There Are No Girls on the Internet - DISINFORMED: True crime podcaster, attorney, and advocate Rabia Chaudry is at the center of a targeted harassment campaign

Episode Date: May 19, 2021

You might know attorney and justice advocate Rabia Chaudry from the hit podcast Serial. Or her hit podcast Undisclosed, a true crime podcast that explores people who have been wrongfully convicted of crimes. Or maybe her other other hit podcast The Hidden Djinn.Rabia’s mission is to exonerate the wrongly convicted. Her work is incredibly important. But right now, another true crime podcaster is waging a coordinated harassment campaign against her. But this episode isn’t about him. Here’s how she continues to flourish and do her important work in the midst of it.Listen to Rabia’s podcast Undisclosed: https://undisclosed-podcast.com/Want to write a letter to someone in prison? Here’s how: https://www.sisterhelen.org/writing-to-someone-in-prison/ Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHart Women's Sports. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. And nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo, and every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headline. And we're going straight to the source, the athletes themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions in the moment, and the stuff nobody gets to hear.

Listen to Sports Slice on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slices Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. You're listening to This Informed, a mini-Sue. A series from there are no girls on the internet. I'm Bridget Todd. You might know Attorney Rabia Shadri from her role in the case of Adnan Saeed. Adnan was convicted of first-degree murder

for the death of Hay Men Lee, a high school student in Baltimore who was last seen on January 13, 1999. Lee's family remains convinced of Adnan's guilt, but he maintains his innocence, and Rabia has been fighting to dishonorate him. She brought his story to investigative journalist Sarah Kainig, which became the hit true crime podcast serial.

Rabia hosts her own true crime podcast called Undisclosed. Rashid or her co-hosts, who are also lawyers, explore wrongful convictions. Now, even though there's literally hundreds of thousands of podcasts out there, the podcast community can be kind of small. We see each other at events and conferences. And right now, Rabia is facing a coordinated harassment campaign from another podcaster.

Now, talking about this kind of online harassment is tricky, and it's so easy to do it irresponsibly. When we talk about harassment, we're often centering the harasser and their tactics. The experience of the person who has been harassed, how they're feeling and how it shapes their work and their perspective, can often go overlooked or not mentioned at all. So I don't want to do that.

And honestly, the person harassing Rabia does not need a bigger spotlight. But I do need to tell you the broad strokes of what's going on to make clear the full weight of how harassment can impact our real lives. I believe Rabia is at the center of a dangerous, coordinated harassment campaign being orchestrated by Mike Boudet, the host of Sword and Scale, a popular and successful true crime podcast. On his website, Mike sells merchandise with the slogan Adnan did it, a reference to Rabia's relationship with Adnan. He's encouraged his followers to show up at her public speaking events. Stuff that is just super scary. Stuff that makes me concern for Rabia's actual safety.

If you check out the verified Twitter page for Sword and Scale, you can see a little of what I mean. Mike's podcast is really popular and he has a huge fan base. And this is another reason why talking about online harassment is kind of tricky. No one wants to be on the radar of someone who's a harasser. Other members of the True Crime podcast community have talked about being afraid to speak up because of the behavior they've seen from him. No one wants to wake up and find a flood of hateful comments directed at you on social media or a flood of one-star reviews on your podcast.

But this is also how harassment festeres. People don't speak up, and they don't call it out for what it is. In doing research for this episode, an article about what Rabia is going through described her as having a feud with Mike Boudet. A feud is a difference of opinion. A feud might be tense exchanges on social media. A feud is not when one person is concerned with their actual safety.

That's harassment. And we need to talk about the way it impacts our work and our lives. I was in law school when the best friend of my younger brother was arrested, non-sayed in 1999. And that has kind of gotten me. You know, it was just one of those things where I witnessed it up close and personal. I was there in his trial when he was convicted. And I just witnessed the horror of all of it. And I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

And I had no idea what the criminal justice system was like until what happened with Adnan. And our community also was pretty naive. So that's what really drew me in and kept me there all these years. He's still incarcerated, as most people know. But from his case, my work has stemmed out into doing other wrongful conviction work for the last six, seven years. That's been the focus of my work. Yeah, you know, I read this great quote from your mom. She says, your time in this world is really limited.

what are you going to do with it? And something about that, first of all, your mom sounds awesome. She's a force to be reckoned with for sure. Something about that quote that really struck me was this idea that you are doing very important work, you know, legitimately life-in-death work, you know, working with people who have been incarcerated, all of that. This is important stuff. And, you know, we only have so much time in a day and so much time on this world and so much energy that we can expend. And so to see somebody like you going through harassment campaigns, do you ever feel that these kinds of campaigns are kind of deliberately meant to distract you from this important work that you actually have to do?

