Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to text Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech. And this is the
Speaker 1: tech news for Tuesday, August twenty one. As I record
Speaker 1: this here in the United States, the Senate has just
Speaker 1: passed a one point to trillion dollar infrastructure bill. Now,
Speaker 1: for a bill to pass in the United States, it
Speaker 1: has to pass by vote both the Senate and the
Speaker 1: House of Representatives in Congress before then being signed into
Speaker 1: law by the President. Now, the House is not set
Speaker 1: to vote on this until they come back from recess.
Speaker 1: That always makes me imagine a bunch of Congress people
Speaker 1: out on the playground. Anyway, my point is that, you know,
Speaker 1: with the Senate passing the bill, the House still has
Speaker 1: its part to play, so changes can still happen to
Speaker 1: the language in this bill, So nothing is set in
Speaker 1: stone until it actually passes and then the President has
Speaker 1: to sign it into law. Now, the bill that the
Speaker 1: Senate passed includes five fifty billion dollars of news spending,
Speaker 1: which is what puts it at the one point to
Speaker 1: trillion dollar mark total, and that includes stuff that you'd expect,
Speaker 1: like investment in roads and bridges that kind of infrastructure,
Speaker 1: or building out more rail systems for both freight and
Speaker 1: passenger trains, or building up more transit systems for various
Speaker 1: regional areas, that kind of thing. But there are some
Speaker 1: bits that we should mention beyond that. For example, there's
Speaker 1: a seven point five billion dollar budget for building out
Speaker 1: charging infrastructure for electric vehicles. Now you're probably aware there
Speaker 1: is a very hard push to transition away from internal
Speaker 1: combustion engine vehicles that depend upon fossil fuels. In fact,
Speaker 1: there are states that are really pushing to make sure
Speaker 1: that you know, no new internal combustion engine vehicles are
Speaker 1: sold in those states after a given year. But in
Speaker 1: order for this to be practical, we actually need the
Speaker 1: infrastructure in order to juice up electric vehicles that will
Speaker 1: replace all the internal combustion ones over time. Also, just
Speaker 1: as a reminder, these bills don't outlaw internal combustion engines.
Speaker 1: It's not like you know, in twenty thirty it'll be
Speaker 1: against the law to own a gas powered car. It's
Speaker 1: just that all new vehicles will need to be electric.
Speaker 1: And of course we also have to address how we
Speaker 1: generate that electricity. If the electricity comes from a power
Speaker 1: plant that's burning fossil fuels, if it's a coal powered
Speaker 1: power plant, then we're kind of shifting the problem to
Speaker 1: a different point along the chain. But anyway, that's one
Speaker 1: part of the bill. There's also a sixty five billion
Speaker 1: dollar budget to expand broadband internet access, something that is
Speaker 1: sorely needed in many parts of the United States. There
Speaker 1: are lots of communities here in the US that have
Speaker 1: little to no access to broadband and considering how much
Speaker 1: of our interactions with society now depend upon having a
Speaker 1: reliable connection to the Internet, particularly during times of crisis
Speaker 1: like the pandemic, that's a huge problem. It It creates
Speaker 1: an enormous divide that puts these communities at a severe disadvantage.
