← The Guilty Feminist
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- [00:00]
Deborah Frances-White
Hello, guilty feminists. I want to talk about something that half the population experiences and the other half should probably understand better gynecological health. Because so many of us grew up with patchy information, some pretty weird myths and general feeling that we should probably just not talk about it. That's why I'm delighted to tell you about Bloody Powerful the Taboo Busting Guide to Periods, Menopause and Everything in between by Dr. Brooke van der Molen, illustrated by Hazel Mead and published by Cambridge University Press. This book is a warm, clear and genuinely empowering guide to everything you probably didn't get taught in school, from understanding your periods to navigating menopause and all the confusing questions in between. Dr. Brook van der Molen is a practicing gynecology doctor. You might know her online as the OB Gyn Mum. And she answers so many of the questions we've all quite quietly googled at 2am it's also beautifully illustrated by Hazel Mead, which makes the whole thing feel accessible rather than clinical. If you'd like to learn more or give it to someone who deserves better information about their body, visit cambridge.org bloodypowerful and you can get 20% off with the code bloodypowerful20 at checkout. Because knowledge about our bodies shouldn't be taboo, it should be bloody powerful. Get the ice cream Love Big Freezer,
- [01:30]
Adele Zainab Walton
It's by the Peas.
- [01:33]
Deborah Frances-White
Some things are really best not to put off, like defrosting the freezer or if you're a landlord, sending a copy of the new Government Information sheet to your existing tenants. You must do this by 31 May or risk a fine. Make sure you're up to date with the new laws. Find the information sheet@gov.uk renting is changing. Welcome back to part two of the guilty Feminist. So plug in and get ready for the fun. Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back. Welcome back to our much shorter second half. In case anyone was thinking, is it going to be that again? Because we have dinner reservations? No, no, no. This is a much shorter second half. We just want a little bit more Adele time because we just feel like there's more there. We've got a couple of questions we wanted to ask and then we just wanted to throw it to you. I feel, Adele, I could listen to you all day because I think you just know so much about this. Do you know what the addictive substance they put in social media is? Do you know what it is that. Because I find I've got brick now. Has anyone else got brick? It's just. It's a little. I like it because you only pay for it once normally. These things, you have to pay for them every month. And then you think I'm not using this and stop stealing money from me. And but this is like just a little thing like that and you can stick it on your fridge. So you say no, I don't want these social media sites. And then you go away from that room and then you think, oh, Instagram, oh, it's not there. And then you think, can't really be asked to go back to the kitchen. I don't want this enough. And that it's basically the terrible, just mind sucking addiction of social media fought by your own laziness. And you realize what kind of human am I that these are the two forces in my life. But it does work. Do you know what this was this big case about the, you know that it is designed to be addictive like the guy who invented the endless scroll because it used to be. Do you remember when the Internet was in pages so it'd go page because we only thought in pages because we always had had books and magazines and things. So end of page. Shall I go to the next page? No, I should probably do some work. And then someone went, you know, we don't need to have pages on here where we are going. You don't need pages. And so and he, that man said his greatest regret is inventing the scroll because. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And other guy who's just left OpenAI who said I am going to write poetry and go off the grid. He has logged off. He probably read your book. Do you know anything about why we're so addicted?
- [04:08]
Adele Zainab Walton
Yeah, I mean like, like you say those features like the infinite scroll, like autoplay, like the fact that, you know, TikToks will just play out loud over and over again unless you like stop them. But I think it's also like FOMO is a big part of it and obviously that wasn't, you know, designed by these people at the very top. But we've sort of all given in a little bit to that culture. I think of like, well, the way that I'm going to stay in touch with my friends is posting on my story or you know, the way that I'm going to share like my wedding photos is post posting on Instagram or Facebook and I think by like giving up that, you know, we've all made a sacrifice when it comes to the convenience of social media. The fact that we can keep everyone updated with the click and you know, of one button or the share of one, one post. And that convenience has become really costly and we're only sort of catching up with it now, I feel.
- [05:06]
Aoife Dunn
And do you think that like some generations are more susceptible? Like obviously it's so easy for us. Like as millennials, we obviously judge Gen Z ers and everybody judges. The millennials are perfect.
- [05:17]
Audience Member / Question Asker
Okay.
- [05:18]
Aoife Dunn
We were raised without it, but we understand how to use it. So that's why I think. Right.
