Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / Meghan Markle and Single Use Hate Accounts

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Meghan Markle and Single Use Hate Accounts · Stuff Mom Never Told You

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Speaker 1: Hey, this is a and Samantha. I'm welcome to Stephane.
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Speaker 1: Never told you production of IHEART radio, and today we
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Speaker 1: are thrilled, rejoicing. I'm so glad to be joined by
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Speaker 1: the much missed and very busy brigid todd. Welcome. Oh,
0:30
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to be back. It's been too long.
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Speaker 1: It has been too long. You have been very busy.
0:35
Speaker 1: Can you give us a snapshot? What's been going on? Goodness,
0:39
Speaker 1: let us live vicariously through you. Yeah, it's been a
0:42
Speaker 1: it's been a weird summer. I spent a month in Portugal,
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Speaker 1: which was Super Fun. I was there during a historic
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Speaker 1: heat wave and I was staying in a place that
0:50
Speaker 1: did not have air conditioning, so that was interesting. M Yeah,
0:55
Speaker 1: it's funny. That will probably mean, this sounds so depressing,
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Speaker 1: that'll probably be the like coolest summer that that any
1:02
Speaker 1: of us will have, considering how I oh, it's a
1:06
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty degrees. Cool, cool, cool, cool, COO, COO cool. Yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 1: I did some family travel. I got to go to
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Speaker 1: Barbados with my brother and my sister in law and
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Speaker 1: my sweet the sweetest little baby, my niece, who was
1:22
Speaker 1: adorable where I learned that she knows how to swim underwater,
1:27
Speaker 1: put her face underwater and she loves it. I love it.
1:33
Speaker 1: I love that's impressive. Yeah, she's an highland baby. I
1:35
Speaker 1: also learned, I won't say mistakenly, but like unexpectedly, that
1:40
Speaker 1: in Barbados they drive on the different side of the road,
1:43
Speaker 1: and I didn't learn that until I got into a
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Speaker 1: rental car and I was like, well, the steering wheels
1:47
Speaker 1: in the wrong places. She was like what do you mean? Well,
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Speaker 1: found that before you got on the road. It sounds
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Speaker 1: like that good. So unexpectedly. So that could have been
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Speaker 1: a whole level of the after yeah. So I for
2:01
Speaker 1: anyone listening that's doing any like travel, definitely research what's
2:05
Speaker 1: side of the road they drive on the country that
2:06
Speaker 1: you intend to drive in for a week. That's brave.
2:10
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know if I would drive in
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Speaker 1: a different country. It makes me nervous. Oh, I completely
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Speaker 1: did it. My partner did. I would have. He said that.
2:17
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, do you think I could handle
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Speaker 1: driving here, and he was like you would immediately start crying.
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Speaker 1: Immediately start crying, which is accurate. So I didn't drive,
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Speaker 1: but props to him. For being able to navigate that situation.
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Speaker 1: It's funny because now it's like I literally have to
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Speaker 1: go out as if my car is a pet and
2:38
Speaker 1: started once a week because I drive so rarely. But
2:41
Speaker 1: I learned to drive in Australia and I've driven in
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Speaker 1: several different countries. I've come so far. I went from
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Speaker 1: like Oh, yeah, I'll drive a stick shift. Yeah, so
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Speaker 1: now like you can't get me in that car, Oh
2:52
Speaker 1: my God. Well, they in Australia not only did they
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Speaker 1: drive on the other side of the road, but they
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Speaker 1: also are notorious for like being quite intense drivers. Like
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Speaker 1: what was that like? It was scary. It was a
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Speaker 1: stick shift and it was on the other side and
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Speaker 1: I was like driving at three and one night and
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Speaker 1: I was trying to turn and I saw I didn't
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Speaker 1: have a license. Everybody, so please don't come at me,
3:14
Speaker 1: but I could have been deported. So I was like
3:17
Speaker 1: trying to make a smooth turn away from the police
3:20
Speaker 1: and its stalled in the middle of the intersex in
3:24
Speaker 1: front of the police, of course, of course. So I
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Speaker 1: drove around and I went through a drive through and
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Speaker 1: they were their lights turned on, but they couldn't find
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Speaker 1: me because my clever drive through rules. They're not gonna
3:38
Speaker 1: this is like Um fast in the fear like to fast.
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Speaker 1: Any addition, yeah, I'm starting to understand why you may
3:53
Speaker 1: be banned from a couple of countries now. Yeah, and
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Speaker 1: it's my poor driving skills. I never was in any accident,
4:00
Speaker 1: but should I have been on the road? Probably not. Probably. Yeah. Also,
4:07
Speaker 1: I love there's a cat in the mix. Listeners, you
4:09
Speaker 1: might hear a cat. You might hear a cat in
4:11
Speaker 1: the mix. Her name is Monika. She's a million years old.
4:15
Speaker 1: There's a mouse in our apartment, I'm sad to say.
4:18
Speaker 1: So we're we're all on a high alert. You might
4:21
Speaker 1: hear some some some meals. If the mouse comes out,
4:26
Speaker 1: that would be you know, like, what is it? What
4:28
Speaker 1: is that called? Is there a word for podcasting? Must
4:31
Speaker 1: Hear podcasting. Yeah, that's what we're trying to capture. Here
4:36
Speaker 1: we go with this. I wish you all could see
4:38
Speaker 1: because like she is all day, she has been perched
4:42
Speaker 1: where she last saw this mouse, like you would think
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Speaker 1: that she is like a soldier, like like on patrol
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Speaker 1: trying to scope about this mouse. She's been called a duty.
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Speaker 1: He knows. Yes, I love it. I love it. Get it, Monica,
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Speaker 1: we all believe in you. And then, before this, I
5:02
Speaker 1: wanted to bring this up because I think it kind
5:03
Speaker 1: of vaguely relates to what we're talking about. We were
5:06
Speaker 1: talking about I wonder if younger listeners know about this,
5:09
Speaker 1: but back in the early days of the Internet, we
5:11
Speaker 1: would get these like letters, these chain email letters, that
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Speaker 1: would be like, if you don't send this to ten
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Speaker 1: other people, Bloody Mary's coming for you, and I would
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Speaker 1: be like, oh no, not bloody Mary. That is so
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Speaker 1: specific because, like I said, I've never really got those types.
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Speaker 1: But that the fact that bloody Mary why people are
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Speaker 1: using old folk tales and doing it in like more,
5:46
Speaker 1: I guess, relevant technologies. Is that what this say is
5:49
Speaker 1: in instead of saying the name, which you've already said
5:51
Speaker 1: it three times, or your car stay, you've done she's
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Speaker 1: not looking at a mirror. That was how I shouldn't
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Speaker 1: see ourselves so level. And then did she bring us
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Speaker 1: with her? Did she with her? Did she say with
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Speaker 1: US present? I'm started becoming a little worried, but I'm
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Speaker 1: just saying yeah, just like traveling of UH, new technologies,
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Speaker 1: I guess, updated ideas, instead of being from the mirror
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Speaker 1: to the Internet to zoom calls or ask for US
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Speaker 1: skype calls. Is this a thing? I think it's a thing.
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Speaker 1: It's it's so interesting, like how these fables and folk
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Speaker 1: tales have been around since I've been a kid, how
6:34
Speaker 1: they've been updated for the Internet age, where it's like, Oh,
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Speaker 1: maybe you'll like I can I can confirm that, the
6:40
Speaker 1: same way that we used to get those chain emails,
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Speaker 1: send this to ten friends, or bloody marry will kill you.
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Speaker 1: That's one for me. I'm not going to say I can.
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Speaker 1: Similar things are still floating around, especially on WHATSAPP. I
6:54
Speaker 1: have seen and gotten messages that are like Oh, send
6:56
Speaker 1: this to ten friends and you'll have good luck, or
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Speaker 1: you know it'll be some some corny joke and that
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Speaker 1: it will end with send this to ten people. So
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Speaker 1: I can't confirm that those things that we grew up
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Speaker 1: with are still yeah, and WHATSAPP is a is a
7:11
Speaker 1: big vector of that kind of like Shane email style messaging. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I think I'm not cool enough to receive any of
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Speaker 1: these threats. I'm good. I did, however, see it actually
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Speaker 1: mailed to whomever, like when I was at a rental
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Speaker 1: place where they melt. It was a church mailing this
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Speaker 1: woman that she needed to send back, I guess witnessing
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Speaker 1: letters to people or she would not be blessed, and
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Speaker 1: I was like wow, wow, this church is really going
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Speaker 1: after people, but they did it through snail mill and
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Speaker 1: I was like and they're just throwing it all the
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Speaker 1: way back, if I have to say almost kind of
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Speaker 1: sounds like low key biblical extortion, like you want this blessing,
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Speaker 1: send this back if you know what's good for you.
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Speaker 1: I was like, I don't how this is working for people.
8:01
Speaker 1: Why are they sending this out, like physically sending this out?
8:04
Speaker 1: But that's a whole different story. Yeah, I think it
8:07
Speaker 1: goes back to we've talked about this before, like maybe
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Speaker 1: you don't believe something, but you're like just nervous enough
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Speaker 1: to be like, alright, I don't want to mess with it.
