 Hey folks, welcome to the podcast. Today I had a really good conversation with a lady called Aurora Herrera who is from Trinidad. She's a journalist, she's doing a PhD in journalism at City University, focusing on the West Indies at the Caribbean, which is really interesting. And we have a chat around where people are consuming their media and news from online, social media networks versus like traditional print. We talk a little bit about whether news content is getting better or worse, the influence of media organisations, censorship and all that cool stuff. And I hope you enjoy it. Hey it's Lewis, welcome to the podcast. Enjoy our conversations anytime, anywhere. Boom and we're live. Aurora. Hey. Thanks for coming in. Thank you for having me. I think we're already just done two podcasts, we haven't recorded yet. It was great. No, they were great. This one's going to be just as good. So what is your background? In. In life. In life. Okay, well I always say the first thing I say is I'm a journalist. Just funny when you say what's your background, I get that question a lot with my ethnicity and my accent in London. So when you ask me in London, you're asking about that. So what do you say to both? To both. Well first I say I'm a journalist. Currently I'm reading for my doctorate at City University of London. So I'm a journalist, but I'm not currently a working journalist. I'm currently doing research. Yeah, it's your PhD. It's researching first and foremost journalism culture in trying to vego and then how the government utilizes, for example, the cyber crime law, the defamation law in order to influence journalism culture. Interesting. We have to delve into that. Definitely. A lot of people think I'm going to get into some trouble researching that, but I haven't so far. So that's been, that's been really lucky, ethnicity wise. My essentially very simple, my dad is Indian and my mom is Spanish and Indigenous. So it's yeah, a mix of those. Also mix. Yeah, I think so. And you grew up in Trinidad. I grew up between Trinidad and Venezuela. So I grew up mostly in Trinidad, but from the time I was about 14 years old, my mom and I, we traveled extensively back and forth to Venezuela. So I do have a healthy amount of love and respect for Latin America and also particularly Venezuela, which I mean, right now I'm just going through a huge crisis and I'm actually a fellow of One Real Media and I'm doing a documentary right now on the Venezuelan refugee crisis and its effects on Trinidad. Yeah. Amazing. So is this a filmed documentary? Pardon? Is it a proper documentary? Yes. Amazing. When is it going to be released? Well, we have as a, as a fellow of One Real Media, they gave us a year to do the documentary. Right. So I got the green light, so to speak, in January. So essentially I haven't told him next year, January, but while, whilst I was in Trinidad for the past couple of months, I was filming on weekends. So basically every weekend since. Amazing. Yeah. So you have to go to Venezuela? Well, actually that was the plan. Two weeks ago, I was supposed to be in Venezuela. However, we have a fixer on the Venezuelan side and they told us that we shouldn't be coming across this point because it's way too dangerous because there's a lot of piracy on the channels that we're supposed to take from Trinidad to Venezuela. So you take a boat. Right. From Seidra, to a place called Tocopita and the channel there, there's a lot of piracy going on and people getting held up on the river. Can't you just take a plane? You, well, you can, but the thing is that if you fly into Caracas, you have to take this bus all the way down to the areas that we wanted to go to and investigate. All right. So what's happening right now in the refugee crisis, a lot of people are coming to border towns. If you're coming to Trinidad and they're taking boats mostly, not many people are flying in very few. And actually one of the things we filmed, a situation arose where their number of Venezuelans turned, they tried to turn them back at the airport or refuse them entry into the country. So it's much easier to come via boat. Right, right. And also, well, no human is illegal, but, you know, some people commit illegal acts such as coming to the country by boat. Illegally. Yeah. Without proper documentation. So there's a lot of that happening as well. But unfortunately, we couldn't go to film on the Venezuelan side because of the danger, but I do intend to do that at some point. And what was it? What was the title going to be? Interestingly, the title that I pitched to One Row Media was Food for Guns because we do have, initially, when the crisis started, Venezuelans were coming to Trinidad to trade guns for food. Wow. So how far is Trinidad to Venezuela? Eight miles. That's close. Didn't realize it was that close. Yeah. Between seven and eight miles, I believe. What was happening is because of inflation, people can't afford food, so they come here and do some sort of trade. And I was told not to look into that. I was told that it's very dangerous and what I was doing would get me into trouble and put my