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This week, I'm thrilled to be joined by Imani Thompson. Imani is a digital security trainer and a host of a series of events called cash me Outside. Love that name so much. Where she and partner organizations sometimes help people understand their personal security, divest from big tech platforms, and generally learn how to be more safe online, which is so important right now. Imani, hello.

Hi. Thank you for being here. For her readers probably know Imani already from our contributor Janice Rose's recent story. Janice went to one of your events in Ridgewood called four four dead name not found. Again, amazing name, not related to four four media, but such a good how could you resist?

And that was like a digital self defense workshop, and you're specifically there to teach trans people how to find and remove their sensitive information from the Internet. Janice said the vibe is giving Opsec rave happy hour. Just incredible, incredible stuff. I would love to hear just, like, how you got into this to begin with and a bit about your background and why you became interested in the surveillance and Opsec world to start with.

Sure. So, growing up, I was a fangirl. I was, like, a One Direction stan on Tumblr, which I think inform our relationship to surveillance and, like, parasocial dynamics in the Internet. I also have parents who worked in the federal government and talked about surveillance a lot, like, over dinner. And I studied bioethics in school, and it was around Cambridge Analytica.

So I studied public policy and bioethics and rhetoric. And, after I finished school, I ended up being some kind of privacy analyst or compliance officer or help desk something in all of my roles. And I kinda saw gaps in my social circles as far as what I thought was common knowledge due to that background and what my friends understood technology and surveillance to operate like, but they also didn't really care to encrypt their stuff. So I kind of started being like, let's grab drinks. And I'm like, well, I have you all here.

Open your phones. Let's go to settings. And that evolved into, like, pre games for Dyke March where we did digital security teach ins and everyone open your phone and go to settings and do this and that. Let's set up advanced data protection for people who are nervous about going to Pride, especially after Trump's reelection. And over the course of the year, it kind of devolved not devolved, but devolved further into, like, raves and parties from more informal gatherings, like, more social forward events.

I love that. I love the evolution of a Tumblr One Direction stan to a digital security researcher and train.

But how do you want this? I hope if you're listening

I'm sure.

Hit me up.

I mean, One Direction stans are working for the CIA a 100%. Yeah. I didn't I was never into One Direction. I was never one direction fangirl, but you had mentioned just the the way that one direction fangirls were, like, hacking into airport security cameras. I didn't realize that was a thing.

Yeah. I mean, you see so many stories about, like, little boys hacking from Roblox or whatever, but I find it so much more interesting young women hacking to, like, look at their faves sit in a lobby somewhere. And there's no news coverage. They don't call these young girls geniuses. I don't think they're getting recruited to the CIA.

So I just wonder where they are now and how they learned that.

They are doing great service for their friends stalking exes.

They're cheating boyfriends, I'm sure.

Yeah. Exactly. You've been hosting these events. You formalized, you know, like you said, it evolved into these more formalized events. It's still it's pretty you know, I don't wanna make it sound like it was, like, suddenly corporatized, but it was, like, you're actually, like, hosting these events on purpose for people to come and do these workshops that are free for people to just show up to usually queer bars in Brooklyn and in Ridgewood and in Queens to sit down and say, okay.

Now open your phones. Now open your settings, and let's look at what's actually going on with your phone and going on with what the Internet knows about you, which these days is so much. I guess, what was your first workshop like? Like, did you expect people to show up? Like, what kind of what was the theme?

The first workshop I ever did was, I think, just general digital security ahead of pride. I did two back to back. I did one, like, at May and then one in June last year. And they're both pretty much, let's go through your settings. Let me explain to what encryption is, and we'll go step by step through this.

And the first one was literally that. The second one was we were talking about, should you bring your phone to Pride? Is it okay to do that? Is it safe to do that? What's the stingray?

Are they real? What happens if you don't have your phone? So we made friendship bracelets that had, like, emergency contact numbers on the beads and lawyers phone numbers, and we, like, made a bunch exchange then. And then people are like, when are you doing this again? When are you doing this again?

But people the same people wanted to come again, but they already learned the thing. So we started doing them around interacting with ICE. When there was very heightened ICE activity in the neighborhood where I showed people how to use the Shortcuts app on an iPhone to make a little automation to say your rights out loud in different languages or to make a salute warning to send out to contacts. So I think it's like one digital security, but also be mystifying technology. Something that worries me a lot is AI psychosis.

