Latest / Never Post / When We Fight We Win

Transcript

When We Fight We Win · Never Post

• 0:10
  Mike Rugnetta: Friends, hello, and welcome to Never Post, a
• 0:13
  podcast foreign about the Internet. I'm your host, Mike
• 0:15
  Rugnetta. This intro was written on Monday, 11/03/2025 at 09:16PM
• 0:22
  eastern, and we have a hard hitting show for you this week.
• 0:27
  Hans talks with public interest lawyer Paul Levy about the case
• 0:31
  of Pool World versus prepared foods photos, fighting online
• 0:36
  copyright trolls, and winning. Then friend of the show, Meaghel
• 0:41
  Janardan brings drama to the house never post asking what is
• 0:47
  going on here about cheating boyfriend videos and also Tokyo.
• 0:54
  But right now, we're gonna take a quick break. You're gonna
• 0:56
  listen to some ads unless you're on the member feed. And when we
• 0:59
  return, we're gonna talk about a few of the things that have
• 1:01
  happened since the last time you heard from us. I'm not gonna
• 1:05
  give up. I'm not gonna stop.
• 1:07
  I'm gonna read you five stories this week. The United States
• 1:11
  Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs
• 1:15
  Enforcement Agency are amongst the biggest advertisers on meta
• 1:20
  platforms at the moment according to polydashboard.com,
• 1:24
  ranking sixteenth and eighteenth respectively at the time of
• 1:28
  writing. Over the last seven days, it's estimated the
• 1:31
  agencies have paid a combined total of between 1.1 and
• 1:35
  $1,200,000 for more than 50,000,000 impressions across
• 1:42
  Facebook and Instagram. According to Poly Dashboard, ICE
• 1:46
  largely advertises job openings in English, while DHS places ads
• 1:51
  in Spanish encouraging, as they call it, self deportation. China
• 1:59
  is now regulating influencers who must, quote, either have a
• 2:03
  university degree, recognized training, a license, or
• 2:07
  certification, writes the economic times, before
• 2:10
  publishing content in regulated areas, which are medical advice,
• 2:15
  financial guidance, legal opinions, or commentary on
• 2:19
  education.
• 2:20
  Before posting about these things, platforms must verify
• 2:23
  the existence of up to date credentials. The law also
• 2:26
  specifies that creators must clearly mark AI generated
• 2:29
  content and share their sources. Mister Beast employs over a
• 2:43
  thousand clippers to create short snippets of his work to
• 2:47
  share on social media boosting his reach. This according to
• 2:51
  Bloomberg. The clippers are paid $50 for every 100,000 views of
• 2:56
  their handiwork on TikTok or Instagram via a startup called,
• 3:00
  you're not gonna believe this, clipping, which which employs
• 3:03
  over 23,000 clippers in total.
• 3:06
  The practice is common amongst extremely popular online
• 3:09
  personalities, particularly streamers. My main goal says
• 3:14
  clipping founder, 23 year old Anthony Fujiwara, is that if you
• 3:18
  want to go viral, you have to go through me. Australia has sued
• 3:24
  Microsoft. The country's competition and consumer
• 3:27
  commission has brought suit against the software giant for
• 3:30
  false or misleading information regarding its Microsoft three
• 3:34
  sixty five subscription plans, alleging that the company
• 3:37
  suggested consumers could either cancel their subscription or pay
• 3:41
  a higher price on renewal for the integration of Copilot AI
• 3:45
  tools. When in fact, there was apparently a hidden third option
• 3:50
  which allowed consumers to retain both their feature set
• 3:53
  and lower price.
• 3:55
  This all according to Australia's The Register. Quote,
• 3:58
  Microsoft deliberately omitted reference to the classic plans
• 4:02
  in its communications, the ACCC will allege, and concealed their
• 4:07
  existence until after subscribers initiated the
• 4:09
  cancellation process, end labels for broadband may get 80 sixed.
• 4:19
  Since April 2024 in The US, broadband service providers have
• 4:23
  had to disclose the exact fee structure that customers will
• 4:27
  pay in so called nutrition labels. A regulation aimed at
• 4:31
  increasing transparency for consumers by showing exactly
• 4:35
  what they are being charged for. I know.
• 4:37
  What a novel idea. Crazy to think about. Of course, Brendan
• 4:41
  Carr's FCC is set to reverse this policy. He describes the
• 4:45
  task of finding these nutrition labels as Sisyphean. Quote, but
• 4:50
  rather than adopt rules that would make the labels easier to
• 4:53
  find or interpret, CNET writes, Carr voted to make them appear
• 4:58
  less often, end quote.
• 5:00
  The FCC is set to vote on the proposed rule making today at
• 5:03
  time of recording, after which there will be thirty days for
• 5:06
  public comment on the matter followed by thirty days of
• 5:09
  response. We'll put a link to the public comment form in the
• 5:12
  show notes when it's live in case you would like to
• 5:14
  contribute. In past studies, according to CNET, 85% of
• 5:19
  respondents found broadband nutrition labels useful for
• 5:23
  comparison shopping. In show news this week, it's the
• 5:33
  Radiotopia year end fundraiser, which means it's a great time to
• 5:37
  give a few bucks and support all of your favorite Radiotopia
• 5:41
  shows and Radiotopia itself all at once. So head on over to
• 5:45
  radiotopia.fm/donate to give any one time or monthly amount to
• 5:51
  support all your favorites.
• 5:52
  That's Home Cooking, Proxy, Hyperfixed, Song Exploder, The
• 5:56
  Memory Palace, and of course, never post alongside the network
• 6:00
  itself. That's radiotopia.fm/donate. Okay.
• 6:06
  That's the news I have for you this week. In this episode, Hans
• 6:08
  and Paul Levy on copyright trolls, fighting them and then
• 6:13
  winning.
• 6:14
  Then Meagle brings an infidelitous, what, to the
• 6:18
  goings on here. But first, in our interstitials this week, for
• 6:23
  no particular reason other than we have it on hand, Street
• 6:27
  Sounds of Tokyo, recorded when I was there last month.
• 7:56
  Hans Buetow: Have you ever had this feeling? A letter shows up
• 7:59
  on official letterhead or a phone message comes in from
• 8:03
  somewhere official and says, call us back, And like your
• 8:06
  stomach drops, like, and then it's just a lot of words and you
• 8:11
  think you understand them and it all feels kind of threatening. I
• 8:16
  mean, that whole thing's it's only happened to me a few times
• 8:19
  in my life, but each time I start cold sweating like, What
• 8:23
  did I do? So if I had been the one to open a letter dropped off
• 8:29
  at Pool World in Spokane, Washington on 09/16/2022, I
• 8:34
  probably would have, like, passed out or something. I would
• 8:36
  have seen the lawyer's mark that was at the top of the letter.
• 8:39
  I would have read the all caps opening line of settlement
• 8:42
  communication and then frantically scanned through to
• 8:45
  see, oh, damn. It's five pages long. Oh, sharks. It's got a
• 8:49
  screen grab from our website. Oh, heck.
• 8:51
  There's a bolded, italicized, center aligned bit that says,
• 8:55
  quote, you shall pay $30,000 within twenty one days of the
• 9:00
  date first written above and shall immediately cease and
• 9:04
  desist from any further use of our client's work, end quote.
