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To respond to the challenging times we are living through, physician, humanitarian and social justice advocate Dr. Paul Zeitz has identified “Revolutionary Optimism” as a new cure for hopelessness, despair, and cynicism. Revolutionary Optimism is itself an infectious, contagious, self-created way of living and connecting with others on the path of love. Once you commit yourself as a Revolutionary Optimist, you can bravely unleash your personal power, #unify with others, and accelerate action for our collective repair, justice, and peace, always keeping love at the center.
Voiceover - 00:00:03:
Welcome to Revolutionary Optimism. Living at this time in history, we are challenged with the convergence of crises that is affecting our daily lives. Issues like economic hardship, a teetering democracy, and the worsening climate emergency have left many Americans feeling more despair than ever. To respond to the challenging times we are living through, physician, humanitarian, and social justice advocate Dr. Paul Zeitz has identified Revolutionary Optimism as a new cure for hopelessness, despair, and cynicism. Once you commit yourself as a revolutionary optimist, you can bravely unleash your personal power, hashtag unify with others, and accelerate action for our collective repair, justice, and peace. On this podcast, Dr. Zeitz is working to provide you with perspectives from leaders fighting for equity, justice, and peace on their strategies, insights, and tools for overcoming adversity and driving forward revolutionary transformation with unbridled optimism and real-world pragmatism. In this episode, Dr. Zeitz is talking with Sarah Gardner, Lennon Torres, and Leah Juliett. Sarah Gardner, pronouns she/her, is CEO of the HEAT Initiative, a passionate advocate for child safety and a prominent leader in the fight against child sexual abuse material on technology platforms. With a deep commitment to protecting children from online harm, Sarah is bringing together survivors with lived experience, experts, and advocates to demand that leading technology companies detect, report, and eradicate this content for a safer digital space for all. Leah Juliett pronouns they/them, is an award-winning movement builder, lived experience expert, and influential voice against image-based sexual abuse and technology-facilitated gender-based violence. Founder of the March Against Revenge Porn, and a key leader in the Reclaim Coalition, Leah's journey began in a college dorm room, evolving into a powerful movement that has garnered global recognition. As a journalist, poet, and speaker, Leah's activism extends to survivor social media, a consultancy leveraging community engagement for social change, and the impactful #ReclaimMyName campaign, using art-based activism to empower victims and survivors. Lennon Torres, pronouns she/her, joined the HEAT Initiative with passion for developing and executing high-level strategic communications plans and campaigns. Prior to her political and communications career, Lennon gained national recognition as a dancer and LGBTQ plus advocate, using her voice to shape the narrative around what it means to be a young transgender woman. Lennon documents her transition in major entertainment outlets to inspire greater understanding and compassion for the LGBTQ plus community and champions transgender representation by working with major brands like Marc Jacobs, Meta, and Nike for global print and social media campaigns. Those are your guests, and here's your host, Dr. Paul Zeitz.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:02:59:
Hey, it's so great to be together with you, Sarah, Lennon, and Leah. What an honor. Thank you so much for joining the Revolutionary Optimism Podcast. How are you guys doing today?
Sarah Gardner - 00:03:12:
Great.
Leah Juliett - 00:03:12:
I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having us, Paul.
Lennon Torres - 00:03:16:
I'm feeling excited. I'm feeling ready to go.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:03:19:
We are a group of people who are... Admit it. To ending childhood sexual violence in all its forms as fast as possible. And I'm so excited that we're joining forces together, unifying, actually. So I wanted to ask Sarah and Lennon if they could just give us a quick, you know, introduce us to... What is heat and how is it operationalizing and what are you up to? What is heat on the streets?
