September 24, 2025 • 44 mins
While Meta openly claims that they are supportive of 'free expression' around accurate health information, in practice they regularly take down accurate reproductive rights content without transparency. Bridget Todd joins us to sift through Meta's proclaimed standards versus the reality, and why it's such a problem.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm welcome to.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Stuff I've Never told you production of iHeartRadio, and today
we are once again thrilled to be joined by the fabulous,
the fantastic Bridget Todd.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome Bridget, Thank you for having me back. I'm so
excited to be here.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
We're so excited to have you always. But yes, we
were discussing beforehand. There's a lot for us that we
would like your expertise on, so always, we appreciate you
coming on. There's so much going on right now. That
being said, how are you, Bridget?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
You know this week was I don't know if you
all feel it. I feel like the last few weeks
has been pretty rough. It feels like things are different.
It just feels like a shift in the air, which
can be hard to exist in, let alone make content
in that doesn't make people fearful and want to check out,
which I think maybe we're all kind of navigating.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Yeah, is that something that resonates with youtwo.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Yes, uh, yes, uh it's we make a lot of
contents and we do try to mix things up, but
we also don't want to make more things. But I mean,
for instance, yesterday I just had a lot of trouble
concentrating on my work because I was thinking about all
this other stuff and like, what what's going on in
the world? What can I do? Which I've always maintained
(01:32):
that if you want to get more productivity out of people,
then they're going about it the completely wrong. But that's
just a very small personal gripe of mine. Uh but yeah, yeah,
it's it's been it's been difficult.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
What I've discovered is these tiny little coloring books that
are really like easy coloring, so it's not detailed because
I've discovered as much as I'd like to do those things,
I cannot stay within the lines. And when they get
really like fancy the adult coloring book versions, like they
get fancy and you have to do the shading, and like,
what what is this? Why do I have so many
(02:08):
things to color? So I discover these tiny ones that's
just like cutesy large pictures of like a milkshake. It
has been really nice that I can just check out,
stay inside the lines and color with a marker like
those little like you know, paint like markers that doesn't
really satisfying. Nice to like zone.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Out, Sam, you are speaking my language, because a good
I have a I've spent so much money on this.
But alcohol markers the one like, there's nothing quite like
a good marker. A new set of markers. You're like,
this is gonna change everything. My future starts today. I've
got this new set of markers. Yes, and the ones,
(02:48):
the ones that that I write really well, are so satisfying.
I know I sound like a crazy person, but genuinely,
the appeal of finding the right set of markers conchange everything.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Oh no, I am obsessed with pins and well written
fine point pins, like it has to be fine points,
Like the Chinese and Japanese have a market because they
have some of the best, like nicely flowing pins. Even
though my my hand writing is really really bad, but
I love the feel of like a nice smooth rite.
But with these, like the alcohol markers, as you're talking about,
(03:23):
the only problem I have is the color that reports
that they say they represent on the cap doesn't actually
like translate in the marketing. So I'm like, oh, this
is a yellow and it turns orange. I'm like, wait,
this is this is not But it is very smooth
and it is very satisfying because it fills all the
lines and you're like, yes, I'm a professional colorer.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Of course.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
This is how this is how much I tell seriously,
I take this. When I get a new set of markers,
the first thing I do is a little colors watch
to be the oh they say orange, what their orange
looks like? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
I know, no surprises, you know what that's good to
That is great advice as a newly marker purchasing person.
So thank you. I'm gonna have to have to get
some like scrap paper just so I can do that.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
This is we can do a whole episode on this.
Let's just look pens markers my family. It gives me
a head tingles even just talking about it. I love
it so much.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
So since I did the like pre show, everything's the
worst I have to bring in. This is a solution,
and it's coloring large small coloring books that with wonderful markers.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yes, yeah, that can be the antidote to our troubling times.
Have you considered just diving headfirst into the world of
markers and penmanship and calligraphy and journaling and coloring.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
It is quite nice. It is quite nice.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
Annie.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
I will leave some for you. I know you're about
to house it for me, so I will leave some
for you to try out yourself.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
You know I have. I have two main thoughts from this.
One is that I hate when this happens where your
birthday is coming up, Samantha, and I wish I had
known this earlier. That would have been a great gift.
But then I think, Bridget, you should come on one
time and let us talk about something that's not so stressful.
(05:09):
Let's give let's give ourselves a little break. We can
talk about markers. I know you mentioned like reality TV.
We could have a whole thing where it's not something
so do all.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
The like dark stuff we should make. Let you come
in with the joys that you have because we just
talked about the Adirondacks and everything.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, I feel like people who listen to my content
might not know that I experienced joy I have I had.
The only things I talk about are not the crushing
weight of fascism.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
Enjoy reality television.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
I think this would be fun. I think we should
look at it all right.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
I like it.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Oh, but unfortunately before that day, we're not doing that today.
This is also the timing is interesting because we're Samantha
and I are working on an update on CPCs crisis
pregnancy centers. I know them very well, yes, and we
in our research ran into a lot of stuff about
(06:11):
how tech companies were basically paying for them to advertise
or accepting their money and being misleading about things. So
this is very much related. Uh, what are we talking
about today, bridget.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
Well, that is such a good transition because it's all related.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
But tech companies really have put their thumbs on the
scale when it comes to being able to get accurate
content about abortion on social media. Your point about crisis
pregnancy centers and the way that Google essentially is like
paying an advertising network for them to exist is a
great example. But today I really wanted to talk about
(06:48):
how social media is heavily moderating and even in some
cases like suppressing and censoring content about abortion. I think
that we all talked about this back in January. But
did you remember when Mark Zuckerberg had that moment that
people sort of talked about as his mask off moment
Back in January when Trump came back into office. I
think that we were talking about how he really started
(07:11):
dressing like a divorced nightclub promoter and was saying things like, oh,
we're taking the tampons out of the washrooms at the
restroot in here at Facebook, HQ just really was sort
of having a moment where he was saying a lot
of things.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Do you remember this.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Oh yes, oh yes, he was like he leaned in hard.
He was hard.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
He's been waiting for those moments.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Yes, Oh my gosh, you could tell.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
I mean I almost quippled when people were like, oh,
it's his mask off moment because I don't think that
Mark Zuckerberg has any kind of like I don't. I
wouldn't call it a mask off moment because I think
that he is the definition of a hollow, empty person,
and so I think he is the mask.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
He will say anything.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
I think that he has no he's I'm honestly fascinated
by him as a tech leader because I think that
he has no value, scruples, morals, there's just nothing. He
will say anything, he will do anything. However the wind blows,
that's how he will blow. And I don't think it's
fair to call that a mask moment when truly, like
what the mask is not hiding anything. This is just
(08:15):
genuinely like who you are, who you always have been,
just the soulless person who was waiting to see who
they should kiss up to you and will do that
if it means holding onto power.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
He was just waiting in the background, like his personality
was just waiting in the shadows. And then it's like, ohh,
this is my moment.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
And so when that all was going on, he also
announced that Meta was going to be scrapping their community
notes feature and scrapping all third party fact checking on
the platform, because, as he said, it was time for
the company to get back to their roots when it
comes to free expression. I will play a little bit
of a video that he put out talking about this.
Speaker 5 (08:54):
Hey everyone, I want to talk about something important today
because it's time to get back to our roots around
free expression on Facebook and Instagram. I started building social
media to give people a voice. I gave a speech
at Georgetown five years ago about the importance of protecting
free expression and I still believe this today. But a
lot has happened over the last several years. There's been
(09:16):
widespread debate about potential harms from online content. Governments and
legacy media have pushed to censor more and more. A
lot of this is clearly political, but there's also a
lot of legitimately bad stuff out there, drugs, terrorism, child exploitation.
These are things that we take very seriously, and I
want to make sure that we handle responsibly.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
So I have a lot to say about that.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
First of all, very convenient rewriting of the history that
frankly wasn't that long ago, and that if you're listening
in your my age you probably remember, because we all
know it is not a secret that Facebook. Mark Fuckerberg
created Facebook as a college student to rank the looks
of the women in on his college campus. Somehow we
(10:00):
sort of let him get away with being like, I
created Facebook to protect free expression. Okay, sure, I don't know.
I always have to like quibble at that because he,
I guess saw a video where he said I created
Facebook because I wanted people to be able to have
debates about the Iraq War, and it's like, no, you did.
