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"slug": "inside-the-world-of-furry-funerals",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Furries are a community often known for wearing full-body animal suits at conventions — but the characters they inhabit, called “fursonas,” are much more than costumes. They’re deeply personal expressions of identity and creativity.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So when someone in the furry fandom dies, how does the community say goodbye? In some cases, they take to VR. Since 2020, a furry named Changa Husky has been running the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://vrchat.com/home/launch?worldId=wrld_8b9be9e0-f4f3-4f3e-b671-0a0714fa262a\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Furry Family Ofrenda\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a virtual memorial space inspired by the Mexican holiday Día de los Muertos. It’s a place where furries gather to remember and celebrate the people — and fursonas — who have passed.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this episode, Morgan steps into that virtual world to explore what it means for a community to grieve both a person and the character they brought to life.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Editor’s note:\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem> In this episode, we refer to some individuals only by their “fursona” names. We’ve chosen to use these names because members of the furry community are frequently subject to harassment, bullying, and doxxing, and many participants use online handles to maintain their safety and privacy. \u003c/em>\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=KQINC9388827305\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Guests:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://bsky.app/profile/changa.gay\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Changa Husky\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, furry Vtuber and video producer\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://dogpatch.press/author/patchofurr/\">Patch O’Furr\u003c/a>, founder and writer, \u003ci>Dogpatch Press\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Further reading:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://thespinoff.co.nz/internet/11-01-2022/who-runs-the-internet-furries\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Who runs the internet? Furries\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Dylan Reeve, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Spinoff \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://dogpatch.press/2024/02/22/remembering-mark-merlino/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Remembering Mark Merlino (1952-2024), a founder and soul of furry fandom \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Patch O’Furr, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dogpatch Press \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv0QaTW3kEY\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Fandom: A Furry Documentary\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Ash Coyote, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">YouTube\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\">Follow us on Instagram\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Heads up — the Close All Tabs team is taking a break to touch grass, so we won’t have an episode next week. But we’ll be back with another deep dive, and many more tabs, in two weeks.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\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\">I’m standing under a black sky with cobalt blue clouds. In front of me looms an Aztec pyramid. There are trees in the distance with puffs of fuchsia and chartreuse leaves. And there’s a massive tree growing in the center of the pyramid too. The steps leading to the top are lined with candles, as well as an array of offerings like food and sugar skulls. Strung throughout the space are vibrant paper flags featuring intricate designs of cartoon animals. A variety of creatures appear and then disappear around me. Foxes, dragons, and beings that look like more ethereal versions of Sonic the Hedgehog. And my guide to this mystical place?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m Changa Husky. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Changa is an anthropomorphic, animated husky dog. He has gray fur that’s lighter around his muzzle and a tuft of black hair on top of his head. His eyes are icy blue behind gold-rimmed glasses and his brown ears move as his facial expressions change. He and I are together in this virtual world, but I’m talking to him through the screen of my laptop. And yes, there is a real person under his virtual costume. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I am a furry of an older variety. I’ve been in the fandom for decades since at least the early to mid-90s, and I’m here to talk about, well, this world I built in virtual reality. We call this the Furry Family Ofrenda. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This VR world is inspired by the Day of the Dead, the Mexican holiday dedicated to honoring the lives of those who have passed away. Families welcome back spirits of their loved ones with altars called “ofrendas,” adorned with photos, candles, flowers, and offerings of the departed’s favorite foods. This isn’t a holiday for mourning, but for celebrating. Changa shows me how this virtual world is dotted with altars, each one with a framed photo, candles and a plaque. They’re all dedicated to the fursonas of people who have passed away. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fursona is a portmanteau of fur and persona, essentially an alter ego. And just a note, in this episode, we’ll be referring to a few people, including Changa, by their “fursona” names. Furries are often the targets of harassment and bullying, so many of them are publicly known only by their pseudonyms to maintain their safety and privacy. Beyond that, fursonas are kind of like a drag persona. It’s how a lot of furries express themselves. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A lot of drag personas are just that person exploring their identity. To be able to put on a mask and amplify your personality. It ends up being a way of exploring your identity and yourself. And not in those cliches of, “oh, I identify as blah, blah, blah.” It’s like, no, I know I’m human. But there are ways you can explore who you are and how you interact with the world and friends, through the lens of um like an anthropomorphic creature. It’s very much a medium. It’s like a medium of expression. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Changa stops at one particular altar with a framed photo of an older man, a human person, to be clear. He’s got glasses and he’s smiling from under his gray mustache. And he’s wearing a baseball cap with two fluffy auburn ears sticking out of it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">His fursona was a mustelid, a pine martin, a kind of tree weasel, and he was, well, very much the weasel persona. They have to be a little fearless, you know, tiny little carnivore. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This pine martin was named Sy Sable, also known as Mark Merlino. He passed away a year ago, and he was Changa’s life partner. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This project was his idea. So it was beautiful but painful that I had to add him in here. I was with him for close to 30 years before he passed. I mean, many marriages do not last that long. And here we are a polycule. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mark Merlino and Mark’s other partner, Rodney O’Reilly, are known as the grandfathers of the furry fandom. Their house, where Changa also lives, has been a home base for the fandom for decades. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mark and Rodney, the founders of the first furry convention, were a bisexual couple, openly. And they started the convention in 1989, which was not the greatest time period to be very openly queer. Let’s be real, much less running a convention. And that became a safe space for a lot of people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now outsiders might only know the subculture as a weird kink for dressing up as animals. And because of that stigma, a lot of furries aren’t open about being furries to people outside of the fandom. And that means grieving, for furries, might look a little different. Even if someone wasn’t open about being a furry to the rest of the world, the furry community remembers that person’s fursona as much as their real-life presence. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then there’s the fandom’s technical aptitude. There’s a long running joke online that if a plane full of furries goes down, then Silicon Valley will crumble because furries built the modern IT industry. The furry fandom evolved with the internet and since the 80s, furries have always been pioneers of emerging tech. They’ve incorporated it into their costuming and conventions and even memorials. So what does a furry funeral look like? What does it mean to memorialize an aspect of someone’s life that may not have been part of their bodily form, but was still a part of the identity? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist, and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’ll come back to Changa and the Furry Family Ofrenda. But first, we need to understand this fandom. You know how this goes: we open a new tab. What does it mean to be a furry? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Look, I may be chronically online, but I’m still an outsider when it comes to this fandom. So to explain furries, I reached out to someone who’s actually part of the community. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patch O’Furr:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m Patch. I go by Patch O’Furr online. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Patch runs the furry news site, Dogpatch Press. The site covers furry conventions, the furry economy, and has even investigated furry crimes. But before all that, Patch was brand new to San Francisco and exploring the city’s nightlife. Back in 2012, he stumbled across a furry party at a gay bar within walking distance of his apartment. Out of curiosity, he stopped by. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patch O’Furr:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I showed up and um you know I’m walking down a dark street and here’s this club in front of me with you know some muffled beats and some light coming in through the cracks and uh I walk up to the door and there’s like this beckoning werewolf paw pulling me in. And I walked into this just magical experience. It was being transported to another dimension. I went over towards the dance floor. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This was a famous dive bar with like a little postage stamp of a dance floor and I was kind of lurking on the edge and then I saw this amazing sight. There was this six foot cartoon otter who came out from behind a curtain and it just gave me this urge to ask him to dance. And, you know, this is a cartoon character and it’s very loud. So we’re using kind of body language and he just pulls me in and we’re dancing. And I’m just sort of like, wow, this is a cartoon character, but I can actually hug him. And right there I decided I have to be one of these characters. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The otter that Patch met was wearing a “fur suit.” Picture something like a mascot at a theme park. Some people build their own fur suits, which is pretty labor intensive and requires a lot of technical sewing skills. Others commission their fur suits from artists, but that can cost upwards of a couple thousand dollars. Patch ended up finding his fur suit on an auction site. There was one dog suit, a husky to be specific, that jumped out at him. He won the bid, and it arrived just in time for a local furry convention. Patch decided to debut the character that weekend. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patch O’Furr:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And there at the hotel when I put it on, it was a very strange feeling for the first 30 minutes. You’re completely immersed. There’s no skin, your senses are sort of muffled, you have tunnel vision. But then, you start to feel this connection with the people who are around you. They’re seeing you as somebody who’s different and kind of magical, and it’s a very addictive feeling. You know, it’s getting out of yourself, but it’s also making a new version of yourself. You can kind of be reborn with this one life that you’re given. And it’s really special to be able to do that and be validated by everybody else who’s doing that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s a strong overlap between queer communities and furry communities. And it’s not necessarily that furry is an identity itself. The more accurate definition is um we’re talking about expressing identity. So furry is queer as, you know, so is musical theater or disco or other things that are attached to the queer community, you now, drag. Drag is not always practiced by queer people, but it’s very strongly allied. So the same is true with furries. So they are adopting a fursona so they can be themselves more. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Changa, the husky we talked to earlier, pointed out that there are also a lot of neurodivergent people who gravitate toward the furry fandom. Putting on a fursona can be like masking. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, people like in this community can have a lot of social anxiety. Um, I mean we are a very neurodiverse, uh, community. We’re very queer, we’re very neurodiverse. And so this community, people will like put on these masks to like actually tell more truth about themselves. Cause I mean let’s be real, real, everybody out there in the real world is always wearing a mask. You’ve got your work persona. You have who you are at the grocery store or at church or what have you, um, you know even to family members and being able to put on say, I don’t know, a doggy persona and just explore that way and be seen that way is a way of interacting with friends and family, um or even just yourself in ways that are actually kind of therapeutic. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So for a lot of furries, the fandom has provided a space to be queer and neurodivergent without judgment. Changa actually found the fandom after watching Lion King. Yes, that’s the 1994 Disney animated movie, Lion King. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s always um like a piece of media that was the inflection point for a lot of furries. Classically, it was Disney’s Robin Hood, you know, something about those foxes. Let’s be real. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But it was Lion King for you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lion King. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This was the early 90s at the peak of the AIDS epidemic. It was dangerous to be openly gay, especially in Kansas, where Changa lived at the time. He found solace online in animation role-playing discussion boards. And that’s where he met Mark, who was also obsessed with Disney animation. They hit it off and started talking on the phone. After visiting Mark in California once, Changa decided to move. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And this is how I knew Mark was a keeper. He dropped everything, drove to Kansas and helped me move cross country. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mark and Rodney had an extra room, so Changa ended up moving in and, over time, joined this queer furry polycule. Their house, which is known as the Prancing Skilltaire, is a base for a lot of the fandom. Since the 80s, the Prancing Skilltaire has hosted monthly furry parties, furry convention staff meetings, and other furry get-togethers. They’ve also taken in young queer people who were kicked out of their homes, and once even hosted an impromptu wedding. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re over there doing their vows. And I just leaned over to Rodney going, “wait, wait. Are they trans? They’re trans.” And it’s like, “yeah, yeah.” It’s, like, “did we just have a trans wedding in our backyard?” He’s like, “yeah.” Like, huh, okay, cool. Um and that was like, oh God, that was more than a decade ago. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Prancing Skilltaire is just one hub for the furry community. The fandom has evolved into a widespread, thriving subculture, and as furries have passed on over the decades, the community has come up with unique ways to honor them. Some choose to pass their costume on to a loved one after they die, and let the character they embodied live a second life. Patch said that this also celebrates the artist who made the fursuit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patch O’Furr:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another way people can be remembered is they can just have their costume displayed. I know that there are people who have their costumes placed on like a dummy and it’s kept in a certain place in their house. So you can go and say hi to the person again and just have that experience of them having a presence, a physical presence still. There’s also ways that people set up having their costume worn by friends at special occasions, maybe once a year, just so they’re present again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That idea of coming back to visit the living really stuck with Mark Merlino, too. He had seen a lot of his peers in the fandom age and pass away, and wanted to honor their memory somehow. Changa said that Mark was obsessed with the Disney Pixar movie Coco, which is about spirits returning home on the day of the dead. In 2018, Mark built an ofrenda display at PAWCon, a furry convention that happened to take place during the holiday. It was just a small room at the event with a single decorated table, but people loved it. They left notes and offerings and photos. So the next year, Mark built another one. He wanted to make it an annual tradition. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But then in 2020, the pandemic shut down conventions. It shut down everything else too. Life moved to the internet and so did grieving. That’s a new tab, but first a quick break. Okay, we’re back. Time to open a new tab. And for this one, we’re jumping back into VR. The Furry Family Ofrenda. You made it in one piece? We’re back in VR chat, in this world that Changa and Mark built with the Aztec pyramid, candles, and altars. Right now, Changa is showing me how users can leave offerings. He’s placing a virtual meatball sub on Mark’s ofronda. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Did he like meatball subs? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, yeah, actually he did. Um, we only have so much limited space. Um, I mean, all of this has to be downloaded and rendered on people’s, um, video cards. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I know Mark had built that small a friend at this real life in person convention. But can you tell me about this move to VR? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the time, of course, we’re all locked in in 2020. And this platform, VRChat, had existed already. And then I saw on Twitter at the time people posting pictures from this virtual convention, Furality. And when I went in there it was like, “this is the vibe of a real convention.” This was the real community that I knew. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And there was something amazing about slipping on an avatar like this and actually seeing yourself the way you would internally think about yourself. Well, it’s like fursuiting only, well, I won’t say cheaper, good lord, the amount of computer upgrades and technology just keep up in here. But it’s, like, wearing a fursuit without suffocating. Hell, I had my midlife crisis and went canine. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s when Mark had an idea. Instead of building a single physical ofrenda, why not build a VR world where each furry could have their own? He didn’t have the technical skills to make it happen, but Changa did. So, Changa started digging through a site called WikiFur, which is like Wikipedia for furries. He started adding ofrendas for each furry listed as deceased on WikiFur. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it just kind of blew up from there. Now it’s just more of a matter of trying to keep up as people pass. Which is, oh god, well I would really hope people would kind of stop doing that. That would be, that would be great. It’s not as bad as it was in 2020. 2020 was traumatic. You’re really changing when you’re sitting there counting the dead within your own community. And this actually gave a lot of people a space to kind of mourn, given that we weren’t able to really, like, be together in person. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The original Furry Family Ofrenda was pretty basic. Changa had to work with pre-made assets and none of them were made for the Day of the Dead. It definitely wasn’t culturally accurate. In 2021, the Furry Family Ofrenda got a makeover with the help of a Mexican furry convention called Confuror. The event is based in Guadalajara, Mexico, but during the pandemic lockdown, it was entirely on VRChat, and they wanted to host part of it in the Furry Family Ofrenda. The event organizers hired Mexican artists to design new 3D assets for the space so that it could look more like a real Day of the Dead festival. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m not from the culture that this celebration came comes from, but they helped immensely. I’m glad it’s the kind of culture that that was shareable, you know, it’s because it’s a beautiful way of dealing with mourning. Because I mean a lot of mourning is like sitting around crying and I know Mark preferred the idea of like joyfully talking about people that passed and remembering them, you know bring out the food celebrate, talk, and all that. And it was really wonderful to be able to bring a piece of that into a virtual space. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the five years since Changa built it, the Furry Family Ofrenda has memorialized countless furries. Some of the altars feature photos of people’s real faces, but many of them honor their fursona too, which may not be acknowledged in any real-life memorials. You don’t need a whole VR setup. You can access it from any computer or mobile app. That’s why it’s become an important gathering spot for the community. That connection to the larger community became really important to the Prancing Skilltaire household during the pandemic lockdowns. And then again, when Mark got sick. Let’s talk about that in a new tab. Remembering Sy Sable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When he went sick, I mean, both me and Rodney were like breaking. Let’s be real. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mark had a stroke in December 2023, but was stable enough to come home in time for Christmas. Then he got sicker during that holiday week. After seven hospitals, an ICU stay, and a stint in a rehab center, Mark was diagnosed with stage four terminal liver cancer. That news shook the furry community. Once word got out, furries put together a GoFundMe to cover his medical bills. People who had attended Prancing Skilltaire parties or crashed on their sofa when they were kicked out for being gay, showed up to help with Mark’s hospice care. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So there was a lot of outpouring of love. And I mean, when you have, you know, young, like early 20-year-old kid showing up at your door with a covered dish while, you know, your partner’s hospicing, it says a lot. That is community. That is, you know, the found family. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And those who couldn’t help out in person kept him company in VR. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We were bringing in, you know, had a tablet for Mark, where he could talk over Discord with various friends that he’d gotten to know on VR. And so he was able, from his deathbed, to, you now, have conversations with various friends that we were scheduling. He could, essentially on a tablet, get to talk with people who are still presenting themselves with avatars and the way they saw themselves and the way he saw them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mark passed away in his home at the Prancing Skilltaire last February. Changa and Rodney knew that Mark didn’t want a traditional somber funeral. Remember that bit about furries building the tech industry as we know it? Changa and Rodney incorporated that into Mark’s funeral too. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We were both kind of agreement that it should be a big blow-out party. We would celebrate him and so we rented out a hall and given the virtual reality community that both he and I were involved in and close to the staff, the convention Furality decided to help us with some resources and they built a VR portal so that people could show up and give their respects virtually. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Furality is the virtual reality convention that initially got Mark and Changa into using VRChat. A VR portal is a massive screen that acts as a window between the real world and VR for people who can’t make it to events in person. Usually conventions, but in this case, a funeral. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They rented out the equipment and we had to scout out how good the internet was because our requirements, just a little off the beaten path of normally. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the physical funeral was beamed into a virtual room that Furality had built for the event. Meanwhile, that virtual room was beamed into the funeral. People took turns speaking about Mark. They either spoke from the real life podium or from a huge screen that displayed the VR portal. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We did have also several hundred people actually at the event, and there was that level of chaos that um, technical chaos that just keeps me focused. Like, “okay, we need to string cable.” Really what it came down to is it really felt like every other community social convention sort of situation that we’d been trained for, that like we essentially took all the stuff we would have done setting up at a hotel for a convention, just really concentrated in a hurry, in a hall. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We had drawing pads where people were sketching, little tribute sort of things. I brought in a little portable TV from the 80s, and it was playing media that was related to Sy, some of his stuff he’d shot. So there’s like all this mix of kind of like technology, retro technology, art, and of course junk food. We actually had fursuiters. People got into fursuit too. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, it doesn’t sound like any funeral I’ve ever seen or been to. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, that’s probably the case. Yeah, it was like a mini party convention. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, aside from huge technical feat, which is very cool, it also sounds like it was a real community event. What was it like to add him to the ofrenda? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was painful, that was by myself. I did not grieve at the memorial, I was just too busy, I kept myself distracted. But adding him to the ofrenda was just, oh, oh, that’s was a painful upload. I never prepared for that, but it was kind of fitting that he would end up getting put into the thing that he, well he spurned on. It was like the project that he put on to me, and now I have to keep that torch going for him. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Changa actually hasn’t visited Mark’s altar much since uploading it. He says he’s been avoiding it. This interview, where he showed me around, was one of the first times he’s back. Like his funeral itself, many of the memorials and tributes honoring Mark are really for the greater furry community to pay their respects. Changa said he struggles to grieve at these community spaces. Like last year, Furality wanted to honor Mark during the convention’s closing ceremony. So they asked Changa for a photo of Mark’s VR avatar. Since there weren’t any good ones available, Changa had to put on Mark’s fursona in VR. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I had to get into his avatar with a photographer and kind of do a shoot. And that was painful. You know, it’s like, I really wanted to get that over with. Yeah, well, yeah, get slipping into your dead partner’s body, essentially. But it was a beautiful tribute when they actually did it. It was lovely. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instead of these public tributes, Changa has his own way of honoring Mark’s memory. And of course, it involves virtual reality. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m a good video editor and I was doing a whole bunch of very nostalgic stuff with modern music, you know, where I’m like putting people in original like movie footage — doing that scene from Risky Business, you now where they slide in, except it’s a werewolf. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Changa and his friends record the footage using tracking rigs. They dance and lip sync to the music, and then Changa composites their fursonas over movie scenes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And the first one I worked on was from The Birdcage. It’s that iconic scene on the park bench with the boat going by the harbor. And that was the moment where Robin Williams and Nathan Lane’s characters are sitting down and it’s kind of the, you know, “I’m 50 whatever and you’re my family. You’re the only person I wanna spend the rest of my life with.” It is iconic queer media. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robin Williams: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What does it matter? Take it all. I’m 50 years old. There’s only one place in the world I call home, and it’s because you’re there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The birdcage scene in Changa’s music video is just a few seconds long. It has Changa as big, gray, husky fursona sitting on the bench, dressed in red pinstripe pants and rose-tinted glasses. It’s just like the outfit Nathan Lane wore in the movie. Changa lip syncs a line from the song, and then the music video shifts to another movie. But before the scene flashes by, you might catch a glimpse of Mark’s fursana, the mustelid called Sy Sable perched on the bench next to Changa. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I just hope he could see it wherever he is. I don’t think they have YouTube. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By the way, the Close All Tabs team is taking a break to touch grass, so we won’t have an episode next week. But we’ll be back with another deep dive and many more tabs in two weeks. For now, it’s time to 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. Sound design by Chris Egusa and Brendan Willard. Original music, including our theme song, by Chris Egusa. Additional music by APM. Mixing and mastering by Brendan Willard. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink Dustsilver K-84 wired mechanical keyboard with Gateron Red switches. I\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">f 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>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Furries are a community often known for wearing full-body animal suits at conventions — but the characters they inhabit, called “fursonas,” are much more than costumes. They’re deeply personal expressions of identity and creativity.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So when someone in the furry fandom dies, how does the community say goodbye? In some cases, they take to VR. Since 2020, a furry named Changa Husky has been running the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://vrchat.com/home/launch?worldId=wrld_8b9be9e0-f4f3-4f3e-b671-0a0714fa262a\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Furry Family Ofrenda\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, a virtual memorial space inspired by the Mexican holiday Día de los Muertos. It’s a place where furries gather to remember and celebrate the people — and fursonas — who have passed.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this episode, Morgan steps into that virtual world to explore what it means for a community to grieve both a person and the character they brought to life.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>\u003cem>Editor’s note:\u003c/em>\u003c/strong>\u003cem> In this episode, we refer to some individuals only by their “fursona” names. We’ve chosen to use these names because members of the furry community are frequently subject to harassment, bullying, and doxxing, and many participants use online handles to maintain their safety and privacy. \u003c/em>\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=KQINC9388827305\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Guests:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://bsky.app/profile/changa.gay\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Changa Husky\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, furry Vtuber and video producer\u003cbr>\n\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://dogpatch.press/author/patchofurr/\">Patch O’Furr\u003c/a>, founder and writer, \u003ci>Dogpatch Press\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Further reading:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://thespinoff.co.nz/internet/11-01-2022/who-runs-the-internet-furries\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Who runs the internet? Furries\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Dylan Reeve, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Spinoff \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://dogpatch.press/2024/02/22/remembering-mark-merlino/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Remembering Mark Merlino (1952-2024), a founder and soul of furry fandom \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— Patch O’Furr, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Dogpatch Press \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv0QaTW3kEY\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Fandom: A Furry Documentary\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Ash Coyote, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">YouTube\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\">Follow us on Instagram\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Heads up — the Close All Tabs team is taking a break to touch grass, so we won’t have an episode next week. But we’ll be back with another deep dive, and many more tabs, in two weeks.\u003c/em>\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\">I’m standing under a black sky with cobalt blue clouds. In front of me looms an Aztec pyramid. There are trees in the distance with puffs of fuchsia and chartreuse leaves. And there’s a massive tree growing in the center of the pyramid too. The steps leading to the top are lined with candles, as well as an array of offerings like food and sugar skulls. Strung throughout the space are vibrant paper flags featuring intricate designs of cartoon animals. A variety of creatures appear and then disappear around me. Foxes, dragons, and beings that look like more ethereal versions of Sonic the Hedgehog. And my guide to this mystical place?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m Changa Husky. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Changa is an anthropomorphic, animated husky dog. He has gray fur that’s lighter around his muzzle and a tuft of black hair on top of his head. His eyes are icy blue behind gold-rimmed glasses and his brown ears move as his facial expressions change. He and I are together in this virtual world, but I’m talking to him through the screen of my laptop. And yes, there is a real person under his virtual costume. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I am a furry of an older variety. I’ve been in the fandom for decades since at least the early to mid-90s, and I’m here to talk about, well, this world I built in virtual reality. We call this the Furry Family Ofrenda. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This VR world is inspired by the Day of the Dead, the Mexican holiday dedicated to honoring the lives of those who have passed away. Families welcome back spirits of their loved ones with altars called “ofrendas,” adorned with photos, candles, flowers, and offerings of the departed’s favorite foods. This isn’t a holiday for mourning, but for celebrating. Changa shows me how this virtual world is dotted with altars, each one with a framed photo, candles and a plaque. They’re all dedicated to the fursonas of people who have passed away. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fursona is a portmanteau of fur and persona, essentially an alter ego. And just a note, in this episode, we’ll be referring to a few people, including Changa, by their “fursona” names. Furries are often the targets of harassment and bullying, so many of them are publicly known only by their pseudonyms to maintain their safety and privacy. Beyond that, fursonas are kind of like a drag persona. It’s how a lot of furries express themselves. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A lot of drag personas are just that person exploring their identity. To be able to put on a mask and amplify your personality. It ends up being a way of exploring your identity and yourself. And not in those cliches of, “oh, I identify as blah, blah, blah.” It’s like, no, I know I’m human. But there are ways you can explore who you are and how you interact with the world and friends, through the lens of um like an anthropomorphic creature. It’s very much a medium. It’s like a medium of expression. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Changa stops at one particular altar with a framed photo of an older man, a human person, to be clear. He’s got glasses and he’s smiling from under his gray mustache. And he’s wearing a baseball cap with two fluffy auburn ears sticking out of it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">His fursona was a mustelid, a pine martin, a kind of tree weasel, and he was, well, very much the weasel persona. They have to be a little fearless, you know, tiny little carnivore. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This pine martin was named Sy Sable, also known as Mark Merlino. He passed away a year ago, and he was Changa’s life partner. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This project was his idea. So it was beautiful but painful that I had to add him in here. I was with him for close to 30 years before he passed. I mean, many marriages do not last that long. And here we are a polycule. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mark Merlino and Mark’s other partner, Rodney O’Reilly, are known as the grandfathers of the furry fandom. Their house, where Changa also lives, has been a home base for the fandom for decades. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mark and Rodney, the founders of the first furry convention, were a bisexual couple, openly. And they started the convention in 1989, which was not the greatest time period to be very openly queer. Let’s be real, much less running a convention. And that became a safe space for a lot of people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now outsiders might only know the subculture as a weird kink for dressing up as animals. And because of that stigma, a lot of furries aren’t open about being furries to people outside of the fandom. And that means grieving, for furries, might look a little different. Even if someone wasn’t open about being a furry to the rest of the world, the furry community remembers that person’s fursona as much as their real-life presence. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then there’s the fandom’s technical aptitude. There’s a long running joke online that if a plane full of furries goes down, then Silicon Valley will crumble because furries built the modern IT industry. The furry fandom evolved with the internet and since the 80s, furries have always been pioneers of emerging tech. They’ve incorporated it into their costuming and conventions and even memorials. So what does a furry funeral look like? What does it mean to memorialize an aspect of someone’s life that may not have been part of their bodily form, but was still a part of the identity? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist, and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’ll come back to Changa and the Furry Family Ofrenda. But first, we need to understand this fandom. You know how this goes: we open a new tab. What does it mean to be a furry? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Look, I may be chronically online, but I’m still an outsider when it comes to this fandom. So to explain furries, I reached out to someone who’s actually part of the community. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patch O’Furr:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m Patch. I go by Patch O’Furr online. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Patch runs the furry news site, Dogpatch Press. The site covers furry conventions, the furry economy, and has even investigated furry crimes. But before all that, Patch was brand new to San Francisco and exploring the city’s nightlife. Back in 2012, he stumbled across a furry party at a gay bar within walking distance of his apartment. Out of curiosity, he stopped by. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patch O’Furr:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So I showed up and um you know I’m walking down a dark street and here’s this club in front of me with you know some muffled beats and some light coming in through the cracks and uh I walk up to the door and there’s like this beckoning werewolf paw pulling me in. And I walked into this just magical experience. It was being transported to another dimension. I went over towards the dance floor. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This was a famous dive bar with like a little postage stamp of a dance floor and I was kind of lurking on the edge and then I saw this amazing sight. There was this six foot cartoon otter who came out from behind a curtain and it just gave me this urge to ask him to dance. And, you know, this is a cartoon character and it’s very loud. So we’re using kind of body language and he just pulls me in and we’re dancing. And I’m just sort of like, wow, this is a cartoon character, but I can actually hug him. And right there I decided I have to be one of these characters. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The otter that Patch met was wearing a “fur suit.” Picture something like a mascot at a theme park. Some people build their own fur suits, which is pretty labor intensive and requires a lot of technical sewing skills. Others commission their fur suits from artists, but that can cost upwards of a couple thousand dollars. Patch ended up finding his fur suit on an auction site. There was one dog suit, a husky to be specific, that jumped out at him. He won the bid, and it arrived just in time for a local furry convention. Patch decided to debut the character that weekend. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patch O’Furr:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And there at the hotel when I put it on, it was a very strange feeling for the first 30 minutes. You’re completely immersed. There’s no skin, your senses are sort of muffled, you have tunnel vision. But then, you start to feel this connection with the people who are around you. They’re seeing you as somebody who’s different and kind of magical, and it’s a very addictive feeling. You know, it’s getting out of yourself, but it’s also making a new version of yourself. You can kind of be reborn with this one life that you’re given. And it’s really special to be able to do that and be validated by everybody else who’s doing that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s a strong overlap between queer communities and furry communities. And it’s not necessarily that furry is an identity itself. The more accurate definition is um we’re talking about expressing identity. So furry is queer as, you know, so is musical theater or disco or other things that are attached to the queer community, you now, drag. Drag is not always practiced by queer people, but it’s very strongly allied. So the same is true with furries. So they are adopting a fursona so they can be themselves more. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Changa, the husky we talked to earlier, pointed out that there are also a lot of neurodivergent people who gravitate toward the furry fandom. Putting on a fursona can be like masking. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, people like in this community can have a lot of social anxiety. Um, I mean we are a very neurodiverse, uh, community. We’re very queer, we’re very neurodiverse. And so this community, people will like put on these masks to like actually tell more truth about themselves. Cause I mean let’s be real, real, everybody out there in the real world is always wearing a mask. You’ve got your work persona. You have who you are at the grocery store or at church or what have you, um, you know even to family members and being able to put on say, I don’t know, a doggy persona and just explore that way and be seen that way is a way of interacting with friends and family, um or even just yourself in ways that are actually kind of therapeutic. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So for a lot of furries, the fandom has provided a space to be queer and neurodivergent without judgment. Changa actually found the fandom after watching Lion King. Yes, that’s the 1994 Disney animated movie, Lion King. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s always um like a piece of media that was the inflection point for a lot of furries. Classically, it was Disney’s Robin Hood, you know, something about those foxes. Let’s be real. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But it was Lion King for you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lion King. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This was the early 90s at the peak of the AIDS epidemic. It was dangerous to be openly gay, especially in Kansas, where Changa lived at the time. He found solace online in animation role-playing discussion boards. And that’s where he met Mark, who was also obsessed with Disney animation. They hit it off and started talking on the phone. After visiting Mark in California once, Changa decided to move. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And this is how I knew Mark was a keeper. He dropped everything, drove to Kansas and helped me move cross country. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mark and Rodney had an extra room, so Changa ended up moving in and, over time, joined this queer furry polycule. Their house, which is known as the Prancing Skilltaire, is a base for a lot of the fandom. Since the 80s, the Prancing Skilltaire has hosted monthly furry parties, furry convention staff meetings, and other furry get-togethers. They’ve also taken in young queer people who were kicked out of their homes, and once even hosted an impromptu wedding. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re over there doing their vows. And I just leaned over to Rodney going, “wait, wait. Are they trans? They’re trans.” And it’s like, “yeah, yeah.” It’s, like, “did we just have a trans wedding in our backyard?” He’s like, “yeah.” Like, huh, okay, cool. Um and that was like, oh God, that was more than a decade ago. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Prancing Skilltaire is just one hub for the furry community. The fandom has evolved into a widespread, thriving subculture, and as furries have passed on over the decades, the community has come up with unique ways to honor them. Some choose to pass their costume on to a loved one after they die, and let the character they embodied live a second life. Patch said that this also celebrates the artist who made the fursuit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Patch O’Furr:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Another way people can be remembered is they can just have their costume displayed. I know that there are people who have their costumes placed on like a dummy and it’s kept in a certain place in their house. So you can go and say hi to the person again and just have that experience of them having a presence, a physical presence still. There’s also ways that people set up having their costume worn by friends at special occasions, maybe once a year, just so they’re present again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That idea of coming back to visit the living really stuck with Mark Merlino, too. He had seen a lot of his peers in the fandom age and pass away, and wanted to honor their memory somehow. Changa said that Mark was obsessed with the Disney Pixar movie Coco, which is about spirits returning home on the day of the dead. In 2018, Mark built an ofrenda display at PAWCon, a furry convention that happened to take place during the holiday. It was just a small room at the event with a single decorated table, but people loved it. They left notes and offerings and photos. So the next year, Mark built another one. He wanted to make it an annual tradition. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But then in 2020, the pandemic shut down conventions. It shut down everything else too. Life moved to the internet and so did grieving. That’s a new tab, but first a quick break. Okay, we’re back. Time to open a new tab. And for this one, we’re jumping back into VR. The Furry Family Ofrenda. You made it in one piece? We’re back in VR chat, in this world that Changa and Mark built with the Aztec pyramid, candles, and altars. Right now, Changa is showing me how users can leave offerings. He’s placing a virtual meatball sub on Mark’s ofronda. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Did he like meatball subs? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, yeah, actually he did. Um, we only have so much limited space. Um, I mean, all of this has to be downloaded and rendered on people’s, um, video cards. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I know Mark had built that small a friend at this real life in person convention. But can you tell me about this move to VR? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the time, of course, we’re all locked in in 2020. And this platform, VRChat, had existed already. And then I saw on Twitter at the time people posting pictures from this virtual convention, Furality. And when I went in there it was like, “this is the vibe of a real convention.” This was the real community that I knew. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And there was something amazing about slipping on an avatar like this and actually seeing yourself the way you would internally think about yourself. Well, it’s like fursuiting only, well, I won’t say cheaper, good lord, the amount of computer upgrades and technology just keep up in here. But it’s, like, wearing a fursuit without suffocating. Hell, I had my midlife crisis and went canine. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s when Mark had an idea. Instead of building a single physical ofrenda, why not build a VR world where each furry could have their own? He didn’t have the technical skills to make it happen, but Changa did. So, Changa started digging through a site called WikiFur, which is like Wikipedia for furries. He started adding ofrendas for each furry listed as deceased on WikiFur. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it just kind of blew up from there. Now it’s just more of a matter of trying to keep up as people pass. Which is, oh god, well I would really hope people would kind of stop doing that. That would be, that would be great. It’s not as bad as it was in 2020. 2020 was traumatic. You’re really changing when you’re sitting there counting the dead within your own community. And this actually gave a lot of people a space to kind of mourn, given that we weren’t able to really, like, be together in person. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The original Furry Family Ofrenda was pretty basic. Changa had to work with pre-made assets and none of them were made for the Day of the Dead. It definitely wasn’t culturally accurate. In 2021, the Furry Family Ofrenda got a makeover with the help of a Mexican furry convention called Confuror. The event is based in Guadalajara, Mexico, but during the pandemic lockdown, it was entirely on VRChat, and they wanted to host part of it in the Furry Family Ofrenda. The event organizers hired Mexican artists to design new 3D assets for the space so that it could look more like a real Day of the Dead festival. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m not from the culture that this celebration came comes from, but they helped immensely. I’m glad it’s the kind of culture that that was shareable, you know, it’s because it’s a beautiful way of dealing with mourning. Because I mean a lot of mourning is like sitting around crying and I know Mark preferred the idea of like joyfully talking about people that passed and remembering them, you know bring out the food celebrate, talk, and all that. And it was really wonderful to be able to bring a piece of that into a virtual space. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the five years since Changa built it, the Furry Family Ofrenda has memorialized countless furries. Some of the altars feature photos of people’s real faces, but many of them honor their fursona too, which may not be acknowledged in any real-life memorials. You don’t need a whole VR setup. You can access it from any computer or mobile app. That’s why it’s become an important gathering spot for the community. That connection to the larger community became really important to the Prancing Skilltaire household during the pandemic lockdowns. And then again, when Mark got sick. Let’s talk about that in a new tab. Remembering Sy Sable. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When he went sick, I mean, both me and Rodney were like breaking. Let’s be real. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mark had a stroke in December 2023, but was stable enough to come home in time for Christmas. Then he got sicker during that holiday week. After seven hospitals, an ICU stay, and a stint in a rehab center, Mark was diagnosed with stage four terminal liver cancer. That news shook the furry community. Once word got out, furries put together a GoFundMe to cover his medical bills. People who had attended Prancing Skilltaire parties or crashed on their sofa when they were kicked out for being gay, showed up to help with Mark’s hospice care. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So there was a lot of outpouring of love. And I mean, when you have, you know, young, like early 20-year-old kid showing up at your door with a covered dish while, you know, your partner’s hospicing, it says a lot. That is community. That is, you know, the found family. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And those who couldn’t help out in person kept him company in VR. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We were bringing in, you know, had a tablet for Mark, where he could talk over Discord with various friends that he’d gotten to know on VR. And so he was able, from his deathbed, to, you now, have conversations with various friends that we were scheduling. He could, essentially on a tablet, get to talk with people who are still presenting themselves with avatars and the way they saw themselves and the way he saw them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mark passed away in his home at the Prancing Skilltaire last February. Changa and Rodney knew that Mark didn’t want a traditional somber funeral. Remember that bit about furries building the tech industry as we know it? Changa and Rodney incorporated that into Mark’s funeral too. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We were both kind of agreement that it should be a big blow-out party. We would celebrate him and so we rented out a hall and given the virtual reality community that both he and I were involved in and close to the staff, the convention Furality decided to help us with some resources and they built a VR portal so that people could show up and give their respects virtually. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Furality is the virtual reality convention that initially got Mark and Changa into using VRChat. A VR portal is a massive screen that acts as a window between the real world and VR for people who can’t make it to events in person. Usually conventions, but in this case, a funeral. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They rented out the equipment and we had to scout out how good the internet was because our requirements, just a little off the beaten path of normally. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the physical funeral was beamed into a virtual room that Furality had built for the event. Meanwhile, that virtual room was beamed into the funeral. People took turns speaking about Mark. They either spoke from the real life podium or from a huge screen that displayed the VR portal. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We did have also several hundred people actually at the event, and there was that level of chaos that um, technical chaos that just keeps me focused. Like, “okay, we need to string cable.” Really what it came down to is it really felt like every other community social convention sort of situation that we’d been trained for, that like we essentially took all the stuff we would have done setting up at a hotel for a convention, just really concentrated in a hurry, in a hall. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We had drawing pads where people were sketching, little tribute sort of things. I brought in a little portable TV from the 80s, and it was playing media that was related to Sy, some of his stuff he’d shot. So there’s like all this mix of kind of like technology, retro technology, art, and of course junk food. We actually had fursuiters. People got into fursuit too. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, it doesn’t sound like any funeral I’ve ever seen or been to. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, that’s probably the case. Yeah, it was like a mini party convention. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, aside from huge technical feat, which is very cool, it also sounds like it was a real community event. What was it like to add him to the ofrenda? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was painful, that was by myself. I did not grieve at the memorial, I was just too busy, I kept myself distracted. But adding him to the ofrenda was just, oh, oh, that’s was a painful upload. I never prepared for that, but it was kind of fitting that he would end up getting put into the thing that he, well he spurned on. It was like the project that he put on to me, and now I have to keep that torch going for him. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Changa actually hasn’t visited Mark’s altar much since uploading it. He says he’s been avoiding it. This interview, where he showed me around, was one of the first times he’s back. Like his funeral itself, many of the memorials and tributes honoring Mark are really for the greater furry community to pay their respects. Changa said he struggles to grieve at these community spaces. Like last year, Furality wanted to honor Mark during the convention’s closing ceremony. So they asked Changa for a photo of Mark’s VR avatar. Since there weren’t any good ones available, Changa had to put on Mark’s fursona in VR. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I had to get into his avatar with a photographer and kind of do a shoot. And that was painful. You know, it’s like, I really wanted to get that over with. Yeah, well, yeah, get slipping into your dead partner’s body, essentially. But it was a beautiful tribute when they actually did it. It was lovely. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Instead of these public tributes, Changa has his own way of honoring Mark’s memory. And of course, it involves virtual reality. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m a good video editor and I was doing a whole bunch of very nostalgic stuff with modern music, you know, where I’m like putting people in original like movie footage — doing that scene from Risky Business, you now where they slide in, except it’s a werewolf. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Changa and his friends record the footage using tracking rigs. They dance and lip sync to the music, and then Changa composites their fursonas over movie scenes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And the first one I worked on was from The Birdcage. It’s that iconic scene on the park bench with the boat going by the harbor. And that was the moment where Robin Williams and Nathan Lane’s characters are sitting down and it’s kind of the, you know, “I’m 50 whatever and you’re my family. You’re the only person I wanna spend the rest of my life with.” It is iconic queer media. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Robin Williams: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What does it matter? Take it all. I’m 50 years old. There’s only one place in the world I call home, and it’s because you’re there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The birdcage scene in Changa’s music video is just a few seconds long. It has Changa as big, gray, husky fursona sitting on the bench, dressed in red pinstripe pants and rose-tinted glasses. It’s just like the outfit Nathan Lane wore in the movie. Changa lip syncs a line from the song, and then the music video shifts to another movie. But before the scene flashes by, you might catch a glimpse of Mark’s fursana, the mustelid called Sy Sable perched on the bench next to Changa. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Changa Husky:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I just hope he could see it wherever he is. I don’t think they have YouTube. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By the way, the Close All Tabs team is taking a break to touch grass, so we won’t have an episode next week. But we’ll be back with another deep dive and many more tabs in two weeks. For now, it’s time to 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. Sound design by Chris Egusa and Brendan Willard. Original music, including our theme song, by Chris Egusa. Additional music by APM. Mixing and mastering by Brendan Willard. \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink Dustsilver K-84 wired mechanical keyboard with Gateron Red switches. I\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">f 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\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "4-more-states-caught-sharing-personal-health-data-with-big-tech",
