TikTok cracks down on TikTokShop sellers!; Fake writers at Sports Illustrated; Quit fearmongering about Namedrop; Bumble + Tinder drop Facebook ads; Canadian news ban update – NEWS ROUNDUP
00:05:30.800Okay, so I have to start with something that is a little bit of a personal pet peeve of
00:05:34.900mind. And that is bad reporting on tech that is so hell bent on fear mongering that it actually
00:05:41.460ends up obscuring the real issue. So recently, Apple released a feature for iPhone called
00:05:47.740NameDrop, where if you have two unlocked iPhones or other Apple devices, you know,
00:05:52.420iPad, Apple Watch, and then bring them close together, you can trade contact information
00:05:57.120automatically. I could see this happening all kinds of use cases, networking, happy hours,
00:06:01.200all of that. Police in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and other states put out warnings about this
00:06:07.700feature, saying that it was potentially unsafe and that kids and other vulnerable populations
00:06:12.200should be wary of it. If you Google Apple name drop, the first things that you get are these
00:06:17.380like breathless headlines from local news outlets and then bigger outlets that I think should know
00:06:23.140better. And also Fox News. I mean, to Fox News's credit, I would not expect them to know better.
00:06:29.260That's true. So Fox News' headline about it, police urge parents to turn off Apple iPhone
00:06:35.100setting dangerous to kids. So it already just like deems the setting is dangerous to kids.
00:06:41.340So here's the actual reality. Unlike something like AirDrop, where your phone doesn't need to
00:06:46.560be very close to another person's phone, your phone needs to be pretty close to use NameDrop,
00:06:52.300almost touching. And both phones need to be unlocked. So it is really unlikely that some
00:06:57.600creep is going to be able to get your information without you meaning to give it to them. And if a
00:07:01.780stranger who you don't know is already that close to your unlocked phone, trust me, you have bigger
00:07:08.140privacy and security issues to attend to in the immediate than someone getting your contact
00:07:13.460information via name drop. Do you know what I mean? If you've got your phone unlocked, just like
00:07:18.540sitting out and somebody can get close to it. Yeah, they can get way more than just your name.
00:07:23.400they can take your phone they can do all kinds of stuff yeah i've actually heard of a scam where
00:07:27.940people ask you like oh can i make a phone call on your phone i'm lost and then if you unlock your
00:07:32.980phone and then hand it to them then they have access to like your unlocked phone right and so
00:07:37.400like yes i'm like if somebody is if a stranger who means to do you harm is like physically close
00:07:44.660that close to your unlocked phone that is a problem but not just because of this new feature
00:07:49.340NameDrop. And I think there is like some wider conversation to be had about the risks inherent
00:07:55.180in having things like default settings or features on your phone that you're really not thinking
00:07:59.920about because NameDrop is a default setting, like having it switched on is a default setting on
00:08:05.620iPhone now. And so I do think that like there is a conversation about the risks inherent in that,
00:08:10.300like how Venmo's default setting is just set to show everybody your transactions all the time
00:08:15.300unless you go in and change that yeah that one is wild people should be talking about that i
00:08:21.480you know we had somebody at work the other day who had a personal family situation where we were
00:08:28.160all collecting money to send them uh we're gonna send them flowers and uh like a gift card and uh
00:08:35.360the person who's coordinating said hey venmo me and so i logged in and venmoed them some money
00:08:40.980And I could just see in the public feed, like several of my co-workers had not turned off the setting to make all of their transactions public.
00:08:51.080And, you know, that was like a harmless thing.
00:08:53.640But it's just so wild to me that people are out there living their lives publicly posting their Venmo transactions for all of the Internet to see.
00:09:04.320I don't think that if you've never really thought about it, people might not know that the default setting is public.
00:09:09.540Like, I'm sure folks like Matt Gaetz would love to have could love to be able to go back in time and know that information and change it.
00:09:16.300Right. Also, I feel like it's one of those things where it's like if you are way deep in the trenches of online monitoring, like an ex or an ex's new flame and everything is set to private and you're like, all I have is the Venmo emojis trying to discern like what's going on over there.
00:09:34.200That's when you know you're like in the trenches, but that's how you know you're really in the trenches.
00:09:38.020So, yeah, I do think that there is a conversation to be had about default settings that you just sort of don't think about. And I should say that if you don't want to use NameDrop on your phone or you do have a child who has an Apple device or like an elderly person who has it, you can turn it off. We'll throw the instructions of how to do that in the show notes.
