There are no girls on the Internet. As a production of I heart radio and unboss creative. I'm bridget todd and this is there are no girls on the Internet. Since you're listening to this podcast, there's a good chance you're familiar with the podcast serial true crime, podcast that covered the murder of Korean American high school student Hey Manley, who was last seen alive on January. Oddnan said was convicted of Hayes murder in but this week a Baltimore
judge vacated the conviction and ordered his immediate release. According to VOX, a new investigation in Oddnan's conviction found errors in his original court case, including multiple Brady violations, which means the prosecution refused to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence to the defense prior to his trial. Today, ann is a Freeman and the state now has thirty days to either drop the existing charges against him or schedule a retrial.
Now this is great news for Anan, but it's still really said that he has spent so much of his life behind bars and that hayes killer has been out there all this time and her family and community have never gotten justice. Attorney and advocate Robbia Chadri is a childhood friend of Anan's. She's been fighting nonstop for his
release and advocating for the wrongfully convicted. On our own podcast, undisclosed, she and her team investigate wrongful convictions and the US criminal justice system by taking a closer look at evidence that never made it to court. So, while most people might remember cereal as the big, flashy podcast that got Anan's case a ton of attention, it was Robbia who did a lot of the tireless work that led to
his release. And, as it so often is for women, especially women of color like Robbia, that work was not without a personal cost. For Robbia, part of the personal cost for that work was having to deal with a terrifying, coordinated harassment campaign against her from another true crime podcaster. Last mate, Robbia and I sat down to talk about this harassment campaign, which, while horrible and terrifying, didn't keep her from that important work, the very same work that
would go on to lead to on non's release. So let's listen. You're listening to disinformed, a mini series from there are no girls on the Internet. I'm bridget todd. You might know attorney Rabbia Chandri from her role in the case of a non. Said Ann was convicted of first degree murder for the death of Hey Menley, a high school student in Baltimore who was last seen on January.
Lee's family remains convinced of odd non's guilt, but he maintains his innocence and Robbia has been fighting to disonerate him. She brought his story to investigative journalist Sarah Kaneg, which became the hit true crime podcast cereal. Robbia hosts her own true crime podcast called undisclosed. Rashida her co host, who are also lawyers, explore wrongful convictions. Now, even though there's literally hundreds of thousands of podcasts out there, the
podcast community can be kind of small. We see each other at events and conferences, and right now Robbia is facing a coordinated harassment campaign from another podcaster. Now, talking about this kind of online harassment is tricky and it's so easy to do it irresponsibly. Let me talk about harassment. We're often centering the harasser and their tactics, the experience of the person who has been harassed, how they're feeling and how it shapes their work and their perspective can
often go overlooked or not mentioned at all. So I don't want to do that and honestly, the person harassing Robbia does not need a big spotlight, but I do need to tell you the broad strokes of what's going on to make clear the full weight of how harassment can impact our real lives. I believe Robbia is at the center of a dangerous, coordinated harassment campaign being orchestrated by Mike Boudet, the host of sword and scale, a
popular and successful true crime podcast. On his website Mike sells merchandise with the slogan Adnan did it a reference to Robbie's relationship with Adnan. He's encouraged his followers to show up at her public speaking events. Stuff that is just super scary stuff that makes me concerned for Robbie's actual safety. If you check out the verified twitter page for sword and scale, you can see a little of
what I mean. Mike's podcast. It's really popular and he has a huge fan base, and this is another reason why talking about online harassment is kind of tricky. No one wants to be on the radar of someone who's a harasser. Other members of the true crime podcast community have talked about being afraid to speak up because of
the behavior year they've seen from him. No one wants to wake up and find the flood of hateful comments directed at you on social media or a flood of one star reviews on your podcast, but this is also how harassment festers. People don't speak up and they don't call it out for what it is. In doing research for this episode, an article about what Robbie is going through described her as having a feud with Mike Boudet. A feud is a difference of opinion, a few might
be tense exchanges on social media. A feud is not when one person is concerned with their actual safety. That's harassment and we need to talk about the way it and packs our work and our lives. I was in law school Um when when the best friend of my younger brother was arrested, non say, and that has kind
of gotten me Um. You know, it was just one of those things where I witnessed it a close and personal I was there in his trial, when he was convicted, and I just witnessed the horror of all of it and I couldn't believe what I was seeing and I had no idea what the criminal justice system was like until what happened with Annan, and our community also was pretty naive. So that's what really drew me in and
kept me there all these years. He's still incarcerated, as most people know, Um, but from his case, my my work has stemmed out into doing other wrongful conviction work for the last six seven years. That's been the focus of my work. Yeah, you know, I read this great quote from your mom. She says your time in this world is really limited. What are you going to do with it? And something about that. First of all, your mom sounds awesome. She's a force to be reckoned with,
for sure. Something about that quote that really struck me was this idea that you are doing very important work. You know, legitimately life and death work. You know, working with people who have been incarcerated, all of that. This is important stuff and you know we only have so much time in a day and so much time on this world and so much energy that we that we
can spent. And so to see somebody like you going through harassment campaigns, do you want to feel that this, these kinds of campaigns are kind of deliberately meant to distract you from this important work that you actually have to do. You know, I have been through, I mean, numerous very intense uh kind of onslaughts, Um, like in in different, different times in my life, for different reasons. So different groups who want to attack me for different reasons.
