There Are No Girls on the Internet - Rudy Giuliani ordered to pay $150 million; Verizon gives woman’s phone records to stalker; Discord bans misgendering; Twitter ads get gross; Women in AI are sick of sexist questions; Is ChatGPT on winter break? – NEWS ROUNDUP

Episode Date: December 16, 2023

It’s a Friday news roundup! If you’re new here and looking for a deeper dive into a single topic, check out the episode on Alex Jones from Dec 12, or the (forthcoming) episode on Tuesday Dec 19 about the wild story of an author who created fake Goodreads accounts to review-bomb a bunch of other authors. It’s part scam, part Greek tragedy, and you’ll definitely want to hear it.  Want to skip the banter and get right to the news? Head to around the 6 minute mark GLAAD’s report on transphobia online: All Social Media Platform Policies Should Recognize Targeted Misgendering and Deadnaming as Hate Speech: https://glaad.org/social-media-platform-policies-targeted-misgendering-deadnaming-hate-speech/ Part one of Bridget discussing Georgia election workers Shaye and Ruby Freeman on Internet Hate Machine: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/part-one-why-trump-targeted-two-black-election-workers/id1648497305?i=1000590820764  Part two of Bridget discussing Shaye and Ruby Freeman: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/part-two-why-trump-targeted-two-black-election-workers/id1648497305?i=1000592261007  Congress Pulls Bill That Would Massively Expand Surveillance After 'Dramatic Showdown': https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3wkdg/fisa-surveillance-bill-congress-pulled Speaker Johnson adds short term FISA extension to National Defense Bill: https://prospect.org/civil-rights/2023-12-12-mike-johnson-ndaa-surveillance-reform/  Twitter Is Just Running Ads for Stealing Semen Now: https://www.404media.co/twitter-x-ads-stealing-semen-make-a-mom/ Hugging Face’s Rules of [Press] Engagement for writing about women in tech: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rules-press-engagement-emily-witko--ohlzf/  Discord bands misgendering: https://www.them.us/story/discord-explicitly-bans-misgendering-and-deadnaming-on-its-platform  Chat GPT might be on winter break (and so are we). As ChatGPT gets “lazy,” people test “winter break hypothesis” as the cause: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/12/is-chatgpt-becoming-lazier-because-its-december-people-run-tests-to-find-out/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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There are no girls on the internet as a production of IHeart Radio. and unbossed creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is there are no girls on the internet. Okay, Mike, I want to start out our banter by asking you what I hope will become kind of a new episode series, low-level internet complaints. So what is something that has been grinding your gears? Nothing big. It's not trying to have this be a fleshed-out thing because I have these little complaints

and I'm like, well, actually, did you know it's connected to this larger problem that we should actually really talk about? So something kind of petty, can you give me a low-level? level petty internet gripe that's been grinding your gears online or in tech or in culture lately. Yeah, you know I can give you a petty little grape. The thing that's been just grinding my gears lately is how every time you open an app or a website or an application on your desktop computer, there's a hundred little pop-ups that are pointing out new features or directing my attention to some tool to use or giving me a helpful. little tip. And often the tips are like useful, I guess, but I don't want to hear about new features.

I just want to do the thing that I came here to do. Adobe Acrobat is a pretty bad offender in this category. Every time I open it, there's some little pop-up telling me about something that I don't care about. I just want to look at my PDF. So it's gotten out of hand and somebody's got to do something about this. It's like 2023's version of Clippy. Remember Clippy? Remember Clippy? I remember Clippy. Yeah. You know, I kind of miss that little guy. Yeah, I think that in 2023, the internet experience has gotten so janky. Like, there are websites where you basically can't use them because of the amount of pop-ups and things that load and then like an autoplay video for an ad.

Like, I am ashamed to admit how much bad celebrity tabloid reporting I read on like really sketchy sites that I have no business on, you know, your daily mails of the world. And you have to be so intentional and careful where you hover your mouth because if you accidentally click off the article in any way, you can be looking at a pop-up like auto-playing a video that breaks the entire thing. I can't tell you how many times I've pulled up an article on my phone. So many things start to load and break that. And I'm just like, oh, I guess I'll never know. I'd nope right out of that so quick. Yeah. I've been there where you're like just trying to scroll to read an article and all of a sudden as your finger,

is approaching the screen. A video appears out of nowhere, and now you've clicked the video, and you're going to God knows where in your browser. Yeah. My petty internet complaint is, well, the first one is not an internet complaint. It's that I went to, we went to a Christmas party last night, a work Christmas party, and I'm a little bit hungover. So folks listening, if I don't sound like I have the usual pep in my step, that might be

why. Yeah, we're going to do our best, though. I think we'll get there. I think we'll get there. Well, my other internet, actual internet small time complaint is why does everything have to be an app these days? Like, not everything needs to be an app. I was at McDonald's pretty recently during a car trip. And I was thinking to myself, like, wow, these prices have really gone up. I was curious later when I got to my destination, so I did a bit of Googling. And I found this Reddit thread about how the prices at McDonald's maybe seem like they have gotten higher, but that if you use their app you could actually get really good deals with all these tips and tricks on how to combine purchases so that you could really save money. And I was thinking, why do I have to, you know,

