Listen to the Outspoken Network’s new pod But We Loved: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-but-we-loved-174494262/
Listen to Joey’s take on Bottoms on Stuff Mom Never Told You: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff-mom-never-told-you-21123631/episode/feminist-movie-friday-bottoms-183565696/
Israel Secretly Targeted American Lawmakers With Gaza War Influence Campaign: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2024-06-05/ty-article-magazine/.premium/israel-secretly-targeted-american-lawmakers-with-gaza-war-influence-campaign/0000018f-e7c8-d11f-a5cf-e7cb62af0000
Key misinformation “superspreaders” on Twitter: Women in their late 50s: https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/05/key-misinformation-superspreaders-on-twitter-older-women/
Lesbian app to ‘use facial recognition technology’ to identify and exclude trans users https://www.thepinknews.com/2024/06/03/lesbian-app-facial-recognition-technology-trans/
FBI Raids Corporate Landlord in Major Rent Price-Fixing Probe: https://www.pymnts.com/cpi-posts/fbi-raids-corporate-landlord-in-major-rent-price-fixing-probe/
Court Allows K-Pop Group to Subpoena YouTuber's Identity from Google: https://www.404media.co/newjeans-kpop-google-youtube-lawsuit/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production
of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Tot and this
is there Are No Girls on the Internet. This is
There No Girls on the Internet, where we explore the
intersection of technology, social media, and identity. Joey, we are
so thrilled to have you back on the show.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hey, Bridget, it's going to be back. Happy Pride months.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Happy Pride. Are you doing anything fun for Pride?
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (00:35):
God? What am I not doing?
Speaker 5 (00:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I have a couple events that like friends are doing.
I had my household through something last weekend, kind of
kick off at the beginning of the month.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
So I'm busy. I'm out and about, you know.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
I'm glad to hear it. I'm still in COVID recovery mode,
but I'm living vicariously through folks like you who are
out having a good time. I am very.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
Well.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
I have to tell you, I feel like a new
tech gripe of mine has just dropped. And that is
maybe you've seen them, these seemingly wholesome but very obviously
AI generated images. It'll be like the ones I've been
seeing lately. Are It'll be these AI generated images of
(01:23):
three older black people and the caption will be like, oh,
these three triplets just turned a hundred, leave them some
love for their birthday, and every single comment is like
how beautiful, yay, like happy birthday? Love it.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Have you seen this?
Speaker 2 (01:42):
I haven't seen that one, but I did see something
yesterday where it was like it was like a food
influencer like or publication account, and they were they did
one of those things where it's like which picture are
you based.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
On your birth month?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Except it was all AI generated food like that was
the prompt and it was kind of like wait, what,
like why why did this? Like you couldn't have taken
pictures of like actual cakes, like you're doing which AI
generated cake are you?
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Like?
Speaker 4 (02:09):
I don't know, but yeah, it's it's weird.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
I am so sick of it, and honest, like the
cake thing part of me needs to take a step
back and be like, this is obviously, all things considered,
it's pretty benign because people are using AI to do
all kinds of things that are that are much more
problematic and worrisome than what AI generated cake or are
you or show these fake ninety year old elderly people
(02:36):
some birthday love? But it just it feels like one
additional small way that the Internet is becoming worse and
worse and worse. And I think the thing that bugs
me is seeing how much like obviously the people who
do this are just trying to get easy engagement, and
I guess part of me is like, well, they could
be doing in worse ways, but the fact that there
(02:56):
are people who seemingly like this and like they will
actually be like, oh, I'm cake one or happy birthday,
so they elder think it's.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Like it's the normalizing of it, Like it's the normalizing
that this is something that we're just going to be
seeing on our feeds all the time. And I think,
I mean, I do think, like I agree with you
where it's like this is so benign compared to some
of the other things that AI has been used for.
But it's like, okay, yeah, it's almost like like normalizing
(03:25):
the use of AI images, so then when it is
used for more nefarious purposes, it's it kind of slides
under the radar a little bit more easily cause we're
so used to seeing these images all the time.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Anyways, I think.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
That's exactly why that's my issue too. I mean, on
top of the whole like copyright thing. I think that's
my issue too with a lot of the like movie
studios that are using like AI generated images or stuff
for like there, Like there was just some like Marvel
Show from I think last summer that came out that
there was a whole scandal about how they used like
(03:57):
AI for for like the opening credits, and it's like,
that's part of the bigger issue is it's just normalizing this,
the use of this technology to make these big things
that you know could be used.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
In a bunch more nefarious way.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Yes, there was a recent controversy over a Netflix true
crime documentary called What Jennifer Did, about a young woman
who spoiler alert if you can't tell from the title
did something awful to her family, and in part of it,
I assumed it.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Was gonna be like Jennifer's Body.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I wish, I wish the reading two, Oh my God,
I am a justice for Jennifer's Body.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
I am.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
I was on the right side of history on that one.
But yeah, the movie used AI to generate what is
what purport to be historical images of her or like
archival images of her, and so in one of the
images it's like, well, that's clearly AI generated, and especially
for a documentary that is supposedly trying to show us
(04:58):
something true, something real, something that happen to be using
AI generated images without any kind of warning letting you
know that this is that we've recreated this. Really, I
think it brings up some ethical questions and I think
it really comes back to what you just said, that
these things might not be nefarious now, but because they
are benign there, it helps it sort of normalize it. Right,
(05:21):
So it helps it so like, oh, we shouldn't be
asking questions when we see AI used for this, and
so what happens when that use case is not so benign? Right,
what happens when it's a more important use case? I
think you really you've helped me understand why when I
see malicious use of AI, I'm angry or whatever. But
something about these like wholesome uses of it makes me
(05:43):
even more angry. I don't know why. I'm like, I
hate this even more. I think I think you really
nailed it.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I think it's the it's also the kind of collective
like wait, wait, I thought we just like I thought
we were at a point where we were like Hey, guys,
let's think a little bit more critically about AI and
whether we should be using it so casually. I thought
we reached that point as a society, but I guess not. Yeah,
I will say, I know this is awful. Another like
this is one where there's a lot of bad things
(06:11):
that can come from it. With those videos of I
mean not the videos, the AI pictures of Trump getting arrested.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
I remember that. I'm going around.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Recently, there's some new ones that were going around because
of the ruling that we're kind of funny. Okay, objectively, yeah,
I know. Objectively, I'm like, this is bad. This is
bad that these inventures are out there, but they were
kind of funny.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
I felt the same way about the first crap where
it's like, ooh, I wouldn't I would have. I would
have if only.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
Like it's just the idea of him like running down
the street.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Like god, yeah, can I only wish. So, speaking of
stuff online not always being what it seems, we've got
to talk about this huge news about the disinformation campaign
out of Israel. So Israel organized a large scale disinformation
campaign which used fake accounts and disinformation to target progressive
(07:06):
activists and black members of Congress in the United States
and Canada. Herrit's first reported on the existence of this
operation way back in March, but now we have more
details about how it worked and exactly who was behind it.
They reported that it was launched after the start of
the war in Gaza and it was intended to sway
certain segments of the public on Israel's conduct. It really
(07:27):
sounds like the point of this whole thing was to
use social media to quote promote content that it's pro Israel,
anti Palestinian, and anti Muslim, as well as disinformation about
anti Semitism on American campuses. According to an investigation by
the Fake Reporter Organization published this week.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
I will say the Fake Reporter Organization maybe not the
best name.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
I know, but I was reading this, I was like
a little confused. I was like, are they the fake reporters?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Hello, I'm here from the Fake Reporter or like that
sounds like it would feel like a bit but you
know what, glad they're doing.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
The work that they do was that it's importing totally.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
So according to this reporting, this disinformation campaign came straight
from the Israeli government. Parrot's reports that it was established
by Israel's Diaspora Affairs Ministry, but it was run by
a private organization for fear of it being exposed and
like traced back to Israel. So how this whole thing
worked is if they set up fake news websites with
names like no Agenda or Unfold News, and then they
(08:27):
make fake social media accounts on Twitter and Facebook that
are kind of trying to seem like real people. It
seems like maybe they didn't do a great job. We'll
get to that in a moment. They would then use
these accounts to amass followers and then push out these
news stories. The news stories themselves on the websites that
they were setting up, they would just steal and repurpose
content from places like CNN and The New York Times
(08:48):
reports that they were using chat gpt to generate many
of the posts. The campaign also created three fake English
language news sites featuring pro Israel articles. So something I
found really interesting about this whole thing is that it
sounds like why they were doing this, according to the reporting,
was this understanding that perhaps Israel is like losing the
(09:10):
social media war of public opinion. Herot's reports. Various Israeli
officials say that the war in Gaza has exposed quote
a great failure in Israel's hesebara, or public diplomacy. Despite
the massive investment in different pr enterprises over the years,
Israel has not been able to effectively cope with the
flood of pro Palestinian messages on social media. Israel lacked
(09:31):
the necessary digital assets to contend with what it called
quote the pro Palestinian poison propaganda machine and to adequately
publicize hamostrocities to defend the war in Gaza. So it
just sounds like they were like people on social media
are too pro Palestinian, so we have to make some
fake accounts to see if that turns the tides.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Yeah, And I mean I think in this situation too,
like we've really seen some of the ways that social
media can be.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
A really powerful tool for.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Uh spreading misinformation and also like getting important information out there.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Where I think a.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Lot of this backlash and a lot of this kind
of uh, A lot of the backlash to what Israel
is doing is because we're getting these images that are
out of Gaza and out of Rafa that are.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
You know, real awful images.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
A lot of us it's like the first time we're
really witnessing this, like not firsthand, but I guess like
through these actual images of what's happening, and they're like seriously,
I just I'm sure people listening feel the same, but
like I've seen some of literally the worst things I've
ever seen in my life over the past year, uh,
coming out of coming out of Rafa, and and that
(10:44):
has power, Like those images have power. And I think
the Israeli government and the Israeli Hasbara kind of machine
has relied a lot on these images, like not getting
out there and relied on kind of them being the
primary drivers of what the narrative is. And we're seeing
that start to fall apart. And you know, it makes
(11:07):
sense if the reaction is gonna be to go to
these extreme measures like creating fake support.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
I mean, this is and this has been happened.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Like there was an image early on when there were
a lot of these big protests that were happening in
support of Palestinians. There was literally, I think image I
remember it was going around of like a pro Israel
protest that was entirely AI generated, Like it was a
it was like a very obviously AI generated photo. And
this was like early on, So yeah, I'm not surprised
(11:36):
to hear this.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
Again.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I think, like, as somebody who is a Jewish American
who you know, a lot of my Judaism is rooted
in a lot of like anti Zionists.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
Diaspora values.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
It's not surprising just see this happen, because this has
been happening, and this, this kind of has been the
direction that the Israeli state has been going, especially especially recently.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
And I think it goes back to a conversation you
and I had about campus protests. How there's just I
do feel like there's this underlying attitude that people could
not possibly be watching what's going on and be basing
their stances on what they're seeing, right, and so like,
(12:24):
if young people on campuses are protesting in supportive Palestinians,
it has to be TikTok influencing influencing them in some way.
