EU Elections, Black Girl Nerds -- Talking Tech w/ JH Jeppesen, Vincenzo Tiani, Jamie Broadnax
Host Brian Wesolowski sits down with CDTEU's Jens-Henrik Jeppesen & Vincenzo Tiani to discuss the upcoming EU elections. The European Union has been driving a lot of change in tech and internet policy worldwide, so these elections have the potential to shake things up even more.<br><br>Then Brian brings on Jamie Broadnax, the creator of the thriving online community Black Girl Nerds and previous Future of Speech Online speaker this past December. Jamie shares with us why she created the online community, how she manages it, and why representation matters so much in fandom.<br><br>More from CDTEU: https://twitter.com/cdteu<br>More from Black Girl Nerds: https://twitter.com/BlackGirlNerds<br><br>More on Jens: https://twitter.com/JensJeppesenCDT<br>More on Vincenzo: https://twitter.com/VincenzoTiani<br>More on Jamie: https://twitter.com/JamieBroadnax<br>More on our host, Brian: bit.ly/cdtbrian<br><br>Attribution: sounds used from Psykophobia, Taira Komori, BenKoning, Zabuhailo, bloomypetal, guitarguy1985, bmusic92, and offthesky of freesound.org.
Top Keywords
- black girl 0.013
- parliament 0.012
- european 0.011
- girl nerds 0.011
- fandom 0.009
- girl 0.009
- content 0.009
- nerds 0.008
- black 0.007
- fandoms 0.007
- european parliament 0.007
- media 0.007
Transcript
Welcome to Tech Talk. Bye. CT.
Tea. Welcome to CDT's Tech Talk, where we dish on tech and Internet policy while also explaining what these policies mean to our daily lives. I'm Brian Waslowski, and it's time to talk tech. Today, we bring you a preview of the upcoming European Parliament elections. The European Union is driving a lot of tech policy globally, and these elections have the potential to change the current dynamics. After that, we make a joyously geeky turn and introduce you to Jamie Broadnax. Jamie is the founder of Black Girl Nerds and shares with us why she created the online community, how she manages it, and why representation matters so much in fandom. The European Parliament is holding elections May and only 30% of current members are standing for reelection. The European Union has been driving a lot of change in tech and Internet policy worldwide, so these elections have the potential to shake up things even more. Two members of our Brussels based team are with us here in Washington today to give us a preview of what to watch for in these elections. I'm joined by Jens Henrik Yepsen and Vincenzo Tiani. Welcome, Jens and Vincenzo. Thank you. Thank you. Are you enjoying your DC visit so far? Very much. We've given you bright sunshine yet again. It seems be the way it goes. No. Actually, that's not true. You come in December a lot too, so that's usually miserable. Yeah. Anyway, elections. Tell us a bit about the upcoming European Parliament elections. How do they work for people who aren't familiar? How many members are there? Give us all that stuff.
Right. So the elections are held, in the 28 different member states, according to their own, rules and regulations. So the processes will differ 28 different processes. Exactly. Exactly. That is what what will happen. 751 members, as you said, only 30% of incumbent incumbent MEPs are expected to, run again. So there could be a lot of change this time around. A lot of new parties on the political fringes, have come to the fore in several countries. We have, a collection of populists slash EU skeptical, parties on the right, also on the left, and that this new dynamic in interjects a lot of uncertainty, about the outcome. So, one thing seems to be pretty clear, and that is that the, the traditional leaders, of, of the parliament, so those are the those are the big groups, the conservative EPP group and the social democratic SND group, are likely to lose their absolute majority. So Okay. In the in the current parliament, they, if they could all vote together, they'd be able to, to run the vote, in in parliament.
And that looks set to change. Although, how exactly it'll change, we don't know. So there might be some interesting coalitions we see forming to get things done, if anything gets done. That's correct.
There will be a, a new and stronger need for, creating coalitions based on on different issues.
And just to be kind of dumb, is The UK still part of
of these elections? That is that is by no means a dumb question. Okay. I mean You would be, it would be logical for the to to think that The UK does not participate. But because of the lack of progress in in in Brexit,
The UK is running elections to the European Parliament. It'd be intriguing to see who would stand for elections in that.
