There Are No Girls on the Internet - Instagram suppresses Palestinians; Don’t use AI to write your closing argument in court!; Elon Musk gets fined; Using VR to help people who hoard — NEWS ROUNDUP

Episode Date: October 20, 2023

Last week, we looked at how Twitter is creating more chaos in the Israel / Palestine conflict. Now, a look into how things are going on Instagram (not great!): https://www.404media.co/instagram-palestinian-arabic-bio-translation/ Why I'm not expecting my friends to make social media posts about Israel: https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/israel-hamas-conflict-social-media-pressure-rcna119596 A far-right Twitter troll was sentenced to seven months in prison for his 2016 election tweets: https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/19/23923733/douglass-mackey-twitter-troll-2016-election-voting-conspiracy Former Fugees rapper Pras is in a whole lot of very serious legal trouble. So why did his legal team use his trial to boost their AI platform? https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/convicted-fugees-rapper-pras-michels-lawyer-used-ai-draft-bungled-clos-rcna120992 Elon Musk talked a big game on keeping child exploitation off Twitter...now he’s being fined for doing such a bad job of it: https://apnews.com/article/twitter-esafety-fine-child-sexual-exploitation-feb129047a29eca1f950e815484f08b2 VR might help people with hoarding disorder: https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2023/10/vr-hoarding-disorder.htmlSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. Joey, thank you so much for being here. It has been a whirlwind week. Honestly, there are not many people that I would rather get into all of this with than you. I feel like you really bring such an expertise and a particular background that I really appreciate. So I'm kind of as hard as things I've been, I feel grateful that I get to help myself understand what's going on with you. Thank you, Bridget. It's been a week. It's been a wild two weeks. And, you know, we talked about before this recording. And it is, it is rough. It is rough. We are witnessing horrific events on a daily basis just through our phones and having to grapple with that and grapple with, you know, a lot of very, I hate calling it complicated political realities because I feel like calling it complicated, quote unquote, has been used a lot to kind of divert attention away from the issue. But also, yes, and a lot of very complicated and at the same time, very real and very horrific realities for, you know, people living in Gaza and living in Israel, Palestine. I think I've talked before

on this podcast. I am Jewish. Anti-Zionism is a fundamental part of my Jewish identity. What is happening to the Palestinian people right now is horrifying. What has been happening is horrifying. And I, you know, I think just trying to sift through all of the information that we're being presented with is a lot. It is a lot to go through. I think like our brains are not meant to have to deal with that amount of information on the daily. That being said, you know, I really, I hope that somehow further deaths and destruction can be preventable. And there's a lot of terrible, terrifying possibilities that are, I think, on the horizon. And we're just going to have to keep fighting and keep fighting for a better future. Yeah, we are in, I mean, I feel the same way.

when the conflict first, like last week, I thought, I mean, I was in a, I don't know, I found myself going to a dark place last week personally when I was, everything was unfolding and it was still, still felt very kind of fresh and new. And I generally kind of think of myself as somebody who was very optimistic, who really, you know, often leans toward things will work out, things will be okay. people are fundamentally good, people fundamentally want to be united and together. That's not always the case, but that's like my core alignment. And last week, I was just like, yeah, not in a great place. I really was afraid because I sensed very deeply that we were going to see more destruction and more

deaths and more harm, which we definitely have seen. And, you know, I wanted to really focus on what I know, that I can bring to the table in moments of chaos and terror and anxiety. And I have, like, deep expertise when it comes to social media platforms and technology. And so the episode that we made last week was really kind of narrow in focus around the ways that I see Twitter really making a tough, scary time worse because people don't know what's going on. People are heated. People are understandably confused and afraid and trying to find out information. And the platform just like doesn't allow for that. So folks may have heard our episode last week that really broke that down.

And I think that one of the reasons why the state of Twitter was amplifying a lot of the feelings I was personally having was that I have sort of known Twitter historically to be a platform that can in times of crisis help people get information. If you're on the ground, here's what you need to know. here's where you need to go if you need X, Y, Z. If you're not on the ground, you're just following it. Here's the best information. Here's information. Here's voices that are experiencing this on the ground. I have always known it to be a platform that helped me feel more informed and thus less afraid and less confused and less reactionary. Again, I will be the first person to tell you that Twitter has never been perfect. So like, I could go on as long of a rant about its problems, even in the pre-Elon Musk days,

but Twitter was always something that helped me get information that felt timely and accurate and thus helped me feel kind of like more in control. And when I went to Twitter to sort of do what I recognize as like how I try to cope when things are stressful and hard and just got more lies,

more inflammatory content, more like really emotionally charged, content, like I was riled up. And I'm not somebody who I think of as like easy to rile up from online content. My heart was racing. I was seeing images, of course, none of which were vetted of things that really were causing a deep emotional response in me. And it just really rattled me. It signaled to me that we have reached a new low in our digital landscape. I still feel that way. I still feel like things are bad and I'm very concerned about how much worse things can get. And going back to this conversation a week later, I think the thing that really upset me the

most is how on social media but Twitter particularly how easy it is to boil things down to like you're talking about a football game, like teams, like, oh, the other side, this side, that side, it really creates this just not useful equivalency. And also we're talking about people's lives and people like real humans' lives. And like the way that it lends itself to boiling it down to talking about teams in this very crass way, it just really did not fill me with good feelings. I'll put it that way. It is sort of, it's like almost surreal. I, A, yes, the fact that these are people's lives. These are people being killed.

