There Are No Girls on the Internet - Ashton Kutcher and the anti-trafficking grift

Episode Date: September 13, 2023

Ashton Kutcher recently wrote a letter to a judge, asking for leniency for his friend and TV co-star Danny Masterson (Kelso and Hyde from That 70’s Show). It was surprising, because for the past decade Ashton Kutcher has been trying to rebrand himself as an anti-trafficking hero. Not just any anti-trafficking hero, but a tech guru type who could use the power of technology and venture capital to save the children. We take a look into his organization, Thorn. Like so many other “save the children” orgs before it, Thorn seems to be using rhetoric and misleading statistics about trafficked children to push laws that further criminalize and marginalize consenting adult sex workers.   Sex, lies, and surveillance: Something's wrong with the war on sex trafficking: https://www.engadget.com/2019-05-31-sex-lies-and-surveillance-fosta-privacy.html   Real Men Get Their Facts Straight: https://www.villagevoice.com/real-men-get-their-facts-straight/ Ashton Kutcher Claims He Helped Cops Save Way More Sex-Trafficking Victims Than Authorities Say They've Found: https://reason.com/2017/02/15/ashton-kutcher-plays-sex-worker-savior/ The bogus claim that 300,000 U.S. children are ‘at risk’ of sexual exploitation: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/05/28/the-bogus-claim-that-300000-u-s-children-are-at-risk-of-sexual-exploitation/   SEX TRAFFICKING Online Platforms and Federal Prosecutions : chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-21-385.pdfSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting. Think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined. Learn how podcasting can help your

business. Call 844-844 IHeart. Hey, it's Edwin Castro, also known as Castro 1021. And I'm Conkey, his best friend and business manager. And we've got a new show called The 104, 1021 podcast. I'm taking you behind the scenes on how I became one of Twitch's most popular streamers. We also love sports. And with the World Cup right around the corner, we'll be breaking down the biggest storylines ahead of the big tournament here in the USA. Listen to the 1021 podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just a heads up, this episode talks quite a bit about sex trafficking. There Are No Girls on the Internet as a production of 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, and we have to talk about anti-trafficking work yet again. Specifically, we have to talk about actor Ashton Cutchers, anti-trafficking organization, Thorn. So we've talked about this a few times on the show before. We did an episode with Michael Hobbs, formerly of the podcast You're Wrong About, Digging into why anti-trafficking work lends itself so easily to inflated numbers and grandstanding. We also did a recent episode about the anti-trafficking hero fantasy film, Sound of Freedom, and the dangers that occur when anti-trafficking work is treated as automatically and inherently good. Because if you ask any questions to or about the people who say they've dedicated their entire lives to combating trafficking,

you're basically on the side of the traffickers, right? So I would argue that this is actually a very harmful dynamic because trafficking is such a sensitive and important issue and because people pretty much all agree that trafficking is horrible and it creates this easy proxy to get people, not to mention money, on your side if you say that you're working on combating trafficking. So I would argue that all of this means that if somebody says they were, on anti-trafficking work, it actually should invite further scrutiny into exactly what that work looks like.

Case in point, Ashton Cutcher's anti-trafficking organization, Thorne. So the reason that I'm talking about this now is because actor Danny Masterson, who played Hyde on the very popular sitcom That 70 Show, was convicted of raping two women, both of whom were former members of the Church of Scientology. Danny is also a Scientologist, and survivors say that he used this very, powerful network of Scientology to avoid accountability for his actions. Last week, Masterson was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison. After his conviction, Masterson's friends and family wrote letters to the judge asking

for leniency in his sentencing. The letters, frankly, were not good. From my understanding, at this point, what judges are really looking for is less of letters that are like, oh, he's such a nice guy, he couldn't have done this, yada, yada. but rather some indication of contrition or some insight into the abuser's, like, plan to make better choices in the future. I have seen some people say that these letters were leaked, but that is actually not true. It sounds like those letters were always part of the public record,

and then it's just up to the judge's discretion on whether or not to make those letters public, which in this case, the judge did do that. So two of the people who wrote letters on behalf of Danny Masterson asking for leniency, in his sentencing were fellow actors Milakunis and Ashton Cuthers also from that 70s show. After public outcry about these letters, they ended up releasing a video that basically apologized if those letters were hurtful for people to hear and saying that they had only intended for the judge to see those letters. Their letters basically read like a checklist of all of the things that an abuser's friends say after he faces some consequences. You'd probably

know the drill, right? Like, he's such a good guy. He's always been really nice to me. He couldn't have done this. Like, he has a daughter. That's always a big one. Like, oh, his daughter. Ashton's letter talks specifically about how Danny never did drugs and instructed the entire cast of that 70s show to avoid drug use. I guess unless he was using those drugs to incapacitate a woman that he wanted to assault, I don't know. That is also probably because drugs are forbidden in Scientology. Ashton also wrote about how Danny Masterson was really supportive of the firefighters after 9-11 and how, to his knowledge, he has never lied. Like, these are really, I don't know, the letters, you can find them online. I found them to be full of hyper-specific information, none of which are

