This Week in Google Episode 657 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.

Leo Laporte (00:00:00):
It's time for TWIG: This Week in Google! Ant and Stacy are out, Jeff Jarvis is here and we brought in Joan Donovan, who's a professor at Harvard's Kennedy Center and an expert on disinformation. We'll talk about the methods of disinformation, how Russia has used disinformation, and who's responsible for keeping disinformation out of the ecosystem. It's all coming up next on TWiG Podcasts you love

Speaker 2 (00:00:30):
From people you trust. This is TWiT.

Leo Laporte (00:00:39):
This is TWiG. This Week in Google episode, 657 recorded Wednesday, March 30th, 2022. You can't shoot their feet.

Leo Laporte (00:00:50):
This Week in Google is brought to you by eight sleep. Good sleep is the ultimate game changer and nature's best medicine. Go to eightsleep.com/TWiG. To check out the hot pro cover and save a $150 at checkout eight sleep currently ships within the us, Canada and the UK. And by Blueland, stop wasting water and throwing out more plastic and get Bluland's revolutionary refill cleaning system. Instead, right now you can get 20% off your first order when you go to blueland.com/twig and by our crowd, our crowd helps accredited investors invest early in pre IPO companies alongside professional venture capitalists. Join the fastest growing venture capital investment community@ourcrowd.com slash twig. It's time for TWIG This Week in Google! Hard to do a show without two of our stalwarts Stacy Higginbotham and Ant Pruitt both have the week off, Jeff Jarvis is here. I'm happy, but you

Jeff Jarvis (00:01:55):
Can't get rid of me, man. You try it. Try everything. No, I'm still here.

Leo Laporte (00:02:00):
Oh my goodness. He's the Leonard Tow professor for Journalistic innovation at the Craig Newmark Graduate school of journalism at the City University of New York. Welcome

Jeff Jarvis (00:02:13):
Question that has been burning in my soul.

Leo Laporte (00:02:16):
Yes.

Jeff Jarvis (00:02:17):
For a week.

Leo Laporte (00:02:17):
Yes.

Jeff Jarvis (00:02:18):
What are you sitting on today?

Leo Laporte (00:02:21):
I'm sitting its a bicycle seat on a stick.

Jeff Jarvis (00:02:25):
You're still sitting on that damn

Leo Laporte (00:02:26):
Thing. Yeah, No, actually I I'm getting used to it. My butt's numb, but I'm but but my core, my core strength is amazing.

Jeff Jarvis (00:02:36):
Joan. He sat on this last week and couldn't sit still because his rear end. That's the idea.

Leo Laporte (00:02:42):
He's dead. You're not supposed to sit still you're to be dead constantly moving. Hey that's so we brought in the big guns to take over for Stacy and Ant this week, Joan Donovan is here from the Shorenstein Center. We should get Carol Shorenstein

Leo Laporte (00:02:58):
Shorenstein Center on media policy media politics and public policy. It's great to have you, Joan we've had her on many times before she is a research, the research director there, and an expert on disinformation, which has kept you pretty busy. I'm thinking of late.

Joan Donovan (00:03:15):
Oh, I don't even know if you heard of it. It's like such a niche, You know, research Area these days. Oh my God.

Jeff Jarvis (00:03:23):
It's all Joan's fault. Nobody cared about this before. And she came along and suddenly,

Joan Donovan (00:03:29):
You know, there were a few people, people,

Jeff Jarvis (00:03:30):
There were a few

Joan Donovan (00:03:31):
People out there. Jeff, I remember meeting you at the beginning of all of this and being like, oh, we're in trouble.

Jeff Jarvis (00:03:38):
We should have all run.

Leo Laporte (00:03:39):
When was, when was that? When was the beginning? Just had a curious

Joan Donovan (00:03:42):
Was back around like when Google news lab was bringing together, people trying to figure out, you know, did this fake news thing have anything to do with journalism? And I was just starting up at data and society and Jeff of course had a longer relationship with them data and society and Dana Boyd. I was just getting my sea legs, but I really relied on Jeff for a lot of input and insight into how this, you know, whole thing came together and, and how the field was gonna mature. Well, I think we learned from each other baby. I think I, you know, you've been around, you get like there's history in those, in your, you know, just in embodied in your experience. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:04:22):
That's what they say after a while Jeff history embodied in that white hair. Yeah.

Joan Donovan (00:04:28):
But it's like, you know, I, you know, I, kind of came on the scene as an internet researcher that knew a lot about social movements, knew a lot about online coordination. And I was always interested in pranking and digital shenanigans. And then I'd done research on people who hide their identities online, particularly white supremacists. And so I was like showing up at a moment when everybody was like, wait the internet, isn't just a force for social good. There are baddies on the internet where, and and then it just came,

Jeff Jarvis (00:05:01):
Joan was doing very brave things from beginning.

Leo Laporte (00:05:04):
It is Brave.

Jeff Jarvis (00:05:05):
Isn't in the bad groups. Oh really? Yeah. Really

Leo Laporte (00:05:07):
Very, yeah. Those

Jeff Jarvis (00:05:08):
People are and, and bringing under understanding of, of what they were doing and why they were doing it. Nobody else from the half time,

Leo Laporte (00:05:14):
Actually, since we have you on Joan, this is a story from last month, but I'm curious what you think about the linguistic analysis, this of Q did you see this?

Joan Donovan (00:05:26):
I did. You know, and there's just been, there's been a lot of analysis and, you know, until like, until the day that the person who was Q that had access to the keys of 8 Chan stands up and says, it was me. Ha ha. You know, I think we're all gonna have our doubts, but I think this is a pretty decent approximation. I also don't think it was just one or two people. I think that there was always a a Q was like one of those, you know, names that was like a, a moniker for a collective. Yeah. And so when you do look closely at some of the posts, there's some really weirdo, like, you know, yoga, spiritual music stuff, that's in Q posts. And you're like, where did, where did that come from? And, and then there's like, you know, this very bomb, militaristic language. And you're like, that just seems like a whole different vibe. And 

Jeff Jarvis (00:06:22):
What's your theory Joan?

Joan Donovan (00:06:22):
I think the story was I think that, yeah, no, I, I, I think personally, like this is not anything I can sustain with any research is I think it was something that was tested and got outta hand and then was in, by the Watkins on eight Chan who saw a, a marketing opportunity, a way to drive people to their website, a way to drive people to their political convictions. And they were a bit of, was it agents,

Jeff Jarvis (00:06:51):
Was it, was it sincere or was it a hoot from the beginning?

Joan Donovan (00:06:54):
I think it actually came out of this you know, on, on 4 Chan and, and whatnot. There'd been a lot of talk about psychological influence operations and if you could really do it, and I think it was people playing with some military strategy playing with psychological theories about repetition and, and facts. And, and, and so I actually think it was plotted out, probably not as strategically all the way to the end, because they could have never known, you know, what was, what was gonna be around the corner. But what they did strategically that I thought was always really interesting is they took breaking news and made it relevant to the conspiracy. And so there was always something new to discover and to be part of. And so it generated all of this participation and excitement and, you know, there are all these like Easter egg hunts.

Joan Donovan (00:07:51):
And so in, in that sense, I do think that the Watkins saw that there was an advantage here, their website could really bring people together and could be used as a place to launder information out to other platforms. But because it was always bigger than the messages from Q itself, there were all of these, you know sort of centrifugal rings of influencers around Q that. It was always more than just one layer of people. And it's hard to tell if they were even coordinating at all more so than they were just trying to keep it alive because it made money, it generated attention and it got political things done.

Leo Laporte (00:08:36):
Yeah. So really it's of, of interest, I guess, to think of who the original creators were just like it's of interest to figure out who Satoshi Nakamoto is, but not really of real import because both Bitcoin

Joan Donovan (00:08:50):
Yeah. Cuz you could study what it, you can study what it did yeah. Without knowing who it was, but there is you know, there's that great series on HBO about this?

Leo Laporte (00:09:02):
Well, that's what got me really interested in it. Yeah. Yeah.

Joan Donovan (00:09:05):
The, yeah. And that, yeah. And that does talk to some of the major players that would really know who was behind it and what, you know, because eventually, you know, if you run a website that has user generated content and someone's demanding that much attention and causing that much chaos, you're gonna wanna know who they are. Right. Right. Like, you know, and in the Watkins, especially if this had been some kind of government op would've been, you know, intensely suspicious of FBI, CIA DHS involvement. And so it's just like, it strikes me that the people who ran the website would have to know a little bit more about the subversive intentions of Q if not be, you know, the ones behind it themselves

Leo Laporte (00:09:54):
The documentary is called Into the Storm and the creator of a Colin ho Hopkins Hoskins I think pretty much concluded it was Ron Watkins at the end. And it was very conclusive for me as I watched the documentary. But again, that's not, that's not as much important. Yeah.

Joan Donovan (00:10:12):
I think Ron played a significant role, but again, like if you look at the multilevel marketing around QANon and just the, like, you know, the, the spirituality angle of it, you know, I mean, it's, it's, it's, t-shirts, it's key chains. It's,

Leo Laporte (00:10:28):
It's your main, only everything in one aspect, which is that Ron Watkins is running for Congress. So yes. So it does, I guess, in that, in that respect have some have some important, yeah.

Jeff Jarvis (00:10:39):
I always hope hoping it was like a, it was like a, a washed up comic, like Gallagher wouldn't

Leo Laporte (00:10:43):
That have been that

Jeff Jarvis (00:10:44):
Your hoot

Joan Donovan (00:10:45):
Like carrot top shows up.

Jeff Jarvis (00:10:47):
Yeah. Carrot top that's that's better.

Leo Laporte (00:10:49):
Yeah. Or Andy or Andy? What's Andy, Andy Kaufman Kaufman. It's a pretty

Jeff Jarvis (00:10:55):
Perfect. And it would be an Andy, a perfect

Leo Laporte (00:10:58):
Coffee. All right. Well, there is stuff that is more up to date today to talk about. So I guess we should get to the news of the week, although when you have Joan Donovan on,

Jeff Jarvis (00:11:07):
You can talk about,

Leo Laporte (00:11:08):
It's very tempting to, to go down a lot of different rabbit holes.

Jeff Jarvis (00:11:12):
It's where she lives. Yeah. In those rabbit holes like Joan,

Joan Donovan (00:11:15):
I know you guys don't even wanna know. Like I often tell people they're like, what have you been looking at? And I'm like, no, no. Let's

Leo Laporte (00:11:22):
No, you don't wanna know. It's like asking a Facebook moderator. Hey, had, do you have a good day?

Joan Donovan (00:11:27):
How, how was work? It was work.

Leo Laporte (00:11:29):
Whoa.

Joan Donovan (00:11:30):
No, no, not the conversation that we had here.

Leo Laporte (00:11:34):
Actually

Joan Donovan (00:11:34):
Let's

Leo Laporte (00:11:34):
Anyway, let's talk a little bit about this information in Ukraine. It was a very interesting G the us information agencies pursued to diffuse what they saw as the, the coming war and the coming disinformation from Putin, for instance to say no, no, no. Those, those stories about the chemical weapons bunkers, the us has in Ukraine are really just to, to, you know, a straw man to distract you from the fact that they're gonna use chemical weapons to attack Ukraine, Russians are gonna, or, you know, pay no attention to. So the, the Russians who have, you know, historically been kind of Kings of disinformation, I think have been added again considerably. Yes. And do you think that was a good strategy on the part of the information agencies to, to, to,

Joan Donovan (00:12:26):
Yeah, I think it, in the evidence points, it, it points right back to what happened in Syria. And so we know the, it, this is part of the strategy is to say this horrible thing's about to happen, blame this other person. Yeah. You know, and and that kind of attack and deflect strategy is something that we've seen from Russia in the past. And

Leo Laporte (00:12:47):
Gary Caspar says that Putin's, strategy's always been Sue for peace talk, so he can re-arm and re and then attack with great vigor again, it's like, they, we know the playbook now.

Joan Donovan (00:13:01):
Yeah. And I think that, you know, the us and NATO understand that there's a common enemy afoot. And that's why I think, you know, news medium is making a pretty big deal about the end of Biden's very cinematic speed on Saturday with the castle and the dark lighting and everything, very ominous. But I was like, this feels like the moon landing, you know, in a way,

Leo Laporte (00:13:24):
Do you think that was intentional? All of that staging stagecraft?

Joan Donovan (00:13:26):
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Everybody loves a good stage CRI. Yeah. And so have

Jeff Jarvis (00:13:30):
You seen, but nevertheless sorry, I, I, I'm not hearing you sometimes too. Have you seen a uptick or down tick in, in Russian disformation? Are they a little, little busy now paying attention to what they're paying attention to or in terms of America or has it had an impact on the flow?

Joan Donovan (00:13:49):
It's it's interesting. Yeah. The kind of stuff that we see like that used to be pumped through Russian date media, of course you know, the platform companies have shut all of that down. And so there's a lot less RT, but what we're seeing then is clips of those shows show up on TikTok and in telegram much more frequently. And so the media out of Russia is coming back, but the Russian focus on the us I thought it was really interesting. Love to know Jeff, your opinion on, you know, when Putin started to mention JK Rowling and cancel culture, it reminded me a lot of this kind of dog whistling where you're like, well, the us media's gonna have to cover this cuz we mention, you know, Harry Potter. Right. And so 

Leo Laporte (00:14:34):
Oh, that's to me like that interesting.

Joan Donovan (00:14:37):
A way to snake back into the American you know,

Jeff Jarvis (00:14:41):
That is interesting, good theory media. I like that. Yeah,

Leo Laporte (00:14:45):
They must,

Jeff Jarvis (00:14:45):
It was also amazing.

Leo Laporte (00:14:47):
They must have a fairly big operation. I, you know, I noted for instance, we had a story yesterday that Verizon customers are getting spam text messages from their own number that said click a link to receive a gift. And in many cases, the link led to a Russian news site and I thought, wow, that's interesting. Is that their strategy?

Joan Donovan (00:15:10):
I mean, yes, spoofing, you know, to try to get people to wow. To see things from their perspective. And I think that, you know, the, the use of spam is something that's also been interesting on the activist side. I have a colleague, Julia Minson at the university. That's been working with some hackers on building repositories of messages that east then spamed to Russian emails so that they can get information one on how to install things like tour and circumvent Russian suppression of the internet. And then also to messages about from independent media that make people think twice about the media that they're ingesting, but who knows, like, are they opening the spam? We don't know, but it does seem to me that there's gonna be some like low grade information warfare tactic playing out as people experiment with different gateways into other people's networks.

Leo Laporte (00:16:07):
Yeah. You do it all right. And it's cheap and easy to do. Thanks to technology. So as long as you have the manpower, which Russia does to do it, you do it.

Jeff Jarvis (00:16:17):
I put in the story about the the bot farms that, that were shut down in Ukraine. Yeah. And the great thing about it is pictures of the racks used to create all the different identities to go was spinoff in other things 10,000 SIM cards a hundred sets of GSM gateways all this was just to spam us.

Leo Laporte (00:16:42):
Yeah. Well, and in fact yeah, that's used in Florida as well. I mean, it's used all over the world these spam farms in Asia to yeah. Here's some of the picture, these are almost 10,000 Sims of various operators. The idea being, it looks like these are genuine users it's been used for click fraud in advertising. I, I guess this was for disinformation. I don't know what they were,

Jeff Jarvis (00:17:08):
I would assume so.

Leo Laporte (00:17:09):
Yeah. The the bot farms operated in carve CHII Potta Sahar, Patia regions, fake accounts. Ah, they, they would use these to create fake accounts on social media. Right. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. And then post fake news about the Russian war.

Jeff Jarvis (00:17:28):
I think I've known a few of them.

Leo Laporte (00:17:29):
I wonder Joan, if this, I mean, this is this a, a, how new is this phenomenon? Is social media really allowing this has kind of been something poor. Jeff has to hear me say all the time, allowing this to be weaponized.

Joan Donovan (00:17:43):
Yeah. We've been here. You know, if you look at the, sort of now canonical case of the Russian internet research agency, when they were creating fake accounts, it was you know, they were, some of them were originally lifestyle accounts, things that were, you know, on Twitter that were very spammy until they were turned into you know, mostly you anti-D or anti Hillary accounts. They weren't exactly pro-Trump. And so, yeah, like we've seen this happen time and time again. We were also looking at a bunch of Facebook pages that were being operated and were selling identities to support the and voy protests that were happening in, in Ottawa. And then you know, started to roll out, you know, in the us. And there was a, you know, nobody really paid any attention to it, but there were a couple of convoy protests in DC over the past few weeks.

