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Tech Barons Are the New Media Barons Sep 19, 2018

Show notes

On this week’s If Then, Will Oremus and April Glaser talk about a literal moonshot. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has announced the first private customer who is signed up for a trip around earth’s moon, possibly as early as 2023—and he’ll be bringing some surprising passengers. Meanwhile,the Justice Department is investigating Musk’s other company, Tesla, over an ill-advised tweet. Next, Will and April discuss a new Twitter feature that brings back the classic, reverse-chronological timeline.

The hosts are then joined by Margaret Sullivan, the media columnist for the Washington Post and former public editor of the New York Times. They’ll talk to her about the trend of tech barons buying media companies. That’s what Salesforce founder and CEO Marc Benioff did this past weekend with his $190 million purchase of Time Magazine. Sullivan knows abit about tech titans buying media companies--her employer, the Washington Post, was bought by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in 2013, and she worked for Warren Buffett at the Buffalo News. We’ll talk to her about what this sale might mean for the future of Time, and the growing entanglements between big tech and journalism.

13:34 - Interview with Margaret Sullivan33:33 - Don’t Close My Tabs

Don’t Close My Tabs:

Slate: Why Did the New York Review of Books Publish that Jian Ghomeshi Essay?

Engagdet: Why PayPal’s Crackdown on ASMR Creators Should Worry You

Podcast production by Max Jacobs

If Then plugs:

If Then is presented by Slate and Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Listen to If Then via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If Then Presents: The Secret History of The Future Sep 16, 2018

Show notes

Technology continues to change the way we live and work. Which is why The Secret History of The Future—the new technology show from Slate and The Economists—is digging through the past to find lessons for our future. Subscribe to Secret History of the Future via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Special Report: Apple’s New (Old) Gizmos Sep 13, 2018

Show notes

We have a special bonus If Then! On Wednesday afternoon Apple held its big annual event full of new and expensive gadgets. We wanted to help you make sense of what happened, and what it means. Host Will Oremus is joined by journalist and Slate contributor Christina Bonnington, who covers emerging technology and consumer technology. They talk through new phones, new watches, and all the things Apple is taking away from their original products.

Stories discussed on the show:

Slate: Why Apple’s Not Giving Us Another Small iPhone Anytime Soon

Slate: Everything We Know About The Three New iPhones

Slate: Apple’s Devices Are Pulling Us Into Our Own Personal Clouds

Podcast production by Max Jacobs

If Then plugs:

Listen to If Then via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Google’s Real Biases Sep 12, 2018

Show notes

On this week’s If Then, Will Oremus and April Glaser discuss California’s landmark decision to eliminate cash bail for defendants in criminal cases--and the controversial algorithmic “risk assessment” system that will partially replace it. They also hash out a fresh debate over who gets to fact-check the news that appears in your Facebook feed following an outcry in media circles on Tuesday, after Facebook flagged a story in the liberal outlet ThinkProgress as “false”--all because the conservative Weekly Standard had taken issue with its headline.

The hosts are then joined by Professor Safiya Umoja Noble, author of Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. Lately, media coverage - and congressional hearings - have focused on potential anti-conservative bias among the big tech companies, but professor’s Noble’s work suggests we may actually have a much different problem.

17:50 - Interview with Safiya Umoja Noble36:36 - Don’t Close My Tabs

Don’t Close My Tabs:

Anatomy of an AI System by Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler

The New Yorker: Can Mark Zuckerberg Fix Facebook Before it Breaks Democracy?

Podcast production by Max Jacobs

If Then plugs:

Listen to If Then via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play. or Google Play.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How The Future Of Music Streaming Will Sound Sep 05, 2018

Show notes

On this week’s If Then, Will Oremus and April Glaser are joined once again by their Slate colleague Mark Joseph Stern to make sense of a what a Kavanaugh-court might mean for the internet going forward.

They are also joined by music and technology writer David Turner, who pens the weekly newsletter Penny Fractions, which is all about the economics and culture of music streaming. They’ll talk to him about how streaming works for artists and if there’s anything they can do to push back against the streaming giants like Spotify, Apple, and YouTube. And they’ll also talk about some of the surprising ways in which streaming is changing music itself.

13:24 - Interview with David Turner33:57 - Don’t Close My Tabs

Don’t Close My Tabs:

The New York Times: How Much Hotter Is Your Hometown Than When You Were Born

BuzzFeed News: How Duterte Used Facebook to Fuel the Philippine Drug War

The New Yorker: The Shaming of Geoffrey Owens and the Inability to See Actors as Laborers Too

Podcast production by Max Jacobs

If Then plugs:

Listen to If Then via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Twitter Without the Nazis Aug 29, 2018

Show notes

On this week’s If Then, Will Oremus and April Glaser discuss reports that big tech companies are lobbying in favor of a national privacy law. They’ll talk about what their motivations are. (Hint: It’s not just altruism or civic duty.)

The hosts are also joined by Eugen Rochko, the founder of Mastodon, a social network that’s becoming an increasingly popular alternative to Twitter. Rochko likes to say that you can join Mastodon if you want social networking without the Nazis and white supremacists. We talk to him about exactly how it works, and the daunting obstacles that every social networking startup faces.

15:00 - Interview with Eugen Rochko31:00 - Don’t Close My Tabs

Don’t Close My Tabs:

NBC News: Secret message board drives 'pizzagate'-style harassment campaign of small businesses

The Information: Waymo’s Big Ambitions Slowed By Tech Trouble

Podcast production by Max Jacobs

If Then plugs:

Listen to If Then via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Google’s Secret Censorship Project Aug 22, 2018

Show notes

On this week’s If Then, Will Oremus and April Glaser talk about a new Russian hacking report--this time, targeting conservatives. And it’s been a busy news week (as always) for Facebook, with reports on massive changes to its ad targeting and a heretofore secret plan to rate the credibility of its own users.

Then, April is joined by Ryan Gallagher, a U.K. based investigative journalist at the Intercept, where he reports on digital security and state surveillance. Earlier this month Ryan broke a story on Dragonfly, a secretive Google search engine for China that would censor certain websites banned by the Chinese government. The vast majority of Google’s employees, including founder and board member Sergey Brin reportedly was unaware of this project until Gallagher broke the story. Now, many Googlers are livid.

19:25 - Interview with Ryan Gallagher

Don’t Close My Tabs:

RadioLab: “Post No Evil”

Jezebel: How a Woman Disappears from the History Books

Podcast production by Max Jacobs

If Then plugs:

Listen to If Then via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Making Sense of Elon Musk Aug 15, 2018

Show notes

On this week’s If Then, Will Oremus and April Glaser talk about how Google has been tracking and storing your location—even after you’ve asked it not to. Then they review some of the disturbing security news out of DEF CON, the annual hacker conference in Las Vegas, including a demonstration in which an 11-year-old managed to hack a voting machine in minutes.

The hosts are joined by Dana Hull, a reporter for Bloomberg News, who covers the electric-car company Tesla and the space transportation company SpaceX. What those companies have in common, of course, is their CEO, the enigmatic Elon Musk. Will and April ask her what to make of Musk’s latest machinations, including his surprise bid to turn Tesla back into a private company.

Don’t Close My Tabs:

Huffington Post:The Story Behind the Story That Created a Political Nightmare for Facebook

The Washington Post: A Small-Town Couple Left Behind a Stolen Painting Worth Over 100 Million Dollars - And a Big Mystery

Podcast production by Max Jacobs

If Then plugs:

Listen to If Then via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Embracing Deplorable Status Aug 08, 2018

Show notes

On this week’s If Then, Will Oremus and April Glaser discuss why a bunch of the big tech platforms—Facebook, YouTube, Apple—are suddenly banning the far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his media empire Infowars. They also talk about the latest Wells Fargo foreclosure scandal where a computer glitch led to hundreds of wrongful foreclosures. The hosts are then joined by William Sommer, tech reporter with the Daily Beast who follows QAnon and other right-wing conspiracy theories closely. He’ll help us understand how this fringe thinking tumbled into mainstream attention. The interview with Will Sommer starts at 17:54.

Don’t Close My Tabs:

New York Times: Phone Calls From New York City Jails Will Soon Be Free

New York Times: Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change

If Then plugs:

You can get updates about what’s coming up next by following us on Twitter @ifthenpod. You can follow Will @WillOremus and April @Aprilaser. If you have a question or comment, you can email us at ifthen@slate.com. If Then is presented by Slateand Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Flying Cars Are Only A Few Years Away Aug 01, 2018

Show notes

On this week’s If Then, Will Oremus and April Glaser talk talk about a new study that suggests the internet might not have played the crucial role in Trump’s election victory that we tend to assume. And then: flying cars! And self-driving cars. The hosts are joined by Justin Erlich, the new VP of policy at Voyage, an self-driving vehicle company in Silicon Valley. Before that, he was head of policy for autonomous vehicles and urban aviation at Uber. The hosts discuss when these “cars” will hit the skies, what this means for investment in public transit, and how we’ll know they’ll be safe.

If Then plugs:

Listen to If Then via Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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