related to whether or not this person is a rapist. Ashton ends his letter, quote, while I'm aware that the judgment has been cast as guilty on two counts of rape by force, and the the victims have a great desire for justice, I hope that my testament to his character is taken into consideration and sentencing. I do not believe he is an ongoing harm to society, and having his daughter raised without a present father would be a tertiary injustice in and of itself. So those letters were pretty bad. Like if someone I knew was convicted of two counts of forcible rape, you are on your own. Like, I don't care how close we were. I don't care how many times told me not to do drugs, or how many times you, like, shook hands with firefighters after 9-11?

I probably wouldn't be writing a letter like this on your behalf. So here is where Ashton's anti-sex trafficking work comes in. Because one thing that I keep reading online is people asking, why would Ashton Cutcher, someone who has dedicated his life to combating sex trafficking and working with survivors of sexual violence, risk his reputation and the reputation of his organization by writing a letter like this. And honestly, I get it. I get that this looks like hypocrisy. But I would actually argue that it speaks to how when someone is working to stop trafficking,

it creates this sheen of automatic good-doing. When in reality, it should actually be a sign for all of us to look deeper into what their work actually looks like. Because when you do, a lot of times what you see is not work that is just working to combat the trafficking of children, but rather working to further surveying. and criminalize adult consensual sex workers. Then adult sex work is kind of lumped in with the work to prevent sex trafficking of children. They're kind of conflated.

And that's what I think is going on here. So let's start by a little bit of a history around Ashton Cutcher's anti-trafficking work. So it might be a little bit hard to remember, but back in the day, Ashton Cutcher and Demi Moore were kind of a like power couple. That's the only way that I can describe it. Like, you kind of had to be there. Ashton was the first person to ever reach one million followers on Twitter. And this was, like, a big deal. I watched a clip from Good Morning America where I think Ryan Seacrest actually comes out and presents him with a framed award from the Guinness Book of World Records because he was the first person to get a million Twitter followers.

At this point, Ashton was, like, going on TV and being asked to, like, wax philosophically about. Twitter and social media and technology. He was the person who was sort of credited with getting a lot of other celebrities to use Twitter, too. This is a bit of a side note, and it's really just my opinion. But Ashton Cutcher, like heretofore, he had kind of had a persona as being a hot but stupid hymbo frack guy. And I think that this was definitely a move, like him being a tech guy, I think was definitely an attempt to rebrand himself as like a serious tech guy.

guy. You know, he published a piece in Harper's called Is Tech the New Black, where he wrote about all this tech predictions. And I think it's really interesting how celebrities can use certain issues like technology to really rebrand themselves, you know, like pop on a pair of fake black-rimmed glasses and start talking tech wearing a blazer. And boom, you are no longer the dude from dude wears my car. Now you are smart and thoughtful and nuanced and you have an elevated persona. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, those fake glasses are really the key. The one person who I think is really rocking like, oh, I'm smart now is Rick Perry. He has really been like all on the like, oh, did you see I'm wearing glasses now?

I'm smart now. Kick. It's like a total rebrand with those new glasses that Rick Perry has started wearing. And it's, I guess it's working. Yeah, he's like Clark Kent in reverse. He puts on the glasses. You don't even know what's him. Okay.

So back in 2009. when Ashton Cutcher was in a relationship with Demi Moore, they started the DNA Foundation, an anti-trafficking organization together. The name DNA Foundation is a mix of their name, Demi and Ashton Foundation. They got the idea to do this work after Demi Moore reportedly was watching a documentary

about sex slavery in Cambodia on MSNBC and wanted to start an organization that combated that kind of stuff in the United States too. Folks listening might recall Ashton's real men Don't Buy Girls campaign. Mike, do you remember this at all? I wish I did. I know we talked about a little bit earlier. I don't. I don't know where I was when this campaign was happening. Well, I remember like it was yesterday and I searched high and low. Like, I did a deep, deep search to try to find an original video from the real men don't buy girls campaign. This is a little bit of the conspiracy theory.

I think they must have just removed it, had it scrubbed from the internet, because I can't find anything. I can only find two videos that were clearly user-generated content that were not representative of what the original videos were. Where were these videos airing? Everywhere. Everywhere. Like television commercials? They were on YouTube. They were on TV.

They were on Facebook. This also was the early 2000s when we just didn't have a lot of social media content. If a celebrity was doing something online, it was like automatically newsworthy. So I can't believe you don't remember them. Basically, the point of the campaign was that it was showing all of these like manly famous men like Bradley Cooper and Sean Penn doing all kinds of manly things. But then being like, oh, well, manly men make grilled cheese sandwiches using an iron because they're manly. But real men don't buy girls. And the commercials were, I guess I will just say, they were mostly panned for being cringy,

which is probably why I cannot find any of them now. Like literally, when I Google, when I found a website that had like six squares from YouTube, like embedded YouTube videos, each of those squares was like video not found, video not found, video not found, video not found. So Ashton Coucher apparently has the power to get these videos removed from the internet. But they, I remember them like they were yesterday. You can still find, if you Google, real men don't buy girls, you can still find the images of like Ashton Cutcher. He's wearing like a knit beanie, like a slouchy knit beanie. And he's holding the sign that says real men don't buy girls.