These are children being killed. And just the way, I talked about this a bit before when we were off mic, but again, I feel like, as I said, I'm Jewish. I am very staunchly an anti-Zionist. I feel like I've spent a lot of my time the past week just trying to explain semantics to people and trying to explain why Zionism as a political ideology is not the same thing as Judaism is a diverse, you know, cultural and religious identity. And there is a part of me that just feels so heartbroken that this is what I have to focus on. This is what I have to spend so much of my time and energy focusing on.

when again, yeah, there are people dying. There's actual human rights catastrophes happening. And I will say this is an issue where there already has been just sort of this stream of misinformation and propaganda that has been difficult to sit through. That has been difficult to sit through as somebody who is somewhat connected to this conflict. I'm sure, and I'm sure for people that have no sort of background in it, it is even worse. And it is, it's hard. It is, I, this, again, it has been a really heavy last two weeks.

What is happening in Gaza is horrifying. And my thoughts and are with the people on the ground there, solidarity with the Palestinian people. And it is crazy. We were back to a point where, like, I feel like, just the dehumanization of people has gotten so, so intense and so insane that it is, it's really hard. It is really hard to work through and it is really hard to,

even as I sit here, you know, I am in the U.S., I am more or less safe right now. I'm not in any immediate danger and that feels exhausting. I can't fucking imagine what it's got to be like for people that are there, people that have family there, Israeli or Palestinian. Again, any loss of human life is terrible and tragic. And it's, yeah, it's spent a lot.

Yeah. And we were talking about this off mic before you were recording. But like the feeling of not necessarily feeling like it's okay to speak up in certain ways, I think is really hard. I think it creates a climate where it's really hard. to process and really hard to like, you know, even mourn. Yeah, it really, I mean, I keep thinking about there have already been like a number of Jewish protesters in particular who have been arrested for speaking out against the U.S. The military support of Israel or spooking out or speaking in support of a ceasefire have

been protesting. A number of these people are children of Holocaust survivors. have people in their family that directly experienced genocide and directly experienced ethnic cleansing and everything that comes along with that. And it's, it is so messed up that even talking about this now, like, I feel nervous. I'll be honest, like, I have almost been doxed a couple times. I have very good friends that have been doxed simply for saying, like, the mildest things in support of Palestinian human rights, mildest criticism of the Israeli government. And that's not okay.

That's not okay in any situation. But yeah, it is, it is, it's a lot to process. And it does a lot to, to, A, feel for people that sort of don't have any background in this and don't have any, any understanding of what is happening and are trying to learn it now, it is hard to sift through that information that's being presented to you and sit through disinformation. but then also feeling like you can't say anything, you can't speak out in support of things that are obviously wrong,

things that are obviously crimes against humanity without fearing for your own safety and your own sort of reputation in the most basic sense. It's scary and it's, I really just wish people would not lose sight of the fact that it, it, there are people in immediate danger right now. There are people already who have been killed and whose lives are already. I, again, I think just the fact that we're witnessing such horrific events unfolding and the thing that, the fact that semantics and the fact that going over like how to talk about

this and how to talk about this in a way that is not going to get you immediately doxed. by bad actors, that's a lot. And that is, that is only kind of making the conversation around this more hostile and is only going to lead to more death and more destruction. Exactly. It really reminds me, you know, I'm a little older than you and it reminds me so much of the aftermath of 9-11, which was like really my kind of like political and social awakening. And that was like when I got more seriously involved in like, the anti-war movement. was like the thing that got me woke me up in terms of like my own political understanding of the world.

And there was a climate that like the climate of like, you're for us or you're with us or against us. You're either with us or you're a terrorist. And I think that that's, that's, I'm seeing echoes of that climate now. You know, and last week we were talking about Twitter, but it's important to remember that Twitter is only one piece of our larger media ecosystem. And there's a pretty big scoop from 404.4. media, which is a journalist-run tech media outlet about how things are playing out on

Instagram. People on Instagram found that the platform was auto-translating their user bios that included the word Palestinian and an Arabic phrase that means praise be to God. Instagram was auto-translating this to say, Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom. So if you had this perfectly innocuous phrase in your Instagram bio, Instagram was basically telling the world via translation that you are a terrorist sympathizer. Yeah, it's interesting you brought up 9-11 and I, as you said, I'm out of myself for how I'm young I am. I grew up in the aftermath of 9-11. I was two when 9-11 happened,

but I really like came of age in that era of just very, like, I was a child when Islamophobia and all of this racism and xenophobia was at its height. And I think my teen years were really the time when we were starting to unpack that and starting to be like, hey, maybe a lot of this was bad. Maybe we shouldn't have just jumped to very black and white images of like views of the world. And especially, I mean, the word terrorist, like, you cannot take that word out of the connotation that it has in the U.S. and the connotation that it has these past couple of decades. And it is so strange to be seeing so much of that kind of be recirculated and the way that those terms are kind of used to, it is weird to see that kind of that level of xenophobia returning and almost the same exact patterns. That's so, that's exactly how I feel that like we maybe didn't learn.

a lot from that era. You know, we, I wish we had. I was so young and I thought we were going to stop the war. We, we were part, like if you were part of the anti-war movement after 9-11, you were part of a historic, like the biggest anti-war protest of all time in the United States. Like, I thought like, it felt big. And now here I am, however many years later. And it's like, did we really learn a lot? Because it's like we're having these same conversations. And like back then, we did not have the level of like tech. Like it wasn't, we didn't have the tech infrastructure to enable those conversations, to pour gasoline on those conversations to make platforms and people who were financially invested in those conversations being as inflamed and hostile as possible. We didn't have that

to the level that we have it now. And so it almost feels like it's like, yeah, it's like the same thing, but worse. It's somewhere. which I hate to say. So after Instagram was called out by 404 Media for sneaking terrorist sympathizer in language into this translation on Instagram bios, they, I will say to their credit, they copped to it right away. They said, we fixed a problem that briefly caused inappropriate Arabic translations in some of our products.

