[00:00.180 --> 00:14.420]  And the previous program was... Economic Update with Richard Wolfe, heard usually right after the WBAI Evening News, on Wednesdays at 6.30 p.m.
[00:14.700 --> 00:16.200]  It's now 7 p.m.
[00:16.440 --> 00:19.100]  Stay tuned for Off the Hook, coming up.
[01:10.570 --> 01:11.350]  Hello.
[01:12.310 --> 01:19.570]  You are listening to Radio Station WBAI New York 99.5 FM.
[01:20.110 --> 01:22.990]  The time is just about 7 p.m.
[01:23.730 --> 01:25.890]  Time, once again, for Off the Hook.
[02:25.650 --> 02:28.510]  A very, very good evening to you.
[02:29.250 --> 02:33.890]  The program is, off the hook here on WBAI, Rob T.
[02:34.190 --> 02:35.070]  Firefly with you.
[02:35.550 --> 02:38.950]  And I am joined here in the studio by Gila.
[02:39.170 --> 02:39.430]  Hello.
[02:40.190 --> 02:43.910]  And over in Skypeland, we have Alex.
[02:44.690 --> 02:45.470]  Good evening.
[02:45.970 --> 02:48.150]  And we should have Emmanuel and Kyle.
[02:48.450 --> 02:49.130]  Are you guys with us?
[02:51.030 --> 02:52.110]  I think so.
[02:52.310 --> 02:52.950]  Kyle, are you here?
[02:53.210 --> 02:53.930]  I might be.
[02:54.170 --> 02:54.950]  I'm thinking about it.
[02:55.030 --> 02:55.410]  Am I there?
[02:56.090 --> 02:57.370]  You certainly sound there.
[02:58.350 --> 02:59.430]  We're in Skypeland.
[02:59.750 --> 03:01.350]  We've never been to Skypeland before.
[03:01.490 --> 03:02.650]  It's scary.
[03:02.970 --> 03:03.530]  We fit.
[03:04.030 --> 03:04.770]  I fit.
[03:04.910 --> 03:07.990]  I mean, I didn't think I could fit all the way into Skypeland, but I'm here.
[03:08.170 --> 03:09.570]  I don't completely fit here.
[03:09.750 --> 03:10.750]  It's really roomy.
[03:10.910 --> 03:12.170]  You've got to pull that other leg in.
[03:12.310 --> 03:13.310]  I can't do that.
[03:13.450 --> 03:13.870]  That's the problem.
[03:15.270 --> 03:15.750]  Yeah.
[03:15.990 --> 03:18.710]  So, this week, we're doing things a little bit differently.
[03:19.490 --> 03:20.710]  Rob is running the show.
[03:20.970 --> 03:22.550]  Rob and Gila are running the show.
[03:22.790 --> 03:24.430]  And Kyle and I are...
[03:25.470 --> 03:33.910]  We're traveling throughout the country, what we are doing, to sort of see what the country is like in the midst of the COVID crisis.
[03:35.690 --> 03:38.970]  And we're going to report back in future weeks as to what we find.
[03:39.270 --> 03:46.410]  And because we don't have the makeshift studio at our disposal, we can't do overtime for now.
[03:46.450 --> 03:50.130]  And we're going to try and figure out ways to do overtime in weeks ahead.
[03:50.130 --> 03:51.770]  So, tonight is just the one hour.
[03:52.250 --> 03:54.230]  And I'll turn it over to you guys.
[03:54.730 --> 04:02.750]  I know it's been a crazy week, a disastrous week for a lot of Internet companies.
[04:02.950 --> 04:04.250]  Which one do you want to tackle first?
[04:04.510 --> 04:04.870]  Yeah.
[04:04.970 --> 04:07.430]  There seems to be some stuff going around.
[04:07.930 --> 04:11.850]  I mean, one that had a couple of whammies against it was Facebook.
[04:12.190 --> 04:13.910]  A bunch of stuff has been happening over there.
[04:14.850 --> 04:15.290]  Facebook.
[04:15.550 --> 04:16.130]  You know it.
[04:16.170 --> 04:16.670]  I know it.
[04:17.550 --> 04:18.550]  You might love it.
[04:18.670 --> 04:20.170]  I don't think much of it.
[04:20.330 --> 04:24.690]  But they recently had a whistleblower who dropped a ton of documents.
[04:24.830 --> 04:31.550]  The Wall Street Journal had a series of stories about the sordid goings-on behind the scenes at Facebook.
[04:31.690 --> 04:32.810]  They called it the Facebook Files.
[04:33.090 --> 04:36.550]  And the whistleblower has been unmasked.
[04:36.550 --> 04:42.690]  She went on 60 Minutes and talked a bit about why she did what she did.
[04:43.910 --> 04:46.190]  She is Frances Haugen.
[04:48.070 --> 04:53.330]  And, yeah, she seems to really believe that she's doing the right thing.
[04:53.430 --> 04:54.750]  I think Facebook might feel differently.
[04:54.930 --> 04:56.890]  But that all happened.
[04:58.690 --> 05:04.650]  And very shortly after that happened, Facebook went away for, I think, an entire day?
[05:04.930 --> 05:05.530]  Or most of a day?
[05:05.650 --> 05:06.290]  Most of a day.
[05:06.550 --> 05:10.030]  It, I think, ultimately was probably about six to seven hours of downtime.
[05:10.490 --> 05:13.090]  Ultimately, I don't know the actual number.
[05:13.310 --> 05:34.850]  But part of the thing is that because of the, shall we say, internet infrastructure that has been built on Facebook's back, Facebook was down, which meant that Instagram was down, which meant that WhatsApp was down, which meant that various apps and websites that you use Facebook functionality to sign into,
[05:35.330 --> 05:36.790]  that was gone, too.
[05:36.790 --> 05:51.170]  There were businesses that rely on Facebook, that were kind of out of luck all day, and people were, you know, making jokes about going back to MySpace on Monday.
[05:52.270 --> 06:05.790]  Anyway, I will admit, and I know this might cost me a bit of street cred here, but every time I open my phone, I just, like, instinctively click on the Facebook icon.
[06:06.390 --> 06:07.210]  Oh, no.
[06:07.570 --> 06:08.710]  I, wait, it gets worse.
[06:08.950 --> 06:13.270]  I did that instinctively so many times on Monday and just looked at the blank screen.
[06:14.050 --> 06:15.050]  It was...
[06:15.050 --> 06:16.030]  I did that, too.
[06:16.130 --> 06:17.490]  I did that, too, but I did it for fun.
[06:21.040 --> 06:29.830]  I am, despite the amount I have learned, and despite knowing better, I'm still a pretty inveterate Facebook user.
[06:29.830 --> 06:34.000]  I'm not proud of that fact, but that is just a fact of my life, and...
[06:34.000 --> 06:35.040]  You're not alone, though, Gila.
[06:35.270 --> 06:49.060]  It's this thing that it's a point that if you do not participate, you are, in fact, going to be missing out, and that everything that goes on that's valid and something that people should really care about is on these platforms.
[06:49.060 --> 06:56.650]  So if you somehow don't check up on it, you'll miss entire aspects of people's lives that they aren't communicating in other ways.
[06:56.650 --> 06:57.000]  Exactly.
[06:57.180 --> 06:58.840]  Like, I just want to see pictures of my friends' kids.
