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What's Going on with Twitter? · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stephane
0:07
Speaker 1: never told you protection of I Heeart Radio, and today
0:19
Speaker 1: we are once again thrilled to be joined by the fabulous,
0:22
Speaker 1: fantastic Bridget Todd. Welcome Bridgets. We're always so happy to
0:26
Speaker 1: have you. Thank you for having me. I'm so happy
0:29
Speaker 1: to be back here and happy, happy late thanksgiving. Yes
0:32
Speaker 1: to you too. How How are how have things been
0:35
Speaker 1: going for you? Bridget? Things have been good. Um, yeah,
0:40
Speaker 1: I were getting into the holidays, which as a grinch
0:45
Speaker 1: it's always a little tough, but things are good. Annie.
0:48
Speaker 1: I have to ask you. I heard that you had COVID.
0:50
Speaker 1: How are you feeling? Oh? Thank you? I feel I
0:55
Speaker 1: feel totally fine. It was not that bad at all,
0:58
Speaker 1: thanks to you. I've got my users, have got my vaccine,
1:01
Speaker 1: so it was not bad at all. And uh yeah,
1:03
Speaker 1: I was just talking about how it's been so long
1:06
Speaker 1: since I've been sick that it was interesting to see
1:09
Speaker 1: my like what I view is a very sad reaction
1:11
Speaker 1: of oh I can eat soup and like sit in
1:14
Speaker 1: bed for a little bit. I think I should be
1:16
Speaker 1: able to do those things without getting COVID. But anyway,
1:19
Speaker 1: I'm fine. Thank you for asking. That's the best part
1:24
Speaker 1: of being about being sick. It's like you can just
1:26
Speaker 1: binge bad TV with no guilt, never living bed, be
1:30
Speaker 1: under fifteen blankets, and just have that be your life
1:34
Speaker 1: for a while. Yeah. Yeah it was. I feel so
1:40
Speaker 1: I feel so strange admitting it, but it is true.
1:43
Speaker 1: It was like, oh, I can finally do these things
1:44
Speaker 1: that I just want to do. But yeah, yeah, it
1:47
Speaker 1: was all good. And it was really funny because I
1:50
Speaker 1: quarantine Samantha and I are big, like we don't go
1:54
Speaker 1: anywhere the pandemic, so I really I was like, oh,
1:57
Speaker 1: this is easy. I don't really have to change my
1:59
Speaker 1: roots at all. Switch up that is so sad. Like
2:07
Speaker 1: the only when I had when I had COVID, the
2:09
Speaker 1: only big change was like instead of when I ordered delivery,
2:13
Speaker 1: instead of greeting them at the door, I just had
2:15
Speaker 1: them leave it and then I would wait behind the door.
2:18
Speaker 1: I could sense when they dropped it off, and then
2:20
Speaker 1: I would like quickly open the door and like grab
2:22
Speaker 1: it like some kind of like troll coming out of
2:27
Speaker 1: her layer, like run back upstairs. Yes, same, same, uh yeah, yeah,
2:36
Speaker 1: the Oh gosh, I'm so glad you you're you're here
2:40
Speaker 1: and that you can make time for it, because the
2:42
Speaker 1: holidays are are very stressful, and I know Samanth is
2:45
Speaker 1: also somebody who doesn't really like them. I hate it.
2:50
Speaker 1: I don't like mind it. I like lights. I think
2:52
Speaker 1: that's my big thing. I like flights, but lights like lights,
2:57
Speaker 1: I do. That's saying the thing I'm trying to I'm
3:03
Speaker 1: trying to change it up a little bit. I was like,
3:04
Speaker 1: maybe I'll actually get an actual Christmas tree, maybe I'll
3:08
Speaker 1: do some decorating and all of that. But then I
3:11
Speaker 1: went to Target yesterday and looked around and I got
3:13
Speaker 1: the immediate sinking of like, I hate the holiday. So
3:16
Speaker 1: it's like I'm getting sad. I'm walking away like kind
3:19
Speaker 1: of the way I felt. And of course I don't
3:22
Speaker 1: I have a house, but I don't have a fireplace,
3:24
Speaker 1: so I feel like with that missing, you like don't
3:26
Speaker 1: have that mantle to put things on, which is really
3:29
Speaker 1: ridiculous of a conversation as the reason I'm like, this
3:32
Speaker 1: is why I don't want to decorate my house or
3:34
Speaker 1: whatever whatnot. But yeah, it's just like I walked in
3:37
Speaker 1: it was overwhelming and I was like, yeah, I'm done,
3:40
Speaker 1: I'm okay. So I did try for like two seconds.
3:45
Speaker 1: You know, perfect, thank you. If it's not for you,
3:49
Speaker 1: it's not for you, there's nothing wrong with it. And
3:51
Speaker 1: also okay, so Bridget, Samantha and I the topic you
3:55
Speaker 1: about today are very We're very excited you brought it
3:58
Speaker 1: because we have a lot of questions, but also we've
4:01
Speaker 1: been meaning to talk about it, but we were hopeful
4:03
Speaker 1: that you would talk about it because I feel like
4:07
Speaker 1: you have a lot more knowledge and expertise in this arena.
4:12
Speaker 1: So I'm so I'm so excited that this is what
4:15
Speaker 1: we're talking about today, which is Twitter. Yeah, and you know,
4:19
Speaker 1: the last time you were on, we actually talked about
4:22
Speaker 1: the fact that it was the beginning of the end
4:25
Speaker 1: kind of had them that moment because at that moment
4:27
Speaker 1: we knew that Elon Musk was coming on. We're like,
4:29
Speaker 1: oh no, here do we go. Uh So definitely, as
4:33
Speaker 1: we were watching this, I feel like it was just yesterday,
4:36
Speaker 1: but that we mentioned this, so I'm sure you've got
4:39
Speaker 1: so much more in depth information from the beginning of
4:42
Speaker 1: to today. Yeah, I I I mean, it's it's so
4:46
Speaker 1: weird and just two level set, like we it does
4:49
Speaker 1: feel like we're in a little bit of unprecedented waters.
4:52
Speaker 1: You know. I have a lot of expertise when it
4:54
Speaker 1: comes to tech technology and platforms and how they run
4:56
Speaker 1: and how they're moderated, but this has never really happened.
5:00
Speaker 1: For since I have been working in in the Internet spaces,
5:03
Speaker 1: I have never seen a billionaire by one of our
5:06
Speaker 1: largest digital communications platforms and like change the culture pretty
5:11
Speaker 1: much single handedly overnight. So I am going to try
5:14
Speaker 1: to bring whatever expertise I have and answer whatever questions
5:18
Speaker 1: folks have. But I don't know a lot because this
5:21
Speaker 1: is just like a very new, weird experience. I am
5:24
Speaker 1: learning right alongside all of y'all and figuring out what's
5:27
Speaker 1: happening um in real times. It's it's kind of exciting,
5:30
Speaker 1: kind of interesting, but also tb D. Yeah, which I
5:36
Speaker 1: guess we should say. We're recording this on November because
5:40
Speaker 1: things are changing rapidly. Things are changing rapidly. A lot
5:43
Speaker 1: has happened, as you said, Samantha, since Elon Musk came
5:47
Speaker 1: on board, So yeah, we'll see. I think there's a
5:51
Speaker 1: lot more to come. Yeah, well that's a great place
5:54
Speaker 1: to start, you know, just the rapid changing of the situation.
5:58
Speaker 1: I initially started putting together and outline a couple of
6:01
Speaker 1: I think like last week and mostly all that stuff
6:04
Speaker 1: that I wrote is now has now been changed, so
6:08
Speaker 1: hopefully this will be not totally out of out of
6:11
Speaker 1: date by the time folks hear it. UM. I have
6:12
Speaker 1: to ask before we even start, like, have you sense
6:14
Speaker 1: that your relationship with Twitter has changed since Elon Musk
6:17
Speaker 1: took over? Yeah? I would say so, UM, because one
6:23
Speaker 1: of the biggest things that I've experienced with Twitter since
6:28
Speaker 1: um Elon Musk has been um either kind of a
6:32
Speaker 1: sense of uncertainty or confusion, or people contact me and
6:36
Speaker 1: be like, I'm not sure, I'm not sure what's going on,
6:38
Speaker 1: so you can find me on this other social platform
6:41
Speaker 1: or whatever, and then I have had a several experiences
6:46
Speaker 1: where I went to check on um something somebody, uh,
6:50
Speaker 1: somebody on Twitter is doing that I follow and their
6:53
Speaker 1: account is not there anymore, just deactivated and kind of
6:57
Speaker 1: just a general like I'm not sure if this is
7:00
Speaker 1: coming from who I think this is coming from. I
7:02
Speaker 1: guess like, UM, like a loss of trust, like I'm
7:06
Speaker 1: not sure what is going on and if I can
7:10
Speaker 1: trust anything that is happening, right. I mean, essentially, I
7:14
Speaker 1: think that's the biggest thing is I don't know if
7:17
Speaker 1: this is a real account to someone at all. The
7:19
Speaker 1: amount of ads I've been getting have gotten up. It's
7:22
Speaker 1: the same three ads, but I'm like, oh my god,
7:24
Speaker 1: it is constantly there, which we all know why, but
7:28
Speaker 1: I mean because they're losing so much money. But um,
7:31
Speaker 1: I think one of the big things is like I
7:32
Speaker 1: will see parody accounts, which because of the verification system
7:35
Speaker 1: has kind of completely gone out the window that I
7:38
Speaker 1: don't know if it's real. I think there was one
7:39
Speaker 1: at one point that I was like, oh, that that
7:41
Speaker 1: one is real. Oh that's real. Like that's kind of
7:44
Speaker 1: one of those moments as well as the amount of
7:47
Speaker 1: misinformation has grown. To me, at least I knew if
7:49
Speaker 1: it was coming from this specific account or type of account.
