There Are No Girls on the Internet - What’s happening with people of color in Ukraine?

Episode Date: March 9, 2022

People of color in Ukraine reported racist mistreatment as they tried to flee the country in the wake of the invasion by Russia. And sadly, bad actors and disinformers seized on these critical conversations online to cause chaos and confusion. Christopher Bouzy, data analyst and CEO of Bot Sentinel, a tool that helps identify inauthentic accounts on Twitter, helps us understand what’s going on. Shafiqah Hudson’s episode of There Are No Girls on the Internet is one of my favorites we’ve ever published. Listen to her story - How Black Women Tried to Save Twitter: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-black-women-tried-to-save-twitter/id1520715907?i=1000484848337Check out Bot Sentinel: https://botsentinel.com/Read about Christopher’s groundbreaking research uncovering the disinformation campaign against Meghan Markle https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ellievhall/bot-sentinel-meghan-markle-prince-harry-twitterVisit Black Women for Black Lives for ways to support Ukraine: https://linktr.ee/BW4BL_officialWant to support the show? (thank you!)Subscribe, tell a friend, or buy some merch at There Are No Girls on the Internet’s store: TANGOTI.COM/STOREJoin our newsletter: Tangoti.com/newsletter Say hello at [e-mail]  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting. Think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than adds supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, IHeart's twice as large as the next two combined. Learn how podcasting can help your

business. Call 844-844-I-Hart. Why are we all so obsessed with romance? On the radio 831 podcast, join us, Sanjana Basker and Tyler McCall. As we unpack all the trending tropes, fuzzy adaptations, book talk drama, and celebrity love stories with hot takes and sharp guests. Each episode digs into what these stories reveal about desire, fantasy, identity, and how we love now. Listen to the Radio 831 podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. American soccer is about to explode. The World Cup is coming. Ramel sending on the only store at the chip. I'm Tav Rama.

I'm Tom Boca. On our podcast, Inside American Soccer, you'll get the real storylines, the biggest decisions, and the truth about the U.S. national team. It wouldn't be a huge surprise if our team ends up in the quarterfinals or potentially a great run into the semifinals.

Listen, Inside American Soccer with Tom Bogart and Tab Ramos on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcast. People get fired up. You know, people are very, you know, passionate. when it comes to race, you know, it matters of race. So, of course, if you see, like, people being denied access to buses,

you're like, your first instinct is like, what the heck is going on? There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. At least 6,600,000 people have fled Ukraine in the days following Russia's invasion, according to the New York Times. Some of these include students or migrant workers from Africa, Asia, or other regions. People of color in Ukraine reported racist mistreatment

as they tried to leave the country. The United Nations has acknowledged that non-white refugees have faced racism while attempting to leave the country. Videos flooded social media of people of color being taken off buses, being shoved to the back of lines in favor of white Ukrainians, and being harassed by extremists. And in this moment of very real crisis

and very real fear, bad actors are also exploiting their stories and social media platforms to further cause chaos, confusion, and distrust. It is a lot to unbraid. So I turned to Christopher Boozy, CEO of Bot Sentinel, a tool that helps determine real people on Twitter from inauthentic accounts. So, you know, I was reading a little bit about your background about how you initially fell in love with technology and computers.

Take me back. How did you first get involved with this kind of stuff? This is simple. My mother, she used to work for a telephone company. It's a Verizon now, but back then it was, I think, 9x or New York Tele, something like that. And she worked with computers, so she knew where computers were going before a lot of people, especially in our community, knew where computers were going. So for Christmas, she purchased me in a Mattel Aquarius computer. You know, it was considered kind of like a toy, but it was a computer, you know. It was basic.

And actually, the language basic. And this journey that I've been on, I tell people all the time. It's real easy to say. It started with my mom. So Christopher's work determining bots from authentic real accounts really came into a sharper focus around the 2016 presidential election. The 2016 presidential election in the United States was a really weird time online. Bad actors used social media to create chaos and confusion, and a Senate inquiry found that no group was targeted for this kind of disinformation more than black folks.

