Betrayal - What Were You Thinking? — Bonus | Ashley's Story

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.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, it's Joel and Matt from How to Money. If your New Year's resolution is to finally get your finances in shape, we've got your back. Prices, they're still high. And the economy is all over the place. But 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress. That's right.

Yeah, each week we break down what's happening with your money, the most important issues to focus on. And the small moves that make a big difference. Kick off the year with confidence. Listen to How to Money on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm John Polk. For years, I was the poster boy of the conversion therapy movement. The ex-gay who married an ex-lesbian and traveled the world telling my story of how I changed my sexuality from gay to straight. You might have heard my story, but you've never heard the real story. John has never been anything that gay, but he really tried hard not.

to be. Listen to Atonement, the John Polk story on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Dr. Jesse Mills, host of the Mailroom podcast. Each January, men promised to get stronger, work harder, and fix what's broken? But what if the real work isn't physical at all? I sat down with psychologist, Dr. Steve Poulter, to unpack shame, anxiety, and the emotional pain men were never taught how to name. Part of the way through the Valley of Despair is realizing if this has happened, and you have to make a choice whether you're going to stay in it or move forward. Our two-part conversation is available now. Listen to the mailroom on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows.

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 two, Ashley Avea 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 between. 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.g.com. That's Betrayal P-O-D 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.

Betrayal producer Carrie Hartman has been following developments. Carrie, 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 on 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 talk 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 were 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 230 does? Okay, so Section 230 means any lawsuit holding a tech company liable for damages won't go

anywhere. They have immunity. So if Facebook, Discord, Snapchat, or X is storing or transmitting images of CSAM, 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 stores. people still had their photos developed at the drugstore. 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 tech's 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 Politico 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 emotion 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 cyberbullying, over a new phenomenon that I know you guys have covered in the podcast called sextortion. where organized criminal groups create fake accounts that oppose to beat 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 C-San bill. That bill would hold platforms responsible if they host C-SAM 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 meta 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-hore and hashtag pre-teen 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. In what sane 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 CSAM, 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 White House 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 soundbites 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 allow 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. New year, new goals, and in this economy, a better money plan is more necessary than ever. I am Matt. And I'm Joel. We are from the how to money podcast. And every week we help you to spend smarter, save more, and make sense of what's going on out there. If you want 2026 to be the year you finally feel in control of your money, we're here to give you the tools and advice to help you make it happen.

Listen to How to Money on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanko Wally. And I'm Hurricane DeBolu. It's a new year. And on the podcast's health stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health. Which means being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be. I like to sleep in late and sleep early. Is there a chronotype for that or am I just depressed?

We talk to experts who share real experiences and information. You just really need to find where it is that you can have an impact in your own life and just start doing that. We break down the topics you want to know more about. Sleep, stress, mental health, and how the world around us affects our overall health. We talk about all the ways to keep your body in mind, inside and out, healthy. We human beings, all we want is connection. We just want to connect with each other. Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone.

Listen on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A new year doesn't mean erasing who you were. It means honoring what you've survived and choosing how you want to grow. It means giving ourselves permission to feel what we've been holding and knowing that it's okay to ask for help. I'm Mike Dolorotcha, host of Sacred Lessons. This podcast is a space for men to talk openly about mental health, grief, relationships, the patterns we inherit, but don't have to repeat. Here, we slow down. We listen. We learn how

vulnerability becomes strength and how healing happens in community, not in isolation. If you're ready to let go of what no longer serves you and step into the year with clarity, compassion, and purpose, Sacred Lessons is your companion on your healing journey. Listen to Sacred Lessons with Mike Delarocha on America's number one podcast network, IHeart. Follow sacred lessons with Mike Delo Rocha and start listening on the free IHeart radio app today. 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 it 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 causal 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. Um, but, 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 Net Choice, and they are pushing back pretty hard. They have filed several lawsuits against states that are tired of waiting for the tech company. the federal government to do something. Can you give me an example? Sure. There's one, NetTchoice is suing the Ohio Attorney General over the Social Media Parenthood Notification Act.

This law requires companies to obtain parental consent before an individual's younger than 16 can use platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat. So NetJose 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 we'll be familiar to our season two listeners is to hold child abusers accountable by prosecuting more of them.

You know, far too many reports of CSAM 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 are you defined harmful? For them, they're saying it's suicide content, it's eating disorder content. And Rebecca pointed out that some groups are working. about COSA moving forward. Progressive LGBTQ groups are saying we're worried that this bill also empowers state attorneys 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 conservatively engaging 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 the day before they were called to the hearing, they did make some concessions that are worth mentioning. Here is ex-CEO Linda Yekareen out. X supports the Stop C-Sysam 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 CEOs 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 was 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 at Gmail.com. That's Betrayal P-O-D at Gmail.com.

Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group and partnership with I-Hart Podcasts. The show was executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fasen. hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Carrie Hartman, also produced by Ben Federman, Associate producer, Kristen Mulcuri. Our I-Heart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Kreinsk, audio editing and mixing by Matt Dalbekio, a trail theme composed by Oliver Baines, music library provided by my music. And for more podcasts from IHeart, visit the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Joel and Matt from How to Money.

If your New Year's resolution is to finally get your finances in shape, we've got your back. Prices, they're still high and the economy is all over the place. But 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress. That's right. Yeah, each week we break down what's happening with your money, the most important issues to focus on, and the small moves that make a big difference. Kick off the year with confidence. Listen to How to Money on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or, wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm John Polk. For years, I was the poster boy of the conversion therapy movement, the ex-gay who married an ex-lesbian, and traveled the world telling my story of how I changed my sexuality from gay to straight. You might have heard my story, but you've never heard the real story. John has never been anything but gay, but he really tried hard not to be.

Listen to Atonement, the John Polk story, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Dr. Jesse Mills, host of the Mailroom podcast. Each January, men promise to get stronger, work harder, and fix what's broken. But what if the real work isn't physical at all? I sat down with psychologist, Dr. Steve Poulter, to unpack shame, anxiety, and the emotional pain men were never taught how to name. Part of the way through the Valley of Despair is realizing this has happened,

and you have to make a choice whether you're going to stay in it or move forward. Our two-part conversation is available now. Listen to the mailroom on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, for wherever you get your favorite shows. This is an IHeart podcast, guaranteed human.