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. Okay, producer Mike. You ever listen to podcasts and on the first couple of minutes, they just start with some like light banter. They're acting, how they're doing, They're checking in on their week, what are you watching on TV? YadA, YadA, YadA. Have you experienced this?
I have experienced this. I feel as like the norm among podcasts and maybe we should give it a shot.
Yes, So for folks who have been listening to their No Girls on the Internet since the very beginning, all the way back in twenty twenty, you'll probably know that I don't do a ton of banter. I just get right into the episode because I really respect the time of the listener. You know, you're giving me your forty
five minutes, your hour whatever. I appreciate it. But I listen to podcasts and I'm like, oh, well, I wish that I could talk about my day for like just a couple of minutes, Like see how like I'm I'm rewatching shows on TV. I'm doing a six feet under rewatch, like, I want to talk about what's going on in my life. So we're this is us soft launching a little bit of light banter before we get into the topics. Yeah.
Yeah, that sounds good to me. I mean, I think, you know, people want to be able to ease in. We don't need to just jump straight into Elon Musk and Google and you know, whatever else is going on. We can just start with some light banter like six feet Under. Rewatch. That sounds fun. How's that going?
Yeah, it's going well. If folks don't know what six feet Under is, it's an HBO show that took place that started in like two thousand and one about a family that owns and runs a funeral home. It's very good. I'm doing a rewatch also. By the way, I literally this is how pathetic things are. I googled when we were we were like brainstorming podcast banter, so I was like, well, kind of what do you people talk about? I spent twenty minutes trying to think about topics that were good
for banter. The first one was Linda Yaharino, and you were like, maybe let's not have it be related to the content of the show. I googled podcasts known for good banter. The one that came up is like an iHeart icon stuff you should know. I listened to a bit of their banter. I was like, oh, it's very good banter.
Yeah, they've got really good banter. You think that's the secret to their success.
They've been bantering for like however a month. That show has been on forever, so like they're they've just gotten they've gotten a secret sauce. Also, they have they do a really good job of referencing other folks on the team, so it'll be like, oh, Jerry, our producer is not here, but here's a little joke about Jerry. Like they're they're they're really they have a they have a fleshed out universe. Okay, you know the stuff you should know. Universe is very vast.
Okay, So maybe that's the secret to good banter, just having a fully fleshed out universe, full of characters, things that people will talk about.
Maybe that's it, y'all. This is our this is our first attempt. This is our banter soft launch. When you listen to later episodes, there will be a little bit of banter, not too much. We're not talking like twenty minutes of banter on an hour long podcast. Absolutely not never, but you you know, you could give me, I could get I could get five minutes to talk about my day.
Be like a Daniel Da Lewis podcast. There will be banter.
There will be banter. Expect it. It's it's gonna it's gonna happen.
Yeah, we're gonna get better at it. We just gotta keep bantering. It'll start to feel natural. We can talk about things that are not Linda Yakarino. Uh not, there's anything wrong with talking about her, but you know, it feels a little bit like the substance of the show, not really like banter.
Because the banter has to be unrelated to the topic. It's like you're easing in, so it's like, how was your week, what are you watching, how's therapy going? All of that. Like, it's like unrelated to the meat of the show. So it'll it'll get better. If this sounds awkward, it's our first time. Cut us some banter slack. We are banter neophytes, but we will get better together. Yeah.
I think that went okay. Can we get into it now?
I think we can get into it. I think four minutes. That's a sufficient amount of banter respectful to the listener and eases you in.
Okay, we got through it, thank god. Let's get into it.
Okay. So I have to start with something that is a little bit of a personal pet peeve of mine, and that is bad reporting on tech that is so hell bent on fear mongering that it actually ends up obscuring the real issue. So recently, Apple released a feature for iPhone called name Drop, where if you have two unlocked iPhones or other Apple devices you know, iPad, Apple Watch, and then bring them close together, you can trade contact information automatically. I can see this having all kinds of
use cases, networking, happy hours, all of that. Police in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and other states put out warnings about this feature, saying that it was potentially unsafe and that kids and other vulnerable populations should be wary of it. If you google Apple name Drop, the first things that you get are these like breathless headlines from local news outlets and then bigger outlets that I think should know better, and also Fox News.
I mean, to Fox News's credit, I would not expect them to know better.