I understand that McDonald's wants to incentivize people to download their app, but shouldn't the prices just be the prices? Like, why do I have to engage with an app just to get whatever price on my whatever I'm buying at McDonald's? I, you know, I do a lot of traveling. And sometimes when I travel, I'll use wherever I'm at, like their, their version of the bike share program, like DC has capital bike share. I probably have four different apps on my phone from countries that not only do I not live in, I'll probably not be visiting again anytime soon for their specific bike share program. It just really adds up.

Not everything needs to be an app people. Yeah. Well, and especially, you know, the idea that you have to use the app to get decent prices, it's like the 2023 version of coupon clipping, right? Like stores like Bed Bath and Beyond where the prices are really high, but you can get crazy deals with coupons. It's just like that. And I don't want to do that.

I don't want to clip coupons. Yeah, I actually read this really interesting article about this woman. I think some place in the UK, an older woman in her 70s who tried to park and she had to pay to park using like a machine. But the machine was broken. And so she was like, well, I'm not going to pay. Like, this machine's broken. And she got a ticket because the parking authority was like, oh, well, you should have

downloaded our app and paid in the app. And she was like, I don't know how to download. download an app. I'm in my 70s. I'm not going to download your app. I think she called it like, I will not cowtow to these bully tactics. And I'm 100% on her team. Like you should not, if a city service requires you to engage with an app, even if you don't want to, that is not an accessible city service. Not everything needs to be an app. I hope this woman never pays that fine. She is a hero in my eyes. Yeah, we should, we should look into that, do a follow up, because I'm with you. This woman is a hero.

She's standing firm, standing up for her principles. Does not want to download this app. Okay, so speaking of heroes, we get to break a little bit of news in this episode. We've been covering the defamation case that Georgia election workers turned American heroes, Shea Moss and Ruby Freeman, filed against Rudy Giuliani, after he baselessly and repeatedly accused them of tampering with the results of the Georgia election in 2020. These lies absolutely tore their lives upside down. They had to flee for their own safety because an angry mob descended on their home to try to make a citizen's arrest.

Well, the verdict is in, and Giuliani has been ordered to pay the women almost $150 million in damages. What's even wilder about this is that during the court proceedings, Giuliani's lawyers conceded that there was no proof to the lies that he spread about the women, who were just trying to do their jobs. But then Rudy Giuliani went outside the courthouse and told the media that he stood. by those lies that the two women tampered with votes during the election. Even as in court, he and his attorneys conceded that wasn't true. Listen. The whole story, and it will be definitively clear that what I said was true, and that whatever happened to them, which is unfortunate if other people overreacting, but

everything I said about them is true. Do you regret what you did to show? Of course I don't regret it. I told the truth. They were engaged in changing votes. There's no proof of that. Well, you're doing right there is. Stay tuned.

Like the man just cannot help himself. So if you want more information about what happened in this case, we'll put the link to some of our earlier episodes about Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss in the show notes. These women are heroes. They were put through hell just for doing their jobs of trying to help folks in their community vote. They risked facing even more attacks.

by bravely testifying about what they experienced at the hands of Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani. And while I am very glad that they got money for what they went through, God knows they deserve it. Nothing can make it right and it should not have happened in the first place. We should have a country that values the women. And let's be clear, most of them are women statistically who do the work at polling places and vote counting centers that make democracy function. And when those folks face attacks, it threatens democracy for all of them. of us. Protecting democracy ought to be a value that we stick to. Speaking of sticking to their values, as we know, Twitter has told their advertisers to go F themselves as a value. Let's find out

how that's working for them. But of a warning here, because this is going to get a little bit gross. I believe that it looks like Twitter has been really scraping the bottom of the barrel for advertisers these days. And this has got to be a new low because I saw this ad for some kind of a like semen stealing company. I know. that sounds weird, but it's like a home insemination kit, basically advertising that you can collect semen and make yourself pregnant without the man's consent. So not only is that like just physically gross and like sticky and yucky, but also it is ethically gross. The kit appears to be an actual real product, but it's not clear to me if this is like an ad campaign that

is real or just designed to get people talking about it to get viral attention. I mean, we're talking about it. Some people have suggested that the ads are promoting illegal behavior, but it actually turns out that there are not laws against stealing semen, which I was surprised to find. I was like, oh, certainly this is Twitter making money by promoting illegal activity. Not so. But just because it's not illegal does not mean that it is ethical behavior, even though it's not like technically against the law. I know this sounds kind of outlandish, but listeners might remember a rumor, and I want to emphasize rumor about a certain Canadian rapper, from a few years ago that he would allegedly put hot sauce in all of his used condoms after

