In this episode, Stephanie speaks with authors of I Think You’re Wrong, But I’m Listening Sara Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers, comedian Michael Ian Black, and president of activist group Color of Change Rashad Robinson about the powers and pitfalls of social media.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Modern Rules, a production of MSNBC and
I Heart Radio. One reason social media gets out of
control so quickly is we we don't feel like we're
using our voices. You know, we're talking through our fingers,
and that's a different thing. Of course, it hurts my feelings.
Anytime somebody attacks you, it hurts your feelings. But when
my feelings are it is generally, I think, because there's
(00:21):
some truth to it all. Technology, in my opinion, has
the potential to sort of create these uh real frictions
in our society. I mean, birth of a nation came
through movie. Right. It is nearly impossible, at least in
my experience, to make a point on social media that
requires any level of nuance. If you don't see social
(00:45):
media as a blunt instrument, you are quickly going to
be trolled, ratioed, misinterpreted, and just knocked out of the game.
So as much as we say, oh, the platforms to
get your voice out there are stronger and better than ever,
depends on what that voices and what you want to say,
the image you create for yourself, the profile, the category
(01:06):
you fit into, your boxed in and if you dare
try to be an actual person, a human, change your tone,
have a different voice. Well, that tribe that you're in
in that social media bucket now thinks you've abandoned them.
So my challenges. If social media is where we can
actually be our real selves and connect over that, maybe
(01:29):
we need to treat it in a little bit of
a different way. I'm Stephanie Rule, MSNBC anchor and NBC
News correspondent, and this is Modern Rules. In this season
of Modern Rules, I'm going to be spending time unpacking
(01:51):
the harriest conversations from privilege to political correctness to try
and figure out how we can navigate this changing world
and arek through to actually talk with and learn from
the people who disagree with us and maybe just maybe
learn something along the way. Together on Modern Rules, we
(02:12):
are going to get into navigating the very tricky and
sometimes treacherous waters of social media with my guests comedian
Michael Ian Black, Sarah Holland and Beth Silver's of the
podcast pant Suit Politics, and digital activists Rashad Robinson. My
first guest, Michael Ian Black is a funny, compassionate, thoughtful
(02:33):
human being. Okay, I think all the time that social
media is the worst place ever because it's where you
get your head kicked in by trolls. But to that
exact point, before social media existed, the biggest most powerful
institutions the church, media, corporate America. They were impenetrable. You
(02:57):
could not touch them. But now because of social media,
every tiny little voice can get out there and they
throw a hashtag, and I could complain going, oh my god,
I can't believe all of these people just they put
a hashtag on it, and and now they've said I'm
racially insensitive. I mean I do. I do see a
lot of the positive and social media, and I've been
on the receiving end of a ton of the negative
(03:19):
aspect of it. I will say for my own like
just personal growth, when I am less defensive, there are
things that occur on social media, criticisms of me, insults
towards me, trolling at me that ends up having a
positive effect my master hurt your feelings, of course, it
hurts my feelings. Anytime somebody attacks you, it hurts your feelings.
(03:43):
But when my feelings are hurt, it is generally I think,
because there's some truth to it. If there's no truth
to it, why would it affect me one way or
the other, wouldn't. But if but if something is hurting me,
it's because it's touching some nerve that I need to
look at and deal with it accordingly. I mean, if
you insult my career, for example, and tell you're just
(04:04):
a washed up actor, if that hurts me, it's because
some of me suspects, oh yeah, that might be true.
But if you say to me, you know, what you
said is racist or whatever, and I react with indignity
or defensiveness or insult, I may have to look at
that a little more closely and ask what what did
(04:25):
I say that prompted that? And at the very least,
if I can examine that and look at it and
come to a conclusion about it, that's more work than
I would have done otherwise. It's funny to say that
when Fox News does segments on me at night, it's
but here's the thing. Whenever they do it, there's always
a little bit of truth that they're right. Whenever they
(04:46):
do it, it's on like a Thursday or a Friday,
when chances are I was tired, I was a little
lazy that day. I was you know, I was sloppy
in my commentary, I went too far and so like
a lot of what they do is exaggerated and wrong.
But at the heart of it, I kind of did
screw up that day that part of it. They are
kind of striking a chord. I think forgiveness and grace
(05:09):
is something we really need to bring back in a
bigger way because we are in this cancel culture. I
did defend zzon sorry last year, and I said, hold
on a second. They were on a really bad date.
And there may be lots of microaggressions and in ways
that women think they have to behave in order to
get men to like them, but that's far different from
(05:30):
something else. I saw you this year try to give
some grace and space to Louis c K and you
were annihilated. How did it make you feel horrible? Horrible
for a variety of reasons. It started with exactly what
this conversation started with, which is people in private I'm
(05:51):
including when I say people, I mean me and others,
people that I would have conversations with talking about new wants, misinterpretation, misunderstanding, miscommunication,
and how those things can spiral out of control and
(06:11):
turn into something that they were never meant to be,
and I got on Twitter also a friend of mine
had had had just died, and I was thinking a
lot about exactly that grace and forgiveness, and I was
in a kind of sensitive headspace as well, and I
was feeling like, those private conversations that I have with
(06:32):
people where they're willing to sort of give that space
and forgiveness and grace to somebody, can that private conversation
be had in a public forum? And so I tried
and the answer was no. I felt bad because I
mistakenly thought that I had a little credibility in this
arena because I've been so outspoken in favor of women
(06:54):
and survivors and LGBT stuff like like just a ton
of like just progressive issues, like I've been very got
some progressive I hoped, And I was hoping that in
trying to have this conversation not in defense of Louis
(07:15):
specifically and and and not saying like I was rooting
for Louis specifically to recover, but saying that I'm interested
in the idea of how men recover from this, and
using him as an example, I was hoping I could
be a little bit of a buffer between those two Camps.
