November 11, 2025 • 43 mins
Birth control is the latest battleground in a wave of online misinformation targeting young women — and doctors and reproductive health advocates are sounding the alarm about its impact.
But this isn’t your typical fearmongering about birth control coming from Bible-thumpers or conservative men in suits. This new wave is coming from wellness influencers — the ones in matching pastel workout sets — who are linking a “balanced, natural life” with ditching hormonal birth control.
Bridget explains to Stuff Mom Never Told You’s Samantha and Anney why this may look like a rebrand, but this kind of misinformation is just as harmful as ever.
You can find more information about the safety and effectiveness of birth control in this article from the American Medical Association: https://www.ama-assn.org/public-health/population-health/what-doctors-wish-patients-knew-about-birth-control
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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 Unboss Creative. I'm Bridget Todd and this
is There Are No Girls on the Internet. Birth Control
is the latest battleground in a wave of online misinformation
targeting young people, and doctors and reproductive health advocates are
(00:25):
sounding the alarm about its impacts. But this isn't just
your typical fear mongering about birth control the kid coming
from Bible thumbers or conservative politicians and suits. This new
wave is coming from well miss influencers, the ones in
matching pastel workout sets who are linking a balanced natural
life with ditching hormonal birth control. And while it may
(00:46):
look like a rebrand, this kind of misinformation is as
harmful as ever. To unpack what's going on, I spoke
with my friends Samantha and Nanny over at the podcast Stuff.
Mom never told you we were talking right around Halloween,
so of course we had to start with our opinions
on horror movies, because what's scarier than wellness misinformation? Right?
(01:11):
What's funny to me is both of you had to
sneak to watch horror as youth. I grew up in
the opposite household I was. My dad was the person
who was taking a much too young child to the
theater to see horror movies, and we would This is
not going to make him sound like a great parent,
which I swear he was, but we would stay up
(01:34):
late to watch Tales from the Crypt together, which to
this day, I loved Tails from the Crypt. It's hard
to find. You can watch it probably bootleg on YouTube.
But there was a time in my life, like maybe
a year ago, when I was having a really tough time,
and I was like, would it be weird to buy
myself a cameo from the crypt Keeper where it's just
(01:55):
like a cameo to me from me, where the cryptkeeper
is giving me a message. Would that be weird? I
decided it would be. But like, that's how much I
love Tales from the Crypt and horror anthology in general.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, well, you know, I remember, as you say that,
I remember sneaking episodes of that as well as the
newer Twilight Zone. Do you know what I'm talking about.
It wasn't the old one, it was a newer version
that also really twisted. Like I remember the Lottery was, uh,
do you know what I'm talking about? That episode the
lottery on the Twilight Zone and everything ends up bad.
Kind of the same thing with a paper and I
(02:30):
remember a haunted house on that one. Like I remember
those episodes. They were like short shots of something haunting
that never really had a good ending, and you're just like, yeah,
give me more than that.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yeah, I'm a sucker for the Twilight Zone and horror
anthologies in general where it has some sort of a
twist ending where oh no, it was do you know
what I'm saying?
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Oh yeah, yeah, the real monsters were, man all I love.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
I'm a sucker for a like artistic twist. And they
even make one of them on the Futurama where time
enough to read I broke my glasses. Oh well, I
can still read the large the large print books. My
eyes fell out. I'm a sucker for that.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yes, well, I think you should also definitely buy that
cameo because sometimes you just need a pep talk. Yeah,
I did not have that in one of your favorite
like childhood memories. That's the best.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Oh my god. When I was a kid, I used
to do a cryptkeeper impression. I used to do. This
is so such a tangent. Impressions of the crypt keeper
and the way that the Martians speak on Mars attacks
and my brother would die laughing. You would be bowled over.
That was Those are my two the two impressions I
had when I was a child.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I want to.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Extra money doing a cripkeeper cameos, I would be there.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
I'd listen why, I would pay yes, yes, just through this.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Oh wow, I love that so much. Oh well, this
is kind of an unfortunate segue, but it is true
that every time Halloween comes around there's kind of a
strange tension for me because usually there's both an election
coming up, but also, uh, you know, when you talk
(04:38):
about like what you're really afraid of, there's sort of
the horror movie answer, which is very scary, and then
there's like the real world answer that we're living in,
which is also scary. So it's sort of every time
I'm always like, I love this more Halloween seasonal horror
(05:00):
movie thing, but there's also this real world horrific thing
that's happening.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Oh yes, yeah, what a scarrier than things like misinformation.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
I mean, if there could be an evil cackle right now,
there should be.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Wow, I love it.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
So that was amazing. I'm gonna do that again, everybody
we're gonna say should use that as like a meme
or something. I don't know how to do with this.
Someone put it as a sound cover.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
That was amazing, so much good. Yes, we are talking about.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
A lot of misinformation today, and specifically around a certain topic, right, bridget.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
That is right, because if y'all have spent any time
at all on TikTok lately, I probably don't need to
tell you that social media platforms are a wash in
misinformation about hormonal birth control. And I actually find it
interesting but also kind of very telling that I'm not
(06:10):
talking about content that is warning about some specific side
effect really about birth control. What I'm talking about is
sort of this content that has a fit looking young
woman influencer type promising that you will kind of get
a vague feeling of feeling more like you if you
go off birth control. And so the question they sort
(06:32):
of ask is, who am I without birth control? Will
I feel some sort of a positive difference if I
stop using it? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (06:39):
And you know this is not new, but it's definitely
been amplified by social media, and these influencers are spreading
the message.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Oh yes, and I guess like that, like the thing
that social media is specifically flooded with. It's this sort
of vibe based reasoning for coming off birth control, right,
It's not I'm having this specific side effect, this specific
issue or use case. It's no. The vibes are all
are terrible for birth control. And there was a really
great piece in The New York Times called who Am
(07:09):
I Without birth Control? That I looked at that really
examines how misinformation around birth control is impacting real women.
They chronicled a young woman named Ashley, who was twenty six.
They write she had started taking birth control pills a
decade earlier, when she was fifteen. Now, as she browsed
her social media feeds, she kept stumbling on videos of
women saying how much better they felt when they stopped
(07:31):
taking the pill. Content she was not seeking out the
post typically what like this, a glowing blonde and a
workout top, the picture of health, saying that she stopped
taking birth control pills and immediately felt more clarity of mind,
like an emotional fog had lifted, like she was a
brand new, much happier person. So Ashley, seeing all of this,
(07:54):
decides to go off birth control pills. Cult Turkey, which
is not recommended by doctors, even though she is in
a newish relationship with someone, and they both agreed it
is too early to even be thinking you about kids.
So who is Ashley without birth control? Well, turns out
she's a mom because just one year after she stopped
taking her pill, those pills, she became a mother. Her
(08:17):
baby was four months old when that article was written.
And so I thought that was such a funny way
for the article to start thinking that if I go
off the pill, I'll have some vaguely better life, And
it's like, no, who are you not on the pill?
Probably a parent, to be honest. If you're having sex,
probably a parent, I mean.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
And then other things. There's so much to this conversation
because I think we've already kind of hinted towards things
like this in our talked about chadwise and then also
(09:01):
the yoga pipeline, the influencers in that wellness circle where
we talk about this level of misinformation and being like,
if you do all these things naturally that you're going
to be so blessed with just being a stay at
home mom and being able to take care of your
family and yourself, you're going to feel healthy and light
(09:24):
and young and feel complete. But all this is in
a rhetoric to a very very dangerous conversation about the
loss of rights for those who are marginalized and specifically
those who have uteresses. Yea in this moment, But they
are really doing a great job and changing, Like feminism
is being able to be a mom, stay at home.
(09:45):
Wouldn't you rather do that than have to struggle by
yourself in a world that doesn't appreciate you type of conversation.
So it seems like this is one more narrative for
the wellness chain, which is an odd and very tricky conversation.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Oh yeah, you put that so well, and you know,
there is nothing wrong with wanting to become a parent.
There's nothing wrong with staying at home and not doing
wage earning work if that is your choice and you
can swing it. All of those things are great, and
the point of feminism is that people should be able
to have the choices that work for them. However, having
an entire media ecosystem that essentially rebrands having less control
(10:26):
and less autonomy into good things is not a dynamic
where people get to make their own decisions. Really, when
you are being algorithmically fed and surfaced. Because remember Ashley
said that she was not even seeking out content about
the dangers of birth control, that content found her. When
you are a wash in that kind of rhetoric and
that kind of misinformation, I would argue that you are
(10:48):
not really in a dynamic where you're able to make
real choices for yourself. And yeah, social media content and podcasts,
they are an entire media ecosystem spreading and amplifying misinformation
about birth control. And interestingly, they're not exuplicitly warning against
birth control for religious or political reasons. Right the same way, Sam,
(11:11):
that you were saying, Oh, it's so easy these days
to just have it bo I'm just into yoga and wellness.
