Just Ten Steps

Summary

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Incels — "Just Ten Steps" (October 1, 2025)

Podcast: Incels (iHeartPodcasts)
Episode Focus: The role of online algorithms, anonymity, and social media in the radicalization and isolation of incels—and the real-world costs of these dynamics.

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Episode Overview

In this episode, host Courtney Armstrong and the team delve into the mechanics of how young men are drawn into incel communities online. The focus is on the “ten steps” by which innocuous internet browsing can lead vulnerable individuals to violent and misogynistic online subcultures. Through interviews with experts, first-hand accounts, and analysis, the episode explores the amplifying effects of social media algorithms, the allure of anonymity, the psychological impact on young users, and the real-world consequences—including both self-harm and violence—that can emerge from these processes. The conversation is both revealing and urgent, shedding light on the societal and technological forces behind what has become a growing crisis.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Role of Anonymity and Online Forums (05:04–07:30)

• Incels on Public vs. Anonymous Platforms:
  • Connor Powell explains that incels are less extreme and more reserved when posting in communities with real names and moderation, like Facebook and Reddit. In contrast, fully anonymous boards (e.g., incel.co) foster much more extreme, abusive content.
    • Quote:

      "On the INCEL discussion board...they are very aware that what they're posting could get them into trouble... you get a lot more abusive language, a lot more sort of obscene language on this incel website than you would say on, like an incel chat group." (05:04)

• Online Disinhibition Effect:
  • The team discusses how anonymity removes real-world consequences, heightening hateful and dangerous expression.
    • Quote:

      "They feel most comfortable when they can use this abusive language and say things that most people would find pretty obscene." (06:38)

Algorithmic Amplification & The Path to Radicalization (07:30–11:38)

• Social Media Algorithms as Accelerants:
  • Connor Powell and Stephanie Lydecker note that algorithms are tailored to maximize engagement and profit, often by pushing inflaming, anxiety-inducing content.
    • Quote:

      "Algorithms...are the digital equivalent of AR-15s." (08:10)

  • Boydsen Hodson (Mankind Project USA) warns of how algorithms can rapidly take a child from innocent content to violent or misogynist communities:
    • Quote:

      "A nine year old boy can very easily go from a very innocuous YouTube video to hardcore incel ideology in 10 steps...it's very easy to go from simple stuff into very harmful stuff if you just follow the algorithm." (10:34)

• Developmental Dangers:
  • The team draws on research from Jonathan Haidt and the book Dopamine Nation to highlight how exposure to these feeds is a massive, uncontrolled experiment on young brains.
    • Quote:

      "We are rewiring our children's brains in ways we don't even understand and we won't actually know what the outcome is for another 10 years." (11:46)

Algorithms, Engagement, and Profit (18:02–21:33)

• The Business of Outrage:
  • Connor Powell describes how the main goal of tech giants is not connection, but profit through engagement. Anxious and angry users are more "engaged."
    • Quote:

      "The single most important metric...is engagement. How do you keep people engaged? You build a sense of anxiety. You fire them up. They are designed to take you to bad places." (18:18)

  • He provides an example of YouTube’s reach and monetization, comparing its valuation to first-world countries.
    • Quote:

      "YouTube...has roughly the same value as some of these other first world countries. That's how big and powerful YouTube as a standalone company is." (21:03)

Real-World Effects: Violence and Self-Harm (21:48–29:39, 33:34–40:29)

• Radicalization to Violence:
  • Gabriel Castillo points out how isolated individuals are targeted and groomed for extremism, often leading to real acts of violence.
    • Quote:

      "Here you are, you're on your computer, you're lacking community and now suddenly community is finding you...the community is full on targeting you because...you might be vulnerable and lonely." (21:48)

  • Connor Powell lists recent violent acts where perpetrators posted manifestos or live-streamed their crimes, showing the centrality of social media in these attacks.
    • Quote:

      "Social media is a part of the thought process for violent acts in this country." (34:01)

• Self-Harm Epidemic:
  • The discussion pivots to self-harm rates among youth, exacerbated by algorithmic exposure.
    • Quote:

      "There are...studies that have been done at this point about the self harm social media sites do to young adults. This is known...it's scientific, sort of proven now." (36:51)

First-Hand Incel Perspective: Mr. East (23:29–27:39)

• How the Algorithm Facilitates Entrenchment:
  • Mr. East, an interviewee who identifies as an incel, says the internet doesn't make people incel, but it provides a space and feedback loop for "black pill" ideas and community through algorithms.
    • Quote (Mr. East):

      "The Internet certainly allows more...‘black pill’ types of people to get together and discuss their thoughts and ideas." (23:50) "A lot of these people, they aren't really like bad people, they are just lonely, maybe socially awkward...it's much easier over the Internet to communicate and form groups than in real life." (24:58)

  • He underscores that online communities do not truly cure loneliness; they can deepen negative feelings and, within echo chambers, drive radicalization.
    • Quote (Mr. East):