- [05:26]
Deborah Frances-White
I feel like it's Gen X that are perfect because we really were raised without it. We lived some grown up life without it. Without a phone, we would just go out and walk around. No, no one would know where we were. But more crucially, no one would expect to know. It's not the same now. Like if I go for a walk now without my phone, which I sometimes do, just to kind of clear my. Especially in the pandemic, I'd go, I'm going to go to Primrose Hill, I'm not taking my phone. And I'd walk up Primrose Hill and think, oh, this feels really freeing. But when you come back, there's about 27 messages going, where were you? Where were you? Where were you? I. You were meant to have a zoom. Oh, and the expectation is fine. I missed the zoom. Who cares? Whatever.
- [06:15]
Adele Zainab Walton
I don't think social media is the problem here. I think it's something else.
- [06:19]
Deborah Frances-White
Back to more insights from you, Adele.
- [06:24]
Aoife Dunn
But who do you think's better, me or Deborah?
- [06:26]
Deborah Frances-White
Millennials, in your comprehensive research you did vlogging off, are Gen X as all millennials better people?
- [06:35]
Adele Zainab Walton
I'm gonna say Gen X. Cause my mum's Gen X and she's the most chronically offline person I know. But my dad's a boomer and he is.
- [06:49]
Aoife Dunn
They're the worst.
- [06:50]
Adele Zainab Walton
They are so addicted, but they won't admit it. Like, my dad will come for me about me being online and posting and all of this. I. And I'm like, you're sat watching YouTube for eight hours a day. Just cause it's on the big TV doesn't make it okay.
- [07:06]
Deborah Frances-White
Do you know what I mean?
- [07:10]
Adele Zainab Walton
That's still social media.
- [07:12]
Deborah Frances-White
One more thing. The Louis Theroux manosphere doc, what were your thoughts on that?
- [07:17]
Adele Zainab Walton
Such a letdown. Like, I love Louis. I have loved Louis for a long time.
- [07:24]
Deborah Frances-White
He's here tonight. Just,
- [07:26]
Adele Zainab Walton
he came to me in case Louis wants to collab.
- [07:28]
Deborah Frances-White
No, he's a mad fan of your book and he asked, could you. Sorry, Louis. Oh, he's leaving.
- [07:34]
Adele Zainab Walton
But I mean like, where were the women who have experienced the harms of so much of this incel culture and misogyny. Where were those women who are campaigning, who are at Parliament every other week? Like there are so many incredible campaigners who are really trying to challenge and to be honest as well, where were the alternative role models, male role models that are trying to show up on social media and give men a healthier masculinity? I just felt like it was like, okay, there's this really awful ideology and there you go, you know, we don't need to say anything about what the solution is or how we can challenge big tech and why addictive design is such a pivotal problem in like fueling this ideology and making it normal.
- [08:22]
Deborah Frances-White
I think someone else needs to make that documentary. I think what Louis Theroux really does is just hang around with some extreme people and then go, why'd you say that then? And that's his thing, you know, that is his thing. He doesn't do compare and contrast. He just goes, so you say that you think God's going to destroy everybody who isn't you. Do you think that's reasonable? But the thing I did learn from it is, and I was fascinated by this cause I couldn't really understand what was drawing them to it, but that the young man called, I think his real name's Harrison and his fake name's HS Tikki Toky or something ridiculous. So I'll call him Harrison, cause I'm Generation X. He said Andrew Tate and his ilk had told him when he was in a desperate place, he was living in his car, he was sort of the victim of inequality really. He hadn't had the best start and then just couldn't make it work. And he said, Andrew Tate told me that men have no inherent value. You are worthless. Women have an inherent value because, and this is his example, a 21 year old woman will be invited onto the yacht because she's pretty and because she's got a good body, she's sexy. And if she's got those things, she will have an inherent worth. And I looked into this afterwards. I think they didn't say at the documentary. What I found out was what they say is a woman's worth diminishes over time as her beauty fades and as her sexuality is less requested by men on yachts, apparently. And. The haves and the have yachts. I might be coming into my post yacht phase. But men, you are worthless. You were born with no worth. You will never be invited on that yacht unless you work for it. So you've got to have big muscles and you've got to have a lot of money in your bank account, and you've got to find a way to do that. And they actually tell them it should be hard to become a man because only a few men will get there. So you need to be working every day, every day in the gym, every day, making money. But of course, then the only way these young men know how to make money is do it. Copying this terrible behavior and saying things they don't really believe. Like, I felt like Harrison didn't really believe a lot of what he said. And he said, oh, no, my mum would not like any of this. But then when Louis talked to his mom, he said, but you don't like him saying this kind of stuff. And he's saying stuff that he. He doesn't really believe to make money. And she said, well, what are you doing? You're platforming him to make money. And then Louis was a bit like, I wondered why his mother had said that. As I looked out the window and thought about, she's right, okay. But that shocked me. I think we need to be telling young men, you are worth something. You are worth something. You're not worth something just because you can get on a yacht or you can afford a yacht. Who's on that yacht? Has anyone been on a yacht like that? It's very unpleasant. It's just a bunch of wankers. And the punishment for leaving is drowning. It is not a good experience. I've not been on that many yachts, but every time I've wanted to get off, it's just because the people who could afford yachts are not very nice people. But it's sort of in their mind that that's success. Now, you know, I was stuck on
- [11:47]
Aoife Dunn
a yacht with Dutch people. It was not.