Three swipes later and you're looking at Nazi content, right,
like it's so easy, and a lot of that stuff.
They're able to use things that feel not non political,
and they're not being talked about exuplicitly as political, but
(11:33):
they are political. And so with this kind of birth
control misinformation that we're seeing increasingly on social media, it
doesn't come out and say, hey, we're anti birth control
for political or religious reasons. It's because birth control is
bad for you, and so I think that that is
a pretty insidious approach because just like wellness other kinds
(11:54):
of wellness, it doesn't just appeal to people who are
political or religious, it also just appeals to people who
are concerned about their overall health or wellness. And so
increasing this message that's that being on birth control is
at odds with being healthy well and quote pure like
that is the underlying message being presented here.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
That makes me want to throw my computer because I
swear to God, it took us so long to get
to the point that women can say this is a
hormonal imbalance issue for me, and I have been struggling
all of my life as a teen having pains where
it took me out for two or three days, or
having this mood disorders that did not make sense, and
feeling like I'm in hell every period or rough three
(12:38):
weeks out of the month, like I remember growing up
being told these are the things you're just that's just
being a woman. And it took us so long to
finally get to a point and be like, oh, maybe
we should There should be research and there should be
medical actions that can happen that could help us. And
I felt like we go there for like just the
(12:59):
split suckond good and we were actually accepting that as
an okay, that might be okay for us to have.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Yeah, and I'm glad that you said that, because I
want to be like very clear, hormonal worth control is
not for everyone. It can have side effects. Case and point,
it was not a good option for me because it
gave me headaches. So this is not me saying everybody
should go out there and get on hormonal birth control.
People should talk to their doctor and figure out what
kind of birth control is right for them. If birth
(13:27):
control is right for them, there are all kinds of
non hormonal birth control options to consider. Again, people should
be talking to their medical professionals. They should not be
trusting random influencers on social media or random podcasters. But
right now those are the people who are really speaking
the loudest and frankly kind of owning the conversation about
(13:49):
birth control, and people are listening. They really have an audience.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
And it's coming back. They were coming back to that
old school thought of you just need to deal with it.
It's putting more things in your body doesn't help you.
All these things and really being like you need to
let your body work itself out, and really telling people
to suffer because it's a wellness thing.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
It's like, literally, yeah, you want to be pure, you know,
it's just birth control is just bad for you. And honestly,
the kinds of stuff that people say about birth control
is crap, just a little bit of a summary. So
Alex Clark, who hosts Culture Apothecary, which is sort of
a conservative wellness podcast on the Late Charlie Kirks Network,
Turning Quints USA, she has suggested that the way that
(14:33):
women are prescribed birth control is linked to fertility issues,
which it isn't. She's also even said that birth control
pills can falsely make women feel that they might be bisexual,
which I don't think I need to tell anybody, but
just in case that's not true, birth control pills cannot
(14:54):
turn you queer or gay.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Genuine reactions.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
I was already, I was already. On an episode of
Joe Rogan's podcast, Callie Means, who now is an advisor
to help Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Junior basically said that
the medical industry views worth control as recurring revenue and
that the reason that they're trying to get people to
(15:22):
take the pill is because it's recurring revenue, and that oh,
if you can get somebody to be on the pill,
they're going to be taking it for most of their lives.
And it's this implied conspiracy that no, no, this is
not medication that might genuinely help somebody or might genuinely
give somebody more autonomy or more choice. No no, no, no no,
it's a way to just make big pharma is making
(15:45):
money off of you to harm you.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
They are so good about taking this type of rhetoric,
and I say they as being like anti abortion, slash,
anti uterus, anti marginal arts people group community and taking
things and making sure to a conspiracy to really freak
everybody out. Be like, no, no, but this is what's
really happening. It's not because I'm being anti apportion. I
(16:08):
don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Yeah, And so wait, it's so true because when you
look up birth control on TikTok, you'll find women talking
about how birth control like room into their bodies quote
unquote by making them gain weight or taking their libidos.
And these are things that actually can be symptoms of
hormonal birth control. So they're not wrong. But the thing
is like, if I were to make a TikTok about
(16:30):
how my doctor took me off birth control because it
was giving me headaches, This is not gonna be advice
for everybody, right, Like, it's very specific to me and
my body. And importantly, the dominant messages on social media
frame birth control as a conversation that is not like, oh,
talk to your doctor if birth control is giving you
this specific side effect. No, no, no, it is your doctor
(16:51):
is in cahoots with the government to lie to you
by actually forcing you to be on birth control, that
it is harming you. Right, It's I honestly wouldn't have
a problem with well, I don't know. I guess I
feel like it gets dicey when you're putting medical advice
online if you're not a doctor. But I honestly wouldn't
(17:12):
have that big of a problem with it if it
was just like, here's my side effect and this is
what I did. Instead, it's this purposely conspiratorial thing that
is so obviously being phrased in the most inflammatory way
to get engagement. Like The New York Times spoke to
one of these influencers who has like just under one
(17:32):
hundred thousand followers who went on TikTok and talked about
birth control as being evil and then said, well, obviously
I exaggerate on social media. You can't have a lukewarm take.
And I'm thinking, do you really want to be taking
medical advice from an influencer who is openly telling The
New York Times that she needs to make things as
spicy and inflammatory as possible to get views on social media?
(17:54):
Like do you not see the way that she's incentivized
to essentially tell the most extreme story of something as
important as your health.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Again, it goes back to also in my mind, like
they're not completely wrong when it comes to women's health.
They don't care, so they they being pharmaceuticals. I sound
very very conspiratory right now in that level of like
they do want to make money. It's the same reason
why period products are not offered for free and there's
an increase and there's tax on it, because they can
(18:24):
make more money and they know that it's needed. And
instead of helping to have a cost efficient way of
treating women as well as actually researching on how the
best way to help because some of the beginning of
birth control was real, gross, real eugenics what like it
was real gross, like let's be real clear on that,
but instead of actually seeking to help women, it kind
of had turned the other way of like, Eh, we
(18:46):
don't care enough about helping people with the uterses. We
don't really want to help them, but if we're going to,
we're going to make it as least effective or as
many side effects so we can also make money and
let them know this is your only sol Like there's
this level of like, you're not completely wrong, but instead
of helping in a right way, you're just making us
(19:07):
go back twenty steps.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Yeah, and bad actors are so good at exploiting that
kind of kernel of truth. That's what they do, right,
And so I get it because listen, traditionally, marginalized people,
especially women, are often not listened to by medical professionals,
are often not treated with respect or care. Oftentimes when
you're talking about medicines and medical things, these are things
(19:30):
that we're not tested or researched on our body specifically.
So all of that is true, and we're right to
be pissed off about that, we're right to call that out.
But what these content creators do is that they swoop
in and exploit that very real problem, that very real issue,
and use it to push potentially harmful, untrue messages about
(19:53):
our health. And so, yeah, I completely agree that they're
not wrong, and they're not wrong to be skeptical, paranoid,
all of that. But then you have these influencers basically
filling the void with lies, lies that lead to people
feeling more anxious and more suspicious. When The New York
(20:13):
Times surveyed women about how our current social media climate
is making them think about birth control, these messages did
not just make them want to stop using birth control.
It made them fearful, paranoid, anxious, suspicious, specifically suspicious of
their own doctors, and made them feel more trust toward
(20:35):
random influencers or podcasters. So you can see why exploiting
that kernel of truth would materially benefit bad actors who
are pushing these lives about birth control.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
Yeah, and I think there's so much going on right
now with the erosion of trust that has been ongoing.
But you got like RFK Junior, and he's just pushing
out all of these things about you know what feel
like conspiracy theories to me, but to other people seem
(21:06):
like truths. I have a friend who worked at the
CDC and she was seeing you know, COVID really exacerbated
a lot of things because we were trying to get
this vaccine out, but every day, like what we knew
about it was changing, and so people started to view
that with mistrust. So you've got like this building mistrust.
(21:29):
And then as we talked about in the episode we
did about chat gpt and people seeking out health advice
from chat gpt, where it's so expensive to go to
a doctor or to go to a hospital, and so
people are turning to technology, and people are turning to
(21:49):
these influencers and they're telling you like, this is what
you have to do. This is like it worked for
me us, and it's very it's a nice thing to believe.
