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. This is another installment of our weekly roundup where we dig into stories that you might have missed on the Internet so you don't have to. And I am so thrilled to welcome my guest co host for our conversation today, Francesca Fiorantini, journalist and host of The Bituation Room. Thank you so much for being here.
He thanks for having me Bridge. It's so good to be back in a different era, but really the same era, a continuation of the awfulness. I'm really happy to be here. We need more shows like yours.
We need more voices like yours. I'm happy to see you everywhere. The Bituation Room is fantastic. Also, you've got a live show coming up suit.
Right, yes, yes, yes, if you're hearing this next Friday in Los Angeles, or and you are in Los ange Angelus or want to get to Los Angeles, yeah, Friday at the Allegian Theater, May thirtieth. We're gonna fix La Bridget La post fires, pre Olympics. It's it's increasingly unlivable here. But council member Unisses Hernandez, John Iderol of the Damage Report, someone from the Rent Brigade, which has been blowing the whistle on all the price gouging that realtors have been doing.
And Rachel Reyis of the LA podcast, which is an excellent podcast if people don't if people want some local politics podcasts. But yeah, it'll be good. It'll be good.
Sometimes I gotta laugh to keep from crying when you're tuning into our political landscape these days. Indeed, So with that, are you ready to talk about some stories that are happening across the internet.
So ready?
Okay, So the first one is not even really a story. It's more just I want people's takes. This was blowing up in my kind of podcast or group chat. So I was like, you know what, I'll bring it to the podcast. Are you familiar with the podcaster theo On? Yes, So for folks who don't know, Theovon is a super
popular podcaster. He rose to fame on MTV's road Rules and like competition shows like The Challenge, he hosts a super popular podcast, a podcast that like, I gotta have a million podcasts in my life and it will not equals as popular as his show is. I would say that I personally believe that he is one of the reasons why Trump was reelected. Trump kind of agrees with me, Like he shouted out theovon from his victory stage and like thanked him by name. He is like a pretty
vocal supporter of Trump. He's had him on the podcast and everything.
But was he at the inauguration? Bridget He was?
He was, Oh, And what's funny is that he kind of is doing like a if you if you watch that show the Royal Gemstones. He kind of favors Keith, Like he wears like a mullet, Like that's kind of the So like seeing him at the inauguration was like, huh, that's interesting.
But Keith Keith is a good person.
Yeah, Keith's He's a good guy. I don't know that I would qualify theopha. Well, that's sort of the question that I'm bringing to the podcast. On his podcast this week, he was talking about Gaza. Here's what he said on the podcast. Quick heads up though that we did edit this clip for length.
You know, I wanted to say something. There's been something that's just been kind of on my heart, and so I feel like I should bring it up. There is you know, we've had people on the podcast in the past to talk about it, and there's just a there's
a conflict that's been happening in the Middle East. People know about it between Israel and Palestine and some of the areas over there, the Gaza area they talk about, and uh, and I just think it's it feels to me, I don't know if I it just it feels to me like it's a genocide that's happening while we're alive here in front of us, are in front of our lives, and I don't Sometimes I feel like I should say something.
I'm not a geologist or geographer or anything like that, you know, so I don't know a lot of the Some of it. I do know, though, like I know the basics of the issues over there. But for me, it's just like how I feel like you see all these photos of people, just children, women, people, body parts, just people like putting their kids back together, and I just can't believe that we're watching that and that more isn't said about it. You notice, like, what are we doing?
So I'll stop it there when I saw when I saw this, my friends, my like podcaster friends know that I deeply dislike this person. I deeply dislike the avonn And people were dropping this clip in the group chat, being like, oh, it's so good that he said something.
You know, this clip got twenty million views, so they say on X, And I guess for me, I fully don't know what to do with this because, on the one hand, I obviously support anybody who's using a platform to speak out against genocide, but this guy is like all in for Trump, very vocally, and so I have a hard time kind of understanding how somebody can make a statement like this and seemingly not have the tiniest bit of like self reflection on their part of it.
And so this rapper, Zach Fox, wasn't having it. He said, don't let Theovon fool you. He'd be blowing a hookah smoke and doing key bumps with Trump, his family and the literal architects of the genocidees fate crying about. Then he posted a picture of Theovon with Avanka Trump and Jared Kushner partying in Miami from Levanka's Instagram just a few days ago and said what do you mean what we are doing? Ask them, which I have to admit is like a pretty funny burn.
Yeah.
But and like literally a few days before recording this, THEO was with Trump doing an opening set at a military base in Qatar, and so like this actually turned into a bit of an argument because I, on the one hand, totally understand how some of my podcast my like leftist podcaster or friends were like, anybody who's using their platform to speak up is doing a good thing. If twenty million people are getting eyeballs on this and he's making a different subset of the population think about this,
that is a good thing. I can understand that point of view, but I just don't buy it.
Yeah, I mean, first of all, I love the receipts that were brought against him by that rapper, Like I love and you're like, oh, I'm waiting for this to be really old. No, no, no, it's it's from like a week ago him sitting down with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.
I mean Jared Kushner, who spearheaded in part the Abraham Accords, which effectively completely cut out the existence of Palestinians from any kind of peace process in the Middle East, which is kind of it's actually just a oxymoron to even say what I just said, because there can be no peace without you know, Palestinians involved, and so that I
think was really important. And also Jared Kushner stands to gain should Trump's ethnic cleansing of Gaza succeed and the Trump of you know, the riviera of the Middle East comes to pass. That's Jared Kushner has openly said, this is beach from property. I mean, this is truly on the bones of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Again, official death tolls stopped back when you know there was any kind of infrastructure to account for all the dead.
But I really I hate to come on this show and be like I really agree with the host because I want to make it spicy and interesting. To Bridget, I super agree with you, Like I really come down on like very very similar to you on all of this.