And I think that that comes from people mystifying technology. And I think also just paranoia and then pointing to the wrong things and ending up in rabbit holes also comes from not having literacy around technology to fill those gaps. So the more agency and comfort people have, I think the better off we are. And that can be from having a body double at the bar or having someone tell you that terminal is not that scary actually or helping you docs yourself or showing you scripting and automations in a really simple way. And then people get more creative and excited about it to do things on their own later and show their friends.

So that's kind of the recurring theme throughout all of them, like agency autonomy around technology instead of divesting and running from it or shaking your fist at the sky. But usually, the focus is digital security because people are concerned about that for the first time lately.

Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Like you said, it's been it's been an issue for a long time, but I think now People

care now.

It's so much more, yeah, it's so much more of a high profile concern. It's very immediate concern, especially, like you said, with ICE rates happening, like, in your neighborhood. It's like, what do they what do they know about me? What can they see about me from just, like, a Google search? And it's usually a lot.

Would I love to get into just, like, how one self doxes because that's I don't think I I mean, I've I haven't heard the term being used as, like, I'm gonna actually, like, stalk myself basically is kinda what you're doing. I've done that before just to make sure, like, my stuff is locked down, And it is a weird process, but yeah. If you wanna just walk us through, like, what is what is a self doxing exercise typically?

Sure. So we I mean, the thought is in-depth as you'd imagine at home at a bar, but I think we get a good starting point. So what we do is we look up all of our PII, so personal identifying information like your phone number, your address, past addresses, your government name, usernames that you use on other platforms, your email. Googling those things, seeing what comes up using different search engines, and then doing reverse image searches of ourselves, doing the same for immediate family members too, and taking note of all those things, and then going to, like, the more the tools that stalkers and employers use, and going to those tools, looking ourselves up, and seeing what we find. And then we spend some time spent some time explaining what data subject rights are.

So the right to correct, amend, delete, to be forgotten. They're called different things in different jurisdictions, but I did an overview of what that looks like, what that means, how to exercise them. So we spent some time, like, drafting emails to send to these companies, asking for the information to be taken down. I showed some tools that give a fill in the blank version of that and how to cite the right rights to have those things deleted. And then we introduced some tools as well that like services that will automate it or do it on your behalf.

But I thought that it was really important first for people to have the agency and literacy to read a privacy policy, to look through the privacy policy and know who to contact, to know what to say to them, and also how to find info themselves. Because, like, there's mixed feelings about data broker deletion sites and pools and paying for them and there's lack of access. But there are some tools that sponsored memberships for attendees because it was Trans Day visibility, which was awesome, and a little bit less labor because I think I found a 150 data broker sites with myself on it, which would be exhausting to do alone. But it's good to know that you could.

Yeah. Yeah. You don't because sometimes these if you can't make a gentleman that's sponsored or you can't afford it on your own, they are kind of expensive. And it is like it's it's full time. Like, trying to get this stuff taken down on your own without an actual, like, service doing it takes forever.

It's it's crazy. That's something that I hear a lot from I read about, the adult industry and sex work quite a bit. And as you know, and it was something that I'm hearing all the time from sex workers, especially, it's like me doing this, like, it's paperwork, basically. It's like these requests and these emails all the time to these sites that, like, have my stolen content or have my legal name or, like, have, you know, my mom's name takes forever. And I know a lot of sex workers pay services to do, like, takedown requests and also to do, like you said, like, the broker the broker stuff, which has been really interesting to to learn about and to see happening over the years and how it just is has become much more of a common thing to have to do because this stuff is everywhere.

And a lot of the things that we find when doing the self doxing exercise are not things that data worker sites are gonna be able to find or handle. Like, we found deep fakes in CSAM doing this exercise as well. And I think, like, knowing how to address that, legislation's changing pretty rapidly around it. But having up to date information about what to do in those situations by going through legal channels or not are also things that community needs to be able to talk about together and also to not do alone.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think yeah. It's the not alone part is really important because when you're I mean, is just my experience like being online. It's like when you're you see something and you're like, I should do that later.

You know, I'll do it later. But, yeah, it's going back to, like you said, just like sitting on and being like, we're gonna do this right now. Yeah. We're gonna open our phones and check

it all trans lineup of DJs.

Exactly. Yeah. We're gonna do it over drinks. It'll be fun. I promise it's not hard or, like, you know, it doesn't have to be miserable.

