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Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host

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Speaker 1: job in Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio,

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Speaker 1: and I love all things tech. Though. I may just

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Speaker 1: need to come up with a new tagline, y'all, because

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Speaker 1: these episodes are really going to take it out of me,

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Speaker 1: because it's time to look back on some of the

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Speaker 1: biggest tech stories of the past year. Now, there is

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Speaker 1: no question that one was another rough one in a

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Speaker 1: series of rough years. The COVID nineteen pandemic and the

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Speaker 1: emergence of variants like Delta and Omicron have meant that

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Speaker 1: the tough conditions we found ourselves in during have continued.

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Speaker 1: And so that's going to weave in and out of

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Speaker 1: a lot of the stories we will be covering over

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Speaker 1: the next couple of episodes. And a lot happened, so

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Speaker 1: there will be several episodes. Also, a lot of this

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Speaker 1: is going to extend beyond tech in some ways, but

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Speaker 1: tech played a critical part in these stories. So one

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Speaker 1: really big story has been how tech companies like Apple, Google,

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Speaker 1: and Meta Slash, Facebook plus others have announced, postponed, and

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Speaker 1: in some cases indefinitely delayed a return to the office.

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Speaker 1: We've seen companies make these announcements several times throughout one

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Speaker 1: only to have to backtrack, like sometimes a few days

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Speaker 1: or a few weeks or a month or two later,

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Speaker 1: as things totally failed to get better. Maybe all the

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Speaker 1: optimism in the tech sector is a little bit on

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Speaker 1: the naive side. I think a lot of people start thinking, Hey,

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Speaker 1: just because we can seemingly do anything with tech means

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Speaker 1: that we can seemingly overcome any obstacle. Isn't necessarily true

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Speaker 1: see also paraos. But lots of companies originally planned a

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Speaker 1: return to the office, or at least a partial return

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Speaker 1: in which corporate employees were expected to come in at

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Speaker 1: least a few days out of each week. Uh And

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Speaker 1: a lot of that started in the late summer or

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Speaker 1: early fall of one. But then the Delta variant of

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Speaker 1: COVID nineteen changed things as Delta proved to be more

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Speaker 1: easily transmissible than other variants of COVID. And then you

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Speaker 1: started to hear plans of late fall or early winter

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Speaker 1: being the time to return, and a lot of those

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Speaker 1: have changed yet again. At the moment, plans generally look

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Speaker 1: at a January twenty twenty two return. Google had planned

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Speaker 1: to come back to the office for January ten, but

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Speaker 1: recently executives sent out an email indicating that employees would

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Speaker 1: not be required to comply and that the company will

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Speaker 1: reassess those plans early in the new year. Meta slash

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Speaker 1: Facebook is aiming for a return to office by January

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Speaker 1: thirty one, but has also offered a deferral program two

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Speaker 1: employees who can choose to push back their their return

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Speaker 1: date two between three and five months, So we might

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Speaker 1: be looking at the middle of twenty two, assuming things

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Speaker 1: are better by then, which based on the last year,

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Speaker 1: it's tough to make those kinds of assumptions. Apple, which

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Speaker 1: had aimed to get employees back in offices in early

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Speaker 1: February of next year, has now released a statement that

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Speaker 1: all return plans are currently on hold and that the

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Speaker 1: return date is yet to be determined. The pandemic has

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Speaker 1: really driven home the fact that making firm plans is

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Speaker 1: just really hard to do. The rise of new variants

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Speaker 1: requires changes in game plans. Meanwhile, employees are becoming accustomed

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Speaker 1: to being able to work from wherever they happen to be,

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Speaker 1: whether that's at home or on the road or whatever.

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Speaker 1: So we're seeing a trend of employees expressing reluctance to

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Speaker 1: go back to an office for lots of different reasons,

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Speaker 1: ranging from convenience to health and safety, to promoting a

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Speaker 1: different approach to you know, work life balance and uh.

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Speaker 1: One other big bonus to working remotely is that employees

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Speaker 1: don't necessarily have to live within commuting distance to their office.

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Speaker 1: So for employees who work at companies that are located

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Speaker 1: in really expensive markets like the San Francisco area, this

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Speaker 1: means they could potentially move away from San Francisco and

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Speaker 1: still work at that company. They're just doing so remotely,

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Speaker 1: and they can end up living in a place that

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Speaker 1: has a much lower cost of living, and that can

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Speaker 1: mean that they can afford a larger home or more

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Speaker 1: creature comforts, or put stuff towards savings. Plus they might

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Speaker 1: be dealing with a lot less hassle like city traffic.

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Speaker 1: Some employees have pushed back pretty hard against any move

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Speaker 1: to return to offices, at least pushing back against making

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Speaker 1: it mandatory. There have been numerous discussions about whether being

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Speaker 1: in an office is actually that important to you know,

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Speaker 1: getting work done. Um, there's some studies that seem to

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Speaker 1: suggest that we actually get more work done at home,

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Speaker 1: but things like innovation and forming bonds with coworkers really

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Speaker 1: suffers when we are not in the same place at

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Speaker 1: the same time. So there are these conflicting thoughts about

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Speaker 1: what it means to do work and productivity and the

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Speaker 1: benefit of doing work at home versus in the office.

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Speaker 1: These are big conversations that are continuing to move forward,

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Speaker 1: not just in tech, but we're seeing it play out

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Speaker 1: a lot in the text sphere in particular. Now. Whether

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Speaker 1: we're shifting toward a parliament approach to a hybrid work

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Speaker 1: strategy where people at least work partly from home or remotely,

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Speaker 1: that's hard to say right now, but it's certainly seems

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Speaker 1: as though a lot of companies are going to have

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Speaker 1: trouble convincing employees to come back to the office on

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Speaker 1: a regular basis. It may turn out the companies that

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Speaker 1: don't offer a hybrid or work from home approach, we'll

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Speaker 1: find it more difficult to attract and retain talent. And

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Speaker 1: that's a big deal in the tech sector, right Like

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Speaker 1: if it turns out that company A offers employees the

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Speaker 1: chance to work from wherever they happen to be and

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Speaker 1: still get all of their compensation and benefits and company

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Speaker 1: B doesn't. You're gonna see migrations from company B to

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Speaker 1: company A. I mean that just that's kind of how

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Speaker 1: it works in the tech sector in particular. And then

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Speaker 1: we also have to look at another side of this,

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Speaker 1: all that empty office space. Apple infamously spent around five

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Speaker 1: billion dollars that's billion with a B and eight years

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Speaker 1: of work to build their their quote unquote spaceship campus

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Speaker 1: that opened in seventeen and it's got like seven cafes

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Speaker 1: and a hundred thousand square foot fitness center, it's got

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Speaker 1: a thousand person theater, tons of office space, so understandably

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Speaker 1: having it mostly empty has got to be a source

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Speaker 1: of frustration and pain for Apple executives. Also, it's really

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Speaker 1: hard to keep an eye on what's going on when

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Speaker 1: your employees aren't like forced to be right there at

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Speaker 1: the office. It's also really hard to intimidate employees with

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Speaker 1: your presence if you can't be there. So I'm not

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Speaker 1: saying that that's necessarily Apple's modus operandi, but I'm not

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Speaker 1: not saying it either. So we've seen office occupancy dropped

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Speaker 1: below you know, between twenty five and across the United

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Speaker 1: States of what it was pre pandemic for most of

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Speaker 1: the last two years. Now in some cities like San Francisco,

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Speaker 1: that occupancy rate is actually lower, it's below fifteen percent.

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Speaker 1: There's still a trend in construction, so there's still like

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Speaker 1: a trend of building out new office space that's still happening.

