There Are No Girls on the Internet
Marginalized voices have always been at the forefront of the internet, yet our stories often go overlooked. Bridget Todd chronicles our experiences online, and the ways marginalized voices have shaped the internet from the very beginning. We need monuments to all of the identities that make being online what it is. So let’s build them.
Episodes
App for outing people who were insufficiently mournful of Charlie Kirk critics leaked its own users’ personal data through security blunders: https://san.com/cc/app-for-outing-charlie-kirks-critics-leaked-its-users-personal-data/
Meta is using parents’ back-to-school photos of their girls to advertise Threads to grown men: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/sep/20/parents-outraged-meta-uses-photos-schoolgi...
In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder, the Trump Administration and their collaborators are prosecuting a widespread crackdown on free expression. Karen Attiah has been a columnist at the Washington Post for 11 years, and was the last remaining Black columnist at the newspaper until last week. She was fired, allegedly for being insufficiently mournful over murdered racist Charlie Kirk, but at this point her firing seems less a...
Not gonna lie - it's been a rough week. The Trump administration has used Charlie Kirk's murder to crack down on dissent, shocking even their allies with their willingness to threaten critics and trample First Amendment values. But these authoritarians will fail. Bridget is joined by L. Joy Williams, president of the New York NAACP and host Sunday Civics on Sirius XM and wherever you get your podcasts, to recap the latest developme...
Welcome to our weekly news round up, where we dig into some of the tech stories you might have missed. This week, Bridget is joined by guest co-host Ashley Ray, host of Courier's smart podcast "TV I Say."
CBS just keeps caving harder and harder to appease the Trump administration. https://newrepublic.com/article/199889/kristi-noem-attack-cbs-kilmar-garcia-trump-scam
Charlie Kirk built his career by debating students and spreading rhetoric that was too often dismissed as “spirited debate.”
Now, in the wake of his death, politicians and media outlets are rushing to rewrite his legacy. In this episode, Bridget digs into what Kirk really stood for, why his words mattered, and why violence doesn’t erase bigotry.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Last week in Wired, Taylor Lorenz published an exposé on Chorus, a new force in Democratic politics that is funding Democratic influencers. Her piece has sparked major controversy among political influencers and their observers online.
In this episode, Bridget breaks down what the article reveals (and what it leaves out), and explores what this fight says about money, power, and trust in American democracy.
On this week's edition, Bridget runs through the news with Producer Mike. Tech companies saying, "Our policies prohibit the harm that is rampant on our platform!" is the theme of today's episode.
AI deepfake comic: https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/aaaah
Meta creates flirty celebrity chatbots without permission, calls it "parody," trains them to talk to children romantically. https://www.reuters.com/business/meta-created-flirt...
Rightwing media often spread the myth that trans people are violent or dangerous — a false narrative with zero evidence. These “trans terror” stories persist online and in the news, fueling real-world harm against the trans community. In this episode, Bridget and producer Joey Patt unpack the origins of these myths, explain why they stick, and show how the false idea of “trans terror” makes everyone le...
For this week's News Roundup, Bridget is joined by her longtime friend and colleague Nima Shirazi, co-host of the OG podcast "Citations Needed" about how media shapes power.
TikTok Shop Sells Viral GPS Trackers Marketed to Stalkers: https://www.404media.co/tiktok-shop-sells-viral-gps-trackers-marketed-to-stalkers/
ICE Is Using Taylor Swift’s Loophole To Hide Deportation Flights: https://archive.ph/dPDqw#selection-701.0-7...
Why does it feel like the main voices dominating tech today are basically super villains? Billionaires who don’t care if the world gets worse, just as long as they get a little richer.
We hear them everywhere— their bad ideas, their grievances are all amplified.
Anil Dash, one of the internet’s earliest voices, says it didn’t used to be this way. He's been a highly visible and impactful techie, writer,...
Bridget is joined in this week's news roundup by tech journalist Dexter Thomas, prolific writer, videographer, and host of the excellent podcast "Kill Switch".
Dex recently wrote a piece in Wired about anime girl VTubers selling out concerts, and how the question of whether they're "real" depends on kayfabe and who you ask: https://www.wired.com/story/anime-girl-vtubers-are-selling-out-concerts-but-are-they-real-depends-on-who...