You can just do it with your community. And also just having people around, I mean, do you feel like in those events, people are kinda trading information as they're going? They're like, oh, I saw this here. You should check it out.

Yes. I think the one where I saw that the most was actually the degoogling party that we did for Valentine's Day. We'd had a breakup with Google on Cash Me Outside and Cyber Collective. And like de googling, it's not rocket science, but it is exhausting to move all your stuff over to vet alternatives. And instead of being like, okay, everyone open your laptop.

Okay. Next step is this. I have like a huge notion guide that I shared and I was like, flag a facilitator down if you have questions, but people just form small groups between their turn CJ ing cause it was OpenDex this time. Mhmm. And just like, oh, I like this search alternative.

Oh, I like this browser. And I really liked that. I thought that was really sick. And people were telling me things about open source tools I'd never heard of, which was great. A lot of times I use these things to do things I didn't I wouldn't feel like getting around to doing myself at home.

So I'm also moving over to Proton and getting my Google Drive taken out on Google Takeout with everyone else too. But I was, like, learning a lot, and then I got to add things. Like, I really hate there being a designated expert and then everyone else is a student. So I do, like, for these gatherings to be community building, coalition building. You know?

Yeah. In the way that other people know something that somebody else might not.

Yeah. Like, my background is privacy, which is a whole different realm from cybersecurity. So when actual technologists pull up, I'm listening. You know?

Yeah. For sure. I mean yeah. And just the the community building of it all is so important because your security online is reliant on other people. I think what people maybe don't realize, and Janice touched on this on her piece, and I'm sure this is part of the process also, is when there's like a GoFundMe setup or like a Cash App handle or Venmo, and that gets posted online.

It feels private because maybe your real name's not on it or there's not, like, identifying information on it, but people can still glean a lot of information from these crowdfunding things, which are meant to protect and support people in need, but then end up making you more vulnerable to, you know, people looking for your private information, whether it's like employers or the state or your landlord or your ex. So, yeah, I mean, are people surprised when they find that out usually?

Yes. I think people kind of post, like, everyone's business, their own business, or someone else's whole life on Instagram story or in a signal group chat or whatever because they're like, if I give all this information, you see how these compounding systems of oppression make some this person someone deserving of your money. But I don't know if it's true that giving that much information makes people care more. And it does also make everyone involved targeted. Like, I've been targeted for scams because I repost a lot of GoFundMe's or because I've given money to people before.

And I've had people, like stalkers find them from viral GoFundMe post as well. So I think, like, kind of observing that in an unfortunate circumstance made me more aware of it. But I do think when I tell people these things or, like and change their behaviors before something like that happens, it makes them realize, which I do appreciate as well. Like, I think people say PII or personal information or sensitive information, but don't define it. And then everyone's nodding, but behaviors aren't changing because we don't know what that means.

Right.

Especially outside of a work context.

Yeah. For sure. Yeah. I mean, kind of like PII are people not thinking ahead about?

The same profile pictures across platforms, the same usernames across platforms, Venmo handles, people, mutuals on social media, your live location on your Instagram story, like those kinds of things are sensitive, and I don't think people consider that. Like sometimes just from talking about the weather on Twitter, people can figure out where you live or local restaurants or spots or like local drama. People can kinda figure out a lot about you. So like not just individual data points, but data points that could be combined to identify is something people don't think about because it's all in one feed.

Right. Yeah. For sure. And I think that is that's definitely it's something that I've had to start thinking more and more about, especially when I see it happen to other people. It's like people will be identified by I don't know.

It's just like I'm careful about like, is my is the window behind me showing my street? Like, is it showing a specific tree that's only on my street? It feels crazy to think that way sometimes, but people go crazy with this stuff.

There was a lady at a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020, and they found her by finding her shirt on Etsy.

Oh my god.

And going to the Etsy seller and then narrowing down who in this town bought this particular shirt off of Etsy, and that's how they found her and came to her house and picked her up. So it's like really, like, random things that can identify you.

