0:05

Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome

0:07

to Steph. I've never told your productive I heart radio.

0:18

Today we are once again joined

0:21

by our friend and co worker,

0:23

Bridget Todd. Thank you so much

0:26

for being here, Bridget, It's always a delight, always

0:28

a delight for me. I'm so happy to be back. Yes,

0:31

And we were talking before

0:34

this about how important

0:37

the topic that you brought to us today is and how much we've

0:39

been wanting to talk about it, and because I can't help

0:42

myself, I immediately thought

0:44

about there's a new genre

0:47

of horror movies about this very

0:49

thing, and I actually find

0:52

them quite disturbing because there's

0:54

a sense of the like because

0:56

we're talking about online harassment today, and

1:00

these horror movies has this sense of like

1:02

you can't control

1:06

what happens on

1:08

the internet, and that like there's this sinister

1:11

force that is going

1:13

to wreck your life and

1:16

no one takes you seriously, which is how

1:18

a lot of horror movies do go, especially when you're

1:20

talking about women of like, you know, raising the alarm

1:23

there's a problem here, and people are like, I

1:25

don't see the problem or get over it,

1:28

but I do. That was one of the

1:30

first things when you sent

1:33

this topic to us, and that was where my brain

1:35

went. It's like, oh, yeah, I've seen these horror

1:37

movies and they actually legitimately

1:39

freaked me out. Well, I saw that movie friended,

1:42

or maybe it's called unfriended. Unfriended,

1:44

it's unfriended. Where's my nefarious

1:47

stuff happening on the computer on

1:49

the internet and you cannot control

1:52

or escape it. That movie scared the crap that. I mean.

1:54

It's funny that you bring this up because it is a really interesting

1:56

parallel. I've never thought about before sort

1:59

of how the horror movies really

2:02

capitalize on this phenomenon

2:05

that a lot of women online experience where it's

2:07

something bad is happening online and no one

2:09

is taking me seriously, um,

2:12

and it can really get out of control. I hadn't sort have

2:14

thought about how films have really captured

2:16

that. Yeah, and I

2:19

was thinking on the ones

2:21

that I've seen, which admittedly is only you know,

2:23

a handful maybe ten. I

2:26

love horror movies and they are almost

2:28

always I can't think of an exception,

2:31

a woman at the heart of it who

2:34

just gets harassed

2:36

and her entire life ruined and no

2:38

one believes her. Um

2:41

and we'll like go to authorities

2:43

or even go to like in some cases maybe

2:47

a professor or like a mentor and

2:49

they're like, uh, don't

2:51

really believe you. That can't be that big

2:53

of a problem. Get

2:56

over it. And because

2:58

as we've we've spoken about horror

3:00

is a great reflection of

3:03

current societal fears,

3:06

and so it's interesting to me that we do see

3:08

more and more of those types of movies. But

3:11

we're not actually talking about the

3:13

horror movie aspect today. We're talking

3:16

about real life

3:18

instances of online

3:20

harassment with women and marginalized

3:23

communities. Yes, that's right, although

3:25

I do I do agree that like movies

3:28

and film do a great job of representing this,

3:30

but it is a really scary

3:32

topic. It's great fodder for a horror movie.

3:35

You know, we have seen this wave of women facing

3:37

harassment online for just doing

3:39

their jobs in some cases like journalists, or

3:42

just for existing online at all.

3:44

And I want to be very clear that I don't

3:46

want to scare anyone. This is a can

3:48

be kind of a heavy topic. Hopefully it won't be

3:50

too heavy during this conversation, but you

3:53

know, it is, it is a reality,

3:55

and so I think that as women as queer folks,

3:58

as trans folks, as marginalized people. The

4:00

Internet is rightfully our domain,

4:02

right, Like, that's the main thing that I want to drive home.

4:05

We have been so instrumental in

4:07

setting up the Internet as it exists today,

4:09

So it is our domain, and it's our right

4:12

then to show up or not show

4:14

up online however we please. And so I

4:16

think that all of us should show up as

4:18

our full, colorful, wonderful selves

4:21

online, but we should still acknowledge

4:23

some of the risks that it involves and

4:26

some practical steps that we can take to keep

4:28

ourselves safe online while we're saying all

4:30

the things that we want to say and showing up in the ways that

4:32

we want to show up. And so it's it can

4:34

be tough because let's keep it real.

4:37

Like, nobody likes talking about harassment.

4:39

When I was doing research on this, almost

4:41

every woman I spoke to was like, Oh, I don't really like

4:43

talking about it because people think you're

4:46

a whiner. People are like, oh, you know, you're

4:48

taking it too seriously, like, oh,

4:50

you know, what, a baby grow up. But that

4:53

silence, that that that kind

4:55

of expectation that we just suck it

4:58

up and and you know, deal with it and not

5:00

speak up about it is meeting that we're all kind

5:02

of suffering in silence alone. And

5:04

so as much as it's a drag to talk

5:06

about, we should definitely be talking about

5:08

it. Yeah, And I

5:10

think when

5:13

we've talked about like, I

5:15

know, this is a bigger conversation for a separate

5:17

episode, but when people, you know, shout that First Amendment

5:19

thing, and I always remember this

5:21

argument I read that will imagine

5:24

that you're somebody trying to speak and there's a thousand

5:26

other voices yelling at you, trying to shut

5:28

you up. And then what

5:31

what we're silencing people? As you said,

5:34

and just the idea

5:36

that, as you said many times, Bridget

5:38

when you've been on here, that the Internet

5:40

is real life, Like this is

5:42

not just something that you can dismiss

5:45

or suck it up and get over it. It impacts

5:48

your every day and it

5:51

can be very hurtful and

5:53

very scary. And recently

5:55

we've seen some pretty high profile cases

5:58

of women being

6:01

forced off social media exactly.

6:04

I mean, that's exactly what you saw with Christie Teagan.

6:06

Christie Teagan she left Twitter in March.

6:08

She said that the platform no longer

6:10

served her positively. And this was a

6:12

big deal for a few reasons. First of all, Christie

6:14

Takan people used to call her like the

6:17

mayor of Twitter. She was such a prolific user.

6:19

If you use Twitter, you definitely probably saw

6:21

her viral tweet. She was very funny,

6:24

and she also was pretty embedded

6:26

in Twitter. You know, Twitter as a

6:28

company. She spoke at their one of their

6:30

company events. You know, she was a pretty buddy buddy

6:33

with them. And so the fact that she

6:35

was this powerful power user

6:37

who was so prolific on the platform,

6:40

and that she didn't feel like the platform,

6:42

you know, really served her positively,

6:45

really indicates the scope of the problem.

6:47

Right, this is probably their most high profile v

6:49

I P user and that user was

6:52

not able to have a positive experience on

6:54

the platform and had to leave that platform.