It's a nice thing to think, oh I could control that.
If I just stopped taking birth control, then maybe I
will be more in control of my body. And you know,
(22:12):
you couple that with like lack of sexual education. It's
just a real mess that we have going on right now.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
And I think I like that comparison to the chat
geept example, because you know, I don't want to shame
anybody who is using chat gept or doctor Google to
figure out what's wrong with them in a climate where
just having access to medical care is so inaccessible. However,
the answer to me is not here, take this unreliable
(22:45):
tool chat Gypt and use that. The answer is, let's
make healthcare more accessible for everybody. And I think similarly,
the answer here should not be, oh, well, let's just
have an entire ecosystem of podcasters and influencers who are
personally incentivized to make people fearful. It's let's have a
medical industry that actually listens to people and that people
(23:06):
feel like they can actually trust. Like it's it's such
a it's it's it's just not a real solution. I
understand how in a climate where it is confusing to
figure out decisions for your own health and your own body,
and we have people who I would say are influencers
at the highest level of government making our health decisions,
(23:28):
I understand it. It is a funky climate. But the
answer is not, oh, just empower the influencers and podcasters
to essentially act as doctors. Now, it is how do
we have a more reasonable climate that people can trust
when it comes to our health and our bodies.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
Absolutely, and I really found this next part you have
in your outline really interesting because I never heard of
it before. I'm very familiar with the placebo effects, but
I was not familiar with its polar opposite.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Yes, the no cibo effect. So that comes from doctors
Rebecca Webster and Lorna Reed, the co authors of a
first of its kind study in a journal called Perspectives
on Sexual and Reproductive Health. So they coined the no
cebo effect, which is kind of the opposite of the
policebo effect, where when people start taking a medication, they
then start associating that medication with negative impacts. Right, So
(24:22):
placebo effect is I have not been given a medication,
but I think it's working for me. I think I
have positive impacts because of it, even though I didn't
really take it. The opposite of that is, I am
genuinely taking the medicine and now I am associating it
with negative impacts. And so their study found that the
no cebo effect involved four psychological factors that were associated
with women having a negative experience of hormonal birth control pills.
(24:45):
They were an expectation at the outset that the pill
would be harmful. Low confidence in how medicines are developed,
A belief that medicines are overused and harmful, and a
belief that they are sensitive to medicines. So, yeah, it
is it's interesting that you know, when people are taking medication,
they would then be reporting, oh, it has made me
(25:07):
fearful of this medication, and it has made not trust
this medication. And social media. We almost kind of can't
talk about this phenomenon without talking about social media, because
it's definitely a factor. Earlier this year, a study by
public health researchers at Latrobe University found that among the
top one hundred TikTok videos about reproductive health, just ten
(25:27):
percent were from medical professionals. About fifty percent of creators
made comments rejecting hormonal contraception. The top one hundred most
popular tiktoks about birth control had to mass some five
billion views, And so think about that. There's just it's
just that much more difficult for accurate content, want alone,
(25:49):
accurate content that is being made by an actual healthcare professional,
to get traction when you're talking about a climate like TikTok,
where overwhelmingly the content that is doing well and performing
well and being a surface for folks is content that
is made by influencers and contact creators that is not
based an actual fact about reproductive care.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Yeah, I'm starting to getting a lot of stuff on
my specific TikTok where I'm like Oracle, I feel like
it's already having a lot of influence. And I'm sure
Bridget you may have already talked about it on your
show or you're thinking on it whatever whatnot with the
whole new takeover with the company that is very much
associated with the Trump administration, Peter Fill all those people,
(26:33):
and then there's even some more bet worst players that
I can't remember their name because they're so dark.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
To me, it's funny that you mentioned Peter Til because
that podcaster I was talking about that the time spoke
to Alex Clark from the conservative wellness podcast Culture Apothecary.
She says something that I hear quite a bit. She says, Oh, well,
I don't use birth control, and you don't actually need
worth control if you just track your period. She says,
(26:57):
we are not given full informed consent when it came
to the pill. Clark began taking her monal birth control
as a teenager and stopped in twenty eighteen, eventually switching
to tracking her menstrual cycle on her phone. She says
she has used the apps Flow and twenty eight, the
last of which was founded by the creators of the
conservative EV magazine, which we talked about you and I
all on the show, and backed by right wing kingmaker
(27:20):
Peter Teal. Both are a fast growing, multi billion dollar
market for women's health technology. So this is something that
I often hear in this space, like, oh, you don't
need birth control if you just track your cycle and
conveniently you can use these apps owned by billionaire Trump
crony and if you watch that South Park episode like
(27:41):
anti Christ expert himself, Peter Teal, or apps like Flow,
which just this year, a California jury found that Meta
a legally collected user health data from Flow, violating the
state's wiretap law. This verdict found that Flow, Google, Meta,
and another app analytics company called Flury we're collecting a
(28:01):
people's private menstrual health data without consent for targeted advertising.
So yeah, super convenient. Don't use hormonal birth control because
it's so dangerous. Instead use this app owned by a
Republican technocrat, or this app that the court says will
share your intimate menstrual data for money.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Oh goodness is a nightmare and horror movie.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
I told you, I will say the cryptkeeper would never
get mixed up in any of this. You carry pro
your productive rights.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
For social media has done so much for good and bad,
Like there's so many things that we were able to
access so much more and seeing around the world and
(28:51):
get a little more information and data and truth, but
also a lot of the misinformation and disinformation that we
have continually had to talk about because it's only getting
But like it reminds me again of like people talking
trying to use the ejaculation or the minute that sperm comes,
that's killing a baby if you I'm sorry laughing at
(29:14):
myself in this context. And for so long I've heard
my own people, like my age group of people, very intellectual,
like even like pro choice before tell me after they
had a baby. No, yeah, I can't use hormonal birth
control because it kills you know, it has spermicide, and
that means it's killing babies, and I cannot do that
(29:34):
as a part of my religion. But now it's flip
that because it it may have worked on a few
but it's starting to work less and less, and so
now that I feel like this is its way of
new talking, and like, no, no, no, we're not going
to talk about that as the actual problem.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Oh yeah, I mean we had that. That's a very
common piece of misinformation about contraceptives is that they are
the same as abortives or abortions. The Trump administration just
this y was trying to falsely claim that certain forms
of birth control are essentially the same thing as abortions
in an effort to restrict access to contraceptives. And so,
(30:09):
there's nothing wrong with abortion, but abortion and birth control,
as hopefully we all learned in health class, are two
different things. And so if contraceptives are trying to prevent
in like a like an egg being fertilized, if you
have no fertilized egg, it's not the same thing as
an abortion. But the Trump administration was trying to use
(30:30):
this sort of tricky false logic to essentially further restrict
birth control and reproductive health more generally. Like that's really
what it was. But so like that is an incredibly
common piece of misinformation, And yeah, it just sucks that
we're in a place where it's not just being traded
around the back of the bus or you know, on TikTok.
(30:52):
It is in our government.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
Yeah, and we are seeing the fall out and impacts
of this. One thing I find interesting is I do
I have some friends who are nurses and they told
me before, you know, people come in. People have always
come in since the internet has been a thing and
been like, you know, I saw on WebMD, I have this.
(31:17):
But now they're kind of coming in with this I
saw on TikTok. Is this a thing? Should I be
worried about this? And it's just just another task for
them to take on of almost educating like no, no, no, no,
that's not that's not what's going on. But there have
been some fallouts, some more measureable than others.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Right, Yeah. So the question that I had is, well,
it definitely seems like misinformation about birth control is it's
our platforms are washing that. But is it having an impact?
And it's a little bit hard to say. It depends
on who you ask. So the New York Times work
with this company trily into Health, a healthcare analytics company,
and they conducted an analysis for The Times and found
a decrease in the use of hormonal birth control pills
(32:00):
among women age eighteen to forty four. In twenty nineteen,
thirteen point one percent of women said that they use
the pill. In twenty twenty four, that number fell to
ten point two percent. But researchers at the Goutbacher Institute,
which is like an abortion rights organization, they say that
they have not seen an indication of a population level
decrease in hormonal contraceptive use per their analysis of data
(32:22):
from the National Center for Health Statistics. And so it's
not totally clear if this is having a specific impact
that people actually are abandoning hormonal birth control. It's possible
that even if they are, they're using some other kind
of birth control. But we can't not talk about the
way that this is happening against this backdrop of an
(32:43):
administration that is clearly just hostile toward birth control and
reproductive healthcare in general. This spring, more than a dozen
public health organizations sued the Trump administration, arguing that it
was undercutting access to health services, including birth control, by
whatsholding Title X funding. And then when you take into
effect things like Medicaid cuts, those things would leave millions
(33:04):
of people without access to health coverage, which obviously also
threatens to limit things like contraceptives and birth control, and
so all of this stuff is not happening in a vacuum.