It turns out I could not, and that was okay,
(07:35):
But Michael, it's not okay. Well, it was okay in
the sense that I think I did have a blind
spot for Louis specifically because I know him. I don't
know him well, we've known each other over the years,
and maybe I had a blind spot for him specifically
because I felt like I maybe had an insight into
his intentions that other people wouldn't have. But you also
(07:59):
have right to say this is my experience with this person,
right I do. But in the end, I felt like
the women who criticized me were entirely valid in their
criticisms that I hadn't been. I'm a little distant from
the event, so I saw. I don't want to mischaracterize
what their criticisms were. What I'm trying to say to
(08:22):
you is whatever points you made on Twitter, had you
made it in a private setting, you would have been
able to because everyone at the table understands your good
intentions and they know who you are. And my concern is,
even not just even specifically within progressives, you should have
some street credibility. Yet you got annihilated. And I'm saying
(08:46):
Michael was trying to say, let's find a little bit
of space here, and people decapitated you like your Biff
from Back to the Future, and it worries me that
we're not giving each other that space. Yes, I felt
all of that, but at the same time, I have
to ask myself, like, do I grant Mike Huckabee, for example,
(09:07):
the same good intentions that you're granting me in the
innswerration because it's about track record. True, Mike Huckaby doesn't
have the track record because of what he said, well,
but there's a lot of um what you're asking for,
and what I agree with fundamentally is we have to
look at people's intentions and we have to give people
the benefit of the doubt that in the end they're
(09:28):
trying to do the right thing. Do you and I'm
asking myself, do I extend that same courtesy to the
people that I v am ely disagree with just on
a kind of day to day policy point of view,
And the answer is no, I don't. We're going to
be right back after a quick break, Welcome back to
(09:49):
modern Rules. My next guests are the hosts of pant
Suit Politics and authors. I think you're wrong, but I'm
listening Sarah Holland and Beth Silver's. These ladies are deep
believers in the value of voices, real conversations, nuance, and
they've got a very interesting take on how social media
(10:10):
should work and how it actually works. I was caught
in a tweet storm, so my producer Sam Lynn stepped
in and did this interview. A lot of strangers online
do not feel like they need to tread carefully with someone.
In fact, I would dare to say that they're emboldened
by the distance. What is the dicks there? If there
(10:33):
is one? Is it just social media should be avoided.
I think that using our voices is really important, and
I think that one reason social media gets out of
control so quickly is we we don't feel like we're
using our voices, you know, we're talking through our fingers,
and that's a different thing. Now. That said, I don't
think social media is the cause of where we are today.
I think it's a manifestation of where we are today.
(10:55):
I think it erodes it further, you know, but I
think it also has the pretend shall to help us.
We have some really wonderful conversations with listeners of our
podcast online. My life is better because of the people
who listen to our show, who engage with us on Twitter.
That's an odd thing to say, you know, my life
is better in any way because of Twitter, But it's
(11:15):
because people show up with a set of rules. They
come in in a container, right, they understand what we're
trying to do and what we're trying to think about
and the way we do it. And when someone sort
of violates the what they understand to be the rules
of our house, another listener comes in and and very
gently and respectfully calls them out on it. We get
the beauty of seeing Internet apologies sometimes where people mess
(11:38):
up and and start again. And I think that everybody
feels pretty safe to do that in our container because
we do it all the time. We very publicly say gosh,
I really messed up on this. I use this word
that was a hurtful word. I didn't know. Now I know, Horey,
I've learned something. Thank you for teaching me. It's just
a different way. That's interesting because rules might be a
(12:00):
big help when it comes to this. It feels like
there are a lot of rules on Facebook, and I
think the container is key. I think that where we're
going with social media, and you even see this in
the statements coming out of places like Facebook, is that
it's going to be less totally public facing and more
honestly how the Internet started, which was communities gathered around
(12:21):
a certain mission or a certain topic, or a certain
shared identity that they couldn't find a lot of people
that shared that identity where they were in the physical space,
and the Internet gave them the way to gather more
of those people together. I think we're going back that way,
which I think is really good. I mean, I think
the other really important aspect of social media when you're
talking about politics and and conversation surrounding politics, is that
(12:45):
it's become the way in which people get their news,
and that is really problematic. Using an algorithm that rewards emotion,
especially anger and fear, um and any strong reactions to
news stories to decide what we see first, um, that's
a problem. And I think that's that's something I have
to even remind myself of. I'm not going to tell
you I don't get any news from social media. That
(13:05):
would be a lie, um, but I have to be
really careful not only to make sure that those aren't
that's not my primary news source. But when those stories
that really you know, succeed under the algorithm that are
driven by anger on either side, both sides are conflict.
Just reminding myself this is not the entire story of
(13:26):
this particular moment of of our human race, of our country. UM.
But that's really hard to do, UM. Social media. Getting
your news from an algorithm like that does not reward perspective,
doesn't reward sort of careful thinking or taking a pause, UM,
which we really really need. And I mean, I think
that that part is really an accelerant on the polarization
(13:50):
and the conflict in the way that we are engaging
with each other right now. Do you feel that you
see the kind of bad behavior that we see on
social media spill out into the real world and interactions
that you have with people. Did you see like a
change As a former public official. Absolutely. I ran for
the first time in my city commission race UM in
two thousand and sixteen. It was a very friendly race
(14:10):
among among the field. It's a nonpartisan UM right choice
kind of vote. You don't rank them, but you only
you you vote four times in the top four get in,
So it's not a winner take all kind of situation,
and it was a totally different feel than by the
time I ran for re election in two thousand and eighteen,
where I lost. I mean, I live in Kentucky. I
live in a conservative state, and people were doing things
(14:32):
that we had never seen in Paduca, like taking my
yard signs and spray painting a red a red circle
and I mean, I'm a city commissioner and displaying it
proudly in their front yards. I mean, these were like
city leaders, like people in a professional class of people
doing this kind of stuff. You would never see that.
And I ran with the city commissioner who had been
in there for a long time, and she was like,
I've never seen anything like this. Like the tenor changed
(14:53):
and you can imagine why, right. I think the worst
thing about social media right now are the prompts to
re act to everything. We just don't need to react
to everything and give everything of thumbs up or thumbs
down or you know, whatever range of emoji someone is
offering there's only four options or something. You know, when
you go on there, well, and it keeps you in
this reactive posture instead of remembering that we're supposed to
(15:15):
contribute to things. You know, not everything is just out
here for us to say, here's how I feel about that,
and I take it and leave it that way, and
it's either canceled or it's the best thing ever. You know,
we're supposed to be contributing in a city commission race
people should be contributing to that dialogue. What would it
be like if that neighbor who took the initiative to
spray paint a sign instead said here are my questions,
(15:38):
here are the things that concern me about what's going
on my local government. And that's how I treat news
on social media too. I get a lot of news
from social media, but I don't view social media as
the answer. I view it as a question. A story
of surfacing on Twitter. I try to think, what questions
do I have about this story, and then I go
find answers to those questions in place that is that
I know have been carefully vetted, where people are doing
(15:59):
work to make sure that that what's being circulated is true.
