Self-driving car company hid crash video; Gender discrimination at Google; Bipartisan agreement that Facebook is bad; What Gen-Z wants from media; Wage slavery is not your friend – NEWS ROUNDUP
00:01:50.580But it turns out that was exactly what was going on.
00:01:53.860Ordinary people like you and me are serving as unpaid crash test dummies for driverless
00:01:59.000technology by companies like Cruise on public roads.
00:02:02.980But that is maybe changing after a pretty bombshell situation over in San Francisco.
00:02:08.580SFGate reports the California Department of Motor Vehicles has suspended Cruise's permits
00:02:13.660to deploy driverless vehicles as commercial taxis in the state or run any tests on public
00:02:19.220streets without backup drivers behind the wheel.
00:02:21.860So this suspension all stems from a pretty bad crash that happened in San Francisco on October 2nd that left a pedestrian severely injured.
00:02:30.900In that crash, an unrelated car struck a pedestrian, knocking them into the path of a driverless cruise car.
00:02:37.100The autonomous vehicle braked hard, but still collided with and ran over the pedestrian before coming to a complete stop.
00:02:44.620Cruise representatives then met with officials from both the DMV and the California Highway Patrol.
00:02:48.960And during that meeting, Cruise employees played footage from the car's onboard cameras, which ended once the car came to a stop.
00:02:56.380So it looks like, oh, OK, well, the cruise stopped like it should have.
00:03:01.100However, as SFGate reports, DMV officials say that they later learned that there was more to the story and requested additional footage from Cruise, which the company sent 10 days after the initial meeting.
00:03:12.640The extended footage showed that after the initial stop, the car then resumed driving and attempted a, quote, pullover maneuver traveling about 20 feet while the pedestrian was still caught under the vehicle.
00:03:25.700So basically, it kind of sounds like Cruz was trying to hide the most damning part of what happened from California regulators.
00:03:33.100Well, that's terrifying. If there's one thing scarier than, like, getting hit by an autonomous car, it's being dragged around underneath an autonomous car.
00:03:43.680And then having the company that makes the autonomous car basically lie about it.
00:03:48.580Cruz failed to disclose that the AV executed a pullover maneuver that increased the risk of and may have caused further injury to the pedestrian, the DMV wrote in a report.
00:03:57.980Cruze's omission hinders the ability of the apartment to effectively and timely evaluate
00:04:02.360the safe operation of Cruze's vehicles and puts the safety of the public at risk.
00:04:07.260Now, this is a really awful story, and there is a lot I could say about it, right?
00:04:13.160Like, I think it highlights how dangerous it is to have the public basically serving
00:04:17.320as unpaid and unwitting crash test dummies for technology that isn't safe anytime they
00:04:23.900I also think that cities that allow these cars to be tested in the first place on public streets are really putting corporate interests and business interests above public safety, which should be number one. And on top of that, never mind the fact that Cruz employees, I guess, felt fine lying to public safety officials to try to keep their dangerous cars, cars that they knew were dangerous, on the road with the public.
00:04:52.140But I really want to take this moment to really applaud SFGate.
00:04:56.580They have really been on this story and staying on this story since day one.
00:05:01.100And, you know, I don't think we would know any of this information.
00:05:04.060I don't think the public would know any of this if not for them.
00:05:06.160It really shows the importance of having robust local journalism who is going to get a story and stay on a story.
00:05:13.800And how important that is for public safety, because we as the public deserve to know this information.
00:05:18.960If you're walking around in San Francisco, you deserve to know how these driverless cars are being deployed and whether or not they're safe, because you can encounter them and you can be hit like this pedestrian was.
00:05:29.480And so I really think of all the different angles of this story, the one that to me, I just really want to double click on is just the importance of having robust local journalism. At a time when local journalism is being decimated all over the country, it's local outlets and local papers and local journalists who are going to stay on the stories that really impact all of our day-to-day lives locally.
00:05:52.400So thank you to the journalists who stayed on this story to help better inform the public about a public safety risk they're all facing.
00:06:00.780Let's move on to Google. A jury just found Google guilty of sexual discrimination and awarded a female Google Cloud executive named Ulka Rowe who filed a complaint $1.1 million.
00:06:12.340Rowe said that Google gave higher pay to less experienced male cohorts and that it later denied her promotions in retaliation for her complaints.
00:06:20.140So it sounds like Roe was passed over for a promotion to vice president, and after she
00:06:24.860did not get that job, it was given to a man who neither applied nor was qualified, which
00:06:30.380like, ugh, tale as old as time, am I right?
00:06:33.140Yeah, that would be pretty frustrating.
00:06:34.620So after she filed the lawsuit, the company again denied her another similar promotion.
00:06:39.280Another point of contention is how Google and many other tech companies deal with their
00:09:49.620Roe's attorney, Cara Green, credited, quote,
00:09:52.120the efforts of thousands of Googlers who walked out in 2018 and demanded reforms.
00:09:57.100Over 20,000 Google employees and contractors staged a walkout protest that year after a New
00:10:02.260York Times investigation revealed that the company had given Android co-founder $90 million as he
00:10:08.820left the company over sexual assault allegations. So it really just seems like the vibe at Google
00:10:16.020that the staffers were protesting was that if you were accused of misconduct, if you were a creep,0.82
00:10:22.440if you were somebody who was a sex pest at the job, you might be given a golden parachute and0.94
00:10:30.400a big fat check to go away. It really highlights something that I think gets missed in conversations
00:10:35.500like this, which is that keeping abusers around, hiring abusers, promoting abusers,
00:10:40.640empowering abusers is not just wrong because it's wrong and you shouldn't be empowering
00:10:47.160creeps in your organization, but it costs money. $90 million payout to somebody who is a creep,
00:10:53.920that is a lot of money. And so for all of the reasons why organizations, especially organizations
00:10:59.080as powerful as Google, but all organizations should not be in the business of coddling and
00:11:04.860empowering creeps and abusers, it also is very expensive. It is a bad business decision to
00:11:10.680continue to empower people like this. Folks should really listen to the episode that we did
00:11:15.560with Ufoma Uzoma that I mentioned earlier. After filing a discrimination suit against her former0.96
00:11:20.120employee Pinterest, Ufoma went on to draft legislation that invalidates NDAs if somebody
00:11:25.660is facing racial mistreatment. Previously, NDAs could be made invalid if somebody was facing
00:11:30.620gender-based harassment or mistreatment, but not if the mistreatment was racial in nature.
