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'We Don't Hate Journalists Enough': The Story of an F-ed Up Deepfake · Question Everything

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, y'all.
• 0:00
  Speaker 2: I've been hearing from a lot of you on social
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: and my DMs, on Substack, about how you're enjoying the show,
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: appreciating it, which I really appreciate. Just a friendly reminder
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: here to please rate and review Question Everything highly, I hope,
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: wherever you're listening to podcasts, and share it with a friend.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Today on the show, a journalist gets dragged into the
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: nightmarish side of the internet, the dark new world of
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: AI deepfake videos.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Good morning, gentlemen.
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: My friends, it's your morning show. Hi, I'm Zach St. Louis,
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: a producer and reporter on Question Everything. Maybe three months ago,
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: I was scrolling through TikTok and I came across a video.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: It was an equally adorable and captivating video. It looked
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: like security cam footage of someone's backyard with a trampoline
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: in it. And then some bunnies come along. They're on
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: the edge of the trampoline. Then walking out in the middle,
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: you can see where this is going. There's like six
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: or eight of them. One starts jumping. They all start
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: bouncing around. It's a video of a trampoline rabbit party.
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: I loved it. I was like, it's hilarious that these
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: bunnies love this trampoline. I let it play on a
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: loop like five times. Maybe you've seen this video. If not,
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: please Google it. But know this. That video is total BS.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: It's AI. Of something cute, yes. And it goes to
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: show that you can really get sucked into these videos,
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: sometimes in a feel-good way, but then, of course, the
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: opposite is true too. They can be totally malicious. And
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: even when we know a video is fake, it can
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: wreak havoc. Deepfakes are a new, horrendous problem, uncharted territory
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: for disinformation. And even when they aren't deceitful, these videos
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: come with a whole assortment of thorny ethical questions. I mean,
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: have you seen South Park this season? The show is
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: a cartoon, but at the end of the first episode,
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: they break their standard cartoon format and show a hyper-realistic,
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: deepfake AI video they made of Donald Trump. So again,
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: this is a quote seen in a South Park episode,
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: showing a very convincing, realistic-looking video of Trump. It's a
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: parody of a campaign ad, complete with voiceover. It shows
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: Trump in the desert, wearing an ill-fitting suit, he starts
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: stripping down to reveal a chubby, fully naked Trump. Walking slowly,
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: desperately through the desert heat, he falls to his knees
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: and rolls over to reveal a tiny penis with plastic
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: googly eyes stuck on it. Again, this is not a cartoon,
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: but a very lifelike deepfake. It sets up the recurring
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: joke of the series about the president's small penis. If
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: you can believe it, the penis talks. It's a pretty
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: shocking kind of new satire. Shocking in that it looks
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: so real. And that's thanks to AI. Satire aside, these
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: videos can and will be used against any number of people.
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: They will and are being used to make people say
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: and do things they simply have not said or done.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: To target. To humiliate. And this problem is so new,
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: there doesn't seem to be any conventional wisdom on what
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: to do if you are the target. Even if people
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: realize it's fake, some things cannot be unseen or forgotten.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: From KCRW and Placement Theory, this is Question Everything. And today,
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: we have the story of a journalist who falls victim
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: to a deepfake video as an act of online trolling
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: that is among one of the more despicable means of
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: harassment I've heard of. It begs the question, If you
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: become the subject of a deepfake video, what the hell
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: do you do? Stick around. Hola.
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: Hola.
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: How are you?
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: Bien, bien.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: Vos? Pretty good. Julia Mangalini is a journalist in Argentina.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: She's covered politics and Argentinian TV and public radio going
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: back some 20 years. Today, she's the co-founder of an
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: independent radio network, Futurak. She has a daily show where
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: she interviews politicians and other public figures. Julia is known
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: for being openly critical of Argentina's president, Javier Millet, and
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: his policies. Policies that, in her view, are not helping
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: Argentina's bad economic situation.
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: In Argentina, everything is going to.
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: Shit, basically.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: This is Julia, talking to me with an interpreter.
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: We are having a very bad time, and people in
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: our society are suffering a lot. No one wants to
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: live in that country. I think that journalists have a
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: mission to say what is happening.
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: Back when Millet was running for president, this was over
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: two years ago, Julia and others were noticing some eccentric
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: details about the then-presidential candidate. Millet, not married, no kids.
