#episode transcript

Key:

R: Rayne

D: Diana

K: Katie

R: Yeah. So turns out that misinformation can and does hurt people, and tiktok is known very well for this problem. Some of the health misinformation that I've seen on Tiktok would be really funny if it was not actually leading to extremely serious health issues. Have either of you heard about the borax trend? 

D: I have a feeling I'm about to.

K: Yes, because I teach high school. 

R: So there's a trend on Tiktok from influencers telling people to drink borax. You know, the cleaning chemical? In their water, because it has so many health benefits like weight loss. 

D: I guess you know, if you're puking your guts out, you will lose some weight.

R: Yeah, so like, of course, it helps with weight loss, because it will kill you, but at least your skeleton will look really snatched. 

D: Hell yeah.

R: But it will kill you. 

D: That's a small price to pay for beauty. 

K: You know, I miss Tide Pods. Can we go back to Tide Pods? That was a fun one. 

R: That was also not great. 

D: But it wasn't borax. 

K: Yeah.

D: A little less deadly.

K: Like that was- that was an emergency room visit. That wasn't a gravestone.

R: Yeah, yeah yeah yeah. So Tiktok has a notoriously very poor approach to moderating and removing misinformation, but they did remove all of the videos that promoted this trend. 

D: That's the most surprising thing you've said so far. 

R: Yeah. The problem is that anyone who already saw it isn't being told that it's deadly, unless they somehow also come across another Tiktok of something warning people not to do it. 

D: Right.

R: So, yikes.

K: Hooray. 

Not all health misinformation on Tiktok is completely deadly, but a lot of it is still very dangerous. Have either of you ever seen the energy drink prime? I am sure Katie has, considering you teach 14 year olds.

K: Ughhh. Yeah, it sits on their desk in my class because I didn't ban drinks, because I'm not a fascist. 

R: Exactly, exactly.

D: It is some YouTubers, energy drink, right? 

R: Yes. 

K: Oh yeah, it's Logan Paul, right? 

R: Yep. Logan Paul.

D: Oh, okay, yeah, I knew it came in the Mr. Beast meal, Lunchable thing and it tastes bad.

R: Yep.

K: Now, who's the terminally online one, Diana? 

D: Ayy. I would like to thank my friends on youtube.com for informing me that those existed. 

R: So, Katie, I want to hear what do you consider prime to be? Like, like, marketed for children. It's like a status symbol if you have a prime drink, right? 

K: Yeah. I mean, like, my impression is it's like, it's not even the varsity jocks, it’s all the jv jocks who drink it because they think it's cool because Logan Paul punched a guy in the face once, or something like that. 

R: Exactly. 

K: That's it, yes. 

R: So it's extremely heavily marketed to children. As you said, it's literally in like, feastables- or not feastables.

D: That’s candy.

R: That's the candy bar. The Lunchables knock off like for children.

D: The one that had the moldy cheese in it.

R: Yes, yes. That one. Exactly. Which we all care about the health of children, obviously. So I know that when I worked at a summer camp, almost every single kid was drinking a prime drink at lunch every single day, and the kids were using them as their refillable water bottles Just to, like, show off to other kids that they had had one at some point. 

D: Right.

R: But are you ready for this one bottle, so 12 ounces of prime has about the same amount of caffeine in it as six cans of Coke. 

D: Oh, no.

R: Six. 

K: That explains why those two kids are like literally bouncing off the walls like Chihuahuas. 

D: Well, the caffeine is famously great to overdose on as a child. It doesn't, like, stunt your growth or make you insane. 

R: Exactly!

D: Yeah, caffeine is a drug, and we should really talk about that more often. 

K: Yeah, I say as I sip my espresso, but like-

D: Yeah, like, I say that as a caffeine dependent person myself, but, um, that's so much caffeine. 

R: Yeah, I'd argue that most parents wouldn't give their kids, like- pack them six cans of Coke in their lunch box. 

D: Probably not.

R: But they'll, they'll throw in a prime drink. So I don't think parents are understanding how dangerous that is. The extreme, large majority of Logan Paul's audience is under the age of 24 with a very large bulk of that being under 18.

K: Yeah.

R: It is- it obviously goes to say that children shouldn't be consuming 200 milligrams of caffeine, which is twice the amount of what is safe for them in one drink, right? Like we can all agree on that one. 

D: Yeah, it seems pretty cut and dry to me,.

R: But you'll see prime advertising on Tiktok like, pretty much every time that you open the app. 

D: Well, devil's advocate.

R: Go ahead.

D: Children should be more responsible consumers. I think this isn't their fault. I'm going to finish right here.

R: And that's a hot take.

D: Skill issue.

K: But like, so I'm over here connecting neurons with my little like serial killer Mind Map red string to different ideas to try and map out the guy's path, or whatever. I was just thinking, this is Social Media adjacent, but we have all of these bad health trends and all of these health misinformation rather, that gets passed around social media like it's candy or prime energy drinks.

D: Sure.

K: And then this whole thing with, like, the sheer amount of caffeine in this one drink that is so popular with kids. And then I go and look over at WebMD, Google, what is the effect of caffeine? You get all of these ad-riddled pages that are really hard to read, that are very unintuitive. And I'm like, well, like, no wonder it- We have de-incentivized curiosity, because it makes learning anything very difficult, unless it comes from me, your high school teacher, who you didn't pay attention to. Who, in 10 years, you will say, “Well, why didn’t they teach us this in high school?” Because you were asleep. 

D: Well, that's because they hadn't had their prime for the day yet. 

K: That's true. 

D: Are we old enough, Rayne, are you old enough to remember when Google worked? 

R: Yes?

K: Okay, okay, okay. 

D:I don't remember exactly when Google stopped working and started showing you, like, only ads. 

R: Only, like, in like, the last 5-10 years.

K: I was gonna say. Like, I think it was still working when I went to Japan. It was definitely still working when we graduated undergrad. 

D: Yeah, definitely, for sure. Because, I mean, I had to be taught how to use Google, because Google didn't exist when I was born. But it used to work very well, better than all of the other search engines. I had used Yahoo and Ask Jeeves and all the other old ones. But like it did use to be much easier to verify information and misinformation as long as you knew how to use a search engine and not to believe everything you saw on, you know, some guy's blog. But now we've kind of just the whole internet is ads, and that's not very that's- I'm gonna say it. That's not very good.

K: No, and- and like, having just taught research papers, it is so hard to find information nowadays. 

D: Yeah.

K: Unless you are actively in a class learning how to research or, you know, you've been one of us- you've been alive long enough to remember when the internet still worked.

D: Mhm.

K: And I don't know, I'm just like wondering if there is- if this misinformation is so easy to accept because it's coming from people that you perceive as peers on Tiktok.

D: Yeah.

K: Because, oh, you follow them, or whatever.

R: Look at you go! You're becoming a sociologist!

K: Oh!

R: You're getting radicalized into sociology. 

D: Yeah, legally, Rayne has to give you her master's degree because I already gave mine away to Zoe.

R: Oh.

K: No, I already have one. I don't need another one. 

D: Too bad, you have another useless masters degree.

K: God, now I'm Katie Three Degrees, damn it. 

K: I know it's slightly sidebar, but-

D: It's all connected. 

R: That'll probably be an episode of this podcast. 

D: Probably 

K: It stresses me out, just thinking about it. 

D: Uh huh. 

R: Yeah, it's icky. It feels icky.

K: Why do you guys do sociology if it's this stressful? 

R: That's a great question. 

D: My job is to make it less stressful and more funny, and I'm failing miserably.

K: It's still hilarious, but it's hilarious in the like, America's Funniest Home Videos equivalent of sociology.

D: Mm yeah, yeah.

R: Yeah, the world is ending, and we're all on fire. 

K: Yeah

D: If I can stress everyone out even a fraction of how much I'm constantly stressed out, then I will have done my job as an educator. 

K: Oh no, I understand everything about you now.

D: Yeah.

R: Yeah, I went into sociology because this is the type of stuff that I would just like, see, and I would get so enraged, and I would go to every one of my friends and family and be like, “doesn't this enrage you?” And no one else would get on the same level as of enraged as I was. And as a teenager, that was really confusing. Of like, “Why does no one care? Why does no one give a fuck that the world is on fire?” And so…

D: Yeah, and that's when the sociology police come to your house and they make you a sociology major.

R: Yeah, and then that's when you get indoctrinated by the police, and you become a sociologist, completely against your will. And then it forces you to get a master's degree in sociology, because you need to know everything that there is about sociology so that you can inform as many people as possible and be like, “please, understand this has impact, and it will always have impact, and even If you think that you directly are not being impacted. You live in a society.” We live in a society.

D: Just like the Joker. 

R: And so you are also being impacted. Exactly.

K: We need to walk into the sea.

D: The other way to become a sociologist is if one bites you.

R: That's so true. 

D: Vampire rules. 

R: That would have been an easier path for me. I wish that happened.

K: You stay on that side of the wall. 

D: Well, I can't bite you, Katie, I need you to not know what sociology is until the end of this episode. 

R: Yeah, and then you can get bit.

D: Yep

K: No, unfortunately, the third eye is already open and I need to go lay face down on the floor for a bit. 

D: Welcome to hell. 

R: Throw her out. Diana, do you have anyone else we can bring in here and throw Katie out?

D: Oh, yeah, absolutely. You know too much now, sorry. Let me get Katherine out. All right, so let's keep talking about- I want more problems with Tiktok.

R: Yeah, so another huge issue that Tiktok has is the way that it's built promotes something called an echo chamber. 

D: Uh, huh. 

R: I know Diana knows what that is.

D: Yes

R:  Diana, would you like to give a description of what an echo chamber is? 

D: Yeah, absolutely. An echo chamber is when you are in a media environment. So let's say like, Facebook that is a media ecosystem, so to speak, and when it only shows you stuff you agree with, or stuff that you can be really righteously angry about because you disagree with it, and also you get to see all of your like minded people saying, “Wow, this sure sucks that it happened. Let's all be righteously angry about it!”

R: Yeah. 

D: And pretty much every social media platform algorithm is tuned to make them.

K: Mhm.

R: Exactly, and when you are seeing something over and over and over again, you are more likely to believe it as fact.

D: Yeah. 

R: And so when every single post that's coming up on your Facebook is political misinformation about this thing happened. This thing happened, and it's just nonsense, and they're just over and over and over drilling that into your head, that that happened. You're gonna believe that that happened, like so much more than the just the very first time that you saw it. 

D: Mhm

R: But every time you interact with it, the algorithm is learning that that is what you will interact with, and so it just keeps throwing it back at you. And then you have this false idea that everyone around you all believes in the same thing.

D: Right.

R: Because everything you're seeing, everyone's believing in the same thing. 

D: And then when you're like, “Hey, can you look at this article that says the opposite of that?” They've never heard of that point of view and are very resistant to it.

R: Exactly. And I should say, even though I am- I don't know if y'all can tell, anti-right wing…

K + D: Mmhm.

R: This also happens with liberal media like crazy.

K: No absolutely.

R: Like it happens to everyone. 

K: Yeah.

R: It's not- it’s not just right-wing. It is- this is a social media issue in general.

K: Well, everybody likes a confirmation bias. I just did kind of an experiment on my children. Oops.

R: That's fine. 

K: We did an anticipation activity for a novel. It's called Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds. It has to do with cycles of violence and systemic, like, issues that evolve in a neighborhood. It's written in rhyme. It's great. It's whatever the anticipation activity I do with the kids is I put these questions up around the room, and the questions are controversial but extremely generalized. So like my personal favorite that always generates a lot of conversation is I trust the police, and you have to write down whether you agree or disagree and what your reasoning is.

R: Wow.

K: Or another one is: kids these days hate books, or women have more emotions than men, and it is fascinating to watch these kids with pencil and paper. Their phones are stuck in the little pockets at the side of the room. They're not allowed to touch them, engaging with each other and going, oh my god, you don't actually think the exact same thing I do.

D: Yeah.

K: What is this? 

D: That might be the first time they've ever realized that.

K: Yeah. And some of them get the kind of, I guess, confirmation bias effect where they're like, “Oh, yeah, of course. Like, everybody thinks this,” and then I say, “Okay, who agrees with the statement? I think ghosts and spirits are real. And the entire room raises their hand, except for like, three kids who are looking at the others like they're the ghosts.” Like-

D: Yeah. 

K: What are you talking about? And it's fascinating to see, but you kind of don't get to see it in a digital landscape.

R: Yeah.

D: Yeah, that's very hard to do. And also the digital landscape is disincentivized to do that, because if you see something that you really don't like but that you can't like, be righteously furious about. you close the app, and then you stop looking at Candy Crush ads.

K: Mmhm.

R: Yeah, exactly. So Tiktok has an incredible algorithm. Like genuinely, props to them for figuring it out because they have genuinely nailed it. As you're scrolling, it is learning more and more about what you like and what you want to see. So if it sees you interacting with misinformation, it's going to continue spitting misinformation at you. The more exposure that you have to that misinformation, the more likely you are to believe it. But we need to move on to Twitter. Diana, I know you have a lot of thoughts about this platform if you would like to go ahead.

D: I do. I'm gonna save some of them for a little further down the paragraph here. But yeah, Twitter was very much the town square of the internet. 

K: Mhm

D: I think they used that in their marketing ad for a long time too, where you could talk to the President for the first time, or celebrities-

R: Yes

D:  Or things like that. A lot of- also comedians used it as like their the jokes gym I have heard it referred to, where they test out material.

K: Yeah.

R: That’s cool.

D: And Dear God, Elon Musk has ruined that website.

K: Good God.

R: Yep.

D: As someone who never really liked Twitter, even I am sad to see what has become of it. 

R: Yeah.

D: I have seen this referred to as digital colonialism.

D: Where there is a common space that people exist in, people live their daily lives in, in so much as one lives on Twitter. 

R: Right.

D: But you know, some people, more or less do.  Rayne. And then he came in and bought up the whole neighborhood and turned it into Nazi-land.

R: Yep.

D:  And people still have to live there, because that's where their friends live, and that sucks to me so bad.

R: Yeah, I could talk about the downfall caused by Elon Musk taking it over like a filibuster. I could go on for days talking about how much it bothers me. 

D: Watch out Cory Booker.

K: It reminds me a little bit of the- when I worked at Starbucks, they used to talk about the third place all the time. And-

D: Yeah, social media very much filled that role.

K: Right. Yes. And, “oh no, it's gone.” Or, “oh no, I have to pay $7.95 for a cup of coffee to enjoy the third place.”

D: Yeah. And also, Starbucks doesn't want you to stay there anymore, so they're taking out the chairs.

R: Crazy business model. 

D: Fun fact, the third place is a sociological concept. So you've been doing sociology this whole time.

R: Indoctrination.

K: And they were just telling me I was just drinking blonde coffee for whatever. Ugh God.

D: Yeah, that sociology is making coffee. It's the same thing. 

K: Well, I mean, you could argue that because of the, like, way the global supply chain works and like the-

D: Yeah. I mean, I could argue anything. But also, yes you’re absolutely right.

