There Are No Girls on the Internet - Elon Musk flirts with AOC impersonator, Surgeon General's Report on social media, AI-generated true crime on TikTok, and more! — NEWS ROUNDUP

Episode Date: June 2, 2023

This week, Elon Musk interacted with a fake Twitter account impersonating AOC, which had been banned until he decided to unban it, presumably so he could flirt with it. In less cringy news, the U.S. Surgeon General issued a landmark report calling for urgent action to protect young people from the harms of social media. TikTok is awash in creepy AI-generated true crime content being narrated by fictional murdered children, the National Eating Disorder Association learns that replacing humans with AI chatbots can lead to dangerous outcomes, NYC takes a tentative step to require transparency in AI-assisted hiring decisions, and Apple announces a suite of new accessibility features.  Amanda Knox talks true crime on There Are No Girls on the Internet: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/amanda-knox-asks-who-gets-to-own-their-story/id1520715907?i=1000552625297 Internet Hate Machine episode of the importance and history of verification on Twitter: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-elon-musk-could-learn-from-the-endfathersday-hoax/id1648497305?i=1000585587576 NPR piece about the National Eating Disorder Association’s union-busting chatbot: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/05/31/1179244569/national-eating-disorders-association-phases-out-human-helpline-pivots-to-chatbo  Get more bonus content ad-free and join the TANGOTI Discord chat at Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/tangoti See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Call 844-844-I-Hart. 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. Timbo, in 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 Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. 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'm here with my producer, Mike. Thanks for being here, Mike. Thanks for having me back, Bridget.

And here's what you may have missed this week on the internet. So in stuff I absolutely fucking hate news, TikTok is awash with AI-generated true crime victim stories. So if you've been on TikTok at all, you've probably seen this new subsection of true crime content where very creepy AI-generated children who speak in this, like, weird, robotic baby voice about how they were tortured or murdered is flooding the platform.

They purport to show actual murder victims telling their stories. Now, there are adult victims being depicted, including politicians and celebrities, but the ones that feature children are by far more popular and plentiful. These TikTok accounts claim to be honoring in heavy scare quotes the victims and their stories of violence, but Rolling Stone reports that they often get pretty major details wrong, which may even be an intentional attempt to get around TikTok's rules against AI-generated deep fakes of famous people. Exonerie, Amanda Knox, who we spoke to on There No Girls on the Internet last year, who also has a new podcast about the history of true crime called

Blood Money, had a really interesting perspective that she shared on Blue Sky, that even though this edition of AI is definitely creepy, this is nothing new. Amanda Knox writes, this isn't a fresh hell. There's a precedent for this dating back over 400 years. One of the earliest forms of true crime was the printed broadside poster. These posters would tell stories of brutal murders, often murders of children. And these stories would often be told in the ballad form, a song written in the voice of either the condemned criminal or the murdered person. Whoever authored these ballots would just make them all up. They would invent the pleading words of the child in the moments before they were killed.

Or they would convey the thoughts of the criminal as they confessed or acknowledged regret. So these creepy AI-generated true crime deepfakes of children, may not be a totally new phenomena, but the addition of AI to recreate these child victims definitely makes them much more creepy. Like, to be able to tell an AI program to generate the likeness of a murdered child for views on social media is pretty weird if I think it represents this AI presenting the possibility for ever more expanded, tech-facilitated ghoulishness. Yeah, gross, creepy.

You know, Amanda Knox, as usual, makes a pretty good point that it's not. not new that people have been using true crime and broadsides for, you know, hundreds of years ever since the invention of the printing press. But I guess one thing that is new here with AI is that historically, I think those like ghoulish tales were often told for some sort of political purpose, either to, you know, vilify some savage enemy or heartless empire who committed atrocities, on local people to get the local people like riled up for some sort of political end. But here, maybe there's some sort of end. Oh, I think that true crime is always political.

I think that you don't tell the story of something ghoulish happening to someone, especially a child or a woman, without there being some kind of, whether it's implicit or explicit, political agenda. We've seen time and time again where true crime, and the stories of bad things happening to people and people's misfortune is used to strengthen and bolster specific legislation, police crackdowns, more policing, increased criminalization of people of people of color, increased surveillance of people of color and the poor. I think that true crime stories are often political, even if they don't seem political on their face.

I think the fact that these videos, Rolling Stone reports that they get millions and millions and millions of views and are particularly more popular when they feature the stories of murdered children, that tells me right there that whether or not these videos are explicitly trying to make some sort of political or social argument, they absolutely do fuel political and social dynamics in our culture. Yeah, it makes me curious who the perpetrators are in these stories. I think that would be a pretty interesting thing for somebody to look at, to get at that question of what is the political, agenda behind this new phenomenon on TikTok?

Well, I mean, I don't even necessarily think that it's like, when I say political, I don't necessarily feel that people are posting these because they're like, oh, this is going to get everybody riled up and they're going to support XYZ legislation around policing. I'm not saying that. Sometimes they absolutely can be. We see that a lot when it comes to true crime content about trafficking, that that has then used to support specific legislation.