And I think that that's what scholars are sort of
worried about, right This one two punch of this growing
media climate that spreads fear lies and misinformation about birth control,
(33:26):
also combined with these policy decisions that restrict birth control.
The New York Times spoke to Amanda Stevenson, a sociologist
at the University of Colorado Boulder, who said those two processes,
stigmatization and legal restrictions are mutually reinforcing. And I guess
I would say the piece of this that I find
the most interesting to me and the most telling, is
(33:50):
just sort of the way that social media has reinforced
being critical or skeptical or not on birth control as
a kind of identity. And here's how. Doctor Jennifer Penya
the chief medical officer for the reproductive telehealth platform WISP.
She says that she sees dozens of patients each year
who come to her with worries rooted and misinformation. They're
(34:12):
asking her things like, is an IUD going to make
me infertile if I go off first control? How long
will it take me to get out of my system?
How can I do this naturally with an aora ring.
I want to be pure, right, like all of these
things that seem so identity based, and she really traces
that back to these online wellness influencers. She says, there's
a cry for identity. Social media is becoming the algorithm
(34:35):
for education, and once there's a trend, it becomes the
norm for topics of conversation inside clinics. And I think
that's really the thing is that people are watching all
of this content and the same way that I know
I'm like, oh, maybe I'm somebody who should start wearing
moreth leisure, or maybe I'm somebody who should drink smoothies.
The same way that social media can influence me in
(34:56):
that way, it is also influencing people to be incredibly
critical and concerned about this medication. And doctors are saying, listen,
we have people coming in asking us these questions that
I know are rooted in online misinformation about birth control.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
That word pure, that's such a red flag. I want
to be pure.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
It's bad. And what's so funny to me is that
the piece talked to another young woman, like a black
college activist, who was like, listen, I worked my ass
off working retail to pay for birth control when I
was in high school myself, because I wanted to have
the freedom that birth control allowed me in my life,
(35:37):
and I wanted to have the control that it allowed
me of my life and my choices. And so she
talked about how going to college now and hearing from
her friends who are the same age as her, who
are basically saying like, oh, I don't want to be
on birth control. I don't want to, you know, put
that stuff in my body, and how sad it makes
her that in this day and age, this way of
(36:00):
helping us control our lives, our finances, our plans, our
futures is being so stigmatized and demonized that it makes
her sad. And so she became a college activist who
tables on her campus to help people get access to
birth control. And she described it like this. She said,
the biggest thing I see on social media is this earthy,
green girl lifestyle type. Shebang, It's like a trendy aesthetic.
(36:25):
And I guess that is my point. If you speak
to a doctor and birth control is not for you,
more power to you. But I don't think that rejecting
birth control should be a trendy identity aesthetic that you
get from TikTok. Right, These are healthcare and medical decisions.
This is a decision whether or not to take a
prescription drug. That is a decision that you should be
(36:46):
making with your doctor, not with some rando on TikTok.
Because you liked her green, earthy girl esthetic, right, you.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Got a fifteen second glimpse of her made up and
seemingly happy in the Golden Hour show. That is not truth.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Yeah, and who knows what her life is really like?
Who knows why she is telling you this? Right? And
I just think that we should really be concerned about
what happens when rejecting birth control becomes this trendy identity
aesthetic on TikTok. More and more women are going to
be losing control and autonomy over their bodies, their plans,
their futures, their finances, and their lives without even necessarily
(37:25):
realizing that that's what's happening. Right That the woman that
The New York Times spoke to Ashley, who was like,
I wonder who I am if I'm not on birth control?
A parent who had a child before her and her
partner were ready to have that per her own description
of the situation. And by the way, after having her child,
the New York Times checked back in with her and
she was like, oh, I'm on birth control now I
can't have another kid, you know. Yeah, that was a.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Follow up I really wanted to know, honestly, And now
you're back on Are you good now?
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Yeah? I mean, she like, it's stuf. I really don't
want to make it seem like I'm saying everybody should
be on birth control. But the same thing that we
talked about with the Chadwives thing, we should not be
pushing young people into giving up autonomy and giving up
the things that give us choices. And even if you're
(38:13):
not somebody who wants to or needs to be on
birth control, we should not be creating a climate where
it's stigmatized, where somebody who does need it is going
to look twice at it, or I think that's unsafe
for me, that's dangerous for me. If I put this
in my body, I am I might turn bisexual, or
I might be making myself infertile, or any other kind
of junk that is being amplified on social media platforms
so responsibly right now when it comes to birth control.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Right, and again this comes back into this bigger layer,
like we probably need to do a playlist of all
of these episodes with you, because to connect these thoughts
once again, there is a connection to the Chadwives conversation
that we've had and misinformation about abortion from the jump,
the misinformation from things like WhatsApp, who tell you it's private,
(38:57):
but it's not using things like this as well as
this conversation, like, this is a bigger chain. This is
a bigger picture in a small detail that they don't
actually they don't tell you that, but when you start
looking at who's behind that and why this information is coming,
it is a bigger picture and its propaganda.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Yeah, I mean, these bad actors aren't wrong. We are
being lied to you, just not the people they necessarily
want us to be fearful of. And I think that's
exactly my point that all of these things are related.
Tech companies are tech companies, and bad actors are materially
benefiting from all of us being fearful and less informed
(39:36):
about these choices that are so important for the way
that we live our lives. And you know, I birth control.
I'm at the stage of my life where it's not
a huge concern for me in general. But that's just
the thing birth control. It's not just about side effects
or hormones or the ability to have sex. It is
about those things, but it's also about autonomy, the ability
(39:58):
to make informed decisions about our own bodies based on
facts and not fear. You know, that is something that
generations of women fought for. My own mother, my own
late mother, God, rest of your soul, she fought for that.
And I just don't think we should just give that
up because an influencer told us to. And I think
that as these algorithms get louder than actual medical experts,
(40:20):
it is really worth asking who is benefiting when we
stop trusting our doctors and start putting our trust in
influencers and podcasters instead. And so if the question is
who are you without birth control? Hopefully not just content
for somebody else's wellness grift right our wellness brand, The
better question is who could we become when we start
(40:41):
demanding care and content that is honest, evidence based and
actually centered on us and our bodies and what we
truly actually.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
Need big on the centered on us?
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Please, yes, oh absolutely well.
Speaker 4 (40:59):
A very spooky episode, indeed, and as always so many
other things we could talk about. We always love having
you on. Thank you so much for coming on and
elucidating these things for us as much as they can
be in our wild times.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Yeah, my pleasure. And yeah, if anybody if the Crip keeper,
if you're listening, oh.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Yes, let us know about me out. Don't call me.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
Don't call me, and you probably prefer to get called
by the ghost boy ghost face.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Yeah did to me. There was a hot line right
when the movie was coming out that you could actually
send a message, So I put Annie in that she
got that call.
Speaker 4 (41:50):
It was fun, yes, and we played it in the episode.
It scared me very very because you told I would
never answer a number that I didn't recognize, and you
sent me a text Samantha that it's like, answer the call.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
You need to answer this phone call.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
It was a New York number.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Tream Yeah, like you have that you need to answer
this call.
Speaker 4 (42:08):
I did, and it scared me, uh and I loved it,
so thank you.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
Well.
Speaker 4 (42:14):
I hope that you have more excellent horror movie times
Halloween times. Uh, and we're looking forward to talking to
you again. But in the meantime, Bridget where can the
good listeners find you well.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
You can find me on Instagram at Bridget Marie in DC,
you can find me on TikTok at Bridget Bree and
DC on YouTube at there are No Girls on the Internet,
and you can listen to my podcast there are no
girls on the Internet. If you like spooky conversations about
our social media landscape, sure, I mean honestly yes.
Speaker 4 (42:49):
Oh well go do that listeners, if you haven't already,
If you would like to email as you can or
email as Hello at stuff I Never Told You. We're
also on Blue Skype, moms to podcast or Instagram and
TikTok at stuff I Never Told You. Also on YouTube.
