Bridget Todd (00:03):

You're listening to DISINFORMED, a mini series from There Are No Girls on the Internet. I'm Bridget Todd. What a ride it has been y'all. And as we wrap up this season of There Are No Girls on the Internet, I wanted to take a look back of where we've been and where we're going. I started making this series about disinformation and conspiracy theories online, right after the insurrection on January 6th. I live in D.C., so that happened just a mile or so from my apartment. So it really felt like an attack on my home. And I felt like I couldn't not respond, but from breaking down TikTok sex trafficking conspiracy theories to calling out Gwyneth Paltrow for pushing misinformation to women, I could never have imagined all the places this conversation would take us. I sat down with my producer, Mike to try to put it all together.

Mike (00:54):

Well, hey, Bridget, thanks for joining me here for this wrap-up episode of season two of There Are No Girls on the Internet, DISINFORMED. How are you feeling about the successful completion of season two?

Bridget Todd (01:12):

I'm feeling good. It's been a fun season. I feel like we've dove in, dove, dived. Feel like we've gotten into so many different topics, it's almost kind of hard to wrap up because I feel like when we started the season, I had no idea where the topic was going to take us. And from when we first started back in January to where we ended up in the end of the season, I can never predicted where we would go. But I guess that's the internet for you. You don't know the story that you're telling until you tell it.

Mike (01:38):

Yeah, the internet and disinformation, which is just people make enough new stuff all the time. What has been your favorite topic that you covered in this season?

Bridget Todd (01:49):

Oh, so hard to choose. A couple of episodes that sort of spoke to the same theme. One with the former Pinterest employee, Ifeoma Ozoma, who if you haven't heard that episode, she essentially was an early hire on Pinterest's public policy team. Very early on she got the company to ban medical misinformation. This was before COVID. So for me, it was like a very classic, black women tried to tell you if only you would listen kind of moment, but finding out that she was doxed and harassed and abused by her own coworkers for essentially doing her job. I think that if I had to sum up some of the episodes along a theme, that theme would be marginalized people, mainly black women, fighting tooth and nail to make internet spaces safer and better for everybody, right? Not just for other black women or other marginalized people, everybody benefits. But really facing a material cost for doing that work and sort of having that work sort of be kind of costly for us or personally costly for us.

Bridget Todd (02:56):

Another example on that same line would be Shireen Mitchell. We did an episode with her about early on, about sort of why we should have been listening, why disinformation is really a story about not listening to black women and the consequences for that. And that's why I think the theme for me really was like black women, queer folks, trans folks, other marginalized folks. We are the ones who are really doing so much of the work of trying to make the internet, not just better for us, but for everybody. But that work is costly, it is dangerous. It is exhausting. And it is oftentimes not rewarded, or if it is rewarded, it's sort of rewarded in this kind of shallow way where it's like, "Oh, listen to black women, trust black women." Well, that's just sort of a platitude.

Mike (03:42):

Yeah, that's a great segue to my next question I wanted to ask, which is that in season one of TANGOTI you talked a lot about erasure as a concept, and I wanted to ask you, how did erasure your show up in DISINFORMED?

Bridget Todd (03:58):

That's a great question. I mean, erasure is one of the reasons why I wanted to talk about disinformation in the first place. I, in my other life have worked in the disinformation space professionally with the organization UltraViolet, the gender justice organization that I work for. But on January 6th after the insurrection, it was like, I woke up one day and everybody was talking about disinformation. And I felt people like myself who would really have been talking about this since before it was like a sexy issue. I think the insurrection really made it an issue that everybody was talking about after the fact, right? And so it was like, I truly feel like I went to bed one day and I worked on this issue that was not very sexy and that people didn't really care about. And I woke up the next day and everybody was talking about it.

