WEBVTT - The Slop Society

0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:03.560
<v Speaker 1>As media.

0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:06.920
<v Speaker 2>Hello and welcome to Better Offline. Of course, I'm your

0:00:06.920 --> 0:00:22.119
<v Speaker 2>host ed zitron, Here to Serve, Here to podcast. In

0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:24.040
<v Speaker 2>the last episode, I walked you through the how the

0:00:24.120 --> 0:00:27.720
<v Speaker 2>so called sudden magnification of Meta is really just them

0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:30.800
<v Speaker 2>formalizing the rot economy, the growth of all costs bullshit

0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:33.559
<v Speaker 2>that drives the entire company, making the products worse to

0:00:33.640 --> 0:00:37.600
<v Speaker 2>grab more advertising impressions, to make Mark Zuckerberg richer, while

0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:40.000
<v Speaker 2>also making the life of the average Facebook user that

0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:43.400
<v Speaker 2>bit worse. And I believe that had Meta and Mark

0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:47.839
<v Speaker 2>Zuckerberg been ever really held accountable, truly accountable in the

0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:51.680
<v Speaker 2>last decade, that things might have gone a little differently. Zuckerberg,

0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:54.160
<v Speaker 2>like many tech executives, has been allowed to destroy the

0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:57.360
<v Speaker 2>user experience in broad daylight because the media, despite writing

0:00:57.400 --> 0:00:59.800
<v Speaker 2>about Facebook as a product all the time for years,

0:01:00.160 --> 0:01:02.880
<v Speaker 2>doesn't seem capable of writing the blunt truth about how

0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:05.920
<v Speaker 2>shit it is, how bad it works, how everything is

0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:09.279
<v Speaker 2>kind of getting there but nowhere worse than Facebook. Really,

0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:12.640
<v Speaker 2>the problem, I believe is there are some people that

0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:16.200
<v Speaker 2>simply want the tech executives to have power. They want

0:01:16.240 --> 0:01:18.160
<v Speaker 2>to make friends with the rock stars, they want to

0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:20.679
<v Speaker 2>be in their orbit to humor their ideas and celebrate

0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:24.760
<v Speaker 2>their victories, which is so strange because said victories are

0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:27.759
<v Speaker 2>usually just the rich just got even richer, and where

0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:29.760
<v Speaker 2>that's not the case, there's just a lack of willingness

0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:33.080
<v Speaker 2>to say that something is bad, and the consequences are

0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:36.160
<v Speaker 2>that these platforms have been left unchecked. To be clear,

0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:38.319
<v Speaker 2>there are plenty of reporters who have done great work

0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:42.360
<v Speaker 2>reporting on specific parts of Matt's problems, Kevin Russel at

0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:44.600
<v Speaker 2>The Times with crowd tang, or Jeff Horwitz and the

0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:46.200
<v Speaker 2>rest of the team who did the Facebook files at

0:01:46.240 --> 0:01:48.560
<v Speaker 2>the Wall Street Journal, for example. But there's been this

0:01:48.680 --> 0:01:51.919
<v Speaker 2>bigger and nastier and more obvious problem that no one's

0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:55.920
<v Speaker 2>really put down. In blunt words, the core product of

0:01:56.120 --> 0:02:00.680
<v Speaker 2>Facebook has gone incrementally worse, seemingly every month since two

0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:03.520
<v Speaker 2>thousand and eight. And while I understand that it's hard

0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:05.840
<v Speaker 2>to just write thing bad every week, but I fucking

0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:08.720
<v Speaker 2>do it. Journalism is fully capable of doing this in

0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:11.320
<v Speaker 2>other ways. Think about it when they write about crime

0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:14.120
<v Speaker 2>or wars. How is a social network used by billions

0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:17.200
<v Speaker 2>of people less important than that, or less important than

0:02:17.320 --> 0:02:20.480
<v Speaker 2>how many people have allegedly broken into a CVS cabinet.

0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:24.440
<v Speaker 2>If a tanker overturned on a highway, spilling various poisons

0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:27.840
<v Speaker 2>and acids and such into local water sources and burning

0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:30.200
<v Speaker 2>people alive in the middle of a fucking freeway, that

0:02:30.240 --> 0:02:33.880
<v Speaker 2>would be news, right, But somehow billions of people being

0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:39.320
<v Speaker 2>actively misled, manipulated and harmed every single day just isn't relevant. Now,

0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:41.800
<v Speaker 2>one argument might be, well, it isn't really clear what

0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:44.400
<v Speaker 2>the harms of social media are. We have some reporting,

0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:48.320
<v Speaker 2>but it's just not that obvious. Well, my retort's also

0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:51.000
<v Speaker 2>fairly obvious and goes back to something I just said.

0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:54.040
<v Speaker 2>The media seems fully capable of writing about the rise

0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:56.359
<v Speaker 2>of retail theft, for example, and that led to a

0:02:56.400 --> 0:02:58.480
<v Speaker 2>whole thing with pharmacies like I mentioned, locking in entire

0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:01.280
<v Speaker 2>parts of the store behind plastic, And it wasn't obvious

0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:04.440
<v Speaker 2>whether this was a real problem, but it didn't stop

0:03:04.760 --> 0:03:08.120
<v Speaker 2>the media writing hundreds of thousands of words about how

0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:11.520
<v Speaker 2>dangerous cities had gone, how dangerous, Oh, this retail theft,

0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:14.640
<v Speaker 2>it's all happening. And again it wasn't necessarily based on

0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:18.360
<v Speaker 2>anything other than editorial vibes. And whoever picked up the

0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:22.160
<v Speaker 2>tab at Balthazar that week it was craven, But at

0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:26.160
<v Speaker 2>least could we do like a craven thing with Facebook?

0:03:26.720 --> 0:03:30.600
<v Speaker 2>Because if streets were littered with needles and corpses and

0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:35.120
<v Speaker 2>fires and trash and violence, you would expect then used

0:03:35.160 --> 0:03:38.560
<v Speaker 2>to cover that. Why isn't Facebook treated the same way?

0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:41.640
<v Speaker 2>Why aren't social networks treat it the same way? We

0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:45.160
<v Speaker 2>can do this paranoid, sinophobic shit. We can do this

0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:48.680
<v Speaker 2>thing where we say TikTok is manipulating people with their algorithms,

0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:50.840
<v Speaker 2>as if Meta isn't doing the same thing with theirs.

0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:54.440
<v Speaker 2>But let's take it an abstraction above that and just

0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:59.320
<v Speaker 2>look at what we're really dealing with here. Facebook is

0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:02.400
<v Speaker 2>used by billy of people. It is a platform that

0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:05.160
<v Speaker 2>probably has more effect on the people that use it

0:04:05.480 --> 0:04:09.720
<v Speaker 2>than many forms of entertainment by congressmen, even by local officials.

0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:11.800
<v Speaker 2>People are more aware of the things they see on

0:04:11.840 --> 0:04:15.920
<v Speaker 2>social media than they are of like civic things, And

0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:19.080
<v Speaker 2>I really want to be clear, with that level of exposure,

0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:23.960
<v Speaker 2>with that many people affected by how bad Facebook has got,

0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:27.520
<v Speaker 2>we should be treating this like a mass casualty event,

0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:31.159
<v Speaker 2>like a mass poisoning. We should be looking at the

0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:34.720
<v Speaker 2>quality of these platforms. But none worse than Facebook and

0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:38.280
<v Speaker 2>saying what is being done to people? And it's not

0:04:38.480 --> 0:04:42.039
<v Speaker 2>just about misinformation, it's not just about harassment, two things

0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:45.919
<v Speaker 2>which are very, very fucking important, especially the harassment. It's disgraceful.

0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:49.400
<v Speaker 2>It's disgraceful that trans people are now targeted on there.

0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:53.720
<v Speaker 2>But on top of that, it's just bad, flat out bad,

0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:58.360
<v Speaker 2>flat out harmful, flat out obviously horrible and unsafe and harmful,

0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:01.760
<v Speaker 2>full of scams and spams. But we treat it like

0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:04.279
<v Speaker 2>this cute little thing in the fucking corner. And the

0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:07.480
<v Speaker 2>basic quality of the Facebook experience really is quite terrible,

0:05:07.480 --> 0:05:09.800
<v Speaker 2>I need to repeat myself. And it actively deprives the

0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:12.200
<v Speaker 2>users of dignity in industry to make their own decisions,

0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:15.400
<v Speaker 2>and their experiences are constantly interfered with, and the majority

0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:17.440
<v Speaker 2>of the content that they see is provided by a

0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:20.880
<v Speaker 2>shadowy algorithm built to promote engagement rather than any kind

0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:24.640
<v Speaker 2>of utility. This is not a fair exchange of value.

0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:27.080
<v Speaker 2>If Facebook were a city, every second car would be

0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:29.240
<v Speaker 2>overturned and on fire. Men would solicit you on the

0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:31.840
<v Speaker 2>sides of the street for I don't know, drugs, or

0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:33.960
<v Speaker 2>just to steal from you, or maybe they just try

0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:37.040
<v Speaker 2>and confuse you like a carnival guy. Random people would

0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:39.080
<v Speaker 2>just bark at you from their windows. I think people

0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:41.680
<v Speaker 2>would just throwing faces out the fucking window, and the

0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:44.800
<v Speaker 2>governor would be actively selling pardons on television every day.

0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:47.520
<v Speaker 2>If that was happening in a city, that would be news.

0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:51.080
<v Speaker 2>But it happens on Facebook. It happens on Facebook every day.

