There Are No Girls on the Internet - Andrew Tate's MLM app removed from Google Play Store; Elon Musk weaponizes sexual assault allegations against Russell Brand; Amazon sued for Prime subscription trickery; Abortion Chatbot Charly provides accurate info; Hero of sex trafficking fantasy movie removed for sketchy behavior – NEWS ROUNDUP

Episode Date: September 22, 2023

For Bridget's full take on Ashton Kutcher and anti-trafficking work, check out the Patreon: Patreon.com/tangoti  Russell Brand accused of sexual assault by multiple women; but defended by Elon Musk and Alex Jones: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russell-brand-youtube-suspends-monetization-rape-sexual-assault-rcna105750  New chatbot connects abortion-seekers with care options: https://mashable.com/article/abortion-chatbot-charley  Amazon leaders were ‘okay’ with people being secretly signed up for Prime, lawsuit allege: https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/20/23882675/amazon-prime-ftc-dark-patterns-lawsuit Google bans Andrew Tate's 'The Real World' App: https://www.indy100.com/science-tech/andrew-tate-real-world-app  Tim Ballard’s Departure From Operation Underground Railroad Followed Sexual Misconduct Investigation: https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkaqvn/tim-ballards-departure-from-operation-underground-railroad-followed-sexual-misconduct-investigationSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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business. Call 844-844-I-Hart. Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shunker, a cognitive scientist and hosts of the podcast, a slight change of plans, a show about who we are and who we become when life makes. makes other plans. I wish that I hadn't resisted for so long the need to change. We have to be willing to live with a kind of uncertainty that none of us likes. You can have opinions. You can have like a strong stance. And then there's your body having its own program. Listen to a slight change of plans on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There are no girls on the internet as a production.

IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. I am here with my producer, Mike. Mike, welcome back to the show. It's great to have you back. Bridget, it's good to be back. I'm excited to get all the news from the Internet that people might have mixed.

Okay, so let's do it. If you have ever bought anything from Amazon.com, you might want to check to make sure that you did not accidentally subscribe to Amazon Prime, because you might be paying $140 a year to Amazon without even knowing it. And that's because of it. according to a new lawsuit from the FTC, Amazon executives were okay with people being secretly signed up for Amazon Prime memberships without their knowledge. This has to do with a practice called dark patterns, which is when websites use kind of like iffy practices to trick us into

clicking on things that we don't actually want to click on or making it hard for us to click on things that they don't want us to click on, like us finding that hidden unsubscribe button. According to Verge, the lawsuit says that Amazon. tricked millions of people into unwittingly subscribing to Amazon Prime through buttons that were presented prominently during checkout. Their complaint includes internal messages and the names of three specific senior Amazon leaders who allegedly played a key role in this scheme. So these three specific Amazon higher-ups who were named in the complaint were warned that Amazon was using these deceptive tactics to create an enrollment process for Prime that was easy for customers to accidentally trigger. Amazon employees were expressing concerns to company leadership about these strategies in 2016, but those executives took no action. For example, Amazon designers once asked Neil Lindsay,

the senior vice president who oversaw Amazon Prime, about how the company was tricking people into signing up for Prime. And Lindsay, according to the lawsuit, said that Amazon was okay with that because, quote, once customers became Prime members, even unknowingly, they will see what a great program it is and remain members. The complaint also includes new internal messages and emails indicating that Amazon and its leadership was aware of their deception. One company newsletter reads, quote, the issue of accidental prime sign-ups is well documented, while admitting that prime customers sign up accidentally and don't always see the auto-renewal terms. So this would be bad enough, but have you ever actually tried to cancel your Amazon Prime subscription? Because I have, and the process is so cumbersome and complicated and long,

that eventually I gave up. I was like, oh, I don't have time for this. I'll just keep Amazon Prime, which I bet is exactly what they want. This is by design, according to the FTC. Once customers were signed up, Amazon created an intentionally complicated cancellation process. The process that you have to go through to cancel Amazon Prime even had a pretty telling internal code name, the Iliad, referring to Homer's ancient epic poem. So in addition to making it intentionally super easy to accidentally subscribe to Prime, they made it intentionally super complicated and cumbersome to unsubscribe from Prime. So it really seems like they knew what they were doing there.

I love the use of classical literature to refer to this sort of thing. Obviously, they know that what they're doing is not good and deceptive, but naming it the Iliad just, I don't know, it elevates it a little bit. I respect it. You know, I feel like if you're an Amazon engineer trapped in this uncomfortable pattern of tricking people into buying shit that they don't want, finding refuge in classical literature, it's kind of sweet. And I respect it. And I love it for them. It's like a highbrow scam. Like, they're scamming, but they're doing it in a literary way.