      "No online group in general can really substitute for interpersonal relationships in real life...it does cause many people to become more and more radicalized." (26:38)

Lack of Regulation & Future Risks (38:08–40:29)

• No Guardrails:
  • The conversation highlights the stark difference between the regulated content of legacy media and the "open field" of the internet, especially in how algorithms push users into rabbit holes.
    • Quote:

      "There really is no oversight of these complex algorithms because it's all intellectual property for these companies...their only goal is to make money." (38:08)

  • The potential consequences: increasingly extreme, politically motivated content and a deepening “doom scrolling” culture among the young.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Anonymity:
  • Connor Powell (05:04) — "They are very aware that what they're posting could get them into trouble...a lot more obscene language on this incel website."
• Boydsen Hodson (10:34) — "A nine-year-old boy can very easily go from a very innocuous YouTube video to hardcore incel ideology in ten steps."
• On Engagement as Profit:
  • Connor Powell (18:18) — "The single most important metric...is engagement. You build a sense of anxiety. You fire them up."
• On Self-harm and Social Media:
  • Connor Powell (36:51) — "The amount of self harm...that social media sites do to young adults. This is known...scientific, sort of proven now."
• Mr. East (First-hand Incel):
  • (26:38) — "No online group...can really substitute for interpersonal relationships in real life...it does cause many people to become more and more radicalized."

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• Introduction & Recap of Prior Episodes: 03:27
• Anonymity in Incel Forums: 05:04
• Algorithmic Amplification & ‘Ten Steps’ to Radicalization: 07:30–11:38
• Developmental Effects & Dangers for Youth: 11:46
• Algorithms and Social Media Profit Motives: 18:02–21:33
• Connection to Violent Attacks: 21:48–23:29, 34:01–36:23
• First-hand Incel Perspective (Mr. East): 23:29–27:39
• Dangers of Self-Harm & Lack of Regulations: 36:51–40:29

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Tone and Approach

The speakers’ tone is serious, direct, and often urgent. There is an undercurrent of alarm about how much control has been ceded to unregulated tech companies and how quickly youth can fall into dangerous online subcultures. The conversation is frank—grounded in first-hand accounts, expert analysis, and a clear-eyed look at systemic issues behind incel radicalization.

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Summary for New Listeners

"Just Ten Steps" offers a deep-dive into how modern algorithm-driven internet spaces can feed loneliness, anger, and misogyny, especially among vulnerable young men. The episode charts the journey from online anonymity to radicalization, explores how profit-driven tech platforms foster extremism, and provides both expert insights and a sobering personal account from within the incel community. The result is a chilling, nuanced, and essential exploration of one of the digital age’s most pressing subcultural threats.

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Transcript

[Courtney Armstrong]

This is an I heart podcast.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Hey, it's Karen and Georgia, and we just celebrated our 500th episode of My Favorite Murder.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's 500 podcasts filled with true crime.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Comedy and some light girl math.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We're about to podcast for you.

[Gabriel Castillo]

Watch this.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We have to think of something to say after welcome every week. And we're doing it every week for 10 years.

[Stephanie Lydecker]

Almost 10 years.

[Georgia Hardstark]

10 years. 10. That's what 500 episodes sounds like.

[Karen Kilgariff]

New episodes every Thursday. Listen to my favorite murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Connor Powell]

Goodbye.

[Maggie Freeling]

The murder of an 18 year old girl in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved for years until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

[Boydsen Hodson]

America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people and small towns.

[Maggie Freeling]

Listen to Graves county on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad free, subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Ed Helms]

Hey, it's Ed Helms, host of Snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new snafu. Every single, single episode.

[Georgia Hardstark]

32 lost nuclear weapons. You're like, wait, stop What?

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, it's gonna be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of fabulous guests. Paul Scheer, Angela and Jenna. Nick Kroll, Jordan Klepper. Listen to season four of SNAFU with Ed Helms on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and on the new season of Heavyweight.

[Courtney Armstrong]

And so I pointed the gun at him and said, this isn't a joke.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

A man who robbed a bank when he was 14 years old and a centenarian rediscovers a love lost 80 years ago.

[Gabriel Castillo]

How can 101-year-old woman fall in love again?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Listen to heavyweight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I knew I wanted to obey and submit, but I didn't fully grasp for.

[Karen Kilgariff]

The rest of my life what that meant for my heart.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Podcasts and Rococo punch. This is the turning River Road. In the woods of Minnesota, a cult leader married himself to 10 girls and forced them into a secret life of abuse. But in 2014, the youngest escaped. Listen to the turning river road on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Courtney Armstrong]

From the dark corners of the web. An emerging mindset.

[Connor Powell]

I am a loser. If I was a woman, I wouldn't date me either.

[Courtney Armstrong]

A hidden world of resentment, cynicism, anger at a deadly tipping point.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Incels will be added to the terrorism guide.

[Connor Powell]

Police say a driver intentionally drove into.