0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:53.320
<v Speaker 2>The harms have been here for years, and we as

0:05:53.320 --> 0:05:56.520
<v Speaker 2>the media, have done jack fucking shit. You can report

0:05:56.760 --> 0:05:59.200
<v Speaker 2>on the obvious things, on the research on the harms

0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:02.200
<v Speaker 2>that Facebook know, fine, actually need to do that. We

0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:04.880
<v Speaker 2>need that journalism, But on top of it, we need

0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:08.960
<v Speaker 2>to treat this platform as how harmful it is, but

0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:11.960
<v Speaker 2>also how harmful it's going to get. And like I

0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:14.320
<v Speaker 2>said last episode, it's been like this for a while,

0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:17.839
<v Speaker 2>and it's kind of a comfortable lie I think to

0:06:17.880 --> 0:06:20.760
<v Speaker 2>say that Meta's suddenly done something bad here, because it

0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:24.120
<v Speaker 2>gives the media and society kind of a free pass

0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:26.440
<v Speaker 2>for ignoring this gaping wound in the side of the

0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:30.120
<v Speaker 2>fucking Internet. Two of the world's largest social networks are

0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:33.080
<v Speaker 2>run and have been run with this blatant contempt for

0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:36.359
<v Speaker 2>the user, misinforming and harming people at scale, making the

0:06:36.400 --> 0:06:39.360
<v Speaker 2>things they want to see harder, defiant and swamping them

0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:42.640
<v Speaker 2>in this endless stream of sponsored and recommended content that

0:06:42.720 --> 0:06:45.000
<v Speaker 2>either sells them something or gets them to engage further

0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:47.200
<v Speaker 2>with the platform, with little care as to why they

0:06:47.240 --> 0:06:49.920
<v Speaker 2>be doing so other than the fact that all things

0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:54.000
<v Speaker 2>are justified under growth. Worse still, there have been some

0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:56.520
<v Speaker 2>members of the media that have actively worked to support

0:06:56.720 --> 0:07:00.479
<v Speaker 2>and celebrate what Meta has done for years. You'll never

0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:03.600
<v Speaker 2>guess that I'm referring to Casey Newton of Platformer, who's

0:07:03.600 --> 0:07:06.760
<v Speaker 2>done an admirable job. I will repeat myself covering Meta

0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:09.880
<v Speaker 2>in the last few weeks and the horrifying anti LGBTQ

0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:13.760
<v Speaker 2>things that Matter has been doing. But it's also really

0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:17.400
<v Speaker 2>important to note that Casey was cheerfully covering Zuckerberg and

0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:20.520
<v Speaker 2>I quote his expansive view of the future as recently

0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:23.080
<v Speaker 2>as September twenty fifth, twenty twenty four, and he happily

0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:25.840
<v Speaker 2>published how and I quote again, Zuckerberg was back on

0:07:25.880 --> 0:07:29.360
<v Speaker 2>the offensive somehow, not seeing anything worrying about the fact

0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:33.160
<v Speaker 2>that Mark Zuckerberg's shirt referenced Julius Caesar, the historic dictator

0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:36.240
<v Speaker 2>that perpetuated the genocide in the Gaelic wars like this

0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:39.280
<v Speaker 2>is who he was months ago. Where was the alarm then?

0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.360
<v Speaker 2>Where was the worry then? But don't worry, I'm not

0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:46.640
<v Speaker 2>remotely done with you, Casey. Yeah, Casey felt it unnecessary

0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:49.720
<v Speaker 2>to mention at any time how utterly atrocious Facebook has got,

0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:52.440
<v Speaker 2>but he will happily quote Mark Zuckerberg saying things like

0:07:52.560 --> 0:07:55.120
<v Speaker 2>in every generation of technology, there is a competition of

0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:57.520
<v Speaker 2>ideas for what the future should look like. Yet the

0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:00.800
<v Speaker 2>most loathsome thing that Casey Newton published was the following

0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:03.080
<v Speaker 2>and I quote and all of these will be linked

0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:07.360
<v Speaker 2>to in the notes don't worry ahem, but it left

0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:10.240
<v Speaker 2>unsaid it referring to Meta what seemed to be the

0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:14.000
<v Speaker 2>larger point, which is that Zuckerberg intends to crush his rivals,

0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:18.040
<v Speaker 2>particularly Apple, into a fine pulp. His swagger on stage

0:08:18.120 --> 0:08:21.560
<v Speaker 2>was most evident when discussing the company's next generation glasses

0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:25.320
<v Speaker 2>as the likeliest next generation computing platform, and highlighted the

0:08:25.320 --> 0:08:27.960
<v Speaker 2>progress that Meta had made so far in overcoming the

0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:32.160
<v Speaker 2>crushing technological burdens necessary for that to happen. And Meta

0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:35.320
<v Speaker 2>also failed to capture just how personal all this seems

0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:38.480
<v Speaker 2>to Mark Zuckerberg. Burned by what he has called the

0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:41.720
<v Speaker 2>twenty year mistake of the company's reaction to the post

0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:46.040
<v Speaker 2>twenty sixteen tech backlash very weird. That that's not twenty years,

0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:50.079
<v Speaker 2>and Zuckerberg, in this case quoting again, is long haunted

0:08:50.080 --> 0:08:52.160
<v Speaker 2>by criticisms that Meta has been nothing more than the

0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:55.960
<v Speaker 2>competition crushing copycat since it released the news feed, Zuckerberg

0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:59.120
<v Speaker 2>has never seemed more intent on claiming for himself the

0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:05.440
<v Speaker 2>mantle of inn Well Don Casey great fucking journalism there

0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:08.640
<v Speaker 2>mate share, not a dry seat in the house, ridiculous,

0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:13.720
<v Speaker 2>cowardly paper tiger analysis, stenography for the powerful masters, deep thoughts.

0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:18.280
<v Speaker 2>This specific paragraph is exactly where Casey Newton could have

0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:21.400
<v Speaker 2>said something about how worrying Mark Zuckerberg modeling himself on

0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:24.679
<v Speaker 2>a Roman dictator was. I don't know. Maybe he could

0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:26.880
<v Speaker 2>have brought up how all the company was, despite winking

0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:29.680
<v Speaker 2>about how it's building the future, letting its existing products

0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:32.920
<v Speaker 2>deteriorate as it deliberately turned the screws to duce engagement.

0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:36.600
<v Speaker 2>Casey Newton has regularly and reliably turned his back on

0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:40.640
<v Speaker 2>the truth that Metascore products are really quite bad in

0:09:40.760 --> 0:09:44.000
<v Speaker 2>favor of pumping up various AI products and vague promises

0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:47.199
<v Speaker 2>from Zuckerberg about a future that just arrived in fucking sucks.

0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:50.080
<v Speaker 2>The reason I'm singling him out, by the way, is

0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:52.680
<v Speaker 2>that it's very very very very important to hold the

0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:56.080
<v Speaker 2>people that helped Mark Zuckerberg succeed accountable, especially as the

0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:58.680
<v Speaker 2>attempt to hint that they've always been an aggressive advocate

0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:02.239
<v Speaker 2>for the truth. J Newton is fully capable of real journalism,

0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:05.480
<v Speaker 2>as proven by the way by his recent coverage, but

0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:08.400
<v Speaker 2>he's chosen again and again to simply print whatever Mark

0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:12.360
<v Speaker 2>Zuckerberg wants to say. Now, I'm going harden the paint

0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:14.920
<v Speaker 2>against Casey for a reason, and it's because he wrote

0:10:15.040 --> 0:10:16.880
<v Speaker 2>something at the end of last year called The Phony

0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:19.719
<v Speaker 2>Comforts of AI Skepticism. It's one of the weirdest things

0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:22.800
<v Speaker 2>I've read in my life. It's this sloppily stapled together

0:10:22.960 --> 0:10:25.880
<v Speaker 2>piece of marketing collater or for AI companies, saying that

0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:28.400
<v Speaker 2>not only is AI the future, but those that are

0:10:28.400 --> 0:10:30.560
<v Speaker 2>critiquing it were doing so in this kind of cynical,

0:10:30.600 --> 0:10:34.040
<v Speaker 2>corrupt way for attention. And he singled out one person,

0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:37.040
<v Speaker 2>Gary Marcus, who's an independent critic. I've had my issues

0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:40.440
<v Speaker 2>with Gary, but let me tell you something. If you're

0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:45.040
<v Speaker 2>singling out a writer, You'll do it again. You'll gladly

0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:48.280
<v Speaker 2>choose an independent writer and single them out. Now I

0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:49.920
<v Speaker 2>should be clear, I'm doing the same thing with Casey

0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:51.840
<v Speaker 2>right now. But Casey has a bigger audience than I have.

0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:55.720
<v Speaker 2>He has more connections, he's more powerful ostensibly. But on

0:10:55.760 --> 0:10:59.640
<v Speaker 2>top of that, when you choose to single out a writer,

0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:04.520
<v Speaker 2>a writer who is critiquing the powerful, what are you doing?

0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:08.400
<v Speaker 2>Who do you work for? Casey? I'm not done with you,

0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:11.240
<v Speaker 2>not remotely. I've got plenty more to say here. But

0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:14.320
<v Speaker 2>I think the biggest question I ask for Casey Newton

0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:19.000
<v Speaker 2>is who are you defending? What are you defending? What

0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:21.880
<v Speaker 2>is it you do every day? Who are you writing for?

0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:25.000
<v Speaker 2>Because if you're going to choose an independent critic, a

0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:29.920
<v Speaker 2>critic who is critiquing multi billion dollar companies, to what

0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:33.320
<v Speaker 2>end are you doing? So what are you defending? But

0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:35.960
<v Speaker 2>let's keep going, though, because there was also another thing

0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:38.920
<v Speaker 2>that Casey said that I just didn't like. Right at

0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:41.600
<v Speaker 2>the end, he said, and I quote that he was

0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:45.920
<v Speaker 2>taking detailed notes on all bloggers writing financial analyzes, suggesting

0:11:45.920 --> 0:11:47.880
<v Speaker 2>that Open Eye will go bankrupts soon because it's not

0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:52.840
<v Speaker 2>profitable yet. Oh Casey, Casey, Casey, Casey, who could you

0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:55.400
<v Speaker 2>possibly be talking about there. I'm not going to say

0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:57.640
<v Speaker 2>I think it is. I'm just going to say this.

0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:03.720
<v Speaker 2>I do not like bullies, and I do not like threats.