We sincerely apologized that this happened. But they didn't explain how it happened. Like, it's a pretty like a telling translation. And I think it really reveals some of the problems and the ways that, like, big tech companies, in a way that wasn't the case right after 9-11, big tech companies really have the power to shape a lot of the discourse around what's happening with this conflict. Like, they really just have so, like, we've put a lot of trust in them. And I would argue that these people, these, they are not always trust. were the actors. And so it's like, oh, wow, like, this is really a problem. Yeah. And that is really interesting. You were talking about Twitter at the top. And I,

Instagram, I do feel like a lot of this has migrated over to Instagram. And, you know, hearing that Instagram is maybe not to the same extent as Twitter, but is falling into the same sort of traps and misinformation and, you know, mistranslating things or prioritizing certain information above others. it really is like a systemic problem that is not unique to Twitter. It is not unique to Elon Musk. It is a problem of how we talk about these issues and how we consume information. And yeah, it's, it's bad.

Yeah. Twitter, so like, I won't stop beating the drum about how bad Twitter is because it's like, it seems like Twitter is like, we are intentionally trying to be bad. Like, we want people to be confused and, like, there to be chaos. enjoy the show. I genuinely believe that that is Elon Musk's orientation, that it's like, yeah, even if it's a shit show, you're paying attention, you know. So, but Instagram, I think, is unique. I'm, like, totally going off script here, but, like, Instagram to me is unique in that there's something about the format of, like, a Canva created, like, graphic with text on it. And I make them too.

Like I'm not, but like they're just so easy for anybody to make. If you have, like, I have Canva Pro. I've thrown them together an infographic and a carousel in my day or two. But it's so easy for anybody to make them. And there's something about them that I think give a sheen of trustworthiness. Because it's like, oh, who would take the time to make this carousel full of information and words if they hadn't, like, fact checked it or if it wasn't true? And they're just so easy to share on Instagram.

It is so easy. And I also think that like Instagram is a platform that is like visual. And so I think people not to like generalize, but I think that Instagram is a platform where people who are very visual spend a lot of time. And so if you're like a celebrity, Instagram might have a different feeling that a platform like Twitter, which is text based. Like you have to like really depend the way that you engage is through what you have to, what you write, what you have to say. Instagram is visuals. was like you might not be much of a wordsmith,

but if you are a visual person, you can really succeed there. And so I think that, like, it might have more people who aren't really thinking about things in a super... I don't know. I don't want to sound like an asshole. How can I put this? Do you know what I'm trying to say? You know, it's a little bit...

Sometimes people will take things at surface value, and there's nothing wrong with you if you do that. That is a normal... I do that, yes. I do that, exactly. Like, we all do that. And I think this is this particular situation, a lot of people feel very out of their element. And just given the way that social media has kind of, and again, I will say, I do think there are benefits of social media when it comes to activism.

But the same way it has commodified activism to an extent, and it has turned it into a little bit of a performative thing. A lot of people feel very, you know, back. Now over a week ago, when the attacks on Israel first happened, there was a lot of initial misinformation that was being spread just because I think a lot of people felt like they had to make a statement. And then again, this whole issue is complicated by the fact that, yes, it has been very, very difficult to speak in support of Palestinian human rights just due to the way that discourse has been framed and the way that it has talked about and a lot of the kind of inherent biases that people have, especially in the U.S.

And I think just a combination of A, the way that social media works and social media activism works and work moves so quickly combined with the fact that the last couple years, the last 10 years, there are people I know that made the most mild statements, either criticizing the Israeli government or in support of the Palestinian people and have been docs for that. It is a, it is, that, the fact that, like, that combination is just makes it such a strange and difficult landscape, I think, to navigate on social media. Rachel Greenspan, a writer who I think is great, wrote this piece at MSNBC called,

Why I'm not expecting my friends to make social media posts about Israel. Rachel writes, there is now a values-based currency in our social media landscape that did not appear when Instagram launched in 2010, we're now asking ourselves, did I share the right thing? Did I share enough? We're treating our social media profiles as communication channels for the general public. But we're afraid because we all live in a new kind of public now, whether we like it or not.

Even though we've always known that what we post online shapes how the world sees us, we now fear a specific type of judgment that we won't be thought of as good people. And of course, our opinions of those we follow shape what we believe. And I think to your point about you know, that time when people were posting things and then taking them down and then wanting to post the right thing and then feeling obligated to post something.

I think that we're really seeing how our social media landscape has led us to these responses and these reactions that are not necessarily always helpful. Like I have learned so much about my own activism, what's going on in the world from social media, but also on top of, like it's like a yes. And it can also be hard if we're all feeling like, well, we have to post the right thing and we have to like show up with the exact right. Like there's not really, it doesn't feel like there's room for processing anymore. And it feels like there's only room for reacting publicly, which I would argue does not always get us like to the most helpful thing all the time. Exactly. I think because this definitely was a moment too where I kind of, you know, sat down with myself and was thinking about what's, like what is going to be productive for me to post on my Instagram what is not going to be

productive and I think you know every time there's some big sort of this a similar thing happened in 2020 when it was it's there's certain things that kind of get circulated that feel very sensationalized and exploitative and then there's things that get circulated that feel like they're actually pointing to if you feel helpless right now here's what you can do here are things that you can look into here is resources to help you understand understand if you don't understand. It also is okay to admit that you don't know everything. I think that is really hard for people. But like, and I'm not going to pretend. Like, I am the expert on all of this. But like, I had friends reach out to me like last weekend that were just sort of like,

hey, can you like, would you be open to just kind of like chatting with me about this for a little bit? And I was like, sure. Yeah. Like I can totally, I like, I can tell you what I know. I can tell you the history that I know. Again, look into your own stuff too. I would send people research. But it is also like, it is, it is okay to take a step back and do research. It is okay to admit if you don't know things. At the same time, you know, there are certain universal things that are like, I think we are at a point now.

