0:00

Hi, everyone. I'm Brené Brown, and this is Unlocking

0:02

Us. Okay,

0:09

y'all, this is our fourth episode in

0:11

a series that I am calling Living

0:13

Beyond Human Scale, the possibilities, the cost,

0:15

and the role of community. And

0:18

this is going to be a really unique series

0:21

because it crosses over between Unlocking Us and the

0:23

Dare to Lead podcast. We're talking

0:25

about everything from mental health and social

0:27

media to how

0:29

do we get ready to work

0:32

with and not for

0:34

artificial intelligence. I think there

0:36

are a lot of possibilities for innovation and

0:38

really great change. And

0:41

we're getting pressed to live

0:43

really beyond how we are socially,

0:45

biologically, cognitively, and spiritually wired. This

0:49

conversation is tough today. I'm

0:53

talking with Jennifer Valentino-Davries

0:55

and Michael Keller. They

0:58

are both award-winning journalists for

1:00

The New York Times, and

1:02

they wrote an article. It

1:05

appeared in The New York Times on the 22nd of February. The

1:09

title was A Marketplace of Girl

1:12

Influencers Managed by Moms

1:15

and Stalked by Men. And

1:18

I've been really interested in the last

1:20

year and a half, maybe two years,

1:22

about the

1:25

influencer economy. And

1:28

oh my God,

1:30

it's so nuts how

1:35

susceptible we are, how pissed

1:37

off we get. I

1:39

even found myself coming

1:42

across clips of me and the context of the

1:44

clips were cut off. And I thought, oh my

1:46

God, what is happening on

1:48

social media where everybody's got an idea and

1:50

a belief and everyone's selling you shit all

1:52

the time? It just made me crazy. So

1:56

we reached out to Jennifer and

1:59

Michael. again, the New

2:01

York Times reporters and asked if they would

2:03

talk to us about the investigation that led

2:05

to this article what they learned specifically

2:09

About these are basically Young

2:12

girls, I mean young like elementary school through

2:14

Millot, you know, not old enough to have

2:18

accounts on social media platforms their

2:20

accounts are managed by their moms and They're

2:25

dealing with a ton of Sexualized

2:28

comments from men The

2:31

mothers are and parents are reacting

2:33

in a variety of ways From

2:35

oh my god, how did this get started? How do I

2:37

get out to well? That's what it takes to earn a

2:40

dollar the influencers

2:42

are you know, some of them are making

2:44

money Some of them are doing it for

2:46

apparel deals and it's

2:48

one small narrow Niche

2:52

part of the influencer economy, but

2:55

I think there's lessons there to

2:57

learn for all of us so

3:00

let me tell you a little bit about Jennifer and Michael

3:04

then we'll jump in You Support

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issued by Goldman Sachs bank USA, Salt

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Lake city branch, subject to credit approval,

4:20

terms apply. Jennifer

4:25

is a reporter on the investigative team

4:27

at the New York times where she

4:29

uses data analysis to explore complex subjects.

4:31

Her work frequently examines the far reaching

4:33

effects of technology on society

4:36

such as the spread of propaganda online

4:39

and the legal questions posed by digital

4:41

surveillance. She specializes in

4:43

collecting and analyzing data and using

4:45

it in combination with traditional reporting to

4:47

tell stories. She's been a

4:49

journalist for 20 years, first at the Houston

4:51

chronicles in for a decade, the wall street

4:53

journal, where she covered technology, privacy, and computer

4:55

security. She joined the New York times in 2018 in

4:57

2022. She

5:00

was part of a team that won the Pulitzer

5:02

prize in national reporting for

5:04

coverage of systemic failures in

5:07

American policing that led

5:09

to avoidable deaths. She grew up in

5:11

Texas. She graduated from UT Austin where

5:13

she developed a law for journalism and reporting while she

5:16

was working for the student paper. She has

5:18

a master's degree from the school of public

5:20

and international affairs at Princeton. We'll

5:22

include a link to the primary article we're

5:24

discussing and links to where you

5:26

can find Jennifer's byline on different

5:29

stories. Michael is also a

5:31

New York times reporter who combines

5:33

traditional reporting with computer programming, often

5:36

investigating how technology affects society and

5:38

young people. Also worked

5:40

on the team that won the Pulitzer

5:42

prize. Michael

5:44

really gravitates towards topics that highlight people's

5:47

personal stories within the context of larger

5:49

national international issues. Michael's

5:51

been a journalist for 15 years, has covered issues

5:53

ranging from politics to the environment. I

5:56

think you're going to find

5:58

this conversation. Disturbing,

6:02

frustrating, challenging, I

6:05

don't know if

6:07

it's provocative, but I will

6:09

say that there is a

6:11

very explicit conversation about the

6:13

over-sexualization of little girls, about

6:16

the predatory men who stalk them on

6:18

Instagram. So if you're sensitive to these topics,

6:21

I would maybe

6:24

skip this podcast, read

6:26

the transcript, whatever you can

6:28

do to take care of yourself. It's a tough

6:30

topic, but we need to talk about it because

6:32

it's happening all over, and I

6:34

don't think the platforms are doing very

6:37

much, if anything, to stop it. Let's jump

6:39

into the conversation. Jen

6:45

and Michael, thank you so much for joining us

6:47

on Unlocking Us. I appreciate y'all being

6:49

here. Thanks for having us. Yeah, thank

6:51

you so much. So we're

6:54

going to talk to Jen and

6:56

Michael, both various teams, New York

6:58

Times, Journalist. An article

7:00

was published on February 22nd,

7:03

the title, A Marketplace of Girl

7:05

Influencers Managed by Moms and Stalk

7:07

by Men. I

7:09

have been studying and looking at

7:11

influencer culture for the last two

7:13

years, and this

7:16

article, everyone

7:19

I know that's read it, including my team that helped me

7:21

prep, just, they kind of took their breath away. And

7:24

I needed to examine some of my responses to it I

7:26

have not liked, and so we can talk about that in

7:29

a minute. I'd like to start where

7:31

we always start, which is kind of tell us your

7:33

story. So Jen, would you like to go first and

7:35

just tell us how, about

7:37

the journey that, Lane, did you hear? Sure.

7:40

Well, I was born

7:42

and raised in Texas, like

7:45

you actually, in San Antonio, and I

7:47

went to college at

7:49

the University of Texas at Austin

7:51

and eventually went to grad

7:53

school and studied public policy

7:55

and economics. And,

7:58

you know, I started reporting. on

8:01

technology sort of by happenstance. And

8:03

it was the reporting job that

8:05

was available during the great recession.

8:08

And I've been covering a lot of tech

8:11

issues. Over the course of my

8:13

career. And Michael

8:15

and I worked together on the

8:17

investigations team and we both have

8:19

covered technology a lot and also

8:21

use a lot of data in

8:24

our reporting. So we do similar

8:26

things but bring somewhat different approaches

8:28

to our reporting. So we enjoy

8:30

working together. Yeah,

8:32

I think that quantitative background I could definitely see it

8:35

in this article. Even as a social scientist,

8:37

I kept going back to the methodology and I

8:39

kept thinking, wow, somebody here

8:41

has got a background in data science.

8:43

So that makes sense to me. Michael,

8:45

how did you end up here? I

8:48

did not know I wanted

8:50

to go into journalism. I grew up in

8:52

Los Angeles and went

8:54

to college on the other side of the country

8:56

at Georgetown and studied comparative

8:59

literature and psychology, which

9:01

I similarly got started in

9:04

journalism kind of post-recession and

9:06

graduated really right when the recession was

9:09

going on. And so it

9:11

was not evident how those two majors

9:13

were gonna lead to a career in

9:15

anything. But a lot of my coursework

9:19

was around in psychology, people with

9:22

conditions like Alzheimer's or degenerative disorders. And

9:24

so it was a lot of interviewing

9:26

and writing case studies. I

9:30

thought the compilate work

9:32

was also kind of about analyzing stories

9:34

from multiple perspectives. And when I was

9:36

thinking about what I wanted to do,

9:39

journalism just seemed really interesting and kind

9:41

of inadvertently had been

9:43

getting a lot of the practice that rectified

9:46

into these kind of nuanced, complicated

9:48

stories. Around that

9:50

time, it was also when data visualization

9:53

and data journal was starting up and

9:55

that seemed really interesting to me. I

9:58

didn't have any kind of computer. programming background,

10:00

but it was fun and I

10:03

liked to do design. I did that for my

10:05

college paper. And that

10:07

was kind of what you could get a job

10:09

doing in that tough time, although it's still a

10:11

tough time in the industry. And

10:15

got attracted to reporting on technology companies, kind

10:17

of lent itself better to doing those types

10:19

of investigations, although I've covered a lot of

10:21

things beyond technology companies. And

10:24

yes, I think Jen and I both come at it from a perspective

10:27

of what's going to dive into really

10:30

kind of human centered focused stories, things

10:32

that matter because they're affecting people's lives.