0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:07.559
<v Speaker 2>Suggesting that one is taking detailed notes on bloggers is

0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:10.679
<v Speaker 2>an attempt to intimidate people that are seriously evaluating the

0:12:10.720 --> 0:12:13.320
<v Speaker 2>fact that open ai burns five billion dollars a year

0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:16.400
<v Speaker 2>and has no part of the profitability. I don't know

0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:18.520
<v Speaker 2>if this is actually about me, and I don't really

0:12:18.559 --> 0:12:22.600
<v Speaker 2>give a shit, but I will tell you something, Casey. Actually,

0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:26.760
<v Speaker 2>I'll tell you two things. One, don't fucking threaten people.

0:12:27.240 --> 0:12:31.000
<v Speaker 2>Don't talk about taking detailed notes on people. You have power,

0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:34.439
<v Speaker 2>you have a platform, You have responsibility to young journalists

0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:36.640
<v Speaker 2>as well as to yourself, and you seem to have

0:12:36.720 --> 0:12:39.439
<v Speaker 2>given up on all the rest of it. You seem

0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:43.160
<v Speaker 2>to have lost your weight. But then there's the second thing,

0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:45.320
<v Speaker 2>which is, Casey, I've been taking detailed notes on you

0:12:45.360 --> 0:13:00.400
<v Speaker 2>for some fucking time. Well. Newton's metaverse into View from

0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:02.680
<v Speaker 2>twenty twenty one was deeply irresponsible in how much it

0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:07.160
<v Speaker 2>quoted Mark Zuckerberg just saying complete crap, Arguably his most

0:13:07.200 --> 0:13:11.520
<v Speaker 2>disgraceful act was October twenty six, twenty twenty one, when

0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:14.800
<v Speaker 2>he wrote a piece called the Facebook Paper's Missing Piece,

0:13:15.000 --> 0:13:18.280
<v Speaker 2>an interview with an anonymous integrity worker that attempted to

0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:20.880
<v Speaker 2>undermine the Wall Street Journals reporting on the Facebook files,

0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:24.280
<v Speaker 2>a massive investigation and expose of how Facebook knew how

0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:29.040
<v Speaker 2>harmful their platform was. I should be clear the Facebook

0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:33.000
<v Speaker 2>file situation involved Francis Horgan coming forward, risking her life,

0:13:33.480 --> 0:13:37.440
<v Speaker 2>risking her safety. That woman is incredibly brave, as are

0:13:37.480 --> 0:13:40.600
<v Speaker 2>the reporters that covered this. This is important work. This

0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:44.960
<v Speaker 2>is necessary work. And Newton's pieces a disgrace to tech journalism,

0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:48.640
<v Speaker 2>a disqualifying one, a seeming attempt to discredit by proxy,

0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:52.040
<v Speaker 2>the bravery of a whistleblower that provided documents that led

0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:56.160
<v Speaker 2>to this meaningful reporting. And it's utterly repulsive corporate hand washing,

0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:59.920
<v Speaker 2>and its important context for any criticism that casing you

0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:04.560
<v Speaker 2>has anything of anything ever again. And I'm furious. I'm

0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:07.920
<v Speaker 2>furious because Casey could be better. I believe that Casey

0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:11.680
<v Speaker 2>could actually do meaningful things. And we need you right now, Casey,

0:14:12.040 --> 0:14:16.280
<v Speaker 2>we need you to fucking start working again. And indeed,

0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:20.240
<v Speaker 2>I think the only comfortable thing I hear, or at

0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:24.320
<v Speaker 2>least feel, is reading. How much of the powerful's messaging

0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:28.160
<v Speaker 2>you like to share? Casey Newton argued that while AI

0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:30.400
<v Speaker 2>companies have hit a scaling wall, it's actually okay. And

0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:32.440
<v Speaker 2>don't worry, I'll have plenty of links in the notes

0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:36.240
<v Speaker 2>that NFTs went finally mainstream in twenty twenty two. They didn't.

0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:38.920
<v Speaker 2>He argued that Clubhouse was the future and that live

0:14:38.960 --> 0:14:41.800
<v Speaker 2>audio was Zuckerbugs and I quote big bet on creators

0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:43.960
<v Speaker 2>in twenty twenty one due to and I quote again

0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:47.400
<v Speaker 2>the shift in power from institutions to individuals. I should

0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:50.160
<v Speaker 2>add that Facebook shut down their podcast service a year later.

0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:52.800
<v Speaker 2>And he also added, and I can't see the full

0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:56.320
<v Speaker 2>text here because it's payward, that metaverse pessimists were missing

0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:59.040
<v Speaker 2>something because Meta's grand vision was already well on its way.

0:14:59.120 --> 0:15:01.120
<v Speaker 2>He wrote this in November twenty twenty one. By the way,

0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:04.360
<v Speaker 2>he also wanted that Meta's leadership changed its mind about

0:15:04.400 --> 0:15:07.000
<v Speaker 2>its name because Facebook was not the future of the company.

0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:09.920
<v Speaker 2>Maybe that was accurate, I don't know. He also wrote

0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:13.200
<v Speaker 2>about Acxieinfinity, which is a cryptoweb three Pokemon clone thing

0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:16.040
<v Speaker 2>that created a kind of indentured servitude. There's like loan

0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:18.800
<v Speaker 2>sharks in the Philippines. That fuck, people have heard this.

0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:21.600
<v Speaker 2>It's insane. And by the way, back by Andres and Horowitz,

0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:24.640
<v Speaker 2>and he was claiming that the game turned gaming on

0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:28.640
<v Speaker 2>its head. It sucks absolutely. I could go on, it

0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:30.840
<v Speaker 2>shouldn't be this easy, man, It shouldn't be this easy

0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:33.920
<v Speaker 2>to find a bunch of really weird stuff. Because Casey

0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:37.320
<v Speaker 2>has also at times had real dalliancies with criticism. He

0:15:37.440 --> 0:15:40.880
<v Speaker 2>has criticized Facebook, but it's also hard to take those

0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:44.120
<v Speaker 2>criticisms seriously when Casey's also written a piece for The

0:15:44.200 --> 0:15:46.800
<v Speaker 2>Verge about how Google plans to win its antitrust trial.

0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:49.200
<v Speaker 2>They didn't win, by the way, and he printed the

0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:52.320
<v Speaker 2>legal and marketing opinion of one of the largest companies

0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:55.840
<v Speaker 2>in the world their general counsel, knowing full well the

0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:59.080
<v Speaker 2>Department of Justice could not respond. How would they respond?

0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:02.400
<v Speaker 2>The old Microsoft anti trust case ended up getting sucked

0:16:02.440 --> 0:16:04.960
<v Speaker 2>up because a judge responded to a journalist like, that's

0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:08.800
<v Speaker 2>the thing, Casey, use your power responsibly. Don't talk about

0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:13.160
<v Speaker 2>taking notes, mate, don't talk about taking notes. There's fighting words. Anyway,

0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:17.360
<v Speaker 2>the Google thing I brought up, maybe thinking why would

0:16:17.360 --> 0:16:19.480
<v Speaker 2>I bring up anythim with with Google. This is about

0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:22.400
<v Speaker 2>meta right, Well, there were emails revealed in the Department

0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:25.960
<v Speaker 2>of Justice is anti trust against trial against Google Search, which,

0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:27.720
<v Speaker 2>as you well know, for the man who cup Google Search,

0:16:27.720 --> 0:16:30.800
<v Speaker 2>I've read a lot of Well, Google specifically mentioned having

0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:33.440
<v Speaker 2>briefed Casey Newton with the intention of and I quote

0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:37.320
<v Speaker 2>looking for ways to drive headlines on Google's own terms. Now,

0:16:37.320 --> 0:16:39.800
<v Speaker 2>in Newton's defense, this is standard pr language, but it

0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:42.640
<v Speaker 2>is within the context of what I'm saying, quite hard

0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:46.480
<v Speaker 2>to ignore. And again, the reason I'm so fucking furious

0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:48.760
<v Speaker 2>about Casey Newton, it's these part of a media machine

0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:52.000
<v Speaker 2>that's helped whitewash Mark Zuckerberg and the people around Mark

0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:55.360
<v Speaker 2>Zuckerberg running these glossy puff pieces with scumbags like Nick

0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:58.240
<v Speaker 2>fucking Clegg and saying things like and I quote. The

0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:01.760
<v Speaker 2>transition away from Facebook's old friends and family dominated feeds

0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:05.920
<v Speaker 2>to metas algorithmic wonderland Jesus Christ seems to be proceeding

0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:08.720
<v Speaker 2>mostly without incident. By the way that line I AD

0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:11.199
<v Speaker 2>was published in twenty twenty three, two years after the

0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:13.480
<v Speaker 2>release of the Facebook files, which revealed that the company

0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:16.320
<v Speaker 2>knew its algorithmic timeline had a propensity to push users

0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:21.000
<v Speaker 2>into increasingly radical echo chambers, and one year after amidst,

0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:24.040
<v Speaker 2>the International published a report accusing Facebook's algorithms of and

0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:28.320
<v Speaker 2>I quote, supercharging the spread of harmful anti Rohinga content

0:17:28.400 --> 0:17:31.560
<v Speaker 2>in Nyamar amidst the genocide that saw an estimated million

0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:36.879
<v Speaker 2>displaced and tens of thousands massacred. KC. Case wake up, brother,

0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:39.800
<v Speaker 2>it's time to go back to work. It's time for

0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:42.359
<v Speaker 2>you to do a good job again. Case Is spent

0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:46.800
<v Speaker 2>years using his platform to subtly defend these companies, these

0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:49.680
<v Speaker 2>companies that actively make their shit worse, and he occasionally

0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:52.200
<v Speaker 2>proves he can be a real journalist. There is a

0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:54.520
<v Speaker 2>whole series of articles he wrote about the acquisition of

0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:57.240
<v Speaker 2>Twitter by Elon Musk that was genuinely important, fighting for

0:17:57.320 --> 0:18:00.760
<v Speaker 2>workers as well as members of the platform's trying horrible

0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:03.000
<v Speaker 2>things that Elon Musk was saying and doing. You can

0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:07.320
<v Speaker 2>do this, Casey, you can actually do this. But then

0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:10.320
<v Speaker 2>it feels like you slip back into am I being

0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:15.879
<v Speaker 2>too mean to meta? I'm not gonna single Casey out further,

0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:18.600
<v Speaker 2>and I really want to make it clear my frustration

0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:22.359
<v Speaker 2>here isn't that I think Casey's stupid or poorly connected.