And I will say two things about it. Like, I do think that the issue of Palestine is and the issue of Gaza and the genocide that's happening is so bipartisan, it's so blanket it's almost cultural in terms of how much people are against this and in ways that I think really supersede any party loyalty or any right left situation. So I think that just has to be named that, Like people who are against genocide are also people who are like I don't know, I don't vote who what is a congress?
Like?
There are people who are just like you know, there's nothing to do with party, And clearly from Theovonne, dumbass talking his way through that, like I'm not a geologist, Like, bro, what are you talking about? You're like stalagtites here, like what do we like? Geology? I mean a geographer. None, neither of those things actually relevant to this issue. I'm not a geologist or a geographer. And then you know,
saying what he said. So I feel like it's like, it's both it's good that he said this to his massive audience, but you're absolutely right if you have I have an audience with Donald fucking Trump, which he does say something to his ass, say something to that instead, it kind of feels like I feel like he probably got he's got comments on it, people talking about it
around him. He just wanted to address it, and then he can kind of go on about his way and not do anything activate his community, talk about how Trump is making it worse, talk about all of the genocidal things that the removal of Palestinians to what Libya is, the new proposal receiving a fucking four hundred million dollar jet that now we know Trump's solicited from Cutter and you know, just like just to have. Yeah, it's pretty sickening.
And so no, I don't, you know, I have to come back to the like it's not for us, Bridget Like there's a little bit of a like it's not for us. And so hopefully people who don't listen to Theovonne listen to our shows, listen to you, listen to this podcast and are like, we don't got to go to war against these people. But I'm not trying to take time out of my day to like, you know, give them a bunch of flowers when they're very much in bed with just fascists at this point.
Yeah, I feel very similarly to you. So like my this is like my Roman Empire. I think I think a lot of these like bro podcasters, but THEO in particular, I think they are playing a character. I think that he plays this kind of like uh, Chuck Stoner everyman, Like, I'm not a geologist or nothing, but this seems bad. I don't think that he's a stupid person or an uninformed person. I think that he's making a ton of money from his association with the Trumps, with the Kushners.
I think he is seeing that, like the situation in Gaza is a genocide and is quite bad, and as you said, it's like not a left right issue, it's like a right wrong Like I can see with what's happening, and I can see that it's very bad and very wrong. I think that he's like, oh, shoot, I need to speak to this, but I want to do it in a way where I don't have to. I can still sort of enable it. I can still sort of make money from my participation with the people who are architecting it.
I don't want to have to, you know, I want to get to perform sadness about it while also continuing to basically say nothing about it. And so yes, yeah, I don't. I it's hard for me to. I mean, maybe I'm cynical. It's hard for me to take this as a win when it's like, yeah, what do you mean what we are doing? You have audience with the people who are doing this. Talk to them, don't talk to me.
Well, it's uh, you know, I have a lot of I have a lot of thoughts. And I was like, uh when we started the show, I was like, I gotta leave soon. But then now I'm like, oh, no, an issue that I really really want to talk a lot about. It's interesting, it's ironic. Trump also said this same line. He's sitting in front of Netanyahu in the Oval office, going it's terrible all the killing that's happening there. And you're like, oh my god, buddy right next to
you as the guy who's doing it. And of course he knows right. But it's much easier to sort of New York Times headline this whole thing like Palestinians died on their own. There is no culprit like and then you cover your ass because you said something, and then you get to move on and you don't have to actually talk about who is doing the thing, but the other thing that happens here. And this is what I
think the podcast bros. Because when you said podcast pros, it reminded me of another interview this week that Bernie Sanders did with Andrew Schultz on the Flagrant podcast, in which Schultz tries to say they call us podcast bros. The way they called your supporters Bernie bros. We're the same. And I was like, no, no, no, you're not. And I was very disappointed on you know, as someone who
likes Bernie Sanders, super disappointed by his performance there. I did a whole breakdown on my show about it, if
you want, Like, way too many thoughts of mine. However, what's crazy about like the right wing podcast Comedian Rise, which I think you're totally right, there is a care there that they are all playing and they're doing it for money, you know, Like, but I was having this conversation this is what is crazy for me, Like every time you ask a liberal excuse me, a liberal comedian doesn't matter, a podcast or whatever, John Oliver, John Stewart, Bill Burr to name three of them, and you say, hey,
you seem to have like lots of thoughts about the world and you know everything that's happening, and you know, do you feel like your role is almost larger than just a comic. It's like you're having you know, an impact. They all go like no, no, no, no, no, don't listen to me. I'm just a comedian. I shouldn't be the person leading this conversation. What do you want to talk
to me for? And I do agree with that in a way, because what happens when we deify comedians as sort of thought leaders is your theo von Andrew Schultz's, and those two guys have no problem saying, Oh, I'm I am an intellection, a leader. I do speak to like, you know, the voice, the voice of the voice, the voice of the canceled, you know, white male, like that
is who I'm speaking for. And so you have this moment where it's like, oh, the right is fully embracing the line between comic and political and politics and the so called left and really left, but the liberals are completely abdicating it, almost out of responsibility, but also leaving this huge gulf where maybe we should be feeling. I don't know what your thoughts are on that.
That's such I had never put that together, but that's such a good point, and it's very frustrating to watch because then the voices who get to be amplified and grow are the ones who are spouting nonsense and also spouting nonsense in a way where it's like that you can you They like they want to be intellectuals with it. Like I think that's the thing that gets me is listen, nobody appreciate the hustle and a grif more than I do,
Like get your money, do what you gotta do. But they're like, don't, don't pull us into it and make it be like, oh yeah, I'm an intellexual for thinking this. If you want opinions on you know, trans identity, I'm your guy, me the comedian. It's like, no, what what are we doing?
Right?