That's true. So Fox News's headline about it. Police urge parents to turn off Apple iPhone setting dangerous to kids. So it already just like to deems, this setting is dangerous to kids. So here's the actual reality. Unlike something like air drop or your phone, does it need to
be very close to another person's phone. Your phone needs to be pretty close to use name drop, almost touching at Both phones need to be unlocked, So it is really unlikely that some creep is going to be able to get your information without you meaning to give it to them. And if a stranger who you don't know is already that close to your unlocked phone, trust me, you have bigger privacy and security issues to attend to in the immediate then someone getting your contact information via
name drop. Do you know what I mean?
If you've got your phone unlocked, just like sitting out and somebody can get close to it, yeah, that you can get way more than just your name. They can take your phone, they can do all kinds of stuff.
Yeah. I've actually heard of a scam where people ask you like, oh, can I make a phone call on your phone? I'm lost? And then if you unlock your phone and then hand it to them then they have access to like your unlocked phone, right, and so like, yes, like if somebody is if a stranger who means to do you harm is like close physically close that close to your unlocked phone, that is a problem. But not
just because of this new feature name drop. And I think there is like some wider conversation to be had about the risks inherent in having things like default settings or features on your phone that you're really not thinking about.
Because name drop is a default setting, like having it switched on is a d fault setting on iPhone now, and so I do think that like there's a conversation about the risk inherent in that, Like how Venmo's default setting is to set to show everybody your transactions all the time unless you go in and change that.
Yeah, that one is wild. People should be talking about that. I you know, we had somebody at work the other day who had a personal family situation where we were all collecting money to send them. We're going to send them flowers and like a gift card, and the person who's coordinating said, hey, Venmo, MIHI, And so I lugged
in and venmoed them some money. And I could just see in the public feed, Like several of my coworkers had not turned off the setting to make all of their transactions public, and you know that was like a harmless thing. But it's just so wild to me that people are out there living their lives publicly posting their Venmo transactions for all of the Internet to see.
Well, that's exactly what I'm saying. I don't think that if you've never really thought about it, people might not know that the default setting is public. I'm sure folks like Matt Gates would love to have could love to be able to go back in time and know that
information and change it right. Also, I feel like it's one of those things where it's like if you are way deep in the trenches of online monitoring, like an X or an ex's new flame, and everything is set to private, and you're like, all I have is the Venmo emojis trying to discern like what's going on over there VIA That's when you know you're like in the trenches. But that's how you know you're really in the trenches.
So Yeah, I do think that there is a conversation to be had about default settings that you just sort of don't think about and I should say that if you don't want to use name Drop on your phone, or you do have a child who has an Apple device, or like an elderly person who has it, you can turn it off. Will throw the instructions of how to
do that in the show notes. However, that is very different than police and local media spilling so much over breathless warnings about some nebulous threat that is so unlikely to happen, without giving any kind of appropriate context. In a piece called name drop is safe, the fear mongering about it is not. Shia Ovid for Washington Post breaks down what I find so frustrating about this reporting that is basically trying to scare you about nothing when it
comes to technology. She writes, we spend too much time worrying about the wrong things in technology, and that is partly the fault of public officials and news organizations that can make anything sound scarier than it really is. I think she really hit the nail on the head here. She's absolutely right. I think local media loves a big, scary, puffed up tech story, and what annoys me about that is that there are very real reasons to be worried
about technology. Skeptical of technology, asking questions about new technology that has rolled out. If you listen to this podcast, you already know that I am the biggest proponent in the world of that. We cover it all the time. However, there's also a finite amount of things that we can worry about and like keeping our own heads, and that
is also true when it comes to technology. So we should really be encouraging folks to be savvy consumers of technology and also helping them educate themselves about the actual risks that are in a way that is grounded in reality, not just fear mongering it.
It's such a weird story to be picked up and to become like a scary tech story, Like I wonder what it is about this one that got the attention of people or fit.
I mean, this is just my opinion, but I think it kind of relates back to some of the ways that we've heard kind of threats to children online being talked about by lawmakers or police. Like I just think that it's an issue where there are actual, very real threats to everybody, children being a vulnerable population very much included, and I think that there is just like inherent anxiety around that and so when you have police going on and be like, oh, this is a threat, they never
explain like what the threat actually is. Like again, like if a stranger is that is that close to your child and both of their phones are unlocked, that is that is a that is a threat. But not just because of name drop, Like it's it's such a weird way to frame that, And I think it's rooted in an anxiety of technology is proposing a harm to children, a harm that we don't really know enough about, a harm that we're not really prepared to really deal with meaningfully.
So let's just scare people and they will definitely like, like, this story really blew up. It was everywhere. And I think because people feel so powerless when it comes to keeping their kids safe around technology that of course it's going to go viral.