We have new merchandise ACoM Hero and we have a
book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks
so start a superducer be Consenior Executive producer, my undercontributor Joe,
Thank you and thanks to you for listening. Steffan Never
(43:10):
Told You is production of My Heart Radio. For more
podcast from my Heart Radio, you can check out the
heart Radio app Apple Podcast wherever you listen to your
favorite show
There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
of iHeartRadio and Unboss Creative. I'm Bridget Todd and this
is There Are No Girls on the Internet. Birth Control
is the latest battleground in a wave of online misinformation
targeting young people, and doctors and reproductive health advocates are
(00:25):
sounding the alarm about its impacts. But this isn't just
your typical fear mongering about birth control the kid coming
from Bible thumbers or conservative politicians and suits. This new
wave is coming from well miss influencers, the ones in
matching pastel workout sets who are linking a balanced natural
life with ditching hormonal birth control. And while it may
(00:46):
look like a rebrand, this kind of misinformation is as
harmful as ever. To unpack what's going on, I spoke
with my friends Samantha and Nanny over at the podcast Stuff.
Mom never told you we were talking right around Halloween,
so of course we had to start with our opinions
on horror movies, because what's scarier than wellness misinformation? Right?
(01:11):
What's funny to me is both of you had to
sneak to watch horror as youth. I grew up in
the opposite household I was. My dad was the person
who was taking a much too young child to the
theater to see horror movies, and we would This is
not going to make him sound like a great parent,
which I swear he was, but we would stay up
(01:34):
late to watch Tales from the Crypt together, which to
this day, I loved Tails from the Crypt. It's hard
to find. You can watch it probably bootleg on YouTube.
But there was a time in my life, like maybe
a year ago, when I was having a really tough time,
and I was like, would it be weird to buy
myself a cameo from the crypt Keeper where it's just
(01:55):
like a cameo to me from me, where the cryptkeeper
is giving me a message. Would that be weird? I
decided it would be. But like, that's how much I
love Tales from the Crypt and horror anthology in general.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, well, you know, I remember, as you say that,
I remember sneaking episodes of that as well as the
newer Twilight Zone. Do you know what I'm talking about.
It wasn't the old one, it was a newer version
that also really twisted. Like I remember the Lottery was, uh,
do you know what I'm talking about? That episode the
lottery on the Twilight Zone and everything ends up bad.
Kind of the same thing with a paper and I
(02:30):
remember a haunted house on that one. Like I remember
those episodes. They were like short shots of something haunting
that never really had a good ending, and you're just like, yeah,
give me more than that.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yeah, I'm a sucker for the Twilight Zone and horror
anthologies in general where it has some sort of a
twist ending where oh no, it was do you know
what I'm saying?
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Oh yeah, yeah, the real monsters were, man all I love.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
I'm a sucker for a like artistic twist. And they
even make one of them on the Futurama where time
enough to read I broke my glasses. Oh well, I
can still read the large the large print books. My
eyes fell out. I'm a sucker for that.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yes, well, I think you should also definitely buy that
cameo because sometimes you just need a pep talk. Yeah,
I did not have that in one of your favorite
like childhood memories. That's the best.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Oh my god. When I was a kid, I used
to do a cryptkeeper impression. I used to do. This
is so such a tangent. Impressions of the crypt keeper
and the way that the Martians speak on Mars attacks
and my brother would die laughing. You would be bowled over.
That was Those are my two the two impressions I
had when I was a child.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I want to.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Extra money doing a cripkeeper cameos, I would be there.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
I'd listen why, I would pay yes, yes, just through this.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Oh wow, I love that so much. Oh well, this
is kind of an unfortunate segue, but it is true
that every time Halloween comes around there's kind of a
strange tension for me because usually there's both an election
coming up, but also, uh, you know, when you talk
(04:38):
about like what you're really afraid of, there's sort of
the horror movie answer, which is very scary, and then
there's like the real world answer that we're living in,
which is also scary. So it's sort of every time
I'm always like, I love this more Halloween seasonal horror
(05:00):
movie thing, but there's also this real world horrific thing
that's happening.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Oh yes, yeah, what a scarrier than things like misinformation.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
I mean, if there could be an evil cackle right now,
there should be.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Wow, I love it.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
So that was amazing. I'm gonna do that again, everybody
we're gonna say should use that as like a meme
or something. I don't know how to do with this.
Someone put it as a sound cover.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
That was amazing, so much good. Yes, we are talking about.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
A lot of misinformation today, and specifically around a certain topic, right, bridget.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
That is right, because if y'all have spent any time
at all on TikTok lately, I probably don't need to
tell you that social media platforms are a wash in
misinformation about hormonal birth control. And I actually find it
interesting but also kind of very telling that I'm not
(06:10):
talking about content that is warning about some specific side
effect really about birth control. What I'm talking about is
sort of this content that has a fit looking young
woman influencer type promising that you will kind of get
a vague feeling of feeling more like you if you
go off birth control. And so the question they sort
(06:32):
of ask is, who am I without birth control? Will
I feel some sort of a positive difference if I
stop using it? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (06:39):
And you know this is not new, but it's definitely
been amplified by social media, and these influencers are spreading
the message.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Oh yes, and I guess like that, like the thing
that social media is specifically flooded with. It's this sort
of vibe based reasoning for coming off birth control, right,
It's not I'm having this specific side effect, this specific
issue or use case. It's no. The vibes are all
are terrible for birth control. And there was a really
great piece in The New York Times called who Am
(07:09):
I Without birth Control? That I looked at that really
examines how misinformation around birth control is impacting real women.
They chronicled a young woman named Ashley, who was twenty six.
They write she had started taking birth control pills a
decade earlier, when she was fifteen. Now, as she browsed
her social media feeds, she kept stumbling on videos of
women saying how much better they felt when they stopped
(07:31):
taking the pill. Content she was not seeking out the
post typically what like this, a glowing blonde and a
workout top, the picture of health, saying that she stopped
taking birth control pills and immediately felt more clarity of mind,
like an emotional fog had lifted, like she was a
brand new, much happier person. So Ashley, seeing all of this,
(07:54):
decides to go off birth control pills. Cult Turkey, which
is not recommended by doctors, even though she is in
a newish relationship with someone, and they both agreed it
is too early to even be thinking you about kids.
So who is Ashley without birth control? Well, turns out
she's a mom because just one year after she stopped
taking her pill, those pills, she became a mother. Her
(08:17):
baby was four months old when that article was written.
And so I thought that was such a funny way
for the article to start thinking that if I go
off the pill, I'll have some vaguely better life, And
it's like, no, who are you not on the pill?
Probably a parent, to be honest. If you're having sex,
probably a parent, I mean.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
And then other things. There's so much to this conversation
because I think we've already kind of hinted towards things
like this in our talked about chadwise and then also
(09:01):
the yoga pipeline, the influencers in that wellness circle where
we talk about this level of misinformation and being like,
if you do all these things naturally that you're going
to be so blessed with just being a stay at
home mom and being able to take care of your
family and yourself, you're going to feel healthy and light
(09:24):
and young and feel complete. But all this is in
a rhetoric to a very very dangerous conversation about the
loss of rights for those who are marginalized and specifically
those who have uteresses. Yea in this moment, But they
are really doing a great job and changing, Like feminism
is being able to be a mom, stay at home.
(09:45):
Wouldn't you rather do that than have to struggle by
yourself in a world that doesn't appreciate you type of conversation.
So it seems like this is one more narrative for
the wellness chain, which is an odd and very tricky conversation.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Oh yeah, you put that so well, and you know,
there is nothing wrong with wanting to become a parent.
There's nothing wrong with staying at home and not doing
wage earning work if that is your choice and you
can swing it. All of those things are great, and
the point of feminism is that people should be able
to have the choices that work for them. However, having
an entire media ecosystem that essentially rebrands having less control
(10:26):
and less autonomy into good things is not a dynamic
where people get to make their own decisions. Really, when
you are being algorithmically fed and surfaced. Because remember Ashley
said that she was not even seeking out content about
the dangers of birth control, that content found her. When
you are a wash in that kind of rhetoric and
that kind of misinformation, I would argue that you are
(10:48):
not really in a dynamic where you're able to make
real choices for yourself. And yeah, social media content and podcasts,
they are an entire media ecosystem spreading and amplifying misinformation
about birth control. And interestingly, they're not exuplicitly warning against
birth control for religious or political reasons. Right the same way, Sam,
(11:11):
that you were saying, Oh, it's so easy these days
to just have it bo I'm just into yoga and wellness.
Three swipes later and you're looking at Nazi content, right,
like it's so easy, and a lot of that stuff.