6:56

For me, that really indicates that something

6:58

is broken with your platform. And

7:01

to be clear, the kind of harassment that she was

7:03

facing, it's not just people being

7:05

like, oh, I don't like your cookbook, or

7:07

oh this joke is not funny. It

7:09

was pretty intense. She had Q and on

7:11

followers constantly connecting her to

7:14

baseless allegations of child abuse, as they

7:16

do um and this is especially awful considering

7:18

that she was publicly dealing

7:20

with a miscarriage that she talked about on Twitter,

7:23

So pretty abhorrent behavior,

7:26

you know, And I think there's

7:28

a pretty big difference between criticism

7:31

of someone who's a public figure or a celebrity and

7:33

the kind of harassment that she faces

7:35

that frankly nobody deserves, right.

7:38

I know, there was a definitely back and forth of the

7:40

damned if you do, damn DV you don't with

7:43

her, whether it's because she did want

7:45

to share the tragedies she went through

7:47

as a way of saying you're not the only one

7:50

you know and showing her heartbreak being very

7:52

honest, to being too public, that

7:54

that that's being too public, or she's doing this for sympathy,

7:56

garnering sympathy versus you know, you're

7:58

not saying enough. It was too weird back and forth

8:01

of damned she did, damned that she didn't.

8:04

And it's also kind of the same difference that there

8:06

were other people

8:09

in here that were being I guess the best

8:11

word, they were sicking people, all the other

8:13

people and it's amazing, I know, just like the

8:15

journalists who was the intern her

8:18

first article and it really just was. We

8:20

investigated this. Myself and two other reporters

8:23

investigated this. Here's the article. I'm so

8:25

proud to someone going after

8:27

her and making her target to the amount

8:29

of harassment that she went through. And she wasn't

8:31

even saying anything on Twitter, but the amount

8:34

of vitrol and harrassment she got

8:36

was unreal. To be honest

8:38

with you, that specific incident was what

8:41

prompted me to do an episode

8:43

of my own podcast, Our No Girls on the Internet, about

8:45

harassment. So the person that you're talking about

8:47

Brenna Smith, she was an intern at the USA. Today

8:49

she tweeted that she had her first byline on

8:52

a story about how defendants

8:54

in the Capital Insurrection were using

8:57

all of these sort of backdoor approaches to crowd

8:59

fund for their defense. And it was a fairly

9:01

like standard piece. It was not an opinion

9:03

piece or an op ed. It was a standard reported piece

9:06

about what's happening. It was a code Byeline,

9:08

her and another woman reporter

9:10

whose name escapes me, and then a white male

9:13

reporter will Careless. And so she tweeted,

9:15

so so happy about her first Byeline as

9:17

an intern. And I think it was Glenn

9:19

Greenwald who retweeted it to his millions

9:22

of followers to basically say

9:25

that she should be ashamed of herself,

9:27

you know, just a really mean tweet.

9:30

And to be clear, if he had a problem

9:32

with that article, there is a way to talk

9:34

about the problems that you have with

9:37

a piece that that a journalist writes in

9:39

a way that is not harassment. It's so it's

9:41

so different to retweet

9:44

an intern, you know, the power

9:46

and balance alone there, I think is worth

9:48

noting. It's so different to amplify

9:53

you're really harsh personal

9:56

swipe at somebody who really doesn't

9:58

have a lot of power. And yeah,

10:00

that when I saw that, it kind of broke my heart because

10:03

I remember what it was like to be an intern.

10:05

I remember what it was like to have to

10:07

feel like you didn't know what you were doing and they

10:09

have people not take you seriously, and

10:12

that would have broken me. And in

10:14

her credit, I was so happy to see so many

10:16

reporters, including folks like Ronan Pharaoh,

10:19

you know, supporting her and being like great job,

10:21

like good work, welcome to the journalism club, because

10:24

it would have really really hurt

10:26

me if a high profile

10:29

reporter with a big platform amplified

10:33

this kind of attack. Against me because they

10:35

didn't like something that I wrote. And I'm so glad that you brought

10:37

that up, because that was such a I

10:40

don't know why, but it really that incident

10:42

really stopped with me, and really this made me want

10:44

to talk about harassment and sort

10:46

of point out all of the things that women

10:49

online are putting up with that we just didn't have

10:51

to. We shouldn't have to put up with this to do our jobs.

10:54

It definitely spoke to the fact that they weren't

10:56

criticizing her work. They just were coming after

10:58

her. They half the people had no idea why they

11:00

were mad other than oh, you're

11:03

calling us who were in support

11:05

of the insurrection, which, by the way, yeah, we should

11:07

be criticizing you a b in

11:10

something bad and you said, we're doing something bad. And all

11:12

she really did was investigative journalism

11:14

where they went down like different money

11:16

trails to see what was happening in the story,

11:19

and then they were harassing her looks harassing

11:21

just her being a woman being around. The amount

11:24

of just hate and anger that came

11:26

onto her, which made no sense because it was not of

11:28

any critique to our work. It literally

11:30

was just you, I don't like you. You, you're

11:33

awful person. Of course, we're saying this nicely

11:35

as what was on there, because we know this whole

11:38

range of harassment that happens, especially

11:40

when it comes to the threats and the death threats that

11:43

happened for people who are

11:45

just doing their job, and essentially her

11:47

doing her first piece, really

11:49

being proud of the fact that she got something out there

11:52

and doing something that was investigative, which seemed

11:54

fairly straightforward as

11:57

a piece like it just unbelievable. Yeah,

11:59

it was really upsetting to see. And she's not

12:01

alone. Unfortunately. According to a survey

12:04

from the United Nations Educational, Scientific,

12:06

and Cultural Organization, seventies

12:08

three percent of women journalists that they surveyed

12:11

say they have experienced online violence

12:13

and the course of their work. And then it goes even

12:15

further because of those

12:17

women journalists who participated in this survey

12:20

say they have been attacked offline in

12:22

connection with online violence targeting

12:24

them. So absolutely right, I am so

12:27

sad to report that that what happened with her is

12:29

not an isolated experience and that

12:31

for so many women journalists

12:33

that online harassment, that that wave

12:36

of online hate is then connected

12:38

to offline, real

12:41

world attacks or offline threats,

12:43

and so it really is something that is

12:45

not just happening online, even though it's

12:47

very tempting to think that it is something that

12:49

has a real world impact, both in the kind

12:52

of silence saying that Annie was talking about

12:54

earlier and in the fact that this is

12:56

like people showing up at your house, people calling

12:58

your parents, things that are very you know,

13:00

very much happening in in

13:03

your real world. I

13:18

know I've spoken about this before on the show, but I

13:22

when I was a producer on this show,

13:25

I got docked and I didn't have

13:28

a big presence online,

13:30

and also like it wasn't really advertised

13:33

that I was on as

13:36

part of the show, and I just remember

13:38

it being so shocking and feeling

13:40

like, well, how did they

13:43

find me? And it was very

13:46

very scary, and we

13:48

had to hire security at our company,

13:50

we had to put these systems

13:53

like software in place, and

13:55

being like the source of that just made

13:57

me feel really small, like

14:00

and it was what blows my mind

14:03

And this shouldn't matter at all, but it does to me that

14:05

it was a really, to me not super

14:08

controversial topic of the things we've discussed

14:10

so much, like really

14:13

not it was making fun of that like

14:15

hot crazy Matrix video, and

14:19

just that the whole idea of

14:23

you don't even have to be somebody that's

14:25

like famous or has a big following

14:28

for this to happen to you, which

14:30

is very frightening. I don't know, bridget

14:33

if you want to speak about have you experienced

14:35

any harassment online?