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Speaker 1: That's actually a very common I mean not to get
8:18
Speaker 1: all like Dorky, but that's actually a very common thing
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Speaker 1: that we see in disinformation circles, or misinformation circles more specifically,
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Speaker 1: where people come across some information they don't know if
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Speaker 1: it's true or not, but they're like let me share
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Speaker 1: this just to be safe, like I don't really know,
8:33
Speaker 1: but I want I want to share this my mom,
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Speaker 1: God lover. She's she's big into this, like she's the
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Speaker 1: mom who when you get those messages where it's like, Oh,
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Speaker 1: if somebody puts a piece of paper, a flyer on
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Speaker 1: your windshield, don't get out of the car, it's gang members,
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Speaker 1: like she, I think that she's it's I definitely see
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Speaker 1: it as like an act or a gesture of love
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Speaker 1: and protection. But I'm like, mom, if some if a
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Speaker 1: gang member, wants to kidnap me, they're not going to
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Speaker 1: put a piece of paper on my windshield. I'll just
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Speaker 1: do it like think about it. Yes. So, true, this
9:19
Speaker 1: is kind of a convoluted segue, but I wanted to
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Speaker 1: bring it up because it does bring me joy to
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Speaker 1: remember me and my old neo's angel email, um, receiving
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Speaker 1: these things. But also I do think it kind of
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Speaker 1: tangentially relates to what we're talking about today and that
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Speaker 1: there seems to be like these messages coming from. We're
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Speaker 1: not sure where. Um. So I'm very eager to learn
9:45
Speaker 1: more about this podcaster, a podcaster. That was a masterful transition.
9:51
Speaker 1: Thank you. Thank you, but yes, I'm very eager to
9:55
Speaker 1: learn more about this. Can you tell us what we're
9:57
Speaker 1: going to be discussing today? Yes, so, as you just said, Annie,
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Speaker 1: that it is sort of related about this idea of
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Speaker 1: who is able to really control conversations on the Internet
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Speaker 1: about one specific subject, and so today that topic is
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Speaker 1: going to be Megan Markele Um, as you all I'm
10:17
Speaker 1: sure by now I'll probably know, the queen died last week.
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Speaker 1: To do you, I'm curious, do you two have any
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Speaker 1: like strong connection to the Royal Family, the monarchy? Like,
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Speaker 1: is this something that you followed or you, like could
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Speaker 1: not care less? Have not followed it. I don't know
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Speaker 1: anything about it. I personally could not care less. I
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Speaker 1: it's it's been. It's impossible to escape, I will say
10:39
Speaker 1: right now. Um, but I don't have any real feeling
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Speaker 1: about it. I have some friends who do. I did
10:46
Speaker 1: go through a period where I was really into like
10:50
Speaker 1: entertainment from the UK and specifically, like I was in
10:54
Speaker 1: love with the idea of moving to London. But I've
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Speaker 1: never been into the royal family. That's never made sense
11:01
Speaker 1: to me personally, but I have friends who are, so
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Speaker 1: I guess I get it through there. So I'm old
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Speaker 1: enough to remember, uh, like vividly remember instead of just
11:12
Speaker 1: being like kind of like, yeah, I was a kid.
11:13
Speaker 1: I remember this the death of Diana, Princess Diana, and also, uh,
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Speaker 1: the love for William, Prince William, who is, I think,
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Speaker 1: a couple of years younger than me. So of course,
11:22
Speaker 1: like that era of trying to figure out watching these
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Speaker 1: young princes grow up and following their stories. So not
11:31
Speaker 1: necessarily that I was caught up in the royal lifestyle
11:35
Speaker 1: or a family, but I do remember that offset of seeing, uh,
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Speaker 1: the huge controversies amongst the family at that point in time.
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Speaker 1: Of course, as recently as everything has happened in the
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Speaker 1: past ten years, with Megan Markle, even Prince William getting
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Speaker 1: married and all the different things, I have an understanding
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Speaker 1: of what's going on, kind of like you, as well
12:00
Speaker 1: as the fact that I have understood my group of
12:03
Speaker 1: people that I follow have very strong opinions of colonialism
12:07
Speaker 1: and I'm like yeah, okay, distracts. So that's kind of
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Speaker 1: where I stand in this mix totally. So I'm somewhere
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Speaker 1: in the middle. I have to say right up front
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Speaker 1: I am not a careful follower of the royal family.
12:20
Speaker 1: I kind of bounce between like ambivalent to like, Oh,
12:24
Speaker 1: I know about this. So I know that there are
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Speaker 1: people who are obsessively following royal family and monarchy culture
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Speaker 1: and if I say anything that's incorrect that it's because
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Speaker 1: I am not a careful follower of the royal family.
12:36
Speaker 1: But kind of like you, like, I have a lot
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Speaker 1: of friends who are really into it. Um, older I
12:41
Speaker 1: do have a theory that older MOMS, specifically, like older
12:45
Speaker 1: black MOMS, have a real affinity for Diana. So growing
12:49
Speaker 1: up my mom loves Diana, cried when Diana died. Still
12:53
Speaker 1: has people magazines from from that time with like, you know,
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Speaker 1: what was it? The People's Princess and all that like like.
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Speaker 1: So definitely got a little bit of Secondhand Royal Family
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Speaker 1: engagement from that, but I've never really been somebody who
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Speaker 1: followed it carefully. Obviously, when Megan Markele came on the scene,
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Speaker 1: I loved that. I was definitely like, oh, black princess.
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Speaker 1: I know she's not a princess, but that was what
13:15
Speaker 1: we said that when when she came on the scene. Um,
13:18
Speaker 1: but yeah, and I think one of the reasons I'm
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Speaker 1: so fascinated by even as someone who doesn't really know
13:24
Speaker 1: about the monarchy. Why I'm so fascinated about this issue
13:26
Speaker 1: is that Megan Markle on the way that people talk
13:29
Speaker 1: about her, I think, gives us a very interesting lens
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Speaker 1: into how women, particularly black women and women of color,
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Speaker 1: how our online experience is shaped by other people. And
13:43
Speaker 1: Megan Markle is not even on social media anymore, neither
13:45
Speaker 1: is Prince Harry, and yet she is a constant focal
13:49
Speaker 1: point on social media. And I think that we really
13:52
Speaker 1: saw that with the death of the Queen. And even
13:54
Speaker 1: though the Queen was born back in nineteen twenty six
13:56
Speaker 1: and there was no such thing as social media back then,
13:59
Speaker 1: when she by the time she died last week, social
14:01
Speaker 1: media played a huge, overwhelming role in the way that
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Speaker 1: the royal family considered her death. You know, the news
14:08
Speaker 1: itself was first announced to the public on the royal
14:10
Speaker 1: family twitter before any place else. And you know, a
14:13
Speaker 1: lot of the immediate next steps and actions that the
14:16
Speaker 1: royal family took were circulated around social media. So like
14:20
Speaker 1: halting government social media accounts and saying, like, Oh, official
14:23
Speaker 1: government accounts are only going to tweet, you know, essential information,
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Speaker 1: no non essential posts, and like changing the royal family
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Speaker 1: website to be like a like a morning, you know
14:33
Speaker 1: in memorium kind of thing. And in addition to the
14:36
Speaker 1: way that social media has shaped the way the royals,
14:39
Speaker 1: you know, present to the public, we have seen that
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Speaker 1: it also presents this place for Megan Markle to be
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Speaker 1: faced with pretty intense criticisms, but also things like outright lies,
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Speaker 1: conspiracy theories, racist sexist smears and stereotypes about who she is.
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Speaker 1: And it really is not the first time, like, we
14:58
Speaker 1: have seen this kind of stuff going on with Megan
15:00
Speaker 1: Marko before, the Queen's staff, obviously, and it's so interesting
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Speaker 1: to me that this, this event, the Queen's death, was
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Speaker 1: used not just as a way to like memorialize her
15:11
Speaker 1: or like critique her rain or anything like that. It
15:14
Speaker 1: was also used as a way to further flam Megan
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Speaker 1: markle on social media. Yes, yes, and as someone who,
15:23
Speaker 1: as I said, like I'm not I don't follow this
15:26
Speaker 1: a lot, I don't get on twitter a lot even,
15:29
Speaker 1: I was aware that this was happening, like I saw
15:32
Speaker 1: it trending on my brief like what's going on on twitter,
15:36
Speaker 1: and I had enough knowledge to be like, I bet
15:40
Speaker 1: this is coming from a really terrible racist place. When
15:44
Speaker 1: I saw like Meg and Marco go home trending. So yeah,
15:49
Speaker 1: can you explain what all of that was? What was
15:52
Speaker 1: the social media response? Yeah, I mean it's almost exactly
15:56
Speaker 1: like you said, and I want to interviewed somebody who
15:58
Speaker 1: writes about fandoms and and culture and she described it interestingly.