Bad actors would use social media accounts pretending, oftentimes pretty badly, to be black. If you listen to our episode last season with Shafika Hudson, you know exactly what I'm talking about. It just created a lot of distrust and confusion, which ultimately was the entire point. This is around the time when Christopher really started to see the image. impact that these kinds of disinformation tactics had on our ability to meaningfully connect online, especially for black folks. After the 2016 election, we realized, like, hey, there were these fake accounts that were influencing conversations that, you know, were also being used to target people of color

to try to sway them away from Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. I realized, like, hey, there's a huge problem here. then we started having people who were calling each other bots, like if they didn't agree with each other. So, you know, if you came to my, you know, my Twitter feed and you're like, you know, hey, something, whatever. And then I'm just like, I don't agree with you. Then someone jumps in, no, this person is a bot or that person is a bot.

And I just thought it wasn't productive. And it was counterintuitive. I mean, it just for what social media is and what we are supposed to use it for, I just thought by everyone calling each other a bot because we did not agree that that just was adding to the problem. So I set out to try to create a platform to allow people to be able to identify the real accounts from the fake accounts. You know, because I really don't, even though the name of the company is bots, and I don't like using the term bot that much because it has morphed over time.

And a lot of the accounts now that we see are not really bots per se. there are more human-controlled accounts. So we like to say inauthentic accounts. So how do you actually use machine learning to distinguish in authentic accounts from authentic accounts? Back in 2017, started working on the platform, really started doing the research. And, you know, in the beginning, hit a roadblock because it's like, okay, you know, when you create these models, these machine learning models, you have to train it and you have to give an examples of, quote unquote, what's a good account versus a bad account. So, you know, my opinion of a good

account may be different from your opinion. And, you know, my opinion of a bad account might be different from yours and so forth. So what I consider good may not be what other people consider good or bad. So what I ended up doing was using Twitter's terms of service. There, you know, rules and that was the guy. Like whatever they considered was breaking the rules and, you know, whatever, that's what I would use as the, you know, the roadmap or the map, whatever. So then started looking for accounts that were considered good and considered bad and trained the model and did this over time.

And at the same time, building out the platform and then in 2018 launched it. And I mean, I don't want to say it was an overnight success. but people, you know, pretty much flock to it because it was something that people were really dying for. Because they really wanted to know who they were interacting with. So there were already a few tools out there to determine if an account online is a bot or not. But Christopher wanted to go further. There were a couple of other, you know, platforms or similar products out there. But, you know, the way that they were designed, they were designed to pretty much say, like, bot or not.

you know, kind of like old days hot or not, bought or not. Yeah. And, and I thought that was bad because it's, it's, it's not black and white. It really isn't. And so my system was more like a credit, you know, score system where you have accounts that are rated normal, satisfactory, disruptive, and problematic. Obviously problematic being the worst, you know, obviously like the least worst or whatever. And so people understood that right away. So they were able to look at those reports that that are generated when you analyze an account, and they're like, okay, I get this, I understand this. So it's not just, you know, bot or not, you know, we have a range of different scores. I have been called a bot before. If I've said

something that people, a lot of people didn't agree with. It's one of the reasons I have my camera on for this interview. I was like, I just want to make sure that he knows that he's talking to an actual black human who exists in the world. Do you ever just see somebody on Twitter who is just not using the language correctly. Like I was looking at your Twitter feed today and someone said, someone had a tweet that said, anytime a black goes against what they're supposed to be doing or doesn't support the Democrats, y'all say it's a bot. And I'm thinking, I don't know any other black people who would refer to another black person as a black. That doesn't sound right to me. And so it's interesting how before we just had these sort of cultural cues or language

cues to help us understand if this person is actually, you know, the black human that they're purporting to be. And now we have this tool that can really put a little bit of data behind it. This is actually a persistent problem on social media. People pretending to be someone they're not online. Journalist Juana Thompson popularized the term black fishing when someone who isn't really black pretends to be black on social media. And it doesn't just stop at race. It can be all kinds of things. For instance, people pretending to be medical professionals, or doctors to spread vaccine misinformation. And this person that you're talking about, we call it blackfishing.