[Stephanie Lydecker]

A crowd, killing 10 people. Tomorrow is the day of retribution, the.

[Courtney Armstrong]

Day in which I will have my revenge.

[Connor Powell]

Very angry, expressing a lot of hatred towards women and towards men who get all the women.

[Gabriel Castillo]

I just told my husband, I know she's dead.

[Courtney Armstrong]

This is Incels, a production of KT Studios and iHeartRadio. Season 1, Episode 3 Just 10 Steps I'm Courtney Armstrong, a producer at KT Studios with Stephanie Lydecker, Gabriel Castillo, Connor Powell and Carolyn Miller. In the first two episodes we identified what incels are, spoke with experts about ideologies, language and where they commonly congregate online. We also we also heard from two remarkable mothers who shared in the aftermath of losing their daughters, 19 year old Veronica Weiss and 17 year old Bianca Devins. Both girls died senselessly at the hands of INCEL ideology taken to its most violent extreme. In the case of Bianca, what her killer did post mortem continues online to this day.

[Stephanie Lydecker]

17 year old Bianca Devins of Utica was found dead in a wooded area at the end of the street.

[Connor Powell]

Her killer posted the images of her.

[Boydsen Hodson]

Body online and they soon went viral on Discord.

[Georgia Hardstark]

It's fairly common for people to post gore and disturbing images just to sort.

[Maggie Freeling]

Of get a rise out of people.

[Courtney Armstrong]

Kim Devens, Bianca's mother, spoke about how toxic and dangerous the conversations are in INCEL forums. That's where we spent a lot of time throughout our producing both to get a lay of the land and to gather firsthand experiences. Here's investing investigative journalist and producer Connor Powell talking about his experiences on INCEL forums.

[Connor Powell]

There's sort of two different groups. There are those that are very public about their struggles and self, describing themselves as incels. And on places like Facebook and Reddit they tend to be a little bit more sort of calm, a little less angry. And that's part according to talking to them is that both Facebook and Reddit have some rules, have some moderation restrictions and they do police the language they are using, often their own names. So they're a little bit more easy to talk to. But on the INCEL discussion board, INCEL Co or INCEL is those names are all anonymous. They don't use the real names. In fact there was a whole discussion thread about how you can best protect yourself, about protecting your identity. So that you can essentially post as angrily, as obscene as you want without having to have any repercussions. So you, you know, they are very aware that what they're posting could get them into trouble. And I think you see a lot more abusive language, a lot more sort of obscene language on this incel website than you would say on, like an incel chat group on Facebook or even Reddit online. Anonymity means no repercussions for being nasty. Add all this together and you get.

[Gabriel Castillo]

What psychologists call the online disinhibition effect.

[Georgia Hardstark]

And effectively it dictates that people will do things that they wouldn't do in the real world.

[Courtney Armstrong]

I asked why members of incel forums would have such a strong focus on security and anonymity.

[Connor Powell]

They don't want to lose their jobs. They don't want to have other groups that are combating incel behavior or incel speech, you know, find out their names and put their information out on social media to have the police called on them, to have other groups attack them online. So, you know, they really do make a real effort to protect their identity because they just don't want to be called out. They know generally what they're saying is inappropriate. Generally what they're saying is not acceptable in sort of the real world. I saw one person talk about how for them, the real world is online, and the real world for them in terms of interacting with other people is sort of the fake world. They have to be somebody they're not in the real world, and that's because they feel most comfortable when they can use this abusive language and say things that most people would find pretty obscene.

[Courtney Armstrong]

Spending time on whatever you're interested in is not a new phenomenon. People have things in common or generally agree with one another. Forming groups is not a new phenomenon. However, the ways people are fed information and are drawn together online, specifically in social media, has not just been mega amplified, it's literally gotten out of human control.

[Ed Helms]

Americans average more than two hours a day scrolling content fed to us through algorithms based on our specific interests and past online activity. But a growing chorus of critics warns that algorithms can lead us to disturbing places and to making bad choices.

[Connor Powell]

These algorithms, they are the Digital equivalent of AR15s.

[Courtney Armstrong]

Social media algorithms seem to hand deliver whatever you didn't know you needed right to your phone or computer and instantly how to craft the perfect cocktail out of pear juice, master a cartwheel, or spruce up your backyard. These are innocuous examples. Here's Stephanie and Connor Powell discussing the potentially nefarious side of algorithms.

[Connor Powell]

At its most basic level, the algorithm is a computer or social media site deciding what is put in front of you in your feed. It's a computational set of rules that whether it's one of the large companies like Facebook or Google, they've decided that they are going to push content to you. It's the computer saying, you're going to watch this. And the more you scroll, the more you look at things, the more it learns about your behavior and your attitudes and your interests. Now they're looking like, are you a young man? The algorithms are getting so sophisticated, they're starting to do predictive interests and predictive likes. And for young men and for young girls, that can get really dangerous because the algorithm sort of making general overarching decisions about what you should be interested in and it can push you in those directions because again, what are they trying to do? They're trying to engage. What's the easiest way to engage? To inflame. If you're fired up, if you're angry, if you are riddled with anxiety, you keep scrolling, you keep looking through, creating a feedback.