Yeah, exactly. So the FTC was recently on kind of a terror about this. the FTC even floated banning any subscription, whether it was for a shopping membership or a gym membership, where the cancellation process is much harder than the sign-up process. Under the ban that they were initially proposing, people would have to be able to use the same method for canceling a subscription that they use for the sign-up. So this includes letting people use the same method for both actions. So a business could not, for instance, let somebody sign up easily and quickly for a service online, but make them call a phone number or like, go in person to cancel. And you know what? I'm going to name names. Washington Sports Club on 14th Street in D.C. I am talking to you. You could easily sign up. But then when you wanted to

cancel, it was like, oh, well, you have to like send a physical email and like physically come to the gym to cancel. Uh-uh. So when the FTC was floating this ban on like making it super cumbersome to cancel subscriptions, big businesses and advertisers were not happy. I feel like everyone like pretty universally hates not being able to easily cancel a subscription. But the Association of National Advertiser says, actually maybe we're wrong and we all like secretly like it. They said, if sellers are required to enable cancellation through a single click or action by the consumer, accidental cancellations will become much more common, as consumers will not reasonably expect to remove their recurring goods or services with just one click. So they're tricking us,

but they're tricking us for our own good. It's better for us, the consumer, if we allow them to trick us, and actually maybe we kind of like it. Yeah, we want it, we need it, and if they make it too easy for us dumb-dums to actually cancel it, we'll be sad. Like, please, let me,

don't let me easily cancel the subscription that I never wanted, and I'm not even aware that I purchased in the first place. It's just hard to imagine that anybody would be, sad about like missing out on a subscription. Like I subscribed to so many things and I love all of them and I'm happy to support all of them. But you know sometimes like like when I lost my wallet and I had to cancel my credit card and some of my subscriptions got canceled. It was the most fine thing that has ever

happened. Like it could not have been less disruptive. It was like, oh yeah, this thing that I signed up for, I guess I need to enter a new credit. credit card, this is not a big problem. Beyond fine, it's, I find it freeing when you got to get a new credit card. If you lose your, you lose your credit card, you have to get a new one. And so you realize, like, you get those emails rolling in that's like, oh, your credit card payment didn't go through to this, to that, to this, to that. You're like, I've actually had a lot of different recurring charges on my card. And now I can just start over and like, be free. I actually find it very freeing. And also it's like, wild to see, I mean, if you're, if you're me, wild to see how many

just reoccurring charges you have on your card. Yeah, I agree. I wish I were a more responsible person who is more on top of all my recurring charges, but like declaring recurring bankruptcy once a year and just like wiping it all clean and being like, the things that I was paying for that I don't care about will just go away. And the things that I do care about, they will let me know that my subscription has lapsed. And I will enter a new credit card. and two minutes later, all problems will be resolved.

Yeah, and I think this story really speaks to sort of a larger trend that we've identified on the show before. Of everything on the internet feeling like it is a low-key scam these days, we've just come to expect that the experience of navigating the online space is going to be a wash in like dark patterns and tricks and scams and bots and little design choices that are making. you click on things that you don't want to click. I just don't like that, you know, these big platforms that already take so much of our money and take so much of our data, take so much

of our attention, so much of our everything, also have to be tricking us and scamming us on top of it. I don't like it. I think we deserve better. It's messed up that we have just accepted that being scammed like this is just a normal part of doing business on the internet that is like super easy for us to give our money away to companies who are charging money for stuff. But to try to, I don't know, get something back is a Herculean effort that you have to have secret knowledge and scroll deep to the bottom of the footer. It's not okay. It's bad.

It's bad. I believe that we deserve an internet experience that is not so predatory and not so awash in scams. And speaking of the internet not being such a trustworthy place, we've talked before about how we can no longer really trust that search platforms like Google are going to provide us with accurate information about something as important as our health and our medical choices. To combat that, abortion advocates have released Charlie, a chat bot that was built specifically to reach folks in states where abortion has been banned or restricted to help connect them with information about abortion access. Charlie, which communicates in both English and Spanish, is accessible through the website chat with charlie.org or on the websites for abortion on our terms and abortion access front. Charlie is a non-profit platform co-created by several reproductive rights and justice organizations, including I Need anA.com, plan C, and the miscarriage and abortion hotline. Cecile Richards, the former president of Planned Parenthood and my former boss when I worked there, is the co-founder.

