In 2026, Meta is racing into AI with all gas and no brakes — and it's giving us serious déjà vu. We invited Samantha and Anney from Stuff Mom Never Told You to revisit The Social Network and examine what the film got right, what it glossed over, and how its treatment of women tells you everything you need to know about tech culture then and now. Plus: the reported sequel centered on Frances Haugen's findings inside Facebook, and why that story might be the one that actually matters.

If you’re listening on Spotify, you can leave a comment there to let us know what you thought about these stories, or email us at [email protected] 

Follow Bridget and TANGOTI on social media!  ||  instagram.com/bridgetmarieindc/ || tiktok.com/@bridgetmarieindc ||  youtube.com/@ThereAreNoGirlsOnTheInternet 

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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 verification checks with drawn-on mustaches. Half of all kids surveyed said age checks were easy to bypass. Some drew facial hair on themselves with a makeup pencil — and it worked multiple times. Meanwhile Meta wants to use AI to analyze bone structure to guess if users are underage. 🔗 TechCrunch

Bridget's forthcoming audiobook with Simon & Schuster, Love At First Prompt, explores AI, sex, and intimate relationships. Pre-order at LoveAtFirstPrompt.ai

Follow Bridget: Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | Bluesky

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You saw the video. A DoorDash driver named Livie goes viral on TikTok after reporting that a customer answered the door naked and flashed her. The internet rallied behind her. And then — the story got complicated.

Bridget breaks down what actually happened, why the story became a breeding ground for misinformation and AI-generated fake videos, and what it tells us about where we're at when it comes to women speaking up online.

Plus the update nobody was expecting: Livie is now facing charges for posting the man naked without his consent.

Is this justice? A technicality? Or proof that the system was never built to protect women like her in the first place?

See Livie's video(s) for yourself: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/19jTtPWjZH/?mibextid=wwXIfr 

MuURLS, a creator on TikTok was cloned by AI: https://www.tiktok.com/@muurlz/video/7563725293693783309?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc

NotKristen’s TikTok on AI clones: https://www.tiktok.com/@notkhristen/video/7563433687476358430?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc

Liberal feminist “triggered”: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Maxime-Dafaure/publication/343261281/figure/fig4/AS:918257242501121@1595940995904/Triggered-Feminist-Ficki-Fiona-MFW-My-Face-When-Someone-Tells-Me-There-Are-Only-Two.png

The real “triggered feminist” video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byOlBCpNKeM

If you’re listening on Spotify, you can leave a comment there to let us know what you thought about these stories, or email us at [email protected] 

Follow Bridget and TANGOTI on social media!  ||  instagram.com/bridgetmarieindc/ || tiktok.com/@bridgetmarieindc ||  youtube.com/@ThereAreNoGirlsOnTheInternet 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There Are No Girls on the Internet is an independent media company covering tech, power, and who gets left out.

We produce a weekly podcast, viral social content, and in-depth reporting on the tech stories that matter — especially the ones that don't get enough attention.

Host Bridget Todd and her producer Mike have been covering these issues for over decade. Bridget's forthcoming audiobook with Simon & Schuster, Love At First Prompt, explores AI, sex, and intimate relationships. Pre-order it at LoveAtFirstPrompt.ai.

If you found us through our Instagram carousel, welcome!

Here's everything we covered this week with links to the original reporting:

🔗 A man sued his female JPMorgan boss for sexual coercion. It went viral, AI harassment videos followed, and the lawsuit has since been pulled from court records. AI-generated videos recreating the allegations spread on X before anyone verified a single fact. More on the AI component here.

🔗 Taylor Swift is trademarking her own voice because AI scams are out of control Scammers are using AI-generated versions of celebrities to steal people's personal information — and the platforms aren't stopping it.

🔗 Cops are using Flock surveillance cameras to stalk their exes A new Institute for Justice report found at least 14 cases of police abusing license plate readers to track romantic interests.

🔗 A university destroyed an Asian American scientist's career in a racist federal witch hunt that found nothing Jane Wu's family is speaking out one year after her death and has filed a lawsuit against Northwestern. NBC News coverage here.