0:18:22.680 --> 0:18:25.120
<v Speaker 2>Quite the opposite. I think Casey's quite smart. I think

0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:27.800
<v Speaker 2>Casey's fully capable of doing this. It's why it's so

0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:29.600
<v Speaker 2>sickening when you go and look back and see what

0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:33.040
<v Speaker 2>he's done. And I really need you to know how

0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:36.359
<v Speaker 2>important it is to have really great independent writers and

0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:38.800
<v Speaker 2>not have them scared to do things because a guy

0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:43.600
<v Speaker 2>who clearly has some allegiance with the powerful wants to

0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:46.720
<v Speaker 2>scare them. You can't scare Gary Markus. Nothing scares Gary

0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:49.879
<v Speaker 2>Marcus is actually kind of remarkable, actually kind of weird.

0:18:50.119 --> 0:18:53.520
<v Speaker 2>But this isn't about Gary. Now. The media and people

0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:56.240
<v Speaker 2>like Casey, and this is another frustrating thing as well.

0:18:56.640 --> 0:18:59.440
<v Speaker 2>They're super influential of a public policy and the overall

0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:03.159
<v Speaker 2>way that's I've used and judges tech as an experienced,

0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:06.320
<v Speaker 2>knowledgeable journalist, Casey is too regularly chosen to frame fear

0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:08.840
<v Speaker 2>and balanced as let's make sure the powerful get their

0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:11.600
<v Speaker 2>say too. As I've said and I will continue to say,

0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:14.720
<v Speaker 2>Casey is fully capable of doing some of the literal

0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:18.840
<v Speaker 2>best journalism in tech. And I always cite his Facebook

0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:22.159
<v Speaker 2>moderation stuff. It's really good. He fought for people that

0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:26.440
<v Speaker 2>were victims of a horrifying corporate machine. Yeah, he keeps

0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:28.280
<v Speaker 2>choosing not to do that, And I don't know what

0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:31.639
<v Speaker 2>it is. I'm not gonna I actually don't consider Casey

0:19:31.680 --> 0:19:35.080
<v Speaker 2>and Karaswish are the same thing. I don't know Casey's intentions.

0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:37.119
<v Speaker 2>All I know is what he's done. And all I

0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:40.359
<v Speaker 2>know is that if we are to push back on authoritarianism,

0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:42.760
<v Speaker 2>that if we're actually going to tell the truth to

0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:45.720
<v Speaker 2>people and help people understand what's happening to them, we

0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:49.480
<v Speaker 2>can't keep doing it this way. We can't. And the

0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:51.960
<v Speaker 2>cost of doing it this way is that the powerful

0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:55.720
<v Speaker 2>of used people in the media as mouthpieces to whitewash.

0:19:55.760 --> 0:20:00.040
<v Speaker 2>There's horrible, little fucking product decisions, these terrible things they've done.

0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:04.560
<v Speaker 2>And I don't know why Casey I mentioned it. I

0:20:04.600 --> 0:20:08.040
<v Speaker 2>don't know his intentions. I really don't. But what I

0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:10.320
<v Speaker 2>do know is that as a result of Casey Newton's work,

0:20:10.320 --> 0:20:13.200
<v Speaker 2>Mark Zuckerberg and his products have received a continual amount

0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:16.280
<v Speaker 2>of promotion for ideas and air cover for their failures,

0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:21.320
<v Speaker 2>and as a result, public policy has been directly influenced.

0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:25.240
<v Speaker 2>And it's just frustrating. It can be better, it should

0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:27.679
<v Speaker 2>be better. And while Newton has acted for years like

0:20:27.760 --> 0:20:30.200
<v Speaker 2>nothing was wrong with the quality of the platforms themselves.

0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:32.639
<v Speaker 2>He's been able to write with clarity and purpose about

0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:34.960
<v Speaker 2>other things. And if he did the same thing, and

0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:37.760
<v Speaker 2>I would be I will be completely serious. If he

0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:40.440
<v Speaker 2>changes his tune, I'd be so happy. We need Casey

0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:46.600
<v Speaker 2>Newton actually challenging these companies meaningfully. And I don't know

0:20:46.640 --> 0:20:49.960
<v Speaker 2>what would change that, but I will say, don't threaten

0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:53.200
<v Speaker 2>fucking writer as Casey, don't do that. I don't like bullying.

0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:55.800
<v Speaker 2>I won't tolerate in this fucking tech media. I know

0:20:55.880 --> 0:20:59.240
<v Speaker 2>oint can squeak at you all I possibly can. Don't

0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:03.040
<v Speaker 2>talk about taking detailed notes about people. It's greasy, it's gross.

0:21:04.760 --> 0:21:08.040
<v Speaker 2>And I think that the consequences of supporting these companies,

0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:10.600
<v Speaker 2>of making sure that when something bad happens they have

0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:14.879
<v Speaker 2>a newsletter with one hundred and fifty thousand subscribers that

0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:18.280
<v Speaker 2>they can go to and get a kindly story. That's

0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:20.480
<v Speaker 2>just worrying and it can be better in case he

0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:24.600
<v Speaker 2>can be better too, But the consequences here are horrifying

0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:28.119
<v Speaker 2>and they're all also just reading these stories again just

0:21:28.240 --> 0:21:30.240
<v Speaker 2>feels me full of bile, as if I'm usually that

0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:35.199
<v Speaker 2>calm putting aside the fact that Mark Zuckerberg is this

0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:39.760
<v Speaker 2>horrible career liar and this charlatan. He's deliberately hurting billions

0:21:39.800 --> 0:21:42.639
<v Speaker 2>of people. He has been doing this for a while,

0:21:44.600 --> 0:21:47.760
<v Speaker 2>and I believe that by being given air cover for

0:21:47.800 --> 0:21:51.520
<v Speaker 2>so long and now having this mask off moment where

0:21:51.560 --> 0:21:53.920
<v Speaker 2>he can just say, oh, give it's now, I would

0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:56.680
<v Speaker 2>not be surprised if Zuckerberg turns on the media. Well

0:21:56.680 --> 0:22:00.640
<v Speaker 2>maybe they'll help him. I don't know, but I think

0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:03.879
<v Speaker 2>that where we are right now, with this kind of unvarnished,

0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:08.680
<v Speaker 2>unrepentant Mark Zuckerberg, I think that all of the changes

0:22:08.760 --> 0:22:10.920
<v Speaker 2>he's making at Meta, it's going to create this new

0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:13.600
<v Speaker 2>era of decay. I think he is going to inspire

0:22:13.640 --> 0:22:17.399
<v Speaker 2>tech executives unburdened by the kind of flimsy approach to

0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:20.119
<v Speaker 2>societal norms and customer loyalty. I think he's going to

0:22:20.160 --> 0:22:22.440
<v Speaker 2>inspire them to make their shit even worse. From here,

0:22:23.680 --> 0:22:26.160
<v Speaker 2>I think Meta has fired the gun of the slop society.

0:22:26.400 --> 0:22:28.960
<v Speaker 2>And yes, I came up with a new term, because

0:22:28.960 --> 0:22:31.720
<v Speaker 2>this is the beginning of the shittiest shit that ever

0:22:31.760 --> 0:22:35.040
<v Speaker 2>did shit. In an interview with The Financial Times from

0:22:35.040 --> 0:22:38.520
<v Speaker 2>December twenty twenty four metas VP of Product for Generative AI,

0:22:38.680 --> 0:22:42.600
<v Speaker 2>Connor Hayes said that Meta expects AI to actually overtime

0:22:42.720 --> 0:22:45.040
<v Speaker 2>exist on metas platforms, kind of in the same way

0:22:45.040 --> 0:22:47.520
<v Speaker 2>that accounts to each one having their own bios and

0:22:47.560 --> 0:22:50.200
<v Speaker 2>profile pictures and the ability to and I quote generate

0:22:50.240 --> 0:22:53.080
<v Speaker 2>and share content powered by AI on the platform. This

0:22:53.160 --> 0:22:55.040
<v Speaker 2>came hot off the heels of Mark Zuckerberg saying in

0:22:55.080 --> 0:22:57.480
<v Speaker 2>a quarterly earning school that Meta would and I quote

0:22:57.680 --> 0:23:00.000
<v Speaker 2>add a whole new category of content, which is AI

0:23:00.200 --> 0:23:04.199
<v Speaker 2>generated or AI summarized content, or kind of existing content

0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:07.320
<v Speaker 2>pulled together by AI in some way, effectively promising to

0:23:07.359 --> 0:23:10.119
<v Speaker 2>drop AI slop into feeds already filled with recommended and

0:23:10.160 --> 0:23:12.760
<v Speaker 2>sponsored slop from real people that gets in the way

0:23:12.760 --> 0:23:14.520
<v Speaker 2>of you seeing the things you actually log onto their

0:23:14.520 --> 0:23:17.879
<v Speaker 2>platforms to look at. Now, this whole thing in the

0:23:17.920 --> 0:23:20.520
<v Speaker 2>Financial Times it led to a kind of scandal where

0:23:20.600 --> 0:23:23.520
<v Speaker 2>users discovered what they believed to be brand new AI profiles.

