There Are No Girls on the Internet - Will Smith's AI Fans; ICE hides deportation flights using Taylor Swift’s loophole; DC Sandwich Thrower Free; TikTok Hawks Stalker Tech – NEWS ROUNDUP w/ Nima Shirazi of Citations Needed

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

For this week's News Roundup, Bridget is joined by her longtime friend and colleague Nima Shirazi, co-host of the OG podcast "Citations Needed" about how media shapes power. TikTok Shop Sells Viral GPS Trackers Marketed to Stalkers: https://www.404media.co/tiktok-shop-sells-viral-gps-trackers-marketed-to-stalkers/ ICE Is Using Taylor Swift’s Loophole To Hide Deportation Flights: https://archive.ph/dPDqw#selection-701.0-704.0 Grand jury declines to indict man who threw a sandwich at federal officer in D.C.: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/grand-jury-declines-indict-sandwich-guy-threw-sub-dc-federal-officer-rcna227464 Microsoft Asked FBI for Help Tracking Employee Protests over Palestine: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/microsoft-asked-fbi-help-tracking-204559938.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALE2eGyVYVuUQ7Iw3XlXK-4gRnbqSdJzXZ25_u0zYLgHcdvssTEXHrj7bNMZM_tlZtpkHkqfKXtoYpqHRsbODfjex4rE0acMyK2n76_-apXRlkREXs1EVL_Dtuxy_HLmIzt0xg-1YLaphFhSffgLJNE-ckWGgjWYy6Dk9NtkGR6c Protesters occupy Microsoft office as company reviews its work with Israel's military: https://www.npr.org/2025/08/27/nx-s1-5518786/microsoft-protesters-office-israel Will Smith tour video criticized for featuring a ‘fake AI crowd’: https://www.the-independent.com/bulletin/culture/will-smith-ai-tour-video-concert-b2813880.html Put on some headphones, listen to all 13 minutes of "Do You Feel Like We Do", and try to remember the last time you felt as excited as the people in the audience: https://open.spotify.com/track/0qqRwBkq7oWv6QnIRLfQKe?si=354474b5d03a4b67 Buy a copy of the important new book "The Podcast Pantheon: 101 Podcasts That Changed How We Listen–From Wtf to Serial." Nima is in there! https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781797232249  Support Citations Needed on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/citationsneededpodcast Listen to Citations Needed: https://citationsneeded.libsyn.com/ Save Our Signs: https://umn.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_4VKNSNsfJuIVOIu If you’re listening on Spotify, you can leave a comment there to let us know what you thought about these stories, or email us at [e-mail] ! Follow Bridget and TANGOTI on social media! Many vids each week ||  instagram.com/bridgetmarieindc/ || tiktok.com/@bridgetmarieindc ||  youtube.com/@ThereAreNoGirlsOnTheInternet 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. Welcome to There Are No Girls on the Internet. This is another iteration of our weekly news roundup where we explore all the stories happening online in news, tech, media, culture, so you don't have to. I am thrilled to introduce today's guest co-host, Nima Shirazi, co-host of the Citation's Needed Podcast, which I guess I would describe it as, as a leftist podcast about how media shapes power. Nima, is that a fair description of the show? I think that's a fantastic description, Bridget.

And hi, everyone. And to you, Bridget, thanks so much for having me today. This is going to be really fun. I really appreciate you asking me to do this. Yeah, our tagline is officially a podcast on the media, power, PR, and the history of bullshit. But I think you pretty much sum it up. you know, the idea of how media does shape not only perception, but also the operation of power and how power kind of works in our world, not just through language, but also through

invisibleizing certain things in terms of foregrounding certain things, silencing certain voices while lifting up others. And so, yeah, that's the show. We've been doing it for now eight years. our eight season and taken a tiny break before we come back with season nine starting in September. And am I going to embarrass you if I brag on you really quick? Because you told me something off mic that I was, I gasped because I was so excited. Yes, feel free. We, I tend not to, you know what? Fuck that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Put some respect on my name right here. So they've been doing this podcast eight seasons. They bear, you guys, you all barely have a social presence. but that did not stop you from being included in this new book, Podcast Pantheon, 101 podcast that changed how we listen from what the fuck to cereal.

And I mean, I just can't like, it is huge. I was listening to another podcast that I love called, uh, yeah, dude, talking about this book and how they were included in it. And I remember I was making dinner. I thought, I wonder if anybody I know would be included in this book. And to be in this book, you genuinely have to be foundational to the art of podcasting And the powers that be have said, citations needed, you all are foundational to the art of podcasting because you're included. That is very, very kind of you to say, yeah, no, we're thrilled to be in it.

Sean Malen, who wrote the book, you know, has been covering the art of podcasts, I could say. For a very, very long time, he has been a writer at Vulture and, you know, New York Magazine and plenty of other places. a really, really great culture critic and writer, commentator. And he decided to include us in this. I, you know, I was thinking we would be the, you know, 105th podcast, but apparently we're in 101. So we made it. We made it.

And it's quite, it's quite lovely. As you said, we, you know, we really don't talk about ourselves all that much. It's kind of a, you know, fully listener-funded, very word of mouth podcast. but people listen. People seem to like it. We've been doing it for eight years and going strong. And so it's really lovely to be included in something without, you know, without having the backing of like corporate sponsors.

You know, we've never read any commercials or ad copy ever. We don't have any grant money. We don't have any corporate sponsors, as I said. Like, we don't even have a fucking website. Don't get me started on that. But yeah, it seems to be working out. And now, you know, hey, it's in ink. It's official.

