The number you have dialed, 4, 3, 6, 1, 3, 7, 8, has been changed.
The new number is O-O-O, O-O-O, please note, the new number is O-O-O, O-O-O, O-O, the telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a cough, we couldn't get much worse, but if they could they would, Bum Diddly Bump are the best, expect the worst, I hope that's understood, Bum Diddly Bump!
Bum Diddly Bump!
Thank you.
And a very good evening for our program is Off the Hook.
Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening, joined tonight by Kyle.
Yes, I and I is here.
And out in Signal Land, we have Rob T. Firefly.
Good evening.
We have Gila.
Good evening.
And we have Alex.
Did you say I and I is here, Kyle?
No, no.
I just said hi.
Oh, I thought you said I and I is here.
I was going to say that's great.
I love it.
I love the Rasta.
I and I is here.
Present.
It was kind of a hacker's reference, too.
Please say you're here, Alex, because I can't continue until you check in.
Oh, well, if this can stall things, this is great for me to know.
I'm here.
Present.
Checking in.
Thank you.
Didn't hurt, did it?
Well, yes.
So I'm sorry.
I'm a little out of sorts today.
I got up early to get World Cup tickets and I did not get them because apparently 50,000
other people beat me to it.
This is going to be the worst summer ever.
You know what?
I don't want to go anymore.
I don't want to.
You know, I wanted to go when when they announced this thing.
But, you know, what I've seen FIFA do is it's just, oh, my God, the corruption, the the
callousness, just the greed.
Yeah.
I feel like no sooner do you get a ticket, then you're going to go there and feel like
profound guilt between your concessions, breaks and cheering.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It should be it should be a celebration, should be a great event.
But it's it's going to be mark my words.
It's going to be a farce.
It's going to be days filled with outrage and just anger.
So, you know, kind of an American thing.
Well, on the bright side, you're not going to have to pay one hundred and fifty dollars
for your New Jersey transit ticket.
Well, nobody has to pay.
I'll tell you that because it's actually ninety eight dollars now because some some corporate
sponsors stepped in.
But that's just that's another example of how FIFA can really completely screw things
up if you let them.
They they took over all the parking at you can't call it the Meadowlands anymore either.
You have to call it the New Jersey, New York, New Jersey Stadium because they have
quote unquote standards about about corporate sponsorship.
That's where they draw the line.
But they took over all of the parking spaces, which means no tailgating.
Tailgating is illegal.
You can't park your car there.
Everybody has to get on a train, which which it's how do I explain this?
It's it's not like a regular train that just stops and continues going.
It's it's a hub.
It goes there and then it comes back.
So when they add 40,000 passengers in in one sitting, it makes it extremely expensive.
And FIFA refuses to pay a penny of that.
So that left it in the hands of the state of New Jersey.
So either the taxpayers pay or the people going to the games pay.
And, you know, the latter does seem fairer to me, but there's a there's a shopping mall
down the block.
They're charging two hundred and twenty five dollars to park your car for a couple of hours.
The the the finest spirit is is is emerging.
Gila, go ahead.
And super fun.
If you need New Jersey transit during a game day and you're not going to the game, you
are pretty much out of luck.
You can't go through.
Yeah, between four hours before and four hours after.
So if, say, you're my best friend who lives in New Jersey and works in Manhattan and is
having to look at the game schedules to figure out how on earth she's going to get to and
from work on game days when transit is not an option because she's not buying World Cup
tickets.
This is this is going to be horror.
You know, when when when the Super Bowl was at the Meadowlands, they had a disaster at the
end of the game, too, when everybody tried to mob onto the train for the same reason.
That train line cannot handle huge amounts of people.
And the NFL at the last minute apparently grabbed a bunch of parking spaces and more
people took trains than ever before.
And they weren't prepared for that this time.
They're going to stagger it.
So when the game's over, people have to hang out in the stadium for a few hours while they
wait for their space to open up on the train.
It's it's just a nightmare on all levels.
And people are paying huge amounts of money.
You know, I saw a news piece just before airtime.
There is an airline.
I think it's a Canadian airline that is basically trolling FIFA by saying that you can visit
the country that you want to see for less than buying a ticket to the 90 minute game
in the States or Canada or Mexico.
And it's true.
It's absolutely true.
You can you could probably spend a month in the in the country of of the game that you're
you're watching and have a great time.
And I just I cannot imagine I know that a lot of tickets were bought up by corporations.
So technically, the stadium will be full because they'll have all these seats that aren't being
filled.
I mean, who's going to go see Norway and Senegal?
Obviously, people who are, you know, Norwegian and Senegalese will take a great interest.
But, you know, the average, quote unquote, average person probably not going to pack the
stadium for that.
But yet the tickets are still going for thousands of dollars.
It's just not fair.
It's not how it's supposed to work.
But FIFA, you know, with their their corruption and their their fake human rights medals and
things like that.
It's it's it's just bad.