0:23:24.200 --> 0:23:26.399
<v Speaker 2>Karenattiir of The Washington Post were a long thread and

0:23:26.400 --> 0:23:28.240
<v Speaker 2>blue Sky, and a piece in the post itself about

0:23:28.240 --> 0:23:30.720
<v Speaker 2>her experience talking to a bot she fairly described as

0:23:30.760 --> 0:23:34.399
<v Speaker 2>digital blackface, with Meta receiving massive backlash for these bots

0:23:34.440 --> 0:23:36.040
<v Speaker 2>that would happily admit that they were trained by a

0:23:36.040 --> 0:23:38.400
<v Speaker 2>bunch of white people. It turns out, by the way,

0:23:38.400 --> 0:23:40.600
<v Speaker 2>that these bots had been around for over a year

0:23:40.800 --> 0:23:43.399
<v Speaker 2>in various forms that were so unpopular that nobody really

0:23:43.440 --> 0:23:46.919
<v Speaker 2>noticed in twenty twenty three until the financial time story

0:23:46.960 --> 0:23:48.920
<v Speaker 2>came up at the end of twenty twenty four, leading

0:23:48.920 --> 0:23:51.240
<v Speaker 2>to better deleting the bots, at least for now, though

0:23:51.240 --> 0:23:53.520
<v Speaker 2>I'm hearing reports you can still get to them if

0:23:53.560 --> 0:23:55.800
<v Speaker 2>you really need to talk to a chat GBT version

0:23:55.840 --> 0:24:00.399
<v Speaker 2>of what someone who thinks her a gay black person is.

0:24:00.440 --> 0:24:03.919
<v Speaker 2>And I'm really describing the literal bot here live is

0:24:03.960 --> 0:24:08.000
<v Speaker 2>the name? Really disgusting stuff. And I'm one hundred percent sure,

0:24:08.040 --> 0:24:09.880
<v Speaker 2>by the way, that these chatbots are coming back, because

0:24:09.880 --> 0:24:12.119
<v Speaker 2>it's fairly obvious that Meta intends to fill your feeds

0:24:12.119 --> 0:24:16.280
<v Speaker 2>with content, whether it's entirely generated or recommended or summarized

0:24:16.359 --> 0:24:20.560
<v Speaker 2>or whatever it is. And AI generated slop's already dominating

0:24:20.560 --> 0:24:22.760
<v Speaker 2>the platform, and has discussed earlier the quality of the

0:24:22.760 --> 0:24:27.000
<v Speaker 2>platform itself has already fallen into a kind of ultra disrepair,

0:24:27.400 --> 0:24:31.359
<v Speaker 2>mostly because Meta's only concern is keeping you on Instagram

0:24:31.440 --> 0:24:33.720
<v Speaker 2>or Facebook so that they can show you more ads

0:24:33.800 --> 0:24:36.280
<v Speaker 2>or content that they've been paid to show you, even

0:24:36.320 --> 0:24:37.960
<v Speaker 2>if the reason you're seeing it is because you can't

0:24:37.960 --> 0:24:39.679
<v Speaker 2>find the things you actually want to find. And I

0:24:39.800 --> 0:24:42.560
<v Speaker 2>keep repeating that point for a reason, because that's how

0:24:42.600 --> 0:24:59.520
<v Speaker 2>meta makes money. And all of this is because well,

0:24:59.600 --> 0:25:01.919
<v Speaker 2>like everything in this show, all roads lead back to

0:25:01.920 --> 0:25:04.120
<v Speaker 2>the rot economy, which the growth at all cost mindset.

0:25:04.160 --> 0:25:06.439
<v Speaker 2>That means that the only thing that matters is the

0:25:06.480 --> 0:25:08.840
<v Speaker 2>growth of revenue, which comes from showing you as many

0:25:08.880 --> 0:25:11.560
<v Speaker 2>ads as possible and you being engaged with the platform

0:25:11.640 --> 0:25:15.320
<v Speaker 2>as much as possible. But I'm gonna be honest, it's

0:25:15.359 --> 0:25:18.399
<v Speaker 2>almost ridiculous to call us users of Facebook at this point.

0:25:19.200 --> 0:25:21.960
<v Speaker 2>We don't use Facebook. Facebook uses us. It's tripe, but

0:25:22.000 --> 0:25:27.040
<v Speaker 2>it's true. We're victims. We're all victims of the rot economy.

0:25:27.080 --> 0:25:28.440
<v Speaker 2>And I said it at the end of last year,

0:25:28.440 --> 0:25:32.120
<v Speaker 2>But with Facebook, I really think it's at its most grotesque.

0:25:32.800 --> 0:25:35.240
<v Speaker 2>We're not users. We are the used. We're the punished,

0:25:35.240 --> 0:25:39.879
<v Speaker 2>the terrorized, the trick the scammed, the abused. We're constantly

0:25:39.960 --> 0:25:43.160
<v Speaker 2>using this app trying to get things that we actually want.

0:25:43.240 --> 0:25:46.399
<v Speaker 2>We're constantly forced to navigate through layers of abstraction between

0:25:46.400 --> 0:25:48.560
<v Speaker 2>the thing we're allegedly using and the features we'd like

0:25:48.640 --> 0:25:52.439
<v Speaker 2>to use. It's fucking farcical how little attention has been

0:25:52.480 --> 0:25:54.960
<v Speaker 2>given to how bad tech products have gone, and few

0:25:55.000 --> 0:25:57.160
<v Speaker 2>have decayed as severely as Facebook thanks to this near

0:25:57.200 --> 0:26:01.280
<v Speaker 2>monopoly they have over social media. I would rather not

0:26:01.440 --> 0:26:03.520
<v Speaker 2>use any of their products, but there are people I

0:26:03.600 --> 0:26:05.760
<v Speaker 2>know who really only speak to me on there, and

0:26:05.840 --> 0:26:08.040
<v Speaker 2>I know many people who have the same experience. Don't

0:26:08.080 --> 0:26:10.080
<v Speaker 2>call me a loser, all right, I've gone to a

0:26:10.080 --> 0:26:12.720
<v Speaker 2>lot of therapy. I don't call myself that anymore anyways.

0:26:15.320 --> 0:26:19.120
<v Speaker 2>Is Zuckerberg and his people are intimately aware though people

0:26:19.160 --> 0:26:21.520
<v Speaker 2>don't really have any whe else to go, which, along

0:26:21.520 --> 0:26:24.240
<v Speaker 2>with a lack of regulation and a fairly compliant media,

0:26:24.320 --> 0:26:27.359
<v Speaker 2>has given Mark Zuckerberg and Meta permission to do just

0:26:27.400 --> 0:26:30.639
<v Speaker 2>about anything they want to increase advertising impressions, which in

0:26:30.680 --> 0:26:33.320
<v Speaker 2>practice means giving you more reason to stay on the platform,

0:26:33.400 --> 0:26:35.199
<v Speaker 2>which means putting more things in the way of what

0:26:35.240 --> 0:26:37.600
<v Speaker 2>you want to see, rather than creating something you'd want

0:26:37.600 --> 0:26:40.360
<v Speaker 2>to see in the first place. It's the same thing

0:26:40.400 --> 0:26:42.720
<v Speaker 2>that happened with Google Search, where the revenue team pushed

0:26:42.720 --> 0:26:45.280
<v Speaker 2>the search team to make search results worse as a

0:26:45.320 --> 0:26:47.480
<v Speaker 2>means of increasing the amount of times that people search

0:26:47.520 --> 0:26:50.080
<v Speaker 2>for things on Google, because you know, a user that

0:26:50.119 --> 0:26:52.840
<v Speaker 2>finds what they're looking for quickly spends less time looking

0:26:52.880 --> 0:26:54.920
<v Speaker 2>at ads. And that's just not how it works with

0:26:55.000 --> 0:26:58.199
<v Speaker 2>Probagar Ragavan and said his name in a while. But

0:26:58.280 --> 0:27:00.800
<v Speaker 2>this is why the app store on Apple devices is

0:27:00.840 --> 0:27:03.640
<v Speaker 2>so chaotic and poorly curated as well, because they make

0:27:03.680 --> 0:27:06.199
<v Speaker 2>money on the advertising impressions they get from showing you

0:27:06.280 --> 0:27:09.440
<v Speaker 2>ads as you search for apps. Also, this is why

0:27:09.480 --> 0:27:12.000
<v Speaker 2>so many products on the App Store have expensive and

0:27:12.040 --> 0:27:15.240
<v Speaker 2>exploited in micro transactions too. Apple makes thirty percent off

0:27:15.280 --> 0:27:18.000
<v Speaker 2>of all apps store revenue, even if the app sucks,

0:27:18.040 --> 0:27:20.120
<v Speaker 2>even if the app tricked you and said, oh yeah,

0:27:20.359 --> 0:27:23.400
<v Speaker 2>we're going to charge you weekly, they hide the weekly.

0:27:23.600 --> 0:27:26.200
<v Speaker 2>You think, oh three ninety nine a month, right now,

0:27:26.200 --> 0:27:28.679
<v Speaker 2>it's weekly. It's in a tiny, little little note at

0:27:28.680 --> 0:27:32.719
<v Speaker 2>the bottom. Apple eventually gets rid of those people eventually.

0:27:33.920 --> 0:27:36.800
<v Speaker 2>And I believe that Mark Zuckerberg loosening community standards and

0:27:36.880 --> 0:27:39.760
<v Speaker 2>killing fact checking is just the beginning of texts real

0:27:39.880 --> 0:27:42.600
<v Speaker 2>era of decay. You think the rot economy is bad,

0:27:42.600 --> 0:27:46.760
<v Speaker 2>that they it's only getting worse. See it's Trump really

0:27:46.800 --> 0:27:51.800
<v Speaker 2>inspires people horrible people by bulldozing norms, doing things that

0:27:52.000 --> 0:27:54.480
<v Speaker 2>we would all agree we would never do, like being

0:27:54.560 --> 0:27:59.720
<v Speaker 2>noxious and toxic and racist, and in the process moves

0:27:59.720 --> 0:28:02.200
<v Speaker 2>the over window, which is the range of acceptable things

0:28:02.280 --> 0:28:05.920
<v Speaker 2>in the society, further and further and further into the toilet,

0:28:05.960 --> 0:28:10.000
<v Speaker 2>aggressively flushing it as he goes. But really, we've already

0:28:10.000 --> 0:28:13.280
<v Speaker 2>seen tech's Overton window shift for years. A lack of

0:28:13.320 --> 0:28:15.520
<v Speaker 2>media coverage of the actual decay of these products, and

0:28:15.520 --> 0:28:17.840
<v Speaker 2>a lack of accountability for tech executives, both in the

0:28:17.880 --> 0:28:20.800
<v Speaker 2>media and regulation. It's given these companies the permission to

0:28:20.880 --> 0:28:23.400
<v Speaker 2>quietly fuck up their stuff, to make the services worse,

0:28:23.520 --> 0:28:27.320
<v Speaker 2>to make more growth happen, and because everybody made things shittier.

