There Are No Girls on the Internet - Scammers are using TikTok to cash in on the invasion of Ukraine

Episode Date: March 12, 2022

From fake videos to fake live streams, TikTok is awash in disinformation about the invasion of Ukraine. Social media expert Marieke Kuypers has been fighting back.    Read TikTok Was Designed for War: https://www.wired.com/story/ukraine-russia-war-tiktok/    Follow Marieke on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mariekekuypers Follow Marieke on Twitter (English): https://twitter.com/englishmarieke Follow Marieke on Twitter (Dutch): https://twitter.com/kuypersmarieke   Visit Black Women for Black Lives for ways to support Ukraine: https://linktr.ee/BW4BL_official   Want to support the show? (thank you!)  Subscribe, tell a friend,  leave a review (Bridget personally reads them all!)  or buy some merch at There Are No Girls on the Internet’s store: TANGOTI.COM/STORE Join our newsletter: Tangoti.com/newsletter  Say hello at [e-mail] See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. The invasion of Ukraine by Russia is a scary, tense, highly charged situation. And as we know, with scary, tense, highly charged situation, and as we know, with scary, tense, highly charged situations, also comes a flood of misleading, inaccurate, or straight-up fabricated content being shared across social media. Now, on TikTok, I've seen videos taken from films or video games, pretending that that footage is actually from Ukraine. I've seen old videos from other conflicts purporting to be from Ukraine, and even worse,

because of TikTok's live stream feature where users can collect donations from viewers in real-time. Some Gryfters are even using these fake videos to lie about streaming live. from Ukraine to make money. Marie Cowper's is a social media expert who told me that one of the reasons that TikTok is so ripe for disinformation is because of the speed by which users are surfaced questionable content on their 4U page. Marie has been tracking inaccurate and misleading Ukraine videos on TikTok,

but it didn't start there. For Marie, it started when she started noticing false information about things like diets and health. It really started when I saw a lot of different videos. popping up with really weird information and it didn't start with you know the amount of disinformation that's happening now but it was just small things like how diet soda is gonna give you cancer lots of stuff about health scary stories also that were scaring children and that weren't true but I didn't see a lot

of these videos pop up on my own for you page I just saw one every once in a while. So I decided to make another account to see what was happening because I was really curious, is there more to this? Because, you know, I'm seeing some really weird stories going around. So I created a different account to my own where I started just liking conspiracy theories, really dodgy info and everything I normally wouldn't like. And the algorithm just started serving me a whole bunch of questionable videos that I was just really, really shocked to see, and that in my language, in Dutch, nobody else was talking about or debunking or fact-checking. So that's why I started because I saw that people were getting affected by this information

and nobody was talking about it. So, well, I'll do it then. So often when I have these conversations, there has been. some failure by some platform to do something, right? So for you, it was disinformation in Dutch on TikTok. And just a regular person, usually a woman or a person of color or somebody who is already marginalized just said, okay, no one is doing this. I'll do it. I'll do the work of making this platform safer or at least chronicling what is going on. Did you feel compelled in that way to sort of take on this fight?

It feels almost like a moral obligation for me because I see the effects it's having on people. And I also see that it's not just misinformation about health, which has really bad consequences, obviously, but also these same algorithms are pushing this alternative account that I have into really far right TikTok, really extreme videos that I was also reporting and they were not getting taken down, which is also really strange to me. It's just shocking to me how huge these videos are, and it seemed like nobody was seeing it or responding to it. And then, yeah, it feels like a moral obligation because it's the consequence. of misinformation are just not just people believing stuff that isn't true, but it leads to

biases or, you know, blaming other people sometimes when it's misinformation about vaccines that, you know, goes into conspiracy theories about the Great Reset and this global cabal, which is usually Jewish people. That's also something that I've seen a lot since I've, you know, looked into conspiracy theories. When the invasion of Ukraine happened, I, how can I put this? It was a pretty terrifying moment. Like it definitely was a moment of crisis. And I know that in moments of crisis, I definitely feel this.

