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SMNTY Classics: What is KOSA and Why is it so Scary? · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is any and Samitha the Stuff I Ever
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Told You production of.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: I Heart Radio.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: And for today's classic, we are bringing an episode that
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: we did with Joey contributor Joey Friend Joey on Kosa,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: which is an act that legislators are framing as protecting
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: the children, but has a lot of extremely problematic and
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: legitimate concerns around it, around how it's enforced, vague language
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: in there, and just abuse that could happen, limiting information,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: all that stuff, and we thought we should bring this
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: one back because this is ongoing for but there's a
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: lot of similar legislation around the world. And also we
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: just had our fan fiction Breakdown episode that talked about
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: a lot of laws similar to this, or a lot
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: of things that people are watching similar to this and COSA.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: When it first came out.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: A lot of people were like, it'll you know why
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: you should pay attention, It'll take your fan fictional Like,
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: oh no, now you've got yeah, save a fan fiction.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: So please enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this is Annie
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: and Samantha and welcome to Steffan Never Told You Production
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. And today we are so excited to be
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: joined by a friend of the show general friend Joey,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: come to.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: My friend's status week girl, we need to meet in
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: in IRL.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: We do. I need to go to Atlanta soon.
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: I'm waiting until it starts getting cold here, so I
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: don't want to be in New York and then I
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: will definitely be out in Atlanta.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: That's smart because it's very hot here.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: But yes, I cannot cannot wait.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: And it's been a minute since you've been on here,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: so we're really excited to have you back. And this
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: topic is one that I'm really interested to learn more about.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: And I think you and I were discussing before this.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: I sort of learned about it at the same time
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: as you did, but perhaps slightly differently. But yes, today
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: we're talking about COOSA. So can you just like intro
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: what we're discussing today for sure?
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So, Okisa, I'm going to be talking about KOSA,
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: which is the Kids Online Safety Act and sort of
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: this onslaught of bills in Congress right now that are
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: aimed at, quote, protecting kids online. We live in a
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: weird time and there's a lot of weird, terrible repressive
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: legislation going on. This set of bills that we're going
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: to focus on and I think I was already sort
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: of concerned about this when I started writing this. I think,
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: especially after researching this whole thing, this piece of legislation
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: is one of, if not the thing that I'm probably
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: most worried about right now. I think it is it
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: has a lot of potential really catastrophic outcomes that could
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: happen from this, and it's been a little bit scary
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: to see sort of how it's been repackaged a lot
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: in mainstream coverage, and how a lot of sort of
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: the issues of it regarding it have been kind of
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: glossed over in favor of this idea of like quote,
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: protecting kids. And yeah, I'm going to get more in
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: to that, but so really quick, just a content war.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: I'm going to be discussing some mental health crisises, suicide,
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: self harm, bullying, child abuse. None of it's super explicit,
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: but these aren't things aren't going to come up. And
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: also just transphobia and homophobia and some of the legislation
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: that has been weaponizing these phobias.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: Anyways, as Annie.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: And I were speaking about before this, I first heard
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: about this through TikTok, like many people, I think, because
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: again this is a peace of legislation that's in Congress
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: right now and is happening tangentially to a lot of
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: other similar pieces of legislation. But TikTok has been a
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: big place, a big platform for activists to speak about this.
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: To creators in particular, I want to shout out are
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: Sarah Phillips. I think her ad is just Sarah E.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: Phillips.
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  Speaker 3: And then also the creator Omar's big sister. I don't
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: know what her actual name is, but I love her TikTok.
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: She's hilarious, very super online internet kind of stuff.
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  Speaker 2: Love it. But anyways, she's lit a lot of.
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  Speaker 3: Really great work and talking about this issue and getting
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: information out there.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think I Samantha as usual kind of
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: my TikTok person who sends me to duson I need
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: uh sent me some about this of the day the
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: tragic day that AO three went down and fan fiction
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: was oh yeah, unavailable.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was also a thing, a big thing that
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: kind of sparked a lot of this obviously, like people
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: were talking about this beforehand.
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  Speaker 2: There was a lot of organizing that was happening.
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  Speaker 3: But about a month ago AO three, which is this
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: thing fan fiction site. We've talked about the show a
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: couple of times and shut down for like a day.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: It turned out there was some whole I don't I
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: still don't totally know what the story is. There are
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: like a lot of weird things that was happening. I
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: think I saw it was hacked or something. But something
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: that was coming up that day was like, Hey, this
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: sucked that we didn't have fan fiction for a day.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: This could be a permanent thing if this.
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  Speaker 3: Legislation passes, Like, we should talk about this because I'm
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: some again, I'm somebody who enjoys fan fiction. I think
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: it is, you know, an important part of the Internet.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: And all of that. But there's a lot of other
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  Speaker 2: Even if.
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  Speaker 3: You don't care about fan fiction, there's a lot of
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: things this legislation's going to effect that are.
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  Speaker 2: A little bit scary. So yeah, so COSA.
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  Speaker 3: The Kids Online Safety Act What is it KOSA is
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  Speaker 3: one of again an on slide of recent bills aimed
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  Speaker 3: at regulating kids online activity and data privacy, which in
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: theory seems not terrible. There's two things here. One is
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: data privacy, which we don't really have a lot of
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: in this country, and I do think that is a
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  Speaker 3: very important issue, but if you look at the actual bill,
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: it doesn't.
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  Speaker 2: Really do much to protect data privacy.
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  Speaker 3: In fact, it kind of does the opposite, and it
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  Speaker 3: forces people to put a lot more information online. Tech
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  Speaker 3: experts have said that this bill will end up requiring
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: everyone to upload their government ID when they want to
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: use the internet, which, like, just think about that for
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: a second. Again, going back to Omar's Big Sister, one
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: of my favorite TikTokers to do some great work on this.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: She made a couple of videos about this, one talking
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  Speaker 3: about this particular concept, and she pointed out two really
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: important things.
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  Speaker 2: One, if this happens again.