and Um, I think the first time I went through it really really it was really terrible. It's around the time cereal came out actually, um, but it wasn't so much related to cereals, related from the interfaith work I did and I spent Um, I learned my lesson because I spent about three months trying to respond to everything,
not realizing that how trolling works and how harassment works. Um. Then I when I realized, first of all I was I felt I was sick, I was exhausted, I was physically I had gotten really sick over that time just from the strain of it. Um. Then the realization hit me that, you know, what they want me to do
is not to function. They want me to and they're winning because I'm spending all my time, like you know, it's like that whack a mole game, right, like trying to respond to this thing and you responded this thing and they come at you with another thing. I'm like, Oh, this is brilliant. They're keeping me wrapped up in this crazy and I'm wasting my time and my health and my sanity Um and not doing my work. And so
now I always think about it like that. But like, if this is preventing me from doing my work, they're winning Um. And so a hundred percent of distraction. What people who are rassing you online want to do is to make sure you cannot actually function. Yeah, all the women that I talked to who faith, you know, intense harassment.
That's something that they talk about. That's something that a lot of their situations have in common that at one point they, you know, they are trying to respond to everything and really engaged and then they realize they're spending
all their time focusing on the harassment. So whatever the thing is, whether it was justice work like you, or act of his work or writing, they are spending more time trying to respond to the trolls, which they will never be able to satisfy because sort of the trip of harassment, they're spending more time on that than they are sort of doing the thing that is their purpose and I believe that really is one of the the
purposes of this kind of harassment. It's to keep powerful women, or, quote, mouthy women or women who you know can can accomplish something, to keep it's to keep us from accomplishing whatever it is that we're meant to be doing on this earth. There's that, there's that aspect of it, and then there's the aspect of they want you to like. They wanted to drag you down to their level. They're they're punching up. In almost every case they punching up. They want your attention,
they want relevance, so your attention gives them relevance. Otherwise they are irrelevant. Essentially. That's so true. It's so true and I know in your case I can't help up wonder if part of the reason why some of the folks who really have like an obsession with you and your work, part of it is because you're very successful, you're very effective at what you do, and that makes them even more angry. You know, it is kind of an attempt to drag you down to their level because
you're so successful, because they know you can be so effective. Yeah, you know, it's it's interesting. You know, I um most recently, in the last couple of years, the attacks have been coming from this one particular podcaster and he's he's actually an incredibly successful podcaster, which is what's shocking about this particular situation. Is, like, Dude, you he might be much
more successful in the sense of Um. I mean in one metric, which is like, I think he probably makes a lot more money than what me and my team
make doing the work that we do. But the metric that's important for us is like the value of our work, and the value of our work is, are we able to help exonerate the people whose cases were working on and Um and basically just be able to pay cover our costs, that we can do it so it doesn't cost anything to the defendant because for for most and cars people, they can't afford, uh, the appeals, they can't
afford the reinvestigation, and we're able to cover those costs. So, by that metric, my work is more, I would say, much more meaningful. Um. Maybe that's mothersome to to some people, but I can't say that I'm the most successful podcast and in senses, like, we're not minting money over here. You know we're not. We're not. Yeah, you know, sometimes I wish the kind of work that you're producing was
