What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future

On today’s show, hosts April Glaser and Will Oremus discuss news news that the french government has fined Google close to $57 million for violating the new European privacy laws that went into effect in 2018. This comes as news that the Federal Trade Commision here in the US  is considering levying a record-breaking fine against Facebook for violations to their users privacy following the Cambridge Analytica mess. Corporate fines may well be a theme this year following the great clean up after the 2016 election went awry And then we’re going to talk about Juul, the multibillion dollar e-cigarette company that is dominating the new industry. It’s been quite the year for Juul. Their offices were raided by the FDA. They at least provisionally agreed to stop selling certain fruity flavors of tobacco clearly popular with kids. They accepted a $12.8 billion dollar investment from Altria, the tobacco company that owns Marlboro. And most recently, announced, the vaping brand launched a new $10 million national TV marketing campaign.To help make sense of the company that controls an estimated 70% of the e-cigarette market we’ll be joined by Nitasha Tiku, a senior writer for Wired.Don’t Close My Tabs:April: Bloomberg: Corporate America Is Getting Ready to Monetize Climate ChangeWill: The Huffington Post: Jack Dorsey Has No Clue What He WantsPodcast production by Max JacobsIf Then plugs: You can get updates about what’s coming up next by following us on Twitter @ifthenpod. You can follow Will @WillOremus and April @Aprilaser. If you have a question or comment, you can email us at ifthen@slate.com.If Then is presented by Slate and Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.Listen to If Then via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play. This episode is brought to you by Slack, the collaboration hub for work. Learn more at Slack.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s show, hosts April Glaser and Will Oremus discuss news that PG&E, California’s main power provider, plans to file for bankruptcy due to the billions in liability it faces stemming from the deadly wildfires last year. Allegations have been made that PG&E’s power lines and equipment aided in the fires and the company did not adequately address the hazards beforehand. As the home to some of the world most powerful tech companies, California’s economy last year surpassed the UK, but it’s clear that this wealth has not trickled down to help Californian suffering the effects of prolonged drought and longer fire seasons hitting more populated areas. They’ll also talk about a letter sent this week to Microsoft, Amazon and Google from more than 85 civil rights and racial justice groups, including the ACLU. The letter demands that these companies stop building face recognition technology that could be used by the government. We’ve seen employees of these companies voice their concern, but what might we expect from outside pressure?The hosts touch on one of the least discussed themes from last week’s CES conference in Las Vegas: privacy.Then they welcome back Taylor Lorenz, journalist for the Atlantic. Glaser and Oremus talk to her about what social media might look like in 2019. Forget Facebook for a second. Forget Twitter, Snapchat, even YouTube, which was the focus of our conversation with Lorenz last year. They talk to her about what the kids are up to now, like making dance videos on Tik Tok, making Instagram eggs go viral, and making friends in the comments sections of social apps. 21:14 - Interview with Taylor Lorenz.39:30 - Don’t Close My TabsPodcast production by Max JacobsIf Then plugs: You can get updates about what’s coming up next by following us on Twitter @ifthenpod. You can follow Will @WillOremus and April @Aprilaser. If you have a question or comment, you can email us at ifthen@slate.com.If Then is presented by Slate and Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.Listen to If Then via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s show, hosts April Glaser and Will Oremus discuss startling new revelations about some of the major phone carriers. The story broke this week in Motherboard titled “I Gave a Bounty Hunter $300. Then He Located Our Phone.” It details how T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T  are selling access to customers location data to shady characters like landlords and collection agencies. And speaking of phones, could we finally be witnessing an end to the iPhone’s dominance of the technology industry? Last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook warned about a shortfall in global iPhone revenue. We’ll talk about why that is and what it might mean for Apple’s future.And if you work even remotely adjacent to the tech industry, then you know...this week is the Consumer Electronics Show, or CES—the biggest annual tech expo in the world held in Las Vegas. We’ll be joined by Dieter Bohn, the executive editor of The Verge, from the floor of the show. 17:05 - Interview with Dieter Bohn.35:13 - Don’t Close My TabsDon’t Close My Tabs:Slate: Tunnel VisionNew Statesman America: London's Victorian Hyperloop: the forgotten pneumatic railway beneath the capital's streetsPodcast production by Max JacobsIf Then plugs: You can get updates about what’s coming up next by following us on Twitter @ifthenpod. You can follow Will @WillOremus and April @Aprilaser. If you have a question or comment, you can email us at ifthen@slate.com.If Then is presented by Slate and Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.Listen to If Then via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s show, hosts April Glaser and Will Oremus introduce some of their favorite interviews from 2018. We have highlights from our conversations with journalist Taylor Lorenz about teen YouTube stars, former head of Facebook’s Newsfeed Adam Mosseri about real-world violence in places like Myanmar, the founder of Data for Black Lives Yeshimabeit Milner on how tech companies might share their data for social justice efforts, author Naomi Klein on cryptocurrency in Puerto Rico following the deadly Hurricane Maria, Senator Mark Warner on how the government might actually regulate the big tech companies, and Paige Panter, a volunteer with the Tech Workers Coalition on how a broad coalition of tech workers are fighting for change.1:21 - Interview with Taylor Lorenz7:57 - Interview with Yeshimabeit Milner15:49 - Interview with Adam Mosseri24:09 - Interview with Naomi Klein30:27 - Interview with Senator Mark Warner38:30 - Interview with Paige PanterPodcast production by Max JacobsIf Then plugs: You can get updates about what’s coming up next by following us on Twitter @ifthenpod. You can follow Will @WillOremus and April @Aprilaser. If you have a question or comment, you can email us at ifthen@slate.com.If Then is presented by Slate and Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.Listen to If Then via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s show, hosts April Glaser and Will Oremus will talk reader mail! The hosts  take a look at some of your questions and comments from the year, in particular about how your relationship to technology and social media has changed in a year that has been tumultuous for tech companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter.Then, they’ll talk about cybersecurity, hacks, and the sometimes bizarre legal battles that ensue after a big data theft. They’re be joined by Josephine Wolff, a professor of public policy at Rochester Institute of Technology and the author of “You'll see this message when it is too late: The Legal and Economic Aftermath of Cybersecurity Breaches.” They’ll talk to her about some of the most significant breaches in the last decade,  how those companies holding that information have been held accountable,  and what it means for the everyday user who just wants to shop at Target.Podcast production by Max JacobsIf Then plugs: You can get updates about what’s coming up next by following us on Twitter @ifthenpod. You can follow Will @WillOremus and April @Aprilaser. If you have a question or comment, you can email us at ifthen@slate.com.If Then is presented by Slate and Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.Listen to If Then via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play. This episode is brought to you by Merrill Lynch. Get started today at ML.com/you. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s show, hosts April Glaser and Will Oremus will talk about how Taylor Swift used face recognition to surveil the crowd at a recent concert, and whether that’s smart, scary, or both. Then they’ll welcome Renée DiResta, an expert on cybersecurity and online misinformation. DiResta is the lead author of a new report to the Senate Intelligence Committee on exactly how Russian operatives weaponized social media in the 2016 election, and why it may be just the beginning of a new era of global information warfare.6:45 - Interview with Renée DiResta26:09 - Don’t Close My TabsDon’t Close My Tabs:Logic: My Stepdad's Huge DatasetThe Pudding: Population MountainsPodcast production by Max JacobsIf Then plugs: You can get updates about what’s coming up next by following us on Twitter @ifthenpod. You can follow Will @WillOremus and April @Aprilaser. If you have a question or comment, you can email us at ifthen@slate.com.If Then is presented by Slate and Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.Listen to If Then via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s show, hosts April Glaser and Will Oremus discuss the latest round of “Tech CEO Goes to Washington.” On Tuesday morning, that CEO was Google’s Sundar Pichai, who appeared before the House Judiciary Committee and was asked about data privacy, location tracking, Google’s plans in China, and of course, Republicans’ favorite tech topic: conservative bias. We’ll talk about what we learned from this hearing as well as what we wish Congress might’ve asked the Google CEO.Then April speaks with two people who have been working to organize workers in Amazon fulfilment centers in Minneapolis, Minnesota. One is a founder with Awood, Nimo Omar. She’s been organizing with the primarily East African communities that work in the Amazon warehouses on a campaign to collectively advocate for better working conditions. We’ll also be joined by a worker at one of those Amazon fulfillment centers in the Minneapolis area, WIlliam Stolz. We’ll ask him about his job at the warehouse and why he’s joining his fellow workers in organizing for change for change at the fulfillment centers. 