Erika Kirk Druski Parody; Chappell Roan's Bot Army; Meta Loses in Court; & OpenAI Kills Sora – News Roundup

Summary

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"Erika Kirk Druski Parody; Chappell Roan's Bot Army; Meta Loses in Court; & OpenAI Kills Sora – News Roundup"

There Are No Girls on the Internet with Bridget Todd
Release Date: March 28, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this wide-ranging episode, host Bridget Todd and co-host Mike dive into a packed news roundup at the intersection of tech, internet culture, and marginalized voices. With their signature critical perspective, humor, and sharp commentary, they break down viral internet moments (like Druski’s wildly accurate Erika Kirk parody), the lifecycle and demise of OpenAI’s Sora, landmark lawsuits against Meta and YouTube over user harms, right-wing bot armies and AI influencer scams, and the swirling controversy around musician Chappell Roan amplified by bots. The episode closes on Hollywood’s persistent marginalization of underrepresented creators, and a look at the proliferation and impact of bots in shaping online discourse.

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1. Druski’s Erika Kirk Parody: Parody, AI Recognition & Social Commentary

[02:29-11:26]

• Viral Skit:
  Bridget introduces the comedian and YouTuber Druski, whose skits, including a spot-on impersonation of “How Conservative Women in America Act,” have gone viral for their extreme makeup, mimicry, and commitment to the bit.

• Meticulous Parody:
  Druski’s attention to detail is praised—right down to “manicure[d] hands,” pink pantsuit, and mannerisms eerily similar to conservative influencer Erika Kirk.

  • “He has become her.” —Bridget (05:20)

• AI and Identity Recognition:
  Druski never explicitly names Erika Kirk in the skit—but everyone knows. The proof? Even AI gets it wrong/on-the-nose:

  • Grok (AI model) falsely identifies the parody as the real Erika Kirk ([07:10-07:22]).
  • Google Gemini at least realizes it’s not her, but labels it a “face swap meme”.
  • “Grok identified it as the real Erica Kirk, saying, 'the photo matches her public appearances...' So even Grok was like, that’s Erica Kirk.” —Bridget (07:22)

• Whiteface & Backlash:
  The skit draws criticism, with some (e.g., Ted Cruz) claiming “whiteface”; Bridget notes there’s no real historical equivalent to blackface’s racist legacy.

  • “Whiteface is not a thing... There’s not an analogous kind of historical context and precedent for whiteface in the United States.” —Bridget (10:18)

• Druski’s Anticipation:
  Druski preempts criticism by sharing a picture of himself as a child with his white grandfather:

  • “He really thought the reaction through with this one.” —Bridget (11:13)

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2. OpenAI Sora Shuts Down: Predictions, Disney, and the Slop Content Reckoning

[11:26-21:00]

• Bridget’s “I Told You So”:
  Revisiting predictions about Sora, Bridget gleefully takes a victory lap after critics hailed it as the AI product set to revolutionize entertainment.

  • “I do love being mayor of I told you so town.” —Bridget (12:10)

• Sora's Rise and Fall:

  • Launched as a vertical-scroll, AI-driven video platform, Sora quickly fizzled post-novelty, user numbers tanked, and OpenAI shuttered it after six months.
    • “The novelty wore off rather quickly. Sora's daily users dropped and this week OpenAI announced that it was shutting down Sora after just six months.” —Bridget (15:18)

• Content Quality Problems:
  Post-buzz, most user content devolved into weird, misogynistic, cheap AI “slop” (e.g., videos of women being strangled, grotesquely pregnant, or unauthorized likenesses of public figures).

  • “All of these just like very weird, gross, cheap, AI generated slop, vaguely misogynistic content... there just really isn’t a lot there.” —Bridget (16:09, 18:49)

• Copyright Chaos & Disney’s About-Face:
  Unlicensed character appearances (Pikachu smoking a blunt, Hitler Spongebob, etc.) led Disney to strike a billion-dollar licensing deal with OpenAI—then back away without money changing hands.

  • “Instead of going to court, they ended up striking a deal... but that deal died and no money actually changed hands.” —Bridget (17:43)

• Studio Executives’ Miscalculation:
  Analysis suggests studios chased AI to avoid paying humans—misjudging what audiences actually want.

  • “The only real explanation... is that the studio executives just really, really hate paying for human labor. They hate it so much that they maybe convinced themselves that audiences would accept AI content if it was packaged the right way.” —Bridget (18:44)

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3. Landmark Meta/YouTube Lawsuits: Accountability, Addiction, & Precedents

[24:51-47:51]

The Cases

[25:05-33:49]

• California: Kaylee v. Meta/YouTube

  • Kaylee’s testimony on using social media since age 6, body dysmorphia from beauty filters, and mental health impacts led to a $4.2M verdict against Meta, $1.8M against YouTube ([29:10]).
    • “That is pocket change for these companies.” —Bridget (29:10)

• New Mexico: State v. Meta

  • State sued Meta for facilitating child sexual exploitation and misleading on safety. Evidence included apparent “marketplaces for child sex trafficking” and powerful whistleblower testimony ([30:04-32:52]).

• Industry Context
  Thousands of similar lawsuits pending; these are the first major cases finding platforms liable.

Addiction, Section 230, & Regulation

[33:49-47:51]

• Addictive Design:
  Mike (with a tobacco control background) distinguishes between “addiction” vs. “addictive design,” emphasizing social media platforms’ deliberate strategies to maximize engagement, notably among kids.

  • “Did they design their product... to make users—in particular kids—just want to keep using them more and more, even though it was harmful?” —Mike (37:55)

• Section 230:
  Notably, these cases sidestepped Section 230 (which shields platforms from user-generated content liability) by focusing on “design choices,” not just user content.

  • “They weren't able to hide behind section 230... It was the way Meta had designed their apps to be addictive and the fact that they knew they were harmful and deliberately tried to mislead the public about that harm.” —Mike (33:00-34:48)

• Caution Amid Victory:
  Bridget voices concern that such lawsuits, while deserved, could fuel reactionary pushes to “age-gate” the web, curbing access to vital spaces especially for marginalized youth.

  • “I just don't want people to see these cases and... get on board with the growing chorus... trying to restrict an open Internet, especially for young people.” —Bridget (41:17)

• Meta’s Fox-Guarding-Henhouse Push:
  Both hosts warn of tech companies (like Facebook and, previously, Big Tobacco) harnessing the regulatory process for self-preservation and market consolidation.

  • “Meta is really playing a very effective PR trick on a lot of us... being like, 'Oh, we are so interested in like, please regulate us.'” —Bridget (45:18)

Notable Quote:
“We don’t need to live in a world where an unsolicited penis picture is something that you just dismiss because it happens.”
—Arturo Behar (former Facebook engineering director), testimony as cited by Mike (31:18)

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4. Hollywood, Representation, and Gatekeeping through 'You, Me and Tuscany'

[51:58-58:44]

• Rom-Com as a Gatekeeper:
  Black filmmaker Nina Lee urges people to see “You, Me and Tuscany” (which she didn’t work on) because studios are using its box office success/failure to decide whether to greenlight any Black-led romances—including her own.

• Burden on Marginalized Creators & Audiences:
  Bridget decries the recurring dynamic in which one film’s performance determines Hollywood’s “bet” on entire demographics, contrasting it with white-led flops that don’t result in similar shutouts.

  • “When an audience is sort of guilted into seeing a movie... to convince studios to give women or Black folks or Asian folks or other marginalized people more shots... That is not compelling to me.” —Bridget (52:58)
  • “Movies with mostly white casts or white directors flop all the time... It's always going to be another goal post or another benchmark for folks to just not want to tell our stories. And I'm sick of it.” —Bridget (53:42)

• Memorable Critique:
  "All that happens is the cycle of manipulation and exploitation is spun and culture goes nowhere... Representation is a tool they get to use way more against us than we against them." —Film critic Carolyn Lynz (paraphrased by Bridget, 54:30)

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5. Elon Musk, X, and the Failed Extortion Lawsuit

[58:44-62:33]

• Musk’s Lawsuit Against Advertisers:
  X (formerly Twitter) sued major brands, alleging a conspiracy to withhold ad revenue—that is, Musk claimed advertisers had to buy ads or else.

