WEBVTT - The Top Tech Stories of 2018 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:13.640 stuff Works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:16.319 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:18.320 How Stuff Works and my Heart Radio and I love 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:22.000 all things tech. And it is that time of the year, 0:00:22.560 --> 0:00:26.160 the time when I cover the big tech news stories 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:29.840 from the previous twelve months and talk about some of 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:33.159 the most important developments in the tech industry over the 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:36.640 course of the year. So we're looking back on and 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:39.680 some of the big stories. I am not going month 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:43.320 by month. Sometimes I do that. Sometimes I will look 0:00:43.360 --> 0:00:46.720 over a year and go through it chronologically. Instead, I 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:51.720 decided to kind of group things thematically. So this first section, 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:54.040 I'm going to focus on some of the biggest news 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:59.160 stories um especially around the big, big companies that we 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.800 are all familiar you're with, And I can't think of 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:09.200 any place more appropriate to start than how Facebook's eighteen unfolded. 0:01:09.280 --> 0:01:13.840 It was a particularly tumultuous year for Facebook, and then 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:15.880 I have a feeling that twenty nineteen is not going 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:19.120 to be a whole lot easier. Anyway. I've covered a 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:21.680 lot of the stories about this in episodes of tech 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:25.480 Stuff over but I want to sum up some of 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:28.119 the things that the company has experienced over these last 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:33.520 twelve months, because they've been pretty spectacular. In March, the 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:38.000 Guardian and The New York Times published pieces that exposed 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:42.120 the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and that was the scandal in 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.120 which it was revealed a political marketing and consulting firm, 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:49.760 Cambridge Analytica, based in the UK, had apparently taken advantage 0:01:49.760 --> 0:01:53.440 of a design flaw that had existed in Facebook several 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:56.880 years ago. Is way back in when this design flaw, 0:01:57.040 --> 0:01:59.360 or this this policy, it wasn't even a design flaw 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:02.280 so much as it was just sort of a lack 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:06.440 of accountability was in place back then. If you were 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:10.680 creating apps for Facebook, you could build into your app 0:02:11.280 --> 0:02:14.600 a point where the person installing the app would essentially 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:17.800 give permission for you to view all sorts of information 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:20.359 not just about the person who was installing the app, 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:26.200 but possibly access to all of their friends. So think 0:02:26.240 --> 0:02:29.600 of it like if you befriend someone on Facebook and 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:32.560 they're friends with somebody else, but you were not friends 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:35.079 with that third person. You might be able to follow 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:37.400 the links back and take a look at that third 0:02:37.440 --> 0:02:41.640 person's profile and if they haven't said it to private. 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:43.960 If they have public information, you can find out a 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:47.680 lot about this stranger, this person you only uh, you 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:50.000 don't know that one. You just happen to have a 0:02:50.000 --> 0:02:55.400 common friend. Well, the app in question, which was called 0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:59.440 you know, a Digital Life app that what it was 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:02.560 doing the same thing, and Cambridge Analytica was able to 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:06.560 harvest data from this app. They leveraged it. It's actually 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:09.120 called This is Your Digital Life. That was the name 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:10.680 of the app, and it was a survey. And not 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:12.919 only that, but it was a survey where you could 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:15.400 be paid for filling up the survey, so people had 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:19.280 an incentive to participate in it, and it generated this 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:23.680 enormous amount of data that originally Facebook assumed was going 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:26.919 to be around fifty million people or so that would 0:03:26.960 --> 0:03:29.119 be affected. As it turned out it would be more 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:33.240 