Girls Know Nothing - S2 Ep7: Seyi Akiwowo - CEO Glitch: Image Based Abuse is Being Normalised and Women are Suffering

Episode Date: March 9, 2023

Welcome back to Girls Know Nothing! 🧡 GKN is a female focused podcast hosted by @SharonNJGaffka Our next guest is Seyi Akiwowo, the Chief Executive Officer of Glitch UK (https://glitchcharity.co.uk) For #InternationalWomensDay 2023, UN women’s official theme was DigitALL. DigitALL, aims to highlight the need for inclusive and transformative technology and digital education. Seyi Akiwowo, the CEO & Founder of Glitch, an award-winning UK charity ending online abuse and championing digital citizenship. With a particular focus on Black women and marginalised people. They focus on four key areas: Awareness, Advocacy, Action and Anchor. New episodes of Girls Know Nothing 🧡 will be released every Thursday, and will also be available on Spotify, Apple podcasts and wherever you get your podcast fixes! GKN Social Channels: Https://linktr.ee/girlsknownothing  Instagram: @girlsknownothingpod  TikTok: @girlsknownothing

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Valid through 618 while supplies last. Selection varies by location. Welcome back to another episode of Girls Know Nothing. For International Women's Day this year, UN's Women official theme is Digital. Digital aims to highlight the need for inclusive and transformative technology and digital education. With this theme in mind, I want to welcome our next guest, Seishi Akiwowo. Seishi is the CEO and founder of Glitch, and Glitch is an award-winning UK charity which is focused on ending online abuse and championing digital citizenship. With a particular focus on black women and marginalized people, they focus on four key areas awareness, advocacy, action and anchor. I had the pleasure of meeting Seishi for the first time when

Evil and Glitch combined forces to deliver a petition to Downing Street asking for the first time when Evil and Glitch combined forces to deliver a petition to Downing Street asking for the government to implement a violence against women and girls code of practice into the controversial online safety bill. Before setting up Glitch, Seishi was elected as the youngest black female counsellor in East London just at the age of 23 and that was when she experienced online abuse while in position that Seishi decided to set up Glitch to help support women and marginalized communities. She also co-designed practical solutions for governments, NGOs, and tech companies to make the online space safer for all. In a true millennial style, Seishi is also a former TED speaker, a respected consultant,

and writer within the political and tech space. She's also a Penguin published author of How to Stay Safe Online, a digital self-care toolkit for developing resilience and allyship. She also sits on the guardianship council of Yoti, TikTok safety council, and is a Gates Foundation global goalkeeper. In 2020, she was appointed a Knight Fellow of Institute for Data, Democracy and Politics at the George Washington University. Welcome to the studio, Shae. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. Thanks for having me. There are so many things that I wanted to talk to you about. When I was reading your bio,

I was like, how am I going to fit all of this into one episode but one thing that really amazed me is that you were one of the well you were the youngest counsellor elected in East London you're only 23 years old you know what what kind of inspired you to want to become a counsellor in the first place? Yeah well a mixture of things I have a Nigerian mother who told me that I've got a couple of months left of enjoying this whole dance in Malarkey and needs to go and find another passion. And academics or traditional academics wasn't really my thing. And so that actually pushed me to explore actually, what do I want to do? I know I want to use a platform and platform for good, but I didn't know what that was and had to work that out.

And then the kind of negative catalyst was a really good school friend of mine was stabbed at a house party and died. And she was my neighbor and she was my primary school friend and my secondary school friend. And that really shook me. And I didn't understand why Charlotte was no longer with us. And so I was in year eight, year nine, asking a lot of questions about why, why, why. And it led me to youth services being cut. It led me

to understanding poverty and socioeconomic differences in certain boroughs and kind of started this catalyst of anger and frustration at systems and pulling on that thread I realized okay I need to be a part of the decision making table to start turning around the way people make decisions about my area and as I kept pulling on that thread even more I realized oh my god there isn't anyone that looks like me on this table and I was like 20, 21 at the time thinking okay I've done youth council stuff I would you know I ran for young mayor I was like 20, 21 at the time thinking okay I've done youth council stuff you know I ran for young mayor I was on the youth council for Newham I don't want to be tokenized and pigeonholed on youth issues like I want to go to where like the real money is and the real decision making is and so I was like okay I'm gonna try and apply and so I think there's a little bit of naivety

which I think you do kind of need because if you do know the whole process of going for standing in party politics or for things, I think we can put ourselves off. And there's all sorts of stats that show that women need to be encouraged like three times to go for things, right? That they are actually competent to apply for. So I think the naivety helped me and a glass of wine.

I was like in Brussels on this internship for a European youth forum and I was like, okay, I'm just going to go for it. And by the time I'd finished a bottle of wine in the kitchen, I'd applied and I pressed send and I went for it. And it was truly one of the hardest but most rewarding experiences of my life. The people that I still bump into today who have told me for the fact they came to my surgery and I advocate for them, X, Y, Z has happened. And I stood in an area on the council where I actually grew up, where Charlotte was and my neighbour.

And so there was a lot of sweet memories to be able to put Maryland back on the map because it had been forgotten because it wasn't Stratford. And I just got elected just after kind of the Olympic legacy starts slowing down and actually saying, okay, what's the legacy of the Olympics for young people, for Black people, for our generation, where we were seeing lots of decisions being made about moving people on and gentrification. So it was really hard because ageism, sexism, racism, you name it, but the community that you get to serve in Newham, in East London,

is unlike any other community, and it will always be like a key milestone for me. I encourage people to give local politics a go. A lot of people think that politics is just parliament and democracy, and so that's the only part to democracy and no like politics and community starts local that's actually why I went for it because I was in Europe doing an internship campaigning on vote at 16 across EU member states voting on why do we have a youth minimum wage like why are we not seen as an adult and I was was like, this is all really important,

but how do I know it's landing on the ground? And there is something about being so connected to your community that is amazing. It has its downsides. People don't have boundaries. But overall, I encourage as many people to think about going for local politics because the average counsellor is age 56,

is white, male and stale. And people don't know that they can even go, they don't even have to be a counsellor, right? You can be a lay member on certain committees that are scrutinising issues like the budget, like domestic violence services, like children's services, and you get remunerated for that as well. So it's not all volunteering. And that's why I also stood to be a counselloror because I wanted to shine a light to say young people can get into politics. Women particularly can get into politics. Do you think that maybe

because you don't fit the stereotypical, well, what a stereotypical counsellor looks like, did you find it really difficult to kind of get your voice heard and to really get stuck in there? 100%. Again, the downside of naivety. It gets you through the door, but does it sustain you?