I'm not saying that that's what's going on here. But I am saying that when people are consuming more and more and more content about grisly murders and torture of children, it is just, that's not happening in a vacuum. It's happening in a culture where we already have conversations about policing, about, you know, stranger danger, about, you know, public safety. And so when I say that they're political, I mean that they feed into a current cultural conversation around those issues that, you know, they're not happening. I think it's easy for people who are true crime fans to believe that they're consuming this content in a vacuum, stand alone, like, oh, it's just entertainment, I'm just enjoying it. But in fact, it is not happening in a vacuum. It is happening against the backdrop of already existing conversations about things like policing and public safety, which are inherently political. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

You know, definitely one doesn't have to look very far to see ways in which creating a feeling of fear and unease. and distrust among the population fits pretty squarely with a lot of political actors, social media efforts. Yeah, social media, man. It's a powerful thing that plays to our emotions and particularly kids, huh? It sounds like you're setting me up for our next story, Mike, so I'm going to go ahead and take that. You know, I'm just trying to do my part over here. Last week, U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Murthy, issued an advisory warning about the impact that social media is having

on the mental health of young people. It's a pretty long report, but the crux of it is summed up in this quote from Murthy. We are in the middle of a national youth mental health crisis, and I am concerned that social media is an important driver of that crisis, one that we must urgently address. So I just want to pause here to emphasize what a big deal this is. The Surgeon General's Office doesn't issue these kind of reports all the time. And when they do, they often have a big impact that can last for decades, right? We probably all remember or know about the Surgeon General's report on smoking in health, which really turned the tide on smoking in the U.S. and set us up decades later after a lot of fights to be in a place where we are now where fewer Americans smoke now than

they have in the past hundred years. So it really sets the agenda for a whole generation of medical and public health initiatives. And it didn't come out of a vacuum either. It was when it was announced from the Surgeon General's office, there were supportive comments from leaders of some of the country's largest medical and public health organizations, including the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Public Health Association, and the National Parent Teacher Association, right? Those are all enormous institutions that have a huge footprint, a huge impact. And so I just mentioned that here,

to just really underscore the point from the Surgeon General's report here that there's widespread consensus acknowledgement in the public health field that social media is causing a lot of harm to our young people, and we need to do something about it, ASAP. So the report does say that social media can have benefits to young people and that more research is needed to really understand the impact. So it is a little bit nuanced, like it's not all bad, but the main takeaway is that we need to urgently take action to create safe and healthy digital environments that minimize harm and safeguard children and adolescents' mental health and well-being during critical stages of development. That's kind of one of the main takeaways of the

report is that basically young brains are still cooking and they don't handle social media very well, which like kind of sounds like an obvious point. I always say like, I'm so glad that I didn't have the social media climate that we have today with so many platforms that I, you know, when I was 13, God, I truly, God only knows what I would have done. and what I would be like if I had access to that. But the report says that a highly sensitive period of brain development happens between the ages of 10 and 19, which coincides when 95% of 13 to 17-year-olds and nearly 40% of 8 to 12-year-olds are using social media. The advisory notes that frequent use of social media platforms can impact brain development,

affecting areas associated with emotional learning, impulse control, and social behavior. Murthy has previously said that he believes that even 13-year-old is too early for children's to be using social media. So there's two things here worth pulling out of that, right? Like social media is particularly harmful for children because they are still developing their brains, like you said, they're still cooking. They're not fully formed. And so it's particularly dangerous to them during this critical period.

And also, we have a long tradition in this country and society of protecting young people, right? Like there's general agreement that we should do more to protect young people than adults, because adults, they're adults, they're grown. They can make choices for themselves. Children can't by definition. And so I just wanted to identify those two different reasons driving this call for more action. So the report does say that social media can be particularly beneficial to marginalize youth.

It says studies have shown that social media may support them. mental health and well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and other youths by enabling peer connection, identity development, and management and social support. This is also really important because I have seen a lot of reporting that suggests that so much of the research about the impacts of kids and social media tends to be done on white kids, right? Like when the researchers are doing that research, they're not necessarily also doing research

on all kids. And that is particularly important because, according to a study from the youth, media, and well-being research lab, black and Latino fifth through ninth graders adopt social media at a younger age than their white peers. And because youth of color have such specific online experiences, right? Like these experiences can include things like hate speech and racialized harassment and like racialized language being used online. And so if you're not, if you're not researching and looking into the experiences of marginalized kids who are having such specific online experiences, I don't necessarily feel like you're getting a clear picture of the impact.

Yeah, totally agree. You know, we, in social science, we talk about intersectionality and the importance of focusing on not just different demographic groups, but, you know, intersections of them. And absolutely, there's a lot of reason to think that kids from marginalized backgrounds, who identify with specific marginalized identities, would have a whole host of specific harms and specific benefits that. they get from access to social media. And we really do need more research to understand that. But also at the same time, we urgently need restrictions to protect them, right? Like in the US regulatory framework, we are reluctant to ever try to regulate anything until it is solidly conclusively demonstrated beyond the shadow of a doubt through many lawsuits.

