There Are No Girls on the Internet - Gender Pay Gap Bot calls out performative tweets on International Women's Day (and spreads a little social media chaos along the way)

Episode Date: March 22, 2022

On International Women's Day, brands unleashed their tweets "celebrating women." But the Gender Pay Gap Bot was here to call out the hypocrisy of companies claiming to champion women while paying them less. We chat with Francessa Lawson, the social media marketer behind the bot.Follow Gender Pay Gap Bot on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PayGapApp Want to support the show? (thank you!) Subscribe, tell a friend, leave a review, or buy some merch at There Are No Girls on the Internet’s store: TANGOTI.COM/STOREJoin our newsletter: Tangoti.com/newsletter Say hello at [e-mail]  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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What I really hope is that the work that we've done with the boss has been able to inspire companies in just thinking, like, well, we've ignored our problems and it's not worked. So, you know, maybe this is a bit of a kick-up the bum to do something about it. There are No Girls on the Internet as a production of IHeart Radio and UnBoss Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. March 8th is International Women's Day, a global holiday to commemorate the achievements of women. And I have to say, I really, really hate it. And if we're being completely honest, I have always been a little bit of a grinch about pretty much any and all holidays or commemorative months meant to celebrate marginalized people. Because it always seems that they get co-opted by brands and corporations, making empty gestures toward solidarity that are pretty much meaningless.

So I usually stay away from social media on International Women's Day because I really can do without the tweets from brands about how I should celebrate women by using their discount code to buy lingerie or whatever. But this International Women's Day, something a little bit different happened. Yes, the brand still did their thing, unleashing their hollow tweets, assuring us how much they love women. But when they did, they were retweeted by a Twitter account

called the Gender Pay Gap Bot that added some very important content. How much of a gender wage gap exists at the very same companies tweeting about how they're celebrating women. So for instance, when the fashion retailer misguided tweeted, we're paying it forward this international women's day and we're giving away prizes throughout the day, including 1,000 pounds cash. Gender pay gap retweeted their tweet, adding, In this organization, women's median hourly pay is 40% lower than men's.

Ouch. Now many of the Women's Day tweets made, by companies that gender pay gap put on blast for paying women less were curiously deleted. It was social media chaos, and as a messy bitch, of course, I loved every minute of it. I spoke to Francesca Lawson, the social media marketer based in Manchester, who built the gender pay cap alongside her partner, L.E., about how it came to be. So, Francesca, I have to tell you, your project really just stuck something inside of me. I'm a little bit of a grinch.

I really hate holidays like pride. I hate International Women's Day. And I just feel that these days have kind of become so co-opted in a lot of ways. Is this something that you can relate to? Yeah, definitely. Like in my line of work in like social media marketing, I have been that person that's made myself really unpopular when I've, you know, been asked to update all our logos to pride flags, for instance.

And I've been like, hold on. second, why do you want to do that? You know, you want to sort of make sure that we're promoting ourselves as being really good for like LGBT rights, but what do we have to show for that? Can we really sort of put out a flag and that be it? That'd be all our contribution. So yeah, that's just another example of kind of, you know, where this sort of performative kind of marketing comes about and it really frustrates me. It just doesn't sit right with like my values. You know, I believe that, you know, it's up to all of us to be kind of like working towards a more inclusive world through our actions. And so yeah, it's not enough to change your

profile picture to a pride flag. And it's not enough to like host a inspirational women's webinar for International Women's Day. You know, it's really important that our words are backed up by our actions, whether we are speaking as an individual or a business or like a kind of government body or something like that. And so, yeah, that's what inspired the creation of the gender pay gap. But, you know, we've got the gender pay gap data available for UK companies with more than 250 employees. So, you know, by putting that back into the spotlight, back into the public eye,

it just helps members of the public see through these messages of corporate solidarity and, you know, make their own minds up about how well an employer is doing for equality. On Twitter, the gender pay gap bots bio reads, employers, if you tweet about International Women's Day, I'll retweet your gender pay gap. Looking eyes emoji. Using purposeful unemotional language, the gender pay gap bot tweets publicly available data to highlight the actual values of the companies proclaiming the champion women, and it was born from the same kind of frustration that I feel about empty platitudes, about uplifting women and other marginalized voices.