Sarah Gardner - 00:03:49:
Awesome. Thank you, Paul. It's so great to be here with the three of you, especially because we've shared so many important moments together in person over the last few months as we really define what heat is, honestly, and what we're trying to do or make it more real. But the sort of short highlight version is heat is a result of feeling like. We weren't being loud enough about some of the issues that we're seeing around the intersection of child sexual abuse and technology. That sort of our smaller movement know the severity of this issue, the harms of this issue, but we've had a hard time breaking through to the larger public at times of why this is an issue that needs your undivided attention now. And most importantly, then transferring that heat and that pressure to individual tech companies who need to change their policies to ensure that children aren't facing harms. And experiencing abuse on their platforms. The kind of inspiration for it comes from looking at other movements in the past, the climate movement, other social justice work where people have gotten mad enough that they've taken to the streets. They've started to cause good trouble. They are very pointed in their communications about what the wrongs are and specifically who are the leaders and the decision makers within those companies that can change those wrongs. Who may even know about those harms and those wrongs and aren't doing anything about it. That's what we call corporate accountability or running a corporate campaign against a company is thinking about all the ways we can put pressure on a specific company to change its policies. For Heat, we're focused first on Apple. And that's for a wide variety of issues, reasons that we can get into on the podcast. But I really want to open it up to Lennon and also to Leah to sort of say more about like what heat has become to them or means to them. Because part of this journey has also been about sharing the space with you all and having you input into the strategy of like, what do we want to do? And like, how far do we want to go?
Lennon Torres - 00:06:24:
Yeah, I'd love to jump in, Sarah. Such a great introduction to Heat Initiative as an organization, really kind of zooming out. I think practically Heat Initiative is a group of people who just really care. I always talk about in my family circle, there's just this thing called good people. And that's what the Heat Initiative is. Here trying to do what we know is right. And we kind of continue to use the the idea that the only failure is inaction. And so we are doing the opposite of that and we are pursuing a lot of action. And I'm sure Leah can talk a little bit about what that's like on the ground.
Leah Juliett - 00:07:10:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I was only introduced to heat a few months ago. I came in as a lived experience expert and survivor. I've been working in this space since 2015 and was victimized by childhood sexual exploitation and image-based sexual violence when I was 14. For the majority of my activism career, if you would call it that, I was acting alone. I was hosting protest marches and advocating before state general assemblies and things like that, sharing my story. But I didn't recognize that I also had the power to take directly on the companies that were negligent in my exploitation. And it wasn't until I met Sarah and Lennon and Andrea Powell from the Reclaim Coalition that I realized that there is a community of not only survivors, but also allies out there who are ready to take action. Good people, like Lennon is saying, who are angry, but also radically optimistic about our world. Because if we didn't have that radical optimism, then we wouldn't be doing the work. If we didn't picture a better world, if we didn't envision it, we wouldn't actively be working to build it. So it's an honor to be a part of that work on the streets, on the ground, boots on the ground activism. That's what I started doing. Like I said, hosting protest marches. And so then a full circle moment 10 years later, being on the ground with heat outside of an Apple store, outside of the Apple Carnegie Library, at the Senate Judiciary hearing on protecting children from big tech. It's like all of these individual actions, all of these individual movements are collectively coming to fruition at this moment. This is an inflection point. And it's absolutely something to take advantage of. But it's because of the work over decades of countless advocates like Sarah and others who have inspired me to tell my story.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:09:07:
Great. Thank you so much for that understanding. We will come back to the Apple campaign. So, but I do want to shift gears a little bit and share some personal reflections or ask you, actually, Leah, to share some of your personal reflections of your story and your street activism. I've been trying to explain to people what is projections. And I was so honored to stand with you at the Apple Carnegie Library projection where we put a projection, Sarah and Lennon put a projection, you know, on the library calling out Tim Cook for his inaction. And you shared a poem. So I wanted to ask you, what genre of poet are you? How do you describe your poem in genre terms? And can, you know, if you want to share a part or all of it, we'd love to hear it. I want, I want my listeners to really get a feel for what street activism is all about. It's about speaking your truth. And your, your poem really shook me because I felt so enlivened by witnessing you in your truth. It was kind of, I had, I had an experience witnessing you.
Lennon Torres - 00:10:27:
I'm going to cry. Stop.
