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Your Group Chats Are Now Blackmail
On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by Bridget Read, a features writer at New York Magazine whose recent piece “What If It All Came Out?” reports on the hackers who are weaponizing our extensive digital footprints against us. While public figures have long dealt with embarrassing leaks and exposed group chats, regular people have started grappling with the same problems thanks to the trove of information our devices have amassed without our knowledge. As scams get more sophisticated, and the risk of exposure grows, we’ll have to change everything about how we behave online.
This podcast is produced by Vic Whitley-Berry, Daisy Rosario, and Kate Lindsay.
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Prediction Markets Are Coming for Everything We Love
36:24|Platforms like Kalshi and Polymarket have expanded from letting people bet on just sports to everything from political events to reality TV, and even the weather. But by injecting financial incentives into things like disease outbreaks, we’re even more susceptible to bad actors and manipulation. On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by creator Austin Evans to talk about the spread of prediction markets, and how a tool once believed to help us make sense of society ended up making everything even more chaotic. ***GET TICKETS TO OUR LIVE SHOW HERE!!!!***This podcast is produced by Vic Whitley-Berry, Daisy Rosario, and Kate Lindsay.
Social Media Is Better With Kids
37:56|GET TICKETS TO OUR LIVE SHOW HERE!!!!As even more countries adopt social media bans for under-sixteen-year-olds, not only does one recent survey confirm they’re not even effective, but they also risk ruining the best parts of the internet. In today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined again by internet culture and tech writer Tatum Hunter to discuss how kids have been responsible for defining so many of the memes and apps we enjoy online. Without them, our entire online experience will be worse, and without properly addressing the root cause of the internet’s harm, kids won’t be better off, either. This podcast is produced by Vic Whitley-Berry, Daisy Rosario, and Kate Lindsay, with help from Kevin Bendis.
Surveillance Glasses For Girls!
37:23|Kylie Jenner and Mark Zuckerberg are trying to rebrand Meta Glasses as some kind of girlboss fashion accessory, even though women are the ones most likely to be the victims of their invasive technology. While Meta plows forward with this new collaboration, the glasses continue to be abused by users taking advantage of its covert filming capabilities, often by filming women without their knowledge and posting it online. On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by A Bit Fruity host Matt Bernstein to discuss why sinister companies keep giving themselves girlboss makeovers—but also why it’s not working. This podcast is produced by Vic Whitley-Berry, Daisy Rosario, and Kate Lindsay.Get tickets to our live show here!
AI Is Changing How We Have Sex
46:46|As sex becomes more online, not only does it become more solitary, but also more surveilled. For instance: Back in December, OpenAI announced that they’d allow adult users to have erotic conversations with ChatGPT. On today’s encore episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by porn historian Noelle Perdue, author of the Porn World newsletter. While advances in AI and sex surveillance are intended to divide us, Noelle is confident that AI’s attempted sex-takeover will fail. This podcast is produced by Vic Whitley-Berry, Daisy Rosario, and Kate Lindsay, with help today from Kevin Bendis. Get tickets to our live show here!
Influencers Are Hitting Retirement
37:02|On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by Kyle Raymond Fitzpatrick, creator of The Trend Report, to talk about how so many of our favorite influencers have started to retire. Glitter and Lazers deleted her entire digital footprint, and longtime vlogger Zoella has not posted since January, and parasocial fans are having to reckon with the fact that anyone they love online could just disappear. What do these creators owe their fans, if anything? And how can we prepare for this to keep happening?This podcast is produced by Vic Whitley-Berry, Daisy Rosario, and Kate Lindsay, with help from Kevin Bendis.
Your Favorite World Cup Moment Might Be Fake
31:00|On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by Will Oremus, tech writer at The Atlantic and author of “The Feel-Good Story of the World Cup Is Too Good to Be True.” While our social media feeds have been flooded with thousands of viral and wholesome moments from the World Cup, Will discovered that a number of accounts behind some of the biggest posts aren’t what they seem. Some are using AI to write exaggerated stories, and others have become so mysteriously popular so mysteriously quickly that users are becoming suspicious. Is a Japanese tourist really writing odes to chips and salsa on X? And who is Freddy? Please say Merlin the duck is really a duck!This podcast is produced by Vic Whitley-Berry, Daisy Rosario, and Kate Lindsay.
My Decade-Long Payment App Feud
45:15|On today’s episode, in collaboration with No Such Thing, host Kate Lindsay is joined by Manny Fidel, Noah Friedman, and Devan Joseph to talk about payment apps, and how they’ve changed the way we think about money. Plus, Kate reveals her own payment app predicament, and, with the help of the boys and a handful of experts, brings an unspoken, decade-long Venmo feud to a close. This podcast is produced by Vic Whitley-Berry, Daisy Rosario, and Kate Lindsay, with help from No Such Thing.
Everything Is Phone
34:18|On today’s episode, host Kate Lindsay is joined by Slate staff writer Nitish Pawha to discuss his piece “Your TV Is Not Safe.” Apps like Instagram, Substack, and Spotify are making the leap from smart phones to smart TVs, as TVs attempt to compete against scrolling, and the nature of entertainment is changing. But giving over our TVs to these companies even further changes our relationships with technology, and even more, how we spend time with each other. This podcast is produced by Vic Whitley-Berry, Daisy Rosario, and Kate Lindsay, with help from A.C. Valdez.