On Wednesday Facebook's Oversight Board upheld the decision to ban Trump from social media for now. Facebook has 6 months to decide if the decision will be permanent. Some may say banning Trump from social media is a free speech issue, but in a February episode of DISINFORMED, Nora Benavidez, Pen America's director of Free Expression Programs says they're wrong. Let's revisit why she says banning Trump from social media is not censorship.
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You're listening to this informed a mini series from There Are No Girls on the Internet. I'm Bridget Todd, so you might have seen that. On Wednesday, Facebook announced they were upholding their band at the twice impeached former President Donald Trump for now. Here's what you need to know. Basically, Facebook played a huge part in the January six insurrection. Facebook was the main platform mentioned by those involved. It was used even more than other platforms popular by fringe right wing types like Parlor. According to charging documents on the Department of Justice, this is why we saw Facebook and other platforms band Trump On January seven's, the day after the insurrection. The band was enacted after Facebook removed two of Trump's post during the Capitol riot, including a video in which he said supporters should go home, but in which he repeated his false claim of widespread voter fraud, saying I know your pain on your hood. We had an election that was stolen from us. It should go without saying that this was an obvious lie. The election wasn't stolen, and this lie was the entire basis for his supporters storing the capital in the first place. Even though they banned him. We knew this wasn't permanent because despite being a billion dollar company, Facebook is basically incapable of making a single clear decision. Facebook pretty much threw up their hands and said they were not able to make this decision, hired the so called Oversight board to make the decision of whether Trump should be permanently banned or not for them. The Oversight Board upheld Trump's ban for now, but also said that Facebook should not have imposed an immediate suspension without clear standards, and said the company should determine a response consistent with rules applied to other users. So the whole thing was basically a massive waste of time and we're pretty much back where we started. The Facebook Board pretty much punted to Facebook and said that they should make the decision about whether to rene state Trump consistent with their policies. And now they this book has six months to figure it out. This is a real failure of leadership the Facebook Oversight board. It's basically just a way for Facebook leadership to avoid real accountability, you know, the kind of accountability that comes with making a decision. Facebook has already done so much harm to our discourse and democracy, and don't forget the kind of disinformation harassment and inciting of violence. It has been allowed to fester on their platform overwhelmingly hurts women, LGBT, hugh folks, and people of color. Now, many distractors might say that banning Trump from social media is a violation of freedom of speech, but Nora Benavidez, director of the US Free Expression programs that Pan America Foundation, says those people are just wrong. Let's revisit her episode if there Are No Girls on the Internet and listen as she gets into why banning Trump from social media is not a free speech issue. Today marks the start of Trump's second impeachment trial for his role in the insurrection on Janie Ray six. Here's Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin earlier to day at the trial. If that's not an impeachable offense, then there is no such thing. On the day Congress met to finalize the presidential election, they would have you believe there is absolutely nothing the Senate it. Now, it's clear that Trump continuously used social media to spread disinformation, including the repeated baseless lie that he won the election and that it was being stolen from him. That lie, as we know, culminated in his supporters attacking in the Capitol. But even before that, Trump has always used social media to incite violence, stoke tensions, and spread distortions and baseless claims. That is until January, when Facebook, Twitter and other platforms finally gave Trump the boot. But don't give tech leaders too much credit. They only did this after years of pressure from platform accountability advocates who warned that failure to act could lead to the kind of violence that we saw in January six And even now Facebook's oversight board is weighing whether they made the decision by kicking Trump off the platform, So it's possible that we haven't even heard the last of Trump on social media. A lot of people were questioning by banning Trump from social media, his free speech was being threatened. But Nora Benavidez, free speech attorney and the director of US free expression Programs at Pan America Foundation, a nonprofit that protects and promotes free expression, says that when it comes to understanding free speech on social media platforms, a lot of us are asking the wrong questions. I remember when the insurrection happened. It felt for me like total whiplash. There was still a kind of hesitancy, you know, concern, like what was going to happen in the lead up to the inauguration, and so that January six just somehow felt not too surprising but still very very jarring and um And in you know, the weeks that have followed, we've just tried to you know, be responsive to people. You know, people have questions like were the people storming the capital exercising their first and right? Did Trump have a right to be on Twitter and on Facebook? Um? And so a lot of questions have emerged that we've just tried to be ready to answer and to talk with people about what's really happening, because they're really really complex issues, so full disclosure. Like I have worked, as you know, work