Superhuman - From Engineered Desire to Engineered Consent

Aaron Ping
  • 5.0 (32)
  • True Crime

Superhuman is an investigative podcast and publication exploring child online safety, platform accountability, antitrust, and concentrated power. Through the story of my 16-year-old son Avery, it examines what it will take to build a safer digital world. superhumanpodcast.substack.com

Episodes

  1. 1d ago

    Perla | Season 2 - Episode 1

    Click here to watch the video and read the article Season 2- Episode 1: Perla When Perla Mendoza’s son Elijah died from a fentanyl-laced pill bought through Snapchat, police told her the dealer could never be identified. So she found him herself. In this interview, Perla shows how she tracked him down. She also describes how her reports to Snapchat went unanswered while the dealer kept posting. This episode is meant to be viewed as video, with an accompanying article that lays out the receipts: Snap’s internal records, the court transcript, and new lawsuits filed this year. Follow the link above or if it does not appear in your player, click here: https://superhumanpodcast.substack.com/p/perla-season-2-episode-1?r=5gzte9 Thank you to the musicians who provided music for this episode: Jacob Sanders https://whalehawk.bandcamp.com/ Joachim Cooder www.joachimcooder.com/ Kjartan Abel CC BY-SA 4.0 https://kjartan-abel.com Get full access to Superhuman Podcast at superhumanpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

  2. May 9

    Out of Balance (Episode 8)

    In the season finale of Superhuman, Aaron brings on four guests for a closer look at the cracks in the system, at the incentives that put them there, and why remembering is the first step to fixing them. Click here to watch a collection of video clips of Avery set to the music from Koyaanisqatsi. Guests Danica Noble www.electdanica.com Brian Boland www.delta-fund.org Julianna Arnold https://parentsrise.org/ Reiko Callner Music Joachim Cooder Various tracks www.joachimcooder.com/ Evelyn Simone Requiem Theme https://evelynsimone.com/  Kjartan Abel CC BY-SA 4.0 https://kjartan-abel.com Get full access to Superhuman Podcast at superhumanpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

    Out of Balance (Episode 8)

  3. Apr 12

    Wolves and Children (Episode 7)

    Wolves and Children is about how that happens. In this episode, I follow the money, the lobbying playbook, and the legal arguments that shape the laws parents are told will protect their children. It is about what stands between harm and public understanding, and how easily accountability can be rewritten before most people even know the fight is happening. I’m incredibly grateful to Brody Mullins, Julia Duncan, Sarah Gardner, and Lennon Torres for being part of this episode. Their contributions gave it depth, credibility, and heart. Brody helped expose the machinery behind corporate influence. Julia helped illuminate what families lose when accountability is preempted or buried. Sarah brought a clear-eyed view of the broader system of tech complicity. And Lennon brought lived truth to a debate too often manipulated in the abstract. I learned a lot from each of them, and I’m thankful they trusted this project enough to be part of it. Links and Resources Brody Mullins The Wolves of K Street Podcast A companion podcast exploring lobbying, corporate influence, and power in Washington. https://www.thewolvesofkstreet.com/podcast The Deciders A show about the people and forces shaping politics, business, and public life. https://www.deciders.show/subscribe Julia Duncan American Association for Justice The national organization representing trial lawyers and civil accountability work. https://www.justice.org/ Sarah Gardner HEAT Initiative Advocacy focused on tech accountability and child safety. https://heatinitiative.org Scrolling 2 Death A podcast about social media harms and digital safety. https://www.scrolling2death.com/ Parents RISE A parent-led group advocating for reform and accountability around online harms. https://parentsrise.org/ The Amazing Generation A youth-facing guide to understanding persuasive technology and healthier digital habits. https://www.anxiousgeneration.com/book/amazinggeneration Lennon Torres Diary of a Palatable Trans Woman Lennon’s Substack and personal writing. Overturned by Kelly Stonelake Not mentioned in the episode, but one of my personal favorites by a close friend in the movement. Get full access to Superhuman Podcast at superhumanpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

    Wolves and Children (Episode 7)

  4. Mar 11

    Muted Cases (Episode 6)

    Last week I sat in a congressional hearing room watching legislators mark up a bill called the Kids Act — a bill with “online child protection” in its title. From my seat, holding a photo of my son, I watched a representative argue for the importance of shielding tech products from civil liability. The language had been carefully inserted into an immunity clause. It was not subtle if you knew what you were looking at. Today is the sentencing of the man who killed my son. I am not in the courtroom. I can’t sit in a courtroom and not say the truth. So I’m saying it here instead. Two settings. 6 days apart. Same problem from two directions. In the hearing room, I watched the system that is supposed to write the rules work to ensure that the companies most responsible for enabling harm to children remain legally untouchable. Civil liability is the only mechanism that has ever forced these platforms to open their files. It’s the only reason we have internal documents showing what they knew and when. Strip that away — inside a bill named after kids — and there is no tool left to compel transparency. In the courtroom today, the system that is supposed to deliver justice is compressing years of documented harm into a single transaction. No legal warning for the community. Two stacks of paper. On one side: what these systems say they do. Congressional bills titled after children. Platform safety statements. Press releases with percentages. Plea deals that close cases. On the other side: what actually happens. A dealer who operated without fear for years because no institution stopped him. A warrant that sat with Snapchat for twenty days before they responded. An encrypted file with no instructions. A dealer’s account still active weeks after my son died. And a hearing room where legislators looked past the photos of dead children to protect the companies that connected those children to harm. I started this podcast with two stacks of paper. After this week, the stacks are taller. The gap between them hasn’t closed. “Muted Cases” is the story the courtroom wouldn’t tell — built from testimony, timelines, and documents the legal system never put on the record. Get full access to Superhuman Podcast at superhumanpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

    Muted Cases (Episode 6)

  5. 12/23/2025

    Ideas and Reality (Episode 5)

    Send us a text What happens when the news stops being news and starts behaving like marketing? In Episode 5, Aaron is joined by Jennie Desario to trace a line from early propaganda to modern algorithmic persuasion, where outrage is profitable and "both sides" can become a product feature. Together, they unpack how privatized media ecosystems shape what we believe, what we fear, and what we ignore, especially when child safety and accountability threaten growth. We're back earlier than expected because a recent executive order, branded as an "AI moratorium", threatens to roll back state-level child safety protections that parents and bipartisan legislators fought years to pass. This episode asks a simple question: if the loudest narratives are engineered, what's left underneath the noise, and who are these systems actually accountable to? (00:00) The Invisible Protest (03:36) The Binary Machine (10:45) Making Monsters Respectable (13:07) Growth at All Costs (20:05) Both Sides of the Same Coin (28:44) When Reality Inverts (31:12) Free Typing (33:34) Mason's Search for Help (40:27) The Adults in the Room (01:02:42) Ideas vs Reality Audio clips featured in this episode are sourced from the All-In Podcast and are included for commentary. Get full access to Superhuman Podcast at superhumanpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

    Ideas and Reality (Episode 5)

  6. 11/19/2025

    In Good Faith (Episode 4)

    Send us a text Twenty-six words written in 1996 gave platforms legal immunity. One court decision in 1997 turned that immunity into a business model. Attorney Carrie Goldberg shares what it's like representing hundreds of victims, from sextortion to cyberbullying to suicide, and watching nearly every case slam into the same wall. Brett Allred and Kristin Bride reveal what the absence of "good faith" looks like when platforms know the patterns but wait for children to die. And as Section 230 finally begins to crack, we expose the tech industry's next move: rebranding the same harmful systems as "AI" to claim a new decade of immunity. When courts won't look under the hood, we will. Content warning: Discussion of suicide, drug overdose, online exploitation 00:00:00 - Twenty-Six Words 00:03:29 - The Good Samaritan Betrayed 00:05:30 - Zeran's Inversion 00:09:00 - The Business Model of Blindness  00:11:00 - Carrie's Courtroom 00:18:30 - The Algorithm Problem 00:22:00 - The AI Escape Hatch 00:25:30 - Riley's Story 00:29:30 - What They Knew 00:34:30 - The Supreme Court Punts 00:40:00 - The Tobacco Playbook 00:45:30 - Carson's Story 00:52:00 - The Privileged Defense 00:57:00 - The Movement 01:02:30 - The Light We Hold Music by: Kjartan Abel CC BY-SA 4.0 https://kjartan-abel.com Get full access to Superhuman Podcast at superhumanpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

    In Good Faith (Episode 4)

  7. 10/22/2025

    Jeffersons Nightmare (Episode 3)

    Send us a text How did corporations get more constitutional rights than your children? When a bookshelf tips over and harms one child, there's an immediate recall. When platform algorithms push suicide content to depressed teens, they claim First Amendment protection. To understand how we got here, Aaron traces the path from Jefferson's worst fears to today's reality. In 1886, a court reporter's unauthorized footnote gave corporations personhood. In 1971, the Powell Memo blueprinted corporate capture of democracy. In 2010, Citizens United unleashed unlimited dark money—corporations buying elections while hiding in shadows. These aren't ancient developments. You or your parents lived through most of this. The same First Amendment that platforms use to avoid accountability when children die is the one they use to pour millions into elections—anonymously. We traded away our democracy piece by piece, precedent by precedent. To reclaim it, we first have to see how we lost it. 00:00  Cold Open — The Platform Claims the Right to Look Away 02:10  Jefferson’s Nightmare & the Corporate Empires That Came Before 06:52  The Tea That Started a Revolution 10:00  Jefferson’s Vision & the Original Corporate Chains 17:20  The Pendulum of Power — People vs. Corporations 23:15  The Powell Memo — How Business Fought Back 29:38  Citizens United & the Age of Corporate Speech 36:45  The Tech Takeover — Lobbying, Loopholes, Immunity 47:47  Section 230 & the Right to Look Away Social Media Online Child Sexual Exploitation Audio clips from C-SPAN  Get full access to Superhuman Podcast at superhumanpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

    Jeffersons Nightmare (Episode 3)

  8. 10/16/2025

    The Machine (Episode 2)

    Send us a text  This Episode explores how a century of manipulation techniques became smartphone features, through conversations with Jean Cavendish, a clinical psychiatrist who spent decades helping people escape cult programming. Jean died on November 19, 2025, a month after recording. This episode is a dedication to her life and work. The episode features testimony from Lori Schott about how Meta targets children's insecurities, and Taj Jensen, a fellow parent who lost his son to fentanyl purchased on Snapchat. At its core, this is about recognizing the systems designed to keep us scrolling, buying, and reacting—and asking the question that matters: What are you really hungry for? 00:00 — Opening Reflection 03:46 — The Birth of Influence 07:26 — The King of the Engineers 11:18 — The Toolkit of Persuasion 13:03 — Selling Our Own Destruction 14:29 — The Shame Machine ( testimony from Lori Schott) 21:06 — Fear as a Business Model 25:54 — The Science of Addiction 30:55 — The Human Cost 32:32 — The Wisdom of Jean Cavendish 36:12 — The Teenage Brain 38:15 — Hooked Forever 43:08 — Receipts and Responsibility 45:06 — Tanner’s Story (Guest Taj Jenson) 50:19 — Breaking the Cycle Content warning: teen death, drug sales, and exploitation. Music by: Kjartan Abel CC BY-SA 4.0 https://kjartan-abel.com Get full access to Superhuman Podcast at superhumanpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

    The Machine (Episode 2)

  9. 10/16/2025

    Two Stacks (Episode 1)

    Send us a text  The episode opens by introducing the Superhuman series—how corporations became entities with more legal rights than humans but none of the accountability. This isn't just about technology or social media—it's about power, who wields it, and how we built a system where companies can harm children at scale and face no consequences. Then Laura Marquez-Garrett of the Social Media Victims Law Center, who represents over 4,000 families harmed by social media, walks us through the massive gap between what platforms claim and what actually happens. She exposes the hidden realities no safety guide mentions—what law enforcement knows but parents don't, why evidence vanishes by design, and how platforms' actual practices contradict their public promises. When my 15-year-old son Avery convinced me to let him use Snapchat in 10th grade, I thought I understood the risks. I'd read "The Anxious Generation." I worried about screen time and social pressure. I had no idea what was really happening on the platform. This episode covers the information I wish had been made more publicly available, so that I would have known what I was dealing with. 00:00 - Two Stacks of Paper (Season Introduction) 11:05 - Laura Introducton 13:05 - Snapchat Knew 18:04 - Colorado SB 86  23:35 - Product Design 29:15 - Reporting Criminal Activity to Snapchat 32:21 - Perla Mendoza's Hunt for Justice 39:13 - Unreported Crimes 44:36 - Parents Can't Fathom the Truth Content warning: teen death, drug sales, and exploitation. Get full access to Superhuman Podcast at superhumanpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

    Two Stacks (Episode 1)
  • 9 Episodes

5
out of 5
32 Ratings

About

Superhuman is an investigative podcast and publication exploring child online safety, platform accountability, antitrust, and concentrated power. Through the story of my 16-year-old son Avery, it examines what it will take to build a safer digital world. superhumanpodcast.substack.com

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