00:11:36.620After facing both racial and gender-based harassment at Pinterest,
00:11:40.000Ofoma's Silence No More legislation changed all of that. But back to Google, I really just think
00:11:46.540that they are a company that likes to talk a big game around inclusion and diversity and gender
00:11:53.680equity. They definitely have efforts there that I would applaud. So I can't speak to
00:12:00.600how sincere or not those efforts are. But it really does sound like the vibe there is that
00:12:06.520people from traditionally marginalized backgrounds can work at Google. They can be there,
00:12:12.260but don't take up too much space. Don't demand your worth. Don't demand pay equity. You can be
00:12:18.240here, but we don't really want you to be here. That seems to be the vibe I'm getting from what
00:12:23.340folks are saying. Wow. What a terrible vibe at a tech company.
00:12:28.160Yeah, it's like that line. I can't remember where I heard it, but diversity is being invited to the party. Inclusion is being asked to dance.
00:14:40.780So if you listen to this podcast, you already know that social media platforms have such a tight grip on all of our lives.
00:14:47.380And this week, Facebook got the biggest legal challenge to the toxic grip the platform holds on young people.
00:14:53.68041 different states and Washington, D.C. all took Facebook to court this week, alleging that Facebook harms children by building addictive features into Instagram and Facebook.
00:15:02.880Y'all might recall whistleblower Frances Haugen's 2021 report in The Wall Street Journal all about how Facebook knowingly harmed the mental health of young people, especially teen girls.
00:15:13.380So this lawsuit really stems from some of the charges that we found out from that report.
00:15:17.680The Washington Post reports a 233-page federal complaint alleges that Facebook engaged in a scheme to exploit young users for profit by misleading them about safety features and the prevalence of harmful content, harvesting their data, and violating federal laws on children's privacy.
00:15:35.140State officials claim that the company knowingly deployed changes to keep children on the site to the detriment of their well-being, violating consumer protection laws.
00:15:43.340States say that Facebook designed psychologically manipulative product features to induce young users' compulsive and extended use.
00:15:50.880The company's algorithms were designed to push kids and teenagers into rabbit holes of toxic and harmful content with features like infinite scroll and persistent alerts to hook young users.
00:16:01.380The attorneys general also charged Facebook with violating a federal children's online privacy law, accusing it of unlawfully collecting the personal data of its youngest users without their parents' permission.
00:16:12.160If there's one thing that folks might know about American government and politics and democracy is that it doesn't always work so well. There's, you know, I think we've seen a lot of examples of that pretty recently of how the works can kind of get gummed up.
00:16:29.260So it is kind of a rare thing when both Republicans and Democrats come together to stick it to anybody.
00:16:36.940And that is what's happening with Facebook.
00:16:38.480It is a rare instance of bipartisanship.
00:16:41.120Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, who is co-leading the federal suit, said at a news conference,
00:16:46.300at a time when our nation is not seeing the level of bipartisan problem-solving collaboration that we need,
00:16:51.460you can see it here among this group of attorneys general.
00:16:54.180He actually compared Facebook to Big Tobacco, saying,
00:16:57.160Just like big tobacco and vaping companies have done in years past, Meta chose to maximize its profits at the expense of public health, specifically harming the health of the youngest among us.
00:17:08.320As somebody who kind of works in the tobacco cessation space, what do you think about that comparison?
00:17:15.400I think it's a good comparison. I think it's an apt one. Yeah, I think there's a long history of attorneys general from the states getting together and actually taking action through courts when Congress and the federal government has failed.
00:17:34.920And I think the comparison of Facebook to big tobacco is a good one. I think it's absolutely spot on that they have mined the health and well-being of young people for their own private profits and sort of exported all the harms onto the rest of us.
00:17:59.020Rather, those harms come in the form of increased medical bills that states have to pick up for their populace or all the societal harms that are done when we have a generation of young people who are suffering from all the mental mental health challenges, I guess, that social media has created in them over the past 10 years.
00:18:27.060Well, you know who doesn't think it's a good comparison? Facebook. You might be wondering, what is Facebook's response to all this, Ben? Well, not a very good one, if you ask me. Facebook spokesperson Lisa Crenshaw said in a statement that the company is, quote, disappointed that instead of working productively with companies across the industry to create clear, age-appropriate standards for the many apps teams use, the attorneys general have chosen this path.
