Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation
9/10/21 - Don't today's conspiracy theories make UFOs and JFK conspiracy theories seem quaint, almost sweet? Dr. Stacy Wood breaks down how independent communities of belief have accelerated online. It's not only the fault of social media, but as we reorganize how we search and find information, Facebook, YouTube, Google, and others are all part of how we have become so entrenched in our beliefs.
Transcript below.
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CREDITS
Executive Producer: Gina Delvac
Hosts: Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman
Theme song: Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn
Composer: Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.
Producer: Jordan Bailey
Visual Creative Director: Kenesha Sneed
Merch Director: Caroline Knowles
Editorial Assistant: Mercedes Gonzales-Bazan
Design Assistant: Brijae Morris
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LINKS
TRANSCRIPT: CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND MISINFORMATION
[Ads]
Aminatou: Welcome to Call Your Girlfriend
Ann: A podcast for long distance besties everywhere.
Aminatou: I’m Aminatou Sow.
Ann: And I'm Ann Friedman.
Aminatou: Hey Ann Friedman. What's up, what's up this week?
Ann: Hello. Hello. I guess it's technically back to school season, for many of us, it's after Labor day. So like, even if you are not currently in school, I think it's sort of intellectually back to school season. And in that spirit, I have a delightfully nerdy conversation for you today. I called up my friend, Dr. Stacy Wood, who is the research director for UCLA’s Center for Critical Internet Inquiry, which is a big mouthful. But I think it's safe to say that these people are doing some of the most interesting research and advocacy around how we consume the internet and how we consume information digitally. She's also the director of the Lab Lab, which is an interdisciplinary research lab focused on the role of forensic science and technology in the legal system. So basically like how and what do we believe things when it comes to criminal trials and she's also the founder of True Wheel Research and Research Consulting a firm based, a firm focused on research for creative projects. So basically like, and again, I mean this with all love and my heart and all joy in my heart, like Dr. Wood, I can't even get over it, my friends are doctors, Dr. Wood has made a career out of thinking really critically about what we consider evidence and how we archive evidence. And she found her way into library science by way of her interest in Ufology, which is the study of UFOs. And, um, more broadly than that, her interest in how people like support the beliefs and experiences they have with, and her dissertation was about classified information. And, uh, that is also super interesting. We talk a little bit about that and this just in general, she's one of the most interesting thinkers I know who, um, I always come to her with my questions about the way I am receiving and processing information, especially via the internet.
[theme song]
Ann: So today, um, I call her up and ask her about how we can understand the people in our lives, who are not operating with the same set of facts we are, which is to say like maybe the more vaccine hesitant or people who find themselves on, you know, corners of the internet, where we might not find ourselves and believing different links and sources. I also talked to her about how we all can be more critical consumers of information.
Aminatou: This makes me really happy.
Ann: Um, I have to warn you that, uh, not only is Stacy, a friend of mine, we have been told that we sound a lot alike, even though I can't hear it because who can objectively assess their own voice. So I apologize for any confusion, rest assured she will be the one explaining theories about the JFK assassination and UFOs, and saying all this smart stuff about the internet and I will be laughing and nodding along. So here I am with Dr. Stacy wood.
[interview begins]
Ann: Can I call you Dr. Stacy Wood?
Stacy: Oh, absolutely. I demand it in fact.
Ann: Dr. Wood, welcome to the podcast.
Stacy: Thank you so much for having me. I'm truly thrilled, truly thrilled.
Ann: It never gets old to call your friends doctor.
Stacy: Yes. I, it never gets old to get mail addressed to Dr. Wood. It's a, it feels, it feels like because the mail is slightly more private. I can like luxuriated in a little bit more.
Ann: Really lap it up.
Stacy: Really lap it up. Um, it was all worth it to get to that mailbox.
Ann: Oh God. Just that little line of affirmation all the years of strife. Um, let's talk about this kind of theme or idea that underpins much of your research, all of your research and work?
Stacy: Yeah, pretty much I think so. I think yes.
Ann: Which is evidence. The idea that like, um, here is what we take as proof for something. This is what it means to, um, I don't know, to feel secure in your belief about something.
Stacy: Yeah. It's, it's a, it's a really expansive concept, which I like, but I also, I think, um, I sort of first started thinking about my work in that way, because I was trained as an archivist and in archives. We talk about evidence in a really specific way that is about kind of the warrant for how things are put together and how they're understood and how they maintain integrity across systems. So how do you know that this birth certificate is a real birth certificate? Right?
Ann: So the evidence is a seal or whatever.
Stacy: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But you know, when I started to think about my dissertation work was about classified information policy and, uh, I got back to what I think of as my roots, as someone who grew up in Nevada and sort of raised myself on Coast to Coast AM and the X-Files. And so, you know--
Ann: Wait what is coast to coast am?
Stacy: Coast to Coast is, um, a very, very long running sort of paranormal call-in show that used to run in the middle of the night and--
Ann: On AM radio?
Stacy: Yes. Yes. And then, uh, and then of course on the internet, I used to listen to it religiously and people would call in and sort of dissect experiences they'd had either, you know, I mean, everything from cryptozoology to UFO's to just strange things that had happened in their lives. And, uh, and so I grew up very much thinking about those things and sort of steeped in the reality of Nevada, which is a very open-minded place in terms of thinking about, uh, you know, phenomena at large, I would say, but it's also, I think, where we store a lot of the nation's nuclear waste. Right. So where we think about hiding things, keeping things secret. So anyway, that's all a long way to say, thinking about evidence becomes a different thing when you're thinking about, uh, different context, different categories. So I started thinking about Ufology and how you--
Ann: Ufology is the study of UFOs?
Stacy: Yes, indeed. It is. Yes. Um, some people say, oof-ology, but don't listen to them.
Ann: We don't call it an ooFO.
Stacy: We don't, see there you go. Thank you. So I started to think about like, how are people evaluating classified documents, declassified documents, images that have circulated, how do people form community around those things and understand them together? And, uh, when I was researching classified information policy, I was also sort of parallel, uh, looking at the way that Ufolo just have created an alternative research infrastructure. So because they couldn't go do their research in traditional institutions, they started circulating their own academic journals and their own systems of peer review and their own systems of authentication. And I find that really fascinating as, as a sort of mode to be in where you are rejecting kind of, um, dominant institutional thinking and methodologies, but you're also imitating them just sort of adjacent to, um, so, uh, that, that work was sort of all going on at the same time. And I've also done work in thinking about legal concepts of evidence and how those concepts kind of push against, uh, changing ideas around expertise and narrative.
Ann: So like the thing that I think about, I mean, obviously we are all steeped right now in vaccine hesitancy, in narratives about what is and isn't safe to be doing out in the world. And I'm wondering about this term conspiracy or conspiracy theory, because there is so much, I don't know, there, there seems to be an ever changing set of norms around what we call it when people have their own set of evidence for things.
Stacy: Yeah, absolutely. And I will say it is, this is a thorny issue in my life because I grew up feeling very comfortable saying the phrase conspiracy theory, it meant something kind of specific and maybe something that right now in the moment in history that we're all experiencing and living in together seems a bit quaint. There's almost like a--
Ann: JFK Assassination and UFO's,
Stacy: And UFO's, and maybe, you know, Bigfoot maybe, uh, you know, things that just almost we feel nostalgic about at this point, because they felt like when we're thinking about it in, in contrast to movements or, you know, communities now that have those same qualities, uh, you know, you don't see the level of anger or violence or single-mindedness that we see now. And I think there are lots of people who, you know, do a sort of better or worse job at diagnosing what that is. Sometimes people kind of lay that at the altar of technology alone. Like, you know, people would be totally fine if we didn't have Facebook.
Ann: And I think it's, there would be no Q Anon, there would be no vaccine hesitancy, is Facebook didn't exist right?
