Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Johnathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and a love of all things tech except for tech news.
Speaker 1: Today's a tech news day for Thursday, October one. And y'all,
Speaker 1: the tech news can just really it's just like reading
Speaker 1: the news in general. He can really beat you down
Speaker 1: after a while. We're really going to focus on Amazon
Speaker 1: and Facebook in this news episode because a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff has come out about both companies and it's not
Speaker 1: great for the most part. So let's start with Amazon.
Speaker 1: Reuter's reports that Amazon has been found to game the
Speaker 1: system in a really big way, leaning heavily on the
Speaker 1: company's ability to gather and analyze data at a huge scale. Now,
Speaker 1: in this particular case, we're talking about Amazon's operations in India.
Speaker 1: Broiters came into possession of various internal documents and emails
Speaker 1: that show Amazon employees were analyzing customer behaviors on the platform. Okay,
Speaker 1: no problem so far. I mean, you would expect Amazon
Speaker 1: to analyze customer behaviors because the company wants to streamline
Speaker 1: the experience, make it as useful as possible so that
Speaker 1: people keep coming back to Amazon. So some analysis makes sense.
Speaker 1: Amazon was also looking at which products were particularly popular.
Speaker 1: Still no problem. I mean, if you identify which products
Speaker 1: are popular, you can feature those and thus sell more units.
Speaker 1: So not necessarily a bad thing here either. However, company
Speaker 1: employees designated these as reference products and then set about
Speaker 1: to make Amazon knockoff versions of those things. Now they
Speaker 1: wouldn't go so far as to actually counterfeit something, but
Speaker 1: they did make products that were virtually identical to existing
Speaker 1: ones on the market. So this wasn't about Amazon saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, recharging cables are really popular, Let's make our
Speaker 1: own recharging cable. This was Amazon saying, hey, this very
Speaker 1: specific recharging cable is really popular. Let's make a version
Speaker 1: that is indistinguishable from this, sell it at a lower cost,
Speaker 1: and then promote it and thus make, you know, essentially
Speaker 1: undercut this existing vendor who is dependent upon Amazon as
Speaker 1: an online shop front. So on top of all this,
Speaker 1: Amazon used its algorithm to place the Amazon made versions
Speaker 1: of these products higher in search. So now someone searching
Speaker 1: for a specific product, you know, it could be a
Speaker 1: piece of clothing, it could be an electronics gadget, it
Speaker 1: could be a household item, They're more likely to come
Speaker 1: across the Amazon branded version of that before whichever one
Speaker 1: Amazon employees were using as a reference product. So you
Speaker 1: can find something that is almost identical to a very
Speaker 1: popular product that's branded by Amazon. And because the algorithm,
Speaker 1: you're seeing the Amazon one first, and their Amazon is
Speaker 1: essentially undercutting these other merchants. Now, I'm pretty sure you
Speaker 1: would be hard pressed to come up with a way
Speaker 1: to defend Amazon against a charge of being anti competitive
Speaker 1: in this case. Uh the internal documents showed that company
Speaker 1: employees wanted to displace existing products on the market. According
Speaker 1: to Reuters, the documents also showed that employees even sought
Speaker 1: out partnerships with the companies that were making the reference
Speaker 1: products because some of those products had final touches or
Speaker 1: unique processes that meant that those products were set apart
Speaker 1: and then it was harder to to make a you know,
Speaker 1: a reasonable copy of that thing. So employees needed to
Speaker 1: be able to find out what these unique processes were
Speaker 1: in order to replicate those products. For Amazon. That's pretty
Speaker 1: much industrial espionage when you get down to it again.
Speaker 1: This is all according to Reuters, and this also contradicts
Speaker 1: claims that Jeff Bezos made when he appeared before the
Speaker 1: United States Congress in twenty twenty. During that testimony, Bezos
Speaker 1: argued that Amazon doesn't use the data it collects to
Speaker 1: give its own branded products a leg up on other
Speaker 1: sellers that would be anti competitive, nor that the company
Speaker 1: uses its algorithm to boost Amazon brands in search results
Speaker 1: at the expense of other brands. But hey, maybe maybe
Speaker 1: he just meant, oh except in India. Maybe that's what
Speaker 1: he just forgot to say that part. Even if all
Speaker 1: of that is the case, the Reuters report is already
Speaker 1: stirring up activity in US politics again. Senator Elizabeth Warren
Speaker 1: sent a tweet saying, quote, these documents show what we
Speaker 1: feared about Amazon's monopoly power. That the company is willing
Speaker 1: and able to rig its platform to benefit its bottom
Speaker 1: line while stifling small businesses and entrepreneurs. This is one
Speaker 1: of the many reasons we need to break it up.