I talked to Kalina Koltai at Bellingcat a couple weeks ago for one of these podcasts, and she was talking about how they had found a guy who was running mister deepfakes, which was, like, the big deepfake site, for, like, nonconceptual imagery. And they part of how they found where he was moving around the world was Airbnb reviews, and they could see where he had booked Airbnb's and who had reviewed him as a guest and what host he had reviewed. It's like, never leave reviews about anything good or bad for that reason because, like, I don't know if someone could possibly find, you know, where I am. And that's another thing I think sex workers have have talked about quite a bit and just more people are becoming aware of, like you said, with the live location stuff, posting on Instagram, like, a live story where you are at the moment is such a big no. Don't do it.

Are people, like, freaked out by this sort of information when you tell them at these events? I feel like people come to the events that kind of already kind like, they're coming with a certain knowledge, that they needed it anyway. But is the response, like, woah. I didn't realize how serious this could be?

I think there's already enough alarmists, so I try not to be one. I think the reason why people avoid this education is because a lot of the people, like, leading conversations around Opsec are alarmist. So I really avoid that language. I don't present issues about a solution or a way to mitigate it. So I feel like people don't really leave my event scared ever, or I hope not.

I haven't gotten that feedback.

Yeah. A 100%. You know, you're here to to DJ, to to listen and toss-up in between things. Maybe make some plans to get off of Google, for example. I mean, getting off of Google is something I think a lot more people have been doing recently, especially with the new Google changes.

I mean, it is it feels like you said, it's a very overwhelming process. Google takes over so much of our lives, and owns so much of this software that we use every day. So divesting from Google feels like a big one, but it doesn't have to be. So, yeah, what is that process like? Just walking walking folks through that.

Yeah. So, at the Breakup with Google party, we had her Valentine's Day. We kinda started out with the baseline of people's comfort level with divesting from Google because some people need to use Google Workspace for work. Some people don't want that much friction in their lives. What have you, I think, like, any step people are making is a valuable one.

So people can start with switching their browser, their default search engine, their email provider, their cloud storage. And we use Google Takeout. So Google Takeout is a tool to just move your data off of all your emails out of your inbox, your Google Photos, Google Drive, calendar, contacts, everything. You can have those sent to you in zip files within a few hours. And people did that, moved it over to Proton, because Proton kinda has an equivalent for most of the major Google tools and their UX is pretty similar too.

So we did that. We had people compare different alternatives to the search engines. There are a ton on search party. So people can kinda find one that resonates with them. There has to be at least one because there's so many alternatives to Google, especially now that they have this Gemini thing that they're tripling down on.

It's becoming less and less usable. So switching your search engine is a good start as well. But there are some people who want like a graphene pixel phone as well, who are a bit more full throttle with it and they're

It's an intense move. Yeah.

Yeah. There are a lot of resources for them too, but I think it's cool to all be in the same space doing whatever it is that we wanna do. Because, like, whether you're switching over to Proton drive or getting graphene, it's not something fun, you know. So it's nice to do with good music, a drink, arcade games to play because it was at Wonderville. And to be able to take breaks and to compare notes, to compare tools.

So I think that's the self doxing one and the degoogling party, I think, are the most fun ones I've done, honestly. We had to intro to soul seek one as well to bring up with Spotify when Spotify was added to the BDS list. Well, actually, shortly before, but that was also around Valentine's Day. That one was super fun because I think tools like Soul Seek are scary to people who are used to, like, tech being, like, handed to them in a little package and, like, being pretty. And SoulSeek is beautiful.

I'm not calling her ugly, but it is intimidating to use tools like that and to set it up and to navigate it. And, like, I think tools that are open source and that are, like, made by its users are so sick and there are so many opportunities to engage with other users on SoulSeek compared to Spotify actually, which I didn't know before doing these. Like, we made little chat rooms and we lurked on each other's profiles and through each other's folders, which felt kind of social. So, like, there's tech can be fun. I think people are, like, mourning an Internet that doesn't exist anymore, but it still does.

You just have to know how to look for it. And I think cashing outside is also a space for that, for, like, discovering other channels to engage with others using technology as a tool that is pro social.

Yeah. I actually wasn't I wasn't super familiar with soul seek before, and I wanna try it out because I like you said, I do think it is it's people are either missing an Internet that never existed or they're too young to remember when you didn't have everything actually handed to you via, like, a pretty UI. It's always been this way. It's always been the fact that, like, Spotify will make you an algorithmic playlist. That's never how you know, it's never been different.

