So last week we hit pause on our usual Friday news wound up so we could dig into a different story, and that is what is being erased from Charlie Kirk's legacy after his murder.

That meant no news round up, But don't worry, We've got it for you now.

It is a fun one, so please enjoy There Are No Girls on the Internet as a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

I'm Bridget Todd and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.

Welcome to There Are No Girls on the Internet, where we explore the intersection of technology, social media, and identity.

And this is another installment of our weekly news roundup where we dig into some of the stories that you might have missed so you don't have to.

I am so thrilled to be joined by this week's a guest host, Ashley Ray, the host of TV I Say, a podcast that I've loved for a really long time.

It was on hiatus, now it's back on the Courier Network.

Ashley, thank you so much for being here, Thank you.

For having me.

I am so excited and I'm a big fan of you.

Oh my goodness, Well this is great.

So you know this a tech podcast, but it's also a culture podcast, which includes TV, which I watch a lot of.

For folks who don't know, Ashley has the most correct television opinion out of anybody out there.

So if you disagree with Ashley, you're basically just wrong.

You're you're wrong about TV.

I just finished listening to your episode with Gibson John's, which was delightful.

I will say, like, something that I was so curious to ask you about that episode is that you know, you were talking about reality TV, which I'm obsessed with.

I watch a lot of it.

Uh, and it sounded to me that you both were kind of agreeing that you don't kind of like get mixed up in the online fandoms.

That is something I've really noticed you.

You can't just watch and enjoy a show like Love Island.

You like, like, let's say that you have an inconsistent opinion about somebody on Love Island.

There's this like rabid fan based dominated in the conversation.

Oh, you just stay out of it.

I mean I got called out for that very reason.

Uh.

This last season of Love Island, I was a big O'landria fan.

I loved her throughout the season.

I was rooting for my girl.

I wanted her to leave Taylor the whole time, and when you know, it was that frustrating we when she just like kind of wouldn't do it and her friends were like, no, you should try to get it, and I was like, I'm so frustrated.

You need to play the game differently and go for what you want.

Girl, Like, I'm so tired of this.

And people were like, how dare you criticize her?

Weren't didn't you just say you liked her and now you're criticizing her?

And I was like, so you can like someone and also not like everything that they do and and then yeah, and people were like, I don't understand.

And then I was happy when she got with Nick, and people were like, how can you be happy when you were just criticizing her?

And I'm like, because she did so she went for what she because she did what she wanted.

And it's it's just wild, like they're so it's stand up all of it.

I don't quite get.

There's some docs out about it, actually, if you want to check about Stan on Paramount Plus.

People really really intensely love to love someone and reality stars, I guess are the perfect target.

I've been a reality TV fan for a very long time.

You know, some of the shows that I have watched, I have a very long relationships with the I'm thinking about shows like OG Real Houseives of New York.

Yeah, I feel like the stan standem online fandom stuff.

I feel like that is so that it's gotten so much more toxic and so much louder, And it didn't used to be like that back in the day.

You would read what Kelly Bensimone had to say on the Bravo blog, right, but it didn't really necessarily go like you didn't have people watching, engaging in this level of fandom online around it and looking at your every move.

I just think Love Island is the sort of perfect example of how bad this just ecosystem has gotten, where they went out and looked for things in these people people's lives because they didn't like them, just so they could pull that out and cancel them.

People were calling ICE on someone in the cast family, like people were calling CPS on Hood's daughter and her and her baby daddy.

Like that's where I just I don't understand.

I also have been watching reality TV since the Osbourne since Simple you know, since a simple life, Like we didn't do this, Like I was never watching the Osbourne's and I was like, I need to know Ozzy's every thought and who he's friends with, and I need to follow him on every channel.

And now it's the expectation is like they need to immediately leave the show and they need to be on Snapchat and this and this, and I should be able to know at all times what events they're going to.

Are they still dating this person?

And I don't know exactly why people think they have that level of access, or why they deserve it, or why they think it's mandatory if you're on television.

But I don't think that we can demand that of people just because they go on a reality show.

No, And it also just makes it less fun.

Yeah, I want to watch a Philly fun show.

I don't want to have everything this person has ever done and said, yeah, dragged up on social media and then be expected to litigate it myself.

But like watching the TV show.

Yeah, like it's a political statement.

If I like watched Love Island and left at something Austin said.

I don't like Austin, but he can say something funny.

It's entertainment, and so I like with ninety Day Fiance, I try to separate like the real happenings and I just watched the show.

I don't like pay attention to the gossip of the fans and what everyone's arguing.

I just I try.

I just put my faith in the narrative that I'm presented by producers.

Yes, I mean I have noticed, even beyond the fandoms, especially on Bravo, some of the shows have gotten quite dark.

You know.

I'm thinking about some of the some of Brinn's storyline from the last season of Rony, which was a mess.

Some of the stuff, I don't know if you watch Potomac, some of the stuff with that Mia the Valley is quite dark.

Like I had to sort of check out of it for a while because I was like, well, I don't want to watch like like a family go through something that seems quite real.

Even like Below Deck got really dark, Like, yeah, I don't know what was up with Bravo or I don't know what was kind of going around the Bravo universe at the time, but like even Below Deck, I think it was blow Deck.

Mediterranean had this odd season where like two people were kicked off of the crew because they like assaulted other people on the crew, and everyone was just like should we still be doing Below Deck?

And they kind of were like, we need to redo it, like we just need to change everything, like we need to make it fun again, like let's get some fun, happy people in the crew.