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: lived at home with a whole bunch of identical dogs,
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: dogs that he'd cloned from his favorite dog. He also
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: lived with his sister, who was running his presidential campaign.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: Before the election, Julia went on one of those TV
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: panel shows on what's basically Argentina's version of CNN, called C5N,
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: and she said this on the air. This is a
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: man who lives with eight dogs and is in love
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: with his sister. Millet has said he only has five
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: clone dogs, not eight. Regardless, online, Millet supporters did not
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: like Julia's comments. And they did not like her. They
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: were like, wait, he's in love with his sister? What
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: are you getting at? And basically, how dare you? Did
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: that particular comment strike you as different than anything else
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: that you had said about him? Did it seem more malicious?
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: I didn't think that it was going to generate so
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: much attention at the time. I didn't say that he
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: had sexual relationships with his sister. What I said is
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: that he was in love with his sister.
• 6:31
  Speaker 5: I am not the only one that said it.
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: I am not the only one that noticed it. In fact,
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: some days before that, he said that he... wishes he
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: become president to make his sister the first lady. And
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: at the time, it generated a lot of controversy. So
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: I choose to focus on this part of Millet's character.
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: I did this as a last resort to prevent him
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: from winning. But it happened. He won.
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: Millet has been the president for almost two years now.
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: And Julia has continued to criticize him. Less so for
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: his dog cloning habit, more for his policies. like the
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: massive cuts he's made to public programs. Cuts that Millet
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: says he's doing with his motosierra, or chainsaw. This image,
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: taking a chainsaw to the Argentinian government, has become something
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: of a symbol for Millet. Maybe that sounds familiar. You
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: might recall one of Elon Musk's viral moments, standing on
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: stage at CPAC last winter.
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy. Chainsaw!
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: Musk, the U.S. government's then-head of Doge, swinging a chainsaw
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: around over his head. Well, Musk was given that chainsaw
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: by Millet. One bureaucracy slasher to another. Well, President Millet
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: has a gift for me. Javier Millet from Argentina, you
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: guys know who that is, right? All of Julia's criticism
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: of the president has come with a growing number of
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: online haters. Haters who support Millet. Haters on the right.
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: haters who would eventually target Julia with their deepfake skills.
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: I have a long story with right-wing trolls in this country,
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: and they have been worse and worse. I would tell
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: you that there are a series of values that I
• 8:29
  Speaker 4: defend that are all the things that they attack, which
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: is feminism, environmentalism, human rights, All of these things I
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: defend for more than 20 years. And I think that
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: that's probably why I am a target to take down.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: Julia's thick-skinned. She usually doesn't let these haters get her down.
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: But this past summer, the trolling reached a new level.
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: The first thing that I started seeing were threats in
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: my Instagram inbox. threats with my address. Awful things, just like,
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: you're going to experience something very bad. Something bad is
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: going to happen to you.
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: Julia says she got hundreds of threats. She sent me
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: a few dozen of these messages from June. Here's a sample. Quote,
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: I swear I'm going to kidnap you, and you're going
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: to end up lying in a ditch, gutted, you fucking bitch. Or,
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: filthy leftist piece of shit, Or take care of your family,
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: your little daughter who's in kindergarten is going to be
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: left without parents. And do society a favor and kill yourself, bitch.
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: I've never received such direct threats. I remember I was
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: on the bus or even at work and I got
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: a message with my... work address, which is where I
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: was going. And I remember jumping off the bus and
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: I saw a policeman in the corner and asked him
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: to escort me to the door. And this was one
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: of the first moments that I was actually afraid.
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: Some of these threats mentioned Julia's six-year-old daughter and gave
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: her home address. And then, one day in June, Julia
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: was on the air, hosting her radio show. She had
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: her laptop out and opened Twitter. And she saw all
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: of these tweets that showed an old picture of Julia
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: and her brother that someone took off of her Instagram.
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: In the picture, they're posing for the camera, smiling, arms
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: around each other, while swimming in a lake. Then she
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: saw other tweets of that photo. Only it had been
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: realistically brought to life using AI so that you see
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: Julia and her brother turn toward each other and start
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: making out. It's a few seconds long. A gif, basically.
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: Playing on a loop.
