Betrayal - S2: Bonus Ep 5 - What Were You Thinking?

Episode Date: February 22, 2024

Legislators recently met to vent their frustration at big tech’s lack of accountability for the production and trading of child sexual abuse material. Will it make a difference? If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at [e-mail].   To report a case of child sexual exploitation, call The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's CyberTipline at 1-800-THE-LOST  If you or someone you know is worried about their sexual thoughts and feelings towards children, reach out to stopitnow.org  In the UK, reach out to stopitnow.org.uk See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My name is M. William Phelps. For the past several years, I've been re-investigating the cases of two young women, abducted from their small towns, their bodies dumped deep in the Ozark woods, with a connection to one very familiar name. Find them, torture them, kill them, BTK. Secrets finally revealed sending authorities rushing to confront a suspect who's been hiding in plain sight for decades. Listen to Paper Ghost season 4 on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Buenas, mis amores. This is Vico Ortiz, host of Dave MyAualita First each week. Myself, alongside our resident Abuelita Lilliana Montenegro, Esa Soya!

Play matchmaker for a group of hopeful romantics in this fun, flirty and hilarious game show. Let's see if Cheesbuss will fly, or if these singles will be sent back to the dating apps. Listen to Dave My Owlite the First on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 47 years ago, on a warm summer's night in Melbourne, Susan Bartlett and Suzanne Armstrong were stabbed to death in their home in Easy Street, Collingwood. Suzanne's 16-month-old son was asleep in his car at the time. The double homicide left the community shocked, no one has ever been charged, and critical questions remain unanswered.

Listen to Casefire Presents The Easy Street Murders on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, it's Andrea Gunning with some big betrayal news. I have been on location with some of the people you heard in season 2, Ashley Aveya and their family to shoot a docu-series for Hulu. I'll let you know when the docu-series is available on Hulu later this year. We're also excited to announce that Betrayal will become a weekly series starting this summer. Thanks to your support of this podcast,

we'll be able to bring you many real-life stories of Betrayal making this community even stronger. So if you've been thinking about sharing your story, now is the time. Email us at betrayalpod at gmail.com. That's betrayalpod at gmail.com. I want to share some news that affects parents and children everywhere. Our second season of betrayal focused on families destroyed by child sexual abuse material, also called CSAM. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

has reviewed over 322 million images and videos of child sexual exploitation. It's hard to wrap your head around that. It's why we couldn't stay away from the topic last season. It's also been a big issue in Washington recently. The trail producer, Kerry Hartman, has been following developments. Kerry, I know you watched it. What did you see? Yeah, I watched it. It was fascinating. The Senate Judiciary Committee, they subpoenaed

five CEOs of some of the biggest tech companies, Discord, Snap, Meta, X, you know, formerly Twitter, and TikTok. And the committee wants to advance several bills that address online safety for children. And this hearing, it got a ton of publicity. And at the beginning, Senate Judiciary Chair, Dick Durbin, explained how the committee was feeling. These apps have changed the ways we live, work, and play.

But as investigations have detailed, social media and messaging apps have also given predators powerful new tools to sexually exploit children. Your carefully crafted algorithms can be a powerful force in the lives of our children. Today, we'll hear from the CEOs of those companies. Their constant pursuit of engagement and profit over basic safety have all put our kids

and grandkids at risk. But the tech industry alone is not to blame for the situation we're in. Those of us in Congress need to look in the mirror. This was a major issue for two New York Times reporters that you talked with earlier this season. Yeah, why don't we actually revisit that interview with Gabriel Dance and Michael Keller? We spoke with people who said that as early as 2000,

tech companies knew this was a very serious problem and we're doing nothing to solve it. In 2009, when they introduced scanning technology, we knew that it could be effective in helping stem the problem. Still, tech companies, we're not using it. I would say if you talk with most technology policy people, their answer would be technology companies don't have that much pressure to get rid of harmful content on their platform

because Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shields technology companies from any liability for content that users post. Can you explain more about what section two thirty does. Okay so section two thirty means any lawsuit holding a tech company liable for damages. Won't go anywhere they have immunity so if face book discord snapchat or exit story or transmitting images of c-sam for example parents can't hold the company responsible. Sam, for example, parents can't hold the company responsible and try to imagine if it was your child's photo and if that child was tricked into sending it. But section 230 was passed almost 30 years ago back in 1996. No one could have imagined back then, TikTok or Instagram or even sex distortion. People still had their photos developed at the drug store. And I have to tell you how real this is.