And I think it's also the death of the expert. I mean, we the Internet as a show that talks about it. You know, the Internet in its most beautiful periods and in iterations is like Okay, you're listening to or seeing someone who you feel speaks in plain language, is again personable and isn't necessarily an expert, but giving you kind of their gut, you know, reaction, which can be good or bad. But then we get into a lot of trouble when it's like, yeah, we're gonna listen
to non trans people talk about trans stuff. We're gonna listen to non black people talk about, you know, issues that affect black community. We're gonna like like all that and you're just like no, no, no, no, Well now now
you're literally elevating. And again this is not to say that identity gives you that edge, but we're not going to listen to I don't know a fucking you know, like ethnic studies scholar whose department is being obliterated through different Trump executive orders, like those are the experts that we should be listening to. Instead. It's like the worst of the Internet is just listening to dumb asses talk about things they just learned about.
Ough you put that perfectly. Let's hit a quick break at our back.
Okay, speaking of dumb asses, we have to talk about this legislation, the Big Beautiful Bill. I know you've been thinking about it and talking about it. Something that I don't feel like is getting enough shine is the fact that this big Beautiful Agenda Bill has a rule baked into it that passed would prohibit states from enforcing any law or regulation regulating AI for ten years. I mean, that does not seem like a good thing to me.
The advocacy organization Demand Progress organized a bunch of academic and like civil society organizations one hundred and forty one of them to sign a letter, including organizations like the Georgetown Laws Center on Privacy and Technology, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and employee coalitions like Amazon Employees for Climate Justice,
basically being like, this is bad. The letter reads, this moratorium would mean that even if a company deliberately designs an algorithm that causes foreseeable harm, regardless of how intentional or egregious the misconduct or how devastating the consequences, the company making or using that bad tech, would be unaccountable to lawmakers and the public.
I mean, it's beyond AI right, because you know, every day we're finding out about some new shit that Meta did deliberately. What was it targeting young girls who I forgot.
What the story was. It was girls who who took a selfie of themselves and then deleted it because they were unhappy with it. They have technology that it's like, oh self esteem issues, huh, let's get them, and then they will go, yeah, it's.
And then market them with whatever totally totally creams. And yeah, there was like some other study that was like, you know, like children are using like anti aging cream, Like oh my god, yeah, man, this is so bald. Faced like it is so clear what they're trying to do. And this is when kind of like the the tech oligarchy really is showing its whole ass, like this is like, Okay, this is what you wanted. Trump is enacting it, and the Republicans are enacting it for you. A ten year moratorium.
And of course, you know, we believe in states rights when it comes to what you want to do with your own body, but we don't believe in states rights and literally anything else on anything. We want to run Roughshotover. You have a sanctuary city, you know, we want to sweep up anybody in your sanctuary city. There's no protections
from ice. And same with this AI stuff, which you know, being in California where Gavin Newsom has been very kind of like flirty with AI, like oh, we you know it can maybe it can be good and we have to study it and blow it's like you think those studies have happened in like kept pace with the rollout of AI.
No.
No, but it's almost like this is a perfect little cover to be like, well, what can we do. We can't regulate against this industry. Guess I must cash in on it.
Yeah, that's exactly what's going on, and there are some I mean, I'm glad that you use that example of in California, because like, there are so many ways that AI can be used to make our lives harder as people, and we already we already know that AI can be
used to discriminate. So like Colorado pass the law of requiring tech companies to protect consumers from the risk of algorithm discrimination, and so like, if if a is making the decision of employment, they have to inform you that that has happened, and they have to inform you that you're interacting with an AI system that we know can
discriminate against you. Where I live in DC, there was a whole study about the use of AI algorithmic rent pricing tools, and so like, if your landlord senses that you're desperate for a place to live and that you'll pay doubles for that apartment, they can use AI to do that. Wouldn't it be great if there was state based legislation to be like, actually, you can't do that, Like the this is legislation that actually has real impact in people's lives, and so having a ten year moratorium
on it, I think is really bad. And as you said, like what happened the state's rights?
What's going to be left in ten years? Like I'm sorry, like thinking about ten years down the road. I mean, we are going to reach a breaking point very much earlier than ten years. But like AI has already taken so many jobs. AI is already threatening I mean the health sector, to say nothing of what we do, content creation, hoovering up all of our voices are are I mean you already someone signs away if they post on social media, you know, any copyright to that content there, It's like
what is what is there left? And these are all systems that are being trained on our labor. I mean, it is a massive labor issue while it's simultaneously under minds labor. So yeah, it's it's terrifying. But also isn't Grok amazing? I mean, the way that Grook knows about white genocide, it's just fantastic.
Oh my god, you could not have set me up better for something I want to talk about in a minute. But speaking of taking people's jobs, it's coming for the jobs of women. Traditionally work done by women, we are more vulnerable to AI taking our jobs and work done by men. This is according to a new report from
the United Nations International Labor Organization. So this report says that nine point six percent of traditionally female jobs were set to be transformed by AI, compared to only three point five percent of jobs typically carried out by men. And so, to be clear, the report stressed that human involvement is still needed when talking about jobs and displacement.
They say. We stressed that such exposure does not imply the immediate automation entire of an entire occupation, but rather the potential for a large share of its current task to be performed using this technology. And so, I don't know, it really reminds me of what the CEO of that app Duo Lingo said, where he was like, oh, in the future, we won't even need teachers. AI is going to be better at teaching everybody than any human could be. By the way, we have no evidence of that being true.
And he went on to say, in the future, don't worry, we're still going to need teachers because somebody is going to have to provide childcare. And as a former educator, I was really like that that comment hits a lot of my like, oh yeah, trigger.
They called you a childcare provider.
Yeah, exactly. So for folks who don't know the first iteration of my career, I was an educator. I spent most of it in a classroom. And I think the idea of deprofessionalizing and devaluing education, especially education being like a field that is predominantly a field that women have
a lot of, like we're overrepresented in that field. It really I just been deeply offended by this, Like I'm offended by the idea that like, oh, AI will be teaching young people in the future and human educators, people who went to school, went to college, got degrees, They'll be essentially like babysitters, gig work style babysitters. And that's the future that we'll have.
