Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / Facebook is Harming Teen Girls

Transcript

Facebook is Harming Teen Girls · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stuff
0:07
Speaker 1: I've Never told you production for iHeart Radio. Today. We
0:19
Speaker 1: are so thrilled to once again be joined by the
0:22
Speaker 1: amazing Bridget Todd. Hello Bridget, Hello Annie, Hello Sam. I'm
0:28
Speaker 1: so excited to be here back with y'all again. Always
0:30
Speaker 1: a delight. We're so excited to have you because as
0:34
Speaker 1: we were just discussing, you have brought to the table
0:38
Speaker 1: a topic we wanted to address. We knew super important,
0:42
Speaker 1: but we were like, we better wait for Bridget, because Bridget,
0:45
Speaker 1: you have got more no, no, how than than either
0:49
Speaker 1: of us do. You've worked with Facebook, You've interacted with
0:52
Speaker 1: these social media companies, You've just been a huge activist
0:55
Speaker 1: and a very outspoken in this area and so so
1:00
Speaker 1: excited where you're talking about this today. Yeah, and also
1:05
Speaker 1: when we're talking about social media, I'm not gonna lie,
1:07
Speaker 1: you're one of the people that I see the most
1:09
Speaker 1: of in all of my social media is whether it's Twitter, Instagram,
1:13
Speaker 1: typically more Twitter, and then like Instagram, I see your
1:17
Speaker 1: face and the amazing things you're doing, and I have
1:19
Speaker 1: to ask, I cannot figure out how you're doing everything
1:23
Speaker 1: that you are doing because you're constantly on go, Like
1:26
Speaker 1: I see you in all the panels and all the conversations,
1:29
Speaker 1: all the interviews. Everybody wants to talk to you, of course,
1:31
Speaker 1: but also you live what I am seeing to be
1:35
Speaker 1: my fantasy life in the travel, Like, is this your
1:39
Speaker 1: real life? Are you as fantastically living as I see?
1:43
Speaker 1: Because I'm quite jealous of all of the beautiful trips,
1:46
Speaker 1: all of the sunset pictures, all the lovely like sitting
1:50
Speaker 1: by the water pictures. What is this life? What is
1:52
Speaker 1: your life? Bridget I'm so glad you asked. So this
1:55
Speaker 1: is actually such a good segue into the topic, which
1:58
Speaker 1: is that. I think if you were going to check
2:00
Speaker 1: out my Instagram, you would be like, oh, this is
2:02
Speaker 1: a person who lives a phenomenal life. It's a lie.
2:07
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, I do the trips, I do the travel.
2:10
Speaker 1: The last few weeks I've been traveling on the road
2:14
Speaker 1: and I was in the cat Skills right outside of Woodstock,
2:17
Speaker 1: New York, which is in my favorite places to go.
2:19
Speaker 1: And if you were just observing from social media, you
2:22
Speaker 1: would be like, Wow, this person barely works, and when
2:25
Speaker 1: she does work, she's just like sitting on a stage
2:28
Speaker 1: and it looks lovely and then she's like going to
2:30
Speaker 1: the cat Skills to her lovely cabin. I posted a
2:32
Speaker 1: picture on Instagram of me in a hot tub overlooking
2:35
Speaker 1: like rolling mountains and like very beautiful fall foliage, and
2:40
Speaker 1: to be like honest, I did spend a lovely week
2:43
Speaker 1: in a lovely cabin in the cat Skills, but I
2:46
Speaker 1: was also working in the entire time, and so like
2:49
Speaker 1: it wasn't really that fun. My partner was there and
2:51
Speaker 1: they were working in the entire time. The picture of
2:53
Speaker 1: me in the hot tub, the hot tub had broken,
2:56
Speaker 1: and so we had two good nights with it. And
2:58
Speaker 1: then when I was in it for a picture, I
3:00
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I don't think it's actually on. Its
3:02
Speaker 1: actually kind of cold, even though I look like very relaxed.
3:07
Speaker 1: So no, I mean like it's such a like curated
3:11
Speaker 1: greatest hits real. And I'm so glad that you asked,
3:15
Speaker 1: because I think it's important to demonstrate that, you know,
3:18
Speaker 1: Instagram versus reality, it's not always as peche keen rosie
3:23
Speaker 1: as it seems. I have to also put in the
3:26
Speaker 1: fight that not too long ago you injured yourself and
3:29
Speaker 1: you're still like just writing on with all of these
3:32
Speaker 1: activities that you're doing, including the fact that you are
3:34
Speaker 1: pretty much bossing it up everywhere and doing all of
3:38
Speaker 1: these interviews because I'm like, when does this woman ever stop?
3:41
Speaker 1: Does she ever stop? Because I'm sitting in my own
3:45
Speaker 1: couch playing the sad phone game that I've been obsessed
3:48
Speaker 1: with while watching things on repeat. I did a lot
3:53
Speaker 1: of that as well. And it's so funny because we
3:56
Speaker 1: did our first live taping of my podcast There are
3:58
Speaker 1: no Girls on the Internet and New y work during
4:00
Speaker 1: that trip and someone was like, oh, wow, You're you're
4:03
Speaker 1: back on your feet from breaking your ankle, and I
4:06
Speaker 1: was like, no, I just I used my cast and
4:08
Speaker 1: my crutches to get on the stage and I changed
4:10
Speaker 1: my shoes again. You would think that I'm totally healed.
4:15
Speaker 1: It's like, no, in actuality, I'm still in the cast. Yeah.
4:19
Speaker 1: I mean that is such a great segue for what
4:23
Speaker 1: we're talking about. And this story around Facebook and particularly
4:28
Speaker 1: the damage that it does to young girls has like
4:33
Speaker 1: caught the national attention recently, the national attention um and
4:39
Speaker 1: like it was a skit on SNL and it's been
4:44
Speaker 1: funny slash sad to see these older politicians trying to
4:48
Speaker 1: make sense of things like Instagram. Oh my gosh, but
4:54
Speaker 1: it's just so much of what you bring in these
4:58
Speaker 1: episodes just in streets, the real world damage and impact
5:03
Speaker 1: that we often separate our beliefs that the internet doesn't have,
5:06
Speaker 1: but it does. So can you break down this whole thing?
5:12
Speaker 1: I will try my best. There's a lot going on,
5:15
Speaker 1: so you know, Facebook has had a ru I mean,
5:18
Speaker 1: a pretty intense few weeks. Is a lot happening, and
5:21
Speaker 1: the thing I really want to focus on is the
5:23
Speaker 1: harm specifically to young girls, like teenage girls. That is
5:27
Speaker 1: not the totality of like what's going on and like
5:30
Speaker 1: the last few weeks for Facebook and really the last
5:32
Speaker 1: few months for Facebook. But if I were to talk
5:34
Speaker 1: about all the different harmful things that Facebook has done
5:38
Speaker 1: and is doing, you will be here all day. So
5:40
Speaker 1: I really want to focus on the impact that it
5:42
Speaker 1: has on young girls and teen girls, because you know,
5:45
Speaker 1: I just think that like it's easy for teen girls
5:49
Speaker 1: and their experiences to be sort of sidelined or marginalized,
5:52
Speaker 1: and so with all the different information coming out, I
5:55
Speaker 1: really want to focus on that, and so just generally
5:57
Speaker 1: kind of like what's happening and sort of why this
5:59
Speaker 1: converse she is taking place. The Wall Street Journal published
6:02
Speaker 1: a series of really bombshell expose s about Facebook called
6:05
Speaker 1: The Facebook Files. Um, it's also a podcast, if that's
6:08
Speaker 1: how you prefer to get your media. And it was
6:10
Speaker 1: all based on leaked data from documents from the company,
6:13
Speaker 1: gathered by a whistleblower named Frances Hagen who used to
6:17
Speaker 1: work in Facebook's now defunct Civic Integrity team. And that
6:20
Speaker 1: was a team that was really tasked with combatant things
6:22
Speaker 1: like misinformation and making sure that misinformation and disinformation did
6:25
Speaker 1: not like derail elections, and so it's not surprising to
6:28
Speaker 1: me that they dismantled that team. And it's a nine
6:31
Speaker 1: part series and it pretty much chronicles Facebook's most harmful
6:36
Speaker 1: and troubling practices and behavior. From this expose, a we
6:39
Speaker 1: found out things that like the fact that high profile
6:43
Speaker 1: celebrity Facebook users are pretty much exempt from Facebook's moderation rules,
6:47
Speaker 1: and that Facebook is aware that their platform is used
6:50
Speaker 1: to quote promote human trafficking and domestic servitude. And so
6:55
Speaker 1: I would recommend that anybody either read the entire series
6:58
Speaker 1: or listen to the podcast because there's so much there is,
7:01
Speaker 1: Like every new draft, I'm like, wow, wow. Wow. And
7:05
Speaker 1: I'm somebody who studies and works on Facebook and the
7:08
Speaker 1: harm that they that they perpetuate. Right, it did seem
7:14
Speaker 1: to be like oh wait and what wait and what now?