K: I know you can, I’ve known you for 20 years.

D: Alright, let's keep talking about Twitter. 

R: Okay. Since his takeover, this platform has been widely labeled as the very worst social media misinformation offender, like it was voted that.

D: He worked for it. He put in the time. 

K: Yeah, he did

R: Yeah. This is definitely because Musk opted to withdraw from the 2018 disinformation code of practice that is commonplace among all top social media apps, the upsurge of extreme right wing propaganda that has consumed the app because of the decision is unbelievable. When he first got Twitter and he owned it now, he reinstated thousands of right wing profiles that had been banned for hate speech following the insurrection.

K: Yay! That's right, isn't that when he said he was going to make Twitter funny again, because he filled it full of clowns.

R: Sure. Yeah, y'all remember the insurrection.

D: I watched in horror. 

K: I watched it live.

R: Those people shouldn't have a platform for your hate speech.

K: Mm.

R: Hot take, that's all I'm saying.

K: Free speech. 

R: So, we're gonna head over to our sociologicist. Whoa. We're gonna Whoa, Rayne, get it together.

D: Let's head to the sociological consultant corner with me, Diana, to talk about the sociological implications. 

R: Hell yeah. 

D: Come with me, friends. So the first thing I want to actually say before I launch into what I've prepared with my notes, is that I think of freedom of speech and tolerance of other viewpoints as not a moral good. I don't think that is something we do because it is the right thing to do. I view it as a social contract that we do because we would like to enjoy the benefits of having free speech. 

R: I agree wholeheartedly. 

D: In my opinion, if your speech is trying to infringe on other people's right to speech or right to exist in public, for example, like with trying to make trans people not exist through legislation, bathroom bills, whatever.

R: You're violating it.

D: Yeah, you have violated the contract, and therefore that contract does not apply to you anymore.

R: Yeah.

D: That's how I feel about hate speech, is if you're saying things that infringe on the rights of other people to live freely, then the contract is broken and all bets are off. That is my personal opinion. I am not a free speech absolutist. I am a free speech contract theorist. 

R: I agree.

K: You're saying this in a social contract space, not a terms of service of Twitter excuse to specifically forbid it.

D: Yes, exactly. 

K: Yeah, okay.

D: I'm saying this in a this is a de facto contract we have in America, or we, arguably, we never really, actually had freedom of speech. 

R: Correct

D: That's a different episode. But when you are in a polite society, that society, every society, has rules. All of them have different rules.

K: Right, right, right.

R:  And there's consequences for breaking them.

D: Exactly. And when you are doing you're using your free speech to hurt other people. That is breaking the rule of we live in a society, and we want to be able to have civil discourse.

K: Right. 

D: We make these social contracts with each other, not actively, but it happens over time in societies, so that we don't kill each other with swords.

R: Exactly.

D: Or guns. That is their purpose. It is, we are making freedom of speech so that we don't do violence to each other. When your speech is advocating doing the violence, why the hell would the contract supposed to be preventing violence apply?

R: Period. 

D: Did that make sense?

R: Snaps.

K: Yes.

R: Good job. 

D: Thank you. So that's my two cents on that, but let's go over to talk about X, Twitter, Twitter.

R: Bleh.

D: Twitter. So talking about monetization of posts, we haven't actually studied how this monetization has affected the quality of posts on Twitter yet, because it only became a thing pretty recently. Social science takes a while to catch up.

K: Mm.

D: Human research takes forever to do, but I think anyone who still uses it agrees it sucks and is full of Nazis now.

R: Uh, yes.

D: We do have past studies, though, on this topic of monetization that we can talk about. From being a former user of Twitter, though, I can say, anecdotally, that when Elon Musk bought it, the algorithm shifted massively in favor of conservative talking points, which, up to that point, I had been in a left wing echo chamber on my Twitter feed 

D: Because of who I am as a person.

R: Same.

D: And it shifted very dramatically, basically overnight, that is the kind of control of the ecosystem he purchased for $44 billion dollars. The ads also started skewing right wing because, surprise, companies don't want their products advertised next to the words, “Hitler actually had some good points.”

R: Ugh.

D:  So, you know, all the big advertisers pulled out because of all the Nazis. And now Elon Musk is saying That's discrimination, actually, I guess-

R: Because he's insane. 

D: Well, advertisers don't want to buy his service of showing ads, and that is a hate crime. 

R: Oh, my God.

D:  That's the real hate crime people.

R: Sigh. 

D: But won't somebody think of Elon Musk? I wish I thought about him less. 

K: I- Yeah, uh no. 

D: So for anyone who's not using Twitter, I'm gonna call it X actually from here on out, because for me, this is emblematic of what makes X, X. As opposed to Twitter.

K + R: That's fair. 

D: For anyone who's not using it. I do want to talk first about what the get paid to post system is, so that you all understand it, both you guys and the listener. The way it works is that if you have a paid subscription to the website or a verified user with a blue check, you pay like $5 a month for that, I think. You have a chance to earn money by making posts that a lot of people comment on, like, retweet, et cetera. It works similar to how YouTube works, where, if a lot of people watch your YouTube video, you get ad revenue. So you're getting money from the ads people see underneath your post. However, those people do also have to be subscribers, so only subscribers seeing ads counts. So it's not that big of a cash cow, but I have seen some people saying they make, you know, tens of thousands of dollars on it. So it's not absolutely nothing, but I imagine most people are getting maybe five or 10 bucks, not that much.

R: Yeah, it’s probably not much. 

D: The problem with social media, in general, is that we've talked about this a little. It exists to keep you using it. The longer you're using the website, the more ads you're seeing, the more money the platform, X in this case, gets to make. For a long time now, we've been seeing posts that piss more people off.

R: Yep.

D: Get more engagement. More people click it, more people share it to add their reactionary commentary about how they hate it.

R: Yeah.

D: More people like it or dislike it or send it to their friends in a text message in disgust. This outrage and need to correct people and be righteously furious, keeps people using the website. And we have a lot of studies that prove that. It is called the confrontation effect, by some of them, which I think is a good term for it.

R: Yeah.

D: And that's going to keep people on the website.

R: Rage bait.

D: Rage bait, yeah. That keeps people looking at your ads, and then they see more rage bait. And then they share it to say how it's wrong. And then they see more ads and on and on the hamster wheel goes. Social media is already habit forming without monetary incentives. We've talked about- Rayne. You don't get paid to go on Tiktok, but you do it for eight hours a day.

R: Oh God, I'd make so much money if I did.

D: It's basically a Skinner box, like, you know, they put the rats in it. They have the levers that give them treats. 

K: Oh, okay.

D: And sometimes you get a treat when you push the lever, and sometimes you don't, and then they get addicted to pushing the lever. It's like gambling for rats. 

R: And I'm nothing if not a rat. 

D: I mean, aren't we all little rats in our own way, like Pikachu. 

K: We live in a society. 

D: We live in a society, with Pikachu. So it rewards you at random intervals for sharing stuff and posting stuff, and the reward is people liking your post or commenting on it. And the more you post and the more you share, the more misinformation is likely to slip the net just by volume. This has also been studied, and I mean, just think about it, the more stuff you are doing on social media, the less likely you are to be able to vet all of it. Who really has time to read every single article before they share it? Me, only me.

R: Hmm.

D: I have that kind of time, or I will once I'm done with this capstone project. Hello, Dr. Clark.

R: Hi. 

D: We have studies that prove it. The one that I'm citing here specifically is called sharing of misinformation is habitual, not just lazy or biased. So it really puts the onus back on the social media platform as the responsible party, not the people using it and getting trapped in this cycle. 

R: Good. Blame anyone else. 

D: Yeah, because it's really not- I really view, like, people who took ivermectin or drink bleach, they are victims of social media companies. 

K: Yeah.

R: Yeah, for sure.

D: As much as I can personally get frustrated with a person, I realize it's much larger than that.

R: It’s a product, yeah.

D: And it's a very- they're in the rat box getting cocaine whenever they press the lever but only every three times they press the lever or four. It's the randomness that keeps you in there. It's why gacha games work. 

K: Yes, yes, that's true. 

R: Oh my God.

D: Yeah. It's just, it's classic, just gambling, but with dopamine.

R: Yeah. 

D: So you're getting sorted by the Almighty algorithm into these echo chambers of people who share your beliefs, or really highly polarized spaces with tons of outrage bait so that you and the people who share your beliefs can get mad together. It's really easy for rumors to spin out of control in those spaces, just from how the system is designed and it is designed that way. It doesn't have to be this way. It is this way on purpose.

R: Yep.

D: Which is something I try to really emphasize with people. So now, in addition to the built-in feedback loop the Skinner box we just described, we add money to the equation as another inceptible. 

K: Hooray. 

R: That’s capitalism, baby.

D: Yay, That's capitalism, baby. Your brain is already conditioned to like posting and sharing because you have had a Facebook since 2009. 

R: Yeah. 

D: Your brain's also very susceptible to outrage click bait and sharing pithy comments about things that you don't agree with. Some of us post on social media. Refined gentlemen make the podcast.

K: Uh, we're in the exact target audience for that.

R: Yeah.

D: Yep, that's me. I've always said I'm in a high risk demographic for podcasting.

R: Yeah.

D: And look at me now. I've relapsed.

R: You get so angry that you go $20,000 in the hole to get a master's degree on the subject.

D: Yeah, pretty much. 

K: Yeah. 

D: So your brain's already susceptible to these things, and now someone's gonna pay you to do it. You're on a platform that's already skewing very right wing, due to Elon Musk's personal politics and the things he did to the algorithm, other subscribers- to the website. So the people paying for a subscription, who you only get money if they see your posts, are gonna be fans of his, because they are paying a subscription to be on his website. 

R: Oh my God.

D: How do you get the people who like Elon Musk to engage with your content as much as possible? To be as inflammatory as possible, because Elon Musk is a serial troll, and people are doing just that. I will add as one last note here in my little analysis that I did finally manage to find a study that looks at how monetary incentives affect the quality of misinformation on social media. 

K: Oh.

D: It is not about Twitter specifically, they made a fake platform to test it on.

R: Hmm.

D: But the study is called, “Does incentivization promote sharing true content online?” And there's a couple problems with our analogy here. This study is about incentivizing true information, and was done on a fake social media platform where the researchers did just that. If you posted true, good, accurate information, they gave you a little bit of money. It also was conducted in India, not the United States.

K: Ah.

D: So it may not completely map to what we're talking about today. I would be an irresponsible sociologist if I didn't say that.

R: Yeah.

D: The study was rigorous. They had a control group. They also happened to go to Harvard, the people who did it. So while it's not a perfect one to one, I think it was worth talking about.

R: Yeah, for sure.

D: The study showed pretty definitively that people who were incentivized to post and share more did, and as we said earlier, the more you post and share, the more likely it is you're going to miss that misinformation.

K: Mm.

D: Sharing was also more likely among those who leaned right, which is interesting for our discussion of X. 

R: Yeah.

D: So we do have some data showing that that monetary incentive increases posting in general, and in this case, obviously, Elon Musk does not care if it's true or not, if it gets him any kind of revenue for the website.

R: Yeah.

D: Because it's not getting much from ad revenue, at this point.

R: It appears that he prefers when it's not. 

D: It does seem that way. But, you know, I don't want to throw stones at Elon Musk.

R: Yeah.

D: The man's you know- everyone already is talking about Elon Musk.

R: He’s going through a lot. 

D: Have some empathy. Won't somebody think of the billionaires, please? 

R: Someone think of the richest man in the world..

K: I know you guys told me to laugh when the joke is funny. And like, it's funny, but like, also the existential drive is setting in now.

D: Sorry. 

K: Yes, well somebody think of Elon Musk. 

R: Welcome to sociology, baby.

D: That's why I went to grad school so I can learn how to fix it, and I decided to make a podcast instead. 

R: Yeah, Well you're educating people, and the more people that know about ow fucked up this is, like, that's something, right? 

Beau: “Yeah.”

You swim close, you know the murky depths of the water, you head towards it, and you can see at the bottom the interior of the cavern which is about 40 feet deep, so a little bit more shallow compared to the exterior, and it rises and falls in place, and as you get to the edge you can look and the glow resembles the torchbloom, the faintly orange glowing plant-like seaweed flowers and such that currently - or last time you saw guided you towards the lair of Vokodo

Fjord: ‘I'll come back up.’

Fjord: “Uh, Caleb? Where's Caleb.”

Caleb: *inquisitive look*

Fjord: Do you have Frumpkin as a cat right now?”

Caleb: “He is a bird, and if you want him to be able to swim I need an, over an hour.”

Fjord: “It seems to be-”

Jester: “Well-”

Fjord: “I’d say it's the same sort of growth that led us there.”

Jester: “If we're going to go in and actually for real think about ... fighting? Today? Yeah? Then-”

Caduceus: “I don't think this is ... I think this is something else. I don't think this is a path to him.”

Fjord: “You don't think so?”

Beau: “I think he's right.”

Jester: “But those are the torchblooms, that's what leads to him.”

Beau: “But ...”

Caduceus: ‘I'm going to do something. I'm gonna-’

Beau: “Maybe, maybe he just resides. Maybe the volcano is just a little slice of the Fire Plane and maybe this is spillage from the Fire Plane.”

Caduceus: ‘I'm going to uh dive - well not dive, I'm going to do that thing where you exhale and allow yourself to sink down a little bit. I'm heading ahead to about 30ft away, 25ft away from it. I’m gonna get kind of-’

Matt: Okay

Travis: You can breathe underwater

Tal: Hmm?

Travis: You can breathe underwater

Tal: Oh I know, I'm just -

Travis: Oh.

Caduceus: ‘Gently, paying attention to where I'm at, I'm going to cast detect magic’

Matt: Okay.

You go ahead and cast detect magic. You don't sense the plants themselves are magic but there's a faint magical aura kind of in the water around you and just in general.

Matt: If you don't mind, Caduceus.

Sam: Uh oh

Tal: Never.

Sam: Uh oh

Matt: Could you go ahead and-

Travis: Swim up and join his friends?

Sam: Roll a death save?

*laughter*

Matt: I need you to make a wisdom saving throw for me if you don't mind.

Laura: Uh oh.

Tal: 13.

Matt: *sigh*

You sense this thing ... you look at the torchbloom and this kind of urge overtakes you.

Laura: Oh no

Travis: Oh no

This leads somewhere. This leads somewhere and will answer all your questions. You have to know where this goes. You have to know. You have to know right now.

So you swim towards it, and you watch as the torchbloom opens up.

Laura: *gasp*

Fjord: ‘Where the fuck is he going?’

Fjord: *I go after him.*

Matt: You were watching him?

Travis: No, I go after him.

Matt: Right

Laura: But you were watching him?

Travis: *nods* *coughs into fist* Yeah.

Matt: Alright

You go after him.

Fjord: Mmhmm

You watch as Caduceus just swims into a tunnel

Fjord: ‘I can catch him, can't I?’

He's far enough away from you.

Matt: I’ll say that 

You can get there right about the time.