So the bot was created in part because people just cannot trust searching platforms like Google for accurate, not to mention, confidential information about abortion. Nicole Cushman, who oversees Charlie's content, told Mashable that search experience online in particular is really mired in confusion. People wind up going on this scavenger hunt, trying to piece together all the resources that make sense for them to get the care that they need. The bot was created in part because, as I was saying, people just cannot trust searching platforms like Google for accurate and confidential information about abortion. Nicole Cushman, who oversees Charlie's content, told Mashable,

the search experience online in particular is really mired in confusion. People wind up going on this scavenger hunt, trying to piece together all the resources that make sense for them to get the care that they need. We talked about this on a previous newscast, dipping into accountable text research that found that Google is not deleting location data related to abortion, even though they said that they would. And Google also earned $10 million promoting, abortion clinics on their platforms. So this is a pretty big deal because Google is also the biggest

search engine in the world. 84% of online searches happen on Google. So if Google is not providing accurate or confidential information about abortion, it is a problem for the entire abortion landscape. So I would be concerned about any platform where you're entering sensitive medical information. So let's talk a bit about Charlie's privacy policies. Nicole Klishman told Mashable that Charlie does not request personal identifiable information like name or age. The bot and its platforms do not use cookies and do not share data with any third party, including the meta tool pixel, which can send private or sensitive user information to third parties. Cushman also noted that every chat is routinely deleted from Charlie's system and server,

and data is removed upon closing the browser. She said that Charlie's deletion policy would mean that records would likely no longer exist should law enforcement attempt to obtain those records in the future. Boy, that's really cool. That's reminiscent of how Signal does things, right, where they protect privacy by just not keeping records of user transactions and content of what users have said or done. Yeah, and it makes sense because both Signal and Charlie are operating as nonprofits. And so it's just like a vastly different setup than a for-profit platform like Google, whose entire existence. is to get your data and save your data and use your data, right? And so it makes sense that they're

operating that way. Yeah, I think this is cool. I'll keep folks updated as I hear more about it. But again, it's, I, abortion advocates are always out there doing the work to like get people the access that they need. That is like one of the only things that I put my faith and my trust in these days is like advocates are going to advocate or advocate or either or. And So I really applaud them seeing the fact that we just don't have the online infrastructure where folks can get connected to the information that they need. And trust that information will be handled sensitively and privately and confidentially and also just be accurate.

However, that like Charlie shouldn't have to exist. First of all, people should be able to get the healthcare they need full stop. Like people should be able to get abortions when they need them, full stop. However, certainly platforms like Google should be in the business of providing accurate information to people that need it. Like that should be the reason why they exist. And so while I applaud the fact that these advocates stepped in and saw the need and created Charlie to sort of like bridge the gap in services that exist, it makes me sad because like I said, everybody deserves accurate, timely information to make choices for their own. life and their own health. It is absurd to me that Google is not providing that when they are the biggest search engine in the world and that advocates have to step in and bridge that gap.

Yeah. And, you know, I hope we see more examples like this where some sort of app exists not to harvest our data for the purposes of reselling it, but just to provide a service and deletes all of the user-generated data afterwards because it's no longer useful. Because every additional service that follows that model is another piece of evidence that, you know, the advertising-driven model is not necessary and that it's completely reasonable to have applications that respect privacy and confidentiality. Especially when it comes to something as sensitive as someone's searching for abortion information.

Like, I don't want to search for abortion information and then a week later get a targeted advertisement that seemed to suggest that whatever platform I was doing that on knows that still knows that I was searching for that information. That's not, I just, I think it's, I mean, this comes up all the time on the show, but I think that we need to fundamentally rethink the relationship that we have with platforms that says that that is the only way that, that we can have online. experiences because there are other models that are better, that are safer, that just allow for people to get what they actually need and that is accurate information.

Totally. Let's take a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guide, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman, help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an Acapell band with their between songs banter.

There's that worst singer in the group? The worst? Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The group. The yard birds, right? That's the name.

The Harvard Yard, but they're open to change. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle aged. One erection. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel. and friends on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hum me.

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What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm CJ Toledano, and our podcast's point game is about defining the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows. Without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game. We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid. He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to give us everything he gives us on the night-to-night basis on offense. And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson,

we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nass would get that thing. That means. Man, hell get the flying. He running up the court, licking his fingers, why he got the ball. Like, you go through a training camp with that, Isaiah, you figure it out real quick. Oh, yeah. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball. So listen to Point Game on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back.

