WEBVTT - Tech News: All a Twitter about Tech News 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:12.239 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:15.960 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:19.079 I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio. And how the tech 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:22.520 are you. It's time for the tech news for Tuesday, 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:28.560 April eleventh, twenty three, and we've got a ton of 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:33.280 news to cover today, with a big chunk dedicated to Twitter. 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:39.240 It's been a while, as Stained once said, since I 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:41.640 dragged Twitter over the coals. But we've got a whole 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:44.680 bunch of Twitter news. But first, I wanted to talk 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:49.560 about an intelligence leak in the United States, which kind 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:52.199 of leads itself to all sorts of snarky jokes. But no, 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:57.800 this is about top secret documents that have been leaked. 0:00:57.960 --> 0:00:59.920 And apparently this is a thing that's been going on 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:04.240 since at least January. And you may have heard that 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:08.280 images of top secret documents, some of them apparently edited, 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:11.880 have escaped out into the world and they're causing some 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:16.920 real problems among them. Ukraine reportedly had to change some 0:01:17.040 --> 0:01:21.160 of its strategy with regard to Russia's ongoing war with Ukraine, 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:25.880 and Russia expressing how upset they are that the West 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:30.959 and NATO have been supporting Ukraine, which seems like a 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:33.680 really poorly kept secret in the first place. But whatever. 0:01:34.120 --> 0:01:36.560 But the text side of this is really what I 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:40.360 want to focus on. Because these documents weren't submitted to 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:44.679 wiki leaks or anything like that. They appear to have 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:50.000 initially emerged on a Discord server. Now, y'all may know 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:53.760 that the original concept behind Discord was to act as 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:58.920 a means of communication, primarily voice chat for gamers, because 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:03.280 in game voice systems are frequently not very good. But 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:08.720 obviously Discord has grown beyond the gaming community, and apparently, 0:02:09.080 --> 0:02:11.840 in a Discord server that appeared to at least partly 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:18.120 be dedicated to a YouTube figure from the Philippines, someone 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:23.160 started sharing top secret documents. Who that person is and 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:25.760 how they got access to the documents and why they 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:28.919 felt the need to share them is unknown, at least 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:32.200 to me, though there's speculation that it might have been 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:36.799 a low level official who had access to such documents 0:02:36.800 --> 0:02:39.240 through their job and also was a member of this 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:45.480 particular server. Anyway, the leaks expanded beyond that one Discord server, 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:49.880 which has since been deleted. There were new leaks that 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:53.560 surfaced in a Discord server that was dedicated to Minecraft, 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:57.160 of all things, and then it spread to other platforms 0:02:57.200 --> 0:03:01.800 like four Chan. Now, obviously this is a huge concern 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:04.320 to the US government. It could potentially be a threat 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:07.560 to national security. So the Department of Justice and the 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:10.840 Department of Defense are really interested to learn more about 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:14.799 the source of that leak. Now, clearly the fault does 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:18.440 not lie with the platforms themselves. Rather it lies with 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:21.880 whomever was responsible for posting images of the documents in 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:24.800 the first place. You can read more about the story 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:28.400 in the New York Times, and Eric Tohler has a 0:03:28.440 --> 0:03:33.400 great article on Bellingcat and it's titled from Discord to 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:37.600 four Chan, The Improbable Journey of a US Intelligence leak. 