Yeah. The interesting thing is that, actually, so UK will join the election, but, at the moment, at least the October 31, they will leave the EU. So there would be sort of 70 seats, that will be redistributed by among the other member states. So at the moment at the moment, every member state is going to elect, like, their number of, of, of member of the parliament plus, like, two or three. Bonus ones. Yeah. So these two or three, it depends, of course, from, how many, seats they have, are going to replace the The UK colleagues. Fascinating. And, the thirty first October is also the last day, of, the Juncker presidency, which is, you Jean Claude Juncker is the the commission the president of the European Commission. So it's really asked, the the prime minister, Theresa May, prime minister of The UK to
to have the the job done, the job done, before that date. Well, that is definitely one to follow and not something we're gonna talk about on this episode because we would not finish it. So let's let's is tech something, you know, as we kind of project forward with the new parliament, are any of the issues that CDT or tech policy issues ones that are likely to rise to the very top of the agenda?
Yes and no. I I it I think at the very highest political level, there are broad political problems such as, migration and economic reform, reform of the Eurozone. Those are probably issues that dwarf all others. Sure. Those are huge challenges for the European system will be able to, identify, the right solutions to these problems. It is really, really difficult. And the let's say, the this expected new composition of the parliament is not going to help. That's for sure. Because you have kind of more fringe perspectives, you know, not necessarily the moderate voices. That that is, that is, fair to expect that. So in the tech policy area, clearly, AI is going to be a big theme. There's many, many debates, on all facets of this of this technological revolution. So Europe is I think European policymakers are conscious that Europe is not technologically in the lead. The US and China, are running, AI. That is certainly the the the perception that people have. Europe, I think, would like to set itself up as the third way and, the the let's say, the the block that creates a durable regulatory framework for AI. So that's I think that's the that's what EU policymakers
would would like to try and do. Okay. What other kind of issues? I mean, certainly, the EU grabbed major headlines last year with GDPR and kind of the regulation of, you know, big tech for lack of better word. Are there things that, the new parliament's gonna have to wrap up that they'll focus on or other tech issues beyond AI that you think, you know, well, maybe not the top of the agenda will emerge? Yeah.
So, a couple of pieces, left for for for the system to work through, leftovers from the from the previous mandate. One is, legislation on electronic evidence. So, this is legislation that would provide, for, law enforcement authorities in one member state to demand or to request, data for investigations, directly from, communications providers in other countries. This is a piece of legislation that CDT has been quite heavily engaged in, working on. It is a leftover, and it will be, for the new commission and and parliament to to finalize, and and council, of course, member states to finalize, this this regulation, this piece of of legislation. Similarly, e privacy, the e privacy regulation has been stuck in, negotiations among member states for a long time. This, we would expect it to to dislodge sometime in in the new mandate, and and then parliament and council will have to find, compromise, on that on that issue.
And just for a US listener, so last year, we had the GDPR, which is the general data protection regulation that protects, data. The e privacy, protects the the content of the of the communication. Because otherwise, people would think of another privacy law. And another piece of legislation which is still in, running, among, between the two, legislator, is the terrorist content regulation. So basically, in Europe, but I would say that across, all over the world, there is there are many discussion on how to regulate the content on especially on social media, but also on platforms like YouTube. Especially when, the the main issue is, when people start to upload, terrorist content. We've seen, what happened in New Zealand, right this week. It's in Paris. There is a meeting among, Manuel Macron and also the, prime minister of New Zealand talking, with, leaders of top tech, giants like Twitter, Microsoft, Facebook on how to better regulate, content. So, the terrorist content regulation at the moment, a month ago was approved by the European Parliament. So, that means that, with the next, European the trialogue will start. The trialogue is the, the discussion among the European Council, which is the European institution, lead by, the the leader of the the head of state and of government of the 28, member states Mhmm. States Mhmm. At the European Commission, and the European Parliament. So what, the European Parliament, changed, a bit,
the proposal of the European Commission, saying that, once,
European Commission saying that, once, that only an an independent authority or a judicial authority can, issue an order of removal to, to a social media or to a content provider. What's, what changed it with the European Parliament is that, for example, cloud provider and also, private communication provider like Messenger, WhatsApp Mhmm. Or any any kind of that, are exempted. So, you you can't, you know, see what people are saying in their private chat. And, there is exemption for journalist, for a researcher. So if a journalist, let's say, published, something, some content, denouncing, terrorist, some something related to terrorist won't be, removed. So we can say there's still one issue. We as a CDT, we don't like the fact that, the platforms have just one hour after Wow. They had to remove, the content. And even if can be, feasible for, for major platforms, it won't be for a small medium enterprise, a startup. Because if the order arrives in the middle of the night, and normally, you know,
start up a long war. To sleep a little bit. Right?
