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Transcript

The Cat and Mouse Game of Age Verification Online · Never Post

• 0:10
  Mike Rugnetta: Friends, hello, and welcome to Never Post, a
• 0:13
  podcast for and about the Internet. I'm your host, Mike
• 0:16
  Rugnetta. This intro was written on Tuesday, 08/26/2025 at
• 0:21
  08:57AM eastern, and we have a nonstop show for you this week.
• 0:27
  First, I talked with David Huerta, senior digital security
• 0:31
  trainer at Freedom of the Press Foundation about Blue Sky being
• 0:35
  blocked in Mississippi and the usefulness of VPNs. Then hot on
• 0:41
  the heels of our member drive stream week, an edit of our what
• 0:46
  is going on here stream recorded live in front of a Twitch chat
• 0:51
  audience and also the gang games.
• 0:55
  But right now, we're gonna take a quick break. You're gonna
• 0:57
  listen to some ads unless you're in the member feed. And when we
• 1:00
  return, we'll talk about a few of the things that have happened
• 1:02
  since the last time you heard from us. It's something
• 1:07
  unpredictable, but in the end, that's four stories for you this
• 1:11
  week. AOL is suspending dial up service, something you maybe
• 1:17
  thought it did twenty years ago.
• 1:19
  The ISP will cease the max 56 k b p s connection on September
• 1:24
  30. In 2021, when AOL sold to private equity firm Apollo
• 1:29
  Global Management, CNBC reported that quote, the number of dial
• 1:33
  up users is now in the low thousands. Kickstarter United,
• 1:50
  the union of Kickstarter workers organized under o p e I u local
• 1:54
  one fifty three, is currently collecting signatures on a
• 1:58
  petition asking management to include in their contract
• 2:02
  guarantees to maintain their preexisting standard of a four
• 2:07
  day work week. Since April 2022, the union writes, Kickstarter
• 2:12
  employees have worked under a four day, thirty two hour work
• 2:16
  week. It began as a commitment to building a healthier, more
• 2:20
  sustainable workplace.
• 2:22
  During this time, Kickstarter experienced the most successful
• 2:25
  period in its sixteen year history, hosting some of the
• 2:29
  biggest, most groundbreaking projects ever launched on the
• 2:32
  platform, end quote. They later continue, as we entered contract
• 2:36
  negotiations with management, we asked them to make the four day
• 2:39
  thirty two hour work week permanent, not as a pilot or a
• 2:43
  promise, but as policy. They have refused and are determined
• 2:47
  to retain the ability to make us work 25% more hours for no
• 2:53
  additional compensation. They're asking for support in the form
• 2:57
  of petition signatures, so we've included a link to that in the
• 3:01
  show notes if you'd like to sign. YouTube has been using AI
• 3:07
  to upscale already uploaded videos without uploader
• 3:11
  permission.
• 3:11
  On August 14, music YouTuber, Rhett Schull, uploaded a video
• 3:15
  titled YouTube is using AI to alter content and not telling
• 3:19
  us. Made after his friend and colleague Rick Beeto, another
• 3:23
  music YouTuber, noticed he looked sort of like an AI
• 3:26
  deepfake of himself in certain YouTube shorts. The BBC reports
• 3:32
  that complaints of AI upscaling by YouTube go back to June on
• 3:35
  social media, quote, with users posting close ups of odd looking
• 3:39
  body parts and questioning YouTube's intentions. Now, they
• 3:43
  continue, after months of rumors in comment sections, the company
• 3:47
  has finally confirmed it is altering a limited number of
• 3:51
  videos on YouTube shorts, the app's short form video feature.
• 3:55
  We're running an experiment on select YouTube shorts, a company
• 3:59
  representative says, that uses traditional machine learning
• 4:02
  technology to unblur, denoise, and improve clarity in videos
• 4:06
  during processing, similar to what a modern smartphone does
• 4:09
  when you record a video, end quote.
• 4:12
  Improving clarity by making everyone look like cake. Yum.
• 4:16
  It's your birthday. And finally, research out of MIT shows that
• 4:23
  95% of generative AI pilots at companies are failing. Fortune
• 4:28
  reports that, quote, the vast majority stall delivering little
• 4:31
  to no measurable impact on profits and losses, end quote.
• 4:35
  Study authors tell Fortune that while executives may push for
• 4:38
  more AI use and blame regulation or model performance for lack of
• 4:42
  uptake, the problem actually lies in a misunderstanding of
• 4:46
  what these tools are suited for. Extremely narrow, often rote,
• 4:50
  data oriented tasks, what Fortune calls back office
• 4:54
  automation. Companies also suffer when they attempt to
• 4:57
  design and implement their own AI solutions with findings
• 5:01
  showing that nearly 70% of internal tools fail to have any
• 5:05
  business impact. In show news this week, folks, friends,
• 5:16
  listeners, the member drive stream week is over, but it
• 5:19
  lives on in our hearts, and the member drive itself continues.
• 5:24
  More on that in a moment.
• 5:25
  First, let's do some numbers. Over the last week, we streamed
• 5:33
  thirty six hours and one minute. You all watched us for a
• 5:36
  combined total of eighty eight thousand eight hundred and
• 5:39
  twenty seven minutes. We had an average viewer count over those
• 5:42
  thirty six hours of forty one with a max concurrent viewer
• 5:46
  count of a 138. We reached 11,322 unique people and there
• 5:53
  were 156 of you in the chat.
• 5:56
  That all adds up to 16,294 live views and 17,006 v o d views.
• 6:04
  And a bunch of those are still up if you wanna go watch.
• 6:06
  They're gonna expire soon, I think. 65% of our audience was
• 6:10
  in The US and 35% elsewhere. Switzerland, looking at you.
• 6:14
  And we were rated once by the investigators pod while we were
• 6:19
  all quietly watching Virtuosity. We now have 218 Twitch followers
• 6:25
  and 31 subscribers, five of which were gifted. We have
• 6:29
  reached affiliate status. I only kind of know what that means,
• 6:33
  except that we'll probably keep streaming at least a little
• 6:37
  every once in a while. So if you wanna catch us when we go live,
• 6:41
  make sure to follow us at twitch.tv/theneverpost.
• 6:48
  We also announced that the never post subreddit is the place to
• 6:52
  hang out with other listeners as well as the staff of the show,
• 6:55
  and we have got 62 new members over there, including at least
• 6:59
  one that is site wide shadow band. That's me, Mike Rugnetta.
• 7:03
  I will accept any tips on how to remedy that situation. Anyways,
• 7:08
  r forward slash never post. Come hang out on Ramit.
• 7:11
  But okay. The big number, the important one, how many new
• 7:15
  members did we get? Our goal for August is to add 200 new members
• 7:21
  and we got a 154. Holy cow. Can we close that gap of 46 in,
• 7:30
  looks at calendar, five days?
• 7:33
  That is up to you all listening. We did about that many in the
• 7:37
  first two days of the member drive. Maybe we can do it again
• 7:41
  to close it out. If you aren't already a member and have been
• 7:44
  thinking about becoming one for $4 a month, there's no better
• 7:48
  time than right now, I promise. Okay.
• 7:50
  Two more things. Wow. Lots of show news this week. We've been
• 7:53
  very busy. If you've always wanted to be a member but aren't
• 7:58
  in a spot where you can part with $4 a month, we have a
• 8:01
  limited number of gift memberships still available from
• 8:05
  the stream week.
• 8:06
  Your fellow listeners have donated a year of membership.
• 8:10
  That is how much they like being members, and we're gonna give
• 8:13
  them out first come, first served. So just email us at the
• 8:16
  neverpost@Gmail.com with the subject gift membership in all
• 8:21
  caps. If we still have some available, we'll reply with
• 8:25
  details. And finally, if you've always wanted merch, now's the
• 8:32
  time.
• 8:32
  That's right. Never post has t shirts. You can head to
• 8:35
  neverpost.bigcartel.com to take a look at the two designs
• 8:41
  currently available. One by the incomparable casket map and the
• 8:45
  other by the inimitable Spence Nelson. These are shirt
• 8:49
  preorders.
