This week we are building April’s Attention Economy Navigator, our guide to what you should be paying more attention to, and what you can probably pay less attention to. And why those stories might not be what you’d assume.
Joining to help build this month’s Attention Economy Navigator in real time are host of There are No Girls on the Internet, Bridget Todd (her new audiobook Love at First Prompt is available July 14th from Simon & Schuster) and Editor-in-Chief at Truthout, Negin Owliaei.
You can also watch the panel plot these stories in real time on YouTube, or read the article version on the Convergence website.
Stories referenced in this episode:
- Using forensic investigation methods, the FBI was able to extract copies of incoming Signal messages from Prairieland defendants’ iPhones.
- Rep. Eric Swalwell drops out of California Governor’s race amid many sexual assault and misconduct allegations. The Democratic Congressman and frontrunner for Governor of California has been outed as a serial sexual predator in the workplace.
- Student organizers are fighting back against 287(g) agreements on campuses, and some of them are even winning.
- Journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin has been in a Kuwaiti prison for over a month now for re-sharing video coverage of the US-Israel military operations in the Gulf.
- How people are digesting Peter Magyar’s victory in the Hungarian elections – Not everyone is taking the right lessons here, and it’s still early days to understand what is happening (and what will happen in a new Hungary).
- AI-powered facial recognition is being used to deny food benefits to pregnant and post-partum people in India.
- Is Brooklyn-based band Geese a psyop or nah? Wired repeated the hype from the band’s PR firm that claims to have been able to game the algorithm on TikTok to blow up their most recent (and critically acclaimed) album, Getting Killed.
- The meme war over Iran has commenced, and maybe Iran is winning? AI-generated animated Lego meme videos are covering the internet and they’re pretty effective at narrating the war from the Iranian perspective.
- Erika Kirk is not suing Druski over his “How Conservative white women in America act” skit.
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Episode Guests
Bridget Todd is an author, creator, host, and producer who crafts compelling digital content and podcasts at the intersection of technology, culture, and identity. She is the creator and host of the critically acclaimed podcast There Are No Girls on the Internet and host of Mozilla’s award-winning podcast IRL: AI in Real Life, which explores the ethical impact of artificial intelligence. A trusted voice in technology, Bridget has worked directly with platforms like Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok to champion safety, equity, and meaningful representation online. Her debut audiobook Love At First Prompt: AI and the Future of Intimacy explores human-AI relationships and will be published by Simon & Schuster in July of 2026. Her work on technology, race, and gender has been featured in outlets like The Atlantic, Newsweek, The Nation, and The Daily Show. Bridget is a Technology in the Public Interest Fellow at the MacArthur Foundation and an affiliate at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society.
Negin Owliaei is a journalist and the editor-in-chief of Truthout, an independent media outlet providing reporting and commentary on a diverse range of social justice issues.