And I think that's just a different orientation and an
orientation that could be helpful to other people. You know,
if we if we stop just thinking the sum of
life is right here for me to react to what's
my role in this? Just hold on a second because
(16:20):
we have so much more to get into. We'll be
back right after a quick break. Welcome back to modern rules.
Sean Robinson knows from experience how the power of social
media can activate policy, can actually create change. His organization,
(16:41):
Color of Change, uses online resources, most specifically social media,
to advocate for policies that affect the African American community
to strengthen their political voice. And you know, when it
comes to positions of power in politics and in business,
there are not a out of African American voices in
(17:01):
the boardroom, and his organization has been able to use
social media to knock down that boardroom door. Twitter is
an extraordinary vehicle for what you do. I worry that
Twitter is the worst of all worlds. Right. Twitter has
is performance. Our Twitter decides this is what your profile
(17:21):
and your character is. And if you say anything that
deviates from this specific role, and none of us are flat,
we are multidimensional people. If you say anything that possibly
deviates from it, you will get annihilated. All technology, in
my opinion, has the potential to sort of create these
uh real frictions in our society. I mean birth of
(17:44):
a nation came through movie right, So many of the
harmful images about various communities, people of color, women have
come through our TV screen. The ways in which our
telephones were used to surveil civil rights activists from Dr
King to alcome X, in the ways that television are
even used now to create scams on vulnerable people. And
(18:06):
so all technology has real potential to cause great harm
and in many ways has allowed us to supercharge our
ability to move people to action, to create real change.
And so I am not one of those people that
says technology in and of itself, you know it will
supercharge our ability to make change. I think that there
(18:27):
are deep challenges and deep problems with platforms and algorithms
that incentivize the type of harassment, the type of hatred
that you are rewarded for being the villain. And at
the same time, these platforms have allowed for marginalized people
to bypass traditional gatekeepers, to not have to wait to
(18:47):
hear their voices heard. I remember when I was working
for GLAD and doing work in the LGBT community, and
you had mothers who lesbian mothers who were blogging and
sharing their stories, and you know, you know, a year later,
you'd start seeing them actually on TV sharing their stories
and reaching more people. And so the ability for people
to reach the marketplace of ideas um can be incredibly
(19:11):
hard if we don't have vehicles for that. But just
like all technology, when it goes from being the insurgent
to being the incumbent, it has in itself bakes in inequality,
and it has to be our responsibility to not just
find ways to get more followers as a civil rights organization,
to get more people to follow us, but to also
(19:33):
ensure that those platforms are doing all that they can do.
Is why we actually run campaigns the whole Facebook accountable
for how their algorithms work. We've you know, been in
deep back and forth with Cheryl Sandberg directly around everything
from how police can get inside of Facebook outside of warrants,
to how folks can market housing to only white people
(19:55):
and avoid civil rights law. I do not think that
anyone should think that technology and of itself is solely
a force for good. But I do understand that in
the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when people are on their
roofs and they want something to do, being able to
give people a lifeline to move not just to donate
(20:17):
to the Red Cross, but to work for systemic change
when folks were in flint and suffering that pain, to
not just get water bottles to them, but to fight
for how we can actually change the structures that put
people in harm's way. So how is it do you
think that we've gotten here? I know that extreme activism
on both sides is very loud and powerful, but do
(20:38):
re risk taking the whole majority in the middle and
kind of labeling them and pushing them out of a
really important conversation when at the end of the day,
most people are trying to take care of their families
and live their best lives. I absolutely do believe that
most people every single day are just trying to make
sure they have enough resources they need to get the
(21:00):
things that they need. And at the same time, we
have deep imbalance with whose voices are actually heard, with
how are whether it's our government or whether it's our
media platforms, or whether it's college admissions processes, who actually
has the ability to be heard and contended with, And
(21:21):
those deep imbalances create the fault lines in our democracy
that perpetuate and create sort of an ongoing cycle where
where people start off is where they end and so
where big polling may tell us that we are kind
of on the same page, what it doesn't oftentimes tell
us is all those buckets of places where people are
(21:43):
just really being left out. Is there empirical data that
shows when you do more than praise a company. We
know when you go after a company, we know when
a social media boycott is coming that company could be
in trouble because many of those companies are consumer product companies.
When the consumer says I'm not buying your product because
(22:04):
of you not taking a position on this social issue
or taking the wrong position. But is their data on
the other side, when companies do step up and do
the right thing, where those same activist groups are then
rewarding them with business. I think that LGBT movement is
a perfect example of you know, equality indexes from HRC
(22:25):
and and media index from GLAD serving as road maps
for corporations to get graded to want to move up
the ladder and then and then get rewarded publicly as
a result, but more than a more than an award.
I think about Dick Sporting Goods. Dick Sporting Goods took
a huge risk and said we are not going to
(22:46):
sell some assault rifles after the Parkland shooting, and then
they took a four percent hit in sales, and I wondered,
where were all those activist groups demanding that they stopped
selling those guns. Why weren't they buying their sneakers there?
Maybe me, some of them were, and maybe some of
them decided to go there. And you know, I fundamentally
(23:06):
believe that companies, over time, um stay in the marketplace
because they do make tough decisions and they move even
when they're not gonna make money. There's all sorts of
stories from the civil rights movement of companies that took
risk early on. And you know, this is a company
(23:27):
that we've actually campaigned against a lot in Coca Cola
at Color of Change. But you know, there's the kind
of legendary story of when Dr King came back from
getting his Nobel Peace Prize and none of the local
business leaders would show up to a dinner in his
honor in Atlanta, and the CEO and chairman of Coca Cola,
you know, went out and forced people to have to
(23:49):
show up to this dinner and show up to like celebrate.
It didn't mean that there weren't other reasons the whole
these companies accountable. I think that we can do both.
The know we in an advocate our advocacy work. Over
the last couple of years with Airbnb, we have been
in deep back and forth with Airbnb. I think I
might even have a staffer who you know, at their
(24:10):
offices right now working working with them. And we have
been pushing them on all the ways that their algorithm
was sort of incentivizing discrimination. And more than any other
company in Silicon Value, in my opinion, they put real
resources behind doing the right thing. They actually hired engineers
and do the right thing. Doing the right thing. They
(24:31):
saw that there was a problem where people were trying
to book rooms and they were being denied for being black.
