Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and what kind of
Speaker 1: stuff I never told you protection of by Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and we're thrilled to once again be joined by bridget Todd,
Speaker 1: the wonderful, the marvelous, the magnificent, and the very busy.
Speaker 2: We have missed you, Bridget Yes.
Speaker 3: I have missed you all too, my favorite authors. It's
Speaker 3: nice to be in the company of some literary ladies.
Speaker 4: That's sounded like a foreign language, like who are you
Speaker 4: talking about?
Speaker 2: You just bring on guests. I'm here, yes, yes, are you?
Speaker 2: Do you enjoy write it?
Speaker 5: I used to enjoy it.
Speaker 3: I was the kind of person who would labor over
Speaker 3: every sentence, every word choice, and so writing a paragraph
Speaker 3: would take me forever. It's one of the reasons why
Speaker 3: I'm a podcaster, because I feel it's so much easier
Speaker 3: to say it verbally. Once I started podcasting, I was
Speaker 3: like writing, who I don't know her? Say it verbally.
Speaker 3: But I used to enjoy it, Like I used to
Speaker 3: like send pitches to freelance editors and stuff, and but yeah,
Speaker 3: much less lately.
Speaker 5: How about you?
Speaker 3: What is your relationship to writing? The both of you
Speaker 3: now that you're going to be published authors.
Speaker 1: I love it. I we've we've talked about on the show.
Speaker 1: Samantha and I have both done Nana Raimo, which I
Speaker 1: know makes a lot of like editors roll their eyes,
Speaker 1: but done that, and I have recently, during the pandemic
Speaker 1: written a ton of fan fiction, like a actual shocking
Speaker 1: amount perhaps which I've started publishing two I'll say rave reviews.
Speaker 4: It's true she has a man art. I do.
Speaker 5: People made art.
Speaker 2: I got it.
Speaker 5: People like it, Yes.
Speaker 2: People like it, So I do love it. It is
Speaker 2: something I enjoy.
Speaker 1: But I guess one of the things about Nano Raimo
Speaker 1: and fan fiction to a lesser extent is I was
Speaker 1: kind of like you bridget with the editing and I
Speaker 1: would get some in my head and like, this isn't perfect,
Speaker 1: this isn't perfect. But Nano Raimo is like, I don't care,
Speaker 1: get it done, but it has to happen. And then
Speaker 1: you go back and maybe you get stuck in the
Speaker 1: editing again. But it was a real nice for me
Speaker 1: thing to do of getting out of my head and
Speaker 1: just writing it.
Speaker 2: And now we're reading some of that stuff on Spinty.
Speaker 1: And then with fan fiction, it's nice because it's like
Speaker 1: literally people like use this as an argument against it,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, no, this is an argument for it.
Speaker 1: Like it's a hobby and it's fun, Like I'm not
Speaker 1: worried about like people will enjoy it.
Speaker 2: I like it.
Speaker 1: It's not gonna go anywhere, and that's fine, But I
Speaker 1: just like doing it and I like writing, and it's
Speaker 1: definitely kind of therapeutic for me.
Speaker 4: Right, I don't do a lot of writing anymore. My
Speaker 4: form of writing has always been fiction. But I'm also
Speaker 4: one of those who it's the mood. The way my
Speaker 4: mood fluctuates is how it goes. And the more depressive
Speaker 4: I am, the more likely I'm going to write, And
Speaker 4: the more depressive and likely I'm going to write, it's
Speaker 4: gonna be sad. So I try to stay away from
Speaker 4: that because I'm more fictional than anything else. I think,
Speaker 4: for the most part, doing this type of work was
Speaker 4: a whole different beast. Doing things like when we write
Speaker 4: scripts and outlines and researching has been such a whole
Speaker 4: different beast that it's kind of the only way I
Speaker 4: do it now. Just come to just space out. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I'm done. I'm not touching a pencil, pen or the
Speaker 4: typewriter or a keyboard typewriter. I'm that old. That's how
Speaker 4: long it's been.
Speaker 5: All the quill pen.
Speaker 4: Look, guys, I love typewriters. I love them so much.
Speaker 4: I wish I could have like several, because I like
Speaker 4: I would collect them, kind of like Tom Hanks does
Speaker 4: if I had the money.
Speaker 5: I had one in college. I thought I was so hip.
Speaker 5: I didn't. I didn't use it. It was it was just
Speaker 5: to like have and make me feel cool.
Speaker 3: You know, any any to your point about being able
Speaker 3: to have outlets to write where you're not you're not
Speaker 3: so in your head about it. Like, that's something that
Speaker 3: I think is really important about, like having a craft
Speaker 3: that you're honing.
Speaker 5: I have a post it ode on my laptop that
Speaker 5: I'm looking at right now that says.
Speaker 3: Do it because it's like for me, so often the
Speaker 3: need to do something perfect or to produce something really
Speaker 3: good just keeps me from doing anything. And so I like,
Speaker 3: I think that we need to have outlets where the
Speaker 3: point is doing it. The point is like actually putting
Speaker 3: pen to paper or finger to keyboard and not really
Speaker 3: being in your head and.
Speaker 5: Worrying about like is it perfect?
Speaker 3: And so I think, like, yeah, like times like the
Speaker 3: National Novel Writing Month. Having things like that like that
Speaker 3: kind of get you in the practice of just like
Speaker 3: just focus on writing, execute, just.
Speaker 5: Write, don't worry about it. Edit it later. Can be
Speaker 5: really really powerful.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 4: They have a scriptwriting month too for people who do
Speaker 4: need to Speaking of which, Annie has also other wars
Speaker 4: that are not necessarily published, but they have been out
Speaker 4: because she's done with the Twelve Days of Halloween the
Speaker 4: all of that, So she's got work out there she has.
Speaker 4: I feel like she didn't. She's not known, but she
Speaker 4: definitely has credit.
Speaker 2: I was just waiting for you to.
Speaker 4: Say, I know you need someone else to I got to.
Speaker 3: It's so funny how like it's so much easier to
Speaker 3: like hype up a friend than it is to hype
Speaker 3: up your own work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh my god. It just feels and I think
Speaker 1: this is a lot of like conditioning we have. It
Speaker 1: just feels like you're as a woman, like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: drawing too much attention to myself for oh, like what
Speaker 1: if it's not that good?
Speaker 4: Right, Like it's that good anyway, So you don't want
Speaker 4: to talk about.
Speaker 3: It, and no one wants to see no one wants
Speaker 3: to seem like a bragger, but you should be bragging.
Speaker 3: We should all be bragging. My friend Meredith Finder notte
Speaker 3: a book called Brag Better that's all about the importance
Speaker 3: of women bragging. Brag on yourself everyone and Sam and
Speaker 3: listeners and listeners.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, well, speaking of I know you've been up
Speaker 1: to a lot of stuff, bridget Do you want to
Speaker 1: give us any highlights of what we talked?
Speaker 5: What's happened?
Speaker 3: Well, we have relaunched season four of my podcast There
Speaker 3: Are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 5: We launched it I think last week.
Speaker 3: That's right, So I've been It's been one of those
Speaker 3: speaking of like doing it crappy and just like getting
Speaker 3: it out.
Speaker 5: It was I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean, I've been doing this podcast for years now,
Speaker 3: but like got a little bit in my head and
Speaker 3: was like paralyzed.
Speaker 5: With an inability to just like do the thing.
Speaker 3: Had some stuff to work through there, but you know,
Speaker 3: it got done and it is people can listen to it.