14:38

Yeah? I mean I I first of all, I'm so sorry

14:40

to hear what you went through, and I'm sorry to

14:42

hear that it sounds like it was a really

14:44

isolating experience. I think that's the

14:47

hallmark of so many folks that I talked to who

14:49

have experienced that. Me. I mean, I've gotten

14:51

my fair share of like

14:54

sexist, gross racist responses.

14:58

You know, I once had a situation, Um,

15:00

I guess I would say this at the beginning

15:03

of the Trump administration, and

15:05

like the Trump campaign, I guess the Trump era,

15:08

I felt like online discourse

15:10

had gotten a lot more

15:12

heated, and so I noticed, you

15:15

know, more people in my mention

15:17

saying racist things or or using racial

15:19

slurs and that kind of thing. Only once

15:22

in my life has harassment ever

15:24

gotten to the point where I needed to involve like authorities.

15:27

And this was kind of like you, this was

15:29

when I was first starting out in my career, I

15:32

was not someone who had any kind

15:34

of big public profile. I think I had like maybe

15:37

I think I was on Twitter and had maybe a hand a

15:40

couple of handful of followers. I don't think I had Instagram.

15:42

You know. I was not someone who was like a public

15:45

figure at all, and similar

15:47

to you, the thing that I was writing about

15:49

was fairly mild. I remember

15:52

very clearly. It was this woman and

15:54

Nita Sarchiesian, who at the time

15:56

was making this video series about

15:59

tropes and video games, and so, lord

16:01

no, she gets a whole hell of

16:03

a lot of harassment that she does not deserve. It. It is

16:05

wild to hear what happens to her. But

16:08

I was just giving a pretty

16:11

fact based, like aggregation of

16:13

one of her videos. So it wasn't even like I was like any

16:16

of the Starkesian wrote this thing and it

16:18

was so great and I really agreed. It was just like, here's

16:20

what she says. And from that,

16:23

somebody reached out to me and basically

16:25

indicated that they knew where

16:27

I lived. And I don't want to say too much, but

16:29

the way that they were framed at I was like, oh, this person actually

16:32

somehow does know where I live, Like he use

16:34

such specific language to talk about where

16:36

where I used to live. That like, it occurred

16:39

to me that he did know where I

16:41

lived. And again it was one

16:43

of those things where I thought, how could anyone find this

16:45

out about me? Why would anyone to find this out about

16:47

me? I'm such a nobody. But that is so

16:51

so important for folks to understand. You don't

16:53

have to be Chrissy Tiguan or

16:55

you know, a high profile journalist

16:58

or someone who talks a lot social

17:00

media or has a bit following for someone

17:02

to just decide that they want to harass you. And

17:04

that's why it's so important to do what we can to

17:07

make it harder for folks who would like

17:09

to weaponize any kind of information that's out

17:11

there about you to do that, because it

17:13

can happen. You know, you don't have to be high profile

17:16

for the staff, and you could really happen to anybody.

17:18

Yes, And and it

17:20

is it's so upsetting going back to that

17:23

like silencing thing, and just I

17:26

know I've I've said before about how I stopped

17:28

online gaming because because of this very thing

17:31

and just those fears

17:35

of well, I guess

17:37

it's safer if I don't say anything at all, which is

17:39

the worst. So

17:42

do you have some steps people

17:44

can take two hopefully

17:49

prevent this at least

17:51

a little bit. Absolutely, So I

17:53

have to give a shout out to journalists Liz

17:56

Lens for this helpful list. She

17:58

was a guest on my podcast earlier this week. She

18:01

really kind of gave me a little crash course

18:04

in how we can prevent information

18:06

from being weaponized against us by online

18:09

harassers, and so I want to thank her so

18:11

much for providing this. She's she's from the Midwest.

18:13

She calls herself a practical Midwest mom,

18:15

and so these are such some practical tips that we

18:17

can all use. So the first one that she said

18:19

was to be really choosy about

18:22

what you decide to post on social media,

18:24

specifically Instagram. Uh. Liz herself

18:26

as a single mom, and she says that she never post

18:28

pictures of her kids on Instagram because

18:30

she doesn't want their faces to be too

18:32

familiar or too recognizable to people

18:35

who would, you know, want to harass her.

18:38

And like, just in general with Instagram,

18:41

it can you would be surprised what kind of things

18:43

can be sort of like taken out of context, what kind

18:45

of images can be taken out of context to smear you

18:48

or harass you, And so I know that

18:50

kind of sucks. It's something that I do as

18:52

well, Like people always say like, oh,

18:54

Bridget, like are you in a relationship,

18:56

what's your what's your family like? Because I

18:59

rarely ever post things about my romantic

19:02

life, my personal life on social media

19:04

precisely because of that, you know, and

19:06

it does sucks. It's it sucks to feel

19:09

like you have to be a little bit guarded

19:11

about what you share on social media

19:14

because you don't want, you know, you

19:16

don't want people to to use it to weaponize you. Like

19:18

I see all my friends posting there Valentine's

19:20

posts of them in their boo and it's like, I don't

19:23

do that. But Liz suggests that this is something

19:25

that like really bums you out. If you're like, man,

19:27

I really want to be able to share

19:30

whatever I want to share, you could consider having

19:32

a private Instagram account with the kids sometimes

19:35

call offen sta, just for your approved

19:37

friends and family, and then a separate public Instagram

19:39

account where you're a little bit more guarded. And so that's

19:42

just the way if you're if you if you really feel compelled

19:44

to share things, but you don't want them to be going to be going

19:47

to a wide audience. That's one thing that you can do.

19:49

Another is something that I had never heard

19:51

of, which was signing up for a service called

19:54

delete me or some kind of other

19:56

service that scrubs your information from

19:58

the web. And so, as I said it earlier,

20:00

and as you said, Annie, like I was really surprised

20:02

that someone online was able to zero

20:05

in on where I lived, and I spent a lot of time

20:07

thinking like, how could that be? How could someone have my address?

20:10

Like how is this happening to me? Well, I

20:12

did not know this, but there are sites online that collect

20:15

and sell your personal data. And if you

20:17

sign up for a site like delete me or some kind

20:19

of other similar site that scrubs your data from the Internet,

20:22

that will make it a lot harder for folks

20:24

to find your personal information. And

20:26

Liz actually says that the most times when

20:28

harassmers were able to find their targets personal

20:30

information like their address with their phone number, it's

20:33

because of those kinds of sites that are just selling

20:35

your personal information to whoever is willing

20:37

to pay for it. And so you know, this is not a commercial

20:40

for delete Me. They have not paid me in any way,

20:42

but literally, after talking to Liz,

20:44

I signed up for it and I found thirty

20:46

five different sites that were selling my address,

20:49

my current address where I currently I'm sitting right

20:51

now online but not anymore so

20:54

HI for something like that. Boom.

20:58

Yeah, it doesn't help that things like a Facebook

21:00

has happened and sold five million people's

21:02

information either, exactly.