00:18:52.820wow oh we're so disappointed we can't hurt kids for profit anymore can't a company get rich off
00:19:01.240of hurting kids anymore is this even america yeah it's so funny to hear them complain about
00:19:08.540wanting like the government to create standards across the many apps that teens use and like
00:19:14.900you know there's like two maybe three right like instagram tiktok snapchat like these are the apps
00:19:23.140kids are using right like maybe there's a couple more but the idea that the government should be
00:19:28.920like the end all be all to create standards and regulations this same spokesperson i'm sure
00:19:37.900turned around the very next day and talked about all the reasons why the government should not be
00:19:44.220creating regulation and standards of private industry. Oh, it's complete BS. Like if you
00:19:49.320were to take that statement at face value, you'd be like, okay, great. So then you agree the
00:19:53.660government needs to be regulating the F out of your harmful product. As you've just said,
00:19:58.600whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You're trying to hurt small businesses. Think about the small
00:20:04.000social media farmers out there and their small plots of land, you know, just trying to tend to
00:20:10.300the the family farm raising engagement you know back to the big tobacco comparison for a second
00:20:18.180girl having grown up in virginia i true they they truly like had us thinking that philip morris which
00:20:26.980was the biggest tobacco company in virginia when i lived there they probably probably still are
00:20:31.280what am i saying they changed their name to altria also isn't that funny that comparison
00:20:35.560remember when francis haugen blew the whistle on facebook and they were like facebook who we don't
00:20:40.000know her it's a meta now like talk about that talk about taking a page from big tobacco's playbook
00:20:45.080but they truly had us virginians out there believing that like the majority of people
00:20:51.760producing tobacco for philip morris this like massive corporation were like ma and pa farmer
00:20:58.440ma and pa virginia farmer sure and you gotta have a big family so the kids can help roll the
00:21:04.880cigarettes and then bring them down to the community store and the horse-drawn carriage
00:21:12.240yeah it's complete nonsense it's like a global franchise keeping in mind with that comparison
00:21:20.960you would always hear tobacco companies talking about things like oh we're making a safer cigarette
00:21:25.740or like oh we like we want there to be regulation like we're really trying to keep our our products
00:21:32.960away from kids, yada, yada, yada, talking such a big game. I feel like it's one of those things
00:21:37.500where it's like, if you really cared about safety, you would shut down. And I feel the same thing
00:21:42.960about Facebook. There are plenty of tech platforms that are responsible for plenty of harm, but there
00:21:47.760are platforms out there that are harmful, but they also do something that is a value. Google
00:21:53.140is a company that definitely spreads harm, but they're the world's biggest search engine. You
00:21:58.460could say like okay it's providing value i would actually argue that at this point i think facebook
00:22:04.220is such a bad actor that i think that like it is like the opposite of a do-goodery factory a do
00:22:10.680battery factory like they're just like a marketplace for evil and doing bad things
00:22:16.720yeah they're bad news i mean they've just demonstrated over and over again that they're
00:22:21.700going to choose profits every time over the health of young people, the health of entire
00:22:27.860populations. Yeah, they've been very clear with us. And I think ultimately, I mean, stepping back,
00:22:34.680I think that the business model of tech platforms like Facebook are just at odds with not doing
00:22:40.980increasing harms to kids. Like, think about how Facebook intentionally rolled out reels to
00:22:47.080compete with TikTok because they knew that young people were flocking to TikTok for short form
00:22:51.800video. Facebook has a very clear business and financial interest in keeping young people
00:22:58.820hooked on the platform and keeping young people spending as much time on the platform as possible
00:23:03.900so that they can make more and more money. Like, don't forget that right before Frances Haugen
00:23:09.300released that really damning report we were talking about, about Facebook knowingly harming
00:23:13.540children, Facebook was already in the mix building a social media platform specifically for kids
00:23:20.880under the age of 13. Think about that. They only scrapped this like Facebook for kids they were
00:23:26.540making after pressure from like advocacy groups, state attorneys general and lawmakers. So like,
00:23:33.040let's be for real, like regardless of what measures they might trot out to say that they're
00:23:38.620trying to like, make Facebook safer, like, oh, like, here's a little alert that we've got where
00:23:44.820your kid spends too much time on Facebook, he gets a little beep or like, you know, parental
00:23:50.020controls, whatever little things they are rolling out to sort of signal that they're doing anything.
00:23:56.540At the end of the day, they have a vested interest in making sure that kids are locked in and hooked
00:24:02.440on their harmful products as much as possible yeah and you know we shouldn't lose sight of the
00:24:08.860fact that just because they are extremely good at turning that harmful business model into profits
00:24:15.980they didn't invent it and they're certainly not the only ones right like any of the these tech
00:24:22.860companies where their main revenue is advertising all those same pressures are there right like
00:24:29.940Google doesn't have a social media platform, but they definitely have an interest in keeping
00:24:35.600our attention hooked so they can learn more about us, learn our preferences, sell us ads.
00:24:42.140You know, TikTok is right there too. You know, it's surveillance capitalism. That's
00:24:49.360like inherently the entire thing of it. Exactly. And I think, I mean, I think I've said this before,
00:24:55.080But truly, we really got to ask ourselves, is this okay with us? Do we think that our children, the most vulnerable and youngest among us, the people who we as adults have been, you know, have a responsibility to keep safe and keep from harm, is it okay to feed them through Facebook's meat grinder so that Mark Zuckerberg can get another zero at the end of his bank account?
00:25:20.880That is really the question that I think that we should be asking, because they're not going to stop targeting kids unless someone makes them stop. That is very clear to me, right? Like, I will say that when they were rolling out their Facebook for kids under 13, they said that they were doing that because they found that kids were lying about their age to get on Instagram.
00:25:41.000I think you have to be older than 13 to get on Instagram.
00:25:43.600So that really tells me all I need to know, right?
00:25:45.740That like, rather than figure out what they can do to keep kids from accessing products
00:25:52.360that they know are harmful that they make, they're like, oh, we'll just make one just
00:26:09.820they've got camel crush they've got a thousand products all of them pushing the boundaries of
00:26:16.920what's legal to so they can market directly to kids so i have a slightly unpopular opinion
00:26:22.260about like we need rules to protect kids from big social media yes it's good that we have
00:26:30.680that we should have special protection for kids we like kind of don't right now and like it would
00:26:36.240be great if we had some but i don't know that we should stop there like because i think like social
00:26:44.660media is out of control for people of all ages and just focusing on the harm that it does to kids
00:26:53.940i i feel it's like maybe like step one or like it's something which would be better than nothing
00:27:02.120But there are plenty of like older adults, like me included, who would really benefit from, I don't know, like strong, like some sort of privacy protections in this country to protect us from companies that just, you know, are like harvesting all of our private data to try to sell us ad ads.
