There Are No Girls on the Internet - Part One: The Online & Real Life Harassment of Marginalized Elected Officials

Episode Date: November 23, 2022

In the first installment of this two part episode, we’re joined by journalist and comedian Francesca Fiorentini to talk through the midterm elections and how online harassment keeps women from succeeding in elected office.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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844-844-I-Hart. 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, and Olympic champions about the challenges that shape them and the mindset that keeps them moving forward. At our level, at this scale, being able to fail in front of the entire world. Like, I can do anything. I can do anything. Listen to Hurtle with Emily Abadi on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHart Women's Sports. Welcome to another episode of Internet Hate Machine. I am your host, Bridget Todd. I am joined with my lovely producer, Sophie. Hey, Sophie, what's up? Hey, Bridgett. How's it going?

It is going well, and I'm so, so, so excited to be joined by Francesca Fjuntini, correspondent, funny lady, host of the Bituation Pod, the Tituation Room on The Young Turks, Newsbroke on AJ Plus, and New Mama. Francesca, thank you so much for being here. I'm so excited. Anytime. Oh, my God, talk to me about something else other than nursing and sleep habits. Just, ugh, get me out of that headspace. And I realize we might delve into something far worse, and I'll be rushing back to want to talk about nursing and all spit up habits and all that crap. All the things that babies do.

Exactly. We might be talking maybe about babies. I don't know. Or big babies. I'm excited. Yeah. There are some grown man babies in this story. Yeah.

I mean, that's what the show is about, right? Just people being massive babies on the Internet. And speaking of people being massive babies on the internet, I have to call out this tweet that you had that had me rolling. Elon Musk tweeted, Twitter feels increasingly alive. And you've replied, increasingly alive now that death threats are back. Absolutely. I mean, the real joke, I think, is that it's alive because we're all dunking on him just endlessly. And he's just trying to tweet through his entire failure.

But yeah, yeah, it's like, no, the actual truth of it, and this is something that you speak to, is that, we're just, it's alive. His equivalent of alive is because now no one is censored when they're trying to dox people or harass them. Yeah, now an open season for hate speech, doxing, death threats, all of the stuff that you want to see when you log into Twitter.com. Mm. That actually was something that I was surprised at. You know, I know we're not going to necessarily go into the whole debacle, but that in order to get people to stay on your platform,

it has to be a place people want to be. And I was reading some analysis, and I was like, oh, yeah. As much as I think something like Instagram makes me obviously, like, it's a perpetual fomo and I feel terrible about myself in different ways, it is also still a place I want to be. And Elon's got to make Twitter a place people want to be who aren't just white nationalists. Yeah, and I was reading about how only a small percentage of power users on the platform like people who tweet regularly, like those are the folks who really drive engagement. And so it does seem kind of like Elon is kind of his first order of business is kind of attacking those people and making sure that they feel like Twitter is not a hospitable platform for them to show up.

And like it's not like any of us are getting paid to tweet. So after a while, it's like, why am I going to continue to show up here? Right. It's basically just to, again, make fun of now the new owner. But that's it. he needs to sweeten the pot for them and getting folks to pay $8 a month for that. Like that's not,

mm-mm. Yeah. It should be, ah, God, my friend of mine suggests something, and I just have to put this out there, but monetize Twitter by paying to DM women.

Paying. Elon would be, he would be making so much money off of Twitter overnight. Right? Or even like lower, lower the bar. Not even, but like to get so that you can see if they read it or not. Sure, exactly.

There's different tiers. I mean, even replying to anybody. You know, the whole thing, but it's like, oh, God, if you want to troll this person in their DMs, you got to pay $50 if there's going to be like, you know, if you're going to say something about the way they look. You know, $100 if you're going to throw in like a toots or a nobody says toots anymore. Not a toots. You know how the internet and trolls are all just like, you know, men in their 80s? Hey, dutch. Yeah.

I love you. I love the tweet you had. That's the voice that I read all DMs I get in. 100%. Like an Andrew Dice Clay voice. Yes. Hey, hickory dickory, doc. Yeah.

You look better without. I don't know. Anyone under the age of 30 is like, what are they saying? Andrew Dice, who? I don't understand. It's better. I don't know. These are not topical references.