And I think a lot of other people feel this. You feel sort of powerless. And so you're like, what can I do? I'll share information. And I caught myself going to share a lot of very moving videos, a lot of visually arresting videos. And then I think I saw a tweet. I think it might have been from Abby Richards that was like, in this moment, take a beat, take a breath before you share things. And then I saw your account, all of these videos purporting to be from Ukraine that were either very misleading

or just completely inaccurate, like not Ukraine. What kind of disinformation and misleading stuff are you seeing in relation to the invasion of Ukraine? So a couple of different types of misinformation and disinformation. I've been seeing a lot of old videos. So I think that's something that happens more often in these crisis situations. It's a lot of old footage of explosions that happened. I saw a video that was an explosion and it had 10 million views. But this was not an explosion in Ukraine.

It was in Lebanon a year ago. So it's real footage, but it's not in Ukraine. And because people are so interested in seeing more and so invested, anything that even remotely seems like it could be in Ukraine or is like related to war or shooting or explosions, it just goes wild on TikTok. It just goes insanely viral. So older videos have been circulating of conflicts and explosions. Also, I've been seeing video game footage

because video games are so realistic now that there's been footage of ARMA 3, the video game, that's been shared. Sometimes it's a little zoomed in or they've made it a little darker, so it's less easy to recognize. And people just don't see that it's a video game unless you know the game.

Animations I've seen being shared. There's an animation of some. one on Instagram who made a World War II animation. So if you know your airplanes, you can see that the airplanes that are in the animation are not modern airplanes. They're B12 airplanes, I think, from the Second World War. So those are the things I've been seeing. And yeah, mostly those kind of videos are circulating on TikTok.

It's just like old footage misleading stuff. Yeah, I mean, I, the fact, I've seen a couple of video game images or videos, and I didn't know about the animations, but do you think there is something to the fact that we have a hunger for, I use this in quotes, content about the, about invasions and about, you know, high crisis situations that are kind of cinematic. And so there's something, maybe there's, like the idea that. that we would be being fooled by video games and animations and stills from films and things like that, I almost feel like it's this, it speaks to this need in us or this conditioning in us that we expect the footage from these things to have a storyline and have good animations, good graphics and to be so visually arresting. And maybe that's why people are able to be like, oh, well, this is definitely from a conflict in Ukraine. Yeah. Well, this is something I've really noticed as well. So I actually studied film and photography. I have a master's degree in film and

photography. And this is something I've also seen in conspiracy theories in general, like Q&ON, where they're basically talking about the conspiracy theory as if it's a movie, as if it's a big plot and there's actors and, you know, there's a conclusion and just like narrative movie, movie narratives, basically. And the same goes for visual disinformation. It works the best when it's a story. So if it's emotional and there's a good guy and a bad guy and you can root for the good guy, I recognize what you're saying, yeah. It's definitely true in audio.

There was one time I think I switched on an Alex Jones radio show, and I kid you not, he was scrubs. screaming into the microphone. So just like poor microphone etiquette about how because of COVID and the vaccines, Bill Gates was going to make us all eat bugs. And he was screaming about it. And I was thinking, yeah, someone just talking in a regular voice about the dangers of conspiracy theories or like the realities of the COVID vaccine, like accurate information, they could never compete attention wise. Like you really have to, you would really have to work to compete with someone who is being that dramatic because there's something about your brain that is like,

oh, well, this is really sensational. Let me tune into this. Let me give this my attention. And we really have a big fight if we're going to make content that is equally as compelling, but also based in accuracy and truth and nuance and thoughtfulness. That's definitely a struggle that I've been having as well because I think sometimes what works about my videos is that I try and really, make it a TikTok, like really make it, you present it in a way that's not just a newsreader reading something without any emotion and just, you know, here are the facts. Because that just doesn't work. It doesn't get the same amount of use, like you said.

So I do try and, you know, grab the attention because you have to grab the attention on TikTok because if you don't, you know, have someone's attention in the first five seconds, they're already gone. so you need to kind of sensationalize yourself to get people to watch the video but then you also want to be correct and you don't want to maybe spread a conspiracy theory even further by beginning with a whole story about QAnon

and then after a minute you start debunking it because then people are already gone so it's something that I've been struggling with but it's something that I think traditional media can do more to improve their content and make it more appealing and also not just sometimes traditional media are kind of, I don't want to say elitist or like a little bit. This is just, you know, we're journalists and the facts are the facts and, you know, but that's not how it works in real life because teenagers who are on TikTok and are going to go to

some website with dry facts if they can just watch people on TikTok make really exciting videos about it. I think it really boils down to lack of trust in media as an institution. And I think part of that is exactly what you said is that when you only are able to present information in ways that feel really alienating to a lot of your audience base, of course they're going to check out. And when you have such a vast, when you have a vast, a very vast network of people offering something else speaking to this audience in a way that they find compelling, of course they're going to turn toward that and away from these traditional institutions of media. So I completely agree with you.