00:27:24.520And also serving up content that like riles us up, which maybe is maybe is not accurate and turns us against other people.
00:27:37.760I think I feel that social media protection is one area where like save the children is perhaps steering us away from like bigger, more comprehensive fixes.
00:27:52.020Oh, I completely agree. I think that everybody deserves a safer, better social media landscape, full stop, end of sentence. I think the reason why lawmakers so often focus on children, one, it's the thing that we've talked about a lot when we've talked about legislation like the Kids Online Safety Act, things like that.
00:28:13.200when something is presented as a harm to kids, I think it justifies a lot more action, whether
00:28:19.620that action is good or bad. I think it gets people like, oh, we have to do something.
00:28:24.420But I also do... So I see your point that everybody deserves data privacy. Everybody
00:28:30.820deserves a better, safer internet landscape. Absolutely, yes. But I do think there is a
00:28:36.100philosophical point to be made about what happens when tech companies target kids? What happens when
00:28:43.820kids' privacy is for sale? I do think it raises a kind of deeper philosophical question of what
00:28:52.680tech companies feel entitled to, who they feel comfortable harming, and what we as adults are
00:28:59.700also okay with does that make sense like i so i agree with you kind of on paper but philosophically
00:29:06.600i do think that something is very different when mark zuckerberg feels completely fine giving a
00:29:11.900generation of young girls you know body image issues and disordered eating knowingly to make
00:29:17.820money yeah it it does feel worse there yeah it shouldn't be okay to do that to anybody but
00:29:23.880definitely not to kids for sure you know i was at a talk with the founder of a great organization
00:29:28.900called Glitch UK, which is an online safety advocacy organization. And she made this great
00:29:34.500point, like, what other kind of industry would the public tolerate this kind of behavior from?
00:29:40.400Like, if there was a food product that was popular with kids and adults ate it too,
00:29:45.300where some big percentage of people who ate it got very sick, would we accept that they could
00:29:50.600just keep selling it, that they could sell it to kids, they could target kids, they could get kids
00:29:54.440addicted to it, would we accept that it would be okay that that company would be not transparent
00:30:00.100at all about how their product is affecting people? Would we accept that? Probably not.
00:30:05.780And that is exactly what is happening with big tech companies. And I thought that was such an
00:30:09.120interesting comparison because really no other sector would we tolerate that from. Possibly the
00:30:15.480gun industry, but not really a lot of others. Yeah, it's a good analogy. And Bridget, you and
00:30:23.140I just the other day were talking about food safety regulation and how that's an area where
00:30:31.080the public really demands this extremely high level of safety that does not translate to other
00:30:38.320industries. Right. Do you remember that? I do. People are going to be thinking like,
00:30:42.960what kind of conversations are Bridget and Mike having when they're not on the podcast? Oh,
00:30:47.640you know, just a good, just a conversation about food safety regulations on the United States.
00:30:51.780yeah food safety and and risk perception you know how people think about all the different risks in
00:30:58.360our lives and how inconsistent it can seem where there'll be you know something like uh food safety
00:31:06.480where like nobody wants to get diarrhea so we have all these like intense laws about food safety that
00:31:14.160do keep us safe and they're you know good things you know i don't want diarrhea but then there are
00:31:19.400also all these other areas like social media for example where uh like the the mental health of
00:31:27.920young people particularly girls is being like systematically reduced and we all just kind of
00:31:36.180collectively shrug like oh that's just how it is you know you know how it is what was the phrase
00:31:41.040that you used to explain that phenomenon you know there was a phrase for it that i never heard
00:31:45.040before. Oh, God, I was trying not to get into it. But if you're going to, you know, subject the
00:31:50.060listeners to it, I was talking about the concept of dread risk, which is a concept from risk
00:31:56.160perception from the psychologist Paul Slovic, who studied this very phenomenon of risk perception
00:32:04.360and how people around the world, he mainly looked at Americans, but he also studied people
00:32:12.220from other countries about the different risks that they perceived and their demand for
00:32:19.940the authorities, typically government, to take some sort of actions to protect them from it.
00:32:26.960And he found that there were two factors that determined how people perceived risk and the
00:32:34.000extent to which they demanded protection from it. One of them was the actual risk. What is the
00:32:39.620likelihood that this is going to cause someone to be injured or killed, you know, per 1000 or per
00:32:46.600100,000 people. That's obviously an important one. But then almost equally important was the
00:32:53.080concept of dread risk, which is how scary is it, right? It's like the idea that dying in your sleep
00:33:00.260from carbon monoxide poisoning is less horrific than being like, torn apart by wolves or something.
00:33:07.960uh in either scenario you're dead but uh one of them seems much worse than the other right and
00:33:15.040that's the concept of dread that it just like feels uh terrifying in some particular way and
00:33:22.580it feels like social media here is an area where that that dread factor is really reduced right
00:33:29.480like oh it's just stuff that happens on computers uh it just happens to girls uh it's pretty long
00:33:36.800term, like, oh, I guess it makes some girls sad, ha ha ha, big deal. But it is like a very serious
00:33:44.280thing. And I think it's, I don't know, useful to think about what are the factors or the
00:33:52.200characteristics of some particular risk? And how does that inform the public's demand or lack of
00:33:59.800demand for government to do something about it? Look at you throwing around your psychology PhD.
