Hey, it's Bridget. So when I'm not making There Are No Girls on the Internet, I'm also the host of a podcast called Beef, where we're serving up the juiciest historical rivalries that you've never heard of. And I'm so pleased to share that Beef is a finalist for three Signal Awards. So could you do me a huge favor and vote for Beef to win Best Writing, Best Emerging Podcast, and Best Host. Just go to Ncpodcasts dot com slash Signal. Voting is open until October fifth. Thank you so much.
It really 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, thank you so much for joining us.
Welcome back, Hey, Bridget, thanks for having me.
So I think we should just get right into it because everybody on Twitter is talking about Linda Yakarino's performance at the Big Tech conference Code. Oh my gosh, have you seen or heard anything about this? I have not, So usually we do a segment about like, oh, what's Elon Musk done? Now what's Elon up to? This is really what's Linda Yakarino up to? So Linda Yakarino for folks who don't know, was named as the new CEO of Twitter a while ago.
I would say, it kind of seems like.
Linda is not as publicly involved as you might expect a CEO to be, Like it seems like Elon Musk will say something and she like a B and now it's a big change and she won't even like acknowledge it or anything like that. So like the vibe has been like is she really in charge? Is she really
the CEO? When she came on board, she definitely was getting that treatment where she was talking about how she really loves a challenge, like she's the person that you call when you want someone who was like really going to turn a ship around, And she was using a lot of language that I I really quickly recognize as setting up a woman to come in and clean up
the mess of a male CEO, a male leader. Like I heard a lot of like this is someone who really wants to be seen as someone who was really like capable and going to come in and do a good job.
While her performance at a tech conference.
Code did not go well and is not really doing a good job of aligning with what I think is her like public myth making around herself. So first, Kara Swisher interviewed Joel Roth, former head of trust and Safety at Twitter. Roth is someone who I've seen talked about in some ways that I would say or not exactly accurate. You might remember that Roth was working at Twitter in the pre Elon Musk days and then stuck around once
Elon Musk took over. I've seen him described as a whistleblower, but I really pushed back against that framing because when Elon Musk took over Twitter, he was fine to go along with all the practices that Elon Musk was putting forth. There are other folks who left Twitter when Elon Musk took over, who I would say, like were actual genuine whistleblowers who were blowing the whistle on Twitter's internal practices once Elon must took over. I would not put Yoel
Roth in that camp. You'll might remember that Joel Roth was like on board until Musk very publicly turned on him. Musk kind of publicly insinuated that Roth, who is openly gay, is a sexual threat to children. And after this happened, Roth and his family had to flee their home for
their own safety. So I will say this, had that been me, had Elon Musk taken over my company and then publicly smeared me as a threat to children, and that I had to leave my home and I was invited on a big platform to talk about Twitter, I can just imagine what I would have said, like it would have come up, I probably would have had a lot to say. However, Roth really just kept it professional.
He talked about how there had been a rise and hate speech on Twitter since Elon must took over, saying by any measure, it is worse except by Twitter's own measure, which is basically what we've all been saying all along. So even though Roth just stuck to like clear stats about Twitter, like talking about the platform, Linda Yakarino seemed
very rattled by him being there. Linda was interviewed right after Roth, and to be honest, just came off really unprepared and it didn't do a ton to you know, address concerns that like Elon Musk is still running the show and like you know, running Twitter off of his whims without really consulting her.
Listen for yourself.
Elon Musk just announced a new monthly fee for users. Yeap, And my question for you is do you want to start charging all users of X as he said? And how many users do you think.
You will lose as a result? Could you repeat?
Elon Musk announced You're moving to an entirely subscription based service. Yeah, nothing free.
I'm about using X.
Do you say we were moving to it specifically or is thinking about it?
He said, that's plan? Yeah, So did he consult you before he announced that?
We talk about everything?
Marn I guess she sounds very PR trained. Sounds like the like if I were the PR person for Twitter, slash X whatever you want to call it right now, I would be like, yeah, let's let's you know, do you say it or is it just like an idea that's out there or thinking about it?
Like I Yeah, that's so PR speak.
So Jakarino then tried to give some big, impressive number about how advertisers were returning to the platform, but then those numbers were refuted by external analysis. Then, when asked about the current rise and anti Semitic content on Twitter, including from her boss, Elon Musk. According to Business insiders ben Bergman, she apparently looked down at her watch and said,
I need to leave to catch a flight. And that's just like I can't imagine a more awkward thing to say, like, uh, I think someone's.
Calling me in the other room. I gotta go.
Yeah.
No, that's like like, oh, look at my wrist, I gotta go.
That is real.
Yeah.
So of all the things that you could say, I feel like that's the most awkward, Like you know that emoji, that awkward emoji that has the curly mouth. That's just like, oh, that was basically everybody's face in the audience because it was so awkward. People have described this as like a
scene from Arrested Development because that's how awkward it was. Now, I think this is really just an instance of like you work for a company, you have you have fired or let go most, if not all, of your camm staff. The person who like is at the very top of the company, the owner Elon Musk, is someone who is very erratic. I think that like, this is what you
get when all of those conditions are met. And so some folks, some like pretty big name tech folks, accused tech journalist Kara Swisher, you know, the organizer of the conference of sandbagging Yakarbino by booking Roth as a surprise guest. But this is not really what happened. Swisher confirmed that Yacharino knew that Roth would be speaking, and was even given the option to pick whether she wanted to speak before him or after him, and that apparently Twitter like
decided that they wanted to have the last words. So it's not like this was a total surprise. According to Kara Swisher, she texted Linda Yakarino personally and she had about twelve hours notice that, like, hey, this person's going to be speaking too.
