There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production of My Heart Radio and Unboss Creative. I'm Bridget Todd and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. Last month, we heard from former Facebook data scientists turn whistleblower sophies On about the ways Facebook has spread harm. Her entire story, from taking a job at Facebook to deciding to blow the whistle on the company at great personal risk, is worth listening to. Here's a clip. When you think about Facebook, are you is there part of you that it's hopeful that do you think that it can be, that it can be saved, Can it be a force for good? Or is it just too late? It's reattractive for people to say the road is fundamentally to only broken then can't be fixed. Therefore I'm not going to do anything unless it becomes itself a funny prophecy, and then you can see I was right. Nothing changed because in the end nothing, nothing will happen, none and us and us will be the people make it happen. Because if everyone writes it off and says it's Facebook, it's broken, then what's the point. We already know that it's already awful. We can't do anything then and then that will become a self fulfending prophecy, and no one votes, and no, because no one was stup forward to fix it will change it in the first place. M hm. And so the question if anything happened, that's rending up to us. It's it's up to it's up to yourself, it's up to me, it's up to the people and listening. So what can we do? How can we, just as regular people who use the platform, hold Facebook accountable? It can sometimes feel like we don't really have a lot of power against a billion dollar global tech company like Facebook. But Cairos, an organization that builds power for black and brown communities online, is hoping to change that, starting with asking everyone to log off of Facebook starting November ten. Of Facebook's revenue comes from ads targeted at us, just regular people who use Facebook. Okay, that means the revenue depends on our regular use of and engagement with the platform. No, Cairo's is not asking people to delete Facebook. Instead, it's more like a strike. The Facebook logout campaign is an attempt to harness the economic power of consumers to directly impact Facebook's bottom line, and for Gilani, Drew Davey Cairo's campaign director. It's all about power, taking it away from tech billionaires and building it for marginalized people. So, first of all, how did you wind up doing the work that it is that you do? Like, how did you get to where you are right now? Yeah? I smile because I'm like, I don't really know either. But UM, I was an organizer, grassroots organizer for a while, UM, and I decided that I needed a break a little bit. I think it was really enriched. I lived in Richmond, Virginia in seventeen Charlottesville and all the things, and I was kind of deep in it, and you know, we get burnt out as organizers, and that's what happened to me as a grass its organizer. UM. And my friend was like, hey, well you should do digital organizing and I was like, what even is that? So I decided to apply for the Cairos Fellowship. We really got skilled up and what digital organizing was in a way that I think is very different because it's focused on racial equity and equality and really about changing the field of digital organizing UM and putting black and brown people into it to do the work for our people. And I kind of fell in love with taking down big tech UM, which is a strange sentence to say, but it's something you know, I like to make cereos have a really bad day. And I'm happy to have landed full circle back at CAIROS now that we campaign UM running campaigns at the intersection of tech and racial all justice. Johnny, you and I have been on some many calls together, so many different coalition beings together. We have been talking about making like tech billionaires having the worst, making them have a bad time for a very long time, and it's interesting that we're in this moment where a lot of the public is kind of catching up to us. You know, Facebook has had a really intense couple of weeks in terms of like all of this stuff that we have known for a while becoming public in these very um specific ways. What are your thoughts on just like what we're seeing coming out of Facebook with these whistleblowers and you know, all of this, all of these revelations that we've known for a while being made so painfully clear to folks who might not have been so aware. Yeah, I don't think I've seen a time since maybe Cambridge Analytica and like that first whistleblower that we saw come out where it's been so much attention on Facebook, and I think in the last don't know year with COVID disinformation, with an elect presidential election happening last year, with January six, that has all changed. Like you said, I you know, personally, I'm like where were y'all at? And you know, professionally, I'm like, let's go, let's organize people, Let's get all people to you know, really take back their power. Um. This is definitely a different moment in time where you know, we're seeing Facebook's direct harm on children, our society or democracy, and you know, people are really desperate, I think, to be able to do something about it. It's so interesting that you use the phrase take back our power. I think before I was very involved in like platform accountability work, I just had this us, this blanket assumption that as a person who use social media, person that use technology, I had no power, Like who was I to tell the Mark Zuckerberg's of the world how to