It's bad for the the state of football, the international football, which, you know, I do
admire.
I do like seeing that.
Yes, Rob.
You know, I know nothing about soccer or how these things are done or negotiated, but shouldn't
it have been part of the process when picking where they're going to have the World Cup game
to confirm that the infrastructure exists to serve the game and its its audience before
saying, OK, we're going to we're going to have our game over there.
Yeah.
Well, the thing is, when when they make these deals, they make these deals for various, you
know, one hand washing the other type of reasons, and they don't really think beyond their
administration.
So when their administration leaves, somebody else is stuck with it.
And the current administration in New Jersey, you can see kind of the reaction to that.
They said, oh, hell no, we're not going to we're not going to saddle the taxpayers with
this.
If anyone's going to have to pay for it and FIFA isn't going to be one of those organizations,
then it has to be the people going to see the games.
It's terrible, but that's really the only option.
And other cities like Boston, for instance, you have a regular train that just goes, you
know, the stadium is one stop.
It's it's it's over 20 miles away from from Boston.
And that is basically normal.
That is how it should work.
But New Jersey is just not like that.
And FIFA insisted that the final be held in New Jersey because, well, it's close to New
York.
And it's you know, it's really hard to argue with something that powerful.
The thing that really upsets me is there's so much money to be made from this billions
of dollars in profit.
It all goes to FIFA.
They do not share any of it.
I don't it's it's as corrupt.
If you're into corruption, this this is the summer where you can study it in depth because
it does not get more corrupt than this.
People try.
Organizations try.
Evil people of all sorts try to be this corrupt and they can't do it.
They can't do it.
Take notes.
Watch FIFA.
But you'll see.
But if anyone has a ticket out there, let me know.
OK, I'm sorry, Alex, you have something?
I'm just not surprised at all about about this particular situation.
I had no no expectations here.
I mean, I don't think we're talking about the law of unintended consequences at all when
it comes to what's happened with respect to these tickets here.
I mean, they they brought FIFA to New York and then somehow managed to.
And I think one of the most well off cities on the planet here managed to price New Yorkers
out of it entirely.
Right.
So we get to watch the World Cup like we've watched every other World Cup, which is from
the sidelines through instant replays.
And the profits and the seats and the tickets all go to hedge funds and corporations.
I mean, nothing nothing has really changed here.
So I had no illusions about being able to go and see a game.
So I don't share this the sense of disappointment that you sadly do, Emmanuel.
Well, you could go to Dallas where they're playing games there, but you still won't be able to get in
because it's priced well out of any of our reaches.
It's sad.
It really is, because this is something that brings people together from all over the world.
You know, people in North Korea follow this.
Everybody plays by the same rules.
It's really uniting.
And to have this kind of thing, I just think it tarnishes this part of the world quite a bit.
Well, I'll tell you a short anecdote.
The last time the World Cup was playing, I was in a Belgian bar on 22nd Street in Manhattan.
And it was the day before Belgium was playing.
And I was with a couple of friends and their kids and our kids and like the gigantic children that we are, being the parents, of course.
I had the TV be gone with me.
And I started shutting off the televisions in this bar ahead of the World Cup, not even during the World Cup.
And these guys totally freaked out.
Well, wouldn't you freak out?
For God's sake, Alex, what did you expect them to do?
Well, yeah, they're going to go ballistic there.
The TV breaks.
It was amazing to see.
I mean, they started calling electricians right away.
It was like, I can't have this.
The World Cup is playing tomorrow.
Belgium is playing.
Yeah.
And yeah, I caused a lot of chaos.
What a jerk.
You are a jerk sometimes.
Total jerk.
Wow.
I'll admit it.
Yeah.
I guess it was, you know, just a little bit of mischief.
You know, you can do with a little bit of infrared.
Serbia is not in the World Cup this year, but they were at one point.
You should have tried that there.
I'm just saying.
I'm just saying you would not be playing with TV be gone.
And they take this.
Well, everybody takes it very seriously.
I think even even Belgians would have taught you quite a quite a lesson there.
But what you did hit upon is a great idea because that is how you do it.
You go to a place where there are fans of that country or people who are from that area
and you just hang out with them for a couple of hours, you know, assuming that they're halfway
civilized and not a bunch of, you know, drunken yobs.
And that's, you know, it's free.
It's it's something that you can do for almost any country that's playing.
And, you know, New York City has so many outlets.
But here's the crazy thing.
And you as a lawyer should appreciate this.
You cannot say you're you're showing the World Cup in a bar.
You cannot put that on a chalkboard.
They will get you for copyright infringement.
That is what FIFA is all about.
You cannot say World Cup.
And unless you you pay them the rights to say World Cup, you have to say, you know, Senegal
versus Norway.
You have to say World Soccer Event.
You know, nonsense like that.
And I don't it's supposedly protecting their brand, but protecting their brand from their
own customers.
It's so ridiculously greedy.