10:36

But how can we build

10:38

a foundation or get into that by collecting

10:40

a lot of data, seeing what's going on?

10:43

Most stories, I think, operate

10:46

on this kind of low and

10:48

high altitude, or you want to zoom

10:50

in and see what's happening to one

10:52

individual and really get the reader to care about

10:54

their story. But then you also

10:56

need to zoom out and say, you know, there's also thousands

10:59

of others like this person. And so I think those

11:01

two skill sets, I think, go together really well. You

11:04

definitely see it in this article. It's interesting

11:06

because I think the subject matter is

11:09

so hard in places in this article

11:11

that I found myself kind of tapping

11:13

out of it and looking at it

11:15

more analytically, like, wow, this is the

11:17

best of when qualitative and quantitative

11:19

research comes together because I

11:23

understood the scope and breadth, and then I

11:25

also felt deeply the story. So

11:28

it's a really incredibly reported

11:30

investigation. So congratulations to

11:32

both of you. Thanks. So

11:36

for this investigation, Jen and Michael

11:39

analyzed 2.1 million

11:41

Instagram posts, monitored months

11:43

of online chats, have professed

11:46

pedophiles and interviewed over 100

11:48

people, including parents and children.

11:53

And I consider myself to

11:55

be, like, pretty tapped in. I did

11:57

not know this phenomenon existed. Explain

12:01

to me this idea of primarily

12:04

mothers running young

12:06

young girls accounts, primarily

12:10

on Instagram, for

12:13

compensation. And

12:17

how did we get here? I

12:20

didn't know until we started looking

12:22

into this. And what

12:25

led us to this

12:27

story, I think, is

12:30

helpful in understanding the genesis of

12:32

what we did and then we can get

12:34

a bit into how we as a society

12:36

got here. So we've got two stories. How

12:39

we as journalists arrived at this and how just

12:42

overall we've gotten to this point. Michael

12:44

had actually been reporting on the

12:47

spread of child sex abuse material

12:49

online prior to the pandemic even.

12:52

And I was interested in

12:54

expanding on his work and

12:57

so spoke with a long-term source

13:00

of mine who was at Stanford

13:02

about the issues with child

13:05

sex abuse content, which some people

13:07

refer to as child pornography, but

13:09

it's not really pornography in the

13:11

consensual way that most people think of,

13:13

obviously. So then

13:16

that source of some really interesting

13:18

things. They're an expert in online

13:20

security and safety and they said

13:22

that child sex abuse

13:24

material is the worst thing really

13:26

that can happen online. And

13:29

so because it's so devastating, it's clearly important

13:31

for us to pay a lot of attention

13:33

to it, but that there

13:36

are other issues online

13:38

that are also worth paying

13:40

attention to that are not

13:42

quite as devastating, but they

13:45

are worth trying to solve

13:47

and exploring because even though

13:50

they aren't as damaging as

13:53

actual child sex abuse, they are

13:55

likely to affect far more

13:57

people and that Among

14:01

his concerns was the effect

14:04

of social media and influencer

14:06

culture on girls and young

14:10

women and kind of their

14:12

psychological space and their view

14:14

of themselves and their behavior

14:17

in relating to the world. And

14:20

so I was curious and I

14:22

started looking up tween influencer, tween

14:24

model, you know, on different social

14:26

media platforms. And these accounts

14:29

showed up. This was prior to

14:31

the pandemic, events intervened in our

14:33

ability to report on it. But

14:36

those accounts were around even then

14:38

and they were run by the

14:40

parents. Usually it said

14:43

mom run or mama managed. And

14:46

the girls were very often in

14:48

high heels or skimpy clothing

14:51

or even just midriff bearing

14:53

clothing and short shorts, bathing suits,

14:55

leotards, that kind of thing. And clearly

14:57

the followers were male. And

15:00

sometimes we're saying either creepy things

15:03

or even if it wasn't outright

15:05

sexualized, they would be leaving heart

15:07

eye emojis, which I

15:09

did not think was particularly

15:11

appropriate for an adult male to leave

15:13

on a child photo. And

15:16

so that was how Michael and

15:18

I got to this point. I

15:22

think we've gotten

15:24

here as a society through

15:27

several ways that we have explored and we're

15:29

continuing to explore. But I think a big

15:31

part of it is just this

15:34

influencer economy and how

15:36

people see on social media

15:40

that this is a

15:42

viable career path. It

15:44

is something that kids are

15:47

being encouraged to do, not

15:49

even necessarily by their parents, but by their

15:51

peers and by people they see online. And

15:54

even for people who aren't wanting

15:56

to be influencers, the idea of...

16:00

Benefits even those that aren't monetary

16:02

that you get from being

16:04

online the sense of approval That

16:07

you get is really powerful and

16:09

I think I know Michael

16:11

has some other ideas There are a lot

16:13

of factors that are coming together that have

16:15

created this moment just

16:18

add to that echo everything that Jen said

16:20

the barrier to entry like we've

16:22

seen in a lot of industries

16:24

has come way down and and

16:28

For most the parents that we spoke to they

16:30

explain their journey in Terms

16:34

like well, we're already doing dance and

16:36

gymnastics so we may

16:38

as well become an ambassador for a

16:40

leotard company that we like and It's

16:43

just very easy to set up an

16:46

account and get followers, you know

16:48

in the language of

16:50

Silicon Valley It's the frictionless

16:52

experience and I think in

16:55

our reporting not just on this topic, but you know a

16:57

lot of technology Investigations

16:59

we work on we explore kind

17:01

of the unintended

17:04

or unnoticed

17:07

Consequences of those kind of increasingly

17:09

frictionless experiences What are the harms

17:12

that get introduced when it becomes

17:14

easier to grow at scale for

17:16

anyone to grow at scale? Including

17:19

children. So I think it's all

17:21

a part of these larger dynamics where

17:23

it previously, you know,

17:25

we've we've always had

17:27

kind of a phenomenon of pageants

17:30

and stage parents and This

17:33

just makes it both much

17:35

easier for more people to do and

17:38

you have the culture telling you Yes

17:40

This is a viable way

17:42

for your child to get a career later on

17:45

and not just that if she's

17:47

not doing it She's gonna be missing out on

17:49

opportunities. We heard that over and over

17:51

again from parents. I Was

17:53

really surprised in one of the reader

17:55

choice comments on the article Someone

17:58

wrote a mother wrote that

18:01

I think their child was involved in dance or

18:03

gymnastics and the mother wouldn't

18:05

allow the child to have a YouTube channel or

18:08

an Instapage and how devastating

18:10

that was for the child because all

18:12

of their peers had kind of

18:15

these influencer pages and channels

18:18

and they were talking about a very young child.

18:20

I mean I pulled the stat from your investigation.

18:24

Nearly one in three preteens

18:26

list influencing as a career goal and 11%

18:28

of those born in Gen Z between

18:32

1997 and 2012 described themselves as influencers. Yeah. Like

18:38

this is a new career category. Yeah.

18:42

You know I think something that a

18:44

lot of the parents we interviewed expressed

18:46

to us was that this

18:48

was really something that their child

18:50

wanted to do, that their child

18:52

was driving and they felt

18:55

that they were supporting their child

18:57

in wanting to do this. I

19:01

mean I have to say

19:03

that like the

19:05

moral outrage that I experienced I'll just I'll

19:07

own my own stuff when I read it

19:10

and kind of like so

19:13

mothers are running accounts it seems to be

19:15

far I just want to make sure that

19:17

I'm I'm using that language specifically much more

19:20

often mothers than fathers is that the case?