Speaker 1: But there are also a few items in that Infrastructure
Speaker 1: Bill that could surprise you. For example, one element one
Speaker 1: amendment in the Infrastructure Bill places are requirement on car
Speaker 1: manufacturers in the future, and according to this measure, car
Speaker 1: companies will have to in opreate a passive system capable
Speaker 1: of detecting blood alcohol levels in drivers. And the idea
Speaker 1: here is that the vehicle itself would be able to
Speaker 1: tell if a driver were under the influence, if their
Speaker 1: blood alcohol level exceeded the legal limit, and if that
Speaker 1: were the case, the car would not start, so the
Speaker 1: car would not allow the driver to actually operate the vehicle. Now,
Speaker 1: a lot of people have raised objections to this for
Speaker 1: various reasons, and I can I can get behind several
Speaker 1: of the reasons for those objections. Now, I am absolutely
Speaker 1: against drunk driving, but I also happen to know that
Speaker 1: tech isn't infallible. There are a lot of ways that
Speaker 1: this requirement could have unintended consequences. For example, car companies
Speaker 1: will have to figure out the system that can detect
Speaker 1: a driver's blood alcohol level and ignore everyone else in
Speaker 1: the car. So let's say you are a designated driver
Speaker 1: and you're going to give a lift to your friends
Speaker 1: and they've had a few too many. But you are
Speaker 1: designated driver, you are sober, and you're doing this so
Speaker 1: that your friends stay safe and they can still go
Speaker 1: out and you know, drink or whatever. The system in
Speaker 1: this car would need to be able to tell that
Speaker 1: you are sober, even if your friends in the car
Speaker 1: are all inebriated. So a passive system that's analyzing, say
Speaker 1: the alcohol content detected in the air would somehow need
Speaker 1: to differentiate between you and your passengers. False positives could
Speaker 1: cause frustrating and potentially dangerous consequences, and false negatives would
Speaker 1: be even worse, of course, if a system failed to
Speaker 1: pick up on the fact that a driver was intoxicated.
Speaker 1: I think this is a case where we see politicians
Speaker 1: leaning on a technological solution to a social problem, but
Speaker 1: the tech isn't quite up to the task to do it,
Speaker 1: and that means the solution really isn't a solution at all.
Speaker 1: And because the bill specifies a passive system, something like
Speaker 1: a breathalyzer wouldn't qualify because that's an active system. You
Speaker 1: must actively blow into a breathalyzer to use it, So
Speaker 1: a passive system would need to monitor alcohol levels without
Speaker 1: any like direct input or action from the drivers. It
Speaker 1: just seems like it's asking an awful lot of technology,
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure tech can actually deliver. The bill
Speaker 1: builds in a little time for car companies to actually
Speaker 1: do this, which is good. I mean, car companies have
Speaker 1: their production plans set out years in advance, so with
Speaker 1: the way the language of the bill is or the
Speaker 1: way the language of the amendment is formed, it would
Speaker 1: mean there'd be a range of at the earliest to
Speaker 1: to start incorporating this kind of technology. That date is
Speaker 1: there just in case the tech being mandated is found
Speaker 1: to not meet the criteria of being reasonable, practical, and appropriate.
Speaker 1: None of that. I mean, I guess practical covers it.
Speaker 1: But you know that doesn't sound like effective is among
Speaker 1: the three. Maybe practical is supposed to cover that. Another
Speaker 1: element in the Infrastructure Bill relates to cryptocurrency specifically, the
Speaker 1: bill includes requirements to report cryptocurrency transactions for the purposes
Speaker 1: of taxing them. After all, I mean, you've gotta pay
Speaker 1: for this one point to trillion dollar bills somehow. There
Speaker 1: are a few different ways of doing that. You could
Speaker 1: raise existing taxes, which tends to be a pretty politically
Speaker 1: unpopular move. People aren't crazy about that idea. You could
Speaker 1: shift money from some parts of the budget to a
Speaker 1: different part of the budget. But this also tends to
Speaker 1: be politically unpopular because it usually means some senator or
Speaker 1: other sees money that would go to businesses that are
Speaker 1: in their constituency diminish. So you'll see senators fight for
Speaker 1: certain things, not because they think that the thing they're
Speaker 1: fighting for is right, but rather the thing they're fighting
Speaker 1: for represents money that would be going to their state
Speaker 1: because the industries that represent that that particular element are
Speaker 1: located in their state. It does get very political. Another
Speaker 1: thing you could do is try and find loopholes that
Speaker 1: are in the tax code and close those loopholes. And
Speaker 1: that would allow the government to collect taxes on stuff
Speaker 1: that previously it couldn't but perhaps should have been able to.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of where the crypto part falls, this
Speaker 1: idea that there are these transactions that should fall into uh,
Speaker 1: you know, taxable income, but often don't unless they exceed
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars. However, the language in the bill, in
Speaker 1: this crypto amendment is ambiguous, and that worries a lot
Speaker 1: of crypto investors. Now, some of that worry might be
Speaker 1: coming from folks who are trying to use cryptocurrency as
Speaker 1: a means of evading taxes, and uh, you know, you
Speaker 1: can't really take their arguments and good faith right there
Speaker 1: trying to circumvent an actual, you know, law, that's not fantastic.
