When We Fight We Win

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mike Rugnetta (00:10):
Friends, hello, and welcome to Never Post, a
podcast foreign about theInternet. I'm your host, Mike
Rugnetta. This intro was writtenon Monday, 11/03/2025 at 09:16PM
eastern, and we have a hardhitting show for you this week.
Hans talks with public interestlawyer Paul Levy about the case

(00:31):
of Pool World versus preparedfoods photos, fighting online
copyright trolls, and winning.Then friend of the show, Meaghel
Janardan brings drama to thehouse never post asking what is
going on here about cheatingboyfriend videos and also Tokyo.

(00:54):
But right now, we're gonna takea quick break. You're gonna
listen to some ads unless you'reon the member feed. And when we
return, we're gonna talk about afew of the things that have
happened since the last time youheard from us. I'm not gonna
give up. I'm not gonna stop.
I'm gonna read you five storiesthis week. The United States
Department of Homeland Securityand Immigration and Customs

(01:15):
Enforcement Agency are amongstthe biggest advertisers on meta
platforms at the momentaccording to polydashboard.com,
ranking sixteenth and eighteenthrespectively at the time of
writing. Over the last sevendays, it's estimated the
agencies have paid a combinedtotal of between 1.1 and

(01:35):
$1,200,000 for more than50,000,000 impressions across
Facebook and Instagram.According to Poly Dashboard, ICE
largely advertises job openingsin English, while DHS places ads
in Spanish encouraging, as theycall it, self deportation. China

(01:59):
is now regulating influencerswho must, quote, either have a
university degree, recognizedtraining, a license, or
certification, writes theeconomic times, before
publishing content in regulatedareas, which are medical advice,
financial guidance, legalopinions, or commentary on
education.

(02:20):
Before posting about thesethings, platforms must verify
the existence of up to datecredentials. The law also
specifies that creators mustclearly mark AI generated
content and share their sources.Mister Beast employs over a

(02:43):
thousand clippers to createshort snippets of his work to
share on social media boostinghis reach. This according to
Bloomberg. The clippers are paid$50 for every 100,000 views of
their handiwork on TikTok orInstagram via a startup called,
you're not gonna believe this,clipping, which which employs
over 23,000 clippers in total.

(03:06):
The practice is common amongstextremely popular online
personalities, particularlystreamers. My main goal says
clipping founder, 23 year oldAnthony Fujiwara, is that if you
want to go viral, you have to gothrough me. Australia has sued
Microsoft. The country'scompetition and consumer

(03:27):
commission has brought suitagainst the software giant for
false or misleading informationregarding its Microsoft three
sixty five subscription plans,alleging that the company
suggested consumers could eithercancel their subscription or pay
a higher price on renewal forthe integration of Copilot AI
tools. When in fact, there wasapparently a hidden third option

(03:50):
which allowed consumers toretain both their feature set
and lower price.
This all according toAustralia's The Register. Quote,
Microsoft deliberately omittedreference to the classic plans
in its communications, the ACCCwill allege, and concealed their
existence until aftersubscribers initiated the
cancellation process, end labelsfor broadband may get 80 sixed.

(04:19):
Since April 2024 in The US,broadband service providers have
had to disclose the exact feestructure that customers will
pay in so called nutritionlabels. A regulation aimed at
increasing transparency forconsumers by showing exactly
what they are being charged for.I know.
What a novel idea. Crazy tothink about. Of course, Brendan

(04:41):
Carr's FCC is set to reversethis policy. He describes the
task of finding these nutritionlabels as Sisyphean. Quote, but
rather than adopt rules thatwould make the labels easier to
find or interpret, CNET writes,Carr voted to make them appear
less often, end quote.
The FCC is set to vote on theproposed rule making today at

(05:03):
time of recording, after whichthere will be thirty days for
public comment on the matterfollowed by thirty days of
response. We'll put a link tothe public comment form in the
show notes when it's live incase you would like to
contribute. In past studies,according to CNET, 85% of
respondents found broadbandnutrition labels useful for
comparison shopping. In shownews this week, it's the

(05:33):
Radiotopia year end fundraiser,which means it's a great time to
give a few bucks and support allof your favorite Radiotopia
shows and Radiotopia itself allat once. So head on over to
radiotopia.fm/donate to give anyone time or monthly amount to
support all your favorites.
That's Home Cooking, Proxy,Hyperfixed, Song Exploder, The

(05:56):
Memory Palace, and of course,never post alongside the network
itself. That'sradiotopia.fm/donate. Okay.
That's the news I have for youthis week. In this episode, Hans
and Paul Levy on copyrighttrolls, fighting them and then
winning.
Then Meagle brings aninfidelitous, what, to the

(06:18):
goings on here. But first, inour interstitials this week, for
no particular reason other thanwe have it on hand, Street
Sounds of Tokyo, recorded when Iwas there last month.

