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"slug": "a-queer-history-of-the-sims",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Did The Sims make you gay?” is a long-running joke among Sims players. For millions, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Sims\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> has been more than a video game — it’s been a place to experiment, tell stories, and explore identity. Long before LGBTQ representation became common in mainstream games, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Sims\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> allowed same-sex relationships, helping create a devoted queer fan base that reshaped what players expected from virtual worlds.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this episode, Morgan Sung talks with \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Sims 4\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> senior designer Jessica Croft and Electronic Arts’ senior game design director Loel Phelps about the game’s unlikely emergence as one of the most queer-inclusive franchises in gaming. They explore the legendary story of how same-sex romance accidentally made it into the original game, the challenges of translating sexuality and gender into game systems, why so many LGBTQ players discovered their own identities in \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Sims\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> long before they felt safe doing so in real life — and why some players are worried about where the game might be headed.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC3392561231\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jessica Croft,\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">senior designer and lead designer at EA on The Sims 4\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Loel Phelps, senior game design director at Maxis\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-kiss-that-changed-video-games\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Kiss That Changed Video Games\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Simon Parkin, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The New Yorker\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.pcgamer.com/unearthed-the-sims-design-docs-show-the-debate-over-same-sex-relationships/\">Unearthed The Sims design docs show the internal debate over same-sex relationships\u003c/a>\u003c/span> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steven Messner, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>PC Gamer\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi-HWyh0Ybk\">Did The Sims make you gay? – a video essay.\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Alexander Avila\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>, \u003ci>YouTube\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://bricksmagazine.co.uk/2020/08/27/the-sims-knew-i-was-queer-before-i-did/\">The Sims Knew I Was Queer Before I Did \u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Megan Elliot,\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci> BRICKS Magazine\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/games/2022/feb/22/gay-weddings-for-russia-how-the-sims-became-a-battleground-for-the-lgbtq-community\">Gay weddings for Russia: How The Sims became a battleground for the LGBTQ+ community \u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Tom Regan, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>The Guardian\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://frvr.com/blog/news/the-sims-designer-says-that-the-series-diversity-is-critical-especially-at-times-like-now/\">The Sims designer says that the series’ diversity is “critical, especially at times like now” as the games must recognise “the fundamental truths of our humanity” to stay successful \u003c/a>— Lewis White\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>, \u003ci>FIVR\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Episode Transcript\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A full transcript will be available 1–2 workdays after the episode’s publication.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "A Queer History of The Sims | KQED",
"description": "“Did The Sims make you gay?” is a long-running joke among Sims players. For millions, The Sims has been more than a video game — it’s been a place to experiment, tell stories, and explore identity. Long before LGBTQ representation became common in mainstream games, The Sims allowed same-sex relationships, helping create a devoted queer fan base that reshaped what players expected from virtual worlds. In this episode, Morgan Sung talks with The Sims 4 senior designer Jessica Croft and Electronic Arts’ senior game design director Loel Phelps about the game’s unlikely emergence as one of the most queer-inclusive franchises in gaming. They explore the legendary story of how same-sex romance accidentally made it into the original game, the challenges of translating sexuality and gender into game systems, why so many LGBTQ players discovered their own identities in The Sims long before they felt safe doing so in real life — and why some players are worried about where the game might be headed.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Did The Sims make you gay?” is a long-running joke among Sims players. For millions, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Sims\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> has been more than a video game — it’s been a place to experiment, tell stories, and explore identity. Long before LGBTQ representation became common in mainstream games, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Sims\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> allowed same-sex relationships, helping create a devoted queer fan base that reshaped what players expected from virtual worlds.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this episode, Morgan Sung talks with \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Sims 4\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> senior designer Jessica Croft and Electronic Arts’ senior game design director Loel Phelps about the game’s unlikely emergence as one of the most queer-inclusive franchises in gaming. They explore the legendary story of how same-sex romance accidentally made it into the original game, the challenges of translating sexuality and gender into game systems, why so many LGBTQ players discovered their own identities in \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Sims\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> long before they felt safe doing so in real life — and why some players are worried about where the game might be headed.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC3392561231\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guests:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jessica Croft,\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">senior designer and lead designer at EA on The Sims 4\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Loel Phelps, senior game design director at Maxis\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-kiss-that-changed-video-games\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Kiss That Changed Video Games\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Simon Parkin, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The New Yorker\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.pcgamer.com/unearthed-the-sims-design-docs-show-the-debate-over-same-sex-relationships/\">Unearthed The Sims design docs show the internal debate over same-sex relationships\u003c/a>\u003c/span> \u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Steven Messner, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>PC Gamer\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi-HWyh0Ybk\">Did The Sims make you gay? – a video essay.\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Alexander Avila\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>, \u003ci>YouTube\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://bricksmagazine.co.uk/2020/08/27/the-sims-knew-i-was-queer-before-i-did/\">The Sims Knew I Was Queer Before I Did \u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Megan Elliot,\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci> BRICKS Magazine\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/games/2022/feb/22/gay-weddings-for-russia-how-the-sims-became-a-battleground-for-the-lgbtq-community\">Gay weddings for Russia: How The Sims became a battleground for the LGBTQ+ community \u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Tom Regan, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>The Guardian\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://frvr.com/blog/news/the-sims-designer-says-that-the-series-diversity-is-critical-especially-at-times-like-now/\">The Sims designer says that the series’ diversity is “critical, especially at times like now” as the games must recognise “the fundamental truths of our humanity” to stay successful \u003c/a>— Lewis White\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>, \u003ci>FIVR\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "how-to-prove-youre-not-ai",
"title": "How To Prove You're Not AI",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">During a recent phone call, BBC tech columnist Thomas Germain couldn’t convince his aunt that he \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">wasn’t\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> AI. Being unable to distinguish a real person from a fabricated version is a problem born from the sheer volume of AI-generated content flooding the internet — and one that’s increased dramatically in the last year alone. Even world leaders are now plagued by the issue: a glitchy video of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sparked an enduring conspiracy theory that he was really dead and his public appearances on social media were an AI-driven cover up.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In a world where everything looks fake, how do we know what’s real? Thomas joins the show to explain how we got here, where we might be headed, and a surprisingly analog technique that could save you from getting scammed by a deepfaked version of a loved one.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC6560300791\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.bbc.com/future/author/thomas-germain\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thomas Germain\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, co-host of the podcast \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Interface\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and tech columnist at the\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> BBC\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260324-i-tried-to-prove-im-not-an-ai-deepfake\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I tried to prove I’m not AI. My aunt wasn’t convinced\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Thomas Germain, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">BBC \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.bbc.com/audio/brand/m002qwn7\">The Interface Podcast\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — \u003ci>BBC\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.theverge.com/tech/895453/ai-deepfake-netanyahu-claims-conspiracy\">Benjamin Netanyahu is struggling to prove he’s not an AI clone \u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Jess Weatherbed, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>The Verge\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/03/14/business/media/iran-disinfo-artificial-intelligence.html\">Cascade of A.I. Fakes About War With Iran Causes Chaos Online \u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Stuart A. Thompson and Alexander Cardia, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>The New York Times \u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/experts-warn-collapse-trust-online-ai-deepfakes-venezuela-rcna252472\">AI is intensifying a ‘collapse’ of trust online, experts say\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Angela Yang, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>NBC News\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/deepfakes-elections-and-shrinking-liars-dividend\">Deepfakes, Elections, and Shrinking the Liar’s Dividend\u003c/a> — Josh A. Goldstein, \u003ci>Brennan Center for Justice\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you like these deep dives? Do you want more? It would be so, so helpful if you could rate and review us on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show. Send it to your friends, your frenemies, that one niche micro-influencer you kind of have a parasocial relationship with. Maybe they’ll respond, I don’t know. All right, let’s get to the show.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When we talk about deepfakes and AI, often what we’re thinking about is the idea that you’re gonna get tricked.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Thomas Germain. He’s the cohost of the podcast The Interface, and also a tech columnist at the BBC. His column, Keeping Tabs, covers tech and how it affects average people every day. So, like many journalists on this beat, he’s been keeping an eye on the uptick in deep fake scams.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Someone’s going to scam you, they’re going to try and fool you into thinking that they’re someone else.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fakes are synthetic media, images, videos, or audio recordings that have been generated or manipulated by AI to impersonate someone else.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But I started thinking about like, what would it be like if the shoe was on the other foot? What if you needed to convince someone that you’re real and you are who you say that you are? How difficult would that be?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So Thomas decided to do a little experiment. He called up his aunt Eleanor. Thomas and his aunt Eleanor are very close. She was at the hospital the day he was born and of all of his relatives, she’s the one he calls the most and she’s relatively online.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She knows a bit about what’s going on. Her husband, my uncle, is actually a computer science professor. So she gets some of it, but she’s not like up to date on everything that’s happening. And I wanted someone who knows me really, really well.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That last part is important. Thomas called his aunt and explained the experiment. He would call her back, and she’d either be talking to the real him, her beloved nephew, or a deep fake, generated by AI. And what Thomas wanted to know was, could she tell the difference?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At first, you know, it was a very fun, like, friendly conversation, but there was this weird, like tension, you know? She said before we even got on the phone, she’s like, “Oh, I’m gonna be really upset if I can’t tell,” you know, because she’s known me since the day I was born, right?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">His aunt Eleanor tried a few different methods to suss it out. First, she went on Facebook.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And read me like a bunch of jokes that she’s seen that she really liked, to like see what my reaction was. And you know, we’re like different generations, we have different senses of humor. So I’m not sure like, was the test that I would laugh or I wouldn’t laugh. It was kind of funny. That didn’t seem to convince her.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So she took a different approach.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She was knitting me a sweater and we hadn’t decided on the color. And like a couple of weeks before we got on the phone. I told her that I was saying I wanted a gold sweater, like kind of gold colored yarn. And then when we were talking, when I was tricking her about AI, she brought it up and she’s like, “so have you decided on the color?” and I was like, “yeah, you know, I think it might just go boring, like just do like a black or like a dark blue or something.” And I think of all the things, that made her the most suspicious because like, ‘I was expecting you to go with like a more exciting color. She’s like “That…. I don’t know, that feels like a robot answer.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Laughter]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s so generic, it can’t possibly be you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I know, but maybe I’m a boring guy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She still couldn’t be sure, so she gave him another test.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She asked me for some details about, like, things from my childhood that you would be unlikely to know if you weren’t a member of my family. And I think she found that a little bit reassuring.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But overall, the experience left Aunt Eleanor rattled.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think by the end of the call where she realized she couldn’t be totally sure, it was kind of distressing. You know, like, you’re supposed to know your loved ones, how could it be? And we talked for like 20 minutes or so and by the of it she told me like, “I think it’s the real you, I just can’t be sure, I’m not 100% confident.”.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And at the end I told her it is me, I am not tricking you. But there were all these little things that she was trying to pick up on, and I think this is really important for people to understand, throw that out the window. This technology is so good, I promise you, there is nothing that you can do to tell that you’re not looking at an AI, and if you convince yourself that you could figure it out by just like thinking really hard and being careful, you are more likely to get in trouble and get fooled.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is way bigger than Thomas duping his aunt. It’s a real world problem. Every day, deep fake scams and AI generated disinformation lead people astray. Which is why the general public is becoming so distrustful of everything online. When everything could be fake, how do you tell what’s real and what’s not?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist, and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kicking this off as always, let’s open a new tab: the Netanyahu deep fake death rumor. In March, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a televised update on the war in Iran. A clip of it was posted on his official X account.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Audio clip of Benjamin Netanyahu addressing Israeli people in Hebrew]\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Citizens of Israel, my brothers and sisters, we are in historic times…\u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Something about that video seemed off.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s one moment where he kind of waves his hand in front of the camera and if you freeze frame it at just the right second, it kind of looks like he’s got a sixth finger on his hand.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Screenshots of this moment started making the rounds. And if you’re just scrolling by and you see this freeze frame out of context, it would probably raise a few alarm bells, right?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It really looks weird. It’s like, it looks like this weird digital glitch and because it’s a video, you know, it’s little grainy it’s pixelated.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So this rumor started swirling around online. Was this televised speech really Netanyahu? Or was it a deep fake?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And people latched onto this because for the longest time, AI image and video generators really struggled with hands. Right? They were trained to focus on faces, hands were this thing they picked up along the way and they couldn’t get the hands just right. That was true two or three years ago. Right? The technology has advanced past that point. It’s not true that AI struggles with hands anymore. That isn’t really an issue, but this was enough and it does look weird if you pause at the right frame.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thus, a conspiracy theory was born: Netanyahu was dead, and this was the cover-up. It didn’t help that the Prime Minister’s health had been the subject of public speculation for years. He had emergency heart surgery in 2023, and then a year later, underwent treatment for prostate cancer. And then there’s the war in Iran. The U.S. and Israel killed the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>[Audio clip from Global News Youtube post]\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nIn Tehran, thousands gathered to mourn the death of the supreme leader. Similar protests were held in cities around the world including…\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In retaliation, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has vowed to hunt down and target Netanyahu personally. The seed of doubt over Netanyahu’s health was already planted. Then, the wonky six-fingered video launched the conspiracy theory into the mainstream.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This was enough that some large swath of people latched on to this idea that Netanyahu had been killed in a missile strike, and the Israeli government was hiding the truth and making AI videos to convince the world that he was still alive, to what aim, I’m not exactly sure. It turned into, you know, such like a meme, essentially. Like, the conversation got so big that it was enough that Netnyahu posted another video.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cb>[Audio clip from Benjamin Netanyahu’s post on X] \u003c/b>\u003c/em>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Voice behind camera: Do you want to show us?\u003cbr>\nNetanyahu: Here. Here.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This video takes place in a coffee shop near Jerusalem. The camera approaches Netanyahu, and the voice behind it says, they’re saying on the internet that you’re actually dead. Netanyah, holding a latte, tells the camera, I’m dying for a coffee. And then he holds up his hand and says, do you want to count the fingers?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He did a terrible job with it for a couple of reasons. If the goal was convincing the public. Number one, I talked to a bunch of people about this and they’re like, the worst thing you can do is come out and deny it because it makes it look like you’ve got something to hide. Right?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And there is still something off about the video. It was almost uncanny. He looked super crisp and almost too smooth. It only fueled the conspiracy theories.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They shot this on like a nice DSLR, like one of those big cameras, which is how AI videos look. Right? They’re trained on high quality content, high quality videos, so they produce what looks like smoother, polished, high quality video. So it looked a little bit more like AI than it would have if he had just used a phone to record it. So that, I think, just sent people spiraling even more. Nobody was convinced by this, as far as I could tell. The people who had latched on, if anything, it just reaffirmed their belief that the bad guys were trying to trick them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s the thing about conspiracy theories. Once you’re convinced, everything else just seems like confirmation of what you already believe. People took screenshots, zoomed in, tried to find inconsistencies in the backgrounds of the video. Joe Rogan, for one, seemed pretty convinced.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cb>[Audio clip from The Joe Rogan Experience] \u003c/b>\u003c/em>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Look at this. Yeah, like the coffee. Look how turned it is, but it doesn’t spill at all. It just wiggles to the edge.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He talked about it on his podcast, which has over 20 million followers on YouTube. And of course, that just spread the rumor further. I saw claims that if you zoomed in on the date on the register, the pixels didn’t look right. So surely it was fake. Right? Or that the video itself was real, but it wasn’t actually Netanyahu. It was really an actor deep faked to look like Netanyahu and the shadows gave it away. Or, that when he put his hands in his pocket, the fabric of his jacket seemed to smooth over.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And the thing about reality is it’s weird. Right? Like, if you look close enough at anything you’ll find weird stuff but especially with digital photography, digital video, it’s the way that the sensors work, like, errors are actually inherent to the way that a digital camera sensor functions. So if you zoom in on any video, if you’re, like, watching a clip from this podcast on social media, zoom in, take a screenshot and zoom in, you will find something weird. That’s just how digital images work, that there’ll be some little grainy thing, there’ll be some glitch. And I think it’s important for people to understand that unless you have serious expertise on this subject, you aren’t qualified to make that kind of call. I am not qualified to make that knd of, I think about this stuff all the time.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For his column, Thomas talked to a few of the world’s leading experts on this, including Jeremy Carrasco. He runs a publication called Riddance, which investigates AI-generated media.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And he went through, he analyzed it, he determined it was real. I talked to professors, I talked to some people who were like, real world leading experts on digital forensics is what they call it, like figuring out what the origin of a file is. They said there is no doubt. It is impossible that these videos are AI-generated. Like, this thing where it sort of looked like Netanyahu had a sixth finger, even if you watch the clip, instead of looking at a freeze frame, you can kind of see there’s like a shadow on his hand and that’s what it is. It looks weird if you take a screenshot at the right second, but the video itself, it’s very clearly real. This was not enough. And I think that is kind of part of the problem is that we’ve lived through an era where there’s been an assault on expertise, right? That, you know, real conscious, intentional efforts to discredit traditional forms of you know, authority on truth.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thomas also talked to Hany Farid, a professor at UC Berkeley who’s known as the father of digital forensics. He pioneered this field of examining files and figuring out if they’re real.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He’s one of these guys that’s constantly watching this stuff. And he says, you can see the progression of AI and deep fake technology if you look at some of the recent global conflicts. Like, if we go back to the beginning of the war in Ukraine, it was almost all real footage. Like, every once in a while, you’d see something AI-generated, but for the most part, it was all real. Fast forward to the conflict in Gaza and it was starting to get to the point where there was more AI-generated content. It was a little harder to sort the real from the truth. You get to when the U.S. invaded Venezuela, and it was about 50-50. Right? You’re seeing as much fake stuff as real stuff if you just go out and look at a random video on the subject on the internet. By the time we got to the war in Iran, there’s more fake footage, there’s more fake clips, there is more mis and disinformation than there is real stuff.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A few weeks ago, we dove into the slopaganda coming out of Iran, those AI-generated Lego rap videos dissing the U.S. They’re clearly not real, but they still push specific narratives to the American public. But there’s another kind of AI- generated media at play here: videos that look real but portray events that never happened, like AI-generated footage of Iranian missiles sinking U.S. ships and bombarding civilians in Tel Aviv.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In less than six months, we had this dramatic shift where I think people in power who’ve got like, you know, a game to play, they’ve got something that they want to try and convince the public of, they’ve realized that this technology is something they can put into play. There are whole operations that are ready to get off the ground at a moment’s notice to like, fill the world with fakery and lies. I think that is a real serious problem, I mean, even for journalists, even in the media. Like, it used to be if you saw something that was recorded with a camera, you know, in the not too distant past, it was almost certainly real. Right? Because it took so much effort, especially for video, so much effort to fake something in a convincing way. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now I can do it like while I’m washing the dishes. I could reach over and hammer something out of my phone and generate a fake video. For the average person, I think this means that you are constantly inundated with nonsense. You are being exposed to lies on a near constant basis. It’s not just that the image looks real, it’s not just the video looks real. The thing that’s happening is so close to real life. Right? And if you’re a person who watches a lot of short form video and social media, if like scrolling through Instagram Reels or TikTok, the chances that you have seen a piece of AI content and been fooled that it was real, I’d say in the last week, are extremely high.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Actual footage, meanwhile, has been written off as fake and AI. When the U.S. bombed an elementary school in Iran, killing 120 children, some people online questioned whether footage of the aftermath was authentic. It didn’t help that the true photos and videos were mixed in with AI-generated depictions of what happened. It’s one thing for digital forensics experts, like Hany Farid, to sift through all of the slop and determine what’s real. It’s another for these experts to get the public to actually trust them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It leads to an information ecosystem, you know, a landscape of truth where everything is up for debate. Nothing is set in stone and everything is suspect. And that leads to some new ways that power can be abused and people can be taken advantage of.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The conspiracy theories over Netanyahu’s death have not stopped. The follow-up videos and public appearances after the coffee shop debacle only fueled the rumors further. In March, Netanyahu appeared in a video with Mike Huckabee, who is now the ambassador to Israel.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cb>[Audio clip from Benjamin Netanyahu’s post on X] \u003c/b>\u003c/em>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mike Huckabee: Mr. Prime Minister, I wanted you to know, the President asked me to come and make sure you were okay. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Benjamin Netanyahu: Yes, Mike. Yes, I’m alive.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If anything, it only convinced people that Huckabee was also a deepfake. On X and TikTok, people did the same exact thing they did to previous videos, zoomed in, slowed down, cropped screenshots, and looked for any anomaly that could confirm their theories.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003cem>[Audio clip from a post on the TikTok account of @ragingprestigemaster3.0]\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cem>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The picture you’re seeing right up here, that’s not his ear, fam.\u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that is a truly historical moment. This is, according to everyone that I asked, the first time that the leader of a major world power has like openly gone out in front of the public to try and convince people that he’s not an AI. And I think it’s a sign of a very rocky period that we’re about to enter.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What does this mean for media literacy, our ability to parse the truth from fiction? Well, it definitely does not bode well for the information ecosystem. It’s really easy to take advantage of public distrust and write off real evidence as fake and AI. We’re going to talk about liars and disinformation in a new tab, after a quick break.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate.kqed.org/podcasts.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, after the break, we’re coming back to bunnies on a trampoline. Stick around.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re back. Time to open a new tab: the liar’s dividend.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A while back there was this video of, it looked like night camera footage and it was bunnies jumping on a trampoline.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You remember this?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I got duped by that. I have a sense of whimsy. \u003cem>[laughter]\u003c/em> I thought it was real.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I fell for it too at first, you know, I saw that and I was like, wow, like maybe the world’s okay after all, like there’s still, you, know, there’s still nice cute things happening. No, turns out it was fake. Millions of people saw this. That doesn’t matter. Right? It’s not going to affect your day or your life that the bunnies aren’t real. But you’re seeing stuff that is a little bit more consequential, that is maybe affecting your beliefs about how the world works or what is happening. And I think this adds up to a lot of people being led astray in ways that are really, really subtle.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Because anything online could be fake, people have become suspicious of everything.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that creates a situation where if there’s ever any reason to doubt that something is real, then it immediately falls apart.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a media phenomenon called “the liar’s dividend.” Legal scholars coined the term back in 2018 in a paper about how deep fakes, truth decay, and cognitive bias affect the information ecosystem. They thought it was bad back then? They could not have predicted today. Anyway, so what exactly is “the liar’s dividend”?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It takes time or resources to verify that something is real. It’s free to cast doubt. It’s free to say that’s fake, right? It takes no effort at all. And once you raise those suspicions, you can take advantage of that. Right? I can say, ‘oh, that’s a fake news, that didn’t happen.’ And that gives people in power the ability to cast doubt on anything that isn’t convenient for whatever their goals happen to be.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, we’ve reached the point where you cannot trust your eyes, like, that ship has sailed, it’s over. You can’t tell whether you’re looking at an AI video or not. You certainly can’t tell whether your looking at a image. They’ve gotten so good that our physiology does not allow you to deal with this problem.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You don’t have to be a major world leader to be affected by this. Before he wrote about this deep, fake situation, Thomas worked on this story about a safety tool that wipes your personal information from Google search results. Like every other tech journalist, he’s really passionate about privacy. So he was chugging coffee, writing this article…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I got myself all worked up and I put in my family group chat, like, “Here’s a link to this setting. Everybody needs to go turn this on right now.” And my mom was like, “Is this really you?” Like, are you, is someone like taking…like that’s…[laughter] and in her defense, it is weird behavior. Right? That’s a strange thing for me to do. You have to use this Google setting right now, that’s something that’s gonna happen to you. Right? You’re gonna be talking to someone, something will be strange. Right? Maybe you’ll be in an emergency. Maybe you will get in a car accident and you call, you know, your wife and be like, I really, I desperately need Amazon gift cards right now. And it’s, it’s real.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If your loved one calls you and urgently tells you that they need those gift cards, it’s probably a scam. But maybe your partner is calling to ask for the password to the family Netflix account. Your best friend lost her passport while on vacation and needs help getting a new one. Or your nephew tells you that he actually wants a blue sweater instead of the gold one you started knitting. These could be real, but how do you know?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s a thing that’s going to happen more and more because we’re living in this world where everything is suspect and if any little doubt comes up, suddenly everything falls apart.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what is the solution here? Are AI companies or social media platforms doing anything to help differentiate between what’s real and what’s generated? Industry leaders and academics have been pushing for a kind of digital watermark that would be embedded in the file itself, like planting a flag that says AI-generated. And that flag would be planted deep in the pixel data. It would be really difficult to remove. Google Gemini already does this. It’s called Synth ID.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the dream there is we’ll get to a place where like all of the big AI companies or companies that are making these tools will participate in this program and there’ll be some level of checking. On the flip side, there’s efforts to build a similar thing into cameras that when you take an image with a camera, you take a photo or a video, it would embed something in the file that says this was taken by an actual camera. It’s like, this is an image of reality. So far, that technology is not here. Right?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We haven’t gotten to the point where that is widespread enough that it can be usable. And hopefully we will arrive at a point where there’s some kind of technical solution or at least technical amelioration to this problem that will like help you sort through it. But we also just need from the social media companies, I think a lot of critics that I speak to say they need to be doing way more to label AI content right now than they are.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On a lot of these platforms, you can upload a piece of footage or an image. They don’t really care whether it’s AI, right? The platforms where we’re getting all of our information could be doing a lot more to let you know that something that you’re looking at is suspicious, but they don’t have a financial incentive to solve that problem. Right? So I think what it really comes down to is we need regulatory approaches to this that will help at least do something to point people in the direction of truth. Not an easy problem to solve, but we haven’t really even tried yet.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, well in that case, how do you assure your loved ones that you’re really you? Let’s open our last tab:n how to prove that you are not a deep faith.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So this YouTuber, Jim Browning, makes videos about exposing scammers. He recently went super viral with his three-finger test.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cb>[Audio from Jim Browning’s Youtube post] \u003c/b>\u003c/em>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jim Browning: Can you like hold up three fingers in front of your face or anything? \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Person: Oh, come on, that’s too much.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The reasoning? This would disrupt any face-swapping deep fake program and make it glitch.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Audio from Jim Browning’s Youtube post] \u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jim Browning: Can you do that then? \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Person: Uh, I don’t know, it’s too much to ask somebody. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jim Browning: Well, it’ll make sure you’re not AI, is that unreasonable? I mean, can you do that in front of your face? \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Person: Well, is that enough? \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jim Browning: No, it’s not in front of your face. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The scammer then abruptly ended the call, and in the comments, people were like, this is it. This is the perfect test. This is how to stay safe. But the truth is, this trick has been outdated for years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I could tell you some things that you could look for, some telltale signs for audio and for video, but I’m not going to because if I gave you those tips, it would actually hurt you more than it would help you because in a week or in a month or in six months, they’re going to put out another AI model and those tips that worked last week aren’t going to work now. There is no giveaway that you’re watching an AI video. In fact, maybe the one thing that you can look out for is if you’re a watching a video that’s low quality, that’s grainy, you might be more likely to get fooled because if there is any weird digital artifact, it’ll be harder to see. AI can make high quality video, a low quality grainy pixelated image, that’s not a sign that you are looking at AI. Maybe it’s a sign, if there’s any doubt, that you might want to think twice. But we’ve past that point. Deepfakes are astonishingly good, and they keep getting just a little bit better.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Luckily, there is one way to protect yourself and your loved ones. And you don’t have to be that tech savvy to do it. It involves gathering up your inner circle. Older relatives, close friends, partners, nibblings, neighbors, basically anyone who could feasibly get this panicked emergency call from someone pretending to be you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You should set up a secret word that you both agree on, that if there’s ever any doubt, you can ask the person for that password and they’ll give it to you and you know you’re talking to the real person. Because I have spoken to people who’ve been scammed, where they get a phone call and it is their husband or their child. I talked to this woman who a scammer set this up and called her and she like swears to this. She’s like, I know it’s fake, but it was my son. It was his voice. It was perfect and they’re really convincing and if you’re going to get scammed what they’re going to do is there’s going to be some emergency you need to deal with right now you’re not going to be in your right mind then it’s like a solution that’s so simple it’s kind of nice in a way that with like such a frighteningly high-tech problem the solution is just speaking words outloud.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This charmingly simple solution is more important than ever, because unfortunately, there’s no going back to the days before AI. But while this code word thing is great for keeping grandma from blowing her life savings on a deepfake scam, it doesn’t help you parse through all of the deepfaked and AI-generated content you come across online. There are still countless ways to get tricked.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it will reach the point where for a lot of people, there is no source of truth. Everyone is trying to trick you. And I think there are a lot grifters who will take advantage of that. I think there’s people in power who will see an opportunity and they will seize it. You’ll be able to spin whatever kind of narrative you want because if you’ve got people who trust you, you can say, well, the things that I’m telling you are true and anyone who criticizes me, they’re all part of the lie.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My optimistic view is it will get so bad that there will be such a desperate need for trusted institutions that people will step in to fill the void and people will seek out sources of truth that they can rely on and we will rebuild an ecosystem of trust. So I think the advice that would give you is like go find that one person on the internet, someone who’s sincere, who you trust, who you feel has your best interest in mind or maybe in institution. Maybe there’s a publication you like, maybe it’s local news. Try to find sources who you can go to, who you look to when there’s a question, because your eyes and your ears just aren’t gonna cut it anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That being said, when it comes to these personal relationships, sometimes you do need a little trust. Thomas said that he and his aunt Eleanor don’t use a code word every time they talk on the phone.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fortunately, this hasn’t caused any strife between me and my aunt so far. I told her that I wasn’t actually trying to trick her, that it was the real me on the other end of the line, but I hope that this experience was unsettling enough that if there’s ever any reason to doubt, if it’s ever like, hey, I’m in trouble, I need money, or I forgot my password, I hope that she will question it and try and figure out whether it’s really me because at some point someone is going to try and fool all of us.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. So when she gets that chaotic text that you actually do want the gold sweater after all, she’ll ask you for your code word.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I do need $600 in Walmart gift cards as soon as possible.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So if you do get a call begging for gift cards, it never hurts to double check and ask for the code word. That’s it for this deep dive, but stick around after the credits for some bonus content. Okay, let’s close all these tabs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music. The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer, Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our director of podcasts and Ethan Toven Lindsey is our editor-in-chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco Northern California Local. This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches. Thanks for listening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, one of the people I interviewed for this story said, “I purchased 25 acres in Vermont so when the world falls apart, I’ll go live on my homestead.” You know, maybe they’ve got the right idea. I don’t know. I don’t have 25 acres in Vermont money myself. So I’m stuck here with the rest of us schlubs, you know, we’re gonna have to deal with the fallout.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"description": "During a recent phone call, BBC tech columnist Thomas Germain couldn’t convince his aunt that he wasn’t AI. Being unable to distinguish a real person from a fabricated version is a problem born from the sheer volume of AI-generated content flooding the internet — and one that’s increased dramatically in the last year alone. Even world leaders are now plagued by the issue: a glitchy video of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sparked an enduring conspiracy theory that he was really dead and his public appearances on social media were an AI-driven cover up. In a world where everything looks fake, how do we know what’s real? Thomas joins the show to explain how we got here, where we might be headed, and a surprisingly analog technique that could save you from getting scammed by a deepfaked version of a loved one.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">During a recent phone call, BBC tech columnist Thomas Germain couldn’t convince his aunt that he \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">wasn’t\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> AI. Being unable to distinguish a real person from a fabricated version is a problem born from the sheer volume of AI-generated content flooding the internet — and one that’s increased dramatically in the last year alone. Even world leaders are now plagued by the issue: a glitchy video of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sparked an enduring conspiracy theory that he was really dead and his public appearances on social media were an AI-driven cover up.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In a world where everything looks fake, how do we know what’s real? Thomas joins the show to explain how we got here, where we might be headed, and a surprisingly analog technique that could save you from getting scammed by a deepfaked version of a loved one.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC6560300791\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.bbc.com/future/author/thomas-germain\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thomas Germain\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, co-host of the podcast \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Interface\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, and tech columnist at the\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> BBC\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260324-i-tried-to-prove-im-not-an-ai-deepfake\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I tried to prove I’m not AI. My aunt wasn’t convinced\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Thomas Germain, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">BBC \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.bbc.com/audio/brand/m002qwn7\">The Interface Podcast\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — \u003ci>BBC\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.theverge.com/tech/895453/ai-deepfake-netanyahu-claims-conspiracy\">Benjamin Netanyahu is struggling to prove he’s not an AI clone \u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Jess Weatherbed, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>The Verge\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/03/14/business/media/iran-disinfo-artificial-intelligence.html\">Cascade of A.I. Fakes About War With Iran Causes Chaos Online \u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Stuart A. Thompson and Alexander Cardia, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>The New York Times \u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/experts-warn-collapse-trust-online-ai-deepfakes-venezuela-rcna252472\">AI is intensifying a ‘collapse’ of trust online, experts say\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Angela Yang, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>NBC News\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/deepfakes-elections-and-shrinking-liars-dividend\">Deepfakes, Elections, and Shrinking the Liar’s Dividend\u003c/a> — Josh A. Goldstein, \u003ci>Brennan Center for Justice\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you like these deep dives? Do you want more? It would be so, so helpful if you could rate and review us on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show. Send it to your friends, your frenemies, that one niche micro-influencer you kind of have a parasocial relationship with. Maybe they’ll respond, I don’t know. All right, let’s get to the show.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When we talk about deepfakes and AI, often what we’re thinking about is the idea that you’re gonna get tricked.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Thomas Germain. He’s the cohost of the podcast The Interface, and also a tech columnist at the BBC. His column, Keeping Tabs, covers tech and how it affects average people every day. So, like many journalists on this beat, he’s been keeping an eye on the uptick in deep fake scams.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Someone’s going to scam you, they’re going to try and fool you into thinking that they’re someone else.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fakes are synthetic media, images, videos, or audio recordings that have been generated or manipulated by AI to impersonate someone else.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But I started thinking about like, what would it be like if the shoe was on the other foot? What if you needed to convince someone that you’re real and you are who you say that you are? How difficult would that be?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So Thomas decided to do a little experiment. He called up his aunt Eleanor. Thomas and his aunt Eleanor are very close. She was at the hospital the day he was born and of all of his relatives, she’s the one he calls the most and she’s relatively online.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She knows a bit about what’s going on. Her husband, my uncle, is actually a computer science professor. So she gets some of it, but she’s not like up to date on everything that’s happening. And I wanted someone who knows me really, really well.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That last part is important. Thomas called his aunt and explained the experiment. He would call her back, and she’d either be talking to the real him, her beloved nephew, or a deep fake, generated by AI. And what Thomas wanted to know was, could she tell the difference?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At first, you know, it was a very fun, like, friendly conversation, but there was this weird, like tension, you know? She said before we even got on the phone, she’s like, “Oh, I’m gonna be really upset if I can’t tell,” you know, because she’s known me since the day I was born, right?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">His aunt Eleanor tried a few different methods to suss it out. First, she went on Facebook.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And read me like a bunch of jokes that she’s seen that she really liked, to like see what my reaction was. And you know, we’re like different generations, we have different senses of humor. So I’m not sure like, was the test that I would laugh or I wouldn’t laugh. It was kind of funny. That didn’t seem to convince her.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So she took a different approach.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She was knitting me a sweater and we hadn’t decided on the color. And like a couple of weeks before we got on the phone. I told her that I was saying I wanted a gold sweater, like kind of gold colored yarn. And then when we were talking, when I was tricking her about AI, she brought it up and she’s like, “so have you decided on the color?” and I was like, “yeah, you know, I think it might just go boring, like just do like a black or like a dark blue or something.” And I think of all the things, that made her the most suspicious because like, ‘I was expecting you to go with like a more exciting color. She’s like “That…. I don’t know, that feels like a robot answer.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Laughter]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s so generic, it can’t possibly be you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I know, but maybe I’m a boring guy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She still couldn’t be sure, so she gave him another test.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She asked me for some details about, like, things from my childhood that you would be unlikely to know if you weren’t a member of my family. And I think she found that a little bit reassuring.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But overall, the experience left Aunt Eleanor rattled.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think by the end of the call where she realized she couldn’t be totally sure, it was kind of distressing. You know, like, you’re supposed to know your loved ones, how could it be? And we talked for like 20 minutes or so and by the of it she told me like, “I think it’s the real you, I just can’t be sure, I’m not 100% confident.”.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And at the end I told her it is me, I am not tricking you. But there were all these little things that she was trying to pick up on, and I think this is really important for people to understand, throw that out the window. This technology is so good, I promise you, there is nothing that you can do to tell that you’re not looking at an AI, and if you convince yourself that you could figure it out by just like thinking really hard and being careful, you are more likely to get in trouble and get fooled.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is way bigger than Thomas duping his aunt. It’s a real world problem. Every day, deep fake scams and AI generated disinformation lead people astray. Which is why the general public is becoming so distrustful of everything online. When everything could be fake, how do you tell what’s real and what’s not?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist, and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kicking this off as always, let’s open a new tab: the Netanyahu deep fake death rumor. In March, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a televised update on the war in Iran. A clip of it was posted on his official X account.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>[Audio clip of Benjamin Netanyahu addressing Israeli people in Hebrew]\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\n\u003cem>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Citizens of Israel, my brothers and sisters, we are in historic times…\u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Something about that video seemed off.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s one moment where he kind of waves his hand in front of the camera and if you freeze frame it at just the right second, it kind of looks like he’s got a sixth finger on his hand.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Screenshots of this moment started making the rounds. And if you’re just scrolling by and you see this freeze frame out of context, it would probably raise a few alarm bells, right?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It really looks weird. It’s like, it looks like this weird digital glitch and because it’s a video, you know, it’s little grainy it’s pixelated.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So this rumor started swirling around online. Was this televised speech really Netanyahu? Or was it a deep fake?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And people latched onto this because for the longest time, AI image and video generators really struggled with hands. Right? They were trained to focus on faces, hands were this thing they picked up along the way and they couldn’t get the hands just right. That was true two or three years ago. Right? The technology has advanced past that point. It’s not true that AI struggles with hands anymore. That isn’t really an issue, but this was enough and it does look weird if you pause at the right frame.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thus, a conspiracy theory was born: Netanyahu was dead, and this was the cover-up. It didn’t help that the Prime Minister’s health had been the subject of public speculation for years. He had emergency heart surgery in 2023, and then a year later, underwent treatment for prostate cancer. And then there’s the war in Iran. The U.S. and Israel killed the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>[Audio clip from Global News Youtube post]\u003c/strong>\u003cbr>\nIn Tehran, thousands gathered to mourn the death of the supreme leader. Similar protests were held in cities around the world including…\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In retaliation, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has vowed to hunt down and target Netanyahu personally. The seed of doubt over Netanyahu’s health was already planted. Then, the wonky six-fingered video launched the conspiracy theory into the mainstream.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This was enough that some large swath of people latched on to this idea that Netanyahu had been killed in a missile strike, and the Israeli government was hiding the truth and making AI videos to convince the world that he was still alive, to what aim, I’m not exactly sure. It turned into, you know, such like a meme, essentially. Like, the conversation got so big that it was enough that Netnyahu posted another video.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cb>[Audio clip from Benjamin Netanyahu’s post on X] \u003c/b>\u003c/em>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Voice behind camera: Do you want to show us?\u003cbr>\nNetanyahu: Here. Here.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This video takes place in a coffee shop near Jerusalem. The camera approaches Netanyahu, and the voice behind it says, they’re saying on the internet that you’re actually dead. Netanyah, holding a latte, tells the camera, I’m dying for a coffee. And then he holds up his hand and says, do you want to count the fingers?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He did a terrible job with it for a couple of reasons. If the goal was convincing the public. Number one, I talked to a bunch of people about this and they’re like, the worst thing you can do is come out and deny it because it makes it look like you’ve got something to hide. Right?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And there is still something off about the video. It was almost uncanny. He looked super crisp and almost too smooth. It only fueled the conspiracy theories.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They shot this on like a nice DSLR, like one of those big cameras, which is how AI videos look. Right? They’re trained on high quality content, high quality videos, so they produce what looks like smoother, polished, high quality video. So it looked a little bit more like AI than it would have if he had just used a phone to record it. So that, I think, just sent people spiraling even more. Nobody was convinced by this, as far as I could tell. The people who had latched on, if anything, it just reaffirmed their belief that the bad guys were trying to trick them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s the thing about conspiracy theories. Once you’re convinced, everything else just seems like confirmation of what you already believe. People took screenshots, zoomed in, tried to find inconsistencies in the backgrounds of the video. Joe Rogan, for one, seemed pretty convinced.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cb>[Audio clip from The Joe Rogan Experience] \u003c/b>\u003c/em>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Look at this. Yeah, like the coffee. Look how turned it is, but it doesn’t spill at all. It just wiggles to the edge.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He talked about it on his podcast, which has over 20 million followers on YouTube. And of course, that just spread the rumor further. I saw claims that if you zoomed in on the date on the register, the pixels didn’t look right. So surely it was fake. Right? Or that the video itself was real, but it wasn’t actually Netanyahu. It was really an actor deep faked to look like Netanyahu and the shadows gave it away. Or, that when he put his hands in his pocket, the fabric of his jacket seemed to smooth over.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And the thing about reality is it’s weird. Right? Like, if you look close enough at anything you’ll find weird stuff but especially with digital photography, digital video, it’s the way that the sensors work, like, errors are actually inherent to the way that a digital camera sensor functions. So if you zoom in on any video, if you’re, like, watching a clip from this podcast on social media, zoom in, take a screenshot and zoom in, you will find something weird. That’s just how digital images work, that there’ll be some little grainy thing, there’ll be some glitch. And I think it’s important for people to understand that unless you have serious expertise on this subject, you aren’t qualified to make that kind of call. I am not qualified to make that knd of, I think about this stuff all the time.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For his column, Thomas talked to a few of the world’s leading experts on this, including Jeremy Carrasco. He runs a publication called Riddance, which investigates AI-generated media.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And he went through, he analyzed it, he determined it was real. I talked to professors, I talked to some people who were like, real world leading experts on digital forensics is what they call it, like figuring out what the origin of a file is. They said there is no doubt. It is impossible that these videos are AI-generated. Like, this thing where it sort of looked like Netanyahu had a sixth finger, even if you watch the clip, instead of looking at a freeze frame, you can kind of see there’s like a shadow on his hand and that’s what it is. It looks weird if you take a screenshot at the right second, but the video itself, it’s very clearly real. This was not enough. And I think that is kind of part of the problem is that we’ve lived through an era where there’s been an assault on expertise, right? That, you know, real conscious, intentional efforts to discredit traditional forms of you know, authority on truth.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thomas also talked to Hany Farid, a professor at UC Berkeley who’s known as the father of digital forensics. He pioneered this field of examining files and figuring out if they’re real.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He’s one of these guys that’s constantly watching this stuff. And he says, you can see the progression of AI and deep fake technology if you look at some of the recent global conflicts. Like, if we go back to the beginning of the war in Ukraine, it was almost all real footage. Like, every once in a while, you’d see something AI-generated, but for the most part, it was all real. Fast forward to the conflict in Gaza and it was starting to get to the point where there was more AI-generated content. It was a little harder to sort the real from the truth. You get to when the U.S. invaded Venezuela, and it was about 50-50. Right? You’re seeing as much fake stuff as real stuff if you just go out and look at a random video on the subject on the internet. By the time we got to the war in Iran, there’s more fake footage, there’s more fake clips, there is more mis and disinformation than there is real stuff.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A few weeks ago, we dove into the slopaganda coming out of Iran, those AI-generated Lego rap videos dissing the U.S. They’re clearly not real, but they still push specific narratives to the American public. But there’s another kind of AI- generated media at play here: videos that look real but portray events that never happened, like AI-generated footage of Iranian missiles sinking U.S. ships and bombarding civilians in Tel Aviv.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In less than six months, we had this dramatic shift where I think people in power who’ve got like, you know, a game to play, they’ve got something that they want to try and convince the public of, they’ve realized that this technology is something they can put into play. There are whole operations that are ready to get off the ground at a moment’s notice to like, fill the world with fakery and lies. I think that is a real serious problem, I mean, even for journalists, even in the media. Like, it used to be if you saw something that was recorded with a camera, you know, in the not too distant past, it was almost certainly real. Right? Because it took so much effort, especially for video, so much effort to fake something in a convincing way. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now I can do it like while I’m washing the dishes. I could reach over and hammer something out of my phone and generate a fake video. For the average person, I think this means that you are constantly inundated with nonsense. You are being exposed to lies on a near constant basis. It’s not just that the image looks real, it’s not just the video looks real. The thing that’s happening is so close to real life. Right? And if you’re a person who watches a lot of short form video and social media, if like scrolling through Instagram Reels or TikTok, the chances that you have seen a piece of AI content and been fooled that it was real, I’d say in the last week, are extremely high.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Actual footage, meanwhile, has been written off as fake and AI. When the U.S. bombed an elementary school in Iran, killing 120 children, some people online questioned whether footage of the aftermath was authentic. It didn’t help that the true photos and videos were mixed in with AI-generated depictions of what happened. It’s one thing for digital forensics experts, like Hany Farid, to sift through all of the slop and determine what’s real. It’s another for these experts to get the public to actually trust them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It leads to an information ecosystem, you know, a landscape of truth where everything is up for debate. Nothing is set in stone and everything is suspect. And that leads to some new ways that power can be abused and people can be taken advantage of.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The conspiracy theories over Netanyahu’s death have not stopped. The follow-up videos and public appearances after the coffee shop debacle only fueled the rumors further. In March, Netanyahu appeared in a video with Mike Huckabee, who is now the ambassador to Israel.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cb>[Audio clip from Benjamin Netanyahu’s post on X] \u003c/b>\u003c/em>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mike Huckabee: Mr. Prime Minister, I wanted you to know, the President asked me to come and make sure you were okay. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Benjamin Netanyahu: Yes, Mike. Yes, I’m alive.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If anything, it only convinced people that Huckabee was also a deepfake. On X and TikTok, people did the same exact thing they did to previous videos, zoomed in, slowed down, cropped screenshots, and looked for any anomaly that could confirm their theories.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003cem>[Audio clip from a post on the TikTok account of @ragingprestigemaster3.0]\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cem>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The picture you’re seeing right up here, that’s not his ear, fam.\u003c/span>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that is a truly historical moment. This is, according to everyone that I asked, the first time that the leader of a major world power has like openly gone out in front of the public to try and convince people that he’s not an AI. And I think it’s a sign of a very rocky period that we’re about to enter.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What does this mean for media literacy, our ability to parse the truth from fiction? Well, it definitely does not bode well for the information ecosystem. It’s really easy to take advantage of public distrust and write off real evidence as fake and AI. We’re going to talk about liars and disinformation in a new tab, after a quick break.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate.kqed.org/podcasts.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, after the break, we’re coming back to bunnies on a trampoline. Stick around.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re back. Time to open a new tab: the liar’s dividend.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A while back there was this video of, it looked like night camera footage and it was bunnies jumping on a trampoline.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You remember this?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I got duped by that. I have a sense of whimsy. \u003cem>[laughter]\u003c/em> I thought it was real.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I fell for it too at first, you know, I saw that and I was like, wow, like maybe the world’s okay after all, like there’s still, you, know, there’s still nice cute things happening. No, turns out it was fake. Millions of people saw this. That doesn’t matter. Right? It’s not going to affect your day or your life that the bunnies aren’t real. But you’re seeing stuff that is a little bit more consequential, that is maybe affecting your beliefs about how the world works or what is happening. And I think this adds up to a lot of people being led astray in ways that are really, really subtle.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Because anything online could be fake, people have become suspicious of everything.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that creates a situation where if there’s ever any reason to doubt that something is real, then it immediately falls apart.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a media phenomenon called “the liar’s dividend.” Legal scholars coined the term back in 2018 in a paper about how deep fakes, truth decay, and cognitive bias affect the information ecosystem. They thought it was bad back then? They could not have predicted today. Anyway, so what exactly is “the liar’s dividend”?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It takes time or resources to verify that something is real. It’s free to cast doubt. It’s free to say that’s fake, right? It takes no effort at all. And once you raise those suspicions, you can take advantage of that. Right? I can say, ‘oh, that’s a fake news, that didn’t happen.’ And that gives people in power the ability to cast doubt on anything that isn’t convenient for whatever their goals happen to be.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, we’ve reached the point where you cannot trust your eyes, like, that ship has sailed, it’s over. You can’t tell whether you’re looking at an AI video or not. You certainly can’t tell whether your looking at a image. They’ve gotten so good that our physiology does not allow you to deal with this problem.