Yeah, like how how you were describing Roth before?
And this isn't like a dig on him, I'm sure whatever, but it seems like he's like the most like mild, sort of like center of the field person you could ask to talk about this, because again it sounds like, yeah, he didn't leave. He was sort of like I'm just going to keep doing my job and see what happens. And yeah, if you have a marginalized identity, you will be targeted for that, regardless of how you know much of a team player you are, and again, this is like a good example of that.
But yeah, it sounds like he's sort of you don't really know what's strict and he could go with this, and yeah.
That's a good way to describe him.
And honestly, to me, like I said, if Elon Musk had targeted me for my identity and put my kids at risk, you can believe that when I got on a stage, I wouldn't be talking about the platform stats, right, So, like part of me is like, well, this is like a testament to the fact that Roth is not going personal, that he's just like sticking to the SATs. I completely agree with your assessment of who he is in this situation.
And I was pretty.
Surprised to see a lot of big names in tech media, people like Jason Kalakhanis from the All In podcast, which is like a like probably the number one tech podcast in the world, like every fucking week.
I have no problem with that, but like, it is what it is.
And a business reporter at Axios they were on Twitter saying like, oh, Linda Yacarno got sandbagged by Kara Swisher. This is so unprofessional and Kara Swisher is never gonna be able to book high profile tech leaders for this conference, and like, this conference is really gonna be not as big of a deal if this is how they're gonna treat their their high profile guests.
And I really need to like push.
Back on that framing because you know, I think it really it's one of those situations where it's like, wow, you all have so little integrity as tech tech leaders and journalists people are supposed to be informing the public. You could not be making it clearer that what you actually care about, what you actually value, is access. This is something that Paris Marks, the host of Tech will
not save us. That podcast speaks to quite a bit, which is like, these people could not have made it any clearer that they don't care about holding tech leaders accountable. They don't care about asking the kinds of questions that are actually going to help us the public understand what's going on. What they care about is access. And it's not a journalist's job to make Linda Yakarino look good.
It's not a journalist's job to you know, play nice with Dyacarino or any other tech leader and like make them feel comfortable and make them look good and give them like like they're not in pr they're journalists, And so I was really surprised how quickly these journalists revealed that they don't care about that, that all they care about is like, Ooh, is this really gonna like hurt Karras Swisher's ability to book big guests h And that
I found that to be really telling. You know, Linda Yacarino is running one of the most important tech platforms in the world. It's not any journalist's job to make her look good. It's a journalist's job to ask her questions that are going to be clarifying for us the public, and to hold her accountable for the things that she says and the things that she does.
Right, And even if it wasn't Linda Yakarino herself, like she's the CEO of a company that's owned by Elon Musk who has used that platform to spewges straight up Nazi shit and yeah, apparently target a gay man in a way that is very much rooted in homophobia.
Like it, it totally makes sense.
It's so weird to see like how accountability is like framed because yeah, like you said, this seems like a situation where she needs to be held accountable for what's happening at her company, for what's happening in the name of her company.
And yeah, like asking the most basic questions is apparently too much.
I don't know, poor Linda Yakarino, her and her you know, billion dollar company, so sad they're being bullied by mean journalists.
I almost see like a little bit of like sexism here, Like I think it's I think it's I think it's important to like not I try really heard when I'm talking about Linda Yacarino to make sure that I'm not trafficking in some sort of like internalized misogyny.
But the way that people are talking.
About her, it almost swings back around and it's like, we're not talking about your best friend giving you a heads up that your ex might be at the party they're planning. This is somebody who is running one of the most powerful thing EO of one of the most powerful tech companies in the world. Where's this idea coming from that she can't handle it if one of her if a former staffer is there presenting his perspective as a former staffer, it almost seems like insulting to her.
This assumption that like she needs more notice than other tech CEOs that have gone to this conference that somebody's being added to the lineup, and that if Joel Roth got up there and spoke his piece about what he saw at Twitter, that that's going to somehow rattle her. It almost feels like like a weird kind of like a weird assumption that I just I don't know where.
It's coming from.
And I don't see a lot of other tech leaders getting these same kinds of like assumptions that they they will fall they will simply fall apart if they are asked to speak after somebody who has presented an alternative perspective than their own. I thought to her whole thing, she's been saying this whole time that Twitter is this place where, oh, you need to be able to listen
when someone's got an opposing view, like you shouldn't. You should run away from it when someone's got a different opinion. But yet here are all these people saying, oh, well, Linda Yakarino shouldn't have to listen to somebody's opposing opinion, and if she does so, it is it is reasonable for her to completely fall apart and shit the bed. I have a lot of questions about it.