21:05

It's like when you think, when you put it in that

21:07

context, there are so many bad

21:10

actors out there making money

21:12

off of our information,

21:15

our data, right, Like, when you think about

21:17

it, it really is.

21:19

The picture is a taste terrifying. Yeah.

21:22

Another thing that she suggests, which is I also

21:24

do, is deleting your tweets. Harassers

21:27

love to take things that you've posted against

21:29

you, so she recommends that everybody

21:31

be deleting their tweets regularly, and

21:33

again, it sucks to do this. I have had

21:35

to delete some some of some tweets I was like very

21:38

proud of, or like jokes I thought were particularly

21:40

funny, even though I'm sure only I loved

21:42

them. But in the long run, it's so much

21:45

safer because I mean, think about every joke

21:47

that you've ever made on Twitter that didn't land,

21:49

or everything you've ever tweeted after a few glasses

21:51

of wine, and now think about

21:53

that being on Twitter forever than

21:55

anybody who is inclined to

21:58

can go back and dig and find and scrape

22:00

and find that joke you made after four glasses

22:03

of wine that you regret. Right, And so for

22:06

Liz, you know, she is this writer who

22:08

writes a lot about politics and extremism,

22:10

so she's often harassed. The thing that comes

22:12

up with her a lot is this joke

22:15

that she made after just a few drinks out with friends

22:17

about online dating, where she tweeted

22:20

a man on Tinder unmatched with me after

22:22

I told him I'm a journalist, what's he hiding?

22:25

And so obviously that's just a joke,

22:27

right, She's not, she's not, she didn't. It's

22:30

just it's just a joke that she made, you

22:32

know, about her experiences

22:34

dating as an online journalist. But to

22:37

this day, people who are harassing her

22:39

have screenshot at that joke. It's many years

22:41

old now, and they use it to fraudulently

22:44

claim or falsely claim that she docks

22:46

an innocent man because he wouldn't date her. This

22:48

was a joke people. She says that people

22:50

still ask her like, did you docs

22:53

an innocent man? And she was like, She's like no, I

22:55

was just I was just kidding around on Twitter, like come

22:57

on, And so yeah, it

23:00

really just goes to show how people

23:02

can take whatever you have to say really

23:04

wildly out of context and use it to

23:07

harass you, all right, or if

23:09

you were met Gates, yes maybe

23:11

evidence, Yes, absolutely,

23:14

Okay, keep going. So

23:17

you can go to tweet delete dot net.

23:19

It is a free service that you can use to regularly

23:21

delete your tweets without you even having to

23:23

do anything. And I really recommend it because again,

23:26

it makes it so that you don't have these

23:28

like you know, because you just just don't

23:31

know what thing someone's going to use to take

23:33

out of context to harass you. Look, I'm sure that when

23:35

Liz made that joke, she wasn't thinking that years

23:37

later people would still use it to falsely

23:39

claim that she's doxing people who don't want to date

23:41

her. So it can just be a good way to give

23:43

you that peace of mind where it

23:46

will make it a little bit harder for folks to

23:48

find information out there about you too then

23:50

use to harass you. Yeah, when you

23:52

said that tweet, it seems

23:54

such a like a straightforward joke. I wouldn't have thought

23:57

of how to use that as a wave of against

23:59

her. But yeah, now that you're say and I'm like, huh, okay,

24:02

okay, which is dumb because in my head

24:04

it was obviously a joke. But wow.

24:08

And yeah, we've definitely talked about delete me, because

24:10

we when we did a couple of episodes, including

24:13

about in Cells, we were so sure we

24:15

were we were holding our breath and going back and

24:17

forth about what we were going to say, about how we're

24:19

going to say it, and whether or not we were going to be attacked.

24:22

My partner at that time was like, please don't do this, Please

24:24

don't do this. You're gonna get dogs. You're not gonna get

24:26

you. And we did. We had that conversation, Okay,

24:28

we gonna do delete me, just in case we need

24:31

to check and see. Of course, I think

24:33

we've got a pretty great audience and fam who know

24:35

us enough to not use

24:37

that as how We're going to to show people

24:39

who they are. Essentially, I guess it's the best

24:42

way to say it. So we haven't gotten any

24:44

backlash, but that definitely was a concern, and

24:46

I hate that that has to be a concern

24:48

for us to even just talk about anything. We didn't

24:50

even say anything necessarily bad other than what

24:53

it was and what he has done and how it's impacted

24:56

women. But that alone seems

24:59

to be offense of in the nature of

25:01

your calling us out somehow, right, Yeah,

25:04

I mean, oh god, do I identify

25:06

with what you just said. Even in this episode

25:08

that I did about online harassment with Liz

25:11

last week, I didn't tweet about that episode.

25:13

It's the only episode I didn't

25:15

personally tweet about because of what you just said.

25:18

I don't advocate anybody living in fear,

25:20

and so I want to be very clear that I hope

25:22

I'm not making it. See Michael, this is so

25:24

scary, but it is hard, and it

25:27

sucks to have to be that mindful.