0:28:27.320 --> 0:28:30.040
<v Speaker 2>Over time, it became accepted practice to punish and trick

0:28:30.160 --> 0:28:33.639
<v Speaker 2>customers with dark patterns, designed choices to intentionally mislead people,

0:28:33.880 --> 0:28:35.840
<v Speaker 2>to the point that the FTC found last year that

0:28:35.880 --> 0:28:40.719
<v Speaker 2>the majority of subscription apps and websites use them. I believe, however,

0:28:40.760 --> 0:28:43.840
<v Speaker 2>that Zuckerberg is going to move the tech Overton window

0:28:43.880 --> 0:28:46.640
<v Speaker 2>a little bit further. Look, he's publicly saying we are

0:28:46.680 --> 0:28:49.320
<v Speaker 2>going to fill your feeds with slop, we're firing five

0:28:49.320 --> 0:28:51.560
<v Speaker 2>percent of our workers because they're not good, and we're

0:28:51.560 --> 0:28:53.880
<v Speaker 2>going to have AI profiles instead of real people on

0:28:53.920 --> 0:28:55.960
<v Speaker 2>the site. You visit to see the real people you know.

0:28:56.160 --> 0:28:58.280
<v Speaker 2>And we don't really give a shit about marginalized people

0:28:58.280 --> 0:29:00.479
<v Speaker 2>to the point of formalizing it in policy, rendering our

0:29:00.520 --> 0:29:04.520
<v Speaker 2>DEI initiatives, and people are too mean to men. These

0:29:04.560 --> 0:29:07.120
<v Speaker 2>are the things that Mark Zuckerberg is using to signal

0:29:07.160 --> 0:29:08.880
<v Speaker 2>the fact that he does not give a rap fuck

0:29:08.920 --> 0:29:12.400
<v Speaker 2>about you or the users of his products, and he

0:29:12.480 --> 0:29:14.280
<v Speaker 2>knows that, in his position of the CEO, is one

0:29:14.280 --> 0:29:16.560
<v Speaker 2>of the most powerful companies in the world, let alone

0:29:16.600 --> 0:29:19.520
<v Speaker 2>tech companies. By the way, people are going to follow,

0:29:20.120 --> 0:29:23.680
<v Speaker 2>not just in tech, but are really in tech. Tech's

0:29:23.720 --> 0:29:27.040
<v Speaker 2>already taken liberties with the digital experience, and I believe

0:29:27.040 --> 0:29:29.240
<v Speaker 2>this SLOP era is going to be one where experiences

0:29:29.280 --> 0:29:32.200
<v Speaker 2>will begin to subtly and overtly rot, with companies proudly

0:29:32.200 --> 0:29:35.200
<v Speaker 2>boasting that they're making adjustments the user engagement that will

0:29:35.240 --> 0:29:38.200
<v Speaker 2>provide better business forward outcomes, which will be code for

0:29:38.360 --> 0:29:41.680
<v Speaker 2>make things worse so we make more money. I realize

0:29:41.680 --> 0:29:43.560
<v Speaker 2>this also an obvious thing. I'm not saying that the

0:29:43.560 --> 0:29:46.160
<v Speaker 2>Trump administration isn't going to be any kind of regulatory

0:29:46.200 --> 0:29:49.360
<v Speaker 2>force against big tech. Trump is perhaps the most transactional

0:29:49.440 --> 0:29:52.840
<v Speaker 2>human being to ever grace the earth. Big tech knows this,

0:29:52.880 --> 0:29:55.080
<v Speaker 2>which is why all of them have been donating random

0:29:55.120 --> 0:29:58.160
<v Speaker 2>one million dollar checks to him to his inorganization fund.

0:29:58.560 --> 0:30:01.400
<v Speaker 2>It's why Trump is completely revert this position on TikTok,

0:30:01.720 --> 0:30:05.000
<v Speaker 2>which is banned or unbanned depending on what's happening today.

0:30:05.200 --> 0:30:07.920
<v Speaker 2>I'm recording this. It's back up. I don't use it. It's weird.

0:30:07.960 --> 0:30:10.760
<v Speaker 2>I don't like it. Something's wrong there. I don't even

0:30:10.800 --> 0:30:12.880
<v Speaker 2>mean with the app before it like, something's weird with it.

0:30:12.920 --> 0:30:16.240
<v Speaker 2>Now you can't post about meta negatively. But tech knows,

0:30:16.480 --> 0:30:18.520
<v Speaker 2>or at least thinks, that by kissing the ring, they

0:30:18.520 --> 0:30:22.000
<v Speaker 2>can do whatever they want. Now. I should be clear

0:30:22.080 --> 0:30:25.360
<v Speaker 2>that previous governments have not been particularly effective at curbing

0:30:25.400 --> 0:30:27.680
<v Speaker 2>the worst excesses of big tech, though. I think we

0:30:27.680 --> 0:30:29.920
<v Speaker 2>can all agree on that he has done some stuff.

0:30:29.960 --> 0:30:34.200
<v Speaker 2>But even then, the qualities, there's no quality standards. Outside

0:30:34.200 --> 0:30:36.400
<v Speaker 2>of the last few years, and specifically the work done

0:30:36.400 --> 0:30:39.440
<v Speaker 2>by the FTC under Lena Khan Anti Trust against big

0:30:39.480 --> 0:30:42.640
<v Speaker 2>tech has been incredibly weak and really has been pretty

0:30:42.640 --> 0:30:45.400
<v Speaker 2>weak against everyone else as well, and no meaningful consumer

0:30:45.480 --> 0:30:48.600
<v Speaker 2>protections exist to keep websites like Facebook or Google functional

0:30:48.600 --> 0:30:52.240
<v Speaker 2>for consumers or limit how exploitative they can be. Like

0:30:52.280 --> 0:30:55.080
<v Speaker 2>they can't just have vats of piss in your drinking water.

0:30:55.600 --> 0:30:58.440
<v Speaker 2>Why is this any different? And yes, I consider spam

0:30:58.480 --> 0:31:01.440
<v Speaker 2>a form of piss. But the media really has failed

0:31:01.480 --> 0:31:03.640
<v Speaker 2>to hold them accountable at scale, which has in turn

0:31:03.680 --> 0:31:06.200
<v Speaker 2>allowed the Overton window to shift on quality. And now

0:31:06.240 --> 0:31:08.800
<v Speaker 2>that Trump and the general magnified mindset of you can

0:31:08.840 --> 0:31:10.520
<v Speaker 2>do or say whatever you want if you do so

0:31:10.600 --> 0:31:13.760
<v Speaker 2>confidently or loudly enough, has risen to power again, and

0:31:13.800 --> 0:31:17.400
<v Speaker 2>so too will an era of outright selfishness and cruelty

0:31:17.400 --> 0:31:20.800
<v Speaker 2>within the products that consumers use every day. Except this time,

0:31:20.800 --> 0:31:23.760
<v Speaker 2>I believe these tech companies finally have permission to enter

0:31:23.800 --> 0:31:28.479
<v Speaker 2>their real, dirtiest, sloppiest eras. I also think that Trump

0:31:28.560 --> 0:31:32.040
<v Speaker 2>gives them the confidence that monopolies like Facebook, Instagram, Microsoft

0:31:32.080 --> 0:31:35.560
<v Speaker 2>three sixty five, which is Microsoft's enterprise monopoly over business

0:31:35.600 --> 0:31:39.200
<v Speaker 2>productivity software, things like Google Search and Google Advertising, which

0:31:39.240 --> 0:31:42.000
<v Speaker 2>I realize remedies are coming for, but I really think

0:31:42.040 --> 0:31:44.080
<v Speaker 2>a lot of these are going to remain unchallenged, and

0:31:44.120 --> 0:31:47.440
<v Speaker 2>even if they're not, I don't think anything exists to

0:31:47.520 --> 0:31:50.600
<v Speaker 2>make these companies start getting better. But what I'm really

0:31:50.600 --> 0:31:54.240
<v Speaker 2>describing is an era of industrial contempt for the consumer,

0:31:54.520 --> 0:31:57.600
<v Speaker 2>a continuation of what I described in the Invisible War

0:31:57.640 --> 0:32:00.680
<v Speaker 2>and the Invisible War criminals from last year take decides

0:32:00.720 --> 0:32:02.560
<v Speaker 2>that they will do whatever they want to consume us

0:32:02.600 --> 0:32:05.160
<v Speaker 2>within the boundaries of the law, but with little consideration

0:32:05.200 --> 0:32:08.760
<v Speaker 2>of good taste, user happiness, or anything other than growth.

0:32:09.920 --> 0:32:12.280
<v Speaker 2>Now how this manifests in Facebook and Instagram will be

0:32:12.280 --> 0:32:15.800
<v Speaker 2>fairly obvious. I believe that the already fucked up state

0:32:15.800 --> 0:32:18.719
<v Speaker 2>of these platforms will just massively accelerate. Meta is going

0:32:18.760 --> 0:32:21.160
<v Speaker 2>to push as much aislop as it wants, both created

0:32:21.160 --> 0:32:24.400
<v Speaker 2>by its generative models and their users, and massively up

0:32:24.480 --> 0:32:27.320
<v Speaker 2>content that riles up users with little regard for the consequences.