When someone pretends to be black, creates an account, uses a black photo, and they try to persuade other people, you know, in the community to do things by saying certain things. So they would say, for example, I don't like Joe Biden. You know, he's not, he hasn't done anything for the black community. know, me being a black, I don't find him to, you know, have my values or whatever. So anyone reading that will say, wait, you know, is that a typo? Or did this person actually get it wrong? And that applies to a lot of different things. That applies to people who are pretending to be doctors who are telling people not to take

the vaccine. and another doctor reading some of what they're tweeting would say this makes absolutely no sense. So maybe to you and I, not being doctors, we may not spot that right away, but a professional, you know, that does this for a living, would say, hey, what you said just makes absolutely no sense. There's no way you're a doctor. So, you know, so the same applies to, like you said, when, you know, unfortunately, someone is trying to pretend like they're black, black folks can usually spot that right away. Yeah, and I also think, I completely agree. And I think you gave people a way to have just better conversations on social media because we probably all had that experience of you're talking to somebody on Twitter and eventually

you're like, this person is not worth my time. This person is not worth having a conversation with it. This person is not interested in having a thoughtful conversation. And I think what you've done has given people a better framework for when it's like, this person is not worth engaging. this person is misrepresenting themselves, this person is misrepresenting the situation that they're claiming to be an expert on or claiming to have experience with.

Not every person on social media is worth your time or like the person that you should be trying to have a real conversation with. Ultimately, Christopher wants to help create better social media experiences. One where people, especially women of color who we know are so often targeted, don't have to be subjected to constant harassment

just to show up online. But what's happening on Twitter, there's also the targeted harassment side of things where a lot of these inauthentic accounts, they purposely go after people that are either, you know, supporting an individual or, you know, they're talking about climate change or, you know, whatever the issue may be. And we see that a lot with women, especially women of color. You know, we're doing a study now, research now on Kamala Harris. We previously did something on Megan Markle. And women of color seem to be like the prime target for a lot of these accounts. So we started building out tools to help with that. You know, we have an order blocker that blocks accounts not only based on the bot

similar rating, but also it could be tailored to the individual. Let's just say there's an emoji that a lot of these accounts are using. I can't think of something right to second, but if you want, you can block accounts that are using that specific emoji or even specific keywords if you wanted to. You can block accounts that are just recently created. Because as you know, a lot of times when they're doing the swarming, when they're attacking, they will just go and create a bunch of accounts like right away and then spam you and attack you with that. So you can actually auto block accounts that were just recently created or don't have a lot of followers or not, you know, whatever.

I mean, it can be literally tailored to your taste. So we thought that was a lot better than just people using generic block lists or, you know, using other products that just block based on a list. You know, you're blocking it. So I should, you know, that doesn't really work. I mean, we are trying to make the platform a place where people can feel safe, you know, that they can use our tools to, I don't know, have a better experience on Twitter and then hopefully on other platforms as well in the future. Let's take a quick break.

And we're back. I was begging. The official literally looked me in my eye and said in his language, only Ukrainians. That's all. That if you are black, you should walk. That's Jessica Oreckpo, a Nigerian medical student, and one of the estimated 16,000 African students living in Ukraine. Around 20,000 Indian students also live in the country.

As the invasion of Ukraine intensified, we saw reports of non-white people in Ukraine struggling to get out of the country. The hashtag Africans in Ukraine was used to amplify stories of Africans being pulled up trains and buses, not being allowed to flee, in favor of white Ukrainians, by Ukrainian authorities. Dr. Ambagu, a 24-year-old doctor from Nigeria who lived in Western Ukraine, told the New York Times, the Ukrainian border guards were not letting us through. They were beating people off with sticks and tearing off their jackets. They would slap them, they would beat them, they would push them to the end of the queue. It was awful. So I need to make this really clear. It is absolutely true that the people of color in Ukraine are being mistreated during an active invasion because of racism, and it's disgusting.

The High Commissioner for Refugees from the United Nations confirm this in a statement. And really, you don't even need to look to stories from folks on the ground to see the way that racism against non-white people in Ukraine is playing out. This isn't a place, with all due respect, you know, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades.