And I don't.

I think obviously if everything is the pandemic and you know, but I think there was something about that moment and people being more online where I feel like in reality TV people.

Share more now.

I think there was some expectation before of like this is fake or like we're making a storyline, and now people are like, well, you know, during COVID, I was fine, like having a live log of my life, So why would I make things up?

Like yeah, I'll share these kind of deep personal things.

And I guess it's great TV.

Like I do think reality TV now feels more authentic in a way, especially the stuff like ninety Day Fiance.

But I guess that is encouraging people to go, yeah, you share everything, so I should have complete access to you.

You should be on like you know, TikTok live all the time whenever I want to see you.

Yeah, I remember back in the day.

I didn't watch OC but like the stuff with Taylor Armstrong, there was like darkness there.

But looking back now, it's clear we weren't the audience was not being told everything, and there was still this attitude of like, oh this, we need to make this seem a little more polished than it actually is.

And I think today that they would they would they would handle that in a completely different way.

Oh yeah, yeah, I yeah, I will say I do I give respect to reality TV produced They I don't even respect, but I do think that they have put more focus on like mental health and just trying to think of, oh right, we're putting these people on TV and how they appear could have consequences, and we're a big part of how they appear and how those narratives are made.

I hate to keep going back.

To Love Island, but it was you know, a lot of what like Olandria face where they show kind of at some points made her seem like a bully her and Shelley, and you had BuzzFeed like posting memes about like punching Shelley in the face and stuff, and it's like, you know, yeah, and it's like producers are feeding into that and they had to like kind of change the narrative.

So I do think reality producers now are like, yeah, let's handle things with care.

I will say, I'm sure people listening are like, I'm tuning in to hear tech takes, not reality TV takes.

But I do feel like being a longtime scholar of reality TV, I think it helps me understand and explain a lot where we're at politically and social Trump he honestly got his start as a reality TV star.

He like, if you understand the medium of reality TV, if you understand how villains work on reality TV, I think it can be helpful to understanding this our current political.

Moment, our current political moment, and moment in entertainment.

I think if you want to understand why kids are watching kick Now instead of television, why people prefer to watch a show on YouTube versus you know, traditional streaming, A lot of that has to do with reality TV and kids who've just grown up on that and they are used to it, and not only to the point where it's the entertainment they're accustomed to, but it's the entertainment that they want to make and know how to make.

Like there are people that are so young, and I engage with them on TikTok and I'm like, oh.

My gosh, you would be perfect on real.

Healthwives, Like how like you know how to do this, you know how to craft a narrative out of like your life or whatever is happening.

And I think, you know, as those kids grow up and start making media, I think we're going to see them really just doing more with like reality and it blending the line between that and documentary.

There is a documentary that just came out called Thirstrap on Paramount Plus.

It's about this TikTok influencer name like Whitey.

He was like a white guy who was very attractive, and he winked to some song by Rod Stewart.

I don't know, there's like a different internet for white people that goes viral.

I didn't know this guy, but all of these like middle aged women became obsessed with him and started sending him thousands and thousands of dollars, and he basically dropped out of school to make this his career and slowly realized like, oh, this attention economy cannot last for forever.

It has these negative impacts on my mental health and my psyche and also it does a horrible impact on these people who demand constant access to me, and you know, start doxing his family when he makes them mad because they don't like that he had a girlfriend.

And so I think, you know, if you want to understand why it seems like people are just so intense about everything, now, I think reality TV it's the answer.

I need to watch this.

Your laugh is so recommendation was a good one.

I hadn't even heard of it.

That what is it?

Furry police?

No, yes, unmasking a murder?

Yes, furry detectives.

That everybody should be talking about that documentary.

Why isn't everyone talking about it?

I am like, this is it's the wildest thing I've seen.

Every person I introduced to it is like, first of all, why did you do that?

I have nightmares now?

And it's so well made, it's so well done, and it's a story that no one knows about.

And you think like, oh, we've gotten to the worst part.

And then they're like.

So there's two more episodes and you're just.

Like, how, how does it get worse than this?

And it does and then it does.

Okay, So this is actually a great segue into what I wanted to talk about first, which is everything happening with CBS.

I will give a little bit of backstory to sort of set it up.

So a few months ago, CBS settled a lawsuit with Trump over allegedly a deceptively edited interview of then presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

So we know Trump is not We'll say Trump has a specific kind of relationship to the truth.

But this is what the suit alleged.

His suit alleged that a sixty minutes interview with Harris was deceptively edited to portray her in a more favorable light.

So specifically, the claim was that there were these different versions of Harris's response to a question that were used in different broadcasts, like a shorter, clearer, more favorable version on face doination and then a more kind of rambling, less polished, full version that was in a sixty minutes broadcast.

I have heard both versions, and it is incredibly clear to me that the version in question that he is upset about is like just edited for clarity, like they've edited it for time because it's a shorter segment.

It's like very very clear to me that's what's going on.

So you're a podcast.

You work in media, you know this is a pretty cut.

Like I like, the podcast that you're listening to right now is not raw audio.

It is edited for clarity.

I don't want to I don't want to burst anybody's bubble.

But if media, it's edited.

Yeah, you don't want to hear us going uh uh uh.

You don't need that, so they cut it out.

I don't really understand why he's upset because I feel like the same.

It's not like the message becomes different.

It's I don't think she looks much better in the other one.

It's just quicker.

So yeah, I didn't get it.

I'll see the big deal you and me both.

