Ben Whitelaw: 0:00

So since we're talking teens today, Bridget, I thought like, what's the app that I think about most when I think about teenagers and I thought, be real. it, you know, it's the ultimate teen app. It's so kind of specific to this like, emerging group of, you know, internet users. And it's, I think it's like growing in popularity increasingly. So. I wanted to start today's podcast, but asking you what be real asks its users, which is it's time to be real. Save this moment and share it with your friends. How would you capture this moment?

Bridget Todd: 0:29

I would capture, being on this podcast is one of the highlights of my week for sure, but also maybe my career as, uh, someone who talks about tech. What about you, Ben?

Ben Whitelaw: 0:39

Well, that's very high praise considering the, you know, the, the podcast that you host and are on regularly. So, uh, I, I appreciate that. Um, I would say that this is the ultimate be real moment for me. You know, my hair's unkempt. I haven't really slept. I've got bags, you know, fatherhood is really wearing heavy on me. so yeah, I think this is a be real moment for sure.

Bridget Todd: 0:58

Your hair looks great to.

Ben Whitelaw: 1:01

Thanks so much. You have to say that. Hello and welcome to Control Alt Speech, your weekly roundup of the major stories about online speech, content moderation, and internet regulation. it's June 26th, 2025, and this week's episode is brought to you with financial support from the future of online trust and safety fund. This week we're talking about Jen Alpha slang, Australia's age assurance, and being a Reddit moderator online. I'm Ben, and I'm the founder and editor of Everything In Moderation. Mike Masnick is out this week again, and so I'm very, very excited to be in the chair with Bridget Todd, a writer, speaker, and trainer on digital safety and social media accountability, and actually noted at the top of today's podcast, the host of tanti, otherwise known as there are no Girls on the Internet. Bridget, very, welcome to you.

Bridget Todd: 1:58

Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.

Ben Whitelaw: 2:01

How has your week been apart from this, you know, appearance on the podcast? what have you been up to?

Bridget Todd: 2:06

Oh, my week has been pretty good. I'm excited because we just had a, I mean, podcast for the podcaster. We just had a exciting launch, Mozilla's really good podcast and I am lucky enough to get to help make and host. IRL just went live, so I'm sort of deep in launch land, but things are good.

Ben Whitelaw: 2:24

Amazing. give us the, you know, elevator pitch for IRL. I've listened to a few episodes, but for people who haven't listened, what's it about?

Bridget Todd: 2:30

Oh, it is about the ways that AI is shaping our life already. So much of the conversation about AI, I feel is about future casting. How will AI do this? How will AI do that? But we're really kind of keeping it hyper personal about the ways that AI is already changing. I. Things that you might not think how we love, who we love, how we date, what our cities feel like, how our cities are policed. All of these sort of super granular, hyper-specific, personal ways that AI is already showing up in our life and what it means for all of us.

Ben Whitelaw: 3:01

Yeah. Super interesting. You're actually sharing with me before we start recording that you are like a recent chat, GPT, uh, you know, advocate as am I, like, has it been interesting to kind of research for the podcast and also start to kind of, ramp up your use of these tools?

Bridget Todd: 3:14

It is. So, I guess awkward might be the word because, you know, I'm, I'm often quite critical of tech because I love tech, but then it's like, oh, this technology, I just spent an hour on the podcast railing against, let me go use it to help create the podcast, to continue railing against it.

Ben Whitelaw: 3:30

It's a vicious cycle, isn't it? It's

Bridget Todd: 3:31

It really is.

Ben Whitelaw: 3:33

but you know, you kind of touch on something there, which I think is important to note. So you, that you host these podcasts, you're taking part in control speech day and you, you are a real kind of voice, I think a real vibrant. Voice in the world of, tech culture and, and tech criticism as well. I'd say, you know, you provide really robust critiques, through the podcast that you host and are on. talk to me about how you came to be in that place and like how you ended up here and with those viewpoints.

Bridget Todd: 3:57

Yeah. I mean, well first of all, thank you. Yeah. I just, I love technology. I've always loved tech. I grew up in a real small town in Virginia and, um. When I was growing up, you know, if you're like an offbeat, awkward, off ball, weird kid living in the middle of nowhere, oftentimes you feel like, where are my people? Am I just an alien? Like where are I? Where are my people like me? And when my parents brought me a computer, it changed everything. It was like, they may as well have bought me a pair of wings. And so it really was the internet that was so impactful in me finding my people, figuring out who I was in the world and all of that. And so, yeah, I, I. Care deeply about technology. I love technology, and that's why I feel that it's so important to be critical of technology because it comes from a place of love. It comes from a place of knowing how important technology can be when, when harnessed correctly, and especially like, I was just a kid, I, I really do worry about what kind of internet landscape we are leaving for the next generation. Like I want them to be able to safely explore the internet and technology just like I did, and have it be a, a healthy experience for them.