Speaker 1: But others are concerned that because of that language, which
Speaker 1: talks a lot about brokers, and defines a broker as
Speaker 1: quote any person who, for consideration, is responsible for regularly
Speaker 1: providing any service effectuating transfers of digital assets on behalf
Speaker 1: of another person. End quote is pretty vague. It sounds
Speaker 1: like that could cover pretty much everyone in the crypto ecosystem,
Speaker 1: at least for proof of work cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. So
Speaker 1: let me explain. Let's say you've got a fraction of
Speaker 1: a bitcoin, right, You've got like point zero zero whatever
Speaker 1: one bitcoins, and you want to use this fraction of
Speaker 1: the bitcoin to purchase a brand new television from a
Speaker 1: merchant who happens to accept bitcoin is payment. So you
Speaker 1: make your transaction. You pay the required amount of bitcoin
Speaker 1: to the merchant, and you hand over your digital currency
Speaker 1: or essentially sending a digital certificate that transfers from you
Speaker 1: to the merchant. But this transaction has to be verified.
Speaker 1: So this way, the merchant knows for sure that the
Speaker 1: digital currency they're receiving is legitimate, that it's a real transaction,
Speaker 1: and that actual value is being exchanged. So the transaction
Speaker 1: process is part of bitcoin mining, transactions clumped together in blocks.
Speaker 1: Every ten minutes or so, a block is ready to
Speaker 1: be verified and then once verified that that verified block
Speaker 1: goes to the end of the blockchain and becomes the
Speaker 1: most recent block in the blockchain, and that's the chain
Speaker 1: of transaction blocks that stretch all the way back to
Speaker 1: the beginning of bitcoin. Bitcoin miners compete to essentially solve
Speaker 1: a very hard math problem that will then serve as
Speaker 1: the verification for that block of transactions. So in this scenario,
Speaker 1: would that mean every single bitcoin mining operation can count
Speaker 1: as a broker? Would it only be whichever bitcoin minor
Speaker 1: actually got the math problem correct first? I mean, that
Speaker 1: would kind of make sense. The reward for solving the
Speaker 1: math problem is some bitcoin, and I could definitely be taxed.
Speaker 1: But then you also have the issue that, you know,
Speaker 1: bitcoins a global cryptocurrency, the United States does not have
Speaker 1: jurisdiction over the entire world or anything like that. So
Speaker 1: it gets messy, is what I'm saying. And the fear
Speaker 1: is that the vague language in the bill will make
Speaker 1: it difficult, if not impossible, to execute the law properly
Speaker 1: without lots of unintended consequences. And this is the kind
Speaker 1: of stuff you see when after a survey you find
Speaker 1: out that more than all senators had never even heard
Speaker 1: of cryptocurrency before. Ignorance of technology often becomes an issue.
Speaker 1: Not Just to be clear, I'm not in favor of
Speaker 1: tax evasion, just like I'm not in favor of drunk driving,
Speaker 1: and I do think there needs to be some sort
Speaker 1: of system in place to close off loopholes that allow,
Speaker 1: you know, wealthy people to get even more wealthy at
Speaker 1: the expense of pretty much everyone else. And you really
Speaker 1: do have to be wealthy to be a cryptocurrency minor
Speaker 1: and effective one anyway, because the hardware you need in
Speaker 1: order to be competitive is very expensive, and the power
Speaker 1: bill to supply all that equipment with electricity is also expensive.