But, you know, your point about, you know, paying to harass, paying to bother people actually does fit really clearly into what I want to talk about today. And so far on the podcast, we've talked about some examples of black women and women of color who have been the target of not so fun things on social media platforms. We've talked about Dongolgate with Aege Fear Richards, the N-Fathers Day campaign on Twitter, and then coordinated attacks on SNL actor Leslie Jones. And as horrific as these things are, it's kind of easy to think of them as sort of isolated incidents or things just happening on Twitter with no real context playing out in the, you know, the IRL world, like the real world. And so I wanted to spend a little bit of time kind of connecting those dots on why all this matters and why it matters beyond the folks who are being targeted. And since we just had midterm elections, I think taking a look at some of recent elections and the experiences of elected officials will provide a really good example. for the real world consequences of having a social media landscape ready and willing to amplify racist, sexist attacks on black women and women of color. Is this something that you've experienced as

like a visible person on Twitter? Yes and no. I will say that I, what I think that the online hate has done for me is make me invisibleize myself deliberately. So say less, be very, very careful. And again, I'm a comic, you know, and I, and I, and I, am a pundit. I like to speak. I love doing podcasts. I love doing, you know, my live show, the bituation room, all that. But when it comes to just the world of Twitter, I am much more on my P's and Q's and not in a good way. So it's so ironic we are being trolled by, you know, generally dudes and white dudes and whatever cis het, you know, keep adding to it, who are constantly saying that they are being silenced when in fact what they, the ecosystem they create

actually just silences women, people of color, marginalized folks, anyone who feels like they are already targeted by systemic oppression, that's just, it's sort of a self-imposed censorship. And I hate that about, so no, I have not been deliberately targeted, but also I don't stick my neck out that much. And I think that's a, that's not good, you know. But, but yeah, I've been, you know, in multiple, I think it's also because I'm not like, I'm mixed and people are like, I don't know how to troll you.

What epithet do I use? What's the word do I hurl? Exactly. Are you Chinese? Exactly. Are you Chinese? Are you Italian? Are you Latina? I don't know. Damn it. I'm going to Google it. My Wikipedia page is all fucked up too. It's like, I don't know if we could swear, but I am. My bad. So it's just like they, I think my Wikipedia page says that I'm like from Argentina, but I'm not. The point is it's funny when you're not discernibly something so people don't know how to troll. I will say this, two years, and I know you did a whole episode on the Leslie Jones thing, I was at the RNC in 2016.

Milo Yanopoulos was going live for Bright Bart, and my producers, the people at AJ Plus were like, yo, this is the day after that Leslie Jones was, I think, left Twitter, was being trolled, Milo started it. They go, yo, you should like say something to him, do something. So on air, we did our own little, like, trolling of him. And I was like, you know, does it, does all this make you feel better that your mom never hugged you as a child? You know, just like being raised by the legends of Zelda, like, da, da, da, da. And I was something about, like, I said, I think the first thing I said to him was like, it's funny that you hate black people because your heart is black, is what I said.

That's good. So, yeah, so that was. Was the man too stunned to speak? No, he called me. He turns around and goes. What a mean, nasty, lesbian? No, he goes, what a mean, nasty, skinny lesbian you are? And I was like, he called me skinny.

Thank you. Oh, my God. Francesca, so I was also at that same RNC. And I remember I was, I was, I was, this is a whole long story, but I was there as part of a group who was meant to be getting like, like a, like a, like a, like a, writing a piece about Milo. And I remember him walking around, like, the press area. And what a, like, you could just, you, you ever see somebody who you can. Intel wants to have their presence be something that everybody is talking about. And everybody was working.

So nobody was like, oh, my God, there's Milo. Everybody was like, oh, what is, like, this person just came in. They clearly want a scene. And everybody just went back to their laptops. And it was kind of this, like, I remember just feeling like, this is pathetic. Like, this is, like, reminds me of when I would, like, when I first got my driver's license and I would, like, get in my car and drive by the school playing music loud with sunglasses on and be like, I hope they.