- [11:51]
Deborah Frances-White
You've already pissed off all the Americans. Don't piss off the Dutch people.
- [11:55]
Aoife Dunn
It also dawned on me, and I
- [11:56]
Adele Zainab Walton
was like, oh, yacht.
- [11:57]
Aoife Dunn
And I was invited onto a yacht. And then when you're on the yacht, you're like, oh, my God, I can't get off the yacht.
- [12:01]
Adele Zainab Walton
I know, it's awful till it finishes.
- [12:02]
Deborah Frances-White
Most of the yachts I've been on have been in Canada at the film festival. Cause you go over and you try and, you know, get your film away. They're all moored. These yachts go nowhere. Every night between 6 and 8, you have to get on a different yacht and try and impress people, but none of them ever move. Which is the biggest metaphor for the film industry I've ever heard. It's just like we're all in a boat, we're on water, but we're not fucking going anywhere. And no one expects to and no one ever mentions going anywhere. And it's just. Oh, it's. Honestly, I've had some of the most soul destroying experiences of my life. I should do a whole show about things that have been said to me on a can yacht. It's just I stopped going one the last time I came back from Cannes. I got in the shower and I cried for like an hour. And then I did not get out of bed for three days. It was so terrible, the things that men had said to me. Kate. Not really women, but men. No men. It was men. Do you have any questions for Adele or any questions for Aoife and me, but probably for Adele, to be honest.
- [12:57]
Adele Zainab Walton
Yeah. I don't know if you've read Careless People, but I'm wondering how can we fix this problem when it's the people running it all and the people on the top that's maneuvering and orchestrating everything? Because Mark Zuckerberg is not a good person. After reading that and he definitely influenced. Yeah, I knew that.
- [13:19]
Aoife Dunn
Allegedly.
- [13:20]
Deborah Frances-White
I've got a flat. Aoife doesn't have anything. But I do actually have. It's not fully paid off or anything. But you have a cat. Yeah, I have a cat. I've got three cats. I don't want them taken away.
- [13:33]
Adele Zainab Walton
But yeah, so I'm just wondering because obviously they. They influence so many things in so many countries, so many elections, so many political decisions. How do we start to fix this unless they get on board? Thank you. Yeah. That book is brilliant. It reads like a film.
- [13:54]
Deborah Frances-White
What's the book called?
- [13:55]
Adele Zainab Walton
Careless People.
- [13:56]
Deborah Frances-White
Careless People.
- [13:57]
Adele Zainab Walton
And it's by a whistleblower from Meta. It's really good.
- [13:59]
Deborah Frances-White
Oh, God, we've all got to read that.
- [14:01]
Adele Zainab Walton
Yeah, but read mine first.
- [14:04]
Deborah Frances-White
Of course. When's the paperback out?
- [14:07]
Adele Zainab Walton
28th of May.
- [14:08]
Deborah Frances-White
28th of May? Yeah. So get the paperback. You could pre order the paperback, presumably.