If people on social media are are not supportive of
what Israel has been doing to Palestinians, it must like
we need to get in there and like correct the record, right.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
I think a big kind of point that the Israeli
government has relied on for a while is drawing the
focus away from what is happening to the Palestinian and people,
and instead of turning it into an issue of like,
quote unquote Jewish safety, which it isn't. It is not
an issue of Jewish safety to be murdering of billions
and murdering children like obvious.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
That is so obviously not an equivalency.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
And again, I think going back to the campus protests
very much like turning it into an issue of like, oh, well,
Jewish students don't feel safe, that is not the case.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
That is a huge generalization.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
I'm sure there are some students out there that don't
feel safe, but that is an individual issue. I personally
have a lot of friends that are Jewish that have
been involved with the protests. I know, like Jewish Voice
or Peace has been a big organization that has a
lot of chapters on college campuses that have been really
involved with these protests. I think like it has been
a very kind of important propaganda point for them to
(13:37):
draw attention away from the real issue, which is, yes,
these are students that are protesting human rights atrocities that
they're witnessing every day through social media, through you know,
family or friends that were on the ground there. Like
just just the main thing is just driving that focus
away when that yeah, that is the issue.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
It has nothing to do with.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Like, honestly, it has nothing to do with me as
a Jewish American. It has nothing to do with my
other follow Jewish Americans. It has to do with what
is clearly a human rights atrocity that is happening right now.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
So it's funny that you say this because the fake
accounts that it's when you look at what they were
saying and who they were targeting, the kind of messages
they were putting out, is it is so clear that
it's like, oh, we are trying to get the perspective,
ship the perspective away from what is actually happening to Palestinians.
It's like so clear. So when you look at the
(14:32):
messages they were putting out, they had these different messages
meant to appeal to different groups they were trying to target.
They had the United Citizens for Canada site, which had
multiple social media accounts and disseminated heavily Islamophobic material, including
claims that Muslim immigrants were a threat to Canada and
demanding a Shari estate. Another was the Arab Slave Trade site,
which was copied almost entirely from Wikipedia and aimed at
(14:55):
black Americans, trying to repeat the message that the Arabs
had been slave traders in Africa. I actually really saw
this messaging my like organically via social media and also
repeated by people that I know like this. This was
messaging that I will say, like anecdotally personally I saw
sort of like breakthrough on social media a little bit.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Yeah, that's crazy. And I will say.
Speaker 6 (15:18):
With that one too, that's wild because that is also
an anti Semitic talking point been used by you know,
other people on the right that if wanted to spread misinformation,
like anti Semitic misinformation, has been saying that it was.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Like Jewish people that were involved with the Strength that
we're leading the Strength slave train and all that. So
it's like, wow, okay, we can't even come up with
our with another with another narrative. We're just gonna copy
and paste it, but like switch it from Jewish people
to Arab people, like we can't the Israeli state can't
even come up with their own hate narratives now, Like yes, insane.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
So much of this stuff is so sloppy. That is
something that I really like when I was reading about this,
influenced campaign. I was like, y'all couldn't even like get that,
get this, cause have there be consistency in this. So
this one's my favorite. Yet another site was called Serenity Now,
which branded itself as an anarchist and anti establishment group.
It sought to convince young Americans to oppose the creation
(16:12):
of a Palestinian state because states are man made structures
and a Palestinian state would hurt the goals of the
progressive movement.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Oh my god, Serenity Now I really like brought me
back to like my college organizing days, because I swear
to god, there was like one dude who like this
would be his talking.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Oh I know that dude. Oh god, Oh my gosh.
It's like you can be so left that you've got
to swing back around to the other side, and now
you're likeying a right wing point.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah, or you're like just too too deep in like
the theory spiral that it's like you have not talked
to a single other human being about like the realities
of their Like oh my god.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
But yeah, that's I mean. But yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
I on the other hand, the fact that they're going
in that direction, I can read that and be like
Oh my god, I recognized this, like line of thought.
That just shows that this is like a decent propaganda technique.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
Yeah, yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
I think that. I think the technique of driving wedges
and pitting marginalized groups against each other and pitting like
anarchists progressive activist against like like like it's a it's
a it's a time tested strategy. They also were targeting
specific black elected officials. The operation focused on more than
a dozen members of Congress who are black and Democrats.
(17:31):
According to fake reporter, representative Richie Torres, a Democrat out
of New York who's pretty outspoken about its pro as
real views, was targeted in addition to Jeffreys and Warnock.
So Some of the fake accounts would respond to Richie
Torres's posts on Twitter commenting on anti semitism on college
campuses and in major US cities. In response to a
(17:51):
December eighth post on Twitter by Torres about fire safety,
one fake account replied harmas is perpetrating the conflict. The
posts included a hashtag that said Jews are being persecuted.
Over On Facebook, the fake accounts posted on Jeffrey's public
page asking if you had seen a report about the
United Nations allegedly employing members of Hamas in Gaza. So
it is really fascinating to me to see how they
(18:14):
were targeting black folks in specific. Like it reminds me
that we often see like foreign influence campaigns that target
black people specifically, and part of me wonders if they
just see our community as like less critical or like
more easily swayed. That is complete like bs, but it
makes me wonder if like that's how they see us
(18:36):
as easily swayed, easily cajoled, easily influenced, and so like
that's why they target us, whether or not that's true.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Yeah, I mean I wouldn't. I mean I wouldn't be surprised.
And like we're talking about like Israel is legally in
apartheized state, like it is the Israeli government like runs
on a racist sideology.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
I would not be surprised if that were the case.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Yeah, Like when I was reading this, I was like,
this feels anti black, even though I can't exactly name
why that is, it feels anti black to me. I'll
get back to you on on the why this I
feel it. So I should say it sounds like they
did not do a great job of this influence campaign.
In at least two instances, accounts with profile photos of
(19:23):
black men would then post about being middle aged Jewish women.
On one hundred and eighteen posts in which the fake
account shared pro Israel articles, the same sentence appeared, quote
I gotta reevaluate my opinions due to this new information,
which like, that's so someone trying to sound like a
black person but like getting it wrong. And this is
(19:44):
why I always say, if somebody is on the Internet
purporting to be a black person, but the way that
they're speaking or however, it just sounds off your sobidy
senses should be tingling.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
Oh man, I can't even do their racism right.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Exactly exactly.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Let's take a quick break. Ed are back.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
So Facebook has now removed these fake profiles. Fake Reporter's
executive director Achia Shots told Herod's that quote running the
foreign influence campaign against American lawmakers is amateurish, irresponsible an
anti democratic. Fake Reporter has called on the Israeli government
to take steps against foreign influence campaigns. He added, the
Israeli government is expected to refrain from taking similar actions,
(20:43):
especially ones at target israel Significant democratic partners. The money
spent on this campaign would have been better spent in
protecting the Israeli public from foreign intervention. And that is
a great point that I don't understand how I want
to paying somebody, paying a firm to run a bunch
of fake accounts and make a bunch of fake news sites.
(21:06):
Is making people in Israel more safe?
Speaker 4 (21:09):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
I mean, you know, it's like the same It's the
same thing the US does where it's like, God, I
remember there was some tweet a while ago about like,
you know, the brave soldiers like keeping our countries or
like protecting our freedom and.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Somebody who's like, what what's my freedom doing in the
Middle East? Like they're protecting our freedom like on the
other side of the.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
World, and like, I yeah, it's like the same thing
where it's like oh wow, Like once you start digging deeper,
I think into a lot of these like very militant
kind of campaigns, it's very clear that what they say
they're doing is not what they're actually doing.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Right, Well, that's exactly the point. And I should add
that when we talk about these kinds of influence campaigns,
and it's always important to note that they are not
generally very successful in their intended impacts. It sounds like
this one did not have the biggest impact. Both Facebook
and Open ais that the campaign did not have widespread impact.
The fake accounts did accumulate more than forty thousand followers
(22:13):
across Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. However, many of those followers
may have been bought, and it did not generate a
meaningfully large audience. But I think it is still worth
talking about that, you know, even if it wasn't particularly
effective in swaying the communities it was targeting, it's still
important to note that, like this day kind of thing
(22:33):
is going on, and so when you are using social media,
it's just kind of like what we were talking about
with the AI images. Like I think that this kind
of thing is becoming more normalized, and that it creates
an Internet landscape where we can't just count on getting
authentic information or content from real humans. You never know
what's going on, and I just think it makes us
all less safe and less secure when our Internet landscape
(22:56):
is just a wash in these kinds of media manipulation
campaigns exactly.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
And I mean it goes back to the whole conversation.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
About X, right, now and how it hurts me to
call it X, but you know, I'm talking negatively about it,
so I will infer to its X.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
It's like your child I don't know or whatever.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Like I was just thinking that, like when I when
when I'm purporting on something that X that they've done bad,
I'm like, it's X. When it's something that's like kind
of okay, I'm like on Twitter. Yeah, it's like when
I when I mentioned behave, I'm like, oh, your child
has skipped school. My mom would always say my dad right.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
But yeah, but it's it's the whole bigger conversation about
X right now and how it uses to be, you know,
with still having lots of flaws, but it used to
be a place where you could get information, you could
get first hand accounts, you could get all these different
kind of journalists and experts like weighing on things, and
now it's just kind of turned into like bots following
(23:59):
thoughts and like sharing misinformation and.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
Like bots hyping each other up.
Speaker 5 (24:07):
Like it's like not even I don't, like I don't
even feel like I'm like communicating with real people when
I open like Twitter now, like I'm just like, oh,
I'm just seeing it's like content that is either super
not relevant to what I care about, or yeah, or
it's just this kind of like nightmare of like bots
and artificial like AI generated stuff and whatever.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Yeah, I feel the same way. And I should say,
like in our life, we were just talking about disinformation
campaigns being run by other countries, which we talk about
a lot when we talk about medium manipulation online, but
we should also keep in mind that it's not always
about another country like Israel or Russia trying to manipulate us.
In addition to all the bots, there are just still
(24:53):
fashion and blood humans out there on Twitter spreading misinformation.
And a new study is actually shedding light on who
is that that is on Twitter, and I am sorry
to say that it is a lot of women in
their late fifties, specifically, so Ours Technica reports that there's
this new study by researchers Shahar Barbie Bartov, Brianni Swier Thompson,
(25:14):
and Near Grinberg that was released this week that looks
at a large panel of Twitter accounts that are associated
with US based voters. So it identifies that a kind
of shockingly small handful of misinformation super spreaders is what
they're calling them, which represents just zero point three percent
of the accounts, but are responsible for sharing eighty percent
(25:35):
of Twitter's links to fake news or unreliable news sources.
So that means a lot less people than you might
think are responsible for the spread of the bulk of
misinformation from unreliable sources on Twitter. It really just does
sound like this is people who are like power sharers
on Twitter. According to the study, on an average day
(25:56):
on Twitter at this time, only seven percent of the
news story shareed linked to sites prone to publishing misinformation,
but super spreaders ended up accounting for most of these
for two reasons. One is if they shared more newslengths
than anybody else on the platform an average of sixteen
a day compared to less than one from the random sampling.
(26:16):
And most of the time these people are just like
smashing that retweet button like nobody's business. The study found
that three quarters of these super spreaders their contact was
just retweets. So you might be wondering, like, who are
these people? Well, Ours Technica says they are kind of
like our aunties and our moms. There are women in
their late fifties. Ours Technical reports that the super spreaders
(26:39):
are sixty percent more likely to be female. They're also
a little bit older, on average fifty eight years old,
nearly twenty years older than the sample group as a whole.