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Speaker 1: So this raises the question who the heck is going

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Speaker 1: to be in all those office spaces moving forward. We

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Speaker 1: haven't seen companies abandoned their lease agreements on MOSS. It's

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Speaker 1: not like companies are saying, well, no need for us

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Speaker 1: to have offices anymore, We're all gonna work from home,

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Speaker 1: so let's get rid of those. That hasn't really happened,

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Speaker 1: at least not on a big scale. We have seen

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Speaker 1: some companies start to sublease some of their space, so

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Speaker 1: we might see some companies start to kind of slim

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Speaker 1: down as far as office space goes. They might reduce

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Speaker 1: the amount of office space that they maintain, especially if

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Speaker 1: they go to a hybrid approach where not all employees

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Speaker 1: will be in the office on every day, so people

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Speaker 1: might end up using shared employee spaces and thus you

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Speaker 1: don't need as many individual desk as you would if

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Speaker 1: everybody were there for every day. That's a possibility, but

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Speaker 1: it's still too early to really say that that's the

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Speaker 1: future of work. I expect we're going to see a

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Speaker 1: lot more innovation and products that target the hybrid or

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Speaker 1: work from home models in two We've already seen some

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Speaker 1: of those emerge. Uh, and we've also seen companies like

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Speaker 1: Slack and Zoom pivot a little bit to target that

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Speaker 1: use case more so not necessarily developing a lot of

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Speaker 1: products specifically geared towards that, but rather hey, this this

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Speaker 1: tool is also good if you aren't in the office,

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Speaker 1: that kind of thing. So I wouldn't be surprised to

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Speaker 1: see more of that introduced next year. Another pandemic issue

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Speaker 1: that started in and is going strong today is the

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Speaker 1: disruption of the supply chain. Now, this also goes well

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Speaker 1: beyond just tech. We're seeing it affect everything. Heck, I

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Speaker 1: see it at restaurants where they say, hey, we may

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Speaker 1: not have everything that's on the menu because of supply

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Speaker 1: chain issues. Um. So, supply chains are for pretty much

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Speaker 1: every sector are affected by this, but the tech space

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Speaker 1: has been hit really hard by it. Now we've all

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Speaker 1: heard about the semiconductor shortage, which has affected everything from

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Speaker 1: video game consoles to vehicles. And shortages mean that it's

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Speaker 1: really hard to find stuff like say a PS five

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Speaker 1: or It also means that car dealerships have less inventory

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Speaker 1: than what they typically have, and what they do have

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Speaker 1: ends up being way more expensive. Also means that some

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Speaker 1: car manufacturers are having to scale back on features and

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Speaker 1: options that they had introduced a few years ago because

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Speaker 1: now they just don't have the chips to continue offering

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Speaker 1: those features. You know that's BMW has done that with

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Speaker 1: a couple of its features, where things that you could

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Speaker 1: have purchased a couple of years ago now were no

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Speaker 1: longer available because they the company simply doesn't have the

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Speaker 1: chips to make those those components. So rather than go

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Speaker 1: without a car at all, the new ones just have

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Speaker 1: fewer features than older ones. That's a trend most companies

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Speaker 1: don't like to follow. Companies like Intel are working hard

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Speaker 1: to expand production for semiconductors and microchips. They're planning out

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Speaker 1: new manufacturing facilities all around the world, including within the

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Speaker 1: United States, but those plans are going to take a

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Speaker 1: few years to come to fruition, and in the meantime,

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Speaker 1: we've still got this shortage to deal with. Intel's CEO

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Speaker 1: has expressed doubt that the shortage will end before three

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Speaker 1: at the earliest, so we've got another year of this,

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Speaker 1: at least according to the CEO of Intel. There are

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Speaker 1: other leaders in tech who have slightly more optimistic prognoses,

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Speaker 1: but um, I'm not sure that those are realistic. I

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Speaker 1: hope they are. I'm just I'm not feeling it. Even

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Speaker 1: after building out new facilities, we still have issues with

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Speaker 1: the supply chain. So one of the really big problems

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Speaker 1: with the pandemic has been how port and shipping operations

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Speaker 1: have been affected. The pandemic has pulled back the curtain

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Speaker 1: on how much we depend upon a relatively small number

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Speaker 1: of professionals to keep the supply chain moving, and when

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Speaker 1: that gets disrupted, you have delays and bottlenecks and sort

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Speaker 1: of domino effects, and stuff starts to pile up at

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Speaker 1: one port while waiting to get loaded onto a ship,

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Speaker 1: and then the ship ends up getting in a bottleneck

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Speaker 1: waiting to dock at another port that's already backed up.

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Speaker 1: It becomes this sort of cascading effect across the entire industry,

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Speaker 1: and of course, the supply chain issue wasn't helped when

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Speaker 1: in March of this year, the cargo vessel named ever

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Speaker 1: Given got stuck in the Suez Canal. So for about

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Speaker 1: a week six days actually, the vessel was blocking a

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Speaker 1: key passage for cargo ships, and by a key passage,

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Speaker 1: I mean nearly a third of all container ship track

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Speaker 1: thick passes through the Suez Canal. Now, the Suez Canal

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Speaker 1: Authority took possession of the ship once it was finally dislodged,

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Speaker 1: and they held it for several months, finally releasing it

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Speaker 1: in July after demanding nearly one billion dollars in fines.

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Speaker 1: That amount was later reduced to around fifty million dollars.

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Speaker 1: And um, you know, if you've ever been stuck in

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Speaker 1: bumper to bumper traffic on a highway and you finally

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Speaker 1: get to a section that mysteriously clears up and there's

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Speaker 1: no obvious cause for what made the traffic jam happen

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Speaker 1: in the first place, then you've had some experience with

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Speaker 1: bottleneck issues. They can and do clear up, but it's

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Speaker 1: not instantaneous, and even as one element gets some breathing room,

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Speaker 1: others are lagging behind, so we're likely to continue feeling

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Speaker 1: the effects of the supply chain disruption for some time,

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Speaker 1: and not just in semiconductors. This also, by the way,

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Speaker 1: effects pricing, which means we consumers start to really feel

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Speaker 1: the pinch, as I'm sure all of you out there

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Speaker 1: listening have seen in some way or another, whether it's

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Speaker 1: in food prices, coffee prices, fuel prices, electronics, all of

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Speaker 1: these things, we're all kind of feeling it in different ways.

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Speaker 1: On a related note, one trend we saw increase in

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Speaker 1: one was in bought activity, specifically bots. That is, these

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Speaker 1: automated scripts that are designed to purchase certain goods um

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Speaker 1: like like video game consoles, you know, high value goods

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Speaker 1: that are in high demand. Now, the whole purpose of

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Speaker 1: these bots is just to corner a market on whatever

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Speaker 1: high end good they're focusing on, and then resell those

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Speaker 1: goods at crazy markups on sites like eBay. So gamers

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Speaker 1: out there who are desperate for a new console might

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Speaker 1: find that the only option available to them is to

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Speaker 1: go and pay through the nose at you know, eBay

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Speaker 1: or some other resales site. Essentially, it's scalping. It's the

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Speaker 1: same approach that you see with people who scalp tickets.

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Speaker 1: So the practice inspired several US politicians, all of whom

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Speaker 1: are Democrats, to reintroduce a piece of legislation called the

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Speaker 1: Stopping the grinch Bots Act. This would make the use

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Speaker 1: of automated tools to bypass online retail security measures uh

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Speaker 1: in the effort to purchase and resell products and services illegal.

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Speaker 1: It was just it would become against the law, and

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Speaker 1: it would give authority to the Federal Trade Commission or

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Speaker 1: f TC to enforce this law. Lawmakers introduced a similar

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Speaker 1: measure in two thousand eighteen, but it's stalled out in

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Speaker 1: committees and never really went to vote. And there's also

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Speaker 1: a Stop the Grinch Act proposed by the Senator from Utah.

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Speaker 1: That one actually is looking to alleviate some of the

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Speaker 1: congestion within the supply chain, you know, the stuff that

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Speaker 1: we were talking about a moment ago, at least within

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Speaker 1: the United States, to help alleviate some of those issues.

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Speaker 1: Of course, you know, it wouldn't necessarily fixed stuff overseas,

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Speaker 1: which is part of the problem. We're talking about global problems,

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Speaker 1: so local solutions are kind of only a band aid,

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Speaker 1: but it would still be you know, a step toward that. However,

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Speaker 1: that's a different act, so it gets a bit confusing

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Speaker 1: because there's a Stop the grinch Bots Act and a

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Speaker 1: Stopping the Grinch Act, so they have similar names. Um,

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Speaker 1: but there are two different things. Something else that didn't

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Speaker 1: originate in one but it cranked into a higher gear

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Speaker 1: was the spread of misinformation. Now that's going to be

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Speaker 1: a running theme in a lot of this episode. But

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Speaker 1: before I get into all of that, let's take a

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Speaker 1: quick break. All right, misinformation. Um, there's a lot to

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Speaker 1: cover here, but when it comes to misinformation one, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I've kind of feel like Marlon Brando and The Wild

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Speaker 1: One when he's asked like what are you rebelling against?