First of all, I was an organizer in the anti
(10:20):
war movement. Nobody was communicating on Facebook when were like,
Facebook wasn't for that.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
So that's just not true.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I really have a thing where people lie to your
face about recent history that you remember that you were
therefore that you were part of so that's bullshit. But
even more than that, he's talking about how the content
that he really wants to focus on in terms of
moderating the platform is a legal content, right, child safety, harms,
(10:51):
drug trade, organized criminal activity, all of that. So this
is when he was really talking about how important it
was to protect free expression on social media platforms. Y'all
might recall that around this time he was in the
headlines for saying that you felt the Biden administration had
been trying to pressure Facebook into removing COVID misinformation. The
White House had a different take, saying, quote, when confronted
(11:13):
with the deadly pandemic, this administration encouraged responsible actions to
protect public health and safety. Our position has been very
clear and consistent. We believe tech companies and other private
actors should take into account the effects their actions have
on the American people while making independent choices about the
information they present. So, you know, Zuckerberg in this moment
was like, we are not going to be moderating political
(11:36):
content the way that we have been. We are going
to lift restrictions on topics that are part of mainstream
discourse and really just focus on the enforcement of a
legal and like high severity violation.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
So yay for free speech.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Right, that all sounds great, Well, all of that, it's
only the case if that part of the mainstream discourse
is not abortion, which Facebook continues to suppress and moderate
quite heavily with zero transparency and zero consistency.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
So it seems like.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
If you're spreading COVID misinformation, well that is protected speech
that needs to be left up for freedom. If you
are sharing accurate information about abortion that isn't even against
metas policies, they will take it down.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Yeah, and like you said, without warning or transpancy or nothing,
just is gone. And you might not know why or well,
you could probably figure it out. But one of the
things that's really frustrating about all of this is that,
you know, like you said, they're kind of lying to
our faces, right, Like they're saying one thing and doing
something completely different.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yeah, that's what really makes me angry about this. You know,
I cover a lot of tech companies. The thing that
gets me is when they lie, when they say one
thing publicly, when they publish something in their rules and
regulations and policies. You know, no one's putting a gun
to their head and making them put these things in
their rules. They put them in their rules, and then
they do a completely different thing, and then when advocates
(13:02):
or organizers call them out on it, there's just no
They're just like, oops, what are you gonna do that?
For some reason, that just really gets me, because they
are allowed to enjoy all of this positive press of
putting this thing in their policy and then continue doing
the shady work of going against that policy.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
It never it never comes back at them.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
But they're able to just do whatever they want while
saying one thing and doing another.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
And I just don't feel like they really get held accountable.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
And so a Meta spokesperson said that taking down abortion
content goes against Meta's own intentions. A spokesperson told The
New York Times, we want our platforms to be a
place where people can access reliable information about health services,
advertisers can promote health services, and everyone can discuss and
debate public policies in this space. That is why we
(13:51):
allow posts and ads discussing and debating abortion. But they're
not doing that at all. Because the big thing to
know here is that Meta says one thing in their
policies and then does a completely different thing when it
comes to how they are actually moderating abortion content.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Yeah, and it's it's it's so difficult right now to
get that good information and there's so much misinformation and
disinformation out there, and to remove it is just really
piling onto a problem that really doesn't need any more
piling onto. It is already really bad and people are
(14:29):
already very confused. This is not helping.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
No, that's a really good context to set that. You know,
we're in a time where the Supreme Court struck down Row.
It is so much harder to access accurate information about
help so that people can make health decisions for themselves.
And when social media platforms like Facebook put their thumb
(14:55):
on the scales and make these kinds of moderation decisions
with no transparency that go against their own stated policy,
it just makes that climate so much harder. It makes
it harder for the people who are trying to do
this work, abortion providers and abortion advocates. It makes it
harder for people who need to make decisions about their
health and the people that support them. It makes it
(15:15):
so that people cannot access information.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
To figure out what they want to do with their own.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Bodies and lives, and these companies do that while saying, oh,
we promote the ability to use our platforms to get
this kind of information. I would prefer that they say
we don't like abortion, we don't want people using our
platform to talk about abortion, so we take that content off.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
At least that would be honest.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
But what they are doing is lying to people about
what they're actually doing while doing it. It's so it's
it's really adding insult to injury.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Right, I mean, the true honest answer probably is that
they are taking money or they know that they are
just buying time until the entirety of our rights and
productive rights may be completely dismantled in every way. And
that way they can already say, hey, leaders of this
fascist regime, we have done everything for you, so can
(16:11):
you keep supporting our platform and give us more money?
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Ugh, I mean the way that you've got the fox
Watch in the Henhouse here, the way that platforms are
able to cozy up to really, I mean, it's not
even really the Trump administration, just whoever is in power.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
And then though that administration is also the administration that
is meant to be overseeing and regulating them. It's horrible
and so we really it's I'm glad that you brought
that up, because I think that helps us peel back
the layers of what exactly is going on here and
why it's so unacceptable.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
And in understanding that that the whole confusion part is
probably the point.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
I think that's true.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
I mean, in looking at some of the ways that
Facebook says one thing and does another when it comes
to moderating abortion content, I think that's exactly the point.
It's like, you know, if we and we'll get into
this a little bit in a moment, but if we
create a confusing, inconsistent, not transparent climate, people will just
stop posting this information on our platforms.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
And so we don't have to crack down on all
of it.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
We don't have to have a policy that does not
allow for abortion content to be on our platform. It'll
there'll be a chilling effect and people will do it
on their own. They'll just stop posting on their own,
and I think, in my opinion, that's the why of
why this is happening. So Meta says that they really
(17:35):
want to focus on moderating posts that deal with illegal content.
Side note, they don't always do such a great job
of that either, But that's for another episode. So meta's
Dangerous Organizations and Individuals ORDI policy was supposed to really
be like a narrow policy focusing on preventing the platform
from being used by terrorist groups or organized crime like
(17:57):
violent or criminal activity. But according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation,
over the years, we've really seen those rules be applied
in far broader and troubling ways, with little transparency and
significant impact on marginalized voices. And this has essentially allowed
META to suppress factual content about abortion that does not
actually break any of the platform's rules.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
So the reason let me know this is.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Because the Electronic Frontier Foundation or EFF have really given
us a snapshot into what's happening and provided some very
clear receipts with their Stoff Censoring Abortion campaign eff sas
they collected stories from individuals, healthcare clinics, advocacy groups, and more,
and together they've revealed nearly one hundred examples of posts
and resources being taken down, ranging from guidance on medication
(18:43):
abortion to links of resources supporting individuals in states with
abortion bands. What is important to note is that the
posts that they found that weren't taken down or that
resulted in sometimes a ban did not break any of
Meta's rules. Eff said, we analyze these takedowns, deletions, and
bands comparing the content to what platform policies allow, particularly
(19:06):
those of Meta, and found that almost none of the
submissions we received violated any of the platform stated policies.
Most of the censored posts simply provided factual, educational information.
So it really is a system where you don't know,
I mean, I guess you could guess why this content
is being taken down. There's no consistency, there's no transparency,
(19:28):
and Facebook just gets to be like oopsie when it happens.
Here's a great example of a post that was removed
from a healthcare policy strategist named Lauren Carer discussing abortion
pills availability by mail. Her post reads, FYI, abortion pills
are great to have around, whether you anticipate needing them
or not. Plan C Pills is an amazing resource to
help you find reliable sources for abortion pills by mail,
(19:50):
no matter where you live. Once received, the pill should
be kept in a cool, dry place. The shelf life
of maybe pristone is about five years. The shelf life
of misso pristal is about two years. There's a missipriystal
only regiment that is extremely safe, effective, and very common globally,
So that post is just here is some factual information
about these pills. However, Facebook removed that post, and the
(20:15):
explanation they gave Lauren was that they don't allow people
to buy, sell, or exchange drugs that require a prescription
from a doctor or a pharmacist. But as you can tell,
that post isn't about selling or buying or trading medication.
It is just fact based information about that medication.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Yeah, it's one of those things where you read it
and you're like, I don't see the see the thing,
the thing that you're saying is there. It's just it's
just information. Uh oh it makes you bad.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, And Eff points out that this post does not
break any of Meta's rules and should not be removed.
But you don't have to take their word for it
or my word for it, because Meta said the exact
same thing. Eff points out that Meta publicly insists that
posts like these should not be censored, and if February
twenty twenty four letter to Amnesty International, metas Human Rights
(21:10):
policy director wrote organic content i e. Non Paid content
educating users about medication abortion, is allowed and does not
violate our community standards. Additionally, providing guidance on legal access
to pharmaceuticals is allowed.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
So what the hell is suck?
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Like?
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Why if it's allowed, why are you taking it down?
Speaker 3 (21:31):
I'm so curious about because if the moderators are essentially
kind of removed, then is this just a they have
like a keyword, like, how is this happening? Is there
a person or.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
That is a great question.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
If I had to guess, I would say, just knowing
what I know about content moderation, I would say this
is probably over use of AI moderation and then not
caring enough to correct that. That's if I had to say,
I would say, because honestly, content moderation is a job
for a not just a human, but a culturally competent human.
(22:06):
When you don't have culturally competent humans making that moderation decisions,
it's a problem, and it's a problem that leads to
the content of marginalized people being suppressed much more on
these platforms. Right, So, if I had to guess, I
would say, this is somebody using an AI content moderation
and then not caring enough to correct that. It is
consistently taking down content that does not break any of
(22:28):
the platform's rules. That's my guess.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Well, and that kind of relates to another thing I
know you're going to talk about, which is something Smith
and I've also talked about on some of our episodes.