Speaker 1: So I don't necessarily disagree with the motivation for these
Speaker 1: amendments in this infrastructure bill, like I think they're coming
Speaker 1: from generally a good place, but I do worry about
Speaker 1: the actual language itself and how that will manifest in
Speaker 1: the real world. And it's always kind of chaotic when
Speaker 1: politics tries to catch up with tech. We've got a
Speaker 1: couple more stories to cover, but before we get to that,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break. We're back, and if you've
Speaker 1: been listening to tech stuff for a while, you've heard
Speaker 1: me talk about the issue of bias. When it comes
Speaker 1: to artificial intelligence. Bias influences AI to favor one set
Speaker 1: of outcomes over others. Now, it's not always a bad thing,
Speaker 1: mind you. It really depends upon the application. But when
Speaker 1: it comes to stuff that relates to say, someone's appearance,
Speaker 1: or their ethnicity or something along those lines, bias usually
Speaker 1: turns out to be a pretty bad thing to have
Speaker 1: in your system. Well, Twitter recently held a competition among
Speaker 1: developers and hackers, and at the heart of it was
Speaker 1: Twitter's photo cropping algorithm. Now, if you've ever browsed Twitter,
Speaker 1: you've likely seen that there were photos in the Twitter
Speaker 1: feed are cropped and clicking on the photo opens up
Speaker 1: the full image. So the crop to photo access kind
Speaker 1: of like a preview and it gets all images to
Speaker 1: fit within Twitter's you know, established parameters for what photos
Speaker 1: should look like in the Twitter feed. But these photos,
Speaker 1: obviously they have to be auto cropped because there's just
Speaker 1: no way that Twitter could employ humans to do it manually.
Speaker 1: That means Twitter needed to design and now rhythm that
Speaker 1: would make decisions on where and how to crop photos
Speaker 1: so that they fit within Twitter's interface. And that meant
Speaker 1: there was the possibility that this algorithm would have certain
Speaker 1: biases that might favor, say, white faces over black faces.
Speaker 1: In fact, users in twenty suggested that this was happening.
Speaker 1: So Twitter's competition was all about inviting people to examine
Speaker 1: the photo cropping algorithm and look for signs of bias
Speaker 1: in a bug bounty, and it would reward people for
Speaker 1: the discovery of flaws in the system. This, by the way,
Speaker 1: is a pretty responsible approach in my opinion. I mean,
Speaker 1: of course, it would be best if the algorithm didn't
Speaker 1: have bias to start off with, but failing that, opening
Speaker 1: things up to a wider audience of critics and hackers
Speaker 1: creates the opportunity to isolate and address bugs quickly. At
Speaker 1: def Con, which is an information security conference held each year,
Speaker 1: lots of hackers go to it. The award for best
Speaker 1: performance in the bug bounty went to a person who
Speaker 1: found that Twitter's algorithm preferred faces that are quote slim, young,
Speaker 1: of light or warm skin color and smooth skin texture
Speaker 1: and with stereotypically feminine facial traits end quote. And I
Speaker 1: love how this hacker actually put this to the test.
Speaker 1: The hacker created a again, a g N, a generative
Speaker 1: adversarial network to create computer generated images of human faces.
Speaker 1: So again does this well? Again does anything by essentially
Speaker 1: having to AI systems two machine learning systems. One of
Speaker 1: those is in charge of generating something, so in this
Speaker 1: particular instance we're talking about computer generated images of faces.
Speaker 1: The other one attempts to figure out which stuff that's
Speaker 1: being fed to it is real versus computer generated, So
Speaker 1: in this case, what images were created by a computer
Speaker 1: and which images are just photos of people? And over time,
Speaker 1: both systems get better at their jobs. So if the
Speaker 1: detector is figuring stuff out much more frequently, then you
Speaker 1: feed that information over to the generator, which then adjusts
Speaker 1: how it goes about generating stuff and tries again. And
Speaker 1: then as the detector's success rate falls, it tries to
Speaker 1: adjust how it, you know, analyzes images and gets better
Speaker 1: at it that way. So, over thousands of trials of
Speaker 1: pitting these two systems against each other, you start to
Speaker 1: create more convincing computer generated images of faces um And
Speaker 1: in fact, you can create them so convincingly that if
Speaker 1: you were to look at a series of pictures, you
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't be able to tell which ones were real
Speaker 1: photos of actual people and which ones were just computer generated.
