WEBVTT - Tech News: TikTok Strikes Back, AI Poses Threats, and Butts!

0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.400
<v Speaker 1>Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,

0:00:12.400 --> 0:00:15.880
<v Speaker 1>and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host Jonathan Strickland.

0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:18.959
<v Speaker 1>I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and How the

0:00:19.000 --> 0:00:21.239
<v Speaker 1>tech Are Yet, it's time for us to cover the

0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:24.480
<v Speaker 1>tech news for the week ending on March twenty ninth,

0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:29.520
<v Speaker 1>twenty twenty four, and our first story is that FTX

0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:36.800
<v Speaker 1>cryptocurrency exchange and Alameda Research founder Sam Bankman freed AKASBF

0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:40.920
<v Speaker 1>faced sentencing for his multitude of crimes relating to playing

0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:44.320
<v Speaker 1>fast and loose with a whole lot of people's money.

0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:48.160
<v Speaker 1>SBF had sought a light sentence of just a few years,

0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:52.400
<v Speaker 1>while prosecutors were hoping for a forty or fifty year sentence.

0:00:52.720 --> 0:00:55.760
<v Speaker 1>He could have faced a maximum of one hundred and

0:00:55.840 --> 0:00:59.600
<v Speaker 1>ten years in the jailhouse, but Judge Lewis Kaplan has

0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:03.200
<v Speaker 1>decided on a twenty five year sentence, not as heavy

0:01:03.320 --> 0:01:06.200
<v Speaker 1>as what prosecutors wanted, but way the heck more than

0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:09.399
<v Speaker 1>what SBF was hoping for. The judge said that the

0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:14.679
<v Speaker 1>defense had put forth a pretty lousy effort, plus SBF

0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:19.120
<v Speaker 1>had engaged in witness tampering, which affected the judge's decision.

0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:21.680
<v Speaker 1>Now of course, this isn't the end of it all.

0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:26.880
<v Speaker 1>SBF does plan to appeal both the decision and the sentence, though,

0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:29.920
<v Speaker 1>considering the issues of witness tampering and such, I think

0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:34.120
<v Speaker 1>he probably faces an uphill battle on that one. He

0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:37.520
<v Speaker 1>has done himself very few favors. In the wake of

0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:42.399
<v Speaker 1>his empire collapsing. An English data company called Savanta conducted

0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:47.120
<v Speaker 1>a poll judging American's opinions about banning TikTok, and the

0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:51.400
<v Speaker 1>results are unsurprising. So according to savantah only around twenty

0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:54.360
<v Speaker 1>eight percent of all respondents favored a ban on TikTok,

0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:58.880
<v Speaker 1>and one of the questions they included asked if respondent's

0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:02.920
<v Speaker 1>friends would try to find ways to continue to access

0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:05.440
<v Speaker 1>TikTok even if it were to be banned in the

0:02:05.560 --> 0:02:10.720
<v Speaker 1>United States. That particular question got a sixty percent affirmative response.

0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:14.600
<v Speaker 1>I guess this was actually Savanta's way of saying, look, mate,

0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:17.080
<v Speaker 1>I'm not saying you'd break the law, right, I'm not

0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:20.160
<v Speaker 1>saying that, but your friends. Right, there's some shady characters,

0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:22.640
<v Speaker 1>any of them likely to slip around the corner, maybe

0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:25.760
<v Speaker 1>log into a little VP, maybe do a little scrolling

0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:30.080
<v Speaker 1>on TikTok. A anyway. Like I said, the results are unsurprising,

0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:32.920
<v Speaker 1>but they might very well provide the US Senate with

0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:35.560
<v Speaker 1>some food for thought, as that body now has the

0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:39.080
<v Speaker 1>responsibility to take up this issue or to you know,

0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:41.160
<v Speaker 1>not take it up. They could do that too, They

0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:44.280
<v Speaker 1>could just not consider it. I still think it's likely

0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:46.639
<v Speaker 1>that the Senate is not going to pass this bill

0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:49.520
<v Speaker 1>into lab because the perception is it would be very

0:02:49.520 --> 0:02:52.360
<v Speaker 1>harmful to their chances of getting re elected, and that

0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:57.480
<v Speaker 1>seems to be a pretty big driver in politics these days. Meanwhile,

0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:00.880
<v Speaker 1>TikTok has invested more than two million dollars in an

0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:03.760
<v Speaker 1>ad campaign in an effort to pressure the Senate to

0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:07.760
<v Speaker 1>drop the proposed ban legislation, and they've targeted the ads

0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:12.160
<v Speaker 1>and battleground states where Democrat senators could face a pretty

0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:15.520
<v Speaker 1>darn tough reelection campaign if the public were to be

0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:19.760
<v Speaker 1>totally cheesed off at them. Specifically, they are running ads

0:03:19.800 --> 0:03:24.800
<v Speaker 1>in Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Montana, and Nevada, And when you

0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:27.360
<v Speaker 1>know it, each one of those states has a Democrat

0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:30.520
<v Speaker 1>senator who's running for reelection this year. So I think

0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:34.000
<v Speaker 1>senators are already a little worried about the repercussions they

0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:36.520
<v Speaker 1>would face if they tried to push this bill into law.

0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:40.120
<v Speaker 1>But this sort of really drives that threat home. And

0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:42.320
<v Speaker 1>I have yet to see one of these ads, but

0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:45.000
<v Speaker 1>to me, they kind of sound like the super sad

0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:48.760
<v Speaker 1>ads you would see for the ASPCA that feature Sarah

0:03:48.840 --> 0:03:51.480
<v Speaker 1>McLaughlin singing about how the puppies are now in the

0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:55.000
<v Speaker 1>arms of an angel or something, Except these ads show

0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:58.040
<v Speaker 1>supposed TikTok users talking about how the world would really

0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:00.640
<v Speaker 1>suck if there weren't a TikTok. Also, I'm a little

0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:05.640
<v Speaker 1>extra snarky today, speaking of politics, the Biden administration announced

0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:08.520
<v Speaker 1>some new policies regarding AI and its use by the

0:04:08.520 --> 0:04:12.280
<v Speaker 1>federal government. Those policies are that federal agencies are now

0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:14.920
<v Speaker 1>tasked with ensuring that their use of AI does not

0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:18.080
<v Speaker 1>put the rights and safety of American citizens at risk,

0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:22.200
<v Speaker 1>which sounds totally reasonable, but it also sounds like it's

0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:25.520
<v Speaker 1>ding dang hard to put into practical use, because we've

0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:29.080
<v Speaker 1>already talked about how there are challenges of just gauging

0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:32.800
<v Speaker 1>risk and danger with AI before you actually deploy it.

0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:36.479
<v Speaker 1>Sometimes you only find out after it's too late. Anyway,

0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:39.920
<v Speaker 1>the second of the three policies announced is that any

0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:44.040
<v Speaker 1>agency that is using AI has to disclose that use

0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:47.839
<v Speaker 1>as well as to publish a risk assessment report in

0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:51.479
<v Speaker 1>order to maintain transparency, which also seems reasonable to me,

0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:54.440
<v Speaker 1>though I do suspect some agencies will maybe be a

0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:58.400
<v Speaker 1>little less transparent than others based off history cough cough.

0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:02.919
<v Speaker 1>The FBI, and finally, each federal agency must create the

0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:07.280
<v Speaker 1>position of chief AI Officer. And further, the person in

0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:10.160
<v Speaker 1>that position has to be knowledgeable in the field. So

0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:13.320
<v Speaker 1>no hiring your cousin Bobby so that he has a

0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:17.080
<v Speaker 1>cushy government job unless you know Bobby is also an

0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:19.760
<v Speaker 1>authority in the field of AI. Now I'm having a

0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:21.800
<v Speaker 1>bit of fun with all this, but I do think

0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:24.080
<v Speaker 1>it is a decent start. It's just going to be

0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:26.360
<v Speaker 1>a really long road ahead of us, and it's hard

0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:29.160
<v Speaker 1>to predict if these measures are going to be adequate

0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:33.080
<v Speaker 1>to mitigate future harm caused by AI. In fact, let's

0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:36.800
<v Speaker 1>actually talk about how AI can cause harm. There's a

0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:39.920
<v Speaker 1>piece by Colin Letcher or Leecher. I'm not sure how

0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:42.359
<v Speaker 1>to say your last name. I apologize. It's in the

0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:46.120
<v Speaker 1>markup and it really raised my eyebrows. So late last

0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:49.640
<v Speaker 1>year the Mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, announced

0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:53.200
<v Speaker 1>that an AI powered chatbot tool would help New York

0:05:53.240 --> 0:05:56.440
<v Speaker 1>businesses operate in a way that worked within New York law.

0:05:56.560 --> 0:05:59.840
<v Speaker 1>So if a business owner had a question, they could

0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:03.839
<v Speaker 1>ask this chatbot instead of a real human being, and

0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:07.280
<v Speaker 1>the chatbot would in theory give an answer that was

0:06:07.400 --> 0:06:11.040
<v Speaker 1>in alignment with New York law, and the business person

0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:14.960
<v Speaker 1>could act on that. But Colin says that opposite is

0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:18.200
<v Speaker 1>actually true, that the chatbot has in fact made suggestions

0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:22.400
<v Speaker 1>that outright violate certain New York City laws, which seems

0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:24.520
<v Speaker 1>to be a big old whoop sie, and he provides

0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:29.640
<v Speaker 1>examples of the chatbot encouraging some shady business practices. So,

0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:32.360
<v Speaker 1>for example, in New York City, there is a law

0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:36.920
<v Speaker 1>that states landlords cannot discriminate tenants by source of income.

0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:41.279
<v Speaker 1>In most cases. There are some exceptions for very small

0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:44.360
<v Speaker 1>buildings where the landlord and their family also reside in

0:06:44.360 --> 0:06:47.720
<v Speaker 1>that building, but otherwise they're not allowed to discriminate no

0:06:47.800 --> 0:06:52.320
<v Speaker 1>matter where a renter is getting their rent money, such

0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:56.120
<v Speaker 1>as if it's from a government assistance program. So the

0:06:56.200 --> 0:07:00.000
<v Speaker 1>landlord is not legally allowed to deny anyone the opportun

0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:02.120
<v Speaker 1>unity to rent a home based on that, but the

0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:05.839
<v Speaker 1>chatbot declared that landlords are not required to accept tenants

0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:09.800
<v Speaker 1>if they're on rental assistance programs, which does sound like

0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:14.000
<v Speaker 1>that's advice that violates the law. Further, the chatbot said

0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:17.600
<v Speaker 1>that restaurant owners are entitled to a cut of server tips,

0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:20.960
<v Speaker 1>and that's also not true in New York City. In

0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:24.800
<v Speaker 1>some cases, bosses can use tips to count toward minimum

0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:28.160
<v Speaker 1>wage requirements, which I would argue is sort of like

0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:32.400
<v Speaker 1>taking tips away from servers, but they can't actually dip

0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:35.559
<v Speaker 1>into the tips themselves and take a cut. He also

0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:40.440
<v Speaker 1>includes several other examples in other scenarios, and he says

0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:44.320
<v Speaker 1>that in some tests the Markup did in their offices,

0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:48.520
<v Speaker 1>the bot would actually provide correct answers occasionally, so maybe

0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:52.560
<v Speaker 1>it depends upon how you word the question, although that's

0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:56.000
<v Speaker 1>not entirely clear. The fact that the bot often provided

0:07:56.080 --> 0:08:00.840
<v Speaker 1>a misleading or outright incorrect response is beyond troubling, particularly

0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:03.600
<v Speaker 1>when city government has proclaimed that the bot is a

0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:07.520
<v Speaker 1>way for business owners to navigate government issues. City officials

0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:10.240
<v Speaker 1>have said the bot is merely in a pilot program phase,

0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:12.520
<v Speaker 1>and the whole idea is that it's going to improve

0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:15.520
<v Speaker 1>over time, which I sure hopes so, because right now

0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:17.760
<v Speaker 1>it sounds like it's doing the opposite of what it

0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:20.320
<v Speaker 1>is intended to do, which you know, it's kind of

0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:23.160
<v Speaker 1>hard to get around that, and it all just depends

0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:26.440
<v Speaker 1>upon how you work'd your question. Apparently New York Cities

0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:29.680
<v Speaker 1>mayor ain't stopping there with AI. However, he announced that

0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:32.320
<v Speaker 1>the city is also going to deploy a system made

0:08:32.320 --> 0:08:36.400
<v Speaker 1>by a company called Evolved Technologies, and it's an AI

0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:41.160
<v Speaker 1>powered weapons detection system that's made by a company that

0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:45.199
<v Speaker 1>has been tied with issues relating to weapons detection, namely

0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:50.080
<v Speaker 1>problems like false positives or failure to detect. So just

0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:53.079
<v Speaker 1>imagine that you're trying to commute to work, but then

0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:55.680
<v Speaker 1>you get stopped by New York Police because an AI

0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:59.960
<v Speaker 1>protocol running on what is essentially a surveillance system mistaken

0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:04.160
<v Speaker 1>believes you're packing. So this particular system is similar to

0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:07.120
<v Speaker 1>a metal detector. It's something that commuters will have to

0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:09.679
<v Speaker 1>pass through before they can get on the subway, and

0:09:09.720 --> 0:09:14.920
<v Speaker 1>it uses quote ultra low frequency electromagnetic fields end quote

0:09:14.960 --> 0:09:17.920
<v Speaker 1>to detect weapons. The New York City Police Department will

0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:19.840
<v Speaker 1>be in charge of the program, and according to New

0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:22.920
<v Speaker 1>York law, they will have to publish a report about

0:09:22.960 --> 0:09:26.400
<v Speaker 1>the system's effectiveness and impact and sort of like a

0:09:26.520 --> 0:09:30.040
<v Speaker 1>risk assessment sort of thing once it's been in place

0:09:30.120 --> 0:09:33.439
<v Speaker 1>for a while. Okay, we're going to take a quick

0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:35.440
<v Speaker 1>break and when we come back, I've got a few

0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:48.120
<v Speaker 1>more news stories to get through. We're back, So moving

0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:53.040
<v Speaker 1>on away from AI in politics. Last week, Reddit finally

0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:56.880
<v Speaker 1>held its initial public offering or IPO, which means it

0:09:56.920 --> 0:10:00.480
<v Speaker 1>has now become a publicly traded company on the stock market.

0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:03.440
<v Speaker 1>And this week the company saw the stock price drop

0:10:03.559 --> 0:10:06.840
<v Speaker 1>like a rock after it had surged early on. So

0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:11.320
<v Speaker 1>like initially, Reddit stocks were doing great when it launched.

0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:14.560
<v Speaker 1>The stocks price was intended to be forty six dollars

0:10:14.840 --> 0:10:18.440
<v Speaker 1>upon the stock market opening. It actually opened above that

0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:22.440
<v Speaker 1>value at nearly forty nine dollars per share, and it

0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:24.800
<v Speaker 1>closed at the end of the day at fifty one

0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:27.080
<v Speaker 1>dollars per share, So at the end of first day

0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:31.559
<v Speaker 1>of trading, it was already up significantly from where you

0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:35.600
<v Speaker 1>was intended to launch at. On March twenty sixth, it

0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:38.800
<v Speaker 1>hit its high of nearly seventy five dollars per share,

0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:41.880
<v Speaker 1>but then things took a bit of a turn so

0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:45.920
<v Speaker 1>why did that happen. Well, a couple of disclosures really

0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:49.400
<v Speaker 1>seemed to do a number on Reddit stock prices. One

0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:53.240
<v Speaker 1>was that some risk management companies reported that the stock

0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:57.320
<v Speaker 1>was being overinflated beyond its actual value, essentially saying this

0:10:57.480 --> 0:11:00.440
<v Speaker 1>stock does not reflect what Reddit's actual value you is.

0:11:00.600 --> 0:11:03.200
<v Speaker 1>Keep in mind, Reddit, like a lot of tech companies

0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:06.840
<v Speaker 1>out there, hasn't posted a profit. It is a revenue

0:11:07.000 --> 0:11:10.840
<v Speaker 1>losing business. But that doesn't always matter on the stock market.

0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:13.800
<v Speaker 1>In fact, you could say that often it seems to

0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:18.040
<v Speaker 1>have no impact on the stock market whatsoever. But another

0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:21.840
<v Speaker 1>really big set of disclosures that I think hit that

0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:25.600
<v Speaker 1>stock price hard is that a corporate filing revealed that

0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:30.280
<v Speaker 1>Reddit CEO Steve Huffman sold half a million shares when

0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:33.400
<v Speaker 1>it went public, So he cashed in big time, like

0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:36.800
<v Speaker 1>five hundred thousand shares. And I should really do a

0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:40.000
<v Speaker 1>full episode on Steve Huffman because he has an absolutely

0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:44.520
<v Speaker 1>terrible reputation among Reddit users for various reasons, and there

0:11:44.640 --> 0:11:47.520
<v Speaker 1>is a lot to go into. But more than that,

0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:52.520
<v Speaker 1>Reddit's COOO, Jennifer Wong, also disclosed selling more than five

0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:56.360
<v Speaker 1>hundred thousand of her shares in the company. And when

0:11:56.400 --> 0:12:00.000
<v Speaker 1>your corporate leaders are offloading stock, they'll keep in mind

0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:04.240
<v Speaker 1>both Huffman and Wong still own a butt load of shares. Well.

0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:07.920
<v Speaker 1>If the leaders are starting to sell off large numbers

0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:11.439
<v Speaker 1>of shares, that can really shake investor confidence. I mean

0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:13.880
<v Speaker 1>it seems to send the message of hey, if the

0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:19.280
<v Speaker 1>people in charge are offloading their stake in the company,

0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:24.679
<v Speaker 1>why am I staying in. So shares dropped down to

0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:27.920
<v Speaker 1>forty nine dollars thirty two cents per share by the

0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:31.959
<v Speaker 1>end of yesterday, which was below the closing price that

0:12:32.040 --> 0:12:36.080
<v Speaker 1>they traded at on opening day. Now, today is good Friday,

0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:39.160
<v Speaker 1>so the stock market is not open today and we'll

0:12:39.160 --> 0:12:41.839
<v Speaker 1>have to see next week where things go from there.

0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:45.920
<v Speaker 1>But over on Reddit there are a lot of armchair

0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:50.080
<v Speaker 1>stock analysts who are essentially saying told you so, or

0:12:50.120 --> 0:12:54.520
<v Speaker 1>they're saying this is just desserts. Mashables Matt Binder reports

0:12:54.520 --> 0:12:57.880
<v Speaker 1>on a study that was conducted by censor Tower, and

0:12:58.040 --> 0:13:02.040
<v Speaker 1>this study claims that x formerly known as Twitter, has

0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:06.720
<v Speaker 1>seen a sharp decline in daily mobile app user numbers

0:13:06.760 --> 0:13:10.839
<v Speaker 1>since Elon Musk took control back in November twenty twenty two.

0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:13.720
<v Speaker 1>And by sharp decline, I mean a twenty three percent

0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:17.880
<v Speaker 1>drop in app usage, so nearly a quarter of all

0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:21.320
<v Speaker 1>users have dropped off if you were looking at it

0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:25.120
<v Speaker 1>from that perspective, and that mobile app usage in general

0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:28.240
<v Speaker 1>is down eighteen percent year over year here in the

0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:32.520
<v Speaker 1>United States. So in this regard, X slash Twitter is

0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:35.880
<v Speaker 1>really leading the way among social platforms, because no other

0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:39.280
<v Speaker 1>social platform has seen that large of a decline over

0:13:39.320 --> 0:13:42.760
<v Speaker 1>that same amount of time. X has posted a rebuttal

0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:46.679
<v Speaker 1>to this report saying that sensor Tower doesn't have access

0:13:46.679 --> 0:13:50.120
<v Speaker 1>to all of X's data and thus the conclusions are wrong.

0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:54.360
<v Speaker 1>The reports I've seen have said that since Tower does

0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:59.760
<v Speaker 1>have access to the data about mobile apps but not website,

0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:03.000
<v Speaker 1>if you were to go through your browser on your

0:14:03.040 --> 0:14:05.880
<v Speaker 1>phone and go to X that way, they don't have

0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:08.319
<v Speaker 1>access to that information, but they do have access to

0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:11.920
<v Speaker 1>the information of people who are using the actual app

0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:17.000
<v Speaker 1>to access the service. And meanwhile, X is also not

0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:20.240
<v Speaker 1>providing any evidence to back up their own statement that

0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:23.400
<v Speaker 1>this is all off. So it's kind of a he said,

0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:26.920
<v Speaker 1>she said situation. At the moment, there's certainly been the

0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:31.160
<v Speaker 1>perception that usage on X has dropped, at least among

0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:36.960
<v Speaker 1>traditional users, and that the service has largely devolved into

0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:39.720
<v Speaker 1>a hive of scum and villainy. That may be my

0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:43.040
<v Speaker 1>own personal bias coming through. Actually, let's not say that.