And while much of the misinformation about the election largely
circulated within Republican circles, only sixty four percent of the
super spreaders were registered Republicans. Nearly twenty percent were registered
as Democrats. Well, it is like ladies in their late fifties.
(27:04):
But I actually have a theory on what's going on.
This is just my theory. This is not in the study.
I think it's this sounds like peak auntie behavior to me,
like spending, you know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (27:16):
Yeah, like that, it's like like just like expend.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Yes, Like when I think about how some of my
the women in my life who are in their late fifties,
how they roll online. The fact that it's a lot
of retweets really speaks to me. I'm like, Oh, that's
my aunties. They love they they love us share people
of our of my generation and maybe your generation. Joey,
you've had some sense of like if you went to
(27:43):
your Facebook page and you ha had shared a hundred
things in one day, your friends might be like, are
they okay, oh yeah, but I don't think that aunties
have the same vibe.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Yeah, I mean, I like fairly open Facebook anymore for
this reason because it is mostly like, yeah, a lot
of the older people in my family sharing a lot
of these articles that I'm like, I don't even have
the energy to keep getting annoyed at like every single.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
Piece of misinformation.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
But yeah, it is like, I mean, Facebook has kind
of just become this like.
Speaker 4 (28:18):
Fear of yeah, we're people. Okay, So this might snick
wing be here, this might sound a little bit of astrautge,
but I this is why.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
And on one day, Pridget that I feel like I
come on to do a bigger episode about this. But
I I am a little bit critical of the sort
of the through lack of a better word, kind of
structure that we have right now on Instagram or a
lot of people are their activism or what they're doing
to raise awareness is just like sharing a lot of
(28:48):
stuff on their story. And I do this too, and
like we've talked about that, like, I mean, we all
kind of do it, and I think there are a
lot of benefits and there is something about especially if
you're sharing like kind of going back to the other story,
like sharing stuff about you know, fund raising or miss
or or debunking misinformation or like there are there are
important stuff to be sharing.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
I do that too. But that being said, I think
i've kind of I'm.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Realizing like I think this is like our our two
generations kind of version of this is like the spiral
of people just sharing a lot of stuff in their
story because it speaks to that and obviously it's something
that like speaks to them. But this is what makes
me nervous, is I feel like we are now seeing
with Facebook and kind of the like Boomer gen X generation,
(29:30):
like how that goes in a negative direction. I'm a
little bit worried that we're like setting us helps up
for a similar thing to happen.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
But yeah, I agree, I do.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
I think this is like it's just it's the gossip
like expanded on a on a world stage.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Yeah, we have to do an episode about the dynamics
of Instagram share Instagram being used as a place to
share information. What I always say is just remember anybody
can get a Cannavas subscription, like just because yeah, just
because I have a Canvas subscription, I have put together
(30:09):
a few Canada infographics in my day. I am I am,
I am, I am a cog in this system. I'm
calling myself out. But just remember, just because it's a
slick looking graphic with good colors and it's a carousel
on Instagram, anybody can get a canvas subscription. They they
don't like have to pass a test or anything. So
we should always remember that when we're when we're using
social media in general and deciding what to share.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
Huh, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
And I mean last week you did the story about
the the all eyes on rough image that there was
sort of so backlash that for that same reason, and
I kind of was in the same boat with you
where I had shared it originally and I kind of
was like, Okay, maybe not like that.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
Actually, like I understand a lot of the reasons our people.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Are upset about this, but I think that was like
a perfect example where it was just like there was
so much like back and forth about like what we
should be doing.
Speaker 4 (30:57):
And then it like to get out to the point
where I was kind of like, what even is the
point of this? It's like what even like I don't know.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
I yeah, I one day I'll do a figure episode
about that.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Yeah, I kind of got it. Sounds like we had
a very similar trajectory with the all eyes on a
Ratha Ai generated an image we talked about in last
week's round up. But yeah, we're to the end of it.
I was like, what, like, like I had overthought it
to a point where I'm like, what even, Like why
did I even feel like I should share it? Like
it just like you, when you really pull apart the
reasonings on social media, you can get so granular where
(31:29):
the focus gets so lost, and you know, initially I'm like, oh, yeah,
if something comes across my stories about Palestine that speaks
to me and I feel like might speak to somebody else,
I'll share it. And then it's like but but with
that image, is like, well why why why did that?
What am I hoping to accomplish? What's the end goal?
Speaker 4 (31:46):
Right?
Speaker 2 (31:47):
I'm in the same boat where I kind of have
like stopped sharing a lot of stuff for it. Like
I think early on, I was kind of like I
felt like I should be sharing this stuff constantly because
I had a regional point where I kind of need
to step back and be like is this productive? Like
this is what I'm doing actually productive or because and again,
like this is a different situation obviously, like this this
story is about misinformation specifically, but like going back to
this story, a big point of misinformation and these kind
(32:11):
of campaigns is just kind of creating chaos and putting
a lot of information out there, so like you don't
even really know.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
What's true anymore.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
So even if it's something where I'm like, I'm sharing
images that are coming from trusted news sources or whatever
that I know are real, is there any benefit of me,
Like what is actually going to be beneficial is that
I'm not just posting stuff on my story to show
that I'm paying attention to show that I'm like staying
with it, or like is this actually meant to like
(32:41):
share resources or share something that I think is important
that people might not know otherwise, or is it just
kind of creating more noise.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Yeah, we we have to do a longer conversation about Yeah,
these are these are things that.
Speaker 4 (32:52):
These are I have a lot of thoughts.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Yeah, I will say We're definitely gonna do.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
More.
Speaker 7 (33:03):
After a quick break, let's get right back into it.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
So we have to talk about this. I guess I
guess I'll call it transphobic dating app la app. Have
you heard of this?
Speaker 2 (33:28):
I have not, but I just see the lesbian dating app,
which I feel like we've tried.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
To do this so many times.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Its yeah, strap in for this one. So app is
an app that bills itself as being for lesbians to
meet other lesbians, but with a twist. They're using facial
recognition technology in an attempt to keep trans women off
of the platform. Pink News reports that app has been
(33:57):
created by a gender the gender critical campaigner Jenny and
says it will scan a prospective users face via their smartphone,
allegedly being able to text if that person is CYS
or trans with ninety nine percent accuracy. First of all,
I have you. I'll say that's over and over and
over again. Complete bs. That's a lie, No way, no how,
(34:18):
I'll pause there. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 4 (34:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Also, okay, I'm turfs are so fucking goofy. I'd like,
especially like lesbian and by women that are terfed because
I'm sorry, like this is my issue. All of the
obvious like things aside, like the lesbian community and like
the queer women in general, like even if you're not trans,
(34:46):
there's a lot of like different There's a whole history
of like different varying like gender expressions. I I'm somebody
who's like transvasculine, I present like I I kind of
look like a twelve year old boy.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
I don't know, I've I've talked about.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
This before, but it's always like the thing too where
I think like TERFs when whenever it's like the bathroom issue,
when they like like hyper fixing the bathroom issue. I
have gotten weird looks in public bathrooms before because people
see me, and especially if I'm wearing a mask, like
I have short hair, and I'm like, you know, i'm
our masculine presenting. I'm not like I'm pretty like introgynous looking,
where like people will give me weird looks and I'm like,
(35:23):
I know you think that I am trans in the
other direction, and that's why you're being weird to me.
Speaker 6 (35:29):
But this just proves that your whole point is stupid
because under.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
That logic, like I should be the like quote unquote
like women that you're trying to protect you right, and like,
oh my god, it's that.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
Is so insane. I'm also yeah, the idea of being
able to like detect if somebody's trans based on like.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Bullshit not true, that's such bullshit, Like oh my gosh,
oh my god. It like I mean, I was when
I was thinking about this earlier, I was like, dang
transphobes and turfs, in service of their transphobia, they will
get taken by charlatan's. And now I'm like, oh, and
(36:10):
it's like tech charlatans who are purporting that technology can
be used in a way that it can't be and
like to your point about how like this kind of
being like, oh well, our technology can tell who's this
or who's that. The scholar Alejandra Carrabello made a great
point on thread saying that basically, you are trusting technology
that we already know is falty to say that Kim
Petras isn't a woman, or that Late Ashley isn't a
(36:32):
man based on a photo. There is no machine learning
model in existence that could do this consistently and accurately
based on a photo. Like people like, it doesn't work
that way. People are complex, and it's wild to me
that people would be making the claim that facial recognition
technology can do this. It absolutely cannot. I cannot stress
(36:52):
this enough. And again there are so many reasons why
this is a stupid, terrible idea transphobia aside, Like we know,
fatial cognition technology is really faulty. It routinely misidentifies black
CIS women as men. Shout out to doctor Joe Bolomwuini
for her gender shades work about this, and yeah, it's
like so if you actually use this technology, you would
(37:16):
definitely be casting out the very people that you say
are the demographic that you want. Like it doesn't make
any sense.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Yeah, and like you said with like there is a
whole history of like how this is tied to racism
and how this is tied to a lot of like
like this feels like we're trying to do eugenics again,
like just in a different form. But like it is
so weird, and yeah, like gender, you know when people
(37:46):
say gender is the performance, gender is like you know,
all the fucking Jude Butler's.
Speaker 4 (37:50):
Work is all about this, Like it very much is
like basically yeah, like you're able to. This is the
whole point of drags.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
You can you can mess with gender, you can you
can present different ways and it, I god, this is.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Just such a weird.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
This is just such a shit show, like what the hell.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
It really is, and like, yeah, I mean there are
days like my on my own gender journey. There are
days where I am like rocking straight androgyny, and there
are days where I'm like, oh, I'm gonna like them
up because I want to or need to for some reason,
Like the idea that a machine learning app would be
able to zoom in on the particulars of that is.
(38:32):
It's just it's just not how it works. And I
think your point is a good one about how it's
like it's a good reminder that all this stuff is connected,
that their transphobia is also anti blackness. It's like it's
all it's like one big bag of awful.
Speaker 4 (38:46):
Yeah yeah, yeah, And I the same.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
I mean, like I I've done a total of one
drag performance in my life.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
I would love to do more, but.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
I but I did, like you know, I'm drag was
like wearing a wing and I did all my makeup
and stuff, and I like my friends did not recognize me, like.
Speaker 4 (39:04):
I was a completely different person. And then also like
when I went out and was like walking.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Down the street, like people just assumed I was like
a super fam like sis.
Speaker 4 (39:12):
Woman, Like it's all, yeah, it's all very superficial.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Yeah, And I did want to keep it really real
for a second, which is that I believe just having
just being a person, a woman, a SIS woman, who
is out there on who's been on a few apps, whatever, whatever,
the real threat to women on a lesbian dating app
is not from trans people. It is SIS men looking
(39:37):
to set up threesomes. I think, like, if you were
gonna fall out one section of like, well, that's the
real problem. It's gotta be them.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
Nope, Oh god, Okay.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
So I know in the past I have been defending
dating apps in general on this podcast.
Speaker 4 (39:51):
I will say I've.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Had some really weird hinge messages over the last couple
of months. But I need to do an episode where
I just read through all the weird shit that oh
yes please because OsO Okay, So I get like, as
I mentioned, I'm trans, like I I do not date
straight men.
