Taylor Swift fans prompt IRS scrutiny on ticket resellers; Linda Yaccarino’s cringey Code interview; Yelp versus Crisis Pregnancy Centers; New Deep Fake legislation – NEWS ROUNDUP
00:02:20.320This is really what's Linda Yaccarino up to.0.96
00:02:23.380So Linda Yaccarino, for folks who don't know, was named as the new CEO of Twitter a while ago.
00:02:30.440I would say it kind of seems like Linda is not as publicly involved as you might expect a CEO to be.
00:02:40.400Like, it seems like Elon Musk will say something and she announced a big change and she won't even acknowledge it or anything like that.
00:02:47.680The vibe has been like, is she really in charge? Is she really the CEO? When she came on board, she definitely was getting that treatment where she was talking about how she really loves a challenge. She's the person that you call when you want someone who is really going to turn a ship around.
00:03:03.520And she was using a lot of language that I really quickly recognize as setting up a woman to come in and like clean up the mess of a male CEO, a male leader.0.70
00:03:14.880Like I heard a lot of like, this is someone who really wants to be seen as someone who is really like capable and going to come in and do a good job.0.83
00:03:22.600Well, her performance at the tech conference code did not go well and is not really doing a good job of aligning with what I think is her like public myth making around herself.
00:03:33.120So first, Kara Swisher interviewed Yoel Roth, former head of trust and safety at Twitter.
00:03:38.620Roth is someone who I've seen talked about in some ways that I would say are not exactly accurate.
00:03:43.900You might remember that Roth was working at Twitter in the pre-Elon Musk days and then stuck around once Elon Musk took over.
00:03:50.620I've seen him described as a whistleblower, but I really push back against that framing because when Elon Musk took over Twitter,
00:03:58.900He was fine to go along with all the practices that Elon Musk was putting forth.
00:04:03.960There are other folks who left Twitter when Elon Musk took over who I would say like were actual genuine whistleblowers who were blowing the whistle on Twitter's internal practices once Elon Musk took over.
00:04:15.020I would not put Yoel Roth in that camp.
00:04:17.780You might remember that Yoel Roth was like on board until Musk very publicly turned on him.0.86
00:04:24.160Musk kind of publicly insinuated that Roth, who is openly gay, is a sexual threat to children.
00:04:31.000And after this happened, Roth and his family had to flee their home for their own safety.
00:04:36.740So I will say this, had that been me, had Elon Musk taken over my company and then publicly smeared me as a threat to children and that I had to, like, leave my home, and I was invited on a big platform to talk about Twitter,
00:04:51.460I can just imagine what I would have said.
00:04:55.220I probably would have had a lot to say.
00:04:57.220However, Roth really just kept it professional.
00:05:00.320He talked about how there had been a rise in hate speech on Twitter since Elon Musk took over, saying, by any measure, it is worse, except by Twitter's own measure, which is basically what we've all been saying all along.
00:05:10.940So even though Roth just stuck to like clear stats about Twitter, like talking about the platform, Linda Iaccarino seemed very rattled by him being there.
00:05:22.060Linda was interviewed right after Roth and, to be honest, just came off really unprepared.
00:05:28.080And it didn't do a ton to, you know, address concerns that like Elon Musk is still running the show and like, you know, running Twitter off of his whims without really consulting her.
00:06:35.900So Yaccarino then tried to give some big, impressive number about how advertisers are returning to the platform, but then those numbers were refuted by external analysis.
00:06:45.500Then, when asked about the current rise in anti-Semitic content on Twitter, including from her boss, Elon Musk, according to Business Insider's Ben Bergman, she apparently looked down at her watch and said, I need to leave to catch a flight.