Do you want to know what one of my favorite songs is? Yeah, Bridget. What's one of your favorite songs? The song that goes, Men Facing Consequences for Their Bad Behavior. So a handful of men behaving badly faced a whisper, an inkling of consequences for their bad behavior and the internet is melting down over it. So quick heads up that this involves sexual abuse and sexual violence. Last week, comedian, YouTuber, and podcaster Russell Brand was accused of sexual and emotional abuse and rape of women between the years 2006 and 2013. The allegations are really troubling.

a girl who was just 16 at a time, which is the age of consent in the UK, said that during her three-month relationship with Bran, he would sign her out of school to hang out with him, forced himself on her, and once kissed her mother on the lips. Now, Brand says that he absolutely refutes all of the allegations. So if you don't know who Russell Brand is, he's an actor and a comedian, he was a host on BBC. And here in the U.S., he was known for roles in movies like for getting Sarah Marshall and get him to the Greek, which honestly, when you think about it, that cast is like Milakoulos, Jonah Hill, Russell Brand. That crew is really down bad in the last few weeks, like a lot going on with those three. So Russell Brand was sort of known for having this kind of, I don't know, like cheeky public person. like a cheeky, mischievous bad boy. He would talk openly about his drug use and his sexual history,

but it seemed like maybe he was curating that persona to mask behavior that was actually, like, sexually abusive and violent. More recently, Brand has kind of become a right-wing adjacent, I guess, like, alternative content creator. His big things are his podcast under the skin with Russell Brand and a YouTube channel that has over 6.6 million subscribers. Now, I have not listened to his podcast, but I think what he's trying to do is sort of like

an alternative woo-woo kind of wellness thing. He has on folks like journalist Michael Pollan talking about psychedelics or Deepak Chopra talking about meditation. But a lot of that was really taken to the extreme on his YouTube channel, which if I had to summarize his YouTube channel, is that he often gives a contrarian take while operating under the premise that they are lying, because they don't want us to know the truth.

His videos often have titles like things that are like, so this is what they don't want us to know, all caps, or this is why they want us to take the COVID vaccine, or this is why they want a war in Ukraine. Interestingly, he rarely provides, like, direct proof or, like, makes any kind of definitive direct statement about what he say. Like, he doesn't really make, like, hard claims.

Generally, he'll just ask a lot of pointed, leading questions, but the way that he says them, like, the tone is, like, all accusatory, right? Like, like, why do they want us taking that COVID vaccine? And I feel like anything, anything sounds suss when you say it, when you say it all accusatory. So he's kind of like Joe Rogan, if Joe Rogan had, like, long flowing hair and wore, like, an open linen shirt. Yeah, you got to be suspicious of that they, you know, just the liberal use of, they peppered throughout.

They want this. They want that. Like, who are they? Please specify. Well, so his unstated, his mostly unstated they is like the mainstream media. Like his whole thing is all about how the mainstream media isn't telling us the truth. The mainstream media is feeding us lies and that the mainstream media like is against him because he is challenging what the mainstream media says. It's, it's like a pretty, I mean, I probably would have found this really compelling when I was like 19. Yeah. And like in 20203, if I ask who is they and Russell Brand says

the mainstream media, that's not adding much. Like it's just moving the question. Like, who is the mainstream media in 2023? Oh, yeah. I'm 100% certain that I stoned at a party, probably said something very similar and thought I sounded really smart. It's one of those things where to a certain kind of person, making them feel like they are, like, the truth seekers and they're getting like the real information that they, the mainstream media, won't tell you. That's always going to work on a certain kind of person. And so I think that he's really courting that audience.

So since these allegations came out, Brand has been blocked from monetization on YouTube. YouTube said in a statement that it had suspended monetization on Brand's channel for violating its creator responsibility policy. So he's not been kicked off the platform or banned from the platform, much like the Fresh and Fit podcast. He just can't earn money on those videos. YouTube said, if a creator's off platform behavior harms our users, employees or ecosystem, we take action to protect the community. Brand is also on Rumble, which is kind of like a right-wing version of YouTube. And apparently, members of parliament in the UK want to know if Rumble is going to follow YouTube's

lead and demonetize Brand's content. But Rumble's whole thing is being, quote, anti-cancel culture, so of course they're not going to do that. Caroline Dinnage, the conservative chair of the Culture, Media, and Sport Committee, wrote to Rumble's CEO, saying,

we would like to know whether Rumble intends to join YouTube in suspending Mr. Brand's ability to earn money on the platform. The MP also asked what Rumble was doing to ensure that content creators don't use their platform to undermine the welfare of victims of inappropriate and potentially illegal behavior. Rumble replied on Twitter, calling the letter disturbing and said that Parliament's demands were deeply inappropriate and dangerous. The platform added that they were devoted to an internet where no one arbitrarily dictates

which ideas can or cannot be heard or which citizens may or may not be entitled to a platform. So what's interesting to me about this is that even before these allegations were made public, Brand was able to weaponize his history of stoking conspiracy theories and hoarding that audience of people who really want to believe what he is saying to shield himself from accountability from his own actions. In a YouTube video, he suggested that the allegations are all a campaign by the mainstream media to keep him from speaking the truth. Here's what he had to say. The relationships I had were absolutely always consensual. I was always transparent about that then, almost too transparent.