I think you said copyright infringement, but I think I think it's probably trademark infringement.
Yeah, probably.
Yeah.
So there's this new series on the BBC called 2026, something like that.
And they make fun of this over and over and over again, because any time they say FIFA,
they have to beep it out throughout the entire series.
Oh, come on.
They can't say FIFA.
We're in trouble.
Then they're making a joke out of the fact that they you know, that FIFA doesn't allow
you to say FIFA in the context of some kind of other commercial endeavor.
Right.
So we can talk about it and report on it.
Yeah.
What's up, Gila?
This is a sequel show to the one about the London Olympics.
It is indeed.
Yeah.
2012 about the London Olympics.
Yeah.
It's not very creative with the titles, are they?
That's true.
Yeah.
But speaking of Senegal stuff, but you're right, Emmanuel.
I mean, there are bars for basically every single country, and people forget that there
are even a lot of African and even Senegalese places where you can go and watch these games
together with real Senegalese people.
Up on 126th Street are a whole bunch of really amazing Senegalese restaurants.
That is how you do it.
That is how you really get the global feeling of camaraderie.
Totally.
And competition as well.
Yes, Rob.
Talking of people coming from all over the world to see this, there was a story earlier
in the Times about how Europeans are looking at the distance to the stadium from New York
City, seeing it's only 10 miles or so, and thinking, well, why don't you just walk from
A to B?
Because, you know, Americans, they don't like to walk, and we walk all the time here in
Europe.
So they're like, yeah, we'll just go to New York City, and we'll walk to the stadium,
which, of course, if you're looking at a map, that seems like maybe it's a reasonable
idea.
If you know the area at all, you know your...
Oh, you're a poor summer child now.
I don't know that.
Exactly.
You know, you're walking through across interstates that you're not allowed to be a pedestrian
on.
Not even that.
You're walking across Meadowlands, the actual, not the Meadowlands Stadium, but the lands
that are meadows, wilderness, woods, swamps, all this stuff.
Maybe you made it through the Holland Tunnel, okay?
When you get to the Meadowlands area, they say it's illegal for you to walk there.
If you stayed in a hotel across the street from the stadium, you have to take some overpriced
transport system to get there, an Uber or a shuttle bus or something.
But you cannot walk.
They make it so that, you know, let's say you wanted to go to that mall that's charging
$225, you know, for a space.
You can't go from the mall to that parking space.
They segregate the people who are going to the World Cup from the people who are going
to the mall.
So the people who are going to the mall, they pay $6.
They park a mile away, go to the mall, and stay away from the expensive parking spaces
that connect to the stadium.
So they've got you.
The only way out is if you won this lottery that Mondani set up, there's a free bus that
will take you from New York to New Jersey.
But, you know, with 50,000 people a day registering six days and only 1,000 tickets, it's admirable,
but it's, you know, a bunch of people will have fun, but so many more people are being
left out in the cold.
But you know what?
You're not missing that much because you're going to be in a hot stadium.
It's going to be crowded.
You're going to be stranded there because the trains are insufficient.
Do the thing of going to local neighborhood hangouts and, you know, if you care at all.
And if you don't care, well, you know, there's many other things to do.
Absolutely.
The New York, New Jersey host committee actually had to release a statement that's basically,
guys, please don't try to walk to the stadium.
It's not physically possible.
You can't do it.
And I know we have some of the local urban exploration enthusiast community listening
to this program.
Maybe you can write in with some tips.
But, yeah, you probably shouldn't be walking to the World Cup at this point.
This is a great exercise for the hacker community because they have made it such a challenge to
not get ripped off.
They've made it impossible virtually.
So my challenge is, okay, how do you get to the stadium or, you know, to the place where
they start checking for tickets?
How do you get there without being ripped off?
I'm not even talking about getting into the stadium.
We're not talking about doing anything that involves paying FIFA.
We're talking about just physically getting from any place in the world to a checkpoint
without having to get ripped off to get there.
If someone could figure out a way to do that, I might have figured out a way.
I think there's a bus that goes from Port Authority to that mall.
So maybe theoretically, you could go to the mall and then walk to the first person that
tells you to stop, which probably won't be too far.
Another thing you could do is get a job in that mall and show up for work and then quit
and then try to walk over there.
That's all I have so far.
But I'm sure there are other ideas.
As far as getting tickets, you know what?
You're on your own.
I don't think that's possible unless there's some system we don't know about.
But if the prices do go down, it'll be probably a week, maybe a couple of days before a match.
So if it means that much to you, then that's the way to do it.
But do not, do not go online for these massive ripoff that are, basically, they are put together
in conjunction with FIFA.
FIFA gets a cut of incredible ripoff prices that they charge.
And that even goes for the parking as well.
For the $225 parking, they're in on that.
It's just, it's so disgusting.
Gila.
So I was looking at the mall's website because they also do parking for other events at MetLife
Stadium.
I didn't realize they charge more to park for Jets games than Giants games.