I think that, you know, it's understandable to me why so many people are getting their information from questionable sources. And then it fuels this already kind of like lingering distrust they have in the institution of journalism or media. Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. I worked for the Dutch National News for a couple years as a social media manager and a journalist. So I've been in the traditional media companies. And there's really kind of, yeah, they're trying, I guess, but what I noticed really is what you just said is that young people are so distrusting. and also because it's not transparent.

They want to know why you're making certain news stories and not other news stories and why you're using certain words. So it's not like they're not interested. They're very interested. And they want to know why the news is being made the way it is. But we don't trust them enough, I guess, to explain it to them sometimes. It seems kind of condescending to me sometimes, the way that fact checks can be done in traditional media where it's almost like,

if you believe this, you're kind of stupid. It comes across to me sometimes. And I understand that if you see something like that and you're already distrustful and you feel so condescended to. And then also the person telling you this is totally unrelatable. Yeah, I understand why you wouldn't believe it. Let's take a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite.

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On the psychology of your 20s podcast, we unpack the anxiety, the overthinking, the heartbreak, the identity crisis, all of it that comes with being in your 20s. Because if you've ever thought, is anybody else feeling this way, they definitely. I feel like my 20s was a process of checking off everything that I was not good at to get to what I was good at. Oftentimes we take everything a little bit too seriously and we get lost in things that we later on decide weren't even important to us to begin when. There was a large chunk of my 20s that I was just so wanting to be out of that phase out of my skin. And I just like really regret not living in the present more. Each week we break down the science behind what you're going through.

and give you real tools to navigate it. Your 20s aren't about having it all figured out. They're about understanding yourself just a little bit better. Listen to the psychology of your 20s on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. We have found that fact-checking and debunking, it's actually, particularly in news, it's actually not that effective at curbing the spread of false information. And yet we still rely on it, even though we know it's not terribly effective.

And I also think it can be kind of condescending. Like, if you believe this, you're some kind of a moron. And it obscures the reality that people, like, I fall for misinformation. It happens to the best of us. Some of it is so savvy and hits the exact right tension points that you already have because misinformers and disinformers are really good at it. And so if we tell people that, oh, you're an idiot for falling for this, of course they're going to be, that's not going to be compelling to them, you know.

And I also think what you said about, like traditional media, not always feeling like they need to let particularly younger people in on the business of how stories get made, the business of content. I absolutely think that it is a thing where I think a lot of these institutions don't feel like they need to be accountable to young people. They just don't feel like any of their listenership or audience. really deserves to know how stories get made and how these decisions get made and how the story that you see on your social media feed comes to be. I don't think that they feel like their audience deserves a peek into that. And I think that you're exactly right that people are curious. And I think

if we were able to have some more transparency around those kinds of conversations, it might do some of the work of building back that public trust in media as an institution. Yeah. Yeah. It's, there could be a lot more transparency about the way journalists work and why they do things and why they use certain words or why they make certain stories or don't make them. I think that would help a lot, but what you said, it's like they don't think young people deserve it or even, you know, like they feel like they wouldn't understand it. So like they're young people. It's kind of, they're not taken seriously, which is really bad because when they're young, you can actually teach them stuff, which is going to get a lot more difficult

when they're older, and they're all set in everything they believe. And when they're young, you can let them see how the news is made so that later on they understand how it works, and they're more trusting. But it's even when I'm making a TikTok video, like a traditional news organization could do the same thing, but then there would be a whole team, behind the news video that you don't see and it's just being presented by someone in the video and you don't know who wrote the script who you know edited it it's just makes it kind of easier to trust someone who's just one person which is what works with disinformation as well with like people like Alex Jones or other people who are you know showing their personality as well

so you feel like they're a real person who has emotions, who is not completely neutral in everything and has no emotions about any news. I think it works better when you, there's obviously like negative aspects of it, but just being one person in front of the camera instead of having an entire team also increases trust, I think. People like to get their information from their trusted source, right?