Leah Juliett - 00:10:29:
No, I mean, I'm glad you asked that question. That's a great question. Thank you. Because poetry has been such an instrumental part of my healing process. The first, so essentially when I was 14, nude images of me were posted on the internet and it wasn't until I was 19 sitting in my college dorm room that I decided to speak out and tell my story while the images were actively still on the internet for over the course of five years. And what triggered me to do that was opening up my laptop, going to my Facebook feed and seeing the mugshot of my abuser, my perpetrator being circulated on Facebook. He was on the run from the police for sexually assaulting a minor. And in that moment, that's when I realized that. Not only do I have the courage to speak now because I felt safer knowing that he was incarcerated and knowing that he was finally being held accountable for his abuse, but I also felt deeply accountable myself for preventing that abuse from happening to any other person. So the first thing that I did when I realized that I wanted to start speaking my truth was I wrote that poem. I wrote that poem when I was 19 years old in my college dorm room, and it's called The Artist, describing the boy who posted my naked pictures online as kind of you know, in a metaphorical way, and I'll speak it and describe it to you. But I ended up going to the White House that summer and standing outside of the White House with all the tourists holding up a little handmade sign that said end revenge porn and screaming my poem to anyone who would hear. And I realized that I couldn't stop there, that speaking my truth was so powerful for me and transformative that I wanted to give more people the opportunity to experience that. So I organized a march, a protest march against revenge porn, which is the term that used to be used for image-based sexual violence. And we marched across the Brooklyn Bridge on April 1st, 2017, the first day of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. It was covered by CNN. And for the first time, people were hearing my story and the stories of other survivors who joined us on the bridge. And we showed direct power in the face of absolute injustice that we all experienced. So then we hosted more protest marches over the years in other major cities. Stopped doing that because of COVID, but I've kind of transformed my activism into this coalition work and these legislative political priorities that I'm pushing. But I always return to my poem because that is the most honest source of truth of how I felt as a victim and how I feel now as a survivor. And to answer your question. I am a spoken word poet. So my poetry is meant to be listened to. It's meant to make you feel alive or mad or sad or angry. I also want to say that when you listen to it, it's. A segment of my truth of what it was like to be a 19-year-old student in college, dealing with being a survivor, dealing with alcoholism, dealing with undiagnosed depression and suicidal ideation. It comes from a place of deep pain, but I think that that's why it's so powerful, because it's transforming that pain into power. So is it okay if I do it really quickly?
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:13:55:
Please, I'm honored to witness it and listen to it.
Leah Juliett - 00:13:59:
Okay. To the boy who posted my naked pictures online. Thank you. For showing me that trauma need not live on your bones but can hide on the cloud and still burn the same. For turning my organs into strands of telephone wire, eyes, catalogs of coffins to move in, mouth, damaged hard drive. I began to think of suicide like the light switch and my chronic depression close enough to reach if I could just get out of bed. We were texting once. You told me that I looked like a starry night. Your body was painted by Vincent Van Gogh. Please show me a glimpse of your private art show. I said no. You begged for over a year. Exhausted under the light of my phone screen and under the weight of your raunchy request, I undressed. Picked up my phone screen and with shaky hands told you I've never shown something so pure. So you said with allure I'm sure it will be a masterpiece. I sent you still frame screenshots of my shallow stomach, the pale lumps of fat of my breasts, my face sitting fearful in every photograph. Told you to lock them in your personal gallery. Plant them like seeds in your bone dry garden so as they could not grow higher than I could see them. But somehow the seeds sprouted all over town. Teenage boys would bend down, cut my flowers with sharp scissors and keep them in their jean pockets. Now everyone has seen me. That morning I grew glass menagerie limbs and smashed them on every sharp surface so as to make myself disintegrate. But my fragile 14-year-old flesh will forever flourish on iCloud or Google Chrome. Sprouting like weeds from my non-consented clitoris.com. My pixelated pink parts forever stretching into sensual screensavers for oversexed teenage boys who sold my body like a trading card. You can't buy back. The girls in this town call it revenge porn. As if to live in this body could warrant revenge. I was 14 and trusted my art in the hands of a thief. But Van Gogh gave his paintings away for free just so someone could see him. But non-consensual visibility still leaves me unseen. I'm left mourning a body that was stolen from me. But... When the boy who posted my naked pictures online locked me in a cyber shame, he forgot to lock my voice, my real bare art. I swear to God, I have never been as naked as I am right now. When Picasso's paintings were stolen from a Florida gallery, they will recover. I will recover. My breasts hang lower now. I walk much slower now. My waist is bigger now. I speak with vigor now. I have no gender now. Naked surrender now. I am free. I take back my tongue and I learn how to speak. Take my art back with gallantry. Stop being meek. My body, electric, is free from the thief. Now the girl in the picture is forever to see. And I'm finally proud to say that she is me.