It was basically the weekend before International Women's Day, 2021, is when, you know, things started coming through again. You know, people promoting their events, offering you discount codes to, you know, buy like lingerie or something for International Women's Day. And it just sort of made me so frustrated because it seems like no one's facing any accountability for these claims. And so I knew that the data was there. I don't think that many other people did know that the data was there. So yeah, myself and my partner, Ali, we sort of wanted to come up with a way of putting that

data back into the spotlight. And yeah, we built a bot. In the UK, any company that employs more than 250 people has to publish their figures comparing men and women's average pay across the organization. You can see it at gender paygap. org.org. Now, this transparency is a great step, but Francesca says it still has a long way to go. So in the UK, any company that has more than 250 employers has to make their gender pay, is it just pay generally or is it specifically pay in relation to the gender pay gap? It's just in relation to the gender pay gap. So we don't have like a record of what employees are getting paid, what wages within that

company. All we've got is sort of the average, the difference between the average man's earnings and the difference between the average woman's earnings. So it's a useful way to sort of, you know, compare kind of companies. actions versus their words, but, you know, it's not enough to truly get a scale of where the inequalities exist in a company. And it also just covers gender as well. And, you know, what I would really like to see is, you know, more different types of inequalities being included in that. Like, you know, just getting a handle on the ethnicity pay gap as well. And, you know, what sort of

kind of barriers people of color face in these organizations for, you know, getting good wages and kind of progressing up the career ladder. Data is so powerful, you know, data doesn't lie, numbers are numbers. But they're meaningless if people don't know about that, if people aren't engaging with it. And so I wonder, do you sort of see this bot as a kind of data visualization project where you're really trying to bring more visibility and more awareness around the cold hard, kind of depressing numbers around the pay gap? Yeah, definitely. The data on the government site is quite inaccessible, I think.

It's like you've got to, first of all, find where it's stored. You know, Google search. You've got to know what you're looking for. And then when you're on there, you've got to search for a specific company who's pay gap that you want to look at. And then you've got to sort of click through every different year that they've reported. Some of them will have five years worth of data. Some of them say, you know, newer companies or companies that have recently expanded

might only have one or two. So there's a lot of information there, but you've got to do a lot of work to get it. And, yeah, what we wanted to do is make sure that, you know, people knew that that information was there. And, you know, it was in a way that they could understand. It's not hidden a way. It's here on Twitter, you know, when everyone is kind of, seeing all these International Women's Day supportive posts, it's just the data's there for them to make their own mind up about kind of what that means. It's completely devoid of any emotion or

judgment. It's just, here's a very nice emotional post from a company, and here's the fact behind it. There is something so thrilling to me about brands having to scramble to delete a tweet because everybody is hating on them. So the gender pay gap bot kind of made my international Women's Day. Brands were scrambling to delete their perhaps well-meaning tweets once the pay gaps at their organizations were revealed. And hopefully, it caused them to reflect on why they felt the need to weigh in in the first place. Some of the tweets that ended up being deleted when the bot, you know, retweeted them with the actual data around how crappy they are in terms of the pay gap, some of them were so wild to begin with. Like, women are the fabric of what makes this sweater

company run and blah, blah, blah. It's like, okay, keep your flowery bullshit. What are you actually paying the women who work at your company? Like, what are your actual values? Was that your intention? Did you, were you trying to inject a little like honesty into the conversation on social media around women and pay? Or like a little bit of chaos? Because it was a little, it was a little bit like, I was like, oh, this is like chaotic and I love it. Yeah, I think the focus is mainly on honesty. I think we never expected there to be so much chaos because we didn't expect it to kind of spread so wide and sort of have so many different people from around the world engaging with it. So yeah, that was really fantastic to see, but it wasn't anything that we