valued in that same way. It can be a little bit frustrating sometimes I'm like, man, I could be doing like the kind of true crime podcast that you can just knock out like in an hour or so and just get online and chat with somebody about some case. But our shows, for every hour that we air, we were talking about hundreds of hours of prep of maybe two years lead time of invest two years of investigation
before we can air a case. So it's very, very intensive, and but then the day that's what that's it's purposeful and and that's what I can do. That's what I do best. I don't do well what other people do right. I can't do to prompt comedy and I can't do other things, but this is what I do. And so, you know, as long as we're able to cover our costs Um and provide this really as a service to the people who those cases we're looking at, we're going
to continue to do it. Talking about this in terms of being in the podcast industry, you know, one of the people who is waging UH targeted harassment campaign against you is a very popular podcaster, Mike Rude and I think that it's hard for me to watch as a like, as a podcaster. It's hard for me to watch the
PODCAST industry and Ecosystems still support this. And you know, one of the things I saw on your twitter that I think is so correct is like people need to understand that if you listen to if you like, when you listen to this podcast, this is what you're supporting. I think it can be really easy for listeners to say, Oh, well, I'm just listening to the show, I don't know what's going on. You know, I don't, I'm not, I'm not
quote following whatever's happening. But really it's been hard to see the silence, I would say, from the podcast industry in terms of watching someone essentially harass a colleague. You know, I think of all podcasters that's kind of in the same you know, the same club, and a a kind of way, it's been really hard. Yeah, you know, there, there, and you know why, though, because, Um, and then you're right. I mean, so we are. PODCASTING is a community, podcast
content creators. We are a community, and then you have your genres. So the true crime community is, even as a smaller subsect of that, and many of us are close. We teach at their different conferences and conventions. We support each other this work. We're listeners. We listened to each other shows. Um. So what I know? Uh, what I know for sure because we've we've people have confessed this to be privately, they have said it publicly, they have written about it. Is that the same person who I
think he's? I just think he's like a disturbed individual. Um. Many of them are afraid to really be public because when they have tried to push back publicly on any of his day he will come after them and he does have a very big show and he has um a lot of fall wars and so he can really crush the smaller shows by flooding them with one star reviews, by harassing them into like leaving social media, Um, and so a lot I've had people reach out and say, I'm afraid to say anything, but I just want you
to know that you know I'm support you, but I this guy scares me. He's done this to me before. Like it was like so, Um, that's why. But there are some folks who have like, in a very public way, stepped up in the last couple of months and been like enough is enough right, and and they have really condemned his behavior and I appreciate that, but not everybody
can afford to and I completely understand them. Yeah, that's so tough and I think you just articulated one of the hallmarks of online harassment and abuse and coordinated harassment campaigns is that it really has a silencing effect, not just on the person that is targeted, but anyone who might want to, you know, stick up for that person, anyone who, you know, might want to challenge what's going on.
It's such a big silencing effect that I think that we don't talk enough about that as a speech issue. That the kind of people who, you know, we're saying like, Oh gee, I don't want to be too outspoken because I don't want what's happening to her to happen to me. I don't want it to be me next. I can't afford to have this kind of thing. So they don't speak up or they just leave social media altogether or they don't say the things that they actually want to say.