Joan Donovan (00:18:46):
And, but yeah, it's just, you know, part of the nature of the design of these platforms themselves is this, you know, engagement, farming and, and building out these fake profiles because the, the goal here is to have an impact on the algorithm, not just an impact on public conversation, but you wanna be able to put information out there and then have it be discoverable. And so it's like if a single person tweets and nobody retweets it and, you know, did anybody really see it? You know, and so having a bot network or you know, fake influencers or fake accounts that follow you, that job is to reshare that information. It's just of the industry, it's part of social. Media's like, it's just what it is is, is you know, social, it's

Leo Laporte (00:19:38):
A communications medium, and of course, whatever the communications medium you're gonna use it. And if it's, you know, more friction free, you're gonna use it more. It's easier to, to take advantage of not all of this information comes from Russia. Surprisingly Facebook, for instance, paid a a firm called targeted victory to push the message that TikTok was bad for kids. How stupid employees from the firm targeted victory to undermine TikTok through a nationwide media and lobbying campaign portraying TikTok, which was an existential threat to a Facebook, I guess, as a danger to American children and society. This is according to the Washington post, which saw internal emails to this effect. Here's one quote, get the message out that, that while meta is the current punching bag, TikTok is the real threat, especially as a foreign owned app. That is number one in sharing data that young teens are using. And bonus point here's the best one bonus points. If we can fit this into a broader message that the current bills aren't where members of Congress should be focused pay no attention to that meta problem, look at TikTok.

Joan Donovan (00:21:01):
Well, you know, I, this had echoes of a campaign Facebook had also run in 2018 where they used a similar firm called definers that had attacked apple and Google. And they had come up with some antisemitic messaging that, that also attacked George Soros. And so Facebook in response to that New York times story, that was, it was a really big deal and it came out and it was and it was a she of Frankel Cecilia king piece. And so this is nothing new that Facebook has has done here. This is just a different firm doing the same media

Leo Laporte (00:21:43):
Golf companies do this. This is like,

Jeff Jarvis (00:21:46):
Well, they usually hire they, what they create a fake organization and fund that and let that organization, right. Microsoft has been doing this for years going after Google and company. And, and so, so it's usually, they're smart enough to create a separation, actually,

Leo Laporte (00:22:01):
Microsoft

Jeff Jarvis (00:22:01):
Society for responsible adolescence,

Leo Laporte (00:22:04):
Microsoft did

Jeff Jarvis (00:22:05):
And give money,

Leo Laporte (00:22:05):
Did sponsor ads and videos, and about Gmail man reading your mail. So they didn't try too hard to, to obfuscate the source of that information. Yeah. Targeted victory does not deny it. They say quote we're, they didn't say what they did, but we are proud of the work we've done. You can hire us with, with meta

Jeff Jarvis (00:22:24):
Euro enemies too,

Leo Laporte (00:22:25):
And met us spokesperson and stone defended the camp pain saying quote, we believe all platforms, including TikTok should face a level of scrutiny of, oh, a level of scrutiny consistent with their growing success. Tiktok says it is deeply concerned.

Joan Donovan (00:22:41):
Well, it's hard, you know, you're out here as a, you know, if you're out here as an academic, you're like, wait, you know, we're trying to work with these companies to battle misinformation. And here they are paying PR firms to blast each other. And it's like, how do we get a handle on like authentic debate and discourse? Especially if you look in that article Taylor Lorenze and drew Harwell do a really great job, because there were a couple viral campaigns. We were sitting on a case study about the slap, your teacher phenomenon. And we were just like, we just can't figure out how this thing, where did this come

Leo Laporte (00:23:15):
From?

Joan Donovan (00:23:15):
Came so popular when it's not actually that viral. And there's a few things on TikTok, and there's a few things on Facebook. And this really connected the dots for us is that there was a paid media campaign to get out that, you know, TikTok was hosting these viral challenges and they threat to children. Yeah. And so it really, we were just like sitting here reading it this morning, my whole team was on, on signal, just like, oh man, we can finish the case study now cuz we know how it became popular in the media.

Jeff Jarvis (00:23:48):
Wow. So how much of moral panic is seated in this way?

Joan Donovan (00:23:54):
Yeah. And, and so we gotta just be really careful when we start to read these stories and, and it employs a classic media manipulation technique called trading up the chain. So it's well known. There's a really great book by Ryan holiday called trust me on lying where he's this whole chapter on describing. Yeah. Read this chapter again, cuz it'll just, but its, you plan a story in local news or blog that doesn't have a lot of over said like oversight in terms of editorial and, and you get that story and that establishes the facts here's and then perfect. Other things can be built on. Here's

Leo Laporte (00:24:26):
A perfect example that happened in Northern California a couple of months ago. This is from Oakland's channel two news,

Speaker 5 (00:24:34):
A new video sweeping TikTok has law enforcement watching it's the door kicking challenge in which young people kick someone's door to beat out to the beat of a song, then run as hates views. The alone reports is causing damage and safety concern.

Leo Laporte (00:24:48):
This sparked a series of this sparked a series

Speaker 6 (00:24:54):
On TikTok of prank that began in college

Leo Laporte (00:24:57):
Doors, newspaper articles in Petaluma doors are being damaged. Someone's plus we're worried when this happens, somebody's gonna get shot. If you think you're being broken in on here's the Petaluma police community engagement officer. Oh my God. This is, this is this. As far as I know was localized to our small town. I asked our 19 year old and I asked my son who's a fairly well known Tucker. Are you aware of the is challenge? No

Jeff Jarvis (00:25:29):
Leo. And that's along this one Line 1 0 9

Leo Laporte (00:25:35):
Line 1 0 9 1 0 9. Kick the door. When you hear it. 16% of British toddlers are on TikTok.

Joan Donovan (00:25:49):
I mean like a, like as like their parents survey,

Jeff Jarvis (00:25:54):
They do, they survey them.

Leo Laporte (00:25:56):
It may be affecting their attention span.

Jeff Jarvis (00:26:02):
Maybe toddler like I mommy, mommy, can I please have the chiro please?

Leo Laporte (00:26:06):
British toddlers. They increasingly likely to be users of TikTok with a substantial number of parents saying their preschool children use the video service despite the app, supposedly being restricted to those ages 13 and older.

Jeff Jarvis (00:26:21):
Excuse me. Excuse me. The little sad here. I know you're only two years old, but did you fill out that age thing? Did you go down to the count down

Leo Laporte (00:26:27):
To the I'm Sally, get your age thing.

Joan Donovan (00:26:31):
I don't even know how you get statistics on that. This is,

Leo Laporte (00:26:35):
This is from OS com. That's the funniest thing. This is the British OCOM Ofcom, the British enforcement media media, regular

Jeff Jarvis (00:26:41):
They're the ones. They're the ones who are gonna be enforcing the new regulations against the internet Ofcom. This is, these are the folks who are gonna protect us from ourselves. Oh

Leo Laporte (00:26:49):
Lord. These prizes to a third of all children in the five to seven year old age group. Oh my God.

Joan Donovan (00:26:56):
I wonder if they just ask like parents, do you let your children use TikTok on your phone? And they're just yeah. I show them funny cat video

Leo Laporte (00:27:04):
Sort. Honestly also

Jeff Jarvis (00:27:06):
I get my dinner down

Leo Laporte (00:27:07):
The 13 year old age limit is about collecting information on kids. It means you can't make an account on TikTok, which means you can't post on TikTok. But I don't think in any respect, it limits you from using viewing video on YouTube TikTok or, but how does

Jeff Jarvis (00:27:22):
A five year old get access to this?

Leo Laporte (00:27:24):
I mean, this is mommy mummy. Can I use the phone mummy it's especially three year olds. It's mom's moms going, shut up and watch TikTok.

Joan Donovan (00:27:36):
Yeah. That's how I self Soo at night. I'm like, oh, I'm just gonna

Leo Laporte (00:27:41):
Kick. Why shouldn't three year olds be able to do scroll like the rest of us tick off. Yeah. Yeah, totally. That's hysterical.

Joan Donovan (00:27:47):
That's that's weird. I mean, you know, if we're all out here trying to get headlines, it's one thing, but geez, you know, you really wanna like tie that to some really like clear analysis of facts. And, and I think there, there is a bit of a, you know, know moral techno panic going on in the world these days around, you know, access and tech, you know, access to technology, meaning exactly that this, this child or this person has been corrupted in some way. And I don't know, I, I hate to hold myself out as an example of anything, but I consume more are horrible media than most people on the planet. I think I'm okay. You know? Yeah. I got you mean

Leo Laporte (00:28:34):
You're watching you're binging Bridgeton, is that what you're talking about?

Joan Donovan (00:28:37):
Yeah, but I guess I just, I don't know. Maybe I don't believe in anything. So I'm like yeah, flat earth let's watch it.

Leo Laporte (00:28:43):
So

Jeff Jarvis (00:28:44):
Where are you the third effect Joan and the first person

Leo Laporte (00:28:47):
What's that, that, what do

Joan Donovan (00:28:48):
You mean? Tell me

Jeff Jarvis (00:28:49):
The third person effect says that everybody else is influenced by this horrible stuff poor, but not me. And the first person effect says that I'm better than everybody else. Right. That so much of what comes on here is that there's

Leo Laporte (00:29:01):
A big, that else affected. Yeah, I can, I can handle it, but I really worry about the mush minds in my community.

Joan Donovan (00:29:08):
No, there are things that I am totally doable on and I need to know what those things are. And and so like, I'm like, you know, I wanna believe probably the worst about Bitcoin. And so I'm like doable about if people, I was just talking to a colleague the other day and I had shared that like, you know you know, New York city scammer sells Chucky cheese co tokens in times square as Bitcoin makes a million dollars. Like I was like, that's funny. Like I believe Bitcoin was real, you know? And and so like, you know, you just gotta kind of know what you might be susceptible to where your biases are and then, and then show up with a sort of a, a relentless skepticism towards everything. But you know, I have criteria by which makes it so that I believe certain things more than others, especially when it comes to long form investigative journalism and like, you know, but it's, it's, it's crazy to think like, you know that there's a great book if I might divulge my, my book choice early, but there is this great book from Kelly wheel about flat earthers that has recently come out.

Leo Laporte (00:30:20):
Oh yeah. I've ordered that. Yeah. Yeah.

Joan Donovan (00:30:22):
And one of the things that goes to this talk about like, does TikTok TikTok, corrupt children is there's this line from one of her respondents in theres he says, I didn't find flat earth. It found me. And what he's talking about is he was watching a bunch of conspiracy videos, but then flat earth conspiracy videos came up in his rec recommendations and he got into it. And so like, you know, I think part of that underlying fear about what the algorithms are doing to people is animating people's fears about, you know, what's under the hood at TikTok and, you know, are they Chinese propaganda that are trying to make us feel better about us? China relations is that part of TikTok, you know, adoption, you know, in the us like, and so it's, it's important for us to, to be skeptical of things, but also we can't just get into this, you know, belief that, you know, these companies can do all this stuff that is just not actually possible well, and,

Jeff Jarvis (00:31:20):
And how much people are affected. John, can you explain this to me? If anybody can, you can, I mean, flat earth is clearly just wrong and dumb and

Leo Laporte (00:31:30):
All have to do is take a ride ride and Jeff, Jeff Bezos's penis ship and you'll know.

Jeff Jarvis (00:31:35):
Right, right.

Joan Donovan (00:31:37):
I'm dead. I'm dead. Sorry

Leo Laporte (00:31:40):
That one

Joan Donovan (00:31:40):
Killed

Leo Laporte (00:31:41):
Me. Just take a ride man. And you know, yeah. You'll see. It's curved.

Joan Donovan (00:31:46):
It's curved. It is.

Jeff Jarvis (00:31:48):
I I'll on. And

Leo Laporte (00:31:49):
So I think, I feel like flat earthers might be the, our bird's real crowd. Like,

Jeff Jarvis (00:31:53):
Is it performative? Is it just, I'm gonna piss off people? And, and that's why I'm doing that.

Joan Donovan (00:31:57):
It's not as performative is our, our,

Leo Laporte (00:32:01):
The

Joan Donovan (00:32:02):
Birds aren't real, which is definitely got a bit of like showmanship and a bit of, you know, a bit of pranksters behind it. Whereas the, the flat earths, like they do believe it. They do, they, they have like, they put a lot of work into it. You can

Leo Laporte (00:32:19):
Fly, fly or sail around the world. They never fall off.

Joan Donovan (00:32:22):
Yeah. But you can't off because it's really, really far to the ends where the ice wall exists. That keeps all of the thing on the disc, inside the disc. It's like, it's like to get to the crust of the pizza. You just it's really, really far. And so you did sail for a really long time.

Leo Laporte (00:32:41):
No, you, no. That makes no sense.

Joan Donovan (00:32:43):
I'm not explaining my position. I'm just explaining the

Speaker 7 (00:32:47):
Position. I think Jordan, we're gonna do Avention

Leo Laporte (00:32:49):
A minute. Believe it. So let me, so it's crazy. So, but we should ask Joan really the nut of the whole thing, this whole conversation that we've we've been having for years is, is it the platform's responsibility to somehow curb this? Is there anything they can do? Should they do something about it?

Joan Donovan (00:33:10):
Yeah. I mean, it's their products. This is, this is how they're gonna make money and build their, build their product and build their design. And you know, eventually, you know, different products are gonna come along. That's a better curation that give people more of what they want. And we're gonna move away from these platforms that are everything to everyone and more into platforms. Like for instance, Twitch that serves gamer communities. It knows what the, the feelings and the ethics of the fans are. And it works really hard to remove problematic content from its from its platform. And I think like the model of Facebook and Twitter and, and YouTube has always been well, we'll take anything and will make, you know, we're structures here and, and, you know, we build infrastructure, but that just doesn't hold anymore. It just doesn't make sense.

Joan Donovan (00:34:07):
It you're continuously negotiating in on the national media stage. Like if you should keep all of these horrible people on your services and it's just a, it's a drain on resource. And so it's better to try to fix some of these problems up front. And, you know, Twitter's doing, you know, different than Facebook is in terms of trying to clean up these messes that are left behind by frankly, like the biggest messes are left behind by the biggest influencers. And so we are gonna revisit the, you know, presidential question around Trump returning to social media. And these companies are gonna have to decide which communities they're gonna serve, and if they're gonna, if they're gonna play on this national stage and if they do, they're, you know, there's a really good opportunity for more innovation that does more niche platforming work. And you, you can kind of see it with the, the creep of young people away from Facebook products and towards, you know, things that are more things that are less social networky and a little bit more ephemeral

Leo Laporte (00:35:22):
Is TikTok. One of those things.

Joan Donovan (00:35:24):
Definitely. Yeah. Leo, it's hard to refin things on TikTok. You

Leo Laporte (00:35:29):
Can't, can't, can't one of my sons things on TikTok. It's crazy. And I follow him and I can't find, I have to search for him,

Jeff Jarvis (00:35:36):
Leo. I agree with Joan as always that they have to make choices and they are allergic to choices cause choices are expensive. And, and I think that we will see more things serving communities, all that good. But what if they're not allowed to make the choices? I, I had an amazing encounter this week on Twitter with, with Brendan Carr and FCC commissioner who was going crazy on, he was going after me and others. And, and I was, you know, having back channel chats,

Joan Donovan (00:36:06):
I didn't see this, but let me, Adam, Jeff, I'm like, it's on

Jeff Jarvis (00:36:10):
It's. Nobody

Joan Donovan (00:36:10):
Comes after you

Jeff Jarvis (00:36:12):
On 67, protect me.

Joan Donovan (00:36:15):
I'm coming in. I might be like three days late though. I don't know what that means about me, but, you know,

Jeff Jarvis (00:36:21):
So we wondered why he was doing this. And then he had his testimony before the commerce committee in the house in which he, at the end of this whole long boring thing with, with thickly veiled references to basically saying big tech has to allow our speech. And so they're not gonna be allowed to take things down if, if certain people get in power and, and so all the, all the yelling we do about you better be responsible platforms. You better take this stuff down, you better care about your product. You better care about society. It could well turn around on a dime and sorry, We're not there, but we could be.

Joan Donovan (00:37:03):
But if it happens like that, you know who the right, like who the public attention and the conversation then turns to, is to Congress to do something uhoh like, they haven't really done anything. And, but there's gonna be much more our accountability on political accounts you know, and the public eye and the journalism that beat is, is gonna is gonna come back to bite them. And so, you know, and I, you know, Daniel Citron's you know, someone who's thought very deeply about she's a professor of law, she's thought very deep about the codes and rules of, of internet speech. And, you know, I, I come down with her is that the, the companies have a duty of care to do content moderation in a way that is responsible, ethical, you know, has public interest at its core. And, you know, we're in this moment where you have these a very very different political views on what the internet is good for and, and how it should be governed.

