WEBVTT - How Managers Are Breaking The Internet 0:00:02.200 --> 0:00:07.240 More Zone Media. Hello, and welcome to Better Offline. I'm 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:20.480 at Zetron. This episode is the first of a three 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:23.680 part series about how the tech industry has been snatched 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:26.759 from the hands of people who actually build things using 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:29.600 software and hardware by a bunch of managers that have 0:00:29.680 --> 0:00:32.800 little or no interaction with the products they're actually profiting from. 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:36.000 The same managers also don't appear to do much work, 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:39.920 and today I'm going to walk you through exactly how 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:43.680 bad things have gotten as a result. In early April, 0:00:43.720 --> 0:00:47.160 Meta revealed in Emotion Training to dismiss an FTC anti 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:51.520 monopoly lawsuit that Instagram made an astonishing thirty two point 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:56.200 four billion dollars in advertising revenue in twenty twenty one. 0:00:56.280 --> 0:00:59.560 That figure becomes even more shocking when you consider Google's 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:02.760 YouTube only made twenty eight point eight billion dollars during 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:06.960 the same period. I'd argue YouTube is significantly more useful anyway. 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:12.440 Bloomberg reports that Instagram made almost thirty percent of Meta's 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:14.880 entire revenue in the early part of twenty twenty two. 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:19.800 Ninety six percent of Meta's forty point one billion dollar 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:23.360 fourth quarter twenty twenty three revenue came from advertising and 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:26.160 It's made over one hundred billion dollars a year since 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:29.240 twenty twenty one, a trend that's likely to continue based 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:31.560 on the fact that the only thing these platforms care 0:01:31.640 --> 0:01:36.319 about is ducing as much revenue from these apps. Google 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:39.880 made eighty six point three billion dollars in the fourth 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:42.919 quarter of twenty twenty three, with forty eight billion dollars 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:45.759 of that coming from Google Search and its related advertising, 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:51.000 up thirteen percent from the previous quarter. According to Pew Research, 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:54.760 in America, eighty three percent of adults use YouTube, sixty 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:57.320 eight percent of the meuse Facebook, and forty seven percent 0:01:57.320 --> 0:02:01.760 of the mew's Instagram. Each platform both over two billion users, 0:02:01.880 --> 0:02:04.360 and over the last three years, Meta and Google have 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:09.079 made over a half trillion dollars in revenue from these platforms. 0:02:09.880 --> 0:02:12.239 I now want you to go to Facebook. I want 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:14.640 you to scroll down, and I want you to see 0:02:14.680 --> 0:02:18.280 how quickly you hit an advertisement or a sponsored content thing. 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:23.840 In my case, after a single post from a friend, 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:26.000 I was immediately hit with a suggestion for me to 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:28.799 join a group for adult Bluey fans. I do not 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:32.120 watch blue I have not watched Bluey. This was then 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:35.400 followed by a post from a friend, followed by another ad, 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:38.520 followed by two posts and friends, followed by a suggestion 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:42.480 to join a group called Aviation Meme Lords, followed by 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:46.520 another ad. On Instagram, I saw one post from a 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:48.880 person I followed, followed by an AD for a game, 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:52.440 followed by a suggested video, followed by something from someone 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:55.600 I followed, followed by a suggested video, followed by an 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:58.800 ad of followed by a person I followed posting something, 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:02.640 and then another yested piece of content the first ad. 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:05.320 When I clicked my Stories, a totally different and even 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:08.560 more confusing part of Instagram that's mostly just a rip 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:11.840 off of Snapchat, I got an ad for a game 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:14.919 using footage that isn't actually in the game itself, an 0:03:14.919 --> 0:03:18.360 outright bait and switch employed by mobile game developers like 0:03:18.400 --> 0:03:22.079 those who make Ebony, that make millions of dollars off 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:27.640 of these horrifying, annoying, micro transaction heavy games. When I 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:30.880 went to YouTube, my first result was for an eleven 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:34.520 minute long Taiwanese news video of some sort. The next 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:36.440 one was a video that appeared to be in Chinese. 