Think twice about Temu; Is Facebook giving up on political content？; Abortion data sold by data brokers; People come together to destroy a self-driving car. NEWS ROUNDUP!
00:02:12.500Like, I take Uber and Lyft a lot here in D.C. where I live.
00:02:16.000And so this news that Uber drivers and Lyft drivers were striking on Valentine's Day and asking folks not to break the strike and cross the picket lines and use those services set me into a little bit of an existential tailspin.
00:02:30.260Because, I don't know, if folks live in D.C., you know what I'm talking about.
00:02:34.780Like, I've lived in cities my whole life and I've lived in D.C. for the longest.
00:02:38.860And I will say Uber and Lyft have really changed the landscape of the city.
00:03:00.600I was like racking my brain trying to figure out what to do.
00:03:05.440And wouldn't you know it? It was completely fine. All I had to do was walk out of my apartment. Oh, there's a cab. I got in it. I told them where I wanted to go, took me there without incident, went, had my dinner, came back out of the restaurant. Oh, there's a cab. Just got in it.
00:03:23.860it is so interesting to me how Uber and Lyft, their rise and their ubiquity had made me think
00:03:31.000like, oh, there is no other alternative. A, I would never cross a picket line. There's a scene
00:03:36.820from that sitcom, The Nanny with Fran Drescher, where she's meant to be going to a fancy dinner,
00:03:41.700but all the busboys are outside striking. And she's like, one thing my mother told me is you
00:03:46.380never cross a picket line. And so I agree with Fran Drescher's mom's advice in this. But it's
00:03:51.680so funny to me how like i had convinced myself that if i wasn't taking uber or lyft there was
00:03:57.740no other options and it's like oh actually cab was very easy it was right there no no problem
00:04:03.900do you know what i mean like how how strange it is that we that technology makes us think we have
00:04:08.960less options than we actually do yeah it is funny how that works because yeah the cabs are still
00:04:14.540there metro is still there buses are still there there's a bunch of bikes around uh don't even get
00:04:20.960me started on bikes. Okay, well, I won't. I mean, yes, for the city run bike share program in DC.
00:04:30.020But again, if I'm kind of circle back and make this a deeper complaint about Uber and Lyft,
00:04:35.620Uber purchased those jump bikes and then the Lime bikes and basically junked them. And so
00:04:40.620biking was a much more viable option in DC. I can't speak for other cities before Uber and
00:04:47.060got involved in it and now it is like a husk of its former self you would you acknowledge that
00:04:51.240yeah uh so i have a lot of thoughts about what has happened to the dockless vehicles here i
00:04:56.220remember back in like i don't know it must have been 2017 2018 remarking to a friend that we were
00:05:02.540living through peak dockless vehicles because that was the period when all these companies like
00:05:08.980jump bird spin uh lime a whole bunch of others that are now gone they had so much venture capital
00:05:16.740that they were just like dumping electric bikes and electric scooters all over the city and you
00:05:22.440could you know check them out uh on on your phone using the app for like pennies right it was like
00:05:28.740ridiculously cheap there were a million of these things yeah they were a blight on the city people
00:05:34.120did dumb things like parking them on sidewalks in ways that made the sidewalks inaccessible0.64
00:05:39.140uh which was like definitely not cool but for somebody who wanted to like get around the city0.69
00:05:43.720it was amazing and now most of them are gone like you say that it's just a handful that are left it
00:05:50.340is kind of sad okay so this is something you know we don't see eye to eye on i think that bit that
00:05:55.900you just said about them being a blight on the city i don't think that deserves to be glossed
00:06:00.660over because they're so in dc they are everywhere they are blocking intersections they are on
00:06:07.980sidewalks it's it's a nightmare and half of them don't even work so it's like at this point
00:06:13.120you know i think it was different when it's like oh well these are bikes that are working that you
00:06:19.160could use to get around here in dc part of me is like it's at this point it's just like e-waste
00:06:23.260littering the streets for no reason they don't half of them do not work it would be nice if more
00:06:27.760of them worked yeah we don't see eye to eye on that i don't know i think it's super convenient
00:06:32.020to have like multiple transportation options if i want to get downtown and then i can just like
00:06:38.960ditch the thing and be done with it. I mean, if it actually worked that way,
00:06:43.560yeah, that does sound like a good situation. I guess Uber and Lyft had to get involved and
00:06:48.420innovate that convenient reality out of existence. So thank you, Uber and Lyft.
