Meta’s Whistleblower Was Silent Onstage. But Her Tell-All Keeps Selling
Santa Clara County Takes on Meta Scam Ads in Lawsuit
‘We Have To, and Are Proud To’: Silicon Valley Embraces the U.S. Military
Looming Closure of Zuckerberg-Funded School Raises Concerns in East Palo Alto
The Broligarchy Pt 2: Is this Techno-Fascism?
Meta’s Efforts to Block Explosive Expose in Arbitration Likely to Fail, Labor Experts Say
How Meta Brings in Millions Off Political Violence
US States Sue Meta for Addictive Apps, Fueling Youth Mental Health Crisis
It's the End of the Boom Times in Tech, as Layoffs Keep Mounting
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/facebook\">Facebook\u003c/a> whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams sat in silence onstage at an event after lawyers advised her not to speak because of legal action brought by Meta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the Hay Festival, an annual literature and arts event in the United Kingdom, Wynn-Williams was silent for an hour as she sat between investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr and Columbia University law professor Tim Wu, without even nodding or shaking her head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wynn-Williams wrote a bestselling memoir, \u003cem>Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism\u003c/em>, detailing her six years at the social media giant Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. It leveled\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12031294/metas-efforts-to-block-explosive-expose-in-arbitration-likely-to-fail-labor-experts-say\"> incendiary allegations\u003c/a> of sexual harassment and other potentially illegal behavior by CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other top-level executives during her tenure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was paid an advance of more than $500,000 for the book, according to \u003cem>New York Magazine’s\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.vulture.com/article/careless-people-sarah-wynn-williams-facebook-gag-order.html\"> Vulture\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Working on policy at Facebook was way less like enacting a chapter from Machiavelli and way more like watching a bunch of 14-year-olds who’ve been given superpowers and an ungodly amount of money, as they jet around the world to figure out what power has bought and brought them,” she wrote in the first chapter of the book.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Meta spokesperson told KQED that when Wynn-Williams left the company in 2017, she signed a severance agreement that included a non-disparagement clause — which Meta is now enforcing — and received an undisclosed severance payment in exchange.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wynn-Williams signed a \u003ca href=\"https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Arbitration-Interim-Award.pdf\">binding arbitration agreement\u003c/a> in 2025 which explicitly prohibited her from promoting her book. She faces fines of $50,000 each time she breaches the order.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shortly afterwards, in a\u003ca href=\"https://x.com/andymstone/status/1899938639540338759\"> post on the social media platform X\u003c/a> , Vice President of Communications Andy Stone wrote, “This ruling affirms that Sarah Wynn Williams’ false and defamatory book should never have been published.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11951941\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11951941 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS2274_facebook20120517.jpg\" alt=\"A computer tablet screen glows with a blue and white social media logo for the company Facebook. People are blurred in the background at a cafe setting.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1277\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS2274_facebook20120517.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS2274_facebook20120517-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS2274_facebook20120517-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS2274_facebook20120517-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS2274_facebook20120517-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sarah Wynn-Williams faces fines of $50,000 each time she breaches Meta’s order — which bars the author from promoting her book. \u003ccite>(Ted Aljibe/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The emergency arbitrator whom Meta appealed to ahead of the Hay Festival found that Meta had “established a likelihood of success on the merits of its contractual non-disparagement claim.” Meta’s motion argued that she violates that order “any time she appears in public in a place where she should know that her book is available for sale.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The book, which appeared on numerous “Best Of” lists, including one published by\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13985169/best-2025-nonfiction-books-to-start-2026\"> NPR\u003c/a>, was on sale at the Hay Festival, although it was pulled from sale while she was there.[aside postID=news_12083109 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/260511-SCCMETA-KQED-1-KQED.jpg']Tim Wu, who served under former President Joe Biden as Special Assistant for Technology and Competition Policy, wrote an email to KQED condemning Meta’s actions. “How can we say we have freedom of speech and also accept such blatant private censorship?” He wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wu has\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101911952/click-scroll-surrender-tim-wu-warns-against-the-rise-of-big-data-in-the-age-of-extraction\"> criticized Big Tech\u003c/a> in his own book, \u003cem>The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity\u003c/em>. He added, “Is there any real difference between this [and] the authoritarian state that seeks to silence its critics?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/may/31/meta-legal-action-forces-facebook-whistleblower-to-stay-silent-at-hay-festival\"> Guardian\u003c/a>, which first reported on the Hay Festival incident, Cadwalladr said onstage, “We have an author in a hostage situation. Blink once if you can hear us, Sarah, twice if Zuckerberg is an asshole.” At the end of the event, Wynn-Williams received a standing ovation from the audience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cadwalladr, famous for her role in breaking the\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11713801/facebooks-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-year\"> Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018\u003c/a>, mocked Meta at the event. “This is not how you conduct crisis comms,” she said. “Crisis comms would just be simply to ignore this and deprive it of oxygen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2023, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that it is generally illegal for companies to offer severance agreements that prohibit workers from making potentially disparaging statements about former employers, including discussing sexual harassment or sexual assault accusations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But under the Trump administration’s NLRB, that ruling is effectively suspended.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/facebook\">Facebook\u003c/a> whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams sat in silence onstage at an event after lawyers advised her not to speak because of legal action brought by Meta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the Hay Festival, an annual literature and arts event in the United Kingdom, Wynn-Williams was silent for an hour as she sat between investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr and Columbia University law professor Tim Wu, without even nodding or shaking her head.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wynn-Williams wrote a bestselling memoir, \u003cem>Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism\u003c/em>, detailing her six years at the social media giant Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. It leveled\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12031294/metas-efforts-to-block-explosive-expose-in-arbitration-likely-to-fail-labor-experts-say\"> incendiary allegations\u003c/a> of sexual harassment and other potentially illegal behavior by CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other top-level executives during her tenure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She was paid an advance of more than $500,000 for the book, according to \u003cem>New York Magazine’s\u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.vulture.com/article/careless-people-sarah-wynn-williams-facebook-gag-order.html\"> Vulture\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Working on policy at Facebook was way less like enacting a chapter from Machiavelli and way more like watching a bunch of 14-year-olds who’ve been given superpowers and an ungodly amount of money, as they jet around the world to figure out what power has bought and brought them,” she wrote in the first chapter of the book.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Meta spokesperson told KQED that when Wynn-Williams left the company in 2017, she signed a severance agreement that included a non-disparagement clause — which Meta is now enforcing — and received an undisclosed severance payment in exchange.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wynn-Williams signed a \u003ca href=\"https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Arbitration-Interim-Award.pdf\">binding arbitration agreement\u003c/a> in 2025 which explicitly prohibited her from promoting her book. She faces fines of $50,000 each time she breaches the order.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shortly afterwards, in a\u003ca href=\"https://x.com/andymstone/status/1899938639540338759\"> post on the social media platform X\u003c/a> , Vice President of Communications Andy Stone wrote, “This ruling affirms that Sarah Wynn Williams’ false and defamatory book should never have been published.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11951941\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11951941 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS2274_facebook20120517.jpg\" alt=\"A computer tablet screen glows with a blue and white social media logo for the company Facebook. People are blurred in the background at a cafe setting.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1277\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS2274_facebook20120517.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS2274_facebook20120517-800x532.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS2274_facebook20120517-1020x678.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS2274_facebook20120517-160x106.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/RS2274_facebook20120517-1536x1022.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sarah Wynn-Williams faces fines of $50,000 each time she breaches Meta’s order — which bars the author from promoting her book. \u003ccite>(Ted Aljibe/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The emergency arbitrator whom Meta appealed to ahead of the Hay Festival found that Meta had “established a likelihood of success on the merits of its contractual non-disparagement claim.” Meta’s motion argued that she violates that order “any time she appears in public in a place where she should know that her book is available for sale.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The book, which appeared on numerous “Best Of” lists, including one published by\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/arts/13985169/best-2025-nonfiction-books-to-start-2026\"> NPR\u003c/a>, was on sale at the Hay Festival, although it was pulled from sale while she was there.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Tim Wu, who served under former President Joe Biden as Special Assistant for Technology and Competition Policy, wrote an email to KQED condemning Meta’s actions. “How can we say we have freedom of speech and also accept such blatant private censorship?” He wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wu has\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/forum/2010101911952/click-scroll-surrender-tim-wu-warns-against-the-rise-of-big-data-in-the-age-of-extraction\"> criticized Big Tech\u003c/a> in his own book, \u003cem>The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity\u003c/em>. He added, “Is there any real difference between this [and] the authoritarian state that seeks to silence its critics?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/may/31/meta-legal-action-forces-facebook-whistleblower-to-stay-silent-at-hay-festival\"> Guardian\u003c/a>, which first reported on the Hay Festival incident, Cadwalladr said onstage, “We have an author in a hostage situation. Blink once if you can hear us, Sarah, twice if Zuckerberg is an asshole.” At the end of the event, Wynn-Williams received a standing ovation from the audience.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cadwalladr, famous for her role in breaking the\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11713801/facebooks-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-year\"> Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018\u003c/a>, mocked Meta at the event. “This is not how you conduct crisis comms,” she said. “Crisis comms would just be simply to ignore this and deprive it of oxygen.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2023, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that it is generally illegal for companies to offer severance agreements that prohibit workers from making potentially disparaging statements about former employers, including discussing sexual harassment or sexual assault accusations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But under the Trump administration’s NLRB, that ruling is effectively suspended.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "santa-clara-county-takes-on-meta-scam-ads-in-lawsuit",
"title": "Santa Clara County Takes on Meta Scam Ads in Lawsuit",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/santa-clara-county\">Santa Clara County\u003c/a> is suing Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, alleging the company is enabling and profiting from billions of scam advertisements circulating on its sites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The civil lawsuit, filed Monday in Santa Clara County Superior Court, claims Menlo Park-based Meta’s social media platforms carry around 15 billion scam ads daily, hurting seniors, families and small businesses, among its 3.5 billion users.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>County officials said the suit, filed on behalf of all California residents, is the first of its kind to be brought in the state and the first such action by any local civil prosecutor in the nation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>County Counsel Tony LoPresti said the company earns an estimated $7 billion in annual revenue from “fraudulent or otherwise prohibited advertisements” alone, in some cases by allegedly charging scammers a premium to post the ads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Meta might be a massive power broker in Silicon Valley and throughout the world, but Meta is not a company above the law,” LoPresti said during a press conference on Monday morning announcing the legal action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said with billions of scam ads on the platform, the types of scams run the gamut, including cryptocurrency scams, people impersonating celebrities or military personnel asking for money, or advertising “miracle cures to incurable diseases.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12036125\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12036125\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Meta, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads logos are screened on a mobile phone on Jan. 25, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“As civil prosecutors in Silicon Valley, we can’t allow a company as influential as Meta to continue perpetrating a scheme of this magnitude to deceive and victimize consumers,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The complaint claims Meta is violating false advertising and unfair competition laws, and asks a judge to order an injunction to stop the alleged practices. It also seeks monetary restitution and asks for civil penalties to be levied against Meta, some of which could be turned over to the county to be used for further consumer protection litigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuit rests heavily on internal leaked documents that were first reported by \u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-is-earning-fortune-deluge-fraudulent-ads-documents-show-2025-11-06/\">Reuters\u003c/a> last fall. A May 2025 company internal presentation estimated that “Meta was involved in one third of all successful Internet scams in the U.S.,” the lawsuit said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The county said Meta has contributed to more than $2.5 billion in losses for Californians in 2024, with seniors hit hardest. “Californians over 60 lost more than $800 million, and nationwide, older adults reported losses more than four times the average,” the county said in a statement.[aside postID=news_12082693 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2026/05/CellebriteGetty.jpg']A Meta spokesperson, in an emailed statement on Monday, said the company will fight the lawsuit. The legal action and the reporting it is largely based on distorts the company’s motives and ignores the “full range” of work done to combat scams, the statement said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We aggressively fight scams on and off our platforms because they’re not good for us or the people and businesses that rely on our services. We removed over 159 million scam ads last year alone, launched new tools to protect people and partnered with law enforcement around the globe to disrupt these criminals,” the statement said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LoPresti said in an interview that the company frequently touts the work it does against scams, while it is simultaneously “putting handcuffs on the fraud prevention teams” it employs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What our complaint alleges is that they have told those fraud prevention teams that they can’t do anything that actually impacts revenue by more than 0.15% of Meta’s total overall revenue,” LoPresti said. “So essentially what they’re saying is, ‘You can do your work, we want to brag about it, but we’re gonna make sure it doesn’t impact our bottom line too much.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuit alleges Meta also facilitates scam advertising “by promoting and providing special protections to supposedly ‘vetted’ business partners that make no secret of offering services to support scam advertisers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meta’s own systems flag advertisements that are likely scams, but “instead of stopping those ads, the company charges scammers a premium price to run them, a practice that both facilitates and monetizes deception,” the county statement said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11951943\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11951943 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060123-Meta-Facebook-Instagram-AP-JC-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"The Meta booth at the Game Developers Conference 2023 in San Francisco.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060123-Meta-Facebook-Instagram-AP-JC-KQED.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060123-Meta-Facebook-Instagram-AP-JC-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060123-Meta-Facebook-Instagram-AP-JC-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060123-Meta-Facebook-Instagram-AP-JC-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060123-Meta-Facebook-Instagram-AP-JC-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Santa Clara County is suing Facebook’s parent company, Meta, on behalf of all California residents over harmful scam advertisements on the company’s social media platforms. \u003ccite>(Jeff Chiu/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Meta deliberately targets the most vulnerable people with scam ads, the suit said, and those who have clicked on illegitimate ads before will be shown more of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Essentially, it’s like a bully finding the weak kid on the playground and making sure that they’re getting all of the attention,” LoPresti said. “The elderly, folks of color, low-income folks are disproportionately impacted by this kind of conduct. And that’s something that we believe really has to stop.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meta has faced a wave of litigation in recent years, including for allegedly employing addictive features that lead to mental health challenges, for not protecting young people and for using copyrighted material to train artificial intelligence models without permission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LoPresti said his office is “excited to litigate” the case and expects to be able to hold Meta accountable for its actions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t sit idly by when we know good and well that a tech giant is swindling the public to hit a revenue target,” LoPresti said. “Tech might be the lifeblood of Silicon Valley. And we benefit from it, and we celebrate that. But we can’t allow poison into that bloodstream.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/santa-clara-county\">Santa Clara County\u003c/a> is suing Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, alleging the company is enabling and profiting from billions of scam advertisements circulating on its sites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The civil lawsuit, filed Monday in Santa Clara County Superior Court, claims Menlo Park-based Meta’s social media platforms carry around 15 billion scam ads daily, hurting seniors, families and small businesses, among its 3.5 billion users.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>County officials said the suit, filed on behalf of all California residents, is the first of its kind to be brought in the state and the first such action by any local civil prosecutor in the nation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>County Counsel Tony LoPresti said the company earns an estimated $7 billion in annual revenue from “fraudulent or otherwise prohibited advertisements” alone, in some cases by allegedly charging scammers a premium to post the ads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Meta might be a massive power broker in Silicon Valley and throughout the world, but Meta is not a company above the law,” LoPresti said during a press conference on Monday morning announcing the legal action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said with billions of scam ads on the platform, the types of scams run the gamut, including cryptocurrency scams, people impersonating celebrities or military personnel asking for money, or advertising “miracle cures to incurable diseases.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12036125\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12036125\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty2-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Meta, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads logos are screened on a mobile phone on Jan. 25, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“As civil prosecutors in Silicon Valley, we can’t allow a company as influential as Meta to continue perpetrating a scheme of this magnitude to deceive and victimize consumers,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The complaint claims Meta is violating false advertising and unfair competition laws, and asks a judge to order an injunction to stop the alleged practices. It also seeks monetary restitution and asks for civil penalties to be levied against Meta, some of which could be turned over to the county to be used for further consumer protection litigation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuit rests heavily on internal leaked documents that were first reported by \u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-is-earning-fortune-deluge-fraudulent-ads-documents-show-2025-11-06/\">Reuters\u003c/a> last fall. A May 2025 company internal presentation estimated that “Meta was involved in one third of all successful Internet scams in the U.S.,” the lawsuit said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The county said Meta has contributed to more than $2.5 billion in losses for Californians in 2024, with seniors hit hardest. “Californians over 60 lost more than $800 million, and nationwide, older adults reported losses more than four times the average,” the county said in a statement.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>A Meta spokesperson, in an emailed statement on Monday, said the company will fight the lawsuit. The legal action and the reporting it is largely based on distorts the company’s motives and ignores the “full range” of work done to combat scams, the statement said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We aggressively fight scams on and off our platforms because they’re not good for us or the people and businesses that rely on our services. We removed over 159 million scam ads last year alone, launched new tools to protect people and partnered with law enforcement around the globe to disrupt these criminals,” the statement said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LoPresti said in an interview that the company frequently touts the work it does against scams, while it is simultaneously “putting handcuffs on the fraud prevention teams” it employs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What our complaint alleges is that they have told those fraud prevention teams that they can’t do anything that actually impacts revenue by more than 0.15% of Meta’s total overall revenue,” LoPresti said. “So essentially what they’re saying is, ‘You can do your work, we want to brag about it, but we’re gonna make sure it doesn’t impact our bottom line too much.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuit alleges Meta also facilitates scam advertising “by promoting and providing special protections to supposedly ‘vetted’ business partners that make no secret of offering services to support scam advertisers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meta’s own systems flag advertisements that are likely scams, but “instead of stopping those ads, the company charges scammers a premium price to run them, a practice that both facilitates and monetizes deception,” the county statement said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11951943\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11951943 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060123-Meta-Facebook-Instagram-AP-JC-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"The Meta booth at the Game Developers Conference 2023 in San Francisco.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060123-Meta-Facebook-Instagram-AP-JC-KQED.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060123-Meta-Facebook-Instagram-AP-JC-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060123-Meta-Facebook-Instagram-AP-JC-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060123-Meta-Facebook-Instagram-AP-JC-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060123-Meta-Facebook-Instagram-AP-JC-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Santa Clara County is suing Facebook’s parent company, Meta, on behalf of all California residents over harmful scam advertisements on the company’s social media platforms. \u003ccite>(Jeff Chiu/AP Photo)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Meta deliberately targets the most vulnerable people with scam ads, the suit said, and those who have clicked on illegitimate ads before will be shown more of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Essentially, it’s like a bully finding the weak kid on the playground and making sure that they’re getting all of the attention,” LoPresti said. “The elderly, folks of color, low-income folks are disproportionately impacted by this kind of conduct. And that’s something that we believe really has to stop.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meta has faced a wave of litigation in recent years, including for allegedly employing addictive features that lead to mental health challenges, for not protecting young people and for using copyrighted material to train artificial intelligence models without permission.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>LoPresti said his office is “excited to litigate” the case and expects to be able to hold Meta accountable for its actions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t sit idly by when we know good and well that a tech giant is swindling the public to hit a revenue target,” LoPresti said. “Tech might be the lifeblood of Silicon Valley. And we benefit from it, and we celebrate that. But we can’t allow poison into that bloodstream.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "we-have-to-and-are-proud-to-big-tech-embraces-the-u-s-military",
"title": "‘We Have To, and Are Proud To’: Silicon Valley Embraces the U.S. Military",