00:09:59.560However, that is very different than police and local media spilling so much ink over breathless warnings about some nebulous threat that is so unlikely to happen without giving any kind of appropriate context.
00:10:12.880In a piece called Name Drop is Safe, the fear-mongering about it is not, Shira Ovid for Washington Post breaks down what I find so frustrating about this reporting that is basically trying to scare you about nothing when it comes to technology.
00:10:25.620She writes, we spend too much time worrying about the wrong things in technology, and that is partly the fault of public officials and news organizations that can make anything sound scarier than it really is.
00:10:36.220I think she really hit the nail on the head here.
00:10:39.920I think local media loves a big, scary, puffed up tech story.
00:10:44.520And what annoys me about that is that there are very real reasons to be worried about technology, skeptical of technology, asking questions about new technology that is rolled out.
00:10:55.620If you listen to this podcast, you already know that I am the biggest proponent in the world of that.
00:11:00.940However, there's also a finite amount of things that we can worry about and keep in our own heads.
00:11:06.680And that is also true when it comes to technology.
00:11:08.700So we should really be encouraging folks to be savvy consumers of technology and also helping them educate themselves about the actual risks that are in a way that is grounded in reality, not just fear mongering.
00:11:20.520it it's such a weird story to be picked up and to become like a scary tech story like i wonder what
00:11:27.980it is about this one that got the attention of people or fit i mean this is just my my opinion
00:11:36.160but i think it kind of relates back to some of the ways that we've heard kind of threats to children
00:11:42.180online being talked about by lawmakers or police like i just think that it's an issue where
00:11:49.700there are actual very real threats to everybody children being a vulnerable population very much
00:11:58.020included and i think that there is just like inherent anxiety around that and so when you
00:12:03.340have police going out and being like oh this is a threat they never explain like what the threat
00:12:09.020actually is like again like if a stranger is that is that close to your child and both of
00:12:17.140their phones are unlocked. That is a threat, but not just because of name drop. It's such a weird
00:12:24.100way to frame that. And I think it's rooted in anxiety of technology is posing a harm to children,
00:12:30.760a harm that we don't really know enough about, a harm that we're not really prepared to really
00:12:35.040deal with meaningfully. So let's just scare people and they will definitely... This story
00:12:39.820really blew up. It was everywhere. And I think because people feel so powerless when it comes
00:12:45.720to keeping their kids safe around technology,
00:12:48.000that of course it's going to go viral.
00:13:10.260When we talk about a lot of the threats of like AI,
00:13:13.060You know, the threat is that your group might be underrepresented in the training data that might cause nebulous systems to do things that that harm you.
00:13:27.420That's much more difficult to understand.
00:13:30.700Absolutely. And I just had another thought.
00:13:33.520I think last summer we did a couple of episodes about the moral panic around things like trafficking and stranger danger.
00:13:39.660And I just think that, like, this is tech facilitated stranger danger of like, oh, this technology is going to weaponize strangers to be a harm to your child in new, unforeseen ways.
00:13:51.300And it's like, yeah, if a stranger is that close to your child, it might be dangerous, but not just because of name drop.
00:16:19.100Gotta throw a quick heads up on this one because it does involve harm to children.
00:16:24.220And that is a new damning Wall Street Journal report on Facebook and Instagram just dropped.
00:16:29.640And this time, it is in partnership with the Canadian Center for Child Protection.
00:16:33.900So this damning report found that when someone searches hashtags on Instagram that a child abuser might be searching, things like children's gymnastics, disgusting, I know,
00:16:43.820ads from big brands are then surfaced next to pretty disturbing content containing children.
00:16:50.140So for this report, they basically got a dummy account and then searched things like children's gymnastics.
00:16:58.940Instagram systems served jarring doses of salacious content to those test accounts,
00:17:03.440including risque footage of children, as well as overtly sexual adult videos
00:17:07.360and ads for some of the biggest U.S. brands.
00:17:09.640In a stream of videos recommended by Instagram,
00:17:13.700an ad for the dating app Bumble appeared between a video of someone stroking the face
00:17:17.640of a life-size latex doll and a video of a young girl with a digitally obscured face
00:17:22.540lifting up her shirt to expose midriff.
00:17:24.780In another, a Pizza Hut commercial followed a video of a man lying on a bed with his arm around what the caption said was a 10-year-old girl. Disgusting.0.99
00:17:33.760So after the report dropped, Bumble and Match, which is the parent company of the dating app Tinder, actually suspended their advertising across all Meta-owned platforms.