00:06:58.640and that's just like I can't imagine a more awkward thing to say like uh I think someone's
00:07:06.480calling me in the other room I gotta go yeah no that's like like oh look at my wrist I gotta go
00:07:12.760that is there's no way that's a real excuse yeah so of all the things that you could say
00:07:18.920I feel like that's the most awkward like you know that emoji that awkward emoji that has the curly
00:07:24.380mouth that's just like, oh, that was basically everybody's face in the audience because it was
00:07:28.460so awkward. People have described this as like a scene from Arrested Development because that's
00:07:32.880how awkward it was. Now, I think this is really just an instance of like, you work for a company,
00:07:39.060you have fired or let go most, if not all of your comm staff. The person who like is at the very top
00:07:45.540of the company, the owner, Elon Musk, is someone who is very erratic. I think that like this is
00:07:50.400what you get when all of those conditions are met. And so some folks, some like pretty big name
00:07:56.320tech folks accused tech journalist Kara Swisher, you know, the organizer of the conference of
00:08:01.620sandbagging Yaccarino by booking Roth as a surprise guest. But this is not really what
00:08:06.500happened. Swisher confirmed that Yaccarino knew that Roth would be speaking and was even given
00:08:11.600the option to pick whether she wanted to speak before him or after him. And that apparently
00:08:15.680Twitter like decided that they wanted to have the last word. So it's not like this was a total
00:08:19.580surprise according to to Kara Swisher she texted Linda Yaccarino personally and she had about 12
00:08:26.020hours notice that like hey this person's gonna be speaking too yeah like how how you were describing
00:08:30.840Roth before and this isn't like a dig on him I'm sure whatever um but it seems like he's like the
00:08:39.340most like mild sort of like center of the field person you could ask to talk about this because
00:08:46.740again it sounds like yeah he didn't leave he was sort of like i'm just gonna keep doing my job and
00:08:50.560see what happens and um yeah if you have a marginalized identity you will be targeted for
00:08:56.320that regardless of how you know much of a team player you are and again this is like a good
00:09:01.840example of that but yeah it sounds like he's sort of you don't really know which direction
00:09:06.660you could go with this and yeah that's a good way to describe him and honestly to me like i said
00:09:12.420if Elon Musk had targeted me for my identity and put my kids at risk, you can believe that
00:09:19.320when I got on a stage, I wouldn't be talking about the platform stats, right? So like part
00:09:23.660of me is like, well, this is like a testament to the fact that Raw is not going personal,
00:09:29.580that he's just like sticking to the stats. I completely agree with your assessment of
00:09:33.300who he is in this situation. And I was pretty surprised to see a lot of big names in tech
00:09:40.120media, people like Jason Calacanis from the All In podcast, which is probably the number one tech0.94
00:09:47.000podcast in the world every fucking week. I have no problem with that, but it is what it is.0.76
00:09:51.800And a business reporter at Axios, they were on Twitter saying that, oh, Linda Yaccarino got1.00
00:09:56.840sandbagged by Kara Swisher. This is so unprofessional. And Kara Swisher is never going0.99
00:10:01.980to be able to book high profile tech leaders for this conference. And this conference is really
00:10:06.180going to be not as big of a deal if this is how they're going to treat their high profile guests.
00:10:12.180And I really need to push back on that framing because I think it really, it's one of those
00:10:22.100situations where it's like, wow, you all have so little integrity as tech leaders and journalists.
00:10:29.400People are supposed to be informing the public. You could not be making it clearer that what you
00:10:33.720actually care about, what you actually value is access. This is something that Paris Marks,
00:10:39.220the host of Tech Will Not Save Us, that podcast, speaks to quite a bit, which is like,
00:10:43.920these people could not have made it any clearer that they don't care about holding tech leaders
00:10:49.220accountable. They don't care about asking the kinds of questions that are actually going to help
00:10:53.360us, the public, understand what's going on. What they care about is access. And it's not
00:10:58.220a journalist's job to make Linda Yaccarino look good. It's not a journalist's job to, you know,0.75
00:11:05.540play nice with Linda Yaccarino or any other tech leader and, like, make them feel comfortable and
00:11:10.340make them look good and give them, like, they're not in PR, they're journalists. And so I was
00:11:14.560really surprised how quickly these journalists revealed that they don't care about that, that
00:11:19.960all they care about is, like, ooh, is this really going to, like, hurt Kara Swisher's ability to
00:11:24.220book, Big Guess. And I found that to be really telling. You know, Linda Yaccarino is running
00:11:31.820one of the most important tech platforms in the world. It's not any journalist's job to make her1.00
00:11:37.020look good. It's a journalist's job to ask her questions that are going to be clarifying for us,
00:11:41.100the public, and to hold her accountable for the things that she says and the things that she does.