Hans Buetow (07:56):
Have you ever had this feeling? A letter shows up
on official letterhead or aphone message comes in from
somewhere official and says,call us back, And like your
stomach drops, like, and thenit's just a lot of words and you
think you understand them and itall feels kind of threatening. I
mean, that whole thing's it'sonly happened to me a few times

(08:19):
in my life, but each time Istart cold sweating like, What
did I do? So if I had been theone to open a letter dropped off
at Pool World in Spokane,Washington on 09/16/2022, I
probably would have, like,passed out or something. I would
have seen the lawyer's mark thatwas at the top of the letter.
I would have read the all capsopening line of settlement

(08:42):
communication and thenfrantically scanned through to
see, oh, damn. It's five pageslong. Oh, sharks. It's got a
screen grab from our website.Oh, heck.
There's a bolded, italicized,center aligned bit that says,
quote, you shall pay $30,000within twenty one days of the
date first written above andshall immediately cease and

(09:04):
desist from any further use ofour client's work, end quote.
And then I would've like thrownup and then passed out. I
would've been a wreck if I gotthat letter. But the folks at
Pool World who actually did getthat letter, they were not a
wreck.

Paul Levy (09:20):
They were pissed off. They didn't like being bullied.

This is Paul Levy. Paul was Cool World's attorney
when this letter that theyreceived turned into a lawsuit.
Paul is a public interestattorney with Public Citizens
Litigation Group and for thepast twenty five years, he has
specialized in free speechissues arising on the Internet.
For this work, the WashingtonMagazine did a profile where

(09:46):
they gave him the moniker PaulLevy, the Webley's worst enemy.

Paul Levy (09:52):
You know, it's a bit of a puff piece, but, I'm okay
with that.

I mean, what a great moniker to be the the
Yeah. Webbully's worst enemy.Like Right. And I mean, think
this story kinda proves it. So Ifeel like that was good
reporting.
This is a story about bulliesand their worst enemy. Trolls
and their demand for tolls andthe validation that when we

(10:17):
stand up, we can refuse to paythem. Trolls rely on
intimidation to squash anyinclination, to say hang on,
wait a minute. This is just asrisky for them as it is for me
and I'm not as helpless asthey'd like me to think I am. It
doesn't always look like an easypath to stand your ground and

(10:39):
refuse to pay the toll.
But if you do it well, then thestory gets around that there are
ways to get that bridge withoutworrying about the trolls. This
is the story of Pool Worldversus Prepared Food Photos.

(11:07):
Pool World sells pools. And pooladjacent stuff like saunas, hot
tubs, grilling equipment, allthe stuff you need to get your
summer game on in Spokane andCoeur D'Alene where they have
four stores in the PacificNorthwest. But in 2022, when
Pool World got the letter inquestion, they were in this

(11:28):
weird moment of transition.

Paul Levy (11:31):
The founder of Pool World died in a freak bicycling
accident shortly before thiscase was filed, and they were
trying to be true to his memory.This is what our founder would
have wanted to do. It was aprincipled stand. And beyond
that, I think you could probablysay that they didn't want their

(11:58):
reputation in the community tobe that they're an easy mark.
Don't push us.
You know, you can't just push usaround and make a baseless claim
and get us to pay.

The claims in the letter were about photos on the
Pool World website, specificallyone photo called the vegetable
photo that they put up on theirwebsite in 2010 to promote their
grill sales. The photo is aclose-up. It's got skewers of
peppers, onions, zucchini,vegetables, all charring up
nicely in a grill. The photo wastaken in 2001 and appeared on

(12:32):
their site under the banner poolworld is grill world.

Paul Levy (12:36):
The letter said, to the best of our knowledge, you
have no license to use thisphoto. Our client licenses
access to its entire database ofphotos for $9.99 a month.

That's $999 a month, by the way, for the right
to use all of their photos.

Paul Levy (12:58):
And we've managed to persuade a series of courts that
the actual damages for copyrightinfringement is $9.99 a month
for the entire period of thealleged infringement, which
$9.99 times 12 is 11,988 timestwelve years. So that's roughly

(13:25):
a $144,000 in damages.

Over one photo?

Paul Levy (13:30):
I mean, the idea of these letters is to ramp up the
intimidating effect. Right? Sothey said, you know, hey. We're
gonna let you off easy. If youpay $30,000 within twenty one
days, you're you're scot free,baby.
Take it. Take this offer andrun.

This is where these letters and the threats that
they contain work. Beyond theoverwhelm of the legalese and
the escalation of the timelineand the threat of a big number,
but we'll settle for a smallerbig number. Beyond all of that,
the core idea is legitimate.

Paul Levy (14:09):
They used an image and they couldn't prove they had
a license.

Pool World could not locate a license for the
photo in the letter.

Paul Levy (14:16):
They assume that they used an image that a grill
selling company or a distributorfor a grill selling company
provided them. But the personwho got the image is no longer
an employee, and she couldn'tremember.

A single photo from twelve years ago that you can't
quite track where it came fromis just enough truth in the
claim to make you pay attention.

Paul Levy (14:45):
The photographers are up in arms, they're trying to
get a grip on the threat totheir business model. And I I
actually, as a public interestlawyer, I have sympathy with
that. When people use photos,they ought to pay for them.

People ought to pay for photos they use. Underline,
cosign, praying hands emoji,quickly double checking to see
we don't have any unlicensedphotos on the Neverpost website.
Great. People ought to pay forthe photos they use. I think
it's time we meet thesephotographers.

