WEBVTT - Tech News: Meta Pulls at Twitter's Threads 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.280 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:15.840 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.320 I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:22.720 are you. It's time for the tech news for Thursday, 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:27.720 July sixth, twenty twenty three. And a whole lot is 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:32.199 happening in the social network platform space right now, as 0:00:32.240 --> 0:00:35.519 I'm sure many of you are aware. So last weekend, 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:39.680 Twitter changed quite a bit and it really upset a 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:42.559 lot of people. First up, folks noticed that unless you 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:46.960 were actually logged into Twitter, you couldn't see stuff that 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:49.600 had been posted on Twitter. Now, that was not always 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:52.800 the case. You could go and view things on Twitter 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:55.800 without logging in. My wife has done this numerous times. 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:58.880 She does not have a Twitter account but occasionally checks Twitter. 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:01.840 Now this has since been walked back, so now if 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:03.960 you don't have an account, you can view it again. 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:08.040 But for a while you couldn't. Beyond that, Even if 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:10.480 you were logged in to an account, you would notice 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:12.920 that you would hit some view limits on the number 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:17.120 of tweets you could see. Initially, those limits were the 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:19.640 ability to see up to three hundred tweets per day, 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:23.000 if you were brand spank and new and an unverified account, 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:26.520 or rather not a Twitter Blue subscriber, I guess we 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:31.360 should say verification at this point means very little existing 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:34.919 quote unquote unverified accounts. So those who are not Twitter 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:38.880 Blue subscribers but who have been on Twitter for a while, 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:42.160 they could see up to six hundred tweets per day. 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:45.240 And then if you were a verified user, a Twitter 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:48.640 Blue subscriber, or maybe one of the celebrities that Musk 0:01:48.800 --> 0:01:55.160 granted verification to, possibly as a trolling tactic, I don't know, anyway, 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:58.360 they could see up to six thousand tweets per day. 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:04.600 Elon Musk ventually explained his reasons for doing this. He 0:02:04.680 --> 0:02:07.840 said that Twitter was being bombarded by bots, and those 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:11.519 bots were scraping data from Twitter in efforts to build 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:15.239 out things like large language models for AI chat bots, 0:02:15.680 --> 0:02:17.760 and that the platform had made the changes in an 0:02:17.760 --> 0:02:22.600 effort to confound those bots, and they couldn't tell anyone 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:26.840 about it beforehand because then the companies behind the bots 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:30.480 would have, you know, changed their tactics or something, which 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:34.000 is weird to me because by not communicating it, all 0:02:34.000 --> 0:02:37.880 you're doing is just delaying the amount of time it 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:40.639 takes them to adjust to the tactics, Like, if that's 0:02:40.680 --> 0:02:43.600 your concern that by announcing that you're going to do this, 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:48.200 you're giving people the chance to circumvent it, well, if 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:50.920 they can circumvent it, then why aren't that Shouldn't that 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:53.840 be happening right now? Right that circumvention should be going 0:02:53.840 --> 0:02:55.840 on right now. So it doesn't matter whether you say 0:02:55.840 --> 0:03:00.200 it or not, I don't know whatever. So it's an 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:03.960 unfortunate side effect that, you know, this attempt to confound 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:08.360 the bots affected everybody. Musk mention that the limits were temporary, 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:11.440 and I believe at the time that I'm recording this 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:14.560 right now, those limits have been increased to five hundred 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:18.359 tweets for brand new users, one thousand for unverified but 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:23.320 existing accounts, and ten thousand tweets for verified users. A 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:25.480 couple of other things we need to mention here. One 0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:28.760 is that if this were a plan to confound bots, 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:32.480 