Episode Details

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 studen