That makes a lot of sense. And there's something about this particular threat, you know, real or imagined, that is very familiar and easy to understand and like comforting. It's like some creep is going to get your child's name and phone number, Like I can understand that. I can wrap my head around that. When we talk about a lot of the threats of like AI you know, the threat is that your group might be underrepresented in the training data that might cause nebulous systems to do things
that harm you. That's much more difficult to understand.
Absolutely, And I just had another thought. I think last summer we did a couple of episodes about the moral panic around things like trafficking and stranger danger, and I just think that, like, this is tech facilitated stranger danger. Of like, oh, this technology is going to weaponize strangers to be a harm to your child in new, unforeseen ways. And it's like, yeah, if a stranger is that close to your child, it might be dangerous, but not just because of name drop.
Yeah, that's a good perspective too. It's like, yeah, tech enabled stranger danger. It's so yeah, it's interesting that this story picked up so much steam, got so much attention. Meanwhile, the real threat is out there on a different platform.
Let's take a quick break.
At our back. Gotta throw a quick heads up on this one because it does involve harm to children. And that is a new damning Wall Street Journal report on Facebook and Instagram just dropped, and this time it is in partnership with the Canadian Center for Child Protection. So this damning report found that when someone searches hashtags on Instagram that a child abuser might be searching things like children's gymnastics. Disgusting. I know, ads from big brands are
then surfaced next to pretty disturbing content containing children. In this report, they basically got a dummy account and then search things like children's gymnastics. The report reads Instagram system served jarring doses of salacious content to those test accounts, including riskay footage of children, as well as overtly sexual adult videos and ads for some of the biggest US brands.
In a stream of videos recommended by Instagram, an ad for the dating app Bumble appeared between a video of someone stroking the face of a life sized latex doll and the video of a young girl with a digitally obscured face lifting up her shirt to expose midrift. In another, a pizza hook commercial followed a video of a man lying on a bed with its arm around with a
caption said was a ten year old girl. Disgusting. So after the report dropped, Bumble and Match, which is the parent company of the dating app Tender, actually suspended their advertising across all Meta owned platforms. We have no desire to pay meta, to market our brands to predators, or place our ads anywhere near this content, said Match spokeswoman just Sacho.
Justine Sacho, Why does that name sound familiar?
So, Justine Sacho, this is such an aside. The reason why that name sounds similiar to you is from has Justine landed yet? So Justine Sacho was this woman who she's been working for Match Company or like, I don't know, since twenty fifteen. She was on a plane and she tweeted something like, oh, on my way to Africa, hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding, I'm white. And then she got on a plane to Africa and turned off her phone. And I guess during this flight there was
like such pandemonium that I remember this so clearly. Has Justine landed yet trended? Like people were like, we got to meet her at the airport. This woman tweeted this probably had no idea the like chaos that was happening online, while she had probably had her phone off on this flight. Yeah, so that's why that happened in twenty fifteen. That's why Justine Sacho's name sounds familiar to you. And at the time she worked for match Group, then still works for match Group.
Now, damn that was her. I remember that story that was It was obviously like a pretty offensive thing to tweet, but the story itself was so hilarious because, Yeah, this whole internet firestorm like exploded while yeah she was probably asleep and like tossing back cocktails on the flight.
Yeah it is the Internet lives forever. And when that happened, when I followed that story in twenty fifteen, who would have thunked that here in twenty twenty three, I'd be citing her as as apokeswoman still at match Group. You know, what can you say?
But you know, it seemed like, at least in this quote, she's on the right side of justice.
That's right, That's right. So the way that Meta is responding to this is really similar to the episode that we did recently breaking down Twitter's lawsuit against Media Matters, where Twitter accused Media Matters of manufacturing the circumstances for inappropriate content to be shown alongside ads because Media Matters did probably make a dummy account where they followed a bunch of Nazi accounts or at least interacted with them. And then we're surfaced that kind of content by the platform.
Facebook's response is basically the same that the Wall Street Journal and the Canadian Center for Child Protection were only surfaced this inappropriate content because it's what they were searching for. In a statement, Meta said that the experience was quote manufactured, saying, these results are based on a manufactured experience that does not represent what billions of people around the world see every single day when they use our products and services.
So basically, they're arguing that only a very small group of people interested in content that sexualizes children and interested in finding that content on their platform would be getting that experience as a user.
It's a pretty weak defense, very weak, and to me, it.