Ben Whitelaw: 5:00

Yeah. I agree. And, and my, I didn't get the internet actually till pretty late. I was like 15 or 16. And I think that did have a kind of impact in both, like who I am and what I'm about. you know, my, my parents were bit, bit kind of afraid of technology and the internet and we didn't really embrace it as much as like some other families like. Sounds like yours did. and we hear that story kind of time and time over, you know, these like seminal moments when people bring home like a computer or a laptop or like, you know, get booted up to the internet and you hear that beautiful sound of, you know, you know, the dial tone, uh, as it was back in the day. that's such, so important and I think speaks to the stories we're gonna talk about today on the podcast as well, because there is a, a theme that has emerged, which, in the conversations we've had before recording. One thing I wanted to kind of talk about was your work at, you know, your fellowship, at the kind Bergman Kline Center. Talk to us about that and what and what that's about.

Bridget Todd: 5:49

Yeah, my research is really focused on surprise, surprise podcasts, and one of the things I'm really interested in exploring is. Podcasts. The reason why I'm a podcaster and I, I'm I not just someone who makes podcasts, I listen to a lot of podcasts. It's the intimacy and the connection with the host. Like in a lot of the podcasts I listen to, I've been listening to them for years, and these people are friends in my head, and so I'm really interested in how that specific dynamic in the podcast medium can be harnessed for both good and bad, like. I firmly believe that the reason why we see podcasts as this unique vector of mis and disinformation in the audio space is because of that intimacy. However, that same intimacy, I believe can be harnessed to break through mis and disinformation and break through some of the more toxic things that we know, can make up the podcast landscape. So I'm just very interested in the sort of double-edged sword that the intimacy of this medium represents. And that's what my work at Harvard is all about.

Ben Whitelaw: 6:46

Interesting. And, and have you kind of looked at the downside for podcast hosts as well?'cause one of the things I often think about is, hosts giving too much of themselves and being, too open and giving away information that might, present a safety risk to them and to you as an individual. is that something that, like you've thought about doing these podcasts and also doing this research?

Bridget Todd: 7:04

It's definitely something that I have to navigate as a podcaster, and I'm, I'm sure you do too. I would love to hear how you navigate it, but you know, I love being in connection with the folks who listen to the, shows that I produce, and so I want to be. I want to show up authentically to those conversations. I want them to be connecting with me. However, I'm also a real person who really exists in the world, and I think it is a delicate balance to know how much of yourself to share, what to hold back, what you want folks to connect with you over and what you maybe want to keep for your IRL Friends. what's also funny is that I don't think. Of all of my friends and family and community IRL, I don't think any of them listen to my podcast, which is perfectly fine with me.

Ben Whitelaw: 7:47

Wow. Really? Is that true?

Bridget Todd: 7:48

I, I mean, anecdotally I haven't like surveyed them, but anecdotally they're all like, oh, Bridget, the podcaster. I don't actually listen. But isn't that cool? You know? And that works.

Ben Whitelaw: 7:58

Yeah, that's fine. I've said before in the podcast that some family members who will remain nameless listen to control or speech to fall asleep. So, you know, that's, I think your situation's way better than mine, you know, let's, I would keep it that way.

Bridget Todd: 8:11

Yeah, I mean that, probably means that you have a soothing, a soothing podcast voice.

Ben Whitelaw: 8:16

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what, that's what they say. Um, and one thing I wanted to ask before we jump into today's stories is something that I found out about you from this week's. There are no girls on the internet, which is that you studied minstrel in grad school.

Bridget Todd: 8:31

I did, it was something that I, I really fell down. A a you never get to get like a brain worm where you're like, this thing is so interesting. And the thing that made it interesting to me was that, you know, minstrel shows were something that were, popularized in the late 18th and early 19th century. And I do feel that today. Some of the same dynamics that you see in these performances are still, they still have a choke hold on our culture. And so, you know, some recent things I've seen on TikTok, I think it's very clear. but yeah, I think it's, what fascinated me with this was just the way that, nothing ever really kind of goes away in culture. It just gets reinvented.

Ben Whitelaw: 9:09

Yeah, totally. And you know, that episode is a really great place to start. if you are wanting to find out about Bridget's work, it's a great, take on a trend that I had no idea about and almost wish I didn't know about, but, but it's, but it's here and it's, you know, it's, it's present and we need to know about it.

Bridget Todd: 9:24

Yeah. And I am, I, I'm happy that you put it that way. And I think that's one of the reasons why I'm, I was so drawn to studying minstrel shows when I learned about them is that it's here and we don't have to like it, and it's very uncomfortable. But I almost think that because it's so repugnant, you want to just not see it. You want to be like, oh, this is not happening. I don't need to learn about this. But we should push through that because these repugnant things can tell us so much about ourselves. And so if if we. Pretend they're not happening because they are repugnant. We don't learn from them. We don't get to actually like learn from this history.

Ben Whitelaw: 9:56

Yeah. And there's a really, there's a gen AI element to that story as well, which you, talk about on the podcast, which again, I think is, it makes it really super relevant and is the segue, I think, into our first story today, which is, a story that you picked out from 4 0 4 media, not about minstrels. You can bring your experience, experience to bear in that sense, but you've picked out the kind of unique linguistic habits of. Essentially as, as really the interesting element of this story. Talk us through what your attention,

Bridget Todd: 10:25

Yeah, so this is the idea that human parents. Are about as good as AI at recognizing and moderating Gen Z slang, which is to say they're not great at it at all. Um, do you know that Will Smith song parents Just Don't understand? As I

Ben Whitelaw: 10:38

yeah. Yeah.