They didn't just hire a chief diversity officer who didn't
understand the platform. They hired engineers who understood that it
was in baked into algorithms that they needed sort of
They needed to be able to have systems to be
able to find when discrimination hit and then to hold
(24:55):
individual um renters accountable for that and create syst them
to stop that from happening. They went ahead and they didn't.
Now we still mentioned to Airbnb and we still campaign
to Airbnb about other aspects of problems that we have.
But when anyone asked me about still Alicon Valley company
(25:15):
that took a problem that we were pushing on and
went forward to do the right thing, I mentioned them.
And I do believe that we as advocates have to
be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.
I have to be able to say we we made
this demand. Not only did you nite show up. You
didn't try to buy a table at my dinner or
(25:35):
make a donation. You like, put real resources behind this
that could have made you lose some money. You hired expensive,
expensive capacity behind fixing the problem, and I'm gonna hold
that up. Is that why you see so much more
optimism or beauty in all of these social media platforms
(25:56):
or media outlets because they have given a space patrolls,
but they've given a place for every possible voice out there.
They've allowed us to write our own stories and ways
that we previously couldn't And in the earlier days of
social media, they allowed us to get that out there
(26:18):
in ways that that helped us reach people we previously
couldn't reach. I mean when you said earlier we've been
dealing directly with Cheryl Samberg. That's amazing to me. Anyone
in media who's ever dealt with Facebook knows she has
a fortress of pr around her that no one can
ever come near, but of color of change in force
(26:40):
shows up and says no more, she's gonna take your call.
She's gonna take our call. We've sat with her face
to face, we have multiple calls with her. We are
building ways we are and we are holding them accountable.
Right Like part of it was demanding that they do
a civil rights on it and getting them to start publishing.
Where they are at with it, They're going to have
to produce another civil rights audit in June. I know
(27:03):
that that is because of people power behind us. And
so the next piece of the civil Rights art it
comes out in June. And in each phase, what we
are holding them accountable to is the changes that they
and the demands that we have made. And and so
whether it's you know, Cheryl Sandberg, whether it's you know
in the last administration, you know, meetings directly with the president,
(27:25):
this is for us. This is not about like, oh,
who can we sit across the table from It's about
like what are the levels we need to pull to
actually make change. How do we capture the voices of
many people and collectively make them more powerful so that
those folks that have the ability to make the decision
that impact people's lives recognize that there's opportunity for doing
(27:49):
the right thing and there's consequences for not. Is there
a scenario where something has happened, a CEO of company
has done something and color of change? Your first course
of action was we're taking a Twitter and we're saying no.
Is there an example where a CEO picked up the
phone and called you and said sit with me. I
(28:10):
would say that nine times out of ten before we
go out publicly, we pick up the phone and we
call explain this to me, because I don't think people
realize that. What people what I think what people see
oftentimes is a CEO says something he has I say he,
because it's usually he. He has a misstep, maybe it's
even an exaggerated misquote. And I think a lot of
(28:33):
people think, well, the activist trained starts up and in
a blink of an eye there's a Twitter boycott with
thousands of people behind it, and the next thing you
know that company has run over. That's not actually the
way it works. Yeah, I mean, actually that's that's from
a pr perspective. You don't create the incentive for people
to move and do the right thing if you don't
deeply understand like what the structures are inside, and that
(28:55):
you don't give people sort of a choice point. There's
a choice point, like you can move with us and
do the right thing, or you can do the wrong thing.
An example of this is right in the Act. We
had been going back and forth for for months with
credit card companies who were processing fees for white nationalists. Um,
like you could go on some of the biggest white
(29:16):
nationalists organizations and put your credit card number of PayPal
number in and by paraphernal, your sponsor busses for them.
And we had spent months going back and forth and
they would say you got to go talk to the banks,
and the banks would say you gotta go to talk
to the credit card company, and like they were giving
us to run around it. So what we ended up
doing we were like we started building out a platform
(29:37):
called no Blood Money while we were going back and
forth with them. Social media and technology email allowed us
to do that, right, and We also started engaging our
members without calling out the companies, trying to give them
the ability Charlotte will happen. The president says, there are
two sides. When my staff goes in that weekend, finishes
(29:58):
up the website, and we then sort of give the
companies like twenty four hours, we're like, here's everything we're
about to send, and you know, PayPal before we could
get out the door said okay, we get it. Here's
the thirty white nationalist groups we are going to be
eliminating from our platform. We will no longer process fees
(30:20):
for and some other groups. We had to go out
publicly on Visa Massacred, but then they came around and
they started listing, and in the process we were doing
the number of things. We were running geo targeted ads
to the companies on Facebook and Google, to the employees
and asking employees of all races of good conscious You
saw what happened in Charlottesville. You are outrage. It's not
(30:42):
enough to be just on Twitter. Your company is allowing
these organizations to pay for their buses. So here's what
I heard. I'm not alone. I have faced my fair
share of social media outrage and the hardest part about
it for me is feeling like I been punished for
stepping outside a box that I never actually asked to
(31:04):
be in, and in this political climate that we're in,
it paints issues as these black and white moral absolutes.
It's nuance that I'm actually trying for. But here's the thing.
Social media is just not the place where that's going
to happen. And I'm not the only one experiencing it.
But here's what else I heard. It is impossible to
(31:26):
ignore the positive power of these platforms when it comes
to giving people who just a few years ago would
never have had a voice a platform. That is a
very good thing. So nobody's putting Twitter back in the bottle.
Social media is here to stay. The impact of it
is massive. So what am I gonna do. I'm going
(31:47):
to be more responsible on my own social media Baby
sarcasm and Twitter aren't partners, But I'm also going to
give some other people a break. This is when our
conversation on social medidia Thanks for listening, bringing an open mind,
and helping me create the modern rules. That's it for
(32:15):
today's episode. I'm your host, Stephanie Rule. A very very
special thanks to the extraordinary people who made this happen.
My producers Julie Brown, Samantha Ullen and Anne Bark, Audio,
Michael Biett for booking and wrangling, the amazing guests who
joined us, Julian Weller for editing and bill plaques, Michael
Azar and Jacobo Penzo for their recording expertise. Special thanks
(32:37):
to Steve lick Tige, Barbara Rab, Jonathan Wald, Marie Dugo,
Holly traz, Nikki Etre, and Christina Everett. Our executive producers
are Conald Byrne and Mangesh Hatiga Door and of course
the men who brought us all together, Chairman and CEO
of I Heart Media Bob Pittman, and Chairman of NBC
News Andy Lack. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
(32:58):
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows,
You're listening to Modern Rules, a production of MSNBC and
I Heart Radio. One reason social media gets out of
control so quickly is we we don't feel like we're
using our voices. You know, we're talking through our fingers,
and that's a different thing. Of course, it hurts my feelings.