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"headTitle": "‘We Have To, and Are Proud To’: Silicon Valley Embraces the U.S. Military | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>A decade ago, most major tech companies swore off working with the U.S. military. Google, Meta and OpenAI even once had policies banning the use of AI in weapons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But times have changed, and now Silicon Valley is fully embracing contracts and collaborations with the military. Sheera Frenkel, tech reporter with the New York Times, explains how and why this shift occurred.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ci>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/i>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/technology/google-meta-openai-military-war.html\">The Militarization of Silicon Valley\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\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=KQINC5559995627&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Kariisa \u003c/strong>[00:00:00] I’m Jessica Kariisa, and welcome to The Bay, local news to keep you rooted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ambi \u003c/strong>[00:00:05] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Army Jacket Ceremony and the Commissioning Ceremony for Detachment 201.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Kariisa \u003c/strong>[00:00:13] In June of this year, four current and former executives from Meta, OpenAI, and Palantir took center stage at a ceremony at the Joint Base Meyer Henderson Hall in Arlington, Virginia. Wearing combat gear and boots, the executives were there for their swearing-in ceremony as Lieutenant Colonels in Detachment 201. A new unit to advise the Army on new technology for use in combat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ambi \u003c/strong>[00:00:45] In an era defined by information warfare, automation, and digital disruption, the army needs skilled technologists in its ranks now more than ever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Kariisa \u003c/strong>[00:00:58] Big tech has embraced the U.S. Military. It’s a dramatic shift from just a decade ago when most of Silicon Valley was firmly against helping the government wage war. These days, tech executives are singing a different tune.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:01:14] You’re seeing a lot of posting about how great America is and how proud they are to be Americans doing business in America. That’s a shift and it’s really noticeable among the top executives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Kariisa \u003c/strong>[00:01:30] Today, Sheera Frenkel from The New York Times talks with The Bay’s host, Ericka Cruz Guevarra, about how Silicon Valley changed its mind on working with the military.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:01:51] Sheera, I guess how might you describe how tight Silicon Valley and the U.S. Government and U. S. Military in particular are these days?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:02:01] We are in a moment of exceptional closeness between the U.S. government and Silicon Valley, and that is really unusual. Silicon Valley had its origins with funding from the U.S. Government. But until now, there has not been this kind of widespread across the board move of Silicon Valley, you know, big companies, executives working closely with the U S military and having the kind of technology that’s actually useful for them. This is a region that saw itself as liberal, progressive, independent, connecting the world. That was a big motto. This idea that it was really international and it was about the good of all humankind, and not something that was specifically wedded to kind of an American patriotism. There’ve been figures, there’ve been characters, there’s been companies that have been public about their want and their need to work with the U.S. Government, but as much as a decade ago, there was widespread protests across Silicon Valley by the employee base at the idea of working closely with the government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:03:12] Yeah, don’t be evil, right, as Google used to say. And I’m thinking, you mentioned the protests, I’m thinking back to 2018 and Google when there were these mass protests by employees there around Google’s involvement in a Pentagon program, right? Can you just remind me of that era of Google, of this like don’t-be-evil sort of motto?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:03:38] That was an era where people came to work at Google, they would graduate from the top universities in the United States. And as people in their early 20s, they saw it as this just really sort of do good, do positive things for the world kind of company. And executives fed into it, this idea of it’s bottom-up kind of culture and we listen to every employee and if you guys protest, we want to hear about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>News clip \u003c/strong>[00:04:03] A letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai is signed by more than 3,000 Google workers. Here’s what it says, quote, we believe Google should not be in the business of war, therefore we ask that Project Maven be canceled and that Google draft publicize.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:04:18] And so when Google employees came out en masse and said they did not want executives to pursue a contract with the U.S. Government with the Pentagon, executives listened and they backed down. And you saw employees at smaller companies across Silicon Valley taking note.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:04:31] And I remember the protests not just being effective in stopping the collaboration with this program but it literally became policy at Google to not pursue contracts with the US Military right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:04:50] Three of the the biggest companies, Meta, OpenAI, and Google, all changed their terms of service so that they would not work with the U.S. Government and that specifically their AI technology wouldn’t be used to help build defense systems. It was literally, we’re going to create policy so that our systems can’t be used for defense or for military purposes. That’s how strongly these executives doubled down on what their employees were asking for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:05:16] Around this time, Sheera, is it fair to say that everyone in tech was pretty much against military contracts?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:05:24] I wouldn’t say everyone because you had outliers. You had companies like Palantir, who was very outspoken about their work with the US government. They, in fact, sued the army to get a contract because they were so keen on being a tech company that was very out, very public, very aggressive about wanting to be a tech companies that worked with the U.S. Military.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Karp \u003c/strong>[00:05:47] And while there, you had the idea for Palantir? Yeah, well, you know, post 9-11, I think the idea, again, it was Silicon Valley ought to be involved in fighting terrorism and protecting our civil liberties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:05:59] Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir, talks about the importance of working with the government all the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Karp \u003c/strong>[00:06:05] We are kind of the greatest democracy in the world, and we tend to win wars where the people believe in what they’re doing. Where the people think that there’s a trade-off between civil liberties and fighting cyber terrorists, it’s going to be very hard to win.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:06:17] I just remember how clear it was that they were outliers at that time to what the rest of kind of the Silicon Valley companies were feeling and doing and saying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:06:31] And for folks who maybe aren’t as familiar with Palantir, what do they do?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:06:35] Palantire is a funny company in that they had a certain mysterious aura around them for a long time, and I think they encouraged that by not saying much about what they did. They build systems. They build data systems that can analyze data, that can process it, that can draw conclusions. For instance, they work across the U.S. Federal government, and they’ll come into a place and say, right, here is all the data you sit on. We are not just going to organize it for you, we’re going to make it easy for you visualize it, to analyze it, our AI will draw conclusions. So for a long time, they were used by police departments, for instance, or they were used by different intelligence services to help look at their own data and sort of be able to understand it, even if you were not necessarily a technically minded person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:07:23] I guess we’re talking now because, as you’re just talking about, Palantir was sort of this outlier among tech companies, really among one of the only ones really working closely with the U.S. Military, but increasingly they’re someone that other tech companies are becoming more and more jealous of these days, it seems like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:07:44] Yeah, it’s really interesting. It’s come full circle. All these tech companies that, you know, stepped away from the US government are now looking at Palantir’s incredibly lucrative contracts across the US Government. Each one of these contracts can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And once you are working with the US government, they’re pretty faithful as clients. So you’re looking at these contracts that are going to give you amazing revenue year after year. And they want to work with American companies. They seek out American companies. And so I’ve heard some pretty senior executives at Meta and at Google say quite plainly, like, we’re jealous. We wish we were in there sooner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:08:26] What exactly has changed here? Like, how did a company like Google go from don’t be evil to now attempting, it looks like, to pursue contracts with the US military? Like, what is this change?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:08:39] I think an executive at Google would say, well, we’ve rethought what it looks like to be evil. A couple things have happened in the last five years or so that have shifted their view. I think primarily the war in Ukraine, seeing the way that Russia and Ukraine have been fighting that war has really mobilized a lot of American executives into thinking that the US Army is not ready to fight the kind of wars that get fought now. Tanks and fighter jets and all that are always going to be part of the U.S. Military. But the way that drone warfare has shifted things, the way the AI systems have shifted both the way militaries collect intelligence and choose targets and select how to act, all of that is not possible without the kind of technical companies and expertise you have in Silicon Valley. And so there’s this sense of like, oh, well, if America goes to war and we’re they’re helping, we may not win. We also have seen a really radically shifting political climate in Silicon Valley. More and more executives have openly expressed support of Donald Trump and his administration. You hear a lot of people out here being like, well, I may not agree with everything that Trump does, but he’s good for business and he’s good for this. And you hear that kind of thing more and more. And so you have a certain willingness of executives to kind of come out and say, I want to work with Trump. I think it’s positive for me and my company to work with him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:10:25] I also have to imagine that money plays a big role here. You mentioned how many of these military contracts have a pretty big price tag on them. I mean, what role do you think that plays? And I know the president too has pledged to spend a lot more on the military.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:10:45] Trump wants to put into place budgets that are going to see a lot of money flowing to the kind of new technology that Silicon Valley can produce. And so if you’re an executive out here, and not to name names, but you’ve decided to rename your company Meta because you think the Metaverse is the future. And then people are kind of like, well, I don’t know if I want to live in the Metaverse. I’m not sure that I want AR and VR goggles. And then the US military comes around and they’re like, Well, we’ll buy half a billion dollars worth of VR goggles because we want to train our soldiers on how to fight in war by putting them through battle scenarios. And suddenly, suddenly there’s a reason to name your company Meta. Suddenly there’s an actual client that wants to buy all that. And so it makes a lot of business sense for these companies to be in this way, and finding military applications for the technology they’ve been working on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:11:37] Yeah, you just mentioned Meta and these AR VR goggles. I mean, what are some examples, I guess, of this shift that is happening in Silicon Valley? And I guess what specifically to our tech executives saying?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:11:53] You hear a lot of pride among tech executives that they’re working this closely with the U.S. Government, I like to look at their Instagram or their threads or their X pages because you can tell a lot by what they post. And if you look at them over the last, I’d say, year or so, you’re seeing a lot of like American flags flying in the background of posts. You’re seeing lot of posting about how great America is and how proud they are to be Americans doing business in America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam Altman \u003c/strong>[00:12:22] Of course, we have to and are proud to and really want to engage in national security areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:12:29] Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has started talking about the importance of working with the U.S. Government just in the last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam Altman \u003c/strong>[00:12:36] Part of AI to benefit all of humanity very clearly involves supporting the US and our allies to uphold democratic values around the world and to keep us safe. And this is like an integral part of our mission. This is not some side quest that maybe we think about at some point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:12:55] That’s a shift, and it’s really noticeable among the top executives. That’s something you’re really seeing at the top, and I think there is a gulf here between what executives are saying and posting and feeling about all this, and what the workforce is feeling about the direction that their companies are taking. You’ve also seen a lot of contracts signed. You’ve seen companies like OpenAI partnering with Andrel to use their AI technology to create weapons of the future. The question now isn’t whether the US is going to have autonomous weapons. It’s when will the US have autonomous weapons, and how quickly will companies like Google, or OpenAI, or Microsoft be able to use and pivot their AI technology to create these weapons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:13:46] I mean, this is making me think about Google back in 2018, as we were talking about earlier, and the role that the employees at these companies played in pushing back against this working with the US military. Are we seeing that same kind of pushback by tech employees in Silicon Valley now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:14:08] We are not seeing the kind of loud public pushback that we saw a little less than a decade ago. I spoke to quite a few engineers and employees at tech companies that are working with the U.S. Government who are worried. They’re sitting there and going, well, I joined this company because I believed in the ethos of connecting the world or do no evil. And now, I don’t know, I might be building an AI system that helps choose bombing targets faster for some future war, in which were you know, launching aerial strikes. I just think there’s this interesting moment where a lot of these people are asking themselves, do I feel good about the work I’m doing? But they’re doing it quietly, to be clear, because the last few years have seen a lot of layoffs across the big companies. And a lot of these people are worried for their jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:14:57] And we’ve seen that over the issue of Israel and Palestine, for example, at some of these tech companies, right? That there is real pushback happening now from the top.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:15:08] Very much so. And a couple of the employees I spoke to looked specifically at Gaza as an example of a very AI driven war. I’ve written about this a lot about the systems that Israel built to be able to choose more targets to strike, to be to analyze intelligence quickly, to, you know, the facial recognition software that they’re deploying to use across Gaza. All of this are the kinds of systems that America is thinking about building. And you’re an employee, you’re looking at and you’re saying, is that the future of war?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:15:40] I mean, Sheera, there’s obviously this moral opposition here. But I mean are there any other reasons why this collaboration between Silicon Valley and the US military is a maybe concerning trend? I mean I’m thinking about this technology and its use for surveillance in the US potentially even. I mean what are the other concerns around this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:16:08] I think the concerns are that you can’t put the genie back in the bottle. Technology can introduce different levels of surveillance that the US government can then choose to use as it wants to, right? And so there’s questions of how much more of a surveillance state does the US become. There are questions of, again, autonomous weapons. And every soldier I’ve met has talked about how the introduction of autonomous weapons removes one layer of humanity in war and that when it is robots firing at robots, it’s a very different war. And so there are people out there that are asking these questions of, do we want all these autonomous systems? What does that mean? Are we just making killing easier in the next conflict? And so, yes, anytime a technology is introduced, I think there’s a rush to kind of embrace that new technology. And then often a little like a beat later, like some would say a moment too late, there’s the question of, is this good?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:17:14] Well, Sheera, thank you so much for sharing your reporting with us.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A decade ago, most major tech companies swore off working with the U.S. military. Google, Meta and OpenAI even once had policies banning the use of AI in weapons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But times have changed, and now Silicon Valley is fully embracing contracts and collaborations with the military. Sheera Frenkel, tech reporter with the New York Times, explains how and why this shift occurred.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003ci>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/i>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/technology/google-meta-openai-military-war.html\">The Militarization of Silicon Valley\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\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=KQINC5559995627&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Kariisa \u003c/strong>[00:00:00] I’m Jessica Kariisa, and welcome to The Bay, local news to keep you rooted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ambi \u003c/strong>[00:00:05] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Army Jacket Ceremony and the Commissioning Ceremony for Detachment 201.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Kariisa \u003c/strong>[00:00:13] In June of this year, four current and former executives from Meta, OpenAI, and Palantir took center stage at a ceremony at the Joint Base Meyer Henderson Hall in Arlington, Virginia. Wearing combat gear and boots, the executives were there for their swearing-in ceremony as Lieutenant Colonels in Detachment 201. A new unit to advise the Army on new technology for use in combat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ambi \u003c/strong>[00:00:45] In an era defined by information warfare, automation, and digital disruption, the army needs skilled technologists in its ranks now more than ever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Kariisa \u003c/strong>[00:00:58] Big tech has embraced the U.S. Military. It’s a dramatic shift from just a decade ago when most of Silicon Valley was firmly against helping the government wage war. These days, tech executives are singing a different tune.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:01:14] You’re seeing a lot of posting about how great America is and how proud they are to be Americans doing business in America. That’s a shift and it’s really noticeable among the top executives.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Jessica Kariisa \u003c/strong>[00:01:30] Today, Sheera Frenkel from The New York Times talks with The Bay’s host, Ericka Cruz Guevarra, about how Silicon Valley changed its mind on working with the military.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:01:51] Sheera, I guess how might you describe how tight Silicon Valley and the U.S. Government and U. S. Military in particular are these days?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:02:01] We are in a moment of exceptional closeness between the U.S. government and Silicon Valley, and that is really unusual. Silicon Valley had its origins with funding from the U.S. Government. But until now, there has not been this kind of widespread across the board move of Silicon Valley, you know, big companies, executives working closely with the U S military and having the kind of technology that’s actually useful for them. This is a region that saw itself as liberal, progressive, independent, connecting the world. That was a big motto. This idea that it was really international and it was about the good of all humankind, and not something that was specifically wedded to kind of an American patriotism. There’ve been figures, there’ve been characters, there’s been companies that have been public about their want and their need to work with the U.S. Government, but as much as a decade ago, there was widespread protests across Silicon Valley by the employee base at the idea of working closely with the government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:03:12] Yeah, don’t be evil, right, as Google used to say. And I’m thinking, you mentioned the protests, I’m thinking back to 2018 and Google when there were these mass protests by employees there around Google’s involvement in a Pentagon program, right? Can you just remind me of that era of Google, of this like don’t-be-evil sort of motto?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:03:38] That was an era where people came to work at Google, they would graduate from the top universities in the United States. And as people in their early 20s, they saw it as this just really sort of do good, do positive things for the world kind of company. And executives fed into it, this idea of it’s bottom-up kind of culture and we listen to every employee and if you guys protest, we want to hear about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>News clip \u003c/strong>[00:04:03] A letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai is signed by more than 3,000 Google workers. Here’s what it says, quote, we believe Google should not be in the business of war, therefore we ask that Project Maven be canceled and that Google draft publicize.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:04:18] And so when Google employees came out en masse and said they did not want executives to pursue a contract with the U.S. Government with the Pentagon, executives listened and they backed down. And you saw employees at smaller companies across Silicon Valley taking note.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:04:31] And I remember the protests not just being effective in stopping the collaboration with this program but it literally became policy at Google to not pursue contracts with the US Military right?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:04:50] Three of the the biggest companies, Meta, OpenAI, and Google, all changed their terms of service so that they would not work with the U.S. Government and that specifically their AI technology wouldn’t be used to help build defense systems. It was literally, we’re going to create policy so that our systems can’t be used for defense or for military purposes. That’s how strongly these executives doubled down on what their employees were asking for.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:05:16] Around this time, Sheera, is it fair to say that everyone in tech was pretty much against military contracts?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:05:24] I wouldn’t say everyone because you had outliers. You had companies like Palantir, who was very outspoken about their work with the US government. They, in fact, sued the army to get a contract because they were so keen on being a tech company that was very out, very public, very aggressive about wanting to be a tech companies that worked with the U.S. Military.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Karp \u003c/strong>[00:05:47] And while there, you had the idea for Palantir? Yeah, well, you know, post 9-11, I think the idea, again, it was Silicon Valley ought to be involved in fighting terrorism and protecting our civil liberties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:05:59] Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir, talks about the importance of working with the government all the time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Alex Karp \u003c/strong>[00:06:05] We are kind of the greatest democracy in the world, and we tend to win wars where the people believe in what they’re doing. Where the people think that there’s a trade-off between civil liberties and fighting cyber terrorists, it’s going to be very hard to win.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:06:17] I just remember how clear it was that they were outliers at that time to what the rest of kind of the Silicon Valley companies were feeling and doing and saying.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:06:31] And for folks who maybe aren’t as familiar with Palantir, what do they do?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:06:35] Palantire is a funny company in that they had a certain mysterious aura around them for a long time, and I think they encouraged that by not saying much about what they did. They build systems. They build data systems that can analyze data, that can process it, that can draw conclusions. For instance, they work across the U.S. Federal government, and they’ll come into a place and say, right, here is all the data you sit on. We are not just going to organize it for you, we’re going to make it easy for you visualize it, to analyze it, our AI will draw conclusions. So for a long time, they were used by police departments, for instance, or they were used by different intelligence services to help look at their own data and sort of be able to understand it, even if you were not necessarily a technically minded person.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:07:23] I guess we’re talking now because, as you’re just talking about, Palantir was sort of this outlier among tech companies, really among one of the only ones really working closely with the U.S. Military, but increasingly they’re someone that other tech companies are becoming more and more jealous of these days, it seems like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:07:44] Yeah, it’s really interesting. It’s come full circle. All these tech companies that, you know, stepped away from the US government are now looking at Palantir’s incredibly lucrative contracts across the US Government. Each one of these contracts can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And once you are working with the US government, they’re pretty faithful as clients. So you’re looking at these contracts that are going to give you amazing revenue year after year. And they want to work with American companies. They seek out American companies. And so I’ve heard some pretty senior executives at Meta and at Google say quite plainly, like, we’re jealous. We wish we were in there sooner.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:08:26] What exactly has changed here? Like, how did a company like Google go from don’t be evil to now attempting, it looks like, to pursue contracts with the US military? Like, what is this change?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:08:39] I think an executive at Google would say, well, we’ve rethought what it looks like to be evil. A couple things have happened in the last five years or so that have shifted their view. I think primarily the war in Ukraine, seeing the way that Russia and Ukraine have been fighting that war has really mobilized a lot of American executives into thinking that the US Army is not ready to fight the kind of wars that get fought now. Tanks and fighter jets and all that are always going to be part of the U.S. Military. But the way that drone warfare has shifted things, the way the AI systems have shifted both the way militaries collect intelligence and choose targets and select how to act, all of that is not possible without the kind of technical companies and expertise you have in Silicon Valley. And so there’s this sense of like, oh, well, if America goes to war and we’re they’re helping, we may not win. We also have seen a really radically shifting political climate in Silicon Valley. More and more executives have openly expressed support of Donald Trump and his administration. You hear a lot of people out here being like, well, I may not agree with everything that Trump does, but he’s good for business and he’s good for this. And you hear that kind of thing more and more. And so you have a certain willingness of executives to kind of come out and say, I want to work with Trump. I think it’s positive for me and my company to work with him.