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September 10, 2018: Episode 50: Recap of the first year!

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This week: recap of the first year! Episode 50 of Techtonic, finishing the first year of the show, with a clip from every guest so far.

Above: The books that informed the first 50 Techtonic episodes (and two Skeptech events in Monty Hall).
Recent Tech News

Before we get to the recap...



• Americans are changing their relationship with Facebook (Pew Research, Sep 5): "42% of Facebook users, ages 18 and older, say they have taken a break from checking the platform for a period of several weeks or more, while around a quarter (26%) say they have deleted the Facebook app from their cellphone."

• It's Time to Break Up Facebook (The Verge, Sep 4): "The easiest way to do it is to start by breaking off WhatsApp and Instagram so those are separate companies," says Tim Wu. "It is true that bigness is a curse and leads a company to become doddering and bad. But the mythology and the problem is assuming that these companies sort of automatically go away. AT&T had a monopoly for 70 years..."

• Can Mark Zuckerberg Fix Facebook Before It Breaks Democracy? (New Yorker, Sep 17 issue): Evan Osnos writes: "I found Zuckerberg straining, not always coherently, to grasp problems for which he was plainly unprepared... including the meaning of truth, the limits of free speech, and the origins of violence."

• How Duterte Used Facebook To Fuel the Philippine Drug War (BuzzFeed News, Sep 4): Great long read by Davey Alba. "Last November, Facebook partnered with the Duterte government to build an undersea cable system that would connect Philippine internet systems to the rest of Asia and the US... virtually every Filipino citizen with an internet connection has a Facebook account. For many, Facebook is the only way to access the internet. Which is pretty much how Facebook wants it."



• Google’s Empty Chair Gets Starring Role at Hearing (WSJ, Sep 5): "Alphabet, Google’s parent company, declined to send Chief Executive Larry Page to appear at the hearing, where U.S. senators grilled Facebook Inc. Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter Inc. CEO Jack Dorsey about issues including Russian meddling, online privacy and political bias on tech platforms." See also this summary of the hearings (WaPo, Sep 5).

• Google and Mastercard Cut a Secret Ad Deal to Track Retail Sales (Bloomberg News, Aug 30): "It works like this: a person searches for 'red lipstick' on Google, clicks on an ad, surfs the web but doesn’t buy anything. Later, she walks into a store and buys red lipstick with her Mastercard. The advertiser who ran the ad is fed a report from Google, listing the sale. ... 'People don't expect what they buy physically in a store to be linked to what they are buying online,' said Christine Bannan, counsel with the advocacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). 'There's just far too much burden that companies place on consumers and not enough responsibility being taken by companies to inform users what they're doing and what rights they have.'"

• Are New York's Free LinkNYC Internet Kiosks Tracking Your Movements? (The Intercept, Sep 8, by Ava Kofman). "The plan to blanket New York City with 7,500 camera-equipped obelisks has been largely underwritten by the company formerly known as Google — a corporation whose business model depends on selling your personal information to advertisers." See also this Guardian piece from Aug 2017.



• Amazon’s Antitrust Antagonist Has a Breakthrough Idea (New York Times, Sep 7): "Amazon has more revenue than Facebook, Google and Twitter put together, but it has largely escaped sustained examination. That is beginning to change, and one significant reason is Lina Khan." She writes: "The long-term interests of consumers include product quality, variety and innovation — factors best promoted through both a robust competitive process and open markets." Also don't miss how the NYT describes the research paper by two former FTC officials arguing fiercely against Khan: "Amazon itself could not have made the argument any better. Which isn't surprising, because in a footnote on the first page, the authors noted: 'We approached Amazon Inc. for funding... and we gratefully acknowledge its support.' They added at the end of footnote 85: 'The authors have advised Amazon on a variety of antitrust issues.' Amazon declined to say how much its support came to in dollars."

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