00:06:55.540Okay. So speaking of another tech company that maybe is doing some shady stuff,
00:07:01.020you watched the Super Bowl. Did you see all of those very weird, possibly AI-generated ads for
00:07:08.460Teemu. Actually, apparently it's Teemu. I've been saying it wrong this whole time,
00:07:12.480but I thought it was Teemu. I did see those ads and they were so weird. It was
00:07:16.800weird in the same way that their advertisements for products, which are all over the web and
00:07:22.520social media, are also weird. It's just like just a little bit off, like appealing and sort of
00:07:28.800interesting, but also just like strange and a little bit off as if like every step of the
00:07:34.920production process were performed by AI. Did I ever show you the Teemu ad that I got for the
00:07:40.880purse that looks like a gun? You did show me that. I'll put a link to it in the show notes,
00:07:48.040but I'll try to describe it. I know this is not a visual medium, but it's like a handbag
00:07:52.420on a chain that hangs about hip level and the handbag itself is shaped like a gun. There's
00:07:59.540really not more to it than that. And so I'm sure someone somewhere was like, maybe this is edgy
00:08:05.120design, but it looks, so if you were to go out, it just looks like you're holding a gun on your
00:08:10.480hip, which I don't know. I don't think that's the kind of purse that me as a Black person wants to
00:08:17.040be out and about carrying like, oh, just going to the bank with this visible gun on my hip.
00:08:22.860Thanks, Temu. But that's what you're sort of getting at, that even the products somehow seem
00:08:27.800like they were designed with no human at any step in the process.
00:08:32.100Yeah. And I frequently get ads for products that like, it's not even clear what it is. It's some
00:08:37.580sort of interesting looking gadget that's somewhere between like high tech and steampunk,
00:08:42.980but like does not have a clear function from the ad. And sometimes I'm like genuinely curious. I do
00:08:48.820a good job of hooking my curiosity and I'll almost click on it until I see that it is Temu.
00:08:54.700Okay, well, let's see if you will ever click on another Taimou ad again after we talk about what's actually going on there.
00:09:00.640So Taimou, they did have a Super Bowl commercial back in 2023, but this year they ran four identical commercials with a jingle that says, like, shop like a billionaire.
00:09:11.460And they also advertised $15 million in giveaways.
00:09:14.880So I guess those ads are really paying off because people are really downloading Taimou after those ads.
00:09:21.300according to NBC, who talked to the mobile intelligence company Apptopia's vice president
00:09:25.780of research, Tom Grant, who said in a statement that Taimou's app downloads increased 34%
00:09:31.340on Super Bowl Sunday from the day before, which was Taimou's fastest day-over-day growth
00:09:36.080since November. So this is the part where I have to give a big, loud warning caution
00:09:42.440about Taimou. Please be careful with Taimou. I would even go so far as to say maybe don't
00:09:47.500use Taimou. And by use it, I mean, like, don't even download it, let alone make a purchase on
00:09:51.900Taimou. And after that Super Bowl ad, maybe be the person in your family who warns your mom,
00:09:58.040your aunties, your cousins, whatever, about Taimou too. So when I first started researching0.62
00:10:03.300the segment, I was like, I don't want to get sued. I'm going to, like, say everything very
00:10:06.720carefully. I don't really need to do that anymore. And you'll find out why in just a minute. So
00:10:10.480there are multiple reports of people saying that they have had their identity stolen
00:11:14.080I idiotically installed Temu on my phone last week to see what these deals were that I keep
00:11:18.840hearing about. Uninstalled the app after 10 minutes. Today, I woke up to see an odd notification
00:11:23.460on my phone pertaining to an approved Facebook ad. Apparently, they made a page on my account,
00:11:28.740made a post about selling women's lingerie all in Mandarin. Temu is a Chinese-owned company.
00:11:34.320Had Facebook boost it as an ad, and now people are asking why I'm selling women's lingerie
00:11:39.620And if I am Chinese, I've deleted the page and now I'm worried ads manager will demand payment for the three hours of ads they've run on my page.
00:11:47.700Mike, there are so many posts like this of people saying I didn't even purchase anything.
00:12:47.620However, come to find out that Taimu has faced multiple class action lawsuits alleging that
00:12:54.320they are misleading customers about the scope and reach of data access and collection and
00:13:00.040intentionally has loaded dangerous malware and spyware onto users' devices.
00:13:05.520This is from a piece in Fashion Dive that we will put in the show notes.
00:13:09.360So attorneys for the plaintiffs claim that Taimou collects data beyond what is necessary for an online shopping app, including biometric information such as facial characteristics, voice prints, and fingerprints.
00:13:20.620The lawsuit quotes experts who said that Taimou gains access to literally everything on your phone.
00:13:25.740And the suit further alleges that Taimou is able to read private messages, make changes to a phone setting, and track notifications.
00:13:32.220I mean, that's just like a ridiculous amount of privileges for an app that is about purchasing goods.
00:13:39.920Like, I can see why they would want to harvest every piece of information about you, including your biometrics and the content of your private messages.
00:13:50.680But it's difficult to think about a world where, like, that's okay for an app to do.
00:13:56.580Well, Mike, do you want to shop like a billionaire or not?
00:13:59.080Do you want these eye-catching deals or not?