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:10:25] I also have to imagine that money plays a big role here. You mentioned how many of these military contracts have a pretty big price tag on them. I mean, what role do you think that plays? And I know the president too has pledged to spend a lot more on the military.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:10:45] Trump wants to put into place budgets that are going to see a lot of money flowing to the kind of new technology that Silicon Valley can produce. And so if you’re an executive out here, and not to name names, but you’ve decided to rename your company Meta because you think the Metaverse is the future. And then people are kind of like, well, I don’t know if I want to live in the Metaverse. I’m not sure that I want AR and VR goggles. And then the US military comes around and they’re like, Well, we’ll buy half a billion dollars worth of VR goggles because we want to train our soldiers on how to fight in war by putting them through battle scenarios. And suddenly, suddenly there’s a reason to name your company Meta. Suddenly there’s an actual client that wants to buy all that. And so it makes a lot of business sense for these companies to be in this way, and finding military applications for the technology they’ve been working on.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:11:37] Yeah, you just mentioned Meta and these AR VR goggles. I mean, what are some examples, I guess, of this shift that is happening in Silicon Valley? And I guess what specifically to our tech executives saying?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:11:53] You hear a lot of pride among tech executives that they’re working this closely with the U.S. Government, I like to look at their Instagram or their threads or their X pages because you can tell a lot by what they post. And if you look at them over the last, I’d say, year or so, you’re seeing a lot of like American flags flying in the background of posts. You’re seeing lot of posting about how great America is and how proud they are to be Americans doing business in America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam Altman \u003c/strong>[00:12:22] Of course, we have to and are proud to and really want to engage in national security areas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:12:29] Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has started talking about the importance of working with the U.S. Government just in the last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sam Altman \u003c/strong>[00:12:36] Part of AI to benefit all of humanity very clearly involves supporting the US and our allies to uphold democratic values around the world and to keep us safe. And this is like an integral part of our mission. This is not some side quest that maybe we think about at some point.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:12:55] That’s a shift, and it’s really noticeable among the top executives. That’s something you’re really seeing at the top, and I think there is a gulf here between what executives are saying and posting and feeling about all this, and what the workforce is feeling about the direction that their companies are taking. You’ve also seen a lot of contracts signed. You’ve seen companies like OpenAI partnering with Andrel to use their AI technology to create weapons of the future. The question now isn’t whether the US is going to have autonomous weapons. It’s when will the US have autonomous weapons, and how quickly will companies like Google, or OpenAI, or Microsoft be able to use and pivot their AI technology to create these weapons.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:13:46] I mean, this is making me think about Google back in 2018, as we were talking about earlier, and the role that the employees at these companies played in pushing back against this working with the US military. Are we seeing that same kind of pushback by tech employees in Silicon Valley now?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:14:08] We are not seeing the kind of loud public pushback that we saw a little less than a decade ago. I spoke to quite a few engineers and employees at tech companies that are working with the U.S. Government who are worried. They’re sitting there and going, well, I joined this company because I believed in the ethos of connecting the world or do no evil. And now, I don’t know, I might be building an AI system that helps choose bombing targets faster for some future war, in which were you know, launching aerial strikes. I just think there’s this interesting moment where a lot of these people are asking themselves, do I feel good about the work I’m doing? But they’re doing it quietly, to be clear, because the last few years have seen a lot of layoffs across the big companies. And a lot of these people are worried for their jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:14:57] And we’ve seen that over the issue of Israel and Palestine, for example, at some of these tech companies, right? That there is real pushback happening now from the top.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:15:08] Very much so. And a couple of the employees I spoke to looked specifically at Gaza as an example of a very AI driven war. I’ve written about this a lot about the systems that Israel built to be able to choose more targets to strike, to be to analyze intelligence quickly, to, you know, the facial recognition software that they’re deploying to use across Gaza. All of this are the kinds of systems that America is thinking about building. And you’re an employee, you’re looking at and you’re saying, is that the future of war?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:15:40] I mean, Sheera, there’s obviously this moral opposition here. But I mean are there any other reasons why this collaboration between Silicon Valley and the US military is a maybe concerning trend? I mean I’m thinking about this technology and its use for surveillance in the US potentially even. I mean what are the other concerns around this?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Sheera Frenkel \u003c/strong>[00:16:08] I think the concerns are that you can’t put the genie back in the bottle. Technology can introduce different levels of surveillance that the US government can then choose to use as it wants to, right? And so there’s questions of how much more of a surveillance state does the US become. There are questions of, again, autonomous weapons. And every soldier I’ve met has talked about how the introduction of autonomous weapons removes one layer of humanity in war and that when it is robots firing at robots, it’s a very different war. And so there are people out there that are asking these questions of, do we want all these autonomous systems? What does that mean? Are we just making killing easier in the next conflict? And so, yes, anytime a technology is introduced, I think there’s a rush to kind of embrace that new technology. And then often a little like a beat later, like some would say a moment too late, there’s the question of, is this good?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Ericka Cruz Guevarra \u003c/strong>[00:17:14] Well, Sheera, thank you so much for sharing your reporting with us.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Local officials are raising concerns about students and families after a tuition-free Bay Area private school, backed by Meta CEO \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/mark-zuckerberg\">Mark Zuckerberg\u003c/a> and his wife, Priscilla Chan, announced that it is shutting its doors at the end of next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Primary School, with locations in East Palo Alto and the East Bay, sought to offer an education to low-income communities that included supportive services for the whole family, integrating health care, education and family support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Currently, the East Palo Alto school has over 400 children, with 58% receiving specialized educational services. In a statement on Tuesday, the school said the Ravenswood City School District has agreed to help relocate students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, East Palo Alto Vice Mayor Mark Dinan said the closure will be disruptive for students and families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think we have component people in the Ravenswood School District — smart, competent, talented people who will be taking this on right now. However, this is a huge curveball, both for the district and for the kids and the parents and the families. It’s not something that was at all expected,” Dinan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11593719\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11593719\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/primary-school-edut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1088\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/primary-school-edut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/primary-school-edut-160x91.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/primary-school-edut-800x453.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/primary-school-edut-1020x578.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/primary-school-edut-1180x669.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/primary-school-edut-960x544.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/primary-school-edut-240x136.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/primary-school-edut-375x213.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/primary-school-edut-520x295.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rendering of the proposed 76,000-square-foot expansion site of The Primary School. The school will have the capacity for 511 students (K–8). \u003ccite>(Tonya Mosley/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Primary School did not give a specific reason for its closure, and representatives declined to comment to KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was a very difficult decision, and we are committed to ensuring a thoughtful and supportive transition for students and families over the next year,” the school said in a statement.[aside postID=news_12035855 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/MetaGetty-1020x680.jpg']The nonprofit Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which funded the school, has said it will spend $50 million over the next five years to help the affected families with the educational transition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Primary School said that, while more details are imminent, there will be investments in 529 education savings plans for all of their students, to “help support their future learning.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the looming closure, Carson Cook, senior manager of strategy and advancement at the Primary School, said the school remains committed to the quality of education for students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have one more year with our families and with our students, and it really invigorates us and motivates us to provide them with the best year of school and programming that we possibly can,” Cook said. “Help them [children and their caregivers] lay the foundations that they can build on wherever the next step in their journey is going to take them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, East Palo Alto Vice Mayor Mark Dinan said the closure will be disruptive for students and families.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think we have component people in the Ravenswood School District — smart, competent, talented people who will be taking this on right now. However, this is a huge curveball, both for the district and for the kids and the parents and the families. It’s not something that was at all expected,” Dinan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11593719\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11593719\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/primary-school-edut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1088\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/primary-school-edut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/primary-school-edut-160x91.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/primary-school-edut-800x453.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/primary-school-edut-1020x578.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/primary-school-edut-1180x669.jpg 1180w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/primary-school-edut-960x544.jpg 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/primary-school-edut-240x136.jpg 240w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/primary-school-edut-375x213.jpg 375w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2017/07/primary-school-edut-520x295.jpg 520w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rendering of the proposed 76,000-square-foot expansion site of The Primary School. The school will have the capacity for 511 students (K–8). \u003ccite>(Tonya Mosley/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Primary School did not give a specific reason for its closure, and representatives declined to comment to KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This was a very difficult decision, and we are committed to ensuring a thoughtful and supportive transition for students and families over the next year,” the school said in a statement.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The nonprofit Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which funded the school, has said it will spend $50 million over the next five years to help the affected families with the educational transition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Primary School said that, while more details are imminent, there will be investments in 529 education savings plans for all of their students, to “help support their future learning.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite the looming closure, Carson Cook, senior manager of strategy and advancement at the Primary School, said the school remains committed to the quality of education for students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have one more year with our families and with our students, and it really invigorates us and motivates us to provide them with the best year of school and programming that we possibly can,” Cook said. “Help them [children and their caregivers] lay the foundations that they can build on wherever the next step in their journey is going to take them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "the-broligarchy-pt-2-is-this-techno-fascism",
"title": "The Broligarchy Pt 2: Is this Techno-Fascism?",
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"content": "\u003cp>The ”broligarchy” didn’t come together in a vacuum — this combination of extreme wealth, right wing leanings, and an anti-establishment point of view has been brewing for decades. There are lots of names for this ideology coming up in the news: techno-fascism, techno-feudalism, tech oligarchy, cyber-populism, authoritarian technocracy. What does it all mean? As tech business leaders align with the president, and Elon Musk leads the dismantling of federal agencies, what is the best way to describe what is going on in our country right now? In the second part of our two-parter on the “broligarchy,” Morgan speaks with historian and University of Washington professor, Margaret O’Mara, to discuss techno-fascism and other terms to see what really fits to describe our current reality.\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=KQINC6489378718\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Guests:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/534709/the-code-by-margaret-omara/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Margaret O’Mara\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Historian and Professor at the University of Washington\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Further reading:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/03/facebook-meta-silicon-valley-politics/677168/#selection-891.0-891.17\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The Rise of Techno-authoritarianism”\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Adrienne LaFrance, The Atlantic \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2023/10/techno-optimism-is-not-something-you-should-believe-in\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“‘Techno-Optimism’ is Not Something You Should Believe In”\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Jag Bhalla & Nathan J. Robinson, Current Affairs\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ng-interactive/2025/jan/29/silicon-valley-rightwing-technofascism\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“‘Headed for technofascism’”: the rightwing roots of Silicon Valley\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> – Becca Lewis, The Guardian\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/techno-fascism-comes-to-america-elon-musk\">“Techno-Fascism Comes to America”\u003c/a> – Kyle Chayka, The New Yorker\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>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\">Follow us on Instagram\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003c/h2>\n\u003ch2 id=\"episode-transcript\">Episode Transcript\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So there’s this bit in Silicon Valley, the HBO show I mean, where one of the characters, Jared, gets into a self-driving car owned by this billionaire named Peter Gregory. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Automated Voice: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Buckle up, please. Okay. Enjoy your ride. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But then, things go off the rails. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Automated Voice: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Destination override. New destination, 1 Gregory Drive, Arallon. Distance to destination, 4,126 miles. Enjoy your ride. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instead of taking him home, like it’s supposed to, the car ends up getting rerouted to Peter Gregory’s offshore private island. It’s situated in international waters, so it’s basically in the middle of nowhere. And when Jared’s finally able to get out of the car, he faces another horrifying predicament. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jared Dunn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Excuse me, can you help me? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Automated Voice: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Obstacle averted. Resuming operations. Please be careful. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The man-made island is run entirely by robots, so there’s no one around to help him. The idea of a sovereign, self-contained tech utopia island sounds like a TV satire exaggeration, but here’s the thing, it’s drawn from real life. Silicon Valley’s Peter Gregory is based on Peter Thiel, the godfather of the PayPal mafia and an actual tech billionaire who funded a similar project to the one parodied in the TV show. Though there’s no public record of anyone actually getting stuck on one. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the late 2000s, he became a huge proponent of what’s now known as seasteading, the dream of establishing these offshore, autonomous ocean communities that would be hubs for innovation. The purpose of seasteading was to put technological progress above everything else, to build them outside the grasp of anything that could limit that progress, especially things like pesky government regulations. Thiel was an early investor in the Seasteading Institute, an organization that originally planned to establish libertarian startup countries off the coast of San Francisco. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">While that never came to pass, and similar VC-funded Tech Island projects in the years since have also faced a slew of issues, this ideology persists: the belief that innovation shouldn’t be hampered by regulation or any kind of social responsibility really, and that tech business leaders should be the ones in charge, not elected officials in a traditional government structure. And with a growing group of broligarchs stepping out from behind their standing desks and into positions of real political power and control, it seems like they’re getting closer to that goal. So, what’s behind this continued mingling of the tech industry and government power? \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\">Okay, so we’re seeing tech business leaders aligning with the president, Elon Musk leading the dismantling of federal agencies, and the anti-government ideologies fueling things like the seasteading movement. We’ve been calling this the brologarchy, but there are other terms getting thrown around in an effort to describe what’s going on in our country right now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let me just list them out. I’m gonna grab my whiteboard. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so we’ve got authoritarian technocracy, cyber-populism, tech oligarchy, techno-feudalism, techno-libertarianism. Oh, and I’ve seen this one a lot lately, techno-fascism. But what do these jargony terms even mean? Are they just hyperbole? Is one more accurate than the others to describe what’s happening right now? I think it’s time for a deep dive. You ready? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right, let’s open a new tab. Is this techno-fascism? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you know faskism? It’s coming to get us. Is the broligarchy really driven by “faskism,” sorry, fascism as former bachelorette and TikTok icon Gabby Windey says? To get an expert opinion, I called up Margaret O’Mara. She’s a historian and a professor at the University of Washington where she teaches about the tech economy and American politics. She also wrote a history of the modern tech industry in her book, The Code: Silicon Valley, and the Remaking of America. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">First of all, the brologarchy is a delicious term and I’m going to deploy it often. You know, I think for one thing, the tech industry, Silicon Valley, has always contained multitudes, right? But it is novel to, you know, dial back to January of this year and see all of those tech CEOs on the dais at the inauguration. John Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie did not show up at William McKinley’s inauguration, this is really unusual to kind of just have the front and center display of, these are people who are so proximate to power where the president is kind of showing “I have these close connections with these people.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, let’s go back to our whiteboard. I asked Margaret about a few of our jargony terms. First, technocracy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Is that what this is? Well, it’s really interesting because technocracy is a really old term and it goes back more than a century ago. Rather than being anti-institutional or anti-establishment, it’s been, “hey, let’s bring expertise to these big institutions. Let’s use the best knowledge and specialized knowledge we can to inform policymaking or inform whatever we’re doing to, whatever we are governing and however we’re governing it.” This isn’t really technocracy. Technocracy is like bureaucracy kind of slow and kind of deliberate and very much in the institution and using people who are not partisans but just pointy headed experts. And sometimes that’s right now some of these pretty headed experts aren’t really in fashion with the prevailing administration. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right, I’m thinking of during FDR’s administration, that’s kind of when we saw a lot of technocrats establishing these government agencies, which DOGE is currently slashing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s right, the 1930s, the New Deal, the advisors around Franklin Roosevelt were known as The Brains Trust. They were there because of their expertise, not because of who they knew or because of their political acumen, although some of them were very good at politics. But they were technocrats, and they believed in the power of government to steer the economy in a certain direction. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, crossing out technocracy. How about techno-libertarian? Libertarianism being the idea that the government should generally stay out of people’s lives. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, techno-libertarianism has always been kind of a slippery term because, you know, truly pure libertarianism in any context is a really hard thing to stick to because you really have to be comfortable with, even if it’s something that I don’t agree with, I believe that the government, you know, shouldn’t be doing anything about it to change that status quo or change that from happening. So this is kind of different. You know, this is very specific actions that are directed at specific parts of the government. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like for example, and this is a priority that Elon Musk supports very vocally is kind of getting rid of DEI or kind of quote unquote woke-ism in the government and in sort of a micromanaging way, right? Like banning certain words from government documents and websites, preventing funding of certain programs and not just things that are kind of new from the last several years, but things like the EPA’s environmental justice program, which is designed to address the disproportionately high levels of pollution in poor neighborhoods. And this isn’t libertarianism, this is very much trying to steer U.S. society in a certain way. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Got it. So, techno-libertarian doesn’t really describe what’s happening. Cross that off. What about techno-fascism? Historian Janice Mimura wrote about this concept in her book, Planning for Empire, which focuses on Japan’s colonization of Manchuria in the 1930s as a test case for techno-fascism. She defines it as an authoritarian regime driven by technology with technocrats at the helm. Some people also call this technocratic populism. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">n this example of Imperial Japan, the fascist rule wasn’t concentrated behind a single leader. They still had an emperor, but the real power was in the hands of the technocrats. They established huge bureaucracies to force industrial development in Manchuria by exploiting the people that Japan colonized. Essentially, the public and private sphere were fused into one. This is just one example, but Margaret says there is a historic link between technological progress and fascism around the world. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, you go back to authoritarian regimes of the 20th century of different political systems, whether it be Stalinism, whether the fascism of Mussolini and Hitler, whether it be other authoritarian regimes, communist and non in during the Cold War, and often technology and technological progress plays a really important role. It’s something that that these leaders invest in and technologists are often favored actors in that. You know, you go back to Nazi Germany and the V-2 rocket program of 1930s, 1940s Nazi Germany. That was the technology that was so advanced and so valuable that the U.S. allowed the rocket scientists from the Nazi regime to emigrate to the United States. And they became the people who were building NASA’s own space program. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some argue that aspects of life in the U.S. right now do point to fascism—the scapegoating of minority groups, attacks on education, rising sexism, potentially illegal deportations—and that the broligarchs’ incursion into the government is a sure sign of techno-fascism’s arrival. But Margaret is wary of using that term. She says the current movement is too anti-bureaucratic to be techno- fascism. She says it’s not technocracy, and not quite techno-libertarianism either. So what is it? Maybe there isn’t one fixed term to describe exactly what’s happening, or maybe it’s more of an amalgamation of a bunch of these things. But Margaret did bring up one more term that was not on my whiteboard. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think one thing that’s kind of consistent through a through line is techno-optimism or a belief in the power of technology to do good things and that more technology is better, and that I think with that kind of is an adversarial or a suspicion of government bureaucracy, feeling like tech is better than the bureaucrats. This tech is something that… ultimately, will do things better and improve things. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Techno-optimism sounds, honestly, kind of positive? But right now we’re also seeing the very real consequences of this ideology play out in government operations, people losing their government jobs, infrastructure crumbling. I mean, we could talk about that for the rest of the episode. What even are the core beliefs here? Who’s pushing it? And that is another tab. Techno-optimism? So Margaret was just telling us about this adversarial relationship between techno-optimists and government bureaucracy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That sentiment ranges from yes, a sort of explicitly anti-government, you know, get the state out of things as much as possible, liberate currency, liberate individuals and groups from the control of state regulations and nation states. And then there’s also a kind of more affirmative, “hey, the government needs our help, let’s improve it and use all of these principles that we’ve used in developing these amazing products in the valley and let’s bring them to the government.