There Are No Girls on the Internet - Korean pop band NewJeans subpoenas Google; Israeli disinfo campaign exposed; Transphobic lesbian dating app; Landlord price fixing scheme – NEWS ROUNDUP

Episode Date: June 7, 2024

Listen to the Outspoken Network’s new pod But We Loved: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-but-we-loved-174494262/ Listen to Joey’s take on Bottoms on Stuff Mom Never Told You: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-stuff-mom-never-told-you-21123631/episode/feminist-movie-friday-bottoms-183565696/ Israel Secretly Targeted American Lawmakers With Gaza War Influence Campaign: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2024-06-05/ty-article-magazine/.premium/israel-secretly-targeted-american-lawmakers-with-gaza-war-influence-campaign/0000018f-e7c8-d11f-a5cf-e7cb62af0000  Key misinformation “superspreaders” on Twitter:  Women in their late 50s:  https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/05/key-misinformation-superspreaders-on-twitter-older-women/ Lesbian app to ‘use facial recognition technology’ to identify and exclude trans users https://www.thepinknews.com/2024/06/03/lesbian-app-facial-recognition-technology-trans/ FBI Raids Corporate Landlord in Major Rent Price-Fixing Probe: https://www.pymnts.com/cpi-posts/fbi-raids-corporate-landlord-in-major-rent-price-fixing-probe/  Court Allows K-Pop Group to Subpoena YouTuber's Identity from Google: https://www.404media.co/newjeans-kpop-google-youtube-lawsuit/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. 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. This is there no girls on the internet where we explore the intersection of technology, social media, and identity. Joey, we are so thrilled to have you back on the show. Hey, Bridget. It's going to be back.

Happy Pride month. Happy Pride. Are you doing anything fun for Pride? Um, oh God, what am I not doing? Yeah, I've a couple events that, like, friends are doing. I had my household through something last weekend kind of kick off the beginning of the month. So I'm busy. I'm out and about, you know. I'm glad to hear it. I'm still in COVID recovery mode, but I'm living vicariously through folks like you who are out, having a good time. I am very envious. Well, I have to tell you, I feel like a new tech gripe of mine has just dropped. And that is, maybe you've seen them these seemingly wholesome but very obviously AI generated images.

It'll be like the ones I've been seeing lately are it'll be these AI generated images of three older black people. And the caption will be like, oh, these three triplets just turned a hundred. Leave them some love for their birthday. And every single comment is like, how beautiful. Yay. Like, happy birthday. Love it. Have you seen this?

I haven't seen that one, but I did see something yesterday where it was like, it was like a food influencer like our publication account and they were they did one of those things where it's like which picture are you based on your birth month except it was all AI generated food like that was the prompt and I was kind of like wait what like why why did this like you couldn't have taken pictures of like actual cakes like you're doing which AI generated cake are you like I don't know but yeah it's it's weird I am so sick of it and like the cake thing part of needs to take a step back and be like, this is obviously, all things considered, it's pretty benign

because people are using AI to do all kinds of things that are much more problematic and worrisome than what AI generated cake are you or show these fake 90-year-old elderly people some birthday love. But it just feels like one additional small way that the internet is becoming worse and worse and worse. And I think the thing that bugs me is seeing how much, like, obviously the people who do this are just trying to get easy engagement. And I guess part of me is like, well, they could be doing it in worse ways. But the fact that there are people who seemingly like this and like they will actually be like, oh, I'm cake one or happy birthday to the elderly people. I think it's the normalizing of it. Like it's the normalizing that this is something that we're just going to be seeing on our feeds all the time.

And I think, I mean, I do think, like, I agree with you where it's like, this is so benign compared to some of the other things that AI has been used for. But it's like, okay. Yeah, it's almost like normalizing the use of AI images. So then when it is used for more nefarious purposes, it's, it kind of slides under the radar a little bit more easily. Because we're so used to seeing these images all the time anyways. I think that's exactly why. That's my issue too. I mean, on top of the whole, like, copyright thing, I think that's my issue too.

with a lot of the like movie studios that are using like AI generated images or or uh stuff for like there like there was just some like Marvel show from I think last summer that came out that there was a whole scandal about how they used like AI for for like the opening credits and it's like that's part of the bigger issue is it's it's just normalizing this the use of this technology to make these fake things that you know could be used in a bunch more nefarious way Yes, there was a recent controversy over a Netflix true crime documentary called What Jennifer did about a young woman who, spoiler alert, if you can't tell from the title, did something awful to her family.

And in part of the- I assumed it was going to be like Jennifer's body. I wish, I wish the re-nake. Part two. Oh, my God. I am a justice for Jennifer's body. I was on the right side of history on that one. But yeah, the movie used AI to generate what purport to be historical images of her or like archival images of her.

And so in one of the images, it's like, well, that's clearly AI generated. And especially for a documentary that is supposedly trying to show us something true, something real, something that really happened to be using AI generated images without any kind of warning, letting you know that this is that we've recreated this. really, I think it brings up some ethical questions. And I think it really comes back to what you just said that these things might not be nefarious now. But because they are benign, it helps it sort of normalize it. So it helps it so like, oh, we shouldn't be asking questions when we see AI used for this. And so what happens when that use case is not so benign, right? What happens when it's a more important use case?

