Transcript of episode 008 -

What Vanessa Guillén can tell us about disinformation

Bridget Todd:                     This episode talks about sexual assault, murder, and suicide.

Bridget Todd:                     There Are No Girls On the Internet is a production of iHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative.

Bridget Todd:                     I'm Bridget Todd, and this is, There Are No Girls On the Internet. Vanessa Guillen was a 20 year old soldier in the U.S. Army. She loved sports. She played soccer and liked to jog. In April, she went missing from the Fort Hood military base in Texas. On July 5th, her remains were confirmed to have been found. Here's her sister talking to ABC News.

Ashley Bryant:                   She was taken away from me the most horrible way, yet they take it if it was a joke. My sister's no joke. My sister's a human being just like me, her, all of us.

Bridget Todd:                     Aaron David Robinson, another soldier killed himself as police were trying to take him into custody for her murder. Before she died, Guillen told her mother that she was being sexually harassed. Fort Hood has one of the highest rates of murder, sexual assault and harassment in the Army. Online, many other soldiers use what happened to her to come forward to share their own stories about sexual harassment in the military using the call, I am Vanessa Guillen. Her family is demanding changes in how the military handles sexual harassment complaints, and protesters around the country amplified her family's demands for answers and change. Guillen's death is a terrible tragedy. And for as many people used her death to highlight important conversations about how our country's institutions fail the very people who fight for our country, others used it to fuel hate and confusion online. Researchers and digital activists are seeing the way her tragic story is being used to fuel disinformation in Latinx online spaces.

Bad actors on Facebook spread disinformation about her death to sow divisions between Latinx communities and Black Lives Matter advocates

Bridget Todd:                     Because her killer was believed to be a black man, big Facebook pages began promoting stories about Vanessa's death as a way to sow divisions between Latinx communities and Black Lives Matter advocates. Unfortunately, when it comes to how disinformation spreads online, this isn't at all uncommon. Bad actors pick up on sensitive or emotionally charged topics involving wedge issues, like race, and use them to spread fear, confusion and suspicion among each other. They often exploit existing fractures between communities to pit marginalized groups against each other. But because we don't actually spend a lot of time talking about marginalized communities in general, let alone how our identities shape the online experience, we aren't talking about the big threat this tactic presents. And it's a problem.

Disinformation targets immigrants

Vanessa Cardena...:        The first time that I actually became aware of how targeted our folks are was in 2016 when I saw someone on my Facebook posted a picture of an ICE agent, or someone who looked like an ICE agent with sort of the ICE acronym in the back of his jacket, arresting someone at what looked like was a polling location. And it was something along the lines, someone had posted and said, be careful, everyone, ICE is around the voting location. And when I looked at it closely, I was like, well, this picture looks photoshopped. But that was sort of the first time that I saw something that I was like, huh? Somebody is actually thinking this through and kind of knows the nerves of the community in terms of the fears that exist in our communities, even though we all know that undocumented people are not going to go vote.

Vanessa Cardena...:        But the message that we're trying to send is, immigration is doing raids around voting locations, therefore people might just be fearful of going because some folks are live in mixed status families and so on and so forth. So that was sort of the first time that I saw something and it just made me pause and think about the level of this information that was spreading targeting the Latino community.

Bridget Todd:                     Vanessa Cardenas is a longtime activist and policy expert. She's seen the way that disinformation online plays on our communities fear to create confusion. But when she saw the way Guillen's story was being used online, she was shocked.

Vanessa Cardena...:        So that was actually really shocking, because obviously the Vanessa Guillen case has touched such a nerve in the community in the sense of this soldier that gave her life for country. So I guess I would say probably two weeks, well maybe a little bit right after they identify the suspect of the case, I would say days after it, I started seeing some of these pictures and memes pretty much about the suspected killer, and just driving this message of black and brown tensions and just amplifying sort of the message, oh, where's the Black Lives Matter movement when it comes to a Latina that has been killed by a black person?

Vanessa Cardena...:        So that was, again, really eyeopening, but I also feel, at least for me by then I was already just, I've been aware more of sort of the disinformation that's been spreading so I was not surprised. But again, I think it just speaks to the level of this strategy that's out there about amplifying fear, distrust, and just creating wedges between this communities, which I think we're going to see more of. And these bad actors are really using every opportunity they can to actually create these wedges.