Again, we, I think we are looking at a genocide that is happening. And I think it is there is a reason to speak up now. And there is a reason to try to learn now and to try to also learn like the way that the U.S. also, you know, provides military support for Israel and the role that that plays. And just the history, looking into also the history of Jewish people in the region and how kind of Israel as a state, as a political entity, is not necessarily representative of the Jewish people. It's certain. So is anti-Semitic, I will say that. But also, you know, the other side of that is also you can criticize the state of Israel.

You can criticize Zionism as political ideology. That in and of itself is not anti-Semitic because Israel does not represent the Jewish people. We are a community that exists all over the world and that is very diverse, culturally, politically. Yeah, it is okay to ask questions. It is okay to do research and it is okay to not have to respond right away to things. And I wish for us that we had a landscape that just we all understood that and that really fostered us to have more thoughtful conversations where we got to really hear perspectives, you know, people's perspectives. And I know that there's been a whole history. of Palestinian folks who say that they are really not able to do that on social media with the

landscape that we currently have. Right now, folks have said that if they express views supportive of Palestinians on Instagram, that those views are being algorithmically suppressed on the platform. Generally speaking, I usually, when people are like, I'm being shadow banned, I generally, I'm like, oh, are you really being shadow banned? Like, it's an overused accusation that is thrown around quite a bit. But it does seem like something is. going on on Instagram right now as it pertains to people trying to talk about Palestine. In another instance, people were trying to upload images from the hospital in Gaza that was blown up, and Instagram removed those images citing that they violated policies forbidding

nudity or sexual activity, even though the images did not have nudity. In some instances, they didn't have any people in them. So it's like, how was it sexual? A Facebook spokesperson, Andy Stone, explained in a statement. He says, we identified a bug impacting all stories that reshared reels and feed posts, meaning they weren't showing up properly in people's stories tray, leading to significantly reduced reach. This bug affected accounts equally around the globe and had nothing to do with subject matter of the content.

We fixed it as quickly as possible. So, I don't know, people are skeptical because Facebook is using and has used this glitch reasoning quite a lot. The Guardian spoke to a former Facebook employee who explained that, quote, you cannot keep blaming it on glitches when it's spreading misinformation and dehumanizing Palestinians by feeding into the narrative that all Palestinians are terrorists. It's very overwhelming for a lot of the employees of the company. So this is not even at all close to the first time that Facebook's policies have been

questionable as it pertains to how people talk about Palestine. And Facebook is very well aware. In 2021, 200 Facebook employees actually signed a letter, urging the platform to address concerns that pro-Palestinian voices on the platform were being suppressed by content moderation systems. The employees were demanding a third-party review of how that kind of content was moderated on the platform and the impact. So Facebook ended up commissioning this independent consultancy called Business for Social Responsibility, or BSR, who put together this report about the company's censorship practices and the allegations of bias during this previous battle of violence in Palestine. The report found the following, quote,

META's actions in May 2021 appeared to have had an adverse human rights impact on the rights of Palestinian users to freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, political participation, and non-discrimination, and therefore on the ability of Palestinians to share information and insights

about their experiences as they occurred. As reported by the Intercept, though BSR is clear in stating that META harms Palestinian rights with the censorship apparatus, it alone has constructed, the report absolves META of, quote, intentional bias, but rather BSR pointed to what it called unintentional bias.

Instances where meta's policy and practice combined with broader external dynamics do lead to different human rights impact on Palestinian and Arabic speaking users. A nod to the fact that these systemic flaws are by no means limited to the events of 2021. Just like what we're talking about now with Instagram changing bios to like terrorist sympathizer language is not, like, this is not the first time that kind of thing has happened. This has been a pattern. So according to the Intercept, Facebook has been long aware that their moderation policies are, to use their words, lopsided. Not only do Palestinian users face an algorithmic screening that Israeli users do not, a, quote, Arabic hostile speech classifier that uses machine

learning to flag potential policy violations and has no Hebrew equivalent, the report also notes that the Arabic system does not work well. Arabic classifiers are likely less accurate for Palestinian Arabic than other dialects, both because the dialect is less common and because the training data, which is based on the assessments of human reviewers, likely reproduces the errors of human reviewers due to the lack of linguistic and cultural competence. So, like, I just really see the ways that our tech landscape and how biased it is and how white it is and how all the other things I've read it.

rant about on this podcast constantly, how all of that is coming together to create this system where folks are saying they cannot express themselves. They cannot talk about what's going on. They cannot talk about what they're seeing on the ground. They cannot share images of what's happening without getting caught by Facebook and Instagram's content moderation policies. And that this is not an equally, you know, the report itself uses the word lopsided, that this is not an equal landscape in terms of how it is moderated. Yeah, absolutely. And like you said, too, this isn't necessarily a new issue. I think the fact that, you know, it is in the spotlight now and it is, on the other hand, this is maybe the good thing of kind of like social media and this ability to share information from wherever you are in the world. Is it is harder and harder to repress this stuff if more people are talking about it and more people are sharing it. But at the same time, it is very clearly not a new issue and it is very clearly. something that is happening and something that is clearly biased to certain voices and unbiased others.