Matt: also make a wisdom saving throw for me

Travis: Okay

Laura: Oh god

Sam: Oh boy

Marisha: Uh ohs

Ashley: This was like with the ...

Travis 20. 17+3

Matt: Okay.

You resist the urge.

But since you kind of come up, and he kind of went off and did his own thing, you were probably kind of keeping a little back to watch.

You get to the entrance of this tunnel whereas he is partially in there.

You could probably catch up to him if you want to.

Liam: You’re super fast

Travis: Yeah I am faster

Matt: Yeah you are faster with the armor

Tal: Way faster.

Fjord: ‘I’m gonna try.’

Fjord: *I’m calling out to him through, through the water.*

Fjord: ‘But, yeah. I’ll try.’

You hear it, Caduceus, but like, you'll get to that.

Caduceus: ‘Yeah.’

You'll get to that.

Caduceus: ‘Yeah.’

This is important. This is more important, Caduceus.

He's not stopping, Fjord.

Fjord: ‘Okay. I'm going to cast ...command -’

Matt: Okay.

Sam, impressed: Command

Fjord: '-at Caduceus. And I'll say...’

Fjord: “Stop.”

Matt: And that's a wisdom saving throw?

Travis: Yes.

Matt: Go ahead and make a wisdom saving throw

Tal: This is going to be the first one I make, isn't it.

Marisha: I know, that's what i was just thinking.

Tal: Oh thank god. Thirteen?

Travis: Seventeen.

Matt: Seventeen.

Laura: *relieved gasp*

Tal: I’m rolling real bad today

Marisha: *clicky fingers, relieved laughter*

You stop, Caduceus. 

You used your action to do so, Fjord, so you can move, you can catch up to him.

But Caduceus has listened to you and stopped, and kinda looks back for a second towards you.

Fjord: “What the fuck are you doing?”(gently exasperated)

Caduceus: “I have to go that way.”

Fjord: “I - “

Caduceus: “It’s very important.”

Fjord: “I -”

He starts going again, Fjord.

Fjord: “I rem-  STOP.”

Fjord: “I-” *splutters*

Fjord: *I just grab onto him. I hold him.*

Fjord: “Stop. Wait. Wait!”

Fjord: “Every- will SOMEONE come fucking help me?”

They can’t hear you. You’re far underwater, and they’re currently looking at the ships and inspecting the walls

Fjord: ‘Oh good. Good.’

Veth: “This one’s got TWO cannons!”

Matt: I need you guys-

*general laughter*

Matt: I need you guys to make contested strength checks to -

See if you can grapple and keep him at bay

Fjord: ‘Oh shit, you bigass firbolg.’

Travis: … twelve.

Tal: Seven.

General: *Oooooh!*

Tal: I’m not very strong.

Travis: Well me neither *laughs*

You have him.

Sam: eeee. eeee.

Sam, Marisha, Travis, Liam: *feeble wrestling gestures*

*general laughter*

You have him currently held, Fjord, and thankfully the torchbloom is not close enough to the point.

The water is warm here, and right now you can sense something about it, while you’re holding him, while you can breathe underwater, you can breathe the water, the water itself seems to shift from salty to fresh as you guys are kinda struggling

Sam: hmm

Tal: *nods*

Marisha: Yes. It is a pathway then.

Fjord: 'We need to get out of here.’

Laura: Yah

Caleb: Yeah Matthew 

Laura: Matthew. Yeah it was gonna move it was gonna lead it straight to the

Liam: yeah man

Marisha: thought it was different

Travis: Can I take an action?

Matt: Yes you can

Fjord: ‘Okay. I’m going to cast...’

Fjord: ‘Fuck it. We gotta get the fuck outta here.’

Matt: Well actually before you can take an action,

Caduceus, he’s holding you back.

He doesn’t understand.

You know, he means well. He means well.

Sam: kill him

Matt & Travis: *laughs*

... but you’re probably going to try and break free.

Caduceus: ‘Yeah. What’ve I got.’

Sam: Blindness

Travis: I remember this. I remember this very …

Tal: Yeah this is a rough one. Uh

Ashley: Wait, in the last tunnels who was the one, me and

Travis *raises hand*

Laura: Me and *points*

Ashley: We swam

Travis: Yeah we were

Ashley: There were a bunch of

Laura: No but not you *points at Travis* we swam past you

Ashley: So this is one of...

Travis *raises hand* I was going to

Tal: What’ve I got.

Caduceus: ‘Yeah. I’m gonna...’

Caduceus: ‘I’m not gonna hurt him or anything, but let’s ...’

Liam: Not too bad

Tal: ‘Do I need ... I can do everything? I’ve got verbal, I’ve got all the everything I need right for casting a spell?

Matt: Yeah

Caduceus: *I’m going to cast blindness.*

Sam: Oh

Matt: Okay

Sam: Jeez

Caduceus: *And then try to break free.*

Matt: What’s the saving throw on that?

Sam: Good one

Tal: That’s a constitution 17

Matt: Make a constitution saving throw

Fjord: *I’ll counterspell it.*

*General impressed noises*

Liam: Yeah

Sam: We’re wasting all of our spells

Ashley: All the spells.

Matt: Alright here’s my question. Counterspell does it have somatic components? Coz you’re currently holding Caduceus

Travis: it does say ‘s’

Matt: Yeah so you’ll not be able to counterspell while you’re grappling him.

Travis: Okay.

Matt: So if you could- If you want to let go and counter the spell or keep holding and go blind or attempt to make the save at least. Your call.

Travis: What are the component?

Matt Verbal, somatic and material

Travis: Right and somatic means...

Sam: Movement

Matt: Means you gotta be able to *flail*

Everyone: *various arm flailing*

Tal: your hands

Matt: hands and fingers

Tal: it’s a hand thing

Liam: well it is for counterspell

Fjord: *I let go.*

Okay so you let go and counter the spell

Fjord: ‘Yeah.’

So the spell does nothing, Caduceus, but you’re free of Fjord

Caduceus: *I’ll head on my way.*

So you continue swimming, Caduceus.

So he’s still trying to get away from you, Fjord 

Fjord: ‘I’ll go catch his bitch ass again.’

Matt: Okay, make another contested strength check.

You can keep up with him. Yeah. You can-

Jester: and none of us know

Yasha: I can. Do we notice at some point that they’re missing or are we thinking

Matt: You will eventually!

Yasha: Okay

Matt: But this is all happening very quickly.

Caleb: “Alright, Frumpkin! We are going to make you an octopus.”

Travis: ...14 ?

Tal: 7.

*general laughter*

You grab him again, Fjord.

Fjord: “Why are you doing this?! This is ridiculous!” (frustrated exasperation)

Caduceus: “I’ve gotta go there.”

Fjord: “Nothing but danger lies ahead. Stop fighting me!”

Caduceus: “I’ve gotta go there.”

Fjord: *sighs*

Sam: Burn a couple more spells

Travis: I’m. I’m. I’m gonna.

Ashley: So how long

Laura: Can you pull him back? Can you just try to pull him back?

Fjord: ‘I think I’m just able to stop him, right?’

Laura: uh uh

Matt: I mean, you can use half your movement and drag him back I’d say, which for you is a full movement because of the water

Fjord: ‘How far into this tunnel are we?’

You’re probably no more than 15 feet maybe

Fjord: ‘Oh yeah, I’d love to do that. I’ll try that.’

Matt: oh it’d be about 30 feet at this point because you went in after him and you moved your double speed to get there which would have been 15

Tal: Well I had to use the action to cast the spell

Matt: correct that was the round after that so you’d be 30 feet so you can pull him back to the entrance with a double move

Matt: then you now take your turn to try and

Caduceus: ‘Alright, let’s try something a little more…’

Caduceus: ‘... I can’t do that. Um. Um, no, that’s not good.’

It’s not so much that you want to hurt him, it’s just he doesn’t understand and this is very ...

Caduceus: ‘I know. I’m trying not to hurt him. I’m trying to be nice.’

Caduceus: ‘Lets … fuck it, it worked last time.’

Caduceus: *finger-snap*

Caduceus: *Blindness again.*

Fjord: “Fuck.”

Caduceus: “Fuck off.”

Travis, Liam, everyone: *laughter*

Liam: No contagion?

Tal: I mean no?

Matt: Make a constitution saving throw

Tal: It’s Christmas

Marisha: Come on

Laura: you can do it Fjord

Travis: 12

Tal: uh constitution save of 17

Yeah so you go blind, Fjord. Your eyes just go completely dark and you can see nothing.

Fjord: ‘Well. This sucks.’

You’re still holding him, Fjord, so you have him at the entrance. You loose sight, he took his action which means he hasn’t broken from your grasp.

And next turn he can try and he’ll put you at disadvantage to continue to try and hold him.

Marisha: Swimmers’ instincts

Liam: Grapple him

So, what are you going to do.

Fjord: ‘I’m gonna try and I will cast my last thing.’

Fjord: *I’ll cast command again.*

Matt: Does command have a-

Travis: Wisdom save

Matt: Somatic?

Travis: Oh yeah. ‘I’ll let go of him.’

Laura: *worried noise*

Travis: it is, no it’s verbal

Matt: Okay yeah you can

What do you command him to do, Fjord?

Fjord: “Swim back to our group.”

Matt: It’s a single word

Travis: Oh.

Fjord: “... Retreat?”

Matt: Okay

Tal: Yeah that would that would work

Matt: Sure go ahead and make a wisdom saving throw

Tal: Keep rolling bad. Nope that’s yeah I fine. I finally rolled a 26.

*laughter*

So the command’s not breaking through, Fjord.

You still have your movement. You can move him fifteen feet in what you think is the backward direction.

Tal: uh is it 30 because it’s half his movement right?

Matt: Well it’s half his movement to do it but

Tal: He can move 30 feet in wate.

Matt: Correct.

Tal: Alright

Matt: So for him it’s half speed to pull you back

Tal: Yeah

You now pull him a little bit away from the entrance. You’re gaining on him, Fjord.

Unless he is able to break away from you, you gather you can probably drag him back.

You just don’t really know which direction’s back and you’re kind of hoping ...

Fjord: ‘Yeah. I also don’t want to touch that firebloom shit.’

Travis: Right?

Matt: Correct.

You aren’t certain where you are, Fjord.

Fjord: ‘Yeah.’

Fjord: ‘Bitch?!’

What are you doing, Caduceus?

Caduceus: ‘Um.’

Fjord: ‘How long does blindless last?’

Tal: As long as ah you don’t know

Travis: *laughs*

Matt: It’s a minute right?

Tal: Yeah it’s a minute

Travis: He’s gonna try divine smiting next 

Sam: *laughs*

Caduceus: ‘I’m gonna just try and break free.’

Caduceus: *He’s gonna try break free. He’s a nice boy.*

Matt: make a contested-

Tal: And I have advantage

Matt: you do because he’s blinded

Tal: Contested strength check. One of them is a natural one but the other one was 15.

Travis: Five.

Matt: Five.

*General disappointment*

Caduceus kicks out of your grip, Fjord, and you’re blinded. You’re not sure where he is.

You continue to use the rest of your movement to go back into the entrance of the tunnel, Caduceus

Sam: Ooohh shit

Matt: So Fjord it’s your turn

You have no vision, Fjord. You know that Caduceus is somewhere, probably in front of you. What are you doing?

Fjord: *Going backwards.*

You’re going backwards.

Laura: Oh my god

Liam: You tried

Fjord: ‘I can’t see what’s in front of me. What can I do?’

Liam: You tried so hard. (I saw that face Liam O’Brien)

Matt: Alright

Fjord: ‘I’m right near the entrance to the thing, right?’

Yeah youre about 15 feet away

Fjord: *I’m just gonna do three big like reverse-breaststrokes and then just go straight up and start screaming.*

Matt: Okay. You guys

Tal: Do I ever get a wisdom saving throw or no

Matt: No.

Tal: Okay.

So you guys, you hear pshhhhh, the breaking of the water surface

Fjord, what are you?

Fjord: “Caduceus is going forward!”

Jester: “What?”

Fjord: “He’s being pulled! GET IN HERE!”

Veth: “What?”

Jester: “What?”

Veth: “What?”

Jester: “What?”

Beau: ‘Are we-’

Caleb: “Everybody in the pool.”

Beau: “Okay…”

Veth: “Ohh … okay.”

Fjord: “NOW!”

Beau: *sploosh*

Veth: “Okay, okay.”

Jester: “We’re going!”

Caleb: *I dive off whatever boat we’re on.*

Alright you guys all immediately splssh sploosh start diving in the water.

Fjord, You are-

Fjord: “BLIND.”

Yup.

Marisha: *laughs*

So you guys, as you all begin to gather towards where Fjord is, you can see that Fjord is, you know treading water, but is kind of just-

Fjord: “I. I can’t see. He’s- he went down. Through the tunnel. *slight stutter* Someone go get him I’m … useless.”

Jester: “Oh god.”

Beau: ‘Alright I’m gonna go for it.’

Vilya’s going to go ahead and use a spell slot-

Fjord: “He blinded me!”

-to cast lesser restoration.

Sam: Oh!

Jester: ‘Oh that’s good because I don’t have that one prepared.’

Tal: yeah I think that does it

Vilya: “Pretty sure I’ve got lesser restoration here … "

Yeah you have your vision back

Fjord: “Oh. Good.”

Vilya: “But Caduce-”

Fjord: “Can you give me my spell slots back?”

Veth: *laughs*

Vilya: “I’m .. afraid I cannot.”

Fjord: “Okay.”

Marisha *laughs*

Jester: *swimming motions*

Beau: ‘I uh I’m gonna go for it.’

Jester: ‘Yeah same’

Beau: ‘Yeah’

Matt: alright

Yasha: ‘Yup.’

Matt: So you all make

Beau: *I’m with the girls*

You all dive in

Laura: oh god

beneath the surface

Jester: “We’re gonna get...”

Beau: “We’re gonna go for it I guess.”

Yasha: “Gonna go for it.”

Veth: “Yeah, me too.”

head towards the orange glow where the torchbloom plants ring-

Marisha: oh shit.

Marisha: oh no shit

-the interior of the tunnel sequence

Marisha: he’s winding up

Where Caduceus is, from your current position, nowhere to be seen

Laura: He’s winding down

While Caduceus, you have to get there.

Tal: Fuck, man

There’s something... Something important.

Sam: Fuuuck

Ashley: Don’t you do it

And nothing will stop you.

And as you thrash your way, somehow knowing the path through these now continuously branching odd tunnels

Tal: Oh no.

We’re gonna go ahead and continue next week

Everyone: *Nooo*

Ashley: Dang it

Sam: What a terrible end

Travis: Fucking totally empty

Tal: I’m not cool with this.

Travis: Oh

TaL: I’m not cool with this at all

Ashley: Shit. *foot stamp*

Liam: It was like a happy and sleepy content midpoint, and now just

Marisha: Now, my heartrate’s just

Laura: I was seriously like we should all sit down and have a hero’s feast before we do anything and then

Sam: *laughs*

Travis: *schlorp? sound*

Laura: Got sucked in

Marisha: Oh he’s really sucked in

Matt: Well the good news is, he’s swimming at half speed. All of you are swimming at half speed unless you take other forms. Fjord swims at full speed and while you are behind there is an opportunity to possibly catch up.