than eighty seven million people would They would revise this 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:37.080 estimation later on, And so that was a pretty ugly scandal, 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:42.640 mostly about user privacy and security and also a little 0:03:42.640 --> 0:03:45.800 bit about election interference, although really it was privacy and 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:49.440 security over everything else at that point. The reports prompted 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:52.400 the Federal Trade Commission in the United States to open 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:57.200 an investigation into Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg would eventually appear in 0:03:57.240 --> 0:03:59.960 front of Congress a couple of times to answer quest 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:02.640 gens about this scandal, and one of the things that 0:04:02.680 --> 0:04:05.800 came out of those hearings was the possibility that perhaps 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:10.320 social platforms like Facebook should fall under some sort of 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:13.960 official regulation policy, that the government should be able to 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:18.279 regulate these sort of things. Also, while this story exploded 0:04:18.320 --> 0:04:21.240 in I should point out this was not the first 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:25.560 time that journalists had discovered evidence of something hinky going on. 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:29.039 There are articles way back in about it, but it 0:04:29.080 --> 0:04:33.440 wasn't until eighteen that it really got traction. That was 0:04:33.480 --> 0:04:36.920 when a former Cambridge Analytica employee came forward and gave 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:39.679 a lot more information about what was going on inside 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:41.920 the company, and that's when it really blew the doors 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:47.360 open coming into Facebook was already neck deep in scandal 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:51.839 since before the election. The company has had to deal 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:56.359 with fake accounts that were taking advantage of how Facebook 0:04:56.400 --> 0:05:00.400 works to to post propaganda masquerading is real news. They 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:05.960 were they understood how Facebook's algorithm would favor certain types 0:05:06.040 --> 0:05:10.040 of content over others, largely through engagement. If you get 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:11.960 a post that has a lot of likes, there are 0:05:11.960 --> 0:05:13.880 a lot of comments, a lot of people are sharing it. 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:18.479 That post ends up showing up more frequently in various 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:24.440 people's news feeds because Facebook's algorithm assumes, oh, this post 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:27.680 must be important because a lot of people are active 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:30.080 on it. Therefore, I'm going to show it to more 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:33.120 people because I'm sure more people will be interested in it. 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:37.719 This is from a very high level perspective. Well, knowing 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:41.839 that that's how Facebook's algorithm works means that you could 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:46.599 engineer content specifically to try and bring about the situation 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:53.160 that leads to the sort of viral uh uh posts 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:57.840 you know, shared across millions of different profiles. And as 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:00.960 it turns out, the goal was not just to get shared, 0:06:01.000 --> 0:06:04.080 but to try and influence the outcome of the election. 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:06.760 So Facebook was already dealing with that, and that story 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:13.200 continued to unfold throughout. Less scandalous, but still an important 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:16.320 story is how Facebook would change its algorithms so that 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:20.080 Facebook pages, that is, the pages that are run by 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:24.800 like organizations, businesses, personalities, not not someone's personal page but 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:31.320 a page representing something are getting less engagement. Now, this 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:36.080 is Facebook's attempt to make the experience of using Facebook 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:39.960 more centered around your family and friends that you're seeing 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:44.159 more of their posts and fewer posts from businesses and 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:48.839 organizations that are trying to connect with a community or 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:52.239 a group of customers or whatever. So you can understand 0:06:52.240 --> 0:06:56.280 where Facebook's coming from. However, for any business that was 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:59.800 at least partly dependent upon Facebook to create a connection 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:03.360 with customers or a community, it became a huge problem. 