see me. I just felt very empty and sad. Yeah, exactly. No, yeah. He definitely, like, plays, he, like, has a little boombox next to him and, like, plays, you know, some kind of trumpet entrance. Like, has a little smoke machine he wants, that's in his mind. Like, it goes off when he walks in a room. You know what I'm saying. My brain is on new mom. I'm sorry. But yeah, yeah, No, he's a sad, sad man, and I think got what he deserved, but that's, I know you went into that. Yeah, I mean, talking about him is actually a great segue into the idea that I think in so many of the incidents that we have discussed, particularly around, like, Milo and Leslie Jones, it's this idea that it really shows, in my opinion, the way that the sort of disregard and distrust of women, particularly women of color and black women, is kind of baked into our experience. of being on social media platforms. And if you've ever seen a right-wing figure attack a black woman

who was basically just minding her business like Leslie Jones was and thought, what's going on? You know, when you see a right-wing figure randomly attack Lizzo or how, like, Trump would randomly attack Yamish Alson Dore or April Ryan, right? Like women of color always, you'd be thinking, like, why are they doing this? Well, I would argue it's because it is a tried and true engagement strategy. And when you apply that to social media, people who run platforms, they're not really interested in sort of de-incentivizing that because it's a successful way to generate engagement, which means, you know, more profit for them.

And so basically, I think that attacking women of color is always going to be a way to get to, like, fire up your base and get engagement. And platforms are not interested in stopping this or de-incentivizing it because they are in on the grift. Yeah, well, that's 100% sure. I mean, it's amazing, once again, this is the right. It loves to accuse the left of being triggered by. something and they the people you're naming the reason they trigger they are the ones triggering the right merely by their existence the idea that black women are excelling in journalism in music in something that otherwise they wouldn't give a shit about they don't know who lizzo is

ben Shapiro doesn't know who lizzo is but then suddenly she's playing you know whoever the fucks flute jefferson was it jefferson It was Jefferson's flute, yeah. Just like so, Jefferson's flute, which of course we all know she should have smashed it into a million pieces. But, no, she played it amazingly. And you're just like, this is what I mean by identity politics still matter. I mean, this is why I think a lot of us still say it because they're like literally by their identity, by black women just doing them.

Suddenly this entire, yeah, machinery of algorithms and grift and money making is actually just triggered and is set off. you know, and just keeps on spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning and and victimizing, I would say, but honestly, like, these are also badass people who I think it takes a lot more to bring them down. But yeah, victimizing usually women of color and black women specifically. Absolutely. My favorite tweet that I saw about the Lizzo flute situation was when everybody was like, oh, she played that flute, Lizzo should dig up the bones of Jefferson and play his ribs like a xylophone on stage.

I love that. I was like, yes, she sure should. So you're exactly right. And I've seen the exact same thing. Disinformation researcher and the author of the great new book, Black Skinheads, and a person who is a lot smarter than me on these issues, Brandy Dexter Collins. She explained it very well in an interview with Janet Burns.

She says, social media as a sphere, because of its theatrical nature, is where we will see the most profound attacks. And on Twitter, some of the most vicious attacks that are being directed at black women, black leaders, and black activists. It ends up getting laughed about on the now-defunct O'Reilly Factor and other shows. There's this freedom to attack and repeated validation

of it, and everywhere we go, we see corporate or government gatekeepers who decline to intervene. So I completely agree with her point. We have a media landscape where attacking women of color and black women isn't just okay. It's incentivized. And I think this is key. When platforms allow racist, sexist attacks on black women and women of color and do nothing, it normalizes this behavior and it doesn't just say that it's okay, but it says like, this is just the cost of being a visible black woman online. Right. And even if it starts on platform, like Twitter, I think it creates the conditions that normalize the same kind of abuse to happen more broadly out into the world and also create a pathway for escalation. Like, if people don't do anything when you harass a black woman or a woman of color online, you know, bad actors will watch that response and be like, okay, well, I will reasonably conclude that I could take that behavior offline too.

And that's kind of really sad because, you know, when we're talking about women and black women and women of color who don't always get the support that we should, people. are not totally incorrect in assuming that they can harass these women and escalate that harassment from the internet to the real world and that people aren't going to do anything because they're kind of right in a lot of instances, not a lot is done. Yeah, I mean, it's seen as like I think black women specifically because of white supremacy and the ways that like your identities are immediately political. politicized, not by you, but by white supremacy and the function of it and how it works. And so it's like, like I'm saying, folks mining their own business, women just doing themselves, is suddenly seen as like, how dare you attack me? And you're like, what are you talking about? No one's attacking you. But it's, and again, this is like some folks can go through the world and their identities are not automatically politicized. They are not automatically seen as like,

oh, it's like, I can't remember her name, but there was this Asian, American reporter who got a phone call after she, like, talked about, you know, what she eats at Thanksgiving, right? And I think she's Korean. And she was like, someone called her and was like, your reporter was very Asian. You know, like, I was offended by how Asian your reporter was just because they mentioned that they don't eat turkey on Thanksgiving. I remember that. It was just the existence of her specific cultural thing. Yeah. The mere existence, your mere, I am victimized by your mere existence.