Is shadow banding.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
I mean, shadow banning is one of those issues that
I find very interesting because who among us has not
posted something on social media? Had that post not perform
as well as you were expecting, and wonder am I
shadow band I have definitely thought this myself. If you've
ever thought that, you are not alone. But it does
really happen. So shadow banning is what a social media
platform limits the visibility of someone's content without telling them.
(23:04):
And this is happening to people and organizations that make
content about sexual and reproductive health. And it's a real
problem because, as we were talking about before the Internet
in twenty twenty five, like that is really where people
are going to find information about their health, especially in
a landscape where that information is more difficult to come by,
where it's criminalized and cracked down on.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
So people need the Internet as a resource.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
And so if the people and advocates and organizations who
provide that information online are shadow band it becomes that
much harder to access what is often life saving information
to help people make health decisions. Earlier this year, the
Center for Intimacy Justice shared a report called the Digital
Gag Suppression of Sexual and Reproductive Health on Meta, TikTok, Amazon,
(23:50):
and Google, and they found that of the one hundred
and fifty nine nonprofits, content creators, sex educators, and businesses
that they surveyed, sixty three percent had content removed on Meta,
fifty five percent had content removed on TikTok. And this
suppression is happening at the same time as platforms continue
to allow and elevate videos of violence and gore and
extremist and hateful content. And this pattern is troubling because
(24:14):
it only becomes more prevalent as folks turn more and
more to social media to find the information that they
need to make decisions about their health. And so I
like that context, because we really do have a social
media landscape that allows for violent content, gory content, extremist
or hateful content to stay up while taking down accurate
(24:35):
content about reproductive health that they agreed does not violate
any of their policies.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
It's pretty telling to you. You have some examples here,
and one of them is from a place near us
that I was like, oh, dear, oh dear Emery. Yeah, yep,
but I mean it's also, oh, as we're doing this
research on the CPC episode, I consider myself pretty you know,
(25:09):
pretty informed about abortion and all of it, but I
had to look up some stuff about like, I'm not
sure is that legal there? I don't know, Like I
was feeling like, I know, I don't know if I
can trust this information. And then you try to go
to a place where you're like, okay, I know this place,
and then you find out it's taken down, it doesn't
have anything about it. Yeah, it's not a good climate.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
And then you have Google allowing CPCs to stay, you know,
high ranked in their search. And then when you go
to CPCs they tell you all kinds of misinformation about
pregnancy and abortion. They are allowed to just essentially lie
to people, people who are in vulnerable situations. And so
it's already a climate where it's hard to find trustworthy,
(25:55):
accurate information, and then the clearly not trustworthy, clearly not
accurate information is allowed to not just allowed to exist,
but they put their thumb on the scales in terms
of making it more accessible than information that is factual.
Speaker 4 (26:14):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
So let us get into some of these examples, including
the one near us.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
So let's talk about what happened at Emory University.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
So RISE at Emor University, the Center for Reproductive Health
and Research in the Southeast, they published a post saying,
let's talk about Miffy pristone and its uses and the
importance of access. So they post this online. Two months later,
their account was suddenly suspended, flagged under the policy against
selling illegal drugs, which they were not selling or offering
(26:42):
illegal drugs. They were just giving fact based health information.
They tried to appeal, but that appeal was denied, leading
to their account being permanently deleted. Sarah Read, the director
of Research and Translation at RISE, told Eff as a team,
this was a hit to our morale. We poor account
less hours of person power, creativity and passion into creating
(27:03):
the content we have on our page and having it
vanished virtually overnight took a toll on our team. And
you know, I really think, like think about how critical
that information is these days, and how critical social media
is these days. They are already doing sensitive work in
an area where that work is threatened, and so losing
(27:24):
your social media that you've put so much time into
is like losing a lifeline, both for the staff and
for the community that you're trying to do that work in.
As Eff puts it, For many organizational users like Rise,
their social media accounts are repository for resources and metrics
that may not be stored elsewhere. We spent a significant
amount of already constrained team capacity attempting to recover all
(27:47):
of the content we created for Instagram that was potentially
going to be permanently lost. We also spent a significant
amount of time and energy trying to understand what options
we might have available for Meta to appeal our case
and recover our account. Their support options are not easily accessible,
and the time it took to navigate this issue distracted
from our existing work. So I totally feel what they
(28:10):
are saying that when you are doing work that is
that critical, you know, time sensitive, having to stop that
work to figure out, well, how are we going to
appeal this decision to Meta? Is all of are all
of our years and years of work on Instagram just
lost forever? That is a real problem. And again, they
weren't doing anything wrong. They're they're nothing that they posted
(28:30):
on their account was against metas policies. It's just arbitrary
and so luckily they were able to eventually get their
account back, but only because they knew someone who knew
somebody who worked at Facebook personally, which is really the
only way to appeal when this kind of thing happens.
If you, if you if your account is taken down
for no real reason by Facebook, I am sorry to say,
(28:51):
unless you have a friend who knows somebody who works
at Facebook, you're probably not going to be able to
appeal again because a lot of these decisions are AI right.
It can be very very hard to sate to a
human and the only real way to do it is
to just know somebody there. And again, I just feel
that in these situations where Meta agrees these posts are
not in violation of their rules and that they admit
(29:11):
they made a mistake, it should not come down to
knowing somebody at Facebook to have these decisions be reversed
when Meta agrees they are mistakes on their part.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
Now I'm trying to think if I know someone on
Facebook I used to, I don't know if we're still there. Well,
another issue with this is, as you said, if people
(29:44):
are worried that their content might be deleted or shadow banned,
or just they've seen this happen to other organizations or
something like that, then they might not post it anymore.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Yeah, I have to assume that is the point eff rights.
At the end of the day, clinics are clinics are
left afraid to post basic information, patients are left confused
or misinformed, and researchers lose access to these audiences. But
unless your issue catches the attention of a journalist or
you know, someone at Meta, you might never regain access
(30:19):
to your account. And so I really think that that
is the sort of so what here that Meta is
doing this to sort of not explicitly discourage organizations and
advocates and people from posting this kind of information on
their platform, while saying the opposite, because it is going
to have a silencing effect.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
You know, nobody wants to risk.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Losing their entire platform, years and years and years of
content and research and resources they've collected.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
Yeah, no one that's going to want to take that risk, right.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
It's interesting that their policy with like the things that
we're going to actually moderate is about terror and gain
and child endangerment, which is kind of a dog whistle
for what the Republican platform has been to for jump
to all of this morality level of issues, and that
(31:13):
the fact that Zuckerberg is like, you know what, Yeah,
we're gonna adopt this too, but it's purely to protect
the people's We're just protecting the people's And again it
does seem like see, see we're doing like you, we
got your back. We also agree with this. This is
the only way or this is the best way to
control what information is being out there.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Yes, and if you actually I mean, this is a
whole other topic.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
But when you look at the way so they say, okay,
we're only gonna be cracking down on content that creates
harm for kids, this dog whistle that they love.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
To pull up.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
And then when you look at the kind of harm
for kids that they either allow or advocate, part of
me is like, what what content are you actually taking down?
I don't know if you all saw the recent reporting.
There was a very interesting report I think from the
Wall Street Journal where they had gotten their hands on
an internal policy document. So this is something that somebody
(32:10):
at Facebook said this is our policy, totally fine to
have in writing, no problem. That said that Meta's chatbots
were allowed to engage in sensual play with minors, so kids,
it was okay with Meta if they're chatbots engaged in
(32:31):
like sensual I won't say sexual, but I would say
I've seen some of the content and it is sort
of spicy that it's okay if they're if they're bot
to do that with children. And part of me is like,
I cannot believe you will put this in writing. I
cannot believe that someone at Facebook said, yeah, this is
a this is a document, I'll attach my name to this.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
Well and behold.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
When the Wall Street Journal asked about it, they were like,
oh no, we have since walked that policy back. That's
no longer our official, on the record. Our official on
the record policy is no longer that it's okay, hey,
for our bots to engage in sexy role play with kids.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
We've walked that back. I bet you did walk that.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Back today as you asked this question.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
I'm sure it happened right after the Wall Street Journal
called them and asked them about it.
Speaker 4 (33:14):
I'm so sure that it was like an hour later
we walked at that.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
We got this now, No, we would never right.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Well, yeah, and I mean you were here Bridget, I
guess it was years ago and you were talking about
another kind of whistlebrower account of Facebook knowing it was
harming young girls.
Speaker 4 (33:36):
Yeah, Francis hogen Is is the whistleblower. Why we know that?
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Yeah, So it's it is very galling for them to
be like, we want to protect the children, and then
you have these things that again directly show that clearly
you don't, not.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
Really and to be clear, that is knowingly harming kids.