run these these these platforms And I didn't fully understand how they work. Like I'm not a software engineer, I'm not a data person, and I think that for me, what really clicked. Was this change of like, well, actually, it wouldn't exist if not for you know, the people who use these platforms, and so if we mass a mass together, we actually do have power. And when I started thinking like that, I was like, why was that so quick to believe this, this fiction that people who use social media have no power and have no right to say, you know, what their experience on these platforms look like. When they are the lifeblood of these platforms. They wouldn't exist if not for for users. Yeah, And it's it's this thing I think that where tech companies want us to think like that, Like Facebook wants us to think that we're just just a user and we just someone with a profile, when that's not actually true. We are the reason why they make money. We are the reason why they are even existing in the first place. And so even beginning to shift your understanding of your power when it comes to social media platforms and technologies that we used is huge. Like that is a huge win. I think if we can start doing that for in massive amounts of people. Yeah, I mean, so let's talk about that a little bit. Um. I know that Cairos is doing the log out Facebook campaign, which I'm so excited about um, and it seems to be just one avenue that folks, just every day folks using social media can start to take back some of that power. Can you tell us a little bit about how that campaign came to be? Yeah, for sure. So you know, this campaign was really born out of frustration is born. You know, when you go to our website, um, the Facebook logout dot com, the first thing you're gonna see is we're really over Facebook. And that was the first thing I think I typed when I was planning this campaign, like I'm really over it. Um. So it's born out of that kind of spirit of we don't want to do anymore talking to people on the inside. Although that is a lane where I think a lot people are doing a lot of great work, but we don't want to do that. We don't want to continue to put out little fires here and there or big fires here and there. What we want to do is find a new angle to really try to take Facebook and you know, hold it accountable. UM. And that for us was users. That really I think for us, it's a people power thing. Like when we do think about Facebook, we do think about Facebook users, and like you said, before users aren't. I think users and people were not aware that we have power over these things in our pocket that we scroll through every day. And so for us, it's you know, part changing people's minds, changing people's orientation to a platform like Facebook, but also getting people to take and go from you know, a pledge like pledge to log out, to actually take the action, um and log out with us for a couple of days to November. Let's take a quick break. One of the tensions that I feel as a digital organizer is that I have a Facebook and bare I barely use it, but I have Instagram where i'm I'm I'm active. Um. The reason why I still have Facebook is because you know, some of the organizing spaces I'm in a lot of that work happens on Facebook. And that's a real tension that I feel around being on the platform at all. So I guess do you ever, like, like, how do you navigate that tension of like asking people to take these steps to divest from Facebook in this way, but knowing that some people use it for things like you know, organizing, some people use it for communicating with you know, friends and family outside of the US, Like, how do you navigate that tension of oh man, Facebook is really created an ecosystem where so any of us really do have to rely on it, but we maybe don't love that that this relationship that we have with Facebook. Yeah, totally. So I also have a Facebook that I don't really use. I'm on Instagram though, and I joke that I'm part of the problem, but like, I'm part of the problem. So but even doing this work, you know, there is a real tension, and we talked about it all the time internally. We also talked about it to people who you know, respond to our emails saying, hey, I use this from my small business or use this for organizing. And so that's why we're not saying delete Facebook. We're not saying just delete it, leave and figure out what you're going to do afterwards. We're saying, you know, use your power to essentially strike from Facebook, you know, as as workers would strike like how Amazon workers. Um, you know we're on strikes. So you know, we're definitely not going to a delete Facebook route. I think the tension is is an interesting one and I think, you know, looking forward and a more visionary way, I'm interested in having more conversations with people who do lock out of Like, Okay, if Facebook is not the place where you want to be or not a place that is going to be better for us, then how do we create a world where tech is working for us, where social media platforms are working for us. UM. So we definitely here, and we definitely hear the organizing like a lot of black and brown people organize on Facebook. We definitely hear around businesses um. And so we're not expecting people just to up and leave, but we do want to encourage people to take back their power in those in those couple of days UM. And you know, from there we will see and we're hopeful that we can start building a new future. Mm hmm. I really like that. Yeah, I think, you know, I almost would have think of it as a kind of