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You don’t have to be a major world leader to be affected by this. Before he wrote about this deep, fake situation, Thomas worked on this story about a safety tool that wipes your personal information from Google search results. Like every other tech journalist, he’s really passionate about privacy. So he was chugging coffee, writing this article…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I got myself all worked up and I put in my family group chat, like, “Here’s a link to this setting. Everybody needs to go turn this on right now.” And my mom was like, “Is this really you?” Like, are you, is someone like taking…like that’s…[laughter] and in her defense, it is weird behavior. Right? That’s a strange thing for me to do. You have to use this Google setting right now, that’s something that’s gonna happen to you. Right? You’re gonna be talking to someone, something will be strange. Right? Maybe you’ll be in an emergency. Maybe you will get in a car accident and you call, you know, your wife and be like, I really, I desperately need Amazon gift cards right now. And it’s, it’s real.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If your loved one calls you and urgently tells you that they need those gift cards, it’s probably a scam. But maybe your partner is calling to ask for the password to the family Netflix account. Your best friend lost her passport while on vacation and needs help getting a new one. Or your nephew tells you that he actually wants a blue sweater instead of the gold one you started knitting. These could be real, but how do you know?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s a thing that’s going to happen more and more because we’re living in this world where everything is suspect and if any little doubt comes up, suddenly everything falls apart.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what is the solution here? Are AI companies or social media platforms doing anything to help differentiate between what’s real and what’s generated? Industry leaders and academics have been pushing for a kind of digital watermark that would be embedded in the file itself, like planting a flag that says AI-generated. And that flag would be planted deep in the pixel data. It would be really difficult to remove. Google Gemini already does this. It’s called Synth ID.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the dream there is we’ll get to a place where like all of the big AI companies or companies that are making these tools will participate in this program and there’ll be some level of checking. On the flip side, there’s efforts to build a similar thing into cameras that when you take an image with a camera, you take a photo or a video, it would embed something in the file that says this was taken by an actual camera. It’s like, this is an image of reality. So far, that technology is not here. Right?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We haven’t gotten to the point where that is widespread enough that it can be usable. And hopefully we will arrive at a point where there’s some kind of technical solution or at least technical amelioration to this problem that will like help you sort through it. But we also just need from the social media companies, I think a lot of critics that I speak to say they need to be doing way more to label AI content right now than they are.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On a lot of these platforms, you can upload a piece of footage or an image. They don’t really care whether it’s AI, right? The platforms where we’re getting all of our information could be doing a lot more to let you know that something that you’re looking at is suspicious, but they don’t have a financial incentive to solve that problem. Right? So I think what it really comes down to is we need regulatory approaches to this that will help at least do something to point people in the direction of truth. Not an easy problem to solve, but we haven’t really even tried yet.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, well in that case, how do you assure your loved ones that you’re really you? Let’s open our last tab:n how to prove that you are not a deep faith.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So this YouTuber, Jim Browning, makes videos about exposing scammers. He recently went super viral with his three-finger test.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cb>[Audio from Jim Browning’s Youtube post] \u003c/b>\u003c/em>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jim Browning: Can you like hold up three fingers in front of your face or anything? \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Person: Oh, come on, that’s too much.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The reasoning? This would disrupt any face-swapping deep fake program and make it glitch.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[Audio from Jim Browning’s Youtube post] \u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jim Browning: Can you do that then? \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Person: Uh, I don’t know, it’s too much to ask somebody. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jim Browning: Well, it’ll make sure you’re not AI, is that unreasonable? I mean, can you do that in front of your face? \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Person: Well, is that enough? \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jim Browning: No, it’s not in front of your face. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The scammer then abruptly ended the call, and in the comments, people were like, this is it. This is the perfect test. This is how to stay safe. But the truth is, this trick has been outdated for years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I could tell you some things that you could look for, some telltale signs for audio and for video, but I’m not going to because if I gave you those tips, it would actually hurt you more than it would help you because in a week or in a month or in six months, they’re going to put out another AI model and those tips that worked last week aren’t going to work now. There is no giveaway that you’re watching an AI video. In fact, maybe the one thing that you can look out for is if you’re a watching a video that’s low quality, that’s grainy, you might be more likely to get fooled because if there is any weird digital artifact, it’ll be harder to see. AI can make high quality video, a low quality grainy pixelated image, that’s not a sign that you are looking at AI. Maybe it’s a sign, if there’s any doubt, that you might want to think twice. But we’ve past that point. Deepfakes are astonishingly good, and they keep getting just a little bit better.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Luckily, there is one way to protect yourself and your loved ones. And you don’t have to be that tech savvy to do it. It involves gathering up your inner circle. Older relatives, close friends, partners, nibblings, neighbors, basically anyone who could feasibly get this panicked emergency call from someone pretending to be you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You should set up a secret word that you both agree on, that if there’s ever any doubt, you can ask the person for that password and they’ll give it to you and you know you’re talking to the real person. Because I have spoken to people who’ve been scammed, where they get a phone call and it is their husband or their child. I talked to this woman who a scammer set this up and called her and she like swears to this. She’s like, I know it’s fake, but it was my son. It was his voice. It was perfect and they’re really convincing and if you’re going to get scammed what they’re going to do is there’s going to be some emergency you need to deal with right now you’re not going to be in your right mind then it’s like a solution that’s so simple it’s kind of nice in a way that with like such a frighteningly high-tech problem the solution is just speaking words outloud.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This charmingly simple solution is more important than ever, because unfortunately, there’s no going back to the days before AI. But while this code word thing is great for keeping grandma from blowing her life savings on a deepfake scam, it doesn’t help you parse through all of the deepfaked and AI-generated content you come across online. There are still countless ways to get tricked.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it will reach the point where for a lot of people, there is no source of truth. Everyone is trying to trick you. And I think there are a lot grifters who will take advantage of that. I think there’s people in power who will see an opportunity and they will seize it. You’ll be able to spin whatever kind of narrative you want because if you’ve got people who trust you, you can say, well, the things that I’m telling you are true and anyone who criticizes me, they’re all part of the lie.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My optimistic view is it will get so bad that there will be such a desperate need for trusted institutions that people will step in to fill the void and people will seek out sources of truth that they can rely on and we will rebuild an ecosystem of trust. So I think the advice that would give you is like go find that one person on the internet, someone who’s sincere, who you trust, who you feel has your best interest in mind or maybe in institution. Maybe there’s a publication you like, maybe it’s local news. Try to find sources who you can go to, who you look to when there’s a question, because your eyes and your ears just aren’t gonna cut it anymore.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That being said, when it comes to these personal relationships, sometimes you do need a little trust. Thomas said that he and his aunt Eleanor don’t use a code word every time they talk on the phone.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fortunately, this hasn’t caused any strife between me and my aunt so far. I told her that I wasn’t actually trying to trick her, that it was the real me on the other end of the line, but I hope that this experience was unsettling enough that if there’s ever any reason to doubt, if it’s ever like, hey, I’m in trouble, I need money, or I forgot my password, I hope that she will question it and try and figure out whether it’s really me because at some point someone is going to try and fool all of us.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. So when she gets that chaotic text that you actually do want the gold sweater after all, she’ll ask you for your code word.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I do need $600 in Walmart gift cards as soon as possible.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So if you do get a call begging for gift cards, it never hurts to double check and ask for the code word. That’s it for this deep dive, but stick around after the credits for some bonus content. Okay, let’s close all these tabs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music. The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer, Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our director of podcasts and Ethan Toven Lindsey is our editor-in-chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco Northern California Local. This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches. Thanks for listening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Thomas Germain: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, one of the people I interviewed for this story said, “I purchased 25 acres in Vermont so when the world falls apart, I’ll go live on my homestead.” You know, maybe they’ve got the right idea. I don’t know. I don’t have 25 acres in Vermont money myself. So I’m stuck here with the rest of us schlubs, you know, we’re gonna have to deal with the fallout.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"title": "Escaping the Surveillance Pricing Trap",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When JetBlue replied to an angry customer on X that they should clear their cookies for a better flight price, it seemed to confirm a long-held consumer belief: companies use your personal data to \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">determine what you should pay in real-time based on your urgency, habits and identity\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. It’s what’s known as \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">surveillance pricing. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">According to economic sociologist Lindsay Owens, \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the practice is rampant. She says companies have been investing for years in sophisticated tools meant to squeeze every last dollar out of consumers — and for the most part, it’s legal. Lindsay joins Morgan to \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">talk about how we got here, the U.S. laws designed to fight back against surveillance pricing and what you can personally do to sidestep the practice.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC8058124943\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://groundworkcollaborative.org/person/lindsay-owens/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lindsay Owens\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, executive director of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://groundworkcollaborative.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Groundwork Collaborative\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.propublica.org/article/asians-nearly-twice-as-likely-to-get-higher-price-from-princeton-review\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Tiger Mom Tax: Asians Are Nearly Twice as Likely to Get a Higher Price from Princeton Review\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Julia Angwin, Surya Mattu and Jeff Larson, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pro Publica\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/10/18/starbucks-loyalty-program-surveillance-pricing/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The hidden way using a rewards card can cost you more\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Geoffrey A. Fowler, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Washington Post\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/sp6b-issue-spotlight.pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Issue Spotlight: The Rise of Surveillance Pricing\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — FTC Staff, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Federal Trade Commission\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2026/05/why-surveillance-pricing-bans-are-suddenly-gaining-traction-this-year-and-not-just-in-california/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why surveillance pricing bans are suddenly gaining traction this year (and not just in California)\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Khari Johnson, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">CalMatters\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.fastcompany.com/91544120/public-library-hack-book-cheaper-flights-mistrust-airlines\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Influencers are peddling ‘the library hack’ as a way to score cheaper flights. Whether it works is beside the point\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Grace Snelling, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fast Company\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung, Host: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Hello, Tabbies. We’ve been workshopping games. What do you think of Tab Hive? Could also go with Tab Closers? Maybe Tabdom, like Tab fandom, but I don’t know, that sounds kind of ominous. Anyway, if you’re a Close All Tabs listener and you like our deep dives, then please rate and review the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you’re listening to this. It would be a huge help to get the word out. Okay, let’s get to the show.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So online, there’s this kind of urban legend when it comes to booking flights. Basically, as the myth goes, if you’ve been looking up flights between certain destinations and you’re finally ready to book, you should always clear your cookies or book the flight from an incognito tab so you get a better price. For years, this travel hack was based on anecdotal experience, not actual evidence that airlines were using personal data to determine prices. But we do know that our personal data is kind of up for grabs anyway. We talk about this all the time on the show. It’s not wild to believe that corporations are tracking you and price gouging you based on your specific habits. But if you brought it up on travel forums or comment threads, you might get written off as a tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist. And then in April, JetBlue just tweeted it out.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens, Guest: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is just a really incredible story, one of those ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ moments.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lindsay Owens is an economic sociologist who runs the affordability think tank Groundwork Collective. She keeps a pretty close eye on this kind of thing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you’re feeling it in your wallet, we are studying it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So back in April, a customer took to X, the site formerly known as Twitter…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To kind of complain, vent, gripe about the fact that his flight had increased by more than $200 overnight, and he was just trying to get to a funeral. And he tweeted sort of, JetBlue, what gives here? Why are you doing this? And incredibly, JetBlue’s corporate Twitter account replied.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s the real travel hack. If your flight is delayed or canceled or you’re stuck in customer service hotline hell, complain about it on Twitter. There’s a chance that the airline will see it and give you a discount or at worst a snack voucher. At least that’s how they usually respond. But this time JetBlue took a different approach.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They said ‘try clearing your cash and cookies or booking with an incognito window.’ And then they did say, ‘we’re sorry for your loss. ‘\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In other words, JetBlue’s official corporate social account told the customer that if he didn’t want to be overcharged, he should just trick the company’s booking software into not identifying him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And this was a pretty stunning thing to see on Twitter. JetBlue’s HQ immediately weighed in and said the tweet was mistaken, that they don’t use personal information to set prices.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A spokesperson for the company told multiple news outlets that the airline fares are determined by supply and demand, not by customer data. JetBlue very quickly deleted the response, but it’s the internet, screenshots live on. This exchange went super viral.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was a real confession of sorts, but it was a window into the ways in which pricing is changing right under our feet.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">An airline surreptitiously gleaning personal information to maximize how much money they can make off of each individual customer, it’s not out of the realm of possibility. In fact, Lindsay said that just last year, she listened in on a Delta earnings call and the company told investors about this new strategy they were piloting, a partnership with an Israel-based AI company called Fetcherr, which specialized in personalized pricing. Lindsay went on Fetcherr’s website and found a white paper.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Phase two was called ‘the exploitation phase’ —really not hiding the ball with this one. That’s when they’ve learned everything they can about Delta’s competitors, about their customers, and when they start going for broke and they start increasing those prices and getting better revenues for Delta. They were guaranteeing increases in revenue of near 10% in some cases. So we’ve had quite a few of these examples with the airlines now revealing some of their plans, experiments, and things that they’re working on.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lindsay wasn’t the only one paying attention. Journalists did too. News of the earnings call spread. This set off a PR firestorm for the company with Delta’s competitors saying that they’d never do this to their valued customers, and Delta announcing that they didn’t actually plan to go through with it. But this practice is becoming the norm across industries. We’ve gotten used to dynamic pricing: price fluctuating based on supply and demand, like, how concert tickets get more expensive as seats fill up. What we’re talking about today goes further. Economists call it personalized pricing. This idea that companies charge you based on their assessment of how much you’re willing to pay for a good or service. It’s a practice more commonly known as surveillance pricing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re doing anything they can to learn about you, including sometimes spying on you, which is why I do think the term surveillance pricing is so apt and accurate. Companies gather a lot of data about us. Some of it we offer up willingly, our browsing history, we accept the cookies, we agree to let them sell our data, and all of that can be used to set a price for you specifically — ideally, if you’re a company, a price that gets pretty close to the maximum that you’d be willing to pay before you might walk away or start looking elsewhere.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Today, we’re diving into surveillance pricing. Where it came from, how it works, and what we’re supposed to do to save ourselves from it. And no, clearing cookies isn’t always the answer. Ready?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s the funny thing. A set price is a fairly new concept compared to the entirety of human history. Let’s talk about it. Kicking this off as always, let’s open a new tab: History of the price tag.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>[Audio from Jessie J singing “Price Tag” live] \u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003ci>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ain’t about the, uh, cha-chang-cha-chung \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ain’t bout the, b-bling-b-bling \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wanna make the world dance\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Forget about the beep beep beep boop boop boop\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> …price tag. To quote the iconic Jessie J, we need to take it back in time. We don’t even have to go that far back. The price tag dates back to 1861, when Wanamakers opened its stores in Philadelphia. It was one of the first American department stores, and also invented the.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>[Audio from Jessie J singing “Price Tag” live]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Priiiiiiiiiicetaaaaaagggg!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The price tag.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Prior to Wanamaker, you really had thousands of years where we haggled. You went to the market, you picked out what you wanted, and then you started a process of bartering or haggling to set the price. The merchant at the souk or the market maybe sized you up a little and said, oh, you look like someone who could pay more. Maybe he knows a little bit about you, knows you’re wealthy, charges you more. Maybe you know a little bit about him, you have a little dirt on him, he charges you less, right? Those were the kind of rules of the bizarre economy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That started to shift in the U.S. context really with the Quakers and they felt like bartering and haggling was really unfair. They felt a sort of moral conviction about this; you and I are created equal under God, they thought. Why would we be charged different amounts for the same item? So they instituted a fixed price, and everyone would pay the same amount for items at a Quaker market.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">John Wanamaker wasn’t a Quaker, but he was a devout Christian, and he had this brilliant idea. What if he took this Quaker concept further? Not just standardized prices, but print them on a little tag attached to each item, and then call it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>[Audio from Jessie J singing “Price Tag” live]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…the priiiiiice taaag!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But of course, Wanamaker wasn’t just doing this for religious reasons, he was also doing it because he was a good businessman and haggling takes a lot of time. The price tag is pretty efficient, right? It makes it pretty easy to tally up what you owe and get on with the purchase. But look, the price tag, I think, did a number of really important things. The first thing it did is it offered transparency. And transparency is really key to fair and honest markets, and that’s really key to a healthy economy. We knew how much something cost. As part of that transparency, we could comparison shop. We could look at how much anything cost in one store, we could look at how much something cost in another store, and we could take the offering that we thought provided the best value. Actually, that mechanism of bargain hunting and comparison shopping is also an important function in a healthy competitive economy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And the price tag also offers some stability and predictability. Of course, things like inflation and seasonal availability and wars that shut down access to major waterways can affect prices. But overall, you’d probably have an idea of how much your weekly groceries will cost.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And predictability is bedrock to home economics, to budgeting in the household. If you don’t know how much something is gonna cost from one week to the next, it is hard to know if you’re gonna clear at the end of the week.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dynamic pricing has gotten out of hand and Lindsay said this wasn’t always the case.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I do think while we have gotten very used to dynamic pricing in a whole host of settings, it is actually the case that in the not too distant past, there were other ways that companies allocated scarce resources. It has really shifted over time and I also think dynamic pricing is increasingly happening in places where resources aren’t scarce at all. You know, you see dynamic pricing in the grocery store, Target isn’t running out of wheat thins. Kroger’s not running out of Barilla pasta, right? This isn’t about managing scarcity. It’s just about charging what they can at any given time. So I think there has been a, kind of, increase in the prevalence of dynamic pricing and the types of goods that are subject to it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When did this use of personal data specifically to set prices become such a common practice?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think the way to think about the advent of surveillance pricing is to start with the advent of surveillance advertising, which really takes you to the internet. I mean, that’s when this starts getting really creepy, and it’s when it starts to become big business. You may have heard about a company called DoubleClick. They really pioneered and built the infrastructure for surveillance advertising on the internet. They tracked what you looked at online. And then they built an advertising system to serve it back to you. So if you’ve ever looked at an item, you didn’t buy it, and then the next day it started popping up in your feed over and over and again, and you finally relented and purchased the item, that’s just the latest iteration of surveillance advertising.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">DoubleClick was eventually purchased by Google, and Google is advertising king in the early digital era. In some ways, the logical next step for many of these companies was as they get better and better at knowing what you want, predicting what you want, maybe persuading you to want something, they might as well also think about getting better and better, figuring out how much you might be willing to pay for it. And so marrying sort of dynamic pricing with surveillance advertising is how we get to the modern form of surveillance pricing that we’re starting to see today.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why does the idea of dynamic pricing and surveillance pricing, why does that upset people so much?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By and large, Americans hate the idea of companies charging different amounts to different people for the same item at the exact same time from the exact same store. I think the answer is really simple. I think when you see sort of a ubiquitous response to something in culture, it’s because you’ve tapped into a core human value. And in this case, I think that value is fairness.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So how does surveillance pricing work in practice? That’s a new tab, which we’ll open after a quick break. But first, we wanted to remind you that close all tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate.kqed.org slash podcasts. Okay, after the break, big data and your wallet. Stick around.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re back! So how does surveillance pricing work exactly? Time for a new tab: Big Data and Your Wallet. Let’s talk about some examples of surveillance pricing and how mass data collection determines those prices.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So this one was uncovered in an analysis by ProPublica, which showed that the prices for online SAT tutoring packages at the Princeton Review, the test prep company, were varying quite substantially depending on where customers lived. So if you went online to book an online test prep package and you typed in your zip code, Some people were offered the course for $6,600. That’s, by the way, a good price, apparently, for a test prep package in 2015. I’m sure it’s more today, it’s a little staggering. But for others, the same package would be almost $2,000 more. And what they determined is that folks in zip codes with a larger percentage of Asian Americans were almost twice as likely to be offered that higher price than others.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They called this the “tiger mom tax.” Yeah, and even in lower income neighborhoods, Asian Americans were quoted the highest prices by the Princeton Review.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it is a good example of how companies were using zip codes and demographic information to try to estimate the likely willingness to pay for a service like test prep. We have seen similarly during that period, a study from the Wall Street Journal in 2012, which showed that the online office retailer Staples was varying prices by zip code. This one was actually a little more nefarious in some respects. If you lived in a zip code where there were other office stores nearby, like an Office Depot, you were getting better pricing. If there was not an OfficeMax or an Office Depot within 20 miles or so, you were charged more because they knew you didn’t really have any ability to go to a competitor or go anywhere else. You were probably gonna go with the Staples offering. So those are some of the early examples of companies starting to toy around with gaging your desperation, gaging your willingness to pay. Gaging how likely your exit options were, how much choice you have in a market, and then using that to put you over a barrel and charge you as much as they possibly can.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, it’s so funny that you say that because my friends and I joke that with Pride right around the corner, Target is probably jacking up prices for plain white tank tops for queer people because they know we’ll probably buy them for all the lesbian events in June. And obviously, that’s purely speculative and it’s mostly us kind of joking among ourselves like, ‘oh, this $5 tank top is going to be $12 next week.’ But it seems like this theory isn’t that far-fetched after all.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is not far-fetched at all. That is exactly the kind of thing to expect. When Walmart announced that they were installing electronic shelf labels in every Walmart store throughout the country. The first thing that many consumers thought is they are going to start jacking up the of coke and ice cream and cool items on a hot summer day. When there’s a snowstorm, they are gonna charge more for soup. These are all the things that are possible when you have the ability to do dynamic pricing at scale, either online or in brick and mortar stores, which you can do with electronic shelf labels. Pricing algorithms can be controlled remotely. It is very easy to have them respond to things like the weather and other data inputs. And it starts to present, I think, a real sort of dystopian view of what shopping could look like in the future.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what are some of the pieces of personal information that could be used to set the price that you pay, which people probably aren’t thinking about?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is a long list. So you give up a lot of your information in a lot settings. Those terms and conditions when you get on a website that you click on without reading, often what you’ve done is just sort of pulled back the curtain and let the company ransack all of your data. Loyalty programs can be great, but often are sophisticated data harvesting operations. Okay, kinds of things they might know: they might be connected to your bank account and know when it’s payday. They might have information about your location. They might your purchase history, what you buy weekly, what you haven’t bought in a while that you usually buy and so you’re due for. They track your movements online, your mouse movements, what you hover over, how long you hover it, what you click on, what you put in your cart and don’t buy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lindsay pointed to this report from former Washington Post tech columnist, Geoffrey Fowler. He requested his data from Starbucks and got a detailed dossier of everything he ever bought there.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He was a reporter, so he had purchased a lot of coffee.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003ci>Geoffrey Fowler in Washington Post story]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The more coffee I ordered, the fewer discounts I got. Sure, I was still collecting stars, but the average price I paid per cup of coffee was going up. My loyalty was working against me.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, in this case, they are collecting all the information about your caffeine habits. When you have your morning cup of copy, when you have you afternoon cup of cofee, if you have a sweet tooth and like to have a cookie with your afternoon coffee, right? All of those things they can collect. They can buy information about you from third parties. So, you know, this breadcrumb trail of data you leave when you participate in e-commerce provides a really robust set of data that companies can use to predict how much you’re willing to pay for any given item.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">More and more consumers are using chatbots and AI agents to do the price comparisons for them. You know, kind of taking off the drudge work of like sifting through all these websites. Are AI agents shopping for you, the new haggling?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Shopping and e-commerce and chat bots combined is really scary for folks who worry about privacy and for the potential for surveillance pricing at scale. We may be just in the first inning of our journey through the big bad world of surveillance pricing. A lot of the data that companies collect about you is behavioral and a lot of it is inferences. We think you must like this because you hovered over it for a while. So they’re guessing and using those guesses to decide what to advertise to you and how much to charge you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But now with conversational LLMs, often the guesswork can be eliminated because you might just tell them, right? You might say to your chat bot, hey, I have a wedding on Friday. I’m totally screwed. I need a dress. What are some options? Show me some options. Well, you’ve really just given away the store. Right? They know you’re desperate, they know you are in a rush, they know you need it now, and they’re gonna charge you top dollar for it. They’re gonna return results that cost you a lot of money. So the types of data that you offer Chopbots is pretty helpful in commerce. And so then the question is, how will the sort of move from AI into commerce make use of that data? And I think there are real questions about what’s likely to transpire.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But we got a very recent hint and it was not great: a couple of researchers, one at Princeton University, one at the University of Washington, tested some LLMs and they put in some different scenarios and tried to measure how the advertising and pricing would work. You know, the results were pretty alarming. All of the current LLM’s, they tested all of them, exhibited risky behaviors, that was the researcher’s word, that favored the company over the user; steering users towards more expensive sponsored products; concealing that the products were sponsored and therefore impacted their recommendations; recommending predatory products like bad loans with high interest rates.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In practice, users were also nudged to spend more. That one we didn’t need a study to confirm, we already have data from Walmart, where the CEO has been quite candid with their investors about the fact that Sparky, the Walmart chat bot, is doing a great job of nudging consumers to spend more. And folks who use Sparky are spending 35% more than folks who don’t, in part because Sparky is bidding up their cart total very effectively.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We also learned in the study that when asked to recommend between two otherwise equivalent products, The vast majority of the models in the study chose the sponsored option more than half the time, despite it being twice as expensive. I think this is really the next big frontier in surveillance pricing. It’s the next place for people like me who research this stuff and who think through and help craft policy solutions to protect consumers from this stuff.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The good news is people aren’t overwhelmingly shopping in AI right now, although, as I mentioned, companies like Walmart are building this into their apps and into their e-commerce offerings. But it would be great to get this one fixed before the horse is out of the barn because the future doesn’t look great.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yikes, right? I mean, how is any of this even allowed? Is there anything we could do to stop it? Okay, let’s open one last tab: Is surveillance pricing even legal? I’ve googled this question many times, and the answer is never satisfying. Long story short, yes, surveillance pricing is legal. At the federal level, the U.S. is not great about comprehensive data privacy laws. And you may be asking, but what about the FTC? The Federal Trade Commission. They’re supposed to protect consumers and promote business competition. Well, under Lina Khan’s leadership, the FTC conducted a preliminary study on AI-driven pricing tools. It was released in January 2025, right before the Trump administration took over. And since then…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, look, the federal government is not really leading the charge right now. We’re seeing much more action in the states.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To understand what’s going on there, we need to talk about the flip side of surveillance pricing: surveillance wages.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Companies learning about you to figure out the maximum you’re willing to pay can use the exact same tools to learn about their workers and figure out the minimum they’re willing to charge in the form of wages. So it’s great news for companies who can deploy both at the same time because they can bring in more revenue from consumers and they can spend less on their workers. The processes and the systems are really similar and we’ve started to see some, oh really I think, concerning examples of this type of algorithmic wage discrimination starting to pop up in a whole host of sectors.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are some examples of day nurses being subjected to auctions where they bid against each other for a shift. But instead of an auction where the highest bidder wins, whoever will take the minimum to show up for work would win. We have examples of Uber offering different drivers different fares for the same trip, right? So we are starting to see some examples of algorithmic wage discrimination in parallel to these examples of surveillance pricing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So why might this whole practice of algorithmic wage discrimination actually lead to more legal action against these companies that are using surveillance pricing?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To crack down on surveillance pricing, arguably we’re gonna need new laws. We’ve now seen in 40 states and localities just this year in 2026, people cracking down on surveillance pricing, introducing bans in state legislatures to eliminate this practice. Some of those bills also include prohibitions on algorithmic wage discrimination.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just last month, Colorado actually passed a bill that would do both. It bans corporations from using personal data to set individual prices and wages.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But there are some cases in which algorithmic wage discrimination will already be illegal. So we have fair labor laws and we have employment discrimination laws and it is illegal to pay men and women different amounts for the same job. And so where algorithmic discrimination falls afoul of existing employment discrimination and labor laws, there may be opportunities for enforcement agencies to go ahead and crack down on those practices even without updating the law.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you think that this kind of legislation will be effective in combating surveillance pricing? How does it compare to other policy pushes that you’ve seen?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So far, we have seen a couple of different types of laws. We’ve seen disclosure laws, which would require companies to tell you they’re spying on you in order to overcharge you, which New York put into effect this year. If you are the victim of surveillance pricing in New York, you will know it, because you will see a disclosure that says this price was set by an algorithm using your data. So disclosure laws are interesting. They’re interesting to people like me, because it gives me a nice population of companies to study. They’re interesting to consumers because sometimes you can say, okay, I’d rather not purchase from this company anymore. But, you know, I would prefer that companies not be able to do this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the beginning of the year, California Attorney General Rob Bonta opened a sweeping investigation into surveillance pricing. California lawmakers have also proposed an outright ban on the practice. A similar bill failed to reach the governor’s desk last year, but this one just cleared a major milestone in the state legislature this month. If it does pass, Lindsay said it could be a really strong law.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it would be a game changer for a state as large as California with as many tech companies located in California as there are to pass a bill like this and it would great to see that happen as soon as possible.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It seems like we’re finally at a kind of inflection point for surveillance pricing with consumers, especially after the JetBlue tweet, kind of waking up to it and starting to push back. How are retailers responding to the policy pushbacks and also the consumer outrage?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Retailers have to make some tough choices about the costs and benefits of deploying technologies like this. The benefits are clear. You can make a lot of money charging your consumer the absolute maximum they are willing to pay for every item in their cart. There is revenue to be won. But the risk is that when consumers find out about this, they are really, really ticked and you risk boycott and losing some market share. And throughout history, we have seen companies touch the stove when they, you know, went too far.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the 90s, the CEO of Coke let slip that they were piloting, installing thermometers in Coke vending machines so that they could charge you more for Coke on a hot summer day. That was in 1999, it was before TikTok, but it was viral. It was on the front page of every major newspaper in the country. The Honolulu paper, the Philadelphia paper, the Wall Street Journal, hardly a bastion of consumer sentiment, weighed in on how outrageous that proposal was. Pepsi, of course, seized on the gaff. Coke immediately backtracked, said they wouldn’t be piloting it. They would never do it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, I think the best way, absent the law, to keep companies from pursuing some of the most egregious forms of this practice, the spying on you, the overcharging you, is actually consumer pressure. There are, of course, retailers who use slightly different business models who say, you know, I’m not in the business of charging consumers the maximum they will pay. The canonical example is Costco, who uses a cost plus model. They charge between 14 and 15 percent on top of the wholesale price. It’s cost plus 14 or 15 percent, that’s the margin. They could go higher, they don’t, they pass the savings along. But, you know, generally speaking, companies are moving in the direction of getting more sophisticated with pricing and of taking their pricing to a place that’s much higher tech.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m sure you are asked this question constantly, but what could the average consumer do to limit surveillance pricing in their lives?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I really do not believe it should be every consumer’s job to bob and weave and try to beat the machine. Shopping against the robot is not a future anybody wants to have, and it should be lawmakers’ job and policymakers’ job to make sure markets are fair and honest because that’s good for everyone. It’s good for our economy, it’s good for society. The second thing I’ll say is I do really believe in the power of consumer boycotts. And I think when you see something, say something. Take to Reddit, take to TikTok, take to Twitter like our friend experiencing the JetBlue price hike did. Those are great ways to sound the alarm and sometimes to get companies’ attention. Consumer boycotts can be effective.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But finally, there are a few things to think about as a modern consumer. It’s probably time to update how you think about comparison shopping. So it used to be that you would look at the same item at two different stores, see which store offered you the better price, go with that one. Now you probably need to comparison shop within stores. Look at the price in the app, look at the place on the website, look at price in the brick and mortar store, compare those three, go with the lower price. You could do some comparison shopping with your spouse, sit on the couch, both of you log in, see if one of you gets a better price. Go with that price. So I think there are some ways to sort of update how you think about comparison shopping. And then of course, all of the standard advice around browsers that offer more robust privacy protections, all of that can be useful as well.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s close the loop on the JetBlue saga. They now face a class action. Everyone’s still really mad at them. It’s been weeks and they’re still getting like, comments being like, remember when you said this? Like, we’re not letting that go. How do you think the saga will end for JetBlue?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, hard for me to know what the result of that class action lawsuit will be. And of course, those can take a long time to unwind. So it may be a minute before we get to read the final chapter of that book. But, you know, I do think JetBlue will face some pretty substantial damage in the interim. I think they have lost faith with a lot of consumers when consumers may look elsewhere for their travel. That being said, we’ve got a problem in the airlines, which is they’re not very competitive. We don’t have that many carriers and we actually just lost one of the main competitors to JetBlue— Spirit. So they have a lot of pricing power right now. They have a of dominance as a low cost carrier, but they certainly, I think, have lost the faith of a lot consumers and they may have lost a lot their customers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Never underestimate the power of a rage tweet. That’s it for today’s deep dive, but stick around after the credits for a surveillance pricing fun fact. Actually, it’s less fun and more terrifying, but hey, it’s good trivia. Okay, let’s close all these tabs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music, Production help from Francesca Fenzi. It was edited by Chris Hambrick. The Close All Tabs team also includes producer Maya Cueva and audio engineer, Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our director of podcasts and Ethan Toven Lindsey is our editor-in-chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco Northern California Local. This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran Alex Tran, and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches. Thanks for listening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was a really interesting study in 2023 that got quite a bit of attention. And it looked at how Uber was charging customers more if their phone battery was sunk. Like, you got to get in that Uber before your phone dies. As someone who is always on low battery mode.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would never remember to charge my phone.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Me neither. It’s like really scary to think about that one.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "Escaping the Surveillance Pricing Trap | KQED",
"description": "When JetBlue replied to an angry customer on X that they should clear their cookies for a better flight price, it seemed to confirm a long-held consumer belief: companies use your personal data to determine what you should pay in real-time based on your urgency, habits and identity. It’s what’s known as surveillance pricing. According to economic sociologist Lindsay Owens, the practice is rampant. She says companies have been investing for years in sophisticated tools meant to squeeze every last dollar out of consumers — and for the most part, it’s legal. Lindsay joins Morgan to talk about how we got here, the U.S. laws designed to fight back against surveillance pricing and what you can personally do to sidestep the practice.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When JetBlue replied to an angry customer on X that they should clear their cookies for a better flight price, it seemed to confirm a long-held consumer belief: companies use your personal data to \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">determine what you should pay in real-time based on your urgency, habits and identity\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. It’s what’s known as \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">surveillance pricing. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">According to economic sociologist Lindsay Owens, \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the practice is rampant. She says companies have been investing for years in sophisticated tools meant to squeeze every last dollar out of consumers — and for the most part, it’s legal. Lindsay joins Morgan to \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">talk about how we got here, the U.S. laws designed to fight back against surveillance pricing and what you can personally do to sidestep the practice.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC8058124943\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://groundworkcollaborative.org/person/lindsay-owens/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lindsay Owens\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, executive director of \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://groundworkcollaborative.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Groundwork Collaborative\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.propublica.org/article/asians-nearly-twice-as-likely-to-get-higher-price-from-princeton-review\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Tiger Mom Tax: Asians Are Nearly Twice as Likely to Get a Higher Price from Princeton Review\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Julia Angwin, Surya Mattu and Jeff Larson, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pro Publica\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/10/18/starbucks-loyalty-program-surveillance-pricing/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The hidden way using a rewards card can cost you more\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Geoffrey A. Fowler, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Washington Post\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/sp6b-issue-spotlight.pdf\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Issue Spotlight: The Rise of Surveillance Pricing\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — FTC Staff, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Federal Trade Commission\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2026/05/why-surveillance-pricing-bans-are-suddenly-gaining-traction-this-year-and-not-just-in-california/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why surveillance pricing bans are suddenly gaining traction this year (and not just in California)\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Khari Johnson, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">CalMatters\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.fastcompany.com/91544120/public-library-hack-book-cheaper-flights-mistrust-airlines\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Influencers are peddling ‘the library hack’ as a way to score cheaper flights. Whether it works is beside the point\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Grace Snelling, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fast Company\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung, Host: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Hello, Tabbies. We’ve been workshopping games. What do you think of Tab Hive? Could also go with Tab Closers? Maybe Tabdom, like Tab fandom, but I don’t know, that sounds kind of ominous. Anyway, if you’re a Close All Tabs listener and you like our deep dives, then please rate and review the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you’re listening to this. It would be a huge help to get the word out. Okay, let’s get to the show.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So online, there’s this kind of urban legend when it comes to booking flights. Basically, as the myth goes, if you’ve been looking up flights between certain destinations and you’re finally ready to book, you should always clear your cookies or book the flight from an incognito tab so you get a better price. For years, this travel hack was based on anecdotal experience, not actual evidence that airlines were using personal data to determine prices. But we do know that our personal data is kind of up for grabs anyway. We talk about this all the time on the show. It’s not wild to believe that corporations are tracking you and price gouging you based on your specific habits. But if you brought it up on travel forums or comment threads, you might get written off as a tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist. And then in April, JetBlue just tweeted it out.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens, Guest: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is just a really incredible story, one of those ‘truth is stranger than fiction’ moments.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lindsay Owens is an economic sociologist who runs the affordability think tank Groundwork Collective. She keeps a pretty close eye on this kind of thing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you’re feeling it in your wallet, we are studying it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So back in April, a customer took to X, the site formerly known as Twitter…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To kind of complain, vent, gripe about the fact that his flight had increased by more than $200 overnight, and he was just trying to get to a funeral. And he tweeted sort of, JetBlue, what gives here? Why are you doing this? And incredibly, JetBlue’s corporate Twitter account replied.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s the real travel hack. If your flight is delayed or canceled or you’re stuck in customer service hotline hell, complain about it on Twitter. There’s a chance that the airline will see it and give you a discount or at worst a snack voucher. At least that’s how they usually respond. But this time JetBlue took a different approach.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They said ‘try clearing your cash and cookies or booking with an incognito window.’ And then they did say, ‘we’re sorry for your loss. ‘\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In other words, JetBlue’s official corporate social account told the customer that if he didn’t want to be overcharged, he should just trick the company’s booking software into not identifying him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And this was a pretty stunning thing to see on Twitter. JetBlue’s HQ immediately weighed in and said the tweet was mistaken, that they don’t use personal information to set prices.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A spokesperson for the company told multiple news outlets that the airline fares are determined by supply and demand, not by customer data. JetBlue very quickly deleted the response, but it’s the internet, screenshots live on. This exchange went super viral.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was a real confession of sorts, but it was a window into the ways in which pricing is changing right under our feet.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">An airline surreptitiously gleaning personal information to maximize how much money they can make off of each individual customer, it’s not out of the realm of possibility. In fact, Lindsay said that just last year, she listened in on a Delta earnings call and the company told investors about this new strategy they were piloting, a partnership with an Israel-based AI company called Fetcherr, which specialized in personalized pricing. Lindsay went on Fetcherr’s website and found a white paper.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Phase two was called ‘the exploitation phase’ —really not hiding the ball with this one. That’s when they’ve learned everything they can about Delta’s competitors, about their customers, and when they start going for broke and they start increasing those prices and getting better revenues for Delta. They were guaranteeing increases in revenue of near 10% in some cases. So we’ve had quite a few of these examples with the airlines now revealing some of their plans, experiments, and things that they’re working on.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lindsay wasn’t the only one paying attention. Journalists did too. News of the earnings call spread. This set off a PR firestorm for the company with Delta’s competitors saying that they’d never do this to their valued customers, and Delta announcing that they didn’t actually plan to go through with it. But this practice is becoming the norm across industries. We’ve gotten used to dynamic pricing: price fluctuating based on supply and demand, like, how concert tickets get more expensive as seats fill up. What we’re talking about today goes further. Economists call it personalized pricing. This idea that companies charge you based on their assessment of how much you’re willing to pay for a good or service. It’s a practice more commonly known as surveillance pricing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re doing anything they can to learn about you, including sometimes spying on you, which is why I do think the term surveillance pricing is so apt and accurate. Companies gather a lot of data about us. Some of it we offer up willingly, our browsing history, we accept the cookies, we agree to let them sell our data, and all of that can be used to set a price for you specifically — ideally, if you’re a company, a price that gets pretty close to the maximum that you’d be willing to pay before you might walk away or start looking elsewhere.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Today, we’re diving into surveillance pricing. Where it came from, how it works, and what we’re supposed to do to save ourselves from it. And no, clearing cookies isn’t always the answer. Ready?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s the funny thing. A set price is a fairly new concept compared to the entirety of human history. Let’s talk about it. Kicking this off as always, let’s open a new tab: History of the price tag.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>[Audio from Jessie J singing “Price Tag” live] \u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003ci>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ain’t about the, uh, cha-chang-cha-chung \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ain’t bout the, b-bling-b-bling \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wanna make the world dance\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Forget about the beep beep beep boop boop boop\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> …price tag. To quote the iconic Jessie J, we need to take it back in time. We don’t even have to go that far back. The price tag dates back to 1861, when Wanamakers opened its stores in Philadelphia. It was one of the first American department stores, and also invented the.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>[Audio from Jessie J singing “Price Tag” live]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Priiiiiiiiiicetaaaaaagggg!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The price tag.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Prior to Wanamaker, you really had thousands of years where we haggled. You went to the market, you picked out what you wanted, and then you started a process of bartering or haggling to set the price. The merchant at the souk or the market maybe sized you up a little and said, oh, you look like someone who could pay more. Maybe he knows a little bit about you, knows you’re wealthy, charges you more. Maybe you know a little bit about him, you have a little dirt on him, he charges you less, right? Those were the kind of rules of the bizarre economy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That started to shift in the U.S. context really with the Quakers and they felt like bartering and haggling was really unfair. They felt a sort of moral conviction about this; you and I are created equal under God, they thought. Why would we be charged different amounts for the same item? So they instituted a fixed price, and everyone would pay the same amount for items at a Quaker market.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">John Wanamaker wasn’t a Quaker, but he was a devout Christian, and he had this brilliant idea. What if he took this Quaker concept further? Not just standardized prices, but print them on a little tag attached to each item, and then call it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003ci>[Audio from Jessie J singing “Price Tag” live]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…the priiiiiice taaag!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But of course, Wanamaker wasn’t just doing this for religious reasons, he was also doing it because he was a good businessman and haggling takes a lot of time. The price tag is pretty efficient, right? It makes it pretty easy to tally up what you owe and get on with the purchase. But look, the price tag, I think, did a number of really important things. The first thing it did is it offered transparency. And transparency is really key to fair and honest markets, and that’s really key to a healthy economy. We knew how much something cost. As part of that transparency, we could comparison shop. We could look at how much anything cost in one store, we could look at how much something cost in another store, and we could take the offering that we thought provided the best value. Actually, that mechanism of bargain hunting and comparison shopping is also an important function in a healthy competitive economy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And the price tag also offers some stability and predictability. Of course, things like inflation and seasonal availability and wars that shut down access to major waterways can affect prices. But overall, you’d probably have an idea of how much your weekly groceries will cost.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And predictability is bedrock to home economics, to budgeting in the household. If you don’t know how much something is gonna cost from one week to the next, it is hard to know if you’re gonna clear at the end of the week.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dynamic pricing has gotten out of hand and Lindsay said this wasn’t always the case.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I do think while we have gotten very used to dynamic pricing in a whole host of settings, it is actually the case that in the not too distant past, there were other ways that companies allocated scarce resources. It has really shifted over time and I also think dynamic pricing is increasingly happening in places where resources aren’t scarce at all. You know, you see dynamic pricing in the grocery store, Target isn’t running out of wheat thins. Kroger’s not running out of Barilla pasta, right? This isn’t about managing scarcity. It’s just about charging what they can at any given time. So I think there has been a, kind of, increase in the prevalence of dynamic pricing and the types of goods that are subject to it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When did this use of personal data specifically to set prices become such a common practice?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think the way to think about the advent of surveillance pricing is to start with the advent of surveillance advertising, which really takes you to the internet. I mean, that’s when this starts getting really creepy, and it’s when it starts to become big business. You may have heard about a company called DoubleClick. They really pioneered and built the infrastructure for surveillance advertising on the internet. They tracked what you looked at online. And then they built an advertising system to serve it back to you. So if you’ve ever looked at an item, you didn’t buy it, and then the next day it started popping up in your feed over and over and again, and you finally relented and purchased the item, that’s just the latest iteration of surveillance advertising.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">DoubleClick was eventually purchased by Google, and Google is advertising king in the early digital era. In some ways, the logical next step for many of these companies was as they get better and better at knowing what you want, predicting what you want, maybe persuading you to want something, they might as well also think about getting better and better, figuring out how much you might be willing to pay for it. And so marrying sort of dynamic pricing with surveillance advertising is how we get to the modern form of surveillance pricing that we’re starting to see today.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Why does the idea of dynamic pricing and surveillance pricing, why does that upset people so much?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By and large, Americans hate the idea of companies charging different amounts to different people for the same item at the exact same time from the exact same store. I think the answer is really simple. I think when you see sort of a ubiquitous response to something in culture, it’s because you’ve tapped into a core human value. And in this case, I think that value is fairness.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So how does surveillance pricing work in practice? That’s a new tab, which we’ll open after a quick break. But first, we wanted to remind you that close all tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate.kqed.org slash podcasts. Okay, after the break, big data and your wallet. Stick around.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re back! So how does surveillance pricing work exactly? Time for a new tab: Big Data and Your Wallet. Let’s talk about some examples of surveillance pricing and how mass data collection determines those prices.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So this one was uncovered in an analysis by ProPublica, which showed that the prices for online SAT tutoring packages at the Princeton Review, the test prep company, were varying quite substantially depending on where customers lived. So if you went online to book an online test prep package and you typed in your zip code, Some people were offered the course for $6,600. That’s, by the way, a good price, apparently, for a test prep package in 2015. I’m sure it’s more today, it’s a little staggering. But for others, the same package would be almost $2,000 more. And what they determined is that folks in zip codes with a larger percentage of Asian Americans were almost twice as likely to be offered that higher price than others.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They called this the “tiger mom tax.” Yeah, and even in lower income neighborhoods, Asian Americans were quoted the highest prices by the Princeton Review.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it is a good example of how companies were using zip codes and demographic information to try to estimate the likely willingness to pay for a service like test prep. We have seen similarly during that period, a study from the Wall Street Journal in 2012, which showed that the online office retailer Staples was varying prices by zip code. This one was actually a little more nefarious in some respects. If you lived in a zip code where there were other office stores nearby, like an Office Depot, you were getting better pricing. If there was not an OfficeMax or an Office Depot within 20 miles or so, you were charged more because they knew you didn’t really have any ability to go to a competitor or go anywhere else. You were probably gonna go with the Staples offering. So those are some of the early examples of companies starting to toy around with gaging your desperation, gaging your willingness to pay. Gaging how likely your exit options were, how much choice you have in a market, and then using that to put you over a barrel and charge you as much as they possibly can.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, it’s so funny that you say that because my friends and I joke that with Pride right around the corner, Target is probably jacking up prices for plain white tank tops for queer people because they know we’ll probably buy them for all the lesbian events in June. And obviously, that’s purely speculative and it’s mostly us kind of joking among ourselves like, ‘oh, this $5 tank top is going to be $12 next week.’ But it seems like this theory isn’t that far-fetched after all.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is not far-fetched at all. That is exactly the kind of thing to expect. When Walmart announced that they were installing electronic shelf labels in every Walmart store throughout the country. The first thing that many consumers thought is they are going to start jacking up the of coke and ice cream and cool items on a hot summer day. When there’s a snowstorm, they are gonna charge more for soup. These are all the things that are possible when you have the ability to do dynamic pricing at scale, either online or in brick and mortar stores, which you can do with electronic shelf labels. Pricing algorithms can be controlled remotely. It is very easy to have them respond to things like the weather and other data inputs. And it starts to present, I think, a real sort of dystopian view of what shopping could look like in the future.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what are some of the pieces of personal information that could be used to set the price that you pay, which people probably aren’t thinking about?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is a long list. So you give up a lot of your information in a lot settings. Those terms and conditions when you get on a website that you click on without reading, often what you’ve done is just sort of pulled back the curtain and let the company ransack all of your data. Loyalty programs can be great, but often are sophisticated data harvesting operations. Okay, kinds of things they might know: they might be connected to your bank account and know when it’s payday. They might have information about your location. They might your purchase history, what you buy weekly, what you haven’t bought in a while that you usually buy and so you’re due for. They track your movements online, your mouse movements, what you hover over, how long you hover it, what you click on, what you put in your cart and don’t buy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lindsay pointed to this report from former Washington Post tech columnist, Geoffrey Fowler. He requested his data from Starbucks and got a detailed dossier of everything he ever bought there.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He was a reporter, so he had purchased a lot of coffee.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>[\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003ci>Geoffrey Fowler in Washington Post story]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The more coffee I ordered, the fewer discounts I got. Sure, I was still collecting stars, but the average price I paid per cup of coffee was going up. My loyalty was working against me.