15:45 - Interview with Nimo Omar & William Stolz37:13 - Don’t Close My TabsDon’t Close My Tabs:Pew Research: Social media outpaces print newspapers in the U.S. as a news sourceThe Baffler: Streambait PopSlate: Roma Is the Culmination of Everything Alfonso Cuarón Has Ever DonePodcast production by Max JacobsIf Then plugs: You can get updates about what’s coming up next by following us on Twitter @ifthenpod. You can follow Will @WillOremus and April @Aprilaser. If you have a question or comment, you can email us at ifthen@slate.com.If Then is presented by Slate and Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.Listen to If Then via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s show, hosts April Glaser and Will Oremus discuss the news that Tumblr will soon be banning all adult content on its site -- this in response to some instances of child pornography that got it suspended from Apple’s App Store. Hundreds of thousands of Tumblr users are upset, and the plan appears to be backfiring.Then we’re excited to bring you a pair of interviews today, with two people who have emerged as leading critics of Facebook—one from the outside, and one from within, right before he left the company. We’ll talk first with former Facebook employee Mark S. Luckie about what he calls Facebook’s “black people problem.” Those words came from a memo that he wrote shortly before leaving the company last month, and which he published to the world after he left. Then we’ll talk with someone who’s been thinking through problems at Facebook for many years--and recently discovered that his organization was also a target of the company’s controversial “opposition research” PR campaign. Rashad Robinson is the president of Color of Change, a progressive civil rights group that was among several nonprofits Facebook tried to discredit by highlighting their ties to the liberal financier George Soros. In the wake of that story, Robinson met last week with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. 8:15 - Interview with Mark Luckie16:00 - Interview with Rashad Robinson35:20 - Don’t Close My TabsDon’t Close My Tabs:The New York Times: Philippine Journalist, a Thorn to Duterte, Turns Herself In to Face ChargesTwitter: Natasha ViannaPodcast production by Max JacobsIf Then plugs: You can get updates about what’s coming up next by following us on Twitter @ifthenpod. You can follow Will @WillOremus and April @Aprilaser. If you have a question or comment, you can email us at ifthen@slate.com.If Then is presented by Slate and Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.Listen to If Then via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s show, hosts April Glaser and Will Oremus discuss the ongoing fallout at Facebook over the company’s decision to hire a conservative PR firm to surface opposition research in order to attack Facebook’s nonprofit critics by highlighting their funding ties to the liberal financier George Soros, playing into an untrue and anti-Semitic popular right wing trope. As internal and external turmoil continues to rile major American technology companies, their employee are organizing for serious change. Hosts dig into what that’s accomplished so far and what continued employee pressure and mounting labor actions means down the line.Then, an interview with Antonio Regalado, a senior editor at the MIT Technology Review, on a story he broke Sunday night: the very first gene-edited babies were born this month in China. The trio discuss the history of gene-editing technology and the debate about using it on humans. To some, gene-editing is a form of medicine, like a vaccination. To others, it’s a form of enhancement. How easy is this to do? And will we have a future where the health of tomorrow’s children, or those whose parents can afford it, will be determined before their children are even born?14:13 - Interview with Antonio Regalado32:02 - Don’t Close My TabsDon’t Close My Tabs:The New Yorker: Exploding Mojitos: The First “Sonic Attacks” Targeting American Diplomats in Cuba May Have Taken Place Thirty Years AgoThe New York Times: A Business with No EndPodcast production by Max JacobsIf Then plugs: You can get updates about what’s coming up next by following us on Twitter @ifthenpod. You can follow Will @WillOremus and April @Aprilaser. If you have a question or comment, you can email us at ifthen@slate.com.If Then is presented by Slate and Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.Listen to If Then via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On today’s show, host Will Oremus will discuss the fallout from last week’s New York Times expose about Facebook with the company’s former Security Chief Alex Stamos. The Times story was headlined “Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Leaned Out in Crisis.” Stamos has been at the center of this story both as a critic and an advocate. The story has revolved partly around reports that Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg stifled or downplayed his revelations that their platform was still not free from Russian meddling months after the 2016 election. We’ll get his side of the story, as well as his perspective on Facebook’s missteps, and what he thinks the public and the media get wrong about the company. We’ll also talk about what some solutions to its problems might look like, including, potentially, government regulations.2:15 - Interview with Alex Stamos37:53 - Don’t Close My TabsDon’t Close My Tabs:Slate: Trapped in the Fire ZoneThe New York Times: Are You Sitting Down? Standing Desks Are Overrated. Podcast production by Max JacobsIf Then plugs: You can get updates about what’s coming up next by following us on Twitter @ifthenpod. You can follow Will @WillOremus and April @Aprilaser. If you have a question or comment, you can email us at ifthen@slate.com.If Then is presented by Slate and Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.Listen to If Then via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.