And I think we're kind of like maybe thinking about this in the same way and that as awful as all of this is, I do think that we're in a situation in 2023 where people are more prone to see clearly and be skeptical of tech platforms and the way that they really are guiding this conversation and have a lot of power to shape the public perception and the public conversation. And I think that like maybe even five years ago, that wouldn't have been the case. I think that people would have just thought like, oh, like, Facebook and technology is totally neutral. They're not doing anything. They're not making, they're not, they're not, you know, making any kind of decisions. They're just like a very neutral platform. I think that we, the fact that we're having this conversation makes me hopeful that we've kind of abandoned that missed that, that incorrect notion that tech platforms are neutral because this is not,

This is not what neutral looks like. Absolutely. So last week in our Twitter episode, we were talking about how the EU is demanding platforms give more information about how they're handling content moderation around the conflict. And now the United States Senate is getting involved too. Because this week, Colorado Democrat, Senator Michael Bennett, sent letters to all the major platforms saying, deceptive content has ricocheted across social media sites since the conflict began, sometimes receiving millions of views.

In many cases, your platform's algorithms have amplified this content, contributing to a dangerous cycle of outrage, engagement, and distribution. Bennett says that whatever steps platforms have taken to curb this is not enough, and he is demanding a response by October 31st. And I think it's, yeah, just a good reminder that as much as I talk about Twitter, which is a lot, and I still think it's warranted, our larger information ecosystem is also trash, you know. And so if Twitter is not a reliable place to get accurate information, other platforms certainly are not either.

And it's just becoming harder and harder and harder to have access to that accurate, thoughtful information that we all really deserve. You know, when I talk about how we can't have an equitable world without equitable platforms, this is really what I mean. You know, when I talk about how we can't have true meaningful safety if our platforms are not safe places for expression and the exchange of ideas and information, this is what I mean. The way that tech companies have really been tasked with shaping our understanding of not just what's happening in the world, but like our perception. of the people who are involved, our understanding of who they are, that's a problem. The decisions and policies of tech leaders can shape our collective understanding of people's humanity, you know, what kind of lives we think they deserve. And these platforms have been given such a huge responsibility to impact people's actual real lives. You know, we're letting tech leaders like

Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have such an outsized power to determine the outcomes of these very real life and death situations, even though these people have shown themselves to be not super trustworthy again and again and again. And so, yeah, all of that is to say that it really just feels like a lot. Yeah. Yeah. And again, like back to the, it is a life and death situation. Like people, people are dying. More people are going to continue to die due to the rhetoric and the level of dehumanization that leads to this kind of mass catastrophe, that is the responsibility of, in the contemporary era, that is the responsibility of sites like Twitter and Facebook and Instagram that are kind of just like, I'm like the contemporary version of like, you know,

reading the newspaper in the morning is all open up Twitter, Instagram. That has a a real world impact that has real lives on the line because of this. And that needs to be addressed. Absolutely. From your lips to Mark Zuckerberg's ears. Let's hope. Let's take a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guide, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman, Help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and headwriter, Streeter Seidel, help an Acapella band with their between songs banter.

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

That's the name. The Harvard yard, but they're open. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle. age. One erection. Listen to humor me with Robert Smygel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Humor me. I need some jokes to make me seem funny. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHearts twice as large as the next two. combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHeart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting. Let us show you at IHeartadvertising.com.

That's IHeart Adon. You might know me as that loud guy who yells out, help on the internet. Help! Somebody! Please! But there's so much more to me than me. I'm an actor. I'm a comedian, and recently I've become quite the helper myself. And on my new podcast, Hope from a Hypocrite, I'll be changing lives, helping people in need with my sage advice and thoughtful solutions. Sike, I'm a comedian.

I'm not qualified to give good advice. Join me and my comedian friends as we riff rant and recommend some of the most legally dubious advice known to man. If I'm calling you, even if you're on your phone, let it ring twice. One ring is too skinny.

Carrie. Cream of chicken suit. Hey, cream. Cream a chicken suit. This is Help from a Hypocrite, the worst advice from the dumbest people you know. Listen to Help from Hypocrite as part of the Mike Coutura Podcast Network available on the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. So we talk a lot about disinformation, specifically election disinformation on this podcast.

And now folks might need to know that election disinformation can get you jail time. That is a lesson that Douglas Mackey, who used to go by Ricky Vaughn on Twitter, should be taking away. This week, Mackey was sentenced to seven months in prison for his part in a Twitter-based scheme to conspire to deprive others of their right to vote in the 2016 election. So most of what him and his circle of idiots did was post memes, you know, stupid election memes, which obviously is protected by the First Amendment. Not a problem. I mean, I don't love it, like, but not a problem. But one of Mackie's tactics crossed a very different line. The verge reports that a week before the 2016 election, Mackie and others,

began encouraging supporters of Hillary Clinton to skip the voting lines and vote by text message, which obviously is not a thing. You cannot vote by text. That is not a thing. But they were trying to convince people that you could just vote by text and you didn't have to go to your polling place. They also posted pictures that made it look like they had been paid by Clinton's campaign of people holding signs with the same messages and the same phone number, like vote by text, here's the number.

Mackey told conspirators that the goal was to suppress turnout among black voters and other minorities groups, saying Trump should write off the black vote and just focus on depressing their turnout, he wrote in one of the groups that was used to plan this content strategy. In the end, this is kind of like a delicious little tidbit. It was his own circle of idiots who turned against him. The verge reports, during the trial, some of Mackie's co-conspirators testified against him, revealing how the groups coordinated and planned their post and memes for maximum impact on Twitter and elsewhere. Mackie, who testified in his own defense, said that he was only one of many people in these groups

and that he was posting without much thought or consideration rather than as some part of some big grand scheme. Like he talked about it like it was just a joke or a prank. But that did not stop him from being sentenced to real jail time. It might not seem it, but this is kind of a big deal. Like I don't want to say too much, but I actually actually. knew somebody who got popped for like a kind of a similar-ish thing. Somebody I worked with was a volunteer in a campaign where he sent out a mass email announcing that the Republican opponent was dropping out of the race for a seat in the house, which was not

true. And the email made it look like it was coming from the Republican opponent. It was like, oh, I'm dropping out because I want to spend more time with my studies or something. and he said that this was meant to be like a prank that he cooked up after a few beers, which like was very on brand for this person, I must say. But prank or not, he was like arrested and indicted and charged with voter suppression. I think he ended up like pleading down to avoid actual jail time and maybe he had to pay a fine or something. But it was pretty serious.