25:29

It sucks to have to have a sam

25:32

As a podcaster, you have to have a conversation

25:34

with your partner about what you

25:36

can and can't say, and what you should and shouldn't

25:39

say, and how to keep yourself safe if you say

25:41

X, y Z, just to do your job as

25:44

a podcaster, and I

25:46

find myself always equivocating and being like,

25:48

well, it's not even like I said anything. It's

25:50

not like I did something bad like

25:53

express an opinion like it was. It

25:55

was just a fact based account and even

25:57

that just seems like such a such

26:01

a like It just really makes me feel

26:03

as if I've internalized that I

26:06

need to really watch what I say

26:08

and that if I'm going to be talking about a handful

26:11

of subjects like in sales or harassment,

26:13

I need to make sure that I am not expressing

26:16

my opinions and I am just stating

26:18

verifiable facts and blah blah blah. In

26:20

the back of my mind, I'm always thinking, well,

26:23

I don't want to say the wrong thing. I don't want to get

26:25

on a radar of the wrong people. And that's

26:27

just it's it just sucks that this is

26:29

how we have to exist, right,

26:32

I mean, shoot, this could be a whole other episode

26:34

of how this is making it a backtrack for

26:36

women who have finally come on board being

26:39

able to be confident in their jobs

26:41

and being able to be confident in what they're

26:43

doing. And now it's not so much that we are

26:46

being man splained or you

26:48

know, talk down. It's so much more that we are

26:50

afraid physically afraid

26:53

of what the backlash will be, even

26:55

if it is just a factual conversation

26:57

that we're trying to have it. Because we are women

27:00

or we identify as women, we may

27:03

be targets in the story, whether it's because

27:05

some man really takes it personally that

27:08

we say this and this and this, the

27:10

A, B, C and D, whether it's hey, this

27:12

group is really really you know, not

27:14

great for women. They treat women not so

27:17

nicely. You know, stuff like that, white supremacy

27:19

is not a great thing. What how dare you? You

27:21

know, stuff like that where it seems obvious

27:24

in this day and age, But we've kind of backtracked

27:27

in living in fear

27:29

for our safety once again just by

27:31

saying something else where. You know, many

27:34

of men right now are talking about cancel culture, whether it's

27:36

because of the hashtag me too or all

27:38

of these things, are saying some stupid

27:40

stuff, say racist things and say,

27:42

oh, I'm being canceled. That's their

27:44

biggest fear half the time, where women

27:46

are truly being threatened with rape and death,

27:49

and it's a whole different level of Okay, how

27:51

do we combat this? Yeah, it is

27:54

terrifying, I mean it kind of reminds me of that joke

27:57

where men are afraid with their data

27:59

is going to be unattractive. Women are afraid

28:01

it's going to kill them. Right, it's it's it's

28:04

And again, I want to be very clear, and there's a difference

28:06

between legitimate criticism and response

28:08

and all of that. But when a man

28:10

puts his opinions out there, they're

28:12

not People don't respond by calling them

28:15

a whore or you know, a slur, or

28:17

saying they're gonna be raped or they're gonna kill their

28:19

kids. It's so different. And

28:22

I think that you hit the nail on the head, Sam,

28:25

and that we talk so much about cancel

28:27

culture and things like that,

28:30

we need to make room to talk about you

28:32

know, what happens when women

28:35

and other marginalized people are pushed from

28:38

these platforms because of this kind of

28:40

harassment and even just the threat of it. What happens

28:42

when you know, prolific gamers

28:45

like Annie just stop playing

28:47

games online because of the harassment,

28:50

right, Like, that is also a form of

28:52

silencing. That is also a speech issue.

28:54

And yet when we talk about these things, the

28:56

conversations around like cancel culture and that

28:59

kind of thing just dominate the conversation,

29:02

and we don't see the ways that an

29:05

entire generation of women, people of

29:07

color, and marginalized voices have been

29:09

silenced and pushed off of their platforms because

29:11

of harassment. And that is also something we should

29:13

be talking about. Man

29:29

with all these big platforms. Maybe

29:31

I'm wrong, but there seems to be no protection.

29:33

We've talked about the fact that Facebook already is

29:36

now under a new foundation of accusations

29:38

of the fact that they had the millions of people's information

29:40

have been hacked and this is not the first time that

29:43

that's happened to them. Um, we know that Twitter

29:45

is on a constant battle between hey, are

29:47

you going to stop this level of us? But what are

29:49

you going to do? As well as when

29:51

we talked about Twitch, what have they been doing for

29:54

women gamers who are being constantly harassed?

29:57

Is there not something more that they can do or is it just

29:59

literally a free for all? So I'm glad that you

30:01

asked this. There is so much they

30:03

can be doing, The question is do

30:06

they want to do it? I think, especially with

30:08

Facebook, part of my day job involves

30:10

trying to hold Facebook accountable. There is

30:12

so much they can be doing, and the question is do

30:15

they want to be doing it right? And speaking

30:17

of the Christy Teagan thing, Christy taken

30:20

made it very clear she was like, I don't blame

30:22

Twitter for me having to leave the platform. They're

30:25

like Twitter staffers worked with her

30:27

team to try to help her deal with

30:29

the harassment that she faced regularly,

30:32

and I'm sure they did. Chrissy Teakan is wealthy,

30:34

she's well connected, She's married to John Legend, she

30:37

is an a lister, and it doesn't surprise

30:39

me that Twitter was very helpful in trying

30:42

to help her handle this. But here's my thing. You

30:44

shouldn't have to be Chrissy Teagan to

30:47

get a tech platform. Two make

30:49

it so that you can use their platform

30:52

without facing this kind of intense harassment.

30:54

Right. A similar thing happened with Leslie

30:56

Jones from who used to be on SNL and was on in

30:59

the reboot of Ghostbus RS. The kind of racist,

31:01

sexist, disgusting, targeted

31:03

harassment that she got, she eventually

31:06

left Twitter. She deleted her Twitter account, and again

31:08

she was another prolific user and Jack

31:11

Norsey, the head of Twitter, personally

31:13

intervened to bring her back to the platform,

31:15

which I thought was great, but again you

31:17

shouldn't have to be famous to get

31:20

these big platforms to do

31:22

something. And bear in mind that a lot of the people

31:25

who work for these platforms they make so

31:27

much money. These platforms have so much money.

31:29

I refuse to believe that there's

31:31

nothing they can do. But oftentimes it

31:34

feels like we are just left alone to,

31:37

you know, get delete me and be

31:39

super careful about what we say and how we say it

31:41

to protect ourselves in absence of their

31:43

leadership. It is a total lack of leadership

31:46

on their part and we're all just

31:48

left kind of picking up the pieces. And it's horrible,

31:51

right, And it seems like it's growing up companies

31:53

like delete me and like the Twitter

31:55

site. They're getting money to do something

31:58

that shouldn't be a concerned begin with, to be be

32:00

a part of the social media platforms. And then

32:02

I guess another question just had a like sized

32:04

flight Clubhouse, which is a whole new format now

32:06

coming back through. I guess it's kind of a resurgence

32:09

of the old platforms

32:12

of social media however you want to say it, But

32:14

what does securing ourselves look like before

32:17

we even jump into those types of platforms.

32:20

Well, with Clubhouse, that's a really good question.

32:22

A lot of folks are interested in it. I would

32:24

say the number one thing to remember about Clubhouse is,

32:27

even though the app really goes out of its way

32:29

to be like you don't record conversations, your

32:32

conversations are being recorded like that, like that's

32:34

just point blank end of sentence. And so just

32:37

know that whatever you say on

32:40

Clubhouse, someone is probably recording

32:42

it somewhere. And I think that that's

32:44

something that I've seen with Clubhouse. I think because

32:47

and so propos who don't know Clubhouse is this? I

32:49

think it's still an invite only social

32:51

media app that is audio and conversation

32:54

based. So basically you join and

32:56

you join a room, and it tests people's voices

32:58

in real time, and one of are big rules

33:01

is no recording, even though it does get recorded.

33:04

And so I think because of the ephemeral

33:06

nature of an app where the

33:09

interactions you have are just voice, I

33:12

think that it can incite

33:14

people to say wilder stuff

33:16

and and to behave worse

33:19

than they would in a written medium

33:21

where there's going to be some record of it. And you

33:23

know, I've seen, if

33:25

I'm being honest, I was in a Clubhouse of room

33:27

with a A list celebrity. I'm

33:29

not gonna say her name, but she's someone

33:32

who you might know where she

33:34

was part of a harassment

33:37

campaign against a doctor

33:39

for giving information about COVID right

33:42

and like it was. When I watched it, a

33:44

part of me was like, I cannot even believe what I

33:46

am listening to right now. And I think

33:48

the only reason why that happens is because

33:50

people they feel bolder

33:53

or emboldened to behave like

33:55

that, because it's clubhouse and the whole

33:57

I think the vibe is like, oh, you can sort of get wild

33:59

and needs rooms late at night, and there's no there's no paper

34:01

trail of it. But I think you

34:04

know, what it comes down to for me is that on

34:07

any kind of social media app or really anything

34:10

online, there needs to be very

34:12

clear policies around what is

34:15

tolerated and what's not tolerated. Otherwise

34:18

stuff just gets wild and it's just the wild wild

34:20

West, and people are being harassed and bullied

34:23

and miss and disinformation is spreading and it

34:25

can really be a free for all. So if there's

34:27

one thing I know about technology is that if you don't

34:29

have from the onset very clear and

34:31

specific and explicit policies

34:34

around this kind of thing. People will just do whatever,

34:36

and it'll be out of your control if you don't, if you don't,

34:38

if you don't say right out of the gate,

34:41

you know, no white supremacists allowed.