Joan Donovan (00:38:15):
And this point of view, unfortunately I don't know, like you might think wrong, think, think I'm wrong on this, but I kind of feel like Facebook changing its name to meta signals, a really big transition where Facebook is probably gonna go away in the form that we know it currently slowly over time and be replaced with something else. I have a feeling that Twitter is actually gonna turn into a, a kind of banking system with, you know, like with messages attached, but it's, you know, like the, the things that these people become interested in the same rails that move information also move money. And so I, I'm not, I don't feel like we've really seen our final form in terms of social media here. And so legislation might accelerate legislation like that. That would say, you know, hands off, no moderation allowed would probably the death of social media pretty quickly

Jeff Jarvis (00:39:21):
You, you know, how load will go, El you've seen it. Joe

Leo Laporte (00:39:23):
Elon Musk actually is I think in hand in hand with Brendan Carr when he suggested that Twitter maybe he should create his own Twitter or the Twitter he says is the defacto public town square. So it should support true free speech. And maybe we should do something about that car. I, if you're on the left, you might might agree with Carr when it comes to things like corporate media, you might say, well, yeah, there's too much corporate dominance of media. So we don't get a really 

Jeff Jarvis (00:39:56):
No, but here, here, car he's, he's arguing. And I find it extremely offensive and, and, and white supremacist racist in the end is that anti-discrimination laws should be applied to rate wing speech. And so I just simply said, well, no, it's a private, you know, you're used to be a Republican, it's a private company, me, and like a bar can refuse you service for any reason. And he, he hated that. Right. And he's trying to argue that this is a matter of civil rights, akin to laws around racism to that, that, that, that he, and he says it to the, to the house that anti-discrimination law should be, should be applied to a speech that's just offensive. Yeah. Stupid. And it's against the first amendment, but Hey, look at our Supreme court look where the, the Congress we could get soon. Yeah. We could

Leo Laporte (00:40:48):
Be there. Yeah. Let's take a little break. Joan Donovan is here from the Schine Shenton school, the center on media politics and public policy at Harvard university, always a welcome visitor to these shores, Jeff Jarvis also Stacy and aunt have the week off our show today brought to you by now, I've talked about mattresses before, but I wanna talk to you about something that's on top of my mattress. It's the eight sleep pie pro cover. And it is very cool, also very hot. It can be either for, you know, Lisa and I have toyed with electric blankets, electric mattress pads, various ways of, you know, warming up the bed at night and so forth. I used to have one of those things they have in colonial homes. You put coals in it and you can rub it between the blankets, but that's not what this is.

Leo Laporte (00:41:40):
This is so much better. This is a high tech answer to good sleep. So it turns out evolutionarily. You might go to bed the fire, you just put out the fire, the house is still warm over the night, the room cools down your, your body's tuned to that. It cools down. And then in the morning, the sun comes out. It warms up and you, and you get up. And this is kind of the natural sleep cycle, a cycle that we frankly don't get anymore because we have climate controlled homes. And lot of blankets, eight sleep is bringing that sleep cycle back. Now, I'm not gonna dictate to you how you use your eight sleep, but I'll tell you how I have it. And by the way, eight sleep, which is cool. It's a cover that goes over your mattress. It's computer controlled internet controlled.

Leo Laporte (00:42:29):
You have a app that you can choose temperatures and so forth, but it all observes your sleeping, how you're restless, how you're not. When you get up, when you go to bed and it then programs the bed. So when I get in bed, it's nice, toasty, cozy, and warm. It slowly cools off as the night goes by, and then warms up again to wake me up around eight in the morning, and I have never slept better. Kevin Rose was first to tell me about this. Amy wen, Kevin both have the eight sleep, and we're saying, you gotta get this. The best thing that ever happened. 30% of Americans struggle with sleep. And one of the main reasons is temperature regulation, night sweats, we sleep too hot, or we're freezing cold. This is the solution. Eight sleeps pond pro cover it pairs, dynamic and heating. It does both with biometric tracking.

Leo Laporte (00:43:18):
In fact, you could even get your sleep score and all sorts of information about how you slept from it. You add the cover to any mattress. Temperature range is huge. 55 degrees to 110 degrees. You can control it, Lisa. And by the way we have a double bed. Lisa has her side, I have my side. She likes to have it really warm all night long. I like that cycle. You can control that each side of the bed is adjusted based on your sleep stages, your biometrics. It actually even tests the temperature of the bedroom and reacts intelligently to create the optimal sleeping environment. I know this sounds a little bit like Hocus focus, but believe me, when you do it, you will never go back. I'm totally hooked on this eight sleep users. On average, fall asleep up to 32% faster, reduce sleep interruptions by 40% overall, get a more restful nights sleep.

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Jeff Jarvis (00:45:17):
Just a tip, just a tip to you customers out there who buy it. Yes. Using the TWiG thing. Make sure that unlikely you, you read the instructions first. Oh

Leo Laporte (00:45:24):
Yes. This is the thing I, you were talking about this when I got it. I put it on wrong, cuz I thought the, well you have the cover and you'd have, there's a bottom part. You'd put that underneath and you'd tie and no, I, I should have watched them. There's a very good video. Explains it. It's very straightforward. I wasn't paying attention. It actually uses water in the pad. So it's very quick when it heats up, it heats up fast when it cools off it cools, cuz water is very productive. So it really, you know, immediate, you know, it's, it's really, it's really amazing. I don't, I have a hard time explaining it, but it's can

Jeff Jarvis (00:45:58):
I hit rewind for one quick second? Yes. Joan, I was, I was thinking about in the break, the story you told where you, you said, oh finally we can, I have no memory. I'm old. So that's just, what's happening to me. Finally we can close that, that case because we heard who had paid for it. What was that story again?

Joan Donovan (00:46:15):
Yeah. It was just like understanding, you know, where, you know, we, we had seen this slap of Facebook slap a teacher story. Right. And it was being pumped out like this was this viral TikTok challenge and you know, amongst researchers where like we don't see it, like we don't see it on TikTok. There's a little bit of stuff about slap a teacher, but it's not viral like this. And so we had kind of worried why wondered why there was media pickup of something that hadn't really happened. And we were kind of, you know, we, we will half write a bunch of case studies here and there just because we wanna save that data and we wanna hold onto it. And so what this story allowed us to connect the dots between is that there was actually a, a media PR campaign beyond, behind, you know, getting people to think that TikTok was allowing these abor, you know, challenges to happen on their platform when in fact the op-ed or the letter to the editor that was, was written was written by this targeted victory organization. And, and,

Jeff Jarvis (00:47:19):
And, and did you find out who was behind it? Who funded it in,

Joan Donovan (00:47:24):
In this case it was Facebook that had been funding the dis well, this

Jeff Jarvis (00:47:27):
Is, this is one of the Facebook cases.

Joan Donovan (00:47:29):
This is one of the Facebooks cases.

Leo Laporte (00:47:31):
Yeah. That's of the things together. That's what I understand. Yeah.

Joan Donovan (00:47:34):
Yeah, no. And yeah, and they had done this in the past in 2018 with Google and apple. They had placed, they had paid another PR agency to place stories saying that Google and apple are not as privacy for it as we may think. And

Leo Laporte (00:47:50):
Oh really? Yeah. Yeah. A surprise.

Joan Donovan (00:47:54):
Facebook rewind wanted to put it together. Yeah. I mean, I, you know, I just, my mind becomes a repository for all of these like corporate shenanigans. And it's just like the end of the day, you just realize, you know, the, there can be so many books right. Written about this stuff, but getting accountability for massively resourced companies is gonna be impossible without some kind of legislation that, you know, makes transparency absolutely priority. And, but we're, we're in this, you know, space where of course, yeah. Microsoft has been up to of this stuff for a long time.

Leo Laporte (00:48:30):
Is that the best solution? Just say, you have to report. If you're doing a campaign like this, you have to report it. Like you just have to be

Joan Donovan (00:48:37):
Transparent about it. Yeah. I it's just be transparent about it. Cause

Leo Laporte (00:48:40):
You know, you don't wanna outlaw try to create, it's a fine line between that and advertis speech. It's speech it's, we're talking

Joan Donovan (00:48:46):
It's speech. Yeah. But it's also just this like we use it when we're studying this, we look at that kind of framework as a true cost of misinformation. So getting the Petaluma police to comments on door, knocking into dormitories is a waste of somebody's time. That's that getting paid? That's true. And so's a good point. We have to wonder then where did these Petaluma really generate from? And if they were a target of this PR campaign and they were like, look, the doors are getting injured.

Leo Laporte (00:49:19):
Who knows

Joan Donovan (00:49:19):
What's gonna happen next? Think Might die. You know, like the cats will get out. Who knows, who knows what's gonna happen only

Leo Laporte (00:49:28):
Time will tell.

Joan Donovan (00:49:29):
Yeah. And so we often and wonder with these made up stories that you know, how do you make someone responsible then for that, if you know, the punch a teacher challenge is causing hysteria in a high school that has, you know, some violence and already, and like teachers get afraid of this. And then it's not really even a thing. It reminds me too, of the tide pods challenge that nobody was eating tide pods.

Leo Laporte (00:49:58):
Yeah.

Joan Donovan (00:49:58):
You know, and it just,

Leo Laporte (00:49:59):
Nevertheless, where did that come from? Where did that come from?

Joan Donovan (00:50:02):
It, it, it, because it's it that one, I think I remember that there had been a rumor where someone said, you know, kids are eating tide pods, they look like candy. And then S like people on TikTok and other social media did pretend like they were gonna about to bug it into a tide pod, like saying looks delicious. Right. And and then it kind of fueled that, that panic for a while, and, and, you know, poison control centers and other places were responding on social media being like, if you do eat detergent, you know, go to your local hospital right away. You're just like it

Jeff Jarvis (00:50:38):
More, if you try put light in your veins and drink bleach about all the depress. Yeah. But

Leo Laporte (00:50:42):
I, I know. Yeah. And this is it's called public relations. Public relations is it's about spinning. It's about spinning things in your favor and in your competitor's disfavor. And that's, I don't, I think you wanna outlaw that. I mean, the responsibility for not using public funds for this is for the pet police to say no, when channel two comes calling and says, we'd like to interview you about people kicking indoors, just say, no I have, I, I have things I need to do now. And I'm not gonna do that. And for channel two, when they get the PR call from targeted, whoever to say, yeah, we're not interested in that. The problem is you get, you know, complicity all down the line, you know, channel channel two is using, I'm sure all of the, you know, they use these EPKs these electronic press kits from companies run these videos produced by companies all the time without disclosure. And well,

Joan Donovan (00:51:35):
The problem is, is that the kids are crazy and teenagers will never listen. And,

Leo Laporte (00:51:41):
And that's a good story. That's

Joan Donovan (00:51:42):
A good story as old as time, you know? And but you do have to worry in the long run, the acceleration of these and how many of these are we gonna have to go through until is it,

Leo Laporte (00:51:54):
Is it foolish to say that rather than holding the platforms responsible? And I know you said that we, we have to, but to say that we should inoculate people and just kind of transparency is good and then teach people, look for the a label that says it's made up. I mean, shouldn't that, yeah, shouldn't that be how we handle this?

Joan Donovan (00:52:14):
I would love it if that was possible, but the, the way content is displayed on social media is a play of appearances. We had a whole rash of recontextualized media, just re purpose, video, and JPEGs. And to say, you know, this is images from the war in Ukraine. And it was just, it was an overwhelming volume of content that had been served up very early on. Jeff

Leo Laporte (00:52:43):
Helps me to that said, watch the video you're seeing on MSNBC and CNN. It comes from Russia.

Joan Donovan (00:52:49):
And then, and some of them were video game simulations, the, that whole ghost of Kiev story. I mean, we all like, like the XFiles, we all wanted to believe that truth happened, you know? Well, but we wanted to believe the ghost of Kiev was gonna save Ukraine from Russian, you know, air, you know, supremacy. And it was, it was nuts, you know, and, and it was a, what was circulating was a video game simulation of a fighter pilot Downing other war planes and, and people were sharing it as if, you know, Ukraine could Mount a fence which we, we, that we know they couldn't. And so the problem here is what ends up getting in the way of people's truth, seeking behaviors. And so if you're looking for truth and you're, and you're saying Ukraine, air support, and you're getting a bunch of like disconnected video, some of them real, some of them fake whose responsibility is it, then to put those labels on, to make sure that the truthful stuff comes up first and, and to sort and rank, like, if you, if you break these platforms down to their base function, their function is to discover rank and represent information.

Joan Donovan (00:54:06):
They just that's what they do. Right. And so it's

Jeff Jarvis (00:54:09):
The ranking out

Joan Donovan (00:54:10):
More that you it's the ranking. Yeah. Yeah. It's the ranking.

Jeff Jarvis (00:54:13):
No. Can I ask you a question? That

Joan Donovan (00:54:14):
Problem. Yeah.

Jeff Jarvis (00:54:17):
Cuz I, I, I, one of my theories, I have a whole bunch of crazy theories, but you know, least none of them are about the earth being flat. Is that we're concentrating still too much on the wrong end. Now don't take any insult to this cause it's the end you could concentrate on, but is people wanna say to the platforms play, whackamole get rid of all the badge stuff and everything be okay. And instead the job has to be, as it has been since printing, sorry, Gutenberg moment that we need institutions to find the good stuff, the bad stuff's always gonna be there. We can't get rid of it, but, but too much attention is paid to it. Cause we don't have the mechanisms, I think, to find that which is credible and relevant and, and certified and, and, and so on. And, and, and, and we need to invent and, and the institutions that we have, newspapers, editors, publishers are inadequate to the scale that we have. And so I just think we, we, we need to kind of shift our thinking a little bit and realize that there's always gonna be stupid stuff there. And the trick is to find that ways to ignore it better. Does that make any sense?

Joan Donovan (00:55:17):
Well, yeah. And that's part of the discoverability ranking stuff. If, if it's, if the platforms are continuously going to serve things that are outrageous and nearly unbelievable then that's what we're gonna get. I don't think there's a deficit of true and correct content or factual content. The, the, the issue mainly is that there's an industry behind producing disinformation or MIS nation at scale that has to be reckoned with, in order to make sure that these algorithms are not being gamed. And the repeat offenders are removed from these platforms so that they can't just keep reinventing new ways to do the same old thing. And so I think there's a, a bunch of interventions need to happen. And, and, you know, and the hard part is, is you have, you were talking about this in the context of America, which is you know, anti-institutional at its core in a lot of ways, you know, we have institutions, but the people don't love them.

Joan Donovan (00:56:24):
And so, you know, that's why you see people who are antis, institutionalists rising up on YouTube as these like very, I, you know, very well known creators, right? Because people will engage with their content cuz they're like, look what Google's doing now, partnering with a w H O this is terrible. And you're like, well, it's better than partnering with nobody. Or, you know, letting the stuff from, you know, the conspiracy theorist reign Supreme. And so I do think you're right in the sense that there needs to be better in more stable, linking on the internet to things that have these that things that are wedge issues, things that, you know, kind of make people think twice about other people's humanity, right? Racism, sexism, transphobia, you know, homophobia religious bigotry. And so there, there does need to be clear content rules that are enforced. But I agree with you that the, also the institutions are gonna have to step in, in a different way. And I'd love to get you guys' opinion on white house briefing talkers on how to talk about Ukraine. Like, did you guys follow that story? Oh

Leo Laporte (00:57:44):
Yeah. Oh yeah. We covered it. And we and we said, yeah, that's fine. That's appropriate. Their, their thought make, you know, leaders thought makers, taste makers, they ought I mean, I, it was pretty clear. The white house's main goal was to kind of feed them the line. And and I, I had some question about you know, whether these people were kind of trained and journalists enough to know that they were being spun, but you know, this is see my a,

Joan Donovan (00:58:13):
They weren't trained. No, I know they's point they didn't know were

Leo Laporte (00:58:16):
Easy to spin and, you know, that's why they were there, but also cuz they were very influential. I'm kind of more Lez fair. I really feel like more information is good information. We know more about what's going on because of that for one thing, you know, I'm sure disinformation is as old as this, you know, dirt, but we know now more about how it spreads and stuff. This is your, this is what you study, but that I don't, I don't think that that's necessarily a bad thing. Do you, I mean, do you, so you know, do

Joan Donovan (00:58:51):
You,

Leo Laporte (00:58:51):
Do you put a judgment on this

Joan Donovan (00:58:53):
I'm two minds about it? One, one point is that yeah, like there was a heavy hand in the NATO messaging, right? So it wasn't the voices of Ukraine. It wasn't the oppressed of Russia that were meant to be represented here. It was very much, you know, us NATO party line here which was that, you know, Ukraine is, is an underdog, but a strong contender for survival. Right. which I thought was really problematic in the sense that I couldn't tell you if any of these talkers actually feel that way. And what it reminded me of is the use Bloomberg paid a bunch of talkers in the 2020 primaries to make him relevant. Yeah. And to meme him into existence. Yeah. But I didn't feel like any of those talkers or Instagramers or whoever we're gonna you know, vote for him. Right. And so, you know, you know, that that's where this stuff becomes dangerous territory where you get

Leo Laporte (00:59:54):
We've had advertising, we've had coercive advertising as long as that's we've had campaigns. So it's just,

Joan Donovan (01:00:00):
We have liked it.