Yeah, a big part of feminism is being able to acknowledge when women mess up too, and women are benefiting from like, you know, classism, anti Semitism, general sort of fascist tendencies, you know, in this case, and yeah, like Linda Yacharino took this job knowing who Elon Musk was and knowing what this company had kind.
Of positioned itself as at that point.
So it's sort of like, I don't know, it feels like we're falling back into the whole like Girl Boss era, where it's like it's okay if she does bad stuff because she's she's doing it as a woman, and it doesn't matter that other women are going to get brutalized by the content that is produced by this company or whatever. It's weird. It is a very weird thing to be watching.
It reminds me of this meme I see often that I think about all the time. It's not exactly like, well, whatever the meme is, I don't support all women. Some of you bitches are very dumb. And I always think about that of like, yeah, like this is she shot the bed out there, and it really matters. It doesn't just matter from like a business perspective, it matters for
all of us, like to put this in context. This comes just days after a new study from the European Union that said that Twitter is the number one biggest source of disinformation when compared to other social media platforms, with Spain, Poland, and Slovakia deemed as countries with the highest risks.
The EUS Values.
And Transparency Commissioner Via Yorova warned Elon Musk, saying, you have to comply with the hard law. We'll be watching
what you're doing. And what did he do in response, Well, Elon Musk cut Twitter's election integrity and disinformation team despite pledging that he would not do that, and removed the election disinformation reporting tool even though we're like, what a couple hundred days out of an election here in the United States, and so this stuff really matters, like how this platform is run really makes really matters to people.
On Friday, the day that this podcast comes out, Twitter's new privacy policy goes into effect, which allows Twitter to take a lot more data from us, including our employment information, our job information, maybe read our DMS, our biometric data, and of course use all of that data that they take from us to train their AI, and a whole lot more.
All of this.
After Twitter's former head of security turned actual whistleblower went before the Senate and testified that Twitter is misleading the public about the platform's extreme and egregious security deficiencies. So all of this is to say that it really matters how Twitter is being run, not just because it's this big company, but because it really matters for global election integrity and for our own personal security. So this is
not a business story. This is not a story about like it's Kara Swisher gonna be able to get big important guests on her show, where well, the CODE conference continue to be really big and important. It's not a story about whether or not this journalist was like nice to Linda Yakarino. Our global democracy is at risk and these people are just talking about like whether or not CODE is going to be able to book guests is
because the journalist asked her about it. Like the conversation is so deeply unserious, and I feel like we are watching tech journalists fail us in real time and be really public and open about it, Like they don't even have the good sense to not publicly go out and say like Oh, the most important thing is access, And because they asked Linda Yacarino hard questions, they're blowing that access the most important thing that matters to me as a tech journalist, Like it is so deeply unserious and
they're putting us all at risk and not even having the good sense to like not say that publicly voluntarily.
Yeah, I think coming from within the journalism industry in particular and like having that perspective, this is really interesting because it kind of reminds me of like, and you mentioned the election, which this doesn't directly have to do with the election, but you know, again Twitter is going
to be a big platform for that. This reminds me of back in twenty sixteen when Trump was elected and there was sort of this like conversation I think within the journalism industry and within newsrooms about like what's the media's responsibility and you know, what's the difference between holding people accountable and like getting both sides or like hearing all the sides, And like this this seems like we're falling back into that idea of like getting all the
sides and hearing letting everybody just speak their mind without question is more important than like actually holding people accountable and actually asking people the hard questions about like their actual policies that are going to affect people. Yeah, that's concerning to me too. And again, like this doesn't directly have to do with the election, but Twitter is going to be a big platform when it comes to relection.
And are we going to see that sort of cycle again where people are just like, yeah, we're gonna just hear all the sides and not hold anybody accountable because that never ends.
Well, yeah, I worry that folks in media have not really learned a lot of hard truths, So we will see. Let's take a quick break at our back, so we
have a little update for you. Last week during our newscast, we told you that Andrew Tates MLM scam app called The Real World formerly called Hustler's University, was taken off of Google's play Store for being a predatory pyramid scheme that charged subscribers fifty dollars a month and offered them the chance to make millions through these like very scammy sounding courses on things like copywriting, cryptocurrency, and also prompted
users to share Andrew Tate's content on social media. At the time of publishing our episode, the app was still available on Apple's app store well right after our episode went live. On Friday of last week, Apple joined Google in taking Tit's app down from the app store. Thank you, Apple. Tits people say that they are appealing both of these decisions, but for now, it is good news that that tit is being cut from this income stream that just really just takes advantage of young people.
Yeah.
First of all, adding on to last week's kind of discussion of this, to be the third person now on this podcast to say, I don't know why copywriting is listed in there, because.
Oh I got experience with that. You do not make billions of time.
Yeah.
Listener Sarah said the same thing as I like, what is going on with copywriting? People don't make millions and millions of dollars from copywriting and him promising people that they're going to make that is truly a wild claim to be making on his app.
Yeah.
I think generally media, if a company is telling you that, like a media related job is going to make you a lot of money, that's probably not true.
A rule of thumb.