00:11:44.560Right. And even if it wasn't Linda Yaccarino herself, like she's the CEO of a company that's0.91
00:11:51.740owned by elon musk who has used that platform to spew just straight up nazi shit and yeah0.99
00:12:00.180apparently target a gay man in a way that is very much rooted in homophobia like it it totally0.99
00:12:06.920makes sense it's so weird to see like how accountability is like framed because yeah
00:12:13.940like you said this seems like a situation where she needs to be held accountable for what's
00:12:18.040happening at her company for what's happening in the name of her company and yeah like asking the1.00
00:12:23.760most basic questions is apparently too much I don't know poor Linda Yaccarino her and her1.00
00:12:32.040you know billion dollar company so sad they're being bullied by mean journalists
00:12:38.200I almost see like a little bit of like sexism here like I think it's I think it's I think
00:12:46.300it's important to like, not, I try really hard when I'm talking about Linda Yaccarino to make
00:12:51.540sure that I'm not trafficking in some sort of like internalized misogyny. But the way that
00:12:55.160people are talking about her, it almost swings back around. And it's like, we're not talking
00:12:59.440about your best friend giving you a heads up that your ex might be at the party they're planning.
00:13:04.280This is somebody who is running one of the most powerful, the CEO of one of the most powerful
00:13:08.060tech companies in the world. Where is this idea coming from that she can't handle it if one of
00:13:14.460her if a former staffer is there presenting his perspective as a former staffer it almost seems0.82
00:13:20.720like insulting to her this assumption that like she needs more notice than other tech CEOs that
00:13:28.900have gone to this conference that somebody's being added to the lineup and that if Yoel Roth
00:13:32.700got up there and spoke his piece about what he saw at Twitter that that's going to somehow rattle
00:13:38.160her it almost feels like a like a weird kind of like a weird assumption that I just I don't know
00:13:43.880where it's coming from and i don't see a lot of other tech leaders getting these same kinds of
00:13:48.840like assumptions that they they will fall they will simply fall apart if they are asked to speak
00:13:53.960after somebody who has presented an alternative perspective than their own i thought her whole
00:13:59.140thing she's been saying this whole time that twitter is this place where oh you you need to
00:14:02.740be able to to listen when someone's got an opposing view like you shouldn't you shouldn't
00:14:06.580run away from it when someone's got a different opinion but yet here are all these people saying
00:14:10.320Oh, well, Linda Yaccarino shouldn't have to listen to somebody's opposing opinion. And if she does so, it is it is reasonable for her to completely fall apart and shit the bed. I have a lot of questions about it.1.00
00:14:20.320Yeah. A big part of feminism is being able to acknowledge when women mess up, too. And women are benefiting from, like, you know, classism, anti-Semitism, general sort of fascist tendencies, you know, in this case.1.00
00:14:37.540and uh yeah like linda yaccarino took this job knowing who elon musk was and knowing what this
00:14:45.040company had kind of positioned itself as at that point so it's sort of like i don't know it feels
00:14:50.700like we're falling back into the whole like girl boss era where it's like it's okay if she does
00:14:56.900bad stuff because she's she's doing it as a woman and it doesn't matter that other women are going0.98
00:15:03.440to get brutalized by the content that is produced by this company or whatever. It's weird. It is
00:15:10.760a very weird thing to be watching. It reminds me of this meme I see often that I think about
00:15:15.920all the time. It's not exactly like, well, whatever. The meme is, I don't support all
00:15:21.160women. Some of you bitches are very dumb. And I always think about that of like, yeah, like this1.00
00:15:26.560is, she shat the bed out there and it really matters. It doesn't just matter from like a
00:15:31.560business perspective, it matters for all of us. To put this in context, this comes just days after
00:15:37.100a new study from the European Union that said that Twitter is the number one biggest source
00:15:41.800of disinformation when compared to other social media platforms, with Spain, Poland, and Slovakia
00:15:47.160deemed as countries with the highest risks. The EU's Values and Transparency Commissioner,
00:15:52.120Vera Jourova, warned Elon Musk saying, you have to comply with the hard law. We'll be watching
00:15:57.040what you're doing. And what did he do in response? Well, Elon Musk cut Twitter's election integrity
00:16:02.160and disinformation team, despite pledging that he would not do that and removed the election
00:16:07.480disinformation reporting tool, even though we're like, what, a couple hundred days out of an
00:16:11.900election here in the United States. And so this stuff really matters. Like how this platform is
00:16:17.480run really matters to people. On Friday, the day that this podcast comes out, Twitter's new privacy
00:16:24.320policy goes into effect, which allows Twitter to take a lot more data from us, including our
00:16:29.180employment information, our job information, maybe read our DMs, our biometric data, and of course,
00:16:34.940use all of that data that they take from us to train their AI and a whole lot more. All of this
00:16:39.480after Twitter's former head of security turned actual whistleblower, went before the Senate and
00:16:44.800testified that Twitter is misleading the public about the platform's extreme and egregious security
00:16:49.680deficiencies. So all of this is to say that it really matters how Twitter is being run,
00:16:55.820not just because it's this big company, but because it really matters for global election
00:17:00.560integrity and for our own personal security. So this is not a business story. This is not a story
00:17:06.540about like, is Kara Swisher going to be able to get big, important guests on her show? Or will the0.84
00:17:11.240Code Conference continue to be really big and important? It's not a story about whether or not
00:17:15.540this journalist was like nice to Linda Yaccarino, our global democracy is at risk. And these people
00:17:21.860are just talking about like whether or not Code is going to be able to book guests. It's because
00:17:27.500a journalist asked her about it. Like the conversation is so deeply unserious. And I feel
00:17:33.020like we are watching tech journalists fail us in real time and be really public and open about it.