7:52
Speaker 1: What was happening Now I don't know. I'm like, okay, wait,
7:55
Speaker 1: did that actually happen? And I don't know anymore if
7:58
Speaker 1: it's real or not, like so many things that are
8:01
Speaker 1: aimed specifically at Elon Musk and like, is that is
8:03
Speaker 1: that real? Is that really happening? Did he do these things?
8:06
Speaker 1: Or are people saying this in order to fear monger
8:08
Speaker 1: or make it even bigger? And then he comes back
8:11
Speaker 1: and say, just kidding, that didn't happen, Like I don't.
8:13
Speaker 1: I don't know at this point who to trust and
8:16
Speaker 1: whom not to trust. Of course on our stuff. I've
8:18
Speaker 1: never told you account we the followers just dropped because
8:21
Speaker 1: so many people have left. I'm assuming maybe they just allots.
8:24
Speaker 1: I don't know, but like the amount of people that
8:28
Speaker 1: had left has like increased, and in the fact that
8:31
Speaker 1: has impacted our numbers for a while. Not that we
8:34
Speaker 1: we don't do too much because I am still fearful
8:36
Speaker 1: of writing anything on any of the social media accounts
8:40
Speaker 1: at all, but it's interesting to see how that is
8:44
Speaker 1: fluctuating as well. The people who I again trusted losing
8:48
Speaker 1: their verification because they didn't pay for us, so therefore
8:50
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's them anymore. There's so much
8:52
Speaker 1: like I don't quite know what's reality what's fake, And
8:57
Speaker 1: then the amount of disformation and people that I'm trying
8:59
Speaker 1: like have been banned or back on, and I'm like,
9:01
Speaker 1: oh god, why. So it's really sad because Twitter has
9:04
Speaker 1: been something that I used to like, let me know
9:06
Speaker 1: what's going on, is faster than um any other news platforms,
9:09
Speaker 1: and and seeing like the truth of what's actually happening,
9:13
Speaker 1: whether it's information about wrongful deaths or protests around the country,
9:17
Speaker 1: around the world. So it's there's a lot that I'm like, uh,
9:21
Speaker 1: I'm kind of lost, but also at the same time
9:23
Speaker 1: entertained because it's going in flames. Yes, A thousand times. Yes,
9:27
Speaker 1: So I have seen all the things that y'all have
9:30
Speaker 1: seen and felt and sensed. I have also seen and
9:32
Speaker 1: felt and sensed. And for folks listening, even if you're
9:35
Speaker 1: someone who doesn't use Twitter, like the majority of Americans,
9:39
Speaker 1: or like will never use Twitter, not a social media person,
9:42
Speaker 1: I am confident that I can help help you see
9:45
Speaker 1: why this is a big, a big deal for all
9:47
Speaker 1: of us, not just folks who are on Twitter, because
9:49
Speaker 1: I do think that a lot of the reporting on
9:51
Speaker 1: this is like, oh, well, this matters because it's Twitter
9:55
Speaker 1: and everybody uses Twitter. Not so right, Like, when you
9:58
Speaker 1: compare Twitter to other social media platforms like Facebook, only
10:01
Speaker 1: a small amount of Americans use are on Twitter actively,
10:06
Speaker 1: and even less Americans actually tweet and participate there, so
10:10
Speaker 1: with we're talking about a small amount of folks. However,
10:13
Speaker 1: the reason why this actually like kind of matters is
10:16
Speaker 1: because the people who are active on Twitter are kind
10:18
Speaker 1: of like, I guess you can sort of call them
10:21
Speaker 1: like the tastemakers, right, Like journalists, researchers, activists, organizers, people
10:27
Speaker 1: who are really able to shape conversation and shape our
10:31
Speaker 1: public discourse and sort of have an influence on what
10:34
Speaker 1: becomes part of our public kind of conversation. Right. And so, Samantha,
10:38
Speaker 1: exactly like what you were saying. When people need quick,
10:41
Speaker 1: up to date, hopefully somewhat reliable information, they're not going
10:45
Speaker 1: to Instagram. They're not going to Tumbler, they're not going
10:48
Speaker 1: to snapchat or TikTok. They're going to Twitter. You know,
10:51
Speaker 1: there's a reason why when there's a you know, mass
10:55
Speaker 1: shooting on a campus, people can follow updates quickly on Twitter.
10:59
Speaker 1: And so Twitter is not just this place where public
11:02
Speaker 1: discourse is shaped. It is also a place where you
11:05
Speaker 1: just go to get easy, quick access to hopefully reliable
11:09
Speaker 1: information about stuff happening near you. And so you can
11:11
Speaker 1: sort of get a sense of why this is a
11:14
Speaker 1: platform where these kind of power struggles happen, right, Like,
11:18
Speaker 1: it's not surprising that like a person like Donald Trump,
11:21
Speaker 1: Twitter was his platform to ure because you can have
11:24
Speaker 1: such outsized influence in getting a message out there quickly
11:28
Speaker 1: and effectively. And I just don't think that we have
11:30
Speaker 1: another social media platform that mimics that so effectively. Like
11:34
Speaker 1: Facebook moves a little bit slower, even though more people
11:36
Speaker 1: are there. Instagram, the timeline moves in such an algorithmic
11:41
Speaker 1: way that you don't need. It's like, if I posted
11:42
Speaker 1: something that was really important, it's not even a guarantee
11:44
Speaker 1: that everybody who follows me would see it, right. And
11:46
Speaker 1: so Twitter is such a fast moving platform, and I
11:49
Speaker 1: think it's one of the reasons why we're seeing it
11:51
Speaker 1: spring up as a battleground in this like highly polarized
11:55
Speaker 1: kind of culture war. I'm really glad that you're here
12:12
Speaker 1: to make this case because we recently it was recently
12:15
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving and I went home and, um, a lot of
12:17
Speaker 1: people were kind of, you know, laughing about Elon Musk
12:19
Speaker 1: and Twitter, and there are definitely some funny aspects of it,
12:22
Speaker 1: but they're all like, well, I hate Twitter, so I'm
12:23
Speaker 1: not sad to see it go. And I was like, well,
12:26
Speaker 1: I have a lot of problems with Twitter two, but
12:27
Speaker 1: it's important, it does matter, and it is a shame
12:30
Speaker 1: like that we're seeing this happen, and there have been things,
12:36
Speaker 1: examples of stuff that took off on Twitter and then
12:40
Speaker 1: fundamentally changed our public discourse, whether you use it or not,
12:46
Speaker 1: totally right. And so this is this is the drama
12:48
Speaker 1: will always beat. Even if you are not someone who
12:50
Speaker 1: was actively using Twitter, you have felt the cultural impact
12:54
Speaker 1: of movements and conversations that started on Twitter. You know,
12:57
Speaker 1: if you think about the way that people who traditionally
13:01
Speaker 1: have not necessarily had a lot of access to power
13:03
Speaker 1: and influence, they can use Twitter to build up that
13:07
Speaker 1: power and that voice and that influence. I could give
13:08
Speaker 1: you a million different examples of concrete changes that we're
13:11
Speaker 1: all aware of and probably all felt directly that started
13:15
Speaker 1: on Twitter. You know, Uh, it's not surprising to me
13:18
Speaker 1: that Twitter has been used as this way to really
13:20
Speaker 1: hold power structures accountable. When Toronto Burke started to me
13:23
Speaker 1: Too movement, you know, she had this this movement that
13:26
Speaker 1: she had started for black and brown women and girls
13:31
Speaker 1: who were survivors of sexual violence. And when actor Alissa
13:34
Speaker 1: Milano tweeted about it on Twitter using the hashtag me too,
13:38
Speaker 1: that's when it really took off, right, And so you
13:40
Speaker 1: see the the power that you know, generating conversations on
13:44
Speaker 1: the platform can have If not for Twitter, I don't
13:47
Speaker 1: know that we would have the me to move it
13:49
Speaker 1: the way that the way that it was. I don't
13:50
Speaker 1: know that, you know, all of these different powerful abusers
13:54
Speaker 1: would be eventually held to account and that we would
13:56
Speaker 1: be having a national conversation about things like gender and
13:59
Speaker 1: sexual islands. You know. I'm Another great example is a
14:02
Speaker 1: friend of mine, April Rain. She tweeted about how white
14:06
Speaker 1: the Oscars nominees were and tweeted Oscar so white. It
14:09
Speaker 1: completely took off. People were tweeting things like Oscar so white,
14:13
Speaker 1: it touches my hair without asking Oscar so white? It
14:17
Speaker 1: you know, da da da da. And because of that conversation,
14:21
Speaker 1: it fundamentally changed how the Oscars were that year. Uh
14:26
Speaker 1: Spike Lee won an Oscar and he he said that
14:29
Speaker 1: he doesn't think it would ever have happened without that campaign,
14:32
Speaker 1: which started as a tweet a hashtag on Twitter. Look
14:35
Speaker 1: at the way that it was instrumental during Arab spring,
14:37
Speaker 1: right and so like. There are so many ways and
14:40
Speaker 1: times where, particularly outside of the US, Twitter has been
14:43
Speaker 1: used to document, you know, abuse of power and hold
14:47
Speaker 1: that power to account. And I think it's even if
14:49
Speaker 1: you're not on Twitter, you've probably felt or seen some
14:53
Speaker 1: kind of the impact of some kind of movement that
14:55
Speaker 1: was started on Twitter, you know. And as you were
14:58
Speaker 1: talking about these moves mos, which are so huge, I
15:01
Speaker 1: had to go back to the original idea of like
15:03
Speaker 1: our lingo changed completely with what is now the hashtag
15:08
Speaker 1: as well, because that actually originated in two thousand seven.