[06:59.710 --> 07:00.520]  Ultimately, that's it.
[07:00.600 --> 07:05.340]  I want to see pictures of my friends' kids, and Facebook is the easiest way to do that.
[07:06.080 --> 07:17.840]  But it just... there was just this hole in the ecosystem on Monday, and, you know, it kind of felt like a Wile E.
[07:17.840 --> 07:22.080]  Coyote running into the picture of the road on the wall.
[07:22.980 --> 07:27.040]  You know, like, it looked like it should have been there, and it wasn't.
[07:28.480 --> 07:29.400]  It was interesting.
[07:29.540 --> 07:33.650]  I was watching this from the perspective of someone who does not use any Facebook products.
[07:33.650 --> 07:36.080]  I don't have an account on them or anything.
[07:36.760 --> 07:45.280]  Just watching the social media avenues that I do partake in, all blowing up about Facebook, and, you know, Mastodon had a good day.
[07:46.680 --> 07:48.420]  I think Twitter had an even better one.
[07:48.560 --> 07:59.800]  But, yeah, it's amazing how much... how big a role these things have basically, by design, forced themselves to take in the average life, even of people who don't even use their service.
[07:59.900 --> 08:00.150]  Alex?
[08:00.820 --> 08:05.660]  Yeah, but, Rob, there's one important thing to consider here.
[08:06.340 --> 08:17.500]  Yeah, we use it for social interactions and things like that, but there are places in the world where WhatsApp is the primary means of communication, which is a situation that never should have happened in the first place.
[08:17.500 --> 08:23.220]  But when Facebook goes down, they lose their ability to communicate in any way.
[08:25.380 --> 08:26.080]  Go ahead, Alex.
[08:26.080 --> 08:33.710]  Yeah, and I think two points to that, you know, responding directly to Emmanuel here, I think that's exactly right.
[08:33.840 --> 08:37.980]  And a really good example of that was in Turkey a couple of years ago.
[08:38.120 --> 08:48.040]  I think it was in 2017 when there was the failed coup, which was organized almost primarily through WhatsApp, is what was revealed in the aftermath of that.
[08:48.040 --> 09:08.740]  And then, coincidentally, responsibility for that failed Turkish coup was then pinned on somebody by the name of Gulen, who was a Muslim cleric Gulen, who was an expat who lives about 15 minutes away from where I am in the Poconos in Pennsylvania, by the way.
[09:08.740 --> 09:20.710]  So, the claim was that, you know, through WhatsApp, this whole failed coup was organized from and around through this Muslim cleric with the last name of Gulen.
[09:21.690 --> 09:35.500]  But, in any event, to go back to the Facebook issue and the technical snafus here, the other thing, I think, to note is that everybody automatically, in a knee-jerk fashion, presumed that this was some kind of information security problem.
[09:35.580 --> 09:39.120]  It was some kind of hack that somebody had deliberately taken down Facebook.
[09:39.120 --> 09:51.600]  And, in reality, it was some kind of border gateway protocol configuration error, basically, you know, something that was also a DNS problem, a domain name system problem.
[09:52.040 --> 10:05.830]  And, I think, because of this BGP, or the border gateway protocol error, there were certain domain name registrars that believed that facebook.com was unregistered and available for registration.
[10:05.830 --> 10:14.400]  So, some of those were actually offering, as I understand it, the ability to register facebook.com as a domain, which is kind of bizarre.
[10:17.020 --> 10:22.450]  It really, it really, it boggles the mind exactly how much of the Internet goes through this.
[10:22.740 --> 10:31.980]  I know, because I've also, as an experiment, I ended up blocking a bunch of Facebook's owned servers from my own browser.
[10:32.500 --> 10:40.070]  And, it's amazing how many big chunks of the Internet that should buy rights have nothing to do with Facebook run through it at some point.
[10:40.430 --> 10:56.140]  And, it's, yeah, I mean, the morality of how the company runs itself aside, the fact that, you know, one big company that people ostensibly have the option whether or not to deal with actually owns so much of it, it's worrying.
[10:56.140 --> 11:02.720]  And, the Internet's set up to rout around damage at the best of times, but it does not appear that we are living in the best of times.
[11:05.460 --> 11:06.400]  No, emphatically not.
[11:06.580 --> 11:14.040]  But, all of a sudden, everyone, everyone knows about security, about how a hack like this would happen.
[11:14.740 --> 11:28.740]  Everybody had an opinion, and I think someone tried to explain to the head of security at the EFF that there was something that happened, and she said, you know, the Internet is held together by bubblegum and paperclips.
[11:29.290 --> 11:36.960]  And, someone took her to task for that and said, I'm paraphrasing, that you'd have to be really dumb and not know anything about technology to say that.
[11:37.300 --> 11:39.640]  And, no, uh-uh, don't step to the EFF like that.
[11:39.840 --> 11:41.160]  Don't step to the EFF like that.
[11:42.290 --> 11:44.040]  No, because that's pretty accurate.
[11:44.040 --> 11:47.240]  Well, that was, that was, that was Eva, right?
[11:47.520 --> 11:47.660]  Yeah, yeah.
[11:47.660 --> 11:48.880]  You don't step to EFF like that.
[11:49.520 --> 11:50.460]  No, anyway.
[11:51.440 --> 11:56.460]  She spoke at Hope, and a memorable talk, I think it was Hope in her mind.
[11:57.280 --> 11:57.760]  Yeah, yeah.
[11:58.880 --> 12:00.600]  I would stand by that, sir.
[12:00.860 --> 12:01.060]  Sure.
[12:01.260 --> 12:03.960]  But, we've talked about the, how Facebook went down.
[12:04.440 --> 12:09.080]  How about what happened in Congress with the testimony?
[12:09.900 --> 12:13.180]  Did anybody here watch Francis Huggins' testimony?
[12:15.880 --> 12:20.840]  Yeah, I've seen, you know, bits and pieces of it in real time, and then, you know, various recaps.
[12:21.060 --> 12:23.800]  Yeah, it was, it was really, really interesting.
[12:25.440 --> 12:29.100]  Yeah, well, what sort of things came up in it, for those of us who missed it?
[12:32.410 --> 12:34.510]  Do you want to go, Emmanuel, or shall I?
[12:34.770 --> 12:36.830]  I think you're the one that saw it, so go ahead.
[12:37.190 --> 12:38.350]  Oh, okay, sure.
[12:38.350 --> 12:59.150]  Well, I think, to hit the highlights here, what came out were the fact that, or rather, was the fact that Facebook had done a great deal of internal research about the potentially harmful effects of social media on the younger generation, on kids, essentially,
[12:59.230 --> 12:59.850]  and teenagers.
[12:59.850 --> 13:03.990]  And with, with specific reference, I think, to Instagram.
[13:04.490 --> 13:25.190]  And they had known that it was going to be potentially harmful to children to continue to expose them to certain types of images and materials that could exacerbate certain problems that they would have with, let's say, body images, self-esteem, suicidal ideation.
[13:25.190 --> 13:33.130]  All these types of things that were foreseeable consequences of continuing down the pathway that they have continued down.
[13:33.840 --> 13:38.210]  And that Facebook was really quite interested in this untapped resource of children.
[13:39.560 --> 13:46.130]  And so that was pretty bombastic testimony, as I understood it.