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: I saw it. I closed it immediately because I couldn't
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: lose focus because I was in my radio show.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: Julia's a pro. She put it aside and continued her
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: show No one listening would have known what she saw.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: But later, she would look at these tweets more closely,
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: so many tweets, sharing this AI doctored photo, with commenters
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: saying that Julia had an incestual relationship with her brother.
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: She didn't know if people actually believed it or not.
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: Many were laughing at her, making fun of her. Some
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: called her Incestalini, a play on her last name, Mangolini.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: And she continued to receive mountains of threats, death threats,
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: to her inbox. A few days later, Julia finally alluded
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: to what was happening to her on her radio show.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: Not directly. At first, she tries to make light of it.
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: This is her on the show.
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: I said, it looks like a sport to be killing
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: Mengolini all the time. When I tell this in the radio,
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: my voice breaks a little bit.
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: Julia pauses mid-sentence. Her eyes well up. She puts her
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: hand to her chest and takes a beat before continuing.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: Her co-host jumps in to say, it's a tense day,
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: isn't it? Julia's haters smelled weakness and pounced. They posted
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: this clip of her crying on the air with comments like,
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: it's a noble sport to beat up on Mangalini. And
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: you reap what you sow, Mangalini. Never forget that. That
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: doctored photo was just a taste of what was coming
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: for Julia. The trolls released another video of Julia. This time,
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: it's a full-on deepfake video that starts circulating online. It's
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: even worse than the photo.
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: Also with my brother, made with AI, a pornographic video.
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: And they have sent it to me via email, via Telegram,
• 13:09
  Speaker 4: Instagram inbox.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: The video was sexually explicit, so it wasn't being posted
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: to Twitter directly. Instead, people would post that they had
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: access to this video, and if you messaged them, they
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: could send you a link. But, of course, people were
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: sending this video to Julia directly. At first, Julia could
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: not bring herself to watch it. She didn't want to
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: see it. You've never seen it?
• 13:30
  Speaker 6: So, yes, eventually I've watched it.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, I'm sorry to have to ask this. I
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: know it's kind of sensitive, but just to really understand,
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: because I haven't seen this video, can you summarize what
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: it depicts?
• 13:49
  Speaker 5: It's a video with a fellation that I am doing
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: to my brother.
• 13:53
  Speaker 6: You can see, like, my face and my hair and
• 13:55
  Speaker 6: my curls.
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: But you cannot see his face very well. Something like that.
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: It's a little that way, the video.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: I'm so sorry. Julia started thinking about just how many
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: people would have access to this video online. There seemed
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: to be endless posts about it. And the quality of
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: the video wasn't even that good. So why do this,
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: she wondered. If the goal was to humiliate her, she
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: felt that. If the goal was to frighten her, she
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: felt that too.
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: I don't think that it was made for people to
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: believe it.
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: The goal was not to convince people that I have
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: ancestral relationships with my brother. The quality of the video
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: was always secondary. The goal was not to be believable.
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: I think that they made it with another goal, to
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: mortify me.
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: At the beginning I said okay I'm not going to
• 15:16
  Speaker 5: say anything and this is going to pass by I'm
• 15:18
  Speaker 5: not going to respond not in Twitter not on the
• 15:20
  Speaker 5: radio not anywhere.
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: Because what is it that I'm going to say do
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: I need to clarify that I don't have sex with
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: my brother And I'm also feeding this stupid situation. There
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: was nothing to defend, nothing to discuss. There was no
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: defense because we're not even discussing an idea here. What
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: is this? Their objective, their target was to break me.
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: I'm curious if you see... What you said about his
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: sister then, as related in any way to why these
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: trolls on the right focused on a video of you
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: and your brother.
• 15:58
  Speaker 6: Yeah, totally.
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: I think that it was a revenge.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: Julia didn't know who exactly made the video. There wasn't
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: a way to find the source. It just emerged from
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: the cesspool of right-wing trolls with anonymous accounts. For the
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: most part, no one Julia knew. Her left-wing friends and
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: colleagues even knew this video existed. But it was getting
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: a lot of attention on the right. For example, there
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: was one post on Twitter that bragged about seeing the
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: video and invited others to send a DM for the link.
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: It got over 4 million views and hundreds of replies. Still,
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: she knew that people in her life, people she's close to,
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: might see it. Can I ask you about your brother?
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: When did you tell him or did he see it
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: on his own?