We're legit now. Yeah. And to your point about being 100% listener and supporter funded, I need to just kind of underline that because in this day and age, especially for leftist media, that is, it's so difficult to sustain yourself. And, you know, listen, the reality is we don't have a strongly well-funded media wing like they have on the right, we just don't have that. And so being able to be making this

kind of media and criticism for eight years without ever reading an ad, you know, I have, I've read an ad or two in my day as our listeners are, no, no shade on that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, aware of. I don't think this is no surprise to any. No, no shade. We, uh, you know, there's, um, there's, there's, there's, there's just a certain level of, um, independence and ideology that we kind of agreed to right when we started in, you know, June and July of 2017, which seems both like a minute ago and, you know, three millennia. And so, yeah, we've really kind of kept to that. And it's just, it's just really nice to have made it this far. And to, you know, have the amazing support of our listeners that just allows us to really stay independent. You know, we're

just not be holden to anyone ever. And so, you know, we can talk about police brutality. We can talk about the genocide in Gaza. We can talk about real estate interests, you know, having kind of exterminationist rhetoric against homeless people. Like we can do all that without ever thinking about, you know, us being pulled or us getting a, you know, scoldy email or having to worry about grant funding drying up from a, you know, quote unquote liberal.

foundation, you know, we just don't have to deal with that. And, and I, I really don't take that for granted. You know, I very much have been a part of the, uh, progressive, um, you know, ecosystem for a long time. And I say progressive, not even leftist. I mean, uh, you know, day job wise. Um, and so I know that it's, it's, it's tough out there to sustain and to, and to stay true. And, you know, uh, we're all just trying to, all just trying to do our good work out here. And I just think that the work of citations needed, you know, is a testament to our listeners more than, more than anything else. You know, we have an amazing team, me and Adam, of course, but, you know, also our producer, Florence and Julianne, our editor Trendel, transcribers and other supporters that we've had over

the years. But the fact that our listeners have just stayed with us this long and keep supporting the show is just really lovely. If you're not listening to citations needed, please change that right away, y'all, because it is a force in this world and we need more shows like that. So, Nima, I actually have a rare bit of like the tiniest shred of what I'm kind of calling good news. I feel like lately the show, I mean, stuff's been blue. That is not why you brought me on. Yeah. Want to talk about something positive for a change? This is a swirm. I feel like this is now a gotcha interview.

Yeah, you're like, this is a, oh, no, it's a hostile interview. So folks know I live in D.C. I have been trying very hard to not make the entire podcast about what's happening in D.C. Even though it feels like it's all I actively think about anymore. And so it's like every conversation, it's the top of mind. But I do have a tiny bit of good news out of D.C. So the very first night of Trump's takeover of D.C.'s police force, a man was arrested for throwing a subway sandwich at federal officers while saying, fuck you fascist on a viral video.

Did you see this? Of course, the sandwich man. I love that guy. Yeah, all power to all the sandwich people. And so, yeah, I believe I saw this news too, Bridget. This case was brought before a grand jury. Yes! This man threw like a wrapped up, you know, subway sandwich at some fascist in D.C., occupying D.C.

Yeah, and as you said, it was like, you know, fuck you, get out of my city. And like, this clip went viral with throwing the sandwich. some like jack booted thugs chest and then like running down the street with like keystone cops going after him and I guess they like got him and he was pulled you know his case was put in front the grand jury and I believe this is where you're uh you know unlikely good news comes from yes that grand jury in DC declined to indict so he was free to go they so they popped this guy on felony assault of an officer charges which come on now I mean yeah I actually I I mean, I guess I would say it seems like a little much in terms of the charges.

You could say they were trumped up. But I do think it's a testament to how D.C. feels about having, you know, military and federal agents in our city. It is pretty unusual for grand juries to not indict. One of the sayings is that, oh, you can get an indictment on a ham sandwich. But I guess not for throwing a ham sandwich. Apparently not. I mean, who knows? Who knows?

Maybe it was like the, you know, if there was honey mustard on there, you. You know, that could be fairly threatening to an officer's life and livelihood. So I kind of understand that. But, you know, yeah, thrilled to hear that the sandwich man is free. He is free. He kind of became a local hero here. Pun, not intended, but very much appreciated. There are, you know, that, that Bainsky photo, the guy, Hulk,

oh, yeah, like the, yeah, the banks, the, the, the banks, the, uh, stents. has now turned into like, yeah, like a sandwich thrower. It's pretty solid. So, yeah, he has become kind of a local folk hero here. And, yeah, I really do think the fact that, you know, you could not get D.C. residents to indict this person just goes to show how much D.C. residents do not want Trump and what is happening in our city. And, you know, being from D.C., I've seen National Guard.

I've seen what they do. I've seen them around. And what I am seeing is they are hanging out. They are on their phones. They are getting iced coffee. Now they are like cleaning up trash and doing landscaping. I saw a report today that estimates that the National Guard deployment to D.C. is costing taxpayers $1 million a day.

And I just think no matter what Trump says, he can say whatever he wants about how, you know, he said that district residents are running out of their houses to thank federal agents for being here. He can say whatever he wants. We know the truth, and I think the fact that D.C. residents failed to indict this man goes to show what the truth is. Let's take a quick break. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guide,

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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. At our back. If there is one thing that y'all probably know about Taylor Swift, other than the fact that she just got engaged, it's that she loves her private jet. When she was first dating Travis Kelsey, I remember her taking some heat for using her private jet

to take pretty short trips to go see him. She, I mean, she has made some comically short flights. Like, she took a private jet between L.A.X. In L.A. to Santa Monica Airport, which is, it might take you 30 minutes by car. Yeah, yeah. Her carbon footprint is, uh, large. That's a good way to put it. And I will say she is not the only celebrity who does this kind of

thing. And celebrities kind of understandably often want their private jet use to be obscured from the public because it comes with all kinds of bad press. You know, if I'm in my apartment rinsing out a yogurt container for recycling, but a wealthy celebrity is taking a private jet to go 20 minutes down the road, I can see why that would be the kind of thing they want to obscure because it would come with bad press. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I think. think there's that. There's also the idea of like, you know, from from from their perspective, I think the, you know, part of the argument is, um, uh, not only about like fuel usage, but about like their whereabouts, right? You don't want, you know, as public figures, uh,

highly sought after celebrities, uh, you know, we saw this with Elon Musk, right? He's, he's, like, furious that his private jet was being tracked, um, all around the world. Um, similarly the case for a lot of celebrities and no more so than Taylor Swift. I think, you know, there's been a, there's been like a FAA carve out for this. Yes. Celebrities for quite some time now, a lot of private jet companies have gotten their data scrubbed from these flight tracker sites. So you don't know where like Martha Stewart is.

You don't know where Oprah is. And you don't know where Taylor is, right? And so I like that the, that the, you know, worldwide news about the swift Kelsey engagement was marred a bit for you, Bridget, by the simultaneous news that Haler really doesn't want people to know where she is in the world. It was marred. And I will say this, and I want to own up front that this is my unpopular opinion. I have taken heat for this opinion. And I can take it. People might not like it. in my opinion, I don't think anybody really needs a private jet. Celebrities and rich people and famous people, they have their own special access part of the airport

where they can do TSA screening in private, and a private car takes them right to the plane. If you have money, we have figured out how to get high-profile people privately and securely through an airport. Hillary Clinton flies commercial. BTS, one of the biggest K-pop fans in the world with like a rabid fan base. They fly commercial. Prince Harry and Kate Middleton are royalty and they fly. I mean, it's all first-class commercial, but it is still commercial. I have taken heat for this opinion. I think that we don't,

like, in 2025, if you have money, we have figured out how to securely get famous people to fly commercial securely. And people who refuse to fly commercial and feel that they absolutely have to take a private jet everywhere they go, even for short distances, they should just say, I like flying on a If I was wealthy and famous, I would probably prefer a private jet as well. Just say that. It's a little bit of a personal pet peeve of mine that we have. I like that you're being apologetic about this, Bridget, as if I'm going to be like, you know what? I'm really on the private jet side of this.