(15:20):
Or actually, not thephotographers. We're never gonna
meet the photographers. Let'smeet the owners of the
photograph who hired this lawfirm to send this letter about
this photo. It's a companycalled Prepared Food Photos,
which is hard to say.

Paul Levy (15:34):
I'm gonna call them PFP as a shorthand.

PFP owns a library of photos. So clients can pay a
fee to get a license to usethose photos in a commercial
setting. You used to be able tobuy a license for a single
photo, but in 2016, theyconverted to only being able to
license their full library,which, again, in their letter,

(16:01):
they cite at a minimum minimumof $999 per month.

Paul Levy (16:10):
I don't think there's any question that they actually
engaged in the licensingbusiness, And they found some
companies that were willing forone reason or another to pay a
subscription fee, notnecessarily $9.99 a month, but
in various amounts. It struck meas possible that there were

(16:35):
companies that found that kindof access valuable. I mean,
Kroger, for example, the bigsupermarket chains, and then, of
course, you might haveadvertising companies. You could
see getting value from access toa large number of photos and

(16:56):
paying a substantial monthlyamount for it. So I actually
went into this assuming thatthey were telling the truth
about their subscription fees.

The law is useful and good, but only when applied
reasonably.

Paul Levy (17:12):
But for a company which had used only a single
photo, it was absurd to thinkthat the damages ought to be
$11,988 per year of infringinguse because stock photos are

(17:34):
cheap. Even good stock photosare cheap.

$144,000 is not reasonable. This case with Pool
World allowed him to keeppushing at what he suspected was
a copyright troll.

Paul Levy (17:52):
I wanted to know all along how much money they were
making from infringement claimsYeah. Because my guess was that
it was more than from licensing.

If that's the case, then the claims about the risk
to their business are notfounded. So Paul gets to work.
So once you get involved and youhave this conversation with Pool
World, what's this first stepfor you? Where do you want this
to go? How are you how do you

Paul Levy (18:22):
start it? An answer. There might be a statute of
limitations objection becausethe infringement took place in
2010, and the suit was filed in2023. They claim they didn't
find the infringement until2022.

Okay. Here's where we get into a bit of the
necessary legalese of the case.PFP is trying to invoke
something that's called thediscovery rule, which is where
you start the statute oflimitations clock not from when
the thing happened, but fromwhen it was discovered, which
for them was 2022. This wouldnullify Paul's claims of statute

(19:00):
of limitations because they justfound out about it. But boy, oh
boy, this is where Paul gets hisfirst big move.
PFP making this request toignore the statute of
limitations, it gives Paul someleverage using a very specific
legal rule.

Paul Levy (19:16):
And our argument is because they're making these
demands in such an unfair waythat discovery rule is an
equitable exception to thestatute of limitations.

Okay. Equitable exception in this case says
that, sure. If PFP wants achange in the statute of
limitations, they have to showthat they are behaving in good
faith, that what they are sayingabout the timing of events and
the claims about their business,that all of that is true.

Paul Levy (19:47):
There's a general rule that when you seek if you
seek equity, you must do equity.

Yeah. What does that mean?

Paul Levy (19:54):
If you seek fairness, you must have behaved fairly.

The way to see if PFP has behaved fairly is to
look at their documentation,which is done through a legal
process called discovery, whichis kicked off by this need to
demonstrate equity, which isfrom the request to let go of
the statute of limitations.

Paul Levy (20:17):
And nobody's ever made this argument before.
Nobody? Nobody. So we're sort oflooking at new law.

This old rule of asking for equity when there's a
request to change the statute oflimitations, this is gonna give
Paul what he wants, which is aclear view into PFP's finances.
And he's doing it with a newtactic against copyright trolls.
He's forcing them to prove theyhave a case rather than just
accepting their word and theirdemands for payment. I mean, to

(20:52):
me, this feels a lot likecalling a bluff in poker,
sitting across the table andsaying, okay. You want the pot?
Show me your cards. And theneveryone narrows their eyes.

Paul Levy (21:06):
They disclose their damages theory, is this,
$144,000 for twelve years ofinfringement, and we start
discovery. So I got to see 22licensing agreements, which
ranged in monthly cost from $99a month up into the more than a

(21:29):
thousand a month for some bigcompanies. And the amount they
claimed they were getting fromlicensing payments didn't match
up with the licensing agreementsthey sent us.

So Paul and his team, they request more
documents, and it gets reallyintense. Banking records are
submitted with redactions, somore requests are made. But Paul
and his team persevere, and theystart to build a picture of
PFP's business.

Paul Levy (21:57):
They were making a range of amounts, $50,000 a
year, $70,000 a year inlicensing fees, and as much as
$2,000,000 a year ininfringement damages. And most
of the time of their employeeswas spent not finding people to

(22:22):
buy their licenses, but findingpeople to threaten.

This is clear evidence that PFP makes their
money from lawsuits, notlicensing, and that they didn't
just charge $999 per month.Their fee actually varied
widely. So they were not excitedabout you to see this stuff,
obviously.

Paul Levy (22:46):
They were not excited.

