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Stalkerware Being Sold on TikTok & Monetizing our Worst Instincts
117 Plays5 days ago
A stalkerware economy is thriving on TikTok, and it's generating hundreds of thousands in sales. Journalist Rosie Thomas from 404 Media joins the show this week discuss her investigation into GPS trackers being sold as relationship surveillance tools directly through TikTok Shop. This isn't some dark web operation - it's happening on one of the world's most popular social platforms.
The findings are disturbing. Content targets people with taglines like "Is she really going out with friends?" are generating hundreds of thousands in sales. Algorithms don't just show you this content - they amplify it the moment you engage.
The digital economy we all live in has normalized surveillance to the point where stalking your partner is being marketed as a reasonable relationship tool. The technology isn't new, but the accessibility and algorithmic amplification absolutely is.
This conversation touches on everything from the failure of tech companies to consider abuse cases in product design, to how parasocial relationships are replacing actual community bonds, to the legal gaps that leave victims with limited recourse.
If you work in tech, this episode should make you uncomfortable. As a citizen, it should terrify you. It's a reminder that our biggest threats often come from the normalization of our culture's worst tendencies.
Read more on 404Media: https://www.404media.co/tiktok-shop-sells-viral-gps-trackers-marketed-to-stalkers/
Recommended
Transcript
TikTok's Content Moderation Issues
00:00:00
Speaker
And TikTok, as you said, doesn't have a process for filtering out this kind of content. You know, you can report it, but as it stands, it appears that TikTok is not able to recognize or remove this content ah automatically.
00:00:16
Speaker
So they are benefiting between the time that the content goes up and the time that it gets reported or removed from people's desire to be stalkers.
00:00:29
Speaker
Like...
Introduction to 'Bare Knuckles and Brass Tacks' Podcast
00:00:38
Speaker
Welcome back. This is Bare Knuckles and Brass Tacks, the tech podcast about humans. I'm George K. And I'm George a And today our guest is journalist Rosie Thomas. We reached out to her after an article she wrote for 404 Media about...
00:00:56
Speaker
what could casually be called stalkerware being advertised and sold on tick tock. So this far ranging conversation. Obviously we dug into the story, other social technical trends, and it was a fun time.
00:01:09
Speaker
Uh, I'm a big fan of 404 and it was just really great to talk with a journalist about the meat and potatoes of investigating the story. Yeah, I think it was really enjoyable to bring on a a true journalist and someone that doesn't actually have anything to do with tech. It was so refreshing.
00:01:26
Speaker
yes it awesome Also, just like the generational kind of age difference between someone who is of the age to be getting a master's at the moment and ah our old asses. and i know. Yeah.
00:01:38
Speaker
We came off as geezers for sure. Oh, dude, it was bad. i mean, she was amazing. She was incredible. i was I thought it was a really insightful episode. We really touched on a lot of cool things and um we handled some technical issues just in terms of spyware and starware.
00:01:56
Speaker
And we talked about some big picture stuff about independent media and about where we kind of see society going in the future of
Investigating Stalkerware on TikTok
00:02:02
Speaker
journalism. So I think it's going to be a real good episode with something for everyone.
00:02:06
Speaker
Absolutely. ah Be sure to check out Rosie's article is linked in the show notes and we'll leave it to her.
00:02:18
Speaker
Rosie Thomas, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. Yes, we are very pleased to have you here. As I said before we started recording, I have been a big fan and promoter of 404 Media.
00:02:31
Speaker
Very good work that you all put out. um And I have been a subscriber since day one. So um you are here, though, to talk about a particular story of yours that came out.
00:02:42
Speaker
So let's just set the context. Why don't you catch our readers up on that story? ah What did you find? And i guess, how did this story come to you? Um, so I have just, uh, very, just this week finished my summer fellowship at 404 Media.
00:03:01
Speaker
Um, and as part of that fellowship, I was writing about a few different topics, including, um kind of TikTok and, uh,
00:03:13
Speaker
ah things that are happening on TikTok that are weird or
AirTags and Surveillance Concerns
00:03:17
Speaker
strange. And so um one of the things that I wrote about is ah these trackers that are being advertised on TikTok shop um as a way to assuage somebody's um ah suspicions of their partner if they think they're cheating if they think they're um out with friends or if they have ah ah you know really any any reason to to want to know where their partner is or or they think their partner is lying to them so
00:03:53
Speaker
um i ah You are being, you're being very polite. I will say for our listeners, we would call it stalkerware, right? GPS trackers and the like. But yes, I understand where you're coming from.