That's one of the our main concern. Yeah. That makes sense. So, obviously,
whole bunch of new members of parliament gonna be in there. Potentially, it sounds like hundreds of new members. They're all gonna wanna come chat with CDT Europe. Right? What should they come talk to you about? What are the issues that you think they should be asking about in addition to the priorities that it seems like they have?
So it seems that, an overriding, priority is going to be, social media content regulation, broadly speaking. This was already a big theme for the previous commission and the so the DSM copyright terrorism content regulation, were both part of that picture. Now what we are seeing is, initiatives, first from The UK, then from France, about fundamentally changing the way social media is governed, the way content is regulated. And that will result probably in renegotiation of, the ecommerce directive. Oh, wow. So this is the piece of legislation that has underpinned Internet hosting, since 2000, basically. The principle that, a company can host third party content without assuming liability for, the legality of that content, provided that, the company takes, action when notified about illegality. That has been the principle. We fully expect that this, legislation will be reopened and reviewed and that a new paradigm, is going to be found. Wow. So, and we see the contours of what policymakers are looking for. We see that already now from the from The UK, initiative and the French initiative. Broadly speaking, policymakers are looking for, regulatory authority, being able to provide oversight and accountability of social media platforms. So this goes above and beyond the self regulatory measures Yeah. And the content moderation that each of the platforms are doing on their own. This is no longer sufficient, according to, I think, a very very broad political consensus. So we will be engaged in this debate, and we will be, we will continue to advocate solutions that enable, innovation, free expression, and access to Internet to information, for as many people as possible. Yeah.
It sounds like, the type of policy or the that Europe is maybe a few steps ahead of trying to address this challenge than in The US where we're not quite there yet. Is that accurate? Or could this be kind of the next gift of, like, a GDPR style, here's a solution, from Europe?
Yeah. I think it's certainly true that, The US First Amendment sets outright Absolutely. Strict limitations on what government can do in terms of of, restricting online well, speed online speech or offline Mhmm. For that matter. The so free free expression is also constitutionally guaranteed in in Europe and in, you know, and and other, democratic countries. But there are more, options for regulators, for policymakers to curtail various forms of speech. And that I think we are going to see play out in well, now we mentioned, UK and France. We this will play out at the European level as well.
Fascinating. Well, that is definitely one to watch. We'll be watching the results next week. Thank you for joining us. Always a pleasure to have you here in DC, Jens and Vincenzo.
Thank you.
Back in 2012, Jamie Broadnax Googled, quote, black girl's nerd, end quote, and nothing came up. Google those words today, and I promise you her website, blackgirlnerds.com, will come up. And it's absolutely loaded with incredible geeky entertainment content. Jamie created a thriving online community, and she spoke about that at our Future of Speech online event back in December. And today, she joins us on Tech Talk to talk more about black girl nerds. Welcome, Jamie. Thank you so much for having me on your show, Brian. This is great. I mean, I am beyond honored. As you know, you were one of my very favorite people at the event. So lucky to have you there. So, seriously, when you started this, you Googled black girl nerds and nothing came up?
Yeah. I Googled the term black girl nerds and, you know, the only images that did in fact come up were this was in the Google images section of the search was white women wearing glasses with black frames. Oh my god.
That seems not great. So alright. Beyond that, tell us, you know, why you founded this organization
and this online community? It it was it started for selfish reasons. I'll be honest. I I wanted to see myself reflected in the fandoms that I love. I have seen so many websites out there that was dedicated to fandom and pop culture entertainment with respect to comics and gaming and cosplay and all of these great things. But usually, it was a bunch of white dudes. And the few websites that were for women were for white women, and I just didn't see many women of color represented. So I wanted to create just a blog, like, just me and my personal musings about it. And I had no idea that this was obviously, a void that really needed to be filled among so many other people. I just thought, well, maybe it's just me that sees these things. But so many women started to gravitate naturally to the site, and it built into this huge online community that was far than what I could have ever expected.
That's so amazing. For those of you of our listeners who aren't familiar, what is if you can try to, what is fandom? I know because I'm a little bit geeky. Not not to your level, but, just a what what is it?
I think fandom is an elusive term. I think it can mean different things to different people. For me, fandom is someone who is, like, hardcore into a certain hobby or activity or event. So someone who is a Trekkie that loves to go to all the Star Trek conventions and knows every single iteration of the Star Trek series and universe, that is someone that is in the Star Trek fandom. And there is a community of people around it, and they're able to celebrate it in different ways. So fandom really is cultivated around communities Mhmm. That are interested in like minded activities, events, the things in publishing like comic books, things in the tech space like gaming, people that are into the sciences and and, STEM jobs and things like that. I feel like that there's different fandoms in in those areas as well. So
that's how I see fandom. That's very helpful. I love how all encompassing that definition is as well. So kind of back to your, your world, why is it so important for, you know, specifically women of color to be, I think, as you said, out and proud with their geekiness? You didn't say it in the podcast, but in some of your writings.
Absolutely. That's a great question. I think it's really important because, as I mentioned before, these fandoms historically have always been predominantly, represented by or, you know, at least media depicted white males as being sort of the gatekeepers, if you will, of these different fandoms. And that, you know, anybody that wasn't white or male would be disqualified or discounted as someone who is someone that is, I don't know, qualified, I guess you could say, to know about the history of the X Men or to know about gaining and be a successful YouTuber, that plays games on there. So I think that it's important that women of color see themselves that way so they feel confident enough to create their own spaces, much of like what I've done with Black Girl Nerds, and to be able to cultivate these communities. So that way, there are safe spaces where these women can celebrate these kind of fandoms. And that this narrative that this one specific demographic is not the end all be all when it comes to representing these fandoms. That it's a very inclusive community. Represents all different kinds of people. And just because you are of a certain nationality or a certain gender doesn't mean that you too can't be into these kinds of fandoms.
That's awesome. So tell me a bit about, you know, kind of the steps that you took in, you know, building your site, creating your community. You know, you said you started it kind of as a blog. How did you grow it into what it is today? It's such an active and engaged place.
Well, I started with, the website and just putting out content as often as I could. And and luckily, a lot of women that saw the site were interested in contributing their words to what was being said on online. But then I went and created social media accounts for the the site because that's what you do when you wanna try to promote your Absolutely. And on Twitter, that's where the online community started to grow exponentially. And it started with me just live tweeting TV shows. Scandal was the very first TV show that I live tweeted. And, sort of just the culture of live tweeting really began with, those earlier shows and seeing the cast members and Shonda Rhimes herself tweeting along with fans. That just was something that helped build our brand. And and that's kind of how it grew is just this engagement. And I did something kind of unique to what other blog sites that have social media accounts did with their, social media networks is I just engage directly with the fans and with the followers specifically. So when we would be live tweeting shows, I would leave my comments, and then I'd retweet them, and then I would comment back to them. And having a social media account with so many followers with, the social media,
Twitter handle. And and and that's how I was just able to get my audience to grow. Very cool. That's impressive. So let's talk about the content a bit. Let's say someone comes to your site. What are the topics you cover you and your contributors cover?
Oh, yeah. We cover everything. We're we're a pop culture site, so we mostly cover a lot of movies. So we do movie reviews. We're actually a Rotten Tomatoes
certified outlet. Oh, so cool.
Yeah. It's really great that Rotten Tomatoes have been very inclusive in bringing in a lot more websites for that are led by women of color. But, yeah, we are a part of Rotten Tomatoes. So we put out movie reviews. We put out television reviews. We also do comic book reviews. We have a journalist that's a gamer. She not only puts out reviews, but she started doing gameplay on our YouTube channel. Wow. She's getting a lot of recent engagement here. And then there's a lot of op ed pieces, just opinions on different things from social justice issues to things that are happening in our politics. So we we try to kinda cover all bases, because I I want this to be a website that not only where we talk about the fun entertainment pop culture stuff, but people can have a space to express themselves
in a way that they probably couldn't do writing for, you know, another outlet. So that's that's kind of what we do. That's very cool. So what are, you know, some of the TV shows or movies that you personally are geeking out about the most right now? I mean, you mentioned starting with Scandal in your live tweeting. What are the ones that you are most into at the moment?
Well, as far as movies go, it is all about Avengers Endgame.
Yes.
Endgame is just the focus, of all things right now in the movie, fandom. Also, we just came back from I didn't get to go, but I had a colleague of mine who lives in Chicago. She just wrapped up the Star Wars celebration. Wow. So that was really exciting to see the new Rise of the Skywalker key new trailer and getting an opportunity to see all of these new toys and seeing all of these actors that are going to be appearing in these upcoming projects, video game projects and such. So she was able to cover that for Black Girl Nurse, and we we have some content on the site about that if you guys wanna check it out. But, yeah, it's it's all about just, you know, what's happening with, Avengers and Star Wars coming up later this year. And, I'm just really excited. Oh, and, of course, of course, on television, Game of Thrones. Oh,
of course. Yeah. I was wondering. I'm like, she's she's not missing that one, is she? Obviously not.
Yeah. Yeah. Game of Thrones. I just wrapped up my own,
podcast about, Game of Thrones. We're doing a recap show. So Oh, helpful. Yes. No spoilers, of course. I will just say that I am team Cersei, which I know is very controversial. So You know, that's okay. I I don't care for her, but I have a lot of respect for her. You know? Yes. Knows how to play the game. Yep. It's more it's more of a gamemanship. I I I think she'll have her she'll get her due, at some point, but I do find her to be a fascinating character to pay attention to. So you also have things you do beyond Black Girl Nerds. You're active, of course, independently in film and media, and you have your own podcast, I believe. Want to share some of the other things you're working on?
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. So, yeah, outside of Black Girl Nerds and the podcast, I'm really trying to create, Black Girl Nerds into a media company. So most of what I've been doing behind the scenes is just building the structure internally, with our company, with writers, with myself as as CEO, and and wanting this to become something that's sustainable that lasts a long time, building these partnerships with, different media brands. I also am a social media influencer. So every now and then, I'll go to an event and talk about this tech product here or, this the event here and host a panel, and then be able to provide insight to our followers and fans, from different kinds of advertisers and brand content creators within the community. So that that is what I'm working on right now. And, I I'm just really excited for other events that we have happening. We, every year, cover different film festivals and comic cons. So, of course, we'll be doing San Diego Comic Con this summer. And I also attend, film festivals such as Toronto and next year Sundance. And, I'm also a part of the broadcast film critics. Organization. Yeah. Yeah. So that that actually happened earlier, last year, which was an exciting opportunity. So every January, they, invite all of their, members to go to the Critics Choice Awards. So I'll be going to the Critics Choice Awards again
in January. So very excited about that. That's so cool. Well and it's so amazing what you're trying to do in building that company. No doubt you are incredibly busy. So we are so grateful that you made the time to share all of this with us on Tech Talk, Jamie. And everyone, any any promos or shout outs you wanna do before I let you go? Things that people should go to, obviously, your website, anywhere else? Yes.
Yeah. Yeah. Go go to blackgirlnerds.com, and we have a podcast. Every week now, we are doing recaps of Game of Thrones. So if you are a Game of Thrones fan, listen to that. You can hear it on iTunes or wherever you stream podcasts where we're all on all of the streams. And and and that's it. Well, just stay tuned for some new things that are coming up on the horizon. Most of that will be announced on our social media handles. Handles. So it's at black girl nerds on Twitter as well as at black girl nerds on Instagram, and you can also find us on Facebook.
I love it. Well, congratulations. This is so exciting, and thanks for being a guest. We'll have to stay in touch and check-in once you launch all the big things.
Thank you, Brian. I really appreciate it. This is a great conversation.
That's it for this episode of Tech Talk. If you wanna learn more about our advocacy efforts in The EU, be sure to visit cdt.org. Our EU team also has a really incredible Twitter account at cdteu. Give them a follow. And, of course, be sure to check out Black Girls Nerd at blackgirlsnerd.com. They also have a really awesome Twitter account you should follow. I'm Brian Wasilowski. Thanks so much for listening.