at all anticipated. So yeah, honesty was definitely the focus, but then I will admit, like, the kind of seeing the chaos unfold was just like the icing on the cake a bit. Yeah, I'm here for a little bit of, especially as it pertains to like brands and corporations, I'm here for a little bit of messiness, a little bit of chaos. Like, yeah, if you're going to say, we value women, okay, let's have the, let's really have the conversation about you valuing women. You chose to tweet it. Like, people can respond and especially respond with the cold, hard facts of the way that

women are valued within your organization. And so I think it really, I think why I loved the project is that it really exposed this hypocrisy that I think that frankly we've all just gotten used to. We've just gotten used to this idea that brands and corporations and government agencies are going to, these things that started in liberation, they're going to take that, co-opt it, give it back to us in the form of a platitude or like a shirt with a rainbow flag on it or

they change their icon on Twitter or whatever. I think we have just gotten used to and accepted that that is the way it is. And your bot, I feel like it kind of woke us up. Like, wait, hey, we don't have to accept this. We can reject this. Yeah, that's totally it.

Like, I've seen so many people just sort of in my own social circles say things like, you know, oh, I'm just going to like check out of social media on International Women's Day because, you know, I can't cope with the bullshit. Like, it's just too much to sort of get angry about anymore because it's everywhere. Like, people don't have the,

energy to sort of fight back with every, every single sort of empty gesture, which, you know, seems to like take advantage of like a liberation movement. So yeah, it's been really lovely to see some of the feedback that we've had of people saying that, you know, they really value it. And actually it brought some like much needed both entertainment and transparency, on a day when, you know, you lose a bit of, lose a bit of hope and start, like, despairing for the future because, you know, despite all the, you know, nice branding and, you know, logos on T-shirts, conditions aren't really improving for any marginalised group, both in work and in wider society at the minute. Yeah. And, you know, and I think it's, conditions,

are not improving. And I think it's an imperative to point to some of the culprits of why that is, especially when they want to talk out of both sides of their face and say, oh, we value women, but we're not actually doing that in, we're saying that in words, but not in deeds. You know, here in the United States, there are a whole host of huge corporations that put up International Women's Day posts or Black History Month posts or, you know, back in 2020, during the racial justice protests. We're like, oh, we stand with our black employees and then turn around and give lots and lots of money

to politicians who go on to champion legislation that makes our lives so much harder. I just feel like we have all gotten so used to this corporate hypocrisy that brands, it whitewashes liberation as, I don't want to be celebrated by a company that is like making my life harder. materially. I don't want a company like that to celebrate me. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and they, they shouldn't be doing those sorts of things, you know, well, they shouldn't be either, you know, celebrating if they're not actually

following out through with, you know, supportive action throughout the year. They need to sort of look at kind of what processes are, that they are responsible for. And can they change to, you know, improve people's lives within their organization? like what barriers are kind of people coming up against which are limiting their success and how can they be removed? Because it's not enough to just sort of like wait for legislation to do it. Like there are things which companies can do themselves to sort of improve the lives of women, of people of colour, disabled people. And they're not doing them, but they're still sort of, you know, trying to ride the trend for a bit of a few likes, really.

It's so empty. And I guess that's what you, I didn't even realize this until you said it, that International Women's Day, I don't even really, I just check out. Basically, from February to the end of March in the United States, that's Black History Month, Women's History Month. I just don't want to see it. I don't want to see the brands. I don't want to see.

it's just so hollow and it makes me sad that these days that are meant to be amplifying our voices and championing us to have just become so co-opted that it's like I'm not even excited for it. In fact, I just like tune it out. Such a shame that, you know, that's the way it's gone. Like, because I did like a little blog post of my own kind of for my freelance business before actually launching the butt. And one of the things that I wrote in there was like some pointers of, you know, for brands that are planning to do campaigns around International Women's Day

and any other sort of liberation event, you know, by them taking up space in that conversation, whose voices aren't getting heard. And that's kind of, I think that's what's a bit worrying for me is that, you know, the people that we really need to listen to, those that. are struggling the most, those that, you know, these days are made for, like, you know, trying to acknowledge their struggles and work to fix them, they're not getting heard because all we've got is, you know, discount codes on socks and, you know, other types of, you know, reasonably meaningless efforts from companies. So, yeah, really interesting.