So I just think it's very interesting that Facebook gets
to say, well, we're too busy focusing on content that
harms kids to take down to really care that much
about what's going on with our abortion content. And that's
the content we're really working on.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
But really we're not doing that either.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
You know what I mean, they get they really. It
just infuriates me, it really does. And I think the
issue really is to understand is in twenty twenty five,
when you have a question, When I have a question,
the first place I go is the internet, right we
all that's I think that is the reality for most
of us, and the internet and social media really has
become this lifeline for folks trying to get information about
(34:37):
the world around us, including our sexual and reproductive health.
And if folks are not able to find what they
need in their own communities, which I'm sorry to say
is becoming more and more of the reality these days,
they are going to go online to turn to social
media to fill those gaps. That access really matters most
for folks whose care is being cut off, like abortion
(34:58):
seekers or or queer youth living in states where healthcare
is under attack. And so if you have these social
media platforms kind of adding to a landscape where that
information is difficult to access, even if that information is
not against their rules, it's just making it that much
more difficult.
Speaker 4 (35:16):
And these decisions really do matter.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
I mean they some of them are life or death,
and they really have real world impact on people's lives.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Absolutely, And unfortunately this is not this is part of
kind of a larger issue, kind of a larger attack,
gendered attack. Correct.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Yes, so this is something I find so interesting and
I actually should come back and do another episode on it.
In the middle of some research on it right now.
But the Center for Intimacy Justice, who's report I mentioned earlier.
They have another report that really shows how platforms routinely
suppress sexual health content for women and trans folks, while
leaving content aimed at supporting the sexual health of CIS
(35:58):
men largely untouched. Right, So, I know lots of people
who run businesses that are focused on the sexual health
of people who are not CIS men. Right, So, if
you have pelvic pain, if you need sex toys, like
all these different things that are aimed at people who
are not cisgender men. I have lots of friends who
(36:19):
run businesses like that. They are essentially not able to
do any kind of advertising on Facebook because Facebook does
not allow it. However, Facebook certainly allows information about the
sexual wellness of cisgender men. So we really have a
climate where, let's face it, mostly men who run these
(36:40):
platforms are able to determine whose sexual health is important
and who is not, whose healthcare is healthcare, and whose
is like something perverted that needs to be suppressed and
isn't allowed on their platform.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Yeah. Now I'm thinking about it as I've been looking
at Instagram the amount of GLP one ads that I've
been getting, which is interesting because I thought that was
medication that you had to get their doctor is overwhelming.
But also on the vice versa of that is meles
you know, health sex health bs. Those are the two
(37:14):
ads that I get. Definitely nothing about women in birth
control rarely, there's a few that but it's very as
of late, I think zero. But the amount of GLP
one ads, I'm like, whoa, what is happening Instagram? I
thought we weren't allowing this.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Yes, I mean the amount of ads I get specifically
for the a rectail dysfunction medication blue.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
Chew, and the ads are do have you ever seen
these ads online?
Speaker 2 (37:39):
The ads are clearly targeted at women, So it's a
cute woman being like, ladies, get your man to get
blue chee, blue shoe is gonna rock your world.
Speaker 4 (37:51):
Get your man on blue shoe.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
And that's a medication that is that is an arectail
dysfunction prescription medication.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
But these platforms have just decide, oh no, that's okay,
that's that.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
You can you can show that all day long, no problem,
you can boost it, you can put money behind it.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Totally fine again like and then the other part being
the weight loss medication, which slowly a lot more information
comes back, like oh, there's side effects. This might not
be as good as you think.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
By the way, Oh yes, I'll just say yes. I'll
just say yes.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Well that's like as of late, and we know this
was coming. We knew this was coming because they've also
got variations that are not FDA approved, which I guess
means very little at this point in time. But again
that this is the rampant amount of ass like every
two like scrolls on Instagram that pops up, and on
Facebook too, which is I'm like, I don't even go
(38:41):
to Facebook. I just need to know people's birthdays. That's
all I need, That's all I really want. But again,
this seems to be like I thought once, if that
was your policy from Jump, then how are these as
paying you, I know, paying you millions? How are these okay?
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Yeah, their policy is totally inconsistent, seemingly arbitrary, and seemingly
biased against any kind of marginal identity. Like that's just
what's going on. They don't have any transparency. They say
one thing and do another. Uh, and that just is
the is the norm for them, and it's I really
do think that we should be talking about how you know, again,
(39:21):
let's be honest we're talking about mostly men, and mostly
not just men, like a specific kind of man, white moneyed,
coastal all of that. How we have given them so
much power to define what knowledge is acceptable, whose voices
are amplified, whose bodies are are left at risk, and
when platforms decide what can and can't be shared.
Speaker 4 (39:42):
They are making.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Public health decisions with global consequences in ways that are
often contrary to public health, and then also reinforce systemic
and equalities. And so I just think, you know, this
is not just we're not just talking about like vague
policy language. I know that I have spent a lot
of time talking about that because it's a nois But
it's really about them deciding who gets to speak, who
(40:04):
gets seen, who gets access to the information that they
need to make decisions about their own health and bodies.
When Meta and these platforms silence accurate, essential sexual and
reproductive health information for not just enforcing inconsistent body rules,
I mean they are, but they're not just doing that.
They are also shaping people's lives and really deciding whose
(40:25):
health matters and whose doesn't. And in a world where
we know the internet has really become this lifeline that
is not just annoying, although I am annoid, it is
dangerous because free speech shouldn't come with a disclaimer that
your body's safety is just optional and up to the
whims of Mark Zuckerberg.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
No, I don't want to live in that world.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
No, No, I mean I think about this all the time,
the ways that these individuals, like a handful of individual
mostly white guys, get to define what our worlds look
like in these very con create ways.
Speaker 4 (41:00):
And I've never met Mark Zuckerberg.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Although I have met Cheryl Sandberg, but I've never met
Mark Zuckerberg. I don't want Mark Zuckerberg in charge of
deciding anything for my life. I don't think Mark Zuckerberg
and I have any common idea about what it means
to have a good, fulfilled life. I don't want him
designing what my future looks like.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
I think that's very wise.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
I mean that one movie made him look really pretty
much a dick.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
So, oh my god, you mean The Social Network, one
of my favorite movies.
Speaker 4 (41:31):
Oh my god. I don't want to I don't want.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
To spoil it, but the ending of that movie is
my version of Citizen Kane.
Speaker 4 (41:38):
Have you both have seen it?
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Yeah, I've not seen it. I've seen clips because I'm like,
I don't want even want to know, but he seems.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
Like a dick.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Go home and watch it tonight. I know your birthday
is coming up, birthday? Is it a fun birthday watch?
I mean, I'm such a nerd. I say it's a
fun watch. But if you're looking for a movie to
watch on your birthday, that might be that might.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Be the one.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
It's a good it's a solid like, oh, yeah, you're
just a sad man ending.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Yes, you know what I'm talking about, you kids, Citizen Kane,
the sled moment at the end of that movie. It
haunts me, and I think if you haven't, I think
if you've seen it, it gives context for some of the
stuff we've talked about when it comes to Upberg today.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
All right, without even seeing it, I was like, all right.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Also love it as such a dark soundtrack?
Speaker 4 (42:30):
Who is it yet?
Speaker 2 (42:33):
Nobody does a haunting soundtrack like Trent Resnor Gone Girl
soundtrack soundtrack to Challenger is also Trent Resnor, And that's
the soundtrack I put on when I'm writing if you
need to focus and just like put on some headphones
and be like we are writing.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
Let's do that is your soundtrack.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
Rednor can write a dark movie soundtrack like Nobody's Business.
Speaker 4 (42:55):
And I love that.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
It was in this movie about this college kid trying
to get a girl to like Oh Lord, yes, okay,
well we'll revisit that later. We'll do uh maybe you
know we had a fun time trash talking some Hugh
Heffner that one time. We'll come back with a fun
(43:18):
thing for you, Bridget, and you can side because you
always bring us these heavy topics of your choosing. But
before then, thank you so much for being here. Where
can the good listeners find you?
Speaker 2 (43:31):
You can find me on my podcast. There are no
girls on the internet. You can find me on Instagram.
I know it's owned by Max Zarckerberg. I don't like
it either. At Bridget Bryan DC, TikTok at Bridget Bran DC,
and on YouTube.
Speaker 4 (43:43):
There are no girls on the internet.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
Yes, go check all of that out if you have
it already, Listeners, if you would like to contact us,
you can you can email us at Hello stuff, I
never told you. You can find us on Blue Scott
most of podcast or Instagram and TikTok at Stuff. I
never told you. We're also on YouTube. We have new
merchandise ad Cotton Bureau, and we have a book you
can get wherever you get your books. Thanks always her
as suproducer with senior executive producer, my under contributor Joey.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Thank you and thanks to you for listening.