19:22

Yes. Yeah. So

19:24

primarily mothers are running an account with

19:27

young girls as young as elementary

19:30

school, right? Correct. And

19:34

I mean there's a

19:36

call box here parents are the driving

19:38

force behind these accounts some even offer

19:40

the sale of photos, exclusive chat

19:42

sessions and some are even

19:44

selling the girls worn leotards to

19:47

mostly unknown male followers. True

19:49

or not true? Correct. Yes

19:51

that's true. Okay

19:54

well I mean holy

19:57

shit like okay so I have

19:59

to say that that my first reaction was

20:01

so terrible. Because

20:06

my first reaction was these mothers

20:09

are the worst human beings alive. The

20:11

second group of people I took to task

20:13

were the platforms. And

20:16

I almost felt like when I pulled back,

20:18

I was just assuming, of course the men

20:20

aren't gonna be held accountable, because this

20:22

is just gonna be, this is just,

20:25

this is reality. Right. Do

20:27

you know what I'm saying? Yeah, no, of

20:29

course. I think that these are all questions

20:31

that we ourselves grappled

20:35

with. And really?

20:37

Yeah, well, I mean, we

20:39

and our editors, and I

20:41

mean, honestly, I feel that

20:43

those are natural reactions. I,

20:48

however, and I think I responded

20:51

to some reader comments on the story too,

20:54

trying to kind of express though,

20:56

that I think it's important not to let

20:58

them off the hook. Right. To

21:01

just assume that men are gonna

21:03

be horrible, and it's the responsibility

21:05

of everybody else to work around

21:07

that. There are ways in

21:09

which that is true, especially when a

21:11

parent has a responsibility to

21:15

protect their child, and honestly, the platform has

21:17

a responsibility to if they're saying

21:19

that it's safe for

21:21

young people to go on here with

21:24

parental supervision if they're under 13,

21:27

or they say that it's safe for anybody

21:29

13 or above, you don't even have to

21:32

have a parent managed account, the

21:34

platforms have a responsibility

21:37

to their consumer base

21:39

to ensure that safety, if

21:42

that's something that they are promising. That

21:45

aside though, the fact

21:47

that the men are

21:50

doing this should not be dismissed

21:52

or taken for granted. And

21:55

I think that there

21:57

are a lot of questions. for

22:00

us about how this kind of

22:02

behavior is expected and also how

22:04

technology has made it, Michael

22:07

was talking about making things more

22:09

seamless, while it has also made this

22:14

kind of consumption of

22:17

children's images or this sort of

22:19

treatment of women who are online

22:22

also seamless. And we

22:25

monitored a number

22:27

of chats on Telegram

22:29

groups. What is

22:31

Telegram before you go? Let me stop you because

22:33

I had not heard of that. I'm glad I

22:35

haven't heard of it. I think I'm glad. But

22:38

what is it? It is

22:40

an encrypted platform that is more

22:45

personal use. It's a bit like WhatsApp.

22:47

I think more people are probably familiar

22:49

with WhatsApp. Okay. It's encrypted though. And

22:51

so it can be harder to find

22:54

groups. It's not like you can just

22:56

go and search the way

22:58

you can on Instagram. And it's harder

23:00

for regulators or law enforcement or whoever

23:03

to get a handle on what's going

23:05

on there sometimes. So

23:07

you're on this platform and you're kind

23:09

of doing a content analysis and investigating

23:11

inside this platform. Right. We were

23:14

just monitoring some of these chats

23:16

that we had heard about during

23:18

the course of our reporting as

23:20

places where these men gathered to

23:23

discuss these child influencers

23:26

who were on Instagram. And

23:28

they would talk about how great

23:31

it was. They would use

23:33

this to encourage each other

23:36

to justify their behavior because

23:38

it was on Instagram. And

23:40

so I think it's

23:42

clearly not a healthy thing

23:45

to have that kind of

23:47

behavior be encouraged and normalized.

23:51

It was fascinating in the reporting process

23:53

of being able to talk

23:55

with parents and hear them grappling with

23:57

it in real time. I think in One

24:00

of the first interviews we did, we weren't

24:03

sure how they were going to go. Our parents can

24:05

open up to us about this. We're

24:08

having kind of a pretty normal conversation like, tell us how'd

24:10

you get started? And it was like a timeline and this

24:13

and end up asking, you know, what

24:15

do you think other parents should know

24:17

about this? And the answer was something like,

24:20

this is the worst thing you could do. And

24:23

it was kind of threw us for a loop. We're

24:25

like, wait a minute, wait, back up a second. Do

24:27

you think it's terrible, but you've told us how you're

24:29

doing it? Explain this

24:32

conflict. And a

24:34

lot of parents explain that, not just this one mom, but it

24:36

was this, they felt like they were in a bind. And

24:39

they often use the term of,

24:42

this is a digital resume for

24:44

our child and we kind of have to do

24:46

this. And there was a real spectrum.

24:49

There were people that were getting

24:51

really tangible things out of it. I think

24:53

that that family was

24:55

getting legitimate dance

24:58

opportunities to go at

25:00

shows and things that were real and their

25:02

daughter was really enjoying doing. Other

25:05

parents though were just kind of doing

25:07

it because their daughter enjoyed getting free

25:09

clothing and toys or fashion

25:12

accessories. In a lot of

25:14

cases, they

25:16

paid to be a part of these

25:18

ambassadorships or they got discounts. They

25:21

paid by buying the apparel. And

25:24

then kind of at the far end of the spectrum and some of the

25:26

things that you cited from the piece, some

25:29

were selling photos and used clothing.

25:32

There was definitely a big range. And

25:35

we had thought that perhaps there

25:37

was more of a financial incentive for

25:39

more people, but for a

25:42

significant number, there wasn't this idea of, oh

25:44

yeah, we're making tens of thousands or even

25:47

thousands of dollars. And that's why we're doing

25:49

it. It was a lot more kind

25:51

of nuanced and we had to kind of talk with

25:53

each family individually of kind of, what

25:55

is the motivation? What are you doing this? One

25:58

thing that we also really heard a lot. in how

26:00

they grappled with this question was most, pretty

26:03

much everyone I think thought that what

26:07

they were doing was safe or how they were

26:09

going about it was safe. Almost

26:11

everyone brought up the safety concerns

26:13

and that there were creepy men

26:16

that would message them or try and contact

26:18

them other ways, but they thought

26:20

that they had put foundries on it, such as,

26:22

well, my daughter isn't

26:24

the one using Instagram, I'm the

26:26

one running the account. And

26:28

so for us, we thought that's really interesting, how do we make

26:31

sense of this? Is that safe? Does

26:33

that put enough distance between

26:35

the child and these men online? And one

26:37

of the really surprising things was we found that

26:41

even in those scenarios where the

26:43

daughter is not on Instagram themselves,

26:48

there were men online who would

26:50

try and do a form

26:52

of blackmail, although blackmail is not quite the right

26:54

word, they would reach

26:56

out to the

26:59

family's school, the daughter's school, and accuse

27:02

them of

27:04

producing explicit imagery, even

27:06

though it may not have been the case, and

27:08

cause all these real world issues

27:10

for them, or they would show

27:13

up at their home and

27:15

leave quote unquote gifts. So

27:17

our process of grappling with was hearing what

27:19

people were saying and then

27:21

going and testing that and saying, okay, is

27:24

that true? What is safe? And there

27:26

were a lot of real world harms

27:29

that were happening, and it was very

27:31

difficult to say, oh yes, you can do XYZ

27:33

and have your child be quote unquote on

27:36

social media in a safe way. It really

27:38

was a lot more dangerous and darker than

27:40

we thought. Tell me if

27:42

this is true in my read. It seems

27:44

like there's a real kind of scale of

27:47

what people are doing. Not every mom that's running

27:50

a kid's influencer page is selling used clothing, right?