16:02
Speaker 1: She described it as an anti fandom, which I had
16:04
Speaker 1: never heard before, and so it's just like what you
16:07
Speaker 1: think of a fandom, but in the opposite direction. So
16:10
Speaker 1: like people who their whole thing is I love to
16:13
Speaker 1: hate this one person. I love to create content about
16:16
Speaker 1: how much I don't like them. That's my thing. And
16:19
Speaker 1: so that kind of messaging was in full effect after
16:22
Speaker 1: the queen died. As you said, the Hashtag Megan markle
16:25
Speaker 1: go home sort of trending on twitter and basically what
16:28
Speaker 1: I found so interesting about that is that first people
16:31
Speaker 1: were picking up picking on her because she did not
16:34
Speaker 1: go to England with Harry, her husband, after the queen died.
16:40
Speaker 1: And I'm again I'm the expert here, but it sounds
16:42
Speaker 1: like she just was not invited and so not going
16:46
Speaker 1: was there anything bad? And then when she actually did go,
16:50
Speaker 1: everybody was like, oh, go home, go home. So it's
16:52
Speaker 1: interesting how it kind of doesn't matter what she does.
16:55
Speaker 1: If she doesn't go, that's bad, if she does go,
16:58
Speaker 1: that's also bad, and I think it really illustrates how, yeah,
17:02
Speaker 1: it's like this impossible tightrope where it doesn't it's it's
17:05
Speaker 1: clearly not really about her actions and what she actually
17:08
Speaker 1: does or says. It's just about her it's about her existence,
17:12
Speaker 1: her presence. That is threatening, that is not okay with
17:15
Speaker 1: the people that hate her and ultimately it's like an
17:18
Speaker 1: impossible situation to walk Um. There was just like very
17:22
Speaker 1: fascinating instance where she was videoed and somebody in a
17:27
Speaker 1: crowd handed her some flowers and an aid seems to
17:30
Speaker 1: walk up to her and it's like, Oh, I'll take
17:31
Speaker 1: those for you, and she says to she she mouths
17:33
Speaker 1: something to him that's like seems to be Oh my God,
17:36
Speaker 1: I don't worry about it, thank you, and you would
17:39
Speaker 1: the way that people talked about this on the Internet,
17:41
Speaker 1: you would think that she punched this aid and it's
17:43
Speaker 1: like actually, she's just like calmly standing there, saying a sentence,
17:48
Speaker 1: smiling and then like clearly saying thank you, and it's
17:50
Speaker 1: like a thirty second interaction. People were dissecting it like
17:54
Speaker 1: the JFK is a prouder film like she like, people
17:58
Speaker 1: became like, overnight, body language experts and lip readers and
18:02
Speaker 1: it was wild. Yeah, yeah, I want to return to
18:10
Speaker 1: that idea of anti fandom for sure, because I think
18:13
Speaker 1: as someone who is like a fan of a lot
18:15
Speaker 1: of stuff, I've seen this before and it just becomes
18:19
Speaker 1: like this where people feel justified in hating someone. And
18:24
Speaker 1: here's the proof, and I am a body language expert
18:27
Speaker 1: and I can tell you why. Um, but all it
18:30
Speaker 1: is is like they just want to hate that person
18:33
Speaker 1: who usually they feel is encroaching on their territory. And like,
18:41
Speaker 1: as someone who is interested in a lot of like
18:43
Speaker 1: star wars stuff, nerdy stuff, bandom stuff, I'm sure you've
18:47
Speaker 1: seen this a lot. Yes, Oh, I cannot wait to
18:52
Speaker 1: talk about it once we get more in depth about
18:55
Speaker 1: what might be going on here, because, yeah, it's just
18:58
Speaker 1: like it becomes ums. I think I've said to Samantha before,
19:02
Speaker 1: it's like this anti finding up thing is ringing. So
19:05
Speaker 1: truth with me, because I'm like, well, you're not a
19:06
Speaker 1: fan anymore. You're just all about the hate of this.
19:10
Speaker 1: You just are unhappy. So I don't know why you're here.
19:16
Speaker 1: It's to make everyone else feel unhappy and to like
19:19
Speaker 1: assert your what you think is your power and dominance
19:22
Speaker 1: in the space. But you're not a fan, if you
19:26
Speaker 1: hate this much of it, just go, just go along,
19:32
Speaker 1: it's gonna be okay. Oh yeah, and I mean like
19:39
Speaker 1: the levels people will go, the things they'll do to scare,
19:46
Speaker 1: usually women, marginalize people off the Internet is wild to me, Um,
19:53
Speaker 1: and unfortunately very often successful. But like they will come
19:57
Speaker 1: up with all of these things. And you you brought
20:00
Speaker 1: this example of like conspiracy theory right where they were
20:03
Speaker 1: like this, something is wrong here. Yeah, so, like I
20:09
Speaker 1: mean the amount of wild conspiracy theory like people. It's
20:13
Speaker 1: clearly a lot of like projection, where people already have
20:17
Speaker 1: a negative association with someone and then any little thing
20:22
Speaker 1: will be used as proof to stack there, to stack that.
20:26
Speaker 1: That thinking right. And so one of the big conspiracies
20:28
Speaker 1: that came out of the Queen's funeral was that Megan
20:31
Speaker 1: attended the funeral wearing a hidden recording device under her dress.
20:36
Speaker 1: And the reason why people thought this is because she
20:38
Speaker 1: was photographed and in one of the pictures there's like
20:41
Speaker 1: a wrinkle or a bump on her thigh and people
20:44
Speaker 1: were like how like the goal she's gonna be. What
20:48
Speaker 1: is she recording this for her podcast or for some
20:50
Speaker 1: netflix special? So shameless, and it's like, Yo, I have
20:54
Speaker 1: worn those kinds of recording devices in my clothing. They
20:58
Speaker 1: are so bulky. Also, don't you if that was her plan,
21:00
Speaker 1: don't you think she would have worn an outfit that
21:03
Speaker 1: was more conducive, like she wouldn't have worn a dress
21:06
Speaker 1: that it's like, clings to that part of her body.
21:08
Speaker 1: She might have worn something with pockets, like you know
21:10
Speaker 1: she might have. Don't don't you think that if that's
21:12
Speaker 1: what she was doing, she would have done it better?
21:15
Speaker 1: And isn't it more possible that, like humans who wear
21:18
Speaker 1: clothing and stand up wearing that clothing, sometimes experienced wrinkles?
21:21
Speaker 1: Like isn't much more, more of a better explanation from
21:24
Speaker 1: what's going on? I think you're being too logical, bridget sensible.
21:31
Speaker 1: This whole conversation is so odd to me because Megan
21:35
Speaker 1: Markele just being being present marrying a man has caused
21:39
Speaker 1: this huge controversy and of course that a lot of
21:42
Speaker 1: conversations and comparisons to Princess Diana and Megan Markle. Of course,
21:47
Speaker 1: those same people who probably were degrading and or criticizing
21:52
Speaker 1: Princess Diana, would now call her an angel and then
21:56
Speaker 1: saying that Megan Markle is the one that's uh, you know,
21:59
Speaker 1: disrespecting the name of Princess Diana, and every was like wait, what,
22:02
Speaker 1: you're the ones who are number one in criticisms. But also,
22:05
Speaker 1: just like the fact that Mega Markel has nothing, honestly,
22:09
Speaker 1: to gain in this entirety of this conversation, of these controversies,
22:13
Speaker 1: to record any of these things, uh, to try, as
22:17
Speaker 1: they say, that she's trying to make money off these things.
22:19
Speaker 1: She's not. She's literally doing a podcast about her own life,
22:22
Speaker 1: bringing in guests to talk about marginalized issues. That has
22:25
Speaker 1: nothing to do with the throne in general, as well
22:28
Speaker 1: as the fact Prince Harry's not that close, none of
22:31
Speaker 1: his family is not close to the lineage to become
22:34
Speaker 1: king or queen or whatever whatnot. We have already seen
22:37
Speaker 1: the graphs that happened. So like my mind just this
22:40
Speaker 1: reeling of like why, why take this effort to bring
22:42
Speaker 1: this conspiracy other than hey, she's uh, she is not white,
22:49
Speaker 1: so therefore we hate her. Yeah, and you you've touched
22:52
Speaker 1: on something. This is a little bit of a tangent
22:54
Speaker 1: that you touched on something that I think about all
22:56
Speaker 1: the time is how, you know, I was young when
23:01
Speaker 1: before Princess Diana died, but even I know, as like
23:04
Speaker 1: a child living in the United States, even I knew
23:07
Speaker 1: the way the press talked about her, even as a kid,
23:09
Speaker 1: and so the press really tore her down and then
23:12
Speaker 1: when she died, she's an angel we've always loved. It
23:16
Speaker 1: was like, and I see that so often and I
23:19
Speaker 1: do think it's like as bad as the media and
23:21
Speaker 1: the United States is, I do feel like in the
23:23
Speaker 1: UK and in England it's like work can be worse,
23:27
Speaker 1: like a little bit like Um more vicious, and I
23:31
Speaker 1: think about like amy winehouse is the figure, because I
23:34
Speaker 1: was a huge amy winehouse fan. Amy winehouse is the
23:36
Speaker 1: figure that I think about a lot, where the press,
23:39
Speaker 1: in the media loved to villainize her and really make
23:43
Speaker 1: fun of her in these like cruel ways and ways
23:46
Speaker 1: that I hope that when people are struggling with substance
23:50
Speaker 1: issues now, I hope that we've gotten to a place where,
23:52
Speaker 1: like we don't cruelly mock them for it. But then
23:55
Speaker 1: when she died, the way that that that same press
23:59
Speaker 1: rushed to lie and it's her rushed to act as
24:01
Speaker 1: if they had always loved her, and it's just it's
24:03
Speaker 1: hard to see and you know, it's kind of breaks
24:06
Speaker 1: my heart. But there's this video clip of Harry talking
24:10
Speaker 1: about this and he's like basically feels very emphatically that
24:14
Speaker 1: the press, it's responsible for the death of his mother.