Really goes back to what doctor Caroline or Bueno said about Twitter, that these are a known thing called informational dark spaces that occur when somebody combines search terms that are probably not being searched by a ton of people, but are being searched by bad actors, often extremists, people who are interested in doing bad stuff online, and they can coordinate in those spaces because generally people are not really looking there and the powers that be aren't really
looking there either. So saying like oh well, only a handful of people searching like very specific things would see this is not really a way to address it, Like these kinds of dark zones are easily exploited by bad actors precisely because of that attitude that says that tech platforms really don't need to be paying attention to them,
let alone solving for them. And I also think this defense is really telling, Like part of me wonders if this is another symptom of what I heard someone describe as Musk contagion syndrome, where Elon Musk sort of sets a tone and that other people in tech are like, oh well, if Elon Musk is getting away with that, I guess I'll do it too, because Musk really got defensive when Media Matters pointed out, you know that anti Semitic content on Twitter was showing up next to ads,
And that is how it sounds to me like these
facebooks books people are responding as well. And I don't know, I don't think, having done a lot of like platform accountability work before, I haven't really heard Facebook respond in this way, and so I do wonder if this is somehow, you know, learning how to do it from Elon musk or being like, oh, well, we could just get defensive about it and be like, well, only a few people are seeing that, rather than outlining how they are going to fix it and taking accountability for it.
Yeah, it does sound exactly like what Twitter said. What was it like last week or maybe the week before? Uh? And I guess they kind of did get away with it, So why wouldn't Meta just try the same defense. But it's it's such a weak defense, And it's like, not only is it a weak defense, but it's just morally bankrupt right, Like they're serving up child sexual exploitation material. Maybe they should try to like stop doing that. That would make a lot more sense to me.
And I think that's ultimately my problem with the entire thing. Like I am grateful to the Wall Street Journal for staying on Facebook's neck in this way, because they've been really doing a lot of good reporting about Facebook. And I'm grateful to the Canadian Center for Child Protection. But the thing that really gets me about even the framing of this story is that it seems like the only real way to make any noise about this is to
get brands to pressure platforms. It is great that these brands are responding and like pulling their ads and you know, letting these companies feel the heat. I think that's great, but the fact of the matter is these platforms have content that sexualized children on them and it shouldn't Like I guess my concern is not that there would be
an ad for Tender next to that content. Like, I think it's great that these brands are responding about how inappropriate that is, but ultimately I don't think it should take like a dating app getting upset for the platform to address it publicly, And I think especially doing so in such a defensive way just does it make me think that it's something that these companies really see as a problem insofar as it is not a problem for them making money from these advertisers.
Yeah, I completely agree. It fuels a little gross and just strange that so much of this conversation is about the impact on brands and how this kind of material is going to cause brands to not advertise on a certain platform. Like that makes sense as an organizing strategy for organizations like Media Matters, but it feels like it takes up an inappropriate amount of space, and the larger conversation about why this is something that we should care about.
I could. I could not agree more. And it's like, ultimately, Tinder and match Group and Bumble will be fine. They have billions of dollars, They'll be okay. What about the kids who are being exploited? What about the young people who are in this content? What about like on Twitter? What about the people who were harmed by the fact that there is antisemit content on the platform? Like, I
guess I don't like that the brands responses. We're at this point where the brands are like the voices that matter. But it does seem to be the way it is that like that is the way to get companies to respond publicly, is like that bottom line, And I guess it just makes me sad that that seems to be the only way to get any kind of real accountability.
Yeah, it is said.
Okay, So, speaking of Canada, we do have a quick update on a story that we covered earlier this summer. Y'all might remember that after Facebook threatened to and news content on the platform to protest the Online News Act, a Canadian law that would require Facebook and other tech companies to pay news publishers, Facebook actually went through with it and did ban news in Canada, so when you shared a news story on Facebook or Instagram in Canada, it just showed up as like a blacked out post.
And they did this before the law went into effect during a really deadly wild fire season in Canada, which actually prevented people from getting critical news about things like evacuation. So really nice going, Mark Zuckerbird. Well, when this was all going on, Google was similarly threatening to block news in Canada. But now that is not going to happen because Google announced on Wednesday that they will not be pulling links to Canadian news outlets after all, Google and
the Canadian government came to an agreement. In a statement, Google said, following extensive discussions, we are pleased if the Government of Canada has committed to addressing our core issues with the bill. We don't yet know the specifics of this agreement. If we find out more, we will definitely
let you know. But a Google spokesperson did say that the government addressed Google's previews concerns about creating quote uncapped financial liability for linking articles, and a report indicates that they will pay millions of dollars to publishers as part of this deal.