like, oh, this person who is my friend in my head, you know, in the whole conversation we were having about Joe Rogan, that was one of the things I feel like people really, I wish to be had a bigger conversation about, which is that people have been listening to Joe Rogan in their earbuds for years and years and years. He is their trusted source and friend in their head. They, in their mind, I mean, we all do it, right? Like my favorite podcast host, I definitely have a like parisocial relationship with them in my mind that they have no idea about. And that is a big part of building trust. And so it's not always going to be like, yeah, it's not going to be this like newsreader who is coming at something in a specific unbiased way who is going to be able to foster that kind of trust. Yeah. Yeah. And also, you know, relatability or someone who looks like you or is your same age who maybe understands your point of view if that person is. saying it, I would trust it more than just, you know, someone who feels totally far removed from me, some, you know, random white guy who's presenting the news who's like 50 years old and

telling me that, you know, something I believe is wrong. Okay, but you don't know anything about my experience. One of the videos that you shared from TikTok really caught my eye. it was a video that was meant to be sort of poking fun at American liberals. And it's like point of view when you're an American liberal who is anti-war for everything except for when it comes to Russia. And, you know, are you seeing videos that are targeted at Americans or meant to sort of prompt Americans or people who are, you know, not in Ukraine or not. in Russia to have a certain point of view about this invasion? Yeah. Like the most of what I've seen, I think there's definitely a, the pro-Ukrainian content

that's being shared is in the majority. But the couple of like pro-Russian accounts that I've seen are pro-Putin accounts that I've seen, they also are usually anti-Biden and anti, you know, they're kind of, you know, they're kind of on the right-wing American side in the other content that they post. So it does seem like those accounts are really trying to reach Americans and, like, get some distrust in the government also growing, which is something I've seen also with Q&N accounts on TikTok that are like, yeah, also very anti-Biden.

There's like, I think there's a huge anti-Biden hashtag that's, TikTok still hasn't banned yet, but all the people on TikTok are using it to spread conspiracy theories and QAnon stuff. And I don't want to repeat it in case people will go looking for it. But it's like a joke making fun of Biden. But when you search the hashtag, there's only conspiracy theories and misinformation. That's so interesting. And I think it goes back to something we see time and time again is that one of the reasons why all of these conspiracy theories are kind of linked.

You might be thinking, what does QAnon, a conspiracy theory or people believe that, you know, children are being, you know, trafficked by nefarious Democrats or whatever, and anti-vaccine stuff? Like, what do they all have in common? And I think it's all, it all goes back to chipping away at public trust in institutions. And so whether it's our president, Biden, or whether it's the doctor giving you a vaccine or Dr. Fauci on TV or, you know, the lawmaker who you suspect. might be trafficking kids or something like, it is all about chipping away at public trust in institutions. And luckily for these people who want to do that, there are a lot of reasons for people to not be so, you know, rah-rah about trusting their public institutions. And so everything goes back to this idea of bad actors poking at existing tension points, existing

traumas, existing, you know, realities to say like, yes, and that's why. it's important to distrust these people. And I'm someone who is like, I think a healthy skepticism is good, but the way that they're able to really take a basic thing, like, oh yeah, it's good to question authority, it's good to question government, and turn up the dials so, in such a wild way, I think just shows how savvy disinformeders really are. Yeah, and why it works so well and why nobody is immune to it, because, you know, there are things that are, there are bad things happening. There are institutions that are, that you can really criticize, but they take advantage of that. And I think we see a lot of disinformers using actual criticisms and tensions and things that are maybe grounded in reality for people,

and they really turn up the dials into something that, where it goes into sort of dangerous territory. More after a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from 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. 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 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. Call 844-844-IHart.

to get started. That's 844-844-I-Hart. May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and your 20s, they can feel like a lot. On the psychology of your 20s podcast, we unpack the anxiety, the overthinking, the heartbreak, the identity crisis, all of it that comes with being in your 20s. Because if you've ever thought, is anybody else feeling this way, they definitely are. I feel like my 20s was a process of checking off everything that I was not. not good at to get to what I was good at. Oftentimes we take everything a little bit too seriously and we get lost in things that we

later on decide weren't even important to us to begin when. There was a large chunk of my 20s that I like was just so wanting to like be out of that phase out of my skin and I just like really regret not living in the present more. Each week we break down the science behind what you're going through and give you real tools to navigate it. Your 20s aren't about having it all figured out. They're about understanding yourself just a little bit better. Listen to The Psychology of Your 20s on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The story I've told myself about love or relationships can then shake my behavior, and that can lead me to sabotage the possibility of connection. This Mental Health Awareness Month, tune into the podcast deeply well with Debbie Brown and explore the journey of healing, self-discovery, and returning to yourself. We explore higher consciousness, emotional well-being, and the practices that help you find clarity, peace, and self-mastery in a world that can feel overwhelming. The world is becoming lonelier. We're not becoming more social and connected.