But Trump's argument was essentially that CBS editing these interviews was election interference.

Sued CBS.

CBS settled and agreed to donate sixteen million dollars to CBS's parent company, not to Trump himself, but to his sort of presidential library fund.

Out of this came in agreement that CBS and sixty Minutes in the future will release transcripts of interviews with US presidential candidates after they air, with allowance for reactions for like legal or national security concerns.

Typically, I do feel like a company only will settle like this if they feel like they might lose.

But I think that Trump.

I think that with CBS.

Honestly, I think that they were like, you know, this is a way to curry favor with the new administration.

I think from the perspective of a CBS executive, it's like, oh, a win win, we get to avoid this what could be a nasty fight with a vengeful administration, and then we could hand that administration like a pr win kiss the ring, easyps right.

Yeah, they already sacrificed Stephen Colbert as his alter.

There's already talk of them wanting to buy Warner Brothers Discovery today that Paramount Help just today, Yeah, yeah, just today that came out that this is the next move.

They're just buying it all up to make it cable again.

So I think them knowing that it's going to get pushedback, that would just be such a large conglomerate.

I think they're trying to do whatever they can to abuse this administration so they can I don't know, buy Peacock in every single streaming platform.

I don't I don't know why they want to do that, but yeah, I don't know.

What the endgame is either, but I will say like they really did a lot, I think to curry favor with the Trump administration.

They appointed a bias monitor, and I think that just goes to show like there is no end to like when you give an inch, they take many many miles, there is no end to what they take.

And so CBS already has all of this unprecedented oversight from the federal government to make sure that they're not being I don't know, biased against Trump for mean to Trump.

So it is against this backdrump enter.

The United States Secretary of Homeland Security, Christine Home, she did an interview with CBS and that she did not like how that interview was edited after the fact.

So after the interview, she tweeted, this morning, I joined CBS to report the facts of kilmar Garcia.

Instead, CBS shamefully edited the interview to whitewash the truth about this MS thirteen gang member and the threat he poses to American public safety.

Now, mind you, when she tweeted this, CBS had already posted both the full transcript and the full recording of that interview.

So it is sort of like, well, I don't know just it just it just seems like, yeah, what else do you want at this point.

They're never They're never going.

To be happy.

It's just they'll never be happy.

If they can find something to pick at to say I'm being victimized, they will.

That's what they want, is that ability to say you're targeting us.

It's unfair for us.

So even if you know these networks do everything they want, they're still going to turn around and be like, oh, yeah, well that Salas Park episode was rude, and so actually, no, we're not going to approve this.

You know, it's they're never going to be.

On your side.

You can't truly buy them.

Yes, exactly so.

And again, as we were talking about earlier, it is just so common for networks to do this with lengthy interviews.

It is not unusual, it's it's totally commonplace.

And again the substance of the complaint doesn't even really stand because it's like, Okay, well, somebody could just go watch the full interview.

Honestly, when you look at what they chose to edit so in the interview that upset her so much, she's talking about kilmar Garcia.

Kill mar Garcia of course, with the man who was sent to immigration prison in El Salvador because of what was widely reported to be an administrative error.

She accused him of essentially sex crimes against a child.

He has not been charged with this, and as far as I know, there was no evidence of this.

Besides noo, I'm saying the Department of Justice is like looking into it.

So CBS, I think kind of completely correctly made the correct call.

They're like, oh, we can't just.

Air belamatory live.

Yeah, Like we don't want to get sued for libel like that is real.

Yeah, And so I don't blame CBS for this at all.

And to be honest with you, I feel like they're almost doing Christy a favor, because when you say something that is wild and also potentially legally actionable, editing that out is a favor.

I almost thought they did her a favor by not allowing her most salacious, baseless, inappropriate accusation just stand.

In that way, they almost are trying to make her look I think, I think anything more sane.

Yeah, And that's the thing is that she doesn't want to look sane.

She wants that clip that's gonna go viral and like get people angry, So that's what it is.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if it's a lie or not true or unfounded.

She dropped that because she knew, Oh, this is what people are going to freak out over and say, like, oh, she's saying she's making things up, and that's what she wanted, and she didn't get that moment, so she had to turn it around and say, you know, CBS is editing me and whitewashing what I had to say.

Exactly, and I guess I don't feel like journalists are required to repeat on authoritarian administration's baseless smears, and at the end of the day, like journalists do have an ethical obligation to not just let anybody say anything on their platform.

However, because CBS is run by people who are really trying to curry favor with this administration, they announce that they are no longer doing any editing of interviews like this.

So just days after these complaints, CBS News said that they would no longer allow editing of its guests words on the Sunday Morning Public Affairs show, So going forward, they're only going to do broadcast live or live to tape meeting that guest statements could not be edited subject to legal or national security restrictions.

Phbeus if this change was made in response to audience feedback, which I guess you mean, like an audience of.

Ones, you know, you know, trum In Trevid Gnome just like saying to me, I do like this honestly, because it feels a bit sarcastic and sasse on CBS's part, because I do think this is going to come back to bite a politician in the ass.

I they're they're gonna be like, oh right.

There was a reason why we wanted things edited, and we wanted to have a second to collect our thoughts.

Uh.

So that's what I'm excited for.

Someone is gonna say something really dumb.

This is a low stakes podcast, and it is lightly edited for clarity.

If you're talking about important global politics stuff with big implications, you're stressed out.

If you're in this administration, maybe you've had a couple drinks, you know what I'm saying, and the lights are on you.

We're about to get some gas.