7:19
Speaker 1: And it's interesting to me because I think we've talked
7:24
Speaker 1: about on the show, but just in society in general,
7:28
Speaker 1: it's interesting to me when we make these jokes. But
7:33
Speaker 1: why are we accepting this as the reality. But one is,
7:36
Speaker 1: you know, Facebook is this place where it is harmful
7:39
Speaker 1: and you're gonna get like your weird uncle giving you
7:43
Speaker 1: some strange conspiracy theory and we're just like, yeah, that's cool,
7:45
Speaker 1: that's what Facebook is. The powers that be were so like, yeah,
7:49
Speaker 1: you know, it doesn't really matter because, like you said that,
7:52
Speaker 1: these issues that are impacting teen girls in this case
7:55
Speaker 1: are just seen as sort of frivolous or like they're
7:58
Speaker 1: being emotional, Like it's just social media, what's the big deal? Right? Yeah,
8:05
Speaker 1: But apparently it is a big deal and it has
8:09
Speaker 1: been making an impact. And Facebook did this, they knew it,
8:13
Speaker 1: and they kept going on with their platform and they
8:19
Speaker 1: tried to hide it. But now that it's come out,
8:21
Speaker 1: like every sigh, every sigh. So can you talk about
8:29
Speaker 1: the scope of the issue here. Yes, So as you said,
8:34
Speaker 1: I mean, like something to note is that even the
8:37
Speaker 1: we're all talking about it and it's in the news,
8:38
Speaker 1: a lot of this information is really not new except
8:41
Speaker 1: that we've known from prior research or um just from
8:45
Speaker 1: like being a casual user of the platform. If you're
8:47
Speaker 1: a casual user of Facebook, even you probably might have suspected, like, oh,
8:51
Speaker 1: Facebook might be making money off of causing harm, and
8:55
Speaker 1: so this is really not surprising. But exactly as you
8:57
Speaker 1: put it, I think why this is news right now
9:00
Speaker 1: is that we're getting an insight into how much Facebook
9:03
Speaker 1: already knew about the harm that their platform causes in
9:07
Speaker 1: our society and how much they're trying to sort of
9:09
Speaker 1: downplay it. And so another reason why we know that
9:12
Speaker 1: this is not a new issue is that there have
9:14
Speaker 1: been Facebook listle blowers in the past. So Fisang. She's
9:17
Speaker 1: a former Facebook data scientist who uncovered abusive political manipulation
9:21
Speaker 1: using fake engagement UM. She found a series of multiple
9:25
Speaker 1: blatant attempts by foreign national governments to abuse the platform
9:28
Speaker 1: on vast scales to mislead their own citizen read which
9:31
Speaker 1: calls international news on multiple occasions. That starts from her report.
9:34
Speaker 1: The summary of that is basically that, like, you know,
9:37
Speaker 1: accounts belonging to government leaders, we're using fake accounts to
9:41
Speaker 1: engage with their content to make it look like it's
9:43
Speaker 1: more popular than it is. So if I if I'm
9:45
Speaker 1: a government leader and I put out like we have
9:48
Speaker 1: plans to do this, and then I have a bunch
9:49
Speaker 1: of fake accounts who were like, yes, we love this plan,
9:51
Speaker 1: we love this plan, we love this plan. It's like
9:54
Speaker 1: building fake agreement for your policies. And so essentially that's
9:57
Speaker 1: what so fising uncovered. And you know, Facebook has been
10:01
Speaker 1: allowing and profiting all of these harmful practices forever. So
10:05
Speaker 1: this is really not new. And I always like to
10:07
Speaker 1: remind people that Facebook started because Mark Zuckerberg, when he
10:12
Speaker 1: was in college, created a website called facemash, which basically
10:17
Speaker 1: was like like a way to rank the attractiveness of
10:21
Speaker 1: his female co students, right, And so misogyny and attacks
10:25
Speaker 1: on women and harm against women, this is like not
10:29
Speaker 1: a mistake. It is baked into these platforms like Facebook
10:32
Speaker 1: from the very beginning. Zuckerberg will tell you like, oh
10:35
Speaker 1: that's not true, that's not true, Like I happened to
10:37
Speaker 1: build a website called facemash that was shut down, and
10:40
Speaker 1: then a few months later created a website that was
10:43
Speaker 1: pretty much the same thing called Facebook. Those are unrelated.
10:46
Speaker 1: Obviously that's not true, but that's what he would tell you. Um,
10:49
Speaker 1: And so yeah, the fact that that websites and platforms
10:53
Speaker 1: like Facebook are harmful to young women should not be
10:56
Speaker 1: a surprise because in fact, they were created on that
11:00
Speaker 1: arm like that is a big part of why they
11:01
Speaker 1: exist in the first place. And reading this this expose
11:06
Speaker 1: it really gets into the harm that Facebook has done
11:09
Speaker 1: in terms of teen girls and young women. So trigger warning. UM,
11:13
Speaker 1: you know this talks about eating disorders, suicide, depression, and
11:16
Speaker 1: so that's something that is tough for you to hear about. Unfortunately,
11:19
Speaker 1: that's a lot of what is going on. And you know,
11:22
Speaker 1: this is really something that is sort of personal to
11:26
Speaker 1: me because you know, I love the Internet. I love
11:29
Speaker 1: being online and I always have. And when I first
11:31
Speaker 1: got on the internet, like I'm old, so this was
11:34
Speaker 1: the late nineties, I had so many different kinds of experiences.
11:37
Speaker 1: Some of them were negative. You know, I was definitely
11:40
Speaker 1: in chat rooms doing stuff I shouldn't have been doing
11:43
Speaker 1: when I was young. But some of them were also
11:45
Speaker 1: incredibly like liberating and self affirming, Like if not for
11:49
Speaker 1: having the Internet in my in my bedroom and my
11:52
Speaker 1: like small Virginia town, I wouldn't have known that I
11:56
Speaker 1: was like that, I'm queer, I wouldn't have known, like
11:59
Speaker 1: I don't know that I would be doing what I'm
12:01
Speaker 1: doing today, or like even living the life that I
12:03
Speaker 1: am living today, like that, like the Internet is what
12:05
Speaker 1: allowed me to see myself and fully become myself as
12:09
Speaker 1: an adult. And I keep thinking like this was and
12:13
Speaker 1: so they're the ecosystem did not exist to have billionaires
12:18
Speaker 1: making money profiting off of my negative experiences and negative feelings.
12:23
Speaker 1: And I don't think I would have been able to
12:25
Speaker 1: use the Internet as this tool of self discovery and
12:28
Speaker 1: self affirmation had that been the case. And I really
12:31
Speaker 1: do think that like the younger generation, they deserve to
12:34
Speaker 1: have an online experience is not a marketplace for their pain,
12:38
Speaker 1: for their negative feelings, and it does not incentivize them
12:41
Speaker 1: to to be the worst versions of themselves. And I'm
12:45
Speaker 1: really lucky that I came of age when I did,
12:47
Speaker 1: when when there wasn't a marketplace for my pain as
12:49
Speaker 1: a young girl. But today's generation, as these leaks really
12:53
Speaker 1: really demonstrate is really not so lucky. I know we've
13:09
Speaker 1: talked before about things like spawn Con and how these
13:12
Speaker 1: big celebrities, usually women in this case, will you know,
13:16
Speaker 1: try to sell these items that are all about being
13:20
Speaker 1: thin usually and what I'm thinking of And if I
13:24
Speaker 1: had been young and I had seen that and like
13:27
Speaker 1: all these challenges people have about being super thin like that,
13:31
Speaker 1: I know for a fact that would have impacted me.