We're becoming more individualized, but we actually meet people in connection. If you've been searching for a soft place to land while doing the work to become whole. This podcast is for you to hear more. Listen to deeply well with Debbie Brown from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Let's get right back into it. One of the biggest threats that this information poses is that it makes it really difficult to have thoughtful, accurate conversations, especially about topics that are highly charged. It just takes up a lot of oxygen in the room. And it is meant to cause confusion, increase polarization and distrust. And because disinformation is often rooted in some kernel of

truth or legitimate tension or grievance, if that tension is intentionally exploited or inflamed, you can't even actually have a real conversation about the legitimate issues because the conversation has become so muddled and extreme. Marie saw this play out firsthand in conversations about the World Economic Forum, the international organization founded by economist Klaus Schwab, that's known for bringing together some of the world. world's most powerful and richest people for the Davos Summit in Switzerland. In the summer of 2020, the head of Davos announced a new initiative calling for the pandemic to be seen as an opportunity for what they were calling the Great Reset.

Now, this was meant to be a reset of the global economy in pretty broad terms, encompassing everything from reliance on fossil fuels to tech regulation. But conspiracy theorists pounced, claiming the Great Reset, was actually a ploy for wealthy global elites, which we know is pretty much code for Jewish people to use COVID as an excuse to seize power and institute a new world order. So even though Marie has real issues with the World Economic Forum, the entire conversation around it has been so steeped in conspiracy that her actual criticisms can't even be thoughtfully discussed because the conspiracy theories looms so large. I think that's really important because I can really see that as well. There's this great reset conspiracy theory

about the World Economic Forum and its leader, Klaus Schwab, and how much influence they have on the pandemic and how maybe they are using the pandemic to gain control of the world and get a one-world government formed, get social credit systems in place, all these types of things. It's kind of a modern version of the New World Order

conspiracy theory, which is also something that's kind of old. But I was looking into this. And because of all these conspiracy theories, I had already kind of dismissed everything, all the criticism of the World Economic Forum and the Great Resed and all that stuff, because I was like, well, these stories are so crazy. I was almost defending the World Economic Forum. But then when I look into it, like obviously the big conspiracy theories about them being, yeah, the great reset and this plan to use the pandemic and all these things are not true. But there are some things about the World Economic Forum and having more power in the world and wanting to give companies more power than, you know, like these stakeholders, giving them more power, which you can be very critical of if you want to. have a democracy and you don't want companies to have like a really huge part in in that democracy and how decisions are made. So there's it's almost dangerous also because there's real criticism

that's getting dismissed because of these conspiracy theories. Oh my gosh. I mean I find myself defending people and institutions around like I don't even like them that much but like And I think that's the problem with, like, that's what's at stake when it comes to conspiracy theories and disinformation and extremism is that they keep us from having actual conversations. Like, I can't come to the table and bring legitimate grievances or legitimate conversations I want to have about institutions to the conversation, particularly online, because the conversation is just a wash in conspiracy theories, bad faith takes, disinformation. And so we're not able to have a conversation. about some of the grievances and some of the legitimate criticisms because the conversation is just

awash in conspiracies. And so if you wanted to just have a thoughtful, nuanced conversation, there's no place for you to do that online. What you just said about, you know, defending people that you don't even really like. I have the same thing because there's politicians in the Netherlands that I really don't like at all. But, you know, they were getting videos made about them that are completely untrue. So I debunk those videos, but then people are like, oh, you must be getting paid by this politician or you must love him or, you know, sexist stuff about, you know, being his girlfriend or, you know, all those types of things. When I, I would want to say to them, I really don't like this politician, actually. I really don't like them.

But people think that just because you're debunking stuff, that's also the day. It's created these camps between people where you're either awake and you know about all the conspiracy theories or you're not and all the other people are crazy. So you just dismiss each other. And it's either you're crazy or you're just a sheep who's not awake. And there's no middle. So as soon as you say something critical of a conspiracy theory, you're immediately in the sheep camp. you're getting paid by the, you know, by the World Economic Forum or by the government. I've been accused of being paid by so many people I should be rich by now.