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, in this case, they are collecting all the information about your caffeine habits. When you have your morning cup of copy, when you have you afternoon cup of cofee, if you have a sweet tooth and like to have a cookie with your afternoon coffee, right? All of those things they can collect. They can buy information about you from third parties. So, you know, this breadcrumb trail of data you leave when you participate in e-commerce provides a really robust set of data that companies can use to predict how much you’re willing to pay for any given item.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">More and more consumers are using chatbots and AI agents to do the price comparisons for them. You know, kind of taking off the drudge work of like sifting through all these websites. Are AI agents shopping for you, the new haggling?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Shopping and e-commerce and chat bots combined is really scary for folks who worry about privacy and for the potential for surveillance pricing at scale. We may be just in the first inning of our journey through the big bad world of surveillance pricing. A lot of the data that companies collect about you is behavioral and a lot of it is inferences. We think you must like this because you hovered over it for a while. So they’re guessing and using those guesses to decide what to advertise to you and how much to charge you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But now with conversational LLMs, often the guesswork can be eliminated because you might just tell them, right? You might say to your chat bot, hey, I have a wedding on Friday. I’m totally screwed. I need a dress. What are some options? Show me some options. Well, you’ve really just given away the store. Right? They know you’re desperate, they know you are in a rush, they know you need it now, and they’re gonna charge you top dollar for it. They’re gonna return results that cost you a lot of money. So the types of data that you offer Chopbots is pretty helpful in commerce. And so then the question is, how will the sort of move from AI into commerce make use of that data? And I think there are real questions about what’s likely to transpire.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But we got a very recent hint and it was not great: a couple of researchers, one at Princeton University, one at the University of Washington, tested some LLMs and they put in some different scenarios and tried to measure how the advertising and pricing would work. You know, the results were pretty alarming. All of the current LLM’s, they tested all of them, exhibited risky behaviors, that was the researcher’s word, that favored the company over the user; steering users towards more expensive sponsored products; concealing that the products were sponsored and therefore impacted their recommendations; recommending predatory products like bad loans with high interest rates.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In practice, users were also nudged to spend more. That one we didn’t need a study to confirm, we already have data from Walmart, where the CEO has been quite candid with their investors about the fact that Sparky, the Walmart chat bot, is doing a great job of nudging consumers to spend more. And folks who use Sparky are spending 35% more than folks who don’t, in part because Sparky is bidding up their cart total very effectively.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We also learned in the study that when asked to recommend between two otherwise equivalent products, The vast majority of the models in the study chose the sponsored option more than half the time, despite it being twice as expensive. I think this is really the next big frontier in surveillance pricing. It’s the next place for people like me who research this stuff and who think through and help craft policy solutions to protect consumers from this stuff.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The good news is people aren’t overwhelmingly shopping in AI right now, although, as I mentioned, companies like Walmart are building this into their apps and into their e-commerce offerings. But it would be great to get this one fixed before the horse is out of the barn because the future doesn’t look great.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yikes, right? I mean, how is any of this even allowed? Is there anything we could do to stop it? Okay, let’s open one last tab: Is surveillance pricing even legal? I’ve googled this question many times, and the answer is never satisfying. Long story short, yes, surveillance pricing is legal. At the federal level, the U.S. is not great about comprehensive data privacy laws. And you may be asking, but what about the FTC? The Federal Trade Commission. They’re supposed to protect consumers and promote business competition. Well, under Lina Khan’s leadership, the FTC conducted a preliminary study on AI-driven pricing tools. It was released in January 2025, right before the Trump administration took over. And since then…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, look, the federal government is not really leading the charge right now. We’re seeing much more action in the states.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To understand what’s going on there, we need to talk about the flip side of surveillance pricing: surveillance wages.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Companies learning about you to figure out the maximum you’re willing to pay can use the exact same tools to learn about their workers and figure out the minimum they’re willing to charge in the form of wages. So it’s great news for companies who can deploy both at the same time because they can bring in more revenue from consumers and they can spend less on their workers. The processes and the systems are really similar and we’ve started to see some, oh really I think, concerning examples of this type of algorithmic wage discrimination starting to pop up in a whole host of sectors.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are some examples of day nurses being subjected to auctions where they bid against each other for a shift. But instead of an auction where the highest bidder wins, whoever will take the minimum to show up for work would win. We have examples of Uber offering different drivers different fares for the same trip, right? So we are starting to see some examples of algorithmic wage discrimination in parallel to these examples of surveillance pricing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So why might this whole practice of algorithmic wage discrimination actually lead to more legal action against these companies that are using surveillance pricing?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To crack down on surveillance pricing, arguably we’re gonna need new laws. We’ve now seen in 40 states and localities just this year in 2026, people cracking down on surveillance pricing, introducing bans in state legislatures to eliminate this practice. Some of those bills also include prohibitions on algorithmic wage discrimination.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just last month, Colorado actually passed a bill that would do both. It bans corporations from using personal data to set individual prices and wages.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But there are some cases in which algorithmic wage discrimination will already be illegal. So we have fair labor laws and we have employment discrimination laws and it is illegal to pay men and women different amounts for the same job. And so where algorithmic discrimination falls afoul of existing employment discrimination and labor laws, there may be opportunities for enforcement agencies to go ahead and crack down on those practices even without updating the law.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you think that this kind of legislation will be effective in combating surveillance pricing? How does it compare to other policy pushes that you’ve seen?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So far, we have seen a couple of different types of laws. We’ve seen disclosure laws, which would require companies to tell you they’re spying on you in order to overcharge you, which New York put into effect this year. If you are the victim of surveillance pricing in New York, you will know it, because you will see a disclosure that says this price was set by an algorithm using your data. So disclosure laws are interesting. They’re interesting to people like me, because it gives me a nice population of companies to study. They’re interesting to consumers because sometimes you can say, okay, I’d rather not purchase from this company anymore. But, you know, I would prefer that companies not be able to do this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the beginning of the year, California Attorney General Rob Bonta opened a sweeping investigation into surveillance pricing. California lawmakers have also proposed an outright ban on the practice. A similar bill failed to reach the governor’s desk last year, but this one just cleared a major milestone in the state legislature this month. If it does pass, Lindsay said it could be a really strong law.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it would be a game changer for a state as large as California with as many tech companies located in California as there are to pass a bill like this and it would great to see that happen as soon as possible.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It seems like we’re finally at a kind of inflection point for surveillance pricing with consumers, especially after the JetBlue tweet, kind of waking up to it and starting to push back. How are retailers responding to the policy pushbacks and also the consumer outrage?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Retailers have to make some tough choices about the costs and benefits of deploying technologies like this. The benefits are clear. You can make a lot of money charging your consumer the absolute maximum they are willing to pay for every item in their cart. There is revenue to be won. But the risk is that when consumers find out about this, they are really, really ticked and you risk boycott and losing some market share. And throughout history, we have seen companies touch the stove when they, you know, went too far.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the 90s, the CEO of Coke let slip that they were piloting, installing thermometers in Coke vending machines so that they could charge you more for Coke on a hot summer day. That was in 1999, it was before TikTok, but it was viral. It was on the front page of every major newspaper in the country. The Honolulu paper, the Philadelphia paper, the Wall Street Journal, hardly a bastion of consumer sentiment, weighed in on how outrageous that proposal was. Pepsi, of course, seized on the gaff. Coke immediately backtracked, said they wouldn’t be piloting it. They would never do it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, I think the best way, absent the law, to keep companies from pursuing some of the most egregious forms of this practice, the spying on you, the overcharging you, is actually consumer pressure. There are, of course, retailers who use slightly different business models who say, you know, I’m not in the business of charging consumers the maximum they will pay. The canonical example is Costco, who uses a cost plus model. They charge between 14 and 15 percent on top of the wholesale price. It’s cost plus 14 or 15 percent, that’s the margin. They could go higher, they don’t, they pass the savings along. But, you know, generally speaking, companies are moving in the direction of getting more sophisticated with pricing and of taking their pricing to a place that’s much higher tech.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m sure you are asked this question constantly, but what could the average consumer do to limit surveillance pricing in their lives?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I really do not believe it should be every consumer’s job to bob and weave and try to beat the machine. Shopping against the robot is not a future anybody wants to have, and it should be lawmakers’ job and policymakers’ job to make sure markets are fair and honest because that’s good for everyone. It’s good for our economy, it’s good for society. The second thing I’ll say is I do really believe in the power of consumer boycotts. And I think when you see something, say something. Take to Reddit, take to TikTok, take to Twitter like our friend experiencing the JetBlue price hike did. Those are great ways to sound the alarm and sometimes to get companies’ attention. Consumer boycotts can be effective.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But finally, there are a few things to think about as a modern consumer. It’s probably time to update how you think about comparison shopping. So it used to be that you would look at the same item at two different stores, see which store offered you the better price, go with that one. Now you probably need to comparison shop within stores. Look at the price in the app, look at the place on the website, look at price in the brick and mortar store, compare those three, go with the lower price. You could do some comparison shopping with your spouse, sit on the couch, both of you log in, see if one of you gets a better price. Go with that price. So I think there are some ways to sort of update how you think about comparison shopping. And then of course, all of the standard advice around browsers that offer more robust privacy protections, all of that can be useful as well.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s close the loop on the JetBlue saga. They now face a class action. Everyone’s still really mad at them. It’s been weeks and they’re still getting like, comments being like, remember when you said this? Like, we’re not letting that go. How do you think the saga will end for JetBlue?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, hard for me to know what the result of that class action lawsuit will be. And of course, those can take a long time to unwind. So it may be a minute before we get to read the final chapter of that book. But, you know, I do think JetBlue will face some pretty substantial damage in the interim. I think they have lost faith with a lot of consumers when consumers may look elsewhere for their travel. That being said, we’ve got a problem in the airlines, which is they’re not very competitive. We don’t have that many carriers and we actually just lost one of the main competitors to JetBlue— Spirit. So they have a lot of pricing power right now. They have a of dominance as a low cost carrier, but they certainly, I think, have lost the faith of a lot consumers and they may have lost a lot their customers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Never underestimate the power of a rage tweet. That’s it for today’s deep dive, but stick around after the credits for a surveillance pricing fun fact. Actually, it’s less fun and more terrifying, but hey, it’s good trivia. Okay, let’s close all these tabs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music, Production help from Francesca Fenzi. It was edited by Chris Hambrick. The Close All Tabs team also includes producer Maya Cueva and audio engineer, Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our director of podcasts and Ethan Toven Lindsey is our editor-in-chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco Northern California Local. This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran Alex Tran, and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches. Thanks for listening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was a really interesting study in 2023 that got quite a bit of attention. And it looked at how Uber was charging customers more if their phone battery was sunk. Like, you got to get in that Uber before your phone dies. As someone who is always on low battery mode.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would never remember to charge my phone.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lindsay Owens: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Me neither. It’s like really scary to think about that one.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"title": "Musk v. Altman Was Peak Silicon Valley Theatrics",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For three weeks, all eyes were on a salacious courtroom drama unfolding in Oakland, California. The Musk v. Altman trial had everything you’d expect from a favorite soap opera: Backstabbing? Check! Secret diary entries? Check! Pleading text messages? Check! And two billionaire buddies turned rivals duking it out over who did or did not steal a charity. Morgan and KQED’s Rachael Myrow explore the trial highlights, outcome and the big question: what was it all for?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC1712425236\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/rachael-myrow\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rachael Myrow\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, senior editor, Silicon Valley News Desk at KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12084062/federal-court-rules-against-elon-musk-in-his-bitter-feud-with-sam-altman\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Federal Court Rules Against Elon Musk in His Bitter Feud With Sam Altman\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Katie DeBenedetti and Rachael Myrow, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/fancy-butt-pillows-musk-v-altman-trial/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Everyone at the Musk v. Altman Trial Is Using Fancy Butt Cushions\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Paresh Dave, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">WIRED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/932464/musk-v-altman-proved-that-ai-is-led-by-the-wrong-people\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Musk v. Altman proved that AI is led by the wrong people\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Hayden Field, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Verge\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/04/13/sam-altman-may-control-our-future-can-he-be-trusted\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sam Altman May Control Our Future—Can He Be Trusted?\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The New Yorker\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/05/20/nx-s1-5822419/ai-colleges-commencement-booing\">Advice for 2026 commencement speakers: Don’t bring up AI\u003c/a> — Jude Joffe-Block and Michelle Aslam, \u003ci>NPR\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung, Host: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hello Tabbers! Tabbies? Tabhive? We’re workshopping this. Ok? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Anyway, if you’re in the Close All Tabs fandom, and you want more of these deep dives, then please rate and review the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you’re listening to this! Post about it! Follow us on Instagram! Tag us! Basically, it would be a huge help to get the word out. Ok, let’s get to the show.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The tech world has been buzzing over one of the juiciest legal showdowns in Silicon Valley: Musk v. Altman. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Basically, Elon Musk, of Tesla and Twitter infamy, accused OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, and its leadership of betraying the company’s nonprofit roots. He alleged that instead of sticking to the original mission, which was to build safe artificial general intelligence for the benefit of all of humanity, the company chased profits over AI safety. He says they “stole a charity.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On the other side: Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI who co-founded the company with Musk. Once upon a time, they were actually buddies. But today? They’re bitter rivals. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For three weeks, tech billionaires, their legal counsel, their personal security guards, and a throng of journalists packed into a courtroom in Oakland, California. This was a real “who’s who” of the AI industry. The six billionaires who took the stand have a collective net worth of around $850 billion dollars. That’s more than the GDP of most countries. And what did the uber wealthy bring for a long day at court? The hottest accessory in downtown Oakland: Fancy butt cushions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Record scratch]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow, Guest:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> You know, I have to admit, I was not looking, uh, anywhere in the vicinity of their butts, so I did not see these butt cushions, uh, that I read about in Wired. But, um, I, I did see some more, you know, sober, uh, sensible butt cushions that the lawyers were using.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Rachael Myrow, she’s the Silicon Valley tech editor at KQED, and she covered the case, trekking out for the grueling 12 days of trial. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And I really should have come up with one of my own because we were in that court, courtroom from 8am in the morning to 2 in the afternoon most days.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This trial was one of the courtroom dramas of the decade. Rachael said it was like \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Silicon Valley\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, the HBO show, meets a telenovela. Before it even started, Musk got so catty online that the judge threatened him with a gag order.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He went on X on the eve of the trial, popping off about Scam Altman until Judge Gonzalez Rogers dressed him down in front of the court.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s just the start of this gossip feast. We’re talking backstabbing! Personal diary entries read aloud! Secret affairs! Over 20 witnesses airing out everyone’s dirty laundry. And after all of that, the jury sided with OpenAI. So does this count as a crushing blow to Elon Musk?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Musk operates like President Trump. He sues for all sorts of reasons, and he also counts a win differently than normal people would count a win.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And he doesn’t need to win in the courtroom to win in other ways. Because nobody walked out of this trial looking great, especially not Sam Altman.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The historical record now shows a group of extraordinarily entitled people, mostly men, scrambling to be the tip of the spear for the AI revolution. Uh, I think the benefit of humanity never had anything to do with it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the end of the day, nobody really won here. We’re going to get into that and open a few tabs about the trial, the drama leading up to it, the great billionaire AI industry reckoning and what this really means for the rest of us plebeians. Ready?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, let’s open our first tab: Sam Altman, Elon Musk relationship timeline \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">K-dramas, telenovelas, any CW show, pick your poison. At its core, this scenario is a soap opera classic. Two besties have a falling out, struggle for power, and forgetting what they once meant to each other become embroiled in a years-long feud, hell bent on taking the other down. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I don’t know if they ever were friends. But also I wouldn’t say that they were frenemies, and again, this is just from my experience of the trial, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, maybe that was a little bit of fanfiction. But we can’t write off their tech bromance entirely. After all, during the trial, Altman testified under oath that Musk used to show him memes on his phone. That’s pretty intimate, if you ask me. And years before that, they were two very rich guys who shared a dream.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Elon Musk in particular, uh, was very worried about the thought that artificial general intelligence, which is to say AI that surpasses human intelligence, uh, could, uh, come to the hands of one powerful player first, and then they would have, I don’t know, world domination within their grasp. So he got together with Sam Altman of Y Combinator fame or infamy, however you see it, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Y Combinator is the startup accelerator that launched Reddit, Airbnb, DoorDash, Dropbox, Stripe, Coinbase, the list goes on. Sam Altman was part of the inaugural cohort. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And the two of them cooked up this nonprofit with a charitable mission. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They launched OpenAI in 2015, as a nonprofit artificial intelligence research company. In the first blog post, the company wrote: “Our goal is to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return. Since our research is free from financial obligations, we can better focus on a positive human impact.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But it doesn’t take long before they realize that if this is gonna be a thing, if this is gonna compete with Google, and whoever else might come along they were gonna need way more money than they were pulling in at the time.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So Elon Musk was spending millions, but they were probably gonna need billions. They started talking about setting up a for-profit division. And it wasn’t long before they realized in this conversation, collectively, that Elon wanted to be in charge of it, in control of it. And you can tell this because, you know, mounds of discovery, personal texts and email chains and personal journal entries made it abundantly clear that Musk was thinking close to the beginning like, ‘I know what I’ll do. We’ll fold this new this for-profit version of OpenAI into Tesla, where I can work on AGI in secret.’\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, Sam Altman and the other OpenAI principal co-founders weren’t down for that. Musk walked away in 2018. OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022. A year later, Musk announced his own AI startup, xAI, which eventually launched Grok. Musk has boasted about how Grok is not trained to be “woke”, unlike competitors like ChatGPT. OpenAI, meanwhile, has become the belle of the Silicon Valley ball, nabbing billions of dollars of investment from Microsoft. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And at a certain point, it becomes clear that the OpenAI nonprofit is really a shell of its former self. Right? Like, it’s all of the IP, all of the intellectual property has shifted, uh, from the nonprofit to the for-profit, all of the talent…I think it was kind of sitting there employee-free until very recently, and money was put into it. It’s now estimated to be worth about 200 billion, with a B, dollars. But what has this nonprofit been up to? Precious little. Precious little. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so at some point, Musk decides to sue and to say, ‘Wait a second, you know, um, this is a bait and switch…they’ve abandoned the mission that we cooked up originally and, I want recompense. I want Altman and others, stripped from the board, stripped from their leadership positions. I want, something like $150 billion shifted from the for-profit to the nonprofit.’ But of course, if you’re OpenAI, your attitude is like, ‘Whoa, this is clearly vindictive.’ You know, you didn’t get what you want, that’s why you walked away with your toys and your money, and, uh, you know, we’re gonna see you in court.’\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This legal showdown has been simmering for years. Between filing in early 2024 and finally walking into the courtroom for his testimony last month, Musk has: filed a motion accusing OpenAI and Microsoft of being a monopoly, led a group of investors in an attempt to buy OpenAI, threatened to sue Apple for giving OpenAI preferential treatment in the App Store, and has gotten into multiple online spats with Altman. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It was 100% clear there’s no love lost, uh, between you know, the principals. You know, what I like to say is, like, nobody has clean hands in this situation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So what exactly happened at this trial? Let’s open another new tab: Musk v. Altman \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> On one side you’ve got Elon Musk. You know, he didn’t come to be the wealthiest person on Earth by accident, right? Uh, even if he may not have been the person to start many of the companies he now owns and controls, uh, he took them into the stratosphere, quite literally in the case of SpaceX.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He’s very good at doing that, but he’s also well known to be mercurial, to have a kind of Jekyll and Hyde personality, to push other people to the breaking point.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And, um, he’s gonna make decisions that, uh, he doesn’t expect to be countermanded on in the slightest. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then you have somebody like Sam Altman, and, uh, I’ll tell you, it wasn’t any accident that The New Yorker came out with a scandalous profile of Sam Altman on the eve of the trial that basically, uh, described him as a compulsive pathological liar, and all of that came out in the trial too. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Let’s go through a few highlights from this trial. It got pretty juicy when Shivon Zillis took the stand. She’s a venture capitalist and machine learning expert who started working at OpenAI when it launched, and later joined the board of directors. She’s also the mother of four of Musk’s fourteen children. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In her testimony, she said that their relationship started with a “one-off” at a corporate off-site. When she decided to start a family on her own, Musk offered to be her platonic sperm donor. Their relationship grew, and now, they’re romantic partners. She told the OpenAI board about her relationship with Musk only after Business Insider started reporting on it. According to other testimony, many board members wanted to remove her, but decided to let her stay to, “keep the Elon conflict under control.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think for many people who are not familiar with Silicon Valley shenanigans, going back decades, not, this is not new to AI, um, it’s not just neutral characters on the board. It’s a very insular world. It’s on the level of incest, I would say. And so I, for one, was not shocked to discover that Elon Musk had a, again, like a consigliere on the board making decisions. She seemed to be there in many ways, um, serving as a go-between, between Sam and Elon, helping to smooth over conversations, helping to, to help them reach points of agreement when that was possible, and at the very least, have clarity on what the other side was thinking when that was not. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Something else that also g- kind of struck me about not just Zelis’s testimony, but also the other women who had roles in this period of time at OpenAI that was under discussion, is how much even the smartest women were only number twos, number threes, ancillary characters in a drama that starred men. This is all about men, primarily white men, with a tremendous sense of entitlement.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then there are these salacious journal entries. So, Greg Brockman is the president of OpenAI, and today, he has a 30 billion dollar stake in the company. But he wasn’t always so ludicrously wealthy. During the trial, pages of his personal diary from nearly 10 years ago were read out loud. And what he wrote seems to bolster Musk’s argument that they were all in it for the money, not necessarily for the good of humanity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Word to the wise, be aware that if you get sued, they’re gonna come looking for this stuff. You know? Like, when he’s, when he’s writing to himself, “What will take me to $1 billion?” it was pretty clear that it sounded like he was interested in becoming rich. You have a guy who was personally ambitious. Um, is that illegal? I don’t know if it’s illegal. It certainly didn’t look good. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The funny thing here about Zelis, and it’s kind of in parallel to, to Brockman, is that, you know, Zelis was taking notes. And also a lot of Zelis’ emails and texts document how early Musk knew that people were talking about a, uh, a for-profit, that Musk himself was talking about a for-profit form of OpenAI. So this kind of ate away at the argument that he was shocked, shocked to discover that self-enrichment had become such a powerful motivator for his colleagues.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Another standout from the trial: texts between Sam Altman and former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati from the night that the OpenAI board voted to fire Altman as CEO. He was reinstated after over 90% of OpenAI employees threatened to quit and work for Microsoft. That in between time period is known as “The Blip.” And the exchanges from the night it started were read in court, and have since gone viral — immediately embedded in the lexicon of internet reaction memes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rachael and I are going to do a dramatic reading of the texts \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think I wanna be Mira. Or wait a moment. No, I wanna be Sam. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> You wanna be Sam? Okay. Okay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow as Sam Altman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Can you indicate directionally good or bad? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung as Mira Murati: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Directionally very bad. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow as Sam Altman \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can I come in? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung as Mira Murati: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They don’t want you to.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow as Sam Altman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do you want to make it better? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m still willing to just walk away if that helps. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If they are ramped up for crazy lawsuits against me, then I’m not sure what… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Can you please tell them I just wanna resolve this however, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">and would like to join?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung as Mira Murati: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re convinced about their decision.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow as Sam Altman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> For me to be fired or some new thing? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung as Mira Murati: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, for you to be gone. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow as Sam Altman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. Then can I come in and talk about a path forward with them? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can you ask why they’ve been saying all weekend they wanted me back?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow as Sam Altman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Still don’t want me? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung as Mira Murati: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They don’t want you\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I mean, these read, these read like the kinds of texts that you would send during a really brutal breakup, like when you’re like, ‘Oh, my friend sees my ex in, in public. Can you please go talk to them?’ You know? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do they reveal about the power struggle at OpenAI though?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> There was an attempted coup, essentially, precisely because of Sam Altman’s, uh, alleged managerial misbehavior, pitting different people against each other with different stories.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another OpenAI board member, Helen Toner, shed light on this in her deposition. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Helen Toner basically said that Altman lied about what kind of safety reviews were done about, uh, models of ChatGPT that were released, that he ultimately cleared for release, and which, you know, she could say really wasn’t about AI safety, It was about this, you know, lack of trust in the communication. Microsoft, uh, CEO Satya Nadella, at one point he characterized the entire blip as amateur hour. Uh, these naive board members thinking that they could, you know, hold Sam Altman accountable, uh, for, for lying to them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Right. I mean, Brockman and Altman were both throwing around some pretty wild accusations about why Musk really wanted control of OpenAI. Um, Brockman said that he wanted to raise massive amounts of money to build a colony on Mars. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, Sam Altman claimed that Musk was planning to pass OpenAI down to his children when he died, like succession style. But I mean, everyone’s dirty laundry was aired out in that courtroom. Like, no one came out with clean hands, including Sam Altman. So what did the witnesses say about him and his character? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh my goodness. There were so many people who described him as a liar to the extent that when finally he was directly questioned about being a liar, uh, and he didn’t answer the question directly, it just made him look more like a liar. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There were so many people who talked about his lack of, uh, trustworthiness. Sam Altman on the witness stand for hours being asked why he’s such a big liar. His former chief scientist, his former chief technology officer, two former board members, all testifying under oath that Altman exhibited a consistent pattern of dishonesty.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That is now in the public record forever.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">all of these guys come off as self-serving and, and, uh, backstabbing and oily. I wouldn’t wanna meet any of them in a dark alley or on the other side of a business deal. You know, like, they’re obviously not out for the benefit of humanity. But then we knew that. Didn’t we know that? I think we knew that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After all that, mountains of evidence, hours of testimony, brutal days spent on those cold, hard, unforgiving courtroom benches, unless you had a fancy butt cushion, the ending of this trial was kind of anticlimactic. It took the jury just two hours to come to a unanimous decision. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The jury decided that Musk simply waited too long to sue. California has statutes of limitations. So you can’t just sit on your claims forever.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, in the end nothing happened! But that doesn’t mean the trial was for nothing. What’s the real outcome here? What did this courtroom drama really reveal? After the break, a new tab. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate.kqed.org/podcasts. Ok, after the break? We’re leaving the courtroom, and going back to the real world. Stick around.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We’re back! Let’s open one last tab: Musk v. Altman outcome.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the jury rejected Musk’s case this week. But it’s important to note that they didn’t make that decision based on the legal merit of his case, just that it was too late for Musk to pursue it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And the jury found that Musk knew or should have known what was happening at OpenAI by 2020 at the latest. He filed in 2024. He argued in court, you know, that that’s because it wasn’t that he was opposed to any kind of for-profit division. He just didn’t want one that dominated the nonprofit. And that didn’t become clear to him until 2023. So he wanted to essentially start the clock on the statue of limitations later on in the game\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But OpenAI argued and the judge essentially agreed that Musk needed to have made the case soon after what he saw happening at OpenAI by 2020 at the latest. So all three claims, breach of charitable trust, unjust enrichment, Microsoft aiding and abetting, are gone because of the statute of limitations thing, not because they decided on the merits.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hours after the verdict came out, Elon Musk responded in the most Elon Musk possible way, which is he took it to Twitter, uh, sorry, X, to complain. Um, he did a classic tweet and delete. So the first tweet he said, first post, “This illustrates why the ruling by the terrible activist Oakland judge, who simply used the jury as a fig leaf, creates such a terrible precedent. She just handed a free license to loot charities if you can keep the looting quiet for a few years.” And then deleted that. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then followed up, “Regarding the OpenAI case, the judge and jury never actually ruled on the merits of the case just on a calendar technicality. There is no question to anyone following the case in detail that Altman and Brockman did in fact enrich themselves by stealing a charity. The only question is when they did it.” \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Did this response surprise you at all?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Not in the slightest. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So now that she makes clear she agrees with the jury, Musk posted ‘she’s a terrible activist Oakland judge who handed out a free license to loot charities.’ Musk is just not sympathetic. Um, but I’m thinking, like President Trump, it wasn’t necessarily important to Musk to win the case, just to file it, to drag Altman through the mud in a very public way ahead of these two IPOs. If what you what is revenge, that’s not nothing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This trial did a number on Sam Altman’s public image. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It certainly revealed a lot of the circular business deals he was involved in. He may have recused himself from the actual votes with some of these companies but he nonetheless profited from them or could profit in the near future. I think this was a habit he picked up at Y Combinator. Anyway, it was laid bare in the courtroom. I think it put another nail in the coffin. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like, there were protesters outside the courthouse with some very funny signs up. And they poked the most fun at Musk, but they also poked a lot of fun at Sam Altman. You know, it’s Sam Altman’s house that got a Molotov cocktail thrown at it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, like, I think there is a great deal of public discontent, even rage over the rollout of AI into all of our lives. And, you know, this train got rolling out of the station through OpenAI, through ChatGPT, uh, and, you know, it was off to the races for a bunch of companies. But there at the forefront, at least in the beginning, was OpenAI, and Sam Altman is the face of OpenAI. And so this trial and all the mountains of evidence just confirm for people their opinions of Sam Altman.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, if there’s a fan club somebody’s gotta send me a T-shirt to prove it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A lot of Silicon Valley tends to operate in a kind of bubble, disconnected from the public’s growing discontent around AI. Students are graduating into increasingly unstable careers, thanks to companies pushing to replace human workers with AI, regardless of whether AI can do the jobs better. Nothing shows that disconnect quite like the reaction to commencement speakers who tried to praise AI to a room full of new graduates. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from University of Central Florida Graduation] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Speaker: The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Crowd: Boos \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Speaker: Woo! What happened? Ok, I struck a chord! \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Multiple commencement speakers across the country have tried to proselytize AI this month and they were booed each time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This rejection is not unfounded. While covering the trial, Rachael spoke to one of the protesters outside of the courthouse. Her name is Valerie. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valerie Sizemore:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I used to be a software engineer, but, um, have been unemployed by AI, so now I’m trying to make the resistance happen.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So this trial, um, these two CEOs are fighting over a piece of a pie that, uh, doesn’t really matter for the world. They’re just trying to make themselves richer, but we’re all gonna lose regardless of who wins.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The AI titans, and they are titans now, keep mistaking public resistance for ignorance. Somebody like Valerie isn’t failing to understand the wonders of AI. She’s recognizing that the costs like higher power bills, strained electrical grids, her job disappearing on, her career disappearing on her. Right? A technology class that treats the question of public consent as an annoying inconvenience. I guess what I’m getting at here, Morgan, is that we’re not talking about a PR problem. We’re talking about class warfare.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This was a battle between two billionaires. The trial revolved around this core question: Is OpenAI’s commitment to the benefit of humanity real? Or, is the company’s commitment really to chasing profits at the expense of AI safety? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What was supposed to be the trial of the century ended without answers or accountability. And by ruling on timing instead of the actual merits of the case, the trial also failed to establish any legal precedent for AI governance and guardrails. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s not gonna do a damn thing to stop this nightmare. Right? Obviously there’s gonna be an appeal from Musk’s attorneys. Who knows what’ll happen there? But you know, both Musk with his SpaceX IPO and Altman with his OpenAI IPO, they’re just gonna go forward as before. The AI rollout will go on as before.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Who knows if we’ll ever get artificial general intelligence per se? I don’t think it matters. I mean, the changes that have been happening have been happening without artificial general intelligence. They’re, they’re disruptive enough. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> How do you think this case will impact future AI cases?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> OpenAI is a strange creature. It started as a nonprofit, maybe because Musk and Altman intuitively knew that, uh, they had a better chance of raising money at that time if they presented it as for the good of humanity as opposed to, you know, just a chance to get in on this gold rush.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right? And, and it must be said, and you know, many of the OpenAI principals said it many times that in the beginning, in the first few years of OpenAI, it was not clear at all it was gonna succeed, right? Google seemed to have such a head start and such a well-capitalized head start. So, you know, OpenAI has only become fabulously valued, um, in recent years, and it, it’s still not making money.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To go back to, you know, like what, what precedent does this set for Silicon Valley? I don’t know that it sets any precedent because who in their right mind would start something like OpenAI again in that way? You would set up a startup like any other group of entrepreneurs and take your chances with that setup.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All of this theater ended with no real answers, no real accountability, and no real change for the AI industry overall. So then was the point of taking this case to court in the first place? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The judge put tight, and I mean tight brackets around what this case was going to be about at trial, which raises the question for me, why did she take this case in the first place?Why did she give Elon Musk standing if he had unclean hands? He was a rival. He was a competitor in the AI space. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that Gonzalez Rogers wanted these guys on both sides to be forced to peel back the curtain on how AI came to dominate the world in the way that it does now. And maybe the judge couldn’t give us accountability, but she could give us visibility, and that’s not nothing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And another upside: all those juicy, salacious details that were once just gossip fodder, that’s public record now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Is there any legal precedent here? I think maybe the point was the theater.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s it for this episode, but stick around after the credits. Ok, let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode was produced by Chris Egusa and edited by Chris Hambrick. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Close All Tabs team also includes producer Maya Cueva and audio engineer Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts, and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by my dad, Casey Sung, and recorded on his white and blue Epomaker Aula F99 keyboard with Graywood v3 switches and Cherry profile PBT keycaps.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks for listening! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rachael Myrow: Steve Molo, uh, the Musk’s attorney: “Have you misled people with whom you do business?” \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Altman “I do not think so.” \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then Molo says, “Would they think so?”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then Altman says, “I can’t answer that.”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Molo says, “You’ve repeatedly been called a liar by people with whom you’ve done business.”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Altman: “I have heard people say that.” \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Molo: “Are you completely trustworthy?”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Altman: “I believe so.”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Molo: “You don’t know?”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Altman: “I’ll just amend my answer to yes.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For three weeks, all eyes were on a salacious courtroom drama unfolding in Oakland, California. The Musk v. Altman trial had everything you’d expect from a favorite soap opera: Backstabbing? Check! Secret diary entries? Check! Pleading text messages? Check! And two billionaire buddies turned rivals duking it out over who did or did not steal a charity. Morgan and KQED’s Rachael Myrow explore the trial highlights, outcome and the big question: what was it all for?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC1712425236\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/rachael-myrow\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rachael Myrow\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, senior editor, Silicon Valley News Desk at KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12084062/federal-court-rules-against-elon-musk-in-his-bitter-feud-with-sam-altman\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Federal Court Rules Against Elon Musk in His Bitter Feud With Sam Altman\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Katie DeBenedetti and Rachael Myrow, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/fancy-butt-pillows-musk-v-altman-trial/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Everyone at the Musk v. Altman Trial Is Using Fancy Butt Cushions\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Paresh Dave, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">WIRED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/932464/musk-v-altman-proved-that-ai-is-led-by-the-wrong-people\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Musk v. Altman proved that AI is led by the wrong people\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Hayden Field, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Verge\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2026/04/13/sam-altman-may-control-our-future-can-he-be-trusted\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sam Altman May Control Our Future—Can He Be Trusted?\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Ronan Farrow and Andrew Marantz, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The New Yorker\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/05/20/nx-s1-5822419/ai-colleges-commencement-booing\">Advice for 2026 commencement speakers: Don’t bring up AI\u003c/a> — Jude Joffe-Block and Michelle Aslam, \u003ci>NPR\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung, Host: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hello Tabbers! Tabbies? Tabhive? We’re workshopping this. Ok? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Anyway, if you’re in the Close All Tabs fandom, and you want more of these deep dives, then please rate and review the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you’re listening to this! Post about it! Follow us on Instagram! Tag us! Basically, it would be a huge help to get the word out. Ok, let’s get to the show.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The tech world has been buzzing over one of the juiciest legal showdowns in Silicon Valley: Musk v. Altman. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Basically, Elon Musk, of Tesla and Twitter infamy, accused OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, and its leadership of betraying the company’s nonprofit roots. He alleged that instead of sticking to the original mission, which was to build safe artificial general intelligence for the benefit of all of humanity, the company chased profits over AI safety. He says they “stole a charity.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On the other side: Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI who co-founded the company with Musk. Once upon a time, they were actually buddies. But today? They’re bitter rivals. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For three weeks, tech billionaires, their legal counsel, their personal security guards, and a throng of journalists packed into a courtroom in Oakland, California. This was a real “who’s who” of the AI industry. The six billionaires who took the stand have a collective net worth of around $850 billion dollars. That’s more than the GDP of most countries. And what did the uber wealthy bring for a long day at court? The hottest accessory in downtown Oakland: Fancy butt cushions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Record scratch]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow, Guest:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> You know, I have to admit, I was not looking, uh, anywhere in the vicinity of their butts, so I did not see these butt cushions, uh, that I read about in Wired. But, um, I, I did see some more, you know, sober, uh, sensible butt cushions that the lawyers were using.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Rachael Myrow, she’s the Silicon Valley tech editor at KQED, and she covered the case, trekking out for the grueling 12 days of trial. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And I really should have come up with one of my own because we were in that court, courtroom from 8am in the morning to 2 in the afternoon most days.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This trial was one of the courtroom dramas of the decade. Rachael said it was like \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Silicon Valley\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, the HBO show, meets a telenovela. Before it even started, Musk got so catty online that the judge threatened him with a gag order.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He went on X on the eve of the trial, popping off about Scam Altman until Judge Gonzalez Rogers dressed him down in front of the court.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s just the start of this gossip feast. We’re talking backstabbing! Personal diary entries read aloud! Secret affairs! Over 20 witnesses airing out everyone’s dirty laundry. And after all of that, the jury sided with OpenAI. So does this count as a crushing blow to Elon Musk?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Musk operates like President Trump. He sues for all sorts of reasons, and he also counts a win differently than normal people would count a win.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And he doesn’t need to win in the courtroom to win in other ways. Because nobody walked out of this trial looking great, especially not Sam Altman.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The historical record now shows a group of extraordinarily entitled people, mostly men, scrambling to be the tip of the spear for the AI revolution. Uh, I think the benefit of humanity never had anything to do with it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the end of the day, nobody really won here. We’re going to get into that and open a few tabs about the trial, the drama leading up to it, the great billionaire AI industry reckoning and what this really means for the rest of us plebeians. Ready?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, let’s open our first tab: Sam Altman, Elon Musk relationship timeline \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">K-dramas, telenovelas, any CW show, pick your poison. At its core, this scenario is a soap opera classic. Two besties have a falling out, struggle for power, and forgetting what they once meant to each other become embroiled in a years-long feud, hell bent on taking the other down. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I don’t know if they ever were friends. But also I wouldn’t say that they were frenemies, and again, this is just from my experience of the trial, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, maybe that was a little bit of fanfiction. But we can’t write off their tech bromance entirely. After all, during the trial, Altman testified under oath that Musk used to show him memes on his phone. That’s pretty intimate, if you ask me. And years before that, they were two very rich guys who shared a dream.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Elon Musk in particular, uh, was very worried about the thought that artificial general intelligence, which is to say AI that surpasses human intelligence, uh, could, uh, come to the hands of one powerful player first, and then they would have, I don’t know, world domination within their grasp. So he got together with Sam Altman of Y Combinator fame or infamy, however you see it, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Y Combinator is the startup accelerator that launched Reddit, Airbnb, DoorDash, Dropbox, Stripe, Coinbase, the list goes on. Sam Altman was part of the inaugural cohort. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And the two of them cooked up this nonprofit with a charitable mission. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They launched OpenAI in 2015, as a nonprofit artificial intelligence research company. In the first blog post, the company wrote: “Our goal is to advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return. Since our research is free from financial obligations, we can better focus on a positive human impact.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But it doesn’t take long before they realize that if this is gonna be a thing, if this is gonna compete with Google, and whoever else might come along they were gonna need way more money than they were pulling in at the time.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So Elon Musk was spending millions, but they were probably gonna need billions. They started talking about setting up a for-profit division. And it wasn’t long before they realized in this conversation, collectively, that Elon wanted to be in charge of it, in control of it. And you can tell this because, you know, mounds of discovery, personal texts and email chains and personal journal entries made it abundantly clear that Musk was thinking close to the beginning like, ‘I know what I’ll do. We’ll fold this new this for-profit version of OpenAI into Tesla, where I can work on AGI in secret.’\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, Sam Altman and the other OpenAI principal co-founders weren’t down for that. Musk walked away in 2018. OpenAI launched ChatGPT in 2022. A year later, Musk announced his own AI startup, xAI, which eventually launched Grok. Musk has boasted about how Grok is not trained to be “woke”, unlike competitors like ChatGPT. OpenAI, meanwhile, has become the belle of the Silicon Valley ball, nabbing billions of dollars of investment from Microsoft. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And at a certain point, it becomes clear that the OpenAI nonprofit is really a shell of its former self. Right? Like, it’s all of the IP, all of the intellectual property has shifted, uh, from the nonprofit to the for-profit, all of the talent…I think it was kind of sitting there employee-free until very recently, and money was put into it. It’s now estimated to be worth about 200 billion, with a B, dollars. But what has this nonprofit been up to? Precious little. Precious little. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so at some point, Musk decides to sue and to say, ‘Wait a second, you know, um, this is a bait and switch…they’ve abandoned the mission that we cooked up originally and, I want recompense. I want Altman and others, stripped from the board, stripped from their leadership positions. I want, something like $150 billion shifted from the for-profit to the nonprofit.’ But of course, if you’re OpenAI, your attitude is like, ‘Whoa, this is clearly vindictive.’ You know, you didn’t get what you want, that’s why you walked away with your toys and your money, and, uh, you know, we’re gonna see you in court.’\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This legal showdown has been simmering for years. Between filing in early 2024 and finally walking into the courtroom for his testimony last month, Musk has: filed a motion accusing OpenAI and Microsoft of being a monopoly, led a group of investors in an attempt to buy OpenAI, threatened to sue Apple for giving OpenAI preferential treatment in the App Store, and has gotten into multiple online spats with Altman. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It was 100% clear there’s no love lost, uh, between you know, the principals. You know, what I like to say is, like, nobody has clean hands in this situation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So what exactly happened at this trial? Let’s open another new tab: Musk v. Altman \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> On one side you’ve got Elon Musk. You know, he didn’t come to be the wealthiest person on Earth by accident, right? Uh, even if he may not have been the person to start many of the companies he now owns and controls, uh, he took them into the stratosphere, quite literally in the case of SpaceX.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He’s very good at doing that, but he’s also well known to be mercurial, to have a kind of Jekyll and Hyde personality, to push other people to the breaking point.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And, um, he’s gonna make decisions that, uh, he doesn’t expect to be countermanded on in the slightest. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then you have somebody like Sam Altman, and, uh, I’ll tell you, it wasn’t any accident that The New Yorker came out with a scandalous profile of Sam Altman on the eve of the trial that basically, uh, described him as a compulsive pathological liar, and all of that came out in the trial too. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Let’s go through a few highlights from this trial. It got pretty juicy when Shivon Zillis took the stand. She’s a venture capitalist and machine learning expert who started working at OpenAI when it launched, and later joined the board of directors. She’s also the mother of four of Musk’s fourteen children. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In her testimony, she said that their relationship started with a “one-off” at a corporate off-site. When she decided to start a family on her own, Musk offered to be her platonic sperm donor. Their relationship grew, and now, they’re romantic partners. She told the OpenAI board about her relationship with Musk only after Business Insider started reporting on it. According to other testimony, many board members wanted to remove her, but decided to let her stay to, “keep the Elon conflict under control.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think for many people who are not familiar with Silicon Valley shenanigans, going back decades, not, this is not new to AI, um, it’s not just neutral characters on the board. It’s a very insular world. It’s on the level of incest, I would say. And so I, for one, was not shocked to discover that Elon Musk had a, again, like a consigliere on the board making decisions. She seemed to be there in many ways, um, serving as a go-between, between Sam and Elon, helping to smooth over conversations, helping to, to help them reach points of agreement when that was possible, and at the very least, have clarity on what the other side was thinking when that was not. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Something else that also g- kind of struck me about not just Zelis’s testimony, but also the other women who had roles in this period of time at OpenAI that was under discussion, is how much even the smartest women were only number twos, number threes, ancillary characters in a drama that starred men. This is all about men, primarily white men, with a tremendous sense of entitlement.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then there are these salacious journal entries. So, Greg Brockman is the president of OpenAI, and today, he has a 30 billion dollar stake in the company. But he wasn’t always so ludicrously wealthy. During the trial, pages of his personal diary from nearly 10 years ago were read out loud. And what he wrote seems to bolster Musk’s argument that they were all in it for the money, not necessarily for the good of humanity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Word to the wise, be aware that if you get sued, they’re gonna come looking for this stuff. You know? Like, when he’s, when he’s writing to himself, “What will take me to $1 billion?” it was pretty clear that it sounded like he was interested in becoming rich. You have a guy who was personally ambitious. Um, is that illegal? I don’t know if it’s illegal. It certainly didn’t look good. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The funny thing here about Zelis, and it’s kind of in parallel to, to Brockman, is that, you know, Zelis was taking notes. And also a lot of Zelis’ emails and texts document how early Musk knew that people were talking about a, uh, a for-profit, that Musk himself was talking about a for-profit form of OpenAI. So this kind of ate away at the argument that he was shocked, shocked to discover that self-enrichment had become such a powerful motivator for his colleagues.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Another standout from the trial: texts between Sam Altman and former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati from the night that the OpenAI board voted to fire Altman as CEO. He was reinstated after over 90% of OpenAI employees threatened to quit and work for Microsoft. That in between time period is known as “The Blip.” And the exchanges from the night it started were read in court, and have since gone viral — immediately embedded in the lexicon of internet reaction memes.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rachael and I are going to do a dramatic reading of the texts \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think I wanna be Mira. Or wait a moment. No, I wanna be Sam. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> You wanna be Sam? Okay. Okay.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow as Sam Altman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Can you indicate directionally good or bad? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung as Mira Murati: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Directionally very bad. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow as Sam Altman \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can I come in? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung as Mira Murati: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They don’t want you to.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow as Sam Altman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do you want to make it better? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m still willing to just walk away if that helps. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If they are ramped up for crazy lawsuits against me, then I’m not sure what… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Can you please tell them I just wanna resolve this however, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">and would like to join?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung as Mira Murati: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re convinced about their decision.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow as Sam Altman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> For me to be fired or some new thing? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung as Mira Murati: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, for you to be gone. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow as Sam Altman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. Then can I come in and talk about a path forward with them? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can you ask why they’ve been saying all weekend they wanted me back?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow as Sam Altman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Still don’t want me? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Message sent whoosh]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung as Mira Murati: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They don’t want you\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I mean, these read, these read like the kinds of texts that you would send during a really brutal breakup, like when you’re like, ‘Oh, my friend sees my ex in, in public. Can you please go talk to them?’ You know? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do they reveal about the power struggle at OpenAI though?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> There was an attempted coup, essentially, precisely because of Sam Altman’s, uh, alleged managerial misbehavior, pitting different people against each other with different stories.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another OpenAI board member, Helen Toner, shed light on this in her deposition. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Helen Toner basically said that Altman lied about what kind of safety reviews were done about, uh, models of ChatGPT that were released, that he ultimately cleared for release, and which, you know, she could say really wasn’t about AI safety, It was about this, you know, lack of trust in the communication. Microsoft, uh, CEO Satya Nadella, at one point he characterized the entire blip as amateur hour. Uh, these naive board members thinking that they could, you know, hold Sam Altman accountable, uh, for, for lying to them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Right. I mean, Brockman and Altman were both throwing around some pretty wild accusations about why Musk really wanted control of OpenAI. Um, Brockman said that he wanted to raise massive amounts of money to build a colony on Mars. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Um, Sam Altman claimed that Musk was planning to pass OpenAI down to his children when he died, like succession style. But I mean, everyone’s dirty laundry was aired out in that courtroom. Like, no one came out with clean hands, including Sam Altman. So what did the witnesses say about him and his character? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh my goodness. There were so many people who described him as a liar to the extent that when finally he was directly questioned about being a liar, uh, and he didn’t answer the question directly, it just made him look more like a liar. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There were so many people who talked about his lack of, uh, trustworthiness. Sam Altman on the witness stand for hours being asked why he’s such a big liar. His former chief scientist, his former chief technology officer, two former board members, all testifying under oath that Altman exhibited a consistent pattern of dishonesty.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That is now in the public record forever.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">all of these guys come off as self-serving and, and, uh, backstabbing and oily. I wouldn’t wanna meet any of them in a dark alley or on the other side of a business deal. You know, like, they’re obviously not out for the benefit of humanity. But then we knew that. Didn’t we know that? I think we knew that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After all that, mountains of evidence, hours of testimony, brutal days spent on those cold, hard, unforgiving courtroom benches, unless you had a fancy butt cushion, the ending of this trial was kind of anticlimactic. It took the jury just two hours to come to a unanimous decision. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The jury decided that Musk simply waited too long to sue. California has statutes of limitations. So you can’t just sit on your claims forever.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, in the end nothing happened! But that doesn’t mean the trial was for nothing. What’s the real outcome here? What did this courtroom drama really reveal? After the break, a new tab. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate.kqed.org/podcasts. Ok, after the break? We’re leaving the courtroom, and going back to the real world. Stick around.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We’re back! Let’s open one last tab: Musk v. Altman outcome.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the jury rejected Musk’s case this week. But it’s important to note that they didn’t make that decision based on the legal merit of his case, just that it was too late for Musk to pursue it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And the jury found that Musk knew or should have known what was happening at OpenAI by 2020 at the latest. He filed in 2024. He argued in court, you know, that that’s because it wasn’t that he was opposed to any kind of for-profit division. He just didn’t want one that dominated the nonprofit. And that didn’t become clear to him until 2023. So he wanted to essentially start the clock on the statue of limitations later on in the game\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But OpenAI argued and the judge essentially agreed that Musk needed to have made the case soon after what he saw happening at OpenAI by 2020 at the latest. So all three claims, breach of charitable trust, unjust enrichment, Microsoft aiding and abetting, are gone because of the statute of limitations thing, not because they decided on the merits.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hours after the verdict came out, Elon Musk responded in the most Elon Musk possible way, which is he took it to Twitter, uh, sorry, X, to complain. Um, he did a classic tweet and delete. So the first tweet he said, first post, “This illustrates why the ruling by the terrible activist Oakland judge, who simply used the jury as a fig leaf, creates such a terrible precedent. She just handed a free license to loot charities if you can keep the looting quiet for a few years.” And then deleted that. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then followed up, “Regarding the OpenAI case, the judge and jury never actually ruled on the merits of the case just on a calendar technicality. There is no question to anyone following the case in detail that Altman and Brockman did in fact enrich themselves by stealing a charity. The only question is when they did it.” \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Did this response surprise you at all?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Not in the slightest. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So now that she makes clear she agrees with the jury, Musk posted ‘she’s a terrible activist Oakland judge who handed out a free license to loot charities.’ Musk is just not sympathetic. Um, but I’m thinking, like President Trump, it wasn’t necessarily important to Musk to win the case, just to file it, to drag Altman through the mud in a very public way ahead of these two IPOs. If what you what is revenge, that’s not nothing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This trial did a number on Sam Altman’s public image. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It certainly revealed a lot of the circular business deals he was involved in. He may have recused himself from the actual votes with some of these companies but he nonetheless profited from them or could profit in the near future. I think this was a habit he picked up at Y Combinator. Anyway, it was laid bare in the courtroom. I think it put another nail in the coffin. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like, there were protesters outside the courthouse with some very funny signs up. And they poked the most fun at Musk, but they also poked a lot of fun at Sam Altman. You know, it’s Sam Altman’s house that got a Molotov cocktail thrown at it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, like, I think there is a great deal of public discontent, even rage over the rollout of AI into all of our lives. And, you know, this train got rolling out of the station through OpenAI, through ChatGPT, uh, and, you know, it was off to the races for a bunch of companies. But there at the forefront, at least in the beginning, was OpenAI, and Sam Altman is the face of OpenAI. And so this trial and all the mountains of evidence just confirm for people their opinions of Sam Altman.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, if there’s a fan club somebody’s gotta send me a T-shirt to prove it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A lot of Silicon Valley tends to operate in a kind of bubble, disconnected from the public’s growing discontent around AI. Students are graduating into increasingly unstable careers, thanks to companies pushing to replace human workers with AI, regardless of whether AI can do the jobs better. Nothing shows that disconnect quite like the reaction to commencement speakers who tried to praise AI to a room full of new graduates. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from University of Central Florida Graduation] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Speaker: The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Crowd: Boos \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Speaker: Woo! What happened? Ok, I struck a chord! \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Multiple commencement speakers across the country have tried to proselytize AI this month and they were booed each time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This rejection is not unfounded. While covering the trial, Rachael spoke to one of the protesters outside of the courthouse. Her name is Valerie. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Valerie Sizemore:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I used to be a software engineer, but, um, have been unemployed by AI, so now I’m trying to make the resistance happen.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So this trial, um, these two CEOs are fighting over a piece of a pie that, uh, doesn’t really matter for the world. They’re just trying to make themselves richer, but we’re all gonna lose regardless of who wins.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The AI titans, and they are titans now, keep mistaking public resistance for ignorance. Somebody like Valerie isn’t failing to understand the wonders of AI. She’s recognizing that the costs like higher power bills, strained electrical grids, her job disappearing on, her career disappearing on her. Right? A technology class that treats the question of public consent as an annoying inconvenience. I guess what I’m getting at here, Morgan, is that we’re not talking about a PR problem. We’re talking about class warfare.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This was a battle between two billionaires. The trial revolved around this core question: Is OpenAI’s commitment to the benefit of humanity real? Or, is the company’s commitment really to chasing profits at the expense of AI safety? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What was supposed to be the trial of the century ended without answers or accountability. And by ruling on timing instead of the actual merits of the case, the trial also failed to establish any legal precedent for AI governance and guardrails. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s not gonna do a damn thing to stop this nightmare. Right? Obviously there’s gonna be an appeal from Musk’s attorneys. Who knows what’ll happen there? But you know, both Musk with his SpaceX IPO and Altman with his OpenAI IPO, they’re just gonna go forward as before. The AI rollout will go on as before.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Who knows if we’ll ever get artificial general intelligence per se? I don’t think it matters. I mean, the changes that have been happening have been happening without artificial general intelligence. They’re, they’re disruptive enough. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> How do you think this case will impact future AI cases?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> OpenAI is a strange creature. It started as a nonprofit, maybe because Musk and Altman intuitively knew that, uh, they had a better chance of raising money at that time if they presented it as for the good of humanity as opposed to, you know, just a chance to get in on this gold rush.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right? And, and it must be said, and you know, many of the OpenAI principals said it many times that in the beginning, in the first few years of OpenAI, it was not clear at all it was gonna succeed, right? Google seemed to have such a head start and such a well-capitalized head start. So, you know, OpenAI has only become fabulously valued, um, in recent years, and it, it’s still not making money.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To go back to, you know, like what, what precedent does this set for Silicon Valley? I don’t know that it sets any precedent because who in their right mind would start something like OpenAI again in that way? You would set up a startup like any other group of entrepreneurs and take your chances with that setup.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All of this theater ended with no real answers, no real accountability, and no real change for the AI industry overall. So then was the point of taking this case to court in the first place? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The judge put tight, and I mean tight brackets around what this case was going to be about at trial, which raises the question for me, why did she take this case in the first place?Why did she give Elon Musk standing if he had unclean hands? He was a rival. He was a competitor in the AI space. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that Gonzalez Rogers wanted these guys on both sides to be forced to peel back the curtain on how AI came to dominate the world in the way that it does now. And maybe the judge couldn’t give us accountability, but she could give us visibility, and that’s not nothing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And another upside: all those juicy, salacious details that were once just gossip fodder, that’s public record now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rachael Myrow: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Is there any legal precedent here? I think maybe the point was the theater.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s it for this episode, but stick around after the credits. Ok, let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode was produced by Chris Egusa and edited by Chris Hambrick. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Close All Tabs team also includes producer Maya Cueva and audio engineer Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts, and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by my dad, Casey Sung, and recorded on his white and blue Epomaker Aula F99 keyboard with Graywood v3 switches and Cherry profile PBT keycaps.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks for listening! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rachael Myrow: Steve Molo, uh, the Musk’s attorney: “Have you misled people with whom you do business?” \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Altman “I do not think so.” \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then Molo says, “Would they think so?”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then Altman says, “I can’t answer that.”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Molo says, “You’ve repeatedly been called a liar by people with whom you’ve done business.”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Altman: “I have heard people say that.” \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Molo: “Are you completely trustworthy?”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Altman: “I believe so.”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Molo: “You don’t know?”\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Altman: “I’ll just amend my answer to yes.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "iran-is-winning-the-slopaganda-war",
"title": "Iran Is Winning The Slopaganda War",
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"headTitle": "Iran Is Winning The Slopaganda War | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">AI-generated LEGO videos have become a tool of war. Since the U.S.-Israel war with Iran began in late February, increasingly elaborate videos featuring LEGO figures and catchy rap lyrics have been flooding our feeds. They’re shareable, surprisingly high quality and they’re deeply critical of the U.S. and Trump. They’re also propaganda.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome to the age of “slopaganda” — where AI Slop meets information warfare.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Michał Klincewicz, assistant professor of computational cognitive science, joins Morgan to break down the rise of slopaganda, what it’s doing to our information ecosystem and why the U.S. is losing the meme war.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC5115004196\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sites.google.com/site/michalklincewicz/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Michał Klincewicz\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, assistant professor of computational cognitive science at Tilburg University\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://slopaganda-two.vercel.app/#paper\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaganda: The interaction between propaganda and generative AI\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Michal Klincewicz, Mark Alfano, and Amir Ebrahimi Fard, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Filosofiska Notiser \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/slopaganda-wars-how-and-why-the-us-and-iran-are-flooding-the-zone-with-viral-ai-generated-noise-280024\">Slopaganda wars: how (and why) the US and Iran are flooding the zone with viral AI-generated noise\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Mark Alfano and Michal Klincewicz, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>The Conversation\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/17/vengeance-for-all-how-irans-lego-videos-won-narrative-war-against-trump\">‘Vengeance for all’: How Iran’s Lego videos won narrative war against Trump | US-Israel war on Iran News\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Alia Chughtai, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>Al Jazeera\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/the-team-behind-a-pro-iran-lego-themed-viral-video-campaign\">The Team Behind a Pro-Iran, Lego-Themed Viral-Video Campaign\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Kyle Chayka, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>The New Yorker\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/youtube-removes-iran-linked-channel-producing-anti-trump-animation\">YouTube removes pro-Iran channel producing anti-Trump videos \u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Alex MacDonald, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>Middle East Eye\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/31/we-want-the-mullahs-gone-economic-crisis-sparks-biggest-protests-in-iran-since-2022\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">‘We want the mullahs gone’: economic crisis sparks biggest protests in Iran since 2022\u003c/span>\u003c/a> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Deepa Parent and William Christou, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Guardian \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Host Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hello! Do you like these deep dives? Do you want more? It would be so, so helpful if you could rate and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show! Send it to your friends…your frenemies…that one niche micro influencer you kind of have a parasocial relationship with! Maybe they’ll respond, I don’t know!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, let’s get to the show. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n[Audio clip from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I just looked him in the eye and told him what I saw. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wait a minute homie, I said Inshallah. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Little orange man, little orange man, it’s the straight of Iran.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Little orange man. Iran! \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, let me try to explain what’s going on here. So this is an animated video, and it’s clearly AI. The setting is LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean — and it opens by zooming in on this Davy Jones-type character. You know, the cursed pirate with the tentacle beard? But this Davy Jones also looks a lot like President Donald Trump. Instead of a peg leg, he has a golf club. And he’s steering his ship directly through a LEGO gate labeled “Strait of Hormuz.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Little orange man, little orange man, get straight out of Hormuz, little orange man. Get out!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is one of dozens of incredibly catchy, viral videos from a small content studio called Explosive Media. All of their videos follow a similar format: LEGO characters, and taking shots at the Trump administration and the United States. Like, calling the president “the Twitter-finger king.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Twitter finger king, fake ring, cap master with the lies. Always tweeting great success while your whole damn squad cries.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Based on the style, tone, and topics covered, you might think this content is coming from a left-wing American studio. Or maybe a progressive media outlet.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s not that different from the kind of stuff the Democratic party has posted to appeal to gen z voters.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But there’s a consistent thread through every single video — they all revolve around the war between the US and Iran. And it’s because they’re coming directly \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">from\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Iran. That’s right, it’s all propaganda. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wartime propaganda is nothing new. But take a look at the videos spreading across social media today … something feels different.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Little orange man, little orange man, get straight out of Hormuz, little orange man. Get out!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome to the age of slopaganda. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s a combination of “slop” as in AI slop and propaganda. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Guest Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> it’s out of the bottle. The genie is out of the bottle and it’s gonna be wrecking havoc for a while. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Michal Klincewicz. He’s a professor of computational cognitive science at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. He’s one of the leading experts on slopaganda. He actually co-authored a paper on this last year. And he said that the slopaganda that’s coming out of Iran today is very different from the propaganda of past wars. It’s more potent. It’s churned out faster. There’s a clear, consistent narrative that pulls viewers in and convinces them to keep watching.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaganda has gotten really popular, making it harder to discern what’s real, and what’s not. When our information ecosystem is flooded with catchy LEGO music videos, what is it distracting us from? What happens when public opinion can be so easily manipulated by AI slop? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That is the slopagandapocalypse. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopageddon? Is that, is that better, slopageddon? Ooh!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I like slopageddon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. That’s better. You know, I just coined a term on your show, slopageddon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Today’s deep dive is all about slopaganda: how it took over our feeds, what it’s doing to our brains, and why the US might be losing the meme war. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Plus, we’re going to get into how we might be able to stop Slopaggeddon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ready? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By now, you know this goes! Let’s open a new tab: What is slopaganda? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok let’s break this down. First: slop.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slop is kind of mid to low quality AI generated content,\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">that is online. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s Michal again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So text, videos, images, anything of the sort \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">AI slop has been flooding the internet for years now, but more recently we’ve seen social media users embrace it, knowing it’s artificially generated, synthetic media. And that’s led to some slop content going viral. A few weeks ago we talked about an incredibly popular TikTok series called AI Fruit Love Island.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of Fruit Love Island]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome back to Fruit Love Island. Today, we’ve got a steamy challenge. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was basically Love Island, the reality TV dating show, but all of the contestants were sexy anthropomorphized fruit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This kind of low-quality AI generated content has become the norm online. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then there’s the second part of the word, propaganda\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">,\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> or content that’s designed to deliver some kind of political message, usually to persuade.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So affect beliefs, perceptions,\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">or emotional states of the audience or a political goal in mind. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Propaganda is not always about boosting patriotism on the home front. Across history, countries have used propaganda on their opponents’ citizens, to sow distrust in leadership. Like, during the Vietnam War, there was Hanoi Hannah. She was a Vietnamese broadcaster who recorded English language messages, designed to demoralize Americans GIs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of Hanoi Hannah]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">GI your government has abandoned you . They lied to you, GI. You know you cannot win this war. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The US has done it too, and on a massive scale. In fact, the US has done this in Iran. Back in 1953, the CIA helped overthrow Iran’s democratically elected prime minister. They staged riots and planted fake stories in local news outlets to manipulate public opinion. It’s a tactic the US has repeatedly used over the last 70 years: sowing distrust, destabilizing leadership, and engineering a regime change in Syria, Indonesia, Poland, throughout Latin America. I mean, the list goes on and on. Propaganda plays a huge part in it. And when you add AI to the mix? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\nMichal actually published a research paper about slopaganda last year — long before LEGO AI videos went viral. He’s known his co-authors for years — Mark Alfano, a philosopher who studies neural networks, and Amir Fard, a machine learning expert. Among themselves, they’ve talked about how propaganda has evolved with social media, algorithms, and bot farms. But then, in May of 2024, right as the US presidential election began heating up, they shared an experience that changed how they thought about it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They were all in Poland for a conference. Since it wasn’t too far from where they were staying, they decided to take a trip to Auschwitz. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And I think that was a kind of a watershed moment for us because we connected the dots really very dramatically between what was happening and the way that things were talked about in the United States and what we were seeing.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The National Socialist Party of Germany had a propaganda wing. They used the radio, they used the newspapers, but they were delivering a message of disinformation about people that ended up dying there. And I think that for us, this caught fire. We talked about slopaganda right then and there. Eventually, this led up to writing a paper with Amir in November and December of 2024. We sort of channeled that rage and anger. That’s how it happened.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the paper, the researchers detail the one-off deepfakes that went viral during the election: Kamala Harris saying something she never did, the AI generated images that made Taylor Swift look like she endorsed Trump, the voters who got calls from a voice that sounded exactly like then-President Joe Biden, encouraging them to stay home and not vote in the state primary.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n[Audio clip of Robocall sent to New Hampshire voters]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Voting this Tuesday only enables the Republicans in their quest to elect Donald Trump again. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then last year, right after inauguration, President Trump himself posted a video and it wasn’t a deepfake. Michal said that was the tipping point that started the descent into slopageddon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b> \u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was a, I guess, a moment when Donald Trump during an interview or something said something about building a resort in Gaza city after the Israelis sort of move in, I guess. And they will build a resort, a Riviera on the coast of the Mediterranean and an AI video came out showing this and Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump sort of drinking margaritas poolside with Gaza Trump hotel in the background.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Donald Trump Gaza video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Donald’s coming to set you free, bringing the light for all to see. No more tunnels, no more fear. Trump Gaza is finally here.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That was like the first one that clearly for us was emblematic of this. The first clear case of like, slopaganda as we envisioned it, I think is the Gaza video\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To be clear, this was a video posted by Donald Trump’s official account. The video starts with Gaza, demolished and reduced to rubble. Then, it’s transformed into a tourist destination. It’s gaudy and over the top, like if Vegas was on the beach. There’s a giant gold statue of President Trump, looming over everyone. There are market stands that sell golden effigies of Trump, and children carry golden balloons of Trump’s face. Elon Musk makes a few appearances, throwing cash at beachgoers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Donald Trump Gaza video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Trump Gaza shining bright, golden future, a brand new light. Feast and dance, the deal is done. Trump Gaza number one.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s uncanny and it’s almost designed to not take seriously. Right? It’s a way of portraying something abhorrent in a way, something morally problematic, at least, if not despicable, um, through a joke,and it slips past, I think our moral defenses in a way, because we’re fascinated by that, right? Like just kind of watching the train wreck, the moral train wreck in that video, and we watch it to the end. Um, that’s a little bit like maybe reality TV or something.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s a kind of thing that happens as you’re watching it. By the end, it’s somehow conceivable. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Trump administration was just the first. Slopaganda flooded elections in Europe, too. Russia’s propaganda machine dates back to the days of the Soviet Union — AI just supercharged it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of DW News report on AI Hungarian election ads]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the defining issues of our times, the use of artificial intelligence. And the risks that it could pose not only to all our jobs, but to democracy itself…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This year, during the Hungarian election for prime minister, the country’s social media feeds were overrun with fearmongering AI slop videos. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of DW News report on AI Hungarian election ads]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…a message he’s hammering home with the help of AI…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They claimed that Hungarians would be forcibly sent to war in Ukraine.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of DW News report on AI Hungarian election ads]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The video ends with a warning that Brussels could make such a nightmare real…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Of course, none of it was real. The candidate behind those ads, the incumbent prime minister, has close ties to Vladimir Putin.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s the same stuff that we would have seen from Russia. So, you know, disinformation campaigns about candidates, scandals, of corruption. Right? Narratives that are meant to like undermine, for example, the effort to put sanctions on Russia. All of these things are amplified with generative AI content so text, images, videos, and so on. And some of these are very effective or effective in that they’re like high quality. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So why is slopaganda flooding our feeds? There’s no escape from it. It’s polluting pretty much every political conversation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But, in the U.S. specifically especially slopaganda from the White House. well, Michal said that it may have something to do with the ties between the US government and big tech companies. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The long-term consequences of mixing corporate power and governance is very well known and studied around the world. It’s called fascism and a classic Italian Mussolini style fascism. That’s what they built in Italy and they kind of with a few tweaks, re-implemented in Germany. The rise of slopaganda or rise of like AI generated content has political consequences, even independently of that, because I think it gives a lot of power to a few people that can create the message. And it takes power away from the individuals that will be at the voting booth casting a vote. The person that controls the prompt, as we saw like with Grok or something, changes the conversation.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, but why can’t we look away from AI slop? What about it is so effective? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re going to get into that — after this break. But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://donate.kqed.org/podcasts\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">donate.kqed.org/podcasts\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Ok, more on slopaganda after the break. Stick around. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re back. Let’s open a new tab: Why is slopaganda so effective?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ve seen people refer to what’s currently happening between the U.S. And Iran as a meme war, and memes have been very potent vehicles of propaganda and disinformation. There’s a long documented history of memes being weaponized in politics and conflict. What makes this current iteration with slopaganda different? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/strong>It’s generated quickly, the quality is much higher. It’s more persuasive, it’s more complex. It has many layers: an audio one, a visual one, a narrative one, that are done extremely professionally. So all of that has to do with the fact that it’s generated by AI actually. So these tools enable this kind of fast turnaround, high quality stuff to come out. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Explosive Media, the digital content studio behind a lot of LEGO slopaganda, started posting animated political videos on YouTube last year. They had an anti-American theme, but didn’t really catch on. A few months ago, right around the first US-Israeli strikes on Iran, Explosive Media began posting LEGO-themed videos. And they blew up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the earlier videos had no dialogue, just intense music. It showed scenes of people who’ve been oppressed by the American government. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Native American riders on horses, dressed in traditional regalia, Japanese villagers gathered in front of a photo of Hiroshima after the atomic bomb, Palestinians in Gaza, West Africans who were chained and subjected to slavery and they’re all LEGOs. They take turns sending missiles to the White House, the Statue of Liberty, and the Titanic? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They gather and cheer, and text appears that says, “One Vengeance For All.” \u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That got some attention, but only went so far. Then Explosive Media added rapping on top of the LEGO videos … and suddenly, they’d cracked the code. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You said you aint no pedophile, but bitch, you are. Yelling worldwide for the Epstein scar. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Iranian videos are using the language of the contemporary dialogue about colonialism, about imperialism about, uh, the Epstein class.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audio clips from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sacred defense, we protecting the soil, while you sacrifice soldiers to pay for your spoil. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We see everything, every secret, every dirty Epstein link you hide \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Your government is run by pedophiles, they ordered you to die for Israel. They lied to you all. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> All of these things are the kinds of words or the kinds of concepts that we can hear being thrown around by people in the US that comment on current affairs. This is what Iran is doing. They’re not presenting their propaganda or their message using the language of, say, Shia Islam or the Iran-Iraqi war or any of these that really matter to the old guard. Of the Iranian revolution. This stuff is new, it’s fresh, it hit, and it’s kind of capturing our attention here as opposed to the attention of the Iranians there.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The LEGO music videos are so effective that it’s inspiring similar ones, from people in other countries, who also feel wronged by the US.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Earlier this month, the US announced additional sanctions on Cuba, which has already been devastated by the American-imposed fuel blockade.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Days after that announcement, an X user, based in Havana, posted this video: \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of AI video from Cuba]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Escucha el rugido que Baja del Lomerío Aquí no hay miedo ni rastro de escalofrío Pretenden asfixiar la sabia de esta tierra con garras de imperio y tambores de guerra…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The translation – \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">listen to the roar descending from the hills. Here, there is no fear, nor a trace of a shiver. They seek to suffocate the sap of this land with claws of empire and war drums.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This video’s got it all. LEGO-fied depictions of Havana’s colorful cityscape, the idyllic Caribbean beaches, the vibrant tobacco farms wrapped up with a patriotic message about defending Cuba from an American invasion and obviously, set to a very catchy beat.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a trend now. Criticizing the US in any way? Do it with LEGO! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The White House has also been posting slopaganda to its various official channels. Though the American version is, well … just listen to this. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from White House Strike video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here comes the heat from the USA. And boom! Up and down. What a strike. [cheering]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, so that video, again, posted by\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the White House, starts with an ESPN clip of real life bowling champion Pete Weber preparing for his legendary winning strike. Then it cuts to a bunch of animated bowling pins carrying guns and a sign that says “We won’t stop making nuclear weapons.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Free Bird playing]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re in a desert. They’re marching. And yes, that is Lynyrd Skynyrd’s \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Free Bird\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that you’re hearing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Suddenly, they’re in a bowling alley, getting into formation … and then a bowling ball emblazoned with American stars and stripes comes hurtling toward them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The pins come tumbling down, and a fighter jet comes flying out of the bowling ball. And as the beat picks up, the video cuts to real footage of American airstrikes on Iran. Fade to black. And then a title card that says “ The White House.” In case you forgot who made the video.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMichal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re not really high quality stuff. This is kind of their memes or content for made by, I think, boomers for boomers, essentially. And I think the LEGO videos from Iran are made by millennials for the world. And the White House is using the kind of language and conceptual tools that may have been effective 30 years ago. The messages are kind of mixed. They don’t form a coherent narrative the Iranian stuff on the other hand is very coherent and there is a way in which it’s presenting a narrative from one video to the next. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Gulf is our hood, and we holdin’ the key, Get back on your phone, you, get no pass for free! World is askin’ if the gate is open? Yes or nah? I just smile at ’em…”I said Inshallah!” \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s almost as if these things were episodes that come out every day.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A spokesperson for Explosive Media told Al Jazeera that there are ten people who work on their videos. It’s a Gen Z studio — all of them are between 19 and 25. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMichal Klincewicz:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would speculate a large team of people that know what they’re doing, have a very keen sense of both the media landscape in the United States and in the world, but also of the themes. So I would think this is probably the tip of an iceberg of some kind of a massive media and propaganda operation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The studio claims to be independent, but has admitted that their clientele does include the Iranian state. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it shows in how the slopaganda videos are used. They’re used to really undermine the war effort in the United States and to, I think, get Americans and other people around the world on their side.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Until recently, a lot of AI generated media has been designed to intentionally dupe people, the deepfaked call of Biden’s voice, telling voters to stay home, the videos of Ukrainian soldiers, appearing to surrender on the front lines.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But the Iranian LEGO videos are so obviously AI slop. No one thinks the LEGO guy in the Little Orange Man video is \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">actually \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Trump. No one is getting duped into believing that’s really him, dressed in a pirate get up and getting shipwrecked in Iran. So why is this propaganda still so effective? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Perhaps it’s so effective because it appears not to be real. These are not deep fakes. No one is pretending that this is real, that we know it’s AI generated, that kind of sucks you in. And there’s some kind of uncanniness about it. We’re kind of like, wait, what? And that moment I think is the first hook. There’s probably different videos, different styles of slopaganda for different audiences. That’s also one of its powers, that it’s so easy to make a customized version of the same message for a specific audience. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In various interviews, a spokesperson for Explosive Media who goes by “Mr. Explosive” explained some of the team’s processes. He’s talked about how poetry is a pillar of Persian history and culture, so the team writes the rap lyrics themselves. Then, they use AI to Americanize the songs and generate the singing voices.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it’s clear that they have their fingers on the pulse of American pop culture. The Pirates of the Caribbean, for one, is one of Disney’s most successful franchises. It’s something that’s immediately recognizable and familiar to a lot of Americans. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Listen … Lost in our fog, you call us the pirates? Man, check the mirror, dawg, you’re the one that’s biased, Vultures on the water, fiending for the black gold, Straight freeloaders, doing what you’re told! \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All of these references are the sorts of things you may hear from more progressive liberal parts of our country about the problems of say, you know, wealth inequality or abuse of power, corruption by the Trump administration. This is where this stuff is coming from. So they’re kind of using the message that actually would resonate with people that are already in some ways uncomfortable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like, this video, which is an outlier for Explosive Media. Instead of a story about LEGO pirate Trump bumbling his way through the strait of Hormuz, this one starts with an overhead shot of Tehran. A LEGO version, of course. A LEGO figurine smiles at the audience and holds out his arms to the viewer, like he’s welcoming us in for a hug. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We do not hate you, people of the West. We have watched from across the ocean, from behind their walls, and what we see is a people who deserve better than what rules them.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The video lays out all these grievances with the American government and mainstream media. These are sentiments that resonate with a lot of Americans: concerns over rising costs, opposition to another war, feeling disempowered by the current political system.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The billionaire who funds the law then writes the law himself, the pharmaceutical machine that keeps you sick for profit and wealth. The school that teaches history with chapters torn away. So you never ask the question, who made it this way? \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The previous videos from Explosive Media have always attacked Trump or members of his cabinet. And for the most part, left the American people out of it. This video directly addresses Americans. Instead of taking personal shots at specific leaders, it’s a critique of the systemic failures of American society at large. It’s almost a show of solidarity.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are not your enemies. We’re prisoners of the same cause. We love Americans. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s convincing. It’s supposed to be. This is the kind of emotional appeal that makes propaganda especially effective. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, emotions are the first thing that we may have when we see a message. And if they’re negative emotions, in particular things like fear or anxiety or resentment, whatever it is that we experience or we believe while we have these emotional states, we’re more likely to remember. There’s a lot of research about this and the negativity bias in memory is pretty prominent and once it’s in there, it doesn’t get out. So you form that negative association with a politician or some kind of a celebrity, it’s gonna be very hard for you to get rid of it moving forward. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When there’s so much noise, it’s hard to pick out what’s real and what’s not. There’s only so much information that a human being can consume and process every day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What breaks through the noise and captures our attention tends to be content that’s emotionally alarming. It triggers our brain’s emotional center before we can process that information rationally. And studies have shown that people remember negative information better … which can ultimately influence our beliefs and reasoning. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Between a dry news article and a catchy LEGO video — which one are you going to remember next week? Next month? Next election cycle? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s important to note that these videos are a very effective distraction. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All that stuff is distracting us from the nature of the Iranian regime that literally in January, machine gunned like tens of thousands of its own people.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the end of last year, amid Iran’s worsening economic crisis, shop keepers and university students took to the streets in protest of the country’s Islamic leadership. A week later, demonstrations erupted across the country, calling for an end to the religious government, and demanding a secular democracy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Iranian authorities crushed the protests with brutal force. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Tehran eyewitness protest footage]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re shooting us! They’re shooting us! This government is shooting people.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Human rights groups say more than 7,000 people were killed during the protests, with tens of thousands more still unaccounted for.Doctors in Iran estimate that the death toll could be over 30,000.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Two things can be true. The LEGO slopaganda videos coming out of Iran make points about the US that a lot of Americans might agree with about its leadership, and how it’s failing its own people while also taking the spotlight off of Iran’s own government. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even if you know that the LEGO videos are fake and AI, if they’re hijacking your attention, drowning out other content online then the slopaganda is doing what it’s supposed to.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That changes how we consume information, whether we care about truth at all. And that’s very bad for a democracy, actually, if you have a bunch of people that don’t care about what is true and are used to not taking what people say seriously. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So what happens when LEGO rap overshadows actual news? When we can’t look away from an AI generated diss track? When a whole population can be so easily distracted? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaggedon. Michal and his co-authors call it the slopaganda shit storm. For our next tab, we’ll go with my favorite: slopagandapocalypse. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s open one more tab: How to survive the slopagandapocalypse \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Michal said it’s not really a question of stopping the slopaganda doomsday scenario — we’re already living it. And slopaganda is, relatively speaking, so new. We’re in uncharted waters here, and we don’t have solid research on the effects that slopaganda will have on society and democracy down the road. But Michal has a few hunches. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> One real possible consequence of this is that slopaganda is going to be here for, to stay And it will be a tool in the toolbox of every authoritarian regime in the world, just as like batons and riot police have been.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So will this be, uh, it will just be AI generated, slop is gonna be yet another way to bamboozle, distract people around the world.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaganda has already wormed its way into LA’s mayoral race, with former reality TV star and current candidate Spencer Pratt reposting AI-generated videos of his opponent. Like this Star Wars-themed one, where incumbent LA mayor Karen Bass, portrayed as Darth Vader, schemes with California Governor Gavin Newsom, who’s deepfaked as Emperor Palpatine. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n[Audio clip of AI-generated video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You didn’t finish burning the city to the ground in the first term. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Make sure you finish the job in your second term. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The only thing that can stop us is someone telling the truth. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As long as they don’t have any hope, the city is ours. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Spencer Pratt appears, depicted as a Jedi, and battles Darth Karen above the Hollywood sign. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[lightsaber sounds]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is peak slopaganda.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You could argue that AI tools have, in some way, democratized the creation of propaganda. Anyone with access to a video generator and a taste for pop culture has the potential to make their message go viral. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaganda itself, and the AI tools used to create it, are morally neutral. Michal joked about how we \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">could\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> have more slopaganda about recycling, or being nice to each other. But instead, we’re increasingly seeing political candidates and government institutions use it to undermine opponents and steer the narrative. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it’s going to give a lot of power to people that have a lot of money to do this, that will be able to basically create the world in their own image. The second consequence of this, and I think this is maybe optimistic, is that people are going to turn away from the internet. I think that there’s a way in which AI content is kind of really taking over all the spaces on the internet that people cared about. And I think at some point you’re just gonna say, you know what, yeah, I have better things to do in my time. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Are there any feasible interventions to stopping the slopageddon? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you were to look a little bit more to Europe, I think there’s some ideas about what this could look like. There’s the Digital Services Act, which is connected to the European Commission, and the AI Act. These are legal instruments meant to police basically Facebook and X and so on from stealing European citizens’ data. The tech companies hate them because they have real bite.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Unfortunately, Michal doesn’t see that happening in the U.S.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I don’t think there’s gonna be any meaningful institutional interventions from the United States anytime soon\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">California, for one, has tried to crack down. Back in 2024, Governor Newsom signed a series of laws that required more disclosure and transparency around political deepfakes, and required social media companies to remove the “deceptive” content before an election.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Here’s the twist: Slopaganda might actually be protected by the First Amendment — it could be considered satire or political speech. Long story short, Elon Musk sued the state, and now my X feed is full of AI Spencer Pratt doing deepfake Return of the Jedi.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Lightsaber sounds]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zooming out, back to the war between the US and Iran, it’s clear that the White House slopaganda, reactive, disjointed, made to appeal to Boomers, is failing to reach a lot of its own citizens. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I don’t think it’s working. I think it’s kind of cringey and, and clunky stuff but I think maybe they’re portraying themselves as, as you know, winning the war. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So, without institutional change, what can individual people do to be a little more resilient to slopaganda? Not just in this war, but in any political setting? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Slopaganda, again, is neither good nor bad on its own, right? Just remember who is sending this stuff and why. Educate yourself a little bit about the larger context of what’s happening. There’s a history there, There are motivations that are hidden behind the cute videos that we may not know about.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We need to remember why we’re watching this content in the first place, and interrogate its purpose. What kind of reaction is it eliciting? What is it distracting you from? How did it come across your feed in the first place? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And if you get overwhelmed, well, Michal has one temporary solution. Log off! Touch grass! The slop is never ending but you can still give your brain a break from consuming it.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMichal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think we need more love in our life. I mean, seriously, just get away from the internet a little bit from social media and just kind of start, um, hanging out. With each other more, and then this stuff just doesn’t matter.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And with that, let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts, and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran, and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you like these deep dives? Are you closing your tabs? Then don’t forget to rate and review us on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show! Maybe drop a comment too! And if you really like Close All Tabs and want to support public media, go to donate.KQED.org/podcasts! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks for listening! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think there just aren’t enough professionals there anymore. Maybe they got rid of them with Project 2025. I don’t know. Maybe there is no more media wing of the White House.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The DOGE cuts hit deep.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The DOGE cuts. That’s why this stuff is clunky and sucks. These memes are not dank! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The war in Iran has led to the emergence of \"slopaganda\" — where AI slop meets information warfare.",
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"title": "Iran Is Winning The Slopaganda War | KQED",
"description": "AI-generated Lego videos have become a tool of war. Since the U.S.-Israel war with Iran began in late February, increasingly elaborate videos featuring LEGO figures and catchy rap lyrics have been flooding our feeds. They're shareable, surprisingly high quality and they're deeply critical of the U.S. and Trump. They're also propaganda. Welcome to the age of "slopaganda" — where AI Slop meets information warfare. Michał Klincewicz, professor of computational cognitive science, joins Morgan to break down the rise of slopaganda, what it's doing to our information ecosystem and why the U.S. is losing the meme war.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">AI-generated LEGO videos have become a tool of war. Since the U.S.-Israel war with Iran began in late February, increasingly elaborate videos featuring LEGO figures and catchy rap lyrics have been flooding our feeds. They’re shareable, surprisingly high quality and they’re deeply critical of the U.S. and Trump. They’re also propaganda.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome to the age of “slopaganda” — where AI Slop meets information warfare.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Michał Klincewicz, assistant professor of computational cognitive science, joins Morgan to break down the rise of slopaganda, what it’s doing to our information ecosystem and why the U.S. is losing the meme war.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC5115004196\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://sites.google.com/site/michalklincewicz/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Michał Klincewicz\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, assistant professor of computational cognitive science at Tilburg University\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://slopaganda-two.vercel.app/#paper\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaganda: The interaction between propaganda and generative AI\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Michal Klincewicz, Mark Alfano, and Amir Ebrahimi Fard, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Filosofiska Notiser \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://theconversation.com/slopaganda-wars-how-and-why-the-us-and-iran-are-flooding-the-zone-with-viral-ai-generated-noise-280024\">Slopaganda wars: how (and why) the US and Iran are flooding the zone with viral AI-generated noise\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Mark Alfano and Michal Klincewicz, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>The Conversation\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/17/vengeance-for-all-how-irans-lego-videos-won-narrative-war-against-trump\">‘Vengeance for all’: How Iran’s Lego videos won narrative war against Trump | US-Israel war on Iran News\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Alia Chughtai, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>Al Jazeera\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/the-team-behind-a-pro-iran-lego-themed-viral-video-campaign\">The Team Behind a Pro-Iran, Lego-Themed Viral-Video Campaign\u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Kyle Chayka, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>The New Yorker\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/youtube-removes-iran-linked-channel-producing-anti-trump-animation\">YouTube removes pro-Iran channel producing anti-Trump videos \u003c/a>\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Alex MacDonald, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>Middle East Eye\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/31/we-want-the-mullahs-gone-economic-crisis-sparks-biggest-protests-in-iran-since-2022\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">‘We want the mullahs gone’: economic crisis sparks biggest protests in Iran since 2022\u003c/span>\u003c/a> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Deepa Parent and William Christou, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Guardian \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Host Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hello! Do you like these deep dives? Do you want more? It would be so, so helpful if you could rate and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show! Send it to your friends…your frenemies…that one niche micro influencer you kind of have a parasocial relationship with! Maybe they’ll respond, I don’t know!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, let’s get to the show. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n[Audio clip from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I just looked him in the eye and told him what I saw. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wait a minute homie, I said Inshallah. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Little orange man, little orange man, it’s the straight of Iran.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Little orange man. Iran! \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, let me try to explain what’s going on here. So this is an animated video, and it’s clearly AI. The setting is LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean — and it opens by zooming in on this Davy Jones-type character. You know, the cursed pirate with the tentacle beard? But this Davy Jones also looks a lot like President Donald Trump. Instead of a peg leg, he has a golf club. And he’s steering his ship directly through a LEGO gate labeled “Strait of Hormuz.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Little orange man, little orange man, get straight out of Hormuz, little orange man. Get out!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is one of dozens of incredibly catchy, viral videos from a small content studio called Explosive Media. All of their videos follow a similar format: LEGO characters, and taking shots at the Trump administration and the United States. Like, calling the president “the Twitter-finger king.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Twitter finger king, fake ring, cap master with the lies. Always tweeting great success while your whole damn squad cries.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Based on the style, tone, and topics covered, you might think this content is coming from a left-wing American studio. Or maybe a progressive media outlet.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s not that different from the kind of stuff the Democratic party has posted to appeal to gen z voters.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But there’s a consistent thread through every single video — they all revolve around the war between the US and Iran. And it’s because they’re coming directly \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">from\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Iran. That’s right, it’s all propaganda. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wartime propaganda is nothing new. But take a look at the videos spreading across social media today … something feels different.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Little orange man, little orange man, get straight out of Hormuz, little orange man. Get out!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome to the age of slopaganda. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s a combination of “slop” as in AI slop and propaganda. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Guest Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> it’s out of the bottle. The genie is out of the bottle and it’s gonna be wrecking havoc for a while. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Michal Klincewicz. He’s a professor of computational cognitive science at Tilburg University in the Netherlands. He’s one of the leading experts on slopaganda. He actually co-authored a paper on this last year. And he said that the slopaganda that’s coming out of Iran today is very different from the propaganda of past wars. It’s more potent. It’s churned out faster. There’s a clear, consistent narrative that pulls viewers in and convinces them to keep watching.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaganda has gotten really popular, making it harder to discern what’s real, and what’s not. When our information ecosystem is flooded with catchy LEGO music videos, what is it distracting us from? What happens when public opinion can be so easily manipulated by AI slop? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That is the slopagandapocalypse. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopageddon? Is that, is that better, slopageddon? Ooh!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I like slopageddon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. That’s better. You know, I just coined a term on your show, slopageddon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Today’s deep dive is all about slopaganda: how it took over our feeds, what it’s doing to our brains, and why the US might be losing the meme war. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Plus, we’re going to get into how we might be able to stop Slopaggeddon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ready? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By now, you know this goes! Let’s open a new tab: What is slopaganda? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok let’s break this down. First: slop.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slop is kind of mid to low quality AI generated content,\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">that is online. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s Michal again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So text, videos, images, anything of the sort \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">AI slop has been flooding the internet for years now, but more recently we’ve seen social media users embrace it, knowing it’s artificially generated, synthetic media. And that’s led to some slop content going viral. A few weeks ago we talked about an incredibly popular TikTok series called AI Fruit Love Island.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of Fruit Love Island]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome back to Fruit Love Island. Today, we’ve got a steamy challenge. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was basically Love Island, the reality TV dating show, but all of the contestants were sexy anthropomorphized fruit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This kind of low-quality AI generated content has become the norm online. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Then there’s the second part of the word, propaganda\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">,\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> or content that’s designed to deliver some kind of political message, usually to persuade.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So affect beliefs, perceptions,\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">or emotional states of the audience or a political goal in mind. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Propaganda is not always about boosting patriotism on the home front. Across history, countries have used propaganda on their opponents’ citizens, to sow distrust in leadership. Like, during the Vietnam War, there was Hanoi Hannah. She was a Vietnamese broadcaster who recorded English language messages, designed to demoralize Americans GIs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of Hanoi Hannah]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">GI your government has abandoned you . They lied to you, GI. You know you cannot win this war. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The US has done it too, and on a massive scale. In fact, the US has done this in Iran. Back in 1953, the CIA helped overthrow Iran’s democratically elected prime minister. They staged riots and planted fake stories in local news outlets to manipulate public opinion. It’s a tactic the US has repeatedly used over the last 70 years: sowing distrust, destabilizing leadership, and engineering a regime change in Syria, Indonesia, Poland, throughout Latin America. I mean, the list goes on and on. Propaganda plays a huge part in it. And when you add AI to the mix? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\nMichal actually published a research paper about slopaganda last year — long before LEGO AI videos went viral. He’s known his co-authors for years — Mark Alfano, a philosopher who studies neural networks, and Amir Fard, a machine learning expert. Among themselves, they’ve talked about how propaganda has evolved with social media, algorithms, and bot farms. But then, in May of 2024, right as the US presidential election began heating up, they shared an experience that changed how they thought about it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They were all in Poland for a conference. Since it wasn’t too far from where they were staying, they decided to take a trip to Auschwitz. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> And I think that was a kind of a watershed moment for us because we connected the dots really very dramatically between what was happening and the way that things were talked about in the United States and what we were seeing.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The National Socialist Party of Germany had a propaganda wing. They used the radio, they used the newspapers, but they were delivering a message of disinformation about people that ended up dying there. And I think that for us, this caught fire. We talked about slopaganda right then and there. Eventually, this led up to writing a paper with Amir in November and December of 2024. We sort of channeled that rage and anger. That’s how it happened.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the paper, the researchers detail the one-off deepfakes that went viral during the election: Kamala Harris saying something she never did, the AI generated images that made Taylor Swift look like she endorsed Trump, the voters who got calls from a voice that sounded exactly like then-President Joe Biden, encouraging them to stay home and not vote in the state primary.\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n[Audio clip of Robocall sent to New Hampshire voters]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Voting this Tuesday only enables the Republicans in their quest to elect Donald Trump again. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then last year, right after inauguration, President Trump himself posted a video and it wasn’t a deepfake. Michal said that was the tipping point that started the descent into slopageddon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b> \u003cb> \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There was a, I guess, a moment when Donald Trump during an interview or something said something about building a resort in Gaza city after the Israelis sort of move in, I guess. And they will build a resort, a Riviera on the coast of the Mediterranean and an AI video came out showing this and Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump sort of drinking margaritas poolside with Gaza Trump hotel in the background.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Donald Trump Gaza video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Donald’s coming to set you free, bringing the light for all to see. No more tunnels, no more fear. Trump Gaza is finally here.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> That was like the first one that clearly for us was emblematic of this. The first clear case of like, slopaganda as we envisioned it, I think is the Gaza video\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To be clear, this was a video posted by Donald Trump’s official account. The video starts with Gaza, demolished and reduced to rubble. Then, it’s transformed into a tourist destination. It’s gaudy and over the top, like if Vegas was on the beach. There’s a giant gold statue of President Trump, looming over everyone. There are market stands that sell golden effigies of Trump, and children carry golden balloons of Trump’s face. Elon Musk makes a few appearances, throwing cash at beachgoers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Donald Trump Gaza video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Trump Gaza shining bright, golden future, a brand new light. Feast and dance, the deal is done. Trump Gaza number one.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> It’s uncanny and it’s almost designed to not take seriously. Right? It’s a way of portraying something abhorrent in a way, something morally problematic, at least, if not despicable, um, through a joke,and it slips past, I think our moral defenses in a way, because we’re fascinated by that, right? Like just kind of watching the train wreck, the moral train wreck in that video, and we watch it to the end. Um, that’s a little bit like maybe reality TV or something.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s a kind of thing that happens as you’re watching it. By the end, it’s somehow conceivable. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Trump administration was just the first. Slopaganda flooded elections in Europe, too. Russia’s propaganda machine dates back to the days of the Soviet Union — AI just supercharged it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of DW News report on AI Hungarian election ads]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the defining issues of our times, the use of artificial intelligence. And the risks that it could pose not only to all our jobs, but to democracy itself…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This year, during the Hungarian election for prime minister, the country’s social media feeds were overrun with fearmongering AI slop videos. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of DW News report on AI Hungarian election ads]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…a message he’s hammering home with the help of AI…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They claimed that Hungarians would be forcibly sent to war in Ukraine.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of DW News report on AI Hungarian election ads]\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The video ends with a warning that Brussels could make such a nightmare real…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Of course, none of it was real. The candidate behind those ads, the incumbent prime minister, has close ties to Vladimir Putin.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s the same stuff that we would have seen from Russia. So, you know, disinformation campaigns about candidates, scandals, of corruption. Right? Narratives that are meant to like undermine, for example, the effort to put sanctions on Russia. All of these things are amplified with generative AI content so text, images, videos, and so on. And some of these are very effective or effective in that they’re like high quality. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So why is slopaganda flooding our feeds? There’s no escape from it. It’s polluting pretty much every political conversation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But, in the U.S. specifically especially slopaganda from the White House. well, Michal said that it may have something to do with the ties between the US government and big tech companies. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The long-term consequences of mixing corporate power and governance is very well known and studied around the world. It’s called fascism and a classic Italian Mussolini style fascism. That’s what they built in Italy and they kind of with a few tweaks, re-implemented in Germany. The rise of slopaganda or rise of like AI generated content has political consequences, even independently of that, because I think it gives a lot of power to a few people that can create the message. And it takes power away from the individuals that will be at the voting booth casting a vote. The person that controls the prompt, as we saw like with Grok or something, changes the conversation.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, but why can’t we look away from AI slop? What about it is so effective? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re going to get into that — after this break. But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"http://donate.kqed.org/podcasts\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">donate.kqed.org/podcasts\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Ok, more on slopaganda after the break. Stick around. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re back. Let’s open a new tab: Why is slopaganda so effective?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ve seen people refer to what’s currently happening between the U.S. And Iran as a meme war, and memes have been very potent vehicles of propaganda and disinformation. There’s a long documented history of memes being weaponized in politics and conflict. What makes this current iteration with slopaganda different? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cstrong>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/strong>It’s generated quickly, the quality is much higher. It’s more persuasive, it’s more complex. It has many layers: an audio one, a visual one, a narrative one, that are done extremely professionally. So all of that has to do with the fact that it’s generated by AI actually. So these tools enable this kind of fast turnaround, high quality stuff to come out. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Explosive Media, the digital content studio behind a lot of LEGO slopaganda, started posting animated political videos on YouTube last year. They had an anti-American theme, but didn’t really catch on. A few months ago, right around the first US-Israeli strikes on Iran, Explosive Media began posting LEGO-themed videos. And they blew up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the earlier videos had no dialogue, just intense music. It showed scenes of people who’ve been oppressed by the American government. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Native American riders on horses, dressed in traditional regalia, Japanese villagers gathered in front of a photo of Hiroshima after the atomic bomb, Palestinians in Gaza, West Africans who were chained and subjected to slavery and they’re all LEGOs. They take turns sending missiles to the White House, the Statue of Liberty, and the Titanic? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They gather and cheer, and text appears that says, “One Vengeance For All.” \u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That got some attention, but only went so far. Then Explosive Media added rapping on top of the LEGO videos … and suddenly, they’d cracked the code. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You said you aint no pedophile, but bitch, you are. Yelling worldwide for the Epstein scar. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Iranian videos are using the language of the contemporary dialogue about colonialism, about imperialism about, uh, the Epstein class.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n[\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audio clips from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sacred defense, we protecting the soil, while you sacrifice soldiers to pay for your spoil. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We see everything, every secret, every dirty Epstein link you hide \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Your government is run by pedophiles, they ordered you to die for Israel. They lied to you all. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> All of these things are the kinds of words or the kinds of concepts that we can hear being thrown around by people in the US that comment on current affairs. This is what Iran is doing. They’re not presenting their propaganda or their message using the language of, say, Shia Islam or the Iran-Iraqi war or any of these that really matter to the old guard. Of the Iranian revolution. This stuff is new, it’s fresh, it hit, and it’s kind of capturing our attention here as opposed to the attention of the Iranians there.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The LEGO music videos are so effective that it’s inspiring similar ones, from people in other countries, who also feel wronged by the US.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Earlier this month, the US announced additional sanctions on Cuba, which has already been devastated by the American-imposed fuel blockade.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Days after that announcement, an X user, based in Havana, posted this video: \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of AI video from Cuba]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Escucha el rugido que Baja del Lomerío Aquí no hay miedo ni rastro de escalofrío Pretenden asfixiar la sabia de esta tierra con garras de imperio y tambores de guerra…\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The translation – \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">listen to the roar descending from the hills. Here, there is no fear, nor a trace of a shiver. They seek to suffocate the sap of this land with claws of empire and war drums.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This video’s got it all. LEGO-fied depictions of Havana’s colorful cityscape, the idyllic Caribbean beaches, the vibrant tobacco farms wrapped up with a patriotic message about defending Cuba from an American invasion and obviously, set to a very catchy beat.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a trend now. Criticizing the US in any way? Do it with LEGO! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The White House has also been posting slopaganda to its various official channels. Though the American version is, well … just listen to this. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from White House Strike video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here comes the heat from the USA. And boom! Up and down. What a strike. [cheering]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ok, so that video, again, posted by\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">the White House, starts with an ESPN clip of real life bowling champion Pete Weber preparing for his legendary winning strike. Then it cuts to a bunch of animated bowling pins carrying guns and a sign that says “We won’t stop making nuclear weapons.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Free Bird playing]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re in a desert. They’re marching. And yes, that is Lynyrd Skynyrd’s \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Free Bird\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that you’re hearing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Suddenly, they’re in a bowling alley, getting into formation … and then a bowling ball emblazoned with American stars and stripes comes hurtling toward them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The pins come tumbling down, and a fighter jet comes flying out of the bowling ball. And as the beat picks up, the video cuts to real footage of American airstrikes on Iran. Fade to black. And then a title card that says “ The White House.” In case you forgot who made the video.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMichal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re not really high quality stuff. This is kind of their memes or content for made by, I think, boomers for boomers, essentially. And I think the LEGO videos from Iran are made by millennials for the world. And the White House is using the kind of language and conceptual tools that may have been effective 30 years ago. The messages are kind of mixed. They don’t form a coherent narrative the Iranian stuff on the other hand is very coherent and there is a way in which it’s presenting a narrative from one video to the next. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Gulf is our hood, and we holdin’ the key, Get back on your phone, you, get no pass for free! World is askin’ if the gate is open? Yes or nah? I just smile at ’em…”I said Inshallah!” \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s almost as if these things were episodes that come out every day.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A spokesperson for Explosive Media told Al Jazeera that there are ten people who work on their videos. It’s a Gen Z studio — all of them are between 19 and 25. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMichal Klincewicz:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would speculate a large team of people that know what they’re doing, have a very keen sense of both the media landscape in the United States and in the world, but also of the themes. So I would think this is probably the tip of an iceberg of some kind of a massive media and propaganda operation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The studio claims to be independent, but has admitted that their clientele does include the Iranian state. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it shows in how the slopaganda videos are used. They’re used to really undermine the war effort in the United States and to, I think, get Americans and other people around the world on their side.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Until recently, a lot of AI generated media has been designed to intentionally dupe people, the deepfaked call of Biden’s voice, telling voters to stay home, the videos of Ukrainian soldiers, appearing to surrender on the front lines.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But the Iranian LEGO videos are so obviously AI slop. No one thinks the LEGO guy in the Little Orange Man video is \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">actually \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Trump. No one is getting duped into believing that’s really him, dressed in a pirate get up and getting shipwrecked in Iran. So why is this propaganda still so effective? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Perhaps it’s so effective because it appears not to be real. These are not deep fakes. No one is pretending that this is real, that we know it’s AI generated, that kind of sucks you in. And there’s some kind of uncanniness about it. We’re kind of like, wait, what? And that moment I think is the first hook. There’s probably different videos, different styles of slopaganda for different audiences. That’s also one of its powers, that it’s so easy to make a customized version of the same message for a specific audience. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung : \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In various interviews, a spokesperson for Explosive Media who goes by “Mr. Explosive” explained some of the team’s processes. He’s talked about how poetry is a pillar of Persian history and culture, so the team writes the rap lyrics themselves. Then, they use AI to Americanize the songs and generate the singing voices.\u003c/span> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it’s clear that they have their fingers on the pulse of American pop culture. The Pirates of the Caribbean, for one, is one of Disney’s most successful franchises. It’s something that’s immediately recognizable and familiar to a lot of Americans. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Listen … Lost in our fog, you call us the pirates? Man, check the mirror, dawg, you’re the one that’s biased, Vultures on the water, fiending for the black gold, Straight freeloaders, doing what you’re told! \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All of these references are the sorts of things you may hear from more progressive liberal parts of our country about the problems of say, you know, wealth inequality or abuse of power, corruption by the Trump administration. This is where this stuff is coming from. So they’re kind of using the message that actually would resonate with people that are already in some ways uncomfortable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like, this video, which is an outlier for Explosive Media. Instead of a story about LEGO pirate Trump bumbling his way through the strait of Hormuz, this one starts with an overhead shot of Tehran. A LEGO version, of course. A LEGO figurine smiles at the audience and holds out his arms to the viewer, like he’s welcoming us in for a hug. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Explosive Media video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We do not hate you, people of the West. We have watched from across the ocean, from behind their walls, and what we see is a people who deserve better than what rules them.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The video lays out all these grievances with the American government and mainstream media. These are sentiments that resonate with a lot of Americans: concerns over rising costs, opposition to another war, feeling disempowered by the current political system.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The billionaire who funds the law then writes the law himself, the pharmaceutical machine that keeps you sick for profit and wealth. The school that teaches history with chapters torn away. So you never ask the question, who made it this way? \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The previous videos from Explosive Media have always attacked Trump or members of his cabinet. And for the most part, left the American people out of it. This video directly addresses Americans. Instead of taking personal shots at specific leaders, it’s a critique of the systemic failures of American society at large. It’s almost a show of solidarity.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Explosive Media video]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are not your enemies. We’re prisoners of the same cause. We love Americans. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s convincing. It’s supposed to be. This is the kind of emotional appeal that makes propaganda especially effective. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, emotions are the first thing that we may have when we see a message. And if they’re negative emotions, in particular things like fear or anxiety or resentment, whatever it is that we experience or we believe while we have these emotional states, we’re more likely to remember. There’s a lot of research about this and the negativity bias in memory is pretty prominent and once it’s in there, it doesn’t get out. So you form that negative association with a politician or some kind of a celebrity, it’s gonna be very hard for you to get rid of it moving forward. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When there’s so much noise, it’s hard to pick out what’s real and what’s not. There’s only so much information that a human being can consume and process every day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What breaks through the noise and captures our attention tends to be content that’s emotionally alarming. It triggers our brain’s emotional center before we can process that information rationally. And studies have shown that people remember negative information better … which can ultimately influence our beliefs and reasoning. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Between a dry news article and a catchy LEGO video — which one are you going to remember next week? Next month? Next election cycle? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s important to note that these videos are a very effective distraction. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All that stuff is distracting us from the nature of the Iranian regime that literally in January, machine gunned like tens of thousands of its own people.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the end of last year, amid Iran’s worsening economic crisis, shop keepers and university students took to the streets in protest of the country’s Islamic leadership. A week later, demonstrations erupted across the country, calling for an end to the religious government, and demanding a secular democracy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Iranian authorities crushed the protests with brutal force. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from Tehran eyewitness protest footage]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re shooting us! They’re shooting us! This government is shooting people.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Human rights groups say more than 7,000 people were killed during the protests, with tens of thousands more still unaccounted for.Doctors in Iran estimate that the death toll could be over 30,000.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Two things can be true. The LEGO slopaganda videos coming out of Iran make points about the US that a lot of Americans might agree with about its leadership, and how it’s failing its own people while also taking the spotlight off of Iran’s own government. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even if you know that the LEGO videos are fake and AI, if they’re hijacking your attention, drowning out other content online then the slopaganda is doing what it’s supposed to.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That changes how we consume information, whether we care about truth at all. And that’s very bad for a democracy, actually, if you have a bunch of people that don’t care about what is true and are used to not taking what people say seriously. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So what happens when LEGO rap overshadows actual news? When we can’t look away from an AI generated diss track? When a whole population can be so easily distracted? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaggedon. Michal and his co-authors call it the slopaganda shit storm. For our next tab, we’ll go with my favorite: slopagandapocalypse. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s open one more tab: How to survive the slopagandapocalypse \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Michal said it’s not really a question of stopping the slopaganda doomsday scenario — we’re already living it. And slopaganda is, relatively speaking, so new. We’re in uncharted waters here, and we don’t have solid research on the effects that slopaganda will have on society and democracy down the road. But Michal has a few hunches. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> One real possible consequence of this is that slopaganda is going to be here for, to stay And it will be a tool in the toolbox of every authoritarian regime in the world, just as like batons and riot police have been.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So will this be, uh, it will just be AI generated, slop is gonna be yet another way to bamboozle, distract people around the world.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaganda has already wormed its way into LA’s mayoral race, with former reality TV star and current candidate Spencer Pratt reposting AI-generated videos of his opponent. Like this Star Wars-themed one, where incumbent LA mayor Karen Bass, portrayed as Darth Vader, schemes with California Governor Gavin Newsom, who’s deepfaked as Emperor Palpatine. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n[Audio clip of AI-generated video] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You didn’t finish burning the city to the ground in the first term. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Make sure you finish the job in your second term. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The only thing that can stop us is someone telling the truth. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As long as they don’t have any hope, the city is ours. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Spencer Pratt appears, depicted as a Jedi, and battles Darth Karen above the Hollywood sign. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[lightsaber sounds]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is peak slopaganda.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You could argue that AI tools have, in some way, democratized the creation of propaganda. Anyone with access to a video generator and a taste for pop culture has the potential to make their message go viral. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Slopaganda itself, and the AI tools used to create it, are morally neutral. Michal joked about how we \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">could\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> have more slopaganda about recycling, or being nice to each other. But instead, we’re increasingly seeing political candidates and government institutions use it to undermine opponents and steer the narrative. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it’s going to give a lot of power to people that have a lot of money to do this, that will be able to basically create the world in their own image. The second consequence of this, and I think this is maybe optimistic, is that people are going to turn away from the internet. I think that there’s a way in which AI content is kind of really taking over all the spaces on the internet that people cared about. And I think at some point you’re just gonna say, you know what, yeah, I have better things to do in my time. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Are there any feasible interventions to stopping the slopageddon? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you were to look a little bit more to Europe, I think there’s some ideas about what this could look like. There’s the Digital Services Act, which is connected to the European Commission, and the AI Act. These are legal instruments meant to police basically Facebook and X and so on from stealing European citizens’ data. The tech companies hate them because they have real bite.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Unfortunately, Michal doesn’t see that happening in the U.S.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I don’t think there’s gonna be any meaningful institutional interventions from the United States anytime soon\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">California, for one, has tried to crack down. Back in 2024, Governor Newsom signed a series of laws that required more disclosure and transparency around political deepfakes, and required social media companies to remove the “deceptive” content before an election.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Here’s the twist: Slopaganda might actually be protected by the First Amendment — it could be considered satire or political speech. Long story short, Elon Musk sued the state, and now my X feed is full of AI Spencer Pratt doing deepfake Return of the Jedi.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Lightsaber sounds]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zooming out, back to the war between the US and Iran, it’s clear that the White House slopaganda, reactive, disjointed, made to appeal to Boomers, is failing to reach a lot of its own citizens. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I don’t think it’s working. I think it’s kind of cringey and, and clunky stuff but I think maybe they’re portraying themselves as, as you know, winning the war. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> So, without institutional change, what can individual people do to be a little more resilient to slopaganda? Not just in this war, but in any political setting? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Slopaganda, again, is neither good nor bad on its own, right? Just remember who is sending this stuff and why. Educate yourself a little bit about the larger context of what’s happening. There’s a history there, There are motivations that are hidden behind the cute videos that we may not know about.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> We need to remember why we’re watching this content in the first place, and interrogate its purpose. What kind of reaction is it eliciting? What is it distracting you from? How did it come across your feed in the first place? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And if you get overwhelmed, well, Michal has one temporary solution. Log off! Touch grass! The slop is never ending but you can still give your brain a break from consuming it.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMichal Klincewicz:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think we need more love in our life. I mean, seriously, just get away from the internet a little bit from social media and just kind of start, um, hanging out. With each other more, and then this stuff just doesn’t matter.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\nMorgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And with that, let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts, and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran, and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you like these deep dives? Are you closing your tabs? Then don’t forget to rate and review us on Spotify, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show! Maybe drop a comment too! And if you really like Close All Tabs and want to support public media, go to donate.KQED.org/podcasts! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks for listening! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> I think there just aren’t enough professionals there anymore. Maybe they got rid of them with Project 2025. I don’t know. Maybe there is no more media wing of the White House.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> The DOGE cuts hit deep.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michal Klincewicz: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The DOGE cuts. That’s why this stuff is clunky and sucks. These memes are not dank! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "how-an-onlyfans-model-and-a-cosplayer-are-fighting-nonconsensual-deepfake-porn",
"title": "How an OnlyFans Model and a Cosplayer Are Fighting Nonconsensual Deepfake Porn",
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"headTitle": "How an OnlyFans Model and a Cosplayer Are Fighting Nonconsensual Deepfake Porn | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">diving into the world of nonconsensual deepfake porn and why this problem reaches far beyond influencers and sex workers.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When users on X started asking Grok to generate explicit images of real women and girls without their consent, Twitch streamer and OnlyFans creator Morgpie watched the harassment spiral in real time. Cosplayer and software engineer Zander Small saw firsthand how nonconsensual images affected his girlfriend, a SFW creator, and her friends. The two decided to team up to build tools that help creators detect leaks, remove deepfakes, and reclaim control over their images online.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Note:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This episode contains mentions of gender-based violence and nonconsensual intimate imagery, which may be triggering for some listeners. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC5643980688\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/bigguswombus/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Morgpie\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, OnlyFans creator and cofounder of Fanlock\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/zander_smalls/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zander Small\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cb>, \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">content creator and cofounder of Fanlock\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.dexerto.com/twitch/influencers-take-on-ai-deepfakes-with-new-creator-protection-agency-3324719/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Influencers take on AI deepfakes with their own creator protection agency\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Virginia Glaze, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dextero\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/musks-ai-chatbot-grok-xai-making-sexual-deepfakes-imagine-rcna265855\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Musk’s Grok AI chatbot is still making sexual deepfakes, despite X’s promise to stop it\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — David Ingram, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NBC News\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/deepfake-nudify-schools-global-crisis/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Deepfake Nudes Crisis in Schools Is Much Worse Than You Thought\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Matt Burgess, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">WIRED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://19thnews.org/2025/05/take-it-down-act-signing-explicit-images\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Take It Down Act: How to use it to remove revenge porn\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Jasmine Mithani, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The 19th\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://rainn.org/rainns-recommendations-for-legislators/image-based-sexual-abuse-laws-combat-nonconsensual-ai-deepfakes/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Image-Based Sexual Abuse Laws: Combat Nonconsensual AI Deepfakes\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">RAINN\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://rainn.org/get-informed/issues/ai-tech-enabled-sexual-abuse/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">AI & Tech-Enabled Sexual Abuse: Risk & Prevention\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">RAINN\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://deepstrike.io/blog/deepfake-statistics-2025\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Deepfake Statistics 2025: AI Fraud Data & Trends\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Mohammed Khalil, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">DeepStrike\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Are you closing your tabs? You can be honest, this is a safe space. If you’re a fan of Close All Tabs and you want more of it, then please rate and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show. And tell your friends about us. It would be such a huge help to get the word out.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, let’s get to the show. Just a note, this episode contains mentions of gender-based violence and non-consensual intimate imagery, which may be triggering for some listeners.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, you know Grok? It’s the AI chatbot integrated with X, the social media app formerly known as Twitter and now owned by Elon Musk. Well, since late last year, Grok has been embroiled in an undressing scandal, generating sexually explicit images of people without their consent. The majority of targets were women. Some were minors, young girls. For a few weeks, it was a pretty disgusting widespread trend. When women or even teenage girls posted fully clothed photos of themselves on X, other users would comment and tag Grok, asking it to ‘put her in a bikini’ or ‘take off her top.’ The chatbot would publicly respond with a generated lewd or completely naked image of the subject. Some users went even further, asking Grok to add blood and bruises, prompting the chatbot to generate graphic, sexually violent images of these women.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh man, it was very much like I was waking up every day and I didn’t want to post.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Morgpie, a Twitch streamer and OnlyFans creator. People who know her IRL call her Morgan. She’s been a porn actress for years, and as someone who makes sexually explicit content, she’s used to creeps harassing her with her own nudes. But the Grok and dressing trend really unsettled her. It was the worst in January.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Being looped in with something that is so violating, and like you said, something that’s even affecting minors is just disgusting. Every day I was going into my comments and just like hiding replies and blocking because I’m like, I’m not going to let you guys just generate these images of me that I did not consent to, especially if it’s being associated with basically creating child pornography on Twitter.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This was non-consensual, intimate imagery, more commonly known as deep fake porn. A deep fake is content that has been generated or manipulated by AI to imitate someone else. Zander Small, another content creator and a friend of Morgan’s, says that the proliferation of AI tools has started to seriously affect content creators, regardless of whether or not they make adult content.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Deep fakes can be anything from deep fake explicit imagery with like, a creator doing something or nude content that they didn’t consent to. Or it could be stuff as simple as like, an audio deep fake where a creator is saying something that they don’t consent too, which might have repercussions of them being canceled or stuff that they just obviously wouldn’t consent to saying.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Morgan hasn’t had to deal with deep fake porn of herself as much. After years of being in this industry, she’s developed thick skin. She’s mostly dealt with leaks, or explicit content that she posted behind a paywall that was illegally downloaded and posted elsewhere, without her consent. But the Grok trend is just the tip of the iceberg. Non-consensual deep fake-porn has exploded over the last few years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that for a lot of people, the lack of consent is very attractive.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is an issue that overwhelmingly affects women, and these circles are not as fringe as you might think. An annual report last year by the cybersecurity firm DeepStrike found that roughly 97% of all deepfakes online fall under non-consensual intimate imagery, and that 99 to 100% of victims of deepfake pornography are women. Here’s Zander again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it is either fans, if you want to call them that, or just creeps on the internet, wanting to see more out of a creator than they consented to. I know it affects a lot of SFW creators.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SFW, or Safe for Work. They don’t show nudity or make sexually explicit content. While NSFW, not Safer work, means adult content.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, you know, and I guess from that, you know, if a creator isn’t consenting to do more explicit content, then, you know, these, uh, I guess perpetrators, creeps, whatever you want to call them, you know, take into their hands to do it themselves. And it’s incredibly easy to deep fake content and, you know, as models get better and better and they get quicker and quicker, it doesn’t really require as much of sophisticated technology to run these models.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some of the mainstream models, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, have guardrails that are supposed to prevent them from generating deep fake porn. In January, X announced that it implemented technological measures to prevent Grok from modifying images of real people in revealing clothing. But there are ways to get around these guardraills. Just last month, NBC News reported that Grok is still generating deep-fake porn of real women. And like Zander said, there are so many other models out there that just don’t have these guardrails in the first place.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zander hasn’t had to deal with deep fake porn of himself, but he’s seen how much it’s affected people he’s close to, other safer work creators who don’t make explicit content. And Morgan, coming from the porn industry, has seen how this issue affects her fellow adult content creators.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So late last year, they teamed up to come up with a solution for other creators. Today, we’re diving into the seedy reality of non-consensual deepfake porn, when it got so bad, why it’s so hard to stop, and how two Gen Z content creators are trying to tackle it. Ready?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s open our first tab: the reality of non-consensual deep fake porn. Morgan is an award-winning porn creator. Literally, she has multiple Pornhub awards. And when she started years ago, the internet was very different.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s very interesting because when I first started, the climate was very much like, if you opened up Twitter, you would see tweets that are like, ‘sex work is real work.’ Of course, this was kind of around the time when OnlyFans was only just emerging barely.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the world of adult content, there was before OnlyFans, and then there’s after OnlyFans. The platform completely changed the game, lowering the barrier of entry for new creators and giving them new options to monetize their content. Morgan said that before OnlyFans blew up, the only way to make a living as an independent porn creator was to land on the front page of Pornhub, or actresses had to break into the industry by being part of studio productions where they didn’t have as much autonomy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s very interesting the shift between whenever porn was basically widely available, you didn’t really have to pay much for it. When I first started, I was uploading to Pornhub, and that was full length, full scenes that you could see for free at any time. Whereas now, the climate has shifted a lot to where creators like myself have a lot more control. So we’re able to, you know, use OnlyFans as a platform where we are more connected with our audience and that is actually the main pull. Now we’re in this age where these models can kind of take a bit of that control back. They can control what content they make, how much they sell it for. And I think that that plays so much into like the conversation about deepfakes where it’s about control. It’s all about consent. And then with deepfakes, you can make anybody do anything. So you have the control over this other person.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Since joining OnlyFans, Morgan and other adult creators have dealt with the same problem: leaks. They consent to paying subscribers accessing certain premium content that’s been posted behind a paywall. Then some unscrupulous subscriber downloads it and posts it publicly without their permission for the rest of the world to see. It was a constant source of frustration for Morgan.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then about a year and a half ago, Morgan noticed the deep fakes. Her friends told her about how they stumbled across videos of themselves online, but it wasn’t really them. Someone had taken explicit content from behind their paywalls and modified it, morphing them into these scenarios that the creators never wanted to be in.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Again, it all stems back to control. It’s like, ‘oh, you did this thing that I didn’t like. Well, look at this control I have over your image. I’m going to use that against you.’.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think some detractors would say, like, ‘oh, well, if you make explicit content, why does deep fake porn bother you? Or why do your leaks bother you?’ What would you say to them?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, it’s it’s all about consent. That’s like saying, ‘oh, because you make porn, if I see you on the street, I can sexually assault you.’ You know, it’s like, consent is a very real thing. And there’s a big difference between me in the comfort of my own home within my own boundaries, producing content that I enjoy, and somebody else taking these things and making content that I didn’t consent to be in.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s not just Morgan and her fellow porn actresses dealing with this. Women who don’t make explicit content are also subjected to this harassment. One of the most well-known cases of this was when Atrioc, a Twitch streamer, was live. During his stream, he showed his open tabs for a split second, and one of them included deep fake porn of his own friends and streaming colleagues. He was caught buying this content. QTCinderella, another streamer was one of Atriok’s close friends. She was also a victim of the deep fake porn he bought.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio Clip of QTCinderella]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Atrioc for showing it to thousands of people, the people DMing me pictures of myself from that website, f*ck you all!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pokimane is like a great example of this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pokimane is another Twitch streamer who was also a victim of atriox deep fake porn purchases. She does not make explicit adult content, but as a woman existing online, she deals with harassment constantly. Like, here she is reading comments from her audience.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of Pokimane]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yo yo yo, let’s see some ass. This ain’t a club fam, this is just my Twitch chat.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are so many clips of her literally just getting up and standing up out of her chair and that’ll get clipped and posted all over Twitter. And all of Twitter is like, ‘look at what she’s doing. She’s gooner baiting!’.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Goonerbait started as a term to describe video games or anime that aren’t pornographic but contain a lot of sexual imagery like jiggle physics and very scantily clad female characters. It’s media designed to appeal to gooners. Gooners are porn addicts. And now, internet randos love to accuse real-life women of gooner baiting, mainly female streamers like Pokimane.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">‘She’s, you know, performing for her male audience.’ And it’s like, well, is she really doing anything? She kind of just got up and walked out of the room, but they’re like, ‘oh, her pants are a little too tight.’ So it’s, like, I think this idea of a woman that’s kind of, just not really even doing anything, a lot of people love to just over-sexualize.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In some online circles, there is the sentiment that women like Morgan deserve to be deepfaked because they already make porn, and that women, like Pokimane, also deserve to deepfake because they’re somehow gooner baiting. It even affects people who don’t post online. Non-consensual deepfakes are rampant in schools. A Wired investigation last month found that high school boys have targeted their fellow classmates by spreading fake, generated nudes of them. These are teenage girls.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, the thing is, it’s not going to stop with sex workers. As much as the sentiment these days is very anti-sex work, like, ‘oh, if you make this content, you’re kind of putting yourself up to be distributed in this way.’ But the thing it is, is it’s 100% a slippery slope and it’s going to keep going into Twitch streamers who are known and even just normal people. There’s nothing stopping anybody from pulling up somebody’s Facebook profile, just a normal person who doesn’t produce any content whatsoever, and making explicit deep fakes of them and distributing them. And that can be used as blackmail. The possibilities there are quite literally endless in terms of the harm that they could cause for everybody.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’ve talked about spending so much money on deepfake takedowns, but how did you initially try to tackle this problem of deepfakes and leaked content?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was going in every single week and I was Googling my name and I was going on like Twitter, Reddit, all these other sites, just like searching for my name, um, and seeing pages and pages and pages of all this leaked content that would come up. And back then I was paying over a thousand dollars a month on these takedowns, but I would still have to go in and manually report a lot of stuff. You shouldn’t really have to go in and look at your own leaks and your own deep fakes, which is just awful.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Morgan was at her wits end. And then, late last year, she saw that Zander was working on a project that may be able to solve her problem. And she wanted to help. We’ll hear Zander’s story after the break.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate.kqed.org slash podcasts. Okay, back to the story after the break. Stick around.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re back. Now, let’s open that new tab: What is Fanlock?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zander had started out as a Minecraft YouTuber back in high school. It was a fun thing he did on the side before he went to college to study software engineering. He was on his high school robotics team and loved tinkering and fixing things. A few years ago, during his sophomore year, he started going to anime conventions with his friends. Here’s the thing, Zander’s really tall. He’s 6’8″. His friend pointed out that he could carve out a real niche as a comically tall cosplayer. He pushed Zander to start posting.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He was like ‘Bro, it’s gonna be like viral because like, oh my gosh, why is a Gojo cosplayer like as tall as like LeBron James?’ So I did it and it did pretty good. And I guess it just snowballed from there and I just haven’t stopped since.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">About six months after he went viral as comically tall Gojo, he started getting brand deals from anime companies. He gained hundreds of thousands of followers. He flew all over the country, attending cons and meetups. He even hosted a few lookalike competitions. There’s a picture of the Hatsune Miku lookalite competition he hosted. A gaggle of cosplayers in turquoise wigs, and then Zander, towering above the crowd in his own turquois getup. Of course, he was still in school juggling a burgeoning full-time career as a content creator while also attending classes and doing homework and studying for exams.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He considered dropping out, but his parents really, really wanted him to stay in school. They weren’t thrilled at the idea of their son leaving an engineering degree to pursue anime content. So he stuck it out, and last year, while finishing up his last semester of school, He stumbled across this deep fake problem. It struck a very personal chord.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So about a month before I graduated, my girlfriend, who’s an SFW creator, had a huge deep fake problem. Um, you know, there’s accounts popping up on like Threads or Instagram that either use her likeness or just full on non-consensual porn, uh, deep fakes of her, which is super mentally taxing, uh on her, you know, as an SF W creator. You know, she didn’t consent to being in those positions or having these account to DM her fans, like, ‘Hey, send me $400 and we’ll go on a date,’ type of just scam content. So it was from there that I was like, let me see what’s up and see if I can help you. So that’s when I really took a deep dive into DMCA, non-consensual imagery and depending on the platform it’s on what you can do about that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">DMCA, as in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It’s copyright law for internet content.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I was able to get a lot of her stuff down, which was great. Uh, but then at that point it was like, you know, what are the other players in the space doing about this?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What he found were takedown tools that were very expensive and not that effective. While creator management firms and talent agencies have in-house services for this, they’re inaccessible to smaller creators. After Zander helped his girlfriend, her friends reached out to him. They had the same problem. And then their friends reached out. And all of this coincided with his post-graduation job search. He planned to at least try to use his degree. But the job market for entry-level software engineers was rough.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think by the third final round interview at like some fang company where they rejected me after four weeks and five interviews, I was just so fed up. I was like, you know what, screw this. I’m gonna just do this myself. I’ma make my own company. So, and at that time, you it’s like the overlap of like, oh, I figured out how to do this. I could help more creators like this and really solve a real problem.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so, he started working on it, a tool for creators that would scan the internet for leaked and deepfaked content and automatically send DMCA takedown requests. And if the sites didn’t comply, this tool would have to find other ways to force a takedow.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zander knew how traumatic it was for his girlfriend and her friends to be constantly confronted with non-consensual deepfake porn. So, he wanted this tool to take down content automatically, without creators having to see it. And the tool also had to catch the non-consensual deepfakes before they spread to other platforms. But he knew he couldn’t do it alone. He needed the perspective of other creators for it to really work.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I pretty much just posted on my close friends at some point, like, hey, I’m thinking about doing this as like an actual like business or something like that. If anyone will be down to just test it out for free and see how good like my, you know, scanning architecture and stuff like that is, let me know. And Morgan actually swiped up on the story and was like, hey, that actually sounds pretty neat. I’d be down.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Morgan and Zander had met at TwitchCon a while back.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And we hopped on a call and I was like, ‘would you be down to like do this with me?’ Cause like, I think it’d be pretty sick if we had like two creators doing it that know the problem. You know, Morgan knows firsthand, like the adult space, but as well as like a firsthand account of like leaks and deep fakes and you know, where they live and stuff like that. And you know I guess from there, it just was one of those things where it was like I think this could be a real player in the space and I’m really passionate about it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Morgan, what was it like for you to see that story?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ve struggled with this stuff for so long. I know so many people that I could tap in on and get their feedback. My scope in this space is so wide because I’ve had my eggs in so many baskets online And that I knew that I would be able to bring a good perspective and good input.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So they managed to raise $200,000, and with that, Morgan and Zander launched Fanlock earlier this year. Zander handles the technical side, making sure Fanlock works, and Morgan handles the creator side, managing outreach to other creators.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I guess I get to apply that degree that I was considering dropping out to do content for. And it’s, I guess like a full 360, you know, everyone that was like, you should stay in school and finish it out. I guess it came back to be useful because now I can apply it to helping my friends and other people in the space with this really real problem that they have.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This solution isn’t that straightforward though. That’s a new tab: Why is it so hard to take down deepfakes?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In May last year, President Trump signed the Take It Down Act, a landmark law that criminalizes the publication of non-consensual intimate imagery, including digital forgeries, aka deep fake porn. It’s one of Congress’s first bipartisan actions to tackle AI-generated content. The law also requires online platforms to implement a removal request system and to take down deep fake porn within 48 hours of a request.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A lot of these sites thankfully already had like forms or different reporting mechanisms to report deepfakes, but I think with this act itself, it’s a really good step in the right direction to combat non-consensual deepfake and, you know, props to the government for doing something right for once and actually passing this really quickly.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the Take It Down Act is only enforceable under U.S. jurisdiction, although the EU also has similar laws. But a lot of these sites are based outside of these places, like in Russia.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, so for like Russia and Chinese sites, it gets a lot harder because they don’t have any need to comply either like deep fake penalties or DMCA because it’s specifically like USA, EU jurisdiction typically. And that makes it a lot hard to get content down off those sites if it’s even possible at all.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s a few things you can do for these sites. There’s been some sites I know firsthand that they use, let’s say, a USA-based company for their notification system. We’re able to submit basically a DMCA to those companies, basically being like, hey, just so you know, you’re aiding in copyright infringement by working with this client. If we were to take it a step further, we could always issue a DMC subpoena to them if they use Google Analytics, for example, to straight to Google. And that would help us get more information about… The actual emails of the site, who this person actually is. So if they’re in the EU or USA, we can take those legal routes. Obviously there’s sites I know that are pretty much, they’re built from the ground up for piracy and it’s pretty much impossible to get those stuff down.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the more difficult aspects of tackling deepfakes is catching them before Google indexes them, basically, storing web pages in its own database so they appear in search results. Because when something appears in search results, it spreads like wildfire.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Google updated its search functions a few years ago to identify deepfakes and prevent them from appearing at the top of search results, but there are still deepfakess that slip through the cracks. Zander said that Fanlock keeps tabs on specific sites that have histories of hosting non-consensual deepfakes. They scan them and send takedown demands, before they hit Google search results.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, no one wants their family Googling them or something and they see deep fakes of them all over Google Images.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I know Fanlock also relies on a lot of facial recognition technology to identify leaked content and deepfakes. Obviously, this technology is very controversial. It’s often used in law enforcement and has a lot connections to surveillance. But what are your thoughts on this use of facial-recognition technology?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I mean, obviously, if a creator signs up for our platform and we’re doing it in a consensual manner, I think that’s great. I obviously am big anti-surveillance, but I think the the key word at the end of the day is just consent, which is like the fundamental problem that I think these creators are having. And if they’re consenting to a service to take down stuff that was made non-consensually, I think, that’s why our creators are okay with it. And I think there’s a big differentiation between that and then, you know, some tech company scanning my face to see if I’m a criminal or something like that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I want to talk about some of the technical challenges that still exist. You mentioned trying to build a Telegram scanner right now. A lot of non-consensual deep fake porn is passed around in closed channels on Discord or group chats or Telegram. Do either of you have any experience with this happening? Like, what is the approach here?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When we were building FanLock, I was like, Telegram is, like, the final boss of piracy. I really want to build a solution that while we can’t scan a hundred percent of Telegram, I want to build the absolute most, like I guess comprehensive Telegram scanner we can based on like what’s publicly available and what providers there are to us. So for Telegram, typically for like private groups and stuff like that, you’re able to join them if you have like a join link, which we’ve kind of gotten from people being like, ‘hey, I got leaks here, join my channel.’ And after we get the join link we’re able to figure out where copyrighted content is.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We already do have our Telegram scanner up. You know, we have about 11 million channels, you know, from our own services, but also third party providers that we use that have kind of indexed Telegram for us, which is great. Discord is a little bit trickier because it’s a TOS breach to use any sort of like bot activity on that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TOS is Terms of Service, the contract between a platform like Telegram and its users.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For now, like on Discord, if someone has a link that they’ve noticed that they want down, they can submit it to us and then we can do it from there. We currently don’t scan Discord because it is like a TOS breach to do, but we’re hoping as, like I said, as we grow that door can open.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Overall, what hurdles still exist when it comes to taking down deepfakes? Like what’s the kind of like technical white whale you’re still chasing?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I’d say the biggest thing that we’re trying to roll out is actually identifying who leaked or who deep faked XYZ content. I think if we were able to do that, we might, I wouldn’t say solve the piracy problem, but definitely lower it. You know, we’re really hoping we can get in talks with, you know, platforms like OF, Fansly or Instagram and stuff like that, uh, to roll out a technology that we’re working on where basically it embeds like an invisible watermark into different images and stuff like that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So if it is leaked or if it has deep faked or if someone else’s face has put on it, they’re able to know who exactly posted it based off this invisible embedded technology, which already exists for sites like Netflix. It’s how they track like video, uh, I guess leaks or, you know, from studios that maybe have like a trailer for the new Avengers movie and they want to track if it got leaked on X or anything like that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think if we’re able to get that done, like I feel like we’d significantly fix the problem and be a lot more proactive. Because I mean, if people start realizing, ‘oh shoot, if I leak or deep fake content, my account gets banned. Like, it’s going to really throw a wrench in the whole leak ecosystem. And that’s what we’re really trying to build towards right now.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’re coming from very different sides of the internet, kind of, whether in the safe work side or the adult content industry. But this is also a problem that deeply affects both of your spheres of the creator economy. How has the proliferation of deepfake porn changed the creator industry for you? And what would you say to someone who’s afraid to keep posting?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The unfortunate thing is it’s such an uphill battle when it comes to deepfaked and leaked content, especially with AI getting as good as it is right now. But to somebody who is kind of scared to post right now, just know that there are people who are trying to find solutions to this kind of stuff.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And for these people who are generating this kind of content, it’s very much about their own sense of control. It doesn’t reflect you as a creator. You shouldn’t be afraid to post what you want because of this horrible threat of somebody taking your content and basically twisting it into something that you didn’t consent to. And hopefully our government can kind of catch up with this kind of stuff here pretty soon. But there are people like me and Zander who are trying to take real steps to help mitigate this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For creators, I’d say, you know, if you need to, you know, get anything you need for support on it, do it. You know, if you need to take a step back, do it. And then I’d say like, it’s a twofold thing where it’s like, don’t glamorize generative AI video and image content because that only speeds up the industry and then really push for better legislation and, you know, call your Senator, call your Congressman, like get it passed. Because It’s only going to get worse as it gets easier and it’s able to be done for more people. I think those are probably the two biggest things a creator can do right now that has like an actual like tangible impact to halt this problem or make it slow down at least.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, thank you both so much for talking about all of this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, thank you for having us.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, for sure.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you or someone you know has been targeted with deep fake porn, there are ways to have it removed. Fanlock also has free guides for creators navigating this problem. Check the show notes for more. We’ll link to a few resources about the Take It Down Act and how to remove non-consensual intimate imagery. For now, let’s close all these tabs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music. It was edited by Chris Hambrick. The Close All tabs team also includes producer Maya Cueva and audio engineer, Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our director of podcasts and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our editor in chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California local.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink dust silver K84 wired mechanical keyboard with Gateron red switches. Thanks for listening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">diving into the world of nonconsensual deepfake porn and why this problem reaches far beyond influencers and sex workers.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When users on X started asking Grok to generate explicit images of real women and girls without their consent, Twitch streamer and OnlyFans creator Morgpie watched the harassment spiral in real time. Cosplayer and software engineer Zander Small saw firsthand how nonconsensual images affected his girlfriend, a SFW creator, and her friends. The two decided to team up to build tools that help creators detect leaks, remove deepfakes, and reclaim control over their images online.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Note:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This episode contains mentions of gender-based violence and nonconsensual intimate imagery, which may be triggering for some listeners. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC5643980688\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/bigguswombus/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Morgpie\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, OnlyFans creator and cofounder of Fanlock\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/zander_smalls/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zander Small\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cb>, \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">content creator and cofounder of Fanlock\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.dexerto.com/twitch/influencers-take-on-ai-deepfakes-with-new-creator-protection-agency-3324719/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Influencers take on AI deepfakes with their own creator protection agency\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Virginia Glaze, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dextero\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/musks-ai-chatbot-grok-xai-making-sexual-deepfakes-imagine-rcna265855\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Musk’s Grok AI chatbot is still making sexual deepfakes, despite X’s promise to stop it\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — David Ingram, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NBC News\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/deepfake-nudify-schools-global-crisis/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Deepfake Nudes Crisis in Schools Is Much Worse Than You Thought\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Matt Burgess, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">WIRED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://19thnews.org/2025/05/take-it-down-act-signing-explicit-images\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Take It Down Act: How to use it to remove revenge porn\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Jasmine Mithani, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The 19th\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://rainn.org/rainns-recommendations-for-legislators/image-based-sexual-abuse-laws-combat-nonconsensual-ai-deepfakes/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Image-Based Sexual Abuse Laws: Combat Nonconsensual AI Deepfakes\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">RAINN\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://rainn.org/get-informed/issues/ai-tech-enabled-sexual-abuse/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">AI & Tech-Enabled Sexual Abuse: Risk & Prevention\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">RAINN\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cbr>\n\u003ca href=\"https://deepstrike.io/blog/deepfake-statistics-2025\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Deepfake Statistics 2025: AI Fraud Data & Trends\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Mohammed Khalil, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">DeepStrike\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Are you closing your tabs? You can be honest, this is a safe space. If you’re a fan of Close All Tabs and you want more of it, then please rate and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show. And tell your friends about us. It would be such a huge help to get the word out.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, let’s get to the show. Just a note, this episode contains mentions of gender-based violence and non-consensual intimate imagery, which may be triggering for some listeners.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, you know Grok? It’s the AI chatbot integrated with X, the social media app formerly known as Twitter and now owned by Elon Musk. Well, since late last year, Grok has been embroiled in an undressing scandal, generating sexually explicit images of people without their consent. The majority of targets were women. Some were minors, young girls. For a few weeks, it was a pretty disgusting widespread trend. When women or even teenage girls posted fully clothed photos of themselves on X, other users would comment and tag Grok, asking it to ‘put her in a bikini’ or ‘take off her top.’ The chatbot would publicly respond with a generated lewd or completely naked image of the subject. Some users went even further, asking Grok to add blood and bruises, prompting the chatbot to generate graphic, sexually violent images of these women.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh man, it was very much like I was waking up every day and I didn’t want to post.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Morgpie, a Twitch streamer and OnlyFans creator. People who know her IRL call her Morgan. She’s been a porn actress for years, and as someone who makes sexually explicit content, she’s used to creeps harassing her with her own nudes. But the Grok and dressing trend really unsettled her. It was the worst in January.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Being looped in with something that is so violating, and like you said, something that’s even affecting minors is just disgusting. Every day I was going into my comments and just like hiding replies and blocking because I’m like, I’m not going to let you guys just generate these images of me that I did not consent to, especially if it’s being associated with basically creating child pornography on Twitter.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This was non-consensual, intimate imagery, more commonly known as deep fake porn. A deep fake is content that has been generated or manipulated by AI to imitate someone else. Zander Small, another content creator and a friend of Morgan’s, says that the proliferation of AI tools has started to seriously affect content creators, regardless of whether or not they make adult content.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Deep fakes can be anything from deep fake explicit imagery with like, a creator doing something or nude content that they didn’t consent to. Or it could be stuff as simple as like, an audio deep fake where a creator is saying something that they don’t consent too, which might have repercussions of them being canceled or stuff that they just obviously wouldn’t consent to saying.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Morgan hasn’t had to deal with deep fake porn of herself as much. After years of being in this industry, she’s developed thick skin. She’s mostly dealt with leaks, or explicit content that she posted behind a paywall that was illegally downloaded and posted elsewhere, without her consent. But the Grok trend is just the tip of the iceberg. Non-consensual deep fake-porn has exploded over the last few years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that for a lot of people, the lack of consent is very attractive.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is an issue that overwhelmingly affects women, and these circles are not as fringe as you might think. An annual report last year by the cybersecurity firm DeepStrike found that roughly 97% of all deepfakes online fall under non-consensual intimate imagery, and that 99 to 100% of victims of deepfake pornography are women. Here’s Zander again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think it is either fans, if you want to call them that, or just creeps on the internet, wanting to see more out of a creator than they consented to. I know it affects a lot of SFW creators.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">SFW, or Safe for Work. They don’t show nudity or make sexually explicit content. While NSFW, not Safer work, means adult content.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, you know, and I guess from that, you know, if a creator isn’t consenting to do more explicit content, then, you know, these, uh, I guess perpetrators, creeps, whatever you want to call them, you know, take into their hands to do it themselves. And it’s incredibly easy to deep fake content and, you know, as models get better and better and they get quicker and quicker, it doesn’t really require as much of sophisticated technology to run these models.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some of the mainstream models, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, have guardrails that are supposed to prevent them from generating deep fake porn. In January, X announced that it implemented technological measures to prevent Grok from modifying images of real people in revealing clothing. But there are ways to get around these guardraills. Just last month, NBC News reported that Grok is still generating deep-fake porn of real women. And like Zander said, there are so many other models out there that just don’t have these guardrails in the first place.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zander hasn’t had to deal with deep fake porn of himself, but he’s seen how much it’s affected people he’s close to, other safer work creators who don’t make explicit content. And Morgan, coming from the porn industry, has seen how this issue affects her fellow adult content creators.