[Gabriel Castillo]

And what we're seeing real time with incels, which I thought was really staggering. There is no question now that there are certain groups and people who are specifically targeting young demographics, who have a very limited social network, who maybe feel isolated in the world, who maybe feel like the loner, who may have suicide ideation or a tilt toward violence because they're feeling completely disenfranchised. That is the target. So it's not just this happy accident where two things are meeting in this dark place.

[Courtney Armstrong]

We spoke with Boydsen Hodson, the communications and marketing director for the Mankind Project usa. He shared some disturbing but very important information with us.

[Boydsen Hodson]

It is very easy to see and folks my age, folks who are older, parents, we have young adult children, a lot of us, we don't even know what our children are seeing. And when the researchers go and look at content and just kind of let the algorithms take over for them, what is inevitably going to happen with incel ideology, with pornography, with any kind of violent or antisocial messaging, is that the content will get increasingly violent and increasingly more negative if you just let the algorithm control what you're seeing. So a nine year old boy can very easily go from a very innocuous YouTube video to hardcore incel ideology in 10 steps. You know, that's a made up number. But it's very easy to go from very simple stuff into very harmful stuff if you just follow the algorithm.

[Courtney Armstrong]

We asked how this continuous violent and antisocial content affects young developing minds.

[Boydsen Hodson]

There is an incredibly dangerous developmental experiment that we are playing with young people in our culture. Jonathan Haidt talks about this in his writing quite a lot. There's a book called Dopamine Nation that really highlights this idea that we are rewiring our children's brains in ways that we don't even understand and we won't actually know what the outcome is for another 10 years or so. The addictive process is an incredibly powerful process that we are kind of just letting run our society.

[Courtney Armstrong]

Let's stop here for a break. We'll be back in a moment.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Hey, it's Karen and Georgia and we just celebrated our 500th episode of My Favorite Murder.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's 500 podcasts filled with true crime.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Comedy and some light girl math.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We're about to podcast for you. Watch this.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We have to think of something to say after welcome every week. And we're doing it every week for 10 years.

[Stephanie Lydecker]

Almost 10 years.

[Georgia Hardstark]

10 years.

[Connor Powell]

10.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's what 500 episodes sounds like.

[Karen Kilgariff]

New episodes every Thursday. Listen to My Favorite murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Gabriel Castillo]

Goodbye.

[Stephanie Lydecker]

All I know is what I've been told. And that's a half truth is a whole lie.

[Maggie Freeling]

For almost a decade, the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

[Stephanie Lydecker]

I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her.

[Maggie Freeling]

We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national tv.

[Connor Powell]

Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran.

[Maggie Freeling]

My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.

[Connor Powell]

I did not know her and I did not kill her or rape or burn or any of that other stuff.

[Stephanie Lydecker]

That y' all said.

[Gabriel Castillo]

They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I poured gas on her.

[Maggie Freeling]

From lava for good. This is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame.

[Boydsen Hodson]

America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people and small towns.

[Maggie Freeling]

Listen to Graves county in the Bone Valley. Feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts and to binge the entire season ad free subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Ed Helms]

Hey, it's Ed Helms. And welcome back to snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new snafu. Every single, single episode.

[Georgia Hardstark]

32 lost nuclear weapons. You're like, wait, stop.

[Gabriel Castillo]

What?

[Connor Powell]

Ernie Shackleton sounds like a solid 70s.

[Ed Helms]

Basketball player who still wore knee pads.

[Connor Powell]

Yes.

[Ed Helms]

It's going to be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of guests. The great Paul Scheer made me feel good. I'm like, oh, wow, Angela and Jenna, I am so psyched you're here.

[Georgia Hardstark]

What was that like for you? To a soft launch into the show.

[Ed Helms]

Sorry, Jenna, I'll be asking the questions today.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I forgot whose podcast we were doing.

[Ed Helms]

Nick Kroll. I hope this story is good enough to get you to toss that sandwich. So let's see how it goes. Listen to season four of SNAFU with Ed Helms on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and on the new season of Heavyweight, I help a centenarian.

[Gabriel Castillo]

Mend a broke how can 101-year-old woman fall in love again?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

And I help a man atone for an armed robbery he committed at 14 years old.

[Courtney Armstrong]

And so I pointed the gun at him and said, this isn't a joke. And he got down.

[Connor Powell]

And I remember feeling kind of a.

[Courtney Armstrong]

Surge of like, okay, this is power.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Plus, my old friend Gregor and his brother tried to solve my problems through hypnotism.

[Connor Powell]

We could give you a whole brand.

[Ed Helms]

New thing where you're like, super charming.

[Stephanie Lydecker]

All the time, being more able to.