13:34
Speaker 1: That would have been something that I would have thought, Okay,
13:37
Speaker 1: this is normal. I need to try to do that,
13:39
Speaker 1: I need to look a certain way. And those messages
13:41
Speaker 1: were already strong without that. I just know for certain
13:46
Speaker 1: that it would And I am someone who I the
13:49
Speaker 1: internet is. I love the Internet. I think it's a
13:52
Speaker 1: beautiful place for a lot of things. And I know
13:55
Speaker 1: when this Facebook outage happened, people were like, well, you know,
13:59
Speaker 1: on one hand, celebrating, but we should also remember, like
14:02
Speaker 1: you know, marginalized people who connect that way and also
14:04
Speaker 1: businesses that run that way, all these things. But it
14:09
Speaker 1: just has become so for me, like I'm going to
14:13
Speaker 1: feel bad about myself if I engage in this. It's
14:18
Speaker 1: such a weird dichotomy to me because there's this one
14:21
Speaker 1: group of you see things that I really wish I
14:24
Speaker 1: had seen as as a kid. Like, so we're talking
14:26
Speaker 1: about people being able to find themselves and not realizing
14:30
Speaker 1: maybe there is a reason why you are this way.
14:33
Speaker 1: Maybe that doesn't make sense that you're home, but there's
14:36
Speaker 1: a community out there that can see you, that knows
14:38
Speaker 1: you and and feels what you feel. But at the
14:41
Speaker 1: same time, you have this other aspect of this untruth.
14:44
Speaker 1: But like you're talking about this fake persona of happiness
14:48
Speaker 1: that doesn't truly exist, and therefore if you haven't reached that,
14:52
Speaker 1: or if you don't try to reach that, then you
14:54
Speaker 1: have failed. So these two like vast differences is such
14:58
Speaker 1: a heartbreak to me because like, yes, this is good,
15:01
Speaker 1: but this is not good. So where do we fall
15:03
Speaker 1: on this line? Because I'm not gonna lie. It wasn't
15:05
Speaker 1: until after that I saw all the notifications that all
15:08
Speaker 1: these things were down that I realized it was even down.
15:11
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, is that what happened? Okay, well
15:13
Speaker 1: I just assumed me being me, my technology wasn't up
15:17
Speaker 1: and going. So I moved on to whatever the next
15:20
Speaker 1: thing was. But this conversation that we have when we
15:23
Speaker 1: see how much of an influence and that is the influence.
15:25
Speaker 1: There's no real middle ground, especially when we talk about
15:28
Speaker 1: the younger generations about they're going to be influenced, whether
15:32
Speaker 1: it's the positive side that they're on or the negative
15:34
Speaker 1: side that they're on. They're on one of them. And
15:37
Speaker 1: I couldn't imagine what that feels like today. And I'm
15:40
Speaker 1: insecure as hell as an adult, so coming as a team,
15:45
Speaker 1: trying to really figure out who they are and and
15:48
Speaker 1: feeling like maybe their their home life isn't what they
15:52
Speaker 1: want or what they need or is not healthy, and
15:54
Speaker 1: then having to go to this spot, to the space
15:57
Speaker 1: and you don't know what's safe anymore. And I think
16:00
Speaker 1: about that with my nieces and nephew that I'm like,
16:02
Speaker 1: oh my god, this is what they're growing up with.
16:04
Speaker 1: And I see that level of like, how do we
16:08
Speaker 1: help them but at the same time not try to
16:10
Speaker 1: pull away from the world, make them naive and not
16:13
Speaker 1: be a part of the world. Such a weird thing. Yeah,
16:16
Speaker 1: I mean, you just articulated such a tension that I
16:20
Speaker 1: feel as someone who loves social media uses social media,
16:24
Speaker 1: but it is really clearer about these downfalls and these
16:27
Speaker 1: negative aspects of it. It It can be used to find community,
16:31
Speaker 1: feel less alone, you know, build movements, but it can
16:35
Speaker 1: also be used in these incredibly damaging and negative ways.
16:39
Speaker 1: And I think you really put it so well, say
16:41
Speaker 1: this idea of like, you know, we know from from
16:45
Speaker 1: this leak and from the Facebook, you know, Facebook's own
16:47
Speaker 1: words and their own data that platforms, their algorithms really
16:52
Speaker 1: do incentivize, you know, the negative, and so you see
16:56
Speaker 1: more content that is polarizing or that makes you angry,
16:59
Speaker 1: or that is insidiary rather than content that is like
17:02
Speaker 1: positive or affirming or that kind of thing. Like algorithms
17:06
Speaker 1: prioritize the bad. And I think that young people can
17:11
Speaker 1: have all different kinds of experiences online, some of them good,
17:14
Speaker 1: some of them bad. But there it's a problem when
17:17
Speaker 1: platforms incentivize the bad, right when they traffic in the
17:21
Speaker 1: bed when they promote and amplified to be so it's
17:24
Speaker 1: not just like a neutral experience where whoever is using
17:27
Speaker 1: the platform can decide if they want to gravitate toward
17:31
Speaker 1: experiences online that are going to be affirming and good
17:33
Speaker 1: and you know all of that stuff or bad and
17:36
Speaker 1: extreme and insidiary and polarizing. When you have an algorithm
17:40
Speaker 1: that is prioritizing one over the other, which we know
17:43
Speaker 1: that they are, and you know it's it's in putting
17:46
Speaker 1: together the research for this episode. You know, I'm an adult, right,
17:49
Speaker 1: I am a fully grown person, and I struggle with insecurity.
17:53
Speaker 1: I struggle with, you know, self image. I struggle with
17:57
Speaker 1: comparing myself to my peers. I struggle with all of
18:00
Speaker 1: that stuff. And I'm a fairly like confident, secure person
18:04
Speaker 1: when I was younger. I am so lucky that social
18:08
Speaker 1: media wasn't the way that it was now when I
18:10
Speaker 1: was younger, Like any you were just saying, like, I
18:13
Speaker 1: know that that would have really been hard for me.
18:15
Speaker 1: I know that I would have struggled. I know that
18:18
Speaker 1: that that it just would have been a bad time.
18:19
Speaker 1: It would not the internet would not have been a
18:21
Speaker 1: place of self discovery. It would have been a place
18:24
Speaker 1: where I went to think about all the ways that
18:26
Speaker 1: I didn't measure up. And it makes me so sad
18:29
Speaker 1: that that is exactly the experience that we are allowing
18:33
Speaker 1: for young people today. Like that is just like their
18:35
Speaker 1: experience of being online is one of you know, feeling
18:41
Speaker 1: bad about themselves, and I hate that. I hate that
18:45
Speaker 1: for them. They deserve. They deserve so much better, right,
18:48
Speaker 1: And you know, as a person who again we've talked
18:51
Speaker 1: about this is like being on the inside of seeing
18:54
Speaker 1: what that damage can do. Being a part of a
18:57
Speaker 1: force that worked with at risk ting trying to hold
19:02
Speaker 1: people accountable, I can't imagine. So we have some of
19:05
Speaker 1: these leaked documents that I know, and I've seen a
19:08
Speaker 1: few tweets and articles talking about how these women specifically
19:12
Speaker 1: have felt threatened and are filling at this point even
19:15
Speaker 1: that now like, oh, this is dangerous. I have come
19:16
Speaker 1: to dangerous grounds that with this happening internally, people have
19:20
Speaker 1: had to know how has this allowed to happen? What
19:23
Speaker 1: are they saying inside of this company that they're like whatever, Like,
19:27
Speaker 1: how are they even trying to frame this? Yes, so
19:30
Speaker 1: let's get into that. So one thing to note is
19:32
Speaker 1: that a lot of this pertains to Instagram, but it's
19:35
Speaker 1: important to note that Facebook owns Instagram. They take a
19:37
Speaker 1: lot of steps to try to conceal that fact, but
19:40
Speaker 1: they're the same company. And so here are some of
19:42
Speaker 1: the findings from the Wall Street Journal expose a Since
19:45
Speaker 1: at least twenty nineteen, Facebook has been studying the impact
19:47
Speaker 1: of its platform on younger users. Their research has repeatedly
19:50
Speaker 1: found that it is harmful to a large portion, especially
19:53
Speaker 1: team girls. Here's a direct quote from a slide from
19:55
Speaker 1: an internal Facebook presentation in twenty nineteen, we make body
19:59
Speaker 1: image issues for one in three teen girls, and another
20:03
Speaker 1: presentation they internally said of teen girls said that when
20:07
Speaker 1: they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse.