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:07.039 Suddenly their engagement starts to drop down, their businesses start 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:10.520 to lose momentum, and they're scrambling to find an alternative. 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:13.600 Now you could say this is yet another point of 0:07:13.600 --> 0:07:16.760 evidence that strengthens that argument of don't put all your 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:20.040 eggs in one basket. In other words, if you are 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:24.760 a business, don't count on someone else's platform to be 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:28.920 your platform for success, whether that happens to be Facebook 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:32.160 or YouTube or anything else. You should build a presence 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:38.440 that is independent of those so that when these other 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:42.360 platforms change, you are not thrown into the lurch as 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:45.040 a result because you put it all in on that one. 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:48.240 But on the other hand, Facebook was still taking money 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:52.320 from businesses to promote pages even when the impressions were 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:55.680 on the decline, so that was a problem. Then there 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:58.600 are the properties that Facebook owns, and the story is 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:04.280 going around with oos like WhatsApp. WhatsApp is the messaging 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:07.560 service that Facebook purchased way back in It was a 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:10.240 big story then because of how much money Facebook paid 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:13.080 for it, and people in the United States are not 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:16.640 terribly familiar with WhatsApp. There are people in the US 0:08:16.680 --> 0:08:19.200 who use it, some of you out there may be 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:23.120 using it, and you might be US citizens, particularly people 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:25.760 who travel internationally, they tend to use it, but really 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:28.760 it's much more popular outside the US than it is 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:34.839 in the US. Anyway, in news broke out that people 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:39.160 in Brazil were using WhatsApp to spread misinformation and polarized 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:43.800 messaging in the lead up to a contentious election in Brazil, 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:47.079 which sounds pretty familiar. I mean, essentially the same thing 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:50.480 was happening in the United States two years previously with 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:54.319 Facebook in general and Twitter and several other social platforms. 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:58.320 So that was another terrible story that's still unfolding as 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:02.520 we record this podcast. Then there's also the story about 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:07.480 Instagram and its founders, and Instagram founders Kevin Systrom and 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:11.800 Mike Kreeger both resigned from Facebook. The reasons were not 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:15.480 spelled out plainly, why they decided to leave, but the 0:09:15.520 --> 0:09:19.440 general consensus is that they were becoming exasperated by the 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:22.920 way Facebook was interfering with how Instagram was running, and 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:28.240 they were taking features that Instagram was developing specifically for 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:31.960 Instagram and then using those to incorporate them into Facebook 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:36.960 or Facebook Messenger. Now. On Facebook first acquired Instagram, the 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:39.760 thought was that they were not going to interfere at all. 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:43.320 They were going to allow Instagram to continue to operate independently, 0:09:43.760 --> 0:09:47.040 and it sounds like that didn't happen. So the founders 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:50.400 decided that they wanted to get out. And a lot 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:53.920 more happened with Facebook, but those were the really big 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:56.120 points I wanted to touch on, and I don't want 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:59.280 to make this just an episode about what Facebook went 0:09:59.280 --> 0:10:01.040 through in twenty team, so I'm going to move on 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:04.240 to some other stories. Um. There were other companies that 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:08.360 also had to weather controversy. In Twitter had its share 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:13.360 and continues to from troll accounts, fake accounts, bought accounts. 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:17.720 Jack Dorsey would attend a congressional hearing about whether regulation 0:10:17.760 --> 0:10:21.199 and moderation of online content was something that needed more attention. 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:24.800 Topics ranged from the fake accounts to Russian interference in 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:28.400 US political events, and whether or not Twitter was suppressing 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:33.240 conservative voices online. Dorsey would also come under scrutiny in 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:37.600 December for personal reasons. He went to Myanmar and he 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:40.720 tweeted about it, and he called it a beautiful country. Meanwhile, 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:47.200 at the same time, there is a global uh campaign. 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:53.080 United Nations is focusing on Myanmar because it's military is 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:57.480 carrying out a campaign of genocide against a minority Muslim 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:02.400 population within the country. So there's Dorsey saying Myanmar, it's 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:05.160 a beautiful country. Meanwhile, the rest of the world is 0:11:05.240 --> 0:11:09.520 looking at Myanmar and these atrocities that are taking place, 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:14.480 and so people said, at best, Dorsey's tweets were tone deaf. 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:17.840 His response was that he needed to learn more about Myanmar, 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:23.040 probably before posting about it. Meanwhile, Evan Williams, who is 0:11:23.080 --> 0:11:27.040 a co founder of Twitter, was quietly selling off a 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:30.480 lot of his ownership of Twitter throughout the second half 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:35.080 of ten and it would amount to nearly half of 0:11:35.240 --> 0:11:39.920 his ownership steak. So essentially, you know, he has all 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:43.480 these different shares in Twitter, he sells off almost half 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:46.960 of them by the second half of which has led 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:50.480 to some speculation that perhaps Twitter has officially passed its peak, 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:53.840 and it's now on the decline, and eventually it will 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:58.719 head towards obsolescence. That's one interpretation. Another is just that 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:02.320 he might want to versify his portfolio, so you could 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:05.320 say financial coverage is even more vague than tech coverage 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:10.080 HAZA for that. Then there's Google, and that company has 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:12.839 also had its own share of issues to deal with 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:18.560 throughout It too came under scrutiny and the various congressional hearings. 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:22.560 Google was invited to participate, but declined to send anyone 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:25.480 to meet with Congress, while Facebook and Twitter would send 0:12:25.480 --> 0:12:30.360 their top brass to d C. In December, Google CEO 0:12:30.679 --> 0:12:34.000 Sundar Picha, I did meet with Congress, and this was 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:37.400 to talk about political bias and search results. If you 0:12:37.440 --> 0:12:40.360 followed those hearings, you might have been rolling your eyes 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:45.200 pretty hard because it got a little silly. Representatives of 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:48.040 Congress were asking if Google was shaping the public perception 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:52.400 of various topics through search results. In other words, they 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:56.880 were maybe guiding search results in order to send a 0:12:56.960 --> 0:13:00.160 specific message to people when they started searching for things. 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:04.920 Um So, for example, they showed that if you searched 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:08.599 the word idiot, and you did an image search, it 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:11.000 would bring up pictures of Donald Trump, and they said, 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:13.480 is this your commentary? Are you calling the President of 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:16.920 the United States an idiot? Now? PA's response was said 0:13:17.520 --> 0:13:20.800 that these search results were a reflection of the public discourse. 0:13:20.920 --> 0:13:24.679 This is reflecting what's going on in the world. It's 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:27.480 giving people what they're asking for. It is not an 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:31.680 attempt to guide the discourse, but rather, here's what people 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:35.840 are saying. So it's not that a person is an idiot, 0:13:35.920 --> 0:13:39.880 it's that people are writing about someone they call that 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:42.440 person an idiot. Then that's what's going to come up 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:45.640 in search results, not that Google says that person is 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:50.199 an idiot. And the hearing really punctuated what we really 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:54.480 already knew. That's the most politicians are totally ignorant of 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:57.240 how the Internet in general works and how search in 0:13:57.280 --> 0:14:02.360 particular works. We did get some punctuation about this where 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:07.360 at one point a representative said, if you search the 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:11.040 news items for a specific person and you get a 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:15.840 bunch of negative stories, it's because that person has done 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:18.839 things that have been reported on in a negative way. 