0:32:27.480 --> 0:32:29.920
<v Speaker 2>And I wouldn't be surprised if the generative content is

0:32:30.040 --> 0:32:34.880
<v Speaker 2>political too. Instagram will become more exploitative and more volatile.

0:32:35.520 --> 0:32:38.360
<v Speaker 2>Instagram ads have been steadily getting more problematic, and I

0:32:38.360 --> 0:32:41.040
<v Speaker 2>think Meta will start taking ads from just about anyone,

0:32:41.320 --> 0:32:43.760
<v Speaker 2>and this will internal lead to an initial revenue bump.

0:32:44.040 --> 0:32:46.960
<v Speaker 2>But then I hypothesize a steady bleed of users that

0:32:47.000 --> 0:32:49.280
<v Speaker 2>will take a few quarters to truly emerge, and we're

0:32:49.280 --> 0:32:51.320
<v Speaker 2>already kind of seeing it with Facebook. Go back to

0:32:51.400 --> 0:32:55.680
<v Speaker 2>the rock combubble from last year. Sadly, I think we're

0:32:55.720 --> 0:32:59.720
<v Speaker 2>already seeing the abuse. These abusive practices come out elsewhere.

0:33:00.320 --> 0:33:03.160
<v Speaker 2>Both Google and Microsoft are now forcing generative AI features

0:33:03.200 --> 0:33:06.040
<v Speaker 2>onto customers, with Google drifting business users by increasing the

0:33:06.080 --> 0:33:09.000
<v Speaker 2>cost of Google Workspace by two dollars per user per

0:33:09.040 --> 0:33:12.120
<v Speaker 2>month along with adding AI features that they didn't want,

0:33:12.640 --> 0:33:16.040
<v Speaker 2>and Microsoft has now raised the price of consumer office subscriptions,

0:33:16.120 --> 0:33:19.400
<v Speaker 2>justifying the move by adding Copilot AI features that again

0:33:19.520 --> 0:33:24.240
<v Speaker 2>nobody really wants. The informations. John Victor and Aaron Holmes

0:33:24.280 --> 0:33:26.880
<v Speaker 2>add that's yet to be seen what Microsoft does with

0:33:26.920 --> 0:33:30.800
<v Speaker 2>their corporate customers using Microsoft three sixty five Productivity Suite.

0:33:31.040 --> 0:33:34.200
<v Speaker 2>Adding Copilot costs, by the way, thirty dollars per use

0:33:34.280 --> 0:33:36.800
<v Speaker 2>per month. But I also hypothesize that they're going to

0:33:36.800 --> 0:33:39.320
<v Speaker 2>do exactly the same thing that Google did. They're going

0:33:39.320 --> 0:33:41.320
<v Speaker 2>to knock up the prices and they're going to go

0:33:41.400 --> 0:33:44.320
<v Speaker 2>but you've got free AI isn't free? Isn't free? If

0:33:44.360 --> 0:33:46.680
<v Speaker 2>I have to pay more? Mate, that's not how free works.

0:33:47.640 --> 0:33:49.400
<v Speaker 2>I should also be clear that the reason they're doing

0:33:49.440 --> 0:33:53.600
<v Speaker 2>this is because they're desperate. These companies must express growth

0:33:53.680 --> 0:33:57.240
<v Speaker 2>every single quarterly earnings or see their stock prices. Creator

0:33:57.440 --> 0:34:00.360
<v Speaker 2>and big tech companies have oriented themselves around growth as

0:34:00.360 --> 0:34:02.720
<v Speaker 2>a result, meaning that they're not really used to having

0:34:02.720 --> 0:34:05.800
<v Speaker 2>to do things like compete for a customer or make

0:34:05.840 --> 0:34:09.280
<v Speaker 2>a product that the customer might like. For over a decade,

0:34:09.440 --> 0:34:12.160
<v Speaker 2>tech has been rewarded for creating growth opportunities empowered by

0:34:12.200 --> 0:34:15.400
<v Speaker 2>monopolistic practices. And I'd argue that the cultures that created

0:34:15.440 --> 0:34:20.120
<v Speaker 2>the products that people remember actually liking, Yeah, they're dead.

0:34:20.680 --> 0:34:24.080
<v Speaker 2>They've been killed. And the people that did them, the

0:34:24.120 --> 0:34:27.640
<v Speaker 2>people that built those products, well, they've been strangled to

0:34:27.760 --> 0:34:30.760
<v Speaker 2>they've been pushed out of the tech industry. The soldiers

0:34:30.760 --> 0:34:34.200
<v Speaker 2>of the rot economy are manifold, and they're willing to

0:34:34.239 --> 0:34:37.200
<v Speaker 2>do whatever it takes to make things grow. And you

0:34:37.280 --> 0:34:40.400
<v Speaker 2>are more than likely already seeing signs that this is happening.

0:34:40.840 --> 0:34:43.520
<v Speaker 2>The little features on products you use that feel broken,

0:34:43.840 --> 0:34:46.120
<v Speaker 2>like when you try and crop an image and iOS

0:34:46.120 --> 0:34:47.880
<v Speaker 2>and it sometimes doesn't actually crop it, and when the

0:34:47.920 --> 0:34:49.880
<v Speaker 2>copy link button on Google Docs doesn't work, when a

0:34:49.880 --> 0:34:52.239
<v Speaker 2>Google search gives you a page of forum links that

0:34:52.239 --> 0:34:55.040
<v Speaker 2>don't answer your question. I expect things to get worse,

0:34:55.880 --> 0:34:59.080
<v Speaker 2>possibly a new and incredibly frustrating ways, and being a

0:34:59.080 --> 0:35:01.440
<v Speaker 2>little dramatic with all that stuff. But these are the

0:35:01.480 --> 0:35:05.280
<v Speaker 2>little niggling problems in your head. These are things poking

0:35:05.280 --> 0:35:07.919
<v Speaker 2>you in the head as you use these apps every day.

0:35:08.480 --> 0:35:11.400
<v Speaker 2>Don't pretend like this shit doesn't piss you off. Don't

0:35:11.400 --> 0:35:15.080
<v Speaker 2>pretend that the little interruptions, the little problems you get

0:35:15.080 --> 0:35:18.000
<v Speaker 2>from these things don't annoy you. And if they don't, great,

0:35:18.080 --> 0:35:20.080
<v Speaker 2>I wish I could engage you the level of calm.

0:35:20.200 --> 0:35:22.160
<v Speaker 2>I'm very mentally healthy. It may not come across in

0:35:22.200 --> 0:35:25.359
<v Speaker 2>the podcast, but I find these things just very frustrating

0:35:25.400 --> 0:35:28.200
<v Speaker 2>because there's no way in hell that the people using

0:35:28.239 --> 0:35:32.000
<v Speaker 2>these products don't see them, or they don't use their products.

0:35:32.200 --> 0:35:36.440
<v Speaker 2>Both of these are utterly reprehensible, and I deeply worry

0:35:36.440 --> 0:35:39.280
<v Speaker 2>that we're going to enter now into the most irresponsible

0:35:39.280 --> 0:35:41.560
<v Speaker 2>era of tech, yet not just in the harms that

0:35:41.600 --> 0:35:44.360
<v Speaker 2>companies allow or perpetuate, but in the full rejection of

0:35:44.360 --> 0:35:48.160
<v Speaker 2>their stewardship from the products themselves. Our digital lives are

0:35:48.160 --> 0:35:51.960
<v Speaker 2>already chaotic and poisonous, different incentives warring for our attention,

0:35:52.120 --> 0:35:55.200
<v Speaker 2>user interfaces corroded by those who believe everything is justified

0:35:55.239 --> 0:35:57.880
<v Speaker 2>in pursuit of growth. And I fear that the subtle

0:35:57.880 --> 0:36:00.920
<v Speaker 2>little problems you see every day will both multiple and expand,

0:36:01.120 --> 0:36:03.879
<v Speaker 2>and that the core services we use will break down

0:36:04.520 --> 0:36:07.560
<v Speaker 2>because I believe the most powerful people in tech never

0:36:07.640 --> 0:36:10.000
<v Speaker 2>really gave a shit and no longer believe that they

0:36:10.040 --> 0:36:14.800
<v Speaker 2>have to pretend otherwise. Now, like the end of every episode,

0:36:14.880 --> 0:36:18.200
<v Speaker 2>you may think, head, that's all just very sad. There

0:36:18.280 --> 0:36:22.160
<v Speaker 2>is a funny thing I'm hypothesizing happens. I think as

0:36:22.400 --> 0:36:24.480
<v Speaker 2>crappy as these companies are going to get, I think

0:36:24.600 --> 0:36:28.480
<v Speaker 2>users are just gonna stop using stuff. They're all saying, oh, well,

0:36:28.960 --> 0:36:31.040
<v Speaker 2>they don't have anywhere else to go. We've got more

0:36:31.080 --> 0:36:33.560
<v Speaker 2>Facebook and Instagram. They're fucked. What they're gonna do not

0:36:33.680 --> 0:36:38.640
<v Speaker 2>use Instagram or Facebook. Yes, yes, I actually think that

0:36:38.640 --> 0:36:44.240
<v Speaker 2>that's what's really coming. I think that these companies assume

0:36:44.600 --> 0:36:48.080
<v Speaker 2>that they are unkillable. They assume that because they've never

0:36:48.120 --> 0:36:51.320
<v Speaker 2>really been held accountable, not by governments, not by the media,

0:36:51.600 --> 0:36:54.480
<v Speaker 2>though there are people in the media who have nevertheless

0:36:54.719 --> 0:36:58.239
<v Speaker 2>never consistently accountable and certainly not for the quality of

0:36:58.280 --> 0:37:02.640
<v Speaker 2>the services they provide. They're arrogant, they're lazy. There are

0:37:02.680 --> 0:37:06.080
<v Speaker 2>probably startups that could come for them. There are genuinely

0:37:06.120 --> 0:37:08.879
<v Speaker 2>ways that these companies can be stopped. And though they

0:37:08.920 --> 0:37:12.399
<v Speaker 2>may be unrepentant in the dogshit they serve you, they're

0:37:12.440 --> 0:37:15.440
<v Speaker 2>only doing that because they're desperate, but also because they

0:37:15.440 --> 0:37:18.800
<v Speaker 2>don't think there's ever gonna be other competition, and history

0:37:18.800 --> 0:37:21.480
<v Speaker 2>has kind of proven that that never happens, that there

0:37:21.560 --> 0:37:23.799
<v Speaker 2>is always a bigger fish. To quote Qui gon Jin

0:37:24.320 --> 0:37:29.920
<v Speaker 2>in The Phantom Menace, classic movie about trade. Anyway, the

0:37:30.040 --> 0:37:35.279
<v Speaker 2>port are making is nothing's nothing is unkillable, nothing's unstoppable.