24:16
Speaker 1: And then when when there was a time when Megan
24:19
Speaker 1: was open about experiencing, uh, you know, feelings of self harm,
24:24
Speaker 1: and he talked about how he felt like he was
24:27
Speaker 1: watching the press do the same thing to his new wife,
24:32
Speaker 1: that they that he had to watch them due to
24:33
Speaker 1: his mom and I something about that clip really sticks
24:37
Speaker 1: with me. Of like, I don't know, I don't think
24:39
Speaker 1: I'll ever be able to understand what that must feel
24:41
Speaker 1: like to have watched that as a child and be
24:44
Speaker 1: so powerless and then watch it again and be like no,
24:47
Speaker 1: I'm not letting this happen again, and compounding that with
24:51
Speaker 1: the fact that this is an racist attack on a
24:55
Speaker 1: woman for just being in love with a man, point
24:58
Speaker 1: blank Um. But you know, I found it interesting because
25:01
Speaker 1: for me, I actually didn't know much about this Hashtag.
25:06
Speaker 1: I I as much as I'm on twitter and saying things. Again,
25:09
Speaker 1: like I said, my friends have very strong feelings of
25:12
Speaker 1: the Queen and her responsibility and colonialism in itself. So
25:16
Speaker 1: I had a whole different take on this conversation. So
25:19
Speaker 1: I'm kind of surprised to know that this is happening
25:22
Speaker 1: and I'm really wondering where did they all come from?
25:25
Speaker 1: So this is a great question. So I have to
25:27
Speaker 1: say I'm am probably in a similar digital pocket that
25:32
Speaker 1: you are, because my timeline when the queen died was
25:35
Speaker 1: like very much black twitter and like Irish twitter. I
25:39
Speaker 1: would like to make in twitter all coming together. I
25:43
Speaker 1: know that people have how can I put this? I
25:46
Speaker 1: came so when the Queen died, I don't think I
25:49
Speaker 1: realized that I knew people that had a lot had.
25:55
Speaker 1: I was surprised by how much reverence my friends in
25:58
Speaker 1: the United States had for her. So I was okay,
26:00
Speaker 1: she's definitely like a I have friends to think of
26:02
Speaker 1: her as like a like a feminist figure. I was
26:04
Speaker 1: like okay, like I was a little again. This is
26:07
Speaker 1: not to like I don't want to I don't want
26:09
Speaker 1: to say you like I really I realized. I was like, Oh,
26:11
Speaker 1: people have complex feelings about her and it kind of
26:15
Speaker 1: almost became like a raw shark test of where people
26:18
Speaker 1: were at, and I was just very surprised to see
26:20
Speaker 1: that it had not occurred to me that that was
26:22
Speaker 1: going to be the way that it was, I'll put
26:24
Speaker 1: it that way. But yeah, like I said, so that's
26:28
Speaker 1: pucket eyeman. So I'm out of the loop on this one.
26:31
Speaker 1: I did see the real housewives person go out on
26:34
Speaker 1: a tangent on Tiktog and that was very obvious. Like
26:37
Speaker 1: she's jealous of the podcast numbers. UH, fellow, I heart podcaster. Yeah,
26:46
Speaker 1: so she's not gonna want to come onto any of them,
26:50
Speaker 1: I don't feel like anytime soon. I mean love real
26:53
Speaker 1: housewives of New York. She definitely has an issue, like
26:58
Speaker 1: a clear like I saw that video. In that video
27:01
Speaker 1: she's like, Oh, Megan Markel is a bad businesswoman. I
27:04
Speaker 1: was like what do you what do you even know
27:05
Speaker 1: about it? Like I just remember one like yeah, first
27:09
Speaker 1: of all, she her podcast archetypes, toppled Joe Rogan's podcast
27:14
Speaker 1: for the number one spot, which is not even that.
27:16
Speaker 1: That is a that has not happened years or years.
27:20
Speaker 1: So I don't know, it's interesting to me. I think
27:24
Speaker 1: that Megan Markle, and we should talk about it, because
27:27
Speaker 1: I do think Megan markle evokes a reaction in a
27:31
Speaker 1: certain type of person. Just her presence, just her being around,
27:35
Speaker 1: is threatening and like deeply, I think it can like
27:42
Speaker 1: deeply challenge a lot of people's preconceived notions. Right. So
27:47
Speaker 1: I think that, like, I also think that Megan Markele
27:48
Speaker 1: at this point carries herself in a kind of way that, frankly,
27:51
Speaker 1: I think a lot of like white people, might have
27:54
Speaker 1: a problem with. Not Surprising, yeah, but the thing is, like,
27:58
Speaker 1: so that's the only thing I have seen. So I'm
28:00
Speaker 1: trying to figure out where all these conversations are coming
28:02
Speaker 1: from and is it actually reflective of the rest of society,
28:07
Speaker 1: the rest of the peoples and twitters? Well, so that
28:10
Speaker 1: is a very, very interesting question. UH, Christopher boose, who
28:13
Speaker 1: is a CEO of a company called Bot Sentinel, which
28:16
Speaker 1: is an organization that analyzes twitter data to determine, you know,
28:19
Speaker 1: where conversations are coming from, who is generating them, as
28:22
Speaker 1: it's real people with its spots. Um, he did an
28:25
Speaker 1: entire analysis of Megan markel in October one and basically
28:30
Speaker 1: you would be surprised that a lot of the hate
28:33
Speaker 1: thrown at Megan Markel, is being driven by a lot
28:35
Speaker 1: fewer people on social media than you might suspect. So
28:52
Speaker 1: this I'm excited to talk about because I remember forever ago, bridget,
28:57
Speaker 1: when you and I did that episode on Star Wars Feminism.
28:59
Speaker 1: There was a similar thing about star wars, about the
29:03
Speaker 1: hate the actors received. Oh my God, that's right. Yes,
29:08
Speaker 1: and I was shocked and I I've I always try
29:10
Speaker 1: to make the point, believe me, I know there are terrible, racist,
29:15
Speaker 1: sexist fans, believe me, I know that. But the data
29:19
Speaker 1: that came out was like it's way less posting about it.
29:22
Speaker 1: I'M NOT gonna say it's way way well less, it's
29:25
Speaker 1: way less actually posting about it. And still the perception
29:31
Speaker 1: I got was there was this huge sex, sex sect
29:37
Speaker 1: on twitter that was like tearing down these actors and
29:41
Speaker 1: was causing rotten tomatoes to like review bomb. And the
29:44
Speaker 1: report we talked about was like it's actually a lot
29:48
Speaker 1: of bots, and still it has this huge impact. That
29:52
Speaker 1: changed rotten tomatoes and their policy and it changes how
29:57
Speaker 1: people perceive like Disney made creative decisions because the cowards
30:05
Speaker 1: based on this. Like I'm just so glad you brought
30:09
Speaker 1: that up. That's such a good point and I think
30:11
Speaker 1: it really goes to show that like a a pretty
30:15
Speaker 1: small minority of very motivated, very vocal, coordinated, I guess,
30:23
Speaker 1: in a nice way to put it, passionate people can
30:27
Speaker 1: really change discourse, they can really change like, they can
30:31
Speaker 1: really make an impact, and so I would also I
30:33
Speaker 1: would argue then, that, like there's a problem with our
30:37
Speaker 1: social media platforms and our digital platforms. It's a small handful,
30:41
Speaker 1: a relatively small handful, of dedicated trolls and people to
30:46
Speaker 1: people like haters, can really impact and change discourse. Like,
30:50
Speaker 1: I would argue that that means that something is broken, something,
30:53
Speaker 1: it's flawed. And I also think that, you know, when
30:57
Speaker 1: you have a small handful of people Dick tating the
31:00
Speaker 1: conversation and making make creating the impression that everybody hates
31:05
Speaker 1: this new person on star wars or everybody hates Megan Markle,
31:08
Speaker 1: it's so much easier for somebody who, it's just a
31:11
Speaker 1: casual viewer of this to get the idea that, like, oh, well,
31:14
Speaker 1: everybody hates so and so, so like I'm not going
31:17
Speaker 1: to chime in with, like, I like so and so,
31:19
Speaker 1: or that I'm ambivalent about so and so, if I'm
31:21
Speaker 1: going to chime in, it kind of poisons the well
31:24
Speaker 1: and it makes it so that we can't actually have
31:26
Speaker 1: honest conversations rooted in what people actually feel, because it's
31:30
Speaker 1: just like creates an ecosystem where the hate is, it's
31:34
Speaker 1: what's dictating the conversation. And so yeah, I would argue
31:36
Speaker 1: that that means that our ecosystems are not healthy and not,
31:39
Speaker 1: you know, functioning properly if hate is able to dictate
31:43
Speaker 1: the conversation, even if it's a small minority of people
31:46
Speaker 1: who feel that way. Absolutely absolutely, because I was under
31:49
Speaker 1: the impression, I was totally under the impression like Oh oh,
31:51
Speaker 1: this must be a much bigger group of people than
31:54
Speaker 1: I thought. Even if I was like they're wrong and
31:56
Speaker 1: they're full of hate, I still thought it was way bigger.