Like, God, white fragility is so, so brittle. I mean, that's exactly what it is. That was Michelle Lee, I believe. Yeah. Yes. Now selling very Asian merch and I love it. But so, yeah, and of course,

anything that makes folks money is going to, that's why, I mean, I know that your whole show just is going to end in. We need to nationalize. and break up big tech. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think it's a whole, yeah, yes, yes.

But, you know, when you're talking about sort of this idea of women and people of color and black folks just sort of being inherently politicized, this is something that I really want to pull out because I talk a lot about things like misinformation, disinformation, malinformation, all of that. It's like my day job is like researching that. And I think that what often gets lost are the ways that these. these kinds of things are so often identity-based, right? And so ideas about, you know, someone who is Chinese-American being foreign or, you know, not, you know, doesn't belong here, or ideas about, you know, black women being angry or incompetent. I think that we so often see identity-based, inaccurate information. And it's so much harder to pull out and talk about, as opposed to disinformation and misinformation around things like COVID or vaccines where it's like, yeah,

most reasonable people are like, like, there's a baseline understanding of, you know, oh, this is inaccurate information. But when it comes to identity, I think it's a little bit harder to actually pull out and identify and talk about because I don't know, talking about race and culture and identity can be so fraught and difficult for our society, I guess. Yeah, and you don't want to be overly reductive in when you combat this, when you combat hate as well. It's the same thing I think, and we don't have to get into it all, but around our conversations about Kanye's anti-Semitism and how to, like, properly and how to adequately combat it in order to shut it down, but how much do you engage? And that, it's sticky. Because again, I think it's super

reductive to be like, all black people are this, all Jews are that, all Chinese Americans, like, this, like, it, you how do we push back against stereotypes while also understanding the, like, the, um, heterogene, what's the word? word? Like just how not homogeneous, heterogeneous. God damn. I don't have words anymore. I'm just going to ASMR every time I don't know my book. Yeah, just how much difference there is in all of these communities.

Exactly. And I think it's one of the reasons why talking about it is so difficult. Because it's like how do you make room for the fact that no group is a monolith? You know, we, there are nuances and like, like, we're a gradient. Like, there's nuances in our communities, but we still need to, I believe it's still like very important to have a clear united front against things like anti-Semitism. And I mean, this is like a tangent, but like with Kanye West, it troubles me that he can't see that like when someone is being, and this is my opinion, when someone is being anti-Semitic or, you know, anti-Asian, whatever, it is a hop skipping away from anti-blackness that shit

is all linked and that train is never late. And so, like, if you as a black person are engaging explicitly in anti-Semitism, do you not realize that you're creating the conditions for that shit to come back around on us? And, like, all of our oppression is linked. I believe firmly that our liberation is linked. And you just got, like, when I see him doing that, I'm like, can you not see the way that you are setting yourself up to later be knocked down? People are going to be like, oh, we love that he's being anti-Semitic.

Good, good, good. And, you know, that's just giving folks more fodder to slip in anti-Semitism. blackness. So like what the fuck are you doing? Yes. Oh my God. Go off. And like final, just like last thing on this, they're super linked. The whole Soros myth, right? Soros is a billionaire

who is, fill in the blank, helping BLM defund the police. Creating thugs out of inner city black children. Like literally it's always linked. It's Jews run stuff and the running stuff inherently

means they're flooding our country with immigrants and they basically help black people vote and or like flooding our like voters electoral system with like black votes like straight up that they they're the orchestrators of the people of color so it's like so layered yeah but it's again it i feel like we have this particularly on social media we have this climate that loves to flatten things out and strip things of nuance and context. And I don't think that we have, I don't think that our platforms have the range to allow for discussing things in the way they actually need to be discussed, right? Like, social media platforms are incentivized to amplify the most incidiary, inflammatory, nuance lacking, BS extremist stuff. And so I don't think

our platforms, our largest communication platforms are really equipped for the level of like, conversation that we need to be having right now in 2020. Not at all. It is like say something reductive, say it unapologetically, and take out any kind of's maybe could be leading to, perhaps, you know, and just end it with the period and you're done. And then you'll get a million retweets. And that's, yeah, that's what wins. People make money off of that. People get deals. I don't care which side of the spectrum you're on. Just no room for nuanced. Forgive no one.