Bridget Todd:                     Facebook groups with big followings and reach made posts about Guillen's death, asking whether Latinx community should support Black Lives Matter when a black man killed one of their own. The intention is pretty clear. Rather than amplifying her important story and her family's calls for justice and change, it's an attempt to use her story to sell mistrust and animosity between marginalized communities. Why? Researchers say it has to do with the upcoming election. Jacobo Licona is the disinformation research lead at Equis Labs, a group that works to build an active Latino electorate. His team saw pretty much the same thing she did, that Guillen's story was being used to criticize Black Lives Matter, and the protest that followed the death of unarmed black people, like George Floyd, by police.

We started seeing conservative annex accounts, including Spanish language pages, trying to build racial tension between black and Latinx communities

Jacobo Licona:                   We started seeing conservative annex accounts, including Spanish language pages, trying to build racial tension between Black and Latinx communities after they found her body and her death was confirmed. And so we saw conservative Latinx actors starting to criticize Black Lives Matter for not protesting her death and for staying silent. And after they found her body, the man who was linked to her murder killed himself, either the same day or the next day. And so we saw conservative Latinx accounts promoting race violence around Guillen by amplifying the fact that the killer was a black man and that they started promoting all lives matter narratives and things like that. So we saw different memes comparing the black man who killed Guillen to the white police officer, and essentially promoting in air that race has nothing to do with Floyd's killing, or we also saw bad actors asking why Latinos were protesting for BLM but weren't protesting for other Latinos, like Vanessa. And so, there was a lot of racial tension building early on once reports come out and they found her body.

Bridget Todd:                     So do you think the people who were running these accounts actually cared about sharing Guillen's story?

Jacobo Licona:                   No. I mean, I think they're definitely trying to make it a wedge issue. And we often see, even just in other narratives, bad actors trying to seek to inflame preexisting tensions within in between communities. So, part of their goal is to depress votes in more progressive communities, including the Latinx community. And so, if they can build a wedge between black and Latinx voters, they can potentially drive some of those people to Trump in November. But I think one big problem here is that, within the Latinx community, we've kind of failed to confront the anti-blackness that exists in our own community, and I think the far right definitely takes advantage of that to stoke racial tension. So, one thing, it's important that we start acknowledging the anti-blackness that exists in our community and show unity.

Jacobo Licona:                   And we should especially be doing this, because again, black and Latinx are not mutually exclusive the far right, and many people in the Latinx community tend to ignore the affluent Latinx community. And so, especially in the right. The right is effectively excluding them from their narratives, and I don't think we should be ignoring that. So going back to Vanessa's death specifically, I think with an increase in attention on Black Lives Matter, and even brands responding to current moments of racial justice, we see a lot of bad actors looking for opportunities to create division among communities of color.

Bridget Todd:                     Let's take a quick break.

Bridget Todd:                     And we're back. Facebook is a big part of how this all goes down. For instance, the pro Trump Facebook group, The Conservative Choice, has over a hundred thousand followers, and many of their posts are dedicated to criticizing black celebrities like Colin Kaepernick, Black Lives Matter and calls for racial justice. One post even accuses Facebook, the company itself, of supporting racism by telling people to avoid Latino businesses because of an initiative highlighting-

PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:10:04]

Bridget Todd:                     ... by telling people to avoid Latino businesses because of an initiative highlighting black owned business. Similarly online, protestors' calls for businesses to hire more black people get twisted into them calling for businesses not to hire Latinos. Many of the other posts on the page are videos or images depicting a violent attacks on Latinos or Latino owned businesses by black people to drive home the idea that the Latinx community shouldn't trust or support the black community. Like [inaudible 00:00:29], Vanessa also sees the ways that anti-blackness and the eraser of Afro-Latinx identities have presented fractures and tensions in communities of color that bad actors can exploit online. So Vanessa, what kind of content have you seen online being used to sow division within communities of color?

Vanessa Cardena...:        Yeah, so we're seeing a lot of stories, for example, of black men violently attacking Latino men, very graphic, very violent post pictures. That's one thing. And I should say something also, [Bridget 00:00:11:06], and that is that we know that there are black people in the Latino community. We have a rich history of African descent in the community, whether it's the Caribbean or [inaudible 00:01:17]. And I'm from Bolivia. And even in Bolivia, we have Bolivians who are of African descent. But the way this information efforts, what they're trying to do is just make us look like the other, separate us. So you do have sort of, like I was saying, this really graphic posts, just amplifying violence in how they describe it or in how they post it by black men.