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:39.200 I don't speak these languages. That's my fault, not theirs, 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:41.800 but it is kind of YouTube's wort for trying to 0:03:41.840 --> 0:03:45.440 show them to me. In fact, when I went around 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:48.640 and I scrolled through, it was all in Chinese. So 0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:50.640 I went to Google and I typed, why are my 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:53.840 YouTube videos in Chinese? The first result was a Reddit 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:57.080 post where several users were, for whatever reason, being served 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:01.480 random videos in Chinese. There was actually no conclusion to this. 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:05.240 I still do not know why this happened. I can't read. 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:08.320 I can only speak and read of like in English, 0:04:08.320 --> 0:04:11.480 and I can barely do that. I'm very sorry anyways, 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:16.440 Google though, is especially annoying because while researching the beginning 0:04:16.480 --> 0:04:18.719 of this podcast, it took me about half an hour 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:21.400 to get the basics for the beginning because every time 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:24.280 I googled something like, say, what percentage of web traffic 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:26.960 goes to Google? Which I really was not able to find. 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:30.360 I kept being given these so called authoritative sources like 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:34.800 Forbes Advisor, which to be clear, is not Forbes magazine. 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:38.320 It is an affiliate marketing arm of Forbes. It's very deceptive. 0:04:38.839 --> 0:04:42.040 The sources inside the Forbes Advisor piece I found ranged 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:45.680 from things from blogging wizard to a literal list of 0:04:45.720 --> 0:04:48.719 website names with no links. I'm talking about just a 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:53.000 plaintext list. The state of Google's very worrying. A year 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:56.359 long study from Leipzig University published last year and reported 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:59.160 on by Jason Kobler of four or four Media found 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:01.679 that the quality of good Google search results has decayed 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:06.000 at a remarkable rate. The incentives of content creators to 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:10.160 search engine optimize their content based on standards published by 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:13.680 Google has filled search full of crap, with higher ranked 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:17.400 pages that are on average, more optimized, more monetized with 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:24.159 affiliate marketing, and featuring predominantly lower quality text. To make 0:05:24.200 --> 0:05:27.039 matters worse, the researchers found that only a small portion 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:30.039 of product reviews on the web use affiliate marketing, but 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:33.800 the majority of search results raised by Google do. If 0:05:33.800 --> 0:05:37.200 you're unfamiliar with affiliate marketing, it's when outlets run pieces 0:05:37.240 --> 0:05:41.279 about something, say top ten speakers or top ten laptops, 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:44.320 and they have a bunch of links like Amazon or 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:46.960 Walmart of best Buy, and they get a little bit 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:49.320 of cash from the platform. When everyone someone clicks that 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:51.560 and buys something doesn't even have to be the thing 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:56.200 that they were originally clicking on. This revenue model incentivizes 0:05:56.240 --> 0:05:58.880 sites to write lots of best of articles that exist 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:02.200 entirely to make click things to make the money. To 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:05.320 be clear, this is actually a perfectly normal business model 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:07.960 in the right hands. The Wirecutter has done a great 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:13.200 job of monetizing affiliate marketing while providing very thorough recommendations. 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:16.200 The Verge has two there are decent people doing this. 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:18.919 The majority of them are not decent though, Just so 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:24.919 we're abundantly clear. To quote the study, search engine optimization 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:27.960 is a constant battle, and we in this case the 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:31.200 study people see repeated patterns of review spam, entering, and 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:34.320 leaving the results as search engines and SEO engineers take 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:39.279 turns adjusting their parameters. So in Layman's terms, Google is 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:43.280 in this battle with the people writing search engine optimized content. Now, 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:48.400 to be clear, this content, the search optimized stuff, is 0:06:48.480 --> 0:06:50.760 done so with Google's approval. And there are people at 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:53.200 Google who'll kind of nudge you in the right direction. 