like harm reduction. Like I have Facebook, but I don't have it on my phone, so I don't get any kind of notifications from it when I want. When I need to go to Facebook, I have I go to my computer, open up the browser, type in Facebook dot com and hit enter. And even that, at least for me individually, creates a little bit of a barrier where it's not just buzzing in my pocket all the time, and so little things for me, you know, helped me create the conditions just in my own personal life so that Facebook didn't have such a tight grip on my the way that I understood discourse and community and how I kept in touch with bolts right, and so I didn't outright and delete it, you know, but just finding these little ways that works for me to make it less of a part of my daily life. And honestly, so another one that I did was I stopped posting on facebooks by rarely make a Facebook post. And I think I usually tell people want you delete it from your phone, and you stopped making posts, you'd be surprised how little you care what's on Facebook? Right, You're like, like, you log in and you're like, oh, it's the same three people having the same silly argument that I don't care about. And for me, that really helped loosen the grip that Facebook had in my own life, where I was like, yeah, why do I care what like Megan from my Spanish class and I said about whatever, like I don't even know these people. Like it really created this way for me to make Facebook less a part of my like overall, um diet, I guess. And so I think asking folks to log out for a couple of days is a good way of being like, listen, we're not saying delete it all together. We're saying temporarily get off of it and maybe even use that time to assess the role that it plays in your life overall. Yeah, for sure, I think there's definitely a more like mental health, um and like digital kind of wellness part of this, for sure. And I also think that even so two things. I think you know, when Facebook shut down the glorious six hours when Facebook was not online, we really did see how many people were lying on this thing, and not just in the US, but globally. And the global part was really striking because you know, there's countries outside of the US where you open the Internet and it's Mark Zuckerberg's Internet, and or if you like use WhatsApp for example, um, that is the only way where you can communicate. And so you know, that's a part of the reason why we're saying, like, don't you don't have to delete it's because we know it's so integral to people's lives. And I also will say that you know, I was reading an article today around I think Facebook banned a developer who created this tool to help people unfollowed their feed like have an unfollowed I guess the thing and their feed um to unfollow friends and pages and those sort of things. They said they came with cease and desist energy for this person. They sent you know, legal people after them and banned them from Facebook. I guess for a life or for a very long time. Um. And that is the thing that we're trying to point out. So like, even if Facebook cares about their engagement, and even if you take three days off, that's gonna matter um to the company, which means like you do have power for sure, and go outside, take a walk, all those things when you log off with us in November. What are the demands that y'all are asking a Facebook. I know that you're asking for folks to you're asking for just individuals to log out for three days, But then you have specific demands that you're making a Facebook. Can you talk to talk us through some of those. Our demands are really focused on kind of stemming the harm that's happening now. UM. So we know we need an immediate removal of Mark Zuckerberg is CEO. He's doing a lot straight straight fired. You want him done, gone, like gone, you know what I mean. I would make a reference to um the Apprentice, but I think that's like you can't, we can't really do that. So you know, we're just gonna say fired, fired out. UM. So yeah, that is one of our demands. You know, he's he is both CEO and chairman. He holds a lot of power and the company, and he's making disastrous decisions. Um. And it kind of stems from him. Oh and then other other demands go over content moderation policies. So we would like to see, you know, an overhaul of their policies. Um. We want implementation of privacy centered data policies, a strategy for combating disinformation that doesn't prioritize our bottom line that like actively removes this information that is harmful to folks. Um. And these are just kind of the tip of the iceberg. We you know, see this as the beginning of a long term fight to ensure that Facebook is like a safe place for people, communities to gather more. After a pickbreak, let's get right back into it in terms of like asking him to step down I feel like there aren't a lot of people calling throns a lot of organizations calling for Zuckerberg to step down, which is interesting when you think about, like what a terrible job he is doing at his If if you or I was as bad at our jobs as Zuckerberg is, we would have been fired a long time ago. And so it's interesting how it feels to me that a lot of people are not calling for him to step down or be fired. And I love that y'all are just right out the gate. He shouldn't be allowed to be a decision maker anymore, or he's proven himself to not be responsible, responsible, you know, leader of this massive you know, massive platform. M hmm, yeah. I mean if I was as bad as my job, you know, I would be gone. If I even thought about