31:59
Speaker 1: And then numbers you brought about Megan markle kind of
32:04
Speaker 1: shocked me with like how much smaller they were based
32:07
Speaker 1: on what I have seen as a casual viewer of this. Absolutely.
32:13
Speaker 1: So let's dig into some of those numbers. So from
32:15
Speaker 1: this Bot Sentinel report, they found that only eighty three
32:19
Speaker 1: accounts on twitter generate seventy of Megan markle hate content
32:24
Speaker 1: on twitter. They estimate that these eight three accounts have
32:28
Speaker 1: a potential combined reach of seventeen million users. So they
32:33
Speaker 1: broke it down. They found that fifty five what we
32:35
Speaker 1: call single purpose anti Megan markle hate accounts, and so
32:39
Speaker 1: a single purpose hate account is that account that like
32:41
Speaker 1: it only exists to hate on one person like that,
32:45
Speaker 1: like they're not like primarily like that's what they're doing.
32:47
Speaker 1: So fifty five of those accounts were these like primary
32:51
Speaker 1: hate accounts and then another twenty eight secondary accounts that
32:55
Speaker 1: like mainly amplified them. And so those twenty eight accounts,
32:58
Speaker 1: they might post about like the royals more generally, but
33:02
Speaker 1: that their real function is to boost and amplify when
33:06
Speaker 1: those that when those other primary accounts put out anti
33:10
Speaker 1: meg and Markle hate, and so that that's really it.
33:13
Speaker 1: Like they are generating a lot of the hate online.
33:16
Speaker 1: It is not organic conversation and it's certainly not a
33:21
Speaker 1: reflection of how just everybody feels on social media because
33:25
Speaker 1: these these accounts have such a big reach and such
33:28
Speaker 1: a big ability to control the conversation about Megan Markle. Yeah, yeah,
33:32
Speaker 1: and that's something that you've you've come on and you've
33:34
Speaker 1: talked about a lot on here. Is this the responsibility
33:38
Speaker 1: of social media platforms, but also that kind of manipulation
33:42
Speaker 1: towards these hateful accounts when it comes to the algorithm
33:48
Speaker 1: and like what people see and what gets like more traction. Right. Yeah, exactly,
33:53
Speaker 1: and so I I have a little bit of a
33:56
Speaker 1: different opinion than a lot of my colleagues in the
33:59
Speaker 1: platform acountability, in disinformation space. A lot of people would
34:02
Speaker 1: say single use hate accounts should be banned from the Internet.
34:05
Speaker 1: Like if you are someone who is running an account
34:07
Speaker 1: and the only that account only exists to hate on
34:11
Speaker 1: one specific person, it should be banned. I can understand
34:15
Speaker 1: that view, but I think that the most important thing
34:17
Speaker 1: is that platforms should not be amplifying it. They shouldn't
34:21
Speaker 1: be recommending those accounts to people. When you when you
34:24
Speaker 1: search Megan markel information, those accounts shall not be the
34:27
Speaker 1: ones that are prioritized and that that users see first.
34:30
Speaker 1: What users see first should be like thoughtful, honest information
34:33
Speaker 1: from sites that are that do not exist only to
34:36
Speaker 1: spread hated at this one person. And so it is
34:39
Speaker 1: interesting that, like on a platform like twitter, these eight
34:44
Speaker 1: three accounts that are driving most of the conversation around,
34:46
Speaker 1: the negative conversation around Megan Markel. They kind of blatantly
34:50
Speaker 1: violate twitter's rules. Like one of twitter's rules is that
34:53
Speaker 1: accounts cannot coordinate to dogpile on people, to harass them
34:58
Speaker 1: or to like spread negativity around them. These accounts do
35:01
Speaker 1: just that, right, and they do so in like a
35:05
Speaker 1: pretty sophisticated coordination with each other. And Yeah, I think
35:10
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where platforms really need to
35:14
Speaker 1: understand what's at stake when this is allowed, when like
35:18
Speaker 1: a small handful of accounts are able to bypass the
35:21
Speaker 1: rules that you have set for your platform in order
35:24
Speaker 1: to artificially control the discourse about one subject, that's not great. No, no,
35:31
Speaker 1: it's not, and it's kind of frightening, to be honest.
35:35
Speaker 1: And you had to quote bose, talked about this, like
35:38
Speaker 1: making the clarification that, like we can't just blame boughts.
35:44
Speaker 1: So I find this super interesting because, you know, we often,
35:48
Speaker 1: when it comes to online discourse, talk about like well,
35:51
Speaker 1: is it boughts, is it people? And I feel like
35:53
Speaker 1: the over focused like talking about both is serious and
35:58
Speaker 1: we should be doing that. But when we focus on
36:00
Speaker 1: that and don't also bring into the conversation that sometimes
36:04
Speaker 1: it is real people. I feel like the conversation can
36:06
Speaker 1: be not as useful because it obscared the fact that, like, well,
36:10
Speaker 1: it isn't all bought. Some of it is like real people.
36:13
Speaker 1: And so in an interview with Buzzfeed boose, I said
36:16
Speaker 1: this campaign comes from people who know how to manipulate
36:19
Speaker 1: the algorithms, manipulate twitter, stay under the wire to avoid
36:22
Speaker 1: detection and suspension. This level of complexity comes from people
36:26
Speaker 1: who know how to do this stuff and who are
36:28
Speaker 1: paid to do this stuff. And so yeah, I think especially,
36:31
Speaker 1: what do you think about the fact that people can
36:34
Speaker 1: profit from this? I think it really should be who
36:37
Speaker 1: these platforms to make a change. I mean that's the
36:40
Speaker 1: big conversation, is that people are making money and can
36:43
Speaker 1: make a living off of this. And why is this
36:45
Speaker 1: something that is profitable? So it's not just they're making money,
36:48
Speaker 1: but they're profiting, and literally off of hate, because over
36:53
Speaker 1: here I have at least four times the amount of
36:56
Speaker 1: the bots following me and I can only get three
36:59
Speaker 1: people to look at my time. To me, how come
37:01
Speaker 1: on rageous. But I find that interesting that we have
37:11
Speaker 1: had this continuous talk and we have these prime examples
37:15
Speaker 1: of what is happening on twitter specifically. Like we talked
37:18
Speaker 1: recently about one of the Canadian Um women who is
37:22
Speaker 1: currently working with bumble and making sure that there's safety
37:26
Speaker 1: for the women who are and those who are on
37:28
Speaker 1: their APP and that one of her big things where
37:30
Speaker 1: that she was bringing out the reports showing how twitter
37:33
Speaker 1: does not help or defend or make twitter safe for
37:38
Speaker 1: women and marginalized people. And, uh, if so, just recently
37:41
Speaker 1: came out with a big research data showing that women
37:45
Speaker 1: are still being heavily targeted and are not being helped
37:48
Speaker 1: at all by platforms in general and that the fact
37:51
Speaker 1: of the matter is people are once again profiting. Have
37:55
Speaker 1: become have become aware of Oh so we can make
37:59
Speaker 1: money by essentially on women and women of color and
38:03
Speaker 1: doing so in a way that not only can we
38:06
Speaker 1: get away with it, not only can we make money,
38:08
Speaker 1: but it's making a difference, uh, in people's reaction to this. Yeah,
38:12
Speaker 1: I mean like and so you're exactly right. Like this,
38:15
Speaker 1: the research is it completely jives with what you're saying.
38:19
Speaker 1: You are exactly exactly right, and as bad as that
38:22
Speaker 1: is right. So, like platforms are like. I would argue
38:26
Speaker 1: that this, this kind of negative engagement and harassment and
38:30
Speaker 1: abuse of women of Color on these platforms. I would
38:33
Speaker 1: argue that is built into these business models like twitter,
38:38
Speaker 1: when when somebody tweets something that is like crapping on
38:41
Speaker 1: Megan Markele and it's getting lots of engagement, it is
38:44
Speaker 1: in twitter's best financial interest to boost that and amplify
38:48
Speaker 1: that because it's like, Oh, this is clicking, people are
38:50
Speaker 1: people are paying attention to this. That's a problem and
38:53
Speaker 1: I also think that, you know, we're talking about Megan Markle,
38:56
Speaker 1: who is a public figure, but she's not a political
38:58
Speaker 1: figure necessarily. We're talking about star wars and like fandom.