00:34:05.280folks in case you didn't know mike has a psychology degree yeah they all know now i'm sorry everyone
00:34:10.760you asked no it is it is it is useful i asked it is it's interesting and it's useful and like
00:34:17.420i do think it makes sense that like there are just some things that we're like we got to regulate
00:34:21.420that and then the we're it's like there are other things that we're just like the risk is i don't
00:34:26.600know like less real or less acute or something and i think that we're only now starting to really
00:34:32.680grapple with the reality that that risk presents us with because I think it maybe took a little
00:34:37.220while for it to be apparent like it seems like social media has been around forever but it
00:34:42.160really isn't that old if you think about it I think that we're really starting to get to know
00:34:46.460the very serious offline impacts now and so I think like yeah we're just sort of like catching
00:34:52.360up on like oh actually this is very serious we need to do something yeah and it's it's often a
00:34:59.380little bit delayed right like it's not like somebody posts on social media and then all of a
00:35:05.540sudden their self-esteem is destroyed and they commit an act of self-harm or something like
00:35:13.140those things are decoupled in time in a way that really makes it seem like it's not as big of a
00:35:20.200factor as as it is but yeah it's it's social media it's scary it's uh has a profound impact
00:35:28.720on young people. Well, let's talk more about that, because speaking of youth and social media,
00:35:34.340I, listen, I am a certified old, I am not a Gen Z-er, but I do think it is really important to
00:35:39.660be paying close attention to what young people say they are experiencing when it comes to digital
00:35:45.120media and digital culture, and when they talk about what they want. The Center for Scholars
00:35:49.820and Storytellers at UCLA just released a really fascinating report on what they're calling
00:35:55.700teens and screens all about analyzing what different young people want from their media
00:36:00.540experiences we will put a link to the report in the show notes but it's like fascinating it's also
00:36:05.340like just just to nerd out for a minute it's like really nicely designed like people send me reports
00:36:11.260to cover on the podcast all the time and i'm like oh this dense 65 page document with single spacing
00:36:19.300and no images i'll definitely read this thanks for sending it oh really big pdf cool thanks
00:36:25.600But this one was actually interesting to read. It's like designed very nicely.
00:36:29.500Yeah, it's really beautifully designed. It's colorful. They did an excellent job packaging it up.
00:36:34.540And I also really like that this survey focused on what young people want, like what what their interests are.
00:36:43.340I feel like most surveys, population surveys that we have of young people are focused on their behaviors, what drugs are they doing, what other risky behaviors are they doing, what are their attitudes about this or that thing that, you know, us old people are in, you know, care about.
00:37:04.660And so we want to know what the young people think about it, because we care about it. But this one really, I don't know, I haven't seen one like this before, where it was like, what do young people want?
00:37:16.760Yeah, that's such a that's such a good point, because so often, I feel like it's us olds, like voyeuristically, like, like, what are the youth up to? Like, what are they thinking? Like, I don't know, it's kind of nice to give young people a little bit of space to talk about what their wants, their needs. And it really like, as a media maker of a kind, it really almost challenged me to be like, well, if young people are saying that this is what their needs are,
00:37:45.540how does my content serve or not serve those needs, right? And so it's like, I agree. It's
00:37:51.140like, it's interesting to really put the spotlight and give the microphone to young people for them
00:37:56.480to be like, here's what we think, here's what we want, here's what we like, here's what we don't
00:38:00.840like. So how young folks engage with media is actually really important. The study points out
00:38:06.380that youth develop a clearer sense of their personal identity through messages they receive
00:38:11.120through culture and environment, which is increasingly dominated by media. So this survey
00:38:16.320looked at 1,500 adolescents ages 10 to 24 and different categories of young people too. So like
00:38:23.020young adolescents, middle adolescents, gender non-conforming adolescents, people of color
00:38:27.680adolescents, and LGBTQI plus adolescents. So I learned a couple of really interesting points
00:38:33.940from this survey. One is that perhaps unsurprisingly, social media is still rated the
00:38:39.660most authentic media platform. Among social media platforms, young people said that TikTok was the
00:38:44.980most authentic. So another interesting thing that surprised me is that young people are apparently
00:38:50.260not that interested in content that glorifies drug use and partying and drinking. So shows like
00:38:58.520Euphoria that are over the top with drug use, they're not really feeling that so much. And I
00:39:04.200guess that was sort of a theme from this survey is that I don't know that I would say that our
00:39:09.940current media landscape is really serving what young people say their needs actually are, what
00:39:16.180they actually want from media. So for instance, very few adolescents say that they prefer
00:39:21.700aspirational content. So they don't really want to see content about people who are super rich
00:39:27.640or super famous or have these like super aspirational lives. But I feel like that is a lot
00:39:33.320of the content that we are that we are giving them that's like oh don't you want to see the
00:39:38.060kardashians don't you want to see charlie d'amelio don't you want to see like these rich influencers
00:39:43.020who live like fabulous lives young people are like nah i'm good i would rather see people whose lives
00:39:48.200kind of look like mine it's interesting uh yeah makes some sense feels a little counterintuitive
00:39:55.540but uh interesting so the majority of young people also prefer content over ip based content
00:40:03.400but like that's so much of what we have to offer right now is like oh do you want to see like i
00:40:09.620don't know some 12th iteration of a marvel ip like that is so much like and no shade to like
00:40:18.800the the mcu the marvel cinematic universe but like we are offering in terms of media a lot of
00:40:26.060existing ip right now and young people if this survey is to be believed aren't really that
00:40:30.760interested in that you know it's interesting you bring up the the mcu the marvel cinematic universe
00:40:36.440as a an example for this point that the majority of young people favor original content over ip
00:40:43.500based content because i mean that's not just like an example you picked out of a hat right that was
00:40:48.980like the major piece of cultural content being created during the majority of the lives of
00:40:58.320gen zers right like over the past like 10 15 years like it was marvel the avengers fear thanos0.78
00:41:09.040yeah like no shit they want some other content listen if you are a young person out there i will0.95
00:41:15.020i'm i'm gonna quote one of my heroes and idols on this john waters fucking living legend go0.99
00:41:21.740i also like the mcu i also enjoy that's a john waters quote oh my god0.99
00:41:28.020shut your mouth how dare you he would never no john waters once said get more out of life0.98
00:41:36.120go and see a fucked up movie and that is something that i live by there is so much interesting1.00
00:41:42.760content out there it is a shame that like all that like if you were paying attention to media0.98
00:41:50.280in the last few years like if aliens came down and they were like what media is going on in the
00:41:54.920last 10 years a big a big chunk of that pie would be existing ip there's so much interesting kooky
00:42:01.080dark fucked up weird stuff out there go out find your thing you will you will you will thank me0.71
00:42:09.240later and stay tuned for there are no girls on the internet the movie uh to be followed with0.92
00:42:15.080the docu series and the read at home companion maybe you know maybe what if there's like a
00:42:21.840tango cinematic universe like i guess that kind of is if you think about it because i do have
00:42:26.460multiple podcasts maybe they can start having like little dramas with each other like oh
00:42:30.960mike really doesn't get along with i don't know whoever from whatever podcast
00:42:37.240is that something maybe except it would have to be you like nobody wants like0.98
00:42:42.740a spinoff where two side characters have adventures yo tell that to fucking marvel0.98
00:42:49.460from your lips to marvel's ears my friend0.98
00:44:58.440So y'all might have seen a headline or a tweet about this survey that says that Gen Z want less sex and less romance on screen.1.00
00:45:07.360That is true. The majority of adolescents in this survey, 51.5%, expressed a desire for more content centered around friendships and platonic relationships.0.98
00:45:16.900A near majority felt that romance in media is overused, and a surprising 39% want to see more aromantic and or asexual characters on screen.
00:45:27.12047.5% of adolescents said that sex is not needed for the plot of most TV shows and movies.
00:45:33.160Young people ranked forced, unnatural, or toxic romantic and sexual relationships 4 out of the top 10 most disliked stereotypes on TV.
00:45:41.840They also do not care for tropes like love triangles, relationships being a necessity to be happy, and male-female leads always ending up together.
00:45:52.640And this actually mirrors what young people are doing in real life.
00:45:57.380They're having less sex and they're staying single for longer.
00:46:00.160And they're reporting that they don't feel the need to be in a romantic relationship to really feel fulfilled.
00:46:05.440So I saw this in like headlines or on tweets kind of being framed as like, oh, young people are prudes or young people are like afraid of sex or young people are like, I don't know, like they've had their brains warped from the prevalence of pornography to the point where they don't even want to see sex on screen.
00:46:26.160all of that is like completely strips out the nuance of what these young people are telling us
00:46:32.980about what they want from media i love this part because you bridget were like
00:46:39.000you dug deeper into the data you're like i just feel there's a deeper story here and you dug in
00:46:45.680and it was there well thank you for that i will say mashable did a lot of the hard work for me
00:46:54.520by talking to two of the authors of the study.
00:46:58.080But I will say that when I saw the tweets
00:47:22.220oh they don't know what rock and roll is they're too young to be out there like and I say this as
00:47:27.960someone who like when I was an adolescent all I wanted to see was two characters kiss on screen
00:47:34.440all I was writing about all I was thinking about a lot of my time was consumed around like
00:47:40.260wanting characters to be involved in sexual entanglements on screen so I was not this kind
00:47:47.560of youth i was like would watch a show about two friends and i'm like what if they had sex wouldn't
00:47:52.260that be good like well yeah we've been getting that for the past 20 years you know i was not the
00:47:58.020kind of young person that they are describing here but i think it is really uncharitable and
00:48:03.320really unfair to paint young people as being uncomfortable with sex or prudes from what they
00:48:09.900are telling us yeah right like actual young people are also not the young people who are being
00:48:14.760portrayed here. Yes. And think about this. In 2023, we have less and less of what we call
00:48:21.300third places, places where people, but especially young people, can congregate with each other and
00:48:26.900really find and build community and friendship. But just like everybody, young people still have
00:48:33.220a need for that kind of friendship and camaraderie. So media then becomes the place where that need
00:48:39.640for platonic relationships and friendships is being met. So if all you're giving young people
00:48:45.160is like sexual content, romantic content, romantic triangles, and love triangles, all of that,
00:48:51.300it really is not serving what they have identified as a need from the media they consume.
00:48:57.060So one of the authors of the study talked to Mashable, which explains,
00:49:01.580we're well aware of the loneliness epidemic in the United States. Well before COVID,
00:49:05.700people have felt less connected to others. The pandemic only exacerbated this, and young people
00:49:10.440today are twice as likely to report feeling lonely than those over 65. Third places, third to home
00:49:17.080and school or work, for young people to hang out in person are dwindling. While many go online for
00:49:22.700connection, Gen Z are social beings that need face-to-face interaction. So that is one of the
00:49:29.020reasons why they are reporting like we are interested in more explorations of platonic
00:49:35.360friendships that don't center romantic or sexual pairings. This is really so sad to me. The survey
00:49:42.300authors pointed to a survey response from a 12-year-old about the movie The Sandlot. This
00:49:47.000person said, quote, The Sandlot is a baseball movie I like. I wish I could go outside and play
00:49:52.920like they did at the time. Today, it's not safe. Though simple, his words felt like a plenient
00:49:58.900representation of what many of our respondents seem to be hinting at, that the core essence of
00:50:03.900kids at heart and teens will always be the same, from camaraderie to curiosity and a sense of
00:50:09.460adventure, or even just playing outside. And it appears that somewhere along the way, this may
00:50:14.180have been forgotten in storytelling oh that is devastating uh quite a quote from authors
00:50:23.420Haral Kotecha and Stephanie Rivas Lara yeah and I think like going back to those tweets about
00:50:30.460young people being prudes it just like yeah it's just so not the full story of what youth today
00:50:38.860are dealing with. And it is a really scary time to be a kid. Like, I feel very grateful that I
00:50:45.640was a kid when I was a kid, because I feel like some of the realities that youth today are dealing
00:50:50.540with, I don't think I would be strong enough to deal with it. And not only are they dealing with
00:50:54.820it, they're dealing with it. And they're continuing to be creative, to connect with each
00:50:59.500other, to be roasting people like me on social media for like wearing the wrong kind of jeans
00:51:06.180or whatever like they're they're they're up against a lot and they have not lost the spark
00:51:11.700that that you know that spark of youth and yeah young people inspire me every day like I find
00:51:18.060them very inspirational even though they are dealing with so much I don't know how they do it
00:51:22.000yeah this was a really interesting survey I'm so glad that the authors collected this because it
00:51:27.400I think it does say a lot about what young people are looking for what they're experiencing
00:51:35.020And I'm so glad you dug deeper than those headlines, because, you know, the headline that, like, kids today aren't interested in sex, like, but it also just, like, obscures all of this nuance of, like, what's actually going on, not just in their lives, but in, like, what our human needs are as social beings.
00:51:57.200So speaking of failing young people, I got to talk about this woman on TikTok. So this young
00:52:02.980woman made a TikTok recently about getting a job out of college, a job that she says that she
00:52:08.100actually likes, but just kind of talking about how tough it is. She has to get up while it's still
00:52:14.100dark out, commute pretty long for her job. I think it's like two hours because she doesn't make1.00
00:52:19.540enough money to live closer to work. She goes to work. She, by all accounts, enjoys her job and1.00
00:52:24.640co-workers but then she has to commute home from work by the time she gets home it is dark she
00:52:29.560doesn't have much energy to do anything beyond like just feed herself and go to bed right she's
00:52:34.920like when do you have time for going to the gym or seeing friends or finding a partner like or0.94
00:52:41.960having hobbies or taking care of yourself or meaningful connection there's no time for that
00:52:46.640and she's a little emotional in the video like she's crying she's upset she does say that she
00:52:52.220has her period, which like, holy moly, can I relate to that? But the whole thing is like a
00:52:57.480really relatable complaint, I think. But the internet is going to internet. And some people
00:53:02.960had very cruel responses, like basically calling her like a whiny brat. Blibs of TikTok, we posted0.95
00:53:09.880the video with a caption making fun of her. A lot of the responses were just like straight up sexist
00:53:15.700because she's a young woman. She is wearing makeup. She has manicured nails. People are saying things0.97
00:53:21.760like oh she doesn't have enough time to get her nails done wow um jason kalasinas who is this
00:53:28.540wealthy tech investor and the co-host of the podcast all in which i feel like i've talked
00:53:33.760about a few times uh it is like one of the most popular tech podcasts in the world if you want to
00:53:41.240see them just go to the apple tech podcast charts and look for like number one or number two look
00:53:46.980way way way way way way way down you'll find mine but they're always like one or two uh if
00:53:51.600I would say like the closest thing to maybe like a podcast, not nemesis, but it is like
00:53:58.620for wealthy tech investors, like drinking bourbon and smoking cigars and like talking
00:54:05.560about how wealthy they are and technology and yada, yada, yada.
00:54:08.880So this person who is like a wealthy tech dude tweeted, oh, princess, violin emoji.
00:54:16.140I'm sorry you had to commute and work and have a job and everything.
00:54:19.380it's like so extra which like it's just a rude tweet um i will say what's really funny is that
00:54:25.800as i said jason is this like wealthy tech investor and twitter added a community note to that tweet
00:54:33.100crapping on that young woman just reminding everybody that hey just so you know jason has
00:54:38.720not worked a nine-to-five job since 1990 so like if he's gonna complain this is context that y'all
00:54:44.160should know which I agree that's a funny rude community note I know I love I'm here for a salty
00:54:52.720community note so a tech journalist that I love Morgan Sung made a really insightful tic tac post
00:54:58.020about how I don't know like idealizing grind and corporate life this makes it really difficult to
00:55:04.860have empathy for other people especially younger people and it's really kind of keeping us away
00:55:10.440from meaningful generational solidarity right like
00:55:14.160there's this attitude of like I did it you should have to do it too like suck it up if I could do it0.76
00:55:19.760you could do it and I think especially like this woman is like a young woman if you're an entry
00:55:25.760level person like new to the workforce historically these are not folks who have a lot of power
00:55:31.260in the workforce so like it's people like Jason who have been working successfully for longer than
00:55:39.040than this young woman have been alive, like, punching down and crapping on her. But here's
00:55:44.740the thing. She is 100% correct. Like, I remember this absolutely visceral reaction I had when I
00:55:52.780had my first, like, grown-up job. I was living in Brooklyn. I was working in Manhattan. And I had
00:55:58.720to get up while it was still dark outside to commute to my job. And I didn't live in, like,
00:56:04.660cool hipster brooklyn i lived in like brooklyn brooklyn like deep into brooklyn like almost
00:56:11.080queen so my my commute was pretty hellish i would leave for work when it was dark out i would get
00:56:16.020back to work when it was dark out and i basically was like just making enough money to exist to
00:56:22.920live it was certainly not a like thriving healthy life and i think i did have a moment where i was
00:56:29.900like oh wait like this is adult life this actually really sucks i actually don't like this and you
00:56:36.380know i'm i'm really have a lot of empathy for this young woman in this experience because she's not
00:56:45.040wrong and more and more workers are waking up to the fact that killing yourself at work just to
00:56:51.220make money that you then don't get to really abandon anything other than sleep and food to
00:56:56.480fuel yourself for more work is not a great dynamic. It is not a dynamic that feels good.