That still exists. But the commercials, you'll just have to take my word for it because I remember them like they were yesterday. Let's take a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, 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 Acapella 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, uh, you only got in because your parents made a huge

donation. The yard herds, right? That's the name. The Harvard Yard. They're open. 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 I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Humor me. I need some jokes to make me seem funny. Run a business and not thinking about podcast. Podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ad-supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message.

Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHeart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Let us show you at IHeartadvertising.com. That's iHeartadvertising.com. What's up, fam? Miss Isaiah Thomas.

And I'm C.J. Toledano and our podcast Point Game is about defying 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 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. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball. So listen to Point Game on the, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And we're back. So back then, DNA was really kind of centered around celebrities raising awareness about trafficking, which on his face is not like the worst thing in the world. If anything, these ads were a little bit cringy, but they weren't like the worst thing ever. But DNA was a little bit tricky with their numbers when the organization was first getting started. They misreported and inflated stats and numbers around. trafficking, which is going to be a theme in this episode. This will not be the first time that you're hearing that this anti-sex trafficking organization is misreporting and inflating numbers

around sex trafficking. So this part of the conversation really ties into this one stat. Ashton repeats this one claim over and over that there are between 100,000 and 300,000 child sex slaves in the United States today. He said it unchecked on CNN's Pierce Morgan. He testified before Congress and gave that same stat. This stat is repeated over and over and over again. If you Google it, you get lots and lots of hits. But surprise, this is not an accurate stat, not even close. The Washington Post dug into this specific statistic and found that it comes from a 2001 report from Richard J. Estes and Neil Wiener of the University of Pennsylvania. So this study was published in 2001, so it relied on data from the 1990s. But people have been parroting it well into the 2010s and even sometimes

today. So obviously it's already like a little bit suspect. The report never said that 100,000 to 300,000 children are being trafficked in the United States. What they did say was that 100,000 to 300,000 children are, quote, at risk for commercial sexual exploitation. So that's a different thing than how Ashton Couture reported it, that there are 100,000 to 300,000 kids being trafficked in the United States then was not true. But even if that is just the number of young people at risk, it's still not totally correct. The post dug into how this figure came to be. The researchers started by compiling the number of youth in 14 different categories, such as foreign children, children in public housing, or female gang members. But many of these categories could overlap,

such as a female foreign-born child in public housing who was part of a gang. That one person would count as three. The 300,000 figure also relied on a series of guesses on the part of the researchers, such as the assumption that 35% of runaway youth away from home, at least a week, were, quote, at risk, or that one quarter of one percent of all youth ages 10 to 17 were at risk. So I should say that the researchers themselves, in their report, they say that they're guessing at certain things and they make it very clear that they are not trying to give an authoritative number, yet that stat is often misreported as an at the rotative number.

Yeah, that's like the eternal challenge and fear, I think, of scientists trying to communicate their results to a popular press, right? Like, anytime you take like a training of how scientists should talk to journalists, one of the things that they highlight is the emphasis of scientists on precision and accuracy. And, you know, that's exactly what gets lost

when things get translated, results get translated to popular press. So it's like they could have in that paper dotted all their eyes, crossed all their T's to lay out every single assumption and every time they just had to guess at a quantity to like really qualify it. This is our best estimate, but there are all these different ways that it could be inaccurate.

But then either through people just trying to be convenient, or perhaps people trying to distort statistics into to serve narratives that they're trying to push, you know, that very careful, nuanced estimate becomes just a number, right, which loses all of the nuance. And that, I mean, all that aside, it also sounds like whoever changed 100,000 to 300,000 children at risk to 100,000 to 300,000 children. thousand children currently being trafficked, that's not just like losing nuance. That's, I would say, an active distortion. So keep that in mind as we go on, because that's going to be very relevant in just a moment. So I think I know somebody who would agree with you, which is Estes, one of the researchers who worked on this study, who openly agrees that that number is bunk.

Esty says, I'm fully aware of the controversy that surrounds my, and other scholars' estimates of the number of children at risk of sexual exploitation, he told the Post's fact-checker. He added, clearly a new, more current study is needed. So in 2008, a year before Ashton and Demi would start DNA, Michelle Stransky and David Finkelhor of the respected Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire wrote a report explaining the problems with Estes and Wiener's estimate, as well as other claims about the extent of juvenile sex work.