00:17:42.780We have no desire to pay Meta to market our brands to predators or place our ads anywhere near this content, said Match spokeswoman Justine Sacco.
00:17:56.340So Justine Sacco, this is such an aside.
00:17:59.640The reason why that name sounds familiar to you is from Has Justine Landed Yet?
00:18:05.160So Justine Sacco was this woman who she's been working for Match Company for like, I don't know, since 2015.
00:18:14.240She was on a plane and she tweeted something like, oh, on my way to Africa, hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white. And then she got on a plane to Africa and turned off her phone. And I guess during this flight, there was like such pandemonium that I remember this so clearly. Has Justine landed yet? Trended?
00:18:36.000like people were like we got to meet her at the airport this woman tweeted this probably had no1.00
00:18:40.820idea the like chaos that that was happening online while she had probably had her phone off on this
00:18:47.340flight uh yeah so that's why that happened in 2015 that's why justine sacco's name sounds
00:18:52.320familiar to you and at the time she worked for match group then still works for match group now0.99
00:18:57.300damn that was her i remember that story that was it was obviously like a pretty offensive thing to0.98
00:19:05.200tweet but the story itself was so hilarious because yeah she this whole internet firestorm0.99
00:19:13.420like exploded while yeah she was probably asleep and like tossing back cocktails on the flight
00:19:22.740yeah it is the internet lives forever and when that happened when i when i followed that story
00:19:29.260in 2015, who would have thunk that here in 2023, I'd be citing her as a spokeswoman still at match
00:19:36.760group. You know, what can you say? But you know, it seems like at least in this quote, she's on the
00:19:43.360right side of justice. That's right. That's right. So the way that Meta is responding to this is
00:19:48.780really similar to the episode that we did recently breaking down Twitter's lawsuit against Media
00:19:52.960Matters, where Twitter accused Media Matters of manufacturing the circumstances for inappropriate
00:19:58.740content to be shown alongside ads because Media Matters did probably make a dummy account where
00:20:05.440they followed a bunch of Nazi accounts or at least interacted with them and then were surfaced that
00:20:10.780kind of content by the platform. Facebook's response is basically the same, that the Wall
00:20:15.800Street Journal and the Canadian Center for Child Protection were only surfaced this inappropriate
00:20:20.260content because it's what they were searching for. In a statement, Meta said that the experience was
00:20:25.340quote, manufactured, saying these results are based on a manufactured experience that does
00:20:29.920not represent what billions of people around the world see every single day when they use
00:20:33.900our products and services. So basically, they're arguing that only a very small group of people
00:20:39.020interested in content that sexualizes children and interested in finding that content on their
00:20:44.820platform would be getting that experience as a user. It's a pretty weak defense.
00:20:49.840Very weak. And to me, it really goes back to what Dr. Caroline Orbueno said about Twitter,
00:20:54.460that these are a known thing called informational dark spaces that occur when somebody combines
00:21:00.460search terms that are probably not being searched by a ton of people, but are being searched by bad
00:21:06.040actors, often extremists, people who are interested in doing bad stuff online. And they can coordinate
00:21:10.780in those spaces because generally people are not really looking there and the powers that be
00:21:15.780aren't really looking there either. So saying like, oh, well, only a handful of people searching
00:21:20.600very specific things would see this, it's not really a way to address it. These kinds of dark
00:21:26.340zones are easily exploited by bad actors precisely because of that attitude that says that tech
00:21:31.940platforms really don't need to be paying attention to them, let alone solving for them. And I also
00:21:37.140think this defense is really telling. Part of me wonders if this is another symptom of what I heard
00:21:43.620someone would describe as Musk contagion syndrome, where Elon Musk sort of sets a tone and that
00:21:50.760other people in tech are like, oh, well, if Elon Musk is getting away with it, I guess I'll do it
00:21:55.200too. Because Musk really got defensive when Media Matters pointed out that anti-Semitic content on
00:22:02.340Twitter was showing up next to ads. And that is how it sounds to me like these Facebook spokespeople
00:22:08.700are responding as well and i don't know i don't think having done a lot of like platform
00:22:14.520accountability work before i haven't really heard facebook respond in this way and so i do wonder
00:22:19.440if this is somehow you know learning how to do it from elon musk or being like oh well we could
00:22:24.640just get defensive about it and be like well only a few people are seeing that rather than
00:22:29.480outlining how they are going to fix it and taking accountability for it yeah it does sound exactly
00:22:34.300like what twitter said what was it like last week or maybe the week before uh
00:22:41.800and i guess they kind of did get away with it so why wouldn't meta just try the same defense it but
00:22:50.700it's it's such a weak defense and it's like not only is it a weak defense but it's just morally
00:22:57.380bankrupt right like they're serving up child sexual exploitation material uh maybe they should
00:23:08.300try to like stop doing that that would make a lot more sense to me and i think that's ultimately my
00:23:14.920problem with the entire thing like i am grateful to the wall street journal for staying on facebook's
00:23:20.400neck in this way because they've been really doing a lot of good reporting about facebook
00:23:23.120And I'm grateful to the Canadian Center for Child Protection. But the thing that really gets me about even the framing of this story is that it seems like the only real way to make any noise about this is to get brands to pressure platforms.
