IRL: Online Life is Real Life

The podcast dives into the hype around 5G technology, exploring its capabilities, potential problems, and advantages. The experiences of field testing 5G in London reveal variability in speeds, network challenges, and high costs. The frustrations of poor internet connectivity in rural areas are highlighted, emphasizing the need for investment in infrastructure and addressing the digital divide.

There's a movement building within tech. Workers are demanding higher standards from their companies — and because of their unique skills and talent, they have the leverage to get attention. Walkouts and sit-ins. Picket protests and petitions. Shareholder resolutions, and open letters. These are the new tools of tech workers, increasingly emboldened to speak out. And, as they do that, they expose the underbellies of their companies' ethics and values or perceived lack of them. In this episode of IRL, host Manoush Zomorodi meets with Rebecca Stack-Martinez, an Uber driver fed up with being treated like an extension of the app; Jack Poulson, who left Google over ethical concerns with a secret search engine being built for China; and Rebecca Sheppard, who works at Amazon and pushes for innovation on climate change from within. EFF Executive Director Cindy Cohn explains why this movement is happening now, and why it matters for all of us. IRL is an original podcast from Firefox. For more on the series go to irlpodcast.org Rebecca Stack-Martinez is a committee member for Gig Workers Rising. Here is Jack Poulson's resignation letter to Google. For more, read Google employees' open letter against Project Dragonfly. Check out Amazon employees' open letter to Jeff Bezos and Board of Directors asking for a better plan to address climate change. Cindy Cohn is the Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. EFF is a nonprofit that defends civil liberties in the digital world. They champion user privacy, free expression, and innovation through impact litigation, policy analysis, grassroots activism, and technology development.

The podcast explores the environmental impact of the internet, specifically focusing on streaming music and podcast episodes. It discusses the connection between electricity consumption and internet usage, as well as efforts to reduce carbon footprint and privacy through low-tech websites. The podcast also highlights the importance of sustainable energy sources for the internet and the efforts of tech companies to transition to renewable energy.

Journalist Mark Scott, Minister Karina Gould, and ACLU representative Ben Wizner discuss the influence of the internet on democracy, including Facebook's EU election war room and Canada's new law on online political ads. The podcast also explores Ukraine's battle against fake news, highlights the importance of offline conversations, and addresses the risks of targeted political ads.

In this episode, host Manoush Zomorodi speaks with Charlie Warzel, a writer-at-large with the New York Times, about our complicated relationship with data and privacy. They discuss the role of privacy policies and how they often go unread. The episode also features insights from data protection expert Rowenna Fielding and privacy lawyer Jenny Afia. The importance of privacy and its intersection with personal development is emphasized, along with the need for consumer awareness and corporate accountability.

Season 4 of ZigZag is about examining the current culture of business and work, figuring out what needs to change, and experimenting with new ways to do it. Sign up for their newsletter and subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you get your podcasts.

All the things we love on the internet — from websites that give us information to services that connect us — are made stronger when their creators come with different points of view. With this in mind, we asked ourselves and our guests: "What would the internet look like if it was built by mostly women?" Witchsy founders Kate Dwyer and Penelope Gazin start us off with a story about the stunt they had to pull to get their site launched — and counter the sexist attitudes they fought against along the way. Brenda Darden Wilkerson recalls her life in tech in the 80s and 90s and shares her experience leading AnitaB.org, an organization striving to get more women hired in tech. Coraline Ada Ehmke created the Contributor Covenant, a voluntary code of conduct being increasingly adopted by the open source community. She explains why she felt it necessary, and how it's been received; and Mighty Networks CEO Gina Bianchini rolls her eyes at being called a "lady CEO," and tells us why diversifying the boardroom is great for business and innovation. IRL is an original podcast from Mozilla, maker of Firefox and always fighting for you. For more on the series go to irlpodcast.org Help us dream up the next season of IRL. What topics should we cover? Who should we talk to? Let us know by filling out this survey. Coraline Ada Ehmke has been an open source programmer for over 20 years and created the Contributor Covenant. You can also learn about Mozilla's own community participation guidelines. Meritocracy as an open source practice is briefly mentioned in this episode. Mozilla has taken steps to discontinue using the word “Meritocracy” as a way to describe our governance and leadership structures. Here's why. Mozilla is dedicated to fostering both an inclusive web and also inclusive working places. Learn more. Firefox is open source and driven by a community of volunteers and contributors. However, in the past decade, representation of women in open source has inched up merely 1.5 percentage points to a shockingly low 3%. Read about the importance of — and efforts to realize — open source gender inclusion. Like society, the Internet grows stronger with every new voice. What's healthy and unhealthy on the web when it comes to inclusion? Mozilla Foundation's Internet Health Report has some of the answers. And, check out this article from Common Sense Media, on kids and technology use.

Host Manoush Zomorodi discusses decentralization with Eugen Rochko of Mastodon and Justin Hunter of Graphite docs, exploring the potential benefits and challenges. They also touch on the concept of building a decentralized internet, the role of decentralization in news organizations, and the vision of MadeSafe in creating a safer internet. The podcast emphasizes the need to re-decentralize the web and overcome cultural barriers for a user payment model.

The podcast discusses the concept of surveillance capitalism and its impact on the economy and our way of life. It explores the trade-offs involved in using services like Pokemon Go as behavior modification experiments. The implications of the surveillance economy are explored, including the power shift to private companies and the impact on democracy. The podcast also discusses the challenges and reasons for users not leaving Facebook, and shares a personal experience of successfully quitting Facebook and Google.

The podcast discusses the human costs of content moderation, including the psychological trauma faced by content moderators. It explores Facebook's content moderation policies and the challenges of relying on artificial intelligence. The episode also raises questions about censorship and free expression online, highlighting the difficulty of getting content moderation exactly right.