Huh, so this is a story where people talk through it like reasonable adults and reached an agreement that everyone found acceptable.
It seems that way.
That's pretty great.
We don't get to report a lot on that.
I don't I don't really know what to say about it. I like want to be sarcastic and cynical, but this sounds kind of like a win.
You know, on this show, we always say we got to take our w's where we can. It's true and major shout out to the Verge for great reporting on this whole situation.
Yeah, and I thanks for bringing this up again. You know, I think this is a really important story, even though it's in Canada. A lot of Americans don't spend a lot of time thinking about Canada, but uh, you know, it's pretty important country, pretty great country. And and uh, I you know, I think they're really addressing some serious issues with that bill about trying to get news organizations
paid for the content that social media platforms monetize. And uh, and it's really nice to see that news seems like news organizations are going to get paid and uh, Google will continue to be able to return news results. It seems like a win win.
I hope so, And like I said, if we get more information, we will definitely let y'all know. So I have another quick update for y'all. We did an episode about TikTok shop and why it is taking over everyone's TikTok. For you, Paige, Mike, I know you don't use TikTok, but TikTok shop is like this very aggressive in app shopping functionality that TikTok rolled out, and it's just like
ad after ad after ad after ad. So's it's like regular sponsored content on top of TikTok shop ads that are like seem like they're just regular TikTok's like oh, I'm just your friend telling you about this really cool body oil set or whatever on top of the regular ads. So it's like ads city on TikTok right now?
Okay? Interesting? Are the ads good? Are they like relevant stuff?
Oh? What a good question? Sometimes sometimes I will say tiktoks and we if folks want to know more, We did an episode about this with a friend of mine, Tamika, who goes by pretty critical on TikTok, who is the most successful TikToker I know in real life? Some of it so TikTok is sort of known for having an algorithm that's supposed to like really be tailored to you and who you are as a person and all of that.
I will say that TikTok, in my experience anecdotally, it's good at knowing your insecurities and it is surfacing you items to buy based on what it what it thinks to your insecurities.
Are okay, interesting, You're like, that sounds awful. I don't why it does. I mean, it sounds like an effective way to sell stuff, but yeah, it sounds awful. Uh, you're right, I don't. I'm not really on TikTok. I look at Instagram more often, and you know, I do have to hand it to them there. Their ads are generally stuff that I'm interested in, Like they've cracked that code.
Oh the algorithms they know, they know. So in that episode, we talked about some of the issues on the platform, including sellers selling unsafe and counterfeit products. Well, literally right after that episode was published, a bunch of TikTok creators woke up to find their TikTok shops disabled. Overnight, TikTok cracked down on thousands of sellers who were allegedly selling illegal goods on the platform right before Black Friday. This means the money that they made on the platform that
was in their TikTok account they can no longer access now. Honestly, this might be a little bit of a fue go take, so hear me out. Generally, I have a lot of sympathy for people who feel like they have been harmed by big tech platforms. Generally, like usually that's how I show up. However, I gotta say I don't really feel
bad for these people. You know, I would definitely be pissed if I had actual money in a TikTok account that I could not access, So like, I get that, but this is a consequence, And I would argue an obvious consequence of selling illegal goods online. You just can't do that, Like, I like part of me. I remember when I was like researching for that episode and just my experiences of being on TikTok, I would be like, Wow, when is TikTok going to crack down on this? It
is only a matter of time. As we discussed in that episode, some of the things that they that people were selling weren't just counterfeit goods. Like, I don't really care if, like you know, Christian Dior is losing money
because somebody is counterfeiting their perfume. Some of the stuff they were selling were genuinely harmful, right, beauty products that had ingredients that you actually need to talk to a doctor to get, or counterfeit goods that actually had led in them, Like I think somebody was selling Stanley tumblers that were knockoffs that weren't safe, and so people could be selling things that could actually make you sick and
hurt you. And I don't really feel a lot of sympathy for people facing consequences for using TikTok to do that, And if TikTok had not cracked down on it, they were obviously risking being fined as a platform. So what I think is really interesting about this whole conversation is that I've seen so many creators on TikTok complaining about this being like I woke up and my TikTok shop was banned, like in credulous as to how their shop
could have been banned. I will say this, TikTok does use kind of an opaque point system where if you get a certain number of points, then you're banned from using selling on TikTok Shop, which I don't really agree with. I think that if you're violating a rule, there should be transparency from the side of the platform about what rule you broke, how you broke it, and like in what way you were going to face consequences. So, like, I can kind of understand why some of these people
felt like they didn't get enough warning. If they went to bed and they had three violation points and then they woke up and they had over the limit of violation points that led to their platform being shut down. I get why people feel like they were not adequately warned.