Lennon Torres - 00:16:59:
That's the poem.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:17:01:
Wow. I'm telling you, I had, you're spoken word poetry. Creates like chills up and down my spine. It's like, it's a really powerful gift that you have. And I love that you. Connected it to your healing journey. And I think that's really a powerful example of how you can use art and your... Own inner truth and bring it into activism, love-centered activism. So I really think that's a beautiful... Beautiful. Thank you for your leadership. And I want to learn more about the Reclaim Coalition and these marches, because as you mentioned, this show is going to air around April 1st, 2024, when it is the beginning of an amazing month called the Sexual Assault Awareness Month. And it's also the Child Abuse Prevention Month. So like I'm imagining that we can have this as a call to action for people to mobilize. Speak out your poetry. Walk on the streets. Hold Apple accountable. Like, we have to ramp it up. They're not hearing us.
Leah Juliett - 00:18:15:
Right.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:18:16:
So I want to give our listeners a snapshot of this watershed moment that just happened in the movement to hold these tech companies accountable. Five of them were at a Senate hearing just recently. I wanted to ask each of you to give us a quick perspective on it. Sarah, you've been working to hold these tech companies accountable for over 10 years, right? Is it 12 years? I don't remember.
Leah Juliett - 00:18:46:
It's a lot of years.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:18:46:
Yeah. You've been in this the longest. So if you could give us that context. And then, Lennon, you were there. And Leah, I really want to hear how it felt for you as a survivor to hear the statement by Mark Zuckerberg. And then subsequent to that, you stood in a press conference with. Bipartisan members of Congress, you know, I saw the video and, you know, there were Democrats and Republicans standing behind you. So,-
Lennon Torres - 00:19:13:
Oh, yeah.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:19:14:
I thought that was it. I'd love to hear about that experience for you, because I think interpartisan movement building is challenging. But the bill has interpartisan support and that's what you need. So to succeed. So that's you know, it's a complex emotional experience for me anyway. So let's go, Sarah, Lennon, Leah.
Sarah Gardner - 00:19:36:
Great. I just have to say again, like Leah, that was incredible. Also for our listeners, Leah had just learned maybe whether or not they would do the poem and you just crushed it. Like It's... So I always tell you this, but you really are a star. And I mean that in like, because as Paul said, it's inspiring, but you're weaving your personal into it. And that's so brave. And to me, that makes it shine brighter than like any celebrity light or whatever. This is what true power and starship means to me, at least. And I'm making up words now because I'm just always so in awe of you. But like, seriously, it's insane. It's insane to witness. It's just absolutely incredible. So.
Leah Juliett - 00:20:27:
Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Sarah Gardner - 00:20:30:
Thank you. And I'll keep this short because Lennon and Leah were there. So I think that the most interesting perspectives will come from those who were there. I think the thing I can say about the hearing was it felt like a sigh of relief, like something we've been carrying for a really long time that we've known about. We've known that these companies are not always making good choices when it comes to this issue. To be fair, sometimes they're trying and in other places they've completely not tried or actually actively hidden, moved away from, disguised their sort of non-commitment. So it was extremely cathartic. To watch senators ask them questions that we've had for decades. And then ask them them in front of the American people so that they could not get out of answering. And so incredibly emotionally cathartic. I know there are a lot of questions about, well, what happens now? It's all about what happens next. Does it actually turn into something? And I actually kind of want to push back against that a little bit. And it's not because I don't want to see legislation passed. I absolutely do. But going back to what we've all been saying about being a revolutionary optimist, you also have to feel and hold the winds along the way. Like if it's always about what happens next, what happens next? It's like you're just in this perpetual cycle of feeling let down. And then when we get to, of course, Leah's incredible, incredible speech that day, like I just reveled in the moment and the day. And the moment. And the relief of knowing now that others know. And that hopefully will subsequently make it harder for companies to weasel out of things in the future.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:22:31:
Yeah, I want to just capture this because it's a very important lesson and reminder that as part of movement building and even peaceful revolutions, which can take a toll on us, it's really important to celebrate and be joyful with a watershed moment like that. Even though we didn't get our legislation yet and now we're fired up and we're not going to stop until we get that too. The government has to hold these companies accountable. That's the bottom line. They're not doing it voluntarily. So as you know, we have to hold them accountable immediately to detect, report, and eradicate this content immediately. This should have happened yesterday.