27:52

There's a real scale, right? But

27:56

it seems like for young girls who are featured

28:00

on these

28:02

influencer accounts, especially where

28:05

we're talking about apparel,

28:09

men are typically an

28:12

issue. Is that the case? Is

28:14

there anyone who has figured out, like, hey, this

28:16

is a wholesome, creepy

28:18

guy, free influencer

28:20

project. We've never seen it. We've never had a

28:22

problem. We don't have one person in our

28:24

comments that's bothering us. No,

28:27

I would say that your assessment there

28:29

is spot on. You

28:31

were talking about your feeling of moral

28:33

outrage earlier. A lot of people felt

28:35

that way. And it is important to

28:37

keep in mind that not all of

28:39

these parents are selling used leotards. Right.

28:41

The vast majority, I should say, are

28:43

not doing things like that.

28:46

The vast majority are not selling

28:48

private images or images in string

28:50

bikinis. Those are definitely a factor.

28:52

And I think it's important to

28:55

highlight that. But most

28:58

of the parents are trying to keep

29:00

men off, but

29:02

they are still getting a lot

29:04

of men trying to comment and

29:06

follow like their

29:08

posts. And although

29:11

we didn't attempt to quantify these,

29:13

even if you have child accounts

29:15

that are the sort where

29:17

it's like the kids are unboxing

29:19

toys and that kind of thing,

29:22

they also get

29:24

creepy men following them.

29:27

It's not perhaps to the

29:29

degree, like the accounts

29:32

that we were focused on were

29:34

the ones that were only of

29:37

children. We had criteria

29:40

that they had to meet to be

29:42

counted in our methodology here.

29:44

So, you know, they had to

29:46

have multiple pictures of the child

29:48

in form fitting or revealing clothing.

29:50

And that could range from a string

29:53

bikini to yoga

29:55

pants, like yoga leggings,

29:58

and a crop. kind

30:00

of bra yoga top. The

30:03

ones we were studying were most likely to

30:05

attract men, but I think that any

30:08

child with a public account is

30:10

bound to, from some

30:12

time to another, get a

30:14

creepy male follower. Michael, I'm seeing you

30:17

shaking your head yes. Yeah,

30:19

I think how you started this interview

30:21

is often how we start them. We just asked

30:23

parents, tell us how you got

30:25

into this and let them tell

30:27

a chronology. We didn't go in

30:30

saying, tell us about all of your safety concerns

30:32

or tell us about all the problems that you're

30:34

having with the platform that would be

30:36

a bit kind of like leading the witness type.

30:38

So we just say, tell us your story. And

30:41

I think every single parent brought up these

30:43

kind of creepy men, comment, safety issues on

30:45

their own. I have

30:47

to say that there's a part of

30:49

me that believes at the very best,

30:51

while I know that not everyone is

30:53

doing the extreme things, it

30:56

still feels like, for me, a

31:01

range of commodifying

31:03

children. Yeah,

31:06

and we wanted to look at that and bring

31:09

a bit of data

31:11

or kind of test that creatively.

31:15

And so one of the things that we did was we

31:19

had this universe of 5,000

31:21

accounts that Jen

31:23

and I and a few other colleagues

31:25

spent weeks manually going

31:27

through. We had kind of an automated crawler

31:30

that collected some that matched the

31:33

criteria that we talked about where it was like

31:35

the form fitting, revealing clothing and listed that the

31:37

parent was managing it. And then once

31:39

we had that 5,000, that's where we got

31:41

those 2.1 million posts. And

31:45

so we took those images and

31:48

fed them through two different

31:50

image classifiers. So these are

31:52

AI type machine learning systems

31:54

that Google and Microsoft offer,

31:56

just a part of their

31:58

cloud computing services. And

32:01

you give it an image and it

32:03

gives you back and answer whether it

32:05

thinks it's quote unquote, racy or not.

32:08

And so we had a very large sample or we

32:10

could seat in. These images and

32:13

compare it to. The

32:16

number of likes and comments. And

32:18

fall work out from that profile.

32:21

And the A We did see a

32:23

correlation that there were there was a

32:25

spectrum. There. Were. The.

32:28

Ones that were posting. A

32:30

larger percentage of these receive

32:32

your. Photos did get

32:35

higher engagement. There. Was

32:37

a group where we heard this repeatedly

32:39

from parents that. The. First thing they do

32:41

in the morning. And the last in the

32:44

do at night is go through comments and

32:46

try and walk accounts and block Creepy Man.

32:48

It seemed like. On the other end

32:50

of the spectrum, there were some that were able

32:53

to send them off to a larger degree, but

32:55

it did. That did bear out in the data.

32:58

The. Data demonstrated to ask

33:00

that. Yes,

33:02

you. Were. A

33:04

running one of these accounts and really

33:06

dead. Spend a lot of time every

33:08

day blocking man the reach of your

33:10

account. This. Suddenly.

33:13

Limited and what we saw

33:15

in this data was. As

33:19

a chance.large are.

33:21

they tended to

33:23

have more male

33:25

followers and. Sis

33:28

supported but we were hearing and

33:30

the interviews which says that. He

33:34

has. He's spent a lot of time blocking

33:36

man your reach has limited use. Hadn't. Grow

33:38

your followers. And then

33:40

net. At some point.

33:44

Eyes are real, their images would

33:46

go viral and parents would become

33:48

overwhelmed by the number as people

33:50

following their child and they couldn't

33:52

keep up with this amount of

33:54

blocking or on the other side

33:56

of the coin they might just

33:58

decide that they. Wanted their child's account

34:01

to have a lot of followers. And.

34:04

So. If you want

34:07

that, you sort of has to.

34:10

Accept these mail followers and

34:12

said that's another decision point.

34:14

You of course have the

34:16

decision to go online at

34:18

all, You have the decision

34:20

to represent certain types of

34:22

clothing or not and you

34:24

also have the decision to

34:26

accept Followers are not that

34:28

are male are really only

34:30

restrict them to other. Parents

34:33

and kids who are in the. World

34:35

that your child is a part

34:37

of. Whether that's the answer gymnastics.

34:39

Or something else and.

34:42

This. Is the decision that some of

34:44

the parents were willing to make because

34:46

they wanted their child's account to grow?

34:49

Or they just felt that they didn't

34:51

have time to keep up with it

34:53

and still wanted to keep the account

34:55

up anyway? Jeffersonville.

34:58

Said it just as some people to said oh

35:00

yeah that just a number on the internet. we

35:02

don't really. Have an emotional

35:04

attachment to it. We keep a distance

35:07

to it. We don't get too involved.

35:09

Addicts was too overwhelming or. They

35:11

just had other goals. In mind. We.

35:14

Talked already about his parents are grappling

35:16

with it but there were other. Actors

35:19

in this ecosystem who. Were.

35:22

Totally fine with opening the floodgates.

35:24

We spoke with lion. Very.

35:26

Small clothing company in Florida. You

35:29

said Yeah, You know I. I do get

35:31

creepy followers, but. I. Need to

35:34

have a large following tell if

35:36

I business is going be successful.

35:38

So. As long as they're

35:40

not really been. Super. Explicit

35:42

on there being polite and

35:45

not overly sexual. I.

35:47

Keep them on their because I need the numbers.

35:49

So. We're trying to explore this kind of

35:52

how do we end up here and I

35:54

think those types of incentives are really at

35:56

play. This

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provided by Goldman Sachs base Usa

36:30

member Ft I see from Supply.

36:39

I'm sorry for and I still live

36:41

at home like why is this Fisher

36:43

City me a tendency to be. His.

36:50

Last fall the National Association of

36:52

Realtors will need to date as

36:54

selling that housing affordability had fallen

36:56

to it's lowest point since the

36:58

Nineteen eighties for reasons of economy

37:00

karma American. There just aren't a

37:02

lot of home sales going on

37:05

and there's really kind of a

37:07

standoff right now between buyers and

37:09

sellers. That standoff. Leads to another kind

37:11

of sand off with always find me and forty

37:13

for many years old and haven't read a. Prepared

37:15

for non and I know. Tomahawk.