[Ed Helms]

Look people in the eye, not always hide behind a microphone.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Listen to heavyweight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Stephanie Lydecker]

I started trying to get pregnant about four years ago.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Now we're getting a little bit older and it just kind of felt like the window could be closing. Bloomberg and iHeart podcasts present IVF Disrupted the Kindbody Story, a podcast about a company that promised to revolutionize fertility care. Introducing kindbody, a new generation of women's health and fertility care. Backed by millions in venture capital and private equity, it grew like a tech startup. While Kindbody did help women start families, it also left behind a stream of disillusioned and angry patients.

[Stephanie Lydecker]

You think you're finally, like, with the right people in the right hands, and then to find out again that you're just not.

[Courtney Armstrong]

Don't be Fooled by what all the bright and shiny.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Listen to IVF the Kind Body Story starting September 19th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Courtney Armstrong]

Here again, Connor Powell and Stephanie Lydecker. They're talking about how social media is specifically designed to keep us all on edge or enraged. It's a way of locking us into the doom scrolling loops.

[Connor Powell]

So the single most important metric that social media companies use for their sites and Mark Zuckerberg has talked about this, is engagement. What is engagement? Engagement is how long are you on their website and how do you keep people engaged? You build a sense of anxiety. You fire them up. They are designed to take you to bad places.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Have you ever felt like the ads that you see on your social media.

[Courtney Armstrong]

Feed are specifically targeted to you?

[Karen Kilgariff]

It's almost like the app is listening to your conversation.

[Stephanie Lydecker]

What if your phone already knows what you'll buy, who you'll date, even what you'll fear before you do?

[Connor Powell]

The single largest entertainment company in the world is not Comcast, Paramount, Disney, the BBC or any of these other companies. It is YouTube. There is more content, it creates more revenue and more profit than any other. And YouTube has something that no other company does because YouTube is owned by Alphabet, the Google company. Right. If you send an email that gets pumped into how you will look and what is fed to you in YouTube because it will read what you are doing, an email or what you are searching for. I want baseball cleats for my son. Guess what's going to pop up on YouTube? Advertisements or people talking about baseball equipment or people talking about sports. Or maybe they broaden it out. If you put in something that's maybe darker. Oh, gasoline canister. Who knows what's going to pop up on YouTube when you go to YouTube, right? Yeah. Maybe it's for your vehicle or maybe it's for something else. We just don't know because we don't know what's in the algorithm. It can take you to some very dark places.

[Gabriel Castillo]

What you just described is exactly the point and frankly the scariest thing I've ever heard.

[Connor Powell]

Do you remember when we first got on social media and this is 20 years ago. Right. It went from being a connection to your family and friends to essentially a non stop advertisement of other people's products.

[Gabriel Castillo]

You bring up a good point about advertising and I guess that's the key question that we want to unpack. Where is the money? Who is paying for what? The oldest adage in the land, follow the money.

[Connor Powell]

I mean, the largest companies in the world right now are all tech companies that are dealing with AI or providing algorithms for content. When Google purchased YouTube back in 2006, 20 years ago about now, they purchased for 1.6 billion and is now worth roughly $500 billion. That's an incredible return for the Google Alphabet company and it's the largest media company in the world right now. Their reach is global and they don't pay for any content. All they do is put ads on user generated content. Just to put that in perspective, there are first world countries like Austria, Singapore, Norway which have GDPs, the Gross Domestic product, which is sort of the how big is the economy that are roughly $500 billion. So YouTube as a standalone company has roughly the same value as some of these other first world countries. That's how big and powerful YouTube as a standalone company is.

[Courtney Armstrong]

Stephanie and Connor turn their attention from the nuts and bolts of algorithms technology so powerful it's collectively worth trillions of dollars worldwide, to how their impacts can lead to real world violence.

[Gabriel Castillo]

If we're watching things on our social media that are intentionally being targeted or our small perspective, that's also pretty dangerous. So if you're somebody who's unemployed, tough on their luck, living in the basement of mom and dad's house, kind of feeling a little bit lonesome and depressed, not really assimilating into the real world. Here you are, you're on your computer, you're lacking community and now suddenly community is finding you. Now suddenly said community is dark and potentially dangerous and they're filling your brain with more dark, scary information. So while you may feel like you are a part of a community, the community is full on targeting you because they know that you might be vulnerable and lonely and susceptible to them and at the end of the day could lead to violence. As we're seeing real time.

[Connor Powell]

In the hour before the attack, a four page manifesto allegedly written by Crucius appeared online. Social media posts attributed to him contain other hate speech. And a final entry just before the shooting perhaps was an indicator of the deadly violence about to unfold. The suspect repeatedly posted photos of Guns and Bowers profile page read, quote, screw your optics, I'm going in.

[Gabriel Castillo]

Even when we started this podcast, this was not that prevalent in terms of language, incels, things like that. Now it's on the ticker of every show we are seeing because the radicalization and these dark corners of the web that are not regulated, we're all subjected to it and don't even realize it. So and we're adults, what about those who were kind of finding their way on their own.