Like it was like a serious thing. So yeah, don't do that. You might think it's a joke or a prank, but don't do that. Yeah, that's so stupid. Like, that is such an obvious. I, and it always, I mean, of course, it was this guy's, like, buddies that turned against it. It is just, it just goes to show these people always end up being such cowards and such, like, you can't even own up to your own shit. But, oh, man, I, yeah, that's on him.

That was just a dumb move, honestly. Okay. So speaking of stupid things, this is like, I've been like mulling this story over in my head since I heard about it. It's like the stupidest thing I've ever heard. So if you're an elder millennial like me, you probably know the music group, the Fugees. And you might recall that the rapper Pra's from that group, the Fugis, has been in some pretty wild legal trouble lately. Honestly, I really have a hard time like making heads or tales of some of the legal claims against him. But this is my understanding. Paz was a donor to the Obama campaign back in 2012 and was part of a criminal conspiracy, along with a Malaysian financier to make a legal campaign contribution to the tune of almost $1 million to Obama's 2012 presidential campaign. Praz was also charged by a federal grand jury for running a backchannel campaign to get the Trump administration to drop in an investigation of a fugitive Malaysian financier and a Malaysian investment company. He also, it sounds like he was maybe trying to like pay or pay. maybe bribe, question mark, a Republican Party fundraiser to aid in the release of a Chinese

dissident. This case featured testimony from Leonardo DiCaprio and former U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. So, like, I don't know, like I said, complicated and very involved. My point is, this is like a very serious, like, a set of charges with, like, far-reaching implications that involve, like, national security and global domestic issues and presidential candidates. and blah, blah, blah, blah. It's a big bout of charges that have, like, real, very serious potential jail time. So if you were his attorney, you would probably be like, oh, this is a very serious case. I want to do a very good job. And maybe you would not want to use an AI program to write your final arguments, which is what his lead defense lawyer did. Praz's lead defense

attorney improperly relied on an experimental generative AI program called Eye Level to draft his closing argument in Praz's high-profile criminal case. This is all according to a newly filed brief demanding a retrial. So, Praz's new attorney said that the AI generated closing argument by its previous lawyer, David Kenner, was just awful. Like, it just sounds like it was like didn't, I mean, it sounds like it was written by AI. Like, this doesn't sound like it made any sense. And that that closing argument bungled what was the most important part of the trial, the closing argument. His new lawyer says, Kenner's closing argument made frivolous arguments, misapprehended the required elements,

conflated the schemes and ignored critical weaknesses in the government's side. So as bad as that is, here's where it gets really stupid, as if that's not stupid enough. Because they also accuse Praz's legal team of having an undisclosed financial interest in the AI company that they use to write that final argument and that his legal team regarded Praz's trial as an opportunity to tout their AI company to advance their own financial interests at Praz's expense. They actually did put out a press release after the trial, hailing this as, quote, the first use of generative AI in a federal trial. The press release included this like very glowing, comma, kind of in retrospect, embarrassing quote, from the lead attorney who said that the AI program, quote, turned hours and days of legal work into seconds and called his use of the program a look into the future of how cases will be conducted. Yeah, conducted badly, I think, because he's asking for a new trial.

I mean, he was convicted. Yeah. It's just, I mean, like, it's almost there are no words, right? Like, it's so stupid and such a bad idea. And I can't believe that anybody at this legal firm thought this was a good idea. And also, like, put out press releases bragging about it. Exactly. Like, you're tattling on yourself.

What, like, you're basically, first of all, you're already working with, like, a high-profile client and you're just bragging about the fact that you are fumbling his case so bad. That is crazy. That is... I don't know what to say. I just, I have no response. That just seems like a bad idea. How mad would you be if, like, you're like, oh, yeah, I might go to jail for, like,

I might do serious federal jail time on some, like, serious global, like, charges, like, real charges, grown man charges? And you're using, like, the legal version of chat GPT to come up with the closing argument to defend me. I'd be so mad. And I think it also just really reveals, like, how much of this is a grift. Like, people who make money from AI need us to be thinking that it is possible and also a good idea that AI will be defending people on trial someday. It doesn't even matter if this person gets a fair trial or not if their AI technology, you know, gets press. Yeah, exactly.

Like it just feels like another example of how And I don't want to be like Oh see it just goes to show how dumb this technology is But it clearly doesn't work right now And like maybe in the future it will And that will also be its own problem to deal with But like clearly it's not working Again I don't think I have seen a single

Example of something written by an AI In any field so far that has been well done Like maybe mediocre at best But it's, I also like, you know this guy's like making bank for that trial. Like, lawyers make a lot of money. Yes. You're just letting the AI do like the work that you're getting back. I don't know.

Which again, I'm all for finding ways to not have to do work. I'm all for being lazy. But like at this point, if somebody's livelihood is on the line, it feels a little important. Joey, it's one thing to be lazy. We're podcasters. Like nobody's going to go to jail. because of our laziness. Somebody might have like

an unpleasant commute. Like, oh, I was a waste of 45 minutes. I'm not going to go to jail. An angry comment. Yeah. And like, I just think that like, it's like, pros should not,

nobody should be, pros or anybody should not be like a guinea pig to have this, to like be the test case for whether this technology can be used in this way. It's just like, it's stupid and funny. But ultimately, it's like, people should not be guinea pigs for the efficacy of this kind of technology when, as you said correctly, it's not there yet. Maybe it will be there.