Speaker 3: It's ongoing now you can check it out. So that
Speaker 3: was really exciting. We wrapped another podcast with Next Chapter
Speaker 3: Podcasts called Beef, all about historical beef's and rivalries, which
Speaker 3: is a kind of side interest of mine. Listen to
Speaker 3: all eight episodes. It was super fun to make. My
Speaker 3: favorite was.
Speaker 5: Probably Anne Landers and Dear Abby. Did you know they
Speaker 5: were sisters? I didn't know that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they were like sisters who had this intense rivalry
Speaker 3: because they were both advice calumnists.
Speaker 5: Fascinating stuff. Definitely check it out. Yeah, exciting times.
Speaker 4: That's interesting. I wonder what like family events were, because
Speaker 4: you know, those were the times that you sit together
Speaker 4: and kind of moll over whatever troubles you might have,
Speaker 4: boyfriend troubles, and the both of them trying to give
Speaker 4: you advice. How annoying would that be?
Speaker 5: I know, can you imagine my head?
Speaker 4: I'd be like, Okay, one was bad enough, but both
Speaker 4: of you have to put in your two says and
Speaker 4: sound like your therapist. That's even worse.
Speaker 5: God, you know, Christmas Dinners were a love that family.
Speaker 2: Geez, was there advice like similar?
Speaker 3: No, that was something that they had very distinctive advice styles.
Speaker 3: One of them their the her advice was like much
Speaker 3: more kind of like traditional. Another's was like their her
Speaker 3: advice was much more like progressive. They had they had
Speaker 3: different attitudes, like they accepted things like you know, like
Speaker 3: gay rights and like having people like gay couples come
Speaker 3: in with advice. They accepted those things on very different timelines,
Speaker 3: like they had very different styles of advice. Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: and it's fascinating. Uh, people should like if.
Speaker 5: You were gonna, if you were interested.
Speaker 3: That's the episode I feel but that's the one that
Speaker 3: I feel like is like I learned the most about advice.
Speaker 5: Well, I'll say one more thing.
Speaker 3: This is like I'm going on way too long, but
Speaker 3: it's I'm fascinated by it. Advice columns were kind of
Speaker 3: predated this like Internet era idea of people publishing things
Speaker 3: and then the readers being able to write in before
Speaker 3: the days of the internet, in print the only place
Speaker 3: where people would publish something, and then the readers would
Speaker 3: then submit letters being like oh I don't know about that,
Speaker 3: or submit letters at all, and you know, getting advice
Speaker 3: was advice columns. And so the whole concept of a
Speaker 3: readership being in conversation and in dialogue with a print
Speaker 3: publisher that is now like part of the Internet really
Speaker 3: got it start in advice columns. So fun fact, that's random.
Speaker 2: So were you abby?
Speaker 4: Your team is an you said, alienators?
Speaker 5: I what a good question. I identify the team.
Speaker 4: As a beef, there's a team.
Speaker 5: Yeah, if there's a beef, there's a team. Exactly.
Speaker 3: At times I identify with both. I think that dear
Speaker 3: Abby definitely struck me as the pettier of the two,
Speaker 3: and so I definitely saw a lot of myself in that.
Speaker 3: So I at times I feel I see both.
Speaker 5: I see myself in both of them.
Speaker 3: Put it that way, Oh that's great, good, Yes, I
Speaker 3: definitely I need to check that out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because for some reason, my Google updates all the
Speaker 1: time to this day like gives me these kinds of
Speaker 1: questions people are apparently still asking to advice columnist and
Speaker 1: that when I read them, I'm like, this is wild,
Speaker 1: this is a thing that is.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, I read advice columns.
Speaker 3: It's like it's like my one of my favorite things.
Speaker 3: I read advice columns every day. It's funny because I
Speaker 3: was just talking to someone about an advice column I
Speaker 3: read yesterday.
Speaker 5: I think it was in.
Speaker 3: Slate where a woman had set her single coworker up
Speaker 3: with a friend of hers and they went on a
Speaker 3: date at a bar and the coworker was like, well,
Speaker 3: we're not we can't go out again. And she was
Speaker 3: like why and it was because her friend at the
Speaker 3: bar ordered a glass of plain milk.
Speaker 5: And he was like, I can't see her again.
Speaker 3: And so the letter writer was like, how could I
Speaker 3: convince him that he's being ridiculous and like, let her
Speaker 3: order whatever she wants.
Speaker 5: She's a catch.
Speaker 3: The weird petty stuff that people write into advice columns,
Speaker 3: it just I'm endlessly fascinated by it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I feel like the update to that is the whole Creddit,
Speaker 4: which I adore obviously.
Speaker 5: Oh I love them. I love them. And like there
Speaker 5: are podcasts where people people just read them. Yes, I'm addictions.
Speaker 4: That's the entire podcast is they just read it and
Speaker 4: then they talk about it. I'm like, wow, that's simple.
Speaker 4: Can we do that? Yeah?
Speaker 5: No, like six page research.
Speaker 4: On no, no need twelve pages of things and reading
Speaker 4: horrible things, thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But it also just underscores like how people are doing
Speaker 1: all kinds of things that I'm shocked by all the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it really, It's so true, And like reading advice
Speaker 3: columns and all of the like am I like humans
Speaker 3: are fascinating. We are, we have fascinating motivations. We our
Speaker 3: behavior is really fascinating. Like the ability for humans and
Speaker 3: our behavior and our range of behaviors will.
Speaker 5: Never cease to surprise me.
Speaker 3: I'll put it that way, both in negative ways and
Speaker 3: positive ways.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yes, yes, yes, well, I guess kind of like
Speaker 6: segueing into technology, and it's changed how things are happening
Speaker 6: and how we operate.
Speaker 1: The topic you've bought today is so important, and I
Speaker 1: know it's a question that a lot of people have,
Speaker 1: So what are we talking about today?
Speaker 3: So this is an important topic. You know, it's almost
Speaker 3: been almost a year since the Supreme Court overturned ro
Speaker 3: versus Wade, And after that happened, probably immediately, one of
Speaker 3: the biggest issues that came up was this connection between
Speaker 3: technology and abortion access. You know, like should I delete
Speaker 3: my period tracker app? Like what like can I google abortion?
Speaker 3: Am I going to go to jail? And so namely
Speaker 3: this idea that all of the data from our smartphones
Speaker 3: could and would be used to prosecute abortions. So, you know,
Speaker 3: back in the day, in the days before row in
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy three, you know, it was a rough landscape
Speaker 3: for abortion access. Obviously, we've made some really good progress,
Speaker 3: you know, because of the expansion of things like pill
Speaker 3: based abortion and you know, the ability to get pills
Speaker 3: by mail. But in the days before Row in the seventies,
Speaker 3: we'd all didn't carry like GPS devices in our pocket
Speaker 3: or have this vast virtual network of mass surveillance that
Speaker 3: could help criminalize people who need abortions in the communities
Speaker 3: that help them.
Speaker 5: And I am.
Speaker 3: Sorry to say that Google, but the thing that most
Speaker 3: of us use for our email, for our maps, for us,
Speaker 3: our cell phones for some of us if you use
Speaker 3: an Android or a Google phone, is a huge part.
Speaker 5: Of that network. And so today I want to talk
Speaker 5: about some.
Speaker 3: Of the ways that Google has been collecting data related
Speaker 3: to abortions, what Google has publicly said, what they're actually doing,
Speaker 3: and some recent movement in news in that arena.