34:43

White supremacists will find it, and

34:46

they did. But I found it interesting because your

34:48

case specifically, I don't have clubhouses

34:50

an iPhone thing and DR four I don't

34:53

have iPhone and so therefore I can't

34:55

get an invite. I feel very I don't feel sad beside

34:57

at the same time, but

35:00

that is that actually bled into Twitter, and I know exactly

35:02

what you're talking about, and I know the level of harassment

35:05

that the doctor went through because

35:07

of that, and no one took responsibility

35:09

because they literally like it was it

35:11

was a social media platform where that no one really takes

35:14

seriously and that people did, and

35:17

so those who allowed for that kind

35:19

of harassment happened never acknowledge

35:21

it as being a problem, which is again the

35:23

problem exactly.

35:26

And yeah, clubhouse, you know it's not

35:28

accessible for people who don't use iPhones. It's

35:31

also not accessible just in general, like there's

35:33

no like for an app that is

35:36

being used by so many tech

35:38

and silicon Valley influencers. There's no captioning

35:40

for folks who need captions, Like it's so it's

35:43

wild to me that an app that is so not accessible.

35:47

It's like such a big part of the conversation right

35:49

now. I know Instagram

35:52

is trying to do something similar to it. Oh

35:54

yeah, I'm sure. I think Twitter has spaces

35:56

now, like it's going to become the

35:59

new the new ibe. I feel that a lot of

36:01

platforms are are trying to adopt because

36:03

that's how things are with Chach. You know, that's

36:06

an interesting point

36:08

because a lot of what we've been talking about is

36:11

how the onus is on women and marginalize

36:13

people to sort

36:15

of put up with our deal with harassment

36:18

that is almost expected, and when

36:20

these new apps or

36:23

social media platforms come out, like I remember when

36:25

Snapchat came out and people joked about

36:27

how it was like dick Roulette, you're gonna and

36:29

that was just the thing, and

36:33

and it's wild to me, Like we've

36:35

talked before about how women do face

36:38

things like revenge porn or being your

36:41

image manipulated and passed

36:44

on and then sent to your family

36:46

or sent everywhere, and having that sort of

36:48

gendered aspect to this, and then also

36:52

I think it's changed. But for a while, like

36:55

Xbox Live had this whole thing of

36:57

like how to deal with harrassment online? And

37:00

you know, I had a couple of bullet points, but the final bullet point

37:02

was if it gets too bad, leave It's

37:05

like, I

37:08

mean, think about that. Their official

37:10

guidance was if you can't

37:13

take the heat, get out of the kitchen. Like

37:15

that, Like that really tells you all you

37:17

need to know about where they

37:19

put the onus and the burden and the responsibility.

37:22

Certainly not the people who are

37:25

paid very handsomely to develop

37:27

Xbox Live platforms. No, no,

37:29

if you don't like it, you can just leave. That

37:32

should not be what we're telling a generation

37:34

of people who want to show up

37:36

and use their voices and take up space online.

37:39

And to the fact that social media has

37:42

become so huge that if you're not a part

37:44

of it, there are big aspects of job

37:46

requirements that you're going to miss out out like

37:49

that, just the fact that you have to be savvy

37:51

with some of these platforms, and and the

37:54

fact that oh, well you can't take it because you're

37:56

a woman, maybe you shouldn't do this job is kind

37:58

of that push and pull, which is kind

38:00

of like, this is absurd, But I didn't want to ask

38:02

because I'm not I'm not sure. We've talked about

38:04

a few examples of people being harassed. Have

38:07

we seen examples where they kind of came up on top

38:10

even through all of that harassment, or

38:12

maybe when we're a platform actually did something

38:14

good outside of Leslie Jones. Yeah, I mean,

38:16

I I think that Leslie Jones is

38:18

a good example. I can't think about a time where

38:22

someone was harassed and they sort of had

38:24

the last laugh. But I will say this and

38:26

that a lot of situations

38:29

that you're seeing right now, where particularly women

38:31

journalists are being harassed. The thing that gives

38:33

me a lot of hope is I

38:35

think that we're seeing a community come together

38:38

to be like that is not cool. And for me, that

38:41

really illustrates that kind of culture shift

38:43

because I think a few years ago that wouldn't have happened.

38:45

So folks like um Rachel Abrahams

38:47

at the New York Times, she did this critical report

38:49

on the far right, you know, conspiracy

38:51

peddling cable news network one American News,

38:54

and after she did that report, they

38:56

put her personal phone number and

38:58

email address her personal self phone number and

39:00

email address on television and

39:03

encourage their viewers, many of whom

39:05

are to say like fringe

39:07

types, to reach out to her. They said,

39:10

we encourage our viewers to stand up to

39:12

the intimidation by the left and feel free

39:14

to reach out to this Time's writer. Now, I

39:16

think if that had happened a couple of years ago, and

39:19

The Times was getting lots and lots

39:21

of angry calls about this report, it

39:24

wouldn't be shocking to make The Times fired

39:26

her, suspended her, or just

39:28

did nothing let her deal with this on her own.

39:31

But The Times put out a statement supporting

39:33

her and calling out what happened. And

39:35

so I think that when we see these cases

39:38

of outlets, an institution sticking up

39:40

for their reporters who are the targets of this kind of harassment,

39:43

and communities, it's like regular

39:45

people online being like, this isn't cool.

39:47

We see what's happening. This is harassment and you should

39:49

be ashamed of yourself. I think that's

39:51

the only thing I can say is kind

39:54

of people who are the targets of this kind of

39:56

harassment getting through it. It really

39:58

does take a community, an

40:00

institutional like response

40:03

that is a united front. And I also

40:05

just wanted to say something. You know, Sam,

40:07

you you brought up like the idea that when

40:10

companies like Xbox are just like, oh well, you

40:12

should just get off these platforms if it gets

40:14

too bad. I wish

40:16

I could get off Twitter, right, And if

40:19

I were wealthy, I would

40:21

never be on Twitter argue

40:23

with people like come on, you know. The reason

40:26

the thing that keeps me there is that the

40:28

sad reality is for a lot of the kind of work

40:31

that I do and a lot of people that I know, do you

40:33

need to have a social media presence? Right? I

40:36

once had a conversation with someone because I wanted

40:38

to write a book, and the first thing they asked me was how many

40:40

Twitter followers do you have? You know? And so and

40:42

then think it's especially hard for folks who

40:44

are otherwise marginalized

40:47

or have a harder time getting a platform, because social

40:49

media can be a way that you

40:51

can get opportunities that you wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