it seems dumb because a verified account is not that expensive, 0:03:32.600 --> 0:03:34.800 not for a company that's looking to build out large 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:39.480 language models. They could end up making lots of accounts 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:42.640 and then paying the small fee to verify them or 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:46.080 to subscribe to Twitter Blue and then use those to 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:50.119 scrape data. I mean, I guess Twitter could ban those accounts, 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:53.880 but still it's not a big expense. Secondly, Twitter relies 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:59.360 on revenue from advertising. Now I am no business genius, 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:05.320 but it seems to me that this move is discouraging 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:09.480 advertisers from continuing to work with Twitter because if they 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:12.280 are being told, hey, fewer people are going to be 0:04:12.360 --> 0:04:16.000 able to see your tweet because of these limits, they're 0:04:16.040 --> 0:04:18.120 going to say, what are we paying for? Then we're 0:04:18.160 --> 0:04:20.960 paying for people to see our ads. And if you're 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:23.160 limiting the number of tweets they can see, then that 0:04:23.240 --> 0:04:25.120 means you're limiting the number of people who can see 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:28.400 our ads. Third, as we will talk about in a moment, 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:31.920 Meta launched its own Twitter competitor this week, So the 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:37.200 timing of this move seems almost comical, right. It seems 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:40.400 like Elon Musk is trying to convince people to jump 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:45.279 ship and move over to Meta's short messaging social platform 0:04:45.400 --> 0:04:49.920 threads and just leave Twitter, y'all. Maybe Elon Musk really 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:53.520 is a space brain business genius, like some people say, 0:04:53.800 --> 0:04:57.599 but from my humble perspective, it sure looks like he's 0:04:57.600 --> 0:05:01.120 made some dumb moves in a very short amount of time. 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:04.800 In addition to those decisions, Twitter also made another move 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:08.640 that has upset a lot of users, including me, and 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:12.480 that's a change to the social media dashboard app called 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:15.360 tweet Deck. Now, for those of y'all who have never 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:20.120 used tweet deck, this tool has some really useful features, 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:22.400 and big among those is that you can use tweet 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:25.000 deck to set up a view so you can monitor 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:29.440 multiple Twitter accounts from the same screen. So in one view, 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:32.080 I would be able to see my Twitter feed and 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:36.360 then all of the replies and mentions for me, I'd 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:39.120 be able to see the feeds for the Twitter handle 0:05:39.160 --> 0:05:42.240 for this show, which is technically tech stuff HSW. But 0:05:42.320 --> 0:05:45.000 now that tweet deck is locked behind a paywall, I'm 0:05:45.040 --> 0:05:47.040 not sure how often I'll be logging in to check 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:49.279 on it. Plus, I could have a view for my 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:54.320 old show Forward Thinking, or my other podcast large nerdron Collider, etc. 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:58.240 Tweet Deck made it really easy to see activity across 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:03.680 multiple accounts. Media managers loved tools like this because they 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:09.040 could have one view and maintain a good idea of 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:12.359 what's going on across any accounts they happen to manage. 0:06:12.360 --> 0:06:14.839 So if you are a manager, who Maybe you have 0:06:14.960 --> 0:06:18.159 multiple clients and you like to have a single view 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:20.279 so you can see what's going on at any given time. 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:25.240 This becomes frustrating. Tweet Deck started off as an independent 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:28.680 third party app, but in twenty eleven, Twitter purchased it, 0:06:29.320 --> 0:06:31.680 and the key element in all of this is that 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:35.920 tweet Deck, until now, or really until later this year, 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:40.839 was free to use, and then this month, Twitter announced 0:06:40.839 --> 0:06:43.320 that tweet deck is shifting to become a Twitter Blue 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:46.400 exclusive feature. So when you take that in with the 0:06:46.440 --> 0:06:49.000 other weird moves that happened over this past weekend, it 0:06:49.040 --> 0:06:53.120 sure does feel like Musk's attempt to convince more people 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:57.120 to subscribe is what is driving these moves. Maybe it 0:06:57.160 --> 0:06:59.360 has to do with bots in the case of limiting 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:04.159 