WEBVTT - The Big Tech Stories of 2022: Tech and Politics 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tex Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:11.840 --> 0:00:14.640 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:18.320 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:18.400 --> 0:00:21.279 and how the tech are you now? I hope all 0:00:21.280 --> 0:00:24.480 of you out there who observed the winter holidays had 0:00:24.520 --> 0:00:28.320 a wonderful time with loved ones. Recently, we are back 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:32.519 to continue our wrap up on the big tech news 0:00:32.560 --> 0:00:36.559 stories of twenty two. So last week we had a 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:41.000 ton of major stories from the Elon Musk slash Twitter 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:45.559 drama that's still playing out right now. That included some 0:00:45.640 --> 0:00:48.800 of the fallout of how that has affected Tesla that's 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:52.320 also continuing. I think the last time I covered it, 0:00:53.120 --> 0:00:56.560 the stock price for Tesla was somewhere around maybe one fifty, 0:00:56.720 --> 0:01:00.720 maybe one thirty. Now it's like one twelve, So yeah, 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:05.920 Tesla's stock is still kind of well, seriously struggling. We 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:10.119 also talked about Meta's very bad twenty two. We also 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:12.600 talked about how regulators and governments around the world are 0:01:12.640 --> 0:01:15.200 starting to push back against big tech. But believe it 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:18.080 or not, we still have some more important stories from 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:22.039 last year to look back on, including some that include 0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:27.399 the most dreadful of all words politics. Now, for those 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:29.800 of y'all who listened to Tech Stuff regularly, you know 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:33.760 I don't exactly shy away from expressing my own opinion 0:01:34.160 --> 0:01:37.080 in these episodes. But in this case, I'm really just 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:41.200 playing on reporting how politics and tech intersected or at 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:44.600 times came into conflict over the last year. So this 0:01:44.680 --> 0:01:48.480 isn't so much about Jonathan showing his left leaning perspective. 0:01:49.040 --> 0:01:51.560 It's really about talking about how politics and tech had 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:55.440 a big year in two. Before I really get into it, 0:01:56.160 --> 0:01:59.520 I do want to say that I occasionally get messages 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:02.880 asking that I just focus on tech and leave all 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:06.360 the politics stuff out. And y'all, I understand we hear 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:09.560 a lot about politics in our daily lives. It can 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:14.600 get overwhelming and exhausting or at times infuriating or depressing, 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:17.440 or a mixture of all of these things. But the 0:02:17.480 --> 0:02:22.279 problem is is that tech is shaping politics, and politics 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:28.360 in turn shapes technology. And if you ignore contextual factors 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:33.280 while you talk about technology, stuff quickly stops making any 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:36.119 sort of sense because you end up saying something like, well, 0:02:36.160 --> 0:02:40.600 then company X stopped doing it that way, and you 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:43.799 can't really explain the reasons for any sort of changes. 0:02:43.840 --> 0:02:47.280 That were made because those changes came from political pressures 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:50.560 or what have you, and you're leaving politics out of it. 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:55.120 If tech existed in a perfect vacuum, then we could 0:02:55.160 --> 0:02:57.560 just talk about the tech itself. We could be objective, 0:02:58.160 --> 0:03:00.320 just look at the tech, how it works, whether it 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:03.160 works well, all that kind of stuff. But that's not 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:06.240 the way the world works. If you have a space 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:09.160 that has two or more people in it, congratulations, you 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:12.480 got yourself some politics and going on. Now, I think 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:15.560 it would be crass of me to label any story 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:18.799 as being the biggest story in this category in two 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:21.920 because if you do that, then you're immediately suggesting that 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:26.000 people who were involved in other massive political text stories 0:03:26.040 --> 0:03:29.360 in the year weren't as important, and that that just 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:34.280 seems wrong to me. But one story that has had 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:38.440 and continues to have a massive impact on the technology 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:41.480 sector as well as lots of other areas is the 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:46.040 War in Ukraine when