Tal: Yeah

Matt: But we’ll see what that possibly looks like next week

Matt: Cause now it’s a now it’s a chase for your own party member who is being compelled and to see if you can

Marisha: what is it

Matt: Follow him through a network of tunnels that he knows the way

Liam: Oooh

Laura: oh jeez

Liam: And no prep time for possibly going to knock on Avocodo’s door.

Sam: Oh man

Laura: And no spell slots either

Sam: it’s DND

Matt: Yeyah!

Marisha: Whoo.

Travis: DNDBYOND

Marisha: *laughs*

Matt: So

Laura: *extended fart noise* Oh my god

Travis: Boy

Tal: love you guys 

Liam: I love DND. Love it

Matt: Love you guys

Sam: So great

Matt: I wasn’t expecting that to happen

Marisha: Yeah

Matt: That was

Sam: So great

Matt: That was exciting. Alright cool. We’re gonna pick up there next week to see where this goes um in the meantime  everyone take time to tell everyone you care about you love them every chance you get and on that same note we love you all very much. Have a wonderful week, we’ll see you soon, and is it Thursday yet? Goodnight

Marisha: Wheeew

Travis: *pained whale noises*

[Diego and ship captain fencing]

Ship Captain: Well done, Señor de la Vega! I shall miss these daily bouts!

Diego de la Vega: I, too, sir. They have made the long voyage most enjoyable.

Captain: Your agility with the sword, sir, should serve you well in California.

Diego: Why do you say that?

Captain: How long have you been away?

Diego: Three years.

Captain: I am afraid you’re going to find conditions quite changed when you reach Los Angeles. Everything is rules and regulations. Military force has taken over.

Diego: When did all this happen?

Captain: A year ago, when the new comandante was appointed. I hate to disillusion you, but I have the feeling that you will soon wish that you had stayed in Spain.

Diego: Is it as bad as that?

Captain: Worse. But you will see for yourself. If you are bringing in anything of value, hide it. The soldiers at the customs house have a habit of confiscating anything they take a liking to.

Diego: Thank you for the warning.

Captain: We’ll be dropping anchor soon. I shall say good-bye when you disembark.

[In ship’s cabin with Bernardo]

Diego: Haven’t you finished packing yet? We’ll be going ashore soon.

[Bernardo points out window]

Diego: Yes, California is beautiful. Where did you put my father’s letters? I want to read the last one again.

[Diego opens letter]

Diego: “My dear son, it is with a heavy heart that I ask you to give up your studies and come home. Certain matters have arisen that I can no longer face alone.” You know how puzzled I’ve been over this? Well, now I know what he was trying to tell us. We’re heading for trouble, Bernardo.

[Bernardo signs shooting a bow and arrow]

Diego: No, no, not Indians, politicos. I have just learned that our pueblo is under the heel of a dictator. We are certain to be searched on our arrival. Burn this. No one must suspect that my father has summoned me home. We must find a way to deal with this tyrant.

[Bernardo signs stabbing with a sword]

Diego: Ah, the direct approach? No, Bernardo. When dealing with a powerful enemy we must play another game. You know the old proverb “When you cannot clothe yourself with the skin of the lion, put on that of the fox.” I must convince the new comandante that I am perfectly harmless, but how?

[Bernardo signs reading a book]

Diego: Ah! An excellent idea! Instead of a man of action, I shall become a man of letters. An innocent scholar, interested only in arts and sciences! Why these books that I am taking to the mission priest, they will be my most prized possession! Ha, ha!

[Diego looks in box]

Diego: Well, as for these fencing medals and trophies… They are no longer part of my life. Throw them overboard.

[Bernardo closes box]

Diego: No, Bernardo. Get rid of them. Here. This too. Go. Bernardo this is no time for sentiment. Throw them out!

[Bernardo throws trophies out window]

Diego: Now, get me my fanciest jacket. The one with the gold braid. And my walking stick. It shall be part of my new character.

[Bernardo signs asking what character he shall play]

Diego: You also, you also want to be something you are not? Very well. You shall play the fool!

[Bernardo pulls on his ears]

Diego: You want to pretend you cannot hear? Even better! You shall be the eyes and ears behind my back. From now on, you not only cannot speak, you hear nothing. Bravo, Bernardo.

[Coach drives into Los Angeles]

Diego: Cochero, why are we stopping here?

Cochero: All vehicles passing through Los Angeles must be inspected, patrón.

Diego: But this is an imposition. We have already gone through customs!

Sergeant García: All baggage to be opened! Passengers have their identity papers ready. Don Diego de la Vega! I thought you were still in Spain.

Diego: Obviously, I have returned sergeant. What is this nonsense about another inspection?

García: For you, Don Diego, a, a mere formality!

Diego: Oh, then my luggage does not have to be opened again?

García: Forgive me, please, but Capitán Monastario, he allows no exceptions.

Diego: Is, uh, he the new comandante?

García: Ah, for over a year now. Please, señor. He makes the orders, I only carry them out.

Diego: Very well then, sergeant, get on with it.

García: Sí.

[Diego signs to Bernardo to open the luggage]

García: What is this?

Diego: Oh, I’m instructing my mozo to remove the luggage.

García: He is deaf and dumb?

Diego: Since childhood, but he’s a remarkably good manservant.

García: Well, with your permission, Don Diego, I shall tell the comandante that you have arrived.

[García knocks on door to comandante’s office]

Capitán Monastario: ¡Pase!

García: Forgive the interruption, mi capitán.

Monastario: What is it?

García: Diego de la Vega, the son of Don Alejandro, has just returned from Spain.

Monastario: Very well, García. Have him wait, I will see him in a moment.

García: Yes, comandante.

Licenciado Piña: I don’t like it. Why has the son returned so unexpectedly?

Monastario: What difference does it make, licenciado?

Licenciado Piña: The de la Vega’s are the most important family in southern California. Do you think Don Alejandro called him back?

Monastario: Even if he did there’s nothing to worry about. If he is a troublemaker I shall handle him as I did all the others. Nothing shall stop me from being the richest man in all of California!

[Outside the cuartel]

García: Capitán Monastario will see you in a little moment, Don Diego.

Diego: Very well, sergeant. Would you mind helping my manservant with the luggage, please?

García: Sí, Don Diego, sí.

[Man guarded by soldiers rides into town]

García: Out of the way! Clear the street!

Diego: Sergeant García, that is my neighbor, Nacho Torres. Why is he being brought in?

García: ¿Quién sabe? Don Diego. The comandante ordered his arrest

Alcalde: One moment. Why have you taken this man prisoner?

Don Nacho Torres: Help me, señor alcalde. I am innocent!

Alcalde: What are the charges against you, Don Nacho?

Don Nacho: They accuse me of treason, but it is a lie. I dare to speak out against injustice.

Monastario: It is forbidden to speak to this prisoner. Take him inside and lock him up!

Alcalde: I must protest, capitán! This man is no criminal!

Monastario: Señor alcalde, this case is not a civil matter. The crime of treason comes under military jurisdiction.

[Monastario walks over to Diego]

Monastario: Are you Diego de la Vega?

Diego: At your service, comandante.

Monastario: Capitán Enrique Sanchez Monastario. I am sorry to inconvenience you.

Diego: No, comandante. As a matter of fact, it gave me the opportunity to finish this last chapter. The Effects of Moorish Culture on Spanish Poetry. Have you read it?

Monastario: No, I have not.

Diego: Oh, then I must lend it to you when I have finished.

Monastario: Thank you. Some other time. Would you please make yourself comfortable in my quarters? I shall not detain you long.

Licenciado Piña: Did he say why he has returned?

Monastario: I shall find out, but certainly we have nothing to fear from that fastidious señorito. Get back to the inn. We should not be seen together.

[Monastario sees Bernardo on the coach]

Monastario: What are you doing up there? You! Come down here! I’ll teach you to spy on me. Come down, I say! What are you doing here? Speak!

García: Your pardon, capitán, your pardon! But this man, he cannot answer you. He is deaf and dumb.

Monastario: Who is he?

García: Don Diego’s servant. He brought him from Spain.

Monastario: Are you certain he cannot hear?

García: Oh, positive. Watch this.

[to Bernardo]

García: You have the face of a donkey! You-you smell like a goat! Your father… you father was a baboon!

Monastario: Get on with the inspection, sergeant. And make sure to inspect carefully!

[García and Bernardo climb the carriage, Monastario fires a gun behind them]

García: Help!

Monastario: Carry on, sargento.

[Monastario enters his office again]

Monastario: I know you are anxious to be on your way home.

Diego: Yes, it’s been a most fatiguing day.

Monastario: Please fill out this brief declarations, if you don’t mind. Your return is rather unexpected, is it not? Your father gave the impression that you would be at the university another year.

Diego: Well, I decided to forgo it. There was an overemphasis on gymnastics, swordsmanship. Do you know there were even duels among some of the students.

Monastario: Really?

[Monastario swings his sword cutting the quill Diego is holding]

Monastario: Ooh! How this Toldeo blade sings. A thousand pardons, Don Diego. Your father would never forgive me if anything happened to you.

[García enters]

García: Sergeant García begs to report that the inspection is complete,  mi capitán.

Monastario: Good.

Diego: I trust you found no contraband?

García: Every trunk and bag seemed full of books. Heavy ones!

[Monastario hands García his sword]

García: What do you want me to do with this, capitán?

Monastario: Hang it in my quarters, stupid one!

García: Oh.

[Monastario turns away and Diego jabs him with the quill]

Monastario: Ow!

[Monastario turns to García]

Monastario: ¡Baboso! Put it away!

Diego: Well, I really must be going, comandante. It’s been very nice.

Monastario: Gracias, Señor de Vega.

[Coach stops in front of hacienda]

Juan: Welcome home, Don Diego!

Diego: Juan! It’s good to see you! Is this Pepito? How is my father? Have you taken good care of him?

Juan: We have tried, Don Diego.

Diego: Juan, this is Bernardo. He cannot speak nor hear but he would die for me if necessary. Show him where my room is.

Juan: Sí, patrón.

[Diego enters the gate]

Diego: Father!

Alejandro de la Vega: My son! It fills my heart to see you again! I send a boy to Spain, and a man returns! Diego, I have many things to tell you, but they can wait until you have changed and we have had supper. Come, your old room is waiting for you.

[In the sala Diego is playing the piano]

Diego: The vaqueros use to sing this as they rode home from work. You know, this piano needs tuning.

Alejandro: Are you not interested at all in what I have been telling you?

Diego: Extremely so, Father. I am sorry to find the situation so unpleasant.

Alejandro: Unpleasant? It is intolerable! The rancheros are being taxed out of existence. Those who cannot pay are flogged and thrown into prison. The Indians are torn from their families and forced into slave labor. All for the benefit of one man, Capitán Monastario!

Diego: I’ve met the gentleman.

Alejandro: Gentleman? Ha! He is a blackhearted scoundrel! If he remains in power, our country faces ruin. We must get rid of him, Diego! That’s why I called you home. Someone must do something!

Diego: You’re right, Father. I’m going to sit down and write a detailed letter of complaint to the governor!

Alejandro: It would never reach him. Monastario’s guards intercept all mail sent to Monterrey. Our neighbor, Nacho Torres dared to protest and this morning he was arrested for treason.

Diego: Well, have you, have you appealed to the civil authorities? Certainly we have rights under the law?

Alejandro: Monastario is the law! He brought in a crooked lawyer from Mexico City to make his crimes appear legal!

Diego: Then I fail to see what we can do.

Alejandro: We can stand up to him, fight him!

Diego: Calm yourself, Father. The use of force should be our last resort.

Alejandro: I hardly expected such...such discretion from a son of mine. You are tired, my boy. Go to your room and sleep on it. We shall discuss it tomorrow.

Diego: With your permission.

[In Diego’s room]

Diego: Bernardo, I’ve just had to do something I’m not very proud of, I’ve convinced my father that I’m a spineless weakling. And if I were to take open action, as he wants to do, his life would be in danger. Now I’m free to act alone. You remember what I said this morning? “If you cannot clothe yourself in the skin of the lion, put on that of the fox.” Well, from now on, I shall be Zorro, the fox!

[Diego carves a Z into a piece of sheet music]

[The next day Diego and Bernardo ride to the box canyon]

Diego: I’ve brought you out here to meet a third member, an ally. Like you he can be trusted to keep a secret, Bernardo. His name is Tornado. An old shepherd has been keeping him for me. He was a colt when I left.

[Diego walks to Tornado]

Diego: Tornado, Tornado. Come here. Here, Tornado. Come on, boy. Here, boy. That’s a good horse. I’ve got something for you. Come on. Here, I have a carrot for you. Here, boy. There. Yeah. It’s been such a long time, huh? Have you forgotten the tricks I taught you? Oh. You think you can kneel? Come on. Let’s see if you can kneel. Kneel, Tornado, kneel. Kneel, kneel. Good boy!

[Diego takes Tornado’s mane and leads him to Bernardo]

Diego: That’s a horse, huh? Well, Bernardo, our second mission is accomplished. Even my father wouldn’t recognize this horse. Tornado, you and I are going for a long ride tonight. Come, boy.

[Los Angeles plaza at night]

Town crier: Ten o’clock! On a warm summer night all is well!

[Monastario exits his office]

Monastario: Sergeant García!

García: At you orders, mi capitán!

Monastario: Bar the gate and dismiss the guard. Leave one patrol saddled. After final inspection, report to me.

García: Very good, señor comandante.

[García walks away]

García: Bar the gate!

[Monastario goes inside his office]

Licenciado Piña: How long must we wait?

Monastario: Half an hour or so. By then, everyone will be asleep.

Licenciado Piña: Suppose something goes wrong!

Monastario: You are more of an old woman than you are a lawyer. What can go wrong? And stop pacing about! You will make me nervous. Better still, wait in my quarters until the sergeant reports, and don’t worry!

[Zorro sneaks into the cuartel, García walks to the cells]

García: Well, Señor Torres, you are still here, I see. All safe and snug for the night, eh? Buenas noches, señor. Sleep well.

[Zorro sabotages the horse saddles, García enters Monastario’s office]

García: All prisoners accounted for, mi capitán.

Monastario: Is the prisoner Torres secure? He is a dangerous man, sergeant, full of much cunning.

García: I, myself, have just examined his cell.

Monastario: ¡Excelente! I will mention you in this report, García.

García: ¡Gracias, señor comandante!

Monastario: You may go to bed now, sergeant. And, leave your keys on the desk.

García: ¡Gracias, capitán!

[Zorro comes to the cell door]

Zorro: Señor Torres!

Don Nacho: Who are you?

Zorro: A friend. I’ve come to help you.

Don Nacho: God love you, friend, but how can you help me? I am chained like an animal.

Zorro: Who has the keys?

Don Nacho: Sergeant García.

Zorro: Then I will relieve him of them!

[In Monastario’s office]

Monastario: Now, in a little while, you will take the keys and release the prisoner.