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  Speaker 3: Your government ID will be attached to everything that you
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  Speaker 3: do online. So if you're speaking out against the government,
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  Speaker 3: if you are part of a marginalized group, this can
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: be used to target you. Like this will now be
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  Speaker 3: attached to your official sort of ID that usually has
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: like your birthday, usually your address. People already get docsed
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: for activism they're doing or just identities that they have,
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: and this will make it so much easier. And then
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: the second point that you made was like this is
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  Speaker 3: the site you need to upload your ID too, and
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: then that site could be hacked very easily, and then
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: all of a sudden, all of your information could be
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: leaked online. Like again, this whole thing is about we're
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: protecting kids data, We're protecting data privacy.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: Yes I did just say data and data.
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: I don't do the same word, but yeah, it ends
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  Speaker 3: it does the opposite. It ends up doing the opposite
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  Speaker 3: for everybody. It makes it less safe for people to
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: be online. So the main focus of this episode is
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: going to be on that first part, which is this
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: idea of regulating kids online activity, which again just saying
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  Speaker 3: it like that, that sounds great. The Internet's crazy. If
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: you're a parent, you have a young kid, like I
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  Speaker 3: can't imagine what that's like. You're totally going to want
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  Speaker 3: to have like some guardrails in place. You're going to
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  Speaker 3: want to have things that you don't want your kids
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  Speaker 3: to see. But the problem is this piece of legislation
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  Speaker 3: is very vague, it's coming up at a very strange time,
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  Speaker 3: and there's a very clear disconnect between how it's sort
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: of being marketed and the actual motivation behind it and
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  Speaker 3: the reality of what it's going to be used for.
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  Speaker 3: So Fight for the Future is an advocacy group that
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: focuses on tech policy issues, particularly data privacy. They created
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  Speaker 3: a website that's called stopcosa dot com will have into
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: the show notes, but on that website they state KOSA
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  Speaker 3: claims to make kids safer, but it's really a dangerous
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  Speaker 3: censorship bill that would give the government unprecedented control over
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  Speaker 3: the Internet. This would put youth in danger by preventing
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: them from accessing potentially life saving resources. Lawmakers concerned about
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  Speaker 3: online safety should reject KOSA and instead work to protect
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  Speaker 3: all Internet users from abusive tech companies by passing a
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  Speaker 3: federal data privacy law. And like first things first up top,
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  Speaker 3: I'm going to be talking a lot about the problems
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  Speaker 3: with a specific legislation and also talking about some of
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  Speaker 3: the positives of social media and the Internet. That doesn't
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  Speaker 3: mean that the Internet isn't also deeply messed up, and
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  Speaker 3: there aren't a lot of concerns about again data privacy
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  Speaker 3: and what kids are seeing online, what people have access to.
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  Speaker 3: I think there is a conversation that needs to be
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  Speaker 3: had there. This bill is not the solution. This bill
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  Speaker 3: that is just going to be used as a method
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  Speaker 3: of censorship, it's not the solution.
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  Speaker 2: Again, I'm not really a tech person.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: I don't know the specifics of how a lot of
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  Speaker 3: this stuff works, but we do need data privacy laws
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  Speaker 3: in this country, like that is something we need.
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  Speaker 2: I think it is really.
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  Speaker 3: Telling that these politicians are focusing on a lot of
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  Speaker 3: these bills that are focused on censorship rather than actually
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: protecting data. So at the top, clearly there is like
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  Speaker 3: a problem again, like there are a lot of problems
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: with the Internet. There are a lot of problems with
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  Speaker 3: how kids interact with the Internet, and how we interact
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: with the Internet, and how technology is regulated. But again,
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: rather than addressing data privacy or mental health, which is
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: going to come up a lot in this bill, that's not.
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  Speaker 2: What they're doing.
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  Speaker 3: So again for the future, they said a first, COSA
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  Speaker 3: would pressure platforms to install filters that would wipe the
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: net of anything deemed quote inappropriate for minors. This equals
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: instructing platforms to sensor plain and simple places that already
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: use content filters have restricted important information about suicide prevention
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: and LGBTQ plus support groups, and KOSO would spread this
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: kind of censorship to every corner of the Internet. It's
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: no surprise that anti writes that are excited about COSA
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: it would let them shut down websites that cover topics
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: like race, gender, and sexuality.
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  Speaker 2: Second, KOSO would ramp up the.
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: Online surveillance of all Internet users by expanding the use
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: of age verification and parental monitoring tools. Not only are
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: these tools needlessly invasive, they are a massive state fee
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: risk for young people who could be trying to escape
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: domestic violence and abuse. And then also when we talk
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: about this bill, they use you know, language like kids
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: and children a lot that's just referring to anybody seventeen
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: and younger, which again is like the definition of a child.
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: But I think that there's something very intentional about using
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: the word kids, and like like when you hear kids,
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: you're thinking of like an eight year old, not you're
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: not thinking of a seventeen year old. But I think like,
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: especially as we talk about how this bill is going
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: to affect information about like sexual and reproductive health, which
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: are very important things for people to learn, usually in
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: their teen years. Like again we're talking about teenagers not
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: having access to this information. We're not talking about like
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: I don't know, five year olds. And yeah, again, this
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: isn't a coincidence that all this is happening at the
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: same time, there's this huge backlash against queer and trans people,
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: particularly queer and trans kids in this country. And so
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: let's talk about who's actually behind the bill. There's two
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: main sponsors. One is Senator Marshall Blackburn Tennessee, who's a Republican,
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: and then the other is Senator Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut,
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: who's a Democrat.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: We love bipartisan repression, all right, But.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: Anyways, I'm going to start with Senator Blackburn and the
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: right wing push for this bill. I'm going to get
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: to Senator Blumenthal for a minute because I some weird
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: stuff on him. But anyways, also, agism is bad. We've
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: talked about this on the show. Agism is a terrible thing.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: That being said, I think it is worth pointing out
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: both Blackburn and Bluementhal are in their seventies, and like,
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: I know, it's complicate, legislation complicated, a lot of people
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: were on legislation, but like, personally, there's something really weird
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: to be about the fact that the two sponsor of
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: this bill are in their seventies and most of the
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: people that are like promoting this are on the older side.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: And then meanwhile, if you look at a lot of
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: the backlash and a lot of people are speaking out
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: against It's a lot of like twenty something or thirty
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: something year olds or teenagers, you know, and we're the
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: people that actually grew up on the internet. Like I'm
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: I'm twenty four. I like the Internet has been a
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: part of my life since I was a kid. I
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: there is a generation alive right now that actually has
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: experienced this, and I think deliberately not looking to those
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: people to kind of lead this discussion is weird and
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: it's just not gonna like end well. There is a
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: quote like gen Z activist group that has been supporting
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: this bill. It's called Design It for Us. Their Instagram
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: bio says a coalition of young activists and organizations fighting
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: for safe for social media and online platforms for kids, teens,
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: and young adults. I haven't really been able to find
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: much information on this organization. Honestly, the most telling thing
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: for me they have three hundred and twenty six Instagram followers,
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: Which is fine, Instagram's not for everybody.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: But if you are you're calling yourself.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: Like a gen Z activist organization, you have three hundred
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: and twenty six Instagram followers, like that's my mom has
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: more Instagram followers like I don't again, that not hers.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: I gotta call your mama like that, get a very
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: text after you know whatever.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: Anyways, Yeah, they're definitely there's there's this sort of disconnect
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: between that I say this, I'm probably the same age
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: as your mama and around the same round following.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: So how dare you I'll get that for her.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: She can make fun of me about having to text
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: her about like how to send a letter.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: She can, but oh g your poor mother. I'm so sorry, mother.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: We're not party to this. I'm with you on your side.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: Back to center Blackbird.