Anytime somebody attacks you, it hurts your feelings. But when
my feelings are it is generally, I think, because there's
(00:21):
some truth to it all. Technology, in my opinion, has
the potential to sort of create these uh real frictions
in our society. I mean, birth of a nation came
through movie. Right. It is nearly impossible, at least in
my experience, to make a point on social media that
requires any level of nuance. If you don't see social
(00:45):
media as a blunt instrument, you are quickly going to
be trolled, ratioed, misinterpreted, and just knocked out of the game.
So as much as we say, oh, the platforms to
get your voice out there are stronger and better than ever,
depends on what that voices and what you want to say,
the image you create for yourself, the profile, the category
(01:06):
you fit into, your boxed in and if you dare
try to be an actual person, a human, change your tone,
have a different voice. Well, that tribe that you're in
in that social media bucket now thinks you've abandoned them.
So my challenges. If social media is where we can
actually be our real selves and connect over that, maybe
(01:29):
we need to treat it in a little bit of
a different way. I'm Stephanie Rule, MSNBC anchor and NBC
News correspondent, and this is Modern Rules. In this season
of Modern Rules, I'm going to be spending time unpacking
(01:51):
the harriest conversations from privilege to political correctness to try
and figure out how we can navigate this changing world
and arek through to actually talk with and learn from
the people who disagree with us and maybe just maybe
learn something along the way. Together on Modern Rules, we
(02:12):
are going to get into navigating the very tricky and
sometimes treacherous waters of social media with my guests comedian
Michael Ian Black, Sarah Holland and Beth Silver's of the
podcast pant Suit Politics, and digital activists Rashad Robinson. My
first guest, Michael Ian Black is a funny, compassionate, thoughtful
(02:33):
human being. Okay, I think all the time that social
media is the worst place ever because it's where you
get your head kicked in by trolls. But to that
exact point, before social media existed, the biggest most powerful
institutions the church, media, corporate America. They were impenetrable. You
(02:57):
could not touch them. But now because of social media,
every tiny little voice can get out there and they
throw a hashtag, and I could complain going, oh my god,
I can't believe all of these people just they put
a hashtag on it, and and now they've said I'm
racially insensitive. I mean I do. I do see a
lot of the positive and social media, and I've been
on the receiving end of a ton of the negative
(03:19):
aspect of it. I will say for my own like
just personal growth, when I am less defensive, there are
things that occur on social media, criticisms of me, insults
towards me, trolling at me that ends up having a
positive effect my master hurt your feelings, of course, it
hurts my feelings. Anytime somebody attacks you, it hurts your feelings.
(03:43):
But when my feelings are hurt, it is generally I think,
because there's some truth to it. If there's no truth
to it, why would it affect me one way or
the other, wouldn't. But if but if something is hurting me,
it's because it's touching some nerve that I need to
look at and deal with it accordingly. I mean, if
you insult my career, for example, and tell you're just
(04:04):
a washed up actor, if that hurts me, it's because
some of me suspects, oh yeah, that might be true.
But if you say to me, you know, what you
said is racist or whatever, and I react with indignity
or defensiveness or insult, I may have to look at
that a little more closely and ask what what did
(04:25):
I say that prompted that? And at the very least,
if I can examine that and look at it and
come to a conclusion about it, that's more work than
I would have done otherwise. It's funny to say that
when Fox News does segments on me at night, it's
but here's the thing. Whenever they do it, there's always
a little bit of truth that they're right. Whenever they
(04:46):
do it, it's on like a Thursday or a Friday,
when chances are I was tired, I was a little
lazy that day. I was you know, I was sloppy
in my commentary, I went too far and so like
a lot of what they do is exaggerated and wrong.
But at the heart of it, I kind of did
screw up that day that part of it. They are
kind of striking a chord. I think forgiveness and grace
(05:09):
is something we really need to bring back in a
bigger way because we are in this cancel culture. I
did defend zzon sorry last year, and I said, hold
on a second. They were on a really bad date.
And there may be lots of microaggressions and in ways
that women think they have to behave in order to
get men to like them, but that's far different from
(05:30):
something else. I saw you this year try to give
some grace and space to Louis c K and you
were annihilated. How did it make you feel horrible? Horrible
for a variety of reasons. It started with exactly what
this conversation started with, which is people in private I'm
(05:51):
including when I say people, I mean me and others,
people that I would have conversations with talking about new wants, misinterpretation, misunderstanding, miscommunication,
and how those things can spiral out of control and
(06:11):
turn into something that they were never meant to be,
and I got on Twitter also a friend of mine
had had had just died, and I was thinking a
lot about exactly that grace and forgiveness, and I was
in a kind of sensitive headspace as well, and I
was feeling like, those private conversations that I have with
(06:32):
people where they're willing to sort of give that space
and forgiveness and grace to somebody, can that private conversation
be had in a public forum? And so I tried
and the answer was no. I felt bad because I
mistakenly thought that I had a little credibility in this
arena because I've been so outspoken in favor of women
(06:54):
and survivors and LGBT stuff like like just a ton
of like just progressive issues, like I've been very got
some progressive I hoped, And I was hoping that in
trying to have this conversation not in defense of Louis
(07:15):
specifically and and and not saying like I was rooting
for Louis specifically to recover, but saying that I'm interested
in the idea of how men recover from this, and
using him as an example, I was hoping I could
be a little bit of a buffer between those two Camps.