Vanessa Cardena...:        There's also a lot of content out there about painting the Black Lives Movement that is violent. They have a lot of content that's showing, for example, that the Black Lives Movement protestors are destroying churches or burning Bibles. So really going as sort of some of the themes of a Latino community. It's very faith centered. And so they're trying to sort of go at this pressure point and hit those nerves on things that the community cares about. On the Vanessa Guillen case, there's been a lot of content out there amplifying that the alleged killer was black, and promoting the all lives matter narrative, and questioning how come the Black Lives Movement doesn't show up for Latinos when Latinos are being killed, and so on and so forth. So that's the type of content we're seeing now.

Vanessa Cardena...:        And again, we know that every time there's a flashpoint, or every time there's something that's happening just at a national level, or even at the local level ... There were some posts. I think it was, I want to say [inaudible 00:00:13:03], just about the Black Lives Matter Movement. I think that there was a demand that all businesses should hire people of color. But how the bots or sort of the disinformation. But actors were trying to frame it was that the Black Lives Movement were forcing Latino business owners to hire non-Latinos. So things like that. So they're trying to, again, press this really specific issues in the community where they know that it hits a nerve and just amplify those. And we know we're going to be getting more of those as things get just more heated as we come closer to the election.

Bad actors tried to oversimplify the controversy

Robert Unanue:                We're all truly blessed at the same time to have a leader like President Trump, who is a builder.

Bridget Todd:                     Bad actors online seize on conversations that require sensitivity or nuance to talk about, just like they had no problem seizing on Guillen's death to push harmful narratives online. After Goya's CEO faced backlash for praising Trump earlier this year, some accounts purporting to belong to Latino social media users used it to spread accusations of a mob of PC bullies attacking a hardworking community of color. But Win Black/Pa'lante, a group that trains voters to identify disinformation, found that some of the accounts pushing this narrative were actually bots. Online, the Goya controversy appeared to boil down to Black Lives Matter versus the Latinx community. Ashley Bryant works with Win Black/Pa'lante, And she says social media platforms aren't doing enough to curb the spread of this kind of disinformation.

Ashley Bryant:                   We just experienced a couple weeks ago when the Goya CEO decided to share his support for Trump. And that became a controversy in itself, but also unleashed a right wing operation around trying to really disparage the true message. Julian Castro and AOC really stepped up and shared, "If you share the values of Trump, you are not supporting our community." And we saw a bot be unleashed on Facebook within a couple of hours. And it took a couple days before Facebook was able to actually remove these fake comments, fake agents, and our operation saw it within a day.

Ashley Bryant:                   And so it's just there's hundreds of people in their organization that are allegedly focused on this, but yet we were able to identify that these were bots in just under a couple of hours. And so it really is disheartening to see that these companies aren't really ready to step up into this moment. This isn't a partisan issue. Misinformation and disinformation is not a political issue. It is literally to suppress entire communities that need to exercise their right to vote. And if these tech companies don't see it that way, you really have to question what their purposes are.

Bridget Todd:                     Vanessa also saw the way that conversations around Goya oversimplified the narrative online. But she says the narratives pushing division, even when Trump himself picks up on it, probably won't resonate much with most folks in the Latinx community.

Vanessa Cardena...:        I think they're trying really hard to sort of make the connection. Obviously even the Trump administration picked up on it, getting Ivanka to post that ridiculous Tweet with her holding a can of Goya beans. Again, I think they're just sort of trying to amplify this wedges and just really ... In the case of Goya, I think that the average Latino who is, again, losing their jobs because of COVID and just trying to figure out how they're going to survive this pandemic, this is not something that resonates with them. But I do think, again, online there's just this effort to say Democrats are against business owners. Democrats are trying to shut this down, when we know that that was not the case.

Vanessa Cardena...:        The thing that people had issue with were the comments of the Goya president, who again, is supporting Trump. And Trump, we know, is driving a very divisive and just really anti-Latino agenda. So that's the point. And I think part of this, again, this disinformation effort, is just to confuse the truth, is just to take attention from the real issues and just focus it on sort of this specific narratives that benefits them. And it goes along to sort of their overall frame that Democrats are socialists, that Democrats don't believe in God, that Democrats are just driving a socialist agenda and they don't want anyone to be successful. So again, it just goes off the broader narratives that they're trying to push.

Once an official Trump Facebook page or Trump himself boosts these narratives, they can spread far and wide

Bridget Todd:                     Once an official Trump Facebook page, or even Trump himself, signal boosts these narratives, they can spread far and wide.