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A lot of these beliefs are laid out in The Techno-Optimist Manifesto. It was written in 2023 by venture capitalist Marc Andreessen. Here he is reading from it on the Startup Archive YouTube channel. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Marc Andreessen: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We believe that we have been and will always be the masters of technology, not mastered by technology. This is a really key point today. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mark Andreessen was the co-founder of one of the early internet browsers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Netscape, which was the kind of original kind of gateway drug to the internet. This was the browser that started it all. This was also the company that when it went public 14 months after it was established, it started the dot-com boom. By the time he’s 25 years old, he’s on the cover of Time magazine sitting on a throne. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Andreessen went on to co-found the legendary Andreessen Horowitz Venture Capital Fund that has, among other things, invested heavily in crypto. And unsurprisingly, investing in crypto, a currency that doesn’t rely on a government or bank to maintain it, is informed by his beliefs. In his 5,000-word techno-optimist manifesto, Andreessen writes this: “Centralized planning is doomed to fail. The system of production and consumption is too complex. Decentralization harnesses complexity for the benefit of everyone. Centralization will starve you to death.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh yeah, that’s such a fascinating document. Andreessen’s framing of techno-optimism and his manifesto really points the finger at not just bureaucracy and government bureaucracy and regulation as something that’s standing in the way, but also programs like DEI programs and the pressure that tech employees have brought on within companies over the last five years to diversify workforce and to create better working conditions for different types of employees. Um, unionization drives, you know, we’ve seen this activism in tech that really was unprecedented in the industry up until the last decade. I mean, not at this scale. So these are things that are, you know, being identified as this is standing in the way of, you know our progress. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Marc Andreessen: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Victim mentality is a curse in every domain of life, including in our relationship with technology. Both unnecessary and self-defeating, we are not victims, we’re conquerors. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This manifesto is considered extreme, even in the tech industry. In it, Andreessen names what he calls “enemies.” Bureaucracy, regulation, academia, risk management, tech ethics, sustainability, social responsibility, and trust and safety. His version of techno-optimism sees anything that could hinder technological progress as the enemy. Even things that most people would agree make society better. like user safety or labor rights. In his manifesto, he also makes some very dubious claims that society doesn’t need those things because the free market will only drive innovation that is ultimately good for humanity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Andreessen’s manifesto doesn’t speak for everyone in Silicon Valley, but a lot of these broligarchs seem to espouse very similar anti-government, anti-diversity talking points. And this lines up very well with the modern Republican Party. But techno-optimism is an ideology that doesn’t fit neatly into a political box. So how can we make sense of the recent political swings of the tech world? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, let’s dig into this when we come back from this break. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s open a new tab. Is Silicon Valley right or left? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In recent history, tech industry leaders have aligned with political parties, not necessarily by ideology. They’ve stood by whichever party was better for business. And following the techno-optimist way of thinking, they’ve chosen whichever party wouldn’t stand in the way of innovation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s moved from being Republican to Democrat to back again. Even though in recent years, Silicon Valley and the Bay Area generally has been a pretty blue place, right? It’s associated with Democrats, with national Democratic lawmakers, and for a long time it was the Republican party that was just pro-business, low taxes. There were enough Californians and Northern Californians in Washington during the Reagan years that there were people who could advocate for the special things that, say, the semiconductor industry needed and its competition with Japanese chipmakers, which was a really big deal in the 80s. And then that changes in the 90s. The Republican party, social conservatism becomes more predominant. And the Democrats, particularly Bill Clinton and Al Gore, kind of presented themselves as business-friendly centrists and especially internet business-friendly centrists and really wooed Silicon Valley very successfully. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And this very friendly approach to tech continued throughout Obama’s eight years as president, which meant that regulations were minimal. Very techno-optimist, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is also when everyone’s kind of feeling that social media is basically a net good and awesome and hadn’t realized that bringing humanity online would bring all the great things about humanity online as well as the not great things. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the years after Obama was in office, technology has progressed at a breakneck pace. And with that, society has realized that progress at all costs isn’t always what’s best for actual human beings. Remember when whistleblower Edward Snowden exposed government surveillance programs? Or when the Cambridge Analytica scandal happened and news broke that your Facebook data could be mined for political advertising without your consent? And then there’s everything happening now with AI. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This isn’t what we signed up for. And then there’s increased criticism of privacy or lack thereof. These companies not doing enough to protect user privacy, that’s starting to gather steam. There’s starting to be criticism of the gender imbalance in VC and in companies. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Still, the tech industry was doing pretty well by the end of Trump’s first term. Margaret says that tax cuts and other incentives were part of it, but there were outside forces too. Think of the state of the world back then. The COVID pandemic had just started, and online platforms had a huge growth spurt because everyone kind of just had to be online. So, Silicon Valley flourished. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then Biden is elected, and his administration kind of takes a more aggressive stance when it comes to antitrust. It’s kind of going back to the way things were 50 years ago, but that’s after this really long time of very loose enforcement. What happened during the Biden years is this love affair between the Democratic Party and Silicon Valley started souring because there were antitrust enforcement actions and there were, you know, support of the unionization drives in some of these tech companies and some pretty tough talk from the Biden White House about “tech is too big and we need to do something about it.” But for this handful of very powerful, very influential, very vocal tech leaders, they really shifted their allegiance. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I also am really curious by your thoughts on whether this shift to the right in Silicon Valley is actually purely just about business, just about pro-capitalism, or if it’s actually ideological. I mean, I’m thinking, like you said, Marc Andreessen was once a—well, he keeps flip-flopping. He was a Republican and a Democrat, now Republican again. Elon Musk was a Democrat until a couple years ago. I mean, I’m thinking of a tweet where he was like bragging about LGBTQ equality at Tesla, which seems unfathomable now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was a different world. Yeah. I mean, Elon Musk built electric cars. Democrats were and are his constituency. Yeah, it’s very different. I think it is both business and ideology, and it’s all bound up together. That’s the way I read it. I think there is kind of a core, let’s protect the business. But there’s also, yes, I think there’s ideology. I think there is a lot of resentment. There is a lot of, you know, these billionaires are feeling aggrieved. They’re like, all we did was we built these amazing products that you guys love so much that you can’t stop using. You don’t even understand how this stuff works. And you’re trying to regulate us. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s this real sort of disdain for Washington policymakers who legitimately have, you now, time and again, there have been many instances in which senators and members of Congress have shown their deep ignorance about technology. That is fair. And there’s also resentment of like, okay, our employees are like rising up against us and they’re not focused on building the next great thing. They’re focused on, you know, other stuff that we don’t think is important to the business. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So we’ve got this foundation of resentment, ideology, and business interests. What is it building toward? How about another tab? What’s the techno-optimist agenda? At the top of this episode, we have a bit about those self-governed islands funded by tech billionaires. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Automated Voice: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Distance to destination, 4126 miles. Enjoy your ride. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But it’s not just a bit. These are real-life projects. How does that play into the dream of techno-optimism? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh yeah, the self-funded, it’s all in the name of escaping from the state, escaping from the old ways of doing things. It’s the ultimate disruption, right? And we can see lots of different products and projects and tools, both fantastical utopian ones that haven’t come into being yet, and ones that are very, very real, like, say, the blockchain, spurred by this philosophy that the existing financial institutions, governmental institutions, fiat currency, you name it, that has failed people. It is something where nation states have too much power. And also it’s kind of this populist argument too, that ordinary, the little guy’s been, you know, hasn’t been given a fair shake. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">While cryptocurrency hasn’t reached the widespread adoption its advocates predicted, it’s still doing pretty well for itself. But in practice, these techno-optimist, human-built startup islands that operate outside of government oversight have fizzled out. Unfortunately for Peter Thiel’s seasteading dream, the flourishing network of independent tech hub islands off the coast of San Francisco still does not exist. The Seasteading Institute has tried, again and again, to build floating cities in different parts of the world over the years, but those plans have also… sunk. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then there’s Prospera, another VC-funded libertarian city, this time built on existing land. It’s on an island off the coast of Honduras, backed by familiar names like Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen. Construction started in 2021, but since then, the project has been accused of neocolonialism, weighed down with legal battles and embroiled in political turmoil. So instead of going through all the effort of building whole new tech island nations, it appears that some techno optimists are shifting their focus back home. They’re trying to bring it stateside, like California forever. A couple of years ago, this company started buying up acres of empty farmland in the Northeast Bay Area. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News Anchor: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Getting some exclusive renderings tonight of a proposed new city in Solano County, California Forever. The group behind this huge plan says the community will be home eventually to some 400,000 people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re trying to build a utopian walkable city of tech startups and sustainable residential homes from scratch, about 50 miles from San Francisco. They’ve got some pretty big name investors backing the project, like Mark Andreessen and PayPal mafia member and LinkedIn co-founder, Reid Hoffman. But this project is also facing a lot of local resistance. Some of these proposed cities go even further than just being startup hubs. According to reporting from Wired, some groups have met with Trump to launch Prospera-like startup nations here in the United States, what they call “freedom cities.” They want to build modern-day company towns on federal land, which would be exempt from any regulatory oversight or taxes. But it begs the question, “whose freedom would be prioritized?” Freedom cities would not be required to be democratically run and wouldn’t be held to workers’ rights laws. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It isn’t about a better government. It isn’t about a better, you know, better delivery of government services. It’s about, “let’s get this government out of the way and let’s build something entirely new and something that we control that’s driven by this engineering thinking, by this tech-forward, techno-libertarian thinking, because we have made amazing things, we have been responsible for amazing progress, and if we are given the power to do it and the smartest people in the room are allowed to build these things independent of government.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So it’s not technocracy. It’s not bringing the experts into government necessarily, although a number of Valley people are now in the government. But I see sort of an end game kind of feeding into this philosophy that seems kind of radical but is something that’s been percolating for a really long time, which is, “where we’re going and where we need to go as a — humanity needs to go is beyond these old bureaucratic governmental structures as they are now.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Techno-optimism says that we don’t need tech ethics or regulatory bodies or any sense of social responsibility because the invisible hand of the free market will guide innovation. But if you look at history, that story that techno-optimists like to tell is complete fiction. Okay, how about one last tab? The real story of Silicon Valley innovation. So despite the origin story that a lot of tech titans like to claim, Margaret says that the legendary innovation of Silicon Valley exists because of government intervention, not in spite of it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s a really interesting collective amnesia that is part of the secret of Silicon Valley, funnily enough. So the government has played a huge, huge role in the growth of the electronics industry, the computing industry over time here and elsewhere. But it’s done in a way that’s kind of been hard to see. It’s been indirect, right? It’s contracts going to private companies or universities. It’s regulations that are lowering taxes or lowering regulation. I mean, that’s government action. That’s government help, right. because it has been kind of indirect and subtle, a lot of people in the industry kind of say, okay, where our success comes from, government getting out of the way. Like we are so great because government has not been kind of micromanaging us or curbing our growth. And yeah, that is true, but part of this was this industry was only in the last 15 years has become as enormous as it has. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Turns out, that dreaded government regulation that these corporations fear so much has historically been great for the industry. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Anti-trust enforcement has been this really important factor in driving innovation over time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As an example, Margaret talks about the history of the transitor. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The invention that started it all, the thing that is the core of every microchip, that this is the digital revolution, the transistor. That was developed in Bell Labs, which was AT&T’s industrial laboratory in New Jersey in 1947. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The transistor was revolutionary in electronics. It basically controls the flow of electric signals. At the time, Bell Labs and AT&T had a monopoly over the telecommunications industry. They manufactured all the parts and operated the service itself. In 1949, the Department of Justice opened an antitrust investigation into AT&T. They settled the lawsuit in 1956, and AT&T was required to grant all applicants non-exclusive licenses for all existing and future Bell System patents, including the transistor. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so the DOJ forced AT&T to allow the transistor to be freely licensed by other companies. And this is how you had chip companies that emerge in the valley in the first place. We would not have silicon in the Valley if not for that Department of Justice condition, you know, putting that restraint on AT&T. This is why this political history is really useful to be aware of because there’s a, it’s legitimate to fear government interference in the innovation machine if you think that this has been a free market miracle and if government’s around, it is going to mess it up. But if you know the history and you realize, “oh, the innovation machine has actually been something that the government’s been part of and entrepreneurialism and government policy have existed side by side the whole time. Like, oh okay. So maybe that isn’t a bad thing.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just the sheer presence of having regulation or having policymakers and politicians in the room, setting the terms of the debate, that’s not going to be an innovation killer. In fact, an innovation killer will be if all the power just resides in the hands of a few companies and a few people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Of course, there are so many terms that can still apply, but we can’t cover all of political theory in a single deep dive, and no single ideology will explain what’s happening with our government. What we do know is that beyond semantics, we can always look at history to understand why this is happening now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are in uncharted waters in many ways right now in terms of where things will go next, but I do believe that historical knowledge is power. So the more you know, the more, you know. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. I’m gonna cap these markers, roll away this whiteboard, and 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. Our producer is Maya Cueva. Chris Egusa is our senior editor. Jen Chien is KQED’s Director of Podcasts and helps edit the show. Original music and sound design by Chris Egusa. Additional music by APM. Mixing and mastering by Brendan Willard and Catherine Monahan. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad and Alana Walker. Katie Sprenger is our Podcast Operations Manager. and Holly Kernan is our Chief Content Officer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Support for this program comes from Birong Hu and supporters of the KQED Studios Fund. 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. Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink DustSilver K84 wired mechanical keyboard with Gateron red switches. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you have feedback or a topic you think we should cover, hit us up at CloseAllTabs@KQED.org, follow us on Instagram @CloseAllTabsPod, or drop it on Discord. We’re in the Close All Tabs channel at Discord.gg/KQED. And if you’re enjoying the show, give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform you use. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks for listening! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "The Broligarchy Pt 2: Is this Techno-Fascism? | KQED",
"description": "The ”broligarchy” didn’t come together in a vacuum — this combination of extreme wealth, right wing leanings, and an anti-establishment point of view has been brewing for decades. There are lots of names for this ideology coming up in the news: techno-fascism, techno-feudalism, tech oligarchy, cyber-populism, authoritarian technocracy. What does it all mean? As tech business leaders align with the president, and Elon Musk leads the dismantling of federal agencies, what is the best way to describe what is going on in our country right now? In the second part of our two-parter on the “broligarchy,” Morgan speaks with historian and University of Washington professor, Margaret O’Mara, to discuss techno-fascism and other terms to see what really fits to describe our current reality.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The ”broligarchy” didn’t come together in a vacuum — this combination of extreme wealth, right wing leanings, and an anti-establishment point of view has been brewing for decades. There are lots of names for this ideology coming up in the news: techno-fascism, techno-feudalism, tech oligarchy, cyber-populism, authoritarian technocracy. What does it all mean? As tech business leaders align with the president, and Elon Musk leads the dismantling of federal agencies, what is the best way to describe what is going on in our country right now? In the second part of our two-parter on the “broligarchy,” Morgan speaks with historian and University of Washington professor, Margaret O’Mara, to discuss techno-fascism and other terms to see what really fits to describe our current reality.\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=KQINC6489378718\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Guests:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003ca href=\"https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/534709/the-code-by-margaret-omara/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Margaret O’Mara\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, Historian and Professor at the University of Washington\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Further reading:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/03/facebook-meta-silicon-valley-politics/677168/#selection-891.0-891.17\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“The Rise of Techno-authoritarianism”\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Adrienne LaFrance, The Atlantic \u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2023/10/techno-optimism-is-not-something-you-should-believe-in\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“‘Techno-Optimism’ is Not Something You Should Believe In”\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Jag Bhalla & Nathan J. Robinson, Current Affairs\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ng-interactive/2025/jan/29/silicon-valley-rightwing-technofascism\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“‘Headed for technofascism’”: the rightwing roots of Silicon Valley\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> – Becca Lewis, The Guardian\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/techno-fascism-comes-to-america-elon-musk\">“Techno-Fascism Comes to America”\u003c/a> – Kyle Chayka, The New Yorker\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>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\">Follow us on Instagram\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 data-stringify-type=\"italic\">This is a computer-generated transcript. While our team has reviewed it, there may be errors.\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So there’s this bit in Silicon Valley, the HBO show I mean, where one of the characters, Jared, gets into a self-driving car owned by this billionaire named Peter Gregory. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Automated Voice: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Buckle up, please. Okay. Enjoy your ride. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But then, things go off the rails. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Automated Voice: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Destination override. New destination, 1 Gregory Drive, Arallon. Distance to destination, 4,126 miles. Enjoy your ride. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instead of taking him home, like it’s supposed to, the car ends up getting rerouted to Peter Gregory’s offshore private island. It’s situated in international waters, so it’s basically in the middle of nowhere. And when Jared’s finally able to get out of the car, he faces another horrifying predicament. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jared Dunn: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Excuse me, can you help me? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Automated Voice: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Obstacle averted. Resuming operations. Please be careful. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The man-made island is run entirely by robots, so there’s no one around to help him. The idea of a sovereign, self-contained tech utopia island sounds like a TV satire exaggeration, but here’s the thing, it’s drawn from real life. Silicon Valley’s Peter Gregory is based on Peter Thiel, the godfather of the PayPal mafia and an actual tech billionaire who funded a similar project to the one parodied in the TV show. Though there’s no public record of anyone actually getting stuck on one. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the late 2000s, he became a huge proponent of what’s now known as seasteading, the dream of establishing these offshore, autonomous ocean communities that would be hubs for innovation. The purpose of seasteading was to put technological progress above everything else, to build them outside the grasp of anything that could limit that progress, especially things like pesky government regulations. Thiel was an early investor in the Seasteading Institute, an organization that originally planned to establish libertarian startup countries off the coast of San Francisco. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">While that never came to pass, and similar VC-funded Tech Island projects in the years since have also faced a slew of issues, this ideology persists: the belief that innovation shouldn’t be hampered by regulation or any kind of social responsibility really, and that tech business leaders should be the ones in charge, not elected officials in a traditional government structure. And with a growing group of broligarchs stepping out from behind their standing desks and into positions of real political power and control, it seems like they’re getting closer to that goal. So, what’s behind this continued mingling of the tech industry and government power? \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\">Okay, so we’re seeing tech business leaders aligning with the president, Elon Musk leading the dismantling of federal agencies, and the anti-government ideologies fueling things like the seasteading movement. We’ve been calling this the brologarchy, but there are other terms getting thrown around in an effort to describe what’s going on in our country right now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let me just list them out. I’m gonna grab my whiteboard. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so we’ve got authoritarian technocracy, cyber-populism, tech oligarchy, techno-feudalism, techno-libertarianism. Oh, and I’ve seen this one a lot lately, techno-fascism. But what do these jargony terms even mean? Are they just hyperbole? Is one more accurate than the others to describe what’s happening right now? I think it’s time for a deep dive. You ready? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right, let’s open a new tab. Is this techno-fascism? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Do you know faskism? It’s coming to get us. Is the broligarchy really driven by “faskism,” sorry, fascism as former bachelorette and TikTok icon Gabby Windey says? To get an expert opinion, I called up Margaret O’Mara. She’s a historian and a professor at the University of Washington where she teaches about the tech economy and American politics. She also wrote a history of the modern tech industry in her book, The Code: Silicon Valley, and the Remaking of America. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">First of all, the brologarchy is a delicious term and I’m going to deploy it often. You know, I think for one thing, the tech industry, Silicon Valley, has always contained multitudes, right? But it is novel to, you know, dial back to January of this year and see all of those tech CEOs on the dais at the inauguration. John Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie did not show up at William McKinley’s inauguration, this is really unusual to kind of just have the front and center display of, these are people who are so proximate to power where the president is kind of showing “I have these close connections with these people.