Stacy: Yeah, exactly. And that is not true. It can't be true. And I think a lot of the ways, or the reasons that these sort of theories circulate and resonate so strongly is actually because they've fully scaffold onto preexisting belief systems and also moral panics that we've been having sickly for the last a hundred years. So it's, you know, I think, um, if you look at things like Q anon, you know, you see satanic panic in there, you see this sort of union of like Christian theology and, uh, circumspection about the elites and the government. Um, if you look at sort of 5G conspiracy notions, right? You see a lot of--
Ann: Which is cell towers are controlling our brains?
Stacy: Yes, yes. Controlling our brains. Some of them, it was actually, this is an expansive zone, but I think, um, the paranoia around 5G takes a lot of forms and, you know, you'll see claims about it causing COVID, you'll see claims about it. Um, you know, being a means of manipulation, all kinds of things, but you do see a lot of the roots, same language, same patterns that you see in sort of anti-vax movements that you see in wellness communities. So I think, you know, it is, I think that technology and social media platforms have a significant role to play. And I don't want to sound like I'm letting them dodge their responsibilities, which are many and mostly unfulfilled. But, um, but it's not that simple. It's not like if we just turned the switch off tomorrow on Facebook, everyone would go back to, um, you know, a depth of trust in institutions like that's Facebook didn't, cause didn't set the stage for the mistrust in institutions that I feel, um, lets these, these ideas really run rampant and, and lock in with people, you know? Cause you have to, I think you really have to be angry, um, at, at a system to blame it in this way or to not trust it in this way or to be so vehement in your disagreement with it.
Ann: Gosh, it's funny. I find myself having this emotional reaction where I'm like, but I do want to blame Facebook.
Stacy: No, I, well, I, listen, I blame Facebook for a lot of things. So we could have a whole separate talk about like how angry I am at Facebook and I am right. Um, and I think this, yeah, it's has a part to play, but it can't be the only thing. Right. But what it does do is provide scale and speed that we've never had before. Right. And so I think that that is part of it where you see like it used to be. And again, this is, I think, why would we talk about conspiracy theory? It seems quaint. It used to be like, I have to go to this certain table at this swap meet. And I know I can get the videos about the truth from this guy.
Ann: The xerox pamphlets. the zero
Stacy: Right? The Xerox pamphlets, the zines, the copies of different ufology journals, whatever, which are by the way, incredible. And it was a lot harder to access that information and it certainly felt like a closed or more closed community. Um, and now I think what's really hard is how do we distinguish between something that is really deep and might be a threat and something that is, you know, for the LOLs or I, you know, I, I liked this meme, so I circulated it. I think those things are really difficult to distinguish now at scale, you know, I think you can do it in a sophisticated way, in a small sense, but in a large sense, we're just not there. And I think part of the challenge is that, you know, research in these areas are also, is really complicated and this is another reason, you know, we need to think about how we refer to people and, and how we think about it because often there are sort of more or less legitimate concerns may be buried somewhere sometimes not at all, some, but, but if you want to understand it, you know, you need to talk to people and they're absolutely not going to talk to you if you intro by somebody, a conspiracy theorist. Right. Cause there's an immediate sort of value judgment in that even though in a literal sense, it is exactly a theory about exactly a theory about a conspiracy. Right. But you know, because of how it sort of circulated colloquially or in media, I think there's a, there's a shame around that. Um, and there's also a real desire to prove that their engagement with it and their research is real and substantive and rigorous.
Ann: Yeah. And I think the reason I had that reaction about Facebook is because when I think about my own difficulties in deciding what to believe or deciding what's bullshit or deciding like what is actually an effective answer to a big thorny problem, I feel, um, I just, I feel like it's a lot harder to take a pause and sift and figure out who to trust due to the sheer info overload of being on the internet. Like I have been off Instagram for a month and I'm just like, oh, it's not that I feel like I have more clarity on complex issues or like I know exactly who to believe now, but it's not a kind of like live stressor in the way it is where I see a slide show and I'm like, is the slideshow right? How was the slideshow built? Who built the slide show? What are they citing?
Stacy: Absolutely. And I think, um, you know, you're probably asking more of those questions than the average bear. I, you know, when you see, when you see a graphic or cause you already know to ask those questions and I think, um, you know, one of the things that's interesting to me is sort of the ever evolving, adapting aesthetic of evidence too, right? It's like, what do, how do we, when we look at something, how do we sort of apprehend whether or not it's legitimate? And I think it's harder and harder to do because people understand, you know, I think the internet archive is a beautiful thing. Um, and I encourage everyone to spend time there.
Ann: How do you spend time there?
Stacy: Well, I mean, I just, I just like futz around, I mean, because I look for old, uh, because I look for old UFO sites, um, you know, I do spend a fair amount there, but I've also, um, this is a bit of a tangent, but sometimes when I was teaching kind of intro to tech and values or tech and ethics courses, um, I would ask students to go answer complex questions using Yahoo ontologies. So before natural language search for Google's natural language search, we all, you remember the good old days, we all had to go through faceted categories. And so, you know, if you wanted to find out like what the score to a historic basketball game was, you had to start at sports, basketball, the team, right? You, you went down and down and down and you got more specific as you went just a very, very different way of asking a question or finding information, then typing in a sentence and how that structures what you get back, how that structure is, what you even think is possible to ask is really fascinating to me. Um, and I think, you know, natural language search and the sort of advertising incentives that have become endemic to that, uh, certainly are part of this as well. And I think that's the thing too. It's like, I think Facebook is really visible and it should be because it's, it's, it is. And it's where a lot of this is happening. But, you know, I think of, uh, my colleagues book Safiya Noble’s Algorithms of Oppression, where she talks about, um, how natural language search can also lead to a lot of this where, you know, Dylan Roof does a Google search for Martin Luther King and he ends up on a white supremacist website that is trying to debunk the legacy of Martin Luther King, right? So that's the first, his first entry point into a question of, you know, who is this person poop? You know, Google has that as their, your top result because it was easy to manipulate. Um, it's less easy to manipulate now, but it's still there. You know.
Ann: It is hard. Well, and that's an interesting question too, because, um, I, I find myself increasingly casually talking about the algorithm.
Stacy: Yeah. It lives, it lives
Ann: Exactly like, um, and, and, you know, and I think another thing that's not very transparent to people is like, you know, okay, is Google showing Dylan Roof this white supremacist website because Dylan Roof has already been on a lot of white supremacists websites? Is it showing because he, that, that wipe, white, wipe, is it showing him the link because that white supremacist website paid to be high up in the results, like in is like a really, it can be also hard to figure out speaking of evidence, like how did something end up here in front of me?
Stacy: Yeah. It is really complicated. And I think it's a hard question to answer for many reasons. I mean, I will, I will say this right. My technical prowess and know-how is not up to the task of understanding the complexities of Google's algorithms. Right. But also, somebody else that definitely there are people. But, you know, but, but the, maybe the more important problem for us is that all of these systems are proprietary. So there's also that aspect of it that a lot of what I would call black box systems. So things that you can't see inside, you can't tell how something is making its decisions or working. So I think if you can't see how it's being done, right, there's this air of mystery around it. And I think that contributes partially to why we don't actually question it very much, because it seems, it seems to make sense to us, right. It seems to fit into what we're doing. And I even had a conversation with a friend, a mutual friend who will go unnamed, um, uh, last week about, um, you know, whether or not our phones are listening to us. This is all the way, this is a sort of perennial. Right. Exactly. And you know, the answer is no. And, um, and the actual answer might be scarier because it's actually that data brokers and GPS is so good that it can tell that you and I are sitting next to each other and that you and I both went to these different stores today and then reinforces things that we sort of already might be interested in. And she was sort of pressing me on it. And she was like, but I didn't even, I didn't Google it. And I didn't do anything. I just talked about it. And I was like, oh no, see, this is the thing it's, you're, you're shown something a hundred times, but you only see it on the 99th time. And then the hundredth time you see it, you think, oh, that's spooky, right? Because now you've called attention to it. And it, you know, it's, it's like the phenomenon when you learn a new word or you see a red Corvette.
Ann: There’s a name for that, I can’t remember.
Stacy: I can't either, you know, but we know it's a thing. We know it's a thing. Um, you know, whatever that phenomena is, I'm sure you, dear listener are screaming at us right now. We'll see what it is. Um, but you win, if you know, you win. Um, researchers, you know, the qualitative research arms of a lot of these tech companies are very good at figuring out how to incentivize moving through the pathways that are put in front of you and really good at reinforcing really good at the nudge. Right. Um, and so I think things can feel magical or they could feel creepy or they can feel prescient. And, but that's sort of part of what they're also selling to us is that our devices are smarter than we are and know what we want more than we do the issue with that around. I mean, there's lots of issues, but I think one of the things about that that is frustrating or kind of debilitating in different ways is that the claim is that all of these things just reflect society and reflect reality.
Ann: Rather than shape it.
Stacy: Right, rather than shape it. Right. And I think, uh, and you'll see this, I don't know if anybody else really enjoys taking an afternoon to watch six to seven hours of a congressional hearing with Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg, but in case you don't, I'll tell you.
Ann: That's why you're here. [laughter]
Stacy: That’s why I'm here. And, uh, they're always really fascinating because you see these questions explicitly getting asked and laying at the, at the feet of, again, The Algorithm with a capital T and a capital A, and they're always really careful to limit or to make smaller the claims right. In, in that context and then how much the algorithm, how much the algorithm can do. Right. But then in every other context, that's the selling point. And it's this really interesting back and forth where it's like, oh no, we couldn't possibly, we don't, we're not powerful enough to do that. That's ridiculous. This is just a reflection of reality. And then it's like, you look at the sales pitches, you look at advertising, you look at how it's being offered to you and it's the exact opposite, right? It is, you need this, you can't possibly know how well you slept last night, unless this watch tells you.
Ann: Rr your bed tells you.
Stacy: Or your bed, you know, it is undoubtedly true that there's an economic incentive for keeping people on, you know, on those platforms. And so anything you can do to keep people interested and to keep people going. And there've been so many well-documented cases, especially with YouTube talking about radicalization and how people get pushed further because you know, you, and trust me when I was doing my dissertation research, I wish I had kept better records of this, of, of those processes because my YouTube algorithm was absolutely wonderful bonkers because it was, I had watched so many videos about what I was researching at the time that it didn't even take, I didn't even have to search for anything for, you know, Hillary Clinton as a reptilian to be served to me within two, two degrees. Um, and it just keeps pushing you down that hole because that's the thing that keeps you there. So I think, you know, they've been really, I think that the sort of big tech CEOs have been really on speaking tours for the last five years saying, No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We have no incentive. That is not what we do. We do not radicalize people. We have no incentive to do that. We, our incentives would be to clean it up and have it be a nice place. And, um, you know, I think, I think it's a both and I think that's both true and untrue. So, you know,
Ann: Well, their incentive is to keep people using the platform as long as possible. And how do you do that? You give people more of what they already want.
Stacy: Exactly, exactly.
Ann: I want to go back to this idea of evidence and like, think about it more in terms of things that might be socially or politically closer to home. We are not in a sort of target demo of reptilian Hillary, or like even, or even, I would say like some of the more conspiracy minded narratives about the vaccine, like, you know, you and I are kind of firmly in a social group and have a political persuasion where we're not getting served. That what about stuff that is closer to home? You know, like things that feel of this same ilk, but are more directed to you.
Stacy: Hm. Do you have any, do you have an example in mind?
Ann: I'm just going to say one word.
Stacy: Yeah.
Ann: Adaptogen.
Stacy: [laughter] Yeah. Well that was so apologies dear listener for that outburst, but I, you know, I think, um, yeah, I, well, my first instinct actually was to be like, well, what I have noticed is that it's, um, I've had a lot more conversations with people in my life that were vaccine hesitant than I would have predicted. Um, and that tends to come from a sort of wellness supplement direction rather than, uh, you know, a radical mistrust of the government. So I think there is so much, so much misinformation about wellness trends and the hard part is right, is holding these two truths in your brain at the same time that we know that the history of science at large and this history of medical science is fraught with all of these sort of horrible racial traumas. And, uh, and gender-based traumas that persist right. That we still see the results of and we also really need medical science at the same time. Right. And we want to be advocates for the best version of that that we can possibly have. I know. And this is always, I think the difficult thing about, um, information quality or evidence is that we sort of both know that it is contextual, it's highly contingent. Um, it's going to mean different things to different people, and we can have trouble with our institutions. And yet, you know, there are also facts on the ground. So how to navigate those waters is just never simple.
Ann: It's a real like, who do you trust and why?
Stacy: The war cry of the conspiracy theorists is do your own research, right? Do the research.
Ann: And not only the conspiracy theorists, like the, the like influencer pedaling, your own research is a real rallying cry. Lots of people. Yeah.
Stacy: There's never a, let's talk about how to do research, right. It's just do, do it, do it, go do it. And what that usually means is what I just did, which is just type one or two words into Google and see what happens. Right. Nobody and it's, I mean, I don't remember the exact statistics anymore, but about how many people go past the first page of Google. It's very, very few. And this is where we get back into thinking about what is Google optimized to do? What does it optimize to give us back? You know, I think that sort of do your own research call is a compelling one because, you know, we all want to think that we are maybe more informed or smarter, and we all want to think that we're responsible. And I think that is the really difficult part where we're making good choices, making good choices.
Ann: We are the author of those choices.
Stacy: Right. And, and it is a very, very strong thing to not want to feel manipulated or not want to feel duped by anything
Ann: Of course.
Stacy: And, but I also think that, you know, when you see, like, I don't know if you saw this recent piece about, uh, the school boards getting terrifying school board meetings, getting terrifying. You don't get that level of fear and fervor without it being built on top of something else. Right. And I think some of that is historical trauma and neglect. Some of it is shifting dynamics and some of it's entitlement, some of it is, you know, building on top of evangelical Christian beliefs, right? So I, these, these things all kind of swim together in the same waters.
Ann: Those waters are America.
Stacy: Yes, exactly. They swim together in the waters of America.
Ann: Oh my God. This is an amazing place to take an outbreak.
[ad break]
Ann: I also, okay. So I want to ask where archives fit into this.
Stacy: Oh yeah.
Ann: Because, you know, you mentioned at the beginning of our conversation about how looking at how people are archiving and creating their own, you know, system of evidence for UFO and paranormals stuff was like one of the ways into your academic work, where, where do archives fit?
Stacy: Yeah. I, well, I see, so it's interesting. I think archives are sort of the bread and butter of it all because that is where you show up to do research on primary texts. And the, one of the things I talked about in my dissertation that will show up in something someday is, um, there's a, a really amazing website is run by a father and son duo whose last name also happens to be Wood.
Ann: I thought you were going to say he was the last name also happens to be duo. [laughter]
Stacy: No, I wish. Um, but you know, their entire site and a lot of their work is devoted to analyzing and authenticating a specific group of documents that are called the Majestic 12 documents and anybody who is anybody. I mean, anybody who is listening, if you know what those are, you know, like this is a rabbit hole, we could go down forever, but I will give the sort of TLDR
Ann: I love thinking about the CYG listener. Who's like, CYG meets Majestic 12 documents. If you're in that bed, you're having a great day.
Stacy: Yeah genuinely. If you’re in that realm just email me immediately.
Ann: Explain it to the rest of us.
Stacy: Um, but, um, so the Majestic 12 documents are a set of documents that were sort of secretly handed over to a UFO researcher in the eighties. They were slipped through a mail slot in a Manila folder, and it was photos, undeveloped film. And then when they developed them, it was photos of documents that looked to have classification markings on them that would indicate they came from different government agencies. Okay.
Ann: Evidence.
Stacy: Right.
Ann: I’m here for it.
Stacy: Right. So in these documents exactly. This is, so this is it. This is the full circle. Um, so in these documents, the gist is that there was a secret group of UFO crash retrieval experts, right? And this included such luminaries as Vannevar Bush, was the director, the, uh, for information studies nerds. He's a big hero. Uh, well, not really, but I mean, you know, he's a big figure and a big name and information studies, but the Majestic 12 team is made up of high profile government officials from the military and, um, and civilian agencies. And the claim was that, you know, we have this secret team and they are in charge of going to clean up crash retrieval, crash retrieval sites, and keep everything secret and under wraps. And this plugs into all of the other sorts of big projects, blue book things, and a lot of big sort of moments in Ufology, moments in UFO history.
Ann: This is why these documents are so majestic.
Stacy: This is why they are so majestic. Um, so, uh, anyway, these documents became this really interesting sort of catalyzing force for ufology research for the next like 30 years. People have been analyzing them. There was a cash prize for a while, Stanton Friedman. Who's one of the sort of biggest names.
Ann: Are they all named Wood or Friedman?
Stacy: Maybe [laughter] let's test this theory. But, um, uh, anyway, he, he spent a lot of time and staked, a lot of his professional, you know, credibility on these documents. Um, they are pretty much known to be a hoax. There was a big public outing of the hoax at a ufology conference. It's juicy, juicy gossip for anybody who's into it. Like that is a really amazing period. And I'm happy to send you resources. Um, and we'll talk about it, but, uh, but long story long, um, the, the Woods have this whole website that is dedicated to the analysis and authentication of these documents in using what they know about how the archives work. So they use the archives, meaning like government archives, the national archives and records administration. So they, you know, have spent an enormous amount of time going and looking through the records and saying, you know, okay, this is where this missing file should go. This is how you can tell, you know, here's this date, here's this typewriter quirk right here are these names and co-locating where people would be at certain moments in history. So, you know, when we think about, um, archives as evidence, right, they retain the qualities of evidence, not just because they're in a box at the national archives and records administration, but because they have the right markings, they might have a formal quality, right. Something might have a stain. And you know, where that came from there, all of these other ways that we preserve that. And part of that is through context. And this is where government records get really hairy, because a lot of that context you can't see. So normally, you know, a document in relation to other documents that only is evidential in relation to that whole group of documents.
Ann: If it has the same letterhead as all these documents.
Stacy: Exactly or you just understand, you know, where it fits in the sort of, um, institutional record context. So, um, you know, going through and seeing like, basically I just traced, you know, how people were talking about and thinking about the Majestic 12 documents and all of the different ways that they were trying to authenticate them as supposed documents that had been classified and stolen. Right. So they were supposed to be leaked. So, you know, anyway, they're, they're, they're definitely fake. I just want to say that officially they're definitely fake, but I, but there's still an interesting thought experiment because not everybody in that community has given up on it, even though someone essentially came forward and said, yeah, I was, I am an agent of disinformation. Like this was a psyop. And, and I mean, at an annual UFO gathering up in the middle of the room, it would be during his talk during his talk and I mean, pandemonium, absolute pandemonium. So it's, um, it is a contentious thing.
Okay. So one of the ways that I found my way into this was I went to a great summer school gathering in Paris. All everybody there was there because their research was about to some extent, controversy mapping or conspiracy mapping. So trying to study how ideas circulate and get out of control. And it was interesting because I would say that the group was sort of split in half in that half of the people were almost exclusively interested in how, um, how climate science became a climate debate, which is fascinating. And there's a great book that I will recommend every human being on earth read by Naomi Oreske that it's about, um, how exactly this, like how, how climate science became climate denial and all of the money and research infrastructure behind it.
Ann: What's the book called?
Stacy: Merchants of Doubt. Oh, I've heard of this book. It is genuinely great. Um, but you know, so half the group was sort of devoted to that. And then half of the group was really thinking about, um, conspiracy and how that, how that moves. And there was a scholar there who talked about, um, different artifacts found at the Roswell crash site and how even people who were there on the same day disagreed about what the ruins looked like, what the, what the sort of crash materials looked like. There was a little boy who found a piece that had like hieroglyphic markings on it. Right. And it became this, the centerpiece of like, how do we figure out what this says? And of course, whenever you start talking about crash sites, that's when you get into the real juicy conspiracy stuff, because that's all hidden, right. If you, if you say--
Ann: It's all been cleared away.
Stacy: It's all been cleared away and hidden somewhere. And, you know, probably Area 51 is always the assumption. Um, but you know, if we have it, it's in a warehouse somewhere and we're studying it and that's the conspiracy, the conspiracy conspiracy is the coverup, right? The conspiracy is--
Ann: It is the archive.
Stacy: It is. That is exactly it.
Ann: I want to ask about what you're working on right now.
Stacy: Yeah. Um, so many things, um, I have a new project that I'm trying. I'm really just at the very beginning stages of, but where I'm thinking about the role of technology in courtroom presentation, um, and expert testimony specifically. And one of the things that led me, there was a sort of looking at these 3D laser scanners that have been used for crime scene reconstruction. So they, you know, essentially set them up, they take thousands and thousands and thousands of pictures of the site.
And then they turn that into data. And then they turn the data back into a reenactment of that space and now--
Ann: And they play it for juries?
Stacy: Yeah. So that it's mostly used so far for traffic accidents, but it was used in the Jason De Freese trial, who was the, uh, person who murdered Laquan McDonald and also in the grand jury, uh, testimony for the Tamir Rice case. It didn't ever go. So it's, so it's like it's mostly used in traffic accidents, but then however profile it's used in high profile police, more police murders, not only are we sort of producing a reenactment based on data points, fine, whatever, but what they also have done is layered in different branches of forensic science, into the software that is also automated. So you have blood spatter analysis, you have shot trajectory analysis, you have all of these things that are baked into that software.
Ann: Every, everything that's like a plot point on CSI.
Stacy: Everything that's a plot point is CSI. And, and I think the, the, you know, there are many problems with that, but I, for me, the headline problem is that then you do not have a blood spatter analyst testifying, you do not have a shot trajectory analyst testifying. What you have is whoever they decided to bring in to prove that the software is legitimate.
Ann: Oh, wow. And then just the video.
Stacy: And then just the video. So, and that's what happened in the Laquan McDonald case, because they called in an animators guy who used to work for Pixar as the expert testimony. And there were a bunch of differences. There were changes in what everyone was wearing. There were changes in like body positions. Like there were too many changes that have been made in it. And you know, if you look, you can read through this public testimony, you can read through it if you want, but it's, um, you know, the response is something, something like, uh, oh, we didn't think it mattered if he was wearing a hoodie or a shirt. And it just feels, I mean, it's beyond disingenuous. It is just, it's just offensively naive. If, if we want to give all the credit in the world, right. If we give all the credit in the world to this person, it's, it's offensively naive, but I don't believe, you know, I don't believe that that person is totally that naive. So I, um, but anybody--
Ann: They’re making deliberate choices about how to represent this reenacted data.
Stacy: Not only that, but every single high profile, low profile, mid profile police murder has, has to do with the defense implicitly and explicitly is that the cop was afraid. Right. And some of the things that are brought up and why was this person afraid is how did that person look? What was, what were they wearing? Right. Right. Where are they standing? How were they standing? Did it look like they could hide something in that light? So when you start to say things like, oh, it doesn't matter if they're wearing a hoodie or a t-shirt, it’s patently untrue, because that is the same type of thing that would be brought up in evidence to, to say that justifies me being scared. So it doesn't, you can't have it both ways.
Ann: Evidence.
Stacy: Evidence.
Ann: Stacy, thank you for being, sorry, Dr. Woods for being on the show.
Stacy: Please, never use my first name. Never, ever. [laughter] Um, thank you for so much for having me. It was a joy.
[interview ends]
Ann: You can find more about Dr. Wood's work on her website, Stacy that's S T A C Y E Wood .com. Uh, and also hire her for independent research or, uh, look into what UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry is all about. Nerd out, back to school. We love it.
[outro music]
Aminatou: You can find us many places on the Internet: callyourgirlfriend.com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, we're on all your favorite platforms. Subscribe, rate, review, you know the drill. You can call us back. You can leave a voicemail at 714-681-2943. That's 714-681-CYGF. You can email us at callyrgf@gmail.com. Our theme song is by Robyn, original music composed by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. Our logos are by Kenesha Sneed. We're on Instagram and Twitter at @callyrgf. Our producer is Jordan Bailey and this podcast is produced by Gina Delvac.[Ads]
Aminatou: Welcome to Call Your Girlfriend
Ann: A podcast for long distance besties everywhere.
Aminatou: I’m Aminatou Sow.
Ann: And I'm Ann Friedman.
Aminatou: Hey Ann Friedman. What's up, what's up this week?
Ann: Hello. Hello. I guess it's technically back to school season, for many of us, it's after Labor day. So like, even if you are not currently in school, I think it's sort of intellectually back to school season. And in that spirit, I have a delightfully nerdy conversation for you today. I called up my friend, Dr. Stacy Wood, who is the research director for UCLA’s Center for Critical Internet Inquiry, which is a big mouthful. But I think it's safe to say that these people are doing some of the most interesting research and advocacy around how we consume the internet and how we consume information digitally. She's also the director of the Lab Lab, which is an interdisciplinary research lab focused on the role of forensic science and technology in the legal system. So basically like how and what do we believe things when it comes to criminal trials and she's also the founder of True Wheel Research and Research Consulting a firm based, a firm focused on research for creative projects. So basically like, and again, I mean this with all love and my heart and all joy in my heart, like Dr. Wood, I can't even get over it, my friends are doctors, Dr. Wood has made a career out of thinking really critically about what we consider evidence and how we archive evidence. And she found her way into library science by way of her interest in Ufology, which is the study of UFOs. And, um, more broadly than that, her interest in how people like support the beliefs and experiences they have with, and her dissertation was about classified information. And, uh, that is also super interesting. We talk a little bit about that and this just in general, she's one of the most interesting thinkers I know who, um, I always come to her with my questions about the way I am receiving and processing information, especially via the internet.
[theme song]
Ann: So today, um, I call her up and ask her about how we can understand the people in our lives, who are not operating with the same set of facts we are, which is to say like maybe the more vaccine hesitant or people who find themselves on, you know, corners of the internet, where we might not find ourselves and believing different links and sources. I also talked to her about how we all can be more critical consumers of information.
Aminatou: This makes me really happy.
Ann: Um, I have to warn you that, uh, not only is Stacy, a friend of mine, we have been told that we sound a lot alike, even though I can't hear it because who can objectively assess their own voice. So I apologize for any confusion, rest assured she will be the one explaining theories about the JFK assassination and UFOs, and saying all this smart stuff about the internet and I will be laughing and nodding along. So here I am with Dr. Stacy wood.
[interview begins]
Ann: Can I call you Dr. Stacy Wood?
Stacy: Oh, absolutely. I demand it in fact.
Ann: Dr. Wood, welcome to the podcast.
Stacy: Thank you so much for having me. I'm truly thrilled, truly thrilled.
Ann: It never gets old to call your friends doctor.
Stacy: Yes. I, it never gets old to get mail addressed to Dr. Wood. It's a, it feels, it feels like because the mail is slightly more private. I can like luxuriated in a little bit more.
Ann: Really lap it up.
Stacy: Really lap it up. Um, it was all worth it to get to that mailbox.
Ann: Oh God. Just that little line of affirmation all the years of strife. Um, let's talk about this kind of theme or idea that underpins much of your research, all of your research and work?
Stacy: Yeah, pretty much I think so. I think yes.
Ann: Which is evidence. The idea that like, um, here is what we take as proof for something. This is what it means to, um, I don't know, to feel secure in your belief about something.
Stacy: Yeah. It's, it's a, it's a really expansive concept, which I like, but I also, I think, um, I sort of first started thinking about my work in that way, because I was trained as an archivist and in archives. We talk about evidence in a really specific way that is about kind of the warrant for how things are put together and how they're understood and how they maintain integrity across systems. So how do you know that this birth certificate is a real birth certificate? Right?
Ann: So the evidence is a seal or whatever.
Stacy: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But you know, when I started to think about my dissertation work was about classified information policy and, uh, I got back to what I think of as my roots, as someone who grew up in Nevada and sort of raised myself on Coast to Coast AM and the X-Files. And so, you know--
Ann: Wait what is coast to coast am?
Stacy: Coast to Coast is, um, a very, very long running sort of paranormal call-in show that used to run in the middle of the night and--
Ann: On AM radio?
Stacy: Yes. Yes. And then, uh, and then of course on the internet, I used to listen to it religiously and people would call in and sort of dissect experiences they'd had either, you know, I mean, everything from cryptozoology to UFO's to just strange things that had happened in their lives. And, uh, and so I grew up very much thinking about those things and sort of steeped in the reality of Nevada, which is a very open-minded place in terms of thinking about, uh, you know, phenomena at large, I would say, but it's also, I think, where we store a lot of the nation's nuclear waste. Right. So where we think about hiding things, keeping things secret. So anyway, that's all a long way to say, thinking about evidence becomes a different thing when you're thinking about, uh, different context, different categories. So I started thinking about Ufology and how you--
Ann: Ufology is the study of UFOs?
Stacy: Yes, indeed. It is. Yes. Um, some people say, oof-ology, but don't listen to them.
Ann: We don't call it an ooFO.
Stacy: We don't, see there you go. Thank you. So I started to think about like, how are people evaluating classified documents, declassified documents, images that have circulated, how do people form community around those things and understand them together? And, uh, when I was researching classified information policy, I was also sort of parallel, uh, looking at the way that Ufolo just have created an alternative research infrastructure. So because they couldn't go do their research in traditional institutions, they started circulating their own academic journals and their own systems of peer review and their own systems of authentication. And I find that really fascinating as, as a sort of mode to be in where you are rejecting kind of, um, dominant institutional thinking and methodologies, but you're also imitating them just sort of adjacent to, um, so, uh, that, that work was sort of all going on at the same time. And I've also done work in thinking about legal concepts of evidence and how those concepts kind of push against, uh, changing ideas around expertise and narrative.
Ann: So like the thing that I think about, I mean, obviously we are all steeped right now in vaccine hesitancy, in narratives about what is and isn't safe to be doing out in the world. And I'm wondering about this term conspiracy or conspiracy theory, because there is so much, I don't know, there, there seems to be an ever changing set of norms around what we call it when people have their own set of evidence for things.
Stacy: Yeah, absolutely. And I will say it is, this is a thorny issue in my life because I grew up feeling very comfortable saying the phrase conspiracy theory, it meant something kind of specific and maybe something that right now in the moment in history that we're all experiencing and living in together seems a bit quaint. There's almost like a--
Ann: JFK Assassination and UFO's,
Stacy: And UFO's, and maybe, you know, Bigfoot maybe, uh, you know, things that just almost we feel nostalgic about at this point, because they felt like when we're thinking about it in, in contrast to movements or, you know, communities now that have those same qualities, uh, you know, you don't see the level of anger or violence or single-mindedness that we see now. And I think there are lots of people who, you know, do a sort of better or worse job at diagnosing what that is. Sometimes people kind of lay that at the altar of technology alone. Like, you know, people would be totally fine if we didn't have Facebook.
Ann: And I think it's, there would be no Q Anon, there would be no vaccine hesitancy, is Facebook didn't exist right?
Stacy: Yeah, exactly. And that is not true. It can't be true. And I think a lot of the ways, or the reasons that these sort of theories circulate and resonate so strongly is actually because they've fully scaffold onto preexisting belief systems and also moral panics that we've been having sickly for the last a hundred years. So it's, you know, I think, um, if you look at things like Q anon, you know, you see satanic panic in there, you see this sort of union of like Christian theology and, uh, circumspection about the elites and the government. Um, if you look at sort of 5G conspiracy notions, right? You see a lot of--
Ann: Which is cell towers are controlling our brains?
Stacy: Yes, yes. Controlling our brains. Some of them, it was actually, this is an expansive zone, but I think, um, the paranoia around 5G takes a lot of forms and, you know, you'll see claims about it causing COVID, you'll see claims about it. Um, you know, being a means of manipulation, all kinds of things, but you do see a lot of the roots, same language, same patterns that you see in sort of anti-vax movements that you see in wellness communities. So I think, you know, it is, I think that technology and social media platforms have a significant role to play. And I don't want to sound like I'm letting them dodge their responsibilities, which are many and mostly unfulfilled. But, um, but it's not that simple. It's not like if we just turned the switch off tomorrow on Facebook, everyone would go back to, um, you know, a depth of trust in institutions like that's Facebook didn't, cause didn't set the stage for the mistrust in institutions that I feel, um, lets these, these ideas really run rampant and, and lock in with people, you know? Cause you have to, I think you really have to be angry, um, at, at a system to blame it in this way or to not trust it in this way or to be so vehement in your disagreement with it.
Ann: Gosh, it's funny. I find myself having this emotional reaction where I'm like, but I do want to blame Facebook.
Stacy: No, I, well, I, listen, I blame Facebook for a lot of things. So we could have a whole separate talk about like how angry I am at Facebook and I am right. Um, and I think this, yeah, it's has a part to play, but it can't be the only thing. Right. But what it does do is provide scale and speed that we've never had before. Right. And so I think that that is part of it where you see like it used to be. And again, this is, I think, why would we talk about conspiracy theory? It seems quaint. It used to be like, I have to go to this certain table at this swap meet. And I know I can get the videos about the truth from this guy.
Ann: The xerox pamphlets. the zero
Stacy: Right? The Xerox pamphlets, the zines, the copies of different ufology journals, whatever, which are by the way, incredible. And it was a lot harder to access that information and it certainly felt like a closed or more closed community. Um, and now I think what's really hard is how do we distinguish between something that is really deep and might be a threat and something that is, you know, for the LOLs or I, you know, I, I liked this meme, so I circulated it. I think those things are really difficult to distinguish now at scale, you know, I think you can do it in a sophisticated way, in a small sense, but in a large sense, we're just not there. And I think part of the challenge is that, you know, research in these areas are also, is really complicated and this is another reason, you know, we need to think about how we refer to people and, and how we think about it because often there are sort of more or less legitimate concerns may be buried somewhere sometimes not at all, some, but, but if you want to understand it, you know, you need to talk to people and they're absolutely not going to talk to you if you intro by somebody, a conspiracy theorist. Right. Cause there's an immediate sort of value judgment in that even though in a literal sense, it is exactly a theory about exactly a theory about a conspiracy. Right. But you know, because of how it sort of circulated colloquially or in media, I think there's a, there's a shame around that. Um, and there's also a real desire to prove that their engagement with it and their research is real and substantive and rigorous.
Ann: Yeah. And I think the reason I had that reaction about Facebook is because when I think about my own difficulties in deciding what to believe or deciding what's bullshit or deciding like what is actually an effective answer to a big thorny problem, I feel, um, I just, I feel like it's a lot harder to take a pause and sift and figure out who to trust due to the sheer info overload of being on the internet. Like I have been off Instagram for a month and I'm just like, oh, it's not that I feel like I have more clarity on complex issues or like I know exactly who to believe now, but it's not a kind of like live stressor in the way it is where I see a slide show and I'm like, is the slideshow right? How was the slideshow built? Who built the slide show? What are they citing?
Stacy: Absolutely. And I think, um, you know, you're probably asking more of those questions than the average bear. I, you know, when you see, when you see a graphic or cause you already know to ask those questions and I think, um, you know, one of the things that's interesting to me is sort of the ever evolving, adapting aesthetic of evidence too, right? It's like, what do, how do we, when we look at something, how do we sort of apprehend whether or not it's legitimate? And I think it's harder and harder to do because people understand, you know, I think the internet archive is a beautiful thing. Um, and I encourage everyone to spend time there.
Ann: How do you spend time there?
Stacy: Well, I mean, I just, I just like futz around, I mean, because I look for old, uh, because I look for old UFO sites, um, you know, I do spend a fair amount there, but I've also, um, this is a bit of a tangent, but sometimes when I was teaching kind of intro to tech and values or tech and ethics courses, um, I would ask students to go answer complex questions using Yahoo ontologies. So before natural language search for Google's natural language search, we all, you remember the good old days, we all had to go through faceted categories. And so, you know, if you wanted to find out like what the score to a historic basketball game was, you had to start at sports, basketball, the team, right? You, you went down and down and down and you got more specific as you went just a very, very different way of asking a question or finding information, then typing in a sentence and how that structures what you get back, how that structure is, what you even think is possible to ask is really fascinating to me. Um, and I think, you know, natural language search and the sort of advertising incentives that have become endemic to that, uh, certainly are part of this as well. And I think that's the thing too. It's like, I think Facebook is really visible and it should be because it's, it's, it is. And it's where a lot of this is happening. But, you know, I think of, uh, my colleagues book Safiya Noble’s Algorithms of Oppression, where she talks about, um, how natural language search can also lead to a lot of this where, you know, Dylan Roof does a Google search for Martin Luther King and he ends up on a white supremacist website that is trying to debunk the legacy of Martin Luther King, right? So that's the first, his first entry point into a question of, you know, who is this person poop? You know, Google has that as their, your top result because it was easy to manipulate. Um, it's less easy to manipulate now, but it's still there. You know.
Ann: It is hard. Well, and that's an interesting question too, because, um, I, I find myself increasingly casually talking about the algorithm.
Stacy: Yeah. It lives, it lives
Ann: Exactly like, um, and, and, you know, and I think another thing that's not very transparent to people is like, you know, okay, is Google showing Dylan Roof this white supremacist website because Dylan Roof has already been on a lot of white supremacists websites? Is it showing because he, that, that wipe, white, wipe, is it showing him the link because that white supremacist website paid to be high up in the results, like in is like a really, it can be also hard to figure out speaking of evidence, like how did something end up here in front of me?
Stacy: Yeah. It is really complicated. And I think it's a hard question to answer for many reasons. I mean, I will, I will say this right. My technical prowess and know-how is not up to the task of understanding the complexities of Google's algorithms. Right. But also, somebody else that definitely there are people. But, you know, but, but the, maybe the more important problem for us is that all of these systems are proprietary. So there's also that aspect of it that a lot of what I would call black box systems. So things that you can't see inside, you can't tell how something is making its decisions or working. So I think if you can't see how it's being done, right, there's this air of mystery around it. And I think that contributes partially to why we don't actually question it very much, because it seems, it seems to make sense to us, right. It seems to fit into what we're doing. And I even had a conversation with a friend, a mutual friend who will go unnamed, um, uh, last week about, um, you know, whether or not our phones are listening to us. This is all the way, this is a sort of perennial. Right. Exactly. And you know, the answer is no. And, um, and the actual answer might be scarier because it's actually that data brokers and GPS is so good that it can tell that you and I are sitting next to each other and that you and I both went to these different stores today and then reinforces things that we sort of already might be interested in. And she was sort of pressing me on it. And she was like, but I didn't even, I didn't Google it. And I didn't do anything. I just talked about it. And I was like, oh no, see, this is the thing it's, you're, you're shown something a hundred times, but you only see it on the 99th time. And then the hundredth time you see it, you think, oh, that's spooky, right? Because now you've called attention to it. And it, you know, it's, it's like the phenomenon when you learn a new word or you see a red Corvette.
Ann: There’s a name for that, I can’t remember.
Stacy: I can't either, you know, but we know it's a thing. We know it's a thing. Um, you know, whatever that phenomena is, I'm sure you, dear listener are screaming at us right now. We'll see what it is. Um, but you win, if you know, you win. Um, researchers, you know, the qualitative research arms of a lot of these tech companies are very good at figuring out how to incentivize moving through the pathways that are put in front of you and really good at reinforcing really good at the nudge. Right. Um, and so I think things can feel magical or they could feel creepy or they can feel prescient. And, but that's sort of part of what they're also selling to us is that our devices are smarter than we are and know what we want more than we do the issue with that around. I mean, there's lots of issues, but I think one of the things about that that is frustrating or kind of debilitating in different ways is that the claim is that all of these things just reflect society and reflect reality.
Ann: Rather than shape it.
Stacy: Right, rather than shape it. Right. And I think, uh, and you'll see this, I don't know if anybody else really enjoys taking an afternoon to watch six to seven hours of a congressional hearing with Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg, but in case you don't, I'll tell you.
Ann: That's why you're here. [laughter]
Stacy: That’s why I'm here. And, uh, they're always really fascinating because you see these questions explicitly getting asked and laying at the, at the feet of, again, The Algorithm with a capital T and a capital A, and they're always really careful to limit or to make smaller the claims right. In, in that context and then how much the algorithm, how much the algorithm can do. Right. But then in every other context, that's the selling point. And it's this really interesting back and forth where it's like, oh no, we couldn't possibly, we don't, we're not powerful enough to do that. That's ridiculous. This is just a reflection of reality. And then it's like, you look at the sales pitches, you look at advertising, you look at how it's being offered to you and it's the exact opposite, right? It is, you need this, you can't possibly know how well you slept last night, unless this watch tells you.
Ann: Rr your bed tells you.
Stacy: Or your bed, you know, it is undoubtedly true that there's an economic incentive for keeping people on, you know, on those platforms. And so anything you can do to keep people interested and to keep people going. And there've been so many well-documented cases, especially with YouTube talking about radicalization and how people get pushed further because you know, you, and trust me when I was doing my dissertation research, I wish I had kept better records of this, of, of those processes because my YouTube algorithm was absolutely wonderful bonkers because it was, I had watched so many videos about what I was researching at the time that it didn't even take, I didn't even have to search for anything for, you know, Hillary Clinton as a reptilian to be served to me within two, two degrees. Um, and it just keeps pushing you down that hole because that's the thing that keeps you there. So I think, you know, they've been really, I think that the sort of big tech CEOs have been really on speaking tours for the last five years saying, No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We have no incentive. That is not what we do. We do not radicalize people. We have no incentive to do that. We, our incentives would be to clean it up and have it be a nice place. And, um, you know, I think, I think it's a both and I think that's both true and untrue. So, you know,
Ann: Well, their incentive is to keep people using the platform as long as possible. And how do you do that? You give people more of what they already want.
Stacy: Exactly, exactly.
Ann: I want to go back to this idea of evidence and like, think about it more in terms of things that might be socially or politically closer to home. We are not in a sort of target demo of reptilian Hillary, or like even, or even, I would say like some of the more conspiracy minded narratives about the vaccine, like, you know, you and I are kind of firmly in a social group and have a political persuasion where we're not getting served. That what about stuff that is closer to home? You know, like things that feel of this same ilk, but are more directed to you.
Stacy: Hm. Do you have any, do you have an example in mind?
Ann: I'm just going to say one word.
Stacy: Yeah.
Ann: Adaptogen.
Stacy: [laughter] Yeah. Well that was so apologies dear listener for that outburst, but I, you know, I think, um, yeah, I, well, my first instinct actually was to be like, well, what I have noticed is that it's, um, I've had a lot more conversations with people in my life that were vaccine hesitant than I would have predicted. Um, and that tends to come from a sort of wellness supplement direction rather than, uh, you know, a radical mistrust of the government. So I think there is so much, so much misinformation about wellness trends and the hard part is right, is holding these two truths in your brain at the same time that we know that the history of science at large and this history of medical science is fraught with all of these sort of horrible racial traumas. And, uh, and gender-based traumas that persist right. That we still see the results of and we also really need medical science at the same time. Right. And we want to be advocates for the best version of that that we can possibly have. I know. And this is always, I think the difficult thing about, um, information quality or evidence is that we sort of both know that it is contextual, it's highly contingent. Um, it's going to mean different things to different people, and we can have trouble with our institutions. And yet, you know, there are also facts on the ground. So how to navigate those waters is just never simple.
Ann: It's a real like, who do you trust and why?
Stacy: The war cry of the conspiracy theorists is do your own research, right? Do the research.
Ann: And not only the conspiracy theorists, like the, the like influencer pedaling, your own research is a real rallying cry. Lots of people. Yeah.
Stacy: There's never a, let's talk about how to do research, right. It's just do, do it, do it, go do it. And what that usually means is what I just did, which is just type one or two words into Google and see what happens. Right. Nobody and it's, I mean, I don't remember the exact statistics anymore, but about how many people go past the first page of Google. It's very, very few. And this is where we get back into thinking about what is Google optimized to do? What does it optimize to give us back? You know, I think that sort of do your own research call is a compelling one because, you know, we all want to think that we are maybe more informed or smarter, and we all want to think that we're responsible. And I think that is the really difficult part where we're making good choices, making good choices.
Ann: We are the author of those choices.
Stacy: Right. And, and it is a very, very strong thing to not want to feel manipulated or not want to feel duped by anything
Ann: Of course.
Stacy: And, but I also think that, you know, when you see, like, I don't know if you saw this recent piece about, uh, the school boards getting terrifying school board meetings, getting terrifying. You don't get that level of fear and fervor without it being built on top of something else. Right. And I think some of that is historical trauma and neglect. Some of it is shifting dynamics and some of it's entitlement, some of it is, you know, building on top of evangelical Christian beliefs, right? So I, these, these things all kind of swim together in the same waters.
Ann: Those waters are America.
Stacy: Yes, exactly. They swim together in the waters of America.
Ann: Oh my God. This is an amazing place to take an outbreak.
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Ann: I also, okay. So I want to ask where archives fit into this.
Stacy: Oh yeah.
Ann: Because, you know, you mentioned at the beginning of our conversation about how looking at how people are archiving and creating their own, you know, system of evidence for UFO and paranormals stuff was like one of the ways into your academic work, where, where do archives fit?
Stacy: Yeah. I, well, I see, so it's interesting. I think archives are sort of the bread and butter of it all because that is where you show up to do research on primary texts. And the, one of the things I talked about in my dissertation that will show up in something someday is, um, there's a, a really amazing website is run by a father and son duo whose last name also happens to be Wood.
Ann: I thought you were going to say he was the last name also happens to be duo. [laughter]
Stacy: No, I wish. Um, but you know, their entire site and a lot of their work is devoted to analyzing and authenticating a specific group of documents that are called the Majestic 12 documents and anybody who is anybody. I mean, anybody who is listening, if you know what those are, you know, like this is a rabbit hole, we could go down forever, but I will give the sort of TLDR
Ann: I love thinking about the CYG listener. Who's like, CYG meets Majestic 12 documents. If you're in that bed, you're having a great day.
Stacy: Yeah genuinely. If you’re in that realm just email me immediately.
Ann: Explain it to the rest of us.
Stacy: Um, but, um, so the Majestic 12 documents are a set of documents that were sort of secretly handed over to a UFO researcher in the eighties. They were slipped through a mail slot in a Manila folder, and it was photos, undeveloped film. And then when they developed them, it was photos of documents that looked to have classification markings on them that would indicate they came from different government agencies. Okay.
Ann: Evidence.
Stacy: Right.
Ann: I’m here for it.
Stacy: Right. So in these documents exactly. This is, so this is it. This is the full circle. Um, so in these documents, the gist is that there was a secret group of UFO crash retrieval experts, right? And this included such luminaries as Vannevar Bush, was the director, the, uh, for information studies nerds. He's a big hero. Uh, well, not really, but I mean, you know, he's a big figure and a big name and information studies, but the Majestic 12 team is made up of high profile government officials from the military and, um, and civilian agencies. And the claim was that, you know, we have this secret team and they are in charge of going to clean up crash retrieval, crash retrieval sites, and keep everything secret and under wraps. And this plugs into all of the other sorts of big projects, blue book things, and a lot of big sort of moments in Ufology, moments in UFO history.
Ann: This is why these documents are so majestic.
Stacy: This is why they are so majestic. Um, so, uh, anyway, these documents became this really interesting sort of catalyzing force for ufology research for the next like 30 years. People have been analyzing them. There was a cash prize for a while, Stanton Friedman. Who's one of the sort of biggest names.
Ann: Are they all named Wood or Friedman?
Stacy: Maybe [laughter] let's test this theory. But, um, uh, anyway, he, he spent a lot of time and staked, a lot of his professional, you know, credibility on these documents. Um, they are pretty much known to be a hoax. There was a big public outing of the hoax at a ufology conference. It's juicy, juicy gossip for anybody who's into it. Like that is a really amazing period. And I'm happy to send you resources. Um, and we'll talk about it, but, uh, but long story long, um, the, the Woods have this whole website that is dedicated to the analysis and authentication of these documents in using what they know about how the archives work. So they use the archives, meaning like government archives, the national archives and records administration. So they, you know, have spent an enormous amount of time going and looking through the records and saying, you know, okay, this is where this missing file should go. This is how you can tell, you know, here's this date, here's this typewriter quirk right here are these names and co-locating where people would be at certain moments in history. So, you know, when we think about, um, archives as evidence, right, they retain the qualities of evidence, not just because they're in a box at the national archives and records administration, but because they have the right markings, they might have a formal quality, right. Something might have a stain. And you know, where that came from there, all of these other ways that we preserve that. And part of that is through context. And this is where government records get really hairy, because a lot of that context you can't see. So normally, you know, a document in relation to other documents that only is evidential in relation to that whole group of documents.
Ann: If it has the same letterhead as all these documents.
Stacy: Exactly or you just understand, you know, where it fits in the sort of, um, institutional record context. So, um, you know, going through and seeing like, basically I just traced, you know, how people were talking about and thinking about the Majestic 12 documents and all of the different ways that they were trying to authenticate them as supposed documents that had been classified and stolen. Right. So they were supposed to be leaked. So, you know, anyway, they're, they're, they're definitely fake. I just want to say that officially they're definitely fake, but I, but there's still an interesting thought experiment because not everybody in that community has given up on it, even though someone essentially came forward and said, yeah, I was, I am an agent of disinformation. Like this was a psyop. And, and I mean, at an annual UFO gathering up in the middle of the room, it would be during his talk during his talk and I mean, pandemonium, absolute pandemonium. So it's, um, it is a contentious thing.
Okay. So one of the ways that I found my way into this was I went to a great summer school gathering in Paris. All everybody there was there because their research was about to some extent, controversy mapping or conspiracy mapping. So trying to study how ideas circulate and get out of control. And it was interesting because I would say that the group was sort of split in half in that half of the people were almost exclusively interested in how, um, how climate science became a climate debate, which is fascinating. And there's a great book that I will recommend every human being on earth read by Naomi Oreske that it's about, um, how exactly this, like how, how climate science became climate denial and all of the money and research infrastructure behind it.
Ann: What's the book called?
Stacy: Merchants of Doubt. Oh, I've heard of this book. It is genuinely great. Um, but you know, so half the group was sort of devoted to that. And then half of the group was really thinking about, um, conspiracy and how that, how that moves. And there was a scholar there who talked about, um, different artifacts found at the Roswell crash site and how even people who were there on the same day disagreed about what the ruins looked like, what the, what the sort of crash materials looked like. There was a little boy who found a piece that had like hieroglyphic markings on it. Right. And it became this, the centerpiece of like, how do we figure out what this says? And of course, whenever you start talking about crash sites, that's when you get into the real juicy conspiracy stuff, because that's all hidden, right. If you, if you say--
Ann: It's all been cleared away.
Stacy: It's all been cleared away and hidden somewhere. And, you know, probably Area 51 is always the assumption. Um, but you know, if we have it, it's in a warehouse somewhere and we're studying it and that's the conspiracy, the conspiracy conspiracy is the coverup, right? The conspiracy is--
Ann: It is the archive.
Stacy: It is. That is exactly it.
Ann: I want to ask about what you're working on right now.
Stacy: Yeah. Um, so many things, um, I have a new project that I'm trying. I'm really just at the very beginning stages of, but where I'm thinking about the role of technology in courtroom presentation, um, and expert testimony specifically. And one of the things that led me, there was a sort of looking at these 3D laser scanners that have been used for crime scene reconstruction. So they, you know, essentially set them up, they take thousands and thousands and thousands of pictures of the site.
And then they turn that into data. And then they turn the data back into a reenactment of that space and now--
Ann: And they play it for juries?
Stacy: Yeah. So that it's mostly used so far for traffic accidents, but it was used in the Jason De Freese trial, who was the, uh, person who murdered Laquan McDonald and also in the grand jury, uh, testimony for the Tamir Rice case. It didn't ever go. So it's, so it's like it's mostly used in traffic accidents, but then however profile it's used in high profile police, more police murders, not only are we sort of producing a reenactment based on data points, fine, whatever, but what they also have done is layered in different branches of forensic science, into the software that is also automated. So you have blood spatter analysis, you have shot trajectory analysis, you have all of these things that are baked into that software.
Ann: Every, everything that's like a plot point on CSI.
Stacy: Everything that's a plot point is CSI. And, and I think the, the, you know, there are many problems with that, but I, for me, the headline problem is that then you do not have a blood spatter analyst testifying, you do not have a shot trajectory analyst testifying. What you have is whoever they decided to bring in to prove that the software is legitimate.
Ann: Oh, wow. And then just the video.
Stacy: And then just the video. So, and that's what happened in the Laquan McDonald case, because they called in an animators guy who used to work for Pixar as the expert testimony. And there were a bunch of differences. There were changes in what everyone was wearing. There were changes in like body positions. Like there were too many changes that have been made in it. And you know, if you look, you can read through this public testimony, you can read through it if you want, but it's, um, you know, the response is something, something like, uh, oh, we didn't think it mattered if he was wearing a hoodie or a shirt. And it just feels, I mean, it's beyond disingenuous. It is just, it's just offensively naive. If, if we want to give all the credit in the world, right. If we give all the credit in the world to this person, it's, it's offensively naive, but I don't believe, you know, I don't believe that that person is totally that naive. So I, um, but anybody--
Ann: They’re making deliberate choices about how to represent this reenacted data.
Stacy: Not only that, but every single high profile, low profile, mid profile police murder has, has to do with the defense implicitly and explicitly is that the cop was afraid. Right. And some of the things that are brought up and why was this person afraid is how did that person look? What was, what were they wearing? Right. Right. Where are they standing? How were they standing? Did it look like they could hide something in that light? So when you start to say things like, oh, it doesn't matter if they're wearing a hoodie or a t-shirt, it’s patently untrue, because that is the same type of thing that would be brought up in evidence to, to say that justifies me being scared. So it doesn't, you can't have it both ways.
Ann: Evidence.
Stacy: Evidence.
Ann: Stacy, thank you for being, sorry, Dr. Woods for being on the show.
Stacy: Please, never use my first name. Never, ever. [laughter] Um, thank you for so much for having me. It was a joy.
[interview ends]
Ann: You can find more about Dr. Wood's work on her website, Stacy that's S T A C Y E Wood .com. Uh, and also hire her for independent research or, uh, look into what UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry is all about. Nerd out, back to school. We love it.
[outro music]
Aminatou: You can find us many places on the Internet: callyourgirlfriend.com, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, we're on all your favorite platforms. Subscribe, rate, review, you know the drill. You can call us back. You can leave a voicemail at 714-681-2943. That's 714-681-CYGF. You can email us at callyrgf@gmail.com. Our theme song is by Robyn, original music composed by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. Our logos are by Kenesha Sneed. We're on Instagram and Twitter at @callyrgf. Our producer is Jordan Bailey and this podcast is produced by Gina Delvac.