That's a great point.

Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be good.

So okay, I wanted to include this story because there's another sort of substory in this that it's my own little personal thing.

So I have a little bit of a bone to pick with CBS, obviously, and I live in DC.

We've been dealing with the entire you know, takeover of our police force and surge of a National Guard in my city.

President Trump was trying to make a big show of how safe DC is and how he's finally cleaned up the city, YadA, YadA.

So he was making a big show of going to dinner at a seafood restaurant downtown.

When he got there, the activist group Code Pink had people in the restaurant to protest.

They screamed, they called him hitler.

It was a great clip.

However, when CBS News reported on it, their headline was quote when President Trump ada or Washington restaurant to promote his federal law enforcement surge of the nation's capital, he was greeted by protesters inside but cheers outside.

So I'm gonna play you a clip, Ashley, and this is a clip of I'll put it in the show notes.

It is Trump walking into the restaurant.

It is very clearly outside.

I'm gonna play you the clip, and you tell me what you hear.

Yeah, so that is the dynamic that CBS News described as cheers from outside.

I don't know what ye Ashley, would you give it time about as cheers?

I know, I gotta give that to the booze.

The booze won that one.

Uh and people swearing there were some wooze but they were drowned out by the booze.

Yeah, I feel like a more honest way to say it was cheers and jeers something, But just to say that, oh the it clearly sort of suggests that the people outside on the street love them, and there was echoes of cheer.

But those activists inside they've always got They're always complaining about something.

Yeah, you know, they're just people.

They always making a rock case.

And but everybody outside was like, yeah, we love this Trump.

So yeah, yeah, I just CBS, what are you doing?

What are you doing?

Get it together?

Yeah, let's take a quick break at our back.

Okay.

So I also wanted to talk about kind of a darker story, which is the well dark, but I guess it is a story about justice being served.

So I'll let y'all be the judge.

So this website, this porn website, girls do porn the creator of this site has sort of been He was on the LAMB for a while, he was on the FBI's most wanted list, and this week he was sentenced to you might have seen a documentary about it.

If yeah, Ye're gonna say, yeah, I've definitely seen this doccumentary yet, so you know all about it.

Michael James Pratt, the creator of the California based porn website Girls Do Porn, was sentenced to twenty seven years in federal prison for sex trafficking after pleading guilty for using force, fraud and coercion to recruit hundreds of women, many of whom were in their late teens, for adult videos.

He was sentenced on one charge of sex trafficking in my force fraud or coersion, and one kind of conspiracy to commit the same crime.

So I've also the documentary is quite good.

It does really make clear how long of a thing this has been.

That that documentary came out years ago, the site was online even earlier than that, and only this week was he actually sentenced.

Yeah, I did not know that there was more happening with it, Like it feels like it was so long ago.

I was like, oh, right, how did that documentary and like, did anything actually happen to him?

I guess not until now.

Yeah, so it's been kind of a long time coming.

Pratt was on the FBI's ten most wanted list when he was arrested in Madrid and twenty twenty two, three years after he fled while awaiting sex trafficking charges.

The San Diego Union Tribune reports that Pratt, a forty two year old New Zealand citizen, admitted in a plea ar agreement earlier this year that between twenty twelve and twenty nineteen he conspired to traffic fifteen victims.

The authorities have said that as a tiny fraction of the app actual victims of the conspiracy, it is a dizzying array of crimes.

Basically the site it just sounds so awful and scammy.

Basically, these are not women who were consensually wanting to be and signed up to be involved in making consensual adult content.

This was back when I guess you might call it casting couch porn was like a growing thing online, and so he had this entire very gross, not to mention illegal scheme worked up where him and his team would post what seemed like legitimate modeling ads on Craigslist that women looking for modeling work would apply to.

Then they would pay other women to kind of act as references to vouch for this company and say, oh, it's a legitimate modeling company.

I had a good experience with them.

You can trust them.

So when I was in college, I did a little bit of modeling on the side for extra cash.

And I will say the it is a space rife with all kinds of gross stuff.

But what is a it's it's not it's not a great space, I'll say.

And you you're when you're wading through it, it's like scam, scam, scam, scam scam.

Yeah.

My my brother is a model and he lives in Texas.

One time he was like, Hey, I'm gonna be in La I'm shooting.

I'm a model.

I'm gonna do this thing with an agency.

I was like, what are you talking.

He's like, yeahs the underwear thing.

I'll be in a warehouse.

And I was like, oh no, no, no, no, no, baby, yes, mendis ad.

It was legit.

It was okay, it was legit.

It was legit.

It was legit.

But I was like, no, I'm coming with you, I will be checking this out good.

Yeah, that was always my thing.

I would always show up with that with a male friend or you know, that was always the way that I played it.

But so even for a space that is rife with those kinds of gross things, what is described here I have never encountered and had not heard of.

So when these women would would you know, think like, okay, this is a legit, legitimate modeling gig.

They would show up and then they would be asked to do sex acts on camera, but often would be applied with drugs or alcohol, made to through a contract that they were unable to read, or even verbally promised that the videos would not be published in the US, only abroad, or it would only be sold for like private buyers, so it won't be widely distributed.

So they would knowingly lie to these women and with the understanding that these videos were going to be distributed widely and essentially blow up their lives.

I found this to be really interesting.

According to people who were in on this scheme, fifty percent of the women were not even paid the amount they were promised.

So after all of that, you know, you're already kind of being forced into doing something that you don't want to do via lies.