00:17:40.140Like they don't even have the good sense to not publicly go out and say like, oh, the most
00:17:45.380important thing is access. And because they asked Linda Yaccarino hard questions, they're blowing
00:17:49.660that access. The most important thing that matters to me as a tech journalist, like it is so deeply
00:17:54.480unserious and they're putting us all at risk and not even having the good sense to like not say
00:17:59.080that publicly voluntarily. Yeah, I think coming from within the journalism industry in particular
00:18:05.860and like having that perspective, this is really interesting because it kind of reminds me of like
00:18:11.400and you mentioned the election, which this doesn't directly have to do with the election,
00:18:14.900But, you know, again, Twitter is going to be a big platform for that.
00:18:18.980This reminds me of back in 2016 when Trump was elected and there was sort of this like
00:18:23.080conversation, I think, within the journalism industry and within newsrooms about like what's
00:18:29.140the media's responsibility and, you know, what's the difference between holding people
00:18:33.840accountable and like getting both sides or like hearing all the sides.
00:18:38.200And like this this seems like we're falling back into that idea of like getting all the
00:18:43.900sides and hearing letting everybody just speak their mind without without question is more
00:18:49.140important than like actually holding people accountable and actually asking people the hard
00:18:53.800questions about like their actual policies that are going to affect people yeah that that's that's
00:19:00.780concerning to me too and again like this doesn't directly have to do with the election but twitter
00:19:04.920is going to be a big platform when it comes to the election and are we going to see that sort of
00:19:09.360cycle again where people are just like yeah we're we're gonna just hear all the sides and not hold
00:19:15.020anybody accountable because that never ends well yeah i worry that folks in media have not really
00:19:21.320learned a lot of hard truths so we will see let's take a quick break
00:21:30.520Last week during our newscast, we told you that Andrew Tate's MLM scam app called The Real World, formerly called Hustlers University, was taken off of Google's Play Store for being a predatory pyramid scheme that charged subscribers $50 a month and offered them the chance to make millions through these like very scammy sounding courses on things like copywriting and cryptocurrency.
00:21:50.500and also prompted users to share Andrew Tate's content on social media.
00:21:55.780At the time of publishing our episode, the app was still available on Apple's App Store.
00:22:00.320Well, right after our episode went live on Friday of last week,
00:22:03.820Apple joined Google in taking Tate's app down from the App Store.
00:22:09.360Tate's people say that they are appealing both of these decisions.
00:22:12.260But for now, it is good news that Tate is being cut from this income stream
00:22:16.940that just really just takes advantage of young people.
00:22:20.500Yeah. First of all, adding on to last week's kind of discussion of this to be the third person now on this podcast to say, I don't know why copywriting is listed in there.
00:22:33.420I also have experience with that. You do not make billions of dollars.
00:22:40.000Yeah. Listener Sarah said the same thing as like, what is going on with copywriting? People don't make millions and millions of dollars from copywriting. And him promising people that they're going to make that is truly a wild claim to be making on his app.
00:22:55.320Yeah. I think generally media, if a company is telling you that like a media related job is going to make you a lot of money, that's probably not true.
00:26:47.860crazy. I thought false advertising was illegal, but apparently not in this case. Yeah.