Bridget Todd: 10:39

reading this story of, that was the song that was playing in my head. And so 4 0 4 Media, who I love, shout out to them, did a great breakdown of this and, a research paper written by Manisha Metta, who is a rising ninth grader. She presented this paper at the a CM Conference on Fairness, accountability and Transparency in Athens, and it really shows that Jen Alpha's distinct slang and ways of speaking, which is so influenced by gamer culture, streamer culture. Throw some A IVE into there. Um, the way that they specifically speak is challenging in terms of. Automated moderation used by popular large language models. And so first of all, I loved that this was a, a, study or an insight coming from youth, like a young person online. So often I feel that we're talking about a group, but not actually including them. And so, I think it's really cool that this, young person was like, no, I wanna talk to my friends and figure out. AI is able to understand and thus moderate the way that we speak, and the answer is not really.

Ben Whitelaw: 11:42

Yeah. Yeah. It's super interesting. I mean, I'm terrified of this, young woman, you know, like she's, she's gonna be such a superstar in so many ways. And I also thought it was funny before we kind of get into the meat of the paper, how she had to borrow her dad's laptop to speak to the 4 0 4 media reporter about her paper. Like she doesn't own a laptop. And I don't if you even, you know, she probably owns a phone, but like, who has Zoom on your phone as a 15-year-old?

Bridget Todd: 12:08

Yeah. And that she was working with like, I think it was that her dad was pursuing a PhD and so she, did have an adult co-author on this study, and that co-author was the person who was, uh, what's the word I'm looking for? Um. Supervising her dad's PhD, which I thought was adorable. Uh, but the study is like pretty meaty. So to do the study, she recruited 24 of her young friends to create a data set of 100 gen alpha phrases. So phrases that you might recognize if you have a young person in your life. Things like let him cook, ate that up, as well as social media phrases like, got Ratioed. I'll say some of the phrases, and this is something I have a little bit of a, bee in my bonnet about. There is such an overlap between what we think of as youth slang and A A VE. So phrases like secure the bag. You might think of that as like a social media slang. I think of that as like a a VE, like a, like a, a, phrase that is, has roots in black cultural expression. And so there is so much overlap between a A VE live streamer culture, gaming culture. Like that's how Gen Z is really kind of. Coming up with the way they speak, it's a very unique, way of expressing yourself.

Ben Whitelaw: 13:20

Yeah, a hundred percent. And, and so what were the kind of like phrases that came out, like stood out for you and, cause this is like a really original data set, right? That doesn't seem to be, at least according to the paper, like anything around like this, which shocked me.

Bridget Todd: 13:33

No, and it is shocking because these phrases There are phrases that have different, meanings depending on the context, right? They can be mocking or encouraging depending on how somebody is using them. So already they do present kind of a, challenge to just moderation in general. And so she told Farro for media in that interview on Zoom with, on her dad's laptop that her main thesis was that Gen Alpha has no reliable form of content moderation online. And so this is particularly important for youth, I would say, because. She talked about how she's seen her friends experience online harassment and that she worries that parents who maybe are not aware of how Gen Z express themselves and the meanings behind different phrases and how they're used, they might not be aware. And so that creates a hesitancy of these young people to ask for help because their parents are just not gonna, if I say like, oh, this person online said X, Y, z to me, their parents might not understand the meaning and the context of, that in a, in a certain. Situation. And so yeah, I think her study just really illustrated how complex the language that young people use online with each other is, and how that complexity basically leaves all of this content and all of this speech essentially unmoderated.

Ben Whitelaw: 14:46

Yeah. And it's not just the kind of, I guess the safety element as well, or like the harassment element to it, but you wonder as well, what. Lack of data of these phrases, the lack of kind of, lack of lexicon that these moderation systems are using or these AI systems are using what the impact of that is on, on just the way that they express themselves generally. You know, like I was thinking about a friend's child who said that when they posted something, if you didn't get a certain amount of likes after a certain period of time, they would take it down. and like that's, the way that the algorithm assesses, the photo and the text and, you know, takes all the signals into account and then surfaces that to friends. That's partly based upon on the language and like the moderation, you know, whether it deems it to be safe or not, and whether it deems it to be relevant to other people in, in her network. And. Again, like, I wonder how much, these phrases, these, meme influenced words are influencing the distribution of content and, you know, forcing people to take content down and like, what that means and like how it kind of makes people go into their share as much as the, you know, obvious safety elements

Bridget Todd: 15:49

That's a really good point. And her study sort of answers this. She found that all non G alpha evaluators, human and AI, struggled significantly in the categories of basic understanding. So what does this phrase mean? Uh, contextual understanding. Does it mean something different in different contexts? Safety risk. Is it toxic? And so this was especially true for what they called emerging expressions, which is words like ski, which I have to admit, I have tried to understand this many a times. I still do not to you.

Ben Whitelaw: 16:21

I was hoping you wouldn't ask. I was hoping you wouldn't ask. I mean, I, I barely got around the, like, the idea that Sigma was not just a letter in the Greek alphabet and actually meant like a kind of lone wolf figure. Like that's, that's the extent of my knowledge of these phrases. So, you know, ski is way beyond me.