I think you really, you've helped me understand why would I see malicious use of AI. I'm angry or whatever, but something about these like wholesome uses of it makes me even more angry. I don't know why. I'm like, I hate this even more. I think you really nailed it. I think it's the, it's also the kind of collective like, wait, wait, wait. I thought we just like, I thought we were at a point where we were like, hey guys, let's think a little bit more critically about AI and whether we should be using it so casually. I thought we reached that point as a society, but I guess not. Yeah. I will say, I know. I know this is awful another, like this is one where there's a lot of bad things that can come

from it with those videos of, I mean, not the videos, the AI pictures of Trump getting arrested. I remember those. That were going around recently. There's some new ones that were going around because of the ruling that were kind of funny. Okay, I'll even check those out. Yeah, I know objectively, I'm like, this is bad. This is bad that these images are out there, but they were kind of funny. I felt the same way about the first crapper was like, ooh, I would, I would have, if only.

I think it's just the idea of him like running on the street. God. Yeah. We can only wish. So speaking of stuff online, not always being what it seems, we've got to talk about this huge news about the disinformation campaign out of Israel. So Israel organized a large-scale disinformation campaign, which used fake accounts and disinformation to target progressive activists and black members of Congress in the United States and Canada. Heretz first reported on the existence of this operation way back in March, but now we have more

details about how it worked and exactly who was behind it. They reported that it was launched after the start of the war in Gaza, and it was intended to sway certain segments of the public on Israel's conduct. It really sounds like the point of this whole thing was to use social media to, quote, promote content that is pro-Israel, anti-Palestinian, and anti-Muslim, as well as disinformation about anti-Semitism on American campuses, according to an investigation by the fake reporter organization published this week. I will say the fake reporter organization, maybe not the best name. I know. When I was reading this, I was like, a little kid of fuse. I was like, wait, are they the fake reporters? Hello, I'm here from the fake reporter.

Like, that sounds like it would be like a bit. But you know what? Glad they're doing the work that they do. That is important. Totally. So according to this reporting, this disinformation campaign came straight from the Israeli government. Heretz reports that it was established by Israel's Diaspora Affairs Ministry, but it was run by a private organization for fear of it being exposed and traced back to Israel. So how this whole thing work is that they set up fake news websites with names like no agenda or unfold news. And then they make fake social media accounts on Twitter and Facebook that are kind of trying to seem like real people. It seems like maybe they didn't do a

a great job. We'll get to that in a moment. They would then use these accounts to amass followers and then push out these news stories. The news stories themselves on the websites that they were setting up, they would just steal and repurpose content from places like CNN. And the New York Times reports that they were using chat GPT to generate many of the posts. The campaign also created three fake English language news sites featuring pro-Israel articles. So something I found really interesting about this whole thing, is that it sounds like why they were doing this, according to the reporting, was this understanding that perhaps Israel is like losing the social media war of public opinion. Herod's reports, various Israeli officials say that the war in Gaza has exposed,

quote, a great failure in Israel's Hasbara or public diplomacy. Despite the massive investment in different PR enterprises over the years, Israel has not been able to effectively cope with the flood of pro-Palestinian messages on social media. Israel lacked the necessary digital assets to contend with what it called, quote, the pro-Palestinian poison propaganda machine and to adequately publicize Hamas atrocities to defend the war in Gaza. So it just sounds like they were like, people on social media are too pro-Palestinian, so we have to make some fake accounts to see if that turns the tides.

Yeah. And I mean, I think in this situation, too, like we've really seen. some of the ways that social media can be a really powerful tool for spreading misinformation and also like getting important information out there where I think a lot of this backlash and a lot of this kind of a lot of the backlash to what Israel is doing is because we're getting these images that are out of Gaza and out of Rafa that are you know real awful images a lot of us it's like the first time we're really witnessing this like not firsthand but I guess like through these actual images of what's happening.

And like seriously, I just, I'm sure people listening feel the same. But like, I have seen some of literally the worst things I've ever seen in my life over the past year coming out of Gaza and coming out of Rafa. And that has power. Like, those images have power. And I think the Israeli government and the Israeli Hasbara kind of machine has relied a lot on these images, like not getting out there and reliant. lied on kind of them being the primary drivers of what the narrative is. And we're seeing that start

to fall apart. And, you know, it makes sense if the reaction is going to be to go to these extreme measures, like creating fake support. I mean, this is, and this has been happening. Like, there was an image early on when there were a lot of these big protests that were happening. In support of Palestinians, there was literally a fake image. I remember that it was going around of like a pro-Israel protests that was entirely AI generated. Like it was a, it was like a very obviously AI generated photo. And this was like early on. So yeah, I'm not surprised to hear this.

Again, I think like as somebody who is a Jewish American, who, you know, a lot of Judaism is rooted in a lot of like anti-Zionist diaspora values, it's not surprising. Just going to this happen because this has been happening and this kind of has been. in the direction that the Israeli state has been going, especially recently. And I think it goes back to a conversation you and I had about campus protests, how there's I do feel like there's this underlying attitude that people could not possibly be watching what's going on and be basing their stances on what they're seeing, right? And so, like, if young people on campuses are protesting in support of Palestinians,

it has to be TikTok influencing them in some way. If people on social media are not supportive of what Israel has been doing to Palestinians, it might, like, we need to get in there and, like, correct the record. Right. I think a big kind of point that the Israeli government has relied on for a while is drawing the focus away from what is happening to the Palestinian people and instead of turning it into an issue of like quote unquote Jewish safety, which it isn't. It is not an issue of Jewish safety to be murdering civilians and murdering children. Like that is so obviously not an equivalency.