with organizations that have tried to pressure social media platforms two take disinformation seriously, and so a big part of that has been asking them to remove Trump when he, you know, tweets things that are insidiary or like inciting violence. And truly, I don't think I ever thought I would see Trump be banned from platforms, Like I remember when that happened, I was fully kind of surprised because I think I was quite used to the idea that, oh, he's just above consequences. Or accountability. There will there will never be any of it. So, um, you know, I was, I was quite surprised. What did you think when you saw Trump being banned from these platforms? The insurrection happened on I think Wednesday, and then the cascade of first you know, there were labels placed on a video of his there were then he was banned, you know, permanently suspended from Twitter, and it just sort of felt like this jaw dropping cascade where I was like, this is really happening. And immediately though, uh, you know, I was watching on my own Twitter, people saying this violates the First Amendment. This is like an egregious assault on free speech. There was so much hate and confusion and frankly miseducation. And part of what you know is important to keep in mind is that Twitter, Facebook, those are private companies. And you know, I am a First Amendment lawyer, like I firmly believe in the ability for all of us to engage in open discourse to hear what other people think. But Trump has absolutely contributed to, if not been, the biggest super spreader of dangerous misinformation. Um that I think is absolutely information, you know, with the goal of kind of dividing us and making people believe these false narratives. Deep platforming is actually pretty effective. Booting Trump from social media almost immediately slowed the spread of false information on those platforms. Signal Labs found that false claims about election rigging dropped from two point five million mentions to six hundred eighty eight thousand mentions across platforms, and hashtags commonly used to spread election rigging claims like hashtag March for Trump dropped by nine point And it's not just Trump. A study conducted by the Election Integrity Partnership found that just a few dozen pro Trump Twitter accounts, including Trump's own account, where the original sources for about a fifth of misleading election claims around the election. It really goes to show you how just a small handful of accounts can be responsible for major k us on platforms. I was actually very much in favor of his being removed. I think what was necessary and really good was that data immediately emerged from a couple of researchers that found about seventy of the misinformation that had been on Twitter was no longer there thanks to his removal, along with the removal of about thirty seven others who were sort of the biggest influencers and spreaders of misinformation. And I think that we need data like that to be able to make the case again two platforms in the future, because you know, the big criticism was this just didn't happen soon enough. And I'm all here for the criticism, but I also think we need to lay the foundation for, like what are solid policy and community guideline standards that the platforms are implementing that then have data to backup that when they do that it benefits the health of the Internet. People were able to say, like, here was the measurable impact of banning Trump and and other accounts who were responsible for spreading this kind of thing. Here was the measurable impact. And truly what has been the down side? Less noise, less live you know, spreading like wildfire on these platforms. I I it's been interesting to see how there was such a quick benefit, like a quick nalus benefit, with like very few in my book, if any downsides. I think there maybe the downside of people who supported Trump feeling somehow more quote unquote like in air quotes, I'm doing this sensor um and that somehow their censorship right makes them emotional, driving them potentially to be more upset. And you know my work on sort of the psychology side of misinformation, and that I think we have to, you know, stay vigilant to the ways that people will be emotional to information, the way we are all emotional to news. I mean, our relationship to news is emotional. Um. We've seen the way you know, platforms hinge our interaction on our likes or dislikes, and so it's I think important to make sure we don't completely marginalize people that may actually be movable. Uh maybe not today, but down the line. And so I just I kind of have this like lingering concern about how we engage those that continue to believe alternate realities, you know, that continue to want to see Trump um. And it's really hard to read those people. So I just it's like a sort of weird gut instinct where I kind of wonder, what are they thinking about? How can we sort of call them in and and talk with them about these issues in ways where you know, if they had been unmovable before. Slowly, slowly, some of these Trump supporters are starting to see the cracks in that reality. I hadn't even thought about that, Um, sort of the kind of emotional response that someone might have to feeling the shame of you know, platform saying your ideas what you have to say is not acceptable here. I hadn't even really thought about that, and I think it really highlights to me that at the heart of a lot of your work with Pan America and just generally is empathy and sort of trying to remember that deep down we're talking about people. People are all complex. We we are all all humans are like driven by a complex series of feelings and motivations internally, and so remembering that these are not just users quote unquote with their people who have these complex emotional responses. I think that empathy can get lost in conversations about disinformation and how it spreads and what motivates people to spread it. Um. But I am