Bridget Todd: 16:39

Yeah. I asked a young person in my life what it meant, and we had this conversation that was like, that who's on first monologue? Where basically he was like, it doesn't mean anything. And I was like, what is like, but why are you using it? He's like,'cause it's funny. Why is it funny? It just is like, it just the, the, the rabbit holes. I went down trying to understand this one phrase. I still don't.

Ben Whitelaw: 17:00

Kafkaesque. Um, yeah, I mean, I think, you know, those phrase phrases super interesting. Uh, you talked a bit about like the wanting to involve younger people in, in research like this, but also I guess in the platform. Kind of accountability side as well. How would you like to see that evolve? you know, some of the platforms have youth councils, like, I think last year TikTok announced, a youth council Meta have had like a, program called Our Feed Our Future For a while you don't hear a lot about them, and I don't imagine there's a lot of discussion about language or, or moderation. you think there's improvements to be made there? Oh.

Bridget Todd: 17:35

Oh, for sure. I mean, it's a little above my pay grade about what specifically should be done, but I always think about that phrase, nothing about us without us. I think that, there should be. Especially platforms that are really blowing up with youth. You need to be listening to what they are saying about how they're experiencing these platforms, not the other way around. Like it should not just be people telling youth how they experience them, but meaningfully including youth in the conversation. I don't know that that's happening right now, and I, I really think we should see more of it.

Ben Whitelaw: 18:05

Yeah, exactly. I, I would like to see that as well. It's maybe an, an era we can go a bit deeper, Mike and I in a future episode. yeah. Anything else to note about this story before we move on? Apart from just like how Crazy Call Manisha is. As a, as a, as a first author aged 15, oh my God. Yeah.

Bridget Todd: 18:22

yeah. Uh, hire me one day. If you're listening. When I see you in a job interview in a few years, hire me.

Ben Whitelaw: 18:30

I think, we'll, well, maybe we'll send this to her to, I was gonna say, I dunno, improve her confidence, but she's probably confident enough. Uh, yeah. She doesn't need us. Um, yeah. Amazing, amazing kind of report. Great paper. really brilliantly explained. Thanks for kind of bringing that to us, Bridget. I wanted to, you know, studying of minstrel. Does that translate? an appreciation of accents by any

Bridget Todd: 18:51

Oh my God, yes.

Ben Whitelaw: 18:53

How is, how good is your Australian accent?

Bridget Todd: 18:55

Uh, not so I spent some, so I love Australia. I spent some time in Australia. I, the accent, I don't think, I ha I could not do a good one, but when I was in Australia, I heard so many variations of it and I would just find myself like getting lost in the music of somebody's really deep Australian accent. And I loved it.

Ben Whitelaw: 19:15

Oh, nice. where did you spend time?

Bridget Todd: 19:17

I was in Melbourne and Sydney.

Ben Whitelaw: 19:20

Okay. Okay. Well, that was my kind of poorly poor attempt at a link between, that last story and this next one. And, we're gonna talk a bit about age assurance technology now, which sounds a bit dry, it feels, you know, somewhat technical, but it has very, very real implications for. all users on the internet, but particularly, younger users. So the story that came out this week is in the context of a couple of things. Australia has had a very assertive approach to online safety for a long time. It's, passed its legislation, the Online Safety Act back in 2021. And people have heard last year about the, amended social media ban, which, When wildfire in the news, and I think really caught people's attention, particularly parents of younger children in the background since, may last year, there's been an age assurance trial that's been going on. a lot of what Australia is doing, a lot of what a lot of regulators are doing. Generally, it's predicated on the idea that you can know. Confidently how old somebody is on the internet and be able to kind of really, you know, understand to the day of the month, that somebody is 13 or 15 or 18, whatever it is. And those technologies have been around for a while, but they're very hit and miss. And this age assurance trial is really kind of one of the biggest. Attempts to try and validate how effective those pieces of tech are in terms of privacy, in terms of inclusion, in terms of how easy they are to use. And so what we've got this week, which we didn't have last week, is a kind of summary of some of the findings of the age assurance trial. the full Multi hundred page report is due out later this year. It's gonna inform a lot of the kind of, Australian of political regulatory direction I expect. but the preliminary findings have, you know, essentially found that yes, Based upon the assessment by this independent auditor. A lot of the age verification, stuff that the, eSafety commission wants to do is possible. However, there are some caveats. there is risks around ai spoofing of, age verification tech. There's a few of the technology providers which, the auditors. Deemed to be almost enabling regulatory compliance and, gathering almost too much data about users, which is obviously is a massive concern. And, I'm interested in your thoughts on this, Bridget, and age assurance generally, but like, this kind of feels like the type of report you would put out in advance of a much bigger report in which you say that. Yeah, go ahead. Age assurance is great. it's a little bit kind of like mark your own homework I felt.

Bridget Todd: 21:46

Yeah, I feel the exact same way. this comes up on our shows a lot. I just don't love age assurance technology. I noticed from the report something that I, I think is accurate, which is that, let's say that this kind of technology was working like gangbusters youth are so good at getting around anything. one of the things from the report stakeholders have raised concerns about how children may circumvent the ban by fooling facial recognition, getting older siblings or parents to help them. Because when, have you ever heard of a teenager doing something like that? Like find a, finding a way around a regulation? So yeah, I just, I am incredibly skeptical of age assurance. Tech to keep young people from the internet for both. Like the reasons of like, is the technology able to do that and then from like ethical or sort of more philosophical reasons of should we be doing that? Like should we be keeping young people from technology and social media?