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Speaker 1: He's like, what have you got? Well, in this case,

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Speaker 1: it would be you know, what do you have to

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Speaker 1: say about misinformation? And a well, how much time do

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Speaker 1: you have? Because uh, we could literally do a week's

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Speaker 1: worth of episodes about misinformation just in one. But I'll

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Speaker 1: try and keep it somewhat succinct, you know, I'll try

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Speaker 1: to to keep all of that in this episode. I'm

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Speaker 1: sure some of it will spill out as I talk

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Speaker 1: about other other stories later this week. Um, Okay, A

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Speaker 1: lot of the misinformation is focused on the pandemic from

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Speaker 1: folks proclaiming that they knew with absolute certainty that the

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Speaker 1: origins of the virus were from this one place or

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Speaker 1: this other place, without actually providing any evidence to that.

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Speaker 1: You know, they're just claiming it. Or there were those

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Speaker 1: who were proclaiming vaccines to be harmful or even a

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Speaker 1: tool that governments were using to try and control or

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Speaker 1: track populations. And then there were just the right denials

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Speaker 1: that there's even a pandemic going on in the first place,

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Speaker 1: that that COVID itself is a hoax. The fact that

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Speaker 1: several high profile deniers have subsequently died after contracting COVID

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Speaker 1: doesn't seem to squash the spread of that dangerous misinformation,

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Speaker 1: those lies, which again crazy, right, you have people who

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Speaker 1: are saying COVID's not real, then they die of COVID,

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Speaker 1: but the people that they've told COVID's not real are

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Speaker 1: still saying COVID's not real. Listen, I also wish COVID

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Speaker 1: weren't real. But you know, if if if wishes were horses,

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Speaker 1: beggars would ride. And that's just not the case. As

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Speaker 1: for the tech angle, well, as we all know, a

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Speaker 1: lot of these messages spread via social networking platforms like Facebook,

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Speaker 1: and we're going to talk so much about Facebook within

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Speaker 1: the context of one. Volumes have been written recently about

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Speaker 1: how Facebook's algorithm has played a part in elevating messages

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Speaker 1: that spread harmful misinformation and how that ends up reinforcing falsehoods.

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Speaker 1: It amplifies the message, and it convinces people to do

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Speaker 1: stupid stuff like denounced vaccines or defy mask orders and more.

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Speaker 1: And I figure any reasonable person has to be left

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Speaker 1: wondering how many people have died because of those kinds

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Speaker 1: of messages. And keep in mind, the folks who die

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Speaker 1: are not necessarily the same ones who have bought into

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Speaker 1: the lie. Right. The folks who die might be friends

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Speaker 1: or family, or loved ones or co workers, or even

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Speaker 1: just strangers who just happened to be in the wrong

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Speaker 1: place at the wrong time, under the wrong circumstances and

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Speaker 1: they caught COVID as a result. This is why I

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Speaker 1: keep harping on this. I know I sound like a

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Speaker 1: broken record, but I'm not going to stop. I don't

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Speaker 1: want anyone to die. But even if I were super cynical,

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Speaker 1: that if I were one of those people who saying

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Speaker 1: this is Darwinian right, the idea that the people who

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Speaker 1: deny it are the ones who are dying off it

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Speaker 1: will it's a problem that takes care of itself. I

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Speaker 1: can't think that way because that's just writing people's lives off,

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Speaker 1: and that's fundamentally wrong to me. I cannot be that person.

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Speaker 1: But even if I were, I would still have to

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Speaker 1: acknowledge that it's not just the ignorant and the misled

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Speaker 1: who are suffering here due to misinformation campaigns. It's everyone. Now.

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Speaker 1: Some of the messaging spread in claim that vaccines could

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Speaker 1: do anything from magnetize you to introduce some sort of

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Speaker 1: tracking device into your body. It didn't matter that folks

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Speaker 1: pointed out that those relies like they would show that no,

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Speaker 1: there's no such thing that magnets, No, that's not happening,

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Speaker 1: or that all you have to do is own a

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Speaker 1: smartphone and that device alone is tracking everywhere you go

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Speaker 1: and everything you do. There's no need to inject a tracker,

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Speaker 1: and you you're already a willing participant in an ecosystem

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Speaker 1: that's tracking you all the time. None of that matters

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Speaker 1: when it comes to stopping misinformation. The best way to

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Speaker 1: stop misinformation really besides you know, sitting people down and

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Speaker 1: having one on ones and really getting to it is

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Speaker 1: not allowing for that amplification and that rapid spread in

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Speaker 1: the first place. All right, Uh, but not all the

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Speaker 1: misinformation had to do just with COVID. We will touch

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Speaker 1: back on that. There was something else that happened in

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Speaker 1: one where misinformation played a pivotal role, and let's get

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Speaker 1: to it. I mean, it feels like it happened a

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Speaker 1: billion years ago to me, But it was on January six,

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Speaker 1: twenty one, when there was a nearly successful insurrection in

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Speaker 1: the United States. That is the date when a group

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Speaker 1: of violent individuals stormed the US capital with the goal

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Speaker 1: of interfering with the ratification of the twenty twenty election. Now,

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Speaker 1: Congress was in the process of what is usually a

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Speaker 1: pretty ceremonial event where the states present and ratify their

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Speaker 1: elector results and the winner of the most recent election

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Speaker 1: is made official. Everyone knows who the winner is already,

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Speaker 1: by the way, because everyone already knows the outcome of

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Speaker 1: the election, but this is the process that officially recognizes

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Speaker 1: the winner. The rioters on January six, encouraged by then

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Speaker 1: President Donald Trump, were on a mission to disrupt this

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Speaker 1: process at any cost, with some going so far as

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Speaker 1: to advocate for the capture and execution of the then

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Speaker 1: Vice President Mike Pence, because it was Pence's ceremonial duty

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Speaker 1: to recognize the results, and he was not going to

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Speaker 1: overturn the recognized results despite what Trump wanted him to do.

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Speaker 1: So his followers, Trump followers, we're saying, Okay, let's kill

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Speaker 1: the vice president. A truly horridonous series of crazy, irrational

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Speaker 1: thoughts right now, y'all. This story is so outrageous that

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Speaker 1: it is hard to get my mind wrapped around it.

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Speaker 1: And perhaps even more outrageous is how so much of

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Speaker 1: the United States has just kind of accepted this as it's,

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Speaker 1: you know, just a thing that happened. It's bonkers to me.

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Speaker 1: But let's get back to the tech. Investigators looking into

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Speaker 1: the January six riots suspected that a lot of planning

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Speaker 1: for the event was carried out on various social network

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Speaker 1: platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and at the time, parlor or parlay.

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna call it parlor. This story continues to play

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Speaker 1: out today. By the way, there was a finding in

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Speaker 1: the FBI released in August of this year that said

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Speaker 1: that they found very little evidence that there was a

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Speaker 1: lot of planning going on on social networks at the

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Speaker 1: time leading up to the January six riots, But then

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Speaker 1: subsequently there have been others who have come for and

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Speaker 1: said no, we totally use social networks to help plan

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Speaker 1: this stuff out. So it's the story that has gone

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Speaker 1: back and forth many times throughout um. But there are

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Speaker 1: still people who are calling out for platforms to be

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Speaker 1: held accountable for amplifying misinformation campaigns that led to civil

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Speaker 1: unrest and violence, including the deaths of five people. Some

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Speaker 1: have been held more to account than others, so Parlor,

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Speaker 1: for instance, had a pretty rough go of it. Early

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Speaker 1: in the year. The site, which promoted itself as a

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Speaker 1: place where freedom of speech is valued above everything else,

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Speaker 1: was mostly known as being the home for far right

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Speaker 1: conservatives and conspiracy theorists. Parlor's site depended upon Amazon Web

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Speaker 1: Services for for hosting, and in the wake of the

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Speaker 1: January six insurrection, Google and Apple both were moved the

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Speaker 1: Parlor app from their respective stores, and a short time

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Speaker 1: later Amazon removed Parlor from a WS and the site

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Speaker 1: went dark. Parlor subsequently saw its CEO, John Matt's, fired

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Speaker 1: and replaced first by Mark Meckler and then by George Farmer.

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Speaker 1: The site returned to service in mid February, having moved

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Speaker 1: from AWS to a company called Epic, although it had

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Speaker 1: lost all posts that had been sent before the takedown,

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Speaker 1: so nothing from the earlier era of Parlor still existed.

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Speaker 1: So the site is still around today, though reportedly not

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Speaker 1: nearly as popular as it was leading up to the

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty election, A lot of people just migrated to

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Speaker 1: other platforms instead. As for other sites such as you know,

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Speaker 1: Facebook and Twitter, much of one and YouTube too, I

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Speaker 1: should say, but Much of One has featured investigations into

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Speaker 1: and statements from those various site and services regarding to

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Speaker 1: what extent they might or might not have played as

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Speaker 1: part of the January six attack on the Capitol. And

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Speaker 1: I guess that's as good a place for us to

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Speaker 1: start talking about Facebook in is any Because good Gully

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Speaker 1: is there a lot to talk about. In fact, there's

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Speaker 1: so much to talk about that I suspect it's going

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Speaker 1: to take up probably the rest of this episode. So

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Speaker 1: this is also going to involve some jumping around because

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Speaker 1: I tried originally to kind of sketch this out in

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Speaker 1: a strictly chronological retelling of Facebook's year, but that was

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Speaker 1: too messy, it was too tangled up. And that's largely

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Speaker 1: because a ton of stuff really that really applies to

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Speaker 1: the year that Facebook has had actually goes back several years,

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Speaker 1: but it only became public knowledge late this year when

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Speaker 1: Francis Hogan, who was a former product manager at Facebook,

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Speaker 1: came forward with thousands of internal Facebook document and shared

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Speaker 1: them with authorities and with journalists. And those documents prompted

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Speaker 1: hundreds of questions that lots of different people want answered,

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Speaker 1: and Facebook, or as the company is now known, Meta,

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Speaker 1: has slowly kind of been answering them, to varying degrees

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Speaker 1: of satisfaction. Some of the revelations that tied directly into

433
00:27:22,760 --> 00:27:26,520
Speaker 1: that January sixth event. For example, leading up to the

434
00:27:26,640 --> 00:27:31,479
Speaker 1: twenty election, Facebook had an internal group within the company

435
00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:34,919
Speaker 1: called the Civic Integrity Group, and the purpose of this

436
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:40,240
Speaker 1: group was to monitor issues like misinformation relating to elections

437
00:27:40,240 --> 00:27:43,879
Speaker 1: and politics. Now, you could probably make a pretty decent

438
00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:48,200
Speaker 1: argument that this group was not capable of handling that task. Now,

439
00:27:48,840 --> 00:27:52,320
Speaker 1: I don't mean that the people who worked within the

440
00:27:52,359 --> 00:27:57,160
Speaker 1: Civic Integrity Group were inept or anything like that. Rather,

441
00:27:57,240 --> 00:28:00,639
Speaker 1: what I mean is that the scope of the problem

442
00:28:00,680 --> 00:28:03,520
Speaker 1: I think was well beyond their capabilities. It's just such

443
00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:07,520
Speaker 1: a huge issue. Also, you had problems with Facebook executives

444
00:28:07,800 --> 00:28:10,919
Speaker 1: who were kind of counteracting some of the suggestions that

445
00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:16,920
Speaker 1: people had to make changes that could potentially reduce Facebook's

446
00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:22,520
Speaker 1: uh role in amplifying this information. But setting all that aside,

447
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:26,040
Speaker 1: Hogan told a U. S. Senate subcommittee that Facebook dissolved

448
00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:31,320
Speaker 1: the Civic Integrity Team shortly after the election. Now, Facebook

449
00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:34,800
Speaker 1: reps have since said that they didn't dissolve the Civic

450
00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:38,840
Speaker 1: Integrity team. Instead, they merged it with a larger Central

451
00:28:39,080 --> 00:28:43,959
Speaker 1: Integrity team, So they say Cecivic Integrity didn't really go away,

452
00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:47,120
Speaker 1: it just became part of something bigger than itself, and

453
00:28:47,160 --> 00:28:50,000
Speaker 1: the idea was to use the experience that the Civic

454
00:28:50,040 --> 00:28:55,200
Speaker 1: Integrity Team had to a larger scope. However, the concern

455
00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:59,320
Speaker 1: that US lawmakers have is that this movement Facebook was

456
00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:03,200
Speaker 1: even less prepared to deal with the surge in rhetoric

457
00:29:03,600 --> 00:29:07,520
Speaker 1: that preceded the January six riots earlier this year. So,

458
00:29:07,560 --> 00:29:11,080
Speaker 1: in other words, the timing of the decision to dissolve

459
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:15,640
Speaker 1: or rather merge Civic Integrity with another group may have

460
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:19,040
Speaker 1: been a contributing factor that there weren't as many eyeballs

461
00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:22,280
Speaker 1: on the issue out of critical time as there should

462
00:29:22,320 --> 00:29:27,400
Speaker 1: have been. Perhaps the spread of election misinformation, you know,

463
00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:32,120
Speaker 1: the whole stop the steel nonsense, drove more people towards extremism,

464
00:29:32,160 --> 00:29:34,840
Speaker 1: which in turn added fuel to the folks who ultimately

465
00:29:34,920 --> 00:29:40,000
Speaker 1: stormed the capital on January six. Now I'm writing this

466
00:29:40,120 --> 00:29:43,720
Speaker 1: and recording this on December twenty, two, thousand twenty one,

467
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:48,200
Speaker 1: and it was just today that Engadget published a piece

468
00:29:48,280 --> 00:29:52,560
Speaker 1: about this very thing. So nearly a full year has

469
00:29:52,600 --> 00:29:57,040
Speaker 1: passed since that riot, and we're still, you know, writing

470
00:29:57,040 --> 00:30:02,240
Speaker 1: about discoveries made, uh leading up to the riot, igor

471
00:30:02,480 --> 00:30:06,320
Speaker 1: Bonifaceic and I apologize for butchering your name, Igore. He

472
00:30:06,360 --> 00:30:08,560
Speaker 1: wrote the piece, and he rightly points out that while

473
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:13,040
Speaker 1: there's a lot of outrage being expressed about this, there's

474
00:30:13,080 --> 00:30:17,240
Speaker 1: not a lot of actual, you know, action being done

475
00:30:17,320 --> 00:30:20,000
Speaker 1: about it. And and part of that is because while

476
00:30:20,080 --> 00:30:24,720
Speaker 1: both Democrats and Republicans have an act to grind with Facebook,

477
00:30:25,200 --> 00:30:29,040
Speaker 1: the two parties fundamentally disagree on the nature of that

478
00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:33,440
Speaker 1: acts and how to grind it. I'll explain more after

479
00:30:33,520 --> 00:30:44,480
Speaker 1: we take this quick break. All right, I've left off

480
00:30:44,520 --> 00:30:48,480
Speaker 1: talking about how there's a general feeling that Facebook needs

481
00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:52,040
Speaker 1: to be called to task, but there's a fundamental difference

482
00:30:52,080 --> 00:30:56,640
Speaker 1: in ideology over why and how. So there's another ongoing

483
00:30:56,720 --> 00:31:01,320
Speaker 1: story that really was playing out in UH and it's

484
00:31:01,360 --> 00:31:04,040
Speaker 1: one that's not really supported by facts, but it's still

485
00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:07,720
Speaker 1: important because there were consequences. And it's that there's the

486
00:31:07,880 --> 00:31:11,680
Speaker 1: this narrative that Facebook and some other social networks have

487
00:31:11,840 --> 00:31:18,480
Speaker 1: a bias against conservative voices and therefore have a tendency

488
00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:22,920
Speaker 1: to suppress those voices, that these entities are working to

489
00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:27,680
Speaker 1: silence the conservative perspective. Those who argue this like to

490
00:31:27,720 --> 00:31:30,640
Speaker 1: point out stuff that you know, like Facebook, Twitter, and

491
00:31:30,720 --> 00:31:35,760
Speaker 1: YouTube eventually banned Donald Trump's accounts with those services, mostly

492
00:31:35,800 --> 00:31:38,360
Speaker 1: in the wake of the January six riots and the

493
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:43,800
Speaker 1: perpetuation of election fraud claims, claims that are wholly unsupported

494
00:31:44,120 --> 00:31:49,760
Speaker 1: by actual evidence. See The platforms under intense pressure began

495
00:31:49,880 --> 00:31:55,280
Speaker 1: flagging posts that contained unsupported allegations and they tagged them

496
00:31:55,320 --> 00:32:00,400
Speaker 1: as misinformation, so alerting people, hey, the claim was being

497
00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:03,280
Speaker 1: made in this post are not supported by facts. That's

498
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:06,760
Speaker 1: essentially what they were doing, saying, you know, essentially, don't

499
00:32:06,880 --> 00:32:10,320
Speaker 1: don't necessarily believe what you're reading here. Now that had

500
00:32:10,320 --> 00:32:14,320
Speaker 1: prompted some conservatives to argue that the platforms have a bias.