Speaker 1: End quote. Similarly, the American Economic Liberties Project criticized Amazon,
Speaker 1: pointing out that there have been reports from various sellers
Speaker 1: that alleged the company has copied product designs, indicating that
Speaker 1: Amazon had likely used its powerful data collection and analysis
Speaker 1: tools to identify products that could be big sellers, and
Speaker 1: then followed a similar path as we saw in India
Speaker 1: and the that that organization UH cited a an article
Speaker 1: from the Wall Street Journal that was published in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty that alleged Amazon employees had done pretty much the
Speaker 1: same thing that was going on in India over here, Oudweight,
Speaker 1: we are not done reporting on Amazon just yet. See.
Speaker 1: Amazon also recently scrapped plans to build a distribution center
Speaker 1: in San Diego County in San Diego, California. Now, the
Speaker 1: company has not cited a specific reason for backing out
Speaker 1: of this plan, like this was something that was not
Speaker 1: a done deal, but it was heading towards that direction. Critics, however,
Speaker 1: point to how San Diego recently passed legislation called the
Speaker 1: Working Families Ordinance. Now, that law would require companies that
Speaker 1: operate within San Diego County to pay the prevailing wage,
Speaker 1: and the prevailing wage takes union wages as the benchmark,
Speaker 1: and also any company that employs people within San Diego County.
Speaker 1: Any company that operates within San Diego County has to
Speaker 1: provide a baseline level of benefits and worker safety guarantees.
Speaker 1: So in other words, if you don't meet these basic criteria,
Speaker 1: you cannot operate within San Diego County. So these critics conclude,
Speaker 1: it looks like Amazon said, huh, if we have to
Speaker 1: if we build something here, if we build our distribution
Speaker 1: center in San Diego County, we would have to pay
Speaker 1: people more money, and we would have to spend more
Speaker 1: money to make sure that employees are safe, and we'd
Speaker 1: have to give them a minimum of fifty six hours
Speaker 1: of annual sick leaf. No thanks now again, Amazon, I
Speaker 1: should stress, has not referenced the law when addressing the
Speaker 1: fact that the company is no longer building a distribution
Speaker 1: center in San Diego County. But based on other recent
Speaker 1: activities that we've seen in which Amazon has taken a
Speaker 1: pretty tough stance against efforts of worker organization and unionization,
Speaker 1: I feel like maybe the critics who are pointing at
Speaker 1: this they might be onto something here. The company behind
Speaker 1: the development of the warehouse, essentially the real estate company,
Speaker 1: Chestnut Properties, sent a message out that also gets me
Speaker 1: a bit angry. That message says, quote, just the threat
Speaker 1: mention of this ordinance has already cost over four hundred
Speaker 1: great jobs for the weld property that I have been
Speaker 1: working on for over five years end quote. Now that
Speaker 1: seems to argue that the ordinance is actively harming the
Speaker 1: community because it's discouraging businesses from moving in and creating jobs,
Speaker 1: and that this therefore is a bad thing. Now, keep
Speaker 1: in mind, the ordinance demands a baseline level of compensation
Speaker 1: and benefits to employees, and without that legislation, companies like
Speaker 1: Amazon could be paying out much lower wages with fewer
Speaker 1: benefits and fewer guarantees of workers safety. I would argue
Speaker 1: that that kind of job does not qualify as a
Speaker 1: unquote great job, you know, as Chestnut Properties has argued.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a job, so it is a job.
Speaker 1: But if it's a job that keeps workers living below
Speaker 1: the poverty line and workers are on the hook even
Speaker 1: if they get sick or injured, that's not a great job.