39:02
Speaker 1: Think about how that, like, as bad as that is,
39:05
Speaker 1: apply that to democracy, apply that to women and women
39:09
Speaker 1: of color who are trying to run for office, apply
39:12
Speaker 1: that to women and women of color and other marginalized
39:15
Speaker 1: people who are trying to engage in our democracy and
39:19
Speaker 1: be part of civic and public life right and so
39:21
Speaker 1: the implications really become clear. If it's this bad for
39:25
Speaker 1: conversations that are, you know, about pop culture and like celebrities,
39:30
Speaker 1: imagine how how big the stakes are when that same
39:34
Speaker 1: dynamic is applied to people who are just trying to
39:36
Speaker 1: run for office or just trying to make their voices
39:38
Speaker 1: heard and participate fully in our democracy. Right. And the
39:41
Speaker 1: one report we were talking about, they were specifically focusing
39:44
Speaker 1: on journalists and talking about this is a part of
39:46
Speaker 1: their job description, and I think about that all the time.
39:48
Speaker 1: I'm like, Oh my God, because technically is a part
39:50
Speaker 1: of our job description and I hate it. I hate
39:52
Speaker 1: it so much because I don't want to become a
39:53
Speaker 1: focal point at any point. Nothing that we are, thank God,
39:56
Speaker 1: because we go under the radar as well, like I
39:57
Speaker 1: said to people like my tweets, it's fine, um, but
40:00
Speaker 1: we go under the radar enough that, you know, we
40:03
Speaker 1: don't have to deal with that before someone who has
40:05
Speaker 1: is being told if you don't get your views up,
40:08
Speaker 1: you're not going to get paid or you're not going
40:10
Speaker 1: to stay in this job. I couldn't imagine. So I
40:14
Speaker 1: actually literally just left a summit all about this as
40:19
Speaker 1: it pertains to journalism, and I when I was a kid,
40:22
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a journalist, right, like I was
40:24
Speaker 1: obsessed with April O'Neil from teenage, mutant into turtles. I
40:28
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a journalist like that was like
40:30
Speaker 1: the career that I wanted to go into and today
40:34
Speaker 1: the fact that young women like who are younger, go
40:39
Speaker 1: into journalism like like willingly. It surprises me because I
40:43
Speaker 1: think a lot of women have women are smart enough
40:46
Speaker 1: to realize if I'm going if the cost of doing
40:50
Speaker 1: this job is dealing with online abuse, online harassment, online violence,
40:56
Speaker 1: and my male counterparts are not dealing with it the
40:59
Speaker 1: same way that I am. So it's just like it's
41:01
Speaker 1: just like an extra woman tax or, you know, marginalization
41:05
Speaker 1: tax in the workplace, and institutions largely do not know
41:10
Speaker 1: how to support women who are going through this and
41:12
Speaker 1: dealing with this, and so it's like just their problem.
41:15
Speaker 1: There's an assumption that the person who is the focal
41:18
Speaker 1: point of harassment and abuse that they've done something to
41:21
Speaker 1: warrant it, and that completely is not how it works.
41:24
Speaker 1: Like oftentimes the thing that they're doing is like existing
41:27
Speaker 1: as a woman Um. And so think about what we
41:31
Speaker 1: are asking women to deal with. It's just completely unfair
41:36
Speaker 1: and we're asking them to deal with it and not
41:38
Speaker 1: even talk about the issue right and so it's just
41:41
Speaker 1: completely it's that's up a completely unfair dynamic. When I
41:43
Speaker 1: think about how many people have either just given up
41:47
Speaker 1: on this as a career they're just like, I'm not
41:49
Speaker 1: going to get on social media. It's not worth it.
41:51
Speaker 1: It has the ability to suppress women from being involved
41:55
Speaker 1: in public and civic life. And the worst part is
41:57
Speaker 1: is like we were just now talking about it. We're
42:00
Speaker 1: so late in bringing it up right, and that's in fact.
42:03
Speaker 1: These reports are specific to twitter, but it's been happening.
42:06
Speaker 1: It's been happening on bigger platforms and other social media's right. Oh,
42:09
Speaker 1: absolutely it is. I don't want to give the impression
42:11
Speaker 1: that it is just twitter, because that is not the case.
42:14
Speaker 1: Um Soot Sentinel also analyzed youtube accounts and they found that,
42:18
Speaker 1: because of Youtube Monetization, trashing Megan Markel is actually big,
42:23
Speaker 1: lucrative business. They found that twenty five youtube channels earned
42:26
Speaker 1: around three point five million from ad revenue and that
42:31
Speaker 1: three of the most successful anti Megan markel accounts generated
42:34
Speaker 1: almost five hundred thousand dollars during their existence. And these
42:38
Speaker 1: videos are like it's not like they're filming. You know,
42:44
Speaker 1: I know, but yess it's not. Like. They're low quality
42:49
Speaker 1: videos that basically just traffic in conspiracy theories and outright
42:53
Speaker 1: lies and like racist stereotypes and tropes, right, and so
42:58
Speaker 1: like some of the aims that they'll make is like, oh,
43:01
Speaker 1: Megan Markel, she baked her pregnancy, she used to serogate
43:04
Speaker 1: like it's it's things that are completely baseless lies, and
43:08
Speaker 1: I think that if you are able to make half
43:11
Speaker 1: a million dollars almost trafficking in baseless lies and conjecture
43:16
Speaker 1: and racism and sexism, you shouldn't be able to. If
43:19
Speaker 1: you're able to make that kind of money from that,
43:21
Speaker 1: something is wrong, like something is really broken. Yeah, yeah,
43:25
Speaker 1: I mean agreed, because it's like not that this always works,
43:30
Speaker 1: but there's been attempts to crack down on like medical misinformation. Um,
43:37
Speaker 1: like you can't make money off of that. It's been
43:40
Speaker 1: hit or miss, but there have been attempts and it
43:43
Speaker 1: seems like if there's just something flatly untrue, you should
43:46
Speaker 1: not be making millions of dollars from it by saying
43:50
Speaker 1: that it is true. And then just like the the
43:56
Speaker 1: spreading of that Um and how harmful that is is
44:00
Speaker 1: on these platforms and we've seen and, like we said,
44:04
Speaker 1: like the trickle effect of people believing that this is
44:08
Speaker 1: the discourse. And so therefore women have it hard enough already,
44:12
Speaker 1: like in the public office, like I just don't like her.
44:15
Speaker 1: There's something about her, and to have like just this
44:17
Speaker 1: overwhelming discourse of like no, no one likes her, and
44:23
Speaker 1: so it just it just seems so toxic and that
44:26
Speaker 1: people are making money from it is very frustrating and
44:30
Speaker 1: I definitely agree. That means something is wrong here. Yeah,
44:34
Speaker 1: and I want to be clear, like I didn't really
44:36
Speaker 1: have strong feelings about Megan Markele. I like that she's
44:39
Speaker 1: a black princess, but or was a black princess. And Yeah,
44:42
Speaker 1: I know she wasn't really princess, but whatever. I but like,
44:45
Speaker 1: if you don't like Megan Markele, that's fine, you're it's
44:49
Speaker 1: it's totally within your right to be like, I don't
44:51
Speaker 1: like her. Rothers to me the wrong way, whatever. We
44:54
Speaker 1: all have people that we don't like, but that is
44:56
Speaker 1: very different than you know. I am going to spearhead
45:01
Speaker 1: a coordinated campaign to make it seem like everybody doesn't
45:06
Speaker 1: like her, and that campaign is going to be built
45:09
Speaker 1: on racism, sexism and lies about who she is. And
45:13
Speaker 1: I say that because when you do that, you're making
45:18
Speaker 1: us all less safe. It truly does threaten our democracy.
45:21
Speaker 1: When you're able to tell those kinds of inflammatory lies
45:25
Speaker 1: and have them take up so much space in the room,
45:28
Speaker 1: it makes all of us that much less safe, particularly
45:31
Speaker 1: women and women of Color. It makes it so much
45:32
Speaker 1: harder for us to thrive at environments where we can
45:35
Speaker 1: be judged on our character, things that we actually do
45:38
Speaker 1: and actually say, not made up conspiracy theories about us
45:42
Speaker 1: putting microphones in our panties. Right, like, we need to
45:46
Speaker 1: have a discourse where honest, thoughtful, accurate conversation about who
45:52
Speaker 1: we are as marginalized people dominates and crap like that
45:56
Speaker 1: does not. Yeah, yeah, I remember very vividly this essay
46:02
Speaker 1: I read a while back. That was like, you know,
46:04
Speaker 1: if a woman stands up in the town square and
46:06
Speaker 1: it is saying something is wrong here, and as thousand
46:09
Speaker 1: men threatened her with violence and are screaming over her,
46:11
Speaker 1: who's like freedom of speech is being threatened here, because
46:16
Speaker 1: it feels like that. Because, like you said, so many
46:18
Speaker 1: people leave, so many Marchinines, people and women leave because
46:23
Speaker 1: they're facing this. What they feel? What? What is this? Like?