• Legal Backfire:
  A Dallas judge dismissed the suit “with prejudice,” spelling permanent defeat for this approach.

  • “The advertisers’ defense was very straightforward—they basically said that they each made an independent business decision... and were largely driven by brand safety concerns following Musk’s takeover of Twitter.” —Bridget (61:01)

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6. AI Influencer Scams: Jessica Foster, the “All-American Army Girl”

[66:24-73:16]

• The Scam:
  Viral "Jessica Foster" Instagram account gained over a million followers after being seen with Trump during a trip to Iran—but she does not exist; “Foster” is an AI-generated persona blending patriotism and softcore porn.

• Tactics & Grift:
  The account lures users to subscription platforms, exploiting both thirst and political tribalism.

  • "The dream girl for some guys, I guess." —Mike (68:47)

• Global Gullibility:
  Many genuine users (e.g. a Brazilian official) believed Foster was real—suggesting that gendered, nationalistic, and sexualized AI-generated personas can dupe wide audiences.

  • "Whoever is making this, they think that men are so smart, stupid and horny that they will rah rah a war if the fake AI generated woman... is hot." —Bridget (73:30)

• Expert Insight:
  Dr. Joan Donovan diagnoses this as part of a broader shift:

  • "We're moving toward a society of the Unreal... We don’t even know if selling feet pics is Jessica Foster’s final form.” —Dr. Joan Donovan, via Bridget (73:06)

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7. Chappell Roan, Soccer Nepo Kids, and the Bot Amplification Machine

[74:19-79:47]

• Incident Recap:
  Social media firestorm after an 11-year-old daughter of soccer star Georgino (and Jude Law) was reportedly screamed at by a security guard, allegedly connected to musician Chappell Roan at a Rio hotel.

• Bot Army Fuels Outrage:
  Research by Gudea shows that, while bots made up only 4% of users, they were responsible for over 23% of discourse, amplifying both backlash and misinformation about Roan—a textbook case of agenda-driven inauthentic amplification.

  • "A small number of bot accounts were driving a hugely outsized chunk of the backlash, including misinformation and calls for boycotts." —Bridget (77:39)

• Media Literacy Moment:
  Bridget admits she was swayed despite not caring deeply, a cautionary example about how easy it is to get lost in bot-fueled arguments:

  • “...I threw away half an afternoon reading Chapel Brazil takes and you know, I have but one life to live…” —Bridget (78:56)

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Notable/Memorable Quotes

• On parody & cultural critique:
  “He becomes the people that he is trying to become via makeup.” —Bridget, on Druski ([03:33])

• On Meta lawsuits:
  “We don’t need to live in a world where an unsolicited penis picture is something that you just dismiss because it happens.” —Arturo Behar, via Mike ([31:03])

• On industry hypocrisy:
  “Movies with mostly white casts or white directors flop all the time... It's always going to be another goal post or another benchmark for folks to just not want to tell our stories. And I'm sick of it.” —Bridget ([53:42])

• On bots and disinformation:
  “A small number of bot accounts were driving a hugely outsized chunk of the backlash, including misinformation and calls for boycotts.” —Bridget ([77:39])

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Key Timestamps

• Druski Parody & AI Recognition: 02:29–11:26
• OpenAI Sora Postmortem: 11:26–21:00
• Meta/YouTube Lawsuits: 24:51–47:51
• Hollywood Representation Racket: 51:58–58:44
• Musk/X Brand Lawsuit Failure: 58:44–62:33
• AI Influencer Scam (Jessica Foster): 66:24–73:16
• Chappell Roan Bot Controversy: 74:19–79:47

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Final Takeaways

• Parody and satire remain vital tools for marginalized creators to expose hypocrisy—sometimes parody is barely even parody.
• Tech’s rapid cycles (e.g., Sora) often quickly devolve into junk or harm, challenging utopian AI dreams.
• Landmark lawsuits are holding social platforms more accountable (if only with “drop in the bucket” fines), while also fueling debates about the trade-offs between safety, free speech, and who gets to set the rules.
• Representation in Hollywood is still gatekept through “conditional inclusion,” where minor successes or failures dictate future opportunities for all marginalized creators.
• AI and bots are reshaping both the economic and political realities of the Internet, distorting discourse (and desire) at scale.
• Listeners are urged to remain skeptical, be wary of guilt-trips for “representation,” and not let manipulated social media storms dictate their emotional bandwidth.

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Listener Action:
Comments, feedback, and stories welcome at [e-mail] or on social platforms. Don’t forget to pre-order the hosts’ forthcoming book “Love at First Prompt” for bonus stickers and a handwritten card!

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Transcript

[Bridget Todd]

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[Mike]

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[Bridget Todd]

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[Mike]

See full [e-mail].

[Bridget Todd]

There are no Girls on the Internet. It's a production of iHeartRadio and unbossed creative. I'm Bridget Todd and this is There are no Girls on the Internet. I've brought it the show before But I feel like you and I, Mike, live in and occupy very different social media Internet spheres. Oftentimes I'll ask you, did you see so and so or did you see such and such online? And I. I'm asking rhetorically because I already know the answer is no, you definitely didn't see that. But I will ask you this rhetorically, even though I feel I know the answer. Have you seen the latest Druski skit?

[Mike]

I think this is more evidence that you're right. We occupy different Internets because I have not seen this skit. Familiar with Erica Kirk, famed widow and alleged girlfriend of J.D. vance. But I can't say that I'm familiar with Drew Ski or his her there skip with Erica Kirk.

[Bridget Todd]

Okay, so Drew Ski is this comedian youtuber. He's known for doing skits. He had this skit recently where he is a black mega church pastor who comes down from the sky in church. And as somebody who grew up in the black church, it's somewhat. Sometimes this stuff is like barely even parody because it's so spot on. He is also known for doing, like, extreme makeup to really dramatically become other people. So Drew Ski's a black dude and he went viral a while back for doing what I can only describe as full body, head to toe makeup to become a very sunburnt white guy at a NASCAR race. And I know this is all very visual. We'll add links to the show notes because you obviously can't see what I'm describing. But when I say that Drew became a sunburnt white guy at a nascar, that he's. They even put makeup on his chest and he's wearing denim overalls with one of the straps down. He. His mannerisms, like, he just really, he. He becomes the people that he is that he is trying to become via makeup. So his latest video is called How Conservative Women in America Act. He wears that extreme makeup to become a white woman with blonde, wavy hair who wears a pink pantsuit and dances around on stage with pyrotechnics going and has this very weird, pointed way of speaking where everything she says is punctuated by intensely staring into the camera. For some reason, I'm dancing around it, but it's obviously supposed to be Erica Kirk. I can't even really describe it because he really does look like her. Like, it's uncanny. Even the hands. Like, he's got makeup on his hands and a manicure and he's wearing, you know, how she does the super bowl rings. Erica Kirk, like, even down to the most Minute detail. He has become her.

[Mike]

So he's been studying Erica Kirk.

[Bridget Todd]

This is what I'm saying. It is. I've never seen anybody commit to a bit more. It is. It is like, you have really committed to the bit.

[Mike]

That's great. That's what we need more of. You know, there's. In a world where you can just have AI generate videos, we need creative humans really committing to the bit.

[Bridget Todd]

You get what I'm saying? When you're like, it's. It's so. Both uncanny and also like, it's spot on, but so disturbing. He's done something to his face to make it look stretched in some way.