• 8:50
  Once preorders are closed on September 12, shirts will be
• 8:54
  handprinted and then shipped by the Neverpost staff. We are not
• 8:58
  printing them. We are hiring a professional who's very, good to
• 9:01
  print them, but we will be packing and shipping them. See
• 9:04
  the item page for more details about what preorder means and,
• 9:08
  what you can expect as far as timing and shipping and all
• 9:11
  that. Neverpost.bigcartel.com.
• 9:14
  Okay. That is the news I have for you this week. First, blue
• 9:20
  sky is blocked in Mississippi. Then, what is going on here? But
• 9:25
  right now, at certain points throughout the stream week,
• 9:28
  myself, Jason, and Georgia played video games.
• 9:31
  Maybe you've heard them. In our interstitials this week, clips
• 9:34
  from Never Post Plays.
• 9:37
  Jason Oberholtzer: Alright. Well, well. Alright. Chat,
• 9:40
  Georgia Hampton: you have decided this is the person that
• 9:41
  I look like. I don't super remember what Bobby Pin looks
• 9:45
  like.
• 9:45
  Jason Oberholtzer: This is about to be great.
• 9:46
  Georgia Hampton: So you're gonna find out. Well, don't look it up
• 9:50
  because then you'll see what she looks like.
• 9:51
  Jason Oberholtzer: Oh, let's find out together. Wow. Yep.
• 9:54
  Okay. Like a family.
• 9:57
  Georgia, I'm excited for you. Before you Oh. Feel an
• 10:01
  overwhelming air of cool of
• 10:04
  Georgia Hampton: An overwhelming air of cool?
• 10:07
  Jason Oberholtzer: Leather and metal and the best hair and
• 10:09
  eyebrows you've ever seen. Bow is impartially cool. Are
• 10:21
  Georgia Hampton: you kidding me?
• 10:22
  Jason Oberholtzer: Oh.
• 10:24
  Mike Rugnetta: Perfect. Perfect. Perfect.
• 10:28
  Georgia Hampton: This is the hugest compliment I've ever
• 10:30
  gotten in my life. Well, they say that in a lot of queer
• 10:36
  relationships, people look like twins. So let's go. Problem
• 10:38
  punk? Oh my god.
• 10:44
  Should we be sassy? Our three options are what?
• 10:48
  Jason Oberholtzer: You would know. This is like you're
• 10:49
  fighting the mirror right now. I'm fighting
• 10:50
  Georgia Hampton: the mirror right now. Yeah. Yeah. I think
• 10:53
  it's a. Okay.
• 10:54
  She said, you got a problem, punk? No. But it sounds like you
• 10:57
  do.
• 10:57
  Jason Oberholtzer: What? Me? Nah.
• 10:59
  Georgia Hampton: I'm just messing with you. Me coded also.
• 11:02
  Mike Rugnetta: My name's Bobby.
• 11:03
  Jason Oberholtzer: Bobby Pin.
• 11:04
  Georgia Hampton: Oh my god. I love you. We are the same.
• 12:15
  Mike Rugnetta: Mississippi house bill one one two six, known
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  otherwise as the Walker Montgomery protecting children
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  online act, was passed on 04/20/2024 and signed by
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  Mississippi governor Tate Reeves on April 30. The bill was
• 12:32
  established quote to protect minors from harmful content. How
• 12:36
  does it do this? Well, I'll let the bill speak for itself. It
• 12:39
  reads, one, digital service provider may not enter into an
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  agreement with a person to create an account with a digital
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  service unless the person has registered the person's age with
• 12:51
  the digital service provider.
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  And then later, a digital service provider shall not
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  permit an account holder who is a known minor to be an account
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  holder unless the known minor has expressed consent from a
• 13:03
  parent or guardian. It then lists ways in which consent can
• 13:07
  be given. A form which can be emailed or faxed, a toll free
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  phone line that can be called, a video chat, an ID scan which
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  then must be deleted it says, or any other quote commercially
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  reasonable method. Once consent is given, the DSP then needs to
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  make sure that it abides by further rules concerning what a
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  minor can and cannot be shown. The bill reads, one, in relation
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  to a known minor's use of a digital service, a digital
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  service provider shall make commercially reasonable efforts
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  to develop and implement a strategy to prevent or mitigate
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  the known minors exposure to harmful material and other
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  content that promotes or facilitates the following harms
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  to minors.
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  A, consistent with evidence informed medical information,
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  the following, self harm, eating disorders, substance use
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  disorders, and suicidal behaviors. B, patterns of use
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  that indicate or encourage substance abuse or use of
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  illegal drugs. C, stalking, physical violence, online
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  bullying, or harassment. D, grooming, trafficking, child
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  pornography, or other sexual exploitation or abuse. E,
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  incitement of violence or f, any other illegal activity.
• 14:24
  Not only does this mean the DSP needs to keep track of who is
• 14:27
  and who is not a minor, some of these guidelines are also very
• 14:31
  broad. In today's political climate, labels like any other
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  illegal activity are definitely moving targets. Net Choice, a
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  trade association which represents tech clients like
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  Meta, Airbnb, Amazon, Reddit, Snap, and thirty some others
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  sued Mississippi over h b one one two six saying it likely
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  violates free speech guaranteed by the first amendment and equal
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  protection rights guaranteed by the fourteenth. Netchoice asked
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  for an injunction, a pause on enforcement of the law while a
• 15:02
  court determines if those rights were being violated. The United
• 15:06
  States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi
• 15:08
  granted that injunction saying Netchoice was probably right and
• 15:13
  that furthermore, they likely had standing to bring suit.
• 15:16
  Mississippi's AG, Lynn Fitch, appealed saying that the
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  district court didn't provide analysis as required by legal
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  precedent. The United States Court of Appeals for the fifth
• 15:27
  circuit agreed and vacated the injunction, which meant that h b
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  one one two six could go into effect over a year after it was
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  originally signed. This back and forth made it to the Supreme
• 15:39
  Court who concurred with the Fifth Circuit. Earlier in
• 15:43
  August, writing for the court with no dissents included,
• 15:47
  justice Kavanaugh says, Netchoice has, in my view,
• 15:51
  demonstrated that it is likely to succeed on the merits.
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  Namely, that enforcement of the Mississippi law would likely
• 15:57
  violate its members first amendment rights under this
• 16:00
  court's precedence.
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  However, he continued, because net choice has not sufficiently
• 16:05
  demonstrated that the balance of harms and equities favors it at
• 16:09
  this time, I concur in the court's denial of the
• 16:12
  application for interim relief. Basically, while the law is
• 16:16
  likely unconstitutional, net choice didn't convincingly show
• 16:19
  that the courts need to step in as soon as possible. So h b one
• 16:24
  one two six stands. The supreme court's decision made on August
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  14 further cemented the fact that perhaps eventually this law
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  could be overturned, but in the interim Mississippi could
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  continue to enforce it as written.
• 16:40
  David Huerta: And many websites started creating these sort of
• 16:44
  like, not exactly pay walls, but age walls for verification.
• 16:49
  Mike Rugnetta: This is David Huerta.
• 16:51
  David Huerta: I'm David Huerta. I'm one of the senior digital
• 16:54
  security trainers over at Freedom of the Press Foundation.
• 16:57
  Mike Rugnetta: The Freedom of the Press Foundation helps
• 16:59
  journalists safely do their work online. This means, among other
• 17:04
  things, knowing how to protect their identities in certain
• 17:07
  scenarios, something that this ruling has now made more
• 17:10
  complicated for many websites accessible within Mississippi.
• 17:14
  David Huerta: This, of course, carries a certain amount of
• 17:16
  security and privacy concerns. Of course, there's the fact that
• 17:20
  you're trusting a third party website with something as
• 17:22
  sensitive as your ID, for example. There is also the
• 17:26
  concerns around, for example, securing that data once it
• 17:29
  arrives, that image of your driver's license once it arrives
• 17:31
  on their end, and how much trust do you have on these systems to
• 17:38
  actually protect your data. I feel like we've all had GDPR
• 17:44
  database notifications reach our inbox. These are not infrequent.