46:27
Speaker 1: Shouting hateful vitriol that makes you feel unsafe in this
46:33
Speaker 1: space and it makes it impossible for us to have
46:34
Speaker 1: these healthy conversations that are necessary and needed for a democracy. Absolutely,
46:39
Speaker 1: I would also argue that like that it's by design.
46:42
Speaker 1: It's meant to come up the works. It's meant to
46:44
Speaker 1: have people who are interested in actual discussion and dialogue
46:47
Speaker 1: to check out and be like, no, banks don't want
46:49
Speaker 1: to risk risk it by putting my thoughts out there,
46:52
Speaker 1: and it's meant to make sure that we can't find unity,
46:55
Speaker 1: that we can't come together, that we can't make progress
46:58
Speaker 1: on all the issues that are impacting us and have
47:00
Speaker 1: of the conversations that we need to have that might
47:02
Speaker 1: move us forward on those issues. Right well, Virgid, is
47:07
Speaker 1: there any has there been any changes? Is there any hope?
47:11
Speaker 1: There is a little bit of hope, right so, earlier
47:13
Speaker 1: so I mentioned how on Youtube people are able to
47:16
Speaker 1: make big money basically just running single purpose hate accounts
47:20
Speaker 1: against Megan Markele. Not Anymore. Earlier this year youtube made
47:24
Speaker 1: a big change. They do ranked Anti Megan market results
47:27
Speaker 1: from their search. In a really great buzzfeed piece by
47:30
Speaker 1: Ellie Hall, which shout out to Elliet Hall. She has
47:32
Speaker 1: done some fantastic reporting on Megan markel and race and
47:35
Speaker 1: culture and what it all means. UH, Ellie Hall rights,
47:40
Speaker 1: but now you'll only find videos from verified accounts and
47:43
Speaker 1: news outlets in the Youtube search results for Megan Markel
47:46
Speaker 1: and first recommendations in the sidebar. Even if you explicitly
47:49
Speaker 1: searched for and started watching videos that accused Megan markle
47:53
Speaker 1: of being a narcissist or videos claiming that she wore
47:56
Speaker 1: fake ballet to make herself look pregnant, Youtube's recommendation sidebar
48:00
Speaker 1: won't initially serve you similar videos. And so, uh, I
48:04
Speaker 1: do think that that is a step in the right direction. Like,
48:07
Speaker 1: I gotta give it to Youtube that that was a
48:09
Speaker 1: good call because, yeah, when you search any topic, but
48:14
Speaker 1: let's use Megan Markel at an example, it is not,
48:17
Speaker 1: it should not be, in Youtube's best interest for the
48:20
Speaker 1: first search results, but I think that they're promoting for
48:22
Speaker 1: the recommended videos that they're surfacing to you to be
48:25
Speaker 1: videos from people whose whole thing is hating on that
48:29
Speaker 1: one thing. Right, it should be honest, accurate content. I
48:34
Speaker 1: would love to throw and thoughtful in there, but I
48:36
Speaker 1: think if you can just get accurate, that would be great.
48:39
Speaker 1: That would be a great start for just just just
48:43
Speaker 1: do this, because it's gotten so off the roils and
48:46
Speaker 1: it's just like just just be true. At least if
48:48
Speaker 1: you're going to say nic and Markle is married to
48:51
Speaker 1: Prince Harry, just Indo with that. I'll watch that over.
49:10
Speaker 1: This is the biggest conversation. Like, why is it significant?
49:13
Speaker 1: When people talk about Megan Markel knew what she was
49:15
Speaker 1: coming into. Again, it's just one of those places of like,
49:18
Speaker 1: but she just got married, but that's the end. She
49:21
Speaker 1: didn't want to be a princess because so many accusations
49:24
Speaker 1: came at her that they're like, you know what, we're
49:26
Speaker 1: leaving this royal family stuff. We're done. We're done because
49:28
Speaker 1: we're getting attacked from every circle, whether it's she's uh,
49:32
Speaker 1: a gold digger slash, I guess, a royalty digger. Is that?
49:35
Speaker 1: Is that? That's a name. Is that of something um
49:37
Speaker 1: or versus to her want to disrupt the family, all
49:41
Speaker 1: of these things that what just happened was they got
49:43
Speaker 1: set up. They are famous. She wasn't that famous. She
49:47
Speaker 1: just she was an actress. She was good at our job.
49:49
Speaker 1: She could have kept going. She met him, got married
49:52
Speaker 1: and that's it. She's not trying to be political, she's
49:55
Speaker 1: not trying to be royalty. She just wants to be
49:57
Speaker 1: a part of our family. Has Some really good, good
49:59
Speaker 1: relations up with her mother, bad relationship with bother, just
50:03
Speaker 1: being that, and because of that she's getting all this
50:05
Speaker 1: vitriol being compared to the other royalties. Uh, we we
50:09
Speaker 1: know what this is, we know what this looks like,
50:12
Speaker 1: and for her, who was not even on social media,
50:14
Speaker 1: who continues to be attacked, is just one of those
50:17
Speaker 1: parts of like she doesn't deserve this. There's nothing that
50:20
Speaker 1: she did that deserves this. There's no conversation where we
50:24
Speaker 1: think that this is earned and she she put herself
50:28
Speaker 1: out there. She's not a politician taking a stance on anything.
50:31
Speaker 1: She's just being like, that's it. Yeah, you something that
50:38
Speaker 1: you said. I hadn't even really thought about this, but
50:40
Speaker 1: I think that people's reactions to Megan markle really demonstrate
50:44
Speaker 1: how women of color especially, are really not allowed to
50:48
Speaker 1: publicly be multifaceted, complex humans. It's like the fact that like, Oh,
50:54
Speaker 1: she has a, you know, complicated relationship with her father,
50:59
Speaker 1: who doesn't like they use these incredibly human things where
51:03
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, welcome to being a human in relationships
51:06
Speaker 1: with other humans. Sometimes that these things happen like they
51:09
Speaker 1: find these incredibly human things that we all experience and
51:14
Speaker 1: they they use it or they frame it as like
51:16
Speaker 1: a negative against her in these ways that I just
51:19
Speaker 1: think are just completely transparent. It's so obvious what's happening
51:22
Speaker 1: and the way that they talk about her with this
51:24
Speaker 1: like I'm wanna say this. They're quite good at talking
51:28
Speaker 1: about her with this plausible deniability of like, Oh, I
51:32
Speaker 1: didn't mean I didn't mean that racially. When I called
51:34
Speaker 1: her Compton Kate, even though she's not from Compton, I
51:37
Speaker 1: didn't mean anything race like race truly, but I didn't
51:40
Speaker 1: say anything racially motivated there. I was just saying she's
51:43
Speaker 1: from California and Compton it's also a city in California.
51:47
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, yeah, I mean, this is again I
51:56
Speaker 1: feel like we need a new segment, bridget, where you
51:58
Speaker 1: come on and we do like but I feel like this,
52:02
Speaker 1: there's so much of this. It is like questioning women's
52:07
Speaker 1: ambition and it still seems to be in this very
52:10
Speaker 1: like old system of royalty, like Oh, she's just trying
52:14
Speaker 1: to marry into the royal family, we can't trust anything
52:17
Speaker 1: she does and she's trying to ruin this tradition by
52:21
Speaker 1: being her and like just constantly questioning and calling out
52:28
Speaker 1: what women's intentions are. And it's funny because I find
52:35
Speaker 1: myself having I mean, these systems are so ingrained that
52:40
Speaker 1: I'm not immune to it. Like I when I read
52:43
Speaker 1: articles about ambitious women, like I have to really check
52:48
Speaker 1: myself internally and be like, well, are you really just
52:50
Speaker 1: like adding this like sexist trope on to this woman
52:53
Speaker 1: that assumes that she must be, you know, misleading this
52:59
Speaker 1: like simple childlike man who doesn't know any better? And
53:02
Speaker 1: and oftentimes the answer is yes, and I have to
53:04
Speaker 1: step back and be like, well, let's unpack why. Your
53:06
Speaker 1: assumption was that this woman, who is ambitious and powerful,
53:10
Speaker 1: must be, you know, calling the shots and misleading this
53:14
Speaker 1: like dull Lord of a man? Isn't that kind of
53:16
Speaker 1: insulting to both of them? Yeah, it just goes to
53:19
Speaker 1: show like how ingrained these these systems are and how
53:23
Speaker 1: insidious they are and the work that each individual needs
53:26
Speaker 1: to do to unpack them, and myself very much included, right, yeah, me,
53:31
Speaker 1: all of us. I think we all have these things
53:34
Speaker 1: that we just didn't realize that we did internalize so much.