15:11
Speaker 1: According to one of the resources that I looked at
15:14
Speaker 1: on Twitter, like it literally changed how we looked at
15:18
Speaker 1: so much of our conversations online. Um. It brought up
15:21
Speaker 1: a way for us to pass messages and bring up
15:24
Speaker 1: big issues with what I would have known as pound sign,
15:27
Speaker 1: which just the lineals don't know what that is. And
15:31
Speaker 1: that's fine. I'm fine with it. I'm okay with it. Um.
15:34
Speaker 1: But like that in itself has begun a new conversation
15:37
Speaker 1: the zite guys in itself had changed because of things
15:40
Speaker 1: like that on Twitter. And it's such a big significant
15:42
Speaker 1: thing that we don't often think about, and knowing that
15:45
Speaker 1: before two th seven that didn't exist, and what a
15:48
Speaker 1: powerful tool it is on across all social media. Oh
15:51
Speaker 1: my god, Sam, this is my your your I will
15:54
Speaker 1: keep my comments as brief as I can. This is
15:56
Speaker 1: like my favorite topic. The way that they things that
16:00
Speaker 1: are originated on different social media platforms, in this case Twitter,
16:03
Speaker 1: have changed fundamentally changed the way that we communicate digitally
16:06
Speaker 1: is fascinating to me. I don't remember when hashtags were
16:09
Speaker 1: first rolled out, and previously there wasn't really an easy
16:13
Speaker 1: way to quickly figure out what everybody was saying on
16:16
Speaker 1: on a particular topic. And I still remember I was
16:18
Speaker 1: working as a social media management at the time when
16:21
Speaker 1: the conversation was like, oh, well, should we use hashtags
16:23
Speaker 1: on Facebook? Like does it work that way? And you know,
16:26
Speaker 1: people still use hashtag. You go to TikTok, like one
16:28
Speaker 1: of the biggest, fastest growing platforms out there. When you
16:32
Speaker 1: scroll down to the bottom of TikTok, people tend to
16:34
Speaker 1: include hashtags. And so it's interesting how this mode of
16:38
Speaker 1: this particular mode of digital communication did not just stay
16:41
Speaker 1: on Twitter, how it really shaped other platforms as well,
16:45
Speaker 1: And I think has become a pivotal way in terms
16:47
Speaker 1: of like how we just think about the way that
16:50
Speaker 1: discourse works online. I think before the hashtag, we didn't
16:52
Speaker 1: think about it as like I should be able to
16:54
Speaker 1: pull up a hashtag and get a sense of like
16:57
Speaker 1: the diversity of thought and conversation on any one time,
17:00
Speaker 1: and now that it's kind of integrals with the way
17:01
Speaker 1: that we understand communications online. This is something I can
17:05
Speaker 1: nerd out on for hours. It's probably not interesting to
17:07
Speaker 1: anybody but me, but loving I found it fascinating. To
17:12
Speaker 1: be fair, again, I was late in coming to social media.
17:14
Speaker 1: I still in latant understanding social media to a certain extent.
17:18
Speaker 1: So when I first started, I was like, what are
17:19
Speaker 1: these hashtags? I'm just gonna write sentences on there, and
17:22
Speaker 1: they no sense, But I'm like that makes them blue,
17:25
Speaker 1: Like you can click on it, I'm gonna do it,
17:27
Speaker 1: which is a whole different conversations itself. I'm like, look technology,
17:31
Speaker 1: which is again how I react to most things. But
17:35
Speaker 1: going back to where we started, because finding something that's
17:37
Speaker 1: coming to this point, which seems apocalyptic for a social
17:41
Speaker 1: media brand, but one of the oldest one that has
17:43
Speaker 1: been out there that's still like stood the test of
17:45
Speaker 1: time outside of Facebook, it's interesting to see what is
17:49
Speaker 1: happening because it does feel like we have lived this
17:52
Speaker 1: extension of a life, of a creation of something completely different.
17:57
Speaker 1: So with all of that, how do we get here.
17:59
Speaker 1: How did this happen? Great question? So this is something
18:03
Speaker 1: again that I wish I saw more of in the reporting.
18:06
Speaker 1: People kind of gloss over it, and I think it's
18:08
Speaker 1: actually a really big part of the story, and it's
18:12
Speaker 1: important to not just gloss over it, which is that
18:15
Speaker 1: you know, Musk's decision to to buy Twitter, per his
18:20
Speaker 1: own statements, was rooted in transphobia. Um, he'd been talking
18:24
Speaker 1: about buying Twitter for a while, and Twitter added intentionally
18:29
Speaker 1: misgendering people to their list a prohibited behavior on the platform.
18:33
Speaker 1: So you can't, like, as a means of trying to
18:37
Speaker 1: harm someone, you cannot misgender them. So in the right wing,
18:42
Speaker 1: I guess you'll call it like a parody site. Even
18:45
Speaker 1: that doesn't seem quite correct, but we'll call it a
18:48
Speaker 1: parody website for the sake of conversation. The Babylon b
18:51
Speaker 1: they violated this rule when they tweeted a transphobic joke
18:55
Speaker 1: in scare quotes Um that Dr Rachel Levine, who was
18:59
Speaker 1: the first openly transfore star officer in the military and
19:02
Speaker 1: currently the Assistant Secretary for Health in the U s
19:05
Speaker 1: Department of Health and Human Services. They made a crack
19:08
Speaker 1: on Twitter that she had been named quote Man of
19:11
Speaker 1: the Year, right, and so a lot of the report,
19:14
Speaker 1: First of all, it's wild to me, how like that
19:18
Speaker 1: that level of humor has not evolved since that movie
19:21
Speaker 1: Ace Venture a Pet Detective, Like we're still in Nino, Like,
19:25
Speaker 1: oh my god, like like get a new joke, people
19:29
Speaker 1: is it is so tired. But a lot of people
19:32
Speaker 1: reported that the Babylon Be was banned from Twitter for
19:35
Speaker 1: this for this tweet, but that technically is not correct.
19:38
Speaker 1: Twitter said that the babylon Be could have their account
19:41
Speaker 1: back in twelve hours, but that that countdown could not
19:44
Speaker 1: start until they deleted that particular tweet. They refused to
19:47
Speaker 1: delete that tweet, so they were unable to tweet, so
19:50
Speaker 1: they weren't technically banned. They kind of decided like we
19:53
Speaker 1: are not we are going to die on this hill
19:55
Speaker 1: of this tweet, and if we can't tweet, that's fine.
19:58
Speaker 1: So at this time, Musk was already the biggest shareholder
20:01
Speaker 1: of Twitter, and he had been invited to join its
20:03
Speaker 1: board of directors. Um In April, Elon offered to buy Twitter,
20:06
Speaker 1: and he said that it was specifically that Babylon b
20:09
Speaker 1: situation that prompted him to do so that like that
20:12
Speaker 1: was the final straw, watching the babylon Be not be
20:16
Speaker 1: able to tweet because they refused to delete this joke.
20:18
Speaker 1: The babylon Be confirmed this to The Washington Times, saying
20:22
Speaker 1: We've had some communication with Musk. Uh he wanted to
20:25
Speaker 1: confirm that we had in fact been suspended from Twitter.
20:27
Speaker 1: He reached out to us before he publicly asked his
20:29
Speaker 1: followers if they think Twitter vigorously adheres to the principle
20:32
Speaker 1: of free expression. He even mused on that call that
20:35
Speaker 1: he might need to buy Twitter. So it's to me,
20:38
Speaker 1: it's like pretty disappointing and also very important that Elon
20:42
Speaker 1: Musk's you know, tenure at Twitter really starts with his
20:48
Speaker 1: desire to protect transphobic jokes in scare quotes as protected
20:53
Speaker 1: speech and free speech on the platform. I think that's
20:56
Speaker 1: terribly disappointing, and I think it's related to the ways
20:58
Speaker 1: that we're seeing him, you know, at the rain at
21:00
Speaker 1: Twitter right now. So disappointed because from what I do understand,
21:04
Speaker 1: he does have a trans child and and like obviously
21:08
Speaker 1: the relationship is not good. They disowned Musk as there
21:12
Speaker 1: are parental figure, but it seems like just an attack
21:16
Speaker 1: on them. If I were If I were them, I
21:18
Speaker 1: would think this as well. But I'm just so disappointing
21:21
Speaker 1: to know that you could really care so little of
21:26
Speaker 1: your own child that you're willing to go into forty
21:29
Speaker 1: four billion dollars in debt to go for this. Yes,
21:33
Speaker 1: it is, I mean the this is a weird aside,
21:36
Speaker 1: But like, I actually spend a lot of time thinking
21:39
Speaker 1: about Elon Musk's like personal motivations. I obviously don't know
21:43
Speaker 1: Elon Musk. I can't like at all. It's all speculation,
21:45
Speaker 1: but I do think there's something about it, like I
21:51
Speaker 1: can't imagine having a trans child and going out of
21:55
Speaker 1: my way and spending a lot of money to protect
21:58
Speaker 1: and like transphobic right right, I cannot imagine it. It's
22:02
Speaker 1: difficult for me to put myself in that position, I
22:04
Speaker 1: guess I'll say. I also think that it really reflects
22:06
Speaker 1: the ways that particularly trans people have unfortunately kind of
22:12
Speaker 1: become this like like just the existence of trans people
22:16
Speaker 1: trying to live their lives has become this like blash point.
22:21
Speaker 1: On the one hand, it is surprising to me that
22:22
Speaker 1: he would double down on this having a trans child.
22:25
Speaker 1: On the other hand, I do see the ways that
22:27
Speaker 1: just like the existence of trans people trying to live
22:30
Speaker 1: their lives has become this incredibly like politicized hot button issue.
22:34
Speaker 1: It certainly should not be. But on the other hand,
22:36
Speaker 1: it's not terribly surprising to me that his bid at
22:40
Speaker 1: Twitter starts with that transphobibia, that that's where it that
22:43
Speaker 1: that's where it begins, right. It makes me want to
22:46
Speaker 1: have him fail, but it's just to me. But you know,
22:50
Speaker 1: with that, it's kind of odd that he also continues
22:54
Speaker 1: to talk about free speech. I think it's really really
22:57
Speaker 1: almost ironic. He talks about free spee and several of
23:00
Speaker 1: the people that I've seen banned are the people that
23:03
Speaker 1: said something about him, not necessarily anything, uh, completely offhand.
23:07
Speaker 1: It was just like, hey, he did this and this
23:09
Speaker 1: is a bad thing, and he's like banned them exactly. Okay,
23:12
Speaker 1: So let's get into this because Elon Musk, he has
23:15
Speaker 1: called himself a free speech absolutist. He says that a
23:19
Speaker 1: ted talk like free speech is the ability for someone
23:23
Speaker 1: you don't like to say something you don't like, right,
23:26
Speaker 1: And so you might be thinking, oh, well, he would
23:28
Speaker 1: probably be working to foster a climate of open discourse
23:32
Speaker 1: and discussion at Twitter, now that he's in charge. But
23:35
Speaker 1: you might you would You will be wrong if you
23:36
Speaker 1: thought that, right, because that's not what the not what
23:38
Speaker 1: the vibe has been so far. And so first of all,
23:40
Speaker 1: I have to say, like, obviously, when we talk about
23:42
Speaker 1: free speech, really what we're talking about is whether governments
23:46
Speaker 1: can punish people or prevent people, um from saying what
23:50
Speaker 1: they want to say, right, And so the conversation around
23:53
Speaker 1: free speech has gotten so modeled about like, oh, well,
23:56
Speaker 1: this is censorship. It's like, oh, not really, but and
23:58
Speaker 1: there are absolutely speech issues happening in the United States
24:02
Speaker 1: right now, Like what do you look at like anti
24:04
Speaker 1: CRT bills or like don't say gay legislation, Like we
24:08
Speaker 1: are in a climate where free expression is under attack,
24:12
Speaker 1: specifically from government. So like that needs to be clear.
24:16
Speaker 1: But for the take of conversation, let's talk about free
24:19
Speaker 1: speech as sort of generally fostering a climate of open
24:23
Speaker 1: discourse and debate. If we use that definition of a
24:26
Speaker 1: free speech you might be thinking, like, has Elon Musk
24:29
Speaker 1: worked to create that kind of environment since taking over? Also, no,
24:33
Speaker 1: he has not done that. Uh. First, he got started
24:37
Speaker 1: by overseeing a mass exodus of staff at Twitter. UM.
24:40
Speaker 1: Some employees resigned, which I totally get. Like I would
24:43
Speaker 1: have I would have been out the door. Honestly, there's
24:45
Speaker 1: not a lot of jobs that if I was offered
24:47
Speaker 1: three months pay to not do it, that I would
24:48
Speaker 1: keep doing it. It's not, it's not I can't. I've
24:51
Speaker 1: got a lot of jobs where that would be the
24:52
Speaker 1: case for me. So I would totally have been on
24:54
Speaker 1: the resignation train. So I totally get that. And some
24:57
Speaker 1: workers were fired, and specifically they were fired for things
25:00
Speaker 1: that they said about Elon Musk. Engineer Eric Frohnhopper was
25:04
Speaker 1: fired very publicly for going against Musk, and it happened
25:07
Speaker 1: to write on Twitter. Eric worked on Twitter's apps for Android,
25:11
Speaker 1: and after Musk tweeted that Twitter for Android had been
25:14
Speaker 1: really slow, the engineer retweeted Musk saying that Musk his
25:18
Speaker 1: his under his technical understanding of Twitter's app was wrong,
25:22
Speaker 1: which I can kind of buy because Elon Musk gets
25:25
Speaker 1: famously not an engineer, so perhaps might not totally know
25:28
Speaker 1: what he's talking about when talking to an actual engineer
25:31
Speaker 1: who works on the thing that he is criticizing. And
25:33
Speaker 1: so Musk replied and asked this engineer to elaborate before
25:37
Speaker 1: writing Twitter is super slow on Android? What if you've
25:40
Speaker 1: done to fix that? They kind of go back and forth,
25:42
Speaker 1: and then somebody else comes in and it's like, hey, engineer,
25:46
Speaker 1: why don't you raise these issues privately with your boss?
25:49
Speaker 1: And the engineer replies, maybe he should ask questions privately,
25:52
Speaker 1: maybe you slack or email. Elon then weighs in and says, oh,
25:56
Speaker 1: that engineer has been fired. So I find it's very
25:59
Speaker 1: interesting because a lot of people said, like, oh, if
26:03
Speaker 1: you publicly disagree with your boss, you know you can,
26:07
Speaker 1: like pretty much anywhere, you would probably be fired. And
26:10
Speaker 1: I guess that's a fair point, Like I like in
26:13
Speaker 1: most workplaces you can't like get on Twitter and call
26:16
Speaker 1: out your boss. Totally get that, But I think the
26:19
Speaker 1: larger point is, like it seems directly at odds with
26:23
Speaker 1: somebody who has called himself a free speech absolutist. And
26:26
Speaker 1: I also think that engineer has a really good point,
26:29
Speaker 1: like why is it that Ellen as a as the boss,
26:32
Speaker 1: is allowed to publicly misrepresent his work on Twitter, and
26:35
Speaker 1: that the staffer, he is the one who has to
26:38
Speaker 1: stay quiet and only set the record straight like in private,
26:42
Speaker 1: like if Elon Musk, like Elon Musk made it public
26:45
Speaker 1: by tweeting about it. Why is it that when his
26:47
Speaker 1: boss publicly I think craps on his work, he is
26:51
Speaker 1: not able to publicly reply. I kind of totally get
26:54
Speaker 1: why he did this, even if for most people they
26:56
Speaker 1: might think like, oh, that's clearly a fiable offense. Yes, agreed.
27:02
Speaker 1: And also there's been a lot of stories that like
27:06
Speaker 1: even privately, and that might not have protected him exactly.
27:09
Speaker 1: So even if this engineer had brought it up privately
27:12
Speaker 1: via Slack or email, he probably, I think, probably still
27:15
Speaker 1: would have been fired. Because it's not just staff who
27:17
Speaker 1: have publicly gone against Musk who have been terminated. ABC
27:20
Speaker 1: reported that dozens of other staffers said that they were
27:23
Speaker 1: fired for raising criticisms on internal Slack messages or email.
27:27
Speaker 1: And that kind of tracks with the kind of climate
27:30
Speaker 1: that Musk has run at his other companies. I don't
27:32
Speaker 1: know how he's been able to dub himself as a
27:34
Speaker 1: free speech warrior because that the record of his of
27:39
Speaker 1: the climate at his other organizations just does not reflect that.
27:42
Speaker 1: Like at SpaceX, for instance, former staff filed an unfair
27:45
Speaker 1: labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board, saying
27:49
Speaker 1: that they were retaliated against for writing and organizing a
27:52
Speaker 1: letter that was critical of the company when Musk have
27:54
Speaker 1: been accused of sexual harassment. And so they wrote this
27:57
Speaker 1: letter saying Elon Musk's behave your sexual harassment. His like
28:02
Speaker 1: crass jokes on Twitter is making us look bad and
28:05
Speaker 1: it needs to stop. And they they say, and they
28:07
Speaker 1: went to the n l RB saying this that they
28:10
Speaker 1: were unfairly retaliated against for that. And so I don't know,
28:13
Speaker 1: I have a hard time believing that Elon Musk is
28:17
Speaker 1: this like champion for free speech when that those are
28:20
Speaker 1: the kinds of climates that he has fostered at his organizations.
28:22
Speaker 1: There's so much to all of that, including the fact
28:25
Speaker 1: when we often hear people complaining about free speech, especially
28:28
Speaker 1: today as you were talking about like the anti CRT
28:32
Speaker 1: stuff as well as so many other things, don't say
28:35
Speaker 1: gay bills, um that it seems very much coming from
28:38
Speaker 1: the conservative side because they feel like since they think
28:42
Speaker 1: they don't have the same privilege as they did two
28:44
Speaker 1: years ago, that they're now being imposed on and therefore
28:48
Speaker 1: no longer having free speech. And we also know that
28:50
Speaker 1: that in Tesla there was a lawsuit where many black
28:54
Speaker 1: employees talked about the racism within that company. We've been
28:58
Speaker 1: concluding him, including being called inward and all of that,
29:02
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking that's what he's talking about when there's
29:04
Speaker 1: limiting free speech, like Okay, white people, you are now
29:07
Speaker 1: allowed to say that here because that's free speech, and
29:11
Speaker 1: not really not not like crediting the FIPE that that's
29:14
Speaker 1: you know, like it's racist. That's not an issue of
29:16
Speaker 1: free speech. That's about racism. But that's what I'm seeing
29:19
Speaker 1: as a pattern, as well as the fact that that
29:21
Speaker 1: the people who have been defending Musk, like the dudeo's like, hey, dude,
29:24
Speaker 1: don't be saying this to your boss, are absolutely to
29:27
Speaker 1: the level like how close in ratio are we to
29:30
Speaker 1: the in cell link here? You? I have so much
29:36
Speaker 1: to say about this, So one, I hadn't really thought
29:40
Speaker 1: about this before, but you really put you really laid
29:43
Speaker 1: this out nicely. I do think that the way that
29:46
Speaker 1: people talk about contact moderation on a platform like Twitter
29:49
Speaker 1: does kind of connect to conversations about like, oh, because
29:55
Speaker 1: I can't say what I used to be able to
29:58
Speaker 1: say it's twenty years ago without repercus sins, Therefore I
30:01
Speaker 1: am being censored. Therefore, the only way to protect free
30:07
Speaker 1: speech is to allow specifically like racist or transphobic content
30:14
Speaker 1: on these platforms. Like I hadn't really thought about it
30:16
Speaker 1: in that direct of a line, but I think that
30:18
Speaker 1: you're absolutely onto something. That the reason why so many
30:21
Speaker 1: people when they talk about like free speech, free speech,
30:25
Speaker 1: they're not talking about the free speech rights of like
30:28
Speaker 1: you know, Palestinian activists, or you know, sex workers or
30:32
Speaker 1: any of the other marginalized people who we know actually
30:38
Speaker 1: are the recipients of crackdowns on their speech. They're talking
30:40
Speaker 1: about the right to say the in word. And told
30:43
Speaker 1: to your point about Tesla, I would implore folks to
30:47
Speaker 1: read up on this because some of the allegations are
30:49
Speaker 1: it's not it's not just like, oh, this person made
30:53
Speaker 1: off colored jokes. That allegations, some of them are against
30:57
Speaker 1: Musk himself and the kind of climate that he ran
30:59
Speaker 1: a sickening right. Like One of them that sticks in
31:01
Speaker 1: my mind is that at the Tesla factory, one of
31:04
Speaker 1: the lawsuits alleges that when Elon Musk would come to
31:08
Speaker 1: a tour of the of the factories, that staffers knew
31:12
Speaker 1: that Elon Musk had a problem with seeing black staffers
31:17
Speaker 1: on the floor, and so when when on days when
31:19
Speaker 1: he was coming, they would have the black staffers like
31:23
Speaker 1: essentially hide because that they knew that, like it would
31:26
Speaker 1: be a better walk through for Musk if Muff did
31:29
Speaker 1: not see black and brown faces on his floor. So
31:32
Speaker 1: like it's not just like, oh, someone made a joke
31:34
Speaker 1: I didn't like that would be bad enough. It's some
31:37
Speaker 1: some of the allegations are really deep and really I
31:41
Speaker 1: think reflect a real just a deeply culture. And it's
31:47
Speaker 1: interesting because I read this. I can't verify if this
31:50
Speaker 1: is an accurate thing or not, but I read this
31:52
Speaker 1: um thing where someone was like, oh, I used to
31:55
Speaker 1: work at at SpaceX, and everybody knew that part of
31:58
Speaker 1: the deal when you worked for Elon mu Us was
32:01
Speaker 1: so much management went into managing Elon Musk specifically, and
32:07
Speaker 1: so they would they would have all these like different
32:09
Speaker 1: window dressing so that when Elon Musk was was there,
32:11
Speaker 1: he could feel certain kinds of ways, and so they
32:14
Speaker 1: would have like he talked about how they would have
32:16
Speaker 1: a computer run code in a way that looks like
32:18
Speaker 1: the matrix, so that Elon Musk, who is famously not
32:21
Speaker 1: an engineer, would think that really cool, super special tech
32:25
Speaker 1: stuff was happening, even though it was just first right,
32:27
Speaker 1: And so I think some of that, some of the
32:29
Speaker 1: allegations coming out of other Elon Musk run companies are
32:33
Speaker 1: so deeply troubling, and I think that these are companies
32:36
Speaker 1: that were that were that have an infrastructure to manage
32:40
Speaker 1: these these particular ways that Musk has Twitter. It's not
32:44
Speaker 1: a company that has that, And so what's it's interesting
32:46
Speaker 1: to think, like, what will the vibe at Twitter be
32:49
Speaker 1: like when so much of the staff has been gutted
32:52
Speaker 1: and it's not a company that has been built to
32:55
Speaker 1: manage Elon Musk's quirks. Yeah, that's I've heard that too,
32:59
Speaker 1: And that's so side that that's like people's mental energy
33:02
Speaker 1: is we gotta keep this guy calm and here's the
33:07
Speaker 1: world do it? I think um as as we're discussing,
33:25
Speaker 1: he and a lot of people on the right, very
33:27
Speaker 1: conservative people, would have you believe that, uh, this sort
33:32
Speaker 1: of hard right free speech in quotes, like they're being
33:35
Speaker 1: policed more, that they're getting more, they're being more censored. Uh,
33:40
Speaker 1: they are very much the victims in this conversation. But
33:43
Speaker 1: that isn't the case, is it. It is not the case.
33:46
Speaker 1: And this is something that I think really points to
33:48
Speaker 1: the kind of ship that Musk is going to be
33:50
Speaker 1: running at Twitter, is that he gets on Twitter and
33:53
Speaker 1: repeats this thoroughly debunked claim that Twitter has been quote
33:58
Speaker 1: censoring the right more than the left, and there is
34:01
Speaker 1: an entire body of research debunking this. Like, I could
34:04
Speaker 1: do a whole episode digging into some of the studies
34:07
Speaker 1: that have come out about this. It's fascinating to me,
34:09
Speaker 1: but I'll just run through a couple. So. Researchers from
34:11
Speaker 1: m I T. Yale and the University of Exeter published
34:14
Speaker 1: a study that found that while right leading accounts are
34:16
Speaker 1: banned more frequently, it is not because of anti right
34:19
Speaker 1: wing bias, but rather, as the researchers put it, they
34:22
Speaker 1: found that users of misinformation sharing was as predictive of
34:25
Speaker 1: suspension as was their political orientation. Thus, the observation that
34:29
Speaker 1: Republicans were more likely to be suspended the Democrats provides
34:32
Speaker 1: no support for the claim that Twitter showed political bias
34:34
Speaker 1: and its suspension practices. Instead, the observed asymmetry could be
34:38
Speaker 1: explained entirely by the tendency of Republicans to share more misinformation,
34:41
Speaker 1: and so basically this idea that like, when they were
34:44
Speaker 1: looking at misinformation and who was banned more for for
34:46
Speaker 1: spreading it. Republicans or right leading accounts were banned more,
34:51
Speaker 1: but because those were the accounts that were more likely
34:53
Speaker 1: to be spreading misinformation in the first place. UM. And
34:56
Speaker 1: this is actually backed up by Twitter's own in house
34:58
Speaker 1: research team in the re musk. Days after Trump was
35:01
Speaker 1: banned on Twitter. UM, the Twitter internal team was facing
35:05
Speaker 1: a lot of criticism that they were censoring the right,
35:07
Speaker 1: so they put together a team to look into it,
35:09
Speaker 1: and the internal research team at Twitter found that folks
35:12
Speaker 1: on the right are actually amplified on Twitter more often globally.
35:17
Speaker 1: From the report, our results reveal a remarkably consistent trend.
35:20
Speaker 1: In six out of the seven country studied, the mainstream
35:23
Speaker 1: political right enjoys higher algorithmic amplification than the mainstream political left. UM.
35:27
Speaker 1: You can read this report on their website. It's twenty
35:29
Speaker 1: seven pages long. UM. And So this idea that people
35:33
Speaker 1: on the right have been censored by Twitter or or
35:37
Speaker 1: are you know, getting a raw deal, it just is
35:39
Speaker 1: just not born out by the facts or the or
35:43
Speaker 1: the you know, the research has been done. And I
35:45
Speaker 1: also think that it really speaks to this like wid
35:48
Speaker 1: er misconception about social media more generally, that there is
35:53
Speaker 1: no real body of academic study or academic thought with
35:56
Speaker 1: regards to social media, and that everything that we know
35:59
Speaker 1: about it is and either anecdotal or like unknowable, so
36:03
Speaker 1: people can just say whatever and be like, oh, yeah,
36:05
Speaker 1: you know how people on the right are censored on
36:09
Speaker 1: social media platforms and not really have it challenged. And
36:12
Speaker 1: so I think that it really speaks to this. I
36:17
Speaker 1: don't know. I think it's an holdover from a time
36:19
Speaker 1: when people just saw social media as the Internet and
36:23
Speaker 1: not the revealed world, and thus it was not really
36:25
Speaker 1: worthy of serious examination. But there's entire schools of research
36:30
Speaker 1: and bodies of evidence about social media platforms, and all
36:34
Speaker 1: of them say the same thing, that people on the
36:36
Speaker 1: right are not being censored or cracked down on or
36:41
Speaker 1: anything like that, and that if anybody tells you that
36:43
Speaker 1: they are, maybe that's there and maybe they feel that way,
36:46
Speaker 1: maybe that's the anecdotal evidence, but they're not. And also,
36:49
Speaker 1: like even beyond Twitter, people say the same thing about Facebook,
36:52
Speaker 1: when in reality, you know, Mark Zuckerberg was personally intervening
36:57
Speaker 1: to keep people like Alex Jones on the platform and
37:00
Speaker 1: personally meeting with right wing leaders, and so it's not
37:03
Speaker 1: going both ways. And so yeah, I think that Musk
37:06
Speaker 1: repeating this claim really shows how easy it is to
37:09
Speaker 1: like stoke this victim complex, like like, I, of course
37:13
Speaker 1: I am the one being victimized here. What else could
37:16
Speaker 1: be happening. I'm not excited about what's coming up because
37:19
Speaker 1: there's conversations about how Facebook is prepping for the next election,
37:23
Speaker 1: presidential election, and they are way too excited for the
37:27
Speaker 1: return of Donald Trump, and I hate things. But you know,
37:31
Speaker 1: I find it interesting too, because even with the COVID misinformation,
37:35
Speaker 1: it took forever for them to even recognize the misinformation
37:39
Speaker 1: and even talking about, Okay, how are we going to
37:41
Speaker 1: do that without banning everybody because they didn't want to,
37:44
Speaker 1: and so first they put the little warning things to
37:46
Speaker 1: all of it, and you're like, it took a lot
37:48
Speaker 1: for a person to be banned. It took a lot
37:51
Speaker 1: to even have any of that warning to be put
37:53
Speaker 1: on there, because we went through a full year. I
37:55
Speaker 1: feel like, so much misinformation, so many bad advices about
38:00
Speaker 1: how you can treat yourself to get rid of COVID.
38:02
Speaker 1: It was affiliate ongoing battle and it still kind of is.
38:06
Speaker 1: And it's kind of ironic that they were like they
38:09
Speaker 1: actolutely hate us when they were so much fight to
38:12
Speaker 1: be put up from the people, especially scientists, be like,
38:15
Speaker 1: can you please control this because this is really bad
38:18
Speaker 1: for the health of our nation totally. And what's so
38:20
Speaker 1: interesting about that is that something that people say a lot,
38:24
Speaker 1: like well, meeting people will say a lot. It's like
38:26
Speaker 1: you in the early days of COVID, we didn't know
38:28
Speaker 1: about masks. Like it was like we were getting a
38:30
Speaker 1: lot of like for a while it was like, oh,
38:32
Speaker 1: only medical professionals need them, or only this and so like,
38:34
Speaker 1: and then eventually it was like, oh, it's masks were
38:36
Speaker 1: on the masks. People will, I think kind of understandably
38:40
Speaker 1: conflate medical professionals getting more familiar with how the virus
38:45
Speaker 1: worked and all of that, which is confusing, right, Like
38:48
Speaker 1: it's like having one day having someone be like, oh,
38:51
Speaker 1: you don't need to wear a mask, and the next
38:52
Speaker 1: thing it hasn't gonna be like, oh wear a mask.
38:53
Speaker 1: Like I can understand why people are confused and why
38:56
Speaker 1: that looks like, you know, like, oh so why is that?
39:00
Speaker 1: Why is that not misinformation? You know? And it's like
39:03
Speaker 1: there's a difference between medical professionals, you know, getting more
39:07
Speaker 1: up to date on a novel virus, and people who
39:11
Speaker 1: are spreading clearly provably false information. And I think that,
39:15
Speaker 1: unfortunately was COVID because it was like a new virus,
39:19
Speaker 1: it created a climate that really made it easy to
39:22
Speaker 1: conflate those things, and so I think it made it
39:24
Speaker 1: easy to not challenge provable, demonstrable lies about COVID and
39:29
Speaker 1: lies about COVID that were intentional, so like disinformation spread
39:33
Speaker 1: by malicious intent by bad actors, I think that the
39:37
Speaker 1: climate of having a novel virus where people were still
39:39
Speaker 1: getting up to date on what was going on with it,
39:41
Speaker 1: made it easy to not crack down on it. And
39:45
Speaker 1: I think it's just like a reality of the way
39:47
Speaker 1: that inaccurate information on social media works is that there's
39:50
Speaker 1: always gonna be that grain of truth. It's like, oh, well,
39:53
Speaker 1: why is this not misinformation? And I can understand why
39:56
Speaker 1: people raise that, but I think it like did us
39:59
Speaker 1: a real disc service too, cracking down on things that
40:02
Speaker 1: we know are just provably incorrect statements that makes sense.
40:07
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm kind of rambling, but hopefully I'll
40:09
Speaker 1: know what I mean. I mean that virus. We didn't know,
40:13
Speaker 1: no one knew, no one knew where it came from,
40:15
Speaker 1: what to do, how to handle it. And I got
40:17
Speaker 1: like that definitely was we definitely were told don't wear masks, please,
40:20
Speaker 1: don't buy these masks. We're running out. That's a whole
40:22
Speaker 1: different conversations. But to like everybody wearing damn mask please
40:26
Speaker 1: for the love of all things, and then having to
40:29
Speaker 1: be like, hey, they learn new things because they're researching
40:33
Speaker 1: new things, and then also like political stuff, but like, yeah,
40:38
Speaker 1: that makes perfect sense that things would change, And of
40:40
Speaker 1: course the naysayers would be like do you remember this.
40:42
Speaker 1: They're lying because they didn't say this the first time around.
40:45
Speaker 1: It was like this is what means to learn and
40:46
Speaker 1: to research and to grow. But there was a whole
40:49
Speaker 1: lot of stuff. Yeah, And I think that's one of
40:51
Speaker 1: the things that I makes me really sad about what's
40:53
Speaker 1: happening to Twitter, as we were talking about at the beginning,
40:56
Speaker 1: because um, there was a tweet that went viral a
41:00
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago from a reporter that was like,
41:03
Speaker 1: you know, world War three could be breaking out, and
41:05
Speaker 1: here I am not sure what is reality on Twitter anymore?
41:07
Speaker 1: Because it is such a big, a big source for
41:10
Speaker 1: news and that whole thing with COVID, it did get
41:12
Speaker 1: really messy, and it was an example of an interesting
41:17
Speaker 1: and kind of like terrifying example I guess of like,
41:20
Speaker 1: how do you how does this platform manage this information
41:25
Speaker 1: perhaps misinformation and our disinformation? Um when you know the
41:30
Speaker 1: scientists are researching and it is changing, And I think, um,
41:36
Speaker 1: because it gets so a lot of it gets convoluted,
41:39
Speaker 1: and there's so many like bad faith conversations that can
41:42
Speaker 1: happen on platforms like that. UM that it is. It's
41:47
Speaker 1: just like one of the it's an interesting case study
41:50
Speaker 1: to see how Twitter kind of did deal with that
41:53
Speaker 1: how long it took. And I think that's another thing
41:56
Speaker 1: that's really upsetting about this is, as you alluded to, Samantha,
42:01
Speaker 1: it felt like we were making progress and it was
42:03
Speaker 1: so hard fault and now we're seeing like a a
42:07
Speaker 1: reversal of all of these things that were It felt like, oh,
42:13
Speaker 1: this is a step forward. It's going to be a
42:15
Speaker 1: platform where a lot of this misinformation it won't be
42:18
Speaker 1: as prevalent as will still be there, but not as prevalent,
42:22
Speaker 1: but as getting reversed. It's upsetting. I mean I not
42:26
Speaker 1: to get too personal, but like in my day job,
42:29
Speaker 1: I do a lot of work trying to make platforms safer.
42:32
Speaker 1: And you know, I've met with the team at Twitter
42:35
Speaker 1: many times. I don't know who's still there, but like
42:38
Speaker 1: two advise them to be like, oh, here, like here
42:41
Speaker 1: are steps that you can take to make the platform
42:43
Speaker 1: more hospitable for marginalized people, women, people of color, whatever.
42:47
Speaker 1: And so it does feel like a lot of the
42:50
Speaker 1: work that I have taught and personally, like personally done
42:52
Speaker 1: in the last few years it's now being all right,
42:55
Speaker 1: So like it's a little it's a little bit like, oh, well,
42:58
Speaker 1: glad I spent the three years on this. But musk
43:01
Speaker 1: reenstated a bunch of previously suspended or band accounts that
43:05
Speaker 1: had been kicked off the platform for things like spreading
43:07
Speaker 1: COVID misinformation or harassment, and he signaled that he's planning
43:10
Speaker 1: on doing more of that in the following week. So
43:13
Speaker 1: some of the folks who have been welcomed back to
43:14
Speaker 1: the platform include the Babylon b who we were talking
43:16
Speaker 1: about earlier, Jordan Peterson, who was banned after repeatedly dead
43:21
Speaker 1: naming the actor Elliott page Um, and miss Gendering Elliott Page,
43:25
Speaker 1: Kanye West, whose account was locked after numerous anti Semitic comments. Uh,
43:29
Speaker 1: Andrew Tate, who is if you don't know who he is,
43:32
Speaker 1: He's like a like a I don't even know what
43:34
Speaker 1: you would call him, like a men's rights kind of
43:37
Speaker 1: misogynistic influencer slash coach. Um. He Andrew Tate was banned
43:42
Speaker 1: from pretty much all platforms for saying things like women
43:45
Speaker 1: need to be held accountable if they are raped. Um.
43:47
Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Green's personal account, not her official account, was
43:51
Speaker 1: banned for spreading COVID misinformation, and of course Donald Trump.
43:56
Speaker 1: You may recall that Donald Trump was banned after using
43:59
Speaker 1: Twitter to foment insurrection, which is a weird thing to say.
44:04
Speaker 1: Since having his account reinstated, Trump has actually not tweeted,
44:07
Speaker 1: and he is signaled that he is perhaps not going
44:10
Speaker 1: to be returning to Twitter, even though he can he
44:12
Speaker 1: has his account back, um, saying instead that he's going
44:15
Speaker 1: to stay on his own social media platform that he owns,
44:17
Speaker 1: called truth Social. I've heard that there might be some
44:21
Speaker 1: kind of like contractual obligation there, that Trump might be
44:25
Speaker 1: contractually obligated to only tweet on truth Social, But I
44:29
Speaker 1: actually don't know the incidents. That's why I can't really
44:31
Speaker 1: speak to it personally. But um so all these people
44:34
Speaker 1: who are who had to leave the platform for things
44:39
Speaker 1: like I would say, they are like fairly serious offensive Listen,
44:44
Speaker 1: nobody is permanently suspended from Twitter for a one time
44:49
Speaker 1: offense unless it is something egregious, right, And so I
44:52
Speaker 1: can I can speak from personal experience. Marjorie Taylor Green
44:56
Speaker 1: had numerous warnings and this was like a consistent thing
44:59
Speaker 1: with her. Right, Kanye s is the same. It doesn't
45:01
Speaker 1: just come out of the blue unless you're doing something
45:04
Speaker 1: really egregious. And so these are the people that Elon
45:07
Speaker 1: Musk is going to be welcoming back. And he says
45:09
Speaker 1: that he's declaring amnesty next week for band accounts um
45:12
Speaker 1: But at the same time he is also cracking down
45:16
Speaker 1: on accounts that are you know, associated with like lefty
45:19
Speaker 1: politics as well. So, for instance, Chad Loader, the founder
45:22
Speaker 1: of the cybersecurity especially company called Habituate, his account was
45:26
Speaker 1: banned from the site after he used Twitter on November
45:29
Speaker 1: twenty three to warn users about an alleged data breach
45:32
Speaker 1: on Twitter. Um. Loader is known for like researching and
45:35
Speaker 1: reporting on right wing extremism, including unmasking a Proud Boy
45:39
Speaker 1: member who attacked a police officer during the instruction UM
45:42
Speaker 1: and that report was actually cited by the Department of Justice.
45:44
Speaker 1: So like a fairly you know, known person who writes
45:49
Speaker 1: about things like cybersecurity and how to be safe on Twitter,
45:52
Speaker 1: and right wing extremism was one of the first accounts
45:56
Speaker 1: banned while Musk was talking about this amnesty and you know,
46:01
Speaker 1: having Twitter be this place for free speech. UM. Interestingly enough,
46:04
Speaker 1: when Sam Harris asked Elon Musk about bringing back Alex Jones,
46:08
Speaker 1: who you might remember made up egregious lies about babies
46:11
Speaker 1: who died in Sandy Hook and the parents who grieved them,
46:14
Speaker 1: you know, said that they were paid actors and all
46:16
Speaker 1: of that. Elon Musk tweeted, my firstborn child died in
46:20
Speaker 1: my arms. I felt his last heartbeat. I have no
46:23
Speaker 1: mercy for anyone who would use the deaths of children
46:26
Speaker 1: for gain politics or fame. And I actually think that
46:29
Speaker 1: that was one of the more transparent, honest statements from
46:34
Speaker 1: Musk about how he sees his role in moderation right,
46:37
Speaker 1: Like he can personally identify with the pain of losing
46:40
Speaker 1: a child. Because Elon Musk unfortunately has lost the child,
46:44
Speaker 1: and so it allows him to have a sense of
46:46
Speaker 1: how painful it would be to be a grieving parent
46:48
Speaker 1: grieving that loss and then also be harassed and called
46:51
Speaker 1: a liar on top of it, And so he's gonna
46:53
Speaker 1: make those moderation decisions based on that lived experience. It's
46:57
Speaker 1: interesting because I think it totally puts to rest that
47:00
Speaker 1: Elon Musk is like a free speech absolutist, because it
47:02
Speaker 1: reveals what's pretty obvious that these decisions are just made
47:05
Speaker 1: up by him based on like what he does or
47:08
Speaker 1: doesn't like, which fine, But I also think that, like,
47:11
Speaker 1: because he can personally identify with losing a child, he
47:16
Speaker 1: is going to moderate from that lived personal experience. But
47:19
Speaker 1: what about experiences that Elon Musk has not personally had, right, So,
47:23
Speaker 1: like the experience of somebody like Elliott Page or somebody
47:26
Speaker 1: like Dr Michel Levine who was just a trans person
47:29
Speaker 1: trying to live their life, or the experience of being
47:31
Speaker 1: like a woman of color on a platform like Twitter,
47:33
Speaker 1: who we know are more harassed than than our counterparts,
47:37
Speaker 1: right or what about being a person with disabilities who
47:39
Speaker 1: relies on the platform to build community, right, Like, because
47:43
Speaker 1: Elon Musk has no personal, lived experience with those marginalized identities.
47:47
Speaker 1: It seems like he really can't see those perspectives as
47:51
Speaker 1: as real as his own perspective. And it really it
47:54
Speaker 1: reminds me so much of this, like classic George Carlin
47:57
Speaker 1: jokes that I've gotten so much mileage out of in
47:59
Speaker 1: my life. Have you ever noticed that other people's stuff
48:02
Speaker 1: is in your is stuff? Right? Like he could only
48:05
Speaker 1: see like his lived experience as real and everybody else's
48:10
Speaker 1: it's just theoretical or trivial or doesn't really matter. And
48:14
Speaker 1: I don't think that platforms like Twitter should be moderated
48:18
Speaker 1: based on a white billionaire what what is within the
48:23
Speaker 1: scope of his personal lived experience, because there's so many
48:27
Speaker 1: lived experiences out there that he has no idea of.
48:29
Speaker 1: I mean, not everybody gets to experience having people on
48:33
Speaker 1: your staff to make you feel comfortable, including like avoiding
48:36
Speaker 1: the color orange. I guess, um, that's a whole different
48:40
Speaker 1: level of experience. And you know, not to delegate the
48:44
Speaker 1: fact that he did lose a child and that was heartful,
48:47
Speaker 1: Like his wife ex wife came back and was like, dude,
48:49
Speaker 1: you didn't hold that child. I held that child through
48:53
Speaker 1: this entire process, and now who's using the death of
48:57
Speaker 1: a child for publicity. That's interesting. I mean, I'm glad
49:01
Speaker 1: he's acknowledging that's a bad thing, so I guess half
49:04
Speaker 1: a point for that. But it's quite interesting that even
49:07
Speaker 1: that he couldn't be truly honest about and he couldn't
49:10
Speaker 1: actually see beyond his own like, I'm gonna make myself
49:12
Speaker 1: look really big by doing this, when in actuality, again
49:17
Speaker 1: his motive in buying this is hurtful for one child,
49:19
Speaker 1: and then to lie about that specific thing against the wife,
49:23
Speaker 1: who apparently had a lot of issues with Elon Musk
49:26
Speaker 1: in general, and to literally dismiss her experience as it's
49:30
Speaker 1: there's so many things to this man that I'm just like,
49:33
Speaker 1: what is wrong with you other than you are a
49:35
Speaker 1: narcissistic sociopath. And I don't know what else to say
49:38
Speaker 1: except for, oh my god, you're ruining this totally. So
49:42
Speaker 1: if anybody out there, like, if you want to read
49:44
Speaker 1: a heartbreaking account of a divorce where you're like that
49:48
Speaker 1: man is awful, look into the look into Elon Musk's divorce.
49:54
Speaker 1: I read it. It's like it haunts me. The things
49:57
Speaker 1: that were alleged that happened in that of haunts me. Um,
50:03
Speaker 1: so yes, yes to all of that. And I think
50:05
Speaker 1: like the kind of person who like requires their staffers
50:10
Speaker 1: to do so much labor and energy to have the
50:15
Speaker 1: workplace be to their liking in this in these like
50:19
Speaker 1: really particular ways, is the kind of person who sees
50:22
Speaker 1: themselves as the main character of life and doesn't even
50:25
Speaker 1: really question that, Like, I think that's really what's going
50:27
Speaker 1: on here. I think that people like Elon Musk, you know,
50:29
Speaker 1: I don't know him, This is my opinion. I think
50:32
Speaker 1: it's hard for them to see other people's perspectives as real.
50:37
Speaker 1: And so the kind of person who requires staffers to
50:40
Speaker 1: go around making computers look super cool and science e
50:43
Speaker 1: so that he you know, gets warm fuzzies and and
50:47
Speaker 1: doesn't even see that that is what's is what's happening.
50:49
Speaker 1: Isn't even able to see that labor. So he just
50:51
Speaker 1: thinks like, Wow, my company is so great, and he
50:54
Speaker 1: doesn't see the like twenties frustrated staffers Like I've been
50:57
Speaker 1: the staff or who has to go out of my
50:59
Speaker 1: way and do a lot of emotional labor to accommodate
51:01
Speaker 1: a person in power who will never even see that
51:03
Speaker 1: labor doesn't even know that labor has happened, and it's
51:05
Speaker 1: really hard, and it speaks to this perspective of really
51:09
Speaker 1: not being able to see other people. Everybody else is
51:13
Speaker 1: just a side character to your main character. I guess
51:17
Speaker 1: that's what I was how I'll play it. Yeah, you
51:32
Speaker 1: always do such an excellent job of pointing this out, Bridget,
51:36
Speaker 1: But people forget sometimes that, you know, technology is not
51:41
Speaker 1: without bias because somebody programmed it, somebody's moderating it. So
51:45
Speaker 1: I think with Elon Musk, without this team of people,
51:49
Speaker 1: with all of these changes, um, and he's kind of
51:52
Speaker 1: like declaration that, oh well, I'm going to make it
51:56
Speaker 1: somehow less biased. Like that's just false. That's such such
52:03
Speaker 1: a lie. And um, I know we've been talking about
52:07
Speaker 1: this throughout, but what for you know, everybody who's listening,
52:10
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, well, you know, I don't really use Twitter.
52:12
Speaker 1: I always kind of didn't like it or whatever. What
52:14
Speaker 1: do we stand to lose? Why does this matter? Yeah,
52:17
Speaker 1: I'm so glad that you asked, because you might be thinking, Okay,
52:20
Speaker 1: I get it, but why do I care. I don't
52:23
Speaker 1: work at Twitter. I'll never work at Twitter. Right now?