And I think the naivety of, okay, how does party politics machinery really work? Like, how does small P politics really work? How do you win people over? Votes, it's a numbers game. Like, all of that, like, oh my God. It was really hard. And being dismissed as a kind of like activist,

young person, or, you know, the kind of like misogynistic language, like shrill or sweet, just those little things that can chip at you, chip at you from people that you think are meant to be on your side. And I do think the left in this country has a gender problem.

It hasn't gotten to grips with how it needs to bring women into the fold. If you look at a lot of our left-wing movements, it's still dominated by men. And we don't have enough women in powerful positions, in officer positions of unions and stuff like that. Like we still need to have a lot more women, a lot more working class women, a lot more black women.

So that was quite hard. But my tip there and something that I did towards the end of my term was making sure that I was in sisterhood so I was leading a lot of young women in the party to join sorry to join um doing training and events like teas and coffees at our MP's house and I think making sure when you go into politics you don't go as an individual you go in a squad and that's why where I why I love AOC and the like um the amazing uh politicians in America who are like supporting each other as a block and not on your own. Why do you think it's so important that we encourage young people uh young women especially um young women from ethnic minority backgrounds into politics despite the hardships they can face I get it like if you're a young black person right now who is battling 300 pound energy bills

is battling a landlord trying to raise your rent and you're hearing what now she's saying she needs to go and stand now this person's randomly on a podcast telling me I need to stand for politics like with what time I totally hear it um uh but if we really want to change the system we have to be in there we we have to understand how much local council decide things and there's loads of jokes I think you know when you see tv shows like parks and recreation that make you think that local council is just about bins and parking which yes, yes, it's a very sensitive issue. But like I said before, they're deciding youth services. They're deciding the provision of how children are looked after, looked after children, children who are in care,

like the council's the corporate parent for these young people. Deciding around planning which people don't understand how important it is if the council keeps allowing chicken and chip shops chicken chip shops in their schools then we are going to have a problem with diabetes we are going to have a problem with obesity we are having a problem which we do right now is kids losing their teeth because it's rotting like we we have a real dental crisis happening. And the council decide this. The council decide how parks are kept clean, how park equipment are used,

encouraged people to use the outdoor. And we saw how important that was during the lockdown. And so I think if we can shine a light on the issues that are important in local council, I think people, especially young women can see, actually, this is where I can spend my time. And it's not about being on it for everything. Yeah, you might not be interested in parking or whatever.

My real driving issue was domestic violence and young people. And that's what I focused on. And so if you are a busy young person, you've got a lot on and you're thinking, like, how can I do this? It is doable. And you just need to be strategic and focused.

What was your biggest highlight of your career, do you think, while your time as a councillor? Oh my God, I have so many, but the one that makes me smile, which seems so small, but it allows me to talk about the importance of local council, is getting a Christmas tree up in Maryland.

So Stratford, outside Stratford Station, Westfield was a massive, big, massive tree. Everyone knows it. Everyone comes out for it. Maryland that is down the road has a massive population, majority Afro-Caribbean community as well. But then there has been gentrification spillover from Stratford. It's often forgotten. And you can see, you can see in terms of where the roads, the road from Maryland kind of starts and it's not clean, it's dirty, it smells, shops are struggling. And so being able to get a Christmas tree was a symbol of this is a place, this is a community and we get to know each other.

And because of that, businesses were thriving, because of that, people were connecting and now the group still stands. Now the group actually has formed a ward, so it has has council representation it's not being shoehorned into stratford so people look at a christmas tree and think is that it and to be fair many other areas of newham have now got a christmas tree and i think i started a trend um people think just a christmas tree but no actually what i've what i kick-started and helped facilitate was a community again and thrive and shine a light. And those guys have taken it to a whole nother level

and it's amazing to see. Yeah, I guess there is like, there really isn't anything without community. And it kind of, it's the part of politics that you get to physically touch every single day. Like the moment you leave your front door, it's what you see. And like, you know, when I was younger,

I used to be like, oh, Christmas tree, another Christmas tree or another set of Christmas lights. But the amount of work that goes behind it there's obviously a reason of always people wouldn't put that much time and effort into it and it's really nice to hear that you know you often hear bad negative news stories about certain areas of London as opposed to like the good things and it's so it's really nice to hear that there are some good things um that have come out of your career what do you think was probably like the hardest part of being such a young counsellor? I've got two.

It was my, we had just got elected in, I just got elected on the Thursday, announced on the Friday, and then I had a surgery on Saturday. So counsellors have community surgeries in their library and the community centre where residents of that ward can come and talk to their counsellor for issues around housing, around,

oh God, anything, anything to do with local council services. So it was my first surgery on my own. I'd shadowed the kind of previous counsellor before just to get, you know, get a heads up and, you know, be, I was a bit of a goody goody and um this woman came to me and she basically was like help me my my friend has to evict me because my her his place is infested with cockroaches and I don't have anywhere to live she's heavily pregnant she's a young kid who I think was displaying some symptoms of the impact of being in a home environment that was too small and too crowded. And then there was another young lad outside and apparently it was another kid. And I was just looking at this young woman by herself, just like my heart ached. My heart was heavy. I could not not think about my mum who was here

and as a single mother. And I was thinking, what can I do to support? Without, you know, sharing her story or whatever, as she's getting some documents to show me, a cockroach comes out of the baby bag. And I remember the one thing in training was don't cry. There's no point to if you're crying, you've got to hold it down.

But Sharon, like even today, I still get emotional about that story because I don't think people should have to suffer like that in this world with, and be so alone. And I even said, where's the dad? Like I got so, I got so emotionally invested. I remember when she had left, thankfully she was my only one. I sobbed my heart out. I cried all weekend. I said to my mum, I don't think I can do it. But then I saw her four years later. She spotted me in Stratford Shopping Centre. And she said, do you remember me?

Do you remember me? And I looked at her and I was like, I do. And she showed me her state. She showed, I don't want to get into her business, but four years of like her persevering and that we got there, but that was really hard. And then the second thing that was really hard and the second thing that was really hard and I think that was when I was like I just don't think I can do this

anymore was when um a young boy called Corey was shot was shot in the head in an estate uh two days before he was going to go to college and get out of the area and you know try and start again and I remember just hearing his mum scream and cry in the interviews and trying to and no one was coming forward and it just it just felt like there was this family hurting and they were completely isolated and like just where was the community and I also didn't appreciate the kind of gentrified community saying, oh, what's going on here, blah, blah, blah, as well. So there was also that to deal with, like, actually, do you know that you're part of their community? You are the, you aren't the native here. And so that was really hard to deal with on a different level. And I thought to myself, okay, I've been this since I

was 22, I'm 26. There are other ways to make a difference and a change that doesn't take from me so much. And also where I'm having to convince party folks to adopt policy issues and to care about this because we had a mayor at the time that was happy to just send people out of the borough. Convince a party to care about this as a kind of national policy issue just felt too hard. So now I want to be on the outside knocking

