There Are No Girls on the Internet - INTRODUCING: INTERNET HATE MACHINE

Episode Date: October 21, 2022

Our social media platforms are being used to silence marginalized people, disrupt our democracy, and keep all of us more fearful and polarized than ever. Bridget Todd chronicles how our current social and political hellscape started with attacks on Black women that went overlooked, how it makes us all less safe, and what we can do to fight back.  SUBSCRIBE TO INTERNET HATE MACHINE: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/internet-hate-machine/id1648497305See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Just a little bit bigger hips. This is a podcast. We're recording it as we tailgate our youth soccer games in the back of my Honda Odyssey. With all the snacks and drinks. Why did you get hard seltzer instead of beer? Oh, they hit a bogo. Well, then you got it. Listen to soccer moms on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, everyone. I'm Cheryl Stray, author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things. I'm excited to share that I have a new podcast called My, Over Mountain. In each episode, I interview athletes, adventurers, and adrenaline seekers to discuss the inner landscapes that informed and inspired their extraordinary feats. So we, too, can better understand how to face our own seemingly insurmountable challenges. Listen to Mind Over Mountain every Thursday on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. So as you all probably know, on this podcast, we cover a lot of issues related to harassment of marginalized people online. And I think I've alluded to this, but I feel very strongly that the harassment of marginalized people, and particularly black women and women of color, is basically baked into our current social media platforms. You know, it's not a bug, it's a feature. And I also think it has a lot to do with our current social and political landscape. I think a lot of the awful stuff that we're seeing right now that we've been. talked about on the podcast, you know, stuff like school teachers being attacked and smeared as

groomers or election workers and poll workers being attacked and threatened and accused of vote tampering or women who want to run for a public office being physically threatened and doxed. I think a lot of this stuff really originated with attacks on black women online. And because nobody with the power to do anything actually listened or took any kind of meaningful action when it was happening to those women. Now those kinds of things are happening to all of us. And it is not great. You know, it's not great for the ability to have meaningful discourse about some of the issues that we actually do need to have meaningful conversations about to move forward on. It's not great for women and people of color and queer folks and trans folks

who just want to be involved in civic life or public life by being a teacher, running for office, becoming a journalist, working as an election worker, or even just expressing themselves politically online. And it's not great for our democracy. When everybody is not able to meaningfully and safely participate in civic life on our biggest social media platforms and communication platforms, I would argue that we do not have a healthy functional democracy. Like people's ability to do that is a tenet of having a healthy democracy. So I am fully aware that I sound like I am ranting, but I really do firmly believe that the harassment of women online is deeply connected to the downfall of our democracy. So I have partnered with Cool Zone Media, the team who brought you great podcasts like Behind the Bastards with Robert Evans and cool people who did cool stuff with Margaret Kiljoy and many, many others like too many to name, to make a new podcast exploring this very connection, the connection between online violence and harassment of black women and our crumbling democracy. The podcast is called Internet Hate Machine.

You know, cue the nine-inch nails here. internet hate machine is a podcast that will chronicle the stories of women who have been targeted, harassed, and attacked online. Why? And what it means for the rest of us? Because I think that there's this misconception that when someone is harassed online, it's individual. And it absolutely is individual, like there's individual and personal consequences for these women who are attacked. But it's also systemic. It's also institutional. And it also creates really big consequences for all of us. So you might be one. wondering, you know, if you talk about some of these issues on There Are No Girls on the Internet, why are you doing a brand new podcast specifically to explore online harassment? And the answer to that question is kind of tricky, but it really comes down to something that I discussed with Internet historian Claire Evans on the very first ever episode of There Are No Girls on the internet, which is that women and queer folks and black folks and trans folks and all of us,

we deserve monuments to all the amazing stuff that we have done online. Claire Evans basically wrote the book on the internet and women and technology called broadband, where she chronicles women's contributions to the internet from the very beginning. And this fascinating history actually stops when Gamergate begins. And I asked her why. Here's what she said. Yeah, it's interesting that you bring that up in researching for this podcast and sort of putting together what this podcast will look like. I've been sort of really bummed out by the fact that so many of the episodes or topics, ideas that I come up with are about women being harassed and like how women are fighting online. And, you know, it is an aspect to what it means to show up as a marginalized person online. It's just a reality. But it's difficult because I feel like I want to build a monument to the way that women and other marginalized communities are using the internet. And it sucks that it has to be so reactionary. And I guess it is,