Speaker 3 (44:10):
Stuff never told this book should by Heart Radio. For
more podcast from my Heart Radio, you can check out
the heart Radio app, a podcast or where you listen
to your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm welcome to.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Stuff I've Never told you production of iHeartRadio, and today
we are once again thrilled to be joined by the fabulous,
the fantastic Bridget Todd.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome Bridget, Thank you for having me back. I'm so
excited to be here.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
We're so excited to have you always. But yes, we
were discussing beforehand. There's a lot for us that we
would like your expertise on, so always, we appreciate you
coming on. There's so much going on right now. That
being said, how are you, Bridget?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
You know this week was I don't know if you
all feel it. I feel like the last few weeks
has been pretty rough. It feels like things are different.
It just feels like a shift in the air, which
can be hard to exist in, let alone make content
in that doesn't make people fearful and want to check out,
which I think maybe we're all kind of navigating.
Speaker 4 (01:07):
Yeah, is that something that resonates with youtwo.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
Yes, uh, yes, uh it's we make a lot of
contents and we do try to mix things up, but
we also don't want to make more things. But I mean,
for instance, yesterday I just had a lot of trouble
concentrating on my work because I was thinking about all
this other stuff and like, what what's going on in
the world? What can I do? Which I've always maintained
(01:32):
that if you want to get more productivity out of people,
then they're going about it the completely wrong. But that's
just a very small personal gripe of mine. Uh but yeah, yeah,
it's it's been it's been difficult.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
What I've discovered is these tiny little coloring books that
are really like easy coloring, so it's not detailed because
I've discovered as much as I'd like to do those things,
I cannot stay within the lines. And when they get
really like fancy the adult coloring book versions, like they
get fancy and you have to do the shading, and like,
what what is this? Why do I have so many
(02:08):
things to color? So I discover these tiny ones that's
just like cutesy large pictures of like a milkshake. It
has been really nice that I can just check out,
stay inside the lines and color with a marker like
those little like you know, paint like markers that doesn't
really satisfying. Nice to like zone.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Out, Sam, you are speaking my language, because a good
I have a I've spent so much money on this.
But alcohol markers the one like, there's nothing quite like
a good marker. A new set of markers. You're like,
this is gonna change everything. My future starts today. I've
got this new set of markers. Yes, and the ones,
(02:48):
the ones that that I write really well, are so satisfying.
I know I sound like a crazy person, but genuinely,
the appeal of finding the right set of markers conchange everything.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Oh no, I am obsessed with pins and well written
fine point pins, like it has to be fine points,
Like the Chinese and Japanese have a market because they
have some of the best, like nicely flowing pins. Even
though my my hand writing is really really bad, but
I love the feel of like a nice smooth rite.
But with these, like the alcohol markers, as you're talking about,
(03:23):
the only problem I have is the color that reports
that they say they represent on the cap doesn't actually
like translate in the marketing. So I'm like, oh, this
is a yellow and it turns orange. I'm like, wait,
this is this is not But it is very smooth
and it is very satisfying because it fills all the
lines and you're like, yes, I'm a professional colorer.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Of course.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
This is how this is how much I tell seriously,
I take this. When I get a new set of markers,
the first thing I do is a little colors watch
to be the oh they say orange, what their orange
looks like? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
I know, no surprises, you know what that's good to
That is great advice as a newly marker purchasing person.
So thank you. I'm gonna have to have to get
some like scrap paper just so I can do that.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
This is we can do a whole episode on this.
Let's just look pens markers my family. It gives me
a head tingles even just talking about it. I love
it so much.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
So since I did the like pre show, everything's the
worst I have to bring in. This is a solution,
and it's coloring large small coloring books that with wonderful markers.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yes, yeah, that can be the antidote to our troubling times.
Have you considered just diving headfirst into the world of
markers and penmanship and calligraphy and journaling and coloring.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
It is quite nice. It is quite nice.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
Annie.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
I will leave some for you. I know you're about
to house it for me, so I will leave some
for you to try out yourself.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
You know I have. I have two main thoughts from this.
One is that I hate when this happens where your
birthday is coming up, Samantha, and I wish I had
known this earlier. That would have been a great gift.
But then I think, Bridget, you should come on one
time and let us talk about something that's not so stressful.
(05:09):
Let's give let's give ourselves a little break. We can
talk about markers. I know you mentioned like reality TV.
We could have a whole thing where it's not something
so do all.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
The like dark stuff we should make. Let you come
in with the joys that you have because we just
talked about the Adirondacks and everything.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, I feel like people who listen to my content
might not know that I experienced joy I have I had.
The only things I talk about are not the crushing
weight of fascism.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
Enjoy reality television.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
I think this would be fun. I think we should
look at it all right.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
I like it.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Oh, but unfortunately before that day, we're not doing that today.
This is also the timing is interesting because we're Samantha
and I are working on an update on CPCs crisis
pregnancy centers. I know them very well, yes, and we
in our research ran into a lot of stuff about
(06:11):
how tech companies were basically paying for them to advertise
or accepting their money and being misleading about things. So
this is very much related. Uh, what are we talking
about today, bridget.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
Well, that is such a good transition because it's all related.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
But tech companies really have put their thumbs on the
scale when it comes to being able to get accurate
content about abortion on social media. Your point about crisis
pregnancy centers and the way that Google essentially is like
paying an advertising network for them to exist is a
great example. But today I really wanted to talk about
(06:48):
how social media is heavily moderating and even in some
cases like suppressing and censoring content about abortion. I think
that we all talked about this back in January. But
did you remember when Mark Zuckerberg had that moment that
people sort of talked about as his mask off moment
Back in January when Trump came back into office. I
think that we were talking about how he really started
(07:11):
dressing like a divorced nightclub promoter and was saying things like, oh,
we're taking the tampons out of the washrooms at the
restroot in here at Facebook, HQ just really was sort
of having a moment where he was saying a lot
of things.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
Do you remember this.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Oh yes, oh yes, he was like he leaned in hard.
He was hard.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
He's been waiting for those moments.
Speaker 4 (07:34):
Yes, Oh my gosh, you could tell.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
I mean I almost quippled when people were like, oh,
it's his mask off moment because I don't think that
Mark Zuckerberg has any kind of like I don't. I
wouldn't call it a mask off moment because I think
that he is the definition of a hollow, empty person,
and so I think he is the mask.
Speaker 4 (07:53):
He will say anything.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
I think that he has no he's I'm honestly fascinated
by him as a tech leader because I think that
he has no value, scruples, morals, there's just nothing. He
will say anything, he will do anything. However the wind blows,
that's how he will blow. And I don't think it's
fair to call that a mask moment when truly, like
what the mask is not hiding anything. This is just
(08:15):
genuinely like who you are, who you always have been,
just the soulless person who was waiting to see who
they should kiss up to you and will do that
if it means holding onto power.
Speaker 5 (08:25):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
He was just waiting in the background, like his personality
was just waiting in the shadows. And then it's like, ohh,
this is my moment.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
And so when that all was going on, he also
announced that Meta was going to be scrapping their community
notes feature and scrapping all third party fact checking on
the platform, because, as he said, it was time for
the company to get back to their roots when it
comes to free expression. I will play a little bit
of a video that he put out talking about this.
Speaker 5 (08:54):
Hey everyone, I want to talk about something important today
because it's time to get back to our roots around
free expression on Facebook and Instagram. I started building social
media to give people a voice. I gave a speech
at Georgetown five years ago about the importance of protecting
free expression and I still believe this today. But a
lot has happened over the last several years. There's been
(09:16):
widespread debate about potential harms from online content. Governments and
legacy media have pushed to censor more and more. A
lot of this is clearly political, but there's also a
lot of legitimately bad stuff out there, drugs, terrorism, child exploitation.
These are things that we take very seriously, and I
want to make sure that we handle responsibly.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
So I have a lot to say about that.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
First of all, very convenient rewriting of the history that
frankly wasn't that long ago, and that if you're listening
in your my age you probably remember, because we all
know it is not a secret that Facebook. Mark Fuckerberg
created Facebook as a college student to rank the looks
of the women in on his college campus. Somehow we
(10:00):
sort of let him get away with being like, I
created Facebook to protect free expression. Okay, sure, I don't know.
I always have to like quibble at that because he,
I guess saw a video where he said I created
Facebook because I wanted people to be able to have
debates about the Iraq War, and it's like, no, you did.
First of all, I was an organizer in the anti
(10:20):
war movement. Nobody was communicating on Facebook when were like,
Facebook wasn't for that.