20:11
Speaker 1: Another side said teams blame Instagram for increases in the
20:15
Speaker 1: rate of anxiety and depression. They feel the reaction was
20:18
Speaker 1: unprompted and consistent across all groups. And another League study
20:22
Speaker 1: found that seventeen percent of teen girls say they're eating
20:25
Speaker 1: disorders got worse after using Instagram. And you know so
20:28
Speaker 1: this is from their own internal documents and the stuff
20:32
Speaker 1: that they knew that they talked about with each other.
20:33
Speaker 1: Facebook also internally is aware of the link between their
20:37
Speaker 1: platform and things like the pression and suicide. According to
20:40
Speaker 1: their internal studies. Of users who reported suicidal thoughts, percent
20:44
Speaker 1: in the UK and six percent in the US traced
20:46
Speaker 1: them back to Instagram. Another Transatlantic study found that more
20:49
Speaker 1: than forty percent of Instagram users who reported feeling unattractive
20:52
Speaker 1: said that they began feeling that way on Instagram. And
20:55
Speaker 1: about a quarter of the teenagers who reported feeling not
20:58
Speaker 1: good enough said it started on Instagram. And again, this
21:01
Speaker 1: is not really like news news, because studies have been
21:05
Speaker 1: showing that Instagram is like the most negative platform for
21:09
Speaker 1: teams for a while. In twenty seventeen, is studied by
21:11
Speaker 1: Young Minds and the Royal Society for Public Health show
21:14
Speaker 1: that Instagram had the most negative impact on young people's
21:17
Speaker 1: mental health of all the social media networks. And you know,
21:20
Speaker 1: if you're thinking something like, oh, well, maybe this is
21:22
Speaker 1: just a social media problem, maybe all social media platforms
21:25
Speaker 1: are bad. You know, yes, all social media platforms have
21:29
Speaker 1: their negative aspects, but these findings were specific to Instagram.
21:33
Speaker 1: And so that's really because Instagram is one of the
21:36
Speaker 1: only platforms that really sort of encourages what Facebook calls
21:41
Speaker 1: quote social comparison. And so it's this thing where it's
21:44
Speaker 1: like you are feeling pressure to compare your life to
21:49
Speaker 1: someone else. And so think about a platform like TikTok, right,
21:52
Speaker 1: Like that's a platform that is really kind of performance based, right,
21:56
Speaker 1: it does not invite comparison the way that Instagram to us.
22:00
Speaker 1: And so again, like I have definitely had times where
22:03
Speaker 1: I wake up and I scroll Instagram and I see
22:06
Speaker 1: all my peers and they're seemingly perfect lives, and I
22:11
Speaker 1: put my phone down and I feel like crap. You know,
22:14
Speaker 1: even as an adult, it's so easy to succumb to
22:17
Speaker 1: this pressure that you have to be perfect and have
22:19
Speaker 1: to show your best moments. But I think especially for
22:21
Speaker 1: young people who are so impressionable, you know, it can
22:24
Speaker 1: really morph into things like depression, self esteem, eating issues,
22:27
Speaker 1: food issues, and we should not just be accepting that,
22:30
Speaker 1: Like that should not just be like the cost of
22:33
Speaker 1: those young people being on social media. It should be
22:36
Speaker 1: imperative to create a social media experience that does not
22:39
Speaker 1: profit off of these terrible harms our children, our kids.
22:44
Speaker 1: And I'm not gonna lie. It makes me want to scream,
22:46
Speaker 1: like what's the point of doing all of this research?
22:48
Speaker 1: Obviously they wanted to know, but they haven't really fixed anything.
22:52
Speaker 1: They haven't helped anything. As in fact, when we talk
22:55
Speaker 1: about the spawn con the whole ideas, like they bring
22:58
Speaker 1: on people, they spawn sort of people who make it
23:01
Speaker 1: look easy and it takes incredibly hard to tell what's
23:05
Speaker 1: real and what's not because half the things is like
23:07
Speaker 1: this is definitely add but is it because they push
23:11
Speaker 1: it forward and say, this is the ideal situation these
23:15
Speaker 1: people's lives is what you should seek, and therefore we're
23:19
Speaker 1: going to give you some help by you can allow
23:21
Speaker 1: you to buy these things to meet that standard. It's
23:24
Speaker 1: such a weird thing because they pushed this is a
23:27
Speaker 1: part of their narrative. Oh absolutely, Like the expose showed
23:31
Speaker 1: these internal like slack conversations and um whatever the Facebook
23:35
Speaker 1: internal Slack version of slack is, I can't remember what
23:37
Speaker 1: it is. But you have people at Facebook talking about
23:41
Speaker 1: these these studies and these findings being like, oh, like,
23:44
Speaker 1: isn't that the fun of Instagram? You know, comparing yourself
23:47
Speaker 1: to other people and seeing how like the one percent
23:50
Speaker 1: of like really hot people live like? You know, I
23:53
Speaker 1: thought that was like the whole point, and the way
23:56
Speaker 1: that they talk so callously about it, like, oh yeah,
23:59
Speaker 1: isn't that what people want from our platform? To constantly
24:03
Speaker 1: be comparing themselves to unattainable airror brushed, filtered versions of
24:09
Speaker 1: a reality that could not possibly exist, you know, and
24:13
Speaker 1: just like they're their inability to see how harmful that
24:16
Speaker 1: would be. You know. I remember when I first realized
24:19
Speaker 1: how often people are using filters and face tune and
24:23
Speaker 1: things like that on their pictures, because I would see
24:24
Speaker 1: these women where it's like, how is it possible to
24:26
Speaker 1: have a waste that thin and a butt that nice?
24:30
Speaker 1: How are you? How are you standing up and walking
24:32
Speaker 1: around without falling over? It doesn't make sense? And I
24:34
Speaker 1: was like, oh, it does it's not real. Doesn't actually
24:38
Speaker 1: look that way. And let's not talk about the fact
24:40
Speaker 1: that most of these people are white women are white community,
24:43
Speaker 1: and so let's talk about being a person of color,
24:46
Speaker 1: really being ashamed of being a person of color and realizing, oh,
24:49
Speaker 1: it's still the standard to be white, to be small,
24:53
Speaker 1: to be you know, young, this is the standard that
24:56
Speaker 1: we should be attaining. To thank you one more time
24:58
Speaker 1: of something that I can't change and be absolutely isn't
25:02
Speaker 1: it interesting that when you use what platforms called beauty
25:05
Speaker 1: filters on a non white face, the beauty filter pretty
25:10
Speaker 1: much translates to like, oh, you made your lips and
25:12
Speaker 1: nose thinner, basically made you look white, And it's like, oh, well,
25:15
Speaker 1: so what are you trying to say? Like what is
25:17
Speaker 1: really what are you trying to say? And I don't know,
25:19
Speaker 1: I'm I have a feeling you and I are in
25:20
Speaker 1: the same boat because oftentimes these filters are like nothing changed.
25:23
Speaker 1: I don't understand what's happening. You can't lighten my dark
25:27
Speaker 1: brown eyes to be blue on what is this and
25:30
Speaker 1: literally being confused about how they look that way? And
25:33
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, these are for white people, Okay,
25:37
Speaker 1: I mean, and that's that's kind of like not to
25:39
Speaker 1: go off on a tangent, but like even that concept
25:42
Speaker 1: alone is so harmful in tech, and it's so common,
25:45
Speaker 1: Like they just came out with a new iPhone a
25:47
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago, and they are people I don't
25:50
Speaker 1: have it. I still have my old Jankie, earlier model iPhone.