Take no prisoners. Cancel everybody and or troll everybody. And you will win at social media. It's so funny that you put it this way. I'm like going off the rails here. I'm sorry. I know we have to talk about women in elections, female candidates. Correct.

But I just to say one thing like this is like one of the reasons why I find myself showing up less and less on social media platforms. because I think that you're exactly right. It's not even definitely extremists, right-wing extremists are like the worst or like the biggest bad actors. But certainly they are not the only ones doing it. And I think even when it's not something that is like politically charged, like, I don't know if you saw that woman who was tweeting about like, oh, I sure love sitting in my garden and everybody was like, boo, we hate you, you stupid bitch. Like we are incentivized to be our worst selves and our worst selves are what these algorithms amplify. And that has been determined by study after study. Like, it's not your imagination.

When you bring hatefulness, extremism, you know, to platforms, platforms boost that. When you show up with nuance or thoughtfulness, they do not. Or even just positivity. Like, hey, I really love my garden. Nah, fuck your garden. Oh, my God. How much do you water it?

How much water are you wasting in that beautiful garden of yours? You know? that's, it's always, you cannot be positive on social. It's insufferable. And if you are positive on like, you know, do you take a cute selfie on Instagram? Haters be unfollowing you. Let me just be real. When you post something you look cute, unfollowed.

Yeah. It's funny because like I, I think we're all just like really miserable. Oh, there you go. You're going up with a lot of misery on platforms. Exactly, exactly. And I've actually even heard people be like, yeah, don't bring your joy to social media. People will just find the way to shit on it. Agreed. Take that somewhere else.

Like your family. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel. help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes.

Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 give you. 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. Jacob Kingston grew up in an isolated polygamous sect. We were God's chosen kingdom on earth. He felt destined for greatness. So when a swaggering Armenian businessman catapults Jacob into an extraordinary world, he doesn't look back. Ferraris and Lamborghinis, private jets, meeting the president of Turkey. I'm Michelle McPhee, and this is one of the most shocking criminal conspiracies I've ever come across.

When Jacob met Levant this went to a billion dollar fraud. But with two kings from entirely different worlds, just how long can their empire survive? The largest tax investigation in American history. You need to tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? Jacob told Levan, you're ruining my life. Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So let's talk about a little bit about what we've been seeing in terms of attacks on women of color and black women when it comes to elections and holding elected office.

So I want to get into a little bit of research first. I'll breeze through this, but there's actually quite a big body of work as of late. around some of what we'll be talking about today. So Amnesty International did a study that looked at abusive messages hurled at a multiracial group of members of parliament. And they found that black, Asian, and minority ethnic women, members of parliament are impacted far more than their white colleagues. The 20 black Asian and minority ethnic members of parliament that they looked at received almost half of the abusive tweets, despite being almost eight times as many white members of parliament in the study. They also examined abusive tweets targeted at women journalists and politicians in both the United States and the United Kingdom and found that black women were 84% more likely than white women to be mentioned in abusive tweets.

Over in the United States, a report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue found that women of color candidates are targeted by the right on social media at alarming rates. Abusive messages counted for more than 15% of those directed at every female lawmaker analyzed compared to around 5% to 10% of male candidates, women of color, are particularly likely to be targeted. Rep. Ilhan Omar received the highest proportion, 39% of abusive messages of all candidates, and AOC received the highest ratio of abusive comments on Facebook. And this is like a specific thing to women.

When they looked at male elected officials who are people of color, so like Cory Booker or Tim Scott, who are both black, they received similar levels of abuse to their white male candidates. However, the attacks against them were more likely to be about race.

When you look at the way that men are tariff for, you know, problematic or, you know, negative tweets and negative content, those tweets are much more likely to focus on policy, right? So, like, I don't like your position on this. I don't like your position on that. When it comes to women, it's much more likely to be about their appearance or their general incompetence. Female Democrats receive 10 times more abusive comments than their male counterparts

on Facebook, and Republican women got more than twice as many abusive comments in Republican men. And then lastly, the Center for Democracy and, technology looked at the 2020 congressional candidates in the U.S. and found that women of color candidates were the most likely to be targeted with post that combined mis and disinformation and abuse. Women of color were at least five times more likely than other candidates to be targeted with tweets related to their identity and focus specifically on their gender and their race. I have to ask you, does any of this surprise you? No, not at all. Not in the slightest.