Bridget Todd (04:45):

And overnight a lot of white men who worked at tech companies were all of a sudden just calling themselves disinformation experts. And that erasure really stung. As someone who has been working in this space for a long time, it really stung. It stung to see panels organized about disinformation that didn't have any people of color or women on them. Having that experience not at all matched my lived experience of going to meetings with companies like Facebook or TikTok or Twitter, and where we are on the side of people trying to hold them accountable or make the platforms safer and better. And knowing how the people, when I look around, those meetings are always women, always people of color, having the reality not match my lived experience was a real feeling of erasure for me. So that was really something that drove the work in general.

Mike (05:36):

Yeah, I can imagine that that would sting and be frustrating, but it's not just an issue of injustice. Those panels that don't feature black activists, women, people of color, are missing the whole point of disinformation, right? It's not just that they are excluding people who should be there, it's that they are not talking about the real issues that are at the heart of disinformation.

Bridget Todd (06:05):

Well, if you're not talking about race, identity, gender, if those things are not part of your perspective when you talk about disinformation, but also any experience on the internet, you're not actually telling the full story. A great example is this documentary, because I love documentaries. A good example is this documentary I watched recently on HBO called, Fake Famous, which I truly enjoyed. I really, really enjoyed it. It's all about this idea that on the internet nothing is really as it seems, and that you could essentially buy your way into being an influencer if you've had money to buy fake followers and things of that nature.

Bridget Todd (06:37):

One of the things that they dive into is this idea of when it comes to fake followers or bots that fake social media accounts had a big impact on the election in 2016. They never mentioned the fact that a Senate inquiry confirmed that black folks were the biggest target, right? So that is a, not only is it a election integrity issue and a voting rights issue, it's also a racial justice issue. And if you are not equipped to dissect these stories in ways that demonstrate how race and gender and identity are really at the center of them, then you're not telling the whole story.

Bridget Todd (07:13):

And I guess I just saw the identity aspect of the way that we talk about the internet in general. I just saw that being erased time and time again, because frankly, a lot of these places don't have the range, right? Not to say that I'm doing it right. But if you are a team of all white people telling a story about the internet and you believe the internet experience to be for white people by white people, of course you're not going to be able to really speak to that, to the identity issues or how things can be race issues or gender issues if it's something that you're not poised yourself to grapple with.

Mike (07:47):

Yeah, and it's a shame, because those issues are central. Anything, like you said, anything that doesn't include them and in fact center them is just a superficial treatment of the problem.

Bridget Todd (07:58):

Let's take a quick break. And we're back.

Mike (08:12):

Looking back when we started production on DISINFORMED at the end of last year, it's almost funny to think that we were concerned people might stop caring about disinformation after the election. And of course that didn't happen. Instead, the January 6th insurrection happened, and Republicans are now passing voter suppression laws based on Trump's big lie and trying to convince us all that the insurrection was just a well-behaved group of civics enthusiasts [inaudible 00:08:36] the Capitol. What do you see as the emerging disinformation threats that maybe aren't on our collective radar yet?

Bridget Todd (08:43):

What a good question. I don't even know, well, first of all, I love how you put this, a organized group of civic enthusiasts. I mean, there's a lot of people very invested in that being the narrative. I think when it comes to disinformation, one thing I would say is there is a great risk of not seeing some of the laws that are being passed as deeply connected. You mentioned the voter suppression laws that we're seeing in places like Georgia, Florida, other states around the country, that are rooted in a complete fabrication. A fabrication that says that our elections are not safe, and that in the last election there was nefarious behavior going on. That's not true. It's just point blank, not true.

Bridget Todd (09:27):

But the fact that now we have this kind of disinformation being codified into law, that will make it harder for people, namely black folks and brown folks, and first time voters to vote. That's also happening in other ways, it's happening with the spate of anti-abortion legislation we're seeing all over the country. Based purely in fictions about our health and our bodies. It's happening in what really, really harmful dangerous laws about legislating trans identity. Oftentimes focus on trans youth. A lot of these laws are based on complete fictions and fabrications about trans youth. And I don't see these as disparate. I see these as a coordinated series of attacks on our democracy being fueled by disinformation and lies and falsehoods about marginalized people being spread and having a digital media ecosystem and landscape ready at employees to amplify them and help them fester and become more powerful.