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: At the time, my brother was my main concern because
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: he's not a public figure. And he's my older brother
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: and I'm his little sister. If he was involved in
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: something like this, well, that could affect him. It could
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: be very hurtful for him. And he was on vacation
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: and I didn't want this to ruin his vacation. He's
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: not a public figure. He doesn't even have a Twitter account. Finally,
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: he got the news. after his vacation, thank God. And
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: I asked him, how do you feel with this? And
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: he said, I'm only worried about how you feel.
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: Do you know if your brother ever saw the video?
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: No, no, no, he didn't watch it.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: Julia had to consider how this video might impact her family.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: Julia says her husband was supportive. They're close, almost like
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: the same person. But they had other family to think
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: about and protect, like their six-year-old daughter. and Julia's mom.
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: The only thing I wanted was my mom not to
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: find out, because how is my mom going to deal
• 17:57
  Speaker 4: with something so horrendous?
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Do you think she ever saw it in the end?
• 18:04
  Speaker 6: No, no creo, no creo.
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: Oh no, I don't think that she has.
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: She knew about it, but I am not the one
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: that told her.
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: I couldn't bring myself to talk about it directly with her.
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: I didn't want to go through that. Because there are
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: some pains that when you talk to your mom, like
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: when you're a little kid and you hit your knee
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: and you start crying, then you get over it and
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: then you start crying again when you see your mom.
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: So there was something there that I wanted to avoid
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: any conversation with her.
• 18:38
  Speaker 6: And I thought I could manage it myself.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: Was it affecting your life in other ways? I'm thinking
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: if it were me, I'd be out at the store
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: being like, I wonder if this person has seen this
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: video of me. Like, was that getting to you at
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: all during that time?
• 18:59
  Speaker 4: Yes, during that time, I really remember that, for example,
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: a night that I went to the theater and I
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: agreed to meet with some friends and being in the
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: taxi and asking my friends if they have arrived. because
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: I didn't want to be standing alone in a corner.
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: So I was asking, are you there?
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: Are you there?
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: What's going on? Yeah, everything is okay. So when I arrived,
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: they asked me, what is going on that you're so self-conscious?
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: And I said, I don't want to be alone. I
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: feel unsafe. If people in a restaurant, they look at me.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: I cannot be alone.
• 19:40
  Speaker 6: Recuerdo de una noche.
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: I remember a night which was terrible for me.
• 19:48
  Speaker 6: My husband.
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: Was out and I was putting my little girl to sleep.
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: Once she was asleep, I grabbed my phone and I
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: entered Twitter and I saw again the video and all
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: types of threats. I saw death threats and rape threats.
• 20:07
  Speaker 4: And things like, since I look like your brother, surely
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: you're going to like fucking me. The video must have
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: had more than one million views.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: Easily.
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: I called my husband and asked him to please come
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: back home. And he did. And that night he comforted me.
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: Day after day, they wouldn't stop, threats wouldn't stop. And
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: so I was holding it, holding it, waiting for it
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: to pass by. And I realized that it was not
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: going away. I felt that they wouldn't stop. I felt tortured.
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: And this word, the word torture in our country, it's
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: very heavy because in the 70s we have disappearances, tortures
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: and killings. So the word torture is not said lightly. Nevertheless,
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: I have no doubt that I was being tortured and
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: that the fact that it was virtual didn't make it
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: less real. And I broke. I wanted to stop being
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: a journalist. I wanted to move to my mom's house.
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: I felt that I didn't want any of this anymore,
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: that nothing was worth this amount of pain, because now
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: the people that were threatening me and were generating all
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: of this deepfake were directly linked to the president of Argentina.
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: After a quick break, the president joins the pile-on, and
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: Julia fights back.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: So I found a new use for my Plod device
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: just the other night. I was in an Uber.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: All right, so I have to give a speech in
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: a few minutes to accept an award, which is very exciting.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: A special achievement award for Question Everything.
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: Question Everything was being honored.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: The Signal Awards.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: And I hadn't written anything, so I pulled out my Plod.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: It's this AI-powered device. It listens, organizes, summarizes my ideas anytime, anywhere.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: It's like the size of a Twix candy, a mini
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: Twix candy. And it's got a little clip. I clipped
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: it on my lapel and just started talking.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: I'm going to give you some ideas, and I need
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: you to consolidate it, basically, into a coherent speech.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: I didn't need to overthink it, so I just told
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: it what I.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: Wanted to say.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Being a journalist right now is really uncertain. It's really stressful.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: It's really hard. We're trying to take on that fundamental
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: issue in our storytelling and reporting. We're trying to create
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: a show where we're trying to cut through that head-on,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: rather than just putting work out and hoping for the best.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: I then went into my app on my phone. The
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: AI is really good. You can ask it questions. And
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: I told Plaud to pick the best points of what
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: I said and put it into quick bullet points for
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: my speech. It did it, walked into the venue, and
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: I killed. Search for Plaud, that's P-L-A-U-D, in Google or Amazon.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: I'm going to keep sharing ways that I'm learning how
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: to use it with you. Give it a whirl.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: As the anonymous online mob escalated their attacks against Julia,
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: she started to notice people weighing in who were not
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: nameless trolls, but well-known public figures. People who were part
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: of the president's administration. Government officials writing posts, chiming in,
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: calling attention to this deepfake pornographic video of Julia and
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: her brother. Santiago Oria. His official title is Director of
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: Audiovisual Productions for the Presidency of the Nation. though many
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: call him a propagandist for the president. He's made several
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: films about Millet. Oria tweeted about the video, saying if
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: Julia thought being accused of incest was wrong, then she
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: shouldn't have accused the president of it.
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: There is a national deputy called Lilia Lemoyne.
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: Then there's Lilia Lemoyne, another government official who posted about
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: Julia on Twitter. She's a makeup artist turned politician who
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: briefly dated Millet and often did his makeup for TV appearances.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: She was elected to Argentina's Congress in 2023, in Millet's party.
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: And she's still the one that makes up his chin,
• 24:34
  Speaker 5: because Millet has a big complex around his chin.
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: She's one of the people that viralized this video the most.
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: When Lilia Lemoine tweeted about it, I think that that's
• 24:48
  Speaker 5: the moment in which the bubble burst.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: As in, suddenly more prominent people in Argentina saw that
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: this video was going around, which meant that it was
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: no longer only happening in the far-right online circles. Articles
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: were being written. Bigger-name right-wing commentators were talking about the
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: harassment against Julia on their shows, posting online. The posters
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: were largely laughing at Julia's situation and saying this was karma, basically,
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: for attacking their guy, Mile. In one example, a right-wing
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: commentator named Mariano Perez posted a photo of Julia on Twitter,
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: holding up a copy of a book she wrote last year.
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: The title has been photoshopped to say, Incest as a
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: Way of Life. The caption reads, Does anyone know where
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: to buy Mangolini's book? It has nearly 650,000 views. And then...
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: And then there.
• 25:37
  Speaker 6: Was a weekend in which the president of the nation
• 25:39
  Speaker 6: write about me 93 times. 93 tweets referring to this.
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: Javier Millet, the president of Argentina, liked and retweeted and
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: piled on and raised the profile of a deepfake porn
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: video attacking Julia nearly a hundred times in three days.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: Some have been deleted now, but they were mostly him
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: retweeting his supporters who were posting about Julia, calling journalists basura, trash.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: On many of his tweets, he added a favorite catchphrase
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: of his, quote, we don't hate journalists enough.
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: The message was not, Mengolini does incest. No, no. It was,
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: you deserve it.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: God, that must have been a really intense weekend.
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: The truth is, this whole story is really a nightmare.
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: Since Bile took office in 2023... Argentina has fallen 47
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: spots on the World Press Freedom Index. They were 40th.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: Now they're 87th in the world. Reporters Without Borders, the
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: group who puts out the list, cites Millet's hostile rhetoric
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: toward the press, especially on his social media, as part
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: of the reason for the drop. Another big reason? A
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: rise in physical attacks against journalists in Argentina. Also, like
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: the U.S. president, Millet makes a habit of suing journalists
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: he doesn't like, on little to no grounds. In April...
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: the journalist and historian Carlos Pagni wrote a column where
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: he compared Millet's rise to Hitler's in Nazi Germany. Millet
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: sued Pagni unsuccessfully for defamation. Millet has appealed. In May,
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: Ari Lihalad, another columnist, wrote a similar piece where he
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: compared Millet's rhetoric to the arguments Nazis used to justify
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: the Holocaust. Millet also sued him for defamation. The case
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: was also dismissed. Millet sued TV journalist Viviana Canosa for
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: comments she made on the air, including that Millet, quote,
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: wants us as slaves and submissives. The case is ongoing.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: In April, Millet tweeted about his disdain for journalists, saying, quote,
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: I think people don't hate these hitmen with press credentials enough.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: If people knew them better, they would hate them even
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: more than politicians, calling the press, quote, lying journalists and, quote,
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: lying garbage. Just two days later, another journalist, head of
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: the progressive outlet El Destape, Roberto Navarro, was assaulted in
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: a hotel lobby in downtown Buenos Aires by two men,
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: one screaming, calling him a son of a bitch and
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: a fucking liar. The other came up behind Navarro and
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: struck him in the head. Navarro was hospitalized for two days.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: He was badly bruised, swollen, and had trouble speaking. Once
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: out of the hospital, a bruised-up Navarro got in front
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: of the camera to speak about his attack, describing what
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: happened in detail and saying, quote, the president posted a
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: tweet that began with the same words as this guy,
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: lying journalists. I hold President Millay responsible for what happened
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: to me and what might happen to me.
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: Navarro was hit in the name of Millay. The hate
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: speech ended up having very concrete effects. There are people
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: that in the streets can be very violent.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: That attack on Roberto Navarro happened just two months before
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: the trolls came for Julia with their AI-generated deepfake of
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: her and her brother. Julia didn't know of any other
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: journalists who'd been targeted with a video like this. She
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: was determined to do something. But what? She could report
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: it to the platforms, but remember, the pornographic video wasn't
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: being posted directly on social media. People were sending the link. privately.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: And while Twitter does have a quote, zero tolerance policy
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: for non-consensual nude images, including AI, that policy has not
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: been enforced well. Last year, researchers at Cornell did a
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: study where they uploaded 50 AI-generated nude images that violated
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: Twitter's policy. They reported half of them to the platform.
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: After three weeks, zero posts were removed. At the same time,
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: the man who owns Twitter, Elon Musk, has used his
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: platform to denigrate reporters with Millet's catchphrase, you don't hate
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: the media enough. In May, the U.S. did pass the
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: Take It Down Act. It's a new law that criminalizes
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: the distribution of, quote, non-consensual intimate images. It's the first
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: federal law to specifically target the removal of deepfakes. It
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: requires that social media companies remove that content when notified,
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: though platforms have until May of next year to start complying.
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: And the FTC has not yet said how they plan
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: to enforce it. Argentina has no such laws. There is
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: a bill currently in their Congress that would address deepfakes,
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: but it hasn't passed. And if you're a regular listener
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: of this show, you know that Julia can't sue the
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: platforms directly. They're American companies protected by Section 230. All
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: that's to say... it was really unclear what Julia could do.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: She and her husband strategized.
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: There was a point in which I remember talking with
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: my husband and we decided that we have to flip it.
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: And I remember perfectly the moment of the decision of saying,
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: I'm not going to look the other way, but we're
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: going to focus. I'm going to use this in my favor.
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: They decided that Julia shouldn't just stay silent and wait
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: for it to pass, that she should face it head
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: on and share her experience in her own words. She
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: was nervous about that strategy at first. It might mean
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: pushing the video into corners it hadn't been before among
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: her left-wing friends and colleagues. But she started talking to
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: some other female journalists about what she could do. Julia
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: sent an audio message asking for advice to one of
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: her friends who's a popular TV host in Argentina. While
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: Julia was explaining the deepfake video and how far-reaching it was,
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: she started crying.
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: These journalists asked me if she could play and broadcast
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: the audio on the TV. She had the TV show,
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: and I said no because I didn't want people to
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: hear me crying. And she insisted because she told me,
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: I'm telling you as an older sister, It doesn't matter
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: now that you feel humiliated facing the trolls. What you
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: need now is support because you always show that you're
• 32:28
  Speaker 4: very strong. But people need to know that this is
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: damaging you. So allow me to play this audio crying.
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: And after I insisted a little bit, I said, OK.
• 32:39
  Speaker 4: And on Friday night, in a TV show that a
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: lot of people watched, she started her editorial. It was
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: focused on hate, hate as fuel for politics. And she said,
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: Julia Megolini is receiving a smear campaign. This is the
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: audio that Julia sent me.
• 33:03
  Speaker 6: And she broadcast it. And that generated a mass support.
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: Clearly, hearing me crying awakened something, and that night I
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: received messages, messages, messages, and more messages on Twitter. It
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: was like a milestone because I didn't want to know
• 33:33
  Speaker 4: anything about this anymore. I wanted to move to Mars,
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: and that support changed the whole perspective.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: If Julia choosing to broadcast herself crying invigorated her trolls again,
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: she didn't care. This time, the support was much louder.
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: And she felt it more. Julia made up her mind.
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: I decided to file a complaint against the president.
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: Eventually, Julia filed criminal charges against Millet, along with 17
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: others involved with spreading the video, including the president's filmmaker,
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: Santiago Oria, and Lili Lamoine, a makeup artist turned congresswoman.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: What happened? made you decide to file the criminal complaint?
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: Because I started to receive calls from different lawyers in
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: Argentina that offered their services. I want to represent you.
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: We have to do something with this. And one of
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: them is a very well-known lawyer in Argentina. And he
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: convinced me that we have to do something. And that's
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: when I decided to do this.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: What are you accusing Mile of exactly?
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: The crimes are public intimidation with assignment to hatred, illegal association, threats,
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: and embezzlement of public funds.
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: Public intimidation, threats, those are easily understood. But for the
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: embezzlement charge, which translates more closely to misusing public funds,
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: Julia and her lawyers are arguing that because government officials
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: were involved, the harassment campaign was publicly funded. In a
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: retaliatory move, Millet sued Julia too, like the way he
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: sued all those other journalists for defamation, for her two-year-old
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: comments about him, his sister, and his dogs. A judge
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: dismissed the case. As far as Julia's complaint against Millet,
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: it's moving forward, and it's a new kind of complaint
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: in Argentina. No journalists have filed criminal charges against a
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: sitting president for his hateful comments online. Do you know
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: if Millay has ever been the target of a deepfake
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: of some kind? Are people making AI videos targeting him?
• 35:51
  Speaker 6: No, no, para nada.
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: Él todo el tiempo está mostrando videos de hechos con
• 35:57
  Speaker 5: inteligencia artificial.
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: He is constantly showing AI videos in which he's a hero.
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: These are not deepfakes, but they are made by his
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: own political force. He's using all the time AA to
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: show how powerful he is or to show him with
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: more muscle fighting Peronist zombies. And they show him as
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: a gladiator or as a lion, a powerful lion. I
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: think that Trump does something very similar.
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: As someone who's covered Millet for years now, how would
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: you expect Trump him to react if there were a
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: similarly humiliating video made of him that was circulated online.
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: He has a lot of power now. Therefore, what he's
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: doing with the people that say things that he doesn't
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: like is that he starts suing them. And if he
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: would receive some kind of beef fake, I don't think
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: that he would like it, of course.
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: So your criminal complaint, do you expect this to go
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: to trial? Do you expect to have to face Millet
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: in trial?
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: Well, to be honest, Millet needs to stop being the
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: president for that to happen. He needs to have less
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: power because power equals impunity in this case. I think
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: that this is going to happen, but in the long term.
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: So part of this is you're not necessarily just looking
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: for justice for yourself. You're trying to set a precedent
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: for the country.
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: Yes, a precedent. That would be ideal. We need to
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: take this violence more seriously. I think that our societies
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: will have to start admitting that what happens in the
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: virtual world happens in reality. The things happen for real.
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: The pain that I felt is real as a pain
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: of a punch. So why this wouldn't be a crime,
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: a violence like this?
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: If somebody else were this target, what advice would you
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: give them?
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: Maybe I would say that you need to denounce this publicly.
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: Make it public. to have a public discussion about it,
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: to start fighting against these things, not naturalize them. I
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: think that the acts in the digital world still don't
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: have any consequence, and I think there should be consequences.
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: And I think that humanity needs to start having this
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: conversation right now.
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: Are you still receiving attacks, harassment?
• 38:47
  Speaker 6: No, ahora no.
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: Why not, do you think? What changed?
• 38:50
  Speaker 6: Yo creo que se les rompió la herramienta.
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: I think they broke their tool. They broke their toy.
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: They went too far. After harassing me for 10 years,
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: you create a video where I'm having sex with my brother.
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: After that, what else can you possibly do? And also
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: they went so far that they created a public support.
• 39:14
  Speaker 4: They made me into a hero, which I wasn't before.
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: And now I walk down the street and I'm not
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: afraid anymore. Strangers come greet me and they go like,
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: let's go Julia, we support you.
• 39:28
  Speaker 6: You go to her house.
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: Me, kiss me, take pictures with me.
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: It's like they raised my public figure in Argentina.
• 39:38
  Speaker 6: Now, even though I don't know what may happen with
• 39:39
  Speaker 6: my lawsuit.
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: I feel like that I won already in ethical terms.
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: And that is something that gives me a lot of
• 39:56
  Speaker 4: strength to keep on saying the horrors of Millet's government.
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: When I first spoke to Julia back in mid-September, she
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: was feeling cautiously optimistic that the political tides in Argentina
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: might be changing. Millet's Libertarian Party had just lost a
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: key election in Buenos Aires province, the most populous in
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: the country, by more than 13 points, a larger margin
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: than many expected. Millet, Julia thought, might be losing public support.
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: Here in America, President Trump must have thought the same thing.
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: Only he really did not like it. A month after
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: those local elections, where Millet's party lost, Trump threw the
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: weight of his presidency behind Millet to help him in
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: Argentina's national congressional elections that were coming up. Trump promised
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: Argentina $ 40 billion if and only if Millet's party held
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: onto their congressional seats. Then, four days before the elections,
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: Trump announced that the U.S. was looking at quadrupling the
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: amount of beef it buys from Argentina. which would likely
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: mean hundreds of millions of additional dollars going to Argentina
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: from the U.S. And Trump's plan seemed to work. Millet's
• 41:20
  Speaker 3: party did way better than they were projected to do,
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: won a bunch of new seats. The results, Julia said,
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: were quite tough for me. I feel more vulnerable. It's
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: not the same to be confronting a weakened president as
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: it is to be confronting a president with renewed power.
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: She thinks the promises made by the U.S. played a
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: role in the results. Trump certainly thinks so, too. The
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: day after Argentina's elections, he said this.
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: In Argentina, I want to congratulate the victor, and he
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: was a big victor, and he had a lot of
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: help from us. He had a lot of help. I
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: gave him an endorsement, a very strong endorsement. Not only
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: did he win, he won by a lot.
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: The night his party won, Millet, who's up for re-election
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: in 2027, took the stage in front of a huge crowd,
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: singing along to a rock song, blasting through the speakers.
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: I am the king of a lost world, he sang.
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: I am the king, and I will destroy you.
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: That's our producer, Zach St. Louis, who reported that story.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: I did, by the way, feed Zach one question to
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: ask Julia when he was interviewing her.
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: Do you wish that you could sue Twitter or these
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: platforms for allowing this to happen?
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: Yes, I would love to. Completely.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: Julia is clearly not afraid to fight. But while she
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: can sue the president and other political leaders in Argentina
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: because of their involvement with this deepfake video, The social
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: media companies, which allowed it to be boosted and amplified
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: to many, many people, allowed her to overrun her life.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: Suing them is not an option for her because of
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: Section 230.
• 43:26
  Speaker 5: There is a huge responsibility that they have, the owners
• 43:34
  Speaker 5: of these platforms.
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: And they are understanding all the harm that these tools
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: that they created are doing to us. That is already
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: a problem. And I think that is urgent.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: I'll be continuing my Section 230 crusade next time. I
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: was in D.C. last week chasing senators around. Go check
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: out my TikTok, brihread1, to see some of that action.
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: We're also, just as a reminder, on Substack, questioneverything.substack.com, where
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: we're bringing you more stories and reporting about truth, attacks
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: on the free press, and holding tech accountable. Today's episode
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: was edited by executive producer Robin Simeon. I'm Brian Reed,
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: the other executive producer of Question Everything. Our team also
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: includes managing editor Kevin Sullivan, producer Sophie Kazis, associate producer
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: Kevin Shepard, contributing producer Sam Egan, and contributing editor Jen Kinney.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: This episode was fact-checked by Annika Robbins and mixed and
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: sound designed by Brendan Baker. Our interpreter for this episode
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: was Macarena Funes. Our music is by Matt McGinley. Special
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: thanks to Daniel Politi, Marianne Franks, and the team at Futurock.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: Our partners at KCRW include Arnie Seipel, Pedro Algemera, Natalie Hill,
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: and Jennifer Farrow. We'll see you next time.