Was there attention in the book about that? Like, do you feel attention between wanting to tell the full scope of the story of women online and having to include, I mean, I know that you include GamerGate, but things like me too, you know, things about like women being harassed and fighting back? Or do you want to build a monument that celebrates and affirms how women have built online? And is there attention there? Because I've certainly felt attention. Yeah, I can totally relate to that.

I mean, I kind of made a choice that I didn't want my book to be about fighting back against the trolls. I wanted my book to be, you know, a showcase for all the amazing things that people accomplished, despite the fact, you know, that they had to fight against the trolls or whatever their circumstances were. You know, I think I'm kind of was able to cop out from that a little bit because my book ends basically the collapse of the dot-com bubble. And I'm not saying that harassment didn't exist before then. It certainly did. But, you know, things like Gamergate, the Me Too movement, the sort of larger conversations. that are happening as like a consequence of systemic sexism in the tech industry and in the world, you know, sort of became much, much uglier more recently.

And yeah, but I don't know, I have this mantra that is like, don't, don't fight the darkness, bring the light and the darkness will disappear. And I think that, I don't know, I think people need to see how much light there really has been and how much, how many fascinating, beautiful, interesting, you know, dynamic contributions had been made by women and, you know, throughout history and that it's not always about having to, it's not always about being a victim. I don't want to always have that. I don't want that to be like a core part of the identity of the characters in the Dio Profoundman book, because they're all, they're not, you know, like they're all, they're all tough as nails and super interesting and

hardworking and I've done great things in this world. And maybe people didn't believe in them at the right time, and maybe people have forgotten some of their contributions, but that doesn't make them any less incredible. So like Claire, I hate the idea of only defining and talking about what we have done in opposition to the people who hate us. You know, we deserve spaces that center our accomplishments, our conversations, and our work, not just the fights and the struggles and the traumas. Even though, yes, I am fully aware that there are no girls on the internet sometimes gets into that territory too. It's inevitable. Like our last episode was definitely about child abuse and dark stuff regarding children on the internet. Yes, it is inevitable. But I'm not going to

lie, you know, it is something that I have really struggled with in putting this podcast together. You know, I don't want to be the person that bums everybody out every week just by talking about dark stuff lurking on the internet. But I also don't want to completely ignore it because that is also part of the story. It's part of the way that marginalized people have to show up online. You know, the good and the bad of the internet. And I want to tell the full, honest story. And trust me, there are times when I am craving escapism just as much as I'm sure that you are.

You can probably hear it in some of the episodes that we've done. So it is something that I struggle with. And honestly, I would welcome any feedback about the balance that I'm striving for. You know, I have people tell me, one day you're talking about something really dark on the internet, someone who's been harassed or attacked.

And the next week, you're talking about, like how much you love the X-Files. So, yes, I get it. And anyway, all of that is to say that I am starting internet hate machine, a totally new podcast, to really have a place to dig into all of that. Because, as I said at the top, I do believe the consequences are really important for all of us. I think the health and safety of our internet and our democracy depends on having honest

conversations about what's already happened, who was harmed, and how. And most importantly, what needs to be done about it. So I will be digging into all of that on the new podcast, Internet Hate Machine, and I hope that you'll check it out. Internet Hate Machine drops on October 26th. You can find it on all of the normal podcast platforms. Like if you're listening to this, you probably know where to find it. I think I'm supposed to say Spotify, Apple Podcasts. You know, you know where to find a podcast.