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: So. A May article from The Electronic Freedom Found written
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: by Jason Kelly stated that kosa's co author, Senator Blackburn
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: of Tennessee, has referred to education about and race discrimination
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: as quote dangerous for kids. Many states have agreed and
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: recently moved to limit public education of the history of race, gender,
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: and sexuality discrimination. If COSA passes, platforms are likely to
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: preemptively block conversations that discuss these topics, as well as
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: discussions about substance abuse, suicide, and eating disorders, and there's
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: not clear agreement on their causes or their solutions referring
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: to suicide and disorders and substance abuse. So, yeah, there's
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: a lot to unpack here. First things first, we're living
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: in the middle of an active push to criminalize the
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: existence of a minority group in the US. The right
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: wing of this country are actively trying to kill trans people.
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: I have no problem just saying that, y'all straight up
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: had a spokesperson at SPAXA like trance people need to
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: be eliminated.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: It's very mask off at this point.
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: Senator Blackburn clearly and sort of that same boat and
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: says queer people, you are also being targeted. You are
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: all so now part of this group, like you guys
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: are next. We know where this is going anyways. So
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: these same people that are fueling this panic about queer
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: and trans people, they're now saying they want authority to
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: dictate what is and what is not appropriate for kids online.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: This, I think is particularly relevant right now.
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: There's a wide piece of misinformation that's circulating right now
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: that's called the social contagent theory that basically claims that
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: exposure to trans people or media that talks about trans
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: people will somehow convince otherwise this gender kids that they're
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: trans to. It's based on this really weird claim that
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: there's just like so many kids coming out as transgender
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: right now.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: I don't really get where that's coming from.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this idea that like coming out is trands is
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: like a cool trendy thing to do with everybody. Again,
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: I don't know why people think that that is very
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: much not the case.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: Coming out is still very very difficult. Anyways, a lot
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: of turfs in particular flashed on to this idea.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: I would totally commend checking out the Anti trans Hate
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: Machine podcast with Lamar Jones. She did a really great
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: deep dive into how this theory circulated and a lot
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: of like the right wing push behind it.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: One thing I also think is really scary about this
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: is that.
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: You know, more than like the sort of hyper religious
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: conservative angle of transphobia, I think this can be very
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: appealing to a lot of people that like consider themselves
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: to be like center left or left. This has made
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: its way into a lot of mainstream coverage of trans people.
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: It's made its way into the New York Times coverage.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: I think like this is scarier to me than like
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: the sort of evangelical, super ultra right Christian angle that.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: Is also super terrifying. But yeah, and again there's no
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: evidence for this.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: This entire like theory quote unquote comes from one study
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: from one doctor. The organization that published it later refuted it,
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: and a number of medical organizations have come out and
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: said that there's no evidence this is actually a thing. Also, again,
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: like I don't get why this is so hard for
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: sis straight people to understand, but like, think about it. Okay,
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: you could be arrested for not dressing a close enough
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: to your gender, regardless if you were at trans or not,
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: like not dressing feminine or masculine enough up until like
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: the seventies, and then like the AIDS crisis happened and
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: a lot of people died, and then the next twenty
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: years it wasn't like there wasn't there was still a
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: lot of homophobia.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: There was still a lot of transphobia that was very
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: well accepted. Maybe the reason.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: More people are coming out as trans now is just that,
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: like we live in a slightly more accepting society, and yes,
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: we are quickly rolling backwards too, but like we do
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: live in a time where there's on precedent visibility and
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: that can be really helpful, especially and again, like if
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: you're a trans kid and you've never been exposed to
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: this idea that like you can be trans, that's a possibility,
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: and then suddenly, like you see a piece of media
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: where they talk about trans people, whether that's like through
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: the Internet or TPEE or just like a book you read,
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: like that can help you realize your trans That's one
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: of the beautiful things I think about a lot of media,
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: and a lot of entertainment media and fiction too, is
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: like people see themselves reflected in it.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: So like, yeah, if.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: You have a kid and they watched to show about
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: trans people and then all of a sudden they were like,
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: I think I'm trans, that probably means they're trans. That
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: probably just means they saw themselves for the first time.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: And then also this whole idea of like, oh your
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: friend came out as trans, so now you're gonna come
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: out of trans Like we all kind of find each other,
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: like we all kind of you know. It's it's like
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: having any sort of marginalized identity, you're going to want
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: to find people's similar experiences to you. It makes sense
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: that trans kids are going to sort of lash onto
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: each other, like weren't friendships and Again, like I think
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: when we're talking about the Internet, we're talking about this
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: issue particularly involving the Internet. So for some people, the
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: Internet is that space where they find these connections, They
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: find connections with other trans kids, they find connections with
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: other trans people.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: That was my experience growing up.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: I I was, you know, growing up when Tumblr was
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: a big thing, and like Tumblr was sort of my
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: first exposure to like other queer people and like queer community.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: And there's positives and negatives of that.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: But again I think I'm glad that I had that
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: instead of just not having anything. And again, there is
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: a discussion that we had about like online safety and
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: all that, but just saying we need to censor all this,
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: we need to let kids like not have any access
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: to this, that is not the answer that is going
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: to end up causing more harm than good. And again,
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: like when it is terrifying, this whole idea that, like
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: the whole social contagion idea, it is rooted in this