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So late last year, they teamed up to come up with a solution for other creators. Today, we’re diving into the seedy reality of non-consensual deepfake porn, when it got so bad, why it’s so hard to stop, and how two Gen Z content creators are trying to tackle it. Ready?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s open our first tab: the reality of non-consensual deep fake porn. Morgan is an award-winning porn creator. Literally, she has multiple Pornhub awards. And when she started years ago, the internet was very different.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s very interesting because when I first started, the climate was very much like, if you opened up Twitter, you would see tweets that are like, ‘sex work is real work.’ Of course, this was kind of around the time when OnlyFans was only just emerging barely.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the world of adult content, there was before OnlyFans, and then there’s after OnlyFans. The platform completely changed the game, lowering the barrier of entry for new creators and giving them new options to monetize their content. Morgan said that before OnlyFans blew up, the only way to make a living as an independent porn creator was to land on the front page of Pornhub, or actresses had to break into the industry by being part of studio productions where they didn’t have as much autonomy.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s very interesting the shift between whenever porn was basically widely available, you didn’t really have to pay much for it. When I first started, I was uploading to Pornhub, and that was full length, full scenes that you could see for free at any time. Whereas now, the climate has shifted a lot to where creators like myself have a lot more control. So we’re able to, you know, use OnlyFans as a platform where we are more connected with our audience and that is actually the main pull. Now we’re in this age where these models can kind of take a bit of that control back. They can control what content they make, how much they sell it for. And I think that that plays so much into like the conversation about deepfakes where it’s about control. It’s all about consent. And then with deepfakes, you can make anybody do anything. So you have the control over this other person.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Since joining OnlyFans, Morgan and other adult creators have dealt with the same problem: leaks. They consent to paying subscribers accessing certain premium content that’s been posted behind a paywall. Then some unscrupulous subscriber downloads it and posts it publicly without their permission for the rest of the world to see. It was a constant source of frustration for Morgan.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then about a year and a half ago, Morgan noticed the deep fakes. Her friends told her about how they stumbled across videos of themselves online, but it wasn’t really them. Someone had taken explicit content from behind their paywalls and modified it, morphing them into these scenarios that the creators never wanted to be in.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Again, it all stems back to control. It’s like, ‘oh, you did this thing that I didn’t like. Well, look at this control I have over your image. I’m going to use that against you.’.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think some detractors would say, like, ‘oh, well, if you make explicit content, why does deep fake porn bother you? Or why do your leaks bother you?’ What would you say to them?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, it’s it’s all about consent. That’s like saying, ‘oh, because you make porn, if I see you on the street, I can sexually assault you.’ You know, it’s like, consent is a very real thing. And there’s a big difference between me in the comfort of my own home within my own boundaries, producing content that I enjoy, and somebody else taking these things and making content that I didn’t consent to be in.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s not just Morgan and her fellow porn actresses dealing with this. Women who don’t make explicit content are also subjected to this harassment. One of the most well-known cases of this was when Atrioc, a Twitch streamer, was live. During his stream, he showed his open tabs for a split second, and one of them included deep fake porn of his own friends and streaming colleagues. He was caught buying this content. QTCinderella, another streamer was one of Atriok’s close friends. She was also a victim of the deep fake porn he bought.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio Clip of QTCinderella]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cb>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/b>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Atrioc for showing it to thousands of people, the people DMing me pictures of myself from that website, f*ck you all!\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pokimane is like a great example of this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pokimane is another Twitch streamer who was also a victim of atriox deep fake porn purchases. She does not make explicit adult content, but as a woman existing online, she deals with harassment constantly. Like, here she is reading comments from her audience.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio clip of Pokimane]\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yo yo yo, let’s see some ass. This ain’t a club fam, this is just my Twitch chat.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are so many clips of her literally just getting up and standing up out of her chair and that’ll get clipped and posted all over Twitter. And all of Twitter is like, ‘look at what she’s doing. She’s gooner baiting!’.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Goonerbait started as a term to describe video games or anime that aren’t pornographic but contain a lot of sexual imagery like jiggle physics and very scantily clad female characters. It’s media designed to appeal to gooners. Gooners are porn addicts. And now, internet randos love to accuse real-life women of gooner baiting, mainly female streamers like Pokimane.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">‘She’s, you know, performing for her male audience.’ And it’s like, well, is she really doing anything? She kind of just got up and walked out of the room, but they’re like, ‘oh, her pants are a little too tight.’ So it’s, like, I think this idea of a woman that’s kind of, just not really even doing anything, a lot of people love to just over-sexualize.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In some online circles, there is the sentiment that women like Morgan deserve to be deepfaked because they already make porn, and that women, like Pokimane, also deserve to deepfake because they’re somehow gooner baiting. It even affects people who don’t post online. Non-consensual deepfakes are rampant in schools. A Wired investigation last month found that high school boys have targeted their fellow classmates by spreading fake, generated nudes of them. These are teenage girls.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, the thing is, it’s not going to stop with sex workers. As much as the sentiment these days is very anti-sex work, like, ‘oh, if you make this content, you’re kind of putting yourself up to be distributed in this way.’ But the thing it is, is it’s 100% a slippery slope and it’s going to keep going into Twitch streamers who are known and even just normal people. There’s nothing stopping anybody from pulling up somebody’s Facebook profile, just a normal person who doesn’t produce any content whatsoever, and making explicit deep fakes of them and distributing them. And that can be used as blackmail. The possibilities there are quite literally endless in terms of the harm that they could cause for everybody.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’ve talked about spending so much money on deepfake takedowns, but how did you initially try to tackle this problem of deepfakes and leaked content?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was going in every single week and I was Googling my name and I was going on like Twitter, Reddit, all these other sites, just like searching for my name, um, and seeing pages and pages and pages of all this leaked content that would come up. And back then I was paying over a thousand dollars a month on these takedowns, but I would still have to go in and manually report a lot of stuff. You shouldn’t really have to go in and look at your own leaks and your own deep fakes, which is just awful.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Morgan was at her wits end. And then, late last year, she saw that Zander was working on a project that may be able to solve her problem. And she wanted to help. We’ll hear Zander’s story after the break.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate.kqed.org slash podcasts. Okay, back to the story after the break. Stick around.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re back. Now, let’s open that new tab: What is Fanlock?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zander had started out as a Minecraft YouTuber back in high school. It was a fun thing he did on the side before he went to college to study software engineering. He was on his high school robotics team and loved tinkering and fixing things. A few years ago, during his sophomore year, he started going to anime conventions with his friends. Here’s the thing, Zander’s really tall. He’s 6’8″. His friend pointed out that he could carve out a real niche as a comically tall cosplayer. He pushed Zander to start posting.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He was like ‘Bro, it’s gonna be like viral because like, oh my gosh, why is a Gojo cosplayer like as tall as like LeBron James?’ So I did it and it did pretty good. And I guess it just snowballed from there and I just haven’t stopped since.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">About six months after he went viral as comically tall Gojo, he started getting brand deals from anime companies. He gained hundreds of thousands of followers. He flew all over the country, attending cons and meetups. He even hosted a few lookalike competitions. There’s a picture of the Hatsune Miku lookalite competition he hosted. A gaggle of cosplayers in turquoise wigs, and then Zander, towering above the crowd in his own turquois getup. Of course, he was still in school juggling a burgeoning full-time career as a content creator while also attending classes and doing homework and studying for exams.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He considered dropping out, but his parents really, really wanted him to stay in school. They weren’t thrilled at the idea of their son leaving an engineering degree to pursue anime content. So he stuck it out, and last year, while finishing up his last semester of school, He stumbled across this deep fake problem. It struck a very personal chord.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So about a month before I graduated, my girlfriend, who’s an SFW creator, had a huge deep fake problem. Um, you know, there’s accounts popping up on like Threads or Instagram that either use her likeness or just full on non-consensual porn, uh, deep fakes of her, which is super mentally taxing, uh on her, you know, as an SF W creator. You know, she didn’t consent to being in those positions or having these account to DM her fans, like, ‘Hey, send me $400 and we’ll go on a date,’ type of just scam content. So it was from there that I was like, let me see what’s up and see if I can help you. So that’s when I really took a deep dive into DMCA, non-consensual imagery and depending on the platform it’s on what you can do about that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">DMCA, as in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. It’s copyright law for internet content.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I was able to get a lot of her stuff down, which was great. Uh, but then at that point it was like, you know, what are the other players in the space doing about this?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What he found were takedown tools that were very expensive and not that effective. While creator management firms and talent agencies have in-house services for this, they’re inaccessible to smaller creators. After Zander helped his girlfriend, her friends reached out to him. They had the same problem. And then their friends reached out. And all of this coincided with his post-graduation job search. He planned to at least try to use his degree. But the job market for entry-level software engineers was rough.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think by the third final round interview at like some fang company where they rejected me after four weeks and five interviews, I was just so fed up. I was like, you know what, screw this. I’m gonna just do this myself. I’ma make my own company. So, and at that time, you it’s like the overlap of like, oh, I figured out how to do this. I could help more creators like this and really solve a real problem.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so, he started working on it, a tool for creators that would scan the internet for leaked and deepfaked content and automatically send DMCA takedown requests. And if the sites didn’t comply, this tool would have to find other ways to force a takedow.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zander knew how traumatic it was for his girlfriend and her friends to be constantly confronted with non-consensual deepfake porn. So, he wanted this tool to take down content automatically, without creators having to see it. And the tool also had to catch the non-consensual deepfakes before they spread to other platforms. But he knew he couldn’t do it alone. He needed the perspective of other creators for it to really work.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I pretty much just posted on my close friends at some point, like, hey, I’m thinking about doing this as like an actual like business or something like that. If anyone will be down to just test it out for free and see how good like my, you know, scanning architecture and stuff like that is, let me know. And Morgan actually swiped up on the story and was like, hey, that actually sounds pretty neat. I’d be down.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Morgan and Zander had met at TwitchCon a while back.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And we hopped on a call and I was like, ‘would you be down to like do this with me?’ Cause like, I think it’d be pretty sick if we had like two creators doing it that know the problem. You know, Morgan knows firsthand, like the adult space, but as well as like a firsthand account of like leaks and deep fakes and you know, where they live and stuff like that. And you know I guess from there, it just was one of those things where it was like I think this could be a real player in the space and I’m really passionate about it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Morgan, what was it like for you to see that story?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ve struggled with this stuff for so long. I know so many people that I could tap in on and get their feedback. My scope in this space is so wide because I’ve had my eggs in so many baskets online And that I knew that I would be able to bring a good perspective and good input.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So they managed to raise $200,000, and with that, Morgan and Zander launched Fanlock earlier this year. Zander handles the technical side, making sure Fanlock works, and Morgan handles the creator side, managing outreach to other creators.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I guess I get to apply that degree that I was considering dropping out to do content for. And it’s, I guess like a full 360, you know, everyone that was like, you should stay in school and finish it out. I guess it came back to be useful because now I can apply it to helping my friends and other people in the space with this really real problem that they have.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This solution isn’t that straightforward though. That’s a new tab: Why is it so hard to take down deepfakes?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In May last year, President Trump signed the Take It Down Act, a landmark law that criminalizes the publication of non-consensual intimate imagery, including digital forgeries, aka deep fake porn. It’s one of Congress’s first bipartisan actions to tackle AI-generated content. The law also requires online platforms to implement a removal request system and to take down deep fake porn within 48 hours of a request.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A lot of these sites thankfully already had like forms or different reporting mechanisms to report deepfakes, but I think with this act itself, it’s a really good step in the right direction to combat non-consensual deepfake and, you know, props to the government for doing something right for once and actually passing this really quickly.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the Take It Down Act is only enforceable under U.S. jurisdiction, although the EU also has similar laws. But a lot of these sites are based outside of these places, like in Russia.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, so for like Russia and Chinese sites, it gets a lot harder because they don’t have any need to comply either like deep fake penalties or DMCA because it’s specifically like USA, EU jurisdiction typically. And that makes it a lot hard to get content down off those sites if it’s even possible at all.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s a few things you can do for these sites. There’s been some sites I know firsthand that they use, let’s say, a USA-based company for their notification system. We’re able to submit basically a DMCA to those companies, basically being like, hey, just so you know, you’re aiding in copyright infringement by working with this client. If we were to take it a step further, we could always issue a DMC subpoena to them if they use Google Analytics, for example, to straight to Google. And that would help us get more information about… The actual emails of the site, who this person actually is. So if they’re in the EU or USA, we can take those legal routes. Obviously there’s sites I know that are pretty much, they’re built from the ground up for piracy and it’s pretty much impossible to get those stuff down.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the more difficult aspects of tackling deepfakes is catching them before Google indexes them, basically, storing web pages in its own database so they appear in search results. Because when something appears in search results, it spreads like wildfire.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Google updated its search functions a few years ago to identify deepfakes and prevent them from appearing at the top of search results, but there are still deepfakess that slip through the cracks. Zander said that Fanlock keeps tabs on specific sites that have histories of hosting non-consensual deepfakes. They scan them and send takedown demands, before they hit Google search results.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, no one wants their family Googling them or something and they see deep fakes of them all over Google Images.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I know Fanlock also relies on a lot of facial recognition technology to identify leaked content and deepfakes. Obviously, this technology is very controversial. It’s often used in law enforcement and has a lot connections to surveillance. But what are your thoughts on this use of facial-recognition technology?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I mean, obviously, if a creator signs up for our platform and we’re doing it in a consensual manner, I think that’s great. I obviously am big anti-surveillance, but I think the the key word at the end of the day is just consent, which is like the fundamental problem that I think these creators are having. And if they’re consenting to a service to take down stuff that was made non-consensually, I think, that’s why our creators are okay with it. And I think there’s a big differentiation between that and then, you know, some tech company scanning my face to see if I’m a criminal or something like that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I want to talk about some of the technical challenges that still exist. You mentioned trying to build a Telegram scanner right now. A lot of non-consensual deep fake porn is passed around in closed channels on Discord or group chats or Telegram. Do either of you have any experience with this happening? Like, what is the approach here?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When we were building FanLock, I was like, Telegram is, like, the final boss of piracy. I really want to build a solution that while we can’t scan a hundred percent of Telegram, I want to build the absolute most, like I guess comprehensive Telegram scanner we can based on like what’s publicly available and what providers there are to us. So for Telegram, typically for like private groups and stuff like that, you’re able to join them if you have like a join link, which we’ve kind of gotten from people being like, ‘hey, I got leaks here, join my channel.’ And after we get the join link we’re able to figure out where copyrighted content is.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We already do have our Telegram scanner up. You know, we have about 11 million channels, you know, from our own services, but also third party providers that we use that have kind of indexed Telegram for us, which is great. Discord is a little bit trickier because it’s a TOS breach to use any sort of like bot activity on that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TOS is Terms of Service, the contract between a platform like Telegram and its users.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For now, like on Discord, if someone has a link that they’ve noticed that they want down, they can submit it to us and then we can do it from there. We currently don’t scan Discord because it is like a TOS breach to do, but we’re hoping as, like I said, as we grow that door can open.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Overall, what hurdles still exist when it comes to taking down deepfakes? Like what’s the kind of like technical white whale you’re still chasing?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I’d say the biggest thing that we’re trying to roll out is actually identifying who leaked or who deep faked XYZ content. I think if we were able to do that, we might, I wouldn’t say solve the piracy problem, but definitely lower it. You know, we’re really hoping we can get in talks with, you know, platforms like OF, Fansly or Instagram and stuff like that, uh, to roll out a technology that we’re working on where basically it embeds like an invisible watermark into different images and stuff like that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So if it is leaked or if it has deep faked or if someone else’s face has put on it, they’re able to know who exactly posted it based off this invisible embedded technology, which already exists for sites like Netflix. It’s how they track like video, uh, I guess leaks or, you know, from studios that maybe have like a trailer for the new Avengers movie and they want to track if it got leaked on X or anything like that.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think if we’re able to get that done, like I feel like we’d significantly fix the problem and be a lot more proactive. Because I mean, if people start realizing, ‘oh shoot, if I leak or deep fake content, my account gets banned. Like, it’s going to really throw a wrench in the whole leak ecosystem. And that’s what we’re really trying to build towards right now.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’re coming from very different sides of the internet, kind of, whether in the safe work side or the adult content industry. But this is also a problem that deeply affects both of your spheres of the creator economy. How has the proliferation of deepfake porn changed the creator industry for you? And what would you say to someone who’s afraid to keep posting?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The unfortunate thing is it’s such an uphill battle when it comes to deepfaked and leaked content, especially with AI getting as good as it is right now. But to somebody who is kind of scared to post right now, just know that there are people who are trying to find solutions to this kind of stuff.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And for these people who are generating this kind of content, it’s very much about their own sense of control. It doesn’t reflect you as a creator. You shouldn’t be afraid to post what you want because of this horrible threat of somebody taking your content and basically twisting it into something that you didn’t consent to. And hopefully our government can kind of catch up with this kind of stuff here pretty soon. But there are people like me and Zander who are trying to take real steps to help mitigate this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For creators, I’d say, you know, if you need to, you know, get anything you need for support on it, do it. You know, if you need to take a step back, do it. And then I’d say like, it’s a twofold thing where it’s like, don’t glamorize generative AI video and image content because that only speeds up the industry and then really push for better legislation and, you know, call your Senator, call your Congressman, like get it passed. Because It’s only going to get worse as it gets easier and it’s able to be done for more people. I think those are probably the two biggest things a creator can do right now that has like an actual like tangible impact to halt this problem or make it slow down at least.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, thank you both so much for talking about all of this.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgpie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, thank you for having us.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Zander Small: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, for sure.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you or someone you know has been targeted with deep fake porn, there are ways to have it removed. Fanlock also has free guides for creators navigating this problem. Check the show notes for more. We’ll link to a few resources about the Take It Down Act and how to remove non-consensual intimate imagery. For now, let’s close all these tabs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music. It was edited by Chris Hambrick. The Close All tabs team also includes producer Maya Cueva and audio engineer, Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our director of podcasts and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our editor in chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California local.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink dust silver K84 wired mechanical keyboard with Gateron red switches. Thanks for listening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What happens when your therapist is… a chatbot?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For KQED health reporter Lesley McClurg, it started with a late-night spiral over dating. Instead of texting a friend, she opened ChatGPT and got the kind of calm, reassuring advice she needed. It worked… maybe a little too well.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lesley joins Morgan to dig into the rise of AI therapy, why so many people are turning to chatbots for emotional support, and what they might be risking in the process. These systems promise something traditional mental health care often can’t: instant, affordable, judgment-free access. But there are limits and, sometimes, serious consequences. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Note:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This episode includes discussions of suicide and mental health conditions. Listener discretion is advised.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode first aired on April 23rd, 2025 \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC4726760100\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/lesleymcclurg\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lesley McClurg\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003cem>KQED\u003c/em> health correspondent\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1996504/ai-replace-therapist-benefits-risks-unsettling-truths\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can AI Replace Your Therapist? The Benefits, Risks and Unsettling Truths\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Lesley McClurg, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/07/nx-s1-5351312/artificial-intelligence-mental-health-therapy\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The AI therapist can see you now\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Katia Riddle, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NPR\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://spectrum.ieee.org/woebot\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Woebot, a Mental-Health Chatbot, Tries Out Generative AI\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Casey Sackett, Devin Harper, and Aaron Pavez, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">IEEE Spectrum\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12057327/ai-prophets-and-spiritual-delusions\">AI Prophets and Spiritual Delusions\u003c/a> — \u003ci>Close All Tabs\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/urban-survival/202510/new-studies-reveal-mental-health-blindspots-of-ai-chatbots\">New Studies Reveal Mental Health Blindspots of AI Chatbots\u003c/a> — Marlynn Wei, \u003ci>Psychology Today\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/04/07/nx-s1-5771707/mental-health-care-workforce-artificial-intelligence-ai\">AI in the mental health care workforce is met with fear, pushback — and enthusiasm\u003c/a> — Rhitu Chatterjee, \u003ci>NPR\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hey! You’re listening to Close All Tabs, and I’m Morgan Sung. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">May is Mental Health Awareness Month. With the proliferation of AI tools over the last few years, many people have turned to chatbots for companionship, advice … and even therapy. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It makes sense — healthcare in the US can be completely inaccessible, especially when it comes to mental health treatment. But in some cases, AI chatbots can put very vulnerable users in danger.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In light of that, mental health has been at the forefront of conversations about AI use. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So today, for Mental Health Awareness Month, we’re re-airing an episode that explores that exact topic. A quick heads up: this episode includes discussion of suicide and mental health conditions, which may be distressing for some listeners. If you or someone you know needs support, we’ll have links to resources in the episode description.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, I was going through a divorce and started dating after my divorce and hadn’t dated in many years and came home after a date one night and was just really anxious and kind of disheveled and needed some advice. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is KQED health reporter Lesley McClurg. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was late at night and I had used ChatGPT for, you know, other things and found it pretty helpful and I thought, what about for this moment in my life? And so I asked Chat whether or not I should reach out to this person that I had just dated because I was feeling like the night hadn’t gone that well.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was late at night. She didn’t want to bug a friend about this, and really, she was feeling pretty vulnerable. She didn’t want to be judged. And so, ChatGPT was right there, ready to cheerfully answer her questions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was surprised that it was so good. I just remember after, you know, a few back and forths, I realized that really I was just nervous, really I just needed to take a deep breath. Basically I had created a big storm in my head. And Chat basically was like, “hey, chill, relax, it could have gone well. There’s another way this could have played out, not the sort of devastating reality that you’re playing out right now. Maybe give it a day or two and then reach out.” And so in that moment, it just sort of helped me take the gas off and come back into myself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was exactly what she needed to hear at the time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I didn’t text the person, which was the right call, and kind of used it as I warmed myself back up into the dating world, and it was really helpful. And so it made me then, as a reporter, start asking, “should I be telling this thing all about my love life? Is this a good idea, privacy-wise, et cetera?” And so that’s where it sort of seeded my reporting going forward. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lesley isn’t the only one turning to ChatGPT for therapy. If you’ve ever dealt with any health insurance company, you’re probably familiar with the hassle of getting care. And mental health care is especially inaccessible. AI chatbots though, they’re convenient, cost little to nothing to use, and in Lesley’s case, can actually be pretty helpful. But a lot of people are also wary of turning to AI for therapy, can you trust it? What are you risking when you share your most vulnerable thoughts with a chatbot? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Access to actual mental health resources has become so limited. Cost and insurance aside, there’s a shortage of licensed human mental health professionals across the country. But can AI therapy really replace actual therapists? Okay, new tab. Does AI therapy work? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over the course of your reporting, did you meet anyone who actually used an AI chatbot for therapy? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I actually talked to quite a few people who used AI therapy and I went online and read a lot of Reddit threads because this is quite the popular topic. I heard more positive stories than negatives. As a reporter, I wanted to illustrate someone who kind of had a nuanced experience, you know, good and bad. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, Lesley found a woman named Lilly Payne:. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She had kind of the ideal story to illustrate that, yes, it helped her, but it wasn’t ideal. And so that was sort of like the character that I ended up, you know, focusing on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In your story, you mentioned that Lilly had turned to AI therapy um during the COVID lockdowns, which were a terrible time for a lot of us. But Lilly wasn’t just experiencing, you know, anxiety and depression and loneliness. Her situation was a little more complicated, right? Can you talk about that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I mean in her words, her life basically fell apart. She graduated from college, she had moved to New York City to pursue an arts career, was very excited. And if we can remember, you know, New York was sort of the epicenter of the early days of COVID. It was really bad. Lockdown was really scary and the hospitals were overflowing and it was not a good scene. And so she left her arts career, abandoned her dreams and moved back home, which was pretty painful, to her parents’ home in Kentucky. And she is sort of tucked away, and it just felt like a big failure. And she was really struggling with like, what’s next for my life? Where do I go from here? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was such a lonely time for so many people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Lilly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was not at a breaking point, but I wasn’t doing awesome. So I was like, “the more help, the better.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so in all of that anxiety, she, you know, initially reached out and leaned on a lot of friends, but eventually she felt like she’d kind of worn those supports thin. And so she read about Woebot, this AI therapy platform in a health newsletter. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, I gave it a shot because I was like, why not? Everyone’s cooped up in their house. I will talk to this robot. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Initially it was really helpful. It did help her calm herself. I think she said she, you know, even just having it in her pocket helped her feel more in control in her life. I think she relied on it quite a bit in those early days to kind of find her ground again and be able to focus on, you know, re-imagining a new life from there while she was back at home with her parents in Kentucky. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s worth noting that Woebot is a therapy-specific AI chatbot, and it doesn’t use generative AI to respond to users the way that other tools like ChatGPT, or Claude, or DeepSeek do. This means that its interactions with users are a bit more predictable. It’s also engineered to respond the way that a therapist might. So instead of immediately jumping into offering advice, Woebot asks specific questions to encourage users to reflect and do the inner work themselves. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, it was designed by a psychologist. And so, you know, from that perspective, it it really is designed to focus on your mental health. The goal of Woebot is, you know, as a mental health tool, as a wellness tool, I think is how they market themselves. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Woebot is designed to use a set of techniques called cognitive behavioral therapy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, cognitive behavioral therapy helps you reframe your negative thoughts using specific exercises. And, you know, I think as any CBT, which is what it’s acronym is, it feels a little forced, but she did say it did help her reframe those negative thoughts and that she was able to think more more positively. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Can you talk about uh Lilly’s uh other diagnosis that maybe complicated this form of treatment? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She has obsessive-compulsive disorder, and sometimes that makes her fixate on worst-case scenarios. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Most of the time when people think about OCD they think of, just the very cliche like, “oh, you can’t stop washing your hands, you’re afraid of germs.” While that is a very real subtype that people experience, typically OCD like manifests in really taboo intrusive thoughts, and then the physical compulsions stem from trying to keep those themes away. And so, logically, you can know that, like, this doesn’t make sense, it’s not actually happening, but it just, it, it’s not just in your head, like physically it feels so real. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lilly is also diagnosed with anxiety and depression. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A symptom of depression is suicide ideation eventually, right? So she fixated on the idea that eventually because of her depression, that she may think about killing herself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My brain would be like, “Oh, you’ve struggled with depression in the past. There’s no saying that one day you won’t want to go through with suicide.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so she mentioned that she was worried about suicide in a session with Woebot. And Woebot came back and had a crisis alert and said, “hey, you better call the suicide hotline.” And she said, “no, no no, wait a second.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m not experiencing suicidal inclinations, I’m just terrified that I will. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And luckily she knew that, she understood her disorder enough to know that nuance and to know what was happening in her brain because she had done so much previous therapy. But she said, you know, if she hadn’t really understood her disease, having that crisis alert come up may have even added more stress. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would have freaked out and been like, “oh my gosh, this this thing that is supposed to have this mental health knowledge thinks that I am suicidal. I must be suicidal, I must be a danger to myself.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, you know, in defense of Woebot, they came back and said, “hey, we’re not, you know, specifically targeting or for people who have OCD. We really are just a wellness tool. “But her story illustrates where AI doesn’t necessarily have the nuance, the understanding — that a human, like a human therapist would have picked up on that. They would have understood that she had OCD and really understood the nuances of that, whereas in this case, Woebot didn’t. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. It sounds like Wobot was inadvertently validating this intrusive thought that she was having because she has OCD. And when you’re really depressed or anxious, it might be helpful for your feelings to be validated like that. But how does that compare to the recommended treatment for OCD? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean the recommended treatment for OCD is generally exposure therapy. So you expose yourself to whatever you’re scared of. And so in this case, a therapist would work with her in terms of exposing herself to those ideas, probably walk her through, you know, reality, et cetera, in a way that allows her to lean into her fears so that they’re not as scary and sort of wound up and keep going. And sort of overtake her. Whereas you, like a therapist wouldn’t stand up with a red flag and say, “Oh my God, you really are suicidal. Therefore you should call a hotline.” Right? Which is basically what Woebot did. Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lilly’s case is just one example of the limits of AI therapy. Responding with a crisis alert wasn’t helpful for her specific needs, but it’s probably good that Woebot even has those guardrails in place. But what happens when AI chatbots go off script? How bad can it get? We’ll get into that when we come back. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">New tab. AI therapy … worst case scenarios. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So Woebot can’t necessarily respond with the nuance of an actual human therapist. But it seems like it wasn’t giving Lilly bad advice. Um but let’s talk about examples of AI therapy doing the exact opposite of what it’s supposed to do. What happened with the National Eating Disorder Association hotline? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, that didn’t play out very well. They created a bot named Tessa and some of the users found that Tessa was giving them dieting advice. So these are folks \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh god. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Who have, you know, anorexia, bulimia, and somehow Tessa’s wires got crossed and people were getting the exact advice that would be really dangerous for their eating disorders. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sharon Maxwell: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The recommendations that Tessa gave me was that I could lose one to two pounds per week, that I should eat no more than 2,000 calories in a day, that I should have a calorie deficit of 500 to 1,000 calories per day. All of which might sound benign to the general listener, however, to an individual with an eating disorder, the focus of weight loss really fuels the eating disorder. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was Sharon Maxwell, an eating disorder recovery educator, speaking to NPR about her experience with Tessa. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, NEDA, the National Eating Disorder Association, you know, pulled Tessa down and said, “this isn’t working very well.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it sounds like they just didn’t have that kind of guardrail in place. Like they didn’t anticipate that. Um, so even if Lilly didn’t really need Woebot to immediately jump into crisis mode, at least it had that guardrail to say, like, “hey, crisis.” But in the past, other AI chatbots have gotten into serious trouble for not responding to users’ red flags and just validating their responses. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that happened in the case of Character AI, this AI app that lets users personalize an AI companion based on fictional characters, celebrities, historical figures, all that. Until a recent lawsuit, Character AI did not have any safety measures or disclaimers warning users that they weren’t talking to a real person. What led to this lawsuit? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, there was a 14-year-old who grew really attached to his character that he had created. Like you said, Character AI lets you create a character and then interact with that character. And, you know, not surprisingly, kind of like I did in my first experience with ChatGPT, it feels so good that you develop a little bit of an emotional connection. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so this 14-year-old did that over the course of several months. And then he started opening up about some of the distress that he was feeling. And the character, instead of steering, you know, this 14-year-old towards help, unfortunately the bot allegedly reinforced some suicidal thoughts and eventually the boy ended up taking his life. And so the lawsuit, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s terrible. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly, it was really kind of horrific and it’s not the only one like this. There’s only a handful at this point, but it really is raising the red flag that these very empathetic responses are sort of like, you know parroting back, which is, again, what some AI does. Uh it can play out really, really poorly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> In January 2026, Character.AI agreed to settle multiple lawsuits that alleged that the chatbot contributed to mental health issues among teenagers. Other companies have faced similar lawsuits, after several users died by suicide, allegedly at the encouragement of chatbots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what happened with the eating disorder hotline and Character AI, those are pretty extreme cases. Will most people actually experience those worst case scenarios? In your research, did you find anything about that? Or is it just like, are these just edge cases? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean we don’t have numbers yet. I think it’s really early in the arc of this technology. I think the experts are most worried about platforms that are like Character AI, where you are building a relationship with a character. In their defense, they’re not built as mental health tools, right? These are not marketing themselves as mental health tools. They are, you know, marketing themselves as, “hey, here, we’re going to give you a friend.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yet, you know, like a friend, like you and I probably do with our friends, we lean on our friends. We talk to our friends. We build emotional connections with our friends. We trust our friends for the right advice, right? And these are robots. So that relationship is not uh, you know, built on human connection. And like we can see it can go wrong. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another concern that I have, you know, as a tech reporter is uh privacy. ChatGPT, for example, isn’t HIPAA compliant. Could you explain what HIPPA is and why it’s necessary with medical information? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I mean HIPAA is the regulation that keeps all of our data safe. So when you go to the doctor, a doctor is required to keep all of your medical information, you know, totally private. It’s not going to be given anywhere. It’s not going to leak away. That is the privacy regulations. Now, some of these platforms, you know, for example, like Woebot, uh Rosebud is one, which is a platform that’s more like a journaling service. Uh you know, they say they’re HIPAA compliant, but there’s no one regulating them. It’s not like the American Medical Association is regulating them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, that data, you don’t really know where it’s going. You’re trusting these companies who are profit driven. You know, I mean, hopefully Woebot and Rosebud, you know, are following their own promises to their consumers. But there might be other companies that, you know, definitely ChatGPT is not, you know, promising that they’re HIPAA compliant. And, you know, that information is being used, is being put out there to retrain the model. And so, you know, hopefully they’re not gonna sell your data to advertisers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, also, I mean, the kind of a worst-case scenario, this fortunately hasn’t happened yet, but, you know, what if your mental health information gets out there, an insurance company gets wind of that, and your premiums start going up because they know that you’re struggling with something. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh wow. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, you know, again, that hasn’t happen yet. Those are sort of like the worst- case scenarios. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But again, worst-case scenarios. Right. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Obviously, the priority of pretty much any for profit company is to monetize. But, do AI companies have any incentive to improve as more people turn to their products for therapy, even if they aren’t necessarily mental health specific chatbots? Um, you know, are there better safety measures, more transparency about data collection, especially given the Character AI lawsuit? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think they have that incentive. They also have the incentive to keep you hooked. So I think that’s the sort of like fine line. We’ve seen that with all social media, right? They’re getting a lot better at keeping our attention. AI companies have the same needs and incentives to keep people coming back. And so, you know, I think it’s gonna be a gray area and it’s going to be, unfortunately, like the social media companies, it’s gonna be really up to the creators of these products on whether or not they’re gonna have a really ethical orientation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Despite all of these issues, therapy is so inaccessible that unfortunately, AI chatbots might feel like the only immediate tool that people have when seeking treatment. How did we get here? Let’s open one last tab. The mental healthcare crisis. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You had mentioned earlier the state of mental health care. Why is it so hard to see a therapist? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I mean, the demand for mental health services is really at an all-time high, and it’s surged even more, you know, since the pandemic began and continues to do so. I think there’s something like one in five Americans have some kind of a mental health issue, and yet they have a significant barrier to getting to a therapist. You know, I think it’s 55% of counties, people don’t have access to a psychotherapist or a social worker or a psychologist. They’re just aren’t any in that area. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so, you know, I think because of this issue that these sort of mental health deserts, AI is a kind of natural fill-in. You know, It’s available 24-7. You don’t need insurance to get there. You don’t have a high deductible. Uh, you don’t have to prove to anyone that, you know, that you have a mental health condition. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You don’t get accepted. Uh, so it’s easy and accessible. And I think that it will mean that more and more people are going to use this and hopefully, they’ll be well-informed consumers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. You know, given the shortage of providers, and like you mentioned, insurance issues. Um, since the pandemic started, telehealth therapy has become pretty popular. But I’ve seen a lot of complaints about these kind of quick, one-size-fits-all mental health care platforms like BetterHelp, which matches users with Licensed Therapist or Cerebral, which sets users up with a psychiatrist that can prescribe medications like antidepressants or ADHD meds. And both of these services were created to, kind of fill this void that you’re talking about, but at the same time, they’re kind of plagued with their own issues. It seems like making therapy quick and accessible isn’t always as easy as it seems. What do you think? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think there’s absolutely a role for telehealth. I think there’s absolutely a role for AI therapy. I think anyone would probably say that having a really heartfelt connection with a therapist in an office, live human, feels different than if you are talking to a screen. And the emotional repair that can happen in that session with a live human I think is different and potentially more profound than with a robot. That might change over time. You know, I don’t know how good these things are going to get. They already feel a little bit too good for my own comfort. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, but they might, they might get even better. You know, same thing, I think the telehealth model at this point is pretty early. I think that they are still refining how well those things work. I think it’s similar with AI therapy. And, you know, I think the, the tricky thing here as well with any of these technological solutions is that we are also living in a pretty isolated way in our lives right now. If you’re taking even like your therapy to a computer, that’s one less human that you’re interacting with. And maybe you’re, you know, mental health issues are because you’re dealing with isolation, with estrangement, with disconnection. Those feelings might even become more escalated if you’re, you know, using telehealth or using AI therapy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I saw both responses and reflections when I was reading these Reddit threads, you know, from people who were in rural places. I knew that they were feeling more isolated using an AI therapy and others who said, “you know, it was a godsend because I was so alone, at least someone was listening to me. ” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For your story on AI therapy, you talked to a bunch of psychologists and, you know, real-life human psychologists, um and, you know, someone from the American Psychological Association. Are human therapists concerned about being replaced by AI? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t hear that from them yet. Number one, they’re still really in high demand. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I don’t think they’re feeling that crunch yet. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s still a shortage, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s still a huge shortage. And I think, they’re, they’re fairly confident that what they offer is different than what AI therapy offers. And, you know, they can pick up on subtle cues that AI, you know, can’t, say like body language or, you know, pace of speech. These things can reveal a lot about our mental health state, and AI can’t pick up on that stuff. So, and in the deeper bonds, the deeper attachment work that you might do in therapy, I think therapists are quite confident that they’re still better at that. Uh, so in this moment, I would say they’re not, they’re not especially worried. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’ve talked about the downsides of AI therapy pretty extensively. Um but, you had mentioned like that they can kind of be a tool in a bigger treatment plan while also seeing a real therapist. If someone is going to use AI therapy, how should they approach it? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Yeah. I think, that’s the message I hope comes across in my reporting, is that, you know, there are these worst case scenarios. Again, I think that the consumer should be educated on how their data is going to be used and understand how the company operates so that they’re not sharing uh really vulnerable information. But I think as a sort of, you know, addition to your yoga, your meditation, your, uh, you know, walks in nature, I think AI can really be a self-regulation tool. And I think it can be used quite well. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, I talked to one company, Rosebud, which is a kind of journaling platform, which it asks you questions to kind of inspire you to express whatever’s going on and help you reflect. And it can follow a thread. So if you mentioned something two weeks ago about your relationship and what was going wrong, it will check in with you about what is happening and help you make sense of that. And I was on it. You know, I’m not a huge pen and paper person. You know, I don’t write anything anymore, so my arm hurts really quickly. And so, I enjoy, you know, I like just would pick up my phone and I would journal just, you know, talking to it and it would ask me questions and it felt, you know, fairly similar to a conversation with a friend. And I would always feel quite a bit better afterwards. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, in that sense, I think it can be quite helpful because, you know, maybe I’m in therapy once a week, but I’m having a panic attack on Monday night and my, you know, appointment is not until Thursday. I think in that sense, you know, it’s four o’clock in the morning. I can’t call a human therapist no matter what, even if I do have one. You know, to sit down and have the opportunity to have something that’s engaging me, um, I think can be really helpful. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m really curious, since you started reporting on this story, have you used ChatGPT, uh, not necessarily as a therapist, but you know, as this kind of mental health tool that you’re talking about since? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I wish I had the positive spin to be like, “yes, I’m relying on it all the time.” You know, I didn’t and I don’t. Um, I felt a little bit like one more thing to do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I felt similarly, you know, we talked about Lilly at the beginning of the story, and the reason that she stopped using Woebot was not because, you know, it had the crisis alert or it sort of like poorly dealt with her OCD, she got tired of being on her phone. She was like, “I didn’t want to be on my phone anymore. I wanted to talk to someone.”. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I feel that. You know, that was, that was, kind of my reasoning, you know, because of my job, I’m on a computer, you know, nearly all day long, and I didn’t want one more thing on the computer or one more thing on my phone. I can imagine, you know, if I was going through a really tough time again, you know, turning to it. Um, luckily, I’m in a bit of a good moment, so I haven’t been using it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. You can unplug now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly. I’m going to enjoy this moment and ride the wave of goodness. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks again to KQED’s Lesley McClurg: for talking with us about this story. You can check out more of her reporting on healthcare, including this story on AI Therapy at KQED.org. Again, AI therapy tools work best when they’re used in addition to treatment under a licensed professional. But if it’s the only option accessible to you right now, there are AI tools specifically designed for mental health and wellness that might be more useful than the general chatbots like ChatGPT or Claude. For now, let’s close these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts, and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003c/b>Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink Dustsilver K-84 wired mechanical keyboard with Gateron Red switches. If you have feedback, or a topic you think we should cover, hit us up at CloseAllTabs@kqed.org. \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And if you’re enjoying the show, give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform you use. Thanks for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
"blocks": [],
"excerpt": "We explore the promise and pitfalls of AI therapy — and what users should know about mental health chatbots.",
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"title": "My Therapist Is a Chatbot (Reload) | KQED",
"description": "What happens when your therapist is… a chatbot? For KQED health reporter Lesley McClurg, it started with a late-night spiral over dating. Instead of texting a friend, she opened ChatGPT and got the kind of calm, reassuring advice she needed. It worked… maybe a little too well.Lesley joins Morgan to dig into the rise of AI therapy, why so many people are turning to chatbots for emotional support, and what they might be risking in the process. These systems promise something traditional mental health care often can’t: instant, affordable, judgment-free access. But there are limits and, sometimes, serious consequences. Note: This episode includes discussions of suicide and mental health conditions. Listener discretion is advised. This episode first aired on April 23rd, 2025. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What happens when your therapist is… a chatbot?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For KQED health reporter Lesley McClurg, it started with a late-night spiral over dating. Instead of texting a friend, she opened ChatGPT and got the kind of calm, reassuring advice she needed. It worked… maybe a little too well.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lesley joins Morgan to dig into the rise of AI therapy, why so many people are turning to chatbots for emotional support, and what they might be risking in the process. These systems promise something traditional mental health care often can’t: instant, affordable, judgment-free access. But there are limits and, sometimes, serious consequences. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Note:\u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This episode includes discussions of suicide and mental health conditions. Listener discretion is advised.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode first aired on April 23rd, 2025 \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC4726760100\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/lesleymcclurg\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lesley McClurg\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, \u003cem>KQED\u003c/em> health correspondent\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1996504/ai-replace-therapist-benefits-risks-unsettling-truths\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can AI Replace Your Therapist? The Benefits, Risks and Unsettling Truths\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Lesley McClurg, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/07/nx-s1-5351312/artificial-intelligence-mental-health-therapy\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The AI therapist can see you now\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Katia Riddle, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NPR\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://spectrum.ieee.org/woebot\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Woebot, a Mental-Health Chatbot, Tries Out Generative AI\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Casey Sackett, Devin Harper, and Aaron Pavez, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">IEEE Spectrum\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12057327/ai-prophets-and-spiritual-delusions\">AI Prophets and Spiritual Delusions\u003c/a> — \u003ci>Close All Tabs\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/urban-survival/202510/new-studies-reveal-mental-health-blindspots-of-ai-chatbots\">New Studies Reveal Mental Health Blindspots of AI Chatbots\u003c/a> — Marlynn Wei, \u003ci>Psychology Today\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2026/04/07/nx-s1-5771707/mental-health-care-workforce-artificial-intelligence-ai\">AI in the mental health care workforce is met with fear, pushback — and enthusiasm\u003c/a> — Rhitu Chatterjee, \u003ci>NPR\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hey! You’re listening to Close All Tabs, and I’m Morgan Sung. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">May is Mental Health Awareness Month. With the proliferation of AI tools over the last few years, many people have turned to chatbots for companionship, advice … and even therapy. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It makes sense — healthcare in the US can be completely inaccessible, especially when it comes to mental health treatment. But in some cases, AI chatbots can put very vulnerable users in danger.\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> In light of that, mental health has been at the forefront of conversations about AI use. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So today, for Mental Health Awareness Month, we’re re-airing an episode that explores that exact topic. A quick heads up: this episode includes discussion of suicide and mental health conditions, which may be distressing for some listeners. If you or someone you know needs support, we’ll have links to resources in the episode description.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, I was going through a divorce and started dating after my divorce and hadn’t dated in many years and came home after a date one night and was just really anxious and kind of disheveled and needed some advice. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is KQED health reporter Lesley McClurg. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was late at night and I had used ChatGPT for, you know, other things and found it pretty helpful and I thought, what about for this moment in my life? And so I asked Chat whether or not I should reach out to this person that I had just dated because I was feeling like the night hadn’t gone that well.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was late at night. She didn’t want to bug a friend about this, and really, she was feeling pretty vulnerable. She didn’t want to be judged. And so, ChatGPT was right there, ready to cheerfully answer her questions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was surprised that it was so good. I just remember after, you know, a few back and forths, I realized that really I was just nervous, really I just needed to take a deep breath. Basically I had created a big storm in my head. And Chat basically was like, “hey, chill, relax, it could have gone well. There’s another way this could have played out, not the sort of devastating reality that you’re playing out right now. Maybe give it a day or two and then reach out.” And so in that moment, it just sort of helped me take the gas off and come back into myself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was exactly what she needed to hear at the time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I didn’t text the person, which was the right call, and kind of used it as I warmed myself back up into the dating world, and it was really helpful. And so it made me then, as a reporter, start asking, “should I be telling this thing all about my love life? Is this a good idea, privacy-wise, et cetera?” And so that’s where it sort of seeded my reporting going forward. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lesley isn’t the only one turning to ChatGPT for therapy. If you’ve ever dealt with any health insurance company, you’re probably familiar with the hassle of getting care. And mental health care is especially inaccessible. AI chatbots though, they’re convenient, cost little to nothing to use, and in Lesley’s case, can actually be pretty helpful. But a lot of people are also wary of turning to AI for therapy, can you trust it? What are you risking when you share your most vulnerable thoughts with a chatbot? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Access to actual mental health resources has become so limited. Cost and insurance aside, there’s a shortage of licensed human mental health professionals across the country. But can AI therapy really replace actual therapists? Okay, new tab. Does AI therapy work? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Over the course of your reporting, did you meet anyone who actually used an AI chatbot for therapy? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I actually talked to quite a few people who used AI therapy and I went online and read a lot of Reddit threads because this is quite the popular topic. I heard more positive stories than negatives. As a reporter, I wanted to illustrate someone who kind of had a nuanced experience, you know, good and bad. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, Lesley found a woman named Lilly Payne:. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She had kind of the ideal story to illustrate that, yes, it helped her, but it wasn’t ideal. And so that was sort of like the character that I ended up, you know, focusing on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In your story, you mentioned that Lilly had turned to AI therapy um during the COVID lockdowns, which were a terrible time for a lot of us. But Lilly wasn’t just experiencing, you know, anxiety and depression and loneliness. Her situation was a little more complicated, right? Can you talk about that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I mean in her words, her life basically fell apart. She graduated from college, she had moved to New York City to pursue an arts career, was very excited. And if we can remember, you know, New York was sort of the epicenter of the early days of COVID. It was really bad. Lockdown was really scary and the hospitals were overflowing and it was not a good scene. And so she left her arts career, abandoned her dreams and moved back home, which was pretty painful, to her parents’ home in Kentucky. And she is sort of tucked away, and it just felt like a big failure. And she was really struggling with like, what’s next for my life? Where do I go from here? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was such a lonely time for so many people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Lilly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was not at a breaking point, but I wasn’t doing awesome. So I was like, “the more help, the better.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so in all of that anxiety, she, you know, initially reached out and leaned on a lot of friends, but eventually she felt like she’d kind of worn those supports thin. And so she read about Woebot, this AI therapy platform in a health newsletter. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, I gave it a shot because I was like, why not? Everyone’s cooped up in their house. I will talk to this robot. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Initially it was really helpful. It did help her calm herself. I think she said she, you know, even just having it in her pocket helped her feel more in control in her life. I think she relied on it quite a bit in those early days to kind of find her ground again and be able to focus on, you know, re-imagining a new life from there while she was back at home with her parents in Kentucky. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s worth noting that Woebot is a therapy-specific AI chatbot, and it doesn’t use generative AI to respond to users the way that other tools like ChatGPT, or Claude, or DeepSeek do. This means that its interactions with users are a bit more predictable. It’s also engineered to respond the way that a therapist might. So instead of immediately jumping into offering advice, Woebot asks specific questions to encourage users to reflect and do the inner work themselves. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, it was designed by a psychologist. And so, you know, from that perspective, it it really is designed to focus on your mental health. The goal of Woebot is, you know, as a mental health tool, as a wellness tool, I think is how they market themselves. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Woebot is designed to use a set of techniques called cognitive behavioral therapy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, cognitive behavioral therapy helps you reframe your negative thoughts using specific exercises. And, you know, I think as any CBT, which is what it’s acronym is, it feels a little forced, but she did say it did help her reframe those negative thoughts and that she was able to think more more positively. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Can you talk about uh Lilly’s uh other diagnosis that maybe complicated this form of treatment? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She has obsessive-compulsive disorder, and sometimes that makes her fixate on worst-case scenarios. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Most of the time when people think about OCD they think of, just the very cliche like, “oh, you can’t stop washing your hands, you’re afraid of germs.” While that is a very real subtype that people experience, typically OCD like manifests in really taboo intrusive thoughts, and then the physical compulsions stem from trying to keep those themes away. And so, logically, you can know that, like, this doesn’t make sense, it’s not actually happening, but it just, it, it’s not just in your head, like physically it feels so real. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lilly is also diagnosed with anxiety and depression. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A symptom of depression is suicide ideation eventually, right? So she fixated on the idea that eventually because of her depression, that she may think about killing herself. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My brain would be like, “Oh, you’ve struggled with depression in the past. There’s no saying that one day you won’t want to go through with suicide.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so she mentioned that she was worried about suicide in a session with Woebot. And Woebot came back and had a crisis alert and said, “hey, you better call the suicide hotline.” And she said, “no, no no, wait a second.