And again, I think going back to the campus protest, very much like turning it into an issue of like, oh, well, Jewish students don't feel safe. That is not the case. That is a huge generalization. I'm sure there are some students out there that don't feel safe, but that is an individual issue. I personally have a lot of friends that are Jewish that have been involved with the protests. I know, like, Jewish Voice for Peace has been a big organization that has a lot of chapters on college campuses that have been really involved with these protests. I think, like, it has been a very kind of important propaganda point for them to draw attention away from the real issue, which is, yes, these are students that are protesting human rights atrocities

that they are witnessing every day through social media, through family or friends that were on the ground there the main thing is just driving that focus away when that, yeah, that is the issue. It has nothing to do with like, honestly, it has nothing to do with me as a Jewish American. It has nothing to do with my other fellow Jewish Americans. It has to do with what is clearly a human rights atrocity that is happening right now. So it's funny that you say this

because the fake accounts, that it's when you look at what they were saying and who they were targeting and the kind of messages they were putting out, it is so clear that it's like, oh, we are trying to get the, get the perspective, ship the perspective away from what is actually happening to Palestinians. It's like so clear. So when you look at the messages they were putting out, they had these different messages meant to appeal to different groups they were trying to target. They had the United Citizens for Canada site, which had multiple social media accounts and disseminated heavily Islamathobic material, including claims that Muslim immigrants were a threat to Canada and demanding a Sharia state.

Another was the Arab slave trade site, which was copied almost entirely from Wikipedia and aimed at Black Americans trying to repeat the message that the Arabs had been slave traders in Africa. I actually saw this messaging, like, organically via social media and also repeated by people that I know. Like this was messaging that I will say like anecdotally, personally, I saw sort of like, breakthrough on social media a little bit. Yeah, that's crazy. And I will say with that one, too, that's wild because that is also an anti-Semitic talking point that's been used by, you know, other people on the right that if wanted to spread

misinformation, like, anti-Semitic misinformation has been saying that it was like Jewish people that were involved with the straight, that were leading the strait of slave train and all that. So it's like, wow, okay, we can't even come up with another, with another narrative. We're just going to copy and paste it, but like switch it from Jewish people to Arab. people like we can't the Israeli state can't even come up with their own hate narratives now like yeah so much of this stuff is so sloppy that is something that I really like when I was reading about this influence campaign I was like y'all couldn't even like get like get this could have there be consistency in this so this one's my favorite yet another site was called serenity now

which branded itself as an anarchist and anti-establishment group it sought to convince young Americans to oppose the creation of a Palestinian state because states are man-made structures and a Palestinian state would hurt the goals of the progressive movement. Oh, my God. Serenity now. I feel like this brought me back to like my college organizing days because I swear to God there was like one dude who like this would be his talking. Oh, I know that dude.

Oh, God. Oh, my gosh. It's like you can be so left that you like swing back. around to the other side and now you're like repeating a right wing point. Yeah, or you're like just too, too deep in like the theory spiral that it's like you have not talked to a single other human being about like the realities of their like, oh my God. But yeah, that's, I mean, but yeah, on the other hand, the fact that they're going in that direction and I can read that and be like, oh my God, I recognize this like line of thought that just shows that this is like a decent

propaganda technique. Yeah. Yeah. And I think. And I think I think the technique of driving wedges and pitting marginalized groups against each other and pitting anarchist, progressive activist against like, like, it's a, it's a time-tested strategy. They also were targeting specific black elected officials. The operation focused on more than a dozen members of Congress who are black and Democrats, according to fake reporter. Representative Richie Torres, Democrat out of New York, who is pretty outspoken about its pro-Israel views, was targeted in addition to Jeffrey's.

and Warnock. So some of the fake accounts would respond to Richie Torres's posts on Twitter, commenting on anti-Semitism on college campuses and in major U.S. cities. In response to a December 8th post on Twitter by Torres about fire safety, one fake account replied, Hamas is perpetrating the conflict. The post included a hashtag that said Jews are being persecuted. Over on Facebook, the fake accounts posted on Jeffrey's public page, asking if he had seen a report about the United Nations allegedly employing members of Hamas in Gaza. So it is really fascinating to me to see how they were targeting black folks in specific. Like it reminds me that we often see like foreign influence campaigns that target black people specifically.

And part of me wonders if they just see our community as like less critical or like more easily swayed. That is complete like BS. But it makes me wonder if like that's how they see us as easily swayed, easily cajoled, easily influenced. And so, like, that's why they target us, whether or not that's true. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't, I mean, I wouldn't be surprised. And, like, we're talking about, like, Israel is legally an apartheid state. Like, it is, the Israeli government, like, runs on a racist ideology.