And this is why I always say I think it's important to harass Republican men based on their looks. I just, I don't know, I can't solve any of this. I can't solve sexism, patriarchy, white supremacy overnight. But I can troll Matt Gates for his five head or troll Mitch McConnell for looking like an uncircumcised chode, you know. Like, that's what I think we need to do more of. And that's how I want to level the playing. feel. Fran is doing her part.

I completely agree. The proudest moment I had in the last couple months was that video of Ted Cruz at a Yankees game and then the crowd just screaming at him, remember when Trump called your wife ugly? Fuck you. I was like, oh, that's the America that I'm proud of. Yeah. And she is, no.

But I think, you know, like, yeah, Ted Cruz, I mean, this is, I used to get in trouble for when I had like a news comedy show on AJ Plus, they were like, you. you should criticize Ted Cruz more on his look. I mean, sorry, more on his substance. And it's like, yeah, but he does look like he's holding a bunch of like little hatchlings of, like, baby salamanders in his mouth at all times. You know what I mean? He's just, he looks like, you know, and he himself looks like a bat.

Like, he's just, I need to be able to say that in the same breath that I'm like, yes, and he also demonizes immigrants and wants to, you know, privatize Medicare, all those kinds of things. Two things can be true at once. but I always catch myself because of course I like to make fun of Marjorie Taylor Green, you know, but am I equally applying that critique to these other hateful bastards as well? I mean, it's a great question. I feel like if the research is anything to be looked at, like most people are when they see a woman,

it's like you're an ugly skank, blah, blah, blah. And when you see a man, it's like, it's, I would like to see a world where, I mean, I don't know that we're ever going to get to a place where women are not insulted for their looks and things they can't control. Why can't Ted Cruz take one for his looks, you know? More than one, preferably. And then I think there's always, like, Republican generally writ large, if a woman is, like, made fun of, like Sarah Hockaby Sanders at the White House Press Correspondence Dinner by Michelle Wolf, suddenly they're like, Oh, my God. But AOC is a Latino with a big ass, and we all know that she's having anchor babies.

You know, like, whatever. In the same breath, they'll be like, how dare you make fun of Sarah Alchemy Sanders' eyeshadow? She's just a woman. But they do not apply that at all, obviously the other side. I mean, come on. And this is why, like, AOC, when she openly speaks about how she gets these death threats, they're very sexual in nature and also, like, really charged with that, that, that disgusting. like amalgamation of both being attracted to and then also hating hatefulness towards her.

Then Tucker Carlson will straight up dedicate a half an hour segment to be like, oh, you think people want to fuck you? I mean, we do want to fuck you, but we don't, but we do. But whatever, you're gross and you, girls are gross. Like he, it's, and you're like, you're proving our point, homie. Are you suggesting that these people are disingenuous? Yeah. Yeah.

Tucker Carlson, I mean, I could do a whole episode on the way that he coordinates these attacks on women. And then when the women are like, actually, like, when they just are honest about them, he's like, oh, like, it's exactly what you said. And it's so clear that everyone knows what's going on. But the only reason that he's able to get away with minimizing what we can all see as these like super weird sexually charged attacks is because he's not, we're not talking honestly about them as a society. Like the women who are targeted aren't really able to speak about them openly and when they do their attack. And so it allows for this vibe where like it's happening. We all see it happening. We're not talking about it happening.

People like Tucker Carlson can be actively engaged in it happening and like do make it happen. And then go on TV and be like, what are you talking about? Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, Santa Claus doesn't exist. But like make sure to put the cookies out every single. Christmas. Like it's just like you're straight up talk, you're making, you're willing it into existence. And AOC to her credit and Ilhan Omar to a lesser extent, I think obviously being a Muslim American

woman like she is targeted because of that as well wearing hijab. But AOC is actually able to talk about it and be like, yo, it is sexual in nature and that doesn't mean that I'm thirsty for that attention at all. And then Republicans are like, oh, you are you are thirsty for that attention. She's like, no. And I think that's, because we are definitely taught to, like, when there is a tinge of, like, and especially if someone is attractive, I obviously is attractive. You know, we're taught to, like, not, or is women online, like, mm, don't discuss or bring up the fact that someone is targeting you in a sexual manner because it'll almost feel like you're bringing it on yourself because you're like, do you know what I mean? Oh, my God, I know what you mean. type of way.