Their report said, in all caps, please do not cite these numbers, the report pleaded. The reality is that we don't currently know how many juveniles are involved in sex work. Scientifically credible estimates do not exist. So I kind of feel for these researchers who put together this, like, nuanced thing where they were like, please don't use this number. Somebody takes that number and they're like, this is the number. And then it's repeated over and over and over again. And I kind of do need to give a little bit of a caveat here that Ashton, was far from the only person who repeated this bad statistic.

In fact, this number has been used by elected officials on both sides of the aisle. After the Washington Post fact check on it, Senator Rob Portman from Ohio pledged to stop citing that number. I'm inclined to think, like, maybe Ashton and Demi didn't know that this number was like not really a number that they should be repeating. I do think if I were creating an organization entirely dedicated to trafficking, I might not have gone on TV multiple times. and repeated a number that respected names who were already in this maze had loudly debunked, and all caps asked people to stop using. But the question really is, did Ashton and Demi know that they were repeating incorrect statistics to champion their anti-trafficking work?

And to be honest, it kind of sounds like maybe they did. The Village Voice did a whole investigation where they actually contracted a methodologist at Arizona State University to dig into the Demi and Ashton Foundation. For the record, this is probably because the Village Voice was known for their prolific adult classified section where people engaged in sex for money. So it's probably one of the reasons why the Village Voice would be very, very invested in debunking the claims made by Demi and Ashton's Foundation. So in the Village Voice piece, they talk about Maggie and Trevor Nielsen, who run the California-based global philanthropy group and worked as consultants to celebrities who want to start charities. When confronted with the inaccuracy of their numbers, Maggie Nielsen did not seem super-faced.

She said, quote, versus most social issues I've worked on, there is actually a dearth of data, so it was absolutely cobbled together. All of the core data that we use gets attacked all the time, she says. The challenge is that it's that or nothing, right? And I frankly don't care if the number is 200,000, 500,000, a million or 100,000.

It needs to be addressed. While I absolutely agree that there is a need for better data, the people who want to spend all day bitching about the methodologies used. I'm not very interested in, she says. So as a methodologist, Mike, what are your thoughts on that?

Well, it's funny that she seems totally fine to use the numbers but is actively hostile to questioning the methodology behind them. Like, you can't have it both ways. You don't get to use the numbers if they're not based on a rigorous method. You can't.

have your cake and eat it too. Well, there's a reason why she might be interested in using the numbers when they sound very high, and that might be money. You know, if you're able to use a big number, that means that you're better able to fundraise. According to Professor Steve Doig, Knight Chair of Journalism at Arizona State University, who specializes in the analysis of quantitative methodology, this is the person that the Village Voice contracted out to do their investigation into Demi and Ashin's Foundation. Dwayg says, let's face it, a study or a story,

saying several thousand young teens are being exploited in the sex trade has a lot less impact than one suggesting that several hundred thousand are at risk. Researchers, journalists, law enforcement, and politicians alike have incentives to focus on the much bigger number. And I kind of can't help but think that that's part of what's going on here. I do, to be super clear, I do think that one of the issues is that trafficking is such, is the kind of crime where it is legitimately hard to find hard, accurate number. around. And I also think that when you're putting together a charity where you're fundraising,

I can imagine not balking at a number that's big when you're an organization that is like trying to raise funds. So I don't think that they were entirely motivated by using the biggest number for fundraising. But I also don't think that was not a motivation, you know. And I also think that like when you're starting an organization or a charity that is dedicated to combating an issue that is as sensitive and complex as trafficking, I think that you really have to be invested in telling people the truth. And if the truth is, this is the kind of crime where there aren't hard numbers, here's what we know. That's the truth that you got to give. Like, you can't just cobble together numbers about something that is as sensitive and important and as big of a

deal as trafficking. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it sounds like they really positioned this nonprofit DNA, which is, it's such a terrible name. They just slapped their first names there with like a cutesy, like not even the letter, just an N. Demi and Ashton. Yeah. Like it feels like an issue that deserves a little more respect. But even still, it seems like they're trying to position it as like a population health organization where they're talking about like this many American children are subject to this harm. That's a population health argument. And so there's an obligation to get the numbers right, to like have real numbers.

If your numbers aren't made up, like there should be somebody at the organization who has looked at the primary source, that original article and reviewed the methodology and is willing to like put their name on the line and saying like, oh, yeah, this number that we're using is a good one. And it sounds like they just didn't have that at all. Like it's just pure marketing. And I guess I just feel like, this is me on my soapbox, but people deserve the truth. If you are raising awareness, but you're not able to tell the truth, what are you raising awareness for? If you knowingly are like, I know these numbers are cobbled together, but it's an important issue. We just need to talk about it. And like, we have to have numbers attached to it, so we're just going to make them up.

I don't think that raising awareness, but that doesn't give people the awareness they need. If people are going to be aware of an issue, they need to be aware of it accurately. And if you're raising awareness for an issue and you're doing it in a way that is not accurate, what are you actually doing other than raising money? If you don't have any rigorous numbers that you can point to as evidence that it's happening, maybe your first step should be to like get some decent numbers and some decent data to guide your efforts. Otherwise, you're just operating based on intuition and preferences. Fibes.