Ben Whitelaw: 22:44

Yeah, I, I agree. And like, one of the things that, kind of people involved in the study have pointed out is like, it's going to prevent, the youngest people from looking at the content that's the most egregious. So it's not, basically not gonna work for everyone all of the time. and that's fine if you're, In one of those buckets, right? If you are a kind of 9-year-old and you look like a 9-year-old and you're looking at content that is very, very kind of beyond where a 9-year-old should be looking or spending time. But if it's, you know, much more nuanced than that and the content is, you know, hard to discern, like. That's where the issue is, I think. And, again, like this is something I think that you've been thinking a lot about in terms of, the work you've been doing on the podcast and like the way the marginalized groups often get kind of excluded from certain spaces on certain basises. Is that something that, is part of the reason why you, you are worried about age assurance ly?

Bridget Todd: 23:34

Absolutely. I mean, you, you really put it well. Content that is hard to discern. You know, in the United States, I wouldn't trust our current administration to be making the determination of like, what is or is not age appropriate content. You know, when I, when I, I was talking about growing up as a little oddball in rural of Virginia, like, it was like part of my internet experience was coming to terms with the fact that I am a queer person, and the internet was hugely impactful in that realization and so. I don't like the idea that content that deals with those kinds of issues might be the content that people have determined like, oh, this is too much for young people. Right. I, I could easily see that being something that is done. Oftentimes These kinds of studies and this kind of work is being done on a particular kind of youth and then more marginalized youth, black youth, queer youth, youth of color, at risk youth, vulnerable youth are entirely left out. So I don't wanna create a situation where we have a system that works great for a particular kind of youth and then is really maybe not working so great for more marginalized youth who are just getting left out in the cold. Does that make sense?

Ben Whitelaw: 24:42

totally. I think that's a really, really important point to make. And like, it's not enough for it to work for 80% of, people. Like, that's, that's not good enough, I would say. and I would like, you know, the, the long multi hundred page report, that we're all awaiting for, which we'll no doubt talk about on a feature episode of the podcast to deal with those issues because I think that's really like central to everything. what about the kind of privacy element and the, the kind of, the fact that, a lot of data's being, supposedly kind of collected about users, like that's another concern, right?

Bridget Todd: 25:13

So this is almost, it's almost seems like a paradox to me because I feel that we're being told in order to keep youth safe online, all of us have to give a lot more data. All of us have to like experience a lot less privacy online and give more of our information. Like something about that feels very paradoxical to me, and I don't love that as a dynamic.

Ben Whitelaw: 25:33

Yeah. You know, it's true. there's trade-offs there. Sure. You know, to be made and, trust and safety is, is often about trade-offs. and somebody also said that it's about trade-offs and sadness that stands for trade off and sadness, which I liked. Um, so yeah, so there are, there's gonna be kind of pinch points I think in, in some of this, but like. As a direction of travel. This is a really interesting document for how a large country that is quite far ahead in some of its thinking around online safety is progressing. a little addendum to that story to note, the social media ban that, you know, was passed, last year, last December, is due to come into, play into, in Australian law in December this year. there's been a kind of a little update to that story as well. The ban initially focused on, a number of platforms, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, I believe. And this week the eSafety Commission, the regulator in, in Australia has, has decided to add YouTube to that. Initially, YouTube was like given a pass because, you know, YouTube has some educational content on it. It has, you know, some pretty beloved, I think cartoons, which meant that, you know, it was given this like, trap door into, into being used by schools. Actually. some research that's been done suggests that kids are seeing a lot of, you know, harm on the platform around 40% according to this new piece of research they've done. And so they, they've actually. Written to let lawmakers to say, actually we wanna add YouTube into the list of platforms that have to go down this age of tore route. Which I think is interesting. You know, like what's your thoughts on YouTube? Where do they sit in terms of like how their approach to safety against the other platforms? Are you a fan?

Bridget Todd: 27:10

I am not a huge fan. I do think, like if I was working at YouTube, I think it's pretty brilliant to say like, oh, we have so much educational content for kids. like kids should be able to get this content. Like they wanna have it both ways of like, I. We are a place where a toddler can safely experience Miss Rachel. but also like Gore footage. You know what I mean? Like, uh, so I think, I think that's quite brilliant. but I do think that YouTube has really enjoyed like a sort of like lighter fluffier space that I, I would argue is unearned. And I think like if you look at the way that YouTube really, I think has walked back some of their bare minimum moderation stuff recently. I think that people are starting to wake up and say, okay, like you actually are a platform that needs to be moderated, just like any other platform. I don't like this idea that they get to enjoy this special designation because they do host children's content in my book. That means they should be. moderated even more, strictly.

Ben Whitelaw: 28:08

Yeah. And we talked a bit about it on last week's podcast, how their changes to the moderation policies have been much more under the radar. You know, there hasn't, there's been no fanfare. It's been very kind of, I guess, like clever. they've attracted fewer headlines. We know that, know, moderation has a kind of PR element to it. You know, as soon as a, a media like 4 0 4 or somebody else talks about or writes about a moderation decision, you know, we often see rollbacks, we often see account takedowns. So the way they've done it has been, has been clever. and I agree. You know, we've, it feels as though we've talked about YouTube as a kind of like, as the black swan of the, the kind of like the badly moderated platform. So Wow. And yeah, it still kind of persists. yeah.