being as bad as he was, people would have be fired for sure. And that is I think that is on you know, what we've he touched on around People don't think that that is an ask that they can make. Um, And it's not something new that I think I've heard in spaces that we're in, Like there's organizations, mostly organizations with people of color, who have been like, yo, this dude has to go, you know, UM, and so that that is one of our demands because he's he is just doing the most and not in a good way, like he's failing to keep people safe offline and online, and you know, we just we don't want to anymore. When we think about, you know, some of the harm that we know that Facebook has been responsible for, you you have to say, is there anything that surprises you or shocks you about the about some of the harm that we know Facebook has been you know, Party two. I think at this point nothing shocks me when you know these reports come out and like, yes, of course they have, UM. But something that was like striking recently was the information around Instagram and youth and specifically teenage girls, and that I think hit home for a lot of parents and a lot of people who like we're teenage girls or our teenaged girls or just young people on the internet because you know, so much of I think being young and being on the internet is like identity formation. I know for me, like I was on Tumbler figuring out like am like what is my sexual wality? Like what is gender? Oh? There's multiple genders? Cool? Like all those things and I can't imagine being on Instagram at fifteen or sixteen or even you know, ten eleven, twelve like kids are now and being fed really really harmful information um and then trying to go to school and do all the other hard things that middle high school do. And so that was something that was super striking. But I don't think it was surprising. I'm the same right wait, right, Like I came of age on the internet. If it wasn't for you know, America online and when I was fourteen, I would have never. I would have never kind of it was a It was a real place of self discovery, and I think there was not I didn't have the sense that it was like a marketplace for my pain and for my negative experiences where someone was going to be making money incentivizing me feeling bad about myself. And I know the kind of teenager that I was. If that had been the case, I don't know where I would be, Like, I don't I know that I would not have had the ability I It worries me. It's one of those things where I'm like, Wow, I'm really lucky to have come of age when I did. And I think that our generation, like the generation that is coming of age online today. They deserve a media they deserve to come of age and a media landscape that is not a marketplace for their pain. And I was We're so lucky that that it wasn't like that when we were coming of age, And they absolutely deserved to grow up in a landscape and find themselves on line and have these online experiences that can lead the self discovery and can be so self affirming. They deserved that, just like I got mm hmm. Yeah, absolutely, And they deserve to know that there are people that are doing that for them. And I'm not even just talking about groups like our groups, but I'm talking about like the actual companies like well they we're talking about Instagram for kids and responding to the Wall Street Journal reports Facebook which is like, well, it wasn't that bad or we didn't really know or to do it, and it's like do you all hear yourselves? Like do you do you know children? Have you seen the child at all? Do you have children? Like I'm so confused over why you think this is okay? Um, but yeah, kids, kids deserve to create communities online that are safe for them, and that is part of the future that I want to see. So when you think about the future of our digital landscape, are you hopeful? Are you like pessimistic? Like what are your thoughts? I have to be hopeful, like otherwise I wouldn't be in this work, um, and I would be out real quick. So I'm hopeful and I'm hopeful because there's groups, you know, not only ours but our partners, um, who really think about this stuff in a way that is visionary. And I really see more and more that technology issues are integrated into different other issues. So you know, for example, we have green groups signed on to this campaign, We have groups like Ultra Violet that are working on this campaign, and we you know, have groups coming from not just a civil liberties or tech accountability angle, UM. They really see the intersection. So I feel hopeful. I feel like one day we're going to take down Facebook or make something beautiful that's otherwise and it's going to be great. M Well, I'm glad that we have folks like you on our side on this site. Folks want to join us in the campaign, they can go to the Facebook logout dot com, take the pledge, sign up, and we'll see y'all in November for a glorious three days logged out of Facebook, taking or para. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or just want to say hi? You can reach us at Hello at tang godi dot com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangdi dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget Tod. It's a production of iHeart Radio and Unboss creative Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer. Terry Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michaelmato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, check out the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. It is My Hater MP and not Hater Worm w