• 17:48
  And sometimes the stakes are relatively low. It's like, oh, I
• 17:50
  guess I gotta change my password. But if we're gonna
• 17:53
  make the age verification the norm and we're gonna have our,
• 17:56
  you know, our driver's licenses or passports all over the place,
• 17:59
  it's a lot harder to change your driver's license number than it
• 18:02
  is to change a password on the website.
• 18:05
  Mike Rugnetta: I wanted to talk with David to better understand
• 18:07
  how companies are responding to these risky new age wall
• 18:11
  requirements and also to better understand some of the
• 18:14
  technologies that people are suggesting for circumventing
• 18:17
  them. I started by asking about a blog post from Friday, August
• 18:21
  22 that was written by the Blue Sky team entitled our response
• 18:26
  to Mississippi's age assurance law. It read, starting today, if
• 18:32
  you access Blue Sky from a Mississippi IP address, you'll
• 18:36
  see a message explaining why the app isn't available. This block
• 18:40
  will remain in place while the courts decide whether the law
• 18:43
  will stand. And this means that at the time of recording, while
• 18:47
  we're recording this, Blue Sky is no longer reachable in the
• 18:51
  state of Mississippi.
• 18:52
  Yep. If I'm understanding correctly, it is not that
• 18:56
  Mississippi has blocked Blue Sky. It is that Blue Sky has
• 19:01
  made itself unavailable to people who are logging in or
• 19:05
  trying to access the website from a Mississippi IP address.
• 19:10
  David Huerta: That is correct. In this case, Blue Sky is
• 19:13
  basically trying to figure out where exactly it fits into this
• 19:15
  law, how exactly is its content being interpreted, and how much
• 19:21
  does that actually affect them. So unfortunately, this creates a
• 19:24
  sort of, like, chilling effect where they maybe don't wanna
• 19:27
  take on that risk of getting sued or getting in trouble with
• 19:29
  the law. So rather than dealing with that and the interpretation
• 19:33
  of, like, where they fit into that law, they've decided, in
• 19:36
  this case, it seems to pull out entirely until that's figured
• 19:39
  out.
• 19:40
  Mike Rugnetta: In their blog post, they write, we think this
• 19:43
  law creates challenges that go beyond its child safety goals
• 19:47
  and creates significant barriers that limit free speech and
• 19:50
  disproportionately harms smaller platforms and emerging
• 19:53
  technologies. Do have a sense of what it is that they mean in
• 19:58
  that case? Like, what is it about this that they feel is
• 20:02
  disproportionately harming them as a small team or a new piece
• 20:06
  of technology?
• 20:08
  David Huerta: Yeah. I feel like there's, you know, a lot of
• 20:12
  things that go into features being requested as part of this
• 20:18
  law that other companies have either already implemented or
• 20:23
  have the staffing, the resources, the money to
• 20:25
  basically implement it and have a lot of experience with that,
• 20:29
  including with things like content moderation as kind of an
• 20:32
  an addenda in addition to that. When it comes to Blue Sky and
• 20:36
  also other smaller platforms like Mastodon, which in in their
• 20:40
  cases, for example, are, like, small mini Blue Skies almost
• 20:44
  that may have, like, one or two people total running the show
• 20:48
  for their for their particular communities. Having to spin up
• 20:51
  all these new features and worry about the sort of, like, legal
• 20:56
  repercussions of what happens if they make a mistake is something
• 20:59
  that is much much more consequential to them than it
• 21:03
  would be for, like, a vastly wealthy company like Meta, for
• 21:06
  example.
• 21:07
  Mike Rugnetta: Or, like, Facebook's got the
• 21:08
  infrastructure maybe preexisting or is able to get it up quickly
• 21:12
  to store and process scans of IDs, even if that is sort of, in
• 21:18
  a larger sense, something we should all be suspicious of, it
• 21:21
  is something that they can build quickly.
• 21:24
  David Huerta: Yeah. They have the infrastructure. They have
• 21:26
  the security engineers. They have the lawyers. They have the
• 21:30
  resources, basically, to help them navigate that a lot more
• 21:34
  smoothly than, you know, a team that is made up of, like, you
• 21:37
  know, a dozen or or maybe in some types of less people when
• 21:40
  it comes to things like Mastodon.
• 21:41
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Yeah. Your point about Mastodon is
• 21:43
  interesting. I hadn't considered that. Are you seeing a similar
• 21:46
  thing happening in Mastodon instances?
• 21:49
  Are are Mastodon instances also blocking access from
• 21:52
  Mississippi?
• 21:54
  David Huerta: I have not seen that yet. I can't tell whether
• 21:57
  Blue Sky is sort of the exception to the rule or whether
• 22:00
  they are the canary in the coal mine, and this is just the
• 22:03
  beginning of what has to come for many other social media
• 22:06
  platforms, including a lot of platforms where a lot of
• 22:09
  journalistic work is being done, where a lot of you know, if if
• 22:13
  people remember, there was a lot of news that broke on Twitter.
• 22:17
  There was a lot of news that broke on social media. These
• 22:20
  platforms are basically a source of journalistic work and news
• 22:24
  for many people, and having them suddenly not be accessible is is
• 22:30
  an issue because now people don't have the same access or at
• 22:34
  least the same variety of places to get their news from.
• 22:37
  Mike Rugnetta: One thing I've seen online in response to all
• 22:39
  of this is time to get a VPN. Yeah. Could you describe, just
• 22:45
  in broad terms, what a VPN is?
• 22:48
  David Huerta: Sure. So VPN, in this case, is a virtual private
• 22:52
  network, a way for you to use someone else's Internet
• 22:57
  connection to connect to the website that you actually wanna
• 22:59
  access. And it is one of those things where, largely speaking,
• 23:04
  VPNs are still relatively effective at getting around a
• 23:08
  lot of blockage that exists, especially simple sort of like
• 23:12
  IP based blocks like this where if, you know, there's a sort of
• 23:16
  IP address that is associated with a specific jurisdiction
• 23:19
  like Mississippi, you can basically simply appear from an
• 23:23
  IP address that is not one of those.
• 23:26
  Mike Rugnetta: IP address kinda acting like almost like an area
• 23:30
  code on your phone. Right? You can sort of tell roughly where
• 23:33
  someone is from based upon this marker and how they're
• 23:37
  communicating with you. And so that's how Blue Sky is able to
• 23:41
  say, no. Thank you to folks who try to sign on from Mississippi
• 23:44
  and how a VPN can say, like, oh, no.
• 23:47
  No. Like, actually, I'm from New York or I'm from Vermont. And
• 23:50
  so, you know, sort of like changing your area code or
• 23:53
  something.
• 23:54
  David Huerta: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You could appear to the
• 23:56
  websites you're visiting as if you're in another place, like
• 24:00
  another state.
• 24:00
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Yeah. Do you think VPN saturation is
• 24:04
  about to just, like, skyrocket, or or do you think this is a
• 24:08
  sort of limited trend?
• 24:11
  David Huerta: I feel like I don't know what the outcome of
• 24:14
  this of this blue sky block is going to be. So it's interesting
• 24:18
  to see, like, whether the courts will interpret things in a way
• 24:20
  that makes it less of a necessity. Yeah. But if we do
• 24:25
  kinda start setting this precedence of just like, well,
• 24:28
  we have these kind of, like, broadly defined laws that make
• 24:31
  it incredibly difficult for a smaller website to operate, The
• 24:34
  only way to really access this is through a VPN. Then we may,
• 24:38
  in fact, reach this point where that does become sort of a
• 24:42
  normal thing people have.
• 24:44
  Mike Rugnetta: Can you just tell us a little bit about the other
• 24:48
  states around the world where VPN use is really common?
• 24:52
  David Huerta: Yeah. There is a lot of VPN usage in places like
• 24:56
  China where there is sort of, like, government facilitated
• 24:59
  infrastructure that blocks many foreign websites. There's sort
• 25:04
  of, like, mix of how it's used. In many cases, it's, you know,
• 25:09
  sometimes something that is deeply frowned upon. In other
• 25:11
  cases, it's sort of, like, allowing it just enough because
• 25:14
  it's sort of the cost of doing business with the outside world.