[Courtney Armstrong]

We had an in depth interview with the young man who self identifies as an incel. He goes by Mr. East. We'll hear more of his personal story in a later episode. For now, in an effort to hear all perspectives, we asked Mr. East how he feels algorithms are impacting his world. For me it was eye opening.

[Stephanie Lydecker]

I mean, algorithms, I don't think they're doing it intentionally. I think they're more like they're doing it because they see like people view a lot of these contents and they push the content because, you know, they want to make money. Right. And more, the more people view them, the more ad revenue they get, the more money they make. And what happens is that a lot of these people, basically it's a, it's a spiral. People might start viewing like, why, why don't girls like me? Or why what am I doing wrong on Tinder at first. And maybe afterwards they, they start following into the red pill sphere. Maybe not like the black pill right away. It all depends on how like the algorithm plays out. By chance. I don't believe the Internet makes people into incels. I think like life experiences does, but like the Internet certainly allows more like more of these black pill types of people to like get together and discuss their thoughts and ideas.

[Courtney Armstrong]

We asked Mr. East how he personally got involved in online incel groups as well as how and why he thinks others found these communities.

[Stephanie Lydecker]

Yeah, I do think that algorithm plays a large role into forming these groups. I first joined the community because I wanted to basically talk to people. I, I was never too good at forming relationships, you know, making friends. So when I got invited within the community and started like talking and getting along with a lot of the people, I do believe that a lot of these people, they aren't really like bad people, they are just lonely, maybe socially awkward as well. Which is why the Internet, I guess, in a way is so easy for them to, you know, get together and form these communities. Because it is much easier over the Internet to communicate and form groups than it is in real life. A lot of them, including me, we do bond over our shared sense of failure in a way, you know, it's sometimes good to know, hey, you're not the only failure within this world, you know, you're, you're not alone in this. And I feel like that really resonates with a lot of people because one of the things I do believe that occurs when people are failing depending on like how many people around them share the same problems they might feel more alone because they might think, why am I the only one who's struggling with this? Why is nobody else? Is there something intrinsically wrong with me? I think having a community that can tell you, you know, we're just like you. We share the same problems and we can have a, we can have a laugh about it. We can say, hey, it's over, you know, it never began.

[Courtney Armstrong]

We asked Mr. East about how online groups compare to in person physical connections.

[Stephanie Lydecker]

I would say that no online group in general can really substitute for interpersonal relationships in real life. And I think despite having, like, a community that can relate to you, I do think that it doesn't really solve your loneliness. And this is where, like, a lot of people get sucked into, like, the part of the community that is, like, more misogynistic, more hateful, and more like, angry. Because when you don't have any in real life relationships and you instead spend all your time within these echo chambers that like, you know, are just born from people's pain and anger and frustration, it does cause many people to become more and more radicalized. And basically online isn't like a replacement for real life loneliness. You will still feel lonely even if you are part of these communities, despite what society tells you. You know, the nice guy doesn't win. The nice guy never wins. In this case.

[Gabriel Castillo]

Algorithms feed us what they think we want to see. It gets to the point where people often don't see opposing ideas that may challenge their own views, unless it's through the lens of attacking or mocking the other side. And the cycle keeps going.

[Courtney Armstrong]

Let's stop here for another break. We'll be back in a moment.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Foreign.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Hey, it's Karen and Georgia and we just celebrated our 500th episode of My Favorite Murder.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's 500 podcasts filled with true crime.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Comedy and some light girl math.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We're about to podcast for you. Watch this.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We have to think of something to say after welcome every week. And we're doing it every week for 10 years.

[Stephanie Lydecker]

What's the 10 years?

[Georgia Hardstark]

10 years.

[Connor Powell]

10.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's what 500 episodes sounds like.

[Karen Kilgariff]

New episodes every Thursday. Listen to my favorite murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Gabriel Castillo]

Goodbye.

[Stephanie Lydecker]

All I know is what I've been told, and that's a half truth is a whole lie.

[Maggie Freeling]

For almost a decade, the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with A story.

[Stephanie Lydecker]

I'm telling you. We know Quincy killed her.

[Maggie Freeling]

We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national tv.

[Connor Powell]

Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Kerr.

[Maggie Freeling]

My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.

[Connor Powell]

I did not know her and I did not kill her or rape or burn or any of that other stuff.

[Stephanie Lydecker]

That y' all said.

[Gabriel Castillo]

They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I poured gas on her.

[Maggie Freeling]

From Lava for good. This is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame.

[Boydsen Hodson]

America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns.

[Maggie Freeling]

Listen to Graves county in the Bone Valley feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Ed Helms]

Hey, it's Ed Helms. And welcome back to Snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new Snafu Every single episode.

[Georgia Hardstark]

32 lost nuclear weapons. You're like, wait, stop.

[Gabriel Castillo]

What?

[Connor Powell]

Yeah, Ernie Shackleton sounds like a solid 70s basketball player who still wore knee pads. Yes.