There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production of My Heart Radio and Unboss Creative. I'm Bridget Todd and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. Last month, we heard from former Facebook data scientists turn whistleblower sophies On about the ways Facebook has spread harm. Her entire story, from taking a job at Facebook to deciding to blow the whistle on the company at great personal risk, is worth listening to. Here's a clip. When you think about Facebook, are you is there part of you that it's hopeful that do you think that it can be, that it can be saved, Can it be a force for good? Or is it just too late? It's reattractive for people to say the road is fundamentally to only broken then can't be fixed. Therefore I'm not going to do anything unless it becomes itself a funny prophecy, and then you can see I was right. Nothing changed because in the end nothing, nothing will happen, none and us and us will be the people make it happen. Because if everyone writes it off and says it's Facebook, it's broken, then what's the point. We already know that it's already awful. We can't do anything then and then that will become a self fulfending prophecy, and no one votes, and no, because no one was stup forward to fix it will change it in the first place. M hm. And so the question if anything happened, that's rending up to us. It's it's up to it's up to yourself, it's up to me, it's up to the people and listening. So what can we do? How can we, just as regular people who use the platform, hold Facebook accountable? It can sometimes feel like we don't really have a lot of power against a billion dollar global tech company like Facebook. But Cairos, an organization that builds power for black and brown communities online, is hoping to change that, starting with asking everyone to log off of Facebook starting November ten. Of Facebook's revenue comes from ads targeted at us, just regular people who use Facebook. Okay, that means the revenue depends on our regular use of and engagement with the platform. No, Cairo's is not asking people to delete Facebook. Instead, it's more like a strike. The Facebook logout campaign is an attempt to harness the economic power of consumers to directly impact Facebook's bottom line, and for Gilani, Drew Davey Cairo's campaign director. It's all about power, taking it away from tech billionaires and building it for marginalized people. So, first of all, how did you wind up doing the work that it is that you do? Like, how did you get to where you are right now? Yeah? I smile because I'm like, I don't really know either. But UM, I was an organizer, grassroots organizer for a while, UM, and I decided that I needed a break a little bit. I think it was really enriched. I lived in Richmond, Virginia in seventeen Charlottesville and all the things, and I was kind of deep in it, and you know, we get burnt out as organizers, and that's what happened to me as a grass its organizer. UM. And my friend was like, hey, well you should do digital organizing and I was like, what even is that? So I decided to apply for the Cairos Fellowship. We really got skilled up and what digital organizing was in a way that I think is very different because it's focused on racial equity and equality and really about changing the field of digital organizing UM and putting black and brown people into it to do the work for our people. And I kind of fell in love with taking down big tech UM, which is a strange sentence to say, but it's something you know, I like to make cereos have a really bad day. And I'm happy to have landed full circle back at CAIROS now that we campaign UM running campaigns at the intersection of tech and racial all justice. Johnny, you and I have been on some many calls together, so many different coalition beings together. We have been talking about making like tech billionaires having the worst, making them have a bad time for a very long time, and it's interesting that we're in this moment where a lot of the public is kind of catching up to us. You know, Facebook has had a really intense couple of weeks in terms of like all of this stuff that we have known for a while becoming public in these very um specific ways. What are your thoughts on just like what we're seeing coming out of Facebook with these whistleblowers and you know, all of this, all of these revelations that we've known for a while being made so painfully clear to folks who might not have been so aware. Yeah, I don't think I've seen a time since maybe Cambridge Analytica and like that first whistleblower that we saw come out where it's been so much attention on Facebook, and I think in the last don't know year with COVID disinformation, with an elect presidential election happening last year, with January six, that has all changed. Like you said, I you know, personally, I'm like where were y'all at? And you know, professionally, I'm like, let's go, let's organize people, Let's get all people to you know, really take back their power. Um. This is definitely a different moment in time where you know, we're seeing Facebook's direct harm on children, our society or democracy, and you know, people are really desperate, I think, to be able to do something about it. It's so interesting that you use the phrase take back our power. I think before I was very involved in like platform accountability work, I just had this us, this blanket assumption that as a person who use social media, person that use technology, I had no power, Like who was I to tell the Mark Zuckerberg's of the world