Jacobo Licona:                   Sometimes it's not even helpful to know where it's coming from, because anything that's getting a lot of engagement, it's going to circulate pretty far. Trump, for example, is the biggest amplifier of disinfo, and it allows other bad actors to follow him, which can really increase conversations around certain topics. But when it comes to Latinx spaces, there's a network of conservative Latinx Facebook groups that are part of this movement called Lexit. And they tend to work together and coordinate attacks across their network of pages. So the Lexit Movement itself, it gained prominence in 2018 as an effort to help Latinos exit the Democratic Party or the left, and kind of embrace more conservative values. There's actually another one called Blexit, which is a little more popular, and it's kind of the equivalent for the black community and trying to push more black people to embrace conservative values.

Jacobo Licona:                   But the network of Lexit Facebook pages, they have a wide range in their audiences. So depending on certain Facebook pages, some have hundreds of thousands of followers. Others have tens of thousands of followers, but they frequently share misleading and factually incorrect narratives. And they tend to coordinate within each other, but also with the Latinos for Trump Network, which is an official Latinx page for the Trump campaign. So when they're able to coordinate with each other, they're able to push narratives to more feeds and allow more people to see it.

Bridget Todd:                     You might expect to see messages about people on the left being godless socialists, who hate hardworking business owners from a Facebook page that is explicitly advocating for Trump. But [inaudible 00:19:54] says that pages that appear to be nonpartisan can sometimes present an even bigger threat when it comes to the spread of harmful narratives online.

Jacobo Licona:                   Yeah. So I think ...

PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:20:04]

Bridget Todd:                     Of harmful narratives online.

Jacobo Licona:                   Yeah. So I think the reality is that we often see a less partisan Latinx pages help spread disinformation, especially around conversations that either resonate with the Latinx community or conversations in the mainstream media. And the real problem is that these nonpartisan spaces, they often become more dangerous in the far right spaces because they appear to be more trustworthy messengers and people tend to believe or trust what these pages are promoting.

Jacobo Licona:                   So, I mean, even around narratives around Guillen, it reached less partisan Latinx spaces. And for example, I saw one Facebook page that was intended to bring Mexicans together. And it has hundreds of thousands of followers. And they're typically posting more of cultural type things, but they started posting narratives around Guillen that appear to try to build tension within the Latinx community.

Jacobo Licona:                   And again, so when they do that, the people who are following these pages, they start believing some of these messages because they're not in those pages for partisan reasons. So these less partisan online spaces that are created where people feel like they are a part of a community, but then disinformation comes, like the stuff around Guillen, they're more likely to believe this, these narratives.

Vanessa Cardena...:        One of our concerns as we look at how this information is spreading is the fact that we're seeing some of this content migrate from very partisan pages to nonpartisan pages. Especially around the Vanessa Guillen case and her murder, and all of that, we saw, for example, a lot of Mexican organizing pages, hometown associations, and people who really were following the case super closely to start picking up some of this, right? And they have thousands of retweets. And that's the concern, right? And again, it's because, I think also, the message for us, for progressives, is that it is so important to magnify our message, our message of solidarity, our message of supporting each other's movements, our message that we're all in this together.

Vanessa Cardena...:        And I think that's the real challenge for us because we're not going to be able to, what's happening on the right or in these circles or among these bad actors, we're not really going to be able to minimize that. What we can do is inoculate ourselves in our community against it, and that is by building trust affirmatively and intentionally, and elevating trusted voices so that when somebody sees this post, they are like, "Wait, but I saw another post from someone in my community that I respect and I know, and they are posting positive content, that it speaks about unity."

Vanessa Cardena...:        So I think for us, that's the challenge, is how are we magnifying the positive vision and the positive content to actually inoculate ourselves and inoculate our communities from this content. And it's not easy. I'm not saying, and I think progressives right now, we have our hands full, but I think that's the challenge, that we need to create content, amplify content, not go down the rabbit hole.

…they'll repost it because they're trying to debunk the claim. But just by retweeting about it or reposting… you are in fact getting more eyes on that post. And that's the problem.

Vanessa Cardena...:        One of the actually hardest things about disinformation that we often share with progressives is don't amplify it. And that is actually harder than it sounds because sometimes people, in their effort not to amplify it, they actually retweet it or they'll repost it because they're trying to debunk the claim. But just by retweeting about it or reposting, you actually, even if you're saying this is not true, you are in fact getting more eyes on that post. And that's the problem.