Yeah, No, I that's good to hear. I feel like this whole Entwtate saga. This is this is one of those things where it's like this whole thing that's going out the Andrew Tait has felt very big and like very difficult to address, and it's like there's just so much, so much harm he's causing that this is like an example of like how any sort of action is good.
And I think, I don't know, I think it's it's easy to get sort of caught up in all of the bad stuff that's coming out of this, but it is it's good to hear one when good things happened because because of you know, people's advocacy and people trying to combat this stuff.
Yeah, I take my w's where I can get them, even the small ones. And if folks are interested to hear more about Taate and the sort of ecosystem of manosphere grifters that have popped up around him, folks like just pearly Things and Sneako all of your mixed bag of misogynistic right wing extremist online grifters. Check out our episode of their No Girls on the Internet that came out this week with Justin Horowitz and extremism researcher at
Media Matters. He breaks down all of it. So if folks want to know more about Tate, what he's doing, and the impact that it has on all of us, definitely check out this week's episode. So over in Texas, yelp the review website that is mostly known for I guess like reviewing restaurants and coffee shops. While Yelp is preemptively suing Texas to ensure that the site can continue to tell users that crisis pregnancy centers also known as CPCs listed on their site do not provide abortions or
abortion referrals. So if you're unfamiliar with a crisis pregnancy center, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, always have trouble saying, that word CPC is a term used to refer to a certain facilities that represent themselves as legitimate reproductive healthcare clinics providing care for pregnant people, but actually aim to dissuade people from accessing certain types of
reproductive care, including abortion care and even contraceptives' options. So currently, Yelp puts a label on crisis pregnancy centers that reads, quote, this is a crisis pregnancy center. Crisis pregnancy centers do not offer abortions or referrals to abortion providers. This is just like fact based information. That is just like a fact. I don't think that any CPC would object to that that they do not offer abortions or referrals for abortions.
That its just like a true fact about their services. But YELP suspects that Texas is going to sue them to prevent them from applying this label, so they are preemptively suing Texas first. According to CNN, in a complaint filed Wednesday in San Francisco federal court, YELP said it as suing the Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton preemptively to head off a lawsuit it anticipates from his office as soon as Friday that may seek to borrow YELP from
applying its label to crisis pregnancy centers. If the name Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas sounds familiar to you, that is because he just got finished facing a very serious impeachment threat from his own party for corruption.
Now he wasn't impeached.
That he won that battle, but he's still facing a felony fraud case and an FBI investigation for securities fraud.
So, Ken Paxton has a lot going on.
Like, you know, if I were Ken Paxson, I'd probably focused on that, but this is what he's doing instead.
Yeah, that's so crazy, Like just from hearing you explain that they're not doing anything illegal. In fact, they're just yeah, like they're just explaining what the service is, which is what you're supposed to do if you're a service and you want to get business. But you know, it's almost like they don't want us to know that they don't have abortions and they actually do other things.
Crazy.
I thought false advertising was illegal, apparently not in this case.
Yeah, okay, So what's interesting about what you just said is that back in February, Paxton went after yelp for
putting a different label on crisis pregnancy centers. Their initial label described crisis pregnancy centers as quote typically providing limited medical services and may not have licensed medical professionals on site, which is also true, but Paxton objected to that back in February, and so when yelp changed their label to read what I've read before about how crisis pregnancy centers do not offer abortions or referral for abortions Paxton himself
commended that disclosure as quote accurate in a press release that reads, YELP has agreed to remove its misleading label of crisis pregnancy centers and replace it with an accurate description. So just as you said, right that, like Paxton himself said, oh well this new label, this label is accurate, but now he is still coming after YELP for this label that he himself in February said was accurate and was fine.
So the way that crisis pregnancy centers work is that they really, they really take advantage of like scammy SEO practices to prey on people, many of whom are in desperate situations, to confuse them with inaccurate information. Crisis pregnancy centers their whole mission is to basically waste the time of somebody who was pregnant, to create an intentional.
Delay that will delay them in getting.
An abortion, in an attempt to trigger term restrictions that will prevent them from getting abortion care altogether. So yelp's lawsuit is asking the court to affirm that it's labeling of crisis pregnancy centers was not misleading and that it
was an exercise of constitutionally protected speech. It is also asking the court to block Texas from suing over the labels in the future, and I think, yeah, it's just another example of the ways that like abortion is a tech issue, and that if you are trying to talk about technology but you're you're doing so in a way that does not talk about abortion care, then you're not fully talking about technology because abortion is a tech issue.
You know, tech company should really be in the business of providing accurate information about people's health, and a lot of times we know that they don't. So in this case, when yelp is actually trying to help people get accurate information about you know, crisis pregnancy centers, it's really sad that states like Texas are stepping in to prevent them from doing that.
Yeah, and again it's like it's not like Yelp is doing anything that's illegal. I use Google Maps all the time because like I never know where I am. But I mean one thing that like I rely on a lot is like the descriptions of places that I'm going to matching the place that I'm actually going to, And it is really frustrating when they don't. You shouldn't be hiding under the guys of medical care if that's not what you're doing.
But yeah, I hate yeah, wow, it's it's scary.
Everything that's happening in Texas with this is terrifying. And again all the support to like abortion activists, reproductive rights activists in Texas, you guys are like, I admire the work he all are doing so much, so important.