Right, And the reality is none of it is supported by any research, any science, any data, any first hand account. It is just we can make a book, we want to make money. And there's one aspect we haven't completely privatized yet, and that is public education. We're going to destroy it however possible, and AI is one of the ways.
I also think, like super remote learning. Despite what the right said during COVID, which was like, you know, the kids and their mental health and no, no, no, no bullshit because Betsy Devas's family has been actively invested in moving learning online solely and again literally, my brother is a public school teacher in Oakland, and the pandemic was terrible. Kids did not learn more. Remote learning, you know, was really difficult. It was because we were trying to keep
people safe. But that is no way to actually teach. And that's with him being an actual teacher, a real person. But the idea that we're going to just go to like online learning by done by AI, I mean, bridget doesn't really matter when all you want to do is sort of produce little worker bees who can you know, never fight for themselves or you know, keep people in sort of a constant like I don't know, third grade education.
They get stuff their podcasts and whatnot, like no authoritarianism, fascism, There's no point in educating people in these systems.
It really reminds me of this quote from Chris Gilliard who says every future imagined by a tech company is worse than it's a previous iteration, Like I believe that in my bones. And when I heard this guy talking about the future of education, I was like Damn that is bleak.
Yeah, I mean they really like I think that AI and crypto are just I mean, when will the bubble burst? That's what I'm camp. I'm like, just burst already, God damn it. But it's got to destroy first and then maybe it will burst.
Speaking of destroy, I have to talk to you about this piece about how Elon Musk's AI facility is it essentially just like polluting a black community. So Elon Musk he has this AI company called Xai. They built a massive supercomputer in Memphis, Tennessee. He's been championing it with all the sort of usual predictable fanfare, saying it's the
most powerful AI trading system in the world. It's been really selling it locally to this community in Memphis, saying it's going to be a big source of jobs and money. But residents in nearby Boxtown, which is a majority black, economically disadvantaged community that has long endured industrial pollution, says that this facility is just another threat to their health. Now you probably know this. The secret of AI is
that it's like very power hungry. So when you are asking groc about white genocide that is using like or like using AI to figure out what it would sound like if I don't know, bugs Bunny read the Declaration of Independence or whatever you're using it for. You're using a lot of power.
Yes, and displacing a voice actor. Yeah, thank you, Yes, because I'm or really good impressionists. Because I'm sure a great impressionist could give you that rendition of bugs Buddy reading the Declaration of Independence.
So Elon Musk Company has currently has no airs, appearing to rely on a loophole for temporary turbines, and so this facility is just like pumping out smog using gas powered turbines that are just like completely sickening this community and telling the people who live in this community, oh, this is this is gonna be good for you, like this is for your own good. One resident said, our health was never even considered. The safety of our community
was never ever considered. She lives three miles from this facility and already suffers from a lung condition. And I'm sad to say this is like not anything new for this part of Memphis. It has seventeen other polluting facilities,
including an oil refinery, a steel plant, gas fired power plant. However, none of those facilities are owned by Elon Musk, who was obviously like in the Trump administration, and an administration that we already talked about is like very invested in defanging any kind of AI regulation.
Yeah, I mean, what's really also disturbing about this is that, as you mentioned, Memphis is already you know, an environment mentally uh like a toxic site because of corporate pollution, and Donald Trump is completely stripped any attention any funds, any you know, any projects that are focused on cleanup specifically because they mention things like environmental racism or disproportionately affect black and brown communities, and you know, and it's like,
because they do that, it's like, well, how come we can't get our toxic sites clean up? It says, you don't fucking have them, Like you don't have them, my guy. And so your fragility because this mentions race again it's deliberate, is it will get people killed. And so this is why it matters to actually talk when you say environmental racism, that is not just an empty fucking buzzword. It is real. But yeah, I didn't know that turbine, like I would
very much like to see. I'm trying to look at the images, but like as someone who's only one time used AI when they were like, we're gonna make yourself look hot in different context. I remember that was like I was like, okay, but that's the only time, like hand to God, never asked, grog, never ask Although now if you Google's are something, you're sort of inherently forced to do AI because it will populate an AI answer
for you. So there's no choice to be like, hey, I'd like to not pollute Memphis or wherever you know their data servers and centers are. But I do think we have like like where are the exposs on this? You know, I hope this is just the beginning of the reporting.
Totally and to your point, like about what this looks like. So Representative Pearson, who is a lawmaker there, he said that it's pretty much what you're thinking. He said, it's an actual gas plant in the middle of a neighborhood. And you don't need any permitting to do this. Something that's fa drastically and significantly on our system of checks and balances, which like, yeah, that wouldn't be people who like complain about like well, what are they going to
clean up our sites? That wouldn't be happening in a community that was not economically disadvantage in majority black like, I'm sorry, this would not be happening in a wealthy, predominantly white community. That's why it's happening there.
No, of course not.
And so I have to give it up to some of the residents who were quoted in this CNN piece, because the residents of this area of Memphis have been fighting this kind of fight for a long time. They spoke to Kashan Pearson, a resident who said that they see their area as a quote sacrifice zone where companies
put facilities that sicken residents. They in twenty twenty one, residents successfully fought off a crude oil pipeline that would have crossed Boxtown and multiple other predominantly black communities in Memphis. In twenty twenty three, they successfully campaigned to close a medical sterilizing facility which had been there since the seventies, which was pumping out toxic pollutione and link to breast cancer. So like, they have been fighting this fight for a
very long time. And something that I thought was really interesting is that even though memphis Is Mayor Paul Jung is very supportive of this facility and says like, Oh, it's gonna bring new jobs and economically revitalized the area. The residents there are smart enough to be very skeptical
of back claim. They're like, oh, you know, even though they're making it seem like there's going to be training for like white collar jobs and like tech jobs, the residents are like, it's my understanding that data centers do not typically need large numbers of workers. And I think that we're being sold to false promise and the only jobs that might possibly manifest for us or like janitorial jobs.