Speaker 1: That's that's like indentured servitude. It might have been great
Speaker 1: for the developer. It might have been great for Chestnut
Speaker 1: Properties because they saw to make a lot of money
Speaker 1: for you know, essentially selling off this this space for
Speaker 1: a distribution center. But that filter, so no, it's not
Speaker 1: great for them. I mean I get that, but I've
Speaker 1: said it a few times in this podcast, I since
Speaker 1: that there is a general labor movement that's growing in
Speaker 1: the United States, and it's something that has been overdue
Speaker 1: because there have been a lot of big companies that
Speaker 1: have grown exponentially at the expense of the folks who
Speaker 1: work for those companies. One of the frequent things you'll
Speaker 1: hear is, you know, it's hard to look at a
Speaker 1: company that pays its employees at such a low level
Speaker 1: that the employees can't afford whatever it is the company makes.
Speaker 1: That's not necessarily the case with Amazon. Amazon makes a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff, and it makes a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: that's super cheap. But you get the idea, right, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, the the argument about paying out, say fifteen
Speaker 1: dollars an hour, Well that's pretty much the minimum wage
Speaker 1: in California, and California is a state that has a
Speaker 1: very high cost of living. So while that might sound
Speaker 1: great if you're in a place that has a very
Speaker 1: low cost of living in California by comparison, it does
Speaker 1: not mean you're making a ton of money. And if
Speaker 1: you're in an environment that could potentially lead to you
Speaker 1: getting sick or hurt and you have no real benefits
Speaker 1: to recover from that. That's not great. So a trio
Speaker 1: of Amazon stories that are pretty rough. When we come act,
Speaker 1: we're gonna do the same thing all over again, except
Speaker 1: this time we'll talk about Facebook. Okay. So yeah, Facebook,
Speaker 1: like I said on Tuesday's episode, had a bad week
Speaker 1: last week. Well, that bad week has stretched into a
Speaker 1: couple of bad weeks. You probably know that the company
Speaker 1: has been dealing with consequences after some employees have leaked
Speaker 1: internal documents to reporters, law enforcement agencies, and political bodies
Speaker 1: like the United States Congress, and next week it will
Speaker 1: be regulatory body bodies in the European Union. Well, when
Speaker 1: that happens to a company, there are a few things
Speaker 1: that a company can do. There are a few different um,
Speaker 1: you know, the courses of action that you can pursue.
Speaker 1: One thing a company could try to do is it
Speaker 1: can try to address systemic problems within the organization. They
Speaker 1: can try to operate in a more ethical, transparent, and
Speaker 1: responsible way. It can try to improve in other words,
Speaker 1: or we can do what Facebook has done and try
Speaker 1: to just clamp down on leaks by instituting policies that
Speaker 1: limit access to certain internal group assets on the company's
Speaker 1: internal communications platform. Facebook uses Workplace. I've also used Workplace.
Speaker 1: It's a platform for all sorts of internal company uh processes.
Speaker 1: I'm actually amazed that folks have time to access the
Speaker 1: darned thing to, you know, have conversations. UM. I find
Speaker 1: navigating it somewhat tedious, but that's my own experience. And
Speaker 1: in Facebook, it is a way for employees to be
Speaker 1: able to access and share information internally within the company.
Speaker 1: None the past, employees were pretty much able to communicate
Speaker 1: across different topics within workplace without issue. They could jump
Speaker 1: into a front channels essentially that are dedicated to specific
Speaker 1: issues or concerns or corporate areas of interest. But now
Speaker 1: certain groups that focus on specific topics, ones that Facebook
Speaker 1: has labeled as being sensitive, have institute a kind of
Speaker 1: members only kind of approach. In other words, it's a
Speaker 1: need to know basis sort of thing. If you are
Speaker 1: part of that department, you have access, Otherwise you do not.
Speaker 1: Um and multiple outlets, including The New York Times, have
Speaker 1: reported on this, showing that the effort to stop leaks
Speaker 1: was then immediately leaked to the media. So what does
Speaker 1: that mean for Facebook? Well, I would say it probably
Speaker 1: means that for one thing, some employees at the company
Speaker 1: might not be so thrilled about what Facebook has been
Speaker 1: up to, and their discontent is enough to be an
Speaker 1: ongoing issue, and that perhaps if Facebook wants to fix this,
Speaker 1: they need to look at the root causes as opposed
Speaker 1: to the leaks. The Verge has another Facebook story that
Speaker 1: is interesting. The company has been working on various AI
Speaker 1: projects that ultimately would relate to Facebook's augmented reality initiatives.