This is a podcast. You found this. You know where to go. And I hope that you'll listen and subscribe. And here is the trailer for my new podcast with Cool Zone Media, Internet Hate Machine. So if you were online in 2014, you're probably familiar with Gamergate, where a lot of men who were supposedly big mad about, quote, ethics and video game journalism, harassed women on the internet.

It was awful, and it rightly got a lot of coverage from the tech press. But a lot of people, even people who were very online, might not know that it was black women who were attacked by the very same people using the very same tactic as Gamergate years earlier. Only when those women spoke up about it, the people with the power to do something, pretty much ignored them. And I'd also be willing to bet that even less people

know that the kinds of online harassment and deceptive accounts that those women were reporting would go on to be the very same tactics that a 2019 Senate inquiry confirmed were used by Russian assets to disrupt the 2016 election. So there's a pretty clear throughline from ignoring black women when they speak up about the harassment they face on the internet,

and pretty important stuff. Like, I don't know, the security. of our elections? So what if someone with the power to do something had just listened to black women when they reported what was going on years earlier? I'm Bridget Todd and I make podcasts about the internet. Specifically, the way that women, people of color, LGBTQ folks, and other marginalized identities show up to do cool stuff on the internet. But I am sad to say that as true as it is that traditionally marginalized people do a lot of the coolest stuff online, it's also true that those same people are targeted online in really scary ways. And when it happens,

It can feel like it just goes overlooked. We don't really get the opportunity to learn from it or take anything away from it. And as the internet often does, everyone just moves on. And I don't like that. So on my new podcast, Internet Hate Machine, I'm trying to write that wrong. We'll be telling the stories of women who were harassed online, how it happened, why it happened, and what it all means for the rest of us.

Because these kinds of attacks threaten our democracy, that keep marginalized people from doing things like running for office, or just participating in civic and public life. life, and they threaten our ability to have meaningful discourse and make any progress on some of the big issues facing us today. And what's worse, this kind of thing has been steadily creeping from the computer screen into our wider political and social landscape. On the new podcast, internet hate machine, I'll be charting how the harassment and abuse of women and other traditionally marginalized people online has led us to our current political hellscape and what we can do about it.

Listen to internet hate machine on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite on Humor Me with Robert Smygle 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. Hey, I'm Deanna Maria Riva and on my new podcast, How Hard Can It Be? I call on my Gen X squad from Ohio to Hollywood as we navigate Midlife's most fantastic BS. Unfiltered conversations from night sweats to fupas to scheduling sex. Wait, what sex? Is it just me or does every

woman my age want to look at Pinterest instead of having sex sometimes? They say we can't polish a turn, but we're sure going to try. So let's get blunt with laughs, tears, or tears of laughter. Listen to How Hard Can It Be with Diana Maria Riva on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Will Ferrell's Big Money Players and IHart Podcasts presents soccer moms. So I'm Leanne. Yeah. This is my best friend, Janet.

Hey. And we have been joined at the hips since high school. Absolutely. A redacted amount of years later, we're still joined at the hip. Just a little bit bigger hips. This is a podcast. We're recording it as we tailgate our youth soccer games in the back of my Honda Odyssey. With all the snacks and drinks.

Why did you get hard seltzer instead of beer? Oh, they hit a bogo. Well, then you got them. Listen to soccer moms on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. American soccer is about to explode. The World Cup is coming. Ramos sending on to Ernie Stewart the chip. Score!

I'm Tab Ramos. I'm Tom Boca. On our podcast, Inside American Soccer, you'll get the real storylines, the biggest decisions. And the truth about the U.S. team. It wouldn't be a huge surprise if our team ends up in the quarterfinals or potentially a great run into the semifinals. Listen, Inside American Soccer with Tom Bogart and Tabramos on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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