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:21.040 But if you went out and did lots of wonderful 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:24.040 things that got lots of positive coverage, then the news 0:14:24.040 --> 0:14:26.440 stories that would pop up would reflect that it's not 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:30.920 that Google is shaping this message, but rather the people 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:33.680 themselves are shaping it, and that if you want to 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:36.400 have less bad news written about you, don't go out 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:41.640 and do bad things. Seems like a pretty solid idea, assuming, 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:45.840 of course, that the search engine results are accurate and 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:49.720 they're fair and unbiased, and that they're not, say, censoring 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:54.600 any articles or stories that would otherwise be positive. This 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:57.760 applies to politicians of all political points of view. By 0:14:57.760 --> 0:15:01.160 the way, I don't mean to say that one political 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:06.200 party is guilty of being terrible, terrible, terrible people and 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:08.840 the other ones a bunch of saints. I don't believe 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:13.280 that for a second. There are people who have great 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:18.120 scruples and they they adhere to their own code of ethics, 0:15:18.560 --> 0:15:23.800 they are not hypocrites, and they should have really great 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:27.160 stories written about them and and their their efforts, whether 0:15:27.200 --> 0:15:29.600 they happen to be conservative or liberal. And then there 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:32.400 are others, both on the conservative and the liberal side, 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:36.360 who do dumb things and are hypocrites, and they were 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:38.640 gonna have bad stories written about them, and they should. 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:42.280 So that's kind of what Google was saying is that 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:46.640 don't shoot the messenger. We're just giving you what exists. 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:50.360 We're not making it, we're just serving it up. Another 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:53.680 scandal that Google had to handle in two thousand eighteen. 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:57.440 Didn't mean for that. The rhyme was Project Maven, and 0:15:57.480 --> 0:16:00.760 I talked about that earlier this year in an their episode. 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:03.680 So this was a project with the Pentagon, still is 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:07.560 a project. It's still undergoing over and between Google and 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:11.400 the Pentagon, but to create algorithms that can improve computer 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:15.920 vision processes, which ultimately could be used to identify and 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:19.400 target individuals. If it were used in a weaponized form, 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:22.480 the military could choose to go down that path. Now. 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:26.520 Google insisted that when it signed on to do Project Maven, 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:29.480 this was in the understanding that it was a non 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:32.520 weaponized program. They were helping with computer vision, but it 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:34.960 was not meant to be used in any kind of 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:39.320 weaponized way. But people said that's pretty naive because there's 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:44.640 nothing stopping anyone from adapting those protocols and using them 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:49.200 in something like a personalized missile that specifically is looking 0:16:49.240 --> 0:16:53.600 for a particular individual and honing in on that person um, 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:57.640 whether directly or through satellite coordination or whatever it may be. 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:02.200 Google eventually was as mount was facing so much pressure 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:04.720 both from outside the company and within the company itself. 0:17:04.720 --> 0:17:08.119 Google employees started to sign petition saying that the company 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:12.800 should extract itself from this deal. They said, well, we 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:17.080 can't extract ourselves, but we will not renew this contract 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:20.000 when it comes up in two thousand nineteen. So the 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:24.120 contract will expire next year and Google executives have said 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:26.679 they are not going to pursue a renewal. There was 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:32.000 also a lot of disturbing allegations about sexual harassment and discrimination. 