Stay ConnectedEvery Friday, Slate’s popular daily news podcast What Next brings you TBD, a clear-eyed look into the future. From fake news to fake meat, algorithms to augmented reality, Lizzie O’Leary is your guide to the tech industry and the world it’s creating for us to live in.
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The federal Lifeline program was intended to bridge the gap between Americans who could comfortably pay for phone and internet service, and those who couldn’t. But in the midst of the pandemic, Lifeline is falling woefully short.
How did a program meant to help connect low-income Americans with phone and internet service ended up making them second-class digital citizens at the worst possible moment?
Guest:
Tony Romm, senior tech policy reporter at the Washington Post, author of
“How the Federal Lifeline Program Failed Amid the Coronavirus Pandemic”
Host
Lizzie O’Leary
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Over the last year, the Australian government has been waging a quiet war against Facebook and Google. Through a new law, it plans to force the big tech companies to pay news outlets in exchange for linking to their sites.
Will this new law have the intended effect? Or will it set a dangerous precedent that cedes even more power over to the tech giants?
Guest:
JR Hennessy, editor at Business Insider Australia
Host
Lizzie O’Leary
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Over the last week, millions of Texans have been forced to live without power or heat. At least 16 have died since Monday. In a state that’s no stranger to extreme weather and high power demand, how did it all go so wrong?
Guest:
Josh Rhodes, research associate at the Webber Energy Group at the University of Texas at Austin
Host
Lizzie O’Leary
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For most of the last year, Clubhouse—the audio-only social media app—has been dominated by conversations about business, branding, and Elon Musk. But as users picked up the app around the globe, something extraordinary happened.
Censors in mainland China overlooked it. And for two weeks in February, it hosted a series of unusual, unfiltered conversations. Han Chinese, Hong Kongers, Taiwanese, and Uighurs all flooded to the app to speak freely about authoritarianism, democracy, and propaganda.
Here’s what happened when the censors looked the other way.
Guest:
Melissa Chan, journalist with the Global Reporting Centre
Host
Lizzie O’Leary
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Last week, in response to protests by farmers outside New Delhi, India, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi restricted access to the mobile web in areas where the protests were unfolding. The move is the latest in the Indian government’s long history of throttling internet access and censoring speech online.
Why is the Modi government increasingly shutting down the internet and stifling digital dissent? And what does the party’s history of internet shutdowns tell us about India’s future?
Guest:
Pranav Dixit, correspondent for Buzzfeed News
Host
Lizzie O’Leary
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The story of how GameStop went from the verge of a bankruptcy to a $15 billion market value isn’t an easy one to wrap your head around. But it helps to go back to the beginning; almost three years ago, in a subreddit called r/wallstreetbets.
Guests:
Brandon Kochkodin, reporter at Bloomberg
Host
Lizzie O’Leary
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Most people thought developing the vaccine in record time would be the hard part. That, or shipping millions of doses at subzero temperatures to every corner of the country. But nobody--or, almost nobody--guessed that the biggest barrier between U.S. citizens and vaccination would be … online scheduling.
What went wrong with the vaccine websites? And what will it take to get them right?
Guests:
Raphael Lee, director of USDR’s Health Program
Hana Schank, director of Strategy for Public Interest Technology at New America
Host
Lizzie O’Leary
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After Facebook and Twitter banned thousands of accounts in the wake of the Capitol riots, fringe groups are flocking to platforms like Signal and Telegram. With the inauguration just days away, and government officials warning of violence, QAnon believers and Stop the Steal protesters are now communicating in encrypted spaces. What, if anything, is being planned?
Guest:
Will Sommer, politics reporter at the Daily Beast
Host
Lizzie O’Leary
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This week, in the wake of violent protests at the Capitol, the social media platforms took unprecedented steps to rein in the president. Facebook banned his account at least through Inauguration Day. Twitter removed tweets and locked his account for 12 hours. Will these measures really make a difference? And how is it that two CEOs came to have so much power over the president’s reach?
Guest:
Danielle Citron, professor at UVA Law School and vice president of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative
Host
Lizzie O’Leary
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Recently, one of the world’s leading AI ethics researchers, Timnit Gebru, left Google. Google says she resigned. Timnit says she was fired. In the days since, Timnit’s departure has turned into a public relations crisis for the search giant, prompting its CEO to issue a public apology.
What happened behind the scenes at Google that led to Timnit’s dismissal?
Guest: Timnit Gebru, AI ethics researcher, and the co-founder of Black in AI.
Host
Lizzie O’Leary
Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribed through Slate.com, check out our FAQ at slate.com/podcastfaqs for easy instructions. Members subscribed via Apple Podcasts get automatic access—no setup required.
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