Licenciado Piña: But won’t he suspect something?

Monastario: You are a lawyer. You will tell him you have reviewed his case and there has been a mistake. When he crosses the courtyard you will give the alarm. I will be waiting right here. It’s already in my report. “Fugitive shot while attempting to escape.”

[García’s quarters]

García: La la la la la lahhhhh

[Zorro puts his sword to García’s back]

Zorro: The slightest sound will be your last!

García: What do you want from me?

Zorro: The keys.

García: Keys?

Zorro: To the cell door and the prisoner’s chains.

García: The comandante has the keys. I just gave them to him.

Zorro: Get up! Go to the corner.

García: You’re not going to kill me, are you?

Zorro: Not unless you move. I’ll be standing right behind you!

[Licenciado Piña exits Monastario’s office and goes to the cell]

Licenciado Piña: I have good news for you, Señor Torres. I’ve come to set you free.

Don Nacho: Why are you releasing me now? You are the lawyer who signed the accusation papers.

Licenciado Piña: I have just discovered that the charges against you are false.

Zorro: Thank you, licenciado. You have most kindly solved the problem for us. I advise you to make no outcry. Señor Torres, I do not trust this lawyer. Chain him to the bars. Now, close his mouth. Now I suggest we take our leave over the wall. There’s a horse by the tree.

Don Nacho: Señor, who are you?

Zorro: A friend of the people. ¡El Zorro!

[Zorro carves a Z into the cell wall]

[Monastario exits his office and shoots at Zorro and Don Nacho then begins to duel Zorro]

Zorro: Escape while you can!

Monastario: Sergeant García! Sergeant García! García! Sergeant García!

[Monastario tries to stab Zorro but stabs the wall]

Zorro: Beautiful! Coupé to the wall. You must show me that again, comandante! Now would you please get inside the cell?

García: Lancers to arm! Our comandante is in danger!

Monastario: Who is that masked demon?

Licenciado Piña: I don’t know, he calls himself El Zorro.

Monastario: Zorro? The Fox. García, idiota, pick up your sword and fight!

[Zorro holds García at sword point]

García: Oh! Oh, señor.

Monastario: Lancers! To arms! To arms!

García: Please, señor.

Monastario: Fight!

[Zorro pushes García into a well]  

Monastario: Do not let him get away! After him! To your horses, stupid ones! They must not escape!

García: To horse! To horse!

Monastario: After them!

García: Open the gate!

[Zorro escapes the cuartel and rides to catch up with Don Nacho]

Zorro: Go to the mission at San Gabriel. Padre Felipe will give you asylum there.

Don Nacho: I do not know who you are, Señor Zorro, but I owe you my life. I will never forget.

The Armchair Sociologist Podcast- Episode 1: Generative AI (Transcript)

Key: 

D: Diana

R: Rayne

Z: Zoe

D: So we've talked about some of the ways AI has hurt people. From its users to the workers that make it. We have so far only briefly touched on a third, enormous group of people who are harmed by the data scraping practices of generative AI. The people whose data it is trained on, aka, anyone who's ever used the internet, like our friend Zoe here, whose voice was not cloned, but could have been by a company that was ignoring its contractual obligations to its voice actors. 

Z: Hi!

D: I wanted to save this topic for last, since it's arguably a newer issue than all of the other ones we've talked about. Humans have had labor exploitation and people being replaced by automation- for as long as we have recorded our history, we've had bias. We've had racism and misinformation floating around long before the internet existed or the large language models and predictive policing came into being to scale them to new, brave heights. But data scraping is a problem pretty unique to the 21st century. I think the closest thing we've had historically is probably copyright infringement. That itself is a relatively recent problem historically speaking, but that's a story for another episode. But copyright has definitely taken center stage in the generative AI discussion from the New York Times suing OpenAI for using the text of its articles without permission, artists sounding the alarm that their work has been fed into training data without permission, and actors and voice actors being concerned about their voices being scraped to make models that will then replace them. And I will say, like voice actors already get paid so little that it's extra insulting that they want to replace voice actors with text to voice technology.

Z: And it's bad too. 

R: Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. It's so frustrating because, like, it doesn't even sound natural. Like you can tell when it's AI. 

D: Yeah. 

R: It doesn't sound good.

D: Though, I will argue, even if it was good, it still would be bad to do. 

R: Well, yeah! 

D: Like, ethically.

Z: Ethically bad still…

D: A lot of like, the the tech industry, likes to be like, “well, this is the worst it's ever gonna sound. It's gonna sound great soon, no problem.” And that would still be bad to have. And it's only good because you're training it on more and more actors who are good at their craft. It only gets good by stealing more from more people, and that sucks. Though, there are now platforms that will pay you to sell your voice data too. I saw that on the Reddit Beer Money recently, and I was- there's a lot.

Z: I'm on a couple of websites where, you know, you get sent casting emails, and a lot of them lately have been, “hey, we will pay you a whole $300 if you help us train our AI model.”

D: No! Ugh. At least that is consensual and there is money. I will give them that one thing. That that is better than what a lot of companies are doing.

Z: They’re just stealing, and stealing is wrong. 

D: Stealing is wrong and bad. I still don't like the thing that they are making, but at least this other company pays you. 

Z: That is true. 

D: So the argument from the tech industry is that the potential gains from using AI are so paradigm-shifting, so profitable, and so revolutionary that holding AI companies to silly mortal standards like copyright would impede the progress of all mankind. I did find one semi-scholarly source saying that, but he didn't cite anything-

Z: Oh.

D: …other than his own opinion for how AI benefits mankind, and he just said, “the economy go up number go up it would make money and be good.” 

Z: And that's how you know it's a reputable source. 

D: This was published, and I'm like okay, I'm gonna side with the people worried about their jobs being replaced with computer programs on this one. Because AI has plenty of powerful, rich voices, other than the one I read, arguing in its favor. You got Sam Altman, you got Elon Musk, practically the entire tech industry. They do not need our help. So I will sit here and be biased as much as I like. As people who have to pay bills, how do you two feel about the threat of AI? I know we've talked a little bit about it, but like, on a, like, longer scale than, like, this one job tried to replace me with AI. Like, how do you feel about your economic futures right now? 

R: Scared. It's scary. My goal is to be a professor, and you might think that, like, teaching would be something that's protected, but it's very much so not. Because we already have remote teaching, it wouldn't take much to develop an AI model that can just spit out everything that I've learned. 

D: I think that's probably why I get ads for can you teach this computer to be better at sociology? Is because then ChatGPT can teach your class. No problem. 

R: What am I supposed to do with a sociology degree, if not research? And I don't want to do research.

D: Podcasting!

Z: Podcasting! Just everybody starts a podcast. 

D: Podcasting is where the money is. Aristotle said that. Aristotle said that you can quote us on that. It's also in Sun Tzu's Art of War. I don't know who plagiarized who.

Z: I like money. I like paying bills. I like living in- well, I would like to live in a house. I do not live in a house right now, but I would like to, in the future, potentially, live in a house right now. I'm not gonna be able to live in a house if people develop these AI models and take over my job both, yeah, as a voice actor and in my day job. I like working- well, I don't know if I like working..

D: Yeah, but we work because we have to do work to make money to live, because that's capitalism, baby.

Z: I like to provide a service for money. 

D: Sure! I like to help people with stuff. I think if I weren't getting paid for it, like, say, we lived in the Marxist utopia of my dream, where nobody has to work in a job they don't feel like doing. I don't think that's actually logistically likely, but bear with me, I would probably still be doing work because I get bored really easy. 

Z: Yeah.

D: But that's a digression. 

Z: How would that even like work? How would society not crumble if everybody were replaced, like every worker were replaced by AI? What would we do? 

D: How can the AI profit number keep going up if nobody has any money to buy the stuff AI is selling?

Z: Exactly! What are we supposed to do with no money? 

D: Well, the tech industry, well, at the very least a couple of guys in the tech industry, think that the robots will eventually create a utopia and do everything for us, not just stuff for them, making number go up. I'll get into that in another episode sometime, but I believe Behind the Bastards also has a really good episode about the tech- about the techno-optimist manifesto, which is basically the Bible for tech people. It's like the Communist Manifesto, but if you're a techno fascist.

Z: Interesting. 

D: It's a very interesting topic. I don't have time to get into it today, because we're already running pretty long, but I would recommend checking that out, because it's very interesting. So how is all of this stuff even possible? All of this ties into how much data big tech has about us, something we're going to talk about a little more in our episode upcoming on social media, and likely in future tech specific episodes as well. Google and Facebook are currently kings of the data space, and they have been perfecting how to harvest and utilize user data for targeted ads since pretty much they were created. That's actually part of how Facebook was able to dethrone MySpace. This was because they figured out targeted advertising algorithms and data collection and made a profitable business that MySpace just could not. So now all of that data they've been using to sell us more pink electronics, maybe that's not a universal experience, maybe that's just me… It's being turned to a new purpose, which is creating generative AI models. As annoying as the ads are and as detrimental as they can be on my wallet when I see a pink calculator, generative AI developers are pushing this product as a much more existential threat to basically anyone working for a living, which famously includes all three of us. Now don't take it from me. Let's look at what some of the companies pushing these tools have to say about it. A blog post from Matchbox Design Group touts AI as a cult saving measure and gives examples of using AI voice generation instead of hiring voice actors to record your voice mail. Or using AI to- quote unquote- streamline customer service. Never mind if your AI chat bot makes up a refund policy wholesale that you don't have, you'll legally have to honor it. As was the case in February 2024, when Air Canada used a chat bot for customer service that did exactly that. Basically, it told the customer, “yeah, you could totally have a refund on this flight for like, $400! No problem!” And then they tried to do that, and Air Canada was like, “No, that's not the refund policy and the robot was wrong.” And then the judge said to them, “it's on your website. It's your robot, so you're liable.” 

Z: Something very similar happened to a Ford dealership. 

D: Oh, tell me more. 

Z: I don't remember the specifics, but they had, like, one of those chat bots, and it was, I want to say, based on a framework by open AI, and somebody, like, wanted a refund or something, or they wanted, like, a trade in something with money. And the policy was not followed by said robot.

D: Yeah, because it doesn't know it.

Z: Because it doesn't know it. And said, “Yeah, that's fine.” And they had to honor it. They pulled the bot. I think a lot of other dealerships were all using something similar, and they all pulled their bot down. 

D: Are you telling me that, actually, AI can't replace all of these jobs? 

Z: That’s not what I said at all!

D: Oh, good. That sounds like a load of hooey, because I think it's great. 

Z: To be clear, that is what I am saying. AI cannot replace all of the people. The people are important. 

D: It really can’t, but the tech industry really wants you to think it can, but it can’t. 

Z: Critical thinking is important.

D: Yeah, and it can't. Literally, it just can't do it. It's not a skill it has. It's not programmed in there. So on that note, I actually don't think we're gonna have a job apocalypse from generative AI adoption. Researchers, Jung and Srinivasa-Desikan, in a report for the UK Institute for the UK Institute for Public Policy Research actually kind of broadly agreed with me. They do find certain sectors of work are gonna be way more impacted than others, and surprise, those jobs are usually held by women. That doesn't sound right, but you know, we talked earlier in Rayne sociological corner, administrative assistants, customer service reps, human resource professionals, are at much higher risk of displacement, and we're starting to see a lot of these workers being- quote unquote- augmented with AI products, if not being replaced outright. 

Z: Interesting. 

D: So that makes these workers more expendable, and thus it drives down employment in those sectors. As well as wages for the workers who do keep their jobs because they're like, “Oh, well, we can totally replace you with a computer, and it doesn't really matter that ChatGPT can't do the job as well and might be a liability if management thinks it can.” This all kind of comes back to management, not understanding what their employees actually do, but that's a topic for another day. 

Z: Oof. Can of Worms. So even though AI may lead to increases in productivity in those sectors like AI- quote unquote- augmentation is like when you use the auto complete on your email to write the email faster or use it to summarize a meeting after you get off of Microsoft Teams, which is a thing it can do now, the workers don't get to see the benefits of that. And of course, that's capitalism, baby! This is also anecdotal, but I've been seeing a lot of people in the games and tech industry talking about how they've been laid off in favor of adopting AI products that claim to be able to do their jobs, and then seeing postings for people to clean up the AI outputs that those things are making. So like, there's still a person in there. You're just paying them less and giving them a worse job. Like a job that sucks your soul out instead of making something creative! 

Z: You could do it right the first time. Or you could hire AI. 

D: And then hire a guy whose job it is to clean up the AI's mess. That is my nightmare. 

R: That was such a good quote. You could do it right that first time, or you could hire AI. That's so… put that on a like-

Z: Put it on a shirt!

D: So it doesn't actually matter whether the AI can do the jobs, and it remains to be seen if they can be improved enough to do these jobs. All it takes is the illusion that the AI can do the job for executives who don't know what the jobs actually entail, to start firing people and offering lower wages. And honestly, this feels like a full circle moment for my friend Karl Marx. Karl Marx, our mascot and the boogeyman of the modern conservative movement, spent most of his life talking about how capitalism takes all the stuff workers make, sells it at a profit and pays the worker as little as they can legally do in the process. Now, the tech industry is taking the contents of the entire internet and then some, which we have all been collectively making for decades, and trying not only to sell it back to us, but replace us with it. Rayne take it away!

R: Speaking of Karl Marx, obviously there's a ton of economic issues that can be talked about with all of this, but it also brings about a ton of social issues. So as a true sociologist, good luck with getting me, or honestly you either, to say anything sociological without bringing up Karl Marx. But to be fair, the man was well before his time, so sue me. We just have something really powerful in common, because just like me, that man hates capitalism! He argued that workers would eventually develop something called alienation. This is when they realized that they are simply nothing but cogs in a machine. Their work is entirely meaningless and they are very easily replaceable. Does that sound familiar to you? 

Z: Interesting. That sounds like-

D: What feels worse to me, like- the most meaningless job I can think of is being asked to clean up a computer's creative output. 

Z: Yeah, that's pretty terrible. 

D: It's like, wow. So the art didn't matter, just the money you could make on the art, yeah, and my only job is to make the art less bad, because you didn't want to hire a real person to make it. That is soul sucking to me. 

Z: It sounds like the theory behind like the whole quiet, quitting movement.

D:  A little bit, yeah, which actually, you elaborate on that a little bit for a while, since I read about quiet quitting? 

Z: Sure, yeah, quiet quitting was is, I guess it's still a bigger thing in the younger generations like Gen Z, Gen Alpha- people are realizing that they don't really matter to their companies, their managers. They just do the job that they are paid to do, and then they leave. They don't go above and beyond. 

D: That's called quitting!? So doing the job you're hired to do is called quitting in any form.

Z: It’s doing the job that you are hired to do just within the job description. You don't put in extra hours. You don't go above and beyond for other things that your manager asks you for. You do your job, you go home, you leave, you don't think about the company. You just do what you pay to do. 

R: “That's not in my job description” is like a motto.

Z: Exactly. Not in my job description. I'm not gonna do it.