They're able to use things that feel not non political,
and they're not being talked about exuplicitly as political, but
(11:33):
they are political. And so with this kind of birth
control misinformation that we're seeing increasingly on social media, it
doesn't come out and say, hey, we're anti birth control
for political or religious reasons. It's because birth control is
bad for you, and so I think that that is
a pretty insidious approach because just like wellness other kinds
(11:54):
of wellness, it doesn't just appeal to people who are
political or religious, it also just appeals to people who
are concerned about their overall health or wellness. And so
increasing this message that's that being on birth control is
at odds with being healthy well and quote pure like
that is the underlying message being presented here.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
That makes me want to throw my computer because I
swear to God, it took us so long to get
to the point that women can say this is a
hormonal imbalance issue for me, and I have been struggling
all of my life as a teen having pains where
it took me out for two or three days, or
having this mood disorders that did not make sense, and
feeling like I'm in hell every period or rough three
(12:38):
weeks out of the month, like I remember growing up
being told these are the things you're just that's just
being a woman. And it took us so long to
finally get to a point and be like, oh, maybe
we should There should be research and there should be
medical actions that can happen that could help us. And
I felt like we go there for like just the
(12:59):
split suckond good and we were actually accepting that as
an okay, that might be okay for us to have.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Yeah, and I'm glad that you said that, because I
want to be like very clear, hormonal worth control is
not for everyone. It can have side effects. Case and point,
it was not a good option for me because it
gave me headaches. So this is not me saying everybody
should go out there and get on hormonal birth control.
People should talk to their doctor and figure out what
kind of birth control is right for them. If birth
(13:27):
control is right for them, there are all kinds of
non hormonal birth control options to consider. Again, people should
be talking to their medical professionals. They should not be
trusting random influencers on social media or random podcasters. But
right now those are the people who are really speaking
the loudest and frankly kind of owning the conversation about
(13:49):
birth control, and people are listening. They really have an audience.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
And it's coming back. They were coming back to that
old school thought of you just need to deal with it.
It's putting more things in your body doesn't help you.
All these things and really being like you need to
let your body work itself out, and really telling people
to suffer because it's a wellness thing.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
It's like, literally, yeah, you want to be pure, you know,
it's just birth control is just bad for you. And honestly,
the kinds of stuff that people say about birth control
is crap, just a little bit of a summary. So
Alex Clark, who hosts Culture Apothecary, which is sort of
a conservative wellness podcast on the Late Charlie Kirks Network,
Turning Quints USA, she has suggested that the way that
(14:33):
women are prescribed birth control is linked to fertility issues,
which it isn't. She's also even said that birth control
pills can falsely make women feel that they might be bisexual,
which I don't think I need to tell anybody, but
just in case that's not true, birth control pills cannot
(14:54):
turn you queer or gay.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Genuine reactions.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
I was already, I was already. On an episode of
Joe Rogan's podcast, Callie Means, who now is an advisor
to help Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Junior basically said that
the medical industry views worth control as recurring revenue and
that the reason that they're trying to get people to
(15:22):
take the pill is because it's recurring revenue, and that oh,
if you can get somebody to be on the pill,
they're going to be taking it for most of their lives.
And it's this implied conspiracy that no, no, this is
not medication that might genuinely help somebody or might genuinely
give somebody more autonomy or more choice. No no, no, no no,
it's a way to just make big pharma is making
(15:45):
money off of you to harm you.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
They are so good about taking this type of rhetoric,
and I say they as being like anti abortion, slash,
anti uterus, anti marginal arts people group community and taking
things and making sure to a conspiracy to really freak
everybody out. Be like, no, no, but this is what's
really happening. It's not because I'm being anti apportion. I
(16:08):
don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Yeah, And so wait, it's so true because when you
look up birth control on TikTok, you'll find women talking
about how birth control like room into their bodies quote
unquote by making them gain weight or taking their libidos.
And these are things that actually can be symptoms of
hormonal birth control. So they're not wrong. But the thing
is like, if I were to make a TikTok about
(16:30):
how my doctor took me off birth control because it
was giving me headaches, This is not gonna be advice
for everybody, right, Like, it's very specific to me and
my body. And importantly, the dominant messages on social media
frame birth control as a conversation that is not like, oh,
talk to your doctor if birth control is giving you
this specific side effect. No, no, no, it is your doctor
(16:51):
is in cahoots with the government to lie to you
by actually forcing you to be on birth control, that
it is harming you. Right, It's I honestly wouldn't have
a problem with well, I don't know. I guess I
feel like it gets dicey when you're putting medical advice
online if you're not a doctor. But I honestly wouldn't
(17:12):
have that big of a problem with it if it
was just like, here's my side effect and this is
what I did. Instead, it's this purposely conspiratorial thing that
is so obviously being phrased in the most inflammatory way
to get engagement. Like The New York Times spoke to
one of these influencers who has like just under one
(17:32):
hundred thousand followers who went on TikTok and talked about
birth control as being evil and then said, well, obviously
I exaggerate on social media. You can't have a lukewarm take.
And I'm thinking, do you really want to be taking
medical advice from an influencer who is openly telling The
New York Times that she needs to make things as
spicy and inflammatory as possible to get views on social media?
(17:54):
Like do you not see the way that she's incentivized
to essentially tell the most extreme story of something as
important as your health.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Again, it goes back to also in my mind, like
they're not completely wrong when it comes to women's health.
They don't care, so they they being pharmaceuticals. I sound
very very conspiratory right now in that level of like
they do want to make money. It's the same reason
why period products are not offered for free and there's
an increase and there's tax on it, because they can
(18:24):
make more money and they know that it's needed. And
instead of helping to have a cost efficient way of
treating women as well as actually researching on how the
best way to help because some of the beginning of
birth control was real, gross, real eugenics what like it
was real gross, like let's be real clear on that,
but instead of actually seeking to help women, it kind
of had turned the other way of like, Eh, we
(18:46):
don't care enough about helping people with the uterses. We
don't really want to help them, but if we're going to,
we're going to make it as least effective or as
many side effects so we can also make money and
let them know this is your only sol Like there's
this level of like, you're not completely wrong, but instead
of helping in a right way, you're just making us
(19:07):
go back twenty steps.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Yeah, and bad actors are so good at exploiting that
kind of kernel of truth. That's what they do, right,
And so I get it because listen, traditionally, marginalized people,
especially women, are often not listened to by medical professionals,
are often not treated with respect or care. Oftentimes when
you're talking about medicines and medical things, these are things
(19:30):
that we're not tested or researched on our body specifically.
So all of that is true, and we're right to
be pissed off about that, we're right to call that out.
But what these content creators do is that they swoop
in and exploit that very real problem, that very real issue,
and use it to push potentially harmful, untrue messages about
(19:53):
our health. And so, yeah, I completely agree that they're
not wrong, and they're not wrong to be skeptical, paranoid,
all of that. But then you have these influencers basically
filling the void with lies, lies that lead to people
feeling more anxious and more suspicious. When The New York
(20:13):
Times surveyed women about how our current social media climate
is making them think about birth control, these messages did
not just make them want to stop using birth control.
It made them fearful, paranoid, anxious, suspicious, specifically suspicious of
their own doctors, and made them feel more trust toward
(20:35):
random influencers or podcasters. So you can see why exploiting
that kernel of truth would materially benefit bad actors who
are pushing these lives about birth control.
Speaker 4 (20:45):
Yeah, and I think there's so much going on right
now with the erosion of trust that has been ongoing.
But you got like RFK Junior, and he's just pushing
out all of these things about you know what feel
like conspiracy theories to me, but to other people seem
(21:06):
like truths. I have a friend who worked at the
CDC and she was seeing you know, COVID really exacerbated
a lot of things because we were trying to get
this vaccine out, but every day, like what we knew
about it was changing, and so people started to view
that with mistrust. So you've got like this building mistrust.
(21:29):
And then as we talked about in the episode we
did about chat gpt and people seeking out health advice
from chat gpt, where it's so expensive to go to
a doctor or to go to a hospital, and so
people are turning to technology, and people are turning to
(21:49):
these influencers and they're telling you like, this is what
you have to do. This is like it worked for
me us, and it's very it's a nice thing to believe.
It's a nice thing to think, oh I could control that.