Yeah. What did it tell you though when you start
seeing those huge numbers?

Paul Levy (22:52):
It what it told me was, first, that the claim of
their minimum license fee was alie. I have no compunction about
saying it was a lie. The lawyeractually told us that until we
started doing discovery in thiscase, they had no idea that

(23:16):
their client was lying to them.Woah.

Suddenly, everything looks different. Paul
and his team argue to the courtthat since most of the work done
by PFP is searching for andmaking infringement claims, and
since 95% of PFP's income comesfrom threatening and bringing
copyright infringement claims,and because PFP isn't making any

(23:47):
new photos, and that they'vebeen lying in their demand
letters and court filingsbecause of all of that, Paul
argues, the case should just bedismissed. And if that's not
enough

Paul Levy (23:59):
We didn't even need the lie. We had an expert
witness who helps people createtheir websites, and she's been
in the business of gettinghelping people get images to use
on their websites. And she knowswhat the market is, and she put
in an affidavit about themarket.

Was $999 a month really a reasonable market rate
even in 2010?

Paul Levy (24:23):
In 2010, the license fee would have been a dollar.

Which after everyone else was cut, the
payment processor, thephotographer, Getty Images,
etcetera, etcetera, would haveleft very little for PFP.

Paul Levy (24:36):
And its share was 12¢ or something like that. And so
do they wanna go to trial on adamages claim of 12¢, or did
they do the sensible thing anddrop it?

According to Paul and unchallenged by PFP, their
claims were not market rate.Their demands are unreasonable.
Their statements are lies.Because they were forced to show
their cards, PFP is lookingboxed in.

Paul Levy (25:06):
So our argument to the judge was they don't get the
discovery rule, and therefore,you should rule in our favor.

Pool World and Paul are fighting back, and they're
winning. They have a solid case,and PFP knows that. But they
can't just drop the suit andwalk away because of a rule that
kicked in when Paul and his teamfiled their initial answer to
the lawsuit way back when at thebeginning. And this rule says
that PFP now needs the court'spermission to dismiss their

(25:40):
suit, which means there's reallytwo big options. Instead of
getting money, PFP can settle bypaying Pool World their attorney
fees.

Paul Levy (25:52):
You know, hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees.

Or worse, if the case goes to trial and the
ruling is that PFP's threats of6 figure sums is just simply not
the way that you calculatedamages in a copyright
infringement case.

Paul Levy (26:09):
If we got a legal ruling to that effect, that
legal ruling would potentiallybe binding on PFP in every other
case in which they bring thistheory.

Which is their whole business model.

Paul Levy (26:25):
And and my guess is that the risk of losing that is
what drove them to the table toagree on a payment to be made
toward our attorney fees.

Seemingly forced by the risk of losing their entire
way of operating, PFP choosesthe financial hit and pays an
undisclosed amount to Pool Worldto get their own suit dismissed.
The troll was forced to paytheir own toll. That is a

(27:01):
satisfying story. Most storiesthese days feel like they're
written in a fever dream, andthe clarity of this just feels
to me like taking this long cooldrink in the stream before you
move on down the bridge and offto the other side. But is this
happily ever after?

(27:22):
Well, it's certainly a pathforward. Paul and his team, they
have now used the law in a newway to counter trolls. The
strategy that he used is publicbecause of the documentation,
and it's ready for use by any ofwhat Paul calls on his blog,
quote, a small coterie oflawyers who are fed up with the
bullying.

Paul Levy (27:42):
I'd like to think that this will give more
companies the balls that PoolWorld had. I mean, it was easy
for Pool World. They had a freelawyer, and they had a free
lawyer who sort of knew what hewas doing. But these cases can

(28:03):
be defended and they can be wonand it takes takes courage and
it takes a willingness to run alittle bit of risk.

Since this recent settlement, PFP have not made
any new infringement claims,which is awesome. But there have
been dozens of infringementclaims over PFP's photo library,
but from a new company, which iscalled Rockefeller Photos. And
it's owned by the same people asPFP. Not awesome. But Paul Levy,

(28:44):
the webbully's worst enemy, isstill on the job.

Paul Levy (28:48):
You know, their lawyer really ingeniously
created a line of cases which hewas able to deploy to get
significantly more than the lawreally ought to allow him. And
all I'm trying to do is get usback to where the law really is.

(29:08):
Get companies like preparedfoods that have a large library
of photos, and let's assumethey're useful photos to a
variety of people. Give them theincentive that congress gave
them, but no more.

Thank you again to Paul Levy for taking the time to
talk to me. We are gonna put alink to Paul's blog where he's
written a lot about this case,and you can get way into the
legal details of it if you wantto. It's really good reading,
and, again, very satisfying. Ifyou are someone in the legal
profession and this feels likean interesting strategy, or a

(30:03):
useful set of things you couldthink about in an upcoming case,
let us know because we'd love tohear about this being used in
other places. Just look on inthe show notes, figure out how
to get in touch.

Friends, hello, and welcome to what is going on
here. A segment wherein membersof the Neverpost staff bring
posts to the group about whichthey would like to ask, what is
going on here? Could we all havedone some googling? Could we
have gone further down thread?Could we have cracked a book or
two or gone to YouTube?