Absolutely, Like, if you've got some spare coin and you're looking for a good home for it, donate to an abortion fund because Lord knows they're doing important work and they could use it. And I think this thing in Texas, I really think that Paxton is just trying to do a stunt to take away from his corruption investigation. I think that, like he is newly back from almost being impeached by his own party, and I think that he is just like looking for some big, grand standing stunt.
And he already confirmed that the way that yelp is describing CPCs is accurate.
So it's like we're visiting this now. It just seems like a stunt.
And I think it just goes back to the idea that a lot of these extremists, they don't have a lot to offer their citizens other than stunts and grandstanding. And I think that's exactly what this is.
Yeah, it's almost like the backlash against free productive rights and trans people and all of this is just a time to get more votes.
But you know.
So, folks might be familiar with Wirecutter. The New York Times is Vertical, where they rate and review tech gadgets. Wirecutter had been giving whyse the security camera system positive reviews for six years, but all of that changed this week because Wirecutter announced that they were pulling their recommendations
for whys from all their site's guides. Why Well because Wirecutter explains that on September eighth, The Verge reported an incident in which WYSE customers were able to access live video from other users cameras through the WYSE web portal. When Wirecutter reached out to WYS for details, a representative characterized the incident as small in scope, saying they believe
no more than ten users were affected. So that's not great. Like, even if it's only ten people strangers being able to access your security camera and see what you're doing, it's like pretty bad. But here's the kicker. Other than one post on its user to user online forum Wise Communities and Communications to those that they say were affected. The company has not reached out to Wise customers, nor has it provided meaningful details about the incident wirecutter rights. We
believe Wise is acting irresponsibly to its customers. As such, we've made the difficult but unavoidable decision to revoke our recommendation of all Wise cameras until the company implements meaningful changes to its security and privacy procedures. The concern is
not that Wise had a security incident. Just about every company or organization in the world we're probably at the deal with some sort of security trip up, as we've seen with big banks, the military, Las Vegas, casinos, schools, and even Chick fil A. The greater issue is how this company responds to a crisis. With this incident and others in the past, it is clear that Wise has failed to develop the sorts of robust procedures that adequately protect its customers the way they deserve.
Damn.
Yeah, that's scary.
Yeah, I feel like security cameras, cameras in general, that's just such a sensitive issue. It's like any like, if there's any break of that privacy, that should be notified to people that have the cameras that you sell exactly.
So I need to make this really clear. This is very unusual. Right.
We talk about a lot of companies who behave in ways that are irresponsible, but this is irresponsible even by like irresponsible company standards. Wirecutters spoke to other folks in the privacy space, including Gen cult Writer, program director at Mozilla's Privacy not included, whose work we've talked about on
a show before. All of the folks they spoke to agree that it is completely unusual and unacceptable that Whyse did not reach out to their customer base proactively and never said anything about how they are planning to prevent these issues in the future. And this is not even the first time that Wise has had issues like this. In March twenty twenty two, a bit Defender study showed that WYSE took nearly three years to fully address specific
vulnerabilities that affected all three models of Wise cameras. Eventually, they did alert customers and told them that they're you know, their security like that model of security camera was no longer safe and that they should not be using them, and that they did keep using them, they were doing so like at their own risk. So like you were saying, Joey, I would pretty much never advocate for someone putting an
additional camera in their home that they didn't need. But when you do, like that is a trust relationship, as you were saying, that you're entering into with the company, right, you need to know that if that trust is broken, that the company is going to handle it in a way that is responsible. Like that's the only way that having a camera in your house makes any sense at all, is that the company is like acting in a way that really makes it clear that they understand that that
that you're putting their your trust in them. As wier Cutter points out, the fundamental relationship between smart home companies and their customers is founded on trust. No company can guarantee safety and security but one hundred percent of the time, but customers need to be confident that those who make and sell these products, especially security devices, are worthy of
their trust. Why is its inability to meet these basic standards puts its customers and its devices at risk and also cast doubt on the smart home industry as a whole. So Wirecutter actually listed out some specific steps that Wise would need to take in order for them to consider,
like reconsider looking at their products in the future. It's like very basic stuff, honestly, like reaching out to all customers proactively if there is a breach and describing the issue in detail, including what steps are being taken to prevent it from happening. Again, Like to me, it sounds
like very basic stuff. And I also think that it is a pretty big step for an outlet that like Wirecutter that most folks probably know for like Gadget Reviews, to take this kind of action, And honestly, maybe it should be more commonplace, Like even if you're mostly a review outlet, it is still sort of service oriented tech journalism for regular people to inform their purchasing decision making, right, And so I think it's nice to see an outlet
making that responsibility seriously and using that as as a way to advocate for a tech company just being accountable to the people who are buying them buying their stuff.
Yeah, uh rare wind for the New York Times.
I guess Times Property Bridget. Did you ever watch.
There was the like Disney Channel movie that I watched I was a kid that was called like smart Home.
Yeah, smart House. You know, I watched Smart House as the word smart Home.
But I was like, I think that's why.
Now I think I'm realizing now because I've always been somebody that, like, even with like computer cameras, have been very like anxious about and I know most about it whatever, I.
In theory it's safe.
But yeah, I think I think that's how it started. I think it was because of that movie, which this just goes to prove that Disney Channel was right apparently, But yeah.
No, that's that's so scary though.
I've never had a security camera like that in a place that I've lived, but I know, like I had friends growing up that like had that in their houses, and that's scary. That is that's really scary what could happen with that?
Yeah?
So first of all, like Disney Channel continue, Disney Channel originals continue from like that two thousands continue to be prophetic, like it is written. Yeah, maybe that's maybe that's our origin story of paranoia around certain technology.
I think it is.
I think I'm connecting the dots now. I'm like, that's that's how it starts.
Yeah, And it's funny because like I'm not like like for my life having things like a Google Home or like a security camera. It doesn't make sense for my life personally, But I get that people's security needs might
be different. Like my parents have I actually don't know what they use, but they have cameras in every room in their house because my dad is disabled and sometimes has like bad falls, and so it's like a way to be like, oh, well, if I'm downstairs, I want to be able to see if my mom is downstairs, she wants to be able to be able to see
what my dad is doing, and vice versa. Because they're older folks who live in a big house, and so I'm not you know, if having devices that have cameras in them in your life makes sense for your lifestyle, like that, do what you gotta do. As wirecutter, I think rightly points out, you should be able to do that and trust that you are going to get the information that you need to be able to be, you know, deciding how you what role you want this technology to
play in your life. And I feel like what wise is not being a good actor to allow consumers to really do that.
More.
After a quick break, let's get right back into it. So we've talked a little bit before about the threats that deep fakes pose digitally re images of people, often depicting them in sexual situations or meant to be used for political deception. Now, new legislation is trying to combat
the harm posed by deep fakes. Representative Evet Clark, who represents parts of Brooklyn, introduced new legislation in the House that is meant to curb the harm of deep fakes, saying, this bill is meant to take us into the twenty first century and establish a baseline so we can discern
who is intended to harm us. Clark said that the Deep Fakes Accountability Act would provide prosecutors, regulators, and particularly victims with resources like detection technology that Clark believes they need to stand up against the threat of nefarious deep fakes. This bill would require all creators of deep fakes to include content credentials, which means the origins and entire history of a piece of content, including how it was captured
and how it's been changed. Under this legislation, online platforms that host generative AI content would also be required to display the origins of that content. Under this legislation, users who failed to label malicious deep thakes would face a criminal penalty include in prison time and fines. So this category woulden compass deep fakes related to sexual content, criminal content,
incitement of violence, and foreign interference in elections. Now I've looked into this legislation a little bit, it does seem like there is some potential concern that the scope might be a bit too narrow because it really focuses on like people, So like deep fakes that depict images of people, but what about malna deep fake does not depict a person, Like recently faked AI generated images of the Pentagon on fire went viral and caused a disruption where I live
here in DC, And so I have read that there is concern that this legislation is too narrow and that it does not account for those kinds of deep fakes that are that do not depict a specific person.
Yeah.
That also, it concerns me that they're being very liberal with like sexual content because and like, I don't know, this might be a little bit more extreme of a take, but I feel like if you're making AI content of somebody that's like sexual without their permission, that's bad, that is wrong. I don't think that should be allowed, like period. So I don't know, it feels sort of like concerning that they're sort of like you have to label.
This, but it can still exist.
Yeah, that's another I mean, like I just knowing what I know about you know, the way that platforms will sometimes add like oh this is misinformation or like get the realist story. Like if you ever scroll Facebook and it's like, oh, this post has been shown to be misleading.
Those are great, and I like think that platform should be doing that, But if I'm being honest, there is a lot of research that suggests that people are not really like looking at those because social media platforms move so quickly that people are not always clicking in to be like, oh this is here's.
Some context for this.
And so I'm concerned that the way that the Internet moves moves, the speed at which the Internet moves, I think it's possible that deep fakes could travel in a way because people are not necessarily looking at the context or looking at the label because of the speed at which social media platforms tend to move. And so it is concerning, Like I think that something needs to be done about the threat of deep fakes, Like I already know.
I'm sure we've talked about this on the show that deep fakes have the potential to really disrupt our democracy, and it's definitely going to be people who are traditionally marginalized who are disproportionately facing that realities, like you know, women, LGBTQ, folks, people of color.
That's just a reality. And so, like I do think.
Something needs to be done, it's also kind of hard to believe that right now there is no national legislation specifically addressing deep fakes or the deceptive uses of generative AI. Earlier this month, technology executives did have a closed door meeting with senators to discuss potential government regulation, But right
now there is no national regulation of this. And I do want to say that this legislation is being introduced by Representative Clark, and Clark is somebody that had actually been really.
Keeping my eye on.
Y'all might recall that during the TikTok hearings, we talked a lot about some of the stuff that came up from lawmakers, the questions that they asked. Clark had some legitimately very good questions about whether TikTok's moderation policies were biased toward black and brown creators, and whether the platform was suppressing abortion content. I remember like she was someone whole. I was like, Oh, she's like asking very substantive questions that clearly reflect her constituents in a way that I
thought was like very refreshing. She was also working to regulate AI before doing so was cool way back when. In twenty nineteen, she worked with Senators Wided and Corey Booker to introduce the Algorithmic Accountability Act, a bill that would require companies to conduct impact and privacy assessments when they use automated decision making tools. And so we will definitely keep an eye on this legislation, how it moves,
what happens with it. But yeah, it's sort of hard to believe that there is no national legislation addressing the threat of deep fakes or deceptive uses of AI. And yeah, it's it's I will keep an eye on it.
Yeah, it It definitely feels like there should be I feel like that should be covered under like libel or something too.
Where it's like and again, I'm I'm not a lawyer.
I haven't looked at the concrete laws that exists around this, but it feels like an image and an image is like impact on somebody's reputation that should have the same impact as like something that's spoken about somebody.
But yeah, like it's it's good.
To hear that somebody is doing something about this, and somebody who it seems like has a history of actually addressing tech issues and not just you know, selling out to the sort of Heritage Foundation version of what the Internet should be.
That's a refreshing take for once. But and again, like, this.
Is a very narrow legislation, but it's a step in the right direction, and I guess that's good to hear.
Yeah, And to your point that you were making earlier, I think this is a situation that really shows that sometimes our technology progresses quicker than our laws can keep up. And so I'm interested to see if we get to a place where our laws actually can be somewhat more aligned with the realities of the technology that we're that's facing us today. Okay, so important question for you, Joey. Did you go for First of all, are you a Swifty? Are you into Taylor Swift?
I love Taylor Swift.
Oh my god, We've never talked about this, so I wasn't sure.
I did go to the Airs tour. I went to the Chicago one of the Chicago shows. She played the Lakes, and I wish you would for those of you that are.
Wondering, the two of you that are wondering.
But it was a great show. Not being said the it's a lot of stress leading up to it. So I'm sure you're gonna get into some of that.
Yes, so I think. I so I'm not as swifty.
I am an aspiring swifty like I if I'm being honest, I probably other than the big hits that everybody knows, I probably could not name a.
Taylor Swift song.
But I want to be a swifty If there are folks like someone send me a playlist, someone tell me what to get into. I feel like jealousy. I wish I was. I want to be part of the community.
I'll send you a playlist like Okay, yeah, I respect Taylor Swift a lot, and I I want in.
I just don't know where to start.
So, as you were saying, like if anybody who tried to go to Taylor Swift's eras toward the summer or Beyonce's renaissance toward the summer, I didn't make it to either of them.
So like Boomy, I.
Didn't make it to Renaissance.
I really didn't want to go to Renaissance and I could not get a ticket Soli.
Yeah, glass half at least I kind of situation.
My brother went with his wife, and there was a time where I was like, well, certainly, like he's gonna ask me to go. He's gonna be like, Bridget, you should go to Beyonce, take my ticket.
And I was like waiting by the phone and the call never came.
Fell.
Yeah, I did, heart breaking.
It was heartbreaking, But I'll get him next time. So if anybody went to either of those big summer concert tours Taylor Swift, Beyonce, y'all probably know already that the ticket buying process was plagued with predatory online ticket sale platforms and resellers. It is so hard and expensive to get tickets that they actually end up selling out really quickly and then wind up on ticket reseller sites for
thousands of dollars. And now the IRS is getting involved because they're putting more scrutiny on ticket resellers.
So I actually did not know this.
How it has worked before is that ticket websites had to send ten ninety nine forms to anybody who made more than twenty thousand dollars through two hundred or more ticket sale transactions in a year, and now that law has been updated as part of the American Rescue Plan Act, which lowers that amount from twenty thousand dollars to six hundred dollars regardless of the number of sales, and sellers will only need to pay taxes on the profit that
they make. This is all part of Biden's plan to pump the brakes on the out of control antics of ticket resellers, to crack down on predatory practices.
Like tacking on hidden fees at checkout, which everybody hates.
It's like it's like, you'll buy tickets and then it's like, okay, the tickets are fifty dollars and a twenty dollars fuck you fee, so now it's seventy dollars. And then oh you use the internet. O, now it's one hundred dollars. Like it completely adds up. It's so predatory.
Yeah, the Swifties are powerful. I will say I feel like the past couple months of show the Swifties are powerful.
That is one hundred percent correct. You know, when you look at the average prices of some of these big concerts this summer, it is clear that like something is wrong. The Wall Street Journal reports at the average price for a swift Era's tour was one ninety five dollars and for Beyonce's Renaissance tour four hundred dollars. Now, stub Hub did say that like this might be partly due to COVID, because the live event industry is like still bouncing back
after like COVID shutdowns. I can't confirm or deny the truth behind that. That's what they're saying. And as you were saying, Joe, we really do have Swifties and they're organizing and advocating to thank for this. After the Ara's tour, Swifties reported not being able to buy Taylor's swift tickets and then the site shut down. When it came back up, tickets were sold out, but they were being listed for
exorbitant prices by ticket resellers. In a federal hearing, Ticketmaster blamed bots for this, and then later Ticketmasters shut down ticket sales in France for the Aras tour, and so I guess Swifties were loud. They advocated that this was
not okay. They wanted change, they wanted to reform, And I guess the moral of the story here is, don't mess with the Swifties because, as they have the Biden administration's ear, when the Swifties are upset about something, the Biden administration takes action.
Do not mess with the Swifties.
Yeah, okay, going back to the COVID point real quick, please, that makes me real mad, because Okay, it's twenty twenty three now, this tour has been twenty twenty three.
The COVID pandemic is not over. It hasn't been over.
That being said, concerts have been open since twenty twenty one. Like I remember, I had some gets to go to the Green Day Fall Up Boy Weezer show in twenty twenty one, and I decided not to go because I was worried about COVID.
But I remember that concert still happened.
So concerts have been happening for two years now and have been happening at.
These big stadiums with these big artists.
So I think we're past the point where we can use COVID as the excuse for that. But yeah, no, I remember living through all of this trying to get back to I.
So I was on.
All day, like literally spent twenty four hours straight like trying to get tickets could not.
Ended up like somebody I knew was able to get tickets. So I was able to go through that, but it was insane, and.
I gotta say even uh, most recently, like I tried getting Boy Genius tickets in New York and it wasn't as bad as Taylor Swift, but they also slipped out right away. It was also a whole weird thing with Ticketmaster disclaimer. I am going to the show on Monday. I was able to get show. I was able to get tickets last minute, but the day of when the tickets went on sale, like, it was a nightmare. And yeah, they're a big band too, but they're not as big as Taylor Swift or Beyonce. So it is just it
is messed up right now. Ild something is being done. The Swifties are very powerful, the Bare Harve is very power.
Yeah.
So I actually have a theory that kind of speaks to your point. It's not tech related. This is just I have no evidence. I have a theory that I guess it's a little tech related. My theory is that the rise of social media has completely changed what it means to go to a concert. And it used to be that if you liked a musician or a live act, you went to see their concert because it's like I
gotta I love whoever, I gotta go see them. I think that the rise of social media has turned concerts from just an experience to like a luxury event right where people want to go not even necessarily because they like love the band, but because it's like they want
to flex for the grand that they were there. And so I think that like before you were just competing with people who were like fans of whoever, now you're competing with everybody, because going to a concert is just like, you know, a thing to do, and that is making it this like luxury experience with these frankly like absurd price tags, like the price of concerts has like I don't don't ask me to back us up with backs, because I cannot.
I've not looked into it.
I'm just like somebitting this this theory off the dome. But like the I think the price, in my estimation, the price has gone up, and I think it's because people are seeing it as a luxury item and a luxury experience. And whereas it used to be like you want you just wanted to go see the show. Now it's like, oh, well do you want the backstage or like this experience or like that experience?
And like live.
Events places, No, they can attack on a bunch of fees because people are already seeing this.
It's like a luxury experience. You know. Does that make sense? I don't know.
No, I totally agree, And again I don't have any evidence.
To back it up, just my own experience, but yeah, Like I think my comparison here is Boy Genius, which is still a very popular band, and especially like now histort of blown up with their new they are nowhere near like Taylor Swift and the fact that I had like just as hard as time, just as hard of a time getting tickets for them as I did it was Taylor Swift.
Like it's gotten ridiculous. I love me. I know we've talked about this. I love music. I'm a big music person.
But that being said, like I feel like I don't go to a lot of concerts now because it's just so hard to get tickets. And I think Cosier was like the most recent ones. I remember he was like he put out his tickets for his tour, and I was like, I'm not even gonna bother, Like there's no way I'm getting those tickets, Like I might.
As well just sleep in that day when.
They go on sale at eight am, which is early for me. But yeah, it's it's concert tickets have gotten ridiculous.
And it is not fun.
Hopefully the Swifties can help us out with this and organize. I know they are a very powerful unified for us, as is Taylor Swift. I don't know if y'all saw
but Taylor Swift. On Tuesday, she posted a short Instagram post to her two hundred and seventy two million followers asking them to get registered to vote, and according to vote dot org, the nonpartisan voter registration nonprofit, they got more than thirty five thousand new registrations And yeah, so she she had a They had a twenty three percent jump over voter registration Day last year because of the power of Taylor Swift. So when Taylor Swift speaks, people listen.
When the Swifties speaks, Joe Biden listens. We gotta think of like what else we want the Swifties to advocate for and be like we need universal healthcare swifties.
Get on it.
I do think that fandom and is the rallying sort of force of the future.
Apparently.
Contemporary political situation that I find fascinating is that whole thing when all the K pop stands were like managed to mess up the Trump speech that it was supposed to happen in like twenty twenty. I think or canzing young people through the power of fandom being obsessed with.
A particular celebrity thought.
It is so powerful and I'm so glad that that energy is being used.
For good right now. And yeah, we'll see what happens in the future.
We love it, Joey, Thank you for being here. A pleasure as always, of course, and as.
Always, listeners, thanks for hanging out with us. If you want more and free content, check out our Patreon at patreon dot com, slash Tangody and we will.
See you real soon.
If you're looking for ways to support the show, check out our mark store at tenggody 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 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 Todd. It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unboss Creative, edited by Joey pat Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison
is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amado is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. 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 Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.