Bridget and Producer Mike are taking a break from the dystopian surveillance nightmare unfolding in their city of Washington, DC, to review Amazon's new War of the Worlds movie. It stars Ice Cube and is about a dystopian surveillance nightmare that unfolds in Washington, DC. Art imitates life!
This movie is terrible, but it does raise questions like, "Is this even a movie?" It's also 90 minutes of nonstop propaganda for Amazo...
We're excited to share the first episode of Peabody Award-nominated podcast Long Shadow’s new season, Breaking the Internet.
Hosted by Pulitzer Prize finalist and historian Garrett Graff, Long Shadow: Breaking the Internet charts the evolution of the internet – from the optimistic days of the dot-com boom to our present moment. Produced by Long Lead and distributed by PRX, this seven-part series aims to tell the s...
This week, President Trump seized control of Washington DC's police. It's national news, but it's also deeply personal for Bridget, who was born in DC and has lived here most of her life.
The situation is still unfolding, but Bridget breaks down what's happening, what decades of DC history say about how we got here, and why people on both the right and the left are talking about it wrong.
A woman named Kendra went viral on TikTok with a series of videos about her relationship with her human psychiatrist, but the videos took a surprising turn when she introduced her ChatGPT “therapist” she calls Henry.
More people than you might think are forming social relationships with chatbots, some of them romantic and even sexual. When OpenAI released their new ChatGPT-5 model last week, replacing the o...
This week, Bridget is joined by Producer Mike to break down the tech stories you might have missed.
Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve had some eloquent, powerful things to say about the sexist crypto bros who threw dildos at WNBA players as a publicity stunt for their new meme coin. It's less than a minute and worth a listen: https://www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/comments/1mkdusa/lynx_coach_cheryl_reeve_livid_over_sex_toy/
Everyone is asking questions about Trump’s connections to Jefferey Epstein, but the president isn’t the only powerful person or institution linked to him.
You might know that connections to convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein led to the resignation of the director of the MIT Media Lab, Joi Ito, after a Ronan Farrow exposé.
But fewer people know that Arwa Mboya, an MIT student and Kenyan virtual reality p...
This week Bridget recaps the tech stories you might have missed with longtime friend of the show indispensable Internet advocate Abbie Richards.
She is the Steve Martin of TANGOTI. If you're not following Abbie on TikTok you're missing out! www.tiktok.com/@tofology
US labor hero and friend of the show Chris Smalls, co-founder of the Amazon Labor Union, was beaten and choked by IDF soldiers while trying to deliver aid to Gaza. https...
The Tea App promised a safe, anonymous space for women to share personal experiences with men they dated. Instead, it leaked their private data.
There’s tons of inaccurate, fear mongering information about the leak out there. So in this episode, we’ll break down what happened with the Tea App leak, why it matters, and what it reveals about tech’s ongoing failure to take women’s privacy seriously...
Bridget runs through this week's tech news you might have missed with the brilliant Dr. Titi Shodiya, co-host of the excellent podcast Dope Labs.
LISTEN TO DOPE LABS! https://www.dopelabspodcast.com/
FOLLOW DR. TITI SHODIYA: https://www.instagram.com/dr_tsho/
Debate-style video roils internet after participant openly identifies as fascist: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/jubilee-debate-video-fascist-participant-roils-int...
Popular Podcasts
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
The heart was always off-limits to surgeons. Cutting into it spelled instant death for the patient. That is, until a ragtag group of doctors scattered across the Midwest and Texas decided to throw out the rule book. Working in makeshift laboratories and home garages, using medical devices made from scavenged machine parts and beer tubes, these men and women invented the field of open heart surgery. Odds are, someone you know is alive because of them. So why has history left them behind? Presented by Chris Pine, CARDIAC COWBOYS tells the gripping true story behind the birth of heart surgery, and the young, Greatest Generation doctors who made it happen. For years, they competed and feuded, racing to be the first, the best, and the most prolific. Some appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, operated on kings and advised presidents. Others ended up disgraced, penniless, and convicted of felonies. Together, they ignited a revolution in medicine, and changed the world.
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.