Whereas before, the socialness of music was even though it was still on your computer, you know, you were, like, trading files or, you know, legally or legally, or, you know, you were looking at each other's, like, Apple Music and, like, sitting down. Like, I remember just sitting, like, on a couch in a dorm room, like, looking through each other's libraries of music and just being like, oh, do you want this album? Not endorsing that. But it's it used to be that, you know, you had to actually put in the effort to collect to make a collection, to build a collection. And I think now everything is both, very slick and, like you said before, very, like going back to, like, the psychosis stuff, very, like, mystified.

The the way that I can't we were just talking earlier about how I can't repair my laptop battery anymore, but, like, this is a machine that does have parts that I do understand. It just I can't get to them anymore because of the way that, these corporations have packaged everything up away from our control. So I think it's really cool to be able to sit down with other people and say, we're gonna actually take control back. It's gonna be a different experience. You know, I'm not gonna get like a soul seek wrapped probably, but that's okay.

I'm not gonna get like a a proton wrapped, but I don't really need that.

Yeah. I feel like the Spotify wrap thing kind of, like made surveillance cute in this bizarre way. I don't think that was the intent from what I understand of like where Wrap came from. But I feel like prior to wrapped existing, the fact all that data was collected, it's like, why? You know?

Why was that there to begin with? And then I think, like, making it such a social thing to share how heavily Spotify has surveilled our user activity and interests and moods throughout the days and moods throughout the month, making it, like, kind of memeable or social proof kind of is nefarious to me. I feel that way about Duolingo too, but I don't want either I don't want Spotify or Duolingo Duolingo to get me. But I feel like Duolingo is like a master class in dark patterns.

Yeah. Say more about that because I don't use Duolingo. So what's going on

Oh.

With them?

I mean, like, when I learned what dark patterns were, I was like, oh, so like Duolingo and everyone looked at me so crazy. But I feel like when an app uses emotional manipulation or your friends to pressure you into using it. Because I think in the social dilemma, they were using like meta as an example where they're like, oh, your friends are posting. Oh, your friend liked this. You should go and see what they're doing.

But Duolingo will be like, Duo's gonna kill himself if you don't study French today.

Right.

And then he'll start sending your friends and they'll like, Bobby's Bobby noticed you haven't been studying French. Duo you're not listening to Duo. What about Bobby? And I'm like, oh my god.

Not Bobby's business.

Sending my friends after me. And like that feels like really manipulative to get me to get higher screen time at the end of the day. Like, at the end of the day, it is a game and an app that has ads on it that I'm feeling bullied into using for at least twenty minutes a day. So I I think it's interesting that that's considered a good marketing, but when Meta does it, it's evil, and there should be legislation around it. And I wonder if it's, like, because of the little owl.

Yeah. That damn owl. They anthropomorphized the app enough that people are off guard about it now, I guess.

Yeah. Like, sometimes they'll change the app a little bit of him crying or, like, injured.

This is such a it's a less it's a lower stakes thing because it's not I guess I guess it is. It's kind of the same thing, but I get really frustrated when prompts, like, prompts where you're trying to close out of something. This is, you know, speaking of, like, dark patterns. When you're trying to close out of something or, like, there's an error and it will say, like, sorry. We're I'm trying to fix it.

And it's like, don't speak to me. Yes.

Literally, no. You're not.

It's like, no. You're you're not sorry. You don't have emotions. You're, you know, like, Windows operating system. You're not doing

With the frowny face?

Yeah. Yeah. The frowny faces, the just, like, very friendly conversational error messages or, like, just messages in general. You're trying to close something, and it'll be like, see you later. It's like, no.

You're not my friend. And I think that's all kind of carried into, like, chatbots and why we see a lot of the psychosis stuff.

Something I do like is Airlearn. It's another language learning app, and their marketing tactic is they docs their users on Instagram and then like make they'll find their users on Instagram, go through all their pictures, their friends and family, and then like change their ethnicities and then make a copy of their whole networks, Instagrams, but, like, make them, like, from Portugal. And I've been waiting for them to do it to me. Like, they'll spin a wheel and be like, what ethnicity should this person be next? Like, oh, they're Chinese.

And then they'll pick a random user by spinning a wheel in a random ethnicity, and then they'll, like, tag them. What?

To, like,

deal with

you in the using the app?

No. It's like it's already existing users. Like they'll Okay. Okay. They'll get a big wheel and their little mascots is little like lesbian bear, I think.

Okay. Cat lesbian cat. Little lesbian cat and she's blue. And she'll spin a wheel of all of the usernames of their followers and they'll pick one.

Okay.

They'll spin another wheel of all the ethnicities. This is not sponsored. And and then they'll be like, okay. Here's Sam. We're gonna make her Chinese.

And then go, like, edit all of your pictures, all of your family members pictures, upload a copy of your Instagram, change the pictures and the contacts to make you in China and all the And captions in it's unclear if this is, like, real because people in the comments who are friends with these people or family members will be in disbelief in the comments every time. So that I'm like, is this a bit or I don't know. I love it though because I feel like that's digital security training kind of like, look how much we can find about you, random person. So I I actually really enjoy that even though that's also evil of them.

That's so yeah. I mean, it is so so much of this stuff happens very, like, away from your even, like, conscious use of the apps. So putting it in your face like that

Yeah.

Is so funny.

How do

we know the the cat is a lesbian?

So I'm suspecting that she's a lesbian. Yeah. Because Okay.

Happy pride to her.

Happy pride to air and also happy whore day to air. So

Yeah. Is it it's international for people who are like, what are you talking about? It's international, day of the sex worker.

So on the list of ethnicities, one of them is lesbian. Okay. And I think on, like, lesbian visibility day, people demanded that, like, lesbian that it ran on lesbian the wheel for someone's new ethnicity.

Famous ethnicity.

Yeah. Lesbian. And then they I think it's April fool's joke. They added lesbian as one of the language offerings, but they never actually like did it. So I'm like, I feel like whoever's behind this has to be a Chinese lesbian, otherwise, that'd be very strange.

So my headcanon is that so that I'm not, like, canceling her.

I think yeah. I mean, queen, regardless. Love her.

We should get her on the pod.

We should get her on the pod. Please, if you're listening to this, come on the pod. Yeah. These examples where it's, like, extremely in your face, I really enjoy. Because, yeah, the Spotify thing is very insidious.

Pornhub used to be like a Pornhub, like, not wrapped for individuals, but, like, here's all the data we have about our users all over the world. We'd be like, who's watching what during the Super Bowl? So that that sort of, like, wrapped thing became, like, acute. Here's all the data that we have on you, for other companies too. You know?

And people just they love it. And I every time I see one of these, I'm like, you don't realize that this is Scary. Data harvesting.

Yeah. That's scary. I mean, also saw a lot of reports and coverage of like porn hub trends aligning very closely with marginalized people and like rises and legislation harming marginalized people, and then that ends up being the trending categories. I feel like I stopped seeing the wraps around when I started seeing those.

They were like

Not good for the brand. Yeah.

Yeah. We're we're unearthing some darkness of human nature now, we're gonna stop.

But I feel like, also just on Pornhub, I feel like sex workers are such resources. And also, on the note of, like, sex workers day, are such great resources for digital security education. I've learned so much about protecting my online identity and fragmenting my online identity from observing sex workers and from hacking, hustling, and from, like, digging through just the relationship between sex work and early Internet and early social media. So much more than I've learned in boot camps or on the job, like, working in privacy or cybersecurity, especially today, wanna talk about it. Know that you've written a lot about it.

Yeah. For sure. I mean, I definitely I've learned a ton of so many things from sex workers, but also especially in the world of security practices and privacy practices online. It's because these problems happen to sex workers first. So they're you know, it's very famously said they're the canaries in the coal mine.

The other half of that, like, anecdote is, like, the canaries die. That's how you know that there's something happening. So it's such a harmful creep of surveillance and censorship, especially speaking of hacking and cussling. They've done some amazing work on censorship online against, marginalized communities and sex workers. So it is something that's, like, it's learned over and over the hardest way possible.

It's like it's cutting off people from their revenue and cutting off people from security and safety in real life. And I think learning things the hard way is so so difficult, but they're constantly also just sharing this information with everybody. And no one everyone's like, oh, you know, it's it's not coming for me, especially with, the age verification stuff. I see that happen a lot speaking of, like, protecting your privacy.

And they've been screaming about that for a decade, and now people are listening and, like, these things are already rolling out. You know?

Right. Yeah. It's like you have to we wrote a story last week about, you're gonna have to start giving your biometrics to this therapy app. And people are like, oh my god. What is this?