p people's ability to see posts, but it sounds more like, hey, 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:05.640 if you want to see a lot of posts, you 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:09.400 need to subscribe, and locking tweet Deck behind a Twitter 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:13.640 Blue subscription seems likewise an attempt to get people to 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:16.400 subscribe to Twitter Blue, and considering the shaky ground the 0:07:16.440 --> 0:07:20.880 company is on with advertisers, I can see why maybe 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:24.520 Musk is hoping that subscriptions will pick up the slack 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:29.320 that's left by advertisers getting really concerned about spending their 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:32.840 money on Twitter. But it is really hard to convince 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:35.440 people to fork over a subscription fee for Twitter blues 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:40.720 features when you've also got drum roll. Please Meta Threads. 0:07:41.560 --> 0:07:46.559 So Meta launched Threads yesterday. This is the company's answer 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:50.200 to stuff like Twitter and masted On and blue Sky, 0:07:50.360 --> 0:07:53.720 which is currently in an invitation only beta program. I 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:57.440 only just got access to blue Sky today because I 0:07:57.520 --> 0:08:00.640 dragged my feet on requesting an invite, and I don't 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:02.240 know that I would have gotten one if I even 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:05.640 had requested an invite early on. It's kind of a 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:09.160 moot point. I ended up getting a invitation code from 0:08:09.560 --> 0:08:12.600 a friend of mine, so I'm on blue Sky. It's neat. 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:18.120 Not revolutionary, but neat. Anyway. Meta has positioned Threads to 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:21.080 be an extension of Instagram. That makes a lot of 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:26.080 sense because Instagram boasts more than two point three billion 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:30.800 active users. That's billion with a B. So what better 0:08:30.840 --> 0:08:34.240 way to compete with Twitter than to leverage an already 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:40.120 existing enormous user base. Now, according to Engadget, it took 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:44.120 Threads about seven hours to reach ten million users because 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:46.440 you do still have to create an account and you 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:49.000 do still have to download the app and stuff, but 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:52.560 it is connected to your Instagram account. This is what 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:56.199 gives Threads a huge leg up on would be competitors 0:08:56.280 --> 0:08:59.000 like Blue Sky. Blue Sky has to start from scratch. 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:05.120 Threads is already an extension of an enormously successful company. 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:10.959 So why would Meta bother with a Twitter competitor at all. Well, 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:13.560 the answer to that question is pretty much because Elon 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:18.400 Musk has created a huge opportunity. Musk's handling of Twitter 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:21.600 has alienated a good number of users. Now there's some 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:24.440 users who absolutely love what Twitter has become, and there 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:28.480 are a lot of others who they have bemoaned the 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:31.800 changes that have happened since Musk has taken over the company. 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:35.560 And as I mentioned earlier, quite a few advertisers are 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:40.840 disenchanted with Twitter. So if Meta can establish a competitive service, 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:44.520 the company stands to gain by convincing those advertisers to 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:47.840 just go all in on a meta focused advertising approach. 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:52.160 I would not be surprised if salespeople in Meta are 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:55.920 positioning ad deals that include, you know, an ad campaign 0:09:56.040 --> 0:10:00.880 as a presence on Facebook and Instagram and eventually on Threads. So, 0:10:00.960 --> 0:10:03.880 in other words, Musk made some brash moves, and now 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:08.200 Zuckerberg wants to drink his milkshake and there will be 0:10:08.240 --> 0:10:14.760 blood terminology. I actually reactivated my old Instagram account last 0:10:14.880 --> 0:10:17.800 night just to create a Thread's presence and to see 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:22.880 what it's like. This hurt me emotionally to reconnect my 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:25.480 Instagram account because I just hadn't been on there in 0:10:25.520 --> 0:10:28.760 more than a year. Anyway, right now, Threads is a 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:31.400 little bit of a chaotic mess Users face kind of 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:34.400 a fire hose of messages from folks that they may 