Mike (10:31):

Yeah. I mean, it's all egregious. I think some of the worst is the disinformation about trans kids, right? Why are children somehow a political punching bag for a lot of the same groups that are concerned that Amazon is selling children and all these disinformation stories? It's pretty disgusting the way that they will create these fabrications about people, and especially children.

Bridget Todd (10:59):

It's this [inaudible 00:11:00] thing. And let's, I need to be clear, this is going to kill people. People will die because of this kind of legislation. We know that trans youth are safer when they have access to gender affirming health care. Everybody needs healthcare. To create laws based on fictions and lies and smears, smears that are fueled by someone's identity to further criminalize them. They're essentially, A, I believe trying to legislate trans identity out of existence. So, eradicate trans identity, starting with youth. And we're talking about youth who are oftentimes so marginalized, so it's cruel, but it's also people are going to die. People are going to be deeply, deeply harmed. And the worst part is, is that it's all based in complete fictions, complete untruths that are allowed to fester and spread on social media, oftentimes for-profit, right?

Bridget Todd (12:00):

And I think that we're not fully, I think it can be difficult to fully see that at the scope that it actually is. It's not a piecemeal, it's not about a piecemeal anti-trans bill in the state or voting rights bill in this state. It is a coordinated network of larger attacks on our democracy fueled by disinformation. And I think that Trump didn't start disinformation, but I think that we're living in a time right now where people see how powerful it is to weaponize, and what a powerful weapon it can be. And I think that we're really seeing, we're only now seeing the results of that. I think we really are at a pivotal time where we're going to have to decide if this gets better or worse.

Bridget Todd (12:42):

More after a quick break. Let's get right back into it.

Mike (12:56):

You brought up a great point that there's a lot of money being made on the spread of disinformation, which came up a few times in DISINFORMED as we talked about platforms, but there's a whole bunch of other ways that we didn't touch on because of the focus on telling individual people's stories. But that's another huge piece here.

Bridget Todd (13:19):

Yeah, when Ifeoma Ozoma was at Pinterest, she said that nine times out of 10 when someone was pushing medical disinformation or misinformation on the platform, it was because they were selling something, whether it was supplements or some bogus curative. Disinformation, people who push it can often be scammers looking to line their pockets. I did an episode recently that was a little controversial, calling out everybody's favorite wellness guru, Gwyneth Paltrow. I'm sorry, she's a scammer, you know?

Bridget Todd (13:48):

At what point do we call it what it is? If you make money, if you build an empire on telling people lies, lies about their health, lies about their bodies to make money, that's a scammer. We have a word for that, just because someone is well well-dressed and they have a ethereal vibe doesn't make it any less of a scam. And I want to get to a point where the same way that when we see someone selling fake Gucci in Times Square in Manhattan, that's a scammer. We'd even see people who get rich off of disinformation and platforms and tech leaders who get rich off of it as the same kinds of scammers and worse, because those scams kill people. They hurt people, they get people sick and they criminalize people.

Mike (14:35):

Yeah, you mentioned platforms and the role that they have here, and they're absolutely profiting off disinformation. Even if they're not the ones doing the scams themselves, they are enabling it, perpetuating it, and profiting from it. And I know in a lot of the work that you've done with UltraViolet, you've been bringing this to the platforms, especially Facebook and Twitter. Are those the big platforms that we need to be concerned about now? Are there others?