And I'm being transparent about it now as well. And to see that transparency metastasized into something criminal that I absolutely deny makes me question, is there another agenda at play? Particularly when we've seen coordinated media attacks before, like with Joe Rogan when he dared to take a medicine that the mainstream media didn't approve of, and we saw a spate of headlines from media outlets across the world using the same language. I'm aware that you guys have been saying in the comments for a while. Watch out, Russell, they're coming for you.

You're getting too close to the truth. Russell Brand did not kill himself. I know that a year ago there was a spate of articles. Russell Brand's a conspiracy theorist. Russell Brand's right wing. I'm aware of news media making phone calls, sending letters to people I know, for ages and ages. It's being clear to me, or at least it feels to me, like there's a serious and concerted agenda to control these kind of spaces and these kind of voices.

And I mean my voice along with your voice. Okay, so Brand put out this video even before the article about the allegations was ever published. And all of the comments on the video were about how his followers and fans saying that he is innocent and that he is obviously being framed by the mainstream media, which I feel like if you have built up an audience who is primed to believe anything that you say, even before they know what it is you're being a... of, even more if they have any information about that. It does kind of suggest that you've curated an audience of people who cannot think for themselves, not an audience of independent thinkers.

Like, an independent thinker would be like, I'll wait until these allegations are published. I will read the proof that they say that they have, and I will make up my own mind. An independent, a true independent thinker is not just saying, whatever you say, Russell Brand, we trust you, we'll just take your word for it with no other information. And here's the thing. actually look at what these women are saying, like they have copies of text messages from Brand wherein they discuss his abusive behavior. One woman texted him, when a girl says no, it means no. And then Brand replies saying, very sorry, you know, there are records of another woman seeking medical treatment at a rape crisis center after Brand assaulted her. So I'm curious, like,

how Brand is thinking that they fabricated these records from like 15 years ago. Yeah, it raises good questions about who's included in they. It kind of seems like maybe it's just like the women that he assaulted. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's like, even if, even if he believes this is some sort of a like coordinated campaign to like

stop this podcaster and YouTuber, but even if that was what was going on, if somebody wanted to have a coordinated campaign against me, they would not be able to produce records that showed that somebody got medical treatment after they, after I attacked them. Because that doesn't exist.

They would not be able to produce text messages where I said very sorry when someone said that I violated their consent because that doesn't, that's not out there. And so, yeah, just publishing accounts of what you did is not a coordinated campaign. That's just like reporting about your own actions. Like, yeah, you don't have to, it's interesting to me how he's like, oh, this is just a campaign. me because I'm getting too close to the truth. It's like, well, they wouldn't be able to publish this shit if you hadn't done it. So, you know, in what way? Are they, like, he's not saying that these are fabricated. Yeah, and like, what truth? And again, who is they? Name some names. Well, you know, who has named some names? That is some of the folks who are supporting brand at this time.

Folks like Alex Jones, Alex Jones says it's the globalists. Oh. See, I knew. I knew. they were right around the corner. I didn't want to bring it up, but I knew the globalists was secretly the they. When someone says they like that, all the accusatory, we all know who they're talking about. It's like barely even a dog whistle. So Alex Jones said, and now, because Brand comes out against Big Pharma, he comes out against the globalist, he comes out against the New World Order, and suddenly these allegations are happening to him.

Also, a woman had to go to get medical care. I love that this is like allegations are happening to him. A lot of questions about how Alex Jones thinks allegations work. Like, they don't just like happen to people. So Alex Jones, there was just a story about how he spent like, it was like $900,000 in a month of just like living expenses or something. I could be wrong about that about it, but it was some, like, ridiculous number.

And all the while, like, he has paid $0 to the families of the Sandy Hook families, to whom he owes, like, billions of dollars. Yeah, that's definitely who you want on your side when you are facing public allegations of wrongdoing. So also in Russell Brand's corner, Elon Musk. Elon Musk tweeted when Russell Brand said that he was being attacked because he promotes alternative views, Elon said, of course, they, all caps, don't like competition. Also, don't forget, Elon Musk himself was accused of exposing himself to a flight attendant. So, you know, birds of a feather.