Speaker 4 (40:08):
I date men.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
I'm bisexual like I date people of all genders, but
I don't date straight people period.
Speaker 4 (40:13):
I have that in my hinge bio. Some of the
weirdest like I.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Had a man I'm both the most recent one that
I cannot stop thinking about when somebody messaged me. This
man messaged me and was like, well, am I am
I straight? If I like being the little spoon And.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
I was like what.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Oh, and that's like one of the milder ones.
Speaker 4 (40:33):
I know.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
One day I like, literally, I've just started saving them
because I like, I was like, I had a moment
where I was like, maybe this is unethical, but then
I was like, these men.
Speaker 4 (40:41):
Are sending me these send this prompted like what is up?
Or like I'll get a lot of the like well
maybe I'm not straight because I think you're hot.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
I'm like, yeah, let's.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
Unpack that, like what the hell? Yeah, anyways, I agree
with that sentiment. The the the problem is sis straight men.
The problem is sis.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Men looking for the suns, looking to be creepy, looking
to be weird.
Speaker 4 (41:11):
This should be common sense.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
But you know it's them, them, they're the problem. There's
them straight men.
Speaker 4 (41:20):
Yeah, oh my god, speaking.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Of straight men being problematic, I guess I don't know
that this next story only involves straight men, but you know,
I'm gonna take a leap and say that there's probably
a lot of them all. Yeah, historically and historically right,
So that is this horrible landlord scheme. So we got
to talk about Real Page, which is the quote property
(41:43):
management software company that has been accused of helping landlords
orchestrate a price fixing scam among large corporate landlords by
algorithmically predicting the highest possible rents that landlords can get
away with charging tenants. So these people are like scum
bags of the highest order. Even reading this story, I
was like, these people are not good people. Listen to
(42:07):
how pro Publica reported on how they talked about their
rent hiking technology back in October during a convention. Never
before have we seen these numbers, said Jay Parsons, a
vice president of Real Page, as convention goers wandered by
apartment rents had recently shot up by as much as
fourteen point five percent, he said in a video touting
the company's services. Turning to his colleague, Parsons asked, what
(42:30):
role has a software played. I think it's driving it,
quite honestly, answered Andrew Bowen, another Real Page executive. As
a property manager, very few of us would be willing
to actually raise rents double digits within a single month
by doing it manually. So they're basically just like bragging, like,
oh yeah, we raised this. This technology helps you raise
rents and ways you never thought. You didn't think that
(42:52):
that family with small children and a single mom would
pay this much. You might be wrong. You should raise
their rent and see.
Speaker 4 (43:00):
Oh my god, just what the hell it's bad.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
So, according to biz Now, Real Pages System, which provides
rental price recommendations based on real time data from landlords,
is alleged to be a key tool in manipulating the
rental market. The firm's influence covers seventy percent of multifamily
apartment buildings and unpacks sixteen million units nationwide. So this
is very much like a coordinated scheme. Landlords are encouraged
(43:28):
to adopt Real Pages price and recommendations, a practice that
they follow eighty to ninety percent of the time. This
coordinated approach reduces the availability of rental units, driving up prices.
One of the architects of Real Pages System reportedly stated
that the aim is to prevent landlords from undervaluing their properties,
ensuring consistently higher rates across the board.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Yeah, that's the real problem here, it's landlords under yeah,
doing their property.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
Oh my god, the poor landlords. Won't someone think about
the land properties that have been under So if the
majority of landlords in a single area are all using
this this pricing tool, it kind of feels like a
coordinated price fixing scam, right, which you would think should
be illegal. Right. Well, last week, the FBI did a
(44:15):
surprise raid on the Atlanta headquarters of Courtland Management, marking
a significant escalation and a criminal anti trust investigation of
an Apartment of Justice into allegations of a nationwide conspiracy
to artificially inflate apartment rents. The implications of this probe
are far reaching, potentially affecting millions of renters across the US.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Yeah, surprising, Like you know, moment where I'm supporting the
FBI here because this is a real I live in
New York. Like I sometimes if I'm feeling particularly you know,
like getting in a depressive spiral about the state of
the world, I'll just think about the fact that it's
like it is so weird, how it's.
Speaker 4 (44:59):
Just completely NORMALI is that.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
I, Like, I don't know anybody who isn't constantly in
like a state of just like not stable, like not
having super stable housing because you don't know when your
rent's gonna go up, or if like it's already so
insanely expensive to live here, and then they're constantly raising
prices and all of the buildings are kind.
Speaker 4 (45:22):
Of also like awful too.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
Like the building that I live in has like a
billion fucking problems that they like never respond to, and
they're still like trying to raise rent for the next
like you know cycle of our our lease and all
of that, and I you know, it's it is a
huge problem and it's not something that should be normalized,
and it's not something that should just be like accepted
as like, oh it is the way it is like that,
(45:44):
like people should be able to live and exist and
you know, have the shelter because that's an important part
of life.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
But yeah, yeah, and you're right, like it really is
deeply impacting renters. In Atlanta, for instance, this raid happened.
Software driven pricing affects eighty one percent of multifamily rental units.
Biznow reports that since twenty sixteen, rencident Atlanta have surged
by eighty percent, despite rising vacancy rates that would typically
result in lower rents. The widespread adoption of real pages
(46:16):
pricing recommendations by several landlords between twenty fifteen and twenty seventeen,
followed by Real Pages acquisition of its main rival lease
rent Option in twenty seventeen, has given the company unprecedented
control over rental pricing. So I'm with you, like, this
is a bit of a weird stance for me, but
I was like, I'm glad they got raided. I'm glad
it was a surprise raid. I hope it was, Like
(46:38):
you know, I would have loved to have been doing
a ride along and like wearing one of the FBI
jackets and like aviator glasses, kicking indoors and like bust
in the heads of these guys. Like I just think
these people are scumbags. And I hate that when we
think about technology that this is the use case that
a lot of people will go for, Like how can
we use it to extract and squeeze and exploit people?
(47:01):
And I hate it so like the algorithmic pricing is
a racket that prays on us renters. And yeah, I
just think that when we think about crime and the
way that crime and technology intersect, I don't like the
idea of bad facial recognition being being used to misidentify shoplifters.
This is the kind of tech enabled crime that is
(47:24):
impacting more people, right, Like we should be talking about this,
This should be big news. Yeah, I'm sure somebody listening
is like, wow, bridget Todd show for the FBI. Who knew?
Speaker 4 (47:38):
I got it.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
It's like one of the the It's the like one
in a million times where it's like, oh my god,
the justice system working the way it's supposed to. We'll see,
We'll feel like, we'll see, we'll see. I guess it's
like the like the TV show version of the FBI
where you're like, wow, yeah, they're I don't know, I
feel the same like cautious cautious is to the f Yeah,
(48:01):
I guess in this case. But yeah, once again, the
problem is capitalism. How how this technology is used, How
this technology is used not to make our lives easier
but just to help, you know, select few people.
Speaker 4 (48:19):
Make a little bit more money from from the rest
of our misery.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
Exactly. Okay, so my last question for you is are
you familiar with the K pop group New Genes.
Speaker 4 (48:31):
I think I've just heard of that.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
I'm not a big K pop listener, but like I feel, like,
you know, being on the internet, it comes into my
feed often, so I think I like, just heard of
this group from like some posts somewhere, but I'm not
super familiar.
Speaker 1 (48:48):
Okay, I had never heard of them, and I was
asking my friend who does like K pop, like, oh,
do you know about New Genes? And she was like,
they are literally one of the biggest groups in the world.
That's like being like, oh, have you heard of this group?
The Beatles? Like It's like, oh, I had no idea.
So Earlier this year, the Korean pop apparently supergroup New
Genes was asking for help and identifying an anonymous YouTuber
(49:11):
to sue them for defamation, and this week for or
For Media reported that a US federal court actually allowed
the group to subpoenaed that information from Google about a
YouTube account so they can sue that person for defamation
under South Korean law. The group alleges that this account,
which according to court documents, posts under the handle at
middle seven, has posted as many as thirty three defamatory
(49:33):
videos that have been viewed nearly fourteen million times as
of their filing. Because the account is anonymous, the lawsuit
cannot continue until that user has been identified. Some of
the statements that New Genes are saying are defamatory include
calling one of the members of the group the eldest
daughter of a Vietnamese farmer, and a video titled reasons
why New Genes is a crap group.
Speaker 4 (49:56):
I mean, it is that defavatory or is that just?
Speaker 2 (50:01):
I mean, I mean, if that's the bavatory, Harry Styles
might be sending me a cease and desist sometime soon.
Speaker 4 (50:09):
That's why I wanted.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
To ask about this. So, like, I'm no lawyer. What
do I know if you're If you're a lawyer and
you have insight into this, uh, let me know. But
I was so curious, Like so this is not the
first case of this nature, and that is like why
Google was ordered to actually provide the name and birth
date and address and email address of the person on
YouTube who was doing this, because it's like a there's
(50:32):
already established legal precedent. However, I can't help but wonder,
like what does this mean for haters like me, like
people who just like I want to make a long
YouTube video about how much I hate Harry Styles or whatever,
like like what does that? What does that mean for
those kind of people? You know?
Speaker 4 (50:49):
Yeah, yeah, I And I mean I don't know.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
I guess I would need to look a little bit
more into this case and like what specific claims are
being made. But if like like those two up front,
a like the eldest daughter of a Vietnamese father, I
don't know, maybe that's not true, but also that doesn't
really seem like it's like defamatory, like I don't know.
And then also yeah, the whole like why it's like
(51:16):
if it's an opinion. I am also a bridge and
I'm in the same court.
Speaker 4 (51:20):
I love being a hater.
Speaker 2 (51:22):
I like I if they make being a hater illegal
on the internet, like.
Speaker 4 (51:28):
I don't know what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 1 (51:29):
I know, I'm so curious how it shakes out. M Well, Joey,
thank you so much for being here. Where can folks
keep in touch with what you're up to?
Speaker 2 (51:41):
Of course you can find me on Twitter and Instagram
at Pat not Pratt p A T T n OT
p r A T T. Also, same day that this
is coming out, I have an episode of stuff Mom
never told you, an Honor of Pride month, talking about
(52:02):
the movie Bottoms. So you want to hear me talk
about Honestly, a lot of it is me talking about
other queer high school movies that I don't like but
if you want to hear me talk about bottoms.
Speaker 4 (52:18):
And all of that. Yeah, the movie.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
Check it out, not the embody part, the body part.
Speaker 4 (52:26):
You know. You can check them out on stuff Mom
Never told you.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
Also, also for Pride Month, there's a new show called
but We Loved that's from the Outspoken Network.
Speaker 4 (52:38):
I would it's all about.
Speaker 2 (52:40):
Queer history told through kind of a kind of personal
personal storytelling.
Speaker 4 (52:44):
I've been working on that as well. To go ahead
and check that out. If that is of interest to.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
You, definitely check that out. We'll put the links in
the show notes to all of this. Thanks so much
for being here, Joey, and thanks to all of you
for listening. I will see you on the Internet. If
you're looking for ways to support the show, check out
our merch store at tangody dot com slash store. Got
(53:10):
a story about an interesting thing in tech, or just
want to say hi, You can read us at Hello
at tangody dot com. You can also find transcripts for
today's episode.