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: idea that being trans is wrong. It is rooted in
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: this idea that like there's something wrong with you if
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: your trans are queer. Because in all honesty too, it's
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: like the worst case scenario yeah, maybe it is a phase.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: Maybe a kid comes out as trans and then later
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: they decide they're not. That's normal, kids go through phases,
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: Like I don't know, it is. It's very strange that
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: there's been this like massive backlash to the idea of
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: even considering that you might be trans or you might
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: not be your assigned gender at birth. So the Heritage
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: Foundation has also been a big supporter of this bill,
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: surprise surprise, as on May twentieth, they tweeted, quote, keeping
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: trans content away from children is protecting kids in response
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: to somebody pointing out, you know, another quote where they
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: were talking about like, yes, we want this bill to
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: pass because we can stop trans and queer people from
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: existing on the internet, and again very mask off, like
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: it's very obvious what they're going to be using this
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: legislation for. Another big supporter of this bill is the
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: National Center on Sexual Expectation, which a Vice article by
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: Janice Rose described as a far right quote anti trafficking
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: group previously known as Morality and Media that has lobbied
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: against porn, sex workers, and LGBT rights since the nineteen sixties. Again,
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying there isn't a lot of problems with
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: the porn industry. But it feels very strange to me
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: that they're like, we're an anti trafficking group and then
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: their main things so they're lobbying against, are porn and
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: LGBT rights and sex workers. Anyways, just seems weird. Back
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: to that Vice article quote, the group's president, Patrick Truman,
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: has previously worked for the American Family Association and the
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: Family Research Council, both bar right Christian organizations that have
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: been designated as anti LGBTQ hate groups by the Southern
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: Poverty Law Center. So, yeah, this is legislation that's being
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: supported by hate groups. I think that is worth pointing out.
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: And Yeah, one of the really messed up things about
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: all of this, and at a lot of this legislation
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: is a lot of times it's framed as protecting kids,
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: as stopping child abuse, stopping trafficking, which all seemed great,
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: but that can very easily be used as sort of
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: a mask for anti LGBT, anti people just talking about
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: sexuality in general, people talking about reproductive healthcare, especially in
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: like a post QAnon America.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: I would always be.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: Cautious if a piece of legislation is talking about protecting
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: kids or anti trafficking. There's a very a good chance
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: that's sort of upfront for something else. And the frustrating
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: part about that is like, yeah, trafficking is an issue,
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: kids being abused is an issue. We should be addressing
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: those ideas. But this isn't actually addressing that. This is
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: addressing very different issues. And yeah, again I'm focusing a
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: lot on LGBTQ PUS issues and how these are going
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: to be affected by this bill because I think that's
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: the most obvious right now and probably like the first
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: thing that it will be used for. But again, going
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: back to that quote about Senator Blackburn, a lot of
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: these politicians and advocates are like the same people that
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: are also saying that learning about racism is inappropriate for children,
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: or learning anything about sexual and reproductive health.
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: There was that article that.
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: Just came out that was like, you basically can't teach
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: ap psych in Florida anymore because of like that. Don't
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: say gay bill like that, it's crazy, This isn't There's
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: so many things that could be kind of caught in
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: the net of what this bill allows politicians to regulate.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: And then so going back to that quote again from
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: the Electronic Freedom Foundation about the bill and its sponsors.
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: It also points out that the bill passed. If the
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: bill passes, quote, platforms are likely to preemptively black discussions
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: about substance abuse, suicide, and eating disorders, which I think
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: is the other side of this, this discussion about mental health.
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: And again I'm not saying social media can't be used
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: to promote those things. Like I said, I was a
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: tumbler kid. I have seen all of the worst of this,
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: but they are very complicated issues. There's a lot of
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: things that cause this. People talk about, like the mental
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: health crisis happening right now, there's a lot of factors
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: that contribute to that. And also the Internet social media
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: can also be tools for helping find support. Again, the
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: Internet is just a platform. It's not necessarily good or bad.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: It is just a way of distributing information. And you
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: can just as easily find things that will help you
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: as you can find things so hard you. So from
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: that same article, again, they said quote to pick just
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: one example. In some communities, safe injection sites are seen
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: as part of a solution to substance abuse, and others
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: they are seen as part of the problem. Under KOSA,
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: could a platform be sued for displaying content about them
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: or about needle exchanges, malaxon or other harm reduction techniques.
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: So yeah, again, the problem with this is that guess
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: it'll block informa, it'll block things that will supposedly promote
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: eating disorders or substance abuse, but then it'll also walk
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: information about getting help and on that mental health thread.
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: Because again, so this has been something I think supporters
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: of the bill have really latched onto. And again we
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: were talking about kind of the right wing backlash. I
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: think this has been a little bit more universal, a
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: little bit more bipartisan. They're arguing that the internet and
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: the kids, that the things that kids are seeing on
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: the Internet are the sole causes of all of these depression,
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: eating disorder's, addiction, self harm, et cetera. Again, which are
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: all very complicated issues. These things didn't just randomly appear
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: when the Internet appears. They've been around for a while.
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: I think they're more visible now for a lot of reasons,
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: but they've always kind of been there. And again, there's
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: definitely a conversation we had about the mental health crisis
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: happening in this country, but just blaming the internet for
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: it is dangerously simplifying those situation and it's just a weird,
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: like disinformed take. It's going to end up causing it
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: more harm than good, and so a lot of this
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: is coming from there. Recently was this report from the
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: US Surgeon General, which was an advisory on social Media
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: and Youth Mental Health that called to attention the negative
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: impacts that social media can have on kids' mental health.