No, I think that's a very reasonable thing to think, you know, that maybe that kind of use of your wealth, that kind of elitism. is potentially unnecessary in this world, right? But I think it kind of comes back to the fact that many people, and certainly many Americans, dare I say, most Americans, think that they're just kind of like one minute away from being a multimillionaire. And so they don't want things to kind of be written into law that will inevitably kind of like negatively affect them

when that happens, right, to them. And they, you know, as you said, it's like they would want a private jet too. And so it's like they're kind of speaking on behalf of a class that they wish they were a part of, but will never be a part of. Which I think really, you know, not to be too dorm room about it, but, you know, I'll take a hit off this bong and then say, that really does go a long way to keep serving power, folks. Sorry, we can, it's okay. We can be against private jets. They're still going to exist. You can still be against it, though.

No, so the reason why I gave all those caveats that this is just my opinion is because when I, not on this podcast, but when I have said online that I actually don't think that even super famous people, I don't think that they need private jets. There's always some explanation, like, oh, well, they're very famous. They would get hounded. You don't think BTS would get hounded. You don't think Prince Harry and Kate Middleton would be hounded. We have figured this out.

And I guess I just hate that we, that's exactly what you said of kind of making excuses for what the powerful and wealthy do because secretly deep down we all think that maybe if you play our cards right, that'll be us one day. Yeah, yeah. I have made peace with the fact that I will never be in a private jet. I will, I will leave this earth, never having stepped foot on a private jet. And that is fine. We don't have to bend over backward to excuse these things that I just, I just, I. I just fundamentally don't think that people need. I mean, if Hillary Clinton, of all people, can fly first-class commercial, everybody can fly first-class commercial. Like, I don't want to hear that there's some special super secret reason why this celebrity has to be on a private jet other than they just like a private jet.

Yeah, it's just kind of easy and fun and cool, right? Like, that's what it is. But, yeah, no, I think it's hard to make. the pro-private jet argument. Yeah. And not just sound like a shithead. Like, I think that's just kind of where it falls. But yeah, you know, I mean, we're all just, we're all just a minute away from making it ourselves.

And so we allow other people to kind of live out our fantasies for us, I guess. So I understand why celebrities want their private jet usage obscured. And as you were referring to, they are able to use this little known, federal aviation administration program to shield their private jet flight records from public view. So Taylor Swift, Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, they have all used this program. And now ICE, yes, that ICE, the agency that is carrying out Trump's mass deportations, is using this loophole that was formerly kind of mostly used for celebrities to shield deportation flight information from the public. According to this like very interesting piece from Lever, this is sort of a new thing.

They say, to obscure its planes which ship immigrants out of the country on deportation flights, ICE is taking advantage of a longstanding program created by the private jet lobby. For years, the scheme has allowed celebrities and Wall Street CEOs to partially block their flight data from public view. So the reason why this program exists at all is thanks to the corporate jet lobby. Deportation flights, just like those celebrity PJ flights, can be tracked in real time still using other public data. but ICE's use of the FAA's private jet blacklist program really does underscore how this growing push for obscuring all of this by the corporate jet lobby is being used to limit public oversight over ICE's immigration crackdown. And apparently this is really unprecedented. It's crazy to me to think that they're using this carve out thanks to celebrities and wealthy people and the corporate.

debt lobby to really be able to obscure from the American people what is happening when it comes to deportations. Yeah, well, I mean, I think this really shows how interconnected fascism is with privatization and corporatization, right? And so, you know, a fundamental component of a fascist state is the like selective privatization of certain companies, certain industries that benefit wealthy supporters of the fascist regime, right, primarily. And so you can kind of see here how celebrity culture, private jet lobbies, these luxury industries are now kind of writing the playbook for, you know, anti-regulation, for anti-oversight that we're seeing from this, you know, clearly fascist administration,

all I'll say is, is, you know, I'm surprised it took this long, right? I think, I think that it's a, it's a kind of clever synergy here that a kind of anti-quot-unquote surveillance, you know, pro-privacy lobby that only benefit It's the super rich. And I say super like not just rich, right? But like rich, rich, rich, private jet rich. Epstein rich. Right.

And so that carve out that kind of, you know, goes under the radar from public knowledge. Because like, why would anyone know that that exists? And until you know that it exists, you know, you kind of wouldn't think about it. Now that that is being revealed because of how it is being weaponized in service of deportation, in service of racism and xenophobia by the Trump administration's deportation project, now it's kind of, you know, you're able to see where those connections kind of already exist, right? Yeah, it's so clearly interconnected. And yeah, I think that when we justify these carve-outs for the super wealthy billionaires, very wealthy, very powerful people, it is connected to the way that the government is able to obscure from the American people. What is going on with ICE deportations? And you might not think it. You might not see it when you're saying, oh, well, just let Oprah be on her private jet. But obviously, all of this stuff is interconnected. And you mentioned earlier, Elyle, on Musk. And, you know, so if this all sounds, sorry about that. I know. We used to have a thing on the show where we do like a Musk alert where it was like just so you know, we're going to talk about it.

Apologies. Yeah. Trigger warning, Elon Musk. But so folks, if this sounds familiar, folks might recall, as you were saying, Nima, that Elon Musk was pretty kind of irate about this, a little bit of recent history. So this guy named Jack Sweeney. He's an online researcher. He became kind of famous for tracking private jets. owned by people like Elon Musk and Taylor Swift. He was providing real-time information about the wearbass of their jets. And kind of unsurprisingly, people like Taylor Swift and Elon Musk did not like this. Both Swift and Musk were angered by Sweeney's live trackers. And in December 2023, Taylor Swift's lawyer sent Sweeney a cease and desist letter. Elon Musk for a time banned Sweeney's Elon jet account that tracked his jet location. but he refused to take these trackers down.