501
00:32:15,040 --> 00:32:17,240
Speaker 1: But you know, just a word on this. See, if

502
00:32:17,280 --> 00:32:21,040
Speaker 1: your claim is not supported by actual evidence, it doesn't

503
00:32:21,080 --> 00:32:26,400
Speaker 1: matter how loudly you want to shout it. It's still misinformation.

504
00:32:26,800 --> 00:32:30,479
Speaker 1: And if a site has a policy against the spread

505
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:34,320
Speaker 1: of misinformation, that means you are violating the policy by

506
00:32:34,320 --> 00:32:36,600
Speaker 1: trying to spread it. And you know, just because you

507
00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:40,800
Speaker 1: want something to be true doesn't make it true. Trust me,

508
00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:44,960
Speaker 1: I know this because otherwise I would be a bazillionaire

509
00:32:45,360 --> 00:32:50,440
Speaker 1: because I want that to be true anyway, the narrative

510
00:32:50,880 --> 00:32:54,240
Speaker 1: you know that social networks are biased against conservatives and

511
00:32:54,280 --> 00:32:58,720
Speaker 1: are actively suppressing conservative speech. That has played into other

512
00:32:58,840 --> 00:33:03,160
Speaker 1: stories with face Book. Some of those internal documents revealed

513
00:33:03,200 --> 00:33:08,400
Speaker 1: that Facebook executives discouraged teams from clamping down on misinformation

514
00:33:08,440 --> 00:33:14,080
Speaker 1: campaigns or making tweaks to Facebook's algorithm to avoid amplifying

515
00:33:14,120 --> 00:33:17,360
Speaker 1: those claims, because they were concerned that if they made

516
00:33:17,360 --> 00:33:20,560
Speaker 1: those changes, it would add fuel to the fire and

517
00:33:20,600 --> 00:33:24,840
Speaker 1: give conservatives more quote unquote proof that the platform had

518
00:33:24,920 --> 00:33:29,960
Speaker 1: an anti conservative bias. Never mind that some of these

519
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:33,960
Speaker 1: posts were getting amplified by the algorithm, such as posts

520
00:33:34,000 --> 00:33:38,600
Speaker 1: that included hateful rhetoric targeting vulnerable populations ranging from ethnic

521
00:33:38,640 --> 00:33:43,760
Speaker 1: minorities to the transgender community. These were all violating Facebook's

522
00:33:43,800 --> 00:33:48,240
Speaker 1: own rules, right, Facebook has actual rules about this. The

523
00:33:48,360 --> 00:33:54,560
Speaker 1: posts were definitely and definitively violating those rules, and yet

524
00:33:54,600 --> 00:33:58,000
Speaker 1: they were being amplified by Facebook's algorithm because they were

525
00:33:58,080 --> 00:34:02,040
Speaker 1: driving engagement. So the desire to avoid looking like a

526
00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:07,080
Speaker 1: biased platform in the executive's minds outweighed any desire to

527
00:34:07,200 --> 00:34:10,839
Speaker 1: avoid spreading harm. And yeah, this is borne out by

528
00:34:10,880 --> 00:34:14,480
Speaker 1: some of those internal documents that Hogan provided, So we've

529
00:34:14,480 --> 00:34:19,279
Speaker 1: actually seen the emails that the story plays out in.

530
00:34:20,200 --> 00:34:24,000
Speaker 1: But wait, there's more. One of the early stories prompted

531
00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:28,080
Speaker 1: by Hogan's whistle blowing activities focused on Instagram and the

532
00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:33,000
Speaker 1: possibility that Instagram could be harming people, particularly young women,

533
00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:36,839
Speaker 1: and that worse, folks on Instagram are fully aware of

534
00:34:36,880 --> 00:34:40,920
Speaker 1: this and yet continue to make things worse. And the

535
00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:43,759
Speaker 1: news broke right around the time that we started hearing

536
00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:47,000
Speaker 1: about a plan that would see an Instagram app targeting

537
00:34:47,160 --> 00:34:50,600
Speaker 1: young users, like those younger than the age of thirteen.

538
00:34:51,160 --> 00:34:54,920
Speaker 1: Not a great look. So this internal document cited some

539
00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:58,600
Speaker 1: research that you know, appeared to link a decline in

540
00:34:58,719 --> 00:35:02,680
Speaker 1: some users sell image or their mental health and their

541
00:35:02,840 --> 00:35:05,360
Speaker 1: use of Instagram, you know, saying that there appears to

542
00:35:05,400 --> 00:35:09,640
Speaker 1: be some sort of link between the two. Now Immediately,

543
00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:13,000
Speaker 1: lawmakers in the US showed concern, and I think we

544
00:35:13,080 --> 00:35:17,520
Speaker 1: all pretty much intuitively feel that overuse of platforms like

545
00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:22,680
Speaker 1: Instagram are probably harmful because the platform really promotes an

546
00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:26,759
Speaker 1: unrealistic view of people's lives. Right if you spend any

547
00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:29,640
Speaker 1: time on Instagram and you start scrolling through it, you're

548
00:35:29,719 --> 00:35:33,759
Speaker 1: likely to see posts of really attractive people appearing to

549
00:35:33,840 --> 00:35:38,319
Speaker 1: live out fantasy lives in incredible settings, and it's hard

550
00:35:38,360 --> 00:35:42,560
Speaker 1: not to feel inferior by comparison. But this internal research

551
00:35:42,920 --> 00:35:46,880
Speaker 1: seemed to show that this wasn't a bug in Instagram,

552
00:35:46,880 --> 00:35:50,520
Speaker 1: It's a feature, and that Instagram, far from being ignorant

553
00:35:50,520 --> 00:35:53,760
Speaker 1: of this effect, was well aware and was still pursuing

554
00:35:53,800 --> 00:35:57,000
Speaker 1: efforts to expand its user base to even younger people.

555
00:35:57,880 --> 00:36:02,680
Speaker 1: Now Facebook slash Instagram would try to refute this, saying

556
00:36:02,719 --> 00:36:06,160
Speaker 1: that the research only represents a tiny amount of information

557
00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:10,360
Speaker 1: and that these interpretations are wrong, and also that the

558
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:14,080
Speaker 1: studies involved a very small sample size. But that also

559
00:36:14,160 --> 00:36:17,520
Speaker 1: prompts discussions about you know, how the company is under

560
00:36:17,560 --> 00:36:21,160
Speaker 1: Meta operate with a lack of transparency, and that's saying

561
00:36:21,520 --> 00:36:24,400
Speaker 1: this is just a tiny bit of information isn't really

562
00:36:24,440 --> 00:36:27,399
Speaker 1: a good argument because the company hasn't bothered to show

563
00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:31,440
Speaker 1: anything of the big picture that could actually contradict the

564
00:36:31,480 --> 00:36:35,560
Speaker 1: conclusions people have made based upon the quote unquote limited

565
00:36:35,719 --> 00:36:40,680
Speaker 1: information that they've had access to. So, you know it,

566
00:36:40,680 --> 00:36:43,279
Speaker 1: it's kind of like when you you're you're a kid

567
00:36:43,320 --> 00:36:45,759
Speaker 1: and you're playing a game like Cops and Robbers and

568
00:36:45,800 --> 00:36:47,680
Speaker 1: you say, bang, I shot you and the other kids

569
00:36:47,760 --> 00:36:51,279
Speaker 1: is no, you didn't. It's kind of like what Facebook saying.