• 9:08
  And then I would've like thrown up and then passed out. I
• 9:13
  would've been a wreck if I got that letter. But the folks at
• 9:16
  Pool World who actually did get that letter, they were not a
• 9:20
  wreck.
• 9:20
  Paul Levy: They were pissed off. They didn't like being bullied.
• 9:25
  Hans Buetow: This is Paul Levy. Paul was Cool World's attorney
• 9:29
  when this letter that they received turned into a lawsuit.
• 9:33
  Paul is a public interest attorney with Public Citizens
• 9:37
  Litigation Group and for the past twenty five years, he has
• 9:40
  specialized in free speech issues arising on the Internet.
• 9:44
  For this work, the Washington Magazine did a profile where
• 9:46
  they gave him the moniker Paul Levy, the Webley's worst enemy.
• 9:52
  Paul Levy: You know, it's a bit of a puff piece, but, I'm okay
• 9:55
  with that.
• 9:56
  Hans Buetow: I mean, what a great moniker to be the the
• 9:58
  Yeah. Webbully's worst enemy. Like Right. And I mean, think
• 10:02
  this story kinda proves it. So I feel like that was good
• 10:06
  reporting.
• 10:09
  This is a story about bullies and their worst enemy. Trolls
• 10:13
  and their demand for tolls and the validation that when we
• 10:17
  stand up, we can refuse to pay them. Trolls rely on
• 10:23
  intimidation to squash any inclination, to say hang on,
• 10:27
  wait a minute. This is just as risky for them as it is for me
• 10:31
  and I'm not as helpless as they'd like me to think I am. It
• 10:36
  doesn't always look like an easy path to stand your ground and
• 10:39
  refuse to pay the toll.
• 10:42
  But if you do it well, then the story gets around that there are
• 10:47
  ways to get that bridge without worrying about the trolls. This
• 10:53
  is the story of Pool World versus Prepared Food Photos.
• 11:07
  Pool World sells pools. And pool adjacent stuff like saunas, hot
• 11:13
  tubs, grilling equipment, all the stuff you need to get your
• 11:16
  summer game on in Spokane and Coeur D'Alene where they have
• 11:20
  four stores in the Pacific Northwest. But in 2022, when
• 11:25
  Pool World got the letter in question, they were in this
• 11:28
  weird moment of transition.
• 11:31
  Paul Levy: The founder of Pool World died in a freak bicycling
• 11:35
  accident shortly before this case was filed, and they were
• 11:41
  trying to be true to his memory. This is what our founder would
• 11:45
  have wanted to do. It was a principled stand. And beyond
• 11:51
  that, I think you could probably say that they didn't want their
• 11:58
  reputation in the community to be that they're an easy mark.
• 12:02
  Don't push us.
• 12:03
  You know, you can't just push us around and make a baseless claim
• 12:07
  and get us to pay.
• 12:09
  Hans Buetow: The claims in the letter were about photos on the
• 12:12
  Pool World website, specifically one photo called the vegetable
• 12:17
  photo that they put up on their website in 2010 to promote their
• 12:20
  grill sales. The photo is a close-up. It's got skewers of
• 12:24
  peppers, onions, zucchini, vegetables, all charring up
• 12:28
  nicely in a grill. The photo was taken in 2001 and appeared on
• 12:32
  their site under the banner pool world is grill world.
• 12:36
  Paul Levy: The letter said, to the best of our knowledge, you
• 12:39
  have no license to use this photo. Our client licenses
• 12:46
  access to its entire database of photos for $9.99 a month.
• 12:52
  Hans Buetow: That's $999 a month, by the way, for the right
• 12:57
  to use all of their photos.
• 12:58
  Paul Levy: And we've managed to persuade a series of courts that
• 13:03
  the actual damages for copyright infringement is $9.99 a month
• 13:09
  for the entire period of the alleged infringement, which
• 13:14
  $9.99 times 12 is 11,988 times twelve years. So that's roughly
• 13:25
  a $144,000 in damages.
• 13:29
  Hans Buetow: Over one photo?
• 13:30
  Paul Levy: I mean, the idea of these letters is to ramp up the
• 13:34
  intimidating effect. Right? So they said, you know, hey. We're
• 13:38
  gonna let you off easy. If you pay $30,000 within twenty one
• 13:43
  days, you're you're scot free, baby.
• 13:46
  Take it. Take this offer and run.
• 13:49
  Hans Buetow: This is where these letters and the threats that
• 13:53
  they contain work. Beyond the overwhelm of the legalese and
• 13:59
  the escalation of the timeline and the threat of a big number,
• 14:03
  but we'll settle for a smaller big number. Beyond all of that,
• 14:07
  the core idea is legitimate.
• 14:09
  Paul Levy: They used an image and they couldn't prove they had
• 14:11
  a license.
• 14:12
  Hans Buetow: Pool World could not locate a license for the
• 14:15
  photo in the letter.
• 14:16
  Paul Levy: They assume that they used an image that a grill
• 14:23
  selling company or a distributor for a grill selling company
• 14:27
  provided them. But the person who got the image is no longer
• 14:31
  an employee, and she couldn't remember.
• 14:36
  Hans Buetow: A single photo from twelve years ago that you can't
• 14:39
  quite track where it came from is just enough truth in the
• 14:43
  claim to make you pay attention.
• 14:45
  Paul Levy: The photographers are up in arms, they're trying to
• 14:48
  get a grip on the threat to their business model. And I I
• 14:52
  actually, as a public interest lawyer, I have sympathy with
• 14:55
  that. When people use photos, they ought to pay for them.
• 14:59
  Hans Buetow: People ought to pay for photos they use. Underline,
• 15:03
  cosign, praying hands emoji, quickly double checking to see
• 15:07
  we don't have any unlicensed photos on the Neverpost website.
• 15:10
  Great. People ought to pay for the photos they use. I think
• 15:18
  it's time we meet these photographers.
• 15:20
  Or actually, not the photographers. We're never gonna
• 15:22
  meet the photographers. Let's meet the owners of the
• 15:25
  photograph who hired this law firm to send this letter about
• 15:29
  this photo. It's a company called Prepared Food Photos,
• 15:33
  which is hard to say.
• 15:34
  Paul Levy: I'm gonna call them PFP as a shorthand.
• 15:40
  Hans Buetow: PFP owns a library of photos. So clients can pay a
• 15:44
  fee to get a license to use those photos in a commercial
• 15:48
  setting. You used to be able to buy a license for a single
• 15:52
  photo, but in 2016, they converted to only being able to
• 15:56
  license their full library, which, again, in their letter,
• 16:01
  they cite at a minimum minimum of $999 per month.
• 16:10
  Paul Levy: I don't think there's any question that they actually
• 16:13
  engaged in the licensing business, And they found some
• 16:18
  companies that were willing for one reason or another to pay a
• 16:25
  subscription fee, not necessarily $9.99 a month, but
• 16:30
  in various amounts. It struck me as possible that there were
• 16:35
  companies that found that kind of access valuable. I mean,
• 16:40
  Kroger, for example, the big supermarket chains, and then, of
• 16:46
  course, you might have advertising companies. You could
• 16:50
  see getting value from access to a large number of photos and
• 16:56
  paying a substantial monthly amount for it. So I actually
• 17:00
  went into this assuming that they were telling the truth
• 17:04
  about their subscription fees.
• 17:08
  Hans Buetow: The law is useful and good, but only when applied
• 17:11
  reasonably.