53:37
Speaker 1: And something like this, you know, the royal family, mega
53:42
Speaker 1: markle can seem kind of frivolous. It's not that it
53:47
Speaker 1: can kind of feel that way because celebrity culture kind
53:50
Speaker 1: of insights that a lot. But, as we've been alluding
53:53
Speaker 1: to a lot throughout this, it does matter right, oh,
53:57
Speaker 1: it matters hugely. Like I would say that the reactions
54:00
Speaker 1: of Megan markel really shows how easy it is for
54:02
Speaker 1: a relatively small amount of people to create an effective
54:05
Speaker 1: and negative echo chamber that can be fueled by things
54:08
Speaker 1: like racism and sexism. You know, again, if eighty three
54:12
Speaker 1: accounts are able to generate the majority of negative chatter
54:15
Speaker 1: about one person and create the impression inorganically that that
54:20
Speaker 1: is the overall sentiment of that person, it kind of
54:23
Speaker 1: means that our digital landscape, in our platforms might not
54:25
Speaker 1: be so healthy. Yes, yes, and, and I don't think
54:29
Speaker 1: we went over this, but there were those. The people
54:32
Speaker 1: who are doing this, who are running these accounts, know
54:35
Speaker 1: what they're doing. They know how to manipulate the system.
54:37
Speaker 1: We talked about that, but they have like very specific ways.
54:39
Speaker 1: So if there's if we are on working in these
54:42
Speaker 1: systems where the eight three, these eighty three people can
54:46
Speaker 1: just manipulate these rules and kind of skate being banned.
54:49
Speaker 1: And these what some people who are maybe casual twitter
54:54
Speaker 1: users or have users assume, like, oh, twitter has these rules,
54:57
Speaker 1: they'll kick people off. But that's not working either. No,
55:02
Speaker 1: it's not working right. And so I would say the
55:04
Speaker 1: fact that platforms still allow this largely is a big problem, right,
55:09
Speaker 1: and the fact that it's profitable, that you can make
55:11
Speaker 1: money from it, and I think it's incentivized. And so again,
55:14
Speaker 1: like we it's these eighty three people are bad actors,
55:18
Speaker 1: but also, more institutionally, platforms need to do something to
55:22
Speaker 1: make sure that relatively small handful of people can't hijack
55:26
Speaker 1: an entire conversation about a subject. And again, I know
55:28
Speaker 1: that a lot of people that I respect would say
55:31
Speaker 1: that the answer is to ban single issue hate accounts
55:34
Speaker 1: or single person hate accounts, that we should be banning those,
55:37
Speaker 1: and I again, I I think that there's always going
55:40
Speaker 1: to be people who, they're staying is hating on other
55:43
Speaker 1: public figures, and so I don't necessarily think that that
55:46
Speaker 1: those people should not be able to do that. Like,
55:49
Speaker 1: I don't love it and like I wouldn't recommend it
55:51
Speaker 1: and I would never be friends with somebody who would
55:52
Speaker 1: do that. And I would never do that, but there's
55:54
Speaker 1: I feel that there's always going to be people who
55:57
Speaker 1: are hell bent on hating on others and I think
56:00
Speaker 1: that's just a reality of the world that we live in.
56:02
Speaker 1: But even so, platforms don't have to make money off
56:06
Speaker 1: of it, profit off of it, amplify it, normalize it,
56:09
Speaker 1: you know, like they can take some accountability. And so
56:13
Speaker 1: I don't know, I think that the real, the real,
56:15
Speaker 1: for me at least, the real problem here, is what
56:19
Speaker 1: happens when platforms just allow this and it becomes the norm,
56:22
Speaker 1: because I really have seen the way that this same
56:24
Speaker 1: dynamic can be applied to political leaders, women running for office,
56:29
Speaker 1: women journalists, and I think the implications when you apply
56:32
Speaker 1: it that way, really become clear. It's it's, it's they're
56:35
Speaker 1: quite dire. And Yeah, people can make money off of it.
56:38
Speaker 1: Like the fact that we're looking at Forbes magazine with
56:42
Speaker 1: tiktok stars talking about how the number one stars making
56:45
Speaker 1: almost twenty million dollars per you. It's kind of like what, wait, what?
56:50
Speaker 1: And the realization is literally, Tiktok, the platform, helped elevate
56:55
Speaker 1: these individuals and have made them a household market and
56:58
Speaker 1: have made them profitable, have created a new genre of celebrities.
57:03
Speaker 1: Is that a thing? Right? I mean, the fact is
57:08
Speaker 1: they have a lot of power, whether we want to
57:12
Speaker 1: admit it or not, and it it plays into, obviously,
57:15
Speaker 1: as you were talking about star wars, it plays into movies,
57:18
Speaker 1: is played into what's being created, it's plays into what's
57:21
Speaker 1: being pulled. Is played into who ends up being on UH,
57:25
Speaker 1: who ends up becoming leaders. It absolutely affects everything, and
57:29
Speaker 1: when it's specifically targeted to silence marginalized individuals, like what
57:34
Speaker 1: has happened with Megan markel that she got off of
57:37
Speaker 1: social media. We've seen many teen celebrities, young girls, get
57:40
Speaker 1: off social media because it's the constant were rating, constant
57:43
Speaker 1: trolling that it becomes a thing. We've seen individuals being
57:48
Speaker 1: terrorized for making a comment about someone's favorite musicians. It's
57:51
Speaker 1: the whole level of like what is happening and the
57:55
Speaker 1: fact that this has allowed to happen and there's no
57:57
Speaker 1: one who seemingly controls it, even though it's under a
58:00
Speaker 1: platform that is a private company. Exactly. I mean, I
58:03
Speaker 1: couldn't have put it better myself. And when I think
58:06
Speaker 1: about the ways that, you know, the younger generation, the
58:09
Speaker 1: generation coming up behind me. They're largely, like you know,
58:13
Speaker 1: the on online generation, and so they're learning about politics
58:17
Speaker 1: and the world around them and civic engagement from the Internet.
58:20
Speaker 1: The ways that they exert that power in those voices
58:23
Speaker 1: is are are largely online. If our online systems are
58:26
Speaker 1: so toxic that people don't even want to be part
58:29
Speaker 1: of them, that is an entire generation of marginalized young
58:32
Speaker 1: people who, early on, have just checked out, and that
58:36
Speaker 1: is a huge problem. Yeah, yeah, and on top of that,
58:39
Speaker 1: I think of kind of the toxic messaging we get
58:44
Speaker 1: from a very young age um as women, and so
58:48
Speaker 1: you internalize some of this stuff and then if you
58:51
Speaker 1: were exposed to these social platforms that are just reinforcing
58:54
Speaker 1: all the toxic messaging, that's not good. That's that's very,
58:58
Speaker 1: very bad. Yes, yeah, I guess like I just strongly
59:05
Speaker 1: feel that we all deserve better. Like we we we
59:08
Speaker 1: can have better. The reason why things are not better,
59:12
Speaker 1: I would argue, or because it's lining the pockets of
59:15
Speaker 1: mostly white, straight SYS men who build these systems and
59:18
Speaker 1: profit from them and them. We deserve better. I don't
59:22
Speaker 1: care if they all go bankrupt if it means that
59:24
Speaker 1: we can have something better. For the rest of us. Yes,
59:26
Speaker 1: keep the rich. I like it, I love it. Um. Well,
59:32
Speaker 1: thank you so much as always, bridget. It was a
59:35
Speaker 1: delight to have you. Every time we have these I'm like, well,
59:38
Speaker 1: we gotta talk about this, we're gonna talk about this,
59:40
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about this. So are there any resources
59:44
Speaker 1: you want to shout out or where can the listeners
59:47
Speaker 1: find you both? Well, I definitely recommend checking out bought
59:50
Speaker 1: Sentinel's work. They put out research briefings that are so fascinating,
59:53
Speaker 1: and Christopher bouse has done such a good job of
59:56
Speaker 1: really helping me understand what's happening on the Internet. So
59:59
Speaker 1: definitely at them out. Um, you can follow me on
1:00:02
Speaker 1: twitter at Bridget Murray or on Instagram at Bridget Marian
1:00:04
Speaker 1: D C, and check out my podcast. There are no
1:00:07
Speaker 1: girls on the Internet. Yes, yes, yes, absolutely do that, listeners,
1:00:10
Speaker 1: if you have not already, thank you again, a bridget,
1:00:13
Speaker 1: for being here. Cannot wait until the next time. Me Too.
1:00:16
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. Yes, absolutely, I always have wonderful,
1:00:20
Speaker 1: wonderful pleasure and listeners, if you would like to contact us,
1:00:23
Speaker 1: you can or emails. stuffit me. The amout stuff at
1:00:25
Speaker 1: I hurt meat dot com. You can find us on twitter,
1:00:27
Speaker 1: at MOMS podcast or instagram and stuff I never told you. Thanks,
1:00:29
Speaker 1: as always, to our super producer, Christina. Thank you, Christina,
1:00:33
Speaker 1: and thanks to you for listening. Someone never told you
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Speaker 1: the protection of I heart radio. For more podcast in
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Speaker 1: my heart radio, you can check out the heart radio APP,
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Speaker 1: Apple Podcast, wherever you listen to your favorite shows,