It turns out I could not, and that was okay,
(07:35):
But Michael, it's not okay. Well, it was okay in
the sense that I think I did have a blind
spot for Louis specifically because I know him. I don't
know him well, we've known each other over the years,
and maybe I had a blind spot for him specifically
because I felt like I maybe had an insight into
his intentions that other people wouldn't have. But you also
(07:59):
have right to say this is my experience with this person,
right I do. But in the end, I felt like
the women who criticized me were entirely valid in their
criticisms that I hadn't been. I'm a little distant from
the event, so I saw. I don't want to mischaracterize
what their criticisms were. What I'm trying to say to
(08:22):
you is whatever points you made on Twitter, had you
made it in a private setting, you would have been
able to because everyone at the table understands your good
intentions and they know who you are. And my concern is,
even not just even specifically within progressives, you should have
some street credibility. Yet you got annihilated. And I'm saying
(08:46):
Michael was trying to say, let's find a little bit
of space here, and people decapitated you like your Biff
from Back to the Future, and it worries me that
we're not giving each other that space. Yes, I felt
all of that, but at the same time, I have
to ask myself, like, do I grant Mike Huckabee, for example,
(09:07):
the same good intentions that you're granting me in the
innswerration because it's about track record. True, Mike Huckaby doesn't
have the track record because of what he said, well,
but there's a lot of um what you're asking for,
and what I agree with fundamentally is we have to
look at people's intentions and we have to give people
the benefit of the doubt that in the end they're
(09:28):
trying to do the right thing. Do you and I'm
asking myself, do I extend that same courtesy to the
people that I v am ely disagree with just on
a kind of day to day policy point of view,
And the answer is no, I don't. We're going to
be right back after a quick break, Welcome back to
(09:49):
modern Rules. My next guests are the hosts of pant
Suit Politics and authors. I think you're wrong, but I'm
listening Sarah Holland and Beth Silver's. These ladies are deep
believers in the value of voices, real conversations, nuance, and
they've got a very interesting take on how social media
(10:10):
should work and how it actually works. I was caught
in a tweet storm, so my producer Sam Lynn stepped
in and did this interview. A lot of strangers online
do not feel like they need to tread carefully with someone.
In fact, I would dare to say that they're emboldened
by the distance. What is the dicks there? If there
(10:33):
is one? Is it just social media should be avoided.
I think that using our voices is really important, and
I think that one reason social media gets out of
control so quickly is we we don't feel like we're
using our voices, you know, we're talking through our fingers,
and that's a different thing. Now. That said, I don't
think social media is the cause of where we are today.
I think it's a manifestation of where we are today.
(10:55):
I think it erodes it further, you know, but I
think it also has the pretend shall to help us.
We have some really wonderful conversations with listeners of our
podcast online. My life is better because of the people
who listen to our show, who engage with us on Twitter.
That's an odd thing to say, you know, my life
is better in any way because of Twitter, But it's
(11:15):
because people show up with a set of rules. They
come in in a container, right, they understand what we're
trying to do and what we're trying to think about
and the way we do it. And when someone sort
of violates the what they understand to be the rules
of our house, another listener comes in and and very
gently and respectfully calls them out on it. We get
the beauty of seeing Internet apologies sometimes where people mess
(11:38):
up and and start again. And I think that everybody
feels pretty safe to do that in our container because
we do it all the time. We very publicly say gosh,
I really messed up on this. I use this word
that was a hurtful word. I didn't know. Now I know, Horey,
I've learned something. Thank you for teaching me. It's just
a different way. That's interesting because rules might be a
(12:00):
big help when it comes to this. It feels like
there are a lot of rules on Facebook, and I
think the container is key. I think that where we're
going with social media, and you even see this in
the statements coming out of places like Facebook, is that
it's going to be less totally public facing and more
honestly how the Internet started, which was communities gathered around
(12:21):
a certain mission or a certain topic, or a certain
shared identity that they couldn't find a lot of people
that shared that identity where they were in the physical space,
and the Internet gave them the way to gather more
of those people together. I think we're going back that way,
which I think is really good. I mean, I think
the other really important aspect of social media when you're
talking about politics and and conversation surrounding politics, is that
(12:45):
it's become the way in which people get their news,
and that is really problematic. Using an algorithm that rewards emotion,
especially anger and fear, um and any strong reactions to
news stories to decide what we see first, um, that's
a problem. And I think that's that's something I have
to even remind myself of. I'm not going to tell
you I don't get any news from social media. That
(13:05):
would be a lie, um, but I have to be
really careful not only to make sure that those aren't
that's not my primary news source. But when those stories
that really you know, succeed under the algorithm that are
driven by anger on either side, both sides are conflict.
Just reminding myself this is not the entire story of
(13:26):
this particular moment of of our human race, of our country. UM.
But that's really hard to do, UM. Social media. Getting
your news from an algorithm like that does not reward perspective,
doesn't reward sort of careful thinking or taking a pause, UM,
which we really really need. And I mean, I think
that that part is really an accelerant on the polarization
(13:50):
and the conflict in the way that we are engaging
with each other right now. Do you feel that you
see the kind of bad behavior that we see on
social media spill out into the real world and interactions
that you have with people. Did you see like a
change As a former public official. Absolutely. I ran for
the first time in my city commission race UM in
two thousand and sixteen. It was a very friendly race
(14:10):
among among the field. It's a nonpartisan UM right choice
kind of vote. You don't rank them, but you only
you you vote four times in the top four get in,
So it's not a winner take all kind of situation,
and it was a totally different feel than by the
time I ran for re election in two thousand and eighteen,
where I lost. I mean, I live in Kentucky. I
live in a conservative state, and people were doing things
(14:32):
that we had never seen in Paduca, like taking my
yard signs and spray painting a red a red circle
and I mean, I'm a city commissioner and displaying it
proudly in their front yards. I mean, these were like
city leaders, like people in a professional class of people
doing this kind of stuff. You would never see that.
And I ran with the city commissioner who had been
in there for a long time, and she was like,
I've never seen anything like this. Like the tenor changed
(14:53):
and you can imagine why, right. I think the worst
thing about social media right now are the prompts to
re act to everything. We just don't need to react
to everything and give everything of thumbs up or thumbs
down or you know, whatever range of emoji someone is
offering there's only four options or something. You know, when
you go on there, well, and it keeps you in
this reactive posture instead of remembering that we're supposed to
(15:15):
contribute to things. You know, not everything is just out
here for us to say, here's how I feel about that,
and I take it and leave it that way, and
it's either canceled or it's the best thing ever. You know,
we're supposed to be contributing in a city commission race
people should be contributing to that dialogue. What would it
be like if that neighbor who took the initiative to
spray paint a sign instead said here are my questions,
(15:38):
here are the things that concern me about what's going
on my local government. And that's how I treat news
on social media too. I get a lot of news
from social media, but I don't view social media as
the answer. I view it as a question. A story
of surfacing on Twitter. I try to think, what questions
do I have about this story, and then I go
find answers to those questions in place that is that
I know have been carefully vetted, where people are doing
(15:59):
work to make sure that that what's being circulated is true.