• 17:12
  Paul Levy: But for a company which had used only a single
• 17:17
  photo, it was absurd to think that the damages ought to be
• 17:25
  $11,988 per year of infringing use because stock photos are
• 17:34
  cheap. Even good stock photos are cheap.
• 17:39
  Hans Buetow: $144,000 is not reasonable. This case with Pool
• 17:47
  World allowed him to keep pushing at what he suspected was
• 17:51
  a copyright troll.
• 17:52
  Paul Levy: I wanted to know all along how much money they were
• 17:55
  making from infringement claims Yeah. Because my guess was that
• 17:59
  it was more than from licensing.
• 18:03
  Hans Buetow: If that's the case, then the claims about the risk
• 18:06
  to their business are not founded. So Paul gets to work.
• 18:14
  So once you get involved and you have this conversation with Pool
• 18:17
  World, what's this first step for you? Where do you want this
• 18:21
  to go? How are you how do you
• 18:22
  Paul Levy: start it? An answer. There might be a statute of
• 18:24
  limitations objection because the infringement took place in
• 18:28
  2010, and the suit was filed in 2023. They claim they didn't
• 18:34
  find the infringement until 2022.
• 18:38
  Hans Buetow: Okay. Here's where we get into a bit of the
• 18:40
  necessary legalese of the case. PFP is trying to invoke
• 18:45
  something that's called the discovery rule, which is where
• 18:48
  you start the statute of limitations clock not from when
• 18:52
  the thing happened, but from when it was discovered, which
• 18:55
  for them was 2022. This would nullify Paul's claims of statute
• 19:00
  of limitations because they just found out about it. But boy, oh
• 19:03
  boy, this is where Paul gets his first big move.
• 19:07
  PFP making this request to ignore the statute of
• 19:10
  limitations, it gives Paul some leverage using a very specific
• 19:15
  legal rule.
• 19:16
  Paul Levy: And our argument is because they're making these
• 19:21
  demands in such an unfair way that discovery rule is an
• 19:26
  equitable exception to the statute of limitations.
• 19:29
  Hans Buetow: Okay. Equitable exception in this case says
• 19:32
  that, sure. If PFP wants a change in the statute of
• 19:36
  limitations, they have to show that they are behaving in good
• 19:40
  faith, that what they are saying about the timing of events and
• 19:44
  the claims about their business, that all of that is true.
• 19:47
  Paul Levy: There's a general rule that when you seek if you
• 19:51
  seek equity, you must do equity.
• 19:53
  Hans Buetow: Yeah. What does that mean?
• 19:54
  Paul Levy: If you seek fairness, you must have behaved fairly.
• 20:01
  Hans Buetow: The way to see if PFP has behaved fairly is to
• 20:04
  look at their documentation, which is done through a legal
• 20:07
  process called discovery, which is kicked off by this need to
• 20:11
  demonstrate equity, which is from the request to let go of
• 20:15
  the statute of limitations.
• 20:17
  Paul Levy: And nobody's ever made this argument before.
• 20:21
  Nobody? Nobody. So we're sort of looking at new law.
• 20:28
  Hans Buetow: This old rule of asking for equity when there's a
• 20:31
  request to change the statute of limitations, this is gonna give
• 20:34
  Paul what he wants, which is a clear view into PFP's finances.
• 20:39
  And he's doing it with a new tactic against copyright trolls.
• 20:44
  He's forcing them to prove they have a case rather than just
• 20:47
  accepting their word and their demands for payment. I mean, to
• 20:52
  me, this feels a lot like calling a bluff in poker,
• 20:55
  sitting across the table and saying, okay. You want the pot?
• 20:59
  Show me your cards. And then everyone narrows their eyes.
• 21:06
  Paul Levy: They disclose their damages theory, is this,
• 21:09
  $144,000 for twelve years of infringement, and we start
• 21:14
  discovery. So I got to see 22 licensing agreements, which
• 21:21
  ranged in monthly cost from $99 a month up into the more than a
• 21:29
  thousand a month for some big companies. And the amount they
• 21:33
  claimed they were getting from licensing payments didn't match
• 21:38
  up with the licensing agreements they sent us.
• 21:43
  Hans Buetow: So Paul and his team, they request more
• 21:45
  documents, and it gets really intense. Banking records are
• 21:49
  submitted with redactions, so more requests are made. But Paul
• 21:52
  and his team persevere, and they start to build a picture of
• 21:56
  PFP's business.
• 21:57
  Paul Levy: They were making a range of amounts, $50,000 a
• 22:03
  year, $70,000 a year in licensing fees, and as much as
• 22:10
  $2,000,000 a year in infringement damages. And most
• 22:15
  of the time of their employees was spent not finding people to
• 22:22
  buy their licenses, but finding people to threaten.
• 22:29
  Hans Buetow: This is clear evidence that PFP makes their
• 22:31
  money from lawsuits, not licensing, and that they didn't
• 22:34
  just charge $999 per month. Their fee actually varied
• 22:40
  widely. So they were not excited about you to see this stuff,
• 22:45
  obviously.
• 22:46
  Paul Levy: They were not excited.
• 22:48
  Hans Buetow: Yeah. What did it tell you though when you start
• 22:51
  seeing those huge numbers?
• 22:52
  Paul Levy: It what it told me was, first, that the claim of
• 22:56
  their minimum license fee was a lie. I have no compunction about
• 23:02
  saying it was a lie. The lawyer actually told us that until we
• 23:11
  started doing discovery in this case, they had no idea that
• 23:16
  their client was lying to them. Woah.
• 23:24
  Hans Buetow: Suddenly, everything looks different. Paul
• 23:28
  and his team argue to the court that since most of the work done
• 23:32
  by PFP is searching for and making infringement claims, and
• 23:36
  since 95% of PFP's income comes from threatening and bringing
• 23:42
  copyright infringement claims, and because PFP isn't making any
• 23:47
  new photos, and that they've been lying in their demand
• 23:51
  letters and court filings because of all of that, Paul
• 23:54
  argues, the case should just be dismissed. And if that's not
• 23:59
  enough
• 23:59
  Paul Levy: We didn't even need the lie. We had an expert
• 24:04
  witness who helps people create their websites, and she's been
• 24:09
  in the business of getting helping people get images to use
• 24:12
  on their websites. And she knows what the market is, and she put
• 24:16
  in an affidavit about the market.
• 24:18
  Hans Buetow: Was $999 a month really a reasonable market rate
• 24:22
  even in 2010?
• 24:23
  Paul Levy: In 2010, the license fee would have been a dollar.
• 24:28
  Hans Buetow: Which after everyone else was cut, the
• 24:29
  payment processor, the photographer, Getty Images,
• 24:32
  etcetera, etcetera, would have left very little for PFP.
• 24:36
  Paul Levy: And its share was 12¢ or something like that. And so
• 24:42
  do they wanna go to trial on a damages claim of 12¢, or did
• 24:47
  they do the sensible thing and drop it?
• 24:51
  Hans Buetow: According to Paul and unchallenged by PFP, their
• 24:55
  claims were not market rate. Their demands are unreasonable.
• 24:58
  Their statements are lies. Because they were forced to show
• 25:03
  their cards, PFP is looking boxed in.
• 25:06
  Paul Levy: So our argument to the judge was they don't get the
• 25:10
  discovery rule, and therefore, you should rule in our favor.