Speaker 4: You know, I haven't really been thinking about it because
Speaker 4: we've talked about again as you were talking about the
Speaker 4: period tracker and then Facebook, because we already know some
Speaker 4: of the headlines that it's made in what they've done
Speaker 4: and how they have helped the anti abortion movement so
Speaker 4: much in the whole whole right winged conversation. But I
Speaker 4: really haven't thought about Google, even though I should be, like,
Speaker 4: obviously we know Google minds a lot of data, and
Speaker 4: there's still conversation about how much information they keep and
Speaker 4: they spread. But I haven't really thought of it on
Speaker 4: like par with what's going on with abortion. So can
Speaker 4: you kind of explain what we're talking about here totally?
Speaker 3: So I think what you just said, Sam, I've noticed
Speaker 3: the same thing. I think that when it comes to
Speaker 3: a lot of online harms, people think of Facebook, people
Speaker 3: think of Twitter. Of course, Google is an interesting case.
Speaker 3: I do think that anecdotally, Google has been able to
Speaker 3: skirt a lot of public scrutiny about the way that
Speaker 3: they handle some of this stuff in a way that
Speaker 3: other platforms have not been able to skirt that kind
Speaker 3: of scrutiny.
Speaker 5: I think a lot about this. I think it's because.
Speaker 3: Google offers a useful product for the world, right like, like
Speaker 3: Google does make platforms and tools that are helpful to us. Facebook,
Speaker 3: I feel like, is different and that like all they
Speaker 3: really offer is like Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram.
Speaker 5: Some of those are, you know, globally, some of.
Speaker 3: Those platforms are like really useful, but here in the
Speaker 3: United States, I feel like if Facebook disappeared, the tool
Speaker 3: that they offer is not really as much of a
Speaker 3: global good as Google. And so I think that for
Speaker 3: that reason, I think that maybe that's why Google doesn't.
Speaker 5: Come to mind when you think about these kind of harms.
Speaker 3: But the reality is is that Google is really a
Speaker 3: major player when it comes to the way that our
Speaker 3: data can be misused, specifically to criminalize abortions. And so
Speaker 3: shortly after Roe was overturned by the Supreme Court almost
Speaker 3: a year ago, Google said that it would proactively delete
Speaker 3: its location data when people visited quote, particularly personal places,
Speaker 3: including a abortion clinics, hospitals, and shelters. Their statement said,
Speaker 3: today we're announcing that if our systems identify that someone
Speaker 3: has visited one of these places, we will delete these
Speaker 3: entries from location history soon after they visit. This change
Speaker 3: will take effect in the coming weeks. And so it's
Speaker 3: really that last part of their statement that is important.
Speaker 3: Like what does the word soon mean? Like my definition
Speaker 3: of soon and Google's definition of soon might be two
Speaker 3: different things. What does this will change will take effect
Speaker 3: in the coming weeks? It's been almost a year, Like,
Speaker 3: is that technically that is a matter of weeks? So, like,
Speaker 3: is that what Google is defining as a couple of
Speaker 3: weeks wouldn't be how I define it? And so this
Speaker 3: was something that Google publicly agreed to do.
Speaker 5: They didn't.
Speaker 3: They will tell you that they just like decided to
Speaker 3: do this as a public good on their own.
Speaker 5: That's not exactly true.
Speaker 3: There definitely were like digital rights groups behind the scenes
Speaker 3: pressuring them to make this choice. But at any event,
Speaker 3: they did, and they enjoyed a lot of positive glowing
Speaker 3: press know for doing this. However, it's been almost a
Speaker 3: year and Google has not really followed up in any
Speaker 3: kind of a meaningful or consistent way in their promise
Speaker 3: to delete this location history if they think that someone
Speaker 3: is going to an abortion clinic. And that is really
Speaker 3: concerning because we do live in a landscape where abortion
Speaker 3: is so easily criminalized and your digital footprint can be
Speaker 3: used to create evidence that you have tried to illegally
Speaker 3: access information about abortion.
Speaker 1: Right And the thing is like a lot of times
Speaker 1: you're using like maps or GPS to get to any place,
Speaker 1: like to get to an abortion clinic. And I will
Speaker 1: say about Google, like, there are a lot of things
Speaker 1: that you don't realize it's tracking, even if because I'm
Speaker 1: somebody who's like I go in and I turn off,
Speaker 1: Like you're not listening to my voice, you're not doing this,
Speaker 1: you're not doing this, it's still doing it, Like I
Speaker 1: can't figure out how, but it is. And once I
Speaker 1: found a map of like everywhere i'd been, even though
Speaker 1: I don't really use GPS that much, and I think
Speaker 1: it's because of like emails I get it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're going on this trip or oh you're doing this
Speaker 1: thing Like I'm trying to figure it out but I can't.
Speaker 1: But it was creepy, like you can go and find
Speaker 1: a map of everywhere you've been, and it is frightening
Speaker 1: when it can be used in this very scary landscape
Speaker 1: in a case where against abortion or something in a
Speaker 1: case of abortion. So it's not like sometimes when you
Speaker 1: talk about stuff like this, it can feel very as
Speaker 1: we've said several times on this show when you've been
Speaker 1: on like oh that's an Internet thing.
Speaker 2: I don't see it, so it's not.
Speaker 1: Real, but it very much is, and there is data
Speaker 1: around this whole thing right totally.
Speaker 5: So this is not an Internet issue.
Speaker 3: This is not an abstract issue or a hypothetical, far
Speaker 3: away down the line, maybe one day issue. This is
Speaker 3: an issue that's happening to people in their real lives
Speaker 3: right now. So, just to set the scene, according to
Speaker 3: Google's own transparency report, they have already been subpoenaed several
Speaker 3: times for users data. In the second half of twenty
Speaker 3: twenty one, they received eighteen thousand and thirty seven subpoenas
Speaker 3: and twenty three thousand, nine hundred and twenty four search
Speaker 3: warrants for user information. So it's pretty reasonable to conclude
Speaker 3: that prosecutors and states were abortion is illegal might already
Speaker 3: be making requests for personal data from Google to prosecute
Speaker 3: those looking for abortions. Also, in terms of like where
Speaker 3: we've already seen this happening, we already know that people
Speaker 3: have already been charged with a painting abortions or helping
Speaker 3: somebody a pain an abortion, with their digital footprint.
Speaker 5: Being used as evidence.
Speaker 3: You might remember that when Roe was overturned Mark Zuckerberg,
Speaker 3: when he was asked about it, he said that he
Speaker 3: was hoping that encrypting Facebook's messages would help protect people
Speaker 3: from quote overbroad requests for information, but that did not
Speaker 3: stop the company from handing over user information. In June,
Speaker 3: before Roe was overturned, Facebook turned over the private messages
Speaker 3: of a mother and daughter facing criminal charges for allegedly
Speaker 3: carrying out an illegal abortion, and so, well.
Speaker 5: This is happening now. It is not abstract.
Speaker 3: People are currently embroiled and in legal situations that where
Speaker 3: they're facing jail time because tech companies were like gave
Speaker 3: over sensitive information that they had from folks who were
Speaker 3: allegedly looking up information about abortion or talking about abortion.