Like, if you, nobody, nobody's got the back of a sexual abuser, like a man who is also a sexual abuser. Also, we've got Tucker Carlson in the mix, who tweeted, criticized the drug companies, question the war in Ukraine, and you can be pretty sure this is going to happen. Elon Musk chimes in sure seems that way. And then Andrew Tate chimes in with, yep. What a collection of fuckos. Also, speaking of Andrew Tate, in more men facing a whisper of consequences news,

we did an episode a while back about Andrew Tate's app, The Real World, and how it's basically a pyramid scheme. Well, now, that app has been taken off of the Google Play Store because it's a pyramid scheme, one that preys on young men and boys. So Andrew Tate's app used to be called Hustlers University, and it's a build as, quote, a global community of like-minded individuals striving to acquire an abundance of wealth. Tell me that that does not sound like every MLM pyramid scheme that a girlie from your high school DMs you about on Facebook being like, hey, girlie, like you should, have you ever thought about having

your own business? I think you would really slay at it, girl. You know what else it sounds like? It sounds like the they that they're always talking about. A global community of like-minded individuals striving to acquire an abundance of wealth. Oh, my God. Was Andrew Tate's group, they the whole time? Russell Brand, the call is coming from inside the house.

The they is coming from inside the house. Okay, so this is from Vice. The app promises to give subscribers expert tuition and business and online entrepreneurship with video lessons and mentorship from a supposed multi-millionaire experts on topics like copywriting, e-commerce, crypto, and stocks. Targeting young people in its marketing and design, the platform claims that for a monthly subscription fee, Mike, guess how much the subscription fee is a month? Can you guess? I'm going to say $9.99. Oh, my God. It's $49.99 per month. My God.

Wow. So for that price, recruits can earn over 10K per month quickly and escape The Matrix, which is Andrew Tate's disparaging term for mainstream society and avoid an otherwise inevitable future of being a brokey. The system slash matrix wants you to remain poor, weak, alone, and complacent, says one website promoting the real world. Understand that in about five to ten years' time, you will either be rich, unlimited money with unlimited options, or you'll be broke slaving away for social credits. Do you want to escape or not? Wow, I can actually really see how that like over the top language could be enticing for,

especially a young person, a young person who spends a lot of their time like online playing video games. I can see how that would be enticing. Yeah, I guess so. I mean, they're really trafficking on like the Matrix ideology. which is kind of funny because the Matrix was written by a pair of trans women. Yeah, Lily Wachowski deserves much better than this. Yeah.

I'm pretty sure they would be in the they, according to these people, but they've just like wholesale adopted their ideology. But also, and more importantly, I just want to go back to like their topics, which include copyrighting, e-commerce, crypto, and stocks. Like, those are a pretty disparate set of activities. Like, are they going to earn over 10K per month through copywriting? Like, what are they copywriting for? As a former copywriter, I can tell you they probably won't be earning 10K a month through copywriting.

We're actually doing an episode, I think this coming Tuesday, with an extremism researcher from Media Matters, all about Andrew Tate. And one of the questions I had for this researcher is, like, when they're all, offering these pyramid scheme, scammy, you know, classes and stuff, there is always such a wide net of offerings that will be like how to pick up chicks and also real estate and also crypto. And it's like, why do they like, how are they related to each other? How does, how is, how is one person going, like, an expert in all of these things going to teach me about all of these things like. And basically, he said that it's all related to this concept of grind mentality, where they choose all of these buckets or topics that young men traditionally might associate with,

you know, being on their grind and hustling and making money. E-commerce and copywriting is a new one for me. Like, I don't know that I associate that with like the hustle. But crypto, stocks, real estate, these things that you associate with like masculinity, question mark, I guess. Those are the things that these scammers are always saying that they can like teach you to be rich through using. Yeah, you know, whatever they got to do to be part of that global community of like-minded individuals striving to acquire an abundance of wealth, aka them.