D: Fascinating, because in my experience in the world, doing a job, getting paid for it, and then going home is not quitting. That's called being employed. I hate the name of quiet quitting so much. 

Z: That’s what upper management is calling it. They're like, “you're not putting an effort.” Like, no, I'm doing the job that you asked me to do. 

D: Yeah, I am doing that job. 

Z: Work is not my entire life. 

D: What have you hurt the managers feelings? 

Z: You can't hurt an AI feelings. 

D: Now we're talking. Replace all the managers with AI. 

R: Okay, so in an environment where your job can be replaced by computer, wouldn't that lead not only to crippling fear of losing everything, but also, wouldn't that be pretty dehumanizing? Just being very acutely aware that you provide no value, you own nothing of your labor, and that any day now, your boss might choose profit over your livelihood. The financial impacts are enough to break someone but combine that with losing your sense of purpose, your identity, not understanding your value or place in society, the universal mental health impacts would be catastrophic. 

D: That's alienation, baby. 

Z: That's crazy. 

D: Yeah, honestly, like the alienation kind of is the reason quiet quitting happens. Quiet quitting, god. I have nothing but contempt for that phrase. As someone who goes above and beyond, I think that is insulting, but anyway- But yeah, I mean, that is alienation. That's such a good example, too. Of like, when you're alienated from your job, of course, you're not going above and beyond, because it doesn't get you anything to do that. 

Z: Yeah, I could instead go hang out with my friends and make a podcast for two hours.

R: Exactly! 

Z: Exactly!

R: You're becoming a sociologist! Well, if you're gonna become a sociologist, then I have to tell you about another one, because he's very well known, he touches on this exact thing too. It's Emile Durkheim. So he is known as one of the founding fathers of sociology. There should really be some founding like mothers of sociology, but we don't talk about that. Yeah, he's one of the few white men that get credited with that role.

D: And he's French!

Z: Oh, that's like double whammy. 

R: His work heavily focuses on the mental health effects that would happen when people feel disconnected from their society. So this is a quick trigger warning: The following discussion does talk about Durkheim’s work, which is titled On Suicide. Which, as you can probably guess, theorizes why he thinks the triggering factors are behind why people commit suicide. 

D: It's kind of a bummer. 

R: Please feel free to skip this entire discussion of what I am talking about. 

D: This discussion runs to approximately one hour, 18 minutes and 40 seconds. So if this will be triggering for you, I will see you. Then. 

R: Okay, so I personally have beef with the Durkster because his specific book On Suicide is organized like you gave a kindergartener a stack of papers and a stapler and absolutely no supervision and just said, fuck me up. He does have really interesting theories, and everybody knows that you're contractually obligated to bring up what he calls anomie in any basic sociology discussion. So in this book, it argues that people commit suicide when they experience unbalanced amounts of both social integration and social regulation. And right now, I'm throwing a lot of words at you, but social integration just means how integrated someone feels within their community, like how connected do they feel?

Z: That makes sense, okay.

R:  And then social regulation is just rules, values and norms that a society adopts in order to maintain order. So too much social regulation would be like an authoritarian dictatorship. There's way too much regulation happening in that society.

D: Like V for Vendetta in 1984.

R: Exactly. Too little is chaotic and it's confusing, and it puts a society in a state of Anomie.

D: Which is a French word, do not panic. 

Z: Yes, I was gonna ask. 

R: It just means that sudden changes during a really high stress time creates this rock bottom-esque feeling of hopelessness and too much anomie will leave you searching for an escape. In the cases of that escape being permanent and self inflicted, it's called anomic suicide. Most notably, studies have found that suicide rates increased significantly after events that caused financial hardships, such as mass layoffs, market crashes, natural disasters. 

D: I'm sure glad we haven't had any market crashes lately!

Z: This is feeling very meta and I don’t like it.

D: That's the field, baby!

R: Something like AI taking over entire job markets is the exact recipe that would be needed in order to put a society into a mass state of anime. And that, if you can imagine, Zoe, is not a good thing. 

Z: Yeah I can imagine.

D: It kind of is like, what if your society had depression? 

Z: Oh no.

D: One way to look at it, on like a scale, and like, on an individual level, it's like that feeling you get when life is meaningless and futile, and also you don't know where your place is in it. So like, do you remember COVID? Does anyone remember the COVID 19 pandemic? 

Z: Not at all!

D: Do you remember? Yeah, so for those of us who were there, do you remember how you felt at the beginning of COVID, and everything shut down, and then you were in your house for two years and that nothing was normal? That was Anomie. You experienced an Emile Durkheim pretentious word, anomie. 

R: And as someone who worked for the Florida unemployment line during COVID. 

D: Oh no.

R: I witnessed quite a few people who were experiencing states of anomie, and it was traumatizing, and I had to quit after my or suicide call. 

D: Oh no, that's awful.

Z: Baaaad.

D: I’m so sorry you went through that. I also would have quit. 

R: Well, I should say my fourth threat. I don't think that they- 

D: But like the first person who called you as if it was a suicide hotline? 

R: Yeah, yeah. 

D: So yeah. I think when people feel like their life is meaningless and they can't support themselves and nothing matters that they do, they get sad and desperate.

Z: The need purpose. 

D: Call me a bleeding heart liberal, but people don't like it when that happens. 

Z: How many people need purpose? 

D: So we're coming in to the home stretch here. I said copyright was kind of the last topic. I lied. There is one more related topic, which is deepfakes, which I haven't really talked much about. We talked about a lot of the pieces that go into deep fakes, which are like voice generation, image and video generation. So speaking of the machines that want to replace us, let's talk about deepfakes. Most people, I think, have seen this term thrown around. The concept has existed for a while, but just in case anyone listening is not familiar, I'll break it down. A deepfake is a piece of content, usually a video or a photograph or audio recording that shows- or what is the auditory word for shows? That depicts a real person like Barack Obama doing or saying something they did not do in the past. Deepfakes were relatively labor intensive and expensive to make, especially the video kind, and they didn't usually look or sound super convincing. They might fool some people on the fringes of the internet, but they wouldn't get a lot of mainstream traction unless you spent a really long time on it. That has changed with generative AI that can generate convincing video and audio in seconds, and for anyone who happens to purchase access to the program or for free, in the cases of a lot of the generators out there. Right now, we can now create deepfakes at industrial scale, and as a result, be exposed to more misinformation than has ever existed, in fractions of the time. So far, I would say we've actually been relatively lucky. Knock on wood, deep fakes did not dominate the 2024 American election cycle like they could have. I did see some fake images of ,like, Donald Trump pulling people out of the flood waters in West North Carolina. 

Z: I did see that!

D: But I didn't see, like, fakes that tried to, like, make Kamala Harris say, “I sure hate the people drowning in those videos.” 

R: Also, the videos of him pulling people out of the water was the most very obvious AI generated video. 

D: It was so obvious. 

Z: A lot of them are very obvious right now.

D: Yeah. But I saw a lot of comments like, “oh, man, what a hero.” Because people aren't looking for very- I mean, people spend fractions of a second looking at a social media post unless they're scrolling for it. 

R: There's also bots that are trained- 

D: That are commenting on it, that are posting it. It's bots on bots on bots.

R: That's next episode. 

Z: Yeah, the Twitter comments are cesspool. 

D: So we've all seen some, but they didn't make front page news. Like they didn't fool, like, CBS into thinking they were real. Which is good, because that could happen. But imagine, if you will, what could happen if someone were to flood the zone with a deepfakes in the next election cycle, say, 2026 with sufficiently convincing images and videos? It could become nearly impossible to tell truth from fiction, particularly when lots of people have these tools, and we're creating them at volume. Statistically, some of them are gonna be very convincing. AI creates information so quickly that it's basically impossible to sift through it all to tell if it's true. We already have this problem with information overload on social media. Before generative AI existed, we've already seen deepfake videos of Ukrainian president, Zelensky, surrendering in the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Imagine a future where we see hundreds of those a day, and the only way to know if something is real is if you're standing right in front of it. So far, I am reassured that deep fakes aren't dominating politics, but they're doing plenty of harm in other ways. Mostly the harm they're doing is making non consensual pornography, mostly of women and children.

Z: Okay, that's- no. Big no. 

D: So if your face is posted online, as most faces are at this point, someone, somewhere could absolutely use it to make fake porn featuring you or your kid!  This also makes it harder to track down people who are actually abusing real children, because it creates images that the FBI doesn't know are fake, and they're gonna spend time chasing that fake lead, like, “Oh no, this kid's in danger,” and they waste time. Voice cloning has also been used for harm widely, such as a deep fake of Joe Biden calling and telling people to vote on the wrong day during the 2024 election cycle, or older family members receiving calls from someone that sounds just like their grandson claiming to be kidnapped. This is harm that's already happening, and it's going to continue until we start regulating AI better.

R: That happened to my grandma with my brother. 

D: No, is she okay? 

R: Well, she's dead now. She didn't fall for it. 

Z: Well that’s good. 

R: She she was like-

Z: Remember, folks, if you want to get a call like this, call the person! Call them! 

D: Yeah, call them back. Hang up, call back. 

Z: Call their actual number. 

D: If they pick up, they haven't been kidnapped. 

R: It was- it was like he was in jail, and needed, like-

D: Oh, that’s clever. 

R: But she knew because my brother would never do anything that would put him in jail. 

D: So she was like, so like, “Nah, he's a little bitch. He's a weenie. He's not gonna be in jail.”

Z: I was gonna say he's a good child, but okay.

D: Sorry, I didn't mean to insult your brother.

R: He’s alright. He'll survive. 

D: So we spent a lot of time talking about the harms AI can do to people. Bias, misinformation, job displacement, deepfakes, copyright infringement, the works. But I'd be remiss not to mention the harms AI is doing to the planet. So for starters, it takes about 10 times more energy to ask ChatGPT a question or Google Gemini than to just do a normal web search for the same information. So I like to think Google's trying to close the gap so ChatGPT doesn't look as bad by shoving Gemini into everything. It's getting harder and harder to do an actual regular web search that costs very little energy to do and very little money. It is so expensive and so resource- intensive for ChatGPT to write Shrek 7: Shrek in Space. I cannot emphas- it’s like you’re like, pouring open bottles of plastic water bottles into the earth and then throwing the water bottle at a duck. 

Z: No, not the duck! 

D: The water bottle part is kind of accurate. The duck part is not. Like the energy it takes to- for an AI chat bot to generate one response is approximately the amount it takes to power a light bulb for 20 minutes. At that scale, generative AI is being canvassed into everything, and it adds up fast. Google and Microsoft have already started to set expectations that they will not be meeting their 2030 sustainability goals because of energy demands from AI products that anyone asked for. 

R: Ew.

D: As we all agree, though, it is much more important to have a chat bot that can write my book report on A Tale of Two Cities than it is to have a planet that is still habitable to live on. 

R: Of course.

Z: I like living, I don't know about you. 

D: I mean, I really like A Tale of Two Cities, but I don't want to write about it. 

Z: And that's a whole other discussion about critical thinking and what it's telling to the brains of the youth. 

D: So the reason AI uses all this energy is because AI needs computers to run on servers. These computers are housed in data centers, and they generate massive amounts of heat, and thus require massive amounts of cooling, usually with water systems. If you're a gamer, you've seen water cooled systems in your crazy laptops with crazy GPUs. So in addition to the huge strain they're putting on the power grid, it's projected by Isabel O'Brien that data center emissions may be six times higher than the tech industry is actually reporting they use a massive amount of water for cooling. Google even admits in one of their own reports that as we further integrate AI into our products, reducing emissions may be challenging. So to put the cherry on top of our metaphorical sundae, AI won't just harm us directly through deepfakes, scams, job displacement, copyright infringement, bias, policing and the works. It also accelerates us toward a future where Earth is no longer habitable, so at least we won't have to deal with it anymore. 

R: Yikes.

D: Yay!

R: What an uplifting conclusion.

D: Yeah so my next section is called, “okay, so we're all depressed now. Now what?”

Z: Yeah, now what, Diana?

D: I get off on my high horse, I want to thank you both for listening to my depressing ramble. I think this is one of the most important issues in tech right now, but there's so much noise around it being revolutionary and inevitable that it seems like not a lot of critical voices are getting through. In addition to that, the tech industry is obfuscating all of the real harms I just talked about by making up fake harms that AI could do instead. Like The Matrix, where AI overlords put us in batteries. Maybe that's the kind of stuff rich guys worry about because they don't have real problems. That's a guess. I also think it is, at best, willful ignorance, and at worst, an intentional distraction. The flip side of this is the talk of the AI revolution, how it will make everything so productive that we can all stop working and live in a fully automated world. And I think that's just as much a fantasy. Artificial intelligence, isn't God, nor is it the devil. It's a tool, and what a tool does is all in how a person uses it. Now that you know the real issues, you can call out the BS when you see it. So I want to wrap up here by giving us all a second to discuss, share our final thoughts, and answer any lingering questions you might have.

R:  I don't want to live in a fully automated world.

D: Me either.

R: I'm in sociology because I like society. I like socializing. 

Z: I like doing things. I might not be a social person, but I like living in a society, and I like contributing to society.

D: I do too. I think it's really sad to see people alienating themselves from their own, like, critical thinking skills. Like skill atrophy is a problem with AI. If you're using it to write all of your papers for school, you're never gonna learn how to write papers and, more importantly, how to bullshit papers. 

Z: Yeah, that's the important thing. 

D: I've never read an assigned reading before grad school in my life.

Z: Before grad school is the important phrase. 

D: Yes, that is the important part, Dr Clark!

Z: See, I did the opposite thing where I used to do all my required reading, and now I am very good at bullshitting assignments, and I am the day they are due.

D: I famously, for one of my classes in middle school. And I know this is middle school, but I just- I just didn't do it. I printed out a bunch of the Wikipedia stuff for it. I do like a presentation on a country I know. I bought a poster board on the way to school, and I made my poster board and did my presentation and got the highest score in the entire class. 

Z: Oh yeah. So these are important skills that you will not have-

D: You won't have that!

Z: If you use AI for everything!

D: Also, one time my senior year. This isn't a BS-ing story. We had to do a paper. Actually, it was my junior year of high school. We had to do a paper comparing American literature to a metaphor, like we had to make a metaphor for the evolution of American literature. I compared it to the Baconator. I got the highest score in the class. I had a blast, writing that.

R: How beautiful!

D: Don't rob yourself of your Baconator! Come on.

Z: I think it's important to learn how to communicate, and writing papers is a part of communicating, but to be a person, you need to know how to talk to people. And you know, if you're just using AI for every response, you don't have to think about that. You don't have to think about how to talk to a person. 

D: And please learn how to talk to a person. Like I know I'm just clutching my pearls with this, but I think it's so important to develop those skills and become a really good bullshitter. Every class discussion I ever did on a required reading, I just listened to what other people were saying and then vaguely followed up, and I-

R: Exactly!

D: I flew under the radar every single time. No problem. 

R: Many of my friends tell me, like, “I can't believe that, like, you're doing so well in college, like I could never do that.” And I'm like, “it is not at all about intelligence. It is about like- I'm not trying to get an A in the class. I'm trying to get an A in student. An A in student. I want the professor to think like I'm locked in at all times.