Speaker 1: Some other hackers also found other elements of bias. A
Speaker 1: one found that the algorithm had a negative bias towards
Speaker 1: people with white or gray hair, which means, before too long,
Speaker 1: you all won't be seeing any photos of me on Twitter,
Speaker 1: and that another one found that the algorithm would favor
Speaker 1: English text over Arabic text whenever those would appear in
Speaker 1: an image, like it would crop out Arabic text, but
Speaker 1: it would keep in English text. So that was an issue,
Speaker 1: and Twitter really took the right step here, in my opinion.
Speaker 1: We've seen other companies like Amazon really doubled down on
Speaker 1: denying that there's any kind of bias problem in systems
Speaker 1: like facial recognition technology, but Twitter instead accepted the criticism
Speaker 1: and then invited people to really drill down and find
Speaker 1: the issues, which ultimately, you know, could lead to Twitter
Speaker 1: creating better algorithms with less bias. So in my opinion,
Speaker 1: it was a great job for Twitter and an even
Speaker 1: better job to the hackers who found those bugs and
Speaker 1: really gross. News NBC reported that a company called Teleperformance,
Speaker 1: which supports tons of other companies including Apple and Amazon
Speaker 1: and Uber, has instituted a particularly draconian practice for employees
Speaker 1: in Colombia, so Teleperformances employees essentially do contract work for
Speaker 1: these other companies, often handling sensitive data in the process.
Speaker 1: And because of COVID, Teleperformance has shifted many of its
Speaker 1: offices around the world from going into the office to
Speaker 1: a work from home policy. But in Colombia, employees were
Speaker 1: required to sign new contracts that included clauses that allowed
Speaker 1: Teller Performance to install cameras inside the homes of those employees.
Speaker 1: Now why would it do this well to make sure
Speaker 1: that the employees were doing their jobs right, and also
Speaker 1: to make sure that no unauthorized individuals had access to
Speaker 1: the company's computers. But think about this for a second.
Speaker 1: I'm sure most of you would object to your boss
Speaker 1: telling you that they want to set up a camera
Speaker 1: in your home so that the boss can monitor you
Speaker 1: as you work from home. Add to that the fact
Speaker 1: that for many people, living space is limited, so their
Speaker 1: office might also be their bedroom, and you have serious
Speaker 1: privacy violations going on right there. Generally speaking, I am
Speaker 1: opposed to all the monitoring software and hardware that is
Speaker 1: in use to quote unquote guarantee productivity because I don't
Speaker 1: think it serves much purpose beyond being oppressive and invasive.
Speaker 1: I think it's far more demoralizing to employees than it
Speaker 1: is helpful to employers. And in this case, this issue
Speaker 1: goes above and beyond. I don't think there's any real
Speaker 1: defense for it. According to Interesting Engineering, a website where
Speaker 1: I read about this, Apple and Amazon have said that
Speaker 1: they did not request this particular kind of scrutiny for
Speaker 1: their work. But Uber was a different story. Uber did
Speaker 1: opt for this level, with the company defending the decision
Speaker 1: saying that contractors are working with sensitive customer information and
Speaker 1: the risk of that info getting out to someone else
Speaker 1: is prompted Uber to request the higher level of employee surveillance,
Speaker 1: to which I say, this system is broken. I have
Speaker 1: one other big story to cover, but before I jump
Speaker 1: on that, let's take another break, all right. Finally, in
Speaker 1: an ongoing story that I really wish would just conclude already,
Speaker 1: we're seeing misinformation campaigns about COVID surge here in the
Speaker 1: United States, while at the same time we're seeing case
Speaker 1: numbers on the rise. And why is this a tech story? Well,
Speaker 1: it's because the misinformation campaigns are heavily relying upon social
Speaker 1: networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter in order to spread
Speaker 1: the misinformation and to convince people to not follow the
Speaker 1: guidelines that scientists and doctors have come up with, which
Speaker 1: is making a bad problem monumentally worse. We have variants