Speaker 4 (10:25):
So that's just not true.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
I really have a thing where people lie to your
face about recent history that you remember that you were
therefore that you were part of so that's bullshit. But
even more than that, he's talking about how the content
that he really wants to focus on in terms of
moderating the platform is a legal content, right, child safety, harms,
(10:51):
drug trade, organized criminal activity, all of that. So this
is when he was really talking about how important it
was to protect free expression on social media platforms. Y'all
might recall that around this time he was in the
headlines for saying that you felt the Biden administration had
been trying to pressure Facebook into removing COVID misinformation. The
White House had a different take, saying, quote, when confronted
(11:13):
with the deadly pandemic, this administration encouraged responsible actions to
protect public health and safety. Our position has been very
clear and consistent. We believe tech companies and other private
actors should take into account the effects their actions have
on the American people while making independent choices about the
information they present. So, you know, Zuckerberg in this moment
was like, we are not going to be moderating political
(11:36):
content the way that we have been. We are going
to lift restrictions on topics that are part of mainstream
discourse and really just focus on the enforcement of a
legal and like high severity violation.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
So yay for free speech.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Right, that all sounds great, Well, all of that, it's
only the case if that part of the mainstream discourse
is not abortion, which Facebook continues to suppress and moderate
quite heavily with zero transparency and zero consistency.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
So it seems like.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
If you're spreading COVID misinformation, well that is protected speech
that needs to be left up for freedom. If you
are sharing accurate information about abortion that isn't even against
metas policies, they will take it down.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Yeah, and like you said, without warning or transpancy or nothing,
just is gone. And you might not know why or well,
you could probably figure it out. But one of the
things that's really frustrating about all of this is that,
you know, like you said, they're kind of lying to
our faces, right, Like they're saying one thing and doing
something completely different.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yeah, that's what really makes me angry about this. You know,
I cover a lot of tech companies. The thing that
gets me is when they lie, when they say one
thing publicly, when they publish something in their rules and
regulations and policies. You know, no one's putting a gun
to their head and making them put these things in
their rules. They put them in their rules, and then
they do a completely different thing, and then when advocates
(13:02):
or organizers call them out on it, there's just no
They're just like, oops, what are you gonna do that?
For some reason, that just really gets me, because they
are allowed to enjoy all of this positive press of
putting this thing in their policy and then continue doing
the shady work of going against that policy.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
It never it never comes back at them.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
But they're able to just do whatever they want while
saying one thing and doing another.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
And I just don't feel like they really get held accountable.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
And so a Meta spokesperson said that taking down abortion
content goes against Meta's own intentions. A spokesperson told The
New York Times, we want our platforms to be a
place where people can access reliable information about health services,
advertisers can promote health services, and everyone can discuss and
debate public policies in this space. That is why we
(13:51):
allow posts and ads discussing and debating abortion. But they're
not doing that at all. Because the big thing to
know here is that Meta says one thing in their
policies and then does a completely different thing when it
comes to how they are actually moderating abortion content.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Yeah, and it's it's it's so difficult right now to
get that good information and there's so much misinformation and
disinformation out there, and to remove it is just really
piling onto a problem that really doesn't need any more
piling onto. It is already really bad and people are
(14:29):
already very confused. This is not helping.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
No, that's a really good context to set that. You know,
we're in a time where the Supreme Court struck down Row.
It is so much harder to access accurate information about
help so that people can make health decisions for themselves.
And when social media platforms like Facebook put their thumb
(14:55):
on the scales and make these kinds of moderation decisions
with no transparency that go against their own stated policy,
it just makes that climate so much harder. It makes
it harder for the people who are trying to do
this work, abortion providers and abortion advocates. It makes it
harder for people who need to make decisions about their
health and the people that support them. It makes it
(15:15):
so that people cannot access information.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
To figure out what they want to do with their own.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Bodies and lives, and these companies do that while saying, oh,
we promote the ability to use our platforms to get
this kind of information. I would prefer that they say
we don't like abortion, we don't want people using our
platform to talk about abortion, so we take that content off.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
At least that would be honest.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
But what they are doing is lying to people about
what they're actually doing while doing it. It's so it's
it's really adding insult to injury.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Right, I mean, the true honest answer probably is that
they are taking money or they know that they are
just buying time until the entirety of our rights and
productive rights may be completely dismantled in every way. And
that way they can already say, hey, leaders of this
fascist regime, we have done everything for you, so can
(16:11):
you keep supporting our platform and give us more money?
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Ugh, I mean the way that you've got the fox
Watch in the Henhouse here, the way that platforms are
able to cozy up to really, I mean, it's not
even really the Trump administration, just whoever is in power.
Speaker 4 (16:28):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
And then though that administration is also the administration that
is meant to be overseeing and regulating them. It's horrible
and so we really it's I'm glad that you brought
that up, because I think that helps us peel back
the layers of what exactly is going on here and
why it's so unacceptable.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
And in understanding that that the whole confusion part is
probably the point.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
I think that's true.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
I mean, in looking at some of the ways that
Facebook says one thing and does another when it comes
to moderating abortion content, I think that's exactly the point.
It's like, you know, if we and we'll get into
this a little bit in a moment, but if we
create a confusing, inconsistent, not transparent climate, people will just
stop posting this information on our platforms.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
And so we don't have to crack down on all
of it.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
We don't have to have a policy that does not
allow for abortion content to be on our platform. It'll
there'll be a chilling effect and people will do it
on their own. They'll just stop posting on their own,
and I think, in my opinion, that's the why of
why this is happening. So Meta says that they really
(17:35):
want to focus on moderating posts that deal with illegal content.
Side note, they don't always do such a great job
of that either, But that's for another episode. So meta's
Dangerous Organizations and Individuals ORDI policy was supposed to really
be like a narrow policy focusing on preventing the platform
from being used by terrorist groups or organized crime like
(17:57):
violent or criminal activity. But according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation,
over the years, we've really seen those rules be applied
in far broader and troubling ways, with little transparency and
significant impact on marginalized voices. And this has essentially allowed
META to suppress factual content about abortion that does not
actually break any of the platform's rules.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
So the reason let me know this is.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Because the Electronic Frontier Foundation or EFF have really given
us a snapshot into what's happening and provided some very
clear receipts with their Stoff Censoring Abortion campaign eff sas
they collected stories from individuals, healthcare clinics, advocacy groups, and more,
and together they've revealed nearly one hundred examples of posts
and resources being taken down, ranging from guidance on medication
(18:43):
abortion to links of resources supporting individuals in states with
abortion bands. What is important to note is that the
posts that they found that weren't taken down or that
resulted in sometimes a ban did not break any of
Meta's rules. Eff said, we analyze these takedowns, deletions, and
bands comparing the content to what platform policies allow, particularly
(19:06):
those of Meta, and found that almost none of the
submissions we received violated any of the platform stated policies.
Most of the censored posts simply provided factual, educational information.
So it really is a system where you don't know,
I mean, I guess you could guess why this content
is being taken down. There's no consistency, there's no transparency,
(19:28):
and Facebook just gets to be like oopsie when it happens.
Here's a great example of a post that was removed
from a healthcare policy strategist named Lauren Carer discussing abortion
pills availability by mail. Her post reads, FYI, abortion pills
are great to have around, whether you anticipate needing them
or not. Plan C Pills is an amazing resource to
help you find reliable sources for abortion pills by mail,
(19:50):
no matter where you live. Once received, the pill should
be kept in a cool, dry place. The shelf life
of maybe pristone is about five years. The shelf life
of misso pristal is about two years. There's a missipriystal
only regiment that is extremely safe, effective, and very common globally,
So that post is just here is some factual information
about these pills. However, Facebook removed that post, and the
(20:15):
explanation they gave Lauren was that they don't allow people
to buy, sell, or exchange drugs that require a prescription
from a doctor or a pharmacist. But as you can tell,
that post isn't about selling or buying or trading medication.
It is just fact based information about that medication.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
Yeah, it's one of those things where you read it
and you're like, I don't see the see the thing,
the thing that you're saying is there. It's just it's
just information. Uh oh it makes you bad.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, And Eff points out that this post does not
break any of Meta's rules and should not be removed.
But you don't have to take their word for it
or my word for it, because Meta said the exact
same thing. Eff points out that Meta publicly insists that
posts like these should not be censored, and if February
twenty twenty four letter to Amnesty International, metas Human Rights
(21:10):
policy director wrote organic content i e. Non Paid content
educating users about medication abortion, is allowed and does not
violate our community standards. Additionally, providing guidance on legal access
to pharmaceuticals is allowed.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
So what the hell is suck?
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Like?
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Why if it's allowed, why are you taking it down?
Speaker 3 (21:31):
I'm so curious about because if the moderators are essentially
kind of removed, then is this just a they have
like a keyword, like, how is this happening? Is there
a person or.
Speaker 4 (21:44):
That is a great question.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
If I had to guess, I would say, just knowing
what I know about content moderation, I would say this
is probably over use of AI moderation and then not
caring enough to correct that. That's if I had to say,
I would say, because honestly, content moderation is a job
for a not just a human, but a culturally competent human.
(22:06):
When you don't have culturally competent humans making that moderation decisions,
it's a problem, and it's a problem that leads to
the content of marginalized people being suppressed much more on
these platforms. Right, So, if I had to guess, I
would say, this is somebody using an AI content moderation
and then not caring enough to correct that. It is
consistently taking down content that does not break any of
(22:28):
the platform's rules. That's my guess.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Well, and that kind of relates to another thing I
know you're going to talk about, which is something Smith
and I've also talked about on some of our episodes.