This is a relatively civilized, relatively European. I have to choose those words carefully, too. City where you wouldn't expect that or hope that it's going to happen. But this clear racism also reveals a really important, yet difficult to contend with reality about how disinformation works, that it's often rooted in actual truth. And bad actors inflame legitimate tensions during already tense moments like this

to create chaos and confusion at a climate where nobody knows what to believe. So while it is absolutely true that non-white refugees in Ukraine are facing disgusting racism as they try to flee, it's also true that inauthentic accounts and bad actors are cruelly using their stories to inflame racial tensions and deepen existing divisions. And what's even more disgusting is that we have a digital media landscape that makes it really easy for them to do this. So what are you seeing in terms of a conversation online with regard to black people in Ukraine? First, I would like to say that yes, there were people of color, not just black people, no, there were Indian people. Brazilians as well, who did face some discrimination, I guess, is how you would say it,

because they were not allowed to board buses. Now, the pushback to that was, well, you know, where they were going, they were not allowed to enter, that they had to go into like another country or something like that. So like if they were going, trying to go into Poland, for example, there were black folks who were denied access. So that's true. And there were people that were not allowed on buses or pulled off of buses and stuff like that. Now, you have accounts that are popping up all of a sudden, newly created accounts, claiming to be black that were saying things that we could not verify, you know, that videos that were not even from Ukraine, that people started, you know, sharing that stuff. And we can clearly see that a lot of these accounts were fake.

They were inauthentic, you know, using our technology, looking at, you know, what exactly these accounts are saying because some of these accounts were just spamming the same thing over and over and over again. And that's a clear sign of platform manipulation. It's so awful for so many reasons. But a big one is that it creates a climate where the actual people of color fleeing for their lives have to work that much harder to amplify their stories in a media landscape awash with confusion and inauthentic discourse. Students sharing videos about their experiences in Ukraine on social media began time stamping their videos and adding exact location codes to demonstrate that they were actually real and authentic. And the fact that they would

even need to do this, just to be heard, demonstrates how badly tech platforms have failed to create a landscape that people can meaningfully turn to for sharing and receiving information during a time of real crisis because they have to compete with inauthentic accounts and bad actors who are using their very real trauma to manipulate people. It's a complex situation, and in pointing it out, Christopher faced criticism that he was invalidating the reality of racism, actually faced by non-white people in Ukraine. But even that reveals a tough point about combating this information. Bad actors will seize on moments of crisis and tension to inflame legitimate pressure points that already exist in our communities. The kinds of sensitive or highly charged topics that can be difficult to discuss.

So, you know, it's our job to report the truth, you know, publish the truth, whether it offends someone or not. And that's what we did. And of course, there were people that were just like, oh, you know, you're perpetrating this thing as if it's just propaganda. You know, our people are being left to die. And we're like, no, that's not what we're doing at all. We're not saying that this is not actually happening on the ground. But when you have accounts that are trying to sow division, who try to sell discord, excuse me, who are trying to divide people who are trying to make, you know, people of color not supportive of a country because of some incidents that happened.

I mean, look, let's, let's be honest. Let's be real. There's racism everywhere. There's racism here in the United States. You know, unfortunately, I can walk down the street and get stopped by a car and got a bit. I can get shot just because of the color of my skin. But going back to the actual fake accounts, they were clearly trying to manipulate. And we see this all the time.

Unfortunately, on social media, black folks are targeted a lot because, you know, whether it's Black Lives Matter, whether it's elections, you know, they feel as if we're easily manipulated because, you know, matters of race, people get fired up, you know, people are very, you know, passionate when it comes to race, you know, in matters of race. So, of course, if you see, like, people being denied access to buses, you're like, you know, your first instinct is like, what the heck is going on? Like, I'm supporting this country and now you're treating my people like, like garbage. Like, what's happening and then it goes viral. And that's what state actors want. They want that. They want to muddy up the water. You know, they want you to not support this country, not support Ukraine. So they'll take

a little snippet of truth and make it seem like a whole entire country is full with Nazis and people who hate black folks. And that's just not true. Are there racist in Ukraine? Of course there are. I mean, like I said, I'm from the United States. There are a bunch of races here and there are a bunch of races in the UK and there are a bunch of races everywhere. But that doesn't mean that the whole entire country is racist. That doesn't mean that because these people were not allowed on the, you know, the buses

or not allowed entry into a country, that that was the policy of the actual country itself. And that's what we were just trying to, you know, to convey to people that, hey, look, be really careful about what you're sharing. you can be upset about what's happening in Ukraine. You can be upset about people not being allowed access to buses and stuff like that, but you can also be vigilant and not help, you know, escalate this situation on social media. Yeah. And I think that that really exposes a truth about disinformation and bad actors that I say a lot. But this was a time where I really felt it, you know.