00:14:01.680This is just the cost of doing business to shop like a billionaire.
00:14:14.840Like, even a slogan doesn't make sense.
00:14:17.240Like, nothing about it makes any sense.
00:14:19.600No, the only thing that makes sense is that they're, like, clearly trying to just harvest all of your data.
00:14:24.640Well, the newest complaint against Taimou cites experts who have studied the Taimou app and concluded that it is, quote, purposefully and intentionally loaded with tools to execute virulent and dangerous malware and spyware activities on user devices.
00:14:38.880The complaint further alleges great efforts were taken to intentionally hide the malicious intent and intrusiveness of the software.
00:16:37.480And so something tells me that this company is, like, kind of litigious.
00:16:41.080I don't know all the details between what happened between Taimou and Xi'an, but I was like, oh, I don't want to get mixed up with this company.
00:16:47.480But now I feel very confident saying that folks should really think twice before downloading it at the very least.
00:16:53.020So Taimou, if y'all are listening, feel free to come on the show and plead your case.
00:16:58.440I would love to hear how you justify this.
00:19:31.320Let's talk about another big story going on, which is meta-deprioritizing political content.
00:19:36.060So we have talked a lot about the different changes happening for our social media landscape.
00:19:40.760Honestly, it feels like every day it's a new thing.
00:19:43.240I am exhausted trying to keep up with it.
00:19:45.180I cannot imagine how people who don't do this for a living feel.
00:19:48.080I guess I'll put it that way. And so this is a change that I think could have big consequences, especially for traditionally marginalized people.
00:19:55.420So Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and Threads, announced this week that they would be deprioritizing political content from Threads, Facebook and Instagram.
00:20:04.440This comes from Adam Mosseri, comma, my personal nemesis, who said the company will no longer, quote, proactively amplify political content from accounts who don't follow.
00:20:15.120Mosseri said that the platform will still show you content from people that you have chosen to follow, but that the company will avoid recommending political content to the broader masses.
00:20:25.220Our goal is to preserve the ability for people to choose to interact with political content while respecting each person's appetite for it.
00:20:31.740So I think that this is likely Facebook kind of admitting or acknowledging that they have no real ability to control things like hate speech or conspiracy theories on their platforms.
00:20:43.480the kind of things that led to, you know, among others, January 6th, you know, a genocide in
00:20:49.100Myanmar, you know, really chaos and havoc globally. I think that this is a decision that is like,
00:20:56.840yep, we don't know how to control it. And honestly, we can't be bothered to figure it out.
00:21:02.120I also think it dovetails with a story that we covered pretty extensively last summer about
00:21:07.400Facebook dropping news content altogether. I think that they've kind of decided that
00:21:11.920news and political content is just like, not worth it. And so they're just going to be like,
00:21:17.940yep, we can't figure out how to manage it responsibly. And we're just going to sort of
00:21:21.900abdicate that responsibility. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. I think they're responding
00:21:26.140to those two different pressures. The one pressure that they don't really want to be in the news
00:21:31.360business anymore. There's this article in the New Yorker yesterday about how people are just like
00:21:36.060burnt out on news in general and how it's like rippling across media and so i i think you know
00:21:43.500this is meta so that's probably what's driving their real decision is they just like it's not
00:21:47.520profitable to be serving this kind of content uh but then also yeah i think they just don't want
00:21:54.120to be seen as having to have responsibility for moderating like responsible political content and
00:22:03.140And so they're trying to just like take their hands off of it entirely.
00:22:10.660Yeah, I have two things to say about that.
00:22:12.880I was reading this piece from Charlie Wurzel at The Atlantic about how perhaps that does in some ways reflect what people are saying they want from these companies.
00:22:24.500Like, Wurzel argues that people do not necessarily want to feel like Facebook is just picking and choosing what they see and moderating things.
00:22:34.860But however, they also don't want it to be the wild, wild west of lies and disinformation and hate speech.
00:22:41.000So in some ways, Wurzel argues that Facebook kind of is in a tough situation of wanting to give people what they want, but also not wanting to do too much and sort of trying to figure out what it is people want in that sweet spot.
00:22:56.980I also want to say something about this idea about folks being burnt out on news.
00:23:03.540And it's one of those things that I don't really know what to do with.
00:23:06.600I actually started and then abandoned a Patreon episode about this.
00:23:10.360And so if you're wondering where the most recent Patreon episode is, it's still floating around in my brain because it's a tough thing to navigate.
00:23:20.840I'm really curious how listeners are feeling about it.
00:23:23.660It does feel like we've reached a fever pitch where there is so much difficult news, and that is real.
00:23:35.980Like, I can speak for myself personally.
00:23:38.300A lot of the coverage coming out of Palestine, for instance, is the kind of thing that I have historically had a lot of issues with following very closely.0.98
00:23:50.520It's the kind of tragedy that I would get very invested in and feel the need to follow quite carefully.