Speaker 1: So the idea is to create a system that has
Speaker 1: a type of almost like a memory connected to it.
Speaker 1: Like the system itself would be able to go back
Speaker 1: over data over time and glean important things from that.
Speaker 1: You may have seen videos of Google kind of showing
Speaker 1: off a similar approach to how like the Assistant program,
Speaker 1: the virtual assistant in Google can continue to answer questions
Speaker 1: about a subject. So you ask one question, then after
Speaker 1: you get the answer, you follow up with another question,
Speaker 1: and without you know, specifically referencing that you're still talking
Speaker 1: about the same topic, assistant can then draw the conclusion
Speaker 1: that the second question is about the same subject as
Speaker 1: the first. Let me give you an example. Uh, using
Speaker 1: this version of assistant, I could say something like, what's
Speaker 1: the weather like at Disneyland tomorrow, and I get the answer,
Speaker 1: and then I might follow that up with what time
Speaker 1: does it open? Well, I didn't say Disneyland, I said
Speaker 1: what time does it open? Using this kind of approach
Speaker 1: to AI, the assistant might be able to glean the
Speaker 1: fact that when I say it, I'm referring to the
Speaker 1: subject from my previous question, that is Disneyland, and thus
Speaker 1: give me the correct answer. Now this is trivial for
Speaker 1: human beings, right, but it's actually a big deal for
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence. AI does not natively have the ability to
Speaker 1: understand context. So Facebook is working on several similar prop projects,
Speaker 1: some of which are really ambitious. Now, the downside of
Speaker 1: this is that it could lead to some pretty nasty
Speaker 1: privacy and security issues. So, for example, imagine that someone
Speaker 1: is wearing a pair of those a R ray band glasses,
Speaker 1: except these are a more advanced version. They're one that
Speaker 1: are have you know, more augmented reality type of features
Speaker 1: built into them. They're not just like a camera built
Speaker 1: into glasses. And let's say this person wearing the glasses
Speaker 1: goes by a secure facility of some sort, maybe it's
Speaker 1: a bank, right, and they look into the bank and
Speaker 1: the camera and the glasses captures images of a person
Speaker 1: who's accessing a secure part of that facility. So someone
Speaker 1: who's actually authorized to go into some area that otherwise
Speaker 1: you would not have access to. Okay, if you have
Speaker 1: this capability and you pair it with something like facial recognition,
Speaker 1: you could compromise that person's security. It could say, all right,
Speaker 1: this person so and so has access to this secure
Speaker 1: part of the bank. Here's some more information about so
Speaker 1: and so that we're able to pull from the Internet.
Speaker 1: Because of online mind social networking platforms and Twitter profiles
Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff, you could easily see
Speaker 1: where this can quickly become a threat to privacy and security. Now,
Speaker 1: that is a pretty dramatic example, right, That's something that's
Speaker 1: obviously not going to apply to everyone. But the reality
Speaker 1: is that this technology, unless it's implemented very carefully, could
Speaker 1: become a huge threat to privacy for people in general.