• 25:17
  Hans Buetow: Pool World and Paul are fighting back, and they're
• 25:20
  winning. They have a solid case, and PFP knows that. But they
• 25:25
  can't just drop the suit and walk away because of a rule that
• 25:29
  kicked in when Paul and his team filed their initial answer to
• 25:32
  the lawsuit way back when at the beginning. And this rule says
• 25:35
  that PFP now needs the court's permission to dismiss their
• 25:40
  suit, which means there's really two big options. Instead of
• 25:46
  getting money, PFP can settle by paying Pool World their attorney
• 25:51
  fees.
• 25:52
  Paul Levy: You know, hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees.
• 25:55
  Hans Buetow: Or worse, if the case goes to trial and the
• 25:59
  ruling is that PFP's threats of 6 figure sums is just simply not
• 26:04
  the way that you calculate damages in a copyright
• 26:07
  infringement case.
• 26:09
  Paul Levy: If we got a legal ruling to that effect, that
• 26:14
  legal ruling would potentially be binding on PFP in every other
• 26:21
  case in which they bring this theory.
• 26:23
  Hans Buetow: Which is their whole business model.
• 26:25
  Paul Levy: And and my guess is that the risk of losing that is
• 26:32
  what drove them to the table to agree on a payment to be made
• 26:38
  toward our attorney fees.
• 26:40
  Hans Buetow: Seemingly forced by the risk of losing their entire
• 26:44
  way of operating, PFP chooses the financial hit and pays an
• 26:48
  undisclosed amount to Pool World to get their own suit dismissed.
• 26:53
  The troll was forced to pay their own toll. That is a
• 27:01
  satisfying story. Most stories these days feel like they're
• 27:06
  written in a fever dream, and the clarity of this just feels
• 27:11
  to me like taking this long cool drink in the stream before you
• 27:15
  move on down the bridge and off to the other side. But is this
• 27:20
  happily ever after?
• 27:22
  Well, it's certainly a path forward. Paul and his team, they
• 27:26
  have now used the law in a new way to counter trolls. The
• 27:30
  strategy that he used is public because of the documentation,
• 27:33
  and it's ready for use by any of what Paul calls on his blog,
• 27:38
  quote, a small coterie of lawyers who are fed up with the
• 27:42
  bullying.
• 27:42
  Paul Levy: I'd like to think that this will give more
• 27:47
  companies the balls that Pool World had. I mean, it was easy
• 27:53
  for Pool World. They had a free lawyer, and they had a free
• 27:56
  lawyer who sort of knew what he was doing. But these cases can
• 28:03
  be defended and they can be won and it takes takes courage and
• 28:12
  it takes a willingness to run a little bit of risk.
• 28:19
  Hans Buetow: Since this recent settlement, PFP have not made
• 28:22
  any new infringement claims, which is awesome. But there have
• 28:27
  been dozens of infringement claims over PFP's photo library,
• 28:32
  but from a new company, which is called Rockefeller Photos. And
• 28:36
  it's owned by the same people as PFP. Not awesome. But Paul Levy,
• 28:44
  the webbully's worst enemy, is still on the job.
• 28:48
  Paul Levy: You know, their lawyer really ingeniously
• 28:52
  created a line of cases which he was able to deploy to get
• 28:58
  significantly more than the law really ought to allow him. And
• 29:03
  all I'm trying to do is get us back to where the law really is.
• 29:08
  Get companies like prepared foods that have a large library
• 29:14
  of photos, and let's assume they're useful photos to a
• 29:18
  variety of people. Give them the incentive that congress gave
• 29:23
  them, but no more.
• 29:40
  Hans Buetow: Thank you again to Paul Levy for taking the time to
• 29:42
  talk to me. We are gonna put a link to Paul's blog where he's
• 29:46
  written a lot about this case, and you can get way into the
• 29:49
  legal details of it if you want to. It's really good reading,
• 29:53
  and, again, very satisfying. If you are someone in the legal
• 29:57
  profession and this feels like an interesting strategy, or a
• 30:03
  useful set of things you could think about in an upcoming case,
• 30:06
  let us know because we'd love to hear about this being used in
• 30:10
  other places. Just look on in the show notes, figure out how
• 30:14
  to get in touch.
• 31:57
  Mike Rugnetta: Friends, hello, and welcome to what is going on
• 32:02
  here. A segment wherein members of the Neverpost staff bring
• 32:06
  posts to the group about which they would like to ask, what is
• 32:10
  going on here? Could we all have done some googling? Could we
• 32:14
  have gone further down thread? Could we have cracked a book or
• 32:16
  two or gone to YouTube?
• 32:17
  Probably. But what is the fun in that? In the following segment,
• 32:22
  we share things we found online that made us want to know more
• 32:25
  and about which we thought the process of finding out more
• 32:28
  would be fun to do together. Joining us for this round in
• 32:33
  order of how much Halloween candy I assume they have eaten.
• 32:37
  Hans Buetow: Oh my god.
• 32:39
  Mike Rugnetta: I'm immediately double thinking thinking over
• 32:43
  what
• 32:43
  Georgia Hampton: I'm Hans left the phrase for a second.
• 32:45
  Mike Rugnetta: Because yeah. Because Hans' soul has left his
• 32:47
  body out of shame. It's immediately obvious that I have
• 32:52
  him first
• 32:53
  Georgia Hampton: as the least amount of candy, as the
• 32:56
  healthiest,
• 32:57
  Hans Buetow: most restrained one.
• 32:58
  Mike Rugnetta: Never post senior producer Hans Buchtel, who I
• 33:01
  just assumed as a man in his forties, was also watching his
• 33:04
  sugar, but maybe I'm wrong.
• 33:05
  Hans Buetow: No. Oh my god. It's like the magic where nothing
• 33:08
  counts. Right?
• 33:11
  Georgia Hampton: Us calories don't count on Halloween. Oh my
• 33:14
  gosh.
• 33:14
  Hans Buetow: We bought two bags of Costco candy, and very few
• 33:17
  children showed up. What?
• 33:19
  Mike Rugnetta: You're like, oh, no.
• 33:21
  Meghal Janardan: What are we gonna do?
• 33:23
  Georgia Hampton: Won't someone do something?
• 33:25
  Mike Rugnetta: Hans, I'm so happy for you.
• 33:27
  Hans Buetow: I've actually been really I'm happy and shamed.
• 33:28
  Mike Rugnetta: I'm mad I'm sad for me who got this wrong. But
• 33:32
  Georgia Hampton: Yeah. Wait. Now I'm fascinated to see where
• 33:34
  everyone else is.
• 33:35
  Mike Rugnetta: Okay. Never post producer Georgia Hampton.
• 33:37
  Georgia Hampton: Okay. I don't have much of a sweet tooth.
• 33:40
  Meghal Janardan: Alright. That is actually shocking
• 33:43
  Georgia Hampton: news. Really? I will eat like a million olives
• 33:47
  and I'll eat maybe one fun size like Twix and be like,
• 33:51
  Georgia Hampton: that's all for me. Thank you very much. Like, I
• 33:54
  couldn't possibly yeah. Okay.
• 33:57
  Mike Rugnetta: So so third on the list here, friend of the
• 34:00
  show and of the people on it, Meaghel Jardin, I feel like, you
• 34:05
  know, accepting Hans, maybe I maybe I've gotten this right,
• 34:09
  that you have a sweet tooth.