37:19

Sir, I don't know here. like set

37:21

on Today explained a two part series

37:23

on how it might not be yourself,

37:25

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doors. Oh and everything okay. Their

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their moms in a school dogs.

37:48

Are. Discussed in this podcast as part of

37:50

a series that I'm calling Living Beyond Human

37:52

Scale. The. Cost in the

37:54

possibilities. And. This is definitely a

37:57

problem of living beyond. Human scale of

37:59

parenting be on human scale I don't

38:01

think as as piss off as I

38:03

got really net I'm not sure a

38:06

single mother. That. I

38:08

read about. I'm not convinced. That.

38:10

They would do this in real life

38:13

that they would dress their children in

38:15

this outfit and have them parade around

38:17

actual men that are gawking and yelling

38:19

lead things that I think this is

38:21

a human scale. Unfortunately where

38:24

it's pretty clear that the

38:26

psychological and self worth ramifications

38:28

are very I Rl. You.

38:31

Know and so. I. Have

38:33

to ask this question because it came up a lot

38:35

and I is in research we would call like an

38:37

ecological fallacy of i assign it to the wrong saying.

38:40

There's a lot of mention. From.

38:42

The parents when they're talking

38:44

in this article about dance,

38:47

cheer, and gymnastics. Is.

38:49

The commonality. Not the type of

38:51

parent but the tight sitting clothing.

38:53

dude you're see what I'm asking

38:55

like why is it hovering around

38:58

this. A big

39:00

commonality is the type of

39:02

clothing that has. That

39:04

is what is most likely

39:07

to attract these men who

39:09

are interested in children the

39:12

sexualized way to more sexualized

39:14

the clothing is, the more

39:16

they are gonna be interested

39:19

in those images. But I

39:21

also seems that there. Are

39:24

means actually between

39:26

that and he

39:28

activities in English

39:30

that have a

39:33

predominates. So we

39:35

did have parents

39:37

as. Child actors.

39:39

Child models. They are definitely

39:41

part of our universe, and

39:43

I do think that those

39:46

types of pages attracts adult

39:48

men as well, particularly if

39:50

the child. And there's modeling

39:52

and an adult aside way

39:55

or just. Made to

39:57

look more grown up by

39:59

it's competitor The Gymnastics Competitive

40:01

cheerleading, Competitive stance. These kinds

40:03

of activities for whatever reason

40:05

and I would actually add

40:07

some child pageants and that

40:10

we didn't do. We had

40:12

some pageant parents as well.

40:14

They. Seem more likely

40:17

to be sexualizing. These.

40:19

Girls and also the

40:21

outfits are sexualized. We.

40:24

Did not have a lot of

40:26

say child swimmers who are wearing

40:28

tight fitting clothing. but for whatever

40:30

reason they're not modeling and I

40:32

wonder. Does. That mean this is a questions and

40:35

I don't know the answer. I know that you

40:37

probably don't hesitate to supported empirically this answer, but

40:39

one hypothesis of mine. Would. Be

40:41

as as as as a former swimmer were

40:43

never in make up. In

40:45

some sports, It has

40:48

been normalized have a full face of make up at

40:50

five or six years old and so he was sixteen

40:52

year old. slimmer out of the pools, got green hair

40:54

and no make up and down the line is you

40:57

know it's not. Yes, it's an appearance part.

40:59

Of the sport norm, the athletic norm I

41:01

think in some ways. That makes

41:03

a lot of sense. I think

41:05

I was really interested in the

41:08

concepts as their sexual is a

41:10

sin of girls activities even if

41:13

you think about girls volleyball. Or.

41:16

Beach volleyball in particular, right?

41:18

Yeah, as the women's version

41:20

of a lot of sports

41:22

has, they have much tighter

41:24

fitting skipped beer clothing and

41:26

I think that it is

41:28

a cultural phenomenon worse in

41:30

Harrogate. And But the point

41:32

you raise about these particular

41:34

activities: Not only are you

41:36

wearing those types of clothing,

41:38

but it's common to have

41:40

a full face as make

41:42

up and the design of

41:44

the clothing. It seems very

41:47

important. There's a lot of

41:49

stylization that goes on there, and so

41:51

I think there's. An

41:53

interesting intersect. San that's happening

41:55

here and we didn't report out all

41:57

the details of this but it would

41:59

be assassin. They had an academic study

42:01

as I think it's really right for people

42:03

to take a look at. Is

42:06

interesting to I think because I mean I've seen

42:08

something I know I have some in and I

42:10

know a couple of other sports. The. Influencers.

42:13

And a lot of sports.

42:16

Weather's. Not and over

42:18

sexualization. You're talking

42:20

about apparel So there seems also

42:22

be a tie between the apparel

42:25

companies that sell into Dance and

42:27

Sheer and those are looking for

42:29

child influencers. Michael influencers just economic

42:31

know we know are very very

42:33

powerful. Yeah, but a swim. Suit

42:36

a speedo I would imagine

42:38

is looking for a bad

42:40

ass probably U T Austin

42:42

swimmer who broke a record

42:44

as an influencer. They're looking

42:46

differently at apparel and performance.

42:48

Does that make sense? It

42:51

as it has your and appearance

42:53

yeah and I think. I

42:55

get a it's not something that we barely.

42:57

I don't feel like I can. Provide

43:00

any video is an answer that. I

43:02

think these are all super interesting theories

43:04

and it sounds like they had had

43:07

some validity. We just don't know. Based

43:09

on our reporting in I don't know.

43:11

Either. For caviar just let their noses bees

43:13

or hypotheses that I'm drawing and ask the

43:15

answered way and on hypotheses not find is

43:18

Michael what would you add. With.

43:20

Pose this question to some choreographers and like

43:23

denser, we didn't really do a deep dive

43:25

into this, but it did come up and.

43:27

Some. Of them were equally concerned where they

43:30

would say yeah, we get some very young

43:32

girls who come in here. And

43:34

just the way that they moved away

43:36

they work is just not age appropriate

43:38

for them. And I think one

43:40

of the challenging things with this story. Is

43:43

very visual story but we don't want of

43:45

he. Also publishing photos of

43:47

the children that was a very difficult.

43:50

Question. Of how Do We meaning that And.

43:53

We're. Losing that that we saw that. we

43:55

just gonna be impossible to describe in a

43:58

print peace but the websites and includes the

44:00

photos of, but beyond just

44:02

the apparel, there was something

44:04

very kind of adultified and sexualized in

44:06

many of just their facial expressions and

44:09

poses, even beyond just dance poses in general or

44:11

a lot of stretching and things

44:14

like that, but just there

44:16

was something even that went a step further

44:18

in a lot of this. That seems like

44:20

some different behavior that you're

44:22

seeing from the adult world cast

44:24

down into this younger age group.

44:27

I think also plays into this dynamic of

44:29

not just doing dance, but doing

44:32

dance in a particular way in communication

44:34

with other parts of our culture that

44:36

are more adultified. Yeah, I mean,

44:38

this is where we also get into social learning theory.

44:40

This is where we get into, wow,

44:43

this pouty sexualized post

44:46

got twice the likes of

44:49

me laughing like a

44:51

13-year-old normally would. And

44:53

then this incredible hardwired

44:55

DNA central part of

44:58

social learning that says, I'm

45:00

more loved, there's more belonging, and

45:03

I'm more valued. Yeah, absolutely.

45:05

Yeah. You see these

45:07

poses from adult influencers,

45:10

adults on social media, adult

45:13

women. You think about

45:15

the Kardashians or a

45:17

whole host of

45:19

women who have made

45:22

names for themselves online. Yeah. And

45:24

it is this very pouty, winking

45:27

over the shoulder kind of

45:29

thing, very adultified. And

45:31

I think

45:34

if you just think of that, it's

45:38

maybe a disturbing thought, but you think of

45:40

that just translated down to like a nine-year-old

45:42

child. Yeah. That's what we're talking about. And

45:47

when you're that age, you aren't

45:49

gonna associate that with sex or

45:52

understand exactly, no, what the

45:54

subtext is, you just

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46:05

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47:33

Yeah, when you can take

47:35

that were all. I

47:38

might be like pro-France on the ban.