40:53

And so it's this real kind

40:56

of catch twenty two of like, I don't

40:58

really enjoy being on Twitter anymore,

41:01

but I feel like I have to be there because I know

41:03

that it can be kind of validating

41:07

for my professional work. And I need

41:09

that validation because you know, I

41:11

don't work for the New York Times

41:13

or work with Harvard or that kind of thing. And so

41:16

you know, for a lot of us, we need that validation where we can

41:18

get it. But I not enjoy spending

41:20

time on Twitter a lot of the times. It can

41:23

be a real unpleasant

41:25

experience, but it's

41:27

one that I feel like I I unfortunately

41:29

sometimes need to be there to get

41:32

that kind of validation. I mean, it's almost like a

41:34

currency is a part of your resume. Now, That's that's

41:36

what exactly what I'm saying. Like it would

41:38

be great if we weren't so dependent,

41:40

but it's becomes such a dependent part of our

41:43

careers and our livelihoods that

41:45

it's hard not to just like be having to have the

41:48

Internet in order to work. The likelihood

41:50

of you being successful without having that type of connection

41:53

is is not You're

41:55

not going to be able to proceed or move on

41:57

and move forward, and you need to have that type

41:59

of experience. Uh, And

42:01

you're right, And it's amazing the

42:04

level of what that blue check mark means.

42:06

You know, it is this whole like validating

42:09

whether or not not because you want it or

42:11

because you have to have it, but because you need

42:14

it for your career. Yeah,

42:16

and to be taken seriously. And it's such an absurd

42:19

idea, but that's how far we become

42:21

involved in the social media world. And that's

42:23

also why having types of harassment

42:26

like this needs to be taken seriously. But people don't

42:28

want to because they don't want to take it seriously.

42:31

But you can't walk away

42:33

from that because it's already been established as a

42:35

part of our world culture.

42:39

Yeah. And I think back in the early days

42:41

of our company, I had to respond

42:44

to every YouTube comment and

42:46

I legitimately went to my boss and

42:48

said, I think this qualifies the sexual

42:50

harassment and we had to like

42:52

sit down and talk about the legality of if you're

42:55

going to make me respond to these

42:57

comments that are awful, like,

43:00

is that legal? And I think that's the conversation

43:03

we're going to have to continue to have, especially

43:05

if it's a part of your job requirement. And I

43:07

think that the whole idea

43:09

bridget that, you know, I you

43:13

find Twitter to be often a

43:16

terrible experience. That should say

43:19

something as as someone who

43:21

developed a platform. If people were

43:23

telling me I actually

43:25

really dread your platform.

43:29

I just feel like that's you've got to

43:31

think about that. Oh yeah, And I want

43:34

to be clear that I actually believe

43:36

that, particularly for Twitter, that

43:39

thing of not enjoying

43:41

being there, I think that is baked into

43:43

Twitter's functionality because of the

43:46

way that the algorithm works, things that you

43:48

say that are in inflammatory get

43:50

much more traction than things that you say that are

43:52

not inflammatory. You know, things that you say

43:54

that are untrue get

43:57

much more traction than things that you say that are true.

44:00

And I think that Twitter, because of the way

44:02

that the algorithm works, I think

44:04

it amplifies inflammatory

44:07

takes, mean tweets, not

44:09

even things that maybe qualify as harassment,

44:12

but like things that are Yeah,

44:14

inflammatory, I guess it's the only word I can think of for

44:16

it. And I think when you are

44:18

on a platform where the content that you're

44:20

being surfaced most often is content

44:23

that is inflammatory or highly

44:25

charged or negative, and then the content

44:28

that is positive or thoughtful

44:30

or nuanced you're seeing less of. It's

44:32

no wonder that so many people report

44:35

Twitter, you know, not feeling

44:37

good, you know. And I think, especially as we're with

44:39

COVID and the quarantine, it's like we're on

44:42

social media so much more, and

44:44

we're all exhausted and stressed

44:46

and anxious and just like not being our best selves.

44:49

And I think it is a recipe for it just

44:51

not being a very good user experience. And it's

44:53

a user experience that is marked by

44:56

bad faith, criticism, and inflammatory

45:00

contents. And that's how I feel when I'm on Twitter, to

45:02

be honest with you, It's like I see things that

45:04

bummed me out and it just

45:06

makes me so sad that that

45:10

that is the driving, the

45:12

driving feeling of this kind of discourse.

45:15

And I remember the days when Twitter used to feel

45:17

hilarious, like the early days

45:19

of Black Twitter. Something would happen

45:21

and we will be laughing about stuff for weeks.

45:24

It was so much fun. Or when

45:26

like a bad movie was premiering on Lifetime

45:29

and we're all going to watch it as a family and make fun

45:31

of it. We used to have a blast.

45:34

And I feel like those days are gone, and they

45:36

have been replaced with conversations

45:38

that are tedious at best and

45:40

like really harmful at worst. And

45:44

this the days where I just watch a mascot who fell

45:47

over and kick get back up. Yes, don't.

45:52

Well, I

45:55

know we've covered some ground in this one. But

45:57

did you I know there were some other examples

46:00

bought of, like high profile examples of

46:02

online harassment. Do you want to talk about those? There's

46:05

so there's two. I want to mention the Washington Post,

46:07

Sung Min Kim so during

46:10

the Senate confirmation hearing for near A Tandon

46:12

near A Tannon was tapped by the Biden administration

46:14

to leave the Office of Budget and Management.

46:17

Tandon's harsh, critical tweets were

46:19

cited as the reason why some Republican senators

46:21

would not vote to confirm her. Now, this is

46:23

its own complicated gender story

46:25

on its on its own, but like that's a topic

46:28

for another episode. But Sung Min Kim,

46:30

who is this journalist? She was interviewing

46:33

Senator Lisa Murkowski about Tandon's

46:35

tweets, and Senator Murkowski said that

46:37

she had not seen them, and so she on

46:39

her cell phone showed Senator Mikowski

46:42

some of these tweets to to to get her comment.

46:44

Now, this is a completely

46:46

standard process for journalists, like

46:49

nothing on nothing unusual or an ethical

46:51

happened. But she was photographed

46:53

showing Senator of Makowski this tweet, and

46:56

people make it seem like she had done, you

46:58

know something on the active color something, you

47:00

know, something bad, and she was like really

47:03

harshly, harshly harassed for

47:05

this. And I have to say the people who were

47:07

doing a lot of the harassing were folks

47:09

on the left, folks who were like, oh, like, you're

47:12

getting in the way of Biden having his his person

47:14

confirmed. How dare you? And so it was pretty

47:17

harsh to see that. And I also want to make sure

47:19

that it's good that you know this journalist, she's

47:21

Asian American, and we know that women of color

47:24

it's harder for us when we face online harassment.

47:26

According to an Amnesty International report,

47:28

black women were most at risk, with the

47:31

study determining that were eighty four percent more

47:33

likely than white women to experience abuse on Twitter.

47:35

Latin next women were eighty one percent more likely,

47:37

and Asian women were seventy percent more likely.

47:40

And so this stuff is always worse when you're

47:42

marginalized. Like I felt

47:44

so bad seeing this person just being harassed

47:47

in this very harsh charged way just

47:49

for doing her job, you know. And

47:51

I also wanted to point out the New York Times

47:53

as Taylor Lawrens, who uh Sam I think

47:56

mentioned earlier that's a situation

47:58

where it really it's

48:00

just something where it's like, if it was happening to me, I

48:02

would be I don't even know what I would be doing.