Oh, wow.
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
And apparently MetLife sets the rates for event parking at the mall.
But, and maybe this is my Midwestern coming out, you always have to pay to park at the mall.
Well, yes.
Not $250.
$6.
It's, right.
But I come from the land of parking garages where you don't have to pay anything to go
spend money at the mall.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And this is the other thing.
They give you 15 minutes for free.
Do you know how big that mall is?
There is no way you can park, get in, get out in 15.
Are you kidding me?
Yeah.
It's nuts.
It's nuts.
Well, I am willing to give them this one though, because there are so few ways that malls
actually make money anymore these days.
No one's shopping at the malls.
So maybe this is all they have.
This is their main hustle now is being a parking lot.
Could you imagine though?
They also, they have an amusement park in there.
This whole thing is an amusement park, but I'm not really laughing.
Anyway.
Yeah.
World Cup.
Boy, it's going to be something.
All right.
So we've been talking about age verification bills that are popping up all over the place.
What we think about them and what's, what's being done.
New development.
Apparently in Colorado, they're trying something different.
And they're basically saying that age verification for operating systems does not apply to an
operating system provider or developer that distributes an operating system or application
under license terms that permit a recipient to copy, redistribute, and modify the software
without any platform imposed technical or contractual restrictions imposed by the provider
or developer uninstalling all modified versions.
In other words, open source.
They're saying that open source operating systems will be exempt from having to verify the age of the people that wish to use them.
And that supposedly is going to go into effect on July 1st, 2028.
Okay.
Okay.
So it's, it's quite a ways away in California, the official page of their website, uh, notes
a few revisions to it since, um, it was, uh, last mentioned.
Um, this bill is now in its third hearing.
It's not quite, uh, finished yet, but basically, uh, they are listing exemptions for operating
systems and application developers.
Application does not include software components that are not themselves offered to consumers
as a standalone executable application through a covered application store.
Operating system provider does not mean a person or entity that distributes an operating system
or application under license terms that permit a recipient to copy, redistribute, and modify the software.
And that will go into effect January 1st, 2027, if it gets final approval.
I mean, this is something, but why can't a kid mess around with windows or Mac OS, you
know, how much of a victory is this really?
I mean, a truly funny result of this would be if, uh, kids just in droves end up going
over to free and open source operating systems because that's what they're allowed to use
now.
Um, and, uh, you know, I, I am all for getting people using open source software wherever possible,
but there's, there's something, there's something like, it seems like not a total victory to
have them, uh, still kicking these ideas around, but only for the operating systems that cost
money.
Um, this will also, uh, this will also still restrict operating systems like, um, steam
OS is, uh, it runs game consoles and it's mostly Linux, but it's got some proprietary bits
in there that you're not allowed to modify Android the same thing.
It's, you know, it's basically Linux, but it's got chunks of proprietary stuff that is
locked away from you.
Um, so this, uh, there's, there's still a long way to go to see like how this is going
to affect people, I think in practice.
Um, but, uh, you know, at least the, um, completely free community run, uh, Linux projects out there,
um, do seem to be safe from it.
Alex.
This seems to me almost like a recognition, uh, at the legislative level that the manner by
which software is created determines the level of regulation of that particular software.
So the more centralized the developers are, the more power they have over the user, the
more likely it is that legislators are going to step in and try to regulate how a person
uses a particular piece of hardware.
And, and this makes, I think the open source community so incredibly unique here and also
so exponentially important to us because this legislation recognizes that decentralized software
or the creation of software that is, is made in a very decentralized way defies this type
of regulation because of the manner in which the software is, is created.
You cannot impose these types of restrictions on an operating system that is created by people
all around the world when there are no centralized repositories of code that one individual can
control.
This to me underscores, I think the extreme importance of decentralized systems and their
place in this world going forward.
That's, I think a really important takeaway from this.
Another takeaway is this.
So let's say, let's assume this comes into play with Windows, as you mentioned, Emmanuel.
And, um, let's say I give my child who turned 13, uh, Windows machine.
I would never do that.
I hope we don't get listener mail about this.
I always give him a Linux box, of course.
Um, but in any event, let's say I give my son a, a Windows machine.
I install, uh, his account on it.
I have my parental account on Windows and I can oversee everything that's happening, whatever.
He can still use the opportunity.
So what's going to stop him from installing a virtual machine with Linux on the Windows
box, probably nothing.
And I think that's what kids should do to get around this is to basically go move over
to decentralized software, go move over to Linux, you know, install virtual machines
on your machines that are otherwise regulated, and then use Linux to go and access the internet
where you don't have this nonsense imposed upon you.
Your kid could also just, uh, get his own Windows box without even talking to you.
How do you feel about that?
Yeah, I could do that too.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
I mean, I would prefer it if you got, you know, like DOS 5.1 or 5.2, you know, and kind
of, you know, got into more kind of retro computing type stuff as opposed to Windows.