life in danger. So I was told not to go in that direction. I took that advice. But I did manage to get a few interviews with people who were talking about the trade, trafficking of people, sexual trafficking in both ways as well from Trinidad to Venezuela and vice versa. And as well, they did talk about the gun trade. However, they also didn't want their identity put on camera. Fair enough. So you were interviewing people who were involved in that trafficking? Yes. Piloting the boats? Yeah. Well, I did interview one person who was trafficked. And which way? She came here from Venezuela. Well, sorry, she came to Trinidad from Venezuela. And it's a very common story where they have a friend who comes over or who is in the country they want to go to and they say, come over. I can get you a job. Then the person comes to the country and they basically, she was locked in a house. They took away her phone. They didn't let her out of the house, but they would take her out to clubs to look for clients. And it's the same story. Either the girl, the person refuses or they fall into it and then they try to escape. Some women have escaped, but they were being hunted down by these traffickers. They're making threats against them. Wow. Is that a big problem in Trinidad? Trafficking? Yeah. Was it isolated to the Venezuela crisis? No. We do not have the official statistics. I don't have the official statistics to make a statement like that, but trafficking is a problem in our country. Right. Right. Fine. So the next documentary then. Perfect title. Yeah, probably. Cool. So let me know. Well, let us know when the documentary is out. It'd be great to see it. Yeah. And so at the moment you're looking so you're doing your PhD in journalism and specifically. There's been no serious amounts of research in terms of journalism culture in Trinidad and Tobago. So initially, I was really excited to look at the defamation laws because as a journalist in Trinidad you can still be put in jail if you're convicted of defamation. It's never been used, but it's still in the books. And the definition of defamation? So for example, if I say, you know, if I publish somewhere that, you know, Louis is laundering money. Yeah. Is laundering money. And I post that somewhere. I'm defaming you. Fine. Yeah. So then you can come and you in a litigious society like the UK, you can actually do that and have a foundation for that. But you know, it's sort of seen as stamping out of freedom of speech for journalists. So I was very excited to do that, to look at defamation law and how the government is using it to influence journalism culture. But I first had to ask what is journalism culture? So I spent six months doing an ethnography back home in Trinidad and Tobago way I interviewed 90 journalists. Exhausting. Exhausting. But, but yeah, so I interviewing them and just asking them everything about their daily routines to, you know, whether, how they feel about this law and everything within that spectrum. So just to get a real understanding of what life was like for a journalist, because even though I was a practicing journalist, it's still, I was in, I'm not, all the media houses are structured differently, different, different management rules. So it's interesting just to get a proper understanding of everything you have to do, go to the different media houses to understand the culture there. And what's the specific law that you've been researching? So I've been looking while they're very, they're a few laws. One of the laws, for example, is a cyber crime law. So if I'm a journalist and you send me a document, and let's say it's sort of a top secret document, but you send it to me and I open it electronically, I can get arrested. Even though you don't know what's in it. Yeah. So people can, so, so that's, that's a bit, it's a bit ridiculous. Yeah. You know, also something as simple as, but this hasn't actually, so these are things that are, that are being discussed. The, you know, all of the people who are representing journalists are very concerned about these laws and they've brought them up and joined select committees. And so they're these, we are asking for an amendment basically for journalists in this because it's because a cyber crime law doesn't exactly speak to journalists, but basically if someone has information that is leaked to them, right, they're creating a genuine offense, but we want an amendment for journalists. There's also parts of the law which says something like, if, for example, if you guys, if you're an archbishop and you get into an accident and you don't give your consent to publish your permission and we can't publish that you've been in an accident and published details about you again. Okay. Yeah. So, so those are some, those are some of the laws. The defamation law however, for example, if, if you have information about a politician or someone in power that you, and it's not just politicians, someone in power that you want to hold to account and you publish it, usually you get what, or they find out you're going to publish it, usually you get a pre-action protocol which