They're like, oh, we're going to give you two thousand dollars and they didn't even get that.

So I don't think I don't need to tell anybody.

All of this is not only just like scam me, it is also illegal.

And the sex acts that they would do once the women you know, agreed to do this were often violent and sometimes according to the Department of Justice Criminal Right, it was it was assault.

It was like very violent.

The Sandy Jago Union Tribune has some really in depth reporting about the sentencing and how Pratt was made to listen to his victims and like face them for the first time.

A lot of these women have been trying to communicate with him for years, saying take this down, take this down, and he would just ignore them and eventually skip the country.

So him having to actually listen to what they had to say for the first time I think was really resonant.

Their testimony is horrifying.

They talk about how after the footage was released online, their personal contact information would also be released, so they would face harassment.

They would, you know, face consequence.

People would send videos to their friends and family, they'd be fired from jobs, kicked out of school, lots of addiction issues, lots of suicidal ideation.

So when these victims faced him in court and spoke to him, you really kind of hear how important of a moment it was for them.

A couple of things that they said.

One victim said, we meet again, but this time it is you who cannot leave.

Another said, we are not here for forgiveness, we are here for justice.

I won.

One woman told Pratt, turning to speak directly to him, I am not your victim.

I am your reckoning.

So these were women who were, like I am waited so long.

Like I definitely think people should read the article because they talk about how these women almost formed a sisterhood because they were so like they had to band together to take down this too.

Yeah, so even to get to get any of this to happen, to get anyone in law enforcement to pay attention and to take it seriously.

It's so sad how long this took.

And I found this bit to be really interesting from the piece.

One victim told the judge that Pratt provided her a cake on the day that she shot her video because it was her eighteenth birthday.

Another woman identified in the fleet agreement, as victim number one was also eighteen years old when Pratt quote rushed her through a contract and did not provide her with a copy.

He paid her two thousand dollars and then ignored her please to pick the video down when it posted online.

That woman said in court that she has since graduated from Princeton University and now works with the tech industry and has become a specialist and helping people send takedown notices to websites.

You know what, I follow her.

I follow her.

Really, she's very cool.

She's very cool.

Because people like, like misogynists are always like, you know, some rich guy probably paid for you to go to Princeton, like you're a sugar baby.

And she's like, uh no, actually I had a fluorized scholarship and I do this.

And she's just such a badass who is not afraid to shoot back at these people who, you know, think that they can control women with online manipulation.

Yes, And I think your point is such a good one because I think for so long the implication was that these women don't deserve respect.

They did it, They did it to themselves, exactly when we actually look at the charges and what they is what the government says he did.

They didn't do anything themselves.

They showed up thinking there was going to be a modeling gig and they were clearly lied to and manipulated, And so it's I don't think it's fair to be like, oh, well, you brought this on yourself, didn't know this was going to happen, whatever, whatever, whatever, And it said, well, if I brought it on myself, he wouldn't have had to lie to me to get me to do it.

He wouldn't have to manipulate me to get me to agree to.

It, to get me to agree.

But it's coercion exactly.

And I remember kind of a while ago, I think it was two young women who were contestants in the Miss Teen USA pageant.

They were they it was revealed that they were both on this site and they had to drop out of the pageant, and I remember thinking, you know, all these years later, clearly they were not the one who did something wrong.

It.

Yeah, where where was the Where was the smoke back then?

I know we had a very different culture for women then, but where was the smoke for the person who was breaking the law and trafficking women to enrich himself by victimizing and manipulating them.

Yeah, that just as the time was not part of the narrative.

Nobody thought about like you know, revenge, peorn laws or oh the guy is doing something wrong here too.

It was just Oh, it's her fault she did, you know, she's their own fault.

She didn't want this, she shouldn't have taken nude, she shouldn't have done this.

And now at least kind of people are like, oh, you're committing a criminal act like this.

It's just so intrusive.

I like, more than like just, I just think it's one of the worst things that can happen to someone, even if it's someone like I don't like, you know, like Kendall from Love Island his nudes were leaked by someone and you just felt awful for him, Like, it just is such a horrible invasion of privacy and to see someone not only do that because they want to humiliate these women, but also because they're making so much money off of it, and they know they can get away with it because there are other horrible.

Men who want this content.

Yeah, I just this is so mad.

Yeah, you put that really well.

I mean, it's something I think about a lot is and I know that you remember this, but in the in the twenty tens, the iCloud photo hacks where all of these celebrity intimate content got hacked and put online, and you know, I remember so clearly the conversation that we had about that when it happened was exactly what you just articulated, that, oh, they shouldn't have taken the pictures.

I remember the it was a the tech columnist at the New York Times.

His advice to Starlits was don't take nude pictures.

And here we are, you know, ten years later, and we really see how none of that met the moment because now we have AI enabled deep fakes, where all you have to do is exist.

You don't do anything.

You could just be existing in like fully clothed it get clothed existing, and then you actually have to have that part.

You can just have a personality, and then Meta will take you and turn you into a sexual chatbop so exactly as they did with Taylor Swift.

And it's just I don't know, I think, you know, years from now, like as we've had this kind of reckoning with revenge porn, I think eventually we're going to be like, oh, right, that was a horrible invasion of privacy that we were just taking people's photos and making AI images and voices.

Out of them.

I think it was some brand just recently got in trouble.

I think it was maybe Fashion Nova, but they like clearly were using AI to make their model things.

And then the AI pulled in Luigi Mangioni's face.

Yes it was she am yeah, she and yeah, and everyone's like yeah, yeah, that's a problem.