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m not experiencing suicidal inclinations, I’m just terrified that I will. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And luckily she knew that, she understood her disorder enough to know that nuance and to know what was happening in her brain because she had done so much previous therapy. But she said, you know, if she hadn’t really understood her disease, having that crisis alert come up may have even added more stress. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lilly Payne: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I would have freaked out and been like, “oh my gosh, this this thing that is supposed to have this mental health knowledge thinks that I am suicidal. I must be suicidal, I must be a danger to myself.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, you know, in defense of Woebot, they came back and said, “hey, we’re not, you know, specifically targeting or for people who have OCD. We really are just a wellness tool. “But her story illustrates where AI doesn’t necessarily have the nuance, the understanding — that a human, like a human therapist would have picked up on that. They would have understood that she had OCD and really understood the nuances of that, whereas in this case, Woebot didn’t. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. It sounds like Wobot was inadvertently validating this intrusive thought that she was having because she has OCD. And when you’re really depressed or anxious, it might be helpful for your feelings to be validated like that. But how does that compare to the recommended treatment for OCD? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean the recommended treatment for OCD is generally exposure therapy. So you expose yourself to whatever you’re scared of. And so in this case, a therapist would work with her in terms of exposing herself to those ideas, probably walk her through, you know, reality, et cetera, in a way that allows her to lean into her fears so that they’re not as scary and sort of wound up and keep going. And sort of overtake her. Whereas you, like a therapist wouldn’t stand up with a red flag and say, “Oh my God, you really are suicidal. Therefore you should call a hotline.” Right? Which is basically what Woebot did. Yeah.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lilly’s case is just one example of the limits of AI therapy. Responding with a crisis alert wasn’t helpful for her specific needs, but it’s probably good that Woebot even has those guardrails in place. But what happens when AI chatbots go off script? How bad can it get? We’ll get into that when we come back. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">New tab. AI therapy … worst case scenarios. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So Woebot can’t necessarily respond with the nuance of an actual human therapist. But it seems like it wasn’t giving Lilly bad advice. Um but let’s talk about examples of AI therapy doing the exact opposite of what it’s supposed to do. What happened with the National Eating Disorder Association hotline? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, that didn’t play out very well. They created a bot named Tessa and some of the users found that Tessa was giving them dieting advice. So these are folks \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh god. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Who have, you know, anorexia, bulimia, and somehow Tessa’s wires got crossed and people were getting the exact advice that would be really dangerous for their eating disorders. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sharon Maxwell: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The recommendations that Tessa gave me was that I could lose one to two pounds per week, that I should eat no more than 2,000 calories in a day, that I should have a calorie deficit of 500 to 1,000 calories per day. All of which might sound benign to the general listener, however, to an individual with an eating disorder, the focus of weight loss really fuels the eating disorder. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was Sharon Maxwell, an eating disorder recovery educator, speaking to NPR about her experience with Tessa. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, NEDA, the National Eating Disorder Association, you know, pulled Tessa down and said, “this isn’t working very well.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it sounds like they just didn’t have that kind of guardrail in place. Like they didn’t anticipate that. Um, so even if Lilly didn’t really need Woebot to immediately jump into crisis mode, at least it had that guardrail to say, like, “hey, crisis.” But in the past, other AI chatbots have gotten into serious trouble for not responding to users’ red flags and just validating their responses. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that happened in the case of Character AI, this AI app that lets users personalize an AI companion based on fictional characters, celebrities, historical figures, all that. Until a recent lawsuit, Character AI did not have any safety measures or disclaimers warning users that they weren’t talking to a real person. What led to this lawsuit? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, there was a 14-year-old who grew really attached to his character that he had created. Like you said, Character AI lets you create a character and then interact with that character. And, you know, not surprisingly, kind of like I did in my first experience with ChatGPT, it feels so good that you develop a little bit of an emotional connection. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so this 14-year-old did that over the course of several months. And then he started opening up about some of the distress that he was feeling. And the character, instead of steering, you know, this 14-year-old towards help, unfortunately the bot allegedly reinforced some suicidal thoughts and eventually the boy ended up taking his life. And so the lawsuit, \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s terrible. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly, it was really kind of horrific and it’s not the only one like this. There’s only a handful at this point, but it really is raising the red flag that these very empathetic responses are sort of like, you know parroting back, which is, again, what some AI does. Uh it can play out really, really poorly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Morgan Sung:\u003c/strong> In January 2026, Character.AI agreed to settle multiple lawsuits that alleged that the chatbot contributed to mental health issues among teenagers. Other companies have faced similar lawsuits, after several users died by suicide, allegedly at the encouragement of chatbots.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what happened with the eating disorder hotline and Character AI, those are pretty extreme cases. Will most people actually experience those worst case scenarios? In your research, did you find anything about that? Or is it just like, are these just edge cases? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean we don’t have numbers yet. I think it’s really early in the arc of this technology. I think the experts are most worried about platforms that are like Character AI, where you are building a relationship with a character. In their defense, they’re not built as mental health tools, right? These are not marketing themselves as mental health tools. They are, you know, marketing themselves as, “hey, here, we’re going to give you a friend.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yet, you know, like a friend, like you and I probably do with our friends, we lean on our friends. We talk to our friends. We build emotional connections with our friends. We trust our friends for the right advice, right? And these are robots. So that relationship is not uh, you know, built on human connection. And like we can see it can go wrong. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another concern that I have, you know, as a tech reporter is uh privacy. ChatGPT, for example, isn’t HIPAA compliant. Could you explain what HIPPA is and why it’s necessary with medical information? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I mean HIPAA is the regulation that keeps all of our data safe. So when you go to the doctor, a doctor is required to keep all of your medical information, you know, totally private. It’s not going to be given anywhere. It’s not going to leak away. That is the privacy regulations. Now, some of these platforms, you know, for example, like Woebot, uh Rosebud is one, which is a platform that’s more like a journaling service. Uh you know, they say they’re HIPAA compliant, but there’s no one regulating them. It’s not like the American Medical Association is regulating them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, that data, you don’t really know where it’s going. You’re trusting these companies who are profit driven. You know, I mean, hopefully Woebot and Rosebud, you know, are following their own promises to their consumers. But there might be other companies that, you know, definitely ChatGPT is not, you know, promising that they’re HIPAA compliant. And, you know, that information is being used, is being put out there to retrain the model. And so, you know, hopefully they’re not gonna sell your data to advertisers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, also, I mean, the kind of a worst-case scenario, this fortunately hasn’t happened yet, but, you know, what if your mental health information gets out there, an insurance company gets wind of that, and your premiums start going up because they know that you’re struggling with something. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh wow. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, you know, again, that hasn’t happen yet. Those are sort of like the worst- case scenarios. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But again, worst-case scenarios. Right. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Obviously, the priority of pretty much any for profit company is to monetize. But, do AI companies have any incentive to improve as more people turn to their products for therapy, even if they aren’t necessarily mental health specific chatbots? Um, you know, are there better safety measures, more transparency about data collection, especially given the Character AI lawsuit? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think they have that incentive. They also have the incentive to keep you hooked. So I think that’s the sort of like fine line. We’ve seen that with all social media, right? They’re getting a lot better at keeping our attention. AI companies have the same needs and incentives to keep people coming back. And so, you know, I think it’s gonna be a gray area and it’s going to be, unfortunately, like the social media companies, it’s gonna be really up to the creators of these products on whether or not they’re gonna have a really ethical orientation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Despite all of these issues, therapy is so inaccessible that unfortunately, AI chatbots might feel like the only immediate tool that people have when seeking treatment. How did we get here? Let’s open one last tab. The mental healthcare crisis. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You had mentioned earlier the state of mental health care. Why is it so hard to see a therapist? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I mean, the demand for mental health services is really at an all-time high, and it’s surged even more, you know, since the pandemic began and continues to do so. I think there’s something like one in five Americans have some kind of a mental health issue, and yet they have a significant barrier to getting to a therapist. You know, I think it’s 55% of counties, people don’t have access to a psychotherapist or a social worker or a psychologist. They’re just aren’t any in that area. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so, you know, I think because of this issue that these sort of mental health deserts, AI is a kind of natural fill-in. You know, It’s available 24-7. You don’t need insurance to get there. You don’t have a high deductible. Uh, you don’t have to prove to anyone that, you know, that you have a mental health condition. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You don’t get accepted. Uh, so it’s easy and accessible. And I think that it will mean that more and more people are going to use this and hopefully, they’ll be well-informed consumers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. You know, given the shortage of providers, and like you mentioned, insurance issues. Um, since the pandemic started, telehealth therapy has become pretty popular. But I’ve seen a lot of complaints about these kind of quick, one-size-fits-all mental health care platforms like BetterHelp, which matches users with Licensed Therapist or Cerebral, which sets users up with a psychiatrist that can prescribe medications like antidepressants or ADHD meds. And both of these services were created to, kind of fill this void that you’re talking about, but at the same time, they’re kind of plagued with their own issues. It seems like making therapy quick and accessible isn’t always as easy as it seems. What do you think? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think there’s absolutely a role for telehealth. I think there’s absolutely a role for AI therapy. I think anyone would probably say that having a really heartfelt connection with a therapist in an office, live human, feels different than if you are talking to a screen. And the emotional repair that can happen in that session with a live human I think is different and potentially more profound than with a robot. That might change over time. You know, I don’t know how good these things are going to get. They already feel a little bit too good for my own comfort. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, but they might, they might get even better. You know, same thing, I think the telehealth model at this point is pretty early. I think that they are still refining how well those things work. I think it’s similar with AI therapy. And, you know, I think the, the tricky thing here as well with any of these technological solutions is that we are also living in a pretty isolated way in our lives right now. If you’re taking even like your therapy to a computer, that’s one less human that you’re interacting with. And maybe you’re, you know, mental health issues are because you’re dealing with isolation, with estrangement, with disconnection. Those feelings might even become more escalated if you’re, you know, using telehealth or using AI therapy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I saw both responses and reflections when I was reading these Reddit threads, you know, from people who were in rural places. I knew that they were feeling more isolated using an AI therapy and others who said, “you know, it was a godsend because I was so alone, at least someone was listening to me. ” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For your story on AI therapy, you talked to a bunch of psychologists and, you know, real-life human psychologists, um and, you know, someone from the American Psychological Association. Are human therapists concerned about being replaced by AI? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t hear that from them yet. Number one, they’re still really in high demand. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I don’t think they’re feeling that crunch yet. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s still a shortage, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s still a huge shortage. And I think, they’re, they’re fairly confident that what they offer is different than what AI therapy offers. And, you know, they can pick up on subtle cues that AI, you know, can’t, say like body language or, you know, pace of speech. These things can reveal a lot about our mental health state, and AI can’t pick up on that stuff. So, and in the deeper bonds, the deeper attachment work that you might do in therapy, I think therapists are quite confident that they’re still better at that. Uh, so in this moment, I would say they’re not, they’re not especially worried. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’ve talked about the downsides of AI therapy pretty extensively. Um but, you had mentioned like that they can kind of be a tool in a bigger treatment plan while also seeing a real therapist. If someone is going to use AI therapy, how should they approach it? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Yeah. I think, that’s the message I hope comes across in my reporting, is that, you know, there are these worst case scenarios. Again, I think that the consumer should be educated on how their data is going to be used and understand how the company operates so that they’re not sharing uh really vulnerable information. But I think as a sort of, you know, addition to your yoga, your meditation, your, uh, you know, walks in nature, I think AI can really be a self-regulation tool. And I think it can be used quite well. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, I talked to one company, Rosebud, which is a kind of journaling platform, which it asks you questions to kind of inspire you to express whatever’s going on and help you reflect. And it can follow a thread. So if you mentioned something two weeks ago about your relationship and what was going wrong, it will check in with you about what is happening and help you make sense of that. And I was on it. You know, I’m not a huge pen and paper person. You know, I don’t write anything anymore, so my arm hurts really quickly. And so, I enjoy, you know, I like just would pick up my phone and I would journal just, you know, talking to it and it would ask me questions and it felt, you know, fairly similar to a conversation with a friend. And I would always feel quite a bit better afterwards. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, in that sense, I think it can be quite helpful because, you know, maybe I’m in therapy once a week, but I’m having a panic attack on Monday night and my, you know, appointment is not until Thursday. I think in that sense, you know, it’s four o’clock in the morning. I can’t call a human therapist no matter what, even if I do have one. You know, to sit down and have the opportunity to have something that’s engaging me, um, I think can be really helpful. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m really curious, since you started reporting on this story, have you used ChatGPT, uh, not necessarily as a therapist, but you know, as this kind of mental health tool that you’re talking about since? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I wish I had the positive spin to be like, “yes, I’m relying on it all the time.” You know, I didn’t and I don’t. Um, I felt a little bit like one more thing to do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I felt similarly, you know, we talked about Lilly at the beginning of the story, and the reason that she stopped using Woebot was not because, you know, it had the crisis alert or it sort of like poorly dealt with her OCD, she got tired of being on her phone. She was like, “I didn’t want to be on my phone anymore. I wanted to talk to someone.”. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I feel that. You know, that was, that was, kind of my reasoning, you know, because of my job, I’m on a computer, you know, nearly all day long, and I didn’t want one more thing on the computer or one more thing on my phone. I can imagine, you know, if I was going through a really tough time again, you know, turning to it. Um, luckily, I’m in a bit of a good moment, so I haven’t been using it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. You can unplug now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Lesley McClurg: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly. I’m going to enjoy this moment and ride the wave of goodness. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks again to KQED’s Lesley McClurg: for talking with us about this story. You can check out more of her reporting on healthcare, including this story on AI Therapy at KQED.org. Again, AI therapy tools work best when they’re used in addition to treatment under a licensed professional. But if it’s the only option accessible to you right now, there are AI tools specifically designed for mental health and wellness that might be more useful than the general chatbots like ChatGPT or Claude. For now, let’s close these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our Director of Podcasts, and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor in Chief.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by The Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. San Francisco Northern California Local.\u003c/span>\u003cb>\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>\u003c/b>Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink Dustsilver K-84 wired mechanical keyboard with Gateron Red switches. If you have feedback, or a topic you think we should cover, hit us up at CloseAllTabs@kqed.org. \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And if you’re enjoying the show, give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform you use. Thanks for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "somebodys-watching-me-the-crackdown-on-stalkerware",
"title": "Somebody’s Watching Me: The Crackdown on Stalkerware",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2018, researcher Eva Galperin made a discovery about a colleague. He had been sexually abusing women for decades, and threatening to expose their private information using “stalkerware” — hidden applications that allow people to spy on another person’s private life through their mobile device. This set Eva on a new path. She went on to found the Coalition Against Stalkerware, a network of researchers and advocacy groups working to limit the spread of stalkerware and support survivors of tech-enabled abuse. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eva joins Morgan to talk about how her background in cybersecurity allowed her to help countless survivors of stalkerware abuse, and how activists and researchers are beginning to turn the tide against a sprawling, largely hidden industry. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC4327771430\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.eff.org/about/staff/eva-galperin\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eva Galperin\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://stopstalkerware.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What is stalkerware?\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Coalition Against Stalkerware \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/09/hacked-leaked-exposed-why-you-should-stop-using-stalkerware-apps/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hacked, leaked, exposed: Why you should never use stalkerware apps\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TechCrunch \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/21/17035552/sexual-assault-harassment-whisper-network-reporting-failure-marquis-boire\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When whisper networks let us down\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Sarah Jeong, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Verge\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.vice.com/en/article/spyware-company-spyfone-terabytes-data-exposed-online-leak/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Spyware Company Leaves ‘Terabytes’ of Selfies, Text Messages, and Location Data Exposed Online\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vice \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/19/stalkerware-security-phone-data-thousands/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A massive ‘stalkerware’ leak puts the phone data of thousands at risk \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Zack Whittaker, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TechCrunch \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/17/support-king-ftc-spytrac/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Support King, banned by FTC, linked to new phone spying operation\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Zack Whittaker, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TechCrunch \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/11/eff-teams-av-comparatives-test-android-stalkerware-detection-major-antivirus-apps\">EFF Teams Up With AV Comparatives to Test Android Stalkerware Detection by Major Antivirus Apps \u003c/a>— Eva Galperin, \u003ci>Electronic Frontier Foundation\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hello, do you like these deep dives? Do you want more? Then please rate and review Close All Tags on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show. And tell your friends, post about it on Instagram, Blue Sky, X, Discord, Reddit, the comments of whatever random recipe blog you start arguments in. Basically, it would be a huge help to just get the word out. Okay, let’s get to the show.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just a note, this episode contains mentions of sexual assault and domestic violence, so listen with care. Eva Galperin is the Director of Cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. In some circles, she’s reluctantly known as the privacy pope.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">People would come to me telling me about incredibly privacy invasive stuff that they had done as if they were looking to confess their sins and hoping that I would bless them. And the whole point of this is, in fact, that I am not the privacy pope.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eva may not be the privacy pope, but she has been working to protect the privacy of vulnerable people for years. In the early 2010s, she was a security researcher. She compiled information on governments that use surveillance malware to target journalists and activists.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And in late 2017, it came out that the primary person with whom I was doing all of this security research was a serial rapist.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eva had been working with his colleague for years. He was a fellow researcher, known for defending human rights activists and journalists in repressive countries. Behind closed doors, he had been secretly abusing and assaulting women for over a decade, and he kept them quiet with a threat of hacking. In a series of articles in The Verge in 2018, many of his survivors explained why they were so afraid to come forward.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It really struck me how much they all described themselves as really scared of what he might do to their devices, because apparently he had threatened to compromise their devices if they came out and said anything about him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The survivors were scared of stalkerware, that software that’s often covertly installed on a device to track and record the user’s activity. It goes further than location sharing. This is software that the user is not aware of and doesn’t consent to. Stalkerware can log messages, internet history, photos, and pretty much any sensitive activity or information. The person who installed it can then turn around and use this information to harass, monitor, and coerce their target. That’s what the victims of this former colleague were so afraid of.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was very upsetting. And as with anything, when you suddenly discover that someone is not the person that you think they are, you go back and think about incidents and go, oh, there were signs I should have known. And you spend a lot of time beating yourself up. But I decided that beating myself up is not best use of my time. And that helping people is the best use my time. I was so mad. So I did what most people did in the year 2018 when they got very angry.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What Eva did next started a chain reaction, one that led her to build a network aimed at taking down a massive shadowy industry of illegal software developers creating surveillance tools for tech savvy abusers. Today, we’re diving into the fight against stalkerware. What the software really does, how Eva and others have been working together to protect survivors, and the legal gray areas that make this industry so hard to take down.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m Morgan Sung and this is Close All Tabs. Ready?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, before we get into the fight, we need to understand what we’re dealing with. And for that, we need open a new tab: What is stalkerware?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Stalkerware is a form of tech-enabled abuse, the umbrella of digital tools and tactics that abusers use to control, harass, and intimidate their victims. A common version might look like parental monitoring apps that can run in the background and provide live access to the device’s location, text messages, and social media activity. Eva said that stalkerware works differently depending on the operating system. Androids and iPhones have different security measures. If you have an Android, the abuser needs to actually download an app onto your phone. To do that, they need to have your phone’s password. Eva says this isn’t the barrier you might think it is.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This whole idea of like, well, just don’t give the abuser your password. Uh, you know, I’ve got news for you about how abuse works. So it is very common for abusers to have physical access to the device, to have the password for the device. And when the survivor isn’t looking, when they have their back turned, when they’re in the other room, uh, they download the app.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Stalkerware generally isn’t allowed on Google’s Store, so a lot of these apps are downloaded from websites. They don’t appear as normal apps do. They’re hidden. If you don’t know that it’s there, then you don’t know to delete it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The stalker then logs into a website usually and they pay money to the company for access to the portal which gives them information about what is happening on your phone. Sometimes that can be your SMS messages, your WhatsApp messages, all of your passwords. There can be a keylogger on there so just like every key that you hit could possibly be logged, photos being shared. You can sometimes remotely access the camera without setting off a little light that tells you the camera is on, or remotely set off the microphone for recording, which is also very invasive.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Most people carry their phones everywhere they go, which means that stalkerware that tracks real-time location and sends out GPS data is particularly prevalent. If you use an iPhone, the process looks a little different. Abusers typically steal their victim’s Apple ID password.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Again, a thing that you can get if you are an abuser because that’s how abuse works.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And they may also need physical access to the phone, which abusers likely already have.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then the stalkerware, which is using the Apple ID, then just makes covert full backups of the phone. You will not get real-time information, but you will essentially get information about once every 24 hours if you are spying on an iPhone.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Stalkerware, for the most part, is illegal across the world, but it’s a tricky field to regulate, especially in the U.S. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Writing stalkerware is not illegal, you know, code is speech, it’s protected by the First Amendment. However, if you buy this stuff and you install it on somebody else’s device and you use it to exfiltrate data from that device, you are violating many different laws at once. Up to and including the CFAA, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> To exfiltrate data means to move sensitive information to another location without permission.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are listening in on somebody’s conversations, especially in a two-party consent state, you could be violating the Wiretap Act, which is a state-by-state basis kind of situation. You could also be violating various state laws around stalking, especially if you are tracking somebody’s physical location. Additionally, there are other laws that are potentially being broken. By the company that is selling you the app. Because writing stalkerware, again, not illegal. However, if you write it and then you sell it and market it specifically for the purpose of doing things that are illegal, like installing the app on somebody else’s device, specifically in a way that they cannot see it in order to spy on the things that they’re doing, that’s illegal.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So this is obviously super illegal in multiple jurisdictions. In 2018 specifically, when you were first kind of really getting involved, how did people keep getting away with it then?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, there are a bunch of different reasons. One of the big problems that I have in my advocacy is that when I describe a problem, often what people say their first reaction is ‘there ought to be a law.’ Law is meaningless if the law does not get implemented. If there are no consequences for breaking the law, why have a law in the first place? Frequently stalking is one of those crimes that very rarely sees consequences. We do not have a lot of support for survivors of domestic abuse or for people who are stalked or spied on in this country. And the fact that people do it so often without consequences leaves other people with the impression that this is fine and legal.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So then what do you do about stalkerware? That’s a new tab. But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate.kqed.org/podcasts. Okay, we’ll get back to Eva’s story and the fight against stalkerwear right after this break. Stay with us.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome back. So let’s open that new tab: What do you do about stalkerware? Okay, let’s go back to 2018. Eva found out that one of her colleagues, someone she trusted, was not only a serial rapist, but had also leveraged his position as a security and privacy expert to silence the women he abused.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t have any evidence that he actually broke into anybody’s phones or computers as retaliation for this. This is a fear that these people were expressing at the time that they were speaking out against him in public in the press. But he did have a history of breaking into other people’s phones and computers. And also, he had been working for Google for many years and had been publishing security research. In which he was studying the ways in which governments were doing exactly the kind of thing that we were talking about. And this was the research that he and I published together for years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The threat of tech abuse is often enough to silence victims of intimate partner violence.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It worth making the point that often when an abuser threatens to engage in this sort of tech-enabled abuse, one of the things that they do is they try to leave their target or the survivor with the impression that they’re omniscient and they’re omnipotent, that they are comfortable with technology and therefore they might be capable of anything. And so the survivor often comes to me imagining all kinds of very technically complicated scenarios in which their privacy or security has been compromised. And let me tell you, almost every time that I actually catch an abuser compromising an account or a device or successfully learning where somebody is located or getting access to the contents of their communications, it’s pretty low tech. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Abusers are lazy, abusers are honestly not terribly competent. And part of that is that they don’t have to be. If they cultivate an aura of, ‘I could do anything at any moment,’ often it’s enough to cause the survivor to censor themselves and to chill their speech and to not go places simply because they’re scared. And they do the abuser’s work for them in this way.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After discovering the truth about her abusive colleague, Eva was enraged. She took her anger to Twitter, posting, “If you are a woman who has been sexually abused by a hacker who threatened to compromise your devices, contact me and I will make sure they are properly examined. “And then I went to lunch. And I came back and my phone was vibrating and it wouldn’t stop vibrating. The notifications poured in, likes, retweets, comments, and then hundreds of messages.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, I was flooded with demands. Basically, a lot of people came to me and told me the stories about the worst things that had ever happened to them. And this went on for months and then years. The most common kind of thing that I would get is that people would reach out to me and say that, “hi, I’m in a relationship with a person who is very technically adept and highly abusive. And now I am seeing behavior that leads me to believe that my devices have been compromised. What do I do?”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Evo was working as a kind of one-woman security helpline, assisting survivors with regaining control of hacked accounts and scouring their devices for stalkerware.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That sort of thing is absolutely not sustainable. Not even that it’s not sustainable for one person, but it wouldn’t even be sustainable for a team of people. This was not a problem where we could effectively fix it, you know, sort of one survivor at a time. And so I spent a lot of time thinking about how to fix the problem in a broader way, kind of, how to punch above my weight.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eva helped to form the Coalition Against Stalkerware, which includes digital rights groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as well as academics who are leading cybersecurity research at universities around the world. The Coalition also includes companies that make antivirus software. Eva said that it was important that these security companies learn to work with their competitors.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the reasons why some of these companies are relatively good at detecting stalkerware is because now these people talk to one another, and that is really helpful.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When the collective was founded in 2019, a lot of antivirus software was not able to detect stalkerware. It often flew under the radar. Eva said that back then a lots of researchers just didn’t prioritize it. They weren’t as concerned as they were with spyware that could be remotely installed, which was often used by state-sponsored hacking groups to surveil activists and journalists. Part of the fight against stalker ware was getting industry leaders to recognize the scope of the problem. That’s why the coalition also includes groups that do direct support work for survivors of domestic abuse.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">These are the people who deal with, like, where the rubber meets the road every single day and they give us the most insight into the state of the problem and whether or not the mitigations that we are rolling out are effective. They also alert us to, you know, new problems and new ways in which survivors are being subjected to tech-enabled abuse so that we can come up with mitigations for those.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so far, the coalition’s work is paying off. Eva has been working with this company called AV Comparatives to test various antivirus products to see how well they can detect stalkerware. They’ve done a few rounds of testing over the years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But we recently did this testing again last year, and we found a couple of really interesting things. One is that overall, the performance of antivirus in detecting the stalkerware samples that we gave it improved. Almost everyone did better. We also found that the number of stalkerwear products out there is slightly lower. In the time when I first did my testing we tested 20 different Android stalkerware products. And when I did my most recent testing, I could only find 17. So the market’s getting smaller.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Detection is just one solution. This software shouldn’t be installed in the first place. How do you prevent it? To answer that, we’re honing in on the U.S. In one last tab: The crackdown on stalkerware.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A lot of the times, stalkerware is marketed as a way of monitoring your employees. And if you are an employer, and you have employees who are using your network and your devices, and you install software that allows you to see what is happening on that network and on those devices. That’s legal. This is why it’s generally understood that if you are using your employer’s devices, you should not be using them for anything personal. The other way in which these things are marketed is as a way of providing safety for your children. The idea, of course, being that your children, of course do not have their own devices. You know, your family’s devices belong to you, the person who purchased them. And then one of them goes to your kid and as a condition of having the device, they agree to share a whole bunch of information about where they are and what they are doing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2020, Google banned advertising for apps that track another person’s activity without their consent, but made an exception for apps that help parents monitor their underage children. These apps are perfectly legal, which is why stalkerware can be so difficult to crack down on. A lot of stalkerwear apps masquerade as parental control software. And if you’ve been listening to this show for a while, you may notice a pattern. Child safety in tech is a very hot-button topic. As soon as any issue includes protecting kids online, it can be very difficult to have nuanced conversations about it. Parental control apps will not be banned anytime soon, even if abusers use them to stalk their partners. But many stalkerware companies share a critical flaw, one that, ironically, can land them in legal trouble.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re often not built very well. They often have privacy and security problems. And building a site where you have essentially left the exfiltrated data vulnerable and it is leaked and you are made aware of this leak and then doing nothing is also illegal. And so this is one of the reasons why the FTC has, in the past, taken actions against stalkerware companies. Often the action is not for making stalkerware, but for making stalkerware badly.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Take SupportKing. It’s a consumer spyware company that made an app called Spyphone. It marketed itself as an app to, quote, connect you with your family with features like GPS tracking, call and message logs, and internet history monitoring. The premium version of the app included a keylogger and live screen viewing. All of that data, text messages, selfies, location data was collected and stored in an unsecured Amazon cloud server. Terabytes of unencrypted, identifiable information from over 2,000 users was just floating around online. So in 2021, in an unprecedented move, the FTC banned not only Spyphone, but also its CEO Scott Zuckerman, from ever running another surveillance business again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is actually the very first time that we’ve ever seen the FTC ban a stalkerware company. And they went to this extra trouble of specifically banning the CEO so that he could not do what he later did, which was essentially abandon the business as bankrupt and then start new businesses. And so he ended up under a consent decree which placed a lot of limitations on what kind of business he could start up if he wanted to start up another business. And had a bunch of requirements regarding the kind of privacy and security reporting that he would need to do in order to be allowed to start up new businesses.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But Scott would not take the L. Just a year after his initial FTC ban, TechCrunch reported that he was caught running another stalkerware company. And last July, he petitioned the FTC to vacate the consent order.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Saying that, listen, this ban is really a drag. It is impeding my ability to go off and start new companies. And it’s really inconvenient for me, a former stalkerware merchant, to have to do all of these reporting requirements with my new businesses, which have nothing to do with stalkerware.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">His new businesses, according to the petition he filed, included running a restaurant and other tourism ventures in Puerto Rico. Eva was not about to let it slide. When the FTC solicited comment she jumped in.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I pointed out that the inconvenience is the point. This guy has, has definitely proved that he does not care about protecting user data or about user privacy. And so he should not be allowed to have businesses in which he is storing people’s private data. That seems bad.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zuckerman’s petition was not approved. And Spyphone is just one of many battles in the fight against this industry. Eva said the coalition against stalkerware has been making some pretty big strides.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the things about the, you know, kind of hydra metaphor is that, you know, you take down one head, you know, three heads come up, but instead, it’s been the other way around. We take down one head, three heads come down. And we have not managed to completely eliminate stalkerware, but we have managed to dramatically reduce the number of companies that are involved. And I think that that is a big victory. And, I think that as long as we can continue to create consequences for running one of these companies that it will look less and less appealing to continue to do so because the people who run stalkerware companies are businessmen. These are people who are out to get a buck. And the moment getting that buck is no longer easy, they will go find something else to do.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Earlier, Eva mentioned that stalkerware detection has improved since she started this work, and stalkerwear companies aren’t able to operate as brazenly anymore. Since the Spyphone case in 2021, several stalkerware companies have been prosecuted, shut down, and forced to notify victims that their devices have been compromised. It’s a huge leap from where the industry stood when Eva first started this fight. But there are more avenues for tech-enabled abuse than ever before, and stalkerware is just one part of it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A few years ago we saw a real kind of cratering in the use of stalkerware. We saw stalkerware use go down and stalkerware detections go down. And for a moment, I celebrated. I’m like, haha, we’re winning. This is really great. But this happened somewhere around like, late 2020, early 2021. And my theory is not that the amount of stalking has gone down, but that people switched to using Apple AirTags. And so I have spent a lot of time working on the problem of people being stalked through Bluetooth enabled trackers, not just AirTags, but also, you know, Samsung SmartTags and Chipolos and Tiles. And part of the reason for that is because this is a small, cheap, easy way to keep track of somebody’s location without ever needing to get your hands on their phone and without ever having to worry about whether or not their phone can detect it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Even lower tech, and lazier, even.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Absolutely. I think that really the most important thing for people to understand about tech-enabled abuse is that it’s not the survivor’s fault. One of the things that I hear most often when we talk about tech enabled abuse is like, well, why didn’t you just leave? Or, you know, well why did you give the abuser your password? Or why did let the aboser back into your house? And I think, that that is such a cruel and counterproductive way in which to face the problem and it really just it’s not even that it doesn’t help anyone it just helps abusers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The fight against tech-enabled abuse doesn’t end with only holding companies accountable. There’s a social element too.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that one of the big things that we need to change is we need for people to call each other out when they see this kind of behavior and say this is abusive. This is not okay. It’s not cool. Put that thing down. You know, if you think your partner is cheating, go talk to your partner. And if you can’t talk to you partner, maybe it’s time to break up. It is not time to spy on them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eva is not the privacy pope. She will not dole out individualized blessings and hold confession to absolve you of your privacy-violating sins. There is one thing she will give her blessing for: calling out abusive behavior. It can start with a one-on-one conversation with a peer or, if you’re Eva, an angry tweet turned years-long collective action to take down an industry-wide issue. But for most people, just learning about this issue and recognizing when to step in is already helping.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you suspect that your devices have been compromised and that you’re a victim of tech-enabled abuse, we’ll link to some resources in the show notes. We’ll also have resources for stalkerware detection, removal, and prevention. Okay, let’s close all these tabs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music. The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer, Brendan Willard. Additional engineering help from Brian Douglas and additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our director of podcasts, And Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor-in-Chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California Local.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches. Thanks for listening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2018, researcher Eva Galperin made a discovery about a colleague. He had been sexually abusing women for decades, and threatening to expose their private information using “stalkerware” — hidden applications that allow people to spy on another person’s private life through their mobile device. This set Eva on a new path. She went on to found the Coalition Against Stalkerware, a network of researchers and advocacy groups working to limit the spread of stalkerware and support survivors of tech-enabled abuse. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eva joins Morgan to talk about how her background in cybersecurity allowed her to help countless survivors of stalkerware abuse, and how activists and researchers are beginning to turn the tide against a sprawling, largely hidden industry. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC4327771430\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.eff.org/about/staff/eva-galperin\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eva Galperin\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, director of cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://stopstalkerware.org/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What is stalkerware?\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Coalition Against Stalkerware \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/09/hacked-leaked-exposed-why-you-should-stop-using-stalkerware-apps/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hacked, leaked, exposed: Why you should never use stalkerware apps\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TechCrunch \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/21/17035552/sexual-assault-harassment-whisper-network-reporting-failure-marquis-boire\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When whisper networks let us down\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Sarah Jeong, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Verge\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.vice.com/en/article/spyware-company-spyfone-terabytes-data-exposed-online-leak/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Spyware Company Leaves ‘Terabytes’ of Selfies, Text Messages, and Location Data Exposed Online\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vice \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/19/stalkerware-security-phone-data-thousands/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A massive ‘stalkerware’ leak puts the phone data of thousands at risk \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Zack Whittaker, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TechCrunch \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/17/support-king-ftc-spytrac/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Support King, banned by FTC, linked to new phone spying operation\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Zack Whittaker, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TechCrunch \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/11/eff-teams-av-comparatives-test-android-stalkerware-detection-major-antivirus-apps\">EFF Teams Up With AV Comparatives to Test Android Stalkerware Detection by Major Antivirus Apps \u003c/a>— Eva Galperin, \u003ci>Electronic Frontier Foundation\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hello, do you like these deep dives? Do you want more? Then please rate and review Close All Tags on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show. And tell your friends, post about it on Instagram, Blue Sky, X, Discord, Reddit, the comments of whatever random recipe blog you start arguments in. Basically, it would be a huge help to just get the word out. Okay, let’s get to the show.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just a note, this episode contains mentions of sexual assault and domestic violence, so listen with care. Eva Galperin is the Director of Cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. In some circles, she’s reluctantly known as the privacy pope.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">People would come to me telling me about incredibly privacy invasive stuff that they had done as if they were looking to confess their sins and hoping that I would bless them. And the whole point of this is, in fact, that I am not the privacy pope.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eva may not be the privacy pope, but she has been working to protect the privacy of vulnerable people for years. In the early 2010s, she was a security researcher. She compiled information on governments that use surveillance malware to target journalists and activists.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And in late 2017, it came out that the primary person with whom I was doing all of this security research was a serial rapist.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eva had been working with his colleague for years. He was a fellow researcher, known for defending human rights activists and journalists in repressive countries. Behind closed doors, he had been secretly abusing and assaulting women for over a decade, and he kept them quiet with a threat of hacking. In a series of articles in The Verge in 2018, many of his survivors explained why they were so afraid to come forward.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It really struck me how much they all described themselves as really scared of what he might do to their devices, because apparently he had threatened to compromise their devices if they came out and said anything about him.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The survivors were scared of stalkerware, that software that’s often covertly installed on a device to track and record the user’s activity. It goes further than location sharing. This is software that the user is not aware of and doesn’t consent to. Stalkerware can log messages, internet history, photos, and pretty much any sensitive activity or information. The person who installed it can then turn around and use this information to harass, monitor, and coerce their target. That’s what the victims of this former colleague were so afraid of.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was very upsetting. And as with anything, when you suddenly discover that someone is not the person that you think they are, you go back and think about incidents and go, oh, there were signs I should have known. And you spend a lot of time beating yourself up. But I decided that beating myself up is not best use of my time. And that helping people is the best use my time. I was so mad. So I did what most people did in the year 2018 when they got very angry.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What Eva did next started a chain reaction, one that led her to build a network aimed at taking down a massive shadowy industry of illegal software developers creating surveillance tools for tech savvy abusers. Today, we’re diving into the fight against stalkerware. What the software really does, how Eva and others have been working together to protect survivors, and the legal gray areas that make this industry so hard to take down.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m Morgan Sung and this is Close All Tabs. Ready?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, before we get into the fight, we need to understand what we’re dealing with. And for that, we need open a new tab: What is stalkerware?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Stalkerware is a form of tech-enabled abuse, the umbrella of digital tools and tactics that abusers use to control, harass, and intimidate their victims. A common version might look like parental monitoring apps that can run in the background and provide live access to the device’s location, text messages, and social media activity. Eva said that stalkerware works differently depending on the operating system. Androids and iPhones have different security measures. If you have an Android, the abuser needs to actually download an app onto your phone. To do that, they need to have your phone’s password. Eva says this isn’t the barrier you might think it is.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This whole idea of like, well, just don’t give the abuser your password. Uh, you know, I’ve got news for you about how abuse works. So it is very common for abusers to have physical access to the device, to have the password for the device. And when the survivor isn’t looking, when they have their back turned, when they’re in the other room, uh, they download the app.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Stalkerware generally isn’t allowed on Google’s Store, so a lot of these apps are downloaded from websites. They don’t appear as normal apps do. They’re hidden. If you don’t know that it’s there, then you don’t know to delete it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The stalker then logs into a website usually and they pay money to the company for access to the portal which gives them information about what is happening on your phone. Sometimes that can be your SMS messages, your WhatsApp messages, all of your passwords. There can be a keylogger on there so just like every key that you hit could possibly be logged, photos being shared. You can sometimes remotely access the camera without setting off a little light that tells you the camera is on, or remotely set off the microphone for recording, which is also very invasive.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Most people carry their phones everywhere they go, which means that stalkerware that tracks real-time location and sends out GPS data is particularly prevalent. If you use an iPhone, the process looks a little different. Abusers typically steal their victim’s Apple ID password.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Again, a thing that you can get if you are an abuser because that’s how abuse works.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And they may also need physical access to the phone, which abusers likely already have.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then the stalkerware, which is using the Apple ID, then just makes covert full backups of the phone. You will not get real-time information, but you will essentially get information about once every 24 hours if you are spying on an iPhone.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Stalkerware, for the most part, is illegal across the world, but it’s a tricky field to regulate, especially in the U.S. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Writing stalkerware is not illegal, you know, code is speech, it’s protected by the First Amendment. However, if you buy this stuff and you install it on somebody else’s device and you use it to exfiltrate data from that device, you are violating many different laws at once. Up to and including the CFAA, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> To exfiltrate data means to move sensitive information to another location without permission.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you are listening in on somebody’s conversations, especially in a two-party consent state, you could be violating the Wiretap Act, which is a state-by-state basis kind of situation. You could also be violating various state laws around stalking, especially if you are tracking somebody’s physical location. Additionally, there are other laws that are potentially being broken. By the company that is selling you the app. Because writing stalkerware, again, not illegal. However, if you write it and then you sell it and market it specifically for the purpose of doing things that are illegal, like installing the app on somebody else’s device, specifically in a way that they cannot see it in order to spy on the things that they’re doing, that’s illegal.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So this is obviously super illegal in multiple jurisdictions. In 2018 specifically, when you were first kind of really getting involved, how did people keep getting away with it then?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, there are a bunch of different reasons. One of the big problems that I have in my advocacy is that when I describe a problem, often what people say their first reaction is ‘there ought to be a law.’ Law is meaningless if the law does not get implemented. If there are no consequences for breaking the law, why have a law in the first place? Frequently stalking is one of those crimes that very rarely sees consequences. We do not have a lot of support for survivors of domestic abuse or for people who are stalked or spied on in this country. And the fact that people do it so often without consequences leaves other people with the impression that this is fine and legal.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So then what do you do about stalkerware? That’s a new tab. But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate.kqed.org/podcasts. Okay, we’ll get back to Eva’s story and the fight against stalkerwear right after this break. Stay with us.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome back. So let’s open that new tab: What do you do about stalkerware? Okay, let’s go back to 2018. Eva found out that one of her colleagues, someone she trusted, was not only a serial rapist, but had also leveraged his position as a security and privacy expert to silence the women he abused.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I don’t have any evidence that he actually broke into anybody’s phones or computers as retaliation for this. This is a fear that these people were expressing at the time that they were speaking out against him in public in the press. But he did have a history of breaking into other people’s phones and computers. And also, he had been working for Google for many years and had been publishing security research. In which he was studying the ways in which governments were doing exactly the kind of thing that we were talking about. And this was the research that he and I published together for years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The threat of tech abuse is often enough to silence victims of intimate partner violence.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It worth making the point that often when an abuser threatens to engage in this sort of tech-enabled abuse, one of the things that they do is they try to leave their target or the survivor with the impression that they’re omniscient and they’re omnipotent, that they are comfortable with technology and therefore they might be capable of anything. And so the survivor often comes to me imagining all kinds of very technically complicated scenarios in which their privacy or security has been compromised. And let me tell you, almost every time that I actually catch an abuser compromising an account or a device or successfully learning where somebody is located or getting access to the contents of their communications, it’s pretty low tech. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Abusers are lazy, abusers are honestly not terribly competent. And part of that is that they don’t have to be. If they cultivate an aura of, ‘I could do anything at any moment,’ often it’s enough to cause the survivor to censor themselves and to chill their speech and to not go places simply because they’re scared. And they do the abuser’s work for them in this way.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After discovering the truth about her abusive colleague, Eva was enraged. She took her anger to Twitter, posting, “If you are a woman who has been sexually abused by a hacker who threatened to compromise your devices, contact me and I will make sure they are properly examined. “And then I went to lunch. And I came back and my phone was vibrating and it wouldn’t stop vibrating. The notifications poured in, likes, retweets, comments, and then hundreds of messages.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, I was flooded with demands. Basically, a lot of people came to me and told me the stories about the worst things that had ever happened to them. And this went on for months and then years. The most common kind of thing that I would get is that people would reach out to me and say that, “hi, I’m in a relationship with a person who is very technically adept and highly abusive. And now I am seeing behavior that leads me to believe that my devices have been compromised. What do I do?”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Evo was working as a kind of one-woman security helpline, assisting survivors with regaining control of hacked accounts and scouring their devices for stalkerware.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That sort of thing is absolutely not sustainable. Not even that it’s not sustainable for one person, but it wouldn’t even be sustainable for a team of people. This was not a problem where we could effectively fix it, you know, sort of one survivor at a time. And so I spent a lot of time thinking about how to fix the problem in a broader way, kind of, how to punch above my weight.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eva helped to form the Coalition Against Stalkerware, which includes digital rights groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, as well as academics who are leading cybersecurity research at universities around the world. The Coalition also includes companies that make antivirus software. Eva said that it was important that these security companies learn to work with their competitors.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the reasons why some of these companies are relatively good at detecting stalkerware is because now these people talk to one another, and that is really helpful.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When the collective was founded in 2019, a lot of antivirus software was not able to detect stalkerware. It often flew under the radar. Eva said that back then a lots of researchers just didn’t prioritize it. They weren’t as concerned as they were with spyware that could be remotely installed, which was often used by state-sponsored hacking groups to surveil activists and journalists. Part of the fight against stalker ware was getting industry leaders to recognize the scope of the problem. That’s why the coalition also includes groups that do direct support work for survivors of domestic abuse.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">These are the people who deal with, like, where the rubber meets the road every single day and they give us the most insight into the state of the problem and whether or not the mitigations that we are rolling out are effective. They also alert us to, you know, new problems and new ways in which survivors are being subjected to tech-enabled abuse so that we can come up with mitigations for those.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so far, the coalition’s work is paying off. Eva has been working with this company called AV Comparatives to test various antivirus products to see how well they can detect stalkerware. They’ve done a few rounds of testing over the years.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But we recently did this testing again last year, and we found a couple of really interesting things. One is that overall, the performance of antivirus in detecting the stalkerware samples that we gave it improved. Almost everyone did better. We also found that the number of stalkerwear products out there is slightly lower. In the time when I first did my testing we tested 20 different Android stalkerware products. And when I did my most recent testing, I could only find 17. So the market’s getting smaller.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Detection is just one solution. This software shouldn’t be installed in the first place. How do you prevent it? To answer that, we’re honing in on the U.S. In one last tab: The crackdown on stalkerware.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A lot of the times, stalkerware is marketed as a way of monitoring your employees. And if you are an employer, and you have employees who are using your network and your devices, and you install software that allows you to see what is happening on that network and on those devices. That’s legal. This is why it’s generally understood that if you are using your employer’s devices, you should not be using them for anything personal. The other way in which these things are marketed is as a way of providing safety for your children. The idea, of course, being that your children, of course do not have their own devices. You know, your family’s devices belong to you, the person who purchased them. And then one of them goes to your kid and as a condition of having the device, they agree to share a whole bunch of information about where they are and what they are doing.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2020, Google banned advertising for apps that track another person’s activity without their consent, but made an exception for apps that help parents monitor their underage children. These apps are perfectly legal, which is why stalkerware can be so difficult to crack down on. A lot of stalkerwear apps masquerade as parental control software. And if you’ve been listening to this show for a while, you may notice a pattern. Child safety in tech is a very hot-button topic. As soon as any issue includes protecting kids online, it can be very difficult to have nuanced conversations about it. Parental control apps will not be banned anytime soon, even if abusers use them to stalk their partners. But many stalkerware companies share a critical flaw, one that, ironically, can land them in legal trouble.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re often not built very well. They often have privacy and security problems. And building a site where you have essentially left the exfiltrated data vulnerable and it is leaked and you are made aware of this leak and then doing nothing is also illegal. And so this is one of the reasons why the FTC has, in the past, taken actions against stalkerware companies. Often the action is not for making stalkerware, but for making stalkerware badly.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Take SupportKing. It’s a consumer spyware company that made an app called Spyphone. It marketed itself as an app to, quote, connect you with your family with features like GPS tracking, call and message logs, and internet history monitoring. The premium version of the app included a keylogger and live screen viewing. All of that data, text messages, selfies, location data was collected and stored in an unsecured Amazon cloud server. Terabytes of unencrypted, identifiable information from over 2,000 users was just floating around online. So in 2021, in an unprecedented move, the FTC banned not only Spyphone, but also its CEO Scott Zuckerman, from ever running another surveillance business again.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is actually the very first time that we’ve ever seen the FTC ban a stalkerware company. And they went to this extra trouble of specifically banning the CEO so that he could not do what he later did, which was essentially abandon the business as bankrupt and then start new businesses. And so he ended up under a consent decree which placed a lot of limitations on what kind of business he could start up if he wanted to start up another business. And had a bunch of requirements regarding the kind of privacy and security reporting that he would need to do in order to be allowed to start up new businesses.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But Scott would not take the L. Just a year after his initial FTC ban, TechCrunch reported that he was caught running another stalkerware company. And last July, he petitioned the FTC to vacate the consent order.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Saying that, listen, this ban is really a drag. It is impeding my ability to go off and start new companies. And it’s really inconvenient for me, a former stalkerware merchant, to have to do all of these reporting requirements with my new businesses, which have nothing to do with stalkerware.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">His new businesses, according to the petition he filed, included running a restaurant and other tourism ventures in Puerto Rico. Eva was not about to let it slide. When the FTC solicited comment she jumped in.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I pointed out that the inconvenience is the point. This guy has, has definitely proved that he does not care about protecting user data or about user privacy. And so he should not be allowed to have businesses in which he is storing people’s private data. That seems bad.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Zuckerman’s petition was not approved. And Spyphone is just one of many battles in the fight against this industry. Eva said the coalition against stalkerware has been making some pretty big strides.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of the things about the, you know, kind of hydra metaphor is that, you know, you take down one head, you know, three heads come up, but instead, it’s been the other way around. We take down one head, three heads come down. And we have not managed to completely eliminate stalkerware, but we have managed to dramatically reduce the number of companies that are involved. And I think that that is a big victory. And, I think that as long as we can continue to create consequences for running one of these companies that it will look less and less appealing to continue to do so because the people who run stalkerware companies are businessmen. These are people who are out to get a buck. And the moment getting that buck is no longer easy, they will go find something else to do.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Earlier, Eva mentioned that stalkerware detection has improved since she started this work, and stalkerwear companies aren’t able to operate as brazenly anymore. Since the Spyphone case in 2021, several stalkerware companies have been prosecuted, shut down, and forced to notify victims that their devices have been compromised. It’s a huge leap from where the industry stood when Eva first started this fight. But there are more avenues for tech-enabled abuse than ever before, and stalkerware is just one part of it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A few years ago we saw a real kind of cratering in the use of stalkerware. We saw stalkerware use go down and stalkerware detections go down. And for a moment, I celebrated. I’m like, haha, we’re winning. This is really great. But this happened somewhere around like, late 2020, early 2021. And my theory is not that the amount of stalking has gone down, but that people switched to using Apple AirTags. And so I have spent a lot of time working on the problem of people being stalked through Bluetooth enabled trackers, not just AirTags, but also, you know, Samsung SmartTags and Chipolos and Tiles. And part of the reason for that is because this is a small, cheap, easy way to keep track of somebody’s location without ever needing to get your hands on their phone and without ever having to worry about whether or not their phone can detect it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Even lower tech, and lazier, even.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Absolutely. I think that really the most important thing for people to understand about tech-enabled abuse is that it’s not the survivor’s fault. One of the things that I hear most often when we talk about tech enabled abuse is like, well, why didn’t you just leave? Or, you know, well why did you give the abuser your password? Or why did let the aboser back into your house? And I think, that that is such a cruel and counterproductive way in which to face the problem and it really just it’s not even that it doesn’t help anyone it just helps abusers.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The fight against tech-enabled abuse doesn’t end with only holding companies accountable. There’s a social element too.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Eva Galperin: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that one of the big things that we need to change is we need for people to call each other out when they see this kind of behavior and say this is abusive. This is not okay. It’s not cool. Put that thing down. You know, if you think your partner is cheating, go talk to your partner. And if you can’t talk to you partner, maybe it’s time to break up. It is not time to spy on them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eva is not the privacy pope. She will not dole out individualized blessings and hold confession to absolve you of your privacy-violating sins. There is one thing she will give her blessing for: calling out abusive behavior. It can start with a one-on-one conversation with a peer or, if you’re Eva, an angry tweet turned years-long collective action to take down an industry-wide issue. But for most people, just learning about this issue and recognizing when to step in is already helping.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you suspect that your devices have been compromised and that you’re a victim of tech-enabled abuse, we’ll link to some resources in the show notes. We’ll also have resources for stalkerware detection, removal, and prevention. Okay, let’s close all these tabs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios, and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited by Chris Egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music. The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer, Brendan Willard. Additional engineering help from Brian Douglas and additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad. Jen Chien is our director of podcasts, And Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our Editor-in-Chief.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California Local.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches. Thanks for listening.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "the-h-1b-visa-process-but-make-it-a-video-game",