(32:17):
Probably. But what is the fun inthat? In the following segment,
we share things we found onlinethat made us want to know more
and about which we thought theprocess of finding out more
would be fun to do together.Joining us for this round in
order of how much Halloweencandy I assume they have eaten.

Oh my god.

I'm immediately double thinking thinking over
what

Georgia Hampton (32:43):
I'm Hans left the phrase for a second.

Because yeah. Because Hans' soul has left his
body out of shame. It'simmediately obvious that I have
him first

as the least amount of candy, as the
healthiest,

most restrained one.

Never post senior producer Hans Buchtel, who I
just assumed as a man in hisforties, was also watching his
sugar, but maybe I'm wrong.

No. Oh my god. It's like the magic where nothing
counts. Right?

Us calories don't count on Halloween. Oh my
gosh.

We bought two bags of Costco candy, and very few
children showed up. What?

You're like, oh, no.

Meghal Janardan (33:21):
What are we gonna do?

Won't someone do something?

Hans, I'm so happy for you.

I've actually been really I'm happy and shamed.

I'm mad I'm sad for me who got this wrong. But

Yeah. Wait. Now I'm fascinated to see where
everyone else is.

Okay. Never post producer Georgia Hampton.

Okay. I don't have much of a sweet tooth.

Alright. That is actually shocking

news. Really? I will eat like a million olives
and I'll eat maybe one fun sizelike Twix and be like,
that's all for me. Thank you very much. Like, I
couldn't possibly yeah. Okay.

So so third on the list here, friend of the
show and of the people on it,Meaghel Jardin, I feel like, you
know, accepting Hans, maybe Imaybe I've gotten this right,
that you have a sweet tooth.

No. No. Yes. Yes, Meagle.
You and I.

Like Georgia. I just thought that Georgia had a
sweet tooth because I thinkGeorgia's second birthday was
Halloween.

That's true. You did think
I did have to correct you when you thought
that my birthday was Halloween.

You just embody Halloween.

Well, thank you.

The Halloween spirit, which must be including
sugar. I also do not have asweet tooth. I think I had a
mini Twix and, like, somegummies or something. But that
was it.

Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. Okay, Mike. Where are you
at?

Yeah. Mike Rugnetta.

I ate almost no candy. The only candy that I ate
was I ate half of a single SourPatch Kid to make sure that it
wasn't too sour for Clem whenshe was on her first ever Sour
Patch Kid.

It's half of one piece of a gummy. That's

pretty wild.

That's almost insulting. Like, that's
deliberate. I really like candythat much. Apparently.

Yeah. Since you did this, it this was a personal
attack. Yeah. This was I'm

I'm feeling threatened. Right.

So, yeah, all three
of us are at the very, very bottom.

I have eaten your

shares is what I've been. Frost dean of
Candyland.

This is not a WIGO. This is an intervention.

Hans Hans, see the back of the room that you're
standing in. A gigantic pile ofcans. It's just wrappers. It's
it's no candy.

What is going on?

I Scrooge McDuck my way through empty
wrappers every day. Every day.Alright.

Let's find out what's going on here.

Welcome to today's game.

First up, we got friend of the show. Meagle
Jardin is here because you foundsomething specifically and you
were like, I this can I be on aWIGO? Because I wanna know
what's going on here.

Yes.

So we're all very excited to see what it is.

Alright. Okay. For this video, I'm gonna
nominate Mike to describe whatis going on here.

It's a TikTok. Okay. These are kinda long.
Alright. Two minutes.
Okay. So I'm looking at theembedded video here, and it's a
16 by nine video in a nine by 16frame. So it's got big black
things on the top and thebottom, and it's a vlog. So it's
like a woman looking into herwebcam or something. And it

(36:38):
says, calling the girl I foundin this phone and finding out
I'm the other woman.
Woah. And so now I'm gonna pressplay.

Hello? Hello? Is this Brie? Yes. Who who's
this?
So my name my name is Sofia. Idon't think you know about me,
and I I just wanna say I'msorry. But do you know a guy

(37:15):
named Alex? Is he okay? I mean,yeah.
Like, how do know him? He's yourwhat? That's my fiance. Who is
this? I've been seeing him forsix months.

(37:35):
I'm sorry. What?
This is Jess. The woman the woman on the other
end goes, I'm sorry. What? Itjust You can you must

Paul Levy (37:52):
be texting.

What I can only describe as the most text to
speech voice I could imagine.Okay.

You're a
little bit confused. I'm sorry. I found him
on Tinder, so I decided to gothrough his phone and I saw your
contact in there. I I honestly,I had no idea.

The mismatch in emotion between the two sides is
hilarious. Very funny. It makesit comedy that the woman on
camera is so upset, and thewoman the, like, recorded voice
is so monotone. Wait. Okay.
Hold on. I'm there's still,like, another minute of this.
Mabel, what happens? Like,should I watch the rest of it?
Or like

I don't think you need to watch the rest of it
because it's more of this, youknow, catching my cheating
boyfriend or whatever.

Mike, can I hit you with a couple of statistics?
Yeah. Likes, 5,200,000.