I know exactly what you mean where it's this weird trap of like, if you even acknowledge the fact that it's happening, the idea, the impression is that you're playing into it or that maybe you want it or it's a two-way street or like you're enticing it in some way. And so it's one of the reasons why talking about harassment, especially when it's kind of sexually charged or sexually tinged, is so difficult because nobody wants this insinuation that you're getting off on it or inviting it or why. wanting it. But I think, I mean, it's hard to talk about, but I think it's especially true when you're talking about, like, young, conventionally attractive women. I think that, like, men just don't know what to do. It's like they get, like, they hate them, but they're aroused. It's like, I think something happens where they don't know how to handle it. It comes out as this, like, incredibly weird, sexually tinged harassment. And if she even acknowledges the reality of it, then it's like, oh, well, she must want it. She likes it. She likes it.

the attention. And I think it really goes back to this idea that I want to combat in this episode that like women who run for public office or women who choose to be visible. So even if you're not running for public office, if you are an activist or if you are a pundit or you're somebody who, you know, builds a platform on Twitter, because you are building up this profile, like I feel like that comes along with a kind of suspicion that you are a woman who wants power, you're a woman who wants visibility, you're a woman who wants eyes on her. Therefore, You deserve whatever you get. It comes with the territory of showing up in that way.

And if you didn't really want that kind of sexualized, charred, harassment, and attention, you would be in the shadows. You would not be a public figure. You would not be running for office. You would be completely offline. And no one applies that to men, although we all know, Ted Cruz very much gets off on being trolled. So he actually is a rabble. and is inviting it and wants you to dunk on him,

it gets him things that I don't want to imagine. So everyone just know that every time you're going to tweet back at Ted Cruz or make fun of him that it only makes him stronger. You know where. So yeah, yes, it is, yeah. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends,

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You need to tell me what you know. Is somebody coming after me? Jacob told Levan, you're ruining my life. Listen to Kingdom of Fraud on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So one of the important things to remember is that the point of all of this, all of these, like, racist, sexist attacks on women and women of color in the public, a guy, particularly for who are running for office or holding an elected office, it's meant to take all of the oxygen out of the room and have the thing that takes up the most base be the

racism or the sexism or the sexualization or whatever. And a great example is Kamala Harris. Now, I should say, I am no big fan of Harris. When she was running for president, I had major issues with her record, you know, but when she was named as Biden's vice presidential pick, she faced a wave of like racist, misogynistic, sexually charged attacks, including these like explicit and implicit suggestions that she is untrustworthy to emotional or unqualified. According to the New York Times, false and misleading information about Harris spiked online and on TV as soon as she was named as the vice presidential pick. The activity jumped from two dozen mentions per hour during the recent week to over 3,200 per hour when she was named. This is according to a company called Zignal. And so there's something very specific about the attacks on her.

I'm going to put a link in the chat to an image. Oh, actually, Sophie's got it. Oh, God. Super producer. So what, tell me what your reaction to this image here. It's pretty upsetting. My first reaction is those, the legs, those are white women legs. Oh, it's a very sloppy photo.

I should probably describe it. It's a very sloppy Photoshop job of Harris on her back with a pair of obviously like white women's legs in heels up. It says get her done. Kamala heals up Harris for the people. She's got a little speech bubble where she is saying to be VP, sure I will. And so the insinuation is that she is having sex with someone in order to become the vice presidential pick. Yeah, it's a terrible Photoshop job. It's clearly the legs of a white woman.

It's like not, she doesn't even wear shoes like that. But yeah, I mean. But I think more than that, I mean, obviously, those shoes look really painful, number one, to walk in. Yeah. But more than that, it is very jarring to see someone a public figure who is deserving of a minimal amount of respect to be portrayed in this way so disgustingly. And it's the same when, like, you know, I was no big fan of Hillary Clinton, but watching, seeing all those shirts that are, like, you know, Hillary swallows. Like, that straight, it was a shirt. People were selling. Like, what the fuck? You know, like Hillary, why are you selling this? Like, I understand, like,

go back to lock her up. And this is, it's that same thing. Like, no matter how far you get, we can always photo, like, we're always imagining you, like, fucking your way to the top. Like, you're only reduced to the fact that you are a woman. Exactly. Criticize her record. This is, like, so juvenile and disgusting. Right. And so like, I mean, it's one of those things. So this is a common trope with Harris. Like, if you Google the phrase heals up Harris,

this was like a common attack on her is that this idea that she slept, quote, slept her way to the top. And it's a bit like the attacks on Ghostbusters that we talked about last episode where the whole conversation gets flattened out and becomes people taking sides and nobody is just like talking about the merit of the movie. Right. And so when it comes to Harris, you know, people are lobbying these incredibly, incredibly, like, sexualized attacks on her because she is a woman of color. And then people watching, they, I kind of understandably feel like they have to support her.