• 25:18
  In other places like Russia, for example, there is some blockage
• 25:23
  of some VPNs, but it's not always easy for a government
• 25:27
  system to sort of, like, keep track of all that, and it
• 25:32
  varies. Sometimes governments will have, like, a very
• 25:35
  centralized way to control, like, access to the Internet.
• 25:38
  Other times, they'll have a mix of, like, well, we have this
• 25:42
  government censorship firewall for your home ISP and your
• 25:47
  office ISP, but the mobile providers are not haven't built
• 25:52
  it for them yet. So a VPN is kind of a workaround that can
• 25:58
  exist for any combination of these situations where if you're
• 26:02
  seeing blockage, you can use a VPN to use this. And maybe in
• 26:05
  places where a VPN is blocked, there may be other ways to
• 26:08
  connect and then use a VPN to access things.
• 26:10
  It's kind of all over the place, honestly. But in regimes where
• 26:14
  there is a lot of, like, very sort of, like, explicit
• 26:17
  government blockage of online content, VPNs are pretty common.
• 26:22
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. There's I I have seen some chatter recently
• 26:26
  too about The UK becoming maybe the next place where VPNs get
• 26:33
  heavily restricted or blocked because use of them skyrocketed
• 26:36
  after the implementation of the Online Safety Act.
• 26:40
  David Huerta: Yeah. I could definitely see that being the
• 26:43
  sort of, like, the new norm for The UK, unfortunately. And I do
• 26:48
  think that that's probably going to follow suit in many US states
• 26:51
  as well if similar laws to these get passed and if the courts
• 26:56
  basically interpret sort of basic social networks and other
• 26:59
  kind of platforms as falling within this category.
• 27:02
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. I'm curious if you can talk a little bit
• 27:06
  about any of the technical details of how a country or a
• 27:11
  state enforces a VPN ban.
• 27:15
  David Huerta: Yeah. It's very much a cat and mouse game, and
• 27:18
  unfortunately, the VPNs are the mice.
• 27:20
  Mike Rugnetta: So Of course.
• 27:21
  David Huerta: Sometimes the mice are still clever. Like, you
• 27:23
  know, New York City is full of rats, and we humans, apex
• 27:27
  predators that have the technology of the of gods,
• 27:30
  basically, compared to rats still have not gotten rid of
• 27:34
  them. So it is sort of a, like, I guess, weirdly optimistic way
• 27:38
  to say that there are ways that censorship regimes will try to
• 27:42
  block VPNs, either through blocking the IP addresses
• 27:47
  associated with those VPN connections or by trying to look
• 27:53
  at sort of like Internet traffic, like your Internet
• 27:57
  connection to a VPN and seeing like, that looks like a VPN
• 28:00
  connection, and then blocking those types of connections,
• 28:02
  which is significantly more sophisticated. And some of the
• 28:05
  more sophisticated regimes out there do have that kind of
• 28:09
  blockage. It's a little bit, unfortunately, a little bit
• 28:12
  smarter.
• 28:13
  That being said, though, there are ways that Tor, that VPN
• 28:17
  companies have both sort of found to mask that web traffic
• 28:22
  to make it look like just very normal web traffic and not like
• 28:25
  VPN or Tor traffic, for example.
• 28:27
  Mike Rugnetta: In your estimation, aren't VPN companies
• 28:31
  ever targeted by the states who are trying to circumvent their
• 28:35
  technology?
• 28:37
  David Huerta: Sometimes. Yeah. There are some countries which
• 28:41
  have laws specifically regarding VPNs and their usage. And in
• 28:47
  some places, it may be, like, completely illegal. In other
• 28:49
  countries, there's also a registration process.
• 28:52
  Pakistan, for example, technically kind of can allow
• 28:56
  you to use a VPN, but you have to tell them exactly what that
• 29:01
  connection is
• 29:02
  Mike Rugnetta: Uh-huh.
• 29:03
  David Huerta: Which is, of course, a little bit invasive.
• 29:07
  Yeah. Let's just be real. So it's it's not an ideal
• 29:10
  situation, but you do see sort of the sort of targeting of VPN
• 29:15
  access and the sort of, you know, the understanding that,
• 29:18
  like, this is the way people are working around it, and this is
• 29:21
  what we're trying to do, either block it or regulate it or, you
• 29:24
  know, ban it.
• 29:25
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. As a consumer, how do you go about
• 29:28
  choosing a VPN?
• 29:31
  David Huerta: Yeah. So I get this question a lot. We have a
• 29:34
  guide at freedom.press that kinda goes through all the
• 29:36
  things that we like to talk about when shopping for a VPN,
• 29:40
  considerations around making sure that it's actually a paid
• 29:43
  VPN, because many times, free VPNs are fake. They're actually
• 29:47
  just, like, logging that information, selling it to third
• 29:49
  parties, and making their money that way. It's also important to
• 29:54
  look at things like modern security protocols.
• 29:58
  Behind the scenes, kinda underneath the hood of, what
• 30:01
  runs a VPN, there's things like a WireGuard, pretty good
• 30:04
  protocol to use for many situations that you may need a
• 30:06
  VPN for. There's also a need for transparency with these tools
• 30:11
  just because you are entrusting them with your web traffic. So
• 30:15
  things like security audit reports, for example, detailed
• 30:19
  technical documentation of what exactly they're doing behind the
• 30:21
  scenes to guarantee your security. Because anybody can
• 30:24
  say, like, use our VPN. It's secure.
• 30:27
  Here's a little sticker. Here's a little graphic says secure.
• 30:30
  Here's a little seal.
• 30:31
  Mike Rugnetta: I've seen that circle with the check mark
• 30:32
  inside of it. Yeah.
• 30:33
  David Huerta: Yeah. Yeah. The check mark means nothing. In
• 30:35
  this case, having a third party audit, like, security firm audit
• 30:40
  a VPN's infrastructure to make sure that it's actually doing
• 30:43
  what it's supposed to be doing and doing so in a way that's
• 30:46
  secure is a massive sort of, like, green flag when it comes
• 30:50
  to transparency when choosing a VPN.
• 30:55
  Mike Rugnetta: What would make you feel good to, you know, be
• 30:59
  able to give the thumbs up to ID scanning age verification
• 31:05
  online?
• 31:08
  David Huerta: There's a lot that would have to be done there,
• 31:12
  starting with a national privacy law that I feel like lawmakers
• 31:15
  could maybe spend time on working on so that we can have
• 31:20
  some, like, legal guardrails to ensure that our data is
• 31:23
  protected when we upload an ID someplace and making sure that
• 31:27
  the right incentives are in place to help make that happen.
• 31:32
  The other thing too is, like, honestly, VPN companies offer a
• 31:36
  little blueprint of what that could look like in terms of
• 31:38
  things like having Yeah. Audits of what their infrastructure
• 31:42
  looks like. Are they just putting your ID photos on, like,
• 31:46
  an unprotected AWS s three bucket someplace? Because I have
• 31:51
  seen that hacked so many times.
• 31:53
  It's it's been ten years since I first saw that. Like, the same
• 31:56
  mistakes keep getting repeated over and over again and it's
• 32:00
  it's very Wild West. But I would want to see sort of, like, more
• 32:05
  transparency from these companies, more legal
• 32:08
  protections, more guarantees, and at the national level, a
• 32:12
  privacy law that would sort of create that blood brain barrier
• 32:16
  between, like, access to that data and other parts of the
• 32:19
  state. For example, DHS and ICE, perhaps.
• 32:23
  Mike Rugnetta: Which gets back to what you talked about earlier
• 32:25
  of, like, it's not it's not necessarily that this is always
• 32:30
  a no go. It's that it's a lot of infrastructure to build. That,
• 32:33
  like, if you're gonna do it, it has to be done it has to be done
• 32:36
  right, and that can be hard for especially smaller websites to
• 32:40
  deal with.
• 32:41
  David Huerta: Yeah. Exactly.