Speaker 3: And so the reason why we have some insight into
Speaker 3: this is because of a new report from the digital
Speaker 3: rights organization Accountable Tech. They did a couple of different
Speaker 3: experiments to get a sense of how Google is tracking
Speaker 3: and whether or not they're actually deleting this location information,
Speaker 3: and they're just not. So they said that they were
Speaker 3: going to and they are not. Like there's not any
Speaker 3: other way to interpret kind of what's going on here.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: And as you're talking about it, I just realized I
Speaker 4: get monthly information about where where you went this month,
Speaker 4: like as if this is like hey, let's monthly review,
Speaker 4: look at you. You traveled these places, as if to celebrate.
Speaker 4: And now that I'm thinking about it, like wait, what
Speaker 4: if I don't want to remember where I went the
Speaker 4: last month? What is happening and I don't remember ever
Speaker 4: saying yes I want this information, Yes, I want it
Speaker 4: to be recorded, and yes, I want to be given
Speaker 4: back to me. So if they have that so easily
Speaker 4: given without me even prompting or asking for it, I
Speaker 4: can't imagine what they actually have. And honestly, I can't
Speaker 4: imagine how they decide what to delete if they're doing
Speaker 4: specific locations, like how that would even come up, as
Speaker 4: well as the fact that, yeah, if they have pinpointed
Speaker 4: specific locations that would be easily trackable and easily used
Speaker 4: against someone, right.
Speaker 3: Totally, And Sam, your point is such a good one,
Speaker 3: and I think it's a good like it provides a good,
Speaker 3: zoomed out understanding of the issue, right because I get
Speaker 3: those two like I've talked about this on my own
Speaker 3: show about the Spotify rap, which I always enjoy getting.
Speaker 3: But all of these ways that we have been condition
Speaker 3: to believe that surveillance is a good thing, Like oh,
Speaker 3: I want to get a summary of all the different
Speaker 3: places I've traveled in the last month. How and it's
Speaker 3: you know, all these pictures of where I was set
Speaker 3: to music that might feel exciting to get. And I'm
Speaker 3: certainly susceptible to being excited to information about how I've
Speaker 3: lived in my life but that is digital surveillance and
Speaker 3: the way that we've been conditioned to think it is
Speaker 3: not just commonplace to have our devices and our platforms
Speaker 3: tracked and surveilled by big tech companies and used for
Speaker 3: profit by those companies, but that we should be happy
Speaker 3: that it's actually like cool and fun to see this
Speaker 3: information about ourselves and get these little, you know, summaries
Speaker 3: of what we listened to, where we went, what things
Speaker 3: we bought, what we ate all of that, Like, there
Speaker 3: really needs to be a fundamental reassessment of the relationship
Speaker 3: between users and tech companies when it comes to our data,
Speaker 3: because we deserve privacy.
Speaker 5: Privacy should be the standard.
Speaker 3: But even if you dress it up with a little
Speaker 3: mon or a little newsletter or whatever, that is still
Speaker 3: surveillance and we should ultimately be questioning whether that, like
Speaker 3: that fundamental relationship between user and platform. That's my soapbox
Speaker 3: about about surveillance. Like I get upset about it because
Speaker 3: it gets me too, Like I, even though I know
Speaker 3: all of this stuff and I feel very strongly about it,
Speaker 3: when I get a pretty you know breakdown of what
Speaker 3: I listened to at the end of the year, I
Speaker 3: like it. And so's it's so insidious how we've been
Speaker 3: trained to like things that ultimately may not be good
Speaker 3: for us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I did. I was thinking about this the
Speaker 1: other day because when I was in third grade, I
Speaker 1: wrote this. We were supposed to tell a story, and
Speaker 1: I wrote this story called the Right to be Forgotten.
Speaker 1: I was like, what was going on with me? Great title,
Speaker 1: I know, but now to say it became a case
Speaker 1: against Google where people were like, I don't want to
Speaker 1: be remembered in certain ways where you can search me
Speaker 1: on the Internet, and it was a case with the EU,
Speaker 1: and so I revisited it like a couple of years
Speaker 1: ago as an actor, and I did like the Right
Speaker 1: to be Forgotten.
Speaker 2: And people afterwards were like, what are you talking about?
Speaker 1: The kind of that idea of like maybe I just
Speaker 1: don't want people to know there are certain parts I
Speaker 1: just want to be private.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, it is a time traveler, everybody.
Speaker 3: It is wild that you're saying this literally. Yesterday I
Speaker 3: did an interview with a UCLA Internet researcher named Olivia
Speaker 3: Snow and we were talking. We were supplicitly talking about
Speaker 3: the right to be forgotten when it comes to platforms.
Speaker 3: I cannot believe that this is a concept that you
Speaker 3: have been you know, grappling with since you were a child.
Speaker 4: She does this a lot. There things that pop up
Speaker 4: like she's like, that was my idea. I was like,
Speaker 4: what ten years old?
Speaker 1: When I was nine, I was doing that was like
Speaker 1: the year I wrote out like all the like top
Speaker 1: things I wanted to do before I died, Like.
Speaker 2: I don't know what was going on going on? It's okay.
Speaker 1: Well, going back to that study you mentioned, the accountable
Speaker 1: tech thing, they did run a couple of specific experiments, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really interesting.
Speaker 3: I'm going to kind of gloss over it, but folks
Speaker 3: should definitely check out the study.
Speaker 5: You can find that online.
Speaker 3: But essentially they did I think three different experiments where
Speaker 3: they had a staffer buy an unused, totally new Android
Speaker 3: smartphone and then start a new test Google account and
Speaker 3: they accepted all the default privacy settings, and they had
Speaker 3: to staffer travel from one state to another two different
Speaker 3: abortion providers, so in one and they traveled from Columbus,
Speaker 3: Ohio to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and wound up that like planned
Speaker 3: Parenthood of Pittsburgh and to see, you know, later how
Speaker 3: that data would be handled In one test, a staffer
Speaker 3: when they logged into the test account that they made
Speaker 3: on her browser, so like she took her.
Speaker 5: She took the phone to the clinic.
Speaker 3: And then when she logged on on the browser I
Speaker 3: think thirty days later under the Web and App activity
Speaker 3: tab after she completed this test, she found a Google
Speaker 3: Map search query from the abortion provider that she visited
Speaker 3: stored on her account, So like, they're just not deleting
Speaker 3: the data, like it's just like there's no other way
Speaker 3: to interpret that information. And they did these tests in
Speaker 3: three different ways, and each time there was some information
Speaker 3: continued to be stored on these Google accounts, and so
Speaker 3: according to Accountable Test, by retaining both location search query
Speaker 3: and location history data, Google jeopardizes the health, safety, and
Speaker 3: legal status of the users who visit reproductive care facilities
Speaker 3: in states where abortion is criminalized.
Speaker 5: If prosecutors in a state with.
Speaker 3: A restrictive abortion law receive a tip about someone seeking
Speaker 3: an abortion, a subpoena would likely force Google to hand
Speaker 3: over this sensitive data. And again just to underscore that,
Speaker 3: Google said that they were going to delete this data
Speaker 3: soon after a person visited. What they said was going
Speaker 3: to was one of these sensitive sites, including abortion providers.
Speaker 3: And so this test that accountable Tech ran thirty days
Speaker 3: is how does how was Google defining soon in this situation?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 3: Like I would argue that a month is enough time
Speaker 3: to have deleted this, but perhaps Google disagrees. And so
Speaker 3: it does really feel like this is a situation where
Speaker 3: they're I mean, I'm no lawyer, but misleading the public
Speaker 3: saying publicly they're doing one thing and then doing another
Speaker 3: thing in actuality.
Speaker 5: That could get people in serious legal trouble, you know.
