This Week in Tech (Audio) TWiT 1059: I'm Interested in Your Toolset - Why Your Favorite Site Went Dark This Week
Nov 24, 2025
Fr. Robert Ballecer, SJ, a Jesuit priest and digital tech advocate, joins tech writer Molly White and developer relations expert Wesley Faulkner to discuss pressing tech issues. They explore the controversy over social media age verification, highlighting Roblox's selfie requirement and the potential ethical pitfalls. The Cloudflare outage sparks a debate about internet centralization and accountability. Molly shares insights on ongoing crypto scams, while the group critiques the implications of AI in advertising and Musk's vision of a labor-free future.
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Location Labels Unmasked Influencer Networks
- X's short-lived location feature exposed many political influencer accounts as foreign-operated and then got rolled back.
- Leo and the panel noted platforms resist transparency when it threatens influencer revenue and advertising relationships.
Standardize Age/Restriction APIs
- Build a standardized API for age/region capability negotiation between clients, apps, and networks to handle varying laws.
- Wesley recommends machine-readable capability assertions so routers or clients can toggle restrictions consistently.
Enforce Age Rules Via Platform Capabilities
- If regulators require age checks, implement them at the platform API level where possible rather than per-app rewrites.
- Wesley suggests exposing capabilities and location metadata so clients and ISPs can enforce rules without heavy per-app changes.