Russia invaded Ukraine in late February 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:50.400 of this year. Now, to dive into what prompted this 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:54.440 invasion would require a thorough series of episodes from a 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:58.560 history podcast, not a tech show, and you know that's 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:01.600 not what you tune into tech stuff war, So I'm 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:05.080 not going to dive into the full backstory of how 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:07.640 we got into this, and to be clear, if I did, 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:10.720 I would need to do some very substantial research on 0:04:10.760 --> 0:04:13.360 the matter myself, because I really only have a kind 0:04:13.360 --> 0:04:16.359 of surface level understanding of it, and I would do 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:22.760 a terrible job at setting that story. So I can 0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:28.479 talk about the war's effect on technology and text effect 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:31.400 on the war, there's a lot of ground to cover there. 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:35.520 So first off, Ukraine has a hefty software development industry 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:38.640 inside of it, and much of that work was able 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:41.080 to continue through at least the early months of the 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:45.279 war without too much interruption. In fact, in July of 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:48.719 this year, in Cube reported that only two percent of 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:52.800 I T companies in Ukraine had to discontinue operations and 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:56.200 around eight of I T companies were still closing new 0:04:56.320 --> 0:05:00.559 deals while the war was going on. So that's pretty 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:06.919 impressive that the whole industry could continue largely uninterrupted, at 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:09.520 least in the early stages of the war. As for 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:12.160 where they are right now, that's a great question, and 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:16.400 I could not find reliable data while I was researching 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:20.159 this episode to see where things stand now, because clearly 0:05:20.440 --> 0:05:23.720 you know that that conflict has continued over the following months, 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:27.839 but yeah, it was impressive to see that the software 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:33.359 industry managed to continue on in the face of Russia's invasion. 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:39.520 That work was made possible partly by Starlink. So this 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:43.640 is the division of SpaceX that's known for providing satellite 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:48.560 based Internet service. So you have ground stations or terminals 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:52.960 that have an antenna, and this antenna can track satellites 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:57.360 that are moving overhead and establish Internet communications. There's a 0:05:57.360 --> 0:05:59.960 little bit of latency because the signals have to try 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:03.880 hold back and forth between the satellites and various ground stations, 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:07.800 but having this meant that many areas of Ukraine have 0:06:07.880 --> 0:06:11.880 been able to maintain Internet connectivity and thus a communications 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:15.960 network in a time when Russian forces are consistently targeting 0:06:16.080 --> 0:06:21.680 Ukrainian infrastructure. So it made a huge difference. And this 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:28.040 wasn't some spontaneous act of charity that Starlink had on 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:32.599 behalf of Ukraine. SpaceX had been in negotiations for almost 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:35.760 two months with Ukraine before the Russian invasion even happened. 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:41.600 Those negotiations were still unfolding when on February two, Russia 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:46.400 did in fact invade Ukraine. Two days later, Mikhailo Fedorov, 0:06:46.960 --> 0:06:52.279 Ukraine's Minister of Digital Transformation, tweeted to Elon Musk, who 0:06:52.360 --> 0:06:56.039 at that point was not yet publicly pursuing Twitter. He 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:58.400 had been buying up Twitter stock, but no one really 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:02.760 knew about it yet, and Federov asked Elon Musk if 0:07:02.800 --> 0:07:05.800 Starlink could provide assistance and serve as sort of a 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:11.640 communication lifeline for Ukraine, And immediately Elon Musk said absolutely, 0:07:11.720 --> 0:07:14.800 and the satellite network above Ukraine went into active service, 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:20.000 and SpaceX shipped thousands of terminals to Ukraine just a 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:22.560 couple of days later, so by the end of February 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:28.280 there were already these these SpaceX designed terminals heading to 