00:26:55.760Okay. So what's interesting about what you just said is that back in February, Paxton went after
00:27:01.200Yelp for putting a different label on crisis pregnancy centers. Their initial label described
00:27:06.700crisis pregnancy centers as, quote, typically providing limited medical services and may not
00:27:12.220have licensed medical professionals on site, which is also true. But Paxton objected to that
00:27:18.000back in February. And so when Yelp changed their label to read what I read before about how crisis
00:27:23.780pregnancy centers do not offer abortions or referral for abortions, Paxton himself commended
00:27:29.760that disclosure as, quote, accurate in a press release that reads, Yelp has agreed to remove
00:27:35.180its misleading label of crisis pregnancy centers and replace it with an accurate description.
00:27:39.640So just as you said, right, that like Paxton himself said, oh, well, this new label, this label is accurate.
00:27:46.760But now he is still coming after Yelp for this label that he himself in February said was accurate and was fine.
00:27:53.640So the way that crisis pregnancy centers work is that they really they really take advantage of like scammy SEO practices to prey on people, many of whom are in desperate situations to confuse them with inaccurate information.
00:28:07.720Crisis pregnancy centers, their whole mission is to basically waste the time of somebody who was pregnant to create an intentional delay that will delay them in getting an abortion in an attempt to trigger term restrictions that will prevent them from getting abortion care altogether.
00:28:21.760So Yelp's lawsuit is asking the court to affirm that its labeling of crisis pregnancy centers was not misleading and that it was an exercise of constitutionally protected speech.
00:28:31.540It is also asking the court to block Texas from suing over the labels in the future.
00:28:35.580And I think, yeah, it's just another example of the ways that like abortion is a tech issue and that if you are trying to talk about technology, but you're not you're doing so in a way that does not talk about abortion care, then you're not fully talking about technology because abortion is a tech issue.
00:28:50.820You know, tech companies should really be in the business of providing accurate information about people's health.
00:28:56.620And a lot of times we know that they don't.
00:28:58.680So in this case, when Yelp is actually trying to help people get accurate information about, you know, crisis pregnancy centers,
00:29:05.560it's really sad that states like Texas are stepping in to prevent them from doing that.
00:29:10.700Yeah. And again, it's like it's not like Yelp is doing anything that's illegal.
00:29:14.960I use Google Maps all the time because like I never know where I am.
00:29:19.860um but I mean one thing that like I rely on a lot is like the descriptions of places that I'm going
00:29:26.260to matching the place that I'm actually going to and it is really frustrating when they don't
00:29:31.020you shouldn't be hiding under the guise of medical care if that's not what you're doing but yeah I
00:29:36.140hate yeah wow it's it's scary everything that's happening in Texas with this is terrifying and
00:29:43.420again all the support to like abortion activists reproductive rights activists in Texas um
00:29:49.860You guys are like, I admire the work you all are doing so much.
00:30:56.400So folks might be familiar with Wirecutter.
00:30:59.960The New York Times is vertical where they rate and review tech gadgets.
00:31:03.800Wirecutter had been giving WISE, the security camera system, positive reviews for six years.
00:31:09.160But all of that changed this week because Wirecutter announced that they were pulling their recommendations for WISE from all their site's guides.
00:31:17.300Why? Well, because Wirecutter explains that on September 8th, The Verge reported an incident in which WISE customers were able to access live video from other users' cameras through the WISE web portal.
00:31:29.740When Wirecutter reached out to WISE for details, a representative characterized the incident as small in scope, saying they believed no more than 10 users were affected.
00:31:38.100So that's not great. Even if it's only 10 people, strangers being able to access your security camera and see what you're doing is pretty bad. But here's the kicker. Other than one post on its user-to-user online forum, Wise Communities, and communications to those that they say were affected, the company has not reached out to Wise customers, nor has it provided meaningful details about the incident.
00:32:03.940We believe Wise is acting irresponsibly to its customers.
00:32:06.900As such, we've made the difficult but unavoidable decision
00:32:09.600to revoke our recommendation of all Wise cameras
00:32:12.300until the company implements meaningful changes
00:32:14.520to its security and privacy procedures.
00:32:17.220The concern is not that Wise had a security incident.
00:32:20.180Just about every company or organization in the world
00:32:22.060were probably at the deal with some sort of security trip up,
00:32:24.280as we've seen with big banks, the military, Las Vegas casinos, schools, and even Chick-fil-A.
00:32:28.960The greater issue is how this company responds to a crisis.
00:32:32.260With this incident and others in the past, it is clear that WISE has failed to develop the sorts of robust procedures that adequately protect its customers the way they deserve.0.99
00:32:45.520Yeah, I feel like security cameras, cameras in general, that's just such a sensitive issue.