[Ed Helms]

It's going to be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of guests. The great Paul Scheer made me feel good. I'm like, oh, wow, Angela and Jenna, I am so psyched you're here.

[Georgia Hardstark]

What was that like for you to soft launch into the show?

[Ed Helms]

Sorry, Jenna, I'll be asking the questions today.

[Georgia Hardstark]

I forgot whose podcast we were doing.

[Ed Helms]

Nick Kroll. I hope this story is good enough to get you to toss that sandwich.

[Boydsen Hodson]

So let's see how it goes.

[Ed Helms]

Listen to season four of SNAFU with Ed Helms on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and on the new season of Heavyweight, I help a centenarian mend a broken heart.

[Gabriel Castillo]

How can one one year old woman fall in love again?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

And I help a man atone for an armed robbery he committed at 14 years old.

[Courtney Armstrong]

And so I pointed the gun at him and said, this isn't a joke. And he got down.

[Connor Powell]

And I remember feeling kind of a.

[Courtney Armstrong]

Surge of like, okay, this is power.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Plus my old friend Gregor and his brother try to solve my problems through hypnotism.

[Connor Powell]

We could give you a whole brand.

[Ed Helms]

New thing where you're like super charming.

[Stephanie Lydecker]

All the time, being more able to.

[Ed Helms]

Look people in the eye, not always hide behind a microphone.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Listen to heavyweight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Stephanie Lydecker]

I started trying to get pregnant about four years ago now.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We were getting a little bit older and it just kind of felt like the window could be closing. Bloomberg and iHeart podcasts present IVF the Kindbody Story, a podcast about a company that promised to revolutionize fertility care, introducing kindbody, a new generation of women's health and fertility care. Backed by millions in venture capital and private equity, it grew like a tech startup. While Kindbody did help women start families, it also left behind a stream of disillusioned and angry patients.

[Stephanie Lydecker]

You think you're finally like with the right people in the right hands, and then to find out again that you're just not.

[Courtney Armstrong]

Don't be fooled by what all the bright and shiny.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Listen to IVF the Kind Body Story starting September 19th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Courtney Armstrong]

Stephanie and Connor continue their conversation focusing on how isolation can lead to radicalization and violent tendencies.

[Gabriel Castillo]

The dark place is literally seeking out young men hoping to radicalize. And by the way, what we're seeing real time, it's the lone shooter. It's the lone wolf who is being radicalized by themselves in the basement. You can see how that can turn dark really quick.

[Connor Powell]

One of the things I find so interesting about some of the lone wolf shooters that we've had in the last couple of years is one of the first things that we always hear about them from authorities is they went on Discord to post that they shot somebody or they went on social media to explain their manifesto before they shoot somebody. Social media is a part of the thought process for violent acts in this country. It's not just having access to the weapon. It's also the ability to tell the world why I'm doing this on Facebook. Remember they've we've had shooters who have live streamed these things. We've had shooters who have recorded pre shooting why they're doing this. In the case of Tyler Robinson with Charlie Kirk, he went on Discord apparently to brag about doing it, to tell his friends that he did this shooting. We didn't have that in these violent acts. Twenty years ago, the terrorist invited people to view the Discord server that Housed his manifesto and other posts in the hour before the shooting, so other members of the public had an idea of what he was up to.

[Gabriel Castillo]

Ezekiel Kelly pleaded guilty to a deadly citywide shooting spree.

[Karen Kilgariff]

He used Facebook to livestream the shooting.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Armed with a rifle, shot and killed four colleagues and wounded nine other people, according to police. While live streaming the attack.

[Gabriel Castillo]

We look at Elliot Rodger and his terrible, terrible, terrible crime that he committed. That was unusual, right? And Bianca Devin, for example, the most horrific example. This poor girl was murdered and her murderer posted about it and posted after it and put it on social media for all to see. Remember, we are seeing things that we should not. Nobody should witness a man being murdered, as we all just recently did in the Charlie Kirk assassination. But now we're seeing it again and again and again. We're seeing that again with Tyler Robinson, Luigi Mangione. These are single person with a gun who are now going to act on behalf of many, whether they've been instructed to or not. That is so scary because again, we're just scratching the surface now. We're seeing repeat after repeat after repeat. I mean, they're not even trying to not get caught. It's almost like there's something popular about being a part of this act of violence and somewhere that's being celebrated.

[Courtney Armstrong]

While outward violence, these murders and assassinations, which either allegedly or in some cases assuredly stem from online radicalization, are on the uptick, thankfully, statistically, they are rare. Self harm, however, is becoming more and more prevalent as a worldwide epidemic pandemic spreading because of social media. Here again, investigative journalists Connor Powell and Stephanie Lydecker.

[Connor Powell]

The amount of self harm and there are lots of scientific studies that have been done at this point about the self harm social media sites do to young adults. This is known and the reality is we've known this for a long time, anecdotally, but it's scientific, sort of proven now. There is no rules about what can be pushed in front of kids. Now there's some discussions about whether these AI models should be encouraging people to commit suicide or whether or not they should be offering help when it comes to suicide. But there are multiple lawsuits right now where family members whose children turn to AI models and asked them about suicide and the AI model gave them a blueprint for how to commit suicide.