"title": "4 More States Caught Sharing Personal Health Data With Big Tech",
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"headTitle": "4 More States Caught Sharing Personal Health Data With Big Tech | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/\">CalMatters\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/\">Sign up\u003c/a> for their newsletters.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State-run health care websites around the country, meant to provide a simple way to shop for insurance, have been quietly sending visitors’ sensitive health information to Google and social media companies, The Markup and CalMatters found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://github.com/the-markup/investigation-healthcare-exchange-tracking\">The data\u003c/a>, including prescription drug names and dosages, was sent by web trackers on state exchanges set up under the Affordable Care Act to help Americans purchase health coverage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The exchange websites ask users to answer a series of questions, including about their health histories, to find them the most relevant information on plans. But in some cases, when visitors responded to sensitive questions, the invisible trackers sent that information to platforms like Google, LinkedIn, and Snapchat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Markup and CalMatters audited the websites of all 19 states that independently operate their own online health exchange. While most of the sites contained advertising trackers of some kind, The Markup and CalMatters found that four states exposed visitors’ sensitive health information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nevada’s exchange, Nevada Health Link, asks visitors about what prescriptions they use, including the names and dosages of the drugs, to help them find their best options for health insurance. When visitors start typing, it suggests specific medications, including antidepressants, birth control and hormone therapies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As visitors answered the questions, their responses were sent to LinkedIn and Snapchat, according to tests conducted by The Markup and CalMatters in April and May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12045091\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/Image-6-19-25-at-9.49%E2%80%AFAM.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"747\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/Image-6-19-25-at-9.49 AM.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/Image-6-19-25-at-9.49 AM-160x117.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the other side of the country, Maine’s exchange, CoverME.gov, sent information on drug prescriptions and dosages to Google through an analytics tool. It also sent the names of doctors and hospitals that people had previously visited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rhode Island’s exchange, HealthSource RI, sent prescription information, dosages, and doctors’ names to Google.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12037319 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/GettyImages-2207057172-1020x680.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Massachusetts Health Connector, another exchange, told LinkedIn whether visitors said they were pregnant, blind, or disabled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After being contacted by The Markup and CalMatters, Nevada’s health exchange stopped sending visitors’ data to Snapchat and Massachusetts stopped sending data to LinkedIn. Additionally, The Markup and CalMatters found that Nevada stopped sending data to LinkedIn in early May, as we were testing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Markup and CalMatters discovered the sharing after finding that California’s exchange, Covered California, \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/pixel-hunt/2025/04/28/how-california-sent-residents-personal-health-data-to-linkedin\">told LinkedIn when a visitor indicated\u003c/a> they were blind, pregnant, or a victim of domestic violence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts said state health exchanges’ use of advertising trackers was troubling if not entirely surprising. Such tools can help organizations to reach visitors and tailor ads for them. Google Analytics allows website operators to better understand who is coming to their site and to optimize ad campaigns. The LinkedIn and Snap trackers, like a similar offering from Meta, help companies target their social media ads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nevada uses the trackers to help target marketing at uninsured residents, according to Russell Cook, Executive Director of the state agency that operates Nevada’s exchange, Silver State Health Insurance Exchange.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But health care services need to be especially careful with those tools, said John Haskell, a data privacy attorney who has previously worked as an investigator for the Department of Health and Human Services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It doesn’t surprise me that organizations that have these massive tech stacks that rely on third party-resources don’t have a full understanding of what the configuration is, what the data flows are, and then once they go to somebody, what that data is being used for,” Haskell said. “It’s something that needs to be addressed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How was state exchange data tied to users’ identities?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>After \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/pixel-hunt/2025/04/28/how-california-sent-residents-personal-health-data-to-linkedin\">The Markup and CalMatters reported\u003c/a> on Covered California’s sharing of health data with LinkedIn, the exchange removed its trackers and said it would review its data practices. The news \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/impact/2025/05/02/after-markup-investigation-linkedin-and-google-face-lawsuit-alleging-improper-access-to-health-data\">triggered\u003c/a> a class-action lawsuit and questions from federal lawmakers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Markup and CalMatters then examined websites operated by 18 states other than California, as well as Washington, D.C., to see what information they shared as users navigated them. The sites were established under the Affordable Care Act, which requires states to offer health insurance either through their own exchanges or one operated by the federal government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To test them, we first ran the sites through \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/blacklight\">Blacklight\u003c/a>, a tool we developed to reveal web trackers. We then reviewed network traffic on the sites to see what data the trackers received when visitors filled out forms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The results showed that 18 used some sort of tracker. Some were filled with them. Nevada, for example, used nearly 50. By contrast, Blacklight found no tracker of any kind on Washington, D.C.’s exchange. Popular websites use on average seven trackers, according to \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/blacklight/2020/09/22/how-we-built-a-real-time-privacy-inspector#survey\">Blacklight scans of the 100,000 most trafficked sites on the web\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv id=\"datawrapper-vis-KRc8b\" style=\"min-height: 971px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/KRc8b/full.png\" alt=\"\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>Many of the sites used trackers in relatively innocuous ways, like counting page views.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The four exchanges we found sharing sensitive health data sent varied responses to questions about the tracking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cook said in a statement that trackers placed by his Nevada agency were “inadvertently obtaining information regarding the name and dosage of prescription drugs” and sending it to LinkedIn and Snapchat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cook acknowledged such data was “wholly irrelevant to our marketing efforts” and said it had disabled tracking software pending an audit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jason Lefferts, a spokesperson for Massachusetts Health Connector, said in a statement that “personally identifiable information is not part of the tool’s structure and no personally identifiable information, not even the IP addresses of users of the tool, has ever been shared with any party in any way via this tool.” But LinkedIn’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/help/lms/answer/a427660\">tracker documentation\u003c/a> makes clear that it correlates the information it receives with specific LinkedIn accounts so companies can use the data for features like retargeting website visitors. The company’s documentation also states it later obscures this information and eventually deletes it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Spokespeople for the Rhode Island and Maine health exchanges said that they pay a vendor, Consumers’ Checkbook, to run a separate site that allows visitors to explore what plans are available to them through their states’ exchanges. It was from these sites that sensitive information was shared to Google. Consumers’ Checkbook’s sites are at different web addresses than the exchange sites, but are prominently linked to on the exchange sites and display identical branding like the state health exchange’s logo, making it unlikely that an average visitor would realize they were no longer on a state-run domain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Christina Spaight O’Reilly, a spokesperson for HealthSource RI, said the company uses Google Analytics to study trends but not to serve ads, and “disables Google Signals Data Collection, ensuring that no data is shared with Google Ads for audience creation or ad personalization, and no session data is linked to Google’s advertising cookies or identifiers.” HealthSource RI’s terms of use mention the use of Google Analytics, she noted. A spokesperson for CoverME.gov made similar points, saying that the agency “does not collect or retain any data entered into the tool.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Consumers’ Checkbook declined to comment beyond the exchanges’ statements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All of the exchanges said that individually identifiable health information, like names and addresses, wasn’t sent to third parties. But the point of the trackers is to enhance information sent about a user with data the platforms already have on that user, and every tracker found by The Markup and CalMatters logged details about individual visitors, such as their operating system, browser, device, and times of visit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to requests for comment, the tech companies whose trackers we examined uniformly said they do not want organizations sending them potentially sensitive health data, and that doing so is against their terms of use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steve Ganem, Director of Product Management for Google Analytics, said that “by default any data sent to Google Analytics does not identify individuals, and we have strict policies against collecting Private Health Information or advertising based on sensitive information.” A spokesperson for LinkedIn, Brionna Ruff, said that advertisers are not allowed “to target ads based on sensitive data categories,” such as health issues. A spokesperson for Snapchat owner Snap said the same, noting that sending purchases of supplies like prescriptions would run afoul of the company’s rules about sensitive data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/13297105?hl=en\">A Google Analytics information page\u003c/a> specifically discusses how organizations that use the company’s tools should comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which protects health data. The page notes that “Google makes no representations that Google Analytics satisfies HIPAA requirements.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is important to ensure that your implementation of Google Analytics and the data collected about visitors to your properties satisfies all applicable legal requirements,” the page reads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(Full disclosure: CalMatters uses Google Analytics on our website. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/about/policies-and-standards/#j-privacy-policy\">Read more about how\u003c/a>.)\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>More incidents\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>State exchanges aren’t the only health sites that have sent medical information to social media companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2022, \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/pixel-hunt/2022/06/16/facebook-is-receiving-sensitive-medical-information-from-hospital-websites\">The Markup revealed\u003c/a> that dozens of hospital websites shared information with Facebook’s parent company, Meta, through a tool called the Meta Pixel. The hospitals faced \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/pixel-hunt/2022/09/19/meta-faces-mounting-questions-from-congress-on-health-data-privacy-as-hospitals-remove-facebook-tracker\">scrutiny from Congress and legal action\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/pixel-hunt/2023/06/30/need-to-get-plan-b-or-an-hiv-test-online-facebook-may-know-about-it\">Another Markup investigation\u003c/a> found trackers logging information about online drugstore visitors purchasing HIV tests and Plan B.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2023, a New York hospital agreed to pay a $300,000 fine for violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to a series of incidents, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/use-online-tracking-technologies.pdf\">Department of Health and Human Services said in 2023\u003c/a> that use of social media trackers to log health information could violate HIPAA, although recent court decisions have narrowed how the law can be applied against companies that use those trackers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some plaintiffs have used state laws, like those in California, to argue that they should be compensated for having their health data sent to third parties without consent. Others have argued that this kind of tracking runs afoul of \u003ca href=\"https://www.wisnerbaum.com/consumer-class-actions/hr-block-lawsuit/\">wiretapping or even racketeering laws\u003c/a>.\u003cbr>\n“Organizations aren’t investing enough time and resources into properly vetting everything,” said Haskell, who advises clients to be very careful about the information they track on their sites. “When organizations are saying, ‘we didn’t understand that there’s a certain configuration of this tool that we’re using,’ well, I can’t really \u003cem>not\u003c/em> put that on you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/06/more-states-share-health-data-to-trackers/\">originally published on CalMatters\u003c/a> and was republished under the \u003ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives\u003c/a> license.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/\">CalMatters\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/\">Sign up\u003c/a> for their newsletters.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State-run health care websites around the country, meant to provide a simple way to shop for insurance, have been quietly sending visitors’ sensitive health information to Google and social media companies, The Markup and CalMatters found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://github.com/the-markup/investigation-healthcare-exchange-tracking\">The data\u003c/a>, including prescription drug names and dosages, was sent by web trackers on state exchanges set up under the Affordable Care Act to help Americans purchase health coverage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The exchange websites ask users to answer a series of questions, including about their health histories, to find them the most relevant information on plans. But in some cases, when visitors responded to sensitive questions, the invisible trackers sent that information to platforms like Google, LinkedIn, and Snapchat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Markup and CalMatters audited the websites of all 19 states that independently operate their own online health exchange. While most of the sites contained advertising trackers of some kind, The Markup and CalMatters found that four states exposed visitors’ sensitive health information.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nevada’s exchange, Nevada Health Link, asks visitors about what prescriptions they use, including the names and dosages of the drugs, to help them find their best options for health insurance. When visitors start typing, it suggests specific medications, including antidepressants, birth control and hormone therapies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As visitors answered the questions, their responses were sent to LinkedIn and Snapchat, according to tests conducted by The Markup and CalMatters in April and May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-12045091\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/Image-6-19-25-at-9.49%E2%80%AFAM.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"747\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/Image-6-19-25-at-9.49 AM.jpg 1024w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/Image-6-19-25-at-9.49 AM-160x117.jpg 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\">\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On the other side of the country, Maine’s exchange, CoverME.gov, sent information on drug prescriptions and dosages to Google through an analytics tool. It also sent the names of doctors and hospitals that people had previously visited.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Rhode Island’s exchange, HealthSource RI, sent prescription information, dosages, and doctors’ names to Google.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Massachusetts Health Connector, another exchange, told LinkedIn whether visitors said they were pregnant, blind, or disabled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After being contacted by The Markup and CalMatters, Nevada’s health exchange stopped sending visitors’ data to Snapchat and Massachusetts stopped sending data to LinkedIn. Additionally, The Markup and CalMatters found that Nevada stopped sending data to LinkedIn in early May, as we were testing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Markup and CalMatters discovered the sharing after finding that California’s exchange, Covered California, \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/pixel-hunt/2025/04/28/how-california-sent-residents-personal-health-data-to-linkedin\">told LinkedIn when a visitor indicated\u003c/a> they were blind, pregnant, or a victim of domestic violence.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Experts said state health exchanges’ use of advertising trackers was troubling if not entirely surprising. Such tools can help organizations to reach visitors and tailor ads for them. Google Analytics allows website operators to better understand who is coming to their site and to optimize ad campaigns. The LinkedIn and Snap trackers, like a similar offering from Meta, help companies target their social media ads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nevada uses the trackers to help target marketing at uninsured residents, according to Russell Cook, Executive Director of the state agency that operates Nevada’s exchange, Silver State Health Insurance Exchange.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But health care services need to be especially careful with those tools, said John Haskell, a data privacy attorney who has previously worked as an investigator for the Department of Health and Human Services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It doesn’t surprise me that organizations that have these massive tech stacks that rely on third party-resources don’t have a full understanding of what the configuration is, what the data flows are, and then once they go to somebody, what that data is being used for,” Haskell said. “It’s something that needs to be addressed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>How was state exchange data tied to users’ identities?\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>After \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/pixel-hunt/2025/04/28/how-california-sent-residents-personal-health-data-to-linkedin\">The Markup and CalMatters reported\u003c/a> on Covered California’s sharing of health data with LinkedIn, the exchange removed its trackers and said it would review its data practices. The news \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/impact/2025/05/02/after-markup-investigation-linkedin-and-google-face-lawsuit-alleging-improper-access-to-health-data\">triggered\u003c/a> a class-action lawsuit and questions from federal lawmakers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Markup and CalMatters then examined websites operated by 18 states other than California, as well as Washington, D.C., to see what information they shared as users navigated them. The sites were established under the Affordable Care Act, which requires states to offer health insurance either through their own exchanges or one operated by the federal government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To test them, we first ran the sites through \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/blacklight\">Blacklight\u003c/a>, a tool we developed to reveal web trackers. We then reviewed network traffic on the sites to see what data the trackers received when visitors filled out forms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The results showed that 18 used some sort of tracker. Some were filled with them. Nevada, for example, used nearly 50. By contrast, Blacklight found no tracker of any kind on Washington, D.C.’s exchange. Popular websites use on average seven trackers, according to \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/blacklight/2020/09/22/how-we-built-a-real-time-privacy-inspector#survey\">Blacklight scans of the 100,000 most trafficked sites on the web\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv id=\"datawrapper-vis-KRc8b\" style=\"min-height: 971px\">\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/KRc8b/full.png\" alt=\"\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>Many of the sites used trackers in relatively innocuous ways, like counting page views.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The four exchanges we found sharing sensitive health data sent varied responses to questions about the tracking.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cook said in a statement that trackers placed by his Nevada agency were “inadvertently obtaining information regarding the name and dosage of prescription drugs” and sending it to LinkedIn and Snapchat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cook acknowledged such data was “wholly irrelevant to our marketing efforts” and said it had disabled tracking software pending an audit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jason Lefferts, a spokesperson for Massachusetts Health Connector, said in a statement that “personally identifiable information is not part of the tool’s structure and no personally identifiable information, not even the IP addresses of users of the tool, has ever been shared with any party in any way via this tool.” But LinkedIn’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/help/lms/answer/a427660\">tracker documentation\u003c/a> makes clear that it correlates the information it receives with specific LinkedIn accounts so companies can use the data for features like retargeting website visitors. The company’s documentation also states it later obscures this information and eventually deletes it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Spokespeople for the Rhode Island and Maine health exchanges said that they pay a vendor, Consumers’ Checkbook, to run a separate site that allows visitors to explore what plans are available to them through their states’ exchanges. It was from these sites that sensitive information was shared to Google. Consumers’ Checkbook’s sites are at different web addresses than the exchange sites, but are prominently linked to on the exchange sites and display identical branding like the state health exchange’s logo, making it unlikely that an average visitor would realize they were no longer on a state-run domain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Christina Spaight O’Reilly, a spokesperson for HealthSource RI, said the company uses Google Analytics to study trends but not to serve ads, and “disables Google Signals Data Collection, ensuring that no data is shared with Google Ads for audience creation or ad personalization, and no session data is linked to Google’s advertising cookies or identifiers.” HealthSource RI’s terms of use mention the use of Google Analytics, she noted. A spokesperson for CoverME.gov made similar points, saying that the agency “does not collect or retain any data entered into the tool.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Consumers’ Checkbook declined to comment beyond the exchanges’ statements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All of the exchanges said that individually identifiable health information, like names and addresses, wasn’t sent to third parties. But the point of the trackers is to enhance information sent about a user with data the platforms already have on that user, and every tracker found by The Markup and CalMatters logged details about individual visitors, such as their operating system, browser, device, and times of visit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to requests for comment, the tech companies whose trackers we examined uniformly said they do not want organizations sending them potentially sensitive health data, and that doing so is against their terms of use.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Steve Ganem, Director of Product Management for Google Analytics, said that “by default any data sent to Google Analytics does not identify individuals, and we have strict policies against collecting Private Health Information or advertising based on sensitive information.” A spokesperson for LinkedIn, Brionna Ruff, said that advertisers are not allowed “to target ads based on sensitive data categories,” such as health issues. A spokesperson for Snapchat owner Snap said the same, noting that sending purchases of supplies like prescriptions would run afoul of the company’s rules about sensitive data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/13297105?hl=en\">A Google Analytics information page\u003c/a> specifically discusses how organizations that use the company’s tools should comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which protects health data. The page notes that “Google makes no representations that Google Analytics satisfies HIPAA requirements.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is important to ensure that your implementation of Google Analytics and the data collected about visitors to your properties satisfies all applicable legal requirements,” the page reads.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>(Full disclosure: CalMatters uses Google Analytics on our website. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/about/policies-and-standards/#j-privacy-policy\">Read more about how\u003c/a>.)\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>More incidents\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>State exchanges aren’t the only health sites that have sent medical information to social media companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2022, \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/pixel-hunt/2022/06/16/facebook-is-receiving-sensitive-medical-information-from-hospital-websites\">The Markup revealed\u003c/a> that dozens of hospital websites shared information with Facebook’s parent company, Meta, through a tool called the Meta Pixel. The hospitals faced \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/pixel-hunt/2022/09/19/meta-faces-mounting-questions-from-congress-on-health-data-privacy-as-hospitals-remove-facebook-tracker\">scrutiny from Congress and legal action\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/pixel-hunt/2023/06/30/need-to-get-plan-b-or-an-hiv-test-online-facebook-may-know-about-it\">Another Markup investigation\u003c/a> found trackers logging information about online drugstore visitors purchasing HIV tests and Plan B.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2023, a New York hospital agreed to pay a $300,000 fine for violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to a series of incidents, the \u003ca href=\"https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/use-online-tracking-technologies.pdf\">Department of Health and Human Services said in 2023\u003c/a> that use of social media trackers to log health information could violate HIPAA, although recent court decisions have narrowed how the law can be applied against companies that use those trackers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some plaintiffs have used state laws, like those in California, to argue that they should be compensated for having their health data sent to third parties without consent. Others have argued that this kind of tracking runs afoul of \u003ca href=\"https://www.wisnerbaum.com/consumer-class-actions/hr-block-lawsuit/\">wiretapping or even racketeering laws\u003c/a>.\u003cbr>\n“Organizations aren’t investing enough time and resources into properly vetting everything,” said Haskell, who advises clients to be very careful about the information they track on their sites. “When organizations are saying, ‘we didn’t understand that there’s a certain configuration of this tool that we’re using,’ well, I can’t really \u003cem>not\u003c/em> put that on you.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/06/more-states-share-health-data-to-trackers/\">originally published on CalMatters\u003c/a> and was republished under the \u003ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives\u003c/a> license.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "A Company Wants to Build a City for AI on Alameda Point. But the Land Is Already Spoken For",
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"headTitle": "A Company Wants to Build a City for AI on Alameda Point. But the Land Is Already Spoken For | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>A company with ties to the tech industry is seeking to bypass regulatory and environmental red tape to build an independently governed, AI-focused city within \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/alameda-county\">Alameda\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/_FrontierValley/status/1934346142986469864\">thread posted on X\u003c/a> Sunday from Frontier Valley, the company’s founder, James Ingallinera, called on President Donald Trump to declare a national security emergency and immediately approve development on a 512-acre parcel of federally owned land at Alameda Point, the former site of \u003ca href=\"https://www.bracpmo.navy.mil/BRAC-Bases/California/Former-Naval-Air-Station-Alameda/\">Naval Air Station Alameda\u003c/a>. The goal, Ingallinera said, is to accelerate the development of AI and robotics and to foster technology supremacy for the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the Manhattan project of our time,” Ingallinera said in a \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/_FrontierValley/status/1934346177388106033\">promotional video\u003c/a> filmed at Alameda Point. “If we fail to rise to the occasion right now, then China will crush us, and that will be the end of America as the world’s greatest superpower.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ingallinera is proposing to build a city full of AI-focused startups and robotics manufacturers, housing for 10,000 residents, a commercial district, statues of American pioneers and a waterside park. The company drafted an executive order for Trump to sign that the company claims would allow development to proceed on the parcel, which is \u003ca href=\"https://alamedapointinfo.com/sites/default/files/resolution_14780_copy.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">currently designated as a nature reserve (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alameda city officials, however, told KQED they were never contacted by the company and only learned of its plans through its weekend post on X. Mayor Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft called the plans a “head scratcher.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They haven’t talked to the city at all,” she said, adding that a development of that size would be challenging to build on land that is subject to sea level rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12044737\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1777px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12044737 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/P1000646_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1777\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/P1000646_qed.jpg 1777w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/P1000646_qed-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/P1000646_qed-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1777px) 100vw, 1777px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alameda Point on Sept. 11, 2023. The Department of Veterans Affairs plans to build a medical clinic and a National Cemetery Columbarium for 300,000 veterans and spouses at Alameda Point, on 624 acres of the former Naval Air Station. The project is funded by Congress and will be constructed by the US Army Corps of Engineers. \u003ccite>(Craig Miller/ Climate Watch)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Department of Veterans Affairs currently owns about 624 acres of the former Naval Air Station and \u003ca href=\"https://www.va.gov/san-francisco-health-care/programs/va-alameda-point-development/#:~:text=Facilities%20on%20the%20site%20will,many%20Veterans%20residing%20in%20the\">plans to build\u003c/a> a medical clinic and a National Cemetery Columbarium, an above-ground burial site which could hold the remains of 300,000 veterans and spouses at Alameda Point. The project was authorized and funded by Congress and is planned to be constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a big deal that we need a new veterans administration clinic and the burial spaces,” Ashcraft said. “They’re very much needed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The columbarium and medical clinic, however, will account for only a fifth of the federal agency’s land. The remaining 512 acres, which Frontier Valley wants to build on, are a former aircraft landing strip and the nesting grounds for several bird populations, including the endangered California Least Tern.[aside postID=news_12024017 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250114_Mare-Island2_DMB_00817-1020x680.jpg']According to \u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-ingallinera-4172a021/\">LinkedIn\u003c/a>, Ingallinera has founded a series of startups and was most recently an advisor for the Carboncopies Foundation, a research organization studying whether the human brain can be scanned and simulated digitally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Neither he nor other members of Frontier Valley responded to KQED’s requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While his promotional video shares little detail about his background, it paints a picture of sluggish bureaucracy slowing down the country’s progress in developing competitive AI technology, including humanoid robots. In it, he claims that because this new city would be built on federal land, it would \u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>have total independence from the surrounding Bay Area and the state of California, avoiding the failures of many previous governance structures.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He urged the White House to transfer the 512-acre parcel from the Department of Veterans Affairs to the Department of Defense. Neither federal agency responded to KQED’s requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gary Marcus, an AI expert, disagreed with Ingallinera’s characterization that red tape is holding back the development of humanoid robots and said the real bottleneck is software.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12044743\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1777px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12044743 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/P1000639_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1777\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/P1000639_qed.jpg 1777w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/P1000639_qed-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/P1000639_qed-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1777px) 100vw, 1777px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">James Ingallinera, founder of Frontier Valley, urged former President Donald Trump on X to declare a national security emergency and fast-track AI and robotics development on 512 acres of federal land at Alameda Point. \u003ccite>(Craig Miller/ Climate Watch)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“That’s mostly a (very hard) software problem, not a hardware problem,” he wrote in an email to KQED. “Companies can utterly work on that to a fair degree without a lot of red tape.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city of Alameda is moving forward with its own \u003ca href=\"https://www.alamedaca.gov/Departments/Alameda-Point\">mixed-use development\u003c/a> on Alameda Point, adjacent to where Frontier Valley is proposing to build its city. It had planned to develop a portion of the former airstrip into a \u003ca href=\"https://www.ebparks.org/projects/northwest-territories-regional-shoreline-alameda-point\">158-acre open-space park\u003c/a> that would be operated by the East Bay Regional Park District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an emailed statement, Sarah Henry, a spokesperson for the city of Alameda, told KQED that “no reasonable fact” supports a proposed declaration of a national security emergency at the site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The city is in full support of the VA facility and regional parks project, which will serve Bay Area veterans, residents and visitors for many decades to come,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A company with ties to the tech industry is seeking to bypass regulatory and environmental red tape to build an independently governed, AI-focused city within \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/alameda-county\">Alameda\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/_FrontierValley/status/1934346142986469864\">thread posted on X\u003c/a> Sunday from Frontier Valley, the company’s founder, James Ingallinera, called on President Donald Trump to declare a national security emergency and immediately approve development on a 512-acre parcel of federally owned land at Alameda Point, the former site of \u003ca href=\"https://www.bracpmo.navy.mil/BRAC-Bases/California/Former-Naval-Air-Station-Alameda/\">Naval Air Station Alameda\u003c/a>. The goal, Ingallinera said, is to accelerate the development of AI and robotics and to foster technology supremacy for the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is the Manhattan project of our time,” Ingallinera said in a \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/_FrontierValley/status/1934346177388106033\">promotional video\u003c/a> filmed at Alameda Point. “If we fail to rise to the occasion right now, then China will crush us, and that will be the end of America as the world’s greatest superpower.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ingallinera is proposing to build a city full of AI-focused startups and robotics manufacturers, housing for 10,000 residents, a commercial district, statues of American pioneers and a waterside park. The company drafted an executive order for Trump to sign that the company claims would allow development to proceed on the parcel, which is \u003ca href=\"https://alamedapointinfo.com/sites/default/files/resolution_14780_copy.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">currently designated as a nature reserve (PDF)\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alameda city officials, however, told KQED they were never contacted by the company and only learned of its plans through its weekend post on X. Mayor Marilyn Ezzy Ashcraft called the plans a “head scratcher.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They haven’t talked to the city at all,” she said, adding that a development of that size would be challenging to build on land that is subject to sea level rise.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12044737\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1777px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12044737 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/P1000646_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1777\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/P1000646_qed.jpg 1777w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/P1000646_qed-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/P1000646_qed-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1777px) 100vw, 1777px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Alameda Point on Sept. 11, 2023. The Department of Veterans Affairs plans to build a medical clinic and a National Cemetery Columbarium for 300,000 veterans and spouses at Alameda Point, on 624 acres of the former Naval Air Station. The project is funded by Congress and will be constructed by the US Army Corps of Engineers. \u003ccite>(Craig Miller/ Climate Watch)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Department of Veterans Affairs currently owns about 624 acres of the former Naval Air Station and \u003ca href=\"https://www.va.gov/san-francisco-health-care/programs/va-alameda-point-development/#:~:text=Facilities%20on%20the%20site%20will,many%20Veterans%20residing%20in%20the\">plans to build\u003c/a> a medical clinic and a National Cemetery Columbarium, an above-ground burial site which could hold the remains of 300,000 veterans and spouses at Alameda Point. The project was authorized and funded by Congress and is planned to be constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a big deal that we need a new veterans administration clinic and the burial spaces,” Ashcraft said. “They’re very much needed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The columbarium and medical clinic, however, will account for only a fifth of the federal agency’s land. The remaining 512 acres, which Frontier Valley wants to build on, are a former aircraft landing strip and the nesting grounds for several bird populations, including the endangered California Least Tern.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>According to \u003ca href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-ingallinera-4172a021/\">LinkedIn\u003c/a>, Ingallinera has founded a series of startups and was most recently an advisor for the Carboncopies Foundation, a research organization studying whether the human brain can be scanned and simulated digitally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Neither he nor other members of Frontier Valley responded to KQED’s requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While his promotional video shares little detail about his background, it paints a picture of sluggish bureaucracy slowing down the country’s progress in developing competitive AI technology, including humanoid robots. In it, he claims that because this new city would be built on federal land, it would \u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>have total independence from the surrounding Bay Area and the state of California, avoiding the failures of many previous governance structures.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He urged the White House to transfer the 512-acre parcel from the Department of Veterans Affairs to the Department of Defense. Neither federal agency responded to KQED’s requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gary Marcus, an AI expert, disagreed with Ingallinera’s characterization that red tape is holding back the development of humanoid robots and said the real bottleneck is software.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12044743\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1777px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12044743 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/P1000639_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1777\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/P1000639_qed.jpg 1777w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/P1000639_qed-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/P1000639_qed-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1777px) 100vw, 1777px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">James Ingallinera, founder of Frontier Valley, urged former President Donald Trump on X to declare a national security emergency and fast-track AI and robotics development on 512 acres of federal land at Alameda Point. \u003ccite>(Craig Miller/ Climate Watch)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“That’s mostly a (very hard) software problem, not a hardware problem,” he wrote in an email to KQED. “Companies can utterly work on that to a fair degree without a lot of red tape.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The city of Alameda is moving forward with its own \u003ca href=\"https://www.alamedaca.gov/Departments/Alameda-Point\">mixed-use development\u003c/a> on Alameda Point, adjacent to where Frontier Valley is proposing to build its city. It had planned to develop a portion of the former airstrip into a \u003ca href=\"https://www.ebparks.org/projects/northwest-territories-regional-shoreline-alameda-point\">158-acre open-space park\u003c/a> that would be operated by the East Bay Regional Park District.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an emailed statement, Sarah Henry, a spokesperson for the city of Alameda, told KQED that “no reasonable fact” supports a proposed declaration of a national security emergency at the site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The city is in full support of the VA facility and regional parks project, which will serve Bay Area veterans, residents and visitors for many decades to come,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Spotify didn’t just change how we listen to music — it changed what a genre even is. In this episode, producer and rapper Quinn reflects on being thrust into the spotlight at age 15 as one of the breakout faces of Spotify’s meteoric Hyperpop playlist. Then, music journalist Kieran Press-Reynolds breaks down how Spotify’s made-up micro-genres—like Goblincore, Anime Drill, and Bubblegrunge—are reshaping music discovery and putting pressure on artists to conform.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC2597215597\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Guests:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/osquinn?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=MXFxM29zNHZ2MndrZA==\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Quinn\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, independent producer and rapper\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kieranpressreynolds.com/\">Kieran Press-Reynolds\u003c/a>, independent reporter covering music and internet culture\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.technologyreview.com/2024/08/16/1096276/spotify-algorithms-music-discovery-ux/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How to break free of Spotify’s algorithm\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Tiffany Ng, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">MIT Technology Review\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://pitchfork.com/features/article/the-lost-promises-of-hyperpoptimism/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Lost Promises of Hyperpoptimism\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Kieran Press-Reynolds, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pitchfork\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\">Follow us on Instagram\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\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>Quinn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My name is Quinn. I’m a recording artist as well as a producer. Uh. Shit. Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Quinn is just 20, but she’s been making music since she was little. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Quinn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I started producing at nine on my mother’s iPad. And then when I was like 12, I started sharing music on fucking uh BandLab. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The world seemed to come to a standstill when the pandemic hit in 2020, but that’s when Quinn really threw herself into music. She would stay up all night talking to other producers on Discord. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Quinn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bro that shit was so fun that it like fried my dopamine receptors. Just had nothing but time on our hands, was making music, going crazy on the music. We used to do stuff like beat battles where we all get a sample and we try to flip it in 30 minutes and whoever, you know, whoop-de-woop, wins. No real reward in it. Just see whoever like has the most talent or whatever. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At 15 years old, Quinn had amassed a sizable underground fan base. Then in late 2020, her music blew up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Quinn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you hop in, fly G, post it on my watch list, say that you’re invincible, okay ni*** watch this, one phone call \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Quinn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I woke up for school one morning and I saw it in my Twitter notifications that like somebody just reposted like a screenshot of the Spotify playlist and it had a picture of me. I ain’t gonna lie, when I initially saw it I was just like, oh that’s cool. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Her photo and music had been featured on Spotify’s official “hyperpop” playlist, a platform that wound up launching careers and shaping an entire genre. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Quinn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like I was kind of just the face of it for a while, along with other artists as well. But they just kept putting me back on the cover and I was just like, shit. Like now everybody wanted to be on the hyperpop playlist. Like once they saw one person did it and that was possible, everybody knew it was possible, which I felt amazing about. Like if you got called a hyperpop artist, like people was getting living wages from having two, three tracks on the playlist. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, the term “hyperpop” suddenly became a big deal. But no one really knew what it meant. It seemed like any vaguely electronic music with angsty lyrics could be called “hyperpop.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Quinn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The scene that I came from has existed long before me. And for a while, nobody knew what to put a title to it. Like they didn’t know what the fuck to call it. They, so they just called everything like “hyperpop”. They called it, they called underground rap “hyperpop”. They called drum and bass “hyperpop”. They called just any regular house, club, anything that’s fast paced, they called it “hyperpop”. And I didn’t really see it to be a viable umbrella term, because some of this shit is not “hyper” and it’s definitely not “pop” but I’d say hyperpop was more of like a tool of of branding than a uh than a genre title. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is what Spotify has become notorious for, identifying emerging music scenes, calling them microgenres, and slapping on labels before the community making that kind of music has time to decide what to call itself. Artists themselves often don’t know what the labels mean. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Quinn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Spotify was definitely king of buzzwords for a fucking minute, like just making bullshit. Oh my God. I can’t even remember half of the names they came up with. Oh yeah, they call it certain songs like “hood trap” and shit. That one just feels racially motivated, bro. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bed Rotting. Goblin Core. Anime Drill. Lo-Fi Jazz Hop. Pink Pilates Strut Pop. Mellow Gold. And my personal favorite, Bubble Grunge. And there are thousands more. But beyond the absurd names, Quinn says this practice is actually problematic for artists. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Quinn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, they affect artists bad because here’s the thing, here’s what happens, they drop a playlist and they’re putting all these artists into that playlist and it’s like this new ass genre name, like no one’s ever heard of this shit before. It’s like, what the hell? So, sometimes that creates competition. Like, say you got a genre like, I don’t know, fucking, they call it “proto-country” or some shit. You’re gonna get a whole bunch of country artists who have, they don’t even know what that’s supposed to sound like, but they’re getting put into this playlist. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it’s like, bro, like they’ve seen a lot of streams from it because it’s a Spotify official playlist and everything. So things get competitive. And then that’s why everybody be like, yo, you know what? I’m the creator of this shit. Like, nah, I created this shit so now you just have an ongoing feud forever. And now it’s always competitive. And you got this genre that didn’t even get to flourish on its own without an audience to have an opinion on it. So it’s, like, damn, bruh. I think that’s what happened with hyperpop. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Quinn actually doesn’t consider herself a “hyperpop artist”. She released some hyperpop music after blowing up, but since then, her sound has evolved drastically. She said that the popularity of the playlist pressures artists to continue creating the same music in order to continue getting playlisted. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Quinn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Most days I see that shit and I’m like, bro, I blew up way too early because that shit has set a crazy standard. It’s sitting at 20 million and what? Like I just I’m not I don’t know how I’m supposed to surpass 20 million streams. Well, I know how am supposed to. It just doesn’t feel very realistic. So it’s set a crazy standard for me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Listeners might only learn about emerging music scenes from Spotify’s microgenre playlist. But where do these microgenres even come from? And are they accurate representations of these music communities? This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist, and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Time for a new tab. Every Noise At Once. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before we get deeper into microgenres, we need to talk about how Spotify came up with them in the first place. And my friend Kieran is going to help explain it all. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hey, I’m Kieran Press-Reynolds. I’m a writer at Pitchfork and other places. I write about the internet and the intersection of technology and music and like microgenres, TikTok trends, kind of all the digital detritus and genius happening online. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It all started back in 2013 with this project called “Every Noise at Once”. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So there’s this guy, this like programmer and kind of genius in a way named Glenn McDonald, who had this sort of like genre discovering algorithm. It would scrape the internet and different platforms and basically map out like the entire musical world. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He put it all online, and the website featured this massive, color-coded scatterplot, a word map of music from around the internet. Instead of dots, it had genre names that you could click on, and it would play an example. And there were subgenres within each genre. The whole thing was arranged to show how each genre relates to others on the map. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, in the words of Glenn MacDonald, the bottom of the map is more “organic”. You have genres like “dutch baroque”. And toward the top is where it gets more mechanical and electric. That’s where you’ll find genres like “acid core”. In between all that is where it gets really interesting. The left of the map is, quote, “denser and more atmospheric”, whereas the right side is “spikier and bouncier”. So, for example, all the way on the left of a map, you might see a genre like “voidgaze”. But all the way on the right, directly across from Void Gaze, you’ll see something like “Rwandan hip hop”. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It would like scan text and so it would look at like journalists reports of like what people have called these artists before and it would Look at like sonic attributes like I guess probably like the the tempo or whether something has a certain instrument or like happy or sad sounding music, bright, you know, dark. Um and it would combine all these things into like an equation um and combining that with like regional details and uh maybe even like sort of like similar artists that had been, that had liked that stuff or had been kind of associated with it and it would group it together into an algam. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Every Noise at Once was essentially a constantly evolving encyclopedia of music taxonomy. Glenn McDonald created it while working at Echo Nest, the music data firm that Spotify acquired in 2014. After that acquisition, Spotify incorporated Glenn’s genre data mapping into its recommendation features and playlists. He maintained Every Noise At Once on the side, but at Spotify, was in charge of categorizing songs and naming new genres. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Everything that Glenn would find through every noise at once would become like a Spotify playlist and they would use that data to kind of like map out emerging scenes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sometimes, the genre names were based on what people in the music industry actually called it. But a lot of times, these hyper-specific, niche microgenres seem to come out of nowhere. Kieran describes finding one randomly one day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I just see this playlist called “escape room” and it looks official and I click on it and there’s like a weird image and it says like there’s not really a bio but it’s like “see also other playlists” and there’s like “pulse” and like “drift” and like “isolation chamber” or something and then I google “escape room” and there are other people online also confused like on Reddit. And then I eventually find like an interview with the guy who runs Every Noise At Once talking about it. And he’s basically just like, “yeah, I like made it up”. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In a Spotify blog post, Glenn McDonald said “escape room”, quote, “feels connected to trap sonically, although it’s more experimental indie R&B pop that spins off from the sonics of trap.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So like five genres just mashed together into nothing. And yeah, he says it’s a silly play on trap, but it reflects something about solving and creating puzzles and music. Dog was just playing around. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As a personal project, every noise at once was incredibly cool. In the decade he spent running it, Glenn would update the site with features that tracked music across cities, generations, record labels, you name it. Sometimes the names were silly, but most of the time, the genres were based on real data science. However, Kieran says that when Spotify used that data to optimize their playlist curation, they usually overlooked a lot of the cultural nuances that make up music scenes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, I think in the first place, it sort of devalues what music and culture is. Like, I mean, Spotify, I think itself is like it’s a tech platform, right? And it’s always trying to chase profit and scale, which comes at the expense of like proper context. And I think Every Noise At Once, what it’s trying to do is basically say that unless you can capture it with data, then it might not be worthy of being called a genre. And like you see this happening with things on the platform where you know, they said unless something gets 1000 streams, then they’re not going to give any of the money to the artist because it’s almost like not, it’s not worthy of being called a song unless people are listening to it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But there are tons of like cultural scenes and little, you know microcosms of society that aren’t even online and their music, it can’t be grasped by data because it’s not racking up streams in that way. And what happens is that like you can have genre almost like forced into being because it might not have enough streams unless you combine a bunch of artists that aren’t necessarily together into like a made up macro term or a label and Spotify and Every Noise That Once has done this where they’ve kind of forced different musicians together into an umbrella term, so they can sort of say is its own genre. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that’s exactly how Quinn ended up as the face of hyperpop, even if she didn’t consider herself to be a “hyperpop artist”. Spotify’s hyperpop playlist was pretty controversial among musicians. We’ll talk about that after a break. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s open a new tab. What happened to hyperpop? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is so funny because hyperpop is like the thing where like, I’ll email my dad and be like, listen to this song and he’ll be like, “this is absolute rubbish. Like, what are you listening to?” You know? And it’s like, it is like this stuff that will kill a Victorian child. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before hyperpop there was \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“PC music”. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">PC music in the early 2010s was like this British collective of like, uh, A.G. Cook, Sophie, Hannah Diamond, these various like experimental singers and producers whose whole thing was sort of like pushing pop to an almost like farcical, like ridiculous extent. And built into it were like critiques of capitalism and almost this like accelerationist desire to push capitalism so far that it’s like it’s a parody of itself um and so you’d have like robotic voices just like so glittery it’s like deliciously sugary music. And so it did really like stand for something and there was like a hyper energy to it and they were really influential and inspired a lot of newer gen people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This newer generation of musicians took a lot of influence from PC music, but also from other genres too. Some took more of an emo or punk approach, while others leaned into lo-fi beats and rap, or they blended all of it together. Many of these artists making this kind of surreal experimental music were trans and formed collectives online. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As these online communities grew and amassed listeners, Spotify noticed. And by 2019, the platform had enough data to justify calling it a genre. They launched a sprawling playlist of artists who made some form of electronic music and gave it a name. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I think hyperpop is one of the most fascinating examples of how Spotify has impacted and sort of rewired the culture. And it’s something that I hear a lot in public, even among like my friends who are very tapped in, they’ll be like, “well, hyperpop was invented by Spotify”. And I’m like, no, like you’re falling for the the slander! It’s really so, hyperpop, it has been going on for like a decade and a half at this point, like, and people were using the term but it got to a thing where I think Every Noise At Once could see the data that there were artists that were big enough to qualify to become a genre on Spotify. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so in the early stages of it, which was, I believe like 2019 and 2020, it became this almost like community hub because simultaneously while Spotify is sort of sucking up power in the music industry. Journalism is falling apart and there are less and less young people who are writing about these emerging scenes. And so in the absence of like somebody who’s gonna explain what hyperpop is and provided the proper context, Spotify’s playlist became the first thing that would show up when you Googled “hyperpop”. And so for a lot of people who are discovering it during the pandemic, it became the like guiding light, like the tour guide for what this thing is. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is why Quinn described hyperpop more as branding than as a genre. Over time, the playlist started to define the genre instead of the other way around. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A lot of the artists who were in it and some of whom were being put on the playlist were very young people and so this was like their first kind of like chance at being known and a lot of them, their like livelihood became based on whether or not they were, they had a song included on it because the royalty boost they would get would like pay their rent. And then simultaneously there were so many sort of like interscene feuds because Spotify would let various people take over the playlist for a month, and then one month, A.G. Cook, the godfather of PC music took it over and basically put in a ton of music that people thought was not hyperpop at all and was less of this grassroots, like DIY, queer, trans stuff that had kind of invented the genre and more just like random famous musicians. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So those smaller DIY artists lost a lot of streaming revenue once they were removed from the playlist. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it eventually made it so that a bunch of different artists who made like rap and who made pop and who made internet-y music were just all consolidated into this hazy blur of a label, and it got to the point where it’s really sad but like people just didn’t want to identify as hyperpop anymore because of how stained and polluted the label was even though i think hyperpop is a good term and it predated the playlist now for a lot of people it’s like hopelessly contaminated thanks to Spotify. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For a lot of them, artists like Quinn, who at one point told me she felt like the trans, POC origins was being whitewashed out of hyperpop. I think those people felt this sort of sickness toward hyperpop and sort of seeing their impact be erased. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of my big things is I don’t think playlists are necessarily evil and I think you can put a lot of heart and thought into them, but I think, you look at other platforms like Tidal where they have like an editorial arm where they can like provide context for choices and like Spotify is a massive company and you know all you have to do is like get a writer or two to like research and explain what the history of hyperpop is and like what PC Music did — their impact — and I think what has happened is because of how important the hyperpop playlist is and because of industry heads have sort of like used that as the one tool for like what’s popping, it’s created this feedback loop where newer people and industry plants are told to make music like this because it’s the hyperpop playlist and we want to make a trendy sound. And so it has this watered down effect. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hyperpop is just one example of the way that Spotify’s playlists have changed the sound and meaning of a genre. In this case, hyperpop existed well before Spotify named it. But what happens when the platform creates an entirely new genre? How does that impact the way listeners connect to artists? Let’s talk about that in a new tab. Spotify’s micro-genre problem. Let’s go through a few different micro-genres that have popped up on Spotify in recent years. So a couple of years ago, Kieran stumbled across a Spotify playlist called Webcore. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh gosh, I don’t know — it doesn’t sound like anything because it’s not real. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Webcore is a visual style that people usually use to describe digital life in the early 2000s. It’s nostalgic for a simpler version of the internet. Think of the Windows XP background with the rolling green hills and bright blue sky. Or picture early blog posts: pixelated clip art, basic HTML layouts, and gaudy Microsoft Word art and clashing colors. When webcore gained popularity as a design choice, Spotify launched a webcore playlist. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it was essentially this random assemblage of vaguely electronic, vaguely digital, uh, songs that came from just completely different time periods and genres. There was like Meat Computer who does digicore rap. There’s Aphex Twin, IDM from the nineties, Temperex, which is like urban outfitters, dream pop, like stuff that really has no business being next to each other. And they had this playlist. And my theory is that they just saw that this was a buzzword on like TikTok and Pinterest, because it’s like, it’s essentially like a viral mood board, like cottagecore or, you know, dark academia. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cottagecore and dark academia are aesthetics that both blew up on TikTok. They refer to fashion and lifestyle choices more than music. Cottagecore is this pastoral fantasy. It’s usually used to describe milkmaid dresses and gardening. Dark academia revolves around classic literature and higher education. It’s inspired by Gothic architecture, collegiate tweed blazers, and melancholic books. Again, not really anything to do with music. But Spotify has playlists for cottagecore, dark academia, and pretty much every subculture you can think of, just like webcore. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s just like a very blurry, uh, collage of vibes and Spotify made this, they hand curated this playlist, um, that had no information about what it was. It was just like, a picture and the tagline was like, would you like to save before closing, or something, and then these songs. And it got really big, really fast. People were saving it and I noticed on Twitter that people were starting to talk about webcore as a genre. They were like, “I love this webcore song.” And I’m just like, “This is not real. This is, you know, this a psyop.” And I think it really illustrated Spotify’s power, like in this sort of dearth of real journalism happening, like people look to Spotify as like “the guide.” It wants to capture every single audience possible. And also capture specific audiences, hyperspecific ones, so it can feed them back hyper-specific targeted ads, feed them, back its own version of the culture, which it can then better market. It feels to me like an attempt to create culture where there isn’t. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are organically made micro-genres that are defined by their visual aesthetic as much as their sound. Like “vaporwave,” which emerged in the early 2010s. It takes dance music from the 80s and 90s, strips it back, and reworks it into a slower, heavily synthesized version. And visually, it takes a lot of inspiration from the neon pink and purple motifs that were popular back then. But like the music itself, it’s distorted and reworked. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was a real scene. That was the community. That was musicians and visual artists who thought they were making something really new and weird. And they really identified with that world and trying to kind of build out lore and like paratext for what they were making. And it’s not even like what Spotify is trying to do with a lot of these things like hyperpop and webcore. It’s not like it really wants to nourish the scene and take care of it. Maybe someone at Spotify would say that, but to me it feels like marketing tags and it feels a way for them to organize data and a way for them make music more intelligible to algorithms so they can feed it to people. There is that, to me, an empathy gap or a meaning, a thought gap in what like vaporwave pioneers were doing. And what Spotify is doing. And I think it’s funny because you could think, I mean, webcore almost sounds like a synonym of vaporwave. And it’s just like the drastically different sort of ideas of what they are, I think, really makes the shallowness of webcore clearer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And Kieran says it’s not just Spotify by itself, but the way that the attention economy and profit drive internet culture today. Like how Spotify’s micro-genres and TikTok virality are deeply intertwined. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s hype cycles, right? It’s like ephemerality. It’s like the way that these platforms, the way they need to function in order to get enough views, get enough people using their platform regularly. They need things to be exciting all the time. And so the way TikTok and the algorithm works, and you can apply this to even other, like to Instagram and to the way that shitpost pages will christen a new rap star every week now. It’s like you need to feel like there are new trends popping constantly. A million genres and nothing sticks, both because people are already moving on to the next one. They’re already tired. And because the artists themselves, there’s no incentive to take a long time anymore. You need to be constantly creating content. The rapid pace of TikTok feeds into Spotify’s system where it’s always recommending you new things, where you always feel like. It’s exciting and new and it creates this like endless feedback cycle. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What are the costs of this? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, like the beautiful power and the beautiful positive of Spotify is that you get everything, right? Everything in the world you can listen to. It’s an endless buffet. And so there’s really it gives you a little reason to like want to venture out of that and to go and actually research music and like why something is the way it is. And so when the platform like puts it into its own little box without any information about it you don’t even like it’s like you lose part of the fundamental the fundamental essence of why music is so great i think which is like the humanity behind it like the community surrounding it like the real life feeling of it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Micro-genres themselves aren’t inherently bad. I actually used to use Every Noise at Once to find new music. But in 2023, Spotify laid off Glenn McDonald and cut off his access to the internal data required to update the site. And earlier this year, he announced that Spotify had switched to tagging genres using machine learning instead of human supervision. So all of those issues we talked about with micro-genres, the lack of nuance and context, they’re even more pronounced now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As the platform relies more on machine learning than human curators, its playlists are becoming more and more personalized. If you search for micro-genre names now, you’ll probably see something called a “mix.” These are algorithmically generated playlists that are based on your own listening history. My hyperpop mix is full of songs that I’ve already listened to, which aren’t even hyperpop. These personalized mixes are even more divorced from the genre’s origins than the editorial playlists ever were. So how do you break out of the algorithm bubble and find new music? It’s easy to let curiosity atrophy when content is just served to us, but being actively curious about music is the first step. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re very simple ways to like exercise your curiosity. Like I like Spotify’s “fans also like,” that’s like one good feature on the platform. I’ve found cool artists that way. I think I do love like going to the bottom and like user generated playlists. Like they show up on artists profiles. And oftentimes if you go beyond like the first few basic ones, there are some intriguing ones usually that like are kind of like a look into a random person’s taste profile. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Quinn says she used to rely on Spotify’s editorial playlists to find new music, until she figured out how to break out of her algorithm bubble. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Quinn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When I find an artist, I go onto their “similar artists” and I listen to their music and so on and so forth. I go on YouTube, I look up any interviews they may have had, because I like to hear artists, I would like to here what their talking voice sound like. I look if they had any sort of performances that I might like, especially if they’re bands. They should turn their YouTube algorithm into a music algorithm, that would greatly help. There’s plenty of YouTubers that are constantly making videos about new genres and new sounds and shit like that. And documentaries as well. Documentaries are fire. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And despite her complaints about the platform, Quinn says she has Spotify to thank for launching her career. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Quinn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Honestly, without Spotify, I would not be able to have a living wage off of music, so fire. Awesome. However, pay me more. That’s really just, that’s really the only thing I can think about it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She says that algorithm bubbles are not, AI recommended playlists or not, dedicated music fans will always find a way to explore and discover something new. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Quinn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you look to these AI models, and if that’s all that is popping up on your shit, then you are probably not, you didn’t go deep enough, you’re not as, you didn’t submerge yourself as much as you want to. And I don’t blame people for that, cause like you said, it’s tough to, to even get to the good shit, you have to get through an army of AI created playlists. I’d say anybody who really wants to search our I don’t think they’d stop at just seeing a bunch of AI playlists. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So break out of your algorithm! Okay, now let’s close all these tabs. 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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad and Alana Walker. Katie Sprenger is our Podcast Operations Manager. And Holly Kernan is our Chief Content Officer. 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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Spotify didn’t just change how we listen to music — it changed what a genre even is. In this episode, producer and rapper Quinn reflects on being thrust into the spotlight at age 15 as one of the breakout faces of Spotify’s meteoric Hyperpop playlist. Then, music journalist Kieran Press-Reynolds breaks down how Spotify’s made-up micro-genres—like Goblincore, Anime Drill, and Bubblegrunge—are reshaping music discovery and putting pressure on artists to conform.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC2597215597\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Guests:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/osquinn?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=MXFxM29zNHZ2MndrZA==\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Quinn\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, independent producer and rapper\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kieranpressreynolds.com/\">Kieran Press-Reynolds\u003c/a>, independent reporter covering music and internet culture\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.technologyreview.com/2024/08/16/1096276/spotify-algorithms-music-discovery-ux/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How to break free of Spotify’s algorithm\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Tiffany Ng, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">MIT Technology Review\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://pitchfork.com/features/article/the-lost-promises-of-hyperpoptimism/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Lost Promises of Hyperpoptimism\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Kieran Press-Reynolds, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pitchfork\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\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>Quinn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My name is Quinn. I’m a recording artist as well as a producer. Uh. Shit. Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Quinn is just 20, but she’s been making music since she was little. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Quinn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I started producing at nine on my mother’s iPad. And then when I was like 12, I started sharing music on fucking uh BandLab. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The world seemed to come to a standstill when the pandemic hit in 2020, but that’s when Quinn really threw herself into music. She would stay up all night talking to other producers on Discord. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Quinn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bro that shit was so fun that it like fried my dopamine receptors. Just had nothing but time on our hands, was making music, going crazy on the music. We used to do stuff like beat battles where we all get a sample and we try to flip it in 30 minutes and whoever, you know, whoop-de-woop, wins. No real reward in it. Just see whoever like has the most talent or whatever. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At 15 years old, Quinn had amassed a sizable underground fan base. Then in late 2020, her music blew up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Quinn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you hop in, fly G, post it on my watch list, say that you’re invincible, okay ni*** watch this, one phone call \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Quinn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I woke up for school one morning and I saw it in my Twitter notifications that like somebody just reposted like a screenshot of the Spotify playlist and it had a picture of me. I ain’t gonna lie, when I initially saw it I was just like, oh that’s cool. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Her photo and music had been featured on Spotify’s official “hyperpop” playlist, a platform that wound up launching careers and shaping an entire genre. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Quinn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Like I was kind of just the face of it for a while, along with other artists as well. But they just kept putting me back on the cover and I was just like, shit. Like now everybody wanted to be on the hyperpop playlist. Like once they saw one person did it and that was possible, everybody knew it was possible, which I felt amazing about. Like if you got called a hyperpop artist, like people was getting living wages from having two, three tracks on the playlist. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, the term “hyperpop” suddenly became a big deal. But no one really knew what it meant. It seemed like any vaguely electronic music with angsty lyrics could be called “hyperpop.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Quinn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The scene that I came from has existed long before me. And for a while, nobody knew what to put a title to it. Like they didn’t know what the fuck to call it. They, so they just called everything like “hyperpop”. They called it, they called underground rap “hyperpop”. They called drum and bass “hyperpop”. They called just any regular house, club, anything that’s fast paced, they called it “hyperpop”. And I didn’t really see it to be a viable umbrella term, because some of this shit is not “hyper” and it’s definitely not “pop” but I’d say hyperpop was more of like a tool of of branding than a uh than a genre title. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is what Spotify has become notorious for, identifying emerging music scenes, calling them microgenres, and slapping on labels before the community making that kind of music has time to decide what to call itself. Artists themselves often don’t know what the labels mean. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Quinn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Spotify was definitely king of buzzwords for a fucking minute, like just making bullshit. Oh my God. I can’t even remember half of the names they came up with. Oh yeah, they call it certain songs like “hood trap” and shit. That one just feels racially motivated, bro. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bed Rotting. Goblin Core. Anime Drill. Lo-Fi Jazz Hop. Pink Pilates Strut Pop. Mellow Gold. And my personal favorite, Bubble Grunge. And there are thousands more. But beyond the absurd names, Quinn says this practice is actually problematic for artists. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Quinn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, they affect artists bad because here’s the thing, here’s what happens, they drop a playlist and they’re putting all these artists into that playlist and it’s like this new ass genre name, like no one’s ever heard of this shit before. It’s like, what the hell? So, sometimes that creates competition. Like, say you got a genre like, I don’t know, fucking, they call it “proto-country” or some shit. You’re gonna get a whole bunch of country artists who have, they don’t even know what that’s supposed to sound like, but they’re getting put into this playlist. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it’s like, bro, like they’ve seen a lot of streams from it because it’s a Spotify official playlist and everything. So things get competitive. And then that’s why everybody be like, yo, you know what? I’m the creator of this shit. Like, nah, I created this shit so now you just have an ongoing feud forever. And now it’s always competitive. And you got this genre that didn’t even get to flourish on its own without an audience to have an opinion on it. So it’s, like, damn, bruh. I think that’s what happened with hyperpop. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Quinn actually doesn’t consider herself a “hyperpop artist”. She released some hyperpop music after blowing up, but since then, her sound has evolved drastically. She said that the popularity of the playlist pressures artists to continue creating the same music in order to continue getting playlisted. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Quinn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Most days I see that shit and I’m like, bro, I blew up way too early because that shit has set a crazy standard. It’s sitting at 20 million and what? Like I just I’m not I don’t know how I’m supposed to surpass 20 million streams. Well, I know how am supposed to. It just doesn’t feel very realistic. So it’s set a crazy standard for me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Listeners might only learn about emerging music scenes from Spotify’s microgenre playlist. But where do these microgenres even come from? And are they accurate representations of these music communities? This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist, and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Time for a new tab. Every Noise At Once. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before we get deeper into microgenres, we need to talk about how Spotify came up with them in the first place. And my friend Kieran is going to help explain it all. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hey, I’m Kieran Press-Reynolds. I’m a writer at Pitchfork and other places. I write about the internet and the intersection of technology and music and like microgenres, TikTok trends, kind of all the digital detritus and genius happening online. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It all started back in 2013 with this project called “Every Noise at Once”. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So there’s this guy, this like programmer and kind of genius in a way named Glenn McDonald, who had this sort of like genre discovering algorithm. It would scrape the internet and different platforms and basically map out like the entire musical world. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He put it all online, and the website featured this massive, color-coded scatterplot, a word map of music from around the internet. Instead of dots, it had genre names that you could click on, and it would play an example. And there were subgenres within each genre. The whole thing was arranged to show how each genre relates to others on the map. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, in the words of Glenn MacDonald, the bottom of the map is more “organic”. You have genres like “dutch baroque”. And toward the top is where it gets more mechanical and electric. That’s where you’ll find genres like “acid core”. In between all that is where it gets really interesting. The left of the map is, quote, “denser and more atmospheric”, whereas the right side is “spikier and bouncier”. So, for example, all the way on the left of a map, you might see a genre like “voidgaze”. But all the way on the right, directly across from Void Gaze, you’ll see something like “Rwandan hip hop”. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It would like scan text and so it would look at like journalists reports of like what people have called these artists before and it would Look at like sonic attributes like I guess probably like the the tempo or whether something has a certain instrument or like happy or sad sounding music, bright, you know, dark. Um and it would combine all these things into like an equation um and combining that with like regional details and uh maybe even like sort of like similar artists that had been, that had liked that stuff or had been kind of associated with it and it would group it together into an algam. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Every Noise at Once was essentially a constantly evolving encyclopedia of music taxonomy. Glenn McDonald created it while working at Echo Nest, the music data firm that Spotify acquired in 2014. After that acquisition, Spotify incorporated Glenn’s genre data mapping into its recommendation features and playlists. He maintained Every Noise At Once on the side, but at Spotify, was in charge of categorizing songs and naming new genres. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Everything that Glenn would find through every noise at once would become like a Spotify playlist and they would use that data to kind of like map out emerging scenes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sometimes, the genre names were based on what people in the music industry actually called it. But a lot of times, these hyper-specific, niche microgenres seem to come out of nowhere. Kieran describes finding one randomly one day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I just see this playlist called “escape room” and it looks official and I click on it and there’s like a weird image and it says like there’s not really a bio but it’s like “see also other playlists” and there’s like “pulse” and like “drift” and like “isolation chamber” or something and then I google “escape room” and there are other people online also confused like on Reddit. And then I eventually find like an interview with the guy who runs Every Noise At Once talking about it. And he’s basically just like, “yeah, I like made it up”. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In a Spotify blog post, Glenn McDonald said “escape room”, quote, “feels connected to trap sonically, although it’s more experimental indie R&B pop that spins off from the sonics of trap.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So like five genres just mashed together into nothing. And yeah, he says it’s a silly play on trap, but it reflects something about solving and creating puzzles and music. Dog was just playing around. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As a personal project, every noise at once was incredibly cool. In the decade he spent running it, Glenn would update the site with features that tracked music across cities, generations, record labels, you name it. Sometimes the names were silly, but most of the time, the genres were based on real data science. However, Kieran says that when Spotify used that data to optimize their playlist curation, they usually overlooked a lot of the cultural nuances that make up music scenes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, I think in the first place, it sort of devalues what music and culture is. Like, I mean, Spotify, I think itself is like it’s a tech platform, right? And it’s always trying to chase profit and scale, which comes at the expense of like proper context. And I think Every Noise At Once, what it’s trying to do is basically say that unless you can capture it with data, then it might not be worthy of being called a genre. And like you see this happening with things on the platform where you know, they said unless something gets 1000 streams, then they’re not going to give any of the money to the artist because it’s almost like not, it’s not worthy of being called a song unless people are listening to it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But there are tons of like cultural scenes and little, you know microcosms of society that aren’t even online and their music, it can’t be grasped by data because it’s not racking up streams in that way. And what happens is that like you can have genre almost like forced into being because it might not have enough streams unless you combine a bunch of artists that aren’t necessarily together into like a made up macro term or a label and Spotify and Every Noise That Once has done this where they’ve kind of forced different musicians together into an umbrella term, so they can sort of say is its own genre. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that’s exactly how Quinn ended up as the face of hyperpop, even if she didn’t consider herself to be a “hyperpop artist”. Spotify’s hyperpop playlist was pretty controversial among musicians. We’ll talk about that after a break. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s open a new tab. What happened to hyperpop? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is so funny because hyperpop is like the thing where like, I’ll email my dad and be like, listen to this song and he’ll be like, “this is absolute rubbish. Like, what are you listening to?” You know? And it’s like, it is like this stuff that will kill a Victorian child. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before hyperpop there was \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“PC music”. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">PC music in the early 2010s was like this British collective of like, uh, A.G. Cook, Sophie, Hannah Diamond, these various like experimental singers and producers whose whole thing was sort of like pushing pop to an almost like farcical, like ridiculous extent. And built into it were like critiques of capitalism and almost this like accelerationist desire to push capitalism so far that it’s like it’s a parody of itself um and so you’d have like robotic voices just like so glittery it’s like deliciously sugary music. And so it did really like stand for something and there was like a hyper energy to it and they were really influential and inspired a lot of newer gen people. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This newer generation of musicians took a lot of influence from PC music, but also from other genres too. Some took more of an emo or punk approach, while others leaned into lo-fi beats and rap, or they blended all of it together. Many of these artists making this kind of surreal experimental music were trans and formed collectives online. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As these online communities grew and amassed listeners, Spotify noticed. And by 2019, the platform had enough data to justify calling it a genre. They launched a sprawling playlist of artists who made some form of electronic music and gave it a name. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I think hyperpop is one of the most fascinating examples of how Spotify has impacted and sort of rewired the culture. And it’s something that I hear a lot in public, even among like my friends who are very tapped in, they’ll be like, “well, hyperpop was invented by Spotify”. And I’m like, no, like you’re falling for the the slander! It’s really so, hyperpop, it has been going on for like a decade and a half at this point, like, and people were using the term but it got to a thing where I think Every Noise At Once could see the data that there were artists that were big enough to qualify to become a genre on Spotify. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And so in the early stages of it, which was, I believe like 2019 and 2020, it became this almost like community hub because simultaneously while Spotify is sort of sucking up power in the music industry. Journalism is falling apart and there are less and less young people who are writing about these emerging scenes. And so in the absence of like somebody who’s gonna explain what hyperpop is and provided the proper context, Spotify’s playlist became the first thing that would show up when you Googled “hyperpop”. And so for a lot of people who are discovering it during the pandemic, it became the like guiding light, like the tour guide for what this thing is. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is why Quinn described hyperpop more as branding than as a genre. Over time, the playlist started to define the genre instead of the other way around. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A lot of the artists who were in it and some of whom were being put on the playlist were very young people and so this was like their first kind of like chance at being known and a lot of them, their like livelihood became based on whether or not they were, they had a song included on it because the royalty boost they would get would like pay their rent. And then simultaneously there were so many sort of like interscene feuds because Spotify would let various people take over the playlist for a month, and then one month, A.G. Cook, the godfather of PC music took it over and basically put in a ton of music that people thought was not hyperpop at all and was less of this grassroots, like DIY, queer, trans stuff that had kind of invented the genre and more just like random famous musicians. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So those smaller DIY artists lost a lot of streaming revenue once they were removed from the playlist. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it eventually made it so that a bunch of different artists who made like rap and who made pop and who made internet-y music were just all consolidated into this hazy blur of a label, and it got to the point where it’s really sad but like people just didn’t want to identify as hyperpop anymore because of how stained and polluted the label was even though i think hyperpop is a good term and it predated the playlist now for a lot of people it’s like hopelessly contaminated thanks to Spotify. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For a lot of them, artists like Quinn, who at one point told me she felt like the trans, POC origins was being whitewashed out of hyperpop. I think those people felt this sort of sickness toward hyperpop and sort of seeing their impact be erased. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">One of my big things is I don’t think playlists are necessarily evil and I think you can put a lot of heart and thought into them, but I think, you look at other platforms like Tidal where they have like an editorial arm where they can like provide context for choices and like Spotify is a massive company and you know all you have to do is like get a writer or two to like research and explain what the history of hyperpop is and like what PC Music did — their impact — and I think what has happened is because of how important the hyperpop playlist is and because of industry heads have sort of like used that as the one tool for like what’s popping, it’s created this feedback loop where newer people and industry plants are told to make music like this because it’s the hyperpop playlist and we want to make a trendy sound. And so it has this watered down effect. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hyperpop is just one example of the way that Spotify’s playlists have changed the sound and meaning of a genre. In this case, hyperpop existed well before Spotify named it. But what happens when the platform creates an entirely new genre? How does that impact the way listeners connect to artists? Let’s talk about that in a new tab. Spotify’s micro-genre problem. Let’s go through a few different micro-genres that have popped up on Spotify in recent years. So a couple of years ago, Kieran stumbled across a Spotify playlist called Webcore. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh gosh, I don’t know — it doesn’t sound like anything because it’s not real. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Webcore is a visual style that people usually use to describe digital life in the early 2000s. It’s nostalgic for a simpler version of the internet. Think of the Windows XP background with the rolling green hills and bright blue sky. Or picture early blog posts: pixelated clip art, basic HTML layouts, and gaudy Microsoft Word art and clashing colors. When webcore gained popularity as a design choice, Spotify launched a webcore playlist. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And it was essentially this random assemblage of vaguely electronic, vaguely digital, uh, songs that came from just completely different time periods and genres. There was like Meat Computer who does digicore rap. There’s Aphex Twin, IDM from the nineties, Temperex, which is like urban outfitters, dream pop, like stuff that really has no business being next to each other. And they had this playlist. And my theory is that they just saw that this was a buzzword on like TikTok and Pinterest, because it’s like, it’s essentially like a viral mood board, like cottagecore or, you know, dark academia. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cottagecore and dark academia are aesthetics that both blew up on TikTok. They refer to fashion and lifestyle choices more than music. Cottagecore is this pastoral fantasy. It’s usually used to describe milkmaid dresses and gardening. Dark academia revolves around classic literature and higher education. It’s inspired by Gothic architecture, collegiate tweed blazers, and melancholic books. Again, not really anything to do with music. But Spotify has playlists for cottagecore, dark academia, and pretty much every subculture you can think of, just like webcore. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s just like a very blurry, uh, collage of vibes and Spotify made this, they hand curated this playlist, um, that had no information about what it was. It was just like, a picture and the tagline was like, would you like to save before closing, or something, and then these songs. And it got really big, really fast. People were saving it and I noticed on Twitter that people were starting to talk about webcore as a genre. They were like, “I love this webcore song.” And I’m just like, “This is not real. This is, you know, this a psyop.” And I think it really illustrated Spotify’s power, like in this sort of dearth of real journalism happening, like people look to Spotify as like “the guide.” It wants to capture every single audience possible. And also capture specific audiences, hyperspecific ones, so it can feed them back hyper-specific targeted ads, feed them, back its own version of the culture, which it can then better market. It feels to me like an attempt to create culture where there isn’t. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are organically made micro-genres that are defined by their visual aesthetic as much as their sound. Like “vaporwave,” which emerged in the early 2010s. It takes dance music from the 80s and 90s, strips it back, and reworks it into a slower, heavily synthesized version. And visually, it takes a lot of inspiration from the neon pink and purple motifs that were popular back then. But like the music itself, it’s distorted and reworked. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was a real scene. That was the community. That was musicians and visual artists who thought they were making something really new and weird. And they really identified with that world and trying to kind of build out lore and like paratext for what they were making. And it’s not even like what Spotify is trying to do with a lot of these things like hyperpop and webcore. It’s not like it really wants to nourish the scene and take care of it. Maybe someone at Spotify would say that, but to me it feels like marketing tags and it feels a way for them to organize data and a way for them make music more intelligible to algorithms so they can feed it to people. There is that, to me, an empathy gap or a meaning, a thought gap in what like vaporwave pioneers were doing. And what Spotify is doing. And I think it’s funny because you could think, I mean, webcore almost sounds like a synonym of vaporwave. And it’s just like the drastically different sort of ideas of what they are, I think, really makes the shallowness of webcore clearer. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And Kieran says it’s not just Spotify by itself, but the way that the attention economy and profit drive internet culture today. Like how Spotify’s micro-genres and TikTok virality are deeply intertwined. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s hype cycles, right? It’s like ephemerality. It’s like the way that these platforms, the way they need to function in order to get enough views, get enough people using their platform regularly. They need things to be exciting all the time. And so the way TikTok and the algorithm works, and you can apply this to even other, like to Instagram and to the way that shitpost pages will christen a new rap star every week now. It’s like you need to feel like there are new trends popping constantly. A million genres and nothing sticks, both because people are already moving on to the next one. They’re already tired. And because the artists themselves, there’s no incentive to take a long time anymore. You need to be constantly creating content. The rapid pace of TikTok feeds into Spotify’s system where it’s always recommending you new things, where you always feel like. It’s exciting and new and it creates this like endless feedback cycle. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What are the costs of this? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I mean, like the beautiful power and the beautiful positive of Spotify is that you get everything, right? Everything in the world you can listen to. It’s an endless buffet. And so there’s really it gives you a little reason to like want to venture out of that and to go and actually research music and like why something is the way it is. And so when the platform like puts it into its own little box without any information about it you don’t even like it’s like you lose part of the fundamental the fundamental essence of why music is so great i think which is like the humanity behind it like the community surrounding it like the real life feeling of it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Micro-genres themselves aren’t inherently bad. I actually used to use Every Noise at Once to find new music. But in 2023, Spotify laid off Glenn McDonald and cut off his access to the internal data required to update the site. And earlier this year, he announced that Spotify had switched to tagging genres using machine learning instead of human supervision. So all of those issues we talked about with micro-genres, the lack of nuance and context, they’re even more pronounced now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">As the platform relies more on machine learning than human curators, its playlists are becoming more and more personalized. If you search for micro-genre names now, you’ll probably see something called a “mix.” These are algorithmically generated playlists that are based on your own listening history. My hyperpop mix is full of songs that I’ve already listened to, which aren’t even hyperpop. These personalized mixes are even more divorced from the genre’s origins than the editorial playlists ever were. So how do you break out of the algorithm bubble and find new music? It’s easy to let curiosity atrophy when content is just served to us, but being actively curious about music is the first step. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Kieran Press-Reynolds: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They’re very simple ways to like exercise your curiosity. Like I like Spotify’s “fans also like,” that’s like one good feature on the platform. I’ve found cool artists that way. I think I do love like going to the bottom and like user generated playlists. Like they show up on artists profiles. And oftentimes if you go beyond like the first few basic ones, there are some intriguing ones usually that like are kind of like a look into a random person’s taste profile. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Quinn says she used to rely on Spotify’s editorial playlists to find new music, until she figured out how to break out of her algorithm bubble. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Quinn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When I find an artist, I go onto their “similar artists” and I listen to their music and so on and so forth. I go on YouTube, I look up any interviews they may have had, because I like to hear artists, I would like to here what their talking voice sound like. I look if they had any sort of performances that I might like, especially if they’re bands. They should turn their YouTube algorithm into a music algorithm, that would greatly help. There’s plenty of YouTubers that are constantly making videos about new genres and new sounds and shit like that. And documentaries as well. Documentaries are fire. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And despite her complaints about the platform, Quinn says she has Spotify to thank for launching her career. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Quinn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Honestly, without Spotify, I would not be able to have a living wage off of music, so fire. Awesome. However, pay me more. That’s really just, that’s really the only thing I can think about it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She says that algorithm bubbles are not, AI recommended playlists or not, dedicated music fans will always find a way to explore and discover something new. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Quinn:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you look to these AI models, and if that’s all that is popping up on your shit, then you are probably not, you didn’t go deep enough, you’re not as, you didn’t submerge yourself as much as you want to. And I don’t blame people for that, cause like you said, it’s tough to, to even get to the good shit, you have to get through an army of AI created playlists. I’d say anybody who really wants to search our I don’t think they’d stop at just seeing a bunch of AI playlists. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So break out of your algorithm! Okay, now let’s close all these tabs. 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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad and Alana Walker. Katie Sprenger is our Podcast Operations Manager. And Holly Kernan is our Chief Content Officer. 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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">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\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Elon Musk and President Trump breaking up? LA protesters clashing with law enforcement? Waymos on fire (again)? Things have been moving fast the last few days — and like you, our feeds are on overload. Today, we’re bringing you a quick reaction episode to catch you up on a couple stories we’ve covered before that are suddenly back in the news. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> producer Maya Cueva joins Morgan to break it all down.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC1677724333\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ve talked about a few of these stories before — if you want to go deeper, here are some past episodes to check out:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12033066/the-broligarchy-pt-1-chronicles-of-the-paypal-mafia\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Broligarchy Pt 1: Chronicles of the PayPal Mafia | KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12038910/the-surveillance-machine-pt-1-how-we-got-here\">The Surveillance Machine, Pt. 1: How We Got Here | KQED\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12030860/waymo-problems\">Waymo Robotaxis – Uneasiness and Vandalism | KQED\u003c/a>\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.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-musk-summary-timeline-political-relationship-rcna211453\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A timeline of the twists and turns in the Trump-Musk relationship\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Nnamdi Egwuonwu, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NBC News \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/immigration-protests-threaten-to-boil-over-in-los-angeles\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Immigration Protests Threaten to Boil Over in Los Angeles \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— E. Tammy Kim, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The New Yorker\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://lapublicpress.org/2025/06/ice-raids-separate-families-but-bring-los-angeles-together/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">ICE raids tried to split LA apart, but might have made it stronger\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Michael Lozano, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">LA Public Press \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.fastcompany.com/91348960/how-waymo-got-caught-in-the-crossfire-of-los-angeles-ice-protests\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How Waymo got caught in the crossfire of Los Angeles ICE protests\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — \u003c/span>Joe Berkowitz, \u003ci>Fast Company\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\">Follow us on Instagram\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\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\">Hey guys, welcome to Close All Tabs. We had planned to bring you part two of our Spotify deep dive today. And don’t worry, we’ll get back to that next week. But there have been some developments over the past week. Basically, the last few days have been so wild that we need to talk about it. We’re actually following up on three of our previous episodes today. And joining me to help sort through all of it is our producer, Maya Cueva. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>Hey Morgan!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Hey Maya. So this will be a bit of a speed round. Two quick tabs today. And as a side quest, I am going to try to make the case to you, Maya, for why I’ve stayed on Twitter, or as we now call it, X. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, please make your case, because it’s hard for me to get why anyone would want to stay on X, but I do want to understand. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I will try my best. Okay, we’ve got a few things to cover today, including what’s happening with Waymos and protest surveillance in LA. But before we get to that, we have to talk about something that happened last week. Elon Musk and Donald Trump finally broke up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist, and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Maya, are you ready? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, Morgan. Let’s open a new tab. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Great Elon Crash Out. Back in March, we did a series on “the Broligarchy,” and more specifically, the ideology that drives tech titans like Elon Musk as they accumulate political power. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And how they might use that power to influence U.S. Policy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News Anchor 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re seeing a rise in what I guess we’ll call the “Broligarchy”. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News Anchor 2: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The “Broligarchs” really have an explicit political agenda. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News Anchor 3: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How do you survive the “Broligarchy”? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And nothing embodied the Broligarchy quite like the relationship between Elon Musk and President Donald Trump. And I just want to say up front, this stuff is really serious, right? Like the fact that these two men control so many levers of power and the ripple effects of their decisions have already had massive and sometimes devastating consequences — that should be a source of concern for us all. But at the same time, their personal relationship, what many have called a bromance, there’s something kind of funny about it. Like it has high school vibes. And social media has really eaten that up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But it seems like that relationship is over, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s true. At least it is as of when we’re recording this, on Monday afternoon. After less than a year since Musk publicly endorsed Trump, the bromance is dead. Okay, let’s start right after Election Day. They were still pretty cozy back then. This was Trump in his victory speech right after winning the election. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donald Trump: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let me tell you, we have a new star. A star is born, Elon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then Elon starts overseeing DOGE, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. He’s the face of the Department of Government Efficiency. And under his de facto leadership, DOGE is slashing government agencies left and right. We see mass layoffs and the dismantling of aid programs. And it’s an accounting and privacy disaster. Obviously, Trump and Musk are getting a lot of backlash over this. And we start to see cracks in the relationship. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right, yeah, and didn’t that bizarre White House Tesla showcase happen during all of this? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, by March, Tesla stock was down by like 45%. So while Tesla is slumping as a company, Trump and Musk turned the White House lawn into a Tesla showroom. They live stream it on X and Trump makes a show of wanting to buy one. He really talks up the Cybertruck. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donald Trump: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Who else but this guy would design this, and everybody on the road is looking at it. It’s amazing, actually. As soon as I saw it, I said, that is the coolest design. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So you know how there’s always that one couple on Instagram that you know is not doing well, but they overcompensate by posting really, like, lovey-dovey captions and all that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ugh, yes, it’s like, why are you pretending? You’re not fooling anyone. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so I think this Tesla showcase is kind of like that. That same month, as the White House gets heat for DOGE’s actions, Trump goes on Truth Social and says that the agency heads are in charge of staffing, not Musk and DOGE. This is when the president starts to rein Musk in. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so we’ve heard that Trump and Musk are getting backlash for a lot of the actions they’re taking, especially DOGE, and Musk’s companies are suffering. And all of this seems to be creating tension, right? So when did the actual breakup happen? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, at the start of last month, Musk says he’s stepping back from DOGE to focus on his own companies like Tesla and SpaceX. A few weeks later, Musk goes on CBS and bashes the president’s budget proposal, what Trump calls his “Big, Beautiful Bill.” Musk says that bill increases the budget deficit and undermines DOGE’s work. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Elon Musk: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful, but I don’t know if it could be both. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And by the end of the month, the White House announces that Musk’s temporary role as a special government employee has ended. They host a ceremony, and the president makes this grand gesture of gifting Musk a gold key to the White house. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donald Trump: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have given it to some, but it goes to very special people, and I thought I’d give it to Elon as a presentation from our country. Thank you, Elon. Take care. Thank you \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so this seems pretty cordial to me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, it’s like that part of a breakup where you tell people you’re still on good terms and you wish each other the best and you’re going to be in each other’s lives, all that. But like, we know what happens. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh yeah, we’ve all been there before. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right, except these are two exceptionally powerful men. So this is where it gets really juicy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, tell me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So a couple of days ago, Musk goes on X and starts tearing apart the bill. He says, hold on, let me pull it up. “This massive, outrageous, pork-filled congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it. You know you did wrong. You KNOW it.” And Trump tells reporters that Musk is upset because the bill would end tax credits for electric vehicles. And then these guys just start going at it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wait, so what happened? Can you break it down for me? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is why I say I will never leave the app, because as bad as it gets, there are still days when everyone comes out of hibernation and just starts posting. And this includes Elon Musk. So he starts firing off at Trump on X. First, he says that Trump would have lost the election without him. Trump goes to Truth Social, and he says Musk went crazy after he was asked to leave the White House. He threatens to cut Musk’s government subsidies and contracts. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I’m guessing Elon Musk didn’t take that well. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, not at all. Musk goes nuclear. He runs back to X and posts something that makes everyone’s jaw drop. He claims that the president is in the Epstein files. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. So it’s worth noting that Trump was once publicly friends with the pedophile and sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein. But he hasn’t been implicated in any of the investigations into Epstein or his accomplices. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So it can’t get worse than that, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He kept going. In another post, Musk says that the tariffs will cause a recession. And then he reposts someone else who says that Trump should be impeached and replaced with JD Vance. So this is all what people are calling a “generational crash out.” Were you seeing any of this? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Honestly, Morgan, not the full back and forth. Like I got the condensed version from IG Reels, reacting to them fighting. And I saw some funny responses like when AOC quoted Azealea Banks. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Reporter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Any quick reaction on what’s going on with Elon Musk and President Trump on Twitter right now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh man, the girls are fighting, aren’t they? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is the reason I’m still on this hellish app. There were so many good memes about this breakup. Like there’s this one where someone posted a picture of Trump and Musk together and then captioned it with the lyrics from the Bon Iver song, Skinny Love, classic breakup song. We’ve all been there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Or someone else posted this edit mashing up a scene from the Diary of a Wimpy Kid Movie, and Driver’s License by Olivia Rodrigo. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Diary of a Wimpy Kid Movie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You broke my hand and you didn’t even seem sorry. That broken hand was the best thing that ever happened to you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And they captioned it, “the two most powerful men in the country on a random Thursday.”. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s hilarious. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ll tell you about one example that really sent me. Maya, are you familiar with old man yaoi? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wait no, what is that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So this is one of those very online, deep internet things, so just stay with me here. Old man yaoi is kind of like a jokey fan fiction trope. Yaoi is this Japanese term that refers to gay male relationships in manga and anime. Sometimes it’s called BL, or boy’s love, and people will also tag fan fiction as yaoi. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Old man yaoi is this term for older male characters, and naturally, Because the internet is the way it is, there is a lot of tongue-in-cheek old man yaoi about Trump. Wait, really? Last year, there was a lot of enemies-to-lovers old man yaoi about Trump and former President Joe Biden. And now, there is old man yaoi about Trump and Musk. Can I read you an excerpt that I saw on X during the great crash out? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I guess. I don’t think I have a choice here. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sorry, you do not. Okay. So here’s a dramatic reading of some old man yaoi posted by X user. Aegonism. Aegonism, thank you for making my day. “Donald, please, let’s just talk about this,” Elon pleads, attempting to catch the other man’s eyes. But Donald rolls over in bed, presenting his back to him. The tension in the bedroom is suffocating, and Elon tries to take a deep breath, but it feels like he can barely get any air. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“There’s nothing to talk about,” Donald finally responds, flatly, and Elon is taken aback by his tone. He sounds so cold and distant. He doesn’t want to fight. He can feel tears welling up and he takes a moment to wipe his face before continuing, hoping Donald won’t notice his red rimmed eyes. “Don, this bill is bad for Tesla. You have to understand that.” Donald sighs heavily. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh my God, I literally have no words. I do admire the creativity though. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Again, one of the top 10 days on Twitter. This app is terrible, but there’s nothing that’s really taken its place for me. I get a lot of news from Reddit and Bluesky, funny posts from Tumblr, and Instagram is great for organizing and sharing resources, and honestly, good shitpost accounts. TikTok is up there with good content too, but there is nothing that quite has the same real-time, super fast memeability like Twitter does, and you’re definitely not getting the stuff on threads. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, I feel like I am convinced now. So what are some of the other top meme days on Twitter? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, just a recent years, Luigi. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I do want to give a credit to Luigi Mangione \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Will Smith Oscar slap. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Rock: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You remember that time that ship got stuck in the Suez Canal? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News Anchor 4: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A giant container ship ran aground in the Suez Canal after losing power. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Or when President Biden dropped out of the presidential race. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News Anchor 5: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">President Joe Biden’s decision not to run for re-election. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Or JD Vance couch rumors, we remember that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Youtuber \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You may be wondering why you’re seeing a ton of memes and posts about Donald Trump’s VP pick, JD vance, and his sectional relationship with his couch. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I do remember that and we did a story about it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But my personal favorite day is right after the election back in 2020 when Rudy Giuliani hosted a press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping instead of the Four Seasons Hotel. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hayes: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, there is, of course, a mystery that hangs over all this, which is how the press conference came to be held at Four Seasons Total Landscaping in the first place. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh my God, yes, I remember this! Okay, so I feel like I kind of get it. It’s the immediacy, right? But let’s get back to the bromance breakup, our Trump and Musk done for good? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, like any good breakup, it’s complicated. Musk actually ended up deleting some of his more incendiary posts, including the one about the Epstein files. Over the weekend, Trump told NBC News that their relationship was over and that he has no desire to repair it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>Ooof. \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Classic breakup. But it looks like Elon is the one missing Trump, but Trump is the one over it. And we’re all watching their reality TV show. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, exactly. Except, unlike Love Island-. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Love Island: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome to Love Island! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This reality show also has massive real world ripple effects, which are affecting real people. The state of democracy kind of rests on the whims of these two very powerful, very egotistical guys. But I will say that the tone has changed recently. Musk is screenshotting some of Trump’s Truth Social posts and reposting them on X, appearing to agree with him. So it seems like he’s trying to make amends. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I think I did see that he was agreeing with Trump’s post condemning the protests against ICE raids in LA. I feel like we should get into that Morgan, right? In a new tab? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We definitely will. But before we do that, let’s take a quick break.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, we’re back. New tab. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What’s happening in LA ?? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so last month we did a two-part episode on the Surveillance State and how protesters and organizers are being identified and targeted. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News Anchor 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">30-Year-old Rumeysa Ozturk was on her way to break her Ramadan fast when six plain-clothed officers approached her. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But Morgan, what’s going on where you are in Los Angeles? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you hear any background noise right now, it’s probably the helicopters flying over my apartment. I’m not too far from the protests, and LAPD has been circling over the city all weekend. We’re recording this on Monday evening, and the protests are still going strong. But aside from where those demonstrations are happening, at least in the neighborhood I’m in, LA is unsettlingly quiet. It’s like people are afraid to go outside, especially as ICE continues to patrol the city. But again, this is why I’m still on Twitter. There’s a pretty well-established network of mutual aid groups and organizers sharing resources and information over there. A lot of it is on Instagram, but real-time updates are coming from Twitter. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I’m seeing it all over my IG feed as well, but when did this all start? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, it all started with a string of immigration raids on Friday, from a Home Depot to a clothing store downtown. And then people who appeared for their immigration check-ins were detained and taken to unknown locations. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News Anchor 2: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The FBI, Homeland Security, and ICE agents performed a raid a couple of hours ago. We’re just now seeing some people that are being detained. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And remember, Los Angeles is a sanctuary city. City resources cannot be used for federal immigration enforcement, and the city is prohibited from sharing data with immigration authorities. It’s also worth noting that Los Angeles is a city of immigrants, something that a lot of the community takes pride in. So protests started that night, one outside an immigration detention center downtown and another in the fashion district where one of the ICE raids happened. At some point, they converged. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Protesters: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let them free, let them stay! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Law enforcement showed up in riot gear to disperse the crowds. But the protests spread on Saturday across downtown LA, Compton, and Paramount. Trump deployed at least 2,000 National Guard troops in Los Angeles, which Governor Newsom has called unlawful and a serious breach of state sovereignty. Law enforcement has used tear gas and pepper spray and flashbang grenades to try to disperse the crowds. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News Anchor 3: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You told me you got caught up in the tear gas as well? Describe what happened to you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Man on the street: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, just, uh, tasted a little tear gas. Tasted like fascism. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But it all really escalated on Sunday afternoon, which coincided with LA Pride. People were literally going straight from Pride events to the protests, demanding an end to ICE raids. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Protesters: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Who’s got the power? We’ve got the power! What kind of power? People Power! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They even managed to shut down the freeway. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Protesters: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Weirdo! Weirdos! Weirdo! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the LAPD has deployed rubber bullets and surveillance drones in addition to the tear gas and flashbang grenades. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News Anchor 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think they’re going to push in from this side of the road. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then there’s everything with Waymos. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right, like a few months ago, we did an episode on the recent uptick in Waymo vandalism. And as a reminder, Waymos are the autonomous self-driving cars that operate in a few cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles. But Morgan, why don’t you walk us through what Waymos have to do with the protests? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, a bunch of Waymos happened to be nearby during the protests downtown. And amid the confrontation between law enforcement and protestors, those Waymos were tagged with anti-ICE messages and then set on fire, which went super viral. So there’s been a lot of discourse around Waymo vandalism and property damage during these protests. But I think it’s important to remember that Waymos have become representative of encroaching big tech, especially here in LA. There’s a lot of anger at the way that tech companies like Palantir are helping immigration enforcement. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right, and plus there’s speculation that Waymos might be used as surveillance tools. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly. 404 media recently reported that the LAPD has used footage obtained from a Waymo to investigate crimes. So a lot people are suspicious of autonomous vehicles right now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Yeah, so what else is happening in LA? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, now the latest escalation is that the Trump administration is sending Marines to LA? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I saw that. It really looks like a war zone. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, only around certain parts of L.A. But the president is posting through it on Truth Social. He’s called the protests “a riot.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wow, I haven’t seen any of that because I’m not on Truth Social, but does this bring us back to Elon Musk? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Also not on Truth Social, but I did see screenshots on Twitter. And yes, one of the posts that Musk shared on Twitter, or X, calls for a ban on masks at protests. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And like we talked about in our surveillance series a few weeks ago, masks have become a staple at protests to avoid facial recognition. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That and also to reduce exposure to tear gas, pepper spray, and airborne viruses like COVID. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, but like we’ve seen in the student protests for Palestine over the last year, there’s been an effort to make protesters easier to identify. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly. On Truth Social, Trump has also called for the arrest of anyone wearing a mask. So masking has become a real point of contention in these protests as activists demand that ICE agents and LAPD and other law enforcement officials also unmask when showing up to protests. This is a thing in Los Angeles especially. Activists have made an effort to identify ICE agents and publicize their names and faces so that anyone at risk of deportation knows who to avoid. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But now some conservative lawmakers are trying to penalize anyone who identifies a law enforcement officer. Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn recently proposed legislation that would punish people with up to five years in prison for identifying ICE agents. But, we’ll have to see how the protests unfold throughout the rest of the month. ICE operations in LA are supposed to continue for the next 30 days. But it is worth noting that the president’s social media posts aren’t like legal powers enshrined in the Constitution. They can’t enforce a mask ban just because he posted about it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They can’t legally enforce that. But we’ve seen this administration do plenty of things they’re not supposed to do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So true. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. Executive orders are quick to enact, and the justice system is really slow. And those things have real consequences for all of us. So, while Twitter memes are a nice distraction, let’s remember how serious this is. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Absolutely. I mean, I’m trying to curb my Twitter addiction, but between the memes and the important protest information, it’s just really hard to leave. Anyway, those were all our updates. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks for joining, Maya. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Anytime Morgan, because I literally work here. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Speaking of protest information, if you do find yourself in a protest zone, stay safe. We’ll leave some links about protecting your digital privacy in the show notes. And it might be worth going back and listening to our two-part series called The Surveillance Machine. We’ll be back next week with part two of our series on Spotify. For now, let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. Our producer is Maya Cueva. Chris Egusa is our Senior Editor. Jen Chien is KQED’s Director of Podcasts and helps edit the show. Sound design by Maya Cueva. Original music by Chris Egusa. Additional music by APM. Mixing and mastering by Brendan Willard. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad and Alana Walker. Katie Sprenger is our Podcast Operations Manager. And Holly Kernan is our Chief Content Officer. 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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink Dustsilver K-84 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 at “close all tabs pod.” 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>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Elon Musk and President Trump breaking up? LA protesters clashing with law enforcement? Waymos on fire (again)? Things have been moving fast the last few days — and like you, our feeds are on overload. Today, we’re bringing you a quick reaction episode to catch you up on a couple stories we’ve covered before that are suddenly back in the news. \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> producer Maya Cueva joins Morgan to break it all down.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC1677724333\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>We’ve talked about a few of these stories before — if you want to go deeper, here are some past episodes to check out:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12033066/the-broligarchy-pt-1-chronicles-of-the-paypal-mafia\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Broligarchy Pt 1: Chronicles of the PayPal Mafia | KQED\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12038910/the-surveillance-machine-pt-1-how-we-got-here\">The Surveillance Machine, Pt. 1: How We Got Here | KQED\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12030860/waymo-problems\">Waymo Robotaxis – Uneasiness and Vandalism | KQED\u003c/a>\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.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-musk-summary-timeline-political-relationship-rcna211453\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A timeline of the twists and turns in the Trump-Musk relationship\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Nnamdi Egwuonwu, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">NBC News \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/immigration-protests-threaten-to-boil-over-in-los-angeles\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Immigration Protests Threaten to Boil Over in Los Angeles \u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">— E. Tammy Kim, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The New Yorker\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://lapublicpress.org/2025/06/ice-raids-separate-families-but-bring-los-angeles-together/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">ICE raids tried to split LA apart, but might have made it stronger\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Michael Lozano, \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">LA Public Press \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.fastcompany.com/91348960/how-waymo-got-caught-in-the-crossfire-of-los-angeles-ice-protests\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How Waymo got caught in the crossfire of Los Angeles ICE protests\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — \u003c/span>Joe Berkowitz, \u003ci>Fast Company\u003cbr>\n\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\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\">Hey guys, welcome to Close All Tabs. We had planned to bring you part two of our Spotify deep dive today. And don’t worry, we’ll get back to that next week. But there have been some developments over the past week. Basically, the last few days have been so wild that we need to talk about it. We’re actually following up on three of our previous episodes today. And joining me to help sort through all of it is our producer, Maya Cueva. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>Hey Morgan!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Hey Maya. So this will be a bit of a speed round. Two quick tabs today. And as a side quest, I am going to try to make the case to you, Maya, for why I’ve stayed on Twitter, or as we now call it, X. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, please make your case, because it’s hard for me to get why anyone would want to stay on X, but I do want to understand. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I will try my best. Okay, we’ve got a few things to cover today, including what’s happening with Waymos and protest surveillance in LA. But before we get to that, we have to talk about something that happened last week. Elon Musk and Donald Trump finally broke up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is Close All Tabs. I’m Morgan Sung, tech journalist, and your chronically online friend, here to open as many browser tabs as it takes to help you understand how the digital world affects our real lives. Let’s get into it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Maya, are you ready? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, Morgan. Let’s open a new tab. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Great Elon Crash Out. Back in March, we did a series on “the Broligarchy,” and more specifically, the ideology that drives tech titans like Elon Musk as they accumulate political power. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And how they might use that power to influence U.S. Policy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News Anchor 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’re seeing a rise in what I guess we’ll call the “Broligarchy”. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News Anchor 2: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The “Broligarchs” really have an explicit political agenda. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News Anchor 3: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How do you survive the “Broligarchy”? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And nothing embodied the Broligarchy quite like the relationship between Elon Musk and President Donald Trump. And I just want to say up front, this stuff is really serious, right? Like the fact that these two men control so many levers of power and the ripple effects of their decisions have already had massive and sometimes devastating consequences — that should be a source of concern for us all. But at the same time, their personal relationship, what many have called a bromance, there’s something kind of funny about it. Like it has high school vibes. And social media has really eaten that up. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But it seems like that relationship is over, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s true. At least it is as of when we’re recording this, on Monday afternoon. After less than a year since Musk publicly endorsed Trump, the bromance is dead. Okay, let’s start right after Election Day. They were still pretty cozy back then. This was Trump in his victory speech right after winning the election. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donald Trump: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let me tell you, we have a new star. A star is born, Elon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then Elon starts overseeing DOGE, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. He’s the face of the Department of Government Efficiency. And under his de facto leadership, DOGE is slashing government agencies left and right. We see mass layoffs and the dismantling of aid programs. And it’s an accounting and privacy disaster. Obviously, Trump and Musk are getting a lot of backlash over this. And we start to see cracks in the relationship. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right, yeah, and didn’t that bizarre White House Tesla showcase happen during all of this? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, by March, Tesla stock was down by like 45%. So while Tesla is slumping as a company, Trump and Musk turned the White House lawn into a Tesla showroom. They live stream it on X and Trump makes a show of wanting to buy one. He really talks up the Cybertruck. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donald Trump: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Who else but this guy would design this, and everybody on the road is looking at it. It’s amazing, actually. As soon as I saw it, I said, that is the coolest design. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So you know how there’s always that one couple on Instagram that you know is not doing well, but they overcompensate by posting really, like, lovey-dovey captions and all that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ugh, yes, it’s like, why are you pretending? You’re not fooling anyone. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so I think this Tesla showcase is kind of like that. That same month, as the White House gets heat for DOGE’s actions, Trump goes on Truth Social and says that the agency heads are in charge of staffing, not Musk and DOGE. This is when the president starts to rein Musk in. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so we’ve heard that Trump and Musk are getting backlash for a lot of the actions they’re taking, especially DOGE, and Musk’s companies are suffering. And all of this seems to be creating tension, right? So when did the actual breakup happen? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, at the start of last month, Musk says he’s stepping back from DOGE to focus on his own companies like Tesla and SpaceX. A few weeks later, Musk goes on CBS and bashes the president’s budget proposal, what Trump calls his “Big, Beautiful Bill.” Musk says that bill increases the budget deficit and undermines DOGE’s work. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Elon Musk: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful, but I don’t know if it could be both. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And by the end of the month, the White House announces that Musk’s temporary role as a special government employee has ended. They host a ceremony, and the president makes this grand gesture of gifting Musk a gold key to the White house. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Donald Trump: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I have given it to some, but it goes to very special people, and I thought I’d give it to Elon as a presentation from our country. Thank you, Elon. Take care. Thank you \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so this seems pretty cordial to me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know, it’s like that part of a breakup where you tell people you’re still on good terms and you wish each other the best and you’re going to be in each other’s lives, all that. But like, we know what happens. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh yeah, we’ve all been there before. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right, except these are two exceptionally powerful men. So this is where it gets really juicy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, tell me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So a couple of days ago, Musk goes on X and starts tearing apart the bill. He says, hold on, let me pull it up. “This massive, outrageous, pork-filled congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it. You know you did wrong. You KNOW it.” And Trump tells reporters that Musk is upset because the bill would end tax credits for electric vehicles. And then these guys just start going at it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wait, so what happened? Can you break it down for me? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is why I say I will never leave the app, because as bad as it gets, there are still days when everyone comes out of hibernation and just starts posting. And this includes Elon Musk. So he starts firing off at Trump on X. First, he says that Trump would have lost the election without him. Trump goes to Truth Social, and he says Musk went crazy after he was asked to leave the White House. He threatens to cut Musk’s government subsidies and contracts. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And I’m guessing Elon Musk didn’t take that well. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, not at all. Musk goes nuclear. He runs back to X and posts something that makes everyone’s jaw drop. He claims that the president is in the Epstein files. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. So it’s worth noting that Trump was once publicly friends with the pedophile and sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein. But he hasn’t been implicated in any of the investigations into Epstein or his accomplices. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So it can’t get worse than that, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">He kept going. In another post, Musk says that the tariffs will cause a recession. And then he reposts someone else who says that Trump should be impeached and replaced with JD Vance. So this is all what people are calling a “generational crash out.” Were you seeing any of this? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Honestly, Morgan, not the full back and forth. Like I got the condensed version from IG Reels, reacting to them fighting. And I saw some funny responses like when AOC quoted Azealea Banks. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Reporter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Any quick reaction on what’s going on with Elon Musk and President Trump on Twitter right now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh man, the girls are fighting, aren’t they? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is the reason I’m still on this hellish app. There were so many good memes about this breakup. Like there’s this one where someone posted a picture of Trump and Musk together and then captioned it with the lyrics from the Bon Iver song, Skinny Love, classic breakup song. We’ve all been there. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Or someone else posted this edit mashing up a scene from the Diary of a Wimpy Kid Movie, and Driver’s License by Olivia Rodrigo. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Diary of a Wimpy Kid Movie: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You broke my hand and you didn’t even seem sorry. That broken hand was the best thing that ever happened to you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And they captioned it, “the two most powerful men in the country on a random Thursday.”. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s hilarious. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ll tell you about one example that really sent me. Maya, are you familiar with old man yaoi? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wait no, what is that? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So this is one of those very online, deep internet things, so just stay with me here. Old man yaoi is kind of like a jokey fan fiction trope. Yaoi is this Japanese term that refers to gay male relationships in manga and anime. Sometimes it’s called BL, or boy’s love, and people will also tag fan fiction as yaoi. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Old man yaoi is this term for older male characters, and naturally, Because the internet is the way it is, there is a lot of tongue-in-cheek old man yaoi about Trump. Wait, really? Last year, there was a lot of enemies-to-lovers old man yaoi about Trump and former President Joe Biden. And now, there is old man yaoi about Trump and Musk. Can I read you an excerpt that I saw on X during the great crash out? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I guess. I don’t think I have a choice here. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sorry, you do not. Okay. So here’s a dramatic reading of some old man yaoi posted by X user. Aegonism. Aegonism, thank you for making my day. “Donald, please, let’s just talk about this,” Elon pleads, attempting to catch the other man’s eyes. But Donald rolls over in bed, presenting his back to him. The tension in the bedroom is suffocating, and Elon tries to take a deep breath, but it feels like he can barely get any air. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“There’s nothing to talk about,” Donald finally responds, flatly, and Elon is taken aback by his tone. He sounds so cold and distant. He doesn’t want to fight. He can feel tears welling up and he takes a moment to wipe his face before continuing, hoping Donald won’t notice his red rimmed eyes. “Don, this bill is bad for Tesla. You have to understand that.” Donald sighs heavily. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh my God, I literally have no words. I do admire the creativity though. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Again, one of the top 10 days on Twitter. This app is terrible, but there’s nothing that’s really taken its place for me. I get a lot of news from Reddit and Bluesky, funny posts from Tumblr, and Instagram is great for organizing and sharing resources, and honestly, good shitpost accounts. TikTok is up there with good content too, but there is nothing that quite has the same real-time, super fast memeability like Twitter does, and you’re definitely not getting the stuff on threads. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, I feel like I am convinced now. So what are some of the other top meme days on Twitter? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, just a recent years, Luigi. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>Right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Speaker 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I do want to give a credit to Luigi Mangione \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Will Smith Oscar slap. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Rock: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Will Smith just smacked the shit out of me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You remember that time that ship got stuck in the Suez Canal? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News Anchor 4: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">A giant container ship ran aground in the Suez Canal after losing power. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Or when President Biden dropped out of the presidential race. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News Anchor 5: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">President Joe Biden’s decision not to run for re-election. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Or JD Vance couch rumors, we remember that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Youtuber \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You may be wondering why you’re seeing a ton of memes and posts about Donald Trump’s VP pick, JD vance, and his sectional relationship with his couch. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I do remember that and we did a story about it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But my personal favorite day is right after the election back in 2020 when Rudy Giuliani hosted a press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping instead of the Four Seasons Hotel. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Hayes: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, there is, of course, a mystery that hangs over all this, which is how the press conference came to be held at Four Seasons Total Landscaping in the first place. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh my God, yes, I remember this! Okay, so I feel like I kind of get it. It’s the immediacy, right? But let’s get back to the bromance breakup, our Trump and Musk done for good? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, like any good breakup, it’s complicated. Musk actually ended up deleting some of his more incendiary posts, including the one about the Epstein files. Over the weekend, Trump told NBC News that their relationship was over and that he has no desire to repair it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>Ooof. \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Classic breakup. But it looks like Elon is the one missing Trump, but Trump is the one over it. And we’re all watching their reality TV show. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, exactly. Except, unlike Love Island-. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Love Island: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Welcome to Love Island! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This reality show also has massive real world ripple effects, which are affecting real people. The state of democracy kind of rests on the whims of these two very powerful, very egotistical guys. But I will say that the tone has changed recently. Musk is screenshotting some of Trump’s Truth Social posts and reposting them on X, appearing to agree with him. So it seems like he’s trying to make amends. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I think I did see that he was agreeing with Trump’s post condemning the protests against ICE raids in LA. I feel like we should get into that Morgan, right? In a new tab? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We definitely will. But before we do that, let’s take a quick break.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, we’re back. New tab. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What’s happening in LA ?? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so last month we did a two-part episode on the Surveillance State and how protesters and organizers are being identified and targeted. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News Anchor 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">30-Year-old Rumeysa Ozturk was on her way to break her Ramadan fast when six plain-clothed officers approached her. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But Morgan, what’s going on where you are in Los Angeles? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If you hear any background noise right now, it’s probably the helicopters flying over my apartment. I’m not too far from the protests, and LAPD has been circling over the city all weekend. We’re recording this on Monday evening, and the protests are still going strong. But aside from where those demonstrations are happening, at least in the neighborhood I’m in, LA is unsettlingly quiet. It’s like people are afraid to go outside, especially as ICE continues to patrol the city. But again, this is why I’m still on Twitter. There’s a pretty well-established network of mutual aid groups and organizers sharing resources and information over there. A lot of it is on Instagram, but real-time updates are coming from Twitter. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I’m seeing it all over my IG feed as well, but when did this all start? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, it all started with a string of immigration raids on Friday, from a Home Depot to a clothing store downtown. And then people who appeared for their immigration check-ins were detained and taken to unknown locations. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News Anchor 2: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The FBI, Homeland Security, and ICE agents performed a raid a couple of hours ago. We’re just now seeing some people that are being detained. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And remember, Los Angeles is a sanctuary city. City resources cannot be used for federal immigration enforcement, and the city is prohibited from sharing data with immigration authorities. It’s also worth noting that Los Angeles is a city of immigrants, something that a lot of the community takes pride in. So protests started that night, one outside an immigration detention center downtown and another in the fashion district where one of the ICE raids happened. At some point, they converged. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Protesters: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let them free, let them stay! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Law enforcement showed up in riot gear to disperse the crowds. But the protests spread on Saturday across downtown LA, Compton, and Paramount. Trump deployed at least 2,000 National Guard troops in Los Angeles, which Governor Newsom has called unlawful and a serious breach of state sovereignty. Law enforcement has used tear gas and pepper spray and flashbang grenades to try to disperse the crowds. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News Anchor 3: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You told me you got caught up in the tear gas as well? Describe what happened to you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Man on the street: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh, just, uh, tasted a little tear gas. Tasted like fascism. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But it all really escalated on Sunday afternoon, which coincided with LA Pride. People were literally going straight from Pride events to the protests, demanding an end to ICE raids. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Protesters: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Who’s got the power? We’ve got the power! What kind of power? People Power! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They even managed to shut down the freeway. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Protesters: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Weirdo! Weirdos! Weirdo! \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So the LAPD has deployed rubber bullets and surveillance drones in addition to the tear gas and flashbang grenades. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>News Anchor 1: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think they’re going to push in from this side of the road. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then there’s everything with Waymos. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right, like a few months ago, we did an episode on the recent uptick in Waymo vandalism. And as a reminder, Waymos are the autonomous self-driving cars that operate in a few cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles. But Morgan, why don’t you walk us through what Waymos have to do with the protests? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, a bunch of Waymos happened to be nearby during the protests downtown. And amid the confrontation between law enforcement and protestors, those Waymos were tagged with anti-ICE messages and then set on fire, which went super viral. So there’s been a lot of discourse around Waymo vandalism and property damage during these protests. But I think it’s important to remember that Waymos have become representative of encroaching big tech, especially here in LA. There’s a lot of anger at the way that tech companies like Palantir are helping immigration enforcement. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right, and plus there’s speculation that Waymos might be used as surveillance tools. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly. 404 media recently reported that the LAPD has used footage obtained from a Waymo to investigate crimes. So a lot people are suspicious of autonomous vehicles right now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> Yeah, so what else is happening in LA? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, now the latest escalation is that the Trump administration is sending Marines to LA? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, I saw that. It really looks like a war zone. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, only around certain parts of L.A. But the president is posting through it on Truth Social. He’s called the protests “a riot.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wow, I haven’t seen any of that because I’m not on Truth Social, but does this bring us back to Elon Musk? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Also not on Truth Social, but I did see screenshots on Twitter. And yes, one of the posts that Musk shared on Twitter, or X, calls for a ban on masks at protests. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And like we talked about in our surveillance series a few weeks ago, masks have become a staple at protests to avoid facial recognition. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That and also to reduce exposure to tear gas, pepper spray, and airborne viruses like COVID. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, but like we’ve seen in the student protests for Palestine over the last year, there’s been an effort to make protesters easier to identify. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly. On Truth Social, Trump has also called for the arrest of anyone wearing a mask. So masking has become a real point of contention in these protests as activists demand that ICE agents and LAPD and other law enforcement officials also unmask when showing up to protests. This is a thing in Los Angeles especially. Activists have made an effort to identify ICE agents and publicize their names and faces so that anyone at risk of deportation knows who to avoid. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But now some conservative lawmakers are trying to penalize anyone who identifies a law enforcement officer. Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn recently proposed legislation that would punish people with up to five years in prison for identifying ICE agents. But, we’ll have to see how the protests unfold throughout the rest of the month. ICE operations in LA are supposed to continue for the next 30 days. But it is worth noting that the president’s social media posts aren’t like legal powers enshrined in the Constitution. They can’t enforce a mask ban just because he posted about it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They can’t legally enforce that. But we’ve seen this administration do plenty of things they’re not supposed to do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So true. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. Executive orders are quick to enact, and the justice system is really slow. And those things have real consequences for all of us. So, while Twitter memes are a nice distraction, let’s remember how serious this is. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Absolutely. I mean, I’m trying to curb my Twitter addiction, but between the memes and the important protest information, it’s just really hard to leave. Anyway, those were all our updates. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thanks for joining, Maya. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Maya Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Anytime Morgan, because I literally work here. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Speaking of protest information, if you do find yourself in a protest zone, stay safe. We’ll leave some links about protecting your digital privacy in the show notes. And it might be worth going back and listening to our two-part series called The Surveillance Machine. We’ll be back next week with part two of our series on Spotify. For now, let’s close all these tabs. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. Our producer is Maya Cueva. Chris Egusa is our Senior Editor. Jen Chien is KQED’s Director of Podcasts and helps edit the show. Sound design by Maya Cueva. Original music by Chris Egusa. Additional music by APM. Mixing and mastering by Brendan Willard. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad and Alana Walker. Katie Sprenger is our Podcast Operations Manager. And Holly Kernan is our Chief Content Officer. 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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink Dustsilver K-84 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 at “close all tabs pod.” 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\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "sf-crypto-billionaire-wants-to-donate-millions-for-police-drones-surveillance-efforts",
"title": "SF Crypto Billionaire Wants to Donate Millions for Police Drones, Surveillance Efforts",
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"headTitle": "SF Crypto Billionaire Wants to Donate Millions for Police Drones, Surveillance Efforts | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>San Francisco police commissioners on Wednesday will consider a crypto billionaire’s offer of nearly $9.4 million to fund \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12004882/san-francisco-to-deploy-mobile-surveillance-units-in-latest-expansion-of-police-tech\">increased surveillance efforts\u003c/a>, reigniting questions about the ethics of both the controversial technology and large private donations for public programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The funds would come from cryptocurrency company Ripple and the San Francisco Police Community Foundation, a nonprofit created by Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen, who has been a prominent supporter of new \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco-police-department\">SFPD\u003c/a> technology efforts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If approved, the donation would provide new downtown office space for the Police Department’s surveillance unit, dubbed the Real Time Investigations Center, and funding for a dozen officer-operated drones to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11999063/san-francisco-police-deploy-drone-surveillance-after-24-year-break\">add to the fleet\u003c/a> it brought online last summer, among other technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roughly $2.13 million of the donation would be in the form of a cost-free sublease of Ripple’s former office space at 315 Montgomery St. Currently, the RTIC operates out of the Hall of Justice, but according to the resolution before the Police Commission, the run-down building has hampered the unit’s ability to make use of its new technologies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Larsen said the space has “such bad infrastructure that the police today literally lose connectivity to their drones while they’re trying to chase a suspect and that ruins the chase.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12042525\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12042525\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFPDFile-39-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFPDFile-39-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFPDFile-39-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFPDFile-39-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFPDFile-39-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFPDFile-39-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFPDFile-39-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A San Francisco Police Department officer stands at 16th and Mission Streets in San Francisco on April 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Ripple’s existing lease doesn’t expire until December 2026, but the company relocated into a larger space on Battery Street in Jackson Square in 2022. Until the paid-for rental expires, Larsen said he saw an opportunity to “help out” the Police Department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said that after next December, it will be up to SFPD to decide whether to keep and pay for the space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The remaining $7.25 million would go toward the purchase of new drones and installation of technology upgrades in the space, provided by the San Francisco Community Police Foundation. The legislation would also waive the city’s competitive bidding requirement that would generally apply to the Police Department’s purchases of equipment, technology or services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Larsen created the foundation, which was formed last year to support the San Francisco Police Department, but does not sit on its board.[aside postID=news_12039914 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/250319-SF-SPEED-CAMERAS-MD-03-KQED-1020x680.jpg']Critics of the donation say that it allows wealthy citizens to “buy” policies they want the city to adopt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is a rich person bankrolling technology that police are going to buy and use in the city, also without any democratic approval,” said Matthew Guariglia, a senior policy analyst at the digital privacy nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Larsen disagrees that the donation overrides community input. He said it has to go through four levels of oversight — the foundation’s board cleared the funding, and along with the sublease, will now have to gain the approval of the Police Commission, Board of Supervisors, and Mayor Daniel Lurie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lurie has expressed support for RTIC and its technology, announcing at an April press conference that SFPD plans to expand the unit in the coming months and crediting its work in part for the city’s drop in crime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“RTIC has already supported hundreds of arrests, with crime down 30% citywide, and with this new facility, the SFPD will have the tools and the technology it needs to take this work to the next level and help our officers keep our streets safe,” he said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of the tools the money would fund were also \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11978236/props-e-and-f-pass-prewrite\">backed by San Francisco voters\u003c/a> through the passage of Proposition E, which expanded SFPD’s ability to use surveillance technology and diminished the Police Commission’s power. It received 54% approval last March.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, the RTIC unit has assisted in more than 500 arrests and prevented “numerous” police pursuits, according to the resolution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11959511\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11959511\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/GettyImages-1258762922-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A street in San Francisco lined with Victorian homes and cars. The camera is angled from a lower angle to focus on shards of shattered glass on the floor.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/GettyImages-1258762922-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/GettyImages-1258762922-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/GettyImages-1258762922-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/GettyImages-1258762922-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/GettyImages-1258762922-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/GettyImages-1258762922-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/GettyImages-1258762922-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Broken glass pieces from a car window are seen near a curb in Alamo Square in San Francisco, California, on June 16, 2023. \u003ccite>(Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Some of these tools … have been really effective at catching these professional smash-and-grab crews that run roughshod over the city,” Larsen told KQED. “You’ve seen that now in the numbers: over 20% drop from last year in smash-and-grabs, last year was the lowest murder rate since the 1960s.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Guariglia pointed out that the decline in smash-and-grab robberies isn’t unique to San Francisco. Nationally, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/blog/crime-in-california-is-trending-downward-new-data-suggests/#:~:text=California's%20decreases%20in%20violent%20and,%25%20and%204.4%25%2C%20respectively.\">property crime was down 8.4%\u003c/a> in 2024, according to the Public Policy Institute of California, and it has continued to fall this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said increased surveillance can easily have a disproportionate and negative impact on poorer, more vulnerable communities, depending on where the technology is placed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you live in a neighborhood with more surveillance … they are open to police harassment for jaywalking, for littering, a lot of really small minor things that are actionable for officers, but if you live in fancier neighborhoods up the hill with less cameras, you can get away with,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Larsen said he understands that concern, but believes that San Francisco’s public safety policy has swung too far on both sides of the pendulum in recent years, from over- to under-policing. The current surveillance technology, he said, can be used in a conscious way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The concern for the pendulum swinging too far the other way again is a valid one,” he said. “There’s a lot of room here to make sure that the police have the tools they need for their basic job, but everybody has to be concerned about it going too far, and we are, too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "San Francisco police commissioners will consider the offer from Ripple and the nonprofit created by its co-founder, Chris Larsen, reigniting ethical questions.",