And so interestingly, this is something that I really think is a crucial point here. So because Taylor Swift and Elon Musk both take advantage of this LADD kind of blacklist, which obscures them from FAA public flight tracking data, you know, sites like Flight Aware, because they are on that list, it's harder to track them. But because Sweeney is like an aviation nerd, he's figured out of work. around. And so his jet tracking relies entirely on crowd-sourced flight data collected by volunteers around the world who use their own DIY receivers to pick up live data from planes overhead, allowing him to bypass this L-A-D blacklist program that these wealthy people have been taking

advantage of. And so, yeah, to me, this is like a win for aviation nerds where it's like, well, you can't stop me from standing outside and collecting data and telling other aviation nerds where what that data is. Yeah, yeah. No, I like that idea that they're standing up, like that they're just like looking up in the sky and like writing down. Like, what's the serial number on the bottom of that wing? But no, I think it's certainly important that there are people that are adamant about transparency

and adamant about doing this kind of work so that even when their accounts are frozen, even when they are banned from certain platforms, you know, hey, the truth will get out. Exactly. So even though these ice flights are trying to get around transparency by using this loophole that allows them to be blacklisted, they cannot hide from scrutiny, just like Elon Musk's private jet, cannot hide from scrutiny.

The positions of ICE deportation flights will remain available, even if they are flown on some of these blacklisted planes, thanks to enthusiasts who feed this information, which is called ADS. B data. I'm not a aviation nerd. So if I say that incorrectly, I apologize. But thanks to enthusiasts who are feeding this information into open source exchanges. And I just think this story really does just go to show that dedicated people can work together to organize systems to create transparency. Because the American people deserve to know that their tax dollars are being spent on these deportation

flights. And if they weren't doing anything wrong, they would not need to hide it from us in this way. Well, sure, right. I mean, you know, I think the idea that the deportation regime right now doesn't want people to know what's going on, tells you everything, right? You know, the idea that if they can just disappear as many people as possible without anyone knowing, then it's not going to be a story and people are going to stop caring. But that every kind of chink in that armor of weaponizing these kind of fascist modes of, you know, preventing information from getting out there is good. And so, you know, it's great that there are people out there doing this good work.

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 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. 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 yard herds, right? That's the name. The Harvard Yardt Yard.

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. Run a business and not thinking about podcast. Podcasting, think again.

More Americans listen to podcasts than ad-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. Let us show you at iHeartadvertising.com.

That's iHeartadvertising.com. What's up, fam? Miss Isaiah Thomas. 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 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 the flying. He running up the court, licking his fingers why he got the ball. 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. Hey, I'm Deanna Maria Riva, actress, mother, lover, and a Gen X woman walking through life one hot flash and hormonal crying jag at a time. You ladies know what I mean. I'll bet you a perimenopausal chin here you do. So let's talk about it.

Join me on my new podcast. How hard can it be with Deanna Maria Riva, where I call on my Gen X squads from Ohio to Hollywood as we navigate midlife's most fantastic BS. All of a sudden, I'd had hanginess happening on my own. I was like, what the hell is that? I was married when I had her, so I didn't even consider how empty that nest was going to be. Mood swings, night sweats, fupas, sex drive. Wait, what sex?

Dating at 45. How can it be getting naked at 50 with the new guy? That one's kind of hard. Well, that's lighting. They say we can't polish a turd, but we're sure going to try. So let's get blunt with laughs, tears, or tears of laughter, and dive into it, unfiltered and unbothered and ask, how hard can it be? I cannot believe. I'm about to say this out loud in public.

Listen to How Hard Can It Be with Diana Maria Riva as part of My Cultura Podcast Network available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get right back into it. Let's talk about the Microsoft protest because we did an episode of this show back in 2020 about protesters and advocacy work from rank and file tech workers who were kind of agitating and advocating from within tech companies. A lot of people have suggested. that the shifting climate in tech, things like job scarcity, layoffs, concerns about AI,

all of these like very real things. But that has essentially quieted this wave that we saw in 2020 of activism and advocacy from within tech workers, from like rank and file tech workers. But I am proud to say that that has not stopped because Microsoft this week had to temporarily lock down a building at its headquarters after protesters managed to get inside of the office of the company's president. So current and former Microsoft workers basically held a sit-in slash protest inside Brad Smith's of Microsoft's office demanding that the company cut ties with the Israeli government as part of the group, no Azure for apartheid. Smith said that out of the seven

people who entered his office, two were active Microsoft employees. Eventually, Microsoft called the police and had them removed. Brad Smith was quoted as saying, quote, obviously when seven folks do as they did today, storm a building, occupy an office, block other people out of the office, plant listing devices, even in crude form in the form of telephones, cell phones, hidden under couches and behind books. That's not okay, he told reporters during a briefing. Now, what is apparently okay is for Microsoft to continue to facilitate the genocide of the Palestinian people. That apparently is okay. What is not okay is, for people to have a problem with that, right?

And so, you know, you see here kind of a clear reframing of what is important in the story here. You know, on citations needed, my show, we talk about how things are framed, what is made kind of apparent, what is kept outside of the discourse. And so, you know, the reporting on the Microsoft protests kind of takes them as like this disturbing the peace story, right?

Like, what are we supposed to do about this, right? Like, okay, people are up in arms and they're very moral and sure, but hey, you know, you can't just go and like occupy a building. You can't just go and like chant slogans in a lobby of a corporate headquarters. Like, you know, like both things can be true at the same time. But what that is doing, like that framing of the same. story is deliberately obscuring the purpose of the protest, right? The purpose of the protest is to stop the, you know, this, this massive tech company, one of the biggest companies on planet Earth

from working hand in hand with a genocidal government and a genocidal military to track the people that they are then targeting to slaughter in Gaza, right? Like they have been collecting cell phone data, location data. They have all this stuff and they feed this data from Microsoft to Israel to facilitate what is now a nearly two-year genocide. And yes, of course, history did not start two years ago. So we can also talk about that. But in this case, the idea that there are people who are saying that is not okay,

that becomes the kind of background story, but the foregrounded story. but the foregrounded story is like, well, the CEO was like disrupted from having like his, you know, uh, team's call. Um, and so therefore that has to be stopped. And so like, you know,

hey, you know, like what's he supposed to do? So he called the cops and now like 100 people were arrested. Um, and, you know, so I just think like I love that you're bringing this up, Richard, because it's important to not just kind of take the story that we're reading or seeing in the media at, face value, but to realize what the story behind the story is and what is actually kind of being allowed to be discussed while at the same time what is being deliberately obscured.