I mean, this happened to a close friend of mine, to her child. You take a vulnerable kid and a savvy adult with no conscience and no barriers. Right. So why was there a hearing now? It seems in recent months that frustration with text immunity is just getting bigger on both sides of the aisle.

And look, this isn't the first time Congress has summoned tech leaders for a shaming session, but I was really curious. Was this more than a shaming session? So I reached out to political technology reporter Rebecca Kern. She was in the room for this whole thing and she shared some of her thoughts. Oh, interesting.

I've been covering efforts in Congress to regulate social media companies and how they handle kids online safety issues. Typically, there's a lot of posturing from the senators, but in the room, it was very palpable. The motion, because this time the committee members invited families whose children have died. As a result, they say of content they've been exposed to on the platforms. A number of children have committed suicide over cyber bullying over a new phenomenon that I know you guys have covered in the podcast called sex torsion where organized criminal groups create fake

accounts that opposed to be other children and extort illicit images from children and then hold them financially. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And the committee chair, Dick Durbin, co-sponsored the Stop CSAM bill. That bill would hold platforms responsible if they host CSAM or make it available. And you're probably thinking, well, who would make those images available? But haven't you ever searched for something like you just took up skiing recently, right? So you want to see more images of skiing. And then the platform's algorithm recommends more content because they think that you like that.

Well, it does the same thing with nefarious and dangerous content. And Senator Ted Cruz went after Metta on exactly that point. Mr. Zuckerberg, in June of 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported that Instagram's recommendation systems were actively connecting pedophiles to accounts that were advertising the sale of child sexual abuse material. In other words, this material wasn't just living on the dark corners of Instagram. Instagram was helping pedophiles find it by promoting graphic

hashtags, including hashtag ped-hoar and hashtag preteen sex to potential buyers. Instagram also displayed the following warning screen to individuals who were searching for child abuse material. These results may contain images of child sexual abuse, and then you gave users two choices. Get resources or see results anyway. And what's saying universe is there a link for see results anyway? How did Mark Zuckerberg respond to that? There's no good answer for that. But here's what he said. Well, because we might be wrong.

We try to trigger this warning or we tried to when we think that there's any chance that the results might be wrong. Here's more from Rebecca Kern. Tech companies will admit and it is for sure not something they want on their platforms. They don't want to be hosting CCM, and they take great efforts to remove it. And I will give them credit. They invest millions of dollars into AI and machine learning to detect it early. But it's still there, and it gets spread across multiple platforms.

These companies are self-pleasing and self-reporting, but we're depending on them to find it and shut it down. It's interesting that you bring that up, because a senator from Rhode Island, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, commented exactly on that issue. We are here in this hearing because as a collective, your platforms really suck at policing themselves. In my view, Section 230 is a very significant part of that problem. Listen, there were great sound bites from senators, but that doesn't translate to policy,

right? Rebecca Kern pointed out that Section 230 served an important purpose, at least for a while. We wouldn't be leading the globe in these innovations without Section 230 and allowing them to flourish without lawsuits, but a lot of other senators are saying, okay, we allowed them to flourish and grow, now we need to rein them in. And we're an outlier in the whole globe. Europe has been able to pass regulations

and hold them accountable. And so a lot of people said it's time to take away this quote unquote, sweetheart deal that we have given to tech companies. All of a sudden, he says, Linda, I see a skull. Deep in the heart of the Ozarks, a mysterious disappearance turns into a grisly discovery. Two young women murdered. My name is M. William Phelps. For the past several

years I've been reinvestigating the cases of two young women abducted from their small towns, their bodies dumped deep in the Ozark Woods. With a connection to one very familiar name, he chose his own moniker, binded them, tortured them, killed them, B2K. Cold cases on breaking wide open as a heated confrontation with an alleged psychopath ensues. Did you kill those girls? You got all this information, then why did you ask me if you already knew? Long-held secrets finally revealed sending authorities rushing to confront a suspect who's been hiding in plain sight for decades.