570
00:36:51,280 --> 00:36:52,880
Speaker 1: It's like that, you know, they're saying this is the

571
00:36:52,920 --> 00:36:57,439
Speaker 1: study shows you know it's harmful, So no, it doesn't. Um, well,

572
00:36:57,600 --> 00:37:00,719
Speaker 1: that's not really a good refutation. I would say I

573
00:37:00,719 --> 00:37:03,200
Speaker 1: could probably do a very full episode or even a

574
00:37:03,239 --> 00:37:06,640
Speaker 1: series of episodes about the awful stories linked to Facebook

575
00:37:06,719 --> 00:37:09,960
Speaker 1: and Meta for this year, but instead, I'm going to

576
00:37:10,080 --> 00:37:12,640
Speaker 1: limit myself to a few highlights. So keep in mind,

577
00:37:13,239 --> 00:37:15,359
Speaker 1: I'm going to cover some stuff, some more stuff about

578
00:37:15,360 --> 00:37:18,440
Speaker 1: Facebook before we close out this episode. But it's a

579
00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:21,400
Speaker 1: drop in the bucket compared to all the different stories

580
00:37:21,440 --> 00:37:24,279
Speaker 1: that came out this past year about that company. So

581
00:37:25,560 --> 00:37:29,080
Speaker 1: there were concerns about misinformation that obviously extend well beyond

582
00:37:29,200 --> 00:37:33,480
Speaker 1: US politics. I mentioned COVID nineteen earlier. Uh, there were

583
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:37,840
Speaker 1: a lot of concerns about Facebook's role in spreading and

584
00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:42,200
Speaker 1: amplifying misinformation about COVID nineteen. In fact, some people going

585
00:37:42,239 --> 00:37:45,920
Speaker 1: so far as to say that Facebook's role, uh, it

586
00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:49,040
Speaker 1: was actually leading to people getting sick and dying. I mean,

587
00:37:49,160 --> 00:37:53,040
Speaker 1: the United States President Joe Biden said as much. He

588
00:37:53,120 --> 00:37:57,040
Speaker 1: said the platform was quote killing people end quote. Now

589
00:37:57,120 --> 00:38:00,799
Speaker 1: later he backtracked a little bit, back pedaled and clarified

590
00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:03,800
Speaker 1: himself and said what he meant was that the misinformation

591
00:38:03,840 --> 00:38:08,560
Speaker 1: is what is killing people, not Facebook itself. However, when

592
00:38:08,600 --> 00:38:14,120
Speaker 1: Facebook's algorithm promotes misinformation because misinformation drives engagement, and as

593
00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:18,960
Speaker 1: I've said many many times, that is the end goal

594
00:38:19,160 --> 00:38:23,640
Speaker 1: of Facebook. It's keeping as many folks on Facebook for

595
00:38:23,880 --> 00:38:26,959
Speaker 1: as long as possible in order to serve as many

596
00:38:27,000 --> 00:38:30,719
Speaker 1: ads as possible. Doesn't really care what the content is,

597
00:38:30,760 --> 00:38:35,080
Speaker 1: as long as it keeps people there. Well, then tomato, tomato, right.

598
00:38:35,200 --> 00:38:38,040
Speaker 1: I mean, if that's the goal, is just keeping people there,

599
00:38:38,080 --> 00:38:40,600
Speaker 1: and if the thing that keeps people there is misinformation,

600
00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:43,680
Speaker 1: and if the misinformation is what is leading to people

601
00:38:43,680 --> 00:38:46,040
Speaker 1: getting sick and dying, I don't think it's that big

602
00:38:46,080 --> 00:38:48,880
Speaker 1: of a stretch to actually say something like, hey, Facebook,

603
00:38:48,920 --> 00:38:53,640
Speaker 1: you're killing people because it you know, it doesn't really

604
00:38:53,680 --> 00:38:59,000
Speaker 1: matter the semantics of that. It ultimately of Facebook's playing

605
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:02,400
Speaker 1: a part in the ampleification and distribution of misinformation, and

606
00:39:02,440 --> 00:39:08,759
Speaker 1: that misinformation is killing people. You know, the logic concludes, right, Well,

607
00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:13,200
Speaker 1: then there's the story of the Rohinga in Myanmar. So

608
00:39:13,239 --> 00:39:16,040
Speaker 1: the Rohinga people are Muslim and they are also the

609
00:39:16,080 --> 00:39:19,560
Speaker 1: target of a genocidal campaign in Myanmar and have been

610
00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:24,239
Speaker 1: for a few years. Anti Rohinga posts flourished on Facebook

611
00:39:24,280 --> 00:39:28,200
Speaker 1: in Myanmar um, some of which were posted by the

612
00:39:28,239 --> 00:39:33,280
Speaker 1: government itself, and hate speech circulated frequently on the platform,

613
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:36,399
Speaker 1: and it fueled the government's campaign to wipe out an

614
00:39:36,600 --> 00:39:40,839
Speaker 1: entire people. Now, some survivors have brought a pair of

615
00:39:40,840 --> 00:39:46,600
Speaker 1: class action lawsuits against Meta Slash Facebook, claiming that Facebook's

616
00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:51,240
Speaker 1: actions exacerbated a deadly situation Myanmar, and they are seeking

617
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:55,280
Speaker 1: a hundred fifty billion dollars in damages as a result.

618
00:39:55,320 --> 00:39:58,640
Speaker 1: Now that's a fairly new story, so it hasn't played

619
00:39:58,680 --> 00:40:02,120
Speaker 1: out yet they spoke the company itself. As I've mentioned

620
00:40:02,120 --> 00:40:05,640
Speaker 1: a couple of times here, it officially rebranded as Meta

621
00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:08,920
Speaker 1: in October, in reference to the concept of a metaverse.

622
00:40:09,360 --> 00:40:11,920
Speaker 1: But I've covered that fairly recently, so we're not going

623
00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:14,400
Speaker 1: to dwell on it here except to say that the

624
00:40:14,440 --> 00:40:19,080
Speaker 1: metaverse as folks usually think of it, is probably pretty

625
00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:22,640
Speaker 1: far off the tech just eight there yet folks, and

626
00:40:22,760 --> 00:40:26,480
Speaker 1: the rebranding prompted a lot of cynics to suggest that

627
00:40:26,560 --> 00:40:28,920
Speaker 1: the timing was more about Facebook trying to make it

628
00:40:29,000 --> 00:40:32,600
Speaker 1: harder for folks to criticize the company or to link

629
00:40:32,719 --> 00:40:37,120
Speaker 1: Meta the company to Facebook the platform. I don't necessarily

630
00:40:37,160 --> 00:40:39,680
Speaker 1: think that's the case. If it is the case, I

631
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:43,840
Speaker 1: don't think it's working very well. And discussions continue around

632
00:40:43,880 --> 00:40:47,200
Speaker 1: the world about the possibility of breaking Meta up into

633
00:40:47,239 --> 00:40:51,239
Speaker 1: smaller companies to make Meta divest itself of things like

634
00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:55,560
Speaker 1: Instagram and WhatsApp Meta slash. Facebook has been in the

635
00:40:55,560 --> 00:41:00,880
Speaker 1: spotlight during several talks about anti competitive practices. We haven't

636
00:41:00,880 --> 00:41:04,320
Speaker 1: seen much action on that front, and there are plenty

637
00:41:04,520 --> 00:41:08,279
Speaker 1: of folks who are skeptical that if Meta ever did

638
00:41:08,360 --> 00:41:11,800
Speaker 1: break up, which is already unlikely. According to these people,

639
00:41:12,239 --> 00:41:15,200
Speaker 1: that if it did break up, it wouldn't change very much.