sexual encounters to prevent people that he was sleeping with from doing exactly what this ad suggests, i.e. stealing his sperm to try to get themselves pregnant. I have no idea if this is true or not. I will say that like it does sound like an incredible amount of effort to go through to prevent someone from rooting through the garbage and then stealing your semen to impregnate themselves? Yeah, pretty hard to imagine doing that, but the internet couldn't have just made that up. You think people would just get on the internet and lie about Drake like that? Never. No way. Okay, so back to Twitter. I do think this is just another example of how bad things have gotten on the platform. Bad in terms of user experience, like earlier this week, all non-Twitter links were

broken. So if you clicked on any link that wasn't a Twitter link, it was like, sorry, 404 page doesn't work, but also bad in terms of user experience because who wants to see ads like this in their feed? It also has to be bad in terms of advertising revenue, which we know has been declining ever since Elon Musk took over. And I just think, presumably it must have gotten worse since his whole telling advertisers to go at themselves moment a couple of weeks ago. You know, ads on Twitter, like nobody likes looking at ads, but they used to be ads for things that you had heard of, like real products that you're like, oh, sure, this product, that product, that brand. But, Lately, I think they have really gone off the wall.

I saw another set of ads on Twitter for one of those really gross Nudify apps that promises to let users use AI to undress anyone without their permission. I actually find myself, like, blocking certain obnoxious ads that just, like, keep popping up. I feel like they're, like, at least when they were from real companies, they weren't so weird and over the top. So I could be wrong, but I imagine this company behind the, you know, artificially, surreptitiously, inseminate yourself at home kit is probably not a particularly large company. So the fact that their ads are all over Twitter really suggests to me that they got a great deal on these ads, which makes sense because Twitter's big advertisers are still fleeing the platform. So they probably have a ton of unsold ad inventory and they're just like

giving great deals to whatever sketchy, borderline illegal or like, you know, maybe unethical products want that space. Like right now, I've been getting so many ads on Twitter for clearly knockoff luxury handbags, which really takes me back to that conversation we had about TikTok, about how TikTok had to crack down on that, right? Like, if somebody is trying to sell you a Louis Vuitton handbag that they say is legit, for like $40, it's probably a signal that like something weird, if not illegal, is going on. But I say all of this to say that if you are listening and you have a product that you would like to sell,

and the brand alignment for that product is like Alex Jones, denying that Sandy Hook ever happened and calling murdered children crisis actors and ads for stealing semen, Twitter might be the place for you. Man, that is not a product I probably want. Okay, so pallet cleanser needed for that story. I have a little bit of good news for y'all. Y'all know that I believe deeply in celebrating wins when we get them, and this is actually some great news.

Discord has explicitly banned misgendering and dead naming trans people as part of a an update to its hateful conduct policy. So Discord is a social media messaging platform that is really popular with gamers. Discord actually updated this internal hate speech policy back in April of 2022, but only recently went public with these changes as part of their regular review to improve transparency. So the updated hate speech policy now prohibits, quote, repeatedly using slurs to degrade and demean individuals or groups, which includes dead naming or misgendering a transgender person. Glad outlined this change in a report will link to the whole thing. Honestly, the whole thing is worth a read. It was very interesting. But something that they point out in this report is that transphobia,

specifically things like misgendering and dead naming, has become a really reliable way for right-wing grifters to build out their platforms online, which, you know, I always knew innately, but I never really thought about it that much or really thought about how much I have like seen that in action until reading this report. The report reads, the trope is extremely popular amongst high follower anti-LGBQ accounts and is especially utilized to bully, mock, and harass prominent trans public figures, Admiral Rachel Levine, Dylan Mulvaney, 16-year-old Zaya Wade, to name a few. This strategy of targeting well-known people serves to escalate visibility and engagement on posts, while it also functions as a vehicle to express general hatred of trans and non-binary people

and the community as a whole. They also make this other really interesting point, which I never really thought about in these terms before. And that is the way that dead. nameing and misgendering famous people, especially as a way to get clicks and engagements through celebrity name dropping is this like tried and true engagement tactic. Which again, I just like never really thought about that before because, you know, you're Ben Shapiro's and your Jordan Peterson's of the world. Like these are people who certainly don't want to think of themselves as like making celebrity content, right?

Like they would probably object to that, to that characterization of themselves. However, you do get attention and traction and engagement when you mention a celebrity because people like reading about celebrities. And so they're basically using celebrity, like using demeaning trans celebrities as a way to capitalize on the attention that comes with talking about celebrity. But in a way that kind of lets them be like, well, because these people are like genuinely obsessed with celebrities. Like, I, it's like a weird kind of anti-fandom where, where essentially, you know, the same thing that drives a young person to make an obsessive Tumblr account dedicated to Taylor Swift and Taylor Swift fandom, it's like not totally dissimilar just in the other direction. Like, these people are genuinely obsessed with celebrities and what's going on with them. What a gross way to get attention and build a platform by like targeting trans people. like give them a break.