Yeah, you know, I have been through, I mean, numerous, very intense kind of onslaughts, like in different times in my life for different reasons, so different groups who want to attack me for different reasons. and I think the first time I went through it really, really, it was really terrible. It was around the time serial came out, actually, but it wasn't so much related to serial. It was related to some of the interfaith work I did. And I spent, I learned my lesson because I spent about three months trying to respond

to everything, not realizing that how trolling works and how harassment works. Then I, when I realized, first of all, I felt I was sick, I was exhausted. I was physically, I had gotten really sick over that. time just from the strain of it. Then the realization hit me that, you know, what they want me to do is not to function. They want me to, and they're winning because I'm spending all my time. Like, you know, it's like that whackamol game, right? Like trying to respond to this thing and you respond to this thing and they come at you with another thing. I'm like, oh, this is brilliant. They're keeping me wrapped up in this crazy and I'm wasting my time and my health and my sanity

and not doing my work. And so now I always think about it like that, but like if this is preventing from doing my work, they're winning. And so 100% it's a distraction, 100% what people who harassing you online want to do is to make sure you cannot actually function. Yeah, all the women that I talk to who face, you know, intense harassment, that's something that they talk about. That's something that a lot of their situations have in common, that at one point they, you know, they are trying to respond to everything and really engaged.

And then they realize they're spending all their time focusing on the harassment. So whatever the thing is, whether it was, justice work like you or activist work or writing, they are spending more time trying to respond to the trolls, which they will never be able to satisfy because that's sort of the trip of harassment. They're spending more time on that than they are sort of doing the thing that is their purpose. And I believe that really is one of the purposes of this kind of harassment. It's to keep powerful women or, quote, mouthy women or women who, you know, can accomplish something to keep it's to keep us from accomplishing whatever it is that we're like meant to be

doing on this earth yeah there's that there's that aspect of it and there there's the aspect of they want you to like they wanted to drag you down to their level they're punching up in almost every case they're punching up they want your attention they want relevance so your attention gives them relevance otherwise they are irrelevant essentially that's so true it's so true and i know in your case i can't help but wonder if part of the reason why something of the folks who really have like an obsession with you and your work, part of it is because you're very successful, you're very effective at what you do, and that makes them even more angry. You know, it is kind of an attempt to drag you down to their level because you're so successful,

because they know you can be so effective. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. You know, I, most recently in the last couple of years, the attacks have been coming from this one particular a podcaster and he's he's actually an incredibly successful podcaster, which is what's shocking about this particular situation is like, dude, he might be much more successful in the sense of, I mean, in one metric, which is like, I think he probably makes a lot more money than what me and my team make doing the work that we do. But the metric that's important for us is like the value of our work and the value of our work is are we able to help exonerate the people whose cases we're working on? And basically just be able to be able to.

able to cover our costs so we can do it. So it doesn't cost anything to the defendant. Because for most incarcerated people, they can't afford the appeals. They can't afford the reinvestigation. We're able to cover those costs. So by that metric, my work is more, I would say, much more meaningful. Maybe that's bothersome to some people. But I can't say that I'm the most successful podcaster in senses. Like, we're not minting money over here. You know, we're not. We're not. Girl, neither am I. Yeah, you know, sometimes I wish the kind of work that you're producing was valued in that same way. It can be a little bit frustrating.