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:33.120 Ukraine to establish communications. Now this also wasn't strictly a 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:37.560 show of solidarity and charity. According to reports, SpaceX has 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:41.640 been receiving money from the governments of Poland, the UK, 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:46.320 and the United States to provide these kinds of pieces 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:49.200 of equipment. The US government has said it has paid 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:52.960 to send terminals to Ukraine, but that SpaceX itself was 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:58.120 handling the service. In October, service for around thirteen hundred 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:02.320 terminals in Ukraine opt and the problem was not a 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:07.760 technical one. Apparently, instead it was a lack of funding. Now, 0:08:07.840 --> 0:08:11.200 SpaceX had previously sent a message to the Pentagon here 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:14.440 in the United States asking the Department of Defense to 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:18.640 foot the internet bill for Ukraine. But you know, it's 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:21.680 a pretty bad pr move for a company to stop 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:25.280 providing service to people who are actively under siege from 0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:29.640 an oppressive military force. And I suppose even Elon Musk 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:33.240 recognized that. So he refers to his company's position and 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:37.600 said SpaceX would provide the service while withdrawing its requests 0:08:37.679 --> 0:08:40.920 for funding, though reportedly the company is still you know, 0:08:41.000 --> 0:08:45.720 negotiating with the US government for funding. The Starlink story 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:50.040 illustrates the analogy of the double edged sword. So on 0:08:50.040 --> 0:08:54.040 one side, you've got a vital communications service that has 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:57.800 allowed the people of Ukraine and the Ukrainian military to 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:01.319 maintain a communications network while finning off attacks from Russia. 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:06.520 That is clearly a vital service for the people of Ukraine. 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:10.679 On the other side, the other edge, we see a 0:09:10.800 --> 0:09:16.360 shift of countries depending not upon allies as much as 0:09:16.400 --> 0:09:21.320 they are on large businesses. In fact, Starlink's involvement has 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:24.000 been one part of a larger picture in which we've 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:27.040 seen for profit companies playing a vital part in how 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:33.040 a conflict unfolds. These companies are effectively taking sides, where 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:36.880 in the past companies at least attempted to maintain a 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:40.800 kind of neutral stance because they figured that that was 0:09:41.480 --> 0:09:44.560 probably the best thing for business. Now we're starting to 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:48.400 see that shift where companies will take a side. That's 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:52.280 making some folks a little nervous because these companies might 0:09:52.320 --> 0:09:56.320 not answer to anyone while making these decisions. Now, obviously 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:59.640 there are notable exceptions, like if a country or group 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:04.200 of kind trees level sanctions against another nation, then even 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:07.400 large companies aren't likely to violate that, at least not yet. 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:11.920 So it's not in every case where these companies are 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:15.480 just acting totally on their own, lone wolf style, but 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:19.080 they are able to make these kind of decisions, you know, 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:22.560 on their own without the direction of governments. And that's 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:27.080 made a few people nervous because we've had plenty of, say, 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:29.800 science fiction stories that suggests that in the future of 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:32.280 the world is going to be run not by governments, 0:10:32.280 --> 0:10:36.400 whether those are authoritarian or democratically elected or whatever, but 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:40.480 rather by corporations. In fact, it is a trope in 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:43.640 certain types of science fiction. At this point, you can 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:49.760 see stuff like Blade Runner, Snow Crash, Jennifer Government, Broken Angels, 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:53.720 the Space Merchants. There's a huge list of science fiction 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:58.480 movies and novels and stories that follow this kind of storytelling. 