47:40

Like I might be pro-it's illegal to

47:42

post a photo of your child on

47:44

social media if your child is a

47:46

minor. Like I might be for that.

47:49

I'm curious, do you

47:51

have thoughts or do you not want to weigh in? So

47:55

I'm not here

47:57

to advocate one policy over

47:59

another? I think our role

48:01

is to explain to people what is

48:03

happening, what the heck is going on.

48:05

Yeah, yeah. So they can consider

48:08

their options. I

48:10

have some thoughts about approaches that

48:13

are interesting. In our reporting

48:15

process, we looked

48:17

at some of these laws that are

48:19

coming up in Europe and there are

48:22

also laws in a couple of states

48:24

that have been passed or are being

48:26

discussed that don't go as

48:28

far as to say that you can't post

48:30

your child online but are at least trying

48:33

to make some

48:35

inroads to bring influencing

48:38

more like the family vlogging

48:40

type of thing in line

48:43

with laws

48:45

that are related to child actors. So

48:48

ensuring that kids get some

48:51

of the money and taking that

48:53

approach. And I think these are really

48:56

interesting approaches for policy makers

48:58

to look at. The

49:00

right conversations we should be having. I

49:04

would say, I agree with Jen, we don't come

49:07

up with solutions, which solutions are hard, I'll

49:09

say. Yeah. But

49:11

I do push back on the idea

49:13

that the current form of

49:15

technology and social media and

49:18

the internet is

49:20

the only form or is the

49:22

inevitable form that these

49:24

systems have to take. And

49:27

I think if you think of it as, oh, this is

49:29

just what the internet is, social media is,

49:31

you're kind of forced to have the choice that you said of,

49:34

do I just do it or not do it? We

49:36

can have more imagination about

49:38

what safe systems are.

49:41

The conversation that came about a lot

49:44

in the mid 2010s around

49:46

privacy and surveillance in

49:49

the book by Edward Snowden was

49:51

there wasn't just a magic bullet to make

49:54

a system more privacy

49:56

friendly or more secure. You

49:59

had to take these principles. of privacy by design.

50:02

You had to build a system and at

50:04

every step think about what are the privacy

50:06

and personal data implications. The

50:08

equivalent in this space is safety by

50:10

design. And it took a

50:13

long time even for these privacy by design ideas

50:16

to get into the software and internet

50:18

space. I think safety by design is even

50:20

further back than that. Oh yeah. But

50:22

what would it be like if we built a

50:24

system that was just as fun, just

50:26

as cool, you could still share images, connect

50:28

with people that you care about, keep

50:31

up with the conversation. But

50:33

if every one of those features had

50:36

a sense of how does this

50:38

affect privacy, we could not have

50:40

this kind of false choice of either opt in,

50:42

opt out, be on the internet, be

50:45

completely off the internet. We push the

50:47

boundaries of what we think is possible for the

50:49

values that we want. I

50:51

mean, this is definitely every single person I've

50:53

talked to in this series so far. William

50:55

Brady on moral outrage and algorithms. S.

50:58

Craig Watkins on AI scaling

51:00

injustice or combating it depending on who's at

51:02

the table when we develop it. I mean, basically

51:05

what you're both saying is exactly what I'm hearing

51:07

is that there's a false

51:09

dichotomy about all in or all

51:11

out. We can reimagine it. I'm

51:14

just wondering, just personally,

51:16

this is my opinion, Bernays, me,

51:18

my opinion, is it's

51:21

going to require moral

51:23

imagination that's going to

51:25

bump up against commerce. My

51:28

money is on our ability to morally

51:31

imagine. My money is

51:33

not on the people that have

51:35

control giving away commerce in

51:38

favor of safety right now. So I hope

51:41

that happens. In general, the

51:43

influencer economy, I've almost gotten

51:45

to this point in my life where everybody on there

51:47

is a grifter. I'm like, just like, I have two

51:50

buttons. One that says like, sit

51:52

the fuck down and the other one says shut the

51:54

fuck up. Like, I mean, those are my social media

51:56

buttons. Am I allowed to, I'm

51:58

allowed, I mean, I'm saying. Yeah, it's

52:00

my podcast. This is your podcast. Yeah,

52:03

I'll get an E for that, but

52:05

that's okay. It's worth it. But I do have

52:07

these two buttons when I'm listening because when

52:10

my mom was first, and you'll relate to this,

52:12

Michael, because of your studies, probably when my mom

52:14

was first diagnosed with dementia and it was rapid

52:17

onset and was deteriorating fast,

52:20

and I would scroll through

52:22

like Instagram and it would

52:24

be like a person in a white coat

52:26

that was so reputable. We have figured out

52:28

how to reverse dementia and it's like I

52:31

had dementia and now I had a blueberry

52:33

a day mixed with some quinoa and now

52:35

I'll call my sisters and I'm like, I'm

52:37

making mom a daily quinoa blueberry shake. And

52:41

even right now, we're

52:43

in the path of totality. This

52:45

will have already passed. Hopefully

52:48

for the preppers who I'm getting ready to talk

52:50

about, I'll still be alive. But literally, I was

52:52

just reading an article about I have

52:55

some family members that are like prepping for the,

52:57

like they're going to have spam like at Y2K

52:59

and then they sent me a link

53:02

to the TikTok and then I dig into

53:04

this TikTok and this asshole is

53:06

a battery and flashlight salesman. And

53:10

I am a smart, critical

53:12

thinking, media literate person, but

53:15

when I'm sad because I just visited my mom,

53:18

I'm making those smoothies. Great.

53:21

What is happening? Yeah,

53:23

I think one of

53:25

my big takeaways from reporting on

53:27

this story is that

53:30

social media has just broken everyone's

53:32

brain. I think you're

53:36

talking about a couple of

53:38

facets, you know, misinformation, bad

53:41

healthcare information. Vulnerability. Yeah.

53:44

Vulnerability, just

53:47

the drive to get

53:49

what we now know

53:52

are these dopamine hits

53:54

from social media interaction,

53:56

the drive in

53:58

this. economy

54:01

to attain what is

54:03

perceived as some

54:06

sort of measure of

54:08

success and possibility of a

54:10

career that is stable and

54:13

generates additional income,

54:15

there are a lot of

54:18

different drivers behind

54:20

what we were exploring

54:22

with these parent-run

54:24

accounts that you are

54:27

seeing elsewhere in social media. I think

54:29

this is just the story of here

54:31

are some terrible parents who

54:34

are putting their kids online. And

54:36

I understand the judgment and I

54:38

think there are parents who have been in

54:40

fact arrested that we talk about in the

54:43

story. But I

54:45

think it's really important for us to

54:47

talk about how these are

54:49

changes that are affecting all of

54:51

us. Yes. And

54:53

even if you're not putting your kids

54:56

online, you're not making these particular decisions,

54:59

you can feel some of these changes

55:01

being wrought on our society overall. And

55:04

so I am hopeful

55:06

that readers would not simply say these

55:08

parents are terrible, we're just going to

55:10

dismiss this, none of this could ever

55:12

affect me or my kids or

55:14

in any way. Because

55:17

at some level, I think it is affecting

55:19

all of us and I think that's one

55:22

reason we wanted to talk about it. And

55:24

you also mentioned you don't think that we're

55:27

going to be able to stop this

55:29

drive for commerce. And

55:31

that's a concern I have too. I

55:33

think that Michael's point

55:36

about trying to reimagine things was

55:38

great. And I

55:40

completely agree with it. I

55:43

have no earthly idea how

55:45

we can get not just

55:47

these people to stop influencing,

55:50

but the platforms

55:52

to stop seeing as their

55:54

reason for being, having people

55:57

spend more time on their platform. I don't

55:59

know how we get around that and

56:01

that is also what's driving

56:03

a lot of this. Yeah, no, I agree.

56:05

Michael, thoughts? Hit us

56:08

with some positive moral imagination,

56:10

hopefulness. Hit us. Well,

56:13

this isn't a positive thought, but I think just to

56:15

go piggyback on what I'm saying, I

56:17

think just how things got broken, I just

56:19

really think a lot about...I'll get

56:21

to the positive part, I promise. Let's

56:24

go. I think a lot about how

56:26

we've lost the normal

56:29

signals of trust and authority that

56:31

we learn in the offline world.