Mhmm. What? Mhmm.

Comments, 10,600. Bookmarks, 262.6 point 7,000.
Shares, a 158,300.

I think it has almost 40,000,000 views.

Woah. Why?

So the reason why I sent this is that I've
been getting served multiple ofthese videos on TikTok to the
point where I was like, wait asecond. And now, if you go to
the TikTok and click on theperson's page who made this
video Okay. You will see theentire account is content

(39:28):
catching my cheating boyfriend.

It is. My husband's reaction to me
confronting him for bringingguys from Grindr to our house.
Yeah.

My boyfriend's reaction to his cheater themed
birthday party. My

boyfriend's reaction to me framing his
Tinder profile. Normalize publicshaming cheaters.

And what I thought was like so fascinating
about this, like to me, I pickedup pretty quickly that this was
fake. Mhmm. Because along with alot of other similar accounts
that I've come across, theboyfriend or like the person who
cheated, their voice and theirbody language, it just felt very
fake and scripted. Was like,this you're not speaking
naturally. Mhmm.

(40:09):
And I was like, oh, maybe it'slike skits or something, but
then you go to the account andit's all content about cheating.
But what really fascinated me isthat if you go to the comment
section of this video.

Okay.

No one is saying this is fake.

Yeah. I was

like, am I am I crazy?

Well, there's levels there's levels of fake
that I think it Yeah. It couldbe. Because it sounds like the
world's worst improv session.

It really does. Yeah.

Or like a bat like an acting class.

It sounds like acting class. Exactly.

Yeah. You're what you're wondering is, is there AI
fakery in here as well? And andI don't even that no one's
saying either of them.

I mean, I I don't I would assume, like, some
of the other videos that I'veseen, when the voice is like
really off camera and you don'tsee another person, the
secondary voice does feel AIgenerated, like, or very
scripted. But I just think thiswhole like, it's become like a
whole genre of content. And it'sall fake in that way that I'm

(41:16):
like, I don't I don't know ifthere's a cheating boyfriend
even there.

I'm gonna guess now.

Yeah. Yeah. Right?

The cheating boyfriend are the views that
this is making.
Yeah.
Like, this to me, this is like a a very odd
flavor of not really rage bait.
I was gonna say this

is a strange version of rage bait.

That's what

it is.

Yeah. It's but it's this solidarity because
like, overwhelmingly in thecomments are other women being,
like, girl, like, I would killhim for you, blah blah blah.

Yeah. Georgia. Yeah. Georgia.

Savebait. Yes. Oh. Yes.

All the comments say, you saved her. You saved
that girl. Yes. Yeah. You're thehero.

I feel yeah. It's sort of scratching that
itch of like, you know, videosof firefighters saving a dog
from

like Oh, corps. Yeah.

But like Yeah. In this vengeful, vengeful, like
Yeah. Like, commiserative waybecause all the comments, I
mean, it's like, you girls savedeach other. This broke my heart,
like Mhmm. Let's normalizetelling the other girl, like,
you guys are together now andand it's you versus him, that
sort of thing.
This, like, solidarity.

Oh. Is that the thing that people are getting
out of this? Like, a feeling ofsolidarity? Like, what is the if
we think about, like, uses andgratifications of media. Right?
Like Mhmm. Every piece of mediathat you encounter that you
like, it's like, it fulfillssome need or, like, it has a use
to you. It's gratifying in someway. Like, what is it here? Is
it manufacturing this feelingof, like, you know, are we back

(42:54):
to girls girls?
Like, are girls girls out there?

I I think, yes. I think this is kind of I feel
like it's a bottled version ofsomething a lot of people are
afraid is going to happen tothem.

Yeah.

So it's sort of like like going to a haunted
house of of the worstrelationship experience you
could have of, like, watchingthis play out and watching it
play out in a way that feelssort of satisfying where it's
now these two women who knowthis, they're processing this
together, which is ostensiblypainful. But, like, there's a

(43:32):
very clear delineation of goodguys, bad guys. Neither of these
women knew who that this washappening with each other. No
one was aware of this other thanthe man. So it's this sort of
perfect little ecosystem where Ithink for a lot of people
commenting, there's like thisodd satisfaction in it.
Not in seeing them suffernecessarily, but in like

(43:56):
watching this hard thing? Yes.Yes. And, like, the bad thing
has happened. Yeah.
Like, the bad thing has happenedand you're watching the bad
thing happen in this verysanitized way. Like, I even, the
audio the whole time I was like,is this other girl in the room?

Right. Yeah. It doesn't sound like properly

On the phone or on speaker.

It

really sounds like she's like
across the room reading some
pieces of paper. Exactly.

Maybe hired a fiver, you know? Little little
faster.

But Yeah. Come to my house.
I have some I have some lines that I need you
to read.

What I think is, like, fascinating about this
too is, like, the video is a fewminutes long. It's not, like, a
twenty second thing. So I'm surethe person who made this is
because you need somethingabout, like, TikTok
monetization. I'm wondering ifthat's part of it and it's just
another type of content farmstuff.

Definitely.