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:38.079 or may not follow on Instagram. And this is kind 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:41.079 of Thread's attempt to populate the feed with more than 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:44.760 just two or three messages. Because if you logged in 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:46.880 there and the only thing you saw were the people 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:49.240 you're connected to on Instagram and what they had to say, 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:51.880 you might not see anything at all. Right, maybe none 0:10:51.920 --> 0:10:53.480 of your friends are on there, or none of the 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:57.000 accounts you follow are on there. This way, it creates 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:03.600 a reliable, you know, flo of information and hopefully, according 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:07.160 to Meta anyway, hopefully convince people to stick with the service. 0:11:07.880 --> 0:11:10.319 Now it's early days, I expect we're going to see 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:12.960 Meta roll out more features than the not too distant future. 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:19.880 Right now, there are some minor oversights, like there's no 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:23.040 easy way to just look at the stuff that your 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:26.640 friends are posting, so you do get this fire hose approach. Also, 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:29.960 you can't do any direct messaging through Threads. You can 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:34.480 in Instagram, but not through Threads, and maybe that's going 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:36.720 to change. We'll have to see. Now. Personally, I'm a 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:40.280 little reluctant to jump in wholeheartedly and to make Threads 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:45.440 my new means of communicating to the public, because, as 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:49.400 Twitter's former CEO Jack Dorsey pointed out on Twitter No 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:54.640 Less Meta notoriously slurts up all the personal data it can, 0:11:54.800 --> 0:11:58.280 including how long you're using its services, what other services 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:03.400 you use, what purchases you make online, and way way 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:07.480 more than just that. So feeding that machine isn't something 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:11.240 I am personally excited about doing. But there is no 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:16.160 denying that Threads has already been a huge success. Word 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:19.439 of warning. By the way, if you make a Threads profile, 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:24.040 you can delete it, but only if you also delete 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:28.600 your Instagram account. So once it's up, it's up, unless 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:31.160 you're ready to nuke it from orbit, because that's the 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:34.480 only way to be sure. Okay, we're going to take 0:12:34.520 --> 0:12:36.920 a quick break to think. Our sponsors will be back 0:12:36.960 --> 0:12:50.800 with more news in just a moment. We're back. In France, citizens, 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:54.680 primarily young people, have been holding protests, some of those 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:59.320 escalating into full blown riots. This happened after French police 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:03.319 killed a teenager who was stopped during a traffic stop 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:06.360 in a Parisian suburb last week. That's a terrible story 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:10.240 in of itself. But the tech angle here is that 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:15.319 the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, has threatened to suspend 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:19.120 social networking platforms in France in response, or at least 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:23.280 raised the possibility of doing so, maybe not going so 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:26.520 far as threatening, but at least raising the question of 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:30.200 maybe that should be an option. So the concern is 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:33.520 that the rioters or protesters if you want to be 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:36.800 more critical of the government, are relying on social networks 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:41.000 to schedule and organize themselves, so by cutting off that avenue, 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:47.199 Macron could potentially attempt to restore order in times of 0:13:47.280 --> 0:13:52.559 political unrest. This announcement, however, has spurred massive criticisms against Macron, 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:55.400 saying that it's the sort of move that an authoritarian 0:13:55.480 --> 0:13:58.520 leader would make against citizens in an effort to suppress 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:01.360 the freedom of speech, I mentioned the freedom of assembly, 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:05.120 and Macrone's office has responded by saying that the idea 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:09.840 was never a widespread general blackout that would go on indefinitely. Instead, 