But how does that work?
How does it work going back in time to old OSs?
That's a good question.
That aren't open source.
Look, I'm all for, uh, using open source and encouraging people to use open source.
I just don't think this is the right way to do it.
Uh, because, you know, you're, you're basically, you're, you're making them more attractive
somehow by making them forbidden.
And what is it exactly that you're forbidding?
You know, it's really, um, um, it seems like the wrong tack to, uh, to, uh, pursue.
I have one question for you, Alex.
Uh, do you have an Xbox in the house for your kids to play with?
Uh, I do not have an Xbox, but I do have a PlayStation though.
Does that change?
Well, the, the Xbox, uh, I believe runs on a version of Windows.
Um, the PlayStation 5, um, I believe, oh, uh, runs on something based on FreeBSD, but, uh,
probably with some binary blobs in there, you're not allowed to mess with.
So I wonder how this would apply to things like that.
Yeah, that's a good question too, right?
Because you do have these hybrid systems that are, that are comprised of some open source
components and some, some not.
So, you know, where do you draw the line with respect to who controls that particular system?
This whole thing is ridiculous and silly.
I mean, OSs are not the issue.
Nobody is getting addicted to operating systems.
The problem is it's social media, but social media is not ipso facto a massive problem for
all kids.
It can be the best thing in a kid's life.
It could be where they can find people that listen to them, that get them.
You know, it could be a lifesaver.
It has been a lifesaver.
So for us to basically just consider it all evil and, uh, paint it with a broad brush and,
and forbid kids from accessing things at certain ages, that is the wrong way to go about this.
Now, that's, that's not denying the problems that social media can cause, particularly the
algorithms that, uh, we have no idea how they work and, uh, uh, basically sucking people
into, uh, all sorts of, uh, hatred and darkness.
Yeah, that is what we should be focusing on.
And really only that, uh, everything else is pretty much open to exploration, development,
a curiosity.
These are the things we should be encouraging, but, you know, there are, there are limits to
how much time you should, uh, be, be, um, looking at a screen on, on a phone or a computer.
And, uh, you know, that is what we need to be addressing, not just trying to say all social
media is bad or, uh, all computer use is, is harmful for kids.
It's so simplistic and it's obviously designed by people who know nothing about the technology
and not very much about kids either.
Yeah.
It's really overbearing and like heavy handed as a reaction to the, um, dereliction of having
given this stuff thought and had stricter controls in the first place.
You're just like passing along the costs to another generation, like most other environmental
things in this world.
But I mean, it really, truly, it's just kind of passing the buck and not, not really being
accountable for not, for having been bought off, like, like paid off by this in the first
place, you know, just like cashed out.
It's a parallel to FIFA.
I think it really is.
You make really bad decisions.
You pass them on to the next administration and then you have to deal with it.
And that's exactly what we're doing here by, by allowing legislation like this to just
go through without any kind of discussion or, or, or debate or, uh, pushback.
Yes, Alex.
I mean, I think Kyle's absolutely right.
I think you hit it right on the head here when you said, you know, they're passing the
buck or in a, another way of, of describing it perhaps is kicking the can down the road
here.
Right.
I mean, you have these social media giants that got kids hooked on algorithms and yet
somehow politicians are trying to regulate people who are developing kernels or trying
to regulate software devs and trying to kick this can and push the liability, you know,
further down the tech stack to those who are actually involved in developing operating systems.
It makes literally no sense, but I think it might make a lot more sense if you begin to
follow the trail of the money because these social media companies employ tons of lobbyists
and New York and Washington and Brussels and all over the place.
And they have an extremely powerful lobby.
Just look at how big tech social media companies have cozied up to Trump the second that he was
reelected for the second term.
And that tells you a tremendous amount of, of, of how well they know where their bread is
buttered and where the threats can emanate from if they're not careful.
Well, can I ask you as both a lawyer and a parent, what would you be comfortable with
as far as how social media was, was being handled or thought of with regards to children?
Well, I, I, I struggle with this all the time and I'll tell you, I'm bombarded lately with
ads on social media for Instagram teen accounts.
And they try to trick me into watching these reels on Instagram that are about something
funny.
And then all of a sudden they pivot into how Instagram has teen accounts and they have
parental controls and you can determine what you're, and I was thinking, oh my God, the
last thing I want is my teen on Instagram.
Right.
But I think as a parent, I understand that there are very deleterious effects on children from
social media when it comes to self-esteem, when it comes to self-image, when it comes
to, to harm and, and understanding how information flows within the world.
You don't want them totally absorbing the news and politics and culture through the lens of
an Instagram reel.
That just seems like an inherently bad idea from the get go.
But on the other hand, I don't think that the answer here is to regulate social media or
hardware or software inherently.
I think the, I think the way in which we have to approach this is to try to educate people
about the harms of social media and make sure that social media companies themselves are
doing things responsibly and not, not I think implementing algorithms that actively erode
things like tolerance and trust in our, in, in, in our nation and in our society.
