Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Be there and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and a love of all things tech. It is time
Speaker 1: for the tech news for Thursday, July one. Let's get
Speaker 1: to it. Yesterday, former President Donald Trump announced he was
Speaker 1: filing class action complaints against YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook in
Speaker 1: a Florida court, claiming that the company has violated his
Speaker 1: First Amendment rights by banning his accounts in the wake
Speaker 1: of the January sixth Capital riots. Numerous experts in law
Speaker 1: have pointed out that this kind of sounds like a
Speaker 1: lost cause. The First Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees
Speaker 1: that the government shall not infringe upon the freedom of
Speaker 1: expression the freedom of speech. But last I checked, Twitter, YouTube,
Speaker 1: and even Facebook are not the US government. You might
Speaker 1: argue that these entities are, at least in some ways
Speaker 1: on a level with some parts of the government, but
Speaker 1: that does not make them government entities. They are instead businesses,
Speaker 1: and well, as such, they're allowed to do stuff like say,
Speaker 1: here are the rules for being part of this platform,
Speaker 1: and if you violate the rules, you get banned. Kind
Speaker 1: of like, if you have someone come in your house
Speaker 1: and they are bad mouthing you and your loved ones,
Speaker 1: you can tell them to leave and not allow them
Speaker 1: back in your house. That's not violating the First Amendment. Now,
Speaker 1: what this does seem to be to me, and I
Speaker 1: stressed this is just my opinion and it's total armshare observation,
Speaker 1: but it seems to be an effort to raise money
Speaker 1: from supporters, and ostensibly that money is supposed to go
Speaker 1: to this legal fund. And maybe also it's an attempt
Speaker 1: to stay in the news cycle, which I mean, you
Speaker 1: know it worked because here I am covering it. But
Speaker 1: if these complaints actually make their way through the system
Speaker 1: and ultimately go to court like a trial, and that
Speaker 1: the court finds in favor of the former president, it
Speaker 1: would mean a monumentally huge shift in how the US
Speaker 1: handles the First Amendment, and it would no doubt immediately
Speaker 1: get moved to a court of appeals. It would be
Speaker 1: pushed up the court system from there. But most of
Speaker 1: the legal experts I've read seemed to indicate that this
Speaker 1: is at most a frivolous lawsuit, and that in fact,
Speaker 1: the law team supporting Trump could find themselves reprimanded for it. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I thought I had to reference it because it is
Speaker 1: something that's happening within the world of tech. Let's move on. Mozilla,
Speaker 1: the company behind Firefox, create a browser extension called Regrets Reporter,
Speaker 1: and this was all to be, you know, part of
Speaker 1: an informal study. So Firefox users could install this extension
Speaker 1: onto their browser and the extension would log that users
Speaker 1: viewing activity on YouTube. This was all on the up
Speaker 1: and up. That was the stated intent and purpose of
Speaker 1: this extension. So it was essentially Mozilla looking for volunteers.
Speaker 1: So these volunteers could then flag clips of stuff that
Speaker 1: they wished they had not seen. That's why it's called
Speaker 1: regrets Reporter. So the idea was to see how frequently
Speaker 1: YouTube's recommendation algorithm might submit videos that people just plain
Speaker 1: wish they had never encountered. And it turned out to be,
Speaker 1: you know, a fairly decent number. Users would flag videos
Speaker 1: that they found upsetting or nonsensical or just playing unappealing,
Speaker 1: and some of them were videos that were dedicated to
Speaker 1: spreading misinformation. Uh somewhere the bizarre and and offensive parodies
Speaker 1: or mash ups that started making headlines a few years ago.
Speaker 1: When they began to pop up on YouTube frequently. Nearly
Speaker 1: forty thousand people volunteered to take part in this project
Speaker 1: across one countries, and over the course of a little
Speaker 1: less than a year, the app extension collected three thousand,
Speaker 1: three hundred sixty two reports about recommended videos that people
Speaker 1: regretted watching, which I mean three thousand, three d sixty two.