Maybe this is the future. I don't know. I have my suspicions, but I don't know. But it's not there yet. So like letting AI write your closing arguments and not even doing a hard edit after the fact is just not, we're not, let's not do that. If you're a lawyer, let's not do that. More after a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy,

not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an a cappella band

with their between songs banter. There's the worst singer in the group. The worst? Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got in because your parents

made a huge donation. The group. The yard birds, right? That's the name. The Harvard yard, but they're open. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle-aged,

one erection. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. You love me. I need some jokes to make me seem funny. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ads supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora.

And as the number one podcaster, IHeart's twice as large as the next two combined. So whatever your customers listen to, they'll hear your message. Plus, only IHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio. Think podcasting can help your business. Think IHeart, streaming, radio, and podcasting. Let us show you at iHeartadvertising.com. That's iHeartadvertising.com. The story I've told myself about love or relationships can then shake 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 Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Let's get right back into it. Yeah, you know who I really have not heard enough about this week?

Really, I've been really wondering what other weird stuff he's been up to on top of all the usual. Bridget, what did Elon do now? Well, I'm glad you asked Joey. Do you remember back when Elon Musk was like, decided that being tough on child, sexual abuse material was like his thing. He tweeted, removing child exploitation as my number one priority. And he just started sort of claiming without evidence that he was cracking down on child sexual abuse material on Twitter more than the previous leadership at Twitter.

And a lot of people just kind of like bought into it because he said it and it's like, oh, it must be true. Even though that wasn't true. Do you remember that? Yes, I do remember that. I bet he did a great job. I bet he was super successful. And he, there's actually no more child sexual abuse ever.

in the world. Cleaned that, cleaned it right up, got rid of it. No, no, no, wait. Actually, I'm seeing here that the Australian Watchdog e-safety commission has actually fined Twitter $350,000 for failing to explain how it is handling child sexual abuse material on the platform. The AP reports that the commission issued legal transparency notices earlier this year to Twitter and other platforms, questioning what they were doing to tackle child sexual exploitation material on their platforms. And that Twitter just did not sufficiently answer and now. they're getting this fine. Twitter apparently was the worst defender. They provided no answers to some of the questions, including questions like, how many staff remained on the trust and safety

team that took on the work preventing harmful and illegal contents that the bus took over. Inman Grant from the commission said, I think there's a degree of defiance there, which like, yeah, I agree. Elon Musk being defiant of like something he has to do, surprise, surprise. Grant says, if you've got basic human resources or payroll, you should know how many people are on each team. Yeah, I agree. It seems pretty straightforward. Doesn't seem like a complicated question, but Elon Musk refused to answer. I really do not understand how Twitter is still, like, functioning as a website right now. I feel like every week there's been another thing where they've been like, hey, where are employees doing this thing?

And it's like, what? You mean those guys we fired a couple months ago? Like, I somehow it's still up. so I'm sure they have that, but I, wow, yeah, not surprised. Not only is it still up, Joey, but Twitter is rolling out a new program to combat bots in New Zealand and the Philippines where you will have to pay a dollar a year to make tweets. You can read tweets for free, but you'll have to pay a dollar a year to make tweets, which my favorite response that I saw about this on Twitter was from one of my favorite

comedians, Vinnie Thomas. A dollar a year. brother, I would not pay an acorn a decade. Yeah, I'm sorry. If that ever ends up here in the U.S., like that's it for me. If that is officially when I'm deleting my Twitter, I'm not giving Elon Musk a dollar. I mean, I get, no, like, I would not give him a penny.

That is too much to tweet. No. No, but like, I have such, I mean, we'll be here all night. I have such big feelings about this. fundamentally, when you sign on to a social media platform, we are the product. Our data, information about us, like our eyeballs and earholes absorbing advertisement, that is the, whether I like it or not, I don't like it, but that is the exchange that you, that gives you these platforms.

I'm not going to pay a dollar a year or any amount of money to have you then continue to extract all of my information, everything about me to then make more money. That's, I'm not paying that. That is a, that is a, that is a bum deal. I'm just imagining, like, paying to go see a movie and you sit in the movie theater and you just watch ads for like an hour. And somehow you're paying for that. It's no. Yeah.

No. And, like, here's my thing is like, I, so like, Elon says, like, I have to, we have to do this to combat bots. That is your job, homie. You bought this platform. It is your job to figure that out. What about I'm paying to make your plat, like, you are paid, like people are paid, I'm sure, well to figure out how to combat bots on this platform. Don't go in my pockets.

I didn't fucking buy the platform. You did. Like, you figured this out. It is not my job to figure this out for you. It's not my job to give you a dollar a year nor an acorn a decade to figure it out. And I certainly won't be. And yeah, just the thing about him getting fond. for not complying with this transparency inquiry into child sexual abuse material and

put it at the only platform that is that is being that is on notice. Google also did not comply because they were, they gave generic responses to specific questions, which is like a classic Google thing. So they actually got a formal warning, not a fine. But Elon Musk kind of touting and like puffing up his chest and being like, I'm going to be the person who solves child exploitation on the platform. Something about this really reminds. me of the moral panics that we've seen around things like trafficking, where folks can just like declare themselves the protector of children, like it's some kind of self-appointed title. So you could just say that you're a self-appointed protector of children and like do nothing

to actually protect children and just kind of go with go on vibes, I guess. I honestly think that Elon Musk just decided to say this, that he was going to like be the person who combated sexual exploitation material on the platform as a way to grandstand because he knew people would run with it and the press would publish it. I mean, they did publish it. And then he just kind of dropped it. Like he's certainly not talking about combating the sexual exploitation of children on the platform right now. So I guess that's really how much he cares about combating that because he didn't even bother to give accurate or even answers at all in some cases to this inquiry into it. Yeah, it's really a terrifying, depressing pattern of just.