Listen to Paper Ghost season 4 on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Forty-seven years ago, on a warm summer's night in Melbourne, Susan Bartlett and Suzanne Armstrong were stabbed to death in their home in Easy Strait, Collingwood. Seven years ago, on a warm summer's night in Melbourne, Susan Bartlett and Suzanne Armstrong were stabbed to death in their home in Easy Street, Collingwood. Suzanne's 16-month-old son was asleep in his car at the time. The double homicide left the community shocked and detectives rattled, as several promising early leads gradually peed it out.

No one has ever been charged, and critical questions remain unanswered. Did the young women know their killer, or did they die in a brutal random attack? Why has their murderer never been found? Journalist Helen Thomas has been investigating Susan and Suzanne's deaths for more than a decade. Now Helen has delved into the case again for a brand new original podcast made for Casefire Presents. Listen to Casefire Presents the Easy Street Murders on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Good song. The Johnny Carson theme, right? Hey, who wrote that?

Skip, who do you think? It's your buddy. Hi, everyone. I'm Paul Enko. And I'm Skip Bronson. And what happens when two old friends take their decades of experience in the business and entertainment roles and sit down with our buddies? You get our way, a brand new show from My Heart Podcast, where we chop it up with our pals about everything under the sun Hear about Michael buble's entrance into show business and get business insight from mark Burnett find out what scares my son-in-law Jason Bateman and discover the bragging rights that come with beating Michael Jordan at golf together. We know just about

everybody including Sitting presidents so join us as we ask the questions. They've not been asked before tell it like it is Together we know just about everybody, including sitting presidents. So join us as we ask the questions they've not been asked before. Tell it like it is and even sing a song or two. This is our podcast and we're going to do it our way. Listen to Our Way on the I Heart Radio App, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Did any comments stand out to you while you were watching? There were a lot of them, but this one from Amy Klobuchar kind of got me.

When a Boeing plane lost a door in mid-flight several weeks ago, nobody questioned the decision to ground a fleet of over 700 planes. So why aren't we taking the same type of decisive action on the danger of these platforms when we know these kids are dying? She has a point, right? When everyone is worried about their own physical safety, boom, it's done. Exactly. And I got to tell you about another moment that really took the room down. And that was when Meta CEO Zuckerberg testified that social media doesn't really do any harm

to kids. With so much of our lives spent on mobile devices and social media, it's important to look into the effects on teen mental health and well-being. I take this very seriously. Mental health is a complex issue, and the existing body of scientific work has not shown a cause a link between using social media and young people having worse mental health outcomes. Did he say that with a straight face? He did. And there was some laughter.

I mean, it was one very short moment of levity, but, you know, it's just so absurd. You don't have to be a social scientist or a psychologist to understand that social media impacts kids a lot. Was there anyone there defending the work of technology companies? I mean, there are ways they've enriched all of our lives. Can you even remember life before Amazon? Life before Amazon? We mean going to a store and having to wait in line?

No, of course not, no. But all kidding aside, some senators mentioned that and did praise these companies for adding some value to society. But this hearing wasn't set up for pushback. It was really about these tech companies being told draconian measures are coming if you don't do a better job. But outside of this, there is an advocate for the tech company called NetChoice and they are pushing back pretty hard. They have filed several lawsuits against states that are tired of waiting for the federal government to do something. called NetChoice and they are pushing back pretty hard. They have filed several lawsuits against

states that are tired of waiting for the federal government to do something. Can you give me an example? Sure. There's one NetChoice is suing the Ohio Attorney General over the Social Media Parental Notification Act. This law requires companies to obtain parental consent before individuals younger than 16 can use platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat. So, Nettwist does not support any of these bills being pushed by the Judiciary Committee. What do they support? Well, free speech is what they hang their hat on, free speech, free speech all the way. But one thing that they did promote that will be familiar to our season two listeners is