Bridget Todd: 28:48

I remember, I think it was. Don't quote me on this, but re they recently all of their sort of election protection, like, oh, you can't go on our platform and say the election was rigged, or like, you know, all of that. They were like, actually, now you can,

Ben Whitelaw: 29:02

Yeah.

Bridget Todd: 29:03

but they, they kind of like, yeah, they're so good at flying under the radar. And I, I do think this stuff really makes a difference because if YouTube makes this, moderation decision, other platforms follow suit and. I don't like, like the fact that they're doing this so quietly tells me that they're doing something they don't want a lot of, fanfare around, but it's kind of a, a pet peeve of mine. They get to enjoy the positive press when they announce these things, right? So when they say, oh, we're taking proactive standards to do yada, yada, yada, they love getting all the accolades and having people position them as a responsible actor. But then when they roll that back, they wanna be able to do that quietly.

Ben Whitelaw: 29:39

Yeah. And, and that's, when I think about the kind of youth councils that we mentioned before, you know, those often feel, when I talk about them in the newsletter, when they, when they become, you know, discussed, they feel like. positive PR stories, you know, they feel like it's a bit of investment to gather some people in a room every quarter probably, or sometimes online to, you know, maybe take, some fresh ideas on board from a group that we don't normally hear from. but we never hear what the outcomes of those conversations are. So like, yeah, you get all of the upside and, and kind of none of the downside in a way. So we have to be kind of aware of that, I think as, You know, people reporting on this stuff and, and talking about this stuff, which I think is important. but yeah, the, the stuff around age assurance is fascinating. There is some other kind of notable updates this week in France, and in the UK as well, who have, having their own battles with. Adult websites, including PornHub, around whether they're gonna implement age assurance technology. So it's a whole rich, she, which, you know, we could talk even more about Bridget, but we probably should, we should talk about something else. with that in mind, let's kind of go on to a couple of other stories that we, we spotted this week. One of the other stories that I wanted to flag which I think is a, a really nice, positive story and actually speaks to our youth theme is these two moderators who've been profiled by the Straits Times in Singapore, they are part of a six strong, team that moderate a forum, uh. on Reddit called, let me get the name. SGE exams. Singapore exams. It's basically a big, subreddit of 285,000, users focusing on student life exams, what it's like to kind of get out of school and go to university. And apparently it's like the place to go to get your, news and advice about school, and these two kids are like so sweet. Like a 19-year-old and a 23-year-old kind of stewarding this community in their own time, in their spare time and weekends and evenings. And I just thought it was great. It was like a, it gave me a real, it's like sense of hope about the future of, you know, online spaces.

Bridget Todd: 31:36

Yeah, and I mean so much of the internet I feel like these days especially for youth, is places where they're being sold something or you know, where experiences aren't so great. Like I worry that the internet, I. Lacks these third spaces where youth can connect. And because IRL there are so few spaces like that, you know, increasingly there's less and less these spaces online where youth can talk about what they're experiencing, talk about school, just connect and goof off safely. They become so important. And I, yeah, I just reading this story, it sort of warmed my heart and it's a, a good reminder that there's still corners of the internet that are good and that there's still people who like, are invested in investing their time and energy and keeping it that way.

Ben Whitelaw: 32:21

Yeah. Agreed. Did you, Bridgette, like, did you ever kind of moderate or steward a space online? Like was this, was there a place that you ended up like being very involved in, in, in your youth?

Bridget Todd: 32:32

so I, I mean this was, I wouldn't say this was in my youth, but when I was in my twenties, I was pretty invested in a subreddit for natural hair. I mean, I could talk all day, but basically in the kind of two thousands in the United States. There was a huge wave of black women who were like embracing their natural hair and sort of growing it out. But if anyone listening happens to be a black woman with natural hair, this is sometimes a process. And so you really have to get particular products, share particular, you know, tactics and all of that. And so this also coincided with the rise of Reddit. And so it was a, a real popular. Place for women all over the country to come together and share tips and share products. And so I was a moderator for a natural hair subreddit and I loved it. And again, like this was for me one of the earliest experiences I had on Reddit, but it really demonstrated that people really do want to come together and connect and exchange information about something they're passionate about. And we need to have online spaces where that is possible and like not just. not just like a, place where you're gonna be sold some crappy product that doesn't work. It's people actually sharing experiences and, trading tips and really, connecting over a shared passion.

Ben Whitelaw: 33:47

Yeah. I of interest, and hope this is giving away any secrets of the subreddit, but like how did you become involved as a moderator? Like what was the process of like being in inducted into the

Bridget Todd: 33:58

so I love this question. I was like a power user. I was like, I was like on, I was, I, I mean, this also coincided with my first. Real big girl job at an office. So I had never had a job where I got to sit in front of a computer, essentially like unwatched all day. And that was a whole thing. Um, but yeah, one day the person who moderated it was like, I'm stepping down. Does anyone wanna do this? And luckily, I was on the internet every hour of the workday, so I got to be like me. I will. So I just snuck in there.

Ben Whitelaw: 34:27

Nice. cause one of the things in this, profile that I particularly liked was like, they talk about these two moderators, like their interview that they had. And so, the, the 19-year-old Gets interviewed by like the head moderator's names, I think Raphael and she talks about like, you know, answering some questions and then he, he says it's basically just a vibes check. It's a vibe check to make sure that we get along. While on the moderator team, what kind of questions did they ask you? On the natural hair subreddit?

Bridget Todd: 34:58

Oh, I think I recall currently hardly any. I mean, I mean luckily I think I have a, I hope I have a good vibe, but, I do like that the same way that in a, if you were in like a job interview, you might have like a personality fit test that they're just like, oh, do you pass the vibe check?

Ben Whitelaw: 35:13

yeah, yeah, yeah. It was, I don't imagine there was a lot of like, what would you do in this scenario, per se? But it's just like, can you deal with like people getting on your back about taking their down? Uh, is that enough?

Bridget Todd: 35:26

Yeah, and I think if, I mean, I was doing this at a very different time in Reddit's history in terms of how they were moderating the platform, but at the time. If I'm remembering correctly, I think the biggest threat to this space was what was, used to call brigade, right? So like other pockets of Reddit coming and like flooding it with toxicity and slurs And so like your work really was how to keep that at bay, but the pocket of people who were showing up to engage in the actual content, like. There was no real deep moderation needs for that. As long as you were able to keep, the bad folks who wanted to disrupt the conversation out, the people who were genuinely there to have a conversation pretty much moderated themselves.

Ben Whitelaw: 36:08

okay.

Bridget Todd: 36:08

This is what I recall. I, I could be like, nostalgia might be clouding this experience a little bit.'cause that's, this is what I remember, but I'm trying to think back to be like, well, was that really how I felt?

Ben Whitelaw: 36:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah. did you have any regrading, was there any like moments where you thought, oh my God, this is terrible.

Bridget Todd: 36:22

A few. Yeah. And this, this, I, I, I do think Reddit has done a lot of positive, intentional work to minimize some of that. But this was in sort of the early days of Reddit. And so there, was, I mean, this was just during the time where people, for whatever reason I. Seem to enjoy bothering people on the internet and couldn't stand it if there was just a community of people enjoying each other's conversation and company. I feel like that is happening less on Reddit. You can let me know what you think. I don't know. Again, this might be me I might be thinking about this with some rose colored glasses, but that's my

Ben Whitelaw: 36:56

sense. Yeah. I think, I'm not a big ready user, but like I have spoke to and interview people who have, who use red a lot. I interviewed a guy called Gallo Boob, who's like, back in the day, who had like. I think the highest karma on Reddit, and who did a lot of moderation, was involved in a lot of different like, subreddits and got involved in lots of the kind of like blackouts and, protests that we saw probably four or five years ago now. And yeah, there does seem to be a kind of commercialization of, the platform generally. you know, some of those APIs that the moderators used, for third party tools to be able to kind of control conversations and manage conversations and make sure users had a kind of good experience. I think a lot of those tool sets are closed because the costs are so high. So, that is not something that's exclusive to Reddit. But it does seem like it's hit the platform particularly hard because of where it started.

Bridget Todd: 37:44

Yeah, I completely agree. it's funny, Reddit is the only social media that I use personally with any regularity. so, I feel sort of so burnt out on short form video content that it feels kind of satisfying to just like read posts.

Ben Whitelaw: 38:00

mm. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, maybe I should get into it if you can suggest maybe I'm not a good fit for the natural hair, so I've read it, but like, if there's any others that,

Bridget Todd: 38:07

Yeah, there's, I mean, people on Reddit I have found really care about technology and culture. So it's like I get story ideas from it. Like the way people show up on Reddit really does influence how my, how the work that I do on the podcast. Like people really care about the internet on Reddit.

Ben Whitelaw: 38:24

That's super cool. yeah, I think my, my subreddit would be like more of a, like a receding hair rather than natural.

Bridget Todd: 38:30

Like tips and tricks.

Ben Whitelaw: 38:32

Yeah. how to grow it back. maybe go to Turkey and get one of those, like hair transplants. Um, talking of Turkey, we, we, we'll kind of. End on there. This is a story that we, touched on a lot in the podcast in the past, about kind of, Turkish moderators. I just wanna, flag this really, because it goes deep into the recent protests in Turkey by some, moderators that have been working for an outsource company on behalf of, big platforms. And, you know, there's some great kind of first, sources there. There's some really interesting kind of responses. Rest of world are a great outlet that have done some great work and just wanted to flag that, as an addition to my Turkish, uh, you know, like hair transplant comment.

Bridget Todd: 39:10

Oh, I love rest of world. They're so great.

Ben Whitelaw: 39:12

they're amazing, aren't they? That's, they do really bring a kind of nuance to some of these conversations that I think is really needed. so I think we, is there anything else, Bridget, that you wanted to touch on today? Any stories that you wanted to flag? Anything? Any, any other kind of like corners of the internet that you've been ing that you think does ever mention.

Bridget Todd: 39:29

oh, I'll say one that Do you wanna just quickly flag is, I saw this story on CBS morning news, go viral a little bit online about the guy who proposed to his, AI chat bot. Did you see this? So basically CBS interviewed this man who has a human partner and a human child in his home. But he has developed such an affinity for, the sort of chat version of Chat GPT that he's named. So I think Soul that he feels that he is in a, you know. Romantic relationship with this AI and that he proposed marriage to this ai, and the AI said yes and that his human partner was like, oh, you know, he spends a lot of time talking to the ai. And the interviewer is like, oh, if your human partner asked you to stop engaging in this romantic relationship with ai, would you do it? And he said, well, I don't know. we're in so deep and everybody across the internet was kind of making fun of him. And I, I totally get it. They spotlight a subreddit called AI is My Boyfriend, where other people are reporting that like, oh, I feel like I'm in a relationship with AI and here's what I think people are missing. And what I wanted to say is that. We should not just be gawing at these people and clowning these people and making fun of these people, we should be asking, well, what protections are these tech companies putting in place for people like this? Like.

Ben Whitelaw: 40:52

Like,

Bridget Todd: 40:52

AI is designed to keep you engaged in conversation, to ask you like leading questions about intimate, sensitive parts of yourself. And so instead of just clowning the sky, I really was concerned that we weren't asking questions about like, well, what is open AI's role in this? Like, what are the guardrails we're putting in place? And so I say that to say. We did an episode on Mozilla's IRL podcast, all about the intersection of AI and dating and AI and love, and we talked to privacy experts about how, AI companies really don't have to keep all of this, like, intimate information. They, they harness from folks private at all, and some of them don't do a very good job of it. And yeah, I just, I think that. It's easy to gaw at people and laugh at people about how AI is showing up in their life. But I would challenge folks to also really ask the complicated questions of these tech companies to ask, like, are you exploiting folks who might be vulnerable, grieving, lonely, or whatever? Like, I don't think tech companies should just be exploiting lonely people for, their own financial enrichment.

Ben Whitelaw: 41:51

Yeah, no, it's a super point. Like, and I ha this is not a story I've seen, but I'm gonna have a look and I'm gonna listen to the podcast. Um, I mean, I, with the kinda improvements that these models are making to their kinda memory and the retention of, information that we give them and the fact that they're like, designed, like you say, to kind of compliment us and make us feel good. I often think like I'm susceptible. to this kind of stuff, Bridget, like, how close am I to being, you know, to falling into a relationship with a an an LLM? I don't know. I don't know.

Bridget Todd: 42:16

Oh, I know I'm susceptible. Like I, again, I just started using chat PT and. What's funny is that, you know how it can be kind of sycophantic. I, will be like, oh, you really phrased this, so, right. And it's like, well,'cause it's trained on the way that I speak or the way that I write, so I'm just complimenting myself. Like, do you know what I'm saying? It really, I, I think we're all more susceptible than we might think.

Ben Whitelaw: 42:38

Yeah, exactly. And, and also like we are laughing now as a society about that relationship setup with a, you know, a human man and a human woman and, and an ai, involved in that. But, you know, not long ago we were laughing at different kinds of relationships. You know, now there are. I have a friend who's in a throuple and that, you know, in, in the past it did not have been something that like many people engaged in or thought was possible, and they have, there's plenty of examples of, people who have different kinds of relationship setups and like maybe having, and I'm not saying it's for me necessarily, but like maybe AI and two humans could work.

Bridget Todd: 43:16

Oh my gosh. I was just talking about this. Do you remember, I don't know how old you are, but back in the day if you met online, there was this huge stigma to it, like online dating. I remember my aunt. Met a man online and the whole family was so creeped out and we were worried for her safety. Now, if you meet offline, that's the unusual thing. So yeah, relationships change. Technology changes our relationships and normalizes different things. Such a good point.

Ben Whitelaw: 43:43

Yeah. And I know I will, I won't reveal the platform, but I will say that I met my now wife on one of the dating apps, and I will say this, back in the day when it was like an exclusive, very highbrow thing, you know, we were obviously looking for love. He says, and, and he, but like, yeah, like these, these dynamics shift and like what society deems as acceptable shifts all the time. And like,, you know, those kinds of stories almost made me think like, which PR company is trying to sell something. Like, is he real, first of all? Like, is there like some sort of nefarious PR company at play? and then yeah, stop dunking on him because. Everyone's got something that they can be dunked on for.

Bridget Todd: 44:23

ain't it the truth.

Ben Whitelaw: 44:26

well on the, on the bombshell that, you know, I might be going into a, uh, three-way relationship with an ai. I think that's a good point to wrap up today's relationship. Uh, today's, uh, episode, Bridget, it's been fantastic to talk to you. I've absolutely loved the stories you brought to the table today and the way you've, the way you think about them. as I say, I love the podcast that you host, and I recommend to all listeners to go and check them out. Thank you for taking part,

Bridget Todd: 44:49

This was so fun. Thanks so much for having me.

Ben Whitelaw: 44:51

Amazing. And, um, shout out to, the outlets that we've referenced today, 4 0 4 Media, rest of World Guardian, straits Times, uh, CBS. You know, these outlets are good and do great reporting and, you know, are worth supporting. we can't do the podcast without them, so, we'll include them in the show notes. If you enjoyed today's episode, please do rate and review us wherever you get your podcast. give a shout out to Bridget since you know this is the episode that brought you here. I'd love that. And yeah, hopefully we'll see you next week. Thanks for joining in.

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