And so Harris has an incredibly, like, robust online network of supporters who will, like, fervently push back against any and all criticisms of her online. And so the ability to just have an honest, accurate conversation about her record, her merit, her actual actions gets totally lost in the noise intention. And that is, I think, precisely the point. Nobody can talk about her actual record, whether or not she's fit for office, whatever. When you introduce these kinds of, like, sexist, racist, gross attacks. And so I would say, like, even if you're somebody who, you know,

doesn't like Harris, doesn't think that she is, you know, shouldn't think she made a good president, doesn't think she makes a good vice presidential candidate, I feel like you should be invested in making sure the conversation does not rely and traffic in these sexist smears and tropes because you should want to be having space to talk about her actual record. But when these are introduced into the conversation, we don't really get that. I mean, look at how effectively it worked in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, as I was mentioning before. I mean, it is, again, absent of like, put the record aside, we have seen the way women in public spaces have. been completely torn down. And this is why, I mean, I will say we can't have nice things. And by nice things, I mean, a first female president, a, you know, vice president of color, like, I mean,

which we do have, but like, by, you know, it's a thin, we're, we're, we're treading very lightly here. And if Kamala Harris does run for president one day, again, this will only get worse and worse and worse and folks on all side of the political spectrum and i'm a huge burney bro like i i do not like hillary clinton or comill harris for that matter but my god i understand how these things are weaponized against them to tear them down and what's fucked is that it is conflated with their record rather than separated it is automatically conflated so that people who whose politics i disagree with you know maybe someone from the k hive who's like you know i think we need to more cops like Kamala Harris, you know, like that that I will get accused of racism or sexism

when I'm bringing up a substantive point. And that is the way that I think identity politics can be weaponized in a cynical way by liberals, you know? Yeah, I find myself, it's, I find myself having to defend women, particularly women of color, whose politics I don't align with time and time again where I'm like, oh, can we just talk about, like, they're so, well, some of these people, there's so much to dislike. There's so much to pull apart. We really don't have to talk about the way she looks. We really don't have to rely on, like, sexist tropes about any of this. Like, there's, for a lot of these people, there's so much substance there to talk about. Why are you cheapening the conversation by introducing this stuff? And we, it's like, if you, if you're someone who doesn't like these figures, you should be investing in having a real conversation about their actual records so that, like, we can actually air it out. When you introduce these kinds of like this garbage, people aren't doing that because that is like the point of these attacks. They just take up so much room and then you're defending it. And then people are defending them.

And like you lose the thread of like, well, what do we act? Like what is this person's actual record? What is their actual merit? Completely. So I obviously had a ton to say about this topic. So much that we actually needed to do an additional episode. So this is just part one of Francesca, Sophie, and my exploration into the way. that online abuse and harassment can keep women out of elected office,

create barriers to their success once they get there, and overall curtail speech and civic participation. We'll be talking more in-depth about specific women-of-color political candidates and the campaigns of harassment that they had to endure once they got into public office. In the meantime, here's Baltimore state's attorney Marilyn Mosby talking about her experience as a black woman elected official. You know, it can be overwhelming.

And I think my kids more recently, I would say in the past year or so, see me under stress. And so for the first time, my baby said, mommy, I don't want to be a politician anymore. And I'm like, why? Why don't you want to be a politician? Like, what now? She's like, I don't want them to treat me the way he treats you. So that brought a tear to my eye. But other than that, I'm like, baby, they will only treat you like that when you stand for what's right. And that's what comes with trying to change systems. And mommy's going to be fine, but this comes with the territory. You have to have courage enough to know that you're doing the right thing.

As long as you're doing the right thing, people are always going to come for you. Not only are these stories heartbreaking, but they also demonstrate how online harassment and abuse keeps us from having the healthy democracy that we deserve. There is so much to say about this. So please, please, please tune in to part two of our exploration of black women political candidates, online harassment and abuse, and why it's a problem for all of us. Internet hate machine is a production of Cool Zone Media. When more podcasts from Coolzone Media, check out our website,

coolzonemedia.com, or find us on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smigel 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?

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