52:24
Speaker 1: You use it. Why do I care? Well, First, is
52:26
Speaker 1: the most basic, you know, just Twitter as a place
52:29
Speaker 1: to get quick information. Um, like we're talking about earlier.
52:32
Speaker 1: You know, it is functioned as this in this way
52:35
Speaker 1: for a long time. You know, when Joe Biden needed
52:37
Speaker 1: to announce the specifics of like student loan debt relief,
52:41
Speaker 1: he didn't go to Reddit or Tumbler or Instagram. Twitter
52:44
Speaker 1: is how you get information out quickly. And so like,
52:46
Speaker 1: when there's an emergency, Twitter is how you get information
52:50
Speaker 1: out about it. Like I have a friend who works
52:51
Speaker 1: for the State Department. It's Twitter that is being used
52:55
Speaker 1: right now to get important information out to Americans who
52:59
Speaker 1: are travel to the World Cup for instance, right, And
53:01
Speaker 1: so if the platform is going to be full of
53:03
Speaker 1: thoughts and hate speech and accounts and persanding other people
53:05
Speaker 1: and bad actors, that whole thing breaks down. Like, think
53:08
Speaker 1: about it, if there was an emergency in your neighborhood
53:13
Speaker 1: right now and you wanted up to date, real time
53:15
Speaker 1: information about it, we don't really have a place to
53:18
Speaker 1: really get that other than Twitter. And like, I think
53:19
Speaker 1: it really goes to show that we need better public
53:22
Speaker 1: interest communications platforms. But like, if you like when there's
53:26
Speaker 1: been emergencies in my neighborhood. I'm looking at Twitter to
53:29
Speaker 1: see who is talking about and what is developing, you know, quickly,
53:32
Speaker 1: And so that's just the most like basic reason why
53:35
Speaker 1: folks should care. But it's also more than that. You know,
53:38
Speaker 1: earlier I was talking about the massive influence on Twitter
53:41
Speaker 1: has and sort of how it's been used to drive progress.
53:44
Speaker 1: I could give you so many examples of the way
53:46
Speaker 1: that Twitter has been used to push conversations forward to
53:49
Speaker 1: get us someplace better. You know, if not for Twitter,
53:51
Speaker 1: we wouldn't have movements like me too, you know, which
53:53
Speaker 1: was not just something happening on Twitter. It shifted our
53:57
Speaker 1: entire culture and our entire you know, the progress of
54:01
Speaker 1: our culture. I would say, for instance, you'll have probably
54:03
Speaker 1: heard of shan Quilla Robinson, who was a twenty five
54:05
Speaker 1: year old black clubman from North Carolina who traveled to
54:08
Speaker 1: Mexico on vacation with a group of people and ended
54:11
Speaker 1: up dead. The people that she traveled with and tried
54:14
Speaker 1: to say that it was alcohol poisoning, but later a
54:17
Speaker 1: video emerged of one of them getting into a pretty
54:20
Speaker 1: brutal physical altercation with her. Now there's actual movement in
54:24
Speaker 1: the case and her mother says that it's because of
54:27
Speaker 1: Black Twitter. She says that if not for black folks
54:30
Speaker 1: tweeting about it, raising the alarm about it, generating awareness
54:33
Speaker 1: about it, she said, she said that she was having
54:34
Speaker 1: a really hard time getting any kind of national attention
54:37
Speaker 1: on the story of her daughter's death, and so she
54:39
Speaker 1: actually says it was Twitter that did that. And so
54:42
Speaker 1: in that case, this rapper Amina Caine shared shan Quilla's
54:46
Speaker 1: photo on Twitter on November night. Her message went viral,
54:49
Speaker 1: got almost twenty retweets and then later spread to other
54:53
Speaker 1: social media platforms and got so much more attention to
54:55
Speaker 1: her death. And um Sherry Williams, who was a professor
54:58
Speaker 1: of race media and communication that I'm the University, she
55:01
Speaker 1: put it really well in this interview with NBC News.
55:03
Speaker 1: She says, black folks know that mainstream news media has
55:06
Speaker 1: a history of completely ignoring our stories. So we've been
55:09
Speaker 1: using these tools to amplify our stories ourselves, and it works.
55:12
Speaker 1: We see the cycle of mainstream news media basically following
55:16
Speaker 1: the chatter on black social media like Twitter, and so
55:19
Speaker 1: it really goes to show the real world impact that
55:22
Speaker 1: platforms like Twitter can have. Twitter was not perfect, it
55:26
Speaker 1: is not perfect. I have had my issues with it,
55:28
Speaker 1: but we lose so much if we don't have platforms
55:32
Speaker 1: like Twitter. Marginalized communities lose so much and our ability
55:36
Speaker 1: to push that culture forward and have those conversations that
55:39
Speaker 1: get us someplace better. We there is so much at
55:43
Speaker 1: stake if we do not have social media and digital
55:46
Speaker 1: communications platforms where those kind of conversations can happen. Yes, yes,
55:51
Speaker 1: yess um. I totally agree. And I think that that's
55:55
Speaker 1: one thing that kind of gives me anxieties when I
55:57
Speaker 1: when I hear people like, well I didn't like Twitter,
55:59
Speaker 1: and like, but that can be a very privileged thing
56:01
Speaker 1: to just be like, oh it goes away, because there
56:03
Speaker 1: are people in other countries that use it to organize
56:05
Speaker 1: and to communicate. It Like, it's a very powerful tool,
56:08
Speaker 1: especially if you're kind of isolated and maybe you don't
56:11
Speaker 1: have a lot of people in your community or like
56:14
Speaker 1: where you grew up to talk to you, to share
56:16
Speaker 1: ideas with, Like, it's important, it's really really important. Um
56:22
Speaker 1: So I think I'm glad, I'm glad you you brought
56:25
Speaker 1: this today. I'm glad that you brought these points because
56:28
Speaker 1: I just feel like there is so much at stake,
56:31
Speaker 1: and a lot of it's getting kind of lost in
56:34
Speaker 1: the chaos of like what's happening with Twitter and why
56:39
Speaker 1: it matters is getting lost in all of this chaos.
56:42
Speaker 1: So thank you as always bridget Oh of course, and
56:45
Speaker 1: if folks listening, like if you have questions about Twitter alternatives,
56:51
Speaker 1: like let's chat, like where can we do? So that's
56:55
Speaker 1: aggressive great question I have. I guess I I the
57:01
Speaker 1: platforms that I see people going to, our Hive and Mastodon,
57:06
Speaker 1: I'm still trying to figure them all out. They all
57:08
Speaker 1: have their issues. But yeah, people have been talking about
57:11
Speaker 1: moving to Hive, maskedon Post. All of these different platforms
57:16
Speaker 1: all have their issues, Like there's been big conversations about
57:19
Speaker 1: the funding structure and the moderation structure. So I will
57:23
Speaker 1: be trying them all out myself, and I'm happy to
57:26
Speaker 1: have report back and let y'all know, like what worked,
57:28
Speaker 1: what didn't work, what's a flop? What's a bob? Ya know?
57:31
Speaker 1: TBD that's amazing. Yes, please please let us not because
57:35
Speaker 1: like Massodon seems super confusing and very specific. Hive may
57:39
Speaker 1: not be ready for the mass movement, is what I'm reading. Um.
57:43
Speaker 1: But and then also that no discord is a thing
57:46
Speaker 1: which I've been told that we should have one. So Bridget,
57:49
Speaker 1: let's have any Let's have a discord for us y
57:52
Speaker 1: Smith Bridget and then having like questionnaires with the people
57:55
Speaker 1: and then deciding where to go. Maybe I love this, Yes,
57:59
Speaker 1: so I even before Twitter was about my musk, I've
58:02
Speaker 1: always loved discord. Uh, it's super fun. Um yeah, let's
58:06
Speaker 1: have a discord channel. We can like cash all this out.
58:09
Speaker 1: Let's gosh, yes, let's make let's make it a thing.
58:17
Speaker 1: Get online. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm we are the coolest. Obviously.
58:27
Speaker 1: This reminds me of the Britney Spears interview where she's like,
58:30
Speaker 1: everyone's talking about the emails. Yeah, like Britney Spears, that's me. Yes, yes,
58:40
Speaker 1: um well, Bridget the actual coolest. Where can the listeners
58:44
Speaker 1: find you? You can find me on Instagram at Bridget
58:48
Speaker 1: Marie and d C you can find me. I still
58:50
Speaker 1: have a Twitter account, but tweeting a lot less these days.
58:52
Speaker 1: At Bridget Marie. You can listen to me on my
58:55
Speaker 1: podcast There Are No Girls on the Internet, and my
58:57
Speaker 1: new limited series with cool Zone Media called Internet Hate Machine,
59:00
Speaker 1: or We Dive into all the ways that the internet
59:03
Speaker 1: can be a not so fun place for women and
59:06
Speaker 1: people of color. Yes, super important to this conversation and
59:10
Speaker 1: definitely listeners go check it out if you haven't already. Um,
59:14
Speaker 1: thank you again Bridget for being here. Always a delight,
59:17
Speaker 1: and thank you listeners for listening. If you would like
59:20
Speaker 1: to contact us, you can or email Stuff and your
59:23
Speaker 1: mom and stuff at I Heart Me. Yeah, you can
59:24
Speaker 1: find us on Twitter most of the podcast all right,
59:27
Speaker 1: Instagram and stuff I've Never told you. Thanks. It's always
59:29
Speaker 1: to your super producer Christina, Thank you and thanks to
59:31
Speaker 1: you for listening Stuff I Never told the Protection. Buy
59:34
Speaker 1: Hiart Radio for more podcast in my heart Radio you
59:35
Speaker 1: can check out the heart radio app, Apple podcast, orherever
59:37
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows