Speaker 1: Welcome to Tech Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host
Speaker 1: job in Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech. Though. I may just
Speaker 1: need to come up with a new tagline, y'all, because
Speaker 1: these episodes are really going to take it out of me,
Speaker 1: because it's time to look back on some of the
Speaker 1: biggest tech stories of the past year. Now, there is
Speaker 1: no question that one was another rough one in a
Speaker 1: series of rough years. The COVID nineteen pandemic and the
Speaker 1: emergence of variants like Delta and Omicron have meant that
Speaker 1: the tough conditions we found ourselves in during have continued.
Speaker 1: And so that's going to weave in and out of
Speaker 1: a lot of the stories we will be covering over
Speaker 1: the next couple of episodes. And a lot happened, so
Speaker 1: there will be several episodes. Also, a lot of this
Speaker 1: is going to extend beyond tech in some ways, but
Speaker 1: tech played a critical part in these stories. So one
Speaker 1: really big story has been how tech companies like Apple, Google,
Speaker 1: and Meta Slash, Facebook plus others have announced, postponed, and
Speaker 1: in some cases indefinitely delayed a return to the office.
Speaker 1: We've seen companies make these announcements several times throughout one
Speaker 1: only to have to backtrack, like sometimes a few days
Speaker 1: or a few weeks or a month or two later,
Speaker 1: as things totally failed to get better. Maybe all the
Speaker 1: optimism in the tech sector is a little bit on
Speaker 1: the naive side. I think a lot of people start thinking, Hey,
Speaker 1: just because we can seemingly do anything with tech means
Speaker 1: that we can seemingly overcome any obstacle. Isn't necessarily true
Speaker 1: see also paraos. But lots of companies originally planned a
Speaker 1: return to the office, or at least a partial return
Speaker 1: in which corporate employees were expected to come in at
Speaker 1: least a few days out of each week. Uh And
Speaker 1: a lot of that started in the late summer or
Speaker 1: early fall of one. But then the Delta variant of
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen changed things as Delta proved to be more
Speaker 1: easily transmissible than other variants of COVID. And then you
Speaker 1: started to hear plans of late fall or early winter
Speaker 1: being the time to return, and a lot of those
Speaker 1: have changed yet again. At the moment, plans generally look
Speaker 1: at a January twenty twenty two return. Google had planned
Speaker 1: to come back to the office for January ten, but
Speaker 1: recently executives sent out an email indicating that employees would
Speaker 1: not be required to comply and that the company will
Speaker 1: reassess those plans early in the new year. Meta slash
Speaker 1: Facebook is aiming for a return to office by January
Speaker 1: thirty one, but has also offered a deferral program two
Speaker 1: employees who can choose to push back their their return
Speaker 1: date two between three and five months, So we might
Speaker 1: be looking at the middle of twenty two, assuming things
Speaker 1: are better by then, which based on the last year,
Speaker 1: it's tough to make those kinds of assumptions. Apple, which
Speaker 1: had aimed to get employees back in offices in early
Speaker 1: February of next year, has now released a statement that
Speaker 1: all return plans are currently on hold and that the
Speaker 1: return date is yet to be determined. The pandemic has
Speaker 1: really driven home the fact that making firm plans is
Speaker 1: just really hard to do. The rise of new variants
Speaker 1: requires changes in game plans. Meanwhile, employees are becoming accustomed
Speaker 1: to being able to work from wherever they happen to be,
Speaker 1: whether that's at home or on the road or whatever.
Speaker 1: So we're seeing a trend of employees expressing reluctance to
Speaker 1: go back to an office for lots of different reasons,
Speaker 1: ranging from convenience to health and safety, to promoting a
Speaker 1: different approach to you know, work life balance and uh.
Speaker 1: One other big bonus to working remotely is that employees
Speaker 1: don't necessarily have to live within commuting distance to their office.
Speaker 1: So for employees who work at companies that are located
Speaker 1: in really expensive markets like the San Francisco area, this
Speaker 1: means they could potentially move away from San Francisco and
Speaker 1: still work at that company. They're just doing so remotely,
Speaker 1: and they can end up living in a place that
Speaker 1: has a much lower cost of living, and that can
Speaker 1: mean that they can afford a larger home or more
Speaker 1: creature comforts, or put stuff towards savings. Plus they might
Speaker 1: be dealing with a lot less hassle like city traffic.
Speaker 1: Some employees have pushed back pretty hard against any move
Speaker 1: to return to offices, at least pushing back against making
Speaker 1: it mandatory. There have been numerous discussions about whether being
Speaker 1: in an office is actually that important to you know,
Speaker 1: getting work done. Um, there's some studies that seem to
Speaker 1: suggest that we actually get more work done at home,
Speaker 1: but things like innovation and forming bonds with coworkers really
Speaker 1: suffers when we are not in the same place at
Speaker 1: the same time. So there are these conflicting thoughts about
Speaker 1: what it means to do work and productivity and the
Speaker 1: benefit of doing work at home versus in the office.
Speaker 1: These are big conversations that are continuing to move forward,
Speaker 1: not just in tech, but we're seeing it play out
Speaker 1: a lot in the text sphere in particular. Now. Whether
Speaker 1: we're shifting toward a parliament approach to a hybrid work
Speaker 1: strategy where people at least work partly from home or remotely,
Speaker 1: that's hard to say right now, but it's certainly seems
Speaker 1: as though a lot of companies are going to have
Speaker 1: trouble convincing employees to come back to the office on
Speaker 1: a regular basis. It may turn out the companies that
Speaker 1: don't offer a hybrid or work from home approach, we'll
Speaker 1: find it more difficult to attract and retain talent. And
Speaker 1: that's a big deal in the tech sector, right Like
Speaker 1: if it turns out that company A offers employees the
Speaker 1: chance to work from wherever they happen to be and
Speaker 1: still get all of their compensation and benefits and company
Speaker 1: B doesn't. You're gonna see migrations from company B to
Speaker 1: company A. I mean that just that's kind of how
Speaker 1: it works in the tech sector in particular. And then
Speaker 1: we also have to look at another side of this,
Speaker 1: all that empty office space. Apple infamously spent around five
Speaker 1: billion dollars that's billion with a B and eight years
Speaker 1: of work to build their their quote unquote spaceship campus
Speaker 1: that opened in seventeen and it's got like seven cafes
Speaker 1: and a hundred thousand square foot fitness center, it's got
Speaker 1: a thousand person theater, tons of office space, so understandably
Speaker 1: having it mostly empty has got to be a source
Speaker 1: of frustration and pain for Apple executives. Also, it's really
Speaker 1: hard to keep an eye on what's going on when
Speaker 1: your employees aren't like forced to be right there at
Speaker 1: the office. It's also really hard to intimidate employees with
Speaker 1: your presence if you can't be there. So I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that that's necessarily Apple's modus operandi, but I'm not
Speaker 1: not saying it either. So we've seen office occupancy dropped
Speaker 1: below you know, between twenty five and across the United
Speaker 1: States of what it was pre pandemic for most of
Speaker 1: the last two years. Now in some cities like San Francisco,
Speaker 1: that occupancy rate is actually lower, it's below fifteen percent.
Speaker 1: There's still a trend in construction, so there's still like
Speaker 1: a trend of building out new office space that's still happening.
Speaker 1: So this raises the question who the heck is going
Speaker 1: to be in all those office spaces moving forward. We
Speaker 1: haven't seen companies abandoned their lease agreements on MOSS. It's
Speaker 1: not like companies are saying, well, no need for us
Speaker 1: to have offices anymore, We're all gonna work from home,
Speaker 1: so let's get rid of those. That hasn't really happened,
Speaker 1: at least not on a big scale. We have seen
Speaker 1: some companies start to sublease some of their space, so
Speaker 1: we might see some companies start to kind of slim
Speaker 1: down as far as office space goes. They might reduce
Speaker 1: the amount of office space that they maintain, especially if
Speaker 1: they go to a hybrid approach where not all employees
Speaker 1: will be in the office on every day, so people
Speaker 1: might end up using shared employee spaces and thus you
Speaker 1: don't need as many individual desk as you would if
Speaker 1: everybody were there for every day. That's a possibility, but
Speaker 1: it's still too early to really say that that's the
Speaker 1: future of work. I expect we're going to see a
Speaker 1: lot more innovation and products that target the hybrid or
Speaker 1: work from home models in two We've already seen some
Speaker 1: of those emerge. Uh, and we've also seen companies like
Speaker 1: Slack and Zoom pivot a little bit to target that
Speaker 1: use case more so not necessarily developing a lot of
Speaker 1: products specifically geared towards that, but rather hey, this this
Speaker 1: tool is also good if you aren't in the office,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. So I wouldn't be surprised to
Speaker 1: see more of that introduced next year. Another pandemic issue
Speaker 1: that started in and is going strong today is the
Speaker 1: disruption of the supply chain. Now, this also goes well
Speaker 1: beyond just tech. We're seeing it affect everything. Heck, I
Speaker 1: see it at restaurants where they say, hey, we may
Speaker 1: not have everything that's on the menu because of supply
Speaker 1: chain issues. Um. So, supply chains are for pretty much
Speaker 1: every sector are affected by this, but the tech space
Speaker 1: has been hit really hard by it. Now we've all
Speaker 1: heard about the semiconductor shortage, which has affected everything from
Speaker 1: video game consoles to vehicles. And shortages mean that it's
Speaker 1: really hard to find stuff like say a PS five
Speaker 1: or It also means that car dealerships have less inventory
Speaker 1: than what they typically have, and what they do have
Speaker 1: ends up being way more expensive. Also means that some
Speaker 1: car manufacturers are having to scale back on features and
Speaker 1: options that they had introduced a few years ago because
Speaker 1: now they just don't have the chips to continue offering
Speaker 1: those features. You know that's BMW has done that with
Speaker 1: a couple of its features, where things that you could
Speaker 1: have purchased a couple of years ago now were no
Speaker 1: longer available because they the company simply doesn't have the
Speaker 1: chips to make those those components. So rather than go
Speaker 1: without a car at all, the new ones just have
Speaker 1: fewer features than older ones. That's a trend most companies
Speaker 1: don't like to follow. Companies like Intel are working hard
Speaker 1: to expand production for semiconductors and microchips. They're planning out
Speaker 1: new manufacturing facilities all around the world, including within the
Speaker 1: United States, but those plans are going to take a
Speaker 1: few years to come to fruition, and in the meantime,
Speaker 1: we've still got this shortage to deal with. Intel's CEO
Speaker 1: has expressed doubt that the shortage will end before three
Speaker 1: at the earliest, so we've got another year of this,
Speaker 1: at least according to the CEO of Intel. There are
Speaker 1: other leaders in tech who have slightly more optimistic prognoses,
Speaker 1: but um, I'm not sure that those are realistic. I
Speaker 1: hope they are. I'm just I'm not feeling it. Even
Speaker 1: after building out new facilities, we still have issues with
Speaker 1: the supply chain. So one of the really big problems
Speaker 1: with the pandemic has been how port and shipping operations
Speaker 1: have been affected. The pandemic has pulled back the curtain
Speaker 1: on how much we depend upon a relatively small number
Speaker 1: of professionals to keep the supply chain moving, and when
Speaker 1: that gets disrupted, you have delays and bottlenecks and sort
Speaker 1: of domino effects, and stuff starts to pile up at
Speaker 1: one port while waiting to get loaded onto a ship,
Speaker 1: and then the ship ends up getting in a bottleneck
Speaker 1: waiting to dock at another port that's already backed up.
Speaker 1: It becomes this sort of cascading effect across the entire industry,
Speaker 1: and of course, the supply chain issue wasn't helped when
Speaker 1: in March of this year, the cargo vessel named ever
Speaker 1: Given got stuck in the Suez Canal. So for about
Speaker 1: a week six days actually, the vessel was blocking a
Speaker 1: key passage for cargo ships, and by a key passage,
Speaker 1: I mean nearly a third of all container ship track
Speaker 1: thick passes through the Suez Canal. Now, the Suez Canal
Speaker 1: Authority took possession of the ship once it was finally dislodged,
Speaker 1: and they held it for several months, finally releasing it
Speaker 1: in July after demanding nearly one billion dollars in fines.
Speaker 1: That amount was later reduced to around fifty million dollars.
Speaker 1: And um, you know, if you've ever been stuck in
Speaker 1: bumper to bumper traffic on a highway and you finally
Speaker 1: get to a section that mysteriously clears up and there's
Speaker 1: no obvious cause for what made the traffic jam happen
Speaker 1: in the first place, then you've had some experience with
Speaker 1: bottleneck issues. They can and do clear up, but it's
Speaker 1: not instantaneous, and even as one element gets some breathing room,
Speaker 1: others are lagging behind, so we're likely to continue feeling
Speaker 1: the effects of the supply chain disruption for some time,
Speaker 1: and not just in semiconductors. This also, by the way,
Speaker 1: effects pricing, which means we consumers start to really feel
Speaker 1: the pinch, as I'm sure all of you out there
Speaker 1: listening have seen in some way or another, whether it's
Speaker 1: in food prices, coffee prices, fuel prices, electronics, all of
Speaker 1: these things, we're all kind of feeling it in different ways.
Speaker 1: On a related note, one trend we saw increase in
Speaker 1: one was in bought activity, specifically bots. That is, these
Speaker 1: automated scripts that are designed to purchase certain goods um
Speaker 1: like like video game consoles, you know, high value goods
Speaker 1: that are in high demand. Now, the whole purpose of
Speaker 1: these bots is just to corner a market on whatever
Speaker 1: high end good they're focusing on, and then resell those
Speaker 1: goods at crazy markups on sites like eBay. So gamers
Speaker 1: out there who are desperate for a new console might
Speaker 1: find that the only option available to them is to
Speaker 1: go and pay through the nose at you know, eBay
Speaker 1: or some other resales site. Essentially, it's scalping. It's the
Speaker 1: same approach that you see with people who scalp tickets.
Speaker 1: So the practice inspired several US politicians, all of whom
Speaker 1: are Democrats, to reintroduce a piece of legislation called the
Speaker 1: Stopping the grinch Bots Act. This would make the use
Speaker 1: of automated tools to bypass online retail security measures uh
Speaker 1: in the effort to purchase and resell products and services illegal.
Speaker 1: It was just it would become against the law, and
Speaker 1: it would give authority to the Federal Trade Commission or
Speaker 1: f TC to enforce this law. Lawmakers introduced a similar
Speaker 1: measure in two thousand eighteen, but it's stalled out in
Speaker 1: committees and never really went to vote. And there's also
Speaker 1: a Stop the Grinch Act proposed by the Senator from Utah.
Speaker 1: That one actually is looking to alleviate some of the
Speaker 1: congestion within the supply chain, you know, the stuff that
Speaker 1: we were talking about a moment ago, at least within
Speaker 1: the United States, to help alleviate some of those issues.
Speaker 1: Of course, you know, it wouldn't necessarily fixed stuff overseas,
Speaker 1: which is part of the problem. We're talking about global problems,
Speaker 1: so local solutions are kind of only a band aid,
Speaker 1: but it would still be you know, a step toward that. However,
Speaker 1: that's a different act, so it gets a bit confusing
Speaker 1: because there's a Stop the grinch Bots Act and a
Speaker 1: Stopping the Grinch Act, so they have similar names. Um,
Speaker 1: but there are two different things. Something else that didn't
Speaker 1: originate in one but it cranked into a higher gear
Speaker 1: was the spread of misinformation. Now that's going to be
Speaker 1: a running theme in a lot of this episode. But
Speaker 1: before I get into all of that, let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break. All right, misinformation. Um, there's a lot to
Speaker 1: cover here, but when it comes to misinformation one, I mean,
Speaker 1: I've kind of feel like Marlon Brando and The Wild
Speaker 1: One when he's asked like what are you rebelling against?
Speaker 1: He's like, what have you got? Well, in this case,
Speaker 1: it would be you know, what do you have to
Speaker 1: say about misinformation? And a well, how much time do
Speaker 1: you have? Because uh, we could literally do a week's
Speaker 1: worth of episodes about misinformation just in one. But I'll
Speaker 1: try and keep it somewhat succinct, you know, I'll try
Speaker 1: to to keep all of that in this episode. I'm
Speaker 1: sure some of it will spill out as I talk
Speaker 1: about other other stories later this week. Um, Okay, A
Speaker 1: lot of the misinformation is focused on the pandemic from
Speaker 1: folks proclaiming that they knew with absolute certainty that the
Speaker 1: origins of the virus were from this one place or
Speaker 1: this other place, without actually providing any evidence to that.
Speaker 1: You know, they're just claiming it. Or there were those
Speaker 1: who were proclaiming vaccines to be harmful or even a
Speaker 1: tool that governments were using to try and control or
Speaker 1: track populations. And then there were just the right denials
Speaker 1: that there's even a pandemic going on in the first place,
Speaker 1: that that COVID itself is a hoax. The fact that
Speaker 1: several high profile deniers have subsequently died after contracting COVID
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to squash the spread of that dangerous misinformation,
Speaker 1: those lies, which again crazy, right, you have people who
Speaker 1: are saying COVID's not real, then they die of COVID,
Speaker 1: but the people that they've told COVID's not real are
Speaker 1: still saying COVID's not real. Listen, I also wish COVID
Speaker 1: weren't real. But you know, if if if wishes were horses,
Speaker 1: beggars would ride. And that's just not the case. As
Speaker 1: for the tech angle, well, as we all know, a
Speaker 1: lot of these messages spread via social networking platforms like Facebook,
Speaker 1: and we're going to talk so much about Facebook within
Speaker 1: the context of one. Volumes have been written recently about
Speaker 1: how Facebook's algorithm has played a part in elevating messages
Speaker 1: that spread harmful misinformation and how that ends up reinforcing falsehoods.
Speaker 1: It amplifies the message, and it convinces people to do
Speaker 1: stupid stuff like denounced vaccines or defy mask orders and more.
Speaker 1: And I figure any reasonable person has to be left
Speaker 1: wondering how many people have died because of those kinds
Speaker 1: of messages. And keep in mind, the folks who die
Speaker 1: are not necessarily the same ones who have bought into
Speaker 1: the lie. Right. The folks who die might be friends
Speaker 1: or family, or loved ones or co workers, or even
Speaker 1: just strangers who just happened to be in the wrong
Speaker 1: place at the wrong time, under the wrong circumstances and
Speaker 1: they caught COVID as a result. This is why I
Speaker 1: keep harping on this. I know I sound like a
Speaker 1: broken record, but I'm not going to stop. I don't
Speaker 1: want anyone to die. But even if I were super cynical,
Speaker 1: that if I were one of those people who saying
Speaker 1: this is Darwinian right, the idea that the people who
Speaker 1: deny it are the ones who are dying off it
Speaker 1: will it's a problem that takes care of itself. I
Speaker 1: can't think that way because that's just writing people's lives off,
Speaker 1: and that's fundamentally wrong to me. I cannot be that person.
Speaker 1: But even if I were, I would still have to
Speaker 1: acknowledge that it's not just the ignorant and the misled
Speaker 1: who are suffering here due to misinformation campaigns. It's everyone. Now.
Speaker 1: Some of the messaging spread in claim that vaccines could
Speaker 1: do anything from magnetize you to introduce some sort of
Speaker 1: tracking device into your body. It didn't matter that folks
Speaker 1: pointed out that those relies like they would show that no,
Speaker 1: there's no such thing that magnets, No, that's not happening,
Speaker 1: or that all you have to do is own a
Speaker 1: smartphone and that device alone is tracking everywhere you go
Speaker 1: and everything you do. There's no need to inject a tracker,
Speaker 1: and you you're already a willing participant in an ecosystem
Speaker 1: that's tracking you all the time. None of that matters
Speaker 1: when it comes to stopping misinformation. The best way to
Speaker 1: stop misinformation really besides you know, sitting people down and
Speaker 1: having one on ones and really getting to it is
Speaker 1: not allowing for that amplification and that rapid spread in
Speaker 1: the first place. All right, Uh, but not all the
Speaker 1: misinformation had to do just with COVID. We will touch
Speaker 1: back on that. There was something else that happened in
Speaker 1: one where misinformation played a pivotal role, and let's get
Speaker 1: to it. I mean, it feels like it happened a
Speaker 1: billion years ago to me, But it was on January six,
Speaker 1: twenty one, when there was a nearly successful insurrection in
Speaker 1: the United States. That is the date when a group
Speaker 1: of violent individuals stormed the US capital with the goal
Speaker 1: of interfering with the ratification of the twenty twenty election. Now,
Speaker 1: Congress was in the process of what is usually a
Speaker 1: pretty ceremonial event where the states present and ratify their
Speaker 1: elector results and the winner of the most recent election
Speaker 1: is made official. Everyone knows who the winner is already,
Speaker 1: by the way, because everyone already knows the outcome of
Speaker 1: the election, but this is the process that officially recognizes
Speaker 1: the winner. The rioters on January six, encouraged by then
Speaker 1: President Donald Trump, were on a mission to disrupt this
Speaker 1: process at any cost, with some going so far as
Speaker 1: to advocate for the capture and execution of the then
Speaker 1: Vice President Mike Pence, because it was Pence's ceremonial duty
Speaker 1: to recognize the results, and he was not going to
Speaker 1: overturn the recognized results despite what Trump wanted him to do.
Speaker 1: So his followers, Trump followers, we're saying, Okay, let's kill
Speaker 1: the vice president. A truly horridonous series of crazy, irrational
Speaker 1: thoughts right now, y'all. This story is so outrageous that
Speaker 1: it is hard to get my mind wrapped around it.
Speaker 1: And perhaps even more outrageous is how so much of
Speaker 1: the United States has just kind of accepted this as it's,
Speaker 1: you know, just a thing that happened. It's bonkers to me.
Speaker 1: But let's get back to the tech. Investigators looking into
Speaker 1: the January six riots suspected that a lot of planning
Speaker 1: for the event was carried out on various social network
Speaker 1: platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and at the time, parlor or parlay.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call it parlor. This story continues to play
Speaker 1: out today. By the way, there was a finding in
Speaker 1: the FBI released in August of this year that said
Speaker 1: that they found very little evidence that there was a
Speaker 1: lot of planning going on on social networks at the
Speaker 1: time leading up to the January six riots, But then
Speaker 1: subsequently there have been others who have come for and
Speaker 1: said no, we totally use social networks to help plan
Speaker 1: this stuff out. So it's the story that has gone
Speaker 1: back and forth many times throughout um. But there are
Speaker 1: still people who are calling out for platforms to be
Speaker 1: held accountable for amplifying misinformation campaigns that led to civil
Speaker 1: unrest and violence, including the deaths of five people. Some
Speaker 1: have been held more to account than others, so Parlor,
Speaker 1: for instance, had a pretty rough go of it. Early
Speaker 1: in the year. The site, which promoted itself as a
Speaker 1: place where freedom of speech is valued above everything else,
Speaker 1: was mostly known as being the home for far right
Speaker 1: conservatives and conspiracy theorists. Parlor's site depended upon Amazon Web
Speaker 1: Services for for hosting, and in the wake of the
Speaker 1: January six insurrection, Google and Apple both were moved the
Speaker 1: Parlor app from their respective stores, and a short time
Speaker 1: later Amazon removed Parlor from a WS and the site
Speaker 1: went dark. Parlor subsequently saw its CEO, John Matt's, fired
Speaker 1: and replaced first by Mark Meckler and then by George Farmer.
Speaker 1: The site returned to service in mid February, having moved
Speaker 1: from AWS to a company called Epic, although it had
Speaker 1: lost all posts that had been sent before the takedown,
Speaker 1: so nothing from the earlier era of Parlor still existed.
Speaker 1: So the site is still around today, though reportedly not
Speaker 1: nearly as popular as it was leading up to the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty election, A lot of people just migrated to
Speaker 1: other platforms instead. As for other sites such as you know,
Speaker 1: Facebook and Twitter, much of one and YouTube too, I
Speaker 1: should say, but Much of One has featured investigations into
Speaker 1: and statements from those various site and services regarding to
Speaker 1: what extent they might or might not have played as
Speaker 1: part of the January six attack on the Capitol. And
Speaker 1: I guess that's as good a place for us to
Speaker 1: start talking about Facebook in is any Because good Gully
Speaker 1: is there a lot to talk about. In fact, there's
Speaker 1: so much to talk about that I suspect it's going
Speaker 1: to take up probably the rest of this episode. So
Speaker 1: this is also going to involve some jumping around because
Speaker 1: I tried originally to kind of sketch this out in
Speaker 1: a strictly chronological retelling of Facebook's year, but that was
Speaker 1: too messy, it was too tangled up. And that's largely
Speaker 1: because a ton of stuff really that really applies to
Speaker 1: the year that Facebook has had actually goes back several years,
Speaker 1: but it only became public knowledge late this year when
Speaker 1: Francis Hogan, who was a former product manager at Facebook,
Speaker 1: came forward with thousands of internal Facebook document and shared
Speaker 1: them with authorities and with journalists. And those documents prompted
Speaker 1: hundreds of questions that lots of different people want answered,
Speaker 1: and Facebook, or as the company is now known, Meta,
Speaker 1: has slowly kind of been answering them, to varying degrees
Speaker 1: of satisfaction. Some of the revelations that tied directly into
Speaker 1: that January sixth event. For example, leading up to the
Speaker 1: twenty election, Facebook had an internal group within the company
Speaker 1: called the Civic Integrity Group, and the purpose of this
Speaker 1: group was to monitor issues like misinformation relating to elections
Speaker 1: and politics. Now, you could probably make a pretty decent
Speaker 1: argument that this group was not capable of handling that task. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't mean that the people who worked within the
Speaker 1: Civic Integrity Group were inept or anything like that. Rather,
Speaker 1: what I mean is that the scope of the problem
Speaker 1: I think was well beyond their capabilities. It's just such
Speaker 1: a huge issue. Also, you had problems with Facebook executives
Speaker 1: who were kind of counteracting some of the suggestions that
Speaker 1: people had to make changes that could potentially reduce Facebook's
Speaker 1: uh role in amplifying this information. But setting all that aside,
Speaker 1: Hogan told a U. S. Senate subcommittee that Facebook dissolved
Speaker 1: the Civic Integrity Team shortly after the election. Now, Facebook
Speaker 1: reps have since said that they didn't dissolve the Civic
Speaker 1: Integrity team. Instead, they merged it with a larger Central
Speaker 1: Integrity team, So they say Cecivic Integrity didn't really go away,
Speaker 1: it just became part of something bigger than itself, and
Speaker 1: the idea was to use the experience that the Civic
Speaker 1: Integrity Team had to a larger scope. However, the concern
Speaker 1: that US lawmakers have is that this movement Facebook was
Speaker 1: even less prepared to deal with the surge in rhetoric
Speaker 1: that preceded the January six riots earlier this year. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, the timing of the decision to dissolve
Speaker 1: or rather merge Civic Integrity with another group may have
Speaker 1: been a contributing factor that there weren't as many eyeballs
Speaker 1: on the issue out of critical time as there should
Speaker 1: have been. Perhaps the spread of election misinformation, you know,
Speaker 1: the whole stop the steel nonsense, drove more people towards extremism,
Speaker 1: which in turn added fuel to the folks who ultimately
Speaker 1: stormed the capital on January six. Now I'm writing this
Speaker 1: and recording this on December twenty, two, thousand twenty one,
Speaker 1: and it was just today that Engadget published a piece
Speaker 1: about this very thing. So nearly a full year has
Speaker 1: passed since that riot, and we're still, you know, writing
Speaker 1: about discoveries made, uh leading up to the riot, igor
Speaker 1: Bonifaceic and I apologize for butchering your name, Igore. He
Speaker 1: wrote the piece, and he rightly points out that while
Speaker 1: there's a lot of outrage being expressed about this, there's
Speaker 1: not a lot of actual, you know, action being done
Speaker 1: about it. And and part of that is because while
Speaker 1: both Democrats and Republicans have an act to grind with Facebook,
Speaker 1: the two parties fundamentally disagree on the nature of that
Speaker 1: acts and how to grind it. I'll explain more after
Speaker 1: we take this quick break. All right, I've left off
Speaker 1: talking about how there's a general feeling that Facebook needs
Speaker 1: to be called to task, but there's a fundamental difference
Speaker 1: in ideology over why and how. So there's another ongoing
Speaker 1: story that really was playing out in UH and it's
Speaker 1: one that's not really supported by facts, but it's still
Speaker 1: important because there were consequences. And it's that there's the
Speaker 1: this narrative that Facebook and some other social networks have
Speaker 1: a bias against conservative voices and therefore have a tendency
Speaker 1: to suppress those voices, that these entities are working to
Speaker 1: silence the conservative perspective. Those who argue this like to
Speaker 1: point out stuff that you know, like Facebook, Twitter, and
Speaker 1: YouTube eventually banned Donald Trump's accounts with those services, mostly
Speaker 1: in the wake of the January six riots and the
Speaker 1: perpetuation of election fraud claims, claims that are wholly unsupported
Speaker 1: by actual evidence. See The platforms under intense pressure began
Speaker 1: flagging posts that contained unsupported allegations and they tagged them
Speaker 1: as misinformation, so alerting people, hey, the claim was being
Speaker 1: made in this post are not supported by facts. That's
Speaker 1: essentially what they were doing, saying, you know, essentially, don't
Speaker 1: don't necessarily believe what you're reading here. Now that had
Speaker 1: prompted some conservatives to argue that the platforms have a bias.
Speaker 1: But you know, just a word on this. See, if
Speaker 1: your claim is not supported by actual evidence, it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter how loudly you want to shout it. It's still misinformation.
Speaker 1: And if a site has a policy against the spread
Speaker 1: of misinformation, that means you are violating the policy by
Speaker 1: trying to spread it. And you know, just because you
Speaker 1: want something to be true doesn't make it true. Trust me,
Speaker 1: I know this because otherwise I would be a bazillionaire
Speaker 1: because I want that to be true anyway, the narrative
Speaker 1: you know that social networks are biased against conservatives and
Speaker 1: are actively suppressing conservative speech. That has played into other
Speaker 1: stories with face Book. Some of those internal documents revealed
Speaker 1: that Facebook executives discouraged teams from clamping down on misinformation
Speaker 1: campaigns or making tweaks to Facebook's algorithm to avoid amplifying
Speaker 1: those claims, because they were concerned that if they made
Speaker 1: those changes, it would add fuel to the fire and
Speaker 1: give conservatives more quote unquote proof that the platform had
Speaker 1: an anti conservative bias. Never mind that some of these
Speaker 1: posts were getting amplified by the algorithm, such as posts
Speaker 1: that included hateful rhetoric targeting vulnerable populations ranging from ethnic
Speaker 1: minorities to the transgender community. These were all violating Facebook's
Speaker 1: own rules, right, Facebook has actual rules about this. The
Speaker 1: posts were definitely and definitively violating those rules, and yet
Speaker 1: they were being amplified by Facebook's algorithm because they were
Speaker 1: driving engagement. So the desire to avoid looking like a
Speaker 1: biased platform in the executive's minds outweighed any desire to
Speaker 1: avoid spreading harm. And yeah, this is borne out by
Speaker 1: some of those internal documents that Hogan provided, So we've
Speaker 1: actually seen the emails that the story plays out in.
Speaker 1: But wait, there's more. One of the early stories prompted
Speaker 1: by Hogan's whistle blowing activities focused on Instagram and the
Speaker 1: possibility that Instagram could be harming people, particularly young women,
Speaker 1: and that worse, folks on Instagram are fully aware of
Speaker 1: this and yet continue to make things worse. And the
Speaker 1: news broke right around the time that we started hearing
Speaker 1: about a plan that would see an Instagram app targeting
Speaker 1: young users, like those younger than the age of thirteen.
Speaker 1: Not a great look. So this internal document cited some
Speaker 1: research that you know, appeared to link a decline in
Speaker 1: some users sell image or their mental health and their
Speaker 1: use of Instagram, you know, saying that there appears to
Speaker 1: be some sort of link between the two. Now Immediately,
Speaker 1: lawmakers in the US showed concern, and I think we
Speaker 1: all pretty much intuitively feel that overuse of platforms like
Speaker 1: Instagram are probably harmful because the platform really promotes an
Speaker 1: unrealistic view of people's lives. Right if you spend any
Speaker 1: time on Instagram and you start scrolling through it, you're
Speaker 1: likely to see posts of really attractive people appearing to
Speaker 1: live out fantasy lives in incredible settings, and it's hard
Speaker 1: not to feel inferior by comparison. But this internal research
Speaker 1: seemed to show that this wasn't a bug in Instagram,
Speaker 1: It's a feature, and that Instagram, far from being ignorant
Speaker 1: of this effect, was well aware and was still pursuing
Speaker 1: efforts to expand its user base to even younger people.
Speaker 1: Now Facebook slash Instagram would try to refute this, saying
Speaker 1: that the research only represents a tiny amount of information
Speaker 1: and that these interpretations are wrong, and also that the
Speaker 1: studies involved a very small sample size. But that also
Speaker 1: prompts discussions about you know, how the company is under
Speaker 1: Meta operate with a lack of transparency, and that's saying
Speaker 1: this is just a tiny bit of information isn't really
Speaker 1: a good argument because the company hasn't bothered to show
Speaker 1: anything of the big picture that could actually contradict the
Speaker 1: conclusions people have made based upon the quote unquote limited
Speaker 1: information that they've had access to. So, you know it,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like when you you're you're a kid
Speaker 1: and you're playing a game like Cops and Robbers and
Speaker 1: you say, bang, I shot you and the other kids
Speaker 1: is no, you didn't. It's kind of like what Facebook saying.
Speaker 1: It's like that, you know, they're saying this is the
Speaker 1: study shows you know it's harmful, So no, it doesn't. Um, well,
Speaker 1: that's not really a good refutation. I would say I
Speaker 1: could probably do a very full episode or even a
Speaker 1: series of episodes about the awful stories linked to Facebook
Speaker 1: and Meta for this year, but instead, I'm going to
Speaker 1: limit myself to a few highlights. So keep in mind,
Speaker 1: I'm going to cover some stuff, some more stuff about
Speaker 1: Facebook before we close out this episode. But it's a
Speaker 1: drop in the bucket compared to all the different stories
Speaker 1: that came out this past year about that company. So
Speaker 1: there were concerns about misinformation that obviously extend well beyond
Speaker 1: US politics. I mentioned COVID nineteen earlier. Uh, there were
Speaker 1: a lot of concerns about Facebook's role in spreading and
Speaker 1: amplifying misinformation about COVID nineteen. In fact, some people going
Speaker 1: so far as to say that Facebook's role, uh, it
Speaker 1: was actually leading to people getting sick and dying. I mean,
Speaker 1: the United States President Joe Biden said as much. He
Speaker 1: said the platform was quote killing people end quote. Now
Speaker 1: later he backtracked a little bit, back pedaled and clarified
Speaker 1: himself and said what he meant was that the misinformation
Speaker 1: is what is killing people, not Facebook itself. However, when
Speaker 1: Facebook's algorithm promotes misinformation because misinformation drives engagement, and as
Speaker 1: I've said many many times, that is the end goal
Speaker 1: of Facebook. It's keeping as many folks on Facebook for
Speaker 1: as long as possible in order to serve as many
Speaker 1: ads as possible. Doesn't really care what the content is,
Speaker 1: as long as it keeps people there. Well, then tomato, tomato, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, if that's the goal, is just keeping people there,
Speaker 1: and if the thing that keeps people there is misinformation,
Speaker 1: and if the misinformation is what is leading to people
Speaker 1: getting sick and dying, I don't think it's that big
Speaker 1: of a stretch to actually say something like, hey, Facebook,
Speaker 1: you're killing people because it you know, it doesn't really
Speaker 1: matter the semantics of that. It ultimately of Facebook's playing
Speaker 1: a part in the ampleification and distribution of misinformation, and
Speaker 1: that misinformation is killing people. You know, the logic concludes, right, Well,
Speaker 1: then there's the story of the Rohinga in Myanmar. So
Speaker 1: the Rohinga people are Muslim and they are also the
Speaker 1: target of a genocidal campaign in Myanmar and have been
Speaker 1: for a few years. Anti Rohinga posts flourished on Facebook
Speaker 1: in Myanmar um, some of which were posted by the
Speaker 1: government itself, and hate speech circulated frequently on the platform,
Speaker 1: and it fueled the government's campaign to wipe out an
Speaker 1: entire people. Now, some survivors have brought a pair of
Speaker 1: class action lawsuits against Meta Slash Facebook, claiming that Facebook's
Speaker 1: actions exacerbated a deadly situation Myanmar, and they are seeking
Speaker 1: a hundred fifty billion dollars in damages as a result.
Speaker 1: Now that's a fairly new story, so it hasn't played
Speaker 1: out yet they spoke the company itself. As I've mentioned
Speaker 1: a couple of times here, it officially rebranded as Meta
Speaker 1: in October, in reference to the concept of a metaverse.
Speaker 1: But I've covered that fairly recently, so we're not going
Speaker 1: to dwell on it here except to say that the
Speaker 1: metaverse as folks usually think of it, is probably pretty
Speaker 1: far off the tech just eight there yet folks, and
Speaker 1: the rebranding prompted a lot of cynics to suggest that
Speaker 1: the timing was more about Facebook trying to make it
Speaker 1: harder for folks to criticize the company or to link
Speaker 1: Meta the company to Facebook the platform. I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: think that's the case. If it is the case, I
Speaker 1: don't think it's working very well. And discussions continue around
Speaker 1: the world about the possibility of breaking Meta up into
Speaker 1: smaller companies to make Meta divest itself of things like
Speaker 1: Instagram and WhatsApp Meta slash. Facebook has been in the
Speaker 1: spotlight during several talks about anti competitive practices. We haven't
Speaker 1: seen much action on that front, and there are plenty
Speaker 1: of folks who are skeptical that if Meta ever did
Speaker 1: break up, which is already unlikely. According to these people,
Speaker 1: that if it did break up, it wouldn't change very much.
Speaker 1: That's entirely possible. It's outside my realm of expertise, so
Speaker 1: I can't really comment on it. But yeah, that's uh,
Speaker 1: that's kind of what I wanted to wrap up with
Speaker 1: Facebook in one. Again, there's a lot more to say.
Speaker 1: Those internal documents, they go so far and so deep,
Speaker 1: and we still only have, you know, people like me,
Speaker 1: We've I've only seen a fraction of what is actually there. Uh,
Speaker 1: goodness knows what else is there that could lead to
Speaker 1: some pretty tough conversations around Facebook and its role in
Speaker 1: various social ills and the amplification of those. All right, um,
Speaker 1: you know what, I've got a few minutes. Let's go
Speaker 1: ahead and talk about one other thing before we conclude,
Speaker 1: and that'll be n f T S. I mean, can
Speaker 1: I interest you in n f T Uh That there's
Speaker 1: what we also refer to as a non fungible token,
Speaker 1: and it tells you it's the product of the future,
Speaker 1: and and by product, I mean it's digital code linked
Speaker 1: to a digital wallet, and arguably it don't mean much else.
Speaker 1: But never mind that. Look at this shiny n f
Speaker 1: T and by y'all, so Yeah, n f t s,
Speaker 1: we're huge in one, or at least they got a
Speaker 1: ton of attention early in one. Now, to be clear,
Speaker 1: n f t s predate one. It's not like they
Speaker 1: were suddenly invented this year. But I think it's safe
Speaker 1: to say that a lot of us, including myself, hadn't
Speaker 1: really heard about them before this year. So let's just
Speaker 1: get to it. What the heck is an n f
Speaker 1: T and what's all the fuss about? Well, I like
Speaker 1: to call n f t s the equivalent of a
Speaker 1: digital receipt. It's proof of ownership over some digital product.
Speaker 1: That product could be an MP three file, it could
Speaker 1: be a video, it could be a piece of digital artwork.
Speaker 1: It could even be a tweet or just a line
Speaker 1: of code. There are things that are hard to quote
Speaker 1: unquote own in the traditional sense in the digital world,
Speaker 1: Like you can't go out and purchase the original all
Speaker 1: your base are belonged to us meme and then hang
Speaker 1: it in your den, for example. It's not like a
Speaker 1: physical piece of art where there's one single original work
Speaker 1: of it and then lots of copies. It's a digital thing, right,
Speaker 1: Folks can replicate and alter it to their hearts. Content,
Speaker 1: and there's no way to differentiate a copy from the original. However,
Speaker 1: and n f T can represent a specific instance of
Speaker 1: a piece of digital information, and it can show that
Speaker 1: that instance belongs to someone specific. So n f T
Speaker 1: s are of these digital receipts, and they exist on
Speaker 1: top of the Ethereum blockchain, the cryptocurrency Ethereum. Now that
Speaker 1: means each transaction of an n f T is part
Speaker 1: of the blockchain record. So just by referencing the ledger
Speaker 1: for Ethereum, you can see who owns what. So I
Speaker 1: can actually look at that ledger and say, oh, hey, look,
Speaker 1: Josh Clark owns the n f T for the original
Speaker 1: all your base meme. He doesn't. That's just an example,
Speaker 1: or at least he doesn't to my knowledge. But that's
Speaker 1: just an example. But what does that mean in practical terms?
Speaker 1: That is harder to say, because while you've got proof
Speaker 1: that you have ownership of that particular piece of digital work,
Speaker 1: it doesn't change the fact that the digital item is,
Speaker 1: you know, digital and thus replicable and such. There's proof
Speaker 1: that you own it, and you can always sell or
Speaker 1: trade that proof of ownership to someone else, and that
Speaker 1: transaction will then enter the chain Ledger to show that
Speaker 1: it has in fact changed hands, and there's been you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of that. There's also a lot of speculation
Speaker 1: around n f T s, the idea that these are
Speaker 1: things that will increase in value. So we've seen a
Speaker 1: lot of investors speculation, but a lot of those values
Speaker 1: haven't really held over time. There's also this thought that
Speaker 1: n f t s are going to become more important
Speaker 1: in the future with a metaverse. The idea here is
Speaker 1: that you could purchase n f t s that represent
Speaker 1: ownership of certain digital goods, and that in theory, these
Speaker 1: digital goods will be able to exist across multiple virtual
Speaker 1: environments within the metaverse. So if you bought, say a
Speaker 1: really cool avatar design in one virtual environment, and you
Speaker 1: have the n f T for it, you could in
Speaker 1: theory port that over to other digital environments. So to
Speaker 1: use a video game analogy, imagine you're playing a game
Speaker 1: like war Zone and you purchase a skin in the
Speaker 1: game to make your character look like I don't know,
Speaker 1: the ghost face killer in the screen movies, because that
Speaker 1: actually exists in the war Zone game war Zone. If
Speaker 1: you're not familiar first person shooter game and uh so, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can buy a skin that makes you look like
Speaker 1: the killer from the screen movies. Then you decide, Hey,
Speaker 1: I want to start playing Minecraft, but I also would
Speaker 1: love to use the skin I bought in war Zone
Speaker 1: in Minecraft, so that if you see me in Minecraft,
Speaker 1: I'm still wearing the same skin that I would be
Speaker 1: wearing in war Zone. So no matter what game I'm in,
Speaker 1: you can tell it's me because I'm wearing that skin. However,
Speaker 1: you know we bought the skin in war Zone. That
Speaker 1: means that you know we bought it in a game
Speaker 1: that has no connection to Minecraft, so you can't just
Speaker 1: poured it over right. Well, the metaverse, if it ever
Speaker 1: actually comes to pass, is likely to consist of multiple
Speaker 1: virtual environments that are created and maintained by different companies
Speaker 1: and groups. Navigating from world to world will require a
Speaker 1: lot of platform support, so the ideas that n f
Speaker 1: t s could play a small part in this, providing
Speaker 1: proof that a person has the right to use certain
Speaker 1: designs as they navigate throughout the metaverse and pass from
Speaker 1: environment to environment. However, that doesn't mean it's actually going
Speaker 1: to happen. I mean, imagine if you could pour over
Speaker 1: your skin from war Zone to Minecraft, let's say that
Speaker 1: there actually was that capability. War Zone uses fairly realistic graphics,
Speaker 1: like the people in war Zone look like people. Minecraft
Speaker 1: is very cartoony and blocking, so a war Zone skin
Speaker 1: would look very different when realized in Minecraft, and you
Speaker 1: would have to have some way to deal with that
Speaker 1: to actually make it work within the two very different environments.
Speaker 1: So what I'm saying is that while n f T
Speaker 1: s could theoretically play a part in the metaverse, it
Speaker 1: will require a ton of cooperation behind the scenes. So
Speaker 1: it's not like it's a foregone conclusion. Like, even even
Speaker 1: as companies like Nike get into the n f T
Speaker 1: game and they start offering up virtual versions of Nikes
Speaker 1: as n f T s, it doesn't mean that, should
Speaker 1: the metaverse actually become a thing, that you'll be able
Speaker 1: to purchase a specific style of Nikes as an n
Speaker 1: f T and wear it throughout all the metaverse, unless
Speaker 1: it's something that's all self contained by one company, in
Speaker 1: which case I would argue it's not really a metaverse
Speaker 1: at all, But that's an episode for another time. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the n f T craze really kind of hit a
Speaker 1: peak in the early part of one and of course
Speaker 1: you still hear about them now, but I feel like
Speaker 1: a lot of folks, apart from the evangelists who are
Speaker 1: hoping to get rich quick off n f t s,
Speaker 1: have kind of cooled off of them for now, Like
Speaker 1: people don't seem to be quite as jazzed about it
Speaker 1: as when they were really being pushed in say like
Speaker 1: March of this year. Okay, we've gone on pretty long.
Speaker 1: We're gonna wrap this up now. We are going to
Speaker 1: continue to do a few more episodes about some of
Speaker 1: the tech stories of one because obviously a lot of
Speaker 1: other stuff has happened. So when we return later this week,
Speaker 1: we will keep on going until my psyche cracks under
Speaker 1: all the things that have happened over the last year.
Speaker 1: Like I said, years, these days feel like they've lasted
Speaker 1: an eternity and at the same time like they're over
Speaker 1: in an instant. It's it's a weird paradox where I think,
Speaker 1: oh gosh, that happened this year. I could have sworn
Speaker 1: that was like five years ago too. Oh wow, I
Speaker 1: can't believe the years over already. Um, time is funny, y'all.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, if you have suggestions for topics I
Speaker 1: should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff. Please let
Speaker 1: me know. Reach out to me on Twitter. It's the
Speaker 1: best place to find me. The handle for the show
Speaker 1: is text stuff H s W and I'll talk to
Speaker 1: you again really soon. Text Stuff is an I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio production. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit
Speaker 1: the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.