and making more noise than trying to like do collective responsibility and feel like I was silenced. Sometimes it's hard because you have to deal with all, like you said, the party lines and having to deal with all the additional red tape. But with that young woman you were talking about, it goes to show like how much of an impact you had on her life, even though it was horrible and negative at the time. The fact she even remembered you four years on really says a lot for what you

did so you know like even if it was really hard like I commend people like you that actually put themselves forward because it's not easy at all no it's not easy and I do think like it doesn't have to be this hard like I do think there was a lot of people suffering and even more so now with austerity cuts and stuff I don't think it needs to be hard if we supported councillors like I don't think we support councillors with the lack of boundaries some residents have with with with councillors and MPs um and online we don't support councillors online and we know that actually they receive the most intimidation and abuse because everything is so local like you know you've got counsellors who would go to do the school run and will get hounded on the way to the school run with their kids like

it like it's it's a lot and then we don't support them psychologically like I'm also aware that I come from a borough where our MP was stabbed at his surgery yeah and um that wasn't taken really seriously for counsellors and there was right there was an increase in kind of like racial tensions on top of Jo Cox MP being murdered. And that wasn't taken seriously, like our fears. So I do think a lot systemically could be done to support young women. But when you say, obviously, the sexism and the sexist will say, oh, your snowflakes are not tough enough.

And that needs to be challenged. Yeah, no, I agree, definitely. And it's, you know, we do see online and, you know, young women in politics, women in general in politics that say that they are disproportionately targeted because they want to be taken out of politics because they speak about issues like you do. And I guess that's what I read as the reason why you started Glitch in the first place. What was kind of the reason why you wanted to form Glitch? I talk about this in the book about being trauma-informed and trauma-led and there was a lot of there was a lot of trauma around the catalyst for setting it up. So, but one was that I felt somewhat complicit in spending four

years encouraging young women to stand for politics. And then when we get here, we're going to be abused and no one's going to support us. So I kind of felt like if I've like opened the floodgates in a way to like have to inspire more people to join. Now my thing is to take on the hat of supporting those that are staying. We don't actually just need people to get into politics, we need them to stay. And we saw that with the last elections, how many women cited online abuse and violence

as a reason for why they were standing down from parliament and local politics. And so I wanted wanted glitch to serve a purpose for women in public life whether it's campaigners activists to feel like they can be online and that they can be safe and also for anyone who's online to realize like we don't have to tolerate the the direction that tech companies were going around, like work fast, break things, apologize later. And that break things was always impacting women. Hi, I'm Richard Karn, and you may have seen me on TV talking about the world's number one expandable garden hose. Well, the brand new pocket

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And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com slash P-O-D-K-A-T-Z 13. Just go to indeed.com slash P-O-D-K-A-T-Z 13 right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. And I was also quite annoyed that intersectionality was being missed. It felt like we kept focusing here in the West on white women's experience of online abuse and harassment. That was the stuff that was going mainstream and not actually black women who we know are 84% more likely to be abused online. So there was a kind of a lot of like frustrations on multiple levels plus the trauma that was like, there's a glitch in our internet that can so be fixed. Like I can see

it as like a day if we just all play our part, which birthed the idea of digital citizenship. Like how do we understand that we have rights and responsibilities online? We have a right to go to school and we have responsibilities to be respectful for teachers. And I put my hands up that I could have been a bit more respectful to my teachers. But with all rights, responsibilities, and we actually haven't had that kind of reset cultural conversation around how do we want to navigate with each other online? How do we want to make sure that we are not perpetuating the same inequalities, the same divisions offline, now online. We've made such strides in feminism

to not lean into victim-blaming language, right? To not blame somebody for being spiked in a club or being harassed on the streets or being assaulted. We've made strides. It can be better, obviously, and I talk about this in the book. But we've made strides. But online, we kept blaming women. What did you say to get that trolling? What did say to get whatever why did you take a photo of yourself

and allow yourself to get hacked like we found a way to keep blaming women and it was all a distraction from women being in in in democracy but that is sharing their opinion writing a blog piece standing for politics and that was why I was like we need to set something up we need to set something up that is about system change I don't want to go down the we need to criminalize every offense I don't want to go down we just need to keep telling women how to stay safe online I want to look at systemic change and I think for that we need to be looking at legislation we need to be looking at tech influencing and we need to be empowering our community to be able to create and demand the safe spaces that they want online. So if somebody was to go through down the digital citizenship path,

what actually happens, what does it entail, and what can somebody gain out of it? I define digital citizenship in three layers, the individual, the social and the institutions. I think on an individual layer, it's, or on an individual level, it's about being aware of how we navigate online. So thinking about online etiquette, thinking about what we're amplifying, what we're retweeting, what's happening in the name of banter, like making sure we are not perpetuating or perpetuating hate, we're not spreading abuse and we're not spreading misinformation. Like there's so much that's in our control, how we curate the algorithms and our timelines, like how we feed the algorithms as well,

like making sure that we are just good and aware and informed. I think the second layer is on a social level, like how are we supporting each other as allies online? How we support each other as understanding we're in a community because tech platforms use a lot of community language you know but yet don't do anything to facilitate actually feeling like a community and this kind of collective responsibility to each other and what does collective self-care look like so it's exploring okay when I see abuse it's my opportunity to report it to support that person just as if you were to go down the street and you

see like some mess outside your door, you would want to put it in the bin because you know you'd want your area to be somewhat safe or you saw someone being harassed on the tube, for example, on the train, you would intervene. Like how do you evoke those same emotions in people to be like, actually this is my community too and this is the, I'm not going to tolerate this online. And on the institutional level, it's about how do institutions support and encourage digital citizenship? How do they encourage, you know, screen time, good use of screen time? How do they encourage good digital self-care? How do they encourage not just mining our data and information in our time, but actually being responsible? How are they transparent about their data? How are they transparent about taking down content

and what they're amplifying? Institutions have a part to play in promoting good digital citizenship. And finally, governments. I envision seeing libraries, and I hope they stay, I envision seeing libraries having a QR code that allows parents and kids be able to learn about digital citizenship like let's make it every day like um conversation because we saw 20 years ago 30 years ago that domestic abuse was such a taboo and being able to encourage conversations, encourage kind of tea conversations amongst women, but also spotlighting it in soaps like East Senders and Coronation Street

and talking about in school. We saw there was a public health approach by government to spotlight this and educate masses. We don't have that when it comes to online abuse. So a lot of people are suffering in silence. A lot of people don't know where they can go. Institutions are also not supporting therapists and health service providers with symptoms of online abuse or the psychological impact of online abuse. And I talk a lot about that in the book around,

actually, I think the NHS aren't equipped with dealing with the raft of people who are not just reporting to have ADHD and other mental health challenges because of being online and that sustained and prolonged engagement online, but also the trauma of violence and abuse that what it does to your body, NHS are not equipped to properly diagnose PTSD. And then we get into the race and gender element where women are seen as snowflakes and black women are not seen and their pain and their trauma is not believed. And all of that can really be,