like the way that you mention, you know, how things get co-opted and, you know, things just get lost in the noise. And yeah, those were the most sort of influence aren't the people that necessarily need their voices amplified on these days. 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,

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Effect Podcast Network on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and your 20s, they can feel like a lot. On the Psychology of Your 20s podcast, we unpack the anxiety, the overthinking, the heartbreak, the identity crisis, all of it that comes with being in your 20s. Because if you've ever thought, is anybody else feeling this way, they definitely are. I feel like my 20s was a process of checking off everything that I was not good at to get to what I was good at. Oftentimes we take everything a little bit too seriously and we get lost in things. that we later on decide weren't even important to us to begin when. There was a large chunk of my 20s that I was just so wanting to be out of that phase out of my skin.

And I just like really regret not living in the present more. Each week we break down the science behind what you're going through and give you real tools to navigate it. Your 20s aren't about having it all figured out. They're about understanding yourself just a little bit better. Listen to the psychology of your 20s on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And we're back. So how did we get to this place where things like Black History Month, International Women's Day, and Pride have been co-opted by brands and corporations, spewing empty rhetoric and performative bullshit? Well, Francesca says it has a lot to do with the rise of social media.

When everyone, including brands, can easily add their voice to the conversation, they feel the need to weigh in on issues that otherwise they probably wouldn't have or shouldn't have before social media. and our liberation becomes just another online trend to jump in on. And today's consumers are much more attuned to the values of a brand. A 2021 study by the Consumer Research Agency, Varity, found that most, about 54% of consumers, want to do business with companies that take values-based stances. So brands throwing up an International Women's Day tweet and doing pretty much nothing else

is a lazy way to woo that audience of consumers without actually having to do anything of substance. In other words, it basically turns liberation into a quick cash grab. How do you think we got to this place where these days that were meant to be about real liberation and real solidarity have just become empty? And how do you think we got to a place where brands feel like it's okay

to add their voice on a subject that they really don't champion in deeds or actions. It's got a lot to do with, you know, how social media has grown sort of over, you know, the last few years. I think that, you know, prior to all brands being on like Twitter and Instagram, they wouldn't, they probably wouldn't have done sort of a more traditional media campaign on these sorts of events.

I think one, because, you know, know, when you're talking to the press, it sort of implies a lot more scrutiny. You've got to have more data to be able to back up your story because they're not just going to print anything that's, you know, poorly researched, for instance. So, yeah, I think social media gave all of us, but also kind of brands, a platform to just say and do whatever they want without really much scrutiny over it. And so, yeah, what I think has maybe, I think we've slept walked into this sort of situation

where, like, you know, people's liberation is kind of celebrated by companies that aren't sort of doing anything meaningful towards it because it's trending because, you know, people talk about, talk about say like Black History Month, International Women's Day Pride, they talk about all those things on social media

and I think that it's often seen as a bit of an opportunity of, you know, we can muscle in and kind of expand our reach if we also kind of show that that's what we're into. And then I think that the second thing is that consumer habits, I think are starting to shift a bit. And I think people want to buy from and work with companies who support similar values to themselves. And I think that, you know,

when, you know, us as society says, actually, yeah, well, we do believe that kind of all people have a right to live in, you know, safety and equality and they all have a right to thrive so we want companies to um to kind of reflect those values too and so but i think that that's that's not necessarily translating into okay we need to actually be acting on you know how we can promote um equity within our organizations um instead it's just like well people want to see that we are doing something so that they shop from us. So we're going to show them that we are, even if,