Yeah.

And I wish I could rewind back to those moments like the iCloud photo hacks and force us to have a different conversation because about digital consent, about consent more generally, about not just putting the onus on the victim, the or people to not do things in order to protect themselves.

I wish we could have had a different conversation because I feel like where we are today in twenty twenty five might be different.

And it's a shame that we had all of these big moments where we could have had that conversation and work to create a different culture, and we didn't.

Yeah, and now we're still dealing with it.

And you mentioned a good point of how this is, you knowuative these videos from Girls to Porn, they were distributed to other porn sites like bigger porn sites and tube sites like Pornhub.

According to the Daily Dot, Girls Do Porn videos were viewed over eight hundred million times on these websites, including roughly six hundred and eighty million views on Pornhub, where Girls du Porn was among the top twenty most viewed channels.

And it just sounds like even after Pornhub officially cut ties with the Girls Dow porn channel in twenty nineteen, it just sounds like they were very, very slow to take these videos down.

It took like reporting, it took I think Motherboard wrote a big piece about it, like it took a lot of cajoling to just simply take down these videos that I think it sounds like Pornhub knew were made under very sketchy circumstances.

Yeah, and they're making money off of it, you know.

I think they also have faced some lawsuits because they, you know, had videos up that were people who were under age or trafficked, and they get those reports and just kind of were ignoring them until it was like, oh, we have to take it down like the cops are getting involved, Like okay.

So that's exactly why this whole girl's due porn thing currently is also implicating porn Hub.

In twenty twenty three, Pornhub's parent company agreed to pay more than one point eight million dollars to resolve a criminal probe alleging that it profited from sex trafficking through its hosting of girls do porn videos.

More than one hundred and twenty women have sued porn Hub's parent company in San Diego in federal court a legend pornhub illegally published sex trafficking videos.

Pornhub's parent company settled the first of those suits under terms that were not disclosed.

So exactly what you just said that you know, this wasn't just one small site that was profiting off of this.

They were profiting off of it, but then those videos were then enriching like much bigger porn sites like Pornhub, and so yeah, it's just a scheme where mostly men who run these sites get rich off of the manipulation of women, and then it's the women who also face this added burden of public scorn, public scrutiny.

Why did you take the pictures, getting kicked out of school, getting online, harassed, all of that.

Yeah, and then you know, like it reaches the Andrew Tate level where then they have the women who are making these videos, and then they use that to blackmail them into making more content, and then they blackmail the women into scamming other men so that they can get more money.

And yeah, yeah, just a whole pyramid scheme built on manipulation and sex crimes.

More after a quick break, let's get right back into it.

Okay, So I have one other story I wanted to talk to you about, which I feel like as a podcaster, as somebody who cares about media, I know I have a lot of thought abot, but you might as well.

Did you hear about this AI based podcast startup?

Yes, yeah, I heard?

Okay, So, as a podcaster, I am often asked if I'm worried about AI, specifically AI taking the jobs of human podcasters like you and me, Ashley, and so I'm asked this so much that I've actually turned the answer to this question into one of my signature public talks about the intersection of creativity and technology.

If you follow the conversation around AI, oftentimes that conversation is like, Oh, what's going to happen to human creative professionals, human podcasters.

Huve been screenwriters, Wh've been artists, animators, musicians, whatever.

Anyway, so I spend a lot of time thinking about this, talking about this.

So I was not terribly shocked to read that Hollywood Reporter piece about Inception Point AI, this company that is trying to build a stable of AI talent to host podcasts and eventually become broader influencers across social media, literature, and more.

The Hollywood Reporter report, it's amid the high cost of producing narrative podcasts and price the short term contracts for popular hosts.

The idea here is being able to own scale and control the talent unlike those off the cuff humans, and produce shows at a minimal cost.

We believe that in the near future, half the people on the planet will be AI, and we're the company that's bringing those people to life.

This is from CEO Janine Wright, who previously was the chief operating officer of podcasting at Wondery, which has recently had to be organized under the changing podcast landscape following a series of questionable business decisions.

Decisions and layoffs and yeah, all of it, all of it.

It's making a lot of sense now.

I I don't know who hears the statistic like we think fifty percent of the people will be AI, and gets excited about that, Like what you're excited about?

Like dead Internet?

You want to be chatting with thoughts?

I That alone is something I just don't get, you know, I don't Apparently they already getting like ten million downloads a month or something, And I truly just believe it's other robots listening to it, that they are just their spot farms that are just listening to the AI, and we're just creating a whole other ecosystem where AI is just talking and listening to AI.

Because who wants that?

Like you listen to your favorite comedians probably you know people who are experts.

Who needs that?

And I think anytime a place has tried the online influencer thing, it just hasn't worked.

Little Mikayla is an example of that just really failing, because at the end of the day, people want an influencer who is a real human being.

Yeah.

I remember when she had a scandal where it was like, oh, I've been sexually harassed and it's like you're not a real personally talk.

About like yep, and then they did it they where they like had her get cancer so that and then like she disappeared and people just kind of forgot.

So yeah, it is why the stuff that people think people want, you know.

And so you were talking about some of the numbers behind this AI podcasting company.

So the company says that it is able to produce each episode for one dollar or less, depending on length and complexity, and then attach programmatic advertising to it.

According to them, this means that if twenty people listen to that episode, the company has made a profit on the episode without factoring in overhead.

So they also said that they have five thousand shows already across its Quiet Please podcast network, and they are able to produce three thousand episodes a week.