640
00:41:16,280 --> 00:41:19,600
Speaker 1: That's entirely possible. It's outside my realm of expertise, so

641
00:41:19,640 --> 00:41:23,719
Speaker 1: I can't really comment on it. But yeah, that's uh,

642
00:41:23,840 --> 00:41:26,279
Speaker 1: that's kind of what I wanted to wrap up with

643
00:41:26,440 --> 00:41:30,920
Speaker 1: Facebook in one. Again, there's a lot more to say.

644
00:41:31,280 --> 00:41:35,279
Speaker 1: Those internal documents, they go so far and so deep,

645
00:41:35,320 --> 00:41:38,120
Speaker 1: and we still only have, you know, people like me,

646
00:41:38,280 --> 00:41:43,280
Speaker 1: We've I've only seen a fraction of what is actually there. Uh,

647
00:41:43,320 --> 00:41:46,560
Speaker 1: goodness knows what else is there that could lead to

648
00:41:46,760 --> 00:41:51,040
Speaker 1: some pretty tough conversations around Facebook and its role in

649
00:41:51,160 --> 00:41:56,880
Speaker 1: various social ills and the amplification of those. All right, um,

650
00:41:56,960 --> 00:41:58,640
Speaker 1: you know what, I've got a few minutes. Let's go

651
00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:02,320
Speaker 1: ahead and talk about one other thing before we conclude,

652
00:42:02,360 --> 00:42:05,200
Speaker 1: and that'll be n f T S. I mean, can

653
00:42:05,239 --> 00:42:08,480
Speaker 1: I interest you in n f T Uh That there's

654
00:42:08,520 --> 00:42:11,480
Speaker 1: what we also refer to as a non fungible token,

655
00:42:11,840 --> 00:42:14,200
Speaker 1: and it tells you it's the product of the future,

656
00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:17,920
Speaker 1: and and by product, I mean it's digital code linked

657
00:42:17,920 --> 00:42:21,000
Speaker 1: to a digital wallet, and arguably it don't mean much else.

658
00:42:21,200 --> 00:42:23,239
Speaker 1: But never mind that. Look at this shiny n f

659
00:42:23,440 --> 00:42:26,560
Speaker 1: T and by y'all, so Yeah, n f t s,

660
00:42:27,239 --> 00:42:31,440
Speaker 1: we're huge in one, or at least they got a

661
00:42:31,560 --> 00:42:35,319
Speaker 1: ton of attention early in one. Now, to be clear,

662
00:42:35,719 --> 00:42:38,520
Speaker 1: n f t s predate one. It's not like they

663
00:42:38,560 --> 00:42:40,919
Speaker 1: were suddenly invented this year. But I think it's safe

664
00:42:40,960 --> 00:42:43,840
Speaker 1: to say that a lot of us, including myself, hadn't

665
00:42:43,880 --> 00:42:47,400
Speaker 1: really heard about them before this year. So let's just

666
00:42:47,440 --> 00:42:49,239
Speaker 1: get to it. What the heck is an n f

667
00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:52,839
Speaker 1: T and what's all the fuss about? Well, I like

668
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:55,279
Speaker 1: to call n f t s the equivalent of a

669
00:42:55,360 --> 00:43:01,160
Speaker 1: digital receipt. It's proof of ownership over some digital product.

670
00:43:01,719 --> 00:43:04,600
Speaker 1: That product could be an MP three file, it could

671
00:43:04,600 --> 00:43:07,520
Speaker 1: be a video, it could be a piece of digital artwork.

672
00:43:07,920 --> 00:43:10,160
Speaker 1: It could even be a tweet or just a line

673
00:43:10,200 --> 00:43:13,479
Speaker 1: of code. There are things that are hard to quote

674
00:43:13,560 --> 00:43:17,600
Speaker 1: unquote own in the traditional sense in the digital world,

675
00:43:17,719 --> 00:43:21,200
Speaker 1: Like you can't go out and purchase the original all

676
00:43:21,239 --> 00:43:24,560
Speaker 1: your base are belonged to us meme and then hang

677
00:43:24,640 --> 00:43:26,759
Speaker 1: it in your den, for example. It's not like a

678
00:43:26,800 --> 00:43:31,840
Speaker 1: physical piece of art where there's one single original work

679
00:43:31,880 --> 00:43:36,080
Speaker 1: of it and then lots of copies. It's a digital thing, right,

680
00:43:36,200 --> 00:43:39,280
Speaker 1: Folks can replicate and alter it to their hearts. Content,

681
00:43:39,840 --> 00:43:44,280
Speaker 1: and there's no way to differentiate a copy from the original. However,

682
00:43:45,160 --> 00:43:49,040
Speaker 1: and n f T can represent a specific instance of

683
00:43:49,280 --> 00:43:53,279
Speaker 1: a piece of digital information, and it can show that

684
00:43:53,280 --> 00:43:57,800
Speaker 1: that instance belongs to someone specific. So n f T

685
00:43:58,040 --> 00:44:00,759
Speaker 1: s are of these digital receipts, and they exist on

686
00:44:00,880 --> 00:44:06,319
Speaker 1: top of the Ethereum blockchain, the cryptocurrency Ethereum. Now that

687
00:44:06,360 --> 00:44:09,960
Speaker 1: means each transaction of an n f T is part

688
00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:13,880
Speaker 1: of the blockchain record. So just by referencing the ledger

689
00:44:14,080 --> 00:44:17,960
Speaker 1: for Ethereum, you can see who owns what. So I

690
00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:20,279
Speaker 1: can actually look at that ledger and say, oh, hey, look,

691
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:23,000
Speaker 1: Josh Clark owns the n f T for the original

692
00:44:23,040 --> 00:44:26,800
Speaker 1: all your base meme. He doesn't. That's just an example,

693
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:29,120
Speaker 1: or at least he doesn't to my knowledge. But that's

694
00:44:29,120 --> 00:44:33,280
Speaker 1: just an example. But what does that mean in practical terms?

695
00:44:34,239 --> 00:44:37,680
Speaker 1: That is harder to say, because while you've got proof

696
00:44:37,960 --> 00:44:42,240
Speaker 1: that you have ownership of that particular piece of digital work,

697
00:44:42,760 --> 00:44:45,600
Speaker 1: it doesn't change the fact that the digital item is,

698
00:44:46,280 --> 00:44:51,600
Speaker 1: you know, digital and thus replicable and such. There's proof

699
00:44:51,640 --> 00:44:54,520
Speaker 1: that you own it, and you can always sell or

700
00:44:54,640 --> 00:44:58,279
Speaker 1: trade that proof of ownership to someone else, and that

701
00:44:58,360 --> 00:45:01,680
Speaker 1: transaction will then enter the chain Ledger to show that

702
00:45:01,760 --> 00:45:05,799
Speaker 1: it has in fact changed hands, and there's been you know,

703
00:45:06,239 --> 00:45:08,359
Speaker 1: a lot of that. There's also a lot of speculation

704
00:45:08,400 --> 00:45:10,600
Speaker 1: around n f T s, the idea that these are

705
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:13,960
Speaker 1: things that will increase in value. So we've seen a

706
00:45:13,960 --> 00:45:17,520
Speaker 1: lot of investors speculation, but a lot of those values

707
00:45:17,600 --> 00:45:21,680
Speaker 1: haven't really held over time. There's also this thought that

708
00:45:21,840 --> 00:45:23,880
Speaker 1: n f t s are going to become more important

709
00:45:23,880 --> 00:45:26,600
Speaker 1: in the future with a metaverse. The idea here is

710
00:45:26,640 --> 00:45:29,400
Speaker 1: that you could purchase n f t s that represent

711
00:45:29,480 --> 00:45:34,000
Speaker 1: ownership of certain digital goods, and that in theory, these

712
00:45:34,040 --> 00:45:38,040
Speaker 1: digital goods will be able to exist across multiple virtual

713
00:45:38,239 --> 00:45:42,080
Speaker 1: environments within the metaverse. So if you bought, say a

714
00:45:42,160 --> 00:45:46,000
Speaker 1: really cool avatar design in one virtual environment, and you

715
00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:48,000
Speaker 1: have the n f T for it, you could in

716
00:45:48,040 --> 00:45:52,520
Speaker 1: theory port that over to other digital environments. So to

717
00:45:52,600 --> 00:45:56,000
Speaker 1: use a video game analogy, imagine you're playing a game

