
Jeff Bezos Met Gala; Sarah Paulson Protest Look; OpenAI Stalking Lawsuit; My Handbook App's Fake AI Black Woman Scam - NEWS ROUNDUP
There Are No Girls on the InternetShow Notes
THIS WEEK ON THERE ARE NO GIRLS ON THE INTERNET Hi — if you found us through Instagram, you're in the right place. There Are No Girls on the Internet is a weekly podcast hosted by Bridget Todd. Every Friday we drop our news roundup — the tech and internet stories that don't get enough attention, the ones about AI, power, gender, race, and who actually gets hurt when systems fail. This week: AI-enabled stalking lawsuits. Fake AI-generated identities. Labor protests outside billionaire-sponsored galas. Kids bypassing online safety systems with fake mustaches. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. New roundup every Friday. 🎧 Here's what we covered this week: A porn site built a business out of videos of unconscious women being assaulted. It just got shut down. Gisèle Pelicot's husband drugged and assaulted her and invited dozens of men to do the same. Motherless.com built a business out of hosting thousands of videos exactly like it. In the wake of a viral CNN investigation, the site was temporarily taken offline. 🔗 CNN investigation A book app used a fake AI Black woman to launch — and the app was supposed to be AI-free. Handbook App launched with an AI-generated image of a Black woman in Random House's offices and a false claim that the founder worked there. She has since apologized. The app was marketed as AI-free. The founder image was AI. 🔗 Viral breakdown | More context Someone stole a Cambridge academic's face to promote a fetish site — and is lying about her to do it. Dr. Ally Louks went viral for her Cambridge PhD on the politics of smell. Now large accounts are using her likeness to falsely advertise a fetish marketplace, implying she's selling smelly used clothing. Her own research, weaponized against her. Platforms are doing nothing. "Being a woman on the internet is a special kind of hell," she says. 🔗 Vox | Dr. Louks' original post | Guardian / UN Women The person giving you health advice online is probably trying to sell you something. A major new Pew study found only 17% of health influencers have real medical credentials. The rest are coaches, entrepreneurs and self-proclaimed experts — many earning a cut of every supplement bottle they sell. 🔗 Pew Research A woman is suing OpenAI after ChatGPT helped her stalker terrorize her. Her ex used ChatGPT to fuel his delusions and generate fake psych reports he sent to her family, friends, and employer. She reported it to OpenAI. They never followed up — even though their own systems had flagged his account for mass casualty weapons activity. He was later arrested for assault with a deadly weapon and a bomb threat. She's suing to preserve his chat logs before he's released. 🔗 Futurism AI writing tools are grading kids differently based on race and gender. A Stanford study found AI gives Black students more praise and less criticism than white students — while pushing white students to sharpen their arguments. As lead researcher Mei Tan put it: "Maybe a takeaway is that we shouldn't leave the pedagogy to the large language model." 🔗 Hechinger Report Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary wants to build a 40,000 acre data center in Utah — and locals are furious. After hundreds of Utahns showed up to protest, O'Leary claimed 90% were "bused in" and paid by "professional protesters." He provided zero evidence. A Salt Lake Tribune reporter at the meeting saw no buses. 🔗 Salt Lake Tribune Hackers stole data from 9,000 schools and held it for ransom. A breach of Canvas — used by 41% of North American colleges — forced universities to cancel final exams. 275 million students and staff may be affected. One cybersecurity expert's advice: "Assume your name and email are now in criminal circulation." 🔗 Krebs on Security Jeff Bezos bought his way into fashion's biggest night. He and Lauren spent $10 million to chair the Met Gala while Amazon workers staged their own fashion show outside. SEIU President April Verrett said: "Labor is art." 🔗 Democracy Now Kids are beating age ve
More from There Are No Girls on the Internet
What if the person you're falling for isn't who they say they are, and AI is helping them fool you? Romance scammers are using AI to create fake identities, write convincing messages, and even manipulate Google results to build trust and steal money. In one alleged scheme, a man posing as a San Francisco 49ers player used a Google AI Overview to bolster his fake identity. But AI isn't just changing how people get scammed. From Tinder and Bumble to flirting with help from ChatGPT, it's increasingly shaping how we meet, date, and connect with real people. Bridget Todd explores what happens when technology can manufacture the very things that make romance feel real, and why verifying someone's identity is getting harder. Get Bridget’s audiobook Love at First Prompt: AI and the Future of Intimacy at LoveAtFirstPrompt.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi want more women to start betting, BUT they’re not necessarily calling it gambling. In part two, Bridget looks at how Love Island, influencers, reality TV, and the language of financial empowerment are being used to bring women into prediction markets, why regulators are fighting over whether these platforms are gambling at all, and what happens when practically anything becomes something you can bet on. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial became something people could bet on through Polymarket. And it’s part of a much bigger push to get women into prediction markets. In part one of our look at the new gambling frontier, Bridget breaks down how prediction markets like Polymarket are turning everything from Love Island and celebrity gossip to politics and real-life tragedy into something you can put money on.
Today, July 14th, is the day my audiobook Love At First Prompt: AI and the Future of Intimacy goes on sale! This audiobook is one of the most personal things I’ve ever made. It’s about loneliness, AI companions, and what happens when technology starts becoming emotionally entangled with our lives. I spent months talking to researchers, reporters, and people who feel they are experiencing real relationships with AI. I also talked with experts about the risks of people using AI in this way, and the idea that we're so busy gawking at and judging the individuals involved, we're letting the tech companies that actually MAKE these products avoid the scrutiny they actually deserve. Here is an excerpt from the audiobook featuring our conversation with journalist and cofounder of 404 Media Sam Cole that asks what happens to humans when AI is used for sexual and erotic role play. You can check out LOVE AT FIRST PROMPT at www.LoveAtFirstPrompt.AI or wherever audiobooks are sold. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We’re taking a short hiatus from publishing here, but will continue publishing weekly news roundups on our Patreon. Anyone can listen for free, without ads, at our Patreon at tangoti.com/roundup . There are new stories there today, so please check it out after you listen to this episode! There Are No Girls on the Internet is a weekly podcast and newsletter hosted by Bridget Todd covering the tech, internet, and culture stories that deserve more attention — especially when they're about AI, power, gender, race, and who actually gets hurt when systems fail. We read the internet so you don't have to. This week: The Social Network is getting a sequel and Jeremy Strong is playing Zuckerberg, a bombshell ProPublica investigation into raw milk and the kids it's put in the hospital, and Bill Gates testified before Congress about Jeffrey Epstein — totally voluntarily, he cannot stress this enough. 🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.