Yeah, that's what I think all of the best. anti-trafficking work is just going off vibes, you know. More after a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, 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 acapella band with their between songs banter. There's the 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. 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 I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Humor me. I need some jokes to make me seem funny. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message.

Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHeart. streaming, radio, and podcasting. Let us show you at iHeartadvertising.com. That's iHeartadvertising.com. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas.

And I'm C.J. 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 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. 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. Let's get right back into it.

Okay, so in 2012, Demi Moore and Ashton Cutcher have a very messy, very public split, following rumors of Ashton being unfaithful and Demi's addiction issues. And amid that split, the organization is rebranded. from Demi and Ashton to Thorn, colon, digital defenders of children. And this is where they adopt a much bigger technology and data focus, rather than just sort of general celebrity awareness campaigns about trafficking. And this is what leads to Thorne becoming a major player in law enforcement and internet regulation that they are today.

So Ashton and Demi explained saying, quote, for the past three years, we have focused our work broadly on combating child sex trafficking. it has become crystal clear in our effort that technology plays an increasingly large role in this crime and in sexual exploitation of children overall. We believe that the technology-driven aspect of these crimes demands its own attention and investment. Thorne's website says that their motto is, we build technology to defend children from sexual abuse. And I think it is really important to dig into what that has actually looked like.

So major, major shoutouts to Violet Blue, who wrote a great piece at NGadgett called sex lies in surveillance, something's wrong with the war on sex trafficking. So earlier, I talked about how oftentimes anti-sex trafficking work conflates a bunch of issues, the trafficking of adults for labor, the trafficking of adults for sex, the trafficking of children for sex, and adults engaging and consensual sex work. And that is essentially what is going on with Thorne. Violet Blue reports that of Thorne's 31 nonprofit partners, 27 of those groups, target adults and vowed to a bunch of consensual sex work under the banner of saving children from sex trafficking.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Thorne was a champion of Sesta Fasta, legislation that openly conflated adult consensual sex work and the trafficking of children. If folks don't know, a quick and dirty way to understand Sesta Fasta is that under Sesta Fasta, every website or online platform can be held liable for hosting what the law describes as sex work. But sex work is undefined and there's no distinction between human trafficking and consensual sex work. Even the Department of Justice asked the House Judiciary Committee to change Fasta's focus to traffickers and not cases where there is minimal federal interests like consensual sex work, and that request was ignored.

According to the Government Accountability Office, which is an organization that provides fact-based information to Congress, Sesta Fosta and the shuddering of the adult classified website back page actually made it harder for authorities to track traffickers. because, quote, it disrupted the landscape of the online commercial sex market. Sesta Fasta and the shuttering of known sites where sexes sold like Backpage actually made it harder to track traffickers. The report reads, quote, gathering tips and evidence to investigate and prosecute those who control or use online platforms has become more difficult due to the relocation of platforms overseas, platforms use of complex payment systems, and the increased use of social media platforms. So when Sesta Foster was passed, Thorne released a statement saying, quote, the passage of Sesta Fasta

works an important moment in the mission to defend happiness. And we are encouraged that advocates, government and technology, are working together to prioritize the protection of youth online. So if you've been listening to this podcast, you probably already know that whenever I hear someone say that they are working to protect youth online, my spidey senses are tingling, as should yours be tingling? because that generally is basically code for we are going to surveil sex workers, comma, everybody in an effort to protect kids online. So Thorn has two main tech products that they make. One is called Safer, a content moderation tool that they offer to internet companies. The other is called Spotlight, a data mining and user profiling tool they offer to law enforcement.

Now, both of these tools use data sources and AI to automate policing of sex. content, but Spotlight is the one that I really want to focus on. So at a police training video for Spotlight, an analyst described it as, quote, the Google for human trafficking or online escort activities. Thorne has been a little hagy about exactly how Spotlight works, but it is basically a data mining and facial recognition operation that scrapes websites for adult content. Pre-Sestephaasta, I would have said that it scrapes websites like Craigslist and Backpage, but after Sestafasta was passed, Craigslist removed their personal. personal ads and then right before Sesta Foster was passed, back page shuttered and it no longer exists.