Bridget Todd (15:06):

So if you would have asked me this a few months ago, I would have said, "My big three were Facebook, Google, which owns YouTube, and Twitter." But we need to be thinking about other platforms as well. We recently met with TikTok about disinformation on their platform. The episode that we did with Bloodbath and Beyond and Abbie Richards, who are two amazing TikTokers, who make amazing content, really countering from the disinformation that we see on those platforms have really spoken to the way that TikTok has really gone under the radar, which is so horrible. When you think about the fact that the average user's age is 14, right? And so these are very young people who are really being targeted with a lot of harmful content, nevermind the sexist, racist, toxic content that's there, that's yes and, but also harmful disinformation and disinformation about our bodies, about our identities, about sexuality.

Bridget Todd (16:06):

Imagine being 14 and having to wave through all of this, it's a lot. And so I think that we really do need to be spending more time focusing on emerging platforms like TikTok and something that Bloodbath and Beyond brought up, which I thought was a really good point is that we need to be having these conversations on the platforms where they start. And so if you see disinformation popping up on TikTok, you can't counter that on Twitter, you know? And so it's like I, even though I am way older than the target user of TikTok, I am now on TikTok because I want to know what kinds of conversations, what kind of content is happening there, and what can we do to make sure that content is safe for this very young user base?

Mike (16:47):

Yeah, I think you're absolutely right, that's been under the radar. And it needs to be a focus, they've got, I just looked it up, over a billion active monthly users. So not only is it young people, but it's a lot of them. So, thank you for doing that work.

Bridget Todd (17:03):

I mean, it's a little silly because I'm definitely, I love TikTok. I made my first TikTok two weeks ago. It is about my cat, Monica. I'm hoping to make her a TikTok star. There's a lot of good cat content on TikTok. It's a great platform and I completely understand why people go there looking for community. Their algorithm is amazing in that, I identify as a black queer woman. Within the first few scrolls of being on TikTok, their algorithm completely clocked me as a black queer woman and was servicing me content that would align with that identity. And so if their algorithm is that good at knowing my identity, understanding the kind of content I want to see, that should just show you how powerful it is. And so I want to make sure that these algorithms are being agents of good, agents of bringing people closer to communities that are healthy, not bringing them closer to communities that will endanger them or get them involved in toxic or extremist content.

Mike (18:05):

Yeah, absolutely. So what can people do to curb disinformation in our everyday lives?

Bridget Todd (18:13):

Well, the number one thing that you can do is not to amplify it, not to share it, even if you're trying to debunk it. Oftentimes when you retweet something that is disinformation or misinformation, you're actually just helping it spread and helping it become more powerful by debunking it. Focus instead on sort of thinking of yourself as an influencer of your own little pocket of the internet. So even if you don't have a lot of followers or you're not somebody who is like Kim Kardashian on one, you still have influence over your little pocket of the web. So focus on becoming that trustworthy person that people know they can go to. They know they can go to your feed, your TikTok, your Twitter, whatever. They know that they can count on you for posting accurate timely information.

Bridget Todd (18:57):

And that means your community is going to be so nourished and so full off of the information that you share that is good and accurate, they're not going to be as susceptible to fall for it when someone is posting BS. So focus on being an influencer of your little pocket of the internet. And then also, if you see something that is suspect, Google it, right? I think, we see this a lot on TikTok with the traffic and content. I do believe that people are sharing misinformation, not because they want to be bad actors. They're not looking to intentionally disinform. They're just sharing something for their community because maybe they think it will be helpful, maybe they don't know, maybe it's true.

Bridget Todd (19:38):

I think don't fall into the trap of sharing something just because maybe it's true. Do a little research, Google it. Try to find a reliable source backing up what you say. And if you can't, don't share it. I would also say, this came up in the episode we did with Nora from PEN America, recognize that we all have a role to play in this. It's a little bit like climate change, right? I am one person. I am not a wealthy corporation. If wealthy corporations wanted to fix climate change, they could, and they should. They are the ones with power. They should be the ones acting as leaders to do this.