718
00:45:56,080 --> 00:45:59,680
Speaker 1: like war Zone and you purchase a skin in the

719
00:45:59,719 --> 00:46:01,920
Speaker 1: game to make your character look like I don't know,

720
00:46:02,320 --> 00:46:04,640
Speaker 1: the ghost face killer in the screen movies, because that

721
00:46:04,680 --> 00:46:07,400
Speaker 1: actually exists in the war Zone game war Zone. If

722
00:46:07,400 --> 00:46:12,000
Speaker 1: you're not familiar first person shooter game and uh so, yeah,

723
00:46:12,040 --> 00:46:14,560
Speaker 1: you can buy a skin that makes you look like

724
00:46:14,920 --> 00:46:18,839
Speaker 1: the killer from the screen movies. Then you decide, Hey,

725
00:46:18,840 --> 00:46:21,399
Speaker 1: I want to start playing Minecraft, but I also would

726
00:46:21,480 --> 00:46:24,280
Speaker 1: love to use the skin I bought in war Zone

727
00:46:25,160 --> 00:46:28,160
Speaker 1: in Minecraft, so that if you see me in Minecraft,

728
00:46:28,360 --> 00:46:30,160
Speaker 1: I'm still wearing the same skin that I would be

729
00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:32,920
Speaker 1: wearing in war Zone. So no matter what game I'm in,

730
00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:36,200
Speaker 1: you can tell it's me because I'm wearing that skin. However,

731
00:46:36,719 --> 00:46:38,640
Speaker 1: you know we bought the skin in war Zone. That

732
00:46:38,719 --> 00:46:41,359
Speaker 1: means that you know we bought it in a game

733
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:43,880
Speaker 1: that has no connection to Minecraft, so you can't just

734
00:46:44,000 --> 00:46:47,879
Speaker 1: poured it over right. Well, the metaverse, if it ever

735
00:46:47,920 --> 00:46:51,320
Speaker 1: actually comes to pass, is likely to consist of multiple

736
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:55,960
Speaker 1: virtual environments that are created and maintained by different companies

737
00:46:55,960 --> 00:47:00,040
Speaker 1: and groups. Navigating from world to world will require a

738
00:47:00,040 --> 00:47:03,120
Speaker 1: lot of platform support, so the ideas that n f

739
00:47:03,160 --> 00:47:06,240
Speaker 1: t s could play a small part in this, providing

740
00:47:06,280 --> 00:47:09,360
Speaker 1: proof that a person has the right to use certain

741
00:47:09,400 --> 00:47:13,160
Speaker 1: designs as they navigate throughout the metaverse and pass from

742
00:47:13,239 --> 00:47:17,600
Speaker 1: environment to environment. However, that doesn't mean it's actually going

743
00:47:17,680 --> 00:47:21,520
Speaker 1: to happen. I mean, imagine if you could pour over

744
00:47:21,560 --> 00:47:24,440
Speaker 1: your skin from war Zone to Minecraft, let's say that

745
00:47:24,520 --> 00:47:29,720
Speaker 1: there actually was that capability. War Zone uses fairly realistic graphics,

746
00:47:29,719 --> 00:47:32,960
Speaker 1: like the people in war Zone look like people. Minecraft

747
00:47:33,080 --> 00:47:36,480
Speaker 1: is very cartoony and blocking, so a war Zone skin

748
00:47:37,160 --> 00:47:41,520
Speaker 1: would look very different when realized in Minecraft, and you

749
00:47:41,520 --> 00:47:43,000
Speaker 1: would have to have some way to deal with that

750
00:47:43,160 --> 00:47:47,000
Speaker 1: to actually make it work within the two very different environments.

751
00:47:47,040 --> 00:47:49,200
Speaker 1: So what I'm saying is that while n f T

752
00:47:49,360 --> 00:47:51,960
Speaker 1: s could theoretically play a part in the metaverse, it

753
00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:55,920
Speaker 1: will require a ton of cooperation behind the scenes. So

754
00:47:56,000 --> 00:48:00,560
Speaker 1: it's not like it's a foregone conclusion. Like, even even

755
00:48:00,600 --> 00:48:02,759
Speaker 1: as companies like Nike get into the n f T

756
00:48:02,960 --> 00:48:06,400
Speaker 1: game and they start offering up virtual versions of Nikes

757
00:48:06,840 --> 00:48:09,840
Speaker 1: as n f T s, it doesn't mean that, should

758
00:48:09,840 --> 00:48:12,839
Speaker 1: the metaverse actually become a thing, that you'll be able

759
00:48:12,880 --> 00:48:16,320
Speaker 1: to purchase a specific style of Nikes as an n

760
00:48:16,400 --> 00:48:20,320
Speaker 1: f T and wear it throughout all the metaverse, unless

761
00:48:20,360 --> 00:48:23,279
Speaker 1: it's something that's all self contained by one company, in

762
00:48:23,320 --> 00:48:26,000
Speaker 1: which case I would argue it's not really a metaverse

763
00:48:26,040 --> 00:48:30,600
Speaker 1: at all, But that's an episode for another time. Anyway,

764
00:48:30,920 --> 00:48:32,719
Speaker 1: the n f T craze really kind of hit a

765
00:48:32,719 --> 00:48:35,680
Speaker 1: peak in the early part of one and of course

766
00:48:35,680 --> 00:48:39,000
Speaker 1: you still hear about them now, but I feel like

767
00:48:39,680 --> 00:48:43,160
Speaker 1: a lot of folks, apart from the evangelists who are

768
00:48:43,160 --> 00:48:45,080
Speaker 1: hoping to get rich quick off n f t s,

769
00:48:45,320 --> 00:48:48,160
Speaker 1: have kind of cooled off of them for now, Like

770
00:48:48,280 --> 00:48:51,759
Speaker 1: people don't seem to be quite as jazzed about it

771
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:55,160
Speaker 1: as when they were really being pushed in say like

772
00:48:55,320 --> 00:48:59,480
Speaker 1: March of this year. Okay, we've gone on pretty long.

773
00:48:59,520 --> 00:49:02,080
Speaker 1: We're gonna wrap this up now. We are going to

774
00:49:02,239 --> 00:49:04,279
Speaker 1: continue to do a few more episodes about some of

775
00:49:04,320 --> 00:49:07,120
Speaker 1: the tech stories of one because obviously a lot of

776
00:49:07,160 --> 00:49:11,440
Speaker 1: other stuff has happened. So when we return later this week,

777
00:49:11,880 --> 00:49:15,680
Speaker 1: we will keep on going until my psyche cracks under

778
00:49:15,719 --> 00:49:17,960
Speaker 1: all the things that have happened over the last year.

779
00:49:18,160 --> 00:49:23,200
Speaker 1: Like I said, years, these days feel like they've lasted

780
00:49:23,200 --> 00:49:26,239
Speaker 1: an eternity and at the same time like they're over

781
00:49:26,280 --> 00:49:31,640
Speaker 1: in an instant. It's it's a weird paradox where I think,

782
00:49:31,719 --> 00:49:34,160
Speaker 1: oh gosh, that happened this year. I could have sworn

783
00:49:34,200 --> 00:49:37,680
Speaker 1: that was like five years ago too. Oh wow, I

784
00:49:37,719 --> 00:49:42,560
Speaker 1: can't believe the years over already. Um, time is funny, y'all.

785
00:49:42,640 --> 00:49:45,480
Speaker 1: All right, Well, if you have suggestions for topics I

786
00:49:45,480 --> 00:49:48,960
Speaker 1: should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff. Please let

787
00:49:49,000 --> 00:49:51,120
Speaker 1: me know. Reach out to me on Twitter. It's the

788
00:49:51,120 --> 00:49:53,280
Speaker 1: best place to find me. The handle for the show

789
00:49:53,400 --> 00:49:56,640
Speaker 1: is text stuff H s W and I'll talk to

790
00:49:56,719 --> 00:50:06,359
Speaker 1: you again really soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart

791
00:50:06,440 --> 00:50:10,160
Speaker 1: Radio production. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit

792
00:50:10,200 --> 00:50:13,319
Speaker 1: the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

793
00:50:13,360 --> 00:50:14,720
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.