Speaker 1: like Delta and Delta plus and Lambda, and these are
Speaker 1: virulent enough and resistant enough to vaccinations to occasionally cause
Speaker 1: breakthrough COVID cases. Now that's not always the case, and
Speaker 1: you are better protected if you're vaccinated, but the point
Speaker 1: being that these variants can break through vaccinations in certain cases,
Speaker 1: and yeah, on the whole, these cases tend to be
Speaker 1: far less severe than those for people who are unvaccinated
Speaker 1: and then get COVID. The vaccinated cases tend to be
Speaker 1: much more mild with their symptoms, but still not good,
Speaker 1: and it's still creating more opportunities for the virus to
Speaker 1: mutate further and more variants to arise as a result
Speaker 1: of it, and vaccination rates in some parts of the country,
Speaker 1: like my own state of Georgia, are still far behind
Speaker 1: where they should be. The New York Times reports that
Speaker 1: misinformation campaigns about COVID and COVID vaccines increased significantly over
Speaker 1: the last couple of months. According to Signal Labs, false
Speaker 1: information about vaccine effectiveness increased by four hundred thirty seven
Speaker 1: percent over the summer. Now, some of these campaigns originate
Speaker 1: from Russian troll farms, which are not just pushing out
Speaker 1: they're not spreading misinformation, they're pushing out disinformation outright lies.
Speaker 1: Then you've got people who become banner carriers. They pick
Speaker 1: up this this falsehood, and then they spread that falsehood further,
Speaker 1: and they promoted and they give it more credence, and
Speaker 1: the consequences are beyond awful. Obviously the worst consequence is
Speaker 1: that more people are getting very sick, and some of
Speaker 1: these people are dying. Right For the unvaccinated, it's awful
Speaker 1: because they're being they're they're getting information that are telling
Speaker 1: them not to get vaccinated, which drastically increases the chance
Speaker 1: that if they get COVID it will be a serious
Speaker 1: case and that they could in fact die. A lot
Speaker 1: of the ones, even the ones who who will survive,
Speaker 1: are ending up filling up hospitals, particularly here in the Southeast.
Speaker 1: That means that in regions like my state, where again
Speaker 1: at a point where hospitals are at capacity or over capacity.
Speaker 1: That means anyone experiencing any kind of medical emergency is
Speaker 1: in much greater danger because of a lack of medical
Speaker 1: capacity to treat them. So even if you're totally safe,
Speaker 1: let's say that like I'm staying home, I'm isolating, I'm
Speaker 1: not going out. I'm not you know, uh, exposing myself
Speaker 1: to the possibility of getting COVID. But I take a
Speaker 1: spill and I fall down my stairs and I break
Speaker 1: my legs, there might not be any way for me
Speaker 1: to get to a hospital in good time. I could
Speaker 1: be suffering for quite some time before anyone can treat
Speaker 1: me because all of the local facilities are over capacity.
Speaker 1: That's a real issue. And that's that's a minor one,
Speaker 1: right breaking your legs bad, but clearly there are much
Speaker 1: more serious medical emergencies that could arise where people would
Speaker 1: not be able to get the treatment they need. It
Speaker 1: also means that for all the people who did their
Speaker 1: best to stay safe, you know, the folks who went
Speaker 1: and got vaccinated, the people who are wearing masks and
Speaker 1: who are socially distancing, they're going to have to continue
Speaker 1: to do that or potentially become part of the problem.
Speaker 1: And there is so much quarantined fatigue out there that
Speaker 1: a lot of people who up to this point have
Speaker 1: been being super careful are just not willing to do
Speaker 1: that anymore because they feel like it's a punishment, right,
Speaker 1: Like they did everything right, but they're being punished for
Speaker 1: it by being told, hey, you have to keep doing this. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: there are these other people who refuse to accept any
Speaker 1: kind of accountability, who are going out and doing all
Speaker 1: the fun things without wearing a mask or anything. And
Speaker 1: I understand that that feels monumentally unfair, and it is
Speaker 1: hard for me to condemn people who have that reaction.