And he is right, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I think that's really important. And I also think it's a it's a challenge for you know, on a local level, on a statewide level, like we need better we need better representatives, we need we need folks who are actually going to
fight this. Not sadly this week, senators like Kirsten Gillibrand or you know, Reuben Diego who voted in favor of basically a crypto currency you know, so called you know, uh like regulation bill, but it absolutely does not regulate crypto or stable coin and allows Trump to continue his meme coins and everybody else. So like again, it's all kind of part of like the tech oligarchy getting their way.
The other thing that's important to know, and I'm not sure if this is part of this story, is also that in order to cool down the data centers to do the generative AI you which is just so funny, like generative, like like who the fuck is generating? In a punch of power and fresh water? You have to use fresh water to cool down the systems, not even saltwater, so like they get super super hot because everyone's like trying to like manufacture you know, the perfect AI girlfriend.
Uh and then you know, and then a bunch of fresh water gets used. Where do you think that freshwater comes from? Probably the same community. So it's I mean, it's truly pillaging local communities like this one.
Yeah, and I really it broke my heart, but was so accurate to hear that resident describe his own community as like a sacrifice zone that people just take and take and take and exploit and exploit and exploit. And they do so for these you know, so called innovations, and they're just supposed to be okay with it. They're supposed to be okay with being deprived taken from having their resources taken and sickened in the process, or they're meant to be like thank you for these opportunities to
do this. It's really just a toxic dynamic, and it's one that I think we really need to change. Like like I it makes me angry that lawmakers who are meant to be representing the folks who put them in office have just like abdicated the responsibility on this and thrown up their hands and said, oh, maybe maybe they'll be a janitorial in it for you. Like, it's just very deeply insulting.
More after a quick break, let's get right back into it.
So Elon Musk was interviewed and he said that he's going to spend a lot less money and time in politics. He said, I think I've done enough. We'll see if I have a reason to do political spending in the future. I don't really see a reason. He's also talking about politics a lot less. He used to post about politics NonStop, but now it's mostly just about his companies. According to the Post, in February, more than half of Musk's posts
and reposts on x were about Doge. About thirteen percent of his February post mentioned Trump by name, nearly double that proportion named one of his companies. So far in May, those numbers have reversed. Now under twenty percent of his posts are out doge or politics, and more than half are about his business ventures. So yeah, this is a pretty big shift. And I have heard people say like, oh, because if companies are taking a hit, he's super unpopular.
What he's doing in government is unpopular, so he's retreating. But I actually see it differently. I think what he's actually saying is like, I've got what I wanted, so now I can be done. I have, like you know, grifted my grift. I have gotten rid of the voices who would have regulated my companies. I have made some cushy, lucrative contracts. I've got a little money in my pocket. I think the government grift has paid off for him. He has personally enriched himself and now he can back off.
That's what I think.
Again, I really want to disagree with you here, Bridget, but I think it's yes, I think it is that. But I also do think that the amount of Tesla takedown protests, which I mean hats off to the continued protests that are taking place on all different kinds of dealership and whatnot, as well as the Wisconsin you know, Judge seat loss after he poured, however, many millions and millions of dollars into that and got his ass handed
him handed to him by the people of Wisconsin is amazing. Like, those two things are huge, and so he even just on a pr level, knows that he's not helpful to
the MAGA brand. But you're I do think you're right that the behind the scenes, if you have gotten all of our irs information, our social security data, you know, if you have now allowed for sharing between federal agencies of our private information in addition to, according to whistleblowers, possibly foreign governments, you've got a fuck ton of leverage and a fucked onn of way to make even more money than you already have. So he might have a
little dip right now. You know, he obviously borrowed or he bought Twitter on some Tesla stock that's not doing
very well. But give him some time when you know, big Balls and some other little pepe meme can develop some new payment system for federal workers who remain and and or sell our data to a foreign I mean, like then he's like, we also know that he's strong arming other nations into using starlink to get their internet, so like bullshit that he's going away, bullshit, he's taking a break, He's just pressing pause while more evil is done.
Yeah, the grift is truly global with him. I I mean, I we talked about this on the show before, but when he was doing his sort of woe with Me tour, being like I'm losing so much money and I'm only all I'm trying to do is point out waste and fraud and what like, I'm not a bad guy, cry merely like I I wish that Like he in my mind, he is like the ultimate welfare queen of Like he is actually the person who was like scamming and personally
enriching himself at our dime. He is taking from me brokies who live in fucking one bedroom apartments like myself to enrich himself. And he's the richest man on earth.
Three children. He's he's definitionally a welfare.
To a tea and so it just is wild to me. I don't know. I when he's when he's talking about like retreating from politics, that completely agree. I don't think he I don't think he's retreating at all. I think he's like it's just getting he can do more behind the scenes than he can in front of the scenes, because I think that when he's publicly attached to stuff, it doesn't like people don't like him, Like, yeah.
He's talks and he's got the opposite effect. I mean, he should have never been in the public eye. They prove that he also you know, in oval office meetings, you know, he would get into big fights with different agency heads and you know, he was not a pleasant person to be around. Dude was like sleeping on couches in the White House and not showering and wearing the same shit over and over again, like you know, all for the American people, like no, all for massive security
breaches and again stealing our information. So I'm here's my thing is like if and when Democrats ever regained control. To me, the damage that Doge has done is probably the biggest thing that needs remedy. And if there is not accountability, if there is not a restoration of both jobs but also our data privacy of you know, security protocols, I mean, it's really sick to bridge it because like you know, we're in a moment where like the oligarchy
is such, where like the lines have been drawn. If a lot of tech people are just like, well, I'm in it for the money. Fuck democracy and all the sort of veneer of we are an innovative future looking democratic, multicultural da da d all. That's bullshit. It's been bullshit. But I'm like, I know there are good people in Silicon Valley and in tech. I know there are. They're not in power, but I know there are, and I know there are people who could work with the federal
government to help us. Shit, So this is me is sort of like think, you know, future dripping about like how do we get all of this back? How do we wrest this control back from these gorules?