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:56.960 They never really give full directions, but they they're okay 0:06:57.000 --> 0:07:00.599 with search engine optimization. You think they wouldn't be, you'd 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:03.320 think they'd want to fight for like standards and quality, 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:06.080 but no, they actively help these people gain the system. 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:08.560 So what Google will do is they will update Google 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:11.280 and then these people will change their means to beat Google, 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:15.440 and then Google will maybe update again. And that's kind 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:19.480 of the problem. You see. The Leipzig University researchers refer 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:22.440 to tweets to these algorithms to fight spam as only 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:26.520 really having a temporarily positive effect, and that search engines 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:28.800 always seem to lose the cat and mouse game that 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:32.960 is seo spam now. In March twenty twenty four, Google 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:35.440 announced that it was making changes to its algorithm that 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:38.800 would reduce spam and AI generated content by forty percent, 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:43.120 and very specifically said it would raise human authored content 0:07:43.560 --> 0:07:47.320 to the top of Google. Everyone in the press was 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:49.600 gleeful about this. They're saying how good it was and 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:52.240 that Google was finally doing something. It's been a month, 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:56.240 nothing's happened. Things still suck. Scammy outlets called things like 0:07:56.320 --> 0:08:00.600 tech Gate and Daily Good Morning Kashmir wholesale steel articles, 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:03.480 and places like tech Crunch and coin Telegraph, and at 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:07.920 times these stolen articles will rank above or in place 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:12.640 of the original articles, depriving journalists and publishers of traffic 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:18.320 and revenue. It's insane. I briefly sparred with Danny Sullivan, 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:20.680 who is the he's the search liaism for Google about 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:23.760 this and tech gate has now disappeared as of doing 0:08:23.800 --> 0:08:27.360 this day. The Good Morning Kashmir has them, And indeed 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:30.240 there are multiple journalists I know that have said that 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:34.200 their articles are regularly outpaced by these spam shops. And 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:37.439 seemingly every time I talk to anyone on the Google 0:08:37.480 --> 0:08:39.480 side about this, they say, ah, I am I done. 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:41.080 I want to do about it. Danny's a good bloke. 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:45.120 Danny used to run search engine land, I believe, and yeah, 0:08:45.120 --> 0:08:46.840 he's just part of the machine now and it sucks. 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:51.000 Danny's a good bloke. I want to like Danny. But mate, Danny, 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:53.600 if you're gonna be the search liaison, it's art to 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:56.439 liaise with the search engine, it's time to promote the 0:08:56.520 --> 0:08:59.160 journalists saying oh, mate, we don't know how to fix 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:04.480 the machine is not aloody excuse. Google, a company worth 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:08.400 around two trillion dollars, is either unable or unwilling to 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:11.240 fix the problem. But I think the truth might be 0:09:11.320 --> 0:09:14.720 just a little simpler. There's just no incentive for it 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:17.320 to make things better, as Google Search remains one of 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:22.000 the most profitable businesses in the damn world. In episode two. 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:25.599 By the way, I'm going to tell you the people responsible, 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:30.000 and they're led by a fellow called Prabhakar Ragavan. You're 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:32.160 gonna hear that name a lot in the next episode. 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:33.760 I'm not going to say it another time. I've been 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:37.720 thinking and saying it a lot though. Anyway, this is 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:41.600 the state of the modern Internet. Ultra profitable platforms outright 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:45.680 abdicating any responsibility toward the customer or even the wider 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:49.640 digital ecosystem. They're not offering a service or a portal 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:52.160 or an app or a useful thing, but they're finding 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:55.040 as many ways to interrupt you, the user, to push 0:09:55.120 --> 0:09:58.760 you into doing something or seeing something that's profitable for them. 