Speaker 1: Right, And that's that's the thing is like, I know
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about this later, but if if
Speaker 1: company is telling me a thing, you know, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people use the word like they call
Speaker 1: me naive, which I don't think is fair. But like
Speaker 1: if I'm like, oh, I trust that because that's what
Speaker 1: they said, and then it could be used in a
Speaker 1: criminal case despite what they said, like that feels both
Speaker 1: wrong illegal, but also it's very scary, Like that is
Speaker 1: very frightening scenario.
Speaker 3: Exactly, and I think it really underscores how scary and
Speaker 3: dire and complicated things can be for someone who is pregnant, right,
Speaker 3: Like it's already it can already be a scary, intense time.
Speaker 3: But adding on to this vibe of you can't trust
Speaker 3: what these companies who say they are going to do
Speaker 3: X to keep you safe a little bit more you
Speaker 3: can't trust what they're saying. It just adds to this
Speaker 3: complex web where it's difficult to know who you can trust.
Speaker 5: And so I should note that most today, according to.
Speaker 3: The Washington Post, most criminal charges for abortion are stemmed
Speaker 3: from a human telling the authorities, not just from your
Speaker 3: digital footprint being scraped by Google or something like that.
Speaker 3: But we know that your digital footprint can be used
Speaker 3: as evidence. And so you know, we live in this
Speaker 3: climate where the condictive ex lovers, nosy neighbors, or even
Speaker 3: just self appointed vigilantes who may have no connection to
Speaker 3: someone who is pregnant at all, all of these people
Speaker 3: can be threats. In Texas, a man filed a wrongful
Speaker 3: death lawsuit against three women for allegedly helping his then
Speaker 3: wife of pain pills that allegedly were used to induce
Speaker 3: an abortion last year. If you're someone who is looking
Speaker 3: for an abortion in a state where it's been criminalized,
Speaker 3: not only do you need to think about who you
Speaker 3: can trust, who has access to this information about you
Speaker 3: who's in your community again, like even just like your
Speaker 3: nosy neighbor next door who doesn't like you for no reason.
Speaker 3: But also on top of that, you need to think
Speaker 3: about your digital security. You need to think about how
Speaker 3: you are accessing information and data online, and you need
Speaker 3: to think about whether or not Google is being upfront
Speaker 3: about what they're publicly saying about how they use that data.
Speaker 3: It is an incredibly high burden that nobody should have
Speaker 3: to deal with. It's already hard enough to be in
Speaker 3: this situation. On top of it, you should not, as
Speaker 3: a regular person, have to be parsing lies from a
Speaker 3: platform like Google to make choices for your life and
Speaker 3: for your health.
Speaker 1: I know that you came on and talked about it,
Speaker 1: I think pretty soon after roe versus Wade got overturned.
Speaker 2: But kind of the like.
Speaker 1: Unfortunate tips that people need to know about, like you know,
Speaker 1: different as I was saying, Gmail being used, but like
Speaker 1: having a separate Gmail account and using a private browser
Speaker 1: and all these things that Like it's like you were saying,
Speaker 1: it's a lot to ask of someone to know that
Speaker 1: they need to do this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the which we shouldn't be asking this of people,
Speaker 3: like you shouldn't have to be a digital security expert
Speaker 3: just to make choices for your health. You shouldn't have
Speaker 3: to know how to parse corporations public pr speak from
Speaker 3: what they're actually doing. Like that is a lot for
Speaker 3: someone to have to navigate. And so right after Roe
Speaker 3: was overturned, we did an episode of There Are No
Speaker 3: Girls on the Internet with a computer scientist and digital
Speaker 3: security expert, doctor Jen Golbeck. If you know that name,
Speaker 3: maybe you've seen her popular TikTok series educating people on
Speaker 3: how to be more secure when navigating abortion information online.
Speaker 3: I should tell you, like, I am not a lawyer,
Speaker 3: I am at a digital security expert, So I want
Speaker 3: to be clear about that. But I wanted to, just
Speaker 3: if it's possible, play a little clip of what she
Speaker 3: told me, because she is the expert. I don't want
Speaker 3: to like summarize what she said. So you know, you've
Speaker 3: mentioned a couple of like really great tips for folks
Speaker 3: if you're if you're you know it, looking for abortion
Speaker 3: pills and you want to do it, you know in
Speaker 3: a way that you're going to be less likely to
Speaker 3: be tracked, you know, using a tour browser, using incognito
Speaker 3: mode when you search using.
Speaker 5: Public Wi Fi.
Speaker 3: Are there other tips that you want to shout out
Speaker 3: for folks if you if they if they might need
Speaker 3: this information.
Speaker 5: So that's all important stuff, I would say for sure.
Speaker 7: The most important one is that you are not paying
Speaker 7: with a credit card or a debit card connected to
Speaker 7: your name, So figure out how much your medication is
Speaker 7: going to cost. Use cash by like a Visa Vanilla
Speaker 7: gift card, which you can get anywhere for that amount,
Speaker 7: and then pay with a Visa Vanilla gift card. So
Speaker 7: much of how we're tracked is through credit card number,
Speaker 7: so definitely do that. And the other way that we're
Speaker 7: really easily tracked is through email address. So set up
Speaker 7: a fresh email address that you are only using to
Speaker 7: buy this abortion medication. Proton mail is the one site
Speaker 7: that I recommended for this. It's free, it's encrypted, it's
Speaker 7: really good and secure. You can just set up an
Speaker 7: email address, use it to buyer medicine, don't use it
Speaker 7: for anything else. If you do that, gift card fresh
Speaker 7: email address on something like proton mail. You know, I
Speaker 7: love Gmail, I use it right, but they track the
Speaker 7: hell out of.
Speaker 5: You on Gmail.
Speaker 7: So proton mail email address, Vanilla gift card. You get
Speaker 7: a eighty percent of the protection from tracking just from
Speaker 7: those two measures, So you know that's easy and accessible
Speaker 7: to anybody.
Speaker 5: Definitely do that.
Speaker 3: So yeah, but she doesn't speak to like a map,
Speaker 3: location data. And I think that's an interesting point that
Speaker 3: when we were having conversations about how to stay secure,
Speaker 3: it was really like searching things, paying for things. But
Speaker 3: I guess it stands to reason that in twenty twenty
Speaker 3: three you might be using Google Maps to access just
Speaker 3: like where am I going if I need to go
Speaker 3: to go get an abortion, like where am I headed?
Speaker 3: And it kind of reminds me of like the throwback idea,
Speaker 3: how before the ubiquity of things like GPS, you had to.
Speaker 5: Just know where you were going.
Speaker 3: And I certainly there are places that I've been multiple
Speaker 3: times in my life. I could get there through muscle memory.
Speaker 3: Now with GPS, I'm like, oh, how do I get there?
Speaker 3: And Yeah, it's just a good reminder of how much
Speaker 3: these platforms like Google have become commonplace in our life,
Speaker 3: and how they've gotten between us and the things that
Speaker 3: we need to do, and.
Speaker 5: We don't even we don't even necessarily really think.
Speaker 1: About it, right, it's it's like a part of your
Speaker 1: every day. It's like, how I'm not going to get
Speaker 1: out a map. I often remember this time I had
Speaker 1: to like proNT out a map quest page to go
Speaker 1: meet a friend and I could never find her, and
Speaker 1: my dad and I got in a huge fight about it.
Speaker 2: I was like, this is what the map quests.
Speaker 1: But now it's just like part of her every day
Speaker 1: life and we don't think about it until it goes away,
Speaker 1: and then you realize, like how much you rely on
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. And that's true with this the
Speaker 1: clip that you just played of like you know, email
Speaker 1: and using your credit card and your debit card, and
Speaker 1: it kind of it bums me out because it felt
Speaker 1: so much like how I went about downloading music illegally
Speaker 1: for a while. And this is like a health procedure,
Speaker 1: Like yeahal health procedure, and we're treating.
Speaker 2: It like I'm on lime wire and the middle.
Speaker 4: Ratle Wow throw it back.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I'm thinking about how people get the season desist from
Speaker 4: fbis for downloading movies today and even maybe a knock
Speaker 4: on the door. They go to that level just for
Speaker 4: a movie. Don't get me wrong, you know whatever capitalism
Speaker 4: it is where it is. But all the stuff that
Speaker 4: I'm thinking about as we're sitting here talking about it,
Speaker 4: I'm like, Yeah, I use GPS just to go home,
Speaker 4: and half the time it's because I want to get
Speaker 4: traffic information. I need an ATA and I need to
Speaker 4: know which was the best route and all these things,
Speaker 4: and Google Map is my way to go obviously for
Speaker 4: all of that. It's not just for the direction, and
Speaker 4: sometimes it's to tell me that something's closed or open
Speaker 4: half the time. And I can't imagine not using it
Speaker 4: at this point because I'm so reliant on that for
Speaker 4: my information, because I don't listen to live broadcast like
Speaker 4: radio when they used to do I guess they still
Speaker 4: do traffic and weather and such, but I don't. I
Speaker 4: literally say hey, Google, what's this? Something hucks back to
Speaker 4: me okay, but you know just how quickly that becomes
Speaker 4: the solution. And then hearing her talking about these processes,
Speaker 4: it reminds me of trying to do like a spy movie, yeah,
Speaker 4: where we have to go get a burner phone with
Speaker 4: a burner credit card and make sure that we take
Speaker 4: out the chip just in case that that gets followed.
Speaker 4: I'm like the links that people are gonna have to
Speaker 4: go to and most of the people who are having
Speaker 4: to access this type of care do, as you said,
Speaker 4: do not know how to do this, probably can't afford
Speaker 4: to do some of these things, may not even have
Speaker 4: access because we know that vanilla card, I don't buy
Speaker 4: that because there's a three dollars fee at the very least,
Speaker 4: that pisses me off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, you're angry about the wrong thing, right, No,
Speaker 3: it's a totally a legitimate thing to be angry about.
Speaker 3: And I think, like you know, I don't want to
Speaker 3: make it sound like I am on like a like
Speaker 3: I am so much more digitally secure than you, like,
Speaker 3: I don't use these things.
Speaker 5: I have a smartphone I could not find I cannot.
Speaker 3: Get anywhere without Google Maps. I use these tools regularly.
Speaker 3: I'm not suggesting that people who are not actively doing
Speaker 3: something that is potentially criminalized or illegal should stop using
Speaker 3: Google Maps, should stop using Gmail, should should do these things. Right,
Speaker 3: that's not necessarily realistic in twenty twenty three. I don't
Speaker 3: live my life that way, but I do think it
Speaker 3: is worth stepping back and just questioning what we give
Speaker 3: up when we get these conveniences in our life and
Speaker 3: just having an awareness of that, because yeah, I want
Speaker 3: to be able to find the quickest route home, I
Speaker 3: want to be able to avoid traffic. I want to
Speaker 3: know if there's a police officer with a scanner there,
Speaker 3: or a toll or whatever, or a road closure that
Speaker 3: is convenient. That is how that is a convenient way
Speaker 3: to live modern life in twenty twenty three. But it's
Speaker 3: not just something that I'm being given without a cost.
Speaker 3: And so I think that we should be really aware
Speaker 3: and have a really good sense of what those costs are,
Speaker 3: because it can be easy to think that there is
Speaker 3: no cost and there's no such thing as a free lunch.
Speaker 5: There is a cost.
Speaker 3: You know, My dad is someone who does not trust GPS,
Speaker 3: so he doesn't have when he gets in the car
Speaker 3: to go on a trip, he's got those old.
Speaker 5: School big road atlases under his.
Speaker 3: Seat still in twenty twenty three, God love them, and like,
Speaker 3: but it's like as inconvenient as that is, that like
Speaker 3: that is he's gaining something, So it's it's it's really
Speaker 3: it's really about all of us making a cost benefit
Speaker 3: analysis of what we are giving up versus what we
Speaker 3: are getting and not thinking that like, oh, we're just
Speaker 3: getting this cool new way to have a modern convenience
Speaker 3: in our life that's just coming at no cost for us.
Speaker 5: There is a cost and we should be aware of it.
Speaker 4: And that's the thing is, like the conversation is, should
Speaker 4: there be a cost? Why can't we have access to
Speaker 4: these amazing things? Yes, the privacy thing maybe, But even
Speaker 4: on top of that, the fact that there is a
Speaker 4: chance of being persecuted and prosecuted for a thing that
Speaker 4: shouldn't be even a law, you know, to begin with,
Speaker 4: and having conversations like people who are going after people
Speaker 4: and who they're going after, and we know that these
Speaker 4: laws typically go after the marginalized people as well as
Speaker 4: those in the lower or the social economic status. And
Speaker 4: it's that that really is the burden of it all,
Speaker 4: is that what this is doing is waging a war
Speaker 4: and going after and persecuting people who in themselves are
Speaker 4: already down and out. I guess it is the best
Speaker 4: way to put it, or already put at the bottom
Speaker 4: end of the poll, like they're not having the opportunities
Speaker 4: or the ability to even defend themselves. Some of the
Speaker 4: cases that have come forward as abortion cases having miscarriages
Speaker 4: who have been taken out of context and say they
Speaker 4: try to get an abortion and a lot of them
Speaker 4: are refugees or in the immigrant status that I've seen
Speaker 4: so many stories of that, and they have no way
Speaker 4: of defending themselves because they don't get legal help. Typically
Speaker 4: the good legal help will say it that way or
Speaker 4: even the hearing. And when we talk about people who
Speaker 4: are being held for immigration violations, like we've seen so
Speaker 4: many conversations, well not enough because it doesn't get publicized
Speaker 4: where convictions and things are of that nature coming out
Speaker 4: from that or going after people who cannot get good representation.
Speaker 4: And again, these laws even though it does affect everyone
Speaker 4: and we should all be talking about it, but we
Speaker 4: know that who are truly affected are those who can't
Speaker 4: represent themselves and advocate for themselves. And that's the whole conversation,
Speaker 4: is what is happening, who is who is doing this?
Speaker 4: And why can't we be safe from this? Why can't
Speaker 4: we like this shouldn't be one of the cost benefits.
Speaker 4: It shouldn't be one or the other. It should be
Speaker 4: that we have the rights to do this and feel
Speaker 4: safe at the same time.
Speaker 3: I mean, like you put it so well, privacy is
Speaker 3: a right. Digital privacy is a right, especially when it
Speaker 3: comes to things that are sensitive like our health information
Speaker 3: or health data visiting places like shelters or clinics. We
Speaker 3: should have an expectation of privacy around those issues. If
Speaker 3: you are someone who is already burdened by being a
Speaker 3: marginalized person in society, if you are already burdened by
Speaker 3: you know, maybe not having stable housing or not, or
Speaker 3: having difficulties in your life on top of that, you
Speaker 3: shouldn't have to know what a tore browser is just
Speaker 3: to make safe decisions for your because of the whims of.