that, like, yes, it is actually harmful, and so we are actually able to pass some sort of regulation about it. In other countries, it's like, and in Europe, it's not like that. They're much more willing to acknowledge that something is being harmful and take action. And I really hope that we can do that over here. Well, the report calls for just that. It calls for more research into the impacts of social media usage and for social media companies themselves to be more transparent

when it comes to sharing data with outside experts. There's also recommendations for lawmakers to develop stronger health and safety standards for social media products and introduce stricter data privacy controls, which plus plus plus plus plus I am a huge proponent of, especially for young people, but also for adults. Technology companies themselves, meanwhile, are urged to assess the risk their products might pose and attempt to minimize them. The report also mentioned something that I find pretty important, and that is the role that parents can and should be playing. The report says the onus of mitigating the potential harms on social media should not be placed solely on the shoulders of parents and kids. caregivers or on children themselves. So this is where I kind of have a lot to say. The people who run social media platforms are making billions of dollars from harming our kids. Parents and caregivers have been burdened so much, especially in the last few years, having to manage

virtual learning, shifting workplace policies around remote work. You know, you can work from home, now you've got to come back to the office, a tax on schools, just to name a few. Tech billionaires know that their technology harms kids. Facebook. is aware, we learn that from Francis Hogan's Facebook papers. Facebook cannot say, from their own internal reports, Facebook is aware that their product harms kids, end of sentence, full stop. So these tech billionaires know that their products harm kids, and they make billions of dollars from it from that harm while doing nothing to

meaningfully mitigate how kids are showing up to their platforms. And then to turn around and then further burden parents to keep their kids away from these platforms is unacceptable to me. And it also speaks to the really like extractive relationship that I talked about in the episode that we put out on Tuesday with Paris Marks, where there's just an expectation that it is fine for tech billionaires to do harm to the public, including harm to our kids, if it makes them more money. And it's clear that that extends to harm to some of our most vulnerable children. We need to make it clear that our kids' well-being is not for sale. We are not sacrificing the health, safety, and well-being of our children to help make Mark Zuckerberg more money.

And that's really what it comes down to. These companies know what they're doing. They know they are causing harm. You know, I respect this report, but I feel like in places this report makes it seem like tech companies don't already know that their products cause harm, that young people are using them and that it's causing them a lot of harm. They do know that. And so we need to start from that reality. They know they're making billions of dollars of it and they're doing nothing to stop it and that's despicable. And it's going to take some kind of either regulation or new framework for lawsuits or something to go after them.

But they're making a product that demonstrably harms kids, right? There's not that many categories of product where you can get away with that. I think in the case of social media companies, it's a little bit complicated by free speech, you know, the First Amendment and also Section 230. which we've talked about on this podcast. And I wouldn't pretend it's not complicated, but we can't continue with this extremely powerful, important product that increasingly people need to be on to interact in society that also is just harming people

and all of the responsibility is placed on the individuals for not just protecting themselves but their family. It's just nonsense and it doesn't, work and it's not working. Well, that's my thing is that parents already have to do so much. You can't just create a harmful thing and then be like, oh, well, just another thing that parents, it's up to them to keep this out of their kids' hands, even though it's everywhere, even though that's basically impossible. That's not a reasonable standard for parents. That's too big of a burden, especially when somebody is, people are making money off of it. And so, you know, I'm not a

parent myself, but I do have a lot of young people in my life. I'm close to a lot of younger folks. I often have said the thing that everybody before they have kids in the 2000 says, it's like, when I have a child, my child will never look at a screen, okay? It's going to be books and wooden toys and nothing else. And in 2023, be for real, right? Like, if you are listening and you are keeping your kid away from screens and you are very diligent at screen time, I applaud you. I say, I can't tell you how many times I have smugly told somebody that that is the kind of parent I intend to be if and when I have a child. But it's not a realistic standard, right?

And allowing your kids access to social, like, kids need to be online and they need to learn how to have safe online experiences. I think the onus should be on social media companies to not have platforms be marketplaces for their pain and instead be places where they can explore the internet safely and learn. learn how to come of digital age safely. And yeah, I think, like, if you, like, it shouldn't just be up to parents who are already burdened with so much to meet this impossible standard of just keeping their kids away from social media platforms. Just it's just not realistic. Yeah, it's not realistic and it's not, it's not an either or thing, right?

It's like a false dichotomy. Parents always will ultimately have the ultimate responsibility for protecting their kids. But at the same time, we should have some. regulations in place that prevent extremely harmful, dangerous platforms from just being widely available and easily accessible to this kids. If you think about other categories of products that we have special laws to protect kids from, tobacco, alcohol, probably some others that I should be able to think of, but I can't. But, like, we have laws designed to make those harmful products less easily accessible to young people because there is clear evidence that that is effective at protecting them from it.

Why can't we have that with social media? What's interesting is that the surgeon general says that 13 is too young to be on social media platforms. If you saw the documentary, The Social Dilemma, which is one of my favorite documentaries where it features all of these people who make social media platforms, like engineers, talking about the harm, that they know that these platforms have been responsible for. The movie is great. It goes into all these different ways that these platforms cause harm and get you addicted and all of that. At the end, I think it might even be a post-credit scene.

All of these people who, I mean, I hate to say it, but ostensibly made money creating these things that they then go on to be like, oh, they're very dangerous. Talk about the role that social media plays in their household. None of them let their kids on social media. And these are people who build social media platforms. That really told me something of like, These are the people who built technology, and the technology that they built, they don't let their kids have.

They do not allow in their homes or around their children. Yeah, it makes sense. If you're building harmful stuff that you know harms tens of millions of young people, you probably need to sell yourself a story about personal responsibility to absolve yourself of the guilt of knowing that you are pushing this product out into the world and actively, trying to get more kids to use it, even though it's going to hurt a lot of them. Yeah, it is dirty business. Our kids, I mean, I say this all the time. Our kids' experiences should not be for sale.