Yeah, I firmly believe that. I mean, there was a time where you had more thoughtful, ethical voices and tech who genuinely were interested in using technology to build a better future. And I think that, you know, a lot of those voices got sideline erased, pushed out. Those happen to be diverse voices as well, and so those people
are there, they exist. I think that people like Elon Musk and other tech leaders have really been able to flip the script and make it seem like one technology only gets built on a handful of companies by a handful of people. That's so not true too, that the only people who are doing anything, or the only voices worth listening to in tech are the most unethical, not thoughtful, paranoid like delusional, like not with it, people like it
truly is. And it's like like we have gotten mixed up and are tape being taken along for the ride of these horrible people who are telling us this is the way it has to be. And I know, I firmly believe that that is a lie. It does not have to be this way. It was not always that way, and they're banking on us like memory, holding the fact that it used to not be that way. That when you thought there was a time where when you thought about technology, it was exciting, You had apps that you loved.
When you thought about what the internet was, it was like lots of weird little sites that people were running just because of the fun of it, or just because they cared about something, or it was a community of people gathering, you know, around one idea or one passion. And I think that we have forgotten, we have allowed these tech leaders to memory hold that and make us
forget what it used to be like it used. I don't want to get too nostalgic, because like it definitely had problems back in the day as well, but like it used to be better than this, and it can. It has been better than this, and it can be better than this. We deserve better than this.
Yes, And and actually the height of freedom, I mean, what's so? I mean they're open hypocrites and elon and you know the rest of the Peter thiels like they're all full of shit. I mean they're all like, oh, free speech and free society and and and it's like, yeah, but the old Internet was the freest we've ever been, you know, like the Internet being run by ten companies, tech being run by like three companies is not freedom
at all. So I think that's the other thing is like we also have to reclaim this mantle of freedom
and free speech. And it's just wild to me that And it's such a failure of the Democratic Party too, that like we can I started to get really sick to my stomach when I think about all the things that we could have, would should have, But like Democratic Party could have been the party of privacy and you know ending, you know, surveillance, and of course Obama did a lot of good things, but Mom also went after
Edward Stein. And it's like, no, we could have actually planted a flag on that and been like, we protect your data. There's nothing more important than protecting your data. You have the freedom to you know, use the Internet as you want, and it shouldn't be just a bunch of conglomerates and Biden's antitrusts, you know, FTC started doing
some of that. So I just it's like, god, it makes me so terrified because this is one thing where also Democrats still believe in that old culture of tech and they use it again as like a shield to still raise money from actually really villainous people.
I think that democrats get to sort of in ways that are unearned, in my opinion, get to enjoy like being a little bit better on the issue, even though like you're not really doing much on it. And like, I if we could go back in time and have the Democratic Party, Yeah, as you said, make privacy and internet freedom part and parcel of what it meant to be a democrat. Imagine we're going to be today, Like, but things could be would be so different.
Right, And actually I do think like the grift of oh I'm a forward thinking you know, pro democracy, multi and multiracial, multi religious, you know, like support DEI program's company, I think that grift was kind of meant to pull the wool over on. I think some liberals eyes and that you know, the final form really is monopoly and control.
And you know, now Mark Zuckerberg god to be Sheryl Sandberg, which is just so funny and rich, and I just could I just like this, I need I could write like a ten episode podcast about the rise and fall of lean In, you know, because it's like, nah, man, the final form is we're in control where the oligarchs, fuck you you allowed us to get this big ha
ha ha. We just played with some you know, lightweight DEI programs, which are good again, but we just you know, we don't actually care about real equity or real inclusion or you know, actually doing you know, making sure our spaces are not actually hotbeds of racism and misogyny. So anyway, first.
Of all, I have met Sheryl Sandberg in person, and I don't know if I've told this story in the podcast before, but I was like barely invited to a book launch she did, and I will never forget it was sort of like it was right after Trump got elected, and it was like it was at a very different time, and I remember it was all of these like journalists and like women media, like Rah rah women in media.
And this was right when we were starting to learn more about like Cambridge Analytica and what the role that Facebook had is getting Trump elected. And Cheryl Sandberg is there doing a very kind of like puffy Q and A about her new book about grief, Option B and somebody asked. She was like, oh, I've been reading about the way that Facebook has been perhaps illegally using all of our data to help get you know, to help get Trump elected and meddle our elections. And I'll never forget.
She was like, today's about women's empowerment. Let's stay on focus. Like that's how she answered the question. Today's about the women. Let's let's let's keep our focus on that.
I have so many words, but that is truly disgraceful.
It was, And I have to say, you're it's almost like you are a mind reader with the whole company's kind of limply embracing DEI and then just using it to gobble up more power. Because did you hear about Verizon and DEI, So basically, in twenty twenty, Verizon claimed to be like all in on DEE. They put out statements after the death of George Floyd that was like,
diversity and inclusion are greatest superpowers. YadA, YadA, YadA. Cut to this week, Verizon sends a letter to the FCC stating that it is ending all DEI policy, So no more DEI teams or roles. They're taking all the all the references to DEI from their training materials, no more workforce diversity goals, and they're taking it further because they're basically like memory holding it. They scrubbed the fact that Verizon was ever involved in any of this from their website.
When you go to the DEI pages online, it just redirects to generic Verizon content, and.
Oh my god.