Speaker 3 (53:17):
At tengody dot com.
Speaker 1 (53:18):
There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by
me bridget Toid. It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative,
edited by Joey Pat Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer.
Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almada
is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If
you want to help us grow, rate and review.
Speaker 3 (53:36):
Us on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts
There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production
of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Tot and this
is there Are No Girls on the Internet. This is
There No Girls on the Internet, where we explore the
intersection of technology, social media, and identity. Joey, we are
so thrilled to have you back on the show.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hey, Bridget, it's going to be back. Happy Pride months.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Happy Pride. Are you doing anything fun for Pride?
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (00:35):
God? What am I not doing?
Speaker 5 (00:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I have a couple events that like friends are doing.
I had my household through something last weekend, kind of
kick off at the beginning of the month.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
So I'm busy. I'm out and about, you know.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
I'm glad to hear it. I'm still in COVID recovery mode,
but I'm living vicariously through folks like you who are
out having a good time. I am very.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
Well.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
I have to tell you, I feel like a new
tech gripe of mine has just dropped. And that is
maybe you've seen them, these seemingly wholesome but very obviously
AI generated images. It'll be like the ones I've been
seeing lately. Are It'll be these AI generated images of
(01:23):
three older black people and the caption will be like, oh,
these three triplets just turned a hundred, leave them some
love for their birthday, and every single comment is like
how beautiful, yay, like happy birthday? Love it.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Have you seen this?
Speaker 2 (01:42):
I haven't seen that one, but I did see something
yesterday where it was like it was like a food
influencer like or publication account, and they were they did
one of those things where it's like which picture are
you based.
Speaker 4 (01:55):
On your birth month?
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Except it was all AI generated food like that was
the prompt and it was kind of like wait, what,
like why why did this? Like you couldn't have taken
pictures of like actual cakes, like you're doing which AI
generated cake are you?
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Like?
Speaker 4 (02:09):
I don't know, but yeah, it's it's weird.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
I am so sick of it, and honest, like the
cake thing part of me needs to take a step
back and be like, this is obviously, all things considered,
it's pretty benign because people are using AI to do
all kinds of things that are that are much more
problematic and worrisome than what AI generated cake or are
you or show these fake ninety year old elderly people
(02:36):
some birthday love? But it just it feels like one
additional small way that the Internet is becoming worse and
worse and worse. And I think the thing that bugs
me is seeing how much like obviously the people who
do this are just trying to get easy engagement, and
I guess part of me is like, well, they could
be doing in worse ways, but the fact that there
(02:56):
are people who seemingly like this and like they will
actually be like, oh, I'm cake one or happy birthday,
so they elder think it's.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Like it's the normalizing of it, Like it's the normalizing
that this is something that we're just going to be
seeing on our feeds all the time. And I think,
I mean, I do think, like I agree with you
where it's like this is so benign compared to some
of the other things that AI has been used for.
But it's like, okay, yeah, it's almost like like normalizing
(03:25):
the use of AI images, so then when it is
used for more nefarious purposes, it's it kind of slides
under the radar a little bit more easily cause we're
so used to seeing these images all the time.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Anyways, I think.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
That's exactly why that's my issue too. I mean, on
top of the whole like copyright thing. I think that's
my issue too with a lot of the like movie
studios that are using like AI generated images or stuff
for like there, Like there was just some like Marvel
Show from I think last summer that came out that
there was a whole scandal about how they used like
(03:57):
AI for for like the opening credits, and it's like,
that's part of the bigger issue is it's just normalizing this,
the use of this technology to make these big things
that you know could be used.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
In a bunch more nefarious way.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Yes, there was a recent controversy over a Netflix true
crime documentary called What Jennifer Did, about a young woman
who spoiler alert if you can't tell from the title
did something awful to her family, and in part of it,
I assumed it.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Was gonna be like Jennifer's Body.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I wish, I wish the reading two, Oh my God,
I am a justice for Jennifer's Body.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
I am.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
I was on the right side of history on that one.
But yeah, the movie used AI to generate what is
what purport to be historical images of her or like
archival images of her, and so in one of the
images it's like, well, that's clearly AI generated, and especially
for a documentary that is supposedly trying to show us
(04:58):
something true, something real, something that happen to be using
AI generated images without any kind of warning letting you
know that this is that we've recreated this. Really, I
think it brings up some ethical questions and I think
it really comes back to what you just said, that
these things might not be nefarious now, but because they
are benign there, it helps it sort of normalize it. Right,
(05:21):
So it helps it so like, oh, we shouldn't be
asking questions when we see AI used for this, and
so what happens when that use case is not so benign? Right,
what happens when it's a more important use case? I
think you really you've helped me understand why when I
see malicious use of AI, I'm angry or whatever. But
something about these like wholesome uses of it makes me
(05:43):
even more angry. I don't know why. I'm like, I
hate this even more. I think I think you really
nailed it.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I think it's the it's also the kind of collective
like wait, wait, I thought we just like I thought
we were at a point where we were like Hey, guys,
let's think a little bit more critically about AI and
whether we should be using it so casually. I thought
we reached that point as a society, but I guess not. Yeah,
I will say, I know this is awful. Another like
this is one where there's a lot of bad things
(06:11):
that can come from it. With those videos of I
mean not the videos, the AI pictures of Trump getting arrested.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
I remember that. I'm going around.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Recently, there's some new ones that were going around because
of the ruling that we're kind of funny. Okay, objectively, yeah,
I know. Objectively, I'm like, this is bad. This is
bad that these inventures are out there, but they were
kind of funny.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
I felt the same way about the first crap where
it's like, ooh, I wouldn't I would have. I would
have if only.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
Like it's just the idea of him like running down
the street.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Like god, yeah, can I only wish. So, speaking of
stuff online not always being what it seems, we've got
to talk about this huge news about the disinformation campaign
out of Israel. So Israel organized a large scale disinformation
campaign which used fake accounts and disinformation to target progressive
(07:06):
activists and black members of Congress in the United States
and Canada. Herrit's first reported on the existence of this
operation way back in March, but now we have more
details about how it worked and exactly who was behind it.
They reported that it was launched after the start of
the war in Gaza and it was intended to sway
certain segments of the public on Israel's conduct. It really
(07:27):
sounds like the point of this whole thing was to
use social media to quote promote content that it's pro Israel,
anti Palestinian, and anti Muslim, as well as disinformation about
anti Semitism on American campuses. According to an investigation by
the Fake Reporter Organization published this week.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
I will say the Fake Reporter Organization maybe not the
best name.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
I know, but I was reading this, I was like
a little confused. I was like, are they the fake reporters?
Speaker 2 (07:54):
Hello, I'm here from the Fake Reporter or like that
sounds like it would feel like a bit but you
know what, glad they're doing.
Speaker 4 (08:00):
The work that they do was that it's importing totally.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
So according to this reporting, this disinformation campaign came straight
from the Israeli government. Parrot's reports that it was established
by Israel's Diaspora Affairs Ministry, but it was run by
a private organization for fear of it being exposed and
like traced back to Israel. So how this whole thing
worked is if they set up fake news websites with
names like no Agenda or Unfold News, and then they
(08:27):
make fake social media accounts on Twitter and Facebook that
are kind of trying to seem like real people. It
seems like maybe they didn't do a great job. We'll
get to that in a moment. They would then use
these accounts to amass followers and then push out these
news stories. The news stories themselves on the websites that
they were setting up, they would just steal and repurpose
content from places like CNN and The New York Times
(08:48):
reports that they were using chat gpt to generate many
of the posts. The campaign also created three fake English
language news sites featuring pro Israel articles. So something I
found really interesting about this whole thing is that it
sounds like why they were doing this, according to the reporting,
was this understanding that perhaps Israel is like losing the
(09:10):
social media war of public opinion. Herot's reports. Various Israeli
officials say that the war in Gaza has exposed quote
a great failure in Israel's hesebara, or public diplomacy. Despite
the massive investment in different pr enterprises over the years,
Israel has not been able to effectively cope with the
flood of pro Palestinian messages on social media. Israel lacked
(09:31):
the necessary digital assets to contend with what it called
quote the pro Palestinian poison propaganda machine and to adequately
publicize hamostrocities to defend the war in Gaza. So it
just sounds like they were like people on social media
are too pro Palestinian, so we have to make some
fake accounts to see if that turns the tides.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Yeah, And I mean I think in this situation too,
like we've really seen some of the ways that social
media can be.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
A really powerful tool for.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Uh spreading misinformation and also like getting important information out there.
Speaker 4 (10:07):
Where I think a.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Lot of this backlash and a lot of this kind
of uh, A lot of the backlash to what Israel
is doing is because we're getting these images that are
out of Gaza and out of Rafa that are.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
You know, real awful images.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
A lot of us it's like the first time we're
really witnessing this, like not firsthand, but I guess like
through these actual images of what's happening, and they're like seriously,
I just I'm sure people listening feel the same, but
like I've seen some of literally the worst things I've
ever seen in my life over the past year, uh,
coming out of coming out of Rafa, and and that
(10:44):
has power, Like those images have power. And I think
the Israeli government and the Israeli Hasbara kind of machine
has relied a lot on these images, like not getting
out there and relied on kind of them being the
primary drivers of what the narrative is. And we're seeing
that start to fall apart. And you know, it makes
(11:07):
sense if the reaction is gonna be to go to
these extreme measures like creating fake support.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
I mean, this is and this has been happened.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Like there was an image early on when there were
a lot of these big protests that were happening in
support of Palestinians. There was literally, I think image I
remember it was going around of like a pro Israel
protest that was entirely AI generated, Like it was a
it was like a very obviously AI generated photo. And
this was like early on, So yeah, I'm not surprised
(11:36):
to hear this.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
Again.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
I think, like, as somebody who is a Jewish American
who you know, a lot of my Judaism is rooted
in a lot of like anti Zionists.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
Diaspora values.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
It's not surprising just see this happen, because this has
been happening, and this, this kind of has been the
direction that the Israeli state has been going, especially especially recently.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
And I think it goes back to a conversation you
and I had about campus protests. How there's just I
do feel like there's this underlying attitude that people could
not possibly be watching what's going on and be basing
their stances on what they're seeing, right, and so like,
(12:24):
if young people on campuses are protesting in supportive Palestinians,
it has to be TikTok influencing influencing them in some way.
If people on social media are are not supportive of
what Israel has been doing to Palestinians, it must like
we need to get in there and like correct the record, right.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
I think a big kind of point that the Israeli
government has relied on for a while is drawing the
focus away from what is happening to the Palestinian and people,
and instead of turning it into an issue of like,
quote unquote Jewish safety, which it isn't. It is not
an issue of Jewish safety to be murdering of billions
and murdering children like obvious.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
That is so obviously not an equivalency.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
And again, I think going back to the campus protests
very much like turning it into an issue of like, oh, well,
Jewish students don't feel safe, that is not the case.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
That is a huge generalization.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
I'm sure there are some students out there that don't
feel safe, but that is an individual issue. I personally
have a lot of friends that are Jewish that have
been involved with the protests. I know, like Jewish Voice
or Peace has been a big organization that has a
lot of chapters on college campuses that have been really
involved with these protests. I think like it has been
a very kind of important propaganda point for them to
(13:37):
draw attention away from the real issue, which is, yes,
these are students that are protesting human rights atrocities that
they're witnessing every day through social media, through you know,
family or friends that were on the ground there. Like
just just the main thing is just driving that focus
away when that yeah, that is the issue.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
It has nothing to do with.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Like, honestly, it has nothing to do with me as
a Jewish American. It has nothing to do with my
other follow Jewish Americans. It has to do with what
is clearly a human rights atrocity that is happening right now.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
So it's funny that you say this because the fake
accounts that it's when you look at what they were
saying and who they were targeting, the kind of messages
they were putting out, is it is so clear that
it's like, oh, we are trying to get the perspective,
ship the perspective away from what is actually happening to Palestinians.