Bad actors, they exploit our legitimate tension. and traumas and triggers to manipulate us. And I know that when I saw these videos of black folks and other folks of color, you know, not being let on buses and all of this chaos, it triggered something in me. Like that is a tension point within me personally. Disinformation tends to be rooted in some kind of legitimate truth, right? And that bad actors, they exploit that, those tensions, those pressure points,

they exploit that within people to manipulate us. And I definitely felt it. I had to stop myself from, you know, quickly retweeting and amplifying videos just because they had caused a kind of emotional response from me. And I think that's something that we need to really be super clear on that bad actors, they're very savvy. They know how to manipulate issues that get people fired up. And they definitely found my issue. And, you know, I think that being really aware of that is key. And then also really knowing the historical precedent because you're absolutely right.

I think that a lot of bad actors and people who are pushing disinformation just see the black community in the United States as easy fodder for manipulation. You know, we know that in the 2016 election, there was no group targeted for Russian interference on social media to meddle in the election more than black folks in the United States. We know that. A Senate inquiry confirmed that. And so we got to keep in mind there is a historical precedent for, you know, people seeing us as easy targets for. manipulation along the basis of race and that bad actors are going to exploit things that are legitimate concerns. Like there is legitimate anti-blackness and racism happening in Ukraine, I am sure of it. However, it's not negating that to also keep in mind and bad actors are going to exploit that truth to try to manipulate us.

Absolutely. I mean, you're preaching to the choir here. And that's what we try to. We try to educate not only, you know, the black community, but we also try to educate, you know, the white community as well, to let them understand what's happening. Because still people don't realize, even, I mean, it's been several years now, don't realize just how much platform manipulation is happening. They don't realize how much targeted harassment is happening.

So that's why I try to use my Twitter account as a teaching tool. And, you know, whether it's, you know, a celebrity that's being attacked or an organization that's being attacked, you know, I try to kind of rip the scab off and let people see. Because sometimes, you know, I will have people ask, like, why are you amplifying this, you know? And it's like the only way we're going to educate people. And the only way we're going to fix this is by educating people is showing them and giving them a window into what's happening. Because a lot of the researchers in my field that do this, like a lot of times if they publish

your report, they don't even publish the list of accounts. We don't do that. We publish everything because we want people to understand what's happening. So whether we are showing, you know, pages of tweets, you know, the accounts themselves. We want people to be educated. And, you know, I'm asked all the time, like, how are we going to fix this problem? And I'm like, critical thinking is key here. Rethinking how we teach our kids about, you know, social media and looking for, you know, like, for example, if someone posts something and you're not, you're not sure it's legitimate teaching our kids to research and find out if that's, you know, legitimate.

taking just five minutes and trying to find, you know, other sources for this particular story. And I'm going to tell you right now, I have seen journalists. These are professionals who retweet stories that are completely fake. And I still, you know, it happened a lot in 2016 and it's still happening in 2022. Yeah, I mean, I have been guilty of it. I have to admit. And I've been guilty of it before I knew a lot about how this stuff works. Now when I see a story, I kind of have my bullshit detector up.

There are a couple of things where I'm like, oh, I don't know, a story that just seems a little too, like, a little too, how can I put this? When I see a story that seems tailor made for someone like me to share it, it almost seems like it was crafted specifically for virality. My bullshit detector goes up, where I'm like, oh, this is just a little too. too convenient that everything that would prompt someone like me to share is there. And so I have gotten a lot smarter about that kind of thing now. But a few years ago, I don't think we were having conversations about like it's good to check, you know, your source, check your sources. It's good to like verify if something seems a little fishy to you. Maybe Google it. You know, I don't think we were having conversations about the importance of that kind of literacy online, even just a few

years ago? We were not. We weren't. And it's good to see that we are having those conversations. You know, look, one company can't do it all. I would love to see more companies come into this space and be public about it because there are some companies that work for like campaigns and they do things behind the scenes. And that's not helping. It really isn't because yes, You know, it's good to, like, if there's a campaign and there's someone putting out disinformation, someone is helping to mitigate that disinformation. But we need more people doing this publicly. You know, we need workshops. We need people to understand, like you said, like, hey, check other sources.