🔗 Men built a business turning women's Instagram photos into AI porn — and taught other men how to do it Three Arizona men sold a course teaching subscribers how to scrape and sexualize women's photos. Three women are now suing.

🔗 A new UN report found AI is making online violence against women dramatically worse Nearly a quarter of female journalists surveyed have been diagnosed with anxiety or depression because of it.

🔗 The Oscars just banned AI actors and AI-written scripts from winning awards The Academy's strongest stance yet on AI in film.

🔗 Andrew Tate sued Meta for banning him and lost A federal judge threw out his $50 million lawsuit. The First Amendment doesn't apply to private companies.

🔗 New reporting reveals how close Peter Thiel and Jeffrey Epstein really were Private emails show Epstein was actively coaching Thiel on how to get embedded in Trump world.

🔗 A murder suspect allegedly used ChatGPT to research how to dispose of a body. OpenAI had no comment. Prosecutors allege he asked ChatGPT about disposing of a body three days before two doctoral students went missing.

New to the show? Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and follow Bridget on Instagram | TikTok | YouTube | Bluesky

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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This is the second part of a 2-part series, so if you haven’t listened to part 1 (published on April 21, 2026), please listen to that first. In part 1, we explain who Clavicular is, how the media elevated him to national prominence, and why his looksmaxxing ideology is just a new veneer on old tropes of self-harm and white supremacy. 

What happens when a teenage boy spends his formative years on incel forums, starts injecting steroids at 14, hits himself in the face with a hammer in the name of self-improvement, injects his underage girlfriend with unlicensed substances on a live stream — and the response from mainstream media is a New York Times profile and a Fashion Week runway? This week we're digging into looksmaxxing: where it actually came from, what the TikTok version obscured, and why a movement rooted in white supremacist beauty standards got repackaged as self-help. Then we talk about Braden Peters, the influencer known as Clavicular, and make the case that the media didn't just cover his rise — it manufactured it.

Let us know what you think by emailing [email protected] or leaving a comment on Spotify. 

Pre-order Bridget's forthcoming audiobook about AI and intimate relationships at LoveAtFirstPrompt.com ! 

Follow Bridget and TANGOTI on social media!  ||  instagram.com/bridgetmarieindc/ || tiktok.com/@bridgetmarieindc ||  youtube.com/@ThereAreNoGirlsOnTheInternet || bsky.app/profile/tangoti.bsky.social

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this week's News Roundup, Bridget and Producer Mike cover the tech news stories you might have missed.

MrBeast’s Beast Industries Sued by Former Employee Alleging Sexual Harassment and Retaliation; Company Says Suit Is Based on ‘Categorically False Statements’: https://variety.com/2026/digital/news/mrbeast-sued-former-employee-sexual-harassment-retaliation-1236728069/ 

IG video from the plaintiff: https://www.instagram.com/p/DXcvv2xAfcw/  

'I think we can all agree we owe Hailey Bieber an apology.' https://www.mamamia.com.au/hailey-bieber-apology/ 

The Shocking Secrets of Madison Square Garden’s Surveillance Machine

https://www.wired.com/story/madison-square-garden-jim-dolan-surveillance-machine/ 

This Scammer Used an AI-Generated MAGA Girl to Grift ‘Super Dumb’ Men: https://www.wired.com/story/ai-generated-maga-girls/

I Started the Media Men List My name is Moira Donegan: https://www.thecut.com/2018/01/moira-donegan-i-started-the-media-men-list.html

'The Comeback' Season 3 review: Lisa Kudrow warns us of the AI apocalypse: https://mashable.com/article/the-comeback-season-3-review-ai

Here’s a few other stories we’re watching:

OpenAI CEO Apologizes for Not Warning Authorities About Mass Shooting Suspect: https://www.pcmag.com/news/openai-ceo-deeply-sorry-for-not-warning-authorities-about-mass-shooting

Elon Musk does not appear at hearing in French prosecutors’ X probe: https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/musk-summoned-by-french-prosecutor-x-probe-unclear-if-he-will-comply-2026-04-20/Amazon employees say they were told to work as employee lay dead: https://www.newsnationnow.com/business/amazon-employees-forced-work-corpse/

App Stores Push Users Toward Nudify Apps, New Research Shows: https://www.404media.co/app-stores-apple-google-nudify-undress-deepfakes/

Forbes Prediction Market Gamifies Story About Mass Shooting of 8 Children: https://www.404media.co/forbes-prediction-market-gamefies-story-about-mass-shooting-of-8-children/

Let us know what you think by emailing [email protected] or leaving a comment on Spotify. 