It's like so clear. So when you look at the
(14:32):
messages they were putting out, they had these different messages
meant to appeal to different groups they were trying to target.
They had the United Citizens for Canada site, which had
multiple social media accounts and disseminated heavily Islamophobic material, including
claims that Muslim immigrants were a threat to Canada and
demanding a Shari estate. Another was the Arab Slave Trade site,
which was copied almost entirely from Wikipedia and aimed at
(14:55):
black Americans, trying to repeat the message that the Arabs
had been slave traders in Africa. I actually really saw
this messaging my like organically via social media and also
repeated by people that I know like this. This was
messaging that I will say, like anecdotally personally I saw
sort of like breakthrough on social media a little bit.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Yeah, that's crazy. And I will say.
Speaker 6 (15:18):
With that one too, that's wild because that is also
an anti Semitic talking point been used by you know,
other people on the right that if wanted to spread misinformation,
like anti Semitic misinformation, has been saying that it was.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Like Jewish people that were involved with the Strength that
we're leading the Strength slave train and all that. So
it's like, wow, okay, we can't even come up with
our with another with another narrative. We're just gonna copy
and paste it, but like switch it from Jewish people
to Arab people, like we can't the Israeli state can't
even come up with their own hate narratives now, Like yes, insane.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
So much of this stuff is so sloppy. That is
something that I really like when I was reading about this,
influenced campaign. I was like, y'all couldn't even like get that,
get this, cause have there be consistency in this. So
this one's my favorite. Yet another site was called Serenity Now,
which branded itself as an anarchist and anti establishment group.
It sought to convince young Americans to oppose the creation
(16:12):
of a Palestinian state because states are man made structures
and a Palestinian state would hurt the goals of the
progressive movement.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Oh my god, Serenity Now I really like brought me
back to like my college organizing days, because I swear
to god, there was like one dude who like this
would be his talking.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Oh I know that dude. Oh god, Oh my gosh.
It's like you can be so left that you've got
to swing back around to the other side, and now
you're likeying a right wing point.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah, or you're like just too too deep in like
the theory spiral that it's like you have not talked
to a single other human being about like the realities
of their Like oh my god.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
But yeah, that's I mean. But yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
I on the other hand, the fact that they're going
in that direction, I can read that and be like
Oh my god, I recognized this, like line of thought.
That just shows that this is like a decent propaganda technique.
Speaker 4 (17:08):
Yeah, yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
I think that. I think the technique of driving wedges
and pitting marginalized groups against each other and pitting like
anarchists progressive activist against like like like it's a it's
a it's a time tested strategy. They also were targeting
specific black elected officials. The operation focused on more than
a dozen members of Congress who are black and Democrats.
(17:31):
According to fake reporter, representative Richie Torres, a Democrat out
of New York who's pretty outspoken about its pro as
real views, was targeted in addition to Jeffreys and Warnock.
So Some of the fake accounts would respond to Richie
Torres's posts on Twitter commenting on anti semitism on college
campuses and in major US cities. In response to a
(17:51):
December eighth post on Twitter by Torres about fire safety,
one fake account replied harmas is perpetrating the conflict. The
posts included a hashtag that said Jews are being persecuted.
Over On Facebook, the fake accounts posted on Jeffrey's public
page asking if you had seen a report about the
United Nations allegedly employing members of Hamas in Gaza. So
it is really fascinating to me to see how they
(18:14):
were targeting black folks in specific. Like it reminds me
that we often see like foreign influence campaigns that target
black people specifically, and part of me wonders if they
just see our community as like less critical or like
more easily swayed. That is complete like bs, but it
makes me wonder if like that's how they see us
(18:36):
as easily swayed, easily cajoled, easily influenced, and so like
that's why they target us, whether or not that's true.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
Yeah, I mean I wouldn't. I mean I wouldn't be surprised.
And like we're talking about like Israel is legally in
apartheized state, like it is the Israeli government like runs
on a racist sideology.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
I would not be surprised if that were the case.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
Yeah, Like when I was reading this, I was like,
this feels anti black, even though I can't exactly name
why that is, it feels anti black to me. I'll
get back to you on on the why this I
feel it. So I should say it sounds like they
did not do a great job of this influence campaign.
In at least two instances, accounts with profile photos of
(19:23):
black men would then post about being middle aged Jewish women.
On one hundred and eighteen posts in which the fake
account shared pro Israel articles, the same sentence appeared, quote
I gotta reevaluate my opinions due to this new information,
which like, that's so someone trying to sound like a
black person but like getting it wrong. And this is
(19:44):
why I always say, if somebody is on the Internet
purporting to be a black person, but the way that
they're speaking or however, it just sounds off your sobidy
senses should be tingling.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
Oh man, I can't even do their racism right.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Exactly exactly.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
Let's take a quick break. Ed are back.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
So Facebook has now removed these fake profiles. Fake Reporter's
executive director Achia Shots told Herod's that quote running the
foreign influence campaign against American lawmakers is amateurish, irresponsible an
anti democratic. Fake Reporter has called on the Israeli government
to take steps against foreign influence campaigns. He added, the
Israeli government is expected to refrain from taking similar actions,
(20:43):
especially ones at target israel Significant democratic partners. The money
spent on this campaign would have been better spent in
protecting the Israeli public from foreign intervention. And that is
a great point that I don't understand how I want
to paying somebody, paying a firm to run a bunch
of fake accounts and make a bunch of fake news sites.
(21:06):
Is making people in Israel more safe?
Speaker 4 (21:09):
Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
I mean, you know, it's like the same It's the
same thing the US does where it's like, God, I
remember there was some tweet a while ago about like,
you know, the brave soldiers like keeping our countries or
like protecting our freedom and.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Somebody who's like, what what's my freedom doing in the
Middle East? Like they're protecting our freedom like on the
other side of the.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
World, and like, I yeah, it's like the same thing
where it's like oh wow, Like once you start digging deeper,
I think into a lot of these like very militant
kind of campaigns, it's very clear that what they say
they're doing is not what they're actually doing.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
Right, Well, that's exactly the point. And I should add
that when we talk about these kinds of influence campaigns,
and it's always important to note that they are not
generally very successful in their intended impacts. It sounds like
this one did not have the biggest impact. Both Facebook
and Open ais that the campaign did not have widespread impact.
The fake accounts did accumulate more than forty thousand followers
(22:13):
across Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. However, many of those followers
may have been bought, and it did not generate a
meaningfully large audience. But I think it is still worth
talking about that, you know, even if it wasn't particularly
effective in swaying the communities it was targeting, it's still
important to note that, like this day kind of thing
(22:33):
is going on, and so when you are using social media,
it's just kind of like what we were talking about
with the AI images. Like I think that this kind
of thing is becoming more normalized, and that it creates
an Internet landscape where we can't just count on getting
authentic information or content from real humans. You never know
what's going on, and I just think it makes us
all less safe and less secure when our Internet landscape
(22:56):
is just a wash in these kinds of media manipulation
campaigns exactly.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
And I mean it goes back to the whole conversation.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
About X, right, now and how it hurts me to
call it X, but you know, I'm talking negatively about it,
so I will infer to its X.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
It's like your child I don't know or whatever.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Like I was just thinking that, like when I when
when I'm purporting on something that X that they've done bad,
I'm like, it's X. When it's something that's like kind
of okay, I'm like on Twitter. Yeah, it's like when
I when I mentioned behave, I'm like, oh, your child
has skipped school. My mom would always say my dad right.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
But yeah, but it's it's the whole bigger conversation about
X right now and how it uses to be, you know,
with still having lots of flaws, but it used to
be a place where you could get information, you could
get first hand accounts, you could get all these different
kind of journalists and experts like weighing on things, and
now it's just kind of turned into like bots following
(23:59):
thoughts and like sharing misinformation and.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
Like bots hyping each other up.
Speaker 5 (24:07):
Like it's like not even I don't, like I don't
even feel like I'm like communicating with real people when
I open like Twitter now, like I'm just like, oh,
I'm just seeing it's like content that is either super
not relevant to what I care about, or yeah, or
it's just this kind of like nightmare of like bots
and artificial like AI generated stuff and whatever.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Yeah, I feel the same way. And I should say,
like in our life, we were just talking about disinformation
campaigns being run by other countries, which we talk about
a lot when we talk about medium manipulation online, but
we should also keep in mind that it's not always
about another country like Israel or Russia trying to manipulate us.
In addition to all the bots, there are just still
(24:53):
fashion and blood humans out there on Twitter spreading misinformation.
And a new study is actually shedding light on who
is that that is on Twitter, and I am sorry
to say that it is a lot of women in
their late fifties, specifically, so Ours Technica reports that there's
this new study by researchers Shahar Barbie Bartov, Brianni Swier Thompson,
(25:14):
and Near Grinberg that was released this week that looks
at a large panel of Twitter accounts that are associated
with US based voters. So it identifies that a kind
of shockingly small handful of misinformation super spreaders is what
they're calling them, which represents just zero point three percent
of the accounts, but are responsible for sharing eighty percent
(25:35):
of Twitter's links to fake news or unreliable news sources.
So that means a lot less people than you might
think are responsible for the spread of the bulk of
misinformation from unreliable sources on Twitter. It really just does
sound like this is people who are like power sharers
on Twitter. According to the study, on an average day
(25:56):
on Twitter at this time, only seven percent of the
news story shareed linked to sites prone to publishing misinformation,
but super spreaders ended up accounting for most of these
for two reasons. One is if they shared more newslengths
than anybody else on the platform an average of sixteen
a day compared to less than one from the random sampling.
(26:16):
And most of the time these people are just like
smashing that retweet button like nobody's business. The study found
that three quarters of these super spreaders their contact was
just retweets. So you might be wondering, like, who are
these people? Well, Ours Technica says they are kind of
like our aunties and our moms. There are women in
their late fifties. Ours Technical reports that the super spreaders
(26:39):
are sixty percent more likely to be female. They're also
a little bit older, on average fifty eight years old,
nearly twenty years older than the sample group as a whole.
And while much of the misinformation about the election largely
circulated within Republican circles, only sixty four percent of the
super spreaders were registered Republicans. Nearly twenty percent were registered
as Democrats. Well, it is like ladies in their late fifties.
(27:04):
But I actually have a theory on what's going on.
This is just my theory. This is not in the study.