[13:46.130 --> 14:08.430]  And I think it, really, if people are readers of 2600, too, I feel like the testimony, in a sense, really dovetails with the last article that I wrote in the last issue that came out, the summer issue, which was about the responsibility for the consequences of one's actions.
[14:08.430 --> 14:18.970]  And here you have a situation where there's testimony that, and here it's going to sound like I'm potentially, you know, defending Facebook, in a sense.
[14:18.970 --> 14:32.570]  But what I argued in the article was this, that there's a big difference between something that's a foreseeable and intentional consequence and a foreseeable but unintentional consequence.
[14:32.750 --> 14:45.190]  This is something that's known in philosophy as the doctrine of double effect, and the Catholic Church has used this doctrine, actually, to justify all kinds of wars and aggression and things like that that wouldn't necessarily comport with Christianity.
[14:45.190 --> 14:55.550]  So, if something is foreseeable and intentional, then the moral culpability of the actor is greater than something that's foreseeable but unintentional.
[14:56.110 --> 15:14.010]  And I believe that the testimony of this whistleblower established that it was foreseeable but unintentional, that Facebook would have this, that continuing down the path that Facebook was going down, there would be this negative effect on children with respect to body image.
[15:14.010 --> 15:16.890]  And in particular, Instagram, as well.
[15:17.030 --> 15:23.510]  And I think the, you know, it was, I think it was pretty clear to me, as well, that this wasn't something that Facebook intended.
[15:23.930 --> 15:25.790]  They didn't intend to harm children.
[15:25.970 --> 15:29.630]  And I don't think that we should conflate the testimony with something like that.
[15:29.770 --> 15:31.490]  But, oh, go ahead, Emmanuel.
[15:32.170 --> 15:40.490]  Well, that's just, that is such a low bar that we're saying that Facebook didn't say, hey, you know what, we want to hurt children.
[15:41.050 --> 15:43.310]  No, I don't think that's what they're being accused of.
[15:43.430 --> 15:47.270]  I don't think anyone in their right mind would say, yeah, let's go out and hurt children.
[15:48.170 --> 15:58.610]  But what they did do, I think, was not care, not care enough to fix what was obviously a crisis situation that they were responsible for.
[15:58.730 --> 16:00.070]  I think that is what this is about.
[16:01.950 --> 16:02.350]  Possibly.
[16:02.450 --> 16:04.810]  Look, I'm not saying that they're not responsible.
[16:05.010 --> 16:06.130]  I'm saying that they are responsible.
[16:06.130 --> 16:08.810]  But it's a different type of responsibility here.
[16:09.090 --> 16:11.110]  And that, you know, they do owe some...
[16:11.110 --> 16:12.950]  Look, they certainly have great power.
[16:12.970 --> 16:16.170]  And I think that they should exercise that power responsibly.
[16:16.170 --> 16:21.070]  And there were indications that going down this path would have a horrible effect on children.
[16:21.070 --> 16:22.930]  And yet they continue to persist down this path.
[16:23.070 --> 16:28.010]  So, sure, they should be, I think, held responsible in some way here.
[16:28.010 --> 16:44.570]  The other component of the testimony was also that the algorithms, the content-feeding algorithms, Facebook knew that they were designed to maximize these meaningful social interactions, is what they called them, or these MSIs.
[16:44.570 --> 16:50.710]  And these meaningful social interactions tended to be with your closest friends and family.
[16:50.710 --> 17:10.390]  But as we all know, discussions with your closest friends and family about things like vaccines or the coronavirus or politics don't necessarily reflect the most accurate and, I think, well-researched, is probably one way to put it, version of the facts or reality.
[17:10.390 --> 17:22.550]  So, the content-feeding algorithms were creating these arguments or creating divisiveness between these communities and because that's what would maximize engagement.
[17:22.770 --> 17:40.890]  And I feel like, to that point, this is something that the hacker community, the security community, and I think the general Internet governance and policy community, especially academia and people like Siva Vadianathan from the University of Pennsylvania,
[17:41.070 --> 17:47.770]  who was also a Hope keynote speaker, I think, my God, 21 or 22 years ago, something like that at this point.
[17:48.150 --> 18:05.610]  But this is something that everybody has been saying for a long time, that, you know, in terms of, or rather, with the goal of maximizing engagement from users, Facebook is potentially artificially creating contentious issues and divisions among people when the goal and the mission statement of the company is to build community.
[18:06.670 --> 18:16.730]  Because it's all about keeping people on the platform, keeping eyeballs on the app, gathering that data, bundling it up, packaging with other data, perhaps, and selling it to advertisers.
[18:17.190 --> 18:21.610]  And then there's the idea that they want kids on the platform younger and younger.
[18:21.850 --> 18:38.430]  They were, until very recently, developing an Instagram just for kids, which seemed like a good idea, I'm sure, to the people who like money, but to people who considered, I think, the implications of a social network online in which everyone was kids.
[18:39.670 --> 18:45.990]  Maybe thought that's not such a great way to go, you know, get all the vulnerable in one place.
[18:46.110 --> 18:48.870]  But that's the way things go.
[18:48.970 --> 18:49.350]  Yeah, Alex?
[18:49.350 --> 18:57.350]  You know, I want to try to be balanced and fair here, to a certain degree, as well.
[18:57.490 --> 19:16.010]  Because what we are expecting a private company to do, a private company that has public shareholders to do here, is to have such a great sense of responsibility to the world and to their user base, right?
[19:16.010 --> 19:21.590]  That they should forsake profits in the name of protecting the public, right?
[19:21.730 --> 19:29.610]  So we're asking them to do something, or rather expecting Facebook to do something, that is completely opposite of what their shareholders would expect.
[19:29.910 --> 19:38.870]  And we're expecting this, I think, without any form of governmental direction or legislation or regulation.
[19:38.870 --> 19:43.090]  And so hopefully what will come out of this is some form of regulation.
[19:43.090 --> 19:58.550]  Because as I understand it, internally, this is something that Facebook has really wanted now for a while, which is some actual guidance and some regulation here, so that they can comport with what the government would consider to be some reasonable practices when it comes to,
[19:58.690 --> 20:10.610]  let's say, children, or it comes to content-feeding algorithms, algorithms, algorithmic transparency, and all those types of issues, I think, right now, are really quite ripe for some legislative guidance.
[20:10.890 --> 20:11.690]  Well, because...
[20:11.690 --> 20:17.690]  I think the leadership from Facebook's lobbyists would be the place to start for that.
[20:17.950 --> 20:26.930]  They should be spending a lot of money where the mouth is on that, instead of fighting government oversight and regulation.
[20:27.390 --> 20:32.090]  And the real scandal of this data, internally, is that they were suppressing it for their own benefit.
[20:32.090 --> 20:42.270]  The thing that I was thinking, Alex, especially as you were talking about the testimony and stuff, was, functionally, is there a difference between Facebook and, let's say, Philip Morris?
[20:42.530 --> 20:58.970]  You know, talking about oversight, talking about putting out what is a product that, you know, people enjoy, but can be fundamentally harmful in a lot of ways, and what the responsibilities are, and in terms of oversight and what those things are.
[20:58.970 --> 21:10.710]  And, you know, people like cigarettes, people enjoy cigarettes, people like smoking, but have we figured out that there are dangers to it, and there's regulation that has come up because of...
[21:10.710 --> 21:13.430]  Like, that was the thing that I was thinking about, was...