how to run these these these platforms And I didn't fully understand how they work. Like I'm not a software engineer, I'm not a data person, and I think that for me, what really clicked. Was this change of like, well, actually, it wouldn't exist if not for you know, the people who use these platforms, and so if we mass a mass together, we actually do have power. And when I started thinking like that, I was like, why was that so quick to believe this, this fiction that people who use social media have no power and have no right to say, you know, what their experience on these platforms look like. When they are the lifeblood of these platforms. They wouldn't exist if not for for users. Yeah, And it's it's this thing I think that where tech companies want us to think like that, Like Facebook wants us to think that we're just just a user and we just someone with a profile, when that's not actually true. We are the reason why they make money. We are the reason why they are even existing in the first place. And so even beginning to shift your understanding of your power when it comes to social media platforms and technologies that we used is huge. Like that is a huge win. I think if we can start doing that for in massive amounts of people. Yeah, I mean, so let's talk about that a little bit. Um. I know that Cairos is doing the log out Facebook campaign, which I'm so excited about um, and it seems to be just one avenue that folks, just every day folks using social media can start to take back some of that power. Can you tell us a little bit about how that campaign came to be? Yeah, for sure. So you know, this campaign was really born out of frustration is born. You know, when you go to our website, um, the Facebook logout dot com, the first thing you're gonna see is we're really over Facebook. And that was the first thing I think I typed when I was planning this campaign, like I'm really over it. Um. So it's born out of that kind of spirit of we don't want to do anymore talking to people on the inside. Although that is a lane where I think a lot people are doing a lot of great work, but we don't want to do that. We don't want to continue to put out little fires here and there or big fires here and there. What we want to do is find a new angle to really try to take Facebook and you know, hold it accountable. UM. And that for us was users. That really I think for us, it's a people power thing. Like when we do think about Facebook, we do think about Facebook users, and like you said, before users aren't. I think users and people were not aware that we have power over these things in our pocket that we scroll through every day. And so for us, it's you know, part changing people's minds, changing people's orientation to a platform like Facebook, but also getting people to take and go from you know, a pledge like pledge to log out, to actually take the action, um and log out with us for a couple of days to November. Let's take a quick break. One of the tensions that I feel as a digital organizer is that I have a Facebook and bare I barely use it, but I have Instagram where i'm I'm I'm active. Um. The reason why I still have Facebook is because you know, some of the organizing spaces I'm in a lot of that work happens on Facebook. And that's a real tension that I feel around being on the platform at all. So I guess do you ever, like, like, how do you navigate that tension of like asking people to take these steps to divest from Facebook in this way, but knowing that some people use it for things like you know, organizing, some people use it for communicating with you know, friends and family outside of the US, Like, how do you navigate that tension of oh man, Facebook is really created an ecosystem where so any of us really do have to rely on it, but we maybe don't love that that this relationship that we have with Facebook. Yeah, totally. So I also have a Facebook that I don't really use. I'm on Instagram though, and I joke that I'm part of the problem, but like, I'm part of the problem. So but even doing this work, you know, there is a real tension, and we talked about it all the time internally. We also talked about it to people who you know, respond to our emails saying, hey, I use this from my small business or use this for organizing. And so that's why we're not saying delete Facebook. We're not saying just delete it, leave and figure out what you're going to do afterwards. We're saying, you know, use your power to essentially strike from Facebook, you know, as as workers would strike like how Amazon workers. Um, you know we're on strikes. So you know, we're definitely not going to a delete Facebook route. I think the tension is is an interesting one and I think, you know, looking forward and a more visionary way, I'm interested in having more conversations with people who do lock out of Like, Okay, if Facebook is not the place where you want to be or not a place that is going to be better for us, then how do we create a world where tech is working for us, where social media platforms are working for us. UM. So we definitely here, and we definitely hear the organizing like a lot of black and brown people organize on Facebook. We definitely hear around businesses um. And so we're not expecting people just to up and leave, but we do want to encourage people to take back their power in those in those couple of days UM. And you know, from there we will see and we're hopeful that we can start building a new future. Mm hmm. I really like that. Yeah, I think, you know, I almost would have think of it as a kind of like harm reduction. Like I have Facebook, but I don't have it on my phone, so I don't get any kind of notifications from it when I want. When I need to go to Facebook, I have I go to my computer, open up the browser, type in Facebook dot com and hit enter. And even that, at least for me individually, creates a little bit of a barrier where it's not just buzzing in my pocket all the time, and so little things for me, you know, helped me create the conditions just in my own personal life so that Facebook didn't have such a tight grip on my the way that I understood discourse and community and how I kept in touch with bolts right, and so I didn't outright and delete it, you know, but just finding these little ways that works for me to make it less of a part of my daily life. And honestly, so another one that I did was I stopped posting on facebooks by rarely make a Facebook post. And I think I usually tell people want you delete it from your phone, and you stopped making posts, you'd be surprised how little you care what's on Facebook? Right, You're like, like, you log in and you're like, oh, it's the same three people having the same silly argument that I don't care about. And for me, that really helped loosen the grip that Facebook had in my own life, where I was like, yeah, why do I care what like Megan from my Spanish class and I said about whatever, like I don't even know these people. Like it really created this way for me to make Facebook less a part of my like overall, um diet, I guess. And so I think asking folks to log out for a couple of days is a good way of being like, listen, we're not saying delete it all together. We're saying temporarily get off of it and maybe even use that time to assess the role that it plays in your life overall. Yeah, for sure, I think there's definitely a more like mental health, um and like digital kind of wellness part of this, for sure. And I also think that even so two things. I think you know, when Facebook shut down the glorious six hours when Facebook was not online, we really did see how many people were lying on this thing, and not just in the US, but globally. And the global part was really striking because you know, there's countries outside of the US where you open the Internet and it's Mark Zuckerberg's Internet, and or if you like use WhatsApp for example, um, that is the only way where you can communicate. And so you know, that's a part of the reason why we're saying, like, don't you don't have to delete it's because we know it's so integral to people's lives. And I also will say that you know, I was reading an article today around I think Facebook banned a developer who created this tool to help people unfollowed their feed like have an unfollowed I guess the thing and their feed um to unfollow friends and pages and those sort of things. They said they came with cease and desist energy for this person. They sent you know, legal people after them and banned them from Facebook. I guess for a life or for a very long time. Um. And that is the thing that we're trying to point out. So like, even if Facebook cares about their engagement, and even if you take three days off, that's gonna matter um to the company, which means like you do have power for sure, and go outside, take a walk, all those things when you log off with us in November. What are the demands that y'all are asking a Facebook. I know that you're asking for folks to you're asking for just individuals to log out for three days, But then you have specific demands that you're making a Facebook. Can you talk to talk us through some of those. Our demands are really focused on kind of stemming the harm that's happening now. UM. So we know we need an immediate removal of Mark Zuckerberg is CEO. He's doing a lot straight straight fired. You want him done, gone, like gone, you know what I mean. I would make a reference to um the Apprentice, but I think that's like you can't, we can't really do that. So you know, we're just gonna say fired, fired out. UM. So yeah, that is one of our demands. You know, he's he is both CEO and chairman. He holds a lot of power and the company, and he's making disastrous decisions. Um. And it kind of stems from him. Oh and then other other demands go over content moderation policies. So we would like to see, you know, an overhaul of their policies. Um. We want implementation of privacy centered data policies, a strategy for combating disinformation that doesn't prioritize our bottom line that like actively removes this information that is harmful to folks. Um. And these are just kind of the tip of the iceberg. We you know, see this as the beginning of a long term fight to ensure that Facebook is like a safe place for people, communities to gather more. After a pickbreak, let's get right back into it in terms of like asking him to step down I feel like there aren't a lot of people calling throns a lot of organizations calling for Zuckerberg to step down, which is interesting when you think about, like what a terrible job he is doing at his If if you or I was as bad at our jobs as Zuckerberg is, we would have been fired a long time ago. And so it's interesting how it feels to me that a lot of people are not calling for him to step down or be fired. And I love that y'all are just right out the gate. He shouldn't be allowed to be a decision maker anymore, or he's proven himself to not be responsible, responsible, you know, leader of this massive you know, massive platform. M hmm, yeah. I mean if I was as bad as my job, you know, I would be gone. If I even thought about being as bad as he was, people would have be fired for sure. And that is I think that is on you know, what we've he touched on around People don't think that that is an ask that they can make. Um, And it's not something new that I think I've heard in spaces that we're in, Like there's organizations, mostly organizations with people of color, who have been like, yo, this dude has to go, you know, UM, and so that that is one of our demands because he's he is just doing the most and not in a good way, like he's failing to keep people safe offline and online, and you know, we just we don't want to anymore. When we think about, you know, some of the harm that we know that Facebook has been responsible for, you you have to say, is there anything that surprises you or shocks you about the about some of the harm that we know Facebook has been you know, Party two. I think at this point nothing shocks me when you know these reports come out and like, yes, of course they have, UM. But something that was like striking recently was the information around Instagram and youth and specifically teenage girls, and that I think hit home for a lot of parents and a lot of people who like we're teenage girls or our teenaged girls or just young people on the internet because you know, so much of I think being young and being on the internet is like identity formation. I know for me, like I was on Tumbler figuring out like am like what is my sexual wality? Like what is gender? Oh? There's multiple genders? Cool? Like all those things and I can't imagine being on Instagram at fifteen or sixteen or even you know, ten eleven, twelve like kids are now and being fed really really harmful information um and then trying to go to school and do all the other hard things that middle high school do. And so that was something that was super striking. But I don't think it was surprising. I'm the same right wait, right, Like I came of age on the internet. If it wasn't for you know, America online and when I was fourteen, I would have never. I would have never kind of it was a It was a real place of self discovery, and I think there was not I didn't have the sense that it was like a marketplace for my pain and for my negative experiences where someone was going to be making money incentivizing me feeling bad about myself. And I know the kind of teenager that I was. If that had been the case, I don't know where I would be, Like, I don't I know that I would not have had the ability I It worries me. It's one of those things where I'm like, Wow, I'm really lucky to have come of age when I did. And I think that our generation, like the generation that is coming of age online today. They deserve a media they deserve to come of age and a media landscape that is not a marketplace for their pain. And I was We're so lucky that that it wasn't like that when we were coming of age, And they absolutely deserved to grow up in a landscape and find themselves on line and have these online experiences that can lead the self discovery and can be so self affirming. They deserved that, just like I got mm hmm. Yeah, absolutely, And they deserve to know that there are people that are doing that for them. And I'm not even just talking about groups like our groups, but I'm talking about like the actual companies like well they we're talking about Instagram for kids and responding to the Wall Street Journal reports Facebook which is like, well, it wasn't that bad or we didn't really know or to do it, and it's like do you all hear yourselves? Like do you do you know children? Have you seen the child at all? Do you have children? Like I'm so confused over why you think this is okay? Um, but yeah, kids, kids deserve to create communities online that are safe for them, and that is part of the future that I want to see. So when you think about the future of our digital landscape, are you hopeful? Are you like pessimistic? Like what are your thoughts? I have to be hopeful, like otherwise I wouldn't be in this work, um, and I would be out real quick. So I'm hopeful and I'm hopeful because there's groups, you know, not only ours but our partners, um, who really think about this stuff in a way that is visionary. And I really see more and more that technology issues are integrated into different other issues. So you know, for example, we have green groups signed on to this campaign, We have groups like Ultra Violet that are working on this campaign, and we you know, have groups coming from not just a civil liberties or tech accountability angle, UM. They really see the intersection. So I feel hopeful. I feel like one day we're going to take down Facebook or make something beautiful that's otherwise and it's going to be great. M Well, I'm glad that we have folks like you on our side on this site. Folks want to join us in the campaign, they can go to the Facebook logout dot com, take the pledge, sign up, and we'll see y'all in November for a glorious three days logged out of Facebook, taking or para. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or just want to say hi? You can reach us at Hello at tang godi dot com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangdi dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget Tod. It's a production of iHeart Radio and Unboss creative Jonathan Strickland as our executive producer. Terry Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michaelmato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, check out the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. It is My Hater MP and not Hater Worm w