Leo Laporte (01:00:02):
Yeah. But it's just another form of it with

Joan Donovan (01:00:04):
It is. But it's also this sponsored advertising this entire industry. That's not really regulated in any way and not, there's no, you know, serious effort to get disclaimers out there that, you know, this information was provided by, you know, Bloomberg or whoever or sponsored by like, you know, I think there's also a difference if you're getting paid to do something versus like the white house, good faith efforts to make young people aware about what was happening in Ukraine. But it's just it's hard to tell, like we're headed down this road, we have to start to you know, we,

Leo Laporte (01:00:41):
We be mad. We'd be mad if they ignored it. Right. We, oh,

Joan Donovan (01:00:47):
We get mad all the time. Get mad

Leo Laporte (01:00:48):
About everything. If, if they only briefed mainstream you know, networks

Jeff Jarvis (01:00:52):
Like the bloggers, we like the bloggers.

Leo Laporte (01:00:54):
You get mad about that. So, I mean, I think this is democratizing information. My only qualm is, as, as I said that, you know, probably we're spinning them in a way that, but you know, that's life, you know, you, that's how you learn next, next time, they'll be wiser about getting spun. And I think it's a white house job to, to do that.

Jeff Jarvis (01:01:16):
But, and, and, and, and, you know, the problem is that the too much skepticism, and this is a Dana Boyd point that if we teach our young people to, to not trust anything or anyone, then that's where we end up here. I, I, I just was going through Twitter because I, I violate the rules and I do that on the show. Sometimes

Leo Laporte (01:01:32):
I'm doing it too right now. So it's okay. And

Jeff Jarvis (01:01:34):
I, and I saw this amazing one rumor is that Pfizer who sponsored the Oscars needed a big moment around alopecia because they have a drug coming to York,

Leo Laporte (01:01:42):
Please that's the conspiracy. Right,

Jeff Jarvis (01:01:45):
Right, right. You know, so that's the kind of stuff that people

Leo Laporte (01:01:48):
Has

Jeff Jarvis (01:01:48):
Gravitate to if they want to. But the other thing Leo, I think is important is a survey after survey, after survey has the majority of people saying they don't trust what they read on social media. That's really good news. That's great news. Yeah. Right.

Leo Laporte (01:02:02):
This is called, growing up. Yeah. You know, learning what to trust, what not to trust what to believe, what not to believe choosing. I mean, every human, one of the things every human has to do, many don't do is figuring out what their values are, what their core beliefs are, what they care about in, in kind of in a vacuum having taken in all this information as they grew up now, really thinking about it and then acting from then on, according to their values is, is something everybody has always had to do. So I think more, I don't think more information is, or, or information flooding is necessarily a bad thing. People it's, you know, it's just life you have to learn,

Joan Donovan (01:02:47):
But it comes down to quality. And like, if you so well, there's

Leo Laporte (01:02:51):
Always been crap.

Joan Donovan (01:02:52):
Yeah. But one of the big conundrums with misinformation research is I up with

Leo Laporte (01:02:57):
Gils island, there's always been crap. I,

Joan Donovan (01:03:00):
Oh, don't I know it. You know, but I think, you know, the moment that you are searching for something online and you're, you know, is the moment where you're most susceptible to misinformation because you're in, you're in information seeking mode and you know, that you don't know, and that's where the companies play an incredibly important role. Whereas, you know, maybe it was harder back in the day before, you know, internet search, you had to go to a library to kind of figure these things out. Well,

Leo Laporte (01:03:33):
Because you had your neighbors and your friends and family, family, you talked

Joan Donovan (01:03:35):
To your neighbors.

Leo Laporte (01:03:37):
And I think that this is when you go out to your peers and you say, you know, do you think it's alopecia that the became a story because Pfizer wanted to, and then they go, what are you nuts? And then you go, yeah, I guess that's probably not, not really happening. And you, so you, this is, I feel like this is a normal process that we're pathologizing.

Joan Donovan (01:03:57):
I don't think so though, because if I were to search online and because that story about alopecia is, you know, ranked really highly because a lot of people are sharing it. Then that's a, a story that I probably wouldn't have run into, if not by virtue of internet ranking systems

Leo Laporte (01:04:15):
Or listening to this

Joan Donovan (01:04:16):
Podcast or listening to this podcast. But it's, it is gonna reach many more people. Right. especially in moments where they're seeking information, if they were just like, well, what is alopecia in?

Leo Laporte (01:04:27):
Are you more vulnerable? Cause you're seeking information.

Joan Donovan (01:04:30):
Yeah. You are because you're, you're asking a lot of people

Leo Laporte (01:04:33):
Actually, I would say you're less

Joan Donovan (01:04:34):
Vulnerable, full questions now

Leo Laporte (01:04:36):
Because now you're in the I think you're, I think you're most vulnerable when you know the answer and you don't question it. I think you're, you're less vulnerable when you're saying, I wanna know what the answer is and you're weighing facts. That's when you're best capable of saying what, you know, let's, let's look at the,

Joan Donovan (01:04:55):
The truth. Yeah. My problem is, is it's not all facts that you're weighing things against.

Leo Laporte (01:04:59):
You throw,

Joan Donovan (01:05:00):
You're looking at a, you know, you're looking at a social media return Joe,

Leo Laporte (01:05:06):
You would agree that there's no

Joan Donovan (01:05:07):
Return

Leo Laporte (01:05:08):
To create a perfect stream of factual information. There's always gonna be misinformation.

Joan Donovan (01:05:14):
Yes. I think there will always be misinformation in spaces that have a preponderance of user generated content. Right.

Leo Laporte (01:05:21):
Humans are really good at it.

Joan Donovan (01:05:23):
Yeah. You know, but I do think that to Jeff's point earlier that there is a way to create streams of more factual or public interest information that have not been explored yet. And that aren't prioritized by these companies and maybe it shouldn't be the role, you know, and maybe you got me here, Leo on this is maybe it's not the role of social media companies to do that.

Leo Laporte (01:05:46):
Maybe,

Joan Donovan (01:05:47):
You know? Yeah. I mean,

Leo Laporte (01:05:48):
I,

Joan Donovan (01:05:48):
Maybe they tell you that you're in a, you're in a landfill of words.

Jeff Jarvis (01:05:52):
Yes.

Leo Laporte (01:05:54):
Their job is to file it on.

Joan Donovan (01:05:57):
Yeah. And so, but you wanna, you want to demand more from companies that are in the,

Leo Laporte (01:06:01):
I don't want them to be a arbitrator of what is good and not good. What is true and not true. I don't, but

Joan Donovan (01:06:07):
They already are, but

Leo Laporte (01:06:09):
Are, but that's what I always, they against, you know, when Twitter says, well, you don't really want a chronological feed. I say, no, yes I do. I want you telling me what what's important. I don't do Facebook cuz I don't want them judge, you know, giving me information based on their values. So, but I don't want them to filter out stuff. I want them to give, give it, give it all to me. Let me be the judge.

Jeff Jarvis (01:06:34):
You really don't want that. Yes. You're gonna get the alopecia stuff right next to an equal to the New York times, which is what's

Leo Laporte (01:06:42):
Commissioner

Jeff Jarvis (01:06:42):
Wants

Leo Laporte (01:06:43):
That's that's an old media point of view that there's somebody, the New York times or somebody who should be judging and that you should trust

Jeff Jarvis (01:06:50):
Them. It's it's next to you. That, that the alopecia stupid theory is right next to TWI. And is, is you don't really want that. Well,

Leo Laporte (01:06:58):
Who do you, you wanna say? Not who do you want to? Who do you wanna who's in charge.

Jeff Jarvis (01:07:02):
This is why we created the institutions that are now outmoded. But, but you know, 14, 70 I'll be going to Goberg here. 1470 Niti said to the Pope, you gotta fix this print stuff. It's all mixed up. Gotta censor it. And you were against really asking for, was it? No. What he was asking for was not censorship. What he was asking for was the institution of editing. The publishing

Leo Laporte (01:07:25):
I would would submit. And this is kind of a change of pace for me, that all judgment is editorial judgment is censorship of some kind it's deciding what's good and what's not good. And I don't, I want to get all, give me all the information. Gee,

Jeff Jarvis (01:07:41):
Who decides what stories we talk about in the rundown? Well,

Leo Laporte (01:07:44):
Yeah, no, but that, but no, but at a meta level you decide what podcast you listen to. You decide who you wanna hear.

Joan Donovan (01:07:51):
You're talking about consumer choice,

Leo Laporte (01:07:55):
Right?

Joan Donovan (01:07:55):
I'm

Leo Laporte (01:07:55):
Saying I understand that what has happened over the intervening thousands of you years is the amount and quantity of information has gotten unmanageable, huge. And everybody who, who encounters the internet and I'm sensitive to it because I didn't grow up with it goes, whoa, there's a barrage of information, but you quickly, but the truth is that's life. Your sensorium is barraged. Even the minute you come out of the womb and you learn how to you

Jeff Jarvis (01:08:27):
Go on TikTok,

Leo Laporte (01:08:28):
You learn how to triage it very much internally using inputs from friends, neighbors, family, mother, father and your own judgment. And that's up, it's on you. And I don't want anybody telling me what I should know or not know. I want all the information and I will decide, I think anything else is said,

Joan Donovan (01:08:49):
But, but your, yeah, but here let's go back to the example then where or definers is, or like a targeted victory. The PR firm that's working on behalf of Facebook is getting, you know, ghost writers to plant letters to the editor. And you're just like, don't you feel like there should be some, some truth in like, yes,

Leo Laporte (01:09:13):
The answer to that is more information, not less information. So the, just as you said, transparency, so I wanna know, oh, MEA paid for that letter. That will help me judge the value of that letter. That's more information. Not less.

Joan Donovan (01:09:29):
Yeah, but there's also just this you know, it, it, I hear you and I don't agree that all editing is censorship. Because like, to be honest with you, like some words gotta go no, no.

Leo Laporte (01:09:43):
I'm not saying you

Joan Donovan (01:09:44):
And

Jeff Jarvis (01:09:45):
Yes, of course

Leo Laporte (01:09:46):
You and I, and everybody else should edit, but I don't want, I don't want to put somebody

Joan Donovan (01:09:51):
Don't want a computer, an algorithm doing it. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:09:53):
Or just,

Joan Donovan (01:09:54):
Or

Jeff Jarvis (01:09:55):
Prescribed, or he doesn't even want a human. Now you don't even want the editor of the New York times now is what you're saying. You want's view of the river.

Leo Laporte (01:10:02):
No, they the no, they can. And then if I choose the New York times, I'm choosing to read their viewpoint. It needs to be clear in my point. That's what I'm saying. Reading a view. We need, if you listen to it, you're listening to a viewpoint, but I should be able to choose. I shouldn't, I shouldn't. There should be. And, and this is where big tech can be gatekeepers because they control the faucets. The they open 'em up, open 'em up

Jeff Jarvis (01:10:26):
Don't but, but beware, you're gonna sound like car in a minute and say you are required to carry everything. And no,

Leo Laporte (01:10:33):
It's still

Jeff Jarvis (01:10:33):
My bar.

Leo Laporte (01:10:34):
Agree with you,

Jeff Jarvis (01:10:35):
Kick you out when you get car.

Leo Laporte (01:10:36):
I agree with you. I choose to follow who Twitter or even people on Twitter. So I get the choice and Twitter gets the choice. And if I wanna file, if I want to go on truth, social or gab, I can. And so that's the way it should be. That's the right. And I think that's what the first first amendment is about is that there shouldn't be some higher authority saying you, you, you, but no, not you.

Joan Donovan (01:11:00):
Well, the, the,

Jeff Jarvis (01:11:01):
No a authority

Joan Donovan (01:11:02):
About like Griff scams, hoaxes, like, you know so the way that this field developed around disinformation, I had been in research about white supremacists and white supremacists using social media and other places to raise money and to recruit new followers. And, you know, and, and the, the entire scene of these people on social media was about hiding who they were about using coded phrases so that, you know, it was hard for content moderators to figure out what they were doing and planning. And these are some of the same jokers that eventually planned unite the right in Charlottesville using apps. And so it's, it's not the case.

Leo Laporte (01:11:45):
You wouldn't have stopped the

Joan Donovan (01:11:46):
Cut and dry.

Leo Laporte (01:11:46):
You wouldn't have stopped the clan from marching through Skoki though.

Joan Donovan (01:11:50):
I would've, you would've, I would've done it with my own two hands. I'm not a legisla, but I would've, you know, I, I would've put this for that on the line for

Leo Laporte (01:11:57):
That's the classic free speech, a C L U story though, right. Is to defend the rights, but

Jeff Jarvis (01:12:02):
We could also protest Joan can show up and protest, protest and shoot the shoot their feet and get 'em out of there. Yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:12:08):
No, you can't shoot their feet.

Jeff Jarvis (01:12:10):
Well, sorry.

Joan Donovan (01:12:12):
I did not. I do not own any firearms.

Leo Laporte (01:12:15):
No,

Joan Donovan (01:12:16):
No. But what I'm saying to you is, but

Leo Laporte (01:12:17):
You could have a dialogue chose. It's been the top of your lungs. You

Joan Donovan (01:12:20):
Could have a dialogue. I'm not gonna have a dialogue with the KKK any day of the week. I know where I stand and that

Jeff Jarvis (01:12:26):
I, I wanna be that bicyclist in Washington, who was in the front of the truck

Joan Donovan (01:12:30):
Of the convoy, just going real slow. Yeah. But the thing, the thing about it is, is, you know, as you start to move between the wires and the weeds, and you go from these like online examples to these real life, examples, you have to also think about, well, what is the community that the KKK is, is routinely trying to March on they're routinely trying to March on black communities they're provoking fear causing in many cases, riots and chaos in their wake. And so, you know, it's in the planning of that happens on social media, right? And so I do think that there should be more, more accountability for these systems and these mechanisms of coordination.

Leo Laporte (01:13:16):
That's a tricky, that's a tricky gray area. It's

Joan Donovan (01:13:18):
Tricky.

Leo Laporte (01:13:19):
It's illegal for them to burn across it's. Is it illegal for them to go on telegram and say, let's go burn across and who should be responsible? I would submit, it's not really telegrams job. It's maybe law enforcement's job, but, but you could keep going down that government, but, well, there's a point, but that's what I'm saying. This is the tricky gray area where there's clearly illegal acts and, and you know that they should be arrested for that and put in jail. And and then there's this gray, it gets grayer and grays to go back and back back you know, to,

Joan Donovan (01:13:53):
But imagine this you're the owner of the BA skin Robins, you know, and the KKK is using your business as a place to have their Tuesday night meetings so that they can plan their, so

Leo Laporte (01:14:05):
You're allowed as the owner to say, get the hell outta here. I don't like what you're saying.

Joan Donovan (01:14:09):
Then, then all we're asking is the owners of Facebook to be like, get the hell outta you.

Jeff Jarvis (01:14:13):
It's garden party. They can, it's

Leo Laporte (01:14:14):
A garden party. No one's saying they shouldn't be able to. I'm not saying that. No. Well, let's the chairman of this FCC commissioner is, but I just, I agree with you, Jeff. I disagree with him. Okay. No one should say to any, but that's what I'm saying. It's not the platform's responsibility. They could do what they want and they should do what we as a society would like 'em to do, but that's up to them. But you know, if you don't like it, get your bunch. If you don't like the basket, if the basket and Robins owner says, good, I love it. These guys eat a lot of ice cream. Then I reserve the right to go and March outside and say, let's never go to this basket and Robins cuz the KKK organizes there. That's a all of appropriate. 

Joan Donovan (01:14:52):
Yeah. And that's the kind of public pressure that's been put on like Twitter, for instance. So Twitter, yeah. Had blue checked a bunch of Charlottesville organizers and people were like, why are you blue checking white supremacists over here, Twitter. And they were like, we, I, I don't know. We're gonna suspend all blue checks from here for a while and reevaluate our systems. Fair enough. And eventually they started removing the blue checks and, and that's

Leo Laporte (01:15:18):
Their right. I just don't want Congress at the FCC to tell 'em what to do.

Jeff Jarvis (01:15:21):
Amen. Could I ask Joan a question here?

Joan Donovan (01:15:24):
I think that's the, that's a line we all agree with.

Jeff Jarvis (01:15:27):
So there was a paper from Cambridge Dan William called the marketplace of rationalizations that came out this month. And what he argues is that there's a marketplace of belief and then people have a belief they go for I rationalization. And he said that there are agents that basically sell these rationalizations.