I believe, are such low-hanging fruit that could mean that we're reversing the trajectory of online abuse just increasing and getting worse and causing more division in our online and offline communities. No, I agree. And I think one thing that we always talk about is physical self-care

like running a bath like what can we do to physically look after ourselves and we forget now that the internet is such a big part of our lives like I don't remember the last time I went a whole day with no access and it must have been like well years ago for me. But we never talk about digital self-care. What can people do to take better care of themselves while being online? I really think digital self-care starts with knowing you. And so when I get asked that, and I go into a lot of detail in the book,

particularly chapter five on digital self-care, it really starts with like, who are you? What's your values? How do you want to show up in the world? If someone was to create, probably an AI tool can do that now, to create a persona based on your online presence, would that reflect who you really are and your values?

Or has the screen caused you to pretend to be some kind of something else? Is it a worse version of yourself as well? So I really say like digital self-care is about going back to you and creating boundaries so that you can flourish and be your best self. And so that might mean for one person that they do need to have a digital detox once a week to just recalibrate and regulate their nervous system because it is easy because it's attention culture right to get caught up in that and as you get caught up that reactivity space gets shorter and shorter and then you snap and you react maybe not in the way you would

because you haven't been able to respond and do it from a place of mindfulness so I really do think digital self-care starts with like knowing you what are you about who you for who do you want who do you want to follow? Who don't you want to follow? And putting it in place and not giving a damn. If you have to restrict people's access to you or restrict viewing them because you think it's a bit awkward that you don't want it to be obvious that you unfollow them,

just do it because you would not not do that offline. You wouldn't stay near a fire knowing it was burning you. Yet we do that to ourselves psychologically. And I think digital self-care is not being hard on yourself when you get caught up in the trance of attention culture and trends and all of that, because that's what the platform does. It's just knowing you can come back to a set of values

and set of intentions of why you're online. In our workshops at Glitch, the first place I start with is asking people, why are you online? Is it for your business? Is it for your political career? And then I say, do you think that what you're posting reflects that? And a lot of people will realize, oh crap, actually I've blurred the personal and the professional. And I'm like, you don't have to, you have choice, you have agency. And I think that's deep because a lot of women have been told they don't have agency. We've been told that we have to, we have been socialized and told that we have to serve

men, serve others and put our needs, not even second, last, you know. Digital self-care is about turning that around and saying, actually, I place myself and my needs first so that I can love myself and love you at the same time and be in community with you online and offline. It's really interesting hearing you say that because I remember years ago when I was a kid, we'd always get told like, if the words you said were printed on your skin, would you say them? And it's the same thing about if the comments you left on people's platforms or on your own platform was printed on your skin, would you still press post? And 95% of the time, people wouldn't. And the thing is, as well with technology and social media, they've got very good algorithm. Well, it depends on which side you sit on. The algorithm is very good. It's very smart. And it

goes in a vicious circle. But if you do take that time to have the digital detox and cut it off, the algorithm will also work in your favor favor because then you'll start to see content that actually does align with yourself. So then it does have a continuous circle of positive effects on you. Massively. Now my Instagram is full of sausage dogs. I want a sausage dog.

Do you want mine? Oh, yeah. I have a sausage dog. Oh my God, it's so funny. A sausage dog nail art designed to inspire me for my regular nail appointment. The crafted gadgets that people buy to like smart their house.

I love that. And that brings me so much joy. Whereas when I know I'm on Twitter, I'm really like, okay, what am I going to see next? Like what's the trending topics? What's going to agitate me? And you know, the last few weeks

has not been easy with a black woman online. You've seen what's happened with Sister Space and the abuse that they've received. You've seen what's happened with Sister Space and the abuse that they've received. You've seen what's happened with Dr. Scholler and the abuse that she has received, and that's horrific. And then you've seen a trending video go viral of a young schoolgirl being beaten up outside.

Like, it's not been nice to be on Twitter recently as a black woman. And despite being able to mute and block and knowing all of these things, sometimes I do need to disengage because what's going to happen? You're going to keep pushing my buttons and I'm going to get irate.

Then I'm going to sit there on Thursday with my drink and I'm going to be, I'm going to be thinking that I'm arguing with people that I can reason with. That's not a good use of my time, their time and the people that follow me. No, I agree definitely. And I think like I've done this to myself

as part of my own digital detox is that I've turned off Twitter for notifications great I've put settings in place that only certain people can DM me only certain people can tweet me like all of these things and I feel so much better for it like I only go on Twitter now when I feel mentally ready to do it and I know it sounds ridiculous to a lot of people, but it does have a huge impact on your everyday life. 100%. I mean, this is going to sound like I'm a conspiracy theorist, but if people Google this, it's true.

But there is a known tactic by the big tech giants to put lawyers and medical professionals on retainers, make them sign the NDA, and so we don't know what's actually going on. We know from Frances Haugen, who was a whistleblower last year and spoken at many parliaments and congresses around the world.

We know from her testimony, like the dangerous and impact because she had to whistleblow. So tech companies are sitting on this data that shows the attention span, that shows what it does to young people's minds. And it's maddening to me that we think that once somebody turns 18,

the effects that you've shown it has on children just stops applying to adults. And I've been intentional about that. Like we did use, Glitch did used to go into schools and then the pandemic made that even hard. But now we actually saw as an opportunity to say that actually there is a lot of education materials out there for young people to be safe online. It could be more gendered for women, 100%. And we play an advisory role on that. But in terms of our users I actually felt quite confident post lockdown to keep focusing on 18 year olds to keep focusing on

18 plus years because they just get abandoned after they turn 18 they're in university and they're meant to be this adult and then people are taking inappropriate photos of them online you're hearing loads and loads of like sexual harassment happening online and offline. And I'm like, who's supporting these young people? That's my, who I care about and upwards. Some mornings you just wake up on the wrong side of the bed or you have a really long day at work and there's still more to do. Maybe you've been feeling like you can't catch a break and we never know what type of day we'll have, but Calm will help you handle every day. Calm helps you stress less, sleep more and live a happier, healthier life. Their guided meditations, sleep stories, relaxing music tracks and daily movement sessions are all designed to give you the tools to improve the way you feel. Over 100 million people

around the world use Calm, even if you've never meditated before. You'll get the support you feel. Over 100 million people around the world use Calm. Even if you've never meditated before, you'll get the support you need to reduce stress, improve your focus and uplift your mood. The sleep stories help you drift off quickly to recharge your brain. And they're also great for getting kids to calm their minds at night. So rest assured that they're getting the sleep that they need. Go to calm.com slash GKN for 40% off unlimited access to Calm's entire library. That's calm.com slash GKN. So relax, Calm's got everything you need for a happier, healthier you. I think arguably turning 18 or officially becoming an adult is probably the scariest time in your life. Yeah.