Is shadow banding.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
I mean, shadow banning is one of those issues that
I find very interesting because who among us has not
posted something on social media? Had that post not perform
as well as you were expecting, and wonder am I
shadow band I have definitely thought this myself. If you've
ever thought that, you are not alone. But it does
really happen. So shadow banning is what a social media
platform limits the visibility of someone's content without telling them.
(23:04):
And this is happening to people and organizations that make
content about sexual and reproductive health. And it's a real
problem because, as we were talking about before the Internet
in twenty twenty five, like that is really where people
are going to find information about their health, especially in
a landscape where that information is more difficult to come by,
where it's criminalized and cracked down on.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
So people need the Internet as a resource.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
And so if the people and advocates and organizations who
provide that information online are shadow band it becomes that
much harder to access what is often life saving information
to help people make health decisions. Earlier this year, the
Center for Intimacy Justice shared a report called the Digital
Gag Suppression of Sexual and Reproductive Health on Meta, TikTok, Amazon,
(23:50):
and Google, and they found that of the one hundred
and fifty nine nonprofits, content creators, sex educators, and businesses
that they surveyed, sixty three percent had content removed on Meta,
fifty five percent had content removed on TikTok. And this
suppression is happening at the same time as platforms continue
to allow and elevate videos of violence and gore and
extremist and hateful content. And this pattern is troubling because
(24:14):
it only becomes more prevalent as folks turn more and
more to social media to find the information that they
need to make decisions about their health. And so I
like that context, because we really do have a social
media landscape that allows for violent content, gory content, extremist
or hateful content to stay up while taking down accurate
(24:35):
content about reproductive health that they agreed does not violate
any of their policies.
Speaker 3 (24:43):
It's pretty telling to you. You have some examples here,
and one of them is from a place near us
that I was like, oh, dear, oh dear Emery. Yeah, yep,
but I mean it's also, oh, as we're doing this
research on the CPC episode, I consider myself pretty you know,
(25:09):
pretty informed about abortion and all of it, but I
had to look up some stuff about like, I'm not
sure is that legal there? I don't know, Like I
was feeling like, I know, I don't know if I
can trust this information. And then you try to go
to a place where you're like, okay, I know this place,
and then you find out it's taken down, it doesn't
have anything about it. Yeah, it's not a good climate.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
And then you have Google allowing CPCs to stay, you know,
high ranked in their search. And then when you go
to CPCs they tell you all kinds of misinformation about
pregnancy and abortion. They are allowed to just essentially lie
to people, people who are in vulnerable situations. And so
it's already a climate where it's hard to find trustworthy,
(25:55):
accurate information, and then the clearly not trustworthy, clearly not
accurate information is allowed to not just allowed to exist,
but they put their thumb on the scales in terms
of making it more accessible than information that is factual.
Speaker 4 (26:14):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
So let us get into some of these examples, including
the one near us.
Speaker 4 (26:19):
So let's talk about what happened at Emory University.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
So RISE at Emor University, the Center for Reproductive Health
and Research in the Southeast, they published a post saying,
let's talk about Miffy pristone and its uses and the
importance of access. So they post this online. Two months later,
their account was suddenly suspended, flagged under the policy against
selling illegal drugs, which they were not selling or offering
(26:42):
illegal drugs. They were just giving fact based health information.
They tried to appeal, but that appeal was denied, leading
to their account being permanently deleted. Sarah Read, the director
of Research and Translation at RISE, told Eff as a team,
this was a hit to our morale. We poor account
less hours of person power, creativity and passion into creating
(27:03):
the content we have on our page and having it
vanished virtually overnight took a toll on our team. And
you know, I really think, like think about how critical
that information is these days, and how critical social media
is these days. They are already doing sensitive work in
an area where that work is threatened, and so losing
(27:24):
your social media that you've put so much time into
is like losing a lifeline, both for the staff and
for the community that you're trying to do that work in.
As Eff puts it, For many organizational users like Rise,
their social media accounts are repository for resources and metrics
that may not be stored elsewhere. We spent a significant
amount of already constrained team capacity attempting to recover all
(27:47):
of the content we created for Instagram that was potentially
going to be permanently lost. We also spent a significant
amount of time and energy trying to understand what options
we might have available for Meta to appeal our case
and recover our account. Their support options are not easily accessible,
and the time it took to navigate this issue distracted
from our existing work. So I totally feel what they
(28:10):
are saying that when you are doing work that is
that critical, you know, time sensitive, having to stop that
work to figure out, well, how are we going to
appeal this decision to Meta? Is all of are all
of our years and years of work on Instagram just
lost forever? That is a real problem. And again, they
weren't doing anything wrong. They're they're nothing that they posted
(28:30):
on their account was against metas policies. It's just arbitrary
and so luckily they were able to eventually get their
account back, but only because they knew someone who knew
somebody who worked at Facebook personally, which is really the
only way to appeal when this kind of thing happens.
If you, if you if your account is taken down
for no real reason by Facebook, I am sorry to say,
(28:51):
unless you have a friend who knows somebody who works
at Facebook, you're probably not going to be able to
appeal again because a lot of these decisions are AI right.
It can be very very hard to sate to a
human and the only real way to do it is
to just know somebody there. And again, I just feel
that in these situations where Meta agrees these posts are
not in violation of their rules and that they admit
(29:11):
they made a mistake, it should not come down to
knowing somebody at Facebook to have these decisions be reversed
when Meta agrees they are mistakes on their part.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
Now I'm trying to think if I know someone on
Facebook I used to, I don't know if we're still there. Well,
another issue with this is, as you said, if people
(29:44):
are worried that their content might be deleted or shadow banned,
or just they've seen this happen to other organizations or
something like that, then they might not post it anymore.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Yeah, I have to assume that is the point eff rights.
At the end of the day, clinics are clinics are
left afraid to post basic information, patients are left confused
or misinformed, and researchers lose access to these audiences. But
unless your issue catches the attention of a journalist or
you know, someone at Meta, you might never regain access
(30:19):
to your account. And so I really think that that
is the sort of so what here that Meta is
doing this to sort of not explicitly discourage organizations and
advocates and people from posting this kind of information on
their platform, while saying the opposite, because it is going
to have a silencing effect.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
You know, nobody wants to risk.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Losing their entire platform, years and years and years of
content and research and resources they've collected.
Speaker 4 (30:47):
Yeah, no one that's going to want to take that risk, right.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
It's interesting that their policy with like the things that
we're going to actually moderate is about terror and gain
and child endangerment, which is kind of a dog whistle
for what the Republican platform has been to for jump
to all of this morality level of issues, and that
(31:13):
the fact that Zuckerberg is like, you know what, Yeah,
we're gonna adopt this too, but it's purely to protect
the people's We're just protecting the people's And again it
does seem like see, see we're doing like you, we
got your back. We also agree with this. This is
the only way or this is the best way to
control what information is being out there.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
Yes, and if you actually I mean, this is a
whole other topic.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
But when you look at the way so they say, okay,
we're only gonna be cracking down on content that creates
harm for kids, this dog whistle that they love.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
To pull up.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
And then when you look at the kind of harm
for kids that they either allow or advocate, part of
me is like, what what content are you actually taking down?
I don't know if you all saw the recent reporting.
There was a very interesting report I think from the
Wall Street Journal where they had gotten their hands on
an internal policy document. So this is something that somebody
(32:10):
at Facebook said this is our policy, totally fine to
have in writing, no problem. That said that Meta's chatbots
were allowed to engage in sensual play with minors, so kids,
it was okay with Meta if they're chatbots engaged in
(32:31):
like sensual I won't say sexual, but I would say
I've seen some of the content and it is sort
of spicy that it's okay if they're if they're bot
to do that with children. And part of me is like,
I cannot believe you will put this in writing. I
cannot believe that someone at Facebook said, yeah, this is
a this is a document, I'll attach my name to this.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
Well and behold.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
When the Wall Street Journal asked about it, they were like,
oh no, we have since walked that policy back. That's
no longer our official, on the record. Our official on
the record policy is no longer that it's okay, hey,
for our bots to engage in sexy role play with kids.
Speaker 4 (33:04):
We've walked that back. I bet you did walk that.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Back today as you asked this question.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
I'm sure it happened right after the Wall Street Journal
called them and asked them about it.
Speaker 4 (33:14):
I'm so sure that it was like an hour later
we walked at that.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
We got this now, No, we would never right.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Well, yeah, and I mean you were here Bridget, I
guess it was years ago and you were talking about
another kind of whistlebrower account of Facebook knowing it was
harming young girls.
Speaker 4 (33:36):
Yeah, Francis hogen Is is the whistleblower. Why we know that?
Speaker 3 (33:40):
Yeah, So it's it is very galling for them to
be like, we want to protect the children, and then
you have these things that again directly show that clearly
you don't, not.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
Really and to be clear, that is knowingly harming kids.