• 32:50
  Mike Rugnetta: David, thank you so much, for joining us to chat
• 32:52
  with us about Blue Sky and Mississippi and VPNs. We really
• 32:56
  appreciate you taking some time out of your schedule.
• 32:57
  David Huerta: No problem. Thanks for having me.
• 32:59
  Mike Rugnetta: If people wanna see your work online, where
• 33:01
  should they go?
• 33:03
  David Huerta: Freedom.press. You can search for VPNs and see all
• 33:08
  kinds of stuff that we've written about that as well as
• 33:10
  other sort of online safety and security topics.
• 33:21
  Georgia Hampton: This is just dessert Tetris in a way.
• 33:24
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. It's just dessert Tetris, but with
• 33:26
  luchadors.
• 33:27
  Georgia Hampton: With the Oh, interesting.
• 33:29
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. So we're at an impasse here.
• 33:33
  Jason Oberholtzer: Okay.
• 33:33
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. You are. We could we could give the porquito
• 33:36
  to the dog and then the porquito porquito is gone.
• 33:40
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. I don't like
• 33:41
  Mike Rugnetta: We could. So if you don't fulfill an order
• 33:44
  within a certain number of turns, the order changes.
• 33:46
  Jason Oberholtzer: Okay.
• 33:47
  Mike Rugnetta: So we could do that but we are close to the top
• 33:49
  of the bag.
• 33:50
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. This is a pivotal moment. I give the dog
• 33:55
  the treat.
• 33:58
  Georgia Hampton: I don't know what this game is.
• 34:00
  Jason Oberholtzer: Good. This this puppy baro. Yeah.
• 34:02
  Mike Rugnetta: Herriot has posted is very convincing.
• 34:05
  Georgia Hampton: This is such a cute little game.
• 34:08
  Jason Oberholtzer: I think doggies do deserve treats.
• 34:10
  Mike Rugnetta: But that's
• 34:10
  Georgia Hampton: You already have a little what I'm assuming
• 34:12
  is what you're talking about, the Porkito.
• 34:15
  Jason Oberholtzer: Oh, he did it. Oh, and it didn't He's gone.
• 34:17
  It didn't collapse.
• 34:19
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. That's a whoops.
• 34:22
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. I think you gotta nudge that. Oh, boy.
• 34:25
  Shit. He did not solve our problem.
• 34:27
  Oh, no. Oh, no. This is gonna this is gonna be okay. We're
• 34:30
  gonna get there. Yep.
• 34:31
  Oh. Uh-huh. What? Poor boy. We won't.
• 34:34
  Oh, yeah. Yeah, baby. That was so satisfying. Wow.
• 34:40
  Georgia Hampton: It's wildly Probably problem game.
• 34:43
  Mike Rugnetta: It's a new dawn. Friends, hello and welcome to
• 35:02
  what is going on here? A segment wherein members of the Never
• 35:06
  Post staff bring posts to the group about which they would
• 35:10
  like to know what is going on here. Could they have done some
• 35:18
  googling? Could they have gone further down thread?
• 35:21
  Could they have cracked a book or gone to YouTube? Probably.
• 35:25
  But where is the fun in that? In the following segment, we share
• 35:28
  things that we found online that made us want to know more and
• 35:31
  about which we thought the process of finding out more
• 35:34
  would be more fun to do together. Joining us for this
• 35:38
  round of what is going on here in order of how well I assume
• 35:42
  they can whistle Oh.
• 35:45
  Ascending Oh. Are
• 36:03
  Georgia Hampton: You're wrong.
• 36:04
  Mike Rugnetta: Never post to producer Hans Buto?
• 36:07
  Hans Buetow: I'm quite good at whistling.
• 36:08
  Georgia Hampton: I believe best.
• 36:10
  Mike Rugnetta: We're gonna have to have a whistle off, aren't
• 36:11
  we? Yeah. Never post executive producer Jason Oberholzer.
• 36:16
  Jason Oberholtzer: So I can do two different kinds of regular
• 36:18
  whistling. Wow. I can do the through the lips and the tongue
• 36:23
  to the roof of the mouth. Woah. Okay.
• 36:26
  Georgia Hampton: I take it all back. You were right, Mike.
• 36:28
  Hans Buetow: You did it. You Mike nailed it. Mike nailed it.
• 36:31
  Jason Oberholtzer: The bar is pretty high to have reached the
• 36:33
  top of the mountain here.
• 36:35
  Hans Buetow: Wow.
• 36:35
  Georgia Hampton: I didn't even know that with what do you
• 36:37
  what's happening in there?
• 36:40
  Mike Rugnetta: That's is that out of the side of the mouth?
• 36:41
  Because I got I have a gap in my front teeth, so I can do the
• 36:45
  Jason Oberholtzer: Oh, wow. Yeah. No. It's Bitch. Just the
• 36:48
  tongue compressing against the roof of the mouth.
• 36:52
  Mike Rugnetta: Oh, no. I can't do that. Yeah.
• 36:57
  Georgia Hampton: What interesting audio this is going
• 36:58
  to be. Just
• 37:00
  Mike Rugnetta: just all
• 37:01
  Jason Oberholtzer: the while you guys tuned in.
• 37:02
  Georgia Hampton: Right? I
• 37:04
  Mike Rugnetta: think of myself as a pretty good whistler.
• 37:05
  Whistler. I
• 37:06
  Hans Buetow: think was gonna say, where are you?
• 37:07
  Georgia Hampton: Yeah. Where are you in this?
• 37:11
  Hans Buetow: Yeah.
• 37:12
  Mike Rugnetta: I can whistle. I can do a little
• 37:13
  Georgia Hampton: bit of Yeah.
• 37:14
  Mike Rugnetta: I can't do any of the
• 37:16
  Georgia Hampton: The big scary whistle.
• 37:17
  Hans Buetow: No. Mike, how would you rate our audience?
• 37:21
  Mike Rugnetta: Audience, you tag yourself. Where are you in the
• 37:23
  whistle world? Okay. We got we got some we got some whistlers
• 37:27
  in the chat. Chat whistles.
• 37:28
  So for the folks listening at home, this segment, this WIGO
• 37:32
  segment, is being recorded live on Twitch as part of the never
• 37:37
  post member drive stream week. Not quite a ham horn, but good
• 37:44
  but nice, but good. Should we find out what's going on here?
• 37:48
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah. Let's do it.
• 37:49
  Mike Rugnetta: Okay. Let's find out what's going on here.
• 37:50
  Jason Oberholtzer: Welcome to today's game.
• 37:53
  Mike Rugnetta: Hans, who should go first?
• 37:55
  Hans Buetow: An audience submission that I'm quite
• 37:57
  excited about. I have not looked I'm not excited because I've
• 37:59
  looked. I'm just excited because audience heck yeah. Thank you
• 38:02
  for being here. This one is by someone named Toby.
• 38:05
  Never heard of him. Don't even know. Who who could that be?
• 38:09
  This is taking a moment because I have to log in to Tumblr.
• 38:12
  Georgia Hampton: Oh, yes, Toby.
• 38:14
  Hans Buetow: Yes. Here we are.
• 38:17
  Mike Rugnetta: Kurt Cobain will have his revenge on the
• 38:20
  straights.
• 38:21
  Hans Buetow: Yes. Yes.
• 38:23
  Mike Rugnetta: Had a video call with my brother Chuck the other
• 38:25
  day. Things got heavy. Okay. I'm gonna be Kate. Georgia, you be
• 38:28
  Chuck.
• 38:29
  Georgia Hampton: Okay.
• 38:29
  Mike Rugnetta: Jason, you be Kurt Cobain. Okay. Was Kurt
• 38:33
  Cobain a trans woman? What? Kurt Cobain, rock musician.
• 38:37
  He was in a band called Nirvana.
• 38:39
  Georgia Hampton: I'm familiar with him.
• 38:40
  Mike Rugnetta: Yes. Was he a trans woman? No. Okay. Why not?
• 38:46
  Georgia Hampton: I mean, he wasn't. It's like asking why he
• 38:49
  wasn't an astronaut.
• 38:50
  Mike Rugnetta: He wasn't an astronaut because he never went
• 38:51
  to space. Why wasn't he a trans woman?