00:23:36.820It is great that these brands are responding and pulling their ads and letting these companies feel the heat. I think that's great. But the fact of the matter is these platforms have content that sexualize children on them.
00:23:49.860And it shouldn't take, like, I guess my concern is not that there would be an ad for Tinder next to that content. Like, I think it's great that these brands are responding about how inappropriate that is. But ultimately, I don't think it should take like a dating app getting upset for the platform to address it publicly.
00:24:10.180And I think especially doing so in such a defensive way just doesn't make me think that it's something that these companies really see as a problem insofar as it is not a problem for them making money from these advertisers.
00:24:20.360Yeah, I completely agree. It feels a little gross and just strange that so much of this conversation is about the impact on brands and how this kind of material is going to cause brands to not advertise on a certain platform.
00:24:40.740Like, that makes sense as an organizing strategy for organizations like Media Matters, but it feels like it takes up an inappropriate amount of space in the larger conversation about why this is something that we should care about.
00:24:59.600I could not agree more. And it's like, ultimately, Tinder and Match Group and Bumble will be fine. They have billions of dollars, they'll be okay. What about the kids who are being exploited? What about the young people who are in this content? What about, like on Twitter, what about the people who were harmed by the fact that there is anti-Semitic content on the platform?
00:25:19.200Like, I guess I don't like that the brand's responses were at this point where the brands are like the voices that matter, but it does seem to be the way it is that like that is the way to get companies to respond publicly is like that bottom line.
00:25:37.140And I guess it just makes me sad that that seems to be the only way to get any kind of real accountability.
00:25:43.840Okay, so speaking of Canada, we do have a quick update on a story that we covered earlier this summer.
00:25:48.100Y'all might remember that after Facebook threatened to ban news content on the platform to protest the Online News Act, a Canadian law that would require Facebook and other tech companies to pay news publishers, Facebook actually went through with it and did ban news in Canada.
00:26:02.900So when you shared a news story on Facebook or Instagram in Canada, it just showed up as like a blacked out post.
00:26:09.520And they did this before the law went into effect during a really deadly wildfire season in Canada, which actually prevented people from getting critical news about things like evacuation.
00:26:19.820So really nice going, Mark Zuckerberg.
00:26:22.460Well, when this was all going on, Google was similarly threatening to block news in Canada.
00:26:26.760But now that is not going to happen because Google announced on Wednesday that they will not be pulling links to Canadian news outlets after all.
00:26:33.340Google and the Canadian government came to an agreement.
00:26:35.900In a statement, Google said, following extensive discussions, we are pleased that the government of Canada has committed to addressing our core issues with the bill.
00:26:42.940We don't yet know the specifics of this agreement.
00:26:45.300If we find out more, we will definitely let you know.
00:26:46.920but a Google spokesperson did say that the government addressed Google's previous concerns
00:26:51.160about creating, quote, uncapped financial liability for linking articles, and a report
00:26:56.640indicates that they will pay millions of dollars to publishers as part of this deal.
00:27:00.800Huh. So this is a story where people talked through it like reasonable adults and reached
00:27:07.700an agreement that everyone found acceptable? It seems that way. That's pretty great.
00:27:13.200we don't get to report a lot on that we don't i don't really know what to say about it i like
00:27:18.920want to be sarcastic and cynical but uh this sounds kind of like a win you know on this show
00:27:26.100we always say we got to take our w's where we can it's true and major shout out to the verge for
00:27:31.940great reporting on on this whole situation yeah and i uh thanks for bringing this up again you
00:27:38.780know i think this is a really important story even even though it's in canada a lot of americans
00:27:43.960don't spend a lot of time thinking about canada but uh you know it's a pretty important country
00:27:48.880pretty great country and uh i you know i think they're really addressing some serious issues
00:27:56.400with uh that bill about trying to get news organizations paid for the content that
00:28:04.840social media platforms monetize, and it's really nice to see that it seems like news
00:28:13.260organizations are going to get paid, and Google will continue to be able to return news results.
00:28:22.820It seems like a win-win. I hope so. And like I said, if we get more information,
00:28:27.260we will definitely let y'all know. So I have another quick update for y'all. We did an episode
00:28:32.240about TikTok shop and why it is taking over everyone's TikTok for you page. Mike, I know
00:28:38.100you don't use TikTok, but TikTok shop is like this very aggressive in-app shopping functionality
00:28:45.660that TikTok rolled out. And it's just like ad after ad after ad after ad. So it's, it's like
00:28:51.580regular sponsored content on top of TikTok shop ads that are like, seem like they're just regular
00:28:59.540tiktok's like oh i'm just your friend telling you about this really cool body oil set or whatever
00:29:05.560um on top of the regular ad so it's like ad city on tiktok right now okay interesting are the ads
00:29:12.520good are they like relevant stuff um oh what a good question sometimes sometimes i will say
00:29:20.140tiktoks and we if folks want to know more we did an episode about this with a friend of mine tamika
00:29:26.600who goes by Pretty Critical on TikTok,
00:29:28.220who is the most successful TikToker I know in real life.
00:29:31.460So TikTok is sort of known for having an algorithm
00:29:33.900that's supposed to like really be tailored to you
00:29:36.580and who you are as a person and all of that.
00:29:38.500I will say that TikTok, in my experience, anecdotally,
00:29:41.720it's good at knowing your insecurities
00:34:56.780Yeah, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. People call it the Mickey Mouse Act.
00:35:01.880It's like it. What was it like? Nineteen ninety ninety eight ninety nine.
00:35:08.080It like because Mickey Mouse was about to become public domain and Disney aggressively lobbied to pass this like sweeping overhaul of copyright law to like extend their their copyright on Mickey Mouse and like other stuff.
00:35:31.520And so, I mean, it's a little facetious to say that they, like, wrote the entirety of U.S. copyright law, but U.S. copyright law is very much shaped by Disney's lawyers and lobbyists.
00:35:47.300So, yeah, if you're a TikToker that has 7,000 followers, what makes you think that, like, of course, of course, of course, TikTok doesn't want that smoke.
00:42:19.700But what's happening at Sports Illustrated is really something.
00:42:22.560So the tech media outlet Futurism found that Sports Illustrated not only published AI-generated pieces, but also attributed those pieces to fake journalists with fake names and fake, very specific bios whose headshots were all found on a website that sells AI-generated headshots.
00:42:43.260Futurism spoke to somebody at Sports Illustrated who didn't want to be named for obvious reasons, who said, this happens all the time.
00:42:49.500This person said, there's a lot, they told us of the fake authors.
00:43:30.960We got 20 percent more reads when he lived in Houston than St. Louis.
00:43:35.580Swap that dog out for a cat and we're good to go.
00:43:38.440So you might be asking yourself, are the articles any good?
00:43:41.300Well, they kind of sound like they were written by aliens.
00:43:43.400Here's one line from an AI-generated neutral white young adult male with short brown hair and blue eyes, as he is described in the AI headshot website where his image came from.
00:44:10.740So Ortiz warns that the sport of volleyball, quote, can be a little tricky to get into, especially without an actual ball to practice with.
00:44:47.140So after Futurism published their report, the Arena Group did put out a statement.
00:44:52.200The statement is, I'll just let y'all decide for yourselves.
00:44:55.800Today, an article was published alleging that Sports Illustrated published AI-generated articles.
00:45:01.080According to our initial investigation, this is not accurate.
00:45:03.860The articles in question were product reviews and were licensed content from an external third-party company, AdVon Commerce.
00:45:11.520A number of AdVon's e-commerce articles ran on certain arena websites.
00:45:15.940We continually monitor partners and were in the midst of review when these allegations were raised.
00:45:21.300AdVon has assured us that all of the articles in question were written and edited by humans.
00:45:25.840According to AdVon, their writers, editors, and researchers create and curate content and follow a policy that involves using counter-plagiarism and counter-AI software on all content.
00:45:37.440However, we have learned that AdVon had writers use a pen or pseudonym in certain articles to protect author privacy, actions we don't condone, and are removing the content while our internal investigation continues and of such ended the partnership.
00:46:14.220He just wants to contemplate practicing volleyball in the privacy of his own Texan home.
00:46:21.500so it honestly sounds like their big investigation into this was like asking this company like hey
00:46:28.320are these articles ai generated and ad bomb was like nah and they were like okay cool
00:46:33.240and what's also weird is their statement it's like okay they were it was humans it was actual
00:46:38.720humans using pen names they don't address why they would need to be using pen names for like
00:46:43.700articles about volleyball they also don't address why their pictures were from ai headshot vendors
00:46:51.040either like the whole thing just stinks to high heaven to me yeah it's obviously nonsense like
00:46:57.140they were in the middle of a review when the allegations were raised why they're just like0.94
00:47:04.060constantly reviewing everything that their vendor writes for them it's so silly and i think that
00:47:10.320like as ridiculous as this is like at the end of the day readers do deserve to be told that the
00:47:16.040content they're reading is AI generated, or if it's written by a human, I think. I don't want0.63
00:47:21.440to empathize with neutral, blue-eyed Drew Ortiz if he's not a real person. I deserve to know if
00:47:28.180he's a real person or not. And I do think, as funny as all this is, it does underscore
00:47:32.880how I've been feeling about the state of the internet lately, where everything feels like
00:47:37.360a scam or a lie to make somebody money. It sounds like these reviews, probably Sports Illustrated
00:47:43.500It might get a kickback if people like click through or like buy the thing or whatever.
00:47:48.340And I just feel like how can anybody trust anything they come across online in a digital landscape like that?
00:47:54.880Yeah, it's, you know, it's a funny story about Drew and his dreams of someday touching a volleyball.
00:48:02.400But it is kind of a bleak story about how, like, what the hell is anything?
00:48:08.780The futurism piece put it really well.
00:48:10.620They wrote, the undisclosed AI content is a direct affront to the fabric of media ethics.
00:48:15.840In other words, not to mention a perfect recipe for eroding reader trust.
00:48:20.300At the end of the day, it's just remarkably irresponsible behavior that we shouldn't see anywhere, let alone normalized by a high visibility publisher.
00:48:28.700And it does scare me that like this is the way the Internet is going.
00:48:31.800just ai generated gobbledygook that doesn't really make sense scams and platforms just
00:48:39.140trying to generate revenue yeah it is a a weird time for the internet it does feel like everything
00:48:45.760is lies and scams and deception and uh you know when you think about brands like sports illustrated
00:48:54.700that aren't actually real media outlets but do have like big brand visibility doing stuff like
00:49:02.680this where they're just lying and purporting that their articles are written by humans when they're
00:49:09.600AI uh you kind of can't blame those TikTok creators for getting in on the action and doing
00:49:18.340some illegal scammy stuff of their own right like if everybody else is doing it why not them
00:49:22.520Yeah, I mean, I think it's a hate the game, not the player kind of situation where it's like, it's hard for me. I don't necessarily feel sympathy for TikTok creators who are like scamming people. But I do think that it is, they are but small players in a larger system of scams and exploitation that I think people have come to expect online. And it's really a problem.
00:49:48.540And I will say, Sports Illustrated today, I don't think is like a well-respected publication, certainly high visible. John Updike used to publish there. Like, it is an organization that had a legacy.
00:50:03.180And I think when an outlet like Sports Illustrated that did have a legacy starts doing this kind of thing where they're just like turning out fake AI volleyball stories by not alien Drew Ortiz, it really says something about how far we've fallen.
00:50:21.880I hope, I genuinely hope and kind of believe that we will get to a better place, a place where people can trust what they read online, trust that it is written by humans, trust that it has been vetted, trust that it is accurate.
00:50:34.100When you click a link, it's not going to be some sort of scam or bot or some other kind of exploitation.
00:50:39.720It is going to be actual information, actual connection, because we deserve it.
00:50:45.600So we are actually working on an episode right now that I'm really excited about, all about just what I was just talking about. AI generated fake women in tech to catfish people into checking out a tech conference. If you heard about that story or saw it popping off on Twitter, it was a real doozy. So yeah, rest assured, we saw it too.0.98
00:51:07.780We were going to talk about it on the newscast, but honestly, I have so much to say about it that it would have been the whole newscast.
00:51:13.920So we're doing a whole episode about it.