That is one of the hallmarks of online harassment campaign that we just don't talk about, and truly we with all of the you know, Rigamar role about free speech
and cancel culture. We need to start taking that more seriously as a speech issue because, you know, if an entire group of, you know, already marginalized contact creators feel like they can't speak up and say what they want to say because they're terrified of this person, one person, like if that's that's that is not good and we need to be talking about like perhaps we have, perhaps it's a problem with our our kind of media and digital media landscape, but also it's a wider problem about
how much space one person is a lot to take up. How how much, how much that one person is allowed to dictate this entire community. I mean, look, we we saw this Um in as big as way as possible with the former guy, the former guy who is in the White House Um. So yeah, one person to have a lot of power. They can be very destructive, one person can be a complete wrecking ball, and that's what
this particular person is. He's a wrecking ball. But what's really crazy about the whole thing is that he's mostly wrecking himself right like in all of this as he's scaring people and stuff, he's getting deep platforms, getting dropped by sponsors, getting dropped by his Um, his his, his different companies and uh, and at the end of the day, you know, the rest of us are still going to be invited and show up to two different spaces that, uh,
you know, relevant to our our work. And while he's kind of been ostracized for years, so it's not just you know, I'm a target. Um, I think I'm a big target for him because I won't just take it and disappear. Um, and it's frustrating to him. But Um, most people just kind of quietly, like, you know, Fade into the background and so he stops attacking them after a while. Um. And you know, for me also, what I realized was, like what gives people like that fuel
is just attention. And so they're just star for attention and I assume purpose and meaning their life and I don't have the time to give that to them because I got too much going on in my life. You know, I have too much work that's actually has an impact on people's lives that I got to do on a time for it. Let's take a quick break and are back. According to data from annesty International, women of color are disproportionately targeted for online harassment and abuse, and we see
this playing out in all kinds of places. For instance, former President Donald Trump was known for lashing out at reporters of all stripes. But it's worst both vitriolic comments are always reserved for journalists who also happened to be black women or women of color, like White House Correspondence Yamichel Sendor, April Ryan and young, and that his behavior towards them made them even bigger targets for abuse precisely
because they're women of color. Knowing this, it's not surprising that, even though Mike has had issues with white male podcasters in the past, he isn't selling merchandise referencing their work on his website, and those men aren't being called out specifically by name in his podcast official twitter bio, like Robbia is. Robbia is far from the only podcaster who
has criticized him. Yet Mike has not threatened to make a daily podcast blaming those men if he's ever kicked off social media, but he's threatened to do that to Robbia. I also think part of it is that you're a woman of color. You know, the data is very clear that women like women of color. We are disproportionately targeted. I think that, you know, we you had earlier that he has gone after other podcasters, white man. He's not making,
you know, merchant based around their work. There are people, there are certain kinds of people, we know exactly who they are, that they cannot stand a woman of color, uh, like having any kind of backbone. They want us to be subservient, they want us to they want us to be in our place. They want to put us in our place. Um and yeah, I think that that that's one of the biggest triggers for this guy and for others like him. Is that. Who the hell does she
think she is? Why isn't she like, you know, getting in her place where she needs to be? Um and UH and you know, but what do you do? I mean, like we've seen this happen on a national stage. We've seen this happen with incredible black female correspondence and journalists. Um, you know, coming from a presidential administration. So we've justn't seen this happen in so many different ways. Um, and I think that's really a big part of why I am a particular target for this person. I think that's
so true. I think there's something about when a woman of color is outspoken, where people look at us and say, who does she think she is? Doesn't she know that she's supposed to just lie down and take it or immediately, you know, fall all over self apologizing the fact that you won't do that. I think it just it triggers
something very ugly inside of a certain kind of person. Definitely, when these kinds of harassment campaigns, the kind of thing that you've gone through, were happening, so many people and institutions that actually have power do nothing, and I think that that's another hallmark of this kind of harassment that we see. You know, uh, so, like I was, you know,