even if it's not 100% true. Yeah, I think you're right. And as you were speaking, I wrote down in my notes, like social liberation is not a trend. Right. I think that you're exactly right that before social media, I don't think that a company that had mostly men and their leadership and the women that were there were underpaid and that they're funding politicians that like make women's lives harder would put out a press release about how they like women. It wouldn't make any sense. But social media has really made these brands

feel like that they can have a voice in every conversation and should have a voice in every conversation when maybe they really fucking shouldn't one. And then I also think that you're, the data is very clear that particularly young consumers really do want to shop and spend money with organizations that have similar values. Like, that's very clear. And I think these companies want that money without having to do any of the work to get that, right? And so they just, they say like, okay, well, young consumers

and most consumers want to spend money at organizations that also have share their values. So we'll just say we share their values, but not really share their values, you know? And I think it's such a lazy, empty way of just really getting more money. It's such a lazy, obvious cash grab that I find it, yeah, I think I'm only now just realizing my detest for days like this because it just illustrates what a lazy cash grab it is and I find it offensive.

Yeah, totally. I think that, you know, partially thanks to social media, I guess, that, you know, anything that is possibly worth monetizing, then the companies have found a way to monetize it. And, you know, that's not right. you know, it's, you can't sort of profit from people's liberation when there are people still fighting for it. I think I was reading an interview with you with you where you said, I don't want to have liberation co-opped and sold back to me by way of a smash the patriarchy t-shirt, right? Like, I don't want a slogan. I don't want a t-shirt. I don't want a discount code. I want

liberation. I want a quality. I want inclusion. I want real things that make a tangible difference, not a fucking t-shirt, not a fucking slogan. Yeah, yeah, that's totally it. It's, you know, nice words don't really make a difference. You know, I would much rather that, you know, companies held those, kept those nice words themselves, and instead sort of focused on, you know, what they can do. And what I really hope is that the work that we've done with the boss

has been able to inspire companies in just thinking, like, well, we've ignored our problems and it's not worked. So, you know, maybe this is a bit of a kick-up the bum to do something about it. Do you think the policy in the UK around transparency and the gender pay gap, like, do you think that's made a difference? Because if that information, so data is, that data is very powerful, but if it's so inaccessible, do you think it's really made a difference? I don't think that it has, yes. I think that it's marvelous that we've got the data there. But I think that the drawbacks are the fact that it's not really all that in your face.

And I think that limits the impact that it's able to have. You know, like I kind of have conversations with people that didn't know it existed until we started pushing out the tweets on International Women's Day. And we've had quite a lot of questions back about, like, oh, where's the data from? And, you know, I think sometimes that's coming from international audiences now. So that's kind of understandable that it's not, well, the UK regulations aren't known worldwide. But, you know, people that I've worked with are like, how did you manage to get all this data? And I'm like, how do you not know it's there?

like and especially because you know I've made no secret of kind of my um kind of politics in the types of places where I've worked and so this is types of things that I've brought up and talked about and I distinctly remember sort of the first year that it came in I was working at a um it was like a financial services company in their marketing department and I saw the figures come in and they had like I think it's about a 22% pay gap. And so I just said around the desk, like, oh, have you seen this? We've got a 22% gender pay gap. And honestly, like, no one, no one seemed to care for one. I think that was potentially because there was only, I was one of two women in the team. But then also, it just sort of, it became a bit of

a dirty word. Like, all I was getting was like, oh, well, this is why we've got a gender pay gap. and oh, it's the education system's fault. And it's like all attempts to shut down any meaningful discussion. So, yeah, I think that the impact of it is limited by the fact that it's not, although it's publicly available, that it's not accessible. And also the regulations only require companies to declare it. They don't require them to actually fix it. So I think that, you know, if, well, for them to have more of an impact, I think that the next step would be to, well, one, includes other types of inequality as well, especially so that we can get a handle on the ethnicity wage gap.