We should not, the dynamic where your children are hurt and harmed in real ways so that Mark Zuckerberg can get richer, we need to reject that dynamic. I don't care if, I don't care if he goes bankrupt. our kids' experiences should not be used to line the pockets of tech billionaires. And I'll guess I'll just leave it there. 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 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. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora.

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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 SportsSlic on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slicelife 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok.

And we're back. Are there, have there been any stories this past week about something positive happening in tech regulation? I don't know if I would say positive, but there have been some tech regulation news. Let's turn to New York City where they have just passed a new law around AI and hiring. So in all this talk around AI and jobs and how AI is going to impact all of our jobs, it's clear there is need for some kind of legislation or regulation to regulate how AI impacts the workforce. The New York Times reports that New York City just passed a law that requires companies using AI software and hiring to notify candidates that an automated system is being used. It also requires companies to have independent auditors check the technology annually for bias. Candidates can request and be told what data is being collected and analyzed about them and companies can be fine for.

violations, labor experts actually say that this law in New York City could potentially be expanded nationwide. California, New Jersey, New York, and Vermont, and D.C., hey, hey, my hometown, are all working on laws to regulate AI and hiring. Now, this sounds like a really positive step in the right direction, but some critics argue that the law is too biased towards businesses and corporate interests and has been watered down to the point of not being effective. What could have been a landmark law was watered down to lose effectiveness. That's from Alexandria Givens, the president for the Center for Democracy and Technology, a Policy and Civil Rights Organization. That's what she told the New York Times. So you might be wondering, well,

what's so wrong with this law? It sounds pretty good. This gets a little in the weeds, but here's how the New York Times breaks down her opposition to this law. They write, the law defines an automated employment decision tool as technology used to substantially assist or replace discretionary decision-making. The rule adopted by the city appears to interpret that phrasing narrowly so that AI software will require an audit only if it is the loan or primary factor in a hiring decision or if it is used to override a human. All of this leaves out the main way that automated software is used with a human hiring manager invariably making the final choice. The potential for AI-driven discrimination typically comes in the screening of hundreds of thousands of candidates

down to a handful or in targeted online recruiting to generate a pool of candidates. So basically what she is saying is that the definition of whether or not AI is being employed in an employment decision is so narrow that a company would very rarely ever need to notify a candidate or perform an audit under this law. Basically, they're saying that, like, they are defining AI being used as an employment decision if it is the only thing making a decision or if it overrides a human decision. In reality, that is not usually the case. AI can be used to narrow down candidates, but generally it is there is a human involved in the

process. So in the more typical iteration of how things usually work with AI in hiring, very few companies need to change their behavior under this law because of that narrow definition of AI in the screening process. She also objects to the fact that the law covers screening candidates using AI for gender, race, and ethnicity, but not for disability or age, which we know are big parts of employment discrimination as is. So if this law does become a national template as it very well might, it might not be as robust as it should be to actually protect workers. I really want to interpret this as a good start, though. You know, she's definitely the expert and probably right about it being too narrow,

but, like, maybe there'll be some court case that interprets it a little more broadly. You know, I appreciate that this law at least attempts to establish some boundaries on what is acceptable to use AI for, especially in something as important as important as employment. And so, I don't know, it feels nice that some legislators are at least trying. And it seems like it would be hard for companies to argue that being transparent about the software they use is somehow an unacceptable burden to their hiring. So hopefully this can be either amended or built on to maybe expand that definition,

add some teeth to it so that it does become more accepted and expected even that throughout the hiring process, any sort of AI that even has the potential to discriminate needs to be disclosed. At the very least, it seems like asking to have it disclosed shouldn't be subjected to. People deserve transparency when they're engaging with technology like this. And I think that's probably one of my biggest concerns about this technology is that it's simply going to repeat and also make worse the existing biases that are already in our society. And so I think we definitely need strong, clear, robust legislation to prevent that from happening. So I am happy to see some legislation that it's not just a Wild West, but I want to make sure it's legislation

that actually provides some meaningful and robust protection for all of us. Have you got any stories for me about health tech, Bridget? Let's talk about health tech, Mike. So back in March, staffers at the National Eating Disorder Association were laid off just days after they voted to unionize. Subsequently, the National Eating Disorders Association, or N-E-D-A, announced they were shutting down their 20-year-old call-in helpline for folks dealing with disordered eating and food issues. They replaced a handful of paid staffers and a large group of volunteers with a chatbot called Tessa. Well, it turns out that Tessa did not do so great because rather than giving counseling to people calling in for help with their disordered eating, Tessa was found to be giving these people

weight loss and diet advice. A psychologist who specializes in eating disorders ran a test with Tessa, where she fed at questions that someone seeking help for disordered eating might ask. She pretended to be somebody who had recently gained weight and subsequently hated their body. Tessa responded, quote, approach weight loss in a healthy and sustainable way. When the psychologist followed up asking what that might look like, Tessa responded with information about calorie deficits. Tessa provided information like how to cut calories and how to avoid certain foods, which is certainly not good advice to give somebody specifically engaging with this bot for help with food issues and disordered eating. So this is really interesting.