[21:13.970 --> 21:14.410]  Yeah.
[21:15.210 --> 21:15.710]  Philip Morris.
[21:15.710 --> 21:18.870]  They should stick a warning label on Facebook.
[21:20.990 --> 21:36.590]  Well, look, you could, and there could be something like that, but I think, to Gila's point here, with respect to Philip Morris, I think that that, the issue with cigarettes, as opposed to Facebook, is, even though there are some detractors, of course,
[21:36.730 --> 21:43.250]  some lunatics on that side, but cigarettes are obviously bad for you, right?
[21:43.310 --> 21:49.750]  It's not really a nuanced subject, that inhaling smoke with, you know, 1,500 other chemicals mixed into it...
[21:49.750 --> 21:54.510]  Alex, you say, obviously, but that was not what people were saying when this was a debate.
[21:55.550 --> 22:09.950]  That's why I said I think there's still some detractors and some lunatics on that side, but I think it's very clear to the majority that it's an unsafe thing, and it's a physical, tangible thing that you can hold in your hand and light up and inhale into your lungs.
[22:10.630 --> 22:15.170]  Facebook is a completely different animal because it's digital, right?
[22:15.170 --> 22:17.970]  It exists in this ether, right?
[22:17.970 --> 22:32.090]  We don't have it in our hands, but then also I think there's a big difference in that with respect to cigarettes, we have federal agencies that are dedicated to regulating the health and safety of certain products that are put out into commerce, namely the Food and Drug Administration,
[22:32.270 --> 22:47.570]  the FDA, whereas for something like Facebook, we don't have any federal agency that regulates how algorithms work or reviews algorithms in any form for bias or partiality or...
[22:47.570 --> 22:57.110]  But Alex, I'm all in favor of looking over algorithms, but at what stage does this step over into regulating speech?
[22:59.490 --> 23:01.230]  Well, that's a good question.
[23:02.090 --> 23:05.450]  It depends on, I think, the extent of the regulation.
[23:06.150 --> 23:28.890]  But also here, and the more this is going to be regulated, the more we're, again, venturing into this area where we perhaps will see these companies more akin to telephone companies, where it's a public-private partnership, where we have to acknowledge that the public needs to be protected in this type of sphere because it is a public square type of space.
[23:29.430 --> 23:34.330]  And not only do people need to be protected, but their speech rights need to be protected as well.
[23:34.330 --> 23:51.830]  And that's what we saw with Justice Thomas recently in that famous dissent from the Knight First Amendment Center, the case that dealt with Trump and his ban of certain people from the Twitter feed that the Supreme Court kicked out as moot, and Justice Thomas had then gone on this wild ride.
[23:51.970 --> 23:55.050]  And his, actually, I think it was a concurring opinion, not a dissent.
[23:55.150 --> 24:05.870]  It was a concurring opinion throwing the case out, suggesting that Twitter and other social media companies could be regulated as akin to telecommunications companies.
[24:06.950 --> 24:14.270]  I don't want to spend the whole show on Facebook, but Mark Zuckerberg did release kind of a response to the testimony.
[24:14.270 --> 24:15.830]  I just want to read a little bit of it.
[24:16.350 --> 24:27.050]  The research actually demonstrated that many teens we heard from feel that using Instagram helps them when they are struggling with the kinds of hard moments and issues teenagers have always faced.
[24:27.210 --> 24:45.330]  In fact, in 11 of 12 areas referenced by the Wall Street Journal, including serious areas like loneliness, anxiety, sadness, and eating issues, more teenage girls who said they struggled with that issue also said Instagram made those difficult times better rather than worse.
[24:45.470 --> 24:59.230]  Now, in the CNN fact check, they say, while it's true that many teens surveyed may have reported having a positive experience with Instagram, that should not invalidate or outweigh the fact that it does have a negative impact on a sizable portion of its users.
[24:59.550 --> 25:12.870]  Both documents released by Haugen and other studies indicate that Instagram in particular can be harmful to teens, young girls especially, and in some cases exacerbate the very issues that Zuckerberg says it helps make better.
[25:12.990 --> 25:13.930]  Any thoughts on that?
[25:13.930 --> 25:15.310]  Oh, my God, yes.
[25:16.730 --> 25:27.990]  You know, making it a better situation doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, they felt better because something was being disproven.
[25:28.150 --> 25:29.810]  I'm sorry, I'm going to go deep here for a second.
[25:31.430 --> 25:40.810]  There was a series of HBO, basically after-school specials, Life Stories, Families in Crisis, and one was about a girl with bulimia, and she thought she was all alone in this.
[25:40.870 --> 25:48.390]  She thought it was her secret, and then she got off to college, and her roommate had bulimia too, so they just fed off each other and worsened their diseases.
[25:48.690 --> 25:49.070]  Excuse me.
[25:50.450 --> 25:58.810]  And I think that is a lot of what can happen because the Instagram algorithm keeps showing you stuff similar to what you've seen.
[25:59.750 --> 26:09.850]  And if it sends you into a pro-ana spiral, if you will, and for those of you who don't know what that means, pro-ana is pro-anorexic.
[26:10.130 --> 26:13.170]  It's like a whole eating disorders are great community.
[26:14.490 --> 26:24.410]  And if it reinforces what you're thinking, it can make it better because you think you're not alone in these terrible thoughts for a moment, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's giving you a better, body image, for example.
[26:24.670 --> 26:27.070]  Sorry, thinking about preteen and teenage girls.
[26:29.010 --> 26:32.950]  You can look at the data however you want to look at it.
[26:33.070 --> 26:35.910]  I think it doesn't necessarily mean that this is a positive thing.
[26:35.970 --> 26:39.490]  And he also made a statement saying, this is not the company we know.
[26:39.650 --> 26:41.010]  This is not the company I know.
[26:41.110 --> 26:41.990]  No, it is.
[26:42.350 --> 26:43.030]  It is.
[26:43.350 --> 26:53.710]  And I also think, ultimately going back to regulation for a moment, to say that, you know, I guess part of the difference is cigarettes are a product that you can touch and you can feel.
[26:54.050 --> 26:57.550]  And if, ultimately, what is the product of Facebook?
[26:57.690 --> 26:58.330]  Are we the product?
[26:58.450 --> 26:59.730]  How does that product get regulated?
[26:59.930 --> 27:08.370]  And I think that is part of what we need to discuss in terms of the difference between the product and regulating speech, as you said, Emmanuel, where the questions come in.
[27:08.530 --> 27:14.270]  But I think Mark Zuckerberg is not necessarily going to look at the data in the same way that you or I would.
[27:15.530 --> 27:18.850]  You know, ultimately, I think the data he cares about are more eyeballs.
[27:20.310 --> 27:31.770]  With respect to tangibility, Gila, I would just add that it's the nature of the things like bullying or body image issues that they may reside digitally.
[27:31.770 --> 27:36.050]  And we feel that's, you know, complicated or hard or something.
[27:36.050 --> 28:10.630]  But when then those digital realms manifest in physical reality, say it's some kind of, God forbid, some kind of shooting where it originated online or was broadcast online or someone was radicalized from other affinity groups on such a platform, that it is very much more like that cigarette after it migrates from its nascence in the digital realm.
[28:10.790 --> 28:23.090]  And I think that we shouldn't treat it too differently than something that is quite physical because many of the ill effects are becoming physical, you know?