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:40.920 So I highly recommend checking that out if you want 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:43.800 to learn more, and I'm sure we'll continue to cover 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:48.080 it as the story develops. Okay, now I've got a 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:51.600 whole suite of Twitter updates to deliver my guesses they'll 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:55.520 take up the bulk of this episode. And before I 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:57.560 really jump into it, I have to give a shout 0:03:57.600 --> 0:04:02.400 out to Casey Newton's newsletter called Platformer, which grouped together 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:06.720 a ton of these resources. Now I've talked about Casey's 0:04:06.720 --> 0:04:10.120 work on this show before, and he continues to do 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:14.200 an amazing job. Platformer is well worth the subscription. It 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:17.880 is a newsletter you subscribe to. It's a paid subscription. 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:21.320 And I do not personally know Casey. I have no 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:25.360 connection to him, and I also don't have any connection 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:28.760 to Platformer other than the fact that I'm a subscriber myself. 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:31.159 I'm just saying that if you're really into tech news 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:37.080 and like a deep dive into it, it's a good resource. Anyway, 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:41.000 Casey gives his opinion on Twitter, and he thinks that 0:04:41.080 --> 0:04:43.200 we might be seeing sort of the middle of the 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:46.120 end for Twitter. You could argue the beginning of the 0:04:46.200 --> 0:04:48.719 end was even before Elon Musk made his move to 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:54.200 acquire it, but Elon is certainly a big part of 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:59.919 why Casey feels that the platform could potentially be heading 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:06.080 to an ignominious end, mostly due to Musk's tendency to 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:10.520 make mercurial changes to the platform and then frequently reverse 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:15.200 those changes after facing harsh criticism, and then the platform 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:18.599 itself seems to be failing with various functions and features. 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:21.960 So let's cover some of the stories about Twitter and 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:25.599 how that forty four billion dollar investment is going first. 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:28.159 Up is a story that Casey actually didn't cover in 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:31.279 the most recent platformer, as I believe the news broke 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:35.440 after he had already sent that newsletter out to be published. 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:40.599 And that's the fact that Twitter Incorporated doesn't exist anymore. 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:45.160 So Twitter the service still exists, but the company doesn't 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:49.080 because some court documents revealed that on the corporate back end, 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:55.160 another one of Musk's company's x Corps has absorbed Twitter Incorporated. 0:05:55.760 --> 0:05:59.800 This is according to Natish Pawa and Mark Joseph Stern, 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:05.560 who jointly published a piece in Slate yesterday afternoon. And 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:10.520 here's how the whole story unfolded. A woman named Laura Lumer, 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:15.440 who's known for her right wing politics and social presence, 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:19.560 sued Twitter for banning her account a few years ago. 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:24.120 She claims that this is an abuse of racketeering laws. 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:28.000 The Slate authors say that, in their opinion, her case 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:32.719 has no merit, and based upon just the very surface 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:36.760 level glance I got, I am inclined to agree with them. 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:41.480 This seems like a case that really has no teeth 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:44.279 to it. But one thing that the case does is 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:49.040 it requires Twitter to disclose corporate disclosure statements to the court, 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:52.800 and then by looking at court filings, you can actually 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:55.400 see those and one of those statements revealed the fact 0:06:55.440 --> 0:07:01.800 that the Twitter company doesn't exist anymore. But anyway, even 0:07:01.800 --> 0:07:06.800 though Twitter is now part of xcort, the lawsuit still 0:07:06.839 --> 0:07:11.880 remains viable. It just transfers to xcort instead of Twitter Incorporated. 