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"title": "SF Crypto Billionaire Wants to Donate Millions for Police Drones, Surveillance Efforts | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>San Francisco police commissioners on Wednesday will consider a crypto billionaire’s offer of nearly $9.4 million to fund \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12004882/san-francisco-to-deploy-mobile-surveillance-units-in-latest-expansion-of-police-tech\">increased surveillance efforts\u003c/a>, reigniting questions about the ethics of both the controversial technology and large private donations for public programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The funds would come from cryptocurrency company Ripple and the San Francisco Police Community Foundation, a nonprofit created by Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen, who has been a prominent supporter of new \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco-police-department\">SFPD\u003c/a> technology efforts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If approved, the donation would provide new downtown office space for the Police Department’s surveillance unit, dubbed the Real Time Investigations Center, and funding for a dozen officer-operated drones to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11999063/san-francisco-police-deploy-drone-surveillance-after-24-year-break\">add to the fleet\u003c/a> it brought online last summer, among other technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Roughly $2.13 million of the donation would be in the form of a cost-free sublease of Ripple’s former office space at 315 Montgomery St. Currently, the RTIC operates out of the Hall of Justice, but according to the resolution before the Police Commission, the run-down building has hampered the unit’s ability to make use of its new technologies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Larsen said the space has “such bad infrastructure that the police today literally lose connectivity to their drones while they’re trying to chase a suspect and that ruins the chase.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12042525\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12042525\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFPDFile-39-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFPDFile-39-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFPDFile-39-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFPDFile-39-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFPDFile-39-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFPDFile-39-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFPDFile-39-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A San Francisco Police Department officer stands at 16th and Mission Streets in San Francisco on April 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Ripple’s existing lease doesn’t expire until December 2026, but the company relocated into a larger space on Battery Street in Jackson Square in 2022. Until the paid-for rental expires, Larsen said he saw an opportunity to “help out” the Police Department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said that after next December, it will be up to SFPD to decide whether to keep and pay for the space.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The remaining $7.25 million would go toward the purchase of new drones and installation of technology upgrades in the space, provided by the San Francisco Community Police Foundation. The legislation would also waive the city’s competitive bidding requirement that would generally apply to the Police Department’s purchases of equipment, technology or services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Larsen created the foundation, which was formed last year to support the San Francisco Police Department, but does not sit on its board.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Critics of the donation say that it allows wealthy citizens to “buy” policies they want the city to adopt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is a rich person bankrolling technology that police are going to buy and use in the city, also without any democratic approval,” said Matthew Guariglia, a senior policy analyst at the digital privacy nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Larsen disagrees that the donation overrides community input. He said it has to go through four levels of oversight — the foundation’s board cleared the funding, and along with the sublease, will now have to gain the approval of the Police Commission, Board of Supervisors, and Mayor Daniel Lurie.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lurie has expressed support for RTIC and its technology, announcing at an April press conference that SFPD plans to expand the unit in the coming months and crediting its work in part for the city’s drop in crime.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“RTIC has already supported hundreds of arrests, with crime down 30% citywide, and with this new facility, the SFPD will have the tools and the technology it needs to take this work to the next level and help our officers keep our streets safe,” he said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of the tools the money would fund were also \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11978236/props-e-and-f-pass-prewrite\">backed by San Francisco voters\u003c/a> through the passage of Proposition E, which expanded SFPD’s ability to use surveillance technology and diminished the Police Commission’s power. It received 54% approval last March.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since then, the RTIC unit has assisted in more than 500 arrests and prevented “numerous” police pursuits, according to the resolution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11959511\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11959511\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/GettyImages-1258762922-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A street in San Francisco lined with Victorian homes and cars. The camera is angled from a lower angle to focus on shards of shattered glass on the floor.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/GettyImages-1258762922-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/GettyImages-1258762922-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/GettyImages-1258762922-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/GettyImages-1258762922-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/GettyImages-1258762922-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/GettyImages-1258762922-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/08/GettyImages-1258762922-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Broken glass pieces from a car window are seen near a curb in Alamo Square in San Francisco, California, on June 16, 2023. \u003ccite>(Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Some of these tools … have been really effective at catching these professional smash-and-grab crews that run roughshod over the city,” Larsen told KQED. “You’ve seen that now in the numbers: over 20% drop from last year in smash-and-grabs, last year was the lowest murder rate since the 1960s.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Guariglia pointed out that the decline in smash-and-grab robberies isn’t unique to San Francisco. Nationally, \u003ca href=\"https://www.ppic.org/blog/crime-in-california-is-trending-downward-new-data-suggests/#:~:text=California's%20decreases%20in%20violent%20and,%25%20and%204.4%25%2C%20respectively.\">property crime was down 8.4%\u003c/a> in 2024, according to the Public Policy Institute of California, and it has continued to fall this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said increased surveillance can easily have a disproportionate and negative impact on poorer, more vulnerable communities, depending on where the technology is placed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you live in a neighborhood with more surveillance … they are open to police harassment for jaywalking, for littering, a lot of really small minor things that are actionable for officers, but if you live in fancier neighborhoods up the hill with less cameras, you can get away with,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Larsen said he understands that concern, but believes that San Francisco’s public safety policy has swung too far on both sides of the pendulum in recent years, from over- to under-policing. The current surveillance technology, he said, can be used in a conscious way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The concern for the pendulum swinging too far the other way again is a valid one,” he said. “There’s a lot of room here to make sure that the police have the tools they need for their basic job, but everybody has to be concerned about it going too far, and we are, too.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "the-spotify-effect-pt-1-ghosts-in-the-playlist",
"title": "The Spotify Effect, Pt 1: Ghosts in the Playlist",
"publishDate": 1749031240,
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"headTitle": "The Spotify Effect, Pt 1: Ghosts in the Playlist | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Spotify has morphed from a straightforward music library and search engine into a data-driven system built to feed you songs to match your mood and optimize your time on the platform. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this episode, Morgan is joined by music journalist and author Liz Pelly to break down how Spotify built its playlist empire, the rise of so-called “ghost artists” on the platform, and how its algorithmic approach is changing our relationship to music, artists, and the culture around them. Plus, Morgan tries to solve a personal mystery: “Am I being haunted by Sabrina Carpenter?”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC2248363665\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Guest:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://lizpelly.info/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Liz Pelly\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, independent music journalist and author of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Further Reading:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://lizpelly.info/book\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Liz Pelly\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.vox.com/culture/357907/spotify-sabrina-carpenter-espresso-chappell-roan-algorithm\">The Spotify conspiracy theories about “Espresso,” explained\u003c/a> — Rebecca Jennings, \u003ci>Vox \u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.businessinsider.com/spotify-playlists-music-discovery-release-radar-layoffs-cost-cutting-2025-5#:~:text='Algorithmic%20fatigue',flooded%20with%20music%20they%20hate.&text=The%20music%20app%20I've,I'm%20obsessed%20with%20rainstorms.\">‘Algorithm fatigue:’ Spotify Fans Say It’s Going Downhill. Company Insiders Agree.\u003c/a> — John Paul Titlow, \u003ci>Business Insider \u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.instagram.com/closealltabspod/\">Follow us on Instagram\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\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\">Last year, Sabrina Carpenter released Espresso. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sabrina Carpenter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now he’s thinkin’ ’bout me every night, oh/ Is it that sweet? I guess so / Say you can’t sleep, baby, I know / That’s that me espresso\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think I first heard the song on TikTok, or maybe it appeared on one of my Spotify daily mixes. Either way, I thought it was fun, so I put it on my summer playlist. And then it was like there was no escaping espresso. For months, every time I finished listening to a playlist or album, it seemed like the next song that Spotify auto-played was almost always espresso. I remember listening to Charli XCX’s Brat, and then… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sabrina Carpenter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Say you can’t sleep, baby, I know / That’s that me espresso\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Brat is like super electro pop club music that sounds nothing like espresso. But I guess it made sense in my head because they were both trending last summer. But it kept happening with totally different genres. And music that had been out for years. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s the one that really got me. I was listening to my playlist of instrumental movie scores, right? It was on shuffle and the last song was the one from the cornfield scene in Interstellar. Imagine you’re me, listening to this devastatingly beautiful song. The music swells into these ethereal arpeggios, building on each other until it hits a crescendo. And then it comes to an abrupt stop. And while you’re still lingering on the melody of that song, you hear the opening bars of another. And at that point, I knew exactly what was coming. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sabrina Carpenter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Say you can’t sleep, baby, I know / That’s that me espresso\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I wasn’t the only one being haunted by espresso. This was so widespread that there was a whole internet conspiracy theory claiming that Sabrina Carpenter’s team had struck a deal with Spotify to force its algorithm to incessantly autoplay the song in order to boost streaming numbers. Deals between streaming platforms and musicians do exist, but it’s not as simple as that. There’s no single algorithm controlling all of Spotify. What’s more likely is Spotify knew I had listened to the song before, so it just kept recommending it to me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I always try to differentiate, too, the difference between streaming services show you music that you like versus streaming services, show you a music that you seem statistically likely to not hit skip on because basically what streaming services have is a pool of data on you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Liz Pelly is a music critic and journalist who’s been covering Spotify for years. She’s also the author of Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and The Cost of the Perfect Playlist. It’s all about how Spotify’s playlists and recommendation algorithms have changed the way we listen to music. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’ve seen a lot of these headlines like, “How Spotify plans to get into your head and tell you what music you like before you even know you like it yourself.” And I think it’s really important to sort of push back on those types of narratives and continue reiterating that that’s not possible. They can’t do that, they can’t that. But what they can do is look at everything that you’ve listened to in the past and make predictions of tracks that you might either be willing to hit play on or that you won’t hit skip on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Spotify gives users access to a seemingly endless library of music, but it’s really become known for being a music discovery platform. For years, its editorial playlists and personalized features introduced hundreds of millions of users to new artists and genres. But now… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Something that I commonly hear from people who use Spotify is that, you know, the recommendations used to introduce them to lots of new music, but over time, the recommendations have gotten a lot more boring. And now all they ever hear is stuff that they’ve already listened to over and over again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This TikTok creator named Anthony Sistilli summed it up in a video complaining about a feature called “song radio.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anthony Sistilli: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Because if I started a radio about a song, it meant I wanted to hear more songs similar to that one that I may or may not know. But now when you do that, it just gives you a bunch of songs that you’ve already listened to, you already have saved to your library, and it’s just insane. It’s so hard to discover music on it now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what’s behind Spotify’s shift from a music discovery engine to a platform for songs you already know? Has personalization gone too far? And will any of this explain why I couldn’t escape espresso? \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\">So did playlists ruin music? Before we get into all of that, let’s start at the beginning. And that means we open a new tab. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The birth of the Spotify playlist. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When Spotify launched in Sweden in 2008, it looked a lot different. When it first launched, the product was really more like a search bar. It was a sparse white page with a tagline that said, “A world of music, instant, simple, and free.” There was a search function and an option to create “play lists” — two words. They were essentially digital mixtapes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You would have to know what you were looking for when you went to the platform, whether it be an artist or an album. And when it came to playlists, it was a lot more dependent on playlists made by other users. There was this sprawling landscape of playlist influencers that were sort of dictating things in terms of what types of playlists became popular. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Originally, the company’s CEO, Daniel Ek, wanted the platform to be the “Google of music.” He was pretty resistant to the idea of Spotify ever becoming a curated service. When it launched in the United States in 2011, it had to compete with iTunes, so Spotify tried to stand out by being a social media platform and then a marketplace for music apps. Basically, the country marketed itself as a library for third-party apps to make playlists. And while that didn’t really work out, it turned out that playlists were super popular. In 2012, the company conducted a research study on its user base. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What they learned through this research is that while their early adopters might have been coming looking for that type of experience, there was increasingly a type of user that was looking for an experience more like that of Pandora. People were looking for specific lean back or passive listening playlists that they could just hit play on to soundtrack a moment in their day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this research, they discovered something that they called the “lean back listener.” So what can you describe this list- this kind of listener? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s this idea of this listener who isn’t particularly concerned with what artist or album they’re seeing out, but is more content to just pick a mood or a vibe or a playlist category and hit play and have a feed of music play in the background. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After that, Spotify rebranded from a world of music to music for every moment. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The homepage was reimagined with more of a focus on these sort of moody images of people in their everyday lives, like sun flares reflecting off of the window of a car while driving, people on vacation together at the beach, you know, like selling people on the idea of Spotify being something that would accompany them in these different moods and moments in their lives. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To accomplish this, in 2013, Spotify acquired a company called Tunigo, which made playlists for different vibes. Tunigo’s editorial staff became the first in-house playlist editors at Spotify. They launched playlists for every genre, like Rap Caviar and Hot Country, but also invested in playlists for “functional music.” That’s a term for music for different moods or activities. Think of how workout mixes always feature upbeat, and 10 songs to get you pumped! Or how cafes put on acoustic, mellow songs for ambiance. It’s less about the music itself and more about facilitating a mood. And it goes hand in hand with lean back listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So instead of putting on a specific album to unwind after work, a lean back listener might just pick from Spotify’s array of chill playlists. There are lots of categories of functional music playlists like Party or Focus or Romance. And playlists update every few days, so there’s always something new. Leanback listening and functional music weren’t invented by streaming. They’ve been around for decades. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In some ways, the history of commercial radio could also be looked at as a type of history of lean back listening as well. The story of streaming is as much about what’s changed as it is about what stayed the same. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before the days of Spotify’s playlist empire, a lot of leanback listeners turned on the radio. Instead of the Top Hits playlist, they listened to the Top 40s station. And instead of the Mellow Morning playlist, maybe they put on the Easy Listening station. But the way those songs are chosen has changed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The way in which listening happens today in this lean back environment also involves, I’d say a lot more data collection and user surveillance than perhaps lean back listening of generations past did, which in some ways I think allows the services to in an even more invasive way, really optimize for this type of listening experience. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Liz makes the argument that Spotify’s real value isn’t its library of music. It’s the data that it’s collected from hundreds of millions of users for over a decade. These listening habits have informed the way that Spotify categorizes and recommends music. So what happens to the culture of music when songs are reduced to data? That’s a new tab. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Streaming optimized music. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I still think handpicking songs for someone else to listen to is one of the most romantic things you can do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Cusack: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ve started to make a tape in my head for Laura. Full of stuff she’d like, full of stuff that would make her happy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Back in 2013, Spotify marketed playlists by invoking that same sense of intimacy. But today, Spotify’s in-house playlist creation doesn’t really work like that. It’s all about optimization. They analyze user behavior, music trends, and other kinds of data to put together a playlist that’s likely to get a ton of streaming time. And by 2016, these playlists were immensely influential. A lot of artists got their big break because their songs ended up on an official Spotify playlist. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some of the earliest narratives that streaming services and Spotify in particular were pitching to independent musicians were, yeah, this idea that Spotify was gonna level the playing field and that now the power of gatekeepers like commercial radio DJs and major labels would be diminished. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So up-and-coming artists could submit their tracks. And if a playlist editor liked it, they would add it to what was known as a “feeder playlist” — usually a smaller and niche playlist that wasn’t as popular. If the track had a low skip rate, it might move up to a bigger playlist with more followers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Editors also looked at data from user-generated playlists. If a song had a certain number of streams or saves, then editors would consider adding it to the flagship playlists like Morning Commute and Warehouse Party. But data doesn’t always paint a full picture. Liz pointed out that some songs had a lower skip rate because they were just inoffensive enough to listen to in the background. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So some musicians would notice that even though they had these whole varied catalogs, it was only music that was playlist friendly, background music friendly, maybe kind of like more straightforward, softer on the edges that would do well on streaming because it was music that was more amenable to playlist curation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And this is exactly what happened to lo-fi beats. You might have heard of this YouTube channel called Lo-Fi Hip-Hop Radio, Beats to Relax / Study To. It’s a 24-7 stream that features this anime girl wearing headphones, who’s now known as Lo-Fi Girl. She’s usually writing or reading at her desk, while her cat lounges on a windowsill in the background. The view through this window shows this idyllic cityscape. Sometimes it’s sunset, sometimes it’s raining. Meanwhile, there’s a continuous rotation of calming, overwhelmingly cozy instrumental music. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lo-Fi Girl is wildly popular. She’s inspired countless spinoff channels from jazzier lo-fi beats set at a busy cafe to lo-fied versions of movie and game soundtracks. Producing the genre is a whole cottage industry now. And Spotify has launched a bunch of playlists to capitalize on the trend. There’s the Lo-Fi Beats playlist, one called Lo-Fi Covers, one called Chill Hits, Late Night Beats, you get the picture. And they all kind of sound the same. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But today’s version of the genre sounds very different from how it did when it first emerged in the early 2010s. Back then, DIY musicians, who were inspired by hip hop producers like J Dilla and Madlib, shared their beats with each other on SoundCloud and internet forums. It wasn’t called lo-fi because it was chill music. It was literally low fidelity. It sounded a little unpolished and nostalgic. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was less about making background music to study to, and more about the art of beat making, sample flipping. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Early YouTube streamers like Lo-Fi Girl acted as curators, handpicking a constant rotation of lo-fi mixes from these independent beatmakers. But when Spotify jumped in, the genre started to change. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It kind of, I think is a good example of something that has happened like repeatedly across other genres and sounds in the streaming era, which is you may have like a playlist that becomes the main way in which people are coming to experience the certain type of music. So the fandom becomes a lot more about the playlists than it does necessarily about the different artists that are on the playlist. And streaming users come to expect a specific sound and a specific idea. So then there’s incentive for musicians and producers to sort of like make the same things over and over again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This strategy could be lucrative for musicians, but because people were often passively listening to ready-made, data-optimized playlists, the artists themselves remained largely unknown. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is in some ways kind of also on the listeners to take the initiative to learn about the musicians that they’re listening to if this is a type of music that you are interested in, but I also think that the interface doesn’t really in any way prioritize that. You know, lo-fi hip-hop beats on Spotify are one of the genres that has been most impacted by the emergence of what I talk about as ghost artists. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay wait what are ghost artists? We’ll get into that after this break. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, we’re back. So Liz was just telling us about how lo-fi beats is one of the genres most impacted by “ghost artists.” Let’s open a new tab. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ghost artists in the machine. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By ghost artists, Liz is referring to the artists who make up the majority of Spotify’s lean back functional music playlists. The ones made for listening to in the background, like lo-fi beats or deep focus. For a while, people have been accusing these playlists of being stocked with “fake artists.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For me, I think that at the very beginning, I thought that maybe these were just kind of DIY hustlers trying to game the system or maybe like teenagers in their bedrooms trying to like juice Spotify royalties or something. And it didn’t strike me as like super concerning at first. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But Liz found that it actually went way deeper than that. These playlists rack up millions of streams a day, even if people are only half-listening to them. By 2017, the company figured out a way that it could skimp on paying royalties. That’s when Spotify quietly rolled out what they called Perfect Fit Content, or PFC. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was able to pull the veil back a little bit and came to learn that, you know, these weren’t individual DIY hustlers trying to game the system. This was an actual effort from within Spotify. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Essentially, Spotify made deals with production companies, which were already commissioning musicians to write and produce low-budget stock music. Think of the kind of background music that goes into commercials, documentaries, YouTube videos. Even this show, when my colleague Chris doesn’t have time to compose original music for each episode. Except these were commissioned for specific playlists like lo-fi beats or ambient piano. And the thing is, these ghost artists were still marketed as if they were real individuals, complete with fake names and bios. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s not even that it’s encouraging a relationship with the playlist instead of the artists. There’s actually in this arrangement, there’s no opportunity for a relationship with the artists when the artists don’t actually exist. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Spotify paid lower royalties for PFCs, and in exchange, these tracks were given priority on Spotify’s functional music playlists. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was clear that there was special privilege being given to these types of tracks and there were certainly internal conversations where senior executives or senior music programming staff was drawing attention to these tracks and encouraging playlist editors to add them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Liz says that by 2023, there were hundreds of playlists that were over 90% PFC tracks. Spotify got to cut costs and the stock music production companies profited off the streams. But ghost artists, who are real musicians doing real labor, got the short end of the stick. They were making anonymous stock music. So even if they got paid upfront, they rarely got a cut of royalties. And even if their tracks went super viral, they didn’t get any credit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Most of the people I spoke with said things along the lines of, “I just make music, submit it, I get paid, and I don’t know what happens after that.” They didn’t know really anything about the broader arrangement with the streaming services, what was guaranteed or not guaranteed, or even like what that relationship looked like. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And Liz found that most playlist editors were not thrilled about this setup either. Even if it involved data, Spotify’s editorial playlist curation was something of an art form that required a deep understanding of music and culture, which editors took a lot of pride in. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, Spotify eventually hired an entirely new team of editors to handle PFCs, who were charged with prioritizing metrics above anything else. They were less focused on taste-making, and more on analyzing user behavior and sorting data. And that practice has become the norm for Spotify’s playlist editors. Spotify started to focus more on personalized playlists around the time they launched the PFC program. The editorial playlists aren’t nearly as influential as they used to be, because now it’s all about the algorithm. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s one person who talked to me who said, as someone working in an independent record label, they’d basically given up on the idea that their music would ever be considered for editorial playlist placement because everything had shifted to algorithmic recommendation and personalization products. And even former employees I spoke with, there was a sense that algorithmic personalized recommendations had sort of taken over to some extent or kind of won out. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Which brings us back again to… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sabrina Carpenter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Say you can’t sleep, baby, I know / That’s that me espresso\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, new tab. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Algorithm fatigue. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Liz says Spotify has always been driven by data. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is curation that’s really based on streaming metrics and less so on the willingness or openness to take risks. Personalized recommendation doesn’t just exist to offer the user a satisfying user experience, but also because they want to retain you as a subscriber. And one of the ways in which they can retain you is by simply, you know, showing you the music that they think you’re the most likely to stream. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">With that in mind, the company started collecting listener data way before they even knew what to do with it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In my research on Spotify, something that kept coming up as far back as like 2013, was this aspiration to create essentially like a button that someone could play when they opened the app and get the perfect recommendation at the perfect time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2014, the company bought a music data startup called Echo Nest, which had a database of 30 million songs and their defining characteristics. A year later, Spotify used all that data, combined with their own, to launch Discover Weekly. This has been one of Spotify’s defining features. 30 songs every Monday tailored to each individual user’s music taste. This was the start of Spotify pivot to hyper-personalized, algorithmically recommended music. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This idea of self-driving music, that someone would just be able to open the app and based on all this information that the app had on the user, the playlist recommendations would just guide themselves. A former employee mentioned to me that the whole goal of the playlisting ecosystem was to reduce the cognitive work that people had to do when they opened the app. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After that, editorial playlists took a backseat. There are the big ones, Rap Caviar, Today’s Top Hits, and the EDM playlist, Mint. There are a few others that Spotify still curates and invests in, and says that they still have human editors working on. But personalized recommendations were taking over. The job of a Spotify playlist editor began changing. Spotify calls it algo-torial. Playlist editors focus on creating large lists of songs. But an algorithm picks the ones shown to each individual listener. And all of it is optimized to keep you from turning it off. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This idea of like, “Oh, we want to reduce like the thinking that people have to do when they open the app,” I find troubling for all sorts of ways, also, especially as a music critic. But I, I think that it’s really interesting thinking about that as context for a couple of recommendation products that they did roll out the past few years, which are Daylist and AI DJ. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">These are totally algorithm-controlled playlists. Daylist is like Discover Weekly on steroids. It’s a playlist of 50 songs that’s updated three to five times a day, every day. It’s not just based on your taste, but also on the genres of music that you tend to listen to throughout the day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s providing you the perfect soundtrack tailored just you and your unique way of listening to music because we have all this data on you and we know all of these different niches you’re into. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">AI DJ also serves users with algorithmically recommended songs, but with interjections from an AI-generated voice, who acts kind of like a personal radio host. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>AI DJ: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hey Max, what’s going on? I’m X and from this moment on I’m gonna be your own personal AI DJ on Spotify. Let’s go!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They are both different manifestations of that idea that, you know, there’s just this one place that you go on the app and you just hit play and it shows you the perfect recommendation at the perfect time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then there’s Smart Shuffle, which auto plays music and is probably responsible for my Espresso hell. And like the others, it’s also hyper personalized algorithmically recommended songs based on each user’s listening history. But Liz points out that you don’t have to give into the algorithm. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The idea of like curating your own queue as a sort of like antidote to the feed. If you maintain your own queue, it can kind of like help in those moments to have a different way of listening to music. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Still, Liz says she’s concerned about the convenience and widespread adoption of Spotify’s recommendation system. Thanks to these fine-tuned algorithms, people have started to expect recommendations to come to them. And the practice of discovering and curating music for ourselves is withering away. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think a lot of people rely on personalized recommendations because they don’t know what to listen to or because they open the app and it’s just the first thing they see. And they might even be like a curious listener, someone who cares about music, but they open it, they see Daily Mix One, they say, “Oh, I like some of these artists, like, sure, I’ll just hit play on this.” It’s like a slippery slope when your daily listening habits come to sort of revolve around these algorithmic personalized recommendation products that are so tightly controlled by streaming platforms. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I made my Spotify account back in 2014. And since then, every decision I’ve made on Spotify, consciously or unconsciously, has been tracked and used for the platform’s various algorithms. The amount of time I’ve listened to certain songs, the music I’ve added to my own playlists, the songs I’ve skipped, and even the mixes I’ve put on as background music. All of this somehow contributed to me getting bombarded with Espresso last year. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think we’ve heard enough of that. I’ll admit it, it’s so convenient to just turn on my Daylist. Sometimes I’m in the car, or about to get on the treadmill, and I just don’t want to put in the mental work of looking for something to listen to. Here’s the other thing about Daylists that make them tempting to pick. They’re just so hyper specific. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My Daylist playlist is called Supergroup Ripped Jeans Tuesday Afternoon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Egusa: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Indie Chill Hipster Evening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Clavé, Barbershop, Friday Morning. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For the record, as I write this narration, mine is “Ethereal Alien Club Classics Afternoon,” with genres like Brat Summer, Indie Sleeze, and Recession Pop? Somehow, Ethereal Alien Club Classics includes Frank Ocean, Midski, and of course, Charlie XCX. But how did Spotify come up with these niche micro genres? How do artists feel about getting lumped into them? And how does this affect the way that we discover music? That’s a new tab, but we’ll have to save that for next week. So for now, we’re actually leaving this last tab open. We can close the rest though. \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. Sound design by Chris Egusa and Brendan Willard. Original music by Chris Egusa. Additional music by APM. Mixing and mastering by Brendan Willard. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad and Alana Walker. Katie Sprenger is our Podcast Operations Manager, and Holly Kernan is our Chief Content Officer. 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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink Dustsilver K-84 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>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "The Spotify Effect, Pt 1: Ghosts in the Playlist | KQED",
"description": "Spotify has morphed from a straight-forward music library and search engine into a data-driven system built to feed you songs to match your mood and optimize your time on the platform. In this episode, Morgan is joined by music journalist and author Liz Pelly to break down how Spotify built its playlist empire, the rise of so-called “ghost artists” on the platform, and how its algorithm approach is changing our relationship to music, artists, and the culture around them. Plus, Morgan tries to solve a personal mystery: why was she being haunted by Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso?",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Spotify has morphed from a straightforward music library and search engine into a data-driven system built to feed you songs to match your mood and optimize your time on the platform. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this episode, Morgan is joined by music journalist and author Liz Pelly to break down how Spotify built its playlist empire, the rise of so-called “ghost artists” on the platform, and how its algorithmic approach is changing our relationship to music, artists, and the culture around them. Plus, Morgan tries to solve a personal mystery: “Am I being haunted by Sabrina Carpenter?”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC2248363665\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Guest:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://lizpelly.info/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Liz Pelly\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, independent music journalist and author of \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Further Reading:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://lizpelly.info/book\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> — Liz Pelly\u003c/span>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.vox.com/culture/357907/spotify-sabrina-carpenter-espresso-chappell-roan-algorithm\">The Spotify conspiracy theories about “Espresso,” explained\u003c/a> — Rebecca Jennings, \u003ci>Vox \u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.businessinsider.com/spotify-playlists-music-discovery-release-radar-layoffs-cost-cutting-2025-5#:~:text='Algorithmic%20fatigue',flooded%20with%20music%20they%20hate.&text=The%20music%20app%20I've,I'm%20obsessed%20with%20rainstorms.\">‘Algorithm fatigue:’ Spotify Fans Say It’s Going Downhill. Company Insiders Agree.\u003c/a> — John Paul Titlow, \u003ci>Business Insider \u003c/i>\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>Want to give us feedback on the show? Shoot us an email at \u003ca href=\"mailto:CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\">CloseAllTabs@KQED.org\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\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\">Last year, Sabrina Carpenter released Espresso. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sabrina Carpenter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now he’s thinkin’ ’bout me every night, oh/ Is it that sweet? I guess so / Say you can’t sleep, baby, I know / That’s that me espresso\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think I first heard the song on TikTok, or maybe it appeared on one of my Spotify daily mixes. Either way, I thought it was fun, so I put it on my summer playlist. And then it was like there was no escaping espresso. For months, every time I finished listening to a playlist or album, it seemed like the next song that Spotify auto-played was almost always espresso. I remember listening to Charli XCX’s Brat, and then… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sabrina Carpenter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Say you can’t sleep, baby, I know / That’s that me espresso\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Brat is like super electro pop club music that sounds nothing like espresso. But I guess it made sense in my head because they were both trending last summer. But it kept happening with totally different genres. And music that had been out for years. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s the one that really got me. I was listening to my playlist of instrumental movie scores, right? It was on shuffle and the last song was the one from the cornfield scene in Interstellar. Imagine you’re me, listening to this devastatingly beautiful song. The music swells into these ethereal arpeggios, building on each other until it hits a crescendo. And then it comes to an abrupt stop. And while you’re still lingering on the melody of that song, you hear the opening bars of another. And at that point, I knew exactly what was coming. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sabrina Carpenter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Say you can’t sleep, baby, I know / That’s that me espresso\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I wasn’t the only one being haunted by espresso. This was so widespread that there was a whole internet conspiracy theory claiming that Sabrina Carpenter’s team had struck a deal with Spotify to force its algorithm to incessantly autoplay the song in order to boost streaming numbers. Deals between streaming platforms and musicians do exist, but it’s not as simple as that. There’s no single algorithm controlling all of Spotify. What’s more likely is Spotify knew I had listened to the song before, so it just kept recommending it to me. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I always try to differentiate, too, the difference between streaming services show you music that you like versus streaming services, show you a music that you seem statistically likely to not hit skip on because basically what streaming services have is a pool of data on you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Liz Pelly is a music critic and journalist who’s been covering Spotify for years. She’s also the author of Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and The Cost of the Perfect Playlist. It’s all about how Spotify’s playlists and recommendation algorithms have changed the way we listen to music. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’ve seen a lot of these headlines like, “How Spotify plans to get into your head and tell you what music you like before you even know you like it yourself.” And I think it’s really important to sort of push back on those types of narratives and continue reiterating that that’s not possible. They can’t do that, they can’t that. But what they can do is look at everything that you’ve listened to in the past and make predictions of tracks that you might either be willing to hit play on or that you won’t hit skip on. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Spotify gives users access to a seemingly endless library of music, but it’s really become known for being a music discovery platform. For years, its editorial playlists and personalized features introduced hundreds of millions of users to new artists and genres. But now… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Something that I commonly hear from people who use Spotify is that, you know, the recommendations used to introduce them to lots of new music, but over time, the recommendations have gotten a lot more boring. And now all they ever hear is stuff that they’ve already listened to over and over again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This TikTok creator named Anthony Sistilli summed it up in a video complaining about a feature called “song radio.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Anthony Sistilli: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Because if I started a radio about a song, it meant I wanted to hear more songs similar to that one that I may or may not know. But now when you do that, it just gives you a bunch of songs that you’ve already listened to, you already have saved to your library, and it’s just insane. It’s so hard to discover music on it now. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So what’s behind Spotify’s shift from a music discovery engine to a platform for songs you already know? Has personalization gone too far? And will any of this explain why I couldn’t escape espresso? \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\">So did playlists ruin music? Before we get into all of that, let’s start at the beginning. And that means we open a new tab. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The birth of the Spotify playlist. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When Spotify launched in Sweden in 2008, it looked a lot different. When it first launched, the product was really more like a search bar. It was a sparse white page with a tagline that said, “A world of music, instant, simple, and free.” There was a search function and an option to create “play lists” — two words. They were essentially digital mixtapes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You would have to know what you were looking for when you went to the platform, whether it be an artist or an album. And when it came to playlists, it was a lot more dependent on playlists made by other users. There was this sprawling landscape of playlist influencers that were sort of dictating things in terms of what types of playlists became popular. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Originally, the company’s CEO, Daniel Ek, wanted the platform to be the “Google of music.” He was pretty resistant to the idea of Spotify ever becoming a curated service. When it launched in the United States in 2011, it had to compete with iTunes, so Spotify tried to stand out by being a social media platform and then a marketplace for music apps. Basically, the country marketed itself as a library for third-party apps to make playlists. And while that didn’t really work out, it turned out that playlists were super popular. In 2012, the company conducted a research study on its user base. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">What they learned through this research is that while their early adopters might have been coming looking for that type of experience, there was increasingly a type of user that was looking for an experience more like that of Pandora. People were looking for specific lean back or passive listening playlists that they could just hit play on to soundtrack a moment in their day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In this research, they discovered something that they called the “lean back listener.” So what can you describe this list- this kind of listener? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s this idea of this listener who isn’t particularly concerned with what artist or album they’re seeing out, but is more content to just pick a mood or a vibe or a playlist category and hit play and have a feed of music play in the background. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After that, Spotify rebranded from a world of music to music for every moment. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The homepage was reimagined with more of a focus on these sort of moody images of people in their everyday lives, like sun flares reflecting off of the window of a car while driving, people on vacation together at the beach, you know, like selling people on the idea of Spotify being something that would accompany them in these different moods and moments in their lives. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">To accomplish this, in 2013, Spotify acquired a company called Tunigo, which made playlists for different vibes. Tunigo’s editorial staff became the first in-house playlist editors at Spotify. They launched playlists for every genre, like Rap Caviar and Hot Country, but also invested in playlists for “functional music.” That’s a term for music for different moods or activities. Think of how workout mixes always feature upbeat, and 10 songs to get you pumped! Or how cafes put on acoustic, mellow songs for ambiance. It’s less about the music itself and more about facilitating a mood. And it goes hand in hand with lean back listening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So instead of putting on a specific album to unwind after work, a lean back listener might just pick from Spotify’s array of chill playlists. There are lots of categories of functional music playlists like Party or Focus or Romance. And playlists update every few days, so there’s always something new. Leanback listening and functional music weren’t invented by streaming. They’ve been around for decades. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In some ways, the history of commercial radio could also be looked at as a type of history of lean back listening as well. The story of streaming is as much about what’s changed as it is about what stayed the same. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Before the days of Spotify’s playlist empire, a lot of leanback listeners turned on the radio. Instead of the Top Hits playlist, they listened to the Top 40s station. And instead of the Mellow Morning playlist, maybe they put on the Easy Listening station. But the way those songs are chosen has changed. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The way in which listening happens today in this lean back environment also involves, I’d say a lot more data collection and user surveillance than perhaps lean back listening of generations past did, which in some ways I think allows the services to in an even more invasive way, really optimize for this type of listening experience. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Liz makes the argument that Spotify’s real value isn’t its library of music. It’s the data that it’s collected from hundreds of millions of users for over a decade. These listening habits have informed the way that Spotify categorizes and recommends music. So what happens to the culture of music when songs are reduced to data? That’s a new tab. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Streaming optimized music. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I still think handpicking songs for someone else to listen to is one of the most romantic things you can do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>John Cusack: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’ve started to make a tape in my head for Laura. Full of stuff she’d like, full of stuff that would make her happy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Back in 2013, Spotify marketed playlists by invoking that same sense of intimacy. But today, Spotify’s in-house playlist creation doesn’t really work like that. It’s all about optimization. They analyze user behavior, music trends, and other kinds of data to put together a playlist that’s likely to get a ton of streaming time. And by 2016, these playlists were immensely influential. A lot of artists got their big break because their songs ended up on an official Spotify playlist. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some of the earliest narratives that streaming services and Spotify in particular were pitching to independent musicians were, yeah, this idea that Spotify was gonna level the playing field and that now the power of gatekeepers like commercial radio DJs and major labels would be diminished. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So up-and-coming artists could submit their tracks. And if a playlist editor liked it, they would add it to what was known as a “feeder playlist” — usually a smaller and niche playlist that wasn’t as popular. If the track had a low skip rate, it might move up to a bigger playlist with more followers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Editors also looked at data from user-generated playlists. If a song had a certain number of streams or saves, then editors would consider adding it to the flagship playlists like Morning Commute and Warehouse Party. But data doesn’t always paint a full picture. Liz pointed out that some songs had a lower skip rate because they were just inoffensive enough to listen to in the background. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So some musicians would notice that even though they had these whole varied catalogs, it was only music that was playlist friendly, background music friendly, maybe kind of like more straightforward, softer on the edges that would do well on streaming because it was music that was more amenable to playlist curation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And this is exactly what happened to lo-fi beats. You might have heard of this YouTube channel called Lo-Fi Hip-Hop Radio, Beats to Relax / Study To. It’s a 24-7 stream that features this anime girl wearing headphones, who’s now known as Lo-Fi Girl. She’s usually writing or reading at her desk, while her cat lounges on a windowsill in the background. The view through this window shows this idyllic cityscape. Sometimes it’s sunset, sometimes it’s raining. Meanwhile, there’s a continuous rotation of calming, overwhelmingly cozy instrumental music. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Lo-Fi Girl is wildly popular. She’s inspired countless spinoff channels from jazzier lo-fi beats set at a busy cafe to lo-fied versions of movie and game soundtracks. Producing the genre is a whole cottage industry now. And Spotify has launched a bunch of playlists to capitalize on the trend. There’s the Lo-Fi Beats playlist, one called Lo-Fi Covers, one called Chill Hits, Late Night Beats, you get the picture. And they all kind of sound the same. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But today’s version of the genre sounds very different from how it did when it first emerged in the early 2010s. Back then, DIY musicians, who were inspired by hip hop producers like J Dilla and Madlib, shared their beats with each other on SoundCloud and internet forums. It wasn’t called lo-fi because it was chill music. It was literally low fidelity. It sounded a little unpolished and nostalgic. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was less about making background music to study to, and more about the art of beat making, sample flipping. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Early YouTube streamers like Lo-Fi Girl acted as curators, handpicking a constant rotation of lo-fi mixes from these independent beatmakers. But when Spotify jumped in, the genre started to change. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It kind of, I think is a good example of something that has happened like repeatedly across other genres and sounds in the streaming era, which is you may have like a playlist that becomes the main way in which people are coming to experience the certain type of music. So the fandom becomes a lot more about the playlists than it does necessarily about the different artists that are on the playlist. And streaming users come to expect a specific sound and a specific idea. So then there’s incentive for musicians and producers to sort of like make the same things over and over again. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This strategy could be lucrative for musicians, but because people were often passively listening to ready-made, data-optimized playlists, the artists themselves remained largely unknown. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It is in some ways kind of also on the listeners to take the initiative to learn about the musicians that they’re listening to if this is a type of music that you are interested in, but I also think that the interface doesn’t really in any way prioritize that. You know, lo-fi hip-hop beats on Spotify are one of the genres that has been most impacted by the emergence of what I talk about as ghost artists. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay wait what are ghost artists? We’ll get into that after this break. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, we’re back. So Liz was just telling us about how lo-fi beats is one of the genres most impacted by “ghost artists.” Let’s open a new tab. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ghost artists in the machine. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">By ghost artists, Liz is referring to the artists who make up the majority of Spotify’s lean back functional music playlists. The ones made for listening to in the background, like lo-fi beats or deep focus. For a while, people have been accusing these playlists of being stocked with “fake artists.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For me, I think that at the very beginning, I thought that maybe these were just kind of DIY hustlers trying to game the system or maybe like teenagers in their bedrooms trying to like juice Spotify royalties or something. And it didn’t strike me as like super concerning at first. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But Liz found that it actually went way deeper than that. These playlists rack up millions of streams a day, even if people are only half-listening to them. By 2017, the company figured out a way that it could skimp on paying royalties. That’s when Spotify quietly rolled out what they called Perfect Fit Content, or PFC. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I was able to pull the veil back a little bit and came to learn that, you know, these weren’t individual DIY hustlers trying to game the system. This was an actual effort from within Spotify. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Essentially, Spotify made deals with production companies, which were already commissioning musicians to write and produce low-budget stock music. Think of the kind of background music that goes into commercials, documentaries, YouTube videos. Even this show, when my colleague Chris doesn’t have time to compose original music for each episode. Except these were commissioned for specific playlists like lo-fi beats or ambient piano. And the thing is, these ghost artists were still marketed as if they were real individuals, complete with fake names and bios. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s not even that it’s encouraging a relationship with the playlist instead of the artists. There’s actually in this arrangement, there’s no opportunity for a relationship with the artists when the artists don’t actually exist. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Spotify paid lower royalties for PFCs, and in exchange, these tracks were given priority on Spotify’s functional music playlists. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It was clear that there was special privilege being given to these types of tracks and there were certainly internal conversations where senior executives or senior music programming staff was drawing attention to these tracks and encouraging playlist editors to add them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Liz says that by 2023, there were hundreds of playlists that were over 90% PFC tracks. Spotify got to cut costs and the stock music production companies profited off the streams. But ghost artists, who are real musicians doing real labor, got the short end of the stick. They were making anonymous stock music. So even if they got paid upfront, they rarely got a cut of royalties. And even if their tracks went super viral, they didn’t get any credit. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Most of the people I spoke with said things along the lines of, “I just make music, submit it, I get paid, and I don’t know what happens after that.” They didn’t know really anything about the broader arrangement with the streaming services, what was guaranteed or not guaranteed, or even like what that relationship looked like. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And Liz found that most playlist editors were not thrilled about this setup either. Even if it involved data, Spotify’s editorial playlist curation was something of an art form that required a deep understanding of music and culture, which editors took a lot of pride in. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, Spotify eventually hired an entirely new team of editors to handle PFCs, who were charged with prioritizing metrics above anything else. They were less focused on taste-making, and more on analyzing user behavior and sorting data. And that practice has become the norm for Spotify’s playlist editors. Spotify started to focus more on personalized playlists around the time they launched the PFC program. The editorial playlists aren’t nearly as influential as they used to be, because now it’s all about the algorithm. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There’s one person who talked to me who said, as someone working in an independent record label, they’d basically given up on the idea that their music would ever be considered for editorial playlist placement because everything had shifted to algorithmic recommendation and personalization products. And even former employees I spoke with, there was a sense that algorithmic personalized recommendations had sort of taken over to some extent or kind of won out. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Which brings us back again to… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Sabrina Carpenter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Say you can’t sleep, baby, I know / That’s that me espresso\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, new tab. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Algorithm fatigue. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Liz says Spotify has always been driven by data. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is curation that’s really based on streaming metrics and less so on the willingness or openness to take risks. Personalized recommendation doesn’t just exist to offer the user a satisfying user experience, but also because they want to retain you as a subscriber. And one of the ways in which they can retain you is by simply, you know, showing you the music that they think you’re the most likely to stream. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">With that in mind, the company started collecting listener data way before they even knew what to do with it. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In my research on Spotify, something that kept coming up as far back as like 2013, was this aspiration to create essentially like a button that someone could play when they opened the app and get the perfect recommendation at the perfect time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2014, the company bought a music data startup called Echo Nest, which had a database of 30 million songs and their defining characteristics. A year later, Spotify used all that data, combined with their own, to launch Discover Weekly. This has been one of Spotify’s defining features. 30 songs every Monday tailored to each individual user’s music taste. This was the start of Spotify pivot to hyper-personalized, algorithmically recommended music. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This idea of self-driving music, that someone would just be able to open the app and based on all this information that the app had on the user, the playlist recommendations would just guide themselves. A former employee mentioned to me that the whole goal of the playlisting ecosystem was to reduce the cognitive work that people had to do when they opened the app. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After that, editorial playlists took a backseat. There are the big ones, Rap Caviar, Today’s Top Hits, and the EDM playlist, Mint. There are a few others that Spotify still curates and invests in, and says that they still have human editors working on. But personalized recommendations were taking over. The job of a Spotify playlist editor began changing. Spotify calls it algo-torial. Playlist editors focus on creating large lists of songs. But an algorithm picks the ones shown to each individual listener. And all of it is optimized to keep you from turning it off. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This idea of like, “Oh, we want to reduce like the thinking that people have to do when they open the app,” I find troubling for all sorts of ways, also, especially as a music critic. But I, I think that it’s really interesting thinking about that as context for a couple of recommendation products that they did roll out the past few years, which are Daylist and AI DJ. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">These are totally algorithm-controlled playlists. Daylist is like Discover Weekly on steroids. It’s a playlist of 50 songs that’s updated three to five times a day, every day. It’s not just based on your taste, but also on the genres of music that you tend to listen to throughout the day. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s providing you the perfect soundtrack tailored just you and your unique way of listening to music because we have all this data on you and we know all of these different niches you’re into. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">AI DJ also serves users with algorithmically recommended songs, but with interjections from an AI-generated voice, who acts kind of like a personal radio host. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>AI DJ: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hey Max, what’s going on? I’m X and from this moment on I’m gonna be your own personal AI DJ on Spotify. Let’s go!\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">They are both different manifestations of that idea that, you know, there’s just this one place that you go on the app and you just hit play and it shows you the perfect recommendation at the perfect time. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And then there’s Smart Shuffle, which auto plays music and is probably responsible for my Espresso hell. And like the others, it’s also hyper personalized algorithmically recommended songs based on each user’s listening history. But Liz points out that you don’t have to give into the algorithm. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The idea of like curating your own queue as a sort of like antidote to the feed. If you maintain your own queue, it can kind of like help in those moments to have a different way of listening to music. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Still, Liz says she’s concerned about the convenience and widespread adoption of Spotify’s recommendation system. Thanks to these fine-tuned algorithms, people have started to expect recommendations to come to them. And the practice of discovering and curating music for ourselves is withering away. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Liz Pelly: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think a lot of people rely on personalized recommendations because they don’t know what to listen to or because they open the app and it’s just the first thing they see. And they might even be like a curious listener, someone who cares about music, but they open it, they see Daily Mix One, they say, “Oh, I like some of these artists, like, sure, I’ll just hit play on this.” It’s like a slippery slope when your daily listening habits come to sort of revolve around these algorithmic personalized recommendation products that are so tightly controlled by streaming platforms. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I made my Spotify account back in 2014. And since then, every decision I’ve made on Spotify, consciously or unconsciously, has been tracked and used for the platform’s various algorithms. The amount of time I’ve listened to certain songs, the music I’ve added to my own playlists, the songs I’ve skipped, and even the mixes I’ve put on as background music. All of this somehow contributed to me getting bombarded with Espresso last year. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think we’ve heard enough of that. I’ll admit it, it’s so convenient to just turn on my Daylist. Sometimes I’m in the car, or about to get on the treadmill, and I just don’t want to put in the mental work of looking for something to listen to. Here’s the other thing about Daylists that make them tempting to pick. They’re just so hyper specific. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Xorje Olivares: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My Daylist playlist is called Supergroup Ripped Jeans Tuesday Afternoon. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chris Egusa: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Indie Chill Hipster Evening. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Olivia Cueva: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Clavé, Barbershop, Friday Morning. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For the record, as I write this narration, mine is “Ethereal Alien Club Classics Afternoon,” with genres like Brat Summer, Indie Sleeze, and Recession Pop? Somehow, Ethereal Alien Club Classics includes Frank Ocean, Midski, and of course, Charlie XCX. But how did Spotify come up with these niche micro genres? How do artists feel about getting lumped into them? And how does this affect the way that we discover music? That’s a new tab, but we’ll have to save that for next week. So for now, we’re actually leaving this last tab open. We can close the rest though. \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. Sound design by Chris Egusa and Brendan Willard. Original music by Chris Egusa. Additional music by APM. Mixing and mastering by Brendan Willard. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad and Alana Walker. Katie Sprenger is our Podcast Operations Manager, and Holly Kernan is our Chief Content Officer. 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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink Dustsilver K-84 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\u003c/div>"