Speaker 1: That's not an enormous number for a full year of
Speaker 1: this project going on, or almost a full year of
Speaker 1: it going on. Generally, areas in non English speaking countries
Speaker 1: had more incidents than English speaking countries, which suggests that
Speaker 1: perhaps YouTube's algorithms work less well in those countries, and
Speaker 1: some of the recommended videos videos that YouTube's own algorithm
Speaker 1: was pushing seemed to violate YouTube's own content policies, which
Speaker 1: is not great. YouTube is pretty guarded about how it's
Speaker 1: algorithm actually works, and in a way that makes sense
Speaker 1: because if word got out how the algorithm worked, then
Speaker 1: people could figure out ways to potentially game the system
Speaker 1: even more than they already do. But at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, the purpose of the algorithm isn't really
Speaker 1: to serve up the perfect video to you. The purpose
Speaker 1: of the algorithm is to keep you on YouTube for
Speaker 1: as long as possible. It's an engagement algorithm designed to
Speaker 1: have you stick to the platform for longer because that
Speaker 1: means you watch more videos and you see more ads,
Speaker 1: and that makes YouTube more money. So if you think
Speaker 1: about it like that, the algorithm doesn't quote unquote care
Speaker 1: about the content or quality of any given video. The
Speaker 1: algorithm doesn't care if the video even violates YouTube's policies.
Speaker 1: The algorithm's job is to suggest videos that are like
Speaker 1: need to keep each individual on YouTube longer. That's it.
Speaker 1: While YouTube says that the company has refined its algorithms
Speaker 1: so that the time it's working perfectly well and it's
Speaker 1: not going to push any sort of borderline content your way,
Speaker 1: the fact that the company remains so guarded about that
Speaker 1: algorithm means there's not really any way for someone to
Speaker 1: verify that claim. Now, I have no idea how effective
Speaker 1: the algorithm really is at serving up content without it
Speaker 1: being borderline or in violation of YouTube's policies, but I
Speaker 1: do know that the recommendation algorithms on various social platforms
Speaker 1: can easily exacerbate problems sticking with Google. A collection of
Speaker 1: thirty seven states in the United States have brought a
Speaker 1: class action lawsuit against the company, claiming it is exercised
Speaker 1: quote monopolistic leverage end quote with the Google play Store.
Speaker 1: Now that's the Android app store in case you weren't familiar.
Speaker 1: So Google imposes a comm sition on purchases made within
Speaker 1: the play Store, and it takes up to thirty percent
Speaker 1: of that money. And that's pretty standard in the industry.
Speaker 1: So in other words, this is the same sort of
Speaker 1: practice that's used by Apple, by Amazon, and by Microsoft.
Speaker 1: In addition, this one is a bit odd because Google
Speaker 1: is actually fairly lax when it comes to how you
Speaker 1: get apps on your Android devices. You can actually download
Speaker 1: apps directly from developer websites and not go through the
Speaker 1: play Store at all, so you can bypass that whole system. Plus,
Speaker 1: if you are an Android user, you can elect to
Speaker 1: allow side loading. That means you can load apps that
Speaker 1: developers never even submit to Google. So another you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be in the Google play Store
Speaker 1: for you to be able to use it. You can
Speaker 1: just sideload it from wherever. This is a little risky
Speaker 1: because it could involve installing malware to your Android device,
Speaker 1: so it's not recommended for everyone, but it is something
Speaker 1: you can do. Apple famously does not allow for sideloading,
Speaker 1: So it seems to me like Google has a fairly
Speaker 1: decent argument to make here about how the company allows
Speaker 1: for alternatives then going through the Google Play Store. But
Speaker 1: let's say this does go to trial and that Google loses,
Speaker 1: that would be some pretty scary news for the other
Speaker 1: companies that I've mentioned, like Apple and Amazon. We've heard
Speaker 1: a lot about app stores and the cut that companies
Speaker 1: like Google and Apple take. I mean, that's at the
Speaker 1: heart of the ongoing battle between Apple and Epic Games,
Speaker 1: So we will keep an eye on this particular story.