Leah Juliett - 00:23:18:
Right. And another thing. Another way of looking at it is the legislation wouldn't even move forward without the hearing. So exactly to your point, it's like each thing has its role to play and the hearing had an important role to play.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:23:32:
Part of the journey. And we have to celebrate it. Over to you, Lennon.
Lennon Torres - 00:23:37:
I mean, I have to start by cracking a joke because I love that you said Sarah has been in this movement the longest. And so I have to just poke fun at the fact that she was scared to say how many years she's been working in this industry. But Sarah, you're young to us. Don't worry. You're still you're still a youth. Yeah. The little heart. Yeah. But I think. Being on the ground was magic and it was inspiring and I learned a lot. It was my first Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that I had ever been to and I was lucky enough to be accompanying Leah and just continuing to be a support system for Leah so that that day and that moment could be as powerful as it needed to be for both Leah and for the American people. I think it shows the bipartisan commitment to something like this is a really great example of when you just need to do something. It's absolutely important that we are holding these companies accountable and people on both sides of the aisle are seeing it and that's why we have to seize the moment. There may be reasons on either side as to why they're supporting it, but the bottom line is we want to see a better world for kids and if we can agree on that one thing, let's move. And so I really think that it was, to Sarah's point, it was a necessary step in a long journey in seeing accountability. And it was, I'll let Leah kind of speak to Mark's apology, Mark Zuckerberg's apology as a survivor of abuse at his negligence. And so I don't want to speak to that, but I will speak to the fact that. You know, we can hear apologies all day long, but it's really the action that matters. And so I'm looking forward to seeing that. The meta shareholder meeting is coming up in, I think it's April or May. I want to see a share. I want to see a resolution passed. I want to see action. I want to see I want to see that they actually listened to the American people and the stories of the parents who have lost kids in some instances and and don't get to have the justice that they so intensely deserve.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:26:02:
Yeah, just thank you, Lennon, for sharing that. I just want to shout out our colleague, Elizabeth Cooper, who actually has worked for years and years on shareholder resolutions. And I've worked with her as well on that, as well as her mom and a whole group of organizations. When Elizabeth and I were with the Brave Movement, we actually had a campaign called Be Brave Zuck, and we were trying to hold him accountable for his egregious inaction. And so that was a fun experience that Elizabeth and I had. So I know that that is a worthwhile goal for this upcoming shareholder meeting. So maybe that could be a fun little side activity for whoever's interested. Leah, you were there when Zuck, that's his nickname at Facebook, by the way. We didn't make that up. We said, oh, so I heard that's his nickname. They walk around and they fist bump, you know, Zuck. Hey, Zuck. Hey, Zuck. So we said, be brave, Zuck. So what was it like to hear Zuck live in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill after it got grilled by a Republican senator and like, kind of. I'm ashamed into offering an apology.
Leah Juliett - 00:27:18:
Yeah. I mean, yeah, be brave, Zuck. Love that. I would also like to raise hashtag fuck Zuck as well as some other. Sorry. I am mad. Honestly, being in the room was interesting. Lennon can probably agree that. Mark Zuckerberg didn't speak into the microphone when he issued his apology. So even myself sitting three rows behind him couldn't hear him. It wasn't until the news coverage, which also is a poor translation because he didn't speak into the mic, that I was able to hear exactly what he said. And I think that that just is a metaphor in itself. Say it with your chest if you mean it and act if you mean it. Otherwise, your apology does nothing for me. And as far as how it felt to be standing there in the press conference with Lindsey Graham and Dick Durbin next to me. I think that it really empowered me to speak to the intersectionality of this issue. And I think that it reminds me of the common misconception that this movement is getting is in the phrasing protect kids from big tech. I think so often folks... Potentially folks who are more liberal leaning like myself, I'm deeply liberal, think and translate that as protect some children while harming other children. And so I want to be clear that in my advocacy, in everything I say, when I say protect children from big tech, I mean every damn child. I mean transgender children. I mean non-binary. I mean agender. I mean queer. I mean disabled, Black and Brown, Indigenous. We have to also frame this in the context of what happened in Oklahoma this past week. A young 16-year-old non-binary child was murdered by their peers in a restroom for being transgender. And they were not protected by legislation. They were not protected by technology. They were not protected by anything. But I think that it requires us to also investigate the fact that tech negligence directly leads to increased harm, cyberbullying, transphobia, harassment that leads to physical violence like death. And so all of this is interconnected. The movement to protect children from big tech and the movement to protect trans youth from suicide and murder has to be interconnected. We have to have these conversations together. And that's why I always lean on my lived experience as a non-binary queer person who deeply believes that there has to be a balance between holding these companies accountable and ensuring that we can still access safe online spaces, affirming life-saving spaces for marginalized young people who rely on the internet. To make connection, community, and understand who they are.