[28:23.470 --> 28:39.490]  Yeah, and especially now when our understanding of mental health is continuing to evolve, and the, you know, the effects on one's mental health of something may not be tangible things, like you can scan lungs and say that person shouldn't have smoked,
[28:39.650 --> 28:56.150]  but there are still so many mysteries in the human brain and finding out how social media is programming the people using it, that continues to be investigated and the effects are real things, especially when people are younger and more vulnerable.
[28:58.050 --> 29:06.810]  If Facebook wanted to hide their results, why would they have established an industry-leading standard for transparency on reporting what they're doing?
[29:07.070 --> 29:09.390]  That's the question that Mark Zuckerberg asked.
[29:09.730 --> 29:24.150]  And CNN fact-checker says it's misleading at best because there's lots of evidence beyond a conference testimony that Facebook has hidden reports or results that don't say what they want them to say.
[29:24.310 --> 29:29.850]  Yeah, they're so transparent that a whistleblower had to release all their dark secrets without their approval.
[29:30.110 --> 29:30.450]  Alex?
[29:30.990 --> 29:52.050]  I find there's a loop or something in this, a pattern in this cycle of PR massaging they're doing because they very much work on that sort of pattern and these feedback loops and so on, perpetuating more engagement and meaningful interactions and so forth.
[29:52.170 --> 30:12.570]  And I find the comments by Mark Zuckerberg to be quite a lot in that spirit, just in this like, well, this isn't something I recognize, or saying something like, we have this incredible transparency thing we made, but you only made that because you were not doing enough before.
[30:12.850 --> 30:14.130]  And then it just comes back around.
[30:14.270 --> 30:24.350]  So anytime he has to get in front of the limelight, it's always the good stuff, it's always the fixing stuff, it's always the we're getting better stuff, and then they don't do anything because it does not profit them.
[30:24.610 --> 30:32.410]  Then something more happens, people find out more of the truth, and it's causing them, I think, to maybe suppress more.
[30:32.410 --> 30:44.170]  And that's why this whistleblower was compelled because without her, what would there be but this loop of PR, making nice, we're going to fix it, and then not doing a dang thing about it.
[30:44.650 --> 30:44.910]  Yeah.
[30:45.170 --> 30:49.190]  Alex, and then I think we can move on to some more stuff because there was a whole lot going on this week.
[30:49.670 --> 30:50.970]  Yeah, there certainly was.
[30:50.970 --> 30:59.630]  And in the spirit of fostering some healthy disagreement here, only because I think it's boring when we all agree too much on certain topics.
[31:00.070 --> 31:00.430]  I agree.
[31:00.810 --> 31:01.990]  I will say this.
[31:02.630 --> 31:03.190]  Yeah.
[31:03.950 --> 31:04.810]  That's funny.
[31:05.050 --> 31:06.350]  I see what you did there, Emmanuel.
[31:08.750 --> 31:10.510]  I will say this, though.
[31:10.870 --> 31:22.270]  In response to Kyle, I think Facebook should be given some credit, I think, for at least having these studies and having really competent people put together these studies.
[31:22.550 --> 31:37.230]  I think they have a world-class band of researchers internally that have actually taken a look at these very difficult issues and made findings internally that were inconsistent with the company's trajectory.
[31:37.610 --> 31:43.530]  And to be able to do that in a company, I think, you know, actually does speak a lot about the company.
[31:43.770 --> 31:44.590]  But they kept them secret.
[31:45.050 --> 31:47.210]  Well, I'm getting to that.
[31:47.630 --> 31:48.350]  Yeah, Alex, come on.
[31:48.470 --> 31:51.610]  Only the finest naval gazers were hired for this.
[31:51.710 --> 31:56.330]  So they could just sit there and look at their own stuff over and over again and not do anything.
[31:56.510 --> 31:56.770]  Please.
[31:57.070 --> 31:58.110]  No, I don't think so.
[31:58.170 --> 31:58.650]  I don't think so.
[31:58.650 --> 32:01.930]  Because, you know, our whistleblower, Frances Hagen was a...
[32:01.930 --> 32:04.230]  She herself, I think, was part of this team.
[32:04.250 --> 32:06.350]  And she has, you know, really incredible credentials.
[32:06.350 --> 32:08.070]  She'd worked at so many other tech companies.
[32:08.330 --> 32:09.330]  She knew what was going on.
[32:09.410 --> 32:16.510]  And I think she even mentioned the highly respected cadre of people within Facebook that put together this research.
[32:16.870 --> 32:20.870]  But what we're getting right now is necessarily...
[32:20.870 --> 32:27.190]  It's almost like an ex parte or one-sided view of what was happening inside Facebook, right?
[32:27.190 --> 32:34.790]  You know, you have PR statements from Facebook on one side, but then you have testimony, congressional testimony from the whistleblower on the other side.
[32:35.030 --> 32:42.130]  And so I think it's very hard to determine what, if anything, Facebook was going to do with this research.
[32:42.350 --> 32:43.370]  They commissioned the research.
[32:43.510 --> 32:44.470]  They paid for the research.
[32:44.670 --> 32:46.350]  They had it well documented.
[32:46.990 --> 32:49.890]  But perhaps they weren't moving fast enough for the whistleblower.
[32:50.090 --> 33:10.570]  I would like to see more of what the actual thought processes were in response to this in the immediate aftermath of these reports and figure out, you know, what, if anything, Facebook was going to do to change their path or change their course or try to address these particular issues.
[33:10.610 --> 33:15.270]  If they were just going to sweep everything completely under the rug, then sure, they're culpable.
[33:15.270 --> 33:36.530]  But I find it would be very hard to believe that a company would commission such incredibly well-documented and researched reports about very difficult issues when it comes to teens and children without having any intention that they were going to act on it.
[33:36.810 --> 33:37.890]  So, you know, I'll leave...
[33:37.890 --> 33:40.810]  Respectfully, Alex, they were going to start a kid's Instagram.
[33:41.070 --> 33:42.270]  That's what they were going to do with the data.
[33:42.450 --> 33:43.930]  That was their helpful move.
[33:44.150 --> 33:44.570]  Perhaps.
[33:44.570 --> 33:53.910]  So, I really, I find that that was an impressive logical gymnastics you're performing for us.
[33:54.070 --> 33:59.450]  But I also just think that they have layers and layers and teams on teams on teams on teams.
[33:59.690 --> 34:00.430]  They are...
[34:00.430 --> 34:05.690]  They are their own self-perpetuating bureaucratic mess.
[34:05.950 --> 34:07.750]  And they're tangling up the world in it.
[34:07.850 --> 34:09.250]  And we can't point the finger?
[34:09.770 --> 34:10.850]  I just...
[34:10.850 --> 34:11.790]  I don't have words.
[34:11.790 --> 34:22.310]  Well, after we've spent about half the show talking about things going all to hell at a large website involving lots of kids, let's talk about something completely different.
[34:22.390 --> 34:23.070]  Let's talk about Twitch.
[34:23.950 --> 34:24.810]  Oh, my God!
[34:26.750 --> 34:28.110]  Twitch has had...
[34:32.110 --> 34:35.430]  Twitch has had its own butt kicked very, very recently.
[34:35.830 --> 34:37.390]  The site was hacked.