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:04.439 Generally speaking, businesses first and sometimes only concern is delivering 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:08.240 value to stakeholders, whether that's a private business or a 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:12.679 publicly traded one. And yeah, delivering value might mean putting 0:11:12.720 --> 0:11:17.840 out a really good service or product, but that's almost secondary, right, Like, 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:21.960 that's the way you get value for your stakeholders. It's 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:26.200 not that you're really really dedicated to making the world's 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:28.719 best thing of a jig. It's that by making the 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:31.880 world's best thing of a jig, you end up providing 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:36.040 an incredible value to your stakeholders. That's sort of the 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:39.120 fear here, and and to be fair, that is like 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:44.240 oversimplifying matters dramatically. And there are plenty of companies out 0:11:44.240 --> 0:11:48.560 there that really do take serious pride in providing the 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:51.800 best of the best that they can, right, and not 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:56.240 just a cynical approach of here's how we make our 0:11:56.280 --> 0:12:03.559 stakeholders richer. Anyway, corporate value you it's not necessarily equate 0:12:03.600 --> 0:12:09.200 to societal value, and that's where there's some unease around this. Also, 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:13.240 the fact that Starlink shut off service even temporarily for 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:18.440 those terminals in Ukraine painted a pretty scary picture for 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:21.800 a company just to decide to stop service for whatever 0:12:21.880 --> 0:12:26.160 reason that could lead to life or death situations in 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:28.559 certain parts of the world. Now, we've seen this sort 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:32.120 of thing happen due to government's cracking down on services 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:34.960 in an effort to stop citizens from being able to organize. Like, 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:40.520 that's something we've seen for a while. Right If government says, oh, 0:12:40.679 --> 0:12:43.000 we see a danger here because people are starting to 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:47.640 use Twitter to organize resistance, then they'll crack down on Twitter. 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:50.280 That's something we've seen in the past. But to see 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:52.439 it from the corporate end, where a company could just say, 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:55.520 you know what, we're just gonna turn off service here, uh, 0:12:55.679 --> 0:13:00.000 that is a little different. Anyway, Starlink continues to provide 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:04.880 EID services in Ukraine, and numerous Ukrainian officials have praised 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:08.480 Starlink and the service, pointing out that the country would 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:13.160 have significantly more struggles without that lifeline, and that connectivity 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:18.800 has contributed to important Ukrainian military operations, including drone missions. 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:22.600 So I don't want to dismiss Starlink's important role in 0:13:22.640 --> 0:13:27.120 this ongoing conflict, but rather, you know, taking the big picture, look, 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:31.440 other stuff that happened created a sort of secondary struggle. 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:33.920 I almost said a war, but I don't want in 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:37.240 any way to diminish the horrors of the actual war 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:41.080 going on in Eastern Europe. But for example, social networks 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:45.720 began to shift a bit in favor of Ukraine. So Facebook, TikTok, 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:50.480 and YouTube began blocking Russia's government connected communication accounts. This 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:53.040 followed a move in the EU to ban those Russian 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:56.400 media and news organizations in an effort to shut down 0:13:56.480 --> 0:14:00.600 propaganda and misinformation efforts. Meta also began to take down 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:03.400 networks of accounts that the company said we're part of 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:07.840 such misinformation campaigns. In addition, Meta allowed posts that were 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:12.920 calling for violence against Russia itself on Facebook. That was 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:15.959 quite unusual, right. That was one of those things where 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:20.880 this was a controversial call because normally the policy is 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:24.400 you can't call for violence, that is just that's against 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:27.440 the rules. But in this case where people were saying, no, 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:31.800 we're trying to organize resistance to an invasion, that's threatening 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:35.520 people's lives. Meta made the call of allowing those posts 