You were right.

Collectively, the network says that they have seen ten million downloads since since September twenty twenty three.

It takes about an hour to create an episode from coming up to the idea to getting it out to the world, and they have about fifty AI personalities that they've created, including food expert Claire Delish Gardner and nature expert Nigel Thistledown and Alie Bennett, who covers offbeat sports.

Obviously, none of those people are real.

Claire Delish is not a real cookie an expert.

I don't know if I need to say that.

Nigel Thistle, that's a name from That is Bridgerton.

That is the name from Bridgton.

So you might be thinking, who in the hell wants to listen to this?

If you're thinking that, I am sorry to tell you you're an idiot who was also lazy and you don't know what you want.

That is from the founder who said quote.

I think that people who are still referring to AI generated content as AI slop are probably lazy luddites because there's a lot of good stuff out there.

So you don't know.

If you're thinking I don't want to listen to that, you're a moron who is also lazy.

According to the CEO, if you don't want to listen to a robot that's making things up from scanning Google, you're lazy.

Yes.

So I saw this headline everywhere and there were a couple of pieces that I just want to make sure it get included to like one.

It sounds like right now they're focused on making podcasts out of just basic information that you could find anywhere online, but you might want it in podcast form.

We might make a pollen podcast that eighty fifty people listen to, but I'm already at unit profitability on that, so maybe I can make five hundred pollen report podcasts, she said.

So it sounds like what they're saying is that right now, like you might want to get the weather report in a hyper personalized podcast.

So I can understand that as a completely different use case from the kind of podcast that you and I make that take research and human ingenuity and human compassion and human connection.

I guess if it.

Was like a robot that like went through my emails and messages and then it was just a podcast where it's like telling me about things I need to know personally, but that's just like Siri, I guess.

Like yeah, And I guess, I mean, I almost feel like if they were, if they were going to do that, I would want them.

But that's not a podcast, you know.

But I when I listen to my voicemails that somebody has left just for me, I wouldn't call that a like words have meetings and podcasts mean something.

And yeah, I do think a big part of podcasting is the kind of community aspect of it.

You know, when I when I listen to the episode of of the of Your podcast with Gibson John's, I scrolled down to the Spotify comments because I wanted to see what people were saying about it.

Right, part of it is talking about what other listeners are thinking about it and what their responding, what their response is to it.

I don't see how a hyper personal podcast, it is only listened to by a handful of people in the country, is going to provide that.

Yeah, you're not creating a community, and that's what people want when they really get into podcasts.

They love they love the community, like you said, the friends, the just I think it's also seeing a podcaster grow, right, like when you look at people who if you look at people who love the podcast like come Town and now you have like Adam Friedlander and he's, you know, doing these huge YouTube interviews with like big people, starv ros is blowing up everywhere and just having I love him.

I have such a I love frush on him.

He's so so funny and he's like I love seeing him blow up and it's like, oh my gosh, I remember when he was like on this little tiny podcast, like making weird jokes with his friends.

So you don't get that obviously with AI robot podcasts.

Yeah, in the article, the people who run this company were saying, oh, well, we're not gonna have it so that people like, we're intentionally don't want people to create connections with our AI host.

So we're going we're not coming up with the backstories for them.

And I was sort of thinking that is sort of the fun of listening to a PA.

I'm sure there are people who don't care about what I have to say but have been listening to me for a while and it's like, oh, I just want to I just want to hear her thoughts on stuff.

And I didn't even watch that movie She's talk like I half of the stuff that you all talked about in that episode, I don't watch it.

I don't watch TLC.

Not not to say that I'm better than you, cause I watch Bravo.

No you are, you are, But you know, like, I just enjoy your voice and I want to hear what you have to say, and I don't think that that can be replicated with AI.

That is that that human aspect of it is integral to the the why we make anything.

Yeah, and those the background stories of who someone is.

My absolute favorite podcast moment is Caleb Harron.

I'm like, I feel like everyone knows this, him asking a guy in his class what Colonne he's using, and he like does the whole story of like just him causing me, like son Connor.

Well cologne is it that?

And it's so funny and it's just like one of those things that's the story from his life that just came up in conversation.

He said, Cooper, what clone do you wear?

And he said, oh, I don't.

It's just like I don't know.

My mom gets it for me.

And I go, oh yeah, but like what is he goes, I really don't know.

My mom gets it from me.

And during this whole assembly, I just keep every time I get a chance to being like Cooper, do you even know like what the bottle is?

You know?

But I'm trying to play it cool, so I'm like, yeah, I almost wonder what the shaped the bottle and he's like, oh, yeah, I don't remember.

Man.

Literally, I'm being so persistent because when finally I go, I need to know what colone you are, and he goes, if I tell you, will you just stop talking to me?

And I and I go, Can I go?

And I go?

Yeah.

It was like scenic the way it played.

It liked be like talking to the boys and cutting up.

And then there was a moment's silence.

I'd be like, anyway, Coop, I'm having to repeat Cooper Cooper, like I was saying, No, you guys are so bunny Cooper, what color is the box?

It comes up?

Sorry, you're not getting that from an AI robot.

They can't do it.

And that's the best part of podcasting, those little moments where you could never have scripted it if you tried.

You could never You could never have have planned it out if you tried.

Yeah, that's what you that's what you tune into podcasts for.

You never know what's gonna happen when you put on the mic.

And if we if we give that over to AI, and not just AI, but a certain kind of like tech company suit.

I don't know.

I just I thought reading this, this this Holly.