And I think that's just a different orientation and an
orientation that could be helpful to other people. You know,
if we if we stop just thinking the sum of
life is right here for me to react to what's
my role in this? Just hold on a second because
(16:20):
we have so much more to get into. We'll be
back right after a quick break. Welcome back to modern rules.
Sean Robinson knows from experience how the power of social
media can activate policy, can actually create change. His organization,
(16:41):
Color of Change, uses online resources, most specifically social media,
to advocate for policies that affect the African American community
to strengthen their political voice. And you know, when it
comes to positions of power in politics and in business,
there are not a out of African American voices in
(17:01):
the boardroom, and his organization has been able to use
social media to knock down that boardroom door. Twitter is
an extraordinary vehicle for what you do. I worry that
Twitter is the worst of all worlds. Right. Twitter has
is performance. Our Twitter decides this is what your profile
(17:21):
and your character is. And if you say anything that
deviates from this specific role, and none of us are flat,
we are multidimensional people. If you say anything that possibly
deviates from it, you will get annihilated. All technology, in
my opinion, has the potential to sort of create these
uh real frictions in our society. I mean birth of
(17:44):
a nation came through movie right, So many of the
harmful images about various communities, people of color, women have
come through our TV screen. The ways in which our
telephones were used to surveil civil rights activists from Dr
King to alcome X, in the ways that television are
even used now to create scams on vulnerable people. And
(18:06):
so all technology has real potential to cause great harm
and in many ways has allowed us to supercharge our
ability to move people to action, to create real change.
And so I am not one of those people that
says technology in and of itself, you know it will
supercharge our ability to make change. I think that there
(18:27):
are deep challenges and deep problems with platforms and algorithms
that incentivize the type of harassment, the type of hatred
that you are rewarded for being the villain. And at
the same time, these platforms have allowed for marginalized people
to bypass traditional gatekeepers, to not have to wait to
(18:47):
hear their voices heard. I remember when I was working
for GLAD and doing work in the LGBT community, and
you had mothers who lesbian mothers who were blogging and
sharing their stories, and you know, you know, a year later,
you'd start seeing them actually on TV sharing their stories
and reaching more people. And so the ability for people
to reach the marketplace of ideas um can be incredibly
(19:11):
hard if we don't have vehicles for that. But just
like all technology, when it goes from being the insurgent
to being the incumbent, it has in itself bakes in inequality,
and it has to be our responsibility to not just
find ways to get more followers as a civil rights organization,
to get more people to follow us, but to also
(19:33):
ensure that those platforms are doing all that they can do.
Is why we actually run campaigns the whole Facebook accountable
for how their algorithms work. We've you know, been in
deep back and forth with Cheryl Sandberg directly around everything
from how police can get inside of Facebook outside of warrants,
to how folks can market housing to only white people
(19:55):
and avoid civil rights law. I do not think that
anyone should think that technology and of itself is solely
a force for good. But I do understand that in
the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when people are on their
roofs and they want something to do, being able to
give people a lifeline to move not just to donate
(20:17):
to the Red Cross, but to work for systemic change
when folks were in flint and suffering that pain, to
not just get water bottles to them, but to fight
for how we can actually change the structures that put
people in harm's way. So how is it do you
think that we've gotten here? I know that extreme activism
on both sides is very loud and powerful, but do
(20:38):
re risk taking the whole majority in the middle and
kind of labeling them and pushing them out of a
really important conversation when at the end of the day,
most people are trying to take care of their families
and live their best lives. I absolutely do believe that
most people every single day are just trying to make
sure they have enough resources they need to get the
(21:00):
things that they need. And at the same time, we
have deep imbalance with whose voices are actually heard, with
how are whether it's our government or whether it's our
media platforms, or whether it's college admissions processes, who actually
has the ability to be heard and contended with, And
(21:21):
those deep imbalances create the fault lines in our democracy
that perpetuate and create sort of an ongoing cycle where
where people start off is where they end and so
where big polling may tell us that we are kind
of on the same page, what it doesn't oftentimes tell
us is all those buckets of places where people are
(21:43):
just really being left out. Is there empirical data that
shows when you do more than praise a company. We
know when you go after a company, we know when
a social media boycott is coming that company could be
in trouble because many of those companies are consumer product companies.
When the consumer says I'm not buying your product because
(22:04):
of you not taking a position on this social issue
or taking the wrong position. But is their data on
the other side, when companies do step up and do
the right thing, where those same activist groups are then
rewarding them with business. I think that LGBT movement is
a perfect example of you know, equality indexes from HRC
(22:25):
and and media index from GLAD serving as road maps
for corporations to get graded to want to move up
the ladder and then and then get rewarded publicly as
a result, but more than a more than an award.
I think about Dick Sporting Goods. Dick Sporting Goods took
a huge risk and said we are not going to
(22:46):
sell some assault rifles after the Parkland shooting, and then
they took a four percent hit in sales, and I wondered,
where were all those activist groups demanding that they stopped
selling those guns. Why weren't they buying their sneakers there?
Maybe me, some of them were, and maybe some of
them decided to go there. And you know, I fundamentally
(23:06):
believe that companies, over time, um stay in the marketplace
because they do make tough decisions and they move even
when they're not gonna make money. There's all sorts of
stories from the civil rights movement of companies that took
risk early on. And you know, this is a company
(23:27):
that we've actually campaigned against a lot in Coca Cola
at Color of Change. But you know, there's the kind
of legendary story of when Dr King came back from
getting his Nobel Peace Prize and none of the local
business leaders would show up to a dinner in his
honor in Atlanta, and the CEO and chairman of Coca Cola,
you know, went out and forced people to have to
(23:49):
show up to this dinner and show up to like celebrate.
It didn't mean that there weren't other reasons the whole
these companies accountable. I think that we can do both.
The know we in an advocate our advocacy work. Over
the last couple of years with Airbnb, we have been
in deep back and forth with Airbnb. I think I
might even have a staffer who you know, at their
(24:10):
offices right now working working with them. And we have
been pushing them on all the ways that their algorithm
was sort of incentivizing discrimination. And more than any other
company in Silicon Value, in my opinion, they put real
resources behind doing the right thing. They actually hired engineers
and do the right thing. Doing the right thing. They
(24:31):
saw that there was a problem where people were trying
to book rooms and they were being denied for being black.
They didn't just hire a chief diversity officer who didn't
understand the platform. They hired engineers who understood that it
was in baked into algorithms that they needed sort of
They needed to be able to have systems to be
able to find when discrimination hit and then to hold
(24:55):
individual um renters accountable for that and create syst them
to stop that from happening. They went ahead and they didn't.