48:04

I would be so I would be so hurt. For

48:07

International Women's Day back in March,

48:09

Taylor Lawrence tweeted, for International

48:11

Women's Day, please consider supporting women and during

48:13

online harassment. It's not an exaggeration

48:16

to say harassment and smear campaigns and I had faced

48:18

over the past year have destroyed my life. No

48:20

wanted to have to go through this. And I

48:23

bet you can guess what happened next to Fox News as

48:25

Tucker Carlson used his huge platform

48:27

of four point thirty three million viewers,

48:30

literally the highest rated US cable

48:32

news TV program in history, he

48:34

spent two fold nights just making

48:36

fun of her. It wasn't even a news story.

48:39

It basically she didn't even report

48:41

anything. She was just said, this is my experience

48:44

as a woman who has faced online harassment,

48:46

you know, stick up for women for International Women's

48:49

Day. Just that one tweet, he

48:51

did two back to back nights

48:54

with segments just making fun

48:56

of her for, as he put it, pretending

48:58

to be oppressed, right, and so the

49:00

fact that he used

49:02

such a massive platform just to

49:05

crap on a woman for talking about her experience

49:07

is dealing with harassment. I think it just goes

49:10

to show that when we talk about

49:12

these things, people really

49:14

don't like it, and it can it. Really we need to

49:16

change that. We need to make it so that when we talk about

49:18

our experiences online and speak up about them,

49:21

we're not attacked. Further, that we're listened to and

49:23

supported, you know, And I think that's

49:26

kind of the the ultimate point that I want to

49:28

make in this episode, I guess, is that online

49:31

harassment is very real. If it

49:33

impacts you or hurts you or otherwise

49:35

makes you feel like you are not able to show

49:37

up as your full best self, that

49:40

is a completely valid way to feel. And

49:42

you shouldn't let people make you feel

49:44

like you're being a baby, or that you're whining, or that

49:46

you should just turn off the computer or just log

49:49

off. You know, if it if it gets

49:51

to you, you know, it is harmful. It is silencing,

49:54

and it's something that none of us should be dealing with. And

49:56

I just want to make that very clear that the kind of things

49:58

that these women are going through, it's just not a acceptible

50:00

right, and yeah, it was incredible just

50:03

to see the responses. It made no sense.

50:05

I was really like, who is this? Was she stand

50:07

up comedian? Before, right before I knew what was

50:10

going on, I was like, did she say something as a stand up

50:12

comedian, because you know, that's usually kind of the level

50:14

that people will go after something you said something offensive

50:16

in a joke. That's what I was like, maybe she did that.

50:19

And just realizing all she said was be nice,

50:25

that was enough to elicit all of this hate,

50:27

just because I was just kind of dumbfounded

50:30

in that sense of because she's a notable

50:32

person, meaning she has some kind

50:35

of platform, she's a journalist, and all she

50:37

said was I've gone through some bad things, not even

50:39

talking about anything specific, and

50:41

then please be nice. And that's

50:43

the And that brought the ire of

50:46

one very angry white white man who apparently

50:49

is just angry about women period

50:51

and marginalized people period. I mean, we

50:53

see how dangerous it is when white

50:56

men get angry and like and like

50:58

this is this is a great example. Two

51:01

nights and mind this was

51:03

two nights where big news was happening.

51:05

You know, so many other huge

51:08

things are happening in the world, and you're gonna spend two

51:10

nights talking about a journalist

51:12

who tweeted about her experience and telling

51:14

people to be nice, really right.

51:18

And I had to like her willing

51:20

to back other women who are going through things, especially

51:22

journalists, including you know, rallying behind Brendan

51:24

Smith. It was beautiful. I had love to

51:27

see when things do show

51:29

because when she did that, those who

51:31

realize what is happening are gonna

51:33

fight even harder. And and that's

51:35

what he's I don't think he knew what was going to

51:38

happen, was that you kind of gave a credibility

51:40

as a journalist of itself,

51:43

end of story. No matter what, you gave her enough credibility

51:45

to the rest of us who know who what he is

51:47

doing, that she is a fierce

51:49

individual to be afraid of For him, obviously,

51:52

he's fearing something here. And I love seeing

51:54

that she was rallying behind Smith and being like,

51:56

hey, I got your back. I

51:59

mean, that's that's the of the Like obviously,

52:01

I hate seeing people being harassed in

52:03

this way, but that's been this sort of silver lining,

52:05

is seeing women come out

52:08

and like just go hard for other women,

52:10

you know, women lifting as they climb

52:12

and be like, listen, girl, I've been harassed. I

52:14

see your going through it. I support you, and that

52:17

is really I think it has been beautiful

52:19

to see. You know, there is nothing

52:22

like the power of women being in community

52:24

with each other. When we come together in support

52:26

of each other and when we're pissed off. Also

52:29

we can take on the Tucker

52:31

Carlson's of the world, the people who have these

52:33

huge platforms and all this institutional power.

52:36

The power of women being in community with each

52:38

other is a powerful, powerful,

52:40

special thing and it has been very

52:43

endearing to witness that inter real time.

52:45

Yeah, yeah, very very

52:48

much. So thank you so much, Bridget,

52:50

as always for being here. You

52:53

always bring such great conversation.

52:56

Um, where can the good listeners find you? Well?

52:59

Again, have to shout out Liz Lens

53:01

who was an amazing journalist who really helped me put

53:04

together all of my ideas for this episode. If you want

53:06

to hear from Liz herself, you can check out the

53:08

most recent episode of my podcast. There are no girls

53:10

on the Internet on this very network, and yeah,

53:13

subscribe you would love to have you And you can find

53:15

me on Instagram at Bridget Marie

53:17

in d c and on Twitter

53:20

at Bridget Marie. I

53:23

know I just said I hate being on Twitter and you

53:25

just don't follow me. I guess, yeah,

53:29

provide support and I

53:32

guess gifts of mascots following over

53:35

I missed those months in deleted. I actually

53:38

had one say and I got deleted. I was very sad about

53:40

this, the

53:42

struggle. I think we can help you with this, Okay,

53:45

But yes, Bridget you, I follow you, and I

53:47

think you have some really great messages. And I always

53:49

love seeing your perspective because even

53:52

though it is an awful, awful place to be, you put

53:54

up some good, good resources. So thank

53:56

you you. Yeah, and the one of my idols

53:59

online, she says, when you are online,

54:01

don't turn to the darkness, bring the light. So I

54:03

always try to bring the light on social media awesome

54:08

and listeners. If you would like to your

54:10

email as you can our email Stuff Media

54:12

at mom Stuff at ihart media dot com. You can

54:15

find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast

54:17

or on Instagram at stuff I've Never Told You thinks It's

54:19

always start a super producer, Christina, thank

54:21

you and thanks to you for listening Stuff

54:23

I've Never told you. The protection of I Heart Radio For more

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podcast or my heart radio, visit that I Heart Radio app,

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