tries to prevent you from publishing saying, we will sue if you publish this information. And it depends on the culture of your media house, whether they stand behind you, whether it's time you had a journalist, if they have insurance, what their lawyers are saying, which is why it's so important for journalists to do all their checks and balances before the story goes to print or to broadcast to make sure they're fully a hundred, hundred percent protected against it. But the real question is, why is it still in the books? Yeah. We're not using it. Isn't it just a bit scarier? And, and you, and interestingly, is, is there no, could you do the PhD in Trinidad? How come you decided to do it in the UK? Lovely weather. Well, yeah. Apart from that. No, there is currently no PhD in journalism in the Caribbean. Wow, at all? No, there are master's programs at Carrie Mack in Jamaica, which usually is the hub where people go to do journalism in the Caribbean. However, there's no PhD and there's no provision, meaning that I had applied to also get funding for my PhD and they said there's no provision for PhD students in Trinidad and Tobago. Thoughts, even if you do it internationally? Even if I do it internationally. Harsh. So I'm looking for funding if anyone wants to, if anyone wants to fund, please get in touch. And so I am the first person in my country to do a PhD in journalism and I believe in the Caribbean. Amazing. So. Awesome. Yeah. And how are you enjoying the UK? Well, I know really, we spoke a bit about this. We did a little bit. In terms of, we spoke a little bit about it. Well, I do, I think that it's gorgeous. I think that the architecture is amazing. I think that the history as well. Because we were a British colony, Trinidad and Tobago. We did do a lot of history, British history. So to actually come to the UK and see a lot of the history that I'm proud about. Yeah, it was something really, that I really appreciated. At the same time, living in the UK is quite expensive. It is expensive. I'm sure everyone can agree with that. Oh, for sure, for sure. And I do think that you really enjoy a really good standard of living. You also need to be, you know, you have to have a good income. So whilst a lot of great things like museums are free and a lot of, you know, you can go to the park and read in the dead of winter. Free health service. Yeah, that actually is great too. But it can be tougher. It is expensive. Yes. Yes. But I mean, most major cities like this are. But it's also really exciting to be sort of a fly on the wall with Brexit and other things that are happening. Absolutely. So it is a great, I think, for any journalist. It's a very exciting place to be. Yeah, must be quite interesting also with the various media sources and news channels and where people consume news from. Certainly with the Brexit stuff. Must be super interesting. Yeah, I think I'm not on Facebook. You're not on Facebook? No. Wow. I might say wow. I mean, I was on Facebook. No, everyone's on Facebook. I was on Facebook. But my account was someone attempted to hack my account more than four times in one week. More than four times. I don't know why I have. I really have nothing on it. So you decided what just to shut it down. So I shut it down. And because essentially I wasn't really using it very much. So I'm more on Twitter. I use Twitter for my news sources all the time. So every day I wake up and I look at different news sources that are in my feed. And I read from a variety of different news sources to get the most amount of information, I should say. Okay, so it's Twitter. That's good. I love that. So it's Twitter is your main source of news. Yes. And what do you do? Do you follow the hashtags or you read it for you? There's something I'm very specifically interested in. I will do hashtags. However, if I'm just waking up and looking through the news for the day, then I can just look at all the different, everything I can say. Like people that you're following. And so you look at your news feed. Yeah. Fine. And then your news feed will be filled up with whoever you decided to follow. Right. Which is a point you were making earlier. I was making the yes. But then if you have, you know... So my point was for everyone that didn't hear the conversation. Right. Which is just awesome. Is that you tend to follow people like you and often they have a similar view, opinion about stuff. And Twitter is really cool because you can follow the hashtags and you can get a real sense of what other people who don't agree with you and aren't in your social circle are feeling. So we talked about the Brexit stuff. And in my social media feeds, everyone was feeling the same as me. And then I had no idea that we were going to end up leaving Europe. I thought we'd remain. But then actually if you looked at Twitter, you got a much better view of what people are feeling and thinking. And I do try to follow different polarities. So I think that's healthy to have that kind of information. Also what I like about Twitter is that reading some of the comments, especially on the direct news stories. So not