Speaker 1: I mean, in full disclosure, I have even gone out
Speaker 1: to be with friends and a few isolated cases, and
Speaker 1: we did take precautions, but it still was more risky
Speaker 1: than just staying at home. Like I could have just
Speaker 1: stayed at home and that would have been safer than
Speaker 1: going out, even with all the precautions we were taking.
Speaker 1: But you know, the situation is not going to magically
Speaker 1: get better just because we wanted to. The virus doesn't
Speaker 1: care if we're being denied the chance to go out
Speaker 1: and live our lives. The virus doesn't care about anything
Speaker 1: other than spreading. So meanwhile, we have these bad actors
Speaker 1: and we have people with wishful thinking that are spreading
Speaker 1: inaccurate stories about the disease and vaccinations, and that continues
Speaker 1: to take hold, and people continue to get sick, and
Speaker 1: our medical system continues to be overtaxed, and people continue
Speaker 1: to feel demoralized. Politicians continue to struggle with how do
Speaker 1: they handle this situation. Things will not magically get better
Speaker 1: just because we want them to. On a related note,
Speaker 1: here in Georgia, our politician Marjorie Taylor Green once again
Speaker 1: found herself suspended on Twitter. Previously, she received a twelve
Speaker 1: hour suspension for spreading misinformation on the platform. This time
Speaker 1: she's received a suspension that will last a full week
Speaker 1: for repeatedly violating the platform's misinformation policies. In this particular case,
Speaker 1: she was posting misinformation about COVID and vaccinations on the platform.
Speaker 1: Um she continues to be a worse of misinformation about
Speaker 1: those issues. So when our own leaders are taking part
Speaker 1: in the misinformation campaigns, it can get a bit hard
Speaker 1: to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Speaker 1: But to my listeners, to all of you out there
Speaker 1: who have gone to get vaccinated, who wear masks, who
Speaker 1: have sacrificed so much in an effort to try and
Speaker 1: be part of the solution and not part of the problem.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Your sacrifices are meaningful. Even if the people
Speaker 1: you're sacrificing for don't realize it or acknowledge it, it
Speaker 1: is meaningful, and I, for one, deeply appreciate the fact
Speaker 1: that you have gone to those lengths. To those of
Speaker 1: you who have not been vaccinated, please get vaccinated, please,
Speaker 1: because as we are seeing the those who are not
Speaker 1: vaccinated are really suffering the most, and that the ripple
Speaker 1: effect means that we're going to see more variants arise
Speaker 1: as the virus has more opportunities to mutate, and that's
Speaker 1: going to place hardship on everyone all over again. And
Speaker 1: we've already lost so many people. We need to stop that.
Speaker 1: And to everyone else who falls somewhere in the middle,
Speaker 1: be safe, make good choices, use critical thinking and compassion
Speaker 1: and equal measure, and we'll get through this. It's going
Speaker 1: to take longer than it should have because there are
Speaker 1: far too many actors in this who either deny reality
Speaker 1: or outright want the worst outcome for us and are
Speaker 1: pushing those narratives. But we can get through it. That's
Speaker 1: it for this news episode. I know that was very
Speaker 1: soap boxy at the end of it. I know some
Speaker 1: of you get really fed up with that. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to apologize for it, because I care too much
Speaker 1: about you guys. I care about my listeners, not whether
Speaker 1: or not you download my show. If you choose to
Speaker 1: never download another episode, fine, I understand. I still wish
Speaker 1: you well. I care because I don't want people suffering.
Speaker 1: I don't want you to get sick. I don't want
Speaker 1: anyone you love to get sick. I want us to
Speaker 1: be able to put this very dark chapter in the past.
Speaker 1: With that, let's wrap up. If you have suggestions for
Speaker 1: topics I should cover in tech Stuff, please reach out
Speaker 1: to me over on Twitter. The handle we use is
Speaker 1: text stuff h s W and I'll talk to you again,
Speaker 1: really Sion. Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.