00:04:06
Speaker
Exactly. And it's interesting because, well, like kind of As far as I understand it, stalkerware is more kind of, would be on somebody's phone as like a kind of a secret. um But these are ah like these are more analogous to like air tags.
00:04:28
Speaker
And in fact, a lot of the reviews in the TikTok shop were angry purchasers who were saying that the tags actually did ultimately work like AirTags in that they alerted their... The target.
00:04:48
Speaker
The target, as it were. And so um the interesting thing about this is that when AirTags were originally released, they didn't have any um they didn't have any safety features built in. So um Sam, who is also at 404, when she was working at Motherboard, um did some reporting around this where basically she had reviewed a number of um police records and found that air tags were being kind of referenced in ah domestic violence claims and pretty frequently and that Apple hadn't hadn't built any um kind of security considerations into their product.
00:05:31
Speaker
Yeah. when Sorry, one second, Rosie. you can yeah Can you just take ah like two inches back from the mic because it's a little clippy. How's the game? Otherwise, the audio is good.
00:05:42
Speaker
I can turn it down a bit, actually. Yeah, i would just a touch because like it's a little little clippy, but otherwise- How's this now That's perfect. Great. That's better? Yeah, thank you.
00:05:52
Speaker
Okay. um Yes, i I take your point about the air tags. i a lot of the i used to work for a trust and safety startup. And one of the things that I kept saying is a lot of these systems, the reason they need trust and safety later this because- They're designed by people who have never been under threat or faced harm. Right. So i like I remember when AirTags came out, it's like, look at this fabulous invention, because now you can just like find out all your lost stuff. And it's like, oh, right, because you rich, white Silicon Valley engineer have never been a victim of somebody trying to, you know, know your whereabouts at all times.
00:06:33
Speaker
Totally. And i mean, I think that that is kind of the premise underpinning the entire field of kind of feminist cybersecurity, as it were, although that's not something that i claim to be an expert in.
00:06:44
Speaker
But
Societal Shifts in Privacy and Surveillance
00:06:45
Speaker
i I do think that there are, you know, there are so many different uses for these products and what has happened with AirTags, especially because they're it's so common and everybody already, not everybody, but lots of people already have an iPhone and it's so easy and it's so simple.
00:07:05
Speaker
Um, and it's $30. Like it's, it's become like the friction in making that decision to to buy something like that has become less, you know? And I think that the, the ads that I was seeing on TikTok, um,
00:07:21
Speaker
kind of play into that because they, they so you know, they're so, oh do you have a suspicion that you your partner is is cheating? do you Do you think that maybe there's a reason that she's not telling you, you know, where she's going? Like that, seeing that kind of advert also reduces the friction in somebody's decision know,
00:07:46
Speaker
as you say, stalk somebody that might be present if they were, you know, if they were to just think, or if they were to Google, should I buy a GPS tracker?
00:07:59
Speaker
Like if they were to Google. Yes, like just normalized surveillance. Totally, exactly. And so it it plays into that kind of, it it makes it easier for people to think that it's normal.
00:08:09
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's it's interesting um because with George's perspective and kind of hearing from his old job and and the Silicon Valley mentality, um i had a different take on that when AirTags came out because my background is like Army Sigan.
00:08:27
Speaker
So I knew that whole world was just like, oh, now civilians are getting the toys that we use at work for like $10. play essentially right so myself and my my peers from back in those days we knew right away what it was and you know it was it was so crazy to me that they actually released it because everything else is typically really under a controlled goods mandate for that type of technology and suddenly it's like oh they gave apple a a commercial license to just
00:08:59
Speaker
put these tags everywhere. So now they're just connected to the global GPS system and we could just track people and metadata hosing is that like you can literally just assign all that data classification and it's all under your control. You know, and I it's crazy to me because it's almost like the data scientists knew what was up.
00:09:20
Speaker
the architects and the engineers knew what was up, but then the go to market people were just like, people are going to love this. And that was the extent of the conversation.
00:09:31
Speaker
So it's, I guess all is to say is, is I find it kind of insidious and insane to me that as a society, people are taking these advertisements and they're taking this technology Where do you see, because because I know from my perspective, and I think it's just being a washed up old army spook, probably why um I'm very, very adamantly respectful of of personal privacy like in my life.
00:10:01
Speaker
like In how I deal with things at work, people's privacy comes first. I would never put any key logger on people's devices. don't try people's time. I push back against any kind of attempts for conversations like that.
00:10:13
Speaker
At home, I've never been the kind of person to like look at my partner's phone or something like that. Like it's like if I feel enough need to to be suspicious like that, we probably shouldn't be together. There's probably bigger conversations you'd have. But being paranoid with one another, that's not a healthy game to play.
00:10:31
Speaker
So I'm trying to understand where in your opinion... When did society turn the corner? And when did we stop respecting one another's privacy as human beings?
00:10:42
Speaker
And suddenly it became ah commodified service and a product to now spy on your loved ones, because that is the the most insidious part of this entire thing.
Civilian Use of Military-Grade Surveillance Tools
00:10:56
Speaker
Oh, my gosh. um I mean, and that's such a huge and broad question that I'm almost not sure where... To begin, i think it's interesting that you talk about the military because my favorite TV show is The Americans and they have a lot of, show they show a lot of like kind of very authentic, you know, period era, like ah accurate spy techniques.
00:11:25
Speaker
And um a lot of the technology that they use in that is now, ah you know, commonplace in our daily lives. I think that there have always been
00:11:38
Speaker
You know, I think that there have always been people who who wanted to, you know, control their partners. I think there have always been people who wanted to, um i suppose, use the tools of the day to ah control their loved ones.
00:11:59
Speaker
I suppose.
00:12:03
Speaker
I guess my perspective is that, um you know, we we we want to surveil each other to the maximum that it is technologically committed at the time.
00:12:14
Speaker
or not that we want to, but that um if somebody is predisposed to that kind of behavior and they're smart enough to do it, they will be using the technology of the day, if that makes sense.
00:12:32
Speaker
yes I think i think that there there is maybe something in the zeitgeist. Right. We have, as you said in your well, you actually didn't say this in the article, so let me not put that on you. But that's when in the in the article.
00:12:47
Speaker
It is very clear that the advertisements you're seeing on TikTok are heavily coded male, right? the The excerpts that you have from the voiceovers are like, is she going out with friends?
00:12:59
Speaker
Is it really a booty call? There's there. Actually, I scanned it twice. There's no like, do you suspect he is right? It's very much coded as masculine control. And I think it's really.
00:13:11
Speaker
Oh, sorry. Go for it. Sorry to interrupt you um i I agree with you. And what's interesting is that this article is about the trackers. And I will say that I also saw TikTok ads for cameras and the cameras were much more female coded.
00:13:29
Speaker
The cameras, the cameras, tiny little spy cameras were, you know, I put this camera somewhere so I could see what my boyfriend was doing. And and not that's not to say that they were all female coded. There was still a large kind of chunk of male coded, ah you know, my girlfriend is XYZ, I watched her, blah, blah, blah.
00:13:50
Speaker
But i i there were more, this is such an odd thing to say, but there were more female voices in the cameras section of this in the market. Fascinating. That is fascinating.
00:14:01
Speaker
Because I think ah the male coded control is very much of the. what do we want to call this shit? The Andrew Tate, the Sigma, the like undercurrent of like hyper masculinity and chauvinism that has sort of reared its.
00:14:20
Speaker
And again, i think that's very much like of a piece with that. I'm I'm very interested in the in the other half of that. um So the big thing, though, as you said, you would use the technology of the day.
00:14:34
Speaker
That is one thing. Here is the tracker, whether it's an air tag that's just like put into like a plastic coated magnet thing and it's like track the car or whatever is one thing. That's just the the hardware.
00:14:46
Speaker
I think the interesting thing for me is also you found this again. This is not dark web shit. This isn't deep in forums straight up on TikTok. World's arguably one of the most popular social platforms.
00:14:58
Speaker
And in your article, you relate again the moment you started looking at these things or clicking into the ads that would take you to TikTok shop, which is now we're entering a commercial agreement.
00:15:09
Speaker
The algorithm just started feeding you more of it, right? So there's one thing to be said for the technology of the day, but in this day and age amplified, you know, by this algorithmic bubble, the likes of which we'd never seen before. Before, if you wanted to You'd go to Radio Shack or go, it was like a subculture that you had to be a part of. But this feels very much accessible and kind of geared towards a generalized audience.
00:15:36
Speaker
um Anyway, that's a lot of diatribe. But I guess my question to you is, I know you talked to TikTok and they would take some things down. But what was your sense of like how actively they are looking for these things? Because it does violate their terms of service.
00:15:51
Speaker
Well, yeah. I mean, I so i spoke to TikTok and they deleted the account. i I showed them an account that had these videos and they took that account down.
00:16:03
Speaker
um But I couldn't find all the accounts that had the videos to show them. so then when I went on the next day, i could find a bunch more.
00:16:15
Speaker
And i i mean, i i this was a couple of weeks ago now, but I found a bunch more yesterday. um I agree that it is, it is yeah like, yes, we are currently living through a moment where, you know, algorithms are amplifying ideas that are clicky, that are buzzy, that tap into some kind of, um like the the worst animals of our nature, I suppose, they, ah like TikTok, I think, I agree with you, does um encourage ah like indulgence in that kind of, in in that kind of like, like, even if this, even if this were not about
00:16:58
Speaker
ah domestic violence or stalking, like the way that we use the algorithm, it does encourage kind of leaning into our our worst impulses. Yeah. but then But then would you not think because...
Resistance to Personal Surveillance
00:17:12
Speaker
You know, there has to be a point where there's a recourse in this. And i think where the issue is, is that the technology itself is novel. And I don't really think like because people aren't technologists and and it's like a toy. They're going to see a shiny toy. They'll be into it for a bit. And then they're not going to maintain ah month over month operation unless they're already of that mindset and they would have done it anyway.
00:17:35
Speaker
I think the issue, again, boils down to we as a society have become a lot more self-centered. And I think our interests now um supersede anything else or any sense of community.
00:17:50
Speaker
So it's like, where do we then start pushing back against us? Because it's a big commercial force. The algorithm's taking it up and people love clicking on it because it's tawdry. It's just taboo enough of a subject that people want to pay attention to it.
00:18:06
Speaker
How do we begin shifting that narrative away? Because I don't, I don't want to exist in a police state where either the government or my fellow citizens for their own personal reasons are spying on me.
00:18:19
Speaker
And I just want to figure out how we we try to resist this based on your research and your journalistic experience.
00:18:32
Speaker
Rosie, save Rosie, save us from this. just to This is. Please be solution oriented. um I mean, ah i i do...
00:18:46
Speaker
It's interesting because in in many ways we are in a moment... We're in a moment of, like, great transition now, and probably my answer to this question would is different than it it would have been, you know, even a couple of years ago.
00:18:59
Speaker
um you know, legally, for people who would be... um victims of this kind of behavior, I think we are in one of the stronger moments in history.
00:19:18
Speaker
That's not to say we're in a place where, you know, all potential victims of this kind of stalking will ever see, ah you know, full redress, especially not ones who have, you know, suffered ah like severe injuries.
00:19:35
Speaker
injuries or or mental, you know, health implications or or even being killed. but But we are in the moment in history that has the most legal protections for victims of of stalking.
00:19:52
Speaker
um
00:19:55
Speaker
That said,
00:19:59
Speaker
it's it's still not, you know, there doesn't seem to be a way to, like, I don't know.
Legal Challenges Against Anti-Stalking Measures in Tech
00:20:06
Speaker
There's currently a class action lawsuit in California against Apple for AirTags not having sufficient... Controls. Like stalker proofing, essentially.
00:20:17
Speaker
And I think I had the article up a little while ago, but... Basically, you know, judge has said, yeah, there there's grounds here, um but ah it's only if you live in California and the the trackers didn't, you know, ultimately work to any extent And that caused you harm. So like if the tracker, if the tracker notified you, then, and you found it, then it is stalker proof. And so that's fine. And so you can't be part of the class action lawsuit, despite the fact that you were for some period of time tracked.
00:20:52
Speaker
um So yeah, I mean, it's a really tough situation.
00:21:02
Speaker
Hey listeners, we hope you're enjoying the start of season four with our new angle of attack, looking outside just cyber to technology's broader human impacts.
Listener Engagement and Feedback Request
00:21:12
Speaker
If there's a burning topic you think we should address, let us know.
00:21:15
Speaker
is the AI hype really a bubble about to burst? What's with romance scams? Or maybe you're thinking about the impact on your kids or have questions about what the future job market looks like for them.
00:21:26
Speaker
Let us know what you'd like us to cover. Email us at contact at bareknucklespod.com. And now back to the interview.
00:21:38
Speaker
Yeah, you point out also in the article quite accurately that despite what the ads say on like, oh, this is legal or whatever, there are actually state by state, at least here in the U.S., many laws on the books in various states that you cannot record people.
Inconsistencies in Tracking and Recording Laws
00:21:56
Speaker
without their uh explicit permission and you cannot um even track them i mean there are actually laws on the books about being able to like surveil people without uh due process i guess it's just incumbent upon the victims i guess to discover but you know in order to have enough legal standing to bring that forward Yeah, absolutely. So when the tracker, when, I mean, when Apple AirTags in general were first invented or first released, there were, um you know, like people found the trackers and people were tracked and stalked.
00:22:34
Speaker
And like, like police and judges were like, we don't know what this is. We have no idea. Like there's no like, is this stalking? Is this illegal?
00:22:45
Speaker
Like they they they weren't able to identify it as a form of coercive control or is it as a form of violence. um There are 11 states that say it is illegal.
00:22:58
Speaker
illegal to use a GPS tracker to like and the GPS tracker tracking is in their stalking laws. Um, and then there are 15 other States that say it's illegal to track a car without the owner knowing.
00:23:12
Speaker
Um, but, but that's kind of it in terms, like as far as I can tell in terms of stalking and in terms of tracking being included in, in stalking laws, um, obviously ah Also, domestic violence is not like a um ah defined category.
00:23:29
Speaker
So stalking is one of the... ah like permutations. Exactly. yeah So let me let let's just shift for a second now because ah we do want to shed light and and give props to the company that you work with, right? Because 404 has done a really good job.
00:23:49
Speaker
I'd say being one of what what I'll call the Alamos of truth, one of the last places you could actually get real journalism and reporting. So first of all, would you say that you guys are part of this independent media movement that is still the last place that people can consistently find truth?
Impact of Independent Media on Tech Accountability
00:24:10
Speaker
And where do you see the role of independent media progressing to? Um, yeah, so uh, as I said, I just finished my summer fellowship at 404.
00:24:21
Speaker
And the reason that I wanted to work with them, um, is that is, is, is kind of what you're saying. I think that they, um,
00:24:32
Speaker
do some really, really incredible work, having started like only two years ago from from basically kind of nothing. um And I, yeah, I really feel like I've learned a lot from them in the last couple of months. that um In terms of the future of independent journalism, I think We're kind of in the middle of this transition from like legacy media infrastructure, and i include TV in that, to phones.
00:25:07
Speaker
And so I see like the future of independent journalism being
00:25:17
Speaker
like more of the, more of the same, like more worker owned, more journalists owned cooperative organizations. Um, obviously it would be great if some, like, uh, like if like different parts of the media infrastructure had, um, funders, uh, and backing in the same way as certain other parts do.
00:25:42
Speaker
um, But yeah, i think i think it's I think it's a transitional phase. so Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things I appreciate the most is, to your point, George, 404 is like one of the only ones holding tech to account, you know, and like nitty gritty tactical warfare. Like if anyone has gone to their site, they have regular workshops on how to file freedom of information requests. I mean, it's like very sort of empowered citizen journalism, but with the discipline of like not a sub stack, like not just like, I'm going to rant on this thing because I have opinions.
00:26:18
Speaker
Yeah. yeah I mean, it's it's like real, real journalism. ands And to your point, Rosie, i think, ah yeah, the shift and the balance is such that like, you know things like the New York Times have the wherewithal to maintain bureaus overseas, which is like, that's incredible. And that's great.
00:26:36
Speaker
And they employ stringers on the ground and... But then once the news comes back through the filter, you know, through the editorial board, it can kind of get distorted. And and so I think 404 has done a really good job of focusing their sites on what they can do from where they are. like They don't have to maintain a foreign bureau or anything.
00:26:57
Speaker
um But ah let me ask you a personal question since you're the journalist. and You said you were largely looking at like these trends on TikTok. Yeah.
00:27:08
Speaker
ah I am an old man. You strike me as much younger. So my question is, are you or were you a user of TikTok before you started this down this path and has your experience of looking at it through the lens of investigative journalism, I don't know, shifted your opinion or your or or your relationship with it as a platform?
TikTok's Influence on Content and Personal Experiences
00:27:31
Speaker
in my personal life, I am very anti, uh, like algorithmic and the scroll content feed. I probably would surprise you to learn. Um, just because I think that they, I mean, i don't know. I've seen what they've done to, ah the attention spans of many of my closest friends.
00:27:56
Speaker
Um, and, uh, I don't, I don't know. think, uh, That said, I have been on TikTok in the past, personally.
00:28:07
Speaker
And so i think coming to it from like with the lens and of trying to look more for trends and trying to look more for um ah like things that are out of the ordinary, think.
00:28:24
Speaker
has been very instructive for me. So um one of the um pieces that i one of the other pieces that I wrote over the summer was... um looking at ah the videos being posted by people who had been deported to Mexico um or who had chosen to self-deport to Mexico.
00:28:44
Speaker
um and I found that to be ah like ah another example of the way that kind of the content creation machine is now shaping people's experiences, even in some of the kind of darker moments of of their lives, they're they're translating that into content.
00:29:02
Speaker
And so... um Yeah, that was something that I really hadn't thought about very much that's interesting that there's that impulse, that instinct, it that instinct, that behavior pattern of like, this is happening to me, i should publicly document it.
00:29:17
Speaker
and Right, yeah. um But yeah. Yeah, it's it's a bit tough because, you know, I think we are in a generation of people now who are so thirsty for this content and people are understanding. We talk about all time on the show, like authenticity being kind of the most appealing type content out there.
00:29:42
Speaker
I think there is a um, there's a certain trend of trauma I find that people are really into. And, and you know, similarly, cause I have to deal with it at work.
00:29:55
Speaker
I see a lot of divorce content, right? So there's like all these people that are basically talking about like, you don't need a partner, you don't need to be married. And then, you know, like, video after video, especially a lot of women will talk about their lead in to choosing get a divorce.
00:30:14
Speaker
And then they have divorce and then like, what's their life like afterwards? And you're just like, I don't for the life of me. And the who am I to say what's good content from not good content?
00:30:27
Speaker
I would think I would not in my darkest, darkest personal hour. Want to pull a camera out? Like live stream? What's happening to you? Like when you see it. Yeah. Let's go ahead, George. This is an odd impulse. I mean, as an outsider, I mean, very low key social media user. I post on LinkedIn, which is like the lamest social media platform of all time. But like George is like 40 and I'm like 38. So we're old.
00:30:55
Speaker
thirty eight so we're old And you are like not in your late 30s. So please help us to understand. For people like in your generation who see this, like is there is there not, i don't want to say is there no shame, but it's like, is there no shame?
00:31:12
Speaker
Like what what is this?
00:31:16
Speaker
That's an interesting question. i think, um I mean, am very much not a person who translates my lived experience to but social media or content and that isn't something that I ah have ever like really felt the need to do um but I think kind of what you're asking is the same reason that but these TikTok videos of the of the trackers go so viral which is that you know people people are invested in in social relationships and and parasocial relationships have
00:31:56
Speaker
started replacing our social relationships because we spend so much time in front of screens. And so divorce content, I think, touches the same kind of, you know, brain and nerve as gossip about your village, you know, or your, I don't know, like who community would have done. your green calls?
00:32:24
Speaker
Yeah. yeah Well, I mean, to your point, Rosie, if you don't actually have a community, right, because you have been absolutely largely online or connected to a virtual community, that's where the I don't know the town square or the gossip is, right?
Digital Platforms Changing Sharing and Community Interaction
00:32:38
Speaker
is Is that, but also, I mean, this is like classic Marshall McLuhan, you know, ah the medium is the message, right? The medium begins to change your relationship to the information. And I think I saw this over time.
00:32:54
Speaker
I am old enough to remember when Facebook rolled out first to.edu addresses and people were like, oh, it's great. Like you can reconnect with people from middle school. And I was like, that is a hard pass. Door closed forever.
00:33:05
Speaker
um But like when the newsfeed kicked in, like I remember before the newsfeed and then everyone, you tried to share your relationship status and like this and the other, and this, this impulse to just share all the time whether it was, you know, fishing for sympathy or whatever, it did become shaped by you being on these apps all the time.
00:33:30
Speaker
You know, I think that's a ah natural consequence of it. Yeah. And I agree. i I mean, I think that the TikTok-ification, know, the real-ification of of content now is also ah message, which is that, you know, nothing is it worth more than three minutes of your time you know not like there is nothing that is worth uh actually focusing on or engaging with and everything should be you know disposable and cheap and freely available um
00:34:06
Speaker
Which is a ah really interesting lesson for us to take away from from anything.
Viral TikTok Videos and E-commerce Trends
00:34:11
Speaker
And I just think that the lesson in your article that was ah so a newer nuance or a newer wrinkle to that story is this attachment of viral videos to directly to commerce, right? That was like the power of it is like you were clocking like...
00:34:28
Speaker
hundreds of thousands of units sold. I mean, they could be like faulty bullshit off, fell off the back of a boat or something, but like people are seeing the videos and then, you know, to TikTok's benefit, transacting on like real hardware, which is maybe a new trend that I and i haven't been a part of.
00:34:46
Speaker
Absolutely. and TikTok, you know, as you said, doesn't have a process for filtering out this kind of content. You know, you can report it, but as it stands, and I'm saying this kind of, it appears that TikTok is not able to recognize or remove this content ah automatically.
00:35:07
Speaker
So they are benefiting ah between the time that the content goes up and the time that it gets reported or removed from people's desire you you know
00:35:22
Speaker
bee stalkers. Yeah, they're they're basically taking a commission on people's darkest impulses. Yeah. um Which is kind of, it's kind of crazy. and And not all of these videos were kind of by the accounts that are selling the products.
00:35:39
Speaker
they I think they appeared to be kind of like affiliate creators. um But yeah, it's it's nuts. it's It's kind of wild. Yeah, it's funny when George, um you were talking about that there, it kind of reminded on all apps, whether it's X, whether it's threads, whether it's even blue sky.
00:36:02
Speaker
If someone has any viral posts, they're not like typically a journalist or doing big viral, big content. They're always going to have that one extra comment of like, here's my Venmo link.
00:36:14
Speaker
It's the same thing, right? Because it's like now they're viral. They have a bunch of people, like 50,000, 100,000 people. Yes. they're saying yes And so they immediately. Thanks for liking my post. Pay me.
00:36:25
Speaker
It's just the same thing. I digress. So, Rosie, you were saying that you um just finished an internship.
Rosie's Future in Journalism
00:36:33
Speaker
So what is next for you? Um, that actually remains to be seen, but I'm hoping to, uh, as discussed, well, I'm hoping to engage in some independent journalism of my own.
00:36:45
Speaker
Absolutely brilliant. are you going to start your own Substack perhaps? Uh, I think it would probably be on Ghost if it were anywhere. Yes. Ghost is superior, ah you know, because Substack, Nazis, it's a thing.
00:36:59
Speaker
Look it up. Um, Rosie, thank you so much for the time. Again, i totally took a chance and cold emailed and I'm very glad you responded and very glad that you could join us to talk about this story, which i I'm sure is the tip of the iceberg on a lot of other trends going on.
00:37:20
Speaker
Thank you so much. Take care, Rosie. We wish you well. talk soon.
00:37:27
Speaker
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00:37:40
Speaker
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