Sometimes I'm like, man, I could be doing like the kind of true crime podcast that you can just knock out like in an hour or so and just get online and chat with somebody about some case. But our show is for every hour that we air, we're talking about hundreds of hours of prep, of maybe two years lead time of invest, two years of investigation before we can air a case. So it's very, very intensive. But at the end of the day, that's what, that's what I can do. That's what I do best. I don't do well what other people do, right? I can't do two crime comedy and I can't do other things, but this is what I do. And so, you know, as long as we're able to cover our costs and provide this really as a service to the people whose cases we're looking at, we're going to continue to do it. Talking about this in terms of being in the podcast industry, you know, one of the people who is waging, targeted her

harassment campaign against you is a very popular podcaster Mike Boudet. And I think that it's hard for me to watch as a, like, as a podcaster, it's hard for me to watch the podcast industry and ecosystem still support this. And, you know, one of the things I saw on your Twitter that I think is so correct is, like, people need to understand that if you listen to, if you, like, when you listen to this podcast, this is what you're supporting. I think it can be really easy for listeners to say, oh, well, I'm just listening to the show. I don't know what's going on. I'm not, I'm not, quote, following whatever's happening. But really, it's been hard to see the silence, I would say, from the podcast industry, in terms of watching someone, essentially harass a colleague. I think of all podcasters as kind

of in the same, you know, the same club in a kind of way. It's been really hard. Yeah, you know, and you know why, though? Because, and that you're right. I mean, so we are, podcasting is a community, podcast content creators, we are our community. And then you have your genres that the true crime community is even a smaller subsect of that. And many of us are close. We see each other at different conferences and conventions. We support each other's work. We're listeners. We listen to each other shows. So what I know, what I know for sure, because we've, people have confessed this to me privately. They have said it publicly. They have written about it. Is that the same person who I think he's, I just think he's like a disturbed individual.

Many of them are afraid to really be public because when they have tried to push back publicly on any of his staff, he will come after them. And he does have a very big show and he has a lot of followers. And so he can really crush the smaller shows by flooding them with one-star reviews, by harassing them into like leaving social media. And so I've had people reach out and say, I'm afraid to say anything, but I just want you to know that, you know, I support you. but I, this guy scares me. He's done this to me before. Like, I mean, it's like, so, um, that's why, but there are some folks who have, like, in a very public way stepped up in the last a couple of months and been like,

enough is enough, right? And, and they have really condemned his behavior. And I appreciate that. But not everybody can afford to, and I completely understand that. Yeah. That's so tough. And I think you just articulated one of the, the hallmarks of online harassment and abuse and coordinated harassment campaigns is that it really has a silencing effect.

not just on the person that is targeted, but anyone who might want to, you know, stick up for that person, anyone who, you know, might want to challenge what's going on. It's such a big silencing effect that I think that we don't talk enough about that as a speech issue, that the kind of people who, you know, are saying like, oh, gee, well, I don't want to be too outspoken because I don't want what's happening to her to happen to me. I don't want it to be me next. I can't afford to have this kind of thing. So, like, they don't speak up or they just leave social media altogether or they don't say

the thing that they actually want to say, that is one of the hallmarks of online harassment campaigns that we just don't talk about. And truly, we, with all of the, you know, rigmarole about free speech and cancel culture, we need to start taking that more seriously as a speech issue because, you know, if an entire group of, you know, already marginalized contact creators feel like they can't speak up and say what they want to say because they're terrified of this person, you know, coming in. Of one person. Of one person. Like, that's, That is not good. And we need to be talking about, like, perhaps we have, perhaps it's a problem with our kind of media and digital media landscape.

But also it's a wider problem about how much space one person is allowed to take up. How much that one person is allowed to dictate this entire community. I mean, look, we saw this in as big as way as possible with the former guy, the former guy who was in the White House. So, yeah, one person can have a lot of power. they can be very destructive. One person can be a complete wrecking ball. And that's what this particular person is. He's a wrecking ball. But what's really crazy about the whole thing is that he's mostly wrecking himself, right? Like in all of this, as he's scaring people and stuff, he's getting deep platforms, he's getting dropped by sponsors, getting dropped by his, his different

companies. And at the end of the day, you know, the rest of us are still going to be invited and show up to different spaces that are relevant to our work. And while he's kind of been ostracized for a year. So it's not just, you know, I'm a target. I think I'm a big target for him because I won't just take it and disappear. And it's frustrating to him. But most people just kind of quietly, like, you know, fade into the background. And so he stops attacking them after a while.