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, let’s go back to our whiteboard. I asked Margaret about a few of our jargony terms. First, technocracy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Is that what this is? Well, it’s really interesting because technocracy is a really old term and it goes back more than a century ago. Rather than being anti-institutional or anti-establishment, it’s been, “hey, let’s bring expertise to these big institutions. Let’s use the best knowledge and specialized knowledge we can to inform policymaking or inform whatever we’re doing to, whatever we are governing and however we’re governing it.” This isn’t really technocracy. Technocracy is like bureaucracy kind of slow and kind of deliberate and very much in the institution and using people who are not partisans but just pointy headed experts. And sometimes that’s right now some of these pretty headed experts aren’t really in fashion with the prevailing administration. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right, I’m thinking of during FDR’s administration, that’s kind of when we saw a lot of technocrats establishing these government agencies, which DOGE is currently slashing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s right, the 1930s, the New Deal, the advisors around Franklin Roosevelt were known as The Brains Trust. They were there because of their expertise, not because of who they knew or because of their political acumen, although some of them were very good at politics. But they were technocrats, and they believed in the power of government to steer the economy in a certain direction. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, crossing out technocracy. How about techno-libertarian? Libertarianism being the idea that the government should generally stay out of people’s lives. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, techno-libertarianism has always been kind of a slippery term because, you know, truly pure libertarianism in any context is a really hard thing to stick to because you really have to be comfortable with, even if it’s something that I don’t agree with, I believe that the government, you know, shouldn’t be doing anything about it to change that status quo or change that from happening. So this is kind of different. You know, this is very specific actions that are directed at specific parts of the government. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like for example, and this is a priority that Elon Musk supports very vocally is kind of getting rid of DEI or kind of quote unquote woke-ism in the government and in sort of a micromanaging way, right? Like banning certain words from government documents and websites, preventing funding of certain programs and not just things that are kind of new from the last several years, but things like the EPA’s environmental justice program, which is designed to address the disproportionately high levels of pollution in poor neighborhoods. And this isn’t libertarianism, this is very much trying to steer U.S. society in a certain way. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Got it. So, techno-libertarian doesn’t really describe what’s happening. Cross that off. What about techno-fascism? Historian Janice Mimura wrote about this concept in her book, Planning for Empire, which focuses on Japan’s colonization of Manchuria in the 1930s as a test case for techno-fascism. She defines it as an authoritarian regime driven by technology with technocrats at the helm. Some people also call this technocratic populism. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">n this example of Imperial Japan, the fascist rule wasn’t concentrated behind a single leader. They still had an emperor, but the real power was in the hands of the technocrats. They established huge bureaucracies to force industrial development in Manchuria by exploiting the people that Japan colonized. Essentially, the public and private sphere were fused into one. This is just one example, but Margaret says there is a historic link between technological progress and fascism around the world. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, you go back to authoritarian regimes of the 20th century of different political systems, whether it be Stalinism, whether the fascism of Mussolini and Hitler, whether it be other authoritarian regimes, communist and non in during the Cold War, and often technology and technological progress plays a really important role. It’s something that that these leaders invest in and technologists are often favored actors in that. You know, you go back to Nazi Germany and the V-2 rocket program of 1930s, 1940s Nazi Germany. That was the technology that was so advanced and so valuable that the U.S. allowed the rocket scientists from the Nazi regime to emigrate to the United States. And they became the people who were building NASA’s own space program. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some argue that aspects of life in the U.S. right now do point to fascism—the scapegoating of minority groups, attacks on education, rising sexism, potentially illegal deportations—and that the broligarchs’ incursion into the government is a sure sign of techno-fascism’s arrival. But Margaret is wary of using that term. She says the current movement is too anti-bureaucratic to be techno- fascism. She says it’s not technocracy, and not quite techno-libertarianism either. So what is it? Maybe there isn’t one fixed term to describe exactly what’s happening, or maybe it’s more of an amalgamation of a bunch of these things. But Margaret did bring up one more term that was not on my whiteboard. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think one thing that’s kind of consistent through a through line is techno-optimism or a belief in the power of technology to do good things and that more technology is better, and that I think with that kind of is an adversarial or a suspicion of government bureaucracy, feeling like tech is better than the bureaucrats. This tech is something that… ultimately, will do things better and improve things. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Techno-optimism sounds, honestly, kind of positive? But right now we’re also seeing the very real consequences of this ideology play out in government operations, people losing their government jobs, infrastructure crumbling. I mean, we could talk about that for the rest of the episode. What even are the core beliefs here? Who’s pushing it? And that is another tab. Techno-optimism? So Margaret was just telling us about this adversarial relationship between techno-optimists and government bureaucracy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That sentiment ranges from yes, a sort of explicitly anti-government, you know, get the state out of things as much as possible, liberate currency, liberate individuals and groups from the control of state regulations and nation states. And then there’s also a kind of more affirmative, “hey, the government needs our help, let’s improve it and use all of these principles that we’ve used in developing these amazing products in the valley and let’s bring them to the government.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> A lot of these beliefs are laid out in The Techno-Optimist Manifesto. It was written in 2023 by venture capitalist Marc Andreessen. Here he is reading from it on the Startup Archive YouTube channel. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Marc Andreessen: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We believe that we have been and will always be the masters of technology, not mastered by technology. This is a really key point today. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mark Andreessen was the co-founder of one of the early internet browsers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Netscape, which was the kind of original kind of gateway drug to the internet. This was the browser that started it all. This was also the company that when it went public 14 months after it was established, it started the dot-com boom. By the time he’s 25 years old, he’s on the cover of Time magazine sitting on a throne. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Andreessen went on to co-found the legendary Andreessen Horowitz Venture Capital Fund that has, among other things, invested heavily in crypto. And unsurprisingly, investing in crypto, a currency that doesn’t rely on a government or bank to maintain it, is informed by his beliefs. In his 5,000-word techno-optimist manifesto, Andreessen writes this: “Centralized planning is doomed to fail. The system of production and consumption is too complex. Decentralization harnesses complexity for the benefit of everyone. Centralization will starve you to death.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh yeah, that’s such a fascinating document. Andreessen’s framing of techno-optimism and his manifesto really points the finger at not just bureaucracy and government bureaucracy and regulation as something that’s standing in the way, but also programs like DEI programs and the pressure that tech employees have brought on within companies over the last five years to diversify workforce and to create better working conditions for different types of employees. Um, unionization drives, you know, we’ve seen this activism in tech that really was unprecedented in the industry up until the last decade. I mean, not at this scale. So these are things that are, you know, being identified as this is standing in the way of, you know our progress. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Marc Andreessen: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Victim mentality is a curse in every domain of life, including in our relationship with technology. Both unnecessary and self-defeating, we are not victims, we’re conquerors. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This manifesto is considered extreme, even in the tech industry. In it, Andreessen names what he calls “enemies.” Bureaucracy, regulation, academia, risk management, tech ethics, sustainability, social responsibility, and trust and safety. His version of techno-optimism sees anything that could hinder technological progress as the enemy. Even things that most people would agree make society better. like user safety or labor rights. In his manifesto, he also makes some very dubious claims that society doesn’t need those things because the free market will only drive innovation that is ultimately good for humanity. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Andreessen’s manifesto doesn’t speak for everyone in Silicon Valley, but a lot of these broligarchs seem to espouse very similar anti-government, anti-diversity talking points. And this lines up very well with the modern Republican Party. But techno-optimism is an ideology that doesn’t fit neatly into a political box. So how can we make sense of the recent political swings of the tech world? \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, let’s dig into this when we come back from this break. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s open a new tab. Is Silicon Valley right or left? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In recent history, tech industry leaders have aligned with political parties, not necessarily by ideology. They’ve stood by whichever party was better for business. And following the techno-optimist way of thinking, they’ve chosen whichever party wouldn’t stand in the way of innovation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s moved from being Republican to Democrat to back again. Even though in recent years, Silicon Valley and the Bay Area generally has been a pretty blue place, right? It’s associated with Democrats, with national Democratic lawmakers, and for a long time it was the Republican party that was just pro-business, low taxes. There were enough Californians and Northern Californians in Washington during the Reagan years that there were people who could advocate for the special things that, say, the semiconductor industry needed and its competition with Japanese chipmakers, which was a really big deal in the 80s. And then that changes in the 90s. The Republican party, social conservatism becomes more predominant. And the Democrats, particularly Bill Clinton and Al Gore, kind of presented themselves as business-friendly centrists and especially internet business-friendly centrists and really wooed Silicon Valley very successfully. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And this very friendly approach to tech continued throughout Obama’s eight years as president, which meant that regulations were minimal. Very techno-optimist, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is also when everyone’s kind of feeling that social media is basically a net good and awesome and hadn’t realized that bringing humanity online would bring all the great things about humanity online as well as the not great things. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the years after Obama was in office, technology has progressed at a breakneck pace. And with that, society has realized that progress at all costs isn’t always what’s best for actual human beings. Remember when whistleblower Edward Snowden exposed government surveillance programs? Or when the Cambridge Analytica scandal happened and news broke that your Facebook data could be mined for political advertising without your consent? And then there’s everything happening now with AI. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This isn’t what we signed up for. And then there’s increased criticism of privacy or lack thereof. These companies not doing enough to protect user privacy, that’s starting to gather steam. There’s starting to be criticism of the gender imbalance in VC and in companies. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Still, the tech industry was doing pretty well by the end of Trump’s first term. Margaret says that tax cuts and other incentives were part of it, but there were outside forces too. Think of the state of the world back then. The COVID pandemic had just started, and online platforms had a huge growth spurt because everyone kind of just had to be online. So, Silicon Valley flourished. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then Biden is elected, and his administration kind of takes a more aggressive stance when it comes to antitrust. It’s kind of going back to the way things were 50 years ago, but that’s after this really long time of very loose enforcement. What happened during the Biden years is this love affair between the Democratic Party and Silicon Valley started souring because there were antitrust enforcement actions and there were, you know, support of the unionization drives in some of these tech companies and some pretty tough talk from the Biden White House about “tech is too big and we need to do something about it.” But for this handful of very powerful, very influential, very vocal tech leaders, they really shifted their allegiance. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I also am really curious by your thoughts on whether this shift to the right in Silicon Valley is actually purely just about business, just about pro-capitalism, or if it’s actually ideological. I mean, I’m thinking, like you said, Marc Andreessen was once a—well, he keeps flip-flopping. He was a Republican and a Democrat, now Republican again. Elon Musk was a Democrat until a couple years ago. I mean, I’m thinking of a tweet where he was like bragging about LGBTQ equality at Tesla, which seems unfathomable now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was a different world. Yeah. I mean, Elon Musk built electric cars. Democrats were and are his constituency. Yeah, it’s very different. I think it is both business and ideology, and it’s all bound up together. That’s the way I read it. I think there is kind of a core, let’s protect the business. But there’s also, yes, I think there’s ideology. I think there is a lot of resentment. There is a lot of, you know, these billionaires are feeling aggrieved. They’re like, all we did was we built these amazing products that you guys love so much that you can’t stop using. You don’t even understand how this stuff works. And you’re trying to regulate us. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s this real sort of disdain for Washington policymakers who legitimately have, you now, time and again, there have been many instances in which senators and members of Congress have shown their deep ignorance about technology. That is fair. And there’s also resentment of like, okay, our employees are like rising up against us and they’re not focused on building the next great thing. They’re focused on, you know, other stuff that we don’t think is important to the business. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So we’ve got this foundation of resentment, ideology, and business interests. What is it building toward? How about another tab? What’s the techno-optimist agenda? At the top of this episode, we have a bit about those self-governed islands funded by tech billionaires. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Automated Voice: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Distance to destination, 4126 miles. Enjoy your ride. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But it’s not just a bit. These are real-life projects. How does that play into the dream of techno-optimism? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh yeah, the self-funded, it’s all in the name of escaping from the state, escaping from the old ways of doing things. It’s the ultimate disruption, right? And we can see lots of different products and projects and tools, both fantastical utopian ones that haven’t come into being yet, and ones that are very, very real, like, say, the blockchain, spurred by this philosophy that the existing financial institutions, governmental institutions, fiat currency, you name it, that has failed people. It is something where nation states have too much power. And also it’s kind of this populist argument too, that ordinary, the little guy’s been, you know, hasn’t been given a fair shake. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">While cryptocurrency hasn’t reached the widespread adoption its advocates predicted, it’s still doing pretty well for itself. But in practice, these techno-optimist, human-built startup islands that operate outside of government oversight have fizzled out. Unfortunately for Peter Thiel’s seasteading dream, the flourishing network of independent tech hub islands off the coast of San Francisco still does not exist. The Seasteading Institute has tried, again and again, to build floating cities in different parts of the world over the years, but those plans have also… sunk. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then there’s Prospera, another VC-funded libertarian city, this time built on existing land. It’s on an island off the coast of Honduras, backed by familiar names like Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen. Construction started in 2021, but since then, the project has been accused of neocolonialism, weighed down with legal battles and embroiled in political turmoil. So instead of going through all the effort of building whole new tech island nations, it appears that some techno optimists are shifting their focus back home. They’re trying to bring it stateside, like California forever. A couple of years ago, this company started buying up acres of empty farmland in the Northeast Bay Area. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News Anchor: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Getting some exclusive renderings tonight of a proposed new city in Solano County, California Forever. The group behind this huge plan says the community will be home eventually to some 400,000 people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re trying to build a utopian walkable city of tech startups and sustainable residential homes from scratch, about 50 miles from San Francisco. They’ve got some pretty big name investors backing the project, like Mark Andreessen and PayPal mafia member and LinkedIn co-founder, Reid Hoffman. But this project is also facing a lot of local resistance. Some of these proposed cities go even further than just being startup hubs. According to reporting from Wired, some groups have met with Trump to launch Prospera-like startup nations here in the United States, what they call “freedom cities.” They want to build modern-day company towns on federal land, which would be exempt from any regulatory oversight or taxes. But it begs the question, “whose freedom would be prioritized?” Freedom cities would not be required to be democratically run and wouldn’t be held to workers’ rights laws. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It isn’t about a better government. It isn’t about a better, you know, better delivery of government services. It’s about, “let’s get this government out of the way and let’s build something entirely new and something that we control that’s driven by this engineering thinking, by this tech-forward, techno-libertarian thinking, because we have made amazing things, we have been responsible for amazing progress, and if we are given the power to do it and the smartest people in the room are allowed to build these things independent of government.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So it’s not technocracy. It’s not bringing the experts into government necessarily, although a number of Valley people are now in the government. But I see sort of an end game kind of feeding into this philosophy that seems kind of radical but is something that’s been percolating for a really long time, which is, “where we’re going and where we need to go as a — humanity needs to go is beyond these old bureaucratic governmental structures as they are now.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Techno-optimism says that we don’t need tech ethics or regulatory bodies or any sense of social responsibility because the invisible hand of the free market will guide innovation. But if you look at history, that story that techno-optimists like to tell is complete fiction. Okay, how about one last tab? The real story of Silicon Valley innovation. So despite the origin story that a lot of tech titans like to claim, Margaret says that the legendary innovation of Silicon Valley exists because of government intervention, not in spite of it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s a really interesting collective amnesia that is part of the secret of Silicon Valley, funnily enough. So the government has played a huge, huge role in the growth of the electronics industry, the computing industry over time here and elsewhere. But it’s done in a way that’s kind of been hard to see. It’s been indirect, right? It’s contracts going to private companies or universities. It’s regulations that are lowering taxes or lowering regulation. I mean, that’s government action. That’s government help, right. because it has been kind of indirect and subtle, a lot of people in the industry kind of say, okay, where our success comes from, government getting out of the way. Like we are so great because government has not been kind of micromanaging us or curbing our growth. And yeah, that is true, but part of this was this industry was only in the last 15 years has become as enormous as it has. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Turns out, that dreaded government regulation that these corporations fear so much has historically been great for the industry. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Anti-trust enforcement has been this really important factor in driving innovation over time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As an example, Margaret talks about the history of the transitor. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The invention that started it all, the thing that is the core of every microchip, that this is the digital revolution, the transistor. That was developed in Bell Labs, which was AT&T’s industrial laboratory in New Jersey in 1947. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The transistor was revolutionary in electronics. It basically controls the flow of electric signals. At the time, Bell Labs and AT&T had a monopoly over the telecommunications industry. They manufactured all the parts and operated the service itself. In 1949, the Department of Justice opened an antitrust investigation into AT&T. They settled the lawsuit in 1956, and AT&T was required to grant all applicants non-exclusive licenses for all existing and future Bell System patents, including the transistor. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so the DOJ forced AT&T to allow the transistor to be freely licensed by other companies. And this is how you had chip companies that emerge in the valley in the first place. We would not have silicon in the Valley if not for that Department of Justice condition, you know, putting that restraint on AT&T. This is why this political history is really useful to be aware of because there’s a, it’s legitimate to fear government interference in the innovation machine if you think that this has been a free market miracle and if government’s around, it is going to mess it up. But if you know the history and you realize, “oh, the innovation machine has actually been something that the government’s been part of and entrepreneurialism and government policy have existed side by side the whole time. Like, oh okay. So maybe that isn’t a bad thing.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Just the sheer presence of having regulation or having policymakers and politicians in the room, setting the terms of the debate, that’s not going to be an innovation killer. In fact, an innovation killer will be if all the power just resides in the hands of a few companies and a few people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Of course, there are so many terms that can still apply, but we can’t cover all of political theory in a single deep dive, and no single ideology will explain what’s happening with our government. What we do know is that beyond semantics, we can always look at history to understand why this is happening now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Margaret O’Mara: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We are in uncharted waters in many ways right now in terms of where things will go next, but I do believe that historical knowledge is power. So the more you know, the more, you know. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay. I’m gonna cap these markers, roll away this whiteboard, and 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. Our producer is Maya Cueva. Chris Egusa is our senior editor. Jen Chien is KQED’s Director of Podcasts and helps edit the show. Original music and sound design by Chris Egusa. Additional music by APM. Mixing and mastering by Brendan Willard and Catherine Monahan. Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad and Alana Walker. Katie Sprenger is our Podcast Operations Manager. and Holly Kernan is our Chief Content Officer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Support for this program comes from Birong Hu and supporters of the KQED Studios Fund. 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. Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink DustSilver K84 wired mechanical keyboard with Gateron red switches. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you have feedback or a topic you think we should cover, hit us up at CloseAllTabs@KQED.org, follow us on Instagram @CloseAllTabsPod, or drop it on Discord. We’re in the Close All Tabs channel at Discord.gg/KQED. And if you’re enjoying the show, give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform you use. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks for listening! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>"
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"title": "Meta’s Efforts to Block Explosive Expose in Arbitration Likely to Fail, Labor Experts Say",