Speaker 5: A company like Google.
Speaker 3: But right now, that's the landscape that Google is creating,
Speaker 3: and they have the power and the ability to change that.
Speaker 3: They have said they are going to not do that,
Speaker 3: and yet they just aren't. And so I completely agree
Speaker 3: with you. I think that Google needs to decide if
Speaker 3: they are going to be in the business of creating.
Speaker 5: A world where privacy is a right.
Speaker 3: And people have the expectation of privacy or not, and
Speaker 3: if they're not going to, don't say otherwise. I think
Speaker 3: that's kind of one of the reasons why I get
Speaker 3: so angry about this, is like they're able to enjoy
Speaker 3: this public perception of proactively trying to keep people a
Speaker 3: little bit safer while not doing that. So why did
Speaker 3: just say it if you weren't going to do it?
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I've been making all this money. I can
Speaker 1: only assume they just really make a lot of money
Speaker 1: off our data.
Speaker 3: So they're like, oh, like, I will talk all day.
Speaker 3: Let's just say your assumption is correct. Your assumption is very,
Speaker 3: very correct. And yeah, I think that, like, we need
Speaker 3: to fundamentally change our understanding when it comes to the
Speaker 3: relationship between users, our data and platforms. Like the fact
Speaker 3: that Google it's so extracted, they take so much from us,
Speaker 3: they can lie and misrepresent what they take from us
Speaker 3: and how they take it, and they can make billions
Speaker 3: of dollars off of it. Something is wrong with that equation.
Speaker 3: We need to fundamentally rethink the relationship that users have
Speaker 3: with platforms.
Speaker 8: Yes, and there has been some attempts recently to kind
Speaker 8: of change the situation.
Speaker 5: That's right.
Speaker 3: So just last week, nearly a dozen cent A Democrats
Speaker 3: wrote to Google with questions about how it deletes users'
Speaker 3: location history when they have visited these sensitive locations like
Speaker 3: abortion clinics, expressing concerns that the company may not be
Speaker 3: consistently deleting the data as promised. These included Senators Amy Klobachar,
Speaker 3: Elizabeth Warren, and Mazie Herano asking for answers from Google
Speaker 3: about the types of locations they consider to be sensitive
Speaker 3: and how long it takes for the company to automatically
Speaker 3: delete visit history. Again they Google said it was going
Speaker 3: to be quote soon, Accountable Tech found that it hadn't
Speaker 3: happened in thirty days after that visit, So, you know,
Speaker 3: I think these senators are right to at least get
Speaker 3: some clarity about, well, what do you consider soon? And
Speaker 3: just a few days ago, Google was sued by an
Speaker 3: anonymous complaintant claiming that Google unlawfully collects health data, including
Speaker 3: abortion searches, on third party websites that use Google tech.
Speaker 3: Jane Doe, who is the complaintant their legal representation, is
Speaker 3: looking to get the case certified as a class action
Speaker 3: suit and claims that her private information was intercepted by
Speaker 3: Google when she used the scheduling pages on Planned Parenthood's
Speaker 3: website in twenty eighteen to search for an abortion provider.
Speaker 3: So I think it's interesting that she is trying to
Speaker 3: pursue this as a class action litigation because I do
Speaker 3: think there is a class of people, like a large
Speaker 3: group of people who are facing harm because of Google,
Speaker 3: and it's not individuals, it is all of us. We
Speaker 3: are a collective harmed group. And so I really am
Speaker 3: interested in the fact that this isn't just.
Speaker 5: One person doing Google.
Speaker 3: She is trying to do it as a class action
Speaker 3: lawsuit because it is representative, in my opinion, of a
Speaker 3: collective harm.
Speaker 4: That's interesting because we know that there's some class action
Speaker 4: suits happening with Facebook, and it's a pretty big deal
Speaker 4: because there's a couple with billions of dollars in hand.
Speaker 4: We know that the EU has gone after a couple
Speaker 4: of companies as well belowly vis it Twitter for billions
Speaker 4: of dollars in fines possibly, But that's what's going to
Speaker 4: change anything. We know that it's not actually about humanity,
Speaker 4: it's about the money, and if it's going to cost
Speaker 4: the money, then they're more likely to do something as
Speaker 4: long as they don't have to pay out whatever it
Speaker 4: may be, and just ten dollars a few pennies to
Speaker 4: millions of people. There's a lot of money, so that's
Speaker 4: actually a smart way to go.
Speaker 5: I think Yeah, to just do a quick plug.
Speaker 3: If you are a US resident who used Facebook between
Speaker 3: May twenty fourth, two thousand and seven and December twenty second,
Speaker 3: twenty twenty two, you can file a monetary claim as
Speaker 3: long as you do so before August twenty fifth, twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three. And so it is. You know, for a
Speaker 3: company like Facebook, it probably won't won't be more than
Speaker 3: like a slap on the wrist for them. It probably
Speaker 3: won't be something that they really like feel. But if
Speaker 3: you are in the group that I just mentioned, I
Speaker 3: absolutely am in that group, and I'm filing for my claim.
Speaker 3: I think that anybody listening who was in that group
Speaker 3: should file for their claim because that is the only
Speaker 3: way that these companies have. That's the only kind of
Speaker 3: I mean, it makes me sad to say, but like,
Speaker 3: we don't have a lot of recourse for companies like
Speaker 3: like Meta and Google. There's not much that the average
Speaker 3: user can do that will actually make them feel this.
Speaker 3: And one way that we have is hitting them in
Speaker 3: their pocketbook. And so, yeah, get your settlement, even if
Speaker 3: it's ten dollars, Get your ten dollars and buy yourself
Speaker 3: a coffee whatever.
Speaker 4: Knowing that it's building up just we're just building up
Speaker 4: the cost. And that's the thing is like we see
Speaker 4: in so many things we've talked about civil suits when
Speaker 4: it comes to like rape cases and sexual assault cases
Speaker 4: and why they're important even though so many be like, oh,
Speaker 4: you're just trying to go after the money. No, this
Speaker 4: is a big deal because we know this is a
Speaker 4: form of punishment that is more likely to happen rather
Speaker 4: than the guilty not guilty judicial level of punishment. We
Speaker 4: know this, So having things like this is really important
Speaker 4: because it does make a stand, whether it's big or small.
Speaker 4: Same thing with the dominion lawsuit that happened with Fox.
Speaker 4: It was a big deal, like people were mad that
Speaker 4: they settled, but that cost really did hit them in
Speaker 4: the end. And these types of things. Is this conversation
Speaker 4: and it's going to be a precedent of what can
Speaker 4: be filed later on because obviously things are building up.
Speaker 4: As long as Google holds out and not actually deleting,
Speaker 4: they're going to get more cases. If this goes forward
Speaker 4: and wins, they're going to get more piled on. And
Speaker 4: that's a good thing. A sad thing that it has
Speaker 4: to get to that point, but it is a good thing.
Speaker 4: So it's something that definitely we should watch definitely.
Speaker 3: And you know, one question that I have is how
Speaker 3: is it legal for Google to say one thing about
Speaker 3: their privacy policies and do another.
Speaker 5: I again, I'm no lawyer.
Speaker 3: I don't know how it is legal, though, Like I
Speaker 3: fully do not understand how Google can mislead the public
Speaker 3: about data privacy practices. How that is legal under the
Speaker 3: Federal Trade Commission. I'm the expert.