• 34:11
  Georgia Hampton: No. No. Yes. Yes, Meagle.
• 34:15
  Georgia Hampton: You and I.
• 34:15
  Meghal Janardan: Like Georgia. I just thought that Georgia had a
• 34:18
  sweet tooth because I think Georgia's second birthday was
• 34:22
  Halloween.
• 34:22
  Georgia Hampton: That's true. You did think
• 34:24
  Georgia Hampton: I did have to correct you when you thought
• 34:25
  that my birthday was Halloween.
• 34:28
  Meghal Janardan: You just embody Halloween.
• 34:30
  Georgia Hampton: Well, thank you.
• 34:31
  Meghal Janardan: The Halloween spirit, which must be including
• 34:34
  sugar. I also do not have a sweet tooth. I think I had a
• 34:39
  mini Twix and, like, some gummies or something. But that
• 34:44
  was it.
• 34:44
  Georgia Hampton: Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. Okay, Mike. Where are you
• 34:47
  at?
• 34:47
  Hans Buetow: Yeah. Mike Rugnetta.
• 34:49
  Mike Rugnetta: I ate almost no candy. The only candy that I ate
• 34:51
  was I ate half of a single Sour Patch Kid to make sure that it
• 34:57
  wasn't too sour for Clem when she was on her first ever Sour
• 35:02
  Patch Kid.
• 35:03
  Hans Buetow: It's half of one piece of a gummy. That's
• 35:06
  Georgia Hampton: pretty wild.
• 35:07
  Hans Buetow: That's almost insulting. Like, that's
• 35:10
  deliberate. I really like candy that much. Apparently.
• 35:16
  Georgia Hampton: Yeah. Since you did this, it this was a personal
• 35:18
  attack. Yeah. This was I'm
• 35:20
  Hans Buetow: I'm feeling threatened. Right.
• 35:22
  Georgia Hampton: So, yeah, all three
• 35:23
  Georgia Hampton: of us are at the very, very bottom.
• 35:25
  Mike Rugnetta: I have eaten your
• 35:26
  Georgia Hampton: shares is what I've been. Frost dean of
• 35:28
  Candyland.
• 35:29
  Mike Rugnetta: This is not a WIGO. This is an intervention.
• 35:33
  Georgia Hampton: Hans Hans, see the back of the room that you're
• 35:36
  standing in. A gigantic pile of cans. It's just wrappers. It's
• 35:40
  it's no candy.
• 35:41
  Meghal Janardan: What is going on?
• 35:42
  Georgia Hampton: I Scrooge McDuck my way through empty
• 35:44
  wrappers every day. Every day. Alright.
• 35:49
  Mike Rugnetta: Let's find out what's going on here.
• 35:51
  Hans Buetow: Welcome to today's game.
• 35:55
  Mike Rugnetta: First up, we got friend of the show. Meagle
• 35:57
  Jardin is here because you found something specifically and you
• 36:02
  were like, I this can I be on a WIGO? Because I wanna know
• 36:05
  what's going on here.
• 36:07
  Georgia Hampton: Yes.
• 36:07
  Mike Rugnetta: So we're all very excited to see what it is.
• 36:09
  Meghal Janardan: Alright. Okay. For this video, I'm gonna
• 36:12
  nominate Mike to describe what is going on here.
• 36:17
  Mike Rugnetta: It's a TikTok. Okay. These are kinda long.
• 36:20
  Alright. Two minutes.
• 36:22
  Okay. So I'm looking at the embedded video here, and it's a
• 36:26
  16 by nine video in a nine by 16 frame. So it's got big black
• 36:31
  things on the top and the bottom, and it's a vlog. So it's
• 36:34
  like a woman looking into her webcam or something. And it
• 36:38
  says, calling the girl I found in this phone and finding out
• 36:41
  I'm the other woman.
• 36:43
  Woah. And so now I'm gonna press play.
• 36:51
  Georgia Hampton: Hello? Hello? Is this Brie? Yes. Who who's
• 37:00
  this?
• 37:00
  So my name my name is Sofia. I don't think you know about me,
• 37:08
  and I I just wanna say I'm sorry. But do you know a guy
• 37:15
  named Alex? Is he okay? I mean, yeah.
• 37:23
  Like, how do know him? He's your what? That's my fiance. Who is
• 37:31
  this? I've been seeing him for six months.
• 37:35
  I'm sorry. What?
• 37:41
  Georgia Hampton: This is Jess. The woman the woman on the other
• 37:45
  end goes, I'm sorry. What? It just You can you must
• 37:52
  Paul Levy: be texting.
• 37:53
  Mike Rugnetta: What I can only describe as the most text to
• 37:58
  speech voice I could imagine. Okay.
• 38:01
  Georgia Hampton: You're a
• 38:01
  Georgia Hampton: little bit confused. I'm sorry. I found him
• 38:07
  on Tinder, so I decided to go through his phone and I saw your
• 38:11
  contact in there. I I honestly, I had no idea.
• 38:15
  Mike Rugnetta: The mismatch in emotion between the two sides is
• 38:18
  hilarious. Very funny. It makes it comedy that the woman on
• 38:22
  camera is so upset, and the woman the, like, recorded voice
• 38:25
  is so monotone. Wait. Okay.
• 38:28
  Hold on. I'm there's still, like, another minute of this.
• 38:31
  Mabel, what happens? Like, should I watch the rest of it?
• 38:34
  Or like
• 38:34
  Meghal Janardan: I don't think you need to watch the rest of it
• 38:37
  because it's more of this, you know, catching my cheating
• 38:42
  boyfriend or whatever.
• 38:44
  Hans Buetow: Mike, can I hit you with a couple of statistics?
• 38:46
  Yeah. Likes, 5,200,000.
• 38:49
  Georgia Hampton: Mhmm. What? Mhmm.
• 38:51
  Hans Buetow: Comments, 10,600. Bookmarks, 262.6 point 7,000.
• 38:57
  Shares, a 158,300.
• 39:01
  Meghal Janardan: I think it has almost 40,000,000 views.
• 39:04
  Hans Buetow: Woah. Why?
• 39:07
  Meghal Janardan: So the reason why I sent this is that I've
• 39:09
  been getting served multiple of these videos on TikTok to the
• 39:13
  point where I was like, wait a second. And now, if you go to
• 39:19
  the TikTok and click on the person's page who made this
• 39:22
  video Okay. You will see the entire account is content
• 39:28
  catching my cheating boyfriend.
• 39:29
  Mike Rugnetta: It is. My husband's reaction to me
• 39:33
  confronting him for bringing guys from Grindr to our house.
• 39:36
  Yeah.
• 39:36
  Georgia Hampton: My boyfriend's reaction to his cheater themed
• 39:39
  birthday party. My
• 39:41
  Hans Buetow: boyfriend's reaction to me framing his
• 39:44
  Tinder profile. Normalize public shaming cheaters.
• 39:48
  Meghal Janardan: And what I thought was like so fascinating
• 39:50
  about this, like to me, I picked up pretty quickly that this was
• 39:53
  fake. Mhmm. Because along with a lot of other similar accounts
• 39:57
  that I've come across, the boyfriend or like the person who
• 40:01
  cheated, their voice and their body language, it just felt very
• 40:05
  fake and scripted. Was like, this you're not speaking
• 40:07
  naturally. Mhmm.
• 40:09
  And I was like, oh, maybe it's like skits or something, but
• 40:11
  then you go to the account and it's all content about cheating.
• 40:15
  But what really fascinated me is that if you go to the comment
• 40:18
  section of this video.
• 40:19
  Hans Buetow: Okay.
• 40:20
  Meghal Janardan: No one is saying this is fake.
• 40:22
  Georgia Hampton: Yeah. I was
• 40:24
  Meghal Janardan: like, am I am I crazy?
• 40:28
  Hans Buetow: Well, there's levels there's levels of fake
• 40:30
  that I think it Yeah. It could be. Because it sounds like the
• 40:34
  world's worst improv session.
• 40:36
  Georgia Hampton: It really does. Yeah.
• 40:38
  Mike Rugnetta: Or like a bat like an acting class.
• 40:40
  Georgia Hampton: It sounds like acting class. Exactly.
• 40:42
  Hans Buetow: Yeah. You're what you're wondering is, is there AI
• 40:46
  fakery in here as well? And and I don't even that no one's
• 40:50
  saying either of them.
• 40:51
  Meghal Janardan: I mean, I I don't I would assume, like, some
• 40:55
  of the other videos that I've seen, when the voice is like
• 40:58
  really off camera and you don't see another person, the
• 41:01
  secondary voice does feel AI generated, like, or very
• 41:06
  scripted. But I just think this whole like, it's become like a
• 41:11
  whole genre of content. And it's all fake in that way that I'm
• 41:16
  like, I don't I don't know if there's a cheating boyfriend
• 41:21
  even there.
• 41:22
  Mike Rugnetta: I'm gonna guess now.
• 41:24
  Meghal Janardan: Yeah. Yeah. Right?
• 41:25
  Georgia Hampton: The cheating boyfriend are the views that
• 41:27
  this is making.
• 41:29
  Georgia Hampton: Yeah.
• 41:29
  Georgia Hampton: Like, this to me, this is like a a very odd
• 41:35
  flavor of not really rage bait.
• 41:38
  Georgia Hampton: I was gonna say this
• 41:39
  Mike Rugnetta: is a strange version of rage bait.
• 41:41
  Georgia Hampton: That's what
• 41:41
  Mike Rugnetta: it is.
• 41:42
  Georgia Hampton: Yeah. It's but it's this solidarity because
• 41:44
  like, overwhelmingly in the comments are other women being,
• 41:49
  like, girl, like, I would kill him for you, blah blah blah.
• 41:52
  Hans Buetow: Yeah. Georgia. Yeah. Georgia.
• 41:54
  Georgia Hampton: Savebait. Yes. Oh. Yes.
• 41:58
  Mike Rugnetta: All the comments say, you saved her. You saved
• 42:00
  that girl. Yes. Yeah. You're the hero.
• 42:03
  Georgia Hampton: I feel yeah. It's sort of scratching that
• 42:05
  itch of like, you know, videos of firefighters saving a dog
• 42:09
  from
• 42:09
  Meghal Janardan: like Oh, corps. Yeah.
• 42:11
  Georgia Hampton: But like Yeah. In this vengeful, vengeful, like
• 42:13
  Yeah. Like, commiserative way because all the comments, I
• 42:17
  mean, it's like, you girls saved each other. This broke my heart,
• 42:21
  like Mhmm. Let's normalize telling the other girl, like,
• 42:25
  you guys are together now and and it's you versus him, that
• 42:29
  sort of thing.
• 42:30
  This, like, solidarity.
• 42:32
  Mike Rugnetta: Oh. Is that the thing that people are getting
• 42:34
  out of this? Like, a feeling of solidarity? Like, what is the if
• 42:38
  we think about, like, uses and gratifications of media. Right?
• 42:41
  Like Mhmm. Every piece of media that you encounter that you
• 42:44
  like, it's like, it fulfills some need or, like, it has a use
• 42:47
  to you. It's gratifying in some way. Like, what is it here? Is
• 42:50
  it manufacturing this feeling of, like, you know, are we back
• 42:54
  to girls girls?
• 42:55
  Like, are girls girls out there?
• 42:58
  Georgia Hampton: I I think, yes. I think this is kind of I feel
• 43:03
  like it's a bottled version of something a lot of people are
• 43:07
  afraid is going to happen to them.
• 43:09
  Meghal Janardan: Yeah.
• 43:09
  Georgia Hampton: So it's sort of like like going to a haunted
• 43:11
  house of of the worst relationship experience you
• 43:15
  could have of, like, watching this play out and watching it
• 43:18
  play out in a way that feels sort of satisfying where it's
• 43:21
  now these two women who know this, they're processing this
• 43:26
  together, which is ostensibly painful. But, like, there's a
• 43:32
  very clear delineation of good guys, bad guys. Neither of these
• 43:35
  women knew who that this was happening with each other. No
• 43:38
  one was aware of this other than the man. So it's this sort of
• 43:42
  perfect little ecosystem where I think for a lot of people
• 43:46
  commenting, there's like this odd satisfaction in it.
• 43:51
  Not in seeing them suffer necessarily, but in like
• 43:56
  watching this hard thing? Yes. Yes. And, like, the bad thing
• 43:59
  has happened. Yeah.
• 44:00
  Like, the bad thing has happened and you're watching the bad
• 44:03
  thing happen in this very sanitized way. Like, I even, the
• 44:07
  audio the whole time I was like, is this other girl in the room?
• 44:10
  Meghal Janardan: Right. Yeah. It doesn't sound like properly
• 44:13
  Georgia Hampton: On the phone or on speaker.
• 44:15
  Mike Rugnetta: It
• 44:15
  Georgia Hampton: really sounds like she's like
• 44:16
  Georgia Hampton: across the room reading some
• 44:17
  Georgia Hampton: pieces of paper. Exactly.
• 44:18
  Mike Rugnetta: Maybe hired a fiver, you know? Little little
• 44:24
  faster.
• 44:24
  Georgia Hampton: But Yeah. Come to my house.
• 44:26
  Georgia Hampton: I have some I have some lines that I need you
• 44:28
  to read.
• 44:28
  Meghal Janardan: What I think is, like, fascinating about this
• 44:30
  too is, like, the video is a few minutes long. It's not, like, a
• 44:33
  twenty second thing. So I'm sure the person who made this is
• 44:37
  because you need something about, like, TikTok
• 44:39
  monetization. I'm wondering if that's part of it and it's just
• 44:42
  another type of content farm stuff.
• 44:46
  Georgia Hampton: Definitely.
• 44:46
  Meghal Janardan: Because you go to the profile, the link in the
• 44:48
  profile is, like, cheaterbuster.com, which I'm
• 44:51
  like, maybe they'll get an affiliate link if it's like the
• 44:55
  cheaterbuster yeah. Oh, pause. Yes.
• 44:58
  Hans Buetow: What's Yes. Okay. So the so I was about to say
• 45:01
  this because if you scroll down in the comments through a few
• 45:05
  days ago, the one with the most amount of replies so it got 230
• 45:12
  some three replies, and it's from someone named Karen, k a r
• 45:17
  I n, who I clicked through to their profile, has no videos,
• 45:21
  and is like a very generic bot like name. And and her comment
• 45:25
  is, the same happened to me. I found out he is married, and I'm
• 45:29
  the other woman.
• 45:30
  Should I tell her too? First response to that reply is the
• 45:34
  creator of the video saying, use Cheater Buster to find out if
• 45:39
  there's more.