Lennon Torres - 00:30:08:
I would love to jump in really quickly just because What happened in Oklahoma has been weighing really heavily on me personally. And I, I think, uh, their name is next any X, um, next Benedict. Um, they just deserve so much better. And I often talk about as a trans woman, it can be very lonely over here, but I have some of the best of circumstances and I can't imagine having less than that. And so the fact that these are the circumstances in places like Oklahoma, um, at school in Oklahoma is, is heavy. Um, and so talking about revolutionary optimism and bringing love centered activism, we have to support each other as we all continue to push because the stamina is important. And so I just wanted to name that. I wanted to say their name next Benedict. I wanted to, um, just kind of pause here and just kind of like have that moment because it really transparently, it's just been really hard this week on me personally. So I just feel like it's important to, to bring that into the room, but Paul, you can take control.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:31:19:
No, love is love, you know? That's what it's all about. So Love is the antidote. And the source for repair and healing. That is our opportunity. To create a world where this... Kind of situation, this hate-driven... Patriarchy-driven, caste system driven behavior is not how humans interact anymore. You know, I think we can heal from that. And, uh, I think we need to or else it's going to keep getting worse. So that's what I'm up to. But last question from me, and then we're going to open it up for others to ask questions. But Sarah, can you say, Tim Cook wasn't part of that hearing. And I just was really curious about it. I know when we were on the Hill, we looked into that room and said, why isn't Tim coming to the Hill? How does Apple get away with not even being held accountable in such a public moment where Mark Zuckerberg was?
Sarah Gardner - 00:32:31:
Yeah, and I just really appreciate, too, the comments about, like, Was that even an apology? And because some of my frustration around the coverage of it, Leah, to your point, too, actually, like, spun him in a positive light that, like, he turned around and apologized and, like, oh, that's nice. It's, like, so upsetting, especially just after hearing you speak about. What it felt like and that it didn't feel that way. To answer your question, Paul, is... A long, it's a very long explanation, but I'm going to synthesize it into like a very kind of simple nugget for now, which is. Apple differentiated themselves from a lot of their competitors by leaning into like, oh, we're just hardware. We're like making phones and computers. We're not facilitating apps. In fact, they really purposely have leaned in and kind of weaponized that language of like, but we don't, we're not apps. Like the apps are bad. The apps are where all the bad stuff happens. And we, we're just like providing you a phone, you know, that's, and so, and what that did and the way that translates into their actual policy and even their, their value system is they, one of their core values is privacy is a human right. But what they also need to have there is safety as a human right. And privacy is a very tricky thing. Privacy is really, really important. And user privacy is important. And privacy on all levels is important. But for children, if you think about real world implications, we've spent decades building safe, trying to build safe spaces for children in the real world. And that actually often includes levels of accountability and dual systems of watching children to protect from abuse. So you go into my kids' preschool. They have half doors now in every classroom. And there's two rotating teachers. And people go in and out. And there's like a cycle that they do that on. So no one's ever in a room with 10 four-year-olds by themselves for two hours. We've applied children's safety in real life. So now we need to take some of those same frameworks and strategies and apply them to the online world. Why does it seem like a good idea to let a 10-year-old speak to a 45-year-old man who can be pretending to be someone else fully anonymously in a completely contained environment with no interruption for hours and hours? Like, without messages to that child of, like, how to seek help if someone's abusing you or, like, what – how do we take kind of real-world interventions and apply them online? So because they've been able to hide behind privacy is paramount and privacy is, like, the one important thing, they've avoided safety and they haven't been dragged into issues around content moderation because they're basically saying they don't have to do any of it. And so to your point about why aren't they there, they're not there because we haven't pulled the curtain back far enough to think about what are the ways those apps work. And the way they work is by also the pipe that facilitates the movement of videos and photos. And so we have to start expanding the view of who we hold accountable for it. And by the way, when you're uploading into apps, like, they're usually coming from your photo library, right? So there are moments of intervention in places where there could be a lot more prevention measures in place to ensure, you know, Leah's content isn't just being freely shared about the internet wherever it wants to go. Like, no. It should not render. It should be blocked. It should be suppressed. It should flag. Like, it's got to go away.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:36:22:
Well said. So as we know, sexual violence against children and adolescents is rampant in our society. There's all the forms that Leah already talked about. And the HEAT Initiative is turning up the heat. As we are demanding Apple and all tech companies detect, report, and eradicate this content. For a safer digital space for all children, adolescents. I have grandchildren. You have children, Sarah. We are not going to sit quiet and let this to continue. The tech companies have had a free reign for decades. They have proven that they're not willing to hold themselves accountable. And they don't care about child safety. They're not preventing our children from being raped. And we have a responsibility and an opportunity to end that. So look forward to working with you on all that. So I'm done my part. Now each of you have a chance to ask any one of us a quick question and a quick response. So we have open mic in the final segment of this podcast.
Lennon Torres - 00:37:30:
I have a quick one, actually. Sarah, I want to put you on the spot and tell... Who is a leader that you look up to? Because as a fearless leader of Heat Initiative, you have been such a beacon for me. And then I'm able to, you know. Bring that to the community that, that I'm helping build around this movement. But I, I just want to hear like, Who are your people? Who do you watch and want to be like? Because this is the first time that I really feel like I really look up to you as a leader. So I just want to hear about like what you, like, how do you like, how are you doing this? Cause it's, it's, you're doing it well. So I just want to hear it.
Sarah Gardner - 00:38:19:
Oh my gosh. I really appreciate that. And this is going to feel like a very insular podcast in a second, because I'm going to actually reference Paul. And I'm going to tell you why, because I saw Paul speak as part of the brave movement. There were like four or five people on stage. So many wonderful leaders within our movement. Elizabeth Cooper, as Paul mentioned, Danielle Garo, who's part of our advisory board at HEAT. And it was at the end of a conference that was a lot about tech and blah, blah. And those five people got up and they actually said something instead of just like jarbled blah. They were like, I don't think this is right. I want to change this, this and that. I need you to come along with me in this journey. I need you. It was, I had an actual message. Come help us. And I was like, I'm leaving my job and I'm going, I'm going to help them. But seriously, because so it just is speaking to like when people speak their truth and actually are clear with you about what's needed. It doesn't even feel like leadership. You're being called. And then subsequently, Paul and I had many conversations about that process and we, we, and he inspired me. To leave and you made me feel comfortable in the uncomfortable and things like that. So that's great. And then I can popcorn to Paul because, so thank you for that question, Lennon. What I wanted to ask you was, So when I was preparing for this podcast, I was telling my family about you and like your book was on the table and everybody's like reading it. And one of the things my sister or somebody I can't remember who said to me was, you know, what an incredible life. And they devoted themselves to this. Like. I wish I could do that. But, you know, they're also working in a different, they have a job, they're doing something else. What are like the small ways you invite people in so that it's like some people aren't necessarily prepared to be like as hardcore as we are? And so how do you invite others in and like give them ways to engage without it feeling like overwhelming to them?
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:40:26:
Wow, thank you for that question. It really is aligned with my forthcoming book, Revolutionary Optimism, Seven Steps for Living as a Love-Centered Activist, because, really, everyone one can be a love-centered activist, right? It's not about, you know... The way we're all doing it, you know, dedicating our lives to it and, you know, heat on the streets, there's pathways of engagement for literally everyone. So part of the way I think about it is that it's about our own journey. Our own journey of awakening. We're all on that, right? And so it's about honoring that and focusing on our self-care if we need to. And so that means that anything that we're doing that includes like having fun or taking care of ourselves. That's all part of living as a love-centered activist, you know, and then family time or, you know, anything or close relationships or the communities that we're part of. That's all counts, you know. And then there is like, you know, when people move into more engaged activism, they need support. I need social, I need, you know, family support, social support. Sometimes in my life, I've been out of money, so I needed financial support. You know, there's all kinds of support that people can offer. Even I always like welcome people to even pray for me, you know, send me a prayer. I'm about to go get arrested and I was thrown in jail overnight after putting a sign up on the White House fence. I was like. Those folks on the other side of the fence are like, you know, destroying the global climate so humans may go extinct and they're throwing me in jail. It was kind of like that kind of like craziness going on. I just think that in step six, it's called Sparking Peaceful Revolutions. And we go into the specific roles of being on the street and all the different ways that and we have a whole section on what are the roles for people who are not on the street? You know, there's spiritual care. There's medical care. You know.
Sarah Gardner - 00:42:33:
That's awesome. Very cool.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:42:36:
Leah, last question.
Leah Juliett - 00:42:39:
Okay, I don't really have a question, but there is something that I kind of wanted to say, if that's okay. Perfect. Okay, great. Because when I was thinking about being on this podcast and, you know, reading the questions that I might be asked, I was thinking, you know, what makes me optimistic and where does my optimism come from? And. I've always been connected to the Anne Frank quote that I heard when I was in fifth grade. In spite of everything, I truly believe that people are really good at heart. And that's something that I've deeply held on to for my whole life. I can't ever remember not feeling that way. And so I think that it's also important to recognize that. And maybe for the listeners who are thinking, you know, I want to be optimistic, but I'm sad. As someone who lives with... Severe depression, as someone who lives with post-traumatic stress disorder, every day. I am both radically sad and radically optimistic. And I think it's important that we hold both because our sadness is our wisdom. Our sadness drives us to power. Our sadness drives us to change. If we're not sitting in our sadness and recognizing our sadness, then we won't be inspired to create a better world. And I don't think that sadness is... Is equal to pessimism. I think we can be optimistic and sad, but I think we have to open our eyes and feel everything. And if we allow ourselves to be angry, if we allow ourselves to feel everything so radically and stay soft and stay open to change, I think that is love because sadness is just love with nowhere to go. And if we could turn that love into power and policy and change, then Like, goddamn, I'll be sad my whole life, but it'll be worth it.
Dr. Paul Zeitz - 00:44:29:
Okay, well said. Thank you so much, Sarah, Lennon, and Leah, for joining me on this amazing podcast. I love you all. Thanks for being in this together with all of us. It really warms my heart to know that we're not alone and we're on this journey together. So I love you and thank you. Have a great week. Hi, that was an amazing episode with Leah Juliett, Lennon Torres, and Sarah Gardner. I'm so honored that we're working together on the HEAT Initiative, which is putting pressure on technology companies, focusing right now on Tim Cook and Apple, to hold them accountable for detection, reporting, and eradication of all online child sexual abuse materials, all photographs, all videos, etc. They have the ability to end this scourge right now, and we think child safety is the number one priority. We heard about the amazing experience that Leah Juliett had standing in front of Mark Zuckerberg at that recent Senate hearing. We heard from Sarah Gardner the long history of this crisis and the lack of action from the technology companies. And we heard from Lennon about how this issue about online child sexual abuse material is intersectional with abuse and harm being done against the LGBTQAI plus community. This is an intersectional crisis that links to the efforts that we are all undertaking to turn over and end the caste system that was part of the past. And we want to create a new world where this is no longer tolerated. And I'm really excited about what's coming up in April this month. We're going to have a mobilization. We're calling on all survivors and all allies to get into the streets and hold our leaders accountable. Hold Tim Cook accountable. Hold Mark Zuckerberg accountable. Let's use this year as the month where we're going to hold technology companies accountable for ending this scourge. I am a father. I am a grandfather. And I made a commitment when I found out that I was a survivor of childhood sexual violence, intra-familial, familial sexual violence at the hands of my father when I was in my late 40s, about 13 or 14 years ago. And I made a commitment to do whatever I could to protect other children. And I have grandchildren now. And I don't think it's right that we're sitting by silently while our children and grandchildren are being raped and sexually abused and harmed and exploited. And so HEAT and all of us are a group of revolutionary optimists. We are love-centered activists. And we love every child. And we will stop at nothing to protect and ensure the safety of every child. So Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, your silence is deafening. Our voices are louder. Peace out.
Voiceover - 00:47:39:
Are you ready to be part of the revolution? To learn more about Revolutionary Optimism, please visit drpaulzeitz.org. To explore building movements, please visit unifymovements.org. If you like this show, be sure to follow on your favorite podcast app so you don't miss an episode. Revolutionary Optimism, transforming the world one episode at a time.