Like, and even now thinking about it, like I'm getting closer to 30 and I still think that being a turning 18 was the scariest time of my life. Like I'm all of a sudden legal to do all these things, but who is actually there to support me and guide me? And I think that's really important that you said that you focus on 18

because you're more likely to become a parent in your adult years than you are as a child. So, you know that you pass on your knowledge to a child as well like my mum is is from Asia and she had this weird conspiracy theory that if she turned a computer on it would burn her finger so like you know she didn't teach you anything about computers so you know luckily for me I found these resources and I was very self-sufficient. But, you know, if I wasn't, I could become in a very weird place and my mum wouldn't know what to do. So technically, you are kind of helping people get educated for parenthood as well as their own adult life.

And I really, really hope so because we millennials are the last generation that got to benefit from analogue. You know, that had a cassette player, that had to go to walworths on a saturday to get yeah like we're the last ones that have been able to have some understanding of balance right because we were forced to because like to go online when i was younger i had to go on dial-up i had to wait oh my god i remember that i had to wait and so we are the ones that now can really

stewardship you know the gen z's and uh and the next generation and i do think gen z's are a lot more savvy than we give them credit for um but the rise of incel movements the rise post during andrew tate and others um that's what i worry about they're they're they're the perpetrators of gen z generation i don't think we are quite skilled yet to understand like how organized that stuff is and i kind of dread to think how organized it is and i i think it's something that i don't even think i'm ready to to get into I have seen that glitch do have some very amazing collaborations and when I read it I was like oh my god like I would love to do this or like how did so you know I saw on your website that you collaborate with BT Sport on um your

draw the line how did that collaboration kind of come about well we're going back now to 2021 when we predicted through our ripple effect report that online abuse is going to increase because more people are at home and you know they're bored yeah and we saw that with the matches because there was nothing left to watch but football games upon football games and um we could see that actually online abuse in sports was increasing. And as players are becoming more diverse, clubs were not being equipped with how to deal with it. So we always had it as an intention slash moonboard. I'm really into manifesting and moonboards.

We had it as like, this is a kind of ideal audience we'd love to work with and also has a massive domino effect like if you can influence you know big football clubs and umbrella organizations in sports like it will filter through so it wasn't just like bc sport we were working with we had uh we had relationships with in cricket and i was learning so much about the abuse women in cricket were getting i was like oh my god, cricket. Like, obviously, you know, as a feminist, like obviously it's everywhere.

It doesn't just stop at cricket, but it's like crap. Like there's not one safe space for women. We were talking to people in netball. Obviously there was post Me Too as well. A lot of organisations were trying to do things to get more women into sports. So a lot of the young women's groups in sports

were getting in touch. And then BT Sport was like, look, we have to do something about this. And like, can you help us? And so we said, yeah, but we have to help shape the campaign. We have to help shape the research and the data. And they were really up for that.

They wanted to be evidence and research led. So we'd made sure that it was intersectional, that it was about focusing on race and gender in that and that we had stats that showed not just how bad on abuse is because we know that but actually how many people witnessed it and didn't know what to do and how do we equip and empower them so we made it an empowering conversation and that led to me doing a tv ad on bc sport it was funny because i always get my boyfriend's friends be like, look, it's Shay, and sending a photo, talking about how to spot, support, report,

just keeping it really simple of like, when you want to get involved in addressing online abuse, it doesn't have to be this big, like, leap step. It can just be like, okay, I've seen this behavior online isn't okay. We need to do something about it. I'm going to report it, and I'm going to support the person.

Let's just get that into our everyday habit, like brushing our teeth. And it's been amazing. You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy, just use Indeed. Stop struggling to get your job posts seen on other job sites. With Indeed sponsored jobs,

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And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash P-O-D-K-A-T-Z 13. Just go to Indeed.com slash P-O-D-K-A-T-Z 13 right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring? Indeed is all you need. Working with BC Sport, they have such influence in the tech space as a tech company, as well

as the football space. And it's now evolved into this Draw the Line campaign is now involved in this kind of Hope United, which was united all the football clubs. And we've got this campaign now for the House of Lords to amend the online safety board to include women and girls. So it feels like a really nice narrative. And the one thing I'll say about BT Sport is that they were willing to do the work internally,

as well as Preacher Tech Company is what they had to do. So we worked with their policy team and their social media team to make sure that their HR policies and their internal policies were allowing them to support their staff and support their talent and support players and support people who do like the media pundit before saying okay Twitter what are you going to do and that was also really powerful. I think it's really nice to hear like a big corporation that's actually taking it very seriously because quite a lot of the time you see big corporations use it as a PR stunt yeah and it'll be like this big corporation that's actually taking it very seriously because quite a lot of the time you see big corporations use it as a PR stunt. Yeah.

And it will be like this big poster and then it'll be like, budget's run out or like, you know, we're done now, we're moving on to the next thing. So to hear like, and actually a big corporation that is, you know, I'm a BT customer.

Like there's so many people that have BT at some point in their life. So to hear that like, such a big company does take it so seriously is amazing and you know during the um I think it was 2021 euros we saw that black players were disproportionately targeted for missed penalties or whatever you want to justify it as there is no justification because you know you couldn't run for 90 minutes let alone perform in that way in front of that many

people and you know I'm so grateful that women the women's game is becoming more prevalent and more talked about but I was just I was really concerned and I don't think it's probably come to many people's forefront in their mind that if you know the male players were receiving this kind of abuse and they arguably have more budget or more protection of some kind then what's it gonna what's gonna happen to you know I think minority female players because we know as well that when you're a woman it's quite sexually aggressive trolling as well and there is no escaping that so what like how do how are BT gonna go forward and support that? Or how is Glitch going to go forward and support the women's game? So yeah, I can't speak for BT, but for us at Glitch,

what we are interested, well, we have done, we're aware of the research around how players are getting abused and stuff. And I think that's really important. And we are aware of how that impacts. I'm learning loads. I'm learning loads i'm learning loads about sports um i'm also how that impacts certain certain clubs as well and leagues leagues i think that's that's really important because as you talked about the resourcing so certain top six football women's clubs get um get the get the support now because it's kind of trendy and sexy

but what about the lower leagues so So that's all really interesting. And then for us now, we're trying to map how do we empower the players to be able to not just call out the abuse on their platform, but use that as an opportunity to direct their followers and their supporters to services like Glitch and others and the campaign, so that it doesn't fall on us