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:15.119 And you could argue that the corporate move really doesn't 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:17.559 change anything other than the name of the company that's 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:21.640 running Twitter the service, all the debt, all the lawsuits, 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:24.920 all of the troubles still exist. They just transfer to 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:29.280 this other entity. Apple Insider further goes on to suggest 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:32.480 that perhaps this move is another sign that Musk intends 0:07:32.480 --> 0:07:35.880 for Twitter to become an everything app, that Twitter will 0:07:35.920 --> 0:07:39.880 eventually become x and this app will support all sorts 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:44.040 of transactions beyond just posting about lunch and alienating advertisers, 0:07:44.680 --> 0:07:48.880 be handling stuff like shopping and payment transfers and all 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:52.480 this other kind of stuff. So Twitter Incorporated is dead 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:57.000 all hail x Coort. I guess let's cover one of 0:07:57.000 --> 0:07:59.560 the things that's going wrong at Twitter. Over the last 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:03.480 week or so, according to tech Crunch, several users have 0:08:03.560 --> 0:08:08.600 reported seeing Twitter circle messages popping up in the for 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:12.600 U tab on Twitter, and you might be wondering what 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:15.720 all that means, because I sure was, which just shows 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:17.480 you how out of the loop I've been with Twitter 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:21.520 in general. So a Twitter circle is like a group 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:25.480 of close friends or trusted acquaintances. Twitter circles are meant 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:29.560 to allow you to post too smaller, more private groups 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:33.240 of people. The messages are not meant to go out 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:38.640 to Twitter's general population, and yet apparently some Twitter circle 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:42.319 messages have done just that. So if you were browsing 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:45.880 the for you tab in Twitter, you might actually see 0:08:45.880 --> 0:08:49.600 some messages that you weren't ever meant to see. And 0:08:49.720 --> 0:08:53.000 you could imagine how that could be a big problem. 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:54.800 I mean, if the same thing were to happen to 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:59.760 direct messages, all sorts of shenanigans could follow. Tech crunches. 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:03.400 Amanda Silberling points out that getting a response from Twitter 0:09:03.960 --> 0:09:08.200 is pretty much impossible because Elon Musk famously set the 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:12.240 pr email address to auto reply to requests by sending 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:16.800 a poop emoji because that's professional and mature. Oh and 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:20.120 just assume for all the Twitter stories I'm talking about 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:23.560 today that at some point within that story the author 0:09:23.600 --> 0:09:26.000 pointed out that it's impossible to get an official response 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:29.160 from Twitter that isn't a poop emoji, because trust me, 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:34.080 almost every story I read while writing this includes that, 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:40.520 let's call it nugget of information. Some former Twitter executives, 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:46.000 including the former CEO of the company, are now suing Twitter, 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:51.080 or rather excres now, I guess, because they have been 0:09:51.120 --> 0:09:55.200 saddled with legal fees that I guess the company should 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:59.880 have covered. This includes legal fees for various government and 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:03.640 investigations into Twitter that we're leading up to Musk's purchase 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:07.120 of the company, which, as I'm sure you all remember, 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:13.200 was in itself a total chaotic mass filled with legal wrangling. Anyway, 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:16.520 it should come as no surprise that Twitter slash x 0:10:16.600 --> 0:10:20.520 Corps has not paid these legal fees, because well, the 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:24.880 company pretty much stopped paying all of its bills. It 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:27.760 stopped paying for rent with the office space, it stopped 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:32.840 paying for contract work, and stopped paying for janitorial staff, etc. 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:37.200 And heck, we also know the company laid off or 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:40.920 drove away about seventy five percent of its workforce since 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:45.160 late last year, and according to this lawsuit, the company 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:49.520 is contractually bound to pay these legal fees for former 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:54.120 executives these are the executives that Elon Musk famously fired 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:58.280 the day he took possession of the company. So this 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:01.679 matter has now gone to court and we'll see how 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:06.400 long it sits there while Twitter continues to not pay 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:09.680 the bills. All right, So now let's talk about a 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:13.040 couple of instances where Elon Musk Institute to change and then, 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:17.880 upon receiving backlash, reversed or at least altered that change. 