25:53
Speaker 1: But apparently this is the first camera that can actually
25:56
Speaker 1: take decent pictures of people with darker skin. And part
25:59
Speaker 1: of me is like iPhone has been out since what
26:00
Speaker 1: two pass and seven, and you'll finally realized that people
26:03
Speaker 1: who are not white exist and for so long, if
26:06
Speaker 1: you were someone who didn't have like light skin, to
26:09
Speaker 1: get a decent picture of yourself on an iPhone, you
26:12
Speaker 1: had to be meticulous about your lighting and your angles,
26:14
Speaker 1: and if you weren't, you came out like a shadow
26:16
Speaker 1: blob monster. And it's like, Wow, Finally, after all these years,
26:20
Speaker 1: y'all have developed the technology that can just take my
26:22
Speaker 1: photo and have it not looked wild, right, So I
26:26
Speaker 1: can't imagine. I have a feeling that if we looked
26:29
Speaker 1: at the percentage of young teens of color, the numbers
26:33
Speaker 1: would be higher for those who are completely marginalized in
26:37
Speaker 1: that within that community of seeing like, oh, I really
26:41
Speaker 1: wish that I was not my ethnicity, you know, just
26:44
Speaker 1: just being going beyond that that how uh, yeah, Facebook
26:49
Speaker 1: is racist less added that to the caveat of not
26:52
Speaker 1: only are these sexes, not only are they of fat
26:55
Speaker 1: shame may not only do they have all of these things,
26:57
Speaker 1: but yet they are racist as well because they have
26:59
Speaker 1: again the standard of the white man who yeah, to me,
27:04
Speaker 1: he is the villain in this story. Oh my god,
27:07
Speaker 1: Marcus Zuckerberg is the villain. But also it's it's he's
27:10
Speaker 1: the villain, but also Cheryl Sandberg like, like, there are
27:15
Speaker 1: so many villains in this story, and I don't know
27:20
Speaker 1: how Cheryl Sandberg has not been able to be like
27:22
Speaker 1: the public face of villainry here. But it really is
27:25
Speaker 1: like these people are knowingly making lots and lots of
27:29
Speaker 1: money off of the pain and harm and sometimes the
27:34
Speaker 1: deaths of our children. And it's just when I intellectualize that,
27:38
Speaker 1: it's like, how is that okay? How? How is it
27:41
Speaker 1: okay that, like people are getting rich off of harming
27:45
Speaker 1: our kids. It's for all the different ways that we
27:48
Speaker 1: talk about, you know, protecting children and protecting you It's like,
27:52
Speaker 1: here is a clear way that our kids are being
27:55
Speaker 1: harmed and not just that people are making money off
27:58
Speaker 1: of it, and we've just internalized that, like that's just
28:01
Speaker 1: how it is, and it's completely unacceptable to me. Yeah, agreed.
28:19
Speaker 1: Speaking of the villains of Zuckerberg, what are they saying publicly?
28:25
Speaker 1: Like are they have they made any promises of change
28:29
Speaker 1: anything at all? So this is where it gets juicy, right, So,
28:33
Speaker 1: like all the different harmful things that they do, we
28:36
Speaker 1: kind of knew about that before. It's new to know
28:38
Speaker 1: that how much they knew in terms of their harm.
28:41
Speaker 1: But they also say a completely different thing publicly than
28:45
Speaker 1: they do internally at Facebook. And so when facebooks founder
28:48
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress in March, he said, the
28:52
Speaker 1: research that we've seen is that using social media apps
28:54
Speaker 1: to connect with other people can have positive mental health benefits.
28:58
Speaker 1: So all of these leaks show he knew that wasn't true.
29:02
Speaker 1: He knew all these different ways that his platform and
29:05
Speaker 1: his product create harm, and he it seems to me,
29:08
Speaker 1: you know, I'm no lawyer, it seems to me that
29:10
Speaker 1: he was actively misleading both Congress lawmakers and the public
29:15
Speaker 1: about what he knew. And we all know, you know,
29:18
Speaker 1: Facebook as a history of really not being honest. Again,
29:21
Speaker 1: if I were to list all the different examples will
29:23
Speaker 1: be here all day. But one that I had like
29:25
Speaker 1: like personal firsthand knowledge of is remember back in when
29:30
Speaker 1: all these different publications were pivoting to video while basically
29:35
Speaker 1: like that was based on Facebook really deeply exaggerating the
29:42
Speaker 1: metrics of video, and so they were like, oh, video
29:44
Speaker 1: is the thing. Video was getting so much more attraction
29:48
Speaker 1: than any other kind of medium. And so at the time,
29:51
Speaker 1: I worked in media, and so many of my coworkers,
29:54
Speaker 1: so many of my colleagues, all lost their jobs at
29:57
Speaker 1: media companies because of Facebook over in flay it and
30:00
Speaker 1: exaggerated the metric of video content on their platform. And
30:04
Speaker 1: so again, I'm no lawyer, but like, that's a lot.
30:07
Speaker 1: This would not be the first time that Facebook has
30:09
Speaker 1: misled the public and others about what's happening at their company,
30:14
Speaker 1: saying one thing when another thing is actually when they
30:16
Speaker 1: know another thing to actually be true. And I remember
30:19
Speaker 1: that time in media, like Facebook made it so difficult
30:22
Speaker 1: to like, I left media because I just felt like
30:27
Speaker 1: media companies were capitulating to whatever Facebook said. And so
30:32
Speaker 1: what Facebook said, it's video. If you didn't do video content,
30:37
Speaker 1: you basically knew that you were gonna get fired. If
30:39
Speaker 1: Facebook said, like, we were just carring to the whims
30:41
Speaker 1: of this massive company. And it's became so impossible to
30:45
Speaker 1: do that work. And so you know, an entire generation
30:48
Speaker 1: of journalists face such instability and kaas because Facebook misrepresented
30:54
Speaker 1: their own findings. And so, according to Hagen's legal team,
30:57
Speaker 1: Facebook executives, including Zuckerberg, misstay didn't omitted key details about
31:01
Speaker 1: what was known about facebooks and Instagram's ability to cause harm,
31:04
Speaker 1: and her attorneys also alleged that Facebook violated the US
31:08
Speaker 1: securities laws by lying to investors. And again, like I'm
31:12
Speaker 1: no lawyer, I'm no expert on this particular part of it,
31:14
Speaker 1: but like when you say one thing and when you're
31:19
Speaker 1: testifying to Congress when you know another thing to be true,
31:23
Speaker 1: that seems like a problem. To me, I don't know,
31:25
Speaker 1: I think that's lying. I don't know. I think so.