00:23:59.040But also, it's the kind of thing that nobody could follow closely without it really getting to you.
00:24:06.040you know, journalists from the ground have talked about this too. And I do think it's one of those
00:24:11.380things where it makes sense that it feels so absurd that all of this is going on. Meanwhile,
00:24:18.600we're meant to be like going to work and living our lives as if it's not. It's really difficult.
00:24:24.200And I say that from a place of like extreme privilege of like, I have the ability to say,
00:24:29.460like, I don't want to see pictures of dead children anymore because it's really wreaking
00:24:34.680havoc on my mental health. If I was in Palestine, I would not have the ability to say that, right?1.00
00:24:40.160It would be like, oh yeah, I'm sure you would like to not be experiencing this happening
00:24:43.300in your real life. And so I say that cautiously, really aware of the fact that it's a privilege
00:24:50.000to be able to say like, oh, this news is such a bummer. But I also want to acknowledge it is a
00:24:56.360lot. I think when you think about what's happening globally, not just in Palestine, but all over,
00:25:03.220It's just part of me understands what people are saying when they say that they're burnt out on news content.
00:25:11.700And even from somebody who makes a podcast, like I see the numbers for how episodes perform.
00:25:16.860And it does seem like people are looking for content that is not necessarily anchored to the news.
00:25:24.620And yeah, I guess all of that to say is I'm curious how that lands for folks.
00:25:29.480I'm curious how folks are navigating that in their own lives.
00:25:31.980I'm definitely trying to navigate it as somebody who creates a thing. And I think it's important that we all stay engaged and informed and checked in. And like, don't, it's so easy just to retreat. Again, speaking for myself, it is so easy just to retreat into like Real Housewives and like nostalgia and like watching The Office a million times and things that feel good. But we still have to find ways to stay informed and checked in.
00:25:57.660And yeah, I'm curious, Mike, if you have thoughts around that or listeners, if you have thoughts around that, please let me know. I'm genuinely very curious how folks are navigating this this time.
00:26:06.780Yeah, that all really resonates. It's it's tough times. It's been tough times for years. Right. You know, there's terrible wars happening. Domestic politics is anxiety provoking, to say the least. And it's really difficult to stay engaged.
00:26:29.940That New Yorker article was interesting. We should link to it in the show notes. I feel like this is kind of in some ways not surprising that collectively a lot of people in society are feeling this way right now. Right.
00:26:43.440We've had 10, almost like 20 years of social media where algorithms and platforms and bad actors and nefarious demagogic politicians, you know who I'm talking about, have really perfected the art of dialing up outrage to get us engaged, to get our attention, to get our money, to get our votes.
00:27:10.840It's just gotten more and more exhausting. And, you know, I guess maybe in some ways this move by Meta can be seen as like a reaction to that, that we need something else other than just a continual ratcheting up and increase and increase of like outrage and terrible stuff.
00:27:30.040But just, you know, stripping political content from the platform, that doesn't really seem like the right approach either because there are legit problems and issues in the world that people need to be informed about and should be engaged with.
00:27:46.340Well, that's what I'm saying. I think that Facebook was a huge driver of the polarization that you described a moment ago, this ratcheting up of more and more hate, more and more, you know, engagement farming by making people angry and outraged and more divided and less trustful of each other and all of that.
00:28:03.900And I don't like that they can just be like, and oopsies, we don't want to do that anymore. You can't just create this chaos globally and then step back and wash your hands of it and say it's not your problem, because it is your problem. It's your problem that you caused.
00:28:19.320And I think it's pretty telling that now they're like, we don't want to do it anymore. And I have seen people, some of whom are people that I trust and sometimes agree with, say that this is a good thing, that less politics on platforms means less chances for polarization and all of that stuff, right?
00:28:36.560But I am not so sure. And I think that a change like this has the ability to be very bad and destabilizing at a time when our media ecosystem is already not great. So if threads and Instagram and Facebook are no longer going to be prioritizing any kind of political content, first of all, that means that there is going to be a bigger strain on Twitter to be a place where you go for news. And Twitter is a mess.
00:29:00.400And so if we're going to make Twitter a bigger piece of the pie for our media diet as it pertains to politics and news and what's going on, that is a problem because Twitter is a cesspool right now.
00:29:11.700And I also think, you know, Facebook has really not made it clear what they consider political content.
00:29:16.980They haven't really given any information as to what they consider political.
00:29:20.380And I just think the idea that there is one big bucket of clearly defined political content is just so incorrect.
00:29:28.960That is not how people live their lives. The reality is everything is intertwined and intersectional, right? Like the Super Bowl was political. Star Wars is political. You know, Real Housewives is political. You know, like everything is political. Everything is politics. And I think that this idea that, oh, we're going to start moderating what is and is not political without giving any insight into what that's going to look like or any kind of concrete examples is very worrying for me.