every time there's a game that we have to, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? Which is amazing. It's powerful community. It's powerful sisterhood. Like tech companies

can do something about it. So if we can use that to galvanize and say, look, why are women and girls not on the online safety bill? What are tech companies doing to track and systemically address and mitigate gendered harms

on their platforms, that would be the win for me. Because sadly, there will be another event. There'll be another thing. There'll be the Olympics. There'll be Love Island. There'll be Strictly Come Dancing. There'll be something else that will be like,

okay, what are we going to do about it? It's not we now, actually. It's them. It's the institutions. Is there a thing with Strictly? Yeah. So on Strict is um it's been it's been speculated that there is going to be a disabled um contestant who will be in a wheelchair

and there was abuse from that there was abuse as you said with same-sex couples and as as as inspiring as it was to have last year's winner, who was deaf, do that powerful piece, there was abuse there as well. So we don't see it because we're in a very nice values aligned echo chamber, but there are millions out there who are witnessing and seeing this kind of trolling and it is impacting disabled communities who, when I'm fortunate to go to panels or workshops I don't get to do that as much anymore um uh glitches workshops and I when I hear how this how online abuse impacts disabled community like people specifically sending flashing gifs so it would

spark an epileptic attack or sending audio knowing that they can't hear it like but it's obviously like aggressive and rude like it's disgusting yeah because we obviously were like moving on to the like the online safety bill I did get to meet you the first time when we delivered so much for coming along no I honestly I really appreciated the invite when we delivered the petition to Downing Street and unfortunately we did lose the legal but harmful aspect of the bill, which potentially could have covered that stuff. And I never thought like, I'm very, I'm an able-bodied person, so I don't have, I can't firsthand experience these things. But when somebody mentioned to me that it was a thing,

it made me feel violently ill that somebody could be so malicious or nasty to want to do that to somebody and cause that kind of pain yeah um why do you think the online safety bill is super important because it's going to be the first kind of regulation that the uk have had of social media platforms and other countries around the world will be looking at us and this will set a precedent so if we don't get this right like other countries will it will get it will be worse it will be what the implementation could be worse and particularly countries that have a have a less progressive stance on freedom of expression and you know live in a kind of autocratic or dictatorship

um state i mean i'm from nigeria and we've just had the results of the nigerian election which are put to one side but nigeria is known for proposing and passing controversial bills around social media and the uses of it and and when it was used by activists to hold government to account. So it's important in the precedent it was set. And also, I just don't think you can claim this to be the online safety bill. And it's not actually keeping people safe. I think it's actually setting people up for false expectations, to be honest. I think what we have at the moment is an online safety bill for children. And that's fantastic. Let's just call it that.

You know, then you're not wasting our time. But if you're calling it online safety bill that is meant to make the UK the safest space to be online, it's not doing that. Because you've skipped out 50% of the population. You've still, in 2023, failed to understand intersectionality and how multiple intersectional identities mean that a lot of people in this country are at a disadvantage when it comes to being online

and we've lost also the important element around education and I fear that this online safety bill is just going to be amended to become more about criminalizing platforms which I think is an interesting take around accountability criminalizing. Criminalizing platforms, which I think is an interesting take around accountability, criminalizing actual individuals in tech companies. But also it's moving to criminalizing cyber flashing, criminalizing this and this and that. And we know that actually

sending people to prison doesn't actually reform character. And actually there is evidence around transformational justice and community justice and other ways. Don't get me wrong, there are some, can I swear? Oh, yeah. There are some dickheads that do need to be locked away

and away from society and harm, but that this narrative that to address online safety is to be tough on perpetrators is the wrong way around. Where's the support for victims? Where's the support for survivors? Like I said earlier, where's the support for victims where's the support for survivors like i said earlier where's the support um for the regulator to to make sure that um survivors and victims can put forward cases that has been weakened in the bill as well so we actually don't have a mouthpiece but i have a representative and it's a shame because there is such opportunity for this to be

a bill that allows ofcom the proposed regulator to be somewhat like the e-safety commissioner in Australia. The e-safety commissioner is an appointed person, so you've got a kind of accountable face who you can go to to share your issues and complaints around the platform when you've reported something. And we all know where they say, we found no evidence of this breaking terms.

This East Data Commission Australia has to deal with that. We're not sure what Ofcom will do here. So again, is it the privileged few that who can get the time of ministers and the time of Ofcom and regulators that will have their cases heard? When we know that people who are disadvantaged are super busy and don't have the cultural capital to

engage. So there is so much about the online safety bill that needs to be better. But the one thing, the one thing that can really rectify this is a code of practice that means that tech companies have to systemically address online abuse that disproportionately impacts women and girls and looks at it from a preventative and also how it's mitigated it. If we can get that amendment, which has got cross-party support, and thank you again, Sharon,

for coming in a very cold January to hand in the petition, which now has over 100,000 people supporting it. If we can get that amendment in, it will chip away at seeing that online abuse is neutral, which we know it's not. It will chip away at tech companies having to report on the data and we can use that for online safety bill 2.0 it's um really interesting like we are even though the uk is a very small nation as a whole we are looked at in the international media as trailblazers and

this is one of those examples where we have the opportunity to be a trailblazer and to set the precedent for the rest of the world for what we can do for, you know, we said it's a lot that's protecting children, but also protect women and girls online. You know, this government

have made a commitment or they claim to have made a commitment to be the government that goes further in protecting women and girls. But I just don't see it because they're so reluctant to include this code of practice you know off camera I was saying to you that I was when I posted a reel about us yeah handing in the petition I had a couple of battles

with trolls that were like oh well you know women are very protected in society and when I broke it down to them and said yes we've called it the you know vogue code of practice but in reality it does protect men as well and if you actually took the time that you were using to troll me to read what we were actually asking for where do you think like tell me where you think what we're asking for is wrong or too much and they went away and read it and they came back and said actually yeah I understand where you're coming from. And I've signed the petition. Fantastic. So I was like, you know, if you took five minutes to actually understand what the code of practice is for

and what we're asking for, it's not to shut men out or say that they're not worth protecting. It's just that women are disproportionately impacted by cyber flashing, for example. Like, you know, I've said it countless times. I get three penis pictures a day. I don't want to see them. I really don't.

It's disgusting. But I get sent them. And I think it's because people use it as a way to deter the fact that I'm a very outspoken feminist. But it doesn't matter the reason as to why they're sending it to me. It does cause a high level of distress. And it does transpire into real life. You know, if somebody walked past me down the street

and showed me their penis, they'd get arrested. That's the one thing that's good about the cyber flashing kind of amendment, which is taking away the intentionality. It's where the Communications Act that we have before the online system currently fails. You have to prove that the person that was sending you a dick pic

was trying to cause you harm. I mean, what else are they trying to do? But also, why are you trying to make me be the one that now has to be, you know, Olivia Pope or Angelina Donis from How to Get Away with Murder and be this lawyer to put a case together of, like, his intention? And so this online safety bill will mean that if you just send it, it's an offence.