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: And this is a great report. I totally encourage people
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: to check it out. I think it does a good
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: job of, like again laying out a lot of these
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: issues and laying out how social media can make these
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: problems worse, which again I'm not denying that that is
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: a thing. I'm not denying the fact that social media
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: can contribute to these problems. But one thing I think
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: was interesting about the study, and that is sort of
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: being looked over by a lot of the coverage of it,
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: is that it also does a pretty good breakdown of,
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: like not just the negative aspects of social media, but
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: also the positive aspects. And one thing that came out
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: of the study was that marginalized you tend to see
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: the internet more positively and tend to have kind of
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: more positive experiences with the internet. So again, if you
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: just google this study, you're going to see a lot
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: of headlines that are like Surgeon General raises alarm about
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: social media and social media driving team mental health crisis,
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: which is a big part of the report.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: But it also said social media can provide.
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: Quote positive community and connection with others who share identity, abilities,
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: and interests. They later said that social media can provide
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: quote buffering effects against stress, particularly for queer and trans youth,
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: youth of color, or just like anybody that belongs to
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: a marginalized group. Some stats from the report that I
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: thought were particularly interesting. One was that seven out of
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: ten lesson girls of color report encountering positive or identity
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: off firming content related to race across social media platforms.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: Fifty eight percent of adolescents interview had reported that social
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: media helped them feel more accepted, sixty seven percent said
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: that social media helps them feel like they have people
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: who can support them through tough times, seventy one percent
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: said that social media provides them a place to show
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: their creative side, and eighty percent felt like they were
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: more connected to what's going on in their friends' lives.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: That last stat I think is particularly important. The study
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: also pointed out that quote the ability to form and
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: maintain friendships online and develop social connections, as well as
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: interactions with more diverse peer groups that are available offline,
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: Like these are all sort of benefits of social media, which,
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: like I don't know if you guys remember, but there
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: was this pandemic thing that just happened, and a lot
• 28:50
  Speaker 3: of us were very isolated for a long period of time.
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: A lot of kids were, and the Internet and social
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: media that was a way for people to bind connection.
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: That was a way for people to stay connected with
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: other people and provide an escape for a lot of people.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: It definitely helped me. Like that's how I kind of
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: stayed sane. I was, you know, I was on Twitter
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: a lot. I was on TikTok a lot. I was
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: also like just facetiming friends and stuff like that.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: Like that was a.
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: Way for me to like keep up social interaction, which
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: is a thing that you know, people need anyways. So
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: one more point I want to pull from this report,
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: it said a quote. An addition, research suggests that social
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: media based and other digitally based mental health interventions may
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: also be helpful for some children adolescents by promoting help
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: seeking behaviors and serving as a gateway to initiating mental
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: health care. So that's kind of going back what I
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: was saying before, Like this is really important. You can
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: argue that, yes, like social media, the Internet, it exposes
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: kids to self harm and to addiction and to suicidal idealization,
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: but also it provides kids with support. If you google
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: anything related to suicide, like one of the main things
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: that pops up is the suicide hotline, Like that.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: Is a resource that is available to people.
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: There are resources through the Internet people that are trying
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: to overcome addiction. You can find communities online. And also,
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: if you've been following this like ongoing right wing attack
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: on queer and trance folks in this country, one of
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: their most recent targets has been the Trevor Project, which
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: is a suicide hotline for LGBTQ post Kids Suicide Hotline,
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: so it is something that saves kids' lives. And this
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: has been kind of the latest group that's been roped
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: into this whole like groomer rhetoric about LGBTQ plus organizations
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: and people.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: This is a suicide hotline. This is preventing death, and
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: it's just it's so what the I just I can't like.
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: It's so twisted, it is so messed up, and I
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: think that it is really telling that the same people
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: that are trying to shut down the Trevor Project just
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: because they acknowledge that queer people exist, I don't know,
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: they're the same people sort of promoting this bill and
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: promoting a lot of the things like changes that will
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: be put in place because of this legislation.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I think a big issue with this.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: The bill doesn't discriminate between content that's causing harm and
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: that's preventing it. It's just sort of a catch all.
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: The people again that are going to be determining what
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: is or is not appropriate for kids are politicians. Are
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: a lot of these same people that are trying to
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: again eliminate trans people from public life and their own words.
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: So it's scary. I'm really worried about what where this
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: is going. And on top of that, talking about the
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: Internet and some of the again like positives that I
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: see about the Internet and social media, because I do
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: feel like I got to defend that a little bit.
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: A lot of queer and trans kids don't live in
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: accepting households or they just don't know other queer people. Again,
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: I've talked about this before, Like I had a couple
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: of friends growing up, like also coming out around the
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: same time, but like I didn't really know any other
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: queer people. I didn't know any queer adults. And like,
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: if you're a person of color, if you're a person
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: who belongs to a marginalized religious group or ethnic group,
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: you can kind of be in a similar position where
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: maybe you're the only person at your school who has
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: an identity and you can't really relate to other like
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: you just don't have a community to talk about those
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: experiences with that can be really detrimental to your mental health.
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: And so one thing I was thinking about, So there
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: was this campaign what I was growing up that was
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: called it Gets Better and I'm be real, it was
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: really corny, Like I thought it was really dumb. That
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: being said, I think it was well intentioned. I think,
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: like I'm looking back, I'm really glad it was like
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: a thing. I'm glad and again, especially given the situation now,
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, I did not realize that that was
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: like really good.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: I do think I missed the mark a little bit.
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: Anyways, I think the point of what that whole campaign
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: is that campaign was supposed to be and I think
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: something that I think is really important. It's supposed to
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: be like showing case. It's this idea that like you
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: can have a happy queer future. And I think for me, again,
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: that whole campaign didn early work. I was a really
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: agsty kid. I think I was just like very like whatever.
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: But what I the things that like helps me sort
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: of imagine a like a happy queer future for myself
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: where I would be able to be like my true
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: self and be again yeah, just be happy, just be
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: like not suffering all the time. Access to the internet
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: was access to YouTubers and to Tumblr and to just
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: like and a fan fiction. Again, like I keep going
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: back to that, but that was really the first time
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: I I read stories about queer people. And again, these
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: are all things that are going to be attacked to
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: sort of like wiping the existence of queer people from
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: the Internet. All you're gonna do with that is show
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: kids that like, you don't have the future. You don't
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: have a future where you can be happy and accepted
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: and be your true self.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: And that is terrifying. That is that is what leads
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: to suicide.