to hold child abusers accountable by prosecuting more of them. Far too many reports of C-SAM offenses are not investigated, not prosecuted because we talked about this, Andrea, like they're triaged, right? There's not enough law enforcement to go after all the people that are breaking these laws. And when they're able to go after them, they can prosecute them and at least put them in for some kind of prison time. But despite that choice, there was some movement on one of the bills called COSA,

or the Kids Online Safety Act. Now this bill wouldn't repeal Section 230, so we asked Rebecca Kern, what would it do? That one specifically would hold tech companies accountable and imposing a duty of care for them to make sure that their recommendation systems, their algorithms, do not recommend harmful quote-unquote content. That is the key word, how I do define harmful. For them they're saying it's suicide content, it's eating disordered content. And Rebecca pointed out that some groups are worried about COSIM moving forward. Progressive LGBTQ groups are saying,

we're worried that this bill also empowers State Attorney General to sue over harmful content and how they would define content, maybe like trans content or LGBTQ content that these communities would want to see on the platforms. Some conservative leangages may want to take that down. So they said this could have an inadvertently negative impact for certain vulnerable youth. While the CEOs were on the hot seat and, you know, the day before they were called to the

hearing, they did make some concessions that are worth mentioning. Here is ex-CEO Linda Yaccarino. Ex supports the STOP-C-SAM Act. The Kids Online Safety Act should continue to progress and we will support the continuation to engage with it and ensure the protections of the freedom of speech. And you know SNAP CEO Evan Spiegel also came out in support of COSA. And look, it's not everything, but maybe it's a start. Here's Politico's Rebecca Kern again.

These are the constant battles these platforms have to deal with between privacy, which is such a strong protection in our country and free speech and other protection and safety. And there's, you know, no real mandate to put safety first. Do you think Section 230 has a chance of being repealed? I asked Rebecca that question and she seemed pretty doubtful. You know, it's not just the law passing, but it's the lawsuits that would follow

and how many years would it be caught up in court? I can't help but wonder, did this hearing make a difference? If you're asking, will it create more safety for children online? I think there is a reason for hope. There were some movement we've never seen before, but people need to keep applying pressure because that does make a difference. Thank you to Politico's Rebecca Kern for her insight. And thanks to our listeners for your support of Betrayal. Remember, if you want to share your story

for the new weekly series of Betrayal, coming this summer, email us at betrayalpod.com. That's betrayalpod.com. Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show was executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fasen,

posted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Carrie Hartman, also produced by Ben Fetterman, associate producer, Kristen Mulcury. Our iHeart team is Allie Perry and Jessica Kreincheck, Audio Editing and Mixing by Matt Dalbeckio, Trails Theme composed by Oliver Baines, Music Library provided by Mide Music,

and for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is M. William Phelps. For the past several years, I've been reinvestigating the cases of two young women abducted from their small towns, their bodies dumped deep in the Ozark Woods, with a connection to one very familiar name. Find them, torture them, kill them, BTK.

Secrets finally revealed sending authorities rushing to confront a suspect who's been hiding in plain sight for decades. Listen to Paper Ghost season 4 on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Buenas, mis amores! This is Vico Ortiz, host of Dave my Aualita first each week. Myself, alongside our resident Aualita Liliana Montenegro. Esa soy yo! Play matchmaker for a group of hopeful romantics in this fun, flirty, and hilarious game show.

Let's see if Cheesepuss will fly, or if these singles will be sent back to the dating apps. Listen to Dave my Aualita First on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 47 years ago, on a warm summer's night in Melbourne, Susan Bartlett and Suzanne Armstrong were stabbed to death in their home in Easy Street, Collingwood. Suzanne's 16-month-old son was asleep in his car at the time. The double homicide left the community shocked,

no one has ever been charged, and critical questions remain unanswered. Listen to Casefire Presents The Easy Street Murders on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.