D: Like I know what you’re talking in a sociological sense, actually. It's not about like, being the smartest person in the room. It's about performing smartness, like- 

R: Literally, I'm just learning what my professor wants out of me, and then I'm giving it to them. 

D: Yeah, learning how to read people. However, Dr Clark, we have never done any of this in your class.

R: Of course not. 

Z: This is the only one. 

R: I'm like- I'm saying that, like, so sarcastically, but I actually do read what he gives.

D: Yeah, I do actually really like Dr Clark's stuff. And I actually did read almost every single thing in grad school that was assigned to me. Because I wouldn't be in grad school if I didn't want to be here. 

R: I'm $20,000 in the hole. I had to make it count. 

D: Like, yeah, okay, I would just be robbing myself at that point. So yeah. In conclusion, Zoe, you are now the newest armchair sociologist. Welcome to the fold. You have a master's degree and can legally teach at universities in all 50 United States. 

Z: I am taking your master's degree, specifically.

D: Zoe is taking my master's degree, so I can devote my time to podcasting.

R: Mine's still good. 

Z: Yeah, you're safe. 

D: Yeah, you're safe. Rayne, but next episode, I don't know the guest might take yours.

R: Yeah. And they probably will.

D: So thank you, the listener, for listening to the armchair sociologist, the only podcast that was predicted by ancient Mayan prophecies. I've been Diana Heslin, and remember the Karl Marx underneath your bed is more afraid of you than you are of him. 

R: That’s a really good outro.

The Armchair Sociologist Podcast - Episode 2: Social Media (Transcript)

Key:

R: Rayne

D: Diana

K: Katie

R: Hello and welcome to the armchair sociologist podcast! The only podcast that is 100% gluten free. My name is Rayne Schroeder, and I will be your host today. I am joined by this week's sociological consultant, Diana Heslin, and our third party non-sociologist of the episode, Katie Knox.

K: Hi.

D: Hi. I'm Diana. I am your sometimes erstwhile host and always erstwhile guy who lives in your closet. 

K: I am Katie Knox. I am an educator, but it's mostly of 14 year olds, and I got a C in my sociology course in undergrad, so…

R: Hell yeah. 

D: And that is why you are perfect for this podcast, because I need someone who doesn't know what the fuck we're talking about. 

K: No, I don't.

R: Perfect. 

D: Excellent. Let the indoctrination begin. 

R: Yes. 

K: Huzzah. 

R: Today we are discussing the power behind social media. I'm sure we're all well aware that social media is an incredible tool to connect with people you would have never otherwise met. Personally, my very best friend in the entire world lives 1400 miles away in a completely other country, but they are my favorite person on the entire earth, and the only reason we even know each other is completely thanks to Twitter, of all places. Social media can be used to network with colleagues, to grow your small business and get your name out there, or even just distract from the hell that we're currently living through with videos of cats chewing cardboard. But what do you think can happen when people behind these platforms treat social media as a business instead of a platform? 

D: So yeah, when social media is run as a business instead of as like a public square- as a commons, probably it's bad. Because the people who run these companies have control of a lot of the information we're allowed to see, which doesn't just mean other people's posts- though, that is part of it, but in addition to that, like what news articles get shared and put around the website. So if it serves a profit motive, as opposed to a person based motive, there is, you know, very little incentive to treat your people on your platform like people and not data points for making more money. Katie, your thought.

K: I actually have something for this. Oh, my God. Have you guys read the new kind of expose on Facebook called “Careless People?”

D:  I haven't yet, but I've been really meaning to. That's the one that is not allowed to be publicized, but it's been spreading by word of mouth, right? 

K: Right, and also, it's not allowed to be publicized, but in a NBC Nightly News absolutely did a full story on it. So it's out there. 

D: Hell yeah.

K: I haven't had a chance to read it yet because, you know, I teach 14 year olds, but so I have no free time. 

D: Well, famously, teachers have great work-life balance. 

K: Oh yeah, you know, like, it's really funny when people are like, “Oh, you're an English teacher. You must read so much.” I'm like, “No, but I do have a to-be-read pile that's taller than I am. But anyway- so Careless People- it goes exactly into that. You can see people making these active decisions of like, “well, I wonder if we extrapolate the data from XYZ thing,” and the person writing the book is, like, “the data is people! There is a genocide! Hello? Hello? 

R: Well, that's exactly what we're getting into today, like, pretty much word for word. So I'm gonna have to read that for sure. 

D: Hell yeah. I definitely wanted to read it, but we had already written our scripts by the time I heard about it. So it's like, well, I guess I'll have to wait. That's the problem with doing tech podcasting, because it moves so God, too fast. 

K: Yeah, yeah. 

R: I want you to picture this with me. The year is 2011 and I have just posted a picture of the sandwich that I ate a few minutes ago on Facebook with the caption “lunch lol.”

D: Iconic. 

K: I was there. 

R: I scroll and read the post from the rest of the middle school friends saying stuff that matters just as little as my sandwich, and when I've had enough, I log out of the family computer and go about the rest of my day. Are we still here with me? 

D: No, I've left to go outside because I'm no longer on the family computer. 

R: I wish that was me. Good. So stop me if you differ, but when I first started using social media, it was simply just that- it was a form of media where I could socialize if I wanted to. When everybody got smartphones, social media was no longer something that you just walked away from. The majority of Facebook users access the platform exclusively on their phones. That is a study. Your phone goes with you everywhere, and so also, so does social media. There is nothing that is making you log off. Socializing on the internet is now just socializing. It is so common that it's not even important to make the distinction anymore. This is exactly what the big names behind these platforms want. The more people that use their platform, the more people that can't log off, the more people that don't feel the need to make that distinction, the more powerful that these platforms, and subsequently their owners and shareholders, become. Say it with me:

R + D: That's capitalism, baby! 

R: So in 2025, there is no meaningful difference between the real world and the digital world. You have to sign into an online portal to make a doctor's appointment. You pay an online subscription service to even watch TV. Become an online rewards member to even view a restaurant's menu. Some official government forums are only available online. Many automated voicemails will reroute you to the company's website for customer service. 

D: God, I hate it when they do that.

R: It’s so frustrating. If I like- if I could find it on the website, I would have just gone to the website. 

D: Yeah, have a little faith in me. I wouldn't be calling you if it wasn't important. 

R: Exactly. Ordering McDonald's is just tapping on the pictures of food that you want and paying for it without ever having to speak to another human being.

K: Okay, but that was really helpful when I lived in Japan. I will say that I loved it. 

R: Yeah, no, I love it. 

D: I mean, when you live overseas and you don't speak the language- no, it's pretty easy to order at McDonald's.

K: Yeah, but like, there were a couple of other places where it was not as easy. And I'm like, not only is it a picture that I can touch, but I can change this entire screen into English. 

D: Yeah, that’s nice. So like, there are accessibility benefits to some of this.

K: To some.

R: Well, we'll get into that accessibility benefit. So some restaurants make you scan a QR code to see the menu, despite the QR code also being printed on paper, someone can choose to completely opt out of social media, but they would be completely isolating themselves from a massive part of society. How do elderly people do anything?

D: In my experience, not very well.

R: Exactly. 

K: Oh, I was gonna say senior centers. 

D: Yeah. Honestly, senior centers and your local public library librarians love helping with that kind of stuff.

K: And church communities and stuff like that, right? 

D: Yeah. But I work with a lot of people who are, you know, old enough that they didn't grow up with computers, obviously. Like people that are 50-60, and up. And I am basically their go-to tech person.

K: Yeah. 

D: And what I have noticed is that most of them do stuff by rote memorization. So they don't understand how their smartphone or the computer works, but they know the series of steps they have to do in order to do their job, and when any of those steps is even slightly different, they panic and call me.

K: Yeah.

D: Even if the directions are written on the screen, they're like, “this is not the rote next step I have” and therefore they freak out. 

K: Something must have gotten catastrophically wrong. 

D: Exactly. 

K: Diana can fix it. 

D: They assume it's broken and that I can fix it. 

K: I can fix it, but it's not broken. But, yeah, it's tough. 

R: That just sounds so scary.

D: Yeah! 

R: Like when everyone around you is advancing, and you have no idea how to like- you have to have another person-

D: Yeah.

R: …that you trust to help you do anything. That's so stressful I couldn't imagine that. 

D: Yeah, and I'm only good at it because I was that person for my mother, and she's actually very tech literate for her age group. She's 70 now, but wow, she was very afraid of computers. Also, I describe it to my coworkers, like I see computer literacy and fluency as literacy and fluency. They're like learning a language, and I got to grow up immersed in that language. I got a free immersion course from having a dad who had enough money to buy a computer for the house. So, yeah, I grew up with it. I speak it fluently, and I am acting as like, a translator for them, basically, which I think I do okay. They seem to like me, so that's good. But, but, yeah, I mean, it'- imagine if you're in a foreign country where you don't speak the language, like Katie lived in Japan for three years. Even if you kind of have a grasp of it, it can be scary when you have to rely on a piece of technology or another person for you to function. 

K: Yeah, now that I'm thinking about it like my lifeline was my- my old supervisor at my school, like-

D: Right.

K: The point that-

D: Who spoke English.

K: She was bilingual enough that she could help and she had to come with me to, like, doctor's appointments. 

D: Yeah.

K: The joke that was that she was my Japan mom, because I couldn't do anything by myself, even though I was 25 when I moved there. 

R: That's so scary.

D: Yeah. Plus, you know, in America, for example, the idea of your boss going with you to a doctor's appointment is like anathema. You would never do that because of, you know, privacy issues and discrimination, but sometimes you are in a situation where you have to. It's tough out there when you don't speak the native language. And today's native language is technology, so that's like, actually a big piece of once I finished this capstone project… Hi, Dr Clark. I am planning to do a free class at one of the local library branches teaching older folks how to use computers. 

R: Ooh.

K: Oh that would be excellent.

R: Oh, that's wonderful, yeah. 

D: And this is mostly to make my own job easier in the future, so that we can hire more people who know how to use them. 

R: That's like, so beneficial in every possible way. 

D: Thank you. 

R: That's great. 

D: I also think that would be very helpful in, you know, kind of vaccinating them against misinformation they see on the internet. But we'll get into that later. 

R: Yeah, that might be a couple classes in.

D: Yeah. And we'll also talk about misinformation a little later in this very episode. 

R: Oh yes, we will. In fact, it- that's what's about to happen. 

D: Oh, no. 

R: So there are hundreds of major issues that can stem from the immense power that only a few single rich people can have over the entire digital world. But today we're going to be talking about two- vaguely, three of them. Misinformation, like you just said.

D: I did it. I spoiled the episode.

R: …and censorship. 

K: Oh, well, I've got to log off right now. 

R: Yeah. Well, what's the point? All right, podcast over. 

D: Capstone failed. 

R: Censorship and something called information governance. Information Governance, put very simply, is who controls what information we are allowed to see. This can take the form of censorship, like how you can't say cisgender on Elon Musk's Twitter, or more subtle forms of manipulation, like coding your Facebook feed to show you content more likely to get you to engage with it. Obviously, there are a ton of social media platforms out there, but I'm going to talk about the big three, Facebook, Tiktok and Twitter. And no, I will not be giving Elon Musk the respect of calling it x. I just cannot bring myself to do it.

D: Until he stops deadnaming his daughter, I'm gonna deadname his website. 

R: Period. 

D: If he can't do it, why should I have to?

R: So are both of you familiar with all of these platforms? I want to hear your personal experiences or thoughts of each platform. 

K: I do not have a Tiktok. That is one that I have not engaged with. 

R: Got it.

K:  I do have to engage with it because of the position I have at my- my school job. I have students who make things for like promotional purposes, for things.

D: Sure.

K: And I do have- I always joke that I have the peer reviewed tiktoks come to me through other social media websites that I'm on. Like that got reposted because they were interesting enough to be seen elsewhere. 

R: Yeah. But for the most part, I'm like, “Yeah, I don't need an infinite scroll that I don't curate myself, that is curated by an algorithm.” I hate that. I was super, super active on Twitter until Elon Musk bought it and- and the only reason I haven't, like, completely deleted that account is because it was sort of a day-to-day diary for me of when I lived in Japan. It was how I connected with, also a lot of my Japanese friends. And then Facebook I've had since 2009. I wanna say I made it the summer after I graduated high school, and there it has sat. 

R: What about you, Diana? 

D: So I am familiar with all three. I don’t have a tiktok, but I'm a little older than the people who got into the tiktok zeitgeist is the way I put it. Like I was a little bit aged out by the time tiktok became a thing. I never did vine either, so I wasn't looking for another video platform. 

K: Oh, I did vine.

D: Because I know a lot of people on tiktok came from Vine originally, which I also wasn't on. 

R: I was one of them.

D: Yeah, but I also was familiar with vines, because, again, the peer review process. We joke about it. Katie and I are both Tumblr girlies, and so these videos get cross posted to Tumblr, and we call that the peer review process, because now I don't need an algorithm to tell me. The people I follow post it. 

R: Yeah, that's incredible. 

D: So Tiktok, I am familiar with a little bit. I have one because I was getting annoyed trying to open tiktoks without the app. And sometimes there are very good videos on there and good information. The online musical fandom is on there, and online musicals are a big thing for me.

R: That's a fun hobby. 

D: Oh yeah, it's a pretty unique hobby. People listening are all probably from that fandom, because I asked you to listen to my podcast. Some of you know me too, but Twitter, I did use pretty actively, especially just before and during COVID. I never was a like, daily poster, but when I started an art business, I started using it really regularly to promote myself and to find opportunities to do freelance work. So I've made probably more on Twitter than any other platform. I think I totaled like, about $1,000 off of deals I made on Twitter. 

R: Wow. 

D: And then I don't know how much I made in sales from advertising on Twitter, but yeah, like just from direct contract work. So it was very disappointing to me when Elon Musk bought it, and suddenly all of these people that I had been networking with who were giving me money stopped being there, so I also stopped being there. 

R: That's really fair. 

D: Yeah, I did end up deleting the account, because at least for me, I'd never used it for anything but ads that I had posted in other places, really. Yeah, I used to get a lot of news from Twitter during COVID, which was very bad for my mental health. And so at a certain point, I had to just delete the app from my phone, and then my mental health suddenly got better, shockingly. That was weird and seems unrelated to me.

K: Correlation, causation, who’s to say. 

D: No, they're not the same thing. That's- that's rule number one of sociology. So no one can know why my mental health suddenly got better. I actually had to do the same with bluesky, because I moved over there when that became more accessible, and then my mental health took a dive. And I was like, “Oh, wait, Twitter was always bad for my mental health. So a website that's like, Twitter is gonna be bad.” So I still have one, but I don't use it much. Facebook, I also made my account in 2009. I think that was the first year that non-university students could make an account. 

K: Oh, is that what it was? I don't remember. I was at Girl Scout camp. 

D: Yes. 

K: I missed my friends. 