[Mike]

It's very round and flat. It's very funny. It's like he's not just parodying her, but he's parodying the parodies of her.

[Bridget Todd]

Yes, it. He's parodying AI generated Erica Kirk memes. And what's really funny is that nowhere in that video does Druski say that it's supposed to be Erica Kirk. Specifically, he just says, conservative white women in America. I mean, it's obviously supposed to be her, but I just find it funny that everybody saw this skit where you have somebody who looks grotesque and everybody agrees, oh, that's obviously Erica Kirk. Even though it was unsaid.

[Mike]

That's a mark of, like, well done, I don't know, parody, mockery that he doesn't even need to say her name. But we all know.

[Bridget Todd]

Well, what's even wilder is that when. When users on X showed Grok a picture of Drewski in this getup, Grok was like, oh, baby, that's Erica Kirk.

[Mike]

No.

[Bridget Todd]

Yeah. Grok identified it as the real Erica Kirk, saying, quote, the photo matches her public appearances, including podcasts and event shots with the blonde hair, blue eyes, and makeup style. So even Grok was like, that's Erica Kirk.

[Mike]

That's her Grok. Come on.

[Bridget Todd]

That's.

[Mike]

She's on your side, buddy.

[Bridget Todd]

That's what I'm saying. Also, funny enough, Google Gemini did get it right that it was not the real Erica Kirk, but it said that it was a face swap meme, that it was Erica Kirk and Drewski had had swapped faces.

[Mike]

So it's like everything else about it checked out, like the dancing, the. The press conference. Wow. Maybe this could be a new benchmark for AI systems. You know, they have, like, different things that they test them, how well they can perform them. The, like, recognizing Erica Kirk task.

[Bridget Todd]

Yes. That's going to be the new Will Smith eating spaghetti. What's funny is like, so I said that his stuff is hard. It's, like, barely even parody. The. The parody that he has of black mega church preachers is, like, true. Like, people. If you've not been. If you're not. If you are not someone who has spent time in church, you might. It might. You might think it's parody, but it is hardly even parody. He's, like, coming down from the ceiling with, like, jet packs and, like, steam and, like.

[Mike]

Are you sure you weren't just watching Righteous Gemstones?

[Bridget Todd]

No, but that's the thing. Righteous Gemstones is also barely parody, because that really is how it is sometimes. So in that same vein, here is what Drew Ski says, as Erica Kirk at the end of the skit.

[Jacob Goldstein]

We have to protect all men in America, especially all white men in America.

[Bridget Todd]

Those are the boys that we care about in this country.

[Jacob Goldstein]

America is built on their backs. Yes. Because they are the ones who mattered most.

[Bridget Todd]

And it's funny because that is barely even parody, because here is what Erica Kirk took a little bit of heat for saying earlier this month at an event in Arkansas. Don't let anyone disenfranchise you because you're a young man, especially a young white male man. Don't ever let anyone talk down to you. We need strong men out there. Strong men who are convicted. That will be good leaders, good husbands, good fathers like mine. What's also funny to me about this is the reaction. A lot of people are like, she's. He's using white face, and white face is not a thing. I mean, there's. There's not an analogous. It would be convenient for these critics if it was. But there's not an analogous kind of historical context and precedent for whiteface in the United States.

[Mike]

That's such a funny thing to say. Like, they're doing white face because, yeah, white face is not a thing. Like, a person just putting on white makeup.

[Bridget Todd]

Not a thing. Like, Ted Cruz tweeted that the skit was horrible. All the voices that you would expect to be speaking out about this or speaking out about it. What's funny is, are these not the same people who just spent all this time being like, oh, you can't even make jokes anymore. Oh, everything's so. Whoa. Can't even make jokes. Can you take a joke. Drew Ski. Say what you want about Drew Ski. He is very clever. Because now I think the conversation has kind of become like, oh, well, this is really offensive. And to tonight, as that conversation is really cresting about people who are upset by this. Drew Ski posted a Picture of him as. As a child with his grandfather. His grandfather is white, so I can. I feel like he's like, oh, I hate white people. Explain this.

[Mike]

Oh, wow.

[Bridget Todd]

He. I feel like he really thought the reaction through with this one.

[Mike]

He set them up. He anticipated the, like, stolen valor of being faux outraged by white face.

[Bridget Todd]

Yes. Yes. When I sat down to do this next segment about Sora, I started. I wanted to start by saying, oh, I hardly ever say I told you so. I'm not the kind of person who goes back and says, I can. So I can see the face that you just made on our recording software.

[Mike]

Yeah. Why would you lie to our listeners like that?

[Bridget Todd]

So you know me in a different context irl. So you. You might be able to say, like, okay, well, Bridget is not somebody who holds back on it. I told you so often.

[Mike]

You live for it. I told you so. Bridget, that's, like, your favorite thing.

[Bridget Todd]

I do love it. I told you.

[Mike]

The only thing you like better than it'll I told you so is, like, acting above it as if you aren't secretly relishing in it.

[Bridget Todd]

Sometimes the best I told you so is the. Is the I told you so that you don't even need to say where. It's like, they already know. They already know. Yeah. Oh, God. I do love being mayor of I told you so town, but I often will say on the podcast, like, oh, I'm not one to say I told you so, but I realized that I'm usually saying that before I put on my mare of I told you so. True Sash.

[Mike]

And so I just kind of like sweeping the podium a little bit before you step up and claim your rightful I told you so.

[Bridget Todd]

I kind of got that. Because if you listen to Kara Swisher's podcast, she loves it I told you so. And I was like, oh, it's so. It's kind of obnoxious to catalog all the times that you were right about something, but I guess I do it too. So I need to stop saying, oh, I never say and I told you so, but this isn't I told you so because do you remember the conversation that you and I had six months ago when OpenAI released Sora? And all these people from people that I respected, even and trusted were talking about how this was going to be the thing that turned the tides on AI, that that Sora was a mark for the idea that AI was going to truly revolutionize film and television and creativity. Do you remember those conversations?

[Mike]

I do. I do remember. It came out, and it Was it made such a big splash, People were using it, posting silly little videos. There was a lot of buzz. All the media was talking about it, but not everyone was so impressed.

[Bridget Todd]

Yes. So Sora, if you don't remember the short lived fanfare, which was kind of like an AI TikTok, it was a vertical scroll video platform that you could use AI to make content. People genuinely acted like SORA was going to be the thing in AI content creation. I was not so sure. Here was our prediction when it first came out and maybe I will eat my words, but I have seen people say this platform is so fun and it's such a joyful experience that it's going to rock social media. And I just don't see it. I really just don't see it. Again, maybe I'll eat my words. I'm happy to take this back if it turns out that I'm incorrect, but it really reminds me of a few years ago when a lot of folks were posting those AI generated futuristic looking selfies on Facebook a few years ago. I think the reason why people who are using it are saying it's so fun, they're just excited to see themselves and their friends in AI generated scenarios. Do you know what I mean? I don't think that that necessarily means that the kind of content that is coming out of these platforms are interesting, unique, the kind of thing that's actually going to hold someone's attention. I mean, it just sounds like exactly what I thought was going to happen. The novelty wore off rather quickly. Sora's daily users dropped and this week OpenAI announced that it was shutting down Sora after just six months.

[Mike]

Hard to believe it was so fast. It seems like it was longer ago, but yeah, you really call it. There was so much buzz. And then after that initial splash, I don't know that I ever even heard about it again.

[Bridget Todd]

No, There were a couple of interesting pieces I want to say in Business Insider or perhaps 404 about some of the ways that people were using Sora after that initial spike in interest. And it was all just creepy slop, like making AI generated video after AI generated video of women being strangled. Women videos where women look grotesquely pregnant. All of these just like very weird, gross, cheap, AI generated slop, vaguely misogynistic content that was really what it was used for. And you'll remember that during our episode about Sora's launch, we talked about how it was using the likeness of real dead people and real living public figures like Robin Williams and Martin Luther King Jr. Both of whom, their families objected to them being used in this way. And because they did not explicitly opt in and it was just like very easy to get around whatever guardrails that they had put in there. People were making SORA content, including copyrighted characters like Pikachu smoking a blunt or like Hitler spongebob, just like very weird stuff. And then we had our whole little segue with Disney because Disney, which we know was a company that is notorious for protecting their IP at all costs, took a very different approach. This time, instead of going to court, they ended up striking a deal. A billion dollar investment in OpenAI paired with a licensing agreement that would have let SORA use users generate videos using characters from Marvel, Pixar, Star wars and Disney. And that was really the moment that I felt like people were saying, this is going to be a defining moment in for AI in Hollywood. The fact that Disney, rather than, you know, what they usually do, which is protect their ip, was like, actually, we'll give you a billion dollars and y' all can use whatever IP you want. That, to me, it's, it's, it seems so strange to me.

[Mike]

What did OpenAI get in return for this? You know, giving a billion dollars of stock to Disney?

[Bridget Todd]

TechCrunch reported that even after that deal, that deal died and that no money actually changed hands before that deal fell apart. When asked, Disney kept things very diplomatic. They told Hollywood Reporter, like, oh, we plan to continue exploring partnerships with AI platforms going forward, but this particular partnership, we're not doing that anymore. To your point, there was a really good piece in 404 that we'll put in the show Notes that basically tried to answer my big question, which is like, why a company like Disney that has been so protective of their copyright and IP in Hollywood would suddenly open the doors to what one writer called Sam Altman's plagiarism machine. And in the piece they talk about how the only real explanation that makes sense is that the studio executives just really, really hate paying for human labor. They hate it so much that they maybe convince themselves that audiences would accept AI content if it was, like, packaged the right way. But I think to your point, when the use cases on Sora are mostly low effort, porny, kind of weird, gross stuff, when you strip that away, there just really isn't a lot there. As they note in the piece for 404, that's just not something anybody really wants to pay for.

[Mike]

Yeah, just the lowest common denominator slop that is the easiest, cheapest to mass produce. Why Would anybody pay for that? Why would anybody even really want to look at it?

[Bridget Todd]

Yeah, there's been a lot of people on social media complaining about this and saying, I built up my Sora presence from zero. I have made hours and hours and hours of AI generated content there. And then Sora just makes this decision and it wipes out my entire portfolio, for lack of a better word, overnight. And then they would show some of the stuff that they would make and it's stuff. Yeah, it's stuff. Like, it's a lot of trademarked characters from different universes interacting in some way. Right. It's Spider man hanging out with SpongeBob SquarePants or something like that. And I saw this interesting conversation on threads where somebody explained that it was essentially playing with action figures. Remember playing with action figures? And that the, the. The quote storyline that they come up with is always like, what if Ross from Friends hung out with the Fresh Prince of Bel Air? Like, they're all the most trite ideas imaginable that really are not cinematic and not really good stories and truly. But my bedroom production of Two Barbies and a GI Joe kiss was a lot. Was on the same level as what they're coming up with. It just happens to be AI generated.

[Mike]

Yeah, I think that's a great analogy for that slop because that's. It really gets at why people like characters in the first place. Right. Like Ross from Friends and the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. They had good storytelling around them and like, relationships with other characters. If you take that away, it's just trash.

[Bridget Todd]

Exactly. Let's take a quick break.

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[Angela Yee]

this is Angela Yee from Way up with Angela Yee, y'.

[Bridget Todd]

All.

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[Bridget Todd]

And we're back. Speaking of trash, let's check in on my favorite trash platform, Facebook. Mike, I know you have been following some pretty big news from Facebook this week.

[Mike]

Yeah, there were two, not just one, but two big lawsuits against social media platforms this week. One was against Meta and YouTube, which is owned by Google. The other one was just against Meta. The New York Times and the Guardian and a bunch of other outlets covered in both. And we'll put some links in the show notes. Both of these, I think, are pretty landmark cases that will be cited a lot as similar cases continue to. To pop up and be heard by juries. So just real quick what they. What they actually were two different cases. One was in California brought by a young woman named Kaylee, who won her suit claiming that design choices by Meta and YouTube contributed to her poor mental health. TikTok and Snap had also been originally named as plaintiffs when she filed her lawsuit, but they settled out of court, so they weren't part of this jury's decision. And now that we know which way the jury went, that was probably a wise move on their part. The other case was in New Mexico and like, quite different. So instead of being brought by a single individual who was harmed in the New Mexico case, it was brought by the state attorney general on behalf of young people across the state, specifically claiming that design choices that Meta had made facilitated the sexual exploitation of children. So we can break down both of them, but first, I think it's important to set up the context that these aren't just two random court cases. There are literally thousands of similar lawsuits filed across America. And these are the first two. And of course, I am not a lawyer, but this is something that I'm pretty interested in just because, you know, you know that I have a history working in tobacco control. And so there's a lot of parallels between what's these types of lawsuits being brought against social media companies and lawsuits that people were bringing against the big tobacco companies in the 1990s.

[Bridget Todd]

I've seen so many people kind of compare this to the moment that led us to the master settlement agreement with Big Tobacco that are. Are we hitting the watershed moment of people speaking out against tech harms?

[Mike]

Yeah, and I think that's a very reasonable question. Right. Because these are the first two cases. There are thousands more across the country. These are the first two. And in both of them, the social media companies lost. Right. So certainly not any sort of guarantee about how those other cases are going to go. But it certainly does demonstrate that they're not just A bunch of nonsense that's going to be thrown out of court immediately. In both cases, juries agree that there is enough evidence to reasonably conclude that these companies were aware their products were harming young people, but allowed the harm to continue because it was profitable. Right. So let's talk about these two cases. In the interest of time, I'm just going to briefly go through Kaylee's case against Meta and Facebook and then spend a little bit more time on the other case. But. So Kaylee, she originally filed her lawsuit in California in 2023. Today, she's 20 years old, but she says she started using social media back when she was 6. During the trial, she testified about using social media back then and how as a child, she treated it as a creative outlet, an escape from bullying at school. It was a really big part of her life. She posted very often. For example, she posted hundreds of photos on Instagram, and she used a lot of beauty filters the platform provided, which she said magnified her insecurities and led to body dysmorphia, which, you know, is something that we've talked about before on this show. Right. It's not the first time anybody is hearing these ideas. And so the jury believed her. The prosecution presented a lot of evidence. Uh, the court ordered Meta to pay her $4.2 million in damages and ordered YouTube to pay 1.8 million.

[Bridget Todd]

That is not a lot of money for these companies. That is pocket change for these companies.

[Mike]

Yes, that is complete pocket change for these companies. Just like a drop in the bucket for them in the. During the trial, Kaylee's lawyer held up a jar full of M M's to talk to the jury about what the damages should be awarded. And he compared the jar full of M M's. He was like, each of these M M's is a million dollars. You could take a handful out and it's not even going to make any difference trying to make that same point.

[Bridget Todd]

So. That's right.

[Mike]

They are just a drop in the bucket for these companies. But it does set precedent for the thousands of other cases that are pending. And so

[Rob Gronkowski]

we'll.

[Mike]

We'll just have to wait and see what happens with all of them.

[Bridget Todd]

Okay, so what about the case in New Mexico?

[Mike]

So the New Mexico case was filed against Meta, specifically, just Meta, by the state's Attorney General in May of 2023, who accused it of misleading its users about safety. The evidence that they submitted included both private and public statements by staff and executives at Meta. It also included evidence that state investigators had collected by posing as underage kids online, documenting cases where they were sexually solicited on the platform. The lawsuit also cited a two year investigation of Meta that the Guardian had published in April of 2023, which found that Facebook and Instagram had both become marketplaces for child sex trafficking. So it was just a lot of evidence that the prosecutors had been accumulating and working on for a very long time. Former Facebook engineering director Arturo Behar, who designed social media safety features for the platform before leaving in 2021, he testified as part of the trial.

[Bridget Todd]

When we were first covering this trial, early on, we've actually played his testimony to Congress on the podcast before. I would recommend people listen to what he has to say. He's just a very, he just makes. I got thought his testimony was very compelling.

[Mike]

Yes, he's a very compelling speaker and he like clearly cares a lot about this issue. After working at Meta for many years and then becoming a whistleblower. We'll definitely link to that episode so people can listen to his testimony that he gave to Congress back in 2023. But his story is that he said, you know, he was in charge of safe building safety features, and then he felt that safety was just not being taken seriously at Meta and that the company often prioritized safety theater over actually making the product safe. He says that he initially realized there was a problem when his young daughter showed him the deluge of sexual solicitations and content on her Facebook account. And she told him that it was the same for all of her friends and that they didn't even bother reporting it because they knew that nothing would be done. So from the stand during this trial, part of his testimony was that he, he gave the statement that, quote, we don't need to live in a world where an unsolicited penis picture is something that you just dismiss because it happens, end quote. Yeah, like pretty powerful stuff, right? He's a compelling speaker. And after he was done met his lawyers, didn't even bother cross examining him. The jury found Facebook liable and find the company $375 million in damages for violating New Mexico consumer protection laws. So that's, you know, two orders of magnitude more than Kaylee got already right there in New Mexico.

[Bridget Todd]

But it's still a drop in the bucket for a company like Facebook.

[Mike]

It's still a drop in the bucket.

[Bridget Todd]

I mean, a bigger drop, but it's a bigger.

[Mike]

Yeah, but that's right, they've, they probably make that amount of revenue in like a couple hours. It's going to be a long process. We are going to be hearing about court cases like this for a long time with increasing frequency. I think one notable thing about this case is that the company wasn't able to hide behind section 230. So, as you know, section 230 is a controversial law that shields social media companies from liability for content posted by their users. We've had people on the show who have argued that it needs to be reformed. We've had other people on the show who have argued that it needs to be left alone because it is an essential pillar of a free and open Internet. In my opinion, very reasonable people disagree sharply on it.

[Bridget Todd]

Yeah, I am in a lot of coalitions and working groups for Internet safety. And for the most part, we all sort of agree on. You know, we all have a similar orientation. For whatever reason, when it comes to section 230, I have been surprised how much disagreement there is among people who, like, broadly advocate for the same things.

[Mike]

And that's a whole other show. Right. Like, we've, we've had shows on it. We probably will have shows in the Future about Section 230. But notably in this lawsuit, the, the prosecutors stepped around it completely. Right. Because in this case, it wasn't the content that was on trial. It was the way Meta had designed their apps to be addictive and the fact that they knew that they were harmful and deliberately tried to mislead the public about that harm. That is what was on trial here.

[Bridget Todd]

Yes. And Mike, you and I were out for a drink the other night, and I won't say we got into an argument. We had a discussion about this. I take issue sometimes with the framing of social media as addictive. I guess, per this case, it has set a legal precedent that legally speaking, a jury has found that these design choices were addictive. And I know that you. This is something that you have a background in is like, as, like working with addiction, studying addiction.

[Mike]

That's right. I've spent more than a decade working in tobacco and nicotine addiction, you know, doing. Building apps to help people with treatment, doing research on policies, research on addiction. So it is something that I know a bit about. And one of the things that really struck me as I got into this field is that there is not a single accepted definition of addiction or what it means to be addicted. There. There just isn't. And I think personally, one of the best definitions of addiction that I've found is framing it as a learning problem where a person keeps doing something despite being harmed by it. And for whatever Reason just keeps doing it. Because that's different from most behaviors.

[Bridget Todd]

Right.

[Mike]

Like, humans are really good at learning. If a little baby touches a hot stove, it quickly learns that stoves are hot and it hurts, and hopefully the baby's gonna be okay, but it's almost certainly not going to touch a stove again. Right. Like, that's a very sharp learning signal that doing this behavior leads to bad consequences. And so an addiction, the same sort of thing is going on. You. There's this behavior that leads to bad consequences, and yet the person just keeps doing it and fails to learn that actually it would be better to not do it. And, you know, of course, it's very complicated. And addiction is used to describe a whole range of things. And some addictions are obviously so much stronger and also so much more devastating than others. And thinking about behaviors that are addictive, I think is often more useful than questions of like, well, is is someone addicted or not? And trying to put things in categories of like, this is something to which one can be addicted, and this is something to which it's not possible to be addicted. I don't think that latter framing. Framing is very helpful.

[Bridget Todd]

That's a really good distinction. So it's not even really necessarily a question of can someone be addicted to social media. The. The question really is, did this company create platforms knowing that they might present in addiction, like, behaviors in their users? So it's not really. It's. It's a. It's a. It's a small distinction, but I see what you mean.

[Mike]

Yeah. Did. Did they design their product, Facebook and Instagram, to make users in particular. In particular, kids just want to keep using them more and more, even though it was harmful to those kids. And did they go out of their way to hide that harm? A lot of the internal documents that were submitted as evidence from, like, memos and emails that Facebook folks had sent to each other within the company, as well as some public statements, a lot of them made the case that Facebook was indeed designing its products to maximize engagement, even when people on the team pushed back. In some cases, the directives from up top were to keep pushing to maximize engagement, get children to be using it more and more, in some cases using tactics that were similar to tactics that casinos used to keep people gambling. Except in this case, they were using them on kids, designing products to keep the kids more and more engaged, holding their attention in the apps so that it could sell more ads. That's one of the big connections between this case and the case against the big tobacco companies. The Idea that the executives at the company were intentionally designing their product to be addictive to keep the. The user using it over and over again. Another similarity is that prosecutors didn't just claim that meta had harmed people, but also claimed the company had taken steps to hide that harm from the public. Evidence for that included some internal meta documents about the results of an internal study the company had conducted to measure the mental health effects of disconnecting from Facebook. The study found that, quote, people who stopped using Facebook for a week reported lower feelings of depression, anxiety, loneliness, and social comparison, end quote, according to internal meta documents. So they, they knew that this was their own study that found that harm, but they never published that study. They buried it and period, the end, you know?

[Bridget Todd]

Yeah, I guess I'm not surprised by the fact that Facebook did not put that study out about their own products.

[Mike]

Yeah, me neither. It's not surprising. And the fact that it's not surprising kind of reminds me of Behar's daughter and her friends who were like, oh, yeah, of course people are showing us penises. Like, we've normalized the idea that a company like Facebook could have this direct line to children, to teens, to adults, to elderly people, and have so much potential to influence the information that they see and what they're exposed to and the people that they're exposed to. And they could just do this study and it could show harm and they could just bury it like, that's bananas, right? And. But that's unfortunately, the world we increasingly live in as companies like meta have shut down researcher access and made it harder and harder for outside sources to measure what's going on with them. Just making it more challenging and protecting themselves and their ability to design products however they want more and more. It's a little bit of a digression, but I just wanted to get that in there too.

[Bridget Todd]

Yes. So I don't think anybody listening thinks that I am pro, big tech, pro Facebook. I think that if Facebook wanted to make safer products, they would shut down, they would stop existing. Um, I am no friend to Mark Zuckerberg. However, I am very cautious about some of the precedent that I think this is setting. Facebook hurts people. They hurt kids. They profit from harming people. That is not in dispute. That is a fact. And I think that anybody who has been harmed by them should get paid for it, because that harm should. Is real and, like, should have a monetary cost, because Facebook certainly made a monetary profit from that harm and trafficking in that harm. However, I believe that a lot of these cases are. Are so easily turned into more fodder for the way that elected officials are really chomping at the bit to age gate and restrict an open, free Internet. I do not think that Facebook and big tech companies should be allowed to get away with harm without any kind of accountability. Absolutely not. But I'm just incredibly touchy about the. This just, this just to me seems like it fits so neatly into the hands of a right wing elected official who wants to restrict the Internet from young people. And we'll use that to say, and we need to make sure that they don't see any content about queerness or transness or anything that we deem a harm to kids. And so while I'm certainly not crying any tears for Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg and Meta and YouTube and Google here, I just wanted to say that because I think a lot of the plaintiffs in these cases are very sympathetic, like rightly so, understandably so. And I just don't want people to see these cases and say, and get on board with the growing chorus of voices that are trying to restrict an open Internet, especially for young people, because the Internet is a lifeline for young people, particularly marginalized young people. And so I don't want to make, I don't want anyone to think that I'm saying Facebook is good and kids need to have unrestricted access to these platforms that we know are harmful. Like, it's not in dispute. But I just wanted to say that context because I think it, I just, I just can sort of see the writing on the wall of how easily this would play into the way that a lot of people who are trying to restrict the Internet right now and successfully so in a lot of cases are thinking about it and thinking about how they can publicly message around that. Does that make sense?

[Mike]

It does make sense. And I think that's absolutely a concern. Right. I think what these, one of the effects of these cases is that it increases pressure on the tech companies to do something about this problem. And it also, I think, increases pressure on regulators and legislators to do something about the problem. And also, to your point, gives them more fodder and momentum behind policies that might be misguided and maybe are more interested in, you know, staging the safety theater for themselves or using this as like a Trojan horse to crack down on content for morality reasons or because it's too queer or too trans or just like content that they don't like. I think that's an absolutely valid concern.

[Bridget Todd]

And right now you have Meta really angling to be the one to set what these policies look like. Meta is really playing a very effective PR trick on a lot of us right now by being like, oh, we are so interested in like, please regulate us. You want to come to the table with some guidelines and regulations. And, and I actually don't think that Meta should be able to design and set the rule book for how they will behave. They obviously can't be trusted. And right now I think that like, we're all sort of watching as these very tidy ways of big tech continuing to harm our kids for profit while advocating for the companies to be the foxes watching the hen house.

[Mike]

Absolutely. And I'm glad you brought that up because that absolutely is another parallel to big Tobacco. Right. Like once it was clear to the big tobacco companies that they were going to lose and that regulation was going to be the new order of the day, they pivoted and they weaponized the regulation to effectively cement their monopolies and prevent other competitors from breaking in. So that's absolutely a risk. And, and they're definitely going to try to do that. Like you say, Facebook is already trying to do that with its big push and lobbying effort for its age gating that is doomed to fail. Right. And so there are people in Congress who have introduced alternative approaches that in my opinion are much more reasonable, much more workable and do not, and importantly do not put the the power to be making these decisions in the hands of the companies who are supposed to be policing themselves, which is like a joke. So yeah, I hear you that these cases I think will be fodder for people who want to pass bad laws and create bad policies. But I don't think that's the fault of the cases. I think that's just like a natural thing that is going to happen as these companies continue to become more and more powerful and, and members of the public demand something be done. Right. And so hopefully we can collectively do something smart and not something stupid or harmful.

[Bridget Todd]

Yes. So we know these companies are going to appeal. So we will keep you posted on the latest when we get it. More after a quick break.

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[Bridget Todd]

Let's get right back into it. Okay so there is this romantic comedy movie coming to theaters called you, Me and Tuscany. It stars Halle Bailey and it's about a black woman who impulsively jets off to Tuscany to find love. It actually has Mia Vardos from that movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding in it too, who I love. It does not have a black director, but it has two black leads. I am not a big rom com person. Like I will watch them if I am hungover on the couch and how to Lose a guy and 10 days is on TBS, I'll watch it. But I'm not a big rom com person. But even I thought, oh, this could be a cute movie. So Nina Lee is a black woman filmmaker who has no connection whatsoever to that movie that I just described, Yumi in Tuscany. But she is posting on social media begging people to go see this movie that she has nothing to do with. Why? Because Nina says that two of her film projects are currently stuck in limbo because she has been told by film studio executives that they're holding to see whether that movie, you, Me in Tuscany is going to be successful. If that rom com does well at the box office, they said that they can move forward with her movie. If it doesn't, it might not go forward. So that filmmaker Nina Lee tweeted, please go see this film about Yumi and Tuscany. I met with a studio about my already shot rom com and they won't buy it until they see how you Me in Tuscany does. Met with an executive about a romance script I have. They won't buy it until they see how you Me in Tuscany does. A film that has nothing to do with me could quite literally change my life. Plus I've heard it's really great so I'm looking forward to supporting. She also cited the RAPS coverage of the 2025 ReFrame report, which is basically a report showing how inclusive the film industry is. And the news is not good. The report showed the backsliding and the hiring of women for key roles among Hollywood's top films last year, notably women directed films, dropped to just 11 out of the top 100, the lowest number since 2019, and a sharp fall from 20 in 2023. Female central roles fell from 51 in 2024 to 39 in 2025. Only seven of those roles went to women of color, the lowest count in that category since 2018. So, yes, it just seems like whatever gains marginalized folks we're making in Hollywood and we have made serious gains, we are really backsliding. And thus Nina Lee is like, please see this movie. Because studio executives are saying that they're waiting to see how this one rom com does before they greenlight other movies with diverse casts. And I've talked about this on the podcast before. I hate this for so many reasons. One, I just feel that when an audience is sort of guilted into seeing a movie that they're made to feel like they have to support a movie because you want it to be successful. To convince studios to give women or black folks or Asian folks or other marginalized people more shots to make movies. That is not compelling to me. That is not. That's not a reasonable reason to go see a movie. You should go see a movie because you like it, because you're curious, because you want to. You want to support it. I, you know, I don't know if you remember the movie Bros, which was kind of billed as, oh, the first gay. The first rom com with. The first major rom com with a gay man at the heart of the love story. I found the marketing for that movie to be very heavy on the, like, you have to support this movie. It's very historic. It's very important. And I just don't think that's a compelling reason to see a movie. Going to see a movie should not be activism. And so also, I hate this because movies with mostly white casts or white directors flop all the time. And then it's not turned around and used as a way for executives to say, oh, we shouldn't make more movies like this. I don't think it's a fair precedent that marginalized people and people of color and women. We have to wait and see how this movie that has nothing to do with us pans out until we can actually make the project that we want to make. And furthermore, even when movies with black casts or black directors are successful, it's talked about like it's some kind of a fluke. Black Panther is a great example of this and Sinners is a great example of this. So, like, diverse and Inclusive casts and diverse directors are putting butts in seats, but it's like it doesn't matter. It's like any. When that happens, it's going to be another goalpost move. This is going to be like, oh, well, you know, Halle Bailey was in this movie and maybe it did well because she's a big star. So if she's not in the next movie, we're not going to greenlight it. It's like it's always going to be another goal post or another benchmark for folks to just not want to tell our stories. And I'm sick of it. The film critic Carolyn Lynz put it really well on Twitter. She wrote, at the end of the day, the same racist studios and executives win. Either they save money on a film they never wanted to make or make money from a film they never wanted to make. All that happens is the cycle of manipulation and exploitation is spun and culture goes nowhere. It is beyond time. We stop demanding loyalty from racialized audiences just because we're black, indigenous, or Asian. Because it's proven time and time again that when it comes to Hollywood that representation is a tool they get to use way more against us than we against them. I think this critic is absolutely right and I'm just sick of this. I really respect that. I see a lot of black movie people and critics and appreciators saying, like, well, obviously we're going to support this. Obviously we're going to support this. Like, I saw somebody tweet, you know, we, we understand the assignment. Hell, I don't even like rom coms. I'll probably go see this because I do want to set a precedent that black films have merit, that we, that our stories have merit in telling. But I just don't like this. I don't like it. This feels very manipulative and I don't like being manipulated this way. As an audience member, we deserve so much better. Our stories and our storytellers deserve so much better. I have another little update for you all about something happening on X. So we told y' all about this when it first happened. But Elon Musk, remember his big strategy to woo advertisers back to X? It was extortion.

[Mike]

Extortion. Oh, that's pretty good.

[Bridget Todd]

So back in 2024, X sued the World Federation of Advertisers and a string of big name companies and brands, including CBS Health, Colgate, Mars, claiming that these companies illegally conspired to withhold billions of dollars in ad revenue that he was entitled to from the platform by choosing not to advertise with him. So I. There are so many companies that don't advertise on my podcast. Are they. Are they illegally colluding against me? Could I sue them?

[Mike]

I think they are. You could sue them. I mean, they, they should be spending millions of dollars on this podcast every week and they're not.

[Bridget Todd]

Otherwise it's illegal.

[Mike]

Yeah, it's illegal not to give us millions of dollars.

[Bridget Todd]

That's essentially what X. What he is saying. So X argued that the advertisers coordinated through an initiative called the Global alliance for Responsible Media to effectively boycott x back in 2024. This actually did work on some pretty big brands. Low key extortion. Verizon, which had not advertised on X since 2022, pledged to spend at least $10 million in 2024 on X after X threatened to sue them if they didn't. The same thing for the luxury fashion brand Ralph Lauren. The company also agreed to resume buying ads on X after receiving a threat of a lawsuit. We talked about this in an episode of the podcast. But I think that these companies were just like, Musk is very litigious. He has a billion dollars. It's cheaper just to throw him a little bit of advertising money. Which, if I'm Elon Musk, I don't want people advertising on my platform because I have extorted them into doing it. But whatever.

[Mike]

I mean, I think if you're Elon Musk, you want exactly that. You just want them giving you money. I don't know about Ralph Lauren, but I know Verizon spends a ton of money on political contributions to candidates from both parties. And I have to assume that they just like wrote this off as another drop out of that bucket to just keep Musk, who is politically connected to the Trump administration, happy. Just easier to write her a ten million dollar check than stand up for themselves.

[Bridget Todd]

Well, it turns out they maybe didn't even have to do that because this week a judge in Dallas dismissed X's lawsuit. And this judge did not mince words. She wrote that the very nature of this alleged conspiracy does not hold up as an antitrust claim and dismissed it with prejudice. So that means that X cannot refile this lawsuit. It's over. The advertiser's defense was, like, very straightforward. They basically said that they each made an independent business decision about where to put their ad money. And they were largely driven by brand safety concerns following Musk's takeover of Twitter back in 2022. They talked about how that was a time of layoffs and chaos. And it just, in their words, a less brand friendly environment. Which is one way to put it. When there's Nazi stuff on your platform, AI generated child sexual abuse material on your platforms. Less brand friendly is one way to put that.

[Mike]

Yeah. And once again, that is just like normal now. Like that's, that's just what you get with X. Don't even try to pretend that it's something else.

[Bridget Todd]

Yes. So the court agreed and this is a pretty big loss for Elon Musk. He's been super vocal about what he sees as this politically motivated advertiser pullback since taking over the platform. And at least for right now, the courts are like, yeah, that's not what's going on. More after a quick break.

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[Bridget Todd]

Let's get right back into it. Okay, so you flagged this story for me. During the first few days of the military strike on Iran, Trump was photographed walking alongside Jessica Foster, who is this beautiful blonde, fit soldier. They were strutting down the tarmac together. After this photograph with Trump, her Instagram page exploded with a million followers. Only one problem. She is fake. The Washington Post reports Foster is an illusion. A fake woman who experts say was probably created by an artificial image by an artificial intelligence image generator. There's no public record of Foster's military service and the account, despite not being labeled as AI, is packed with indicators that she is fake. Between many of her pro Trump posts, Foster also prominently displays her feet. Foster's viral takeoff highlights an increasingly prevalent strategy for winning attention online. A slew of right wing accounts peddling patriotism mixed with soft core pornography Use fake women and convincing imagery to grab viewers across a distracted Internet, monetize their interest, and score political points.

[Mike]

Boy, we've, like, had some pretty tough words for the Washington Post over the past couple of years, and, like, all of them deserved, but that sentence is really a thing of glory.

[Bridget Todd]

I think I am with you on that one. So this whole thing is basically just a way to capitalize on political content as a marketing strategy for more AI generated content. Like, by ramping these fake Personas in politics and current events, they're basically just gaming the algorithm by making the content feel timely and shareable. Right. So, like, then they build in this audience and then the grift kicks in. Followers get nudged toward a paid platform where whoever is running this AI generated account can make some real cash. Some of her content is just so funny to me because it's just hard for me to imagine the person who doesn't understand that it's fake. Her first picture was an image of her in a really tight, kind of skimpy shirt asking for comments from, quote, every straight guy that likes an American army girl. You know, it's like, who would post that on Instagram?

[Mike]

The dream girl for some guys, I

[Bridget Todd]

guess that's what I'm saying. It's so. It seems so obviously fake to me that I have a hard time picturing, like, who is like, oh, yeah, this is a real woman. And it's a good thing that Foster is not real, because if she was real, she would be super fucking busy. Because more than 50 photos and videos have followed in the last few months revealing that this person met with First Lady Melania Trump, with Ukrainian President Zelensky, with Russian President Putin, soccer star Lionel Messi. When she's not doing that, she also finds time to give speeches, have sexy pillow fights with her fellow comrades, and also she had a picture of herself holding Maduro captive.

[Mike]

She's been busy. One of the things that comes up on this show all the time is how fan fiction explains, like, 60% of the Internet at this point.

[Bridget Todd]

Yes.

[Mike]

And I feel this fits that too. It's like fan fiction. What did the Washington Post say? Like, patriotism mixed with softcore pornography.

[Bridget Todd]

This was some really interesting reporting from the Post. They did include one little bit. I was like, dang, y' all really blowing up this guy's spot. So. So many of the comments on this Instagram are from people who think this person is real, right? They're like, oh, you're so beautiful. You're so beautiful. The Post writes, the verified Instagram Account of a Brazilian transportation official liked most of her photos and told Foster that she was Linda or beautiful. Another user asked, why do you never reply? Part of me is like, damn, you gotta call. Y' all gotta like put this Brazilian transportation official on blast. Guess who liked all her posts? I left pathetic emoji comments on all of them. This Brazilian transportation official, you think he

[Mike]

did that while he was at work

[Bridget Todd]

and he did it on his verified account? I, I almost feel a little bad for this guy that the post is calling out his like, questionable likes on Instagram.

[Mike]

I do wonder how many of the people who are liking her following her are from countries outside the United States. And so maybe that's why the like, what seems to you is straightforward, like so obviously fake content. They're like, oh, that's just how Americans talk. You know how they are.

[Bridget Todd]

I mean, reminds me of the guy who made that AI generated girlfriend who was on Esther Perel's podcast was like, that's just. She sounds like a nine year old chipmunk. That's just how women in America sound to me. They all sound like that to me.

[Mike]

Yeah, I think the way the rest of the world sees us is often different than how we see ourselves, I think.

[Bridget Todd]

So this AI generated account of this sexy soldier, the account was being used to link to only Fans, but because that violates only fans rules, like you have to be like a verified person on OnlyFans, it was deleted. So now it leads to Fan View, which is like a smaller only fans competitor with looser rules. The caption of her account there reads, public servant by day, troublemaker by night. BT dubs, I respond to every message, but be patient since I'm not a robot. You sure about that? Are you sure about that? So the post actually spoke to friend of the show, Dr. Joan Donovan, an assistant professor at Boston University who studies media manipulation, who we've had on the show before. Dr. Donovan said that AI has really helped accounts multiply because they're easy to just endlessly create and customize and offer creators a clear path to making money. The account's kind of political sheen also helps ensure that these images appear in people's news feeds. Because if you were just making sexy AI generated content, you might not. You might not be prioritized in an algorithm, but if you're making content that has this current events vibe, you might be getting shown to more people who otherwise you probably would not be in their feeds. Dr. Donovan said the danger of this is that we're moving toward a society of the Unreal. It's one way to get, it's one way to get political messaging across and it's effective. We don't even, and this is my favorite part of the quote, we don't even know if selling feet pics is Jessica Foster's final form.

[Mike]

No, like, as far as we know, we don't know anything about Jessica Foster's political beliefs. But I would venture that I probably don't like a lot of them and that we might start hearing about them as we get closer to November.

[Bridget Todd]

Yeah, I will say when I was thinking about this, I feel like men really ought to be insulted by this kind of content because whoever is making this, they think that men are so smart, stupid and horny that they will rah rah the a war if the fake AI generated woman at behind it is hot. You know what I mean? Like, I, I like, I, when I was like looking at the content, I was like, how stupid and horny does whoever made this AI generated profile think men are? But then again, this profile has a million followers. So maybe this person is not wrong about just how stupid and horny these folks are.

[Mike]

Yeah, I wish I could say that, that you were wrong. But yeah, she's got a million followers. Somebody wants it.

[Bridget Todd]

Okay, so really quickly, I feel like I've really bookended this episode with things that I know that the Internet is all talking about. And you, I'm sure you have no idea. So this super famous Brazilian soccer player, Georgino, said that his 11 year old daughter was very aggressively confronted by a security guard at a hotel where Chapel Roan was staying. Basically, him and his wife both said on social media that their daughter was eating breakfast at this hotel. The daughter is a huge chaperone fan. She had even made like a cute little sign that was like, how does that song go? Like H O T T O G O I am seeing Chapel Roan. Very cute for a kid, I thought. And so she sees Chapel Roan and she says, oh, it's Chapel Roan. According to her parents, she did not ask Chapel Roan for anything. She just like got up, walked near Chapel Roan to confirm that it was her, saw that it was her, smiled and went back to her table and was like, that was Chapel Roan and was very happy about it. Then this security guard, according to her parents, came over and screamed at her and threatened to have them like, removed from the hotel. Was a whole thing. I'm not big into the sports world, but like, this soccer player is hugely famous. He's like very, very Very, very famous in Brazil. So Georgino is this kid's stepfather, and the kid's biological father is actually actor Jude Law. So this kid is. Has very famous parents, is what I am saying. And so it turned into this big controversy. So the mayor of Rio de Janeiro banned a Chapel Roan from performing at this major city sponsored event in Rio de Janeiro over this event, which, depending on who you ask, might be a bit of an overreaction. So she put out a statement that she was like, oh, I, I don't really know what happened. I don't hate kids. I wouldn't have done that. And I thought like, oh, that's a pretty good statement. And then immediately there was a video of her walking through an airport with security where she's like visibly pointing to security being like, tell him to stop photographing me. Tell him to get away from me. So I was sort of like, well, I don't know what to think now. And I'm still not 100% sure what the truth is here. So Chapel Roan clarified that it was not a member of her security team. And then the guard himself, himself put out a statement saying that he was not acting on her behalf, that he was there bodyguarding someone else, and that he made a judgment call just based on the, the vibe of the, of the breakfast and decided on his own to go, like, scream at this child, which to me is even weirder. Side note, do you remember hearing a story about how Kim Kardashian was like, violently robbed at a hotel in Paris? Yeah, he was her. He was her bodyguard when that happened.

[Mike]

Wow.

[Bridget Todd]

So this, this, this bodyguard, he's like the Forrest Gump of celebrities. Whenever there's like a celebrity scandal, he just happens to be there somehow.

[Mike]

Also, why do I feel like this hotel was not the La Quinta of Rito de Janeiro? Like, everyone staying there is an A list celebrity.

[Bridget Todd]

Yes. Yes. So the reason I want to bring this up, not because I have any big take about Chapel Roan or anything like that, but because this conversation got very heated online. And it turns out that a substantial amount of the conversation was amplified by bots. We know that from the research firm Gudea, who we heard from the head of Gudea in our episode about Taylor Swift. Well, Gudea analyzed over 100,000 posts across seven platforms in the days following the incident and, and found that While only about 4% of users were likely bots, those accounts were responsible for more than 23% of the posts, meaning that a small number of bot accounts were driving a hugely outsized chunk of the backlash, including misinformation and calls for boycotts. And I say that to say that I spent a non trivial amount of time reading Chapel Roan takes. And I'm I can admit that the ones that were like, Chapel Roan, she needs to learn how to be respectful to her fans. I was like, yeah, you tell them. And then it was like, Chapel Roan, she didn't do anything wrong. And I was like, yeah, that's probably right too. Like the, the way that I was so easily swayed in this conversation, in a conversation that I have no real stake in. I like Chapel Roan. I'm not a huge fan. So it was not even like I did not feel strongly about it yet. I threw away half an afternoon reading Chapel Brazil takes and you know, I have but one life to live and I spent half of a day of it following takes of a story I don't even really care about that were probably amplified by bots.

[Mike]

And you still don't know what happened.

[Bridget Todd]

I still don't know. I still don't know. Anyway, I just wanted to end there just as a reminder not to let online conversations sway you too much, right? Like, don't get too invested. Nine times out of ten, bots are very, very effective at amplifying and swaying the conversations of Just tread carefully in these Internet streets.

[Mike]

If folks want to let us know what they thought about any of these stories, we would love to hear about it at Send us an email at [e-mail] you can leave comments in Spotify. We've had a lot over there. We love to see them. Please keep them coming. And you can follow Bridget on social media at Bridget Marie in D.C. on Instagram. And you can follow the show there are no girls on the Internet on TikTok and YouTube. And don't forget to pre order our book. You can reserve your copy [e-mail] I recently learned that Liro FM is a really cool way to listen to audiobooks. I don't know if other people have been more into audiobooks than I am already knew this, but the thing that makes Liro FM different is that whenever you reserve an audiobook or buy an audiobook, they make a donation to your local brick and mortar bookstore, helping support small bookstores stay in business. So I was really excited to learn that and have started telling everyone that that's where they should get their audiobook Love at first prompt. But you should get it wherever you prefer. And when it comes out on July 14th I hope you'll let us know what you think about it.

[Bridget Todd]

And as you know, if you send us a screenshot or tag us in your pre order, we have a sticker and a handwritten card coming your way. We've got the first batch about to go out. So Melanie is getting a card, Elizabeth G. Is getting a card. Robyn's getting a card. Jan is getting a card, Hannah's getting a card. Some of these places are far away and I love to see how many different listeners we have all over the world. So cards are. The first batch is going out. And if you want a handwritten card as a thank you and a sticker, go ahead and preorder.

[Mike]

Yeah, we've been getting requests from, like all over the world. We had one from New Zealand, one from Australia, bunch from Europe. And when people from other countries ask for stickers, they're always like, you don't have to send it. If the shipping is too much, we don't mind, we will ship it. And we're also going to send you extra stickers and we hope that you put them up in your little corner of the world to help spread the show.

[Bridget Todd]

Thank you so much for all the support. Thank you, Mike, for being here. I will see you on the Internet. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi. You can reach [e-mail] youm can also find transcripts for today's [e-mail] There are no girls on the Internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of iHeartRadio and unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing part producer. Edited by Joey Pat I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Bridget Todd]

This is an iHeart podcast.

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