[34:37.930 --> 34:42.050]  And Twitch, for those unfamiliar, how would you describe Twitch?
[34:42.990 --> 34:44.490]  It is a video...
[34:44.490 --> 34:45.970]  It is a video streaming site.
[34:46.110 --> 34:48.150]  Very popular with younger folks.
[34:48.830 --> 34:52.690]  A lot of people use it to stream video games and things like that.
[34:52.850 --> 34:57.270]  Some people just do visual video podcasts or stream creating art.
[34:58.050 --> 34:58.830]  All sorts of things.
[34:58.890 --> 34:59.830]  Anything you want to stream on video.
[34:59.990 --> 35:00.750]  Can I just ask...
[35:00.750 --> 35:02.430]  Someone tried to explain this to me.
[35:03.570 --> 35:05.410]  And I'm not totally with it.
[35:06.890 --> 35:14.890]  But they say that people watch other people playing video games and talk amongst themselves while this is happening.
[35:15.090 --> 35:15.990]  Is that what Twitch is?
[35:16.190 --> 35:16.470]  Yes.
[35:16.670 --> 35:17.410]  And that's the thing.
[35:18.630 --> 35:19.910]  People like to do that.
[35:20.050 --> 35:23.630]  Yeah, I think that's its biggest thing is the video game stuff.
[35:23.770 --> 35:26.730]  But there's also, you know, stream whatever you like on it.
[35:27.450 --> 35:30.370]  I think, apart from adult material, I don't think you can do that on Twitch.
[35:30.550 --> 35:31.910]  But it is a huge site.
[35:31.910 --> 35:33.810]  It is big in the gaming world.
[35:33.810 --> 35:34.970]  It owns other gaming sites.
[35:35.190 --> 35:37.750]  And it has had everything leaked.
[35:38.010 --> 35:39.110]  They have leaked all the things.
[35:39.990 --> 35:49.890]  Leaker on Posting to 4chan posted a torrent which contains the entire source code of Twitch, the site, with commit history going back to its early beginnings.
[35:50.450 --> 35:53.310]  Three years' worth of details regarding creator payouts on Twitch.
[35:53.510 --> 35:56.070]  There is a lot of money in being a Twitch celebrity.
[35:56.270 --> 35:58.250]  And now you can see how much.
[35:58.810 --> 36:02.950]  Source code for all the clients on mobile, desktop, and game console.
[36:03.330 --> 36:10.310]  Code related to proprietary SDKs and internal AWS services used by Twitch for the coders.
[36:10.650 --> 36:12.790]  An unreleased Steam competitor.
[36:12.970 --> 36:14.090]  Steam's a huge game platform.
[36:14.770 --> 36:24.210]  And this Twitch, for some reason, this Twitch leak includes an unreleased competitor to that from Amazon Game Studios and Twitch's internal security tools.
[36:24.350 --> 36:26.930]  So they have basically been busted really wide open.
[36:28.670 --> 36:34.790]  as popular as they are, if you are a Twitch user out there listening to this and you have not yet changed your password, you should do that.
[36:34.970 --> 36:38.930]  If you have not yet enabled two-factor authentication, you should do that.
[36:39.110 --> 36:42.550]  It's also been confirmed that their 2FA seeds were leaked.
[36:42.730 --> 37:01.270]  So if you're a Twitch user and you already had two-factor authentication, you have to deactivate it and then reactivate it to secure it again because the seed to the original authentication setup Rob, the file itself was, I believe, 139 gigs.
[37:01.810 --> 37:03.450]  Really a large torrent file.
[37:03.650 --> 37:05.710]  And I believe it was labeled Part 1.
[37:05.890 --> 37:07.730]  I think that was in the report as well.
[37:07.870 --> 37:14.290]  So they're sort of alluding that there are other parts of this that they have chosen not to release at this point.
[37:14.430 --> 37:15.130]  Is that correct?
[37:15.130 --> 37:16.290]  That is correct.
[37:16.630 --> 37:27.890]  And it's funny that this story broke earlier this morning around 7 o'clock Eastern, and it took until around 11-something Eastern for Twitch themselves to confirm after the story had been swirling around all day.
[37:28.670 --> 37:32.050]  But yeah, this is a big one.
[37:32.210 --> 37:33.890]  This is a big one, possibly...
[37:33.890 --> 37:40.290]  I can imagine confirming probably wasn't high on their priority list, but finding out what the hell was going on.
[37:40.430 --> 37:50.030]  But it seems to me that 139 gigs of data, it might sound like a lot, but for an entire company, for everything they've been working on, seems a bit low.
[37:50.210 --> 37:52.110]  So the Part 1 kind of makes sense.
[37:52.670 --> 37:53.390]  It does.
[37:53.630 --> 37:59.850]  And, you know, we can speculate all we want about what might be in Part 2 or any future parts.
[38:00.130 --> 38:08.790]  But it's really interesting to see an entire social site suffer basically everything being leaked, everything that they are.
[38:08.890 --> 38:19.170]  I don't know how much more there is to leak in terms of user data, user, you know, info on all the other users out there that aren't the big ones that are getting payouts.
[38:19.830 --> 38:24.010]  But, you know, there are any number of things going on.
[38:24.250 --> 38:26.530]  And, yeah, change your password.
[38:26.930 --> 38:28.450]  Don't use your same passwords anywhere else.
[38:29.270 --> 38:44.290]  The user who posted this to 4chan said the leak was intended to foster more disruption and competition in the online video space because, and this is a quote, their community is a disgusting, toxic cesspool.
[38:45.470 --> 38:47.390]  So there's your motive right there.
[38:47.610 --> 38:51.230]  I'm not sure how true that is, but that's, uh, that's what we said.
[38:51.510 --> 38:52.590]  That's like peak Twitch.
[38:55.310 --> 38:55.790]  Absolutely.
[38:56.070 --> 38:59.390]  I mean, doesn't every platform become a disgusting cesspool at its peak?
[39:00.090 --> 39:05.730]  I mean, uh, they can, they can pretend it isn't or they could actually do work to, uh, foster all that.
[39:05.730 --> 39:09.670]  So we're looking at this article from The Verge, uh, which is wonderful.
[39:10.070 --> 39:22.990]  And apparently there has been a huge issue on Twitch and a bunch of Twitch streamers apparently took a day off in August because stuff was happening and the company wasn't reacting to it.
[39:22.990 --> 39:24.450]  So there was like a mini strike.
[39:25.310 --> 39:36.050]  Um, and yeah, Twitch has responded to the hashtag do better Twitch movement and the anonymous poster used the hashtag as part of the leak today.
[39:36.730 --> 39:39.530]  So, uh, it's all related, I think.
[39:39.710 --> 39:55.890]  I mean, I'm, yeah, it's, um, on, on that point, Kila, um, when, when they did this in August, were they responding to something, uh, that users of Twitch were, were responsible for or something internally corporate wise at Twitch that was going on?
[39:55.890 --> 40:06.610]  Um, yes, I think is the answer because, so according to the Verge article, um, weeks of hate raids, I can only imagine what that might mean.
[40:06.790 --> 40:15.070]  And apparently streamers have been reporting this bad behavior by the customers, the viewers to Twitch and Twitch did nothing.
[40:15.310 --> 40:22.930]  So it's a combination of, yes, it's a perfect storm of, pardon me, viewers behaving badly, company behaving badly.
[40:22.930 --> 40:31.050]  And someone, and apparently the leaker was attempting to show that the corporate culture is not so great.
[40:31.510 --> 40:33.110]  Yeah, a raid in Twitch terms.
[40:33.390 --> 40:46.270]  It seems to be, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, this seems to be something that, um, repeats in so many different arenas where you have a great idea for a product or a service or a conference or all sorts of things.
[40:46.270 --> 40:58.390]  But you're not ready for how badly some people will behave and you're kind of caught off guard and you don't know what to do because that was never part of your plan.
[40:58.390 --> 41:02.550]  And I think this is what we're seeing on so many levels.
[41:03.040 --> 41:16.890]  And maybe it's time that, um, that before new ideas get put forth for new services that this kind of thing is considered so that, um, so that this kind of environment doesn't flourish.
[41:17.730 --> 41:28.370]  I think that it's a, um, consequence of kind of startup culture and disruption culture in a way, because you're like, I'm going to do this thing newly and differently.
[41:28.610 --> 41:33.330]  And then it gets really big because people are looking for a new and different way to do things.
[41:33.530 --> 41:37.790]  And there's no way to track, like to follow the scale in that way.
[41:37.910 --> 41:39.750]  So it gets bigger and you don't know how to stop it.
[41:39.750 --> 41:42.750]  And, and, but everybody's like, Ooh, what's the next new, exciting thing?
[41:43.190 --> 41:47.730]  Um, you know, Ooh, we'll disrupt hotels and Airbnb happened.
[41:47.850 --> 41:48.370]  I'm so sorry.
[41:48.530 --> 41:49.270]  I keep talking with my hands.
[41:49.370 --> 41:49.490]  I'm sorry.
[41:50.010 --> 41:50.910]  Uh, Airbnb happened.
[41:50.910 --> 42:00.810]  And then, you know, there was bad behavior by Airbnb hosts, which wasn't being tracked correctly in a positive way by the company.
[42:00.990 --> 42:06.370]  You had let's disrupt cabs issues, you know, Uber, Lyft, what have you.
[42:06.790 --> 42:16.170]  I think the fetishization of startup culture is problematic in a lot of ways.
[42:16.350 --> 42:18.510]  And then stuff like this happens.
[42:18.750 --> 42:28.470]  It's, it can, it can also be, uh, uh, connected back to the Facebook thing where, okay, they're trying to make a site where, uh, you could, you know, connect with people and do whatever, but there are all these other consequences.
[42:28.470 --> 42:37.210]  And the company seems completely, um, unwilling or unable to take on the full responsibility of where they've put themselves and they've put themselves there by design.
[42:37.350 --> 42:44.310]  But, uh, then when it, when it comes time to maintain that as any kind of safe environment, um, they, they seem to be at a total loss.
[42:44.370 --> 42:46.070]  I've seen it happen at other startups.
[42:46.210 --> 42:49.650]  I've seen it happen, uh, you know, with, with other, uh, social sites and everything.
[42:49.650 --> 42:54.490]  And yeah, you have to be ready to run a thing responsibly, Alex.
[42:55.370 --> 42:55.930]  Yeah.
[42:56.210 --> 43:05.070]  And as I understand the, the problems with the interruptions and the, with, on Twitch is that, uh, a lot of this was automated.
[43:05.430 --> 43:10.070]  A lot of it were, were bots that were interjecting themselves into these conversations.
[43:10.070 --> 43:24.350]  And so, you know, we, we live in this bizarre world now in 2021 where, where hate and racism and vitriol are just automated by way of scripts and bots and they're, and they're forcing their way into our conversations.
[43:24.550 --> 43:29.690]  And it's a really, uh, terrible thing to think about that, you know, you can, you can be having an ordinary chat.
[43:29.690 --> 43:40.810]  I mean, we saw this, I guess, at the beginning of the pandemic with all of the zoom bombing and terrible racist things happening on municipal meetings or, you know, wherever these, these zoom bombers could get in.
[43:40.870 --> 43:45.490]  And I feel like it's very similar with Twitch, but now we're seeing it done in an automated fashion.
[43:45.490 --> 43:54.910]  And perhaps what we need to do in the first instance is to develop better security parameters to prevent bots from entering these types of conversations.
[43:54.910 --> 44:03.070]  We need better bot and automated activity detection algorithms so that we can have human spaces online just for humans.
[44:04.470 --> 44:09.130]  I think we're also working our way back towards, uh, more private communications.
[44:09.350 --> 44:13.350]  It just isn't working the way people behave in public.
[44:13.890 --> 44:21.630]  And especially like what Alex is saying, just automating it, it could be one person affecting so many different networks.
[44:21.630 --> 44:26.390]  And I think that there might be people that feel like this is really effective.
[44:26.390 --> 44:37.990]  If we just flood every part of communications with garbage and, and, and hateful garbage, it will make people turn and, and be more polarized.
[44:38.210 --> 44:42.310]  And that's a lot of the same thing we've seen theme we've seen in, in recent years.
[44:43.370 --> 44:43.970]  Absolutely.
[44:43.970 --> 44:55.930]  Um, talking of, uh, communication spheres and garbage, uh, just like to very quickly touch on the fact that, uh, some of us out in the communication spheres are putting out, uh, what we hope to be better than garbage.
[44:56.090 --> 45:00.350]  We hope to be putting out some good material out there, and we could not do that without your help.
[45:00.490 --> 45:02.590]  We are still on WBAI.
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[45:06.590 --> 45:16.830]  And if you'd like to help us keep, uh, keep being able to make that happen, go to give to WBAI.org or call 212-209-2950 and show your support.
[45:17.110 --> 45:18.770]  Uh, any you can afford is appreciated.
[45:19.330 --> 45:25.930]  Um, $25 or more, uh, gains you membership in WBAI and a voting voice in the station's future.
[45:26.290 --> 45:31.090]  Give to WBAI.org or 212-209-2950.
[45:32.070 --> 45:32.830]  Yes, please.
[45:33.030 --> 45:36.650]  It's so important because, um, off the hook has been on the air since 1988.
[45:37.510 --> 45:43.150]  WBAI has so many incredible programs throughout the week, and all of it is made possible by your support.
[45:43.290 --> 45:44.950]  And this has been going on since 1960.
[45:44.950 --> 45:50.390]  It's the greatest example of people power that I can, I can think of in so many years.
[45:51.030 --> 45:56.250]  Uh, so please do as, as, as Rob suggests, and, uh, we'll call it 212-209-2950.
[45:56.850 --> 45:58.870]  We'll give to WBAI.org.
[45:59.330 --> 46:03.010]  Donate whatever you can, uh, get, um, a VAI buddy.
[46:03.270 --> 46:10.570]  We have a monthly, uh, minimal donation that adds up to, um, to a lot for us and keeps us going.
[46:10.790 --> 46:17.970]  We, we always beat the odds one way or another because of the hard work and dedication, uh, and support that we, that we receive.
[46:18.290 --> 46:24.710]  Um, if I can just quickly, um, um, ask a question, though, because we're talking about a few stories here.
[46:24.710 --> 46:28.910]  Now, just so this headline go by, not too long ago, this is the headline.
[46:29.050 --> 46:31.530]  Company that routes SMS for all major U.S.
[46:31.590 --> 46:33.850]  barriers was hacked for five years?
[46:34.530 --> 46:36.430]  Guys, again, I ask, what the hell?
[46:38.670 --> 46:40.170]  That's a very valid what the hell.
[46:40.790 --> 46:51.990]  And, uh, yeah, this, uh, this story, it was, uh, first broken by, uh, a friend of the show, uh, Lorenzo Franceschi Bichari, um, over on, uh, vice.com and, uh, spread around from there.
[46:52.410 --> 47:05.570]  And, yep, a company that's a critical part of the global telecommunications infrastructure used by AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, and several others around the world, such as Vodafone and China Mobile, quietly disclosed that hackers were inside its systems for years,
[47:06.050 --> 47:10.470]  impacting more than 200 of its clients and potentially millions of cell phone users worldwide.
[47:11.170 --> 47:17.590]  Yeah, that, that two-factor authentication that I, that we were just, uh, talking about, yeah, it's even better when it doesn't go through text messaging.
[47:19.890 --> 47:23.250]  Ah, I, I'm, I'm speechless.
[47:23.530 --> 47:25.770]  I mean, I'm mute.
[47:26.250 --> 47:43.030]  Uh, yeah, I mean, look, this is, uh, I, I think it's, obviously, it's very concerning that there have been some kind of, uh, aliens inside the network of this major backbone provider for, uh, upwards of five years here.
[47:43.330 --> 47:58.370]  Uh, and I'm, I'm really fascinated by, you know, what kind of investigation and what kind of incident response process, uh, there was in going five years back in terms of data and how they came, uh, up with this five-year number as well because there,
[47:58.370 --> 48:16.150]  there had to be some artifacts, uh, and depending upon when they started this investigation, uh, it is, that I think whether or not certain evidence was going to be available to them would, would certainly be an issue if they started this, let's say in 2020 and they had to go back to 2016 to,
[48:16.250 --> 48:18.430]  to find data or, or logs.
[48:18.570 --> 48:20.210]  That's going to be extremely difficult.
[48:20.210 --> 48:35.310]  So I wonder to what extent this is an accurate and complete investigation or if it's on the basis of, uh, partial data that the, that Cineverse, uh, you know, had actually retained over the course of years.
[48:35.450 --> 48:47.570]  But it's, I think it's, it's also not surprising to me from, uh, a threat actor's perspective that they would want to compromise a backbone provider to all of these different telecommunications companies around the world.
[48:47.950 --> 48:56.210]  Because if you, if you can hook yourself in and plug yourself into the backbone, you know, into essentially, you know, something like the SS7 network.
[48:56.310 --> 49:08.550]  And we know that the SS7, the signal, the signaling system seven network has been compromised and is rife with vulnerabilities that can be exploited by really sophisticated cyber adversaries and nation states for many years now.
[49:08.710 --> 49:18.610]  But getting into these backbones is extremely powerful because it allows you to essentially read data or man in the middle data for a massive amount of people.
[49:18.610 --> 49:24.570]  So the, the reach of this particular compromise, I think, is possibly unheralded.
[49:24.790 --> 49:30.850]  This is certainly a candidate for, um, uh, a breach of the year or a disclosure of the year.
[49:31.370 --> 49:37.710]  And, you know, for what purposes were these threat actors inside their network for that long?
[49:37.850 --> 49:46.510]  I'd love to learn about what kind of espionage or perhaps even counter espionage activities were going on within the auspices of this company's networks.
[49:46.510 --> 49:48.590]  It's an absolutely fascinating story.
[49:48.930 --> 49:49.270]  Absolutely.
[49:49.270 --> 49:49.930]  Oh, my God.
[49:50.030 --> 49:53.950]  I just, I just saw another headline, um, to swing everything back to Facebook.
[49:54.130 --> 49:59.870]  1.5 billion Facebook users' personal information allegedly posted for sale.
[50:00.450 --> 50:00.970]  Yeah.
[50:01.750 --> 50:04.210]  Apparently, um, here's the price.
[50:04.410 --> 50:06.950]  Yeah, for a million users, it's $5,000.
[50:07.590 --> 50:11.650]  So if you do the math, if you want all 1.5 billion, it's a good chunk of change.
[50:11.650 --> 50:17.330]  But you get the Facebook account name, email address, location, gender, phone number, and user ID.
[50:17.930 --> 50:19.750]  What, uh, do people really care about this?
[50:19.850 --> 50:21.810]  Do people really want to gather all this information?
[50:23.050 --> 50:32.150]  I mean, you know, when you give personal information out to these sites, you just have to assume that it's going to get hacked at some point because it almost always does.
[50:33.190 --> 50:36.410]  Yeah, at the end of the day, it's stuff you put on computers that aren't yours.
[50:36.770 --> 50:41.330]  And, uh, that, you know, you, you cannot, uh, you cannot maintain control over that.
[50:41.870 --> 50:45.510]  Um, we're, uh, running very, we're very, we're running out of time.
[50:45.650 --> 50:52.190]  Um, but I do want to mention once again, we will not be broadcasting on Off the Hook Overtime, our normal YouTube after show.
[50:52.310 --> 50:53.870]  That show is on hiatus for a bit.
[50:54.230 --> 50:57.870]  Um, and, uh, for technical reasons, not because we don't love you.
[50:58.030 --> 50:59.010]  We still want to hear from you.
[50:59.010 --> 51:02.110]  Send us email, O-T-H at 2600.com.
[51:02.310 --> 51:04.530]  Uh, find us on Twitter at Hacker Radio Show.
[51:04.770 --> 51:09.110]  Find us on Mastodon at Hacker Radio Show at Mastodon.social.
[51:09.810 --> 51:11.230]  Um, yeah, send us your emails.
[51:11.510 --> 51:15.170]  Um, I'm going to close out with a tune that was submitted to us by, uh, Eyeball.
[51:15.530 --> 51:21.130]  Uh, the Facebook, uh, system went down because of, uh, BGP, which is, uh, Border Gateway Protocol.
[51:21.350 --> 51:23.030]  It's a fun bit of internet routing technology.
[51:23.350 --> 51:25.250]  And it turns out there's a great song about it.
[51:25.410 --> 51:27.190]  So, uh, I'm going to take us out with this.
[51:27.190 --> 51:36.210]  And, uh, if you have music that, uh, you would like to close out the show with, if you make music, or if you want to suggest music to us, uh, let us know, O-T-H at 2600.com.
[51:37.350 --> 51:39.270]  For Off the Hook, this is Rob T.
[51:39.430 --> 51:42.510]  Firefly saying have a very, very good night.
[52:05.930 --> 52:10.250]  You can find this under the username BucktownTiger on YouTube.
[52:11.410 --> 52:11.810]  BucktownTiger.
[52:13.730 --> 52:15.010]  BGP, how can I explain it?
[52:15.150 --> 52:16.150]  I take it from my framing.
[52:16.550 --> 52:17.510]  Wait, that's later, too.
[52:17.690 --> 52:17.950]  Sorry.
[52:18.330 --> 52:19.890]  GP, can't wait for the call.
[52:20.070 --> 52:20.910]  Let's just lease it.
[55:27.470 --> 55:29.170]  With BGP, 21st century.
[55:29.450 --> 55:30.630]  Get down with BGP.
[55:30.870 --> 55:33.410]  This is WBAI New York.
[55:33.650 --> 55:33.770]  BGP.