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:40.080 to stay up on Facebook. Russia's response was to start 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:44.360 to ban various services within the country. They labeled Facebook 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:49.080 and then later Instagram as extremist corporations, and so this 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:53.760 was a back and forth issue. Okay, we've got some 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:56.400 more to talk about with the Ukraine War and then 0:14:56.480 --> 0:15:01.120 some other issues around the world where tech politics came 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:05.760 into conflict with one another. But first let's take a 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:20.160 quick break. Okay, we're back. So we were talking about 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:23.120 Starlink and a little bit about social networks like Meta 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:27.480 and their role within the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:32.240 There were other parts of tech that were active in 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:36.920 an effort to help Ukrainians. So, for example, Google shut 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:41.480 down live services and Google Maps in parts of Ukraine. Now, 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:45.720 at first that might sound like Google was acting against Ukraine, 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:48.960 but that wasn't the case. Instead, they were removing real 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:52.200 time traffic information so that Russian forces wouldn't be able 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:56.560 to use services to identify where Ukrainian resistance happened to 0:15:56.560 --> 0:15:59.960 be at any given time. So really this was Google's 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:03.920 a chance to help provide a little smoke cover for 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:10.760 Ukrainian forces essentially in a digital way. Companies like Microsoft, Oracle, Apple, 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:14.760 uh and Nvidia, Samsung and lots of others in the 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:19.400 tech space effectively pulled out of Russia, shutting down their offices, 0:16:19.640 --> 0:16:22.800 some of which Russian authorities ended up seizing and then 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:26.080 handing over to people to to create, you know, a 0:16:26.160 --> 0:16:29.920 Russian company using whatever assets were left behind. The departure 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:32.400 of so many tech companies dealt a major blow to 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:37.720 Russia's efforts to continue to develop AI solutions their speculation 0:16:37.800 --> 0:16:40.360 that that is going to have a lasting impact on 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:43.160 the country for the mid to long term. On top 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:45.800 of that, many countries, including the United States, have placed 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:49.400 tons of sanctions on Russia that really limit the types 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:53.320 of technologies that companies are allowed to export to Russia. 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:56.720 So now Russia's getting a real shortage of some of 0:16:56.720 --> 0:17:02.400 these high tech components. Russi also experienced an outflow of 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:07.680 skill and expertise and knowledge. Reportedly, thousands of tech professionals 0:17:08.119 --> 0:17:10.960 left Russia to go work in other parts of the world. 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:16.640 Russia has since attempted to create incentives to inspire tech 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:19.960 professionals to stay in the country. Also, reportedly, a few 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:23.920 of them have returned to Russia, possibly because they were 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:27.240 failing to find gainful employment elsewhere, so they really had 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:31.119 no other options. But yeah, that's another part of this 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:36.960 story where Russia is potentially doing long term damage to 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:42.840 its technological innovation and evolution through these actions in Ukraine. 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:48.000 It has become clear that the future of conflict, the 0:17:48.040 --> 0:17:52.040 future of war will likely involve tech companies making decisions 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:56.800 that impact outcomes. As we continue to see with the 0:17:56.920 --> 0:18:01.520 Ukraine war, tech companies can have and a real influence 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:04.600 on how day to day operations progress. Now we're not 0:18:04.800 --> 0:18:10.159 at the point where some company somewhere, like some boardroom 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:13.280 executive decides who wins or who loses an a war. 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:16.920 It's not like that. But we're certainly seeing how companies 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:20.960 can provide or deny aid in meaningful ways and make 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:24.920 decisions to side with one side over another. And again 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:27.840 it shows how tech companies are playing a role that 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:31.240 traditionally we would just think of as kind of the 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:34.480 the purview of governments. Right that we would think of 0:18:34.520 --> 0:18:39.399 governments either leveling sanctions or having some other form of 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:44.720 um punishment for a country that appears to have violated 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:47.800 international law. That kind of stuff. Now we're seeing tech 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:50.240 companies take it upon themselves to make some of these 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:54.720 moves without necessarily being directed by any kind of government authority, 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:58.840 and that I think is the overall theme that we 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:02.160 saw in two. That's starting to make some people nervous 0:19:02.520 --> 0:19:04.960 because while that is good, while we can see or 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:07.600 it potentially is good. It's potentially good that a company 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:12.920 can step in and perhaps provide help when a government 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:16.600 either is too slow or unable to do so. That 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:20.919 could be inspiring. But then you flip that situation and 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:24.600 you could quickly get to a scenario where a company 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:28.880 is effectively holding a country hostage, right kind of like 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:32.480 with the starlink example when those uh, those terminals went 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:37.359 dead for a little while. That is another possibility, and 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:40.840 it's made some people really start to question things again, 0:19:40.920 --> 0:19:45.200 mostly questioning how big is big text grasp and should 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:50.360 it be restricted. We've seen some governments respond to this. 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:53.240 I mentioned in an earlier episode that Russia has really 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:58.000 cracked down on VPN services for its citizens in a 0:19:58.040 --> 0:20:00.440 way to kind of strike back or at least to 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:03.320 keep a lid on things. So a VPN, in case 0:20:03.320 --> 0:20:06.399 you're not familiar, is a virtual private network and for 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:08.280 those of you all who haven't really used one or 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:10.879 no much about them, I'll give you a very simple 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:14.359 explanation of what they are. So when you use your 0:20:14.400 --> 0:20:18.240 computer and you log into a VPN, the VPN essentially 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:22.240 becomes a data channel for you. Anything that you access online. 0:20:22.280 --> 0:20:24.200 Let's say you're on a browser and you want to 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:27.600 go to a website, Well ends up being masked because 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:30.480 it's actually the VPN that does all the visiting of 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:33.320 the site and then funnels the information to you. So 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:37.919 let's say you're logged into vpn X and vpn X 0:20:38.000 --> 0:20:40.600 is based in some other country, it's not where you are, 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:43.600 and you choose to visit a news website. Well, the 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:45.920 news website will see that the request is coming from 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:50.720 vpn X. They won't see that ultimately that request comes 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:53.040 from you. They just see that, oh, vpn X is 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:55.720 asking for this web page, let's send it to them. 0:20:56.119 --> 0:20:58.439 So it sends the data to vpn X, and vpn 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:01.880 X then sends that data to you. So VPNs can 0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:04.520 have a lot of valuable benefits. At one is that 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:08.120 they can help you maintain privacy. So if someone snooping 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:12.399 on your connection, they would see that you were communicating 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:15.520 with a VPN, but they wouldn't see where you were going. 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:18.639 Beyond that, assuming that everything is encrypted, they would not 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:21.920 see that you were trying to use VPN to visit 0:21:22.000 --> 0:21:24.399 that news site, for example. They would just see that 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:28.200 you were connected to the VPN. Conversely, if they were 0:21:28.200 --> 0:21:31.040 looking at the VPN and the traffic that the VPN 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:33.720 or the sites of the VPN was visiting, they would 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:36.040 see that all the different sites of VPN was visiting, 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:37.760 but they wouldn't be able to say who went to 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:42.159 what site. So it helps mask your pri or it 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:44.280 helps keep things private for you. That's one of the 0:21:44.280 --> 0:21:48.080 big benefits right now. Using a VPN can slow stuff 0:21:48.080 --> 0:21:50.840 down a little bit, but that's a trade off if 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:53.520 you want to have your communications better protected. By the way, 0:21:53.560 --> 0:21:56.240 if you ever do use any kind of public WiFi, 0:21:56.760 --> 0:22:00.080 I highly recommend that you subscribe to a vp in 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:03.880 and you use a vp N. It's not a perfect, 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:08.000 bulletproof type of protection for you, but it goes a 0:22:08.040 --> 0:22:12.840 long way to helping keep your data safe. Um again, 0:22:13.440 --> 0:22:18.640 not a perfect solution, but every little layer of protection 0:22:18.720 --> 0:22:22.359 is is a good one. So another benefit for the 0:22:22.680 --> 0:22:25.240 VPNs is that if you log into a VPN that's 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:29.400 in another country, you can sometimes access stuff that otherwise 0:22:29.400 --> 0:22:33.320 would be off limits to you. So, for example, let's 0:22:33.320 --> 0:22:37.359 say that you were a UK citizen and you moved 0:22:37.520 --> 0:22:40.080 to the United States, but you would still like to 0:22:40.080 --> 0:22:42.560 be able to watch some UK programming that's just not 0:22:42.640 --> 0:22:47.080 available here in the States. Uh, maybe the platform carrying 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:49.720 that programming has region locks on it. So let's say 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:51.919 that you know, you go to a website, let's say 0:22:51.960 --> 0:22:54.000 it's one of the BBC websites. You go to a 0:22:54.040 --> 0:22:56.600 BBC website, and you want to watch this one program 0:22:56.640 --> 0:22:59.880 that runs on BBC. But when you try and play 0:22:59.880 --> 0:23:01.879 it here in the States, you get a message that 0:23:01.920 --> 0:23:03.960 says something along the lines of we're sorry, but the 0:23:03.960 --> 0:23:07.119 programming you're trying to access isn't available in your area 0:23:07.400 --> 0:23:12.760 or your region. Well, logging into a VPN that is 0:23:12.840 --> 0:23:17.080 located within the UK can potentially help you sidestep this 0:23:17.480 --> 0:23:24.040 region lock. Now, generally speaking, I'm against doing this personally 0:23:24.359 --> 0:23:26.920 here in the United States. I am not in favor 0:23:27.280 --> 0:23:31.119 of doing it for myself. For one thing, we have 0:23:31.200 --> 0:23:34.720 access to so much stuff that it starts to feel 0:23:34.760 --> 0:23:38.719 a bit selfish to ask for even more. But there 0:23:38.760 --> 0:23:41.160 are parts of the world where governments restrict a lot 0:23:41.160 --> 0:23:44.639 of what citizens can see, and there I think VPNs 0:23:44.680 --> 0:23:48.040 provide a critical service. It gives people a chance to 0:23:48.600 --> 0:23:52.479 get past those government restrictions and see what's going on 0:23:52.520 --> 0:23:56.320 in the world. Well, that's exactly why the Russian government 0:23:56.320 --> 0:23:58.640 really started to crack down on VPNs and has been 0:23:58.680 --> 0:24:01.840 for a couple of years now. So Russian citizens could 0:24:01.880 --> 0:24:04.520 subscribe to VPN services for a while and they could 0:24:04.520 --> 0:24:07.639 get access to information that the Russian government objected to. 0:24:08.160 --> 0:24:12.879 It did not go in line with the official Russian communications. 0:24:12.920 --> 0:24:16.000 So over the last couple of years, many VPN services 0:24:16.040 --> 0:24:20.480 have been banned within Russia. Even Russia's own Kaspersky Labs 0:24:20.560 --> 0:24:22.760 has announced that it is no longer going to offer 0:24:22.840 --> 0:24:27.439 VPN services within Russia, presumably because government pressure is so 0:24:27.520 --> 0:24:29.919 great that it just doesn't make sense to try and 0:24:30.000 --> 0:24:34.520 operate VPN as a business there. Russia is not the 0:24:34.600 --> 0:24:39.840 only country to have cracked down on VPNs. In two Iran, India, 0:24:39.920 --> 0:24:44.400 and Myanmar similarly have tried to restrict access to these 0:24:44.480 --> 0:24:47.320 kinds of services in an effort to control the information 0:24:47.400 --> 0:24:51.119 that citizens can access. In some of these countries, it 0:24:51.240 --> 0:24:55.360 is illegal to post or share any messaging that criticizes 0:24:55.400 --> 0:24:59.240 the government or contradicts the government's official stance on any 0:24:59.280 --> 0:25:05.200 given top. So again we see this ongoing battle between governments, 0:25:05.240 --> 0:25:10.880 particularly more authoritarian governments, and tech companies. Now, often these 0:25:10.920 --> 0:25:15.760 crackdowns on tech coincide with authoritarian governments doing authoritarian things 0:25:15.800 --> 0:25:20.760 go figure, you know, like ignoring or manipulating elections, or 0:25:20.800 --> 0:25:24.560 removing or restricting citizen rights, that kind of thing. One 0:25:24.560 --> 0:25:27.440 of the truly powerful things tech has ever done over 0:25:27.480 --> 0:25:31.320 the years is given people more accessibility to information and 0:25:31.359 --> 0:25:35.359 for the chance to communicate, and thus potentially leading to 0:25:35.480 --> 0:25:41.000 things like organization, like citizens banding together to oppose an 0:25:41.000 --> 0:25:43.760 oppressive government. That's the kind of thing that is very 0:25:43.840 --> 0:25:47.520 dangerous for authoritarian regimes, which depend heavily on controlling people, 0:25:48.240 --> 0:25:51.359 and that comes hand in hand with controlling information and 0:25:51.440 --> 0:25:56.640 access to various services. Now, sometimes tech companies will still 0:25:56.640 --> 0:26:00.600 try to operate in these regions. They might say that 0:26:00.840 --> 0:26:03.359 they do so in an effort to provide resources to 0:26:03.440 --> 0:26:06.280