Because you go to the profile, the link in the
profile is, like,cheaterbuster.com, which I'm
like, maybe they'll get anaffiliate link if it's like the
cheaterbuster yeah. Oh, pause.Yes.

What's Yes. Okay. So the so I was about to say
this because if you scroll downin the comments through a few
days ago, the one with the mostamount of replies so it got 230
some three replies, and it'sfrom someone named Karen, k a r
I n, who I clicked through totheir profile, has no videos,

(45:21):
and is like a very generic botlike name. And and her comment
is, the same happened to me. Ifound out he is married, and I'm
the other woman.
Should I tell her too? Firstresponse to that reply is the
creator of the video saying, useCheater Buster to find out if
there's more.

Oh. Bingo. This

is an ad. Cheaterbuster.com is an AI tool
that helps users verify ifsomeone has an active Tinder
profile by using basicinformation like name, age, and
location. It provides detailedprofile information, last active
status, and data security, butit may have ethical and legal
implications.

Oh, really?

Oh. No?

Are we sure? Shit.

You know, Zach, it's like I am like, it's an ad,
but I I don't know if it's ifit's just like a weird place
where people know that catchingcheaters will get a lot of
views, like that type ofcontent. Yep. So like, do wonder
if it's like, you get some sortof like affiliate link type of
referral, like the person makingthe content.

Right. Like, which thing here is the chicken
and which is the egg? Yeah.Like, what's the what's the
carrot and what's the stick?

Because a similar another account that I
found was linking to another AIservice, but it was for a dating
advice. Like a Oh, interesting.And it wasn't like the
cheaterbuster.com, but it waslike an AI dating coach.

No. So so this has gotta lead you to wonder how
many of these comments are AItoo. Right?

Oh, surely. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

To generate this much attend, like, this
traffic, absolutely.

But I do think that this is riding on that
story time type

content. Yeah.

Come with Yeah.

I catch my cheating Yeah.

Instead of up, you know, follow for part two,
you know, upload update in a fewdays, it's just immediately,
you're right into, like, so Icalled his girlfriend, you know,
like, confronted the yeah.

And there is a vibrant presence of this online
in the more standard issue wayof just like, you know, part one
of seven, how my hus my fianceleft me at the altar or
whatever. Like, there's there'sversions of this that are more,
you know, your analog styleversion. But this is this, like,
cuts out everything else. Everyother more, I guess, human

(47:45):
component of this. I mean, itmakes me think of like like if
this is the cheat what is it?
Cheater bot?

Cheater buster.

Cheater buster. In a way, this is kind of what
groups like are we dating thesame guy? Mhmm. Do to be like,
hey, does anyone know who thisis? And it has more vetting and
it's more complicated.
It can take much more time. Andthen this, you know, on its face
offers a complete cutting of theline of that. But like, I don't

(48:14):
really believe that that wouldwork. I really don't. Like,
okay, this guy's name is Alex.
Prove it. We got him, boys.

I've been I've just been sitting here
scrolling, like, loading as manycomments as I possibly can.
Yeah. And then just Apple f forfake, and only got two. There's
only two.

Really?

Yeah. I've been scrolling, like, for like just
idly for a long time. Like, justloading new comments and only
two have used the word fake.They've used the word saved a
lot. Mhmm.

Wow. Yeah. Nailed it

with that. Yeah. When I saw this and I
noticed that it was fake andthere's a pattern of this
content, I now it's like anotherthing I have to watch out for as
I consume content online. Like,yeah, the regular AI generated
videos, but this is like semi AIrelated content. You know?
I don't think Yeah. Necessarily,like, the video itself is AI

(49:12):
generated. Maybe the secondvoice is.

Or, like, maybe the script is.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. But I now, like, earlier
this morning, I was like lookingthrough some of these and I
found one on and had to go tothe profile to make sure not all
the content was cheatingcontent. And be like, oh, this
one's actually real.
But, yeah.

Like, does it matter?

I I don't I think in the grand scheme of,
like, con the the content thatwe consume, it matters in the
sense of, like, how we arepeople storytell. And I was
thinking about this how one ofthe things that people kind of
are talking about now is, like,the gender divide, getting

(49:54):
bigger in a way. And I feel likethis is piggybacking on that,
like, fuck men, which like,yeah. Yay. Fuck men.
But this is not helping. No.God, no. I don't think this is
helping.

This really happens, like, for real? Yeah.
It's just like,

it makes, to me, it makes things really
confusing.

There are more parts to this video.

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

And so I just opened up the part two of
finding out I'm the other woman.Let me read you some of the top
comments. These ads are out ofcontrol.

There we go.

To which someone responded, I like how no one
realized it was an ad. I wasinvested until I saw this video.
Then down below a little bit twodays ago, Tyler says, don't
apologize for finding out thetruth, exclamation point.
Cheater buster saved both of youand the other girl. Oh my god.
And then down below that, oh mygod. Cheater buster is saving
the both of you.

These are reps. These are reps. I'm gonna

go ahead and say SEC violation.

Right? I just love like, I believe this until
I got a BetterHelp ad in themiddle of this.

Oh my god. In part three, she's pregnant.

Oh. Wait. Are you serious?