00:57:02.040And yes, I get that this is like a white girl who probably went to college and it seems like,0.59
00:57:07.420oh, that you don't get to complain. But, you know, a lot of young people, I think,
00:57:11.540were sold a bunk bill of goods that if you go to college and work hard, you can make this good
00:57:16.420life for yourself. Finding out that that good life is just endless work and toil and also
00:57:22.320commuting on top of it is kind of a bust, like she's not wrong. The way Americans work is broken.
00:57:28.800In fact, a new study from the job search site Indeed found that two-thirds of UK employees
00:57:33.700would take a pay cut for a four-day work week instead of a five-day work week.
00:57:39.240So I don't think that this young woman is saying anything that is not correct. I think that more0.72
00:57:44.840and more workers are seeing this. You know, adult wage-earning life in the United States is a grind
00:57:51.720by design, right? Things like long commutes, lack of childcare, having your healthcare attached to
00:57:57.340your employment, the high cost of housing, all add to it. And if you have kids or are a caregiver
00:58:02.680for a family member or have other stuff going on on top of it, it's even worse. So I was really
00:58:07.900disappointed to see people acting like this woman was like an entitled brat for pointing that0.99
00:58:14.340reality out. It makes me wonder if one of the reasons why it's so hard to expect better is
00:58:20.680because people will crap on anyone who points out like hey y'all the status quo is actually not
00:58:25.920working yeah i think you're on to something there i think there are a lot of people who
00:58:30.960have been grinding away at jobs that don't make them feel fulfilled for so long that they
00:58:39.820feel defensive when anybody suggests like maybe that's not the best way to live
00:58:46.080Yeah. And I think that's part of it. I think that like people are it's so easy to get so entrenched in this corporate mindset that says that like this is this is like the only way to live that somebody just being like, oh, actually, this is really hard.
00:59:03.140elicits sneers and jokes and, you know, crapping on her rather than empathy. And rather than being
00:59:12.140like, yeah, we all deserve better. It shouldn't have to be this way. You should not have to,
00:59:16.640you were not put on this earth just to do wage earning labor for someone else. You should be
00:59:22.320able to have a life. You should be able to have harmony in your life. You should be able to work
00:59:27.760and still have time to take care of yourself and enjoy life. Like that is the point of being on
00:59:32.820this earth yeah and also you know her complaint was not so much about the work itself but about
00:59:38.980the commute and i feel that was kind of glossed over but she said she's commuting two hours
00:59:46.820in each direction that's like like four hours out of her day that's like half a day of work
00:59:52.080no wonder she's miserable that would make anyone miserable i know people like older than her that1.00
00:59:57.700have good jobs with like salary and benefits and you know nominal flexibility who for whatever
01:00:04.540reason have made the decision to commute for like close to two hours and they're also miserable
01:00:09.180right like that's that's just not a life mode that makes sense like this is just my take but
01:00:15.100like nobody should be commuting two hours like if you're doing that you're doing it wrong and you
01:00:19.260need to be doing something else immediately yeah I mean it is such a privilege for me to like not
01:00:25.140have to commute. I work mostly remotely and I have since before COVID. In times where I was
01:00:31.840commuting, it just didn't work for me. I was miserable and it wasn't even like the job made
01:00:38.060me miserable. I hated having to budget in an extra hour on both ways. An extra two hours
01:00:46.040in the eight hours of my day that is not spent sleeping or at work went to commuting. When I
01:00:53.020would get to work I'm already in a bad mood because like you're on the fucking subway you're0.99
01:00:57.360late it smells people are screaming like you've got to like be wearing clothes you don't want to0.96
01:01:02.240wear having conversations you don't want to have like it just like and then I would always like
01:01:06.920oh my god like even just thinking about it is it's almost like takes me back to that that headspace
01:01:11.560but all of that is to say my I for a very long time when I was working in offices I thought I0.91
01:01:18.480was like a screw up employee I thought I was like just a fuck up who like couldn't work properly and0.93
01:01:25.080like that was something I really internalized come to find out I just hated commuting and I hated0.95
01:01:29.300working in an office like when I was working with a little bit more flexibility padded into my
01:01:33.400schedule I was like oh I actually enjoy producing I actually enjoy doing a lot of this work the
01:01:39.160office commute vibe just did not work for me I used to regularly oh my god I hope my old MSNBC
01:01:45.980Boston to hear this but Farrah if you're listening you know I was a shitty employee so like whatever
01:01:50.520deal with it I would regularly like leave the office go outside and just like walk around the0.99
01:01:57.840block several times sometimes I would scream and then just like come back in it was the fucking0.72
01:02:03.560worst and it is such a I'm I'm it is such a privilege for me to be in a different place now0.93
01:02:09.260where my work life doesn't look like that but just because I did that I don't want people coming up
01:02:15.620behind me to have to needlessly suffer through that. If you love being in the office and you
01:02:20.380love commuting and it's working for you, that is great. But if you feel like this young lady did,
01:02:24.540which is definitely how I felt when I was her age, you are not crazy. It is normal to feel that way.
01:02:30.160It is not a sustainable system to spend two hours each way commuting. You should be able to have
01:02:36.340time for yourself, time to take care of yourself, time to have a life that is not work or sleep.
01:02:41.840and i guess i'll end it there mike thank you so much for being here yeah thanks for having me it
01:02:49.060was good talking with you this was our least musky episode in like quite a while when we were putting
01:02:56.620together the outline you were like you know who's not in this outline elon musk if if you want some
01:03:02.420musk i can give you some i know exactly what he's been up to but it sounds like you're we're good
01:03:05.980we're good yeah we can just let it go for a week elon musk will give you the week off but we'll
01:03:12.580see you next week i'm sure he'll be doing something thanks so much for listening and
01:03:17.140as always for ad free bonus content you can check out our patreon the last patreon episode that we
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01:03:46.360Got a story about an interesting thing in tech