Leo Laporte (01:15:50):
Yeah, this is, and what we see happening as well, which is we decide what we want to believe based on emotion and then find reason to support

Jeff Jarvis (01:15:59):
It well, but what it said to me was the journalism is set up. As you said, a few minutes ago, Leo in a, in a marketplace of facts when facts are insufficient and, and people are going to have these beliefs and I don't, I'm not buying filter bubbles and, and echo chambers, but, but we, they do have beliefs. And what they're seeking is not necessarily facts they're seeking. I rationalization help me believe in the truth. Yeah. Right. So, so, so we're set up wrong. So if, if, if we judge journalism as to whether or not people understand they should wear masks in a pandemic, duh then we become educators propaganda you know, what's our role in a belief based market rather than a fact-based market. How do we in journalism deal with, with Managing to serve the marketplace sensibly

Leo Laporte (01:16:51):
Before Joan answers, I wanna turn this on its head and say as a, as a consumer of journalism, it would behoove me to understand the mixed motives of a journalistic entity, because one of those clear motives is profit. Yep. And I don't know of any journalistic entity that doesn't consider what its readers or listeners or viewers want and to some degree or more or less pander to that. So as a consumer of journalism is important to know that, right? And, and I would say you act as a journalist, you act in your best as you think best. And I, as a consumer of journalism are gonna act as I, well, judge, best we'll judge it. And by the way, fascinating, here's a good, this is kind of a good example. Then I'm gonna let Joan talk, sorry, Joan, but not,

Joan Donovan (01:17:43):
Don't worry about me.

Leo Laporte (01:17:43):
I'm we've been talking about masks a lot, somebody in the TWiT community. And I love this said, you know, Leo, the, there has been a study cuz somebody sent me in an email saying he was actually a prisoner at LOPA and he sent me a, you know, saying, you know, among other things, masks don't work. Everybody knows that they don't block the virus. And I said, well, tell that to the surgeon, next time he's operating on you. And somebody posted this fascinating article, I think from science that actually that's more of a widely held belief without any scientific evidence that every study that they've attempted to do on this shows that in fact masks in the surgical theater don't necessarily do anything at all. We

Jeff Jarvis (01:18:25):
Do have studies on masks and viruses transmitted.

Leo Laporte (01:18:29):
But my point, my point being is I I've always used that as a retort. Well, to tell that to your surgeon, it's not the best retort as it turns out, given more information and what's great is, and I'm proud of myself cuz instead of rejecting that information outright, I read it and said, oh well that's kind of interesting. I might, oh and this is the hardest thing I might have been wrong about that. I think that's healthy. That's good. And that's because of more information and more information exchange. All right. If you even remember what Jeff's question was, Joan, you may get

Jeff Jarvis (01:19:02):
Belief versus fact marketplace.

Leo Laporte (01:19:04):
Go ahead.

Joan Donovan (01:19:05):
Sorry. The, I mean, you know, when it comes down to the way in which people make, you know, there have been a couple of things that have been sort of thorns in the side of, of this research field for a long time, which is essentially like once people adopt a political party, it's very rare that they switch it. And, and in most elections you're talking about the shift from, you know, party to party as being less than 5% of people. And so that people become very locked into their beliefs and, and, and then it does, oh, a shortcut that's

Leo Laporte (01:19:39):
Action that's who wins elections is the swing voters. Right. Cause the ones who are willing to vote against the last time they vote,

Joan Donovan (01:19:47):
It's huge. But it, or the people who win elections are the people who vote for the can candidate. Right. And the, you know, it's, it's like, but the swing elections, the idea that there is this like Midling sense. Yeah. Small group of people that can make this big difference. So deciding if you're gonna be one of those people or not, of course is, is actually fairly rare compared to consistently following a party or and in this case I would imagine it would also carry to a, a set of beliefs and you know, there's not a lot of beliefs that we end up taking action on. And you know, of course some of us can be more hit, but critical than others, like, you know, and so it's it, but it's hard to say, you know, in terms of a fact based market versus a belief based market, if you have settled on something, it is very hard to do what Leo did, which is take a step back and say, well, do I really know how the question I ask myself all the time is how do I know that?

Joan Donovan (01:20:50):
And I have to, you know, I kind of have to remind myself that if I don't think about how I know something, then I am trafficking in belief and it's so good's more likely than not. And so, you know, for people that are trying to think about, you know, positions on certain issues and if they do have an anecdote or a story that's really compelling to them, they should ask themselves, well, how do I know that? And then, and then Dick, and to try to figure out if, if that was part of some kind of propaganda or that was part of some PR campaign or it got to you because you were you know, a, a voter in a swing state that was being heavily targeted by marketing. You know, and, and so I think it's important that we do that, especially around really hot button political issues. Like I was reading some of the fallout around the don't the quote unquote, don't say gay bill, and it's a pretty nuanced bill. But a lot

Leo Laporte (01:21:49):
Of, and it doesnt, by the way, it doesn't say, don't say gay,

Joan Donovan (01:21:53):
But it was a meme. Yeah. You know, it's a meme.

Leo Laporte (01:21:55):
Yeah. So's we think that's what the bill was. Well,

Jeff Jarvis (01:21:58):
Death panels, but you fight fire with fire, you know? Well, death penalty,

Leo Laporte (01:22:02):
Well just cuz they do it doesn't mean we have to do it.

Joan Donovan (01:22:04):
Yeah. But now you teenagers screaming the word gay in their high school and gay people. They did

Leo Laporte (01:22:10):
It, the Oscars, oh, can you leave me? They did it at the Oscars. You leave me

Joan Donovan (01:22:13):
Alone. No, I'm just trying to live out here, you know? And so it can like, but at the end of the day, like you wanna have conversations with representatives, from communities that actually have a point of view and are affected by the issues. And that's what journalism is great at at. And then there are these other times when you have these PR folks or these political operatives slide in and really cloud the field or muddy the waters with very catchy non nuanced takes. And so from our point of view, it's like that kind of stuff, especially when we see it happen, ma like something like don't say gay is like really easy to remember. And so all nuance is gone. Not, I'm not defending this bill by any means. Of course.

Leo Laporte (01:23:00):
No. But to be clear, the bill is, it says that you cannot you cannot teach content about sexual orientation or gender identity to kindergartners through third grade. Yeah. And it doesn't say anything about not saying the word gay. I understand, you know, believe me, I understand the, this the discussion, but I think it doesn't help in the, to, to misrepresent stuff because then you, but the intent is pretty much the same.

Joan Donovan (01:23:31):
It's that? Well, the intent, if you get down to it, the intent of that bill was about, you know transgender library, you know St transgender story, drag queen story hour. Right. And you know, and it was about young people, you know, there's a whole other moral panic happening in preteens where a lot of teens are now opting to be called. They, them and parents are like, what?

Leo Laporte (01:23:58):
Yeah, it's throwing parents. It's

Joan Donovan (01:23:59):
My kid gay. Like, what is this hap? And you know, most parents are like, whatever, I'll call you whatever, as long as you're not like getting bad in school, but a lot of parents are alarmed by this. And so they they're like, oh, they must be getting indoctrinated when they're young. And, and you know, I, I lived through a period where you weren't allowed to talk about being gay in high school or like, you

Leo Laporte (01:24:21):
Know, like it wasn't that long ago, frankly,

Joan Donovan (01:24:22):
It wasn't that long ago. And so this kind of legislation of course is intensely problematic. Especially if you have, you know, kids that are asking, you know, why do I have two aunties and why do they live together? And why do they only have one bedroom? And why do they share a dog? And, you know, it's like, no,

Leo Laporte (01:24:40):
And that's, that's a, this is the conversation we should be having. No, not don't say gay, cuz that doesn't, it's not actually what the bill was about. And so now I don't wanna be paternalistic. And I think that the natural thing is to say, well, we are smart enough to figure this out third person effect. Yeah. The third person effect. And I think it's, I mean, what do you say about that? That's ER,

Joan Donovan (01:25:10):
I think most people don't have a lot of time to figure that kind of stuff out. Right. Right. We want, and this is like the difference between that kind of fact based or belief based marketplace of ideas. If you have fact based then people are gonna, you know, when there's stories right about the legislation and the are gonna tell you what's in the legislation, if it's more belief based, then it's, it's really a battle of good evil. And you know, I personally might come down on the idea that like not being able to talk openly with children about gender identity and LGBTQ issues is like, you know, discriminatory and, and shouldn't be made into law, but at the same time, like I'd like that debate to be, or that policy to be represented in a way in the media, especially to the people that we would count as allies in a way that makes them sound smarter when they're talking about it makes them sound more informed. And it can lead to like more constructive potentially you know, more constructive policy making in the future that, you know, either eradicates this or undermines it in some other way.

Leo Laporte (01:26:23):
So I don't know how long variety has been doing its charts on engagement on Twitter or, or the trending TV charts. But I think it's interesting that the academy awards got more engagements than any TV show since the chart began with 32.8 million engagements compared to the next, the number two on the charts for the week Bridgeton, which was less than a, which about a 295,000. I think that's information. That's interesting. I don't, I think that I have to say I was watching the academy awards with Twitter. Oh, open. And I thought that was, I almost wanted to close the lid because I, the Twitter went crazy after the slap heard around the world. But I think it's also a very, that ended up being a really good, powerful discussion, a valuable discussion. Don't you think?

Joan Donovan (01:27:21):
I thought the discussion was all over the place was, I was like, as should be. I couldn't figure out how people were gonna come down on it. I even was, was texting with my, my dear old mom. And she was like, well, you know, I always thought good about will Smith, but if he's willing to do that in public, imagine how he treats his family and staff. And I was like, well, that's, that's not that that's a nuanced point. I hadn't thought about, see, see

Leo Laporte (01:27:46):
Isn't that great. See more information. It's interesting. Yeah.

Joan Donovan (01:27:50):
But I was just, yeah, I mean, I was, I was astounded that it happens. And then also just you know, the way in which you saw it spun in different circles around like red feed, blue feed, it was just you know, you could really tell, like, in some instances there was just blatant racism that were just like, yep. I think there were jokes from the right that was like about black on black crime. And you know, this is quote unquote thuggish behavior, which is code for the N word. And so it was yeah. And so it was like, it was not good on, in that sense of the word. And then on top of it, on the left, you have this sort of mealy mouse approach of like, you know, Remi like, you know, the echoes of the, should you punch a Nazi debate that played out on Twitter? And like people were saying, well, you know, sometimes people just need to get smacked. And I'm just like, I just don't think that that's

Leo Laporte (01:28:50):
Either. I think in, in though in the final analysis, having had that national discussion was better than each person going home alone to think about it. Ah, good point all by themselves.

Jeff Jarvis (01:29:02):
Yeah.

Jeff Jarvis (01:29:03):
Cause it brought out nuances. It brought

Leo Laporte (01:29:05):
Out, it brought out all that nuance arguments. Yeah. In fact, I loved what your mom said. I think that's, to me, that's the benefit of some of a, of a, but

Jeff Jarvis (01:29:12):
The other, the other thing about this,

Leo Laporte (01:29:14):
It's also information place like Twitter, go ahead. Sorry Leo. Nope.

Jeff Jarvis (01:29:18):
It's also about white Twitter and black like Twitter.

Leo Laporte (01:29:21):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean you can do all the tribalism and all that too. No,

Jeff Jarvis (01:29:24):
No, no, no, no. That's interesting

Leo Laporte (01:29:25):
Information.

Jeff Jarvis (01:29:26):
Yeah. Let me, let me, let me give you an example. So I, I, I can't find it now, but there was a chart today. Somebody did a, an analysis of Twitter of which states were pro pro rock or pro Smith. Right. And a black Twitter expert came in and said, they don't understand the language of black Twitter. So they're counting some people here and some people there because they just don't understand because they're, it's done by the people who don't know

Leo Laporte (01:29:49):
What a great opportunity to learn the language.

Jeff Jarvis (01:29:53):
Yes. But it's also a case where you know, I've talked about Andre Brock Jr. On this show before who wrote distributed blackness, you, and he kind of says, at some point we don't need or want you in our Twitter. You had, you've had all of media, well, you got all of this stuff. Let us have ours for God's sakes and stay out. Can

Leo Laporte (01:30:11):
I follow you?

Jeff Jarvis (01:30:13):
Oh yeah, yeah. But just

Leo Laporte (01:30:16):
Look, I don't tweet. I don't want to get in any conversations on Twitter, but I like to read it.

Jeff Jarvis (01:30:20):
Oh I do too. I do that. But there's times when you know, I've seen people on black Twitter say that they really don't want to be watched and so maybe

Leo Laporte (01:30:28):
Not, well, don't do it on Twitter then, or, you know, maybe do it on Trump's social. Nobody will be there

Jeff Jarvis (01:30:33):
Nonetheless. But my point is only that there were also racial nuances beyond the racism, there were nuances about black women in hair, about black men, about lots of things that people felt they could comment on. And maybe they weren't the best to comment and maybe was better to sit back and watch and learn.

Leo Laporte (01:30:53):
Yeah, that's fine too. That's a, I, I, I, I welcome reading that as well. I, I just, I feel like we're better off with all of that information flowing through our heads. If, and boy, you really, that was perfect. Joan, you continually remind yourself of why do I believe what I believe? Why I know this? Yeah. Why do I know this? What, where is this coming from? And our open traditional information. Then the opportunity is fantastic. It's fantastic. We've never had a better opportunity for understanding each other. 

Joan Donovan (01:31:29):
Well, yeah. And you know, sometimes I think about it and I'm like, okay, here, we have this problem of social media. And we also at this, you know, it, it, it starts to arise right at the same in exact time that a movement like black lives matter starts to make a big difference in, in the world. And it's U in black lives matter using a lot of social apps and connectivity in order to drive, you know, change about police policies, you know, and, and really is able to activate on a, on a, you know, within hours major networks of people and, and change public conversation. If there's some kind of crisis happening at the exact same time that that starts to happen, you start to get all this worry about social media being probably bad for the world, but then what you start to look at when you realize, okay, well, what are people saying is bad about social media?

Joan Donovan (01:32:31):
It's not Leo that people are saying, oh my God, it's so great that we're all connected. And we can see so many more opinions and we can have a much more discussion. That's not the problem for me. The problem is when Russia pretends to be black lives matter and intentionally inflames the conversation and uses the affordances of these tech platforms to do it to impersonate certain social movements and certain groups of people and not just Russia, but now it's, you know, it's, it's kind of like the imposter of, of these fake accounts that represent people that they don't actually know, or

Leo Laporte (01:33:10):
I'm willing, I'm willing to say

Joan Donovan (01:33:11):
That's a problem.

Leo Laporte (01:33:12):
Yeah. I'm willing to say Twitter, there should be a law. Twitter should ban inauthentic accounts or something. I mean, I'm not against that idea. Twitter could kill all the bots at once. Bots do not add the, yeah.

Joan Donovan (01:33:24):
It's not just, it's not just bots. It's like

Leo Laporte (01:33:27):
Or inauthentic accounts.

Joan Donovan (01:33:28):
Yeah, yeah. In the inauthentic accounts, when you go back and you look sort of historically when people were first starting to toy around with the notion of impersonating a whole community. So beyond just one or two accounts, we're talking hundreds of accounts at a time pretending to be

Leo Laporte (01:33:43):
Black people online.

Joan Donovan (01:33:45):
Yeah. Yeah. And so, and so that's why the stakes here I think are actually for me, and you are so important where we wanna be able to preserve a lot of that conversation. A lot of that, if it's genuine, you know, genuine where society is, is moving towards Mo more pro-social goals, more for democratic goals, let's go there. It's the bad actors or politicians, you know, P like PR or political operatives disguised as journalists. You know, these are the people that are really making a mess well

Leo Laporte (01:34:24):
Of, and I would, you

Joan Donovan (01:34:25):
Know, these

Leo Laporte (01:34:26):
Platforms, I would submit that one of your, the most important skills you have, and certainly I have is to detect inauthenticity, to have a really good radar for BS

Joan Donovan (01:34:36):
Except for when it comes to Bitcoin, I'll believe anything about, I mean, yeah, like there's,

Leo Laporte (01:34:42):
You know, that's something everybody should work on. I mean, that's a, that's a great thing to know whether it's spam coming in saying, click this link to win a prize or or a Russian saying you know, let's kill Whitey. You should really work on that. That's a good thing to have. Is that in authenticity radar? Let's take a, yeah. And I think that can be taught too. I think so. And I think we should. I think these are the things we should work on. I know I, I'm not the one that says, oh, you gotta teach critical thinking in school. It's much more difficult than that, but I think we should work on yeah. Really improving to understand the opportunity that all this flood of information provides and improving our ways personally, of dealing with it. I mean, maybe that's because that's what I've embarked on for the last 20 years of my life. I, in this job is I, I read a fantastic amount of news constantly as I'm sure you do Joan, and I know you do Jeff constant inputs and then really trying to, to use it to, to massage it. So that it's a value to me. That's my job. And then I can spout it out to you, but you, you

Jeff Jarvis (01:35:51):
Offer that to the, to your audience as

Leo Laporte (01:35:53):
Well. That's what I, do's what I consider my job. Yeah. Right.