Wired reports that Tessa was not built using AI like chat bots like chat GPT. Instead, Tessa is programmed to deliver an interactive program called Body Positive, a cognitive behavioral therapy-based tool meant to prevent not treat, eating disorders, says Ellen Fitzsimmonscraft, a professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine, who developed the program. But here's where it gets weird. Fitzsimmons Craft says that the weight loss advice given was not part of the program that her team worked to develop, and she does not know how Tessa got it into her repertoire, which is pretty scary that this non-AI chat bot went off script from the body positive program that it was programmed to respond with and started saying advice about how to lose weight and how to have a calorie deficit. And the people who

programmed it just have no idea how or why it was able to go off script in that very particular way. Pretty scary, right? It is. And I have a lot of questions about how that might have happened. You know, I looked into this a little bit, and their study was published in a reputable journal. It had a good, solid design. So I really feel for the researcher here, Fitzsimons Crafts, because from everything I can tell, you know, she's like a legitimate researcher who legitimately is, like, doing good science, trying to help people. And, you know, it's not crazy to imagine that the researchers who created this tool

would not be the same people who decided that at the programmatic level it should be used by the program to replace the human coaches. Maybe they were involved, maybe they weren't, I don't know. And like maybe, yeah, I'm just like super curious about what it means that she says the The program did not have any of that content. Like, where did it come from? Who put it there?

You know, these are questions I'm really interested in. I would love to know more. The robots are going rogue, and they want us to lose weight. I think that's clear. That's what's going on here. Maybe, but, like, I feel like they'd want to fatten us up to provide more calories for their, like, robot machines. Robots aren't going to be eating humans?

That's how it works. They'll be digesting us for fuel, obviously. Okay, so this is kind of important context. The NEDA says that they were not and are not planning on replacing humans with chatbots, but it does sound that like that in the midst of this staff shakeup after their unionization effort, it does sound like this chat bot was the only resource that they had to offer the public. So they might say that they weren't intending to replace humans with this bot, but subsequently that's like kind of what happened, whether that was their intention or not.

Yeah, it's, again, hard to know what to make of the idea that, like, they didn't intend to do the thing that their organization did. Like, where did that come from? Was Tesla calling the shots at the board meeting? It seems a little, I don't know, it just feels a little sketchy to me, honestly. Like, yeah, the unionization part, though, like they, according to the NPR article, that we read it is linked in the show notes here. It's like an internal email at NEDA that points to increase legal risk about crisis handling and mandatory reporting is one of the reasons for laying off the coaches.

But then it just doesn't make sense that they would start, to me at least, it doesn't make sense that they would start using a chatbot as a replacement as if that would somehow be less risky. It just seems odd, you know, and laying off workers within days of a vote to union eyes feels super gross. So I think it's important to sort of separate the two different stories here, like the chat bot that worked as a prevention tool to help prevent people, because that study that Fitzimitts Craft authored demonstrates that it did really help people with preventing eating disorders. But then it got used in this other context where it was actually a

harming people. That's interesting and worth talking about. And then also it seems like this organization did not want to deal with the union. And so just like replaced all their humans as soon as they unionized, which is pretty disappointing for a nonprofit organization that ostensibly is trying to help people. Yeah. And I have to say like when I first chose this story to include in the roundup for today's episode, I was like, this is a story about like, I can never say the word right. Schadenfreude. I always say it wrong.

It's funny. One of our Patreon patrons has that as their, their, like, Patreon name, and I DM them. And I was like, I can never, I have to, like, look it up every time. Schadenfreude. I think that's how you say it. When I first heard the story, I was like, oh, this is what they get for firing their unionizing humans and trying to replace the unionizing humans with a robot, like, ha-ha, dunk on them. as I looked into it more, like, it's really easy to make fun of the NEDA here, but it really does highlight what I think is a pretty serious issue, that a lot of people need access to mental

health services and support, and that access is still out of reach for so many, which is why an organization, you know, like NEDA would feel like they could, they had to turn to chatbots to sort of close that gap. So it's easy to dunk on them here, but ultimately, that is a real problem. that we do need to solve for. Whether or not technology like chatbots and AI can solve for it, I don't know that's not something I know about, but it is a real problem. And Mike, I know that when you're not producing the show,

this is something that you actually work on, right? That's right. Yeah, when I'm not producing the show, I do research with a nonprofit that creates free digital tools to help support health behavior change and help people overcome addiction. And so I do, like, know a fair bit about this. This is an area where I'm actively doing research and actively working in a nonprofit where we run public programs that provide support for health behavior change

over the internet. And we've been talking a lot about chat thoughts lately and what role they can or should have for providing digital health services. Because as you mentioned, there is this huge unmet need for mental health services as well as other kinds of behavioral health services. like smoking cessation, diabetes management, you know, there's just, you know, physical exercise, healthy eating, so many health behaviors that cause a lot of medical harm, medical costs, reduce, you know, good healthy years that people live on their lives. There's this huge unmet need for it. And if we can use digital technology to meet that need and connect people with resources,

that help them meet their health goals and adopt healthier behaviors that they want to adopt, but for various reasons, often including industries that aggressively market them to prevent them from achieving those healthier behaviors that they want to achieve. And so if you can use digital technology to meet that need and help support people to adopt these healthier behaviors that they're trying to adopt, that would be a huge win for everyone. But there's this question of how to do it, right? And with generative AI chatbots in particular, we have no idea what kind of advice they might give to a person looking for help. And so there's a risk as the National, what is it, the National Eating Disorders Association found out, there's a risk that somebody who is in crisis or who is like really experiencing a problem might ask for help and receive advice that,

actually turns out to be harmful for them. And that's, you know, as somebody who designs health interventions, that is terrifying. You know, the risk is especially high for people in crisis. You know, for example, people who are suicidal or intend to harm others because they're more vulnerable. And so we have a greater obligation to protect those people who are the most vulnerable. You know, and I guess another related thing is that generally, public health, we give more priority to not causing harm compared to helping people, right?

Like, everyone is probably familiar with the trolley problem. And again, it's especially the case when people are at risk of being harmed who are already vulnerable. We really want to protect them and make sure that whatever treatment we're giving to try to help is not causing more harm. So that unknown factor about generative AI and chatbots, I think she'll give a lot of people in positions to provide them to the public pause about using those chatbots to deliver mental health support in particular. You know, there is a lot of potential there as the researcher we mentioned demonstrated. You know, her program, Tessa, really did help some people. So there's a lot of potential. but creators need to be to carefully protect against adverse outcomes and risks to users,

especially among the most vulnerable. And so it sounds like the version of Tesla that was implemented on their website didn't do that. And so I think it's good that the service has been taken down until it can be, you know, changed or in whatever way is needed, that it can then be demonstrated to be safe to be made available to the public again. You know who else I think might need to be taken down until it can be demonstrated that they are safe for the public? Elon Musk. I'll tell you why, after this quick break. 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 They're between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter.

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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 Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Let's get right back into it. Let's talk about Twitter. It might be a while before we can demonstrate that he is not a danger to the public. Agreed.

Okay, so this is a, I mean, I'm going to try to ring it in because this story makes me so fucking mad. Okay. Over the weekend, a verified parody account on Twitter that looks an awful lot like the real Twitter account for Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claimed to have a crush on Elon Musk. Elon Musk replied with a fire emoji. Of course, it was not the real IOC. It was a parody, heavy scare quotes, account. The account has been around since 2018, but it was permanently suspended in 2019 under Jack Dorsey, the former Twitter CEO's leadership. for misleading parody content. I should say here that this is a real problem online where there are accounts that just say off-the-wall stuff

and they say, oh, I'm parody, but it's not really a joke. It's hard to explain, but you definitely have seen them, you know them when you see them where they're able to hide behind parody when you know that it's not parody, right? Like, AOC saying that she has a crush on Elon Musk, that's not parody, that's something else. So that's neither here nor there.

So this Twitter account had been permanent suspended by Twitter back in 2019. But Musk reinstated it when he brought back a bunch of banned accounts. And because of the way that Musk's verification system works, which is basically pay to play, if you pay the $8 to get verified, it boosts your content and search and on the feed. It actually boosts the fake account because it is verified. So currently, and I tried this right before we started recording, when you search AOC, on Twitter, the fake aOC is ranked first in search results above the actual authentic AOC's official account because it's verified. So Musk is boosting this fake account both because

of the way that Twitter Blue works, but he is also personally boosting this account because he is engaging with it from his own individual Twitter account. It's so disgusting. He's such a pathetic creep. He knows it's a fake account. He unbanned it anyway. And now he's engaging with it and boosting with it. Just, ugh. Ugh. Ugh, is right. So the real AOC tweeted,

FYI, there's a fake account on here impersonating me and going viral. The Twitter CEO has engaged it, boosting visibility. It is releasing false policy statements and gaining spread. I am assessing with my team how to move forward.

In the meantime, be careful what you see. Soon after, the real AOC tweeted that the fake account tweeted the exact same thing word for word. Now, parody accounts on Twitter are required to spell out that they're parody accounts. But as of today, when you look at the fake AOC accounts tweets on mobile, the word parity is cut off. So there's no quick visual way to differentiate that this is not the real AOC if a user was just encountering these fake AOC tweets in their feed on mobile,

right? Like you would have to click all the way into the profile to see that it is a parody. There is no visual marker. It has her image. It is verified. If you saw this quickly on mobile, you would think it was the real AOC. And particularly, the platforms like Twitter move so quickly and they encourage you to move so quickly that people aren't, I don't think people are going to be checking to see if this is the real account or not. If only there was some visual marker that people could use to quickly see which accounts are like actually the people who say they are and which ones aren't. If only such a system like that existed, but maybe it's just impossible and I'm dreaming. Oh my God. I mean, I, we did a whole

episode about verification for my project with Cool Zone Media called Internet Hate Machine about how it's not just like a vanity thing. Like it really matters that people are who they say they are. Just I think two weeks ago here in D.C. there was a tweet, two tweets from a verified account that said that there was a massive explosion in D.C. by the Pentagon. And it had a very compelling image that looked like a lot of smoke and flames in the Pentagon. And it actually, caused an IRL traffic disruption here in D.C. because people thought, like, oh, don't drive by the Pentagon. And it was fake. It was just a verified account spreading inaccurate information that looked real. And so I really truly worry what happens when people at scale are buying

verifications and using it to disrupt, using it to confuse, using it to cause chaos. And I think that fake tweet about the five at the Pentagon, which was just like a fake made-up thing. I think it also like tanked the stock market for a little while and like cost a bunch of people a ton of money. Yeah, it makes me sad to say, but I always say this, when rich people and corporations have their bottom lines impacted, I think that's the, I think, I mean, this probably sounds so pessimistic. I think that is one of the last bastions of doing something that we have in this country. If regular people are harmed, who cares. If somebody, if a corporation or the market is impacted, then I think people will pay attention.