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:02.200 And yes, I really I am describing modern business. But 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:06.160 if you look at Facebook or Instagram right now, can 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:09.000 you really tell me that's a service. Can you really 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:11.160 tell me you are getting to see your friends and 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:16.320 family on Instagram or Facebook. No, the whole thing's a mess, 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:23.000 a huge, big, ultra profitable mess. The greatest lie in 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:25.560 tech is that Facebook and Instagram are for catching up 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:27.800 with your friends, because that's not what they do, and 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:30.840 it's not what they've done for years. These platforms are 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:36.000 now pathways for this nebulous concept of content discovery, which 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:39.480 really means it's just a barely personalized entertainment network that 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:43.120 occasionally drizzles or dribbles things you choose to see on 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:46.280 top of crappy sponsored content, ads and groups that are 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.040 part of a relational database that has your name on it. 0:10:50.040 --> 0:10:52.480 On some level, it's kind of hard to say you 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:55.959 even use these apps anymore. The term use suggests the 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:59.240 level of industry and user control that Meta has spent 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:03.040 over high for a decade destroying, and they've turned Instagram 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:05.720 and Facebook into tubes to funnel human beings in front 0:11:05.760 --> 0:11:08.319 of those who either pay for the privilege of visibility 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:11.360 or have found ways to trick Facebook's algorithms into showing 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:15.560 you their crap. And it's all the direct result of 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:17.920 what I call the rot economy, a growth at all 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:21.160 cost mindset built off the back of immovable monopolies where 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:24.480 tech companies profitably punish you as a means of showing 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:29.200 the markets eternal growth. In practice, this means turning these 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:32.400 platforms into something that offers you a service into something 0:11:32.400 --> 0:11:36.319 that drives engagement, which, in Facebook and Instagram's case, means 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:38.720 finding the maximum amount of times they can interrupt you 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:42.760 before you close the app entirely. In Google's case, it 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:46.320 means making changes the search that made advertisements and sponsored 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:49.840 links kind of impossible to tell the difference between for 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:53.560 most people, and making it so that users had to 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:57.679 make more queries on Google. Now I sound paranoid when 0:11:57.679 --> 0:12:00.000 I say that I realized the idea that Google would 0:11:59.880 --> 0:12:02.640 have a metric that said, we need people to search 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:06.840 for more stuff on Google. I am quoting Google saying 0:12:06.880 --> 0:12:10.400 this emails from the antitrust lawsuit between them and the 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:13.880 Department of Justice. Episode two. I'm going to go into it, 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:18.120 don't you worry? And really it is kind of the 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:22.559 government's fault here. They've taken this optimistic, respectful and trustworthy 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:26.120 approach to tech. They've said, well, tech is providing something 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:28.480 for free, aren't they, so really can't be too much 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:32.400 of a bastard to them. And the result is we've 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:35.640 just got this Internet riddled with decay and pain. It's 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:39.120 an Internet that incentivizes mining human beings like veins of awe. 0:12:40.040 --> 0:12:42.280 And in these next few episodes, I'm going to walk 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:45.439 you through how big tech turned the Internet into a 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:49.520 multi trillion dollar social experiment. And I'm going to name 0:12:49.559 --> 0:13:03.160 the bastards responsible underpinning these profitable torture machines. It's an 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:06.640 online advertisement industry built off the back of fucking advertisers 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:11.160 and users alike. In the mid twenty tens, Facebook mistakenly 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:14.800 told online publishers that their videos were receiving more engagement 0:13:15.000 --> 0:13:19.360 than they actually did, leading to multiple publishers pivoting to video, 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:23.079 a disastrous industry movement that cost hundreds of reporters their jobs. 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:26.720 Led to a massive class action suit against meta media. 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:30.600 Companies based on Facebook's lies radically changed their operations, with 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:33.839 MTV News cutting its entire rating team and shifting to 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:37.559 short form video in July twenty seventeen. Vocative did the same. 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:42.040 The following month, Vice Media cut roughly sixty editorial roles 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:45.360 and expanded its video production capabilities. In response to this 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:49.800 so called growth, Mike, a much smaller company than MTV 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:52.840 newser Vice Media but quite beloved at the time, slashed 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:55.160 ten rolls and shifted the rest of its output to video, 0:13:55.360 --> 0:13:57.800 going all in on a bet that, as you can guess, 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:00.520 failed catastrophically, with the company eventually being sold off the 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:04.600 Bustle Digital Group for a pittance. Those video roles were 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:07.800 of course cut or vastly reduced when it was obvious 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:10.959 that there really wasn't any engagement on these things that 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:13.360 I have a whole episode on this, please go back 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:16.920 and listen to it. Meta is also currently the subject 0:14:16.920 --> 0:14:20.400 of a class action suit led by Metroplex Communications, which 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:25.200 claimed that metas inflated metrics lwered advertisers away from competing platforms, 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:28.560 something that has been sued for before. When all of 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:32.520 your incentives are aligned around bigger and more and growth, 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:36.560 you'll take just about anybody's money. In Meta's case, this 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:40.560 means getting advertisers who compare the COVID nineteen vaccine to 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:44.840 the Holocaust, or quack doctors with phony cancer treatments, scammers 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:48.960 selling counterfeit phishing equipment, scammers offering fake discounts for puzzles, 0:14:48.960 --> 0:14:53.440 and of course, cryptocurrency cons An investigation from late last 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:56.480 year found that a third of advertisements on Facebook marketplace 0:14:56.520 --> 0:14:58.920 in the UK were scams, and earlier in the year, 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:02.760 UK financial services authorities said it had banned more than 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:06.920 ten thousand illegal investment ads across Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and 0:15:06.960 --> 0:15:10.440 TikTok in twenty twenty two alone. A fifteen hundred percent 0:15:10.520 --> 0:15:15.240 increase over the past year, and as these platforms begin 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:19.120 to decay, things only get worse for the user. Elon 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:22.880 Musk's acquisition of Twitter and his obvious outright hostility towards 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:26.840 blue chip advertisers, and also his anti Semitic posts just 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:29.520 there's a lot of bad stuff with Elon. They've turned 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:33.440 Twitter into kind of the digital equivalent of Downtown Vegas. 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:36.400 Seemingly every post is replied to by a bot offering 0:15:36.520 --> 0:15:39.480 nudes in bio, or pussy in bio, something in bio, 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:41.840 or at the moment, quite literally, just a picture of 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:45.560 a fully nude woman, which is pretty funny until you 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:48.800 realize that according to John Herman and New York Magazine, 0:15:49.520 --> 0:15:52.760 these bots are afront for a series of very big, 0:15:52.920 --> 0:15:56.920 nasty online dating scams that lose people tens of thousands 0:15:56.920 --> 0:16:00.800 of dollars. Elon Musk choosing to check the blue check 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:03.440 mark from something that was given by Twitter to say 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:05.560 that you are the real person into a thing that 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:09.040 you buy for eight dollars has allowed cryptocurrency scammers, according 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:12.600 to Protos, to make millions by tricking users into connecting 0:16:12.640 --> 0:16:17.360 their wallets to fund drain their entire thing like it's 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:20.800 somewhat technical, but you just click these websites and you say, yeah, sure, 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:22.800 i'll connect my whilet and then they take all of 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:26.040 your money. And it seems like they're even buying ads 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:28.640 on the platform to do so, using stolen credit cards 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:32.840 musks desperation for ad revenue has even led Twitter to 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:36.160 start pushing ads that don't actually say their ads, leading 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:39.200 to an advertising watchdog called check my Ads to file 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:42.440 a formal complaint with the FTC demanding that it investigates 0:16:42.440 --> 0:16:46.840 Twitter and enforces its truth in advertising standards. Also, right 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:49.920 now on Twitter, there is something called the Creator program, 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:52.360 and if you have Twitter Blue, that's right, you have 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:54.960 to pay them to get paid. You can make a 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:58.120 little money off of advertising. When other Twitter Blue people reply. 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:02.000 The significance of this is right now, Twitter is posting 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:07.679 tons of unlabeled ads for mister Beast videos so that 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:10.600 Elon Musk can give money to mister Beasts, so that 0:17:10.640 --> 0:17:15.600 mister Beast will repost things from YouTube, allowing Elon Musk 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:18.679 to pay him money. It's a very confusing thing, and 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:21.879 Twitter is really bad. I won't call it X. I 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:24.720 think X is a stupid name. It's terrible to search for. 0:17:25.040 --> 0:17:27.359 It sucks. The whole site kind of sucks. I'm on 0:17:27.400 --> 0:17:29.080 it until the end. It's like the Titanic. I can 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:33.800 see the iceberg coming, but nevertheless it's in a bad way. 0:17:35.000 --> 0:17:37.560 Yet it's foolish to act as if the sorry state 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:40.399 of Twitter is really that different to the rest of 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:44.920 the web. Instagram is flooded with pornobots. It has been 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:47.760 for years, and what they do is they engage with 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:51.359 regular posts enough times through likes and replies as a 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:54.240 means of pretending they're real so that they can avoid 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:58.880 Meta's flimsy automated content moderation, and that, by the way, 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:03.639 is only quasi auto. Meta also underpays, horribly underpays. I 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:06.320 should add people in other countries like Kenya, they make 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:09.680 as little as two dollars and twenty cents an hour 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:13.080 to view what Wired referred to as the most hideous 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:15.879 content on the Internet. Because that's what's important to know. 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:19.440 Meta is doing something. They're stopping you from seeing literal 0:18:19.440 --> 0:18:22.920 beheadings and child abuse and such, and they're doing that 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:29.119 by paying basically prison labor rates in other countries. This 0:18:29.200 --> 0:18:31.520 is also something that open ai and AI companies do 0:18:31.560 --> 0:18:34.399 with training data. It's a disgusting practice. They should all 0:18:34.480 --> 0:18:35.880 be in a lot of trouble for this, and they 0:18:35.880 --> 0:18:38.040 never will be because no one ever eld them accountable. 0:18:38.840 --> 0:18:41.760 Much like every major tech platform, Meta is just half 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:44.680 fastening its approach to moderation, and they're committing human rights 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:46.560 violations to do so, so that they can spend the 0:18:46.560 --> 0:18:49.239 smallest amount of money possible to stop the things it 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:52.320 needs to stop you seeing. They need to make sure 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:55.119 you don't see someone being stabbed to death on Facebook. 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:58.480 They don't really need to stop pornography or scams. They 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:01.920 should need to should be a government body that stops them, 0:19:02.080 --> 0:19:06.800 but there isn't, so they don't. As you'd expect, these 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:10.359 standards have led to Facebook being flooded with generative AI 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:14.000 content spam, and a study came out of Stanford and 0:19:14.040 --> 0:19:17.520 Georgetown that revealed that Facebook's algorithm is now boasting spam 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:20.760 content riddled with misinformation, and they're sending hundreds of millions 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:24.080 of impressions to pages that direct people to WordPress sites 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:27.400 crammed full of spammy and scammy ads. It's insane. It's 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:29.919 actually really crazy. When you really look into this, you 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:32.280 can see that the web is falling apart in front 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:35.439 of us. And yet the most obvious sign of this 0:19:35.520 --> 0:19:39.560 decay is just visiting a website on your telephone. Go 0:19:39.640 --> 0:19:41.880 to IGN dot com lot could people work at Igana 0:19:41.920 --> 0:19:44.000 Feel bad for saying this, but they have over three 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:46.760 hundred million views and you go on there and you 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:50.080 immediately hit with two giant ads, one that fills the 0:19:50.080 --> 0:19:53.960 top thirty page and auto playing videos. And this happens 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:56.479 on a lot of sites. ESPN also another third for this. 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:01.160 It's so weird. When I I went on there earlier, 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:03.320 I was hit with two giant acts. They took up 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:06.120 most of my screen, and on opening a story about 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:07.880 the new for that TV show, which is very good, 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:11.280 I'll give them that, it then covered the top quarter 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:13.959 of my screen with another or playing at It's so weird. 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:16.879 It's so weird when you see this happening. I feel 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:19.600 like more people should be talking about this. This field. 0:20:19.760 --> 0:20:23.480 It's like if the road was just full of used condoms. 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:27.320 It's like if there was trash everywhere. This is the 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:31.560 web now anyway, Anyway, Reach PLC. They are publicly traded, 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:34.680 multimillion dollar business that dominates local journalism in the UK 0:20:34.760 --> 0:20:38.399 and they hold basically monopolies in several regions and also 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:43.440 own three newspapers. Very depressing, they're notorious for this kind 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:47.280 of aggressive approach to monetization. Their websites have been described 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:50.119 as an over monetized mess and impossible to navigate with 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:53.639 a poor digital experience. Named as a partial contributor to 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:57.200 the declining financial fortunes of one of the more loathsome 0:20:57.200 --> 0:20:59.960 companies in the world. If you open a local new 0:21:00.119 --> 0:21:04.280 UK news website, especially one owned by Reach, with just 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:07.199 Safari on your phone, for example, you'll be met with 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:11.560 an endless deluge of page covering ads that appear in 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:14.119 the middle of articles as you're scrolling, and other ads 0:21:14.119 --> 0:21:16.639 that redirect you to an external website without any warning, 0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:19.199 or while you're on the page trying to read the 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:22.840 thing that you went to the website for. Even the 0:21:22.960 --> 0:21:26.080 giants of journalism haven't resisted the temptation to fuck their 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:29.800 users over. CNN, one of the most influential news publications 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:33.520 in the world by hundreds of millions of people. They 0:21:33.560 --> 0:21:37.760 host their own journalism and they spice in spami content 0:21:37.840 --> 0:21:41.960 from something called a chumbox company. And these companies make 0:21:42.080 --> 0:21:45.240 hundreds of millions of dollars driving clicks to everything from 0:21:45.280 --> 0:21:49.000 just scams to straight up this information. And you'll find 0:21:49.040 --> 0:21:51.720 them on CNN, you find them on NBC, you find 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:54.840 them in tons of major media outlets, and all of 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:58.000 them are these insane stories, like two steps to tell 0:21:58.040 --> 0:22:00.399 when a slot is close to hitting the jackpot, or 0:22:00.560 --> 0:22:03.879 the best hearing aid. It's really strange to see this 0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:07.879 in the in between Pulitzer Prize winning journalists and like 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:12.840 international conflicts. These chum box companies. They're ubiquitous because they 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:16.160 pay well, and it makes them super attractive to cash 0:22:16.160 --> 0:22:20.080 strap media entities because you can just plug this bollocks 0:22:20.119 --> 0:22:23.000 in and you just get money, even if it makes 0:22:23.000 --> 0:22:27.280 your products suck. And they're awful. They're super horrible. They're 0:22:27.400 --> 0:22:30.520 ruining the web, and they keep making more money. In 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:33.760 twenty eighteen, the late great podcast reply All, which by 0:22:33.800 --> 0:22:36.800 the way, was killed by the rot economy Fuck you 0:22:36.840 --> 0:22:40.359 Spotify anyway. Reply All had an episode that centered around 0:22:40.359 --> 0:22:43.359 a widower whose wife's death had been hijacked by one 0:22:43.400 --> 0:22:47.040 of these chumbox advertisers to push content that, using stolen 0:22:47.160 --> 0:22:51.280 family photos, implied she had been unfaithful to him. The 0:22:51.280 --> 0:22:53.199 title of the episode and add for the worst day 0:22:53.240 --> 0:22:56.040 of your life was fitting, and it was only until 0:22:56.040 --> 0:23:00.000 a massively popular podcast intervene that any of these networks 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:06.480 ban the advert. These networks outbrain taboola, evil companies run 0:23:06.520 --> 0:23:09.919 by evil people. They're harmful, They're harmful to the Internet, 0:23:09.960 --> 0:23:12.680 They're harmful to users, and they're harmful to the news 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:15.040 brands that host them. If I was working for a 0:23:15.040 --> 0:23:18.480 major news company, I'd be absolutely humiliated to see my 0:23:18.680 --> 0:23:22.720