Bridget Todd (20:15):

But in absence of that, I can still make individual choices that help. I can still reduce my usage of single use plastics or whatever. Disinformation and misinformation is the same way. It is up to tech leadership and policy makers to step in and right this wrong and make a big difference. In absence of their leadership we can all make smarter choices of how we use the internet. We could all be good stewards of the internet. We can all think twice before we retweet something, or pause and take a breath before we share something. I think that realization was really helpful for me.

Mike (20:51):

Yeah, that makes sense. And that really aligns with what you've been doing over the past six months, year, longer than that, of both of those things of helping educate people and raise awareness about disinformation and what we can all do, as well as your work with platforms and policymakers through UltraViolet. And you've had some help along the way in spreading that message. A lot of your friends and colleagues invited you onto their shows to talk about disinformation. What was that experience like for you?

Bridget Todd (21:25):

Oh my God, so fun. The voice that you hear on the podcast is largely my own. And podcasting, the reason why it's fun, the reason why I got into it, it's because it's collaborative. And so being able to collaborate with my community of podcast nerds has been amazing. I have got the chance to go on so many amazing podcasts. I can shout some out right now. Stuff Mom Never Told You. I'm on every month talking about underrepresented voices of the internet, shout-out to Sam and Annie. They are amazing. I was on one of my favorite podcasts. Robert Evans is Behind the Bastards, shout-out to Robert and Sophie. They're amazing. They do work chronicling bastards throughout history. So people like, I don't know, Mark Zuckerberg, people who have furthered bad things in the world. I am a frequent guest on one of my favorite podcasts, Daily Zeitgeist, shout-out to the Zeit gang. Amazing, amazing. Definitely check it out.

Bridget Todd (22:20):

And then, podcasts where they're doing interesting work, thinking about the internet in interesting ways, like Jo Piazza's podcast that is phenomenal, Under the Influence. She is chronicling the influencer community, particularly mom influencers and mom Instagram users, because people don't really cover or chronicle Instagram or influencers, because I think there's so many women in that field. And so it's just not seen as worthy of actual consideration or actual journalistic scrutiny. However, it's also a billion dollar industry. And so if no one is covering this with the seriousness that it deserves, the seriousness that other billion dollar industries get, things go under the radar. People are exploited, things get ... People need to know about what's going on. And so I was lucky enough to be on her podcast. I cannot recommend that enough. She is amazing.

Bridget Todd (23:13):

Another good one is, The Daily Dad's podcast. Two Girls One Pod are really doing some interesting work. Again, just talking about the internet in different ways. The experience of being on the internet is so multifaceted. There are so many interesting angles to it. We rarely cover it with the depth that it deserves, because it can be so difficult to spotlight marginalized experiences there. It's like there's like a default assumption that the average user on the internet is a white male, and that leaves out so many pockets, so many facets to what people's actual experiences online are actually like. And so I'm so happy that I am in a community of people really working hard to tell these stories with the love and nuance and thoughtfulness that they really do deserve.

Bridget Todd (23:58):

Another great one, TechStuff. I'm not just saying that because Jonathan Strickland is the executive producer of this show. He also tells phenomenally interesting stories about the internet and the experience of being on the internet, from gadgets to trends, to sort of more philosophical questions. I think there are so many interesting people having those interesting conversations about what it means to be a person on the internet today.

Mike (24:21):

Yeah, and Jonathan has been so supportive throughout making this podcast, both in terms of the content and also the behind the scenes nuts and bolts stuff of making a podcast successful.

Bridget Todd (24:32):

Absolutely.

Mike (24:32):

Yeah. Speaking of being successful, earlier this month we found out that TANGOTI won a Shorty Award, beating out other podcasts in our category produced by powerhouses like HBO and the NFL. How did you do it? What is your secret?