00:32:51.240It's like if you have any, like, if there's any break of that privacy, that should be notified to people that have the cameras that you sell.
00:33:02.740Exactly. So I need to make this really clear. This is very unusual, right?
00:33:07.860We talk about a lot of companies who behave in ways that are irresponsible, but this is irresponsible even by, like, irresponsible company standards.
00:33:17.120Wirecutter spoke to other folks in the privacy space, including Jen Kaltrider, program director
00:33:21.580at Mozilla's Privacy Not Included, whose work we've talked about on the show before.
00:33:25.460All of the folks they spoke to agree that it is completely unusual and unacceptable
00:33:29.680that Wise did not reach out to their customer base proactively and never said anything about
00:33:34.880how they are planning to prevent these issues in the future.
00:33:37.540And this is not even the first time that Wise has had issues like this.
00:33:41.700In March 2022, a Bitdefender study showed that Wyze took nearly three years to fully address specific vulnerabilities that affected all three models of Wyze cameras.
00:33:52.120Eventually, they did alert customers and told them that their, you know, their security, like that model of security camera was no longer safe and that they should not be using them.
00:34:01.320And if they did keep using them, they were doing so like at their own risk.
00:34:04.600So like you were saying, Joey, I would pretty much never advocate for someone putting an additional camera in their home that they didn't need.
00:34:13.080But if you when you do like that is a trust relationship, as you were saying, that you're entering into with the company.
00:34:20.580Right. You need to know that if that trust is broken, that the company is going to handle it in a way that is responsible.
00:34:26.660That's the only way that having a camera in your house makes any sense at all, is that the company is acting in a way that really makes it clear that they understand that you're putting your trust in them.
00:34:39.480As Wirecutter points out, the fundamental relationship between smart home companies and their customers is founded on trust.
00:34:46.020No company can guarantee safety and security 100% of the time, but customers need to be confident that those who make and sell these products, especially security devices, are worthy of their trust.
00:34:56.060WISE's inability to meet these basic standards puts its customers and its devices at risk
00:35:01.500and also casts doubt on the smart home industry as a whole.
00:35:05.660So Wirecutter actually listed out some specific steps that WISE would need to take in order
00:35:10.560for them to reconsider looking at their products in the future.
00:35:14.600It's very basic stuff, honestly, like reaching out to all customers proactively if there
00:35:19.280is a breach and describing the issue in detail, including what steps are being taken to prevent
00:35:24.220To me, it sounds like very basic stuff. And I also think that it is a pretty big step for an outlet like Wirecutter that most folks probably know for gadget reviews to take this kind of action. And honestly, maybe it should be more commonplace. Even if you're mostly a review outlet, it is still sort of service-oriented tech journalism for regular people to inform their purchasing decision making.
00:35:49.160Right. And so I think it's nice to see an outlet taking that responsibility seriously and using that as a way to advocate for a tech company, just being accountable to the people who are buying them, buying their stuff.
00:36:01.800Yeah. A rare win for the New York Times, I guess, for a New York Times property.
00:36:13.600There was a like Disney Channel movie that I watched when I was a kid that was called like Smart Home.
00:36:18.580yeah smart house you know i watch smart house you said the word smart home but i was like i think
00:36:25.120that's why now i i think i'm realizing now because i've always been somebody that like even with like
00:36:29.720computer cameras i've been very like anxious about and i know most of that is whatever i i
00:36:35.820in theory it's safe but yeah i think i think that's how it started i think it was because
00:36:40.460of that movie which uh this just goes to prove that disney channel was right apparently
00:36:45.700yeah no that's that's so scary though I I've never had a security camera like that in a place
00:36:54.780that I've lived but I know like I had friends growing up that like had that in their houses
00:36:58.240and that's scary that is that's really scary what could happen with that yeah so first of all
00:37:05.920like Disney Channel Disney Channel originals continue from like the 2000s continue to be
00:37:12.780prophetic like it is written yeah maybe that's maybe that's our our origin story of paranoia
00:37:18.540around certain technology I think it is I think I'm connecting the dots now I'm like that's that's
00:37:24.300how it started yeah and it's funny because like I'm not like like for my life having things like
00:37:31.440a google home or like a security camera it doesn't make sense for my life personally but I get that
00:37:36.660people's security needs might be different like my parents have I actually don't know what they use
00:37:42.040But they have cameras in every room in their house because my dad is disabled and sometimes has like bad falls.
00:37:48.780And so it's like a way to be like, oh, well, if I'm downstairs, I want to be able to see if my mom is downstairs, she wants to be able to be able to see what my dad is doing and vice versa, because they're older folks who live in a big house.
00:37:59.200And so I'm not, you know, if having devices that have cameras in them in your life makes sense for your lifestyle like that, do what you got to do.
00:38:10.500As Wirecutter, I think, rightly points out, you should be able to do that and trust that you are going to get the information that you need to be able to be deciding what role you want this technology to play in your life.
00:38:22.480And I feel like Wise is not being a good actor to allow consumers to really do that.
00:48:07.940yeah i respect taylor swift a lot and i i i want in i just don't know where to start
00:48:16.760um so as you were saying like if anybody who tried to go to taylor swift's eras toward the
00:48:21.640summer or beyonce's renaissance toward the summer i didn't make it to either of them so like
00:48:25.540boo me i didn't make it to renaissance i really did want to go to renaissance and i could not
00:48:29.620get a ticket. So at least I got one. Glass half full kind of situation. My brother went with his
00:48:38.700wife and there was a time where I was like, well, certainly like he's going to ask me to go. He's
00:48:43.600going to be like, Bridget, you should go to Beyonce. Take my ticket. And I was like waiting
00:48:48.160by the phone and the call never came. So yeah, I did. It was heartbreaking, but I'll get him next
00:48:54.860time. So if anybody went to either of those big summer concert tours, Taylor Swift, Beyonce,
00:49:00.360y'all probably know already that the ticket buying process was plagued with predatory online ticket
00:49:06.600sale platforms and resellers. It is so hard and expensive to get tickets that they actually end
00:49:12.860up selling out really quickly and then wind up on ticket reseller sites for thousands of dollars.
00:49:18.840And now the IRS is getting involved because they are putting more scrutiny on ticket resellers.
00:49:23.960So I actually did not know this. How it has worked before is that ticket websites had to send 1099 forms to anybody who made more than $20,000 through 200 or more ticket sale transactions in a year.
00:49:36.540And now that law has been updated as part of the American Rescue Plan Act, which lowers that amount from $20,000 to $600, regardless of the number of sales.
00:49:47.440And sellers will only need to pay taxes on the profit that they make.
00:49:50.520This is all part of Biden's plan to pump the brakes on the out of control antics of ticket resellers to crack down on predatory practices like tacking on hidden fees at checkout, which everybody hates.0.98
00:50:03.040It's like, it's like you'll buy tickets and then it's like, OK, the tickets are $50 and a $20 fuck you fee.0.94
00:50:09.720So now it's $70. And then, oh, you use the Internet. Oh, now it's $100.0.96
00:50:12.720Like it completely adds up. It's it's it's so predatory.
00:50:16.000Yeah. The Swifties are powerful. I will say, I feel like the past couple months have shown the Swifties are powerful.
00:50:25.980That is 100% correct. You know, when you look at the average prices of some of these big concerts this summer, it is clear that, like, something is wrong.
00:50:35.060The Wall Street Journal reports that the average price for Swift's Eras tour was $1,095 and for Beyonce's Renaissance tour, $400.
00:50:45.160Now, StubHub did say that, like, this might be partly due to COVID because the live event industry is, like, still bouncing back after, like, COVID shutdowns.
00:50:54.360I can't confirm or deny the truth behind that.
00:52:01.060That being said, concerts have been open since 2021.