We wasn't having that conversation a few years ago. Hey, you know, look at who you're engaging with. Look at who you're amplifying. Is this person a state actor? because there are accounts that, you know, fly under the wire for months, sometimes years that are, you know, they're fake and they are state sponsored accounts. And they're just helping to, you know, whatever it may be, you know, whether it's trying to help Republicans or trying to, you know, pretend like they're Democrats in the beginning and then kind of switch up and say, oh, you know, I'm no longer supporting the Democrats because of X, Y, and C. You know, we see that a lot. So, you know, I just think, I just think that as a society, we need to start having these conversations.

More after a quick break. Let's get right back into it. You really reveal something about why I get so fired up about things like inauthentic accounts and disinformation. It's because we're not really able to have, we're not really able to view social media to have the authentic, thoughtful, accurate, substantive conversations that we need to be having. And so I'm a black person. I care deeply about the treatment of black folks, folks of color, marginalized people, both here in the United States and around the globe. That is something that I care deep. Like my entire life is about that. And I am not able right now to have a conversation on our largest social media platforms

about the status of the folks that I care about, my own community around the globe, because of bad actors and disinformation. It's like, and so I think that that's the thing I always hit on is that what we, what we all lose out on is having a media ecosystem where the conversations that we need to be having critically are able to be had. We don't have that right now, you know, if even you, like, I see the pushback that you get trying to make this point of like, yes, there is racism happening in Ukraine, of course, and yes, there are state actors trying to manipulate how we respond.

respond to it. And people will respond to you saying, like, oh, you're negating racism or you're saying racism doesn't exist. And it just goes to show that we are losing out on having a media, a digital media ecosystem where we can have these conversations and where we can actually move forward on these issues that are so critically important. Right. I just want to get this in there. When first thing, we need legislation to, we definitely, and I hate that. to say this, but we're going to need legislation to help us kind of, you know, win this war, because that's what we're in now. We're in a disinformation war. And the bad guys, I hate to say this, are winning. They really are because it's really easy, really, really easy to, you know,

to have platform manipulation. It's really easy to change opinions on social media. People, do not understand just how easy it is. Because something you said, you know, like I look at this tweet and it almost seemed like it's tailored for me. It is. It is. It is really easy. And I've done this experiment. I've actually done this experiment. It's really easy to craft a tweet to make it go viral. It's really easy to craft a tweet to spark an emotion and a certain group, whether you are LGBTQ plus, whether you are black, whether you're a woman, whether you're a male, whether you're an insult. I don't care what you are. There are ways that you can craft tweets and if you do it the right time at the right time of the day and you use

the certain keywords, it's going to go viral. Okay, almost every single time it's going to go viral. it's no different than marketing. And there are people that are getting paid a lot of money, you know, they're bad actors to figure out ways of doing these things. And, you know, they have their systems on how to make things go viral, how to, you know, to manipulate this group of people to do X, Y, and Z. So we need legislation, number one, to kind of, you know, I don't agree with this whole thing that.

that everyone needs to be verified because there are legitimate reasons why someone would not want to be verified. So I'm actually not against anonymous accounts. However, I am against accounts that are pretending to be something else. So, you know, legislation, for example, preventing people from creating accounts for the sole purpose of platform manipulation to be one thing. Because don't be mistaken. It's not just happening in Russia or, you know, some other far-off place. You have people here in the United States groups of people that are creating fake accounts to manipulate, whether it's, you know, regarding elections, whether it's white supremacists that are trying to still discord within the black community, whatever it may be. So that should be illegal,

number one. And then the other thing is making platforms do more because they're just doing to bear the bare minimal. And we all know this. Anyone that's been on social media, you know, for the past month maybe, know that the platforms are not doing enough. So there needs to be legislation to kind of force them to do more. Because why would they? You know, why would Twitter, for example, remove 10,000 accounts when they don't have to? Because that's money for them. When you think about the state of our media landscape, are you hopeful? Like, do you think it's a lost cause? Do you think, you know, it's just such a cesspool and these platforms aren't going to do anything

and we're never going to get useful legislation? Or are you hopeful that we'll get somewhere to make it possible to have meaningful substantive change? Right. I think it's going to take a big event, a big event, you know, maybe like, like a terrorist attack where, and I always give this example, there's really nothing stopping someone right now from using social media to, to say, for example, I'm going to give me an example here. Let's say someone goes and they say, hey, yo, let's get a group of people. We're going