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: So anyways, yeah, right wing politicians want is dead. What
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: else is new? Anyways, let's talk about the Democratic co
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: sponsor of this bill, Richard Blumenthal.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, this guy.
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: Okay, So he has been a co sponsor on a
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: lot of similar bills, a lot of these bills that
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: have been tracked by the Electronic Freedom Foundation and Fight
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: for the Future. This has been just looking at kind
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: of his legislative history. He also tried to pass some
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: bills in like the late nineties early two thousands about
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: like regulating MySpace, and I don't know, this just seems
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: to be his whole thing. He's very into like restricting
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: what people can see online.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: Apparently he is also.
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: The co sponsor of the urn It Act, another bill
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: that Fight for the Future is organizing against, which if
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: you look at what Congress has online, they summarize the
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: bill as quote, this bill revises the federal framework governing
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: the prevention of online sexual exploitation of children end quote, which.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: Again, that sounds great.
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: I don't think anybody can disagree that like that, that's yeah,
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: we shouldn't be having that happen.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: But that's not what the bill actually does.
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: This is again from Fight for the Future's website bad
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: Internet Bills and also will also have that in the description.
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: They have a lot of information about not just KOSA,
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: but like all of these bills that earn earn It
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: Act and other bills that are happening right now. But yeah, so,
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: from their website, this bill quote threatens to undermine online
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: encryption by punishing companies that provide encryption services. Again, I'm
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: not a very techy person. I don't know exactly how
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: end to end encryption works, but basically, it is what
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: keeps online messaging private. It is what prevents Again, we
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: don't really have good data privacy laws in this country,
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: but it is like the one thing that prevents hackers
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: from accessing your personal information. We all use it, even
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: if you don't think you do like you use it.
• 36:03
  Speaker 3: And again, this is the same guy who's arguing that
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: KOSA will protect data privacy, and they've used some of
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: the language from the urn It Act. They put some
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: of this into KOSA. Both of these bills are going
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: to destroy what little data privacy we have. Yeah So,
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: also from Fight for the Future. In twenty sixteen, a
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: bipartisan congressional commission concluded that quote encryption is an exorbally
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: tied to our national interest. Senator Ron Wyden has pointed
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: out that quote, you can't only build a backdoor for
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: the good guys. Once you weaken encryption with a backdoor,
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: you make it far easier for criminals and hackers and
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: predators to get into.
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: Your digital life.
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: So, like back in twenty sixteen, we had Congress people
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: being like, we need encryption.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: This isn't like we shouldn't end encryption.
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: This is literally the one thing that is preventing hackers
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: from getting into your stuff. This bill also allows for
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: like a heightened surveillance state. So from the Fight for
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: the Future website quote, beyond the systemics surveillance issues we face,
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: individual police officers routinely misuse their access to confidential databases
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: to get information on neighbors, romantic partners, and business rivals.
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: We know the giving law enforcement and intelligence officials access
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: to our communication results in them taking advantage of that
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: access in the ways that hurt us, often with absolutely
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: no benefits to the public good. Why should we trust
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: them to with even greater access to our private conversations?
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: Simply put, we shouldn't. So yeah, like, remember how like
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: ten years ago we.
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: Had this whole like like the snowed in leaks happened,
• 37:36
  Speaker 3: and we were like, oh my god, the government spent
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: like recording all these phone calls and stuff, and it
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: hasn't even really done anything to like prevent terrorism. Yeah,
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: this whole conversation. I thought we universally like decided mass
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: surveillance is a bad thing. But again, now we're apparently
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: doing that.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: So in an article about this bill, the Electronic Freedom
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: Foundation states that quote and then of fighting crime, the
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: earn It Act creates all Internet users like we should
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: be in a permanent criminal lineup under suspicion for child abuse.
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: If enacted, earn It will put massive legal pressure on
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: Internet companies both large and small, to stop using true
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: end to end encryption and instead scan all user messages, photos,
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: and files. And like I said before, we all use
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: end to end encryption if we use it for so
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: many things. The Electronic Freedom Foundation points out that this
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: bill could be used to target people who seek reproductive healthcare,
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: since that's something that's been under attack. Also, who could
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: be used to target trans folks. We're already seeing some
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: state governments that are going out of their way to
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: target and harassed trans folks. Last year, Texas Attorney General
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: Ken Paxton attempted to use government resources to compile a
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: list of trans adults who changed their legal gender marker
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: on the ID. That is creepy, Like he wanted a
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: list of everybody that changed their gender marker on their ID.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: There's no way that ends well. I just it's it's weird.
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: And again, like even if if you're somebody, if you're
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: in a position where like I'm never gonna deal with this.
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: I am a sis white man, I have whatever the
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: most privileged ever, why would you want less data privacy? Like?
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: Why again?
• 39:19
  Speaker 3: And these are things like we use we use an
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: encryption for healthcare, we use it for finances. Why would
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: you want to make it easier for people to hack
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: into your healthcare information, your health information or your your
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: again your finances. Like that doesn't seem good. A number
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: of Senators have spoken up against this bill, including Senator
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: Corey Booker and John Ostoff, and one hundred and thirty
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: two LGBTQ plus human rights organizations have signed on to
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: a letter opposing this bill. Also, just a quick note
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: brought up this bill and relation to Senator Bloomenthal, who's
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: the Democratic co sponsor of this bill. The Republican co
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: sponsor is Lindsay Graham. Ted Cruise is another co sponsor.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: I don't think those are people that have my best
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: interest in mine. That's just my thoughts on that anyways.
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: So again, cos isn't the only bill that is attacking
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: internet freedom or data privacy. Senator Bluenthal apparently thinks he's
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: like an LGBTQ plus ally and has like spoken up
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: in the past about LGBT issues. If you want to
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: give me a call and explain to me why you
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: think like you can call it yourself an ally and
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: lay the charge for both of these bills, like explain
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: that to me, because I'm confused. And yeah, again, because
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: Congress is weird. There's also two nearly identical bills that
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: Bluenthala is sponsoring that are called one is called stop
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: See Sam and the others called the Cooper Davis Act,
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: and they both are essentially the same thing where they're like,
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: we're gonna stop sexual abuse and child abuse by just
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: monitoring briefing on the Internet and let it guess, look
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: at anything on the Internet. Go to Bad Internet Bills
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: dot com if you want to learn more about this.