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:22.800 And first up is how Musk handled NPR. So, for 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:26.280 those who don't know, NPR, National Public Radio is a 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:30.880 media outlet here in the United States. So late last week, 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:36.520 Twitter appended the label state affiliated media to the NPR 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.920 Twitter account, which I think is a pretty blatant attack 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:46.280 on NPR's reputation. The phrase state affiliated media typically refers 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:49.160 to a media outlet that is under the direct control 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:53.240 of a government, often with the implication that the media 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:57.120 outlet is biased and the government in question is, to 0:11:57.240 --> 0:12:01.520 at least some degree authoritarian. Think about China and its 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:06.960 state sponsored media outlets, NPR's Bobby Allen was not about 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:10.760 to let this go, and so Allen challenged Musk, pointing 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:14.080 out that the US government has no control over the 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:19.000 content or editorial voice of NPR, and Musk really had 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:22.360 nowhere to go on that he could not disagree with 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:25.679 the statement, so instead he just had Twitter changed the 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:29.439 label so that it then read that MPR is quote 0:12:29.520 --> 0:12:35.280 unquote government funded, which, while less of an outright lie, 0:12:35.960 --> 0:12:40.240 is still not entirely accurate. NPR receives only about one 0:12:40.360 --> 0:12:44.679 percent of its funding directly from the government. The rest 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:48.880 comes from lots of other sources, including listeners like you. 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:53.559 As NPR often includes in their messages, receiving a single 0:12:53.720 --> 0:12:58.000 percent of funding from the government doesn't sound like the 0:12:58.160 --> 0:13:02.760 term government funded should really apply to NPR, and Alan 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:07.959 pointed out again that one of Musk's other companies, Tesla, 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:13.800 has received literally billions of dollars in government subsidies, and 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:18.280 yet the Tesla Twitter account does not include the government 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:22.080 funded label when it seems like conciderning the amount of 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:25.599 money that company has received in the form of subsidies 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:30.120 and such. It certainly should if we're being fair about labels. 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:32.840 So I think it's pretty clear that Musk's intent was 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:37.079 to try and discredit or dismiss INPR, because well, the 0:13:37.200 --> 0:13:40.200 organization has this irritating habit of calling Musk out on 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:44.520 his own bs. Okay, I've got a lot more stories, 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:48.720 including more Twitter ones, but first let's take a quick break. 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:01.560 We're back, and we're back with a couple more Twitter 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:08.920 news items. Next we have the substack brew Haha brew haha, 0:14:09.640 --> 0:14:13.199 ha ha ha. Shout out to any firestiying theater fans 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:17.640 out there anyway. So substack is a platform that lets 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:23.720 people create and monetize subscription newsletters. So platformer, the Casey 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:26.040 Newton newsletter that I mentioned at the beginning of all 0:14:26.040 --> 0:14:29.880 this Twitter mess is actually built on top of substack. 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:33.880 Casey Newton builds platform or using substack. Well, one thing 0:14:33.880 --> 0:14:37.440 that substack is working on is a product called notes, 0:14:37.920 --> 0:14:41.360 which works a bit like Yeah, you guessed it. It 0:14:41.400 --> 0:14:44.320 works a bit like Twitter does, and it at least 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:49.280 appears that Musk isn't very fond of such potential competition. 