And, and I think that we need to make sure that the social media companies have some kind
of measure of transparency or accountability with respect to whatever they're doing when
it comes to minors.
I don't think we need to ban them entirely from the social media companies, but I think
we need to educate the children to recognize that social media is not the greatest thing since
sliced bread.
It has very negative effects.
It can stunt your growth intellectually and probably is, is a bad thing to be on.
If you want to be somebody who gets away with anything.
I mean, if you think about like what we did as kids back in the nineties and, and I know
for you, Emmanuel, perhaps the eighties, right?
But we were able to do things without this massive surveillance lens of our phones being
completely, constantly trained on us.
And I think that kids today are, are waking up to the fact that surveillance capitalism
is all around them, doesn't do them any good.
And I think this is why companies like Meta are constantly pushing to me, the fact that there
are these things called Instagram for teen accounts because they need people to sign up
for them because kids know better these days.
I hope that they frankly know better than we did 10, 15 years ago when everybody was
signing up for social media and places like Twitter.
That bit, uh, a while back, you said something about eroding trust in, in the nation or something.
Was that something you were concerned about?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Eroding trust amongst communities, amongst people sorting us into, into either using identity
politics to sort us into, to various different tribes, different political persuasions,
all of this, you know, very divisive politics and are the things that drive engagement on
these platforms.
Right, right.
But how, how do you control that?
How do you, how do you, uh, keep that from taking off?
Well, I think you have to have some measure of algorithmic transparency with, with respect
to these companies.
If they are going to be able to cause harm to a massive number of people, and we're talking
about hundreds of millions of people just in this country alone.
I think that some kind of, or some measure of algorithmic transparency about what they're
doing, what they're promoting and how they are trying to actively mitigate harm is something
that the public has a right to know.
Except they're not going to say it that way.
They're going to say they're just driving engagement.
They're not trying to harm anybody.
Uh, and then this is a two way street, you know, uh, one, one, uh, a group of people will
say one thing.
Another group will say something in response to that.
Uh, do you shut down that dialogue?
Do you make it so that people can't criticize other people or leaders or, you know, it's,
it's a, it's a very slippery slope.
It's a slippery slope.
And, and it's, I think, complicated by the fact that there are very few people that will
be able to understand exactly how these algorithms work.
And those people certainly are not in Congress or in state legislatures in many respects will
have to rely on other experts to translate what's happening with respect to these algorithms.
But maybe this is a place where frankly, AI systems can help and try to deconstruct what's
happening on these platforms from an algorithmic standpoint, and then translate that into actual
English for legislators to be able to regulate this more effectively.
I think that would be an interesting use of trying to, uh, of using anthropics, clawed code
or something like that.
How important is it that basically the whole thing be, um, be run by an algorithm?
What if it were just, you know, something that was, um, open to scrutiny, open source?
Well, if it was, if it was open to scrutiny, then I think people would obviously be able
to scrutinize it and criticize it.
And they may not be able to change it in some respects, right?
I mean, now we're talking about a sense of decentralized governance of an algorithm in some ways.
And, and those types of experiments have been going on, especially in, in the blockchain world
for a number of years now with DAOs or decentralized autonomous organizations, whereby certain token
holders will have a right to vote on how a protocol is being developed or the shape or form or future of
protocol development on, on the blockchain.
To translate that into the world of web two, I'd be an interesting experiment.
Um, I'd love to see something like that, but I don't think any of these companies are willing
to, so to speak, open the kimono and show us what's actually happening, uh, behind the scenes.
No, of course not.
But are we willing to have these companies continue to sell things to our kids?
Maybe the deal should be, if you want to continue to have their eyeballs, and I can't believe
I just used that word, uh, you can't use algorithms.
You have to use something that we can examine and that we know what it is, or I just deal
with us adults or, or, or, or, or, or, that would be great.
But, but again, I think we go back to the, this issue of the power of the purse that these
social media companies have in terms of shaping the way politicians vote on these issues.
I think it would be extraordinarily difficult to get their money out of the political playing
field at this point.
Well, the way to deal with it is not to pass bad legislation because you can't pass the
good legislation.
You have to keep fighting.
I totally agree with this.
And it goes right back to what Kyle was saying.
This is just passing the buck, kicking the can down the road.
Rob, go ahead.
So Alex, as a, as a parent, I know you've fooled around a little bit with, uh, the fediverse,
federated social media, Mastodon, um, where they're quite by design is no algorithm.
Just, uh, all you see is the people you follow, the entities you follow, you see their posts
in chronological order.
There's no more to it than that.
Nothing's being advertised to you, put in front of you.
Um, the vast majority of these are not commercial entities that are running these servers.
They're, they're just communities coming together to put a thing up so people can chat.
Um, so where, where does that fall on, on the, uh, spectrum of, uh, social media awfulness?