Even if it was a mistake and that doesn't matter and I think that kind of like reset of culture norms online and dating on social media is important I'm just not sure about the criminalizing bit and I think a lot of people are misreading the petition or the call and thinking okay women want their own special thing which I don't think that's a bad thing but we actually this time around this petition actually helps if you can make the online space safe for women it means everyone has the chance to be safe online no I agree definitely and it's like what you said earlier like where actually at the moment is safe to be a woman

yeah and it's one of those things that I you know I went to the house of lords briefing and I said unless we put this code of practice in they will get to a point there is a point where I no longer feel safe in my own home so genuinely where do women feel safe if it's not on the internet and not in their own home I um I talk about the impact of online abuse in the book and I think a lot of people forget that you are on your phone or, you know, web WhatsApp now people use or, you know, the website versions of social media platforms. You are in your home and so you can't leave or you are working from home so you can't leave. So this idea even that you can just leave is not true. And then it impacts somebody's home. So health and safety and the psychological

impact, like where are they to go? You've made their home so unsafe. And then we know that people are stalking online. People are taking, it's why I try and encourage a lot of influencers to stop doing the get ready with me, to stop doing the go, you know, follow me as I go to here, because people will start paint a picture people will start waking that out and be like oh you live on xyz so when I post anything outside my house it goes to my close friends it doesn't go on my platform it doesn't go on my platform if you want to get ready with me you're not even gonna you're gonna maybe see my steps on the street but you're not even gonna see the the street I'm walking on until I'm at my destination that's

when the get ready with me will start um and yeah I'm going off on one but that I yeah I'll stop there no I definitely agree I think actually one of the biggest pieces of advice that I got when I kind of stepped into this industry is something that I told my friends because I don't think it was something I ever crossed my mind until I became part of this industry is that I did a TikTok on it and actually blew up about turning off location settings on Instagram so people couldn't use your Instagram to track you. Because there were a lot of criminal gangs

saying that they use it to track high net worth individuals to potentially steal from them. Yeah. And also to not post your actual location when you're at a restaurant when you're there. And it was like, you know, we were told that as influencers, like like so you don't have press hanging around or so you don't have like fans that are like crazy about you appearing at these things but it's also like just general

well-being and safety general well-being and safety it's in our workshop tips it's in the book as well about making sure you post when you've left or if you are having to post i know a lot of politicians are posting on the doorstep making sure you're not on your own um the the the the the location ones are interesting you just remember reminding me of a of a story when I was in a when I was in a school and I was hearing how uh a school a couple of kids in a school posted that they were going on holiday they were really excited they posted on on TikTok. They were on holiday and they posted everything about not being at home. So then their house got burgled. And now home insurance companies are finding a way to say,

actually, if you've let it be known that your house is vulnerable, we're not going to pay out. So this has a knock-on effect. When we go back to digital citizenship it's that what the individual can do it really can save not just your life but the lives and the well-being of your friends and family yeah i mean we've seen stories in the past of high net worth individuals having their homes broken into because they're trackable but their families are still in their homes and that causes long-term like psychological impact on them rather than just your belongings.

So it is really, really important to be aware of what you're posting on social media, not just for the safety of yourself, but for the safety of other people around you as well. But we have spoken and touched a lot on your book, and I do want to talk about it. What inspired you to write the book in the first place? I just couldn't keep up with the amount of conversations

people wanted to have with me about online safety. I couldn't keep up. So I was like, okay, let me create this workshop. And people still wanted to be able to troubleshoot certain things and arcs. And a lot of the conversations I was having was convincing women that they were a right to have, to do digital self-care. Like I was spending a lot of time convincing people

that, you know, this is not okay. And so when Penguin came and said, would you be interested in writing a book? I was like, yes, because I can now be having a conversation with somebody through the book as if we're going for coffee and you're asking, okay, what can I do?

And the fact that the publishing industry are seeing that this is an issue that is affecting a lot of people and we're mainstreaming the conversation was also really important. I get told a lot that, you know, online safety is quite a niche subject. I was like, is it? Is it really? And we're seeing year on year, it is not a niche subject. It's growing and growing and um that was important to me too that we shine a light on women who have felt like they had to

suffer in silence and the biggest thing that I have loved from people reading the book and giving reviews is that oh I did not realize what I went through was abuse I just I just like suffered through it all and helping people realize that what they had faced was not okay and they were silenced and now that's galvanized them to want to go back and to reclaim their space is like chef's kiss the dream of why I wrote that book it's interesting like when you say people you have to convince people or like educate people on knowing that what they are receiving is abuse like The amount of times I've gone into a school and I've spoken to young female teenagers about image abuse and they don't see it as image abuse because it happens so often.

It's so normalised, isn't it? Yeah, and it's interesting you say that people said online safety is a niche. Like, please show me who is not online. Like, if you walked into a building, every single person is online at some point. Anything that relates to women or girls is told as a niche. And we just know that's not, 50% of the population is not niche.

It's not niche at all. If that's a niche, then I really don't want to know what you think is not a niche. Yeah. No, that's, it's one thing that's really like surprised me. But why do you think that certain demographics are disproportionately targeted online?

Because violence against women or gender-based violence, patriarchy, racism, white supremacy, whatever oppressive system you want to call it, doesn't exist in a vacuum. So what happens offline is going to translate online and in technology. That's why we have things like racism and sexism in the workplace. You know, we had the Me Too movement because racism and sexism doesn't just exist in a vacuum.

It will spread through Hollywood. It will spread through, you know, government institutes and civil service. You know, we have a whole bullying case being discussed right now by a senior member of government. Like, it doesn't just exist in a vacuum. It's part of a continuum. So the online affects the offline.

And it's why I really spent a lot of time at the beginning of the book saying, we have to challenge our language. We have to stop saying the online world is the fake world or the virtual reality world. I mean, there is virtual reality, but like the real world and the online world. Like, no, the online world is very real. It has very much real consequences and feelings and experiences.

And I think that we have to realize that the technology is being used and weaponized to keep upholding these oppressive structures. No, and that's the point that I keep making, that it does transpire into the real world, because you might have an egg as your Twitter picture or a robot as your Reddit picture, but in reality, that is still somebody's family, like relative, partner, colleague. And they might not display those opinions

out loud to you, but subconsciously they still have them. And, you know, even when I talk about gender pay gap and the amount of people that tell me it's not real because I would just hire more women, I was like, there's so many unconscious bias things you are yet to learn. That's because you are 14.