It's like, yeah. We've been talking about this for a minute. It's been something that's coming for you all along. It takes a while. It'll get to you eventually, but unless you start pushing back on, like, the idea that your privacy is meaningless and you don't you don't have anything to fear from these companies.

It's like you do actually, and you should be paying attention before it happens to you because then you're gonna be trying to see your therapist and having to scan your face. I mean, obviously, this this all very much intersects with the work that you're doing with these community based workshops outside of, like, the the usual traditional, like you said, the boot camps of the world or these things where, like, you you attend a lecture or you attend some kind of webinar. Those are good, but they also don't usually have the life or death lived experience that a lot of marginalized communities are dealing with or even just, people who go to protests or trans people who are surveilled all the time. I think it's something you said to Janice and something Janice touched on quite a bit in her piece was the idea that trans people are so hypervisible. It's because it was a it was a story the workshop was around trans day visibility.

You know, the idea that trans people's identities are very visible online and off and also just along with everyone else being collected en masse into these datasets and surveilled in a way that is so much more harsh. So, yeah, I mean, I that workshop, I think, was really interesting and really important in that context, especially.

Yes. I think, like, in allyship, people believe that visibility does some type of service to people. And in 2020 I mean, I'm not trans. I'm black though. And in 2020, I just, like, became, like, the mascot of a black person for so many people in my life.

And people just, like, wanted to send black people money for no reason in particular. And I'm like, awesome. Fab. But then, like, to be, like, highlighting, like, their random black friend on their Instagram story and being, like, here's this black person I know. I'm an ally.

Here's their whole life story. Here's all their business. And, you know, like, it is really dehumanizing and bizarre. And I feel like sometimes when I would talk to like people with different experiences with marginalization, they're like, oh, but like during Black Lives Matter, like everyone cared about what you were talking about. But yes, but also no.

Because with people shoving you to the front just by virtue of your identity or your lived experiences, that doesn't necessarily protect you or change your material conditions, but it does make you like super visible to people who are harming you or who seek to harm you. It's not protection to give visibility. And that's kind of what I was seeing with these bathroom bounty bills and then also this rise in highlighting random trans people in our lives and telling all their business on social media. It's like where where is this protection beyond highlighting that we're happy someone exists and then doing so in a space that's shared with people who wanna harm them. I feel like we beyond highlighting, giving visibility, we also need to be protective and be prepared to protect.

So that's kind of like what I mean the distinction between visibility and hypervisibility is is there protection accompanying that? Is there intentionality accompanying this visibility? Are they are there voices that needs being platformed? Are you just showing people that they exist?

Yeah. Yeah. Because otherwise, you're just kinda pushing people to the front with no Yeah. Backup. You're just saying, here's a spotlight.

And I feel like I saw that a lot on, like, past movements.

Yeah. It all and it all intersects so so intrinsically and so deeply. And I think that's again, it's like, you know, start paying attention to this now because it is it's not just a trans issue. It's not just a black issue. It's it's so it's so much more than that.

And I think, like, trans people also played such a big role in, like, building Internet as we know it and building the best parts of the Internet as we know it. So I do try to, like, acknowledge that. And also music and, like, electronic music, DJing, curating music, expand people's music taste, music discovery. So like highlighting that while also being able to materially give something like, I I'm not collecting money for this event, but we can raise money. People can donate to cover your digital cleanup or consulting or for membership with this.

So I wanted to highlight that knowledge, the sources of this knowledge, these resources, the music, all the contributions of the trans community while also, like, providing some type of protection to that community, some kind of service to the community as well. And I feel like also, like, intergenerationally, like, web one trans people have an understanding of the Internet and operating on the Internet that Gen Z doesn't necessarily. So having space for those intergenerational conversations to take place too. Around the internet, internet safety, existing online, sending your people online. When I read Chelsea Manning's memoir, something that stuck out to me was like how big being chronically online played into, like, her formative years because that's where her people were.

And that's not something I really thought about until I read it.

Yeah. And it's getting so much harder to find your people online. You touched on so much of culture is black culture or trans culture, sex worker culture, and then having that get scraped into by these big tech companies, these things that then violate the privacy and security and safety of those communities is just such an insidious, sickening thing to to watch happen every day, but it's it's constantly happening. So, yeah, I mean, having having education and knowledge about how to protect yourself against that force will keep, you know, keep those communities going, and keep them visible in a way that doesn't make them more vulnerable because that is that is also important. You know, we don't wanna just, like, scrub ourselves from the Internet and go away forever.