on twitter. This person's podcast has a verified account. You know, we know that D platforming is a very effective way of curbing harassment, and yet, you know, social media platforms seem to be doing nothing. You know, we see journalists describe what's happening to you as a quote feud, as if you as if you two are just sort of had in some kind of a sparring match and that this is not a pretty intense and serious, coordinated online
harassment campaign against you. You know, what is it like to see so many institutions and people with power really do nothing to curb this when they could. I mean it's not surprising. We've seen this so many times, especially with women, and we've seen this in so many different Um, like you know, different controversies I've taken place with women getting HARASSD and and making it public, and you know
it's uh, the gaslight you. So it's like if you if I'm being attacked and harassed, whether it's in my d M S, it's my emails, it's all coming from the same source. However, it's happening. If I call attention to it in order to get some kind of response from these platforms, Um, then people say, well, why are that? Then it becomes a few they frame it like it's
a feud and it's not a feud. It's me calling attention to his behavior, Um, and if you don't see anything and you just take it, I mean I guess that's kind of what they want, just don't take and take it. But these platforms, they don't really do anything. What is effect, what has been more effective, is is asking people to just report Um, certain posts and tweets and stuff. Some get removed, some don't get removed. I
mean free speech first ament, is what it is. I guess we have the legal right to be as ugly as you want. I think I hit my um, I kind of hit my limit when there were people, Um, his followers and his mentions and he's like kind of encouraging. He's encouraging people to go to like my speaking events, to like find me in real life. Uh. And then he had people saying things like hopefully she'll get murdered herself,
hopefully a non one. More then I was like this has gone like too far, and that's when I really that's when I finally kind of posted. I said I have called on twitter and facebook to the platform him. This is the kind of stuff he's saying and encouraging and they won't. And if something happens to me or my family, then there they know they also need to be held responsible. Yeah, I mean the kind of thing
that I've seen. I've seen, you know people. I'll see people be like, Oh, well, she should just block him if she doesn't like what he has to say. I mean, yeah, exactly, you know. And it's like getting people to understand that this is not just something that is happening like, quote unquote, on twitter, on the computer. I very genuinely sometimes worry for your safety in real life and everything that we
know about online harassment. But even if it starts online, it doesn't stay online and very often it's connected to real world violence. And so I am I when I see the kinds of things that he's encouraging his followers to do, I get very concerned for your actual safety. Yeah, yeah,
I've had my moments of concern. I mean I think, Um, he it just takes one unhinged person to think, I gotta do something about this, you know, especially because the way he particularly frames it is, I mean this, it's such, I mean, like you see, we've seen this technique unfold like online, Um, like with the elections, right. So what trump said was these people are harming our elections. What this guy says is this woman is shutting down my podcast.
I mean he's got an incredibly successful podcast. I'm not shutting anything down. Um, he's continue to produce and I've gotten messages from from people, from men, saying, Um, if you, if, if he ends up losing his podcast because of you, I'm gonna come get you. kind of stuff for a podcast, right, like. So, the way he's framing it is to basically target, is to direct people's rage towards me, in case, like you know, so they can like take out, take out revenge or something.
In case, like he you know, he stops making a show, which is not gonna but Um, and on top of which everything that he's lost in terms of sponsors and it's it's been a percent him more. After a quick break, let's get right back and do it. After my celebrated International Women's Day by posting a really gross meme about violence against women on social media, people in the podcast community spoke up and, wondering sort in scales, network eventually
announced they were partying ways with the show. Mike vowed to keep the show running without the support of the network, tweeting anything that was ad supported. is over now because of Aaron Manky from Lare and Rabbia from undisclosed, who led this boycott against me and my company because they didn't like certain things I said. But that tweet pretty conveniently leaves out any responsibility for the consequences of his own actions, like it's his own actions that have caused
it and he won't take responsibility for his behavior. So, yeah, I mean, but there's only so much. You know, I did report Um that. I did report the harassment to law enforcement, but you know, we also don't have very strong cyber stalking laws and stuff in this country. There's only so much you can do to protect yourself and other than that it's kind of like, okay, try to keep my family safe, you know, got got security cameras up,
got alarm system things like that. But what can I do? If, you know, once Covid is lifted and I'm out in the public again, I always did a lot of traveling and speaking and and uh, and, and I have a new book coming out next year and I'll be traveling for that and it is what it is. I can't like hide right. Yeah, and it goes back to what we were talking about earlier. Of this is preventing you from living your life, from doing your work, from making
your living. You know, especially as kind of public contact creators like that kind of thing, you do have to have a fair amount of like public stuff, whether it's appearances or are speaking engagements or conferences or panels or whatever, to to do that. And so the way that this is really like would really make it difficult for you to be able to do that without wondering in the back of your head like, is today the day that some you know, some listener of his, takes matters into
his own hands? It's preventing you from being able to live life the way that you want to live your life, and I think that that's something that people really forget about this kind of harassment, is that it's not just online, it's in real life as well. Oh, it is, I mean a percent, I um. But at the same time, I mean, like you know, and I've had to process through this with my own lawyer and and people who are close to me and Um, that I turned to
for advice. But you know, it's actually not gonna happen. I'M NOT gonna change the way I live my life, Um, other than just taking some general precautions. I'm going to continue, going to continue to the work, I'M gonna continue to travel and speak. I mean I I speak to a lot of law schools and law firms and Um, and universities about this work, and that's the kind of stuff
that helps scale it up. You know, you get people to support the work, you get students saying I want to go to law school now Um, and so, yeah, I'm going to continue to do it at the end of the day. Um, and it is what it is. I mean, like there's just you know, I like I'm also a religious person. I'm a person of faith and I firmly you that when your time is written, it's written. What it's supposed to come, it is supposed to come. So, you know, yeah, I mean like there's this kind of
no avoiding it. So what, it's gonna Happen. It's gonna Happen, but you know, but of course you don't want it to happen because it's something as ridiculous and stupid as something like this. Yeah, yeah, and I think something that you said is so touching, knowing that you are going to continue to inspire so many it's like you're building this little army of people who are inspired to following your footsteps and following your legacy and continue to create
that kind of justice. You know, the impact that you will have on so many people is so big and your voice can be so big and the idea that this one asshole could stop it is obviously he couldn't. Right, like you're like the impact that you can have, that you have is so much bigger than anything that this person could ever, you know, dream up to try to
stop it. I feel yeah, you know, I kind of laugh about it sometimes when he he posts things about a nons case or other aspects of work and I'm like, I'm an attorney, I've been doing this for like twenty
odd years. I have I have a team of attorneys I work with, I work with the innocence project across the country on cases, and this completely unqualified, you know, White Guy, rightly, like this completely qualified guy, thinks that he has the same like skill set, or or even has the same like he's he's so entitled that he feels like his opinion is equal to my expertise. I mean, like really Um and I think that prior drives me
crazy too. I mean, like is the fact that I want to be like, listen, go to law school, spent about ten, fifteen years doing innocence work and then let's talk about this case, like you know, you have a completely uninformed opinion. You're you can't come close to like my you know, the work that I do, because you don't have the experience. I'm sure he's great at what he does. I can't do what he does. I will never do what he does and he can't do what I do. As simple as that. And so it's just
like apples and oranges. And I think what it is as he thinks, oh, she's got a true crime podcast. My podcast as a means to an end. Um. The whole point of the podcast is I could end the podcast tomorrow as long as I could find a way to financially support the work of of helping people get back in court right WHO's been cars for years. The podcast is a way to do that. That's not the work. The work is the other work that I do outside
of the recording studio. Yeah, that's something I love about your work is that it's not just so many folks like and not to not to crap on them, but the work begins and ends in the podcast studio and you are out there making like, doing the actual work, making the actual difference. And and I love it. Chose too. I listen to them all the time. I Love I love those kinds of I love all kinds of shows. I mean that's you know, I love investigative stuff, but
this is what I do. And so, uh, you know, what I think is kind of interesting is like Um, his he's calling on those followers and other people who attack me too, to try and stop, like I want to be like you really want to, you really want to prevent a person from doing the kind of work I'm doing. Like that in itself is like almost evil.
It's like if I was handing out water bottles at the border and somebody's like no, I want to shoot them all out of your hand, like you want to prevent me from doing like work that's going to change
people's lives. Like yes, it's really crappy, right. And because, yeah, you're doing this, this important justice work, and I think that all the people who see what's happening, who might otherwise be inspired to follow in your footsteps and do this kind of work, how many of them are going to see this and be like, oh well, I don't want to do that. You know, it's like you're preventing the spread of justice in the world by by, you know,
behaving in this way. But, you know, look up, he can only he and others can only harass me if I allow myself to like feel harassed in some extent Um. And it was only in the time when I felt like this is getting kind of dangerous, some of the rhetorics getting dangerous that I really felt stress over it, um, but then I was like, my due diligence is that. I've told my attorney, I've notified the platforms, I've put
everybody else on notice. Anybody who follows me knows now. Right. So, others are hundreds of, if not thousands, of people are watching him, Um, watching and documenting every because he does have a history of like posting things and deleting them, as if things disappear from the Internet. Um, and so I've done my due diligence. That's that's all I can do, and now I have to get back to my life. I also have kids, I've got a husband, I've got cats, I've got elderly parents, I have a garden, I have
things to take care of. I don't want to time for this. Absolutely. I mean that's a great question. How do you take care of yourself? How do you make sure that you know you're the things that matter in your life are nurtured and protected during all of this? I mean, look, when you're working, mom, I can't be like hey, kids, I'm having a bad day. You're just gonna have to feed yourselves and, you know, drive yourself to school. Um, there are things that are nonegotiable that
you have to take care of every single day. In a way, just having that they're like, Um, it's a good distraction from like this meaningless stuff off that's happening online in many instances. So I I feel taken I feel like I I'm taking care of myself when I get my work done, when I you know, it's it's I write words a day, when I hit my words a day, uh, and I've made sure that, you know, my family's got food for today, or I know we're getting take out, or I've made the plans Um, and
my plants aren't dying and my parents. You know, as long as I'm checking the boxes of the things that I need to do for the people are important to me, then that's taking care of myself as well. That is how I take care of myself. That's so important. So how can folks who might be out there listening either support you during this time or support the criminal justice
work that you're involved in now? Um, well, you know, I just think it's important that, look, we do have free speech in this country, but that means that we allow hate speech. I mean the First Amendment is actually created to protect the worst kind of speech possible. It's not created to protect the speech everybody loves. Right so, but we also have to be able to identify and
call out hate speech. So what I would say, just to help create a safer space, Um, in any kind of public discourse, in the media, in social media, is to call out hate speech. This is hate speech. What you're doing and saying is hate speech. Report hate speech you know and then let the platforms decide what they're gonna do with it. That's one way to make a more safer space for all of us online and even in real life. Um. But in order to support the justice work, I think you know the cases that we
do it undisclosed. We've covered about twenty five cases from different parts of the country, just listening to the cases, reaching out to the defendants. You can find a lot of information online, writing to them, leoching out to your local I mean my work is pretty focused on innocence work, but criminal justice reform is much brought is needed in a much more brighter way. But certainly you can reach out to your local innocence Um chapter is to ask
how you can support them. But believe there's a lot of incarcerated people behind bars who have not had visitors and years, who have nobody to write them, who have nobody to call. So in that way, non is incredibly blessed. I mean he's never not had family support and friends and people to visit him and love him, but there's so many people who have nobody and so just finding organizations that can connect you to those kinds of people, writing letters once or twice a month, you can change
somebody's life like that. Can you tell us a little bit about the upcoming book? Oh yeah, it's a complete departure from any of the work that I am known for. It's called fatty, fatty boom boom and it's a memoir. Fatty fatty boom boom was one of my many childhood
nicknames because I've always struggled with late issues Um. So the memoirs about food, fat and family and I think it will resonate with a lot of people, a lot of people who have spent their lives struggling with Um, who love food and struggle with weight and have to deal with family. I love food, man, what can I do? I mean, yeah, so and my family loves food and they want to feed me, but also they want me
to is weight. It's like never kind of works out, Um. So, but it was, it was it was a fun right. It was fun to write it because it was very different than, like, some of the more serious stuff that I do. Our voices matter and we shouldn't have to put up with a digital landscape that just allows for
our voices to be drowned out by harassment. I know it can be hard to speak up, to keep joining the conversation, to keep using our voices, but that's exactly what harassers want, for us to just shut up and go away. And even as she's facing a flood of threats and harassment, Robbia hopes that other women, especially women of color, won't let this kind of thing stop them.
The only message I would want to leave with, especially to Um women of color, to people who are marginalized in any way Um in our society, is not to let people push you out of spaces. Don't ever let it happen. Just don't let it happen. Stand your ground. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please help us grow by subscribing. Got A story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi. We'd love to hear from
you at hello at Tango Dot Com. Disinformed is brought to you by there are no girls on the Internet. It's a production of IHEART radio and unbossed creative Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tory Harrison is our supervising producer and engineer. Michaelmato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, bridget tod. For more great podcasts, check out the IHEART radio APP apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.