• 38:54
  Georgia Hampton: Because he didn't transition. I mean, he
• 38:56
  didn't ever say he was a woman, didn't ever say he was trans. So
• 39:00
  no. Kurt Cobain wasn't a trans woman.
• 39:02
  Mike Rugnetta: So someone is trans if they say they're trans.
• 39:05
  Self determination.
• 39:07
  Georgia Hampton: That's what you've told me. Is that wrong?
• 39:09
  Mike Rugnetta: No. That's right. We know ourselves better than
• 39:11
  anybody else can know us. If we say we're trans, nobody can say
• 39:14
  we aren't.
• 39:16
  Georgia Hampton: And Kurt Cobain never said he was trans.
• 39:18
  Mike Rugnetta: So was I trans in 1994?
• 39:21
  Georgia Hampton: I don't know. Were you?
• 39:22
  Mike Rugnetta: Yes. But if you'd asked me in 1994, I would have
• 39:25
  told you no.
• 39:27
  Georgia Hampton: So if I tell you I'm trans, I'm trans. Right.
• 39:31
  But if I tell you I'm cis, I might still be trans?
• 39:35
  Mike Rugnetta: If you tell me you're cis, I believe you.
• 39:38
  Georgia Hampton: That's not the same thing as I'm cis.
• 39:41
  Mike Rugnetta: That's a really good point. This is sort of what
• 39:44
  some queer people are getting at when they say gender is a
• 39:47
  construct.
• 39:48
  Georgia Hampton: Come again?
• 39:49
  Mike Rugnetta: Well, you're cisgender. Right?
• 39:51
  Georgia Hampton: As far as I know, yes. You
• 39:56
  Mike Rugnetta: hedged. As far as I know, isn't the same thing as
• 40:01
  yes. As far as I know, opens up the possibility that you could
• 40:04
  be trans and not know it.
• 40:06
  Georgia Hampton: It doesn't seem terribly likely.
• 40:09
  Mike Rugnetta: That's an interesting statement. I feel
• 40:11
  like this is a little bit of like Phoenix. Right? This
• 40:14
  Jason Oberholtzer: is wow.
• 40:15
  Mike Rugnetta: Early on in transition, one of the biggest
• 40:17
  problems I had was dealing with the sheer unlikelihood of my
• 40:19
  being trans. I mean, I knew trans people existed. I knew
• 40:23
  somebody had to be trans. I just couldn't wrap my head around the
• 40:26
  idea that it would be me.
• 40:28
  Georgia Hampton: Do you think this is why you're on this whole
• 40:31
  Kurt Cobain was a trans woman kick?
• 40:33
  Mike Rugnetta: Hey, now. I'm just asking questions.
• 40:36
  You know?
• 40:37
  You know? Like JK Rowling is just asking questions. Oh my.
• 40:43
  Georgia Hampton: Kate, you are literally wearing a T shirt that
• 40:45
  says Kurt Cobain was a trans woman on it right now.
• 40:50
  Mike Rugnetta: Am I? Oh, shit. I thought I was wearing my skip
• 40:53
  school take hormones kill god T shirt. To your question though,
• 40:57
  yeah, I do think that's part of it. Honestly, the hardest thing
• 41:00
  about growing up trans was believing that nobody in the
• 41:02
  world had ever experienced what I was experiencing.
• 41:05
  I didn't have any role models. I didn't wonder if I was the only
• 41:08
  one. I was convinced of it.
• 41:10
  Georgia Hampton: So being able to say that this incredibly
• 41:13
  gifted songwriter, the voice of a generation was a trans woman
• 41:17
  like you.
• 41:19
  Mike Rugnetta: I need someone like that. I need to not be the
• 41:21
  first of my kind.
• 41:23
  Georgia Hampton: Of course, you're not the first trans
• 41:25
  woman.
• 41:25
  Mike Rugnetta: No. But before a couple of years ago, almost
• 41:28
  every trans woman would tell you that they always knew
• 41:31
  unquestionably and innately that they were women.
• 41:35
  Georgia Hampton: So it's not just about him being trans, but
• 41:39
  specifically his being a trans woman who didn't know he was a
• 41:43
  trans woman.
• 41:44
  Mike Rugnetta: An egg. Right.
• 41:47
  Georgia Hampton: Why Kurt Cobain anyway? What's so special about
• 41:50
  him that you're trying to induct him into the egg hall of fame?
• 41:54
  Mike Rugnetta: He knew things. Things cis guys don't know.
• 41:58
  Things I didn't know until after I started transition. He
• 42:01
  understood women, what we're like, what we experience.
• 42:04
  Penroyalty, rape me, I just have a hard time thinking of a cis
• 42:08
  man who could write songs like that.
• 42:10
  Georgia Hampton: It wouldn't be the only way in which he was
• 42:12
  exceptional.
• 42:13
  Mike Rugnetta: True. I don't know. I mean, I know. I can give
• 42:17
  you all the reasons, but there's something in his eyes.
• 42:20
  Georgia Hampton: Something in his eyes.
• 42:22
  Mike Rugnetta: All the pictures of him. No matter what he's
• 42:24
  doing, if he's grinning or sad, whatever he's doing, you can see
• 42:28
  something trapped in there. Trapped and in pain, wanting to
• 42:32
  get out, but not quite knowing how.
• 42:35
  Georgia Hampton: You know that what you're doing is pretty much
• 42:39
  the textbook definition of projection. Right? Maybe.
• 42:46
  Mike Rugnetta: Chuck, do you think I'm happier?
• 42:49
  Georgia Hampton: Since you transitioned? Yeah. Of course.
• 42:53
  Absolutely. Night and day.
• 42:54
  Mike Rugnetta: Everyone says that. And honestly, I see it.
• 42:57
  Even in pictures. You know? I see it.
• 42:59
  You've seen some of my transition timelines. Right?
• 43:01
  Georgia Hampton: You do look really different.
• 43:04
  Mike Rugnetta: It's not just me. Hans, how much longer is this?
• 43:06
  Hans Buetow: Oh, this is we're theoretically quarter the way
• 43:09
  through.
• 43:09
  Georgia Hampton: No way. Okay. We can.
• 43:13
  Hans Buetow: Okay. So let's let's let's pause it. You look
• 43:15
  different and scroll. Oh my god. Okay.
• 43:20
  Georgia Hampton: Me.
• 43:24
  Mike Rugnetta: Yep. What is going on here?
• 43:26
  Hans Buetow: Let's read the last Are you okay? Yeah. Let's read
• 43:30
  from there. Let's let's having a great time.
• 43:33
  Jason Oberholtzer: I think that we should finish this after
• 43:35
  Wiggo and release this as a member clip of the whole script.
• 43:39
  Hans Buetow: I love this so much.
• 43:40
  Georgia Hampton: I can score it in everything.
• 43:42
  Hans Buetow: We gotta know. We gotta know.
• 43:43
  Georgia Hampton: Yeah.
• 43:44
  Hans Buetow: So let's let's jump to you jump to the end here just
• 43:47
  so Kate, are
• 43:47
  Georgia Hampton: you okay? Kate, are you okay?
• 43:51
  Mike Rugnetta: I'm fine.
• 43:52
  Georgia Hampton: Do you wanna hug?
• 43:53
  Mike Rugnetta: Fuck you, Chuck.
• 43:55
  Georgia Hampton: Okay. Well, I'm gonna go to the other room. You
• 43:59
  should drink some water. Stay hydrated. Love you, Kate.
• 44:06
  Mike Rugnetta: Love you too, Chuck. Sorry.
• 44:09
  Georgia Hampton: It's okay, Kate. It's okay.
• 44:12
  Hans Buetow: Just dying my work, everybody.
• 44:15
  Jason Oberholtzer: Wow. Wow.
• 44:16
  Hans Buetow: I that's unbelievable. Way to
• 44:18
  Georgia Hampton: go. Oh my god.
• 44:19
  Jason Oberholtzer: Way to go, actors. Way to go I was
• 44:23
  immersed.