00:29:55.860So I guess CNN reached out to Adam Mosseri, who conveniently was traveling and could not give any information. And, you know, Adam Mosseri doesn't really do interviews. What he does is like tweet and then selectively respond to some people's tweets. Like he tweeted about this change. Mark Cuban was like, oh, how are you going to be deciding what's political and what's not? And Adam Mosseri replied to Cuban's tweet.
00:30:17.300So, like, that's how ineffectively we are getting information that is poised to change our entire media ecosystem.
00:30:25.180However, so even though he did not respond to requests to clarify what is going to be considered political content,
00:30:31.180a meta spokesperson did give this very vague statement.
00:30:34.340Informed by research, our definition of political content is content likely to be about topics related to government or elections.
00:30:40.840For example, posts about laws, elections, or social topics.
00:30:44.640These global issues are complex and dynamic.
00:30:47.300which means this definition will evolve as we continue to engage with the people and communities
00:30:51.840who use our platforms and external experts to refine our approach. So that really doesn't say
00:30:56.700anything at all to me. They threw in the word communities and people. Basically, they're like,
00:31:02.200we don't know, y'all. That statement is so vague, it basically says nothing.
00:31:07.060Yeah, it really reads like it says nothing. One gets the sense that they don't want to be in the
00:31:12.720business of deciding what kind of speech is okay and what kind of speech isn't. They don't want to
00:31:17.700have to make those value judgments because they're going to make people bad. So they're just going to
00:31:22.600blanketly exclude any sort of political content. But all they've done is just shift those value
00:31:28.480judgments from, you know, what speech is harmful or hateful to what speech is political.
00:31:36.300And in doing so, that is a values judgment. Like, not by saying, like, we're just going to deprioritize political content. That is them picking and choosing what is politics and what is something else. Like, whose issues are going to be considered political and whose are going to be considered okay?
00:31:56.380I feel like we have a lot of precedence for Facebook doing that.
00:32:00.460Like Facebook already is involved in the business of making those kinds of decisions.
00:32:04.840So we do have some precedent to look at how they might go about deciding what is or is not political.
00:32:10.240And spoiler alert, I believe that if it's something that pertains to somebody who is traditionally marginalized, women, black folks, queer folks, folks of color, trans folks, that is going to be much more easily deemed as political.
00:32:23.540And if it doesn't, that is going to be much more easily deemed by Facebook as not political.
00:32:28.440Facebook has already established such a clear precedent of doing this.
00:32:33.360Like when it comes to how they moderate their ads, for instance, any kind of ads that are
00:32:39.600related to things that are related to the sexual health of people who are not cis men,
00:32:44.540so queer folks, trans folks, women, ads for things like pelvic pain during sex, Facebook
00:32:50.020has deemed those sexually explicit and will not allow them on the platform. However, products that
00:32:55.880deal with things like erectile dysfunction, Facebook has deemed those products health
00:33:00.080products, and so they're fine. And so I would argue that Facebook is already in the business
00:33:05.800of deciding what is and is not acceptable, what is and is not legitimate political issues or
00:33:12.320legitimate health issues or whatever. So the fact that Facebook is already involved in baking this
00:33:18.540kind of bias into how they make decisions like that does not fill me with confidence as they
00:33:23.760continue with this new direction of deprioritizing political content. They're so powerful. They have
00:33:28.980so much power to shape discourse, shape the information ecosystem in which we all live.
00:33:35.740It's laughable to think that they could just like wash their hands of a huge swath of content,
00:33:43.600you know, and just like abdicate any responsibility for political content. It's, you know, it's like
00:33:49.540the Spider-Man quote with great power comes great responsibility. And they're not even attempting
00:33:55.700to meet it. I agree. And from a larger, broader perspective, we really got to ask just that the
00:34:03.600data is super clear that the majority of these people making the decisions are white cis men,
00:34:09.040And not even just white cis men, like a very specific type of white cis male, like they live on the coasts, they make a certain amount of money, a very specific, narrow subsection of people making decisions that impact all of us.
00:34:22.380And so I would step back and say, like, are we really served by a media landscape where this small amount of hyper narrow specific white men make decisions that impact everybody?
00:34:32.720I would say no. And I just can't imagine this is going to be a change that helps people who are traditionally marginalized, people who already have a difficult time building platforms and getting messages out there about what's happening in their lives and their experiences that people need to know about, people might not want to hear about, but people need to know about.
00:34:50.260I cannot imagine that this is going to make the platform less hostile to folks like that. And so, yeah, I guess we'll really see.
00:34:55.740We will. I mean, there's a world where Meta makes this sort of announcement and they set up a very transparent, accountable process whereby decisions about what sort of content is political or not are made.