Speaker 1: Speaking of Apple, Steve Wozniak, who co founded Apple with
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs back in the nineteen seventies, gave what amounted
Speaker 1: to a nearly ten minutes speech in support of the
Speaker 1: right to repair. This was in response to a cameo request. Cameo,
Speaker 1: just in case you're not familiar, is a service that
Speaker 1: allows celebrities to set a price for personalized video messages
Speaker 1: that fans and then buy, usually for someone else. I
Speaker 1: tried to set up a cameo for myself, but turns
Speaker 1: out I can't afford to pay people to have me
Speaker 1: send them videos, so I'm out anyway. Louis Rossman, who
Speaker 1: is a supporter of the right to Repair movement, purchased
Speaker 1: a cameo request from Wosniac and asked him to speak
Speaker 1: about the idea of right to repair, and Wosniac did
Speaker 1: not disappoint You can actually watch this video on online.
Speaker 1: And the right to repair is a general movement that
Speaker 1: pushes for legislation that would require companies to stop making
Speaker 1: it difficult or even impossible for someone to make alterations
Speaker 1: or repair the technology that they purchase. So one example
Speaker 1: I always like to give with this is with John
Speaker 1: Deer equipment, as in like farming equipment like tractors, John
Speaker 1: Dear restricts the ability to repair those products. So you
Speaker 1: know what you're supposed to do is take your your
Speaker 1: John Deer equipment and go to an authorized repair shop
Speaker 1: that has a license with John Dear and they have
Speaker 1: the equipment that is necessary to diagnose and repair the equipment.
Speaker 1: If you try and do it yourself, uh, you get
Speaker 1: you run into roadblocks, like figurative roadblocks. So for the
Speaker 1: d I Y types out there, this is a slap
Speaker 1: in the face, and I mean particularly for people like farmers,
Speaker 1: who often can be very self reliant, having this can
Speaker 1: mean not just it's it's not just inconvenient for some people,
Speaker 1: it can be an enormous hassle. Wozniak spoke about how
Speaker 1: in the not too distant past you could buy whatever
Speaker 1: electronics he wanted. It could be a TV or a
Speaker 1: radio or whatever, and you could make repairs on that
Speaker 1: technology yourself. As long as you had to know how
Speaker 1: and you had the components. You could just go out
Speaker 1: and buy something like, you know, a vacuum tube and
Speaker 1: replace it yourself. He even said that Apple started off
Speaker 1: with that kind of pilosophy, which is a far cry
Speaker 1: from how the company operates now. Wozniak asked the question,
Speaker 1: is it your computer or is it some company's computer?
Speaker 1: As an is it a company's computer that you get
Speaker 1: to use but you don't actually own it. We've seen
Speaker 1: the right to repair movement pick up support both here
Speaker 1: in the United States and overseas in Europe, and I
Speaker 1: am curious to see where it goes and whether or
Speaker 1: not it actually leads to any meaningful change. Next security
Speaker 1: firm trust Wave Spider Labs published a report that says,
Speaker 1: the malicious code in ransomware used by hacker groups like
Speaker 1: REvil have a feature that looks for Russian or Russian
Speaker 1: related languages on computer systems, and if it detects that
Speaker 1: language is present, like if it detects that most of
Speaker 1: the programming and code and documents are in Russian, the
Speaker 1: malware does not activate itself on that system. It doesn't
Speaker 1: infect those systems. So why is that well? The owing
Speaker 1: theory is that these criminal hacker groups are largely located
Speaker 1: out of Russia or former parts of the USSR, and
Speaker 1: that the Russian government is at the very least ignoring
Speaker 1: these criminal groups as they target various computer systems in
Speaker 1: other countries, particularly in the West, and that the hacker
Speaker 1: groups wish to keep it that way, and so they
Speaker 1: make sure that the code they unleash isn't going to
Speaker 1: affect Russian systems. In other words, you just you don't
Speaker 1: poop where you eat, as they say. Russian authorities have
Speaker 1: so far proven to be uninterested in cracking down on
Speaker 1: hacker groups, which has led to suspicions that perhaps the
Speaker 1: Russian government might even go so far as to encourage
Speaker 1: or maybe even subcontract these hacker groups. Now, those allegations
Speaker 1: are difficult to prove, but the discovery that the malware
Speaker 1: being used as specifically avoiding Russian systems suggests that the
Speaker 1: hackers at least know that they are more likely able
Speaker 1: to operate freely as long as they don't step on
Speaker 1: Russian toes. We recently had Pride Month here in the
Speaker 1: United States, and while people within the LGBT communities still
Speaker 1: face struggles here significant ones in other countries, the threats
Speaker 1: can be even more overt. Take China, for example, we Chat,
Speaker 1: the most popular social networking platform within China, recently shut
Speaker 1: down multiple accounts relating to LGBT topics, and allegedly we
Speaker 1: Chat sent out messages to the account administrators claiming that
Speaker 1: these channels that were you know, being hosted by these
Speaker 1: admins were violating me chats policies, but gave no details
Speaker 1: as to how they were doing that, and the lack
Speaker 1: of information has led to speculation, and some of that
Speaker 1: speculation questions if perhaps the communist government in China is
Speaker 1: cracking down on these groups, potentially because they the government
Speaker 1: might view these groups as maybe questioning the government's authority
Speaker 1: or challenging that authority. In some way, and that the
Speaker 1: government then puts pressure on companies like we Chat, because
Speaker 1: in China, the Communist government is heavily involved in every
Speaker 1: major company within the country. China classified homosexuality as being
Speaker 1: criminal until but while homosexuality is now decriminalized, at least
Speaker 1: on paper, people in LGBT communities still must deal with
Speaker 1: a great deal of discrimination in China. Now. To be fair,
Speaker 1: that's also the case in many other parts of the world,
Speaker 1: including the United States. It's not like China is an
Speaker 1: outlier in that regard. It's just that this is one
Speaker 1: of those cases where it looks particularly overt. As I
Speaker 1: said earlier for my last story today, I want to
Speaker 1: preface this by saying I'm not a car guy, and
Speaker 1: also I find hyper masculine marketing to be absolutely ridiculous.
Speaker 1: I think it's laughable. So perhaps it comes as no
Speaker 1: surprise that I was rolling my eyes so hard that
Speaker 1: you could probably hear it at a recent video revealing
Speaker 1: that Dodge will release an all electric muscle car in Now.
Speaker 1: To be fair, I think muscle cars are kind of cool,
Speaker 1: and I think an all electric muscle car is a
Speaker 1: really neat idea. It's kind of in a way antithetical
Speaker 1: to the way muscle cars typically get positioned in the market.
Speaker 1: But the way the video unfolded really kind of I
Speaker 1: don't know. I guess it pushed some buttons with me.
Speaker 1: It would have to, it's an electric vehicle anyway. The
Speaker 1: video includes a narrator who at one point incredulously says,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, did we hear that right? Dodge as
Speaker 1: an Dodge making an electric muscle car. And then there's
Speaker 1: a shot of a dude who's behind the wheel of
Speaker 1: a Dodge muscle car saying, you mean hypothetically right, Like
Speaker 1: they wouldn't Dare make an electric muscle car because internal
Speaker 1: combustion engines are manly and whatnot, and going electric is
Speaker 1: antithetical to muscle cars aesthetic. I suspect this is really
Speaker 1: just Dodge getting ahead of the inevitable reaction of the
Speaker 1: thought of an all electric muscle car. But seeing as
Speaker 1: how the automotive industry in general is having to switch
Speaker 1: to e v s or at least alternatives to internal
Speaker 1: combustion engines, it was kind of bound to happen. I mean,
Speaker 1: it either had to happen this way, or muscle car
Speaker 1: variants of vehicles would just have to go away anyway.
Speaker 1: I really do think an electric muscle car is a
Speaker 1: cool idea. I just find the marketing approach to me
Speaker 1: a bit laughable. But I feel that way, like I said,
Speaker 1: about all hyper masculine advertising. I mean, if it's if
Speaker 1: it's an ad for steak or beer or something like that,
Speaker 1: typically it just makes me kind of get exasperated at
Speaker 1: the the the way that masculinity is depicted. I feel
Speaker 1: like it tends to reinforce perhaps not the healthiest of stereotypes.
Speaker 1: But hey, I'll get off my soapbox. We'll stick with tech.
Speaker 1: That's it for the tech news for today, Thursday, July one.
Speaker 1: We'll be back next week with some more news. If
Speaker 1: you have suggestions for topics I should cover in future
Speaker 1: episodes of tech Stuff, let me know the best way
Speaker 1: to do that is send me a message on Twitter.
Speaker 1: The handle for the show is tech Stuff H s
Speaker 1: W and I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech
Speaker 1: Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.