• 44:23
  Mike Rugnetta: Writer. Wait. Okay. What is this? This is like
• 44:28
  Georgia Hampton: it's like a philosophical, like, thought
• 44:30
  experiment, I feel.
• 44:32
  Mike Rugnetta: Hans, can you scroll all the way back up to
• 44:33
  the beginning again? Was Kurt Trans is the account
• 44:36
  Hans Buetow: Is the account. Okay. So let's take a look at
• 44:40
  comments because that's often pretty inspiring.
• 44:42
  Mike Rugnetta: Gonna say, yeah. What is in the comments?
• 44:44
  Hans Buetow: So we're at 11,233 replies, which
• 44:47
  Georgia Hampton: is Sure. Yeah.
• 44:49
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. So I'm guessing that we just started to
• 44:53
  scratch the surface of what this is actually feel like we
• 44:55
  Hans Buetow: need to dig all the way through.
• 44:57
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Wait, Hans. Go more slowly through some of
• 44:59
  these. I just wanna
• 44:59
  Jason Oberholtzer: read Yeah.
• 45:01
  Mike Rugnetta: I mean, I guess not not being privy to maybe the
• 45:04
  types of conversations that this conversation is meant to like, I
• 45:09
  guess that's a question. Like, is this a parody? Is this like
• 45:12
  some Poe's Law kind of thing? Is it ironic? Is it making extreme
• 45:19
  a more innocuous type of conversation that happens in
• 45:22
  order to point out, like, the edges of it and what's weird
• 45:26
  about it?
• 45:27
  I mean, yeah.
• 45:28
  Jason Oberholtzer: I read pretty earnest. I think this is an
• 45:30
  honest Socratic dialogue somebody is having who really
• 45:35
  believes this point, perhaps. I don't know.
• 45:37
  Mike Rugnetta: Okay. Alright.
• 45:38
  Jason Oberholtzer: I I think it's less about the point and
• 45:40
  more about the kind of dialogue, which is
• 45:43
  Georgia Hampton: Mhmm.
• 45:43
  Jason Oberholtzer: Being mirrored here.
• 45:45
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Lisby one one two one says, I was gonna
• 45:47
  say this is pretty standard Tumblr discourse, but actually,
• 45:50
  this is long even for a long form Tumblr. Oh, was Kirk O'Bain
• 45:54
  Gin Fizzes says, was Kirk O'Bain trans is like a big debate. He
• 45:58
  wore dresses and makeup and was supportive of LGBTQ stuff. Had
• 46:01
  no I had no clue.
• 46:02
  Hans Buetow: This is fantastic. Can you just scroll, like, to
• 46:05
  the middle? Like, the middle of the section that we didn't read
• 46:08
  just to I would just love to get a sense of like We're
• 46:10
  Georgia Hampton: getting paragraphs.
• 46:11
  Mike Rugnetta: We are, like, where does
• 46:12
  Hans Buetow: this Let's do this one.
• 46:13
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Azerad spent weeks talking to Cobain.
• 46:16
  He was Cobain's biographer, but also his friend, and he had his
• 46:19
  own interpretation of the lyrics. For instance, Azerad
• 46:22
  talks about all the lyrics about guns. And to me, now, I look at
• 46:26
  that, and I think of how he died.
• 46:27
  But Azerad, when Kurt was alive, he looked at it another way. He
• 46:31
  thought it was about dicks. To paraphrase doctor Freud, he
• 46:34
  says, sometimes a gun is just a gun, but not this time. He talks
• 46:37
  about come as you are, where Kurt keeps singing, I swear I
• 46:40
  don't have a gun. That's not my interpretation.
• 46:43
  That's never been my interpretation. That's what this
• 46:45
  cis man says. More than one cis man. Kurt says, Dave Grohl's
• 46:50
  dad, he said the same thing. Yeah.
• 46:52
  There are all kinds of ways to interpret lyrics. Okay. Alright.
• 46:56
  So this is like doing queer exegesis on both Nirvana and the
• 47:02
  text of Kurt Cobain's life Yeah. Together at the same time.
• 47:07
  Hans Buetow: And then we're going into, like, Ed Wood, Pete
• 47:09
  Burns, Prince Nelson, Richard Wright, Dave Carter, Quentin
• 47:12
  Crisp, like like, talking through the the re parsing the
• 47:16
  real details of of identity.
• 47:19
  Mike Rugnetta: Daniel Jenna Grauss has something really
• 47:21
  interesting to say. Adds a great bit of insight to this. It comes
• 47:25
  down to discussing whether we get to claim those who came
• 47:27
  before us, but didn't have access to the same theoretical
• 47:30
  framework and social support, the trans siblings who fell
• 47:33
  through the pavement because they didn't have the opportunity
• 47:36
  to find themselves in a world in which we were less visible and
• 47:39
  constrained to being more one dimensional in everyone's
• 47:42
  imagination. I mean, I wanna read the whole thing.
• 47:46
  Georgia Hampton: Absolutely.
• 47:47
  Mike Rugnetta: Right? Yeah. I wanna read the whole thing. Then
• 47:49
  and then I wanna have an informed reaction to this. But
• 47:53
  woah.
• 47:54
  Georgia Hampton: Yeah. This is wild. Yeah. Thank you, Toby.
• 47:58
  Mike Rugnetta: Toby says, oh, yes. Kurt trans woman lore.
• 48:00
  Yeah.
• 48:01
  Georgia Hampton: Yes.
• 48:03
  Mike Rugnetta: Turns out that's what's going on here. Just those
• 48:05
  four words.
• 48:05
  Georgia Hampton: Yep. Yep. Case closed.
• 48:08
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Toby, thank you for sending this in.
• 48:14
  Hans Buetow: Alright. So the next one that we have is from
• 48:16
  May. This is a submission from May, one of our audience
• 48:18
  members. Thank you, May. And I'm so sorry to do this, but May is
• 48:22
  saying it's May's fault.
• 48:23
  May is sending us to Twitter. Well, I hope you all enjoyed
• 48:26
  having fun.
• 48:27
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. I'm gonna turn on both of my
• 48:29
  Georgia Hampton: VPNs I'll take it from here.
• 48:32
  Hans Buetow: Oh, let's do it. Jarta. Alright.
• 48:37
  Georgia Hampton: We got a couple of bathing suited gentlemen What
• 48:43
  Mike Rugnetta: am I
• 48:44
  Georgia Hampton: sharing a delicate kiss in the ocean.
• 48:45
  Mike Rugnetta: What am I looking at here?
• 48:46
  Georgia Hampton: And it said the tweet says, Sabrina Carpenter's
• 48:50
  twink and Olivia Rodrigo's twink dating each other is low key the
• 48:55
  most iconic thing in pop culture with two sobbing faces.
• 48:58
  Jason Oberholtzer: You know what I've always wanted to really
• 49:00
  ask? Chad, is this real?
• 49:03
  Georgia Hampton: This is real?
• 49:06
  Mike Rugnetta: Chad, is this real?
• 49:07
  Hans Buetow: So it's got 17,800,000 views for whatever
• 49:11
  that means on Twitter. Robots robots have
• 49:15
  Mike Rugnetta: viewed this.
• 49:15
  Jason Oberholtzer: Robots can't.
• 49:16
  Mike Rugnetta: Georgia. Google. Yes. Does this mean anything to
• 49:21
  you?
• 49:22
  Georgia Hampton: No. It does not. I was gonna Google Sabrina
• 49:29
  Carpenter twink.
• 49:32
  Mike Rugnetta: Everyone's Make sure you have a safe search on.
• 49:34
  Georgia Hampton: Yeah. Let me turn on
• 49:36
  Mike Rugnetta: Just gonna lay on the
• 49:37
  Georgia Hampton: ground first. An incognito window real quick.
• 49:41
  Hold on, everybody. Oh, Conan Gray. One of these people is
• 49:46
  Conan Gray.
• 49:47
  Hans Buetow: Say more.
• 49:48
  Jason Oberholtzer: I don't know what that is.
• 49:49
  Georgia Hampton: I don't know this person, but they look sort
• 49:51
  of familiar. They're 26 years old.
• 49:53
  Jason Oberholtzer: Sort of familiar. I'll give them that.