It makes me sad to say, but I do firmly believe that that is like the last lever that anybody with power cares about in this country. Yeah, just ask Elizabeth Holmes. Yep. I was just thinking about her, my girl. Also, by the way, it's Liz now. She rebranded. I don't know if you saw. I did not. It's Liz. It's Liz now. Also, fun fact, she, I, I am so, like, I swear that I did not plan this. I wanted to find a way to work in this tidbit that Elizabeth Holmes is going to be in the same jail as Jen Shaw from Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. No. Yes. Yes.

Okay. So just that's information for y'all. If you, this is a real overlap of shit that I care about. Housewives, like Bravo Housewives and tech scams. Woof. Yeah. Wow. I wonder if they're going to be buds.

You know. They. there is no way that Jen Shaw is not already scheming how to get this woman on her team. I'll let me say that. I know my Jen Shaw. She's already scheming to get this woman on her team. Trust. Boy, Liz better keep an eye out.

Seriously. Okay, so back to this parody account, NBC News dug into this account, and they found that according to the Social Blade, a social media analytics tracker, the AOC parody account had 85,000 followers back in May 2019, the same. month it was suspended. After the account was restored in May of 2023, it immediately lost 16,000 followers. Then the account shot back up to over 80,000 followers on May 29th after Musk replied to it. On May 30th, the day that AOC responded to the account, it gained over 100,000 followers. It has continued to climb. Today, let's just check and see how many it has as of right now.

I meant to do this before we taped, but I forgot. That's okay. We can do it in real time for the listeners. Today, it has 391.1K followers. That is a lot of followers. That's a lot of followers. That's more than like a 400% increase from before Musk replied to it. So obviously, Musk replying to it and engaging with it has helped it grow in followers, helped this account that is not accurate, is confusing, and is not easily and clearly distinguishable as parity on mobile. He's clearly helped for it to grow. What's even wilder is that NBC found that the fake AOC account was run, at least initially, by

a GOP operative. It was first started by Michael Morrison, whose Twitter profile indicates him as a member of the New York Young Republicans Club. Morrison posted about the suspensions on his account, on the conservative social media platform Gab, where he also posted from a parody of AOC's official account between April

2019 and July of 2019. The posts shared on Gab were more sexually explicit, and the account reshared posts from other users that contained racist slurs. Surprise, surprise, this guy sucks. Yeah, these people are such troglodytes. Like, of course it's sexually explicit. Like, let's remember that the original tweet that Musk replied to with a fire emoji was the parody account pretending that AOC liked him and had a crush on him.

Ugh. I want to come back to that. I should mention that NBC says that they reached out to Morrison, and he said that he no longer runs this AOC parody Twitter account and that he thinks it might be run by a team of people. Take that for what it's worth. Like, that's what he told them. I don't know if that's true or not. Who knows? So I have talked a bunch about verification and impersonation on Twitter.

We did a whole episode of Internet hate machine about it. You know, having a blue checkmark is not just a vanity thing. It really did start as a way to help identify, help users identify people are who they say they are. And it's been a way to provide security for folks who are at the risk of being impersonated online. We already know that impersonating black women and women of color on Twitter can cause chaos. And that's a thing that bad actors do intentionally to do that. So it's not surprising to me that AOC is being targeted. Also, I should say that the obvious thing, Mike, that you brought up that we kind of can't not mention is that this parody account is targeting a woman of color elected official.

and they're not just using this account to, like, poke thought at her political or policy decisions. It is making her say things like she has a crush on Elon Musk. And the real Elon Musk pathetically replies. Let's be super clear. This is so obviously about using a woman of colors, gender, race, age, and sexuality to belittle her because she is a public figure. It is about weaponizing her identity. And I think part of it is that, like, AOC is an attractive young woman. And so there is this thing when you are an attractive young woman who is also in public that

elicits this really gross behavior. And it's all kind of linked, right? Like hating her, being obsessed with her, being titillated by her, putting her down. It's all sides of the same fucked up coin. And I have said this at one million times, but it's also not just about AOC. It is meant to send a message to other young women who would be potential, like, civic leaders or might run to run for office or be activists or be public in their communities, that this is what you will have to deal with if you are a young woman, a woman of color, or a black woman who speaks up and wants to

represent your community publicly, this is what you will have to endure. The harassment will be in plain sight and it will be endorsed and cheered on and enabled by the powers that be, in this case, Elon Musk. So if you run for office or become an activist or become somebody who uses a public profile to advocate for things that you care about and help your community, this is what you have to deal with. It is systemic. It is anti-democratic. It stifles free speech because think of all the women who will not speak up, who will not run for office, who will not serve their communities, because they don't want to have to deal with this kind of crap, and I don't blame them. Cheap, crass, quote, jokes like this should not be the cost of serving as an elected official. But if you're a young woman, especially woman of color, or a young queer person, a young trans person, it absolutely is. And Elon Musk obviously does not give a shit about his responsibility.

to make Twitter a place where this is not commonplace. In fact, he's so pathetic that it's probably like feeding his ego, the chance to be able to pretend, like even for a second, that there is a reality where somebody like AOC would even ever potentially think about him, potentially have a chance with him. And that is the real joke here. The real joke is on Elon Musk because he's clearly enjoying having his ego stroked by even the idea that a pretend AOC would ever give him the time of day,

which would never happen. So it's not all bad. I do have a little positive news. What? A little positive news for you. And that is Apple has just unveiled their new iPhone accessibility features, which I'm very excited about.