grateful that though that that idea seems to be at the heart of so much of the work that you do to create off ramps for folks like this bridget I have to say, I never thought I would play even close to like the therapist role that I feel like I do sometimes. Um, you know, being a low are thinking about the law, thinking about legality on Twitter or Facebook, and yet being faced with people who ask questions and actually want to engage somehow. And I think that the the problem the Internet has bred is that, as we all know we're siloed, we seek out our own and difference of any sort, whether it's something we can accept and and listen to, or something we find so offensive and egregious like we simply want to shut it down and not hear it um and Trump I think went so far as too then when he heard things he didn't like, he called those lies. And the tendency, of course is to uh, you know, shut people out, to disengage, and that is not getting us anywhere. In fact, I think the idea that we never engage with people who are radicalizing, or that we never seek out others, has led to things like the insurrection, where we need to engage, We need to find entry point. And I think we need to have a kind of expectation setting where we're not all going to agree, but we can exist in disagreement and be civil and believe in each other's humanity. Um. Of course, if our disagreement is grounded in someone believing you or I shouldn't exist or have the same rights, that's different. But the level of empathy that I hope we can bring sometimes to our online discourse is something that can try to create space for understanding. UM And, I'm really glad that you see and talk about empathy in this way, that you see the value of those things that as someone who is a storyteller, you know, you focus in media and stories, like it's so critical to remember that even if we find it somehow offensive, like we have to find ways to engage and find each other's humanity, even if it sounds corny. It doesn't sound corny. I mean, I often it's it's you said that you feel like a therapist. And when I have these conversations about tech platforms, it's funny how often they turn they turned to sort of things that sound a bit corny, like empathy or you know, remind remembering there was a human at the other on the other end of the screen, things like that. UM And, I think you you really hit on something that is one of the reasons why I'm so interested in disinformation and making this show is that I feel that the thing that you just described as silos and sort of note people being closed off and all of that, I feel like we've gotten to a place where you can no longer assume it's it's no longer easy to assume good faith when you're having discussions on the internet. Right. So, when I first got online, the reason why I found such a freedom and love of talking on the internet was because it felt like I was able to reach so many different people, get so many different perspectives, and it felt relatively safe. Now I feel that that doesn't like that safety is gone right, Like, like when I have a conversation with somebody on Twitter, I'm not sure if there's someone who we can have a good faith disagreement or a good faith dialogue. It just feels like we're no longer able to assume good faith in all of our discourse online because the temperature has been turned up so high, in part by things like disinformation and you know, lies and and and violent rhetoric online. I'm gonna make it really personal. Sometimes I get retweeted on Twitter by people who then have a comment about my tweet, and often the assumptions, often wild assumptions people will make about more of me and who I am. UM really stress me out. And I totally totally know what you're saying where it feels like you may not be able to trust someone. UM. And so I often try to then engage with the people that retweet me, whether it is someone on frankly any side of the political spectrum, um, making these assumptions and in no way to defend myself, but just to open conversation. I've had really wonderful learning experiences where people will kind of turned down their temperature when I respond in ways that engage them with open ended questions, UM. Which is hard to do. I mean, you can't do that at scale every day. UM. And that's one of the questions that I think about all the time, is how we scale empathy. But in the meantime, those like little one offs that can help change or slowly, you know, bring people together and help their attitudes kind of move at a slower pace where they're assuming less about me or you. I think it's a great thing. Um. And the Internet has changed. I mean I remember when something like Section two thirty, you know, not to get technical, but when that was an exciting regulation to actually help people feel safer on the internet, to be able to like have conversations on blogs and the you know, the internet is just such a different place now that it feels so um You're always like just about to have a complete crisis on Twitter. That's how I always fee. I'm like, oh, this could really go badly, and and we can't all spend all of our days, you know, having those meaningful, slow conversations. So I guess I just sort of wonder, like, how do we scale empathy? Let's pick a click break and we're back. I say this a lot. We need to completely reimagine how we think of the Internet, and that means we're thinking so much of the infrastructure around technology. It means creating a tech press that centers and valorizes empathy, not scale. It means building platforms that center people, not quote users or clicks or how much time we spend with our faces at a screen. Now, what I'm describing is a radical reimagining, and it might sound as big or as complicated as like smashing the patriarchy or ending white supremacy. But I believe that it's possible. I think there are enough people out there like you and me who truly believe in the power and possibility of the Internet and the power of expression. And I believe that when we come together, big radical things really are possible. And I know that we have the power to radically rethink the internet so that it's safer and more accessible and so that it works for more people. I totally agree. I mean, and smashing the patriarchy and ening white supremacy are also you know, valid and worthwhile endeavor. This is how I feel like all of it, just yes, and to everything, um, you know, the best tech emphasis, like the people who are working on innovation uh that I think are doing the best work, understand that these are not tech issues. They're human issues. And we're never going to solve everything by sort of abdicating control or brainstorming to what can be automated, what you know, AI can do, what the platforms can do better somehow to basically game our way out of what human are fundamentally now doing, which is why are we hateful? Sometimes? Like why are we bigoted? Why do people have an interest in trolling others? Um? And so I think that you know, a lot of the solutions have to be human centered, where we instead of just saying, oh, well the platforms can do X, y Z, or the government can do all these other things, like well, what can we do you know, like, what can everyday people do to feel more empowered? Like maybe they can build imagine this, like build an ecosystem of users and other people they enjoy connecting with. I mean, can you imagine the joy of actually thinking that your Twitter feed is an interesting place to learn things instead of just who has the best like breaking news hundred and forty character tweet. Um, that would be really exciting. I think so. I I love the idea, and I think they're just need to be more of us doing this, Like more of us committed to talking about humans and how humans fit into what we're doing as users, because really should go the other way around. If users don't come first, it should be people coming first. You're actually doing a lot of that work in terms of building more people who see things like that. You know, at pen you have these this weekly series where you, you know, are joined by other journalists and other thinkers to help people understand the role that we all play in making the Internet a better place. Um, can you talk about some of the steps that people, anyone listening could take to help make the Internet a safer and better place. Oh that's like my favorite question. Um, you just you got me. At the sweet spot. I'm like, here we go. Um, well, you know, we've we've looked at disinformation for years and everyone always asks what's the solution, and so kind of to you know, my last point, I think a lot of it. We have to focus on humans and give people power to you know, take control of what they're seeing online. So I always think it's best to, frankly, just start with understanding what you do when you're online. You know, like, how are you consuming information? Bridget? Is it on Twitter? Are you, let's be honest, are you going to Facebook? And are you clicking on links? Or you maybe privately just reading the headline that I shared or your other friends shared, Like let's be real, you know, like sometimes that's all I do. I'm like, oh, I can make a wild assumption based on what Bridget shared and I'm not even clicking the link. So just sort of like taking a pulse being honest with yourself. Are you going to Fox News? Are you going to the New York Times? Are you going to you know, news websites? How are you doing things? Are you listening to podcasts like this? I think it's good to know how you consume information. And then I also think with that, we should all start asking ourselves how we feel when we're online, like, are you feeling anxious when you read things? Are you angry? A lot of times disinformation will thrive because we're emotional and we often want to share things. We want to engage with people quickly, and so will accept something without fact checking it, without thinking about or asking ourselves you know, who wrote this, where did it come from? Why am I seeing it? So if you can just sort of pause like that is my number one recommendation. Pause to ask a number of things, but just pause, um, and from slowing down, I think we actually could all benefit. You know, we could potentially share less misinformation. We could also then think more carefully about what our own attitudes are based on what we're seeing. Um, a whole host of I mean, frankly, empathy could arise out of just slowing down and uh and getting to a place where we're not just liking, disliking, loving, laughing at things, but maybe where we're in a place of huh, I want to learn more about that. Yeah, if you could see my if you were in my kitchen right now, where I am. I have a post it note on my laptop that just says slow down. And it's just a reminder for me just in all the ways, because I can sometimes move too quickly, just in life, but totally, but I think that that the idea of just taking a breath, taking a beat has been so helpful. It sounds so it sounds so basic, but you know, I but before I started really thinking critically about the way that I felt when I was online, I would be moving so quickly. And then when I started to slow down a bit, I actually kept a little journal. So if I saw something that made me feel anxious, I would write that down. If I saw something that made me my heart race, I would write that down. If I saw something that made me laugh, I would write that down. And from doing that, I really saw the ways that I It's just like my brain chemistry was just firing so quickly and I wasn't even stopping to think. And I find that. You know when you have those moments where somebody tweets something and they like really wish they had it, and it's going by and they're like, oh God, I always wondered were they in that moment where they've just been seeing so many different takes and different jokes and different tweets. Their brain is no longer processing what they're doing, that they're just putting a tweet into the world without even really thinking about it. And so I really find so much value in almost thinking about using the Internet as a kind of meditative practice and an opportunity to really be mindful of how just how you're doing, how you're feeling. Are you anxious, are you emotional? Like what's going on? As opposed to something where you're just like mindlessly scrolling and not really not really being in charge of your you know, of your physios, your emotions and your brain and all of that. I if I could do away with one term this year especially, it would be doom scrolling, because one, I mean, when are we not doom scrolling nowadays? You know, like news is never inspiring. But also it's so passive. And part of what I think is really great about what you're explaining is that you have literally taken control of what you're doing, you know, to say, I'm going to proactively write things down, I'm going to question and reflect on what I'm feeling. Um, you know, sometimes just the sheer of feeling like you're in the driver's seat whatever it is then that you end up doing, if it's writing your feelings down, if it's deciding not to tweet, but just thinking of yourself as the one that's in control instead of doom scrolling, I think is so exciting for people, and it's a weird. It's almost like a mind shift where people once I say it. Sometimes in our trainings, people will say, I didn't even think that I could curate my news feed that way, and I'm like, yes, like we can choose, and it would be so exciting to be stimulated, not just totally freaked out by what we're seeing exactly. And I think that's something that I think that everybody can take away. You might not be able so just this week, we might not be able to, you know, topple the stranglehold that some of these platforms seem to have on our democracy, on our discourse. But individually, you can control how you consume social media. You can you delete Facebook from your phone and say like I'm only going to go on from my browser twice a day or something like that. Like we might we might not be able to control how these things show up in a larger way, but we can control how they show up to us personally how they show up in our household, like whether you take your phone to bed to doom, scroll Twitter before sleep or not. Like those are choices that that we have control over, not anybody else. And so you know, really trying to internalize that we do have some control, even though sometimes it feels like we don't. You're not going to be great at this overnight. You know, it won't be like suddenly you feel more excited or eager to be online and to find this healthier internet. But I think that it can slowly lead to other practices. And if you can start with slowing down, so let's say, just questioning yourself, you know, scrolling at a slower pace, finding than interesting articles and pieces of content and people to follow and connect with, then you may frankly start wondering other things. You know, you can maybe get better at spotting when a headline lacks context. You know, I've gotten to the point where it's it has It doesn't happen overnight, but you know, you can sort of be scrolling and you read a piece of content and you're like, huh, I would normally be really upset by that. Why would I be upset? Like could I explore what the underlying reason would be and when you slow down like that to ask deeper questions not just about my own reaction, but about the piece of content you're seeing. I actually think we all are training ourselves to have a kind of media literacy and digital literacy that everyone's going to need in the future. I mean, the Internet isn't going away, so we need that eventually. The other thing is, disinformation is a service for higher It's an industry, and disinformation is not going away. Online hate is not going away, So we all if we just a little tiny bit chipped away at and built up better and better practices, we could truly help create the ecosystems we enjoy that have less of that um and at scale. You know, it isn't perfect, but it's at least one piece of how we can help create something that's healthier and frankly less hateful. More after a quick break, let's get right back into it. I believe that the only way that some of these platforms will meaningfully, you know, rethink the role they've had in spreading misinformation and hate is if we make it unprofitable, right and so like, if it if it hurts your bottom line to traffic in hate and violent rhetoric and disinformation. That's the only way that I think that some of these companies will stop trafficking in it. I guess that I think that the way to do that can be so individual, Like, I'm not going to engage with it. I'm not going to amplify it. I'm not going to support it. If if I see that kind of thing online, I'm not going to, you know, I'm going to kind of divest from it. I think. I think I think a lot of that can be driven by individuals. I'm thinking of the headline divesting from disinformation. Yeah, all you should all be doing that. I think that's your article, Bridget. I mean I think the other I don't want to seem too corny and that, like, you know, humans are going to solve all of it, because I think the platforms have so much responsibility, and um, I think the future of minimizing how toxic the Internet can be in part is that the platforms have to begin informing users in better ways. And I don't know if you and I have ever talked about it, but I think that Twitter's very first step into putting labels on content really saw horrible moment from the media's perspective when people started calling these warning labels UM, because I think that that has such a negative connotation, and I think that labels and the platform mechanisms to slow people down are actually a fantastic measure that we should be encouraging and learning about. Um. It's the stuff that absent me teaching millions of Americans, let's say about media literacy. Platforms can help slow people down. So I think there's like this other piece also that can happen in tandem to you and me taking control that the platforms try to find ways to very you know, in a nonpartisan, careful, educative manner, slow people down, UM, and just do the thing that we're already doing a little bit, you know, question what we're seeing, UM, wonder if there are ways that we want to explore or learn more about something, um, if we know that it's misleading. Yeah. Even so you mentioned like when you share something based on a headline that thing that water has now, which I think is a great tool, but sometimes I feel kind of dragged by it where it's like, do you want to read the article before you read tweeting? How many times have you not read, be honest, because I every time haven't read it, Yes, and it's it's honestly is a good reminder And when I get it, I'm like, oh, come on, I this is I'm retweeting an article by somebody that I know, like I trust them. But it is a good reminder to just like, what's the hurry? Why don't you just read it? You know? And it really sometimes I'm like, drag me Twitter functionality, But so you want to switch gears a little bit. As we're seeing right now that the officials are being held accountable for their role in either supporting or inciting the insurrection. Trump was obviously kicked off social media platforms. Senator Josh Holly's book was briefly dropped by its publisher, and kind of along the same lines of free speech online, I've seen a lot of people asking questions about what is commonly known as quote cancel culture. So what are your thoughts on so called cancel culture? As a free speech attorney, are these free speech issues? Uh? You know, I'm going to give you the short answer, which is it's really hard. Um. Lawyers will often say it depends and part of what I think is difficult is that cancel culture often seems to imply that you're going to be, in a way, um, canceled from an existing platform, you know, like from your base, which also then to me suggests that you have a base to be canceled from. Um. You know, you don't talk about canceling someone who isn't very well known. And I think there's this interesting power dynamic within the like paradigm of thinking that there's a cancel culture. I think it's more interesting, um to weigh what's at stake here, you know, when we think about someone like Donald Trump, was he canceled? Uh? I honestly think that he was legitimately taken off the Internet because of the real world harm his words online have, And that is not canceled culture. That is like a very deep, difficult old balance where all of us, whether it is regulators, policymakers, platform people, everyday users like you and me, like, what are his words doing to our world? It is a drastically dangerous step when he spreads lies, when he sow's discord, when he promotes hate, all of the different ways that I think the platforms maybe in being late somehow, if I had to guess We're thinking that it would not be that bad, not be that bad, and somehow the insurrection was that crack, that like breaking point where people realize, oh, online issues have real world harms, which has happened before. We've seen it when there are mass shootings. We've seen it, when there are acts of terrorism, you know, and like other types of bombings. Um. And what's fascinating in that moment is that I'm like, is that cancel culture? Like? I don't think that is. I think that that is a private company taking necessary actions to limit it or triage the type of real world harm that's happening. I think it was absolutely too late, and I always think that it was too late. At the same time, Donald Trump is a public figure and was an elected official who was leading this country, and so there is also this interest in hearing unkno, you know, sort of unedited what he says. And so from a free expression perspective, I always wonder what is the most speech we can have with the least harm. I think we passed the harm point frankly some time ago. UM, But there's definitely I think we have to stay committed to having access all of us to various forms of expression, because free expression rights aren't just Donald Trump's right to say what he wants. We all have free expression rights to access what various people are saying. I have the right to then hear what you were saying. You have the right to hear what I am saying. And in some parts of the world, part of what we have to keep in mind is Facebook, Twitter. That's all the Internet, that's all people have. That's the only connection they have to what's happening politically. We are seeing right now in my and mar with the Internet being shut down. That is a political tactic to silence dissidents and dissent. And so it's a difficult question to answer when there are questions implicated in that larger one around who is speaking, what is the effect offline? Is it damaging when in total it seems to tip the scales towards violence and hate. I have to say, in general, I hate conversations about quote cancel culture because the concept just seems so disingenuous. When people talk about the importance of being willing to engage ideas one might not agree with it, always, somehow seems like marginalized people are the ones expected to be doing the engaging and arguing with people who are hell bent on misunderstanding you is exhausting. And if you aren't even able to talk about something with a shared set of guiding fat the sky is blue too plus to us. For Trump lost the election, then it can really get thorny. When the election happened in November and Biden one, there was I think rightly a kind of exhaustion. You know, people were so tired of fighting and eager to disengage completely um from what might be different. And I I'm with a lot of those people. I think it's really exhausting work to try to engage with people who disagree, and you have to always know that ultimately, you know, a lot of conversations will not be productive. They and it isn't on you or me to do the labor of teaching someone like someone else's teachable moment isn't necessarily my job. At the same time, I think like the crisis and the basic human crisis were in of how divided we are. Merits a very serious examination that we all need to sit with of like what is it where we are interested in disengaging all the time with anything different um And that permeates all of us. And so I think the thesis is, you know, why are we driven to do things that divide us? And then how can we overcome our own instincts to actually broker conversation, to find an entry point, even if it's little, and even if it only happens for a couple of minutes, Like that is the beginning of being able to find what I think is the antidote to disinformation, where we have a shared basis of facts. Even if you and I disagree on policies, like we can both look at a set of facts and say, yeah, that's what we're basing our opinion on. And we may different then on what we think needs to happen, but we can agree on certain things. And we have absolutely not reached that point of being able to agree on basic facts. Yeah, that's exactly where I want to get us to. You know, we can disagree, but we are all on the same page about some basic facts. You know, two plus two is four, this guy is blue. We have a aired understanding of reality, and it's sad to me that we're not there. P You actually found that among Trump voters say that he definitely won the election. Another thirty say that he probably won the election. And this week Reuter's pulled members of Congress now that of them wouldn't say one way or the other whether or not they agreed with Trump that the election had been stolen from him, and two of them still say the election was stolen from Trump. So it's like we're not even speaking the same language. We do not have a shared reality, and it seems like such a low bar, but that's where I want to get us to a place where we have a shared reality. I mean, it should be a low bar, but honestly, there's there's also just like so much bigotry and hate that a lot of those kinds of civil discussions are not grounded in mutual humanity. So, you know, my civil rights background is like how do we have the most for the most people, and how do we maintain and protect basic rights for people who have traditionally and historically been marginalized in every institution. So there's this other piece that informs the work I do and how I think about miss and disinformation because I know that it affects different communities differently. Black and brown people are targeted with disinformation so that they are disenfranchised and believe their voice doesn't matter. So sort of in the middle of all of it, I'm like, I still very much have eyes wide open that some of us will be affected, targeted, and marginalized in more specific and acute ways that have massive effects on democracy. So I don't want to sit here like Pollyanna. You know, Oh, it's all gonna be great if we could just find moments of like factual shared belief, because some of that assumes that other people will believe you and I matter as much as anyone else. And um, and the reality is a lot of people don't think that. But some some are movable, Some are people where you engage and they are not like hateful people. Interest did in less for certain people. And that's the moment where I'm hoping to reach at least some pockets of the United States. So you sound pretty hopeful, oh, bridget I actually have a lot of hope. I mean, you know, when I was younger, I don't want to get to misty eyed, but like you know, I would work in the South with people like John Lewis and civil rights figures, and they always said that change takes a lifetime. It takes many lifetimes, and um, and this intractable issue of how we connect is one of the biggest issues I think of our lifetime. And uh, it's very slow. So I am hopeful in the sense that I see every day more and more people interested in doing this work. I see movement lawyers. I see amazing researchers finding data, you know, and trying to find ways to triage the way the Internet is making us all bleed. Um. And I'm very hopeful. It just it takes a long time, and for every step forward, there will be three steps back and then maybe two steps forward, um, maybe another step forward. So it's it's really just sort of like a dance with democracy. Where can folks keep up with you? And can you tell us more about the weekly trainings that pat America is running so people can always follow me an attorney Noura, I'm Attorney Noura on every platform, um. And then pen America has trainings around media literacy and disinformation defense almost weekly and that all is on penn dot org. Our next series is going to focus on black and Latino mistrust around the vaccination process and try to help walk people through why hesitancy is okay, why it's okay to question, you know, is the vaccine good? Should I get it? Um? And so we'll be doing a series around like disinformation and COVID later this month, and then we're also going to be doing work on how community organized ers can embed messaging in their work with communities. We really want to empower people to feel like they know how to talk about these issues when someone comes to them. So more to come Penn dot org. You can check it all out. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please help us grow by subscribing. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or just want to say hi. We'd love to hear from you at Hello at Tango dot com. Dis Informed is brought to you by There Are No Girls on the Internet. It's a production of iHeart Radio and Unbust creative Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer. Tary Harrison is our supervising producer, and engineer. Michaelmato is our contributing producer. I'm your host Bridget Tod. For more great podcasts, check out the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Tw