- [14:14]
Adele Zainab Walton
But like, I know regulation is like really unsexy and boring, but regulation is like number one. Without that regulation, these tech companies are obviously not going to get on board because like you say, they. These are not nice people. They do not care. I actually this year confronted a tech bro, Davos. Did you? Yeah. And he and he. Story time. He is the billionaire and he's the billionaire whose company Cloudflare, provide the protection to the suicide forum that my sister was on. So I went up to him. And I was just like, look, you know, you provide this protection. And I said, like my story. And I was like, come on, be quick with it because these people don't have time to listen, they don't care. And I thought genuinely, I'm very anti capitalist, I'm very left wing. But something the human in me thought, when I tell this story, this man might feel a shred of empathy or guilt. And literally he went bright red and he turns around and he goes, what I'm going to do is have you removed from Davos. And I was like, no worries, never mind, I'm just gonna go this way and that. To me I was like, okay, it's go time. Like it's go time with the regulation, it's go time with the lawsuits, the legal action, supporting legal action, where you see it, but also joining campaigns like organizations like in the UK we've got a new anti AI organization called Pull the Plug. They're brilliant, Mad youth organizer doing loads of stuff around young people's mental health and social media. People vs Big Tech is a whole big alliance of EU organizations who are all trying to apply pressure. So like get involved in those organizations because they're doing the real legwork behind the scenes and without our support it's not going to, you know, go far enough. So yeah, can we get all those
- [16:14]
Deborah Frances-White
links from you to put in the show notes? Yeah, because it's really important that we actually do take action off the back of this. And even, even if everybody in this room filled out that government consultancy, which presumably you just Google government consultancy on social media. Because what we need to do, I think the answer is vote in better governments. Boots. The whole thing about the shows we're doing, Road to Gilead is to try and get boots on the ground to try and make sure reform do not get in. And I think, because if reform doesn't get in, I think it will be probably a left wing coalition because I, I mean if you look at where the Tories are on most polls now, it's just, you can't even believe it because you think how kind of important the Tories were in this country and now often they're, they're just lower than the Lib Dems like now on the things that you just go, what? It's quite incredible. So I feel like it's going to be a left wing coalition or it'll be a reform Tory coalition, it'll be one of those. So we got to get better governments and then we've got to tell that Government, you will not stay in power unless you do something about this. Because you were saying that the web, when in fact that man that you were talking to, that website is still up, it's still active, it's still being paid for the one that killed your sister. Like, how can this be not regulated but it's, it's so international. Is that the problem?
- [17:36]
Adele Zainab Walton
That's definitely part of the problem is the fact that, yeah, like with websites, they can just move around where they're hosted and sort of evade accountability that way. But it's also like an unwillingness from all of the institutions responsible for keeping us safe and well and like protecting us and enforcing this type of legislation. Like Ofcom are the people responsible for enforcing the Online Safety act and they have no teeth. Like, compared to big tech. They are just so reluctant, so slow, so not ambitious to actually fight for this. So I think so much of it does fall on us, sadly, and it shouldn't be that way. But the same way that we will, you know, channel activism against other industries, whether it's fast fashion or fossil fuel industry, we need to apply that same logic. Like, we don't need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to activism against big tech. We just need to do the same things and use those same strategies that are like tried and tested and then do the same against big tech.
- [18:38]
Aoife Dunn
Do you think because of the. Because social media is like gamified, gamified now that people still don't take it seriously in the sort of activist world. Like, I find I do a lot online and even with fellow content creators and other comedians, they almost still kind of roll their eye and go, it's just social media. Like, it's still in many people's minds just a game and it's not that serious. And I keep saying to them, like, you know, even with online abuse, like, I have a zero tolerance approach on my page. So if you come for me, I will find your employer, I will find your wife. Honestly, yeah, I will tag them.
- [19:09]
Adele Zainab Walton
I've tagged allegedly.
- [19:11]
Audience Member / Question Asker
Allegedly.
- [19:12]
Aoife Dunn
I wonder why I was sued. My boyfriend owns his house, he's never
- [19:17]
Deborah Frances-White
gonna marry me now.
- [19:21]
Aoife Dunn
But I have that. And people go to me, oh, you know, why do you make such a big deal? I'm like, because if we allowed this level of abuse online, it will slowly trickle down into real life. It is setting a standard that we cannot accept. And I think social media is a mirror and it will eventually become exactly the way we live. And you can see it in the states now, like friends of mine who live in the states are like, that sort of language is now appearing in face to face meetings. And I don't know how to get people to take social media seriously. It's not a game. But I think people, in many people's minds, they still see it as like, oh, just like this flippant thing. It's just social media. Do you find that in your conversations and activism?