Well, to my mind, I think that would be a hell of a lot better than something like Facebook
or Instagram or TikTok.
Uh, absolutely for sure.
If it's just some kind of chronological listing of the things that you had already decided
you wanted to see and things weren't being actively pushed towards you, that would be
much better.
I mean, this brings to mind an article I read a couple of months ago, uh, in the financial
times.
And it was about the viewpoint of people in Taiwan and in particular young people in Taiwan
changing their, their conception of, of people in China, because it seems like slowly and
imperceptibly TikTok usage in Taiwan has been, well, that's been going up tremendously, but
slowly and imperceptibly the algorithms from, from, I guess it's by, I don't know if I can't
remember the name of the company in China, but the, the Chinese owner of ByteDance, it
wasn't ByteDance, but in China it's, it's called something else.
It's like, uh, Dayu, I think, or something like that.
But any event, the parent company of TikTok in China has been slowly and imperceptibly
sending over images and reels and TikTok about how the Taiwanese and the Chinese people are
really quite the same.
And they're very simple people.
And they're these simple farmers and, and the younger generation in Taiwan has really
changed their viewpoint.
And, and, um, and the charisma of the Chinese towards the, the Taiwanese has, has really
been increasing, right?
So there, there's, they seem to be way more charismatic in China than they were just a few
years ago.
And that to me is, is really kind of fascinating because you have this really abjectly hostile
foreign power that wants to take over your country.
And yet the younger generation is being convinced slowly, but surely that they're not a threat.
There's that, that, that to me is, is really, really quite scary.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, you have to find out who is behind it and, um, and expose them.
Yeah, absolutely.
And the other thing to think about with respect to these social media companies, right?
You think about this, right?
I, um, I joined, uh, I joined Facebook, uh, I hate to say this in 2007 when I was a postgraduate
student at Oxford.
And I joined because this is where everybody was organizing social things and parties and
you would get invited to various things, uh, through Facebook.
And if you weren't on Facebook, you wouldn't get invited.
And do you remember it was just for students?
It was just for students back then.
You had to sign up with your university account, right?
But Facebook, which then became meta has been slowly amassing all of this user data about
not just me, but my entire generation.
I'm now people.
I went to Oxford with have become U S senators.
Good friend of mine at Oxford was Andy Kim in New Jersey.
He got sprayed in the face the other day.
I didn't see that.
Did he really?
How good a friend is he?
Yeah.
You know, if I got sprayed in the face, I would tell all my friends.
Yeah.
I mean, I was, I was overseas, you know, but anyway, yeah, Andy and I used to, but, but
the, I hope he's okay.
You should call him.
You should call him.
I'm sure he would welcome you hearing from you.
He probably would.
Protesting against ice in New Jersey.
That's what happens.
Well, that's, that warms my heart because, um, yeah.
That he got sprayed in the face.
Wow.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That, that, no, that, that he got sprayed in the face, but that he was protesting against
ice.
I mean, obviously, you know, we're two peas in the pod here, but anyway, I think about
somebody like Andy Kim, right?
He also probably joined Facebook around that time.
And so Facebook has 20 years of data about a powerful U S politician.
And if they want to utilize that information, you know, for their own benefit with respect to
how could I pressure this person?
What are the psychological pressure points of Andy Kim?
What's stopping them from using that information as parting a part of their lobbying efforts?
I mean, they have a massive amount of data on every single individual, way more information
than any dossier created by an intelligence agency ever could.
Uh, most of what, most of what I have fed to Facebook is, is false.
I mean, you know, from the beginning I've been lying to it.
Well, that's you, but you're not, you know, not everybody.
It's not even me.
It's not even my real name.
Everything is fake.
We all have the ability to do that.
You know, I don't know why people don't do that more often.
Yeah.
That that's something you should definitely, um, remind yourself is not necessarily like
in a lot of what we're saying, we're talking about generally people that might take some
of this stuff for granted or just aren't as aware of, of how things are structured and,
um, the sorts of business practices.
But it's, it's fair to say a lot of why we, um, might be on these platforms or still participate
or fared somewhat well is that we took a lot of action.
And we were, we're, um, putting, setting our own boundaries with these companies, uh, beyond
just agreeing to the terms, like how you use it.
What bothers me is that so many people use it in a way where it's become home, you know,
all their pictures are there, all their memories, all their interactions, although good luck finding
something from five years ago.
It's impossible.
You know, it's, people were lured into this sense of security in that environment when
it really was not a friendly place at all.
They don't care about you.
You know, they, they, they care about, uh, you spending something that benefits them.
And, uh, as Alex said, having something that they can use either for you or against you,
uh, true, you can delete your account, but then you lose everything and you don't know
for sure that it's gone everywhere.
It's, it's, it's, you, we're seeing now more than ever how unhealthy these platforms are.
And I think that's something that we, we should never let go of and we need to reshape them so
that they're, they're, um, uh, communities that we are, are driving, not driving us.