56:34

And this applies to social media, but

56:36

also just to sites like Amazon too,

56:38

where if you were going

56:40

to get confronted with a

56:42

bad salesman or a bad product,

56:45

a harmful product, you would have to

56:47

walk into a store, you'd

56:49

be able to see, okay, have they

56:51

invested in this store? Do they have

56:53

salespeople? You have to do all this

56:55

stuff, which again, the tech world would

56:57

call, that was unnecessary for it. But

57:00

it came with a lot of signals of authority and

57:02

signals of trust. Now when you

57:04

see something online, it's all in the same

57:06

kind of shiny box that

57:09

looks really nice and undifferentiated from

57:11

everything else. I think that's just

57:13

a big factor of why things

57:15

get broken. We just don't have these ways

57:18

to sift out good from bad

57:20

and that applies both to products that you

57:22

can get online that aren't good or kind

57:24

of gray market stuffed and also to people.

57:27

You get these messages and they have

57:29

this avatar and they're in this very

57:31

nicely designed interface on your phone that's

57:33

extremely personal. So I think that's kind of a

57:35

bit of the mechanism for what

57:38

you've lost. The

57:41

one positive thing of just

57:43

kind of thinking how

57:45

things may be able to change, although there is

57:47

a caveat, a lot of the

57:50

safety conversation does remind me of the privacy

57:52

conversation from 10 years ago. And

57:55

at that time, it was

57:57

just accepted wisdom that no

57:59

one... about privacy. No one

58:01

values privacy. And you

58:03

could never get the platforms who are

58:06

built around advertising to

58:08

have that as value. Apple

58:10

has since come out and made privacy a

58:13

selling point and have decided that like actually

58:15

we do want to push that. The

58:17

cynical counter argument is

58:20

that if you sell privacy and

58:22

encryption, then it gives you a

58:24

free pass for moderation. So I'm not going

58:27

to say that there are

58:29

not also some self

58:31

interested things that could be at play. But

58:34

it is interesting to see over kind of the span

58:36

of 10 years how some of these things that are

58:38

very easily dismissed as oh, that'll never happen

58:41

does fully come around because the culture starts

58:43

to value that. That's not super

58:45

optimistic. I think there's still a lot of cynicism

58:47

you could put onto that as to why that

58:49

change came about. But I

58:52

still do think that I try and

58:54

find some optimism that the way the world is

58:56

now is not the way it will be in

58:58

the future. I think it kind of

59:00

goes to why I think we do this work

59:02

as we try and put information out there. One

59:05

of our colleagues once said that journalists aren't

59:07

cynics. It would be cynical to think that

59:09

nothing will change. We're actually optimists

59:12

because we think that by

59:14

exposing things by shedding light on them, it

59:16

does cause the world to change in hopefully

59:18

ways for the better. I think

59:21

that's true. And I think one of the things

59:23

that was so compelling about this article was

59:27

the mix of data, the

59:30

stories that brought it home, and then

59:32

also the ability to understand the methodology

59:34

and the scope. And

59:36

I will say if you think

59:38

about privacy, Snowden era privacy and

59:40

later, it's what Craig

59:43

Watkins said. There's going to have

59:45

to be policy intervention. Right. It's

59:48

not so much how much can

59:50

you put on the individual? I think that's also

59:52

a question of framing is companies love to say,

59:54

well, this is really all on you to sort

59:57

this out. And there's another way

59:59

of thinking about it. And yeah, the developments in what

1:00:01

Europe is doing is super interesting from

1:00:04

a policy perspective that you can nudge

1:00:06

it from the supply side, from the

1:00:08

company side. Yeah. The other two

1:00:10

things I think are interesting when we talk about your work

1:00:12

in the intersection of the earlier podcast

1:00:14

in this series is William Brady, who

1:00:16

was at Yale and now is at

1:00:18

Kellogg Northwestern, talked about algorithmic honesty. So

1:00:20

on everything that you see, it tells

1:00:23

why you've seen it. And

1:00:25

then Craig Watkins talking about

1:00:27

how it's indefensible now

1:00:30

to build algorithms

1:00:32

and AI that don't

1:00:34

have ethicists, people with

1:00:36

lived experience, humanists, safety

1:00:39

people, privacy people at the

1:00:41

table, that engineers and mathematicians,

1:00:43

computational scientists, this cannot be

1:00:45

their domain anymore. It

1:00:47

requires a mix of approaches.

1:00:50

And we've had, as

1:00:53

you saw with privacy, as Michael was

1:00:55

saying, there were policy changes, particularly in

1:00:57

Europe, California, and so forth. And it's

1:01:00

slow. Michael is so optimistic.

1:01:02

I am actually, I feel like so

1:01:05

much, I feel like great now. It's

1:01:07

like teeny tiny bit of optimism, right?

1:01:09

Me too. It's not my normal

1:01:11

role that I've had. No, it's not. And that's

1:01:14

why I'm... Jen's like,

1:01:16

who are you? Yeah. Yeah.

1:01:19

Yeah. So I'm feeling like, oh, wow,

1:01:21

we are actually making a difference. It's

1:01:24

just that it's slow and the pace of

1:01:26

technological change is so rapid that sometimes I

1:01:28

think it probably feels that we are making

1:01:30

no difference whatsoever. But if you look at

1:01:32

it over a span of decades, we could

1:01:34

maybe... If

1:01:37

you look at it over a span of decades, we could maybe catch

1:01:39

up. I've closed all my

1:01:41

calendar apps and yet it is still

1:01:43

doing notifications. I feel like

1:01:45

that's the universe dinging a little bell, like in

1:01:47

the movie when someone gets his wings. Okay.

1:01:50

Rapid fire. I'm going to switch between who goes

1:01:52

first and second. Are you ready? Okay.

1:01:56

Yes. Okay. Jen, you're called to be

1:01:58

really brave, but your fear is real. You can feel it. in the back

1:02:00

of your throat. You have to be brave. What's the

1:02:02

first thing you do? Just

1:02:04

take a deep breath. Yeah.

1:02:07

Michael, first thing you do. You got to be

1:02:09

brave. You can feel the fear. Probably

1:02:14

just remain silent like I just did.

1:02:16

Yeah, I was like, we're, he's modeling

1:02:18

it. You're glad it's, yeah. Yeah, it's right here.

1:02:20

Okay. Jen, last TV show you

1:02:22

binged and loved. Oh gosh,

1:02:25

we haven't finished it yet, but

1:02:27

we've been watching an

1:02:29

old season of Survivor, which I had

1:02:31

never watched before because I hate reality

1:02:33

TV and I'm really

1:02:35

weirdly into it. This is just my

1:02:37

family has been into really old reality

1:02:39

TV lately. We also watched the Amazing

1:02:41

Race. So that I'll just go with

1:02:43

that. I like it. Michael. I

1:02:46

was super late, but like this

1:02:48

month I watched the first season

1:02:50

of Love is Blind. I thought

1:02:53

it was fascinating. It was really,

1:02:55

really interesting. I'm

1:02:57

now looking forward to

1:03:00

doing the internet archeology of finding

1:03:02

all the past discourse and

1:03:05

how it aged, but I thought it was

1:03:07

a very in-depth analysis of

1:03:09

human behavior. So just

1:03:12

for a split second, we're like, no, these are

1:03:14

not investigative journalists. These are like but

1:03:17

then within a second, we're

1:03:19

reminded that they're nerds. Okay.

1:03:21

Favorite movie, Jen. Something

1:03:24

you wouldn't turn off. Well, something you wouldn't turn off.

1:03:29

I never turn off or

1:03:31

big Star Wars. Oh, yeah. Also

1:03:33

the Shawshank Redemption, just because you

1:03:36

can't ever turn it off. You

1:03:39

can't turn it off. Even though I don't know

1:03:41

that either of those are my favorite. I don't know that I

1:03:44

would say they were my favorite movies, but I wouldn't turn them

1:03:46

off. If I asked somebody who knew you really well, what's your

1:03:48

favorite movie? What would they say? They would say I

1:03:51

don't really watch movies. Got it. Okay.