just someone, a regular person reposting, but from an official news source. Because if you have that official news source, you also have the different open ends from how many other sides commenting on that official news source. So you can kind of have your finger on the pulse of how people are feeling from any side or anything like that. That's like for example, listening to the radio in the morning. So if you listen to... So in Trinidad we have a lot of talk radio. And so when I was back home, when I would be driving in the morning or afternoon, I'd listen to a lot of the talk radio. And so they would sort of talk about the news of the day and then they would post a question. So how are you feeling about... On Twitter? No, just to the listeners. Just pose a question. Yeah, to the listeners. And I'm sure they'd post it on there. They would say we posted it on Facebook page and etc. When people would call in and discuss what they were thinking, which I thought was great because that's how you know what the public is thinking. And that sort of also feeds into a lot of research that I was doing in terms of media agenda. Does the media set the agenda or does the public set the agenda and how they interrelate. And I found that it's never just one or the other as most things in life. It's always sort of a back and forth, which I think it also depends on the country you're in and also advertising policies and how that advertising affects you. That's true. The agenda setting is also dependent on that. But just with regards to the radio listening to that. Yeah, I love the radio. I probably don't listen. I used to listen to it a lot more when I was younger. And then we have like talk radio, talk sport. I mean, there's lots of, it's really interesting. But now you tend to find people who just call up and moan. They're just moaning about something, moaning about the bad, the government's not doing this or their football clubs are not buying these players. And it's like constant constant moaning, which is quite cool to listen to. But not all the time. Well, because you put you listen. I think me if I'm wrong, but didn't our forefathers live and die fighting for our right to moan. But absolutely. You can moan as much as you want. Absolutely. And they have a platform to moan, which is great. And you can moan if you want. And then I have the right not to listen to you. Exactly. You can scroll through. I could just, I could just turn the channel off. Yeah. But no, no, it's really cool. And there's a great place for it. And obviously podcasting. We can have a main about anything we want and people can choose to listen or not. But I think the great thing is now with technology, people have these platforms to be able to express themselves. And now you'll be able to learn from so many different types of people. Because I was saying before, I mean, with always with YouTube, with technology, with podcasting and stuff, it used to be that you have to be, you have to have been able to read, to learn, you have to read books and stuff. Nowadays, you can be illiterate and listen, or watch a video, which I think is really cool. And I think that also speaks to the different types of ways that people are able to learn. And it's not just via, it's definitely not just via reading, but it's also auditory, or just how we process information is so different. It's not just in that sort of industrial classroom anymore, where you're writing on the chalkboard and you have to read it and memorize it. Have you seen a difference in Trinidad compared to the UK about how people are consuming venues and... Yeah, definitely, on a lot of different levels. So for example, I would say Trinidad is about 20 years behind the sort of technology revolution in journalism. So right now, we have one company that's doing integration and online, so with online integration, trying to really push that. And it is a legacy media house, so God and Media Ltd, they're doing that. The other media houses haven't gotten there yet. So in terms of that, it is... But then again, it's very... So it's all printers at then? Yes. But it's also very dependent on how a country set up, because most people like to hold newspapers in their hands. Do you still like to? I do, I love it. I love it. So if you're not... It's like, I don't have a kinder life. But you get hands to get dirty there. I don't care. So if you're not on Twitter, you'll be seen reading a proper newspaper. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's really important, because for example, and I know that I didn't quite answer your first question, but just to talk about why it's so important, is that for example, when you... Especially as a journalist, you have to do product comparison. You have to look at who else is doing the same story that you worked on. Do they have a different angle? Do they have a different source? Can I cultivate this source? Is there an angle that I... That is unfair that I have not explored, that I need to put into my follow-up story? You know, I just also look at the quality of photos or... So in order to, I think, be a better journalist and just be ahead of the game, you absolutely have to pick up the product of the person or look at their newscast or look at... or listen to their radio show or podcast so you can find out what they're doing and how they're getting the information so you can stay 10 steps ahead of them. But how do you choose who to listen to? So obviously you've got the big media organisations but then you have lots of individuals that can write anything on Twitter or can report on anything and suddenly, it feels like now, certainly here, you've got information from... Absolutely everywhere. You've got no idea what's true, what's not or what's been validated. Even people publish facts. I mean, we had the £350 million extra per week for the NHS which turned out not to be true which is put on the sides of bus. I mean, how do you... Personal? Discerningly, yeah, yeah. Yeah. A couple of things. Well, I know that there are these really great fact-checking websites that are coming out where you can actually put information into in front of the real or not. But aside from that, I think just being really critical in your own thinking and really figuring out what it is you're reading and what you're consuming and not just consuming blindly and just really having sort of a base for things. A lot of people tend to sort of click on headlines or they don't even read the story. Like the click-bait stuff. Yeah. And or they just literally read the headline and say, I know about the subject. So I think you also have to be fair. Be fair to what knowledge you have and you have to say, okay, maybe I actually don't know what I'm talking about or what I'm reading. I need to read more into it. And I know certain news... Do you know Hackers London? No, no, tell me about that. I'm actually supposed to go to their event tonight. Oh, nice. Again, shameless plug. No, they're great. I just attend. But it's under the Twitter headquarters. And the last time, so they bring together people who do different apps and so forth and journalists and they do like new tech and journalism or they look at really great developments and things that can help journalism. My point is that they came up with this. I think it was FT. They have this new app that's or they're developing an app which can track how much you've read on a subject. So let's say you read robotics and they can actually tell how long you spent on the page and how long you've read it for. So you can say, well, I'm only 10% up to a high stuff about robotics. So it actually lets you know personally, am I really an expert on this subject? Do I know what I'm talking about? Wow. And then what is that going to do for debates? They'll be like, let me see your stats. How much do you know about this topic? Exactly. I mean, I know you're joking. No, no, I'm joking. I'm joking. But it can probably could be used in that. Yeah, yeah. I think actually, because then you see, then you have these Facebook war wars, people back and forth. Imagine what a world, great world would be if you say, actually, do you really know what you're speaking about? Can you show me how much you've read on this? Absolutely. Which I think, you know, it's really interesting. I think I found in all honesty that my reading of news articles has gone right down and my listening to audiobooks and podcasts has gone right up. Because for me, so I work in London, I live in London, but my commute's about, let's say half an hour. And so I don't read, and I travel on the Northern line. So it's really difficult to actually read anything because it's too busy. So I started reading on my phone, but then even it was a little bit busy for the phone. So I thought it's just in my headphones then. And this was about like two years ago because I was really realizing that I don't really read books so much. And then the newspapers at the time, it was only negative stuff. So you just want to like, you're depressed by the time you get to your desk. So I stopped reading the papers in the morning. And now I listen to stuff and it's great. And I've been going through lots of audiobooks, so this is a podcast. So that's what I found. Like it takes a long time for me to, well it just takes, it takes more time to read than it does to listen. And because of my life, my working life, I found that I was, I'm now consuming more media than I was before. That's very interesting for people who do research on the life longevity of print newspapers to know this information. Well, I'm sure they're going right down, certainly here. It's interesting you were saying that you love to hold the newspaper. And in Trinidad, it's probably the main, still the main source. Well, it is. So our older generation is the primary, well, I don't want to say older generation, but you know, in terms of demographics, young people definitely are using their devices to get their news advertisers and moving into targeting young people, well, younger people through those means. But definitely when you're driving to work on the morning, you see people buying the paper all the time on the streets or, you know, just so that it is, and newspapers will sell out by the time, you know, you get into the capital city if you don't buy it on the street when you're in going in and the traffic keeps you back, it's gone. Do you have to pay for it? Yes. So here it's free, almost all of them free. Well, because they used to have, used to have the evening standard. It was always like 50p. My dad always used to get it. It was like 50p, get the evening standard. Now they give it away for free. We have the morning ones, the Metro free. I'm sure, but now you have like the main ones here, like the Times, The Guardian, Independent, they have their content behind an online paywall. So you pay like whatever it is, I don't pay for it. The FT, I do. Economist stuff. So they have their content behind the paywall. So the model seems to have changed a bit. Yeah. Yeah. And actually, I think we are considering doing that as well. One of our, one of our newspapers in Trinidad, they do do that paywall day. But I feel we don't get the majority of money for media in Trinidad by circulation. It's by advertising. Yeah. So also the advertising agenda plays a huge role in terms of what makes it into the paper and what makes it onto the newscast because if we have enough time or space, I would say, yeah, yeah. It'll get printed or broadcast. Fine. And have you found out that the media sources are getting better than they have been? There's a content better. I think we live in an increasingly litigious society. Yeah. And I think people are becoming more and more aware of information that's being put out there. So now during this, I'll be becoming a bit more hyper-vigilant in what they're producing. So in terms of legacy media, I think the more training, the more understanding of what their roles are as purveyors of information and they're there to serve verification purposes, that it has gotten better, that they are moving in the direction of, let's create a new source that is 100% for the people. Credible, reliable. Reliable. Then you have things like Facebook and Instagram and Snapchat and all these different other platforms that in terms of sources of media, if it's gotten better, I think I would say that that hasn't helped whilst a lot of these platforms can be used for incredible things and building incredible communities and movements and spreading of positive messages. The downside as well is that it can also be used for spreading of false information even and propagating things that are not helpful to society. So Facebook and yeah, because I think Facebook have just banned some of the far-right groups here. So you've got, on the one hand, you've got the news organizations that let's say are getting better quality but then you have individuals who can do anything. Freedom of speech. So do you think that's out of control now? To Facebook and Twitter, because I think about Twitter, someone said the other day there was an AI and it was a chatbot and they need to train the AI on lots of data. So Twitter has loads of conversations and I think within about two or three minutes it became racist, sexist and homophobic just from the conversations on Twitter. People get venomous on Twitter because you can hide behind the computer. You can be anonymous. Facebook, you get loads of like bad stuff. So do you think they need to do more? Well, I think we also touched on this in terms of when we were talking about climate change earlier. Yes. And I think that everyone has a role to play. You as an individual, the companies that are also having this platform. So if you're providing a platform, yes, you can be a purveyor, but I do believe as well that you, as much as possible, need to... Moderate. Moderate. That's the word I was looking for. Moderate what is happening. But also as an individual person who's on that platform in yourself, you need to be responsible as well and you need to be respectful and you need to... No one, nobody wants to take away anybody's freedom of speech. However, at the same time... It's a very fine line. We all have to share the society and rule together and we all have to live next to each other and it is a very fine line. Definitely. No, I completely agree. I listened to a podcast with Jack Dorsey who's the CEO and founder of Twitter and they, I think they have, they have terms and conditions and stuff. It's very vague, but I mean, you can almost say anything on Twitter. I don't think they kick off too many people. But at the same time, you know, when you look at serious issues of freedom of speech, right, let's just, for example, take into consideration offences against children. So I remember I was listening to this BBC podcast about this particular company where anybody can sort of do karaoke and post it online. Right. And some of the comments under these videos of these kids posting were extremely disturbing and very unsexual in nature. And this journalist did a bit of a test where they wrote to the company and said, because in their policies, they say that they're going to try as much as possible to protect their rights of children, et cetera. And they reported it and they, I think in their policy, it was something like within 24 hours, the content was supposed to be removed. But when they checked back, it wasn't removed. And so then a couple of months later, they did the test again. And then they said, so some of the content was removed, but some had also remained there. So when you get into things like that as well, I mean, in terms of responsibility, it is the platform's responsibility to moderate that. It is the parents' responsibility. It's also, and the world we live in, now we need to be educating our younger generation about a lot of what's happening and how vulnerable they can be. Yeah, yeah. Well, I guess, but to the tech firms, you don't really know how old people are. Well, I guess you can do maybe some facial recognition, a fingerprint, but they could take their parents' phones and they definitely need to do more. And if you're producing a product now, and I mean, again, this is just my personal opinion, but to be completely ethical if you're putting something out there, and you know the power that technology has to be completely ethical, you should have these safeguards and you should have these, you know, sort of mitigation routes that you can take or the user can take to protect themselves. Yeah, no, I agree. No, I absolutely agree. In the UK, there's plans to set up a tech regulator. Right. Which is quite interesting to regulate the Facebooks and LinkedIn and stuff. What do you think about doing that? Or have you gone a little bit too far? The thing is that I don't think that this is going to end. I don't think that, you know, I think in another year, another two years, there's going to be even more regulation, there's going to be another, there's going to be even more pushing because people are going even further. So it's like if people weren't going, if people weren't going far in the first place, there'd be no need to do the regulation. True. So it's sort of like... You mean people as individuals posting on? Yes. So if we were to sort of, again, come back to regulating ourselves, then there would be no need for this. That's a utopia. But a lot of people, you know, they use these platforms, they can hide behind it, they can get their venom out and it also brings out the worst in people. I don't... And if you're speaking... Because I will say the... Sorry, Nego. I was just saying, speaking from that respect, what essentially, what I'm taking from what you're saying is that there will be no sort of, there are people who just will not stop in what they're saying, whether it's offensive or not. So in terms of that, then I don't think we've gone too far because we need to protect people, we need to protect children especially. And if there are people out there who can't be responsible for themselves, then it's our job as governments, as people, as adults, as everyone to protect each other and to protect children as well. No, very true, very true. It's interesting because a lot of people are like blaming the tech firms, but they're just platforms for people to express themselves and be mean or be happy or to share their views. It's, yeah, it's a shame. But mostly it's good and you just get this small minority of really vocal people that end up. Well, it's, at the end of the day, it's all communication and information, right? And communication is how we've built our societies, how we've evolved as a people. And without communication, we definitely wouldn't be where we are today. And throughout history, we've had positive communications. There's nothing better than just meeting up, having a conversation like this, face to face. It's very different online. It is. You know, like you can get a WhatsApp and then you read it and you can think about how to respond and you can ask your mate. Whereas I really like live conversations because you can just, you've got to respond to me. I like calling people, you know. Yeah, using the phone. Apparently that's all it's cool now. Well, yeah. But you've got to be able to. The art of conversation is great. And I think some of my sociology colleagues can speak much better to this than I can, but it definitely is, in some ways, not as healthy for a lot of us to not communicate verbally or in person because then when you are constantly behind a screen, I mean your skills, your communication skills don't, they don't evolve as they should. And then as well. Yeah, for sure. You know, there's also a lot of cyberbullying and also a lot of different types of grooming and shaming that happens online, which, I mean, in person, that also happens in person. But online, it's pretty exponential. Whereas in person, I think, on a case by case basis, the numbers would be different. Then I completely agree. There's nothing like conversation. I think that's a great point to end our first podcast. We'll definitely do another one. Amazing. Thank you very much for coming in. Thank you for coming in. How can people find you? On Twitter. Cool. At Aurora, that's A-U-R-O-R-A-K Herrera H-E-R-R-E-R-A. Cool. Yeah. Thank you very much. Thank you. See ya. Bye. Hey, folks, thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe in all the usual places.