It's it's something that, you know, we we need people to still exist online and talk to each other online without forking over so much personal information. But it's hard to do. I mean, that's something that I think a lot of people are like, oh, just get offline. You know? Just go just go and it's like that's not it's like saying just leave the room at this point.

It's like just leave the party.

I mean, it also just feels really privileged. I heard a story. I don't remember who to credit for this, but it was like Instagram reel. And there was a girl who was hanging out with, like, one of the divesting entirely from tech, dumb phone, Luddite people, and his girlfriend. And when it came time to pay for dinner and to get Uber home, he like looked to her to get out Apple Pay and to call the Uber because he had a flip phone.

And I feel like it's such like you have to be in a place of privilege to be able to navigate the world because you're either outsourcing that labor elsewhere as far as being able to navigate the world or you're missing out on building community and coalitions and can chip with people who can't divest entirely from technology. Like, there's so many connections you miss out on and people you're not able to reach. There are people who can't live their lives without a smartphone. You know, it's not a class issue where people who lack access to smartphones just like people who have to have one too.

Right. Yeah. It's job opportunities, connection to other people, connection to health care, connection to

The family.

Support their family. Yeah. It's just not an option for so many people. And, yeah, it's not an answer to to how to protect yourself.

We just need to get more literate. That's really all it is. Learn how to use a computer.

You should do a PC building party next.

I there is a repair workshop in the works. There's this organization that I've been building relationship with that does, like, laptop repairs, works with the recycling program, and we've been hoarding Raspberry Pis and iPods and Walkmans.

Nice.

A little repair workshop, and, there's, like, a free library of laptops to borrow from the ones that end up getting repaired, which I think is super sick. They're called fix it with Piggy in the Bronx.

Cool. Fix it with piggy. We'll we'll link them in the show notes. But, yeah, we'll stay tuned for the for the workshop on that. That's so awesome.

Yeah. So I will let you go shortly, but one thing that I have been asking guests and putting them on the spot about is asking what gives them hope. This what you're doing gives me hope. These workshops give me so much hope. Watching, these things build into these bigger things give me hope.

So what is giving you hope these days?

Honestly, like, I do feel a bit energized every time I host a workshop, every time someone d m's me about, like, the strides they're making with opening GitHub for the first time or getting on terminal or trying out an open source tool because I feel like when there's more friction in our relationship to technology and connecting with others and also when there's more, like, agency and our relationship with tech, that's really where we can connect with others online and have fun and, like, have the whimsy and real connection that people are nostalgic about is by, like, us building tools ourselves and learning how to use them. I know, like, people are hating, but I think the cyberdecks sometimes give me hope if people aren't Yeah. Vibe coding If it's not vibe coded, I'm like, go off sister. Like, I've seen really cute ones. And I think that also, like, is people testing the waters with literacy around technology and having technical skills and repair.

I'm like, yes, the curlies are into prima computing. I never thought I'd see the day.

Because I'm back.

Yeah. So, like, that gives me hope. I think, like, the more people are frustrated with tech and their instinct is to learn how it works instead of moving off the grid. I feel like it's so much more pro social and pro humanity. So I am really happy whenever I see that.

Yeah. Yeah. For sure.

I think

the cyber dice are cool. I don't know. I think they're awesome. I wanna make one. We often write about some dark stuff and some bleak things here at four zero four, so it's always nice to kind of counter that with, like, what is actually happening that's good and that's cool.

So

I love your silly stories.

I know. They're fun. Yeah. We should be doing more silly stories.

I think of the VR the VR, like, sex guy thing often, like, that is like

Which was still, like, kinda bleak.

I think of it all the time.

Yeah. The story about the guy the AI they're they're an AI even. I I don't know what they were. They're just like horrible, horrible state of AR foreign right now. So go check that story out.

Guess if you wanna laugh, we'll do more silly stories. I promise. But for now, I will read us out. As a reminder, four four Media is journalist founded and supported by subscribers. If you wish to subscribe to four four Media and directly support our work, please go to 44media.co.

You get unlimited access to articles and and every version of this podcast. You also get to listen to subscribers only section where we talk about a bonus story each week. This podcast is produced by Alyssa Midcalf. Leave us a five star rating. That really helps.

Thank you so much, Imani. Good to see you, and thanks for listening.

Let's try.