• 45:39
  Georgia Hampton: Oh. Bingo. This
• 45:41
  Mike Rugnetta: is an ad. Cheaterbuster.com is an AI tool
• 45:45
  that helps users verify if someone has an active Tinder
• 45:48
  profile by using basic information like name, age, and
• 45:51
  location. It provides detailed profile information, last active
• 45:55
  status, and data security, but it may have ethical and legal
• 45:58
  implications.
• 46:00
  Georgia Hampton: Oh, really?
• 46:02
  Mike Rugnetta: Oh. No?
• 46:03
  Georgia Hampton: Are we sure? Shit.
• 46:05
  Meghal Janardan: You know, Zach, it's like I am like, it's an ad,
• 46:08
  but I I don't know if it's if it's just like a weird place
• 46:11
  where people know that catching cheaters will get a lot of
• 46:15
  views, like that type of content. Yep. So like, do wonder
• 46:18
  if it's like, you get some sort of like affiliate link type of
• 46:22
  referral, like the person making the content.
• 46:24
  Mike Rugnetta: Right. Like, which thing here is the chicken
• 46:25
  and which is the egg? Yeah. Like, what's the what's the
• 46:28
  carrot and what's the stick?
• 46:29
  Meghal Janardan: Because a similar another account that I
• 46:32
  found was linking to another AI service, but it was for a dating
• 46:37
  advice. Like a Oh, interesting. And it wasn't like the
• 46:42
  cheaterbuster.com, but it was like an AI dating coach.
• 46:45
  Mike Rugnetta: No. So so this has gotta lead you to wonder how
• 46:47
  many of these comments are AI too. Right?
• 46:50
  Georgia Hampton: Oh, surely. Yeah.
• 46:51
  Mike Rugnetta: Okay. Yeah.
• 46:52
  Georgia Hampton: To generate this much attend, like, this
• 46:54
  traffic, absolutely.
• 46:55
  Meghal Janardan: But I do think that this is riding on that
• 46:59
  story time type
• 47:00
  Georgia Hampton: content. Yeah.
• 47:02
  Meghal Janardan: Come with Yeah.
• 47:04
  Georgia Hampton: I catch my cheating Yeah.
• 47:08
  Mike Rugnetta: Instead of up, you know, follow for part two,
• 47:13
  you know, upload update in a few days, it's just immediately,
• 47:17
  you're right into, like, so I called his girlfriend, you know,
• 47:20
  like, confronted the yeah.
• 47:22
  Georgia Hampton: And there is a vibrant presence of this online
• 47:25
  in the more standard issue way of just like, you know, part one
• 47:29
  of seven, how my hus my fiance left me at the altar or
• 47:33
  whatever. Like, there's there's versions of this that are more,
• 47:36
  you know, your analog style version. But this is this, like,
• 47:39
  cuts out everything else. Every other more, I guess, human
• 47:45
  component of this. I mean, it makes me think of like like if
• 47:48
  this is the cheat what is it?
• 47:49
  Cheater bot?
• 47:51
  Mike Rugnetta: Cheater buster.
• 47:52
  Georgia Hampton: Cheater buster. In a way, this is kind of what
• 47:56
  groups like are we dating the same guy? Mhmm. Do to be like,
• 47:59
  hey, does anyone know who this is? And it has more vetting and
• 48:03
  it's more complicated.
• 48:04
  It can take much more time. And then this, you know, on its face
• 48:10
  offers a complete cutting of the line of that. But like, I don't
• 48:14
  really believe that that would work. I really don't. Like,
• 48:18
  okay, this guy's name is Alex.
• 48:22
  Georgia Hampton: Prove it. We got him, boys.
• 48:26
  Mike Rugnetta: I've been I've just been sitting here
• 48:28
  scrolling, like, loading as many comments as I possibly can.
• 48:32
  Yeah. And then just Apple f for fake, and only got two. There's
• 48:37
  only two.
• 48:38
  Meghal Janardan: Really?
• 48:38
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. I've been scrolling, like, for like just
• 48:40
  idly for a long time. Like, just loading new comments and only
• 48:45
  two have used the word fake. They've used the word saved a
• 48:49
  lot. Mhmm.
• 48:50
  Georgia Hampton: Wow. Yeah. Nailed it
• 48:50
  Meghal Janardan: with that. Yeah. When I saw this and I
• 48:54
  noticed that it was fake and there's a pattern of this
• 48:56
  content, I now it's like another thing I have to watch out for as
• 49:00
  I consume content online. Like, yeah, the regular AI generated
• 49:04
  videos, but this is like semi AI related content. You know?
• 49:09
  I don't think Yeah. Necessarily, like, the video itself is AI
• 49:12
  generated. Maybe the second voice is.
• 49:15
  Mike Rugnetta: Or, like, maybe the script is.
• 49:17
  Meghal Janardan: Right. Yeah. Yeah. But I now, like, earlier
• 49:21
  this morning, I was like looking through some of these and I
• 49:24
  found one on and had to go to the profile to make sure not all
• 49:26
  the content was cheating content. And be like, oh, this
• 49:28
  one's actually real.
• 49:30
  But, yeah.
• 49:31
  Georgia Hampton: Like, does it matter?
• 49:33
  Meghal Janardan: I I don't I think in the grand scheme of,
• 49:37
  like, con the the content that we consume, it matters in the
• 49:43
  sense of, like, how we are people storytell. And I was
• 49:47
  thinking about this how one of the things that people kind of
• 49:50
  are talking about now is, like, the gender divide, getting
• 49:54
  bigger in a way. And I feel like this is piggybacking on that,
• 49:58
  like, fuck men, which like, yeah. Yay. Fuck men.
• 50:01
  But this is not helping. No. God, no. I don't think this is
• 50:06
  helping.
• 50:06
  Georgia Hampton: This really happens, like, for real? Yeah.
• 50:10
  It's just like,
• 50:11
  Meghal Janardan: it makes, to me, it makes things really
• 50:13
  confusing.
• 50:15
  Hans Buetow: There are more parts to this video.
• 50:17
  Meghal Janardan: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
• 50:18
  Hans Buetow: And so I just opened up the part two of
• 50:20
  finding out I'm the other woman. Let me read you some of the top
• 50:23
  comments. These ads are out of control.
• 50:28
  Georgia Hampton: There we go.
• 50:29
  Hans Buetow: To which someone responded, I like how no one
• 50:31
  realized it was an ad. I was invested until I saw this video.
• 50:34
  Then down below a little bit two days ago, Tyler says, don't
• 50:38
  apologize for finding out the truth, exclamation point.
• 50:40
  Cheater buster saved both of you and the other girl. Oh my god.
• 50:43
  And then down below that, oh my god. Cheater buster is saving
• 50:46
  the both of you.
• 50:47
  Georgia Hampton: These are reps. These are reps. I'm gonna
• 50:50
  Mike Rugnetta: go ahead and say SEC violation.
• 50:55
  Georgia Hampton: Right? I just love like, I believe this until
• 50:58
  I got a BetterHelp ad in the middle of this.
• 51:02
  Hans Buetow: Oh my god. In part three, she's pregnant.
• 51:04
  Meghal Janardan: Oh. Wait. Are you serious?
• 51:06
  Mike Rugnetta: Yes. I just keep coming back to why would some
• 51:12
  subset of the audience for this want it to be true?
• 51:17
  Paul Levy: Is that Yes.