But I also have seen people say, like I wasn't doing anything wrong, Like I was just selling things that I made, And it's like, yeah, the things that you were making were obviously knock off Stanley tumblers, but you were then putting a Disney logo on, so like that's the claim right there, Like it's copyright claim, right So like you would go to these people's pages and it's like, oh, well, those obviously you were selling knockoff Lululemon. That's why you
got popped for it. And so I think the vibe around people being like like I saw someone say that they felt like TikTok was targeting small, smaller creators, and I was like, I don't think that people are being targeted, Like I think that people were genuinely doing something illegal and that TikTok did not want to get fined themselves.
And I think that TikTok probably saw Black Friday as a big test to how their shopping functionality was going to go, and they knew they had to get some of these people selling illegal and counterfeit goods off the platform before that happened.
Yeah, it makes sense, And I mean there are still Congress people talking about trying to ban TikTok, so I can imagine that's another incentive the platform might have to crack down on illegal activity happening on the platform, and not just illegal activity, but like illegal commercial activity, right, Like that's one of the most flagrant illegal things you can do, is like sell illegal stuff.
A legal commercial activity that runs a foul of Disney. Of all the people that I would not want their lawyers on my back, Disney is a problem. It's like it might not be number one, but it's up there.
They literally wrote our copyright laws.
Is that true?
Yeah, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, people call it the Mickey Mouse Act. It's like it what was it like, nineteen ninety ninety eight, ninety nine. It like because Mickey Mouse was about to become public domain and Disney aggressively lobbied to pass this like sweeping overhaul of copyright law to like extend their their copyright on Mickey Mouse and
like other stuff. And so I mean it's a little facetious to say that they like wrote the entirety of US copyright law, but US copyright law is very much shaped by Disney's lawyers and lobbyists.
So yeah, if you're a TikToker that has seven thousand followers, what makes you think they're like of course, of course, of course TikTok doesn't want that smoke, Like, of course.
Who woulds I guess.
He did for a little bit, and then he was like, can't we all just get along, Like I.
Think we can call it good.
Please, Let's just agree mistakes were made on both sides and go our separate ways.
We're cool, right, right, right?
So I do think, I mean, I think the conversation that TikTokers were having about like how they didn't understand what they had done wrong and all of that. I think that is a symptom of a larger issue, which is when the online retail landscape is full of drop shippers and people selling stuff who really have no business in retail, like we really don't know what they're doing.
Like if you don't understand that you are selling an illegally copyrighted knock off, I don't think that you should be like like running a TikTok shop, right, And so we cited a piece in The Atlantic in the episode that we did about TikTok Shop called the Junk Has Won. How on platforms like TikTok shop, you know, TikTok is not responsible for finding, marketing, packaging, selling and shipping the items, but they're taking a cut of the items sold while
pushing that on to a third party. And so this model, of course is going to come with issues like people selling knockoffs or illegal goods or just thinks not being on the up and up because it's incentivized by the platform, right, TikTok moves so quickly whatever the trendy new thing is, whether it's a body oil or a workout set, or
a tumbler or whatever. The demand for it is so churn and burn that it doesn't surprise me that people who are just like trying to make money are turning to sketchy knockoffs and sketchy counterfeit goods just to ride that wave. And I do think it's incentivized by how the platform works. So maybe this is TikTok's attempt to course correct on this TBD. However, the one piece of advice I can give to anybody out there who is thinking about doing this is don't run a foul of
the FTC because they will come after you. This is very serious. I think that people think that like, oh, well, I'm just a small creator. It doesn't matter if I don't follow the rules. It absolutely does matter. And this stuff is like serious and like you can wind up with fines or worse. So yeah, don't mess with Disney, don't mess with the FTC. Stay on the up and up, trust me, trust me?
Yeah, and don't scam people, right like, don't sell fake stuff.
Yeah. I mean, I we might have different opinions about this because I feel like, do I really care if Lululemon is losing money? I mean, I guess it's not great.
But like I mean, I don't know that you even need to care about Lulu Lemon, but like think about the person who's buying it, who thinks that they're buying like legit Lulu Lemon garment, and then it arrives and it's definitely not that right.
But why would Lululemon be six dollars, It's like one hundred dollars.
So you're saying they should know better.