00:35:11.280And they have built in checks to prevent exactly those kinds of bias against women, transgender people, all the groups who typically get excluded from those kinds of decisions.
00:35:24.880There's a world where that process is part of this and this new policy like positively affirms some values.
00:35:33.840But that's not the world that we live in. Right.
00:35:35.920This is this is we live in a world where we just get a vague statement that basically says it's going to be whatever they decide it is.
00:35:43.960Exactly. And we already know so much about how Facebook has demonstrated very clear bias about how these decisions get made.
00:35:51.440And so The Guardian published this thing in 2017 called the Facebook Papers, which showed
00:35:56.560internally the training documents that Facebook uses to train their moderators on how to decide
00:36:02.340what content is okay and what content breaks their rules.
00:36:04.760And it is so clear that that training material is biased against marginalized people.
00:39:04.680It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters, then that is a Trojan horse.
00:39:12.580Whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place.
00:39:21.760Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:39:50.240That's my, I think you should leave Tim Robinson impression.
00:39:53.520But no, you can't feel safe in the IRL world either because data brokers are out there selling your sensitive information to whoever.
00:40:01.800So last year, a Wall Street Journal report revealed that the anti-choice organization Veritas Society was using cell phone location data shared with online advertisers to target people who were visiting a Wisconsin Planned Parenthood clinic with misinformation about reproductive health.
00:40:17.500So you would if you were in Wisconsin and you went to Planned Parenthood, they would then bombard you with inaccurate information about abortion.
00:40:25.800So after that, Senator Ron Wyden started investigating. And this week, Wyden found that it went far beyond Wisconsin. Veritas was actually running the largest location data driven anti-abortion ad campaign in the nation that we know of. And they were doing it by getting cell phone location data from a broker called Near Intelligence and using that information to target people who had visited 600 abortion clinics across the country with these misleading anti-abortion ads.
00:40:54.880So Wyden is now calling on the FTC and the SEC to quickly take action against the data broker, Near Intelligence, to really make sure that the privacy of patients whose data was exploited is being protected.
00:41:07.740He sent letters to the SEC and FTC outlining exactly that.
00:41:11.980So I should say this is not really new, but it is the first time that we know of that location data has been used in this way.
00:41:19.100As early as 2015, you even have one ad firm bragging that they could, quote, tag all the smartphones entering and leaving nearly 700 Planned Parenthood clinics in the United States.
00:41:31.440So this is something that unfortunately has been going on for a while, but we have never seen it to this scale and scope as we have with this Veritas Society situation.
00:41:44.320So according to Politico, who spoke to Justin Sherman, a researcher who studies data brokers at Duke University, says that this campaign's scale is unprecedented.
00:41:54.420Sherman says, this is the largest targeting campaign we've seen to date against reproductive health clinics based on brokered data.
00:42:01.120According to Politico, in a February 2023 filing, the company said that it ensures that the data it obtains was collected with the user's permission.
00:42:08.720However, the company, Near Intelligence, their former chief privacy officer, told Wyden's staff that the company collected and sold data without consent.
00:42:17.580Okay, the idea that people who traveled to an abortion clinic or a Planned Parenthood clinic somehow willingly and with informed consent gave permission to this company to, like, collect their geolocation data is absurd.
00:42:33.320Like, it's absurd that they would even make that claim that this data was collected with the user's permission.
00:42:38.720So Near Intelligence's former chief privacy officer, J. Angelo, really just singing like a canary here.
00:42:47.300Angelo says that while the company stopped selling location data belonging to Europeans, it continued for Americans because of the lack of federal privacy regulations.
00:44:03.260Politico writes that in recent months, the FTC has been cracking down on data brokers, collecting and sharing health-related information.
00:44:09.840The agency's settlement against the location data broker, Exmode, highlights that the company ran ads targeted to people who visited medical facilities.
00:44:17.560And its lawsuit against the data broker, Kochava, also notes that the data tracked people who visited reproductive health care clinics.
00:44:24.420So this is really gross. It is gross to think of your sensitive data being sold off as like just part of a going out of business sale or a fire sale.
00:44:32.600But it does sound like that is exactly what's going on and that near intelligence is not the only company who has been doing that.
00:44:39.420Yeah, and I think people have a false sense of security that HIPAA protects them in these cases, that HIPAA is the law in the U.S. that protects the privacy of some health information.
00:44:53.980But people often have a really overly large understanding of what HIPAA actually protects.
00:45:01.180And in a lot of cases, it just it offers no protection at all where people would expect it to. So we really need better privacy laws in this country is really the long and short of it.
00:45:11.000Well, that's the thing is that I don't think that any person, any regular person would assume that when you go to a health, a private health care provider, a health care facility, something that is so intimate and private, that that data could be sold in this way.
00:45:27.140I think that most people would probably assume that we had protections that would prevent that. And it's, we just deserve better. We deserve, we should have those protections. It is common sense. But I guess if it makes some company a little bit richer, that's the grift.
00:45:40.160Like, it's like, OK, well, what won't we sell about people?
00:45:42.940It doesn't matter how intimate or how sensitive it is.
00:45:45.400They will sell anything if it makes them a buck.0.97
00:46:07.860And who cares if somebody is like tracking that and associating it with my online shopping history, but opening ourselves up to that kind of willing surrender of our privacy to allow ourselves to be tracked, our data to be harvested, these profiles to be created of us and sold from one broker to another.
00:46:26.400Even if 95% of it is not sensitive, there's some sensitive stuff in there.
00:46:31.680And once it's out there, it's out there.
00:46:33.220And somebody's going to find it and exploit it to do gross things like serving misinformation
00:46:38.980to people who have visited Planned Parenthood clinics.
00:46:42.580So we did a story a couple of weeks ago about how OpenAI quietly, I say quietly because
00:46:47.140I think they tried to make it quiet, but folks like us made it loud, quietly dropped their
00:48:07.980Kircher says that AGI will remove meaning from the human existence by hindering our
00:48:12.200ability to contribute and make discoveries.
00:48:14.460And so I think it's really interesting that Sam Kircher's objection is more existential.
00:48:21.160It's like I object to the existential threat to humanity that AGI specifically poses.
00:48:30.140Yeah. Sam is certainly not the only one talking about it as an existential threat in so many ways.
00:48:39.120So I think that this protest really shows that people are paying attention to what's happening around technology like AI and saying, wait, this isn't good.0.85
00:48:48.380And, you know, we can't leave out the fact that all of this is happening against the backdrop of what's happening in Palestine. And so it is clear that this is not just like theoretical. It is very much real life. For someone like a Sam Altman just saying JK and deciding that their technology can, in fact, be used by the military comes with very high stakes.
00:49:07.720And to be super clear, as far as we know, OpenAI is not making weapons and they say that they will not. But as the organizers of this protest point out, they also said that they would not let militaries use their tools. And now they've gone back on that. And so why should we trust people like Sam Altman that they're going to do what they say? And it's very clear from this protest that people are paying attention to that and being like, yeah, you say one thing and then you do another.
00:49:31.860It really matters what you do and what you say.
00:49:34.500And we feel like we cannot trust you at your word to stick by anything.
00:49:38.060Yeah, just, you know, I guess my role today is to connect stories with the previous story we talked about.
00:49:44.540But, like, it reminds me of Facebook, which is so powerful and an unavoidable responsibility for shaping what our information ecosystem looks like.
00:49:54.360OpenAI is really pushing the boundaries of this incredibly powerful technology.
00:49:57.720And a lot of people like Sam Kircher feel it is an existential threat.
00:50:03.580And that, combined with how unaccountable these companies are, is really unsettling and scary, right?
00:50:12.640Like, they have so much power, so little accountability.
00:50:17.500It feels like a scary time to be a human.
00:51:18.140I do enjoy seeing people come together for collective action.
00:51:21.080i mean i'm i'm sorry i this is kind of this is this sounds kind of cool right and i'm not the
00:51:30.580only person that thinks this right yeah i mean you know you'd hate to think that with all these
00:51:36.500problems that we've been talking about people feel that like their only path of recourse is
00:51:43.120to go in the street and like smash things and burn them maybe that's where we are i mean they
00:51:48.320did effectively get that car off the street. So I should say there is no word on motive, but
00:51:54.600this does take place against the backdrop of rising tensions between citizens in California
00:52:00.900and self-driving car companies. We reported on this like awful story a while back that Cruz,
00:52:07.000who is Waymo's rival, lost their ability to operate in California after one of its cars
00:52:13.060hit and dragged a pedestrian. And worse, the company basically lied about it to save their
00:52:19.380own asses. At every step of the way, they tried to mislead regulators about what happened,0.98
00:52:24.980including giving them doctored footage of the incident. So yeah, I can understand why citizens
00:52:32.020are not loving these companies. Even as I was just putting together the research for this segment,
00:52:37.180I found two unrelated stories that happened days apart that involved close-call almost incidents where self-driving cars almost hit children.
00:52:47.760In one, the car was fully stopped, and then it started when two people had gotten maybe a third of the way across the intersection.
00:52:55.060She says that the car then started to accelerate toward them as if they were not there.
00:52:59.600Her seven-year-old child had to run and swerve out of the way to avoid being hit.
00:53:05.360And this happened just the day before another cruise incident was caught on camera and posted
00:53:10.840to Reddit where a car came barreling toward two women and a child who were fully walking in a
00:53:16.560crosswalk. So it is clear that people do not want these cars on their streets. City officials and
00:53:21.920residents in San Francisco opposed the cars being given a license for 24-7 operation last year.
00:53:27.640And some residents are even doing a less involved form of protest by putting orange cones on top of
00:53:34.380the car's hoods as a kind of like less flamey protest less flamey it's not good when you have
00:53:43.000a brand that people hate so much that they like spontaneously come together to set your product on
00:53:48.880fire right like you would think that that would maybe prompt some reflection or doing things
00:53:54.520differently or maybe just not doing things at all in this case yeah but i get it i mean why would
00:54:01.160you want to risk your life and the life of your child so that a self-driving car company can make
00:54:09.820money that you never get a cut of. It's like, when I walk out on my streets, I never agreed to be a
00:54:16.120crash test, an unpaid, unconsenting crash test dummy for Cruz or Waymo. I don't think anybody
00:54:22.520agreed to that. So I can understand why residents are fighting back in any way they can against the
00:54:28.440system that says your life and the life of your child is worth less than our company making money.
00:54:35.520I can understand why people are angry and frustrated at that dynamic because it's not
00:54:39.860one that is working for anybody except for these car companies. I'd be curious to see national poll
00:54:44.740data about like what Americans think about these cars. Well, I can't give you national poll data
00:54:50.820about that, but you know what I can give you national poll data about? What's that, Bridget?
00:54:55.140the Taylor Swift PSYOP campaign that we're all currently witnessing. We have talked about this
00:55:01.720a little bit on the show before. Taylor Swift is the focal point of a new conspiracy theory.
00:55:07.020It gets a little bit fuzzy for me. Once I try to describe the actual what is going on here,
00:55:12.460I kind of lose the thread. But as far as I can tell, it's that Taylor Swift is being artificially
00:55:18.280pumped up and propped up to help the Democrats and also vaccines, you have voices like former
00:55:27.860Republican presidential candidate Vivi Akramaswamy saying this. So this is not just coming from fringe
00:55:33.000places on the internet. It is being elevated at a much more mainstream level. And now Monmouth
00:55:39.060just put some numbers behind this. They did a national poll that found that nearly one in five
00:55:43.880americans or 18 believe that taylor swift is part of a covert government effort to re-elect
00:55:50.340president biden among this group 71 identify with the gop 83 are likely to vote for trump
00:55:56.840and 73 also believe that biden won 2020 by fraud one in five americans believing that taylor swift
00:56:04.760is part of a covert government effort is so many people like we are so screwed here we're cooked
00:56:12.440we're cooked this this this is not this is not good the data is not good uh it's not looking
00:56:18.800good for humanity no i will say this though i don't want to say too much i don't want to get0.98
00:56:23.720the swifties angry at me i don't need swifties and tamu coming after me in this episode however
00:56:29.000i am curious how taylor swift's recent vibe has impacted this conspiracy theory because
00:56:37.260i do feel like something has kind of shifted where people are kind of turning on taylor swift a
00:56:42.800little bit after her speeches at the grammys it's it's it i don't know this i don't i'm not tapped
00:56:48.380into the swifty verse so like forgive me if i'm speaking out of turn but i have witnessed that i
00:56:52.420think that people are kind of turning on her a little bit and so i am curious as to how that
00:56:57.220fits into this larger conspiracy theory that she is being artificially propped up to like
00:57:02.660help biden win like i remember i think on on the day of the super bowl trump was on trump social
00:57:08.920basically like bad-mouthing taylor swift and being like oh she's planning on endorsing biden
00:57:14.500at the super bowl how would she have even done that like she's not a performer she wasn't0.88
00:57:18.640performing at the halftime show she's not a player like what she was the plan that she was
00:57:24.460gonna wear a biden shirt like what was the what was the plan it doesn't even need to be connected
00:57:30.120to reality right he just says things sometimes they make sense sometimes they don't but they
00:57:35.040definitely make people angry you know and i'm sure people who believe in this conspiracy with this
00:57:39.800new news cycle where like you say people are maybe like turning on her a little bit i'm sure that's
00:57:46.480only more evidence that makes the people who believe this conspiracy like further believe in
00:57:53.200it that's just how these conspiracy theories work oh that is absolutely the thing with conspiracy
00:57:58.340theories, I shouldn't even be trying to ask rational, logical questions about what's going
00:58:02.220on here necessarily. Because let's say that Taylor Swift came out and endorsed Trump.
00:58:06.660Somehow that would be used as evidence that, like, see, they were right all along. It doesn't
00:58:10.460matter what it is. If you've ever studied how movements like Q work, it's like any new data
00:58:16.920point can be used to confirm their previously held idea. So it's almost like not even really
00:58:25.260worth it to try to find the logic of what they're saying or what they think is happening here.
00:59:05.420Well, even though this is not a sense making thing, I hope that we have helped people make sense of this wacky and wild news and media and tech climate that we're in.
00:59:14.540Mike, thank you for being here and helping us do that.
01:00:48.940Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
01:00:57.600Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions.