Latest / Mini Scroll / MINI TECH SCROLL: Edits launch, TikTok's "Fantasy Pope League," AI bot Reddit scandal + Henrietta Amevor interview

Transcript

MINI TECH SCROLL: Edits launch, TikTok's "Fantasy Pope League," AI bot Reddit scandal + Henrietta Amevor interview · Mini Scroll

• 0:00
  This episode of Mini Scroll is brought to you by Sunrise, a
• 0:04
  startup festival by Blackbird, and we are recording this
• 0:07
  episode live from the festival at Carriage Works in Sydney.
• 0:11
  Blackbird is a venture capital firm that invests in wild hearts
• 0:14
  with wild hearts right from the very beginning.
• 0:17
  So if you have a big idea and you need to raise investment to
• 0:21
  turn it into reality, you can learn more and connect with
• 0:23
  their team at Blackbird dot VC. Hi everyone, welcome to Mini
• 0:29
  Tech Scroll today, the daily Internet culture podcast
• 0:32
  bringing you the biggest stories from social media, the creator
• 0:35
  economy, and the digital space. Every Monday through Thursday.
• 0:39
  I'm your host, Lauren Meisner, the founder of the youth digital
• 0:42
  media brand Centennial World. Welcome back to Mini Scroll
• 0:46
  everyone or mini tech. This is my first time doing Mini
• 0:49
  tech scroll. Annabelle's actually here.
• 0:51
  And I was like, do you want to do it?
• 0:52
  And she was like, no, I do not. So as you can tell, this is not
• 0:56
  the normal studio. I hope the sound is OK.
• 0:59
  I hope the lighting and everything is OK.
• 1:01
  We're in like the media green room.
• 1:03
  So yeah, hopefully everything is OK, but it's very cool to be
• 1:08
  here live on the ground from sunrise.
• 1:10
  I'm doing several talks today like I've already told you guys
• 1:14
  all about. So I'm filming this first, I'm
• 1:16
  recording mini 1st and then we're getting straight into it
• 1:19
  and I can't wait to tell you guys all about it tomorrow.
• 1:21
  So before I get into it, Please remember to rate, review and
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  subscribe. We're getting close to 10,000
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  subscribers on YouTube, So Please remember to subscribe on
• 1:28
  YouTube. All right, the first way that I
• 1:30
  have you guys today is that Instagram has officially
• 1:33
  launched edits. OK, so Annabelle did report on
• 1:37
  this when it was announced, but Instagram launched its own app
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  to rival cap cut. According to the blog post
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  published on April 22nd on the creators dot Instagram blog
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  quote. Today we're launching edits, a
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  new video creation app designed for creators.
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  Instagram exists to help people express their creativity, and we
• 1:54
  want to build the best creative tools to help you do this, not
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  just on Instagram or Facebook, but on any platform.
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  Much like Cap Cut, Edits will allow users to create different
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  projects as well as incorporate different editing features,
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  ranging from AI tools that turn pictures into video to
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  background replacement technology.
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  That'll actually be really cool. According to Reese Rogers for
• 2:15
  Wired. Much like Threads, you have to
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  use your Instagram account to log into Edits, which, in his
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  words, quote is frustrating but not shocking.
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  Quote again, Mehta's purpose for the app is not to spur video
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  creation in the abstract. Rather, it's a tool specifically
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  made to help people make content to post on Reels, he continues.
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  There are a few key differences between Edits and Cap Cut.
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  For instance, Edits doesn't have a subscription option.
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  OK, so this is obviously an attempt to compete with TikTok,
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  given that its future seems unpredictable in the United
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  States. But it's also especially
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  interesting given that Meta is embroiled in the antitrust
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  lawsuit, which, again, Annabelle also reported on last week that
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  claims that the company has monopolized, quote, personal
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  social networking services. So obviously, this is different,
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  but still interesting to give kind of that broader context.
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  I just can't get over how every single platform is just trying
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  to be each other. Like just stay in your lane.
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  There's enough room for everyone if we just stay in our lanes.
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  Do you really need more users? Do you really need more money?
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  The next word that I have for you guys is a trend piece and
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  that is that a quote. Fantasy Pope League is going
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  viral on TikTok. Obviously, when a public figure
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  passes away, the Internet goes a little bit insane.
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  I reported I think it was last week that there are rumors,
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  memes that the Pope is going to be reincarnated as Trisha pages
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  baby. But now we have a new trend
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  related to the Pope passing away.
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  So as reported by fast Company 1 TikTok user whose username is at
• 3:53
  it is Max Hooray has taken it upon themselves to create a
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  quote fantasy Pope league quote. It will operate in a similar
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  style to fantasy football, an online game in which players
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  collect points based on how real life footballers perform each
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  week, allowing people to play along at home and win points
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  based off of the real life conclave, Eve captain Clark
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  reports for the publication. Basically how it works is that
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  the user who signs up will be allocated a cardinal at the time
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  of recording. Signups are closed, but there
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  were also a couple questions about the incoming Pope, which
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  scored quote Pope points and contributed to the leaderboard.
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  In a follow up video by the creator, he announced that over
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  2000 people signed up to the league in the first day.
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  Since then, thousands of emails have been sent out to
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  participants. This is just such a chronically
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  online way to react to a world event.
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  Like no one can take anything seriously.
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  Honestly, my whole for you page is talking about the Pope and
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  like the process of it. And I saw one TikTok user
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  compared to like drag Race and it was so funny.
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  OK, the last word that I have for you guys today before we
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  have our very cute and exciting founder interview is that a team
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  of researchers from the University of Zurich reportedly
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  used AI bots on the R slash change my view subreddit to
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  examine whether these bots could change people's minds.
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  For context, this study was reportedly unauthorized, so keep
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  that in mind. Pulling from reporting from Four
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  O 4 media, these bots made thousands of comments pretending
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  to be anyone from a victim of sexual assault to a person of
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  color who didn't support the Black Lives Matter movement.
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  Quote In total, the researchers operated dozens of AI bots that
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  made a total of 1783 comments in the R slash Change My View
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  subreddit, which has more than 3.8 million subscribers over the
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  course of four months. The researchers claimed that
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  this was a quote very modest and quote negligible number of
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  comments, but claimed nonetheless that their bots were
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  highly effective at changing minds.
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  Jason Kobler reports for four O 4 media.
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  So the study was revealed last weekend by moderators in this
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  subreddit, the post reads. Quote The CMV mod team needs to
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  inform the CMV community about an unauthorized experiment
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  conducted by researchers from the University of Zurich on CMV
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  users. This experiment deployed AI
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  generation rated comments to study how AI could be used to
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  change views. CMV rules do not allow the use
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  of undisclosed AI generated content or bots on our sub.
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  The researchers did not contact us ahead of the study, and if
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  they had, we would have declined.
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  The post goes on to list the usernames of some bots and some
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  examples of their comments. The mods made the claim that
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  Quote our sub is a decidedly human space that rejects
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  undisclosed AI as a core value. People do not come here to
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  discuss their views with AI or to be experimented upon.
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  The researchers did go on to defend their research in the
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  thread, noting that while the posts were written by bots, they
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  were posted by the researcher. OK, like that makes it any
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  better? As noted by Kobler, the
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  researchers also added that Quote 21 of the 34 accounts that
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  they set up were shadow banned by the Reddit platform by its
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  automated with spam filters. The chief legal officer of
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  Reddit, Benjamin Lee has gotten involved.
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  He has commented on the mods post in the subreddit saying
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  quote we are in the process of reaching out to the University
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  of Zurich and this particular research team with formal legal
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  demands. Scary.
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  The situation is obviously like a massive breach of privacy and
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  feels completely unethical as these users did not and could
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  not consent to being involved in the study.
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  Undisclosed AI generated content and communications are already
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  such a significant concern and one that we've obviously
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  discussed before, but I don't think we've ever seen such like
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  a blatant violation of public trust until now, or at least one
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  that I know of. Beyond the fact that users could
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  not give consent, one of the most alarming aspects of the
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  situation is how convincingly some AI bots can mimic human
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  behavior. So convincingly in fact, that
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  they can influence real opinions and debates, which was obviously
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  kind of what they were trying to study.
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  And it really raises urgent questions about what these
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  models are trained on because if they can do this, the source of
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  their information is extremely important.
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  On top of this, it also begs the question of what will happen if
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  malicious or biased actors are using such tools to push out a
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  message. At the end of the day, not only
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  are we losing genuine opportunities for human
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  connection, but also the ability to engage in real thoughtful
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  analysis and debate online with like real humans.
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  This is really messed up. Let me know what you guys think
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  of this. All right, guys.
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  Well, that is it for my reporting on Mini Tech Scroll.
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  But I'm so excited to bring you guys a founder interview.
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  So I'm going to be doing one interview today and one at the
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  end of mini scroll tomorrow live from sunrise.
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  Today I am joined by Henrietta Amevor from the good Gratitude
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  here at Sunrise Festival. How are you Henrietta?
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  How are you enjoying sunrise? I'm good.
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  This is really good. I just did the the speech and it
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  went well so I'm feeling good. What did you do your speech on?
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  The journey of the good gratitude.
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  Was it like a founder story? Yeah.
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  Oh, I love that. I'm doing one of those in like 2
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  hours. I'm really nervous.
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  I'll be there. I'm gonna come watch.
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  What do you mean? Yes, she just started with that.
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  I'm. Scared.
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  No, it's exciting. It's really exciting.
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  And I'm sure that the crowd was like really welcoming and warm.
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  Yeah. OK, So for anyone who is not
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  familiar, can you please introduce us to the good
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  gratitude? Yes.
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  So The Good Gratitude is the small business that I launched
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  last year in 2024 started with the Journal, it's called all the
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  Good Gratitude Journal. And it was something that I had
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  been writing since 2020. And it started with me just
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  writing, you know, words of poetry and encouragement during
• 9:47
  my really low seasons of anxiety, especially in lockdown.
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  And then it grew to become a gratitude journal.
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  And what I really, really wanted to create was something where
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  people could write down the good things in their world and build
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  a spirit of gratitude when life is hard because life is hard.
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  Yeah, it is. So then, yeah, it grew from the
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  Journal. We launched it in April last
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  year, April 15th last year. Oh my.
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  God, so only like a year ago. Only a year ago, yeah.
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  Yeah, already speaking at sunrise.
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  That's amazing. OK, so tell me about how you got
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  to launching the journal. Yes, OK, so I have amazing
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  friends who helped me create a launch party.
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  We did a launch party in Sydney at, you know, studios in
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  Alexandria. We had an incredible panel of
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  amazing people who was speaking about their gratitude in their
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  life and we sold out that event, which is crazy.
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  It was about 200 tickets that were taken.
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  It was a free event, but 200 tickets, we hit capacity.
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  We did that in Sydney and it was just an amazing night.
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  My brother performed, my sister D Jed Little Lagos, a Sydney
• 10:53
  restaurant vacated. It was great.
• 10:55
  Dash drinks on the drinks. Thank you for the sponsorship.
• 10:58
  Wow, like you got it together. We got it together and then we
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  did another one in Melbourne as well.
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  But that's just kind of the power of community.
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  Like, people have really gotten around around the good gratitude
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  and like, that's just, yeah, it's made it what it is.
• 11:12
  Yeah, that's beautiful. OK, I love that.
• 11:15
  So tell me about your biggest challenges so far.
• 11:18
  I know you're kind of early in your journey, but I'm sure that
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  you are up against those challenges.
• 11:22
  Yes, yeah, honestly. And I spoke about it in my talk
• 11:26
  just then, But I think the biggest thing so far has been
• 11:30
  just like a mental battle of anxiety and and imposter
• 11:33
  syndrome and that feeling of being cringe, you know, because
• 11:36
  so much of this is so forward facing.
• 11:38
  Yeah. I get in my head.
• 11:39
  I and that's why I journal a lot.
• 11:41
  Like, what if it's in my head? Yeah.
• 11:43
  I mean, you're practicing what you're preaching, I mean.
• 11:45
  Yeah, Yeah. So I think that's been actually
• 11:49
  really quite difficult. It's just like that process of
• 11:52
  get out of your head, don't make it about you.
• 11:54
  Like, yes, you have to film your TikTok and you have to put
• 11:57
  yourself out there. People love it, you know, like
• 12:00
  don't, I guess cut it off before it has a chance to thrive kind
• 12:03
  of thing. So it took me a while to get
• 12:05
  over myself, just to like put myself out there and I'm still
• 12:08
  learning. Yeah, I find the same because I
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  own like this media brand. So amazing.
• 12:13
  So incredible. But I have like the craziest
• 12:16
  imposter syndrome, too. I'm just like, OK, everybody is
• 12:19
  going to find out that. Like I have no idea what's going
• 12:22
  on and like I can't believe I was asked to do a founder story.
• 12:25
  I'm like, that feels like, I feel like a fraud.
• 12:27
  Like I can't stand up there and talk about how good my business
• 12:29
  is. Like everything sucks like.