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:14.800 this was really meant to initiate a conversation between leaders 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:18.880 of various territories and cities within France and talk about 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:21.880 the role of social networks during times of political unrest 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:25.680 and what moves, if any, would be reasonable during such 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:30.320 turbulent times. Now, we've seen lots of other countries lean 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:34.040 into silencing online communication in the name of security, and 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:37.080 it can often lead to governments going for that pause 0:14:37.160 --> 0:14:41.760 button more and more frequently, with less and less justification. 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:45.800 So critics argue that all of this, all this discussion 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:49.320 about the role that social networks are playing in the 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:53.120 part of planning out these protests or assembling for riots, 0:14:53.680 --> 0:14:57.960 is really just a distraction from the actual underlying problem, 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:02.440 which is police violence against city and until that is addressed, 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:07.160 the rest of this is kind of moot, because the 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:10.760 problem isn't just that people are getting together and rioting. 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:13.720 The problem is that they're doing this in response to 0:15:14.640 --> 0:15:20.720 a perceived violation of justice. So that has been the 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:25.400 large criticism that has been posed against the government as well, 0:15:25.440 --> 0:15:28.920 that they're really not actually dedicating the attention they need 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:32.120 to the underlying issue. Getting back to Meta for a moment, 0:15:32.280 --> 0:15:36.840 there's a war going on between Canadian leadership and Zuckerberg's company, 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:39.520 and this is in regards to a law the Canadian 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:44.000 government passed that requires platforms like Meta to pay Canadian 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:48.240 media for the news that folks post on platforms like Facebook. 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:52.200 We've seen a similar law like this enacted in Australia, 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:55.200 and the argument is that platforms like Meta end up 0:15:55.280 --> 0:15:59.440 hurting publishers and they profit off of publishers work without 0:15:59.480 --> 0:16:02.400 sharing of the revenue with the people who created the 0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:05.920 work in the first place. Meta, in response, has restricted 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:09.160 news content from appearing on its platforms if you're viewing 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:12.480 them in Canada, and now the Canadian government is saying 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:16.640 it will pull all government advertising from Meta's platforms. Now, 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:21.160 that is not actually that huge of an escalation because 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:24.120 my assumption is that the Canadian government is not a 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:28.800 major advertiser on Meta, especially when you're looking at global revenue, 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:32.280 when you're looking at more than one hundred billion dollars worldwide. 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:35.480 But this does send the message that Canada is not 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:39.000 backing down from the legislation. Also, the government hopes that 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:42.080 other companies in Canada will follow suit and pull their 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:46.280 advertising off of Meta's platforms, and that other countries that 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:49.280 are in the process of passing similar laws to protect 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:52.960 local media will continue to do so. And if that happens, 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:56.080 it's possible leverage will change and Meta will have to 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:59.680 make some concessions or risk losing out on significant revenue. 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:02.560 So you know, the argument is share a little bit 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:05.800 now or lose out a lot later on. Though you 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:09.200 could argue that Meta is concerned about other countries all 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:12.280 doing this and then collectively they take a huge bite 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:16.199 out of Meta's revenue, So we'll have to see. TikTok's 0:17:16.280 --> 0:17:19.400 lawyers have petitioned a US judge to block a Montana 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:23.720 ban on TikTok before the ban takes effect in January 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:27.280 first of next year. TikTok argues that this ban constitutes 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:30.760 a violation of First Amendment rights, both for TikTok users 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:33.560 and for the company itself. This is where I remind 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:37.040 myself and everybody else here in the United States, corporations 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:41.920 are legally people because for lots of reasons, actually, many 0:17:41.960 --> 0:17:44.439 of which really do make a lot of sense, but 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:48.399 that's a discussion for another time. The Montana ban calls 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:52.080 for fines of up to ten grand per violation if 0:17:52.119 --> 0:17:55.480 TikTok allows content to appear in the state of Montana. 0:17:55.520 --> 0:17:58.719 In other words, if if citizens are allowed to access 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:02.159 TikTok within Montana, TikTok could be hit by ten grand 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:05.720 the worth of fines each time. According to TikTok, more 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:09.160 than a third of Montana's citizens are actually on TikTok, 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:11.800 so you know, that's a lot of the state's population 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:13.920 to cut off from the service, though in the grand 0:18:13.920 --> 0:18:16.080 scheme of things, we're talking about just three hundred and 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:19.200 eighty thousand people here, because Montana is not a heavily 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:22.520 populated state. How this law would actually be enforced as 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:26.200 a pretty darn good question, and how TikTok is supposed 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:29.080 to handle it is another one. And how the state 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:32.720 can prevent citizens from accessing TikTok through VPNs as yet 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:36.320 another good question. This all stems from the ongoing concern 0:18:36.359 --> 0:18:39.879 that TikTok serves as a data siphon that takes precious 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:43.199 US citizen information and funnels it to China. That's an 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:47.080 accusation that the company has repeatedly denied. But then there 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:50.440 have been lots of people who have contradicted those denials, 0:18:50.480 --> 0:18:54.520 including people who formerly worked for TikTok or its parent company. 0:18:55.080 --> 0:18:57.600 So at this point I don't know who or what 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:00.879 to believe. But as I have said many times before, 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:04.320 in an era where our private information is collected by 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:08.080 numerous companies and then bought and sold on the open market, 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:10.920 taking out TikTok is kind of like if you were 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:15.080 to plug up a small hole in a dam, and 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:17.800 to your left and to your right are dozens of 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:21.840 other holes that you haven't even touched. Sure, you've plugged one, 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:24.959 but the problem is that this has been going on 0:19:25.000 --> 0:19:28.360 for a while, and it's not due to a single source. 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:32.520 So yeah, I think the problem here is much bigger, 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:35.760 and the issue is we've been distracted by focusing just 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:40.159 on TikTok. France has passed a surveillance bill that has 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:44.240 civil liberties activists highly concerned. Going back to France again, 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:49.480 this bill allows authorities to essentially tap into citizens' devices 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:54.320 like laptops, smartphones, their cars, any other connected gadgets they 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:58.720 might rely upon, and to use those devices to track 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:02.000 them and to essentially spy on them. That could even 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:06.000 include activating a device's camera and microphone to record images 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:10.040 and sounds of targets. This law does have some limits. 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:12.960 It's not that the authorities can just, you know, turn 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:16.119 it on and spy on everybody all the time. First, 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:18.640 they have to secure permission from a judge before they 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:23.000 can begin surveilling a subject. And they are only supposed 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:27.399 to be able to use this tactic when quote justified 0:20:27.600 --> 0:20:31.280 by the nature and seriousness of the crime end quote. 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:36.040 I don't know what the threshold is for a crime 0:20:36.080 --> 0:20:40.240 to be serious enough to be to warrant this kind 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:43.560 of thing. I guess that's up to the individual judge's judgment. 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:47.720 But yeah, that's somewhat troubling that there's not a more, 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:53.879 you know, concrete threshold. Further, if you are a journalist, 0:20:53.960 --> 0:20:56.800 a judge, a lawyer, or a doctor, I have some 0:20:56.880 --> 0:20:59.400 good news for you. You've got some protection because those 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:03.120 jobs do not fall under legitimate targets according to the law. 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:06.600 This was an effort to prevent the law from being abused, 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:10.199 so that officials could say, keep an eye out on 0:21:10.440 --> 0:21:13.960 a pesky journalist who is working on a big expose 0:21:14.000 --> 0:21:17.960 about local government or something. The law is supposed to 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:21.080 protect people from that. If they fall into those categories, 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:24.960 anyone outside of that, it's a different story. The law 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:27.879 also has a time limit on how long authorities are 0:21:27.920 --> 0:21:30.560 allowed to spy on a target, which is a maximum 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:34.520 of six months. Half the year. Seems like quite a time, 0:21:34.560 --> 0:21:37.280 and I suppose at the end of that the authorities 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:43.800 could petition another judge to get another allowance to continue 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:47.879 spying on people. Activists point out this is already a 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:52.520 potentially catastrophic violation of citizen privacy and security, and furthermore, 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:55.119 it could be the start of a slippery slope into 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:59.040 more pervasive surveillance. As to how the government will actually 0:21:59.080 --> 0:22:03.119 achieve these results, I presume it will require the cooperation 0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:06.840 of device and telecommunications companies, because otherwise there's not like 0:22:06.880 --> 0:22:10.000 a magic button that you can push that lets you, 0:22:10.000 --> 0:22:14.920 you know, select a random citizen and then tap into 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:20.440 all their technology. You would need some methodology to access 0:22:20.480 --> 0:22:23.399 that that stuff, which could mean either that you have 0:22:23.440 --> 0:22:26.160 to get access to the actual gadget and then install 0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:29.040 like an espionage app on there that would let you 0:22:29.080 --> 0:22:32.880 do that, something akin to what the NSO Group has 0:22:32.920 --> 0:22:38.119 done out of Israel selling it it's Pegasus package to 0:22:38.359 --> 0:22:42.879 iOS device, you know, infiltrators that kind of thing, or 0:22:42.920 --> 0:22:48.880 maybe direct work with the various telecommunications companies and gadget 0:22:48.920 --> 0:22:53.400 companies to have them cooperate with this, which I would 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:56.600 imagine would be a tall ask, like it'd be a big, 0:22:57.119 --> 0:23:02.040 big request to get those companies to agree, because consumers 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:05.080 don't like that kind of stuff, and if a consumer 0:23:05.119 --> 0:23:07.320 finds out that a company is in cahoots with the 0:23:07.320 --> 0:23:10.440 government to spy on people, that could be a real 0:23:10.600 --> 0:23:13.679 pr blow to a company's image. So we'll have to 0:23:13.720 --> 0:23:17.720 see how this develops, because I'm very curious how it 0:23:17.800 --> 0:23:24.240 actually gets enforced, how it actually moves forward. But even 0:23:24.320 --> 0:23:27.240 without those questions, it's a huge concern to me. I 0:23:27.280 --> 0:23:32.520 think that this is a bad step for law and 0:23:33.080 --> 0:23:38.400 for technology and for the continuation of the surveillance state. Okay, 0:23:38.760 --> 0:23:41.560 we're going to take another quick break. When we come back, 0:23:41.600 --> 0:23:53.560 I've got a few more stories to cover. Okay, we're 0:23:53.600 --> 0:23:57.119 back and ready to wrap up this news episode. I've 0:23:57.160 --> 0:24:00.960 got three more stories. First up. In New York City, 0:24:01.160 --> 0:24:04.120 City government officials have passed a law that will require 0:24:04.240 --> 0:24:09.119 hiring organizations to pay for an auditor, a third party 0:24:09.160 --> 0:24:12.960 auditor to come in and check any software that uses 0:24:13.040 --> 0:24:16.199 automated processes for the purposes of hiring. So if you 0:24:16.359 --> 0:24:22.000 are a company that either outsources you're hiring to another company, 0:24:22.080 --> 0:24:25.960 or you're using software that has automated systems to kind 0:24:25.960 --> 0:24:30.119 of sort candidates so that you can more effectively decide 0:24:30.200 --> 0:24:35.680 upon who you should hire, this applies to those companies. 0:24:35.720 --> 0:24:39.359 So the goal here is to identify any unwanted bias 0:24:39.600 --> 0:24:44.520 in the automated system that could disproportionately be disadvantageous to 0:24:44.560 --> 0:24:50.080 certain populations. Right, we have seen multiple instances of bias 0:24:50.119 --> 0:24:53.760 incorporated into automated functions. Now, most of the time this 0:24:53.800 --> 0:24:58.080 is unintentional. It's not that bias is built in on purpose, 0:24:58.800 --> 0:25:01.760 but bias can be a part of automated systems and 0:25:01.800 --> 0:25:06.680 it can still have a massive negative impact on affected individuals. 0:25:07.200 --> 0:25:11.520 So as companies lean harder on AI and automation to 0:25:11.560 --> 0:25:15.040 do things like sort through potential job candidates, it becomes 0:25:15.080 --> 0:25:19.080 really important to identify possible problems in the software so 0:25:19.119 --> 0:25:21.720 that legit job seekers aren't left out of the loop 0:25:21.840 --> 0:25:23.840 through no fault of their own and they are just 0:25:23.880 --> 0:25:28.840