I would not be surprised if that were the case. Yeah, like, when I was reading this, I was like, this feels anti-black, even though I can't exactly name why that is. It feels anti-black to me. I'll get back to you on the why. I feel it. So I should say, it sounds like they did not do a great job of this influence campaign.

In at least two instances, accounts with profile photos of black men would then post about being middle-aged Jewish women on 118 posts in which the fake account shared pro-Israel articles, the same sentence appeared, quote, I got to re-evaluate my opinions due to this new information. which like that's so someone trying to sound like a black person but like getting it wrong and this is

why I always say if somebody is on the internet purporting to be a black person but the way that they're speaking or however it just sounds off your spidey senses should be tingling oh man I can't even do their racism right exactly exactly let's take a quick break another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy not quite unhumor me with robert smigel 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 a cappella band with their between songs banter.

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So Facebook has now removed these fake profiles. Fake reporter's executive director, Achea Shots, told Heretz that, quote, running the Ford influence campaign against American lawmakers is amateurish, irresponsible, and anti-democratic. fake reporter has called on the Israeli government to take steps against foreign influence campaigns, he added. The Israeli government is expected to refrain from taking similar actions, especially ones that target Israel's significant democratic partners. The money spent on this campaign would have been better spent in protecting the Israeli public from foreign intervention. And that is a great point that, like, I don't understand how running a, paying somebody, paying a firm to run a bunch of fake accounts and make a bunch of fake accounts and make a bunch of of fake news sites is making people in Israel more safe. Yeah, definitely. I mean, you know, it's like the same, it's the same thing the U.S. does where it's like, God, I remember there was

some tweet a while ago about like, you know, the brave soldiers like keeping our country, or like protecting our freedom. And somebody was like, what, what's my freedom doing in the the Middle East? Like, what are they protecting my freedom? Like on the other side of the world, It's like, yeah, it's like the same thing where it's like, oh, wow, like once you start digging deeper, I think, into a lot of these, like, very militant kind of campaigns. It's very clear that what they say they're doing is not what they're actually doing. Right. Well, that's exactly the point. And I should add that when we talk about these kinds of influence campaigns, it's always important to note that they are not generally very successful in their intended impacts. It sounds like this one did not have the biggest impact. Both Facebook and Open AIs at the campaign did not have widespread impact.

The fake accounts did accumulate more than 40,000 followers across Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. However, many of those followers may have been bots and it did not generate a meaningfully large audience. But I think it is still worth talking about that, you know, even if it wasn't particularly effective in swaying the communities it was targeting, it's still important to note that like this thing. kind of thing is going on. And so when you are using social media, it just kind of like what we're talking about with the AI images. Like, I think that this kind of thing is becoming more normalized and that it creates an internet landscape where we can't just count on getting authentic information or content from real humans. You never know what's going on. And I just think it makes us all less safe and less secure when our internet landscape is just awash in these kinds of

media manipulation campaigns. Exactly. And I mean, it goes. back to the whole conversation about X right now and how it hurts me to call it X, but you know what? I'm talking negatively about it, so I will refer to his X. It's like, your child.

I don't know or whatever. I was just thinking that like when I, when I'm reporting on something that X, that they've done bad, I'm like, it's X. When it's something that is like kind of okay, I'm like on Twitter. Yeah. It's like when I misbehave, I'm like,

oh, your child has skipped. school. That's what my mom would always say for my dad. Right. But yeah, but it's it's the whole bigger conversation about X right now and how it used to be, you know, with still having lots of flaws, but it used to be a place where you could get information. You could get firsthand accounts. You could get all these different kind of journalists and experts like weighing in on things. And now it's just kind of turned into like bots following thoughts and like sharing misinformation and like bots hyping each other up. Like it's like not even, I don't, I'm like,

I don't even feel like I'm like communicating with real people when I open like Twitter now. Like I'm just like, oh, I'm just seeing it's like content that is either super not relevant to what I care about or yeah, or it's just this kind of like nightmare of like bots and artificial like AI generated stuff and whatever. Yeah. I feel the same way. And I should say, like, we were just talking about disinformation campaigns being run by other countries, which we talk about a lot when we talk about media manipulation online. But we should also keep in mind that it's not always about another country like Israel or Russia trying to manipulate us. In addition to all the bots, there are just still flesh and blood humans out there on Twitter spreading misinformation.

And a new study is actually shedding light on who exactly that is on Twitter. And I am sorry to say that it is a lot of women in their late 50s specifically. So ours TechMica reports that there is this new study by researchers Shahar Barbie Bartov, Briani Swire Thompson, and Nir Grinberg that was released this week that looks at a large panel of Twitter accounts that are associated with U.S.-based voters. So it identifies that a kind of shockingly small handful of misinformation super spreaders is what they're calling them, which represent just 0.3% of the accounts,

but are responsible for sharing 80% of Twitter's links to fake news or unreliable news sources. So that means a lot less people than you might think are responsible for the spread of the bulk of misinformation from unreliable sources on Twitter. It really just does sound like this is people who are like power sharers on Twitter, according to the study,

on an average day on Twitter at this time, only 7% of the news story shared linked to sites prone to publish and misinformation. But super spreaders ended up accounting for most of these for two reasons. One is that they shared more news links than anybody else on the platform, an average of 16 a day compared to less than one from the random sampling. And most of the time these people are just like smashing that retweet button like nobody's business, the study found that three quarters of these super spreaders, their content was just retweets. So you might be wondering, like, who are these people? Well, Ars Technica says they are kind of like our aunties and our moms, they're women in their late 50s. Ours Technica reports that the super spreaders are 60% more likely to be female.