I mean, is that, is that, is that hopelessly naive?
No, I, I don't, I don't think it is.
And I, I really do believe in the wisdom of the new generation because to my mind, my
son and his friends are not necessarily interested in any of this nonsense and they see it as
crap.
And I think this is why you see so many of these social media companies, especially
companies like meta trying to pivot over into artificial intelligence, trying to pivot to
virtual reality, augmented reality, the kinds of things that will keep the kids engaged.
And, and that's why I see these constant idiotic ads for Instagram teen accounts now,
because they know better than to sign up for this crap.
And I, and I think that bodes really, really well for the future of tech in this country.
Um, but also on the other hand, you know, one thing that I think, you know, we, we have to call
out, uh, the good and the bad, the pros and the cons, right?
Companies like meta, however, in developing their own artificial intelligence models and things like,
uh, Libra and whatnot, meta is actually, I think a shining example of an American company.
That's actually innovating in an open source way when it comes to artificial intelligence.
They're the only one out there, uh, providing their models as open source.
They haven't done a hell of a lot lately with it, but I wish they would do more, um, on that front.
But so there's something to be said for that.
But on the other hand, I, I still think meta is incredibly evil when it comes to the monetization
of our analytics, of our user behavior and, and on their social media platforms, which are pure evil.
Are you talking about Lambda?
Yeah.
What was it?
Lambda or Libra?
Libra.
I don't know which, I think it was called something like Lambda early on, but yeah, I haven't followed it.
Um, but I've, you know, I've heard a lot about Facebook lately.
Like there's been some pretty interesting articles in the New York times and elsewhere, just about
the overall, like, uh, financial footing underlying, like stability of it.
Uh, basically like their investments in that whole like metaverse thing.
Um, and I don't know, I, I think they might not actually, they're definitely trying to make
up time, uh, in that kind of pivot, but also, I mean, what happened to the lawsuits with like
WhatsApp and Instagram, uh, being sort of divested from them or like, uh, um, uh, a part of a
class or something.
I mean, they built the one thing and then they bought a whole bunch of other things and then
tweak the algorithms once they had control to entrap and, and, uh, capture everybody.
So, and a lot of this genesis of like them being places where people socialize come from
Twitter's early history where a lot of people were brought in to get, um, users to be attracted
to it, to find out where those popular, you know, politicians and celebrities were.
So a lot of that has just, this is like the legacy of a lot of that.
But I think what I'm hearing and what you're saying a lot of is that these are not stand-ins
for socializing.
Uh, and that was the real cruel part of the whole social media experiment in web 2.0, um,
days, so to speak.
But there's so much here.
This is, this is an incredible discussion.
Um, and I think that, you know, that, that's why it's so cutthroat and just, uh, uh, they're
doing all these layoffs and stuff like that because they're trying to compete with yet
other industries they, they can't really buy yet.
That's, you know, the thing of, of, of buying everything in sight and just getting bigger
and bigger that, you know, whether it's, uh, media companies or, or social media or, or,
you know, sports teams or whatever, that always leads to something that hurts people.
And, you know, I, how, how far are we going to let that go before the entire world is
just controlled by a couple of people?
Rob, you're going to have to have the closing word because we're almost out of time.
I think one thing we've been saying about social media in all its forms, even before
the big corporations got involved, you know, going back to like IRC and Usenet and stuff
is, uh, you know, it can be fun to use.
It can be nice to connect with people.
Um, it can be a good, uh, distraction for a while, but don't confuse it with real life.
Use it to add to your life.
Don't let it be your life.
Exactly.
Yes.
You know, IRC was no heaven either, but it wasn't run by Microsoft.
So, you know, people could shape it to be a good environment, a bad environment.
That's, that's not going to go away no matter what kind of platform you're using, but we
had the ability to, to design it ourselves and to make it whatever it is we wanted to
make it.
And that's what we have to be, uh, steering back towards.
Hey, uh, we didn't mention this before, but there is no overtime tonight because we've got
deadlines and we've got all kinds of other things going on.
Uh, so unfortunately, uh, there won't be one next week either because we're doing a
call-in show here on WBAI, uh, that will take the whole hour from seven to eight.
So, uh, set your calendars for that.
Call us up and let us know what's on your mind.
And, uh, to buy the time before then you can write to us email.
Yes, O-T-H at 2600.com, O-T-H at 2600.com.
And, um, yeah, it's been a fun discussion and, you know, uh, think these things through
yourself and send us, uh, articles if you find anything or opinions.
We would, uh, we would love to hear your thoughts on this.
We're going to hear a lot more thoughts on it in the future for sure.
This is Emmanuel for Off the Hook.
We will see you next week.
Good night.
Good night.
Good night.
Hey.
Yeah.
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Harder, better, faster, stronger
Work it, make it, do it, makes us
Harder, better, faster, faster, stronger
Work it, make it, do it, faster, faster, stronger
Work it, make it, do it, faster, faster, stronger
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