I mean, what our last big new cycle we were talking about was the whole Ashton Cudger thing. And it's like, it's, it's, it's, it's, you know what, it's good to see that at least he's facing some consequences for this. And maybe that's the, you know, little bit of positivity we can pull out of this. But it is, and hopefully also, you know what, maybe another part of this is like it does feel like maybe we're finally addressing the fact that people just simply saying that they're protecting children doesn't necessarily. mean they're doing that. But yeah, it's, it's not surprised that he is, that seems to be his MO is saying he's going to do things and then not doing them. So I guess this is on brand. It's on brand. That is such a positive silver lining. And I do have one kind of positive story. I feel like today's episode was very like, we live in a techno enabled hellscape. Like,

I felt like it was like a little, you know, it is how I'm feeling lately. It's better. It's better. Yeah. Yeah. So I thought this was pretty cool. Stanford is using virtual reality to help people who have hoarding disorder, practice organizing their spaces and like letting things go. A pilot study by Stanford medicine researchers suggests that a virtual reality therapy might allow those who have hoarding disorder to rehearse relinquishing possessions and a simulation of their own home. that could help them declutter in real life. The simulations help patients practice organizational and decision-making skills learned in cognitive behavioral therapy, currently the standard treatment for hoarding youth disorder, and desensitized them to the stress that they might feel when discarding things. The results of this pilot program was published in the October issue of the Journal of Psychiatric Research.

So hoarding disorder is a mental condition that affects about 2.5% of the United States, which I didn't know it was that high. I think it sounds like it's like kind of a tough issue because of things like, like shame and stigma. And because like the symptoms of it means that it can be hard to let people in. And so those people can involve first responders. So like if you have an emergency in your home, it can be hard for first responders to get in. And that can be like specialists who are there to help you with hoarding disorder if those specialists are not able to like physically enter people's homes. Dr. Carolyn Rodriguez, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and senior author of

the study said that some people are in such dire need, but we can't go into their homes. The clutter is stacked so high that it is dangerous for our team to go inside, yet practicing letting go of items is such a useful skill that we wanted to create a virtual and safe environment. So here's how the pilot programmed worked. In the study, Rodriguez's team asked nine participants over the age of 55 with diagnosed hoarding disorder to take photos and videos of the most cluttered room in their house, along with 30 possessions. With the help of a VR company and Stanford University Engineering students, The photos and videos were then transformed into custom 3D virtual environments. The participants navigated around their homes and manipulated their possessions using VR headsets and handheld controllers.

The outcome? Well, seven of the nine participants improved in self-reported hoarding symptoms, with an average decrease of 25%. Eight of the nine participants also had less clutter in their homes based on visual assessments by clinicians, with an average decrease of 15%. Now, these improvements are comparable to those that are found in group therapy alone. So it's not totally clear whether this VR therapy can add value. However, importantly, this small initial trial demonstrated that VR therapy for hoarding disorder is feasible and well tolerated, even in older patients. Like, it sounds like they were worried that some of the older folks might be not so sure about trying this new technology with a headset, but in the end, they actually ended up liking it.

So all of this is to say that as grim as things might seem sometime, technology. still can be and very much is used to help people design an architect healthier, happier, brighter, safer futures for themselves. And like, that's what I love about technology. That's the tech future. I think that we should all be looking toward. Yeah, it's not all bad. For sure, yeah. Yeah, it's nice to hear a story where tech's being used for good and for helping people for once. But yeah, that is really great to hear. And it is like, you know, know, I don't know as much about like this particular disorder. I didn't realize it was, yeah, that it affected 2.5% of the U.S. population. But yeah, like all mental health stuff in general

tends to be stigmatized. And it is like when I, again, it's one of those things I wouldn't even really think about, you know, the stigmas behind it. But it is, it's great to hear, it's great to hear that it is that, yeah, tech can be a really helpful thing and can be a really, you know, useful tool, particularly when it comes to people's health and mental health. And, yeah, hope to hear more stories like this going forward. Yes, more tech being used to help people build healthier, happier lives, less tech being used to be awful. Please. And thank you. Joey, this was a tough one. I really appreciate you being here. I really appreciate your perspective and you sharing so much of your full self. It's such an honor to be able to unpack.

all of these stories with you, so I just really appreciate it. Of course, Bridget. I'm happy to be on, as always. It's great getting you talk about this stuff with you too. And listeners, thanks so much for being here. Thanks so much for sticking with us. Be well, and I will talk to you next week. If you're looking for ways to support the show, check out our merch store at tangoody.com slash store. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can reach us at hello at tangoody.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 IHeartRadio, check out the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, 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 I-Heart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano. It's our favorite time of the year on our podcast, Point Game, the playoffs. We're digging into the biggest surprises of the season. And I'm looking back on some of my greatest playoff moments. If we didn't talk ever again, I was crying.

You just understood. That's how personal it got. Wow. Then after that game 7, Marquis keep coming to you. He's like, you know I love you, dog. You know, it's all love. This was just playoffs. This was just basketball.

So listen to Point Game on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On paper, the three hosts of the Nick Dick and Poll show are geniuses. We can explain how AI works, data centers, but there are certain things that we don't necessarily understand. Better version of Play Stupid Games win Stupid Prizes. Yes. Which, by the way, wasn't Taylor Swift who said that for the first time.

I actually thought it was. I got that wrong. But hey, no one's perfect. We're pretty close, though. Listen to the Nick Dick and Poll show on the IHeart Radio app. podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.