And two, I think that we need to, you know, legislate to force companies to act on that data. because you see as well we've got five years worth of data now and it's a lot of the time not going in the right direction you know sometimes it's a couple of percent

either way and so you think well that's you know not too bad it means that you're not doing anything about it but at least it's not getting worse more after a quick break another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy not quite on Humor Me with Robert Smygel and Friends,

me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, S&L's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their Between Songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to Humor Me with Robert Smigel and Friends

on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting. Think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two combined. 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. May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and your 20s, they can feel like a lot. On the psychology of your 20s podcast, we unpack the anxiety, the overthinking, the heartbreak, the identity crisis, all of it that comes with being in your 20s.

Because if you've ever thought, is anybody else feeling this way, they definitely are. I feel like my 20s was a process of checking off everything that I was not good at to get to what I was good at. Oftentimes we take everything a little bit too seriously and we get lost in things that we later on decide weren't even important to us to begin when. There was a large chunk of my 20s that I was just so wanting to be out of that phase out of my skin. And I just like really regret not living in the present more. Each week we break down the science behind what you're going through and give you real tools to navigate it. Your 20s aren't about having it all figured out. They're about understanding yourself just a little.

little bit better. Listen to the psychology of your 20s on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The story I've told myself about love or relationships can then shape my behavior and that can lead me to sabotage the possibility of connection. This mental health awareness month, tune into the podcast deeply well with Debbie Brown and explore the journey of healing, self-discovery and returning to yourself. We Explore higher consciousness, emotional well-being, and the practices that help you find clarity, peace, and self-mastery in a world that can feel overwhelming. The world is becoming lonelier.

We're not becoming more social and connected. We're becoming more individualized, but we actually meet people in connection. If you've been searching for a soft place to land while doing the work to become whole, this podcast is for you to hear more. Listen to deeply well with Debbie Brown from the book. Black Effect Podcast Network on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Let's get right back into it. Even though gender pay gap data is publicly available in the UK, and thanks to Francesca's bot,

more people are paying attention to it. It's meaningless without actual accountability. It is so easy for companies to explain away whether paying women less or to ignore it altogether. We looked at one and kind of sports retailer. who went from having a 0.3 gender pay gap in 2017, and their data this year is, I think, about 48%. So that's a, yeah, yeah, massive difference. Yeah.

So that's really worrying. That's like, you know, the reason that this regulation was brought in was to sort of make companies not, like, act on their gap and, like, reduce it. But then it's just gone the complete opposite direction in some cases. Yeah, I think that really demonstrates your point that transparency needs to have some, transparency is a good start, a good first start. But unless it's coupled with some kind of accountability, which I think that your bot is really kind of pushing the needle forward on.

So good job there. But like, it has to come with some kind of impetus for change. Otherwise, it's just transparency. And even, you know, when you're from within the company bringing that to their attention that, hey, we have a big pay gap, they can just ignore it or give some other reason for it. Or just frankly, pretend like it didn't happen. Pretend like those facts are not the reality of their company, even though they are. Yeah.

And like we've had a couple of kind of responses from companies that have, you know, said things like, oh, no, you know, our data was skewed by the fact that it was the pandemic. and we had sort of more staff absences. We had the furlough scheme where, like, a lot of employees weren't getting their full salary. And it's just like, these aren't justifications. Like, yes, they may sort of, their factors which contribute to it. But then it's, we're moving beyond the pandemic, hopefully, this year.

And so now you've got to focus on, well, what's next? You know, you can look back and think of all the things which, you know, may have contributed to your problem in the past 12 months. But that's useless if you're not also going to look at what are you going to do in the next 12 months to, you know, correct for that and make sure that, you know, there's not a lasting economic impact specifically on women and marginalized groups beyond the pandemic. So I'm obviously here for shaming the companies that need to be shamed. Were there companies that you found from this bot that were actually walking the walk as well as talking the talk where the bot revealed that they actually were paying women equally in their company? Yeah, we did actually publish a few tweets where there was equal pay and a few where there was a slight gap in favor of women. So yeah, I think that was, they're definitely in the minority. those companies.