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"content": "\u003cp>Federal labor law enforcement is up in the air these days, thanks to\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/donald-trump\"> the Trump administration’s\u003c/a> effort to downsize the government. But experts say there are a host of laws — federal and state — that protect the just-released memoir \u003ca href=\"https://www.amazon.com/dp/1250391237\">\u003cem>Careless People\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism\u003c/em>, written by a former director of global public policy at Meta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The book by former Facebook employee Sarah Wynn-Williams makes \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/books/review/careless-people-sarah-wynn-williams.html\">incendiary allegations\u003c/a> of sexual harassment and other potentially illegal behavior by top-level executives during her seven years at the social media giant based in Menlo Park. In a blurb on Amazon, the book promises “shocking accounts of misogyny and double standards behind the scenes,” along with depictions of “unfettered power and a rotten company culture.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wynn-Williams also filed\u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/03/09/meta-china-censorship-facebook-mark-zuckerberg/\"> a whistle-blower complaint\u003c/a> to the Securities and Exchange Commission last week, claiming Meta was so desperate to operate in China and ingratiate itself with the Chinese Communist Party that it was willing to censor content and shut down political dissent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This week, an arbitrator temporarily stopped Wynn-Williams from promoting the book, siding with Meta’s argument that she had violated the non-disparagement agreement or NDA she signed when she was an employee of the company. In the \u003ca href=\"https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Arbitration-Interim-Award.pdf\">ruling\u003c/a>, emergency arbitrator Nicholas Gowen wrote that Meta “has established a likelihood of success on the merits of its contractual non-disparagement claim against Respondent Wynn-Williams and that immediate and irreparable loss will result in the absence of emergency relief.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Meta spokesperson wrote KQED, “We took immediate legal action due to the false and defamatory nature of the allegations.” They added, “This book is a mix of out-of-date and previously reported claims about the company and false accusations about our executives. Eight years ago, Sarah Wynn-Williams was fired for poor performance and toxic behavior, and an investigation at the time determined she made misleading and unfounded allegations of harassment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12020607\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1100px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12020607\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1100\" height=\"733\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy.jpg 1100w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, testifies during the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, ‘Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis,’ in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 31, 2024. \u003ccite>(Brendan Smialowski/AFP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Some former Meta employees are coming forward to defend the company, including Mike Rognlien, who \u003ca href=\"https://www.threads.net/@badmikeyt/post/DHHfpWQykPC?xmt=AQGz0MND3an--2-q2sfIURuFSqWVXPJHKm2FCxNZRrV_lA\">wrote on Threads\u003c/a>, “People are so thirsty for anything disparaging to Meta. I sat next to Sarah for 18 months when we both worked in the New York office and we were both working closely with Sheryl Sandberg at the time. Never a word of this was mentioned, and we talked shit about loooooots of stuff. I have recently/publicly taken meta task for everything that they’re doing to dismantle dei, but I didn’t have to make up a thing to tell the story.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Arbitration is commonly understood to favor employers over employees, but “an arbitrator cannot violate the law,” said Catherine Fisk of UC Berkeley’s Law School, where she teaches employment and labor law. She also works as an arbitrator in labor management matters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To the extent that [Wynn-Williams] is criticizing working conditions, employees have had a right to criticize working conditions under federal labor law for, lo, these 90 years. And unless — and until — Congress repeals that statute, or the [the National Labor Relations Board] overturns its decision, or the Supreme Court overturns that decision, it’s protected concerted activities,” Fisk told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11860458 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2021/02/1369_transform-2-1020x680.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stanford labor law professor William Gould, who served as chair of the NLRB from 1994 to 1998, wrote in an email, “The Biden National Labor Relations Board has held that an employer cannot lawfully condition a severance arrangement upon a non disclosure non disparagement promise agreement.” While Gould acknowledged the ruling is likely to be reversed by Trump appointees, the Biden ruling remains intact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California law also makes it clear \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/03/06/973439404/it-really-is-a-gag-order-california-may-limit-nondisclosure-agreements\">workers can talk about sexual harassment\u003c/a> or gender-related misconduct without fear of reprisal from their employer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fisk added the arbitrator, Gowen, has no jurisdiction over the publishing company, although Meta could sue or threaten to sue the publisher for defamation. Macmillan Publishers, which published the book under its Flatiron Books imprint, posted on\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1271075701251400&set=a.820130836345891\"> Facebook\u003c/a>, “We are appalled by Meta’s tactics to silence our author through the use of a non-disparagement clause in a severance agreement.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2018, Meta said it would no longer force employees to\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/09/technology/facebook-arbitration-harassment.html\"> settle sexual harassment claims in private arbitration\u003c/a>. In 2022, Meta’s board of directors wrote in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000132680122000043/meta2022definitiveproxysta.htm\">shareholder report\u003c/a>, “We do not require or encourage our personnel to remain silent about harassment or discrimination.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2023, the NLRB ruled that it is generally illegal for companies to offer severance agreements that prohibit workers from making potentially disparaging statements about former employers, including discussing sexual harassment or sexual assault accusations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Federal labor law enforcement is up in the air these days, thanks to\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/donald-trump\"> the Trump administration’s\u003c/a> effort to downsize the government. But experts say there are a host of laws — federal and state — that protect the just-released memoir \u003ca href=\"https://www.amazon.com/dp/1250391237\">\u003cem>Careless People\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem>: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism\u003c/em>, written by a former director of global public policy at Meta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The book by former Facebook employee Sarah Wynn-Williams makes \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/books/review/careless-people-sarah-wynn-williams.html\">incendiary allegations\u003c/a> of sexual harassment and other potentially illegal behavior by top-level executives during her seven years at the social media giant based in Menlo Park. In a blurb on Amazon, the book promises “shocking accounts of misogyny and double standards behind the scenes,” along with depictions of “unfettered power and a rotten company culture.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wynn-Williams also filed\u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/03/09/meta-china-censorship-facebook-mark-zuckerberg/\"> a whistle-blower complaint\u003c/a> to the Securities and Exchange Commission last week, claiming Meta was so desperate to operate in China and ingratiate itself with the Chinese Communist Party that it was willing to censor content and shut down political dissent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This week, an arbitrator temporarily stopped Wynn-Williams from promoting the book, siding with Meta’s argument that she had violated the non-disparagement agreement or NDA she signed when she was an employee of the company. In the \u003ca href=\"https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Arbitration-Interim-Award.pdf\">ruling\u003c/a>, emergency arbitrator Nicholas Gowen wrote that Meta “has established a likelihood of success on the merits of its contractual non-disparagement claim against Respondent Wynn-Williams and that immediate and irreparable loss will result in the absence of emergency relief.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A Meta spokesperson wrote KQED, “We took immediate legal action due to the false and defamatory nature of the allegations.” They added, “This book is a mix of out-of-date and previously reported claims about the company and false accusations about our executives. Eight years ago, Sarah Wynn-Williams was fired for poor performance and toxic behavior, and an investigation at the time determined she made misleading and unfounded allegations of harassment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12020607\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1100px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12020607\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1100\" height=\"733\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy.jpg 1100w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/npr.brightspotcdn-copy-160x107.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1100px) 100vw, 1100px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, testifies during the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, ‘Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis,’ in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 31, 2024. \u003ccite>(Brendan Smialowski/AFP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Some former Meta employees are coming forward to defend the company, including Mike Rognlien, who \u003ca href=\"https://www.threads.net/@badmikeyt/post/DHHfpWQykPC?xmt=AQGz0MND3an--2-q2sfIURuFSqWVXPJHKm2FCxNZRrV_lA\">wrote on Threads\u003c/a>, “People are so thirsty for anything disparaging to Meta. I sat next to Sarah for 18 months when we both worked in the New York office and we were both working closely with Sheryl Sandberg at the time. Never a word of this was mentioned, and we talked shit about loooooots of stuff. I have recently/publicly taken meta task for everything that they’re doing to dismantle dei, but I didn’t have to make up a thing to tell the story.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Arbitration is commonly understood to favor employers over employees, but “an arbitrator cannot violate the law,” said Catherine Fisk of UC Berkeley’s Law School, where she teaches employment and labor law. She also works as an arbitrator in labor management matters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“To the extent that [Wynn-Williams] is criticizing working conditions, employees have had a right to criticize working conditions under federal labor law for, lo, these 90 years. And unless — and until — Congress repeals that statute, or the [the National Labor Relations Board] overturns its decision, or the Supreme Court overturns that decision, it’s protected concerted activities,” Fisk told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stanford labor law professor William Gould, who served as chair of the NLRB from 1994 to 1998, wrote in an email, “The Biden National Labor Relations Board has held that an employer cannot lawfully condition a severance arrangement upon a non disclosure non disparagement promise agreement.” While Gould acknowledged the ruling is likely to be reversed by Trump appointees, the Biden ruling remains intact.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California law also makes it clear \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/03/06/973439404/it-really-is-a-gag-order-california-may-limit-nondisclosure-agreements\">workers can talk about sexual harassment\u003c/a> or gender-related misconduct without fear of reprisal from their employer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fisk added the arbitrator, Gowen, has no jurisdiction over the publishing company, although Meta could sue or threaten to sue the publisher for defamation. Macmillan Publishers, which published the book under its Flatiron Books imprint, posted on\u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1271075701251400&set=a.820130836345891\"> Facebook\u003c/a>, “We are appalled by Meta’s tactics to silence our author through the use of a non-disparagement clause in a severance agreement.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2018, Meta said it would no longer force employees to\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/09/technology/facebook-arbitration-harassment.html\"> settle sexual harassment claims in private arbitration\u003c/a>. In 2022, Meta’s board of directors wrote in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000132680122000043/meta2022definitiveproxysta.htm\">shareholder report\u003c/a>, “We do not require or encourage our personnel to remain silent about harassment or discrimination.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2023, the NLRB ruled that it is generally illegal for companies to offer severance agreements that prohibit workers from making potentially disparaging statements about former employers, including discussing sexual harassment or sexual assault accusations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "how-meta-brings-in-millions-off-political-violence",
"title": "How Meta Brings in Millions Off Political Violence",
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"content": "\u003cp>After the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in July, the merchandise started showing up on Facebook.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump, fist in the air, face bloodied from a bullet, appeared on everything. Coffee mugs. Hawaiian shirts. Trading cards. Commemorative coins. Heart ornaments. Ads for these products used images captured at the scene by \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/14/arts/design/trump-photo-raised-fist.html\">Doug Mills\u003c/a> for the New York Times and \u003ca href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/07/trump-assassination-attempt-evan-vucci/679011/\">Evan Vucci\u003c/a> for the Associated Press, showing Trump yelling “fight” after the shooting. The Trump campaign itself even \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?id=513229838128846\">offered some gear\u003c/a> commemorating his survival.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the Secret Service drew scrutiny and law enforcement searched for a motive, online advertisers saw a business opportunity in the moment, pumping out Facebook ads to supporters hungry for merch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12008148\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12008148\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-1-copy-800x1298.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1298\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-1-copy-800x1298.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-1-copy-160x260.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-1-copy.jpg 896w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">CalMatters and The Markup ran a simple search of Meta’s Ad Library and found ads for merchandise related to Trump’s assassination attempt.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the 10 weeks after the shooting, advertisers paid Meta between $593,000 and $813,000 for political ads that explicitly mentioned the assassination attempt, according to The Markup’s analysis. (Meta provides only estimates of spending and reach for ads in its database.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even Facebook itself \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/technology/myanmar-facebook.html\">has acknowledged\u003c/a> that polarizing content and misinformation on its platform has incited real-life violence. An analysis by CalMatters and The Markup found that the reverse is also true: real-world violence can sometimes open new revenue opportunities for Meta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the spending on assassination ads represents a sliver of Meta’s $100 billion-plus ad revenue, the company also builds its bottom line when tragedies like war and mass shootings occur, in the United States and beyond. After the October 7th attack on Israel last year and the country’s response in Gaza, Meta saw a major increase in dollars spent related to the conflict, according to our review.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tech advocacy groups and others question whether Facebook should even profit from violence and whether its ability to do so violates the company’s own principles of not calling for violence. The company said advertisers often respond to current events and that ads that run on its platform are reviewed and must meet the company’s standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you count all of the political ads mentioning Israel since the attack through the last week of September, organizations and individuals paid Meta between $14.8 million and $22.1 million for ads seen between 1.5 billion and 1.7 billion times on Meta’s platforms. Meta made much less for ads mentioning Israel during the same period the year before: between $2.4 million and $4 million for ads that were seen between 373 million and 445 million times. At the high end of Meta’s estimates, this was a 450% increase in Israel-related ad dollars for the company. (In our analysis, we converted foreign currency purchases to current U.S. dollars.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12008173\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/Image-10-5-24-at-4.28%E2%80%AFPM-scaled-e1728171034139.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1331\" height=\"844\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/Image-10-5-24-at-4.28 PM-scaled-e1728171034139.jpg 1331w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/Image-10-5-24-at-4.28 PM-scaled-e1728171034139-800x507.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/Image-10-5-24-at-4.28 PM-scaled-e1728171034139-1020x647.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/Image-10-5-24-at-4.28 PM-scaled-e1728171034139-160x101.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1331px) 100vw, 1331px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a lobbying group that promotes Israel, was the major spender on ads mentioning Israel. In the six months after October 7th, its spending increased more than 300% over the previous six months, to between $1.8 million and $2.7 million, as the organization peppered Facebook and Instagram with ads defending Israel’s actions in Gaza and pressuring politicians to support the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the war has roiled the region, AIPAC paid Meta about as much for ads in the 15 weeks following October 7th as the entire year before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our effort is directed to encouraging pro-Israel Americans to stand with our democratic ally as it battles Iranian proxies in the aftermath of the barbaric Hamas attack of October 7th,” Marshall Wittmann, a spokesperson for AIPAC, said in an emailed statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(See the data on our \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/the-markup/investigation-meta-political-violence-ads\">Github repo\u003c/a>).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12008154\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12008154\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-2-copy-800x1298.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1298\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-2-copy-800x1298.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-2-copy-160x260.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-2-copy.jpg 896w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">CalMatters and The Markup ran a simple search of Meta’s Ad Library and found ads for merchandise related to Trump’s assassination attempt.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Other ad campaigns mentioning Israel supported different sides of the conflict. Doctors Without Borders, for example, used advertising to highlight the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Other ads defended and promoted Israel. The Christian Broadcasting Network tied the October 7th attack to a claim in an ad that Iran’s “final, deadly goal” was “to establish a modern caliphate—an Islamic-founded, tyrannical government—across the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, takes in the vast majority of its revenue \u003ca href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2023/10/25/meta-earnings-record-profits-sales-as-ads-stay-robust-during-zuckerbergs-year-of-efficiency/\">from targeted advertising\u003c/a>. The company tracks users online to profile their habits and, when a business or organization wants to reach them, lets those businesses pay to send ads to people who might be interested. Those ads might be tied to something perfectly wholesome, like gardening. But the company’s algorithms don’t distinguish between simple hobbies and something darker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton said in an emailed statement that Meta did not ultimately profit from political violence, as advertisers broadly back away from advertising during times of strife for fear their ads will be promoted alongside news of the violence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clayton noted Meta’s chief financial officer recently said on an earnings call that it is “hard for us to attribute demand softness directly to any specific geopolitical event” but had seen lower ad spending “correlating with the start of the conflict” in the Middle East, and had seen similar at the start of the war in Ukraine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Advertisers responding to current events are nothing new, and it’s seen across the media landscape, including on television, radio, and online news outlets,” Clayton said. “All ads that run on our platform must go through a review process and adhere to our advertising and community standards, and Meta offers an extra layer of transparency by making them publicly available in our Ad Library.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CalMatters and The Markup used Meta’s own tools to calculate how much Meta makes from spikes in advertising when instances of political violence happen, reviewing thousands of ads through both manual review and with the assistance of \u003ca href=\"https://www.llama.com/\">an AI model\u003c/a> offered by Meta itself. (We also made improvements to Meta Research’s scripts for accessing the Ad Library API, and \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/the-markup/Ad-Library-API-Script-Repository/\">we’re sharing our changes\u003c/a>.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To examine the assassination attempt merchandise, we ran a simple search of \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/\">Meta’s Ad Library\u003c/a> for ads that mentioned “assassination,” including any in our analysis that also mentioned “Trump” and hundreds of others that didn’t mention the former president by name but were clearly related to the shooting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“First they jail him, now they try to end him,” one ad read. A conspiratorial ad for a commemorative two-dollar bill claimed “the assassination attempt was their Plan B,” while “Plan A was to make Biden abandon the presidential campaign.” Some ads used clips from the film JFK to suggest an unseen, malevolent force was at work in the shooting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12008157\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12008157\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-3-copy-800x1576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1576\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-3-copy-800x1576.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-3-copy-160x315.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-3-copy-780x1536.jpg 780w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-3-copy.jpg 896w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">CalMatters and The Markup found that gun advocates used the presidential assassination attempt to promote products and services on Facebook, including this advertisement for a firearms safety course.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Gun advocates paid for ads, using the assassination attempt as a foreboding call to action. One ad promoting a firearms safety course noted that “November is fast approaching.” A clothing business said in an ad that, since “the government can’t save you” from foreign enemies, Americans “need to be self-reliant, self-made, and self-sufficient.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because when those bullets zip by, you are clearly on your own,” the ad read.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of those ads did not appear to violate Meta’s policies, although some may have broken its \u003ca href=\"https://transparency.meta.com/policies/community-standards/violence-incitement/\">ban against\u003c/a> showing weapons while alleging “election-related corruption.” But even the ones that didn’t clearly violate Meta’s rules still place the company in an uncomfortable position, as the business takes in advertising dollars from posts tied to grim news cycles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself commented on the first Trump assassination attempt, saying \u003ca href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-19/mark-zuckerberg-calls-donald-trump-badass-without-endorsing-for-president\">in an interview\u003c/a> that it was “one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life.” Trump has now survived a second apparent assassination attempt, and Zuckerberg’s company has made millions of dollars through political advertising tied to these and other violent acts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Katie Paul, director of the Tech Transparency Project, a nonprofit advocacy organization, said “it’s not a surprise” that ads around political violence would pop up after incidents “if Meta is not making any effort even on a good day to effectively enforce their policies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s huge problems with their advertising broadly,” she said. “They’re profiting off of a lot of harmful things, really without any sort of repercussions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A Trump-fueled business and cash from war\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Many businesses paying for the assassination ads sold pro-Trump gear before the shooting — and some might have spent a similar amount on ads if the shooting never happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for some, the assassination attempt effectively became an entire business strategy, according to the review of Meta advertising data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A clothing company called Red First, which offers everything from customized shirts for pet owners to flags saying “Hillary belongs in prison,” offered assassination-related merchandise through a network of pages with names like 50 Stars Nation and Red White and Blue Zone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company, which operates in California and Vietnam, according to Meta’s required disclosures, has spent more than $1.8 million since February 2023 to promote ads through its various pages. But in the wake of the shooting, the company pivoted to merchandise around the event.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12008160\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12008160\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-4-copy-800x1571.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1571\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-4-copy-800x1571.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-4-copy-160x314.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-4-copy-782x1536.jpg 782w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-4-copy.jpg 896w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">CalMatters and The Markup found that gun advocates used the presidential assassination attempt to promote products and services on Facebook, including this advertisement for a firearms safety course.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Red First’s ads were relatively innocuous compared to some that sprang up after the shooting – they promoted Trump, not the shooting, and not the idea of retaliation for it. One shirt showed an illustration of Trump, middle fingers in the air, and the words “you missed bigly.” The company has also offered Kamala Harris merchandise, recently launching a page dedicated to it as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the ads related to the shooting simultaneously sold products, promoted Trump, and let Meta reap advertising cash from the incident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of the thousands of ads posted by the company didn’t explicitly use the word “assassination,” but clearly referenced the event in other ways, using slogans like “he will overcome,” “fight fight fight,” “legends never die,” and “shooting makes me stronger.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To suss out which ads were related to the shooting, we reviewed more than 4,200 ads from the company’s different pages with the assistance of a large language model \u003ca href=\"https://www.llama.com/\">named Llama\u003c/a>, a Meta AI model.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We programmed the model to evaluate the text of each ad to determine whether it was related to the assassination attempt, then manually reviewed hundreds of its classifications to ensure it was working as expected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After our review, we determined that more than 2,600 of those more than 4,200 ads were related to the assassination attempt. The total Red First paid to Meta in the 10 weeks after the shooting for those ads: between $473,000 and $798,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Red First lists a phone number and street address in Southern California, but didn’t respond to phone or email, and the listed address is for a mail-opening service.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The NRA and violent ads around the globe\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The advocacy organization the Tech Transparency Project has charted how the National Rifle Association has \u003ca href=\"https://www.techtransparencyproject.org/articles/profiting-from-tragedy\">paid to promote pro-gun views\u003c/a> on Meta and Google’s ad platforms after mass shootings. Despite calls from tech company executives for gun control, those companies profit from NRA spending that spikes after shootings, the group has pointed out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the mass school shooting in Parkland, Fla., the NRA increased its spending on Google and Facebook ads, the Tech Transparency Project noted in one report. In 2018, the year of the shooting, Meta received “more than $2 million in advertising fees from the NRA starting in May of that year,” the report found, which also found that “NRA ad spending reached its highest levels on Google and soared on Facebook” following a week of mass shootings the following year that left dozens of people dead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.techtransparencyproject.org/articles/how-facebook-profits-insurrection\">Just days\u003c/a> before the January 6th insurrection, the Tech Transparency Project found that Meta hosted ads offering gun holsters and rifle accessories in far-right Facebook groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Internationally, Meta has often lapsed in its pledge to keep violent content off its platforms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meta’s ad policies forbid calling for violence. But when faced with crucial tests of its content moderation practices, the company has repeatedly failed to detect and remove inflammatory ads. \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/technology/myanmar-facebook.html\">A 2018 report\u003c/a>, commissioned by Facebook itself, found that its platform had been used to incite violence in Myanmar, and that the company hadn’t done enough to prevent it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alia Al Ghussain, a researcher on technology issues at Amnesty International, said that as troubling as some ads might be in English, ads in other languages may be even more likely to pass Meta’s content moderation. “In most of the non-English-speaking world, Facebook doesn’t have the resources that it needs to moderate the content on the platform effectively and safely,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite later admitting responsibility for violence in Myanmar, the company continues to be faulted for gaps in its international moderation work. Another advocacy organization found in a test that the company approved calls for \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/09/facebook-hate-speech-test-fail-meta\">the murder of ethnic groups in Ethiopia\u003c/a>. More recently, a similar test by \u003ca href=\"https://theintercept.com/2023/11/21/facebook-ad-israel-palestine-violence/\">an advocacy organization found\u003c/a> that ads explicitly calling for violence against Palestinians—a flagrant violation of Meta’s rules—were still approved to run by the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If ads which are presenting a risk of stoking tension or spreading misinformation are being approved in the US, in English, it really makes me fearful for what is happening in other countries in non-English-speaking languages,” Al Ghussain said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Ads connected to the attempted assassination of Donald Trump and Israel’s war in Gaza brought Facebook millions.",