Pre-order Bridget's forthcoming audiobook about AI and intimate relationships at LoveAtFirstPrompt.com ! 

Follow Bridget and TANGOTI on social media!  ||  instagram.com/bridgetmarieindc/ || tiktok.com/@bridgetmarieindc ||  youtube.com/@ThereAreNoGirlsOnTheInternet || bsky.app/profile/tangoti.bsky.social

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What happens when a teenage boy spends his formative years on incel forums, starts injecting steroids at 14, hits himself in the face with a hammer in the name of self-improvement, injects his underage girlfriend with unlicensed substances on a live stream — and the response from mainstream media is a New York Times profile and a Fashion Week runway? This week we're digging into looksmaxxing: where it actually came from, what the TikTok version obscured, and why a movement rooted in white supremacist beauty standards got repackaged as self-help. Then we talk about Braden Peters, the influencer known as Clavicular, and make the case that the media didn't just cover his rise — it manufactured it.

Let us know what you think by emailing [email protected] or leaving a comment on Spotify. 

Pre-order Bridget's forthcoming audiobook about AI and intimate relationships at LoveAtFirstPrompt.com ! 

Follow Bridget and TANGOTI on social media!  ||  instagram.com/bridgetmarieindc/ || tiktok.com/@bridgetmarieindc ||  youtube.com/@ThereAreNoGirlsOnTheInternet || bsky.app/profile/tangoti.bsky.social

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this week's News Roundup, Bridget and Producer Mike cover the tech news stories you might have missed. TRIGGER WARNING - one story discusses disturbing sexual assaults.

.

Reese Witherspoon thinks women should embrace AI more. The comments were not kind. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXKphAtkbgW/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

.

Gisèle Pelicot's story of being drugged and raped by her husband and other men for a decade captured headlines. A new CNN investigation reveals a large ecosystem of men helping each other commit similar crimes around the world with something like an "online rape academy." https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2026/03/world/expose-rape-assault-online-vis-intl/index.html

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Lauren Sanchez Besos is a cultural force, revolutionizing the way Americans live, and inspiring everyone with her embrace of joy and her perfect marriage to Jeff Bezos. Right? RIGHT?! (wrong) https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/11/business/lauren-sanchez-bezos-jeff-bezos.html?unlocked_article_code=1.blA.i7qg.dQZ7G1_RUIcF&smid=url-share [gift link]

Anti-Occupy Wall Street Champagne Toast Later Today? https://gothamist.com/news/anti-occupy-wall-street-champagne-toast-later-today

Rich people watching Occupy protestor: https://www.threads.com/@yungbooks/post/DEEOKfUOXkA

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Workers at surveillance company Flock inexplicably accessed cameras in a gymnasium and pool, prompting the city of Dunwoody, Georgia, to delay their contract renewal after a citizen's open records request revealed anomolies in the logs. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/apr/06/flock-cameras-privacy-concerns

.

Why Are Flock Employees Watching Our Children? https://jasonhunyar.substack.com/p/why-are-flock-employees-watching-720

.

Women in northern Nigeria have been writing steamy romance books for decades. They are fighting morality censorship by innovating new models of distribution and monetization on WhatsApp. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/article/love-is-universal-but-nigerias-romance-lit-market-is-one-of-a-kind and https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/09/world/africa/nigeria-erotica-writers-censors.html

.

Here are more stories we were watching this week:

NAACP lawsuit accuses Elon Musk’s xAI of polluting Black neighborhoods near Memphis: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/apr/14/naacp-lawsuit-elon-musk-xai-memphis

A Redditor Criticized ICE. Trump Is Trying to Unmask Them by Dragging the Company to a Secret Grand Jury: https://theintercept.com/2026/04/10/reddit-ice-protest-grand-jury/

What is dynamic pricing at grocery stores? Maryland now bans it: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2026/04/15/maryland-bans-dynamic-pricing-practice-popular-among-retailers/89621751007/

Meta’s new rules let it ban users or suppress comments that include the word “antifa” alongside “content-level threat signals.” https://theintercept.com/2026/04/14/facebook-instagram-antifa-censor/

Let us know what you think by emailing [email protected] or leaving a comment on Spotify.

Pre-order Bridget's forthcoming audiobook about AI and intimate relationships at LoveAtFirstPrompt.com !

Follow Bridget and TANGOTI on social media!  ||  instagram.com/bridgetmarieindc/ || tiktok.com/@bridgetmarieindc ||  youtube.com/@ThereAreNoGirlsOnTheInternet || bsky.app/profile/tangoti.bsky.social

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fake AI-generated Black women are flooding your social media feeds, performing self-hatred, pushing porn sites and drop shipping scams, and raking in cash for anonymous creators who'll never be held accountable.

Jeremy Carrasco, the internet's go-to AI debunker, breaks down who's behind it, why platforms keep looking the other way, and why one Black student researcher's testimony made him want to do something about it.

AI Blackface: Profiting on racist depictions at scale: https://www.riddance.ai/p/ai-blackface-profiting-on-racist

AI videos of sexualised black women removed from TikTok after BBC investigation: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c070e283k8vo

Bridget explains the evolution of digital Blackface from its antebellum roots in this Youtube video: https://youtu.be/yh-2il78AEA

Digital rapper FN Meka and the new era of digital Blackface: https://omny.fm/shows/there-are-no-girls-on-the-internet/digital-rapper-fn-meka-and-the-new-era-of-digital

Let us know what you think by emailing [email protected] or leaving a comment on Spotify.

Pre-order Bridget's forthcoming audiobook about AI and intimate relationships at LoveAtFirstPrompt.com !

Follow Bridget and TANGOTI on social media!  ||  instagram.com/bridgetmarieindc/ || tiktok.com/@bridgetmarieindc ||  youtube.com/@ThereAreNoGirlsOnTheInternet || bsky.app/profile/tangoti.bsky.social 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this week's News Roundup, Bridget and Producer Mike cover the tech news stories you might have missed.

Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In is fighting the gender gap in AI adoption, but raising questions about its own leadership. https://www.fastcompany.com/91521751/sheryl-sandbergs-lean-in-is-fighting-the-gender-gap-in-ai-adoption

Gen Z Goes to the Movies! The new Zendaya film 'The Drama' is a smash hit. Younger Audiences Are Driving Box Office Sales, Study Shows

https://variety.com/2026/film/box-office/gen-z-driving-box-office-1236703551/

The FBI was able to recover deleted Signal messages from a user's phone because they were stored in his notification history. Check your Signal settings now to stay safe "Settings > Notification > Store" https://www.404media.co/fbi-extracts-suspects-deleted-signal-messages-saved-in-iphone-notification-database-2/

She Was in Labor at a Florida Hospital. Then She Was in Zoom Court for Refusing a C-Section. https://www.propublica.org/article/florida-court-hearing-c-section

BBC breached editorial standards over BAFTAs racial slur but no big deal, BBC investigation finds.  https://news.sky.com/story/bbc-breached-editorial-standards-over-baftas-racial-slur-investigation-finds-13529270

Ohio creep becomes first to be convicted under new Take-It-Down law for sexually explicit images:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/08/ohio-man-convicted-ai-sexually-explicit-images

Instagram reportedly deletes Bellesa sex toy shop account for using the word 'clitoris': https://mashable.com/article/instagram-deletes-bellesa-shop-account-with-700000-followers

‘This Is Not Me’: Inside the AI Scams Driving Musicians Crazy: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/ai-scams-musicians-streaming-services-spotify-1235535753/

Let us know what you think about these stories by emailing [email protected] or leaving a comment on Spotify.

Pre-order Bridget's forthcoming audiobook about AI and intimate relationships at LoveAtFirstPrompt.com !

Follow Bridget and TANGOTI on social media!  ||  instagram.com/bridgetmarieindc/ || tiktok.com/@bridgetmarieindc ||  youtube.com/@ThereAreNoGirlsOnTheInternet || bsky.app/profile/tangoti.bsky.social

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.