[Gabriel Castillo]

You bring up such a big thing because post Covid this is really a conversation about loneliness at its core, incels this conversation even at its core. We really are talking about a lonely person who is struggling, who is now being targeted from outside sources, not for help, but being targeted because they have a propensity for violence if given the right ingredients.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Algorithms determine the articles in your Facebook feed or your Google results. The exact inner workings of these computer programs are trade secrets.

[Connor Powell]

There really is no oversight of these complex algorithms because it's all intellectual property for these companies. And you're relying on companies who have a profit motive to make a decision about what is best for young people, for all people of all ages. They don't have any real responsibility or reason to take responsibility because their only goal is to make money. Even if their logo is don't be evil. Their job, their fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders is to make money. And the easiest way to make money is to pump that algorithm full of anger and extremism. But we aren't as a country, legislatively, regulation wise, we're not changing. This is not going away. This is the problem that confronts us at this moment and it's going to be here for a while because we're not changing any of the policies around protecting young kids from these sites.

[Gabriel Castillo]

By the way, what you just described was so incredibly scary because if you're watching television, if you're listening to the radio, there are regulations to that. So there are certain obvious things. We're not seeing pornography, we're not using certain words or swear words and there are guardrails. However, it appears that now suddenly we're all on the web, doom scrolling. And that doom scrolling is somewhere a serotonin hit and makes us feel something for a minute and little do we know, just a few clicks later, we're down the darkest rabbit hole that is only reinforcing the darkest hole now. I can't get out of it. And I think that's sort of the scary part is the lack of regulation.

[Connor Powell]

There's none of that on social media. You don't have any sense other than when the content that's in front of you about the background of what the content is being pushed to you, who's pushing it, who's paying for it, why it's being delivered to you, it just is. And you're expected to consume it. And that can take you to some really dark places. The problem is, is that's also coupled with this engagement desire by these companies to push you content that will inflame you, that will fire you up, that ultimately creates anxiety. And it's very possible that that's the future is that you're going to see a more extreme version of the content that's being pushed to you and a more politically motivated version of the content that's being pushed to you.

[Courtney Armstrong]

For more information on the case and relevant photos, follow us on Instagram tstudios. Incels is produced by Stephanie Lydecker, Gabriel Castillo and me, Courtney Armstrong. Additional producing by Connor Powell and Caroline Miller Editing by Jeff to music by Vanicore Studios. Incels is a production of KT Studios and iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like this, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Hey, it's Karen and Georgia and we just celebrated our 500th episode of My Favorite Murder.

[Georgia Hardstark]

That's 500 podcasts filled with true crime.

[Karen Kilgariff]

Some comedy, and some light girl math.

[Georgia Hardstark]

We're about to podcast for you. Watch this.

[Karen Kilgariff]

We have to think of something to say after welcome every week. And we're doing it every week for 10 years.

[Stephanie Lydecker]

Almost 10 years.

[Georgia Hardstark]

10 years. 10. That's what 500 episodes sounds like.

[Karen Kilgariff]

New episodes every Thursday. Listen to My Favorite murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Gabriel Castillo]

Goodbye.

[Maggie Freeling]

The murder of an 18 year old girl in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved for years until a local housewife, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

[Boydsen Hodson]

America, y' all better wake the hell up. Bad things happens to good people and small towns.

[Maggie Freeling]

Listen to Graves county on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Ed Helms]

Hey, it's Ed Helms, host of Snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new Snafu. Every single episode.

[Georgia Hardstark]

32 lost nuclear weapons. You're like, wait, stop What?

[Ed Helms]

It's going to be a whole lot of history, a whole lot lot of funny and a whole lot of fabulous guests. Paul Scheer, Angela and Jenna, Nick Kroll, Jordan Klepper. Listen to season four of SNAFU with Ed Helms on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

I'm Jonathan Goldstein and on the new season of Heavyweight.

[Courtney Armstrong]

And so I pointed the gun at him and said, this isn't a joke.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

A man who robbed a bank when he was 14 years old and a centenarian rediscovers a love lost 80 years ago.

[Gabriel Castillo]

How can 101-year-old woman fall in love again?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Listen to Heavyweight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Gabriel Castillo]

On a cold January day in 1995, 18 year old Christa pike killed 19 year old Colleen Slemmer in the woods of Knoxville, Tennessee. Since her conviction, Christa has been sitting on Death Row. How does someone prove that they deserve to live?

[Georgia Hardstark]

We are starting the recording now.

[Connor Powell]

Please state your first and last name.

[Georgia Hardstark]

Krista Pike.

[Courtney Armstrong]

Listen to unrestorable Season 2 proof of.

[Gabriel Castillo]

Life on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Courtney Armstrong]

This is an iheart PODC.