I'm not, unfortunately. Yeah, people have accused me of being paid by Bill Gates. And I'm always like, if rich-ass Bill Gates is cutting me checks, then why is my apartment so crappy, right? Like, if his checks are not clearing, they got lost in the mail. If he's meant to be sending them, they have not reached me. They haven't reached me either. I would not be living here if I was being paid by Bill Gates and the government and the World Economic Forum.

TikTok as a platform is kind of tailor-made for war footage. As Chris Stokel-Walker writes at a piece for Wired, prior research has shown that fake news travels six times faster than legitimate information on social media, in part because of its ability to trigger a strong emotional response. TikTok's design, which throws users headlong into an immersive, endless stream of snappy content, is designed to monopolize attention. TikTok's sound feature, whereby users can easily add sounds

from an existing library to their videos, was a big part of the platform back when it was called bike dance, and it was mostly used to showcase teenagers doing cute dances. But now, users can use this feature to easily add existing war sounds to videos purporting to be from Ukraine

to make them appear more authentic. Researcher and friend of the show, Abby Richards, found that audio of gunfire from a viral video filmed before the invasion, ever even began was used in over 1,700 videos before TikTok removed it. Users were adding the gunfire audio to their own videos to make them seem as though they were taken during the invasion. TikTok has a lot of raw footage,

which gives the impression that you're actually watching something live as it unfolds, but it also makes it prime for exploitation because there isn't really a lot of verification happening, which has led to users looping videos or using old videos, claiming their live feeds from Ukraine, asking viewers, for donations to support. It's pretty despicable. On TikTok, when you do live streams, a lot of live streams are monetized.

What do you make in the fact that a couple of the live streams purporting to be from Ukraine but are not from Ukraine are also, one, getting lots and lots of viewers, but two, getting money. They're basically able to use TikTok as a platform to profit materially from lies about an active invasion. Yeah. Well, my faith in humanity is, you know, it's still there, but it's getting a little damaged, especially when you see that during a war, even then people are still profiting off of it by spreading,

you know, fake videos, which is what they're doing with the live streams, especially in the first days after the war started. There were people going live and, you know, I saw live streams with hundreds of thousands of viewers. And all these people, people being so compassionate in the comments and saying, oh, we love you, we support you, and we hope you're doing well, and sending so, so, so many gifts. Because on TikTok, you can send gifts to people who are live. And I checked one of these lives to see how many gifts they had received in that one live. And it was like a couple thousand dollars, I think. But if you do that for a couple days and you do multiple live streams, you can get a lot of money

And there's also people, you know, getting donation links in their, in their bio. So it's not even through TikTok. It's just on other platforms. And they're just, you know, profiting of the situation. That's something I always go back to is this idea that so many disinformers and bad actors, it's just a grift. It's just a scam. Like, there are people out there who are interested in, you know, actively misleading people for nefarious, you know, means. But then there are also people who are doing it just because they want money. And it's a grift. It's, you know, just like any other scam. And I think why that is so low, but there are so many reasons I find that so lobesome.

But one of them is that for every dollar that is being spent given to someone who is purporting to be live streaming from Ukraine and they're really not, that's money that could go to somebody who actually needs it, who is actually impacted. That's money and attention, right? because like your attention has worth. And so I feel like it is, again, it makes it so that the conversation and the attention and the financial benefit is just not going where it needs to be. It's just like what's happening with these conspiracy theories leading away from actual problems

and, you know, making it more difficult to talk about that. The same thing is happening with this money going to people that aren't using it. And where the money could be going to actually help people in Ukraine or, you know, do good things. Yeah, it's just getting real people's compassion and real people's, you know, wanting to help, but abusing it. In this time where it feels very tense and scary and a lot of people probably feel very powerless, myself included, do you have any tips where, For anyone listening, who wants to stay informed, wants to be using their social media to inform themselves and others, any tips to avoid spreading inaccurate information, either in general or particularly when it comes to the invasion in Ukraine? I've been asked a bunch of times these days if I have tips for checking stuff yourself. But I also want to say that you can't check everything.

there's a reason that there are experts and they're journalists and, you know, maybe you're working and you already have like a ton of things on your mind. You can't check every single thing that comes on your For You page or on other social media platform. So I don't think you can expect that of people. But of course, you can check stuff when you have the energy to do it. it begins with knowing your own biases, knowing how misinformation uses your emotions to manipulate you so that you're aware that when a video is really scary or makes you really angry or maybe confirms some beliefs you have about a situation, maybe you're really pro-Russian,

maybe you're really pro-Ukraine. So when something fits really neatly into that story, you should be a really pro-Russian. you should be aware that it might be a fake and you need to check twice. And also just, you know, not sharing everything immediately what you said is really important. And just taking a second, looking at it again, thinking about how you feel and checking sources, seeing if you can find other people who've shared the same video or if the account that's posted it is even the real person that shared the footage or if they're just, just resharing, because if it's just someone resharing stuff, you should always be on high alert. So that's the first thing. And also, I would just recommend also following a bunch of people you

actually trust, fact checkers, people who maybe are there, are on the scene. If you want to know, if you really want to know about what's happening there, I wouldn't follow random people on TikTok, but I would just, you know, try and find people who are in Ukraine, who are Ukrainian themselves, who can give you information. So, you know, it's true. That's great. That's really useful. I know for myself, some of the videos coming out about the treatment of black folks in Ukraine,

I was very aware of my own pressure points and tension points in myself, personally. And so I really had to be like, obviously, this is a, this is, material that is highly emotionally resonant to me. And so it's that, what you just said, like, that is so easily poked at and manipulated. And so I really had to have an extra level of like, internal awareness of my own trigger points and my own tension points while navigating, you know, social media and deciding what I wanted to share or amplify. Yeah. Yeah. And I've seen this story also being shared a lot on, on, on, on, on, on Instagram in my own friend groups, because, yeah, it's a pressure point for a lot of people.

It's, you know, it should be a pressure point for a lot of people. And it doesn't mean that it's not true. Obviously, what you just said, there can be really horrible stuff happening. But, yeah, people are taking advantage of that. But it doesn't seem like that is registering as misinformation or, yeah, it's not misinformation, but, you know, that there are other ways than just sharing fake videos. It's not just fake videos. You can use real videos to advance your agenda.

And that's something that people, I don't think, really notice as much when it's on their own sides. My own biases lean more towards thinking that most misinformation is really right-wing for some reason. I don't know why I think that, but those were my prejudices that I thought, you know, misinformation is trying to get people to, you know, be anti-immigration and all that stuff. And I don't consider myself right-wing. But I've noticed, like some videos on TikTok where it's Russian accounts that are posting these like left-wing liberal things with other stuff that's true, you know, a criticism of wars that have also happened or conflicts that have also happened where they haven't gotten

as much attention as this has gotten, or the words that reporters have been using to say, yeah, these people are so relatable and they're just like us and, you know, real criticism in covering these things. But those things are being spread also by Russian accounts. So be aware of that. It's not new what's happening now. It's not something that, you know, it's get, I'm really happy that this has brought more attention to TikTok and the stuff that's being spread there and how fast it's being spread and how easily it's being spread.

But this is getting attention because people think it's important, but there's lots of other misinformation that's being spread that's not seen as important enough to fact check, apparently, because I can see even in mainstream media there's a lot of misinformation about trans people,

which, you know, has not gotten nearly as much attention as other topics when it comes to fact-checking. There's this panic about, oh, my God, there's so much misinformation on social media. But it's always, you know, certain topics that are getting fact-checked and others that are not getting the same amount of information. So fact-checking is not something that's neutral, which, you know, some people don't realize, maybe. because you choose what kind of things you fact check and I think other topics on TikTok

are getting spread with just as much misinformation and maybe just as much harm that's being done so I hope that this event and the amount of attention that it's getting now that there's so much misinformation on TikTok is also going to lead to more research and more attention on the other forms of misinformation that are being spread there. Yeah, I'm so glad you added that.

When we were talking about Rogan, it was so interesting to me that it was the, I mean, obviously it deserves a lot of attention, but the COVID misinformation, everyone was like agreed, no good, but the misinformation about trans people, you know, that is also medical misinformation. That is also a public health issue

and that it's so interesting that mainstream people traffic in that kind of misinformation, you know, elected officials traffic in medical misinformation about trans people. And it's somehow we don't clock it the same way. And we should be questioning why that is and sit with that reality. Yeah, yeah.

Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can reach us at hello at tangoody.com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangoity.com. There are no girls on the internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of IHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

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