The Verizon said that this was because of like Trump's executive orders and Supreme Court and federal mandates, but like there's no Supreme Court ruling banning DEI or you know, those kinds of goals, and you know, certainly other companies like Costco when Trump was like, you need to stop DEI. They were like, kick rock, will do what we want. And the timing of this is very suspicious because Verrizon announced this just a day before the FCC approved Verizon's
twenty billion dollar acquisition of Frontier Communications. UH. The SCC's approval emphasized that Verizon had gotten rid of their their quote discriminatory DEI policies, and it really does seem like Verizon was like, fine, well, abandon all of our commitments to DEI if you were if we're able to get this merger, and the SCC was like, bet sure, great dude, that's exactly what happened.
It's not even there. That is exactly what happened. There's no mystery here. That is so terrifying and disgusting. I mean, and you see the same thing with you know, CBS, right paramount is trying to what is it work with like Skynet News one, I don't know where the fuck is sky something, and they're trying to get their merger and it's like, yeah, oh, we can just do this by getting rid of all of these policies. These are
going to have massive impacts on workers. I mean, that's I think the other thing that we need to remember about the anti DEI backlash is it's it's really it's a worker's fight. It's a fight on an attack on workers. Everything we're seeing as an attack on workers, and we have to like again, whenever you know, it's like, the working class is women of color, predominantly women of color. That is just what it is. The amount of Black Americans in federal jobs. What is it like twenty percent
of the workforce or something, or twenty percent. I forgot what the twenty percent was, but it's a huge percentage. This is deliberate. It's an attack on workers. It's a racist attack on workers.
Absolutely.
But yeah, that's that's so sick. God, I'm so glad Verizon has shipped service in my neighborhood and we had to switch to AT and T. I'm sure AT and T is up to no good and I'm gonna be a T mobile bitch at some point. It's gonna have to happen more.
After a quick break, let's get right back into it.
Wait, I have to ask switching gears a little bit. Did you hear about this fake AI generated booklist that was published in the Chicago Sun Times.
Oh?
My gosh, okay, it's all I've been thinking about for the whole week. So it's just like a very wild story to me. Basically, some newspapers, like print newspapers, including the Chicago Sun Times and at least one edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer, published a syndicated summer booklist that was like obviously AI generated that included fake books, like made
up books by famous authors. So it said that Perceville Emritt, who won the Pulitzer this year for fiction, was coming out with a book called The rain Makers that's supposedly set in quote the near future American West, where artificially induced rain has become a luxury commodity. Uh, bullshit, that book doesn't exist. He did not publish that book.
Oh my god.
They said that Chilean author Isabella Allende was putting out a book called Tidewater Dreams, and they described it as these the first climate fiction novel all the first, have the very first. These are not real books.
In fact, Octavia Butler.
She would be to differ. In fact, of the fifteen books on this like must read twenty twenty five summer fiction list, only five of the books were real. The rest of them were all made up.
Yo, So they straight up outsourced their reading list to AI and thought no one would notice.
Yes, and they're not, Like they're like, it would be bad enough if it was just like an online thing. This was in their print edition. Like people got pictures of themselves holding the print edition of this, So like, how did this come to be? I saw on Blue Sky that the Chicago Sun Time. Somebody who worked there was like, we're looking into how this got published, which that also raises questions of, like you don't know how
this got published? Very good question, like definitely worth looking into, so it gets a little stickier. According to Victor Limb, the marketing director of the Chicago Sun Times parent company, Chicago Public Media, the list was part of licensed content provided by King Features, a unit of the publisher Hearst Newspapers. According to NPR, even though the piece has no byline, a writer did claim responsibility for it and did say
that it was generated by AI. Obviously, he says, huge mistake on my part and has nothing to do with the Sun Times. They trust the content that they purchased from me is accurate, and I've betrayed that trust. It is on me one hundred percent.
Wait, I love it. I love reading a little bit more. This guy, the freelancer says that while he does sometimes use AI to create content, he typically checks it before submitting it.
Oh so you what I can what I can, Yo, bridgie.
Like I used to write when I lived in Argentina years and years and years, I'm not really like ten years ago. Like one of the things that there was, like a freelance gig was farmed out. Was just like writing travel guides for some online site about cities I had never been to. But I did my research and looked at other guides and looked at the city explanations and just kind of like I didn't plagiarize, but I wrote my own after reading a bunch of other guides
version for this guide. Now, that is very much like that job right there, which maybe I don't know how much should I get one hundred dollars is definitely being farmed out to AI as we speak. But like I love the idea that, like if I had that job now, my lazy ass couldn't even do my own fucking reasearch on a listical on a fucking listicle of books, and ironically their.
Books you have to read.
You don't even have to read the book when you got to read the title.
You just go to the books that've been released in.
Twenty twenty five. I just look at just go to publishers.
I don't even like I don't follow books, but like, I don't know Penguin Random House, Like, it's so wild to me that someone And and look if he's like if he came clean and was like, listen, I got fifty dollars to do this article sucked the Sun Times, I will I'm like, I'm with him, But come on, my guy, how many people in Memphis can't breathe because you had to do this Canada bai for how much fresh water was used so we could create a fake Isabella Yende book.
And that's I mean that. The commentary around that pretty much said exactly that. Kelly Jensen, who is a former librarian and the editor of Book Riot, had a very good point. She said, this is the future of book recommendations when libraries are defunded and dismantled. Trained professionals are
removed in exchange for made up, inaccurate garbage. And it's just like what you were saying, Like you couldn't even scroll Amazon and be like, well, I haven't read this book, but it's a book you could buy it that exist.
Exactly exactly, It's real, Like what was the prompt to like AI is also bad? You know what I'm saying. AI is not actually good at it. And that's even if it were good, and in some cases it is, I still contest fuck AI and I just again I don't know, like especially as writers, because what you're doing is you're actively undermining your goddamn job. I don't know.