31:29
Speaker 1: I think you're right. I know when it comes to
31:31
Speaker 1: like stocks and stuff that is really really bad and
31:34
Speaker 1: you will get arrested and fired because yeah, you just
31:38
Speaker 1: made up in order to pretend like you have made
31:40
Speaker 1: profit in order to make more profit exactly. Um, It's
31:46
Speaker 1: it is really well to me, It's like and it's
31:48
Speaker 1: one of these things where I feel like, I don't
31:50
Speaker 1: know if it's capitalism or just like a nuance of
31:54
Speaker 1: living in a country like America where some things are
31:57
Speaker 1: lies and some things are are true. And I think
32:00
Speaker 1: that you kind of accepted that, like, oh, well, of
32:02
Speaker 1: course a big business has to like misrepresent a few
32:06
Speaker 1: things in public to make a buck. And it's like, wait, no, stop,
32:10
Speaker 1: is that is that really how it should be? That
32:11
Speaker 1: we should just allow that, like it's okay for businesses
32:14
Speaker 1: to behave in this manner that it is literally killing
32:18
Speaker 1: kids to make money. It's like, I feel like this
32:23
Speaker 1: whole Facebook conversation is a good place for a hard
32:26
Speaker 1: stop of what we will allow businesses to do without
32:29
Speaker 1: any kind of accountability, right, And that's been a piece
32:33
Speaker 1: of this conversation is when people talk about regulating Facebook
32:38
Speaker 1: or how could we potentially deal with this problem, people
32:43
Speaker 1: have brought up other industries and what they have done. Correct. Oh, absolutely,
32:47
Speaker 1: So after all of this Facebook stuff was going down,
32:50
Speaker 1: ad Amissary, the head of Instagram, who I have a
32:53
Speaker 1: lot of few things about him. I won't get into
32:55
Speaker 1: it now, but like, he just someone who because he
32:58
Speaker 1: runs Instagram, I feel like, tries to have a kind
33:01
Speaker 1: of quirky public persona, and it's like, well, your platform
33:04
Speaker 1: is killing kids, So like I don't really care about
33:06
Speaker 1: your quirky socks. But that's either heard nor there. Basically,
33:10
Speaker 1: after all this went down, he went on the podcast
33:12
Speaker 1: Recode and offered a really terrible but also very telling
33:15
Speaker 1: analogy in response to all of this. He said, we
33:19
Speaker 1: know that more people die than otherwise would because of
33:21
Speaker 1: car accidents, but by and large, cars create way more
33:25
Speaker 1: value in the world than they destroy, and I think
33:27
Speaker 1: social media is similar. So that analogy is wild for
33:31
Speaker 1: a couple of different reasons. One, it's just like cars
33:35
Speaker 1: that the car industry. We know that industry is incredibly
33:38
Speaker 1: regulated by federal and state governments, right, Like I gotta
33:42
Speaker 1: take my car in every so often to get it
33:43
Speaker 1: inspected by the state, and they have to tell me
33:45
Speaker 1: if it's okay. You know your car has to have seatbelts,
33:49
Speaker 1: this that in the third that are all you know,
33:51
Speaker 1: dictated by the state. And we know that, like the
33:54
Speaker 1: auto industry had to be basically forced into adopting safety
33:58
Speaker 1: measures that they knew would save lives. And so I
34:01
Speaker 1: hate this analogy, But if that's the analogy he wants
34:04
Speaker 1: to use, then it sounds like what he is saying
34:07
Speaker 1: is like, Oh, we need to be heavily regulated so
34:09
Speaker 1: that we don't harm people the same way that the
34:12
Speaker 1: automobile industry is, right. It's like, what's funny is that
34:16
Speaker 1: when he brought that up, the person who was interviewing
34:18
Speaker 1: him was like, oh, well, you know the car industry
34:21
Speaker 1: is very regulated, and he was like, well, you know,
34:24
Speaker 1: we're open to regulation, but we can't have too much
34:26
Speaker 1: regulation either, And it's like, well, what do you want.
34:28
Speaker 1: You just want to be able to harm people for profits,
34:31
Speaker 1: but no regulation whatsoever. Take my analogy, but don't really
34:36
Speaker 1: take my analogy. Thanks right. Also, analogy often used in
34:42
Speaker 1: comic books and has always turned around. So this guy
34:44
Speaker 1: clearly doesn't know his X men, all right, exactly exactly,
34:48
Speaker 1: Like I feel like once when you make that analogy,
34:50
Speaker 1: you're opening yourself up to so many like you know,
34:54
Speaker 1: uh gotchas and like balls, was like why I even
34:58
Speaker 1: go there. But one of my favorite it folks in
35:00
Speaker 1: the disinformation space, this amazing researcher from the Shorten Scene
35:04
Speaker 1: Institute Harvard, Dr Joan Donovan. She's like one of my heroes. Um.
35:07
Speaker 1: She actually has a much better analogy, which is big tobacco.
35:11
Speaker 1: So we know the big tobacco companies, they knew internally
35:14
Speaker 1: that their products caused cancer, yet they misled both lawmakers
35:18
Speaker 1: and the public about it for a very long time.
35:21
Speaker 1: And you know, that's why we had the Master's Settlement
35:23
Speaker 1: Agreement in which led to some accountability for the tobacco companies,
35:28
Speaker 1: you know, misleading the public about the link between tobacco
35:31
Speaker 1: and cancer. And so this book is kind of doing
35:34
Speaker 1: the same thing, misleading lawmakers and the public about the
35:38
Speaker 1: harm that they already have demonstrated that they know their
35:41
Speaker 1: product causes. And so I think that's a really useful
35:45
Speaker 1: analogy because yeah, like should a company be able to
35:49
Speaker 1: mislead lawmakers in the public about the harm they know
35:53
Speaker 1: their product causes to make money. If you agree that
35:57
Speaker 1: the big tobacco company should that have done that, it
35:59
Speaker 1: seems like Facebook is doing something very similar as in fact,
36:03
Speaker 1: is doing something just as similar in that the old
36:05
Speaker 1: school campaign for tobacco were directed towards children and saying like, look,
36:10
Speaker 1: how cool you are smoke And it's it's honestly like
36:18
Speaker 1: when I heard that comparison and blew my mind because
36:20
Speaker 1: it's the same thing. Marketing towards young people, marketing towards women.
36:23
Speaker 1: Like the way that Facebook and tobacco companies have harmed
36:27
Speaker 1: these specific marginalized groups, groups that don't always get a
36:30
Speaker 1: lot of attention or have the biggest platforms, you know, women,
36:34
Speaker 1: young people, It is so similar. And I think that's
36:36
Speaker 1: something that really really gets me about this whole thing
36:40
Speaker 1: is that, you know, Facebook, We know now that Facebook
36:44
Speaker 1: knew how harmful their product was to young people, and
36:48
Speaker 1: yet they continued to try to market to young people
36:52
Speaker 1: push it to younger and younger audiences. I think on
36:54
Speaker 1: spenty months before I talked about how Facebook had had
36:57
Speaker 1: plans to roll out a version of Instagram specifically for kids,
37:01
Speaker 1: knowing that their product was already so harmful to young people,
37:04
Speaker 1: and they continued to court younger and younger users, like,
37:07
Speaker 1: straight up, Facebook does not care if kids are being hurt, harmed, killed, whatever,
37:13
Speaker 1: if it makes them more money, and internal documents showed
37:16
Speaker 1: that they had plans to market to kids who were
37:20
Speaker 1: ten to twelve years old. They called tend to twelve
37:22
Speaker 1: year olds a valuable but untapped audience, and another report
37:26
Speaker 1: suggested that Facebook should look into a way to leverage
37:29
Speaker 1: play dates to drive growth among kids. You know, it
37:33
Speaker 1: is so vile that they knew that their product had
37:38
Speaker 1: such a harmful impact on this young demographic, and yet
37:42
Speaker 1: they continue to discuss how they could spread that harm
37:46
Speaker 1: to kids younger and younger, right, because like, you gotta
37:49
Speaker 1: be thirteen to even Instagram account, And they were like, well,
37:51
Speaker 1: you gotta be thirteen to have an Instagram account, but
37:53
Speaker 1: tend to twelve year old we really got to figure
37:54
Speaker 1: out how to harm them too. And they're doing it
37:57
Speaker 1: for money, they're getting rich off of it. Where it's
38:00
Speaker 1: a skit. I've seen this skit before about this like
38:03
Speaker 1: trying to I don't know if it was like suits
38:05
Speaker 1: or something that they're like, but we haven't gotten to
38:08
Speaker 1: the toddlers yet, so how do we market so like
38:11
Speaker 1: diaper formal where was like the key and I was like,
38:14
Speaker 1: what is happening? Is this real life? It's an Onion
38:16
Speaker 1: article snl skit come to life. And I think it's
38:20
Speaker 1: also hilarious and sad that you did. You completely talked
38:24
Speaker 1: about this whole idea that Instagram had of trying to
38:28
Speaker 1: get younger audiences essentially and younger buyers, and you talked
38:32
Speaker 1: about the fact that y'all and went in It was like, hey,
38:36
Speaker 1: bad idea. And this was even before these reports came out, Yes,
38:41
Speaker 1: And I mean, if they already knew their product was
38:44
Speaker 1: hurting young people to just try to further get that
38:47
Speaker 1: lock on younger and younger communities, it's just I mean,
38:50
Speaker 1: I I think it's just evil like that, Like that's
38:54
Speaker 1: only like I think that Facebook is an evil company
38:56
Speaker 1: and they are making money by spreading harm to younger
39:00
Speaker 1: and younger folks, and it's just vile. But I think
39:03
Speaker 1: it's also kind of telling because it kind of leads
39:05
Speaker 1: me to believe that Facebook might not be as powerful
39:08
Speaker 1: as we maybe once thought. You know, young people are
39:11
Speaker 1: not really into Facebook. They use Instagram a lot more,
39:13
Speaker 1: but like a regular Facebook, Facebook is where you go
39:16
Speaker 1: to like see your weird old aunt's like nonsensical Facebook
39:20
Speaker 1: posts or your dad's if you're if you're me, my
39:23
Speaker 1: dad's Facebook post that just says the word test like
39:26
Speaker 1: it's like not where you're going to have cool experiences.