Jeff Jarvis (01:35:56):
It's so, so you are, you are acting as that institution.

Leo Laporte (01:35:59):
Yeah. And, but, but also I would absolutely think that if anybody does it always baffles me that people will send me notes saying, you shouldn't say that, or why do you think that it's like, all you do is turn it off. There's a button, press the, press, the stop button and go to another podcast. There's an infinite, that's what I like. There's an INFINIT choice. And, and maybe open yourself up to hearing things you don't want to hear, or don't like, or you disagree with just in case, just in case. Anyway, I don't know. I don't know how I get all Pollyanna on this, cuz it's terrible. It's a horrible world and we've gotta fix it. You know what I believe in? I'll tell you what I do believe in getting rid of single use plastics, bad, bad. Let's not fill the ocean with bottles that we only use once.

Leo Laporte (01:36:51):
And let's not deplete the ocean by shipping water coast to coast. When a little tablet will do, I'm talking about Blueland. I am a, I am a Blueland fan. Did you know that? An estimated 5 billion with a B plastic hand soap and cleaning bottles are thrown away each year. Almost all of them used once. And if that's not bad enough, the liquids in these thing are 90% water being shipped around, being stored. It just doesn't make sense. It's bad for the planet. It's bad for your pocketbook. It's bad for you. You can stop wasting water, stop throwing out plastic with blue land's revolutionary refill cleaning system. Instead I'm a Blueland fan or around the house. We've got Blueland hand soap dispensers. I love it made a beautiful, solid. They call it Instagramable. They're really heavy glass, beautiful glass bottles with a pump on it. And then when it runs low, there's these little tablets, they send me, I put them in, add warm water.

Leo Laporte (01:37:53):
I, my water set of shipping in across country. And it makes Avin fantastic hand cleaner, which I have at every sink in the house. And by the way, I got I probably got too many of them during Christmas. I bought a bunch of blue land Christmas scents. So I smell like gingerbread every night when I go to bed. But I don't think that's the bad thing. I really don't powder dish soap. It's a, it's a great dish soap. It works really well. It's got baking soda in it, as well as detergents. It cleans like crazy. They've got cleaners for the bathroom cleaners for the kitchen. Incredible sense. Not just gingerbread Iris agave, Perine, lemon, lavender, EUCA Lipp dis. And they have, I, I can go on and on the toilet, this actually, they sell out of these, the Blueland toilet tablet cleaner.

Leo Laporte (01:38:43):
It's just a tablet like a little fizzy. You throw in the toilet and you walk away, go do some other chores. Five minutes later, you scrub it out. You're done. It is fantastic. It works so well. No waste, no plastic at all comes a little paper packet. They've got hand. Get the hand soap duo or the clean essentials get, this is a great housewarming gift. Great for yourself. Plastic free. We used their laundry and dishwasher tablets. By the way, I did an experiment. We had the tide pods. We had the Calgon pods said, okay, today, this week we're only gonna use the Blueland pods. This was some time ago. Better worked better. Loved it. Smelled great. Everything was clean. No more Calgon, no more or whatever those are called. Is it Calgon? Whatever. What are those? The dishwasher pods. No more tide pod cascade.

Leo Laporte (01:39:35):
Cow's the bath. That peds cascade. That's it. I love this stuff. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm getting a little excited. It's good for the environment. It's good for you. You buy the bottle once you refill it forever. That's that's it on plastic waste. Eco-Friendly products are not do not L not less. Well, these work better. So don't, you know, forget that notion that, oh yeah, I'm gonna get an eco-friendly detergent and I'm gonna walk around with dirty clothes. No less expensive, more effective. What could possibly be wrong? Looking Blueland stunning. High quality forever bottles started just $10. I say, buy the kit, get the whole it. And caboodle. Just blue land your house. I did that and now I I'm giving it to everybody. I know we're just giving away blue land cuz everybody should be using this money. Saving refill tablets, start at $2, $2.

Leo Laporte (01:40:31):
And there's no plastics. Once you buy that bottle, that last forever in their beautiful, by the way, they look actually better without that advertising and stuff on it. Try Blueland today. You'll love it. The planet will. Thank you. You'll thank you. You'll be glad. Get 20% off your first order. So make it a big one. Blueland.Com/Twig, 20% off your first order of any Blueland products. Blueland.Com/Twig, B L U E L a N D blueland.com/twig. Big fan, big fan. We, we use all the, all the Blueland products. All of them. I'm sorry. I got excited, but I, I feel good about this one. Good. I don't know. I think this is fine. Eric Schmidt apparently is basically endowing president Biden's science office. Is this influence, ping or just, and

Jeff Jarvis (01:41:26):
What more money out of the billionaires and he gives him some money.

Leo Laporte (01:41:28):
Yeah, there Schmitt's foundation helped cover officials, salaries there's ethical flags raised. I don't think there was a quid pro quo. It's the white house office of science and technology policy. Many of the people in there come from Google or have worked with Schmidt. It's 140 person office, according to Politico,

Jeff Jarvis (01:41:49):
If he had too much influence on who gets paid, that's an issue. Pain is not depends on how it was run in the administration.

Leo Laporte (01:41:56):
So it's from the Eric Schmidt's charity arms Schmid futures. They paid the salaries of two science office employees, including for six weeks that of the current chief of staff. Who's now one of the most senior officials in the office. I, you know, I mean it's a appropriate to look into it, but I think God bless you, Eric Schmidt. Thank you, science, nothing wrong with it. We need more information in the white house and government. Yes. Who am I wrong?

Joan Donovan (01:42:30):
So AI policy though, right? Like we get wonder where Schmitt's interests are and what parts of the government he's gonna fund and what kinds of things that he wants to see greased as the saying goes. And so here, there's an issue like beyond Schmidt, there's a revolving door between tech company is and governments. And we see that every time there's a turnover of president. We see people go into these companies and go back into governments and there's nowhere else to watch that happen. More closely than at the Kennedy school where like half the faculty disappear, anytime a Democrat gets elected and you're just out here, it being like we were supposed to have lunch. I'm like, they're like, I'm moving to DC. And you know, it's, it's, it's, you know, and so you just, you kind of get a mind for what's happening here, but you know, with Schmidt, there's been a lot of debate about AI weapons in the future of AI weapons and where that's all gonna go.

Joan Donovan (01:43:34):
And we do know one of his interests is in national security policy and artificial intelligence. And so while I don't think that this is enough, you know, pay to play to really make any kind of dent, you know, a couple of employees, you do have to kind, you do have to ask yourself like why this particular you know, agency and not another one. And then also, you know, who was who was the one that approached him for the funding and, and under what auspices. And so I wish there was way more

Leo Laporte (01:44:10):
So

Joan Donovan (01:44:10):
Transparency and clarity. In that sense,

Leo Laporte (01:44:12):
There is a statement on the Schmidt futures website, which says that us government and the office of science and technology policy have used pooled philanthropic funding to ensure staffing across agencies for 25 years. So this is not new. And they said, you know, Hey, we're disappointed by the we have great respect for the media and for the journalists to report stories, even those with which we may disagree. But we believe there's no, it's an unsubstantiated claim that we had in the influence. We don't, we're just funding it. So you know, the best way to fund all this stuff to tax bill millionaires appropriately, and then then you could fund a lot more. So it shouldn't be voluntary giving I'm I'm I'm with you in that regard. And, and it should definitely not be used for lobbying. We shouldn't, we it's a shame that we have to have a bake sale to keep the government's office of technology and science policy alive. So maybe just text some of these guys

Joan Donovan (01:45:15):
A little bit more, you know, and I should also mention that, you know, the, the current head of O S T P is a longtime mentor of mine, a along Johnson and someone who I deeply, deeply admire and respect and have I've read all her books. And she's a sociologist. So she's, you know, one of my type of people and very acutely aware of the role that philanthropy, she was head of the sci social science research council prior to this appointment. And so she's acutely aware of the influence of philanthropy on policy and on research. And so as a buttres to that, I'm also very happy that Alondra is, or I should say Dr. Nelson is in the position that she is in because I do know that when she's involved in big projects and in, you know, getting the work done, it's always done with an eye towards the research and, and not influence. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:46:15):
I mean, if I had billions, I don't know what Eric's wealth is as something like 20 billion. If I had billions of dollars, I probably would wanna, you know, donate a considerable amount of it towards science policy. That's a, that's a good area. But at the same time, maybe we just tax him and instead, and the, he doesn't get any say in where the money goes or in the policies that are generated, it's, it's appropriate for Politico to raise the questions. I don't feel like there's any evidence of, of it's not, it's not an open lobbying effort, which Schmidt also engaged in when he was CEO of Google. So I

Joan Donovan (01:46:56):
Mean, billionaires gonna a billionaire, right? Yeah. Like people with money are gonna buy influence. They're gonna, and, but they're gonna have the thing about philanthropy that I've, and Jeff knows this very well too, is that philanthropists have, have different motivations. Every one of them is very unique and, and there's strings the best case scenario and, and there's, and there's sometimes strings and sometimes they're written down which is nice. The, one of the be big benefits of being at Harvard is it's really hard for anybody to lean on me for a little extra work, cuz I'm like, well, we have a contract that, so, so look at that. But when it comes to this kind of giving and when people are, you know, making decisions between, do I fund, you know, outside research, do I fund government research? Do I fund this, that, you know, there, there are concerns about them really trying to fund or supercharge that mean a lot to them.

Joan Donovan (01:47:52):
And as a result, yeah, you do see deficits that appear in other areas because philanthropy, we get so used to philanthropy that we don't have mechanisms anymore for relying on our own institutions to make up those gaps and governments and academia me are ones that unfortunately have started to really lean on philanthropy for those, you know, the missing resources. And that comes a lot of it comes with a lot of conversations and then you have other funders that are like, I'm gonna send you money. And like, you might never hear from me again. And that's fine too.

Leo Laporte (01:48:29):
And there's also, let's face a government funding also carries strings. So,

Jeff Jarvis (01:48:36):
But Joan's right. There's good funders of, I mean, I'll Craig, Craig, Craig Newmark. There's a good guy is a great funder because he, he really leaves, it's clear that you have freedom to do that. And there's other funders who don't so much. Right. I, I I've been lucky. I haven't had that, but it can happen.

Joan Donovan (01:48:53):
Yeah. And that's why we don't take money from corporations or good. We don't take money or data from any of the, the big platform companies. Like I shouldn't say corporations, cuz if Delta was over here being like Joan, we wanna fund your research. I'd be like, great. There's no conflict of interest here. And if you know, any air conditioner companies that wanna fund disin info research, I'm, I'm looking. But when it comes to creating conflicts of interest with platforms or someone like Schmidt who was in the tech industry and has a lot of vested interests in the tech industry, moving beyond this moment of AI scrutiny the that's when we have to be, you know, a little wary is you know, but you're also if he made money and you know, but if he made his money, like, you know, making ambulances and like, you know, he was just that guy. That's like, well, that's the guy that made his money build in ambulances. And then you wouldn't question if he was funding OSTP or not. Right. Because it just wouldn't, it wouldn't really matter. So yeah, so that's why I, it, it raises my concern level a little bit, but that's tempered by knowing who's at O S TP, but this can, there

Jeff Jarvis (01:50:07):
You'd agree that that there's there's at, at, at places like yours in Columbia and Yale that have big endowments, that's one way to look at the world. And then when you're a public university, that's being starved by the day. It's another way to look

Leo Laporte (01:50:18):
At the world. Yeah, yeah,

Joan Donovan (01:50:20):
Yeah. But I don't get any money from any of these endowments. Those are building, those are for building buildings and like making the, making EV making the, the handles on the door, the door shiny, right? Like the door knobs are all gold at Harvard and I'm just like, how do they get so shiny? Right. Some

Leo Laporte (01:50:37):
Shines them.

Joan Donovan (01:50:38):
I know. Right. And that's where the, the poverty of research is actually something that like, I've been very interested in because you're right about public universities, even more more so being in a position of starving the beast and and being unable to raise because there's just not a lot of structural support for them to do their work anyway. But I was a child of UC San Diego and UCLA. And so no stranger to that problem in as well.

Leo Laporte (01:51:09):
Waymo's going fully driverless. Somebody said I just imagine there's a ghost driving the car in San Francisco. They will, you will be able to hail a Waymo. This is the Google. Self-Driving

Joan Donovan (01:51:23):
Wait, can I cancel that? How do we get that to stop? I don't wanna go to San. Francisco's all gone.

Leo Laporte (01:51:29):
No, well, no, I don't know. 

Joan Donovan (01:51:32):
I'm gonna be like the first person that's taken out by a zombie car. Cuz I step out from behind a trash can or something.

Leo Laporte (01:51:38):
Zombie cars in San Francisco. You

Joan Donovan (01:51:41):
Remember Leo? You remember Christine? Yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:51:44):
Yeah, yeah.

Joan Donovan (01:51:45):
Okay. Wrote about this could be, she was could

Leo Laporte (01:51:50):
Haunted haunted car. They don't. The good news is they don't let 'em drive downtown. Nobody can drive downtown. Wait what? They

Joan Donovan (01:51:56):
Can't drive downtown, but they can get on the highway.

Leo Laporte (01:51:58):
No, well, no, they, no, they just only can go out in the avenues where it's very nice and orderly. So 

Joan Donovan (01:52:06):
This sounds so dangerous. Why not pay like a 12 year old drive? A golf cart?

Leo Laporte (01:52:12):
Probably save

Jeff Jarvis (01:52:12):
Who goes from one place to another in the

Leo Laporte (01:52:14):
Richmond. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Joan Donovan (01:52:17):
I don't know. I

Leo Laporte (01:52:18):
Don't know. Waymo provided in in November through January. They're not, it's not a high volume business. 1,503 rides in that six month per or three period. Four months period.

Joan Donovan (01:52:31):
Doesn't it feel like being on a roller coaster? Can you imagine sitting in the back seat?

Leo Laporte (01:52:35):
I think it's not that exciting. I think they're actually very slow and patient. They wait a lot.

Joan Donovan (01:52:41):
Okay. Yeah. I think I just, I, it just, I,

Leo Laporte (01:52:44):
I wouldn't get in. I agree with you. It makes me nervous. Makes me nervous. Wait,

Joan Donovan (01:52:48):
How do I know that though? I know that cuz I watched a Stephen King movie in

Leo Laporte (01:52:54):
Christine.

Joan Donovan (01:52:56):
It's like, that's the, that's the first culture request at reference. I have too.

Leo Laporte (01:53:02):
Let's see, let's do the change log, John, play those play those instruments that you have next to you right there.

Jeff Jarvis (01:53:09):
The Google change log.

Leo Laporte (01:53:11):
Very nice. It's getting better at the Tim. You like that? That role? That's

Jeff Jarvis (01:53:15):
Good. Jo. John is so

Leo Laporte (01:53:17):
Talented, so talented Google docs getting more markdown support. Woohoo, Woohoo. Google is gonna let you, I don't know, do bullets with an as asterisk and I like mark down, but I don't know if this is gonna be huge, huge. There's no admin control for this feature. The feature is off by default, but you can enable it going to tools, preferences, turn on markdown. Okay. You wanted the change log. You got the change log, create externally friendly booking pages with appointment scheduling and Google calendar. Don't isn't that externally friendly? I don't, I don't. I okay. Look how pretty that looks. That's great. Going

Jeff Jarvis (01:54:13):
After Cal Lee.

Leo Laporte (01:54:14):
Yeah, actually Lisa just signed up from Cal Lee. Everybody uses it, everybody. So

Jeff Jarvis (01:54:20):
I screw it up all the time. Do

Leo Laporte (01:54:21):
You, do you have an account or she's trying to say she has to pay for an account in yeah,

Jeff Jarvis (01:54:27):
No, I'm not doing that.

Leo Laporte (01:54:27):
No,

Jeff Jarvis (01:54:28):
I, I I'm. I play hard to get for meetings.

Leo Laporte (01:54:30):
Yeah, she, she does a lot of meetings and what call Lee does and what this will do, I guess is help you two parties or multiple parties figure out a mutual time for a, a meeting or an a vet or a hangout or whatever. And I think that that's a very much needed in business cuz people are busy. So look for that new feature in Google calendar, nest hub UI is getting redesigned. Be careful this I have one of these. You might note a boot loop on yours. Some displays are getting getting into a, into a boot loop stuck. I don't know if let's see if there's a way to fix this. Some nest hub owners today are waking up to a UI redesign. Although the update looks to have boot looped, the assistant smart display for others is nine to five. Google. What

Jeff Jarvis (01:55:20):
Do you have the nest do anymore?