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:36.119 This was true throughout all of tech, but it was 0:17:36.440 --> 0:17:40.680 particularly highlighted over at Google. So in February there was 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:44.840 a Google programmer named Loretta Lee who filed claims against Google, 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:50.840 and our allegations were numerous. There's a lot of things 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:54.560 that Loretta Lee said had happened at Google that are very, 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:59.840 very upsetting. It's it's a terrible account that no one 0:18:00.119 --> 0:18:05.000 should be subjected to. And at the time, Google had 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:09.159 a policy of mandatory arbitration within the company. This is 0:18:09.200 --> 0:18:12.240 something that a lot of tech companies were putting in place. 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:15.919 That meant that all of the conflict had to be 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:20.240 handled within the company. This would prevent employees from being 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:24.840 able to take the matter to the courts. It had 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:29.560 to be handled inside of Google, and employees would sign 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:32.399 agreements essentially when they would get employed with Google that 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:35.880 said they were agreeing to this, they would give up 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:40.879 the right to sue in court. They would have to 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:45.280 go through this mandatory arbitration process, which could limit the 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:48.080 amount of money a victim could get if they were 0:18:48.640 --> 0:18:51.960 proven to be telling the truth. And not only that, 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:56.119 but there was this perception that if the company was 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:58.720 handling it, they were more likely to just kind of 0:18:58.720 --> 0:19:01.280 smooth things over as best they could and ignore that 0:19:01.359 --> 0:19:05.160 it was happening. They wouldn't if someone who was being 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:08.800 accused was also thought of as being a high performer, 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:13.200 then it would largely go ignored. Which is a terrible thing. Right. 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:17.159 If if there's somebody who's who's sexually harassing people in 0:19:17.200 --> 0:19:19.359 a company, whether it's a man or it's a woman, 0:19:19.400 --> 0:19:22.919 whether the people they are harassing our men or women, 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:27.280 whatever it may be, that should not be tolerated. And 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:31.720 the problem was that using this mandatory arbitraction approach, if 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:35.320 executives said, well, yeah, I mean it shouldn't be tolerated. However, 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:39.320 one Ever, since they've been in charge, that department has 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:43.119 been performing at an incredible level. Then there seemed to 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:49.040 be this at least perceived habit of not paying the 0:19:49.119 --> 0:19:53.000 appropriate amount of attention and care to those those cases. 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:59.560 So Google employees began to protest this. There was a walkout. 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:04.080 All the women employees at Google, or a large majority 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:07.760 of them agreed to walk out in protest of this 0:20:07.880 --> 0:20:11.360 policy and just the general way that Google is handling 0:20:11.520 --> 0:20:16.040 these sexual harassment cases. Uh. Several men also stood with 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:19.120 the women in solidarity and saying that they supported this, 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:24.120 and ultimately Google has reversed that policy. There is no 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:29.520 longer mandatory arbitration. Arbitration is optional, but employees are allowed 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:33.600 to pursue these cases in court. It is not retroactive, 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:38.760 so any case that's in arbitration remains there for now. 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:44.240 But this, this is just another example of a systemic 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:47.879 problem not just of Google, but in the tech industry 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:52.600 that is slowly changing as more scrutiny is applied to 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:56.480 these companies and and the the culture is changing to 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:01.399 say that this is not appropriate and not acceptable. That 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:04.760 is changing, uh, but it is a slow process. I mean, 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:11.640 we're talking about a system that's been generations in the making. So, uh, 0:21:11.840 --> 0:21:14.240 that was the other big story of Google. Now I've 0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:17.440 got all those big scandals out of the way. Hopefully 0:21:17.440 --> 0:21:19.080 that means that we're going to be able to move 0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:21.600 on to happier stories. Spoiler alert, not all of them 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:24.040 are happy. But before I get into those, let's take 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:34.320 a quick break to thank our sponsor. In two thousand eighteen, 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:37.440 I also did an episode about the General Data Protection 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:40.520 Regulation Rules or g d p R those took effect 0:21:40.520 --> 0:21:44.000 in These are rules that apply to online companies that 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:47.760 serve people within the European Union. Whether the company is 0:21:47.800 --> 0:21:51.119 located in the EU or not doesn't matter. It matters 0:21:51.119 --> 0:21:54.920 if the people using the company's services or products are 0:21:54.920 --> 0:21:57.040 in the EU, and the rules are meant to protect 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:01.320 data and privacy. They call for responsible, transparent, and easily 0:22:01.400 --> 0:22:04.719 understandable policies from these online companies, whether it's a store 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:07.280 or social media platform, whatever it may be. Now, there 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:09.120 are a lot of rules, and I did a full 0:22:09.119 --> 0:22:11.280 episode on this, so I'm not going to go over them. 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:13.520 But the important thing to remember is that the companies 0:22:13.560 --> 0:22:18.280 that are working in the EU, whether they're located there 0:22:18.359 --> 0:22:21.000 or not have to adhere to these rules or they 0:22:21.040 --> 0:22:24.160 can face penalties. And the scope of the penalties depend 0:22:24.240 --> 0:22:26.480 upon the severity of the violation, but it can be 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:31.840 up to twenty million euros or four of all the 0:22:31.880 --> 0:22:35.480 total sales of a company from the year before, whichever 0:22:35.640 --> 0:22:39.040 amount is greater. So there's some serious penalties there. So 0:22:39.160 --> 0:22:42.280 companies are paying attention. In fact, some companies have even 0:22:42.359 --> 0:22:46.120 temporarily at least closed up shop, you know, turned off 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:51.399 those European Union facing websites at least until they can 0:22:51.600 --> 0:22:56.560 and they can, you know, conform to the regulations. And 0:22:56.640 --> 0:22:59.439 now here's some big business news elements of tech in 0:22:59.520 --> 0:23:03.680 twenty team. First, A T and T initially got approval 0:23:03.760 --> 0:23:07.560 for its eighty five billion dollar acquisition deal for Time Warner. 0:23:07.880 --> 0:23:09.840 I'm going to talk a little bit more about that 0:23:09.880 --> 0:23:12.520 in some upcoming episodes of Tech Stuff that I've already 0:23:12.520 --> 0:23:15.920 recorded but have not aired. But as I record this episode, 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:19.320 that approval is actually under appeal and another court is 0:23:19.359 --> 0:23:22.480 considering whether or not to allow the process to continue. 0:23:23.359 --> 0:23:26.800 If it does continue, it's another consolidation of communications and 0:23:26.880 --> 0:23:30.199 entertainment companies. Not everyone thinks that's a great thing, but 0:23:30.600 --> 0:23:33.040 it could be a big benefit to both of those 0:23:33.080 --> 0:23:36.280 individual companies. We'll have to wait and see. By the 0:23:36.320 --> 0:23:38.240 time you hear this episode, all of that may have 0:23:38.240 --> 0:23:41.960 already been resolved. Disney got approval for its acquisition of 0:23:42.000 --> 0:23:45.240 twenty first Century Fox, both from the United States government 0:23:45.280 --> 0:23:48.560 and from shareholders, and the company had announced that intent 0:23:48.560 --> 0:23:50.840 way back in two thousand seventeen. The acquisition will be 0:23:50.880 --> 0:23:54.720 complete on January one, two thousand nineteen. T Mobile and 0:23:54.800 --> 0:23:57.280 Sprint are looking to merge into a single company that 0:23:57.320 --> 0:24:01.960 got announced in April, and if everything goes as they 0:24:02.000 --> 0:24:05.359 expect it to, the process will be complete by April 0:24:05.400 --> 0:24:07.719 two thousand nineteen. Not at the time I'm recording this. 0:24:08.080 --> 0:24:11.240 Analysts predict that regulators are probably going to allow this 0:24:11.359 --> 0:24:14.440 merger to go forward. They might require that the companies 0:24:14.480 --> 0:24:18.520 divest themselves of certain businesses in order to prevent the 0:24:18.560 --> 0:24:21.640 possibility of having a monopoly, but otherwise they think it's 0:24:21.640 --> 0:24:24.000 going to happen. And there are a ton of other 0:24:24.040 --> 0:24:26.640 stories that fall into this category. IBM announced it would 0:24:26.640 --> 0:24:29.240 sell off Lotus notes to an Indian firm called hc 0:24:29.520 --> 0:24:33.439 L for one point eight billion dollars. Of course, IBM 0:24:33.440 --> 0:24:36.360 had purchased Lotus for three point five billion dollars back 0:24:36.359 --> 0:24:40.960 in IBM also announced a thirty four billion dollar acquisition 0:24:41.000 --> 0:24:43.399 plan for red Hat, which is a software company that 0:24:43.480 --> 0:24:48.480 specializes in enterprise products. It's also the largest software acquisition ever. 0:24:49.080 --> 0:24:52.840 And this isn't an acquisition, but Dell Computers is currently 0:24:52.840 --> 0:24:55.600 scheduled to return to the stock market as a publicly 0:24:55.600 --> 0:24:59.439 traded company on December. I'm recording this on December twelve, 0:24:59.480 --> 0:25:03.800 so that's in the future for me. Also saw some 0:25:04.320 --> 0:25:07.919 game studios close up shop, so that's sad, not just 0:25:07.960 --> 0:25:10.080 for gamers, but obviously for the people who worked for 0:25:10.080 --> 0:25:13.439 those companies. So here's a list of some of the 0:25:13.440 --> 0:25:17.080