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"title": "How Meta Brings in Millions Off Political Violence | KQED",
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"nprByline": "\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/author/colin-lecher/\">Colin Lecher\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/author/tomas-apodaca/\">Tomas Apodaca\u003c/a>, CalMatters",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>After the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in July, the merchandise started showing up on Facebook.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Trump, fist in the air, face bloodied from a bullet, appeared on everything. Coffee mugs. Hawaiian shirts. Trading cards. Commemorative coins. Heart ornaments. Ads for these products used images captured at the scene by \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/14/arts/design/trump-photo-raised-fist.html\">Doug Mills\u003c/a> for the New York Times and \u003ca href=\"https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/07/trump-assassination-attempt-evan-vucci/679011/\">Evan Vucci\u003c/a> for the Associated Press, showing Trump yelling “fight” after the shooting. The Trump campaign itself even \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?id=513229838128846\">offered some gear\u003c/a> commemorating his survival.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the Secret Service drew scrutiny and law enforcement searched for a motive, online advertisers saw a business opportunity in the moment, pumping out Facebook ads to supporters hungry for merch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12008148\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12008148\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-1-copy-800x1298.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1298\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-1-copy-800x1298.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-1-copy-160x260.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-1-copy.jpg 896w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">CalMatters and The Markup ran a simple search of Meta’s Ad Library and found ads for merchandise related to Trump’s assassination attempt.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In the 10 weeks after the shooting, advertisers paid Meta between $593,000 and $813,000 for political ads that explicitly mentioned the assassination attempt, according to The Markup’s analysis. (Meta provides only estimates of spending and reach for ads in its database.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even Facebook itself \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/technology/myanmar-facebook.html\">has acknowledged\u003c/a> that polarizing content and misinformation on its platform has incited real-life violence. An analysis by CalMatters and The Markup found that the reverse is also true: real-world violence can sometimes open new revenue opportunities for Meta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the spending on assassination ads represents a sliver of Meta’s $100 billion-plus ad revenue, the company also builds its bottom line when tragedies like war and mass shootings occur, in the United States and beyond. After the October 7th attack on Israel last year and the country’s response in Gaza, Meta saw a major increase in dollars spent related to the conflict, according to our review.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tech advocacy groups and others question whether Facebook should even profit from violence and whether its ability to do so violates the company’s own principles of not calling for violence. The company said advertisers often respond to current events and that ads that run on its platform are reviewed and must meet the company’s standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you count all of the political ads mentioning Israel since the attack through the last week of September, organizations and individuals paid Meta between $14.8 million and $22.1 million for ads seen between 1.5 billion and 1.7 billion times on Meta’s platforms. Meta made much less for ads mentioning Israel during the same period the year before: between $2.4 million and $4 million for ads that were seen between 373 million and 445 million times. At the high end of Meta’s estimates, this was a 450% increase in Israel-related ad dollars for the company. (In our analysis, we converted foreign currency purchases to current U.S. dollars.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12008173\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/Image-10-5-24-at-4.28%E2%80%AFPM-scaled-e1728171034139.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1331\" height=\"844\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/Image-10-5-24-at-4.28 PM-scaled-e1728171034139.jpg 1331w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/Image-10-5-24-at-4.28 PM-scaled-e1728171034139-800x507.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/Image-10-5-24-at-4.28 PM-scaled-e1728171034139-1020x647.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/Image-10-5-24-at-4.28 PM-scaled-e1728171034139-160x101.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1331px) 100vw, 1331px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a lobbying group that promotes Israel, was the major spender on ads mentioning Israel. In the six months after October 7th, its spending increased more than 300% over the previous six months, to between $1.8 million and $2.7 million, as the organization peppered Facebook and Instagram with ads defending Israel’s actions in Gaza and pressuring politicians to support the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the war has roiled the region, AIPAC paid Meta about as much for ads in the 15 weeks following October 7th as the entire year before.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our effort is directed to encouraging pro-Israel Americans to stand with our democratic ally as it battles Iranian proxies in the aftermath of the barbaric Hamas attack of October 7th,” Marshall Wittmann, a spokesperson for AIPAC, said in an emailed statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(See the data on our \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/the-markup/investigation-meta-political-violence-ads\">Github repo\u003c/a>).\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12008154\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12008154\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-2-copy-800x1298.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1298\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-2-copy-800x1298.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-2-copy-160x260.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-2-copy.jpg 896w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">CalMatters and The Markup ran a simple search of Meta’s Ad Library and found ads for merchandise related to Trump’s assassination attempt.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Other ad campaigns mentioning Israel supported different sides of the conflict. Doctors Without Borders, for example, used advertising to highlight the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Other ads defended and promoted Israel. The Christian Broadcasting Network tied the October 7th attack to a claim in an ad that Iran’s “final, deadly goal” was “to establish a modern caliphate—an Islamic-founded, tyrannical government—across the world.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, takes in the vast majority of its revenue \u003ca href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2023/10/25/meta-earnings-record-profits-sales-as-ads-stay-robust-during-zuckerbergs-year-of-efficiency/\">from targeted advertising\u003c/a>. The company tracks users online to profile their habits and, when a business or organization wants to reach them, lets those businesses pay to send ads to people who might be interested. Those ads might be tied to something perfectly wholesome, like gardening. But the company’s algorithms don’t distinguish between simple hobbies and something darker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton said in an emailed statement that Meta did not ultimately profit from political violence, as advertisers broadly back away from advertising during times of strife for fear their ads will be promoted alongside news of the violence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Clayton noted Meta’s chief financial officer recently said on an earnings call that it is “hard for us to attribute demand softness directly to any specific geopolitical event” but had seen lower ad spending “correlating with the start of the conflict” in the Middle East, and had seen similar at the start of the war in Ukraine.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Advertisers responding to current events are nothing new, and it’s seen across the media landscape, including on television, radio, and online news outlets,” Clayton said. “All ads that run on our platform must go through a review process and adhere to our advertising and community standards, and Meta offers an extra layer of transparency by making them publicly available in our Ad Library.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CalMatters and The Markup used Meta’s own tools to calculate how much Meta makes from spikes in advertising when instances of political violence happen, reviewing thousands of ads through both manual review and with the assistance of \u003ca href=\"https://www.llama.com/\">an AI model\u003c/a> offered by Meta itself. (We also made improvements to Meta Research’s scripts for accessing the Ad Library API, and \u003ca href=\"https://github.com/the-markup/Ad-Library-API-Script-Repository/\">we’re sharing our changes\u003c/a>.)\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To examine the assassination attempt merchandise, we ran a simple search of \u003ca href=\"https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/\">Meta’s Ad Library\u003c/a> for ads that mentioned “assassination,” including any in our analysis that also mentioned “Trump” and hundreds of others that didn’t mention the former president by name but were clearly related to the shooting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“First they jail him, now they try to end him,” one ad read. A conspiratorial ad for a commemorative two-dollar bill claimed “the assassination attempt was their Plan B,” while “Plan A was to make Biden abandon the presidential campaign.” Some ads used clips from the film JFK to suggest an unseen, malevolent force was at work in the shooting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12008157\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12008157\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-3-copy-800x1576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1576\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-3-copy-800x1576.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-3-copy-160x315.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-3-copy-780x1536.jpg 780w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-3-copy.jpg 896w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">CalMatters and The Markup found that gun advocates used the presidential assassination attempt to promote products and services on Facebook, including this advertisement for a firearms safety course.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Gun advocates paid for ads, using the assassination attempt as a foreboding call to action. One ad promoting a firearms safety course noted that “November is fast approaching.” A clothing business said in an ad that, since “the government can’t save you” from foreign enemies, Americans “need to be self-reliant, self-made, and self-sufficient.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Because when those bullets zip by, you are clearly on your own,” the ad read.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of those ads did not appear to violate Meta’s policies, although some may have broken its \u003ca href=\"https://transparency.meta.com/policies/community-standards/violence-incitement/\">ban against\u003c/a> showing weapons while alleging “election-related corruption.” But even the ones that didn’t clearly violate Meta’s rules still place the company in an uncomfortable position, as the business takes in advertising dollars from posts tied to grim news cycles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself commented on the first Trump assassination attempt, saying \u003ca href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-19/mark-zuckerberg-calls-donald-trump-badass-without-endorsing-for-president\">in an interview\u003c/a> that it was “one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life.” Trump has now survived a second apparent assassination attempt, and Zuckerberg’s company has made millions of dollars through political advertising tied to these and other violent acts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Katie Paul, director of the Tech Transparency Project, a nonprofit advocacy organization, said “it’s not a surprise” that ads around political violence would pop up after incidents “if Meta is not making any effort even on a good day to effectively enforce their policies.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s huge problems with their advertising broadly,” she said. “They’re profiting off of a lot of harmful things, really without any sort of repercussions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A Trump-fueled business and cash from war\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Many businesses paying for the assassination ads sold pro-Trump gear before the shooting — and some might have spent a similar amount on ads if the shooting never happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for some, the assassination attempt effectively became an entire business strategy, according to the review of Meta advertising data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A clothing company called Red First, which offers everything from customized shirts for pet owners to flags saying “Hillary belongs in prison,” offered assassination-related merchandise through a network of pages with names like 50 Stars Nation and Red White and Blue Zone.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company, which operates in California and Vietnam, according to Meta’s required disclosures, has spent more than $1.8 million since February 2023 to promote ads through its various pages. But in the wake of the shooting, the company pivoted to merchandise around the event.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12008160\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-12008160\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-4-copy-800x1571.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"1571\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-4-copy-800x1571.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-4-copy-160x314.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-4-copy-782x1536.jpg 782w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/100324-FB-AD-CM-TM-SCREENSHOT-4-copy.jpg 896w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">CalMatters and The Markup found that gun advocates used the presidential assassination attempt to promote products and services on Facebook, including this advertisement for a firearms safety course.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Red First’s ads were relatively innocuous compared to some that sprang up after the shooting – they promoted Trump, not the shooting, and not the idea of retaliation for it. One shirt showed an illustration of Trump, middle fingers in the air, and the words “you missed bigly.” The company has also offered Kamala Harris merchandise, recently launching a page dedicated to it as well.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the ads related to the shooting simultaneously sold products, promoted Trump, and let Meta reap advertising cash from the incident.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of the thousands of ads posted by the company didn’t explicitly use the word “assassination,” but clearly referenced the event in other ways, using slogans like “he will overcome,” “fight fight fight,” “legends never die,” and “shooting makes me stronger.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To suss out which ads were related to the shooting, we reviewed more than 4,200 ads from the company’s different pages with the assistance of a large language model \u003ca href=\"https://www.llama.com/\">named Llama\u003c/a>, a Meta AI model.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We programmed the model to evaluate the text of each ad to determine whether it was related to the assassination attempt, then manually reviewed hundreds of its classifications to ensure it was working as expected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After our review, we determined that more than 2,600 of those more than 4,200 ads were related to the assassination attempt. The total Red First paid to Meta in the 10 weeks after the shooting for those ads: between $473,000 and $798,000.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Red First lists a phone number and street address in Southern California, but didn’t respond to phone or email, and the listed address is for a mail-opening service.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The NRA and violent ads around the globe\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The advocacy organization the Tech Transparency Project has charted how the National Rifle Association has \u003ca href=\"https://www.techtransparencyproject.org/articles/profiting-from-tragedy\">paid to promote pro-gun views\u003c/a> on Meta and Google’s ad platforms after mass shootings. Despite calls from tech company executives for gun control, those companies profit from NRA spending that spikes after shootings, the group has pointed out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the mass school shooting in Parkland, Fla., the NRA increased its spending on Google and Facebook ads, the Tech Transparency Project noted in one report. In 2018, the year of the shooting, Meta received “more than $2 million in advertising fees from the NRA starting in May of that year,” the report found, which also found that “NRA ad spending reached its highest levels on Google and soared on Facebook” following a week of mass shootings the following year that left dozens of people dead.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.techtransparencyproject.org/articles/how-facebook-profits-insurrection\">Just days\u003c/a> before the January 6th insurrection, the Tech Transparency Project found that Meta hosted ads offering gun holsters and rifle accessories in far-right Facebook groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Internationally, Meta has often lapsed in its pledge to keep violent content off its platforms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meta’s ad policies forbid calling for violence. But when faced with crucial tests of its content moderation practices, the company has repeatedly failed to detect and remove inflammatory ads. \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/technology/myanmar-facebook.html\">A 2018 report\u003c/a>, commissioned by Facebook itself, found that its platform had been used to incite violence in Myanmar, and that the company hadn’t done enough to prevent it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alia Al Ghussain, a researcher on technology issues at Amnesty International, said that as troubling as some ads might be in English, ads in other languages may be even more likely to pass Meta’s content moderation. “In most of the non-English-speaking world, Facebook doesn’t have the resources that it needs to moderate the content on the platform effectively and safely,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Despite later admitting responsibility for violence in Myanmar, the company continues to be faulted for gaps in its international moderation work. Another advocacy organization found in a test that the company approved calls for \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/09/facebook-hate-speech-test-fail-meta\">the murder of ethnic groups in Ethiopia\u003c/a>. More recently, a similar test by \u003ca href=\"https://theintercept.com/2023/11/21/facebook-ad-israel-palestine-violence/\">an advocacy organization found\u003c/a> that ads explicitly calling for violence against Palestinians—a flagrant violation of Meta’s rules—were still approved to run by the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If ads which are presenting a risk of stoking tension or spreading misinformation are being approved in the US, in English, it really makes me fearful for what is happening in other countries in non-English-speaking languages,” Al Ghussain said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>More than three dozen states, including California, New York and the District of Columbia, are filing federal and state lawsuits claiming Facebook and Instagram intentionally — and illegally — manipulate young users.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuit filed in federal court in California also claims that Meta routinely collects data on children under 13 without their parents’ consent, violating federal law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Meta has harnessed powerful and unprecedented technologies to entice, engage, and ultimately ensnare youth and teens. Its motive is profit, and in seeking to maximize its financial gains, Meta has repeatedly misled the public about the substantial dangers of its social media platforms,” the complaint says. “It has concealed the ways in which these platforms exploit and manipulate its most vulnerable consumers: teenagers and children.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad full-width]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuits follow the collapse of settlement talks with the Menlo Park-based Meta, which operates both platforms. It’s also the result of an investigation led by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee, Vermont and more.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorney General Rob Bonta is part of the coalition of more than 30 AGs filing \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/FINAL%20Meta%20Multistate%20Complaint%2C%20N.D.%20Cal.%20%28REDACTED%2C%20CONFORMED%29.pdf\">the federal lawsuit\u003c/a> in Northern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We refuse to allow the company to feign ignorance of the harm it knows it’s causing,” Bonta said in a statement on Tuesday. “We refuse to let it continue business as usual when that business is hurting our children.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to the 33 states, nine other attorneys general are filing in their respective states, bringing the total number of states taking action to 42. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"California Attorney General Rob Bonta\"]‘We refuse to allow the company to feign ignorance of the harm it knows it’s causing. We refuse to let it continue business as usual when that business is hurting our children.’[/pullquote]“Kids and teenagers are suffering from record levels of poor mental health and social media companies like Meta are to blame,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said. “Meta has profited from children’s pain by intentionally designing its platforms with manipulative features that make children addicted to their platforms while lowering their self-esteem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Meta said it shares “the attorneys general’s commitment to providing teens with safe, positive experiences online, and have already introduced over 30 tools to support teens and their families.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re disappointed that instead of working productively with companies across the industry to create clear, age-appropriate standards for the many apps teens use, the attorneys general have chosen this path,” the company added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuits also come on the heels of damning newspaper reports, first published by \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em> in the fall of 2021, based on Meta’s research that found that the company knew about the harms Instagram can cause teenagers — especially teen girls — when it comes to mental health and body image issues. [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"New York Attorney General Letitia James\"]‘Kids and teenagers are suffering from record levels of poor mental health and social media companies like Meta are to blame.’[/pullquote]One internal study cited 13.5% of teen girls saying Instagram makes thoughts of suicide worse and 17% of teen girls saying it makes eating disorders worse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following the first reports, a consortium of news organizations, including \u003cem>The Associated Press\u003c/em>, published their findings based on leaked documents from whistleblower Frances Haugen, who has testified before Congress and a British parliamentary committee about what she found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The use of social media among teens is nearly universal in the U.S. and many other parts of the world. Up to 95% of youth ages 13 to 17 in the U.S. report using a social media platform, with more than a third saying they use social media “almost constantly,” according to the Pew Research Center. [aside postID=news_11951924 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2023/06/060123-Meta-Facebook-Instagram-AP-JC-KQED-1020x680.jpg']To comply with federal regulation, social media companies ban kids under 13 from signing up to their platforms — but children have been shown to easily get around the bans, both with and without their parents’ consent, and many younger kids have social media accounts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other measures social platforms have taken to address concerns about children’s mental health are also easily circumvented. For instance, TikTok recently introduced a default 60-minute time limit for users under 18. But once the limit is reached, minors can enter a passcode to keep watching.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In May, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy called on tech companies, parents and caregivers to take “immediate action to protect kids now” from the harms of social media.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Associated Press Writers Maysoon Khan in New York and Ashraf Khalil in Washington DC contributed to this story. KQED’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/rachael-myrow\">Rachael Myrow\u003c/a> also contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>More than three dozen states, including California, New York and the District of Columbia, are filing federal and state lawsuits claiming Facebook and Instagram intentionally — and illegally — manipulate young users.