They're also a little bit older, on average 58 years old, nearly 20 years older than the sample group as a whole. And while much of the misinformation about the election largely circulated within Republican circles, only 64% of the super spreaders were registered Republicans. Nearly 20% were registered as Democrats. So it is like ladies in their late 50s, but I actually have a theory on what's going on. This is just my theory. This is not in the study. I think it's, this sounds like peak auntie behavior to me. Like spending a, you know what I mean?

Yeah. Don't like It's like You're on Twitter Just like expend Yeah. Yes. Like

When I think about how some of my The women in my life Who are in their late 50s How they roll online The fact that it's a lot of retweets Really speaks to me. I'm like oh that's they My aunties they love they love a share

People of our of my generation And maybe your generation Joey You've had some sense of like If you went to your Facebook page And you had shared a hundred things in one day, your friends might be like, are they okay? Oh, yeah. But I don't think that aunties have the same vibe.

Yeah. I mean, I barely open Facebook anymore for this reason because it is mostly like, yeah, a lot of the older people in my family sharing a lot of these articles. And I'm like, I don't even have the energy to keep getting annoyed at like every single piece of misinformation. But yeah, it is like, I mean, Facebook has kind of just become this like, like, fear of yeah where people okay so this this might

stick when we here this might sound a little bit of stretch but I this is why and one day Bridgett I feel like I come on a do a bigger episode about this but I I am a little bit critical of the sort of the the for lack of a better word kind of structure that we have right now on Instagram where a lot of people are their activism or what they're doing to raise awareness is just like sharing a lot of stuff on their story. And I do this too. And like we've talked about that. Like, I mean, we all kind of do it. And I think there are a lot of benefits and there is something about, especially if you're

sharing like kind of going back to the other story, like sharing stuff about, you know, fundraising or debunking misinformation or like there are there are important stuff to be sharing. I do that too. But that being said, I think I've kind of, I'm realizing like I think this is like our, our two generations kind of version of this is like this spiral of people just sharing a lot of stuff and their story because it speaks to that. Obviously, it's something that, like, speaks to them. But this is what makes me nervous is I feel like we are now seeing with Facebook and kind of the like boomer Gen X generation, like, how that goes in a negative direction.

I'm a little bit worried that we're like setting ourselves up for a similar thing to happen. But yeah, I agree. I do. I think this is like, it's just, it's the gossip, like, expanded on a world stage now. Yeah. Oh, we have to do an episode about the dynamics of Instagram share or Instagram being used as a place to share information. What I always say is, just remember, anybody can get a cannabis subscription. Like, just because like, I have a canvas subscription. I have put together a few cans of infographics in my day. I am, I am, I am a cog in this system. I'm calling myself out. But just remember, just because it's a slick. looking graphic with good colors and it's a carousel on Instagram. Anybody can get a Canva subscription. They don't like have to pass a test or anything. So we should all just remember that when we're when we're using social media in general and deciding what to share, huh? Yeah, definitely.

And I mean last week you did the story about the, in the All Eyes on Rafa Image that there was sort of some backlash to that for that same reason. And I kind of was in the same boat with you where I had shared it originally and I kind of was like, oh, okay, maybe not. Like that actually, like I understand a lot of the reasons people are upset about this. But I think that was like a perfect example where it was just like there was so much like back and forth about like what we should be doing. And then like it got to the point where I was kind of like what even is the point of this? Like what even like I, I don't know.

I, yeah, I one day we'll do a bigger episode about that. Yeah, I kind of got. It sounds like we had a very similar trajectory with the all eyes on Aratha AI generated image we talked about in last week's roundup. But yeah, to the end of it, I was like. What like, like, I had overthought it to a point where I'm like, what even, like, why did I even feel like I should share it? Like, it's just like you, when you really pull apart the reasonings on social media, you can get so granular where the focus gets so lost. And, you know, initially I'm like, oh, yeah, if something comes across my stories about Palestine that speaks to me and I feel like might speak to somebody else, I'll share it. And then it's like, but, but with that image, it's like, well, why? Why did that? What, what am I hoping to accomplish? What's the end goal? Right. I'm in the same. I'm in the same. I'm in the same. I'm in the same. I'm in the same. I'm in the same. I'm in. I'm in the same. boat where I kind of have like stopped sharing a lot of stuff where like I think early on I was kind of like I felt like I should be sharing this stuff constantly because I had I reached a point where I kind of needed to step back and be like is this productive like is what I'm doing actually productive or because and again like this is a different situation obviously like this story is going back to this story. A big point of misinformation and these kind of campaigns is just kind of creating chaos and putting a lot of information out there. So like you don't even really know what's true. anymore. So even if it's something where I'm like, I'm sharing images that are coming from

trusted news sources or whatever that I know are real, is there any benefit of me? Like, what is actually going to be beneficial? Is that I'm just posting stuff on my story to show that I'm like paying attention to show that I'm like staying with it or like is this actually meant to like share resources or share something that I think is important that people might not know otherwise? Or is it just kind of creating more noise? Yeah. We have to do a longer conversation about this. These are things that these are... I have a lot of thoughts. Yeah. All right. Well, stay tuned for that episode because we're definitely going to do it.