Leo Laporte (01:55:23):
Oh, I use it all the time. You really do? Oh yeah. Well it's by my well I have 'em in every room, of course. So so I will say Hey, you know who turn off the lights or turn on the lights cuz we have some nest hu lights or not nest hu lights. It will announce when there's somebody at the door. They're supposed to say Jeff Jarvis is at the front door so I can pretend no one's home, but instead it just says someone's at the front door. So, but at least I don't miss people at the front door. And then you get a picture on it, of the person standing there at the front door. What else does it do? I use it for alarms? I have it. Sometimes I have it play me particular song to wake me up, which is nice timers. Of course everybody loves timers. You know what I love about it. I can watch cuz I am a YouTube TV subscriber when, when like the hearings were going on for Kanji, I I was, I could say, Hey YouTube or I'd say, Hey, play CNN on YouTube TV. And then it would put the video in the audio. It just in a little screen in the background, that's very handy. There's lots of stuff. Lots of stuff. I like it. Mine

Jeff Jarvis (01:56:37):
Is a very expensive

Leo Laporte (01:56:39):
Clock. Well, that's the thing you gotta kind of force yourself to to use it. There's a new magic wand button on the Google keyboard keyboard that will let you, motify what you're typing. So type the emoji key to add emojis within a sentence or replace all text with emojis, see the magic sparkle wand.

Jeff Jarvis (01:57:01):
Oh God, I'm gonna do that accidentally.

Leo Laporte (01:57:03):
Yeah. And then you send a completely unintelligible emoji Laden message. I I think that's cool. It inserts emojis that are relevant to your message. We'll see. We'll just see, I, you know, the kids are so good about just put getting the emojis in there. I bet you Joe owns real good. Do you use emojis? Jenna,

Joan Donovan (01:57:27):
I invented an emoji. Did I tell you this? The beaver I'm the, the beaver emoji that's that's me and a few other folks who are co-creators and it was a very strange process, but here we are. I made an emoji and it's in everybody's telephone. The beaver. So from use it with pride, this is

Jeff Jarvis (01:57:43):
In your, is this in your Wikipedia profile?

Joan Donovan (01:57:45):
It's in a funny enough, it's on

Leo Laporte (01:57:47):
A Twitter

Joan Donovan (01:57:47):
Bio it's on my Twitter bio, but I don't, I never like, you know, I don't know anybody that edits my Wikipedia. So it's like, no, I have a look. I need someone to go in there and add it. You know? So Jeff Jarvis, why don't you go in and get me invent, get me some respect

Leo Laporte (01:58:02):
Of the beaver emoji. And from now on, when I tell G board beaver beaver, beaver, it's gonna put your beaver in there.

Joan Donovan (01:58:10):
It is great. It is. I'm excited, all that implies. Okay. So I, you know, people don't know that I'm like, I'm like a crazy joker. Like I love a, like I a good prank. I like, I love all the double you

Leo Laporte (01:58:23):
Well aware of the double Aandra okay.

Joan Donovan (01:58:25):
Oh yeah. I, I was here for this. Like I was like this, oh yeah. This emoji is made for me. And so yeah, so I just think it's hilarious. I wanna make like really fancy polos with it, with the little beaver emoji on the side, you know, like the old, the alligator or polo shirts and you know, and get people to wear 'em and so that's nice.

Jeff Jarvis (01:58:47):
I think, I think some PJs with it all around would be nice too.

Joan Donovan (01:58:50):
Yeah. Yeah. That would be it too. If I was like an entrepreneur, like if I really had my stuff together,

Jeff Jarvis (01:58:55):
You were eight Chan. You'd be making the buttons now. Yeah.

Joan Donovan (01:58:58):
I know I'd be doing it. I'd be all over this stuff. But unfortunately I've got this like job that just doesn't let me go to bed. And so, but if I were in the merch game, the beaver emoji would be on everything.

Leo Laporte (01:59:11):
Google Chrome version 100 came out with a bunch of fixes fireworks. Yeah. For zero days and stuff. Also a new redesign for the launcher. Rolling out to Chromebooks. Jeff you'll should look for this, a floating pain at the left that doesn't take up your entire screen so that you have more space. So it's kind of more like these menus you see on on windows and other operations

Jeff Jarvis (01:59:37):
It's change. I don't know if I like change.

Leo Laporte (01:59:39):
I know, I know voice dictation will support edit commands. That's really great. So you can say delete, which will delete the last letter. You can say move to next character, which moves the cursor along. You could say help. So play with some of those commands and let us know how you, how you like those.

Jeff Jarvis (02:00:00):
I added a few things in there.

Leo Laporte (02:00:01):
It a return to the office. I, I, a feeling you added this one is a pain in the ass. Google is eliminating the B days in their bathrooms, much to the dismay of employees. They had those Toto toilets. But it turns out they're not in California state code for commercial buildings.

Jeff Jarvis (02:00:25):
California's no fun.

Leo Laporte (02:00:30):
Yeah, that's weird.

Jeff Jarvis (02:00:33):
One of the reasons evidently is they're gonna go to recycled water and you don't want that being shot up.

Leo Laporte (02:00:38):
Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no. When an employee is the bday removal decision, citing environmental and hygienic benefits of B dayss facilities, professional Edgar Tova responded. Google's not gonna replace the bday. The bday seat removal has the added benefit of supporting Google's water, sustainable commitments, recycled water systems, which don't work well in be days. You know, once you get used to these heated seats and the little squirt of water to clean your beers, I think this is GVA. Yeah, you, you don't wanna go back. You don't wanna go back. Google docs can write your meta descriptions. You can, but this is kind of interesting. Well, I don't know how so

Jeff Jarvis (02:01:26):
Joan, you could use this for your papers to do the abstract

Leo Laporte (02:01:29):
Abstract.

Joan Donovan (02:01:30):
Oh, it, it would be if it was written at a, you know, I

Jeff Jarvis (02:01:34):
UNT

Joan Donovan (02:01:35):
Have like a, a sixth grade reading level. No, come on Jeff. Come, come

Leo Laporte (02:01:40):
On.

Joan Donovan (02:01:41):
Come on. I'm least not yours. Obscure. Not yours. Not mine. Of course, of course. Oh no, not your, but I'll tell you I can imagine students using this and it creating lots of hilarious mistakes. And so I, I bring this on with pleasure. Like let's, let's this

Leo Laporte (02:02:01):
Done? Danny Goodwin writing and search engine lamb gave some examples and actually these are pretty good. So Danny took this article, Facebook warns publishers to avoid watch bait tactics. These tactics will a result in fewer recommendations. He took it, ran it through the Google synopsize and Google said, this article is about how to avoid, watch bait in your videos. It's important to know what Facebook considers watch bait and what you should do to avoid it a little chronological, but okay. Circular. Yeah. Yeah.

Joan Donovan (02:02:33):
The second one was

Leo Laporte (02:02:34):
Better. Tiktok testing, search ads. And Google Somar synopsize that with this is a big deal. Tiktok is testing search ads and it's a big opportunity for brands to attract qualified traffic. Shouldn't use big twice. It's kind of colloquial. This is a big deal. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of colloquial kind of cute. All right. I'll be playing with that. I just

Joan Donovan (02:03:02):
Found that this, this would get you like a C in my class still like big deal. Can't

Leo Laporte (02:03:08):
Use a big deal. This is a big deal.

Joan Donovan (02:03:10):
It's just come on. Hey professor,

Leo Laporte (02:03:12):
My first, this is a big deal.

Joan Donovan (02:03:15):
Yeah. A big deal, you know? Well, you know, I'll tell you, when I taught at UC San Diego would come to class like in board shorts with their, of course they literally their surfboard flip flops and Hey

Leo Laporte (02:03:27):
Professor Donovan, how's your egging.

Joan Donovan (02:03:30):
Eh, just got back from the beach and I'm

Leo Laporte (02:03:32):
Just like,

Joan Donovan (02:03:32):
Can you at least pretend that you were a

Leo Laporte (02:03:35):
Student

Joan Donovan (02:03:35):
At like one time, dude,

Leo Laporte (02:03:38):
I'm studying? Did

Joan Donovan (02:03:40):
I got this? I'm

Leo Laporte (02:03:41):
Worried. I got this dude.

Joan Donovan (02:03:43):
Can I have an extension please?

Leo Laporte (02:03:45):
I

Joan Donovan (02:03:45):
Hurt my

Leo Laporte (02:03:46):
Legs. Oh man. The shark bit. Me the shark sharpened my homework. Homework. Yeah. Oh

Joan Donovan (02:03:52):
Man. I mean, I long for those days though, to be honest with you, like I like looking back, I'm like, oh my God, this was like, like this could've been TV. Like with the, the way students would come into class and just like, you know, kinda like wind swept and just like, oh this like, I'm just coming in from the beach. And it was kind of like being and saved by the bill. I

Leo Laporte (02:04:13):
Think they did that show. Yeah. Saved by the bell or welcome back KA. Yeah. VI Barberino

Joan Donovan (02:04:19):
At Conna. That was like New York city though. This is

Leo Laporte (02:04:24):
KA Mr. Kana. That's the Google change law. We're gonna take a break. And your picks of the week, Joan, you already used your book, so you don't have to, if you don't want to, but your picks of the weaker coming up, if you wanna think of something else, I have a very cool pick and actually we didn't do any of the silly stuff that I was gonna do, cuz there's a whole bunch of silly

Jeff Jarvis (02:04:49):
Stuff. What, what, what appealed to you when the silly stuff?

Leo Laporte (02:04:51):
Did you put the one in there with a guy created the feed me machine? Yeah. Is that yeah, I did. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. That's

Jeff Jarvis (02:04:59):
Great. We can do that one. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:05:00):
Should we just do that before we go to the break? Sure. Should we just some crazy stuff like you

Jeff Jarvis (02:05:06):
Gotta describe it for the folks on audio

Leo Laporte (02:05:07):
Like Dyson making air purifying headphones like that. It's

Jeff Jarvis (02:05:13):
Really look weird. They're gonna cost like a thousand dollars

Leo Laporte (02:05:15):
Or Scotty GB who invented this conveyor belt. That feeds me a five meal course. So

Jeff Jarvis (02:05:25):
It threw a napkin onto him

Leo Laporte (02:05:27):
With, through a, with a plastic toy shovel sandbox shovel. Now it's feeding him a bowl of soup by opening a book, which is kind of interesting. And then he's got a little rubber hand with a napkin on it and a hair dryer. That's gonna get the, this is my favorite one. It blows salad into his mouth as, as it goes by, as it goes by, it's actually quite well designed. Notice. He's got these little structures that go up and down to let things come in here. Okay. Now I don't, what is, oh, I, I don't know what that was at a zucchini. Something got fired into his mouth like

Jeff Jarvis (02:06:02):
That. This is one of my favorite

Leo Laporte (02:06:03):
Parts here. He comes corn in the cob. He's got a little toy truck. He

Jeff Jarvis (02:06:06):
Rolled in the

Leo Laporte (02:06:06):
Butter, rolled in the butter and then he is feeding it to him, spinning around.

Jeff Jarvis (02:06:14):
But the best is yet to come dessert,

Leo Laporte (02:06:16):
Dessert. He, by the way, he's got a tube mighty this conveyor belt. It's like working for a Ford in the 1920s. It moves fast. Oh, slicing up. What is, that's a hot dog. I don't, this is, I don't know what this is. It's got sliced up and now he's little pieces of something going,

Jeff Jarvis (02:06:34):
Jesus,

Leo Laporte (02:06:35):
These guy's gonna die. This looks dangerous

Jeff Jarvis (02:06:37):
Is what the best is yet to

Leo Laporte (02:06:39):
Come. Oh my God, more napkins. At least he's keeping his mouth clean.

Joan Donovan (02:06:43):
Are you making me watch

Leo Laporte (02:06:45):
Now, Joan, this is what the kids are doing. This is an ALA. That's gonna be this

Joan Donovan (02:06:51):
A grown in man. This is not a child. This's

Leo Laporte (02:06:53):
A grown ass man. Getting the views on Dick TikTok. This is a lot

Jeff Jarvis (02:06:57):
Is a yeah. With a Cabo in, oh

Leo Laporte (02:07:01):
My God. Now he puts his glasses on.

Joan Donovan (02:07:03):
How did he even enjoy that?

Leo Laporte (02:07:04):
He didn't. And he's reading his newspaper also on the conveyor belt.

Joan Donovan (02:07:12):
That is ridiculous.

Leo Laporte (02:07:13):
Joseph machines, credit credit to where credits too machines

Jeff Jarvis (02:07:18):
Talk to kids. The, the, the the toddlers are gonna watch that and their, and their dining habits are gonna go just downhill.

Leo Laporte (02:07:26):
Then they're gonna start kicking on doors. It's just a matter of time. Yeah,

Joan Donovan (02:07:30):
I know. Right?

Leo Laporte (02:07:31):
I just want, I'm just curious. He's got 800, 5,000 followers, 11 million likes that got 4.7 million views. So that's a, that's probably his biggest video ever very good. He's got a mask one. He's got all kinds. He that one on the five to the right? Yeah. yeah. Who else forgets their mask? He's look at his house. It's loaded with these GMOs and gadgets. Geez. He's obviously. So this is where

Joan Donovan (02:07:56):
I thought you would. Oh my goodness.

Leo Laporte (02:07:58):
It's a little mask. That's good mask. Just hanging there. A little mask machine, couple clips and just goes onto his as he walks out. Love it. See, see, this is learnings from TikTok things. You'll learned things you learned on TikTok. This should go in the crazy file. Exxon Mobil is gonna get into Bitcoin mining with its excess. There you go. Joan, excess methane. Here

Joan Donovan (02:08:23):
We go. There's gotta be fake news. This gotta be fake. Can't be, this is too perfect. Oil Bitcoin mining. Yeah. Come on. How do I know that? Yeah. Like, come on. There's too.

Leo Laporte (02:08:34):
From the new Republic. It's from the new Republic because oil drilling isn't destructive enough. Exxonmobil is getting into Bitcoin mining, two cryptocurrency climate, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine starting to intersect in strange ways. It's right outside the BCAN shale formation in North Dakota. I'm thinking they have a lot of excess natural gas. And then just instead of burning it, which is not a very good thing to do. They're gonna burn it and make Bitcoin, which is not much better. Nope. Come to think of it.

Joan Donovan (02:09:08):
So what you're telling me is this, this money which is made out of computers is like worth something in this world. Like I can't wrap my head around. I also can't wrap my head around how a piece of paper that is green and has dead presidents on it is also,

Leo Laporte (02:09:25):
Yeah, it's exactly the same.

Joan Donovan (02:09:26):
There's some kind of magic happening here. There's but also like, at least I can hold, you know, money in my hands. No, like

Leo Laporte (02:09:34):
You go down to times square. There's a guy guy who will sell you a bit.

Joan Donovan (02:09:38):
Here's a guy who will sell you. It just is Chucky. Cheeses, big Bitcoin.

Leo Laporte (02:09:41):
Yeah. I know you can hold it in your hand and everything. You're gonna love it. Yeah.

Joan Donovan (02:09:45):
A tangible it's

Leo Laporte (02:09:47):
It's tangible. Our show today brought you actually, this is relevant by our crowd, which is a venture capital firm that decided to open the gates, a let you peek inside and get involved. If you want to all around the world, they're amazing tech companies doing incredible things, driving returns for investors. But you know, you might say well, but yeah, but you gotta be a billionaire to do it. Nope. Nope. From personalized medicine to cyber security, to high or education where students sacrifice 3.8 billion in earnings every year by dropping out our crowd is identifying innovators to wanna make the world a better place and that you can invest in and you can invest in when the potential growth is the greatest. Not after everybody knows about them. Not after the IPO. No. Before the exit, when they're just getting started, our crowd is the fastest growing venture capital investment community.

Leo Laporte (02:10:46):
You do have to be an accredited investor to do this and that's for your protection. They don't want you Benton rent money. So what you should do right now is go to our crowd.com/twig. And you tell 'em what country you're in. And then you'll see what the requirements are in that country. It's different in every country to be at what they call an accredited investor. Our crowds accredited investors have already invested over a billion dollars. Growing tech companies, 21 of their portfolio companies are unicorns, 40 IPOs or exit sales of portfolio. Companies have meant some nice returns for investors. Now you can do it a couple of different ways. They have a fund. Actually they have several funds. You could put it as get in those for as little as 50 and dollars. You could participate in single company deals for $10,000. So that's the minimum that you'll need to invest.

Leo Laporte (02:11:39):
This is all again, you know, first, this is not, this shouldn't be your first thing that you do to grow your your wealth. This should be something after you've done all the other things. And you wanna just try a little bit of venture investing. Investment terms will vary depending on where you invest. So do go to the site input, the country you're investing from, but when you're talking about education and in fact, it's right at the top there, John, on the website, you can invest in something called EDU nav whose patented technology uses machine learning and combinatorial algorithms to guide students along the optimal path to graduation. EDU nav is already in use by 20 colleges and universities. In fact, one college doubled their graduation rate, thanks to it. And you can invest in it today, early stage at our crowd. It's just an example of the kinds of deals our crowd brings their credited investors.