I think it's this sounds like peak auntie behavior to me,
like spending, you know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (27:16):
Yeah, like that, it's like like just like expend.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Yes, Like when I think about how some of my
the women in my life who are in their late fifties,
how they roll online. The fact that it's a lot
of retweets really speaks to me. I'm like, Oh, that's
my aunties. They love they they love us share people
of our of my generation and maybe your generation. Joey,
you've had some sense of like if you went to
(27:43):
your Facebook page and you ha had shared a hundred
things in one day, your friends might be like, are
they okay, oh yeah, but I don't think that aunties
have the same vibe.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Yeah, I mean, I like fairly open Facebook anymore for
this reason because it is mostly like, yeah, a lot
of the older people in my family sharing a lot
of these articles that I'm like, I don't even have
the energy to keep getting annoyed at like every single.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
Piece of misinformation.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
But yeah, it is like, I mean, Facebook has kind
of just become this like.
Speaker 4 (28:18):
Fear of yeah, we're people. Okay, So this might snick
wing be here, this might sound a little bit of astrautge,
but I this is why.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
And on one day, Pridget that I feel like I
come on to do a bigger episode about this. But
I I am a little bit critical of the sort
of the through lack of a better word, kind of
structure that we have right now on Instagram or a
lot of people are their activism or what they're doing
to raise awareness is just like sharing a lot of
(28:48):
stuff on their story. And I do this too, and
like we've talked about that, like, I mean, we all
kind of do it, and I think there are a
lot of benefits and there is something about especially if
you're sharing like kind of going back to the other story,
like sharing stuff about you know, fund raising or miss
or or debunking misinformation or like there are there are
important stuff to be sharing.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
I do that too. But that being said, I think
i've kind of I'm.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Realizing like I think this is like our our two
generations kind of version of this is like the spiral
of people just sharing a lot of stuff in their
story because it speaks to that and obviously it's something
that like speaks to them. But this is what makes
me nervous, is I feel like we are now seeing
with Facebook and kind of the like Boomer gen X generation,
(29:30):
like how that goes in a negative direction. I'm a
little bit worried that we're like setting us helps up
for a similar thing to happen.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
But yeah, I agree, I do.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
I think this is like it's just it's the gossip
like expanded on a on a world stage.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Yeah, we have to do an episode about the dynamics
of Instagram share Instagram being used as a place to
share information. What I always say is just remember anybody
can get a Cannavas subscription, like just because yeah, just
because I have a Canvas subscription, I have put together
(30:09):
a few Canada infographics in my day. I am I am,
I am, I am a cog in this system. I'm
calling myself out. But just remember, just because it's a
slick looking graphic with good colors and it's a carousel
on Instagram, anybody can get a canvas subscription. They they
don't like have to pass a test or anything. So
we should always remember that when we're when we're using
social media in general and deciding what to share.
Speaker 4 (30:31):
Huh, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
And I mean last week you did the story about
the the all eyes on rough image that there was
sort of so backlash that for that same reason, and
I kind of was in the same boat with you
where I had shared it originally and I kind of
was like, Okay, maybe not like that.
Speaker 4 (30:46):
Actually, like I understand a lot of the reasons our people.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Are upset about this, but I think that was like
a perfect example where it was just like there was
so much like back and forth about like what we
should be doing.
Speaker 4 (30:57):
And then it like to get out to the point
where I was kind of like, what even is the
point of this? It's like what even like I don't know.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
I yeah, I one day I'll do a figure episode
about that.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Yeah, I kind of got it. Sounds like we had
a very similar trajectory with the all eyes on a
Ratha Ai generated an image we talked about in last
week's round up. But yeah, we're to the end of it.
I was like, what, like, like I had overthought it
to a point where I'm like, what even, Like why
did I even feel like I should share it? Like
it just like you, when you really pull apart the
reasonings on social media, you can get so granular where
(31:29):
the focus gets so lost, and you know, initially I'm like, oh, yeah,
if something comes across my stories about Palestine that speaks
to me and I feel like might speak to somebody else,
I'll share it. And then it's like but but with
that image, is like, well why why why did that?
What am I hoping to accomplish? What's the end goal?
Speaker 4 (31:46):
Right?
Speaker 2 (31:47):
I'm in the same boat where I kind of have
like stopped sharing a lot of stuff for it. Like
I think early on, I was kind of like I
felt like I should be sharing this stuff constantly because
I had a regional point where I kind of need
to step back and be like is this productive? Like
this is what I'm doing actually productive or because and again,
like this is a different situation obviously, like this this
story is about misinformation specifically, but like going back to
this story, a big point of misinformation and these kind
(32:11):
of campaigns is just kind of creating chaos and putting
a lot of information out there, so like you don't
even really know.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
What's true anymore.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
So even if it's something where I'm like, I'm sharing
images that are coming from trusted news sources or whatever
that I know are real, is there any benefit of me,
Like what is actually going to be beneficial is that
I'm not just posting stuff on my story to show
that I'm paying attention to show that I'm like staying
with it, or like is this actually meant to like
(32:41):
share resources or share something that I think is important
that people might not know otherwise, or is it just
kind of creating more noise.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Yeah, we we have to do a longer conversation about Yeah,
these are these are things that.
Speaker 4 (32:52):
These are I have a lot of thoughts.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Yeah, I will say We're definitely gonna do.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
More.
Speaker 7 (33:03):
After a quick break, let's get right back into it.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
So we have to talk about this. I guess I
guess I'll call it transphobic dating app la app. Have
you heard of this?
Speaker 2 (33:28):
I have not, but I just see the lesbian dating app,
which I feel like we've tried.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
To do this so many times.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
Its yeah, strap in for this one. So app is
an app that bills itself as being for lesbians to
meet other lesbians, but with a twist. They're using facial
recognition technology in an attempt to keep trans women off
of the platform. Pink News reports that app has been
(33:57):
created by a gender the gender critical campaigner Jenny and
says it will scan a prospective users face via their smartphone,
allegedly being able to text if that person is CYS
or trans with ninety nine percent accuracy. First of all,
I have you. I'll say that's over and over and
over again. Complete bs. That's a lie, No way, no how,
(34:18):
I'll pause there. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 4 (34:21):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Also, okay, I'm turfs are so fucking goofy. I'd like,
especially like lesbian and by women that are terfed because
I'm sorry, like this is my issue. All of the
obvious like things aside, like the lesbian community and like
the queer women in general, like even if you're not trans,
(34:46):
there's a lot of like different There's a whole history
of like different varying like gender expressions. I I'm somebody
who's like transvasculine, I present like I I kind of
look like a twelve year old boy.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
I don't know, I've I've talked about.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
This before, but it's always like the thing too where
I think like TERFs when whenever it's like the bathroom issue,
when they like like hyper fixing the bathroom issue. I
have gotten weird looks in public bathrooms before because people
see me, and especially if I'm wearing a mask, like
I have short hair, and I'm like, you know, i'm
our masculine presenting. I'm not like I'm pretty like introgynous looking,
where like people will give me weird looks and I'm like,
(35:23):
I know you think that I am trans in the
other direction, and that's why you're being weird to me.
Speaker 6 (35:29):
But this just proves that your whole point is stupid
because under.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
That logic, like I should be the like quote unquote
like women that you're trying to protect you right, and like,
oh my god, it's that.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
Is so insane. I'm also yeah, the idea of being
able to like detect if somebody's trans based on like.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Bullshit not true, that's such bullshit, Like oh my gosh,
oh my god. It like I mean, I was when
I was thinking about this earlier, I was like, dang
transphobes and turfs, in service of their transphobia, they will
get taken by charlatan's. And now I'm like, oh, and
(36:10):
it's like tech charlatans who are purporting that technology can
be used in a way that it can't be and
like to your point about how like this kind of
being like, oh well, our technology can tell who's this
or who's that. The scholar Alejandra Carrabello made a great
point on thread saying that basically, you are trusting technology
that we already know is falty to say that Kim
Petras isn't a woman, or that Late Ashley isn't a
(36:32):
man based on a photo. There is no machine learning
model in existence that could do this consistently and accurately
based on a photo. Like people like, it doesn't work
that way. People are complex, and it's wild to me
that people would be making the claim that facial recognition
technology can do this. It absolutely cannot. I cannot stress
(36:52):
this enough. And again there are so many reasons why
this is a stupid, terrible idea transphobia aside, Like we know,
fatial cognition technology is really faulty. It routinely misidentifies black
CIS women as men. Shout out to doctor Joe Bolomwuini
for her gender shades work about this, and yeah, it's
like so if you actually use this technology, you would
(37:16):
definitely be casting out the very people that you say
are the demographic that you want. Like it doesn't make
any sense.
Speaker 2 (37:25):
Yeah, and like you said with like there is a
whole history of like how this is tied to racism
and how this is tied to a lot of like
like this feels like we're trying to do eugenics again,
like just in a different form. But like it is
so weird, and yeah, like gender, you know when people
(37:46):
say gender is the performance, gender is like you know,
all the fucking Jude Butler's.
Speaker 4 (37:50):
Work is all about this, Like it very much is
like basically yeah, like you're able to. This is the
whole point of drags.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
You can you can mess with gender, you can you
can present different ways and it, I god, this is.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Just such a weird.
Speaker 4 (38:07):
This is just such a shit show, like what the hell.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
It really is, and like, yeah, I mean there are
days like my on my own gender journey. There are
days where I am like rocking straight androgyny, and there
are days where I'm like, oh, I'm gonna like them
up because I want to or need to for some reason,
Like the idea that a machine learning app would be
able to zoom in on the particulars of that is.
(38:32):
It's just it's just not how it works. And I
think your point is a good one about how it's
like it's a good reminder that all this stuff is connected,
that their transphobia is also anti blackness. It's like it's
all it's like one big bag of awful.
Speaker 4 (38:46):
Yeah yeah, yeah, And I the same.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
I mean, like I I've done a total of one
drag performance in my life.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
I would love to do more, but.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
I but I did, like you know, I'm drag was
like wearing a wing and I did all my makeup
and stuff, and I like my friends did not recognize me, like.
Speaker 4 (39:04):
I was a completely different person. And then also like
when I went out and was like walking.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Down the street, like people just assumed I was like
a super fam like sis.
Speaker 4 (39:12):
Woman, Like it's all, yeah, it's all very superficial.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Yeah, And I did want to keep it really real
for a second, which is that I believe just having
just being a person, a woman, a SIS woman, who
is out there on who's been on a few apps, whatever, whatever,
the real threat to women on a lesbian dating app
is not from trans people. It is SIS men looking
(39:37):
to set up threesomes. I think, like, if you were
gonna fall out one section of like, well, that's the
real problem. It's gotta be them.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
Nope, Oh god, Okay.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
So I know in the past I have been defending
dating apps in general on this podcast.
Speaker 4 (39:51):
I will say I've.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Had some really weird hinge messages over the last couple
of months. But I need to do an episode where
I just read through all the weird shit that oh
yes please because OsO Okay, So I get like, as
I mentioned, I'm trans, like I I do not date
straight men.
Speaker 4 (40:08):
I date men.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
I'm bisexual like I date people of all genders, but
I don't date straight people period.
Speaker 4 (40:13):
I have that in my hinge bio. Some of the
weirdest like I.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Had a man I'm both the most recent one that
I cannot stop thinking about when somebody messaged me. This
man messaged me and was like, well, am I am
I straight? If I like being the little spoon And.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
I was like what.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Oh, and that's like one of the milder ones.