But there are so many things you are yet to learn that's because you are 14 but there are so many things you are you are yet to learn and when I pointed that out to certain members of like certain parliamentarians they were actually really taken back by the fact they were like yeah actually it could be the person that sits next to you on the train that might hate my skin color or the fact I'm part of the LGBTQ community and like because I'm so open about it hate me and might want to cause harm to me but they'll do it online as opposed to like in real real face but they still hold those biased opinions of you yeah that's why I think it's a shame that the digital citizenship aspects of the online safety bill and the whole education piece has

gone because also as part of digital citizenship is educating yourself offline so it's about decolonizing your education your experience it's about I call myself a recovering dickhead it's about learning and unlearning and understanding what prejudices you may be holding about certain communities you're not going to be a good digital citizen if you still hold those bigotry opinions offline yeah and so it is really important and why we work and sign posts like decolonizing education networks and and folks like that that we don't want the online space being used to mask uh the intolerance that is breeding in society and therefore through the back door have far-right groups have incel groups who are

organizing and whipping up people to join these hatred groups like there is a real grooming movement happening and then you end up with not sure if i talk about it in the book i interview somebody who found out the person who was sending them the most disgusting anti-Semitic trolling was in the law chamber with them, was a fellow lawyer. Oh God. And that's a story that will help open people's minds to be like, okay, a troll could be one of us. Like I think we'll get some stats soon

around saying like one in six people are a troll, one in six people have a fake account. And I know that because some of the research that we didn't release with BT Sport was giving some indications of people having multiple fake accounts and not your finsters not your kind of like you know um dos accounts so that you can like have a personal thing with your friends blocked you but like using it for like malicious reasons um it also challenges what do we say to ourselves what's our unconscious bias when we think of a troll?

Yeah. We don't think of a troll. When we think of a troll, we don't think of somebody who is in one of the most well-renowned known law firms in the world being a troll. Yeah. We think probably working class, greasy, overweight man.

Actually, no. And I've written about this, it's in the book. And there are a lot of women, a lot of influencers who are trolls, who are using their platforms to instigate hurting other people. We know of that forum tassel or whatever. Like we have to change our stereotyping of trolls

if we are going to want to address this issue. And that's not just looking at the far right it's also looking at our near enemies as well on the left in social justice movements it's why taking this back again to the what the individual can do when it comes to citizenship it's making sure that we are not perpetuating harm we are thinking about online efficacy we are thinking about amplifying good voices and we're doing the learning and the work to be anti-racist and allies, allies in a multi-directional way online so that we are reclaiming that space.

We are setting a tone and the leadership would say, like, this is how our community needs to be in 2023. We've not survived the pandemic to now be trolling each other in 2023. Like, what is that? Yeah, I guess you pretty much answered my next question because I was going to ask you, how can you be a better ally so you've pretty much answered that to be honest yeah I think it's really thinking about doing the work and doing the work to like okay what is my

responsibility here like if I've got you know I talked to Jameel in the book but also I know um MPs who've said look I support everything you're doing, but I don't want to retweet you because I don't want the trolls that come from me to come for you. When I support Diane Abbott and she retweets me and she thanks me, the thread that I'm a part of for days that is disgusting and violent is ridiculous. Or Iman in the US, when I'm brought in something with her, it's disgusting. And we all need to keep our eyes open to this because people are suffering in silence. We also need to not amplify it. I think there's ways we need to learn skillfully that trolls do want us to amplify their behavior and get the limelight. But there is so much that we can do and it is real low-hanging

fruits. It isn't having to put yourself on the firing line, which I think a lot of people think, oh, if I say something, am I going to get cancelled? Am I going to get trolled? Like, it doesn't have to be in that way. No, that's really important to highlight that you don't have to like, it doesn't have to be a ginormous gesture. It can be something so small and it makes such a massive difference to a lot of people um my final question to you I always ask people I guess um similar questions but I wanted to ask you why um what would you say to people that doubt your life experiences based off the fact that you're a black woman oh oh my god i've got somebody lost for words very rarely happens yeah is it well i'm thinking about what i say that i don't get myself in trouble um

because i would say just fuck off but um i mean a lot of people have said that to be fair you know what it depends who am i needing to convince what do you have that i need to convince you so do i need to convince you because you're a funder or do i need to convince you because you're a politician like what depends on who you are because if you're not someone that can unlock resource and support for our organization or my work or my safety you know know, there are times when I've gone to police stations and I have to convince police officers what I'm going through is problematic. If it's not that, then I don't really care what you think.

I think I've done a lot of work to stop convincing people to listen to me and believe me. I've done a lot of work to build my own inner self-trust around my leadership, around my activism, around the way I run my charity. And it's not in an ego way, in a bad ego way, it's in a real healthy ego way. Like for you to say something to me, you have to really have some elevated status in my life for me to really believe that, really what you have to say to negate my experience and I think I have that vim because I started Glitch with lived experience I started it with

centering some my survivor story and other survivor story where a lot of people were still wanting to put the focus on quantitative research and what the data was saying and all of that. So unless you are my mum or you're going to unlock millions of pounds for my charity, I'm not going to spend my time convincing you about my lived experience. It's interesting that you made a point about ego and you're like, it's not an ego thing. And I think we kind of say that as a woman

in lots of different situations. It's not an ego thing. I'm just trying to do well in my career. Whereas with men, woman in lots of different situations it's not an ego thing like I'm just trying to do well in my career whereas with men they would never be like it's not an ego thing they would just be like I am who I am and like you know

I think it's really amazing to hear that you have done that self-development and that work so you don't feel like you have to justify that but no honestly on the ego thing that was the

I had a sabbatical for three months last year to rest recuperate and just like recalibrate like okay what's next what's the next phase I'd done five years at glitch I wanted to do a few years more like what do I want to do so I wanted to make sure I rest and I worked with a sabbatical coach an amazing um black woman who held me through the recovery and the rest because I had serious serious serious burnout and that's another topic uh topic to discuss but the thing that was a catalyst in my development was having a healthy relationship with my ego in accepting honor and honor and g for the work that I've done because that's also in my ancestors my ancestors believe in storytelling and paying homage and respect to elders who have who have gone gone us. So why would I suppress that side of me?

Because as you said, men don't. And it's suppressing my body's need. Like if we didn't have an ego, if we have an ego for a reason and all the work on the ego around self-trust and real self-belief and agency, like I am good. Like I'm a good human being.

I am smashing it at life like being able to say that with with without the caveat as you said like was a big catalyst for my development it was a big catalyst for stopping overextending to um having to prove myself overworking because I felt like I wasn't enough like when you can get to that level of self-acceptance with your ego, you are flourishing in life. I think that's an amazing end to the podcast. And I want to say, honestly, that's so good. I can take that and carry that with me for the rest of my life. Honestly, I want to say thank you so much for giving up your time and being such an amazing guest. You just realized your business needed to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast?

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