0:37:36.400 --> 0:37:40.799
<v Speaker 2>Every empire, even the worst one, ends. There is a

0:37:41.239 --> 0:37:44.360
<v Speaker 2>good chance in the next ten years that Meta actually collapses.

0:37:44.960 --> 0:37:50.080
<v Speaker 2>Mark Zuckerberg is doing this meaningless, fake masculine bullshare because

0:37:50.120 --> 0:37:53.239
<v Speaker 2>he realizes he doesn't have much left. He may have

0:37:53.320 --> 0:37:56.880
<v Speaker 2>all that money, but his platforms suck, his users hate them.

0:37:57.239 --> 0:38:01.400
<v Speaker 2>He's twisted and hurt people, billions of people time. He

0:38:01.520 --> 0:38:04.920
<v Speaker 2>knows that the party's ending. Online advertising is falling apart.

0:38:05.920 --> 0:38:08.000
<v Speaker 2>I think things are going to get very interesting in

0:38:08.040 --> 0:38:11.799
<v Speaker 2>the next years. And frankly, in the next months. But

0:38:11.840 --> 0:38:14.560
<v Speaker 2>I'll leave you with some hope. Again, none of these

0:38:14.560 --> 0:38:18.759
<v Speaker 2>companies are unkillable. Every single company in tech history that's

0:38:18.760 --> 0:38:22.239
<v Speaker 2>thought they were died. MySpace died, and yeah it was

0:38:22.280 --> 0:38:27.480
<v Speaker 2>a different circumstance. But Meta, while they may seem unstoppable,

0:38:28.239 --> 0:38:31.680
<v Speaker 2>relies on advertising for ninety nine percent of their revenue.

0:38:32.160 --> 0:38:35.480
<v Speaker 2>Things like ad blockers, things like even subtle changes in

0:38:35.520 --> 0:38:38.880
<v Speaker 2>the EU about how ads can be served to customers,

0:38:38.960 --> 0:38:41.920
<v Speaker 2>like the opt in feature for ads is deadly for them.

0:38:42.120 --> 0:38:47.320
<v Speaker 2>If anything happens to online ads, Meta will die. AI

0:38:47.520 --> 0:38:50.080
<v Speaker 2>is not going to save them. AI will not save

0:38:50.160 --> 0:38:53.440
<v Speaker 2>Mark Zuckerberg. And if he truly pulls the top off

0:38:53.480 --> 0:38:55.520
<v Speaker 2>of this and says, you know what, I'm just going

0:38:55.560 --> 0:38:57.759
<v Speaker 2>to serve them shit at scale, I'm just going to

0:38:57.880 --> 0:39:01.719
<v Speaker 2>slop them up, slop them up, AI, slop in every profile.

0:39:02.040 --> 0:39:05.280
<v Speaker 2>No one's going to go on Facebook anymore. They're already

0:39:05.320 --> 0:39:07.880
<v Speaker 2>losing traffic. If they do that to Instagram, which is

0:39:07.880 --> 0:39:11.280
<v Speaker 2>the one meaningful thing they still have, they're completely double fucked.

0:39:12.520 --> 0:39:14.600
<v Speaker 2>And if you think that Google Search can't be competed

0:39:14.640 --> 0:39:17.160
<v Speaker 2>with eh, I don't even think that that's the case either.

0:39:17.480 --> 0:39:19.239
<v Speaker 2>I think the remedies of that trial mean that they

0:39:19.239 --> 0:39:22.040
<v Speaker 2>have to start sharing their search data. All of these

0:39:22.080 --> 0:39:25.759
<v Speaker 2>companies can be beaten with or without regulation, but it

0:39:25.760 --> 0:39:30.200
<v Speaker 2>also starts with not using their shit anymore. I'm really

0:39:30.239 --> 0:39:32.960
<v Speaker 2>working out how I can start deleting myself from these services.

0:39:33.040 --> 0:39:34.919
<v Speaker 2>I don't know how I'm going to do it. I'm

0:39:35.080 --> 0:39:37.840
<v Speaker 2>already going to delete myself from Threads after this. I

0:39:37.960 --> 0:39:40.200
<v Speaker 2>need Instagram. That are people that like I can't talk

0:39:40.239 --> 0:39:43.440
<v Speaker 2>to elsewhere. I don't know, not super close friends, or

0:39:43.480 --> 0:39:45.560
<v Speaker 2>just people that like talking on them more than elsewhere.

0:39:45.680 --> 0:39:49.319
<v Speaker 2>Some of you probably feel like that too. Don't give up, hope,

0:39:49.320 --> 0:39:54.320
<v Speaker 2>all right, don't There's the whole thing about not bending

0:39:54.360 --> 0:39:56.080
<v Speaker 2>the knee and all that, But a big thing that

0:39:56.080 --> 0:39:59.680
<v Speaker 2>authoritarianism really wants from you is to give up in advance.

0:40:00.400 --> 0:40:03.200
<v Speaker 2>It's not just about controlling you. It's about making it

0:40:03.200 --> 0:40:06.600
<v Speaker 2>so that you don't stay angry, that you don't stay

0:40:06.840 --> 0:40:09.120
<v Speaker 2>outraged at these people. I'm trying really not to tell

0:40:09.120 --> 0:40:11.360
<v Speaker 2>you how to feel here. I'm just saying, if you

0:40:11.440 --> 0:40:15.200
<v Speaker 2>feel the frustration with these companies, all that these people

0:40:15.280 --> 0:40:19.000
<v Speaker 2>Zuckerberg especially have is their names. You think Mark Zuckerberg's

0:40:19.040 --> 0:40:21.800
<v Speaker 2>going on the Joe Rogan experience and going m men

0:40:21.960 --> 0:40:27.400
<v Speaker 2>and men are mistreated because he's secure. No, all of

0:40:27.440 --> 0:40:30.879
<v Speaker 2>these men, all they have is their names. So talk

0:40:30.880 --> 0:40:33.680
<v Speaker 2>about the things they've done. Tell people about how bad

0:40:33.719 --> 0:40:37.160
<v Speaker 2>Facebook is now maybe they know, maybe they've never really

0:40:37.160 --> 0:40:40.160
<v Speaker 2>looked close enough. I can't give you the exact skeleton

0:40:40.239 --> 0:40:42.680
<v Speaker 2>key to life, but I can tell you things get

0:40:42.680 --> 0:40:45.920
<v Speaker 2>better through discussions. Things get better through everybody agreeing that

0:40:45.920 --> 0:40:50.280
<v Speaker 2>things should be better. It's a start. I really appreciate

0:40:50.320 --> 0:40:52.960
<v Speaker 2>all of you listening to this show. Better Offlone's going

0:40:53.000 --> 0:40:55.520
<v Speaker 2>to be so weird this year. The whole talk radio

0:40:55.560 --> 0:40:57.560
<v Speaker 2>segment was so good in CES and I enjoy doing

0:40:57.600 --> 0:41:00.560
<v Speaker 2>them in person at the beautiful Eyeheart Radio Studios, New York.

0:41:00.880 --> 0:41:02.680
<v Speaker 2>If you've made it this far, you must really like

0:41:02.760 --> 0:41:06.040
<v Speaker 2>well boys, So thank you for listening. We will be

0:41:06.080 --> 0:41:08.880
<v Speaker 2>back next week. We'll be back next week with another

0:41:08.880 --> 0:41:20.360
<v Speaker 2>talk radio segment. Thank you, Thank you for listening to

0:41:20.360 --> 0:41:23.320
<v Speaker 2>Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline

0:41:23.360 --> 0:41:26.040
<v Speaker 2>theme song is Matasowski. You can check out more of

0:41:26.080 --> 0:41:29.680
<v Speaker 2>his music and audio projects at Matasowski dot com, M

0:41:29.719 --> 0:41:34.440
<v Speaker 2>A T T O, S O W s ki dot com.

0:41:34.560 --> 0:41:36.879
<v Speaker 2>You can email me at easy at better Offline dot

0:41:36.880 --> 0:41:39.120
<v Speaker 2>com or visit better Offline dot com to find more

0:41:39.160 --> 0:41:42.480
<v Speaker 2>podcast links and of course my newsletter. I also really

0:41:42.560 --> 0:41:44.839
<v Speaker 2>recommend you go to chat dot Where's Youreed dot at

0:41:44.880 --> 0:41:47.320
<v Speaker 2>to visit the discord, and go to our slash Better

0:41:47.320 --> 0:41:50.520
<v Speaker 2>Offline to check out our reddit. Thank you so much

0:41:50.520 --> 0:41:51.040
<v Speaker 2>for listening.

0:41:51.880 --> 0:41:54.600
<v Speaker 1>Better Offline is a production of cool Zone Media. For

0:41:54.680 --> 0:41:57.880
<v Speaker 1>more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool Zonemedia

0:41:57.920 --> 0:42:00.719
<v Speaker 1>dot com, or check us out on the Heart radio app,

0:42:00.800 --> 0:42:25.440
<v Speaker 1>Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. H