Now we still mentioned to Airbnb and we still campaign
to Airbnb about other aspects of problems that we have.
But when anyone asked me about still Alicon Valley company
(25:15):
that took a problem that we were pushing on and
went forward to do the right thing, I mentioned them.
And I do believe that we as advocates have to
be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.
I have to be able to say we we made
this demand. Not only did you nite show up. You
didn't try to buy a table at my dinner or
(25:35):
make a donation. You like, put real resources behind this
that could have made you lose some money. You hired expensive,
expensive capacity behind fixing the problem, and I'm gonna hold
that up. Is that why you see so much more
optimism or beauty in all of these social media platforms
(25:56):
or media outlets because they have given a space patrolls,
but they've given a place for every possible voice out there.
They've allowed us to write our own stories and ways
that we previously couldn't And in the earlier days of
social media, they allowed us to get that out there
(26:18):
in ways that that helped us reach people we previously
couldn't reach. I mean when you said earlier we've been
dealing directly with Cheryl Samberg. That's amazing to me. Anyone
in media who's ever dealt with Facebook knows she has
a fortress of pr around her that no one can
ever come near, but of color of change in force
(26:40):
shows up and says no more, she's gonna take your call.
She's gonna take our call. We've sat with her face
to face, we have multiple calls with her. We are
building ways we are and we are holding them accountable.
Right Like part of it was demanding that they do
a civil rights on it and getting them to start publishing.
Where they are at with it, They're going to have
to produce another civil rights audit in June. I know
(27:03):
that that is because of people power behind us. And
so the next piece of the civil Rights art it
comes out in June. And in each phase, what we
are holding them accountable to is the changes that they
and the demands that we have made. And and so
whether it's you know, Cheryl Sandberg, whether it's you know
in the last administration, you know, meetings directly with the president,
(27:25):
this is for us. This is not about like, oh,
who can we sit across the table from It's about
like what are the levels we need to pull to
actually make change. How do we capture the voices of
many people and collectively make them more powerful so that
those folks that have the ability to make the decision
that impact people's lives recognize that there's opportunity for doing
(27:49):
the right thing and there's consequences for not. Is there
a scenario where something has happened, a CEO of company
has done something and color of change? Your first course
of action was we're taking a Twitter and we're saying no.
Is there an example where a CEO picked up the
phone and called you and said sit with me. I
(28:10):
would say that nine times out of ten before we
go out publicly, we pick up the phone and we
call explain this to me, because I don't think people
realize that. What people what I think what people see
oftentimes is a CEO says something he has I say he,
because it's usually he. He has a misstep, maybe it's
even an exaggerated misquote. And I think a lot of
(28:33):
people think, well, the activist trained starts up and in
a blink of an eye there's a Twitter boycott with
thousands of people behind it, and the next thing you
know that company has run over. That's not actually the
way it works. Yeah, I mean, actually that's that's from
a pr perspective. You don't create the incentive for people
to move and do the right thing if you don't
deeply understand like what the structures are inside, and that
(28:55):
you don't give people sort of a choice point. There's
a choice point, like you can move with us and
do the right thing, or you can do the wrong thing.
An example of this is right in the Act. We
had been going back and forth for for months with
credit card companies who were processing fees for white nationalists. Um,
like you could go on some of the biggest white
(29:16):
nationalists organizations and put your credit card number of PayPal
number in and by paraphernal, your sponsor busses for them.
And we had spent months going back and forth and
they would say you got to go talk to the banks,
and the banks would say you gotta go to talk
to the credit card company, and like they were giving
us to run around it. So what we ended up
doing we were like we started building out a platform
(29:37):
called no Blood Money while we were going back and
forth with them. Social media and technology email allowed us
to do that, right, and We also started engaging our
members without calling out the companies, trying to give them
the ability Charlotte will happen. The president says, there are
two sides. When my staff goes in that weekend, finishes
(29:58):
up the website, and we then sort of give the
companies like twenty four hours, we're like, here's everything we're
about to send, and you know, PayPal before we could
get out the door said okay, we get it. Here's
the thirty white nationalist groups we are going to be
eliminating from our platform. We will no longer process fees
(30:20):
for and some other groups. We had to go out
publicly on Visa Massacred, but then they came around and
they started listing, and in the process we were doing
the number of things. We were running geo targeted ads
to the companies on Facebook and Google, to the employees
and asking employees of all races of good conscious You
saw what happened in Charlottesville. You are outrage. It's not
(30:42):
enough to be just on Twitter. Your company is allowing
these organizations to pay for their buses. So here's what
I heard. I'm not alone. I have faced my fair
share of social media outrage and the hardest part about
it for me is feeling like I been punished for
stepping outside a box that I never actually asked to
(31:04):
be in, and in this political climate that we're in,
it paints issues as these black and white moral absolutes.
It's nuance that I'm actually trying for. But here's the thing.
Social media is just not the place where that's going
to happen. And I'm not the only one experiencing it.
But here's what else I heard. It is impossible to
(31:26):
ignore the positive power of these platforms when it comes
to giving people who just a few years ago would
never have had a voice a platform. That is a
very good thing. So nobody's putting Twitter back in the bottle.
Social media is here to stay. The impact of it
is massive. So what am I gonna do. I'm going
(31:47):
to be more responsible on my own social media Baby
sarcasm and Twitter aren't partners, But I'm also going to
give some other people a break. This is when our
conversation on social medidia Thanks for listening, bringing an open mind,
and helping me create the modern rules. That's it for
(32:15):
today's episode. I'm your host, Stephanie Rule. A very very
special thanks to the extraordinary people who made this happen.
My producers Julie Brown, Samantha Ullen and Anne Bark, Audio,
Michael Biett for booking and wrangling, the amazing guests who
joined us, Julian Weller for editing and bill plaques, Michael
Azar and Jacobo Penzo for their recording expertise. Special thanks
(32:37):
to Steve lick Tige, Barbara Rab, Jonathan Wald, Marie Dugo,
Holly traz, Nikki Etre, and Christina Everett. Our executive producers
are Conald Byrne and Mangesh Hatiga Door and of course
the men who brought us all together, Chairman and CEO
of I Heart Media Bob Pittman, and Chairman of NBC
News Andy Lack. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,
(32:58):
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows,
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
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!
Stuff You Should Know
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.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com