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on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcast. Let's get right back into it. So one of the reasons I find this so deeply, deeply messed up among a lot of reasons why I find it so messed up is that the platform is very clearly aimed at children. On the Google Play Store, the platform is labeled as being suitable for people age four and up, which is like, what does that fucking four-year-old taking classes

and crypto trading and stocks for. But they actually claim that their youngest student is age six. So they have this six-year-old who says that he is a student of Hustler's University. He wants to be a boxer, just like Andrew Tate when he grows up. And he takes fitness classes supposedly through the Andrew Tate's real-world app. And so this is very much geared toward very young people. And it's clear in the way that it kind of gamifies using the app and mimic video game play. In some of the promotional language about the real world, it prompts young men and

boys to shock their families by leveling up in real life instead of just leveling up in video games. So importantly, like most MLMs and pyramid schemes, the thing is not just getting dupees to pay for whatever the thing is, like leggings or in this case, you know, scammy classes about nothing. The thing is actually convincing other dupies to get duped in the doing it too. Through the real world's affiliate marketing program, members are required to aggressively promote Tate and his site by flooding websites like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube with repurposed Andrew Tate content, along with distinctive sign-up links attached, getting 48% of sales commission for every new recruit to the site that joined through their link. Now, I think that this probably

served double duty for Andrew Tate because he's banned from most social media platforms. He was banned from Facebook and Twitter and YouTube and TikTok. Elon Musk, of course, brought him back in their besties. But this affiliate marketing program, I believe, not only makes him more money through getting more dupies to sign up for his scam, but also allows him to get around being banned from these platforms because he is individually banned, but his content is not banned. If people are just spamming TikTok with Andrew Tate memes and videos and reprimmed, and repurpose content, I think it's a way for him to get around being banned.

Like, his content is all over social media, despite the fact that he himself is banned. He sucks. He sucks. He is so gross. Isn't he, like, under investigation for, like, being a sex trafficker? Like, what's the status of that? He sure is. He sure is.

He is currently under investigation for trafficking. People like Tucker Carlson love to talk about trafficking and making that they're, like, cause de jour, but then is fine to publicly associate with somebody who is under literal investigation for trafficking. Make it make sense. The math is not mapping. It's like one of the most harmful things in our society that these toxic assholes have somehow like claimed, claim the mantle of masculinity. I almost have a hard time. Like I don't even, it's not even really cathartic to dunk on him because he's so toxic and harmful. And I think he's worse because he targets children, like very young kids, six years old, seven years old.

I saw a video where like school children, elementary school children were being asked, like, oh, what do you look for in a girl? And they were like, oh, got to make sure she's not a gold digger. And they're little kids. And so I think the fact that Andrew Tate is really targeting our youth. And I think it's, you know, I think with Andrew Tate, what's so upsetting is that I think that he is poisoning an entire generation of very young boys before they even had a chance to be out in the world, before they even have been out to experience the world and putting this incidiary garbage in their heads, making them really align with this like incredibly harmful worldview. And I hope, I deeply hope that these kids can grow up to unlearn that, that it does not, but that it doesn't like set them up for a bad course for life before they even have really gotten a chance to be out in the world.

And the fact that he is so brazenly getting rich off of that, like, I think it's, yeah, I think he is harming kids and making millions, harming kids, harming women. and making millions from it. And the fact that he is lauded as some kind of a shrewd businessman for doing so, really just, it's upsetting. Yeah, it really is. So, of course, Google did not just decide one morning to, like, wake up and do the right thing and delete this app from their app store.

They were pressured by campaigns. Nathan Pope, a 34-year-old Australian, launched an online petition in July, calling for app stores like Google Play and the App Store, as well as companies that process online subscription payments to the real world to stop posting the app. So he was successful at getting Google's Google Play Store to pull it. But as far as I know, as of recording this, the app is still available on Apple's App Store. Really? Yeah.

Wow. That's really something. I'm surprised that Google would take that action and Apple would not. I generally think of Apple as like a trusted entity. and it's surprising that they would allow this toxic garbage to continue on their platform. Yeah, so we will keep you posted if any action is taken. I think that Andrew Tate should not be able to make money, to make millions from targeting kids in this way. Yeah.

Okay, so speaking of trafficking, we did an episode all about the sex trafficking hero fantasy movie Sound of Freedom. The film depicts a fictionalized account. of this guy named Tim Ballard, formerly of Operation Underground Railroad, which is an anti-trafficking organization that promotes the idea that anti-trafficking work looks like a hero, like going into an underground trafficking ring a la taken and saving the day. Anti-trafficking experts have been clear that these depictions promote harmful myths about trafficking that could actually make things worse for survivors. So right after our episode about Sound of Freedom went live, Operation Underground Railroad announced that Tim Ballard was no longer part of the organization. And I was sort of like,

I wonder what the story is there. Like, that seems weird. And now we know what. According to a vice investigation, Tim Ballard invited women to act as his wife on undercover overseas missions ostensibly aimed at rescuing victims of sex trafficking. He would then allegedly coerce those women into sharing a bed with him or showering with him, claiming that it was necessary to fool sex traffickers. Yeah, of course. That's the only way that they'll be fooled. He is said to have sent at least one woman, a photo of himself in its underwear, with fake tattoos, and have asked another how far she was willing to go to save children. So the total number of women involved in this is believed to be higher than seven, as that would only account for employees, not contractors or volunteers

of the organization. So yeah, he was just setting up these overseas stings and then convincing these women to go along with these inappropriate actions under the guise that they needed to do that to save the kids. It's so predatory. Ballard, of course, denies these charges. So this is kind of a callback to a recent episode that we did about Ashton Cutchers support for convicted rapist Danny Masterson, given Ashton's work starting the organization Thorne, which is a big anti-sex trafficking organization that works with all of the major social media platforms. That episode was really focused on the technology that Thorne produces. But on the Patreon, I got into my actual take, which is that people are able to use trafficking work to boost their own profile at the expense of marginalized

people and actual trafficking survivors. I think that Ashton Cuthers used trafficking and technology to sort of go from like a stoner sitcom actor to being like a serious philanthropist and like tech guy. And I think he did that because he knew it would not be questioned. Because when somebody says they're working to stop trafficking or like trying to curb sex trafficking, it just gives them this automatic high ground that people like, it's like if you question that, the obvious response is like, oh, what are you like pro sex trafficking? And nobody, everybody obviously hates sex trafficking. So when somebody does that work, it kind of makes it seem like they're above reproach. And I believe that's what's going on with Ashton Cutcher. And I believe that's what's going on with Tim Ballard.

So my anti-Caston-Cutcher sentiments have been brewing for like over a decade. So please check out the Patreon if you want to know more. I deeply think that the focus on trafficking means that people will be so willing to associate sexual violence with like a stranger, bad guy, trafficker who's going to grab you in a parking lot that they might not be so willing to see their friend who is a sexual abuser as a threat. If you are only, if sexual violence begins in ends with bad guy traffickers, your friend who is seems like a really nice guy to you, you're not going to be that willing to see them as the threat that they are. And in the case of Tim Ballard, I think that doing anti-trafficking work was actually a way to distract from his own bad behavior. You know, it's like sometimes they say an accusation is actually a confession. Yeah, I think your Patreon episode about that is. really insightful.

And it really makes me think about this Tim Ballard and how much he was just like engaging in this fantasy, this like anti-trafficking fantasy that really had no connection to actually protecting real people from trafficking, but was like cosplay almost. Yeah, that's exactly what I think was going on. Part of VICE's reporting found that the organization was actually relying on psychics to set up bumbling and ineffective missions to save trafficked children that they believe were being

held on the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. And so all of their information and their intel about where this child was being held came from psychics. That is like something out of a fantasy movie. I think that this is somebody who was cosplaying what he, imagined like a big, bad white guy busting into like a foreign country to like save kids. I think that he was just setting up an entire

machination to go along with this fantasy version of himself. And then I bet seeing seeing that version of himself depicted in the movie Sound of Freedom, depicted by Tim Kavizzelli, who previously was Jesus Christ in the movie Passion of the Christ, like, I just think that these people do not have a clear sense of reality. I think that you're exactly right, that they are setting up these fantasy versions

of this fantasy world where trafficking works like a movie. But in reality, this is not a movie. And actual victims and survivors are being hurt when you publicly lead people to believe that this is how trafficking works. That it's like something out of a movie. Because that's not how it works.

Nine times out of 10, people are being groomed into trafficking by somebody that they know, somebody that they trust. It's not somebody snatching them or, you know, a psychic leading them to the whereabouts of like a child being held in a dungeon somewhere. And promoting this idea just makes everybody more vulnerable because it makes us not understand the actual threat and the actual dangers. Totally. But you know, they're out there.

They are out there. Yeah, I think from doing this episode, I feel like the real they, who is the threat, is like, like Tim Ballard, Andrew Tate, Russell Brand. So let's watch out with them, shall we? Yeah. You're absolutely right. Yeah, the real they is these misogynist

assholes who are engaging in this like cosplay, whipping up a frenzy about fictional harms while they themselves are enacting the actual

harms. Could not. agree more. Mike, thanks so much for going to do these stories with me. Bridget, thanks for having me. It was so good talking with you. I'll see you. On the internet? I'll see you on the internet. If you're looking for ways to support the show, check out our merch store at tangoody.com slash store. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can reach us at hello at tangoati.com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode

at tangoity.com. There are no girls on the internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. Edited by Joey Pat. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, write and review us on Apple Podcasts.

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