And I really hate that it's effective. And these people clearly know it's effective. That's why they continue to do it. So to put this change that Discord has made in context right now of the six major social media platforms, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and threads. Right now, only TikTok expressly prohibits targeted misgendering and deadnaming in its hate and harassment policy. Full disclosure, that was a policy that I personally worked with Glad to help develop. Twitter actually used to be on the list of places that expressly prohibited deadnaming and misgendering. However, it was like one of the very, one of the first, if not the first policy that Elon rolled back once he took over Twitter.

So now, of course, dead naming and transphobia runs rampant. Yeah, like it's just so messed up. Dead naming has a value, right? Like, it's like positively asserting his right to dead name. It's so hateful. Yeah, I mean, I will never stop railing about this, but that as a value, as a core value, is what motivated Elon Musk to purchase Twitter in the first place. And so, you know, transphobia and hostility to trans peoples continues to really shape the way the internet works for everybody.

So importantly, the announcement of these changes over at Discord also went along with some transparency around how it will be enforced, which is so important because a policy change without actual enforcement mechanisms is like just a wish. It doesn't really do anything. So critics of these kinds of policies usually make it seem like, like, oh, just getting someone's name wrong once means you're going to be banned. And that just like isn't really the case. And it's not the case at Discord either. So Discord outlined the consequences of violating this new hateful conduct policy by explaining their warning system. So when a user is reported for breaking the rules, they will get a direct message from Discord letting them know about that violation. Discord's actual

actions in response to an infraction depend on the severity of harm, the type of user content, and that user's history of past violations. Discord says that if the violation was not particularly severe, that person may lose these features for a few hours. If it was a repeated violation or a higher severity violation, they may lose some features for a few days up to one year. And yeah, I think that really making it clear how this will work is key to any policy on social media.

Like, I think there needs to be transparency. and also consistent enforcement. Because when policies don't have transparency and consistent enforcement, not only does it undermine those policies, obviously, but it also just gives credence of people who are like, oh, well, this is just like the PC police that don't let you say anything.

You really need to have that consistency and transparency for these policies, not just to have any teeth, but also to help people understand that these policies are a good thing to actually allow people to have. have discourse online and that these kinds of policies are not incongruous with, you know, fostering internet spaces to be places where people can actually meaningfully have discourse and enjoy the free speech that people, you know, love to talk about.

Yeah, yeah. Transparency is great. And it also implies that they have sufficient staff who will be monitoring, you know, reports and taking action. So, you know, unlike Twitter, where they just laid off, like, almost the entire trust and safety team. It seems like Discord is really taking it seriously, which is great to see. Yeah, and I would say, I mean, it's happening at Twitter for sure, but I do know that that is becoming a more common thing right now, you know, cuts to trust and safety teams, cuts to the teams that handle these kinds of things. And that's something I think, like, so it would be great if Discord is doing the opposite,

if they're actually fostering and, like, supporting and growing out the people who do that kind of work within the company. Yeah. Yeah. And it seems smart for them, right? Like, unlike Twitter, where advertisers are fleeing, uh, Discord has so many partnerships with, like, big celebrities, uh, gaming celebrities, uh, often reaching young people explicitly.

Uh, and, you know, I think that's been a really valuable thing for. for them. And so it makes sense that they would want to protect it. Absolutely. Let's take a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guide. Not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman,

help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an Acapella band with their between songs banter. The worst singer in the group. First? Yeah. Me. Is there anything to the idea that because you're from Harvard, you only got in because your parents made a huge donation. The yard birds, right? That's the name.

The Harvard Yard. They're open. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle-aged, one erection. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your. podcast. Hum me. I need some jokes to make me seem funny.

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Call 844-844-I-Hart to get started. That's 844-8-4-I-Hart. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano, and our podcast Point Game is about defining the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before.

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So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. So this week, Congress was supposed to vote on a bill to reauthorize part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, commonly referred to as FISA. Originally passed by Congress in 1978 to cover technologies like telephones and fax machines way back when, before they, the internet back when it was, the internet was just like a twinkle in Al Gore's eye. So FISA is the law that gives U.S. law enforcement broad sweeping authorities to basically monitor the communication of anybody who was not a U.S. citizen. But because of how broad that law is, many U.S. citizens actually end up getting caught in it and surveilled as well, oftentimes without even really knowing

it. This law has been widely criticized by civil rights groups and privacy groups. So the bill Congress was supposed to be voting on this week would have specifically reformed a part of FISA called Section 702, which allows the U.S. government to demand access to data from communications companies like internet and cell phone service providers. So it's a pretty astonishing and frightening level of surveillance because it allows law enforcement to not only see who is talking to who, but also the content of their communications. It not only allows the government to target any foreign nationals communicating from outside the country, which is already pretty intense, but also the communications of whoever they might be talking to inside the country,

including U.S. citizens. So it is bad news for anybody who values things like privacy, and there is already a pretty well-documented history of this being abused already. It is one of those rare instances where there is bipartisan consensus that this law is too broad and needs to be reformed. However, the bill Congress was planning to vote on this week would have taken things in another direction and expanded the surveillance aspect of FISA to include not only telecommunication companies, but also devices like why, routers. We'll throw a link in the show notes to a really good advice article that does a nice job going into further details for anybody who's curious.