• 49:55
  Hans Buetow: Jin physicist May in saying I'm pretty online and
• 49:58
  reasonably plugged into pop music, and I have no idea what
• 50:02
  this post is about.
• 50:03
  Mike Rugnetta: That is the spirit of the Wiggo. God, you
• 50:06
  nailed it. You nailed it.
• 50:08
  Georgia Hampton: I have another AA overview. I'm so sorry.
• 50:11
  Hans Buetow: Do it. Do it.
• 50:11
  Mike Rugnetta: Do it.
• 50:12
  Georgia Hampton: Did Olivia Rodrigo date Conan Gray? No.
• 50:16
  They are close friends who met through their shared producer,
• 50:20
  Dan I don't know. Their shared producer and bonded over their
• 50:26
  love for Taylor Swift. Their friendship has been documented
• 50:29
  through various social media posts, award show appearances,
• 50:31
  and shared experiences.
• 50:32
  I'm googling Conan Gray kissing. More kisses? There's more
• 50:40
  kisses. Just taken up pictures of people kissing. People
• 50:45
  kissing.
• 50:45
  No. We've been over this before, Jason. I will never keep stop.
• 50:51
  Jason Oberholtzer: It's my news.
• 50:53
  Georgia Hampton: I need to see it. I need to know that it's
• 50:56
  happening.
• 50:57
  Mike Rugnetta: Okay. So that is Corey Foglemanis.
• 51:02
  Georgia Hampton: Excuse me?
• 51:03
  Mike Rugnetta: I don't know. I'm just so who's the guy grabbing
• 51:06
  Conan? Is one of the replies. Oh. And then the response is
• 51:10
  Corey Foglemanis, which I'm sure I'm saying wrong.
• 51:13
  Georgia Hampton: Confer, I'm looking at more kissing photos.
• 51:16
  Jason Oberholtzer: Boy. It's kinda
• 51:17
  Mike Rugnetta: true. Okay.
• 51:18
  Hans Buetow: Do it. Do it. Do it. Yeah.
• 51:19
  Georgia Hampton: Are those Corey Fogelmanis and Conan Gray. I
• 51:24
  Google image searched them, like, those two names. Lots of
• 51:28
  kissing photos.
• 51:30
  Jason Oberholtzer: More important, are those bathing
• 51:32
  jorts?
• 51:33
  Georgia Hampton: Also, this the waves look beautiful.
• 51:35
  Hans Buetow: They look I was just thinking, Georgia. They
• 51:37
  look beautiful.
• 51:38
  Mike Rugnetta: This has to be fake.
• 51:39
  Georgia Hampton: Right? I no. That's what I mean is, like, the
• 51:42
  water looks so, like, airbrushed sort of.
• 51:47
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yeah.
• 51:48
  Mike Rugnetta: One of the replies way down thread is there
• 51:51
  are sentences being created that have never been created before.
• 51:57
  Georgia Hampton: Think that's so kissing photos.
• 52:01
  Mike Rugnetta: George George, we're at work.
• 52:04
  Georgia Hampton: They're they're kissing all over the place.
• 52:09
  Mike Rugnetta: There is as as it will surprise nobody, there is
• 52:12
  no information to be gleaned from the reply thread on x.com,
• 52:17
  the everything website. Yeah. This has this I'm I'm gonna say
• 52:21
  my best guess is that this is AI. This is it possible? Hold
• 52:27
  on.
• 52:28
  I I might I might have an answer.
• 52:32
  Jason Oberholtzer: There's probably
• 52:32
  Mike Rugnetta: some guess that this is a frame from a music
• 52:35
  video. Really?
• 52:37
  Georgia Hampton: Or a show. I think they're on a show
• 52:39
  together.
• 52:39
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. Here. I'm not I haven't watched it yet,
• 52:41
  but I'm gonna drop it in the chat. Uh-oh.
• 52:44
  Jason Oberholtzer: Always good. Oh, no. They're I see. He's in
• 52:47
  jorts.
• 52:47
  Georgia Hampton: Baca Cranberry.
• 52:48
  Jason Oberholtzer: Woah. Desire is kissing pants.
• 52:50
  Georgia Hampton: This is the song. I have heard of this song.
• 52:54
  Mike Rugnetta: So here is the link that I found it through.
• 52:59
  Pinknews.com. Fans left quote devastated after Conan Gray
• 53:05
  drops part two of his queer music video romance.
• 53:08
  Jason Oberholtzer: Devastating. Come on.
• 53:10
  Mike Rugnetta: Has two videos where he kisses a boy in the
• 53:12
  water.
• 53:13
  Georgia Hampton: Good. There should be
• 53:14
  Jason Oberholtzer: more of them. Stay, dude.
• 53:18
  Georgia Hampton: I need at least a dozen. Oh.
• 53:20
  Jason Oberholtzer: That's what's going on here.
• 53:22
  Mike Rugnetta: Woah. That's what's going on here. Wow. Okay.
• 53:26
  So
• 53:27
  Georgia Hampton: Gonna close
• 53:27
  Mike Rugnetta: a bunch of because I still do not know who
• 53:30
  these people are.
• 53:31
  Jason Oberholtzer: And you don't get to.
• 53:33
  Mike Rugnetta: Which one of them so what I am to understand is
• 53:35
  that one of them did they date these other pop stars? One of
• 53:39
  them dated Sabrina Carpenter, and one of them dated Olivia
• 53:42
  Rodrigo.
• 53:43
  Georgia Hampton: And They might no. I think they're both friends
• 53:45
  with those respected pop divas.
• 53:47
  Hans Buetow: Pop series. Look like them?
• 53:50
  Mike Rugnetta: No. Or that they're pals and they're gay?
• 53:52
  Georgia Hampton: They're just they're friends and they're gay
• 53:53
  and they're twinks and they're in love.
• 53:55
  Mike Rugnetta: Okay. Okay.
• 53:56
  Georgia Hampton: Tale as old as time.
• 53:57
  Mike Rugnetta: Tale as old as time.
• 53:58
  Hans Buetow: Well, mate, I we hope that's satisfying because
• 54:02
  that's what we know.
• 54:03
  Mike Rugnetta: And if if you would like hours of tape of
• 54:07
  Georgia making typing sounds and saying, I'm finding more
• 54:12
  kissing,
• 54:12
  Hans Buetow: do you need ring tones
• 54:14
  Mike Rugnetta: because maybe we got them?
• 54:17
  Georgia Hampton: Listen. I will risk it all for journalism
• 54:21
  always. I will get to the bottom of it Yeah. One way or another.
• 54:25
  I will
• 54:26
  Mike Rugnetta: get in for of the kissing on the end
• 54:28
  Georgia Hampton: of kissing.
• 54:30
  Mike Rugnetta: Georgia will reach the end of it.
• 54:32
  Georgia Hampton: I will I will shut it down.
• 54:37
  Mike Rugnetta: Wow. I feel like I know what's going on here.
• 54:48
  Hey, friends. It's Mike here on my way to the studio letting you
• 54:51
  know that if you wanna hear the rest of this WIGO, we are gonna
• 54:55
  be putting it up for members at neverpoe.st. A bunch of us on
• 55:00
  the staff also had WIGOs to share.
• 55:02
  They're very funny, very strange. One picture that just
• 55:07
  looks disconcertingly like a thumb. So if you wanna see that,
• 55:10
  just head on over to neverpo.st. Become a member, and it will be
• 55:15
  waiting for you in the member feed soon.
• 55:38
  Jason Oberholtzer: Yes. Yes. This is what I wanted. Yes. This
• 55:42
  is everything that I wanted.
• 55:45
  Yes. Yes. Never stop. Yes. Yes.
• 55:48
  Yes.
• 55:58
  Mike Rugnetta: Why did we stop doing this? I know you're
• 56:01
  supposed to think this about things that were good when you
• 56:03
  were a kid, but like This slaps. Yeah. This is so This
• 56:07
  objectively slaps. Right?
• 56:16
  That is the show we have for you this week. We're gonna be back
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  Oberholzer, and the show's host, that's me, is Mike Rugnetta.
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