Spotlight's handout says Spotlight is built on a data archive of millions of records of escort ads and form data collected from various websites. So after Spotlight scrapes all of this data, they then take this massive amount of data and turn it into an asset for law enforcement. The tool allows an officer to search or filter escort ads based on phone number, email, keywords, age, and location. So the first thing that I think is really worth zeroing in on are these partnerships that Thorn and Spotlight have with law enforcement. They're concerning because they open the door for this use of a vast surveillance network to be done totally unregulated. Forbes spoke to Meg Foster, who authored a report for the Center on Privacy and

technology at Georgetown Law, who released a research report saying that there was no scientific validation for facial recognition as a reliable tool in any criminal investigation. She writes, technology initially intended to serve a narrow purpose like combating human trafficking can easily and quickly expand into a tool for mass surveillance, especially when there is no oversight of these private and philanthropic partnerships between technology creators and law enforcement agencies, which Thorn is a nonprofit. It is a philanthropic effort. And so there is not a lot of oversight into how Thorne partners with law enforcement, you know, a public entity of the state. So we already know that Spotlight is using facial recognition technology that might be

less than effective. That is because Spotlight uses a tool by Amazon called Recognition. It's recognition with a K. So if you're Googling this to find more information, they're spelling it like edgy. It's not recognition with a C, it's with a K. Was it created by like 1990s socialist? It's like the same branding as like really edgy energy drinks or something. I was surprised I didn't throw an X in there. You know, like we got to get that like edgy X branding. So recognition, Amazon's facial recognition technology that is used by Ashton Cuthers' anti-trafficking tool, spotlight, detect faces in images and video.

There was a very, very long, messy battle to pressure Amazon to stop selling this technology. that is used by Thorne to law enforcement. I'll give you a little quick and dirty history of what happened there. So that is because Amazon's recognition is janky as fuck, especially when it comes to marginalized people. Two researchers, doctors Joy Bolamwini and Deborah Vaghi,

published a paper demonstrating that recognition was classifying the gender of dark-skinned women, 31.4 percentage points less accurately than that of light-skinned men. Amazon responded not by acknowledging these results, but by attacking the credibility of these Black women researchers. Amazon published two blog posts, claiming that Raji and Bolonwini's work was misleading. In response, nearly 80 AI researchers defended their work and yet again called for Amazon to stop selling face recognition technology to the police. In 2020, after the death of George Floyd,

House and Senate Democrats introduced a police reform bill that included a proposal to limit facial recognition in law enforcement, marking the largest federal effort ever to regulate this technology. So in July, after IBM was like, we're not using this tech anymore, the ACLU of Northern California conducted its own study and found that the system falsely matched photos of 28 members of the U.S. Congress with mugshots, which really got Congress's attention. The false matches were disproportionately people of color. So after all of this outcry, Amazon did announce a one-year moratorium on partnering with law enforcement to use recognition, with one exception for when police are using Thorn's spotlight. So they know that the facial recognition

technology used in spotlight is not great. It's racially biased. It has gender bias. They know all of this. So they're going to stop using that technology unless it is being used for police to combat trafficking via spotlight. So this technology if it is being used purportedly to identify people who are potentially involved in exchanging sex for money, but it's also really janky and misidentifies black and brown faces, women's faces. You can see why that would be a problem, right? Yeah, for sure. Like, how do you justify discontinuing the technology because it doesn't work well?

But we're going to keep using it for this one purpose. Like, it just doesn't even begin to make sense. I completely agree. And remember, despite Thorne's stated mission of helping kids who are being trafficked, they have conflated children who are trafficked with adults who engage in consensual sex work. Now, Thorne, I need to be clear, does specifically say that their focus of the organization is helping kids who are being trafficked, not adults who engage in sex work. And that might be true at an organization.

level, but that is not what's going on in practice. Thorne's CEO, Julia Cordua, told Forbes that Spotlight was limited to officers who investigate child sex trafficking, saying law enforcement has reported that with Spotlight, they have seen over 60% time saving in their investigative process, and over 21,000 children have been identified using this tool. Court filings and interviews with current and former police show that Spotlight is frequently used to identify adults, a point on which Cordia declined to comment. And this is what I think is really going on at Thorn. They can say all day long that they do not exist to target adult consensual sex workers.

But their technology just is being used to target those adult consensual sex workers who they say they don't want to target. And this is not just messed up because it's wrong to surveil and criminalize adults who consensually engage in sex work, which it is. But also, adult sex workers have networks of support and advocacy where they can help detect and prevent children from being trafficked for sex. But sex workers cannot be a resource to help combat trafficking if sex work is further surveilled and criminalized. Like time and time again, we see that sex workers are on the front line of seeing when something non-consensual or something is going on with a minor.

And they are the ones who frequently work with law enforcement to have. help curb that. But they're not going to be able to do that if they are continually being surveilled and criminalized. Not only that, laws that surveil and criminalize sex workers also make it harder for them to do their work safely. It shuts down resources and services used to research and vet clients. And so if your whole thing is we want to prevent people from being trafficked for sex, don't then make it harder to engage in sex work because actually you are going to make it easier for people to be harmed and traffic and caught up in non-consensual situations. Kate Diomato, a sex worker advocate at Reframed Health and Justice,