Yes. I just keep coming back to why would some
subset of the audience for thiswant it to be true?

Paul Levy (51:17):
Is that Yes.

And like Yes. Does that have to do more with
their lives, or does that haveto do with the Internet? Like,
do they want to find these sortsof stories online to justify
their use of social media or,you know, principally or more
significantly, like, does thisreflect some sort of interest

(51:40):
that they have or some sort ofanxiety that they have about
their lives? I'm sure to somedegrees, it's both, but like.

I think it is both. Because I think on the one
hand, this kind of story is justsuch a delicious narrative arc
that can kind of involve you.

Yeah. And

you can feel like you're part of something
bigger that feels important,that feels justified, that feels
righteous. I also think not toget too, I don't know, walk
corkboard with many strings. Inthe current state of things
right now, it is easy to feelextremely hopeless and

(52:17):
powerless, and I think somethinglike this offers in a very
troubling way, a very smallfeeling of satisfaction of
groupthink of being like, let'sget him. Where's Alex?

It's a lot like hearing you say that, it reminds
me of bits of discourse like, doyou wash your legs? Or

Paul Levy (52:39):
do you

do you put your cast iron skillet in the
dishwasher? These things whereyou get to have a moment of
moral superiority. Yes. Yes.

Yeah. You get to ostracize someone as a treat.

Yeah.

Like Yes. And you
can feel good about it. You can feel good
because he's a cheater.

Yeah. So did anybody sign up for Cheater
Buster while we were talking?

I've actually been

a member for a

long time.

Yeah. Like, I'm actually on the board. Yeah.
Actually, I'm heavily invested.

I've been married for a decade, but, you know

You're like,
I'm I'm ready to get him.

I'm just searching for myself just to
make sure.

Searching for myself. One day, I'll get me.

Meagle, thanks for bringing this in. I do we feel
do you do you feel like you knowwhat's going on?

I yes. But also, I'm now just more
paranoid.

Yeah. I was gonna say, I No.

I feel like I understand this specific thing
more, but I feel just as adriftabout modernity as I always do.

Yes. I'm just like, wow. Yep. I I do think
that this is the silver liningto coming across this content is
it's one more reason for me todelete TikTok. Yeah.
But will I do it? Time willtell.

Meg will do it.
Leave me alone in there.

It's a it's a glowing recommendation of an app
that you could spend, like, an anot insignificant amount of time
trying to find research basedreasons to ignore the things
that you find on it.

Yes. God. Yeah.
It's a great example of using your critical
thinking skills.

Okay. I think we've done it. I think we've
figured out what is going onhere. But as Georgia said, at
what cost? Meagle, thank you somuch for joining us, and thank
you for keeping an eye out forthe what's going on here vibe.
Yeah. I I would say that I'mexcited to learn more about

(54:36):
cheater cheater breaking upTikTok, but maybe I'm more
excited to know another thingthat I can choose to ignore down
the line.

Yes. Thank you for having me.

That's all the WIGO that we have time for in
this episode, but but but we didrecord one additional entry. A
fintech what that I brought tothe group and it's about an app,
a service, it's a little unclearwhich can only be described as
bleak bleak, and which leads allof us to briefly worry that Hans

(55:19):
may develop a psychosis talkingto its AI chatbot. That one is
gonna go out in the coming weekon the members only feed. So
keep an eye out for that. It'sgonna be great.
And by great, I mean, sort ofhand hand wringing and hair
pulling. But funny, bleak withjokes. I mean, I guess that's
kind of our brand. Right? Thatis the show we have for you this

(56:53):
week.
We're gonna be back here in themain feed on Wednesday, November
19 with a release schedule oftwo episodes per month. Our $4 a
month membership gets youbespoke, ad free, human made,
human agonized over podcastepisodes for $2 a pop. Was this
episode that you just listenedto $2 worth of entertainment? If

(57:16):
so, head on over to neverpo.stand become a member today.
Support your favorite localindependent Internet pod so we
can keep asking what is going onhere, and in return, you get an
ad free feed, sideshows likeslow post and never watch, and
pride in knowing that you aresupporting independent creators
making weird cool stuff theycouldn't anywhere else.

(57:39):
Neverpost's producers are AudreyEvans, Georgia Hampton, and the
mysterious doctor first name,last name. Our senior producer
is Hans Buto. Our executiveproducer is Jason Oberholzer,
and the show's host, that's me,is Mike Rugnetta. My favorite
part of the drive is the placewhere bare thoughts stretch
meadows in front of thewesternmost expanses of
Naperville, Illinois. Chicago isconfetti in the deep night

(58:03):
skyline.
I think of nothing but fear andhunger. I miss him. I hate him.
As I drive, the inevitableintrudes itself. History solves
no mysteries.
The road is still poignant withscraps of what I thought I had
abandoned. Postcards anddialogue long distance and
centuries of inter clan warfarepressed into my DNA. He thinks

(58:25):
it can call me or drop by at anytime of day or night and I will
beg him stay with me. I misshim. I hate him.
Excerpt of Uneasy Ghosts bySusan Smith Nash. Never Post is
a production of Charts andLeisure and is distributed by
Radiotopia.

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