If I just stopped taking birth control, then maybe I
will be more in control of my body. And you know,
(22:12):
you couple that with like lack of sexual education. It's
just a real mess that we have going on right now.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
And I think I like that comparison to the chat
geept example, because you know, I don't want to shame
anybody who is using chat gept or doctor Google to
figure out what's wrong with them in a climate where
just having access to medical care is so inaccessible. However,
the answer to me is not here, take this unreliable
(22:45):
tool chat Gypt and use that. The answer is, let's
make healthcare more accessible for everybody. And I think similarly,
the answer here should not be, oh, well, let's just
have an entire ecosystem of podcasters and influencers who are
personally incentivized to make people fearful. It's let's have a
medical industry that actually listens to people and that people
(23:06):
feel like they can actually trust. Like it's it's such
a it's it's it's just not a real solution. I
understand how in a climate where it is confusing to
figure out decisions for your own health and your own body,
and we have people who I would say are influencers
at the highest level of government making our health decisions,
(23:28):
I understand it. It is a funky climate. But the
answer is not, oh, just empower the influencers and podcasters
to essentially act as doctors. Now, it is how do
we have a more reasonable climate that people can trust
when it comes to our health and our bodies.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
Absolutely, and I really found this next part you have
in your outline really interesting because I never heard of
it before. I'm very familiar with the placebo effects, but
I was not familiar with its polar opposite.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Yes, the no cibo effect. So that comes from doctors
Rebecca Webster and Lorna Reed, the co authors of a
first of its kind study in a journal called Perspectives
on Sexual and Reproductive Health. So they coined the no
cebo effect, which is kind of the opposite of the
policebo effect, where when people start taking a medication, they
then start associating that medication with negative impacts. Right, So
(24:22):
placebo effect is I have not been given a medication,
but I think it's working for me. I think I
have positive impacts because of it, even though I didn't
really take it. The opposite of that is, I am
genuinely taking the medicine and now I am associating it
with negative impacts. And so their study found that the
no cebo effect involved four psychological factors that were associated
with women having a negative experience of hormonal birth control pills.
(24:45):
They were an expectation at the outset that the pill
would be harmful. Low confidence in how medicines are developed,
A belief that medicines are overused and harmful, and a
belief that they are sensitive to medicines. So, yeah, it
is it's interesting that you know, when people are taking medication,
they would then be reporting, oh, it has made me
(25:07):
fearful of this medication, and it has made not trust
this medication. And social media. We almost kind of can't
talk about this phenomenon without talking about social media, because
it's definitely a factor. Earlier this year, a study by
public health researchers at Latrobe University found that among the
top one hundred TikTok videos about reproductive health, just ten
(25:27):
percent were from medical professionals. About fifty percent of creators
made comments rejecting hormonal contraception. The top one hundred most
popular tiktoks about birth control had to mass some five
billion views, And so think about that. There's just it's
just that much more difficult for accurate content, want alone,
(25:49):
accurate content that is being made by an actual healthcare professional,
to get traction when you're talking about a climate like TikTok,
where overwhelmingly the content that is doing well and performing
well and being a surface for folks is content that
is made by influencers and contact creators that is not
based an actual fact about reproductive care.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Yeah, I'm starting to getting a lot of stuff on
my specific TikTok where I'm like Oracle, I feel like
it's already having a lot of influence. And I'm sure
Bridget you may have already talked about it on your
show or you're thinking on it whatever whatnot with the
whole new takeover with the company that is very much
associated with the Trump administration, Peter Fill all those people,
(26:33):
and then there's even some more bet worst players that
I can't remember their name because they're so dark.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
To me, it's funny that you mentioned Peter Til because
that podcaster I was talking about that the time spoke
to Alex Clark from the conservative wellness podcast Culture Apothecary.
She says something that I hear quite a bit. She says, Oh, well,
I don't use birth control, and you don't actually need
worth control if you just track your period. She says,
(26:57):
we are not given full informed consent when it came
to the pill. Clark began taking her monal birth control
as a teenager and stopped in twenty eighteen, eventually switching
to tracking her menstrual cycle on her phone. She says
she has used the apps Flow and twenty eight, the
last of which was founded by the creators of the
conservative EV magazine, which we talked about you and I
all on the show, and backed by right wing kingmaker
(27:20):
Peter Teal. Both are a fast growing, multi billion dollar
market for women's health technology. So this is something that
I often hear in this space, like, oh, you don't
need birth control if you just track your cycle and
conveniently you can use these apps owned by billionaire Trump
crony and if you watch that South Park episode like
(27:41):
anti Christ expert himself, Peter Teal, or apps like Flow,
which just this year, a California jury found that Meta
a legally collected user health data from Flow, violating the
state's wiretap law. This verdict found that Flow, Google, Meta,
and another app analytics company called Flury we're collecting a
(28:01):
people's private menstrual health data without consent for targeted advertising.
So yeah, super convenient. Don't use hormonal birth control because
it's so dangerous. Instead use this app owned by a
Republican technocrat, or this app that the court says will
share your intimate menstrual data for money.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Oh goodness is a nightmare and horror movie.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
I told you, I will say the cryptkeeper would never
get mixed up in any of this. You carry pro
your productive rights.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
For social media has done so much for good and bad,
Like there's so many things that we were able to
access so much more and seeing around the world and
(28:51):
get a little more information and data and truth, but
also a lot of the misinformation and disinformation that we
have continually had to talk about because it's only getting
But like it reminds me again of like people talking
trying to use the ejaculation or the minute that sperm comes,
that's killing a baby if you I'm sorry laughing at
(29:14):
myself in this context. And for so long I've heard
my own people, like my age group of people, very intellectual,
like even like pro choice before tell me after they
had a baby. No, yeah, I can't use hormonal birth
control because it kills you know, it has spermicide, and
that means it's killing babies, and I cannot do that
(29:34):
as a part of my religion. But now it's flip
that because it it may have worked on a few
but it's starting to work less and less, and so
now that I feel like this is its way of
new talking, and like, no, no, no, we're not going
to talk about that as the actual problem.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
Oh yeah, I mean we had that. That's a very
common piece of misinformation about contraceptives is that they are
the same as abortives or abortions. The Trump administration just
this y was trying to falsely claim that certain forms
of birth control are essentially the same thing as abortions
in an effort to restrict access to contraceptives. And so,
(30:09):
there's nothing wrong with abortion, but abortion and birth control,
as hopefully we all learned in health class, are two
different things. And so if contraceptives are trying to prevent
in like a like an egg being fertilized, if you
have no fertilized egg, it's not the same thing as
an abortion. But the Trump administration was trying to use
(30:30):
this sort of tricky false logic to essentially further restrict
birth control and reproductive health more generally. Like that's really
what it was. But so like that is an incredibly
common piece of misinformation, And yeah, it just sucks that
we're in a place where it's not just being traded
around the back of the bus or you know, on TikTok.
(30:52):
It is in our government.
Speaker 4 (30:55):
Yeah, and we are seeing the fall out and impacts
of this. One thing I find interesting is I do
I have some friends who are nurses and they told
me before, you know, people come in. People have always
come in since the internet has been a thing and
been like, you know, I saw on WebMD, I have this.
(31:17):
But now they're kind of coming in with this I
saw on TikTok. Is this a thing? Should I be
worried about this? And it's just just another task for
them to take on of almost educating like no, no, no, no,
that's not that's not what's going on. But there have
been some fallouts, some more measureable than others.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Right, Yeah. So the question that I had is, well,
it definitely seems like misinformation about birth control is it's
our platforms are washing that. But is it having an impact?
And it's a little bit hard to say. It depends
on who you ask. So the New York Times work
with this company trily into Health, a healthcare analytics company,
and they conducted an analysis for The Times and found
a decrease in the use of hormonal birth control pills
(32:00):
among women age eighteen to forty four. In twenty nineteen,
thirteen point one percent of women said that they use
the pill. In twenty twenty four, that number fell to
ten point two percent. But researchers at the Goutbacher Institute,
which is like an abortion rights organization, they say that
they have not seen an indication of a population level
decrease in hormonal contraceptive use per their analysis of data
(32:22):
from the National Center for Health Statistics. And so it's
not totally clear if this is having a specific impact
that people actually are abandoning hormonal birth control. It's possible
that even if they are, they're using some other kind
of birth control. But we can't not talk about the
way that this is happening against this backdrop of an
(32:43):
administration that is clearly just hostile toward birth control and
reproductive healthcare in general. This spring, more than a dozen
public health organizations sued the Trump administration, arguing that it
was undercutting access to health services, including birth control, by
whatsholding Title X funding. And then when you take into
effect things like Medicaid cuts, those things would leave millions
(33:04):
of people without access to health coverage, which obviously also
threatens to limit things like contraceptives and birth control, and
so all of this stuff is not happening in a vacuum.
