices, like not everybody wants to be married or partnered, and there are so many ways to
have a full life that doesn't include being married. And I just think that they don't have anything to really offer younger single women, So the best they can do is try to scare them into heterosexual marriages and then hope that that proximity to men will will make them vote more conservatively. Like I don't they have anything real to offer. It's just like all they can do is shame you and hopefully effectively scare you into marriage, which
hopefully will make you vote more conservatively. And I think Taylor Swift, particularly how popular she's been this year, I think reiterates that anxiety that like, oh no, we really don't have anything to offer a pretty big section of the voting public. This might come back to bite us in the ass.
Yeah, which is so funny because it's like.
You just sat like, clearly you don't understand how Swifties work because you didn't even again she gave you she were in the clear. She wasn't telling anybody to go vote for Biden or do anything. Like she was doing the bare minimum telling people to go vote. Maybe not even doing that again this year.
I think she like.
Literally did it one time, but like she would have been fine, but it's like, no, now you've attacked Taylor Swift the Swifties like they don't care who you are.
They're gonna learn who you are now, and like they're gonna start targeting you.
And the Swifties are fucking terrifying, So I would not, like I I do think it would be really funny if like this was what led to like the downfall of like some one of at least one of these people, If if the Swifties could do that, I think that would be really beautiful and really uh poetic justice.
But yeah, no, that's that's so weird. Why are you gotta go after the cats like she has? I know, I have. I love cats.
They're great great. Who doesn't enjoy cat exactly? Joey, thank you so much for wading through all of this ridiculous tech news coorse. You know, at the top of the episode, we got to know you a little bit better. What else are you working on? What have you got going on these days?
I'm so glad you asked.
I recently have a show that is in the middle of coming out. We just had episode four released. It's called Afterlives, the Lelien Planco Story. I worked with Raquel Willis, who I think will be on the show soon. Yes, little teaser there, but it was based on her incredible reporting on transphobic violence and the epidemic of violence against transwoman to color in particular.
In this season, we are talking about Lilien Planco.
Who was a woman who died at Rikers Island Prison a couple of years back. But yeah, you should definitely check out that show. I think it's a super important conversation.
To be having.
I'm biased, I worked on it, but also, yes, you should definitely check that out.
Episode four you just came out. Episode five is coming out next week.
Again, it's called Afterlives The Lelien Planco Story And of course, as always, if you want to follow me on social media, you.
Can find me at pat not prat. That's p a t t n O T p r.
A t T Twitter, Instagram. But yeah, you should definitely check out the show, find me on social media.
And we'll throw a link to Afterlives in the show notes. Folks should definitely listen it's it is such an important conversation and thank you for bringing bringing it to us because it's really special. And I actually have a little bit of news, which is that the other podcast that I host IRL Online Life is Real Life, which is an original podcast from Mozilla, yep, the Mozilla that makes
the browser that we all love, Firefox. Well, we have been nominated for an Anthem Award for Responsible Technology and it would mean so much if folks could vote for us. If you could help celeb this nomination by voting for IRL to win, you can go to tangody dot com slash I r L. That's t A N G O t I dot com slash I r L. That link will be in the show notes. Please vote for us. I don't want to get into it, but it would be really cool to win and then maybe Mozilla will
have me back to host it again. Who knows would love that? So please please please vote for us. It means the world to me to spotlight the voices and the stories of folks who are making technology like AI more trustworthy, and it's really also important to me to see those voices celebrated through winning an award like this, So please vote for us again. Tangody dot com, slash I r L. Thank you so much, and thank you Joy for being here. Thank you listeners for listening. Uh yeah,
be well, and I will talk to you soon. If you're looking for ways to support the show, check out our mark store at tangoty dot com slash store Got a story about it, interesting thing in tech, or just want to say hi? You can reach us at Hello at tegody dot com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tengody dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget Tod. It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative edited by Joey
Pat Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almado is our contributing producer. I'm your host, bridget Toad. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.