Speaker 1: You know, it could even be like who did I
Speaker 1: see yesterday? Well, a question like that might be answered with, oh,
Speaker 1: you saw your buddy Jim, and you also saw these
Speaker 1: other five people you don't know, but I know them
Speaker 1: because I have facial recognition technology and I was able
Speaker 1: to cross reference it with the profiles that are available
Speaker 1: on Facebook. So now you know all the people you encountered,
Speaker 1: whether they wanted you to know them or not. They
Speaker 1: were just going about their daily lives, So that is
Speaker 1: a potential threat. Now Facebook is looking into some pretty
Speaker 1: incredible AI applications such as hand and object manipulation shtion,
Speaker 1: And in that case, you might be trying to learn
Speaker 1: a specific skill and you could use an augmented reality
Speaker 1: system to kind of teach you the steps you need
Speaker 1: to do in order to build your skills. But you
Speaker 1: could also use it potentially to analyze your own performance
Speaker 1: and then and you know, give you tips on how
Speaker 1: you can do that skill better and get you know,
Speaker 1: improve upon it, which is really cool. So this sort
Speaker 1: of hyper focused AI is really you know, compelling, but
Speaker 1: you also start to see where the need for things
Speaker 1: like privacy protection has to step in. This, by the way,
Speaker 1: is all part of an initiative that Facebook calls Ego
Speaker 1: four D. The Verge has a great piece that goes
Speaker 1: into much further detail if you want to learn more
Speaker 1: about this. It is titled Facebook is researching AI systems
Speaker 1: that see here and remember everything you do. It's by
Speaker 1: James Vincent. Highly recommend you check it out more than
Speaker 1: for The organizations have banded together to launch a campaign
Speaker 1: called how to Stop Facebook. So yeah, that hard week
Speaker 1: does just keep extending. The group advocates for regulations that
Speaker 1: would restrict how Facebook collects and uses data, citing the
Speaker 1: concerns that we've seen pop up due to Facebook's reliance
Speaker 1: on engagement driving algorithms, and those algorithms frequently favor content
Speaker 1: that can be harmful in various ways because it drives engagement,
Speaker 1: and as the campaign strategies director of Media Justice Masha
Speaker 1: Hayes has said, quote Facebook's surveillance capitalist business model is
Speaker 1: fundamentally incompatible with basic human rights end quote. That's a
Speaker 1: heck of a statement. Hard for me to find fault
Speaker 1: in it. Um, especially the way Facebook pursues its you know,
Speaker 1: business model. Uh, it appears that it is at least
Speaker 1: indifferent to basic human rights. The group is calling upon leaders,
Speaker 1: like political leaders to intervene and essentially force Facebook to
Speaker 1: fundamentally change how it operates. Um. And there are a
Speaker 1: lot of different groups that are all part of this,
Speaker 1: and a lot of them are are human rights groups
Speaker 1: and things along those lines that are very much concerned
Speaker 1: that Facebook's performance in the last you know a few
Speaker 1: years has shown it to be an organization that has
Speaker 1: the capacity to do a disproportionate amount of harm to
Speaker 1: vulnerable populations. Finally, the cherry on top for bad Facebook
Speaker 1: news comes out of Washington State. The Attorney General of
Speaker 1: Washington has filed a lawsuit against Facebook, saying that the
Speaker 1: company representatives have provided false testimony during a previous case
Speaker 1: about whether or not the platform violated Washington's campaign finance laws.
Speaker 1: So at the heart of the matter is how Facebook
Speaker 1: sold political ads in the state of Washington. Washington state
Speaker 1: law requires that any platform that sells ads space to
Speaker 1: political campaigns has to provide information about the ads who
Speaker 1: bought them, uh that their address. It has to also
Speaker 1: have who were the ads meant to target, how many
Speaker 1: views did those ads get. All of that information is
Speaker 1: required by state law to be publicly available upon request.
Speaker 1: Facebook is not complied with the full extent of that law.
Speaker 1: You can request information about Facebook ads, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: include all the points of data that Washington State law
Speaker 1: calls for. The Company's lawyers facebooks lawyers argue that Washington's
Speaker 1: law is unconstitutional, but the heart of this matter is
Speaker 1: that the Attorney General says in that case, Facebook representatives
Speaker 1: specifically gave false statements to questions asked of them, and
Speaker 1: that therefore they are guilty of perjury. So this is
Speaker 1: another part layer on top of everything else. So this
Speaker 1: legal battle is ongoing. We will have to check back
Speaker 1: in the future. Okay, there were other news stories today,
Speaker 1: but honestly, all the Amazon and face Book stuff kind
Speaker 1: of took all the wind out of my sales just
Speaker 1: because it was just so much rough reporting on different things.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna wrap it up here. Plus I can
Speaker 1: here that the lawn maintenance folks are outside of my
Speaker 1: house now, so it's gonna get progressively louder. My dog's
Speaker 1: gonna join into it's just gonna be a free for all.
Speaker 1: So um, while the noise level continually goes up in
Speaker 1: this episode, if you have suggestions for topics I should
Speaker 1: cover in the future, maybe like how weed whackers work,
Speaker 1: for example. Don't know why that jumped to mind, let
Speaker 1: me know. Send me a message on Twitter. The handle
Speaker 1: for the show is text stuff h s W and
Speaker 1: I'll garden again. I'm sorry, I'll talk to you again
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