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"slug": "are-californias-ai-rules-in-jeopardy-plus-new-data-on-oaklands-non-police-response-and-the-bay-areas-ruby-ibarra-wins-nprs-tiny-desk-contest",
"title": "Are California’s AI Rules in Jeopardy? Plus, New Data on Oakland’s Non-Police Response, and the Bay Area’s Ruby Ibarra Wins NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest",
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"headTitle": "Are California’s AI Rules in Jeopardy? Plus, New Data on Oakland’s Non-Police Response, and the Bay Area’s Ruby Ibarra Wins NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>On this month’s edition of The Bay’s news roundup, we talk about a proposed 10-year ban on state AI regulations that the House of Representatives passed as part of President Trump’s budget bill. Plus, Oakland’s MACRO program – a non-emergency alternative to police – releases new data, and the Bay Area’s very own Ruby Ibarra wins NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli class=\"entry-title \">\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/05/state-ai-regulation-ban/\">Californians would lose AI protections under bill advancing in Congress\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ktvu.com/news/oaklands-macro-touts-improvements-despite-criticism-needs-4m-year-survive\">Oakland’s MACRO touts improvements despite criticism; needs $4M a year to survive\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/05/29/g-s1-69049/ruby-ibarra-tiny-desk-concert\">Ruby Ibarra: NPR Tiny Desk Concert\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=KQINC5175160153&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\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\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:00:54] \u003c/em>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevara and welcome to The Bay, local news to keep you rooted. And welcome to the Bay’s May news roundup where I sit down with the rest of the Bay team to talk about some of the other Bay Area stories that we’ve been following this month. I’m joined by our producer, Jessica Carissa. Hey Jessica.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:12] \u003c/em>Hey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:14] \u003c/em>And senior editor, Alan Montesilio. What’s up, Alan?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:17] \u003c/em>Hello.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:18] \u003c/em>And also our intern, Mel Velasquez.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mel Velasquez: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:21] \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:22] \u003c/em>Well, first I wanna take a quick look back at some of the stories that we did cover on this show this month. This May we marked 50 years since the fall of Saigon and talked about how that moment in history really shaped Santa Clara County and San Jose as we know it today. We discussed the Trump administration’s cancelation of federal arts funds and what that is going to mean for the local art scene here in the Bay Area. And we talked about the Golden State Valkyries who began their first season here in the Bay area and also they recently had their first win. And Mel, I wanna turn to you for a second because you actually went out to a pre-season game party in the Mission to get a sense of the vibes, the excitement around the Valkyrys for our show. And you also went to the home opener. How was that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mel Velasquez: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:02:22] \u003c/em>It was really fun, it was really packed. I went to Standard Deviant, which is in the mission, and it was hosted by Ricky’s, which will be the new women’s sports bar that’s coming to the Castro soon. There were a lot of people who were excited for the Valkyries, and it just a pre-season game. Um, but then when I went to the home opener, it was completely sold out. I mean, the energy was insane. They had pyrotechnics inside the Chase Center. It was a sea of purple. People were screaming and then they had like the segment where they were showing like the first Valkyries fan that entered the Chase Center at their first game. There was just like a lot of celebration, yeah it was just a really good time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:03:17] \u003c/em>And if you listen to the show, you probably know that our senior editor, Alan Montecilio, is a basketball head. Alan, how have you been feeling about the Valkyries starting their season here in the Bay? I mean, you already have a Valkry’s sweater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:03:35] \u003c/em>Oh yeah, I have a Valkyries hoodie. Got a lot of compliments on it. Thank you for asking. As Mel was saying, they really leaned into the first theme. The t-shirts around the stands had the words first of a lifetime on them. And actually we have two wins as of this taping. The Valkyrys are two and two. You know, expectations for a lot of wins are not super high, but it’s more about getting excited for the team, getting to know the players. So yeah, it’s cool to just walk around and see people wearing the gear and watching Chase Center. Get really loud. I mean the Warriors season is over too so you know for the next four to five months the Valkyries will be the only pro basketball team in the Bay Area playing at Chase Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:04:16] \u003c/em>That’s true, I didn’t even think about that. And yeah, I really have been seeing more and more gear out there. Last weekend we went and visited Jessica in San Jose, where she lives, and I feel like I was even seeing Valkyrie’s gear out in the wild over there. Are you excited about the Valkyrys, Jessica? Are you planning to watch?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:04:41] \u003c/em>Oh yeah, definitely. I think, you know, I’m just really excited for women’s sports period in the Bay Area. I think being down in San Jose, I’m pretty close to where Bay FC plays. And so that’s also a top of my list as a summer activity. And when we covered the Valkyries, I was looking up a lot of sports content. And so now my YouTube algorithm is just purely basketball. So that’s, also dragged me into the NBA playoffs too. I’m generally just really excited about sports this summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:05:13] \u003c/em>Yes, join us. The algorithm is roping you in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:05:20] \u003c/em>Well, Mel, thank you so much for joining us for this first part of our news roundup.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mel Velasquez: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:05:27] \u003c/em>It’s always a pleasure, Ericka. And when we come back, we’ll dig into some of the other stories that we’ve been following this month. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:06:44] \u003c/em>And welcome back to the Bays Monthly News Roundup where we talk about some of the other stories that we’ve been following this month and Alan will dive right in with your story. What have you been following?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:06:55] \u003c/em>Well, obviously, at the federal level, one of the biggest pieces of news is President Trump’s so-called big, beautiful bill, a.k.a. The big budget reconciliation bill that is making its way through Congress recently past the House. There are many different aspects to it that are getting attention, including potential cuts to the safety net, things like Medicaid, Medicare, potential tax breaks for the rich. But one. Element of this bill that has also gotten attention here in California has to do with artificial intelligence. Most of the reporting I read to prep for this segment, uh, comes from Kari Johnson from CalMatters. So the bill that passed the house recently that’s being considered in the Senate includes a moratorium, essentially a ban on state regulations of AI for 10 years, you know, that has obviously caused considerable alarm here in California. Which is not only home to many, many AI companies, including OpenAI, but also home to many state-level regulations of\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:07:55] \u003c/em>Wow, I mean, living in Silicon Valley and being a journalist, I can definitely understand the concerns, you know, articles have been used to train AI, and that’s been a big issue. But I guess what’s the argument behind this ban?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:12] \u003c/em>One argument that House Republicans have made is that we essentially have a patchwork of regulations right now when it comes to AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rep. Jay Obernolte: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:19] \u003c/em>What we absolutely cannot have is a situation where the rules on the governance of AI change every time the winds of political fortune shift one way or another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:29] \u003c/em>Representative Jay Obernolte, who is a Republican and represents parts of LA, Kern County, San Bernardino counties, at a committee hearing earlier this month, basically argued that this patchwork of regulations that we have across states, so it’s different in each state, is bad for U.S. Competitiveness. It’s bad for entrepreneurs who will sort of have to navigate different sets of rules across states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rep. Jay Obernolte: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:54] \u003c/em>Innovators and investors that are making billion-dollar decisions on R&D and procurement, and they need regulatory certainty to do that, and the only way that that happens is if we provide that leadership.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:09:04] \u003c/em>Some Republicans have argued that this moratorium would pave the way for a more comprehensive federal approach to AI. But I think big picture, President Trump and his administration have signaled an interest in deregulation more broadly, whether it’s AI, whether its the environment, whether it’s financial institutions. So there’s sort of different arguments in that vein, but those are some of the reasons why there’s this 10-year ban on regulations of AI in this bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:09:35] \u003c/em>So I mean, how would this even work exactly, Alan? I mean aren’t we talking about laws that have already been passed by the California State Legislature and signed into law? And then isn’t California also currently considering a bunch of AI regulations now? I mean what would this ban do exactly? How would it work?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:01] \u003c/em>Well, I mean, it would make it unlawful to enforce many of our laws regarding AI here in California, and it would potentially preempt the nearly 30 bills that are currently being considered in the California state legislature. Now last year, the legislature passed around 20 laws related to AI. Some advocates wanted the state to get going even stronger on regulations, but there For many that did pass, including things like… Um, requiring political campaigns to disclose when AI is being used in advertising measures that protect children, you know, requiring companies to provide free AI detection tools to the public. This 10 year ban would render many of these measures unlawful to enforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:43] \u003c/em>What have the reactions been?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:45] \u003c/em>You know, some Democrats in Congress have expressed concern, although they don’t really have any power to stop it since they’re in the minority.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rep Kevin Mullen: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:51] \u003c/em>The idea that we have to pick between innovation and safeguards just doesn’t hold up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:55] \u003c/em>Representative Kevin Mullen, who represents the peninsula, sat in an energy committee hearing that he thinks this sort of blanket deregulation, as he called it, isn’t the right approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rep Kevin Mullen: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:11:05] \u003c/em>The real threat to U.S. Leadership in AI isn’t regulation, it’s inaction. If we allow AI systems operate without guardrails, we risk eroding public trust. So when we talk about AI regulation and American leadership, the real question isn’t whether to regulate. It’s where and how.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:11:23] \u003c/em>The California Privacy Protection Agency sent a letter to Congress saying that this moratorium could, quote, rob millions of Americans of rights they already enjoy. So certainly from, you know, many Democrats here in California and privacy advocates, This is pretty alarming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:11:39] \u003c/em>I mean, will this ban on AI regulations actually happen or not? Like how likely is it that this will in fact move forward?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:11:52] \u003c/em>It’s unclear, and it’s a little wheezy, but the reason it’s unclear is because the so-called big, beautiful bill of President Trump’s is what’s called a budget reconciliation bill, which is to say that this sweeping bill needs to include measures that are related to fiscal matters in order for it to pass, and in order to only need 51 senators for it pass. One privacy advocate who spoke to Kari Johnson from CalMatters… Pointed out that a 10 year moratorium on AI regulations, is that a fiscal matter? I mean, probably not. But these advocates are still concerned because it sort of puts a marker down for how House Republicans are thinking about this issue. And maybe even if it doesn’t make it into this giant budget bill, it may get attached to a different bill related to AI later down the line.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:12:38] \u003c/em>Well, definitely something to watch in the coming months. Alan, thank you so much. And next we have my story that I’ve been following this month, which is an update on an alternative to police that was established in Oakland after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. If you all remember, Oakland really became the epicenter nationally of efforts to find an alternative to policing. They really went ahead with a program really try to do that and now there’s new data on how that alternative has been working in the last few years. Oakland’s civilian response team also known as the mobile assistance community responders of Oakland you probably know it more or hear it more so referred to as MACRO has responded to more than 6 000 incidents last year according to a report released to the city council this week. And it was able to divert hundreds of calls away from law enforcement and emergency services according to this data, which the folks behind MACRO really see as a success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:14:02] \u003c/em>You mentioned that they responded to over 6,000 incidents, and those were instances that people avoided calling the police. So what kinds of non-emergency incidents were they responding to?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:14:15] \u003c/em>Yeah, so MACRO was really looking at the kind of situations that have too often led to violence only after police show up. You know, a mental health crisis that escalates, a man sleeping in a car, for example, and they really stress that their focus is these non-violent incidents. Anything that involves violence is really, in their minds, a police matter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:14:42] \u003c/em>So what else can you tell us about this data? And I’m curious, are there any areas of improvements, places where macro could do better?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:14:50] \u003c/em>Yeah, so the data shows that most of the incidents that they responded to occurred downtown and on city streets. So really, this shows that they’re dealing mostly with the city’s unhoused population. And the most common incident was actually a wellness check that made up 54% of the calls that they received. That was followed by sleeping checks and also behavioral concerns. Most notably, Macro says that its dispatched responses diverted 34% of calls away from law enforcement and away from emergency services. Almost 100% of these incidents were resolved on site without requiring police or EMS intervention. Elliot Jones, who’s the program manager for Macro, delivered some of this data to Oakland City Council earlier this week in. He shared this example of the kind of stuff that they’re responding to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Elliot Jones: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:15:52] \u003c/em>Couple days ago, we get a call about an elderly individual on a porch on the North Oakland Berkeley border. We get there, this man had wandered out of his home. He was having memory issues, but MACRO was able to respond and make the connection. And while it doesn’t always show up on the stat sheet, and the news report didn’t include us, it did say, update, he’s been found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:16:13] \u003c/em>That said, there was criticism at the city council meeting around macro. Some say that the team is just too limited in the things that it could actually do to help the problems going on in Oakland. Some say that too few 911 calls are being even routed to macro. Others said that, you know, this money could be used for the Oakland fire department, which has had to close fire stations around the city. And others say that not enough people know that macro is even a service that’s available to people in the community. There’s also this question around independent auditing of macro. These numbers that were shared at the city council meeting were mostly just numbers that macro itself was keeping track of. And Jones agrees with critics that there should be some sort of independent oversight. And monitoring of how exactly Macro is doing to help him make the case that this is a program actually worth keeping around if it could get the resources it needs to do what I think many Oaklanders have really demanded after the death of George Floyd.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:17:33] \u003c/em>So, I mean, what happens next? I mean I know Oakland’s in the middle of a major budget crisis. So, you know, is macro gonna be able to stick around? Do we know anything?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:17:45] \u003c/em>Yeah, I think Elliot Jones, Macros program manager, is very aware of Oakland’s budget issues. He told KTVU that a state grant of $10 million that they’ve been using to really run this program ends next year, at the end of 2026, and that it’s gonna take about $4 million annually to keep this program running. And Joan says that he is working with the city and also really looking for grants to make sure that this kind of program can stay afloat in Oakland. All right, and that is it for the story I’ve been following this month. Jessica Kariisa, we will end it off with you and a fun story\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:18:40] \u003c/em>Yeah, this is more maybe an announcement than story per se, but the Bay Area’s very own Ruby Ibarra won NPR’s 2025 Tiny Desk Contest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ruby Ibarra (rapping): \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:18:52] \u003c/em>Hello America, break your backs for dollars they don’t carry ya Seven thousand miles away from home with language barriers Land of opportunity, tell me is it good to ya But six feet deep on stolen land is where they bury ya November 1991\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:19:04] \u003c/em>She was chosen as the winner from over 7,000 submissions of independent artists from across the country. It’s a really huge deal. It’s really huge platform. Most people have heard of Tiny Desk. She’s joining the ranks of lots of great artists, including Fantastic Negrito, who also was based in the Bay Area, and Tank and the Bangas, and so many other great artists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ruby Ibarra (rapping): \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:19:29] \u003c/em>They always feed in a slice Made to believe I don’t exist unless I wear a disguise Cause I’ve been constantly lying Too broken to die till I cry Till I no longer recognize the person that was inside Until we fail like the sun\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:19:40] \u003c/em>This is super exciting for the Bay Area. Ruby Ibarra is someone who, you know, I’ve been aware of for a while because she’s Filipina. ECG as well. But Jessica, can you tell us a bit more about her background in the Bay area and the kind of music she performs?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:19:56] \u003c/em>For sure, yeah. So Ruby, she was born in the Philippines. She immigrated to the U.S. As a young child. She grew up in San Lorenzo, shout out to the East Bay. And, you know, she’s been making music for a while. I mean, her debut mixtape came out in 2012. Her immigrant experience has been a huge part of her music, dating back to her debut album, Circa 91. You know, her raps in multiple languages. She raps English and also multiple Filipino languages, including Tagalog and her native Waray. You know, she’s someone I heard about when I first moved to the Bay Area and was looking into the music scene. She’s really just been a staple in the Bay area as an independent artist for so long. So this really feels like a victory lap and a culmination of all her really hard work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:20:43] \u003c/em>One thing I really love about Ruby Ibara, I feel like she’s one of those artists who shares in her success. Like she lifts up others as she’s also coming up. I got a chance to interview her at a Filipino arts event that we did at KQED in 2023. And one of the things that she did during her performance was like, have a young up and coming Filipino American artists perform with her. And I feel like. She also really highlights other people in the community in the winning song that she performed. Can you talk a little bit more about the tiny desk that she preformed and that actually ended up winning?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:21:25] \u003c/em>Yeah, so the song is called Bakunawa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ruby Ibarra (rapping): \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:21:28] \u003c/em>I need a Samaria combined into one I’ve been blue like the ocean, we all grew When we moved one of you like our red Till I’m white, that’s the bluest Blue like the moon, like the eyes in the brew\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:21:38] \u003c/em>and it’s a reference to a dragon-like serpent in Philippine mythology who swallows the moon and is believed to cause eclipses, earthquakes, and you know other weather-related events. Basically like a disruptive force that typically people want to banish but she told KQED that she wanted to flip the story and embody the Bakunawa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Singing: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:22:00] \u003c/em>Hoi hoi hoiii\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:22:08] \u003c/em>and that she interpreted the story as a metaphor for resistance and a battle cry against erasure. And the performance video is really cool. She had an all-Filipina band. She was pregnant with her first child while she made the song and while she recorded the video. And so she’s talked about how her daughter and being pregnant has also played a big part in it. And also the song is just great. It’s really funky. There’s a spoken word portion. There’s the rap portion. Like I said before, it’s in multiple languages. And it’s just a really, really beautiful, powerful video.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Singing: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:22:45] \u003c/em>If I don’t know me, what is my past? If I dont know me what is…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:22:58] \u003c/em>So winning Tiny Desk. Huge deal. So what happens now that she’s won the contest?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:23:03] \u003c/em>She submitted her video, she won, and the next step was to record an actual Tiny Desk at the Tiny Desks in D.C. And that just dropped on YouTube, so you can go watch that. And that performance is expanded. It’s three songs, so, you get to listen to a bit more of her catalog. And she’s also going to headline a 10-city Tiny Desktour this summer. You can buy tickets to that already at tinydeskcontest.npr.org. There’ll be a stop in the Bay Area and Petaluma. And yeah, I mean, like you were saying, it’s a huge, huge platform. So, you know, she’s already collected new fans. She’ll keep collecting more new fans and it’s really gonna be just a huge leveling up of her career.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ruby Ibarra (rapping): \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:23:47] \u003c/em>The sun touched my skin in hopes that I’d win Hands etched with sorrows deeper than the ocean’s depths History rooted in my people’s death This breath been enveloped, consumed, swallowed whole On nights where one moon seems fleeting so Even seven moons don’t illuminate like my soul My rage spoon-feeder, moon eater, truth keeper Naabay kahadlukan wala diri Bisaya ni ang dilahait kaayotan awa ni Gigaun ang bulan revolution in me Naan na ang bakunawa Rebirth the new moon\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:24:26] \u003c/em>It’s so exciting to see Ruby Ibarra up there on that tiny desk and representing the Bay Area and Bay Area Pin Eyes. Thanks for sharing this one, Jessica.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:24:37] \u003c/em>Yeah, absolutely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:24:45] \u003c/em>Well, that’s it for the Bays monthly news roundup. Jessica Kariisa, producer, and Alan Montecillo, thank you both so much for joining me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\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\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>On this month’s edition of The Bay’s news roundup, we talk about a proposed 10-year ban on state AI regulations that the House of Representatives passed as part of President Trump’s budget bill. Plus, Oakland’s MACRO program – a non-emergency alternative to police – releases new data, and the Bay Area’s very own Ruby Ibarra wins NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Links:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli class=\"entry-title \">\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/05/state-ai-regulation-ban/\">Californians would lose AI protections under bill advancing in Congress\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.ktvu.com/news/oaklands-macro-touts-improvements-despite-criticism-needs-4m-year-survive\">Oakland’s MACRO touts improvements despite criticism; needs $4M a year to survive\u003c/a>\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2025/05/29/g-s1-69049/ruby-ibarra-tiny-desk-concert\">Ruby Ibarra: NPR Tiny Desk Concert\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=KQINC5175160153&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\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\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:00:54] \u003c/em>I’m Ericka Cruz Guevara and welcome to The Bay, local news to keep you rooted. And welcome to the Bay’s May news roundup where I sit down with the rest of the Bay team to talk about some of the other Bay Area stories that we’ve been following this month. I’m joined by our producer, Jessica Carissa. Hey Jessica.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:12] \u003c/em>Hey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:14] \u003c/em>And senior editor, Alan Montesilio. What’s up, Alan?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:17] \u003c/em>Hello.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:18] \u003c/em>And also our intern, Mel Velasquez.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mel Velasquez: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:21] \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:01:22] \u003c/em>Well, first I wanna take a quick look back at some of the stories that we did cover on this show this month. This May we marked 50 years since the fall of Saigon and talked about how that moment in history really shaped Santa Clara County and San Jose as we know it today. We discussed the Trump administration’s cancelation of federal arts funds and what that is going to mean for the local art scene here in the Bay Area. And we talked about the Golden State Valkyries who began their first season here in the Bay area and also they recently had their first win. And Mel, I wanna turn to you for a second because you actually went out to a pre-season game party in the Mission to get a sense of the vibes, the excitement around the Valkyrys for our show. And you also went to the home opener. How was that?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mel Velasquez: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:02:22] \u003c/em>It was really fun, it was really packed. I went to Standard Deviant, which is in the mission, and it was hosted by Ricky’s, which will be the new women’s sports bar that’s coming to the Castro soon. There were a lot of people who were excited for the Valkyries, and it just a pre-season game. Um, but then when I went to the home opener, it was completely sold out. I mean, the energy was insane. They had pyrotechnics inside the Chase Center. It was a sea of purple. People were screaming and then they had like the segment where they were showing like the first Valkyries fan that entered the Chase Center at their first game. There was just like a lot of celebration, yeah it was just a really good time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:03:17] \u003c/em>And if you listen to the show, you probably know that our senior editor, Alan Montecilio, is a basketball head. Alan, how have you been feeling about the Valkyries starting their season here in the Bay? I mean, you already have a Valkry’s sweater.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:03:35] \u003c/em>Oh yeah, I have a Valkyries hoodie. Got a lot of compliments on it. Thank you for asking. As Mel was saying, they really leaned into the first theme. The t-shirts around the stands had the words first of a lifetime on them. And actually we have two wins as of this taping. The Valkyrys are two and two. You know, expectations for a lot of wins are not super high, but it’s more about getting excited for the team, getting to know the players. So yeah, it’s cool to just walk around and see people wearing the gear and watching Chase Center. Get really loud. I mean the Warriors season is over too so you know for the next four to five months the Valkyries will be the only pro basketball team in the Bay Area playing at Chase Center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:04:16] \u003c/em>That’s true, I didn’t even think about that. And yeah, I really have been seeing more and more gear out there. Last weekend we went and visited Jessica in San Jose, where she lives, and I feel like I was even seeing Valkyrie’s gear out in the wild over there. Are you excited about the Valkyrys, Jessica? Are you planning to watch?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:04:41] \u003c/em>Oh yeah, definitely. I think, you know, I’m just really excited for women’s sports period in the Bay Area. I think being down in San Jose, I’m pretty close to where Bay FC plays. And so that’s also a top of my list as a summer activity. And when we covered the Valkyries, I was looking up a lot of sports content. And so now my YouTube algorithm is just purely basketball. So that’s, also dragged me into the NBA playoffs too. I’m generally just really excited about sports this summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:05:13] \u003c/em>Yes, join us. The algorithm is roping you in.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:05:20] \u003c/em>Well, Mel, thank you so much for joining us for this first part of our news roundup.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mel Velasquez: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:05:27] \u003c/em>It’s always a pleasure, Ericka. And when we come back, we’ll dig into some of the other stories that we’ve been following this month. Stay with us.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:06:44] \u003c/em>And welcome back to the Bays Monthly News Roundup where we talk about some of the other stories that we’ve been following this month and Alan will dive right in with your story. What have you been following?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:06:55] \u003c/em>Well, obviously, at the federal level, one of the biggest pieces of news is President Trump’s so-called big, beautiful bill, a.k.a. The big budget reconciliation bill that is making its way through Congress recently past the House. There are many different aspects to it that are getting attention, including potential cuts to the safety net, things like Medicaid, Medicare, potential tax breaks for the rich. But one. Element of this bill that has also gotten attention here in California has to do with artificial intelligence. Most of the reporting I read to prep for this segment, uh, comes from Kari Johnson from CalMatters. So the bill that passed the house recently that’s being considered in the Senate includes a moratorium, essentially a ban on state regulations of AI for 10 years, you know, that has obviously caused considerable alarm here in California. Which is not only home to many, many AI companies, including OpenAI, but also home to many state-level regulations of\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:07:55] \u003c/em>Wow, I mean, living in Silicon Valley and being a journalist, I can definitely understand the concerns, you know, articles have been used to train AI, and that’s been a big issue. But I guess what’s the argument behind this ban?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:12] \u003c/em>One argument that House Republicans have made is that we essentially have a patchwork of regulations right now when it comes to AI.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rep. Jay Obernolte: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:19] \u003c/em>What we absolutely cannot have is a situation where the rules on the governance of AI change every time the winds of political fortune shift one way or another.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:29] \u003c/em>Representative Jay Obernolte, who is a Republican and represents parts of LA, Kern County, San Bernardino counties, at a committee hearing earlier this month, basically argued that this patchwork of regulations that we have across states, so it’s different in each state, is bad for U.S. Competitiveness. It’s bad for entrepreneurs who will sort of have to navigate different sets of rules across states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rep. Jay Obernolte: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:08:54] \u003c/em>Innovators and investors that are making billion-dollar decisions on R&D and procurement, and they need regulatory certainty to do that, and the only way that that happens is if we provide that leadership.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:09:04] \u003c/em>Some Republicans have argued that this moratorium would pave the way for a more comprehensive federal approach to AI. But I think big picture, President Trump and his administration have signaled an interest in deregulation more broadly, whether it’s AI, whether its the environment, whether it’s financial institutions. So there’s sort of different arguments in that vein, but those are some of the reasons why there’s this 10-year ban on regulations of AI in this bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:09:35] \u003c/em>So I mean, how would this even work exactly, Alan? I mean aren’t we talking about laws that have already been passed by the California State Legislature and signed into law? And then isn’t California also currently considering a bunch of AI regulations now? I mean what would this ban do exactly? How would it work?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:01] \u003c/em>Well, I mean, it would make it unlawful to enforce many of our laws regarding AI here in California, and it would potentially preempt the nearly 30 bills that are currently being considered in the California state legislature. Now last year, the legislature passed around 20 laws related to AI. Some advocates wanted the state to get going even stronger on regulations, but there For many that did pass, including things like… Um, requiring political campaigns to disclose when AI is being used in advertising measures that protect children, you know, requiring companies to provide free AI detection tools to the public. This 10 year ban would render many of these measures unlawful to enforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:43] \u003c/em>What have the reactions been?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:45] \u003c/em>You know, some Democrats in Congress have expressed concern, although they don’t really have any power to stop it since they’re in the minority.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rep Kevin Mullen: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:51] \u003c/em>The idea that we have to pick between innovation and safeguards just doesn’t hold up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:10:55] \u003c/em>Representative Kevin Mullen, who represents the peninsula, sat in an energy committee hearing that he thinks this sort of blanket deregulation, as he called it, isn’t the right approach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Rep Kevin Mullen: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:11:05] \u003c/em>The real threat to U.S. Leadership in AI isn’t regulation, it’s inaction. If we allow AI systems operate without guardrails, we risk eroding public trust. So when we talk about AI regulation and American leadership, the real question isn’t whether to regulate. It’s where and how.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:11:23] \u003c/em>The California Privacy Protection Agency sent a letter to Congress saying that this moratorium could, quote, rob millions of Americans of rights they already enjoy. So certainly from, you know, many Democrats here in California and privacy advocates, This is pretty alarming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:11:39] \u003c/em>I mean, will this ban on AI regulations actually happen or not? Like how likely is it that this will in fact move forward?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:11:52] \u003c/em>It’s unclear, and it’s a little wheezy, but the reason it’s unclear is because the so-called big, beautiful bill of President Trump’s is what’s called a budget reconciliation bill, which is to say that this sweeping bill needs to include measures that are related to fiscal matters in order for it to pass, and in order to only need 51 senators for it pass. One privacy advocate who spoke to Kari Johnson from CalMatters… Pointed out that a 10 year moratorium on AI regulations, is that a fiscal matter? I mean, probably not. But these advocates are still concerned because it sort of puts a marker down for how House Republicans are thinking about this issue. And maybe even if it doesn’t make it into this giant budget bill, it may get attached to a different bill related to AI later down the line.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:12:38] \u003c/em>Well, definitely something to watch in the coming months. Alan, thank you so much. And next we have my story that I’ve been following this month, which is an update on an alternative to police that was established in Oakland after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. If you all remember, Oakland really became the epicenter nationally of efforts to find an alternative to policing. They really went ahead with a program really try to do that and now there’s new data on how that alternative has been working in the last few years. Oakland’s civilian response team also known as the mobile assistance community responders of Oakland you probably know it more or hear it more so referred to as MACRO has responded to more than 6 000 incidents last year according to a report released to the city council this week. And it was able to divert hundreds of calls away from law enforcement and emergency services according to this data, which the folks behind MACRO really see as a success.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:14:02] \u003c/em>You mentioned that they responded to over 6,000 incidents, and those were instances that people avoided calling the police. So what kinds of non-emergency incidents were they responding to?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:14:15] \u003c/em>Yeah, so MACRO was really looking at the kind of situations that have too often led to violence only after police show up. You know, a mental health crisis that escalates, a man sleeping in a car, for example, and they really stress that their focus is these non-violent incidents. Anything that involves violence is really, in their minds, a police matter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:14:42] \u003c/em>So what else can you tell us about this data? And I’m curious, are there any areas of improvements, places where macro could do better?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:14:50] \u003c/em>Yeah, so the data shows that most of the incidents that they responded to occurred downtown and on city streets. So really, this shows that they’re dealing mostly with the city’s unhoused population. And the most common incident was actually a wellness check that made up 54% of the calls that they received. That was followed by sleeping checks and also behavioral concerns. Most notably, Macro says that its dispatched responses diverted 34% of calls away from law enforcement and away from emergency services. Almost 100% of these incidents were resolved on site without requiring police or EMS intervention. Elliot Jones, who’s the program manager for Macro, delivered some of this data to Oakland City Council earlier this week in. He shared this example of the kind of stuff that they’re responding to.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Elliot Jones: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:15:52] \u003c/em>Couple days ago, we get a call about an elderly individual on a porch on the North Oakland Berkeley border. We get there, this man had wandered out of his home. He was having memory issues, but MACRO was able to respond and make the connection. And while it doesn’t always show up on the stat sheet, and the news report didn’t include us, it did say, update, he’s been found.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:16:13] \u003c/em>That said, there was criticism at the city council meeting around macro. Some say that the team is just too limited in the things that it could actually do to help the problems going on in Oakland. Some say that too few 911 calls are being even routed to macro. Others said that, you know, this money could be used for the Oakland fire department, which has had to close fire stations around the city. And others say that not enough people know that macro is even a service that’s available to people in the community. There’s also this question around independent auditing of macro. These numbers that were shared at the city council meeting were mostly just numbers that macro itself was keeping track of. And Jones agrees with critics that there should be some sort of independent oversight. And monitoring of how exactly Macro is doing to help him make the case that this is a program actually worth keeping around if it could get the resources it needs to do what I think many Oaklanders have really demanded after the death of George Floyd.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:17:33] \u003c/em>So, I mean, what happens next? I mean I know Oakland’s in the middle of a major budget crisis. So, you know, is macro gonna be able to stick around? Do we know anything?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:17:45] \u003c/em>Yeah, I think Elliot Jones, Macros program manager, is very aware of Oakland’s budget issues. He told KTVU that a state grant of $10 million that they’ve been using to really run this program ends next year, at the end of 2026, and that it’s gonna take about $4 million annually to keep this program running. And Joan says that he is working with the city and also really looking for grants to make sure that this kind of program can stay afloat in Oakland. All right, and that is it for the story I’ve been following this month. Jessica Kariisa, we will end it off with you and a fun story\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:18:40] \u003c/em>Yeah, this is more maybe an announcement than story per se, but the Bay Area’s very own Ruby Ibarra won NPR’s 2025 Tiny Desk Contest.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ruby Ibarra (rapping): \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:18:52] \u003c/em>Hello America, break your backs for dollars they don’t carry ya Seven thousand miles away from home with language barriers Land of opportunity, tell me is it good to ya But six feet deep on stolen land is where they bury ya November 1991\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:19:04] \u003c/em>She was chosen as the winner from over 7,000 submissions of independent artists from across the country. It’s a really huge deal. It’s really huge platform. Most people have heard of Tiny Desk. She’s joining the ranks of lots of great artists, including Fantastic Negrito, who also was based in the Bay Area, and Tank and the Bangas, and so many other great artists.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ruby Ibarra (rapping): \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:19:29] \u003c/em>They always feed in a slice Made to believe I don’t exist unless I wear a disguise Cause I’ve been constantly lying Too broken to die till I cry Till I no longer recognize the person that was inside Until we fail like the sun\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:19:40] \u003c/em>This is super exciting for the Bay Area. Ruby Ibarra is someone who, you know, I’ve been aware of for a while because she’s Filipina. ECG as well. But Jessica, can you tell us a bit more about her background in the Bay area and the kind of music she performs?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:19:56] \u003c/em>For sure, yeah. So Ruby, she was born in the Philippines. She immigrated to the U.S. As a young child. She grew up in San Lorenzo, shout out to the East Bay. And, you know, she’s been making music for a while. I mean, her debut mixtape came out in 2012. Her immigrant experience has been a huge part of her music, dating back to her debut album, Circa 91. You know, her raps in multiple languages. She raps English and also multiple Filipino languages, including Tagalog and her native Waray. You know, she’s someone I heard about when I first moved to the Bay Area and was looking into the music scene. She’s really just been a staple in the Bay area as an independent artist for so long. So this really feels like a victory lap and a culmination of all her really hard work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:20:43] \u003c/em>One thing I really love about Ruby Ibara, I feel like she’s one of those artists who shares in her success. Like she lifts up others as she’s also coming up. I got a chance to interview her at a Filipino arts event that we did at KQED in 2023. And one of the things that she did during her performance was like, have a young up and coming Filipino American artists perform with her. And I feel like. She also really highlights other people in the community in the winning song that she performed. Can you talk a little bit more about the tiny desk that she preformed and that actually ended up winning?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:21:25] \u003c/em>Yeah, so the song is called Bakunawa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ruby Ibarra (rapping): \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:21:28] \u003c/em>I need a Samaria combined into one I’ve been blue like the ocean, we all grew When we moved one of you like our red Till I’m white, that’s the bluest Blue like the moon, like the eyes in the brew\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:21:38] \u003c/em>and it’s a reference to a dragon-like serpent in Philippine mythology who swallows the moon and is believed to cause eclipses, earthquakes, and you know other weather-related events. Basically like a disruptive force that typically people want to banish but she told KQED that she wanted to flip the story and embody the Bakunawa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Singing: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:22:00] \u003c/em>Hoi hoi hoiii\u003cem> \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:22:08] \u003c/em>and that she interpreted the story as a metaphor for resistance and a battle cry against erasure. And the performance video is really cool. She had an all-Filipina band. She was pregnant with her first child while she made the song and while she recorded the video. And so she’s talked about how her daughter and being pregnant has also played a big part in it. And also the song is just great. It’s really funky. There’s a spoken word portion. There’s the rap portion. Like I said before, it’s in multiple languages. And it’s just a really, really beautiful, powerful video.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Singing: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:22:45] \u003c/em>If I don’t know me, what is my past? If I dont know me what is…\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Alan Montecillo: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:22:58] \u003c/em>So winning Tiny Desk. Huge deal. So what happens now that she’s won the contest?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:23:03] \u003c/em>She submitted her video, she won, and the next step was to record an actual Tiny Desk at the Tiny Desks in D.C. And that just dropped on YouTube, so you can go watch that. And that performance is expanded. It’s three songs, so, you get to listen to a bit more of her catalog. And she’s also going to headline a 10-city Tiny Desktour this summer. You can buy tickets to that already at tinydeskcontest.npr.org. There’ll be a stop in the Bay Area and Petaluma. And yeah, I mean, like you were saying, it’s a huge, huge platform. So, you know, she’s already collected new fans. She’ll keep collecting more new fans and it’s really gonna be just a huge leveling up of her career.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ruby Ibarra (rapping): \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:23:47] \u003c/em>The sun touched my skin in hopes that I’d win Hands etched with sorrows deeper than the ocean’s depths History rooted in my people’s death This breath been enveloped, consumed, swallowed whole On nights where one moon seems fleeting so Even seven moons don’t illuminate like my soul My rage spoon-feeder, moon eater, truth keeper Naabay kahadlukan wala diri Bisaya ni ang dilahait kaayotan awa ni Gigaun ang bulan revolution in me Naan na ang bakunawa Rebirth the new moon\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:24:26] \u003c/em>It’s so exciting to see Ruby Ibarra up there on that tiny desk and representing the Bay Area and Bay Area Pin Eyes. Thanks for sharing this one, Jessica.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jessica Kariisa: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:24:37] \u003c/em>Yeah, absolutely.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ericka Cruz Guevarra: \u003c/b>\u003cem>[00:24:45] \u003c/em>Well, that’s it for the Bays monthly news roundup. Jessica Kariisa, producer, and Alan Montecillo, thank you both so much for joining me.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Tensions between Washington, D.C. and Silicon Valley’s cybersecurity lions have been running high this year, in large part because of \u003ca href=\"https://cyberscoop.com/doge-dismantles-cisa-cybersecurity-trump-elon-musk-eric-swallwell-op-ed/\">controversial staffing cuts\u003c/a> at the nation’s top cyber agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Cyber leaders have also decried what they call President Donald Trump’s “\u003ca href=\"https://www.csoonline.com/article/3973542/cybersecurity-leaders-decry-political-persecution-of-chris-krebs-in-a-letter-to-the-president.html\">political persecution\u003c/a>” of former CISA Director \u003ca href=\"https://video.kqed.org/video/shakeup-1605661366/\">Christopher Krebs\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But at Stanford’s Hoover Institution on Wednesday, a surprisingly collegial \u003ca href=\"https://www.c-span.org/program/house-committee/house-homeland-security-field-hearing-on-us-cybersecurity-challenges/660500\">House Homeland Security Field Hearing on U.S. Cybersecurity Challenges\u003c/a> featured broad agreement on a host of urgent issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lawmakers and experts alike expressed fear of the growing sophistication of cyber attacks like\u003ca href=\"https://www.cybersecuritydive.com/news/salt-typhoon-telecom-hacks-one-of-the-most-consequential-campaigns-against/746870/\"> Salt Typhoon\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://cyberscoop.com/volt-typhoon-critical-infrastructure-report/\">Volt Typhoon\u003c/a> on public and private organizations. Committee Chair Mark Green, a Republican of Tennessee, said it was no accident this field hearing was held in Silicon Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have prioritized cybersecurity for myself in this Congress and for the Committee on Homeland Security, and I hope the industry partners that are here and across the country will join us in this mission to improve our cyber resilience against nation states, as well as criminal actors, strengthen our offensive posture, and develop new capabilities that incorporate security from the start,” Green said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hearing featured testimony from a panel of expert witnesses — all of them veterans of the federal government or military who are now working at the highest levels in Silicon Valley. They urged lawmakers to adopt a more collaborative approach to cybersecurity, emphasizing the importance of real-time information sharing between the government and the private sector, as well as a stronger national strategy to counter state-sponsored threats, particularly from China.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12023603\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/StanfordUniversity.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12023603\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/StanfordUniversity.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1499\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/StanfordUniversity.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/StanfordUniversity-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/StanfordUniversity-1020x764.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/StanfordUniversity-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/StanfordUniversity-1536x1151.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/StanfordUniversity-1920x1439.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hoover Tower on the Stanford University campus on April 9, 2019. \u003ccite>(Rachael Myrow/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Our cyber adversaries — China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and others — are more active and aggressive than ever,” said Wendi Whitmore, chief security intelligence officer at Palo Alto Networks. “Every single day, Palo Alto Networks blocks up to 31 billion cyber attacks. Up to 9 million of those daily attacks represent novel methods never previously seen,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/28/data-broker-giant-lexisnexis-says-breach-exposed-personal-information-of-over-364000-people/\">Data breaches\u003c/a> and ransomware attacks have become commonplace at hospitals, schools, utilities and\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/futureofyou/436414/the-crippling-ransomware-attack-on-kqed-the-inside-story\"> even KQED\u003c/a>. So have headlines about software systems \u003ca href=\"https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/chinese-government-poses-broad-and-unrelenting-threat-to-u-s-critical-infrastructure-fbi-director-says\">infested with malicious code implanted by foreign state actors\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-explainers/what-is-cybersecurity\">Global losses\u003c/a> to cyberattacks could exceed $10.5 trillion this year alone, according to the multinational consulting firm McKinsey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12037518 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/GettyImages-2159615518-1020x680.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whitmore argued that the era of isolated, disjointed or manual solutions should be over. But that doesn’t reflect the reality at many organizations and companies, where understaffing and limited budgets lead to poor cybersecurity hygiene.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most software attacks exploit preventable vulnerabilities in software products or insecure default configurations. This could be as simple as a default password that sits unchanged,” lamented Jack Cable, CEO and co-founder of San Francisco-based Corridor, which makes AI-powered development platforms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another point of agreement: the federal government could take advantage of its massive purchasing power to force Silicon Valley software contractors to increase the quality and security of their code, so that it’s “secure by design,” in cybersecurity lingo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The government has an obligation to set clearer security standards that are more consistent across the government,” said Jeanette Manfra, global director for security and compliance at Google Cloud, who served as a cybersecurity official during the Obama and first Trump administrations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The expert witnesses touched only lightly on hopes for federal regulation or the recent \u003ca href=\"https://www.nextgov.com/people/2024/11/cisa-director-jen-easterly-depart-inauguration-day/401036/\">exodus\u003c/a> of technical talent from CISA. They seemed clear they were speaking to a friendly audience on the House Committee on Homeland Security, who already understand what needs to be done from a cybersecurity perspective in Washington D.C., as well as the political obstacles that lie in their way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Industry watchers said the\u003ca href=\"https://cyberscoop.com/cisa-workforce-cuts-house-leaders-legislation/\"> ball is now in the court\u003c/a> of the committee’s Republican lawmakers to lobby the Trump administration to prioritize cybersecurity and turn the industry’s best practices into policy or even law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Tensions between Washington, D.C. and Silicon Valley’s cybersecurity lions have been running high this year, in large part because of \u003ca href=\"https://cyberscoop.com/doge-dismantles-cisa-cybersecurity-trump-elon-musk-eric-swallwell-op-ed/\">controversial staffing cuts\u003c/a> at the nation’s top cyber agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Cyber leaders have also decried what they call President Donald Trump’s “\u003ca href=\"https://www.csoonline.com/article/3973542/cybersecurity-leaders-decry-political-persecution-of-chris-krebs-in-a-letter-to-the-president.html\">political persecution\u003c/a>” of former CISA Director \u003ca href=\"https://video.kqed.org/video/shakeup-1605661366/\">Christopher Krebs\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But at Stanford’s Hoover Institution on Wednesday, a surprisingly collegial \u003ca href=\"https://www.c-span.org/program/house-committee/house-homeland-security-field-hearing-on-us-cybersecurity-challenges/660500\">House Homeland Security Field Hearing on U.S. Cybersecurity Challenges\u003c/a> featured broad agreement on a host of urgent issues.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lawmakers and experts alike expressed fear of the growing sophistication of cyber attacks like\u003ca href=\"https://www.cybersecuritydive.com/news/salt-typhoon-telecom-hacks-one-of-the-most-consequential-campaigns-against/746870/\"> Salt Typhoon\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://cyberscoop.com/volt-typhoon-critical-infrastructure-report/\">Volt Typhoon\u003c/a> on public and private organizations. Committee Chair Mark Green, a Republican of Tennessee, said it was no accident this field hearing was held in Silicon Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I have prioritized cybersecurity for myself in this Congress and for the Committee on Homeland Security, and I hope the industry partners that are here and across the country will join us in this mission to improve our cyber resilience against nation states, as well as criminal actors, strengthen our offensive posture, and develop new capabilities that incorporate security from the start,” Green said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hearing featured testimony from a panel of expert witnesses — all of them veterans of the federal government or military who are now working at the highest levels in Silicon Valley. They urged lawmakers to adopt a more collaborative approach to cybersecurity, emphasizing the importance of real-time information sharing between the government and the private sector, as well as a stronger national strategy to counter state-sponsored threats, particularly from China.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12023603\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/StanfordUniversity.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12023603\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/StanfordUniversity.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1499\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/StanfordUniversity.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/StanfordUniversity-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/StanfordUniversity-1020x764.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/StanfordUniversity-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/StanfordUniversity-1536x1151.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/StanfordUniversity-1920x1439.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hoover Tower on the Stanford University campus on April 9, 2019. \u003ccite>(Rachael Myrow/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“Our cyber adversaries — China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and others — are more active and aggressive than ever,” said Wendi Whitmore, chief security intelligence officer at Palo Alto Networks. “Every single day, Palo Alto Networks blocks up to 31 billion cyber attacks. Up to 9 million of those daily attacks represent novel methods never previously seen,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/28/data-broker-giant-lexisnexis-says-breach-exposed-personal-information-of-over-364000-people/\">Data breaches\u003c/a> and ransomware attacks have become commonplace at hospitals, schools, utilities and\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/futureofyou/436414/the-crippling-ransomware-attack-on-kqed-the-inside-story\"> even KQED\u003c/a>. So have headlines about software systems \u003ca href=\"https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/chinese-government-poses-broad-and-unrelenting-threat-to-u-s-critical-infrastructure-fbi-director-says\">infested with malicious code implanted by foreign state actors\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-explainers/what-is-cybersecurity\">Global losses\u003c/a> to cyberattacks could exceed $10.5 trillion this year alone, according to the multinational consulting firm McKinsey.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Whitmore argued that the era of isolated, disjointed or manual solutions should be over. But that doesn’t reflect the reality at many organizations and companies, where understaffing and limited budgets lead to poor cybersecurity hygiene.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Most software attacks exploit preventable vulnerabilities in software products or insecure default configurations. This could be as simple as a default password that sits unchanged,” lamented Jack Cable, CEO and co-founder of San Francisco-based Corridor, which makes AI-powered development platforms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another point of agreement: the federal government could take advantage of its massive purchasing power to force Silicon Valley software contractors to increase the quality and security of their code, so that it’s “secure by design,” in cybersecurity lingo.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The government has an obligation to set clearer security standards that are more consistent across the government,” said Jeanette Manfra, global director for security and compliance at Google Cloud, who served as a cybersecurity official during the Obama and first Trump administrations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The expert witnesses touched only lightly on hopes for federal regulation or the recent \u003ca href=\"https://www.nextgov.com/people/2024/11/cisa-director-jen-easterly-depart-inauguration-day/401036/\">exodus\u003c/a> of technical talent from CISA. They seemed clear they were speaking to a friendly audience on the House Committee on Homeland Security, who already understand what needs to be done from a cybersecurity perspective in Washington D.C., as well as the political obstacles that lie in their way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Industry watchers said the\u003ca href=\"https://cyberscoop.com/cisa-workforce-cuts-house-leaders-legislation/\"> ball is now in the court\u003c/a> of the committee’s Republican lawmakers to lobby the Trump administration to prioritize cybersecurity and turn the industry’s best practices into policy or even law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Do You Hear What I Hear? Audio Illusions and Misinformation",
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"headTitle": "Do You Hear What I Hear? Audio Illusions and Misinformation | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Are you old enough to remember the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/the-hidden-history-of-magic-eye-the-optical-illusion-that-briefly-took-over-the-world/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Magic Eye” optical illusion mania\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that gripped the nation in the 90’s—random patterns that you had to squint at just right for the 3D image to pop out? It turns out it’s not just our eyes that can be fooled. Our \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">ears\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> can play tricks on us too. There’s a whole world of auditory illusions that seem to say one thing when they’re really saying something else, and that matters, especially in our age of digital misinformation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In today’s episode, Morgan talks to KQED Digital Community Producer Francesca Fenzi about why we hear what we \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">think \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">we hear, and how understanding the limits of our perception might actually make us better at spotting dis- and misinformation online.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC7508034216\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Guest:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Francesa Fenzi, KQED Digital Community Producer \u003c/span>\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\u003cp> \u003c/p>\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\">My colleague \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Francesca Fenzi\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, digital community producer at KQED, spends a lot of time online. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m on KQED’s Discord server, on Reddit, all the various chat threads and usual places. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After President Trump was sworn into office earlier this year, she noticed a new wave of viral content about him and his administration. There were clips claiming all kinds of things. One of these viral clips shows Musk and his son, X, during a visit to the White House. X was four at the time. While Musk speaks to the press, X runs around the Oval Office and makes his way the president’s desk. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At one point, he peels off and he makes a side comment to President Trump. This is all happening while Elon Musk is speaking, so it’s very hard to hear what he’s saying. But a lot of people started interpreting what the boy was saying as saying, “You’re not the president and you need to go away,” to Donald Trump. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Elon Musk: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Part of the presidency is to restore, is to restore democracy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Again, X is very young. This was a four-year-old babbling at the president. Another moment from the same meeting seems to show X telling the president to, “shush his mouth.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Elon Musk: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taxes from one year to the next are the same. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I did watch this clip. It does seem like he might have said something like this, but my audio producer brain also lit up right away because I can tell you that that clip was not clear. It was not the kind of thing that you can clean up in post. So when people started quoting this as fact, as something that was happening, my interest was piqued. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The whole thing set Francesca down a research rabbit hole, which — relatable. This clip felt different from other pieces of viral misinformation she’d seen online. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’ve been really focused on AI’s potential to spread false information and how it can trick people into believing things that never actually happened. But even without AI, our senses can be fooled the old fashioned way. And what I was interested in in this situation was just trying to understand how our brains process what we see and hear and how those senses can be manipulated, not by AI, but just by old fashioned audio and video tricks. And so my research spiral, led me to this whole world of auditory illusions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Remember those Magic Eye posters? They were those optical illusions that looked like random patterns until you unfocused your eyes just right and a hidden image popped out. Well, it turns out it’s not just our eyes that can be fooled. Our ears can play tricks on us too. There’s a whole world of auditory illusions that seem to say one thing when they’re really saying something else. And that matters, especially in an age of misinformation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In today’s episode, we’re looking at some phenomena that can completely change what we think we hear. And we explore how understanding the limits of our perception might actually make us better at spotting disinformation online. \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 gonna start with something that feels super commonplace, but might not be as reliable as we think. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">New tab. Can we trust lip reading? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so in this video with Elon Musk’s son and President Trump, a lot of people were really relying on a combination of very poor audio and lip reading to decipher what he was saying. So let’s start with lip reading. Francesca, how reliable is it? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, it’s estimated that only 30 to 40% of speech can actually be lip read, and that’s even under the best conditions. Lip reading is a really useful tool for people who are hard of hearing because it helps to piece together context around other pieces of information, right? Like partial audio or even like hand movements in sign language. So some lip readings seem really good when we think that we have the context associated with them. One example of that is there’s a TikTok creator who I really like, her handle is “It’s Jackie G”, and she interprets celebrity red carpet moments. So she’ll take moments of celebrities being recorded and will lip read the conversation that’s too far away from the camera for us to be able to hear accurately. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s Jackie G, lip reading Zendaya at this year’s Met Gala. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jackie G: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She’s so fab. So fabulous. I love it. It’s so funny because she’s, I would say when we, when it cuts off. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The reason that those work is because as a fan of a certain kind of celebrity, you are probably a little bit aware of how they feel about the movie that they’re promoting or their relationship to other stars who they might be interacting with, and they seem really plausible because of that. But the more removed lip reading is from its context, the less you understand about the true nature of the relationship of the speakers, the more likely you are to be misled. That’s part of what makes the YouTube series Bad Lip Reading so possible and successful. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bad Lip Reading is a YouTube channel that intentionally misinterprets what people are saying in movies or TV shows and then voices them over. Like this scene from Star Wars, a conversation between Obi-Wan Kenobi and some stormtroopers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Stormtrooper: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hey guys, we’re collecting donations for the Jawa Orphanage. Do you have any spare change? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Obi-Wan Kenobi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hey, you should know that you stink kinda like fish. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Stormtrooper: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wait, what? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Obi-Wan Kenobi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Everyone knows it except for you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’re removing context from the audio that you’re hearing and you’re replacing the story with sound that maybe mirrors some lip movements but is totally nonsensical to the scenario. And that’s the source of the humor in those videos. I spoke to Nicholas Davidenko, who’s a researcher at the High Level Perceptions Lab at UC Santa Cruz. He studies auditory illusions and I asked him why bad lip reading videos look so convincing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nicolas Davidenko: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The reason they work so well is because lip reading is a much more ambiguous cue. So there’s actually a lot of words that could fit the shapes of my lips as I talk. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Davidenko studies this type of phenomena in his lab. He’s been researching how to help people with something called misophonia. That is when you have an extreme negative reaction to certain sounds. There’s some sounds that all of us find a little bit unpleasant, but these are folks who have a really extreme triggered reaction to sounds like chewing or teeth mashing. Those are some common ones. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And Davidenko found that you can actually pair a different kind of video with the audio that would normally trigger misophonia for somebody. So for example, if the sound that triggers you is that sound of chewing, you can replace an image of somebody chewing with another plausible sound source. In his lab, they use an example of somebody stepping on leaves to kind of mimic that crunching sound that might originate with chewing on food. And by swapping that image out, people start to interpret that sound differently. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nicolas Davidenko: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If the visual signal is telling you something, you trust it more than the auditory signal and when there’s a conflict, you tend to go with whatever visual system is telling you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Got it. So the thing we’re seeing with our eyes is overruling what we’re hearing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that’s because of something called the McGurk Effect. There was this famous study in 1976, McGurk and McDonald, and what they found was that what we see can actually change what we can hear. In fact, I’m gonna demonstrate. Can I play you a video, Morgan? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Please do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m going to play you clip, and in this first one, I just want to hear what sound you hear. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>McGurk Video: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bah bah bah \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a close-up of a person’s mouth. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>McGurk Video: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bah bah bah \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so I’m hearing bah with a B, like baby. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, yeah, that’s right. Okay, so now I’m gonna play you a different clip and tell me this time what you hear. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>McGurk Video: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bah, bah, bah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, now I’m hearing fa, like with an F, like fabulous. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. So it’s actually the exact same audio. So if you were listening and you heard exactly the same thing both times, you’re not crazy. Morgan’s being tricked. The audio… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That is wild. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, it’s crazy, right? It happened to me too the first time I watched this. The audio is actually exactly the same, but what listeners aren’t getting in this case that you are is the lip motion is different from one to the next, and that’s actually changing the that you’re hearing the audio. So when you see that B shape being made with the mouth, you hear “ba,” and when you see that F shape being with the mouth, you’re actually hearing it like “fa.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right, like I saw the person’s bottom lip hit their teeth. It’s like, yeah, that’s an F shape. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s the effect that bad lip readings take advantage of, is they’re taking those lip shapes with plausible sounds and they’re kind of swapping them for things that are similar phonetically. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So experiencing the McGurk effect in a bad lip reading video is pretty funny, but I can imagine that if this falls into the wrong hands it can go very poorly? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For sure. Something else that Davidenko explained is that we can be misled by someone telling us what to hear or see ahead of time. That’s kind of playing into this idea that contextualizing those clips changed the way we hear it too. So it’s not just the McGurk effect, it’s also the expectation we have coming into a video. In this case, Davidenko also worked on an experiment in his lab called Mind Controlled Motion. That is how he named it, Mind Controlled Motion. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In that experiment, what researchers did is they showed people a set of randomly refreshing images that were just pixels on a screen. So they’re just truly randomly refreshing pixels popping up and disappearing. There’s no logical motion behind them. But when researchers said something like, “left, right, left, right,” or “up, down, up, down,” over and over, when people viewed these images, then people were actually seeing the motion that they were told to see. And he said that there was a 90% compliance rate, meaning like 90% of the people who watched these and got those prompts saw the motion that they are being told to. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, this really makes me think of those like kind of rage bait body language reading videos that we always see online. Like an infamous example is Couch Guy, where a girl walked into her long distance boyfriend’s apartment and he just didn’t seem as excited to see her as people thought he should have been. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Couch Guy Commenter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right, there his arm goes to the side of his pants, grabs his phone from old girl, acts like he’s laughing to pull it up through the middle and then boop, there went her hand. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And some people were like, no, that’s a totally normal reaction. Like, look at his body language. He’s just surprised. Well, as other people were, like, this is, like he hates her. Look at his, body language. Does this explain, like why people see completely different things in the same viral videos? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It doesn’t have to be a deep fake to be misleading. It can be a real situation that really happened. But how something is presented has a lot to do with influencing our perception of the relationship of the before and after that surround that moment. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so when I’m watching something and also listening to it at the same time, it’s like, “yeah, my eyes can deceive me,” but at least audio on its own is safe, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, unfortunately, not exactly. Morgan, do you remember the whole Laurel, Yanny thing that broke the internet a few years ago? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It feels like a lifetime ago. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, it was like the dress, but for your ears. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And we’re going to hear about that after this break. Okay, welcome back. Time to open a new tab. Can people hear different things in the same audio? So I remember this whole Laurel versus Yanny thing back in 2018, feels like forever ago in internet time. So can you remind us what it was all about? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, so this actually started with a group of high school students who were studying vocabulary words for their English class. They were on vocabulary.com and they were sending recordings of different words to each other on Instagram and they discovered that when they recorded one word, they were hearing totally different things one person to the next. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So some people were hearing the word Laurel and others were hearing the word Yanny, which are so different that it kind of kicked off this debate in their friend group. And then eventually someone posted to Reddit and Stranger started weighing in as well. And it became this divisive litmus test of sorts where people were hearing either Laurel or Yanny and then being fiercely adamant that it was not the other. Actually, I’m gonna play the clip for you now. I wanna hear what you hear in this. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laurel vs Yanny: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Laurel, laurel laurel, laurel, laurel. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know what’s crazy? When I first heard this, um, what was this, like seven years ago in 2018, I swore it was saying Yanny. And now… I’m hearing Laurel.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, I think I may have an explanation for that. I hear Laurel too, and the unflattering reason behind that, or one of the theories, is that it may be related to our age. So I hate to tell you, but I think you’ve arrived in Millennialville. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s time. It’s coming for us all. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So when this was first circulating, the New York Times and Wired and a bunch of other news outlets took it super seriously getting to the bottom of what was happening. And the New York Times actually created this tool to help people hear both sides. So if you only heard one or the other in this clip, I can play a clip of audio that shows you what it should sound like moving from the Laurel to Yanny spectrum. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laurel vs Yanny: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Laurel, laurel, laurel, laurel, yanny, yanny, yanny, yanny, yanny. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, I was hearing like hints of Yanny. It was so weird. It was like my brain was fighting the Yanny. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, it feels like it’s like fighting to come to the surface. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But eventually like it kicks over. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly! So there’s some actual science behind why some people hear Laurel and others hear Yanny, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, so it’s still hard to know for sure what caused it, but there’s a prevailing theory and essentially two things are what people think is happening in this clip. One is that the recording of the recording has added and introduced new frequencies to the audio. So remember, these were high school kids who were recording a clip played from online of a vocab word. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The original word is Laurel. So if that’s what you heard, you were correct. But when Laurel was recorded through computer speakers into a phone and then sent across the internet, it introduced some additional frequencies to the audio. And our brains are choosing which of those frequencies to prioritize. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And this is where the age part comes in. Older people tend to hear lower frequencies and less of the high frequencies. And then younger listeners, they have a broader range of those high frequencies available to them. So the theory is that if you hear Laurel, you’re probably prioritizing those lower frequencies, and if you hear Yanny, your brain is prioritizing those higher frequencies. And younger people may be more inclined to prioritize those because they can actually hear more of them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My God. Sorry, I’m still coming to terms with my ancient, decrepit ears. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I know. It’s the worst. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So are there any bigger implications for this phenomenon or is it just like an oddity of the digital age? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So it means that there’s just more opportunity for ambiguity and misinterpretation. We’re listening to audio, if you think about it, in all these different forms all the time now, we’re playing them through computer speakers, from our phone speakers on crowded busses, in our car stereos, which means that there’s a lot of opportunity for us to hear things differently. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So is this why I sometimes miss your song lyrics? Like I swore, god, back in the day, Taylor Swift’s Blank Space. I swore she was saying “Starbucks lovers.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Taylor Swift: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Got a long list of ex-lovers. They’ll tell… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, that is a common one. The actual lyric is “long list of ex-lovers,” but I get why people hear that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And here I am, like, I knew it was the wrong lyric, and for the last, I don’t know, 10 years, I’ve just been like, “I don’t need to learn it, it’s Starbucks lovers.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, that’s actually a different phenomena, but just as fascinating. It turns out our brains do make up words that aren’t there. And that’s what’s happening when you’re listening to song lyrics sometimes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s hear about that, in a new tab. Can my brain make up words that aren’t there?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’re definitely not the only person this happens to. I actually went around and I asked our colleagues about some of the songs that they’ve misheard.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susie Britton: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My brother and I, when we were little, used to play what we called the wrong song game. One that I remember was Bonnie Tyler’s It’s a Heartache.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bonnie Tyler: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a heartache\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susie Britton: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And we heard that as, it’s a hard egg.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mark Nieto: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I learned this very, very late in life, which I’m embarrassed to admit, but yeah, the song lyric is “revved up like a deuce” from Blinded by the Light by Manfred Mann.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Manfred Mann: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Blinded by the light. Revved up like a deuce another runner in the night.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mark Nieto: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For the vast majority of my life, I thought it was “wrapped up like a douche.” And I know I’m not the only one because if you Google that lyric, you get a ton of hits for it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Beat It by Michael Jackson, I always thought was, “beat it, just beat it. You don’t wanna beat it beat it”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Jackson: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Beat it, beat it, no one wants to be defeated.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But it’s actually, “no one wants to be defeated.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanca Torres: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When Chappell Roan’s song, Hot to Go, was really popular.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chappell Roan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">H-O-T-T-O-G-O You can take me hot to go.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanca Torres: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My then five-year-old loved that song, would always sing along to it, and then one time I was singing along to, and I said, “hot to go,” and she was like, Mom, that’s wrong, it’s “out to go.” She wasn’t catching on to the spelling, so she was just like, “you’re wrong, it’s out to, do it right.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bryan Vo: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Growing up, one of the childhood bangers was T-Pain Buy You a Drink. I saw a T-pain tweet about it in like 2017. And then I found out that instead of just harmonizing random lyrics, “ooh wee.” It was actually “and then.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wait, what?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bryan Vo: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly what?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m glad I’m not the only one. So is there a name for this phenomenon, too?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Very perceptive. I feel like you’re getting the hang of this. It’s called the Mondegreen effect. And that’s when you mishear phrases or words and so assign them a new meaning. Sometimes it’s hearing words that you do know, but in an order that’s not what was actually being said, like Starbucks lovers, like those are real words. And then sometimes it’s just inventing a totally new word, which is what happens to me the most. I just make up a new thing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, this is most common with song lyrics, and it comes from the mid-century American writer, Sylvia Wright. She coined this term based on her childhood. She remembered mis-hearing the line in a Scottish ballad called The Bonnie Earl O’ Moray. And there’s a line in the song that goes, “laid him on the green,” which she interpreted as Lady Mondegreen.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>The Bonnie Earl O’ Moray: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh where have ye been, they slain The Earl O’ Moray, and laid him on the green.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Which is another really common way that we do this is we just make up formal nouns or things that feel like names when we don’t really know what’s being said. So Morgan, researching the Mondegreen effect actually led me to researcher Diana Deutsch. She is at Stanford and UC San Diego, and she is like the audio illusion researcher. Been doing this for decades. She discovered that when you take two audio sources, and you play the same word or syllable slightly out of sync, after about 10 seconds of listening, people start to invent phantom words in that overlap. They start to hear different things.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, here’s a clip from one of these audio experiments.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Auditory Illusion: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">WELWELWELLWEL WEL WELL WELLWELL WEL\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And even with the same audio, the phantom words that they’re hearing are often unique to the listener. So here’s Diana listing some of the words that people have reported hearing in the same piece of audio.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Diana Deustch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Window, welcome, love me, run away, no brain, rainbow, raincoat, bueno, nombre, when oh when, mango, window pane, broadway, even rogain.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That is fascinating. So why would people hear totally different phantom words in the same audio?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is similar to something called periodolia, where people perceive familiar patterns in random or ambiguous stimuli. This happens a lot with visual things. So like seeing a face on the moon or Jesus in a flower tortilla. It turns out that that can happen with audio too.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Diana Deustch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Generally people hear words or phrases that refer to things that are on their mind. So for example, if someone’s on a diet, they might hear the phrase, “feel fat.” And it often happens when I present these to a group of students close to exam time, they’ll hear things like “no brain.” So these illusions show that when people believe that they’re hearing meaningful messages from the outside world, their brains are actively reconstructing sounds that make sense to them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Diana says that the patterns we hear are influenced by things like our mood, what we’ve thought about or discussed that day, whether we’re tired or sad or scared. We assign meaning to sounds based on our internal narratives. For example, that’s part of what might be going on when people report hearing electronic voice phenomena in ghost hunting. Being scared or heightened or thinking about ghosts may lead you to hear certain phrases in ambiguous audio.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ghost Hunters: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s amazing. Strange, right? How it says- Goose bumps up my spine. Clearly a voice. I hear something negative, like no or don’t.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And Diana actually told me that one thing that’s quite common is for people who have recently experienced a loss, they’re more likely in their day-to-day lives to hear what sounds like words or phrases or even voices associated with their lost loved one.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Earlier, you mentioned that having less information, like audio without visual cues, makes us more likely to assign new meaning to what we hear. So let’s bring this full circle. So after all of this research, what would you tell someone who’s absolutely convinced that they know what Elon Musk’s son said in that clip?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I guess I would say that that probably says more about you and how you feel about Elon Musk or President Trump than necessarily what the three people in that audio clip were saying. It doesn’t mean that you’re wrong. It’s just that we don’t know. There’s no way to really hear truth in an audio clip that convoluted.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And what are some of the ways bad actors can purposely take advantage of how suggestible our senses and our brains are?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that the easiest way to be manipulated is when somebody is taking a clip or a small snippet of something and then abbreviating the context and telling you what goes before and after. And social media is designed in this way to give us bite-sized samples of the world. But when you’re taking just a bite, it means that you might be missing the whole meal around it, and you might get the flavors wrong. And you might kinda misunderstand what’s being served to you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How can understanding all of this brain trickery help us spot actual misinformation?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, that’s the ultimate question, right? We can’t trust our eyes, we can’t trust our ears, we can’t trust AI. I think that the real takeaway, I guess, that I have after this research spiral is trust but verify. Double check your own thinking when you’re encountering one of these clips online. Is it too good to be true? Maybe it takes a little extra Googling to see if you can get to the bottom of it. And maybe, I guess another takeaway I would have is being okay with a little bit of ambiguity. Sometimes there are mysteries that Google can’t answer for us. Just like the answer of what was really said in the White House in that moment.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No amount of Reddit threads can do it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But knowing that there are unknowns, I feel like being aware that people claiming to have a definitive answer might not be telling the truth.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well Francesca, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks so much for telling us all about, I don’t know, these crazy auditory illusions.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you for having me, Morgan. This was super fun.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Voices from KQED staff in this episode included Susie Britton, Mark Nieto, Marlena Jackson-Retondo, Brian Vo, and Blanca Torres. Francesca runs KQED’s Discord server and Close All Tabs has its own channel. Come say hi, share your thoughts, and chat with other listeners about the show. Join us at discord.gg/KQED.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, let’s close all these tabs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. Our Producer is Maya Cueva. Chris Egusa is our Senior Editor. Jen Chien is KQED’s Director of Podcasts and helps edit the show. Sound design by Maya Cueva. Original music by Chris Egusa. Additional music by APM. Mixing and mastering by Brendan Willard and Katherine Monahan. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad and Alana Walker. Katie Sprenger is our Podcast Operations Manager, and Holly Kernan is our Chief Content Officer. 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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink dust silver K-84 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 at CloseAllTabsPod, 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>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"description": "Are you old enough to remember the “Magic Eye” optical illusion mania that gripped the nation in the 90’s—random patterns that you had to squint at just right for the 3D image to pop out? It turns out it's not just our eyes that can be fooled. Our ears can play tricks on us too. There's a whole world of auditory illusions that seem to say one thing when they're really saying something else, and that matters, especially in our age of digital misinformation. In today’s episode, Morgan talks to KQED Digital Community Producer Francesca Fenzi about why we hear what we think we hear, and how understanding the limits of our perception might actually make us better at spotting dis- and misinformation online.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Are you old enough to remember the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/the-hidden-history-of-magic-eye-the-optical-illusion-that-briefly-took-over-the-world/\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Magic Eye” optical illusion mania\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that gripped the nation in the 90’s—random patterns that you had to squint at just right for the 3D image to pop out? It turns out it’s not just our eyes that can be fooled. Our \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">ears\u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> can play tricks on us too. There’s a whole world of auditory illusions that seem to say one thing when they’re really saying something else, and that matters, especially in our age of digital misinformation.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In today’s episode, Morgan talks to KQED Digital Community Producer Francesca Fenzi about why we hear what we \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">think \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">we hear, and how understanding the limits of our perception might actually make us better at spotting dis- and misinformation online.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm/?e=KQINC7508034216\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Guest:\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Francesa Fenzi, KQED Digital Community Producer \u003c/span>\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\">My colleague \u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Francesca Fenzi\u003c/span>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">, digital community producer at KQED, spends a lot of time online. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m on KQED’s Discord server, on Reddit, all the various chat threads and usual places. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">After President Trump was sworn into office earlier this year, she noticed a new wave of viral content about him and his administration. There were clips claiming all kinds of things. One of these viral clips shows Musk and his son, X, during a visit to the White House. X was four at the time. While Musk speaks to the press, X runs around the Oval Office and makes his way the president’s desk. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">At one point, he peels off and he makes a side comment to President Trump. This is all happening while Elon Musk is speaking, so it’s very hard to hear what he’s saying. But a lot of people started interpreting what the boy was saying as saying, “You’re not the president and you need to go away,” to Donald Trump. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Elon Musk: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Part of the presidency is to restore, is to restore democracy. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Again, X is very young. This was a four-year-old babbling at the president. Another moment from the same meeting seems to show X telling the president to, “shush his mouth.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Elon Musk: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Taxes from one year to the next are the same. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I did watch this clip. It does seem like he might have said something like this, but my audio producer brain also lit up right away because I can tell you that that clip was not clear. It was not the kind of thing that you can clean up in post. So when people started quoting this as fact, as something that was happening, my interest was piqued. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The whole thing set Francesca down a research rabbit hole, which — relatable. This clip felt different from other pieces of viral misinformation she’d seen online. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">We’ve been really focused on AI’s potential to spread false information and how it can trick people into believing things that never actually happened. But even without AI, our senses can be fooled the old fashioned way. And what I was interested in in this situation was just trying to understand how our brains process what we see and hear and how those senses can be manipulated, not by AI, but just by old fashioned audio and video tricks. And so my research spiral, led me to this whole world of auditory illusions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Remember those Magic Eye posters? They were those optical illusions that looked like random patterns until you unfocused your eyes just right and a hidden image popped out. Well, it turns out it’s not just our eyes that can be fooled. Our ears can play tricks on us too. There’s a whole world of auditory illusions that seem to say one thing when they’re really saying something else. And that matters, especially in an age of misinformation. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In today’s episode, we’re looking at some phenomena that can completely change what we think we hear. And we explore how understanding the limits of our perception might actually make us better at spotting disinformation online. \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 gonna start with something that feels super commonplace, but might not be as reliable as we think. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">New tab. Can we trust lip reading? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so in this video with Elon Musk’s son and President Trump, a lot of people were really relying on a combination of very poor audio and lip reading to decipher what he was saying. So let’s start with lip reading. Francesca, how reliable is it? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, it’s estimated that only 30 to 40% of speech can actually be lip read, and that’s even under the best conditions. Lip reading is a really useful tool for people who are hard of hearing because it helps to piece together context around other pieces of information, right? Like partial audio or even like hand movements in sign language. So some lip readings seem really good when we think that we have the context associated with them. One example of that is there’s a TikTok creator who I really like, her handle is “It’s Jackie G”, and she interprets celebrity red carpet moments. So she’ll take moments of celebrities being recorded and will lip read the conversation that’s too far away from the camera for us to be able to hear accurately. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here’s Jackie G, lip reading Zendaya at this year’s Met Gala. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Jackie G: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">She’s so fab. So fabulous. I love it. It’s so funny because she’s, I would say when we, when it cuts off. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The reason that those work is because as a fan of a certain kind of celebrity, you are probably a little bit aware of how they feel about the movie that they’re promoting or their relationship to other stars who they might be interacting with, and they seem really plausible because of that. But the more removed lip reading is from its context, the less you understand about the true nature of the relationship of the speakers, the more likely you are to be misled. That’s part of what makes the YouTube series Bad Lip Reading so possible and successful. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bad Lip Reading is a YouTube channel that intentionally misinterprets what people are saying in movies or TV shows and then voices them over. Like this scene from Star Wars, a conversation between Obi-Wan Kenobi and some stormtroopers. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Stormtrooper: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hey guys, we’re collecting donations for the Jawa Orphanage. Do you have any spare change? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Obi-Wan Kenobi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Hey, you should know that you stink kinda like fish. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Stormtrooper: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wait, what? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Obi-Wan Kenobi: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Everyone knows it except for you. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’re removing context from the audio that you’re hearing and you’re replacing the story with sound that maybe mirrors some lip movements but is totally nonsensical to the scenario. And that’s the source of the humor in those videos. I spoke to Nicholas Davidenko, who’s a researcher at the High Level Perceptions Lab at UC Santa Cruz. He studies auditory illusions and I asked him why bad lip reading videos look so convincing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nicolas Davidenko: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The reason they work so well is because lip reading is a much more ambiguous cue. So there’s actually a lot of words that could fit the shapes of my lips as I talk. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Davidenko studies this type of phenomena in his lab. He’s been researching how to help people with something called misophonia. That is when you have an extreme negative reaction to certain sounds. There’s some sounds that all of us find a little bit unpleasant, but these are folks who have a really extreme triggered reaction to sounds like chewing or teeth mashing. Those are some common ones. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And Davidenko found that you can actually pair a different kind of video with the audio that would normally trigger misophonia for somebody. So for example, if the sound that triggers you is that sound of chewing, you can replace an image of somebody chewing with another plausible sound source. In his lab, they use an example of somebody stepping on leaves to kind of mimic that crunching sound that might originate with chewing on food. And by swapping that image out, people start to interpret that sound differently. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Nicolas Davidenko: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">If the visual signal is telling you something, you trust it more than the auditory signal and when there’s a conflict, you tend to go with whatever visual system is telling you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Got it. So the thing we’re seeing with our eyes is overruling what we’re hearing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And that’s because of something called the McGurk Effect. There was this famous study in 1976, McGurk and McDonald, and what they found was that what we see can actually change what we can hear. In fact, I’m gonna demonstrate. Can I play you a video, Morgan? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Please do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m going to play you clip, and in this first one, I just want to hear what sound you hear. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>McGurk Video: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bah bah bah \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a close-up of a person’s mouth. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>McGurk Video: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bah bah bah \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so I’m hearing bah with a B, like baby. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, yeah, that’s right. Okay, so now I’m gonna play you a different clip and tell me this time what you hear. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>McGurk Video: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Bah, bah, bah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, now I’m hearing fa, like with an F, like fabulous. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right. So it’s actually the exact same audio. So if you were listening and you heard exactly the same thing both times, you’re not crazy. Morgan’s being tricked. The audio… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That is wild. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, it’s crazy, right? It happened to me too the first time I watched this. The audio is actually exactly the same, but what listeners aren’t getting in this case that you are is the lip motion is different from one to the next, and that’s actually changing the that you’re hearing the audio. So when you see that B shape being made with the mouth, you hear “ba,” and when you see that F shape being with the mouth, you’re actually hearing it like “fa.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Right, like I saw the person’s bottom lip hit their teeth. It’s like, yeah, that’s an F shape. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s the effect that bad lip readings take advantage of, is they’re taking those lip shapes with plausible sounds and they’re kind of swapping them for things that are similar phonetically. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So experiencing the McGurk effect in a bad lip reading video is pretty funny, but I can imagine that if this falls into the wrong hands it can go very poorly? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For sure. Something else that Davidenko explained is that we can be misled by someone telling us what to hear or see ahead of time. That’s kind of playing into this idea that contextualizing those clips changed the way we hear it too. So it’s not just the McGurk effect, it’s also the expectation we have coming into a video. In this case, Davidenko also worked on an experiment in his lab called Mind Controlled Motion. That is how he named it, Mind Controlled Motion. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">In that experiment, what researchers did is they showed people a set of randomly refreshing images that were just pixels on a screen. So they’re just truly randomly refreshing pixels popping up and disappearing. There’s no logical motion behind them. But when researchers said something like, “left, right, left, right,” or “up, down, up, down,” over and over, when people viewed these images, then people were actually seeing the motion that they were told to see. And he said that there was a 90% compliance rate, meaning like 90% of the people who watched these and got those prompts saw the motion that they are being told to. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, this really makes me think of those like kind of rage bait body language reading videos that we always see online. Like an infamous example is Couch Guy, where a girl walked into her long distance boyfriend’s apartment and he just didn’t seem as excited to see her as people thought he should have been. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Couch Guy Commenter: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">All right, there his arm goes to the side of his pants, grabs his phone from old girl, acts like he’s laughing to pull it up through the middle and then boop, there went her hand. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And some people were like, no, that’s a totally normal reaction. Like, look at his body language. He’s just surprised. Well, as other people were, like, this is, like he hates her. Look at his, body language. Does this explain, like why people see completely different things in the same viral videos? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It doesn’t have to be a deep fake to be misleading. It can be a real situation that really happened. But how something is presented has a lot to do with influencing our perception of the relationship of the before and after that surround that moment. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, so when I’m watching something and also listening to it at the same time, it’s like, “yeah, my eyes can deceive me,” but at least audio on its own is safe, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uh, unfortunately, not exactly. Morgan, do you remember the whole Laurel, Yanny thing that broke the internet a few years ago? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It feels like a lifetime ago. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, it was like the dress, but for your ears. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And we’re going to hear about that after this break. Okay, welcome back. Time to open a new tab. Can people hear different things in the same audio? So I remember this whole Laurel versus Yanny thing back in 2018, feels like forever ago in internet time. So can you remind us what it was all about? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, so this actually started with a group of high school students who were studying vocabulary words for their English class. They were on vocabulary.com and they were sending recordings of different words to each other on Instagram and they discovered that when they recorded one word, they were hearing totally different things one person to the next. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So some people were hearing the word Laurel and others were hearing the word Yanny, which are so different that it kind of kicked off this debate in their friend group. And then eventually someone posted to Reddit and Stranger started weighing in as well. And it became this divisive litmus test of sorts where people were hearing either Laurel or Yanny and then being fiercely adamant that it was not the other. Actually, I’m gonna play the clip for you now. I wanna hear what you hear in this. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laurel vs Yanny: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Laurel, laurel laurel, laurel, laurel. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You know what’s crazy? When I first heard this, um, what was this, like seven years ago in 2018, I swore it was saying Yanny. And now… I’m hearing Laurel.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, I think I may have an explanation for that. I hear Laurel too, and the unflattering reason behind that, or one of the theories, is that it may be related to our age. So I hate to tell you, but I think you’ve arrived in Millennialville. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s time. It’s coming for us all. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So when this was first circulating, the New York Times and Wired and a bunch of other news outlets took it super seriously getting to the bottom of what was happening. And the New York Times actually created this tool to help people hear both sides. So if you only heard one or the other in this clip, I can play a clip of audio that shows you what it should sound like moving from the Laurel to Yanny spectrum. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Laurel vs Yanny: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Laurel, laurel, laurel, laurel, yanny, yanny, yanny, yanny, yanny. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, I was hearing like hints of Yanny. It was so weird. It was like my brain was fighting the Yanny. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, it feels like it’s like fighting to come to the surface. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But eventually like it kicks over. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly! So there’s some actual science behind why some people hear Laurel and others hear Yanny, right? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, so it’s still hard to know for sure what caused it, but there’s a prevailing theory and essentially two things are what people think is happening in this clip. One is that the recording of the recording has added and introduced new frequencies to the audio. So remember, these were high school kids who were recording a clip played from online of a vocab word. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The original word is Laurel. So if that’s what you heard, you were correct. But when Laurel was recorded through computer speakers into a phone and then sent across the internet, it introduced some additional frequencies to the audio. And our brains are choosing which of those frequencies to prioritize. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And this is where the age part comes in. Older people tend to hear lower frequencies and less of the high frequencies. And then younger listeners, they have a broader range of those high frequencies available to them. So the theory is that if you hear Laurel, you’re probably prioritizing those lower frequencies, and if you hear Yanny, your brain is prioritizing those higher frequencies. And younger people may be more inclined to prioritize those because they can actually hear more of them. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My God. Sorry, I’m still coming to terms with my ancient, decrepit ears. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I know. It’s the worst. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So are there any bigger implications for this phenomenon or is it just like an oddity of the digital age? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So it means that there’s just more opportunity for ambiguity and misinterpretation. We’re listening to audio, if you think about it, in all these different forms all the time now, we’re playing them through computer speakers, from our phone speakers on crowded busses, in our car stereos, which means that there’s a lot of opportunity for us to hear things differently. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So is this why I sometimes miss your song lyrics? Like I swore, god, back in the day, Taylor Swift’s Blank Space. I swore she was saying “Starbucks lovers.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Taylor Swift: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Got a long list of ex-lovers. They’ll tell… \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes, that is a common one. The actual lyric is “long list of ex-lovers,” but I get why people hear that. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And here I am, like, I knew it was the wrong lyric, and for the last, I don’t know, 10 years, I’ve just been like, “I don’t need to learn it, it’s Starbucks lovers.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well, that’s actually a different phenomena, but just as fascinating. It turns out our brains do make up words that aren’t there. And that’s what’s happening when you’re listening to song lyrics sometimes. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Let’s hear about that, in a new tab. Can my brain make up words that aren’t there?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">You’re definitely not the only person this happens to. I actually went around and I asked our colleagues about some of the songs that they’ve misheard.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susie Britton: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My brother and I, when we were little, used to play what we called the wrong song game. One that I remember was Bonnie Tyler’s It’s a Heartache.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bonnie Tyler: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">It’s a heartache\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Susie Britton: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And we heard that as, it’s a hard egg.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mark Nieto: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I learned this very, very late in life, which I’m embarrassed to admit, but yeah, the song lyric is “revved up like a deuce” from Blinded by the Light by Manfred Mann.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Manfred Mann: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Blinded by the light. Revved up like a deuce another runner in the night.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Mark Nieto: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For the vast majority of my life, I thought it was “wrapped up like a douche.” And I know I’m not the only one because if you Google that lyric, you get a ton of hits for it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Beat It by Michael Jackson, I always thought was, “beat it, just beat it. You don’t wanna beat it beat it”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Michael Jackson: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Beat it, beat it, no one wants to be defeated.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Marlena Jackson-Retondo: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But it’s actually, “no one wants to be defeated.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanca Torres: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">When Chappell Roan’s song, Hot to Go, was really popular.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Chappell Roan: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">H-O-T-T-O-G-O You can take me hot to go.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Blanca Torres: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">My then five-year-old loved that song, would always sing along to it, and then one time I was singing along to, and I said, “hot to go,” and she was like, Mom, that’s wrong, it’s “out to go.” She wasn’t catching on to the spelling, so she was just like, “you’re wrong, it’s out to, do it right.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bryan Vo: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Growing up, one of the childhood bangers was T-Pain Buy You a Drink. I saw a T-pain tweet about it in like 2017. And then I found out that instead of just harmonizing random lyrics, “ooh wee.” It was actually “and then.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Wait, what?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Bryan Vo: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Exactly what?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I’m glad I’m not the only one. So is there a name for this phenomenon, too?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Very perceptive. I feel like you’re getting the hang of this. It’s called the Mondegreen effect. And that’s when you mishear phrases or words and so assign them a new meaning. Sometimes it’s hearing words that you do know, but in an order that’s not what was actually being said, like Starbucks lovers, like those are real words. And then sometimes it’s just inventing a totally new word, which is what happens to me the most. I just make up a new thing. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">So, this is most common with song lyrics, and it comes from the mid-century American writer, Sylvia Wright. She coined this term based on her childhood. She remembered mis-hearing the line in a Scottish ballad called The Bonnie Earl O’ Moray. And there’s a line in the song that goes, “laid him on the green,” which she interpreted as Lady Mondegreen.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>The Bonnie Earl O’ Moray: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Oh where have ye been, they slain The Earl O’ Moray, and laid him on the green.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Which is another really common way that we do this is we just make up formal nouns or things that feel like names when we don’t really know what’s being said. So Morgan, researching the Mondegreen effect actually led me to researcher Diana Deutsch. She is at Stanford and UC San Diego, and she is like the audio illusion researcher. Been doing this for decades. She discovered that when you take two audio sources, and you play the same word or syllable slightly out of sync, after about 10 seconds of listening, people start to invent phantom words in that overlap. They start to hear different things.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Okay, here’s a clip from one of these audio experiments.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Auditory Illusion: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">WELWELWELLWEL WEL WELL WELLWELL WEL\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And even with the same audio, the phantom words that they’re hearing are often unique to the listener. So here’s Diana listing some of the words that people have reported hearing in the same piece of audio.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Diana Deustch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Window, welcome, love me, run away, no brain, rainbow, raincoat, bueno, nombre, when oh when, mango, window pane, broadway, even rogain.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That is fascinating. So why would people hear totally different phantom words in the same audio?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is similar to something called periodolia, where people perceive familiar patterns in random or ambiguous stimuli. This happens a lot with visual things. So like seeing a face on the moon or Jesus in a flower tortilla. It turns out that that can happen with audio too.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Diana Deustch: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Generally people hear words or phrases that refer to things that are on their mind. So for example, if someone’s on a diet, they might hear the phrase, “feel fat.” And it often happens when I present these to a group of students close to exam time, they’ll hear things like “no brain.” So these illusions show that when people believe that they’re hearing meaningful messages from the outside world, their brains are actively reconstructing sounds that make sense to them.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Diana says that the patterns we hear are influenced by things like our mood, what we’ve thought about or discussed that day, whether we’re tired or sad or scared. We assign meaning to sounds based on our internal narratives. For example, that’s part of what might be going on when people report hearing electronic voice phenomena in ghost hunting. Being scared or heightened or thinking about ghosts may lead you to hear certain phrases in ambiguous audio.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Ghost Hunters: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">That’s amazing. Strange, right? How it says- Goose bumps up my spine. Clearly a voice. I hear something negative, like no or don’t.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And Diana actually told me that one thing that’s quite common is for people who have recently experienced a loss, they’re more likely in their day-to-day lives to hear what sounds like words or phrases or even voices associated with their lost loved one.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Earlier, you mentioned that having less information, like audio without visual cues, makes us more likely to assign new meaning to what we hear. So let’s bring this full circle. So after all of this research, what would you tell someone who’s absolutely convinced that they know what Elon Musk’s son said in that clip?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I guess I would say that that probably says more about you and how you feel about Elon Musk or President Trump than necessarily what the three people in that audio clip were saying. It doesn’t mean that you’re wrong. It’s just that we don’t know. There’s no way to really hear truth in an audio clip that convoluted.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">And what are some of the ways bad actors can purposely take advantage of how suggestible our senses and our brains are?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">I think that the easiest way to be manipulated is when somebody is taking a clip or a small snippet of something and then abbreviating the context and telling you what goes before and after. And social media is designed in this way to give us bite-sized samples of the world. But when you’re taking just a bite, it means that you might be missing the whole meal around it, and you might get the flavors wrong. And you might kinda misunderstand what’s being served to you.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">How can understanding all of this brain trickery help us spot actual misinformation?\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yeah, that’s the ultimate question, right? We can’t trust our eyes, we can’t trust our ears, we can’t trust AI. I think that the real takeaway, I guess, that I have after this research spiral is trust but verify. Double check your own thinking when you’re encountering one of these clips online. Is it too good to be true? Maybe it takes a little extra Googling to see if you can get to the bottom of it. And maybe, I guess another takeaway I would have is being okay with a little bit of ambiguity. Sometimes there are mysteries that Google can’t answer for us. Just like the answer of what was really said in the White House in that moment.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">No amount of Reddit threads can do it.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But knowing that there are unknowns, I feel like being aware that people claiming to have a definitive answer might not be telling the truth.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Well Francesca, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks so much for telling us all about, I don’t know, these crazy auditory illusions.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb>Francesca Fenzi:\u003c/b> \u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Thank you for having me, Morgan. This was super fun.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003cb>Morgan Sung: \u003c/b>Voices from KQED staff in this episode included Susie Britton, Mark Nieto, Marlena Jackson-Retondo, Brian Vo, and Blanca Torres. Francesca runs KQED’s Discord server and Close All Tabs has its own channel. Come say hi, share your thoughts, and chat with other listeners about the show. Join us at discord.gg/KQED.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Now, let’s close all these tabs.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Close All Tabs is a production of KQED Studios and is reported and hosted by me, Morgan Sung. Our Producer is Maya Cueva. Chris Egusa is our Senior Editor. Jen Chien is KQED’s Director of Podcasts and helps edit the show. Sound design by Maya Cueva. Original music by Chris Egusa. Additional music by APM. Mixing and mastering by Brendan Willard and Katherine Monahan. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Audience engagement support from Maha Sanad and Alana Walker. Katie Sprenger is our Podcast Operations Manager, and Holly Kernan is our Chief Content Officer. 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. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Keyboard sounds were recorded on my purple and pink dust silver K-84 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 at CloseAllTabsPod, 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\u003c/div>"
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"content": "\u003cp>They’re coming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Waymo, the driverless taxi company owned by Google, has received approvals from a state regulator allowing its autonomous vehicles to begin operating in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-jose\">San José\u003c/a> and other nearby cities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates power, telecommunication and transportation industries, gave the green light for the robotaxis that have \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12035725/waymo-robotaxis-are-everywhere-how-do-we-feel-about-that\">flooded San Francisco’s streets\u003c/a> to begin rolling in the South Bay, according to a letter from the state to the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mayor Matt Mahan, in a statement, said it’s about time robotaxis came to San José.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For decades, our region has shaped the future — and now, the ride to work is as forward-thinking as the breakthroughs happening at the office,” Mahan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12040834\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1593px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/Waymo-map-2025-.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12040834\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/Waymo-map-2025-.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1593\" height=\"1427\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/Waymo-map-2025-.jpeg 1593w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/Waymo-map-2025--800x717.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/Waymo-map-2025--1020x914.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/Waymo-map-2025--160x143.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/Waymo-map-2025--1536x1376.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1593px) 100vw, 1593px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This map shows an expansion area where Waymo is now cleared to operate its autonomous taxis in more of the Bay Area, including nearly all of San José. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Waymo/CPUC)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Mahan also posted on the social media platform \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/MattMahanSJ/status/1901815502571466825\">X\u003c/a> that Waymo will “fit right in” as the company “embodies our region’s spirit of innovation.” However, it’s unclear when the driverless taxis will arrive in the South Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While this won’t change our operations in the near-term, we’re looking forward to bringing the benefits of Waymo One to more of the Bay Area in the future,” Waymo said on \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/Waymo/status/1924595146089496654\">X\u003c/a> on Monday afternoon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A company spokesperson told KQED in an email on Monday that there is no timeline to share.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Any expansion of our service will happen methodically over time, and as we grow, we’ll work with local communities, officials, and first responders every step of the way,” the statement said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12035348 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/11/230921-TaxiDriver-10-BL-1020x680.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company received approval for the South Bay expansion from the DMV, which regulates the operation of autonomous vehicles on public roads, on March 17.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Waymo applied for an amendment to its current CPUC permit in late March, including an updated passenger safety plan, to gain approval to sell rides to passengers. Waymo is providing “more than one million driverless rides each quarter across the San Francisco Peninsula and in the greater Los Angeles area,” the company said in its application letter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Waymo’s Bay Area service boundary previously extended from San Francisco south to parts of Sunnyvale. With Monday’s approval, the company will be allowed to operate in nearly all of San José, as well as Los Gatos, Milpitas and larger portions of the Peninsula.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company’s application to the CPUC for a permit amendment was supported by 23 individuals and organizations, including Rep. Sam Liccardo, D-Santa Clara, the San José Sharks, the Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley and the San José Downtown Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Waymo’s driverless taxis will soon be able to operate in San José and other South Bay cities after a state regulator approved the expansion.\r\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>They’re coming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Waymo, the driverless taxi company owned by Google, has received approvals from a state regulator allowing its autonomous vehicles to begin operating in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-jose\">San José\u003c/a> and other nearby cities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates power, telecommunication and transportation industries, gave the green light for the robotaxis that have \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12035725/waymo-robotaxis-are-everywhere-how-do-we-feel-about-that\">flooded San Francisco’s streets\u003c/a> to begin rolling in the South Bay, according to a letter from the state to the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Mayor Matt Mahan, in a statement, said it’s about time robotaxis came to San José.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For decades, our region has shaped the future — and now, the ride to work is as forward-thinking as the breakthroughs happening at the office,” Mahan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12040834\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1593px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/Waymo-map-2025-.jpeg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12040834\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/Waymo-map-2025-.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1593\" height=\"1427\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/Waymo-map-2025-.jpeg 1593w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/Waymo-map-2025--800x717.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/Waymo-map-2025--1020x914.jpeg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/Waymo-map-2025--160x143.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/Waymo-map-2025--1536x1376.jpeg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1593px) 100vw, 1593px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This map shows an expansion area where Waymo is now cleared to operate its autonomous taxis in more of the Bay Area, including nearly all of San José. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Waymo/CPUC)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Mahan also posted on the social media platform \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/MattMahanSJ/status/1901815502571466825\">X\u003c/a> that Waymo will “fit right in” as the company “embodies our region’s spirit of innovation.” However, it’s unclear when the driverless taxis will arrive in the South Bay.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While this won’t change our operations in the near-term, we’re looking forward to bringing the benefits of Waymo One to more of the Bay Area in the future,” Waymo said on \u003ca href=\"https://x.com/Waymo/status/1924595146089496654\">X\u003c/a> on Monday afternoon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A company spokesperson told KQED in an email on Monday that there is no timeline to share.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Any expansion of our service will happen methodically over time, and as we grow, we’ll work with local communities, officials, and first responders every step of the way,” the statement said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company received approval for the South Bay expansion from the DMV, which regulates the operation of autonomous vehicles on public roads, on March 17.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Waymo applied for an amendment to its current CPUC permit in late March, including an updated passenger safety plan, to gain approval to sell rides to passengers. Waymo is providing “more than one million driverless rides each quarter across the San Francisco Peninsula and in the greater Los Angeles area,” the company said in its application letter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Waymo’s Bay Area service boundary previously extended from San Francisco south to parts of Sunnyvale. With Monday’s approval, the company will be allowed to operate in nearly all of San José, as well as Los Gatos, Milpitas and larger portions of the Peninsula.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company’s application to the CPUC for a permit amendment was supported by 23 individuals and organizations, including Rep. Sam Liccardo, D-Santa Clara, the San José Sharks, the Hispanic Foundation of Silicon Valley and the San José Downtown Association.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "californians-would-lose-ai-protections-under-bill-advancing-in-congress",
"title": "Californians Would Lose AI Protections Under Bill Advancing in Congress",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/\">CalMatters\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/\">Sign up\u003c/a> for their newsletters.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>House Republicans moved to cut off artificial intelligence regulation by the states before it can take root, advancing legislation in Congress that, in California, would make it unlawful to enforce \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/09/california-ai-safety-regulations-bills/\">more than 20 laws passed by the Legislature\u003c/a> and signed into law last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The moratorium, bundled in to a sweeping budget reconciliation bill this week, also threatens \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/03/ai-regulation-after-trump-election/\">30 bills the California Legislature is currently considering to regulate artificial intelligence\u003c/a>, including one that would \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab512\">require reporting when an insurance company uses AI to deny health care\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab1018\">another\u003c/a> that would require the makers of AI to evaluate how the tech performs before it’s used to decide on jobs, health care, or housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Privacy Protection Agency \u003ca href=\"https://cppa.ca.gov/pdf/cppa_letter_opossing_budget_recon_enforce.pdf\">sent a letter\u003c/a> to Congress Monday that says the moratorium “could rob millions of Americans of rights they already enjoy” and threatens critical privacy protections approved by California voters in 2020, such as the right to opt out of business use of automated decision-making technology and transparency about how their personal information is used.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If passed, the law would stop legislative efforts in the works nationwide. Lawmakers from 45 states are or have considered nearly 600 draft bills to regulate artificial intelligence this year, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.transparencycoalition.ai/\">Transparency Coalition\u003c/a>, a group that tracks AI policy efforts by state lawmakers and supports legislation to regulate the technology. California has passed more bills since 2016 to regulate AI than any other U.S. state, according to Stanford’s \u003ca href=\"https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2025-ai-index-report\">2025 AI Index report\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The measure was introduced by Congressman Brett Guthrie, a Republican from Kentucky and chair of the House Energy and Commerce committee, who said it is necessary to resolve a patchwork of state regulation. On Wednesday, members of Congress in that House committee voted 30–24 along party lines to approve the budget bill that includes the moratorium. It will now advance to the House floor and potentially the Senate, where some observers say it faces an uphill battle against rules that limit policy changes in budget proposals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12034490 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/PadillaMentalHealthCaucus-1020x680.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As written, the moratorium would lift after 10 years. But it would have plenty of impact in the meantime, said Ben Winters, an attorney for the Consumer Federation of America. In California, he thinks the legislation could halt efforts by the Privacy Protection Agency to regulate automated decision-making, prevent enforcement of laws to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/new-california-laws-2024/#3650b1e8-5ee9-49e6-8504-a636608a7de4\">protect voters from deepfakes\u003c/a> and short circuit draft bills aimed at \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab1018\">protecting people from discrimination\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/12/california-lawmakers-want-to-ban-pricing-software/\">landlords who use AI to raise rent prices\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If this bill were to pass, California couldn’t protect its citizens from exactly those harms,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Companies and lobbyists are attempting to use Washington, D.C., to undermine California’s legislative AI leadership, said state Sen. Josh Becker, a Democrat from Menlo Park, in the heart of Silicon Valley. Becker has \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202320240sb1120\">authored\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/04/kids-should-avoid-ai-companion-bots-under-force-of-law-assessment-says/\">coauthored\u003c/a> a \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/04/kids-should-avoid-ai-companion-bots-under-force-of-law-assessment-says/\">number\u003c/a> of bills regulating AI, including one signed into law that requires AI makers\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202320240sb942\"> provide tools to consumers so they know when generative AI is in use\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is an effort to tell people when something was created by AI, and so if this gets delayed for a year or two or 10 it’s going to have really negative consequences,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s unclear, he said, is exactly what regulation is covered by the moratorium. Would it, for example, wipe out privacy protections that Californians enjoy, and which were \u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/apra-privacy-bill-doomed/\">targeted by Congressional legislation last year\u003c/a>? And how would it affect a bill Becker authored that \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/04/data-broker-registry/\">gives people a way to quickly delete personal information collected by data brokers\u003c/a>, set to go into effect next January?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If they preempt that, it’s really negative for the country,” he said. “We’re [California] big enough that we can influence the country on our own, but if they preempt what we’re doing then it’s up to the federal government who has been unable to act on these issues.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Momentum for AI harms — and, possibly, for curbs on regulation\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For all the worry, the moratorium is very unlikely to pass if it reaches the U.S. Senate, said Gus Rossi, director of public policy and strategy at Omidyar Network, which funds \u003ca href=\"http://omidyar.com/omidyar-network-launches-a-dedicated-funding-effort-to-promote-inclusive-and-responsible-development-of-generative-ai/\">public interest AI projects\u003c/a> and tracks AI regulation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s because a federal regulation known as the \u003ca href=\"https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48444\">Byrd rule\u003c/a> requires that budget reconciliation bills be related to fiscal matters, and, in Rossi’s reading at least, a 10-year moratorium on AI regulation doesn’t fit that definition. But Rossi still thinks people should take it seriously, arguing that it’s an attempt by House Republicans to establish a marker on what they think should be the approach to AI legislation, and a sign of things to come.[aside postID=science_1996504 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2025/03/IMG_0962-1020x765.jpg']“The action is in the states, not D.C.,” he said. “That’s why some people in D.C. are trying to stop states … particularly California, who’s leading the pack.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If this bill or a similar one in the future passes, Rossi expects it would get challenged in court and put a chilling effect on efforts to regulate AI by state lawmakers. It’s unclear whether it’s legal for the federal government to make a blanket moratorium on state regulation, said Winters, who worked in the U.S. Department of Justice during the Biden administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He agrees that the Byrd rule means the bill is unlikely to pass if it reaches the U.S. Senate, though Republicans may connect it to a $500 million plan to invest in AI for federal agencies and argue that it’s essential to limit state regulation in order to carry out certain budget provisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The House bill makes exceptions for states to continue enforcing some laws related to AI, such as laws that enable more use of AI or that are intended to improve government efficiency. It’s reasonable to \u003ca href=\"https://iapp.org/news/a/policy-analysis-us-house-committee-seeks-moratorium-on-state-AI-rules/\">interpret one of the exceptions\u003c/a> to mean states like California could continue enforcing privacy law if this bill passed, said Amba Kak, codirector of The AI Now Institute, a research and equitable AI advocacy organization. But doing so is risky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t count on the fact that courts will see it this way, especially in the context of an otherwise sweeping moratorium with the clear intention to clamp down on AI-related enforcement,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A House AI task force spent years discussing areas of bipartisan agreement and possible bills to pass to regulate AI, New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in a hearing about the moratorium, but Congress was unable to pass any of that legislation. During that time, people \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/artificial-intelligence/2025/04/30/kids-should-avoid-ai-companion-bots-under-force-of-law-assessment-says\">committed suicide from their interactions with chatbots\u003c/a> and kids and teens were \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/artificial-intelligence/2024/12/11/1-in-6-congresswomen-targeted-by-ai-generated-sexually-explicit-deepfakes\">harmed by falsely generated sexually exploitative deepfakes\u003c/a>, and so states decided to act to do things like force AI chatbots to protect the private information of people seeking mental health care in Utah and require chatbots include a protocol for when someone expresses the desire to commit self harm in New York.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All of these protections are protections that Congress refuses to take up, refuses, and so states are taking up this responsibility,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Let states protect people. A moratorium is a deeply dangerous idea at this moment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Congresswoman Doris Matsui, a Democrat from the Sacramento area, echoed Ocasio-Cortez at the hearing, saying, “We can’t shoot ourselves in the foot by stopping the good work states have done and will continue to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters of the moratorium identify different sorts of harm if it doesn’t pass. A patchwork of state regulations of AI “is the fastest way to secure Chinese dominance of AI,” said Jay Obernolte, a Republican from California and co-chair of the House AI task force. He supports a moratorium, and if Congress fails to act, he said the people it will hurt most are entrepreneurs who can’t afford to follow regulatory regimes passed by different states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The most destructive thing is if there’s fear out there that every few years as the winds of political fortune shift, the rules governing the use of AI completely change,” he said during the hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Broader pushback against AI regulation\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The proposed moratorium is in line with efforts to prevent regulation of AI by President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance, who say such regulations will stifle innovation. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/removing-barriers-to-american-leadership-in-artificial-intelligence/\">White House plan\u003c/a> to promote growth of the AI industry and likely reduce regulation is due out by this summer. Companies like Amazon, Google, Meta, and big businesses who use AI have lobbied in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., to prevent regulation of the technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Guthrie’s proposal comes a few days after Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, \u003ca href=\"https://punchbowl.news/article/tech/cruz-to-push-ai-regulation/\">pushed for “light touch” AI regulation\u003c/a> to ensure the United States maintains AI supremacy over other nations and to, in Cruz’s words, “prevent needless state over-regulation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The intent of Guthrie’s bill, Winters believes, is to send a signal to tech companies and open up the door to possible future legislation if the budget reconciliation bill fails to pass. It’s a trend consistent with Senator Cruz’s statement last week and \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-identifies-16-federal-sites-across-country-data-center-and-ai-infrastructure\">efforts to remove red tape for data center projects on federal land\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’d describe this as … explicitly saying we are supporting the AI companies more than the American people,” he said. “We’re seeing an explicit turn toward a deregulatory state.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal lawmakers have steadily increased the number of bills they propose related to AI in recent years, but they have passed relatively few of them into law, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2025-ai-index-report\">AI Index report\u003c/a>. Out of more 220 bills proposed last year, only four passed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By contrast, state lawmakers passed more than 130 bills to regulate AI last year. California passed \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/09/california-ai-safety-regulations-bills/\">22 bills last year\u003c/a>, more than any other state, and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/05/ca-eu-ai-regulation/\">attempted to harmonize its rules with the European Union’s AI Act\u003c/a> and other U.S. states. \u003ca href=\"https://csmapnyu.org/impact/policy/the-state-of-state-technology-policy-2024-report\">The 2024 State of State Tech Policy report\u003c/a>, from NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics, found a 163% increase in tech policy proposals by state lawmakers last year compared to 2023. That trend is driven by one-party control in the vast majority of state houses across the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The adage that states are the laboratories of democracy is still true, said Scott Brennen, a coauthor of the State of State Tech Policy report, so shutting down their ability to try out different approaches doesn’t seem like a good idea and could undercut the federal government’s ability to make better policy. Since AI is getting integrated into an ever-wider range of tools, Guthrie’s moratorium appears to apply widely, he added, including to social media platforms, ongoing efforts by states to protect children online, and data privacy protections that address automated decision making.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t necessarily think state regulation of AI is always the best course of action, there are definitely areas like consumer data protection where it would be better if the federal government took the lead, but the federal government isn’t taking the lead,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/05/state-ai-regulation-ban/\">originally published on CalMatters\u003c/a> and was republished under the \u003ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives\u003c/a> license.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "House Republicans want to ban state AI regulations for 10 years. California leaders are alarmed.",
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"title": "Californians Would Lose AI Protections Under Bill Advancing in Congress | KQED",
"description": "House Republicans want to ban state AI regulations for 10 years. California leaders are alarmed.",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was originally published by \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/\">CalMatters\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/subscribe-to-calmatters/\">Sign up\u003c/a> for their newsletters.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>House Republicans moved to cut off artificial intelligence regulation by the states before it can take root, advancing legislation in Congress that, in California, would make it unlawful to enforce \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/09/california-ai-safety-regulations-bills/\">more than 20 laws passed by the Legislature\u003c/a> and signed into law last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The moratorium, bundled in to a sweeping budget reconciliation bill this week, also threatens \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/03/ai-regulation-after-trump-election/\">30 bills the California Legislature is currently considering to regulate artificial intelligence\u003c/a>, including one that would \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab512\">require reporting when an insurance company uses AI to deny health care\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab1018\">another\u003c/a> that would require the makers of AI to evaluate how the tech performs before it’s used to decide on jobs, health care, or housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The California Privacy Protection Agency \u003ca href=\"https://cppa.ca.gov/pdf/cppa_letter_opossing_budget_recon_enforce.pdf\">sent a letter\u003c/a> to Congress Monday that says the moratorium “could rob millions of Americans of rights they already enjoy” and threatens critical privacy protections approved by California voters in 2020, such as the right to opt out of business use of automated decision-making technology and transparency about how their personal information is used.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If passed, the law would stop legislative efforts in the works nationwide. Lawmakers from 45 states are or have considered nearly 600 draft bills to regulate artificial intelligence this year, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://www.transparencycoalition.ai/\">Transparency Coalition\u003c/a>, a group that tracks AI policy efforts by state lawmakers and supports legislation to regulate the technology. California has passed more bills since 2016 to regulate AI than any other U.S. state, according to Stanford’s \u003ca href=\"https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2025-ai-index-report\">2025 AI Index report\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The measure was introduced by Congressman Brett Guthrie, a Republican from Kentucky and chair of the House Energy and Commerce committee, who said it is necessary to resolve a patchwork of state regulation. On Wednesday, members of Congress in that House committee voted 30–24 along party lines to approve the budget bill that includes the moratorium. It will now advance to the House floor and potentially the Senate, where some observers say it faces an uphill battle against rules that limit policy changes in budget proposals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As written, the moratorium would lift after 10 years. But it would have plenty of impact in the meantime, said Ben Winters, an attorney for the Consumer Federation of America. In California, he thinks the legislation could halt efforts by the Privacy Protection Agency to regulate automated decision-making, prevent enforcement of laws to \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/explainers/new-california-laws-2024/#3650b1e8-5ee9-49e6-8504-a636608a7de4\">protect voters from deepfakes\u003c/a> and short circuit draft bills aimed at \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab1018\">protecting people from discrimination\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/12/california-lawmakers-want-to-ban-pricing-software/\">landlords who use AI to raise rent prices\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If this bill were to pass, California couldn’t protect its citizens from exactly those harms,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Companies and lobbyists are attempting to use Washington, D.C., to undermine California’s legislative AI leadership, said state Sen. Josh Becker, a Democrat from Menlo Park, in the heart of Silicon Valley. Becker has \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202320240sb1120\">authored\u003c/a> or \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/04/kids-should-avoid-ai-companion-bots-under-force-of-law-assessment-says/\">coauthored\u003c/a> a \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/04/kids-should-avoid-ai-companion-bots-under-force-of-law-assessment-says/\">number\u003c/a> of bills regulating AI, including one signed into law that requires AI makers\u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202320240sb942\"> provide tools to consumers so they know when generative AI is in use\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is an effort to tell people when something was created by AI, and so if this gets delayed for a year or two or 10 it’s going to have really negative consequences,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What’s unclear, he said, is exactly what regulation is covered by the moratorium. Would it, for example, wipe out privacy protections that Californians enjoy, and which were \u003ca href=\"https://www.wired.com/story/apra-privacy-bill-doomed/\">targeted by Congressional legislation last year\u003c/a>? And how would it affect a bill Becker authored that \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/04/data-broker-registry/\">gives people a way to quickly delete personal information collected by data brokers\u003c/a>, set to go into effect next January?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If they preempt that, it’s really negative for the country,” he said. “We’re [California] big enough that we can influence the country on our own, but if they preempt what we’re doing then it’s up to the federal government who has been unable to act on these issues.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Momentum for AI harms — and, possibly, for curbs on regulation\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>For all the worry, the moratorium is very unlikely to pass if it reaches the U.S. Senate, said Gus Rossi, director of public policy and strategy at Omidyar Network, which funds \u003ca href=\"http://omidyar.com/omidyar-network-launches-a-dedicated-funding-effort-to-promote-inclusive-and-responsible-development-of-generative-ai/\">public interest AI projects\u003c/a> and tracks AI regulation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s because a federal regulation known as the \u003ca href=\"https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R48444\">Byrd rule\u003c/a> requires that budget reconciliation bills be related to fiscal matters, and, in Rossi’s reading at least, a 10-year moratorium on AI regulation doesn’t fit that definition. But Rossi still thinks people should take it seriously, arguing that it’s an attempt by House Republicans to establish a marker on what they think should be the approach to AI legislation, and a sign of things to come.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“The action is in the states, not D.C.,” he said. “That’s why some people in D.C. are trying to stop states … particularly California, who’s leading the pack.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If this bill or a similar one in the future passes, Rossi expects it would get challenged in court and put a chilling effect on efforts to regulate AI by state lawmakers. It’s unclear whether it’s legal for the federal government to make a blanket moratorium on state regulation, said Winters, who worked in the U.S. Department of Justice during the Biden administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He agrees that the Byrd rule means the bill is unlikely to pass if it reaches the U.S. Senate, though Republicans may connect it to a $500 million plan to invest in AI for federal agencies and argue that it’s essential to limit state regulation in order to carry out certain budget provisions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The House bill makes exceptions for states to continue enforcing some laws related to AI, such as laws that enable more use of AI or that are intended to improve government efficiency. It’s reasonable to \u003ca href=\"https://iapp.org/news/a/policy-analysis-us-house-committee-seeks-moratorium-on-state-AI-rules/\">interpret one of the exceptions\u003c/a> to mean states like California could continue enforcing privacy law if this bill passed, said Amba Kak, codirector of The AI Now Institute, a research and equitable AI advocacy organization. But doing so is risky.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We can’t count on the fact that courts will see it this way, especially in the context of an otherwise sweeping moratorium with the clear intention to clamp down on AI-related enforcement,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A House AI task force spent years discussing areas of bipartisan agreement and possible bills to pass to regulate AI, New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in a hearing about the moratorium, but Congress was unable to pass any of that legislation. During that time, people \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/artificial-intelligence/2025/04/30/kids-should-avoid-ai-companion-bots-under-force-of-law-assessment-says\">committed suicide from their interactions with chatbots\u003c/a> and kids and teens were \u003ca href=\"https://themarkup.org/artificial-intelligence/2024/12/11/1-in-6-congresswomen-targeted-by-ai-generated-sexually-explicit-deepfakes\">harmed by falsely generated sexually exploitative deepfakes\u003c/a>, and so states decided to act to do things like force AI chatbots to protect the private information of people seeking mental health care in Utah and require chatbots include a protocol for when someone expresses the desire to commit self harm in New York.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All of these protections are protections that Congress refuses to take up, refuses, and so states are taking up this responsibility,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Let states protect people. A moratorium is a deeply dangerous idea at this moment.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Congresswoman Doris Matsui, a Democrat from the Sacramento area, echoed Ocasio-Cortez at the hearing, saying, “We can’t shoot ourselves in the foot by stopping the good work states have done and will continue to do.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supporters of the moratorium identify different sorts of harm if it doesn’t pass. A patchwork of state regulations of AI “is the fastest way to secure Chinese dominance of AI,” said Jay Obernolte, a Republican from California and co-chair of the House AI task force. He supports a moratorium, and if Congress fails to act, he said the people it will hurt most are entrepreneurs who can’t afford to follow regulatory regimes passed by different states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The most destructive thing is if there’s fear out there that every few years as the winds of political fortune shift, the rules governing the use of AI completely change,” he said during the hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Broader pushback against AI regulation\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The proposed moratorium is in line with efforts to prevent regulation of AI by President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance, who say such regulations will stifle innovation. A \u003ca href=\"https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/removing-barriers-to-american-leadership-in-artificial-intelligence/\">White House plan\u003c/a> to promote growth of the AI industry and likely reduce regulation is due out by this summer. Companies like Amazon, Google, Meta, and big businesses who use AI have lobbied in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., to prevent regulation of the technology.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Guthrie’s proposal comes a few days after Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, \u003ca href=\"https://punchbowl.news/article/tech/cruz-to-push-ai-regulation/\">pushed for “light touch” AI regulation\u003c/a> to ensure the United States maintains AI supremacy over other nations and to, in Cruz’s words, “prevent needless state over-regulation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The intent of Guthrie’s bill, Winters believes, is to send a signal to tech companies and open up the door to possible future legislation if the budget reconciliation bill fails to pass. It’s a trend consistent with Senator Cruz’s statement last week and \u003ca href=\"https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-identifies-16-federal-sites-across-country-data-center-and-ai-infrastructure\">efforts to remove red tape for data center projects on federal land\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’d describe this as … explicitly saying we are supporting the AI companies more than the American people,” he said. “We’re seeing an explicit turn toward a deregulatory state.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federal lawmakers have steadily increased the number of bills they propose related to AI in recent years, but they have passed relatively few of them into law, according to the \u003ca href=\"https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2025-ai-index-report\">AI Index report\u003c/a>. Out of more 220 bills proposed last year, only four passed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By contrast, state lawmakers passed more than 130 bills to regulate AI last year. California passed \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/09/california-ai-safety-regulations-bills/\">22 bills last year\u003c/a>, more than any other state, and \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2024/05/ca-eu-ai-regulation/\">attempted to harmonize its rules with the European Union’s AI Act\u003c/a> and other U.S. states. \u003ca href=\"https://csmapnyu.org/impact/policy/the-state-of-state-technology-policy-2024-report\">The 2024 State of State Tech Policy report\u003c/a>, from NYU’s Center for Social Media and Politics, found a 163% increase in tech policy proposals by state lawmakers last year compared to 2023. That trend is driven by one-party control in the vast majority of state houses across the country.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The adage that states are the laboratories of democracy is still true, said Scott Brennen, a coauthor of the State of State Tech Policy report, so shutting down their ability to try out different approaches doesn’t seem like a good idea and could undercut the federal government’s ability to make better policy. Since AI is getting integrated into an ever-wider range of tools, Guthrie’s moratorium appears to apply widely, he added, including to social media platforms, ongoing efforts by states to protect children online, and data privacy protections that address automated decision making.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t necessarily think state regulation of AI is always the best course of action, there are definitely areas like consumer data protection where it would be better if the federal government took the lead, but the federal government isn’t taking the lead,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This article was \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/economy/technology/2025/05/state-ai-regulation-ban/\">originally published on CalMatters\u003c/a> and was republished under the \u003ca href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/\">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives\u003c/a> license.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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},
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},
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"californiareport": {
"id": "californiareport",
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"info": "KQED’s statewide radio news program providing daily coverage of issues, trends and public policy decisions.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/californiareport",
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"order": 8
},
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},
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"title": "The California Report Magazine",
"tagline": "Your state, your stories",
"info": "Every week, The California Report Magazine takes you on a road trip for the ears: to visit the places and meet the people who make California unique. The in-depth storytelling podcast from the California Report.",
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"order": 10
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM3NjkwNjk1OTAz",
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"airtime": "SUN 1pm-2pm, TUE 10pm, WED 1am",
"meta": {
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"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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"order": 1
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"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
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"link": "/radio/program/commonwealth-club",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 9
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"airtime": "SUN 1am-2am, SAT 3pm-4pm",
"meta": {
"site": "radio",
"source": "WNYC"
},
"link": "/radio/program/freakonomics-radio",
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},
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"info": "A live production of NPR and WBUR Boston, in collaboration with stations across the country, Here & Now reflects the fluid world of news as it's happening in the middle of the day, with timely, in-depth news, interviews and conversation. Hosted by Robin Young, Jeremy Hobson and Tonya Mosley.",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
"meta": {
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"source": "NPR"
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
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"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Hyphenacion_FinalAssets_PodcastTile.png",
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"order": 15
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 18
},
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},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
}
},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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"rss": "https://feeds.publicradio.org/public_feeds/marketplace-pm/rss/rss"
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"source": "WaitWhat"
},
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
}
},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"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>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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}
},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Morning-Edition-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.npr.org/programs/morning-edition/",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
},
"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"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?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
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