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:52.240 Though you could argue that some of the problems that 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:56.240 popped up, maybe those were coincidental. Maybe those problems were 0:14:56.280 --> 0:15:00.320 more evidence that Twitter itself is breaking as a posted 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:05.840 to an outright decision to try and penalize substack. For 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:10.640 one thing, the ability to embed tweets into a post 0:15:10.680 --> 0:15:14.080 on substack appeared to be broken. In fact, if you 0:15:14.120 --> 0:15:18.480 were to try and embed a tweet in a substack 0:15:18.680 --> 0:15:22.320 entry at that time, you would get the message quote 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:27.440 Twitter has unexpectedly restricted access to embedding tweets in sub 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:32.840 posts end quote. I'm not sure how unexpected it was 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:37.920 on Twitter's side, honestly, anyway. On top of that, it 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:41.560 seemed that Twitter was restricting visibility and the promotion of 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:46.920 tweets that contained links to posts on substack, and users 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:49.640 who tried to like or retweet a post that linked 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:54.880 to substack itself also received error messages. So it seemed 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:57.640 like Musk was trying to pull a similar tactic that 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:02.120 he used to head off people jumping ship from Twitter 0:16:02.200 --> 0:16:05.360 to Mastodon a few months back. You might remember he 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:11.560 began banning links to Mastodon and some other platforms, saying 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:15.440 that saying all sorts of things to justify the decision, 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:20.600 none of which really held much water. Anyway. After numerous 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:24.200 folks raised a stink about Twitter's new direction with substack, 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:27.200 the service appeared to do a one eighties So links 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:30.440 are now working again, and it just seems like Musk 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:34.240 has backed down a little bit on his stance on 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:38.640 how to handle this but yeah, I mean, considering his history, 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:44.280 it's again not exactly shocking. Moving right along, Politico's Jessica 0:16:44.360 --> 0:16:48.160 Piper reports that Twitter has failed to disclose political ads, 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:52.520 despite the service outlining a transparency policy saying it would 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:56.040 do that. So, Twitter, according to its own rules, is 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:59.640 supposed to label posts that are part of a paid 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:03.120 political campaign so that you can see as a user 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:08.480 that the post is a paid political advertisement. But it 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:12.119 turns out that several ads that were running on Twitter 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:17.560 in March, you know, just last month, were not labeled 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:21.600 that way, even though they were clearly actual paid for 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:29.199 campaign ads. And so I'm not sure exactly what's happening here. 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:33.080 It turns out that, you know, Politico asked Twitter to 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:36.080 comment on this, and Twitter sent over a spreadsheet that's 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:39.800 supposed to track these things, like, supposed to track all 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:43.199 the instances of paid political ads, and they failed to 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:47.160 include at least three instances of different campaigns running ads 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:52.119 on the platform. So to me, that suggests that Twitter's 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:56.600 own internal systems may be failing here. That you know, 0:17:56.600 --> 0:17:59.280 maybe it's a case of the right hand being unaware 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:03.320 of what the left hand is doing, because obviously someone 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:07.440 had to sell that ad space, right, that had to 0:18:07.640 --> 0:18:12.919 be an actual transaction that happened on Twitter's end, But 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:15.680 somehow that data didn't make it to the proper place 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:19.640 for disclosure, It didn't make it into this spreadsheet, and 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:23.280 therefore the tweets were never labeled. Now, to be clear, 0:18:24.359 --> 0:18:27.480 there's not necessarily a law that's been broken here. This 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:30.680 is Twitter failing to live up to its own policies. 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:33.840 But it is important for citizens to be able to 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:37.680 detect and track things like political ads and political spending. 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:40.879 For one thing, knowing that something's an AD helps you 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:47.280 separate it from being, say, an unbiased news source, or 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:51.200 even a purported unbiased news source. If it says add 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:53.560 on there, you know, all right, well this is this 0:18:53.640 --> 0:18:56.399 is a message that has a specific agenda, otherwise it 0:18:56.400 --> 0:19:01.439 wouldn't be an ad. For another, it helped different groups 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:05.680 keep tabs on campaigns and campaign spending, as well as 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:09.199 the activities of not for profit organizations that may not 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:14.119 be subject to really strict campaign laws. Actually using the 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:17.320 term really strict as being far too generous in the 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:20.680 United States, but campaign laws really it all comes down 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:23.560 to tracking money and using that info to determine whom 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:26.320 you can trust. And it all gets really cynical from 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:29.359 that point forward. Honestly, I feel like this is an 0:19:29.400 --> 0:19:33.639 indication that systems within Twitter are not working as intended, 0:19:34.200 --> 0:19:37.240 rather than a potential indication that the company is actively 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:40.560 trying to hide that some political tweets are in fact 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:44.400 paid advertising. I don't think Twitter was trying to get 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:47.359 one over on users. I just feel like this was 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:49.600 a failure. So this feels more like a case where 0:19:49.640 --> 0:19:53.760 it's incompetence rather than malevolence. That just is how it 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:55.960 feels to me. I admit, you know, I could be 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:58.680 totally wrong about that, but it doesn't I don't see 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:02.000 where the gain is for Twitter to not be transparent 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:06.240 about this stuff. So I think, to me, this feels 0:20:06.280 --> 0:20:09.560 like an indication that things at Twitter are breaking, and 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:13.520 Twitter no longer has the engineering staff on hand to 0:20:14.400 --> 0:20:19.240 prevent or repair that stuff in a timely fashion. Something 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:21.880 else that happened on Twitter last week with several Kremlin 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:28.280 related Twitter accounts, including Vladimir Putin's presidential account, became reinstated 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:31.879 on the service. So last year, last April, Twitter chose 0:20:31.960 --> 0:20:35.800 to restrict the promotion and reach of Russian state media 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:39.600 accounts and Kremlin linked accounts in the wake of Russia's 0:20:39.640 --> 0:20:44.720 invasion of Ukraine. Obviously, Russia was leaning heavily on social 0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:50.160 platforms to spread propaganda and misinformation, but The Telegraph reports 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:52.960 that those restrictions seem to no longer be in place, 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:56.000 and that when searching for certain topics, the Kremlin linked 0:20:56.040 --> 0:20:59.600 accounts were frequently in the results, sometimes at the tippy 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:03.640 top of search results. And The Telegraph also reported that 0:21:03.800 --> 0:21:07.520 they created a brand new Twitter account, they didn't have 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:11.320 it following anyone in particular, and they noticed that when 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:15.919 they went to the four utab, the curated tab to 0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:20.280 check and see what accounts were showing up there, some 0:21:20.359 --> 0:21:23.040 of the Kremlin linked accounts were showing up in the 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:25.800 four U tab, even though this brand new account had 0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:30.120 not followed any of those. So hey, apparently Musk thinks 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:34.760 NPR should not be trusted, but actual state backed accounts 0:21:34.800 --> 0:21:39.960 from Russia and also from China are AOK. Agree. Twitter 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:42.520 sounds more and more like a dystopian nightmare to me. 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:45.800 By the way, if you want to suggest topics, you 0:21:45.840 --> 0:21:48.959 can use Twitter and send a message to tech Stuff 0:21:49.080 --> 0:21:51.840 HSW though, I think I need to come up with 0:21:51.880 --> 0:21:55.879 an alternative for getting in touch with me and wrapping 0:21:56.080 --> 0:22:00.600 up the Twitter section of our news. Finally, is a 0:22:00.640 --> 0:22:04.080 report that Twitter appears to have acquiesced to the Government 0:22:04.119 --> 0:22:08.919 of India's demands that objectionable messages, that is, messages that 0:22:09.000 --> 0:22:12.800 the Government of India objects to, should be suppressed not 0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:17.680 just in India, but around the entire world. And if 0:22:17.680 --> 0:22:21.520 this is true, then it means that Twitter is actually 0:22:21.880 --> 0:22:30.080 censoring itself globally at the direction of the Government of India. 