Everything she said was gross.

Yes, And there was a time where you would be embarrassed to have your name attached to something like this, and so I don't like the idea that it's not just the AI, it's people who talk about creativity in this particular kind of way, like oh, well, we're already getting ten ten million downloads and.

Da da da dah, and yeah it's hitting my KPIs and the ROI and it's crazy, like, oh, I.

Hate the idea that the people in charge of things sometimes hate the thing that they're in charge of it.

You don't, you don't even love it, you don't even like it.

Yeah, it's just there's a job for you.

You like people who make TV.

Now, it's so many industries are just people who are able to grow a profit, and that's why they have their job.

I'm sure they answer is yes, But do you watch the Studio?

Oh?

Yeah, I love the Studio me too.

I think I think I watched it because of your recommendation.

It was so good.

I feel like that that show if you're not watching The Studio on Apple TV.

I just finished it and I loved it.

But I think that that show gets it right of the difference between somebody who just I love movies.

I've always wanted to work for movies.

Do you you?

And then when he's taken a pee at the Oscars next to the head of Netflix.

Yeah, just Ted Cerana Sorondos has said many times like I am not a movie person, I'm a tech person.

Yeah, and that's where the industry is now.

I guess it just makes me very sad.

And I will say, like, as somebody who knows quite a bit about tech and the people who make it and how they talk about their own technology, reading that Hollywood reporter piece to me, a couple of pieces still gets about to me.

One the fact that clearly humans are still required to make this thing exists.

You know, the episodes are built by AI, but it's humans who are doing everything else.

And so the idea, I think that we are being sold, this idea that you can have a soup to nuts podcast with no human interference, and the article does not suggest that.

It's like, oh no, it's humans in every step of the way, and those humans are currently unpaid.

The startup is currently bootstrapped and employees are not yet salaried, but the company will will soon seek outside funding.

So I feel like the big headline that I think being missed in this whole operation is that it's profitable because people are not being paid or not making money.

Yeah, because there are people in and they're not being paid and so it's profitable.

Yeah, it's the whole AI boat.

That's what it all feels like, like a bubble that's going to burst because it's something where like when Chad GBT was really just like a bunch of people in India who would like google things really quickly for you and then as soon as the you know, curtain lifts, I'm hoping that every the whole bubble just pops.

We have been sort of talking about it a bit.

I think it's coming.

I think people are less interested in AI and their commercial products, people are using AI less.

I just think we are starting to see the writing on the wall that yeah, maybe this this technology is not all it's cracked up to be.

And I think that the article about this AI podcast scheme to me, it read the whole thing read like a please fund us advertise, like, oh, you know we're seeking funding on that.

You know, all things seem like and it's so lubinan and so profitable and you listen, you want to get on the ground floor of this, and it's I think that's just someone who knows this is disgusting and who has probably gotten no traction among like actual podcasters or in the industry.

Yeah, and you know, coming talking to somebody who writes phenomenally well about culture and television and art and media, A robot can never replace you, Ashley, like I can never have you.

A robot could never have the kind of nuanced, layered opinions that you have about media.

A robot like you, you approach everything as such a rich text.

It doesn't matter if it's you know, a fit like an indie film, an a twenty four film or something or ninety day fiance brings such a like nuance to it, and a robot couldn't do that.

I wouldn't even to listen to it.

Try.

Yeah, exactly.

You know who wants that.

We want to hear the people we love want to hear their brains think of weird things.

That's the fun of it.

That is the fun of it.

Actually, I have to put you on the spot.

You ended your episode with like rapid fire TV homework.

I gotta watch the show Smoke, which I have not watched.

With the way that you described it made me want to watch it.

What are you watching right now that you think people should know about.

Oh oh, there's so many good ones right now, but I'll keep it techy for you.

There's a new show that just debuted.

It's called The tech Bro Murders.

Each episode looks at a murder in the Bay Area basically, and is usually someone who's like, oh, they worked at Facebook and then they lost their mind.

So so far, it's like, I think a few episodes out right now.

It's pretty good docuseries.

It's a docu.

It's a docuseries that's out weekly, and it's it's yeah, it's like wow, Yeah, drinking red bull all day and not sleeping isn't good for your mental health and we'll make you do wild things.

Who knew?

Okay, that's going on my list.

Yeah, where can folks follow you listen to your podcast?

Well, it's a career.

And also I don't want to embarrass you, but I went to the courier, I guess like a launch aman in DC, and I chatted with your boss and he had such glowing things to say about you, Like he was like, it's such a brilliant podcast and we're so lucky to get it.

And I was like, you sure are better say that.

I was supposed to be that and I couldn't.

I had to stay back and help my mom with some stuff.

But I was like, oh, I want.

To be in DC and like, but they're amazing there.

You can listen to my podcast wherever you do podcasts.

It's also on YouTube on Courreer's channel or at YouTube dot com at tv I Say, and you can follow me at the Ashley Ray Everywhere.

And you can follow me at Bridget Marine DC, on TikTok and Instagram, and on YouTube at There Are No Girls on the Internet, Ashley.

Thank you so much for being here.

Thanks to all of you for listening.

I will see you on the Internet.

Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or just want to say hi?

You can read us at Hello at tangody dot com.

You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tengody dot com.

There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget tod It's a production of iHeartRadio, an unbossed creative.

Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.

Tarry Harrison is our producer and sound engineer.

Michael Almato is our contributing producer.

I'm your host, Bridget Todd.

If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple podcasts.

For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.