• 12:31
  But then in reality, all of us are like looking at you're like,
• 12:33
  yes, Lauren A. 100% like nobody knows and that's I think the
• 12:37
  longer that I've done this and I've done it for about 5 years
• 12:39
  now is the more I realize like everyone feels the exact same
• 12:44
  way. So there are obviously a lot of
• 12:46
  journals on the market. Tell us what makes yours so
• 12:48
  different and like how did you get here to Sunrise?
• 12:51
  Like what is like How is it possible?
• 12:52
  Popping off Amazing question. Yes, because no kidding, I mean.
• 12:58
  You could say yours is the best. Honestly, it was made with a lot
• 13:04
  of heart, a lot of intention, and like all the detail, like
• 13:08
  everything was accounted for. I worked on it with a good
• 13:11
  friend of mine who's also a licensed psychiatrist, and so I
• 13:13
  had his eyes on it as well. I had friends who were also
• 13:17
  designers. Look over the design.
• 13:19
  When you go through the journal, you go through nine different
• 13:22
  pillars of gratitude and that's contentment, self Lovejoy,
• 13:26
  empathy, truth, recognition, appreciation, hope, and
• 13:30
  patience. And there's a definition to
• 13:32
  read. When you start the pillar,
• 13:34
  you've got 2 questions in the morning and two questions in the
• 13:36
  evening. In the morning you write three
• 13:39
  things you're looking forward to in your day and then in the
• 13:41
  evening you write about 3 things you were grateful for.
• 13:45
  There's an affirmation in the back.
• 13:47
  There's 10 pages to think it through.
• 13:49
  So if something's worrying you, you write about what's worrying
• 13:52
  you and then you reframe your thoughts by writing about what
• 13:55
  you can control and what's working well.
• 13:57
  And I put that in there because I'm like, I need that, yes, I
• 14:00
  just, I'm overthinking. I just need to put pen to paper
• 14:03
  and just think about what I can control and what's working well.
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  I put that in the journal and then there's more space in the
• 14:08
  back for just free journalling as well.
• 14:10
  And there's a pen holder. Just remember the question you
• 14:12
  asked before you said, how did I get to Sunrise Blackbirds?
• 14:16
  They do a really great program called Produce Stars and they
• 14:19
  give $1000 to young people to work on their passion project.
• 14:23
  So just like plug that if you're someone who needs money to start
• 14:27
  your passion project, because that was something that really
• 14:29
  stopped me. Blackbirds produce stars.
• 14:32
  So did they help you that you got one of their?
• 14:34
  I got one of their grants last year, yeah.
• 14:36
  And then they invited me to come and speak at this.
• 14:38
  Yeah. That's amazing.
• 14:40
  You know, they're really they really like champion just
• 14:43
  founders of all different, I guess industry, which is so
• 14:46
  unusual for a venture capital firm.
• 14:49
  You know, typically you think it's very like a tech focused
• 14:52
  and yeah, it's it's been really cool being kind of taken into
• 14:56
  this little community now with them since like getting involved
• 14:59
  with Sunrise. Yeah, no, you're so right.
• 15:01
  And like even our session just then, it was like me doing
• 15:05
  gratitude journaling, somebody else doing dance, another person
• 15:08
  building a drone. It was, yeah.
• 15:11
  It was just every, everything is a mixed bag.
• 15:13
  But it was cool. It made sense.
• 15:14
  I need to take it back to this launch event.
• 15:16
  I'm sorry, I'm still hung up on the launch event.
• 15:18
  So tell me about your journey from like journaling yourself to
• 15:22
  deciding to launch a business based on this and then how you
• 15:26
  got the launch event together. Oh, OK, amazing questions.
• 15:29
  So yeah, I, I love journaling. I've been journaling.
• 15:33
  I mean, I found a journal in my garage a couple months ago from
• 15:37
  primary school and it was just me like writing about camp.
• 15:40
  So I, I like to say, like, I've been journaling since primary
• 15:43
  school, but I did start doing it intentionally in high school
• 15:47
  just to help me with anxiety and just like, get my thoughts out
• 15:52
  of my head and onto paper. And so, yeah, when I was doing a
• 15:55
  lot of that writing, yeah, I just, I knew that that made the
• 15:58
  most sense for me to create a journal.
• 16:00
  What other people could do the same?