0:22:31.040 --> 0:22:35.440 You know, typically in the past, when Twitter would agree 0:22:35.480 --> 0:22:39.959 to government demands in India, they would suppress a message, 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:42.159 but it would just be within India itself. If you 0:22:42.200 --> 0:22:45.680 are outside of India, you could still see the tweets 0:22:45.720 --> 0:22:51.200 in question. But apparently journalist and activist sarov Dos posted 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:55.159 some messages and when they went back to look over 0:22:55.160 --> 0:22:59.360 their Twitter history, saw that the tweets had been tagged 0:22:59.359 --> 0:23:02.919 with the phrase that the content was quote withheld in 0:23:03.000 --> 0:23:07.359 worldwide in response to a legal demand end quote. So 0:23:07.520 --> 0:23:11.679 DAWs included screenshots of these tweets, which were made in 0:23:11.800 --> 0:23:14.760 twenty twenty two, and they said that they couldn't remember 0:23:14.840 --> 0:23:19.280 the context of those messages or why they would be 0:23:19.320 --> 0:23:24.000 suppressed worldwide. A website the Hindu dot Com attempted to 0:23:24.119 --> 0:23:28.600 use a virtual Private network or VPN to see if 0:23:28.640 --> 0:23:32.919 those suppressed tweets could be viewed in the United States, because, again, 0:23:33.359 --> 0:23:37.120 typically these sort of suppressions only would happen within India itself. 0:23:37.600 --> 0:23:40.480 But the Hindu discovered that even if they were looking 0:23:40.520 --> 0:23:45.720 at Twitter from a United States server, they would not 0:23:45.800 --> 0:23:48.080 be able to see those messages, which is a pretty 0:23:48.160 --> 0:23:51.840 huge deal, particularly for a company led by someone who 0:23:51.840 --> 0:23:56.400 proclaimed to be all about free speech. I'll just gets 0:23:56.400 --> 0:24:01.119 worse and worse. But thankfully we are done with Twitter. 0:24:01.480 --> 0:24:04.480 So when we come back from this break, we will 0:24:04.520 --> 0:24:17.560 move on to something else. Okay, we're back. Yeah, we're 0:24:17.560 --> 0:24:22.520 moving on to something else. And that something else is Tesla, 0:24:23.240 --> 0:24:25.560 son of a All right, let's get through this and 0:24:25.600 --> 0:24:27.480 then we'll get on to something else. All right. So 0:24:27.640 --> 0:24:33.240 last week Reuters reported that from twenty nineteen through mid 0:24:33.440 --> 0:24:38.800 twenty twenty two and possibly beyond, some folks in Tesla, 0:24:39.119 --> 0:24:47.359 including management, would occasionally pull images captured by Tesla car cameras. Remember, 0:24:47.520 --> 0:24:51.280 Tesla has used optical systems, in fact, to the point 0:24:51.280 --> 0:24:55.000 where they've started to remove things like ultrasonic systems and 0:24:55.119 --> 0:24:59.440 just rely on optical systems for the purposes of collision detection, navigation, 0:24:59.480 --> 0:25:02.560 that kind of stuff. Well, these cameras can also work 0:25:02.560 --> 0:25:05.679 as part of the security system. When you're charging your vehicle, 0:25:05.960 --> 0:25:08.879 those cameras can be active, and it turns out that 0:25:09.000 --> 0:25:12.200 Tesla employees were sometimes just peeking in on what these 0:25:12.240 --> 0:25:16.159 camera systems were able to see, whether the car was 0:25:16.200 --> 0:25:19.280 in operation or was in recharge mode, and then they 0:25:19.280 --> 0:25:24.280 were sharing images and videos captured by those cameras. So 0:25:24.280 --> 0:25:28.520 it's as if these Tesla employees had implanted cameras in 0:25:28.600 --> 0:25:33.760 the homes of Tesla customers essentially, and this includes stuff 0:25:33.760 --> 0:25:37.679 that clearly the owners of those Tesla vehicles would not 0:25:38.320 --> 0:25:42.439 want to share with the outside world. Now, some of 0:25:42.440 --> 0:25:45.679 the photos were fairly mundane, like it might be a 0:25:45.720 --> 0:25:49.920 funny road sign. So someone for some reason in Tesla 0:25:50.200 --> 0:25:53.280 started to look at the video feed created by this 0:25:53.359 --> 0:25:57.040 particular person's car and see a funny road sign, and 0:25:57.080 --> 0:25:59.119 they might clip that and share it with other people. 0:25:59.560 --> 0:26:02.040 It's still rings the question why did they access the 0:26:02.160 --> 0:26:06.040 video feed in the first place. And also there must 0:26:06.080 --> 0:26:09.640 be policies at Tesla that say, you don't do this right, 0:26:09.680 --> 0:26:13.639 you don't take images from someone's vehicle and just share 0:26:13.640 --> 0:26:17.920 it within the company. Apparently a lot of the messages included, hey, 0:26:18.320 --> 0:26:20.760 don't share this, or don't talk about this, or delete 0:26:20.760 --> 0:26:23.280 after you see it, And it was just people who 0:26:23.280 --> 0:26:25.800 just thought it was such a good picture or video 0:26:25.880 --> 0:26:28.320 or funny idea that they had to share it. But 0:26:28.400 --> 0:26:30.760 no one else should do that because you'll get in trouble. 0:26:31.240 --> 0:26:34.000 So some of the stuff as being captured was not 0:26:34.240 --> 0:26:38.280 just simple funny road signs or a pet behaving in 0:26:38.320 --> 0:26:42.400 a goofy way. There were cases of people being say, 0:26:42.520 --> 0:26:45.719 in the garage stark naked, but you know, I have 0:26:45.760 --> 0:26:48.359 no clue why they were in their garage and they 0:26:48.359 --> 0:26:51.840 were naked, but I don't have any business knowing that. 0:26:52.000 --> 0:26:54.840 It's none of my business, and I'm pretty sure that 0:26:54.960 --> 0:26:57.360 the owner in question wasn't thinking that they were at 0:26:57.440 --> 0:27:00.520 risk it being in a candid camera like situation at 0:27:00.520 --> 0:27:04.399 the time. Anyway, I think the whole sending photos and 0:27:04.480 --> 0:27:10.439 videos around is an incredibly deep violation of trust, and 0:27:10.560 --> 0:27:15.240 again it has to be violating some Tesla policies. So 0:27:15.320 --> 0:27:18.200 now there is a class action lawsuit that's been brought 0:27:18.320 --> 0:27:22.920