No, absolutely. So one of the points that really struck me about how Brad Smith was sort of responding to this was he sort of positioned himself as being like, oh, there was this big disturbance in the office. I don't know what that was about. But then also kind of saying that he can't really say what Microsoft's technology is being used for something that I have a really hard time believing. So this is from NBC. They write, The Guardian reported earlier this month that Israel's military used Microsoft's Azure cloud infrastructure to store Palestinian phone calls leading the company to authorize a third-party

investigation into whether Israel has drawn on the company's technology for surveillance. I think the reasonable step from us is clear in this kind of situation to investigate and get to the truth of how our services are being used, Smith said. Bullshit. I have such a hard time believing that they need to do an investigation to find out how their services are being used. I'm not, I'm not buying it. You shouldn't be selling it. No, exactly. This is like the living embodiment of the like Claude Rains, Casablanca, you know, GIF of like, I'm shocked, shocked that there's gambling going on and it's, you know, casino, basically, right? You know, So, yeah, I mean, the idea that Microsoft would, A, not know what it's doing,

obviously knows what it's doing. But also, you know, I have to say I love the kind of always go-to line. And we've actually done a show about this ourselves, this go-to line about, well, there needs to be an investigation. Let's get an independent investigator. Or we'll do it ourselves. You know what? Why don't we have the Israeli military investigate what Microsoft is doing? And then we'll tell you if it was, you know, good or bad. Spoiler alert, they'll think it's fine.

And yeah, at the same time, Bridget, this also, you know, does this kind of appeal to capitalism, right? This idea of like, hey, we're, we just have the product. We're not going to tell you or any of our consumers or customers what to do with it. It's just a tool. It can be used for good or evil. We're not the arbiters of what is good or bad. And so therefore, their profit motive is going to be paramount, right? Like, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, literally one person, right, who doesn't matter, their complicity winds up being totally irrelevant to

them. And that has everything to do with the function of profit over people. So that you can kind of see the multiple things going on here, right? That even the kind of normal appeal that I think we hear all the time from corporations or from, you know, companies saying, hey, it's just our product. We can't control how people are using it. Is the same thing. as what we've heard from tobacco companies, from what we've heard from gun companies, what we've heard from, you know, cat bulldozers that have been used to, you know,

destroy homes in the West Bank, right? Like, it has nothing to do with us. We just create the product, and then people can use it for whatever, right? If you want to use, you know, an AR-15 to, you know, advocate for trans rights, well, then sure. But here's the thing.

they don't actually believe that because it would never go that way. Right? And it would never go the way of advocating for rights. It can only go in the way of like profit in service of like, you know, hurting people. Yeah. So a former Microsoft staffer who decided to leave the company over their ties to Israel put it so well. He said, this is not just Microsoft Word with Clippy in the corner. These are technological weapons.

Cloud and AI are just as deadly as bombs and bullets. And I think that that comment really gets at it that you might be thinking, oh, we're just building cloud services. This is just whatever. This is just an AI solution. And if it's being used in this way to facilitate a genocide, people who join this company to make this technology have a right to say, I don't want my labor going to be used being used in this way. And yeah, I think that you're so right that it's very, I don't know, I think the idea that the idea that. that, oh, well, all tech is neutral. We're just building the technology and people can decide how they want to use it.

It just really falls apart under the slightest scrutiny. Yeah, no, exactly. And you can see how it only goes a certain way, right? I mean, like, you can't use the argument if you have kind of like a leftist argument. It only works the other way. But right, I mean, if there were, you know, if like 3M were creating, you know, massive, sticky notes and sending those in the

1930s and 40s to the Nazi regime and those giant sticky notes were being used to catalog the names of people who were going to be exterminated in Auschwitz. I think people might see that like 3M doing that would be a

problem, right? It wouldn't just be like well hey man like you know, gerbils can just like fucking go to Staples anyway. It's either us or someone else. It's still, you know, hey, that has nothing to do with us. But, like, you can clearly see why that's a problem. And so, like, the idea that tools and technology are just as deadly as bombs and bullets

is a fundamentally important thing, I think, for us all to realize. Yes, of course, you can't just then ban everything in the world, I guess, or maybe you can. But I do think that this idea of sort of, like, feigned incredulity that's like, hey, man, we're just like, we're just like creating this spreadsheet tool. Like, I don't know who's using it. Like, it, as you said, falls apart at the slightest bit of, of like, good faith scrutiny. And to make matters even worse, Bloomberg reported that Microsoft even sought the FBI's help to investigate these pro-Gaza protesters.

So basically, they requested help from the FBI in tracking protests, and they worked with authorities to try to prevent them. And they flagged internal email. containing words like Gaza and even deleted internal posts about the protest. This is according to employees and documents reviewed by Bloomberg. They also suspended and fired protesters who disrupted these events. I do love how Brad Smith, he took this sort of weird stance where it's like, well, we really value and appreciate our employees and like what they have to say.

And we really want to hear staff opinions, but we will call the FBI to have to investigate. Right. Yeah, no, exactly, exactly. We stand for free speech and freedom of thought, but only if we agree, right? Like, it doesn't really, it doesn't really work that way. Except if you're Microsoft, you know, hey, you can just, you can just call in the feds and they'll do your dirty work for you. Yeah, I mean, this all, you know, this all has to do with the idea of controlling information, which also we've seen in terms of, you know, since we're talking about Israel and,

Gaza, the ongoing deliberate targeting of Palestinian journalists, which is mind-boggling. If you look at the numbers, hundreds of journalists have been targeted and slaughtered by Israel just for doing the work of telling people what is happening. I mean, this is the first live-streamed 4K genocide in human history. And that is a real problem, apparently, for the Israeli government and military. And so they are going after the journalists. They're going after the people who are sharing this information. And so, you know, it may not seem like a straight line from Microsoft calling in the FBI to police its own workforce.