Okay, hi, this is Friday, Bridget. We've recorded this on Thursday, and there's actually been some new updates on this. So in the two days since we originally recorded this, the situation has changed. Although the house bill that was designed to expand FISA was pulled at the last minute on Tuesday, for lack of support, on Wednesday, speaker Mike Johnson added a four-month extension of FISA into the must-pass national defense bill, which Congress then approved. This was a pretty controversial move that's gotten a lot of criticism from both Democrats and Republicans, many of whom, understandably, did not want to extend the warrantless surveillance of Americans. So it looks like, for now, FISA's Section 702 will continue to be the

law of the land until April 24. And hopefully then, Congress will finally reform this egregious violation of all of our civil liberties. So speaking of telecommunications companies and our privacy just being put in the wrong hands, this is one of the most outrageous stories I have ever read in my entire life. So quick heads up that this story does involve stalking and abuse and just like is one of the most terrific things I've ever heard. So Verizon, the cell service provider, gave a woman stalker her home address and phone records after he pretended pretty badly, to be from law enforcement. He was then arrested near her home

while carrying a knife. So Robert Michael Gwanner and his victim met this year online and they had an online romantic relationship. When this woman ended the relationship, he continued to try to contact her over and over and over again. Ars Technica reports that he basically tricked Verizon

into releasing her home address and her phone records to him by sending an email with a fake search warrant to the email address for Verizon Security Assistance Team, which handles those kinds of legal requests. Verizon did not realize that this request was fraudulent, even though it came from a proton mail email address rather than like a police department or some kind of government agency email address. So this is like a basically like the same thing as a Gmail. It's an incredibly popular and common used email domain. So the email address was Stephen 1966C at Proton's.

me. And honestly, the email also sounds, like, if that's not fishy enough, this was the email that he sent that was effective. It's super badly written and full of typo, so I'm going to read it as is. And you tell me if this would have fooled you into thinking this is actually from law enforcement. So here is the PDF file for search warrant. We are in need if this cell phone data as soon as possible to locate and apprehend this suspect. We also need the full name of this Verizon.

subscriber and the new phone number that has been assigned to her. Thank you. So that email just does not sound right to me. I don't, I truly don't know how somebody at Verizon read that and was like, oh, checks out. Yeah. We are all trained by a thousand scammers every day who like spam us in our email, spam us via text message. And like everything about that just screams fake, right? It's so curious that somebody at Verizon would respond to it. I wonder what they have to say for themselves. So the email also had a fake affidavit written by Detective Stephen Cooper of the Kerry North Carolina Police Department. So that's why the email address is like Stephen 1966 C, because everybody knows that when you work for the police, you use your first name and I guess the year you were

born in your email address. Yeah, totally. checks out. So just in case you were curious, there is no person named Stephen Cooper working at the Kerry Police Department. A quick phone call to them probably would have confirmed that if anybody working at Verizon wants a tip there. He also forged a real judge's signature on a fake search warrant. So once he got her contact information, he started contacting her parents. And this is not even the first time he has done this kind of thing. He was wanted by the San Diego Sheriff's Office on a charge of stalking an ex-girlfriend.

In that case, a police report documented that the victim had, had changed her phone number four times in the last four months, but somehow he keeps getting her number. I wonder how. Like, it sounds like this was not the first time that he's done this kind of thing. Wow. Yeah. So it gets a lot worse.

Once he had her information, he traveled from New Mexico to North Carolina and sent her a message reading, I'm just going to turn around, stop at a big five, and get me a fucking rifle and some ammunition. And if I can't have you, no one can. You want to treat me like this. Well, fuck you. So this woman was understandably terrified for her life.

She calls 911. They put officers to stick out her home. So this is from the police report. Garner stopped directly in front of her house before entering the neighbor's yard and standing in a darkened area, at which time members of the Raleigh Police Department arrested him. He was found with a folding razor blade knife on his person, two mobile phone devices. One of these phones displayed the image of the victim as the lock screen. When police searched his car, they found a glass meth pipe, eight grams of suspected methamphetamine, and two brand new bundles of rope that were still in plastic wrap. So he has been arrested. He's in jail now with a $550,000 bond.

So honestly, the fact that this kind of low effort attempt to trick Verizon was successful is just genuinely baffling to me, not to mention terrifying. It would be like making an email address that's like Stephen Police at gmail.com and then sending that email and having it work. Like I just cannot believe that it worked. Yeah, it is scary. I mean, you were just talking about FISA and all the abuse of that surveillance law. And I think a lot of it looks like this, right? Like this or maybe not. Maybe this is rare.

You hope this sort of thing is rare. but like how many other people have done this where it was never found out about, right? Like, we don't know. Yeah. And importantly, I just want to say that I think the only reason why this guy was caught, and it sounds like this is not the first time that he has done this, the only reason why this guy was caught and probably why this woman is still alive is because he messaged her to tell her what he was planning to do.

I think had he not done that, he probably would have just shown up to her house with knife and rope and God only knows what would have happened. I am so glad that she is okay. I hope she is safe now. But yeah, it's terrifying to think about. And it really makes me wonder like how often, like is, you got to think that maybe Verizon is just getting these kind of subpoenas for people's phone records.

And just like maybe it's the kind of thing that happens so often that it is routine, that they don't even think twice about this handing people's private data and information over to whoever without even being like, wait, is this sketchy? Like it makes me think that maybe this is something that is happening at such a scale that they have been trained to not even think twice about it. Yeah, right. You would hope there would be some kind of checks on it. Like, like you said, maybe they call the police department on an official listed number or, I don't know, maybe like a database that they can look up the supposed warrant in or anything. But it sounds like there is just nothing. I really hope that

Like, this is, that we hear more about this story and, like, what went wrong at Verizon? Like, were there protocols that weren't followed? Or is there truly just nothing? And anybody who knows the magic email address can just send fake emails to it and get people's personal information. That's such a good point. Like, we should be hearing from Verizon on this. This should be a big deal.

Verizon's negligence almost got a woman murdered. we should be hearing from Verizon on how it happened and what their plan is to make sure it never happens again. I use Verizon, right? Like, I'm concerned about how this happened. And it is genuinely terrifying that Verizon could basically enable a woman's almost murder without doing the basic bare minimum of keeping our information from falling in the wrong hands. Like, do better. Just we should be able to expect better. We deserve better. Do better. Yeah, I really hope we hear. more about this. It's scary. Okay, so let's talk about how to talk about women in tech. So Hugging Face is the name of a company that develops tools for building and using AI. It's kind of

been framed as like a competitor to open AI, Sam Altman's company. They have a lot of women who work at Hugging Face and they do a lot of public speaking about AI in the media, which is great. And I also think it's like important because I think it can really change the face of who we see speaking about technology like AI with authority. It should look like the people who actually use technology, which is women, trans folks, queer folks, folks, folks of color. And so those are the same people that we should get used to seeing, talking about that technology with authority. It's one of the reasons why I started this very podcast. So the many women who work at hugging face have been doing this and it's great. However, they did notice that when they were doing public speaking about

AI with the press, they sometimes would get sexist or otherwise just kind of messed up questions. So Margaret Mitchell, who is hugging face's chief ethic scientist and also just like a top 10 Twitter follow. I've learned so much just from like following her Twitter. So if you don't follow Margaret Mitchell, you definitely should. Being that data driven person that she is, she framed this as a research question. What are the patterns and how journalists talk to and about women in AI? She writes, we've discovered that compared to our male peers, there is a disproportionate focus from press on our ages, our motherhood, our physical appearances or behaviors, our failures, or what AI gossip we can provide rather than technical work. After the most

recent double whammy in which I was described in one news outlet as flirtatious and also cagey about my age, and Sasha Luchoni was described as a mother balancing work and life, we decided we put together some good practices. So Dr. Sasha Luchoni, who is an AI research, researcher and the climate lead up hugging face was, did this pro, there was this profile of her in ad week. And the headline read, this AI ethics expert juggles motherhood and a tech career. People really had to raise hell to get them to change it. I will say like, I don't know, I would have been, like, I think that that title is really problematic. I think that if you are being interviewed about your technical work and your technical expertise, like stuff that

are good at, stuff that you went to school for, I don't, I don't, I do think that it's disrespectful to shoehorn in conversations about you being a parent or a mom or your age. And I don't think we would see that if the subject was a man. However, I do want to be careful because I think that, you know, there should be, I believe that there should be places and spaces where you can talk about the challenges that we, that you have as professionals. And also the fact that we are humans that have lives, right? I don't think that an article in ad week about your technical expertise is the place to do it, but I do want there to be spaces where people can have those conversations because, you know, your professional work does intersect with your actual human

life. So I actually am like very interested in that. But I think it should be something that all adults who work and also, you know, balance personal and professional lives, as we all do, not just for women. It shouldn't just be something that's like, oh, because it's a woman, researcher. Let's ask about her kids. Let's ask about if she's a wife or whatever. I think that we could benefit as a society from there being spaces where we can talk about the reality of balancing our personal and professional lives. But that should be the case for everybody of every gender. And it certainly doesn't have a place where the framing of the article is meant to focus her expertise. Like that is incredibly sexist. Yeah, totally. I mean, you're never going to see a

headline, this AI ethics expert juggles fatherhood in a tech career. Right? Like, that's just not a headline you're going to see. Oh, nobody ever asks, unless it's, unless it's a piece that is about being a parent, nobody ever asks men about their kids. Nobody ever asked them like, whatever I mean, this is such a side note, but it's like a little talk about gripes. When, whenever there's like a male writer or person who has achieved a lot, they're always like, Like nobody ever asks them like, oh, who watches your kids when you're working? Like when you're traveling for work, who's watching your kids? I, I, but when you are a woman that is like, like, they ask about it all the time.

It is frustrating how we have like just created this association that it is only women who should be concerned about who are juggling parenthood and professional life when it is everybody who has a child. It is not just women. So the women of Hugging Face developed a guide for how journal. can get it right and be better when they are talking to and about women in AI. The guide reads, the real achievements of women on our team often get overshadowed by a focus on personal and sometimes very intrusive details that are not relevant to their work. With all the amazing press attention that we get at Hugging Face,

we're bound to see some journalists rely on outdated tropes. We've seen more reporters ignoring the amazing achievements of our she's and they's, and instead focusing on stereotypes about women in tech. The guide is actually really helpful. We will throw it in the show notes. It includes tips like avoid gendered language. At the moment, we see lots of over-associating women with certain words and concepts, such as children and family.

Proof-read your articles to eliminate gendered descriptions that may unintentionally reinforce stereotypes. Yeah. And so I do think there is a time and a place for talking about what it's like to be a working parent. But if you're writing a piece that is about highlighting someone's technical expertise, That is not the place for that. Like, do not, like, it is so deeply gendered. And here's another tip from the guide.

Don't rely on antiquated stereotypes about women in tech. This includes describing women as outsiders in the field, which only serves to reinforce the idea that women don't belong in tech. They give this example of a problematic sentence. Despite being a woman in a male-dominated field, Brooke Bruxie has made a name for herself in the tech industry. Here's how they would change it. through her brilliant results on magic in LLM's,

Brooke Brookie made a name for herself in the tech industry. And that really is so key because I think that we have this misconception that people who are not cis white men are like the rightful owners of technology and those adjacent spaces. And so this story that we've told of like women and queer folks and trans folks trying to like break into this boys club. That is not correct. We have always been in these spaces since the very beginning.

And we got to normalize the fact that if we are, if our presence is not always represented, that is because of intentional choices, not because we were not always there. And so really it's like a reframe of who belongs in these spaces, who these spaces are for. And I'm really glad that they are trying to help educate journalists to not unintentionally reinforce this like this attitude that is just not correct.

So Mitchell explains that they're hoping that this guide actually does make the space more hospitable to women. She writes, to help lessen the tendency for press to perpetuate concepts of women that harm our ability in tech to inspire, recruit, and retain women. To help create a culture in press where technical women who speak with journalists don't have to undergo feeling alienated, demeaned, regularly misrepresented, or violated. She makes a really good point about the importance of women disagreeing in public. She writes, one thing about hugging face that I deeply value after my years in tech is that employees are permitted to speak to the press, even in the face of clear disagreements across different employees. The approach is one of

value pluralism, nurturing and respecting expertise. This has the side effect of magically producing more women to speak on different AI questions by grounding on expertise rather than seniority or alignment to a PR comms narrative that all must share. We've magically been able to have more women be more public than as typical in tech. And I love that. I think that, I mean, I have been in situations where the organization has a party line or a stance, and anybody who is speaking publicly has to abide by that party line. But what Mitchell is saying is that actually when you get a pluralism of opinions and

attitudes all grounded in expertise, you can actually be. having much more dynamic conversations in public, and those conversations can really spotlight women and there are accomplishments and achievements much better. It just elevates the whole conversation and makes the space better for everyone. Yeah, that's a pretty radical approach, really. Certainly unusual in my experience. You know, I think pretty most organizations I've ever been familiar with, with the exception of universities, are very much the everybody must be aligned on the, you know, official comms narrative.

Same. I mean, I understand why organizations would feel the need to do that. But I just think this indicates that there's not the only way to be. And actually, you can get some more interesting results when you have more people speaking up. More after a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guide, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Jim Gaffigan to Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and headwriter, Streeter Seidel, help an Acapella band with their between songs banter.

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

The Harvard Yard. They're open. Do you have a name suggestion? We're open. Since you guys are middle aged, one erection. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Humor me. I need some jokes to make me seem funny.

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And I'm C.J. Toledano, and our podcast Point Game is about defying the odds. like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win no matter what. He's the smartest player to ever play the game. His IQ is at a level that we've never seen before. And he knows without Luca and Austin Reeves, I got to manipulate the game.

We get a player's perspective on the challenges of the playoffs. I think Joker's going to be exhausted this series because when they don't have Rudy in the lineup, he has to really guard guys like Nas Reid. He has to guard Julius Randall. And then he has to give us every. everything he gives us on the night-to-night basis on offense. And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richardson,

we dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nash would get that thing. That man, hell get to flying. He running up the court, licking his fingers why he got the ball. Like, after you go through a training camp with that, Isaiah, you figure it out real quick. Get your ass up and down the court, and you're going to get the ball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get right back into it. it. Okay, so I have a question for you, Mike. Are you starting to sort of feel yourself winding down for the year? Like, are you, are you doing that thing that sometimes happens around this time of year where you start answering emails with, let's circle back on that in 2024. Let's talk about that next year. Yeah, the, the sorting of like, things that will be dealt with in January is well underway. Oh, everything. There is like, if it hasn't been raised to me, by now. It is not getting raised in 2023. We're going to save it for next year at this point. So we are not alone in that. Chat GPT might might actually be doing the very same thing.

Ars Technica reported that in late November, some chat GPT users tried to notice that ChatGPT 4 was becoming a little bit lazier or more sluggish. Chat GPT was reportedly refusing to do some task or returning very simplified results.

OpenAI, the company that makes chat is aware and has admitted that this is an issue. But the company was not really sure why. And the answer might be what some people are calling the winter break hypothesis, which is that since the people who train AI train it by feeding it, our writing, our language, our behavior, and so on, is it possible that AI has learned things like seasonal effective disorder or like an end of year holiday slowdown?

That is what people are wondering. This is really funny. The day after Thanksgiving, a Reddit user wrote that they asked Chat ChbT to fill out a CSV file with multiple entries. But ChatGPT was like, nah, you do it. ChatGPT gave this answer. Due to the extensive nature of the data, the full extraction of all products would be quite lengthy. However, I can provide the file with this single entry as a template, and you can fill in the rest of the data as needed.

That is so funny that like, yeah, chatGBT is just like, nah, you do it. I'm busy. Busy doing what? Busy trying to steal some Hollywood screenwriter's script so I can qualify for an Oscar nomination. Listen, I feel for Chad GPT here because I don't want to fill out a long-ass CSV file either. So this does sound like pretty absurd.

And when you first told me about this, I was like, that has to just be like a joke. But then I was reading about it and like, all the experts seem to be like, yeah, it's absurd, but maybe. So I know it does sound absurd, but listen to this from Ars Technica. Because research has shown that large language models like GPT4, which powers the paid version of chat GPT, do respond to human style encouragement, such as telling a bot to take a deep breath before doing a math problem.

People have also, less formally, experimented with telling a large language model that it will receive a tip for doing the work. Or if an AI model gets lazy, telling the bot that you have no fingers does seem to help produce lengthier outputs. So it does seem to suggest that it is learning from human behavior that that has an impact on what it eventually outputs. That doesn't seem so, so, so, like, it doesn't seem so wild to me to extrapolate that, like, maybe it has also learned that you could all sort of, like, take it a little bit easy at the end of the year. Yeah, I guess. Man. I want to know more about that experiment where they told the model that it was going to receive a tip for doing the work.

Did they ever give it a tip? Like, is they going to get mad when they don't tip it? What then? Is this how AI? Isn't this how the Terminator movies start? Some bot was promised to tip and then never got that tip and then rose up to take us over? Yeah, extracting that tip from human blood. Listen, if somebody a tip.

me to podcast, I think I'd be, I think I'd produce better podcast. I'm just saying. Bridget, people tip you to podcast all the time, all of your patrons. Oh, I guess you're right. Well, continue to tip on patreon.com slash tangoity where I will continue to give you the output of podcast. So there are like smart, learned AI folks out there who are trying to test this theory. We should be clear that right now, this is just a theory. We don't know that AI is taking a winter holiday break. And we'll definitely let y'all know if the folks researching this come up with any concrete data one way or the other. But it'll have to be in 2024 because, yeah, it's almost the end of the year.

And we're not going to do all that work. Do it yourself. Why don't you look into it if you're so interested? Yeah, round up your own tech news. I'm just kidding. unlike lazy chat GPT, I actually do really enjoy breaking down the news with you all.

So thanks so much for listening and I will talk to you soon. If you're looking for ways to support the show, check out our merch store at tangooty.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 tangooty.com. There are no girls on the internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of IHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. edited by Joey Pat Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer Taray Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host,

Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, check out the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite on humor me with Robert Smygel and friends,

me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman, help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform?

We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Joey Dardano, and on my new podcast, hope from a hypocrite, I'll be changing lives,

helping people in need with thoughtful solutions. Sike, I'm a comedian. I'm not qualified to give good advice. Join me and my comedian friends as we riff, rant, recommend some of the most legally dubious advice known to me. This is Help from a Hypocrite,

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