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: They have some really great information. But yeah, this is scary.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: All of this is scary fun stuff.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Clearly you've laid out why it's scary, but it's also
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: scary that I hadn't heard of it before then, Oh.
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's the other part is like there's
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: been very minimal coverage. Again, it is both of these
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: are bipartisan bills that are going through. There has been
• 41:42
  Speaker 3: you can't just point to it to a right wing
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: or a lefting issue. There's been a lot of propaganda
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: like kind of trying to portray this bill a certain way. Again,
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: really big shout out to all of these activists on
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: TikTok that are talking about this. I think they've done
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: a really great job of, like especially educating younger folks.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: Sarah Phillips, who.
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: I mentioned at the top, she wrote a really awesome
• 42:05
  Speaker 3: piece for teen Vogue about this bill and kind of
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: laying out also talking about the AO three crash and
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: laying out sort of a lot of things that are
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: going to be affected by this bill. But yeah, it is.
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: It is scary. Again, it's terrifying. This is going to
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: have if this passes, it's going to have a terrible
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: impact on our data, privacy, on internet freedom, on freedom
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: of speech, where again, this is one of those things
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: where it's like it's clearly a freedom of speech issue,
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: and none of the supposed freedom of speech whatever purists
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: seem to be speaking out about this. So that's a
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: whole other discussion. But yeah, but again I think this
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: is really important to talk about.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: This is the second attempt they did. Yeah, they tried
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: this back and I believe twenty sixteen where that quote
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: was from, but they're trying to rush this through now.
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: I believe they're supposed to vote on it in September.
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: I might be wrong about that anyway. It's that being said, though,
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: it is this is an urgent issue.
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: This is something that I think, especially again, I think
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: it is no coincidence that this is happening tangentially to
• 43:18
  Speaker 3: all of these anti trans, anti queer legislation that's happening,
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: especially those that are targeting trans kids. And again I've
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: talked about the social contagion, conspiracy theory, lie, whatever the
• 43:32
  Speaker 3: hell you want to call it. These are the same
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: things that are fueling this legislation, and it's terrifying that
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: this could be a this could be a national This
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: could be a national law.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: And also just to add Senator Blumenthal, who is the
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: co sponsor of this bill and of the burn It Act,
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: he's also a co sponsor of this restrict Act, which
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: is the bill that is, if you read the actual bill,
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: what it says is authorizes the Secretary of Commerce to
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: review and prohibit certain transactions between persons in the United
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: States and foreign adversaries and for other purposes. This was
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: this is being promoted in response to TikTok, which there
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: have been some Again that's a whole other complicated conversation,
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: but it's the myths that are going around is like
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: TikTok's gonna be a use despy on the US from
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: the Chinese government, and I don't know. Again, there's so
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: much unpacked there. There's so much wrong with that claim.
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: It also is very strange that we are like, you know,
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: we have Facebook, and we have all these other corporations
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: that are tracking our data and have no problems like
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: sharing it with the US government. Probably have no problems
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: like sharing it with foreign governments too, So it is
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: weird that and again, I the reason they're going after
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: TikTok is because TikTok has become a new platform for
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: young people to organize on and Trump was really against TikTok,
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: and like that makes sense because remember he had that
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: one rally where like there was supposed to be like
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: a like a there's like a huge crowd that was
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: supposed to be there, and that was like really tiny
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: because a bunch of people on TikTok like started basically
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: explain like here's how to get tickets, and like, like
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: I think it literally it's just all these these politicians
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: that are like mad that people are organizing against them
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: and are trying to restrict the platforms that people are
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: using to organize. Yeah, and this is a conversation again,
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: like there definitely is a conversation to be had about
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: Internet safety, and there definitely is a conversation to be
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: had about how kids are interacting with the Internet and
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: how the internet affects us. But this is something this
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: whole idea of like we don't understand it, so we
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: just have to like we just have to block it.
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: We just have to like get rid of it. This
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: is something that happens every time there's a new piece
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: of technology. And yeah, when I was a kid, it
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: was video games like it and like before I get again,
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: like it's been used for certain types of music, it's
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: been used for my favorite thing to point to. In
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: the nineteen fifties, there was a whole congressional trial about
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: comic books and about how comic books are like destroying
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: the youth of America. Look up a like nineteen fifties
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: comic book panel. They're corny as hell. Like it's so
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: like there it's again, this is It's the same conversation
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: over and over again. I think in twenty years this
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: conversation is going to look equally as ridiculous.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: I hope it does. But yeah, it's again.
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: And also my issue again when we have these conversations
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: about the internet, I think a big problem is very quickly.
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: A lot of times it gets sort of split into
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: either the Internet's good or the internet's bad. Social media
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: is good or the or social media is bad, and
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: both are complicated. It is a very complicated situation. And
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: regardless of whether it's good or bad, it's the thing
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: that exists, like we're not. You can't put that back
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: in the box, like it's out there. The internet exists.
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: We interact with the Internet every day of our lives.
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: If you want to participate in everyday life, you need
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: to know how the internet works.
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: Again, it is complicated. I do think there needs to
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: be like some sort of conversation about this. But I
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: think one of the positives of being a kid and
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: growing up with the internet, growing up with internet access,
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: is that you learn internet safety at a much younger age,
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: and you learn kind of how to interact with the Internet.
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: From a much younger age.
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: And I think again, like, you know, we joke about
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: how like older people not being tech savvy and younger
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: people kind of having a more of a idea of
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: how these platforms work. But like the reason is because like, yeah,
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: people my age, we all grew up with this, we
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: all grew up learning this, We've learned how.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: To be.
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: You know, citizens on the internet, whatever that means. And
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: just taking that away and just saying like, no, kids
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: shouldn't be able to interact with this, kids shouldn't understand
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: the realities of how the internet works and.
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: How it affects us.