Bridget Todd:                     More after this quick break.

Bridget Todd:                     Let's get right back to it. Talking about disinformation online is difficult. And because of the nature of algorithms, when you try to respond to correct the record, you could actually be accidentally amplifying it because you're giving it more engagement.

Bridget Todd:                     It's also important to keep in mind that this isn't just stuff happening online. Disinformation has real consequences because it translates to real world behavior. And right now, with the Latinx community representing a growing and important voting block, it has big implications for the upcoming election. Acobo says this kind of disinformation is meant to push Latinx voters to either vote for Trump or to not vote at all, like that phony picture of immigration arrests outside of polling places that Vanessa mentioned earlier.

Bridget Todd:                     This is kind of personal for me. I've seen the way dangerous disinformation has impacted my own community. Communities of color have good reason to be skeptical of our political and medical institutions, institutions that, historically, we can't always trust, but COVID has just made everything worse. I see memes spreading false information about COVID and the election being shared by people that I love, and it just makes me feel so frustrated.

Bridget Todd:                     Yeah, you talked earlier about the importance of inoculating your community against disinformation. And I really felt that. You know, my people are Black, we're from the South. When it comes to things like voting, it is not always as easy as just going to vote. In these states, there are voter ID laws and other kinds of barriers to just going and casting your ballot. So I really see a lot of disinformation being spread around voting.

Bridget Todd:                     And particularly now with COVID, I've seen a lot of elders in my own community posting things that I know are rooted in this very real fear around COVID. And I understand where it comes from. You know, COVID has ravaged Black and Brown communities. So these folks, like their concerns are very valid. It's been a frustrating challenge to acknowledge and validate these very real fears in my own community while also not letting people that I care about give over to fear and spread harmful incorrect information because they're fearful. It's been a challenge.

Vanessa Cardena...:        No, and I so connect with you on that point and I can totally relate. I am first generation. Most of my family or like my aunts and uncles, they came here when they were adults. So I think it's really important for us to realize that this is a very difficult moment. It is a very confusing moment. And I think especially the older generation, they just don't know what's happening and they're fearful for the future. And they see what's happening in our country with Trump, they see COVID, they see their employment gains being erased, they see their incomes being erased, and then our health. You know, we are the communities that are feeling the brunt of the impact of the pandemic.

Vanessa Cardena...:        Now, on top of that, you add the new process of vote by mail, right? It's a new process for a lot of folks. They're not familiar how to request a ballot. They have never voted by mail, many of them. And then the other piece of this is even for young people, like [inaudible 00:27:46] they don't carry around a book of stamps like some of us did, right?

Vanessa Cardena...:        So when you think about it, it really presents a lot of challenges. And that's why I think that, again, part of our challenge as progressives is what voter education efforts are we implementing, even in this era of COVID when everything has to be done virtually? I think that's going to force us to innovate, but also to have those conversations that we've been putting off. Because I do believe that the best way to inoculate people is to just have an honest conversation.

Vanessa Cardena...:        And you're not going to be able to convince your aunt or uncle the first time. But I think just starting to have those conversations about what's happening in our country, why their voice is so important, and how this process is changing, and just repeating that message over and over again, I think it's one of the most effective strategies.

The best way to inoculate ourselves and our communities is having trusted messengers in the community

Vanessa Cardena...:        And again, like I said earlier, the best way to inoculate yourselves is when you have a trusted messenger, when you have someone who's in the community who people go to for information, I think those are the people that are going to help us face this really onslaught of disinformation because they are the ones that the community listens to. And that's why we need to empower those folks with the tools that they need and information that they need, and just help drive that message and that positive message that I was speaking about earlier.

Bridget Todd:                     So what can everyday people do to help curb the spread of disinformation, misinformation, particularly in marginalized commuters?

Vanessa Cardena...:        Yeah. Well, the first thing I would say is just really be careful about what you are amplifying online. What might seem harmless to you is probably not harmless, right? So just really always be mindful of your sources and the messages that you are posting. So that will be the very first thing. The second thing, it's informing yourself, especially when we talk about voting, because we know that's actually going to be-

PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [00:30:04]

Vanessa Cardena...:        ... especially when we talk about voting and because we know that's actually going to be a big target of the attacks and the disinformation moving forward, especially as we get closer to election and especially because there's new processes around vote by mail. So really informing yourself about the deadlines and the requirements on voting absentee or voting by mail, so that you can share that information with your community and your loved ones. And then the third thing is again, just trying to amplify a positive message, a message of unity and solidarity. I think if we do that, it will go a long way because right now, bad actors are trying to amplify fear. Therefore we need to amplify a positive message, a positive vision for our movements and for our country moving forward.