00:52:04.600like I remember I had tickets to go to the Green Day Fall Out Boy Weezer show in 2021 and I decided
00:52:12.980not to go because I was worried about COVID but I remember that concert still happened so concerts
00:52:18.400have been happening for two years now and have been happening at these big stadiums with these
00:52:23.480big artists so I think we're past the point where we can use COVID as the excuse for that
00:52:29.200um but yeah no I I remember living through all of this trying to get my I I so I was on
00:52:40.040all day like literally spent 24 hours straight like trying to get tickets could not
00:52:47.180ended up like somebody I knew was able to get tickets so I was able to go through that but
00:52:52.780it was insane and um I gotta say even uh most recently like I tried getting uh Boy Genius
00:53:02.700tickets in in New York and it wasn't as bad as Taylor Swift but they also slipped out right
00:53:11.120away it was also a whole weird thing with Ticketmaster um disclaimer I am going to the
00:53:15.980show on Monday I was able to get show I was able to get tickets last minute but the day of when
00:53:22.060the tickets went on sale like it was a nightmare and yeah they're a big band too but they're not as
00:53:27.980big as Taylor Swift or Beyonce so it is just it is messed up right now I'm glad something is being
00:53:33.640done the Swifties are very powerful the Beehive is very powerful yeah so I actually have a theory
00:53:41.320that kind of speaks to your point it's not tech related this is just I have no evidence I have a
00:53:46.400theory that I guess it's a little tech related. My theory is that the rise of social media has
00:53:53.900completely changed what it means to go to a concert. And it used to be that if you liked a
00:54:00.860musician or a live act, you went to see their concert because it's like, I got it. I love
00:54:06.240whoever. I got to go see them. I think that the rise of social media has turned concerts from
00:54:12.260just an experience to like a luxury event right where people want to go not even necessarily
00:54:18.700because they like love the band but because it's like they want to flex for the gram that they
00:54:24.760were there and so I think that like before you were just competing with people who were like
00:54:30.260fans of whoever now you're competing with everybody because going to a concert is just like
00:54:35.060you know a thing to do and that is making it this like luxury experience with these
00:54:42.260frankly like absurd price tags like the the price of concerts has like i i don't i don't ask me to
00:54:49.060back this up with facts because i cannot i've not looked into it i'm just like submitting this
00:54:52.220this theory off the dome but like the i think the price in my estimation the price has gone up
00:54:57.740and i think it's because people are seeing it as a luxury item and a luxury experience and
00:55:04.400whereas it used to be like you you want you just wanted to go see the show now it's like oh well
00:55:08.840do you want the backstage or like this experience or like that experience and like
00:55:14.420live events places know they can just tack on a bunch of fees because people are already seeing
00:55:19.860this as like a luxury experience you know does that make sense i don't know no i i totally agree
00:55:25.120and again i don't have any evidence to back it up just my own experience but yeah like i think
00:55:31.400my comparison here is boy genius which is still a very popular band and especially like now has
00:55:36.640sort of blown up with their new album they're nowhere near like Taylor Swift and the fact that
00:55:41.500I had like just as hard as time just as hard of a time getting tickets for them as I did with
00:55:46.180Taylor Swift like it's gotten ridiculous I love me I know we've talked about this I love music
00:55:52.760I'm a big music person but that being said like I feel like I don't go to a lot of concerts now
00:55:57.680because it's just so hard to get tickets and I think Cozy Air was like the most recent ones I
00:56:03.120I remember he was like, he put out his tickets for his tour.
00:56:06.320And I was like, I'm not even going to bother.
00:56:08.120Like, there's no way I'm getting those tickets.
00:56:10.120Like, I might as well just sleep in that day when they go on sale at 8 a.m., which is early for me.
00:56:17.560But yeah, it's concert tickets have gotten ridiculous and it is not fun.
00:56:24.420Hopefully the Swifties can help us out with this and organize.
00:56:28.280I know they are a very powerful unified force, as is Taylor Swift.
00:56:32.120I don't know if y'all saw, but Taylor Swift on Tuesday, she posted a short Instagram post to her 272 million followers asking them to get registered to vote.
00:56:42.500And according to Vote.org, the nonpartisan voter registration nonprofit, they got more than 35,000 new registrations.
00:56:51.900And yeah, so they had a 23% jump over voter registration day last year because of the power of Taylor Swift.
00:57:00.660So when Taylor Swift speaks, people listen. When the Swifties speaks, Joe Biden listens.
00:57:06.980We got to think of like what else we want the Swifties to advocate for and be like, we need universal health care. Swifties, get on it.
00:57:14.480I do think that fandom is the rallying sort of force of the future, apparently.
00:57:21.420a contemporary political situation that I find fascinating is that whole thing with all the
00:57:28.680k-pop stans were like managed to mess up the the trump speech that was supposed to happen in like
00:57:35.3202020 I think organizing young people through the power of fandom being obsessed with a particular
00:57:43.500celebrity that is so powerful and I'm so glad that that energy is being used for good right now
01:00:05.640The guilt, the giggles, and the choices
01:00:08.480no other show is brave enough to admit.0.98
01:00:10.420Mom life is calling and I have my last motherfucking volleyball tournament of Irie's Club Team Volleyball.0.95
01:00:17.240And I can't wait for the thing to be over because I don't like participating and having to drive far distances.0.94
01:00:26.560Shout out to the moms and my mom who made it happen.
01:00:29.440Listen to Good Moms Bad Choices from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.