Speaker 5: Don't understand it.
Speaker 3: Maybe it's not legal, but whether or not it's illegal,
Speaker 3: it is certainly unethical. It is unethical to say one
Speaker 3: thing and do another, and it is certainly unsafe. And
Speaker 3: the bottom line is that people deserve privacy and it
Speaker 3: shouldn't be up to the whims of the people who
Speaker 3: run Google to decide whether or not we get it
Speaker 3: or how.
Speaker 5: We get it.
Speaker 3: We really need to rethink this this schema where the
Speaker 3: people like tech leaders at Google, they are the ones
Speaker 3: who decide whether or not we get privacy. People deserve privacy,
Speaker 3: especially when it comes to their health information, full stop, period,
Speaker 3: end of sentence.
Speaker 4: Right, And I wonder how much the government has done
Speaker 4: because they've really taken away a lot of any kind
Speaker 4: of power against these companies because we've seen so the
Speaker 4: amount of updated agreements in ordering to use anything like
Speaker 4: I think I got it for TikTok. I got well, TikTok.
Speaker 4: We know they're underflying. We had that episode, but they
Speaker 4: had a new agreement. I know Samsung continues to do
Speaker 4: it every few months and the amount of privacy is
Speaker 4: going away like it's it's interesting how quickly they're changing it.
Speaker 4: And there's nothing you can do because you're already sucked
Speaker 4: in to that system and that's what Google is doing.
Speaker 4: And because of the way that the government has allowed
Speaker 4: for these companies to be territorial and to continue to
Speaker 4: gather that data. I'm not a conspiracist, but I think
Speaker 4: there's a bit conspiracy behind this and about how much
Speaker 4: control they want to have over the individual citizens when
Speaker 4: that's concerning.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think the I'm with you, you don't
Speaker 3: tell that the conspiracy theorist at all. And I think
Speaker 3: the first thing that we can do is really understand
Speaker 3: and what's being asked of us. And it's not easy
Speaker 3: because they don't make it easy.
Speaker 5: Like when you.
Speaker 3: Get that twenty five page thing that you have to
Speaker 3: scroll down just to like log onto your phone.
Speaker 5: Come on, be real, Like, who is reading that?
Speaker 3: Like, I don't false anybody for being like, oh, I'll
Speaker 3: just hit agree. But it shouldn't be that way. You
Speaker 3: shouldn't have to be a trained lawyer or trained in
Speaker 3: understanding tech speak and have to parse a thirty page
Speaker 3: privacy agreement that you have to click through just to
Speaker 3: get to your email, just to exist safely online with
Speaker 3: privacy and dignity, like.
Speaker 5: People deserve that.
Speaker 3: We have created, and we've accepted and tolerated and created
Speaker 3: a system that is so burdenous to the average citizen,
Speaker 3: and it should not be.
Speaker 2: That way right right, And.
Speaker 1: There is so much going on right now in terms
Speaker 1: of technology and tumultuous times and technology and understanding those
Speaker 1: kinds of things, and you Bridget are amazing at explaining
Speaker 1: those kinds of things. So we always love having you here.
Speaker 1: But you're also like breaking down these issues all not
Speaker 1: without us on your own show.
Speaker 3: Thank you for that little introduction. So yeah, I don't
Speaker 3: know if other folks feel it, but I think in
Speaker 3: this particular moment in time, you know, we always talk
Speaker 3: about this sort of like the future of tech and
Speaker 3: what's next, it feels like we are in that moment today,
Speaker 3: right when it comes to platforms, with the state of
Speaker 3: Twitter and like what new platforms we're going to you know,
Speaker 3: pop up and where a we're all going to spend
Speaker 3: our time digitally, when it comes to conversations about the
Speaker 3: rise of AI, and when it comes to the increasing
Speaker 3: threat of you know, expanding tech surveillance, like we talked
Speaker 3: about today, it feels like a very weird time for
Speaker 3: technology and the Internet and where we're going in the future.
Speaker 3: And it feels like all that future conversation is actually
Speaker 3: here today, and so we're starting we have a new
Speaker 3: season on There Are No Girls on the Internet exploring
Speaker 3: how increasingly it feels like this future of technology is
Speaker 3: happening now, precisely because it is so important that the
Speaker 3: voices of people who are traditionally left out of these conversations, women,
Speaker 3: people of color, queer folks, disabled folks, working folks are
Speaker 3: not left out of those conversations.
Speaker 5: And so if you want to.
Speaker 3: Parse what it all means, where we've been and where
Speaker 3: we're going, and what we need to know to make
Speaker 3: sure that our voices are centered in these conversations, please
Speaker 3: check out the new season of My Pod.
Speaker 5: There are no girls on the internet where we are
Speaker 5: doing just that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, listeners go check it out. It does feel
Speaker 1: like we're in the is it Moore's curve? It feels
Speaker 1: like we're in the like real upward.
Speaker 5: For yeah, kind of siry? Good? Like what is it?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 5: Good? She? Is it geometry? What is my curves and stuff? Good?
Speaker 5: Math reference? And wait a minute, wait math?
Speaker 1: You know that might not even be the correct term,
Speaker 1: but I think it is. And if it's not, then
Speaker 1: that's really funny.
Speaker 4: So whatever, Yeah curve.
Speaker 1: Yeah, soll we always we love having you, We've missed you,
Speaker 1: and we always take up so much of your time,
Speaker 1: so I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: We could just talk to you forever about all kinds
Speaker 2: of things.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, the pleasure, the pleasure is so mine.
Speaker 3: This is like, Yeah, I could talk to you guys,
Speaker 3: you all all day because it's just so nice to
Speaker 3: connect on these issues and I it's nice to be
Speaker 3: able to talk to them with YouTube.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, it really is. Well, where can the good
Speaker 2: listeners find you? Well?
Speaker 3: As I said, you can check out my podcast. There
Speaker 3: are no girls on the internet. Wherever you podcast we are, there.
Speaker 5: Can follow me. I'm still on Twitter.
Speaker 3: Kind of at Bridget Marie can follow me on TikTok
Speaker 3: at Bridget max Pods, I can follow me on Instagram
Speaker 3: at Bridget Marie and DC and I would love to
Speaker 3: have you on any of those platforms.
Speaker 2: Yes, and also beef, Oh yeah, beef.
Speaker 5: Don't don't sleep on beef.
Speaker 3: It's a little bit different than my usual content because
Speaker 3: it's just like so much of my content is like
Speaker 3: heavier and based around the Internet and like just like
Speaker 3: here's what you need to know if you're trying to
Speaker 3: have a good time and just nerd ad on some
Speaker 3: historical rivalries like Who's not definitely check out, be super fun.
Speaker 1: See what's going on in the advice call of World exactly. Yes, Yes, well,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you, thank you so much again for
Speaker 1: being here, listeners. If you would like to contact us,
Speaker 1: you can. Our email is Stephani your mom stuff at
Speaker 1: iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us on Twitter, I'm
Speaker 1: most Stuff podcast or in instagrament TikTok at Stuff I
Speaker 1: Never Told you, also on YouTube.
Speaker 2: We do have a book coming out.
Speaker 1: You can pre order it as Stuff you Should Read
Speaker 1: Books dot com. Thank you as always to our super producer, Christina,
Speaker 1: our executive producer Maya and our contributor Joey.
Speaker 2: Thank you and thanks to you for listening stuff I
Speaker 2: Never told you. Disrection of by Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can check
Speaker 1: out the Heartradio Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows,