Mike Rugnetta: Friends, hello, and welcome to Never Post, a
podcast foreign about the Internet. I'm your host, Mike
Rugnetta. This intro was written on Monday, 11/03/2025 at 09:16PM
eastern, and we have a hard hitting show for you this week.
Hans talks with public interest lawyer Paul Levy about the case
of Pool World versus prepared foods photos, fighting online
copyright trolls, and winning. Then friend of the show, Meaghel
Janardan brings drama to the house never post asking what is
going on here about cheating boyfriend videos and also Tokyo.
But right now, we're gonna take a quick break. You're gonna
listen to some ads unless you're on the member feed. And when we
return, we're gonna talk about a few of the things that have
happened since the last time you heard from us. I'm not gonna
give up. I'm not gonna stop.
I'm gonna read you five stories this week. The United States
Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs
Enforcement Agency are amongst the biggest advertisers on meta
platforms at the moment according to polydashboard.com,
ranking sixteenth and eighteenth respectively at the time of
writing. Over the last seven days, it's estimated the
agencies have paid a combined total of between 1.1 and
$1,200,000 for more than 50,000,000 impressions across
Facebook and Instagram. According to Poly Dashboard, ICE
largely advertises job openings in English, while DHS places ads
in Spanish encouraging, as they call it, self deportation. China
is now regulating influencers who must, quote, either have a
university degree, recognized training, a license, or
certification, writes the economic times, before
publishing content in regulated areas, which are medical advice,
financial guidance, legal opinions, or commentary on
education.
Before posting about these things, platforms must verify
the existence of up to date credentials. The law also
specifies that creators must clearly mark AI generated
content and share their sources. Mister Beast employs over a
thousand clippers to create short snippets of his work to
share on social media boosting his reach. This according to
Bloomberg. The clippers are paid $50 for every 100,000 views of
their handiwork on TikTok or Instagram via a startup called,
you're not gonna believe this, clipping, which which employs
over 23,000 clippers in total.
The practice is common amongst extremely popular online
personalities, particularly streamers. My main goal says
clipping founder, 23 year old Anthony Fujiwara, is that if you
want to go viral, you have to go through me. Australia has sued
Microsoft. The country's competition and consumer
commission has brought suit against the software giant for
false or misleading information regarding its Microsoft three
sixty five subscription plans, alleging that the company
suggested consumers could either cancel their subscription or pay
a higher price on renewal for the integration of Copilot AI
tools. When in fact, there was apparently a hidden third option
which allowed consumers to retain both their feature set
and lower price.
This all according to Australia's The Register. Quote,
Microsoft deliberately omitted reference to the classic plans
in its communications, the ACCC will allege, and concealed their
existence until after subscribers initiated the
cancellation process, end labels for broadband may get 80 sixed.
Since April 2024 in The US, broadband service providers have
had to disclose the exact fee structure that customers will
pay in so called nutrition labels. A regulation aimed at
increasing transparency for consumers by showing exactly
what they are being charged for. I know.
What a novel idea. Crazy to think about. Of course, Brendan
Carr's FCC is set to reverse this policy. He describes the
task of finding these nutrition labels as Sisyphean. Quote, but
rather than adopt rules that would make the labels easier to
find or interpret, CNET writes, Carr voted to make them appear
less often, end quote.
The FCC is set to vote on the proposed rule making today at
time of recording, after which there will be thirty days for
public comment on the matter followed by thirty days of
response. We'll put a link to the public comment form in the
show notes when it's live in case you would like to
contribute. In past studies, according to CNET, 85% of
respondents found broadband nutrition labels useful for
comparison shopping. In show news this week, it's the
Radiotopia year end fundraiser, which means it's a great time to
give a few bucks and support all of your favorite Radiotopia
shows and Radiotopia itself all at once. So head on over to
radiotopia.fm/donate to give any one time or monthly amount to
support all your favorites.
That's Home Cooking, Proxy, Hyperfixed, Song Exploder, The
Memory Palace, and of course, never post alongside the network
itself. That's radiotopia.fm/donate. Okay.
That's the news I have for you this week. In this episode, Hans
and Paul Levy on copyright trolls, fighting them and then
winning.
Then Meagle brings an infidelitous, what, to the
goings on here. But first, in our interstitials this week, for
no particular reason other than we have it on hand, Street
Sounds of Tokyo, recorded when I was there last month.
Hans Buetow: Have you ever had this feeling? A letter shows up
on official letterhead or a phone message comes in from
somewhere official and says, call us back, And like your
stomach drops, like, and then it's just a lot of words and you
think you understand them and it all feels kind of threatening. I
mean, that whole thing's it's only happened to me a few times
in my life, but each time I start cold sweating like, What
did I do? So if I had been the one to open a letter dropped off
at Pool World in Spokane, Washington on 09/16/2022, I
probably would have, like, passed out or something. I would
have seen the lawyer's mark that was at the top of the letter.
I would have read the all caps opening line of settlement
communication and then frantically scanned through to
see, oh, damn. It's five pages long. Oh, sharks. It's got a
screen grab from our website. Oh, heck.
There's a bolded, italicized, center aligned bit that says,
quote, you shall pay $30,000 within twenty one days of the
date first written above and shall immediately cease and
desist from any further use of our client's work, end quote.
And then I would've like thrown up and then passed out. I
would've been a wreck if I got that letter. But the folks at
Pool World who actually did get that letter, they were not a
wreck.
Paul Levy: They were pissed off. They didn't like being bullied.
Hans Buetow: This is Paul Levy. Paul was Cool World's attorney
when this letter that they received turned into a lawsuit.
Paul is a public interest attorney with Public Citizens
Litigation Group and for the past twenty five years, he has
specialized in free speech issues arising on the Internet.
For this work, the Washington Magazine did a profile where
they gave him the moniker Paul Levy, the Webley's worst enemy.
Paul Levy: You know, it's a bit of a puff piece, but, I'm okay
with that.
Hans Buetow: I mean, what a great moniker to be the the
Yeah. Webbully's worst enemy. Like Right. And I mean, think
this story kinda proves it. So I feel like that was good
reporting.
This is a story about bullies and their worst enemy. Trolls
and their demand for tolls and the validation that when we
stand up, we can refuse to pay them. Trolls rely on
intimidation to squash any inclination, to say hang on,
wait a minute. This is just as risky for them as it is for me
and I'm not as helpless as they'd like me to think I am. It
doesn't always look like an easy path to stand your ground and
refuse to pay the toll.
But if you do it well, then the story gets around that there are
ways to get that bridge without worrying about the trolls. This
is the story of Pool World versus Prepared Food Photos.
Pool World sells pools. And pool adjacent stuff like saunas, hot
tubs, grilling equipment, all the stuff you need to get your
summer game on in Spokane and Coeur D'Alene where they have
four stores in the Pacific Northwest. But in 2022, when
Pool World got the letter in question, they were in this
weird moment of transition.
Paul Levy: The founder of Pool World died in a freak bicycling
accident shortly before this case was filed, and they were
trying to be true to his memory. This is what our founder would
have wanted to do. It was a principled stand. And beyond
that, I think you could probably say that they didn't want their
reputation in the community to be that they're an easy mark.
Don't push us.
You know, you can't just push us around and make a baseless claim
and get us to pay.
Hans Buetow: The claims in the letter were about photos on the
Pool World website, specifically one photo called the vegetable
photo that they put up on their website in 2010 to promote their
grill sales. The photo is a close-up. It's got skewers of
peppers, onions, zucchini, vegetables, all charring up
nicely in a grill. The photo was taken in 2001 and appeared on
their site under the banner pool world is grill world.
Paul Levy: The letter said, to the best of our knowledge, you
have no license to use this photo. Our client licenses
access to its entire database of photos for $9.99 a month.
Hans Buetow: That's $999 a month, by the way, for the right
to use all of their photos.
Paul Levy: And we've managed to persuade a series of courts that
the actual damages for copyright infringement is $9.99 a month
for the entire period of the alleged infringement, which
$9.99 times 12 is 11,988 times twelve years. So that's roughly
a $144,000 in damages.
Hans Buetow: Over one photo?
Paul Levy: I mean, the idea of these letters is to ramp up the
intimidating effect. Right? So they said, you know, hey. We're
gonna let you off easy. If you pay $30,000 within twenty one
days, you're you're scot free, baby.
Take it. Take this offer and run.
Hans Buetow: This is where these letters and the threats that
they contain work. Beyond the overwhelm of the legalese and
the escalation of the timeline and the threat of a big number,
but we'll settle for a smaller big number. Beyond all of that,
the core idea is legitimate.
Paul Levy: They used an image and they couldn't prove they had
a license.
Hans Buetow: Pool World could not locate a license for the
photo in the letter.
Paul Levy: They assume that they used an image that a grill
selling company or a distributor for a grill selling company
provided them. But the person who got the image is no longer
an employee, and she couldn't remember.
Hans Buetow: A single photo from twelve years ago that you can't
quite track where it came from is just enough truth in the
claim to make you pay attention.
Paul Levy: The photographers are up in arms, they're trying to
get a grip on the threat to their business model. And I I
actually, as a public interest lawyer, I have sympathy with
that. When people use photos, they ought to pay for them.
Hans Buetow: People ought to pay for photos they use. Underline,
cosign, praying hands emoji, quickly double checking to see
we don't have any unlicensed photos on the Neverpost website.
Great. People ought to pay for the photos they use. I think
it's time we meet these photographers.
Or actually, not the photographers. We're never gonna
meet the photographers. Let's meet the owners of the
photograph who hired this law firm to send this letter about
this photo. It's a company called Prepared Food Photos,
which is hard to say.
Paul Levy: I'm gonna call them PFP as a shorthand.
Hans Buetow: PFP owns a library of photos. So clients can pay a
fee to get a license to use those photos in a commercial
setting. You used to be able to buy a license for a single
photo, but in 2016, they converted to only being able to
license their full library, which, again, in their letter,
they cite at a minimum minimum of $999 per month.
Paul Levy: I don't think there's any question that they actually
engaged in the licensing business, And they found some
companies that were willing for one reason or another to pay a
subscription fee, not necessarily $9.99 a month, but
in various amounts. It struck me as possible that there were
companies that found that kind of access valuable. I mean,
Kroger, for example, the big supermarket chains, and then, of
course, you might have advertising companies. You could
see getting value from access to a large number of photos and
paying a substantial monthly amount for it. So I actually
went into this assuming that they were telling the truth
about their subscription fees.
Hans Buetow: The law is useful and good, but only when applied
reasonably.
Paul Levy: But for a company which had used only a single
photo, it was absurd to think that the damages ought to be
$11,988 per year of infringing use because stock photos are
cheap. Even good stock photos are cheap.
Hans Buetow: $144,000 is not reasonable. This case with Pool
World allowed him to keep pushing at what he suspected was
a copyright troll.
Paul Levy: I wanted to know all along how much money they were
making from infringement claims Yeah. Because my guess was that
it was more than from licensing.
Hans Buetow: If that's the case, then the claims about the risk
to their business are not founded. So Paul gets to work.
So once you get involved and you have this conversation with Pool
World, what's this first step for you? Where do you want this
to go? How are you how do you
Paul Levy: start it? An answer. There might be a statute of
limitations objection because the infringement took place in
2010, and the suit was filed in 2023. They claim they didn't
find the infringement until 2022.
Hans Buetow: Okay. Here's where we get into a bit of the
necessary legalese of the case. PFP is trying to invoke
something that's called the discovery rule, which is where
you start the statute of limitations clock not from when
the thing happened, but from when it was discovered, which
for them was 2022. This would nullify Paul's claims of statute
of limitations because they just found out about it. But boy, oh
boy, this is where Paul gets his first big move.
PFP making this request to ignore the statute of
limitations, it gives Paul some leverage using a very specific
legal rule.
Paul Levy: And our argument is because they're making these
demands in such an unfair way that discovery rule is an
equitable exception to the statute of limitations.
Hans Buetow: Okay. Equitable exception in this case says
that, sure. If PFP wants a change in the statute of
limitations, they have to show that they are behaving in good
faith, that what they are saying about the timing of events and
the claims about their business, that all of that is true.
Paul Levy: There's a general rule that when you seek if you
seek equity, you must do equity.
Hans Buetow: Yeah. What does that mean?
Paul Levy: If you seek fairness, you must have behaved fairly.
Hans Buetow: The way to see if PFP has behaved fairly is to
look at their documentation, which is done through a legal
process called discovery, which is kicked off by this need to
demonstrate equity, which is from the request to let go of
the statute of limitations.
Paul Levy: And nobody's ever made this argument before.
Nobody? Nobody. So we're sort of looking at new law.
Hans Buetow: This old rule of asking for equity when there's a
request to change the statute of limitations, this is gonna give
Paul what he wants, which is a clear view into PFP's finances.
And he's doing it with a new tactic against copyright trolls.
He's forcing them to prove they have a case rather than just
accepting their word and their demands for payment. I mean, to
me, this feels a lot like calling a bluff in poker,
sitting across the table and saying, okay. You want the pot?
Show me your cards. And then everyone narrows their eyes.
Paul Levy: They disclose their damages theory, is this,
$144,000 for twelve years of infringement, and we start
discovery. So I got to see 22 licensing agreements, which
ranged in monthly cost from $99 a month up into the more than a
thousand a month for some big companies. And the amount they
claimed they were getting from licensing payments didn't match
up with the licensing agreements they sent us.
Hans Buetow: So Paul and his team, they request more
documents, and it gets really intense. Banking records are
submitted with redactions, so more requests are made. But Paul
and his team persevere, and they start to build a picture of
PFP's business.
Paul Levy: They were making a range of amounts, $50,000 a
year, $70,000 a year in licensing fees, and as much as
$2,000,000 a year in infringement damages. And most
of the time of their employees was spent not finding people to
buy their licenses, but finding people to threaten.
Hans Buetow: This is clear evidence that PFP makes their
money from lawsuits, not licensing, and that they didn't
just charge $999 per month. Their fee actually varied
widely. So they were not excited about you to see this stuff,
obviously.
Paul Levy: They were not excited.
Hans Buetow: Yeah. What did it tell you though when you start
seeing those huge numbers?
Paul Levy: It what it told me was, first, that the claim of
their minimum license fee was a lie. I have no compunction about
saying it was a lie. The lawyer actually told us that until we
started doing discovery in this case, they had no idea that
their client was lying to them. Woah.
Hans Buetow: Suddenly, everything looks different. Paul
and his team argue to the court that since most of the work done
by PFP is searching for and making infringement claims, and
since 95% of PFP's income comes from threatening and bringing
copyright infringement claims, and because PFP isn't making any
new photos, and that they've been lying in their demand
letters and court filings because of all of that, Paul
argues, the case should just be dismissed. And if that's not
enough
Paul Levy: We didn't even need the lie. We had an expert
witness who helps people create their websites, and she's been
in the business of getting helping people get images to use
on their websites. And she knows what the market is, and she put
in an affidavit about the market.
Hans Buetow: Was $999 a month really a reasonable market rate
even in 2010?
Paul Levy: In 2010, the license fee would have been a dollar.
Hans Buetow: Which after everyone else was cut, the
payment processor, the photographer, Getty Images,
etcetera, etcetera, would have left very little for PFP.
Paul Levy: And its share was 12¢ or something like that. And so
do they wanna go to trial on a damages claim of 12¢, or did
they do the sensible thing and drop it?
Hans Buetow: According to Paul and unchallenged by PFP, their
claims were not market rate. Their demands are unreasonable.
Their statements are lies. Because they were forced to show
their cards, PFP is looking boxed in.
Paul Levy: So our argument to the judge was they don't get the
discovery rule, and therefore, you should rule in our favor.
Hans Buetow: Pool World and Paul are fighting back, and they're
winning. They have a solid case, and PFP knows that. But they
can't just drop the suit and walk away because of a rule that
kicked in when Paul and his team filed their initial answer to
the lawsuit way back when at the beginning. And this rule says
that PFP now needs the court's permission to dismiss their
suit, which means there's really two big options. Instead of
getting money, PFP can settle by paying Pool World their attorney
fees.
Paul Levy: You know, hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees.
Hans Buetow: Or worse, if the case goes to trial and the
ruling is that PFP's threats of 6 figure sums is just simply not
the way that you calculate damages in a copyright
infringement case.
Paul Levy: If we got a legal ruling to that effect, that
legal ruling would potentially be binding on PFP in every other
case in which they bring this theory.
Hans Buetow: Which is their whole business model.
Paul Levy: And and my guess is that the risk of losing that is
what drove them to the table to agree on a payment to be made
toward our attorney fees.
Hans Buetow: Seemingly forced by the risk of losing their entire
way of operating, PFP chooses the financial hit and pays an
undisclosed amount to Pool World to get their own suit dismissed.
The troll was forced to pay their own toll. That is a
satisfying story. Most stories these days feel like they're
written in a fever dream, and the clarity of this just feels
to me like taking this long cool drink in the stream before you
move on down the bridge and off to the other side. But is this
happily ever after?
Well, it's certainly a path forward. Paul and his team, they
have now used the law in a new way to counter trolls. The
strategy that he used is public because of the documentation,
and it's ready for use by any of what Paul calls on his blog,
quote, a small coterie of lawyers who are fed up with the
bullying.
Paul Levy: I'd like to think that this will give more
companies the balls that Pool World had. I mean, it was easy
for Pool World. They had a free lawyer, and they had a free
lawyer who sort of knew what he was doing. But these cases can
be defended and they can be won and it takes takes courage and
it takes a willingness to run a little bit of risk.
Hans Buetow: Since this recent settlement, PFP have not made
any new infringement claims, which is awesome. But there have
been dozens of infringement claims over PFP's photo library,
but from a new company, which is called Rockefeller Photos. And
it's owned by the same people as PFP. Not awesome. But Paul Levy,
the webbully's worst enemy, is still on the job.
Paul Levy: You know, their lawyer really ingeniously
created a line of cases which he was able to deploy to get
significantly more than the law really ought to allow him. And
all I'm trying to do is get us back to where the law really is.
Get companies like prepared foods that have a large library
of photos, and let's assume they're useful photos to a
variety of people. Give them the incentive that congress gave
them, but no more.
Hans Buetow: Thank you again to Paul Levy for taking the time to
talk to me. We are gonna put a link to Paul's blog where he's
written a lot about this case, and you can get way into the
legal details of it if you want to. It's really good reading,
and, again, very satisfying. If you are someone in the legal
profession and this feels like an interesting strategy, or a
useful set of things you could think about in an upcoming case,
let us know because we'd love to hear about this being used in
other places. Just look on in the show notes, figure out how
to get in touch.
Mike Rugnetta: Friends, hello, and welcome to what is going on
here. A segment wherein members of the Neverpost staff bring
posts to the group about which they would like to ask, what is
going on here? Could we all have done some googling? Could we
have gone further down thread? Could we have cracked a book or
two or gone to YouTube?
Probably. But what is the fun in that? In the following segment,
we share things we found online that made us want to know more
and about which we thought the process of finding out more
would be fun to do together. Joining us for this round in
order of how much Halloween candy I assume they have eaten.
Hans Buetow: Oh my god.
Mike Rugnetta: I'm immediately double thinking thinking over
what
Georgia Hampton: I'm Hans left the phrase for a second.
Mike Rugnetta: Because yeah. Because Hans' soul has left his
body out of shame. It's immediately obvious that I have
him first
Georgia Hampton: as the least amount of candy, as the
healthiest,
Hans Buetow: most restrained one.
Mike Rugnetta: Never post senior producer Hans Buchtel, who I
just assumed as a man in his forties, was also watching his
sugar, but maybe I'm wrong.
Hans Buetow: No. Oh my god. It's like the magic where nothing
counts. Right?
Georgia Hampton: Us calories don't count on Halloween. Oh my
gosh.
Hans Buetow: We bought two bags of Costco candy, and very few
children showed up. What?
Mike Rugnetta: You're like, oh, no.
Meghal Janardan: What are we gonna do?
Georgia Hampton: Won't someone do something?
Mike Rugnetta: Hans, I'm so happy for you.
Hans Buetow: I've actually been really I'm happy and shamed.
Mike Rugnetta: I'm mad I'm sad for me who got this wrong. But
Georgia Hampton: Yeah. Wait. Now I'm fascinated to see where
everyone else is.
Mike Rugnetta: Okay. Never post producer Georgia Hampton.
Georgia Hampton: Okay. I don't have much of a sweet tooth.
Meghal Janardan: Alright. That is actually shocking
Georgia Hampton: news. Really? I will eat like a million olives
and I'll eat maybe one fun size like Twix and be like,
Georgia Hampton: that's all for me. Thank you very much. Like, I
couldn't possibly yeah. Okay.
Mike Rugnetta: So so third on the list here, friend of the
show and of the people on it, Meaghel Jardin, I feel like, you
know, accepting Hans, maybe I maybe I've gotten this right,
that you have a sweet tooth.
Georgia Hampton: No. No. Yes. Yes, Meagle.
Georgia Hampton: You and I.
Meghal Janardan: Like Georgia. I just thought that Georgia had a
sweet tooth because I think Georgia's second birthday was
Halloween.
Georgia Hampton: That's true. You did think
Georgia Hampton: I did have to correct you when you thought
that my birthday was Halloween.
Meghal Janardan: You just embody Halloween.
Georgia Hampton: Well, thank you.
Meghal Janardan: The Halloween spirit, which must be including
sugar. I also do not have a sweet tooth. I think I had a
mini Twix and, like, some gummies or something. But that
was it.
Georgia Hampton: Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. Okay, Mike. Where are you
at?
Hans Buetow: Yeah. Mike Rugnetta.
Mike Rugnetta: I ate almost no candy. The only candy that I ate
was I ate half of a single Sour Patch Kid to make sure that it
wasn't too sour for Clem when she was on her first ever Sour
Patch Kid.
Hans Buetow: It's half of one piece of a gummy. That's
Georgia Hampton: pretty wild.
Hans Buetow: That's almost insulting. Like, that's
deliberate. I really like candy that much. Apparently.
Georgia Hampton: Yeah. Since you did this, it this was a personal
attack. Yeah. This was I'm
Hans Buetow: I'm feeling threatened. Right.
Georgia Hampton: So, yeah, all three
Georgia Hampton: of us are at the very, very bottom.
Mike Rugnetta: I have eaten your
Georgia Hampton: shares is what I've been. Frost dean of
Candyland.
Mike Rugnetta: This is not a WIGO. This is an intervention.
Georgia Hampton: Hans Hans, see the back of the room that you're
standing in. A gigantic pile of cans. It's just wrappers. It's
it's no candy.
Meghal Janardan: What is going on?
Georgia Hampton: I Scrooge McDuck my way through empty
wrappers every day. Every day. Alright.
Mike Rugnetta: Let's find out what's going on here.
Hans Buetow: Welcome to today's game.
Mike Rugnetta: First up, we got friend of the show. Meagle
Jardin is here because you found something specifically and you
were like, I this can I be on a WIGO? Because I wanna know
what's going on here.
Georgia Hampton: Yes.
Mike Rugnetta: So we're all very excited to see what it is.
Meghal Janardan: Alright. Okay. For this video, I'm gonna
nominate Mike to describe what is going on here.
Mike Rugnetta: It's a TikTok. Okay. These are kinda long.
Alright. Two minutes.
Okay. So I'm looking at the embedded video here, and it's a
16 by nine video in a nine by 16 frame. So it's got big black
things on the top and the bottom, and it's a vlog. So it's
like a woman looking into her webcam or something. And it
says, calling the girl I found in this phone and finding out
I'm the other woman.
Woah. And so now I'm gonna press play.
Georgia Hampton: Hello? Hello? Is this Brie? Yes. Who who's
this?
So my name my name is Sofia. I don't think you know about me,
and I I just wanna say I'm sorry. But do you know a guy
named Alex? Is he okay? I mean, yeah.
Like, how do know him? He's your what? That's my fiance. Who is
this? I've been seeing him for six months.
I'm sorry. What?
Georgia Hampton: This is Jess. The woman the woman on the other
end goes, I'm sorry. What? It just You can you must
Paul Levy: be texting.
Mike Rugnetta: What I can only describe as the most text to
speech voice I could imagine. Okay.
Georgia Hampton: You're a
Georgia Hampton: little bit confused. I'm sorry. I found him
on Tinder, so I decided to go through his phone and I saw your
contact in there. I I honestly, I had no idea.
Mike Rugnetta: The mismatch in emotion between the two sides is
hilarious. Very funny. It makes it comedy that the woman on
camera is so upset, and the woman the, like, recorded voice
is so monotone. Wait. Okay.
Hold on. I'm there's still, like, another minute of this.
Mabel, what happens? Like, should I watch the rest of it?
Or like
Meghal Janardan: I don't think you need to watch the rest of it
because it's more of this, you know, catching my cheating
boyfriend or whatever.
Hans Buetow: Mike, can I hit you with a couple of statistics?
Yeah. Likes, 5,200,000.
Georgia Hampton: Mhmm. What? Mhmm.
Hans Buetow: Comments, 10,600. Bookmarks, 262.6 point 7,000.
Shares, a 158,300.
Meghal Janardan: I think it has almost 40,000,000 views.
Hans Buetow: Woah. Why?
Meghal Janardan: So the reason why I sent this is that I've
been getting served multiple of these videos on TikTok to the
point where I was like, wait a second. And now, if you go to
the TikTok and click on the person's page who made this
video Okay. You will see the entire account is content
catching my cheating boyfriend.
Mike Rugnetta: It is. My husband's reaction to me
confronting him for bringing guys from Grindr to our house.
Yeah.
Georgia Hampton: My boyfriend's reaction to his cheater themed
birthday party. My
Hans Buetow: boyfriend's reaction to me framing his
Tinder profile. Normalize public shaming cheaters.
Meghal Janardan: And what I thought was like so fascinating
about this, like to me, I picked up pretty quickly that this was
fake. Mhmm. Because along with a lot of other similar accounts
that I've come across, the boyfriend or like the person who
cheated, their voice and their body language, it just felt very
fake and scripted. Was like, this you're not speaking
naturally. Mhmm.
And I was like, oh, maybe it's like skits or something, but
then you go to the account and it's all content about cheating.
But what really fascinated me is that if you go to the comment
section of this video.
Hans Buetow: Okay.
Meghal Janardan: No one is saying this is fake.
Georgia Hampton: Yeah. I was
Meghal Janardan: like, am I am I crazy?
Hans Buetow: Well, there's levels there's levels of fake
that I think it Yeah. It could be. Because it sounds like the
world's worst improv session.
Georgia Hampton: It really does. Yeah.
Mike Rugnetta: Or like a bat like an acting class.
Georgia Hampton: It sounds like acting class. Exactly.
Hans Buetow: Yeah. You're what you're wondering is, is there AI
fakery in here as well? And and I don't even that no one's
saying either of them.
Meghal Janardan: I mean, I I don't I would assume, like, some
of the other videos that I've seen, when the voice is like
really off camera and you don't see another person, the
secondary voice does feel AI generated, like, or very
scripted. But I just think this whole like, it's become like a
whole genre of content. And it's all fake in that way that I'm
like, I don't I don't know if there's a cheating boyfriend
even there.
Mike Rugnetta: I'm gonna guess now.
Meghal Janardan: Yeah. Yeah. Right?
Georgia Hampton: The cheating boyfriend are the views that
this is making.
Georgia Hampton: Yeah.
Georgia Hampton: Like, this to me, this is like a a very odd
flavor of not really rage bait.
Georgia Hampton: I was gonna say this
Mike Rugnetta: is a strange version of rage bait.
Georgia Hampton: That's what
Mike Rugnetta: it is.
Georgia Hampton: Yeah. It's but it's this solidarity because
like, overwhelmingly in the comments are other women being,
like, girl, like, I would kill him for you, blah blah blah.
Hans Buetow: Yeah. Georgia. Yeah. Georgia.
Georgia Hampton: Savebait. Yes. Oh. Yes.
Mike Rugnetta: All the comments say, you saved her. You saved
that girl. Yes. Yeah. You're the hero.
Georgia Hampton: I feel yeah. It's sort of scratching that
itch of like, you know, videos of firefighters saving a dog
from
Meghal Janardan: like Oh, corps. Yeah.
Georgia Hampton: But like Yeah. In this vengeful, vengeful, like
Yeah. Like, commiserative way because all the comments, I
mean, it's like, you girls saved each other. This broke my heart,
like Mhmm. Let's normalize telling the other girl, like,
you guys are together now and and it's you versus him, that
sort of thing.
This, like, solidarity.
Mike Rugnetta: Oh. Is that the thing that people are getting
out of this? Like, a feeling of solidarity? Like, what is the if
we think about, like, uses and gratifications of media. Right?
Like Mhmm. Every piece of media that you encounter that you
like, it's like, it fulfills some need or, like, it has a use
to you. It's gratifying in some way. Like, what is it here? Is
it manufacturing this feeling of, like, you know, are we back
to girls girls?
Like, are girls girls out there?
Georgia Hampton: I I think, yes. I think this is kind of I feel
like it's a bottled version of something a lot of people are
afraid is going to happen to them.
Meghal Janardan: Yeah.
Georgia Hampton: So it's sort of like like going to a haunted
house of of the worst relationship experience you
could have of, like, watching this play out and watching it
play out in a way that feels sort of satisfying where it's
now these two women who know this, they're processing this
together, which is ostensibly painful. But, like, there's a
very clear delineation of good guys, bad guys. Neither of these
women knew who that this was happening with each other. No
one was aware of this other than the man. So it's this sort of
perfect little ecosystem where I think for a lot of people
commenting, there's like this odd satisfaction in it.
Not in seeing them suffer necessarily, but in like
watching this hard thing? Yes. Yes. And, like, the bad thing
has happened. Yeah.
Like, the bad thing has happened and you're watching the bad
thing happen in this very sanitized way. Like, I even, the
audio the whole time I was like, is this other girl in the room?
Meghal Janardan: Right. Yeah. It doesn't sound like properly
Georgia Hampton: On the phone or on speaker.
Mike Rugnetta: It
Georgia Hampton: really sounds like she's like
Georgia Hampton: across the room reading some
Georgia Hampton: pieces of paper. Exactly.
Mike Rugnetta: Maybe hired a fiver, you know? Little little
faster.
Georgia Hampton: But Yeah. Come to my house.
Georgia Hampton: I have some I have some lines that I need you
to read.
Meghal Janardan: What I think is, like, fascinating about this
too is, like, the video is a few minutes long. It's not, like, a
twenty second thing. So I'm sure the person who made this is
because you need something about, like, TikTok
monetization. I'm wondering if that's part of it and it's just
another type of content farm stuff.
Georgia Hampton: Definitely.
Meghal Janardan: Because you go to the profile, the link in the
profile is, like, cheaterbuster.com, which I'm
like, maybe they'll get an affiliate link if it's like the
cheaterbuster yeah. Oh, pause. Yes.
Hans Buetow: What's Yes. Okay. So the so I was about to say
this because if you scroll down in the comments through a few
days ago, the one with the most amount of replies so it got 230
some three replies, and it's from someone named Karen, k a r
I n, who I clicked through to their profile, has no videos,
and is like a very generic bot like name. And and her comment
is, the same happened to me. I found out he is married, and I'm
the other woman.
Should I tell her too? First response to that reply is the
creator of the video saying, use Cheater Buster to find out if
there's more.
Georgia Hampton: Oh. Bingo. This
Mike Rugnetta: is an ad. Cheaterbuster.com is an AI tool
that helps users verify if someone has an active Tinder
profile by using basic information like name, age, and
location. It provides detailed profile information, last active
status, and data security, but it may have ethical and legal
implications.
Georgia Hampton: Oh, really?
Mike Rugnetta: Oh. No?
Georgia Hampton: Are we sure? Shit.
Meghal Janardan: You know, Zach, it's like I am like, it's an ad,
but I I don't know if it's if it's just like a weird place
where people know that catching cheaters will get a lot of
views, like that type of content. Yep. So like, do wonder
if it's like, you get some sort of like affiliate link type of
referral, like the person making the content.
Mike Rugnetta: Right. Like, which thing here is the chicken
and which is the egg? Yeah. Like, what's the what's the
carrot and what's the stick?
Meghal Janardan: Because a similar another account that I
found was linking to another AI service, but it was for a dating
advice. Like a Oh, interesting. And it wasn't like the
cheaterbuster.com, but it was like an AI dating coach.
Mike Rugnetta: No. So so this has gotta lead you to wonder how
many of these comments are AI too. Right?
Georgia Hampton: Oh, surely. Yeah.
Mike Rugnetta: Okay. Yeah.
Georgia Hampton: To generate this much attend, like, this
traffic, absolutely.
Meghal Janardan: But I do think that this is riding on that
story time type
Georgia Hampton: content. Yeah.
Meghal Janardan: Come with Yeah.
Georgia Hampton: I catch my cheating Yeah.
Mike Rugnetta: Instead of up, you know, follow for part two,
you know, upload update in a few days, it's just immediately,
you're right into, like, so I called his girlfriend, you know,
like, confronted the yeah.
Georgia Hampton: And there is a vibrant presence of this online
in the more standard issue way of just like, you know, part one
of seven, how my hus my fiance left me at the altar or
whatever. Like, there's there's versions of this that are more,
you know, your analog style version. But this is this, like,
cuts out everything else. Every other more, I guess, human
component of this. I mean, it makes me think of like like if
this is the cheat what is it?
Cheater bot?
Mike Rugnetta: Cheater buster.
Georgia Hampton: Cheater buster. In a way, this is kind of what
groups like are we dating the same guy? Mhmm. Do to be like,
hey, does anyone know who this is? And it has more vetting and
it's more complicated.
It can take much more time. And then this, you know, on its face
offers a complete cutting of the line of that. But like, I don't
really believe that that would work. I really don't. Like,
okay, this guy's name is Alex.
Georgia Hampton: Prove it. We got him, boys.
Mike Rugnetta: I've been I've just been sitting here
scrolling, like, loading as many comments as I possibly can.
Yeah. And then just Apple f for fake, and only got two. There's
only two.
Meghal Janardan: Really?
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. I've been scrolling, like, for like just
idly for a long time. Like, just loading new comments and only
two have used the word fake. They've used the word saved a
lot. Mhmm.
Georgia Hampton: Wow. Yeah. Nailed it
Meghal Janardan: with that. Yeah. When I saw this and I
noticed that it was fake and there's a pattern of this
content, I now it's like another thing I have to watch out for as
I consume content online. Like, yeah, the regular AI generated
videos, but this is like semi AI related content. You know?
I don't think Yeah. Necessarily, like, the video itself is AI
generated. Maybe the second voice is.
Mike Rugnetta: Or, like, maybe the script is.
Meghal Janardan: Right. Yeah. Yeah. But I now, like, earlier
this morning, I was like looking through some of these and I
found one on and had to go to the profile to make sure not all
the content was cheating content. And be like, oh, this
one's actually real.
But, yeah.
Georgia Hampton: Like, does it matter?
Meghal Janardan: I I don't I think in the grand scheme of,
like, con the the content that we consume, it matters in the
sense of, like, how we are people storytell. And I was
thinking about this how one of the things that people kind of
are talking about now is, like, the gender divide, getting
bigger in a way. And I feel like this is piggybacking on that,
like, fuck men, which like, yeah. Yay. Fuck men.
But this is not helping. No. God, no. I don't think this is
helping.
Georgia Hampton: This really happens, like, for real? Yeah.
It's just like,
Meghal Janardan: it makes, to me, it makes things really
confusing.
Hans Buetow: There are more parts to this video.
Meghal Janardan: Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Hans Buetow: And so I just opened up the part two of
finding out I'm the other woman. Let me read you some of the top
comments. These ads are out of control.
Georgia Hampton: There we go.
Hans Buetow: To which someone responded, I like how no one
realized it was an ad. I was invested until I saw this video.
Then down below a little bit two days ago, Tyler says, don't
apologize for finding out the truth, exclamation point.
Cheater buster saved both of you and the other girl. Oh my god.
And then down below that, oh my god. Cheater buster is saving
the both of you.
Georgia Hampton: These are reps. These are reps. I'm gonna
Mike Rugnetta: go ahead and say SEC violation.
Georgia Hampton: Right? I just love like, I believe this until
I got a BetterHelp ad in the middle of this.
Hans Buetow: Oh my god. In part three, she's pregnant.
Meghal Janardan: Oh. Wait. Are you serious?
Mike Rugnetta: Yes. I just keep coming back to why would some
subset of the audience for this want it to be true?
Paul Levy: Is that Yes.
Mike Rugnetta: And like Yes. Does that have to do more with
their lives, or does that have to do with the Internet? Like,
do they want to find these sorts of stories online to justify
their use of social media or, you know, principally or more
significantly, like, does this reflect some sort of interest
that they have or some sort of anxiety that they have about
their lives? I'm sure to some degrees, it's both, but like.
Georgia Hampton: I think it is both. Because I think on the one
hand, this kind of story is just such a delicious narrative arc
that can kind of involve you.
Mike Rugnetta: Yeah. And
Georgia Hampton: you can feel like you're part of something
bigger that feels important, that feels justified, that feels
righteous. I also think not to get too, I don't know, walk
corkboard with many strings. In the current state of things
right now, it is easy to feel extremely hopeless and
powerless, and I think something like this offers in a very
troubling way, a very small feeling of satisfaction of
groupthink of being like, let's get him. Where's Alex?
Mike Rugnetta: It's a lot like hearing you say that, it reminds
me of bits of discourse like, do you wash your legs? Or
Paul Levy: do you
Mike Rugnetta: do you put your cast iron skillet in the
dishwasher? These things where you get to have a moment of
moral superiority. Yes. Yes.
Georgia Hampton: Yeah. You get to ostracize someone as a treat.
Hans Buetow: Yeah.
Georgia Hampton: Like Yes. And you
Georgia Hampton: can feel good about it. You can feel good
because he's a cheater.
Hans Buetow: Yeah. So did anybody sign up for Cheater
Buster while we were talking?
Georgia Hampton: I've actually been
Hans Buetow: a member for a
Mike Rugnetta: long time.
Georgia Hampton: Yeah. Like, I'm actually on the board. Yeah.
Actually, I'm heavily invested.
Mike Rugnetta: I've been married for a decade, but, you know
Georgia Hampton: You're like,
Georgia Hampton: I'm I'm ready to get him.
Mike Rugnetta: I'm just searching for myself just to
make sure.
Georgia Hampton: Searching for myself. One day, I'll get me.
Hans Buetow: Meagle, thanks for bringing this in. I do we feel
do you do you feel like you know what's going on?
Meghal Janardan: I yes. But also, I'm now just more
paranoid.
Georgia Hampton: Yeah. I was gonna say, I No.
Mike Rugnetta: I feel like I understand this specific thing
more, but I feel just as adrift about modernity as I always do.
Meghal Janardan: Yes. I'm just like, wow. Yep. I I do think
that this is the silver lining to coming across this content is
it's one more reason for me to delete TikTok. Yeah.
But will I do it? Time will tell.
Georgia Hampton: Meg will do it.
Georgia Hampton: Leave me alone in there.
Mike Rugnetta: It's a it's a glowing recommendation of an app
that you could spend, like, an a not insignificant amount of time
trying to find research based reasons to ignore the things
that you find on it.
Georgia Hampton: Yes. God. Yeah.
Georgia Hampton: It's a great example of using your critical
thinking skills.
Mike Rugnetta: Okay. I think we've done it. I think we've
figured out what is going on here. But as Georgia said, at
what cost? Meagle, thank you so much for joining us, and thank
you for keeping an eye out for the what's going on here vibe.
Yeah. I I would say that I'm excited to learn more about
cheater cheater breaking up TikTok, but maybe I'm more
excited to know another thing that I can choose to ignore down
the line.
Meghal Janardan: Yes. Thank you for having me.
Mike Rugnetta: That's all the WIGO that we have time for in
this episode, but but but we did record one additional entry. A
fintech what that I brought to the group and it's about an app,
a service, it's a little unclear which can only be described as
bleak bleak, and which leads all of us to briefly worry that Hans
may develop a psychosis talking to its AI chatbot. That one is
gonna go out in the coming week on the members only feed. So
keep an eye out for that. It's gonna be great.
And by great, I mean, sort of hand hand wringing and hair
pulling. But funny, bleak with jokes. I mean, I guess that's
kind of our brand. Right? That is the show we have for you this
week.
We're gonna be back here in the main feed on Wednesday, November
19 with a release schedule of two episodes per month. Our $4 a
month membership gets you bespoke, ad free, human made,
human agonized over podcast episodes for $2 a pop. Was this
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so, head on over to neverpo.st and become a member today.
Support your favorite local independent Internet pod so we
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making weird cool stuff they couldn't anywhere else.
Neverpost's producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton, and the
mysterious doctor first name, last name. Our senior producer
is Hans Buto. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholzer,
and the show's host, that's me, is Mike Rugnetta. My favorite
part of the drive is the place where bare thoughts stretch
meadows in front of the westernmost expanses of
Naperville, Illinois. Chicago is confetti in the deep night
skyline.
I think of nothing but fear and hunger. I miss him. I hate him.
As I drive, the inevitable intrudes itself. History solves
no mysteries.
The road is still poignant with scraps of what I thought I had
abandoned. Postcards and dialogue long distance and
centuries of inter clan warfare pressed into my DNA. He thinks
it can call me or drop by at any time of day or night and I will
beg him stay with me. I miss him. I hate him.
Excerpt of Uneasy Ghosts by Susan Smith Nash. Never Post is
a production of Charts and Leisure and is distributed by
Radiotopia.