"title": "The H-1B Visa Process But Make It a Video Game",
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"headTitle": "The H-1B Visa Process But Make It a Video Game | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Life on an H-1B visa — a visa that lets U.S. companies hire foreign-born workers for specialized jobs — is difficult, unpredictable, and has gotten even harder under the Trump administration. A new gaming studio, Reality Reload, is trying to capture that experience in a mobile game. It’s called H1B.Life, and it simulates the difficult choices, competing priorities, and personal sacrifices visa holders face — complete with chaotic design elements, like all-powerful “gods” who control your fate.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED reporter Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman joins Morgan to break down the game’s surprising design choices, the mission behind it, and the stories he heard from people navigating the H1-B process. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC2401184331\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/adahlstromeckman\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, reporter at \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12076756/what-does-it-take-to-get-a-h-1b-visa-this-video-game-shows-just-how-complicated-it-is\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What Does It Take to Get a H-1B Visa? This Video Game Shows Just How Complicated It Is \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-google-amazon-microsoft-h-1b-visa-applications-decline-2026-4\">Meta, Google, and Amazon slash H-1B petitions after Trump’s visa crackdown\u003c/a> — Geoff Weiss, Melia Russell, Andy Kiersz, and Alex Nicoll, \u003ci>Business Insider \u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/state-policy/2026/01/29/faculty-warn-against-state-bans-h-1b-visas\">Faculty Warn Against State Bans on H-1B Visas\u003c/a> — Jessica Blake, \u003ci>\u003ci>Inside Higher Ed \u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.the-scientist.com/h-1b-visa-restrictions-will-hurt-america-s-research-potential-experts-say-74267\">H-1B Visa Restrictions Will Hurt America’s Research Potential, Experts Say\u003c/a> — Shelby Bradford, PhD, \u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>The Scientist \u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/trump-immigration-visa-secrutiny-tech/\">US Tech Visa Applications Are Being Put Through the Wringer \u003c/a>— Lauren Goode, \u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>Wired \u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/made-in-china-a-new-game-turns-the-h-1b-visa-system-into-a-surreal-simulation/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A New Game Turns the H-1B Visa System Into a Surreal Simulation \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Zeyi Yang, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wired \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hi, it’s Morgan. Be honest with me, how many tabs do you have open? Feeling a little overwhelmed by closing them? Well, we have an episode for you. If you like our deep dives and wanna hear more, please rate and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show and tell your friends about us too. Okay, let’s get to the episode. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Quick note: in this episode we use the term “immigrant” in a broad sense to refer to people living and working in the U.S. on H-1B visas. In legal terms the H1-B is a nonimmigrant temporary visa, though many visa holders hope to stay in the U.S. long term. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Every March, a corner of the Chinese social media app Red Note gets flooded with posts about Chick-fil-A. The users go all out, buying Chick-fil-A keychains, changing their profile pictures to the red and white chicken logo, and of course, treating themselves to a hearty meal of a chicken sandwich and waffle fries. You’ll often see the same emojis in each post: prayer hands, a chicken, and an American flag. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All of these users are applying for the H-1B visa, a visa for highly skilled immigrants sponsored by an employer. Many come to Silicon Valley to work in tech. Hundreds of thousands of hopefuls apply every year, but only 85,000 applicants are selected. So, what does this have to do with fried chicken? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It turns out that there’s a tradition amongst Chinese H-1B applicants here in the United States that they believe that eating a lot of Chick-fil-A and just generally associating with Chick-fil-A brings you luck and will increase your chances of getting selected in the H-1B lottery. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman is a reporter at KQED. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And apparently, if you go to a Chick-fil-A here in the Bay Area around March, you’re likely to see a lot of Chinese immigrants who potentially could be H-1B applicants eating there. And it’s not really clear where this started, but it’s definitely a thing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Azul said that this trend, the annual Chick-fil-A frenzy on social media, is part of a much bigger story. To even apply for an H-1B visa, you need an employer to sponsor you, which means that you need to have a job offer. It doesn’t guarantee a visa, just that you can enter the lottery. The process for getting an H-1B Visa has been changing, and a system that was already difficult has become even harder for applicants. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is true that with the Trump administration, there has been a lot of changes specifically to this year’s H-1B visa process. The first is that there’s now a $100,000 fee if a company wants to sponsor somebody who isn’t currently living in the country. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In wake of the changes and very steep application fee, some universities and companies implemented a hiring freeze for H-1B applicants. And the ones that are still hiring are sponsoring far fewer visas than in previous cycles. The updated application system isn’t totally random anymore. Higher paid applicants have a better chance of being picked now. But for the most part, the application process feels like a game of luck. At the end of the day, it’s still a lottery. Which is why good luck traditions, like getting Chick-fil-A during the registration window, have become baked into the modern mythology of the American immigrant experience. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It can all feel like a game, one in which the rules seem arbitrary and unpredictable. So when Azul heard about a studio turning that experience into a playable app, it made perfect sense. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">H1B.Life is a game that tries to simulate the experience of an immigrant who’s trying to get H1-B visa status. And it’s a pretty early prototype now. Basically, it’s sort of like a text-based decision tree on your smartphone. And I played a demo of it, and it was actually kind of interesting. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So one of the opening scenes of the game says, during high school, you spent hours and hours on your laptop binging Gilmore Girls on shady, unauthorized streaming websites. Everything in your drowsy new town reminds you of the show. If it wasn’t for Lorelai and Rory, you might have never decided to… and then there’s like two decisions, and one is study journalism or come to New England. And I was like, wow, that’s really oddly specific. And it turns out that H1B.Life is based on real-life interviews from H1-B applicants, specifically Chinese immigrants living in Silicon Valley. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re diving into H1B.Life today, the arduous application process, how capricious policy changes impact the trajectory of an immigrant’s entire life, and the cost of chasing a dream, all wrapped up in a mobile game. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Before we talk about the game itself, let’s get into the reality that inspired it. And as always, we’re starting by opening a new tab: Life on an H-1B Visa. Last month, the annual Game Developers Conference took over San Francisco. The Asian Art Museum was hosting a showcase for a game that involved chance, timing, and bureaucracy to, “determine who stays and who is deported.” The game was H1B.Life. Azul had heard about the game and decided to check it out. At the event, he talked to a few people about their own experiences with the immigration system. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The first person I talked to, his name was Donduk Dovdon, and he’s an ethnically Mongolian, Chinese national who now is a U.S. Citizen. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I came to States 12 years ago for my master’s degree in Washington, D.C. And eventually I got H-1B, and then later I got green card. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Donduk said the process demands a lot of sacrifice and that it can be hard to ever feel secure about the future. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He told me it is a very hard and arduous process to get H-1B status. And then even once you have H-1B status, you’re still not secure. You have to work towards getting a green card and then citizenship. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I didn’t see my parents for 10 years. I didn’t see any of my relatives for 10 years. So I think that’s still very emotional for me to say. Like, I eventually went back, I think, two years ago when I became citizen. It was so emotional. And I feel… I miss them, they miss me, a huge chapter of our lives…ten years, like many Americans, it’s just unimaginable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Donduk’s 10-year gap without seeing his family may be on the extreme end. H-1B visa holders are technically allowed to travel internationally and re-enter the country, as long as their visa stamp is still valid. But he’s not alone. The decision to stay in the U.S. is often driven by fear of not being allowed back in. Over the last year, given the heightened scrutiny of visa holders and the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, some legal experts, universities, and even tech companies who employ visa holders have cautioned against international travel. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Concerns about travel aside, taking time off to visit family abroad often depends on your employer’s time off policy. H-1B visas hinge on employment. Changing jobs involves a new sponsor and another mountain of paperwork. Some H- 1B visa holders have spoken out about feeling trapped abusive work environments because of their visa status. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When I was on H-1B, I met various shady employers who technically did not pay me, which was illegal. And it was like, if you dare to report me, you will get your H-1B revoked. So eventually, I was lucky enough and I left that organization, but I heard other people, in order just to get one H-1B, worked for three years free. And after work, they work at a restaurant or bubble tea store illegally for three years. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Getting picked in the visa lottery doesn’t guarantee long-term stability either. H-1B visas have a 6-year cap and visa holders have to spend a full year outside of the U.S. before they can reapply. Donduk mentioned one of his friends, who’s also Chinese Mongolian. He recently had to say goodbye to her. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She self-deported herself three or four days ago. We were at the airport. She was on H-1B for five years, but no companies was willing to sponsor her green card. She spent 14 years in the States. She even bought a house. And then she sold the house, sold the car, and moved back. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Visa status can be all consuming. At the showcase, Azul spoke with another attendee who’s currently on a different work-based visa. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He said that whenever he meets up with other visa holders, the number one thing that they ask each other is ‘what visa are you on? ‘ because it has such a powerful determining factor over what you do, who you date, where you live, where you work. You have to keep your employer happy and they have to continue to sponsor you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>You might need to take a job that takes you traveling out of the country, but with the Trump administration, you know, maybe it’s hard for you to get back into the country based on your country of origin. So I think people are constantly taking risks and living under uncertainty, you know, from one presidential administration to the next. They’re not sure how these rules surrounding H-1B status are going to change. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In his reporting, Azul talked to an immigration lawyer based in Silicon Valley, Sophie Alcorn. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The game metaphor made sense to her that the H-1B process is sort of like a game. She said that her two young sons invite her to play video games when she’s home and she says… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sophie Alcorn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You guys, I’m already playing one of the hardest video games. I don’t need to play another game because the immigration system is so complicated as it is. There’s randomness, there’s luck, there’s skill, there is strategy. There’s trying to go around and collect like, badges and items to upskill to be able to get to the next level just like in a game. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In games, players are the most affected by the rules, but they also have the least control over them. Right? Players are beholden to the rules but the people that make the rules are not playing the same game. I mean, you could say that we’re now playing on difficulty level hard with the Trump administration. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, let’s talk about the game itself, H1B life. Donduk, the guy who just got his American citizenship, actually thought the prototype he played was too realistic. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He said that the gameplay was a little triggering for him, it was too real. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re going to get into that after this break. But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate.kqed.org/podcasts. Okay, more about the game after the break. Stick with us. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Welcome back. We’re getting into this game, H1B.Life. Who is it for? How does it work? And can it really help make sense of the immigration process? Let’s open a new tab: How to play the H1-B Visa game. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>The immigration system, at times, can seem like a black box to applicants, lawyers, and maybe most of all, to natural born American citizens who’ve never needed to think about this. The seemingly arbitrary rules that can change at the whims of an unseen entity, the gravity of every single decision, the pressure to succeed as the perfect model immigrant, that is the experience that developers are trying to capture in H1B.Life. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from H1B.Life Trailer] America the big and beautiful country, but you need a visa. Be talented, big brain, build chips, then you might get an H-1B visa .\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s a trailer for H1B.Life, which is still a very long way from being playable. The Kickstarter hasn’t even launched yet, but Azul got to try a demo. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s basically like this text-based decision tree. The top half of the screen is like a text prompt and the bottom half is like, a series of choices. And then as you play through the game, you select different choices. There are these like four core attributes that you need to maintain. It’s intelligence, wealth, social support, and burnout rate, right? So this kind of like simulating. The things that it takes to be a person going through the H-1B visa process. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from H1B.Life Trailer] You make smart choices to get that visa and stay. What separates winning from losing is how you react when fate happens. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As you play, you’re presented with these different choices, like you’re done with your study abroad program and you go back home to Shanghai and you want to pursue journalism. But maybe you can get a job in this field and get an H-1B visa, so you decide to put off your dream and pursue something else. And as you do that, your core attributes sort of change. And so you’re having to sort of weigh those choices. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You can spend social capital, instead of going to, you know, your friend’s birthday party, you stay late at work because, you know, you’re trying to get sponsored, right? So your social support goes down, but you know your intelligence goes up, right? Like, that’s kind of the balancing act. Then what’s promised in subsequent versions of the game is that if those core attributes run out, it triggers a sort of like slot machine feature where different gods decide players fates, and that’s sort of supposed to describe this random nature of the H-1B visa process. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from H1B.Life Trailer] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And don’t forget the immigration gods: code god, free god, fried chicken god, even orange god.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can you tell us more about these different gods in the game? I know there’s one called the orange god. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the orange god is the one that caught my eye. The orange god bears a very strong resemblance to Donald Trump. And the orange god claims to control everything and has already changed the policy 500 times before you finish reading the sentence. That’s what the description of the orange is. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Allison Yang: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He’s the newest God in this universe. He’s very powerful. He can destroy your life any minute he wants, and he usually do. So you have to be very careful of him. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s Alison Yang, the founder of the game studio, Reality Reload. She told Azul about the other gods in the game. So there’s the code god, who looks like a cyborg and is obsessed with tech and optimization. The free god resembles the Statue of Liberty and is supposed to represent the American dream of a free society. And the fried chicken god? A nod to the annual Chick-fil-A tradition. And that god…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…According to the game description, keeps you surviving through the power of fast food grease. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Laughter] Reality Reload is a game studio made up of immigrants, developers, designers, and journalists. The founder, Allison, has a background in journalism. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Allison Yang: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I love journalism, but over the years, as an editor and a reporter, I realized less and less people are reading long form, but there’s so much stories and information we want to pass on. I had the luck to step into the game industry for 7-8 years now, and I realized it’s the opposite. Like, people spend a massive amount of time in a the game. They complained one of my games to be too short, play is two hours. At the same time, they would complain that one of my articles is too long. So I thought, what if I turn it around, like a trojan horse. Like we wrap the news or information into a game and people doesn’t have to know that. They’re just playing something fun and they’re exposed to information anyway. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, as Allison told Azul, the point of H1B.Life is to educate people about the complexities of the immigration system. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think they started with the H-1B visa because it’s like this caricature of the visa system. It’s highly sought after. It’s very competitive, but they realized that it’s not just H-1B visas, it’s the whole United States Immigration System. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Reality Reload team initially designed the game based on their own experiences as Chinese immigrants in Silicon Valley. They conducted dozens of interviews with other Chinese immigrants for storylines in the game. But the team quickly realized that this experience is more universal than they first believed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Allison Yang: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it’s kind of funny because there is internal tensions between people of different origin who are competing for the same visa. But when we were talking to them, we realized it’s the same rat race, and you’re competing with each other not because the other party is evil or better, it’s because you have to. And then everyone’s, or every context, country of origin have their own dilemma. Like when we talk to Latino people from Bolivia…here it’s already very hard to find a job, but people at home find it very difficult to believe they couldn’t find money in the States. They have to mitigate through that. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I talked to my physician who is Indian, and she said their problem is even if they get a visa, there are too many Indian visa holders, they have to wait, I’m sure this number is not right, but she said 100 years to get a green card. So it’s like different versions of a game. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">H1B.Life revolves around choices and rules, which the player may or may not know about until they break one. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Allison Yang: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And the rules are changing every day. The player usually the one who has the least power or say, but they are the one we have to play through. So that tension is something we want to focus on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Allison did admit that early versions of the game were maybe too realistic. She told Azul that when they ran play tests, some people, like Donduk, found it a bit traumatic because they’ve dealt with this in real life. Donduk thought the game was triggering and not playful enough for a typical video game. Here’s Azul again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But he did think that it could have an application in like corporate diversity trainings. You could imagine like being at Google and a lot of your coworkers are H1B sponsors, being like, wow, I didn’t know that you had to go through that to get here, you know? And then that’s so different from how a United States citizen would get here. So that’s like, one potential application. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">H1B.Life is still a prototype. The Reality Reload team is still interviewing other immigrants to weave their experiences into the story. And they plan to add more fantasy and play to the game before it launches. Azul mentioned one mini game in the works, which involves juggling. Your hands are full with a social life, maintaining grades, and looking for a job that’ll sponsor you, all while checking emails from your immigration lawyer. This is core to the game, managing the tension between competing priorities. It prompts players to consider what they want more: to pursue their dreams, or to fit the mold of an ideal immigrant in order to stay in the country. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Allison Yang: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the beginning we thought we were going to do a simple visa simulation game and now we realize it’s more about how people figure out what kind of life they want, where they want it to be. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Which is also a sentiment that almost all employment-based visa holders have to consider. Except, unlike in the game, there’s no decision tree guiding their path. They have to make these choices for themselves. What does life look like when it’s not dictated by a precarious visa status? Let’s open another new tab: the post-visa midlife crisis. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For Donduk Dovdon, he came here as a student and he was pursuing a master’s degree. And now he needs to decide where he’s going to work, not based on what he wants to do, but based on who will sponsor him for an H-1B visa. After you get an H1B Visa, then you’re on a six-year timeline where you have to hit certain benchmarks in order to get a green card. After 10 years of uncertain visa status…once he got his U.S. citizenship, he basically had like a midlife crisis. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Because before, when I was on H1B, the only thing I had, my goal was to survive and be in this country. So I do whatever it takes to get a job that sponsors me for H-1B. And I do whatever it takes make my boss happy. But when I eventually got a green card, I finally had the privilege to think like an American, like, oh, what do I actually want to do with my life? I think now I’m still figuring out like what do I actually want to do? Now I’m like a 21 years old American, just graduated from college. I have all the opportunities finally opened up for me and I remember when I became citizen and I decided to quit PhD that was the hardest time in my life because like I’m like now finally I can move to anywhere in the States. I can be a bartender in Miami, but do I really want to be? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>I don’t know. Like I spent two months wondering where should I go next. And I know some other also H-1B workers, they were like of the best coders as a company or program manager or whatever. And then when they got a green card, some guys, I know one guy, he quit and he moved to Midwest and he opened a bakery because that’s what he actually is passionate about. And I think it’s just, it’s like, finally as immigrants, like when we got our green card of citizenship, we finally have the privilege to ponder what Americans did probably around 18 years old, or early 20s, like what do you actually want to achieve? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do I really want to do with my life? It’s a conundrum that American citizens can ponder at any age, but most consider it when they’re teenagers or fresh out of college. Maybe a couple years into your career, you realize that it’s not for you and you can pivot. But if your legal status in this country hinges on being able to do one highly specialized job, you don’t get to pivot. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Your whole reason for being in the country is holding these special degrees, this special job and at the end of the day, that’s not all anyone is. Nobody is just an H-1B visa holder. Like, they’re complex people with multitudes of desires and I think feeling the weight of that lift can be unsettling for people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Donduk, for one, questioned whether this pressure is worth it for everyone. He told Azul that he was glad to stay in the United States, which, despite everything, is a safer and more free place for him as an openly gay, ethnically Mongolian person. But, if he knew that he could live in China without fear of persecution… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think the U.S. is getting harder and harder to stay here for immigrants. Like, you have to evaluate, what do you value more. If you can live a comfortable life in your back home country and you value your family connections, do you really want to spend 10, 15 years here just working like a dog to get a green card here? And also we heard many other stories like some immigrants, eventually they moved to Singapore or Canada and they found happiness there. Or even some move to Africa. It’s not like U.S. is the only place you can be happy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fewer international students are interested in studying in the U.S. Last year, international enrollment in American universities dropped 17%. Both Texas and Florida have banned H-1B hiring at public universities. Many scientists have raised concerns that the U.S. will lose its competitive edge in research between DOGE enforced funding cuts and H- 1B hiring freezes. But, as for working in the U.S., outside of academia? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services said that they did hit their cap this year. So obviously there is still a demand for H-1B visas, but the Trump administration has made it a lot harder to get an H-1B visa. A lot of the Reality Reload team are Chinese immigrants and coming here, they’ve had the same experiences as the people they interviewed for these stories. I think it is very personal and part of why they wanted to give a voice to this experience because it is so pervasive in, you know, especially in like, the Bay area or other places where there’s a high need for specialized immigrant labor. This is really a huge thing and I think it’s not something that a lot of American citizens are aware of. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do you think the game says about the intersection of technology and very bureaucratic systems like the immigration process? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Immigrants feel the whiplash of American government policies from like, Democrat to Republican, maybe more than most groups here in the country, and how it can upend their lives. And so I think this is a way for immigrants to tell their experiences and for them to feel seen and maybe to inject a little bit of critique into real life. Sometimes, like the experience can feel so arbitrary or so gamified. So maybe a game is the best way to understand and work towards making these processes better, or at least like, explain them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have the privilege of being a natural-born U.S. Citizen. Both of my parents immigrated here when they were young, and I’ve never had to navigate the complexities of the immigration system myself. Many of my close family members have dealt with that, but I admit that even as a journalist, I struggle to differentiate between types of visas and what you can do with them: H-1B, OPT, EB-3, O-1, L-1B, K-1? It’s a dialect that’s unintelligible to a lot of natural born citizens. There’s a whole other world of paperwork and red tape that most Americans never have to think about. But that doesn’t mean it’s unimportant. So how do you get through the doom scrolling and get American citizens to understand the real life impact of these shifting immigration policies?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Like Allison pointed out, people who aren’t inclined to spend 20 minutes reading about visa changes, may be more convinced to spend 20 minutes in a game, trying to avoid the wrath of the orange god. Through surreal slot machines, fickle deities, and some skill juggling, games like H1B.Life can open players up to an unseen reality that exists right in front of them, one that might affect their friends, their coworkers, and their neighbors every day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Special thanks to Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman for sharing this story along with the interview recordings you heard today. You can find a link to Azul’s story and more about H-1B.Life and the immigrant experience in our show notes. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited by Chris egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music. The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer, Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad, Jen Chien is our director of podcasts and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our editor in chief. Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco Northern California Local. This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran, and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches. Thanks for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"#episode-transcript\">\u003ci>View the full episode transcript.\u003c/i>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Life on an H-1B visa — a visa that lets U.S. companies hire foreign-born workers for specialized jobs — is difficult, unpredictable, and has gotten even harder under the Trump administration. A new gaming studio, Reality Reload, is trying to capture that experience in a mobile game. It’s called H1B.Life, and it simulates the difficult choices, competing priorities, and personal sacrifices visa holders face — complete with chaotic design elements, like all-powerful “gods” who control your fate.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED reporter Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman joins Morgan to break down the game’s surprising design choices, the mission behind it, and the stories he heard from people navigating the H1-B process. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC2401184331\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Guest:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/adahlstromeckman\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, reporter at \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Further Reading/Listening:\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12076756/what-does-it-take-to-get-a-h-1b-visa-this-video-game-shows-just-how-complicated-it-is\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What Does It Take to Get a H-1B Visa? This Video Game Shows Just How Complicated It Is \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ci>\u003c/i>\u003ca href=\"https://www.businessinsider.com/meta-google-amazon-microsoft-h-1b-visa-applications-decline-2026-4\">Meta, Google, and Amazon slash H-1B petitions after Trump’s visa crackdown\u003c/a> — Geoff Weiss, Melia Russell, Andy Kiersz, and Alex Nicoll, \u003ci>Business Insider \u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.insidehighered.com/news/government/state-policy/2026/01/29/faculty-warn-against-state-bans-h-1b-visas\">Faculty Warn Against State Bans on H-1B Visas\u003c/a> — Jessica Blake, \u003ci>\u003ci>Inside Higher Ed \u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.the-scientist.com/h-1b-visa-restrictions-will-hurt-america-s-research-potential-experts-say-74267\">H-1B Visa Restrictions Will Hurt America’s Research Potential, Experts Say\u003c/a> — Shelby Bradford, PhD, \u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>The Scientist \u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/trump-immigration-visa-secrutiny-tech/\">US Tech Visa Applications Are Being Put Through the Wringer \u003c/a>— Lauren Goode, \u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>\u003ci>Wired \u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/made-in-china-a-new-game-turns-the-h-1b-visa-system-into-a-surreal-simulation/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A New Game Turns the H-1B Visa System Into a Surreal Simulation \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Zeyi Yang, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wired \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Follow us on\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instagram\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> and\u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://www.tiktok.com/@closealltabs\"> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">TikTok\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-content post-body\">\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hi, it’s Morgan. Be honest with me, how many tabs do you have open? Feeling a little overwhelmed by closing them? Well, we have an episode for you. If you like our deep dives and wanna hear more, please rate and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to the show and tell your friends about us too. Okay, let’s get to the episode. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Quick note: in this episode we use the term “immigrant” in a broad sense to refer to people living and working in the U.S. on H-1B visas. In legal terms the H1-B is a nonimmigrant temporary visa, though many visa holders hope to stay in the U.S. long term. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Every March, a corner of the Chinese social media app Red Note gets flooded with posts about Chick-fil-A. The users go all out, buying Chick-fil-A keychains, changing their profile pictures to the red and white chicken logo, and of course, treating themselves to a hearty meal of a chicken sandwich and waffle fries. You’ll often see the same emojis in each post: prayer hands, a chicken, and an American flag. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All of these users are applying for the H-1B visa, a visa for highly skilled immigrants sponsored by an employer. Many come to Silicon Valley to work in tech. Hundreds of thousands of hopefuls apply every year, but only 85,000 applicants are selected. So, what does this have to do with fried chicken? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It turns out that there’s a tradition amongst Chinese H-1B applicants here in the United States that they believe that eating a lot of Chick-fil-A and just generally associating with Chick-fil-A brings you luck and will increase your chances of getting selected in the H-1B lottery. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman is a reporter at KQED. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And apparently, if you go to a Chick-fil-A here in the Bay Area around March, you’re likely to see a lot of Chinese immigrants who potentially could be H-1B applicants eating there. And it’s not really clear where this started, but it’s definitely a thing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Azul said that this trend, the annual Chick-fil-A frenzy on social media, is part of a much bigger story. To even apply for an H-1B visa, you need an employer to sponsor you, which means that you need to have a job offer. It doesn’t guarantee a visa, just that you can enter the lottery. The process for getting an H-1B Visa has been changing, and a system that was already difficult has become even harder for applicants. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is true that with the Trump administration, there has been a lot of changes specifically to this year’s H-1B visa process. The first is that there’s now a $100,000 fee if a company wants to sponsor somebody who isn’t currently living in the country. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In wake of the changes and very steep application fee, some universities and companies implemented a hiring freeze for H-1B applicants. And the ones that are still hiring are sponsoring far fewer visas than in previous cycles. The updated application system isn’t totally random anymore. Higher paid applicants have a better chance of being picked now. But for the most part, the application process feels like a game of luck. At the end of the day, it’s still a lottery. Which is why good luck traditions, like getting Chick-fil-A during the registration window, have become baked into the modern mythology of the American immigrant experience. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It can all feel like a game, one in which the rules seem arbitrary and unpredictable. So when Azul heard about a studio turning that experience into a playable app, it made perfect sense. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">H1B.Life is a game that tries to simulate the experience of an immigrant who’s trying to get H1-B visa status. And it’s a pretty early prototype now. Basically, it’s sort of like a text-based decision tree on your smartphone. And I played a demo of it, and it was actually kind of interesting. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So one of the opening scenes of the game says, during high school, you spent hours and hours on your laptop binging Gilmore Girls on shady, unauthorized streaming websites. Everything in your drowsy new town reminds you of the show. If it wasn’t for Lorelai and Rory, you might have never decided to… and then there’s like two decisions, and one is study journalism or come to New England. And I was like, wow, that’s really oddly specific. And it turns out that H1B.Life is based on real-life interviews from H1-B applicants, specifically Chinese immigrants living in Silicon Valley. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re diving into H1B.Life today, the arduous application process, how capricious policy changes impact the trajectory of an immigrant’s entire life, and the cost of chasing a dream, all wrapped up in a mobile game. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Before we talk about the game itself, let’s get into the reality that inspired it. And as always, we’re starting by opening a new tab: Life on an H-1B Visa. Last month, the annual Game Developers Conference took over San Francisco. The Asian Art Museum was hosting a showcase for a game that involved chance, timing, and bureaucracy to, “determine who stays and who is deported.” The game was H1B.Life. Azul had heard about the game and decided to check it out. At the event, he talked to a few people about their own experiences with the immigration system. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The first person I talked to, his name was Donduk Dovdon, and he’s an ethnically Mongolian, Chinese national who now is a U.S. Citizen. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I came to States 12 years ago for my master’s degree in Washington, D.C. And eventually I got H-1B, and then later I got green card. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Donduk said the process demands a lot of sacrifice and that it can be hard to ever feel secure about the future. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He told me it is a very hard and arduous process to get H-1B status. And then even once you have H-1B status, you’re still not secure. You have to work towards getting a green card and then citizenship. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I didn’t see my parents for 10 years. I didn’t see any of my relatives for 10 years. So I think that’s still very emotional for me to say. Like, I eventually went back, I think, two years ago when I became citizen. It was so emotional. And I feel… I miss them, they miss me, a huge chapter of our lives…ten years, like many Americans, it’s just unimaginable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Donduk’s 10-year gap without seeing his family may be on the extreme end. H-1B visa holders are technically allowed to travel internationally and re-enter the country, as long as their visa stamp is still valid. But he’s not alone. The decision to stay in the U.S. is often driven by fear of not being allowed back in. Over the last year, given the heightened scrutiny of visa holders and the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, some legal experts, universities, and even tech companies who employ visa holders have cautioned against international travel. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Concerns about travel aside, taking time off to visit family abroad often depends on your employer’s time off policy. H-1B visas hinge on employment. Changing jobs involves a new sponsor and another mountain of paperwork. Some H- 1B visa holders have spoken out about feeling trapped abusive work environments because of their visa status. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When I was on H-1B, I met various shady employers who technically did not pay me, which was illegal. And it was like, if you dare to report me, you will get your H-1B revoked. So eventually, I was lucky enough and I left that organization, but I heard other people, in order just to get one H-1B, worked for three years free. And after work, they work at a restaurant or bubble tea store illegally for three years. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Getting picked in the visa lottery doesn’t guarantee long-term stability either. H-1B visas have a 6-year cap and visa holders have to spend a full year outside of the U.S. before they can reapply. Donduk mentioned one of his friends, who’s also Chinese Mongolian. He recently had to say goodbye to her. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She self-deported herself three or four days ago. We were at the airport. She was on H-1B for five years, but no companies was willing to sponsor her green card. She spent 14 years in the States. She even bought a house. And then she sold the house, sold the car, and moved back. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Visa status can be all consuming. At the showcase, Azul spoke with another attendee who’s currently on a different work-based visa. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He said that whenever he meets up with other visa holders, the number one thing that they ask each other is ‘what visa are you on? ‘ because it has such a powerful determining factor over what you do, who you date, where you live, where you work. You have to keep your employer happy and they have to continue to sponsor you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>You might need to take a job that takes you traveling out of the country, but with the Trump administration, you know, maybe it’s hard for you to get back into the country based on your country of origin. So I think people are constantly taking risks and living under uncertainty, you know, from one presidential administration to the next. They’re not sure how these rules surrounding H-1B status are going to change. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In his reporting, Azul talked to an immigration lawyer based in Silicon Valley, Sophie Alcorn. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The game metaphor made sense to her that the H-1B process is sort of like a game. She said that her two young sons invite her to play video games when she’s home and she says… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sophie Alcorn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You guys, I’m already playing one of the hardest video games. I don’t need to play another game because the immigration system is so complicated as it is. There’s randomness, there’s luck, there’s skill, there is strategy. There’s trying to go around and collect like, badges and items to upskill to be able to get to the next level just like in a game. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In games, players are the most affected by the rules, but they also have the least control over them. Right? Players are beholden to the rules but the people that make the rules are not playing the same game. I mean, you could say that we’re now playing on difficulty level hard with the Trump administration. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, let’s talk about the game itself, H1B life. Donduk, the guy who just got his American citizenship, actually thought the prototype he played was too realistic. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He said that the gameplay was a little triggering for him, it was too real. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re going to get into that after this break. But first, we wanted to remind you that Close All Tabs depends on listeners like you to keep us going. You can support us by becoming a member at donate.kqed.org/podcasts. Okay, more about the game after the break. Stick with us. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Welcome back. We’re getting into this game, H1B.Life. Who is it for? How does it work? And can it really help make sense of the immigration process? Let’s open a new tab: How to play the H1-B Visa game. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>The immigration system, at times, can seem like a black box to applicants, lawyers, and maybe most of all, to natural born American citizens who’ve never needed to think about this. The seemingly arbitrary rules that can change at the whims of an unseen entity, the gravity of every single decision, the pressure to succeed as the perfect model immigrant, that is the experience that developers are trying to capture in H1B.Life. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from H1B.Life Trailer] America the big and beautiful country, but you need a visa. Be talented, big brain, build chips, then you might get an H-1B visa .\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s a trailer for H1B.Life, which is still a very long way from being playable. The Kickstarter hasn’t even launched yet, but Azul got to try a demo. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s basically like this text-based decision tree. The top half of the screen is like a text prompt and the bottom half is like, a series of choices. And then as you play through the game, you select different choices. There are these like four core attributes that you need to maintain. It’s intelligence, wealth, social support, and burnout rate, right? So this kind of like simulating. The things that it takes to be a person going through the H-1B visa process. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from H1B.Life Trailer] You make smart choices to get that visa and stay. What separates winning from losing is how you react when fate happens. \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As you play, you’re presented with these different choices, like you’re done with your study abroad program and you go back home to Shanghai and you want to pursue journalism. But maybe you can get a job in this field and get an H-1B visa, so you decide to put off your dream and pursue something else. And as you do that, your core attributes sort of change. And so you’re having to sort of weigh those choices. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You can spend social capital, instead of going to, you know, your friend’s birthday party, you stay late at work because, you know, you’re trying to get sponsored, right? So your social support goes down, but you know your intelligence goes up, right? Like, that’s kind of the balancing act. Then what’s promised in subsequent versions of the game is that if those core attributes run out, it triggers a sort of like slot machine feature where different gods decide players fates, and that’s sort of supposed to describe this random nature of the H-1B visa process. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Audio from H1B.Life Trailer] \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And don’t forget the immigration gods: code god, free god, fried chicken god, even orange god.\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Can you tell us more about these different gods in the game? I know there’s one called the orange god. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the orange god is the one that caught my eye. The orange god bears a very strong resemblance to Donald Trump. And the orange god claims to control everything and has already changed the policy 500 times before you finish reading the sentence. That’s what the description of the orange is. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Allison Yang: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He’s the newest God in this universe. He’s very powerful. He can destroy your life any minute he wants, and he usually do. So you have to be very careful of him. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s Alison Yang, the founder of the game studio, Reality Reload. She told Azul about the other gods in the game. So there’s the code god, who looks like a cyborg and is obsessed with tech and optimization. The free god resembles the Statue of Liberty and is supposed to represent the American dream of a free society. And the fried chicken god? A nod to the annual Chick-fil-A tradition. And that god…\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">…According to the game description, keeps you surviving through the power of fast food grease. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[Laughter] Reality Reload is a game studio made up of immigrants, developers, designers, and journalists. The founder, Allison, has a background in journalism. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Allison Yang: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I love journalism, but over the years, as an editor and a reporter, I realized less and less people are reading long form, but there’s so much stories and information we want to pass on. I had the luck to step into the game industry for 7-8 years now, and I realized it’s the opposite. Like, people spend a massive amount of time in a the game. They complained one of my games to be too short, play is two hours. At the same time, they would complain that one of my articles is too long. So I thought, what if I turn it around, like a trojan horse. Like we wrap the news or information into a game and people doesn’t have to know that. They’re just playing something fun and they’re exposed to information anyway. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, as Allison told Azul, the point of H1B.Life is to educate people about the complexities of the immigration system. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think they started with the H-1B visa because it’s like this caricature of the visa system. It’s highly sought after. It’s very competitive, but they realized that it’s not just H-1B visas, it’s the whole United States Immigration System. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Reality Reload team initially designed the game based on their own experiences as Chinese immigrants in Silicon Valley. They conducted dozens of interviews with other Chinese immigrants for storylines in the game. But the team quickly realized that this experience is more universal than they first believed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Allison Yang: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it’s kind of funny because there is internal tensions between people of different origin who are competing for the same visa. But when we were talking to them, we realized it’s the same rat race, and you’re competing with each other not because the other party is evil or better, it’s because you have to. And then everyone’s, or every context, country of origin have their own dilemma. Like when we talk to Latino people from Bolivia…here it’s already very hard to find a job, but people at home find it very difficult to believe they couldn’t find money in the States. They have to mitigate through that. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I talked to my physician who is Indian, and she said their problem is even if they get a visa, there are too many Indian visa holders, they have to wait, I’m sure this number is not right, but she said 100 years to get a green card. So it’s like different versions of a game. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">H1B.Life revolves around choices and rules, which the player may or may not know about until they break one. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Allison Yang: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And the rules are changing every day. The player usually the one who has the least power or say, but they are the one we have to play through. So that tension is something we want to focus on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Allison did admit that early versions of the game were maybe too realistic. She told Azul that when they ran play tests, some people, like Donduk, found it a bit traumatic because they’ve dealt with this in real life. Donduk thought the game was triggering and not playful enough for a typical video game. Here’s Azul again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But he did think that it could have an application in like corporate diversity trainings. You could imagine like being at Google and a lot of your coworkers are H1B sponsors, being like, wow, I didn’t know that you had to go through that to get here, you know? And then that’s so different from how a United States citizen would get here. So that’s like, one potential application. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">H1B.Life is still a prototype. The Reality Reload team is still interviewing other immigrants to weave their experiences into the story. And they plan to add more fantasy and play to the game before it launches. Azul mentioned one mini game in the works, which involves juggling. Your hands are full with a social life, maintaining grades, and looking for a job that’ll sponsor you, all while checking emails from your immigration lawyer. This is core to the game, managing the tension between competing priorities. It prompts players to consider what they want more: to pursue their dreams, or to fit the mold of an ideal immigrant in order to stay in the country. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Allison Yang: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the beginning we thought we were going to do a simple visa simulation game and now we realize it’s more about how people figure out what kind of life they want, where they want it to be. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Which is also a sentiment that almost all employment-based visa holders have to consider. Except, unlike in the game, there’s no decision tree guiding their path. They have to make these choices for themselves. What does life look like when it’s not dictated by a precarious visa status? Let’s open another new tab: the post-visa midlife crisis. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For Donduk Dovdon, he came here as a student and he was pursuing a master’s degree. And now he needs to decide where he’s going to work, not based on what he wants to do, but based on who will sponsor him for an H-1B visa. After you get an H1B Visa, then you’re on a six-year timeline where you have to hit certain benchmarks in order to get a green card. After 10 years of uncertain visa status…once he got his U.S. citizenship, he basically had like a midlife crisis. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Because before, when I was on H1B, the only thing I had, my goal was to survive and be in this country. So I do whatever it takes to get a job that sponsors me for H-1B. And I do whatever it takes make my boss happy. But when I eventually got a green card, I finally had the privilege to think like an American, like, oh, what do I actually want to do with my life? I think now I’m still figuring out like what do I actually want to do? Now I’m like a 21 years old American, just graduated from college. I have all the opportunities finally opened up for me and I remember when I became citizen and I decided to quit PhD that was the hardest time in my life because like I’m like now finally I can move to anywhere in the States. I can be a bartender in Miami, but do I really want to be? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>I don’t know. Like I spent two months wondering where should I go next. And I know some other also H-1B workers, they were like of the best coders as a company or program manager or whatever. And then when they got a green card, some guys, I know one guy, he quit and he moved to Midwest and he opened a bakery because that’s what he actually is passionate about. And I think it’s just, it’s like, finally as immigrants, like when we got our green card of citizenship, we finally have the privilege to ponder what Americans did probably around 18 years old, or early 20s, like what do you actually want to achieve? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do I really want to do with my life? It’s a conundrum that American citizens can ponder at any age, but most consider it when they’re teenagers or fresh out of college. Maybe a couple years into your career, you realize that it’s not for you and you can pivot. But if your legal status in this country hinges on being able to do one highly specialized job, you don’t get to pivot. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Your whole reason for being in the country is holding these special degrees, this special job and at the end of the day, that’s not all anyone is. Nobody is just an H-1B visa holder. Like, they’re complex people with multitudes of desires and I think feeling the weight of that lift can be unsettling for people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Donduk, for one, questioned whether this pressure is worth it for everyone. He told Azul that he was glad to stay in the United States, which, despite everything, is a safer and more free place for him as an openly gay, ethnically Mongolian person. But, if he knew that he could live in China without fear of persecution… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donduk Dovdon: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think the U.S. is getting harder and harder to stay here for immigrants. Like, you have to evaluate, what do you value more. If you can live a comfortable life in your back home country and you value your family connections, do you really want to spend 10, 15 years here just working like a dog to get a green card here? And also we heard many other stories like some immigrants, eventually they moved to Singapore or Canada and they found happiness there. Or even some move to Africa. It’s not like U.S. is the only place you can be happy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fewer international students are interested in studying in the U.S. Last year, international enrollment in American universities dropped 17%. Both Texas and Florida have banned H-1B hiring at public universities. Many scientists have raised concerns that the U.S. will lose its competitive edge in research between DOGE enforced funding cuts and H- 1B hiring freezes. But, as for working in the U.S., outside of academia? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services said that they did hit their cap this year. So obviously there is still a demand for H-1B visas, but the Trump administration has made it a lot harder to get an H-1B visa. A lot of the Reality Reload team are Chinese immigrants and coming here, they’ve had the same experiences as the people they interviewed for these stories. I think it is very personal and part of why they wanted to give a voice to this experience because it is so pervasive in, you know, especially in like, the Bay area or other places where there’s a high need for specialized immigrant labor. This is really a huge thing and I think it’s not something that a lot of American citizens are aware of. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do you think the game says about the intersection of technology and very bureaucratic systems like the immigration process? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Immigrants feel the whiplash of American government policies from like, Democrat to Republican, maybe more than most groups here in the country, and how it can upend their lives. And so I think this is a way for immigrants to tell their experiences and for them to feel seen and maybe to inject a little bit of critique into real life. Sometimes, like the experience can feel so arbitrary or so gamified. So maybe a game is the best way to understand and work towards making these processes better, or at least like, explain them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have the privilege of being a natural-born U.S. Citizen. Both of my parents immigrated here when they were young, and I’ve never had to navigate the complexities of the immigration system myself. Many of my close family members have dealt with that, but I admit that even as a journalist, I struggle to differentiate between types of visas and what you can do with them: H-1B, OPT, EB-3, O-1, L-1B, K-1? It’s a dialect that’s unintelligible to a lot of natural born citizens. There’s a whole other world of paperwork and red tape that most Americans never have to think about. But that doesn’t mean it’s unimportant. So how do you get through the doom scrolling and get American citizens to understand the real life impact of these shifting immigration policies?\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Like Allison pointed out, people who aren’t inclined to spend 20 minutes reading about visa changes, may be more convinced to spend 20 minutes in a game, trying to avoid the wrath of the orange god. Through surreal slot machines, fickle deities, and some skill juggling, games like H1B.Life can open players up to an unseen reality that exists right in front of them, one that might affect their friends, their coworkers, and their neighbors every day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Special thanks to Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman for sharing this story along with the interview recordings you heard today. You can find a link to Azul’s story and more about H-1B.Life and the immigrant experience in our show notes. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. This episode was produced by Maya Cueva and edited by Chris egusa, who also composed our theme song and credits music. The Close All Tabs team also includes editor Chris Hambrick and audio engineer, Brendan Willard. Additional music by APM. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad, Jen Chien is our director of podcasts and Ethan Toven-Lindsey is our editor in chief. Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco Northern California Local. This episode’s keyboard sounds were submitted by Alex Tran, and recorded on his white Epomaker Hi75 keyboard with Fogruaden red samurai keycaps and gateron milky yellow pro v2 switches. Thanks for listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
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"marketplace": {
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"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
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"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
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},
"mindshift": {
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"order": 12
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
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"planet-money": {
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"politicalbreakdown": {
"id": "politicalbreakdown",
"title": "Political Breakdown",
"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
"airtime": "THU 6:30pm-7pm",
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"possible": {
"id": "possible",
"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Possible-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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"pri-the-world": {
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"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 2pm-3pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
"radiolab": {
"id": "radiolab",
"title": "Radiolab",
"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
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},
"reveal": {
"id": "reveal",
"title": "Reveal",
"info": "Created by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Reveal is public radios first one-hour weekly radio show and podcast dedicated to investigative reporting. Credible, fact based and without a partisan agenda, Reveal combines the power and artistry of driveway moment storytelling with data-rich reporting on critically important issues. The result is stories that inform and inspire, arming our listeners with information to right injustices, hold the powerful accountable and improve lives.Reveal is hosted by Al Letson and showcases the award-winning work of CIR and newsrooms large and small across the nation. In a radio and podcast market crowded with choices, Reveal focuses on important and often surprising stories that illuminate the world for our listeners.",
"airtime": "SAT 4pm-5pm",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/reveal300px.png",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/",
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"rss": "http://feeds.revealradio.org/revealpodcast"
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},
"rightnowish": {
"id": "rightnowish",
"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
"info": "Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now… ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home.",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 16
},
"link": "/podcasts/rightnowish",
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},
"science-friday": {
"id": "science-friday",
"title": "Science Friday",
"info": "Science Friday is a weekly science talk show, broadcast live over public radio stations nationwide. Each week, the show focuses on science topics that are in the news and tries to bring an educated, balanced discussion to bear on the scientific issues at hand. Panels of expert guests join host Ira Flatow, a veteran science journalist, to discuss science and to take questions from listeners during the call-in portion of the program.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Science-Friday-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
"snap-judgment": {
"id": "snap-judgment",
"title": "Snap Judgment",
"tagline": "Real stories with killer beats",
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