Where is Kate Middleton? Conspiracy theories, institutions, and truth in the era of AI.

There Are No Girls on the Internet

iHeartPodcasts

Society & Culture, Technology

4.4 • 820 Ratings

🗓️ 15 March 2024

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Where is Kate Middleton? https://www.vox.com/culture/24087565/princess-kate-middleton-disappearance-rumors-explained-abdominal-surgery-kensington-palace

The Kate Middleton photo scandal is a rare — and consequential — flub / A wave of wire services retracting a doctored image of the Princess of Wales and her kids set off a firestorm of conspiracy theories: https://www.theverge.com/2024/3/12/24098548/kate-middleton-royal-family-photoshop-manipulated-image

The edited Princess Kate photo probably wasn't made with AI: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/kate-middleton-photo-ai-image-photoshop-edit-rcna142799

Kate Middleton and the End of Shared Reality (paywalled): https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/03/kate-middleton-mothers-day-photo-fake/677718/

The Royal Family’s Kate Middleton Crisis Her disappearance isn’t just a tabloid sensation. It’s a sign of the monarchy’s deepening instability: https://www.thecut.com/article/where-is-kate-middleton-catherine-princess-of-wales-royal-family-crisis.html

Women Who Break the Glass Ceiling Get a “Paper Cut”: Gender, Fame, and Media Sentiment: https://academic.oup.com/socpro/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/socpro/spac020/6563163?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false

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Transcript

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0:00.0	There Are No Girls on the Internet as a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative.
0:12.2	I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.
0:17.6	Welcome to There Are No Girls on the Internet, where we explore the intersection of social media,
0:21.3	technology, and identity. And this episode is a special report. You know how back in the day
0:27.2	they would do those like, do it, do it, do it, special report, special report. This is a special
0:32.4	report on Kate Middleton. Mike, thank you for being here. Have you been following what is happening with Kate Middleton?
0:39.5	I wasn't at all.
0:40.9	And then all of a sudden, I was like seeing it everywhere.
0:45.1	Yeah, what's going on, Bridget?
0:47.0	So I feel the exact same way.
0:49.2	Like, I'm not a royals person.
0:51.2	You know, it's not a cultural thing that I follow closely, really at all. But I feel like
0:56.2	I woke up last week and it's all anybody is talking about. I was getting group texts about it,
1:03.0	multiple text messages from multiple different friends about it, people that I hadn't talked to in
1:07.7	years, like exes being like, hey, what do you think is going on here? So this is
1:12.3	definitely one of those big cultural things that people who maybe just are casually, like the most
1:18.7	casual followers of the royal family are now weighing into. So fair warning, all of that is to say
1:26.1	that I don't know a ton about the royals. And so in this
1:29.6	conversation, if I get something wrong or you're like, actually, she's a Duchess, not a this.
1:34.9	Like, I apologize in advance. This is a little bit out of my, out of my purview. However, I do know a lot
1:41.4	about conspiracy theories, particularly how they impact women and how they move online.
1:46.7	This kind of feels like the perfect storm of what makes the conspiracy theory take off online.
	...

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