we're going to make it look like that there are a bunch of black folks that are going around New York City and just stabbing people. And they go on social media and they start posting this stuff. And, you know, they even have videos of black folks stabbing people. Now you got a bunch of Caucasian white folks. They're like, oh, my God, there are black folks that are going around New York and they are stabbing people, you know, and now they're walking down the street and they're nervous. And all of this is a hoax. This whole entire thing is a hoax. But it's going viral. It's going viral on Twitter.

It's going viral on Facebook. It's going viral on it everywhere. And it's all fake. I can tell you right now, there's nothing stopping this from happening right now. Because the platforms like Twitter and they do, you know, like when stuff starts to get out of hand, they do take action, but they take action too late. So you may have an hour or two that goes on, you know, goes by, excuse me, before they take action. That's more than enough. And we've seen this before in the past. It's, you know, if there's a mass shooting, all of a sudden, you see like the same picture from like the last five mass shootings where they claim it's this guy or whatever. And then that goes via, oh, it's this guy. Well, there's not anything really right now stopping anyone from, you know,

creating like a fake attack, which I will call it then, you know, in a sense, a terrorist attack where you're creating this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this is terrified because they think, oh, my God, like, they're black folks that are around, you know, you know, they're fed up and they're stabbing or killing white folks and what are we going to do and all this other stuff. Um, and that's just like a weird example that I gave, but you can clearly see how how platform manipulation could go from something starting on Twitter, or Facebook or wherever, and then spilling into the real world.

And we actually have real world examples of that, you know, back in 2016, going into 2017 with the whole Pizza Gate thing, where, you know, you have that, that individual who really thought Hillary Clinton was sex trafficking kids. Then we have one six. a lot of that was organized online. And it spilled into the real world and you got these crazy people that were storming the capital. So there's nothing stopping, you know, someone else from doing this. An event like that will then prompt legislators here in the United States to say,

enough is enough, we need to do something. So I gave a long answer to say that, yes, I do think legislation is coming. I do believe that things are going to get better. I do. I think eventually, you know, people are going to just say enough is enough and things are going to move in the right direction. And I do believe that platforms are going to be forced to have to take action. So, you know, the question, I think the real question is not if, but when. Are we talking another year? are we talking five years? I don't have, hopefully sooner rather than later, because I want to be out of business.

I want bots sitting will be out of business. I want to be able to retire and not have to deal with, you know, inauthentic accounts and bots and stuff. I mean, wouldn't it be great if we didn't have to wait for some sort of, you know, calamitous events and that people with power to make this change would just do it? Wouldn't that be great? Well, you know something really quickly, and we didn't talk about this, but really, really quickly. So, all right.

So the platforms have been blocking, you know, Russia and, you know, they've been blocking certain areas of that nature. And I've had people reach out to me. I've had journalists reach out and say, hey, have you noticed a decline in, like, trolling? Like, does things seem a bit quieter? You know, are you guys noticing this? And I tweeted about that earlier. And I said, the short answer is yes. There's definitely a decline over the last, you know, like, let's say the last three or four days of just like the vitriol and the trolling.

I mean, because we were just seeing like a lot of stuff regarding Biden and Biden, you know, he can't remember what he did yesterday, you know, just nonsense like that. And we've definitely seen a decrease. Now, we've also seen an increase in accounts praising by Vladimir Putin. And we've seen, you know, fake accounts, once again, saying that Ukrainians are racist and it's a racist country. But overall, we've definitely seen a decline in a trolling. You know, and I made a joke, not on Twitter, this is personally. And I'm just like, God, I wish it was like this every single.

soon day. Like, I wish that you can go onto social media and actually interact with people and not have to deal with the constant trolling. So, you know, we, we, we, we're getting a glimpse of what life could be like if the platforms were actually to take this more seriously. And we deserve that. We deserve to be able to go on to our largest communications platforms and have a conversation without being trolled, without being harassed. Like, We deserve that. Everybody deserves that. Yes, absolutely, especially women and women of color.