And I think that that's what scholars are sort of
worried about, right This one two punch of this growing
media climate that spreads fear lies and misinformation about birth control,
(33:26):
also combined with these policy decisions that restrict birth control.
The New York Times spoke to Amanda Stevenson, a sociologist
at the University of Colorado Boulder, who said those two processes,
stigmatization and legal restrictions are mutually reinforcing. And I guess
I would say the piece of this that I find
the most interesting to me and the most telling, is
(33:50):
just sort of the way that social media has reinforced
being critical or skeptical or not on birth control as
a kind of identity. And here's how. Doctor Jennifer Penya
the chief medical officer for the reproductive telehealth platform WISP.
She says that she sees dozens of patients each year
who come to her with worries rooted and misinformation. They're
(34:12):
asking her things like, is an IUD going to make
me infertile if I go off first control? How long
will it take me to get out of my system?
How can I do this naturally with an aora ring.
I want to be pure, right, like all of these
things that seem so identity based, and she really traces
that back to these online wellness influencers. She says, there's
a cry for identity. Social media is becoming the algorithm
(34:35):
for education, and once there's a trend, it becomes the
norm for topics of conversation inside clinics. And I think
that's really the thing is that people are watching all
of this content and the same way that I know
I'm like, oh, maybe I'm somebody who should start wearing
moreth leisure, or maybe I'm somebody who should drink smoothies.
The same way that social media can influence me in
(34:56):
that way, it is also influencing people to be incredibly
critical and concerned about this medication. And doctors are saying, listen,
we have people coming in asking us these questions that
I know are rooted in online misinformation about birth control.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
That word pure, that's such a red flag. I want
to be pure.
Speaker 1 (35:17):
It's bad. And what's so funny to me is that
the piece talked to another young woman, like a black
college activist, who was like, listen, I worked my ass
off working retail to pay for birth control when I
was in high school myself, because I wanted to have
the freedom that birth control allowed me in my life,
(35:37):
and I wanted to have the control that it allowed
me of my life and my choices. And so she
talked about how going to college now and hearing from
her friends who are the same age as her, who
are basically saying like, oh, I don't want to be
on birth control. I don't want to, you know, put
that stuff in my body, and how sad it makes
her that in this day and age, this way of
(36:00):
helping us control our lives, our finances, our plans, our
futures is being so stigmatized and demonized that it makes
her sad. And so she became a college activist who
tables on her campus to help people get access to
birth control. And she described it like this. She said,
the biggest thing I see on social media is this earthy,
green girl lifestyle type. Shebang, It's like a trendy aesthetic.
(36:25):
And I guess that is my point. If you speak
to a doctor and birth control is not for you,
more power to you. But I don't think that rejecting
birth control should be a trendy identity aesthetic that you
get from TikTok. Right, These are healthcare and medical decisions.
This is a decision whether or not to take a
prescription drug. That is a decision that you should be
(36:46):
making with your doctor, not with some rando on TikTok.
Because you liked her green, earthy girl esthetic, right, you.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Got a fifteen second glimpse of her made up and
seemingly happy in the Golden Hour show. That is not truth.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
Yeah, and who knows what her life is really like?
Who knows why she is telling you this? Right? And
I just think that we should really be concerned about
what happens when rejecting birth control becomes this trendy identity
aesthetic on TikTok. More and more women are going to
be losing control and autonomy over their bodies, their plans,
their futures, their finances, and their lives without even necessarily
(37:25):
realizing that that's what's happening. Right That the woman that
The New York Times spoke to Ashley, who was like,
I wonder who I am if I'm not on birth control?
A parent who had a child before her and her
partner were ready to have that per her own description
of the situation. And by the way, after having her child,
the New York Times checked back in with her and
she was like, oh, I'm on birth control now I
can't have another kid, you know. Yeah, that was a.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Follow up I really wanted to know, honestly, And now
you're back on Are you good now?
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Yeah? I mean, she like, it's stuf. I really don't
want to make it seem like I'm saying everybody should
be on birth control. But the same thing that we
talked about with the Chadwives thing, we should not be
pushing young people into giving up autonomy and giving up
the things that give us choices. And even if you're
(38:13):
not somebody who wants to or needs to be on
birth control, we should not be creating a climate where
it's stigmatized, where somebody who does need it is going
to look twice at it, or I think that's unsafe
for me, that's dangerous for me. If I put this
in my body, I am I might turn bisexual, or
I might be making myself infertile, or any other kind
of junk that is being amplified on social media platforms
so responsibly right now when it comes to birth control.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
Right, and again this comes back into this bigger layer,
like we probably need to do a playlist of all
of these episodes with you, because to connect these thoughts
once again, there is a connection to the Chadwives conversation
that we've had and misinformation about abortion from the jump,
the misinformation from things like WhatsApp, who tell you it's private,
(38:57):
but it's not using things like this as well as
this conversation, like, this is a bigger chain. This is
a bigger picture in a small detail that they don't
actually they don't tell you that, but when you start
looking at who's behind that and why this information is coming,
it is a bigger picture and its propaganda.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
Yeah, I mean, these bad actors aren't wrong. We are
being lied to you, just not the people they necessarily
want us to be fearful of. And I think that's
exactly my point that all of these things are related.
Tech companies are tech companies, and bad actors are materially
benefiting from all of us being fearful and less informed
(39:36):
about these choices that are so important for the way
that we live our lives. And you know, I birth control.
I'm at the stage of my life where it's not
a huge concern for me in general. But that's just
the thing birth control. It's not just about side effects
or hormones or the ability to have sex. It is
about those things, but it's also about autonomy, the ability
(39:58):
to make informed decisions about our own bodies based on
facts and not fear. You know, that is something that
generations of women fought for. My own mother, my own
late mother, God, rest of your soul, she fought for that.
And I just don't think we should just give that
up because an influencer told us to. And I think
that as these algorithms get louder than actual medical experts,
(40:20):
it is really worth asking who is benefiting when we
stop trusting our doctors and start putting our trust in
influencers and podcasters instead. And so if the question is
who are you without birth control? Hopefully not just content
for somebody else's wellness grift right our wellness brand, The
better question is who could we become when we start
(40:41):
demanding care and content that is honest, evidence based and
actually centered on us and our bodies and what we
truly actually.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
Need big on the centered on us?
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Please, yes, oh absolutely well.
Speaker 4 (40:59):
A very spooky episode, indeed, and as always so many
other things we could talk about. We always love having
you on. Thank you so much for coming on and
elucidating these things for us as much as they can
be in our wild times.
Speaker 1 (41:20):
Yeah, my pleasure. And yeah, if anybody if the Crip keeper,
if you're listening, oh.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Yes, let us know about me out. Don't call me.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
Don't call me, and you probably prefer to get called
by the ghost boy ghost face.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Yeah did to me. There was a hot line right
when the movie was coming out that you could actually
send a message, So I put Annie in that she
got that call.
Speaker 4 (41:50):
It was fun, yes, and we played it in the episode.
It scared me very very because you told I would
never answer a number that I didn't recognize, and you
sent me a text Samantha that it's like, answer the call.
Speaker 2 (42:01):
You need to answer this phone call.
Speaker 1 (42:03):
It was a New York number.
Speaker 2 (42:04):
Tream Yeah, like you have that you need to answer
this call.
Speaker 4 (42:08):
I did, and it scared me, uh and I loved it,
so thank you.
Speaker 1 (42:13):
Well.
Speaker 4 (42:14):
I hope that you have more excellent horror movie times
Halloween times. Uh, and we're looking forward to talking to
you again. But in the meantime, Bridget where can the
good listeners find you well.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
You can find me on Instagram at Bridget Marie in DC,
you can find me on TikTok at Bridget Bree and
DC on YouTube at there are No Girls on the Internet,
and you can listen to my podcast there are no
girls on the Internet. If you like spooky conversations about
our social media landscape, sure, I mean honestly yes.
Speaker 4 (42:49):
Oh well go do that listeners, if you haven't already,
If you would like to email as you can or
email as Hello at stuff I Never Told You. We're
also on Blue Skype, moms to podcast or Instagram and
TikTok at stuff I Never Told You. Also on YouTube.
We have new merchandise ACoM Hero and we have a
book you can get wherever you get your books. Thanks
so start a superducer be Consenior Executive producer, my undercontributor Joe,
Thank you and thanks to you for listening. Steffan Never
(43:10):
Told You is production of My Heart Radio. For more
podcast from my Heart Radio, you can check out the
heart Radio app Apple Podcast wherever you listen to your
favorite show
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Ruthie's Table 4
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.