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuit filed in federal court in California also claims that Meta routinely collects data on children under 13 without their parents’ consent, violating federal law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Meta has harnessed powerful and unprecedented technologies to entice, engage, and ultimately ensnare youth and teens. Its motive is profit, and in seeking to maximize its financial gains, Meta has repeatedly misled the public about the substantial dangers of its social media platforms,” the complaint says. “It has concealed the ways in which these platforms exploit and manipulate its most vulnerable consumers: teenagers and children.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorney General Rob Bonta is part of the coalition of more than 30 AGs filing \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/attachments/press-docs/FINAL%20Meta%20Multistate%20Complaint%2C%20N.D.%20Cal.%20%28REDACTED%2C%20CONFORMED%29.pdf\">the federal lawsuit\u003c/a> in Northern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We refuse to allow the company to feign ignorance of the harm it knows it’s causing,” Bonta said in a statement on Tuesday. “We refuse to let it continue business as usual when that business is hurting our children.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In addition to the 33 states, nine other attorneys general are filing in their respective states, bringing the total number of states taking action to 42. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘We refuse to allow the company to feign ignorance of the harm it knows it’s causing. We refuse to let it continue business as usual when that business is hurting our children.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“Kids and teenagers are suffering from record levels of poor mental health and social media companies like Meta are to blame,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said. “Meta has profited from children’s pain by intentionally designing its platforms with manipulative features that make children addicted to their platforms while lowering their self-esteem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Meta said it shares “the attorneys general’s commitment to providing teens with safe, positive experiences online, and have already introduced over 30 tools to support teens and their families.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re disappointed that instead of working productively with companies across the industry to create clear, age-appropriate standards for the many apps teens use, the attorneys general have chosen this path,” the company added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The lawsuits also come on the heels of damning newspaper reports, first published by \u003cem>The Wall Street Journal\u003c/em> in the fall of 2021, based on Meta’s research that found that the company knew about the harms Instagram can cause teenagers — especially teen girls — when it comes to mental health and body image issues. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>One internal study cited 13.5% of teen girls saying Instagram makes thoughts of suicide worse and 17% of teen girls saying it makes eating disorders worse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Following the first reports, a consortium of news organizations, including \u003cem>The Associated Press\u003c/em>, published their findings based on leaked documents from whistleblower Frances Haugen, who has testified before Congress and a British parliamentary committee about what she found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The use of social media among teens is nearly universal in the U.S. and many other parts of the world. Up to 95% of youth ages 13 to 17 in the U.S. report using a social media platform, with more than a third saying they use social media “almost constantly,” according to the Pew Research Center. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>To comply with federal regulation, social media companies ban kids under 13 from signing up to their platforms — but children have been shown to easily get around the bans, both with and without their parents’ consent, and many younger kids have social media accounts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other measures social platforms have taken to address concerns about children’s mental health are also easily circumvented. For instance, TikTok recently introduced a default 60-minute time limit for users under 18. But once the limit is reached, minors can enter a passcode to keep watching.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In May, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy called on tech companies, parents and caregivers to take “immediate action to protect kids now” from the harms of social media.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Associated Press Writers Maysoon Khan in New York and Ashraf Khalil in Washington DC contributed to this story. KQED’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/rachael-myrow\">Rachael Myrow\u003c/a> also contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>For more than two decades, the U.S. tech industry has been a reliable source of booming stocks and cushy, high-paid jobs. In the span of weeks, the sheen has faded and the ax has fallen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 24,000 tech workers across 72 companies have been laid off this month, adding to a total of 120,000 tech jobs lost this year, \u003ca href=\"https://layoffs.fyi/\">according to layoffs.fyi\u003c/a>, which tracks job cuts in the tech industry. It’s safe to say a reckoning is underway, even as each company is grappling with its own challenges. (See: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2022/11/12/1136205315/musk-twitter-bankruptcy-how-likely\">Twitter\u003c/a>.)[aside label=\"Related Stories\" postID=\"news_11931311,forum_2010101891200,news_11931727\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of the companies making public statements have cited at least one of two primary causes:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, they hired a lot of employees during the pandemic, when people were extremely online. Now, the internet boom has faded, offline life has picked up, and those new employees seem too expensive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Second, broader economic wobbles have made brands more reluctant to spend on digital ads — a source of revenue for many tech companies. High interest rates have put an end to the cheap-money era of venture capital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are some of the companies that have announced the biggest job cuts.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Amazon: a reported 10,000 jobs\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The online retail and cloud computing behemoth plans to lay off some 10,000 employees in corporate and technology jobs,\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/technology/amazon-layoffs.html\"> \u003cem>The New York Times \u003c/em>was the first to report\u003c/a> on Monday. Amazon did not reply to an NPR request for confirmation of the report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of this fall, Amazon employed more than 1.5 million full- and part-time workers around the world, many in warehouses. The 10,000 expected layoffs would comprise about 3% of Amazon’s corporate employees, according to the \u003cem>Times\u003c/em>, and a significantly smaller share of its overall workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cuts reportedly will focus on Amazon’s devices division, including Alexa, the company’s virtual assistant technology, as well as its retail and human resources divisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this month, the company \u003ca href=\"https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/workplace/a-note-about-hiring-from-beth-galetti\">announced a hiring freeze\u003c/a> on corporate jobs. “We’re facing an unusual macro-economic environment, and want to balance our hiring and investments with being thoughtful about this economy,” wrote Beth Galetti, Amazon’s senior vice president of people experience and technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Meta: 11,000 jobs\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, laid off 11,000 people last week — about 13% of its staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CEO Mark Zuckerberg attributed the cuts to overhiring during the pandemic. In a letter to staff\u003ca href=\"https://about.fb.com/news/2022/11/mark-zuckerberg-layoff-message-to-employees/\"> posted to the corporate website\u003c/a>, he cited a decline in e-commerce, the wider economic downturn, increased competition, and a decline in ad sales–the primary way the company makes money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that,” he wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11932364\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/ap21301632297030-daf49027eb5fc1b24525559960a695c71474bb4e-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11932364\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/ap21301632297030-daf49027eb5fc1b24525559960a695c71474bb4e-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"a man in a black turtleneck explains something on a screen\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/ap21301632297030-daf49027eb5fc1b24525559960a695c71474bb4e-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/ap21301632297030-daf49027eb5fc1b24525559960a695c71474bb4e-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/ap21301632297030-daf49027eb5fc1b24525559960a695c71474bb4e-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/ap21301632297030-daf49027eb5fc1b24525559960a695c71474bb4e-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/ap21301632297030-daf49027eb5fc1b24525559960a695c71474bb4e-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/ap21301632297030-daf49027eb5fc1b24525559960a695c71474bb4e-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg made big investments in the “metaverse,” which he showed off during a virtual event last year. Last week, Zuckerberg announced the company was laying off 13% of its staff. \u003ccite>(Eric Risberg/AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The layoffs come as the company has invested billions in the so-called metaverse, pitched as a virtual-reality future in which people will work, mingle, exercise and go to concerts. But it’s an unproven bet on the future, and not all everyone is convinced it should be the social media company’s focus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zuckerberg said the workforce cuts would affect the whole organization, with recruiting staff disproportionately affected due to fewer hires anticipated in the coming year. A hiring freeze through the first quarter of 2023 will continue.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Twitter: about 3,700 jobs\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk bought the social media platform at the end of October and wasted no time slashing its workforce. He \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2022/10/27/1132153277/elon-musk-takes-control-of-twitter-and-immediately-ousts-top-executives\">immediately ousted\u003c/a> the company’s leadership, including its CEO, CFO, and top lawyer. \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2022/11/04/1134263184/twitter-layoffs-elon-musk\">Mass layoffs were announced\u003c/a> on November 4, with about 50% of the staff cut.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day,”\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1588671155766194176\"> Musk tweeted\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/jack/status/1588913276980633600\">tweeted \u003c/a>that he accepted blame for hiring too many workers in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I own the responsibility for why everyone is in this situation: I grew the company size too quickly. I apologize for that,” he wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Musk’s $44 billion purchase of Twitter — which he tried to get out of for several months — has saddled the company with $13 billion of new debt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His short tenure at the top of Twitter has been marked by hasty changes quickly halted, including his plan for a revamped Twitter Blue verification service, which charged $8 a month to get a blue checkmark on one’s account. Accounts impersonating celebrities, major corporations, and Musk himself proliferated immediately, spurring Twitter to halt Twitter Blue signups\u003ca href=\"https://www.businessinsider.com/timeline-elon-musks-chaotic-twitter-blue-verification-rollout-2022-11\"> twice within a week\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Key executives who were not fired, including Twitter’s head of content moderation and safety on the platform, and the company’s chief privacy officer and compliance officer,\u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/10/twitter-security-resignations/\"> resigned last week\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Stripe: about 1,000 jobs\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Payment processing platform Stripe\u003ca href=\"https://stripe.com/newsroom/news/ceo-patrick-collisons-email-to-stripe-employees\"> announced on November 3\u003c/a> that it was cutting 14% of its workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stripe CEO Patrick Collison wrote in an email to employees that the pandemic pushed the world toward e-commerce, spurring the company’s growth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The CEO said he and his brother and co-founder John Collison had made “two very consequential mistakes”: being too optimistic about the internet economy’s near-term growth, and growing Stripe’s operating costs too quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are facing stubborn inflation, energy shocks, higher interest rates, reduced investment budgets, and sparser startup funding. … [M]any parts of the developed world appear to be headed for recession. We think that 2022 represents the beginning of a different economic climate,” Collison wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Salesforce: hundreds of jobs\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Salesforce, which makes cloud-based business software, laid off some of its employees last week,\u003ca href=\"https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/08/salesforce-cut-hundreds-of-employees-on-monday.html\"> CNBC reported\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Salesforce said in a statement to NPR: “Our sales performance process drives accountability. Unfortunately, that can lead to some leaving the business, and we support them through their transition.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A source familiar with the cuts said they affected hundreds of employees in the sales organization.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Microsoft: fewer than 1,000 jobs\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The software company made cuts across its divisions last month, \u003ca href=\"https://www.axios.com/2022/10/18/microsoft-layoffs-latest-tech-firm-cuts\">Axios reported\u003c/a>. Fewer than 1,000 jobs were cut, a source told Axios.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A request for confirmation of the layoffs was not immediately returned.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Zillow, Snap and Robinhood\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Zillow, the online real estate marketplace, laid off 300 of its employees late last month, TechCrunch \u003ca href=\"https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/26/zillow-layoff-300-employees/\">reported\u003c/a>. The company \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/11/03/1051941654/zillow-will-stop-buying-and-renovating-homes-and-cut-25-of-its-workforce\">laid off 25% of its workforce \u003c/a>a year ago as it shuttered its instant buying service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Snap, the company behind Snapchat, said at the end of August that it was \u003ca href=\"https://newsroom.snap.com/en-US/restructuring-and-refocusing-our-business\">cutting its workforce by 20%\u003c/a>. The layoffs affected some 1,200 employees, with the company’s full-time workforce about 6,400 as of June.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robinhood, the brokerage app company, \u003ca href=\"https://blog.robinhood.com/news/2022/8/2/a-message-from-our-ceo-and-co-founder-vlad-tenev\">laid off 23% of its workforce\u003c/a> in August. That amounted to 780 employees, \u003ca href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-02/robinhood-cuts-23-of-workforce-in-sweeping-reorganization?leadSource=uverify%20wall\">according to Bloomberg\u003c/a>. The company had already reduced its staff by 9% in April. “This did not go far enough,” wrote Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>NPR’s Alina Selyukh contributed to this story.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=It%27s+the+end+of+the+boom+times+in+tech%2C+as+layoffs+keep+mounting&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>For more than two decades, the U.S. tech industry has been a reliable source of booming stocks and cushy, high-paid jobs. In the span of weeks, the sheen has faded and the ax has fallen.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More than 24,000 tech workers across 72 companies have been laid off this month, adding to a total of 120,000 tech jobs lost this year, \u003ca href=\"https://layoffs.fyi/\">according to layoffs.fyi\u003c/a>, which tracks job cuts in the tech industry. It’s safe to say a reckoning is underway, even as each company is grappling with its own challenges. (See: \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2022/11/12/1136205315/musk-twitter-bankruptcy-how-likely\">Twitter\u003c/a>.)\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of the companies making public statements have cited at least one of two primary causes:\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>First, they hired a lot of employees during the pandemic, when people were extremely online. Now, the internet boom has faded, offline life has picked up, and those new employees seem too expensive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Second, broader economic wobbles have made brands more reluctant to spend on digital ads — a source of revenue for many tech companies. High interest rates have put an end to the cheap-money era of venture capital.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Here are some of the companies that have announced the biggest job cuts.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Amazon: a reported 10,000 jobs\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The online retail and cloud computing behemoth plans to lay off some 10,000 employees in corporate and technology jobs,\u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/technology/amazon-layoffs.html\"> \u003cem>The New York Times \u003c/em>was the first to report\u003c/a> on Monday. Amazon did not reply to an NPR request for confirmation of the report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of this fall, Amazon employed more than 1.5 million full- and part-time workers around the world, many in warehouses. The 10,000 expected layoffs would comprise about 3% of Amazon’s corporate employees, according to the \u003cem>Times\u003c/em>, and a significantly smaller share of its overall workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The cuts reportedly will focus on Amazon’s devices division, including Alexa, the company’s virtual assistant technology, as well as its retail and human resources divisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this month, the company \u003ca href=\"https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/workplace/a-note-about-hiring-from-beth-galetti\">announced a hiring freeze\u003c/a> on corporate jobs. “We’re facing an unusual macro-economic environment, and want to balance our hiring and investments with being thoughtful about this economy,” wrote Beth Galetti, Amazon’s senior vice president of people experience and technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Meta: 11,000 jobs\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, laid off 11,000 people last week — about 13% of its staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CEO Mark Zuckerberg attributed the cuts to overhiring during the pandemic. In a letter to staff\u003ca href=\"https://about.fb.com/news/2022/11/mark-zuckerberg-layoff-message-to-employees/\"> posted to the corporate website\u003c/a>, he cited a decline in e-commerce, the wider economic downturn, increased competition, and a decline in ad sales–the primary way the company makes money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that,” he wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11932364\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/ap21301632297030-daf49027eb5fc1b24525559960a695c71474bb4e-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11932364\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/ap21301632297030-daf49027eb5fc1b24525559960a695c71474bb4e-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"a man in a black turtleneck explains something on a screen\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/ap21301632297030-daf49027eb5fc1b24525559960a695c71474bb4e-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/ap21301632297030-daf49027eb5fc1b24525559960a695c71474bb4e-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/ap21301632297030-daf49027eb5fc1b24525559960a695c71474bb4e-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/ap21301632297030-daf49027eb5fc1b24525559960a695c71474bb4e-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/ap21301632297030-daf49027eb5fc1b24525559960a695c71474bb4e-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/11/ap21301632297030-daf49027eb5fc1b24525559960a695c71474bb4e-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg made big investments in the “metaverse,” which he showed off during a virtual event last year. Last week, Zuckerberg announced the company was laying off 13% of its staff. \u003ccite>(Eric Risberg/AP)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The layoffs come as the company has invested billions in the so-called metaverse, pitched as a virtual-reality future in which people will work, mingle, exercise and go to concerts. But it’s an unproven bet on the future, and not all everyone is convinced it should be the social media company’s focus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Zuckerberg said the workforce cuts would affect the whole organization, with recruiting staff disproportionately affected due to fewer hires anticipated in the coming year. A hiring freeze through the first quarter of 2023 will continue.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Twitter: about 3,700 jobs\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk bought the social media platform at the end of October and wasted no time slashing its workforce. He \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2022/10/27/1132153277/elon-musk-takes-control-of-twitter-and-immediately-ousts-top-executives\">immediately ousted\u003c/a> the company’s leadership, including its CEO, CFO, and top lawyer. \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2022/11/04/1134263184/twitter-layoffs-elon-musk\">Mass layoffs were announced\u003c/a> on November 4, with about 50% of the staff cut.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Regarding Twitter’s reduction in force, unfortunately there is no choice when the company is losing over $4M/day,”\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1588671155766194176\"> Musk tweeted\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/jack/status/1588913276980633600\">tweeted \u003c/a>that he accepted blame for hiring too many workers in recent years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I own the responsibility for why everyone is in this situation: I grew the company size too quickly. I apologize for that,” he wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Musk’s $44 billion purchase of Twitter — which he tried to get out of for several months — has saddled the company with $13 billion of new debt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His short tenure at the top of Twitter has been marked by hasty changes quickly halted, including his plan for a revamped Twitter Blue verification service, which charged $8 a month to get a blue checkmark on one’s account. Accounts impersonating celebrities, major corporations, and Musk himself proliferated immediately, spurring Twitter to halt Twitter Blue signups\u003ca href=\"https://www.businessinsider.com/timeline-elon-musks-chaotic-twitter-blue-verification-rollout-2022-11\"> twice within a week\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Key executives who were not fired, including Twitter’s head of content moderation and safety on the platform, and the company’s chief privacy officer and compliance officer,\u003ca href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/10/twitter-security-resignations/\"> resigned last week\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Stripe: about 1,000 jobs\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Payment processing platform Stripe\u003ca href=\"https://stripe.com/newsroom/news/ceo-patrick-collisons-email-to-stripe-employees\"> announced on November 3\u003c/a> that it was cutting 14% of its workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Stripe CEO Patrick Collison wrote in an email to employees that the pandemic pushed the world toward e-commerce, spurring the company’s growth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The CEO said he and his brother and co-founder John Collison had made “two very consequential mistakes”: being too optimistic about the internet economy’s near-term growth, and growing Stripe’s operating costs too quickly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are facing stubborn inflation, energy shocks, higher interest rates, reduced investment budgets, and sparser startup funding. … [M]any parts of the developed world appear to be headed for recession. We think that 2022 represents the beginning of a different economic climate,” Collison wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Salesforce: hundreds of jobs\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Salesforce, which makes cloud-based business software, laid off some of its employees last week,\u003ca href=\"https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/08/salesforce-cut-hundreds-of-employees-on-monday.html\"> CNBC reported\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Salesforce said in a statement to NPR: “Our sales performance process drives accountability. Unfortunately, that can lead to some leaving the business, and we support them through their transition.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A source familiar with the cuts said they affected hundreds of employees in the sales organization.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Microsoft: fewer than 1,000 jobs\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The software company made cuts across its divisions last month, \u003ca href=\"https://www.axios.com/2022/10/18/microsoft-layoffs-latest-tech-firm-cuts\">Axios reported\u003c/a>. Fewer than 1,000 jobs were cut, a source told Axios.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A request for confirmation of the layoffs was not immediately returned.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Zillow, Snap and Robinhood\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Zillow, the online real estate marketplace, laid off 300 of its employees late last month, TechCrunch \u003ca href=\"https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/26/zillow-layoff-300-employees/\">reported\u003c/a>. The company \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/11/03/1051941654/zillow-will-stop-buying-and-renovating-homes-and-cut-25-of-its-workforce\">laid off 25% of its workforce \u003c/a>a year ago as it shuttered its instant buying service.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Snap, the company behind Snapchat, said at the end of August that it was \u003ca href=\"https://newsroom.snap.com/en-US/restructuring-and-refocusing-our-business\">cutting its workforce by 20%\u003c/a>. The layoffs affected some 1,200 employees, with the company’s full-time workforce about 6,400 as of June.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robinhood, the brokerage app company, \u003ca href=\"https://blog.robinhood.com/news/2022/8/2/a-message-from-our-ceo-and-co-founder-vlad-tenev\">laid off 23% of its workforce\u003c/a> in August. That amounted to 780 employees, \u003ca href=\"https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-02/robinhood-cuts-23-of-workforce-in-sweeping-reorganization?leadSource=uverify%20wall\">according to Bloomberg\u003c/a>. The company had already reduced its staff by 9% in April. “This did not go far enough,” wrote Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"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.",
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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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"onourwatch": {
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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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"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.",
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"possible": {
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"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.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.possible.fm/",
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"source": "Possible"
},
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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.",
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"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",
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