• 16:01
  And yeah, the launch event, like I said, I have three incredible
• 16:04
  friends, Catherine Gabby and Ebel Bear, and they helped me
• 16:07
  put the launch event together, you know, connected me to the
• 16:11
  space and helped me write up briefs for sponsorships to ask
• 16:15
  people for help and money. And then like community just
• 16:18
  came together to just come and support Jordan and Deb, who work
• 16:23
  at Uno Studios. They was just like, yes, from
• 16:26
  like the moment that I met them, they were just like, yeah, come.
• 16:28
  You can do, you can host the event here.
• 16:31
  My sister, unpaid recruit. She she DJ?
• 16:34
  Yeah. No, literally that's like my
• 16:36
  brother has been living with us. He's been doing his working
• 16:38
  holiday because I'm from Canada originally and he's been doing
• 16:40
  his working holiday. And like anything we do for the
• 16:43
  business, like he helps with the podcast, he helps with our
• 16:45
  events, like he helps with anything.
• 16:46
  I'm like free labor. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 16:48
  Like, actually it's the best. Yeah.
• 16:51
  So it's just a lot of help from incredible people to like, bring
• 16:54
  my vision to life. What has the journey been like
• 16:57
  then this past year? So you launched and then tell me
• 16:59
  about what's happened. Did you have a job when you
• 17:01
  launched, like a full time job? And are you doing that job
• 17:04
  still? Are you doing this full time?
• 17:06
  Yes, OK, she's still good. I'm just so curious.
• 17:12
  Yeah. So to be to be fair, at the time
• 17:14
  I was doing uni, I was at uni, I was doing international
• 17:17
  relations in international and global studies and that degree
• 17:21
  took me forever and a half to finish.
• 17:23
  But thank God I finished it. And yeah, I was working on that
• 17:27
  whilst building the journal. I also do acting.
• 17:30
  So I was working as an actor. Love.
• 17:31
  That I was a theatre kid too. Yeah, I was.
• 17:35
  I left that a long time ago, but I was a theatre.
• 17:37
  Theatre kid at heart. Always a theatre kid, yes.
• 17:41
  Yeah. So I was working as an actor as
• 17:43
  well and now I'm doing the good gratitude.
• 17:48
  But also I work part time at an organization called Spectrum in
• 17:52
  Melbourne. And they are a community migrant
• 17:55
  Resource Center that welcomes refugees and migrants when they
• 17:59
  first arrive in Melbourne and like connects them to support
• 18:03
  like Centrelink and Medicare and just helps them get settled in
• 18:06
  in in Australia. What do you see for the future
• 18:09
  of the good Gratitude like? What's your like long term like
• 18:12
  dream goal for it? Honestly my biggest dream is to
• 18:16
  have this sold in stores so right now it's online e-commerce
• 18:21
  but next step is to have it in stores.
• 18:24
  We run an event called multiply the good and it's like what our
• 18:29
  launch events were except not a launch this time.
• 18:32
  Panel discussion about gratitude and DJs Good food, good vibes,
• 18:39
  non alcoholic drinks. Just catching a vibe surrounding
• 18:43
  gratitude. Would love to do that annually
• 18:46
  if I can if I have the money to do.
• 18:47
  Yeah, I love. That, yeah.
• 18:49
  And, you know, not just limit to it, to Australia, but multiply
• 18:52
  the good in New York, multiply the good in London, multiply the
• 18:55
  good in Canada. Watch it grow and even, you
• 18:58
  know, launch another book maybe one day and yeah, what should
• 19:01
  grow? You have already done so much in
• 19:04
  such a short amount of time. Like you should be so proud of
• 19:05
  yourself. This is so cool.
• 19:06
  Before we leave, where can people find you and where can
• 19:09
  they buy the Gratitude journal? OK, so you find me at It's
• 19:12
  Henrietta dot A on Instagram and you can buy the journal at
• 19:17
  www.thegoodgratitude.com. You can follow us on everything
• 19:21
  at the good gratitude. Thank you so much for listening.
• 19:23
  Please rate review and subscribe.
• 19:26
  Reminder that High Stakes will be up tomorrow if you guys are
• 19:28
  waiting for it to be on the RSS feed.
• 19:30
  I mentioned this before, but some people have been like
• 19:32
  where's High Stakes? If you guys listen to the pod,
• 19:34
  they have their own separate RSS feed.
• 19:36
  We just put the first episode on our feed to like drive you guys
• 19:39
  there. So yes, go subscribe to them,
• 19:41
  show them some love. I love you guys and I will talk
• 19:44
  to you tomorrow. Bye.