D: Yeah, that was the year we graduated from high school, so I made it to mostly keep up with my high school friends- who I did keep up with for a few years on there. I still talk to some of them. That's the only way I have to contact some people, which is the only reason I still have one because I don't really use it much. 

K: Yeah.

D: And I also use it for not-so-much research purposes as it is I like to be aware of what that website is doing, because it's so important for like, sociology, social media research.

R: Yep.

D: So I'll probably never be off there entirely. I am very intimately familiar with Facebook. I had a Farmville phase, like we all did.

R: Same.

K: I forgot about that. 

D: Never forget. 

K: I was there.

D: I was there, Gandalf. So yeah, of the three, I think Facebook definitely by time- I have had my Facebook the longest. Twitter, I definitely did the most business on. I also did ads on Facebook and Instagram, which is owned by them. But Facebook, I used the most personally, and then Tiktok I am only familiar with tangentially, so you're gonna be our expert there. 

R: Yeah, I've learned from just these last few minutes that I definitely represent the younger demographic when it comes to social media. 

D: Which is good because you have a totally- not a totally different experience, but it's definitely different entry points.

R: Pretty different. 

K: And you haven't, you haven't- you're not ancient and crumbling.

R: I mean, I feel like I am. I'm only 26 but I'm struggling already. I don't know how anyone does it? I am disgustingly on Tiktok. I fear that the brain rot has captured me. I will spend way too long scrolling, and I don't even want to be there. And the whole time I'm scrolling, I'm like, “Boy, I wish I wasn't on this app right now.” But that doesn't stop me from clocking in, like, eight hours a day. Like, it's disgusting, and I hate it there. 

D: I mean, you have to go in for your shift. Everyone has to have a job. 

R: You have to and, and honestly, it is a full time job. Just scrolling through ads that you don't want to watch.

K: Right. 

R: And people that you don't care about.

D: Yeah. And it's just, it's a nightmare, but you have to do what you have to do. It's- it's not much-

R + D: But it’s honest work.

R: Oh my god I was just saying that!

Diana: Jinx. 

K: Brain rot.

D: Yeah, that was another reason I never got onto Tiktok is because I have the ADHD, and I knew that if I popped, I just wouldn't stop.

R: Exactly. That is- and as someone who is actively on Adderall as we do this podcast, that is a big issue for me, for sure. 

K: Yeah.

R: So Tiktok I have on lock. Facebook- I've had a Facebook forever, but when people older than me started making Facebook their primary platform, people my age got off of there, right? So I have-

D: Sorry we invited our parents. 

R: No, you're allowed. 

D: That's on us. 

R: You know what? You guys deserve one. You deserve one platform. 

K: Thank you, your majesty.

R: Enjoy yourself. There's not much for me on Facebook. It's- I use it to communicate with family that I don't like, and that's and that's all it is. Twitter is an interesting one for me, because I've had it forever. I grew up with Twitter, like, literally.

D: Yeah.

R: And then when Elon Musk took over, it became even more of a hellscape than it already was.  But I am- It's embarrassing to say but I am on stan Twitter. But I am on- 

D: Hey, your journey is valid. 

R: It's not. It really isn't valid at all. But I am there, and so I have a community on Twitter of, like so many friends and like, the people who mean the most me in the entire world are on that app. And so I do- that is, like, my primary social media. I am there literally constantly. But you have to stay in the, like, following tab. If you drift even slightly over to the for you tab and you like- if you just start scrolling and you realize that every single thing you see is just casual racism, you're probably in the wrong tab. So then you have to pop over back to your following list. So I know that Twitter is still a place that you can have fun on, but you have to find your niche community where you actually like the people you're interacting with. Otherwise, it's hell.

D: Right.

K: It's kind of why I've stayed on Tumblr since, God, I think I joined in 2010-2011 I've been on there this whole time. Because over the decade plus that I've been on that website, I have curated an exact form of content that I want to see, just like you've done with Twitter. But like, for me, all of my friends left Twitter. So like, why am I on this website with all the Nazis? 

R: Exactly. Yep, yep, yep.

D: And I will say, like, for people who don't use Tumblr, it is easier to do that there, because Tumblr still works off of a chronological feed by default. That is people you follow. There's- there is a like for you tab, but it's not the main tab that comes up when you open the app, like it is on Twitter. So if you've been following people for you know, like in both of our cases, about 14 years, you have a dashboard full of people who post things you like. 

R: That’s nice. 

D: It doesn't try to shove the Nazi accounts down your throat. It will show you a ton of Candy Crush ads with auto playing audio, unfortunately.

K: Unless your brain rot costs you $49.99 a year like it does me and you bought the apple's version of the website. 

D: Yeah, I had it for a year, but then they upped the price. And I said, forget it. I give up. 

K: Yeah, I'm just, I don't have many things. I don't have a mortgage. I don't have very much. But I'm like, Yeah, okay, the thing that I like- I want it to stick around.

D: Sure, sure.

K: And that’s the other thing, though, is I was gonna say- is that the for you tab equivalent in Tumblr- because it's trained on, in most cases, your 14 years of dashboard that you've created,  It's even more relevant than usual. Because it's like, oh, you're looking at all this and only this, and not going into the non functional search feature. Okay, we'll show you that and only and nothing from the nazis. 

D: Right, and t tends to be more like directed and because Tumblr is ads are all unwatchably terrible. It doesn't have a lot of ad data that they can use, so. To put stuff in that feed either. And there's really no way to monetize Tumblr that doesn't get you killed in the street on Tumblr. So it helps. 

K: Yeah, it tries.

D: But yeah, that was just for people who are uninitiated in Tumblr, specifically because that's the only social media I'm still on. That is why it is because it is still in chronological order. I can leave it in chronological order, and it won't switch it back or remove that feature entirely, and it is all just people I put there on purpose. So that is helpful. Old social media websites used to do that.

K: And mostly to look at anime stuff. 

D: And you can look at Anime on it. You can look at Anime gifts. 

R: Well, we definitely go into algorithm and then you also touched on advertising, which is what we're about to jump into.

D: Awesome. 

R: So I have a question for you guys. In capitalism- and you both should be able to answer this, what is the one thing that makes the world go round?

D: Money?

K: Money? Makes the world go round!

R: You guys got it! Oh, my God, yay!

D: Yay!

K: Yay! So that's obviously also the case for social media platforms. It is a business over anything else, and we are nothing but customers. But they cannot exist without funding of some kind. So these platforms need as many users as possible on the site looking at advertisements on their screen in order for them to make any money. The problem here is that these platforms do not care why the users are engaging with the content, nor what the content even is. In fact, the more controversial a subject, the more people talk about it, the more money the platform's making from engagement, and the longer you stay on the site. This dangerous equation is why these platforms have rampant misinformation issues. The platforms can't keep up with all of it. But honestly, why would they even want to control it? So keeping on theme, we're going to look at the misinformation present on Facebook first. What is the first emotion that comes to mind when someone even says the word Facebook to you? 

D: Betrayal? Is that an emotion? 

K: Ugh.Yes. 

R: Well, personally, I also was like ughhh and that is because it is a completely insufferable place to be. I stopped using the app completely because it is literally just all political opinions spoken as fact from the worst people that you know on an endless loop, and it is exhausting. 

D: I have found, if you've blocked all of the people who talks about politics, now it's just ads, and that's great. I love the advertising. 

R: And that honestly isn't better. 

D: No, it's worse. I don't want to see any of it. 

K: Though. I will say that there was one kind of funny side effect of the blocking everything. My dad found out. My dad was born in 1946. He was, you know, one of the original baby boomers. And he got- when he got Facebook, he was following all of his friends from, like, high school and back in the small town he was from. And then as politics started to get more charged, shall we say, he started to see, “oh, I don't agree with any of you anymore.” So for him, it was the opposite of radicalizing. It was like, “oh, man, good, but I thought you were a good person. Alright, block that one.” 

R: Yeah, that’s good. So would you guys agree that there is a misinformation problem on Facebook? 

Oh, absolutely.

R: Okay.

D: But don't worry, now they're getting rid of their moderation team, so it's going to be fixed too. 

R: Yay! 

K: Absolutely it's been documented. 

R: We do go into that. Don't worry.

D: It sounds good to me. 

K: The book about it is called careless people. I'm sure that bodes very well for the future of the website. 

R: So it is something that both the 2016 and 2020 election cycles- and also the whole global pandemic thing, really pointed out for all of us. Between ivermectin and microchips, do I need to elaborate?

D: Bleach. Inject bleach. 

K: We gotta drink, drink or inject bleach about it. Yup. 

R: Okay, so sounds like you're both very familiar with what I'm talking about. It is really not surprising that studies do show that political and health misinformation are the most popular types of misinformation, followed very closely by misinformation about social issues. The fake news problem has gotten much worse since 2016. When users are logging in and being told to take medicine intended for horses to cure themselves from a global deadly virus… I'd think that the platform would have some kind of responsibility in telling people “Hey, so maybe don't do that?” But there is one study that looks into how well Facebook tries to combat it, and any guesses on how good of a job the Zuck is doing?

D: Based on my feed. It's not going very well at all.

K: Not- not doing it. 

R: Yeah. So not well at all. So the way Facebook used, and I do mean past tense here, fact checking software was that they added overlays on the screen over misinformation that warns users that this information has been verified as false. However, the study last year, by De Lima Santos and Ceron, found that the use of these overlays is so random and so inconsistent that people have started just accepting any information that doesn't have that warning.

D: Yay!

R: Regardless of if it's actually true or not, so surely that can lead to any harmful, dangerous outcomes, right? 

D: You know…

Luther strove to make his translation as easy to understand as possible. Literacy rates in the 1500s were famously not very high - not a lot of serfs learning how to read - but he wanted as many people as possible to have access to the Good Book. Here’s a quote from the man himself:

“In my translation of the Bible I strove to use pure and intelligible German. (…) In addition, I have not worked on my own: I recruited assistants from everywhere. (…) The house-wife, children playing, people in the street are those to learn from: listening to them teaches one how to speak and to translate – then they will understand you and know how to speak your language.” (Luther, An Open Letter on Translating)

He ensured that his translation was also suitable for reading out loud, so that those who were illiterate or couldn’t afford their own copy - which was most people - could benefit from those who could and did. Regardless of your personal feelings on Lutheranism, or the Protestant reformation, one cannot deny the profound effect it had on the world any more than you could deny that humans breathe air or grass is green, or that manatees are the best animal.

So why am I starting my sociology podcast with a discussion on Martin Luther? Simply put, sociology needs translators. In our classrooms, journals and conferences, sociologists tend to speak in our own language, full of jargon and -isms and concepts most people have never heard of. In academia, our home and increasingly, only turf, we thrive on our secret language. We perform the role of academic, of high priests of society, and to the average person, we might as well be speaking Latin.

The work we do is being demonized right now, and our weakest flank is the fact that the average person does not know what sociology is, nor what sociologists do. Sociology as a discipline is under attack, and we are losing, badly. No one is coming to rescue us; and why should they? Other than sociologists, nobody even knows why the work we do is important.

Jonathan Turner once wrote that the reason no one listens to sociologists is that we have nothing worthwhile to say. I fully disagree. If society is a human body, sociologists are the medical researchers, trying to find cures for the body’s ills. Sociology can be a vaccine against the destructive forces that seek to divide us. It lays bare the gears and mechanisms underlying society, so that we may someday go in and make repairs.

Physics has had many prolific communicators - Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking and Neil DeGrasse Tyson, to name a few off the top of my head. Pop psychology fills the feeds on Tiktok and Facebook. It is past time for sociologists to produce our own science communicators. For this, I humbly volunteer as tribute.

But this is not a project I can undertake alone, nor should I - the more people spreading the message, the more people are likely to hear it. This podcast is my contribution, but I urge you to make yours, as well. Learn to speak the vernacular again. Go where the people are, whether that is Tiktok, Instagram, or whatever new app has come out in the last month that now controls the culture. Go there, and don’t just talk, but listen. Learn the culture. Learn to speak the language. Meet people where they are. And then, use that fluency to tell them why our work matters.

And remember; if you’re not talking to your kids about sociology, who is?

So, now that that’s out of the way, let me introduce myself. My name’s Diana Heslin. I’m a recent graduate of the Applied Sociology Master’s Program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and also, a big dork. If you’re listening to this episode on day one, there’s a decent chance you’ve heard my past podcast projects, like It Coulda Been Great, or listened to fan music I’ve made. My past projects have been distinctly non-academic and more than a little nerdy. So why the pivot?

Well, we’re unfortunately living in interesting times. The last ten years in America, where I live, have been… not great. And the rest of the world seems to be having a rough go of it, too. We’re seeing a global shift to the right, and to explicit fascism in America. I feel like I’ve been shouting it from the rooftops since the 2015 election cycle, but mostly, in ineffective social media posts and messages to relatives.

I don’t think that approach was effective. So, I did what any self-respecting nerd would do and got a master’s degree instead. I wanted to understand how society got here, and how we could try to fix it. Specifically, I started my program to study the impacts of social media on society, since during the COVID-19 pandemic, it basically acted as a disease vector by spreading misinformation and politicizing whether or not you should cough on people. I’ll dive into that topic in its own episode, but I learned a lot. When it came time to decide what to do for my capstone project - the project I had to do to graduate - I decided to meet the internet on its home turf and start a podcast. They say do what you know, after all, and I’ve been editing audio for over 20 years now.

Not everyone has the resources to get a master’s degree, and frankly, not everyone should need to. Everyone should have access to the information you can get in universities, so I’m here giving away a small portion of it for free. Well, you’ll hear ads on this show - which I don’t pick, my podcast host does - so maybe not entirely for free. But free for you!

I think the real heart of this issue is that I see my country is in crisis, and in many ways, it was an avoidable one. So, if I can stand up on my itty bitty soapbox and yell about it for a while, maybe I can contribute to getting us out of it in my small way. It’s better than doomscrolling on social media, at any rate!

So here’s how the show’s going to work. We’re going to have a series of different topics, and I’m going to break them down for you in the simplest terms possible. Sometimes, I’ll have co-hosts! In our first series, we’ll be talking about the impacts of artificial intelligence on society with my capstone partner, Rayne Schroeder. The first part of that three part series drops today, with this episode. I’ll break down how generative AI works, how it harms artists and the environment, and their overall impact on society. In this series, Rayne will be acting as your sociological consultant, and bring in various sociological theories that help explain the topic further. If that sounds dry, don’t worry - my other job is making it funny, so there will be a lot of jokes along the way, too. We’ll also have rotating guests who know NOTHING about sociology to make sure we’re being clear- and to make sure you don’t get sick of my voice!

If that sounds good to you, welcome to the show! Give us a subscribe and come back every Tuesday for more. If you’re interested in contributing to the show as a guest or as a fellow sociologist, you can reach out to us at [email protected]. You can also sign up for our mailing list and follow our socials at thearmchairsociologist.carrd.co so you never miss an episode. I’ll be posting some silly stuff on those social media feeds, as well, so keep an eye out there. And hey, if you’re really excited about the show, share it with a friend. Word of mouth remains my favorite advertising strategy.