39:30
Speaker 1: And the fact that they filled the need to lock
39:33
Speaker 1: in and market to younger and younger audiences kind of
39:36
Speaker 1: makes me think that, like, maybe they're not as as
39:39
Speaker 1: big as we think they are. They don't have as
39:41
Speaker 1: much of a hold on certain demographics as they might
39:45
Speaker 1: need to write into. Like social media companies that are
39:47
Speaker 1: doing well don't need to aggressively find all these little
39:51
Speaker 1: scams to lock in younger and younger users. And we
39:54
Speaker 1: know something about Facebook is that there m O is
39:57
Speaker 1: kind of I don't want to say stealing, but like
40:00
Speaker 1: adopting things from other platforms that are more successful with
40:04
Speaker 1: younger users. And so when Instagram rolled out stories like
40:08
Speaker 1: disappearing stories, that was essentially, you know, them copying Snapchat,
40:12
Speaker 1: which was very popular with young people. When they started
40:14
Speaker 1: doing reels, that was essentially them copying TikTok, which we
40:17
Speaker 1: know is very very popular with young people. And so
40:19
Speaker 1: the fact that they're doing all of these little things
40:21
Speaker 1: to lock in younger and younger users might actually mean
40:25
Speaker 1: that their business model is suffering because they're not getting
40:29
Speaker 1: new user base. They would need to keep their their
40:31
Speaker 1: platforms relevant and that like if they have an older
40:33
Speaker 1: and aging user base, you know, that model is only
40:36
Speaker 1: sustainable for so long. And it also means that maybe
40:39
Speaker 1: they're kind of against the robes and we might actually
40:42
Speaker 1: get somewhere in terms of creating accountability for the kind
40:45
Speaker 1: of harm that we know they are spreading and mitigating
40:47
Speaker 1: further harm, which I hope is accurate. I hope that
40:50
Speaker 1: like the fact that they're doing these like increasingly more
40:53
Speaker 1: desperate ways to court increasingly younger audiences means that they're
40:58
Speaker 1: not actually as powerful a text bohemo as we might
41:01
Speaker 1: have thought. Recently, we have seen you know, these bombshell
41:20
Speaker 1: accounts and this whistle bower in Congress testifying, and it
41:24
Speaker 1: seems like this is an issue that has touched people
41:29
Speaker 1: across all lines and people can relate to and and
41:32
Speaker 1: I care about, um want to do something about. Is
41:37
Speaker 1: that a correct assumption? Oh? Absolutely, And that's actually one
41:41
Speaker 1: of the things that kind of excites me and gives
41:43
Speaker 1: me a lot of hope is that there is actually
41:46
Speaker 1: rare bipartisan support for the idea that something needs to
41:50
Speaker 1: be done about Facebook. Democrats and Republicans are actually very
41:53
Speaker 1: much united with the idea of regulating Facebook. After this
41:57
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal expose came out on Upitol Hill, Hagen
42:00
Speaker 1: testified at a hearing of the Senate Commerce, Science, and
42:04
Speaker 1: Transportation Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security. Uh,
42:09
Speaker 1: that's awful. And at this hearing after she testified, her
42:13
Speaker 1: testimony was amazing, but Republican Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas
42:17
Speaker 1: told the subcommittee chair, Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut,
42:20
Speaker 1: that they should put aside their partisan differences to tackle
42:24
Speaker 1: this common goal of reigning and Facebook. And they agreed.
42:26
Speaker 1: They agreed that they had more similarities than differences on
42:30
Speaker 1: the issue and that the differences they did have were very,
42:33
Speaker 1: very minor. And so Blumenthal said this about the testimony.
42:37
Speaker 1: If you closed your eyes, you wouldn't know if it
42:39
Speaker 1: was a Republican or a Democrat. Every part of the
42:41
Speaker 1: country has the harms that are inflicted by Facebook and Instagram,
42:45
Speaker 1: and I think it is really heartening to see an
42:48
Speaker 1: issue where everybody's on the same side. It doesn't matter
42:52
Speaker 1: if you're Republican or Democrat. Everybody can agree that our
42:55
Speaker 1: kids should not there should not be a marketplace for
42:58
Speaker 1: the pain and the harm of our children, and then
43:01
Speaker 1: it needs to stop. And honestly, I think they're exactly right.
43:04
Speaker 1: We should reject this idea that it's just okay for
43:07
Speaker 1: companies to be making profit off of hurting our kids.
43:11
Speaker 1: Our kids deserve better. Um, I don't really care what
43:14
Speaker 1: happens to the finances of Mark Zuckerberg or an Adam
43:17
Speaker 1: Massari or CHERRYL. Sandberg if it means creating a safer
43:21
Speaker 1: ecosystem for our children, and I think they deserve it.
43:25
Speaker 1: I mean, let's be honest, if they stop making money today,
43:27
Speaker 1: they'd be fine. People. They will be fine. They'll be fine.
43:32
Speaker 1: They have enough money, they'll be fine. Right. But Yeah,
43:35
Speaker 1: I find it interesting that this is that conversation, that
43:38
Speaker 1: this is the one thing that's tied everyone together, because yeah,
43:41
Speaker 1: I think if you go to either side when it
43:43
Speaker 1: comes to the controversial or even the conspiracy theory level,
43:47
Speaker 1: the one thing you can agree upon is that the
43:50
Speaker 1: other believes that the other is out to get them
43:53
Speaker 1: and giving misinformation because of these social media Oh my gosh,
43:58
Speaker 1: that is so true, and it's at be like in
44:01
Speaker 1: working in like tech accountability. That's the thing that I
44:03
Speaker 1: always find kind of funny is that, like hardcore conservatives
44:07
Speaker 1: believe they are being censored on Facebook, super progressive lefty
44:12
Speaker 1: folks believe they're being censored on Facebook. Have you ever
44:15
Speaker 1: seen that meme where it's a black hand and a
44:16
Speaker 1: white hand, like like shaking hands and they both agree.
44:19
Speaker 1: It's like everybody kind of agrees they don't like what's
44:22
Speaker 1: going down on a Facebook. It doesn't matter what side
44:24
Speaker 1: you're on, what you know, we all agree we don't
44:27
Speaker 1: like what's happening on a Facebook. It feels good to
44:31
Speaker 1: be united against a clear common enemy. Speaking of tech accountability,
44:39
Speaker 1: I mean, we wouldn't know about a lot of this,
44:42
Speaker 1: even though that we had kind of known, but we
44:45
Speaker 1: wouldn't have had like the hard data and facts if
44:48
Speaker 1: this whistleblower hadn't come out and taken that risk and
44:55
Speaker 1: determined for herself, like we the people need to know this. Yeah. So,
44:59
Speaker 1: like the import of whistleblowers for this whole conversation. Um,
45:04
Speaker 1: And I know that's something that you have talked about before.
45:08
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean I'm so glad that you brought
45:10
Speaker 1: that up. I so obviously this is like bombshell news,
45:13
Speaker 1: and I'm so glad that folks are discussing it. But
45:16
Speaker 1: it is so important to not lose sight of the
45:17
Speaker 1: fact that whistle blowers are really especially in tech, are
45:21
Speaker 1: really important. On my podcast, there are No Girls on
45:24
Speaker 1: the Internet, we have a series highlighting women of color
45:26
Speaker 1: whistleblowers in tech, and it does not surprise me that
45:30
Speaker 1: so many whistleblowers are women and women of color, and
45:34
Speaker 1: I think that it is so important to support them
45:36
Speaker 1: and to highlight their stories. Um. One of my favorite
45:39
Speaker 1: tech whistle blowers is one of them. Again, one of
45:41
Speaker 1: my like heroes, Efoma Zoma. She blew the whistle on
45:45
Speaker 1: gender and racial discrimination at the company Pinterest and just
45:49
Speaker 1: actually passed groundbreaking legislation in California to free the victims
45:54
Speaker 1: of racial and gender discrimination at tech companies from non
45:57
Speaker 1: disclosure acts. So if you signed an ND but you
46:00
Speaker 1: were the victim of discrimination you previously it could be
46:04
Speaker 1: sued if you talked about that experience. But because of
46:07
Speaker 1: this legislation, the Silent No More Act, she is actually
46:11
Speaker 1: freed victims of discrimination up to talk about their experiences,
46:15
Speaker 1: and so, you know, I would encourage everybody to you know,
46:18
Speaker 1: you can listen to the series that we have on whistleblowers.