I'm not saying they should know better. I'm sare I can't I get I'm feeling defensive, maybe because I'm I can't sit here and say that I don't have some knockoff items. Maybe a few of us have bought a knockoff handbag here and there, not on TikTok shop, or I bought it as my business. Maybe people that I know have bought a couple of knockoff items in their day, and they were looking for knockoff items, and they procure
knockoff items and knock off items they happily have. Maybe that's the situation.
Well, you know, in that situation, that's different from what I was talking about, where somebody was being deceived. If both the seller and the buyer. Everybody understands that it's a knockoff item. That's one situation. But if you know, if the buyer is being deceived and thinking that they're buying a legit but it is actually a knockoff item, then you've got deception happening, and now you're in unethical territory.
That's fair, that's fair.
More after a quick break, let's get right back into it.
Speaking of unethical deceptive behavior, what's going on as Sports Illustrated.
Okay, this is a very weird story. There's already been a couple of cases of media outlets publishing bad, inaccurate AI generated content. It happened at av club and BuzzFeed. But what's happening at Sports Illustrated is really something. So the tech media outlet Futurism found that Sports Illustrated not only published AI generated pieces, but also attributed those pieces to fake journalists with fake names and fake very specific bios, whose head shots were all found on a website that
sells AI generated headshots. Futurism spoke to somebody at Sports Illustrated who didn't want to be named for obvious reasons, who said, this happens all the time this person said there's a lot they told us of the fake authors. I was like, what are they? This is ridiculous. This person does not exist. At the bottom of the page, there would be a photo of a person and some fake description of them, like, oh, John lives in Houston, Texas. He loves yard games and hanging out with his dog Sam,
stuff like that. It's just crazy.
Do you think they like ab tested where John lives and whether he has a dog or a cat and what the pet's name is.
I feel like something is going on because I looked at some of the bios and they're all so specific, like something is. They've done something, whether it's ab testing to figure out what people like or what works or whatever. Something's up.
We got twenty percent more reads when he lived in Houston than Saint Louis.
Swap that dog out for a cat and we're good to go. So you might be asking yourself, are the articles any good? Well, they kind of someone they were written by aliens. Here's one line from an AI generated neutral white young adult male with short brown hair and blue eyes, as he is described in the AI headshot website where his image came from. Drew Ortiz is the journalist.
Wait, Drew Ortiz is a neutral, white, young adult male with short brown hair and blue eyes.
That's correct, that's how Drew Ortiz, the journalist is described on this AI headshot website. Sure so Ortez warns that the sport of volleyball quote can be a little tricky to get into, especially without an actual ball to practice with.
Wait, what happened to his ball?
They have them on the planet floor lawn.
All he wanted to do was move to Earth and practice volleyball.
Futurism reached out to the magazine's publisher, the Arena Group. Suddenly all of the articles were deleted. That's suspicious.
Maybe they were beamed up.
So after Futurism published their report, the Arena Group did put out a statement. The statement is I'll just let y'all decide for yourselves. Today. In articles published a leging that Sports Illustrated published AI generated articles. According to our initial investigation, this is not accurate. The articles in question were product reviews and were licensed content from an external third party company, Advon Commerce. A number of Advon's e
commerce articles ran on certain arena websites. We continually monitor partners and we're in the midst of review. When these allegations were raised, ADVON has assured us that all of the articles in question were written and edited by humans. According to ADVON, their writers, editors and researchers create and curate content, and follow up policy that involves using counter
plagiarism and counter AI software on all content. However, we have learned that Advon had writers use a pen or pseudonym in certain articles to protect author privacy actions we don't condone and are removing the content while our internal investigation continues and have such ended the partnership. Weird.
So they were protecting author privacy in the article about volleyball.
That's right, that is some sensitive stuff you can't have. You think, Drew Ortiz, this neutral, blue eyed guy is gonna have his name. He's a dog owner from Texas, Mike, you think he needs this eat?
He just wants to contemplate practicing volleyball in the privacy of his own Texan home.
So it honestly sounds like their big investigation into this was like asking this company like, hey, are these articles AI generated? And Edbaum was like nah, and they were like okay, cool. And what's also weird? Is there a statement. It's like, okay, it was humans, it was actual humans using pen names. They don't address why they would need to be using pen names for like articles about volleyball. They also don't address why their pictures were from AI
headshot vendors either. Like the whole thing just stinks to high Heaven to me.
Yeah, it's obviously nonsense, Like they were in the middle of a review when the allegations were raised. Why they're just like constantly reviewing everything that their vendor writes for them.