Leo Laporte (02:12:33):
Now here's the beauty part cost you nothing to join. Invest in ed nav at our crowd.com/twig that's O U R C R O w D. Our crowd.com/twig. By the way, you can join for free. Get all this information. It's fascinating, invest if, and when you're ready@orcowd.com slash twig, our crowd join the fastest growing venture capital investment community, our crowd.com/twig. Thank you, our crowd for supporting this week in Google. I like this because it democratizes deal flow. Something that normally normal people just don't get access to. You have to be in the know you have to be be on sand hill road to, to know about these early stage companies. Of course, the risks involved. Absolutely read all about it at the website, but it's a very, I think it's a very interesting way to invest that extra that you might have our crowd.com/twig. We hang up so much for supporting this week in Google. So Joan, you were very generous. You gave away your pick of the week earlier. Do you have something to replace it or do you wanna re recuse yourself? You

Jeff Jarvis (02:13:46):
Can skip. You can skip. You can skip.

Joan Donovan (02:13:48):
No, I wanna just, I wanna mention the correct title of the book, which is off the edge flat Earth's conspiracy culture and why people will believe anything. And Kelly wheel is a reporter at the daily beast has been someone that has been on the conspiracy, beat the internet beat as well as the white supremacy beat for many, many years. And so when she told me a while back that she was gonna write a book on flat earth, I just thought this is gonna be a wild ride. This is for you. It is. Yeah. It was like, I felt like she wrote a book for me. I was like, this is great. Like, this is stuff I wanna know about, but I don't have time to look into. And it really is, you know, she treats people with respect. She, but she is very skeptical. She never shows up, you know, to these conferences with flat earthers, pretending to believe which is good. And and I think that people really enjoy the book. So I just wanna make sure I got the title right.

Leo Laporte (02:14:49):
Flat earthers, conspiracy culture. Why people will believe anything certainly worth knowing Kelly wild. W E I L L off the edge is the name of the book off the edge. That's that's I have had it on my wishlist for some time on audible and I was kind of on the fence. So now I will buy it. Absolutely

Joan Donovan (02:15:08):
Great. Listen, especially if you have a car trip. Yeah. Getting, getting the, the car it's

Leo Laporte (02:15:13):
Engaging. That kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Jeff, do you have a number?

Jeff Jarvis (02:15:17):
I do. I'm gonna save one of these. I'm gonna try to test it out before I before next week show. So I'll give you this one. Instead, Netflix just did a little celebratory post that five years ago, they came up with the skip intro button.

Leo Laporte (02:15:32):
They invented that

Jeff Jarvis (02:15:33):
They did good on. They found that that 15% of the time members were manually advancing the series within the first five minutes. Yeah. So I told them people didn't want the intro.

Leo Laporte (02:15:44):
It's just theme song. And the, you know, who's in this and all that stuff, the

Jeff Jarvis (02:15:46):
Credits and, and I always product,

Leo Laporte (02:15:49):
I always watch it the first episode. And I there's some, I love several has an amazing open. So, and then the next time I skip it, cuz I wanna get right to the, I also skipped the previously. I skipped that too. Yeah, go right to the meat. So

Jeff Jarvis (02:16:05):
In the net in five years, the button has been pressed 130, 6 million times. Wow. Saving members and astonishing 195 years in cumulative times.

Leo Laporte (02:16:15):
See, it's a little thing

Jeff Jarvis (02:16:18):
Technology, but

Leo Laporte (02:16:20):
It makes a big difference. Everybody does it now. Right. In fact, I get mad when I don't have a skip intro button. It makes me mad. I want to get right to the show. ESP, when you're binge

Jeff Jarvis (02:16:30):
Gives you a book you want to.

Joan Donovan (02:16:32):
Yeah. Do you remember when you had to wait till like Tuesday at nine o'clock?

Leo Laporte (02:16:36):
Oh, like

Joan Donovan (02:16:36):
Animals. Like can you even imagine? Yes. But you know the one thing I miss this, all this net culture, all this instant access, I don't browse nothing no more. And I really miss that. I used to love,

Leo Laporte (02:16:48):
I wouldn't even know how to browse.

Jeff Jarvis (02:16:51):
Yeah. My magazines were browsable medium. Right. And then the internet came, killed browsing and then everybody abandoned browsing. And we're now left with and stores. I used to go to bookstores, record stores to browse. That's all gone. Browsing is dead.

Leo Laporte (02:17:03):
I guess. I guess though,

Joan Donovan (02:17:05):
The irony, of course, when I go call them brows,

Leo Laporte (02:17:08):
When I go, you like a hacker news or something, that's in a way it's browsing. It's a collection of links. It's kind of like browsing, right?

Jeff Jarvis (02:17:16):
Yeah. Well, Joan I think at the beginning we did browse to the very, very beginning. We go through all these rat holes. Look, I went, I spent all time following links. Yeah. This exactly where your entire specialty started,

Leo Laporte (02:17:27):
But nobody links out. And

Jeff Jarvis (02:17:29):
Before the,

Leo Laporte (02:17:30):
It drives me crazy. Yeah. You'll you'll see, you'll be reading the verge or something. And there's a link that says, Bitcoin, you click it. It's just another verge article. That's not browsing. That's staying at home.

Joan Donovan (02:17:43):
I'll tell you though. You know, people do record shop these days. And like my friend runs a record store up in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and they're doing better than ever. And you know, and the pandemic, you know, put a little dent in the business, but people do want material now. And I often wonder like, how are you gonna know? You go to somebody's house. And you're like looking around at their place. And they got no DVDs. They got no records. They got no CDs. How do you know that they're normal? Right? Like how do you know they are well, how

Leo Laporte (02:18:11):
Do yeah. What do you look at to figure out, you

Joan Donovan (02:18:13):
Know, what do you look at? You know, it's weird

Leo Laporte (02:18:15):
Vinyl record sales were at their highest last year in 30 years.

Jeff Jarvis (02:18:20):
She

Leo Laporte (02:18:21):
Huge comeback. 23% of all albums bought were on vinyl, not CD. Do you wanna know what the number one vinyl album was?

Joan Donovan (02:18:31):
No. Let me guess. Let me guess. Okay. I bet it was probably a Fleetwood Mac reissue.

Leo Laporte (02:18:35):
You're close. It was back. It was Abba's comeback record voice. Oh my,

Joan Donovan (02:18:40):
Okay, there we

Leo Laporte (02:18:41):
Go. And there they are Abba. They're they're back baby.

Joan Donovan (02:18:47):
That's it? Yep. That's

Leo Laporte (02:18:49):
It. I have a pick the, I don't usually I usually let you guys do the picks, but this one just got me so excited. You

Jeff Jarvis (02:18:56):
Actually used to do them too. And then you got lazy. Leo.

Leo Laporte (02:18:59):
That's not lazy. I have picks. I could do, but I, I don't wanna make this show go on any longer than it has to remember. I'm sitting on a stick

Jeff Jarvis (02:19:07):
And it's the end of the week.

Leo Laporte (02:19:08):
And it's the end of the week. This is the museum of end dangered sounds save the sounds.info.

Jeff Jarvis (02:19:16):
I love this idea.

Leo Laporte (02:19:17):
You would, you would pick a sound. There's all these sounds sound

Jeff Jarvis (02:19:21):
Of a telephone rotary dial going

Joan Donovan (02:19:23):
Back. Oh my God. Please ring that phone. That's

Jeff Jarvis (02:19:26):
My ring.

Joan Donovan (02:19:27):
Yeah. I'm gonna spend all night on this website. You just ruined my night. Leah typewriter. Yeah,

Leo Laporte (02:19:33):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that one. Not matrix. Fri

Joan Donovan (02:19:37):
Oh, punching that paper.

Speaker 8 (02:19:39):
Good afternoon. A happy day. Lifetime will be. You're just

Joan Donovan (02:19:44):
Making like techno music.

Leo Laporte (02:19:46):
You can actually loop it all.

Jeff Jarvis (02:19:49):
Good

Leo Laporte (02:19:50):
Afternoon.

Speaker 8 (02:19:52):
Day. Lifetime will be well. And

Joan Donovan (02:19:58):
Now The actual modem sound. That's like,

Leo Laporte (02:20:07):
That's here. Let me, let me stop all this other stuff. Yeah.

Joan Donovan (02:20:10):
Stop all that.

Leo Laporte (02:20:11):
There is a modem.

Joan Donovan (02:20:12):
Mainline me a modem. Yeah. No that's

Leo Laporte (02:20:16):
No, that's quite that's Euro signal. I don't know. I'm not a Euro person. So I don't know that one. Let's see this.

Joan Donovan (02:20:21):
I want the, like I want the, the

Leo Laporte (02:20:23):
Mode,

Joan Donovan (02:20:25):
You know, 56. K that's it up, up. Go up to that AOL logo. I'm sure. That's it.

Leo Laporte (02:20:31):
This not your, all

Jeff Jarvis (02:20:32):
That. Oh, is that? Oh no. You're

Joan Donovan (02:20:34):
Right. No, this is it. I remember that screen from when I was a kid.

Jeff Jarvis (02:20:38):
Yep.

Joan Donovan (02:20:39):
No fine sound

Jeff Jarvis (02:20:40):
Man. Act Comfort. Comfort. When you heard that last bit of,

Joan Donovan (02:20:48):
Oh yeah, it's gone through, it's gone through

Speaker 9 (02:20:52):
We're sorry. Your call cannot be completed as dialed from the

Leo Laporte (02:20:56):
Phone. You here's one. I bet you, you had Joan when you were a kid. A Tamagotchi.

Joan Donovan (02:21:01):
Oh yeah. I let that thing about the T a thousand deaths. The

Jeff Jarvis (02:21:07):
Bottom.

Joan Donovan (02:21:08):
Now we're all we're gonna do this for hours. I'm sorry.

Leo Laporte (02:21:11):
Well, unfortunately there aren't that many. I wish there were more this guy is a freshman at Chattanooga state community college, which means he doesn't remember any of these sounds, but you know, he's trying to keep him alive forever. Good for him. Good for him. Him. Grandpa

Jeff Jarvis (02:21:27):
Is.

Joan Donovan (02:21:28):
I love everything.

Leo Laporte (02:21:29):
Where's the cassette. You want to hear the cassette? This

Joan Donovan (02:21:31):
Is oh yes.

Leo Laporte (02:21:31):
I do music of volume two.

Speaker 10 (02:21:35):
Oh yeah.

Joan Donovan (02:21:38):
That's 

Leo Laporte (02:21:39):
I guess it's a blank cassette.

Joan Donovan (02:21:40):
It's one year. I think it's rewinding.

Leo Laporte (02:21:42):
Oh yeah. It's rewinding. There's also a turntable for those who don't remember turntables somewhere in here. Oh, well here's a floppy disc.

Joan Donovan (02:21:55):
Oh yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:21:57):
CD.

Joan Donovan (02:21:57):
You're on's subtle. That's subtle.

Leo Laporte (02:22:00):
Oh, when a CD skips. Remember that?

Joan Donovan (02:22:03):
Oh my God.

Leo Laporte (02:22:03):
Oh, the worst,

Joan Donovan (02:22:04):
The worst. So the other day I was listening to a CD that I had made into MP three S when I was way younger, maybe 20 years ago at this point. And there was a skip in the CD and I hadn't listened to these MP three S in forever. And there's a skip in the MP3. And I like couldn't believe it in my mind. I was like, and then I remember I had that possible. I had one of these. I was one of those people that would throw the CDs around the car and you know, it was,

Leo Laporte (02:22:30):
I was, yeah. I remember when when CDs first came out, I was working a radio station. Our program director said these are indestructible and throw 'em across the table and they all scratch.

Joan Donovan (02:22:40):
Yeah. That's it.

Leo Laporte (02:22:42):
Joan Donovan. You are a bless. You are amazing. Come back anytime. Thank you. We love having you on so smart research director at the shore team center on media politics and public policy at Harvard's Kennedy school, your students are lucky and we are so glad you could be here. Do you have a book that you wanna plug?

Joan Donovan (02:23:04):
Well, September I'll come back, but me Moore's coming out. We got the book, you know, we got the, we're getting the gales next week. And we're gonna, who's a

Jeff Jarvis (02:23:14):
Publisher who had the good

Joan Donovan (02:23:16):
Bloomsbury Bloomsbury and it's me and Emily Drey and Brian Friedberg are my co-authors. And and

Leo Laporte (02:23:23):
I'm gonna get it on from everything. I'm gonna get it on target. Apparently target has it for $28. So

Joan Donovan (02:23:28):
Everything from occupy to the insurrection, we go over the last 10 years of net war and it is a wild drive. Oh,

Leo Laporte (02:23:35):
I can't

Jeff Jarvis (02:23:35):
Wait. This is very academic.

Joan Donovan (02:23:38):
No, just Bloomsbury, but we keep the sources light. There's only about 750 of them.

Leo Laporte (02:23:44):
Pre-Order now on Amazon. Ne Moore is the untold story of the online battles. Upending democracy in America. Yes. When that comes out, if Emily wants to come on and Brian as well, we will have all three of you on it's up to you, but that would,

Joan Donovan (02:23:57):
That would be

Leo Laporte (02:23:58):
A treat we would love to do that. That sounds so good. Okay. So good. We'll do it. Special episode, book it book, book it. Thank you, Joan.

Joan Donovan (02:24:08):
Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Leo Laporte (02:24:09):
Jeff Jarvis director of the town night center for entrepreneurial journalism at Craig Newmark, Craig

Speaker 11 (02:24:16):
Craig,

Leo Laporte (02:24:18):
New graduate school of journalism at the city, university of New York buzz machine.com. Thank you. Bless you. Great to see you. Your students are lucky

Jeff Jarvis (02:24:26):
To see you boss.

Leo Laporte (02:24:27):
Yeah. This was a fun

Jeff Jarvis (02:24:29):
Show. Unlike the others. I loyally show up. I don't

Leo Laporte (02:24:33):
Disappear.

Joan Donovan (02:24:34):
I missed aunt and Stacy. I like wrapping with them too.

Leo Laporte (02:24:37):
No, they're great

Joan Donovan (02:24:37):
To have me on again.

Leo Laporte (02:24:38):
We will.

Jeff Jarvis (02:24:39):
We need to have you on with them. Yes,

Leo Laporte (02:24:41):
We do. Twigs this show this week in Google or whatever the hell we want to talk about every Wednesday, 2:00 PM Pacific at 5:00 PM. Eastern 2100 UTC. You can watch us do it live. If you want. We do a live stream, audio and video at twi.tv/live. If you're watching live chat live the chat room is irc.twi.tv. And of course, club TWiT members have their very own chat room. Look at their PO. This is, this is RT. FM's LP collection with his ex-wife as the model. I love it. So this is what you do when you go in somebody's house. And you know what? He has the requisite cinder blocks holding up boards. That is the real deal. That is a real vinyl collection. He said 1200 albums. Anyway, that's the kind of thing you see if you're in our a discord server, please. Oh, look at this.

Leo Laporte (02:25:32):
Golia has quite a good collection of science fiction books and comics. She says, that's how you know, I'm not normal. So the reason you'd wanna be in here while they're lots of them. First of all, you get ad free versions of all of our shows, cuz you're paying us seven bucks a month to be in the club. So we don't need to monetize you. You also get access to this wonderful discord. It's not just chat about the shows, but about anything. A geek might be into comics, anime, data science, hacking, ham radio hardware. We have Stacy's book club in there, the untitled Lenox show, the GIZ and tomorrow we've got a special event. Paul Thra is gonna do an AMA 9:00 AM. Pacific members of the club can join join us live. And then listen after the fact on our TWiT plus feed April 14th, some my name Jeff Jarvis will do a fireside chat as well.

Jeff Jarvis (02:26:26):
Yep. They'll be, I'll be burning something. Yes.

Leo Laporte (02:26:29):
So the question really is why aren't you a member? My goodness. It really helps us in our efforts. And I think we've made something that has a lot of great stuff going on. All you have to do is go to twi.tv/club TWiT $7 a month. And guess what? If you're a member club TWiT, you didn't even hear this ad you no ads at all. So please join. Thank you all for joining us each and every week on This Week in Google will see you next time. Byebye.

Speaker 12 (02:26:54):
Hey, I'm rod Pyle, editor of ad astra magazine and each week I'm joined by Tariq Malik the editor in chief over at space.com in our new this week in space podcast every Friday. And I take a deep dive into the stories that define the new space age what's NASA up to when will Americans, once again set foot on the moon. And how about those samples in the perseverance Rover? When are those coming home? What the heck is Elon musk have done now, in addition to all the latest and greatest and space exploration will take an occasional look at bits of space flight history that you probably never heard of and all with an eye towards having a good time along the way. Check us out in your favorite podcast Catcher.