But when you think about what it means to control the conversation, what it means to silence certain voices while having other voices have, have huge platforms, that's when you start to see how important controlling information, how important media is in sustaining what we believe to be our own kind of like free press, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom to assemble. These things are all being done under a, I would say, less than free infrastructure. And it goes back to what you were saying about how a lot of these stories have been reported, because so many of them, they frame the agitation of their, of Microsoft's 50th anniversary programming or whatever, as the important nugget and not the more important nucleus of like, oh, tech workers from within this

company are speaking up about a genocide and their technology that they're working on being used to support that genocide. Like, I think that your point about framing is a really salient one. I mean, I know you do this on your show all the time, but it just goes to show how powerful of a tool of media can be to frame things in support of oppression. Yeah, I mean, because you get to decide kind of like when history starts whenever you're writing any of these stories, right? And so Microsoft and the kind of compliant media that is then reporting on this stuff,

and that's not everyone. I only want to be a jerk about that. I think there are some articles about the Microsoft stuff that are revealing amazing stuff, right? And important stuff. So I'm not saying like every single article that anyone reads on this is going to have some shitty framing, but the idea that these stories are framed around the disruption to business as usual, without identifying the business as usual as being that which facilitates and is

complicit in an ongoing genocide. Right? And so you kind of decide how the story is being told, just like when we. hear about October 7th, uh, 2023 as this inciting incident, um,

that has now led us to Gaza being subject to mass starvation, deliberately, you're still deciding to start that story on October 7th of 2023, whereas every day before October 7th,

even just within that year, within 2023, one Palestinian per day was already being killed by Israel. And if you go back further, whether it is 50 years, whether it is 80 years, whether you go to the Nakbah or before, you kind of have a different idea of history, right? Like there's a different trajectory. October 7th doesn't come from nowhere. But when you start a story there, you are deciding that everything beforehand is unimportant context and that therefore we are identifying who the victims are.

who the oppressors are, who the violent ones are, who the peaceful ones are, just in the way that we're setting up our story. And so I think you're seeing that at kind of a grand human catastrophe level when it's about Gaza, and then you're seeing those kind of residual effects when it's about a smaller story like Microsoft. 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 that 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 yard birds, right? That's the name. The Harvard yard, but 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 IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Humor me. I need some jokes to make me seem funny. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting, think again. More Americans listen to podcasts than ad-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. Let us show you at iHeartadvertising.com. That's iHeartadvertising.com. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas.

And I'm C.J. Toladano, and our podcast's point game is about defining the odds. Like LeBron heading into the playoffs without Luca and Austin Reed. And finding ways to win. 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 everything he

gives us on the night-to-night basis on offense. And when IT's friends stop by, like Quentin Richard We dive into some playoff history too. Steve Nash will get that thing. That man, hell get the flying. He running up the court, licking his fingers while he got the ball. Like, 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. Hey, I'm Deanna Maria Riva, actress, mother, lover, and a Gen X woman walking through life one hot flash and hormonal crime drag at a time. You ladies know what I mean. I'll bet you a perimenapausal chin here you do.

So let's talk about it. Join me on my new podcast. How hard can it be with the Adamania Arriva, where I call on my Gen X squads from Ohio to Hollywood as we navigate midlife's most fantastic BS. All of a sudden I'd had hanginess happening on my own. I was like, what the hell is that? I was married when I had her, so I didn't even consider how empty that nest was going to be. Mood swings, night sweats, fupas, sex drive. Wait, what sex? Dating at 45. How high can it be?

Getting naked at 50 with the new guy. That one's kind of hard. Well, that's lighting. They say we can't polish a turd, but we're sure going to try. So let's get blunt with laughs, tears or tears of laughter, and dive into it, unfiltered and unbothered and ask, how hard can it be? I cannot believe I'm about to say this out loud in public. Listen to How Hard Can It Be with Diana Maria Riva as part of my Cultura Podcast Network available on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Let's get right back into it. Okay, so one of my favorite tech outlets, 404 Media, if you listen to the show, you know I'm a huge fan girl of them, they have another great expose about the fact that TikTok shop is essentially selling stalker gear. So TikTok shop is selling GPS trackers that are explicitly marketed with viral TikTok voiceover, encouraging those. to use them to track secretly a romantic partner. Some of these videos have millions of views,

and TikTok shop's own metrics show that more than 100,000 of these devices have been sold. So they're basically these tiny secret listing devices so that you can bug your partner's conversations or that you can track their locations. 4-4Media found a handful of accounts promoting these type of trackers, and this is kind of a common TikTok shop thing. There are several different versions on TikTok shop. So some of them, people are like, it doesn't even work.

But that's like a TikTok shop thing where it's like, oh, yeah, some of them are going to be garbage. So once I looked at these videos, I just saw one. My TikTok algorithm started showing me tons of them. Like I watched one of these videos to get a sense of it for the show. And now my TikTok algorithm is like, oh, clearly it's got, Bridget's got somebody in her life. She wants to stalk and track. Yeah, yeah. They're like, oh, perfect.

We can, you know, we're going to, we're going to sell Bridget all the air tags in the world at this point. So this is not an isolated thing. 404 reported that one of the clips that they saw had 86,500 likes and links to that tracker had over 32,000 sales of the tracker. Another video from the same vendor had 97,900 sales. And there are thousands and thousands of accounts basically offering the same products with a similar branding and scripts. Here is something really horrifying. In one of the comments of the videos, a user says, quote, I bought some of this and put it on the cars of the girls I find attractive at the gym. The original poster responds with, okay, crying face emoji. Yeah,

that's the level of stalker discourse, I guess, that we're at right now. So the selling these trackers is pretty clearly against TikTok's policies, which bans the promotion of criminal activities that may harm people, animals, or property. But when 404 media reached out to TikTok about these videos they had seen doing exactly that, TikTok said, quote, we don't allow content encouraging people to use devices for secret surveillance and have removed this content and banned the account that posted it. We further prohibit the sale of concealed video or audio recording on the platform. However, 404 media was able to find many, several more, almost identical videos on the platform the very next

day really raising the question of just how proactively the platform is monitoring to prevent content like this. Well, yeah, because you get into the kind of, you know, PR piece of it, which is like the TikTok comms team got together and they were like, we're going to release a statement that we don't condone this stuff and it's in our fine print and yada, yada, yada. But if that doesn't then translate into actual accountability or regulation of this, then you just get into talking points, right? Like, then we're just talking about talking points. when what these products are doing in there and their promotion and certainly promotion that is done algorithmically, right, to reach exponentially more and more people,

there's a real danger there. I mean, this is truly a way that can facilitate great personal harm to people, let alone, you know, loss of privacy. But yeah, I think you kind of get into this like PR speak versus actual accountability. Totally, totally. I mean, you and I have done similar kinds of work where you flag things to tech companies. And it's like, oh, we've taken this down and don't condone it. There's a million more up just like it.