0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:45.600
<v Speaker 1>Maybe that's my own personal bias coming through, and I

0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:49.040
<v Speaker 1>fully admit that, And honestly I can only anecdotally talk

0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:53.320
<v Speaker 1>about this because I got off Twitter last year. Anyway,

0:14:53.760 --> 0:14:56.240
<v Speaker 1>there's no denying the access encounter more than a few

0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:59.720
<v Speaker 1>roadbumps since Musk took over the company. Obviously, the excess

0:14:59.800 --> 0:15:04.760
<v Speaker 1>can continued to struggle with landing advertisers and partners in

0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:09.280
<v Speaker 1>the wake of some of the more controversial decisions. Aw

0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:13.720
<v Speaker 1>Olheiser has an article on vox dot com titled the

0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:16.920
<v Speaker 1>slow Death of Twitter is measured in disasters like the

0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:21.200
<v Speaker 1>Baltimore Bridge collapse, and it seems to provide some anecdotal

0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:25.600
<v Speaker 1>support for censer Tower's findings. So Olheiser argues that in

0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:29.200
<v Speaker 1>the good old days, breaking news would proliferate across Twitter

0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:32.200
<v Speaker 1>in real time, so folks would learn about world events

0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:36.320
<v Speaker 1>shortly after they happened, and news would spread incredibly far

0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:39.400
<v Speaker 1>and wide in just a matter of hours, if not minutes.

0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:45.280
<v Speaker 1>But Olheiser says something different happened when the cargo ship

0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:49.760
<v Speaker 1>hit the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, causing

0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:54.240
<v Speaker 1>that bridge to collapse. So rather than lots of messages

0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:58.640
<v Speaker 1>posted to X linking to articles about the disaster, Olheiser

0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:03.080
<v Speaker 1>says that X was bombarded with conspiracy theorists and folks

0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:06.920
<v Speaker 1>trying to capitalize on the tragedy through engagement baiting. And yeah,

0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:09.600
<v Speaker 1>that kind of stuff also happened in the good old

0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:13.320
<v Speaker 1>days of Twitter as well, Like that's not like unheard

0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:16.000
<v Speaker 1>of back then, But back then, all of that was

0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:20.120
<v Speaker 1>kind of a layer that was beneath the legitimate reporting

0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:24.360
<v Speaker 1>on world news that was proliferating across the platform. Now,

0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:28.800
<v Speaker 1>Olheiser says, this underlying layer has sort of been promoted

0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:33.320
<v Speaker 1>above everything else. It's dominating conversation, and beyond that things

0:16:33.360 --> 0:16:38.000
<v Speaker 1>got really ugly. Olheiser ends up quoting several Twitter accounts

0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:42.120
<v Speaker 1>that pushed outright racist narratives in relation to the disaster.

0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:45.800
<v Speaker 1>I do recommend reading the whole piece on box. It

0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:51.000
<v Speaker 1>is pretty compelling. Again, the title of the pieces, the

0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:54.160
<v Speaker 1>slow Death of Twitter is measured in disasters like the

0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:58.560
<v Speaker 1>Baltimore bridge collapse. Turning to video games, the publisher Take

0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:01.760
<v Speaker 1>two Interactive, which c really it's a holding company. It

0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:05.200
<v Speaker 1>owns a couple of other publishers and developers. They own

0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:08.600
<v Speaker 1>rock Star that's the company behind the Grand Theft auto franchise.

0:17:08.840 --> 0:17:11.600
<v Speaker 1>They also own two K, which is a publisher that

0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:16.960
<v Speaker 1>publishes a ton of different games, including like WWE games

0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:19.080
<v Speaker 1>that speak to my heart, although I haven't played one

0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:22.680
<v Speaker 1>in a few years anyway. They've acquired another video game company,

0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:25.800
<v Speaker 1>a historic one, a storied one. That is, they have

0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:31.760
<v Speaker 1>acquired Gearbox from Embracer Group. So Gearbox is the developer

0:17:31.840 --> 0:17:35.479
<v Speaker 1>behind the Borderlands series of video games, among other things.

0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:38.200
<v Speaker 1>Borderlands is going to have its own live action film

0:17:38.240 --> 0:17:40.679
<v Speaker 1>coming out in theaters later this year, so this timing

0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:43.560
<v Speaker 1>is kind of interesting. The deal was for four hundred

0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:48.720
<v Speaker 1>and sixty million smackaroos, which is a princely sum. It's

0:17:48.760 --> 0:17:52.320
<v Speaker 1>not a done deal yet, right, These acquisitions always have

0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:55.560
<v Speaker 1>to go through a process. The deal is set to

0:17:55.680 --> 0:18:01.240
<v Speaker 1>close in June, assuming that regulators don't object to the transaction.

0:18:01.800 --> 0:18:05.639
<v Speaker 1>Since Embracer Group is kind of like the Kirby of

0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:09.040
<v Speaker 1>video game companies out there, meaning it gobbles up pretty

0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:12.480
<v Speaker 1>much every company it sets its sights on, I think

0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:16.919
<v Speaker 1>regulators might be inclined to see a property, leave embracer

0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:22.199
<v Speaker 1>groups you know embrace and finally to cover a weird

0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:26.359
<v Speaker 1>story about butts and bosoms. Butts and bosoms sounds like

0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:28.680
<v Speaker 1>a raunchy role playing game when I say it that way,

0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:31.159
<v Speaker 1>but you know games are involved in this story. I

0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:34.760
<v Speaker 1>am talking about Twitch, the streaming service that started off

0:18:34.800 --> 0:18:37.760
<v Speaker 1>as a way for gamers to stream themselves playing games

0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:40.680
<v Speaker 1>live on the Internet to their adoring fans, and these

0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:43.000
<v Speaker 1>days Twitch does a lot more than that, but games

0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:45.880
<v Speaker 1>are still at the core of the servants, and recently

0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:48.760
<v Speaker 1>the company had to create a few new policies to

0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:53.400
<v Speaker 1>fight back over some innovations in the streaming space, namely

0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:57.680
<v Speaker 1>that certain Twitch streamers are wearing green or blue clothing

0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:03.120
<v Speaker 1>so that they can reject their gameplay on their bodies,

0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:08.119
<v Speaker 1>typically their butts or their chest. This was the case

0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:11.040
<v Speaker 1>with Twitch streamer morg Pi, who also came up with

0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:14.560
<v Speaker 1>a very clever work around where she created a green

0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:19.280
<v Speaker 1>shirt that had the chest region cut out of it,

0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:23.840
<v Speaker 1>so that when she keyed out the color, only her

0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:28.400
<v Speaker 1>head and chest showed up on screen as the player

0:19:28.920 --> 0:19:32.879
<v Speaker 1>view and everything else was showing the gameplay of the

0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:35.840
<v Speaker 1>game she was actually playing on stream, So Twitch is

0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:38.080
<v Speaker 1>now saying that this is against their policy and that

0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:42.080
<v Speaker 1>quote content that focuses on intimate body parts for a

0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:45.919
<v Speaker 1>prolonged period of time will not be allowed. Quote. Twitch

0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:49.000
<v Speaker 1>has had a very long history of trying to balance

0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:53.280
<v Speaker 1>out what is popular among users and streamers on the

0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:57.560
<v Speaker 1>service with what is popular among advertisers, and to that end,

0:19:57.600 --> 0:20:01.600
<v Speaker 1>the company has made several moves, sometimes humorous consequences, to

0:20:01.680 --> 0:20:05.160
<v Speaker 1>tamp down on the more salacious streamers who are out there.

0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:08.600
<v Speaker 1>What a world. All right, that's it for this week.

0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:11.440
<v Speaker 1>I hope all of you are well, and I'll talk

0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:21.920
<v Speaker 1>to you again really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production.

0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:27.240
<v Speaker 1>For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:29.320
<v Speaker 1>or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.