46:20
Speaker 1: But also in addition to listening to Frances Higgen's testimony,
46:25
Speaker 1: make sure that you read about Sophie Saying story. You know,
46:27
Speaker 1: I mentioned Sophia Saying earlier. She was a former Facebook employee.
46:30
Speaker 1: She's a trans woman of color who was a previous
46:33
Speaker 1: Facebook whistle blower, and she deserves so much praise for
46:38
Speaker 1: the work of identifying harm that Facebook was doing when
46:43
Speaker 1: she worked there, working internally to try to mitigate it,
46:46
Speaker 1: and when that did not work, speaking up about it
46:48
Speaker 1: after she left. And you know, whistle blowing is scary,
46:53
Speaker 1: thankless dangerous work, and it's often the work of women.
46:56
Speaker 1: And I think that it's work that is become even
47:00
Speaker 1: more dangerous the more marginalized you are. So if you're
47:03
Speaker 1: a woman, it's more it's more dangerous to do to
47:06
Speaker 1: be whistle blower as a woman than as a man.
47:08
Speaker 1: It is more dangerous to be whistle blower as a
47:10
Speaker 1: woman of color than as a white woman. And it's
47:12
Speaker 1: more dangerous to be a whistle blower as a trans
47:13
Speaker 1: woman than assist woman, right, And so whistle blowing is
47:16
Speaker 1: not this like gender neutral, race neutral, identity neutral thing.
47:21
Speaker 1: It really does take into account our identities. And so,
47:24
Speaker 1: you know, I've already seen these attacks on Hagen that
47:27
Speaker 1: are like, oh, she must just be a disgruntled employee,
47:30
Speaker 1: or she doesn't really know what she's talking about. Like
47:33
Speaker 1: in their response, a Facebook comms person was like, oh, well,
47:36
Speaker 1: you know she never had any direct reports, she didn't
47:39
Speaker 1: really worked on this, or that you know, really trying
47:41
Speaker 1: to minimize her experiences in her voice, or saying that
47:45
Speaker 1: she's just doing it for publicity or for money. And
47:47
Speaker 1: it's like, people do not do the scary, thankless, dangerous
47:52
Speaker 1: work of whistle blowing because they want to get a check, right, Like,
47:55
Speaker 1: it is incredibly destabilizing to your entire life and often
48:00
Speaker 1: your family life, to blow the whistle like this. And
48:03
Speaker 1: so I think it's important that we remember that there
48:05
Speaker 1: are women and women of color who risk so much
48:09
Speaker 1: and take on such a huge personal cost to get
48:13
Speaker 1: us this information. And I think we owe it to
48:15
Speaker 1: them to do something about it once they do. And
48:18
Speaker 1: the story, just what you were saying alone reminds me
48:21
Speaker 1: of the Google employee you had brought to us as
48:24
Speaker 1: well in that same like they just want to discredit
48:28
Speaker 1: instead of acknowledge the problems, and so many are used
48:32
Speaker 1: to discrediting women and women of color and women who
48:35
Speaker 1: are marginalized in the LGBTQ community, Like it's just such
48:39
Speaker 1: ah almost by the playbook when it comes to the misogynist,
48:45
Speaker 1: racist ideals of the US that unfortunately it's still kind
48:48
Speaker 1: of works. Yes, I mean exactly, like the situation that
48:52
Speaker 1: Google was tennant Tobru like she I think that it's
48:56
Speaker 1: for a lot of women and women of color were
48:58
Speaker 1: already seen as margin We're already marginalized, We're already seen
49:02
Speaker 1: as like perpetual outsiders. And so when we speak up,
49:05
Speaker 1: when we practice public courage and public morality and say
49:08
Speaker 1: like this bad thing is happening and it's not great.
49:10
Speaker 1: We should it shouldn't be happening, it's so easy for
49:13
Speaker 1: people to discredit us, the crap on us, to say like, oh,
49:16
Speaker 1: they don't know what they're talking about. Like, and I think,
49:18
Speaker 1: like it is so important that in the face of
49:20
Speaker 1: that that we support women who speak up. It's because
49:25
Speaker 1: you know, it's just there's already a an attitude waiting
49:30
Speaker 1: and ready and willing to suppress their voices. Absolutely, and
49:34
Speaker 1: I thank you so much for bringing their names to
49:38
Speaker 1: our attention and for bringing this topic to our attention.
49:42
Speaker 1: And do you want to Are there any resources you
49:45
Speaker 1: want to shout out? And also where can the good
49:47
Speaker 1: listeners find you? One thing I want to note is
49:50
Speaker 1: there are some organizations and initiatives that you can follow
49:54
Speaker 1: if you're interested in knowing more, so can always check
49:56
Speaker 1: out my work at Ultra Violet. Um. We are a
49:58
Speaker 1: gender justice organization, feminist organization that is really working to
50:02
Speaker 1: keep gender at the forefront of tech harms. You can
50:05
Speaker 1: go to we are ultraviolet dot org to find out more.
50:08
Speaker 1: And the Cairos Foundation is actually putting together a campaign
50:12
Speaker 1: asking folks to log out a Facebook this November. And
50:16
Speaker 1: so if you're if you're someone who's thinking like, gee,
50:19
Speaker 1: I don't like what I'm hearing about Facebook, and I
50:22
Speaker 1: want to do whatever I can to divest from Facebook
50:25
Speaker 1: a little bit more, check out caiross campaign this November
50:28
Speaker 1: about how you can do that. And yeah, if you
50:31
Speaker 1: want to hear more conversations about women whistleblowers and this
50:35
Speaker 1: women in tech who are trying to speak up and
50:38
Speaker 1: trying to practice moral courage um and trying to act
50:43
Speaker 1: as the conscious of tech platforms in the tech industry.
50:47
Speaker 1: You can check out my podcast. There are no girls
50:49
Speaker 1: on the internet where we are having conversations about what
50:52
Speaker 1: it means to practice that kind of public courage and
50:57
Speaker 1: public bravery in tech. So we would love to have you. Yes, definitely,
51:01
Speaker 1: definitely go check it out. It's amazing. You can find
51:04
Speaker 1: Bridget online. Also, it always feels so weird when you're
51:07
Speaker 1: like this social media platform problems, but find me on
51:11
Speaker 1: there if you pretty much, every like every like tech
51:16
Speaker 1: accountability organization right now and activists but organized right now
51:20
Speaker 1: is going through the same thing of like, well I
51:21
Speaker 1: hate Facebook, but I'm on Facebook. What do I do?
51:24
Speaker 1: But if you want to follow me, you can follow
51:26
Speaker 1: me on Instagram at Bridget Marie in DC and on
51:28
Speaker 1: Twitter at Bridget Murray. And you should thank you so
51:35
Speaker 1: much for being here, Bridget, it was a pleasure. As always, listeners,
51:39
Speaker 1: if you would like to contact us, you can our
51:41
Speaker 1: emails Stuff and your mom Stuff that I Hurt me
51:43
Speaker 1: you dot com. You can find us on Instagram at
51:44
Speaker 1: Stuff I've Never Told You or on Twitter at mom
51:46
Speaker 1: Stuff Podcast. It's always to our super producer, Christina, Thank
51:49
Speaker 1: you and thanks to you for listening stuff I never
51:51
Speaker 1: told you. Protection by heart Radio from more podcast in
51:53
Speaker 1: My heart Radio is the heart radio app, Apple podcast,
51:55
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite ships.