- [19:53]
Adele Zainab Walton
So amy passed in 2022 and in like 2023, 2024, a lot of the conversations I was having with people were still very much stuck in that of like, it's just online. Like, it's not really, you know, real life. But I do think since seeing the tech bros lined up at Trump's inauguration, like people that switched something for them in their minds of like, okay, no, this isn't just social media. This is democracy. This is the state of the world. And actually the stakes are a lot higher. And yeah, I think for some people it'll still be a case of like, unless you directly experience an online harm, you won't quite make that connection and it shouldn't be that way. But I do think the pendulum is sort of swinging in the other way now of like, this is very much real. And even the fact that the Louis Theroux documentary came out this year, like, the manosphere has existed for a long time. Like, we've been knowing about this and a lot of women have been talking about it, but only this year has that come out. And I think actually like, whilst that's frustrating, it does show that we're starting to be like, something is really not right here and we've got to fix it.
- [21:15]
Deborah Frances-White
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- [21:47]
Aoife Dunn
Hi, I'm 15 and I am constantly
- [21:52]
Adele Zainab Walton
surrounded like my whole friend group. When we are together, it's always on social media. Like we will like there will never be nobody without a phone or snapping somebody or on TikTok or wasting time because they have time. What can I do to just kind of not to be cringe because people will find me cringe, but I don't really care. But what can I say or do or just to stop it because it's getting tiring.
- [22:29]
Deborah Frances-White
And you're 15, you said?
- [22:31]
Adele Zainab Walton
Yeah.
- [22:31]
Deborah Frances-White
What's your name?
- [22:32]
Adele Zainab Walton
Scarlett.
- [22:32]
Deborah Frances-White
Scarlett. Well, well done, Scarlet. What advice do you have for Scarlet?
- [22:40]
Adele Zainab Walton
She's 15.
- [22:40]
Deborah Frances-White
Everyone in her world is addicted. Yeah, she wants to get off the Snapchat.
- [22:46]
Adele Zainab Walton
Yeah. Like, yeah, it's really rare, I think, to like speak to a 15 year old who thinks that way. So, like, big up you for feeling that way and, you know, sort of being sitting back and observing that dynamic playing out, I would say, because you're right, like teenagers do find everything cringe. You've got to do it subtly, really. You've got to be like, oh, guys, like, don't you just feel so. After you've spent like half the day scrolling on social media, like talking about how it makes you feel and then trying to propose, like, why don't this weekend we like go to the park and we all leave our phones at home or something? Because that was actually how me and my friend India started this thing that we do called logging off club. So we host events where people leave their phones at the door and we try and just get people mingling and doing a new craft or trying a new hobby or going for a walk in the park, like start your own logging off club, basically. Because I do think that a lot of teenagers are starting to realize actually it's not that cool to be chronically online anymore. I think they'll be looking at their older siblings potentially who are, you know, Gen Z and feeling like, oh, actually it's not for cool. It's not fun. Actually. Pinterest and Coachella just announced a collab today that they're going to do a phone free Coachella. So like, you know, like, it is changing but try and like bring your friends in a little bit.
- [24:08]
Deborah Frances-White
Yeah, but aren't they only online? Like, so what is it? You got Coachella, but you also have to bring like your patchwork quilt and your, and your beautiful Alsatian and your.
- [24:20]
Adele Zainab Walton
I mean, I don't, I don't know how, how they're gonna make money out of it. Like, they're obviously gonna find a way. But yeah, they're announcing it.
- [24:27]
Deborah Frances-White
They're probably just thinking, we're all sick, but we're all taking the same thing that makes us feel sick every day. We're maxed out all the time and we know that. So do you know what? I think that probably a lot of your friends are feeling the same thing, but they all don't wanna be cringe as well. So I bet. But I think your advice is really good, Adele, which is not to say you shouldn't to finger wagging, but more like, can I ask you, do you ever feel like this? Because I sometimes feel like this and it's. And it. And am I the only one? Because then people probably go, oh, no, I feel like that too sometimes. Like. Like if you kind of confide in someone how you're feeling and then they go, like, should we, like, come off it for a couple of hours and to see how we feel, we can
- [25:08]
Aoife Dunn
make, like, social media cringe.
- [25:10]
Adele Zainab Walton
Exactly. I think it's starting to happen. Honestly.
- [25:13]
Aoife Dunn
I met a guy who's having coffee with us and he told us his son is 13 and that he finds, like, any AI, like schlop. Like, any AI artwork. He thinks it's like, icky. And he's like, it's so uncool. And when anybody shows it to him, he's like, ew, AI made that. I was like, oh, my God, that's great. That's what we want. We want young people literally thinking using social media chronically is cringe and icky.
- [25:32]
Deborah Frances-White
So that's the fact they call it AI slop. I think is good because people say, I don't want AI slop. Any other questions?
- [25:39]
Audience Member / Question Asker
Hi. On the subject of AI, I've recently been looking into, like, the willful creation of fake advertising, fake content, decline porn, which is something I'd never heard of.
- [25:55]
Deborah Frances-White
What's decline porn?
- [25:56]
Audience Member / Question Asker
Decline porn. There was this phenomenon a couple of months ago about people making video, like YouTube videos of water parks in Croydon to drive down the value of the area. So to put it into a false decline. And apparently this is a. This is a big thing that's happening online now.
- [26:18]
Adele Zainab Walton
Yeah.
- [26:18]
Deborah Frances-White
Making videos of water parks in Croydon. What, Because. So the value of the houses go down in Croydon.
- [26:26]
Audience Member / Question Asker
Something like that.
- [26:27]
Aoife Dunn
Yeah.
- [26:27]
Deborah Frances-White
And why don't people want water parks?
- [26:29]
Adele Zainab Walton
They're fun.
- [26:30]
Deborah Frances-White
I would think that would put. That would shoot up through the roof and I get to go on a slide.
- [26:35]
Adele Zainab Walton
Come on.
- [26:36]
Deborah Frances-White
Two bedrooms with a slide nearby.
- [26:41]
Aoife Dunn
But.
- [26:41]
Audience Member / Question Asker
Yeah, but.
- [26:41]
Aoife Dunn
But it was.
- [26:42]
Audience Member / Question Asker
It was very racist as well. Like there was a racist agenda. So they were changing shop front signs to be in Arabic and. Yeah, all of that stuff. So, like, obviously I went into a deep dive and was absolutely horrified. Now currently we have like a little AI kind of watermark in the corner, but people don't always see it, especially the conversation about, like, boomers. And, you know, my mum will see that and go, oh, there's a water park in Croydon, you know, like, they, they don't have the capacity to question it. So is.
- [27:16]
Deborah Frances-White
Is there any hashtag Noral Boomers. We have a lot of boomers who listen to this show. I know you do have the capacity to question it. Darren is waving. Are you a boomer, Darren? Yes, and I've heard of this decline. Darren's on the money there. So I don't think we can. We can't write off boomers like that, but I know what you mean. There are, of course, some people who don't necessarily or don't want to know,
- [27:40]
Audience Member / Question Asker
you know, and voting people as well, which is concerning. But is there any legislation that exists or is coming in to ban AI and fake content creation? Because I think that's a huge thing as well.
- [27:55]
Adele Zainab Walton
Sadly, no, there isn't. Until, like, two months ago, the Online Safety act would not have covered AI chatbots at all. And it was only from a lot of campaigners and, yeah, like, people in the online safety space and other Internet rights organizations and things who, who basically pushed for that to be, like, that loophole to be closed. So, yeah, like you say, like, it is a glaring risk right now and sadly, like, the labor government are really excited about AI and how it's going to change the economy and, you know,
- [28:38]
Deborah Frances-White
they've let Palantir into the nhs.
- [28:40]
Adele Zainab Walton
Yeah.
- [28:41]
Deborah Frances-White
And they've, they're, they're wanting Palantir to put cameras on that with AI, facial recognition on the street corners so that we can all live in some kind of Orwellian utopia.
- [28:50]
Adele Zainab Walton
Yeah. And I mean, that's the way they
- [28:53]
Deborah Frances-White
see it, I don't think. Obviously, I think it's a dystopia, but, yeah, terrifying.
- [28:56]
Adele Zainab Walton
Yeah. So. So, like, depressingly, the answer to the question is like, no, there isn't any protections, real protections right now. But again, the same people who are, like, fighting around online safety are the ones who are trying to raise this in Parliament. But again, we need your pressure behind it, so we need people like you writing to your MP and being like, look, why are you not putting this forward? Why are you not supporting people like Biban Kidron, who is a baroness, who is so incredible and she is there, like, she is like the people's champion in Parliament when it comes to, like, up big tech. So. So, like, I would say, you know, like, when you write to your mp, basically tell them to copy what Bibin's doing and support what Bibin's doing because she's in the House of Lords. So a lot of the time she's suggesting things, but then it goes back to the Commons and it maybe doesn't get voted in support of. So, yeah, and she's at the moment, she's working on a amendment to the Police Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill in relation to AI. So she's like fighting our corner.
- [30:04]
Deborah Frances-White
We need to get Bibon on the podcast. Clearly. And in the meantime, tell everybody if there's a watermark on the water park. It's not real. It's not real, guys. It's not real. It's not real. We've got to finish soon. Any other questions that we can answer briefly? Brief questions we can answer in a brief fashion.
- [30:26]
Adele Zainab Walton
Thank you. I just wanted to say thank you so much, Adele, for coming today and also for even just creating this, this material for us to, like, read and sharing your story with us, because I think a lot of people aren't aware as to the dangers of, you know, the digital world and social media. So, yeah, thank you so much for putting that out there into the world. My question to you was, what are your thoughts on the Online Safety Act? I know you've been touch on it throughout, but what are your thoughts? Thank you so much. That's so kind.
- [31:02]
Deborah Frances-White
I second that.
- [31:03]
Adele Zainab Walton
Thank you. My thoughts on it are that it's a good first step, but it doesn't go far enough. I think a lot of people in this room might have sort of seen that when the Online Safety act came in, there was quite a bit of backlash against it because of concerns around again, like free speech and censorship and things like that. But I do feel that that was kind of a culture war that was being pushed by the far right. I think the online safety as it stands is not a tool for mass censorship. It's very much a bare minimum safeguard for what we need in the digital world. And it's come out of, sadly, a lot of loss of life, of young life in a large part. So whilst it's not perfect, it's. It's a really necessary start. But again, unless we are applying pressure on our government and our MPs to utilize it, it will kind of just sit there and not really do anything. And the same goes for Ofcom, who are obviously responsible for enforcing it. So, you know, it's a tool and it's a tool that we can use, but we need other tools in our arsenal.
- [32:17]
Deborah Frances-White
So, yeah, so we just. It. What it sounds like is we need to read. Logging off. We need to read. What was the other one?
- [32:27]
Adele Zainab Walton
Careless people.
- [32:27]
Deborah Frances-White
Careless people. And then we need to go to our MPs and go to people like Bebon Kidron, who's a lord, who's, who's at the House of Lords and is somebody who's on our side. And we need to say how can we help you? What can we do? What kind of campaigns can we create? And depending on the time we have, we might be just writing to our MP and making sure that we fill out that survey and if we have more time, we can join in to what Adele is doing. Can we join the Logging off club?
- [32:58]
Adele Zainab Walton
Yeah, we've got a website you can join Logging off club via our website. You can start your own via our website. But yeah, and it's called just the website is Logging Off Logging off Club.
- [33:08]
Deborah Frances-White
Logging offclub.com.
- [33:09]
Adele Zainab Walton
yeah.
- [33:10]
Deborah Frances-White
Great. So check out logging offclub.com. is that the last question I think we had? Do we have any more questions? One very, very, very, very last, very quick question. I just want to say that's not you. Was there somebody else?
- [33:26]
Adele Zainab Walton
Sorry, sorry.
- [33:26]
Deborah Frances-White
No, that's okay. So I just wanted to say as a socialist, I've been involved in a campaign in Ireland which is called Turn off the Algorithm. It was introduced by a left wing organisation party with MPs called People Before Profit in the Irish Parliament. Now our government voted it down because our government is extremely tied to tech corporations in Ireland. But I wonder what you think Adele, about like the role of workers coming together and unionizing and fighting from within the machine as it were, to try and bring pressure to bear upon, upon their bosses. Oh, it's a good idea.
- [34:06]
Adele Zainab Walton
Yeah. I think workers play a key part. I haven't spoken to any directly but there's a union. I can't remember what it's like long title is, but it's like Utah, Utah UTAW in the UK and they have like a lot of content moderator unions who work at these companies. And I think content moderators have been like really, really vocal when it comes to the harmful material that they're having to sift through and moderate. TikTok like sacked off a load of content moderators recently because they tried to unionize. So again, whilst workers are really key, they're in such a vulnerable position a lot of the time.
- [34:49]
Deborah Frances-White
Well if it's like that guy who just said I will now have you removed from Davos, you just can't really imagine that them going up and going. Yeah, unless you make it less addictive, we're going to leave. Go, get out. Oh, I'm outside the building now. How did that happen?
- [35:03]
Adele Zainab Walton
Yeah. So it's a sticky position to be in if you're, I guess, working within that industry. But I do think a lot of people who are working within that industry are still, some of them not super critical of it, or maybe they kind of have that cognitive dissonance because they don't want to be aware of, like what they are maybe a little bit contributing to by working for these companies. And then the good people are leaving, becoming whistleblowers. And there's more and more whistleblowers, like coming out every week pretty much at so many of these companies. So. Yeah, but I've not personally had a relationship with any work.
- [35:41]
Deborah Frances-White
Yeah, I saw a documentary where there was a chap who went ages ago, saying. He just went, hold on a minute, I think this is addictive. And he said, I'm going to call a meeting because I'm really worried. This is addictive. And everyone was like, okay, yeah. And then when the meeting came, there was just one man going, yeah, we know. Like, he was like calling. They were like, yeah, yeah, it's been designed that way. I mean, I'm parodying what happened, but it was basically that. We really have to go now. But if anyone else has got a question for Adele, she might be in the bar. Where are you? Where can we see you? I mean, you now you're sitting there. But I thought you were talking to Darren.
- [36:18]
Aoife Dunn
I was like, where am I? I will be in Leicester Square Theatre in September. I can't remember. There's only like 40 tickets left, lads, so get on it.
- [36:26]
Deborah Frances-White
Okay, yeah, so.
- [36:27]
Aoife Dunn
So look at Dun Comedy. I'll be also in Manchester and Glasgow and nobody's going to those, so that'll
- [36:32]
Deborah Frances-White
be great if people came. So if you're listening at home and you're in Manchester or Glasgow, get along to Eva Dunn show Adele. Zeynep Walton has a book out called Logging Off. You can buy it now in hardback or you can pre order it on paperback and it will be out extremely soon. You can also join the logging off club. Thank you to everybody at the Museum of Comedy. I forgot to say my books are now out in paperback. Totally forgot. My book, Six Conversations We're Scared to have, which has got a lot of stuff about this kind of stuff and how we get addicted and also why we're all fragmented and polarized, is out now in paperback. Please get a copy. Six Conversations We're Scared to have. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming. Did you have a nice time? Will you come again? Excellent. It's so nice. It feels like we're starting over with the Guilty Feminist. And we have this new community of people who really do not want the far right in our country. I feel we have a real metric for success. I did feel for a while like, what are we really doing just sitting in rooms telling each other what we already know? And now I know what we're doing. I'm like, we have to keep the far right out and we have to pressure the governments. We have to make the changes that and make legislation and policy for what we really want. We have to stop thinking democracies once every four years. It's not. It's every single day telling them, we will not vote you back in unless you do this and that. They're our representatives. They work for us. And we need to remember that. You've been such a lovely audience. I've been Deborah Francis White. We've been the Guilty Feminist. Big round of applause for Adele Aoife, you got selves. Ivy Dip, Frostbite. Good night. You have been distinct to the Guilty Feminist with me, Deborah Francis White, guest co host Aoife Dunn, and our very special guest, Adele Zainab Walton. The recording engineer was Grundin Azimbra. The Guilty Feminist theme tune was composed by Mark Hodge. The producer was Tom Szalinski for the Sports Data Shop. Thanks to Gina Dicio, Zainab Muhammad, Ned Sedgwick and everyone at the Museum of Comedy, as well as all of you. For listening more information about this and other episodes, Visit guilty and feminist.com. That's a beautiful fade. That is the editor. The editor has never been more thrilled. That was like, I think there'll still be some people clapping. Just one person clapping at the interval. We're going to fade this, baby. We got a job to do.
- [38:57]
Adele Zainab Walton
This is.
- [38:58]
Deborah Frances-White
I'm just going to do this bit now. This is the Guilty Feminist, the podcast. You can't reason with the sun. Trust us, we've tried. This summer, it's time to put that angry ball of fire on mute. Columbia's Omnishade technology is engineered to protect you from the sun's harsh rays that can burn and damage your skin. The sun is relentless, but so is our gear. Level up your summer@columbia.com to spend more time outside and less time slathering on aloe lotion. You're welcome, Columbia. Engineered for whatever.