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: Like that doesn't that just is gonna you're just putting
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: off the problem. You're just putting it off till they're older. Yeah,
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: it's it's weird, it's it's not going to end well,
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: and it's we living a really cool time.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: It's a lot of weird stuff's happening right now. Yeah,
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: the Pope's talking about AI, I tell you talking about AI.
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: Apparently we look about this too.
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: Is like I brought up that quote, like gen Z
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: activist group that's behind supposedly supporting COOSA on other things,
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: they've been really like advocating like regulating AI, which I
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: think is a totally like, yeah, that's a whole different
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: issue first of all, and yes.
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: We do need to be regulating the AI.
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: We do need to be having some conversations about AI.
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: That's not the same thing as social media and just
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: like the ability to find things on the internet. These
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: are all again, like I said before, ageism is bad,
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: but I think it is.
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: A little like these are people that are.
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: In their seventies that are that are trying to explain
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: the Internet to us. They're trying to explain how the
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: Internet works like this isn't.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: I don't know. There's so many Yeah, that's a.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: Series of too, That's what they told me. Series of bikes.
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: That is a real quote. That's a real quote. From
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: a politician. Yeah that makes sense.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's yeah, And I mean, thank you for breaking
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: this down. I feel like we're seeing all of these
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: book bands, we're seeing all of this attempts at censorship,
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: and a lot of times people don't equate what's going
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: on online with quote real life, but it is. We
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: do interact with it every day. I lost it for
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: a little bit recently and I was like, well, what.
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: Do I do?
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: I don't how do I function? Like it's a part
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: of our everyday lives and they're just using all of
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: these fake Like we've talked before about how often they
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: use sex trafficking and the safety of children and all
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: these things that sound really good, but they're just using
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: it to distract you from the real thing and like
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: those issues, distracting from those issues, like.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, exactly.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's really scary because the Internet we've also
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: talked before about. Yeah, they're perfectly happy to for American
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: companies to make money, but so many places that people
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: frequent that you were discussing, where you might find like
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: a community around your marginalized identity are free and that's important,
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: but they would probably that's like the first thing they're
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: going to get rid of like the companies that can
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: get your data right now, nothing's gonna happen to them.
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: But like those kind of free spaces where.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: People can find community that they maybe couldn't, that's that's
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: gonna go first.
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah, I mean I think also we're watching this happen.
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: While like Twitter's kind of fallen apart, and I think
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: that it's been a great like that's been a great
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: example of how like Twitter for a while.
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: Again, it wasn't perfect.
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: There were a lot of issues with Twitter, but it
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: was a place that a lot of activist movements like
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: kind of gained popular. That's where like the Black Lives
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: Matter movement and me Too, like really gained momentum. It
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: was like a networking platform for a lot of people. Again,
• 51:20
  Speaker 3: I like, I'm a I'm a journalist. I used Twitter
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: a lot to connect with people and to connect with
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: sources or just.
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: Connect with other people with like similar identities.
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: I met a lot of other I have a lot
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: of friends that I met through the internet just because
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: we again, like we were both queer, we're both like trends,
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: or we're both interested in the same like nerdy bandom stuff. Like,
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: it's it's it's been a really I again, I think
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: I think the whole is the internet good or bad thing?
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: Is it a productive conversation, because again, it exists, but
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: it's like, but there are a lot of benefits. And
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: I think again going back to that report that the
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: supporters of those field keep pointing to you about the
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: mental health effects and social media, they're really ignoring the
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: fact that this report also is like no, like this
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: can be really great for kids with marginalized identities. There
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: are a lot of positives to this. It's yeah, it's
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: it's much more complicated. It's and if we want to
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: talk about mental health too, like we have, like the
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: healthcare situation in this country is a mess. We don't
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: want to like why aren't we talking about that? You
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: know what, it would be a great like thing to
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: help out mental health in this country. It would be
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: to like strengthening our actual like healthcare system and the
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: ability of people to access healthcare because so many people
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: like don't have health insurance or and that and in
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: itself self causes more you know, the harm to your
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: mental health. Financial insecurity causes harm to your mental health.
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: The fact that we live in a planet that is burning. Definitely,
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: that's that's only a big thing.
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Again, like as aliens apparently, I think
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: that's fun, you know, I do think it was a
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: little funny. Yeah, it's like the people always want.
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: To talk about how like gen Z has terrible mental health,
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: we're on a planet that's dying. Like it's it makes sense,
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: what would I don't know, it's this whole thing is
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: so Yeah, I've said my piece.
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: It's it's messed up. It is. It is.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you, Thank you Joey for coming on and
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: bringing this to us and breaking it down, for providing sources,
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: because there are if you look this up, there are
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: some things you can do, like contacting your senators all
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, if you want to do something
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: about this very scary thing that's happening. But yes, Joey,
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: where can the people find you online if they want to?
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: For now? Yeah, while we selve the internet, you can find.
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: Me at pat Patt not n ot prat p R
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: A T T. That is my Twitter and my Instagram.
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: If you're interested in this topic and you want to
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: learn more about the Internet and all the various issues
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: that the Internet and technology should check out there are
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: No Girls on the Internet, which with Bridget Todd, I
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: work on that show as well as well as a
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: couple of other Avenue one coming out I'll probably be
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: talking about next time I'm on here, but as of
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: right now, I don't have any updates, but yeah, yeah,
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: find me, find me on Twitter and Instagram. I'm not
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: on Twitter very much anymore because like who is, but
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: you know I'm holding I'm holding on till.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: Yes, well yeah, well more excuse for you to come
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: back and you can talk about course your upcoming show.
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, anytime. Love being on the show. So fun.
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: We love having you.
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: So that's so glad.
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: Well listeners. If you would like to find us on
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: the internet, you can emails. Stepan email stuff at iHeartMedia
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: dot com. You can find us on Twitter at mom
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: Stuff podcast, or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff on
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: Have you told you We have a tea public store
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: with merchandise. We have a book you can preorder. It
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: is that stuff you should read books dot com. We
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: have an audiobook. I have a physical form of the book.
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: Thanks as always to us. You've producer Christina, our executive
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: producer Maya and Joey who is here and thanks to
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: you for listening. Stefan, the virtual news production of iHeart Radio.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: For more podcasts on my heart Radio, you can check
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: out the ihart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.