But don't worry about that. And I will say, so using devices like this to stalk people and track people is illegal in a lot of places. 11 states have criminalized the use of GPS trackers in their anti-stocking legislation. But this is something that I found so wild, which is that according to this piece in 404, I guess I never really thought about it. Like this apparently is a, it's a common attitude that this kind of thing, like planting GPS tracking devices or listing devices on a partner, is no big deal if you suspect that partner is cheating. 404 spoke to Eva Galprin, co-founder of the coalition against stalkerware and director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who said that the TikTok videos really reflect an extremely common attitude.

Quote, you would be amazed how many people think that stalking or recording or stalkerware is perfectly justified as long as they think their partner is up to something like cheating. They also quote this survey from 2021 that found that 30% of, of the 21,000-plus respondents found no problem in secretly recording their partner under certain circumstances. And that same survey found that 29% of respondents had been digitally stocked or had their location tracked. So I guess as horrible as it is that TikTok would be used as a marketplace to sell this kind of thing and market it explicitly for this kind of use case, even if it breaks the law, is that there's, I guess, a cultural attitude that that kind of thing is okay, which frankly shocked me.

Well, I think that our surveillance culture has, like, gotten to the point where there's this assumption that, hey, this is just what it is now. Yeah, this idea that the advancements of technology, or I sound like the oldest man ever, the advancements of where we are in the fucking world right now, right? With, like, you know, these, like, supercomputers in our pockets, that has become no big deal.

That is just what it is to live. That is, you know, what it is, to exist, what it is to be human, and therefore, you know, hey, what are you really going to do about it? And so you might as well just, you know, stalk people because basically our phones are stalking us anyway. So why don't I just put that to, you know, my personal use. I think what's even creepier about this is, Bridget, what you just said in terms of, you know, people are saying that it's okay if you just suspect your partner of cheating,

which just sort of minority reports our entire relationships, right? You know, not to say that cheating is awesome, but also stalking people is also bad. And so, you know, maybe deal with your relationship in a different way than stalking your partner, maybe have, I don't know, a fucking conversation with them and maybe not rely on tech to kind of do your relationship work for you. Oh, this is, I completely agree. And it came up in our episode about the T app where I do think

that our current culture where we've got technology and surveillance sort of baked into it has made folks feel like you don't need to have honest conversations, be open and honest. like I really do, I understand that people, like, I don't like the idea of being cheated on. I don't think that cheating is a cool thing to do, as you said, but relying on surveillance and technology to, to supplement having a conversation, being open about expectations in a relationship, being open about what you are and what boundaries and all of that. I think that we've gotten to a place where if you can just put a tracker on somebody and a listing device on somebody, you don't have to do the work of being honest and open and vulnerable and having those conversations, which can be awkward. I think that we're, I think that we are using technology to, to not have to do some of the work that comes with being in relationship with each other. I'll just be honest and say that.

Yeah, it's like the outsourcing of trust to tech. Exactly, exactly. And we know that trustworthy tech, pretty hard to come by. I mean, if the T-App episode was any indication, yeah, very hard to come by. This is actually a very good segue into one of the last stories I wanted to talk about, which is how can you trust what you're seeing online from people like Will Smith? So I only recently kind of found out that Will Smith is kind of on a big comeback tour. This sort of missed me.

I didn't know that this was what he was up to these days. This alone is shocking news, folks. Don't you find that shocking? I genuinely did not know this. You shared this story with me, Bridget. You know, a little sausage making behind the curtain here. Bridget gave me a heads up on this story before we started recording, folks. And like, my jaw dropped.

Not at what we're about to tell you about Will Smith, but just that Will Smith is like on a tour where he's like performing for crowds. It's just a very kind of bonkers thing that I didn't think was happening right now. I mean, you know, I will admit me following

Will Smith as a musical artist pretty much tapered off after 1988's release of you know, Fresh Friends and DJ Jesse Jeff's album. He's the DJ I'm the rapper, which I mean, for those who don't know, has both

Parents just don't understand and nightmare on my street on that album. So it's phenomenal. But like, you know, even if I did follow after that, I think like by the time he was doing Wild Wild West, I was tuned out. And this is nothing against Will Smith, although sure, everything against Will Smith. I don't care. But like, I actually really enjoy him as as an actor. But the fact is he's on tour right now in like Europe. performing, and I just didn't think that was going on.

I kind of want to hear from, like, Chris Rock about that. So, wait, you weren't around for the Willinium? I was around for Willenium, but I didn't care as much. I will say Big Willie Style has some bangers. And I have to give a little bit justice for Wild Wild West. It's not as bad of a movie as you think. Kevin Klein is in it. And Kenneth Branagh.

Yes, this is a podcast where we try to reclaim bad movies. I know producer Mike has a little bit of a soft spot for Wild Wild West, not to put you on the spot. That's, that's, I owned it on DVD when I was in middle school. Oh, hell yeah. Okay, so Will Smith is touring Europe. It has not gone well. He's gotten lots of like bad press and some very cringy videos of him performing in front of crowds.

And now it has gone from bad to worse because allegedly he has been caught using AI to generate like massive, cheering crowds at his performances. These videos, they're like Beatlemania, but it's Will Smith. They're, they're, they're, like, it is massive, massive crowds. And they have these signs of people, that people are holding up that say things like,

your music helped me beat cancer. Futurism has a very funny piece on this, where they've taken stills from the video and zoomed in on them. And it truly looks like a body horror movie. If you've seen the movie, the substance, no spoilers, but like that's the level when you look at these images, that is the level of obvious AI that is going on to generate these crowds.

And when you really look, it's like the images are ghoulish. The crowd scenes, the faces look tormented. They're melting together under these Will Smith banners. You know, there's one banner that says, from West Philly to West Swiggy, we hurt you will, but it's all garbled because it's AI. It just looks, I mean, it truly looks like something out of a body horror film where all these limbs are like melted together in one big Will Smith mass. So can I just say that this is the one story that I find delightful that we're talking about. I'm kind of on everybody's side for this one.

Like I don't fundamentally care that Will Smith's whatever, PR team, agent, concert. promoters, whatever it may be, are doing these AI crowds. Like, something is not offending my soul about that. And yes, we should be talking about AI.

We should be talking about, you know, like image generation and how creepy that is. And there are severe problems with this about disinformation, about things that are going to get people hurt. This,

I find like this is the 2025 version of people being upset that the producers of the Peter Frampton album, Frampton comes alive in 1976, put in like extra crowd cheers. Yeah. Do I mean? Like, I don't care.

Fucking do you. I'm down. Do you know what I mean? Like, I am, it's a great album. I'm glad the crowd noise is there. It also makes like different live performances is seamlessly intra-cut to sound like one concert, all I'm saying is like,

that's the beauty of editing. It's the beauty of a certain kind of art. Like, the fact that, like, people are pissed about this, I also find delightful. That's the thing. Like, I'm kind of, I think it's a win-win for society that not only is Will Smith on tour, but that it's not going well enough

to put out genuine video and so therefore this like demented technology is being employed and that people are calling it out. I think we all win from this. Oh my God. You also just set me up to talk about something that I literally, I have bought in my head. I wish that someone would ever give me an opportunity to talk about this. You know the Elton John song, Benny and the Jets, how he starts playing the piano and then everybody tears? And the crowd goes nuts.

Yeah. So that is a beautiful piece of production where they have taken audio of crowd noises from a different Elton John performance and different audio of crowd noises from a Jimmy Hendricks performance. So like when you hear that whistling, that's actually not. So that's not a live performance. It's just a beautiful bit of production. And as an audio professional, nobody appreciates that shit more than me. I have always wanted, I literally will go to parties and be like, I hope somebody gives me an opportunity to talk about that Elton John production. I think that's awesome. I mean, right, because Benny and the Jets is on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, which is a studio album, not a live album.

And so, right, it's part of the production of that song that it's as if he's playing in front of this crowd, right? And so it's all kind of, I don't know, like, it's all part of it. You know what I mean? Like, everything's part of it. Will Smith is part of it. Peter Frampton is part of it. Elton John is part of it and we are part of it.

And that I think that there are some stories that, like, Garner outweigh, outrage, where I think it's like outrage, yes, for outrage's sake, but also that's what makes people caring about and being critical of art, of celebrity, of information of what we're being told and what we're supposed to receive, how we're supposed to feel. This to me is like what it means to be alive. So like, thank you, Will Smith. And thank you Elton John and thank you Peter Frampton. And thank you, Jimmy Hendricks for, like, making us feel alive. Hell, yes. I love that. That's, like, actually why I wanted to talk about this story. Not to be like, fuck you, Will Smith, how dare you do this? But it is, I mean, this is such a good

context to put it in in terms of I love these clearly technologically manufactured or produced bits of, of entertainment. And I almost wonder if this is just another one of those. I mean, that's a very, a very good context. Yeah, I mean, I just think, like, like I said, I'm not down on the people who are pissed off about this or, you know, moderately pissed off or like calling it out. Like, I think that that's part of it too. That's why it's fun to talk about movies, right? That's why it's fun to talk about music. That's why it's fun to talk about TV shows.

It's why it's fun to talk about sports because, like, people are going to feel a certain way. There are things that make us feel. and that is like that's being alive, right? And so, yes, when tech is deployed to do certain things, that should be called out. Yes, when AI can be used just as much to, you know, facilitate deep, deep harm in terms of disinformation, in terms of, you know, mechanized slaughter in a certain part of the world, Yes, that is in a trajectory of also talking about Will Smith's AI. But I also think that like just having that discourse and being able to see like that people care is is not in itself bad.

I actually think that is fundamentally good. And, you know, when it comes to when it comes to the, you know, eight fingered ghouls cheering on Will Smith, I think, you know, like those are my people too. Yeah. I mean, in the words of Frampton, do you feel like we do? That's fucking right. I'll tell you. Show me the way. That the, the, I love listening to that because the crowd is like, I've never heard a crowd like this. The crowd is like, do you feel, ah? Oh, yeah. Losing their minds is so good.

Yeah. Well, and the thing is, like, when you listen to it, you get it, right? Like, that's the beauty of Frampton comes alive, that like, those songs had already been released on his studio. albums that, like, largely no one cared about. Like, I mean, he was a star, right? Like, he was on tour, right? He was, like, playing in front of crowds. But, like, to do that live album that way, it is still one of the, you know,

biggest selling live albums of all time. And I got to say, it sounds fucking amazing. And when you're listening to it, you know, like, you are right there along with, you know, like, baby, I love your way. Smoke a joint and listen to Frampton comes alive tonight, y'all. If there's one thing that I hope listeners walk away from our conversation with Bridget, it's that they should all listen to Frampton Comes Alive tonight.

I'm with you. I'm with you. Before we wrap, I have one quick thought as we head into Labor Day weekend. One, y'all, there has never been a more important time for working people to organize together and stick together and push back against the fascist billionaire class who is trying to trying to take over our country. And to that point, too, we got a great ask from a listener named Deb. Deb, thank you so much for reaching out, about something very cool, which is that if you are going to visit a national park over the long weekend, please snap a few photos and contribute to the Save Our Signs Project. This project is being organized by librarians and archivists who are

trying to preserve the signage at our national parks before September 17th, which is the Trump administration's deadline to remove signs they find offensive for things like saying, slavery was bad. The organizers are asking folks to help document signs at national parks before they are removed. Preserving history in this way is critical to protecting the legacy of the folks who came before us and built legacies and struggled and fought and we should be preserving that legacy. You can learn more about the project at save our signs.org. We'll put that link in the show notes, but if you're going to a national park this weekend, please take a picture of signs, help this great project. Thank you, Deb, for putting it. it on our radar. Here, here. Nima, thank you so much for being here today. You are a delight as ever. Where can folks follow the podcast, follow you?

I guess I don't know that Titations needed has a robust social presence, but where can folks check it out? It's not terrible. We're not, we're not, you know, totally under the radar. We do exist. You can find the show on wherever you get your, you know, finest podcast or even your worst podcasts. We are everywhere.

just search citations needed. We're the ones with like the, you know, bracket logo. It's gold and black. Can't miss it. But also you can follow us on Twitter. And yes, I still call it Twitter at CitationsPod. Facebook isn't really a thing, but we're there too. Citations needed.

But you can also support the show through patreon.com slash citations needed podcast. That is how we stay independent because we get our listeners. to support us through Patreon. But yeah, you can find the show pretty much wherever. You can also find me on Twitter places, but, you know, no one uses that platform anymore. And you can follow me on Instagram at Bridgett Marine, D.C., on TikTok at Bridgett Marine, D.C.

And on YouTube, y'all, we're trying on YouTube. I know it's cringe. We're trying. But it's there are no girls on the internet on YouTube. We're doing our best out there. Yeah, Nima, thank you so much for being here. And thanks to all of you for listening. I will see you on the internet. 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 tangoody.com. 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. Edited by Joey Pat.

I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, write and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, Check out the IHeartM radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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,

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