Win Black/Pa’lante has established a disinformation war room to train Black and Latinx voters and other grassroots advocacy organizations to spot disinformation themselves, and provides messaging tools to counter it with accurate information without amplifying it.

Bridget Todd:                     Ashley's team at Win Black/Pa'lante is taking this message to heart. Rather than waiting for tech leaders like Mark Zuckerberg, to do the right thing and curb the spread of harmful disinformation on their platforms, her team has established a disinformation war room to train black and Latinx voters and other grassroots advocacy organizations to spot disinformation themselves and provides messaging tools to counter it with accurate information without amplifying it.

Ashley Bryant:                   Our strategy is really teaching people that we don't want to amplify the misinformation, that is counterproductive. But what we do want to do is put in the space counter narratives while also educating folks. And so we have a daily war room, where we bring our team together to go over analysis, go over our research briefs. And so it really adds another level of authenticity because it's not just our campaign that's trying to come in and talk to folks. But we're working with these organizations that have created a sense of community with not just their online audiences, but the citizens within their regions. And we're able to really spread this message of like, "Look, this is how you identify. These people are trolls. They are bots. They are not trying to appeal to you in any way beyond trying to mislead you, and you should know this. And the only way to fight back is to register and vote."

Bridget Todd:                     Loosely translated. The slang term pa'lante means to go forward. And Ashley's team at Win Black/Pa'lante are working to help communities of color go forward stronger in solidarity. I can't help but notice that your organization has two names Win Black and Pa'lante. We see these narratives being pushed by bad actors that the Latinx community and the black community. We can't work together. We have to be living in fear of each other. We have to be suspicious of each other. Not only does this framework obviously erase the fact that there are plenty of Afro-Latinas out there, but it's also just not true. And I guess my question is how do we get to place where we can present the truth that our communities are stronger together?

Ashley Bryant:                   Absolutely. And you took half my answer in your last sentence, because simply that's the truth. We are stronger together and they know that. And so they want to do anything to divide these two communities. And it's simply just disgusting, quite honestly. Most recently we're seeing this misinformation around, the Black Lives Matter movement did put out a letter that was kind of describing some of their demands. And we're seeing a lot of right wing operatives that are boiling it down, taking out a lot of the context within the letter and sharing that the Black Lives Matter movement are against immigrants, or they are doing mafia tactics, if you will, which is simply just not the truth. And they're spreading these untruths in a very broad manner.

Ashley Bryant:                   And so, it's really important for us and I'm glad that you underscored the pa'lante because we do have a Latinx focus. And because we want to bring our two communities together in this fight, there's so many critical issues that both communities share. But also neither of these communities are monolithic. And it's really almost embarrassing to see that a lot of these operatives think of our communities as such. And so they're doing these tactics to really, it's almost like this distributed racism to really pit these two communities against each other.

Ashley Bryant:                   And so we're really building a sense of let's educate black voters, Latinx voters. Let's educate folks on what are the issues that really matter to us. Who are the leaders in this space that are supporting our issues, are supporting our values. And then also recognizing that again, we're not monolithic. We need to speak to voters as individuals, and we're not just pitting everyone against each other. We're working under an administration right now that is trying to divide this country at every turn. And so it's really important that as we are mobilizing and reaching voters, that at every step of the way, we are trying to unite folks under one goal, which is to make sure that we have a democracy that represents our communities, that represents our issues, and that is going to fight to actually move our communities forward.

Bridget Todd:                     Vanessa Bien deserved better. And today she deserves better than having her story fuel mistrust and hate in our communities. And we too deserve better than being fed the myth that our communities can only exist in conflict with one another. Our oppression, like our freedom is all linked. And until we're all free, none of us is free. To make sure that you and your community have the right information you need to vote, go to vote.org.

Bridget Todd:                     Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or just want to say hi? You can reach us hello@tangoti.com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangoti.com. There Are No Girls On The Internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of iHeart Radio and Unbox Creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer, Terry Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amatto is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd, if you want to help us grow rate and review us on Apple podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, check out the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

PART 4 OF 4 ENDS [00:36:46]