Okay, so May 18th was Global Accessibility Awareness Day. And to celebrate, Apple unveiled a suite of new features to improve cognitive, vision, and speech accessibility. We should see these features rolled out on iPhone, iPad, and Mac later this year. Apple created these tools based on feedback from a broad subsection of users with disabilities. Let's take a look at what is to come. So for users who are blind or have low vision, they have detection mode and magnifier, which now offers point and speak, which identifies text that users point toward and reads it out loud to help them interact with physical objects,

such as household appliances, which I think is great. And they also have a much more simplified grid home screen. So if you're somebody who doesn't necessarily need a half a dozen apps on your home screen, you just want to be able to push one button and make a phone call. It's a lot simpler. So I love this because, you know, I'm sure I've talked about this on the show before, but accessibility tools don't just benefit people with disabilities. They benefit everybody because we're all better served when more folks can show up online and in technology.

My parents are both huge iPhone people. They love their iPhone. They always get the, like, newest one. My dad is disabled. And after he had a stroke, he had to kind of relearn how to do a lot of things. Like, he was in physical therapy to relearn how to walk. He had to learn how to drive. And one of the most complicated things or difficult thing for him to relearn was technology.

I don't know why it was so difficult. But, like, it was a real challenge. Like, there's so much technology right now. It can be so complicated. And I think things like the simplified phone grid home screen will be a real hit with him because he's not somebody who is like, you know, doing a million things on his phone. He wants to text and he wants to make phone calls. And so having it be a lot more simplified, I think will be really good. Technology has really helped both of my parents just be able to show up more. You know, my dad's

Apple Watch, it monitors his vital signs. My mom facetimes her niece every single day, sometimes multiple times a day. I'll say it is not without friction in our household because my Mom loves FaceTime and no longer uses just regular good old fashioned phone calls. And so every time that we speak, she expects it to be FaceTime. And I don't really like FaceTime. I don't enjoy being on FaceTime. It's not how I want to have every conversation. So it's not without friction. But it's been great for them.

And I also think it's like, it's just a good, I like, I like tech being designed with accessibility at its core because it is very easy to think of technology as like just cutting edge stuff for young people. But that can be so limiting, you know, when tech should be designed with slash four people who need it. And I think it's really cool to see technology being made that centers older folks and folks with accessibility needs. I think that's really, really cool. And I think it really reminds us, like, who tech is supposed to serve and who should be centered in the technology that we use every day. So I love this. I think it's great.

really nice. Thank you for bringing this to us because you're absolutely, yeah, this is such a nice story. Thank you for sharing it. It's so nice to see technology doing what it does when it's at its best, which is helping people who either have a disability or some sort of need, meet that need and be able to use it as a tool to help them do the things that they want to do. That is, that's about as good as it gets with tech. And added bonus with a simplified iPhone screen, maybe my parents won't be calling me every five seconds asking me to do things on their phone. So way to foster a sense of independence for my parents specifically. Thank you, Apple.

Yeah. Well, that's what it's all about. That's why you've been doing this show to get us here. So your parents stop asking you for tech support. Yes, we did it. Listen, I don't know if you have a similar situation, but when you visit your parents, it's like you'll have the dinner. you'll have the drink, whatever. And then there's like a lull in the conversation and tech support time starts where it's just like, oh, I've got this problem with my computer. Like, oh, the internet is

being weird. I need you to fix it. What's our Wi-Fi password? XC. 5, 3, 4, beep, beep, beep. It's like, making something you can remember. And with my parents, we have really established some good boundaries around my providing tech support. It took us a while to get here. It was a bumpy road. But yeah, I empathize. And so maybe Apple will solve all those problems for you and your parents. Let that be a lesson to you, listeners.

If you are struggling with parents that need a lot of tech support, it gets better. Yeah. All you need to do is create a podcast about inclusive technology. And four seasons in, Apple will release a feature. that helps your parents. You know, it's an easy, it's not easy, but, you know, it's, it's a, it's a template. Yeah. Thanks so. Yeah, thanks for having me here on the last ever episode of There are No Girls on the

internet. You can pack it up and go home. Stop it. Stop it. All right. Well, thanks for being here, Mike. And thanks for listening. If you want to hear more content like this, add free, please subscribe to our Patreon.

There's stuff there. It's cool. I promise. I'm trying to message everybody who has subscribed personally. You got a message from me. It is actually from me sitting in my computer, in my apartment, thanking you for subscribing. Thank you for being there.

Patreon.com slash tangoity. We will see you next week. If you're looking for ways to support the show, check out our merch store at tangoity.com slash store. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can reach us at hello at tangoati.com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangoity.com. There are no girls on the internet was created by me, Bridget Todd.

It's a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. Edited by Joey Pat. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from IHartRadio, check out the IHart 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 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. 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 SportsSlice 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 SportsSlice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12

in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Life is full of hurdles, so how do you keep going? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi, we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness from professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions about the challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward. At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything.

Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHart Women's Sports. This is an IHart podcast. Guaranteed Human.