It's so silly. And I think that, like, as ridiculous as this is, like, at the end of the day, readers do deserve to be told that the content they're reading is AI generated or if it's written by a human. I think, like, I don't want to empathize with like neutral blue eyed Drew Ortiz if he's not a real person. I deserve to know if he's a real person or not.
And I do think, you know, as funny as all this is, it does underscore how I've been a feeling about the state of the Internet lately, where everything feels like a scam or a lie to make somebody money. Like it sounds like these reviews. Probably Sports Illustrated might get a kickback if people like click through or like buy the thing or whatever. And I just feel like, how can anybody trust anything they come across online in a digital landscape like that?
Yeah, it's uh, you know, it's a funny story about Drew and his dreams of someday touching a volleyball, but it is kind of a bleak story about how uh like, what the hell is anything?
The futurism Peace put it really well. They wrote, the undisclosed AI content is a director front to the fabric of media ethics. In other words, not to mention a perfect recipe for eroding reader trust. At the end of the day, it's just remarkably irresponsible behavior that we shouldn't see anywhere, let alone normalized by a high visibility publisher. It does scare me that, like, this is the way
the Internet is going. Just AI generate a gobbledebook that doesn't really make sense, scams and platforms just trying to generate revenue.
Yeah, it is a weird time for the Internet. It does feel like everything is lies and scams and deception. And you know, when you think about brands like Sports Illustrated that aren't actually real media outlets but do have like big brand visibility doing stuff like this where they're just lying and purporting that their articles are written by
humans when they're AI. You kind of can't blame those TikTok creators for getting in on the action and doing some illegal scammy stuff of their own, right, Like if everybody else is doing it, why not them?
Yeah, I mean I think it's a hate the game, not the player kind of situation where it's like it's hard for me. I don't necessarily feel sympathy for TikTok creators who are like scamming people, but I do think that it is they are but small players in a larger system of scams and exploitation that I think people have come to expect online and it's really a problem. And I will say Sports Illustrated today, I don't think is like a like a well respected publication, certainly high visible.
John Updike used to publish there, like it is an organization that had a legacy, And I think what an outlet like Sports Illustrated that did have a legacy starts doing this kind of thing where they're just like turning out fake AI volleyball stories by not Alien Drew Ortiz.
It really says something about how far we've fallen. I hope, I genuinely hope and kind of believe that we will get to a better place, a place where people can trust what they read online, trust that it is written by humans, trust that it has been vetted, trusted it is accurate. When you cook a link, it's not going to be some sort of scale or bot or some other kind of exploitation. It is going to be actual information, actual connection, because we deserve it.
Yeah, let's get there.
So we are actually working on an episode right now that I'm really excited about all about just what I was just talking about, AI generated fake women in tech to catfish people into checking out a tech conference. If you heard about that story or saw it popping off on Twitter, it was a real doozy. So yeah, rest assured. We saw it too. We were going to talk about it on the newscast, but honestly, I have so much to say about it that it was it would have
been the whole newscast. So we're doing a whole episode about it. Keep an eye out for that next week. If you know what I'm talking about, If you know you know. If you don't know, trust me, it is a wild ride. You're gonna want to listen. I'm very excited to talk about it.
Yeah, I'm excited to hear that that's going to be a good one.
Also, it is officially Spotify Rap Season. Happy Spotify Rap Season, Mike.
Thank you, Bridget Happy Spotify Rap Season to you as well.
So over on the Patreon, we're digging into Spotify Rapped and I'm exposing my own Spotify Rapped most Played songs. I did it on the main feed I think like last year, and it was really embarrassing. Uh, this year, I have to put it behind the Patreon because I'm it's it's not great. I'll give I'll give folks a little hint third eye blind. I'll leave it there. Can check it out at tangody dot com slash Patreon.
Yeah, and in addition to Spotify Rap Season, it is now officially holiday season since Thanksgiving has passed, and folks can get some sweet Tangoty merch for everybody in their gift giving list at tangoty dot com slash store. Check it out.
We're throwing all the plugs. Yeah, this bye this by our crap people.
If we started with banter, plug and stuff, at the end, we're.
Really like polishing this podcast up all of the stuff.
We should get some AI in here to like write the content for us.
I know a guy, Drew Ortiz, neutral, blue eyed human male in search of volleyball one day.
Well, thanks for having me here, Bridget. This was fun. I enjoyed the banter, I enjoyed the news U, and I enjoyed the friendship.
See you on the Internet. If you're looking for ways to support the show, check out our mark store at tenggodi 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 tenggodi 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 con. It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unboss Creative, edited by Joey pat Jonathan Strickland as
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.
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