Speaker 4 (40:33):
I know.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
One day I like, literally, I've just started saving them
because I like, I was like, I had a moment
where I was like, maybe this is unethical, but then
I was like, these men.
Speaker 4 (40:41):
Are sending me these send this prompted like what is up?
Or like I'll get a lot of the like well
maybe I'm not straight because I think you're hot.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
I'm like, yeah, let's.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
Unpack that, like what the hell? Yeah, anyways, I agree
with that sentiment. The the the problem is sis straight men.
The problem is sis.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
Men looking for the suns, looking to be creepy, looking
to be weird.
Speaker 4 (41:11):
This should be common sense.
Speaker 1 (41:12):
But you know it's them, them, they're the problem. There's
them straight men.
Speaker 4 (41:20):
Yeah, oh my god, speaking.
Speaker 1 (41:22):
Of straight men being problematic, I guess I don't know
that this next story only involves straight men, but you know,
I'm gonna take a leap and say that there's probably
a lot of them all. Yeah, historically and historically right,
So that is this horrible landlord scheme. So we got
to talk about Real Page, which is the quote property
(41:43):
management software company that has been accused of helping landlords
orchestrate a price fixing scam among large corporate landlords by
algorithmically predicting the highest possible rents that landlords can get
away with charging tenants. So these people are like scum
bags of the highest order. Even reading this story, I
was like, these people are not good people. Listen to
(42:07):
how pro Publica reported on how they talked about their
rent hiking technology back in October during a convention. Never
before have we seen these numbers, said Jay Parsons, a
vice president of Real Page, as convention goers wandered by
apartment rents had recently shot up by as much as
fourteen point five percent, he said in a video touting
the company's services. Turning to his colleague, Parsons asked, what
(42:30):
role has a software played. I think it's driving it,
quite honestly, answered Andrew Bowen, another Real Page executive. As
a property manager, very few of us would be willing
to actually raise rents double digits within a single month
by doing it manually. So they're basically just like bragging, like,
oh yeah, we raised this. This technology helps you raise
rents and ways you never thought. You didn't think that
(42:52):
that family with small children and a single mom would
pay this much. You might be wrong. You should raise
their rent and see.
Speaker 4 (43:00):
Oh my god, just what the hell it's bad.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
So, according to biz Now, Real Pages System, which provides
rental price recommendations based on real time data from landlords,
is alleged to be a key tool in manipulating the
rental market. The firm's influence covers seventy percent of multifamily
apartment buildings and unpacks sixteen million units nationwide. So this
is very much like a coordinated scheme. Landlords are encouraged
(43:28):
to adopt Real Pages price and recommendations, a practice that
they follow eighty to ninety percent of the time. This
coordinated approach reduces the availability of rental units, driving up prices.
One of the architects of Real Pages System reportedly stated
that the aim is to prevent landlords from undervaluing their properties,
ensuring consistently higher rates across the board.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
Yeah, that's the real problem here, it's landlords under yeah,
doing their property.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
Oh my god, the poor landlords. Won't someone think about
the land properties that have been under So if the
majority of landlords in a single area are all using
this this pricing tool, it kind of feels like a
coordinated price fixing scam, right, which you would think should
be illegal. Right. Well, last week, the FBI did a
(44:15):
surprise raid on the Atlanta headquarters of Courtland Management, marking
a significant escalation and a criminal anti trust investigation of
an Apartment of Justice into allegations of a nationwide conspiracy
to artificially inflate apartment rents. The implications of this probe
are far reaching, potentially affecting millions of renters across the US.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Yeah, surprising, Like you know, moment where I'm supporting the
FBI here because this is a real I live in
New York. Like I sometimes if I'm feeling particularly you know,
like getting in a depressive spiral about the state of
the world, I'll just think about the fact that it's
like it is so weird, how it's.
Speaker 4 (44:59):
Just completely NORMALI is that.
Speaker 2 (45:02):
I, Like, I don't know anybody who isn't constantly in
like a state of just like not stable, like not
having super stable housing because you don't know when your
rent's gonna go up, or if like it's already so
insanely expensive to live here, and then they're constantly raising
prices and all of the buildings are kind.
Speaker 4 (45:22):
Of also like awful too.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
Like the building that I live in has like a
billion fucking problems that they like never respond to, and
they're still like trying to raise rent for the next
like you know cycle of our our lease and all
of that, and I you know, it's it is a
huge problem and it's not something that should be normalized,
and it's not something that should just be like accepted
as like, oh it is the way it is like that,
(45:44):
like people should be able to live and exist and
you know, have the shelter because that's an important part
of life.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
But yeah, yeah, and you're right, like it really is
deeply impacting renters. In Atlanta, for instance, this raid happened.
Software driven pricing affects eighty one percent of multifamily rental units.
Biznow reports that since twenty sixteen, rencident Atlanta have surged
by eighty percent, despite rising vacancy rates that would typically
result in lower rents. The widespread adoption of real pages
(46:16):
pricing recommendations by several landlords between twenty fifteen and twenty seventeen,
followed by Real Pages acquisition of its main rival lease
rent Option in twenty seventeen, has given the company unprecedented
control over rental pricing. So I'm with you, like, this
is a bit of a weird stance for me, but
I was like, I'm glad they got raided. I'm glad
it was a surprise raid. I hope it was, Like
(46:38):
you know, I would have loved to have been doing
a ride along and like wearing one of the FBI
jackets and like aviator glasses, kicking indoors and like bust
in the heads of these guys. Like I just think
these people are scumbags. And I hate that when we
think about technology that this is the use case that
a lot of people will go for, Like how can
we use it to extract and squeeze and exploit people?
(47:01):
And I hate it so like the algorithmic pricing is
a racket that prays on us renters. And yeah, I
just think that when we think about crime and the
way that crime and technology intersect, I don't like the
idea of bad facial recognition being being used to misidentify shoplifters.
This is the kind of tech enabled crime that is
(47:24):
impacting more people, right, Like we should be talking about this,
This should be big news. Yeah, I'm sure somebody listening
is like, wow, bridget Todd show for the FBI. Who knew?
Speaker 4 (47:38):
I got it.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
It's like one of the the It's the like one
in a million times where it's like, oh my god,
the justice system working the way it's supposed to. We'll see,
We'll feel like, we'll see, we'll see. I guess it's
like the like the TV show version of the FBI
where you're like, wow, yeah, they're I don't know, I
feel the same like cautious cautious is to the f Yeah,
(48:01):
I guess in this case. But yeah, once again, the
problem is capitalism. How how this technology is used, How
this technology is used not to make our lives easier
but just to help, you know, select few people.
Speaker 4 (48:19):
Make a little bit more money from from the rest
of our misery.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
Exactly. Okay, so my last question for you is are
you familiar with the K pop group New Genes.
Speaker 4 (48:31):
I think I've just heard of that.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
I'm not a big K pop listener, but like I feel, like,
you know, being on the internet, it comes into my
feed often, so I think I like, just heard of
this group from like some posts somewhere, but I'm not
super familiar.
Speaker 1 (48:48):
Okay, I had never heard of them, and I was
asking my friend who does like K pop, like, oh,
do you know about New Genes? And she was like,
they are literally one of the biggest groups in the world.
That's like being like, oh, have you heard of this group?
The Beatles? Like It's like, oh, I had no idea.
So Earlier this year, the Korean pop apparently supergroup New
Genes was asking for help and identifying an anonymous YouTuber
(49:11):
to sue them for defamation, and this week for or
For Media reported that a US federal court actually allowed
the group to subpoenaed that information from Google about a
YouTube account so they can sue that person for defamation
under South Korean law. The group alleges that this account,
which according to court documents, posts under the handle at
middle seven, has posted as many as thirty three defamatory
(49:33):
videos that have been viewed nearly fourteen million times as
of their filing. Because the account is anonymous, the lawsuit
cannot continue until that user has been identified. Some of
the statements that New Genes are saying are defamatory include
calling one of the members of the group the eldest
daughter of a Vietnamese farmer, and a video titled reasons
why New Genes is a crap group.
Speaker 4 (49:56):
I mean, it is that defavatory or is that just?
Speaker 2 (50:01):
I mean, I mean, if that's the bavatory, Harry Styles
might be sending me a cease and desist sometime soon.
Speaker 4 (50:09):
That's why I wanted.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
To ask about this. So, like, I'm no lawyer. What
do I know if you're If you're a lawyer and
you have insight into this, uh, let me know. But
I was so curious, Like so this is not the
first case of this nature, and that is like why
Google was ordered to actually provide the name and birth
date and address and email address of the person on
YouTube who was doing this, because it's like a there's
(50:32):
already established legal precedent. However, I can't help but wonder,
like what does this mean for haters like me, like
people who just like I want to make a long
YouTube video about how much I hate Harry Styles or whatever,
like like what does that? What does that mean for
those kind of people? You know?
Speaker 4 (50:49):
Yeah, yeah, I And I mean I don't know.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
I guess I would need to look a little bit
more into this case and like what specific claims are
being made. But if like like those two up front,
a like the eldest daughter of a Vietnamese father, I
don't know, maybe that's not true, but also that doesn't
really seem like it's like defamatory, like I don't know.
And then also yeah, the whole like why it's like
(51:16):
if it's an opinion. I am also a bridge and
I'm in the same court.
Speaker 4 (51:20):
I love being a hater.
Speaker 2 (51:22):
I like I if they make being a hater illegal
on the internet, like.
Speaker 4 (51:28):
I don't know what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 1 (51:29):
I know, I'm so curious how it shakes out. M Well, Joey,
thank you so much for being here. Where can folks
keep in touch with what you're up to?
Speaker 2 (51:41):
Of course you can find me on Twitter and Instagram
at Pat not Pratt p A T T n OT
p r A T T. Also, same day that this
is coming out, I have an episode of stuff Mom
never told you, an Honor of Pride month, talking about
(52:02):
the movie Bottoms. So you want to hear me talk
about Honestly, a lot of it is me talking about
other queer high school movies that I don't like but
if you want to hear me talk about bottoms.
Speaker 4 (52:18):
And all of that. Yeah, the movie.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
Check it out, not the embody part, the body part.
Speaker 4 (52:26):
You know. You can check them out on stuff Mom
Never told you.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
Also, also for Pride Month, there's a new show called
but We Loved that's from the Outspoken Network.
Speaker 4 (52:38):
I would it's all about.
Speaker 2 (52:40):
Queer history told through kind of a kind of personal
personal storytelling.
Speaker 4 (52:44):
I've been working on that as well. To go ahead
and check that out. If that is of interest to.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
You, definitely check that out. We'll put the links in
the show notes to all of this. Thanks so much
for being here, Joey, and thanks to all of you
for listening. I will see you on the Internet. If
you're looking for ways to support the show, check out
our merch store at tangody dot com slash store. Got
(53:10):
a story about an interesting thing in tech, or just
want to say hi, You can read us at Hello
at tangody dot com. You can also find transcripts for
today's episode.
Speaker 3 (53:17):
At tengody dot com.
Speaker 1 (53:18):
There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by
me bridget Toid. It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative,
edited by Joey Pat Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer.
Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almada
is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If
you want to help us grow, rate and review.
Speaker 3 (53:36):
Us on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts
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