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Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise. Breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines.

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Let's get right back into it. So we have to talk about this. I guess I'll call it transphobic dating app la app. Have you heard of this? I have not. But I just see the lesbian dating app, which I feel like we've tried to do this so many times. Strap in for this one. So La App is an app that bills itself as being for lesbians to meet other lesbians.

But with a twist, they're using facial recognition technology in an attempt to keep trans women off of the platform. Pink News reports that La App has been created by the gender critical campaigner Jenny Watson and says it will scan a prospective user's face via their smartphone. allegedly being able to text if that person is cis or trans with 99% accuracy. First of all, I have, you all say this over and over and over again. Complete BS. That's a lie. No way, no how.

I'll pause there. What are your thoughts? Yeah. Also, okay. Terps are so fucking goofy. And like, especially, like, lesbian and biwomen that are turps because I'm sorry. Like, this is my issue. All of the obvious, like, things aside, like, the lesbian community and, like, the queer women in general, like, even if you're not trans, there's a lot of, like, different, there's a whole history of, like, different varying, like, gender expressions.

I, I'm somebody who's, like, trans-vascular. I present, like, I kind of look like a 12-year-old boy. I don't know. I've talked with this before, but it's always, like, the thing, too, where I think, like, terms whenever it's like the bathroom issue when they like hyperfixing the bathroom issue. I have gotten weird looks in public bathrooms before because people see me and especially if I'm wearing a mask like and I have short hair and I'm like, you know, I'm our masculine presenting.

I'm not like, I'm pretty like, heterogeneous looking where like people give me weird looks and I'm like, I know you think that I am trans in the other direction and that's why you're being weird to me. But this just proves that your whole point is stupid because under that logic, like, I should be the like, quote, quote, like, women that you're trying to protect here. Right. And, like, oh, my God. It's, that is so insane.

I also, yeah, the idea of being able to, like, detect if somebody's trans based on, like. Bullshit, not true. That's such bullshit. Like, oh, my gosh. Oh, my God. It, like, I mean, I was, when I was thinking about this earlier, I was like, dang, transphobes and TERFs in service of. their transphobia, they will get taken by charlatans. And now I'm like, oh, and it's like tech charlatans who are purporting that technology can be used in a way that it can't be. And like,

to your point about how like this kind of being like, oh, well, our technology can tell who's this or who's that. The scholar Alejandra Carabello made a great point on thread saying that basically you are trusting technology that we already know is faulty to say that Kim Petrus isn't a woman or that late Ashley isn't a man based on a phone. There is no machine learning model in existence that could do this consistently and accurately based on a photo. Like, it just doesn't work that way. People are complex. And it's wild to me that people would be making the claim that facial recognition technology can do this. It absolutely cannot. I cannot stress this enough. And again, there are so many reasons why this is a stupid, terrible idea. Transphobia aside. Like, we know facial recognition technology is really faulty. It routinely misidentifies. Black cis women as men. Shout out to Dr. Joy Blalemweeney for her gender shades work about this.

And yeah, it's like, so if you actually use this technology, you would definitely be casting out the very people that you say are the demographic that you want. Like, it doesn't make any sense. Yeah. And like you said with, like there is a whole history of like how this is tied to racism and how this is tied to a lot of. like this feels like we're trying to do eugenics again like just in a different form like it's so weird and yeah like gender you know when people say gender is a performance gender is like you know

all the fucking butler's work is all about this like it very much is like based yeah like you're able to this is the whole point of drag it's like you can you can mess with gender you can you can present different ways and it, I, God, this is just such a weird. This is just such a shit show. Like, what the hell? It really is. And like, yeah, I mean, there are, like, my, on my own gender journey, there are days where I am like, rocking straight androgyny.

And there are days where I'm like, oh, I'm going to, like, fam up because I want to or need to for some reason. Like, the idea that a machine learning app would be able to zoom in on the particulars of that is, it's just not how it works. And I think your point is a good one about how it's like, it's a good reminder that all this stuff is connected, that their transphobia is also anti-blackness. It's like, it's like one big bag of awful.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I, the same. I mean, like, I, I've done a total of one drag performance in my life. I would love to do more, but I don't know. But I did like a, you know, femme drag where I was like wearing a wig and I did all my makeup and stuff. And I, like, my friends did not recognize me. Like, I was a completely different person.

And then also, like, when I went out and was, like, walking down the street, like, people just assumed I was, like, a super femme, like, cis woman. Like, it's all, yeah, it's all very superficial. And I did want to keep it really real for a second, which is that I believe just having, just being a person, a woman, a cis woman who is out there on, who's been on a few apps, whatever, whatever. the real threat to women on a lesbian dating app is not from trans people. It is cis men looking to set up threesomes, I think.

Like, if you were going to call out one section of like, well, that's the real problem, it's got to be them, no? Oh, God. Okay. So I know in the past I have been defending dating apps in general on this podcast. I will say, I've had some really weird hinge messages over the last couple months. I need to do an episode where I just. read through all the weird shit that men have sent to. Because also, okay, so I, like as I mentioned,

I'm trans. Like, I do not date straight men. I date men. I'm bisexual. Like, I date people of all genders, but I don't date straight people, period. I have that in my hinge bio. Some of the weirdest, like, I had a man, my most recent one that I cannot stop thinking about with somebody messaged me, this man messaged me and was like, well, am I, am I straight if I like being the little spoon? And I was like, what? That's like one of the milder ones. I, yeah, no, one day, I like, literally, I've just started saving them because I, like, I was like, I had a moment where I was like, maybe this is unethical. But then I was like, these men are sending me these. They're sending you this.

Unprompted. Like, what is up? Or, like, I'll get a lot of the, like, well, maybe I'm not straight because I think you're hot. I'm like, yeah. Let's, let's unpack that. Like, what the hell? Yeah. Anyways, I agree with that sentiment.

The, the problem is cis straight men. The problem is cis men. looking for three subs, looking to be creepy, looking to be weird. This should be common sense, but you know, it's them,

them, they're the problem, it's them. Straight men. Yeah. Oh, my God. Speaking of straight men being problematic, I guess I don't know

that this next story only involves straight men, but you know, I'm going to take a leap and say that it's, there's probably a lot of them all up and grew. Yeah, yeah. Historically. Historically, right? So that is this horrible landlord scheme. So we got to talk about Real Page,

which is the, quote, property management software company that has been accused of helping landlords orchestrate a price fixing scam among large corporate landlords by algorithmically predicting the highest possible rents that landlords can get away with charging tenants. So these people are like scumbags of the highest order. Even reading this story, I was like, These people are not good people. Listen to how ProPublica reported on how they talked about their rent hiking technology back in October during a convention. Never before have we seen these numbers, said Jay Parsons, a vice president of RealPage, as convention govers wandered by. Apartment rents had recently shot up by as much as 14.5%, he said, in a video touting the company's services.

Turning to his colleague, Parsons asked, what role has a software played? I think it's driving it quite honestly, answered Andrew Bowen, another Real Page Executive. As a property manager, very few of us would be willing to actually raise rents double digits within a single month by doing it manually. So they're basically just like bragging like, oh yeah, we raised, this technology helps you raise rents in ways you never thought. You didn't think that that family with like small children and a single mom would pay this much. You might be wrong. You should raise their rent and see. Oh, my God. I just, what the hell?

It's bad. So according to BizNow, Real Pages System, which provides rental price recommendations based on real-time data from landlords, is alleged to be a key tool in manipulating the rental market. The firm's influence covers 70% of multifamily apartment buildings and unpack 16 million units nationwide. So this is very much like a coordinated scheme. Landlords are encouraged to adopt Real Pages' pricing recommendations, a practice that they find. follow 80 to 90% of the time. This coordinated approach reduces the availability of rental units driving up prices. One of the architects of Real Pages system reportedly stated that the aim is to prevent

landlords from undervaluing their properties, ensuring consistently higher rates across the board. Yeah, that's the real problem here. It's landlords undervaluing their property. Oh, my God, the poor landlords. Won't someone think about the landlords? The poor properties that have been undervalued. So if the majority of landlords in a single area are all using this pricing tool, it kind of feels like a coordinated price fixing scam, right? Which you would think should be illegal, right? Well, last week, the FBI did a surprise raid on the Atlanta headquarters of Cortland Management, marking a significant escalation at a criminal antitrust investigation of the Department of Justice into allegations of a nationwide conspiracy to artificially inflate apartment rents. The implications of the

this probe are far reaching, potentially affecting millions of ventures across the U.S. Yeah. Surprising, like, you know, moment where I'm supporting the FBI here. Because this is a real... I live in New York. Like, I, sometimes if I'm feeling particularly, you know, like getting in a depressive spiral about the state of the world, I'll just think about the fact that it's like, it is so weird how it's just completely normalized that.

I don't know anybody who isn't constantly in like a state of just like not stable, like not having super stable housing because you don't know when your rent's going to go up or if like it's already so insanely expensive to live here. And then they're constantly raising prices. And all of the buildings are kind of also like awful too. Like the building that I live in has like a billion fucking problems that they like never respond to. And they're still like trying to raise rent for the next. like, you know, cycle of our lease and all of that. And I, you know, it is a huge problem. And it's not something that should be normalized. It's not something that should just be like accepted as like, oh, it is the way it is. Like that, like, people should be able to live and exist and, you know,

have shelter because that's an important part of life. But yeah. Yeah. And you're right. Like, it really is deeply impacting renters. In Atlanta, for instance, where this raid happened, software-driven pricing affects 81% of multifamily rental units. BizNow reports that since 2016, Rinsed Atlanta have surged by 80% despite rising vacancy rates that would typically result in lower rents. The widespread adoption of Real Page's pricing recommendations by several landlords between 2015 and 2017, followed by Real Page's acquisition of its main rival, lease rent option in 2017, has given the company unprecedented control over rental pricing.

So I'm with you. This is a bit of a weird stance for me, but I was like, I'm glad they got raided. I'm glad it was a surprise raid. I hope it was like, you know, I would have loved to have been doing a ride along and like wearing one of the FBI jackets and like aviator glasses kicking indoors and like bust in the heads of these guys. Like I just think these people are scumbags. And I hate that when we think about technology that this is the use case that a lot of people

will go for. Like how can we use it to extract? and squeeze and exploit people. And I hate it. So like, the algorithmic pricing is a racket that preys on us renters. And yeah, I just think that when we think about crime and the way that crime and technology intersect, I don't like the idea of bad facial recognition being used to misidentify shoplifters. This is the kind of tech-enabled crime that is impacting more people, right?

Like, we should be talking about this. this should be big news. Yeah. I'm sure somebody listening is like, wow, Bridget Todd, shill for the FBI. Who knew? I got it. It's like one of the, it's the like one in a million times where it's like,

oh my God, the justice system working the way it's supposed to. Surprise. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. I guess. It's like the like the TV show version of the FBI where you're like, wow, yeah,

they're like, I don't know. I feel the same where I'm like. cautious, cautious praise to the FBI, I guess, in this case. But yeah, once again, the problem is capitalism, how this technology is used, how this technology is used not to make our lives easier, but just to help, you know, select few people make a little bit more money from the rest of our misery. Oh, exactly. Okay. So my last question for you is, Are you familiar with the K-pop group, New Jeans? I think I've, like, just heard of it.

I'm not a big K-pop listener, but, like, I feel like, you know, being on the internet, you, you, it comes into my feed often. So I think I, like, just heard of this group from, like, some posts somewhere. But I'm not super familiar. Okay. I never heard of them. And I was asking my friend who does like K-pop, like, oh, do you know about New Jeans? And she was like, they are literally one of the biggest groups in the world.

That's, like, being like, have you heard of this group, The Beatles? I was like, oh, I had no idea. So earlier this year, the Korean pop, apparently supergroup, new jeans, was asking for help and identifying an anonymous YouTuber to sue them for defamation. And this week, ForreMedia reported that a U.S. federal court actually allowed the group to subpoena that information from Google about a YouTube account so they can sue that person for defamation under South Korean law.

The group alleges that this account, which according to court documents, posts under the handle at Middle Seven has posted as many as 33 defamatory videos that have been viewed nearly 14 million times as of their filing. Because the account is anonymous, the lawsuit cannot continue until that user has been identified.

Some of the statements that new genes are saying are defamatory include calling one of the members of the group the eldest daughter of a Vietnamese farmer and a video titled, reasons why new genes is a crap group. I mean, is that defamatory? or is that just

I mean, if that's defamatory Harry Styles might be sending me a cease and desist sometime soon. That's why I wanted to ask about this. So like, I'm no lawyer. What do I know? If you're a lawyer and you have insight into this, let me know.

But I was so curious, like, so this is not the first case of this nature and that is like why Google was ordered to actually provide the name and birth date and address and email address of the person on YouTube who was doing this because there's already an established legal precedent.

However, I can't help but wonder, like, what does this mean for haters like me? Like, people who just like, I want to make a long YouTube video about how much I hate Harry Styles or whatever. Like, like, what does that mean for those kind of people, you know? Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I don't know.

I guess I would need to look a little bit more into this case and what specific claims are being made. But if like those two up front, A, like the eldest daughter of a Vietnamese father, I don't know, maybe that's not true, but also that doesn't really seem like it's like defamatory. Like, I don't know. And then also, yeah, the whole like why it's like,

if it's an opinion, I am also a bridge and I'm in the same court. I love being a hater. I like, I, if, they make being a hater illegal on the internet. Like, I don't know what I'm going to do. I guess this is it for me. I know.

I'm so curious how it shakes out. Well, Joey, thank you so much for being here. Where can folks keep in touch with what you're up to? Of course. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at Pat Not Pratt, P-A-T-N-O-T-R-A-T-T. Also, same day that this is coming out, I have an episode. episode of stuff mom never told you

in honor of Pride Month talking about the movie Bottoms. So if you want to hear me talk about honestly a lot of it is me talking shit about other queer high school movies that I don't like. But if you

want to hear me talk about bottoms and all of that, yeah, the movie. Check it out. Not the body parts. Not the body part. You did that. You could check them out on stuff.

Mom never told you. Also for Pride Month. There's a new show called But We Love. That's from the Outspoken Network. It's all about queer history told through kind of a kind of personal, personal storytelling. I've been working on that as well. So go ahead and check that out if that is of interest to you. Definitely check that out.

We'll put the links and the show notes to all of this. Thanks so much for being here, Joey. and thanks to all of you for listening. I will see you on the internet. If you're looking for ways to support the show, check out our merch store at tangoity.com slash store. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi?

You can reach us at hello at tangooty.com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangoody.com. There are no girls on the internet was created by me, Richard Todd. It's a production of IHeartRadio 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.

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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. Life is full of hurdles, so how do you keep going? On Hurtle with Emily Abadi,

we're talking with the most inspiring women in sports and wellness from professional athletes, coaches, and Olympic champions about the challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward. At our level, at this game, being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything.

Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHart Women's Sports. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. And nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo.

And every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headline. And we're going straight to the source, the athletes themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions in the moment, and the stuff nobody gets to hear. Listen to SportsSlic on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slicalife-Life 12

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