So I just think it's very interesting that Facebook gets
to say, well, we're too busy focusing on content that
harms kids to take down to really care that much
about what's going on with our abortion content. And that's
the content we're really working on.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
But really we're not doing that either.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
You know what I mean, they get they really. It
just infuriates me, it really does. And I think the
issue really is to understand is in twenty twenty five,
when you have a question, When I have a question,
the first place I go is the internet, right we
all that's I think that is the reality for most
of us, and the internet and social media really has
become this lifeline for folks trying to get information about
(34:37):
the world around us, including our sexual and reproductive health.
And if folks are not able to find what they
need in their own communities, which I'm sorry to say
is becoming more and more of the reality these days,
they are going to go online to turn to social
media to fill those gaps. That access really matters most
for folks whose care is being cut off, like abortion
(34:58):
seekers or or queer youth living in states where healthcare
is under attack. And so if you have these social
media platforms kind of adding to a landscape where that
information is difficult to access, even if that information is
not against their rules, it's just making it that much
more difficult.
Speaker 4 (35:16):
And these decisions really do matter.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
I mean they some of them are life or death,
and they really have real world impact on people's lives.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Absolutely, And unfortunately this is not this is part of
kind of a larger issue, kind of a larger attack,
gendered attack. Correct.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
Yes, so this is something I find so interesting and
I actually should come back and do another episode on it.
In the middle of some research on it right now.
But the Center for Intimacy Justice, who's report I mentioned earlier.
They have another report that really shows how platforms routinely
suppress sexual health content for women and trans folks, while
leaving content aimed at supporting the sexual health of CIS
(35:58):
men largely untouched. Right, So, I know lots of people
who run businesses that are focused on the sexual health
of people who are not CIS men. Right, So, if
you have pelvic pain, if you need sex toys, like
all these different things that are aimed at people who
are not cisgender men. I have lots of friends who
(36:19):
run businesses like that. They are essentially not able to
do any kind of advertising on Facebook because Facebook does
not allow it. However, Facebook certainly allows information about the
sexual wellness of cisgender men. So we really have a
climate where, let's face it, mostly men who run these
(36:40):
platforms are able to determine whose sexual health is important
and who is not, whose healthcare is healthcare, and whose
is like something perverted that needs to be suppressed and
isn't allowed on their platform.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Yeah. Now I'm thinking about it as I've been looking
at Instagram the amount of GLP one ads that I've
been getting, which is interesting because I thought that was
medication that you had to get their doctor is overwhelming.
But also on the vice versa of that is meles
you know, health sex health bs. Those are the two
(37:14):
ads that I get. Definitely nothing about women in birth
control rarely, there's a few that but it's very as
of late, I think zero. But the amount of GLP
one ads, I'm like, whoa, what is happening Instagram? I
thought we weren't allowing this.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Yes, I mean the amount of ads I get specifically
for the a rectail dysfunction medication blue.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
Chew, and the ads are do have you ever seen
these ads online?
Speaker 2 (37:39):
The ads are clearly targeted at women, So it's a
cute woman being like, ladies, get your man to get
blue chee, blue shoe is gonna rock your world.
Speaker 4 (37:51):
Get your man on blue shoe.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
And that's a medication that is that is an arectail
dysfunction prescription medication.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
But these platforms have just decide, oh no, that's okay,
that's that.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
You can you can show that all day long, no problem,
you can boost it, you can put money behind it.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Totally fine again like and then the other part being
the weight loss medication, which slowly a lot more information
comes back, like oh, there's side effects. This might not
be as good as you think.
Speaker 4 (38:16):
By the way, Oh yes, I'll just say yes. I'll
just say yes.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
Well that's like as of late, and we know this
was coming. We knew this was coming because they've also
got variations that are not FDA approved, which I guess
means very little at this point in time. But again
that this is the rampant amount of ass like every
two like scrolls on Instagram that pops up, and on
Facebook too, which is I'm like, I don't even go
(38:41):
to Facebook. I just need to know people's birthdays. That's
all I need, That's all I really want. But again,
this seems to be like I thought once, if that
was your policy from Jump, then how are these as
paying you, I know, paying you millions? How are these okay?
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Yeah, their policy is totally inconsistent, seemingly arbitrary, and seemingly
biased against any kind of marginal identity. Like that's just
what's going on. They don't have any transparency. They say
one thing and do another. Uh, and that just is
the is the norm for them, and it's I really
do think that we should be talking about how you know, again,
(39:21):
let's be honest we're talking about mostly men, and mostly
not just men, like a specific kind of man, white moneyed,
coastal all of that. How we have given them so
much power to define what knowledge is acceptable, whose voices
are amplified, whose bodies are are left at risk, and
when platforms decide what can and can't be shared.
Speaker 4 (39:42):
They are making.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Public health decisions with global consequences in ways that are
often contrary to public health, and then also reinforce systemic
and equalities. And so I just think, you know, this
is not just we're not just talking about like vague
policy language. I know that I have spent a lot
of time talking about that because it's a nois But
it's really about them deciding who gets to speak, who
(40:04):
gets seen, who gets access to the information that they
need to make decisions about their own health and bodies.
When Meta and these platforms silence accurate, essential sexual and
reproductive health information for not just enforcing inconsistent body rules,
I mean they are, but they're not just doing that.
They are also shaping people's lives and really deciding whose
(40:25):
health matters and whose doesn't. And in a world where
we know the internet has really become this lifeline that
is not just annoying, although I am annoid, it is
dangerous because free speech shouldn't come with a disclaimer that
your body's safety is just optional and up to the
whims of Mark Zuckerberg.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
No, I don't want to live in that world.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
No, No, I mean I think about this all the time,
the ways that these individuals, like a handful of individual
mostly white guys, get to define what our worlds look
like in these very con create ways.
Speaker 4 (41:00):
And I've never met Mark Zuckerberg.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Although I have met Cheryl Sandberg, but I've never met
Mark Zuckerberg. I don't want Mark Zuckerberg in charge of
deciding anything for my life. I don't think Mark Zuckerberg
and I have any common idea about what it means
to have a good, fulfilled life. I don't want him
designing what my future looks like.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
I think that's very wise.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
I mean that one movie made him look really pretty
much a dick.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
So, oh my god, you mean The Social Network, one
of my favorite movies.
Speaker 4 (41:31):
Oh my god. I don't want to I don't want.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
To spoil it, but the ending of that movie is
my version of Citizen Kane.
Speaker 4 (41:38):
Have you both have seen it?
Speaker 1 (41:40):
Yeah, I've not seen it. I've seen clips because I'm like,
I don't want even want to know, but he seems.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
Like a dick.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
Go home and watch it tonight. I know your birthday
is coming up, birthday? Is it a fun birthday watch?
I mean, I'm such a nerd. I say it's a
fun watch. But if you're looking for a movie to
watch on your birthday, that might be that might.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Be the one.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
It's a good it's a solid like, oh, yeah, you're
just a sad man ending.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Yes, you know what I'm talking about, you kids, Citizen Kane,
the sled moment at the end of that movie. It
haunts me, and I think if you haven't, I think
if you've seen it, it gives context for some of the
stuff we've talked about when it comes to Upberg today.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
All right, without even seeing it, I was like, all right.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Also love it as such a dark soundtrack?
Speaker 4 (42:30):
Who is it yet?
Speaker 2 (42:33):
Nobody does a haunting soundtrack like Trent Resnor Gone Girl
soundtrack soundtrack to Challenger is also Trent Resnor, And that's
the soundtrack I put on when I'm writing if you
need to focus and just like put on some headphones
and be like we are writing.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
Let's do that is your soundtrack.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
Rednor can write a dark movie soundtrack like Nobody's Business.
Speaker 4 (42:55):
And I love that.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
It was in this movie about this college kid trying
to get a girl to like Oh Lord, yes, okay,
well we'll revisit that later. We'll do uh maybe you
know we had a fun time trash talking some Hugh
Heffner that one time. We'll come back with a fun
(43:18):
thing for you, Bridget, and you can side because you
always bring us these heavy topics of your choosing. But
before then, thank you so much for being here. Where
can the good listeners find you?
Speaker 2 (43:31):
You can find me on my podcast. There are no
girls on the internet. You can find me on Instagram.
I know it's owned by Max Zarckerberg. I don't like
it either. At Bridget Bryan DC, TikTok at Bridget Bran DC,
and on YouTube.
Speaker 4 (43:43):
There are no girls on the internet.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
Yes, go check all of that out if you have
it already, Listeners, if you would like to contact us,
you can you can email us at Hello stuff, I
never told you. You can find us on Blue Scott
most of podcast or Instagram and TikTok at Stuff. I
never told you. We're also on YouTube. We have new
merchandise ad Cotton Bureau, and we have a book you
can get wherever you get your books. Thanks always her
as suproducer with senior executive producer, my under contributor Joey.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Thank you and thanks to you for listening.
Speaker 3 (44:10):
Stuff never told this book should by Heart Radio. For
more podcast from my Heart Radio, you can check out
the heart Radio app, a podcast or where you listen
to your favorite shows.
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