And, you know, for me also, what I realized was like what gives people like that fuel is just attention. And so they're just star for attention. And I assume purpose and meaning in their life. And I don't have the time to give that to them because I got too much shit going on in my life. I have too much work that actually has an impact on people's lives that I got to do. I don't have time for it. 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 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. and 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. Last night, a blown call changed a game.

This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise. Breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear.

The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you content. and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports Slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to Sports Slice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slices Life 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Jacob Kingston grew up in an isolated polygamous sect. We were God's chosen kingdom on earth.

He felt destined for greatness. So when a swaggering Armenian businessman, had to be a swaggering Armenian businessman, had to It's a pulse Jacob into an extraordinary world. He doesn't look back. Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, meeting the president of Turkey. I'm Michelle McPhee, and this is one of the most shocking criminal conspiracies

I've ever come across. When Jacob met Levant this plant to a billion dollar fraud. But with two kings from entirely different worlds, just how long can their empire survive? The largest tax investigation in American history. You need to tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? Jacob told Levan, you're ruining my life.

Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. According to data from Amnesty International, women of color are disproportionately targeted for online harassment and abuse. And we see this playing out in all kinds of places. For instance, former President Donald Trump was known for last year. out at reporters of all stripes. But its worst, both vitriolic comments were always reserved for journalists who also happened to be black women or women of color, like White House correspondence Yamish Alcindor, April Ryan, and Wiesha Jiang, and that his behavior toward them made them

even bigger targets for abuse, precisely because they're women of color. Knowing this, it's not surprising that even though Mike has had issues with white male podcasters in the past, he isn't selling merchandise referencing their work on his website. And those men aren't being called out specifically by name in his podcast's official Twitter bio, like Rabia is. Rabia is far from the only podcaster who has criticized him. Yet, Mike has not threatened to make a daily podcast blaming those men if he's ever kicked off social media. But he's threatened to do that to Rabia.

I also think part of it is that you're a woman of color. You know, the data is very clear that women of... Yeah, like women of color, we are disproportionately targeted. I think that, you know, you said earlier that he has gone after other podcasters, white men. He's not making, you know, merchandise based around their work. There are people, there are certain kinds of people. We know exactly who they are that they cannot stand a woman of color, like having any kind of backbone. They want us to be subservient.

They want us to, they want us to be in our place. They want to put us in our place. And yeah, I think that that's one of the biggest triggers for this guy and for others like him is that who the hell does she think she is? Why isn't she like, you know, getting in her place where she needs to be? And, you know, but what do you do? I mean, like, we've seen this happen on a national stage. We've seen this happen with incredible black female correspondence and journalists, you know, coming from a presidential administration. So we've seen this happen in so many different ways.

And I think that's really a big part of why I am a particular target for this person. I think that's so true. I think there's something about when a woman of color is outspoken where people look at us and say, who does she think she is? Doesn't she know that she's supposed to just lie down and take it or immediately, you know, fall all over herself apologizing? And the fact that you won't do that, I think it triggers something very ugly inside of a certain kind of person. Yeah, yeah, definitely. When these kinds of harassment campaigns, the kind of thing that you've gone through

were happening, so many people and institutions that actually have power do nothing. And I think that that's another hallmark of this kind of harassment that we see. Yeah. You know, social, like, I was, you know, on Twitter, this person's podcast has a verified account. You know, we know that de-platforming is a very effective. way of curbing harassment, and yet, you know, social media platforms seem to be doing nothing. You know, we see journalists describe what's happening to you as a, quote, feud, as if you, as if you two are just sort of having some kind of a sparring match and that this is not a pretty

intense and serious coordinated online harassment campaign against you. You know, what does it like to see so many institutions and people with power really do nothing to curb this when they could? I mean, it's not surprised. We've seen this so many times, especially with women. We've seen this in so many different, like, you know, different controversies that have taken place with women getting harassed and making it public. And, you know, it's, they gaslight you. So it's like if you, if I'm being attacked and harassed, whether it's in my DMs,

it's my emails, it's all coming from the same source, however it's happening. If I call attention to it in order to get some kind of response from these platforms, then people say, well, why are, that then it becomes a. feud. They frame it like it's a feud and it's not a feud. It's me calling attention to his behavior. And if you don't say anything and just take it, I mean, I guess that's kind of what they want. Just don't take anything and take it. But these platforms, they don't really do anything. What is effect, what has been more effective is asking people to just report certain posts and tweets and stuff. Some get removed. Some don't get removed. I mean, free speech, first amendment is what it is.

I guess we have the legal right to be as ugly as you want. I think I hit my, um, I kind of hit my limit when there were people, his followers and his mentions, and he's like kind of encouraging, he's encouraging people to go to like, my speaking events, to like find me in real life. And then he had people saying things like,

hopefully she'll get murdered herself, hopefully Adnan one more. Then I was like, this has gone like too far. And that's when I really, that's when I finally kind of posted. I said, I have called on Twitter and Facebook to do platform.

him. This is the kind of stuff he's saying and encouraging. And they won't. And if something happens to me or my family, then they're, you know, they also need to be held responsible. Yeah. I mean, the kind of things that I've seen, you know, people, I'll see people be like, oh, well, she should just block him if she doesn't like what he has to say. He's blocked. I mean, yeah, exactly, you know, and it's like getting people to understand that this is not just something that is happening, like, quote unquote, on Twitter or on the computer. I very genuinely, sometimes worry for your safety in real life. And everything that we know about online harassment,

even if it starts online, it doesn't stay online. And very often it's connected to real world violence. And so when I see the kinds of things that he's encouraging his followers to do, I get very concerned for your actual safety. Yeah. Yeah, I've had my moments of concern. I mean, I think it just takes one unhinged person to think, I've got to do something about this, you know,

especially because the way he particularly frames it is, I mean, it's such, I mean, like, you see, you've seen this technique unfold like online, like with the elections, right? So what Trump said was that these people are harming our elections. What this guy says is this woman is shutting down my podcast. I mean, he's got an incredibly successful podcast. I'm not shutting anything down. He's continuing to produce. And I've gotten messages from people from men saying, if you if if he ends up losing his podcast because of you I'm going to come get you kind of stuff for a podcast right like so the way he's framing it is to basically target is to direct people's rage towards me in case like you know so they can like take out take out

revenge or something in case like he you know he stops making a show which he's not gonna but and on top of which everything that he's lost in terms of sponsors and it's it's been 100 percent him. 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 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 I-Heart Radio. 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, IHeart's 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. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in.

I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athlete themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real.

From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports Slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them. Listen to Sports Slice on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slic Life 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Jacob Kingston grew up in an isolated polygamous sect. We were God's chosen kingdom on earth. He felt destined for greatness.

So when a swaggering Armenian businessman catapults Jacob into an extraordinary world, he doesn't look back. Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, meeting the president of Turkey. I'm Michelle McPhee, and this is one of the most shocking criminal conspiracies I've ever come across. When Jacob met Levan this went to a billion dollar fraud. But with two kings from entirely different worlds, just how long can their empire survive? The largest tax investigation in American history. You need to tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me?

Jacob told Levan, you're ruining my life. Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get right back into it. In 2019, after Mike celebrated International Women's Day by posting a really gross meme about violence against women on social media, people in the podcast community spoke up, and Wondery, Sordin-Scales Network, eventually announced they were parting ways with the show.

Mike vowed to keep the show running without the support of the network, tweeting, anything that was ad-supported is over now because of Aaron Manke from lore and Rabia from Undisclosed, who led this boycott against me and my company, because they didn't like certain things I said. But that tweet pretty conveniently leaves out any responsibility for the consequences of his own actions. Like it's his own actions that have caused it and he won't take responsibility for his behavior.

So, yeah, I mean, but there's only so much, you know, I did report the harassment to law enforcement. But, you know, we also don't have very strong cyber-stalking laws and stuff in this country. There's only so much you can do to protect yourself. And other than that, it's kind of like, okay, try to keep my family safe, you know, got security cameras up, got alarm system, things like that. But what can I do if, you know, once COVID is lifted and I'm out in the public again, I always did a lot of traveling and speaking and, and I have a new book coming out next year and I'll be probably traveling for that. And it is what it is. I can't like hide, right? Yeah.

And it goes back to what we were talking about earlier of this is preventing you from living your life, from doing your work, from making your work, from making your living, you know, especially as kind of public content creators, like that kind of thing, you do have to have a fair amount of like public stuff, whether it's appearances or speaking engagements or conferences or panels or whatever, to do that. And so the way that this is really, like would really make it difficult for you to be able to do that without wondering in the back of your head. Like, is today the day that some, you know, some listener of his takes matters into his own hands, it's preventing you from being able to live life the way that you want to live your life. And I think that that's something that people really forget about this kind of

harassment is that it's not just online. It's in real life as well. Oh, it is. I mean, 100% I, but at the same time, I mean, like, you know, and I've had to process through this with my own lawyer and people who are close to me and that I turned to for advice, that, you know, it's actually not going to happen. I'm not going to change the way I live my life. other than just taking some general precautions, I'm going to continue to do the work. I'm going to continue to travel and speak. I mean, I speak to a lot of law schools and law firms

and universities about this work. And that's the kind of stuff that helps scale it up. You get people to support the work. You get students saying, I want to go to law school now. And so, yeah, I'm going to continue to do it at the end of the day. And it is what it is. I mean, like, there's just, you know, I look, I'm also a religious person.

I'm a person of faith. And I firmly believe that when your time is written, it's written. When it's supposed to come, it's supposed to come. So, you know. Yeah, I mean, like, there's just kind of no avoiding it. So when it's going to have it, it's going to happen. But, you know, of course, you don't want it to happen because of something as ridiculous and stupid as something like this.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think something that you said is so touching, knowing that you are going to continue to inspire so many. It's like you're building this little army of people who are inspired to follow in your footsteps and following your legacy and continue to create that kind of justice. You know, the impact that you will have on so many people is so big and your voice can be so big.

And the idea that this one asshole could stop it is obviously he couldn't, right? Like the impact that you can have is so much bigger than anything that this person could ever, you know, dream up to try to stop it, I feel. Yeah, you know, I kind of laugh about it sometimes when he he posts things about Adnan's case or other aspects of the work. And I'm like, I'm an attorney. I've been doing this for like 20 odd years. I have a team of attorneys I work with. I work with the Innocence Project across the country on cases.

And this completely unqualified, you know, white guy. Like this completely unqualified guy thinks that he has the same like skill set or or even. has the same, like he's so entitled that he feels like his opinion is equal to my expertise. I mean, like, really? And I think that probably drives me crazy too. I mean, like, is the fact that I want to be like, listen, go to law school, spend about 10, 15 years doing innocence work. And then let's talk about this case. Like, you know, you have a completely unformed opinion. You can't come close to like my, you know, the work that I do because you don't have the experience. I'm sure he's great.

what he does. I can't do what he does. I will never do what he does. And he can't do what I do as simple as that. And so it's just like apples and oranges. And I think what it is is he thinks, oh, she's got a true crime podcast. My podcast is a means to an end. The whole point of the podcast is, I could end the podcast tomorrow as long as I could find a way to financially support the work of helping people get back in court, right, who's been incarcerated for 20, 30 years. The podcast is just a way to do that. That's not the work. The work is the other work that I do that side of the recording studio. Yeah, that's something I love about your work is that it's not just so many folks,

like, and not to, not to crap on them, but the work begins and ends in the podcast studio. And you are out there making, like doing the actual work, making the actual difference. And I love those, too. I listen to them all the time. I love, I love those kinds of shows. I mean, that's, you know, I love investigative stuff, but this is what I do. And so, you know, what I think is kind of interesting is like, um, his, He's calling on his followers and other people who attack me to try and stop.

I want to be like, you really want to prevent a person from doing the kind of work I'm doing. Like that in itself is like almost evil. It's like if I was handing out water bottles at the border and somebody's like, nope, I'm going to shoot them all out of your hand. Like you want to prevent me from doing like work that's going to change people's lives. Like how? It's really crappy. Right. And because, yeah, you're doing this important justice work. And I think that all the people who see what's happening, who might otherwise be inspired to follow in your footsteps and do this kind of work, how many of them are going to see this and be like, oh, well, I don't want to do that? You know, it's like you're preventing the subred of justice in the world by, by, you know, behaving in this way.

But, you know, look, he can only, he and others can only harass me if I allow myself to, like, feel harassed in some extent. and it was only in the time when I felt like this is getting kind of dangerous, some of the rhetoric's getting dangerous, that I really felt stress over it. But then I was like, my due diligence is that I've told my attorney, I've notified the platforms, I've put everybody else on notice, anybody who follows me knows now, right? So others are hundreds of, if not thousands of people are watching him, watching and documenting everything. Because he does have a history of like posting things and deleting them as if they, disappear from the internet. And so I've done my due diligence. That's all I can do. And now I have to

get back to my life. I also have kids. I've got a husband. I've got cats. I've got elderly parents. I have a garden. I have things to take care of. I don't have time for this. Absolutely. I mean, that's a great question. How do you take care of yourself? How do you make sure that, you know, the things that matter in your life are nurtured and protected during all of this? I mean, look, when you're working mom, I can't be like, hey, kids, I'm having a bad day. You're just going to have to feed yourselves and drive yourself to school. There are things that are non-negotiable that you have to take care of every single day. And in a way, just having that there, like, it's a good distraction from like this meaningless stuff that's happening online

in many instances. So I feel take it, I feel like I'm taking care of myself when I get my work done. When I, you know, I write 1500 words a day. When I hit my 1500 words a day, And I've made sure that, you know, my family's got food for today, or I know we're getting takeout, or I've made the plans. And my plants aren't dying. And my parents, you know, as long as I'm checking the boxes of the things that I need to do for the people who are important to me, then that's taking care of myself as well. That is how I take care of myself. That's so important. So how can folks who might be out there listening either support you during this time or support the criminal justice work that you're involved in now?

Well, you know, I just think it's important that, look, we do have free speech in this country, but that means that we allow hate speech. I mean, the First Amendment is actually created to protect the worst kind of speech possible. It's not created to protect the speech that everybody loves, right? So, but we also have to be able to identify and call out hate speech. So what I would say, just to help create a safer space in any kind of public discourse in the media and social media is to call out hate speech. this is hate speech. What you're doing and saying is hate speech. Report hate speech, you know, and then let the platforms decide what they're going to do with it. That's one way to make a more safer space for all of us online and even in real life. But in order to support

the justice work, I think, you know, the cases that we do on Undisclosed, we've covered about 25 cases from different parts of the country, just listening to the cases, reaching out to the defendants, you can find a lot of their information online, writing to them, leaching out to your local. I mean, my work is pretty focused on innocence work, but criminal justice reform is needed in a much more brighter way. But certainly you can reach out to your local innocence chapters to ask how you can support them. But believe me, there's a lot of incarcerated people behind bars who have not had visitors in years, who have nobody to write them, who have nobody to call. So in that way, Adnan is incredibly blessed. I mean, he's never not had family support and friends

and people to visit him and love him, but there are so many people who have nobody. And so just finding organizations that can connect you to those kinds of people, writing letters once or twice a month, you can change somebody's life like that. Can you tell us a little bit about the upcoming book? Oh, yeah. It's a complete departure from any of the work that I am known for.

It's called Fatty, Fetty Fum, Boom, and it's a memoir. Fatty Faddy Bum Boom was one of my many childhood nicknames because I've always struggled with weight issues. So the memoir is about food, fat, and family. And I think it'll resonate with a lot of people, a lot of people who've spent their lives struggling with, who love food and struggle with weight and have to deal with family. I love food, man.

What can I do? I mean, yeah, and my family loves food, and they want to feed me, but also they want me to lose weight. It's like never kind of works out. But it was a fun write. It was fun to write it because it was very different than like some of the more serious stuff that I do. Our voices matter, and we shouldn't have to put up with a digital landscape that just allows

for our voices to be drowned out by harassment. I know it can be hard to speak up to keep joining the conversation, to keep using our voices. But that's exactly what harassers want, for us to just shut up and go away. And even as she's facing a flood of threats and harassment, Robia hopes that other women, especially women of color, won't let this kind of thing stop them. The only message I would want to leave with, especially to women of color, to people who are marginalized in any way in our society, is not to let people push you out of spaces. Don't ever let it happen. Just don't let it happen.

Stand your ground. If you enjoyed this podcast, please help us grow by subscribing. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? We'd love to hear from you at hello at tangoity.com. Disinformed was brought to you by There Are No Girls on the Internet. It's a production of IHeart Radio and unbost. creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our supervising producer and engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. For more great

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