In the 2021 Genipay gap data from the UK government, there was 77% of companies reported that women's average pay is less than men. So obviously that's really significant. It's a really small number that are sort of the other direction or that are equal.

But like we wanted to make sure that they got high. as well. Like we've used the same sort of mutual text for, um, for both, you know, whether it's a big pay gap or whether it was a small pay gap or whether there was no pay gap. Because what we wanted to do was take all of the emotion out of it. We're just pushing out the data and then it's for like Twitter users and the general public to kind of make up their own mind. And if they see sort of a company or like a government organization or whatever that's got a equal pay, then, you know, that's what we've actually done is we've really amplified their distribution because, you know, we've turned into quite a big account over a really short

space of time. Yeah, just personally, what has that been like for you? I know that you said that you didn't think this would blow up the way it has, and boy, has it blown up. What has it been like for you and your partner just personally seeing this thing become such an internet sensation? It's a really incredible feeling to see that like so many people have been enjoying the work that we've done and have been like engaging in the data and using it to spark kind of productive conversations. That's an absolutely amazing feeling. I think, you know, I'm only just starting to come to terms with like the impact that it's had. Like last week was absolutely chaos for me. it was like, you know, trying to just get on with then some bits of freelance work.

And then, you know, I'd be getting like messages from friends saying like, oh, hey, I've just seen you in, in this news outlet. Like, that's incredible. And I'm like, oh, cool, you know, we're in the times. Like, that's what's not expecting that. So, yeah, it's been really difficult to sort of like keep. track of, keep track of everything that's going on. And, but at the same time, it's been so, so rewarding to see, like, all the messages of

support that we've had. And, you know, I even got, like, an email message of, um, someone who worked on, like, a project with the government when they were setting up this, um, gender pay gap, um, kind of service back in 2017. And, and he said that, um, they were having meetings with creative agencies for like multi-million pound contracts to do something with the data. And his message said that, you know, I'm so pleased that, you know, you've been able to produce this because it's so much better and more effective than any of the ideas that those creative agencies pitched. And it was all sort of, well, very long. low cost. Like, you know, the only money that we've put into it is, you know, the, uh, our time.

Um, kind of completely non-profit. We kind of had no intention of, you know, ever using it for like promotion or anything like that. So yeah, it's on a shoe string budget, we've been able to produce something that like multi-million pound agencies could not, apparently. I love that. I mean, it's because you're, authentic. You care about this and you, you know, I think it really is a testament to what creativity and creative marketing and a little bit of, you know, know, know how around the data can really be more effective than, you know, a huge marketing, a huge marketing budget and all of that. Like, it really comes down to just creativity and authenticity, which I think you have in spade.

So I'm so thrilled with how people are reacting to this. I think it's so cool. I guess one of my last questions for you is, what's next? Do you have plans to make more bots? Like, what can we expect? So, yeah, I would absolutely love to be able to, like, copy this concept for, like, other sort of liberation events throughout the year when we see a lot of this performative marketing come through. So, you know, we've talked about pride. We talked about Black History Month. And our issue is that we don't have data to kind of to do that yet. But we have had a couple of people get in touch with some potential data sources that we're looking into. And so, yeah, hopefully over the next 12 months, we will be able to find a way to kind of be able to highlight the truth behind the supportive messages on other issues. And greenwashing is another one.

We've had sort of a message from a like environmental charity in the UK interested in kind of potentially working together to do something to highlight what's going on, what companies are really doing for the environment, despite, you know, they'll claim that they're really, really sustainable. And of course, you know, it's rarely possible to operate. a for-profit business in a truly sustainable way. And I feel like, you know, there's a lot of companies trying to pretend that that isn't the case. So, yeah, if we were able to kind of work with them to get some data around like carbon emissions,

for instance, we'd love to be able to replicate it for greenwashing too. I think a lot of companies are going to have to make sure their social media team are ready to go, especially around greenwashing because that's going to be a lot of deleted tweets. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can reach us at hello at tangoady.com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode

at 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. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer.

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