1:03:53

I'm going to go with Shawshank Redemption folks.

1:03:56

Okay, Michael, you got to have a favorite movie. I

1:03:58

love LA story. Which is

1:04:00

an old Steve Martin movie from like 1992. Yes.

1:04:02

That is just I find it It's

1:04:06

just so so funny and touching

1:04:08

and kind of absurd and it's

1:04:10

very weird And I

1:04:12

think probably most of its jokes have

1:04:15

not aged poorly which I think for many old

1:04:17

movie is a hard Yeah, so I think it

1:04:19

still is is still good. I think it's a

1:04:21

weird one and it reminds me of LA so

1:04:23

I like it Yeah, Michael

1:04:25

as the LA not resident, but

1:04:28

He carries the vibe with him. Yeah Never

1:04:31

former resident of LA is much

1:04:33

better with movie resident. Oh, yeah Well,

1:04:37

you do kind of boost LA. Yeah,

1:04:39

I mean LA story

1:04:41

says so much about you. I'm gonna have to think

1:04:43

about it for a long time. Okay Favorite

1:04:46

meal gin. Oh Can

1:04:49

I say just like favorite food instead?

1:04:51

Yes. Okay Oreos and milk. It's not

1:04:54

a meal That's

1:04:56

so wholesome And

1:04:58

it can be a meal. I'm for it. Okay I

1:05:01

think I've had it as a meal before wait.

1:05:03

Do you dip or do you eat and swish? Oh

1:05:06

Definitely dip it dip until I get certain

1:05:08

amount of time like the cookie actually has

1:05:10

to be soft How many do

1:05:13

you lose? What percentage do you lose

1:05:15

it? It's a low percentage. I tried to

1:05:17

time it so that they're not like falling

1:05:19

off Okay. Yeah, I lose half.

1:05:21

Oh Half. Oh, that's

1:05:23

that's a lot Yeah,

1:05:25

it's not good Michael favorite food

1:05:28

or meal. I have

1:05:30

another LA one there's a slice

1:05:33

of chocolate cream pie from this place in

1:05:35

LA called the Apple Pan Which

1:05:38

is a very old I mean ancient for

1:05:40

LA it's from the 40s Which is before

1:05:42

time started and they have a wonderful

1:05:44

slice of chocolate cream pie with fries

1:05:48

Very controversial, but if you kind of salt the

1:05:50

fries and then dip them

1:05:52

in the whipped cream It's a

1:05:54

sweet salty hot cold combination. You may

1:05:56

get a lot of looks but just

1:05:59

stay the course Oh wait, the

1:06:01

universe loves it. Yeah. And

1:06:04

I'm from Texas where everyone here dips

1:06:06

their Wendy's french fries into frosties.

1:06:08

Oh, I was gonna say. Yes, into

1:06:10

the chocolate frosties. Yes, I do that

1:06:12

too. Great. I'm not the only one.

1:06:15

Completely. I didn't know that was a Texas thing.

1:06:17

Totally. So this I'm really interested in

1:06:19

this question. Michael, you can go first. What's on your nightstand? Like

1:06:22

an assortment of books and a lamp. That's

1:06:26

pretty much it. That's it. Jim?

1:06:28

I have a small nightstand and I'm in

1:06:31

my, I have books, a couple notebooks that

1:06:34

I use for work, Kleenex

1:06:36

box and lamp.

1:06:38

It's not very interesting. I have a

1:06:40

very small nightstand though also. It's

1:06:43

not fitting a lot. I guess most nightstands

1:06:45

should be small. I think they're mostly

1:06:47

small. I have like a leading tower of pizza of

1:06:49

books. Okay. And I always try to go

1:06:51

for the fiction but I usually end up just reading nonfiction. Yeah,

1:06:54

I have a Kindle actually now that I'm looking at

1:06:56

it. Oh my god, do you really? I

1:07:00

can't do it. You can't do the Kindle? Well,

1:07:03

I for a long time thought as

1:07:05

a technology reporter, I am often a

1:07:07

Luddite because I'm covering privacy

1:07:09

intrusions and whatnot. But you

1:07:12

know, we're in New York and carrying

1:07:14

a large book on my, in my

1:07:16

purse just to read on the subway

1:07:19

was just too much.

1:07:21

So the Kindle is really space

1:07:23

efficient. I appreciate that part of it. Yeah.

1:07:26

It just doesn't smell like a book. Okay. Michael,

1:07:29

what's one thing you're grateful for right now? It's

1:07:32

about to not be freezing cold. And it's

1:07:34

a pretty, pretty

1:07:37

pedestrian answer. But this,

1:07:39

I can see the sun came out and it's been raining here for

1:07:41

three days and I think that'll be nice. And

1:07:43

I have a couple of days off. So I'm grateful for that. I

1:07:45

love that. I wish you sun

1:07:48

and good days off. Jen, what are you

1:07:50

grateful for right now? Well,

1:07:53

I don't like to talk about my family very much.

1:07:55

So I'm not going to be too specific about it.

1:07:58

I'm grateful for my family. I know that's a. Pedestrian

1:08:00

answer as well. Y'all hold yourself to very

1:08:02

high answers. I think your answers are really

1:08:04

good Yeah, like I must be

1:08:06

like used to be interviewing really fancy people

1:08:08

because like Sun and some time off and

1:08:11

family I mean that just pretty much does

1:08:13

it that's that's it. I'm

1:08:15

grateful for y'all being on and I'm really It

1:08:18

was a hard piece to read but a really important

1:08:20

piece and to Jen up one point you made I

1:08:23

hope We'll

1:08:25

send everyone to it. I hope you read it I

1:08:28

hope for those of you listening you'll read this

1:08:30

piece if you haven't already read it It was

1:08:32

kind of wildfire across the communities in my life

1:08:35

But I saw my own struggles and myself

1:08:37

in it. It's really easy

1:08:40

to demonize people But

1:08:42

I don't know a person who

1:08:45

doesn't believe that Social

1:08:47

media is kind of a dangerous addiction and of

1:08:49

every of the 100% of the people

1:08:52

in my life who agree That's true. None

1:08:54

of us have stopped using it. So be

1:08:56

careful throwing your phone into glass houses, right?

1:08:58

Like same Yeah, thank

1:09:00

you all so much for being on Lockingus. I appreciate it. Thank you

1:09:02

for the work you're doing Tough

1:09:12

topic I mean I will say that I

1:09:14

really appreciate the thoughtfulness in which Jen and

1:09:16

Michael really approached this difficult topic Their

1:09:19

decision to not use photos. I mean go

1:09:21

check out the article in The New York Times

1:09:23

again The link will be on brenébrown.com. They

1:09:26

just handled this in such a it was

1:09:28

such integrity You can learn

1:09:30

all about the episodes the show notes all

1:09:32

the links on brenébrown.com We'll

1:09:35

have comments open on that page. You'll find

1:09:37

more links to read work from Jen and

1:09:39

Michael We'll have a transcript up

1:09:41

within three to five days of the episode going live

1:09:44

Also, we are starting to based

1:09:47

on really interesting demand in

1:09:49

addition to our monthly newsletter We're doing

1:09:51

a weekly digest about the podcast and

1:09:53

the stories that we're covering and looking

1:09:56

at what I'm listening to watching What I

1:09:58

think is interesting going on the world. So Feel

1:10:00

free to join up for that if you'd like another

1:10:02

thought provoking email in your box

1:10:05

every week that's

1:10:08

it stay awkward brave and kind and I'll

1:10:11

be interested to read your comments on this because I Know

1:10:14

I'm having a knee-jerk reaction, but kind of if you're

1:10:17

under 18 I wonder what kind of problems

1:10:19

it would solve to say no minors

1:10:22

on social media Something

1:10:24

not good is happening And

1:10:27

I'm curious about it staying curious. Okay. Thanks

1:10:29

y'all I'm not

1:10:38

you know, this is produced by Brene Brown

1:10:40

education and research group The music is by

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