a queer and trans people of color collective focused on harm reduction in legal reform, said that by monitoring sex workers, rather than working with them, police are making it incredibly hard to do sex work in any way that is remotely safe. And even if Thorn says that they do not want to target adults who are consensually engaging in sex work, it kind of sounds like they are including those same adults in the numbers of trafficking victims that they report that they have saved, in scare quotes, from trafficking. Because just like the previous iteration of Thorne, DNA, they still are kind of misrepresenting their numbers. Ashton Cutcher gave testimony before Senator John McCain and other U.S. lawmakers where he said that Spotlight had helped save more than 6,000 U.S. sex trafficking victims, including 2,000.000. minors in the last 12 months. But according to a report from reason, these numbers wildly outpaced

the average number of new criminal investigations into sex trafficking open in the U.S. each year, or average number of victims identified by U.S. law enforcement. For instance, between late 2009 and late 2015, FBI agents working with state and local police across America identified an average of just 175 minor victims per year, according to the Attorney General's 2015 annual report to Congress and assessment of the U.S. government's activities to combat trafficking in persons. The report also notes that in government fiscal year 2015, the FBI identified around 672 adult and child victims of sex or labor trafficking. The FBI opened 802 human trafficking investigations resulting in 453 convictions that year, while ICE opened 1,34 sex or labor trafficking investigations and got 51 sex trafficking convictions.

In addition to that, Uniform Crime Report, reporting data from the United States indicate that 744 investigations into state-level sex trafficking offenses were opened in 2015. So there is probably overlap between state and FBI investigations. But the report says, even if we count all of those cases separately, we're looking at a total of 2,580 investigations into sex or labor trafficking, 5,725 less cases than Thorne allegedly helped identify in a one-year period. Yeah, I mean, based on those disparities you just cited and their history of playing fast and loose with numbers, one kind of has to suspect that, like, maybe they're playing fast and loose with their numbers here.

Do you suppose it helps with their fundraising? Oh, I can imagine that it might. Basically, according to this report, it looks like Thorne is inflating the numbers of trafficking arrests that their technology has led to. and the most likely explanation for how they're kind of being funny with the numbers is that they are counting adults arrested for posting ads on places like Craigslist or Backpage or other escort sites looking to engage in the exchange of sex for money in the number of people that their technology has saved from trafficking, whether they were actually being trafficked or not. So back to that Reason report. Reason writes, the majority of adult ads on Backpage are posted by sex workers themselves and people arrested in cops' human trafficking. trafficking stings based on these ads are predominantly sex workers and or people looking to pay other adults for sex. Police might be looking for trafficking victims when they contact ads featuring young-looking women or certain supposed code words, but when their hunches don't pan out, and this is

most of the time, they arrest the target. Considering the data we do have on state and federal human trafficking cases, the only way the numbers from Ashton Cutter's group could make sense is if A, they're counting every red flag ad spotlight identifies, regardless of whether these tips are ultimately deemed worthwhile enough to prompt a criminal investigation, or B, they're counting cases of consensual sex work between adults and lumping all adult sex workers identified into adult trafficking victim numbers. And in some way, they are doing something with their numbers. Either A, any time a, law enforcement. looks into one of these ads.

They're counting that as somebody who has been saved from trafficking, or they are just lumping in consensual adult sex workers as adult trafficking victims. Either way, it's not great. And the fact that we can't answer this question, the fact that these numbers don't really make sense. And, like, they have not provided an explanation as to how they've gotten these numbers and why they're repeating them publicly is a problem. And I want to be very, very clear that I am not saying that Thorne does not do any good. that is far from what I am saying.

I hope that nobody takes that away. But what I am saying is that I think that we need to push back against this dynamic that says that all anti-trafficking work is just by nature above reproach. Because trafficking and misrepresentations around trafficking has been used to advocate for all kinds of harmful legislation

and surveillance that does not actually curb trafficking. That's because these campaigns are often about curbing sex work, not trafficking. After Sesta Fasta was passed, trafficking actually increased. An in-depth legal analysis of Sesta Fasta and its impact published in the Columbia Human Rights Law Review concluded that the law has had a chilling effect on free speech, has created dangerous working conditions for sex workers, and has actually made it more difficult for police to find trafficked individuals.

But when you say, like, oh, I'm doing an organization that's going to combat trafficking, people listen, people open their checkbooks, people fund you because everybody is against trafficking. But if you were to say, oh, my organization is about eradicating sex work through surveilling and criminalizing people who engage in it, it would probably be a lot less effective. And people like Ashton Coucher continue to be the people who are funding and profiting from our tech futures. So maybe it starts with surveilling and criminalizing sex workers, but it certainly does not stop there.

Here's Ashton Cutcher on a recent episode of the podcast, Hot Ones. If he sounds a little funky, it's because he's eating a hot wing because that's the point of the podcast. Like, I have an app in my phone in my pocket right now. It's like a beta app. It's a facial recognition app. I can hold it up to anybody's face here and find exactly who you are, what internet accounts you're on, what they look like. That's terrifying.

So this whole conversation provides what I think is a pretty good blueprint. print for how internet legislation can ostensibly be about combating a very narrow kind of reasonable sounding kind of harm, particularly a harm against kids. But then that definition is expanded such that more and more things are included. The same way that when we talk about legislation like the Kids Online Safety Act, where the legislation says that it's about protecting kids from harmful online content, but then the definition of that harmful online content is just expanded to include all different kinds of content, both for minors and adults. And so I say all of this to say that when you hear that somebody is trying to combat harm

of kids on the internet, it should not just be a sign of like, oh, that's a good person. Like, we don't need to look at what that actually involves. It should actually be the opposite. We should actually look deeper into their actual framework, how they're actually thinking about this. Is it punitive? Is it surveillance based? Is it based around further criminalizing people who are already surveilled and criminalized and marginalized?

So if you're listening to this and you're wondering, what exactly is the big deal? So what if they inflate their numbers? Here's why this matters. Inflating the danger around sex trafficking not only lends credibility to specific harmful legislation, legislation like Sesta Fasta that can actually make trafficking worse, but it also makes it seem like sex trafficking is more likely to be a situation where a white child is like snatched off the street by a stranger and forced into the sex trade. Now, this is obviously a very sympathetic narrative and one that is very easy to throw money and

legislation at. But if trafficking and sex crimes begin and end with strangers snatching kids off the street and forcing them into the sex trade, you are going to be trained that that is the real threat, when in reality it's not. It is much more likely that the threat is someone the very very victim knows, or that they are groomed or coerced into being trafficked. But if trafficking is your end-all be-all for sex crimes, you are going to be a lot less likely to see your buddy who has always been really nice to you, who seems like a really good guy and always shakes hands with firefighters after 9-11 as a threat, because in your mind, the real threat is strangers. So when we inflate the numbers around trafficking and use that to justify all kinds of harmful practices and laws, we are not actually keeping ourselves safe.

And so, yeah, I think as people are talking about Ashton Cutcher and why he would risk his reputation and his work in the space to defend Danny Masterson from his two forcible rape convictions, I hope this is a helpful explanation as to why he might do that. And also, I hope this is a good invitation for folks to listen to marginalized people when they speak up about what they're experiencing online. Because pretty much everything that I just said, I got from sex workers. Sex workers have not been quiet about this. They have been speaking up about harmful legislation on the internet for a very long time. And I think we really got to listen to them. And that's it. That's all I got.

I learned a lot here. I had no idea. Ashton Coucher was doing any of this. What a weird story. Yeah. I mean, let me just like, before I let you go, I just want to look up all the different tech companies that he is invested in. Because he was an investor at Uber, he was tweeting about how like it's good for tech companies like Uber, presumably tech companies that he invests in. It's good when they track down dirt on journalists who are reporting on those companies.

And then later he was like, oh, no, no, no, no. I was just speaking as myself. I wasn't speaking as like an Uber investor. I was just, that's just my opinion. There's like a real paternalistic through thread of, I'm going to start this charity named after myself to protect girls from trafficking. And also, I'm going to make a lot of money through investing in surveillance software. It's probably not a coincidence that both of those things,

are happening here. Oh, yeah. And that's sort of like one of the reasons that it was important to me to talk about this is that Ashton Cutcher is propping up, profiting from, and funding a vast surveillance network. And then like going on podcasts and like going on hot ones and like making it seem like it's cool and funny. And I just, I hate the idea that he has so effectively been able to brand himself as like a smart tech guy who will go on TV and sell our own harm back to us in a way that looks cool.

I'm like, oh my God, he really like, you know, he's really like doing something interesting. People thought he was a dumb stoner, but actually he's making millions off of me. I mean, just a few months ago, Ashton Cutcher launched a $240 million AI investment fund. And so somebody who goes on hot ones and giggle. and kikis about this like pretty creepy, scary surveillance. I don't know that this is somebody that I would trust with architecting something like AI. Like it just is, it's concerning to me. Ashton Kutcher, what are you doing?

Dude, where's my privacy? That is a great place to end. Mike, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me, Bridget. And thanks for this deep background about Ashton Kutcher and surveillance. capitalism to save the kids. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can reach us at hello at tangoady.com.

You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangooty.com. There are no girls on the internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. 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, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.

For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, check out the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an acapella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter.

Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Why are we all so obsessed with romance? On the Radio 831 podcast, join us, Sanjana Basker and Tyler McCall, as we unpack all the trending tropes, fuzzy adaptations, book talk drama, and celebrity love stories with hot takes and sharp guests. Each episode digs into what these stories reveal about design. desire, fantasy, identity, and how we love now. Listen to the Radio 831 podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Edwin Castro, also known as Castro 1021.

And I'm Conky, his best friend and business manager. And we've got a new show called The 1021 Podcast. I'm taking you behind the scenes on how I became one of Twitch's most popular streamers. We also love sports. And with the World Cup right around the corner, we'll be breaking down the biggest storylines ahead of the big tournament here in the USA. Listen to the 1021 podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast, guaranteed human.