Bridget Todd (24:50):

My secret is an amazing producer and engineer, Tari Harrison. Truly this podcast would be non-existent without her visions. If you've ever listened to something on the show and thought like, "Well, that sounds cool." Or like, "Well, that was a beautifully soundscape part of the show." That was Tari. And so really she's the secret sauce of why it works. It's her, and it's the stories of all the interest in people who are doing such cool work online. So I feel like I have very little to do with it. Between those two things it's almost impossible to not make an award winning podcast, because they're so great.

Mike (25:26):

Yeah, Tari is amazing. Your guests are amazing. I think you also had a little bit to do with it as well.

Bridget Todd (25:33):

Oh, okay, I had a little something to do with it.

Mike (25:36):

Yeah. So what can listeners look forward to in the next season of TANGOTI? And when can they look forward to hearing it?

Bridget Todd (25:45):

We will be back in your earbuds very soon. And we're going to keep having these conversations about what it looks like online for people who are underrepresented. Some of the episodes that we did this season that were near and dear to my heart were stories of women who were finding themselves at the center of not so pleasant experiences online. And so things like online harassment campaigns, pile-on campaigns. I'm really interested in how these women deal with it and come out the other side of it. So that's something to look forward to.

Bridget Todd (26:12):

And a fun little mini series, really kind of the opposite, about women who are just doing cool stuff online. Interesting women that you might not know about who are making the internet a better place. So a little bit of like light and dark. And I think it really is representative of the fact that being a woman, or a person of color, or a queer person, or a trans person online, you deal with so much crap. There is ugliness there, but there is light there too. It is what brings me back to the internet, it's what brought me to the internet in the first place. And I'm really interested in telling the full scope of that story.

Mike (26:47):

It's like Claire said in the very first episode, "Don't fight the darkness, bring the light." So what are you going to be doing while the show is on hiatus? You're just going to be kicking at the beach?

Bridget Todd (26:57):

I wish. A little bit of beach time. I definitely want to take some time for actual, meaningful rest. I've been doing this show since January. Here it is almost June. It's been fun and great, but I'm looking forward to taking some time off. I'm going to continue holding platforms accountable. I met with Twitter just today to advocate for some policy changes, been meeting with TikTok, we continue to meet with Facebook. So that work will not stop. That is not work that you hear about on the podcast very often, because frankly it's not really that interesting to listen to sometimes, but that will continue. And you know, I'm excited to sort of get back out there. I have this little saying, "I am now vaxed, waxed and relaxed." Actually it's not my saying, I saw it on TikTok. But it is the motto for this part of my life right now.

Bridget Todd (27:54):

And I'm looking forward to traveling some safely. I'm looking forward to continuing to have these conversations. And honestly, I want to keep talking about how we make the internet a safer, better place and amplifying the voices of some of the women and folks of color who are doing that. And so if folks are interested in live events, I am interested in them too. If folks want to bring me out to speak for their organization or for the event they're having, I am very interested. As I said, I am vaxed, waxed and relaxed, and down to get out there. That doesn't sound like the waxed part is like part of that. It's not.

Mike (28:33):

Okay, good to clarify. A 1,000 people are hitting the backspace key right now. Well, Bridget, that sounds great. Thanks for talking with me. Thanks for letting me come along on this ride of this season. Congratulations again on the Shorty Award, and anything else to say? Wish your listeners a good summer?

Bridget Todd (28:56):

Thanks for coming along this ride with us. I can't wait to see where we go next. I'd loved getting your emails, your tweets, your messages. I cannot tell you how much it means to me. I've had so many times where I'm thinking, "No-one's listening to my podcast. I should just give up." And then I'll get that perfectly-timed review or email or shout-out, and it means so much. And please keep it going. And yeah, I'll see you on the internet.

Bridget Todd (29:27):

If you've enjoyed this podcast, please help us grow by subscribing. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or just want to say hi, we'd love to hear from you at hello@tangoti.com. DISINFORMED is brought to you by There Are No Girls On The Internet. It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our supervising producer and engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridgette Todd. For more great podcasts, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.