• 51:18
  Mike Rugnetta: And like Yes. Does that have to do more with
• 51:21
  their lives, or does that have to do with the Internet? Like,
• 51:25
  do they want to find these sorts of stories online to justify
• 51:31
  their use of social media or, you know, principally or more
• 51:36
  significantly, like, does this reflect some sort of interest
• 51:40
  that they have or some sort of anxiety that they have about
• 51:42
  their lives? I'm sure to some degrees, it's both, but like.
• 51:46
  Georgia Hampton: I think it is both. Because I think on the one
• 51:48
  hand, this kind of story is just such a delicious narrative arc
• 51:54
  that can kind of involve you.
• 51:55
  Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. And
• 51:57
  Georgia Hampton: you can feel like you're part of something
• 51:58
  bigger that feels important, that feels justified, that feels
• 52:02
  righteous. I also think not to get too, I don't know, walk
• 52:08
  corkboard with many strings. In the current state of things
• 52:13
  right now, it is easy to feel extremely hopeless and
• 52:17
  powerless, and I think something like this offers in a very
• 52:20
  troubling way, a very small feeling of satisfaction of
• 52:25
  groupthink of being like, let's get him. Where's Alex?
• 52:30
  Mike Rugnetta: It's a lot like hearing you say that, it reminds
• 52:33
  me of bits of discourse like, do you wash your legs? Or
• 52:39
  Paul Levy: do you
• 52:39
  Mike Rugnetta: do you put your cast iron skillet in the
• 52:42
  dishwasher? These things where you get to have a moment of
• 52:46
  moral superiority. Yes. Yes.
• 52:48
  Georgia Hampton: Yeah. You get to ostracize someone as a treat.
• 52:50
  Hans Buetow: Yeah.
• 52:51
  Georgia Hampton: Like Yes. And you
• 52:52
  Georgia Hampton: can feel good about it. You can feel good
• 52:53
  because he's a cheater.
• 52:55
  Hans Buetow: Yeah. So did anybody sign up for Cheater
• 52:56
  Buster while we were talking?
• 52:58
  Georgia Hampton: I've actually been
• 52:59
  Hans Buetow: a member for a
• 53:00
  Mike Rugnetta: long time.
• 53:00
  Georgia Hampton: Yeah. Like, I'm actually on the board. Yeah.
• 53:02
  Actually, I'm heavily invested.
• 53:05
  Mike Rugnetta: I've been married for a decade, but, you know
• 53:08
  Georgia Hampton: You're like,
• 53:09
  Georgia Hampton: I'm I'm ready to get him.
• 53:10
  Mike Rugnetta: I'm just searching for myself just to
• 53:11
  make sure.
• 53:12
  Georgia Hampton: Searching for myself. One day, I'll get me.
• 53:20
  Hans Buetow: Meagle, thanks for bringing this in. I do we feel
• 53:22
  do you do you feel like you know what's going on?
• 53:24
  Meghal Janardan: I yes. But also, I'm now just more
• 53:28
  paranoid.
• 53:29
  Georgia Hampton: Yeah. I was gonna say, I No.
• 53:31
  Mike Rugnetta: I feel like I understand this specific thing
• 53:33
  more, but I feel just as adrift about modernity as I always do.
• 53:36
  Meghal Janardan: Yes. I'm just like, wow. Yep. I I do think
• 53:39
  that this is the silver lining to coming across this content is
• 53:43
  it's one more reason for me to delete TikTok. Yeah.
• 53:47
  But will I do it? Time will tell.
• 53:49
  Georgia Hampton: Meg will do it.
• 53:50
  Georgia Hampton: Leave me alone in there.
• 53:54
  Mike Rugnetta: It's a it's a glowing recommendation of an app
• 53:57
  that you could spend, like, an a not insignificant amount of time
• 54:03
  trying to find research based reasons to ignore the things
• 54:07
  that you find on it.
• 54:08
  Georgia Hampton: Yes. God. Yeah.
• 54:10
  Georgia Hampton: It's a great example of using your critical
• 54:12
  thinking skills.
• 54:15
  Mike Rugnetta: Okay. I think we've done it. I think we've
• 54:17
  figured out what is going on here. But as Georgia said, at
• 54:21
  what cost? Meagle, thank you so much for joining us, and thank
• 54:26
  you for keeping an eye out for the what's going on here vibe.
• 54:31
  Yeah. I I would say that I'm excited to learn more about
• 54:36
  cheater cheater breaking up TikTok, but maybe I'm more
• 54:41
  excited to know another thing that I can choose to ignore down
• 54:44
  the line.
• 54:44
  Meghal Janardan: Yes. Thank you for having me.
• 54:57
  Mike Rugnetta: That's all the WIGO that we have time for in
• 54:59
  this episode, but but but we did record one additional entry. A
• 55:05
  fintech what that I brought to the group and it's about an app,
• 55:12
  a service, it's a little unclear which can only be described as
• 55:16
  bleak bleak, and which leads all of us to briefly worry that Hans
• 55:19
  may develop a psychosis talking to its AI chatbot. That one is
• 55:24
  gonna go out in the coming week on the members only feed. So
• 55:28
  keep an eye out for that. It's gonna be great.
• 55:30
  And by great, I mean, sort of hand hand wringing and hair
• 55:35
  pulling. But funny, bleak with jokes. I mean, I guess that's
• 55:39
  kind of our brand. Right? That is the show we have for you this
• 56:53
  week.
• 56:53
  We're gonna be back here in the main feed on Wednesday, November
• 56:56
  19 with a release schedule of two episodes per month. Our $4 a
• 57:01
  month membership gets you bespoke, ad free, human made,
• 57:04
  human agonized over podcast episodes for $2 a pop. Was this
• 57:11
  episode that you just listened to $2 worth of entertainment? If
• 57:16
  so, head on over to neverpo.st and become a member today.
• 57:19
  Support your favorite local independent Internet pod so we
• 57:22
  can keep asking what is going on here, and in return, you get an
• 57:27
  ad free feed, sideshows like slow post and never watch, and
• 57:31
  pride in knowing that you are supporting independent creators
• 57:35
  making weird cool stuff they couldn't anywhere else.
• 57:39
  Neverpost's producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton, and the
• 57:43
  mysterious doctor first name, last name. Our senior producer
• 57:46
  is Hans Buto. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholzer,
• 57:49
  and the show's host, that's me, is Mike Rugnetta. My favorite
• 57:53
  part of the drive is the place where bare thoughts stretch
• 57:56
  meadows in front of the westernmost expanses of
• 57:59
  Naperville, Illinois. Chicago is confetti in the deep night
• 58:03
  skyline.
• 58:04
  I think of nothing but fear and hunger. I miss him. I hate him.
• 58:10
  As I drive, the inevitable intrudes itself. History solves
• 58:13
  no mysteries.
• 58:15
  The road is still poignant with scraps of what I thought I had
• 58:17
  abandoned. Postcards and dialogue long distance and
• 58:21
  centuries of inter clan warfare pressed into my DNA. He thinks
• 58:25
  it can call me or drop by at any time of day or night and I will
• 58:29
  beg him stay with me. I miss him. I hate him.
• 58:34
  Excerpt of Uneasy Ghosts by Susan Smith Nash. Never Post is
• 58:39
  a production of Charts and Leisure and is distributed by
• 58:42
  Radiotopia.