Because at the end of the day, and we've provided data on this, women are at the top of the list in terms of people who are constantly targeted and attacked. And women of color are the number one. And platforms do need to do better at, you know, curtailing a lot of this stuff. that's happening. But you're absolutely right. First thing, a platform like Twitter, sometimes I get really disappointed with Twitter. Because Twitter, for me, you know,

people always talk about like Facebook and, you know, Instagram. I think Twitter is the most powerful platform on the planet. I believe that to my core. And the reason behind that is because, unlike other social networks, Twitter can drive news cycle. You know, Twitter, I can put something out on Twitter and tweet something, and it could be picked up by a major outlet or publication or whatever. You know, Joe Biden can go right now, President Biden can go and tweet something out about Ukraine, and it will go viral.

I mean, it could literally start a war depending on what he, you know, tweets out. So, you know, people are using Twitter and journalists and world leaders are using Twitter to get news and information and everything out. And unlike Facebook and Instagram, it's a platform for and a hub for information, period. So you would think with a platform like this that the people at Twitter would say, hey, you know, something, we really need to make. this place a lot better because we're like where people go for serious news. You know, a lot of people don't even go to, like, they don't even have like cable anymore. You know, they're not even like, you know, going and buying newspapers, unfortunately. They're going to Twitter to get their news.

So you would think the folks at Twitter would say, hey, it's time for us to really take our own platform seriously. Like, they're, I hate saying this. And there's nothing wrong with the NFTA. but I'm just like, why are you focusing on NFT, like, profile images when you should be focusing on the rampant disinformation and harassment on your platform?

Like, who asks for NFT profile pictures? Literally, every time they release something, I'm like, who asked for this? Why don't you focus on, you've got a lot on your plate in terms of making this platform safer and better? Like, why don't you focus on that? I don't understand it. when I saw that, I was just like, who asked for this?

You know, so, I mean, look, I understand what my needs may be and what your needs may be, maybe a little bit different from what the developer needs may be, but they need to really sit down with folks and get an idea of what their platform really is about to other people. And I know, look, not everyone uses Twitter for news and things like that. There are people on there who are just doing their thing. I get that. But Twitter can definitely drive through cycles. And because of that, the folks at Twitter need to do more.

You know, they definitely need to do more. Well, hopefully, I think that your work is really creating the conditions for them to really see that. I think that's very clear to me. And it sounds like you don't agree. You know something. I'm sorry. And I completely apologize. I'll cut you off.

I think our work for, you know, the general public and journalists and stuff, like, researchers, I think they look at our work and obviously want us to continue and they, you know, value what we're doing. Twitter, on the other hand, I think we're kind of a thorn sometimes in their side because we expose a lot of things that they probably don't want to be exposed. So, you know, I'm not saying Twitter would love for us to disappear. I'm not going to say that because I do believe they also find value in what we're doing. But I think they probably would like it if we're like less effective at what we're doing. Something tells me you don't have any plans to become less

effective soon. No, no, not at all. Not at all. Well, Christopher, this has been a such a good conversation. Where can people keep up with all of your work? Oh, well, first thing, you know, our website is bot, B-O-T, Sentinel, S-E-N-T-I-N-E-L.com. They can follow me. I'm at C-B-O-U-Z-Y. That's Twitter. And yeah, I mean, like I said, I use my account to try to educate people. and, you know, I'm very vocal about things. I don't hold my tongue. So, you know, if you want to follow me on Twitter and learn more about this stuff and other issues as well, you can do that.

But if you're just more focused on our technology, you can go to the website. People of color in Ukraine deserve to make their voices heard without having to compete with disinformers and bad actors on social media platforms to do so. And we all deserve a digital media landscape that can be used. to get authentic, accurate information about what's happening in our world, especially during a crisis. We all deserve better. You can help support black students in Ukraine and find more resources at Black Women for Black Lives. Go to Black Women for Black Lives.org or click the link in the show description.

And we'll be continuing the conversation around what's happening in Ukraine later this week. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can reach us at hello at tangoati.com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangoity. There are No Girls on the Internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of IHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari 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 Iheart Radio, check out the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you liked this episode, help us out by subscribing. You can also support the show by buying merch at tangoady.com. slash store and sign up for my brand new newsletter at tangoity.com slash newsletter.

That's t-a-n-g-o-t-i-com.