I have a lot of thoughts because as I came from aj plus you know, Valgaiesier Media, and they were like, you know, we were doing spearheading a lot of this like short form content, but but BA text on screen over images, right, that was like now this news and aj plus were really big on Facebook. Now all of that stuff is just AI. I think I'm assuming. I believe it can generate like a couple of images from
a story text on screen and then done. So it is it's not like, oh, yeah, we've we shouldn't have created the terminator, you know, or the T one thousand, but like there is a little bit of like this, what is what happens when like with the I don't know, the sort of shorthand and shittification of content and news in general. I'm having a little bit of a existential moment here.
Yeah, I mean, I wish so deeply I could say I've never used AI, but I have been known to use chatshept if I have to write a rough email, like an email where I'm like, oh, I really don't want to write this, or like this is I don't know what to say, like a like a like a complic an email, right, I have to convey a complicated set of feelings.
And oh, okay, it's complicated feelings. Let's say AI.
I feel like that's probably the worst, the worst youth.
Say tell me you're talking about a breakup without telling me your.
Yeah, right, it's I don't see it will help you if you dreading writing a breakup email, it could help you. I'll put it that way. But I will say, like
having a big think about it. I had a similar existential like spin out about this because I was like, don't I owe the people who are like actually in my life the time to sit down and like put my thoughts together, and even if it's hard, even if it's cathartic even if it's difficult, don't I owe them me the human actually sitting down and like like writing out how I feel before I send it, as opposed to just like asking chat GBT to do it for me.
I really had a like deep, deep, I don't want to say crisis, but like you know, and I think when I hear people like Mark Zuckerberg talking about the future of friendship, how you know, Facebook, he admits, is like no longer for friends in the future, role have AI friends on Facebook and that's who we'll talk to. It's like, that's not a future that I want. Even when human to human connection is difficult or hard or emotional, that's the point of being alive. Like, I don't want
to outsource that. I don't want my I don't want my friend to be AI and never like.
But also that is the point when you are an unsuckable little shit, uh you know, and you all got into tech starting to rank chicks rather than talk to them in their face. That's what happens. I mean again, we're just creating all Like the word tech bro's been around forever and it is a smarmy kid that cannot make eye contact with anybody, but also makes more money than you'll ever see in your life and dresses like shit.
Yeah, And are these the people we want to take our cues for the future of friendship from? Like, do you want someone like Mark Zuckerberd in charge of design? If using technology to design the future of what friendship will look like in your life? I would argue no. I would argue that again, that iteration of the future is worse than the one that came before it.
Okay, bridget question for you. What happened to the metaverse? Is it still a verse?
No?
They kind of abandoned it. H Yeah, they kind of abandoned the meta They were all in on the metaverse. They even had a big announcement when their metaverse AI characters kind have legs. They had a whole big announcement. They're like, we've got legs now. It took them a long time to break the legs code. But no, it's no longer really a thing.
Okay, So so it kind of went the way of the Google glass because I've been talking to people about like, look, it is possible to shame people's product to shit.
You know. Yeah, do you remember when Google? I mean you you live in California, so maybe you've lived through this. When Google Glass first came out, and like it was all the stories were like I went into a bar in San Francisco, We're in Google glass, and I got thrown out. Like it was just like story after story.
Crazy about that. It was crazy about that. I don't actually think there were that many stories, but there was that one story where this woman goes into a bar with the Google glass and then writes some posts as
if she's the victim. But everyone was like, honestly, you sound so unfun and I would have kicked you out too, And the and the reverb of that story of how like again before we even had Karen language, how Karen it was, and how corny it was, and what a tech idiot and kind of just a loser you looked like it it was magical. So it's like it's it's almost like, I don't know, it's like mythical, that story
because it really tamed the Google glass wearers. And I don't know what, what's the big faculous Yeah, the big oculus or the Google one that people kind of walk around, Oh about shame, shoot, what is that? Oh, it's the it's the new Apple VR. What is the Apple Vision Pro? Oh, yeah, Apple Vision Pro, the Apple Vision Pro. Like, I don't know if people are actually wearing that out.
So I have a theory that people don't want wearables. This is I've said this from day one. The only wearables that have actually ever seen anybody wear are the ones that are that like essentially look like sunglasses. So I will say, like Meta does have a collab with ray Bands, I would never wear it, but those are the only wearables I think that people would actually wear
ones that just look like like regular sunglasses. I don't think people want big shit on their face, Like, I don't think that you would, like imagine sharing a space with like your partner or your roommate, and as opposed to it as like holding your phone, you've got a big thing on your face. It's like it's like too much shit on your face. I don't think people want that.
That is my like, Yeah, there's too much.
I don't even want to be around anymore.
Yeah, I don't want to be around anymore. There's too much shit on me and words to live by.
Really, Oh, frand Jasica, talking to you is such a delight, Like you, Oh my God, you have such a like you just bring such an energy and a light to these stories. I do this every week and like this, you have a you really bring a player to this. I really appreciate it.
Oh my God. Likewise, thank you so much. These are great stories and also stories I was haven't even talked about this week, which is wild because I talk about everything. No, but like, that's why I think this show is so excellent, because you're like, you miss this so and everyone's over here, Bridge is over here, so and they're very important. But yeah, man, thank you for having me.
Where can folks listen to the Situation Room?
I was gonna segue into the plugs. I just teed you up instead, YouTube dot com, slash Franny fo f r A and I FIO for the live show Tuesday's Wednesday Fridays one being Pacific four pm Eastern, or the Bituation Room wherever you get your podcasts.
And you can find me on social media. I'm on Instagram at bridget Ran DC, I'm on TikTok at bridget Ran d C. And I'm on YouTube at there are no girls on the Internet. Yeah, that's right, I just started it, so I'm have not memorized you'll be my like ninety third follower subscriber, Earli. Thanks so much for listening. We will see you on the Internet. If you're looking for ways to support the show, check out our March
store at tegoty dot com slash store. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or just want to say hi, You can reach us at Hello at tangody dot com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tengody dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget Tod. It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative edited by Joey pat Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer
and sound engineer. Michael Almado is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us.
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